Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is sceptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Anarchism calls for the abolition of the state, which it holds to be unnecessary, undesirable, and harmful. As a historically left-wing movement, placed on the farthest left of the political spectrum, it is usually described alongside communalism and libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing (libertarian socialism) of the socialist movement, and has a strong historical association with anti-capitalism and socialism.Humans lived in societies without formal hierarchies long before the establishment of formal states, realms, or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, scepticism toward authority also rose. Although traces of anarchist thought are found throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.Anarchism employs a diversity of tactics in order to meet its ideal ends which can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics; there is significant overlap between the two, which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, having taken a violent turn in the past, while evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism, and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society. Criticism of anarchism include claims that it is internally inconsistent, violent, or utopian.Etymology, terminology, and definition The etymological origin of anarchism is from the Ancient Greek anarkhia, meaning "without a ruler", composed of the prefix an- ("without") and the word arkhos ("leader" or "ruler"). The suffix -ism denotes the ideological current that favours anarchy. Anarchism appears in English from 1642 as anarchisme and anarchy from 1539; early English usages emphasised a sense of disorder. Various factions within the French Revolution labelled their opponents as anarchists, although few such accused shared many views with later anarchists. Many revolutionaries of the 19th century such as William Godwin (1756–1836) and Wilhelm Weitling (1808–1871) would contribute to the anarchist doctrines of the next generation but did not use anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs.The first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist () was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), marking the formal birth of anarchism in the mid-19th century. Since the 1890s and beginning in France, libertarianism has often been used as a synonym for anarchism and its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States. Some usages of libertarianism refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, and free-market anarchism in particular is termed libertarian anarchism.While the term libertarian has been largely synonymous with anarchism, its meaning has more recently diluted with wider adoption from ideologically disparate groups, including both the New Left and libertarian Marxists, who do not associate themselves with authoritarian socialists or a vanguard party, and extreme cultural liberals, who are primarily concerned with civil liberties. Additionally, some anarchists use libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasise its connections with socialism. Anarchism is broadly used to describe the anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement. Anarchism is contrasted to socialist forms which are state-oriented or from above. Scholars of anarchism generally highlight anarchism's socialist credentials and criticise attempts at creating dichotomies between the two. Some scholars describe anarchism as having many influences from liberalism, and being both liberals and socialists but more so, while most scholars reject anarcho-capitalism as a misunderstanding of anarchist principles.While opposition to the state is central to anarchist thought, defining anarchism is not an easy task for scholars, as there is a lot of discussion among scholars and anarchists on the matter, and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently. Major definitional elements include the will for a non-coercive society, the rejection of the state apparatus, the belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society, and a suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy.HistoryPre-modern era Before the establishment of towns and cities, an established authority did not exist. It was after the creation of institutions of authority that anarchistic ideas espoused as a reaction. The most notable precursors to anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece. In China, philosophical anarchism (the discussion on the legitimacy of the state) was delineated by Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Laozi. Alongside Stoicism, Taoism has been said to have had "significant anticipations" of anarchism. Anarchic attitudes were also articulated by tragedians and philosophers in Greece. Aeschylus and Sophocles used the myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between rules set by the state and personal autonomy. Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted on the right of individual freedom of conscience. Cynics dismissed human law (nomos) and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature (physis). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without the presence of a state.In medieval Europe, there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements. These, and other Muslim movements, later gave birth to religious anarchism. In the Sasanian Empire, Mazdak called for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy, only to be soon executed by Emperor Kavad I.In Basra, religious sects preached against the state. In Europe, various sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. Renewed interest in antiquity during the Renaissance and in private judgment during the Reformation restored elements of anti-authoritarian secularism, particularly in France. Enlightenment challenges to intellectual authority (secular and religious) and the revolutions of the 1790s and 1848 all spurred the ideological development of what became the era of classical anarchism.Modern era During the French Revolution, partisan groups such as the Enragés and the  saw a turning point in the fermentation of anti-state and federalist sentiments. The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 18th century as William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England, morally delegitimising the state, Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France. By the late 1870s, various anarchist schools of thought had become well-defined and a wave of then unprecedented globalisation occurred from 1880 to 1914. This era of classical anarchism lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War and is considered the golden age of anarchism.Drawing from mutualism, Mikhail Bakunin founded collectivist anarchism and entered the International Workingmen's Association, a class worker union later known as the First International that formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. The International became a significant political force, with Karl Marx being a leading figure and a member of its General Council. Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. After bitter disputes, the Bakuninists were expelled from the International by the Marxists at the 1872 Hague Congress. Anarchists were treated similarly in the Second International, being ultimately expelled in 1896. Bakunin famously predicted that if revolutionaries gained power by Marx's terms, they would end up the new tyrants of workers. In response to their expulsion from the First International, anarchists formed the St. Imier International. Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin, a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped with collectivism. Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune, advocated for free federation and for the distribution of goods according to one's needs.At the turn of the century, anarchism had spread all over the world. It was a notable feature of the international syndicalism movement. In China, small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism. Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from countries of the far east, travelling to the Japanese capital to study. In Latin America, Argentina was a stronghold for anarcho-syndicalism, where it became the most prominent left-wing ideology. During this time, a minority of anarchists adopted tactics of revolutionary political violence. This strategy became known as propaganda of the deed. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts. Even though many anarchists distanced themselves from these terrorist acts, infamy came upon the movement and attempts were made to exclude them from American immigration, including the Immigration Act of 1903, also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act. Illegalism was another strategy which some anarchists adopted during this period.Despite concerns, anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution in opposition to the White movement; however, they met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government was stabilised. Several anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine, notably leading to the Kronstadt rebellion and Nestor Makhno's struggle in the Free Territory. With the anarchists being crushed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and synthesis anarchism. The former sought to create a coherent group that would push for revolution while the latter were against anything that would resemble a political party. Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, many workers and activists turned to communist parties which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements such as the General Confederation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World left their organisations and joined the Communist International.In the Spanish Civil War of 1936, anarchists and syndicalists (CNT and FAI) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. A long tradition of Spanish anarchism led to anarchists playing a pivotal role in the war. In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain, where they collectivised the land. The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the war, but the result was a bitter fight among communists and anarchists at a series of events named May Days as Joseph Stalin tried to seize control of the Republicans.Post-war era At the end of World War II, the anarchist movement was severely weakened. The 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism, likely caused by a perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and tensions built by the Cold War. During this time, anarchism found a presence in other movements critical towards both capitalism and the state such as the anti-nuclear, environmental, and peace movements, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the New Left. It also saw a transition from its previous revolutionary nature to provocative anti-capitalist reformism. Anarchism became associated with punk subculture as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols. The established feminist tendencies of anarcha-feminism returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism. Black anarchism began to take form at this time and influenced anarchism's move from a Eurocentric demographic. This coincided with its failure to gain traction in Northern Europe and its unprecedented height in Latin America.Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. During the protests, ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police. Other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include affinity groups, security culture and the use of decentralised technologies such as the Internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the 1999 Seattle WTO conference. Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.Thought Anarchist schools of thought have been generally grouped into two main historical traditions, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, owing to their different origins, values and evolution. The individualist current emphasises negative liberty in opposing restraints upon the free individual, while the social current emphasises positive liberty in aiming to achieve the free potential of society through equality and social ownership. In a chronological sense, anarchism can be segmented by the classical currents of the late 19th century and the post-classical currents (anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, and post-anarchism) developed thereafter.Beyond the specific factions of anarchist movements which constitute political anarchism lies philosophical anarchism which holds that the state lacks moral legitimacy, without necessarily accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism, philosophical anarchism may tolerate the existence of a minimal state but claims that citizens have no moral obligation to obey government when it conflicts with individual autonomy. Anarchism pays significant attention to moral arguments since ethics have a central role in anarchist philosophy. Anarchism's emphasis on anti-capitalism, egalitarianism, and for the extension of community and individuality sets it apart from anarcho-capitalism and other types of economic libertarianism.Anarchism is usually placed on the far-left of the political spectrum. Much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, libertarian, and radical interpretations of left-wing and socialist politics such as collectivism, communism, individualism, mutualism, and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist economic theories. As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely. One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was anarchism without adjectives, a call for toleration and unity among anarchists first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the bitter debates of anarchist theory at the time. Belief in political nihilism has been espoused by anarchists. Despite separation, the various anarchist schools of thought are not seen as distinct entities but rather as tendencies that intermingle and are connected through a set of uniform principles such as individual and local autonomy, mutual aid, network organisation, communal democracy, justified authority and decentralisation.Classical Inceptive currents among classical anarchist currents were mutualism and individualism. They were followed by the major currents of social anarchism (collectivist, communist and syndicalist). They differ on organisational and economic aspects of their ideal society.Mutualism is an 18th-century economic theory that was developed into anarchist theory by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Its aims include reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and monetary reform of both credit and currency that would be regulated by a bank of the people. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. In What Is Property? (1840), Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property." Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary socialist form of anarchism commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin. Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of the means of production which is theorised to be achieved through violent revolution and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism. Collectivist anarchism arose alongside Marxism but rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism that advocates a communist society with common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations, workers' councils and worker cooperatives, with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Anarcho-communism developed from radical socialist currents after the French Revolution but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. It was later expanded upon in the theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin, whose specific style would go onto become the dominating view of anarchists by the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are direct action, workers' solidarity and workers' self-management.Individualist anarchism is a set of several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants. Early influences on individualist forms of anarchism include William Godwin, Max Stirner, and Henry David Thoreau. Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation.Post-classical and contemporary Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalisation movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest. Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches. The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within contemporary currents.Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence. Its publicity has also led more scholars in fields such as anthropology and history to engage with the anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory. Various anarchist groups, tendencies, and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe the contemporary anarchist movement. While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core and commentators describe multiple anarchisms, rather than a singular anarchism, in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. Gender equality can be a common principle, although it ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarcho-communists.Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism." Anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed. The principle of equal liberty is closer to anarchist political ethics in that it transcends both the liberal and socialist traditions. This entails that liberty and equality cannot be implemented within the state, resulting in the questioning of all forms of domination and hierarchy.Tactics Anarchists' tactics take various forms but in general serve two major goals, namely to first oppose the Establishment and secondly to promote anarchist ethics and reflect an anarchist vision of society, illustrating the unity of means and ends. A broad categorisation can be made between aims to destroy oppressive states and institutions by revolutionary means on one hand and aims to change society through evolutionary means on the other. Evolutionary tactics embrace nonviolence, reject violence and take a gradual approach to anarchist aims, although there is significant overlap between the two.Anarchist tactics have shifted during the course of the last century. Anarchists during the early 20th century focused more on strikes and militancy while contemporary anarchists use a broader array of approaches.Classical era tactics During the classical era, anarchists had a militant tendency. Not only did they confront state armed forces, as in Spain and Ukraine, but some of them also employed terrorism as propaganda of the deed. Assassination attempts were carried out against heads of state, some of which were successful. Anarchists also took part in revolutions. Many anarchists, especially the Galleanists, believed that these attempts would be the impetus for a revolution against capitalism and the state. Many of these attacks were done by individual assailants and the majority took place in the late 1870s, the early 1880s and the 1890s, with some still occurring in the early 1900s. Their decrease in prevalence was the result of further judicial power and targeting and cataloging by state institutions.Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been controversial. Anarcho-pacifists advocate for non-violence means to achieve their stateless, nonviolent ends. Other anarchist groups advocate direct action, a tactic which can include acts of sabotage or terrorism. This attitude was quite prominent a century ago when seeing the state as a tyrant and some anarchists believing that they had every right to oppose its oppression by any means possible. Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta, who were proponents of limited use of violence, stated that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as a necessary evil.Anarchists took an active role in strike actions, although they tended to be antipathetic to formal syndicalism, seeing it as reformist. They saw it as a part of the movement which sought to overthrow the state and capitalism. Anarchists also reinforced their propaganda within the arts, some of whom practiced naturism and nudism. Those anarchists also built communities which were based on friendship and were involved in the news media.Revolutionary tactics In the current era, Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, a proponent of insurrectionary anarchism, has reinstated the debate on violence by rejecting the nonviolence tactic adopted since the late 19th century by Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists afterwards. Both Bonanno and the French group The Invisible Committee advocate for small, informal affiliation groups, where each member is responsible for their own actions but works together to bring down oppression utilizing sabotage and other violent means against state, capitalism, and other enemies. Members of The Invisible Committee were arrested in 2008 on various charges, terrorism included.Overall, contemporary anarchists are much less violent and militant than their ideological ancestors. They mostly engage in confronting the police during demonstrations and riots, especially in countries such as Canada, Greece, and Mexico. Militant black bloc protest groups are known for clashing with the police; however, anarchists not only clash with state operators, they also engage in the struggle against fascists and racists, taking anti-fascist action and mobilizing to prevent hate rallies from happening.Evolutionary tactics Anarchists commonly employ direct action. This can take the form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchy, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counter-institutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives. Decision-making is often handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision, an approach known as horizontalism. Contemporary-era anarchists have been engaging with various grassroots movements that are more or less based on horizontalism, although not explicitly anarchist, respecting personal autonomy and participating in mass activism such as strikes and demonstrations. In contrast with the big-A anarchism of the classical era, the newly coined term small-a anarchism signals their tendency not to base their thoughts and actions on classical-era anarchism or to refer to classical anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to justify their opinions. Those anarchists would rather base their thought and praxis on their own experience which they will later theorize.The decision-making process of small anarchist affinity groups plays a significant tactical role. Anarchists have employed various methods in order to build a rough consensus among members of their group without the need of a leader or a leading group. One way is for an individual from the group to play the role of facilitator to help achieve a consensus without taking part in the discussion themselves or promoting a specific point. Minorities usually accept rough consensus, except when they feel the proposal contradicts anarchist ethics, goals and values. Anarchists usually form small groups (5–20 individuals) to enhance autonomy and friendships among their members. These kinds of groups more often than not interconnect with each other, forming larger networks. Anarchists still support and participate in strikes, especially wildcat strikes as these are leaderless strikes not organised centrally by a syndicate.As in the past, newspapers and journals are used, and anarchists have gone online in the World Wide Web to spread their message. Anarchists have found it easier to create websites because of distributional and other difficulties, hosting electronic libraries and other portals. Anarchists were also involved in developing various software that are available for free. The way these hacktivists work to develop and distribute resembles the anarchist ideals, especially when it comes to preserving users' privacy from state surveillance.Anarchists organize themselves to squat and reclaim public spaces. During important events such as protests and when spaces are being occupied, they are often called Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), spaces where art, poetry, and surrealism are blended to display the anarchist ideal. As seen by anarchists, squatting is a way to regain urban space from the capitalist market, serving pragmatical needs and also being an exemplary direct action. Acquiring space enables anarchists to experiment with their ideas and build social bonds. Adding up these tactics while having in mind that not all anarchists share the same attitudes towards them, along with various forms of protesting at highly symbolic events, make up a carnivalesque atmosphere that is part of contemporary anarchist vividity.Key issues As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies, and schools of thought; disagreement over questions of values, ideology, and tactics is common. Its diversity has led to widely different uses of identical terms among different anarchist traditions which has created a number of definitional concerns in anarchist theory. The compatibility of capitalism, nationalism, and religion with anarchism is widely disputed, and anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as communism, collectivism, Marxism, and trade unionism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest, veganism, or any number of alternative ethical doctrines. Phenomena such as civilisation, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others.Gender, sexuality, and free love As gender and sexuality carry along them dynamics of hierarchy, many anarchists address, analyse, and oppose the suppression of one's autonomy imposed by gender roles.Sexuality was not often discussed by classical anarchists but the few that did felt that an anarchist society would lead to sexuality naturally developing. Sexual violence was a concern for anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, who opposed age of consent laws, believing they would benefit predatory men. A historical current that arose and flourished during 1890 and 1920 within anarchism was free love. In contemporary anarchism, this current survives as a tendency to support polyamory and queer anarchism. Free love advocates were against marriage, which they saw as a way of men imposing authority over women, largely because marriage law greatly favoured the power of men. The notion of free love was much broader and included a critique of the established order that limited women's sexual freedom and pleasure. Those free love movements contributed to the establishment of communal houses, where large groups of travelers, anarchists and other activists slept in beds together. Free love had roots both in Europe and the United States; however, some anarchists struggled with the jealousy that arose from free love. Anarchist feminists were advocates of free love, against marriage, and pro-choice (utilising a contemporary term), and had a similar agenda. Anarchist and non-anarchist feminists differed on suffrage but were supportive of one another.During the second half of the 20th century, anarchism intermingled with the second wave of feminism, radicalising some currents of the feminist movement and being influenced as well. By the latest decades of the 20th century, anarchists and feminists were advocating for the rights and autonomy of women, gays, queers and other marginalised groups, with some feminist thinkers suggesting a fusion of the two currents. With the third wave of feminism, sexual identity and compulsory heterosexuality became a subject of study for anarchists, yielding a post-structuralist critique of sexual normality. Some anarchists distanced themselves from this line of thinking, suggesting that it leaned towards an individualism that was dropping the cause of social liberation.Anarchism and education The interest of anarchists in education stretches back to the first emergence of classical anarchism. Anarchists consider proper education, one which sets the foundations of the future autonomy of the individual and the society, to be an act of mutual aid. Anarchist writers such as William Godwin (Political Justice) and Max Stirner ("The False Principle of Our Education") attacked both state education and private education as another means by which the ruling class replicate their privileges.In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francisco Ferrer established the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona as an opposition to the established education system which was dictated largely by the Catholic Church. Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process whilst giving pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance. Ferrer aimed to educate the working class and explicitly sought to foster class consciousness among students. The school closed after constant harassment by the state and Ferrer was later arrested. Nonetheless, his ideas formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools around the world. Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, who published the essay Education and Culture, also established a similar school with its founding principle being that "for education to be effective it had to be free." In a similar token, A. S. Neill founded what became the Summerhill School in 1921, also declaring being free from coercion.Anarchist education is based largely on the idea that a child's right to develop freely and without manipulation ought to be respected and that rationality would lead children to morally good conclusions; however, there has been little consensus among anarchist figures as to what constitutes manipulation. Ferrer believed that moral indoctrination was necessary and explicitly taught pupils that equality, liberty and social justice were not possible under capitalism, along with other critiques of government and nationalism.Late 20th century and contemporary anarchist writers (Paul Goodman, Herbert Read, and Colin Ward) intensified and expanded the anarchist critique of state education, largely focusing on the need for a system that focuses on children's creativity rather than on their ability to attain a career or participate in consumerism as part of a consumer society. Contemporary anarchists such as Ward claim that state education serves to perpetuate socioeconomic inequality.While few anarchist education institutions have survived to the modern-day, major tenets of anarchist schools, among them respect for child autonomy and relying on reasoning rather than indoctrination as a teaching method, have spread among mainstream educational institutions. Judith Suissa names three schools as explicitly anarchists schools, namely the Free Skool Santa Cruz in the United States which is part of a wider American-Canadian network of schools, the Self-Managed Learning College in Brighton, England, and the Paideia School in Spain.Anarchism and the state Objection to the state and its institutions is a sine qua non of anarchism. Anarchists consider the state as a tool of domination and believe it to be illegitimate regardless of its political tendencies. Instead of people being able to control the aspects of their life, major decisions are taken by a small elite. Authority ultimately rests solely on power, regardless of whether that power is open or transparent, as it still has the ability to coerce people. Another anarchist argument against states is that the people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society.Specific anarchist attitudes towards the state vary. Robert Paul Wolff believed that the tension between authority and autonomy would mean the state could never be legitimate. Bakunin saw the state as meaning "coercion, domination by means of coercion, camouflaged if possible but unceremonious and overt if need be." A. John Simmons and Leslie Green, who leaned toward philosophical anarchism, believed that the state could be legitimate if it is governed by consensus, although they saw this as highly unlikely. Beliefs on how to abolish the state also differ.Anarchism and the arts The connection between anarchism and art was quite profound during the classical era of anarchism, especially among artistic currents that were developing during that era such as futurists, surrealists and others. In literature, anarchism was mostly associated with the New Apocalyptics and the neo-romanticism movement. In music, anarchism has been associated with music scenes such as punk. Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Herbert Read stated that the border between the artist and the non-artist, what separates art from a daily act, is a construct produced by the alienation caused by capitalism and it prevents humans from living a joyful life.Other anarchists advocated for or used art as a means to achieve anarchist ends. In his book Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas, Chris Robé claims that "anarchist-inflected practices have increasingly structured movement-based video activism." Throughout the 20th century, many prominent anarchists (Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer and Camillo Berneri) and publications such as Anarchy wrote about matters pertaining to the arts.Three overlapping properties made art useful to anarchists. It could depict a critique of existing society and hierarchies, serve as a prefigurative tool to reflect the anarchist ideal society and even turn into a means of direct action such as in protests. As it appeals to both emotion and reason, art could appeal to the whole human and have a powerful effect. The 19th-century neo-impressionist movement had an ecological aesthetic and offered an example of an anarchist perception of the road towards socialism. In Les chataigniers a Osny by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro, the blending of aesthetic and social harmony is prefiguring an ideal anarchistic agrarian community.Analysis The most common critique of anarchism is that humans cannot self-govern and so a state is necessary for human survival. Philosopher Bertrand Russell supported this critique, stating that "[p]eace and war, tariffs, regulations of sanitary conditions and the sale of noxious drugs, the preservation of a just system of distribution: these, among others, are functions which could hardly be performed in a community in which there was no central government." Another common criticism of anarchism is that it fits a world of isolation in which only the small enough entities can be self-governing; a response would be that major anarchist thinkers advocated anarchist federalism.Philosophy lecturer Andrew G. Fiala composed a list of common arguments against anarchism which includes critiques such as that anarchism is innately related to violence and destruction, not only in the pragmatic world, such as at protests, but in the world of ethics as well. Secondly, anarchism is evaluated as unfeasible or utopian since the state cannot be defeated practically. This line of arguments most often calls for political action within the system to reform it. The third argument is that anarchism is self-contradictory. While it advocates for no-one to archiei, if accepted by the many, then anarchism would turn into the ruling political theory. In this line of criticism also comes the self-contradiction that anarchism calls for collective action whilst endorsing the autonomy of the individual, hence no collective action can be taken. Lastly, Fiala mentions a critique towards philosophical anarchism of being ineffective (all talk and thoughts) and in the meantime capitalism and bourgeois class remains strong.Philosophical anarchism has met the criticism of members of academia following the release of pro-anarchist books such as A. John Simmons' Moral Principles and Political Obligations. Law professor William A. Edmundson authored an essay to argue against three major philosophical anarchist principles which he finds fallacious. Edmundson says that while the individual does not owe the state a duty of obedience, this does not imply that anarchism is the inevitable conclusion and the state is still morally legitimate. In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer defends philosophical anarchism, claiming that "political authority is a moral illusion."One of the earliest criticisms is that anarchism defies and fails to understand the biological inclination to authority. Joseph Raz states that the acceptance of authority implies the belief that following their instructions will afford more success. Raz believes that this argument is true in following both authorities' successful and mistaken instruction. Anarchists reject this criticism because challenging or disobeying authority does not entail the disappearance of its advantages by acknowledging authority such as doctors or lawyers as reliable, nor does it involve a complete surrender of independent judgment. Anarchist perception of human nature, rejection of the state, and commitment to social revolution has been criticised by academics as naive, overly simplistic, and unrealistic, respectively. Classical anarchism has been criticised for relying too heavily on the belief that the abolition of the state will lead to human cooperation prospering.Friedrich Engels, considered to be one of the principal founders of Marxism, criticised anarchism's anti-authoritarianism as inherently counter-revolutionary because in his view a revolution is by itself authoritarian. Academic John Molyneux writes in his book Anarchism: A Marxist Criticism that "anarchism cannot win", believing that it lacks the ability to properly implement its ideas. The Marxist criticism of anarchism is that it has a utopian character because all individuals should have anarchist views and values. According to the Marxist view, that a social idea would follow directly from this human ideal and out of the free will of every individual formed its essence. Marxists state that this contradiction was responsible for their inability to act. In the anarchist vision, the conflict between liberty and equality was resolved through coexistence and intertwining.See also  Anarchism by country Governance without government List of anarchist political ideologies List of books about anarchismReferencesCitationsNotesSourcesPrimary sourcesSecondary sourcesTertiary sourcesFurther reading    Criticism of philosophical anarchism.   A defence of philosophical anarchism, stating that "both kinds of 'anarchism' [i.e. philosophical and political anarchism] are philosophical and political claims." (p. 137)  Anarchistic popular fiction novel.     An argument for philosophical anarchism.External links  Anarchy Archives. Anarchy Archives is an online research center on the history and theory of anarchism. Anti-capitalismAnti-fascismEconomic ideologiesLeft-wing politicsLibertarian socialismLibertarianismPolitical culturePolitical movementsPolitical ideologiesSocial theoriesSocialismFar-left politics
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Parents often notice signs during the first three years of their child's life. These signs often develop gradually, though some autistic children experience regression in their communication and social skills after reaching developmental milestones at a normal pace.Autism is associated with a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Risk factors during pregnancy include certain infections, such as rubella, toxins including valproic acid, alcohol, cocaine, pesticides, lead, and air pollution, fetal growth restriction, and autoimmune diseases. Controversies surround other proposed environmental causes; for example, the vaccine hypothesis, which has been disproven. Autism affects information processing in the brain and how nerve cells and their synapses connect and organize; how this occurs is not well understood. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) combines forms of the condition, including Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) into the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Several interventions have been shown to reduce symptoms and improve the ability of autistic people to function and participate independently in the community. Behavioral, psychological, education, and/or skill-building interventions may be used to assist autistic people to learn life skills necessary for living independently, as well as other social, communication, and language skills. Therapy also aims to reduce challenging behaviors and build upon strengths. Some autistic adults are unable to live independently. An autistic culture has developed, with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference to be accommodated instead of cured.Globally, autism is estimated to affect 24.8 million people . In the 2000s, the number of autistic people worldwide was estimated at 1–2 per 1,000 people. In the developed countries, about 1.5% of children are diagnosed with ASD , up from 0.7% in 2000 in the United States. It is diagnosed four to five times more often in males than females. The number of people diagnosed has increased considerably since the 1990s, which may be partly due to increased recognition of the condition.CharacteristicsAutism is a highly variable neurodevelopmental disorder whose symptoms first appear during infancy or childhood, and generally follows a steady course without remission. Autistic people may be severely impaired in some respects but average, or even superior, in others. Overt symptoms gradually begin after the age of six months, become established by age two or three years and tend to continue through adulthood, although often in more muted form. It is distinguished by a characteristic triad of symptoms: impairments in social interaction, impairments in communication, and repetitive behavior. Other aspects, such as atypical eating, are also common but are not essential for diagnosis. Individual symptoms of autism occur in the general population and appear not to associate highly, without a sharp line separating pathologically severe from common traits.Social developmentSocial deficits distinguish autism and the related autism spectrum disorders (ASD; see Classification) from other developmental disorders. Autistic people have social impairments and often lack the intuition about others that many people take for granted. Noted autistic Temple Grandin described her inability to understand the social communication of neurotypicals, or people with typical neural development, as leaving her feeling "like an anthropologist on Mars".Unusual social development becomes apparent early in childhood. Autistic infants show less attention to social stimuli, smile and look at others less often, and respond less to their own name. Autistic toddlers differ more strikingly from social norms; for example, they have less eye contact and turn-taking, and do not have the ability to use simple movements to express themselves, such as pointing at things. Three- to five-year-old autistic children are less likely to exhibit social understanding, approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, communicate nonverbally, and take turns with others. However, they do form attachments to their primary caregivers. Most autistic children display moderately less attachment security than neurotypical children, although this difference disappears in children with higher mental development or less pronounced autistic traits. Older children and adults with ASD perform worse on tests of face and emotion recognition although this may be partly due to a lower ability to define a person's own emotions.Children with high-functioning autism have more intense and frequent loneliness compared to non-autistic peers, despite the common belief that autistic children prefer to be alone. Making and maintaining friendships often proves to be difficult for autistic people. For them, the quality of friendships, not the number of friends, predicts how lonely they feel. Functional friendships, such as those resulting in invitations to parties, may affect the quality of life more deeply.There are many anecdotal reports, but few systematic studies, of aggression and violence in individuals with ASD. The limited data suggest that, in children with intellectual disability, autism is associated with aggression, destruction of property, and meltdowns.CommunicationAbout one third to half of autistic people do not develop enough natural speech to meet their daily communication needs. Differences in communication may be present from the first year of life, and may include delayed onset of babbling, unusual gestures, diminished responsiveness, and vocal patterns that are not synchronized with the caregiver. In the second and third years, autistic children have less frequent and less diverse babbling, consonants, words, and word combinations; their gestures are less often integrated with words. Autistic children are less likely to make requests or share experiences, and are more likely to simply repeat others' words (echolalia) or reverse pronouns. Joint attention seems to be necessary for functional speech, and deficits in joint attention seem to distinguish infants with ASD. For example, they may look at a pointing hand instead of the object to which the hand is pointing, and they consistently fail to point at objects in order to comment on or share an experience. Autistic children may have difficulty with imaginative play and with developing symbols into language.In a pair of studies, high-functioning autistic children aged 8–15 performed equally well as, and as adults better than, individually matched controls at basic language tasks involving vocabulary and spelling. Both autistic groups performed worse than controls at complex language tasks such as figurative language, comprehension, and inference. As people are often sized up initially from their basic language skills, these studies suggest that people speaking to autistic individuals are more likely to overestimate what their audience comprehends.Repetitive behaviorAutistic individuals can display many forms of repetitive or restricted behavior, which the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) categorizes as follows. Stereotyped behaviors: Repetitive movements, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking. Compulsive behaviors: Time-consuming behaviors intended to reduce the anxiety that an individual feels compelled to perform repeatedly or according to rigid rules, such as placing objects in a specific order, checking things, or handwashing. Sameness: Resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted. Ritualistic behavior: Unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual. This is closely associated with sameness and an independent validation has suggested combining the two factors. Restricted interests: Interests or fixations that are abnormal in theme or intensity of focus, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy, or game. Self-injury: Behaviors such as eye-poking, skin-picking, hand-biting and head-banging.No single repetitive or self-injurious behavior seems to be specific to autism, but autism appears to have an elevated pattern of occurrence and severity of these behaviors.Other symptomsAutistic individuals may have symptoms that are independent of the diagnosis, but that can affect the individual or the family.An estimated 0.5% to 10% of individuals with ASD show unusual abilities, ranging from splinter skills such as the memorization of trivia to the extraordinarily rare talents of prodigious autistic savants. Many individuals with ASD show superior skills in perception and attention, relative to the general population. Sensory abnormalities are found in over 90% of autistic people, and are considered core features by some, although there is no good evidence that sensory symptoms differentiate autism from other developmental disorders. Differences are greater for under-responsivity (for example, walking into things) than for over-responsivity (for example, distress from loud noises) or for sensation seeking (for example, rhythmic movements). An estimated 60–80% of autistic people have motor signs that include poor muscle tone, poor motor planning, and toe walking;  deficits in motor coordination are pervasive across ASD and are greater in autism proper. Unusual eating behavior occurs in about three-quarters of children with ASD, to the extent that it was formerly a diagnostic indicator. Selectivity is the most common problem, although eating rituals and food refusal also occur.There is tentative evidence that gender dysphoria occurs more frequently in autistic people (see Autism and LGBT identities). As well as that, a 2021 anonymized online survey of 16-90 year-olds revealed that autistic males are more likely to be bisexual, while autistic females are more likely to be homosexual.Gastrointestinal problems are one of the most commonly co-occurring medical conditions in autistic people. These are linked to greater social impairment, irritability, behavior and sleep problems, language impairments and mood changes.Parents of children with ASD have higher levels of stress. Siblings of children with ASD report greater admiration of and less conflict with the affected sibling than siblings of unaffected children and were similar to siblings of children with Down syndrome in these aspects of the sibling relationship. However, they reported lower levels of closeness and intimacy than siblings of children with Down syndrome; siblings of individuals with ASD have greater risk of negative well-being and poorer sibling relationships as adults.CausesIt has long been presumed that there is a common cause at the genetic, cognitive, and neural levels for autism's characteristic triad of symptoms. However, there is increasing suspicion that autism is instead a complex disorder whose core aspects have distinct causes that often co-occur.Autism has a strong genetic basis, although the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear whether ASD is explained more by rare mutations with major effects, or by rare multigene interactions of common genetic variants. Complexity arises due to interactions among multiple genes, the environment, and epigenetic factors which do not change DNA sequencing but are heritable and influence gene expression. Many genes have been associated with autism through sequencing the genomes of affected individuals and their parents. Studies of twins suggest that heritability is 0.7 for autism and as high as 0.9 for ASD, and siblings of those with autism are about 25 times more likely to be autistic than the general population. However, most of the mutations that increase autism risk have not been identified. Typically, autism cannot be traced to a Mendelian (single-gene) mutation or to a single chromosome abnormality, and none of the genetic syndromes associated with ASDs have been shown to selectively cause ASD. Numerous candidate genes have been located, with only small effects attributable to any particular gene. Most loci individually explain less than 1% of cases of autism. The large number of autistic individuals with unaffected family members may result from spontaneous structural variation—such as deletions, duplications or inversions in genetic material during meiosis. Hence, a substantial fraction of autism cases may be traceable to genetic causes that are highly heritable but not inherited: that is, the mutation that causes the autism is not present in the parental genome. Autism may be underdiagnosed in women and girls due to an assumption that it is primarily a male condition, but genetic phenomena such as imprinting and X linkage have the ability to raise the frequency and severity of conditions in males, and theories have been put forward for a genetic reason why males are diagnosed more often, such as the imprinted brain hypothesis and the extreme male brain theory.Maternal nutrition and inflammation during preconception and pregnancy influences fetal neurodevelopment. Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with ASD, in both term and preterm infants. Maternal inflammatory and autoimmune diseases may damage fetal tissues, aggravating a genetic problem or damaging the nervous system.Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy, especially heavy metals and particulates, may increase the risk of autism. Environmental factors that have been claimed without evidence to contribute to or exacerbate autism include certain foods, infectious diseases, solvents, PCBs, phthalates and phenols used in plastic products, pesticides, brominated flame retardants, alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, vaccines, and prenatal stress. Some, such as the MMR vaccine, have been completely disproven.Parents may first become aware of autistic symptoms in their child around the time of a routine vaccination. This has led to unsupported theories blaming vaccine "overload", a vaccine preservative, or the MMR vaccine for causing autism. The latter theory was supported by a litigation-funded study that has since been shown to have been "an elaborate fraud". Although these theories lack convincing scientific evidence and are biologically implausible, parental concern about a potential vaccine link with autism has led to lower rates of childhood immunizations, outbreaks of previously controlled childhood diseases in some countries, and the preventable deaths of several children.MechanismAutism's symptoms result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain. How autism occurs is not well understood. Its mechanism can be divided into two areas: the pathophysiology of brain structures and processes associated with autism, and the neuropsychological linkages between brain structures and behaviors. The behaviors appear to have multiple pathophysiologies.There is evidence that gut–brain axis abnormalities may be involved. A 2015 review proposed that immune dysregulation, gastrointestinal inflammation, malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, gut flora alterations, and food metabolites may cause brain neuroinflammation and dysfunction. A 2016 review concludes that enteric nervous system abnormalities might play a role in neurological disorders such as autism. Neural connections and the immune system are a pathway that may allow diseases originated in the intestine to spread to the brain.Several lines of evidence point to synaptic dysfunction as a cause of autism. Some rare mutations may lead to autism by disrupting some synaptic pathways, such as those involved with cell adhesion. Gene replacement studies in mice suggest that autistic symptoms are closely related to later developmental steps that depend on activity in synapses and on activity-dependent changes. All known teratogens (agents that cause birth defects) related to the risk of autism appear to act during the first eight weeks from conception, and though this does not exclude the possibility that autism can be initiated or affected later, there is strong evidence that autism arises very early in development.DiagnosisDiagnosis is based on behavior, not cause or mechanism. Under the DSM-5, autism is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts, as well as restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. These deficits are present in early childhood, typically before age three, and lead to clinically significant functional impairment. Sample symptoms include lack of social or emotional reciprocity, stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language, and persistent preoccupation with unusual objects. The disturbance must not be better accounted for by Rett syndrome, intellectual disability or global developmental delay. ICD-10 uses essentially the same definition.Several diagnostic instruments are available. Two are commonly used in autism research: the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) is a semistructured parent interview, and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) uses observation and interaction with the child. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) is used widely in clinical environments to assess severity of autism based on observation of children. The Diagnostic interview for social and communication disorders (DISCO) may also be used.A pediatrician commonly performs a preliminary investigation by taking developmental history and physically examining the child. If warranted, diagnosis and evaluations are conducted with help from ASD specialists, observing and assessing cognitive, communication, family, and other factors using standardized tools, and taking into account any associated medical conditions. A pediatric neuropsychologist is often asked to assess behavior and cognitive skills, both to aid diagnosis and to help recommend educational interventions. A differential diagnosis for ASD at this stage might also consider intellectual disability, hearing impairment, and a specific language impairment such as Landau–Kleffner syndrome. The presence of autism can make it harder to diagnose coexisting psychiatric disorders such as depression.Clinical genetics evaluations are often done once ASD is diagnosed, particularly when other symptoms already suggest a genetic cause. Although genetic technology allows clinical geneticists to link an estimated 40% of cases to genetic causes, consensus guidelines in the US and UK are limited to high-resolution chromosome and fragile X testing. A genotype-first model of diagnosis has been proposed, which would routinely assess the genome's copy number variations. As new genetic tests are developed several ethical, legal, and social issues will emerge. Commercial availability of tests may precede adequate understanding of how to use test results, given the complexity of autism's genetics. Metabolic and neuroimaging tests are sometimes helpful, but are not routine.ASD can sometimes be diagnosed by age 14 months, although diagnosis becomes increasingly stable over the first three years of life: for example, a one-year-old who meets diagnostic criteria for ASD is less likely than a three-year-old to continue to do so a few years later. In the UK the National Autism Plan for Children recommends at most 30 weeks from first concern to completed diagnosis and assessment, though few cases are handled that quickly in practice. Although the symptoms of autism and ASD begin early in childhood, they are sometimes missed; years later, adults may seek diagnoses to help them or their friends and family understand themselves, to help their employers make adjustments, or in some locations to claim disability living allowances or other benefits.Signs of autism may be more challenging for clinicians to detect in females. Autistic females have been shown to engage in masking more frequently than autistic males. Masking may include making oneself perform normative facial expressions and eye contact. A notable percentage of autistic females may be misdiagnosed, diagnosed after a considerable delay, or not diagnosed at all.Conversely, the cost of screening and diagnosis and the challenge of obtaining payment can inhibit or delay diagnosis. It is particularly hard to diagnose autism among the visually impaired, partly because some of its diagnostic criteria depend on vision, and partly because autistic symptoms overlap with those of common blindness syndromes or blindisms.ClassificationAutism is one of the five pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which are characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication, severely restricted interests, and highly repetitive behavior. These symptoms do not imply sickness, fragility, or emotional disturbance.Of the five PDD forms, Asperger syndrome is closest to autism in signs and likely causes; Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder share several signs with autism, but may have unrelated causes; PDD not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; also called atypical autism) is diagnosed when the criteria are not met for a more specific disorder. Unlike with autism, people with Asperger syndrome have no substantial delay in language development. The terminology of autism can be bewildering, with autism, Asperger syndrome and PDD-NOS often called the autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or sometimes the autistic disorders, whereas autism itself is often called autistic disorder, childhood autism, or infantile autism. In this article, autism refers to the classic autistic disorder; in clinical practice, though, autism, ASD, and PDD are often used interchangeably. ASD, in turn, is a subset of the broader autism phenotype, which describes individuals who may not have ASD but do have autistic-like traits, such as avoiding eye contact.Research into causes has been hampered by the inability to identify biologically meaningful subgroups within the autistic population and by the traditional boundaries between the disciplines of psychiatry, psychology, neurology and pediatrics. Newer technologies such as fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging can help identify biologically relevant phenotypes (observable traits) that can be viewed on brain scans, to help further neurogenetic studies of autism; one example is lowered activity in the fusiform face area of the brain, which is associated with impaired perception of people versus objects. It has been proposed to classify autism using genetics as well as behavior. (For more, see Brett Abrahams, geneticist and neuroscientist)Spectrum Autism has long been thought to cover a wide spectrum, ranging from individuals with severe impairments—who may be silent, developmentally disabled, and prone to frequent repetitive behavior such as hand flapping and rocking—to high functioning individuals who may have active but distinctly odd social approaches, narrowly focused interests, and verbose, pedantic communication. Because the behavior spectrum is continuous, boundaries between diagnostic categories are necessarily somewhat arbitrary.ScreeningAbout half of parents of children with ASD notice their child's unusual behaviors by age 18 months, and about four-fifths notice by age 24 months. According to an article, failure to meet any of the following milestones "is an absolute indication to proceed with further evaluations. Delay in referral for such testing may delay early diagnosis and treatment and affect the long-term outcome". No response to name (or eye-to-eye gaze) by 6 months.  No babbling by 12 months. No gesturing (pointing, waving, etc.) by 12 months. No single words by 16 months. No two-word (spontaneous, not just echolalic) phrases by 24 months. Loss of any language or social skills, at any age.The United States Preventive Services Task Force in 2016 found it was unclear if screening was beneficial or harmful among children in whom there is no concern. The Japanese practice is to screen all children for ASD at 18 and 24 months, using autism-specific formal screening tests. In contrast, in the UK, children whose families or doctors recognize possible signs of autism are screened. It is not known which approach is more effective. Screening tools include the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), the Early Screening of Autistic Traits Questionnaire, and the First Year Inventory; initial data on M-CHAT and its predecessor, the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT), on children aged 18–30 months suggests that it is best used in a clinical setting and that it has low sensitivity (many false-negatives) but good specificity (few false-positives). It may be more accurate to precede these tests with a broadband screener that does not distinguish ASD from other developmental disorders. Screening tools designed for one culture's norms for behaviors like eye contact may be inappropriate for a different culture. Although genetic screening for autism is generally still impractical, it can be considered in some cases, such as children with neurological symptoms and dysmorphic features.Some authors suggest that automatic motor assessment could be useful to screen the children with ASD for instance with behavioural motor and emotionals reactions during smartphone watching.PreventionWhile infection with rubella during pregnancy causes fewer than 1% of cases of autism, vaccination against rubella can prevent many of those cases.ManagementThe main goals when treating autistic children are to lessen associated deficits and family distress, and to increase quality of life and functional independence. In general, higher IQs are correlated with greater responsiveness to treatment and improved treatment outcomes. No single treatment is best and treatment is typically tailored to the child's needs. Families and the educational system are the main resources for treatment. Services should be carried out by behavior analysts, special education teachers, speech pathologists, and licensed psychologists. Studies of interventions have methodological problems that prevent definitive conclusions about efficacy. However, the development of evidence-based interventions has advanced in recent years. Although many psychosocial interventions have some positive evidence, suggesting that some form of treatment is preferable to no treatment, the methodological quality of systematic reviews of these studies has generally been poor, their clinical results are mostly tentative, and there is little evidence for the relative effectiveness of treatment options. Intensive, sustained special education programs and behavior therapy early in life can help children acquire self-care, communication, and job skills, and often improve functioning and decrease symptom severity and maladaptive behaviors; claims that intervention by around age three years is crucial are not substantiated. While medications have not been found to help with core symptoms, they may be used for associated symptoms, such as irritability, inattention, or repetitive behavior patterns.EducationEducational interventions often used include applied behavior analysis (ABA), developmental models, structured teaching, speech and language therapy, social skills therapy, and occupational therapy and cognitive behavioral interventions in adults without intellectual disability to reduce depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Among these approaches, interventions either treat autistic features comprehensively, or focalize treatment on a specific area of deficit. The quality of research for early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI)—a treatment procedure incorporating over thirty hours per week of the structured type of ABA that is carried out with very young children—is currently low, and more vigorous research designs with larger sample sizes are needed. Two theoretical frameworks outlined for early childhood intervention include structured and naturalistic ABA interventions, and developmental social pragmatic models (DSP). One interventional strategy utilizes a parent training model, which teaches parents how to implement various ABA and DSP techniques, allowing for parents to disseminate interventions themselves. Various DSP programs have been developed to explicitly deliver intervention systems through at-home parent implementation. Despite the recent development of parent training models, these interventions have demonstrated effectiveness in numerous studies, being evaluated as a probable efficacious mode of treatment.Early, intensive ABA therapy has demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing communication and adaptive functioning in preschool children; it is also well-established for improving the intellectual performance of that age group. Similarly, a teacher-implemented intervention that utilizes a more naturalistic form of ABA combined with a developmental social pragmatic approach has been found to be beneficial in improving social-communication skills in young children, although there is less evidence in its treatment of global symptoms. Neuropsychological reports are often poorly communicated to educators, resulting in a gap between what a report recommends and what education is provided. It is not known whether treatment programs for children lead to significant improvements after the children grow up, and the limited research on the effectiveness of adult residential programs shows mixed results. The appropriateness of including children with varying severity of autism spectrum disorders in the general education population is a subject of current debate among educators and researchers.MedicationMedications may be used to treat ASD symptoms that interfere with integrating a child into home or school when behavioral treatment fails. They may also be used for associated health problems, such as ADHD or anxiety. More than half of US children diagnosed with ASD are prescribed psychoactive drugs or anticonvulsants, with the most common drug classes being antidepressants, stimulants, and antipsychotics. The atypical antipsychotic drugs risperidone and aripiprazole are FDA-approved for treating associated aggressive and self-injurious behaviors. However, their side effects must be weighed against their potential benefits, and autistic people may respond atypically. Side effects, for example, may include weight gain, tiredness, drooling, and aggression. SSRI antidepressants, such as fluoxetine and fluvoxamine, have been shown to be effective in reducing repetitive and ritualistic behaviors, while the stimulant medication methylphenidate is beneficial for some children with co-morbid inattentiveness or hyperactivity. There is scant reliable research about the effectiveness or safety of drug treatments for adolescents and adults with ASD. No known medication relieves autism's core symptoms of social and communication impairments. Experiments in mice have reversed or reduced some symptoms related to autism by replacing or modulating gene function, suggesting the possibility of targeting therapies to specific rare mutations known to cause autism.Alternative medicineAlthough many alternative therapies and interventions are available, few are supported by scientific studies. Treatment approaches have little empirical support in quality-of-life contexts, and many programs focus on success measures that lack predictive validity and real-world relevance. Some alternative treatments may place the child at risk. The preference that autistic children have for unconventional foods can lead to reduction in bone cortical thickness with this being greater in those on casein-free diets, as a consequence of the low intake of calcium and vitamin D; however, suboptimal bone development in ASD has also been associated with lack of exercise and gastrointestinal disorders. In 2005, botched chelation therapy killed a five-year-old child with autism. Chelation is not recommended for autistic people since the associated risks outweigh any potential benefits. Another alternative medicine practice with no evidence is CEASE therapy, a mixture of homeopathy, supplements, and 'vaccine detoxing'.Although popularly used as an alternative treatment for autistic people, as of 2018 there is no good evidence to recommend a gluten- and casein-free diet as a standard treatment. A 2018 review concluded that it may be a therapeutic option for specific groups of children with autism, such as those with known food intolerances or allergies, or with food intolerance markers. The authors analyzed the prospective trials conducted to date that studied the efficacy of the gluten- and casein-free diet in children with ASD (4 in total). All of them compared gluten- and casein-free diet versus normal diet with a control group (2 double-blind randomized controlled trials, 1 double-blind crossover trial, 1 single-blind trial). In two of the studies, whose duration was 12 and 24 months, a significant improvement in ASD symptoms (efficacy rate 50%) was identified. In the other two studies, whose duration was 3 months, no significant effect was observed. The authors concluded that a longer duration of the diet may be necessary to achieve the improvement of the ASD symptoms. Other problems documented in the trials carried out include transgressions of the diet, small sample size, the heterogeneity of the participants and the possibility of a placebo effect. In the subset of people who have gluten sensitivity there is limited evidence that suggests that a gluten-free diet may improve some autistic behaviors.Results of a systematic review on interventions to address health outcomes among autistic adults found emerging evidence to support mindfulness-based interventions for improving mental health. This includes decreasing stress, anxiety, ruminating thoughts, anger, and aggression. There is tentative evidence that music therapy may improve social interactions, verbal communication, and non-verbal communication skills. There has been early research looking at hyperbaric treatments in children with autism. Studies on pet therapy have shown positive effects.PrognosisThere is no known cure for autism. The degree of symptoms can decrease, occasionally to the extent that people lose their diagnosis of ASD; this occurs sometimes after intensive treatment and sometimes not. It is not known how often this outcome happens; reported rates in unselected samples have ranged from 3% to 25%. Most autistic children acquire language by age five or younger, though a few have developed communication skills in later years. Many autistic children lack social support, future employment opportunities or self-determination. Although core difficulties tend to persist, symptoms often become less severe with age.Few high-quality studies address long-term prognosis. Some adults show modest improvement in communication skills, but a few decline; no study has focused on autism after midlife. Acquiring language before age six, having an IQ above 50, and having a marketable skill all predict better outcomes; independent living is unlikely with severe autism.Many autistic people face significant obstacles in transitioning to adulthood. Compared to the general population autistic people are more likely to be unemployed and to have never had a job. About half of people in their 20s with autism are not employed.Autistic people tend to face increased stress levels related to psychosocial factors, such as stigma, which may increase the rates of mental health issues in the autistic population.EpidemiologyAs of 2007, reviews estimate a prevalence of 1–2 per 1,000 for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for ASD. A 2016 survey in the United States reported a rate of 25 per 1,000 children for ASD. Globally, autism affects an estimated 24.8 million people , while Asperger syndrome affects a further 37.2 million. In 2012, the NHS estimated that the overall prevalence of autism among adults aged 18 years and over in the UK was 1.1%. Rates of PDD-NOS's has been estimated at 3.7 per 1,000, Asperger syndrome at roughly 0.6 per 1,000, and childhood disintegrative disorder at 0.02 per 1,000. CDC estimates about 1 out of 59 (1.7%) for 2014, an increase from 1 out of every 68 children (1.5%) for 2010.In the UK, from 1998 to 2018, the autism diagnoses increased by 787%. This increase is largely attributable to changes in diagnostic practices, referral patterns, availability of services, age at diagnosis, and public awareness (particularly among women), though unidentified environmental risk factors cannot be ruled out. The available evidence does not rule out the possibility that autism's true prevalence has increased; a real increase would suggest directing more attention and funding toward psychosocial factors and changing environmental factors instead of continuing to focus on genetics. It has been established that vaccination is not a risk factor for autism and is not behind any increase in autism prevalence rates, if any change in the rate of autism exists at all.Males are at higher risk for ASD than females. The sex ratio averages 4.3:1 and is greatly modified by cognitive impairment: it may be close to 2:1 with intellectual disability and more than 5.5:1 without. Several theories about the higher prevalence in males have been investigated, but the cause of the difference is unconfirmed; one theory is that females are underdiagnosed.Although the evidence does not implicate any single pregnancy-related risk factor as a cause of autism, the risk of autism is associated with advanced age in either parent, and with diabetes, bleeding, and use of psychiatric drugs in the mother during pregnancy. The risk is greater with older fathers than with older mothers; two potential explanations are the known increase in mutation burden in older sperm, and the hypothesis that men marry later if they carry genetic liability and show some signs of autism. Most professionals believe that race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background do not affect the occurrence of autism.Several other conditions are common in children with autism. They include: Genetic disorders. About 10–15% of autism cases have an identifiable Mendelian (single-gene) condition, chromosome abnormality, or other genetic syndrome, and ASD is associated with several genetic disorders. Intellectual disability. The percentage of autistic individuals who also meet criteria for intellectual disability has been reported as anywhere from 25% to 70%, a wide variation illustrating the difficulty of assessing intelligence of individuals on the autism spectrum. In comparison, for PDD-NOS the association with intellectual disability is much weaker, and by definition, the diagnosis of Asperger's excludes intellectual disability. Anxiety disorders are common among children with ASD; there are no firm data, but studies have reported prevalences ranging from 11% to 84%. Many anxiety disorders have symptoms that are better explained by ASD itself, or are hard to distinguish from ASD's symptoms. Epilepsy, with variations in risk of epilepsy due to age, cognitive level, and type of language disorder. Several metabolic defects, such as phenylketonuria, are associated with autistic symptoms. Minor physical anomalies are significantly increased in the autistic population. Preempted diagnoses. Although the DSM-IV rules out the concurrent diagnosis of many other conditions along with autism, the full criteria for Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome, and other of these conditions are often present and these co-occurrent conditions are increasingly accepted. Sleep problems affect about two-thirds of individuals with ASD at some point in childhood. These most commonly include symptoms of insomnia such as difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, and early morning awakenings. Sleep problems are associated with difficult behaviors and family stress, and are often a focus of clinical attention over and above the primary ASD diagnosis.HistoryA few examples of autistic symptoms and treatments were described long before autism was named. The Table Talk of Martin Luther, compiled by his notetaker, Mathesius, contains the story of a 12-year-old boy who may have been severely autistic. The earliest well-documented case of autism is that of Hugh Blair of Borgue, as detailed in a 1747 court case in which his brother successfully petitioned to annul Blair's marriage to gain Blair's inheritance. The Wild Boy of Aveyron, a feral child caught in 1798, showed several signs of autism; the medical student Jean Itard treated him with a behavioral program designed to help him form social attachments and to induce speech via imitation.The New Latin word autismus (English translation autism) was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910 as he was defining symptoms of schizophrenia. He derived it from the Greek word autós (αὐτός, meaning "self"), and used it to mean morbid self-admiration, referring to "autistic withdrawal of the patient to his fantasies, against which any influence from outside becomes an intolerable disturbance". A Soviet child psychiatrist, Grunya Sukhareva, described a similar syndrome that was published in Russian in 1925, and in German in 1926.Clinical development and diagnoses The word autism first took its modern sense in 1938 when Hans Asperger of the Vienna University Hospital adopted Bleuler's terminology autistic psychopaths in a lecture in German about child psychology. Asperger was investigating an ASD now known as Asperger syndrome, though for various reasons it was not widely recognized as a separate diagnosis until 1981. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first used autism in its modern sense in English when he introduced the label early infantile autism in a 1943 report of 11 children with striking behavioral similarities. Almost all the characteristics described in Kanner's first paper on the subject, notably "autistic aloneness" and "insistence on sameness", are still regarded as typical of the autistic spectrum of disorders. It is not known whether Kanner derived the term independently of Asperger.Kanner's reuse of autism led to decades of confused terminology like infantile schizophrenia, and child psychiatry's focus on maternal deprivation led to misconceptions of autism as an infant's response to "refrigerator mothers". Starting in the late 1960s autism was established as a separate syndrome.Terminology and distinction from schizophrenia As late as the mid-1970s there was little evidence of a genetic role in autism, while in 2007 it was believed to be one of the most heritable psychiatric conditions. Although the rise of parent organizations and the destigmatization of childhood ASD have affected how ASD is viewed, parents continue to feel social stigma in situations where their child's autistic behavior is perceived negatively, and many primary care physicians and medical specialists express some beliefs consistent with outdated autism research.It took until 1980 for the DSM-III to differentiate autism from childhood schizophrenia. In 1987, the DSM-III-R provided a checklist for diagnosing autism. In May 2013, the DSM-5 was released, updating the classification for pervasive developmental disorders. The grouping of disorders, including PDD-NOS, autism, Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, and CDD, has been removed and replaced with the general term of Autism Spectrum Disorders. The two categories that exist are impaired social communication and/or interaction, and restricted and/or repetitive behaviors.The Internet has helped autistic individuals bypass nonverbal cues and emotional sharing that they find difficult to deal with, and has given them a way to form online communities and work remotely. Societal and cultural aspects of autism have developed: some in the community seek a cure, while others believe that autism is simply another way of being.Society and cultureAn autistic culture has emerged, accompanied by the autistic rights and neurodiversity movements. Events include World Autism Awareness Day, Autism Sunday, Autistic Pride Day, Autreat, and others. Social-science scholars study those with autism in hopes to learn more about "autism as a culture, transcultural comparisons ... and research on social movements." Many autistic individuals have been successful in their fields.Autism rights movement The autism rights movement is a social movement within the context of disability rights that emphasizes the concept of neurodiversity, viewing the autism spectrum as a result of natural variations in the human brain rather than a disorder to be cured. The autism rights movement advocates for including greater acceptance of autistic behaviors; therapies that focus on coping skills rather than on imitating the behaviors of those without autism, and the recognition of the autistic community as a minority group. Autism rights or neurodiversity advocates believe that the autism spectrum is genetic and should be accepted as a natural expression of the human genome. This perspective is distinct from fringe theories that autism is caused by environmental factors such as vaccines. A common criticism against autistic activists is that the majority of them are "high-functioning" or have Asperger syndrome and do not represent the views of "low-functioning" autistic people.EmploymentAbout half of autistic people are unemployed, and one third of those with graduate degrees may be unemployed. Among those who find work, most are employed in sheltered settings working for wages below the national minimum. While employers state hiring concerns about productivity and supervision, experienced employers of autistic people give positive reports of above average memory and detail orientation as well as a high regard for rules and procedure in autistic employees. A majority of the economic burden of autism is caused by decreased earnings in the job market. Some studies also find decreased earning among parents who care for autistic children.ReferencesExternal links 1910s neologismsArticles containing video clipsCommunication disordersNeurological disorders in childrenPervasive developmental disordersWikipedia medicine articles ready to translate
Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that reflects all incident radiation.Surface albedo is defined as the ratio of radiosity Je to the irradiance Ee (flux per unit area) received by a surface. The proportion reflected is not only determined by properties of the surface itself, but also by the spectral and angular distribution of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. These factors vary with atmospheric composition, geographic location, and time (see position of the Sun). While bi-hemispherical reflectance is calculated for a single angle of incidence (i.e., for a given position of the Sun), albedo is the directional integration of reflectance over all solar angles in a given period. The temporal resolution may range from seconds (as obtained from flux measurements) to daily, monthly, or annual averages.Unless given for a specific wavelength (spectral albedo), albedo refers to the entire spectrum of solar radiation. Due to measurement constraints, it is often given for the spectrum in which most solar energy reaches the surface (between 0.3 and 3 μm). This spectrum includes visible light (0.4–0.7 μm), which explains why surfaces with a low albedo appear dark (e.g., trees absorb most radiation), whereas surfaces with a high albedo appear bright (e.g., snow reflects most radiation).Albedo is an important concept in climatology, astronomy, and environmental management (e.g., as part of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program for sustainable rating of buildings). The average albedo of the Earth from the upper atmosphere, its planetary albedo, is 30–35% because of cloud cover, but widely varies locally across the surface because of different geological and environmental features.The term albedo was introduced into optics by Johann Heinrich Lambert in his 1760 work Photometria.Terrestrial albedoAny albedo in visible light falls within a range of about 0.9 for fresh snow to about 0.04 for charcoal, one of the darkest substances. Deeply shadowed cavities can achieve an effective albedo approaching the zero of a black body. When seen from a distance, the ocean surface has a low albedo, as do most forests, whereas desert areas have some of the highest albedos among landforms. Most land areas are in an albedo range of 0.1 to 0.4. The average albedo of Earth is about 0.3. This is far higher than for the ocean primarily because of the contribution of clouds.Earth's surface albedo is regularly estimated via Earth observation satellite sensors such as NASA's MODIS instruments on board the Terra and Aqua satellites, and the CERES instrument on the Suomi NPP and JPSS. As the amount of reflected radiation is only measured for a single direction by satellite, not all directions, a mathematical model is used to translate a sample set of satellite reflectance measurements into estimates of directional-hemispherical reflectance and bi-hemispherical reflectance (e.g.,). These calculations are based on the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), which describes how the reflectance of a given surface depends on the view angle of the observer and the solar angle. BDRF can facilitate translations of observations of reflectance into albedo.Earth's average surface temperature due to its albedo and the greenhouse effect is currently about . If Earth were frozen entirely (and hence be more reflective), the average temperature of the planet would drop below . If only the continental land masses became covered by glaciers, the mean temperature of the planet would drop to about . In contrast, if the entire Earth was covered by water – a so-called ocean planet – the average temperature on the planet would rise to almost .In 2021, scientists reported that Earth dimmed by ~0.5% over two decades (1998-2017) as measured by earthshine using modern photometric techniques. This may have both been co-caused by climate change as well as a substantial increase in global warming. However, the link to climate change has not been explored to date and it is unclear whether or not this represents an ongoing trend.White-sky, black-sky, and blue-sky albedoFor land surfaces, it has been shown that the albedo at a particular solar zenith angle θi can be approximated by the proportionate sum of two terms: the directional-hemispherical reflectance at that solar zenith angle, , sometimes referred to as black-sky albedo, and the bi-hemispherical reflectance, , sometimes referred to as white-sky albedo.with  being the proportion of direct radiation from a given solar angle, and  being the proportion of diffuse illumination, the actual albedo  (also called blue-sky albedo) can then be given as:This formula is important because it allows the albedo to be calculated for any given illumination conditions from a knowledge of the intrinsic properties of the surface.Examples of terrestrial albedo effectsIlluminationAlbedo is not directly dependent on illumination because changing the amount of incoming light proportionally changes the amount of reflected light, except in circumstances where a change in illumination induces a change in the Earth's surface at that location (e.g. through melting of reflective ice). That said, albedo and illumination both vary by latitude. Albedo is highest near the poles and lowest in the subtropics, with a local maximum in the tropics.Insolation effectsThe intensity of albedo temperature effects depends on the amount of albedo and the level of local insolation (solar irradiance); high albedo areas in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are cold due to low insolation, whereas areas such as the Sahara Desert, which also have a relatively high albedo, will be hotter due to high insolation. Tropical and sub-tropical rainforest areas have low albedo, and are much hotter than their temperate forest counterparts, which have lower insolation. Because insolation plays such a big role in the heating and cooling effects of albedo, high insolation areas like the tropics will tend to show a more pronounced fluctuation in local temperature when local albedo changes.Arctic regions notably release more heat back into space than what they absorb, effectively cooling the Earth. This has been a concern since arctic ice and snow has been melting at higher rates due to higher temperatures, creating regions in the arctic that are notably darker (being water or ground which is darker color) and reflects less heat back into space. This feedback loop results in a reduced albedo effect.Climate and weatherAlbedo affects climate by determining how much radiation a planet absorbs. The uneven heating of Earth from albedo variations between land, ice, or ocean surfaces can drive weather.Albedo–temperature feedbackWhen an area's albedo changes due to snowfall, a snow–temperature feedback results. A layer of snowfall increases local albedo, reflecting away sunlight, leading to local cooling. In principle, if no outside temperature change affects this area (e.g., a warm air mass), the raised albedo and lower temperature would maintain the current snow and invite further snowfall, deepening the snow–temperature feedback. However, because local weather is dynamic due to the change of seasons, eventually warm air masses and a more direct angle of sunlight (higher insolation) cause melting. When the melted area reveals surfaces with lower albedo, such as grass, soil, or ocean, the effect is reversed: the darkening surface lowers albedo, increasing local temperatures, which induces more melting and thus reducing the albedo further, resulting in still more heating.SnowSnow albedo is highly variable, ranging from as high as 0.9 for freshly fallen snow, to about 0.4 for melting snow, and as low as 0.2 for dirty snow. Over Antarctica snow albedo averages a little more than 0.8. If a marginally snow-covered area warms, snow tends to melt, lowering the albedo, and hence leading to more snowmelt because more radiation is being absorbed by the snowpack (the ice–albedo positive feedback).Just as fresh snow has a higher albedo than does dirty snow, the albedo of snow-covered sea ice is far higher than that of sea water. Sea water absorbs more solar radiation than would the same surface covered with reflective snow. When sea ice melts, either due to a rise in sea temperature or in response to increased solar radiation from above, the snow-covered surface is reduced, and more surface of sea water is exposed, so the rate of energy absorption increases. The extra absorbed energy heats the sea water, which in turn increases the rate at which sea ice melts. As with the preceding example of snowmelt, the process of melting of sea ice is thus another example of a positive feedback. Both positive feedback loops have long been recognized as important for global warming.Cryoconite, powdery windblown dust containing soot, sometimes reduces albedo on glaciers and ice sheets.The dynamical nature of albedo in response to positive feedback, together with the effects of small errors in the measurement of albedo, can lead to large errors in energy estimates. Because of this, in order to reduce the error of energy estimates, it is important to measure the albedo of snow-covered areas through remote sensing techniques rather than applying a single value for albedo over broad regions.Small-scale effectsAlbedo works on a smaller scale, too. In sunlight, dark clothes absorb more heat and light-coloured clothes reflect it better, thus allowing some control over body temperature by exploiting the albedo effect of the colour of external clothing.Solar photovoltaic effects Albedo can affect the electrical energy output of solar photovoltaic devices. For example, the effects of a spectrally responsive albedo are illustrated by the differences between the spectrally weighted albedo of solar photovoltaic technology based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and crystalline silicon (c-Si)-based compared to traditional spectral-integrated albedo predictions. Research showed impacts of over 10%. More recently, the analysis was extended to the effects of spectral bias due to the specular reflectivity of 22 commonly occurring surface materials (both human-made and natural) and analyzes the albedo effects on the performance of seven photovoltaic materials covering three common photovoltaic system topologies: industrial (solar farms), commercial flat rooftops and residential pitched-roof applications.TreesBecause forests generally have a low albedo, (the majority of the ultraviolet and visible spectrum is absorbed through photosynthesis), some scientists have suggested that greater heat absorption by trees could offset some of the carbon benefits of afforestation (or offset the negative climate impacts of deforestation). In the case of evergreen forests with seasonal snow cover albedo reduction may be great enough for deforestation to cause a net cooling effect. Trees also impact climate in extremely complicated ways through evapotranspiration. The water vapor causes cooling on the land surface, causes heating where it condenses, acts a strong greenhouse gas, and can increase albedo when it condenses into clouds. Scientists generally treat evapotranspiration as a net cooling impact, and the net climate impact of albedo and evapotranspiration changes from deforestation depends greatly on local climate.In seasonally snow-covered zones, winter albedos of treeless areas are 10% to 50% higher than nearby forested areas because snow does not cover the trees as readily. Deciduous trees have an albedo value of about 0.15 to 0.18 whereas coniferous trees have a value of about 0.09 to 0.15. Variation in summer albedo across both forest types is associated with maximum rates of photosynthesis because plants with high growth capacity display a greater fraction of their foliage for direct interception of incoming radiation in the upper canopy. The result is that wavelengths of light not used in photosynthesis are more likely to be reflected back to space rather than being absorbed by other surfaces lower in the canopy.Studies by the Hadley Centre have investigated the relative (generally warming) effect of albedo change and (cooling) effect of carbon sequestration on planting forests. They found that new forests in tropical and midlatitude areas tended to cool; new forests in high latitudes (e.g., Siberia) were neutral or perhaps warming.WaterWater reflects light very differently from typical terrestrial materials. The reflectivity of a water surface is calculated using the Fresnel equations.At the scale of the wavelength of light even wavy water is always smooth so the light is reflected in a locally specular manner (not diffusely). The glint of light off water is a commonplace effect of this. At small angles of incident light, waviness results in reduced reflectivity because of the steepness of the reflectivity-vs.-incident-angle curve and a locally increased average incident angle.Although the reflectivity of water is very low at low and medium angles of incident light, it becomes very high at high angles of incident light such as those that occur on the illuminated side of Earth near the terminator (early morning, late afternoon, and near the poles). However, as mentioned above, waviness causes an appreciable reduction. Because light specularly reflected from water does not usually reach the viewer, water is usually considered to have a very low albedo in spite of its high reflectivity at high angles of incident light.Note that white caps on waves look white (and have high albedo) because the water is foamed up, so there are many superimposed bubble surfaces which reflect, adding up their reflectivities. Fresh 'black' ice exhibits Fresnel reflection.Snow on top of this sea ice increases the albedo to 0.9.CloudsCloud albedo has substantial influence over atmospheric temperatures. Different types of clouds exhibit different reflectivity, theoretically ranging in albedo from a minimum of near 0 to a maximum approaching 0.8. "On any given day, about half of Earth is covered by clouds, which reflect more sunlight than land and water. Clouds keep Earth cool by reflecting sunlight, but they can also serve as blankets to trap warmth."Albedo and climate in some areas are affected by artificial clouds, such as those created by the contrails of heavy commercial airliner traffic. A study following the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields during Iraqi occupation showed that temperatures under the burning oil fires were as much as  colder than temperatures several miles away under clear skies.Aerosol effectsAerosols (very fine particles/droplets in the atmosphere) have both direct and indirect effects on Earth's radiative balance. The direct (albedo) effect is generally to cool the planet; the indirect effect (the particles act as cloud condensation nuclei and thereby change cloud properties) is less certain. As per Spracklen et al. the effects are: Aerosol direct effect. Aerosols directly scatter and absorb radiation. The scattering of radiation causes atmospheric cooling, whereas absorption can cause atmospheric warming. Aerosol indirect effect. Aerosols modify the properties of clouds through a subset of the aerosol population called cloud condensation nuclei. Increased nuclei concentrations lead to increased cloud droplet number concentrations, which in turn leads to increased cloud albedo, increased light scattering and radiative cooling (first indirect effect), but also leads to reduced precipitation efficiency and increased lifetime of the cloud (second indirect effect).In extremely polluted cities like Delhi, aerosol pollutants influence local weather and induce an urban cool island effect during the day.Black carbonAnother albedo-related effect on the climate is from black carbon particles. The size of this effect is difficult to quantify: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the global mean radiative forcing for black carbon aerosols from fossil fuels is +0.2 W m−2, with a range +0.1 to +0.4 W m−2. Black carbon is a bigger cause of the melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic than carbon dioxide due to its effect on the albedo.Human activitiesHuman activities (e.g., deforestation, farming, and urbanization) change the albedo of various areas around the globe. However, quantification of this effect on the global scale is difficult, further study is required to determine anthropogenic effects.Albedo in Astronomy In astronomy, the term albedo can be defined in several different ways, depending upon the application and the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation involved.Optical or Visual AlbedoThe albedos of planets, satellites and minor planets such as asteroids can be used to infer much about their properties. The study of albedos, their dependence on wavelength, lighting angle ("phase angle"), and variation in time composes a major part of the astronomical field of photometry. For small and far objects that cannot be resolved by telescopes, much of what we know comes from the study of their albedos. For example, the absolute albedo can indicate the surface ice content of outer Solar System objects, the variation of albedo with phase angle gives information about regolith properties, whereas unusually high radar albedo is indicative of high metal content in asteroids.Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has one of the highest known optical albedos of any body in the Solar System, with an albedo of 0.99. Another notable high-albedo body is Eris, with an albedo of 0.96. Many small objects in the outer Solar System and asteroid belt have low albedos down to about 0.05. A typical comet nucleus has an albedo of 0.04. Such a dark surface is thought to be indicative of a primitive and heavily space weathered surface containing some organic compounds.The overall albedo of the Moon is measured to be around 0.14, but it is strongly directional and non-Lambertian, displaying also a strong opposition effect. Although such reflectance properties are different from those of any terrestrial terrains, they are typical of the regolith surfaces of airless Solar System bodies.Two common optical albedos that are used in astronomy are the (V-band) geometric albedo (measuring brightness when illumination comes from directly behind the observer) and the Bond albedo (measuring total proportion of electromagnetic energy reflected). Their values can differ significantly, which is a common source of confusion.In detailed studies, the directional reflectance properties of astronomical bodies are often expressed in terms of the five Hapke parameters which semi-empirically describe the variation of albedo with phase angle, including a characterization of the opposition effect of regolith surfaces. One of these five parameters is yet another type of albedo called the single-scattering albedo. It is used to define scattering of electromagnetic waves on small particles. It depends on properties of the material (refractive index), the size of the particle, and the wavelength of the incoming radiation. An important relationship between an object's astronomical (geometric) albedo, absolute magnitude and diameter is given by:where  is the astronomical albedo,  is the diameter in kilometers, and  is the absolute magnitude.Radar AlbedoIn planetary radar astronomy, a microwave (or radar) pulse is transmitted toward a planetary target (e.g. Moon, asteroid, etc.) and the echo from the target is measured. In most instances, the transmitted pulse is circularly polarized and the received pulse is measured in the same sense of polarization as the transmitted pulse (SC) and the opposite sense (OC). The echo power is measured in terms of radar cross-section, , , or  (total power, SC + OC) and is equal to the cross-sectional area of a metallic sphere (perfect reflector) at the same distance as the target that would return the same echo power.Those components of the received echo that return from first-surface reflections (as from a smooth or mirror-like surface) are dominated by the OC component as there is a reversal in polarization upon reflection. If the surface is rough at the wavelength scale or there is significant penetration into the regolith, there will be a significant SC component in the echo caused by multiple scattering.For most objects in the solar system, the OC echo dominates and the most commonly reported radar albedo parameter is the (normalized) OC radar albedo (often shortened to radar albedo):where the denominator is the effective cross-sectional area of the target object with mean radius, . A smooth metallic sphere would have .Radar Albedos of Solar System ObjectsThe values reported for the Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Comet P/2005 JQ5 are derived from the total (OC+SC) radar albedo reported in those references.Relationship to Surface Bulk DensityIn the event that most of the echo is from first surface reflections ( or so), the OC radar albedo is a first-order approximation of the Fresnel reflection coefficient (aka reflectivity) and can be used to estimate the bulk density of a planetary surface to a depth of a meter or so (a few wavelengths of the radar wavelength which is typically at the decimeter scale) using the following empirical relationships: .See also Cool roof Daisyworld Emissivity Exitance Global dimming Irradiance Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation Opposition surge Polar see-saw Radar astronomy Solar radiation managementReferencesExternal links Albedo Project Albedo – Encyclopedia of Earth NASA MODIS BRDF/albedo product site Ocean surface albedo look-up-table Surface albedo derived from Meteosat observations A discussion of Lunar albedos reflectivity of metals (chart)Land surface effects on climateClimate change feedbacksClimate forcingClimatologyElectromagnetic radiationRadiometryScattering, absorption and radiative transfer (optics)Radiation1760s neologisms
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (pronounced ), plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.In the English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", are indefinite articles.HistoryThe earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it from a true alphabet). In turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended.When the ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for a letter to represent the glottal stop—the consonant sound that the letter denoted in Phoenician and other Semitic languages, and that was the first phoneme of the Phoenician pronunciation of the letter—so they used their version of the sign to represent the vowel , and called it by the similar name of alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the Greek Dark Ages, dating to the 8th century BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, although many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set.The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write the Latin language, and the resulting letter was preserved in the Latin alphabet that would come to be used to write many languages, including English.Typographic variantsDuring Roman times, there were many variant forms of the letter "A". First was the monumental or lapidary style, which was used when inscribing on stone or other "permanent" media. There was also a cursive style used for everyday or utilitarian writing, which was done on more perishable surfaces. Due to the "perishable" nature of these surfaces, there are not as many examples of this style as there are of the monumental, but there are still many surviving examples of different types of cursive, such as majuscule cursive, minuscule cursive, and semicursive minuscule. Variants also existed that were intermediate between the monumental and cursive styles. The known variants include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later semi-uncial.At the end of the Roman Empire (5th century AD), several variants of the cursive minuscule developed through Western Europe. Among these were the semicursive minuscule of Italy, the Merovingian script in France, the Visigothic script in Spain, and the Insular or Anglo-Irish semi-uncial or Anglo-Saxon majuscule of Great Britain. By the 9th century, the Caroline script, which was very similar to the present-day form, was the principal form used in book-making, before the advent of the printing press. This form was derived through a combining of prior forms.15th-century Italy saw the formation of the two main variants that are known today. These variants, the Italic and Roman forms, were derived from the Caroline Script version. The Italic form, also called script a, is used in most current handwriting; it consists of a circle and vertical stroke on the right ("ɑ"). This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the hands of medieval Irish and English writers. The Roman form is used in most printed material; it consists of a small loop with an arc over it ("a"). Both derive from the majuscule (capital) form. In Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop, as demonstrated by the uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical. In some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form. Graphic designers refer to the Italic and Roman forms as "single decker a" and "double decker a" respectively.Italic type is commonly used to mark emphasis or more generally to distinguish one part of a text from the rest (set in Roman type). There are some other cases aside from italic type where script a ("ɑ"), also called Latin alpha, is used in contrast with Latin "a" (such as in the International Phonetic Alphabet).Use in writing systemsEnglishIn modern English orthography, the letter  represents at least seven different vowel sounds:the near-open front unrounded vowel  as in pad;the open back unrounded vowel  as in father, which is closer to its original Latin and Greek sound;the diphthong  as in ace and major (usually when  is followed by one, or occasionally two, consonants and then another vowel letter) – this results from Middle English lengthening followed by the Great Vowel Shift;the modified form of the above sound that occurs before , as in square and Mary;the rounded vowel of water;the shorter rounded vowel (not present in General American) in was and what;a schwa, in many unstressed syllables, as in about, comma, solar.The double  sequence does not occur in native English words, but is found in some words derived from foreign languages such as Aaron and aardvark. However,  occurs in many common digraphs, all with their own sound or sounds, particularly , , , ,  and . is the third-most-commonly used letter in English (after  and ) and French, the second most common in Spanish, and the most common in Portuguese. About 8.167% of letters used in English texts tend to be ; the number is around 7.636% in French, 11.525% in Spanish, and 14.634% for Portuguese.Other languagesIn most languages that use the Latin alphabet,  denotes an open unrounded vowel, such as , , or . An exception is Saanich, in which  (and the glyph Á) stands for a close-mid front unrounded vowel .Other systemsIn phonetic and phonemic notation:in the International Phonetic Alphabet,  is used for the open front unrounded vowel,  is used for the open central unrounded vowel, and  is used for the open back unrounded vowel.in X-SAMPA,  is used for the open front unrounded vowel and  is used for the open back unrounded vowel.Other usesIn algebra, the letter a along with various other letters of the alphabet is often used to denote a variable, with various conventional meanings in different areas of mathematics. Moreover, in 1637, René Descartes "invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations by x, y, and z, and knowns by a, b, and c", and this convention is still often followed, especially in elementary algebra.In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to denote segments, lines, rays, etc. A capital A is also typically used as one of the letters to represent an angle in a triangle, the lowercase a representing the side opposite angle A."A" is often used to denote something or someone of a better or more prestigious quality or status: A-, A or A+, the best grade that can be assigned by teachers for students' schoolwork; "A grade" for clean restaurants; A-list celebrities, etc. Such associations can have a motivating effect, as exposure to the letter A has been found to improve performance, when compared with other letters."A" is used as a prefix on some words, such as asymmetry, to mean "not" or "without" (from Greek).In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", is an indefinite article, used to introduce noun phrases.Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe, or a small cup size in a brassiere.Related charactersDescendants and related characters in the Latin alphabetÆ æ : Latin AE ligatureA with diacritics: Å å Ǻ ǻ Ḁ ḁ ẚ Ă ă Ặ ặ Ắ ắ Ằ ằ Ẳ ẳ Ẵ ẵ Ȃ ȃ Â â Ậ ậ Ấ ấ Ầ ầ Ẫ ẫ Ẩ ẩ Ả ả Ǎ ǎ Ⱥ ⱥ Ȧ ȧ Ǡ ǡ Ạ ạ Ä ä Ǟ ǟ À à Ȁ ȁ Á á Ā ā Ā̀ ā̀ Ã ã Ą ą Ą́ ą́ Ą̃ ą̃ A̲ a̲ ᶏPhonetic alphabet symbols related to A (the International Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems): Ɑ ɑ : Latin letter alpha / script A, which represents an open back unrounded vowel in the IPAᶐ : Latin small letter alpha with retroflex hookⱯ ɐ : Turned A, which represents a near-open central vowel in the IPAΛ ʌ : Turned V (also called a wedge, a caret, or a hat), which represents an open-mid back unrounded vowel in the IPAⱰ ɒ : Turned alpha / script A, which represents an open back rounded vowel in the IPAᶛ : Modifier letter small turned alphaᴀ : Small capital A, an obsolete or non-standard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to represent various sounds (mainly open vowels)A a ᵄ : Modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) (sometimes encoded with Unicode subscripts and superscripts)a : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studiesꬱ : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription systemꞺ ꞻ : Glottal A, used in the transliteration of UgariticDerived signs, symbols and abbreviationsª : an ordinal indicatorÅ : Ångström sign∀ : a turned capital letter A, used in predicate logic to specify universal quantification ("for all")@ : At sign₳ : Argentine australAncestors and siblings in other alphabets𐤀 : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols originally deriveΑ α : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters deriveА а : Cyrillic letter A : Coptic letter Alpha𐌀 : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin A : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A : Gothic letter aza/asksԱ ա : Armenian letter AybComputing codes 1Other representationsNotesFootnotesReferencesExternal links History of the Alphabet ISO basic Latin lettersVowel letters
Alabama () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered by Tennessee to the north; Georgia to the east; Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south; and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U.S. states. With a total of  of inland waterways, Alabama has among the most of any state.Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cotton State". The state tree is the longleaf pine, and the state flower is the camellia. Alabama's capital is Montgomery, and its largest city by population and area is Huntsville. Its oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. Greater Birmingham is Alabama's largest metropolitan area and its economic center.Originally home to many native tribes, present-day Alabama was a Spanish territory beginning in the sixteenth century until the French acquired it in the early eighteenth century. The British won the territory in 1763 until losing it in the American Revolutionary War. Spain held Mobile as part of Spanish West Florida until 1813. In December 1819, Alabama was recognized as a state. During the antebellum period, Alabama was a major producer of cotton, and widely used African American slave labor. In 1861, the state seceded from the United States to become part of the Confederate States of America, with Montgomery acting as its first capital, and rejoined the Union in 1868. Following the American Civil War, Alabama would suffer decades of economic hardship, in part due to agriculture and a few cash crops being the main driver of the states economy. Similar to other former slave states, Alabamian legislators employed Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and discriminate against African Americans from the late 19th century up until the 1960s. In the early 20th century, despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature through the mid-20th century. During this time, urban interests and African Americans were markedly under-represented. High-profile events such as the Selma to Montgomery march made the state a major focal point of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. During and after World War II, Alabama grew as the state's economy diversified with new industries. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville would help Alabama's economic growth in the mid-to-late 20th century, by developing an aerospace industry. Alabama's economy in the 21st century is based on automotive, finance, tourism, manufacturing, aerospace, mineral extraction, healthcare, education, retail, and technology.The state's geography is diverse, with the north dominated by the mountainous Tennessee Valley and the south by Mobile Bay, a historically significant port. Politically, as part of the Deep South, Alabama is predominantly a conservative state, and culturally is known for its Southern culture. Within Alabama, American football, particularly at the college level at schools such as the University of Alabama, Auburn University, Alabama A&M University, Alabama State University, Troy University, the University of South Alabama, and Jacksonville State University, play a major part of the state's culture.EtymologyThe European-American naming of the Alabama River and state was derived from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river. In the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is  (or variously  or  in different dialects; the plural form is ). The suggestion that "Alabama" was borrowed from the Choctaw language is unlikely. The word's spelling varies significantly among historical sources. The first usage appears in three accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540: Garcilaso de la Vega used , while the Knight of Elvas and Rodrigo Ranjel wrote Alibamu and Limamu, respectively, in transliterations of the term. As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the , with French maps identifying the river as . Other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Alabamo, Albama, Alebamon, Alibama, Alibamou, Alabamu, Allibamou. and possibly Alabahmu. The use of state names derived from Native American languages is common in the U.S.; an estimated 27 states have names of Native American origin.Sources disagree on the word's meaning. Some scholars suggest the word comes from the Choctaw  (meaning 'plants' or 'weeds') and  (meaning 'to cut', 'to trim', or 'to gather'). The meaning may have been 'clearers of the thicket' or 'herb gatherers', referring to clearing land for cultivation or collecting medicinal plants. The state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language.An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant 'Here We Rest'. This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek. Experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation.HistoryPre-European settlementIndigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization. Trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period (1000BCE700CE) and continued until European contact.The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 CE, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, which was the center of the culture. Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars' formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no direct links to Mesoamerican culture, but developed independently. The Ceremonial Complex represents a major component of the religion of the Mississippian peoples; it is one of the primary means by which their religion is understood.Among the historical tribes of Native American people living in present-day Alabama at the time of European contact were the Cherokee, an Iroquoian language people; and the Muskogean-speaking Alabama (Alibamu), Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Koasati. While part of the same large language family, the Muskogee tribes developed distinct cultures and languages.European settlementThe Spanish were the first Europeans to reach Alabama during their exploration of North America in the 16th century. The expedition of Hernando de Soto passed through Mabila and other parts of the state in 1540. More than 160 years later, the French founded the region's first European settlement at Old Mobile in 1702. The city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711. This area was claimed by the French from 1702 to 1763 as part of La Louisiane.After the French lost to the British in the Seven Years' War, it became part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1783. After the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, the territory was divided between the United States and Spain. The latter retained control of this western territory from 1783 until the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Mobile to U.S. forces on April 13, 1813.Thomas Bassett, a loyalist to the British monarchy during the Revolutionary era, was one of the earliest white settlers in the state outside Mobile. He settled in the Tombigbee District during the early 1770s. The district's boundaries were roughly limited to the area within a few miles of the Tombigbee River and included portions of what is today southern Clarke County, northernmost Mobile County, and most of Washington County.What is now the counties of Baldwin and Mobile became part of Spanish West Florida in 1783, part of the independent Republic of West Florida in 1810, and was finally added to the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Most of what is now the northern two-thirds of Alabama was known as the Yazoo lands beginning during the British colonial period. It was claimed by the Province of Georgia from 1767 onwards. Following the Revolutionary War, it remained a part of Georgia, although heavily disputed.With the exception of the area around Mobile and the Yazoo lands, what is now the lower one-third of Alabama was made part of the Mississippi Territory when it was organized in 1798. The Yazoo lands were added to the territory in 1804, following the Yazoo land scandal. Spain kept a claim on its former Spanish West Florida territory in what would become the coastal counties until the Adams–Onís Treaty officially ceded it to the United States in 1819.Early 19th centuryBefore Mississippi's admission to statehood on December 10, 1817, the more sparsely settled eastern half of the territory was separated and named the Alabama Territory. The United States Congress created the Alabama Territory on March 3, 1817. St. Stephens, now abandoned, served as the territorial capital from 1817 to 1819.Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state on December 14, 1819, with Congress selecting Huntsville as the site for the first Constitutional Convention. From July5 to August 2, 1819, delegates met to prepare the new state constitution. Huntsville served as temporary capital from 1819 to 1820, when the seat of government moved to Cahaba in Dallas County.Cahaba, now a ghost town, was the first permanent state capital from 1820 to 1825. The Alabama Fever land rush was underway when the state was admitted to the Union, with settlers and land speculators pouring into the state to take advantage of fertile land suitable for cotton cultivation. Part of the frontier in the 1820s and 1830s, its constitution provided for universal suffrage for white men.Southeastern planters and traders from the Upper South brought slaves with them as the cotton plantations in Alabama expanded. The economy of the central Black Belt (named for its dark, productive soil) was built around large cotton plantations whose owners' wealth grew mainly from slave labor. The area also drew many poor, disenfranchised people who became subsistence farmers. Alabama had an estimated population of under 10,000 people in 1810, but it increased to more than 300,000 people by 1830. Most Native American tribes were completely removed from the state within a few years of the passage of the Indian Removal Act by Congress in 1830.From 1826 to 1846, Tuscaloosa served as Alabama's capital. On January 30, 1846, the Alabama legislature announced it had voted to move the capital city from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. The first legislative session in the new capital met in December 1847. A new capitol building was erected under the direction of Stephen Decatur Button of Philadelphia. The first structure burned down in 1849, but was rebuilt on the same site in 1851. This second capitol building in Montgomery remains to the present day. It was designed by Barachias Holt of Exeter, Maine.Civil War and ReconstructionBy 1860, the population had increased to 964,201 people, of which nearly half, 435,080, were enslaved African Americans, and 2,690 were free people of color. On January 11, 1861, Alabama declared its secession from the Union. After remaining an independent republic for a few days, it joined the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy's capital was initially at Montgomery. Alabama was heavily involved in the American Civil War. Although comparatively few battles were fought in the state, Alabama contributed about 120,000 soldiers to the war effort.A company of cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, Alabama, joined Nathan Bedford Forrest's battalion in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The company wore new uniforms with yellow trim on the sleeves, collar and coattails. This led to them being greeted with "Yellowhammer", and the name later was applied to all Alabama troops in the Confederate Army.Alabama's slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment in 1865. Alabama was under military rule from the end of the war in May 1865 until its official restoration to the Union in 1868. From 1867 to 1874, with most white citizens barred temporarily from voting and freedmen enfranchised, many African Americans emerged as political leaders in the state. Alabama was represented in Congress during this period by three African-American congressmen: Jeremiah Haralson, Benjamin S. Turner, and James T. Rapier.Following the war, the state remained chiefly agricultural, with an economy tied to cotton. During Reconstruction, state legislators ratified a new state constitution in 1868 which created the state's first public school system and expanded women's rights. Legislators funded numerous public road and railroad projects, although these were plagued with allegations of fraud and misappropriation. Organized insurgent, resistance groups tried to suppress the freedmen and Republicans. Besides the short-lived original Ku Klux Klan, these included the Pale Faces, Knights of the White Camellia, Red Shirts, and the White League.Reconstruction in Alabama ended in 1874, when the Democrats regained control of the legislature and governor's office through an election dominated by fraud and violence. They wrote another constitution in 1875, and the legislature passed the Blaine Amendment, prohibiting public money from being used to finance religious-affiliated schools. The same year, legislation was approved that called for racially segregated schools. Railroad passenger cars were segregated in 1891.20th centuryThe new 1901 Constitution of Alabama included provisions for voter registration that effectively disenfranchised large portions of the population, including nearly all African Americans and Native Americans, and tens of thousands of poor European Americans, through making voter registration difficult, requiring a poll tax and literacy test. The 1901 constitution required racial segregation of public schools. By 1903 only 2,980 African Americans were registered in Alabama, although at least 74,000 were literate. This compared to more than 181,000 African Americans eligible to vote in 1900. The numbers dropped even more in later decades. The state legislature passed additional racial segregation laws related to public facilities into the 1950s: jails were segregated in 1911; hospitals in 1915; toilets, hotels, and restaurants in 1928; and bus stop waiting rooms in 1945.While the planter class had persuaded poor whites to vote for this legislative effort to suppress black voting, the new restrictions resulted in their disenfranchisement as well, due mostly to the imposition of a cumulative poll tax. By 1941, whites constituted a slight majority of those disenfranchised by these laws: 600,000 whites vs. 520,000 African-Americans. Nearly all Blacks had lost the ability to vote. Despite numerous legal challenges which succeeded in overturning certain provisions, the state legislature would create new ones to maintain disenfranchisement. The exclusion of blacks from the political system persisted until after passage of federal civil rights legislation in 1965 to enforce their constitutional rights as citizens.The rural-dominated Alabama legislature consistently underfunded schools and services for the disenfranchised African Americans, but it did not relieve them of paying taxes. Partially as a response to chronic underfunding of education for African Americans in the South, the Rosenwald Fund began funding the construction of what came to be known as Rosenwald Schools. In Alabama these schools were designed and the construction partially financed with Rosenwald funds, which paid one-third of the construction costs. The fund required the local community and state to raise matching funds to pay the rest. Black residents effectively taxed themselves twice, by raising additional monies to supply matching funds for such schools, which were built in many rural areas. They often donated land and labor as well.Beginning in 1913, the first 80 Rosenwald Schools were built in Alabama for African-American children. A total of 387 schools, seven teachers' houses, and several vocational buildings were completed by 1937 in the state. Several of the surviving school buildings in the state are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Continued racial discrimination and lynchings, agricultural depression, and the failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation led tens of thousands of African Americans from rural Alabama and other states to seek opportunities in northern and midwestern cities during the early decades of the 20th century as part of the Great Migration out of the South. Reflecting this emigration, the population growth rate in Alabama (see "historical populations" table below) dropped by nearly half from 1910 to 1920.At the same time, many rural people migrated to the city of Birmingham to work in new industrial jobs. Birmingham experienced such rapid growth it was called the "Magic City". By 1920, Birmingham was the 36th-largest city in the United States. Heavy industry and mining were the basis of its economy. Its residents were under-represented for decades in the state legislature, which refused to redistrict after each decennial census according to population changes, as it was required by the state constitution. This did not change until the late 1960s following a lawsuit and court order.Industrial development related to the demands of World War II brought a level of prosperity to the state not seen since before the civil war. Rural workers poured into the largest cities in the state for better jobs and a higher standard of living. One example of this massive influx of workers occurred in Mobile. Between 1940 and 1943, more than 89,000 people moved into the city to work for war-related industries. Cotton and other cash crops faded in importance as the state developed a manufacturing and service base.Despite massive population changes in the state from 1901 to 1961, the rural-dominated legislature refused to reapportion House and Senate seats based on population, as required by the state constitution to follow the results of decennial censuses. They held on to old representation to maintain political and economic power in agricultural areas. One result was that Jefferson County, containing Birmingham's industrial and economic powerhouse, contributed more than one-third of all tax revenue to the state, but did not receive a proportional amount in services. Urban interests were consistently underrepresented in the legislature. A 1960 study noted that because of rural domination, "a minority of about 25% of the total state population is in majority control of the Alabama legislature."In the United States Supreme Court cases of Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the court ruled that the principle of "one man, one vote" needed to be the basis of both houses of state legislatures, and that their districts had to be based on population rather than geographic counties.In 1972, for the first time since 1901, the legislature completed the congressional redistricting based on the decennial census. This benefited the urban areas that had developed, as well as all in the population who had been underrepresented for more than sixty years. Other changes were made to implement representative state house and senate districts.African Americans continued to press in the 1950s and 1960s to end disenfranchisement and segregation in the state through the civil rights movement, including legal challenges. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that public schools had to be desegregated, but Alabama was slow to comply. During the 1960s, under Governor George Wallace, Alabama resisted compliance with federal demands for desegregation. The civil rights movement had notable events in Alabama, including the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956), Freedom Rides in 1961, and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. These contributed to Congressional passage and enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 by the U.S. Congress.Legal segregation ended in the states in 1964, but Jim Crow customs often continued until specifically challenged in court. According to The New York Times, by 2017, many of Alabama's African-Americans were living in Alabama's cities such as Birmingham and Montgomery. Also, the Black Belt region across central Alabama "is home to largely poor counties that are predominantly African-American. These counties include Dallas, Lowndes, Marengo and Perry."Alabama has made some changes since the late 20th century and has used new types of voting to increase representation. In the 1980s, an omnibus redistricting case, Dillard v. Crenshaw County, challenged the at-large voting for representative seats of 180 Alabama jurisdictions, including counties and school boards. At-large voting had diluted the votes of any minority in a county, as the majority tended to take all seats. Despite African Americans making up a significant minority in the state, they had been unable to elect any representatives in most of the at-large jurisdictions.As part of settlement of this case, five Alabama cities and counties, including Chilton County, adopted a system of cumulative voting for election of representatives in multi-seat jurisdictions. This has resulted in more proportional representation for voters. In another form of proportional representation, 23 jurisdictions use limited voting, as in Conecuh County. In 1982, limited voting was first tested in Conecuh County. Together use of these systems has increased the number of African Americans and women being elected to local offices, resulting in governments that are more representative of their citizens.Beginning in the 1960s, the state's economy shifted away from its traditional lumber, steel, and textile industries because of increased foreign competition. Steel jobs, for instance, declined from 46,314 in 1950 to 14,185 in 2011. However, the state, particularly Huntsville, benefited from the opening of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in 1960, a major facility in the development of the Saturn rocket program and the space shuttle. Technology and manufacturing industries, such as automobile assembly, replaced some the state's older industries in the late twentieth century, but the state's economy and growth lagged behind other states in the area, such as Georgia and Florida.21st centuryIn 2001, Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore installed a statue of the Ten Commandments in the capitol in Montgomery. In 2002, the 11th US Circuit Court ordered the statue removed, but Moore refused to follow the court order, which led to protests around the capitol in favor of keeping the monument.  The monument was removed in August 2003.A few natural disasters have occurred in the state in the twenty-first century. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan, a category 3 storm upon landfall, struck the state and caused over $18 billion of damage. It was among the most destructive storms to strike the state in its modern history. A super outbreak of 62 tornadoes hit the state in April 2011 and killed 238 people, devastating many communities.GeographyAlabama is the thirtieth-largest state in the United States with  of total area: 3.2% of the area is water, making Alabama 23rd in the amount of surface water, also giving it the second-largest inland waterway system in the United States. About three-fifths of the land area is part of the Gulf Coastal Plain, a gentle plain with a general descent towards the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The North Alabama region is mostly mountainous, with the Tennessee River cutting a large valley and creating numerous creeks, streams, rivers, mountains, and lakes.Alabama is bordered by the states of Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama has coastline at the Gulf of Mexico, in the extreme southern edge of the state. The state ranges in elevation from sea level at Mobile Bay to more than  in the northeast, to Mount Cheaha at .Alabama's land consists of  of forest or 67% of the state's total land area. Suburban Baldwin County, along the Gulf Coast, is the largest county in the state in both land area and water area.Areas in Alabama administered by the National Park Service include Horseshoe Bend National Military Park near Alexander City; Little River Canyon National Preserve near Fort Payne; Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport; Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee; and Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site near Tuskegee. Additionally, Alabama has four National Forests: Conecuh, Talladega, Tuskegee, and William B. Bankhead. Alabama also contains the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail, and the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.Notable natural wonders include: the "Natural Bridge" rock, the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies, located just south of Haleyville; Cathedral Caverns in Marshall County, named for its cathedral-like appearance, features one of the largest cave entrances and stalagmites in the world; Ecor Rouge in Fairhope, the highest coastline point between Maine and Mexico; DeSoto Caverns in Childersburg, the first officially recorded cave in the United States; Noccalula Falls in Gadsden features a 90-foot waterfall; Dismals Canyon near Phil Campbell, home to two waterfalls, six natural bridges and allegedly served as a hideout for legendary outlaw Jesse James; Stephens Gap Cave in Jackson County boasts a 143-foot pit, two waterfalls and is one of the most photographed wild cave scenes in America; Little River Canyon near Fort Payne, one of the nation's longest mountaintop rivers; Rickwood Caverns near Warrior features an underground pool, blind cave fish and 260-million-year-old limestone formations; and the Walls of Jericho canyon on the Alabama-Tennessee state line.A -wide meteorite impact crater is located in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery. This is the Wetumpka crater, the site of "Alabama's greatest natural disaster". A -wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago. The hills just east of downtown Wetumpka showcase the eroded remains of the impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock, with the area labeled the Wetumpka crater or astrobleme ("star-wound") because of the concentric rings of fractures and zones of shattered rock that can be found beneath the surface. In 2002, Christian Koeberl with the Institute of Geochemistry University of Vienna published evidence and established the site as the 157th recognized impact crater on Earth.ClimateThe state is classified as humid subtropical (Cfa) under the Koppen Climate Classification. The average annual temperature is 64°F (18°C). Temperatures tend to be warmer in the southern part of the state with its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, while the northern parts of the state, especially in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast, tend to be slightly cooler. Generally, Alabama has very hot summers and mild winters with copious precipitation throughout the year. Alabama receives an average of  of rainfall annually and enjoys a lengthy growing season of up to 300 days in the southern part of the state.Summers in Alabama are among the hottest in the U.S., with high temperatures averaging over  throughout the summer in some parts of the state. Alabama is also prone to tropical storms and hurricanes. Areas of the state far away from the Gulf are not immune to the effects of the storms, which often dump tremendous amounts of rain as they move inland and weaken.South Alabama reports many thunderstorms. The Gulf Coast, around Mobile Bay, averages between 70 and 80 days per year with thunder reported. This activity decreases somewhat further north in the state, but even the far north of the state reports thunder on about 60 days per year. Occasionally, thunderstorms are severe with frequent lightning and large hail; the central and northern parts of the state are most vulnerable to this type of storm. Alabama ranks ninth in the number of deaths from lightning and tenth in the number of deaths from lightning strikes per capita.Alabama, along with Oklahoma and Iowa, has the most confirmed F5 and EF5 tornadoes of any state, according to statistics from the National Climatic Data Center for the period January 1, 1950, to June 2013. Several long-tracked F5/EF5 tornadoes have contributed to Alabama reporting more tornado fatalities since 1950 than any other state. The state was affected by the 1974 Super Outbreak and was devastated tremendously by the 2011 Super Outbreak. The 2011 Super Outbreak produced a record amount of tornadoes in the state. The tally reached 62.The peak season for tornadoes varies from the northern to southern parts of the state. Alabama is one of the few places in the world that has a secondary tornado season in November and December besides the typically severe spring. The northern part—along the Tennessee River Valley—is most vulnerable. The area of Alabama and Mississippi most affected by tornadoes is sometimes referred to as Dixie Alley, as distinct from the Tornado Alley of the Southern Plains.Winters are generally mild in Alabama, as they are throughout most of the Southeastern United States, with average January low temperatures around  in Mobile and around  in Birmingham. Although snow is a rare event in much of Alabama, areas of the state north of Montgomery may receive a dusting of snow a few times every winter, with an occasional moderately heavy snowfall every few years. Historic snowfall events include New Year's Eve 1963 snowstorm and the 1993 Storm of the Century. The annual average snowfall for the Birmingham area is  per year. In the southern Gulf coast, snowfall is less frequent, sometimes going several years without any snowfall.Alabama's highest temperature of  was recorded on September 5, 1925, in the unincorporated community of Centerville. The record low of  occurred on January 30, 1966, in New Market.Flora and faunaAlabama is home to a diverse array of flora and fauna in habitats that range from the Tennessee Valley, Appalachian Plateau, and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the north to the Piedmont, Canebrake, and Black Belt of the central region to the Gulf Coastal Plain and beaches along the Gulf of Mexico in the south. The state is usually ranked among the top in nation for its range of overall biodiversity.Alabama is in the subtropical coniferous forest biome and once boasted huge expanses of pine forest, which still form the largest proportion of forests in the state. It currently ranks fifth in the nation for the diversity of its flora. It is home to nearly 4,000 pteridophyte and spermatophyte plant species.Indigenous animal species in the state include 62 mammal species, 93 reptile species, 73 amphibian species, roughly 307 native freshwater fish species, and 420 bird species that spend at least part of their year within the state. Invertebrates include 97 crayfish species and 383 mollusk species. 113 of these mollusk species have never been collected outside the state.Census-designated and metropolitan areasCitiesDemographicsAccording to the 2020 United States census the population of Alabama was 5,024,279 on April 1, 2020, which represents an increase of 244,543 or 5.12%, since the 2010 census. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 121,054 (502,457 births minus 381,403 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 104,991 into the state.Immigration from outside the U.S. resulted in a net increase of 31,180 people, and migration within the country produced a net gain of 73,811 people. The state had 108,000 foreign-born (2.4% of the state population), of which an estimated 22.2% were undocumented (24,000).The center of population of Alabama is located in Chilton County, outside the town of Jemison.AncestryThose citing "American" ancestry in Alabama are of overwhelmingly English extraction, however most English Americans identify simply as having American ancestry because their roots have been in North America for so long, in many cases since the early sixteen hundreds.  Demographers estimate that a minimum of 20–23% of people in Alabama are of predominantly English ancestry and state that the figure is probably much higher. In the 1980 census 1,139,976 people in Alabama cited that they were of English ancestry out of a total state population of 2,824,719 making them 41% of the state at the time and the largest ethnic group.In 2011, 46.6% of Alabama's population younger than age1 were minorities. The largest reported ancestry groups in Alabama are American (13.4%), Irish (10.5%), English (10.2%), German (7.9%), and Scots-Irish (2.5%) based on 2006-2008 Census data.The Scots-Irish were the largest non-English immigrant group from the British Isles before the American Revolution, and many settled in the South, later moving into the Deep South as it was developed.In 1984, under the Davis–Strong Act, the state legislature established the Alabama Indian Affairs Commission. Native American groups within the state had increasingly been demanding recognition as ethnic groups and seeking an end to discrimination. Given the long history of slavery and associated racial segregation, the Native American peoples, who have sometimes been of mixed race, have insisted on having their cultural identification respected. In the past, their self-identification was often overlooked as the state tried to impose a binary breakdown of society into white and black. The state has officially recognized nine American Indian tribes in the state, descended mostly from the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast. These are the following. Poarch Band of Creek Indians (who also have federal recognition) MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians Star Clan of Muscogee Creeks Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama Cher-O-Creek Intra Tribal Indians Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe Piqua Shawnee Tribe Ani-Yun-Wiya NationThe state government has promoted recognition of Native American contributions to the state, including the designation in 2000 for Columbus Day to be jointly celebrated as American Indian Heritage Day.LanguageMost Alabama residents (95.1% of those five and older) spoke only English at home in 2010, a minor decrease from 96.1% in 2000. Alabama English is predominantly Southern, and is related to South Midland speech which was taken across the border from Tennessee. In the major Southern speech region, there is the decreasing loss of the final r, for example the "boyd" pronunciation of "bird". In the northern third of the state, there is a South Midland "arm" and "barb" rhyming with "form" and "orb". Unique words in Alabama English include: redworm (earthworm), peckerwood (woodpecker), snake doctor and snake feeder (dragonfly), tow sack (burlap bag), plum peach (clingstone), French harp (harmonica), and dog irons (andirons).ReligionIn the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, 86% of Alabama respondents reported their religion as Christian, including 6% Catholic, with 11% as having no religion. The composition of other traditions is 0.5% Mormon, 0.5% Jewish, 0.5% Muslim, 0.5% Buddhist, and 0.5% Hindu.Alabama is located in the middle of the Bible Belt, a region of numerous Protestant Christians. Alabama has been identified as one of the most religious states in the United States, with about 58% of the population attending church regularly. A majority of people in the state identify as Evangelical Protestant. , the three largest denominational groups in Alabama are the Southern Baptist Convention, The United Methodist Church, and non-denominational Evangelical Protestant.In Alabama, the Southern Baptist Convention has the highest number of adherents with 1,380,121; this is followed by the United Methodist Church with 327,734 adherents, non-denominational Evangelical Protestant with 220,938 adherents, and the Catholic Church with 150,647 adherents. Many Baptist and Methodist congregations became established in the Great Awakening of the early 19th century, when preachers proselytized across the South. The Assemblies of God had almost 60,000 members, the Churches of Christ had nearly 120,000 members. The Presbyterian churches, strongly associated with Scots-Irish immigrants of the 18th century and their descendants, had a combined membership around 75,000 (PCA—28,009 members in 108 congregations, PC(USA)—26,247 members in 147 congregations, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church—6,000 members in 59 congregations, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America—5,000 members and fifty congregations plus the EPC and Associate Reformed Presbyterians with 230 members and nine congregations).In a 2007 survey, nearly 70% of respondents could name all four of the Christian Gospels. Of those who indicated a religious preference, 59% said they possessed a "full understanding" of their faith and needed no further learning. In a 2007 poll, 92% of Alabamians reported having at least some confidence in churches in the state.Although in much smaller numbers, many other religious faiths are represented in the state as well, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, the Baháʼí Faith, and Unitarian Universalism.Jews have been present in what is now Alabama since 1763, during the colonial era of Mobile, when Sephardic Jews immigrated from London. The oldest Jewish congregation in the state is Congregation Sha'arai Shomayim in Mobile. It was formally recognized by the state legislature on January 25, 1844. Later immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to be Ashkenazi Jews from eastern Europe. Jewish denominations in the state include two Orthodox, four Conservative, ten Reform, and one Humanistic synagogue.Muslims have been increasing in Alabama, with 31 mosques built by 2011, many by African-American converts.Several Hindu temples and cultural centers in the state have been founded by Indian immigrants and their descendants, the best-known being the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Birmingham, the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Birmingham in Pelham, the Hindu Cultural Center of North Alabama in Capshaw, and the Hindu Mandir and Cultural Center in Tuscaloosa.There are six Dharma centers and organizations for Theravada Buddhists. Most monastic Buddhist temples are concentrated in southern Mobile County, near Bayou La Batre. This area has attracted an influx of refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam during the 1970s and thereafter. The four temples within a ten-mile radius of Bayou La Batre, include Chua Chanh Giac, Wat Buddharaksa, and Wat Lao Phoutthavihan.The first community of adherents of the Baháʼí Faith in Alabama was founded in 1896 by Paul K. Dealy, who moved from Chicago to Fairhope. Baháʼí centers in Alabama exist in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Florence.HealthIn 2018, life expectancy in Alabama was 75.1 years, below the national average of 78.7 years and is the third lowest life expectancy in the country. Factors that can cause lower life expectancy are maternal mortality, suicide, and gun crimes.A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study in 2008 showed that obesity in Alabama is a problem, with most counties having more than 29% of adults obese, except for ten which had a rate between 26% and 29%. Residents of the state, along with those in five other states, were least likely in the nation to be physically active during leisure time. Alabama, and the southeastern U.S. in general, has one of the highest incidences of adult onset diabetes in the country, exceeding 10% of adults.On May 14, 2019, Alabama passed the Human Life Protection Act, banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy unless there is a "serious health risk", with no exceptions for rape and incest. The law, if enacted, would punish doctors who perform abortions with 10 to 99 years imprisonment and be the most restrictive abortion law in the country. However, on October 29, 2019, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson blocked the law from taking effect.EconomyThe state has invested in aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries, including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. By 2006, crop and animal production in Alabama was valued at $1.5billion. In contrast to the primarily agricultural economy of the previous century, this was only about one percent of the state's gross domestic product. The number of private farms has declined at a steady rate since the 1960s, as land has been sold to developers, timber companies, and large farming conglomerates.Non-agricultural employment in 2008 was 121,800 in management occupations; 71,750 in business and financial operations; 36,790 in computer-related and mathematical occupation; 44,200 in architecture and engineering; 12,410 in life, physical, and social sciences; 32,260 in community and social services; 12,770 in legal occupations; 116,250 in education, training, and library services; 27,840 in art, design and media occupations; 121,110 in healthcare; 44,750 in fire fighting, law enforcement, and security; 154,040 in food preparation and serving; 76,650 in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; 53,230 in personal care and services; 244,510 in sales; 338,760 in office and administration support; 20,510 in farming, fishing, and forestry; 120,155 in construction and mining, gas, and oil extraction; 106,280 in installation, maintenance, and repair; 224,110 in production; and 167,160 in transportation and material moving.According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 2008 total gross state product was $170billion, or $29,411 per capita. Alabama's 2012 GDP increased 1.2% from the previous year. The single largest increase came in the area of information. In 2010, per capita income for the state was $22,984.The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.8% in April 2015. This compared to a nationwide seasonally adjusted rate of 5.4%.Alabama has no minimum wage and in February 2016 passed legislation preventing municipalities from setting one. (A Birmingham city ordinance would have raised theirs to $10.10.), Alabama has the sixth highest poverty rate among states in the U.S. In 2017, United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston toured parts of rural Alabama and observed environmental conditions he said were poorer than anywhere he had seen in the developed world.Largest employersThe five employers that employed the most employees in Alabama in April 2011 were:The next twenty largest employers, , included:AgricultureAlabama's agricultural outputs include poultry and eggs, cattle, fish, plant nursery items, peanuts, cotton, grains such as corn and sorghum, vegetables, milk, soybeans, and peaches. Although known as "The Cotton State", Alabama ranks between eighth and tenth in national cotton production, according to various reports, with Texas, Georgia and Mississippi comprising the top three.Aquaculture Aquaculture is a large part of the economy of Alabama. Alabamians began to practice aquaculture in the early 1960s. U.S. farm-raised catfish is the 8th most popular seafood product in America. By 2008, approximately 4,000 people in Alabama were employed by the catfish industry and Alabama produced 132 million pounds of catfish. In 2020, Alabama produced ⅓ of the United States' farm-raised catfish. The total 2020 sales of catfish raised in Alabama equaled $307 million but by 2020 the total employment of Alabamians fell to 2,442.From the early 2000s to 2020, the Alabamian catfish industry has declined from 250 farms and 4 processors to 66 farms and 2 processors. Reasons for this decline include increased feed prices, catfish alternatives, COVID-19’s impact on restaurant sales, disease, and fish size.IndustryAlabama's industrial outputs include iron and steel products (including cast-iron and steel pipe); paper, lumber, and wood products; mining (mostly coal); plastic products; cars and trucks; and apparel. In addition, Alabama produces aerospace and electronic products, mostly in the Huntsville area, the location of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Materiel Command, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal.A great deal of Alabama's economic growth since the 1990s has been due to the state's expanding automotive manufacturing industry. Located in the state are Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, as well as their various suppliers. Since 1993, the automobile industry has generated more than 67,800 new jobs in the state. Alabama currently ranks 4th in the nation for vehicle exports.Automakers accounted for approximately a third of the industrial expansion in the state in 2012. The eight models produced at the state's auto factories totaled combined sales of 74,335 vehicles for 2012. The strongest model sales during this period were the Hyundai Elantra compact car, the Mercedes-Benz GL-Class sport utility vehicle and the Honda Ridgeline sport utility truck.Steel producers Outokumpu, Nucor, SSAB, ThyssenKrupp, and U.S. Steel have facilities in Alabama and employ more than 10,000 people. In May 2007, German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp selected Calvert in Mobile County for a 4.65billion combined stainless and carbon steel processing facility. ThyssenKrupp's stainless steel division, Inoxum, including the stainless portion of the Calvert plant, was sold to Finnish stainless steel company Outokumpu in 2012. The remaining portion of the ThyssenKrupp plant had final bids submitted by ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel for $1.6billion in March 2013. Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional submitted a combined bid for the mill at Calvert, plus a majority stake in the ThyssenKrupp mill in Brazil, for $3.8billion. In July 2013, the plant was sold to ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel.The Hunt Refining Company, a subsidiary of Hunt Consolidated, Inc., is based in Tuscaloosa and operates a refinery there. The company also operates terminals in Mobile, Melvin, and Moundville. JVC America, Inc. operates an optical disc replication and packaging plant in Tuscaloosa.The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company operates a large plant in Gadsden which employs about 1,400 people. It has been in operation since 1929.Construction of an Airbus A320 family aircraft assembly plant in Mobile was formally announced by Airbus CEO Fabrice Brégier from the Mobile Convention Center on July 2, 2012. The plans include a $600million factory at the Brookley Aeroplex for the assembly of the A319, A320 and A321 aircraft. Construction began in 2013, with plans for it to become operable by 2015 and produce up to 50 aircraft per year by 2017. The assembly plant is the company's first factory to be built within the United States. It was announced on February 1, 2013, that Airbus had hired Alabama-based Hoar Construction to oversee construction of the facility.Tourism and entertainmentAccording to Business Insider, Alabama ranked 14th in most popular states to visit in 2014. An estimated 26 million tourists visited the state in 2017 and spent $14.3 billion, providing directly or indirectly 186,900 jobs in the state, which includes 362,000 International tourists spending $589 million.The state is home to various attractions, natural features, parks and events that attract visitors from around the globe, notably the annual Hangout Music Festival, held on the public beaches of Gulf Shores; the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, one of the ten largest Shakespeare festivals in the world; the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, a collection of championship caliber golf courses distributed across the state; casinos such as Victoryland; amusement parks such as Alabama Splash Adventure; the Riverchase Galleria, one of the largest shopping centers in the southeast; Guntersville Lake, voted the best lake in Alabama by Southern Living Magazine readers; and the Alabama Museum of Natural History, the oldest museum in the state.Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Mardi Gras celebration in the United States, beginning in 1703. It was also host to the first formally organized Mardi Gras parade in the United States in 1830, a tradition that continues to this day. Mardi Gras is an official state holiday in Mobile and Baldwin counties.In 2018, Mobile's Mardi Gras parade was the state's top event, producing the most tourists with an attendance of 892,811. The top attraction was the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville with an attendance of 849,981, followed by the Birmingham Zoo with 543,090. Of the parks and natural destinations, Alabama's Gulf Coast topped the list with 6,700,000 visitors.Alabama has historically been a popular region for film shoots due to its diverse landscapes and contrast of environments. Movies filmed in Alabama include: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Get Out, 42, Selma, Big Fish, The Final Destination, Due Date, Need For Speed and many more.HealthcareUAB Hospital, USA Health University Hospital, Huntsville Hospital, and Children's Hospital of Alabama are the only LevelI trauma centers in Alabama. UAB is the largest state government employer in Alabama, with a workforce of about 18,000. A 2017 study found that Alabama had the least competitive health insurance market in the country, with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama having a market share of 84% followed by UnitedHealth Group at 7%.BankingRegions Financial Corporation is the largest bank headquartered in or operating in Alabama. PNC Financial Services  and Wells Fargo also have a major presence in Alabama.Wells Fargo has a regional headquarters, an operations center campus, and a $400million data center in Birmingham. Many smaller banks are also headquartered in the Birmingham area, including ServisFirst and New South Federal Savings Bank. Birmingham also serves as the headquarters for several large investment management companies, including Harbert Management Corporation.Electronics and communicationsTelecommunications provider AT&T, formerly BellSouth, has a major presence in Alabama with several large offices in Birmingham.Many technology companies are headquartered in Huntsville, such as ADTRAN, a network access company; Intergraph, a computer graphics company; and Avocent, an IT infrastructure company.ConstructionBrasfield & Gorrie, BE&K, Hoar Construction, and B.L. Harbert International, based in Alabama and subsidiaries of URS Corporation, are all routinely are included in the Engineering News-Record lists of top design, international construction, and engineering firms.Law and governmentState governmentThe foundational document for Alabama's government is the Alabama Constitution, which was ratified in 1901. With over 850 amendments and almost 87,000 words, it is by some accounts the world's longest constitution and is roughly forty times the length of the United States Constitution.There has been a significant movement to rewrite and modernize Alabama's constitution. Critics argue that Alabama's constitution maintains highly centralized power with the state legislature, leaving practically no power in local hands. Most counties do not have home rule. Any policy changes proposed in different areas of the state must be approved by the entire Alabama legislature and, frequently, by state referendum. One criticism of the current constitution claims that its complexity and length intentionally codify segregation and racism.Alabama's government is divided into three coequal branches. The legislative branch is the Alabama Legislature, a bicameral assembly composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama Senate, with 35 members. The Legislature is responsible for writing, debating, passing, or defeating state legislation. The Republican Party currently holds a majority in both houses of the Legislature. The Legislature has the power to override a gubernatorial veto by a simple majority (most state Legislatures require a two-thirds majority to override a veto).Until 1964, the state elected state senators on a geographic basis by county, with one per county. It had not redistricted congressional districts since passage of its constitution in 1901; as a result, urbanized areas were grossly underrepresented. It had not changed legislative districts to reflect the decennial censuses, either. In Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court implemented the principle of "one man, one vote", ruling that congressional districts had to be reapportioned based on censuses (as the state already included in its constitution but had not implemented.) Further, the court ruled that both houses of bicameral state legislatures had to be apportioned by population, as there was no constitutional basis for states to have geographically based systems.At that time, Alabama and many other states had to change their legislative districting, as many across the country had systems that underrepresented urban areas and districts. This had caused decades of underinvestment in such areas. For instance, Birmingham and Jefferson County taxes had supplied one-third of the state budget, but Jefferson County received only 1/67th of state services in funding. Through the legislative delegations, the Alabama legislature kept control of county governments.The executive branch is responsible for the execution and oversight of laws. It is headed by the governor of Alabama. Other members of the executive branch include the cabinet, the lieutenant governor of Alabama, the Attorney General of Alabama, the Alabama Secretary of State, the Alabama State Treasurer, and the State Auditor of Alabama. The current governor is Republican Kay Ivey.The members of the Legislature take office immediately after the November elections. Statewide officials, such as the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and other constitutional officers, take office the following January.The judiciary is responsible for interpreting the Constitution of Alabama and applying the law in state criminal and civil cases. The state's highest court is the Supreme Court of Alabama. Alabama uses partisan elections to select judges. Since the 1980s judicial campaigns have become increasingly politicized. The current chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is Republican Tom Parker. All sitting justices on the Alabama Supreme Court are members of the Republican Party. There are two intermediate appellate courts, the Court of Civil Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals, and four trial courts: the circuit court (trial court of general jurisdiction), and the district, probate, and municipal courts.Some critics believe the election of judges has contributed to an exceedingly high rate of executions. Alabama has the highest per capita death penalty rate in the country. In some years, it imposes more death sentences than does Texas, a state which has a population five times larger. However, executions per capita are significantly higher in Texas. Some of its cases have been highly controversial; the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned 24 convictions in death penalty cases. It was the only state to allow judges to override jury decisions in whether or not to use a death sentence; in 10 cases judges overturned sentences of life imprisonment without parole that were voted unanimously by juries. This judicial authority was removed in April 2017.TaxesTaxes are collected by the Alabama Department of Revenue. Alabama levies a 2%, 4%, or5% personal income tax, depending on the amount earned and filing status. Taxpayers are allowed to deduct their federal income tax from their Alabama state tax, even if taking the standard deduction; those who itemize can also deduct FICA (the Social Security and Medicare tax).The state's general sales tax rate is 4%. Sales tax rates for cities and counties are also added to purchases.</ref> For example, the total sales tax rate in Mobile County, Alabama is 10% and there is an additional restaurant tax of 1%, which means a diner in Mobile County, Alabama would pay an 11% tax on a meal.In 2020, sales and excise taxes in Alabama accounted for 38% of all state and local revenue.Only Alabama, Mississippi, and South Dakota tax groceries at the full state sales tax rate.The corporate income tax rate in Alabama is 6.5%. The overall federal, state, and local tax burden in Alabama ranks the state as the second least tax-burdened state in the country.Property taxes of .40% of assessed value per year, are the second-lowest in the U.S., after Hawaii. The current state constitution requires a voter referendum to raise property taxes.County and local governmentsAlabama has 67 counties. Each county has its own elected legislative branch, usually called the county commission. It also has limited executive authority in the county. Because of the constraints of the Alabama Constitution, which centralizes power in the state legislature, only seven counties (Jefferson, Lee, Mobile, Madison, Montgomery, Shelby, and Tuscaloosa) in the state have limited home rule. Instead, most counties in the state must lobby the Local Legislation Committee of the state legislature to get simple local policies approved, ranging from waste disposal to land use zoning.The state legislature has retained power over local governments by refusing to pass a constitutional amendment establishing home rule for counties, as recommended by the 1973 Alabama Constitutional Commission. Legislative delegations retain certain powers over each county. United States Supreme Court decisions in Baker v. Carr (1964) required that both houses have districts established on the basis of population, and redistricted after each census, to implement the principle of "one man, one vote". Before that, each county was represented by one state senator, leading to under-representation in the state senate for more urbanized, populous counties. The rural bias of the state legislature, which had also failed to redistrict seats in the state house, affected politics well into the 20th century, failing to recognize the rise of industrial cities and urbanized areas."The lack of home rule for counties in Alabama has resulted in the proliferation of local legislation permitting counties to do things not authorized by the state constitution. Alabama's constitution has been amended more than 700 times, and almost one-third of the amendments are local in nature, applying to only one county or city. A significant part of each legislative session is spent on local legislation, taking away time and attention of legislators from issues of statewide importance."Alabama is an alcoholic beverage control state, meaning the state government holds a monopoly on the sale of alcohol. The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board controls the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages in the state. A total of 25 of the 67 counties are "dry counties" which ban the sale of alcohol, and there are many dry municipalities in counties which permit alcohol sales.PoliticsDuring Reconstruction following the American Civil War, Alabama was occupied by federal troops of the Third Military District under General John Pope. In 1874, the political coalition of white Democrats known as the Redeemers took control of the state government from the Republicans, in part by suppressing the black vote through violence, fraud, and intimidation.After 1890, a coalition of White Democratic politicians passed laws to segregate and disenfranchise African American residents, a process completed in provisions of the 1901 constitution. Provisions which disenfranchised blacks resulted in excluding many poor Whites. By 1941 more Whites than Blacks had been disenfranchised: 600,000 to 520,000. The total effects were greater on the black community, as almost all its citizens were disfranchised and relegated to separate and unequal treatment under the law.From 1901 through the 1960s, the state did not redraw election districts as population grew and shifted within the state during urbanization and industrialization of certain areas. As counties were the basis of election districts, the result was a rural minority that dominated state politics through nearly three-quarters of the century, until a series of federal court cases required redistricting in 1972 to meet equal representation.Alabama state politics gained nationwide and international attention in the 1950s and 1960s during the civil rights movement, when whites bureaucratically, and at times violently, resisted protests for electoral and social reform. Governor George Wallace, the state's only four-term governor, was a controversial figure who vowed to maintain segregation. Only after passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 did African Americans regain the ability to exercise suffrage, among other civil rights. In many jurisdictions, they continued to be excluded from representation by at-large electoral systems, which allowed the majority of the population to dominate elections. Some changes at the county level have occurred following court challenges to establish single-member districts that enable a more diverse representation among county boards.In 2007, the Alabama Legislature passed, and Republican governor Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" over slavery and its lingering impact. In a symbolic ceremony, the bill was signed in the Alabama State Capitol, which housed Congress of the Confederate States of America.In 2010, Republicans won control of both houses of the legislature for the first time in 136 years., there are a total of 3,589,839 registered voters, with 3,518,285 active, and the others inactive in the state.ElectionsIn a 2020 study, Alabama was ranked as the 12th most difficult state for citizens to vote.State electionsWith the disfranchisement of Blacks in 1901, the state became part of the "Solid South", a system in which the Democratic Party operated as effectively the only viable political party in every Southern state. For nearly a hundred years local and state elections in Alabama were decided in the Democratic Party primary, with generally only token Republican challengers running in the General Election. Since the mid- to late 20th century, however, white conservatives started shifting to the Republican Party. In Alabama, majority-white districts are now expected to regularly elect Republican candidates to federal, state and local office.Members of the nine seats on the Supreme Court of Alabama and all ten seats on the state appellate courts are elected to office. Until 1994, no Republicans held any of the court seats. In that general election, the then-incumbent chief justice, Ernest C. Hornsby, refused to leave office after losing the election by approximately 3,000 votes to Republican Perry O. Hooper Sr. Hornsby sued Alabama and defiantly remained in office for nearly a year before finally giving up the seat after losing in court. The Democrats lost the last of the nineteen court seats in August 2011 with the resignation of the last Democrat on the bench.In the early 21st century, Republicans hold all seven of the statewide elected executive branch offices. Republicans hold six of the eight elected seats on the Alabama State Board of Education. In 2010, Republicans took large majorities of both chambers of the state legislature, giving them control of that body for the first time in 136 years. The last remaining statewide Democrat, who served on the Alabama Public Service Commission, was defeated in 2012.Only three Republican lieutenant governors have been elected since the end of Reconstruction, when Republicans generally represented Reconstruction government, including the newly emancipated freedmen who had gained the franchise. The three GOP lieutenant governors are Steve Windom (1999–2003), Kay Ivey (2011–2017), and Will Ainsworth (2019–present).Local electionsMany local offices (county commissioners, boards of education, tax assessors, tax collectors, etc.) in the state are still held by Democrats. Many rural counties have voters who are majority Democrats, resulting in local elections being decided in the Democratic primary. Similarly many metropolitan and suburban counties are majority-Republican and elections are effectively decided in the Republican Primary, although there are exceptions.Alabama's 67 county sheriffs are elected in partisan, at-large races, and Democrats still retain the narrow majority of those posts. The current split is 35 Democrats, 31 Republicans, and one Independent Fayette. However, most of the Democratic sheriffs preside over rural and less populated counties. The majority of Republican sheriffs have been elected in the more urban/suburban and heavily populated counties. , the state of Alabama has one female sheriff, in Morgan County, Alabama, and ten African-American sheriffs.Federal electionsThe state's two U.S. senators are Republican Richard C. Shelby and Republican Tommy Tuberville. Shelby was originally elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1986 and re-elected in 1992, but switched parties immediately following the November 1994 general election.In the U.S. House of Representatives, the state is represented by seven members, six of whom are Republicans: (Bradley Byrne, Mike D. Rogers, Robert Aderholt, Morris J. Brooks, Martha Roby, and Gary Palmer) and one Democrat: Terri Sewell who represents the Black Belt as well as most of the predominantly black portions of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Montgomery.EducationPrimary and secondary educationPublic primary and secondary education in Alabama is under the purview of the Alabama State Board of Education as well as local oversight by 67 county school boards and 60 city boards of education. Together, 1,496 individual schools provide education for 744,637 elementary and secondary students.Public school funding is appropriated through the Alabama Legislature through the Education Trust Fund. In FY 2006–2007, Alabama appropriated $3,775,163,578 for primary and secondary education. That represented an increase of $444,736,387 over the previous fiscal year. In 2007, more than 82 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward student proficiency under the National No Child Left Behind law, using measures determined by the state of Alabama.While Alabama's public education system has improved in recent decades, it lags behind in achievement compared to other states. According to U.S. Census data (2000), Alabama's high school graduation rate (75%) is the fourth lowest in the U.S. (after Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi). The largest educational gains were among people with some college education but without degrees.Generally prohibited in the West at large, school corporal punishment is not unusual in Alabama, with 27,260 public school students paddled at least one time, according to government data for the 2011–2012 school year. The rate of school corporal punishment in Alabama is surpassed by only Mississippi and Arkansas.Colleges and universitiesAlabama's programs of higher education include 14 four-year public universities, two-year community colleges, and 17 private, undergraduate and graduate universities. In the state are four medical schools (as of fall 2015) (University of Alabama School of Medicine, University of South Alabama and Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine and The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine—Auburn Campus), two veterinary colleges (Auburn University and Tuskegee University), a dental school (University of Alabama School of Dentistry), an optometry college (University of Alabama at Birmingham), two pharmacy schools (Auburn University and Samford University), and five law schools (University of Alabama School of Law, Birmingham School of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Miles Law School, and the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law). Public, post-secondary education in Alabama is overseen by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education. Colleges and universities in Alabama offer degree programs from two-year associate degrees to a multitude of doctoral level programs.The largest single campus is the University of Alabama, located in Tuscaloosa, with 37,665 enrolled for fall 2016. Troy University was the largest institution in the state in 2010, with an enrollment of 29,689 students across four Alabama campuses (Troy, Dothan, Montgomery, and Phenix City), as well as sixty learning sites in seventeen other states and eleven other countries. The oldest institutions are the public University of North Alabama in Florence and the Catholic Church-affiliated Spring Hill College in Mobile, both founded in 1830.Accreditation of academic programs is through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) as well as other subject-focused national and international accreditation agencies such as the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), the Council on Occupational Education (COE), and the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS).According to the 2011 U.S. News & World Report, Alabama had three universities ranked in the top 100 Public Schools in America (University of Alabama at 31, Auburn University at 36, and University of Alabama at Birmingham at 73).According to the 2012 U.S. News & World Report, Alabama had four tier one universities (University of Alabama, Auburn University, University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Alabama in Huntsville).MediaMajor newspapers include Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register, and Montgomery Advertiser.Major television network affiliates in Alabama include: ABC WGWW 40.2 ABC, Anniston WBMA 58/WABM 68.2 ABC, Birmingham WDHN 18 ABC, Dothan WAAY 31 ABC, Huntsville WEAR 3 ABC Pensacola, Florida/Mobile WNCF 32 ABC, Montgomery WDBB 17.2 ABC, Tuscaloosa CBS WIAT 42 CBS, Birmingham WTVY 4 CBS, Dothan WHNT 19 CBS, Huntsville WKRG 5 CBS, Mobile WAKA 8 CBS, Selma/Montgomery Fox WBRC 6 FOX, Birmingham WZDX 54 FOX, Huntsville WALA 10 FOX, Mobile WCOV 20 FOX, Montgomery WDFX 34 FOX, Ozark/Dothan NBC WVTM 13 NBC, Birmingham WRGX 23 NBC, Dothan WAFF 48 NBC, Huntsville WPMI 15 NBC, Mobile WSFA 12 NBC, Montgomery PBS/Alabama Public Television WBIQ 10 PBS, Birmingham WIIQ 41 PBS, Demopolis WDIQ 2 PBS, Dozier WFIQ 36 PBS, Florence WHIQ 25 PBS, Huntsville WGIQ 43 PBS, Louisville WEIQ 42 PBS, Mobile WAIQ 26 PBS, Montgomery WCIQ 7 PBS, Mount Cheaha The CW WTTO 21, Homewood/Birmingham WTVY 4.3, Dothan WHDF 15, Florence/Huntsville WFNA 55, Gulf Shores/Mobile/Pensacola, FL WDBB 17, Tuscaloosa WBMM 22, Tuskegee/MontgomeryCultureLiteratureSportsProfessional sportsAlabama has several professional and semi-professional sports teams, including three minor league baseball teams.NotesThe Talladega Superspeedway motorsports complex hosts a series of NASCAR events. It has a seating capacity of 143,000 and is the thirteenth largest stadium in the world and sixth largest stadium in America. Also, the Barber Motorsports Park has hosted IndyCar Series and Rolex Sports Car Series races.The ATP Birmingham was a World Championship Tennis tournament held from 1973 to 1980.Alabama has hosted several professional golf tournaments, such as the 1984 and 1990 PGA Championship at Shoal Creek, the Barbasol Championship (PGA Tour), the Mobile LPGA Tournament of Champions, Airbus LPGA Classic, and Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic (LPGA Tour), and The Tradition (Champions Tour).College sportsCollege football is extremely popular in Alabama, particularly the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn University Tigers, rivals in the Southeastern Conference. Alabama averages over 100,000 fans per game and Auburn averages over 80,000—both numbers among the top twenty in the nation. Bryant–Denny Stadium is the home of the Alabama football team, and has a seating capacity of 101,821, and is the fifth largest stadium in America. Jordan-Hare Stadium is the home field of the Auburn football team and seats up to 87,451.Legion Field is home of the UAB Blazers football program and the Birmingham Bowl. It seats 71,594. Ladd–Peebles Stadium in Mobile is the home of the University of South Alabama football team, and serves as the home of the NCAA Senior Bowl, LendingTree Bowl, and Alabama-Mississippi All Star Classic; the stadium seats 40,646. In 2009, Bryant–Denny Stadium and Jordan-Hare Stadium became the homes of the Alabama High School Athletic Association state football championship games, after previously being held at Legion Field in Birmingham.TransportationAviationMajor airports with sustained operations in Alabama include Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM), Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Dothan Regional Airport (DHN), Mobile Regional Airport (MOB), Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM), Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL) and Northeast Alabama Regional Airport (GAD).RailFor rail transport, Amtrak schedules the Crescent, a daily passenger train, running from New York to New Orleans with station stops at Anniston, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa.RoadsAlabama has six major interstate routes: Interstate 65 (I-65) travels north–south roughly through the middle of the state; I-20/I-59 travel from the central west Mississippi state line to Birmingham, where I-59 continues to the north-east corner of the state and I-20 continues east towards Atlanta; I-85 originates in Montgomery and travels east-northeast to the Georgia state line, providing a main thoroughfare to Atlanta; and I-10 traverses the southernmost portion of the state, traveling from west to east through Mobile. I-22 enters the state from Mississippi and connects Birmingham with Memphis, Tennessee. In addition, there are currently five auxiliary interstate routes in the state: I-165 in Mobile, I-359 in Tuscaloosa, I-459 around Birmingham, I-565 in Decatur and Huntsville, and I-759 in Gadsden. A sixth route, I-685, will be formed when I-85 is rerouted along a new southern bypass of Montgomery. A proposed northern bypass of Birmingham will be designated as I-422. Since a direct connection from I-22 to I-422 will not be possible, I-222 has been proposed, as well.Several U.S. Highways also pass through the state, such as U.S. Route 11 (US-11), US-29, US-31, US-43, US-45, US-72, US-78, US-80, US-82, US-84, US-90, US-98, US-231, US-278, US-280, US-331, US-411, and US-431.There are four toll roads in the state: Montgomery Expressway in Montgomery; Northport/Tuscaloosa Western Bypass in Tuscaloosa and Northport; Emerald Mountain Expressway in Wetumpka; and Beach Express in Orange Beach.PortsThe Port of Mobile, Alabama's only saltwater port, is a large seaport on the Gulf of Mexico with inland waterway access to the Midwest by way of the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway. The Port of Mobile was ranked 12th by tons of traffic in the United States during 2009. The newly expanded container terminal at the Port of Mobile was ranked as the 25th busiest for container traffic in the nation during 2011. The state's other ports are on rivers with access to the Gulf of Mexico.Water ports of Alabama, listed from north to south:See also Index of Alabama-related articles Outline of Alabama—organized list of topics about AlabamaNotesReferencesFurther reading Atkins, Leah Rawls, Wayne Flynt, William Warren Rogers, and David Ward. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (1994). Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century (2004). Owen Thomas M. History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography (4 vols, 1921). Jackson, Harvey H. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State (2004). Mohl, Raymond A. "Latinization in the Heart of Dixie: Hispanics in Late-twentieth-century Alabama" Alabama Review (2002, 55(4): 243–274).  Peirce, Neal R. The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States (1974). Williams, Benjamin Buford. A Literary History of Alabama: The Nineteenth Century (1979). WPA Guide to Alabama (1939).External links   Alabama State Guide, from the Library of Congress Your Not So Ordinary Alabama Tourist Guide All About Alabama, at the Alabama Department of Archives and History Code of Alabama 1975 USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Alabama  Alabama QuickFacts from the U.S. Census Bureau Alabama State Fact Sheet  1819 establishments in the United StatesSouthern United StatesStates and territories established in 1819States of the Confederate StatesStates of the Gulf Coast of the United StatesStates of the United StatesU.S. states with multiple time zonesContiguous United States
In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and is the central character of Homer's Iliad. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia.Achilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the Iliad, other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with Statius' unfinished epic Achilleid, written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for one heel, because when his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels. Alluding to these legends, the term "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness, especially in someone or something with an otherwise strong constitution. The Achilles tendon is also named after him due to these legends.Etymology Linear B tablets attest to the personal name Achilleus in the forms a-ki-re-u and a-ki-re-we, the latter being the dative of the former. The name grew more popular, even becoming common soon after the seventh century BC and was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία (Achilleía), attested in Attica in the fourth century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form Achillia, on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".Achilles' name can be analyzed as a combination of  () "distress, pain, sorrow, grief" and  () "people, soldiers, nation", resulting in a proto-form *Akhí-lāu̯os "he who has the people distressed" or "he whose people have distress". The grief or distress of the people is a theme raised numerous times in the Iliad (and frequently by Achilles himself). Achilles' role as the hero of grief or distress forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of him as the hero of   ("glory", usually in war). Furthermore, laós has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean "a corps of soldiers", a muster. With this derivation, the name obtains a double meaning in the poem: when the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring distress to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.Another etymology relates the name to a Proto-Indo-European compound *h₂eḱ-pṓds "sharp foot" which first gave an Illyrian *āk̂pediós, evolving through time into *ākhpdeós and then *akhiddeús. The shift from -dd- to -ll- is then ascribed to the passing of the name into Greek via a Pre-Greek source. The first root part *h₂eḱ- "sharp, pointed" also gave Greek ἀκή (akḗ "point, silence, healing"), ἀκμή (akmḗ "point, edge, zenith") and ὀξύς (oxús "sharp, pointed, keen, quick, clever"), whereas ἄχος stems from the root *h₂egʰ- "to be upset, afraid". The whole expression would be comparable to the Latin acupedius "swift of foot". Compare also the Latin word family of aciēs "sharp edge or point, battle line, battle, engagement", acus "needle, pin, bodkin", and acuō "to make pointed, sharpen, whet; to exercise; to arouse" (whence acute). Some topical epitheta of Achilles in the Iliad point to this "swift-footedness", namely ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεὺς (podárkēs dĩos Achilleús "swift-footed divine Achilles") or, even more frequently, πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς (pódas ōkús Achilleús "quick-footed Achilles").Some researchers deem the name a loan word, possibly from a Pre-Greek language. Achilles' descent from the Nereid Thetis and a similarity of his name with those of river deities such as Acheron and Achelous have led to speculations about his being an old water divinity (see below Worship). Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name, based among other things on the coexistence of -λλ- and -λ- in epic language, which may account for a palatalized phoneme /ly/ in the original language.Birth and early years Achilles was the son of the Thetis, a nereid, and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for Thetis's hand in marriage until Prometheus, the fore-thinker, warned Zeus of a prophecy (originally uttered by Themis, goddess of divine law) that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus.There is a tale which offers an alternative version of these events: In the Argonautica (4.760) Zeus' sister and wife Hera alludes to Thetis' chaste resistance to the advances of Zeus, pointing out that Thetis was so loyal to Hera's marriage bond that she coolly rejected the father of gods. Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was also brought up by Hera, further explaining her resistance to the advances of Zeus. Zeus was furious and decreed that she would never marry an immortal.According to the Achilleid, written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to non-surviving previous sources, when Achilles was born Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx; however, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him: his left heel (see Achilles' heel, Achilles' tendon). It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier. In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire in order to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage.None of the sources before Statius make any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the Iliad, Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He was ambidextrous, and cast a spear from each hand; one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".In the few fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle which describe the hero's death (i.e. the Cypria, the Little Iliad by Lesches of Pyrrha, the Aithiopis and Iliou persis by Arctinus of Miletus), there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness at the heel. In the later vase paintings presenting the death of Achilles, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his torso.Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron the Centaur, who lived on Mount Pelion, to be reared. Thetis foretold that her son's fate was either to gain glory and die young, or to live a long but uneventful life in obscurity. Achilles chose the former, and decided to take part in the Trojan War. According to Homer, Achilles grew up in Phthia with his companion Patroclus.According to Photius, the sixth book of the New History by Ptolemy Hephaestion reported that Thetis burned in a secret place the children she had by Peleus. When she had Achilles, Peleus noticed, tore him from the flames with only a burnt foot, and confided him to the centaur Chiron. Later Chiron exhumed the body of the Damysus, who was the fastest of all the giants, removed the ankle, and incorporated it into Achilles' burnt foot.Other names Among the appellations under which Achilles is generally known are the following: Pyrisous, "saved from the fire", his first name, which seems to favour the tradition in which his mortal parts were burned by his mother Thetis Aeacides, from his grandfather Aeacus Aemonius, from Aemonia, a country which afterwards acquired the name of Thessaly Aspetos, "inimitable" or "vast", his name at Epirus Larissaeus, from Larissa (also called Cremaste), a town of Thessaly, which still bears the same name Ligyron, his original name Nereius, from his mother Thetis, one of the Nereids Pelides, from his father, Peleus Phthius, from his birthplace, Phthia Podarkes, "swift-footed", due to the wings of Arke being attached to his feet.Hidden on Skyros Some post-Homeric sources claim that in order to keep Achilles safe from the war, Thetis (or, in some versions, Peleus) hid the young man at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros.There, Achilles was disguised as a girl and lived among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl), Cercysera or Aissa ("swift"). With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, whom in the account of Statius he raped, Achilles there fathered two sons, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias) and Oneiros. According to this story, Odysseus learned from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Achilles' aid. Odysseus went to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewellery and placed a shield and spear among his goods. When Achilles instantly took up the spear, Odysseus saw through his disguise and convinced him to join the Greek campaign. In another version of the story, Odysseus arranged for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women. While the women fled in panic, Achilles prepared to defend the court, thus giving his identity away.In the Trojan War According to the Iliad, Achilles arrived at Troy with 50 ships, each carrying 50 Myrmidons. He appointed five leaders (each leader commanding 500 Myrmidons): Menesthius, Eudorus, Peisander, Phoenix and Alcimedon.Telephus When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the resulting battle, Achilles gave Telephus a wound that would not heal; Telephus consulted an oracle, who stated that "he that wounded shall heal". Guided by the oracle, he arrived at Argos, where Achilles healed him in order that he might become their guide for the voyage to Troy.According to other reports in Euripides' lost play about Telephus, he went to Aulis pretending to be a beggar and asked Achilles to heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Alternatively, Telephus held Orestes for ransom, the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound; therefore, the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound and Telephus was healed.Troilus According to the Cypria (the part of the Epic Cycle that tells the events of the Trojan War before Achilles' wrath), when the Achaeans desired to return home, they were restrained by Achilles, who afterwards attacked the cattle of Aeneas, sacked neighbouring cities (like Pedasus and Lyrnessus, where the Greeks capture the queen Briseis) and killed Tenes, a son of Apollo, as well as Priam's son Troilus in the sanctuary of Apollo Thymbraios; however, the romance between Troilus and Chryseis described in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida is a medieval invention.In Dares Phrygius' Account of the Destruction of Troy, the Latin summary through which the story of Achilles was transmitted to medieval Europe, as well as in older accounts, Troilus was a young Trojan prince, the youngest of King Priam's and Hecuba's five legitimate sons (or according other sources, another son of Apollo). Despite his youth, he was one of the main Trojan war leaders, a "horse fighter" or "chariot fighter" according to Homer. Prophecies linked Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he was ambushed in an attempt to capture him. Yet Achilles, struck by the beauty of both Troilus and his sister Polyxena, and overcome with lust, directed his sexual attentions on the youth – who, refusing to yield, instead found himself decapitated upon an altar-omphalos of Apollo Thymbraios. Later versions of the story suggested Troilus was accidentally killed by Achilles in an over-ardent lovers' embrace. In this version of the myth, Achilles' death therefore came in retribution for this sacrilege. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. Had Troilus lived to adulthood, the First Vatican Mythographer claimed, Troy would have been invincible; however, the motif is older and found already in Plautus' Bacchides.In the Iliad Homer's Iliad is the most famous narrative of Achilles' deeds in the Trojan War. Achilles' wrath (μῆνις Ἀχιλλέως, mênis Achilléōs) is the central theme of the poem. The first two lines of the Iliad read:The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the decade-long war, and does not narrate Achilles' death. It begins with Achilles' withdrawal from battle after being dishonoured by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon has taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave. Her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refuses, and Apollo sends a plague amongst the Greeks. The prophet Calchas correctly determines the source of the troubles but will not speak unless Achilles vows to protect him. Achilles does so, and Calchas declares that Chryseis must be returned to her father. Agamemnon consents, but then commands that Achilles' battle prize Briseis, the daughter of Briseus, be brought to him to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonour of having his plunder and glory taken away (and, as he says later, because he loves Briseis), with the urging of his mother Thetis, Achilles refuses to fight or lead his troops alongside the other Greek forces. At the same time, burning with rage over Agamemnon's theft, Achilles prays to Thetis to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honour.As the battle turns against the Greeks, thanks to the influence of Zeus, Nestor declares that the Trojans are winning because Agamemnon has angered Achilles, and urges the king to appease the warrior. Agamemnon agrees and sends Odysseus and two other chieftains, Ajax and Phoenix. They promise that, if Achilles returns to battle, Agamemnon will return the captive Briseis and other gifts. Achilles rejects all Agamemnon offers him and simply urges the Greeks to sail home as he was planning to do.The Trojans, led by Hector, subsequently push the Greek army back toward the beaches and assault the Greek ships. With the Greek forces on the verge of absolute destruction, Patroclus leads the Myrmidons into battle, wearing Achilles' armour, though Achilles remains at his camp. Patroclus succeeds in pushing the Trojans back from the beaches, but is killed by Hector before he can lead a proper assault on the city of Troy.After receiving the news of the death of Patroclus from Antilochus, the son of Nestor, Achilles grieves over his beloved companion's death. His mother Thetis comes to comfort the distraught Achilles. She persuades Hephaestus to make new armour for him, in place of the armour that Patroclus had been wearing, which was taken by Hector. The new armour includes the Shield of Achilles, described in great detail in the poem.Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Achilles ends his refusal to fight and takes the field, killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. Achilles even engages in battle with the river god Scamander, who has become angry that Achilles is choking his waters with all the men he has killed. The god tries to drown Achilles but is stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself takes note of Achilles' rage and sends the gods to restrain him so that he will not go on to sack Troy itself before the time allotted for its destruction, seeming to show that the unhindered rage of Achilles can defy fate itself. Finally, Achilles finds his prey. Achilles chases Hector around the wall of Troy three times before Athena, in the form of Hector's favorite and dearest brother, Deiphobus, persuades Hector to stop running and fight Achilles face to face. After Hector realizes the trick, he knows the battle is inevitable. Wanting to go down fighting, he charges at Achilles with his only weapon, his sword, but misses. Accepting his fate, Hector begs Achilles not to spare his life, but to treat his body with respect after killing him. Achilles tells Hector it is hopeless to expect that of him, declaring that "my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me". Achilles then kills Hector and drags his corpse by its heels behind his chariot. After having a dream where Patroclus begs Achilles to hold his funeral, Achilles hosts a series of funeral games in honour of his companion.At the onset of his duel with Hector, Achilles is referred to as the brightest star in the sky, which comes on in the autumn, Orion's dog (Sirius); a sign of evil. During the cremation of Patroclus, he is compared to Hesperus, the evening/western star (Venus), while the burning of the funeral pyre lasts until Phosphorus, the morning/eastern star (also Venus) has set (descended).With the assistance of the god Hermes (Argeiphontes), Hector's father Priam goes to Achilles' tent to plead with Achilles for the return of Hector's body so that he can be buried. Achilles relents and promises a truce for the duration of the funeral, lasting 9 days with a burial on the 10th (in the tradition of Niobe's offspring). The poem ends with a description of Hector's funeral, with the doom of Troy and Achilles himself still to come.Later epic accounts: fighting Penthesilea and Memnon The Aethiopis (7th century BC) and a work named Posthomerica, composed by Quintus of Smyrna in the fourth century CE, relate further events from the Trojan War. When Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons and daughter of Ares, arrives in Troy, Priam hopes that she will defeat Achilles. After his temporary truce with Priam, Achilles fights and kills the warrior queen, only to grieve over her death later. At first, he was so distracted by her beauty, he did not fight as intensely as usual. Once he realized that his distraction was endangering his life, he refocused and killed her.Following the death of Patroclus, Nestor's son Antilochus becomes Achilles' closest companion. When Memnon, son of the Dawn Goddess Eos and king of Ethiopia, slays Antilochus, Achilles once more obtains revenge on the battlefield, killing Memnon. Consequently, Eos will not let the sun rise until Zeus persuades her. The fight between Achilles and Memnon over Antilochus echoes that of Achilles and Hector over Patroclus, except that Memnon (unlike Hector) was also the son of a goddess.Many Homeric scholars argued that episode inspired many details in the Iliads description of the death of Patroclus and Achilles' reaction to it. The episode then formed the basis of the cyclic epic Aethiopis, which was composed after the Iliad, possibly in the 7th century BC. The Aethiopis is now lost, except for scattered fragments quoted by later authors.Achilles and Patroclus The exact nature of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. In the Iliad, it appears to be the model of a deep and loyal friendship. Homer does not suggest that Achilles and his close friend Patroclus had sexual relations. Although there is no direct evidence in the text of the Iliad that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, this theory was expressed by some later authors. Commentators from classical antiquity to the present have often interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. In 5th-century BCE Athens, the intense bond was often viewed in light of the Greek custom of paiderasteia. In Plato's Symposium, the participants in a dialogue about love assume that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple; Phaedrus argues that Achilles was the younger and more beautiful one so he was the beloved and Patroclus was the lover. However, ancient Greek had no words to distinguish heterosexual and homosexual, and it was assumed that a man could both desire handsome young men and have sex with women. Many pairs of men throughout history have been compared to Achilles and Patroclus to imply a homosexual relationship.Death The death of Achilles, even if considered solely as it occurred in the oldest sources, is a complex one, with many different versions. In the oldest version, the Iliad, and as predicted by Hector with his dying breath, the hero's death was brought about by Paris with an arrow (to the heel according to Statius). In some versions, the god Apollo guided Paris' arrow. Some retellings also state that Achilles was scaling the gates of Troy and was hit with a poisoned arrow. All of these versions deny Paris any sort of valour, owing to the common conception that Paris was a coward and not the man his brother Hector was, and Achilles remained undefeated on the battlefield.After death, Achilles' bones were mingled with those of Patroclus, and funeral games were held. He was represented in the Aethiopis as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the river Danube.Another version of Achilles' death is that he fell deeply in love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. Achilles asks Priam for Polyxena's hand in marriage. Priam is willing because it would mean the end of the war and an alliance with the world's greatest warrior. But while Priam is overseeing the private marriage of Polyxena and Achilles, Paris, who would have to give up Helen if Achilles married his sister, hides in the bushes and shoots Achilles with a divine arrow, killing him.In the Odyssey, Agamemnon informs Achilles of his pompous burial and the erection of his mound at the Hellespont while they are receiving the dead suitors in Hades. He claims they built a massive burial mound on the beach of Ilion that could be seen by anyone approaching from the ocean. Achilles was cremated and his ashes buried in the same urn as those of Patroclus. Paris was later killed by Philoctetes using the enormous bow of Heracles.In Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus sails to the underworld and converses with the shades. One of these is Achilles, who when greeted as "blessed in life, blessed in death", responds that he would rather be a slave to the worst of masters than be king of all the dead. But Achilles then asks Odysseus of his son's exploits in the Trojan war, and when Odysseus tells of Neoptolemus' heroic actions, Achilles is filled with satisfaction. This leaves the reader with an ambiguous understanding of how Achilles felt about the heroic life.According to some accounts, he had married Medea in life, so that after both their deaths they were united in the Elysian Fields of Hades – as Hera promised Thetis in Apollonius' Argonautica (3rd century BC).Fate of Achilles' armour Achilles' armour was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who, after considering both men's presentations, decided Odysseus was more deserving of the armour. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned him the ire of Athena, who temporarily made Ajax so mad with grief and anguish that he began killing sheep, thinking them his comrades. After a while, when Athena lifted his madness and Ajax realized that he had actually been killing sheep, he was so ashamed that he committed suicide. Odysseus eventually gave the armour to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. When Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax much later in the House of Hades (Odyssey 11.543–566), Ajax is still so angry about the outcome of the competition that he refuses to speak to Odysseus.A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was preserved for centuries in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BCE by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the Iliad with him, but his court biographers do not mention the spear; however, it was shown in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century CE.Achilles, Ajax and a game of petteia Numerous paintings on pottery have suggested a tale not mentioned in the literary traditions. At some point in the war, Achilles and Ajax were playing a board game (petteia). They were absorbed in the game and oblivious to the surrounding battle. The Trojans attacked and reached the heroes, who were saved only by an intervention of Athena.Worship and heroic cult The tomb of Achilles, extant throughout antiquity in Troad, was venerated by Thessalians, but also by Persian expeditionary forces, as well as by Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Caracalla. Achilles' cult was also to be found at other places, e. g. on the island of Astypalaea in the Sporades, in Sparta which had a sanctuary, in Elis and in Achilles' homeland Thessaly, as well as in the Magna Graecia cities of Tarentum, Locri and Croton, accounting for an almost Panhellenic cult to the hero.The cult of Achilles is illustrated in the 500 BCE Polyxena sarcophagus, which depicts the sacrifice of Polyxena near the tumulus of Achilles. Strabo (13.1.32) also suggested that such a cult of Achilles existed in Troad:The spread and intensity of the hero's veneration among the Greeks that had settled on the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus, today's Black Sea, appears to have been remarkable. An archaic cult is attested for the Milesian colony of Olbia as well as for an island in the middle of the Black Sea, today identified with Snake Island (Ukrainian Зміїний, Zmiinyi, near Kiliya, Ukraine). Early dedicatory inscriptions from the Greek colonies on the Black Sea (graffiti and inscribed clay disks, these possibly being votive offerings, from Olbia, the area of Berezan Island and the Tauric Chersonese) attest the existence of a heroic cult of Achilles from the sixth century BC onwards. The cult was still thriving in the third century CE, when dedicatory stelae from Olbia refer to an Achilles Pontárchēs (Ποντάρχης, roughly "lord of the Sea," or "of the Pontus Euxinus"), who was invoked as a protector of the city of Olbia, venerated on par with Olympian gods such as the local Apollo Prostates, Hermes Agoraeus, or Poseidon.Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) in his Natural History mentions a "port of the Achæi" and an "island of Achilles", famous for the tomb of that "man" (), situated somewhat nearby Olbia and the Dnieper-Bug Estuary; furthermore, at 125 Roman miles from this island, he places a peninsula "which stretches forth in the shape of a sword" obliquely, called Dromos Achilleos (Ἀχιλλέως δρόμος, Achilléōs drómos "the Race-course of Achilles") and considered the place of the hero's exercise or of games instituted by him. This last feature of Pliny's account is considered to be the iconic spit, called today Tendra (or Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch), situated between the mouth of the Dnieper and Karkinit Bay, but which is hardly 125 Roman miles (c. 185 km) away from the Dnieper-Bug estuary, as Pliny states. (To the "Race-course" he gives a length of 80 miles, c. 120 km, whereas the spit measures c. 70 km today.)In the following chapter of his book, Pliny refers to the same island as Achillea and introduces two further names for it: Leuce or Macaron (from Greek [νῆσος] μακαρῶν "island of the blest"). The "present day" measures, he gives at this point, seem to account for an identification of Achillea or Leuce with today's Snake Island. Pliny's contemporary Pomponius Mela (c. 43 AD) tells that Achilles was buried on an island named Achillea, situated between the Borysthenes and the Ister, adding to the geographical confusion. Ruins of a square temple, measuring 30 meters to a side, possibly that dedicated to Achilles, were discovered by Captain Kritzikly () in 1823 on Snake Island. A second exploration in 1840 showed that the construction of a lighthouse had destroyed all traces of this temple. A fifth century BC black-glazed lekythos inscription, found on the island in 1840, reads: "Glaukos, son of Poseidon, dedicated me to Achilles, lord of Leuke." In another inscription from the fifth or fourth century BC, a statue is dedicated to Achilles, lord of Leuke, by a citizen of Olbia, while in a further dedication, the city of Olbia confirms its continuous maintenance of the island's cult, again suggesting its quality as a place of a supra-regional hero veneration.The heroic cult dedicated to Achilles on Leuce seems to go back to an account from the lost epic Aethiopis according to which, after his untimely death, Thetis had snatched her son from the funeral pyre and removed him to a mythical  (Leúkē Nêsos "White Island"). Already in the fifth century BC, Pindar had mentioned a cult of Achilles on a "bright island" (φαεννά νᾶσος, phaenná nâsos) of the Black Sea, while in another of his works, Pindar would retell the story of the immortalized Achilles living on a geographically indefinite Island of the Blest together with other heroes such as his father Peleus and Cadmus. Well known is the connection of these mythological Fortunate Isles (μακαρῶν νῆσοι, makárôn nêsoi) or the Homeric Elysium with the stream Oceanus which according to Greek mythology surrounds the inhabited world, which should have accounted for the identification of the northern strands of the Euxine with it. Guy Hedreen has found further evidence for this connection of Achilles with the northern margin of the inhabited world in a poem by Alcaeus, speaking of "Achilles lord of Scythia" and the opposition of North and South, as evoked by Achilles' fight against the Aethiopian prince Memnon, who in his turn would be removed to his homeland by his mother Eos after his death.The Periplus of the Euxine Sea (c. 130 AD) gives the following details:The Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetes, who likely lived during the first century CE, wrote that the island was called Leuce "because the wild animals which live there are white. It is said that there, in Leuce island, reside the souls of Achilles and other heroes, and that they wander through the uninhabited valleys of this island; this is how Jove rewarded the men who had distinguished themselves through their virtues, because through virtue they had acquired everlasting honour". Similarly, others relate the island's name to its white cliffs, snakes or birds dwelling there. Pausanias has been told that the island is "covered with forests and full of animals, some wild, some tame. In this island there is also Achilles' temple and his statue". Leuce had also a reputation as a place of healing. Pausanias reports that the Delphic Pythia sent a lord of Croton to be cured of a chest wound. Ammianus Marcellinus attributes the healing to waters (aquae) on the island.A number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters were dedicated to Achilles. Herodotus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo reported on the existence of a town Achílleion (Ἀχίλλειον), built by settlers from Mytilene in the sixth century BC, close to the hero's presumed burial mound in the Troad. Later attestations point to an Achílleion in Messenia (according to Stephanus Byzantinus) and an Achílleios (Ἀχίλλειος) in Laconia. Nicolae Densuşianu recognized a connection to Achilles in the names of Aquileia and of the northern arm of the Danube delta, called Chilia (presumably from an older Achileii), though his conclusion, that Leuce had sovereign rights over the Black Sea, evokes modern rather than archaic sea-law.The kings of Epirus claimed to be descended from Achilles through his son, Neoptolemus. Alexander the Great, son of the Epirote princess Olympias, could therefore also claim this descent, and in many ways strove to be like his great ancestor. He is said to have visited the tomb of Achilles at Achilleion while passing Troy. In AD 216 the Roman Emperor Caracalla, while on his way to war against Parthia, emulated Alexander by holding games around Achilles' tumulus.Reception during antiquityIn Greek tragedy The Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote a trilogy of plays about Achilles, given the title Achilleis by modern scholars. The tragedies relate the deeds of Achilles during the Trojan War, including his defeat of Hector and eventual death when an arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo punctures his heel. Extant fragments of the Achilleis and other Aeschylean fragments have been assembled to produce a workable modern play. The first part of the Achilleis trilogy, The Myrmidons, focused on the relationship between Achilles and chorus, who represent the Achaean army and try to convince Achilles to give up his quarrel with Agamemnon; only a few lines survive today. In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus points out that Aeschylus portrayed Achilles as the lover and Patroclus as the beloved; Phaedrus argues that this is incorrect because Achilles, being the younger and more beautiful of the two, was the beloved, who loved his lover so much that he chose to die to avenge him.The tragedian Sophocles also wrote The Lovers of Achilles, a play with Achilles as the main character. Only a few fragments survive.Towards the end of the 5th century BCE, a more negative view of Achilles emerges in Greek drama; Euripides refers to Achilles in a bitter or ironic tone in Hecuba, Electra, and Iphigenia in Aulis.In Greek philosophyZenoThe philosopher Zeno of Elea centred one of his paradoxes on an imaginary footrace between "swift-footed" Achilles and a tortoise, by which he attempted to show that Achilles could not catch up to a tortoise with a head start, and therefore that motion and change were impossible. As a student of the monist Parmenides and a member of the Eleatic school, Zeno believed time and motion to be illusions.PlatoIn Hippias Minor, a dialogue attributed to Plato, an arrogant man named Hippias argues with Socrates. The two get into a discussion about lying. They decide that a person who is intentionally false must be "better" than a person who is unintentionally false, on the basis that someone who lies intentionally must understand the subject about which they are lying. Socrates uses various analogies, discussing athletics and the sciences to prove his point. The two also reference Homer extensively. Socrates and Hippias agree that Odysseus, who concocted a number of lies throughout the Odyssey and other stories in the Trojan War Cycle, was false intentionally. Achilles, like Odysseus, told numerous falsehoods. Hippias believes that Achilles was a generally honest man, while Socrates believes that Achilles lied for his own benefit. The two argue over whether it is better to lie on purpose or by accident. Socrates eventually abandons Homeric arguments and makes sports analogies to drive home the point: someone who does wrong on purpose is a better person than someone who does wrong unintentionally.In Roman and medieval literature The Romans, who traditionally traced their lineage to Troy, took a highly negative view of Achilles. Virgil refers to Achilles as a savage and a merciless butcher of men, while Horace portrays Achilles ruthlessly slaying women and children. Other writers, such as Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, represent a second strand of disparagement, with an emphasis on Achilles' erotic career. This strand continues in Latin accounts of the Trojan War by writers such as Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius and in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie and Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, which remained the most widely read and retold versions of the Matter of Troy until the 17th century.Achilles was described by the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, not as Hellene, but as Scythian, while according to the Byzantine author John Malalas, his army was made up of a tribe previously known as Myrmidons and later as Bulgars.In modern literature and artsLiterature Achilles appears in Dante's Inferno (composed 1308–1320). He is seen in Hell's second circle, that of lust. Achilles is portrayed as a former hero who has become lazy and devoted to the love of Patroclus, in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (1602). The French dramatist Thomas Corneille wrote a tragedy La Mort d'Achille (1673). Achilles is the subject of the poem Achilleis (1799), a fragment by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In 1899, the Polish playwright, painter and poet Stanisław Wyspiański published a national drama, based on Polish history, named Achilles. In 1921, Edward Shanks published The Island of Youth and Other Poems, concerned among others with Achilles. The 1983 novel Kassandra by Christa Wolf also treats the death of Achilles. Akhilles is killed by a poisoned Kentaur arrow shot by Kassandra in Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel The Firebrand (1987). Achilles is one of various 'narrators' in Colleen McCullough's novel The Song of Troy (1998). The Death of Achilles (Смерть Ахиллеса, 1998) is an historical detective novel by Russian writer Boris Akunin that alludes to various figures and motifs from the Iliad. The character Achilles in Ender's Shadow (1999), by Orson Scott Card, shares his namesake's cunning mind and ruthless attitude. Achilles is one of the main characters in Dan Simmons's novels Ilium (2003) and Olympos (2005). Achilles is a major supporting character in David Gemmell's Troy series of books (2005–2007). Achilles is the main character in David Malouf's novel Ransom (2009). The ghost of Achilles appears in Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian (2009). He warns Percy Jackson about the Curse of Achilles and its side effects. Achilles is a main character in Terence Hawkins' 2009 novel The Rage of Achilles. Achilles is a major character in Madeline Miller's debut novel, The Song of Achilles (2011), which won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. The novel explores the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles from boyhood to the fateful events of the Iliad. Achilles appears in the light novel series Fate/Apocrypha (2012–2014) as the Rider of Red. Achilles is a main character in Pat Barker's 2018 novel The Silence of the Girls, much of which is narrated by his slave Briseis.Visual arts  Achilles with the Daughters of Lycomedes is a subject treated in paintings by Anthony van Dyck (before 1618; Museo del Prado, Madrid) and Nicolas Poussin (c. 1652; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) among others. Peter Paul Rubens has authored a series of works on the life of Achilles, comprising the titles: Thetis dipping the infant Achilles into the river Styx, Achilles educated by the centaur Chiron, Achilles recognized among the daughters of Lycomedes, The wrath of Achilles, The death of Hector, Thetis receiving the arms of Achilles from Vulcanus, The death of Achilles (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam), and Briseis restored to Achilles (Detroit Institute of Arts; all c. 1630–1635) Pieter van Lint, "Achilles Discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes", 1645, at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem Dying Achilles is a sculpture created by Christophe Veyrier (c. 1683; Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The Rage of Achilles is a fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1757, Villa Valmarana Ai Nani, Vicenza). Eugène Delacroix painted a version of The Education of Achilles for the ceiling of the Paris Palais Bourbon (1833–1847), one of the seats of the French Parliament.  created a statue group Achilles and Penthesilea (1895; Vienna). Achilleus (1908) is a lithography by Max Slevogt.Music Achilles has been frequently the subject of operas, ballets and related genres. Operas titled Deidamia were composed by Francesco Cavalli (1644) and George Frideric Handel (1739). Achille et Polyxène (Paris 1687) is an opera begun by Jean-Baptiste Lully and finished by Pascal Collasse. Achille et Déidamie (Paris 1735) is an opera composed by André Campra. Achilles (London 1733) is a ballad opera, written by John Gay, parodied by Thomas Arne as Achilles in petticoats in 1773. Achille in Sciro is a libretto by Metastasio, composed by Domenico Sarro for the inauguration of the Teatro di San Carlo (Naples, 4 November 1737). An even earlier composition is from Antonio Caldara (Vienna 1736). Later operas on the same libretto were composed by Leonardo Leo (Turin 1739), Niccolò Jommelli (Vienna 1749 and Rome 1772), Giuseppe Sarti (Copenhagen 1759 and Florence 1779), Johann Adolph Hasse (Naples 1759), Giovanni Paisiello (St. Petersburg 1772), Giuseppe Gazzaniga (Palermo 1781) and many others. It has also been set to music as Il Trionfo della gloria. Achille (Vienna 1801) is an opera by Ferdinando Paër on a libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra. Achille à Scyros (Paris 1804) is a ballet by Pierre Gardel, composed by Luigi Cherubini. Achilles, oder Das zerstörte Troja ("Achilles, or Troy Destroyed", Bonn 1885) is an oratorio by the German composer Max Bruch. Achilles auf Skyros (Stuttgart 1926) is a ballet by the Austrian-British composer and musicologist Egon Wellesz. Achilles' Wrath is a concert piece by Sean O'Loughlin. Achilles Last Stand a track on the 1976 Led Zeppelin album Presence. Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts is the first song on the 1992 Manowar album The Triumph of Steel. Achilles Come Down is a song on the 2017 Gang of Youths album Go Farther in Lightness.Film and televisionIn films Achilles has been portrayed in the following films and television series: The 1924 film Helena by Carlo Aldini The 1954 film Ulysses by Piero Lulli The 1956 film Helen of Troy by Stanley Baker The 1961 film The Trojan Horse by Arturo Dominici The 1962 film The Fury of Achilles by Gordon Mitchell The 1997 television miniseries The Odyssey by Richard Trewett The 2003 television miniseries Helen of Troy by Joe Montana The 2004 film Troy by Brad Pitt The 2018 TV series Troy: Fall of a City by David GyasiArchitecture In 1890, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria, had a summer palace built in Corfu. The building is named the Achilleion, after Achilles. Its paintings and statuary depict scenes from the Trojan War, with particular focus on Achilles. The Wellington Monument is a statue representing Achilles erected as a memorial to Arthur Wellesley, the first duke of Wellington, and his victories in the Peninsular War and the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars.Namesakes  The name of Achilles has been used for at least nine Royal Navy warships since 1744 – both as  and with the French spelling . A 60-gun ship of that name served at the Battle of Belleisle in 1761 while a 74-gun ship served at the Battle of Trafalgar. Other battle honours include Walcheren 1809. An armored cruiser of that name served in the Royal Navy during the First World War.  was a  which served with the Royal New Zealand Navy in World War II. It became famous for its part in the Battle of the River Plate, alongside  and . In addition to earning the battle honour 'River Plate', HMNZS Achilles also served at Guadalcanal 1942–1943 and Okinawa in 1945. After returning to the Royal Navy, the ship was sold to the Indian Navy in 1948, but when she was scrapped parts of the ship were saved and preserved in New Zealand. A species of lizard, Anolis achilles, which has widened heel plates, is named for Achilles.GalleryReferencesFurther reading  Ileana Chirassi Colombo (1977), "Heroes Achilleus – Theos Apollon." In Il Mito Greco, edd. Bruno Gentili and Giuseppe Paione. Rome: Edizione dell'Ateneo e Bizzarri. Anthony Edwards (1985a), "Achilles in the Underworld: Iliad, Odyssey, and Æthiopis". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 26: pp. 215–227. Anthony Edwards (1985b), "Achilles in the Odyssey: Ideologies of Heroism in the Homeric Epic". Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie. 171.  Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth, London, England, Penguin Books, 1960. Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. Penguin Books Limited. 2017.    Hélène Monsacré (1984), Les larmes d'Achille. Le héros, la femme et la souffrance dans la poésie d'Homère, Paris: Albin Michel. Gregory Nagy (1984), The Name of Achilles: Questions of Etymology and 'Folk Etymology, Illinois Classical Studies. 19. Gregory Nagy (1999), The Best of The Acheans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Johns Hopkins University Press (revised edition, online).  Dale S. Sinos (1991), The Entry of Achilles into Greek Epic, PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International. Jonathan S. Burgess (2009), The Death and Afterlife of Achilles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Abrantes, M.C. (2016), Themes of the Trojan Cycle: Contribution to the study of the greek mythological tradition (Coimbra).External links  Trojan War Resources Gallery of the Ancient Art: Achilles  Poem by Florence Earle CoatesGreek mythological heroesKings of the MyrmidonsAchaean LeadersThessalians in the Trojan WarMetamorphoses charactersMythological rapistsDemigods in classical mythologyLGBT themes in Greek mythology Deeds of ApolloMedea
Abraham Lincoln (; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his law practice but became vexed by the opening of additional lands to slavery as a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He reentered politics in 1854, becoming a leader in the new Republican Party, and he reached a national audience in the 1858 debates against Stephen Douglas. Lincoln ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North in victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South equated his success with the North's rejection of their right to practice slavery, and southern states began seceding from the Union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States fired on Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in the South, and Lincoln called up forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the Union.Lincoln, a moderate Republican, had to navigate a contentious array of factions with friends and opponents from both the Democratic and Republican parties. His allies, the War Democrats and the Radical Republicans, demanded harsh treatment of the Southern Confederates. Anti-war Democrats (called "Copperheads") despised Lincoln, and irreconcilable pro-Confederate elements plotted his assassination. He managed the factions by exploiting their mutual enmity, carefully distributing political patronage, and by appealing to the American people. His Gettysburg Address appealed to nationalistic, republican, egalitarian, libertarian, and democratic sentiments. Lincoln scrutinized the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland, and he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. He engineered the end to slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation, including his order that the Army and Navy liberate, protect, and recruit former slaves. He also encouraged border states to outlaw slavery, and promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery across the country.Lincoln managed his own successful re-election campaign. He sought to heal the war-torn nation through reconciliation. On April 14, 1865, just days after the war's end at Appomattox, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife Mary when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is remembered as a martyr and hero of the United States and is often ranked as the greatest president in American history.Family and childhoodEarly lifeAbraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk, to its namesake, Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638. The family then migrated west, passing through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincoln's paternal grandparents, his namesake Captain Abraham Lincoln and wife Bathsheba (née Herring) moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky. The captain was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack. Thomas then worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and Tennessee before the family settled in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s.The heritage of Lincoln's mother Nancy remains unclear, but it is widely assumed that she was the daughter of Lucy Hanks. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, and moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. They had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who died as infant.Thomas Lincoln bought or leased farms in Kentucky before losing all but  of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the family moved to Indiana where the land surveys and titles were more reliable. Indiana was a "free" (non-slaveholding) territory, and they settled in an "unbroken forest" in Hurricane Township, Perry County, Indiana. In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but mainly due to land title difficulties.In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer, cabinetmaker, and carpenter. At various times, he owned farms, livestock, and town lots, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, and served on county patrols. Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptists church, which forbade alcohol, dancing, and slavery.Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas in 1827 obtained clear title to  in Indiana, an area which became the Little Pigeon Creek Community.Mother's deathOn October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln succumbed to milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household including her father, 9-year-old Abraham, and Nancy's 19-year-old orphan cousin, Dennis Hanks. Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah died while giving birth to a stillborn son, devastating Lincoln.On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own. Abraham became close to his stepmother and called her "Mother". Lincoln disliked the hard labor associated with farm life. His family even said he was lazy, for all his "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc.". His stepmother acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read.Education and move to IllinoisLincoln was largely self-educated. His formal schooling was from itinerant teachers. It included two short stints in Kentucky, where he learned to read but probably not to write, at age seven, and in Indiana, where he went to school sporadically due to farm chores, for a total of less than 12 months in aggregate by the age of 15. He persisted as an avid reader and retained a lifelong interest in learning. Family, neighbors, and schoolmates recalled that his reading included the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.As a teen, Lincoln took responsibility for chores and customarily gave his father all earnings from work outside the home until he was 21. Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax. He was an active wrestler during his youth and trained in the rough catch-as-catch-can style (also known as catch wrestling). He became county wrestling champion at the age of 21. He gained a reputation for strength and audacity after winning a wrestling match with the renowned leader of ruffians known as "the Clary's Grove Boys".In March 1830, fearing another milk sickness outbreak, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham, moved west to Illinois, a free state, and settled in Macon County. Abraham then became increasingly distant from Thomas, in part due to his father's lack of education. In 1831, as Thomas and other family prepared to move to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham struck out on his own. He made his home in New Salem, Illinois, for six years. Lincoln and some friends took goods by flatboat to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was first exposed to slavery.In 1865, Lincoln was asked how he came to acquire his rhetorical skills. He answered that in the practice of law he frequently came across the word "demonstrate" but had insufficient understanding of the term. So, he left Springfield for his father's home to study until he "could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid [here, referencing Euclid's Elements] at sight."Marriage and childrenLincoln's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he moved to New Salem. By 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died on August 25, 1835, most likely of typhoid fever. In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky.Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Owens if she returned to New Salem. Owens arrived that November and he courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts. On August 16, 1837, he wrote Owens a letter saying he would not blame her if she ended the relationship, and she never replied.In 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois, and the following year they became engaged. She was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy lawyer and businessman in Lexington, Kentucky. A wedding set for January 1, 1841, was canceled at Lincoln's request, but they reconciled and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's sister. While anxiously preparing for the nuptials, he was asked where he was going and replied, "To hell, I suppose." In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near his law office. Mary kept house with the help of a hired servant and a relative.Lincoln was an affectionate husband and father of four sons, though his work regularly kept him away from home. The oldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born in 1843 and was the only child to live to maturity. Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie), born in 1846, died February 1, 1850, probably of tuberculosis. Lincoln's third son, "Willie" Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever at the White House on February 20, 1862. The youngest, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and survived his father but died of heart failure at age 18 on July 16, 1871. Lincoln "was remarkably fond of children" and the Lincolns were not considered to be strict with their own. In fact, Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon would grow irritated when Lincoln would bring his children to the law office. Their father, it seemed, was often too absorbed in his work to notice his children's behavior. Herndon recounted, "I have felt many and many a time that I wanted to wring their little necks, and yet out of respect for Lincoln I kept my mouth shut. Lincoln did not note what his children were doing or had done."The deaths of their sons, Eddie and Willie, had profound effects on both parents. Lincoln suffered from "melancholy", a condition now thought to be clinical depression. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and Robert committed her for a time to an asylum in 1875.Early career and militia serviceIn 1832, Lincoln joined with a partner, Denton Offutt, in the purchase of a general store on credit in New Salem. Although the economy was booming, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share. That March he entered politics, running for the Illinois General Assembly, advocating navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. He could draw crowds as a raconteur, but he lacked the requisite formal education, powerful friends, and money, and lost the election.Lincoln briefly interrupted his campaign to serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. In his first campaign speech after returning, he observed a supporter in the crowd under attack, grabbed the assailant by his "neck and the seat of his trousers", and tossed him. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected), though he received 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.Lincoln served as New Salem's postmaster and later as county surveyor, but continued his voracious reading, and decided to become a lawyer. Rather than studying in the office of an established attorney, as was the custom, Lincoln borrowed legal texts from attorneys John Todd Stuart and Thomas Drummond, purchased books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Chitty's Pleadings, and read law on his own. He later said of his legal education that "I studied with nobody."Illinois state legislature (1834–1842)Lincoln's second state house campaign in 1834, this time as a Whig, was a success over a powerful Whig opponent. Then followed his four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County. He championed construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and later was a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage beyond white landowners to all white males, but adopted a "free soil" stance opposing both slavery and abolition. In 1837, he declared, "[The] Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils." He echoed Henry Clay's support for the American Colonization Society which advocated a program of abolition in conjunction with settling freed slaves in Liberia.He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836, and moved to Springfield and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd's cousin. Lincoln emerged as a formidable trial combatant during cross-examinations and closing arguments. He partnered several years with Stephen T. Logan, and in 1844 began his practice with William Herndon, "a studious young man".U.S. House of Representatives (1847–1849)True to his record, Lincoln professed to friends in 1861 to be "an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay". Their party favored economic modernization in banking, tariffs to fund internal improvements including railroads, and urbanization.In 1843, Lincoln sought the Whig nomination for Illinois' 7th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; he was defeated by John J. Hardin though he prevailed with the party in limiting Hardin to one term. Lincoln not only pulled off his strategy of gaining the nomination in 1846 but also won the election. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but as dutiful as any participated in almost all votes and made speeches that toed the party line. He was assigned to the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department. Lincoln teamed with Joshua R. Giddings on a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners, enforcement to capture fugitive slaves, and a popular vote on the matter. He dropped the bill when it eluded Whig support.Political views On foreign and military policy, Lincoln spoke against the Mexican–American War, which he imputed to President James K. Polk's desire for "military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood". He supported the Wilmot Proviso, a failed proposal to ban slavery in any U.S. territory won from Mexico.Lincoln emphasized his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a Mexican slaughter of American soldiers in territory disputed by Mexico, and Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had "invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil". Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed and prove that the spot was on American soil. The resolution was ignored in both Congress and the national papers, and it cost Lincoln political support in his district. One Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln". Lincoln later regretted some of his statements, especially his attack on presidential war-making powers.Lincoln had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House. Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, he supported General Zachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Taylor won and Lincoln hoped in vain to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office. The administration offered to appoint him secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory as consolation. This distant territory was a Democratic stronghold, and acceptance of the post would have disrupted his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice.Prairie lawyerIn his Springfield practice, Lincoln handled "every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer". Twice a year he appeared for 10 consecutive weeks in county seats in the Midstate county courts; this continued for 16 years. Lincoln handled transportation cases in the midst of the nation's western expansion, particularly river barge conflicts under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests, but ultimately represented whoever hired him. He later represented a bridge company against a riverboat company in Hurd v. Rock Island Bridge Company, a landmark case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge. In 1849, he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water. The idea was never commercialized, but it made Lincoln the only president to hold a patent.Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases; he was sole counsel in 51 cases, of which 31 were decided in his favor. From 1853 to 1860, one of his largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad. His legal reputation gave rise to the nickname "Honest Abe".Lincoln argued in an 1858 criminal trial, defending William "Duff" Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for Lincoln's use of a fact established by judicial notice to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After an opposing witness testified to seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers' Almanac showing the moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Armstrong was acquitted.Leading up to his presidential campaign, Lincoln elevated his profile in an 1859 murder case, with his defense of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison who was a third cousin; Harrison was also the grandson of Lincoln's political opponent, Rev. Peter Cartwright. Harrison was charged with the murder of Greek Crafton who, as he lay dying of his wounds, confessed to Cartwright that he had provoked Harrison. Lincoln angrily protested the judge's initial decision to exclude Cartwright's testimony about the confession as inadmissible hearsay. Lincoln argued that the testimony involved a dying declaration and was not subject to the hearsay rule. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as expected, the judge, a Democrat, reversed his ruling and admitted the testimony into evidence, resulting in Harrison's acquittal.Republican politics (1854–1860)Emergence as Republican leaderThe debate over the status of slavery in the territories failed to alleviate tensions between the slave-holding South and the free North, with the failure of the Compromise of 1850, a legislative package designed to address the issue. In his 1852 eulogy for Clay, Lincoln highlighted the latter's support for gradual emancipation and opposition to "both extremes" on the slavery issue. As the slavery debate in the Nebraska and Kansas territories became particularly acrimonious, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed popular sovereignty as a compromise; the measure would allow the electorate of each territory to decide the status of slavery. The legislation alarmed many Northerners, who sought to prevent the resulting spread of slavery, but Douglas's Kansas–Nebraska Act narrowly passed Congress in May 1854.Lincoln did not comment on the act until months later in his "Peoria Speech" in October 1854. Lincoln then declared his opposition to slavery which he repeated en route to the presidency. He said the Kansas Act had a "declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ..." Lincoln's attacks on the Kansas–Nebraska Act marked his return to political life.Nationally, the Whigs were irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act and other efforts to compromise on the slavery issue. Reflecting on the demise of his party, Lincoln wrote in 1855, "I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist...I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery." The new Republican Party was formed as a northern party dedicated to antislavery, drawing from the antislavery wing of the Whig Party, and combining Free Soil, Liberty, and antislavery Democratic Party members, Lincoln resisted early Republican entreaties, fearing that the new party would become a platform for extreme abolitionists. Lincoln held out hope for rejuvenating the Whigs, though he lamented his party's growing closeness with the nativist Know Nothing movement.In 1854, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois legislature but declined to take his seat. The year's elections showed the strong opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and in the aftermath, Lincoln sought election to the United States Senate. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. After leading in the first six rounds of voting, he was unable to obtain a majority. Lincoln instructed his backers to vote for Lyman Trumbull. Trumbull was an antislavery Democrat, and had received few votes in the earlier ballots; his supporters, also antislavery Democrats, had vowed not to support any Whig. Lincoln's decision to withdraw enabled his Whig supporters and Trumbull's antislavery Democrats to combine and defeat the mainstream Democratic candidate, Joel Aldrich Matteson.1856 campaign Violent political confrontations in Kansas continued, and opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act remained strong throughout the North. As the 1856 elections approached, Lincoln joined the Republicans and attended the Bloomington Convention, which formally established the Illinois Republican Party. The convention platform endorsed Congress's right to regulate slavery in the territories and backed the admission of Kansas as a free state. Lincoln gave the final speech of the convention supporting the party platform and called for the preservation of the Union. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, though Lincoln received support to run as vice president, John C. Frémont and William Dayton comprised the ticket, which Lincoln supported throughout Illinois. The Democrats nominated former Secretary of State James Buchanan and the Know-Nothings nominated former Whig President Millard Fillmore. Buchanan prevailed, while Republican William Henry Bissell won election as Governor of Illinois, and Lincoln became a leading Republican in Illinois.Dred Scott v. Sandford Dred Scott was a slave whose master took him from a slave state to a free territory under the Missouri Compromise. After Scott was returned to the slave state he petitioned a federal court for his freedom. His petition was denied in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the decision wrote that blacks were not citizens and derived no rights from the Constitution. While many Democrats hoped that Dred Scott would end the dispute over slavery in the territories, the decision sparked further outrage in the North. Lincoln denounced it as the product of a conspiracy of Democrats to support the Slave Power. He argued the decision was at variance with the Declaration of Independence; he said that while the founding fathers did not believe all men equal in every respect, they believed all men were equal "in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speechIn 1858, Douglas was up for re-election in the U.S. Senate, and Lincoln hoped to defeat him. Many in the party felt that a former Whig should be nominated in 1858, and Lincoln's 1856 campaigning and support of Trumbull had earned him a favor. Some eastern Republicans supported Douglas for his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution and admission of Kansas as a slave state. Many Illinois Republicans resented this eastern interference. For the first time, Illinois Republicans held a convention to agree upon a Senate candidate, and Lincoln won the nomination with little opposition.Lincoln accepted the nomination with great enthusiasm and zeal. After his nomination he delivered his House Divided Speech, with the biblical reference Mark 3:25, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created a stark image of the danger of disunion. The stage was then set for the election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas. When informed of Lincoln's nomination, Douglas stated, "[Lincoln] is the strong man of the party ... and if I beat him, my victory will be hardly won."The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas. These were the most famous political debates in American history; they had an atmosphere akin to a prizefight and drew crowds in the thousands. The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Lincoln warned that Douglas’ "Slave Power" was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the Founding Fathers' premise that all men are created equal. Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. Lincoln's argument assumed a moral tone, as he claimed Douglas represented a conspiracy to promote slavery. Douglas's argument was more legal, claiming that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision.Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas. Lincoln's articulation of the issues gave him a national political presence. In May 1859, Lincoln purchased the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper that was consistently supportive; most of the state's 130,000 German Americans voted Democratically but the German-language paper mobilized Republican support. In the aftermath of the 1858 election, newspapers frequently mentioned Lincoln as a potential Republican presidential candidate, rivaled by William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Simon Cameron. While Lincoln was popular in the Midwest, he lacked support in the Northeast and was unsure whether to seek office. In January 1860, Lincoln told a group of political allies that he would accept the nomination if offered, and in the following months' several local papers endorsed his candidacy.Over the coming months, Lincoln was tireless, making nearly fifty speeches along the campaign trail. By the quality and simplicity of his rhetoric, he quickly became the champion of the Republican party. However, despite his overwhelming support in the Midwestern United States, he was less appreciated in the east. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, at that time wrote up an unflattering account of Lincoln's compromising position on slavery and his reluctance to challenge the court's Dred-Scott ruling, which was promptly used against him by his political rivals.On February 27, 1860, powerful New York Republicans invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union, in which he argued that the Founding Fathers of the United States had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. He insisted that morality required opposition to slavery, and rejected any "groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong". Many in the audience thought he appeared awkward and even ugly. But Lincoln demonstrated intellectual leadership that brought him into contention. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, "No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."Historian David Herbert Donald described the speech as a "superb political move for an unannounced candidate, to appear in one rival's (Seward) own state at an event sponsored by the second rival's (Chase) loyalists, while not mentioning either by name during its delivery". In response to an inquiry about his ambitions, Lincoln said, "The taste is in my mouth a little."1860 presidential electionOn May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln's followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement. Exploiting his embellished frontier legend (clearing land and splitting fence rails), Lincoln's supporters adopted the label of "The Rail Candidate". In 1860, Lincoln described himself: "I am in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes." Michael Martinez wrote about the effective imaging of Lincoln by his campaign. At times he was presented as the plain-talking "Rail Splitter" and at other times he was "Honest Abe", unpolished but trustworthy.On May 18, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot, beating candidates such as Seward and Chase. A former Democrat, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, was nominated for vice president to balance the ticket. Lincoln's success depended on his campaign team, his reputation as a moderate on the slavery issue, and his strong support for internal improvements and the tariff.Pennsylvania put him over the top, led by the state's iron interests who were reassured by his tariff support. Lincoln's managers had focused on this delegation while honoring Lincoln's dictate to "Make no contracts that will bind me".As the Slave Power tightened its grip on the national government, most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln had doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. When Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats, delegates from eleven slave states walked out of the Democratic convention; they opposed Douglas's position on popular sovereignty, and selected incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge as their candidate. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln and Douglas competed for votes in the North, while Bell and Breckinridge primarily found support in the South.Prior to the Republican convention, the Lincoln campaign began cultivating a nationwide youth organization, the Wide Awakes, which it used to generate popular support throughout the country to spearhead voter registration drives, thinking that new voters and young voters tended to embrace new parties. People of the Northern states knew the Southern states would vote against Lincoln and rallied supporters for Lincoln.As Douglas and the other candidates campaigned, Lincoln gave no speeches, relying on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. Republican speakers focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln's life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the power of "free labor", which allowed a common farm boy to work his way to the top by his own efforts. The Republican Party's production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln's life and sold 100,000–200,000 copies. Though he did not give public appearances, many sought to visit him and write him. In the runup to the election, he took an office in the Illinois state capitol to deal with the influx of attention. He also hired John George Nicolay as his personal secretary, who would remain in that role during the presidency.On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president. He was the first Republican president and his victory was entirely due to his support in the North and West. No ballots were cast for him in 10 of the 15 Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states, an omen of the impending Civil War. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the total in a four-way race, carrying the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. His victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 votes to 123 for his opponents.Presidency (1861–1865)Secession and inaugurationThe South was outraged by Lincoln's election, and in response secessionists implemented plans to leave the Union before he took office in March 1861. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead by adopting an ordinance of secession; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Six of these states declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America, and adopted a constitution. The upper South and border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) initially rejected the secessionist appeal. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy, declaring secession illegal. The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as its provisional president on February 9, 1861.Attempts at compromise followed but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected the proposed Crittenden Compromise as contrary to the Party's platform of free-soil in the territories. Lincoln said, "I will suffer death before I consent ... to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right."Lincoln tacitly supported the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which passed Congress and was awaiting ratification by the states when Lincoln took office. That doomed amendment would have protected slavery in states where it already existed. A few weeks before the war, Lincoln sent a letter to every governor informing them Congress had passed a joint resolution to amend the Constitution.En route to his inauguration, Lincoln addressed crowds and legislatures across the North. He gave a particularly emotional farewell address upon leaving Springfield; he would never again return to Springfield alive. The president-elect evaded suspected assassins in Baltimore. On February 23, 1861, he arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military guard. Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming once again that he had no inclination to abolish slavery in the Southern states: Lincoln cited his plans for banning the expansion of slavery as the key source of conflict between North and South, stating "One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." The president ended his address with an appeal to the people of the South: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies ... The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 signaled that legislative compromise was impossible. By March 1861, no leaders of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln looked back on the situation at the time and said: "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."Civil WarMajor Robert Anderson, commander of the Union's Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, sent a request for provisions to Washington, and Lincoln's order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter and began the fight. Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Lincoln made three miscalculations: underestimating the gravity of the crisis, exaggerating the strength of Unionist sentiment in the South, and overlooking Southern Unionist opposition to an invasion.William Tecumseh Sherman talked to Lincoln during inauguration week and was "sadly disappointed" at his failure to realize that "the country was sleeping on a volcano" and that the South was preparing for war. Donald concludes that, "His repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that."On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union", which, in his view, remained intact despite the seceding states. This call forced states to choose sides. Virginia seceded and was rewarded with the designation of Richmond as the Confederate capital, despite its exposure to Union lines. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed over the following two months. Secession sentiment was strong in Missouri and Maryland, but did not prevail; Kentucky remained neutral. The Fort Sumter attack rallied Americans north of the Mason-Dixon line to defend the nation.As States sent Union regiments south, on April 19, Baltimore mobs in control of the rail links attacked Union troops who were changing trains. Local leaders' groups later burned critical rail bridges to the capital and the Army responded by arresting local Maryland officials. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus where needed for the security of troops trying to reach Washington. John Merryman, one Maryland official hindering the U.S. troop movements, petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus. In June Taney, ruling only for the lower circuit court in ex parte Merryman, issued the writ which he felt could only be suspended by Congress. Lincoln persisted with the policy of suspension in select areas.Union military strategyLincoln took executive control of the war and shaped the Union military strategy. He responded to the unprecedented political and military crisis as commander-in-chief by exercising unprecedented authority. He expanded his war powers, imposed a blockade on Confederate ports, disbursed funds before appropriation by Congress, suspended habeas corpus, and arrested and imprisoned thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers. Lincoln gained the support of Congress and the northern public for these actions. Lincoln also had to reinforce Union sympathies in the border slave states and keep the war from becoming an international conflict.It was clear from the outset that bipartisan support was essential to success, and that any compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle, such as the appointment of Republicans and Democrats to command positions. Copperheads criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on slavery. The Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. On August 6, 1861, Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act that authorized judicial proceedings to confiscate and free slaves who were used to support the Confederates. The law had little practical effect, but it signaled political support for abolishing slavery.In August 1861, General John C. Frémont, the 1856 Republican presidential nominee, without consulting Washington, issued a martial edict freeing slaves of the rebels. Lincoln canceled the illegal proclamation as politically motivated and lacking military necessity. As a result, Union enlistments from Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri increased by over 40,000.Internationally, Lincoln wanted to forestall foreign military aid to the Confederacy. He relied on his combative Secretary of State William Seward while working closely with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Charles Sumner. In the 1861 Trent Affair which threatened war with Great Britain, the U.S. Navy illegally intercepted a British mail ship, the Trent, on the high seas and seized two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the U.S. cheered. Lincoln ended the crisis by releasing the two diplomats. Biographer James G. Randall dissected Lincoln's successful techniques:Lincoln painstakingly monitored the telegraph reports coming into the War Department. He tracked all phases of the effort, consulting with governors, and selecting generals based on their success, their state, and their party. In January 1862, after complaints of inefficiency and profiteering in the War Department, Lincoln replaced War Secretary Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton. Stanton centralized the War Department's activities, auditing and canceling contracts, saving the federal government $17,000,000. Stanton was a staunch Unionist, pro-business, conservative Democrat who gravitated toward the Radical Republican faction. He worked more often and more closely with Lincoln than any other senior official. "Stanton and Lincoln virtually conducted the war together", say Thomas and Hyman.Lincoln's war strategy embraced two priorities: ensuring that Washington was well-defended and conducting an aggressive war effort for a prompt, decisive victory. Twice a week, Lincoln met with his cabinet in the afternoon. Occasionally Mary prevailed on him to take a carriage ride, concerned that he was working too hard. For his edification Lincoln relied upon a book by his chief of staff General Henry Halleck entitled Elements of Military Art and Science; Halleck was a disciple of the European strategist Antoine-Henri Jomini. Lincoln began to appreciate the critical need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River. Lincoln saw the importance of Vicksburg and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy's army, rather than simply capturing territory.General McClellanAfter the Union rout at Bull Run and Winfield Scott's retirement, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief. McClellan then took months to plan his Virginia Peninsula Campaign. McClellan's slow progress frustrated Lincoln, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. McClellan, in turn, blamed the failure of the campaign on Lincoln's reservation of troops for the capitol.In 1862, Lincoln removed McClellan for the general's continued inaction. He elevated Henry Halleck in July and appointed John Pope as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope satisfied Lincoln's desire to advance on Richmond from the north, thus protecting Washington from counterattack. But Pope was then soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac back to defend Washington.Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan's failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln restored him to command of all forces around Washington. Two days after McClellan's return to command, General Robert E. Lee's forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam. That battle, a Union victory, was among the bloodiest in American history; it facilitated Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in January.McClellan then resisted the president's demand that he pursue Lee's withdrawing army, while General Don Carlos Buell likewise refused orders to move the Army of the Ohio against rebel forces in eastern Tennessee. Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans; and after the 1862 midterm elections he replaced McClellan with Ambrose Burnside. The appointments were both politically neutral and adroit on Lincoln's part.Burnside, against presidential advice, launched an offensive across the Rappahannock River and was defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg in December. Desertions during 1863 came in the thousands and only increased after Fredericksburg, so Lincoln replaced Burnside with Joseph Hooker.In the 1862 midterm elections the Republicans suffered severe losses due to rising inflation, high taxes, rumors of corruption, suspension of habeas corpus, military draft law, and fears that freed slaves would come North and undermine the labor market. The Emancipation Proclamation gained votes for Republicans in rural New England and the upper Midwest, but cost votes in the Irish and German strongholds and in the lower Midwest, where many Southerners had lived for generations.In the spring of 1863 Lincoln was sufficiently optimistic about upcoming military campaigns to think the end of the war could be near; the plans included attacks by Hooker on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans on Chattanooga, Grant on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston.Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, then resigned and was replaced by George Meade. Meade followed Lee north into Pennsylvania and beat him in the Gettysburg Campaign, but then failed to follow up despite Lincoln's demands. At the same time, Grant captured Vicksburg and gained control of the Mississippi River, splitting the far western rebel states.Emancipation ProclamationThe Federal government's power to end slavery was limited by the Constitution, which before 1865 delegated the issue to the individual states. Lincoln argued that slavery would be rendered obsolete if its expansion into new territories were prevented. He sought to persuade the states to agree to compensation for emancipating their slaves in return for their acceptance of abolition. Lincoln rejected Fremont's two emancipation attempts in August 1861, as well as one by Major General David Hunter in May 1862, on the grounds that it was not within their power, and would upset loyal border states.In June 1862, Congress passed an act banning slavery on all federal territory, which Lincoln signed. In July, the Confiscation Act of 1862 was enacted, providing court procedures to free the slaves of those convicted of aiding the rebellion; Lincoln approved the bill despite his belief that it was unconstitutional. He felt such action could be taken only within the war powers of the commander-in-chief, which he planned to exercise. Lincoln at this time reviewed a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation with his cabinet.Privately, Lincoln concluded that the Confederacy's slave base had to be eliminated. Copperheads argued that emancipation was a stumbling block to peace and reunification; Republican editor Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune agreed. In a letter of August 22, 1862, Lincoln said that while he personally wished all men could be free, regardless of that, his first obligation as president was to preserve the Union:The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and effective January 1, 1863, affirmed the freedom of slaves in 10 states not then under Union control, with exemptions specified for areas under such control. Lincoln's comment on signing the Proclamation was: "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper." He spent the next 100 days preparing the army and the nation for emancipation, while Democrats rallied their voters by warning of the threat that freed slaves posed to northern whites.With the abolition of slavery in the rebel states now a military objective, Union armies advancing south liberated three million slaves.Enlisting former slaves became official policy. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln was ready to recruit black troops in more than token numbers. In a letter to Tennessee military governor Andrew Johnson encouraging him to lead the way in raising black troops, Lincoln wrote, "The bare sight of 50,000 armed and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once". By the end of 1863, at Lincoln's direction, General Lorenzo Thomas had recruited 20 regiments of blacks from the Mississippi Valley.The Proclamation included Lincoln's earlier plans for colonies for newly freed slaves, though that undertaking ultimately failed.Gettysburg Address (1863)Lincoln spoke at the dedication of the Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863. In 272 words, and three minutes, Lincoln asserted that the nation was born not in 1789, but in 1776, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". He defined the war as dedicated to the principles of liberty and equality for all. He declared that the deaths of so many brave soldiers would not be in vain, that slavery would end, and the future of democracy would be assured, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".Defying his prediction that "the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here", the Address became the most quoted speech in American history.General GrantGrant's victories at the Battle of Shiloh and in the Vicksburg campaign impressed Lincoln. Responding to criticism of Grant after Shiloh, Lincoln had said, "I can't spare this man. He fights." With Grant in command, Lincoln felt the Union Army could advance in multiple theaters, while also including black troops. Meade's failure to capture Lee's army after Gettysburg and the continued passivity of the Army of the Potomac persuaded Lincoln to promote Grant to supreme commander. Grant then assumed command of Meade's army.Lincoln was concerned that Grant might be considering a presidential candidacy in 1864. He arranged for an intermediary to inquire into Grant's political intentions, and once assured that he had none, Lincoln promoted Grant to the newly revived rank of Lieutenant General, a rank which had been unoccupied since George Washington. Authorization for such a promotion "with the advice and consent of the Senate" was provided by a new bill which Lincoln signed the same day he submitted Grant's name to the Senate. His nomination was confirmed by the Senate on March 2, 1864.Grant in 1864 waged the bloody Overland Campaign, which exacted heavy losses on both sides. When Lincoln asked what Grant's plans were, the persistent general replied, "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Grant's army moved steadily south. Lincoln traveled to Grant's headquarters at City Point, Virginia, to confer with Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Lincoln reacted to Union losses by mobilizing support throughout the North. Lincoln authorized Grant to target infrastructure—plantations, railroads, and bridges—hoping to weaken the South's morale and fighting ability. He emphasized defeat of the Confederate armies over destruction (which was considerable) for its own sake. Lincoln's engagement became distinctly personal on one occasion in 1864 when Confederate general Jubal Early raided Washington, D.C. Legend has it that while Lincoln watched from an exposed position, Union Captain (and future Supreme Court Justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. shouted at him, "Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!"As Grant continued to weaken Lee's forces, efforts to discuss peace began. Confederate Vice President Stephens led a group meeting with Lincoln, Seward, and others at Hampton Roads. Lincoln refused to negotiate with the Confederacy as a coequal; his objective to end the fighting was not realized. On April 1, 1865, Grant nearly encircled Petersburg in a siege. The Confederate government evacuated Richmond and Lincoln visited the conquered capital. On April 9, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, officially ending the war.Re-electionLincoln ran for reelection in 1864, while uniting the main Republican factions, along with War Democrats Edwin M. Stanton and Andrew Johnson. Lincoln used conversation and his patronage powers—greatly expanded from peacetime—to build support and fend off the Radicals' efforts to replace him. At its convention, the Republicans selected Johnson as his running mate. To broaden his coalition to include War Democrats as well as Republicans, Lincoln ran under the label of the new Union Party.Grant's bloody stalemates damaged Lincoln's re-election prospects, and many Republicans feared defeat. Lincoln confidentially pledged in writing that if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House; Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope. The pledge read as follows:The Democratic platform followed the "Peace wing" of the party and called the war a "failure"; but their candidate, McClellan, supported the war and repudiated the platform. Meanwhile, Lincoln emboldened Grant with more troops and Republican party support. Sherman's capture of Atlanta in September and David Farragut's capture of Mobile ended defeatism. The Democratic Party was deeply split, with some leaders and most soldiers openly for Lincoln. The National Union Party was united by Lincoln's support for emancipation. State Republican parties stressed the perfidy of the Copperheads. On November 8, Lincoln carried all but three states, including 78 percent of Union soldiers.On March 4, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address. In it, he deemed the war casualties to be God's will. Historian Mark Noll places the speech "among the small handful of semi-sacred texts by which Americans conceive their place in the world;" it is inscribed in the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln said:ReconstructionReconstruction preceded the war's end, as Lincoln and his associates considered the reintegration of the nation, and the fates of Confederate leaders and freed slaves. When a general asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates were to be treated, Lincoln replied, "Let 'em up easy." Lincoln was determined to find meaning in the war in its aftermath, and did not want to continue to outcast the southern states. His main goal was to keep the union together, so he proceeded by focusing not on whom to blame, but on how to rebuild the nation as one. Lincoln led the moderates in Reconstruction policy and was opposed by the Radicals, under Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Sen. Charles Sumner and Sen. Benjamin Wade, who otherwise remained Lincoln's allies. Determined to reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held. His Amnesty Proclamation of December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office and had not mistreated Union prisoners, if they were willing to sign an oath of allegiance.As Southern states fell, they needed leaders while their administrations were restored. In Tennessee and Arkansas, Lincoln respectively appointed Johnson and Frederick Steele as military governors. In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would reestablish statehood when 10 percent of the voters agreed, and only if the reconstructed states abolished slavery. Democratic opponents accused Lincoln of using the military to ensure his and the Republicans' political aspirations. The Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, the 1864 Wade–Davis Bill, which Lincoln vetoed. The Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat elected representatives from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.Lincoln's appointments were designed to harness both moderates and Radicals. To fill Chief Justice Taney's seat on the Supreme Court, he named the Radicals' choice, Salmon P. Chase, who Lincoln believed would uphold his emancipation and paper money policies.After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln increased pressure on Congress to outlaw slavery throughout the nation with a constitutional amendment. He declared that such an amendment would "clinch the whole matter" and by December 1863 an amendment was brought to Congress. This first attempt fell short of the required two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives. Passage became part of Lincoln's reelection platform, and after his successful reelection, the second attempt in the House passed on January 31, 1865. With ratification, it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865.Lincoln believed the federal government had limited responsibility to the millions of freedmen. He signed Senator Charles Sumner's Freedmen's Bureau bill that set up a temporary federal agency designed to meet the immediate needs of former slaves. The law opened land for a lease of three years with the ability to purchase title for the freedmen. Lincoln announced a Reconstruction plan that involved short-term military control, pending readmission under the control of southern Unionists.Historians agree that it is impossible to predict exactly how Reconstruction would have proceeded had Lincoln lived. Biographers James G. Randall and Richard Current, according to David Lincove, argue that:Eric Foner argues that:Native American policyLincoln's experience with Indians followed the death of his grandfather Abraham by Indian assailants, in the presence of his father and uncles. Lincoln claimed Indians were antagonistic toward his father, Thomas Lincoln, and his young family. Although Lincoln was a veteran of the Black Hawk War, which was fought in Wisconsin and Illinois in 1832, he saw no significant action. During his presidency, Lincoln's policy toward Indians was driven by politics. He used the Indian Bureau as a source of patronage, making appointments to his loyal followers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He faced difficulties guarding Western settlers, railroads, and telegraphs, from Indian attacks.On August 17, 1862, the Dakota uprising in Minnesota, supported by the Yankton Indians, killed hundreds of white settlers, forced 30,000 from their homes, and deeply alarmed the Lincoln administration. Some believed it was a conspiracy by the Confederacy to launch a war on the Northwestern front. Lincoln sent General John Pope, the former head of the Army of Virginia, to Minnesota as commander of the new Department of the Northwest. Lincoln ordered thousands of Confederate prisoners of war sent by railroad to put down the Dakota Uprising. When the Confederates protested forcing Confederate prisoners to fight Indians, Lincoln revoked the policy. Pope fought against the Indians mercilessly, even advocating their extinction. He ordered Indian farms and food supplies be destroyed, and Indian warriors be killed. Aiding Pope, Minnesota Congressman Col. Henry H. Sibley led militiamen and regular troops to defeat the Dakota at Wood Lake. By October 9, Pope considered the uprising to be ended; hostilities ceased on December 26. An unusual military court was set up to prosecute captured natives, with Lincoln effectively acting as the route of appeal.Lincoln personally reviewed each of 303 execution warrants for Santee Dakota convicted of killing innocent farmers; he commuted the sentences of all but 39 (one was later reprieved). Lincoln sought to be lenient, but still send a message. He also faced significant public pressure, including threats of mob justice should any of the Dakota be spared. Former Governor of Minnesota Alexander Ramsey told Lincoln, in 1864, that he would have gotten more presidential election support had he executed all 303 of the Indians. Lincoln responded, "I could not afford to hang men for votes."Other enactmentsIn the selection and use of his cabinet, Lincoln employed the strengths of his opponents in a manner that emboldened his presidency. Lincoln commented on his thought process, "We need the strongest men of the party in the Cabinet. We needed to hold our own people together. I had looked the party over and concluded that these were the very strongest men. Then I had no right to deprive the country of their services."  Goodwin described the group in her biography as a Team of Rivals.Lincoln adhered to the Whig theory of a presidency focused on executing laws while deferring to Congress' responsibility for legislating. Lincoln vetoed only four bills, including the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh Reconstruction program. The 1862 Homestead Act made millions of acres of Western government-held land available for purchase at low cost. The 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States' First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was enabled by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s.There were two measures passed to raise revenues for the Federal government: tariffs (a policy with long precedent), and a Federal income tax. In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariffs, following the first enacted by Buchanan. He also signed the Revenue Act of 1861, creating the first U.S. income tax—a flat tax of 3 percent on incomes above $800 ($ in current dollar terms). The Revenue Act of 1862 adopted rates that increased with income.Lincoln presided over the expansion of the federal government's economic influence in other areas. The National Banking Act created the system of national banks. The US issued paper currency for the first time, known as greenbacks—printed in green on the reverse side. In 1862, Congress created the Department of Agriculture.In response to rumors of a renewed draft, the editors of the New York World and the Journal of Commerce published a false draft proclamation that created an opportunity for the editors and others to corner the gold market. Lincoln attacked the media for such behavior, and ordered a military seizure of the two papers which lasted for two days.Lincoln is largely responsible for the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving had become a regional holiday in New England in the 17th century. It had been sporadically proclaimed by the federal government on irregular dates. The prior proclamation had been during James Madison's presidency 50 years earlier. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving.In June 1864, Lincoln approved the Yosemite Grant enacted by Congress, which provided unprecedented federal protection for the area now known as Yosemite National Park.Judicial appointmentsSupreme Court appointmentsLincoln's philosophy on court nominations was that "we cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known." Lincoln made five appointments to the Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne was an anti-slavery lawyer who was committed to the Union. Samuel Freeman Miller supported Lincoln in the 1860 election and was an avowed abolitionist. David Davis was Lincoln's campaign manager in 1860 and had served as a judge in the Illinois court circuit where Lincoln practiced. Democrat Stephen Johnson Field, a previous California Supreme Court justice, provided geographic and political balance. Finally, Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, became Chief Justice. Lincoln believed Chase was an able jurist, would support Reconstruction legislation, and that his appointment united the Republican Party.Other judicial appointmentsLincoln appointed 27 judges to the United States district courts but no judges to the United States circuit courts during his time in office.States admitted to the UnionWest Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863. Nevada, which became the third state in the far-west of the continent, was admitted as a free state on October 31, 1864.AssassinationJohn Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland; though he never joined the Confederate army, he had contacts with the Confederate secret service. After attending an April 11, 1865 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, Booth hatched a plot to assassinate the President. When Booth learned of the Lincolns' intent to attend a play with General Grant, he planned to assassinate Lincoln and Grant at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln and his wife attended the play Our American Cousin on the evening of April 14, just five days after the Union victory at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. At the last minute, Grant decided to go to New Jersey to visit his children instead of attending the play.At 10:15 in the evening, Booth entered the back of Lincoln's theater box, crept up from behind, and fired at the back of Lincoln's head, mortally wounding him. Lincoln's guest Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped. After being attended by Doctor Charles Leale and two other doctors, Lincoln was taken across the street to Petersen House. After remaining in a coma for eight hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 in the morning on April 15. Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." Lincoln's body was placed in a flag-wrapped coffin, which was loaded into a hearse and escorted to the White House by Union soldiers. President Johnson was sworn in the next morning.Two weeks later, Booth, refusing to surrender, was tracked to a farm in Virginia, and was mortally shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett and died on April 26. Secretary of War Stanton had issued orders that Booth be taken alive, so Corbett was initially arrested for court martial. After a brief interview, Stanton declared him a patriot and dismissed the charge.Funeral and burial The late President lay in state, first in the East Room of the White House, and then in the Capitol Rotunda from April 19 through April 21. The caskets containing Lincoln's body and the body of his son Willie traveled for three weeks on the Lincoln Special funeral train. The train followed a circuitous route from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, stopping at many cities for memorials attended by hundreds of thousands. Many others gathered along the tracks as the train passed with bands, bonfires, and hymn singing or in silent grief. Poet Walt Whitman composed "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" to eulogize him, one of four poems he wrote about Lincoln. African Americans were especially moved; they had lost 'their Moses'. In a larger sense, the reaction was in response to the deaths of so many men in the war. Historians emphasized the widespread shock and sorrow, but noted that some Lincoln haters celebrated his death. Lincoln's body was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield and now lies within the Lincoln Tomb.Religious and philosophical beliefsAs a young man, Lincoln was a religious skeptic. He was deeply familiar with the Bible, quoting and praising it. He was private about his position on organized religion and respected the beliefs of others. He never made a clear profession of Christian beliefs. Through his entire public career, Lincoln had a proneness for quoting Scripture. His three most famous speeches—the House Divided Speech, the Gettysburg Address, and his second inaugural—each contain direct allusions to Providence and quotes from Scripture.In the 1840s, Lincoln subscribed to the Doctrine of Necessity, a belief that the human mind was controlled by a higher power. With the death of his son Edward in 1850 he more frequently expressed a dependence on God. He never joined a church, although he frequently attended First Presbyterian Church with his wife beginning in 1852.In the 1850s, Lincoln asserted his belief in "providence" in a general way, and rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence. The death of son Willie in February 1862 may have caused him to look toward religion for solace. After Willie's death, he questioned the divine necessity of the war's severity. He wrote at this time that God "could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun, He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."Lincoln did believe in an all-powerful God that shaped events and by 1865 was expressing those beliefs in major speeches. By the end of the war, he increasingly appealed to the Almighty for solace and to explain events, writing on April 4, 1864, to a newspaper editor in Kentucky: I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.This spirituality can best be seen in his second inaugural address, considered by some scholars as the greatest such address in American history, and by Lincoln himself as his own greatest speech, or one of them at the very least. Lincoln explains therein that the cause, purpose, and result of the war was God's will. Lincoln's frequent use of religious imagery and language toward the end of his life may have reflected his own personal beliefs or might have been a device to reach his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants. On the day Lincoln was assassinated, he reportedly told his wife he desired to visit the Holy Land.HealthLincoln is believed to have had depression, smallpox, and malaria. He took blue mass pills, which contained mercury, to treat constipation. It is unknown to what extent he may have suffered from mercury poisoning.Several claims have been made that Lincoln's health was declining before the assassination. These are often based on photographs of Lincoln appearing to show weight loss and muscle wasting. It is also suspected that he might have had a rare genetic disease such as Marfan syndrome or multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B.LegacyRepublican values Lincoln's redefinition of republican values has been stressed by historians such as John Patrick Diggins, Harry V. Jaffa, Vernon Burton, Eric Foner, and Herman J. Belz. Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence—which emphasized freedom and equality for all—the "sheet anchor" of republicanism beginning in the 1850s. He did this at a time when the Constitution, which "tolerated slavery", was the focus of most political discourse. Diggins notes, "Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself" in the 1860 Cooper Union speech. Instead of focusing on the legality of an argument, he focused on the moral basis of republicanism.His position on war was founded on a legal argument regarding the Constitution as essentially a contract among the states, and all parties must agree to pull out of the contract. Furthermore, it was a national duty to ensure the republic stands in every state. Many soldiers and religious leaders from the north, though, felt the fight for liberty and freedom of slaves was ordained by their moral and religious beliefs.As a Whig activist, Lincoln was a spokesman for business interests, favoring high tariffs, banks, infrastructure improvements, and railroads, in opposition to Jacksonian democrats. William C. Harris found that Lincoln's "reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the laws under it, and the preservation of the Republic and its institutions strengthened his conservatism." James G. Randall emphasizes his tolerance and moderation "in his preference for orderly progress, his distrust of dangerous agitation, and his reluctance toward ill digested schemes of reform." Randall concludes that "he was conservative in his complete avoidance of that type of so-called 'radicalism' which involved abuse of the South, hatred for the slaveholder, thirst for vengeance, partisan plotting, and ungenerous demands that Southern institutions be transformed overnight by outsiders."Reunification of the statesIn Lincoln's first inaugural address, he explored the nature of democracy. He denounced secession as anarchy, and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints. He said "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people."The successful reunification of the states had consequences for how people viewed the country. The term "the United States" has historically been used sometimes in the plural ("these United States") and other times in the singular. The Civil War was a significant force in the eventual dominance of the singular usage by the end of the 19th century.Historical reputation In surveys of U.S. scholars ranking presidents conducted since 1948, the top three presidents are Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, although the order varies. Between 1999 and 2011, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan have been the top-ranked presidents in eight surveys, according to Gallup. A 2004 study found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after George Washington.Lincoln's assassination left him a national martyr. He was viewed by abolitionists as a champion of human liberty. Republicans linked Lincoln's name to their party. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability. Historians have said he was "a classical liberal" in the 19th-century sense. Allen C. Guelzo states that Lincoln was a "classical liberal democrat—an enemy of artificial hierarchy, a friend to trade and business as ennobling and enabling, and an American counterpart to Mill, Cobden, and Bright", whose portrait Lincoln hung in his White House office.Schwartz argues that Lincoln's American reputation grew slowly from the late 19th century until the Progressive Era (1900–1920s), when he emerged as one of America's most venerated heroes, even among white Southerners. The high point came in 1922 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.Union nationalism, as envisioned by Lincoln, "helped lead America to the nationalism of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt." In the New Deal era, liberals honored Lincoln not so much as the self-made man or the great war president, but as the advocate of the common man who they claimed would have supported the welfare state.Sociologist Barry Schwartz argues that in the 1930s and 1940s the memory of Abraham Lincoln was practically sacred and provided the nation with "a moral symbol inspiring and guiding American life." During the Great Depression, he argues, Lincoln served "as a means for seeing the world's disappointments, for making its sufferings not so much explicable as meaningful". Franklin D. Roosevelt, preparing America for war, used the words of the Civil War president to clarify the threat posed by Germany and Japan. Americans asked, "What would Lincoln do?" However, Schwartz also finds that since World War II Lincoln's symbolic power has lost relevance, and this "fading hero is symptomatic of fading confidence in national greatness." He suggested that postmodernism and multiculturalism have diluted greatness as a concept.In the Cold War years, Lincoln's image shifted to a symbol of freedom who brought hope to those oppressed by Communist regimes. By the late 1960s, some African-American intellectuals, led by Lerone Bennett Jr., rejected Lincoln's role as the Great Emancipator. Bennett won wide attention when he called Lincoln a white supremacist in 1968. He noted that Lincoln used ethnic slurs and told jokes that ridiculed blacks. Bennett argued that Lincoln opposed social equality, and proposed sending freed slaves to another country. Defenders, such as authors Dirck and Cashin, retorted that he was not as bad as most politicians of his day; and that he was a "moral visionary" who deftly advanced the abolitionist cause, as fast as politically possible. The emphasis shifted away from Lincoln the emancipator to an argument that blacks had freed themselves from slavery, or at least were responsible for pressuring the government on emancipation.By the 1970s, Lincoln had become a hero to political conservatives, apart from neo-Confederates such as Mel Bradford who denounced his treatment of the white South, for his intense nationalism, support for business, his insistence on stopping the spread of human bondage, his acting in terms of Lockean and Burkean principles on behalf of both liberty and tradition, and his devotion to the principles of the Founding Fathers. Lincoln became a favorite exemplar for liberal intellectuals across the world.Historian Barry Schwartz wrote in 2009 that Lincoln's image suffered "erosion, fading prestige, benign ridicule" in the late 20th century. On the other hand, Donald opined in his 1996 biography that Lincoln was distinctly endowed with the personality trait of negative capability, defined by the poet John Keats and attributed to extraordinary leaders who were "content in the midst of uncertainties and doubts, and not compelled toward fact or reason".In the 21st century, President Barack Obama named Lincoln his favorite president and insisted on using the Lincoln Bible for his inaugural ceremonies. Lincoln has often been portrayed by Hollywood, almost always in a flattering light.Memory and memorialsLincoln's portrait appears on two denominations of United States currency, the penny and the $5 bill. His likeness also appears on many postage stamps. While he is usually portrayed bearded, he did not grow a beard until 1860 at the suggestion of 11-year-old Grace Bedell. He was the first of five presidents to do so.He has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, including the capital of Nebraska. The United States Navy   is named after Lincoln, the second Navy ship to bear his name.Lincoln Memorial is one of the most visited monuments in the nation's capital, and is one of the top five visited National Park Service sites in the country. Ford's Theatre, among the top sites in Washington, D.C., is across the street from Petersen House (where he died). Memorials in Springfield, Illinois include Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln's home, as well as his tomb. A portrait carving of Lincoln appears with those of three other presidents on Mount Rushmore, which receives about 3 million visitors a year.See also Outline of Abraham Lincoln Grace Bedell Lincoln Tower List of civil rights leaders List of photographs of Abraham Lincoln Lincoln (film): 2012 film by Steven Spielberg. Linconia, a proposed colony in Central America named for LincolnNotesReferencesBibliography                       Ellenberg's essay is adapted from his 2021 book, Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else, Penguin Press. ISBN 9781984879059External linksOfficial Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum The Lincoln Presidential Library's ongoing digitization of all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln – complete collected works as edited by Basler et al. (1958) – an online edition available through University of Michigan Library Digital Collections White House biographyOrganizations Abraham Lincoln Association  Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial FoundationMedia coverageOther Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress "Life Portrait of Abraham Lincoln", from C-SPAN's American presidents: Life Portraits, June 28, 1999 "Writings of Abraham Lincoln" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History Abraham Lincoln: Original Letters and Manuscripts – Shapell Manuscript Foundation Lincoln/Net: Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project – Northern Illinois University Libraries Teaching Abraham Lincoln  – National Endowment for the Humanities    In Popular Song: Our Noble Chief Has Passed Away by Cooper/Thomas Abraham Lincoln Recollections and Newspaper Articles Collection , McLean County Museum of History Digitized items in the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division in the Library of Congress 1809 births1865 deaths1865 murders in the United States19th-century American politicians19th-century presidents of the United StatesAmerican abolitionistsAmerican colonization movementAmerican lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading lawAmerican military personnel of the Indian WarsAmerican militia officersAmerican nationalistsAmerican people of English descentAmerican political party foundersIllinois postmastersAmerican surveyorsAssassinated presidents of the United StatesBurials at Oak Ridge CemeteryCandidates in the 1860 United States presidential electionCandidates in the 1864 United States presidential electionHall of Fame for Great Americans inducteesIllinois Central Railroad peopleIllinois RepublicansIllinois WhigsIllinois lawyersAbrahamMale murder victimsMembers of the Illinois House of RepresentativesMembers of the United States House of Representatives from IllinoisPeople associated with the assassination of Abraham LincolnPeople from Coles County, IllinoisPeople from LaRue County, KentuckyPeople from Macon County, IllinoisPeople from Spencer County, IndianaPeople murdered in Washington, D.C.People of Illinois in the American Civil WarPeople with mood disordersPoliticians from Springfield, IllinoisPresidents of the United StatesRepublican Party (United States) presidential nomineesRepublican Party presidents of the United StatesUnion political leadersWhig Party members of the United States House of Representatives
Aristotle (;  Aristotélēs, ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Lyceum, the Peripatetic school of philosophy, and the Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in the city of Stagira in Northern Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At seventeen or eighteen years of age he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrus scrolls. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues for publication, only around a third of his original output has survived, none of it intended for publication.Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of physical science extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations found in his biology, such as on the hectocotyl (reproductive) arm of the octopus, were disbelieved until the 19th century. He also influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400) during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante called him “the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and John Buridan.Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics.Aristotle has been called "the father of logic", "the father of biology", "the father of political science", "the father of zoology", "the father of embryology", "the father of natural law", "the father of scientific method", "the father of rhetoric", "the father of psychology", "the father of realism", "the father of criticism", "the father of individualism", "the father of teleology", and "the father of meteorology".LifeIn general, the details of Aristotle's life are not well-established. The biographies written in ancient times are often speculative and historians only agree on a few salient points.Aristotle, whose name means "the best purpose" in Ancient Greek, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice, about 55 km (34 miles) east of modern-day Thessaloniki. His father, Nicomachus, was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. While he was young, Aristotle learned about biology and medical information, which was taught by his father. Both of Aristotle's parents died when he was about thirteen, and Proxenus of Atarneus became his guardian. Although little information about Aristotle's childhood has survived, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy.At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. He probably experienced the Eleusinian Mysteries as he wrote when describing the sights one viewed at the Eleusinian Mysteries, "to experience is to learn" [παθείν μαθεĩν]. Aristotle remained in Athens for nearly twenty years before leaving in 348/47 BC. The traditional story about his departure records that he was disappointed with the academy's direction after control passed to Plato's nephew Speusippus, although it is possible that he feared the anti-Macedonian sentiments in Athens at that time and left before Plato died. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. After the death of Hermias, Aristotle travelled with his pupil Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island and its sheltered lagoon. While in Lesbos, Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermias's adoptive daughter or niece. She bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. In 343 BC, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander.Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During Aristotle's time in the Macedonian court, he gave lessons not only to Alexander but also to two other future kings: Ptolemy and Cassander. Aristotle encouraged Alexander toward eastern conquest, and Aristotle's own attitude towards Persia was unabashedly ethnocentric. In one famous example, he counsels Alexander to be "a leader to the Greeks and a despot to the barbarians, to look after the former as after friends and relatives, and to deal with the latter as with beasts or plants". By 335 BC, Aristotle had returned to Athens, establishing his own school there known as the Lyceum. Aristotle conducted courses at the school for the next twelve years. While in Athens, his wife Pythias died and Aristotle became involved with Herpyllis of Stagira, who bore him a son whom he named after his father, Nicomachus. If the Suda  an uncritical compilation from the Middle Ages  is accurate, he may also have had an erômenos, Palaephatus of Abydus.This period in Athens, between 335 and 323 BC, is when Aristotle is believed to have composed many of his works. He wrote many dialogues, of which only fragments have survived. Those works that have survived are in treatise form and were not, for the most part, intended for widespread publication; they are generally thought to be lecture aids for his students. His most important treatises include Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul and Poetics. Aristotle studied and made significant contributions to "logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance, and theatre."Near the end of his life, Alexander and Aristotle became estranged over Alexander's relationship with Persia and Persians. A widespread tradition in antiquity suspected Aristotle of playing a role in Alexander's death, but the only evidence of this is an unlikely claim made some six years after the death. Following Alexander's death, anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens was rekindled. In 322 BC, Demophilus and Eurymedon the Hierophant reportedly denounced Aristotle for impiety, prompting him to flee to his mother's family estate in Chalcis, on Euboea, at which occasion he was said to have stated: "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy" – a reference to Athens's trial and execution of Socrates. He died on Euboea of natural causes later that same year, having named his student Antipater as his chief executor and leaving a will in which he asked to be buried next to his wife.Speculative philosophyLogicWith the Prior Analytics, Aristotle is credited with the earliest study of formal logic, and his conception of it was the dominant form of Western logic until 19th-century advances in mathematical logic. Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason that with Aristotle logic reached its completion.OrganonWhat is today called Aristotelian logic with its types of syllogism (methods of logical argument), Aristotle himself would have labelled "analytics". The term "logic" he reserved to mean dialectics. Most of Aristotle's work is probably not in its original form, because it was most likely edited by students and later lecturers. The logical works of Aristotle were compiled into a set of six books called the Organon around 40 BC by Andronicus of Rhodes or others among his followers. The books are: Categories On Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics On Sophistical RefutationsThe order of the books (or the teachings from which they are composed) is not certain, but this list was derived from analysis of Aristotle's writings. It goes from the basics, the analysis of simple terms in the Categories, the analysis of propositions and their elementary relations in On Interpretation, to the study of more complex forms, namely, syllogisms (in the Analytics) and dialectics (in the Topics and Sophistical Refutations). The first three treatises form the core of the logical theory stricto sensu: the grammar of the language of logic and the correct rules of reasoning. The Rhetoric is not conventionally included, but it states that it relies on the Topics.MetaphysicsThe word "metaphysics" appears to have been coined by the first century AD editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works to the treatise we know by the name Metaphysics. Aristotle called it "first philosophy", and distinguished it from mathematics and natural science (physics) as the contemplative (theoretikē) philosophy which is "theological" and studies the divine. He wrote in his Metaphysics (1026a16):Substance Aristotle examines the concepts of substance (ousia) and essence (to ti ên einai, "the what it was to be") in his Metaphysics (Book VII), and he concludes that a particular substance is a combination of both matter and form, a philosophical theory called hylomorphism. In Book VIII, he distinguishes the matter of the substance as the substratum, or the stuff of which it is composed. For example, the matter of a house is the bricks, stones, timbers, etc., or whatever constitutes the potential house, while the form of the substance is the actual house, namely 'covering for bodies and chattels' or any other differentia that let us define something as a house. The formula that gives the components is the account of the matter, and the formula that gives the differentia is the account of the form.Immanent realism Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aims at the universal. Aristotle's ontology places the universal (katholou) in particulars (kath' hekaston), things in the world, whereas for Plato the universal is a separately existing form which actual things imitate. For Aristotle, "form" is still what phenomena are based on, but is "instantiated" in a particular substance.Plato argued that all things have a universal form, which could be either a property or a relation to other things. When one looks at an apple, for example, one sees an apple, and one can also analyse a form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a particular apple and a universal form of an apple. Moreover, one can place an apple next to a book, so that one can speak of both the book and apple as being next to each other. Plato argued that there are some universal forms that are not a part of particular things. For example, it is possible that there is no particular good in existence, but "good" is still a proper universal form. Aristotle disagreed with Plato on this point, arguing that all universals are instantiated at some period of time, and that there are no universals that are unattached to existing things. In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato about the location of universals. Where Plato spoke of the world of forms, a place where all universal forms subsist, Aristotle maintained that universals exist within each thing on which each universal is predicated. So, according to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the world of the forms.Potentiality and actuality With regard to the change (kinesis) and its causes now, as he defines in his Physics and On Generation and Corruption 319b–320a, he distinguishes the coming to be from: growth and diminution, which is change in quantity; locomotion, which is change in space; and alteration, which is change in quality.The coming to be is a change where nothing persists of which the resultant is a property. In that particular change he introduces the concept of potentiality (dynamis) and actuality (entelecheia) in association with the matter and the form. Referring to potentiality, this is what a thing is capable of doing or being acted upon if the conditions are right and it is not prevented by something else. For example, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially (dynamei) a plant, and if it is not prevented by something, it will become a plant. Potentially beings can either 'act' (poiein) or 'be acted upon' (paschein), which can be either innate or learned. For example, the eyes possess the potentiality of sight (innate – being acted upon), while the capability of playing the flute can be possessed by learning (exercise – acting). Actuality is the fulfilment of the end of the potentiality. Because the end (telos) is the principle of every change, and for the sake of the end exists potentiality, therefore actuality is the end. Referring then to the previous example, it can be said that an actuality is when a plant does one of the activities that plants do.In summary, the matter used to make a house has potentiality to be a house and both the activity of building and the form of the final house are actualities, which is also a final cause or end. Then Aristotle proceeds and concludes that the actuality is prior to potentiality in formula, in time and in substantiality. With this definition of the particular substance (i.e., matter and form), Aristotle tries to solve the problem of the unity of the beings, for example, "what is it that makes a man one"? Since, according to Plato there are two Ideas: animal and biped, how then is man a unity? However, according to Aristotle, the potential being (matter) and the actual one (form) are one and the same.EpistemologyAristotle's immanent realism means his epistemology is based on the study of things that exist or happen in the world, and rises to knowledge of the universal, whereas for Plato epistemology begins with knowledge of universal Forms (or ideas) and descends to knowledge of particular imitations of these. Aristotle uses induction from examples alongside deduction, whereas Plato relies on deduction from a priori principles.Natural philosophyAristotle's "natural philosophy" spans a wide range of natural phenomena including those now covered by physics, biology and other natural sciences. In Aristotle's terminology, "natural philosophy" is a branch of philosophy examining the phenomena of the natural world, and includes fields that would be regarded today as physics, biology and other natural sciences. Aristotle's work encompassed virtually all facets of intellectual inquiry. Aristotle makes philosophy in the broad sense coextensive with reasoning, which he also would describe as "science". However, his use of the term science carries a different meaning than that covered by the term "scientific method". For Aristotle, "all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical" (Metaphysics 1025b25). His practical science includes ethics and politics; his poetical science means the study of fine arts including poetry; his theoretical science covers physics, mathematics and metaphysics.PhysicsFive elementsIn his On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle related each of the four elements proposed earlier by Empedocles, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, to two of the four sensible qualities, hot, cold, wet, and dry. In the Empedoclean scheme, all matter was made of the four elements, in differing proportions. Aristotle's scheme added the heavenly Aether, the divine substance of the heavenly spheres, stars and planets.MotionAristotle describes two kinds of motion: "violent" or "unnatural motion", such as that of a thrown stone, in the Physics (254b10), and "natural motion", such as of a falling object, in On the Heavens (300a20). In violent motion, as soon as the agent stops causing it, the motion stops also: in other words, the natural state of an object is to be at rest, since Aristotle does not address friction. With this understanding, it can be observed that, as Aristotle stated, heavy objects (on the ground, say) require more force to make them move; and objects pushed with greater force move faster. This would imply the equation ,incorrect in modern physics.Natural motion depends on the element concerned: the aether naturally moves in a circle around the heavens, while the 4 Empedoclean elements move vertically up (like fire, as is observed) or down (like earth) towards their natural resting places.In the Physics (215a25), Aristotle effectively states a quantitative law, that the speed, v, of a falling body is proportional (say, with constant c) to its weight, W, and inversely proportional to the density, ρ, of the fluid in which it is falling: Aristotle implies that in a vacuum the speed of fall would become infinite, and concludes from this apparent absurdity that a vacuum is not possible. Opinions have varied on whether Aristotle intended to state quantitative laws. Henri Carteron held the "extreme view" that Aristotle's concept of force was basically qualitative, but other authors reject this.Archimedes corrected Aristotle's theory that bodies move towards their natural resting places; metal boats can float if they displace enough water; floating depends in Archimedes' scheme on the mass and volume of the object, not, as Aristotle thought, its elementary composition.Aristotle's writings on motion remained influential until the Early Modern period. John Philoponus (in the Middle Ages) and Galileo are said to have shown by experiment that Aristotle's claim that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter object is incorrect. A contrary opinion is given by Carlo Rovelli, who argues that Aristotle's physics of motion is correct within its domain of validity, that of objects in the Earth's gravitational field immersed in a fluid such as air. In this system, heavy bodies in steady fall indeed travel faster than light ones (whether friction is ignored, or not), and they do fall more slowly in a denser medium.Newton's "forced" motion corresponds to Aristotle's "violent" motion with its external agent, but Aristotle's assumption that the agent's effect stops immediately it stops acting (e.g., the ball leaves the thrower's hand) has awkward consequences: he has to suppose that surrounding fluid helps to push the ball along to make it continue to rise even though the hand is no longer acting on it, resulting in the Medieval theory of impetus.Four causesAristotle suggested that the reason for anything coming about can be attributed to four different types of simultaneously active factors. His term aitia is traditionally translated as "cause", but it does not always refer to temporal sequence; it might be better translated as "explanation", but the traditional rendering will be employed here. Material cause describes the material out of which something is composed. Thus the material cause of a table is wood. It is not about action. It does not mean that one domino knocks over another domino. The formal cause is its form, i.e., the arrangement of that matter. It tells one what a thing is, that a thing is determined by the definition, form, pattern, essence, whole, synthesis or archetype. It embraces the account of causes in terms of fundamental principles or general laws, as the whole (i.e., macrostructure) is the cause of its parts, a relationship known as the whole-part causation. Plainly put, the formal cause is the idea in the mind of the sculptor that brings the sculpture into being. A simple example of the formal cause is the mental image or idea that allows an artist, architect, or engineer to create a drawing. The efficient cause is "the primary source", or that from which the change under consideration proceeds. It identifies 'what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed' and so suggests all sorts of agents, non-living or living, acting as the sources of change or movement or rest. Representing the current understanding of causality as the relation of cause and effect, this covers the modern definitions of "cause" as either the agent or agency or particular events or states of affairs. In the case of two dominoes, when the first is knocked over it causes the second also to fall over. In the case of animals, this agency is a combination of how it develops from the egg, and how its body functions. The final cause (telos) is its purpose, the reason why a thing exists or is done, including both purposeful and instrumental actions and activities. The final cause is the purpose or function that something is supposed to serve. This covers modern ideas of motivating causes, such as volition. In the case of living things, it implies adaptation to a particular way of life.OpticsAristotle describes experiments in optics using a camera obscura in Problems, book 15. The apparatus consisted of a dark chamber with a small aperture that let light in. With it, he saw that whatever shape he made the hole, the sun's image always remained circular. He also noted that increasing the distance between the aperture and the image surface magnified the image.Chance and spontaneityAccording to Aristotle, spontaneity and chance are causes of some things, distinguishable from other types of cause such as simple necessity. Chance as an incidental cause lies in the realm of accidental things, "from what is spontaneous". There is also more a specific kind of chance, which Aristotle names "luck", that only applies to people's moral choices.AstronomyIn astronomy, Aristotle refuted Democritus's claim that the Milky Way was made up of "those stars which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays," pointing out correctly that if "the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than that of the sun, then... the sun shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them."Geology/Natural SciencesAristotle was one of the first people to record any geological observations. He stated that geological change was too slow to be observed in one person's lifetime.The geologist Charles Lyell noted that Aristotle described such change, including "lakes that had dried up" and "deserts that had become watered by rivers", giving as examples the growth of the Nile delta since the time of Homer, and "the upheaving of one of the Aeolian islands, previous to a volcanic eruption."'Aristotle also made many observations about the hydrologic cycle and meteorology (including his major writings "Meteorologica"). For example, he made some of the earliest observations about desalination: he observed early – and correctly – that when seawater is heated, freshwater evaporates and that the oceans are then replenished by the cycle of rainfall and river runoff ("I have proved by experiment that salt water evaporated forms fresh and the vapor does not when it condenses condense into sea water again.")BiologyEmpirical researchAristotle was the first person to study biology systematically, and biology forms a large part of his writings. He spent two years observing and describing the zoology of Lesbos and the surrounding seas, including in particular the Pyrrha lagoon in the centre of Lesbos. His data in History of Animals, Generation of Animals, Movement of Animals, and Parts of Animals are assembled from his own observations, statements given by people with specialized knowledge such as beekeepers and fishermen, and less accurate accounts provided by travellers from overseas. His apparent emphasis on animals rather than plants is a historical accident: his works on botany have been lost, but two books on plants by his pupil Theophrastus have survived.Aristotle reports on the sea-life visible from observation on Lesbos and the catches of fishermen. He describes the catfish, electric ray, and frogfish in detail, as well as cephalopods such as the octopus and paper nautilus. His description of the hectocotyl arm of cephalopods, used in sexual reproduction, was widely disbelieved until the 19th century. He gives accurate descriptions of the four-chambered fore-stomachs of ruminants, and of the ovoviviparous embryological development of the hound shark.He notes that an animal's structure is well matched to function, so, among birds, the heron, which lives in marshes with soft mud and lives by catching fish, has a long neck and long legs, and a sharp spear-like beak, whereas ducks that swim have short legs and webbed feet. Darwin, too, noted these sorts of differences between similar kinds of animal, but unlike Aristotle used the data to come to the theory of evolution. Aristotle's writings can seem to modern readers close to implying evolution, but while Aristotle was aware that new mutations or hybridizations could occur, he saw these as rare accidents. For Aristotle, accidents, like heat waves in winter, must be considered distinct from natural causes. He was thus critical of Empedocles's materialist theory of a "survival of the fittest" origin of living things and their organs, and ridiculed the idea that accidents could lead to orderly results. To put his views into modern terms, he nowhere says that different species can have a common ancestor, or that one kind can change into another, or that kinds can become extinct.Scientific styleAristotle did not do experiments in the modern sense. He used the ancient Greek term pepeiramenoi to mean observations, or at most investigative procedures like dissection. In Generation of Animals, he finds a fertilized hen's egg of a suitable stage and opens it to see the embryo's heart beating inside.Instead, he practiced a different style of science: systematically gathering data, discovering patterns common to whole groups of animals, and inferring possible causal explanations from these. This style is common in modern biology when large amounts of data become available in a new field, such as genomics. It does not result in the same certainty as experimental science, but it sets out testable hypotheses and constructs a narrative explanation of what is observed. In this sense, Aristotle's biology is scientific.From the data he collected and documented, Aristotle inferred quite a number of rules relating the life-history features of the live-bearing tetrapods (terrestrial placental mammals) that he studied. Among these correct predictions are the following. Brood size decreases with (adult) body mass, so that an elephant has fewer young (usually just one) per brood than a mouse. Lifespan increases with gestation period, and also with body mass, so that elephants live longer than mice, have a longer period of gestation, and are heavier. As a final example, fecundity decreases with lifespan, so long-lived kinds like elephants have fewer young in total than short-lived kinds like mice.Classification of living thingsAristotle distinguished about 500 species of animals, arranging these in the History of Animals in a graded scale of perfection, a nonreligious version of the scala naturae, with man at the top. His system had eleven grades of animal, from highest potential to lowest, expressed in their form at birth: the highest gave live birth to hot and wet creatures, the lowest laid cold, dry mineral-like eggs. Animals came above plants, and these in turn were above minerals. see also: He grouped what the modern zoologist would call vertebrates as the hotter "animals with blood", and below them the colder invertebrates as "animals without blood". Those with blood were divided into the live-bearing (mammals), and the egg-laying (birds, reptiles, fish). Those without blood were insects, crustacea (non-shelled – cephalopods, and shelled) and the hard-shelled molluscs (bivalves and gastropods). He recognised that animals did not exactly fit into a linear scale, and noted various exceptions, such as that sharks had a placenta like the tetrapods. To a modern biologist, the explanation, not available to Aristotle, is convergent evolution. Philosophers of science have generally concluded that Aristotle was not interested in taxonomy, but zoologists who studied this question recently think otherwise. He believed that purposive final causes guided all natural processes; this teleological view justified his observed data as an expression of formal design.PsychologySoulAristotle's psychology, given in his treatise On the Soul (peri psychēs), posits three kinds of soul ("psyches"): the vegetative soul, the sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Humans have a rational soul. The human soul incorporates the powers of the other kinds: Like the vegetative soul it can grow and nourish itself; like the sensitive soul it can experience sensations and move locally. The unique part of the human, rational soul is its ability to receive forms of other things and to compare them using the nous (intellect) and logos (reason).For Aristotle, the soul is the form of a living being. Because all beings are composites of form and matter, the form of living beings is that which endows them with what is specific to living beings, e.g. the ability to initiate movement (or in the case of plants, growth and chemical transformations, which Aristotle considers types of movement). In contrast to earlier philosophers, but in accordance with the Egyptians, he placed the rational soul in the heart, rather than the brain. Notable is Aristotle's division of sensation and thought, which generally differed from the concepts of previous philosophers, with the exception of Alcmaeon.MemoryAccording to Aristotle in On the Soul, memory is the ability to hold a perceived experience in the mind and to distinguish between the internal "appearance" and an occurrence in the past. In other words, a memory is a mental picture (phantasm) that can be recovered. Aristotle believed an impression is left on a semi-fluid bodily organ that undergoes several changes in order to make a memory. A memory occurs when stimuli such as sights or sounds are so complex that the nervous system cannot receive all the impressions at once. These changes are the same as those involved in the operations of sensation, Aristotelian , and thinking.Aristotle uses the term 'memory' for the actual retaining of an experience in the impression that can develop from sensation, and for the intellectual anxiety that comes with the impression because it is formed at a particular time and processing specific contents. Memory is of the past, prediction is of the future, and sensation is of the present. Retrieval of impressions cannot be performed suddenly. A transitional channel is needed and located in past experiences, both for previous experience and present experience.Because Aristotle believes people receive all kinds of sense perceptions and perceive them as impressions, people are continually weaving together new impressions of experiences. To search for these impressions, people search the memory itself. Within the memory, if one experience is offered instead of a specific memory, that person will reject this experience until they find what they are looking for. Recollection occurs when one retrieved experience naturally follows another. If the chain of "images" is needed, one memory will stimulate the next. When people recall experiences, they stimulate certain previous experiences until they reach the one that is needed. Recollection is thus the self-directed activity of retrieving the information stored in a memory impression. Only humans can remember impressions of intellectual activity, such as numbers and words. Animals that have perception of time can retrieve memories of their past observations. Remembering involves only perception of the things remembered and of the time passed.Aristotle believed the chain of thought, which ends in recollection of certain impressions, was connected systematically in relationships such as similarity, contrast, and contiguity, described in his laws of association. Aristotle believed that past experiences are hidden within the mind. A force operates to awaken the hidden material to bring up the actual experience. According to Aristotle, association is the power innate in a mental state, which operates upon the unexpressed remains of former experiences, allowing them to rise and be recalled.DreamsAristotle describes sleep in On Sleep and Wakefulness. Sleep takes place as a result of overuse of the senses or of digestion, so it is vital to the body. While a person is asleep, the critical activities, which include thinking, sensing, recalling and remembering, do not function as they do during wakefulness. Since a person cannot sense during sleep they cannot have desire, which is the result of sensation. However, the senses are able to work during sleep, albeit differently, unless they are weary.Dreams do not involve actually sensing a stimulus. In dreams, sensation is still involved, but in an altered manner. Aristotle explains that when a person stares at a moving stimulus such as the waves in a body of water, and then looks away, the next thing they look at appears to have a wavelike motion. When a person perceives a stimulus and the stimulus is no longer the focus of their attention, it leaves an impression. When the body is awake and the senses are functioning properly, a person constantly encounters new stimuli to sense and so the impressions of previously perceived stimuli are ignored. However, during sleep the impressions made throughout the day are noticed as there are no new distracting sensory experiences. So, dreams result from these lasting impressions. Since impressions are all that are left and not the exact stimuli, dreams do not resemble the actual waking experience. During sleep, a person is in an altered state of mind. Aristotle compares a sleeping person to a person who is overtaken by strong feelings toward a stimulus. For example, a person who has a strong infatuation with someone may begin to think they see that person everywhere because they are so overtaken by their feelings. Since a person sleeping is in a suggestible state and unable to make judgements, they become easily deceived by what appears in their dreams, like the infatuated person. This leads the person to believe the dream is real, even when the dreams are absurd in nature. In De Anima iii 3, Aristotle ascribes the ability to create, to store, and to recall images in the absence of perception to the faculty of imagination, phantasia.One component of Aristotle's theory of dreams disagrees with previously held beliefs. He claimed that dreams are not foretelling and not sent by a divine being. Aristotle reasoned naturalistically that instances in which dreams do resemble future events are simply coincidences. Aristotle claimed that a dream is first established by the fact that the person is asleep when they experience it. If a person had an image appear for a moment after waking up or if they see something in the dark it is not considered a dream because they were awake when it occurred. Secondly, any sensory experience that is perceived while a person is asleep does not qualify as part of a dream. For example, if, while a person is sleeping, a door shuts and in their dream they hear a door is shut, this sensory experience is not part of the dream. Lastly, the images of dreams must be a result of lasting impressions of waking sensory experiences.Practical philosophyAristotle's practical philosophy covers areas such as ethics, politics, economics, and rhetoric.EthicsAristotle considered ethics to be a practical rather than theoretical study, i.e., one aimed at becoming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. He wrote several treatises on ethics, including most notably, the Nicomachean Ethics.Aristotle taught that virtue has to do with the proper function (ergon) of a thing. An eye is only a good eye in so much as it can see, because the proper function of an eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that humans must have a function specific to humans, and that this function must be an activity of the psuchē (soul) in accordance with reason (logos). Aristotle identified such an optimum activity (the virtuous mean, between the accompanying vices of excess or deficiency) of the soul as the aim of all human deliberate action, eudaimonia, generally translated as "happiness" or sometimes "well-being". To have the potential of ever being happy in this way necessarily requires a good character (ēthikē aretē), often translated as moral or ethical virtue or excellence.Aristotle taught that to achieve a virtuous and potentially happy character requires a first stage of having the fortune to be habituated not deliberately, but by teachers, and experience, leading to a later stage in which one consciously chooses to do the best things. When the best people come to live life this way their practical wisdom (phronesis) and their intellect (nous) can develop with each other towards the highest possible human virtue, the wisdom of an accomplished theoretical or speculative thinker, or in other words, a philosopher.PoliticsIn addition to his works on ethics, which address the individual, Aristotle addressed the city in his work titled Politics. Aristotle considered the city to be a natural community. Moreover, he considered the city to be prior in importance to the family which in turn is prior to the individual, "for the whole must of necessity be prior to the part". He famously stated that "man is by nature a political animal" and argued that humanity's defining factor among others in the animal kingdom is its rationality. Aristotle conceived of politics as being like an organism rather than like a machine, and as a collection of parts none of which can exist without the others. Aristotle's conception of the city is organic, and he is considered one of the first to conceive of the city in this manner.The common modern understanding of a political community as a modern state is quite different from Aristotle's understanding. Although he was aware of the existence and potential of larger empires, the natural community according to Aristotle was the city (polis) which functions as a political "community" or "partnership" (koinōnia). The aim of the city is not just to avoid injustice or for economic stability, but rather to allow at least some citizens the possibility to live a good life, and to perform beautiful acts: "The political partnership must be regarded, therefore, as being for the sake of noble actions, not for the sake of living together." This is distinguished from modern approaches, beginning with social contract theory, according to which individuals leave the state of nature because of "fear of violent death" or its "inconveniences."In Protrepticus, the character 'Aristotle' states:As Plato's disciple Aristotle was rather skeptical concerning democracy and, following Plato's vague ideas, he developed a coherent theory of integrating various forms of power into a so-called mixed state:To illustrate this approach, Aristotle proposed a first-of-its-kind mathematical model of voting, albeit textually described, where the democratic principle of "one voter–one vote" is combined with the oligarchic "merit-weighted voting"; for relevant quotes and their translation into mathematical formulas see.EconomicsAristotle made substantial contributions to economic thought, especially to thought in the Middle Ages. In Politics, Aristotle addresses the city, property, and trade. His response to criticisms of private property, in Lionel Robbins's view, anticipated later proponents of private property among philosophers and economists, as it related to the overall utility of social arrangements. Aristotle believed that although communal arrangements may seem beneficial to society, and that although private property is often blamed for social strife, such evils in fact come from human nature. In Politics, Aristotle offers one of the earliest accounts of the origin of money. Money came into use because people became dependent on one another, importing what they needed and exporting the surplus. For the sake of convenience, people then agreed to deal in something that is intrinsically useful and easily applicable, such as iron or silver.Aristotle's discussions on retail and interest was a major influence on economic thought in the Middle Ages. He had a low opinion of retail, believing that contrary to using money to procure things one needs in managing the household, retail trade seeks to make a profit. It thus uses goods as a means to an end, rather than as an end unto itself. He believed that retail trade was in this way unnatural. Similarly, Aristotle considered making a profit through interest unnatural, as it makes a gain out of the money itself, and not from its use.Aristotle gave a summary of the function of money that was perhaps remarkably precocious for his time. He wrote that because it is impossible to determine the value of every good through a count of the number of other goods it is worth, the necessity arises of a single universal standard of measurement. Money thus allows for the association of different goods and makes them "commensurable". He goes on to state that money is also useful for future exchange, making it a sort of security. That is, "if we do not want a thing now, we shall be able to get it when we do want it".Rhetoric and poeticsAristotle's Rhetoric proposes that a speaker can use three basic kinds of appeals to persuade his audience: ethos (an appeal to the speaker's character), pathos (an appeal to the audience's emotion), and logos (an appeal to logical reasoning). He also categorizes rhetoric into three genres: epideictic (ceremonial speeches dealing with praise or blame), forensic (judicial speeches over guilt or innocence), and deliberative (speeches calling on an audience to make a decision on an issue). Aristotle also outlines two kinds of rhetorical proofs: enthymeme (proof by syllogism) and paradeigma (proof by example).Aristotle writes in his Poetics that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of mimesis ("imitation"), each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. He applies the term mimesis both as a property of a work of art and also as the product of the artist's intention and contends that the audience's realisation of the mimesis is vital to understanding the work itself. Aristotle states that mimesis is a natural instinct of humanity that separates humans from animals and that all human artistry "follows the pattern of nature". Because of this, Aristotle believed that each of the mimetic arts possesses what Stephen Halliwell calls "highly structured procedures for the achievement of their purposes." For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation – through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama.While it is believed that Aristotle's Poetics originally comprised two books – one on comedy and one on tragedy – only the portion that focuses on tragedy has survived. Aristotle taught that tragedy is composed of six elements: plot-structure, character, style, thought, spectacle, and lyric poetry. The characters in a tragedy are merely a means of driving the story; and the plot, not the characters, is the chief focus of tragedy. Tragedy is the imitation of action arousing pity and fear, and is meant to effect the catharsis of those same emotions. Aristotle concludes Poetics with a discussion on which, if either, is superior: epic or tragic mimesis. He suggests that because tragedy possesses all the attributes of an epic, possibly possesses additional attributes such as spectacle and music, is more unified, and achieves the aim of its mimesis in shorter scope, it can be considered superior to epic. Aristotle was a keen systematic collector of riddles, folklore, and proverbs; he and his school had a special interest in the riddles of the Delphic Oracle and studied the fables of Aesop.Views on womenAristotle's analysis of procreation describes an active, ensouling masculine element bringing life to an inert, passive female element. On this ground, proponents of feminist metaphysics have accused Aristotle of misogyny and sexism. However, Aristotle gave equal weight to women's happiness as he did to men's, and commented in his Rhetoric that the things that lead to happiness need to be in women as well as men.InfluenceMore than 2300 years after his death, Aristotle remains one of the most influential people who ever lived. He contributed to almost every field of human knowledge then in existence, and he was the founder of many new fields. According to the philosopher Bryan Magee, "it is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did". Among countless other achievements, Aristotle was the founder of formal logic, pioneered the study of zoology, and left every future scientist and philosopher in his debt through his contributions to the scientific method. Taneli Kukkonen, writing in The Classical Tradition, observes that his achievement in founding two sciences is unmatched, and his reach in influencing "every branch of intellectual enterprise" including Western ethical and political theory, theology, rhetoric and literary analysis is equally long. As a result, Kukkonen argues, any analysis of reality today "will almost certainly carry Aristotelian overtones ... evidence of an exceptionally forceful mind." Jonathan Barnes wrote that "an account of Aristotle's intellectual afterlife would be little less than a history of European thought".On his successor, TheophrastusAristotle's pupil and successor, Theophrastus, wrote the History of Plants, a pioneering work in botany. Some of his technical terms remain in use, such as carpel from carpos, fruit, and pericarp, from pericarpion, seed chamber.Theophrastus was much less concerned with formal causes than Aristotle was, instead pragmatically describing how plants functioned.On later Greek philosophersThe immediate influence of Aristotle's work was felt as the Lyceum grew into the Peripatetic school. Aristotle's notable students included Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Eudemos of Rhodes, Harpalus, Hephaestion, Mnason of Phocis, Nicomachus, and Theophrastus. Aristotle's influence over Alexander the Great is seen in the latter's bringing with him on his expedition a host of zoologists, botanists, and researchers. He had also learned a great deal about Persian customs and traditions from his teacher. Although his respect for Aristotle was diminished as his travels made it clear that much of Aristotle's geography was clearly wrong, when the old philosopher released his works to the public, Alexander complained "Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men's common property?"On Hellenistic scienceAfter Theophrastus, the Lyceum failed to produce any original work. Though interest in Aristotle's ideas survived, they were generally taken unquestioningly. It is not until the age of Alexandria under the Ptolemies that advances in biology can be again found.The first medical teacher at Alexandria, Herophilus of Chalcedon, corrected Aristotle, placing intelligence in the brain, and connected the nervous system to motion and sensation. Herophilus also distinguished between veins and arteries, noting that the latter pulse while the former do not. Though a few ancient atomists such as Lucretius challenged the teleological viewpoint of Aristotelian ideas about life, teleology (and after the rise of Christianity, natural theology) would remain central to biological thought essentially until the 18th and 19th centuries. Ernst Mayr states that there was "nothing of any real consequence in biology after Lucretius and Galen until the Renaissance."On Byzantine scholarsGreek Christian scribes played a crucial role in the preservation of Aristotle by copying all the extant Greek language manuscripts of the corpus. The first Greek Christians to comment extensively on Aristotle were Philoponus, Elias, and David in the sixth century, and Stephen of Alexandria in the early seventh century. John Philoponus stands out for having attempted a fundamental critique of Aristotle's views on the eternity of the world, movement, and other elements of Aristotelian thought. Philoponus questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics, noting its flaws and introducing the theory of impetus to explain his observations.After a hiatus of several centuries, formal commentary by Eustratius and Michael of Ephesus reappeared in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, apparently sponsored by Anna Comnena.On the medieval Islamic worldAristotle was one of the most revered Western thinkers in early Islamic theology. Most of the still extant works of Aristotle, as well as a number of the original Greek commentaries, were translated into Arabic and studied by Muslim philosophers, scientists and scholars. Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius, who wrote on Aristotle in great depth, also influenced Thomas Aquinas and other Western Christian scholastic philosophers. Alkindus greatly admired Aristotle's philosophy, and Averroes spoke of Aristotle as the "exemplar" for all future philosophers. Medieval Muslim scholars regularly described Aristotle as the "First Teacher". The title "teacher" was first given to Aristotle by Muslim scholars, and was later used by Western philosophers (as in the famous poem of Dante) who were influenced by the tradition of Islamic philosophy.On medieval EuropeWith the loss of the study of ancient Greek in the early medieval Latin West, Aristotle was practically unknown there from c. AD 600 to c. 1100 except through the Latin translation of the Organon made by Boethius. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, interest in Aristotle revived and Latin Christians had translations made, both from Arabic translations, such as those by Gerard of Cremona, and from the original Greek, such as those by James of Venice and William of Moerbeke. After the Scholastic Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologica, working from Moerbeke's translations and calling Aristotle "The Philosopher", the demand for Aristotle's writings grew, and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe that continued into the Renaissance. These thinkers blended Aristotelian philosophy with Christianity, bringing the thought of Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Boethius, Peter Abelard, and John Buridan worked on Aristotelian logic.The medieval English poet Chaucer describes his student as being happy by havingA cautionary medieval tale held that Aristotle advised his pupil Alexander to avoid the king's seductive mistress, Phyllis, but was himself captivated by her, and allowed her to ride him. Phyllis had secretly told Alexander what to expect, and he witnessed Phyllis proving that a woman's charms could overcome even the greatest philosopher's male intellect. Artists such as Hans Baldung produced a series of illustrations of the popular theme.The Italian poet Dante says of Aristotle in The Divine Comedy:Besides Dante's fellow poets, the classical figure that most influenced the Comedy is Aristotle. Dante built up the philosophy of the Comedy with the works of Aristotle as a foundation, just as the scholastics used Aristotle as the basis for their thinking. Dante knew Aristotle directly from Latin translations of his works and indirectly quotations in the works of Albert Magnus. Dante even acknowledges Aristotle's influence explicitly in the poem, specifically when Virgil justifies the Inferno's structure by citing the Nicomachean Ethics.On medieval JudaismMoses Maimonides (considered to be the foremost intellectual figure of medieval Judaism) adopted Aristotelianism from the Islamic scholars and based his Guide for the Perplexed on it and that became the basis of Jewish scholastic philosophy. Maimonides also considered Aristotle to be the greatest philosopher that ever lived, and styled him as the "chief of the philosophers". Also, in his letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon, Maimonides observes that there is no need for Samuel to study the writings of philosophers who preceded Aristotle because the works of the latter are "sufficient by themselves and [superior] to all that were written before them. His intellect, Aristotle's is the extreme limit of human intellect, apart from him upon whom the divine emanation has flowed forth to such an extent that they reach the level of prophecy, there being no level higher".On Early Modern scientistsIn the Early Modern period, scientists such as William Harvey in England and Galileo Galilei in Italy reacted against the theories of Aristotle and other classical era thinkers like Galen, establishing new theories based to some degree on observation and experiment. Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, establishing that the heart functioned as a pump rather than being the seat of the soul and the controller of the body's heat, as Aristotle thought. Galileo used more doubtful arguments to displace Aristotle's physics, proposing that bodies all fall at the same speed whatever their weight.On 18th/19th-century thinkersThe 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle. Aristotle rigidly separated action from production, and argued for the deserved subservience of some people ("natural slaves"), and the natural superiority (virtue, arete) of others. It was Martin Heidegger, not Nietzsche, who elaborated a new interpretation of Aristotle, intended to warrant his deconstruction of scholastic and philosophical tradition.The English mathematician George Boole fully accepted Aristotle's logic, but decided "to go under, over, and beyond" it with his system of algebraic logic in his 1854 book The Laws of Thought. This gives logic a mathematical foundation with equations, enables it to solve equations as well as check validity, and allows it to handle a wider class of problems by expanding propositions of any number of terms, not just two.Charles Darwin regarded Aristotle as the most important contributor to the subject of biology. In an 1882 letter he wrote that "Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle". Also, in later editions of the book "On the Origin of Species', Darwin traced evolutionary ideas as far back as Aristotle; the text he cites is a summary by Aristotle of the ideas of the earlier Greek philosopher Empedocles.James Joyce's favoured philosopher was Aristotle, whom he considered to be "the greatest thinker of all times". Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: Everybody is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. Ayn Rand acknowledged Aristotle as her greatest influence and remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. She also regarded Aristotle as the greatest of all philosophers.Karl Marx considered Aristotle to be the "greatest thinker of antiquity", and called him a "giant thinker", a "genius", and "the great scholar".Modern rejection and rehabilitationDuring the 20th century, Aristotle's work was widely criticized. The philosopher Bertrand Russellargued that "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine". Russell called Aristotle's ethics "repulsive", and labelled his logic "as definitely antiquated as Ptolemaic astronomy". Russell stated that these errors made it difficult to do historical justice to Aristotle, until one remembered what an advance he made upon all of his predecessors.The Dutch historian of science Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis wrote that Aristotle and his predecessors showed the difficulty of science by "proceed[ing] so readily to frame a theory of such a general character" on limited evidence from their senses. In 1985, the biologist Peter Medawar could still state in "pure seventeenth century" tones that Aristotle had assembled "a strange and generally speaking rather tiresome farrago of hearsay, imperfect observation, wishful thinking and credulity amounting to downright gullibility". Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen.By the start of the 21st century, however, Aristotle was taken more seriously: Kukkonen noted that "In the best 20th-century scholarship Aristotle comes alive as a thinker wrestling with the full weight of the Greek philosophical tradition." Alasdair MacIntyre has attempted to reform what he calls the Aristotelian tradition in a way that is anti-elitist and capable of disputing the claims of both liberals and Nietzscheans. Kukkonen observed, too, that "that most enduring of romantic images, Aristotle tutoring the future conqueror Alexander" remained current, as in the 2004 film Alexander, while the "firm rules" of Aristotle's theory of drama have ensured a role for the Poetics in Hollywood.Biologists continue to be interested in Aristotle's thinking. Armand Marie Leroi has reconstructed Aristotle's biology, while Niko Tinbergen's four questions, based on Aristotle's four causes, are used to analyse animal behaviour; they examine function, phylogeny, mechanism, and ontogeny.Surviving worksCorpus AristotelicumThe works of Aristotle that have survived from antiquity through medieval manuscript transmission are collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's Royal Prussian Academy edition (Aristotelis Opera edidit Academia Regia Borussica, Berlin, 1831–1870), which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.Loss and preservationAristotle wrote his works on papyrus scrolls, the common writing medium of that era. His writings are divisible into two groups: the "exoteric", intended for the public, and the "esoteric", for use within the Lyceum school. Aristotle's "lost" works stray considerably in characterization from the surviving Aristotelian corpus. Whereas the lost works appear to have been originally written with a view to subsequent publication, the surviving works mostly resemble lecture notes not intended for publication. Cicero's description of Aristotle's literary style as "a river of gold" must have applied to the published works, not the surviving notes. A major question in the history of Aristotle's works is how the exoteric writings were all lost, and how the ones now possessed came to be found. The consensus is that Andronicus of Rhodes collected the esoteric works of Aristotle's school which existed in the form of smaller, separate works, distinguished them from those of Theophrastus and other Peripatetics, edited them, and finally compiled them into the more cohesive, larger works as they are known today.LegacyDepictionsPaintingsAristotle has been depicted by major artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder, Justus van Gent, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Jusepe de Ribera, Rembrandt, and Francesco Hayez over the centuries. Among the best-known depictions is Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, where the figures of Plato and Aristotle are central to the image, at the architectural vanishing point, reflecting their importance. Rembrandt's Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, too, is a celebrated work, showing the knowing philosopher and the blind Homer from an earlier age: as the art critic Jonathan Jones writes, "this painting will remain one of the greatest and most mysterious in the world, ensnaring us in its musty, glowing, pitch-black, terrible knowledge of time."SculpturesEponymsThe Aristotle Mountains in Antarctica are named after Aristotle. He was the first person known to conjecture, in his book Meteorology, the existence of a landmass in the southern high-latitude region and called it Antarctica. Aristoteles is a crater on the Moon bearing the classical form of Aristotle's name.See also Aristotelian SocietyAristotle's Biology Conimbricenses PerfectionismReferencesNotesCitationsSourcesFurther readingThe secondary literature on Aristotle is vast. The following is only a small selection. Ackrill, J. L. (1997). Essays on Plato and Aristotle, Oxford University Press.     These translations are available in several places online; see External links. Bakalis, Nikolaos. (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments, Trafford Publishing, .  Bolotin, David (1998). An Approach to Aristotle's Physics: With Particular Attention to the Role of His Manner of Writing. Albany: SUNY Press. A contribution to our understanding of how to read Aristotle's scientific works. Burnyeat, Myles F. et al. (1979). Notes on Book Zeta of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Oxford: Sub-faculty of Philosophy.   Code, Alan (1995). Potentiality in Aristotle's Science and Metaphysics, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 76.   De Groot, Jean (2014). Aristotle's Empiricism: Experience and Mechanics in the 4th century BC, Parmenides Publishing, . Frede, Michael (1987). Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  Gendlin, Eugene T. (2012). Line by Line Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima , Volume 1: Books I & II; Volume 2: Book III. The Focusing Institute. Gill, Mary Louise (1989). Aristotle on Substance: The Paradox of Unity. Princeton University Press.      Jori, Alberto (2003). Aristotele, Bruno Mondadori (Prize 2003 of the "International Academy of the History of Science"), .  Knight, Kelvin (2007). Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polity Press. Lewis, Frank A. (1991). Substance and Predication in Aristotle. Cambridge University Press. Lord, Carnes (1984). Introduction to The Politics, by Aristotle. Chicago University Press. Loux, Michael J. (1991). Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Ζ and Η. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Maso, Stefano (Ed.), Natali, Carlo (Ed.), Seel, Gerhard (Ed.) (2012) Reading Aristotle: Physics VII. 3: What is Alteration? Proceedings of the International ESAP-HYELE Conference, Parmenides Publishing. .   [Reprinted in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R.R.K. Sorabji, eds.(1975). Articles on Aristotle Vol 1. Science. London: Duckworth 14–34.]   Reeve, C. D. C. (2000). Substantial Knowledge: Aristotle's Metaphysics. Hackett.   Scaltsas, T. (1994). Substances and Universals in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Cornell University Press. Strauss, Leo (1964). "On Aristotle's Politics", in The City and Man, Rand McNally.External links   At the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:  At the Internet Classics Archive From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:   Collections of works  At Massachusetts Institute of Technology      Perseus Project at Tufts University At the University of Adelaide   P. Remacle The 11-volume 1837 Bekker edition of Aristotle's Works in Greek (PDFDJVU) 384 BC births322 BC deaths4th-century BC mathematicians4th-century BC philosophers4th-century BC writersAcademic philosophersActing theoristsAncient Greek biologistsAncient Greek economistsAncient Greek epistemologistsAncient Greek ethicistsAncient Greek logiciansAncient Greek mathematiciansAncient Greek metaphilosophersAncient Greek metaphysiciansAncient Greek philosophersAncient Greek philosophers of languageAncient Greek philosophers of mindAncient Greek physicistsAncient Greek political philosophersAncient Greek philosophers of artAncient literary criticsAncient StagiritesAphoristsAristotelian philosophersAttic Greek writersAncient Greek cosmologistsCritical thinkingCultural criticsFounders of philosophical traditionsGreek male writersGreek geologistsGreek meteorologistsGreek social commentatorsHumor researchersIrony theoristsMetic philosophers in Classical AthensMoral philosophersNatural philosophersOntologistsPeripatetic philosophersPhilosophers and tutors of Alexander the GreatPhilosophers of ancient ChalcidicePhilosophers of culturePhilosophers of educationPhilosophers of ethics and moralityPhilosophers of historyPhilosophers of lawPhilosophers of literaturePhilosophers of logicPhilosophers of lovePhilosophers of psychologyPhilosophers of sciencePhilosophers of timePhilosophers of sexualityPhilosophers of technologyPhilosophical logicPhilosophical theistsPhilosophy academicsPhilosophy writersRhetoric theoristsSocial criticsSocial philosophersStudents of PlatoTrope theoristsVirtue ethicistsVirtue ethicsWestern cultureWestern philosophyZoologists
An American in Paris is a jazz-influenced orchestral piece by American composer George Gershwin first performed in 1928. It was inspired by the time that Gershwin had spent in Paris and evokes the sights and energy of the French capital during the Années folles.Gershwin scored the piece for the standard instruments of the symphony orchestra plus celesta, saxophones, and automobile horns. He brought back four Parisian taxi horns for the New York premiere of the composition, which took place on December 13, 1928, in Carnegie Hall, with Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic. It was Damrosch who had commissioned Gershwin to write his Concerto in F following the earlier success of Rhapsody in Blue (1924). He completed the orchestration on November 18, less than four weeks before the work's premiere. He collaborated on the original program notes with critic and composer Deems Taylor.BackgroundAlthough the story is likely apocryphal, Gershwin is said to have been attracted by Maurice Ravel's unusual chords, and Gershwin went on his first trip to Paris in 1926 ready to study with Ravel. After his initial student audition with Ravel turned into a sharing of musical theories, Ravel said he could not teach him, saying, "Why be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?"Gershwin strongly encouraged Ravel to come to the United States for a tour. To this end, upon his return to New York, Gershwin joined the efforts of Ravel's friend Robert Schmitz, a pianist Ravel had met during the war, to urge Ravel to tour the U.S. Schmitz was the head of Pro Musica, promoting Franco-American musical relations, and was able to offer Ravel a $10,000 fee for the tour, an enticement Gershwin knew would be important to Ravel.Gershwin greeted Ravel in New York in March 1928 during a party held for Ravel's birthday by Éva Gauthier. Ravel's tour reignited Gershwin's desire to return to Paris, which he and his brother Ira did after meeting Ravel. Ravel's high praise of Gershwin in an introductory letter to Nadia Boulanger caused Gershwin to seriously consider taking much more time to study abroad in Paris. Yet after he played for her, she told him she could not teach him. Boulanger gave Gershwin basically the same advice she gave all her accomplished master students: "What could I give you that you haven't already got?" This did not set Gershwin back, as his real intent abroad was to complete a new work based on Paris and perhaps a second rhapsody for piano and orchestra to follow his Rhapsody in Blue. Paris at this time hosted many expatriate writers, among them Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, and artist Pablo Picasso.CompositionGershwin based An American in Paris on a melodic fragment called "Very Parisienne", written in 1926 on his first visit to Paris as a gift to his hosts, Robert and Mabel Schirmer. Gershwin called it "a rhapsodic ballet"; it is written freely and in a much more modern idiom than his prior works.Gershwin explained in Musical America, "My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere."The piece is structured into five sections, which culminate in a loose ABA format. Gershwin's first A episode introduces the two main "walking" themes in the "Allegretto grazioso" and develops a third theme in the "Subito con brio". The style of this A section is written in the typical French style of composers Claude Debussy and Les Six. This A section featured duple meter, singsong rhythms, and diatonic melodies with the sounds of oboe, English horn, and taxi horns. The B section's "Andante ma con ritmo deciso" introduces the American Blues and spasms of homesickness. The "Allegro" that follows continues to express homesickness in a faster twelve-bar blues. In the B section, Gershwin uses common time, syncopated rhythms, and bluesy melodies with the sounds of trumpet, saxophone, and snare drum. "Moderato con grazia" is the last A section that returns to the themes set in A. After recapitulating the "walking" themes, Gershwin overlays the slow blues theme from section B in the final "Grandioso".ResponseGershwin did not particularly like Walter Damrosch's interpretation at the world premiere of An American in Paris. He stated that Damrosch's sluggish, dragging tempo caused him to walk out of the hall during a matinee performance of this work. The audience, according to Edward Cushing, responded with "a demonstration of enthusiasm impressively genuine in contrast to the conventional applause which new music, good and bad, ordinarily arouses."Critics believed that An American in Paris was better crafted than Gershwin's Concerto in F. Some did not think it belonged in a program with classical composers César Franck, Richard Wagner, or Guillaume Lekeu on its premiere. Gershwin responded to the critics:InstrumentationAn American in Paris was originally scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in B-flat, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, triangle, wood block, ratchet, cymbals, low and high tom-toms, xylophone, glockenspiel, celesta, 4 taxi horns labeled as A, B, C, and D with circles around them, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone (all saxophones doubling soprano saxophones), and strings. Although most modern audiences have heard the taxi horns using the notes A, B, C, and D, it had been Gershwin's intention to use the notes A4, B4, D5, and A4. It is likely that in labeling the taxi horns as A, B, C, and D with circles, he was referring to the four horns, and not the notes that they played.A major revision of the work by composer and arranger F. Campbell-Watson simplified the instrumentation by reducing the saxophones to only three instruments: alto, tenor and baritone. The soprano saxophone doublings were eliminated to avoid changing instruments, and the contrabassoon was also deleted. This became the standard performing edition until 2000, when Gershwin specialist Jack Gibbons made his own restoration of the original orchestration of An American in Paris, working directly from Gershwin's original manuscript, including the restoration of Gershwin's soprano saxophone parts removed in Campbell-Watson's revision. Gibbons' restored orchestration of An American in Paris was performed at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 9, 2000, by the City of Oxford Orchestra conducted by Levon Parikian.William Daly arranged the score for piano solo; this was published by New World Music in 1929.Preservation statusOn September 22, 2013, it was announced that a musicological critical edition of the full orchestral score would be eventually released. The Gershwin family, working in conjunction with the Library of Congress and the University of Michigan, were working to make scores available to the public that represent Gershwin's true intent. It was unknown whether the critical score would include the four minutes of material Gershwin later deleted from the work (such as the restatement of the blues theme after the faster 12 bar blues section), or if the score would document changes in the orchestration during Gershwin's composition process.The score to An American in Paris was scheduled to be issued first in a series of scores to be released. The entire project was expected to take 30 to 40 years to complete, but An American in Paris was planned to be an early volume in the series.Two urtext editions of the work were published by the German publisher B-Note Music in 2015. The changes made by Campbell-Watson were withdrawn in both editions. In the extended urtext, 120 bars of music were re-integrated. Conductor Walter Damrosch had cut them shortly before the first performance.On September 9, 2017, The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra gave the world premiere of the long-awaited critical edition of the piece prepared by Mark Clague, director of the Gershwin initiative at the University of Michigan. This performance was of the original 1928 orchestration,  an alteration usually attributed to F. Campbell-Watson.RecordingsAn American in Paris has been frequently recorded. The first recording was made for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929 with Nathaniel Shilkret conducting the Victor Symphony Orchestra, drawn from members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Gershwin was on hand to "supervise" the recording; however, Shilkret was reported to be in charge and eventually asked the composer to leave the recording studio. Then, a little later, Shilkret discovered there was no one to play the brief celesta solo during the slow section, so he hastily asked Gershwin if he might play the solo; Gershwin said he could and so he briefly participated in the actual recording. This recording is believed to use the taxi horns in the way that Gershwin had intended using the notes A-flat, B-flat, a higher D, and a lower A.The radio broadcast of the September 8, 1937, Hollywood Bowl George Gershwin Memorial Concert, in which An American in Paris, also conducted by Shilkret, was second on the program, was recorded and was released in 1998 in a two-CD set.Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra recorded the work for RCA Victor, including one of the first stereo recordings of the music.In 1945, Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra recorded the piece for RCA Victor, one of the few commercial recordings Toscanini made of music by an American composer.The Seattle Symphony also recorded a version in 1990 of Gershwin's original score, before he made numerous edits resulting in the score as we hear it today.Harry James released a version of the blues section on his 1953 album One Night Stand, recorded live at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago (Columbia GL 522 and CL 522).Use in filmIn 1951, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the musical film, An American in Paris, featuring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Winning the 1951 Best Picture Oscar, and numerous other awards, the film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, featured many tunes of Gershwin, and concluded with an extensive, elaborate dance sequence built around the An American in Paris symphonic poem (arranged for the film by Johnny Green), costing $500,000.ReferencesFurther reading Rimler, Walter. George Gershwin – An Intimate Portrait. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2009. chapter 6: Paris, pp. 28–33.External links   Scores, marked by Leonard Bernstein, Andre Kostelanetz, Erich Leinsdorf; New York Philharmonic archives 1944 recording by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Artur Rodziński , New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, 1959.  1928 compositionsCompositions by George GershwinGrammy Hall of Fame Award recipientsMusic about ParisMusic commissioned by the New York PhilharmonicSymphonic poems
The Academy Award for Best Production Design recognizes achievement for art direction in film. The category's original name was Best Art Direction, but was changed to its current name in 2012 for the 85th Academy Awards. This change resulted from the Art Director's branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) being renamed the Designer's branch. Since 1947, the award is shared with the set decorator(s). It is awarded to the best interior design in a film.The films below are listed with their production year (for example, the 2000 Academy Award for Best Art Direction is given to a film from 1999). In the lists below, the winner of the award for each year is shown first, followed by the other nominees in alphabetical order.SuperlativesWinners and nominees1920s1930s1940s1950s1960s1970s1980s1990s2000s2010s2020sSee also BAFTA Award for Best Production Design Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Production DesignNotesReferencesBest Production DesignAwards for best art direction
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious and significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette depicts a knight rendered in the Art Deco style.The award was originally sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in what would become known as the 1st Academy Awards. The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. A total of 3,140 Oscar statuettes have been awarded since its inception in 1929. They are widely cited as the most prestigious and renowned competitive awards in the field of entertainment.The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2020 and early 2021, was held on April 25, 2021, after it was postponed from its original February 28, 2021, schedule due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. As with the two previous ceremonies, there was no host. The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. It took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California for the 19th consecutive year, along with satellite location taking place at the Union Station also in Los Angeles.HistoryThe first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner function at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people.The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($ at 2020 prices). Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes.Winners were announced to the media three months earlier. That was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards. This method was used until 1940 when the Los Angeles Times announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has, since 1941, used a sealed envelope to reveal the names of the winners.MilestonesThe first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. At that time, winners were recognized for the entirety of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period, and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.At the 29th ceremony, held in 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category, now known as Best International Feature Film, was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award.Perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was 34-year-old Robert Opel, who streaked across the stage of The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles flashing a peace sign on national US television at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974. Bemused host David Niven quipped, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?" Later, evidence arose suggesting that Opel's appearance was facilitated as a publicity stunt by the show's producer Jack Haley Jr. Robert Metzler, the show's business manager, believed that the incident had been planned in some way; during the dress rehearsal Niven had asked Metzler's wife to borrow a pen so he could write down the famous line, which was thus not the ad-lib it appeared to be.The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.From 1973 to 2020, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture. For 2021, this tradition was broken as the ceremony ended with the Academy Award for Best Actor.Traditionally, the previous year's winner for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor present the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, while the previous year's winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress present the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the February 9, 2020, award ceremony.Tom Hanks announced at the 2020 Oscar Ceremony, the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on December 14, 2020.<ref>Barnes, Brooks (February 19, 2020).  "Motion Picture Academy Museum Will Open in December."   The New York Times. Retrieved March 15, 2020.</ref> The museum development started in 2017 under Kerry Brougher, but is now led by Bill Kramer. The industry curated exhibits will be geared toward the history of motion picture, the art & science of film making, exhibiting trailblazing directors, actors, film-makers, sound editors and more, and will house famous artifacts from acclaimed movies like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers.Because of COVID-19, Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson announced that for the 2021 Oscar Ceremony, streaming movies not shown in theaters would be eligible, though at some point the requirement that movies be shown in theaters would return.Oscar statuetteAcademy Award of Merit (Oscar statuette)The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34.3 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.856 kg), and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design. The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years, the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015, approximately 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company. It would take between three and four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are then electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology. The time required to produce 50 such statuettes is roughly three months. R.S. Owens is expected to continue producing other awards for the Academy and service existing Oscars that need replating.NamingThe Academy officially adopted the name "Oscar" for the trophies in 1939. However, the origin of the nickname is disputed.One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy in 1941, claims she named the award after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. A frequently mentioned originator is Margaret Herrick, the Academy executive secretary, who, when she first saw the award in 1931, said the statuette reminded her of "Uncle Oscar", a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce.Columnist Sidney Skolsky, who was present during Herrick's naming in 1931, wrote that "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar.'" The Academy credits Skolsky with "the first confirmed newspaper reference" to Oscar in his column on March 16, 1934, which was written about that year's 6th Academy Awards. The 1934 awards appeared again in another early media mention of Oscar: a Time magazine story. In the ceremonies that year, Walt Disney was the first to thank the Academy for his "Oscar" during his acceptance speech.EngravingTo prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners returned their statuettes to the Academy and had to wait several weeks to have their names inscribed on their respective Oscars. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. The R.S. Owens company has engraved nameplates made before the ceremony, bearing the name of every potential winner. The nameplates for the non-winning nominees are later recycled.Ownership of Oscar statuettesPrior to 1950, Oscar statuettes were (and remain) the property of the recipient.  Since then the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that the statuette be first offered for sale back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards predating this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums.In 1989, Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Best Picture Oscar for his 1956 production of Around the World in 80 Days to a movie prop collector.  The Academy earned enforcement of its statuette contract by gaining a permanent injunction against the sale.In 1992, Harold Russell consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives to auction to raise money for his wife's medical expenses.  Though his decision caused controversy, the first-ever Oscar to be sold passed   to a private collector on August 6, 1992 for $60,500 ($ today). Russell defended his action, saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't."In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy. On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542 ($ today).Some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury.Other awards presented by the AcademyIn addition to the Academy Award of Merit (Oscar award), there are nine honorary (non-competitive) awards presented by the Academy from time to time (except for the Academy Honorary Award, the Technical Achievement Award, and the Student Academy Awards, which are presented annually): Governors Awards: The Academy Honorary Award (annual) (which may or may not be in the form of an Oscar statuette);  The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (since 1938) (in the form of a bust of Thalberg); The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (since 1957) (in the form of an Oscar statuette);  The Academy Scientific and Technical Awards: Academy Award of Merit (non-competitive) (in the form of an Oscar statuette); Scientific and Engineering Award (in the form of a bronze tablet); Technical Achievement Award (annual) (in the form of a certificate); The John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation (since 1978) (in the form of a medal); The Gordon E. Sawyer Award (since 1982); and The Academy Student Academy Awards (annual).The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.NominationSince 2004, Academy Award nomination results have been announced to the public in mid-January. Prior to that, the results were announced in early February. In 2021, the nominees are announced in March.VotersThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of over 7,000 .Academy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) since the 7th Academy Awards in 1935. The firm mails the ballots of eligible nominees to members of the Academy in December to reflect the previous eligible year with a due date sometime in January of the next year, then tabulates the votes in a process that takes thousands of hours.All AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contributions to the field of motion pictures.New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then.In 2012, the results of a study conducted by the Los Angeles Times were published describing the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%).In May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting would be implemented in 2013.RulesAccording to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California, and play for seven consecutive days, to qualify (except for the Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, and awards in short film categories). Additionally, the film must be shown at least three times on each day of its qualifying run, with at least one of the daily showings starting between 6 pm and 10 pm local time.For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, was originally first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards, as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film for consideration in the International Feature Film category per year.Rule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short-subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels. Since the 90th Academy Awards, presented in 2018, multi-part and limited series have been ineligible for the Best Documentary Feature award. This followed the win of O.J.: Made in America, an eight-hour presentation that was screened in a limited release before being broadcast in five parts on ABC and ESPN, in that category in 2017. The Academy's announcement of the new rule made no direct mention of that film.The Best International Feature Film award does not require a U.S. release. It requires the film to be submitted as its country's official selection.The Best Documentary Feature award requires either week-long releases in both Los Angeles County and New York City  during the previous calendar year, or a qualifying award at a competitive film festival from the Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival list (regardless of any public exhibition or distribution), or submission in the International Feature Film category as its country's official selection. The qualifying theatrical runs must meet the same requirements as those for non-documentary films regarding numbers and times of screenings. Additionally, a film must have been reviewed by a critic from The New York Times, Time Out New York, the Los Angeles Times, or LA Weekly.Producers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.Awards in short film categories (Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Live Action Short Film) have noticeably different eligibility rules from most other competitive awards. First, the qualifying period for release does not coincide with a calendar year, instead of covering one year starting on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the calendar year before the ceremony. Second, there are multiple methods of qualification. The main method is a week-long theatrical release in either Los Angeles County or New York City during the eligibility period. Films also can qualify by winning specified awards at one of several competitive film festivals designated by the Academy, also without regard to prior public distribution. Finally, a film that is selected as a gold, silver, or bronze medal winner in an appropriate category of the immediately previous Student Academy Awards is also eligible (Documentary category for that award, and Animation, Narrative, Alternative, or International for the other awards). The requirements for the qualifying theatrical run are also different from those for other awards. Only one screening per day is required. For the Documentary award, the screening must start between noon and 10 pm local time; for other awards, no specific start time is required, but the film must appear in regular theater listings with dates and screening times.In late December, ballots, and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6,000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees. In all major categories, a variant of the single transferable vote is used, with each member casting a ballot with up to five nominees (ten for Best Picture) ranked preferentially. In certain categories, including International Feature Film, Documentary and Animated Feature, nominees are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches.In most categories, the winner is selected from among the nominees by plurality voting of all members. Since 2009, the Best Picture winner has been chosen by instant runoff voting. Since 2013, re-weighted range voting has been used to select the nominees for the Best Visual Effects.Film companies will spend as much as several million dollars on marketing to awards voters for a movie in the running for Best Picture, in attempts to improve chances of receiving Oscars and other movie awards conferred in Oscar season. The Academy enforces rules to limit overt campaigning by its members to try to eliminate excesses and prevent the process from becoming undignified. It has an awards czar on staff who advises members on allowed practices and levies penalties on offenders. For example, a producer of the 2009 Best Picture nominee The Hurt Locker was disqualified as a producer in the category when he contacted associates urging them to vote for his film and not another that was seen as the front-runner (The Hurt Locker eventually won).Academy Screening RoomThe Academy Screening Room or Academy Digital Screening Room is a secure streaming platform which allows voting members of the Academy to view all eligible films (except, initially, those in the International category) in one place. It was introduced in 2019, for the 2020 Oscars, though DVD screeners and Academy in-person screenings were still provided. For films to be included on the platform, the North American distributor must pay $12,500, including a watermarking fee, and a digital copy of the film to be prepared for streaming by the Academy. The platform can be accessed through an app on Apple TV. The watermarking process involved several video security firms, creating a forensic watermark and restricting the ability to take screenshots or screen recordings.In 2021, for the 2022 Oscars, the Academy banned all physical screeners and in-person screenings, restricting official membership viewing to the Academy Screening Room. Films eligible in the Documentary and International categories were made available in different sections of the platform. Distributors can also pay an extra fee to add video featurettes to promote their films on the platform. The in-person screenings were said to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible films do not have to be added to the platform, but the Academy advertises them to voting members when they are.Awards ceremoniesTelecastThe major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast.)The Academy Awards is the world's longest-running awards show televised live from the U.S. to all-time zones in North America and worldwide, and gathers billions of viewers elsewhere throughout the world. The Oscars were first televised in 1953 by NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960, when ABC took over, televising the festivities (including the first color broadcast of the event in 1966) through 1970. NBC regained the rights for five years  then ABC resumed broadcast duties in 1976 and its current contract with the Academy runs through 2028. The Academy has also produced condensed versions of the ceremony for broadcast in international markets (especially those outside of the Americas) in more desirable local timeslots. The ceremony was broadcast live internationally for the first time via satellite since 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil, purchased the rights to air the broadcast. By that time, the television rights to the Academy Awards had been sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the rights were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries.The ceremonies were moved up from late March/early April to late February, since 2004, to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success coinciding with the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. (In 1976 and 1977, ABC's regained Oscars were moved from Tuesday to Monday and went directly opposite NBC's NCAA title game.) The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into the first Sunday of March to avoid a clash with the Winter Olympic Games. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is also to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The production of the Academy Awards telecast currently holds the distinction of winning the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations overall since that award's own launch in 1949.After many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, since the 1999 ceremonies, it was moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT. The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier. For many years the film industry opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office. In 2010, the Academy contemplated moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Furthermore, a January ceremony on Sunday would clash with National Football League playoff games. In 2018, the Academy announced that the ceremony would be moved from late February to mid February beginning with the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.Originally scheduled for April 8, 1968, the 40th Academy Awards ceremony was postponed for two days, because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On March 30, 1981, the 53rd Academy Awards was postponed for one day, after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.In 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members. This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names. Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a "popularity contest" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead. This segment was later followed by a commercial break.In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2002 ceremony lasted four hours and twenty-three minutes. In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed "the single most hated thing on the show" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. In 2016, in a further effort to streamline speeches, winners' dedications were displayed on an on-screen ticker. During the 2018 ceremony, host Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged how long the ceremony had become, by announcing that he would give a brand-new jet ski to whoever gave the shortest speech of the night (a reward won by Mark Bridges when accepting his Best Costume Design award for Phantom Thread). The Wall Street Journal analyzed the average minutes spent across the 2014–2018 telecasts as follows: 14 on song performances; 25 on the hosts' speeches; 38 on prerecorded clips; and 78 on the awards themselves, broken into 24 on the introduction and announcement, 24 on winners walking to the stage, and 30 on their acceptance speeches.Although still dominant in ratings, the viewership of the Academy Awards has steadily dropped; the 88th Academy Awards were the lowest-rated in the past eight years (although with increases in male and 18–49 viewership), while the show itself also faced mixed reception. Following the show, Variety reported that ABC was, in negotiating an extension to its contract to broadcast the Oscars, seeking to have more creative control over the broadcast itself. Currently and nominally, AMPAS is responsible for most aspects of the telecast, including the choice of production staff and hosting, although ABC is allowed to have some input on their decisions. In August 2016, AMPAS extended its contract with ABC through 2028: the contract neither contains any notable changes nor gives ABC any further creative control over the telecast.TV ratingsHistorically, the telecast's viewership is higher when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture award. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of Titanic, which generated a box office haul during its initial 1997–98 run of US$600.8 million in the US, a box office record that would remain unsurpassed for years. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony, in which The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture, drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings to date, however, was the 42nd Academy Awards (Best Picture Midnight Cowboy) which drew a 43.4% household rating on April 7, 1970.By contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings, despite how much critical acclaim those films have received. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budget independent film Crash (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%. In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest-rated and least-watched ceremony at the time, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards. The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independent film (No Country for Old Men).Whereas the 92nd Academy Awards drew an average of 23.6 million viewers, the 93rd Academy Awards drew an even lower viewership of 10.4 million. That is the lowest viewership recorded by Nielsen since it started recording audience totals in 1974.ArchiveThe Academy Film Archive holds copies of every Academy Awards ceremony since the 1949 Oscars and material on many prior ceremonies, along with ancillary material related to more recent shows. Copies are held in a variety of film, video, and digital formats.VenuesIn 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. From 1930 to 1943, the ceremony alternated between two venues: the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the Academy Award Theatre at what had been the Academy's headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. With the advent of television, the awards from 1953 to 1957 took place simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, first at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and then at the NBC Century Theatre, after which the ceremony took place solely in Los Angeles. The Oscars moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, in 1961. By 1969, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Downtown Los Angeles, this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the ceremony returned to the Shrine.In 2002, Hollywood's Dolby Theatre (previously known as the Kodak Theatre) became the presentation's current venue.Awards of Merit categoriesCurrent categoriesIn the first year of the awards, the Best Directing award was split into two categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.In August 2018, the Academy announced that several categories would not be televised live, but rather be recorded during commercial breaks and aired later in the ceremony.Following dissent from Academy members, they announced that they would indeed air all 24 categories live. This followed several proposals (among them, the introduction of a Popular Film category) that the Academy had announced but did not implement.Discontinued categoriesProposed categoriesThe Board of Governors meets each year and considers new award categories. To date, the following categories have been proposed: Best Casting: rejected in 1999 Best Popular Film: proposed in 2018 for presentation at the 2019 ceremony; postponed until the 2020 ceremony at the earliest (yet to be implemented) Best Stunt Coordination: rejected every year from 1991 to 2012 Best Title Design: rejected in 1999Special categoriesThe Special Academy Awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. They are not always presented on an annual basis.Current special categories Academy Honorary Award: since 1929 Academy Scientific and Technical Award (three different awards): since 1931 Gordon E. Sawyer Award: since 1981 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: since 1957  Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: since 1938  Academy Special Achievement Award: from 1972 to 1995, and again for 2017Discontinued special categories Academy Juvenile Award: 1934 to 1960CriticismAccusations of commercialismDue to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, many studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the "Oscar season". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than by quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as "the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself".Tim Dirks, editor of AMC's filmsite.org, has written of the Academy Awards:A recent technique that has been claimed to be used during the Oscar season is the whisper campaign. These campaigns are intended to spread negative perceptions of other movies nominated and are believed to be perpetrated by those that were involved in creating the movie. Examples of whisper campaigns include the allegations against Zero Dark Thirty suggesting that it justifies torture and the claim that Lincoln distorts history.Accusations of biasTypical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. in the last three months of the calendar year. The Oscars have been infamously known for selecting specific genres of movies to be awarded. The term "Oscar bait" was coined to describe such movies. This has led, at times, to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g., by favoring "Oscar bait" over audience favorites or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues.Allegations of a lack of diversityThe Academy Awards have long received criticism over its lack of diversity among the nominees. This criticism is based on the statistics from every Academy Awards since 1929, which shows us that only 6.4% of academy award nominees have been non-white and since 1991, 11.2% of nominees have been non-white, with the rate of winners being even more polarizing. Due to a variety of reasons, including marketability and historical bans on interracial couples, a number of high-profile Oscars have been given to yellowface portrayals, as well as performances of Asian characters rewritten for white characters. The 88th awards ceremony became the target of a boycott, popularized on social media with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, based on activists' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflected bias. In response, the Academy initiated "historic" changes in membership by the year 2020.Symbolism or sentimentalizationActing prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for personal popularity, to make up for a "snub" for a work that proved in time to be more popular or renowned than the one awarded, or presented as a "career honor" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work.Recognition of streaming media filmFollowing the 91st Academy Awards in February 2019 in which the Netflix-broadcast film Roma had been nominated for ten awards including the Best Picture category, Steven Spielberg and other members of the Academy discussed changing the requirements through the Board of Governors for films as to exclude those from Netflix and other media streaming services. Spielberg had been concerned that Netflix as a movie production and distribution studio could spend much more than typical Oscar-winning films and have much wider and earlier distribution than other Best Picture-nominated films, while still being able to meet the minimal theatrical-run status to qualify for an Oscar. The United States Department of Justice, having heard of this potential rule change, wrote a letter to the Academy in March 2019, cautioning them that placing additional restrictions on films that originate from streaming media services without proper justification could raise anti-trust concerns against the Academy. Following its April 2019 board meeting, the Academy Board of Governors agreed to retain the current rules that allow for streaming media films to be eligible for Oscars as long as they enjoy limited theatrical runs.Refusals of the awardSome winners critical of the Academy Awards have boycotted the ceremonies and refused to accept their Oscars. The first to do so was screenwriter Dudley Nichols (Best Writing in 1935 for The Informer). Nichols boycotted the 8th Academy Awards ceremony because of conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild. Nichols eventually accepted the 1935 award three years later, at the 1938 ceremony. Nichols was nominated for three further Academy Awards during his career.George C. Scott became the second person to refuse his award (Best Actor in 1970 for Patton) at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony. Scott described it as a "meat parade", saying, "I don't want any part of it."The third person to refuse the award was Marlon Brando, who refused his award (Best Actor for 1972's The Godfather), citing the film industry's discrimination and mistreatment of Native Americans. At the 45th Academy Awards ceremony, Brando asked actress and civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech in his place, detailing his criticisms, for which there was booing and cheering by the audience.DisqualificationsSix films have had nominations revoked before the official award ceremony: The Circus (1928) – The film was voluntarily removed by the Academy from competitive categories, to award Charlie Chaplin a special award. Hondo (1953) – Removed from the Best Story ballot after letters from the producer and nominee questioned its inclusion in the category. High Society (1955) – Withdrawn from screenwriting ballot after being mistaken for the 1956 movie of the same title. The Godfather (1972) – Initially nominated for eleven awards, its nomination for Best Original Score was revoked after it was discovered that its main theme was very similar to music that the score's composer had written for an earlier film. None of its other nominations were revoked, and it received three Oscars, including Best Picture. A Place in the World (1992) – Removed from the Best Foreign Language Film ballot after it was discovered that the country which submitted the film exercised insufficient artistic control. Alone Yet Not Alone (2014) – The film's title song, "Alone Yet Not Alone", was removed from the Best Original Song ballot after Bruce Broughton was found to have improperly contacted other members of the academy's musical branch; this was the first time that a film was removed from a ballot for ethical reasons.One film was disqualified after winning the award, and had the winner return the Oscar: Young Americans (1969) – Initially won the award for Best Documentary Feature, but was later revoked after it was revealed that it had opened theatrically prior to the eligibility period.One film had its nomination revoked after the award ceremony when it had not won the Oscar:Tuba Atlantic (2011) – Its nomination for Best Live Action Short Film was revoked when it was discovered that the film had aired on television in 2010, before its theatrical release.Gender segregationSome advocates of gender equality and non-binary people have criticized the separation of male and female acting categories in the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards and Tony Awards. Though some commentators worry that gender discrimination would cause men to dominate unsegregated categories, other categories are unsegregated. The Grammy Awards went gender-neutral in 2012, while the Daytime Emmy Awards introduced a single Outstanding Younger Performer in a Drama Series category in 2019 to replace their two gender-specific younger actor and actress categories.Associated eventsThe following events are closely associated with the annual Academy Awards: BAFTA Awards César Awards David di Donatello Awards Nominees luncheon Governors Awards The 25th Independent Spirit Awards (2010), usually held in Santa Monica, California the Saturday before the Oscars, marked the first time it was moved to a Friday and a change of venue to L.A. Live The annual "Night Before", traditionally held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, begun in 2002 and generally known as the party of the season, benefits the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which operates a retirement home for SAG actors in the San Fernando Valley Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party airs the awards live at the nearby Pacific Design Center The Governors Ball is the Academy's official after-party, including dinner (until 2011), and is adjacent to the awards-presentation venue The Vanity Fair after-party, historically at the former Morton's restaurant, has been at the Sunset Tower since 2009 Ariel Award in Mexico Goya Award in SpainPresenter and performer giftsIt has become a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In recent years, these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners. The value of each of these gift bags can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. In 2014, the value was reported to be as high as US$80,000. The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status.Oscar gift bags have included vacation packages to Hawaii and Mexico and Japan, a private dinner party for the recipient and friends at a restaurant, videophones, a four-night stay at a hotel, watches, bracelets, spa treatments, bottles of vodka, maple salad dressing, weight-loss gummie candy and up to $25,000 worth of cosmetic treatments and rejuvenation procedures such as lip fillers and chemical peels from New York City facial plastic surgeon Konstantin Vasyukevich. Some of the gifts have even had a "risque" element to them; in 2014, the adult products retailer Adam & Eve had a "Secret Room Gifting Suite". Celebrities visiting the gifting suite included Judith Hoag, Carolyn Hennesy, Kate Linder, Chris Mulkey, Jim O'Heir, and John Salley.Television ratings and advertisement pricesFrom 2006 onwards, results are Live+SD; all previous years are live viewing.TrademarkThe term "Oscar" is a registered trademark of the AMPAS; however, in the Italian language, it is used generically to refer to any award or award ceremony, regardless of which field.Court: Oscar may be generic term in Italian | Reuters See also List of film awards List of Academy Award records List of actors with Academy Award nominations List of superlative Academy Award winners and nomineesFootnotesReferencesFurther reading Brokaw, Lauren (2010). "Wanna see an Academy Awards invite? We got it along with all the major annual events surrounding the Oscars". Los Angeles: The Daily Truffle.      Wright, Jon (2007). The Lunacy of Oscar: The Problems with Hollywood's Biggest Night''. Thomas Publishing, Inc.External links  of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  Official Academy Awards Database (searchable) 1929 establishments in CaliforniaPerforming arts trophiesAmerican annual television specialsAmerican film awardsAnnual events in Los Angeles County, CaliforniaAwards established in 1929Cinema of Southern CaliforniaEvents in Los AngelesHollywood history and cultureAmerican live television shows
Actresses (Catalan: Actrius) is a 1997 Catalan language Spanish drama film produced and directed by Ventura Pons and based on the award-winning stage play E.R. by Josep Maria Benet i Jornet. The film has no male actors, with all roles played by females. The film was produced in 1996.SynopsisIn order to prepare herself to play a role commemorating the life of legendary actress Empar Ribera, young actress (Mercè Pons) interviews three established actresses who had been the Ribera's pupils: the international diva Glòria Marc (Núria Espert), the television star Assumpta Roca (Rosa Maria Sardà), and dubbing director Maria Caminal (Anna Lizaran).Cast Núria Espert as Glòria Marc Rosa Maria Sardà as Assumpta Roca Anna Lizaran as Maria Caminal Mercè Pons as EstudiantRecognitionScreeningsActrius screened in 2001 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in an American Cinematheque retrospective of the works of its director. The film had first screened at the same location in 1998. It was also shown at the 1997 Stockholm International Film Festival.ReceptionIn Movie - Film - Review, Christopher Tookey wrote that though the actresses were "competent in roles that may have some reference to their own careers", the film "is visually unimaginative, never escapes its stage origins, and is almost totally lacking in revelation or surprising incident". Noting that there were "occasional, refreshing moments of intergenerational bitchiness", they did not "justify comparisons to All About Eve", and were "insufficiently different to deserve critical parallels with Rashomon". He also wrote that The Guardian called the film a "slow, stuffy chamber-piece", and that The Evening Standard stated the film's "best moments exhibit the bitchy tantrums seething beneath the threesome's composed veneers". MRQE wrote "This cinematic adaptation of a theatrical work is true to the original, but does not stray far from a theatrical rendering of the story."Awards and nominations 1997, won 'Best Catalan Film' at Butaca Awards for Ventura Pons 1997, won 'Best Catalan Film Actress' at Butaca Awards, shared by Núria Espert, Rosa Maria Sardà, Anna Lizaran, and Mercè Pons 1998, nominated for 'Best Screenplay' at Goya Awards, shared by Josep Maria Benet i Jornet and Ventura PonsReferencesExternal links   as archived 17 February 2009 (Spanish)1997 films1997 drama filmsSpanish filmsCatalan-language filmsFilms set in BarcelonaFilms directed by Ventura PonsSpanish drama films
Animalia is an illustrated children's book by Graeme Base. It was originally published in 1986, followed by a tenth anniversary edition in 1996, and a 25th anniversary edition in 2012. Over four million copies have been sold worldwide.   A special numbered and signed anniversary edition was also published in 1996, with an embossed gold jacket.SynopsisAnimalia is an alliterative alphabet book and contains twenty-six illustrations, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each illustration features an animal from the animal kingdom (A is for alligator and armadillo, B is for butterfly, etc.) along with a short poem utilizing the letter of the page for many of the words. The illustrations contain many other objects beginning with that letter that the reader can try to identify (however, there are not necessarily "a thousand things, or maybe more", as the author states). As an additional challenge, the author has hidden a picture of himself as a child in every picture.Here are some of the things in each picture that are truly different (the alligator in the A section is wearing an apron featuring the alphabet, which the book is about, and this section also features the author's home country, Australia):Note: This list is incomplete.A1. Astronaut2. Album3. Admiral4. Archdiocese5. Actor6. Actress7. Aborigine8. Athlete9. Acrobat10. Apple11. Acorn12. Apricot13. Avocado14. Adder15. Albatross16. Antelope (this is actually a pronghorn, which is not a true antelope, so it belongs in the P section)17. Anteater18. Aardvark19. Anvil20. Afghan hound21. Affenpinscher22. Airedale terrier23. Aqueduct24. Ant25. Abacus26. Asparagus27. Artichoke28. Accordion29. Anchor30. Anemone 31. Axe32. Angel 33. Algebra34. Atlas35. Apron36. Alien37. Ambulance38. AntennaB36. Bumblebee37. Bobolink38. Bear39. Bonnet40. Barbed wire41. Brambles42. Bulrushes43. Baboon44. Bassoon45. Brontosaurus46. Budgerigar47. Bomb48. Brain49. Brick50. Basket51. Basketball52. Basketball hoop53. Baseball54. Baseball bat55. Backgammon56. Ballpoint pen57. Bagpipes58. Bicycle59. Barrel60. Bell61. Boot62. Button63. Blueberries64. Belt65. Bugle66. Bull67. Bucket68. Bellows69. Boomerang70. Bathtub71. Bone72. Brush73. Bottle74. Banana75. Brush76. Binoculars77. Barracuda78. Buddha79. Battery80. Broom81. Bat (animal)82. Boy83. BungalowC82. Crab83. Chair84. Crane85. Caterpillar86. Canoe87. Computer88. Collar89. Camera90. Concertina91. Cap92. Cheetah93. Chain94. Cassette95. Crocodile96. Cone97. Cube98. Cylinder99. Cymbal100. Cucumber101. Celery102. Cabbage103. Cheese104. Corn105. Carrot106. Cards107. Calculator108. Candle109. Cherry110. Cake111. Coconut112. Cup113. Cocoa114. Can115. Calendar116. Chef117. Castle118. Church119. Cemetery120. Cross of Christ121. Caravan122. Circus123. Clown124. Cricket (game)125. Convict126. Cannon127. Cow128. Chimpanzee129. Cobra130. Cage131. Canary132. Check133. Crossword puzzle134. Crutch135. Cord136. Crown137. Crate138. Cork 139. Cog140. Comb141. Clarinet142. Clam143. Chieftain144. Cactus145. Cliff146. Chateau147. Concorde148. Chandelier149. Cottage150. Cigar151. Candy cane152. Cauldron153. CentipedeD154. Dustpan155. Duster156. Dynamite157. Drill158. Drawers159. Draughts160. Doughnut161. Diamond162. Dice163. Dutch doll164. Dentures165. Date (fruit)166. Date (time)167. Doily168. Dish169. Dollar170. Dolphin171. Decagon172. Devil173. Dormouse174. Diagonal175. Decade176. Doctrine177. Dumbbell178. Dragonfly179. Dwarf180. Dachshund181. Doberman pinscher182. Dalmatian183. Dodo184. Diplodocus185. Dimetrodon186. Dove187. Desperado188. Donkey189. Dam190. Drain191. Dinghy192. Drowning193. Drawbridge194. Deer195. Destroyer196. Dromedary197. Double-decker bus198. Daffodil199. Daisy200. Dirigible201. Dominos202. Dagger203. Dart204. Duck205. Dingo206. Dolly207. Deputy208. DogE208. Eclipse209. Éclair210. Elderberries211. Envelope212. Emu213. Eleven214. Edison215. Einstein216. Embryo217. Earwig218. Echidna219. Elf220. Eskimo221. Eagle222. Edelweiss223. Earring224. Emerald225. Exclamation point226. EyeglassesF226. Flounder227. Film228. Fly229. Foxglove230. Fern231. Fairy232. Fire233. Firewood234. Frankenstein235. Fork236. Forest237. Falcon238. Fungus239. Flier240. Flute241. Fan242. FoghornG243. Graph244. Glockenspiel245. Gerbil246. Geranium247. Gladiolus248. Gladiator249. Gremlin250. Golf club251. Golf ball252. Gibbon253. Guitar254. Galoshes255. Grail256. Greyhound257. Gong258. Gazelle259. Griffin260. Gargoyle261. Graffiti262. Grasshopper263. Globe264. Galleon265. Gorgon266. Gnome267. Gramophone268. Goat269. Goggles270. Goose271. Giraffe272. Gazebo273. Guard274. Gift275. Garage276. Garbage277. Garbage can278. Gallows279. Guillotine280. Ghost281. Giant282. Goal283. Glider284. Gage285. GarterH285. Hexagon286. Hose287. Hare288. Hyena289. Hawk290. Hammock291. Hook292. Hippo293. Hunter294. Hill295. Hang glider296. Herald297. Helicopter298. Hamburger299. Hydrant300. Hourglass301. Hamster302. Hedgehog 303. Horn304. Heart305. Hen306. Hand grenade307. Humpty-Dumpty308. Holly309. Holy Bible310. Hatch311. Haddock312. Hammer313. Hieroglyphics314. Handkerchief315. Handcuffs316. Hatchet317. Hornet318. HalberdI318. Island319. Icicle320. Ice cream321. Iron322. Iceberg323. Icarus324. Imprisoned325. Ingot326. InkJ324. Judge325. Javelin326. Jester327. Jack-in-the-box328. Jack-in-the-pulpit329. Japan330. Jet331. Jasmine332. Jaguar333. JeansK333. Kite334. Knapsack335. Knitting336. Kiwi337. Kilt338. Kitten339. Knight340. Kipper341. Knife342. Keys343. Keychain344. Kitchen345. Kettle346. Kayak347. Knocker348. Ketch349. Keel350. Keypad351. KerbL350. Ladder351. Lyre352. Lantern353. Lobster354. Llama355. Lettuce356. Leprechaun357. Lockbox358. Ladle359. Lemon360. Lute361. Lollipop362. Lamp363. Lily364. LassoM365. Map366. Mammoth367. Mermaid368. Moose369. Magpie370. Mosque371. Mandolin372. Monkey marionette373. Marble374. Metronome375. Moth376. Million377. Millimeter378. Millipede379. Mushroom380. Match381. Matchbox382. Molecule383. Mug384. Milk385. Medal386. Monocle387. Magnet388. Maggot389. Mask390. Microphone391. Microscope392. Moon393. Mole394. Monster395. Monitor396. MoustacheN394. Noah395. Narwhal396. Neptune397. Newspaper398. Nightingale399. Nest400. Net401. Nun402. Nut403. Nutcracker404. North405. Ninety-nine406. Napkin407. Nautilus408. Nurse409. NonagonO410. Orange411. Otter412. Orangutan413. Observatory414. Octagon415. Owl416. Obelisk417. Oak418. Oil drill419. Organ420. Oven421. OrchestraP421. Purse422. Physician423. Poodle424. Parasol425. Pig426. Perambulator427. Periwinkle428. Politician429. Pin430. Philosopher431. Parchment432. Polka dot433. Pigtail434. Pit drum435. Pharaoh436. Pied Piper437. Pyjamas438. Plume439. Police440. Prisoner441. Pygmy442. Punch & Judy443. Pope444. Peace445. Pirate446. Patch447. Peg leg448. Prince449. Princess450. Pendant451. Palace452. Pagoda453. Parachute454. Pegasus455. Pisa (Leaning Tower)456. Parthenon457. Palm tree458. Pyramid459. Paris460. Peninsula461. Penguin462. Pool463. Pathway464. Procession465. Platypus466. Pan467. Pumpkin468. Pheasant469. Partridge470. Puffin471. Pelican472. Porcupine473. Panda474. Parcel475. Pliers476. Plow477. Pitchfork478. Pick479. Pine tree480. Pansy481. Poison ivy482. Periscope483. Porpoise484. Piano485. Popeye486. Phoenix487. Potato488. Plum489. Painter490. Palette491. Paint492. Paintbrush493. Peach494. Pear495. Pomegranate496. Pineapple497. Pussy-willows498. Pavilion499. Pulley500. Pump501. Plaque502. Prism503. Peas504. PearlQ505. Quartz506. Quicksand507. Quarter508. Quoits509. Queen510. Quilt511. Queensland512. QueueR 511. Rust512. Radar513. Raspberry514. Raccoon515. Rhododendron516. Roman numerals517. Ruby518. Ring519. Razor520. Roller skate521. Reindeer522. Roulette523. Rake524. Rifle525. Revolver526. Refrigerator527. Rabbit528. Rolling pin529. Register530. Rose531. Raven532. Ram533. Rat534. Rowboat535. Rooster536. Rattlesnake537. Robin538. Rocking horse539. Rocking chair540. Radius541. Rip542. Racket543. Recorder544. RocketS545. Sapphire546. Soup547. Stump548. Scorpion549. Sieve550. Sandcastle551. Sloop552. Schooner553. Shark554. Scarf555. Spider556. Spur557. Sheriff558. Sling559. Scab560. Sickle561. Scythe562. Slippers563. Sandwich564. Sunflower565. Snowshoes566. Skis567. Stretcher568. Spy569. Stitch570. Screwdriver571. Screw572. Shifter (Wrench)573. Shrug574. Spade575. Shovel576. Sledgehammer577. Scissors578. Shears579. Saw580. Scalpel581. Shack582. Scooter583. Satchel584. Sundae585. Straw586. Spaghetti587. Strawberry588. Spoon589. Saturn590. Seesaw591. Spring592. Sneeze593. Shepherd594. Staff595. Scarecrow596. Sloth597. Stork598. Spoonbill599. Safe600. Shrew601. Skipping rope602. Scroll603. Stamp604. Soccer605. Swimmer606. Snorkel607. Syringe608. Siphon609. Stethoscope610. Starfish611. Snail612. Slug613. Sphinx614. Sprocket615. Spinning wheel616. Spool617. Stool618. Space shuttle619. Satellite620. Sombrero621. Serape622. Saxophone623. Synthesizer624. Superman625. Shower626. Suitcase627. Shuttlecock628. Skittle (Bowling pin)629. Stilts630. Stalactite631. Stalagmite632. Steamroller633. Swings634. Slide635. Sword636. Sheathe637. Stiletto638. Scimitar639. Saber640. Spear641. Sleigh642. Snow643. Santa Claus644. Sack645. Sausage646. Stick figure647. Surfboard648. Surfer649. Seal650. Skull651. Spine652. Shamrock653. Spectacles654. Scapula655. Slingshot656. Snipe657. Swallow658. Sardines659. Swan660. Skunk661. Stepladder662. Sofa663. Scarab beetle664. Stereo665. Star of David666. Sparrow667. Squirrel668. Sextant669. Squid670. Seahorse671. Salute672. Sardines673. SemaphoreT672. Top hat673. Tulip674. Tricycle675. Toad676. Thermos677. Turtle678. Tear679. Trombone680. Trumpet681. Tuba682. Tractor683. Trailer684. Tunnel685. Tepee686. Totem pole687. Target688. Tuxedo689. Tunic690. Telescope691. Teapot692. Television693. Trophy694. Tap695. Teddy bear696. Tambourine697. Torch698. Toy tank699. Tomato700. Thermometer701. Tweezers702. Threader703. Typewriter704. Turntable705. Telephone706. TapirU707. UFO708. Ursa Major709. Ursa Minor710. United Kingdom711. Uncle Sam712. Ukulele713. Underwear714. UmiakV715. Volkswagen716. Vase717. Van718. VCR719. Violin720. Vacuum cleaner721. Voodoo doll722. Vane723. Valve724. Volcano725. Viaduct726. Vicar727. Viking728. Vampire729. Valley730. VegetablesW730. Weevil731. Wristwatch732. Witch733. Wave734. Wizard735. Wand736. Wheat737. Wall738. Wreck739. Wharf740. Whale741. Walrus742. Whirlpool743. Werewolf744. Wolf745. Wishbone746. Well747. Washerwoman748. Washhouse749. Washing machine750. Wagon751. Whip752. Windmill753. Wombat754. Wallaby755. Weeping willow756. Waterfall757. Weapons758. WaterX757. Xylophone758. Xerophytes759. Xmas tree760. X-ray761. X (sign language)Y762. Yoke763. Yolk764. Yeti765. Yeoman766. Yo-yo767. Yard768. YearZ769. Zulu770. Zodiac771. Zipper772. Zinnia773. Zither774. Zebu775. Zorro776. Zero777. ZebraRelated productsJulia MacRae Books published an Animalia colouring book in 2008.   H. N. Abrams also published a wall calendar colouring book version for children the same year.H. N. Abrams published The Animalia Wall Frieze, a fold-out over 26 feet in length, in which the author created new riddles for each letter.The Great American Puzzle Factory created a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle based on the book's cover.AdaptationsA television series was also created, based on the book, which airs in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and Venezuela. It also airs on Minimax for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. And recently in Greece on the channel ET1. The Australian Children's Television Foundation released a teaching resource DVD-ROM in 2011 to accompany the TV series with teaching aids for classroom use.In 2010, The Base Factory and AppBooks released Animalia as an application for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch.AwardsAnimalia won the Young Australian's Best Book Award in 1987 for Best Picture Story Book.The Children's Book Council of Australia designated Animalia a 1987 Picture Book of the Year: Honour Book.Kid's Own Australian Literature Awards named Animalia the 1988 Picture Book Winner.ReferencesExternal links Graeme Base's official website A Learning Time activity guide for Animalia created by The Little Big Book ClubAlphabet books1986 children's booksPicture books by Graeme BasePuzzle booksAustralian children's booksPuffin Books books
International Atomic Time (TAI, from the French name ) is a high-precision atomic coordinate time standard based on the notional passage of proper time on Earth's geoid. It is a continuous scale of time, without leap seconds. It is the principal realisation of Terrestrial Time (with a fixed offset of epoch). It is also the basis for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is used for civil timekeeping all over the Earth's surface. UTC deviates from TAI by a number of whole seconds. , when another leap second was put into effect, UTC is currently exactly 37 seconds behind TAI. The 37 seconds result from the initial difference of 10 seconds at the start of 1972, plus 27 leap seconds in UTC since 1972.TAI may be reported using traditional means of specifying days, carried over from non-uniform time standards based on the rotation of the Earth. Specifically, both Julian days and the Gregorian calendar are used. TAI in this form was synchronised with Universal Time at the beginning of 1958, and the two have drifted apart ever since, due to the changing motion of the Earth.OperationTAI is a weighted average of the time kept by over 400 atomic clocks in over 50 national laboratories worldwide. The majority of the clocks involved are caesium clocks; the International System of Units (SI) definition of the second is based on caesium. The clocks are compared using GPS signals and two-way satellite time and frequency transfer.  Due to the signal averaging TAI is an order of magnitude more stable than its best constituent clock.The participating institutions each broadcast, in real time, a frequency signal with timecodes, which is their estimate of TAI.  Time codes are usually published in the form of UTC, which differs from TAI by a well-known integer number of seconds.  These time scales are denoted in the form UTC(NPL) in the UTC form, where NPL identifies the National Physical Laboratory, UK. The TAI form may be denoted TAI(NPL).  The latter is not to be confused with TA(NPL), which denotes an independent atomic time scale, not synchronised to TAI or to anything else.The clocks at different institutions are regularly compared against each other.  The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM, France), combines these measurements to retrospectively calculate the weighted average that forms the most stable time scale possible.  This combined time scale is published monthly in "Circular T", and is the canonical TAI.  This time scale is expressed in the form of tables of differences UTC − UTC(k) (equivalent to TAI − TAI(k)) for each participating institution k.  The same circular also gives tables of TAI − TA(k), for the various unsynchronised atomic time scales.Errors in publication may be corrected by issuing a revision of the faulty Circular T or by errata in a subsequent Circular T.  Aside from this, once published in Circular T, the TAI scale is not revised.  In hindsight, it is possible to discover errors in TAI and to make better estimates of the true proper time scale.  Since the published circulars are definitive, better estimates do not create another version of TAI; it is instead considered to be creating a better realisation of Terrestrial Time (TT).HistoryEarly atomic time scales consisted of quartz clocks with frequencies calibrated by a single atomic clock; the atomic clocks were not operated continuously. Atomic timekeeping services started experimentally in 1955, using the first caesium atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory, UK (NPL). It was used as a basis for calibrating the quartz clocks at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and to establish a time scale, called Greenwich Atomic (GA). The United States Naval Observatory began the A.1 scale on 13 September 1956, using an Atomichron commercial atomic clock, followed by the NBS-A scale at the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado on 9 October 1957.The International Time Bureau (BIH) began a time scale, Tm or AM, in July 1955, using both local caesium clocks and comparisons to distant clocks using the phase of VLF radio signals. The BIH scale, A.1, and NBS-A were defined by an epoch at the beginning of 1958 The procedures used by the BIH evolved, and the name for the time scale changed: "A3" in 1964 and "TA(BIH)" in 1969.The SI second was defined in terms of the caesium atom in 1967. From 1971 to 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures and the International Committee for Weights and Measures made a series of decisions which designated the BIPM time scale International Atomic Time (TAI).In the 1970s, it became clear that the clocks participating in TAI were ticking at different rates due to gravitational time dilation, and the combined TAI scale, therefore, corresponded to an average of the altitudes of the various clocks. Starting from the Julian Date 2443144.5 (1 January 1977 00:00:00), corrections were applied to the output of all participating clocks, so that TAI would correspond to proper time at the geoid (mean sea level).  Because the clocks were, on average, well above sea level, this meant that TAI slowed by about one part in a trillion. The former uncorrected time scale continues to be published under the name EAL (Échelle Atomique Libre, meaning Free Atomic Scale).The instant that the gravitational correction started to be applied serves as the epoch for Barycentric Coordinate Time (TCB), Geocentric Coordinate Time (TCG), and Terrestrial Time (TT), which represent three fundamental time scales in the solar system.  All three of these time scales were defined to read JD 2443144.5003725 (1 January 1977 00:00:32.184) exactly at that instant. TAI was henceforth a realisation of TT, with the equation TT(TAI) = TAI + 32.184 s.The continued existence of TAI was questioned in a 2007 letter from the BIPM to the ITU-R which stated, "In the case of a redefinition of UTC without leap seconds, the CCTF would consider discussing the possibility of suppressing TAI, as it would remain parallel to the continuous UTC."Relation to UTCUTC is a discontinuous time scale. It is occasionally adjusted by leap seconds. Between these adjustments, it is composed of segments that are mapped to atomic time. From its beginning in 1961 through December 1971, the adjustments were made regularly in fractional leap seconds so that UTC approximated UT2.  Afterward, these adjustments were made only in whole seconds to approximate UT1. This was a compromise arrangement in order to enable a publicly broadcast time scale. The less frequent whole-second adjustments meant that the time scale would be more stable and easier to synchronize internationally. The fact that it continues to approximate UT1 means that tasks such as navigation which require a source of Universal Time continue to be well served by the public broadcast of UTC.See also Clock synchronization Network Time Protocol Precision Time Protocol Time and frequency transferNotesReferencesFootnotesBibliographyExternal links Bureau International des Poids et Mesures: TAI Time and Frequency Section - National Physical Laboratory, UK IERS website  NIST Web Clock FAQs History of time scales NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock  Japan Standard Time Project, NICT, Japan  Standard of time definition: UTC, GPS, LORAN and TAITime scales
Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for happiness of other human beings or other animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious and secular worldviews. However, the object(s) of concern vary among cultures and religions. In an extreme case, altruism may become a synonym of selflessness, which is the opposite of selfishness.The word "altruism" was popularized (and possibly coined) by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as altruisme, for an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian altrui, which in turn was derived from Latin alteri, meaning "other people" or "somebody else".Altruism in biological observations in field populations of the day organisms is an individual performing an action which is at a cost to themselves (e.g., pleasure and quality of life, time, probability of survival or reproduction), but benefits, either directly or indirectly, another individual, without the expectation of reciprocity or compensation for that action. Steinberg suggests a definition for altruism in the clinical setting, that is "intentional and voluntary actions that aim to enhance the welfare of another person in the absence of any quid pro quo external rewards". In one sense, the opposite of altruism is spite; a spiteful action harms another with no self-benefit.Altruism can be distinguished from feelings of loyalty or concern for the common good.  The latter are predicated upon social relationships, whilst altruism does not consider relationships. Much debate exists as to whether "true" altruism is possible in human psychology. The theory of psychological egoism suggests that no act of sharing, helping or sacrificing can be described as truly altruistic, as the actor may receive an intrinsic reward in the form of personal gratification. The validity of this argument depends on whether intrinsic rewards qualify as "benefits".The term altruism may also refer to an ethical doctrine that claims that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense, it is usually contrasted with egoism, which claims individuals are morally obligated to serve themselves first. Effective altruism is the use of evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to benefit others.The notion of altruismThe concept has a long history in philosophical and ethical thought. The term was originally coined in the 19th century by the founding sociologist and philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, and has become a major topic for psychologists (especially evolutionary psychology researchers), evolutionary biologists, and ethologists. Whilst ideas about altruism from one field can affect the other fields, the different methods and focuses of these fields always lead to different perspectives on altruism. In simple terms, altruism is caring about the welfare of other people and acting to help them.Scientific viewpointsAnthropologyMarcel Mauss's essay The Gift contains a passage called "Note on alms". This note describes the evolution of the notion of alms (and by extension of altruism) from the notion of sacrifice. In it, he writes:Alms are the fruits of a moral notion of the gift and of fortune on the one hand, and of a notion of sacrifice, on the other. Generosity is an obligation, because Nemesis avenges the poor and the gods for the superabundance of happiness and wealth of certain people who should rid themselves of it. This is the ancient morality of the gift, which has become a principle of justice. The gods and the spirits accept that the share of wealth and happiness that has been offered to them and had been hitherto destroyed in useless sacrifices should serve the poor and children.Evolutionary explanationsIn the science of ethology (the study of animal behaviour), and more generally in the study of social evolution, altruism refers to behaviour by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor. In evolutionary psychology this may be applied to a wide range of human behaviors such as charity, emergency aid, help to coalition partners, tipping, courtship gifts, production of public goods, and environmentalism.Theories of apparently altruistic behavior were accelerated by the need to produce theories compatible with evolutionary origins. Two related strands of research on altruism have emerged from traditional evolutionary analyses and from evolutionary game theory a mathematical model and analysis of behavioural strategies.Some of the proposed mechanisms are:  Kin selection. That animals and humans are more altruistic towards close kin than to distant kin and non-kin has been confirmed in numerous studies across many different cultures. Even subtle cues indicating kinship may unconsciously increase altruistic behavior. One kinship cue is facial resemblance. One study found that slightly altering photographs so that they more closely resembled the faces of study participants increased the trust the participants expressed regarding depicted persons. Another cue is having the same family name, especially if rare, and this has been found to increase helpful behavior. Another study found more cooperative behavior the greater the number of perceived kin in a group. Using kinship terms in political speeches increased audience agreement with the speaker in one study. This effect was especially strong for firstborns, who are typically close to their families. Vested interests. People are likely to suffer if their friends, allies, and similar social ingroups suffer or even disappear. Helping such group members may therefore eventually benefit the altruist. Making ingroup membership more noticeable increases cooperativeness. Extreme self-sacrifice towards the ingroup may be adaptive if a hostile outgroup threatens to kill the entire ingroup. Reciprocal altruism. See also Reciprocity (evolution). Direct reciprocity. Research shows that it can be beneficial to help others if there is a chance that they can and will reciprocate the help. The effective tit for tat strategy is one game theoretic example. Many people seem to be following a similar strategy by cooperating if and only if others cooperate in return.One consequence is that people are more cooperative if it is more likely that individuals will interact again in the future. People tend to be less cooperative if they perceive that the frequency of helpers in the population is lower. They tend to help less if they see non-cooperativeness by others and this effect tend to be stronger than the opposite effect of seeing cooperative behaviors. Simply changing the cooperative framing of a proposal may increase cooperativeness such as calling it a "Community Game" instead of a "Wall Street Game".A tendency towards reciprocity implies that people will feel obligated to respond if someone helps them. This has been used by charities that give small gifts to potential donors hoping thereby to induce reciprocity. Another method is to announce publicly that someone has given a large donation. The tendency to reciprocate can even generalize so people become more helpful toward others in general after being helped. On the other hand, people will avoid or even retaliate against those perceived not to be cooperating. People sometimes mistakenly fail to help when they intended to, or their helping may not be noticed, which may cause unintended conflicts. As such, it may be an optimal strategy to be slightly forgiving of and have a slightly generous interpretation of non-cooperation.People are more likely to cooperate on a task if they can communicate with one another first. This may be due to better assessments of cooperativeness or due to exchange of promises. They are more cooperative if they can gradually build trust, instead of being asked to give extensive help immediately. Direct reciprocity and cooperation in a group can be increased by changing the focus and incentives from intra-group competition to larger scale competitions such as between groups or against the general population. Thus, giving grades and promotions based only on an individual's performance relative to a small local group, as is common, may reduce cooperative behaviors in the group. Indirect reciprocity. The avoidance of poor reciprocators and cheaters causes a person's reputation to become very important. A person with a good reputation for reciprocity has a higher chance of receiving help even from persons they have had no direct interactions with previously. Strong reciprocity. A form of reciprocity where some individuals seem to spend more resources on cooperating and punishing than would be most beneficial as predicted by several established theories of altruism. A number of theories have been proposed as explanations as well as criticisms regarding its existence. Pseudo-reciprocity. An organism behaves altruistically and the recipient does not reciprocate but has an increased chance of acting in a way that is selfish but also as a byproduct benefits the altruist. Costly signaling and the handicap principle. Since altruism takes away resources from the altruist it can be an "honest signal" of resource availability and the abilities needed to gather resources. This may signal to others that the altruist is a valuable potential partner. It may also be a signal of interactive and cooperative intentions since those not interacting further in the future gain nothing from the costly signaling. It is unclear if costly signaling can indicate a long-term cooperative personality but people have increased trust for those who help. Costly signaling is pointless if everyone has the same traits, resources, and cooperative intentions but become a potentially more important signal if the population increasingly varies on these characteristics.Hunters widely sharing the meat has been seen as a costly signal of ability and research has found that good hunters have higher reproductive success and more adulterous relations even if they themselves receive no more of the hunted meat than anyone else. Similarly, holding large feasts and giving large donations has been seen as ways of demonstrating one's resources. Heroic risk-taking has also been interpreted as a costly signal of ability.Both indirect reciprocity and costly signaling depend on the value of reputation and tend to make similar predictions. One is that people will be more helping when they know that their helping behavior will be communicated to people they will interact with later, is publicly announced, is discussed, or is simply being observed by someone else. This have been documented in many studies. The effect is sensitive to subtle cues such as people being more helpful when there were stylized eyespots instead of a logo on a computer screen. Weak reputational cues such as eyespots may become unimportant if there are stronger cues present and may lose their effect with continued exposure unless reinforced with real reputational effects. Public displays such as public weeping for dead celebrities and participation in demonstrations may be influenced by a desire to be seen as altruistic. People who know that they are publicly monitored sometimes even wastefully donate money they know are not needed by recipient which may be because of reputational concerns.Women have been found to find altruistic men to be attractive partners. When looking for a long-term partner, altruism may be a preferred trait as it may indicate that he is also willing to share resources with her and her children. It has been shown that men perform altruistic acts in the early stages of a romantic relationship or simply when in the presence of an attractive woman. While both sexes state that kindness is the most preferable trait in a partner there is some evidence that men place less value on this than women and that women may not be more altruistic in presence of an attractive man. Men may even avoid altruistic women in short-term relationships which may be because they expect less success.People may compete for social benefit from a burnished reputation, which may cause competitive altruism. On the other hand, in some experiments a proportion of people do not seem to care about reputation and they do not help more even if this is conspicuous. This may possibly be due to reasons such as psychopathy or that they are so attractive that they need not be seen to be altruistic. The reputational benefits of altruism occur in the future as compared to the immediate costs of altruism in the present. While humans and other organisms generally place less value on future costs/benefits as compared to those in the present, some have shorter time horizons than others and these people tend to be less cooperative.Explicit extrinsic rewards and punishments have been found to sometimes actually have the opposite effect on behaviors compared to intrinsic rewards. This may be because such extrinsic, top-down incentives may replace (partially or in whole) intrinsic and reputational incentives, motivating the person to focus on obtaining the extrinsic rewards, which overall may make the behaviors less desirable. Another effect is that people would like altruism to be due to a personality characteristic rather than due to overt reputational concerns and simply pointing out that there are reputational benefits of an action may actually reduce them. This may possibly be used as derogatory tactic against altruists, especially by those who are non-cooperators. A counterargument is that doing good due to reputational concerns is better than doing no good at all. Group selection. It has controversially been argued by some evolutionary scientists such as David Sloan Wilson that natural selection can act at the level of non-kin groups to produce adaptations that benefit a non-kin group even if these adaptations are detrimental at the individual level. Thus, while altruistic persons may under some circumstances be outcompeted by less altruistic persons at the individual level, according to group selection theory the opposite may occur at the group level where groups consisting of the more altruistic persons may outcompete groups consisting of the less altruistic persons. Such altruism may only extend to ingroup members while there may instead prejudice and antagonism against outgroup members (See also in-group favoritism). Group selection theory has been criticized by many other evolutionary scientists.Such explanations do not imply that humans are always consciously calculating how to increase their inclusive fitness when they are doing altruistic acts. Instead, evolution has shaped psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, that promote altruistic behaviors.Every single instance of altruistic behavior need not always increase inclusive fitness; altruistic behaviors would have been selected for if such behaviors on average increased inclusive fitness in the ancestral environment. This need not imply that on average 50% or more of altruistic acts were beneficial for the altruist in the ancestral environment; if the benefits from helping the right person were very high it would be beneficial to err on the side of caution and usually be altruistic even if in most cases there were no benefits.The benefits for the altruist may be increased and the costs reduced by being more altruistic towards certain groups. Research has found that people are more altruistic to kin than to no-kin, to friends than to strangers, to those attractive than to those unattractive, to non-competitors than to competitors, and to members ingroups than to members of outgroup.The study of altruism was the initial impetus behind George R. Price's development of the Price equation, which is a mathematical equation used to study genetic evolution. An interesting example of altruism is found in the cellular slime moulds, such as Dictyostelium mucoroides. These protists live as individual amoebae until starved, at which point they aggregate and form a multicellular fruiting body in which some cells sacrifice themselves to promote the survival of other cells in the fruiting body.Selective investment theory proposes that close social bonds, and associated emotional, cognitive, and neurohormonal mechanisms, evolved in order to facilitate long-term, high-cost altruism between those closely depending on one another for survival and reproductive success.Such cooperative behaviors have sometimes been seen as arguments for left-wing politics such by the Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution and Moral Philosopher Peter Singer in his book A Darwinian Left.NeurobiologyJorge Moll and Jordan Grafman, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health and LABS-D'Or Hospital Network (J.M.) provided the first evidence for the neural bases of altruistic giving in normal healthy volunteers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA in October 2006, they showed that both pure monetary rewards and charitable donations activated the mesolimbic reward pathway, a primitive part of the brain that usually responds to food and sex. However, when volunteers generously placed the interests of others before their own by making charitable donations, another brain circuit was selectively activated: the subgenual cortex/septal region. These structures are intimately related to social attachment and bonding in other species. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable. One brain region, the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex/basal forebrain, contributes to learning altruistic behavior, especially in those with trait empathy. The same study has shown a connection between giving to charity and the promotion of social bonding.In fact, in an experiment published in March 2007 at the University of Southern California neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio and his colleagues showed that subjects with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex lack the ability to empathically feel their way to moral answers, and that when confronted with moral dilemmas, these brain-damaged patients coldly came up with "end-justifies-the-means" answers, leading Damasio to conclude that the point was not that they reached immoral conclusions, but that when they were confronted by a difficult issue – in this case as whether to shoot down a passenger plane hijacked by terrorists before it hits a major city – these patients appear to reach decisions without the anguish that afflicts those with normally functioning brains. According to Adrian Raine, a clinical neuroscientist also at the University of Southern California, one of this study's implications is that society may have to rethink how it judges immoral people: "Psychopaths often feel no empathy or remorse. Without that awareness, people relying exclusively on reasoning seem to find it harder to sort their way through moral thickets. Does that mean they should be held to different standards of accountability?"In another study, in the 1990s, Dr. Bill Harbaugh, a University of Oregon economist, concluded people are motivated to give for reasons of personal prestige and in a similar fMRI scanner test in 2007 with his psychologist colleague Dr. Ulrich Mayr, reached the same conclusions of Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman about giving to charity, although they were able to divide the study group into two groups: "egoists" and "altruists". One of their discoveries was that, though rarely, even some of the considered "egoists" sometimes gave more than expected because that would help others, leading to the conclusion that there are other factors in cause in charity, such as a person's environment and values.PsychologyThe International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences defines psychological altruism as "a motivational state with the goal of increasing another's welfare". Psychological altruism is contrasted with psychological egoism, which refers to the motivation to increase one's own welfare.There has been some debate on whether or not humans are truly capable of psychological altruism. Some definitions specify a self-sacrificial nature to altruism and a lack of external rewards for altruistic behaviors. However, because altruism ultimately benefits the self in many cases, the selflessness of altruistic acts is brought to question. The social exchange theory postulates that altruism only exists when benefits to the self outweigh costs to the self. Daniel Batson is a psychologist who examined this question and argues against the social exchange theory. He identified four major motives: to ultimately benefit the self (egoism), to ultimately benefit the other person (altruism), to benefit a group (collectivism), or to uphold a moral principle (principlism). Altruism that ultimately serves selfish gains is thus differentiated from selfless altruism, but the general conclusion has been that empathy-induced altruism can be genuinely selfless. The empathy-altruism hypothesis basically states that psychological altruism does exist and is evoked by the empathic desire to help someone who is suffering. Feelings of empathic concern are contrasted with feelings of personal distress, which compel people to reduce their own unpleasant emotions and increase their own positive ones through helping someone in need. Empathy is thus not selfless, since altruism works either as the way to avoid those negative, unpleasant feelings and have positive, pleasant feelings triggered by others' need for help, or as the way to incentive the gain of social reward or through fear to avoid social punishment by helping. People with empathic concern help others in distress even when exposure to the situation could be easily avoided, whereas those lacking in empathic concern avoid helping unless it is difficult or impossible to avoid exposure to another's suffering. Helping behavior is seen in humans at about two years old, when a toddler is capable of understanding subtle emotional cues.In psychological research on altruism, studies often observe altruism as demonstrated through prosocial behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, cooperation, philanthropy, and community service. Research has found that people are most likely to help if they recognize that a person is in need and feel personal responsibility for reducing the person's distress. Research also suggests that the number of bystanders witnessing distress or suffering affects the likelihood of helping (the Bystander effect). Greater numbers of bystanders decrease individual feelings of responsibility. However, a witness with a high level of empathic concern is likely to assume personal responsibility entirely regardless of the number of bystanders.Many studies have observed the effects of volunteerism (as a form of altruism) on happiness and health and have consistently found a strong connection between volunteerism and current and future health and well-being. In a study of older adults, those who volunteered were higher on life satisfaction and will to live, and lower in depression, anxiety, and somatization. Volunteerism and helping behavior have not only been shown to improve mental health, but physical health and longevity as well, attributable to the activity and social integration it encourages. One study examined the physical health of mothers who volunteered over a 30-year period and found that 52% of those who did not belong to a volunteer organization experienced a major illness while only 36% of those who did volunteer experienced one. A study on adults ages 55+ found that during the four-year study period, people who volunteered for two or more organizations had a 63% lower likelihood of dying. After controlling for prior health status, it was determined that volunteerism accounted for a 44% reduction in mortality. Merely being aware of kindness in oneself and others is also associated with greater well-being. A study that asked participants to count each act of kindness they performed for one week significantly enhanced their subjective happiness. It is important to note that, while research supports the idea that altruistic acts bring about happiness, it has also been found to work in the opposite direction—that happier people are also kinder. The relationship between altruistic behavior and happiness is bidirectional. Studies have found that generosity increases linearly from sad to happy affective states.Studies have also been careful to note that feeling over-taxed by the needs of others has conversely negative effects on health and happiness. For example, one study on volunteerism found that feeling overwhelmed by others' demands had an even stronger negative effect on mental health than helping had a positive one (although positive effects were still significant). Additionally, while generous acts make people feel good about themselves, it is also important for people to appreciate the kindness they receive from others. Studies suggest that gratitude goes hand-in-hand with kindness and is also very important for our well-being. A study on the relationship happiness to various character strengths showed that "a conscious focus on gratitude led to reductions in negative affect and increases in optimistic appraisals, positive affect, offering emotional support, sleep quality, and well-being".Pathological altruismPathological altruism is when altruism is taken to an unhealthy extreme, and either harms the altruistic person, or well-intentioned actions cause more harm than good.The term "pathological altruism" was popularised by the book Pathological Altruism.Examples include depression and burnout seen in healthcare professionals, an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, hoarding of animals, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid.Sociology"Sociologists have long been concerned with how to build the good society" ("Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity". American Sociological Association.). The structure of our societies and how individuals come to exhibit charitable, philanthropic, and other pro-social, altruistic actions for the common good is a largely researched topic within the field. The American Sociology Association (ASA) acknowledges public sociology saying, "The intrinsic scientific, policy, and public relevance of this field of investigation in helping to construct 'good societies' is unquestionable" ("Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity" ASA). This type of sociology seeks contributions that aid grassroots and theoretical understandings of what motivates altruism and how it is organized, and promotes an altruistic focus in order to benefit the world and people it studies. How altruism is framed, organized, carried out, and what motivates it at the group level is an area of focus that sociologists seek to investigate in order to contribute back to the groups it studies and "build the good society". The motivation of altruism is also the focus of study; some publications link the occurrence of moral outrage to the punishment of perpetrators and compensation of victims. Studies have shown that generosity in laboratory and in online experiments is contagious – people imitate observed generosity of others.Religious viewpointsMost, if not all, of the world's religions promote altruism as a very important moral value. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Sikhism, etc., place particular emphasis on altruistic morality.BuddhismAltruism figures prominently in Buddhism. Love and compassion are components of all forms of Buddhism, and are focused on all beings equally: love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. "Many illnesses can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion. These qualities are the ultimate source of human happiness, and the need for them lies at the very core of our being" (Dalai Lama).Still, the notion of altruism is modified in such a world-view, since the belief is that such a practice promotes our own happiness: "The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes" (Dalai Lama).In the context of larger ethical discussions on moral action and judgment, Buddhism is characterized by the belief that negative (unhappy) consequences of our actions derive not from punishment or correction based on moral judgment, but from the law of karma, which functions like a natural law of cause and effect. A simple illustration of such cause and effect is the case of experiencing the effects of what one causes: if one causes suffering, then as a natural consequence one would experience suffering; if one causes happiness, then as a natural consequence one would experience happiness.JainismThe fundamental principles of Jainism revolve around the concept of altruism, not only for humans but for all sentient beings. Jainism preaches the view of Ahimsa – to live and let live, thereby not harming sentient beings, i.e. uncompromising reverence for all life. It also considers all living things to be equal. The first Tirthankara, Rishabhdev, introduced the concept of altruism for all living beings, from extending knowledge and experience to others to donation, giving oneself up for others, non-violence and compassion for all living things.Jainism prescribes a path of non-violence to progress the soul to this ultimate goal. A major characteristic of Jain belief is the emphasis on the consequences of not only physical but also mental behaviors. One's unconquered mind with anger, pride (ego), deceit, greed and uncontrolled sense organs are the powerful enemies of humans. Anger spoils good relations, pride destroys humility, deceit destroys peace and greed destroys everything. Jainism recommends conquering anger by forgiveness, pride by humility, deceit by straightforwardness and greed by contentment.Jains believe that to attain enlightenment and ultimately liberation, one must practice the following ethical principles (major vows) in thought, speech and action. The degree to which these principles are practiced is different for householders and monks. They are: Non-violence (Ahimsa); Truthfulness (Satya); Non-stealing (Asteya); Celibacy (Brahmacharya); Non-possession or non-materialism (Aparigraha);The "great vows" (Mahavrata) are prescribed for monks and "limited vows" (Anuvrata) are prescribed for householders. The house-holders are encouraged to practice the above-mentioned five vows. The monks have to observe them very strictly. With consistent practice, it will be possible to overcome the limitations gradually, accelerating the spiritual progress.The principle of nonviolence seeks to minimize karmas which limit the capabilities of the soul. Jainism views every soul as worthy of respect because it has the potential to become Siddha (God in Jainism). Because all living beings possess a soul, great care and awareness is essential in one's actions. Jainism emphasizes the equality of all life, advocating harmlessness towards all, whether the creatures are great or small. This policy extends even to microscopic organisms. Jainism acknowledges that every person has different capabilities and capacities to practice and therefore accepts different levels of compliance for ascetics and householders.ChristianitySt Thomas Aquinas interprets 'You should love your neighbour as yourself' as meaning that love for ourselves is the exemplar of love for others. Considering that "the love with which a man loves himself is the form and root of friendship" and quotes Aristotle that "the origin of friendly relations with others lies in our relations to ourselves", he concluded that though we are not bound to love others more than ourselves, we naturally seek the common good, the good of the whole, more than any private good, the good of a part. However, he thinks we should love God more than ourselves and our neighbours, and more than our bodily life—since the ultimate purpose of loving our neighbour is to share in eternal beatitude: a more desirable thing than bodily well-being. In coining the word Altruism, as stated above, Comte was probably opposing this Thomistic doctrine, which is present in some theological schools within Catholicism.Many biblical authors draw a strong connection between love of others and love of God. 1 John 4 states that for one to love God one must love his fellowman, and that hatred of one's fellowman is the same as hatred of God. Thomas Jay Oord has argued in several books that altruism is but one possible form of love. An altruistic action is not always a loving action. Oord defines altruism as acting for the other's good, and he agrees with feminists who note that sometimes love requires acting for one's own good when the other's demands undermine overall well-being.German philosopher Max Scheler distinguishes two ways in which the strong can help the weak. One way is a sincere expression of Christian love, "motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one's own life and existence". Another way is merely "one of the many modern substitutes for love, ... nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people's business". At its worst, Scheler says, "love for the small, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed is really disguised hatred, repressed envy, an impulse to detract, etc., directed against the opposite phenomena: wealth, strength, power, largesse."IslamIn Islam, the concept "īthār" (إيثار) (altruism) is the notion of "preferring others to oneself". For Sufis, this means devotion to others through complete forgetfulness of one's own concerns, where concern for others is deemed as a demand made by Allah (i.e. God) on the human body, considered to be property of Allah alone. The importance of īthār lies in sacrifice for the sake of the greater good; Islam considers those practicing īthār as abiding by the highest degree of nobility.This is similar to the notion of chivalry, but unlike that European concept, in īthār attention is focused on everything in existence. A constant concern for Allah results in a careful attitude towards people, animals, and other things in this world.JudaismJudaism defines altruism as the desired goal of creation. The famous Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook stated that love is the most important attribute in humanity. This is defined as bestowal, or giving, which is the intention of altruism. This can be altruism towards humanity that leads to altruism towards the creator or God. Kabbalah defines God as the force of giving in existence. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in particular focused on the 'purpose of creation' and how the will of God was to bring creation into perfection and adhesion with this upper force.Modern Kabbalah developed by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, in his writings about the future generation, focuses on how society could achieve an altruistic social framework. Ashlag proposed that such a framework is the purpose of creation, and everything that happens is to raise humanity to the level of altruism, love for one another. Ashlag focused on society and its relation to divinity.SikhismAltruism is essential to the Sikh religion. The central faith in Sikhism is that the greatest deed any one can do is to imbibe and live the godly qualities like love, affection, sacrifice, patience, harmony, truthfulness. The concept of seva, or selfless service to the community for its own sake, is an important concept in Sikhism.The fifth Guru, Arjun Dev, sacrificed his life to uphold "22 carats of pure truth, the greatest gift to humanity", the Guru Granth. The ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, sacrificed his head to protect weak and defenseless people against atrocity.In the late seventeenth century, Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth Guru in Sikhism), was at war with the Mughal rulers to protect the people of different faiths when a fellow Sikh, Bhai Kanhaiya, attended the troops of the enemy. He gave water to both friends and foes who were wounded on the battlefield. Some of the enemy began to fight again and some Sikh warriors were annoyed by Bhai Kanhaiya as he was helping their enemy. Sikh soldiers brought Bhai Kanhaiya before Guru Gobind Singh, and complained of his action that they considered counterproductive to their struggle on the battlefield. "What were you doing, and why?" asked the Guru. "I was giving water to the wounded because I saw your face in all of them", replied Bhai Kanhaiya. The Guru responded, "Then you should also give them ointment to heal their wounds. You were practicing what you were coached in the house of the Guru."Under the tutelage of the Guru, Bhai Kanhaiya subsequently founded a volunteer corps for altruism, which is still engaged today in doing good to others and in training new recruits for this service.HinduismIn Hinduism Selflessness (Atmatyag), Love (Prema), Kindness (Daya) and Forgiveness (Kshama) are considered as the highest acts of humanity or "Manushyattva". Giving alms to the beggers or poor people is considered as a divine act or "Punya" and Hindus believe it will free their souls from guilt or "Paapa" and will led them to heaven or "Swarga" in afterlife. Altruism is also the central act of various Hindu mythology and religious poems and songs.The founder of warkari samprdaya the great saint "Dhnyaneshwar Maharaj" (1275-1296) in his "Pasaydan" pray to the supreme lord "Vitthal" for the wellbeing of all living organisms of the universe.Swami Vivekananda, the legendary Hindu monk, has said -"Jive prem kare jeijon, Seijon sebiche Iswar" (Whoever loves any living being, is serving god.). Mass donation of clothes to poor people (Vastraseva), or blood donation camp or mass food donation (Annaseva) for poor people is common in various Hindu religious ceremonies.Swami Sivananda, an Advaita scholar, reiterates the views in his commentary synthesising Vedanta views on the Brahma Sutras, a Vedantic text. In his commentary on Chapter 3 of the Brahma Sutras, Sivananda notes that karma is insentient and short-lived, and ceases to exist as soon as a deed is executed. Hence, karma cannot bestow the fruits of actions at a future date according to one's merit. Furthermore, one cannot argue that karma generates apurva or punya, which gives fruit. Since apurva is non-sentient, it cannot act unless moved by an intelligent being such as a god. It cannot independently bestow reward or punishment.However the very well known and popular text, the Bhagavad Gita supports the doctrine of karma yoga (achieving oneness with God through action) & "Nishkam Karma" or action without expectation / desire for personal gain which can be said to encompass altruism. Altruistic acts are generally celebrated and very well received in Hindu literature and is central to Hindu morality.PhilosophyThere exists a wide range of philosophical views on humans' obligations or motivations to act altruistically. Proponents of ethical altruism maintain that individuals are morally obligated to act altruistically. The opposing view is ethical egoism, which maintains that moral agents should always act in their own self-interest. Both ethical altruism and ethical egoism contrast with utilitarianism, which maintains that each agent should act in order to maximise the efficacy of their function and the benefit to both themselves and their co-inhabitants.A related concept in descriptive ethics is psychological egoism, the thesis that humans always act in their own self-interest and that true altruism is impossible. Rational egoism is the view that rationality consists in acting in one's self-interest (without specifying how this affects one's moral obligations).Effective altruismEffective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. Effective altruism encourages individuals to consider all causes and actions and to act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact, based upon their values. It is the broad, evidence-based and cause-neutral approach that distinguishes effective altruism from traditional altruism or charity. Effective altruism is part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices.While a substantial proportion of effective altruists have focused on the nonprofit sector, the philosophy of effective altruism applies more broadly to prioritizing the scientific projects, companies, and policy initiatives which can be estimated to save lives, help people, or otherwise have the biggest benefit. People associated with the movement include philosopher Peter Singer, Facebook co founder Dustin Moskovitz, Cari Tuna, Ben Delo, Oxford-based researchers William MacAskill and Toby Ord, and professional poker player Liv Boeree,GeneticsThe genes OXTR, CD38, COMT, DRD4, DRD5, IGF2, and GABRB2 have been found to be candidate genes for altruism.Digital AltruismDigital Altruism is the notion that some are willing to freely share information based on the principle of reciprocity and in the belief that in the end, everyone benefits from sharing information via the Internet.This term is coined by Dr. Dana Klisanin, the founder and CEO of Evolutionary Guidance Media R&D Inc., and is a recipient of the Early Career Award for Scientific Achievement in Media Psychology from the American Psychological Association's Division of Media Psychology.According to Klisanin, "the notion that "some are willing to freely reveal what they know" is interesting.Types of Digital AltruismThere are three types of digital altruism: (1) "everyday digital altruism," involving expedience, ease, moral engagement, and conformity; (2) "creative digital altruism," involving creativity, heightened moral engagement, and cooperation; and (3) "co-creative digital altruism" involving creativity, moral engagement, and meta cooperative efforts.See also Altruria, California Charitable organization Comedy of the commons Consideration Egotism Family economics Golden Rule Gene-centered view of evolution Humanity (virtue) Misanthropy Mutual aid Non nobis solum Prisoner's dilemma Random act of kindness Social preferences Social psychology Solidarity (sociology) Spite (game theory)NotesReferences      Comte, Auguste, Catechisme positiviste (1852) or Catechism of Positivism, tr. R. Congreve, (London: Kegan Paul, 1891)  Kropotkin, Peter, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902)  Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Philosophy of Poverty (1847) Lysander Spooner, Natural Law Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue Oliner, Samuel P. and Pearl M. Towards a Caring Society: Ideas into Action. West Port, CT: Praeger, 1995.External linksRichard Kraut (2016) Altruism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Auguste ComteDefence mechanismsMoralityMoral psychologyPhilanthropySocial philosophyInterpersonal relationshipsVirtue
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She wrote a play that opened on Broadway in 1935. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge; she rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism, statism, and anarchism. Instead, she supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although Rand opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, she is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and classical liberals.Rand's fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics. Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy because of her polemical approach and lack of methodological rigor. Her writings have politically influenced some libertarians and conservatives. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.LifeEarly lifeRand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905, to a Russian-Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan). Rand later said she found school unchallenging and began writing screenplays at age eight and novels at age ten. At the prestigious , her closest friend was Vladimir Nabokov's younger sister, Olga; the pair shared an intense interest in politics.She was twelve at the time of the February Revolution of 1917, during which Rand favored Alexander Kerensky over Tsar Nicholas II. The subsequent October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted the life the family had enjoyed previously. Her father's business was confiscated, and the family fled to the Crimean Peninsula, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. While in high school there, Rand concluded she was an atheist and valued reason above any other virtue. After graduating in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then named), where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.Following the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, allowing her to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. At the university, she was introduced to the writings of Aristotle and Plato; Rand came to see their differing views on reality and knowledge as the primary conflict within philosophy. She also studied the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche.Along with many other bourgeois students, she was purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, which she did in October 1924. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri, which became her first published work.By this time, she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, possibly because it is graphically similar to a vowelless excerpt  of her birth surname  in Cyrillic. She adopted the first name Ayn.Arrival in the United StatesIn late 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago. She departed on January 17, 1926. Arriving in New York City on February 19, 1926, Rand was so impressed with the Manhattan skyline that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor". Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives. One of them owned a movie theater and allowed her to watch dozens of films free of charge. She then left for Hollywood, California.In Hollywood, a chance meeting with famed director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film The King of Kings and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she met an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor; the two married on April 15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on March 3, 1931. She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they were unable to obtain permission to emigrate.During these early years of her career, Rand wrote a number of screenplays, plays, and short stories that were not produced or published during her lifetime; some were published later in The Early Ayn Rand.Early fictionAlthough it was never produced, Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932.  Her courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first produced by E. E. Clive in Hollywood in 1934, reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935. Each night, a jury was selected from members of the audience; based on its vote, one of two different endings would be performed.Her first published novel, the semi-autobiographical We the Living, was published in 1936. Set in Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the state. Initial sales were slow, and the American publisher let it go out of print, although European editions continued to sell. She adapted the story as a stage play, but producer George Abbott's Broadway production was a failure and closed in less than a week. After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies. In a foreword to the 1959 edition, Rand wrote that We the Living "is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. ... The plot is invented, the background is not ...".Rand wrote her novella Anthem during a break from writing her next major novel, The Fountainhead. It presents a vision of a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word I has been forgotten and replaced with we. Published in England in 1938, Rand could not find an American publisher initially. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, which has sold over 3.5 million copies.The Fountainhead and political activismDuring the 1940s, Rand became politically active. She and her husband worked as full-time volunteers for Republican Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. This led to Rand's first public speaking experiences; she enjoyed fielding sometimes hostile questions from New York City audiences who had seen pro-Willkie newsreels. Her work brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt, who introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite her philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and both of them expressed admiration for her. Mises once referred to her as "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman". Rand became friends with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned her about American history and politics long into the night during their many meetings, and gave Paterson ideas for her only non-fiction book, The God of the Machine.Rand's first major success as a writer came in 1943 with The Fountainhead, a romantic and philosophical novel that she wrote over seven years. The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"—those who attempt to live through others, placing others above themselves. Twelve publishers rejected it before the Bobbs-Merrill Company finally accepted it at the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it. While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed the amphetamine Benzedrine to fight fatigue. The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the novel, but afterwards she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest. Her use of the drug for approximately three decades may have contributed to what some of her later associates described as volatile mood swings.The Fountainhead became a worldwide success, bringing Rand fame and financial security. In 1943, she sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Producer Hal B. Wallis hired her afterwards as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for him included the screenplays for the Oscar-nominated Love Letters and You Came Along. Rand worked on other projects, including a never-completed nonfiction treatment of her philosophy to be called The Moral Basis of Individualism.Rand extended her involvement with free-market and anti-communist activism while working in Hollywood. She became involved with the anti-Communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined the anti-Communist American Writers Association. A visit by Paterson to meet with Rand's California associates led to a falling out between the two when Paterson made comments to valued political allies which Rand considered rude. In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee that the 1944 film Song of Russia grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as much better and happier than it was. She also wanted to criticize the lauded 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives for what she interpreted as its negative presentation of the business world, but was not allowed to do so. When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the investigations' effectiveness, Rand described the process as "futile".After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end" and complained about its editing, the acting and other elements.Atlas Shrugged and ObjectivismFollowing the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received numerous letters from readers, some of whom the book had influenced profoundly. In 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective") included a future chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. Initially, the group was an informal gathering of friends who met with Rand at her apartment on weekends to discuss philosophy. Later, Rand began allowing them to read the drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged, as she wrote the manuscript. In 1954, her close relationship with Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the knowledge of their spouses.Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was considered Rand's magnum opus. She described the novel's theme as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest". It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists, and artists respond to a welfare state government by going on strike and retreating to a hidden valley where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes it as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of the individuals contributing most to the nation's wealth and achievements. With this fictional strike, Rand intended to illustrate that without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse and society would fall apart. The novel includes elements of mystery, romance, and science fiction, and contains an extended exposition of Objectivism in a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt.Despite many negative reviews, Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller; however, the reaction of intellectuals to the novel discouraged and depressed Rand. Atlas Shrugged was her last completed work of fiction marking the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.In 1958, Nathaniel Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy. Collective members gave lectures for the NBI and wrote articles for Objectivist periodicals that Rand edited. She later published some of these articles in book form. Rand was unimpressed by many of the NBI students and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, later described the culture of the NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand. Some described the NBI or the Objectivist movement as a cult or religion. Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair. Some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers. However, some former NBI students believed the extent of these behaviors was exaggerated, and the problem was concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.Later yearsThroughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks to students at institutions such as Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum, responding to questions from the audience. During these appearances, she often took controversial stances on the political and social issues of the day. These included: supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"), supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages", saying European colonists had the right to invade and take land inhabited by American Indians, and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal of all laws concerning it. She endorsed several Republican candidates for president of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The Objectivist Newsletter.In 1964, Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic relationship with Branden had already ended, Rand ended her relationship with both Brandens, and the NBI was closed. She published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life". In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted company.Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking. In 1976, she retired from writing her newsletter and, after her initial objections, allowed a social worker employed by her attorney to enroll her in Social Security and Medicare. During the late 1970s, her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979. One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.On March 6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City. She was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York. At her funeral, a  floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket. In her will, Rand named Leonard Peikoff as her beneficiary.Literary method and influencesRand described her approach to literature as "romantic realism". She wanted her fiction to present the world "as it could be and should be", rather than as it was. This approach led her to create highly stylized situations and characters. Her fiction typically has protagonists who are heroic individualists, depicted as fit and attractive. Her stories' villains support duty and collectivist moral ideals. Rand often describes them as unattractive and they sometimes have names that suggest negative traits, like Wesley Mouch in Atlas Shrugged.Rand considered plot a critical element of literature, and her stories typically have what biographer Anne Heller described as "tight, elaborate, fast-paced plotting". Romantic triangles are a common plot element in Rand's fiction; in most of her novels and plays, the main female character is romantically involved with at least two different men.InfluencesIn school Rand read works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her favorites. She considered them to be among the "top rank" of Romantic writers because of their focus on moral themes and their skill at constructing plots. Hugo, in particular, was an important influence on her writing, especially her approach to plotting. In the introduction she wrote for an English-language edition of his novel Ninety-Three, Rand called him "the greatest novelist in world literature".Although Rand disliked most Russian literature, her depictions of her heroes show the influence of the Russian Symbolists and other nineteenth-century Russian writing, most notably the 1863 novel What Is to Be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky. Rand's experience of the Russian Revolution and early Communist Russia influenced the portrayal of her villains. This is most apparent in We the Living, set in Russia. The ideas and rhetoric of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead and the destruction of the economy by the looters in Atlas Shrugged also reflect it.Rand's descriptive style echoes her early career writing scenarios and scripts for movies; her novels have many narrative descriptions that resemble early Hollywood movie scenarios. They often follow common film editing conventions, such as having a broad establishing shot description of a scene followed by close-up details, and her descriptions of women characters often take a "male gaze" perspective.PhilosophyRand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion. Rand believed in free will as a form of agent causation and rejected determinism.In epistemology, she considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception, the validity of which Rand considered axiomatic, and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses". Rand rejected all claims of non-perceptual or a priori knowledge, including instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing. In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of concept formation and rejected the analytic–synthetic dichotomy.In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself". Rand referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title. In it, she presented her solution to the is-ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man". She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness, and held the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in Atlas Shrugged that, "Force and mind are opposites."Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights—including property rights. She considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on protecting those rights. Rand opposed statism, which she understood included theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and dictatorship. She believed a constitutionally limited government should protect natural rights. Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, Rand preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics. Rand denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism. She rejected anarchism as a naive theory based in subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice.In aesthetics, Rand defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments". According to her, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be grasped easily, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness. As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature. She considered romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence of human free will.Rand said her most important contributions to philosophy were her "theory of concepts, ethics, and discovery in politics that evil—the violation of rights—consists of the initiation of force". She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy, stating: "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."CriticismsRand's ethics and politics are the most criticized areas of her philosophy. Numerous authors, including Robert Nozick and William F. O'Neill, in some of the earliest academic critiques of her ideas, said she failed in her attempt to solve the is–ought problem. Critics have called her definitions of egoism and altruism biased and inconsistent with normal usage. Critics from religious traditions oppose her rejection of altruism in addition to atheism. Essays criticizing Rand's egoistic views are included in a number of anthologies for teaching introductory ethics, which often include no essays presenting or defending them.Multiple critics, including Nozick, have said her attempt to justify individual rights based on egoism fails. Others, like Michael Huemer, have gone further, saying that her support of egoism and her support of individual rights are inconsistent positions. Some critics, like Roy Childs, have said that her opposition to the initiation of force should lead to support of anarchism, rather than limited government.Commentators, including Hazel Barnes, Albert Ellis, and Nathaniel Branden, have criticized Rand's focus on the importance of reason. Branden said this emphasis led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be.Relationship to other philosophersExcept for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals, Rand was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her. Acknowledging Aristotle as her greatest influence, Rand remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded: "Out of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, the only philosopher who ever influenced me. I devised the rest of my philosophy myself."In an article for the Claremont Review of Books, political scientist Charles Murray criticized her claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle. He asserted her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rand found early inspiration from Nietzsche, and scholars have found indications of this in Rand's private journals. In 1928, she alluded to his idea of the "superman" in notes for an unwritten novel whose protagonist was inspired by the murderer William Edward Hickman. There are other indications of Nietzsche's influence in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised), and in her overall writing style. By the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas, and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.Rand considered her philosophical opposite to be Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as "the most evil man in mankind's history"; she believed his epistemology undermined reason and his ethics opposed self-interest. Philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon have argued she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences.Rand's relationship with contemporary philosophers was mostly antagonistic. She was not an academic and did not participate in academic discourse. She was dismissive toward critics and wrote about ideas she disagreed with in a polemical manner without in-depth analysis. She was in turn viewed very negatively by many academic philosophers, who dismissed her as an unimportant figure who need not be given serious consideration.Reception and legacyCritical receptionThe first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th. Reviews of the Broadway production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer. Although Rand believed that her novel We the Living was not widely reviewed, over 200 publications published approximately 125 different reviews. Overall, they were more positive than those she received for her later work. Her 1938 novella Anthem received little review attention, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed. Lorine Pruette's positive review in The New York Times, which called the author "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly", was one that Rand greatly appreciated. There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them for either misunderstanding her message or for being in unimportant publications. Some negative reviews said the novel was too long; others called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian".Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative. Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications, but Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", with reviews including comments that it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity". Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel's most "notorious" review for the conservative magazine National Review. He accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard ... commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!.Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged. Philosopher Sidney Hook likened her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union", and author Gore Vidal called her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality". These reviews set the pattern for reaction to her ideas among liberal critics. Her subsequent books got progressively less review attention.On the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in 2005, writing for The New York Times, Edward Rothstein referred to her written fiction as quaint utopian "retro fantasy" and programmatic neo-Romanticism of the misunderstood artist, while criticizing her characters' "isolated rejection of democratic society".Popular interestWith over 30 million copies sold , Rand's books continue to be read widely. A survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1991 asked club members to name the most influential book in their lives. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible. Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work.Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, like Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith; she has influenced later writers like Erika Holzer and Terry Goodkind. Other artists who have cited Rand as an important influence on their lives and thought include comic book artist Steve Ditko and musician Neil Peart of Rush, although he later distanced himself. Rand provided a positive view of business and subsequently many business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work. John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas. Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks) as well as John P. Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods), among others, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success.Television shows including animated sitcoms, live-action comedies, dramas, and game shows, as well as movies and video games have referred to Rand and her works. Throughout her life she was the subject of many articles in popular magazines, as well as book-length critiques by authors such as the psychologist Albert Ellis and Trinity Foundation president John W. Robbins. Rand, or characters based on her, figure prominently in novels by prominent American authors, including Mary Gaitskill, Matt Ruff, Kay Nolte Smith, and Tobias Wolff. Nick Gillespie, former editor-in- chief of Reason, remarked that, "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist. Jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman run through the popular culture." Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards. Rand's image also appears on a 1999 U.S. postage stamp illustrated by artist Nick Gaetano.Rand's works, most commonly Anthem or The Fountainhead, are sometimes assigned as secondary school reading. Since 2002, the Ayn Rand Institute has provided free copies of Rand's novels to teachers who promise to include the books in their curriculum. The Institute had distributed 4.5 million copies in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2020. In 2017, Rand was added to the required reading list for the A Level Politics exam in the United Kingdom.Political influenceAlthough she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian", Rand has had a continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism. Rand is often considered one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) in the early development of modern American libertarianism. David Nolan, one founder of the Libertarian Party, said that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist". In his history of that movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large". Historian Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right".The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives (often members of the Republican Party), despite Rand taking some atypical positions for a conservative, like being pro-choice and an atheist. She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley Jr. and other contributors to the conservative National Review magazine, which published numerous criticisms of her writings and ideas. Nevertheless, a 1987 article in The New York Times referred to her as the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate". Republican congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and have recommended her novels. She has influenced some conservative politicians outside the U.S., such as Sajid Javid in the United Kingdom, Siv Jensen in Norway, and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.The financial crisis of 2007–2008 spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis. Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot. Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests. There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan. In 2015, Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy". Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas. In 2021, Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction.Academic reactionDuring Rand's lifetime, her work received little attention from academic scholars. Since her death, interest in her work has increased gradually. In 2009, historian Jennifer Burns identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly interest in Rand, including "an explosion of scholarship" since the year 2000. However, as of that same year, few universities included Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study. From 2002 to 2012, over 60 colleges and universities accepted grants from the charitable foundation of BB&T Corporation that required teaching Rand's ideas or works; in some cases, the grants were controversial or even rejected because of the requirement to teach about Rand. In 2020, media critic Eric Burns said that, "Rand is surely the most engaging philosopher of my lifetime",  but "nobody in the academe pays any attention to her, neither as an author nor a philosopher. That same year, the editor of a collection of critical essays about Rand said academics who disapproved of her ideas had long held "a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule" her work, but he believed more academic critics were engaging with her work in recent years.To her ideasIn 1967, John Hospers discussed Rand's ethical ideas in the second edition of his textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. That same year, Hazel Barnes included a chapter critiquing Objectivism in her book An Existentialist Ethics. When the first full-length academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously. A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist. One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who criticized her meta-ethical arguments. Other philosophers, writing in the same publication, argued that Nozick misstated Rand's case. In an article responding to Nozick, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen defended her positions, but described her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional".The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, a 1984 collection of essays about Objectivism edited by Den Uyl and Rasmussen, was the first academic book about Rand's ideas published after her death. In one essay, political writer Jack Wheeler wrote that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought". In 1987, Allan Gotthelf, George Walsh, and David Kelley co-founded the Ayn Rand Society, a group affiliated with the American Philosophical Association.In a 1995 entry about Rand in Contemporary Women Philosophers, Jenny A. Heyl described a divergence in how different academic specialties viewed Rand. She said that Rand's philosophy "is regularly omitted from academic philosophy. Yet, throughout literary academia, Ayn Rand is considered a philosopher." Writing in the 1998 edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, political theorist Chandran Kukathas summarized the mainstream philosophical reception of her work in two parts. He said most commentators view her ethical argument as an unconvincing variant of Aristotle's ethics, and her political theory "is of little interest" because it is marred by an "ill-thought out and unsystematic" effort to reconcile her hostility to the state with her rejection of anarchism. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the study of Rand and her ideas, was established in 1999. R. W. Bradford, Stephen D. Cox, and Chris Matthew Sciabarra were its founding co-editors.In a 2010 essay for the Cato Institute, libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer argued very few people find Rand's ideas convincing, especially her ethics. He attributed the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer", especially as a novelist, noting that Atlas Shrugged outsells Rand's non-fiction works and the works of other philosophers of classical liberalism. In 2012, the Pennsylvania State University Press agreed to take over publication of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and the University of Pittsburgh Press launched an "Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies" series based on the Society's proceedings. The Fall 2012 update to the entry about Rand in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy said that "only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously". That same year, political scientist Alan Wolfe dismissed Rand as a "nonperson" among academics, an attitude that writer Ben Murnane later described as "the traditional academic view" of Rand.To her fictionAcademic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even more limited than the discussion of her philosophy. Mimi Reisel Gladstein could not find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s. Since her death, scholars of English and American literature have continued largely to ignore her work, although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s. Several academic book series about important authors cover Rand and her works. These include Twayne's United States Authors (Ayn Rand by James T. Baker), Twayne's Masterwork Studies (The Fountainhead: An American Novel by Den Uyl and Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind by Gladstein), and Re-reading the Canon (Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, edited by Gladstein and Sciabarra), as well as in popular study guides like CliffsNotes and SparkNotes. In The Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation." In 2019, Lisa Duggan described Rand's fiction as popular and influential on many readers, despite being easy to criticize for "her cartoonish characters and melodramatic plots, her rigid moralizing, her middle- to lowbrow aesthetic preferences ... and philosophical strivings".Objectivist movementAfter the closure of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, the Objectivist movement continued in other forms. In the 1970s, Leonard Peikoff began delivering courses on Objectivism. In 1979, Objectivist writer Peter Schwartz started a newsletter called The Intellectual Activist, which Rand endorsed. She also endorsed The Objectivist Forum, a bimonthly magazine founded by Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger, which ran from 1980 to 1987.In 1985, Peikoff worked with businessman Ed Snider to establish the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works. In 1990, after an ideological disagreement with Peikoff, philosopher David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society. In 2001, historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia.Selected worksFiction and drama: Night of January 16th (performed 1934, published 1968) We the Living (1936, revised 1959) Anthem (1938, revised 1946) The Unconquered (performed 1940, published 2014) The Fountainhead (1943) Atlas Shrugged (1957) The Early Ayn Rand (1984) Ideal (2015)Non-fiction: For the New Intellectual (1961) The Virtue of Selfishness (1964) Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966, expanded 1967) The Romantic Manifesto (1969, expanded 1975) The New Left (1971, expanded 1975) Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979, expanded 1990) Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982) Letters of Ayn Rand (1995) Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)NotesReferencesWorks cited                                                                            Reprinted from Esquire, July 1961.External links Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rand from the Ayn Rand Institute    Rand's papers at The Library of Congress Ayn Rand Lexicon – searchable database     "Writings of Ayn Rand" – from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History 1905 births1982 deathsWriters from Saint PetersburgWriters from New York City20th-century American dramatists and playwrights20th-century American novelists20th-century American philosophers20th-century American women writers20th-century atheists20th-century essayists20th-century Russian philosophersActivists from New York (state)American abortion-rights activistsAmerican anti-communistsAmerican anti-fascistsJewish American atheistsAmerican atheist writersAmerican essayistsAmerican ethicistsAmerican people of Russian-Jewish descentAmerican political activistsAmerican political philosophersAmerican science fiction writersAmerican women activistsAmerican women dramatists and playwrightsAmerican women essayistsAmerican women novelistsAmerican women philosophersAmerican women screenwritersAmerican secularistsAmerican writers of Russian descentAristotelian philosophersAtheist philosophersCritics of MarxismEpistemologistsExophonic writersFemale critics of feminismAtheists of the Russian EmpireJews of the Russian EmpireJewish American dramatists and playwrightsJewish American novelistsJewish activistsJewish anti-communistsJewish anti-fascistsJewish philosophersJewish women writersMetaphysiciansNovelists from New York (state)ObjectivistsOld Right (United States)People of the New Deal arts projectsPeople with acquired American citizenshipPhilosophers from New York (state)Political philosophersPseudonymous women writersDramatists and playwrights of the Russian EmpireSaint Petersburg State University alumniScreenwriters from New York (state)Soviet emigrants to the United StatesWomen science fiction and fantasy writersBurials at Kensico Cemetery20th-century American screenwritersDeaths from organ failure20th-century pseudonymous writersCritics of ChristianitySocial critics
Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, and a theoretical physicist, known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. He is a professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982.CareerConnes was an Invited Professor at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (2000).ResearchAlain Connes studies operator algebras. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. He also formulated the Connes embedding problem. Following this, he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the Baum–Connes conjecture. He also introduced cyclic cohomology in the early 1980s as a first step in the study of noncommutative differential geometry. He was a member of Bourbaki.Connes has applied his work in areas of mathematics and theoretical physics, including number theory, differential geometry and particle physics.Awards and honoursConnes was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982, the Crafoord Prize in 2001 and the gold medal of the CNRS in 2004.  He was an invited speaker at the ICM in 1974 at Vancouver and in 1986 at Berkeley and a plenary speaker at the ICM in 1978 at Helsinki. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and several foreign academies and societies, including the Danish Academy of Sciences, Norwegian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and US National Academy of Sciences.Books Alain Connes and Matilde Marcolli, Noncommutative Geometry, Quantum Fields and Motives, Colloquium Publications, American Mathematical Society, 2007,   Alain Connes, Andre Lichnerowicz, and Marcel Paul Schutzenberger, Triangle of Thought, translated by Jennifer Gage, American Mathematical Society, 2001,  Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Alain Connes, Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics, translated by M. B. DeBevoise, Princeton University Press, 1998,  Alain Connes, Noncommutative Geometry, Academic Press, 1994,See also Bost–Connes system Cyclic category Cyclic homology Factor (functional analysis) Higgs boson C*-algebra Noncommutative quantum field theory M-theory Groupoid Spectral tripleCriticism of non-standard analysis Riemann hypothesisReferencesExternal links Alain Connes Official Web Site containing downloadable papers, and his book Non-commutative geometry, .  Alain Connes' Standard Model An interview with Alain Connes and a discussion about it   1947 birthsLiving people20th-century French mathematiciansForeign associates of the National Academy of Sciences21st-century French mathematiciansCollège de France facultyInstitute for Advanced Study visiting scholarsFields MedalistsMathematical analystsDifferential geometersÉcole Normale Supérieure alumniVanderbilt University facultyForeign Members of the Russian Academy of SciencesMembers of the French Academy of SciencesMembers of the Norwegian Academy of Science and LettersMembers of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and LettersClay Research Award recipients
Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Early lifeBorn Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan, was the younger son of commercial traveler of woolen clothing Joseph Michael Dwan (1857–1917) and his wife Mary Jane Dwan, née Hunt. The family moved to the United States when he was seven years old on December 4, 1892 by ferry from Windsor to Detroit, according to his naturalization petition of August 1939. His elder brother, Leo Garnet Dwan (1883–1964), became a physician.Allan Dwan studied engineering at the University of Notre Dame and then worked for a lighting company in Chicago. He had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry, and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California where the climate allowed them to continue productions requiring warm weather. Soon, a number of movie companies worked there year-round, and in 1911, Dwan began working part-time in Hollywood. While still in New York, in 1917 he was the founding president of the East Coast chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association.CareerDwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California from August 1911 to July 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion pictures studios in California history. On August 12, 2011, a plaque was unveiled on the Wolff building at Third Avenue and La Mesa Boulevard commemorating Dwan and the Flying A Studios origins in La Mesa, California.After making a series of westerns and comedies, Dwan directed fellow Canadian-American Mary Pickford in several very successful movies as well as her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, notably in the acclaimed 1922 Robin Hood. Dwan directed Gloria Swanson in eight feature films, and one short film made in the short-lived sound-on-film process Phonofilm. This short, also featuring Thomas Meighan and Henri de la Falaise, was produced as a joke, for the April 26, 1925 "Lambs' Gambol" for The Lambs, with the film showing Swanson crashing the all-male club.Following the introduction of the talkies, Dwan directed child-star Shirley Temple in Heidi (1937) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938).Dwan helped launch the career of two other successful Hollywood directors, Victor Fleming, who went on to direct The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, and Marshall Neilan, who became an actor, director, writer and producer. Over a long career spanning almost 50 years, Dwan directed 125 motion pictures, some of which were highly acclaimed, such as the 1949 box office hit, Sands of Iwo Jima. He directed his last movie in 1961.He died in Los Angeles at the age of 96, and is interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California.Dwan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard.Daniel Eagan of Film Journal International described Dwan as one of the early pioneers of cinema, stating that his style "is so basic as to seem invisible, but he treats his characters with uncommon sympathy and compassion."Partial filmography as directorThe Gold Lust (1911)The Picket Guard (1913)The Restless Spirit (1913)Back to Life (1913)Bloodhounds of the North (1913)The Lie (1914)The Honor of the Mounted (1914) The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch (1914)Remember Mary Magdalen (1914)Discord and Harmony (1914)The Embezzler (1914)The Lamb, the Woman, the Wolf (1914)The End of the Feud (1914)The Test (1914) (*writer)The Tragedy of Whispering Creek (1914)The Unlawful Trade (1914)The Forbidden Room (1914)The Hopes of Blind Alley (1914)Richelieu (1914) Wildflower (1914)A Small Town Girl (1915)David Harum (1915)A Girl of Yesterday (1915)The Pretty Sister of Jose (1915) Jordan Is a Hard Road (1915)Betty of Graystone (1916)The Habit of Happiness (1916)The Good Bad Man (1916)An Innocent Magdalene (1916)The Half-Breed (1916)Manhattan Madness (1916)Accusing Evidence (1916)Panthea (1917)A Modern Musketeer (1917)Bound in Morocco (1918)Headin' South (1918)Mr. Fix-It (1918)He Comes Up Smiling (1918)Cheating Cheaters (1919)The Dark Star (1919)Getting Mary Married (1919)Soldiers of Fortune (1919)In The Heart of a Fool (1920) also producerThe Forbidden Thing (1920) also producerA Splendid Hazard (1920)A Perfect Crime (1921) The Sin of Martha Queed (1921) A Broken Doll (1921)Robin Hood (1922)Zaza (1923)Big Brother (1923)Manhandled (1924)Argentine Love (1924)The Coast of Folly (1925)Night Life of New York (1925)Stage Struck (1925)Gloria Swanson Dialogue (1925) short film made in Phonofilm for The Lambs annual "Gambol" held at Metropolitan Opera HousePadlocked (1926)Sea Horses (1926)Summer Bachelors (1926)Tin Gods (1926)French Dressing (1927)The Joy Girl (1927)East Side, West Side (1927)The Big Noise (1928)Frozen Justice (1929)The Iron Mask (1929)Tide of Empire (1929)The Far Call (1929)What a Widow! (1930)Man to Man (1930)Chances (1931)Wicked (1931)While Paris Sleeps (1932)Counsel's Opinion (1933)Black Sheep (1935)Navy Wife (1935)High Tension (1936)15 Maiden Lane (1936)One Mile from Heaven (1937)Heidi (1937)Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)Suez (1938) Josette (1938)The Three Musketeers (1939)The Gorilla (1939)Frontier Marshal (1939)Sailor's Lady (1940)Young People (1940)Trail of the Vigilantes (1940)Look Who's Laughing (1941) also producerRise and Shine (1941)Friendly Enemies (1942)Around the World (1943) also producerUp in Mabel's Room (1944)Abroad with Two Yanks (1944)Getting Gertie's Garter (1945) also screenwriterBrewster's Millions (1945)Rendezvous with Annie (1946)Driftwood (1947)Calendar Girl (1947)Northwest Outpost (1947) also associate producerThe Inside Story (1948)Angel in Exile (1948) (with Philip Ford)Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)Surrender (1950)Belle Le Grand (1951)Wild Blue Yonder (1951)I Dream of Jeanie (1952)Montana Belle (1952)Woman They Almost Lynched (1953) Sweethearts on Parade (1953)Silver Lode (1954)Passion (1954)Cattle Queen of Montana (1954)Tennessee's Partner (1955)Pearl of the South Pacific (1955)Escape to Burma (1955)Slightly Scarlet (1956)Hold Back the Night (1956)The Restless Breed (1957)The River's Edge (1957)Enchanted Island (1958)Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961)See alsoCanadian pioneers in early HollywoodReferencesFurther readingBrownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone By... (1968)  Bogdanovich, Peter, Allan Dwan: The Last Pioneer (1971)   Foster, Charles, Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood (2000) Lombardi, Frederic, Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios (2013)Print  E-bookExternal linksAllan Dwan profile, virtual-history.com; accessed June 16, 20141885 births1981 deaths20th-century American male writers20th-century American screenwritersAmerican film directorsAmerican film producersAmerican male screenwritersBurials at San Fernando Mission CemeteryCanadian emigrants to the United StatesFilm directors from TorontoWestern (genre) film directorsWriters from Toronto
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The country is the largest country by total area in Africa and in the Arab world, and is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. Algeria covers an area of , making it the world's tenth largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the ninth-most populous country in Africa, and the 32nd-most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast.Pre-1962 Algeria has seen many empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Rustamids, Idrisids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and finally, the French colonial empire. The vast majority of Algeria's population is Arab-Berber, practicing Islam, and using the official languages of Arabic and Berber. However, French serves as an administrative and educational language in some contexts. The main spoken language is Algerian Arabic.Algeria is a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies consisting of 58 provinces and 1,541 communes. Algeria is a regional power in North Africa, and a middle power in global affairs. It has the highest Human Development Index of all non-island African countries and one of the largest economies on the continent, based largely on energy exports. Algeria has the world's sixteenth-largest oil reserves and the ninth-largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria's military is one of the largest in Africa, and has the largest defence budget on the continent. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, the OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.Name Other forms of the name are: , ; ; ; ; . It is officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (; , , ; , abbreviated as RADP).EtymologyThe country's name derives from the city of Algiers which in turn derives from the Arabic  (, "The Islands"), a truncated form of the older  (, "Islands of the Mazghanna Tribe"), employed by medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi.HistoryPrehistory and ancient historyAround ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Stone artifacts and cut-marked bones that were excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit are estimated to be ~1.9 million years old, and even older stone artifacts to be as old as ~2.4 million years. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa.Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archaeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa.From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilisation was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organisation supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.By the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilisation, unequalled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC.After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa. The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia. They did not make any significant settlement on the land, as they were harassed by local tribes. In fact, by the time the Byzantines arrived Leptis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival. Furthermore, during the rule of the Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Carthaginians, and Ottomans the Berber people were the only or one of the few in North Africa who remained independent. The Berber people were so resistant that even during the Muslim conquest of North Africa they still had control and possession over their mountains.The collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to the establishment of a native Kingdom based in Altava (modern day Algeria) known as the Mauro-Roman Kingdom. It was succeeded by another Kingdom based in Altava, the Kingdom of Altava. During the reign of Kusaila its territory extended from the region of modern-day Fez in the west to the western Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east.Middle AgesAfter negligible resistance from the locals, Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Algeria in the early 8th century.  Large numbers of the indigenous Berber people converted to Islam. Christians, Berber and Latin speakers remained in the great majority in Tunisia until the end of the 9th century and Muslims only became a vast majority some time in the 10th. After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Rustamids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads and the Abdalwadid. The Christians left in three waves: after the initial conquest, in the 10th century and the 11th. The last were evacuated to Sicily by the Normans and the few remaining died out in the 14th century.During the Middle Ages, North Africa was home to many great scholars, saints and sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh, the first grammarian to mention Semitic and Berber languages, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari, and the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen. It was during this time that the Fatimids or children of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, came to the Maghreb. These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, made up primarily of Arabs and Levantines extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors the Zirids seceded. In order to punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt. In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids, however, were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes, however, remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location and time controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz and Yemen. Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the Islamic Era.The Amazighs historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houara, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions.Several Amazigh dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarising the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Ifranid, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. Both of the Hammadid and Zirid empires as well as the Fatimids established their rule in all of the Maghreb countries. The Zirids ruled land in what is now Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Spain, Malta and Italy. The Hammadids captured and held important regions such as Ouargla, Constantine, Sfax, Susa, Algiers, Tripoli and Fez establishing their rule in every country in the Maghreb region. The Fatimids which was created and established by the Kutama Berbers  conquered all of North Africa as well as Sicily and parts of the Middle East.A few examples of medieval Berber dynasties which originated in Modern Algeria  Ifranid Dynasty Maghrawa Dynasty Zirid dynasty Hammadid dynasty Fatimid Caliphate  Kingdom of TlemcenFollowing the Berber revolt numerous independent states emerged across the Maghreb. In Algeria the Rustamid Kingdom was established. The Rustamid realm stretched from Tafilalt in Morocco to the Nafusa mountains in Libya including south, central and western Tunisia therefore including territory in all of the modern day Maghreb countries, in the south the Rustamid realm expanded to the modern borders of Mali and included territory in Mauritania.Once extending their control over all of the Maghreb, part of Spain and briefly over Sicily, originating from modern Algeria, the Zirids only controlled modern Ifriqiya by the 11th century. The Zirids recognized nominal suzerainty of the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo. El Mu'izz the Zirid ruler decided to end this recognition and declared his independence. The Zirids also fought against other Zenata Kingdoms, for example the Maghrawa, a Berber dynasty originating from Algeria and which at one point was a dominant power in the Maghreb ruling over much of Morocco and western Algeria including Fez, Sijilmasa, Aghmat, Oujda, most of the Sous and Draa and reaching as far as M’sila and the Zab in Algeria.As the Fatimid state was at the time too weak to attempt a direct invasion, they found another means of revenge. Between the Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin nomad tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulency. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym for example, who regularly disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot their farms. The then Fatimid vizier decided to destroy what he couldn't control, and broke a deal with the chiefs of these Beduouin tribes. The Fatimids even gave them money to leave.Whole tribes set off with women, children, elders, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on the way, especially in Cyrenaica, where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region, arriving 1051. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but with each encounter, the last under the walls of Kairouan, his troops were defeated and the Arabs remained masters of the battlefield. They Arabs usually didn't take control over the cities, instead looting them and destroying them.The invasion kept going, and in 1057 the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they encircled the Qalaa of Banu Hammad (capital of the Hammadid Emirate), as they had done in Kairouan a few decades ago. From there they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains. Some of these territories were forcibly taken back by the Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. The influx of Bedouin tribes was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural Arabization of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal tribes had become completely arid desert.The Almohads originating from modern day Morocco, although founded by a man originating from Algeria known as Abd al-Mu'min would soon take control over the Maghreb. During the time of the Almohad Dynasty Abd al-Mu'min's tribe, the Koumïa, were the main supporters of the throne and the most important body of the empire. Defeating the weakening Almoravid Empire and taking control over Morocco in 1147, they pushed into Algeria in 1152, taking control over Tlemcen, Oran, and Algiers, wrestling control from the Hilian Arabs, and by the same year they defeated Hammadids who controlled Eastern Algeria.Following their decisive defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 the Almohads began collapsing, and in 1235 the governor of modern-day Western Algeria, Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan declared his independence and established the Kingdom of Tlemcen and the Zayyanid dynasty. Warring with the Almohad forces attempting to restore control over Algeria for 13 years, they defeated the Almohads in 1248 after killing their Caliph in a successful ambush near Oujda. The Zayyanids retained their control over Algeria for 3 centuries. Much of the eastern territories of Algeria were under the authority of the Hafsid dynasty, although the Emirate of Bejaia encompassing the Algerian territories of the Hafsids would occasionally be independent from central Tunisian control. At their peak the Zayyanid kingdom included all of Morocco as its vassal to the west and in the east reached as far as Tunis which they captured during the reign of Abu Tashfin.After several conflicts with local Barbary pirates sponsored by the Zayyanid sultans, Spain decided to invade Algeria and defeat the native Kingdom of Tlemcen. In 1505, they invaded and captured Mers el Kébir, and in 1509 after a bloody siege, they conquered Oran. Following their decisive victories over the Algerians in the western-coastal areas of Algeria, the Spanish decided to get bolder, and invaded more Algerian cities. In 1510, they led a series of sieges and attacks, taking over Bejaia in a large siege, and leading a semi-successful siege against Algiers. They also besieged Tlemcen. In 1511, they took control over Cherchell and Jijel, and attacked Mostaganem where although they weren't able to conquer the city, they were able to force a tribute on them.Ottoman era In 1516, the Ottoman privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards with help from the locals who saw them as liberators from the Christians, but the brothers eventually assassinated the local noble Salim al-Tumi and took control over the city and the surrounding regions. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force and native Algerians, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792).The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. He was a Kouloughli or of mixed origins, as his mother was an Algerian Mooresse. Until 1587 Beylerbeylik of Algiers was governed by Beylerbeys who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by an autonomous janissary unit, known in Algeria as the Ojaq who were led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost from 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and suffered high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42.The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis, enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic.In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under the command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland, raiding and capturing slaves. Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629, pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands.In 1671, the taifa of raises, or the company of corsair captains rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of Dey. After 1689, the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a council of some sixty nobles. It was at first dominated by the ojaq; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. In 1710, the dey persuaded the sultan to recognise him and his successors as regent, replacing the pasha in that role. Although Algiers remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, in reality they acted independently from the rest of the Empire, and often had wars with other Ottoman subjects and territories such as the Beylik of Tunis.The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system was in place, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of the Deylikal government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylia, although in 1730 the Regency was able to take control over the Kingdom of Kuku in western Kabylia. Many cities in the northern parts of the Algerian desert paid taxes to Algiers or one of its Beys, although they otherwise retained complete autonomy from central control, while the deeper parts of the Sahara were completely independent from Algiers.Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784. For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples, Portugal and the Knights of Malta. Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, much of the city and its fortifications were destroyed and most of the Algerian fleet was sunk.In 1792, Algiers took back Oran and Mers el Kébir, the two last Spanish strongholds in Algeria. In the same year, they conquered the Moroccan Rif and Oujda, which they then abandoned in 1795.In the 19th century, Algerian pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "licence tax" in exchange for safe harbour of their vessels.Attacks by Algerian pirates on American merchantmen resulted in the First and Second Barbary Wars, which ended the attacks on U.S. ships. A year later, a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, under the command of Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to stop similar attacks on European fishermen. These efforts proved successful, although Algerian piracy would continue until the French conquest in 1830.French colonization (1830–1962) Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830." French losses from 1831 to 1851 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action. The population of Algeria, which stood at about 2.9 million in 1872, reached nearly 11 million in 1960. French policy was predicated on "civilising" the country. The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. On 17 September 1860, Napoleon III declared "Our first duty is to take care of the happiness of the three million Arabs, whom the fate of arms has brought under our domination."During this time, only Kabylia resisted, the Kabylians were not colonized until after the Mokrani Revolt in 1871. From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonised countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture.During the Second World War, Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch, which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign.Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status under the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began after the publication of the Declaration of 1 November 1954. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependants were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals.The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than the 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians.The war against French rule concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.The first three decades of independence (1962–1991)The number of European Pied-Noirs who fled Algeria totaled more than 900,000 between 1962 and 1964. The exodus to mainland France accelerated after the Oran massacre of 1962, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city, and began attacking civilians.Algeria's first president was the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumédiène, his former ally and defence minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. But, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialisation drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalised. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.In the 1960s and 1970s under President Houari Boumediene, Algeria pursued a program of industrialisation within a state-controlled socialist economy. Boumediene's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread conventional Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of a return to Orthodox Islam.The Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Muslim groups.Civil War (1991–2002) and aftermathIn December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as the Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 people are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres. At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997.Algeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a "Civil Concord" initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Armed Islamic Group, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government.Bouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces.In November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes.A continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency. The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies. In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform. However, elections are routinely criticised by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.On 2 April 2019, Bouteflika resigned from the presidency after mass protests against his candidacy for a fifth term in office.In December 2019, Abdelmadjid Tebboune became Algeria's president, after winning the first round of the presidential election with a record abstention rate – the highest of all presidential elections since Algeria's democracy in 1989. Tebboune is close to the military and he is also accused of being loyal to the deposed president.Geography Since the 2011 breakup of Sudan, and the creation of South Sudan, Algeria has been the largest country in Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas form with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat ().Algeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°N and south of 19°N), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert.The Hoggar Mountains (), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about  south of the capital, Algiers, and just east of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities.Climate and hydrology In this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.Rainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from  annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as  in some years.Farther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can go up to .Fauna and flora The varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife. Many of the creatures comprising the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilisation. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a small African leopard and Saharan cheetah population, but these are seldom seen. A species of deer, the Barbary stag, inhabits the dense humid forests in the north-eastern areas. The fennec fox is the national animal of Algeria.A variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, including the Barbary lions, Atlas bears and crocodiles.In the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara. Algeria had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.22/10, ranking it 106th globally out of 172 countries.Camels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with venomous and nonvenomous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects.Government and politics Elected politicians have relatively little sway over Algeria. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military "décideurs" ("deciders"), known as "le pouvoir" ("the power"), actually rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man might have been Mohamed Mediène, the head of military intelligence, before he was brought down during the 2019 protests. In recent years, many of these generals have died, retired, or been imprisoned. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, previous president Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that made him re-electable indefinitely, until he was brought down in 2019 during protests.The head of state is the President of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president was formerly limited to two five-year terms, but a constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament on 11 November 2008 removed this limitation. The most recent presidential election was planned to be in April 2019, but widespread protests erupted on 22 February against the president's decision to participate in the election, which resulted in President Bouteflika announcing his resignation on 3 April. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, an independent candidate, was elected as president after the election eventually took place on 12 December 2019. Protestors refused to recognise Tebboune as president, citing demands for comprehensive reform of the political system. Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age. The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government.The Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president. According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession, or region". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects.Parliamentary elections were last held in May 2017. In the elections, the FLN lost 44 of its seats, but remained the largest party with 164 seats, the military-backed National Rally for Democracy won 100, and the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Movement of the Society for Peace won 33.Foreign relationsAlgeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer.Giving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria. Defence Minister Herve Morin stated that "It's time for our country to be at peace with itself, at peace thanks to a system of compensation and reparations," when presenting the draft law on the payouts. Algerian officials and activists believe that this is a good first step and hope that this move would encourage broader reparation.Tensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight. On 24 August 2021, Algeria announced the break of diplomatic relations with Morocco.MilitaryThe military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defence Forces. It is the direct successor of the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).Total military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate). Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 12 months. The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Algeria has the second largest military in North Africa with the largest defence budget in Africa ($10 billion). Most of Algeria's weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally.In 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria.Human rightsAlgeria has been categorised by Freedom House as "not free" since it began publishing such ratings in 1972, with the exception of 1989, 1990, and 1991, when the country was labelled "partly free." In December 2016, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor issued a report regarding violation of media freedom in Algeria. It clarified that the Algerian government imposed restriction on freedom of the press; expression; and right to peaceful demonstration, protest and assembly as well as intensified censorship of the media and websites. Due to the fact that the journalists and activists criticise the ruling government, some media organisations' licenses are cancelled.Independent and autonomous trade unions face routine harassment from the government, with many leaders imprisoned and protests suppressed. In 2016, a number of unions, many of which were involved in the 2010–2012 Algerian Protests, have been deregistered by the government.Homosexuality is illegal in Algeria. Public homosexual behavior is punishable by up to two years in prison. Despite this, about 26% of Algerians think that homosexuality should be accepted, according to the survey conducted by the BBC News Arabic-Arab Barometer in 2019. Algeria showed largest LGBT acceptance compared to other Arab countries where the survey was conducted.Human Rights Watch has accused the Algerian authorities of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent pro-democracy movements and protests in the country, leading to the arrest of youths as part of social distancing.Administrative divisionsAlgeria is divided into 58 provinces (wilayas), 553 districts (daïras) and 1,541 municipalities (baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city.The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they areEconomyAlgeria's currency is the dinar (DZD). The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatization of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy. These restrictions are just starting to be lifted off recently although questions about Algeria's slowly-diversifying economy remain.Algeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages. The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities amongst regions.A wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past 5 years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development.Thanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilisation fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP. The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues.Algeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations but is a member of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area and the African Continental Free Trade Area, and has an association agreement with the European UnionOil and natural resourcesAlgeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe. Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and 87.7% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had  of proven natural-gas reserves. It also ranks 16th in oil reserves.Non-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position.Income from oil and gas rose in 2011 as a result of continuing high oil prices, though the trend in production volume is downwards. Production from the oil and gas sector in terms of volume, continues to decline, dropping from 43.2 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes between 2007 and 2011. Nevertheless, the sector accounted for 98% of the total volume of exports in 2011, against 48% in 1962, and 70% of budgetary receipts, or US$71.4 billion.The Algerian national oil company is Sonatrach, which plays a key role in all aspects of the oil and natural gas sectors in Algeria. All foreign operators must work in partnership with Sonatrach, which usually has majority ownership in production-sharing agreements.Access to biocapacity in Algeria is lower than world average. In 2016, Algeria had 0.53 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Algeria used 2.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use just under 4.5 times as much biocapacity as Algeria contains. As a result, Algeria is running a biocapacity deficit.Research and alternative energy sourcesAlgeria has invested an estimated 100 billion dinars towards developing research facilities and paying researchers. This development program is meant to advance alternative energy production, especially solar and wind power. Algeria is estimated to have the largest solar energy potential in the Mediterranean, so the government has funded the creation of a solar science park in Hassi R'Mel. Currently, Algeria has 20,000 research professors at various universities and over 780 research labs, with state-set goals to expand to 1,000. Besides solar energy, areas of research in Algeria include space and satellite telecommunications, nuclear power and medical research.Labour marketThe overall rate of unemployment was 10% in 2011, but remained higher among young people, with a rate of 21.5% for those aged between 15 and 24. The government strengthened in 2011 the job programs introduced in 1988, in particular in the framework of the program to aid those seeking work (Dispositif d'Aide à l'Insertion Professionnelle).Despite a decline in total unemployment, youth and women unemployment is high. Unemployment particularly affects the young, with a jobless rate of 21.5% among the 15–24 age group.TourismThe development of the tourism sector in Algeria had previously been hampered by a lack of facilities, but since 2004 a broad tourism development strategy has been implemented resulting in many hotels of a high modern standard being built.There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria including Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized oasis; and the Casbah of Algiers, an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Site is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.TransportThe Algerian road network is the densest in Africa; its length is estimated at  of highways, with more than 3,756 structures and a paving rate of 85%. This network will be complemented by the East-West Highway, a major infrastructure project currently under construction. It is a 3-way,  highway, linking Annaba in the extreme east to the Tlemcen in the far west. Algeria is also crossed by the Trans-Sahara Highway, which is now completely paved. This road is supported by the Algerian government to increase trade between the six countries crossed: Algeria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Tunisia.DemographicsAlgeria has a population of an estimated 44 million, of which the vast majority are Arab-Berber ethnically. At the outset of the 20th century, its population was approximately four million. About 90% of Algerians live in the northern, coastal area; the inhabitants of the Sahara desert are mainly concentrated in oases, although some 1.5 million remain nomadic or partly nomadic. 28.1% of Algerians are under the age of 15.Between 90,000 and 165,000 Sahrawis from Western Sahara live in the Sahrawi refugee camps, in the western Algerian Sahara desert. There are also more than 4,000 Palestinian refugees, who are well integrated and have not asked for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In 2009, 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria.The largest concentration of Algerian migrants outside Algeria is in France, which has reportedly over 1.7 million Algerians of up to the second generation.Ethnic groupsIndigenous Berbers as well as Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs, Turks, various Sub-Saharan Africans, and French have contributed to the history of Algeria. Descendants of Andalusian refugees are also present in the population of Algiers and other cities. Moreover, Spanish was spoken by these Aragonese and Castillian Morisco descendants deep into the 18th century, and even Catalan was spoken at the same time by Catalan Morisco descendants in the small town of Grish El-Oued.Despite the dominance of the Berber ethnicity in Algeria, the majority of Algerians identify with an Arabic-based identity, especially after the Arab nationalism rising in the 20th century.    Berbers and Berber-speaking Algerians are divided into many groups with varying languages. The largest of these are the Kabyles, who live in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, the Chaoui of Northeast Algeria, the Tuaregs in the southern desert and the Shenwa people of North Algeria.During the colonial period, there was a large (10% in 1960) European population who became known as Pied-Noirs. They were primarily of French, Spanish and Italian origin. Almost all of this population left during the war of independence or immediately after its end.LanguagesModern Standard Arabic and Berber are the official languages. Algerian Arabic (Darja) is the language used by the majority of the population. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is heavily infused with borrowings from French and Berber.Berber has been recognised as a "national language" by the constitutional amendment of 8 May 2002. Kabyle, the predominant Berber language, is taught and is partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie. In February 2016, the Algerian constitution passed a resolution that made Berber an official language alongside Arabic.Although French has no official status in Algeria, it has one of the largest Francophone populations in the world, and French is widely used in government, media (newspapers, radio, local television), and both the education system (from primary school onwards) and academia due to Algeria's colonial history. It can be regarded as a lingua franca of Algeria. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians could read and write in French. An Abassa Institute study in April 2000 found that 60% of households could speak and understand French, or 18 million people out of a total of 30 million at the time. Following a period during which the Algerian government tried to phase out French, in recent decades the government has changed course and reinforced the study of French, and some television programs are broadcast in the language.Algeria emerged as a bilingual state after 1962. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is spoken by about 72% of the population and Berber by 27–30%.ReligionIslam is the predominant religion in Algeria, with its adherents, mostly Sunnis, accounting for 99% of the population according to a 2021 CIA World Factbook estimate, and 97.9% according to Pew Research in 2020. There are about 290,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia. Estimates of the Christian population range from 20,000 to 200,000 Algerian citizens who are Christians predominantly belong to Protestant groups, which have seen increased pressure from the government in recent years including many forced closures.There has been an increase in the number of people identifying as non-religious. The June 2019 Arab Barometer-BBC News report found that the percentage of Algerians identifying as non-religious has grown from around 8% in 2013 to around 15% in 2018. The Arab Barometer December 2019, found that the growth in the percentage of Algerians identifying as non-religious is largely driven by young Algerians, with roughly 25% describing themselves as non-religious.Algeria has given the Muslim world a number of prominent thinkers, including Emir Abdelkader, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mouloud Kacem Naît Belkacem, Malek Bennabi and Mohamed Arkoun.HealthIn 2018, Algeria had the highest numbers of physicians in the Maghreb region (1.72 per 1,000 people), nurses (2.23 per 1,000 people), and dentists (0.31 per 1,000 people). Access to "improved water sources" was around 97.4% of the population in urban areas and 98.7% of the population in the rural areas. Some 99% of Algerians living in urban areas, and around 93.4% of those living in rural areas, had access to "improved sanitation". According to the World Bank, Algeria is making progress toward its goal of "reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to improved drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015". Given Algeria's young population, policy favours preventive health care and clinics over hospitals. In keeping with this policy, the government maintains an immunisation program. However, poor sanitation and unclean water still cause tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles, typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. The poor generally receive health care free of charge.Health records have been maintained in Algeria since 1882 and began adding Muslims living in the south to their vital record database in 1905 during French rule.EducationSince the 1970s, in a centralised system that was designed to significantly reduce the rate of illiteracy, the Algerian government introduced a decree by which school attendance became compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years who have the ability to track their learning through the 20 facilities built since independence, now the literacy rate is around 92.6%. Since 1972, Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. The students can also learn English, Italian, Spanish and German. In 2008, new programs at the elementary appeared, therefore the compulsory schooling does not start at the age of six anymore, but at the age of five. Apart from the 122 private schools, the Universities of the State are free of charge. After nine years of primary school, students can go to the high school or to an educational institution. The school offers two programs: general or technical. At the end of the third year of secondary school, students pass the exam of the baccalaureate, which allows once it is successful to pursue graduate studies in universities and institutes.Education is officially compulsory for children between the ages of six and 15. In 2008, the illiteracy rate for people over 10 was 22.3%, 15.6% for men and 29.0% for women. The province with the lowest rate of illiteracy was Algiers Province at 11.6%, while the province with the highest rate was Djelfa Province at 35.5%.Algeria has 26 universities and 67 institutions of higher education, which must accommodate a million Algerians and 80,000 foreign students in 2008. The University of Algiers, founded in 1879, is the oldest, it offers education in various disciplines (law, medicine, science and letters). Twenty-five of these universities and almost all of the institutions of higher education were founded after the independence of the country.Even if some of them offer instruction in Arabic like areas of law and the economy, most of the other sectors as science and medicine continue to be provided in French and English. Among the most important universities, there are the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, the University of Mentouri Constantine, and University of Oran Es-Senia. The University of Abou Bekr Belkaïd in Tlemcen and University of Batna Hadj Lakhdar occupy the 26th and 45th row in Africa. Algeria was ranked 121st in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, down from 113rd in 2019.CitiesBelow is a list of the most populous Algerian cities:CultureModern Algerian literature, split between Arabic, Tamazight and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine and Ahlam Mosteghanemi while Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on decolonization; Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras); and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.Contemporary Algerian cinema is various in terms of genre, exploring a wider range of themes and issues. There has been a transition from cinema which focused on the war of independence to films more concerned with the everyday lives of Algerians.MediaArtAlgerian painters, like Mohamed Racim or Baya, attempted to revive the prestigious Algerian past prior to French colonisation, at the same time that they have contributed to the preservation of the authentic values of Algeria. In this line, Mohamed Temam, Abdelkhader Houamel have also returned through this art, scenes from the history of the country, the habits and customs of the past and the country life. Other new artistic currents including the one of M'hamed Issiakhem, Mohammed Khadda and Bachir Yelles, appeared on the scene of Algerian painting, abandoning figurative classical painting to find new pictorial ways, in order to adapt Algerian paintings to the new realities of the country through its struggle and its aspirations. Mohammed Khadda and M'hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years.Literature The historic roots of Algerian literature go back to the Numidian and Roman African era, when Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. This period had also known Augustine of Hippo, Nonius Marcellus and Martianus Capella, among many others. The Middle Ages have known many Arabic writers who revolutionised the Arab world literature, with authors like Ahmad al-Buni, Ibn Manzur and Ibn Khaldoun, who wrote the Muqaddimah while staying in Algeria, and many others.Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French Pied-Noir author. In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.Today Algeria contains, in its literary landscape, big names having not only marked the Algerian literature, but also the universal literary heritage in Arabic and French.As a first step, Algerian literature was marked by works whose main concern was the assertion of the Algerian national entity, there is the publication of novels as the Algerian trilogy of Mohammed Dib, or even Nedjma of Kateb Yacine novel which is often regarded as a monumental and major work. Other known writers will contribute to the emergence of Algerian literature whom include Mouloud Feraoun, Malek Bennabi, Malek Haddad, Moufdi Zakaria, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mohamed Laïd Al-Khalifa, Mouloud Mammeri, Frantz Fanon, and Assia Djebar.In the aftermath of the independence, several new authors emerged on the Algerian literary scene, they will attempt through their works to expose a number of social problems, among them there are Rachid Boudjedra, Rachid Mimouni, Leila Sebbar, Tahar Djaout and Tahir Wattar.Currently, a part of Algerian writers tends to be defined in a literature of shocking expression, due to the terrorism that occurred during the 1990s, the other party is defined in a different style of literature who staged an individualistic conception of the human adventure. Among the most noted recent works, there is the writer, the swallows of Kabul and the attack of Yasmina Khadra, the oath of barbarians of Boualem Sansal, memory of the flesh of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and the last novel by Assia Djebar nowhere in my father's House.MusicChaâbi music is a typically Algerian musical genre characterized by specific rhythms and of Qacidate (popular poems) in Arabic dialect. The undisputed master of this music is El Hadj M'Hamed El Anka. The Constantinois Malouf style is saved by musician from whom Mohamed Tahar Fergani is a performer.Folk music styles include Bedouin music, characterized by the poetic songs based on long kacida (poems); Kabyle music, based on a rich repertoire that is poetry and old tales passed through generations; Shawiya music, a folklore from diverse areas of the Aurès Mountains. Rahaba music style is unique to the Aures. Souad Massi is a rising Algerian folk singer. Other Algerian singers of the diaspora include Manel Filali in Germany and Kenza Farah in France. Tergui music is sung in Tuareg languages generally, Tinariwen had a worldwide success. Finally, the staïfi music is born in Sétif and remains a unique style of its kind.Modern music is available in several facets, Raï music is a style typical of western Algeria. Rap, a relatively recent style in Algeria, is experiencing significant growth.CinemaThe Algerian state's interest in film-industry activities can be seen in the annual budget of DZD 200 million (EUR 1.3 million) allocated to production, specific measures and an ambitious programme plan implemented by the Ministry of Culture in order to promote national production, renovate the cinema stock and remedy the weak links in distribution and exploitation.The financial support provided by the state, through the Fund for the Development of the Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (FDATIC) and the Algerian Agency for Cultural Influence (AARC), plays a key role in the promotion of national production. Between 2007 and 2013, FDATIC subsidised 98 films (feature films, documentaries and short films). In mid-2013, AARC had already supported a total of 78 films, including 42 feature films, 6 short films and 30 documentaries.According to the European Audiovisual Observatory's LUMIERE database, 41 Algerian films were distributed in Europe between 1996 and 2013; 21 films in this repertoire were Algerian-French co-productions. Days of Glory (2006) and Outside the Law (2010) recorded the highest number of admissions in the European Union, 3,172,612 and 474,722, respectively.Algeria won the Palme d'Or for Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975), two Oscars for Z (1969), and other awards for the Italian-Algerian movie The Battle of Algiers.CuisineAlgerian cuisine is rich and diverse. The country was considered as the "granary of Rome". It offers a component of dishes and varied dishes, depending on the region and according to the seasons. The cuisine uses cereals as the main products, since they are always produced with abundance in the country. There is not a dish where cereals are not present.Algerian cuisine varies from one region to another, according to seasonal vegetables. It can be prepared using meat, fish and vegetables. Among the dishes known, couscous, chorba, rechta, chakhchoukha, berkoukes, shakshouka, mthewem, chtitha, mderbel, dolma, brik or bourek, garantita, lham'hlou, etc. Merguez sausage is widely used in Algeria, but it differs, depending on the region and on the added spices.Cakes are marketed and can be found in cities either in Algeria, in Europe or North America. However, traditional cakes are also made at home, following the habits and customs of each family. Among these cakes, there are Tamina, Baklawa, Chrik, Garn logzelles, Griouech, Kalb el-louz, Makroud, Mbardja, Mchewek, Samsa, Tcharak, Baghrir, Khfaf, Zlabia, Aarayech, Ghroubiya and Mghergchette. Algerian pastry also contains Tunisian or French cakes. Marketed and home-made bread products include varieties such as Kessra or Khmira or Harchaya, chopsticks and so-called washers Khoubz dar or Matloue. Other traditional meals sold often as street food include mhadjeb or mahjouba, karantika, doubara, chakhchoukha, hassouna, and t'chicha.SportsVarious games have existed in Algeria since antiquity. In the Aures, people played several games such as El Kherba or El khergueba (chess variant). Playing cards, checkers and chess games are part of Algerian culture. Racing (fantasia) and rifle shooting are part of cultural recreation of the Algerians.The first Algerian and African gold medalist is Boughera El Ouafi in 1928 Olympics of Amsterdam in the Marathon. The second Algerian Medalist was Alain Mimoun in 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Several men and women were champions in athletics in the 1990s including Noureddine Morceli, Hassiba Boulmerka, Nouria Merah-Benida, and Taoufik Makhloufi, all specialized in middle-distance running.Football is the most popular sport in Algeria. Several names are engraved in the history of the sport, including Lakhdar Belloumi, Rachid Mekhloufi, Hassen Lalmas, Rabah Madjer, Riyad Mahrez, Salah Assad and Djamel Zidane. The Algeria national football team qualified for the 1982 FIFA World Cup, 1986 FIFA World Cup, 2010 FIFA World Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup. In addition, several football clubs have won continental and international trophies as the club ES Sétif or JS Kabylia. The Algerian Football Federation is an association of Algeria football clubs organizing national competitions and international matches of the selection of Algeria national football team.See also Index of Algeria-related articles Outline of AlgeriaExplanatory notesCitationsGeneral bibliography  Ageron, Charles-Robert (1991). Modern Algeria – A History from 1830 to the Present. Translated from French and edited by Michael Brett. London: Hurst. . Aghrout, Ahmed; Bougherira, Redha M. (2004). Algeria in Transition – Reforms and Development Prospects. Routledge. . Bennoune, Mahfoud (1988). The Making of Contemporary Algeria – Colonial Upheavals and Post-Independence Development, 1830–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Fanon, Frantz (1966; 2005 paperback). The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press. ASIN B0007FW4AW, . Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. Viking Adult. ,  (2006 reprint) Laouisset, Djamel (2009). A Retrospective Study of the Algerian Iron and Steel Industry. New York City: Nova Publishers. . Roberts, Hugh (2003). The Battlefield – Algeria, 1988–2002. Studies in a Broken Polity. London: Verso Books. . Ruedy, John (1992). Modern Algeria – The Origins and Development of a Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. . Stora, Benjamin (2001). Algeria, 1830–2000 – A Short History. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. . Sidaoui, Riadh (2009). "Islamic Politics and the Military – Algeria 1962–2008". Religion and Politics – Islam and Muslim Civilisation. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. .External links People's Democratic Republic of Algeria Official government website  Portal of the First Ministry Portal of the First Ministry  Algeria. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.   Algeria profile from the BBC News  ency education ency education   Key Development Forecasts for Algeria from International Futures EU Neighbourhood Info Centre: Algeria North African countriesMaghrebi countriesSaharan countriesArab republicsRepublicsArabic-speaking countries and territoriesBerber-speaking countries and territoriesFrench-speaking countries and territoriesG15 nationsMember states of OPECMember states of the African UnionMember states of the Arab LeagueMember states of the Organisation of Islamic CooperationMember states of the Union for the MediterraneanCurrent member states of the United NationsStates and territories established in 19621962 establishments in Algeria1962 establishments in AfricaCountries in Africa
This is a list of characters in Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.Major charactersThe following are major characters from the novel.ProtagonistsDagny TaggartDagny Taggart is the protagonist of the novel. She is vice-president in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. Given James' incompetence, Dagny is responsible for all the workings of the railroad.Francisco d'AnconiaFrancisco d'Anconia is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged, an owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining operation. He is a childhood friend, and the first love, of Dagny Taggart. A child prodigy of exceptional talents, Francisco was dubbed the "climax" of the d'Anconia line, an already prestigious family of skilled industrialists. He was a classmate of John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld and student of both Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. He began working while still in school, proving that he could have made a fortune without the aid of his family's wealth and power. Later, Francisco bankrupts the d'Anconia business to put it out of others' reach. His full name is given as "Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia".John GaltJohn Galt is the primary male hero of Atlas Shrugged. He initially appears as an unnamed menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental, who often dines with Eddie Willers in the employees' cafeteria, and leads Eddie to reveal important information about Dagny Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental. Only Eddie's side of their conversations is given in the novel. Later in the novel, the reader discovers this worker's true identity.Before working for Taggart Transcontinental, Galt worked as an engineer for the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he secretly invented a generator of usable electric energy from ambient static electricity, but abandoned his prototype, and his employment, when dissatisfied by an easily corrupted novel system of payment. This prototype was found by Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. Galt himself remains concealed throughout much of the novel, working a job and living by himself, where he unites the most skillful inventors and business leaders under his leadership. Much of the book's third division is given to his broadcast speech, which presents the author's philosophy of Objectivism.Henry "Hank" ReardenHenry (known as "Hank") Rearden is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged. He owns the most important steel company in the United States, and invents Rearden Metal, an alloy stronger, lighter, cheaper and tougher than steel. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Lillian, his brother Philip, and his elderly mother. Rearden represents a type of self-made man and eventually divorces Lillian, abandons his steel mills following a bloody assault by government-planted workers, and joins John Galt's strike.Eddie WillersEdwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. His father and grandfather worked for the Taggarts, and himself likewise. He is completely loyal to Dagny and to Taggart Transcontinental. Willers does not possess the creative ability of Galt's associates, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. After Dagny shifts her attention and loyalty to saving the captive Galt, Willers maintains the railroad until its collapse.Ragnar DanneskjöldOne of Galt's first followers, and world-famous as a pirate, who seizes relief ships sent from the United States to the People's States of Europe. He works to  ensure that once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they have enough capital to rebuild the world. Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjöld makes a personal appearance to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation, and gives him a bar of gold as compensation for the income taxes he has paid over the last several years. Danneskjöld is married to the actress Kay Ludlow; their relationship is kept hidden from the outside world, which only knows of Ludlow as a retired film star. Considered a misfit by Galt's other adherents, he views his actions as a means to speed the world along in understanding Galt's perspective.According to Barbara Branden, who was closely associated with Rand at the time the book was written, there were sections written describing Danneskjöld's adventures at sea, cut from the final published text. In a 1974 comment at a lecture, Ayn Rand admitted that Danneskjöld's name was a tribute to Victor Hugo's novel, , wherein the hero becomes the first of the Counts of Danneskjöld. In the published book, Danneskjöld is always seen through the eyes of others (Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden), except for a brief paragraph in the very last chapter.AntagonistsJames TaggartThe President of Taggart Transcontinental and the book's most important antagonist. Taggart is an expert influence peddler but incapable of making operational decisions on his own. He relies on his sister, Dagny Taggart, to actually run the railroad, but nonetheless opposes her in almost every endeavor because of his various anti-capitalist moral and political beliefs. In a sense, he is the antithesis of Dagny. This contradiction leads to the recurring absurdity of his life: the desire to overcome those on whom his life depends, and the horror that he will succeed at this. In the final chapters of the novel, he suffers a complete mental breakdown upon realizing that he can no longer deceive himself in this respect.Lillian ReardenThe unsupportive wife of Hank Rearden, who dislikes his habits and (secretly at first) seeks to ruin Rearden to prove her own value. Lillian achieves this, when she passes information to James Taggart about her husband's affair with his sister. This information is used to blackmail Rearden to sign a Gift Certificate which delivers all the property rights of Rearden Metal to others. Lillian thereafter uses James Taggart for sexual satisfaction, until Hank abandons her.Dr. Floyd FerrisFerris is a biologist who works as "co-ordinator" at the State Science Institute. He uses his position there to deride reason and productive achievement, and publishes a book entitled Why Do You Think You Think? He clashes on several occasions with Hank Rearden, and twice attempts to blackmail Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal. He is also one of the group of looters who tries to get Rearden to agree to the Steel Unification Plan. Ferris hosts the demonstration of the Project X weapon, and is the creator of the Ferris Persuader, a torture machine. When John Galt is captured by the looters, Ferris uses the device on Galt, but it breaks down before extracting the information Ferris wants from Galt. Ferris represents the group which uses brute force on the heroes to achieve the ends of the looters.Dr. Robert StadlerA former professor at Patrick Henry University, and along with colleague Hugh Akston, mentor to Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He has since become a sell-out, one who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He works at the State Science Institute where all his inventions are perverted for use by the military, including a sound-based weapon known as Project X (Xylophone). He is killed when Cuffy Meigs (see below) drunkenly overloads the circuits of Project X, causing it to destroy itself and every structure and living thing in a 100-mile radius. The character was, in part, modeled on J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom Rand had interviewed for an earlier project, and his part in the creation of nuclear weapons.` To his former student Galt, Stadler represents the epitome of human evil, as the "man who knew better" but chose not to act for the good.Wesley MouchThe incompetent and treacherous lobbyist whom Hank Rearden reluctantly employs in Washington, who rises to prominence and authority throughout the novel through trading favours and disloyalty. In return for betraying Hank by helping broker the Equalization of Opportunity Bill (which, by restricting the number of businesses each person may own to one, forces Hank to divest most of his companies), he is given a senior position at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. Later in the novel he becomes its Top Co-ordinator, a position that eventually becomes Economic Dictator of the country. Mouch's mantra, whenever a problem arises from his prior policy, is to say, "I can't help it.  I need wider powers."Secondary charactersThe following secondary characters also appear in the novel.Hugh Akston is identified as "One of the last great advocates of reason." He was a renowned philosopher and the head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University, where he taught Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjöld. He was, along with Robert Stadler, a father figure to these three. Akston's name is so hallowed that a young lady, on hearing that Francisco had studied under him, is shocked. She thought he must have been one of those great names from an earlier century. He now works as a cook in a roadside diner, and proves extremely skillful at the job. When Dagny tracks him down, and before she discovers his true identity, he rejects her enthusiastic offer to manage the dining car services for Taggart Transcontinental. He is based on Aristotle.Jeff Allen is a tramp who stows away on a Taggart train during one of Dagny's cross-country trips. Instead of throwing him out, she allows him to ride as her guest. It is from Allen that she learns the full story behind the collapse of the Twentieth Century Motor Company (Rand's extensive metaphor for the inherent flaws of communism), as well as a hint of John Galt's true background.Calvin Atwood is owner of Atwood Light and Power Company and joins Galt's strike.Mayor Bascom is the mayor of Rome, Wisconsin, who reveals part of the history of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.Dr. Blodgett is the scientist who pulls the lever to demonstrate Project X.Orren Boyle is the head of Associated Steel, antithesis of Hank Rearden and a friend of James Taggart. He is an investor in the San Sebastián Mines. He disappears from the story after having a nervous breakdown following the failed 'unification' of the steel industry.Laura Bradford is an actress and Kip Chalmers' mistress. She is one of the passengers on his train, and dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.Bill Brent is the chief dispatcher for the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental, who tries to prevent the Taggart Tunnel disaster.Cherryl Brooks is a dime store shopgirl who marries James Taggart after a chance encounter in her store the night the John Galt Line was falsely deemed his greatest success. She marries him thinking he is the heroic person behind Taggart Transcontinental. Cherryl is at first harsh towards Dagny, having believed Jim Taggart's descriptions of his sister, until she questions employees of the railroad. Upon learning that her scorn had been misdirected, Cherryl puts off apologizing to Dagny out of shame, but eventually admits to Dagny that when she married Jim, she thought he had the heroic qualities that she had looked up to - she thought she was marrying someone like Dagny. Shortly after making this admission, she commits suicide by jumping over a stone parapet and into the river, unable to live with her evil husband and seeing no way to escape him.Millie Bush was "a mean, ugly little eight-year-old" girl voted to receive gold braces to straighten her teeth by the Marxist "family" committee who determined how pay was allocated at The Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her teeth are later knocked out by a man denied an allowance by the committee to purchase the things he valued.Emma Chalmers, Kip Chalmers' mother, gains some influence after his death. Known as "Kip's Ma," she starts a soybean-growing project in Louisiana and commandeers thousands of railroad freight cars to move the harvest. As a result, the year's wheat crop from Minnesota never reaches the rest of the country, but instead rots in storage; also, the soybean crop is lost, having been reaped too early.Kip Chalmers is a Washington man who has decided to run for election as Legislator from California. On the way to a campaign rally, the Taggart Transcontinental train that is carrying him encounters a split rail, resulting in the destruction of its diesel engine. His demands lead to a coal-burning steam engine being attached to his train in its stead and used to pull it through an eight-mile tunnel. The result is the suffocation of all passengers and the destruction of the Taggart Tunnel.Dan Conway is the middle-aged president of the Phoenix-Durango railroad. Running a railroad is just about the only thing he knows. When the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule is used to drive his business out of Colorado, he loses the will to fight, and resigns himself to a quiet life of books and fishing. He is not one of those who joined John Galt's strike, his resignation being a personal choice of his own. Ken Danagger owns Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania. He helps Hank Rearden illegally make Rearden Metal, then later decides to quit and join Galt's strike moments before Dagny arrives to try to persuade him otherwise.Quentin Daniels is an enterprising engineer hired by Dagny Taggart to reconstruct John Galt's motor. Partway through this process, Quentin withdraws his effort for the same reasons John Galt himself had. Dagny's pursuit of Quentin leads her to Galt's Gulch. Galt recognizes in him a younger version of himself, having emulated both Galt's achievements in physics and Galt's social reasoning. Sebastian d'Anconia was the 16th (or 17th) Century founder of the d'Anconia dynasty. Escaped from Spain because of expressing his opinions too freely and coming in conflict with the Inquisition, leaving behind a palace and his beloved. Started a small mine in South America, which became the beginning of a mining empire and a new fortune (and a new palace). Eventually sent for his beloved who had waited for him many years. He is the role model which Francisco d'Anconia looks to, as Dagny Taggart looks to Nathaniel Taggart. Francisco remarks that their respective ancestors would have liked each other.Balph Eubank is called "the literary leader of the age", despite the fact that no book he has written has sold more than 3,000 copies. He complains that it is disgraceful that artists are treated as peddlers, and that there should be a law limiting the sales of books to 10,000 copies. He is a misogynist who thinks it disgusting that Dagny Taggart is a railroad vice-president.The Fishwife is one of the strikers, who earns her living by providing the fish for Hammond's grocery market; she is described as having "dark, disheveled hair and large eyes", and is a writer. Galt says she "wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind." According to Barbara Branden in her book The Passion of Ayn Rand, "The Fishwife is Ayn's Hitchcock-like appearance in Atlas Shrugged." So says too Leonard Peikoff.Lawrence Hammond runs Hammond Cars in Colorado, one of the few companies in existence that still produces top-quality vehicles. He eventually quits and joins the strike.Richard Halley is Dagny Taggart's favorite composer, who mysteriously disappeared after the evening of his greatest triumph. Halley spent years as a struggling and unappreciated composer. At age 24, his opera Phaethon was performed for the first time, to an audience who booed and heckled it. After 19 years, Phaethon was performed again, but this time it was received to the greatest ovation the opera house had ever heard. The following day, Halley retired, sold the rights to his music, and disappeared. It is later revealed that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.Mrs. William Hastings is the widow of the chief engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Her husband quit shortly after Galt did and joined the strike some years later. Her lead allows Dagny to find Hugh Akston.Dr. Thomas Hendricks is a famous brain surgeon who developed a new method of preventing strokes. He joined Galt's strike when the American medical system was put under government control.Tinky Holloway is one of the "looters" and is frequently referred to and quoted by other characters in the story, but he has only one major appearance: during the Washington meeting with Hank Rearden.Lee Hunsacker is in charge of a company called Amalgamated Service when takes over the Twentieth Century Motor Company. He files a lawsuit that eventually leads to Midas Mulligan and Judge Narragansett joining the strike. A failed businessman, he laments constantly that no-one ever gave him a chance.Gwen Ives is Hank Rearden's secretary, described as being in her late twenties and remaining calm and professional despite the chaos that threatens his business. When Rearden abandons his mills and joins Galt's strike, she and many other employees do the same.Gilbert Keith-Worthing is a British novelist of erstwhile fame, now neglected but still considered a "walking classic," and a proponent of the idea that freedom is an illusion. Kip Chalmers brings him along on the train to California, "for no reason that either of them could discover"; he dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.Owen Kellogg is Assistant to the Manager of the Taggart Terminal in New York. He catches Dagny Taggart's eye as one of the few competent men on staff. After seeing the sorry state of the Ohio Division, she decides to make him its new Superintendent. However, as soon as she returns to New York, Kellogg informs her that he is quitting his job. Owen Kellogg eventually reaches, and settles in, Galt's Gulch.Fred Kinnan is a labor leader and member of the looter cabal. Unlike the others, however, Kinnan is straightforward and honest about his purpose. Kinnan is the only one to openly state the true motivations of himself and his fellow conspirators. At the end of Galt's three-hour speech, he expresses admiration for the man, as he says what he means. Despite this, Kinnan admits that he is one of the people Galt is out to destroy.Paul Larkin is an unsuccessful, middle-aged businessman, a friend of the Rearden family. He meets with the other Looters to work out a plan to bring Rearden down. James Taggart knows he is friends with Hank Rearden and challenges his loyalty, and Larkin assures Taggart that he will go along with them.Eugene Lawson heads the Community Bank of Madison, then gets a job with the government when it his bank goes bankrupt. One of the looter's cabal, he is a collectivist who abhors production and money-making.Mort Liddy is a hack composer who writes trite scores for movies and modern symphonies to which no one listens. He believes melody is a primitive vulgarity. He is one of Lillian Rearden's friends and a member of the cultural elite.Clifton Locey is a friend of Jim Taggart who takes the position of vice-president of operation when Dagny Taggart quits.Pat Logan is the engineer on the first run of the John Galt Line. He later strikes.Kay Ludlow is a beautiful actress who quit Holywood because of the roles she was given and married secretly the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld.Dick McNamara is a contractor who finished the San Sebastian Line. Dagny Taggart plans to hire him to lay the new Rearden Metal track for the Rio Norte Line, but before she does so, he mysteriously disappears. She later discovers that he has joined the strike and settled in Galt's Gulch.Cuffy Meigs is the Director of Unification for the railroad business. He carries a pistol and a lucky rabbit's foot, and he dresses in a military uniform, and has been described as "impervious to thought". Meigs seizes control of Project X and accidentally destroys it, demolishing the country's last railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and killing himself, his men, and Dr. Stadler.Dave Mitchum is a state-hired superintendent of the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental. He is partially responsible for the Taggart Tunnel disaster.Chick Morrison holds the position of "Morale Conditioner" in the government. He quits when society begins to collapse and flees to a stronghold in Tennessee. His fellow looters consider it unlikely that he will survive.Horace Bussby Mowen is the president of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company, Inc. of Connecticut. He is a businessman who sees nothing wrong with the moral code that is destroying society and would never dream of saying he is in business for any reason other than the good of society. Dagny Taggart hires Mowen to produce switches made of Rearden Metal. He is reluctant to build anything with this unproven technology, and has to be cajoled into accepting the contract. When pressured by public opinion, he discontinues production of the switches, forcing Dagny to find an alternative source.Midas Mulligan is a wealthy banker who mysteriously disappeared in protest after he was given a court order to lend money to an incompetent applicant. When the order came down, he liquidated his entire business, paid off his depositors, and joined Galt's strike. He is the legal owner of the land where Galt's Gulch is located. Mulligan's birth name was Michael, but he had it legally changed after a news article called him "Midas" in a derogatory fashion, which Mulligan took as a compliment.Judge Narragansett is an American jurist who ruled in favor of Midas Mulligan during the case brought against him by the incompetent loan applicant. When Narragansett's ruling was reversed on appeal, he retired and joined the strike. At the end of the novel, he is seen editing the United States Constitution, crossing out the contradicting amendments of it and adding an amendment to prohibit Congress from passing laws that restrain freedom of trade.Ben Nealy is a railroad contractor whom Dagny Taggart hires to replace the track on the Rio Norte Line with Rearden Metal. Nealy is incompetent, but Dagny can find no one better in all the country. Nealy believes that anything can get done with enough muscle power. He sees no role for intelligence in human achievement. He relies on Dagny and Ellis Wyatt to run things, and resents them for doing it, because it appears to him like they are just bossing people around.Ted Nielsen is the head of Nielsen Motors. He eventually goes on strike, along with most of the other industrialist "producer" types, by closing his motor factory. Dagny later finds him when she visits Galt's Gulch for the first time.Betty Pope is a wealthy socialite who is having a meaningless sexual affair with James Taggart. She is deliberately crude in a way that casts ridicule on her high social position.Dr. Potter holds some undefined position with the State Science Institute. He is sent to try to obtain the rights to Rearden Metal.Dr. Simon Pritchett is the prestigious head of the Department of Philosophy at Patrick Henry University and is considered the leading philosopher of the age. He believes that man is nothing but a collection of chemicals, reason is a superstition, it is futile to seek meaning in life, and the duty of a philosopher is to show that nothing can be understood.Rearden's mother, whose name is not mentioned, lives with Rearden at his home in Philadelphia. She is involved in charity work, and berates Rearden whenever she can. She dotes on her weak son Philip Rearden.Philip Rearden is the younger brother of Hank Rearden. He lives in his brother's home in Philadelphia and is completely dependent on him. He is resentful of his brother's charity.Dwight Sanders owns Sanders Aircraft, a producer of high-quality airplanes, and joins the strike.Bertram Scudder is an editorial writer for the magazine The Future. He typically bashes business and businessmen, but he never says anything specific in his articles, relying on innuendo, sneers, and denunciation. He wrote a hatchet job on Hank Rearden called The Octopus. He is also vocal in support of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. Scudder claims that the most important thing in life is "brother love" but seems to have nothing but hatred for those around him. He loses his job after Dagny Taggart reveals her affair with Hank Rearden over air on his radio show.Claude Slagenhop is president of political organization Friends of Global Progress and one of Lillian Rearden's friends. He believes that ideas are just air, that this is no time for talk, but for action. Global Progress is a sponsor of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.Gerald and Ivy Starnes are the two surviving children of Jed Starnes, the founder of the Twentieth Century Motor Company. Together with their since-deceased brother Eric, they instituted a communistic payment-and-benefits program that drove the company into bankruptcy. Gerald, a dying alcoholic, and Ivy, a pseudo-Buddhist ascetic, continue to insist that the plan was perfect and that the failure of their father's company was entirely due to the workers. Eric was a weak, attention-seeking man with a pathological desire to be loved. He committed suicide after the woman he loved married another man. Gerald claims that he always acted for the good of the employees, but he was vain and incompetent and often threw lavish parties using company funds. Ivy, on the other hand, is described as a sadist who relishes seeing others in poverty, but who has no desire for wealth of her own.Andrew Stockton runs the Stockton Foundry in Stockton, Colorado. When he joins the strike, he opens a foundry in Galt's Gulch.Nathaniel "Nat" Taggart was the founder of Taggart Transcontinental. He built his railroad without any government handouts, and ran the business for no other reason than to turn a profit. He began as a penniless adventurer and ended up as one of the wealthiest men in the country. He never earned money by force or fraud (except for bribing government officials and throwing an opponent down a flight of stairs), and never apologized for becoming wealthy and successful. He was one of the most hated men of his time. Dagny is often inspired by looking at a statue of Nat Taggart at the railroad headquarters, and draws a dollar sign on its base as a signal to Francisco when she is ready to join Galt's strike.  It is suspected that he is modeled after James Jerome Hill, builder of the Great Northern Railroad. Mr. Thompson is the "Head of the State" for the United States. He is not particularly intelligent and has a very undistinguished look. He knows politics, however, and is a master of public relations and back-room deals. Rand's notes indicate that she modeled him on President Harry S. Truman, and that she deliberately decided not to call him "President of the United States" as this title has "honorable connotations" which the character does not deserve.Lester Tuck is the campaign manager for Kip Chalmers and one of his guests on the train trip to California. He dies in the Taggart Tunnel disaster.Clem Weatherby is a government representative on the board of directors of Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny considers him the least bad of the government representatives, since he does have some real knowledge on the running of trains. She notices, however, that he is the least appreciated by his own bosses.The Wet Nurse (Tony) is a young bureaucrat sent by the government to watch over Rearden's mills. Though he starts out as a cynical follower of the looters' code, his experience at the mills transforms him, and he comes to respect and admire the producers. He is shot attempting to inform Hank Rearden about a government plot, but does succeed in warning Rearden just before he dies.Ellis Wyatt is the head of Wyatt Oil. He has almost single-handedly revived the economy of Colorado by discovering a new process for extracting more oil from what were thought to be exhausted oil wells. When first introduced, he is aggressive towards Dagny, whom he does not yet know and whom he blames for what are, in fact, her brother's policies which directly threaten his business. When the government passes laws and decrees which make it impossible for him to continue, he sets all his oil wells on fire, leaving a single note: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." One particular burning well that resists all efforts to extinguish it becomes known as "Wyatt's Torch". Later Dagny meets him in Galt's Gulch.FootnotesNotesCitationsGeneral referencesExternal linksWebsite with comprehensive list of individuals mentioned in Atlas Shrugged Fictional socialitesLists of literary charactersLiterary characters introduced in 1957
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. A portmanteau sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.Archaeological anthropology, often termed as 'anthropology of the past', studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence. It is considered a branch of anthropology in North America and Asia, while in Europe archaeology is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history.EtymologyThe abstract noun anthropology is first attested in reference to history. Its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann. Their New Latin  derived from the combining forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos (, "human") and lógos (, "study"). (Its adjectival form appeared in the works of Aristotle.) It began to be used in English, possibly via French , by the early 18th century.HistoryThrough the 19th centuryIn 1647, the Bartholins, founders of the University of Copenhagen, defined  as follows:Sporadic use of the term for some of the subject matter occurred subsequently, such as the use by Étienne Serres in 1839 to describe the natural history, or paleontology, of man, based on comparative anatomy, and the creation of a chair in anthropology and ethnography in 1850 at the French National Museum of Natural History by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau. Various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris, the first to use the term ethnology, was formed in 1839. Its members were primarily anti-slavery activists. When slavery was abolished in France in 1848, the Société was abandoned.Meanwhile, the Ethnological Society of New York, currently the American Ethnological Society, was founded on its model in 1842, as well as the Ethnological Society of London in 1843, a break-away group of the Aborigines' Protection Society. These anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro-human-rights activists. They maintained international connections.Anthropology and many other current fields are the intellectual results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. Theorists in such diverse fields as anatomy, linguistics, and ethnology, making feature-by-feature comparisons of their subject matters, were beginning to suspect that similarities between animals, languages, and folkways were the result of processes or laws unknown to them then. For them, the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect. Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild.Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s. There was an immediate rush to bring it into the social sciences. Paul Broca in Paris was in the process of breaking away from the Société de biologie to form the first of the explicitly anthropological societies, the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, meeting for the first time in Paris in 1859. When he read Darwin, he became an immediate convert to Transformisme, as the French called evolutionism. His definition now became "the study of the human group, considered as a whole, in its details, and in relation to the rest of nature".Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon, had taken an interest in the pathology of speech. He wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the human brain, today called Broca's area after him. His interest was mainly in Biological anthropology, but a German philosopher specializing in psychology, Theodor Waitz, took up the theme of general and social anthropology in his six-volume work, entitled Die Anthropologie der Naturvölker, 1859–1864. The title was soon translated as "The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples". The last two volumes were published posthumously.Waitz defined anthropology as "the science of the nature of man". Following Broca's lead, Waitz points out that anthropology is a new field, which would gather material from other fields, but would differ from them in the use of comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology to differentiate man from "the animals nearest to him". He stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation. The history of civilization, as well as ethnology, are to be brought into the comparison. It is to be presumed fundamentally that the species, man, is a unity, and that "the same laws of thought are applicable to all men".Waitz was influential among British ethnologists. In 1863, the explorer Richard Francis Burton and the speech therapist James Hunt broke away from the Ethnological Society of London to form the Anthropological Society of London, which henceforward would follow the path of the new anthropology rather than just ethnology. It was the 2nd society dedicated to general anthropology in existence. Representatives from the French Société were present, though not Broca. In his keynote address, printed in the first volume of its new publication, The Anthropological Review, Hunt stressed the work of Waitz, adopting his definitions as a standard. Among the first associates were the young Edward Burnett Tylor, inventor of cultural anthropology, and his brother Alfred Tylor, a geologist. Previously Edward had referred to himself as an ethnologist; subsequently, an anthropologist.Similar organizations in other countries followed: The Anthropological Society of Madrid (1865), the American Anthropological Association in 1902, the Anthropological Society of Vienna (1870), the Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (1871), and many others subsequently. The majority of these were evolutionists. One notable exception was the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory (1869) founded by Rudolph Virchow, known for his vituperative attacks on the evolutionists. Not religious himself, he insisted that Darwin's conclusions lacked empirical foundation.During the last three decades of the 19th century, a proliferation of anthropological societies and associations occurred, most independent, most publishing their own journals, and all international in membership and association. The major theorists belonged to these organizations. They supported the gradual osmosis of anthropology curricula into the major institutions of higher learning. By 1898, 48 educational institutions in 13 countries had some curriculum in anthropology. None of the 75 faculty members were under a department named anthropology.20th and 21st centuriesThis meager statistic expanded in the 20th century to comprise anthropology departments in the majority of the world's higher educational institutions, many thousands in number. Anthropology has diversified from a few major subdivisions to dozens more. Practical anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge and technique to solve specific problems, has arrived; for example, the presence of buried victims might stimulate the use of a forensic archaeologist to recreate the final scene. The organization has reached a global level. For example, the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), "a network of national, regional and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology", currently contains members from about three dozen nations.Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social anthropology in Great Britain and cultural anthropology in the US have been distinguished from other social sciences by their emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons, long-term in-depth examination of context, and the importance they place on participant-observation or experiential immersion in the area of research. Cultural anthropology, in particular, has emphasized cultural relativism, holism, and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas' arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism. Ethnography is one of its primary research designs as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork.In Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the British tradition of social anthropology tends to dominate. In the United States, anthropology has traditionally been divided into the four field approach developed by Franz Boas in the early 20th century: biological or physical anthropology; social, cultural, or sociocultural anthropology; and archaeological anthropology; plus linguistic anthropology. These fields frequently overlap but tend to use different methodologies and techniques.European countries with overseas colonies tended to practice more ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783). It is sometimes referred to as sociocultural anthropology in the parts of the world that were influenced by the European tradition.FieldsAnthropology is a global discipline involving humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from natural sciences, including the discoveries about the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens, human physical traits, human behavior, the variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture, and from social sciences, including the organization of human social and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc. Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity, such as by Al-Biruni of the Islamic Golden Age. As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, and various ethnic studies.According to Clifford Geertz,Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies. During the 1970s and 1990s, there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline. During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in cultural and social anthropology. In contrast, archaeology and biological anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology, the four sub-fields of anthropology have lacked cohesion over the last several decades.SocioculturalSociocultural anthropology draws together the principle axes of cultural anthropology and social anthropology. Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of the manifold ways in which people make sense of the world around them, while social anthropology is the study of the relationships among individuals and groups. Cultural anthropology is more related to philosophy, literature and the arts (how one's culture affects the experience for self and group, contributing to a more complete understanding of the people's knowledge, customs, and institutions), while social anthropology is more related to sociology and history. In that, it helps develop an understanding of social structures, typically of others and other populations (such as minorities, subgroups, dissidents, etc.). There is no hard-and-fast distinction between them, and these categories overlap to a considerable degree.Inquiry in sociocultural anthropology is guided in part by cultural relativism, the attempt to understand other societies in terms of their own cultural symbols and values. Accepting other cultures in their own terms moderates reductionism in cross-cultural comparison. This project is often accommodated in the field of ethnography. Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and the product of ethnographic research, i.e. an ethnographic monograph. As a methodology, ethnography is based upon long-term fieldwork within a community or other research site. Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding a culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic, or technical) point of view.The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of sociocultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal. Sociocultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology).Comparison across cultures is a key element of method in sociocultural anthropology, including the industrialized (and de-industrialized) West. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) includes 186 such cultures.BiologicalBiological anthropology and physical anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines the biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation.ArchaeologicalArchaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways.LinguisticLinguistic anthropology (not to be confused with anthropological linguistics) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis.Ethnography Ethnography is a method of analysing social or cultural interaction. It often involves participant observation though an ethnographer may also draw from texts written by participants of in social interactions. Ethnography views first-hand experience and social context as important.Tim Ingold distinguishes ethnography from anthropology arguing that anthropology tries to construct general theories of human experience, applicable in general and novel settings, while ethnography concerns itself with fidelity. He argues that the anthropologist must make his writing consistent with their understanding of literature and other theory, but notes that ethnography may be of use to the anthropologists and the fields inform one another.Key topics by field: socioculturalArt, media, music, dance and filmArt One of the central problems in the anthropology of art concerns the universality of 'art' as a cultural phenomenon. Several anthropologists have noted that the Western categories of 'painting', 'sculpture', or 'literature', conceived as independent artistic activities, do not exist, or exist in a significantly different form, in most non-Western contexts. To surmount this difficulty, anthropologists of art have focused on formal features in objects which, without exclusively being 'artistic', have certain evident 'aesthetic' qualities. Boas' Primitive Art, Claude Lévi-Strauss' The Way of the Masks (1982) or Geertz's 'Art as Cultural System' (1983) are some examples in this trend to transform the anthropology of 'art' into an anthropology of culturally specific 'aesthetics'.Media Media anthropology (also known as the anthropology of media or mass media) emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. The types of ethnographic contexts explored range from contexts of media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in the field, film production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media. Other types include cyber anthropology, a relatively new area of internet research, as well as ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work, social movements, or health education. This is in addition to many classic ethnographic contexts, where media such as radio, the press, new media, and television have started to make their presences felt since the early 1990s.Music Ethnomusicology is an academic field encompassing various approaches to the study of music (broadly defined), that emphasize its cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts instead of or in addition to its isolated sound component or any particular repertoire.Ethnomusicology can be used in a wide variety of fields, such as teaching, politics, cultural anthropology etc.  While the origins of ethnomusicology date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, it was formally introduced as “ethnomusicology” by Dutch scholar Jaap Kunst around 1950. Later, the influence of study in this area spawned the creation of the periodical Ethnomusicology and the Society of Ethnomusicology.Visual Visual anthropology is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with ethnographic film, visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media. Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphics, paintings, and photographs are included in the focus of visual anthropology.Economic, political economic, applied and developmentEconomic Economic anthropology attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology begin with the Polish-British founder of anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, and his French compatriot, Marcel Mauss, on the nature of gift-giving exchange (or reciprocity) as an alternative to market exchange. Economic Anthropology remains, for the most part, focused upon exchange. The school of thought derived from Marx and known as Political Economy focuses on production, in contrast. Economic anthropologists have abandoned the primitivist niche they were relegated to by economists, and have now turned to examine corporations, banks, and the global financial system from an anthropological perspective.Political economyPolitical economy in anthropology is the application of the theories and methods of historical materialism to the traditional concerns of anthropology, including, but not limited to, non-capitalist societies. Political economy introduced questions of history and colonialism to ahistorical anthropological theories of social structure and culture. Three main areas of interest rapidly developed. The first of these areas was concerned with the "pre-capitalist" societies that were subject to evolutionary "tribal" stereotypes. Sahlin's work on hunter-gatherers as the "original affluent society" did much to dissipate that image. The second area was concerned with the vast majority of the world's population at the time, the peasantry, many of whom were involved in complex revolutionary wars such as in Vietnam. The third area was on colonialism, imperialism, and the creation of the capitalist world-system. More recently, these political economists have more directly addressed issues of industrial (and post-industrial) capitalism around the world.Applied Applied anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. It is a "complex of related, research-based, instrumental methods which produce change or stability in specific cultural systems through the provision of data, initiation of direct action, and/or the formulation of policy". More simply, applied anthropology is the practical side of anthropological research; it includes researcher involvement and activism within the participating community. It is closely related to development anthropology (distinct from the more critical anthropology of development).DevelopmentAnthropology of development tends to view development from a critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed and implications for the approach simply involve pondering why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short, why does so much planned development fail?Kinship, feminism, gender and sexualityKinship Kinship can refer both to the study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it can refer to the patterns of social relationships themselves. Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as "descent", "descent groups", "lineages", "affines", "cognates", and even "fictive kinship". Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one's social relations during development), and also relatives by marriage. Within kinship you have two different families. People have their biological families and it is the people they share DNA with. This is called consanguineal relations or "blood ties". People can also have a chosen family Finding Connection Through "Chosen Family" in which they chose who they want to be a part of their family. In some cases people are closer with their chosen family more than with their biological families.Feminist Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology (archeological, biological, cultural, linguistic) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge. Anthropology engages often with feminists from non-Western traditions, whose perspectives and experiences can differ from those of white feminists of Europe, America, and elsewhere. From the perspective of the Western world, historically such 'peripheral' perspectives have been ignored, observed only from an outsider perspective, and regarded as less-valid or less-important than knowledge from the Western world. Exploring and addressing that double bias against women from marginalized racial or ethnic groups is of particular interest in intersectional feminist anthropology.Feminist anthropologists have stated that their publications have contributed to anthropology, along the way correcting against the systemic biases beginning with the "patriarchal origins of anthropology (and (academia)" and note that from 1891 to 1930 doctorates in anthropology went to males more than 85%, more than 81% were under 35, and only 7.2% to anyone over 40 years old, thus reflecting an age gap in the pursuit of anthropology by first-wave feminists until later in life. This correction of systemic bias may include mainstream feminist theory, history, linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology. Feminist anthropologists are often concerned with the construction of gender across societies. Gender constructs are of particular interest when studying sexism.According to St. Clair Drake, Vera Mae Green was, until "[w]ell into the 1960s", the only African-American female anthropologist who was also a Caribbeanist. She studied ethnic and family relations in the Caribbean as well as the United States, and thereby tried to improve the way black life, experiences, and culture were studied. However, Zora Neale Hurston, although often primarily considered to be a literary author, was trained in anthropology by Franz Boas, and published Tell my Horse about her "anthropological observations" of voodoo in the Caribbean (1938).Feminist anthropology is inclusive of the anthropology of birth as a specialization, which is the anthropological study of pregnancy and childbirth within cultures and societies.Medical, nutritional, psychological, cognitive and transpersonalMedical Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It is believed that William Caudell was the first to discover the field of medical anthropology. Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields:Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering (Farmer, 1999, 2003; Beneduce, 2010) as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not a result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry.Nutritional Nutritional anthropology is a synthetic concept that deals with the interplay between economic systems, nutritional status and food security, and how changes in the former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and economic trends associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people.Psychological Psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes. This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group –  with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories –  shape processes of human cognition, emotion, perception, motivation, and mental health. It also examines how the understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes.Cognitive Cognitive anthropology seeks to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural innovation, and transmission over time and space using the methods and theories of the cognitive sciences (especially experimental psychology and evolutionary biology) often through close collaboration with historians, ethnographers, archaeologists, linguists, musicologists and other specialists engaged in the description and interpretation of cultural forms. Cognitive anthropology is concerned with what people from different groups know and how that implicit knowledge changes the way people perceive and relate to the world around them.Transpersonal Transpersonal anthropology studies the relationship between altered states of consciousness and culture. As with transpersonal psychology, the field is much concerned with altered states of consciousness (ASC) and transpersonal experience. However, the field differs from mainstream transpersonal psychology in taking more cognizance of cross-cultural issues –  for instance, the roles of myth, ritual, diet, and texts in evoking and interpreting extraordinary experiences.Political and legalPolitical Political anthropology concerns the structure of political systems, looked at from the basis of the structure of societies. Political anthropology developed as a discipline concerned primarily with politics in stateless societies, a new development started from the 1960s, and is still unfolding: anthropologists started increasingly to study more "complex" social settings in which the presence of states, bureaucracies and markets entered both ethnographic accounts and analysis of local phenomena. The turn towards complex societies meant that political themes were taken up at two main levels. Firstly, anthropologists continued to study political organization and political phenomena that lay outside the state-regulated sphere (as in patron-client relations or tribal political organization). Secondly, anthropologists slowly started to develop a disciplinary concern with states and their institutions (and on the relationship between formal and informal political institutions). An anthropology of the state developed, and it is a most thriving field today. Geertz' comparative work on "Negara", the Balinese state, is an early, famous example.LegalLegal anthropology or anthropology of law specializes in "the cross-cultural study of social ordering". Earlier legal anthropological research often focused more narrowly on conflict management, crime, sanctions, or formal regulation. More recent applications include issues such as human rights, legal pluralism, and political uprisings.PublicPublic anthropology was created by Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, to "demonstrate the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline – illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change".Nature, science, and technologyCyborgCyborg anthropology originated as a sub-focus group within the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting in 1993. The sub-group was very closely related to STS and the Society for the Social Studies of Science. Donna Haraway's 1985 Cyborg Manifesto could be considered the founding document of cyborg anthropology by first exploring the philosophical and sociological ramifications of the term. Cyborg anthropology studies humankind and its relations with the technological systems it has built, specifically modern technological systems that have reflexively shaped notions of what it means to be human beings.Digital Digital anthropology is the study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology, and extends to various areas where anthropology and technology intersect. It is sometimes grouped with sociocultural anthropology, and sometimes considered part of material culture. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology, digital ethnography, cyberanthropology, and virtual anthropology.Ecological Ecological anthropology is defined as the "study of cultural adaptations to environments". The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment". The focus of its research concerns "how cultural beliefs and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, and how their environments change across space and time. The contemporary perspective of environmental anthropology, and arguably at least the backdrop, if not the focus of most of the ethnographies and cultural fieldworks of today, is political ecology. Many characterize this new perspective as more informed with culture, politics and power, globalization, localized issues, century anthropology and more. The focus and data interpretation is often used for arguments for/against or creation of policy, and to prevent corporate exploitation and damage of land. Often, the observer has become an active part of the struggle either directly (organizing, participation) or indirectly (articles, documentaries, books, ethnographies). Such is the case with environmental justice advocate Melissa Checker and her relationship with the people of Hyde Park.Environment Social sciences, like anthropology, can provide interdisciplinary approaches to the environment. Professor Kay Milton, Director of the Anthropology research network in the School of History and Anthropology, describes anthropology as distinctive, with its most distinguishing feature being its interest in non-industrial indigenous and traditional societies. Anthropological theory is distinct because of the consistent presence of the concept of culture; not an exclusive topic but a central position in the study and a deep concern with the human condition. Milton describes three trends that are causing a fundamental shift in what characterizes anthropology: dissatisfaction with the cultural relativist perspective, reaction against cartesian dualisms which obstructs progress in theory (nature culture divide), and finally an increased attention to globalization (transcending the barriers or time/space).Environmental discourse appears to be characterized by a high degree of globalization. (The troubling problem is borrowing non indigenous practices and creating standards, concepts, philosophies and practices in western countries.) Anthropology and environmental discourse now have become a distinct position in anthropology as a discipline. Knowledge about diversities in human culture can be important in addressing environmental problems - anthropology is now a study of human ecology. Human activity is the most important agent in creating environmental change, a study commonly found in human ecology which can claim a central place in how environmental problems are examined and addressed. Other ways anthropology contributes to environmental discourse is by being theorists and analysts,  or by refinement of definitions to become more neutral/universal, etc. In exploring environmentalism - the term typically refers to a concern that the environment should be protected, particularly from the harmful effects of human activities. Environmentalism itself can be expressed in many ways. Anthropologists can open the doors of environmentalism by looking beyond industrial society, understanding the opposition between industrial and non industrial relationships, knowing what ecosystem people and biosphere people are and are affected by, dependent and independent variables, “primitive” ecological wisdom, diverse environments, resource management, diverse cultural traditions, and knowing that environmentalism is a part of culture.Historical Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today. Ethnohistory uses both historical and ethnographic data as its foundation. Its historical methods and materials go beyond the standard use of documents and manuscripts. Practitioners recognize the utility of such source material as maps, music, paintings, photography, folklore, oral tradition, site exploration, archaeological materials, museum collections, enduring customs, language, and place names.Religion The anthropology of religion involves the study of religious institutions in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. Modern anthropology assumes that there is complete continuity between magical thinking and religion, and that every religion is a cultural product, created by the human community that worships it.Urban Urban anthropology is concerned with issues of urbanization, poverty, and neoliberalism. Ulf Hannerz quotes a 1960s remark that traditional anthropologists were "a notoriously agoraphobic lot, anti-urban by definition". Various social processes in the Western World as well as in the "Third World" (the latter being the habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of "specialists in 'other cultures'" closer to their homes. There are two main approaches to urban anthropology: examining the types of cities or examining the social issues within the cities. These two methods are overlapping and dependent of each other. By defining different types of cities, one would use social factors as well as economic and political factors to categorize the cities. By directly looking at the different social issues, one would also be studying how they affect the dynamic of the city.Key topics by field: archaeological and biologicalAnthrozoology Anthrozoology (also known as "human–animal studies") is the study of interaction between living things. It is an interdisciplinary field that overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology. A major focus of anthrozoologic research is the quantifying of the positive effects of human-animal relationships on either party and the study of their interactions. It includes scholars from a diverse range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, biology, and philosophy.Biocultural Biocultural anthropology is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. Physical anthropologists throughout the first half of the 20th century viewed this relationship from a racial perspective; that is, from the assumption that typological human biological differences lead to cultural differences. After World War II the emphasis began to shift toward an effort to explore the role culture plays in shaping human biology.Evolutionary Evolutionary anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and the relation between hominins and non-hominin primates. Evolutionary anthropology is based in natural science and social science, combining the human development with socioeconomic factors. Evolutionary anthropology is concerned with both biological and cultural evolution of humans, past and present. It is based on a scientific approach, and brings together fields such as archaeology, behavioral ecology, psychology, primatology, and genetics. It is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field, drawing on many lines of evidence to understand the human experience, past and present.Forensic Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology and human osteology in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are in the advanced stages of decomposition. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable. The adjective "forensic" refers to the application of this subfield of science to a court of law.Palaeoanthropology Paleoanthropology combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology. It is the study of ancient humans, as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints. Genetics and morphology of specimens are crucially important to this field. Markers on specimens, such as enamel fractures and dental decay on teeth, can also give insight into the behaviour and diet of past populations.Organizations Contemporary anthropology is an established science with academic departments at most universities and colleges. The single largest organization of anthropologists is the American Anthropological Association (AAA), which was founded in 1903. Its members are anthropologists from around the globe.In 1989, a group of European and American scholars in the field of anthropology established the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) which serves as a major professional organization for anthropologists working in Europe. The EASA seeks to advance the status of anthropology in Europe and to increase visibility of marginalized anthropological traditions and thereby contribute to the project of a global anthropology or world anthropology.Hundreds of other organizations exist in the various sub-fields of anthropology, sometimes divided up by nation or region, and many anthropologists work with collaborators in other disciplines, such as geology, physics, zoology, paleontology, anatomy, music theory, art history, sociology and so on, belonging to professional societies in those disciplines as well.List of major organizations American Anthropological Association American Ethnological Society Asociación de Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red, AIBR Moving Anthropology Student Network Anthropological Society of London Center for World Indigenous Studies Ethnological Society of London Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Network of Concerned Anthropologists N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Society for anthropological sciences Society for Applied Anthropology USC Center for Visual AnthropologyEthicsAs the field has matured it has debated and arrived at ethical principles aimed at protecting both the subjects of anthropological research as well as the researchers themselves, and professional societies have generated codes of ethics.Anthropologists, like other researchers (especially historians and scientists engaged in field research), have over time assisted state policies and projects, especially colonialism.Some commentators have contended: That the discipline grew out of colonialism, perhaps was in league with it, and derives some of its key notions from it, consciously or not. (See, for example, Gough, Pels and Salemink, but cf. Lewis 2004). That ethnographic work is often ahistorical, writing about people as if they were "out of time" in an "ethnographic present" (Johannes Fabian, Time and Its Other).In his article "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and Its Consequence," Herbert S. Lewis critiqued older anthropological works that presented other cultures as if they were strange and unusual. While the findings of those researchers should not be discarded, the field should learn from its mistakes.Cultural relativism As part of their quest for scientific objectivity, present-day anthropologists typically urge cultural relativism, which has an influence on all the sub-fields of anthropology. This is the notion that cultures should not be judged by another's values or viewpoints, but be examined dispassionately on their own terms. There should be no notions, in good anthropology, of one culture being better or worse than another culture.Ethical commitments in anthropology include noticing and documenting genocide, infanticide, racism, sexism, mutilation (including circumcision and subincision), and torture. Topics like racism, slavery, and human sacrifice attract anthropological attention and theories ranging from nutritional deficiencies, to genes, to acculturation, to colonialism, have been proposed to explain their origins and continued recurrences.To illustrate the depth of an anthropological approach, one can take just one of these topics, such as "racism" and find thousands of anthropological references, stretching across all the major and minor sub-fields.Military involvementAnthropologists' involvement with the U.S. government, in particular, has caused bitter controversy within the discipline. Franz Boas publicly objected to US participation in World War I, and after the war he published a brief expose and condemnation of the participation of several American archaeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists.But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces, while others worked in intelligence (for example, Office of Strategic Services and the Office of War Information). At the same time, David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists from their jobs for communist sympathies.Attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little. Many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement. Numerous resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the state. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth (ASA) has called certain scholarship ethically dangerous. The "Principles of Professional Responsibility" issued by the American Anthropological Association and amended through November 1986 stated that "in relation with their own government and with host governments ... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given." The current "Principles of Professional Responsibility" does not make explicit mention of ethics surrounding state interactions.Anthropologists, along with other social scientists, are working with the US military as part of the US Army's strategy in Afghanistan. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "Counterinsurgency efforts focus on better grasping and meeting local needs" in Afghanistan, under the Human Terrain System (HTS) program; in addition, HTS teams are working with the US military in Iraq. In 2009, the American Anthropological Association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities released its final report concluding, in part, that, "When ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment – all characteristic factors of the HTS concept and its application – it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology. In summary, while we stress that constructive engagement between anthropology and the military is possible, CEAUSSIC suggests that the AAA emphasize the incompatibility of HTS with disciplinary ethics and practice for job seekers and that it further recognize the problem of allowing HTS to define the meaning of "anthropology" within DoD."Post–World War II developmentsBefore WWII British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. After the war, enough British and American anthropologists borrowed ideas and methodological approaches from one another that some began to speak of them collectively as 'sociocultural' anthropology.Basic trendsThere are several characteristics that tend to unite anthropological work. One of the central characteristics is that anthropology tends to provide a comparatively more holistic account of phenomena and tends to be highly empirical. The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a particular place, problem or phenomenon in detail, using a variety of methods, over a more extensive period than normal in many parts of academia.In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological.Biological anthropologists are interested in both human variation and in the possibility of human universals (behaviors, ideas or concepts shared by virtually all human cultures). They use many different methods of study, but modern population genetics, participant observation and other techniques often take anthropologists "into the field," which means traveling to a community in its own setting, to do something called "fieldwork."  On the biological or physical side, human measurements, genetic samples, nutritional data may be gathered and published as articles or monographs.Along with dividing up their project by theoretical emphasis, anthropologists typically divide the world up into relevant time periods and geographic regions. Human time on Earth is divided up into relevant cultural traditions based on material, such as the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, of particular use in archaeology. Further cultural subdivisions according to tool types, such as Olduwan or Mousterian or Levalloisian help archaeologists and other anthropologists in understanding major trends in the human past. Anthropologists and geographers share approaches to culture regions as well, since mapping cultures is central to both sciences. By making comparisons across cultural traditions (time-based) and cultural regions (space-based), anthropologists have developed various kinds of comparative method, a central part of their science.Commonalities between fieldsBecause anthropology developed from so many different enterprises (see History of anthropology), including but not limited to fossil-hunting, exploring, documentary film-making, paleontology, primatology, antiquity dealings and curatorship, philology, etymology, genetics, regional analysis, ethnology, history, philosophy, and religious studies, it is difficult to characterize the entire field in a brief article, although attempts to write histories of the entire field have been made.Some authors argue that anthropology originated and developed as the study of "other cultures", both in terms of time (past societies) and space (non-European/non-Western societies). For example, the classic of urban anthropology, Ulf Hannerz in the introduction to his seminal Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology mentions that the "Third World" had habitually received most of attention; anthropologists who traditionally specialized in "other cultures" looked for them far away and started to look "across the tracks" only in late 1960s.Now there exist many works focusing on peoples and topics very close to the author's "home". It is also argued that other fields of study, like History and Sociology, on the contrary focus disproportionately on the West.In France, the study of Western societies has been traditionally left to sociologists, but this is increasingly changing, starting in the 1970s from scholars like Isac Chiva and journals like Terrain ("fieldwork"), and developing with the center founded by Marc Augé (Le Centre d'anthropologie des mondes contemporains, the Anthropological Research Center of Contemporary Societies).Since the 1980s it has become common for social and cultural anthropologists to set ethnographic research in the North Atlantic region, frequently examining the connections between locations rather than limiting research to a single locale. There has also been a related shift toward broadening the focus beyond the daily life of ordinary people; increasingly, research is set in settings such as scientific laboratories, social movements, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and businesses.See also Anthropological science fiction Christian anthropology, a sub-field of theology Circumscription theory Culture Dual inheritance theory Engaged theory Ethnobiology Human behavioral ecology Human ethology Human Relations Area Files Intangible cultural heritage Origins of society Philosophical anthropology, a sub-field of philosophy Prehistoric medicine Qualitative researchLists Outline of anthropology List of indigenous peoples List of anthropologistsNotesReferencesFurther readingDictionaries and encyclopediasFieldnotes and memoirsHistories            .Textbooks and key theoretical worksExternal links               (AIO)
Agricultural science (or agriscience for short) is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Professionals of the agricultural science are called agricultural scientists or agriculturists.HistoryIn the 18th century, Johann Friedrich Mayer conducted experiments on the use of gypsum (hydrated calcium sulphate) as a fertilizer.In 1843, John Lawes and Joseph Henry Gilbert began a set of long-term field experiments at Rothamsted Research Station in England, some of which are still running as of 2018.In the United States, a scientific revolution in agriculture began with the Hatch Act of 1887, which used the term "agricultural science". The Hatch Act was driven by farmers' interest in knowing the constituents of early artificial fertilizer. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 shifted agricultural education back to its vocational roots, but the scientific foundation had been built. After 1906, public expenditures on agricultural research in the US exceeded private expenditures for the next 44 years.Prominent agricultural scientists Robert Bakewell Norman Borlaug Luther Burbank George Washington Carver Carl Henry Clerk George C. Clerk René Dumont Sir Albert Howard Kailas Nath KaulThomas Lecky Justus von Liebig Jay Lush Gregor Mendel Louis Pasteur M. S. Swaminathan Jethro Tull Artturi Ilmari Virtanen Sewall Wright Wilbur Olin AtwaterFields or related disciplines Agricultural biotechnology Agricultural chemistry Agricultural diversification Agricultural education Agricultural economics Agricultural engineering Agricultural geography Agricultural philosophy Agricultural marketing Agricultural soil science Agroecology Agrophysics Animal science Animal breeding Animal husbandry Animal nutrition Farm management Agronomy Botany Theoretical production ecology Horticulture Plant breeding Plant fertilization Aquaculture Biological engineering Genetic engineering Nematology Microbiology Plant pathologyRange management Environmental science Entomology Food science Human nutrition Irrigation and water management Soil science Agrology Waste management Weed scienceScopeAgriculture, agricultural science, and agronomy are often confused. However, they cover different concepts:Agriculture is the set of activities that transform the environment for the production of animals and plants for human use. Agriculture concerns techniques, including the application of agronomic research.Agronomy is research and development related to studying and improving plant-based crops.Soil forming factors and soil degradationAgricultural sciences include research and development on: Improving agricultural productivity in terms of quantity and quality (e.g., selection of drought-resistant crops and animals, development of new pesticides, yield-sensing technologies, simulation models of crop growth, in-vitro cell culture techniques) Minimizing the effects of pests (weeds, insects, pathogens, mollusks, nematodes) on crop or animal production systems. Transformation of primary products into end-consumer products (e.g., production, preservation, and packaging of dairy products) Prevention and correction of adverse environmental effects (e.g., soil degradation, waste management, bioremediation) Theoretical production ecology, relating to crop production modeling Traditional agricultural systems, sometimes termed subsistence agriculture, which feed most of the poorest people in the world.  These systems are of interest as they sometimes retain a level of integration with natural ecological systems greater than that of industrial agriculture, which may be more sustainable than some modern agricultural systems. Food production and demand on a global basis, with special attention paid to the major producers, such as China, India, Brazil, the US and the EU. Various sciences relating to agricultural resources and the environment (e.g. soil science, agroclimatology); biology of agricultural crops and animals (e.g. crop science, animal science and their included sciences, e.g. ruminant nutrition, farm animal welfare); such fields as agricultural economics and rural sociology; various disciplines encompassed in agricultural engineering.See also Agricultural Research Council Agricultural sciences basic topics Agriculture ministry Agroecology American Society of Agronomy Genomics of domestication History of agricultural science Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI List of agriculture topics National FFA Organization Research Institute of Crop Production (RICP) (in the Czech Republic) University of Agricultural SciencesReferencesFurther readingAgricultural Research, Livelihoods, and Poverty: Studies of Economic and Social Impacts in Six Countries Edited by Michelle Adato and Ruth Meinzen-Dick (2007), Johns Hopkins University Press Food Policy ReportClaude Bourguignon, Regenerating the Soil: From Agronomy to Agrology, Other India Press, 2005Pimentel David, Pimentel Marcia, Computer les kilocalories, Cérès, n. 59, sept-oct. 1977Russell E. Walter, Soil conditions and plant growth, Longman group, London, New York 1973 Saltini Antonio, Storia delle scienze agrarie, 4 vols, Bologna 1984–89, , , , Vavilov Nicolai I. (Starr Chester K. editor), The Origin, Variation, Immunity and Breeding of Cultivated Plants. Selected Writings, in Chronica botanica, 13: 1–6, Waltham, Mass., 1949–50Vavilov Nicolai I., World Resources of Cereals, Leguminous Seed Crops and Flax, Academy of Sciences of Urss, National Science Foundation, Washington, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem 1960Winogradsky Serge, Microbiologie du sol. Problèmes et methodes. Cinquante ans de recherches, Masson & c.ie, Paris 1949External linksConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)Agricultural Research ServiceIndian Council of Agricultural ResearchInternational Institute of Tropical AgricultureInternational Livestock Research InstituteThe National Agricultural Library (NAL) - The most comprehensive agricultural library in the world.Crop Science Society of AmericaAmerican Society of AgronomySoil Science Society of AmericaAgricultural Science Researchers, Jobs and DiscussionsInformation System for Agriculture and Food ResearchSouth Dakota Agricultural LaboratoriesNMSU Department of Entomology Plant Pathology and Weed ScienceUP AgricultureBihar Agriculture
Alchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā; from Ancient Greek: khumeía) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries CE.Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical magnum opus ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these projects.Islamic and European alchemists developed a basic set of laboratory techniques, theories, and terms, some of which are still in use today. They did not abandon the Ancient Greek philosophical idea that everything is composed of four elements, and they tended to guard their work in secrecy, often making use of cyphers and cryptic symbolism. In Europe, the 12th-century translations of medieval Islamic works on science and the rediscovery of Aristotelian philosophy gave birth to a flourishing tradition of Latin alchemy. This late medieval tradition of alchemy would go on to play a significant role in the development of early modern science (particularly chemistry and medicine).Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric spiritual aspects, despite criticisms by scholars such as Eric J. Holmyard and Marie-Louise von Franz that they should be understood as complementary. The former is pursued by historians of the physical sciences, who examine the subject in terms of early chemistry, medicine, and charlatanism, and the philosophical and religious contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of esotericism, psychologists, and some philosophers and spiritualists. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts.Etymology The word alchemy comes from Old French alquemie, alkimie, used in Medieval Latin as . This name was itself brought from the Arabic word al-kīmiyā ( or ) composed of two parts: the Late Greek term khēmeía (χημεία), also spelled khumeia (χυμεία) and khēmía (χημία) - see below, and the Arabic definite article al-  (), meaning 'The'. Together this association can be interpreted as 'the process of transmutation by which to fuse or reunite with the divine or original form'. Several etymologies have been proposed for the Greek term. The first was proposed by Zosimos of Panopolis (3rd–4th centuries), who derived it from the name of a book, the Khemeu. Hermanm Diels argued in 1914 that it rather derived from χύμα, used to describe metallic objects formed by casting.Others trace its roots to the Egyptian name kēme (hieroglyphic 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 khmi ), meaning 'black earth', which refers to the fertile and auriferous soil of the Nile valley, as opposed to red desert sand. According to the Egyptologist Wallis Budge, the Arabic word al-kīmiyaʾ actually means "the Egyptian [science]", borrowing from the Coptic word for "Egypt", kēme (or its equivalent in the Mediaeval Bohairic dialect of Coptic, khēme). This Coptic word derives from Demotic kmỉ, itself from ancient Egyptian kmt. The ancient Egyptian word referred to both the country and the colour "black" (Egypt was the "Black Land", by contrast with the "Red Land", the surrounding desert); so this etymology could also explain the nickname "Egyptian black arts".History Alchemy encompasses several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents. These traditions' general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and "genetic" relationships. One can distinguish at least three major strands, which appear to be mostly independent, at least in their earlier stages: Chinese alchemy, centered in China and Indian alchemy, centered on the Indian subcontinent; and Western alchemy, which occurred around the Mediterranean and whose center has shifted over the millennia from Greco-Roman Egypt to the Islamic world, and finally medieval Europe. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Dharmic faiths. In contrast, Western alchemy developed its philosophical system mostly independent of but influenced by various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.Hellenistic Egypt The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria  was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre-eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. Following the work of André-Jean Festugière, modern scholars see alchemical practice in the Roman Empire as originating from the Egyptian goldsmith's art, Greek philosophy and different religious traditions. Tracing the origins of the alchemical art in Egypt is complicated by the pseudepigraphic nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of Zosimos of Panopolis, the earliest historically attested author (fl. c. 300 CE), can help in situating the other authors. Zosimus based his work on that of older alchemical authors, such as Mary the Jewess, Pseudo-Democritus, and Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus, were probably written in the first century AD.Recent scholarship tends to emphasize the testimony of Zosimus, who traced the alchemical arts back to Egyptian metallurgical and ceremonial practices. It has also been argued that early alchemical writers borrowed the vocabulary of Greek philosophical schools but did not implement any of its doctrines in a systematic way. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote in the Final Abstinence (also known as the "Final Count"). Zosimos explains that the ancient practice of "tinctures" (the technical Greek name for the alchemical arts) had been taken over by certain "demons" who taught the art only to those who offered them sacrifices. Since Zosimos also called the demons "guardians of places" (οἱ κατὰ τόπον ἔφοροι) and those who offered them sacrifices "priests" (ἱερέα), it is fairly clear that he was referring to the gods of Egypt and their priests. While critical of the kind of alchemy he associated with the Egyptian priests and their followers, Zosimos nonetheless saw the tradition's recent past as rooted in the rites of the Egyptian temples.Mythology – Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation. These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others.The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge. The Hermetica of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era.Technology – The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, extending back to 3500 BC. Many writings were lost when the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria (AD 292). Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the Stockholm papyrus and the Leyden papyrus X. Dating from AD 250–300, they contained recipes for dyeing and making artificial gemstones, cleaning and fabricating pearls, and manufacturing of imitation gold and silver. These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of Bolus of Mendes (or Pseudo-Democritus), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements. Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art.Philosophy – Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemy's character. An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modern elements are; "...True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form." Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging Christianity. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. St Augustine later affirmed this in the 4th & 5th centuries, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry. Examples of Pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period.Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses, Isis, Cleopatra, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, we only know through fragments of text. After AD 400, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors. By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline. It was at that time that Khalid Ibn Yazid sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.Byzantium Greek alchemy is preserved in medieval Greek (Byzantine) manuscripts, and yet historians have only relatively recently begun to pay attention to the study and development of Greek alchemy in the Byzantine period.India The 2nd millennium BC text Vedas describe a connection between eternal life and gold. A considerable knowledge of metallurgy has been exhibited in a third-century CE text called Arthashastra which provides ingredients of explosives (Agniyoga) and salts extracted from fertile soils and plant remains (Yavakshara) such as saltpetre/nitre, perfume making (different qualities of perfumes are mentioned), granulated (refined) Sugar. Buddhist texts from the 2nd to 5th centuries mention the transmutation of base metals to gold. According to some scholars Greek alchemy may have influenced Indian alchemy but there are no hard evidences to back this claim.The 11th-century Persian chemist and physician Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī, who visited Gujarat as part of the court of Mahmud of Ghazni, reported that theyThe goals of alchemy in India included the creation of a divine body (Sanskrit divya-deham) and immortality while still embodied (Sanskrit jīvan-mukti).  Sanskrit alchemical texts include much material on the manipulation of mercury and sulphur, that are homologized with the semen of the god Śiva and the menstrual blood of the goddess Devī.Some early alchemical writings seem to have their origins in the Kaula tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of Matsyendranath.  Other early writings are found in the Jaina medical treatise Kalyāṇakārakam of Ugrāditya, written in South India in the early 9th century.Two famous early Indian alchemical authors were Nāgārjuna Siddha and Nityanātha Siddha. Nāgārjuna Siddha was a Buddhist monk. His book, Rasendramangalam, is an example of Indian alchemy and medicine. Nityanātha Siddha wrote Rasaratnākara, also a highly influential work. In Sanskrit, rasa translates to "mercury", and Nāgārjuna Siddha was said to have developed a method of converting mercury into gold.Scholarship on Indian alchemy is in the publication of The Alchemical Body by David Gordon White. A modern bibliography on Indian alchemical studies has been written by White.The contents of 39 Sanskrit alchemical treatises have been analysed in detail in G. Jan Meulenbeld's History of Indian Medical Literature. The discussion of these works in HIML gives a summary of the contents of each work, their special features, and where possible the evidence concerning their dating. Chapter 13 of HIML, Various works on rasaśāstra and ratnaśāstra (or Various works on alchemy and gems) gives brief details of a further 655 (six hundred and fifty-five) treatises.  In some cases Meulenbeld gives notes on the contents and authorship of these works; in other cases references are made only to the unpublished manuscripts of these titles.A great deal remains to be discovered about Indian alchemical literature.  The content of the Sanskrit alchemical corpus has not yet (2014) been adequately integrated into the wider general history of alchemy.Islamic world After the Fall of the Roman Empire, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about Islamic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations. The word alchemy itself was derived from the Arabic word al-kīmiyā (الكيمياء). The early Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy. Platonic and Aristotelian thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries through Syriac translations and scholarship.In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. Paul Kraus, who wrote the standard reference work on Jabir, put it as follows:Islamic philosophers also made great contributions to alchemical hermeticism. The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir. Jabir's ultimate goal was Takwin, the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory, up to, and including, human life. He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. According to Jabir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result. By this reasoning, the search for the philosopher's stone was introduced to Western alchemy. Jabir developed an elaborate numerology whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.The elemental system used in medieval alchemy also originated with Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five classical elements (aether, air, earth, fire, and water) in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: sulphur, "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and salt giving solidity. The atomic theory of corpuscularianism, where all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles, also has its origins in the work of Jabir.From the 9th to 14th centuries, alchemical theories faced criticism from a variety of practical Muslim chemists, including Alkindus, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Avicenna and Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the transmutation of metals.East Asia Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine. The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. In the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected, and the philosopher's stone was often equated with the universal panacea; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than initially appears.Black powder may have been an important invention of Chinese alchemists. As previously stated above, Chinese alchemy was more related to medicine. It is said that the Chinese invented gunpowder while trying to find a potion for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts and used in fireworks in China by the 10th century, it was used in cannons by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder spread to Japan, the Mongols, the Muslim world, and Europe. Gunpowder was used by the Mongols against the Hungarians in 1241, and in Europe by the 14th century.Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoist forms of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion. In the early Song dynasty, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest mercuric sulfide, which, though tolerable in low levels, led many to suicide. Thinking that this consequential death would lead to freedom and access to the Taoist heavens, the ensuing deaths encouraged people to eschew this method of alchemy in favor of external sources (the aforementioned Tai Chi Chuan, mastering of the qi, etc.)  Chinese alchemy was introduced to the West by Obed Simon Johnson.Medieval Europe The introduction of alchemy to Latin Europe may be dated to 11 February 1144, with the completion of Robert of Chester's translation of the Arabic Book of the Composition of Alchemy. Although European craftsmen and technicians pre-existed, Robert notes in his preface that alchemy (though here still referring to the elixir rather than to the art itself) was unknown in Latin Europe at the time of his writing. The translation of Arabic texts concerning numerous disciplines including alchemy flourished in 12th-century Toledo, Spain, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath. Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum, and the works of Avicenna and Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi. These brought with them many new words to the European vocabulary for which there was no previous Latin equivalent. Alcohol, carboy, elixir, and athanor are examples.Meanwhile, theologian contemporaries of the translators made strides towards the reconciliation of faith and experimental rationalism, thereby priming Europe for the influx of alchemical thought. The 11th-century St Anselm put forth the opinion that faith and rationalism were compatible and encouraged rationalism in a Christian context. In the early 12th century, Peter Abelard followed Anselm's work, laying down the foundation for acceptance of Aristotelian thought before the first works of Aristotle had reached the West. In the early 13th century, Robert Grosseteste used Abelard's methods of analysis and added the use of observation, experimentation, and conclusions when conducting scientific investigations. Grosseteste also did much work to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian thinking.Through much of the 12th and 13th centuries, alchemical knowledge in Europe remained centered on translations, and new Latin contributions were not made. The efforts of the translators were succeeded by that of the encyclopaedists. In the 13th century, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon were the most notable of these, their work summarizing and explaining the newly imported alchemical knowledge in Aristotelian terms. Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar, is known to have written works such as the Book of Minerals where he observed and commented on the operations and theories of alchemical authorities like Hermes and Democritus and unnamed alchemists of his time. Albertus critically compared these to the writings of Aristotle and Avicenna, where they concerned the transmutation of metals. From the time shortly after his death through to the 15th century, more than 28 alchemical tracts were misattributed to him, a common practice giving rise to his reputation as an accomplished alchemist. Likewise, alchemical texts have been attributed to Albert's student Thomas Aquinas.Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar who wrote on a wide variety of topics including optics, comparative linguistics, and medicine, composed his Great Work () for  as part of a project towards rebuilding the medieval university curriculum to include the new learning of his time. While alchemy was not more important to him than other sciences and he did not produce allegorical works on the topic, he did consider it and astrology to be important parts of both natural philosophy and theology and his contributions advanced alchemy's connections to soteriology and Christian theology. Bacon's writings integrated morality, salvation, alchemy, and the prolongation of life. His correspondence with Clement highlighted this, noting the importance of alchemy to the papacy. Like the Greeks before him, Bacon acknowledged the division of alchemy into practical and theoretical spheres. He noted that the theoretical lay outside the scope of Aristotle, the natural philosophers, and all Latin writers of his time. The practical confirmed the theoretical, and Bacon advocated its uses in natural science and medicine. In later European legend, he became an archmage. In particular, along with Albertus Magnus, he was credited with the forging of a brazen head capable of answering its owner's questions.Soon after Bacon, the influential work of Pseudo-Geber (sometimes identified as Paul of Taranto) appeared. His Summa Perfectionis remained a staple summary of alchemical practice and theory through the medieval and renaissance periods. It was notable for its inclusion of practical chemical operations alongside sulphur-mercury theory, and the unusual clarity with which they were described. By the end of the 13th century, alchemy had developed into a fairly structured system of belief. Adepts believed in the macrocosm-microcosm theories of Hermes, that is to say, they believed that processes that affect minerals and other substances could have an effect on the human body (for example, if one could learn the secret of purifying gold, one could use the technique to purify the human soul). They believed in the four elements and the four qualities as described above, and they had a strong tradition of cloaking their written ideas in a labyrinth of coded jargon set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theories about how the universe operated. Their entire philosophy revolved around their belief that man's soul was divided within himself after the fall of Adam. By purifying the two parts of man's soul, man could be reunited with God.In the 14th century, alchemy became more accessible to Europeans outside the confines of Latin speaking churchmen and scholars. Alchemical discourse shifted from scholarly philosophical debate to an exposed social commentary on the alchemists themselves. Dante, Piers Plowman, and Chaucer all painted unflattering pictures of alchemists as thieves and liars. Pope John XXII's 1317 edict, Spondent quas non-exhibent forbade the false promises of transmutation made by pseudo-alchemists. In 1403, Henry IV of England banned the practice of multiplying metals (although it was possible to buy a licence to attempt to make gold alchemically, and a number were granted by Henry VI and Edward IV). These critiques and regulations centered more around pseudo-alchemical charlatanism than the actual study of alchemy, which continued with an increasingly Christian tone. The 14th century saw the Christian imagery of death and resurrection employed in the alchemical texts of Petrus Bonus, John of Rupescissa, and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova.Nicolas Flamel is a well-known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy, the practice of giving your works the name of someone else, usually more famous. Although the historical Flamel existed, the writings and legends assigned to him only appeared in 1612. Flamel was not a religious scholar as were many of his predecessors, and his entire interest in the subject revolved around the pursuit of the philosopher's stone. His work spends a great deal of time describing the processes and reactions, but never actually gives the formula for carrying out the transmutations. Most of 'his' work was aimed at gathering alchemical knowledge that had existed before him, especially as regarded the philosopher's stone. Through the 14th and 15th centuries, alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley made similar contributions. Their cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art.Renaissance and early modern Europe During the Renaissance, Hermetic and Platonic foundations were restored to European alchemy. The dawn of medical, pharmaceutical, occult, and entrepreneurial branches of alchemy followed.In the late 15th century, Marsilo Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato into Latin. These were previously unavailable to Europeans who for the first time had a full picture of the alchemical theory that Bacon had declared absent. Renaissance Humanism and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics to refocus on mankind as the alchemical vessel.Esoteric systems developed that blended alchemy into a broader occult Hermeticism, fusing it with magic, astrology, and Christian cabala. A key figure in this development was German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), who received his Hermetic education in Italy in the schools of the humanists. In his De Occulta Philosophia, he attempted to merge Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and alchemy. He was instrumental in spreading this new blend of Hermeticism outside the borders of Italy.Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus, (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541) cast alchemy into a new form, rejecting some of Agrippa's occultism and moving away from chrysopoeia. Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine and wrote, "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines."His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. Iatrochemistry refers to the pharmaceutical applications of alchemy championed by Paracelsus.John Dee (13 July 1527 – December, 1608) followed Agrippa's occult tradition. Although better known for angel summoning, divination, and his role as astrologer, cryptographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I, Dee's alchemical Monas Hieroglyphica, written in 1564 was his most popular and influential work. His writing portrayed alchemy as a sort of terrestrial astronomy in line with the Hermetic axiom As above so below. During the 17th century, a short-lived "supernatural" interpretation of alchemy became popular, including support by fellows of the Royal Society: Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole. Proponents of the supernatural interpretation of alchemy believed that the philosopher's stone might be used to summon and communicate with angels.Entrepreneurial opportunities were common for the alchemists of Renaissance Europe. Alchemists were contracted by the elite for practical purposes related to mining, medical services, and the production of chemicals, medicines, metals, and gemstones. Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley. King James IV of Scotland, Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel all contracted alchemists. John's son Arthur Dee worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia and Charles I of England but also compiled the alchemical book Fasciculus Chemicus.Although most of these appointments were legitimate, the trend of pseudo-alchemical fraud continued through the Renaissance. Betrüger would use sleight of hand, or claims of secret knowledge to make money or secure patronage. Legitimate mystical and medical alchemists such as Michael Maier and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artists. False alchemists were sometimes prosecuted for fraud.The terms "chemia" and "alchemia" were used as synonyms in the early modern period, and the differences between alchemy, chemistry and small-scale assaying and metallurgy were not as neat as in the present day. There were important overlaps between practitioners, and trying to classify them into alchemists, chemists and craftsmen is anachronistic. For example, Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical and astrological investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg observatory/research institute. Michael Sendivogius (Michał Sędziwój, 1566–1636), a Polish alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Their Hermeticism complemented rather than precluded their practical achievements in medicine and science.Later modern period The decline of European alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its peak in the 18th century. As late as 1781 James Price claimed to have produced a powder that could transmute mercury into silver or gold. Early modern European alchemy continued to exhibit a diversity of theories, practices, and purposes: "Scholastic and anti-Aristotelian, Paracelsian and anti-Paracelsian, Hermetic, Neoplatonic, mechanistic, vitalistic, and more—plus virtually every combination and compromise thereof."Robert Boyle (1627–1691) pioneered the scientific method in chemical investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled every piece of relevant data. Boyle would note the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind characteristics, the position of the Sun and Moon, and the barometer reading, all just in case they proved to be relevant. This approach eventually led to the founding of modern chemistry in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries of Lavoisier and John Dalton.Beginning around 1720, a rigid distinction began to be drawn for the first time between "alchemy" and "chemistry". By the 1740s, "alchemy" was now restricted to the realm of gold making, leading to the popular belief that alchemists were charlatans, and the tradition itself nothing more than a fraud. In order to protect the developing science of modern chemistry from the negative censure to which alchemy was being subjected, academic writers during the 18th-century scientific Enlightenment attempted, for the sake of survival, to divorce and separate the "new" chemistry from the "old" practices of alchemy. This move was mostly successful, and the consequences of this continued into the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.During the occult revival of the early 19th century, alchemy received new attention as an occult science. The esoteric or occultist school, which arose during the 19th century, held (and continues to hold) the view that the substances and operations mentioned in alchemical literature are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, and it downplays the role of the alchemy as a practical tradition or protoscience. This interpretation further forwarded the view that alchemy is an art primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment or illumination, as opposed to the physical manipulation of apparatus and chemicals, and claims that the obscure language of the alchemical texts were an allegorical guise for spiritual, moral or mystical processes.In the 19th-century revival of alchemy, the two most seminal figures were Mary Anne Atwood and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who independently published similar works regarding spiritual alchemy. Both forwarded a completely esoteric view of alchemy, as Atwood claimed: "No modern art or chemistry, notwithstanding all its surreptitious claims, has any thing in common with Alchemy." Atwood's work influenced subsequent authors of the occult revival including Eliphas Levi, Arthur Edward Waite, and Rudolf Steiner. Hitchcock, in his Remarks Upon Alchymists (1855) attempted to make a case for his spiritual interpretation with his claim that the alchemists wrote about a spiritual discipline under a materialistic guise in order to avoid accusations of blasphemy from the church and state. In 1845, Baron Carl Reichenbach, published his studies on Odic force, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.In 1946, Louis Cattiaux published the Message Retrouvé, a work that was at once philosophical, mystical and highly influenced by alchemy. In his lineage, many researchers, including Emmanuel and Charles d'Hooghvorst, are updating alchemical studies in France and Belgium.Women Several women appear in the earliest history of alchemy. Michael Maier names Mary the Jewess, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Medera, and Taphnutia as the four women who knew how to make the philosopher's stone. Zosimos' sister Theosebia (later known as Euthica the Arab) and Isis the Prophetess also played a role in early alchemical texts.The first alchemist whose name we know was Mary the Jewess (c. 200 A.D.). Early sources claim that Mary (or Maria) devised a number of improvements to alchemical equipment and tools as well as novel techniques in chemistry. Her best known advances were in heating and distillation processes. The laboratory water-bath, known eponymously (especially in France) as the bain-marie, is said to have been invented or at least improved by her. Essentially a double-boiler, it was (and is) used in chemistry for processes that require gentle heating. The tribikos (a modified distillation apparatus) and the kerotakis (a more intricate apparatus used especially for sublimations) are two other advancements in the process of distillation that are credited to her. Although we have no writing from Mary herself, she is known from the early-fourth-century writings of Zosimos of Panopolis.Due to the proliferation of pseudepigrapha and anonymous works, it is difficult to know which of the alchemists were actually women. After the Greco-Roman period, women's names appear less frequently in the alchemical literature. Women vacate the history of alchemy during the medieval and renaissance periods, aside from the fictitious account of Perenelle Flamel. Mary Anne Atwood's A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850) marks their return during the nineteenth-century occult revival.Modern historical research The history of alchemy has become a significant and recognized subject of academic study. As the language of the alchemists is analyzed, historians are becoming more aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the evolution of science and philosophy, the sociology and psychology of the intellectual communities, kabbalism, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements. Institutions involved in this research include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project at Indiana University, the University of Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO), the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), and the University of Amsterdam's Sub-department for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. A large collection of books on alchemy is kept in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. A recipe found in a mid-19th-century kabbalah based book features step by step instructions on turning copper into gold. The author attributed this recipe to an ancient manuscript he located.Journals which publish regularly on the topic of Alchemy include 'Ambix', published by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, and 'Isis', published by The History of Science Society.Core concepts Western alchemical theory corresponds to the worldview of late antiquity in which it was born. Concepts were imported from Neoplatonism and earlier Greek cosmology. As such, the classical elements appear in alchemical writings, as do the seven classical planets and the corresponding seven metals of antiquity. Similarly, the gods of the Roman pantheon who are associated with these luminaries are discussed in alchemical literature. The concepts of prima materia and anima mundi are central to the theory of the philosopher's stone.Magnum opus The Great Work of Alchemy is often described as a series of four stages represented by colors.nigredo, a blackening or melanosisalbedo, a whitening or leucosiscitrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosisrubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosisModernity Due to the complexity and obscurity of alchemical literature, and the 18th-century disappearance of remaining alchemical practitioners into the area of chemistry, the general understanding of alchemy has been strongly influenced by several distinct and radically different interpretations. Those focusing on the exoteric, such as historians of science Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, have interpreted the 'decknamen' (or code words) of alchemy as physical substances. These scholars have reconstructed physicochemical experiments that they say are described in medieval and early modern texts. At the opposite end of the spectrum, focusing on the esoteric, scholars, such as George Calian and Anna Marie Roos, who question the reading of Principe and Newman, interpret these same decknamen as spiritual, religious, or psychological concepts.New interpretations of alchemy are still perpetuated, sometimes merging in concepts from New Age or radical environmentalism movements. Groups like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism. Since the Victorian revival of alchemy, "occultists reinterpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice, involving the self-transformation of the practitioner and only incidentally or not at all the transformation of laboratory substances", which has contributed to a merger of magic and alchemy in popular thought.Esoteric interpretations of historical textsIn the eyes of a variety of modern esoteric and Neo-Hermeticist practitioners, alchemy is fundamentally spiritual. In this interpretation, transmutation of lead into gold is presented as an analogy for personal transmutation, purification, and perfection.According to this view, early alchemists such as Zosimos of Panopolis (c. AD 300) highlighted the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul. This approach is held to have continued in the Middle Ages, as metaphysical aspects, substances, physical states, and material processes are supposed to have been used as metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states, and, ultimately, transformation. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were like a veil, hiding their true spiritual philosophy. In the Neo-Hermeticist interpretation, both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea are held to symbolize evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible, and ephemeral state toward a perfect, healthy, incorruptible, and everlasting state, so the philosopher's stone then represented a mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist himself, the twin goal symbolized his evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented a hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are held to have been written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbols, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works are supposed to contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; which must be laboriously decoded to discover their true meaning.In his 1766 Alchemical Catechism, Théodore Henri de Tschudi denotes that the usage of the metals was merely symbolic:Psychology Alchemical symbolism has been important in depth and analytical psychology and was revived and popularized from near extinction by the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Initially confounded and at odds with alchemy and its images, after being given a copy of the translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower, a Chinese alchemical text, by his friend Richard Wilhelm, Jung discovered a direct correlation or parallels between the symbolic images in the alchemical drawings and the inner, symbolic images coming up in dreams, visions or imaginations during the psychic processes of transformation occurring in his patients. A process, which he called "process of individuation". He regarded the alchemical images as symbols expressing aspects of this "process of individuation" of which the creation of the gold or lapis within were symbols for its origin and goal. Together with his alchemical mystica soror, Jungian Swiss analyst Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung began collecting all the old alchemical texts available, compiled a lexicon of key phrases with cross-references and pored over them. The volumes of work he wrote brought new light into understanding the art of transubstantiation and renewed alchemy's popularity as a symbolic process of coming into wholeness as a human being where opposites brought into contact and inner and outer, spirit and matter are reunited in the hieros gamos  or divine marriage. His writings are influential in psychology and for people who have an interest in understanding the importance of dreams, symbols and the unconscious archetypal forces (archetypes) that influence all of life.Both von Franz and Jung have contributed greatly to the subject and work of alchemy and its continued presence in psychology as well as contemporary culture. Jung wrote volumes on alchemy and his magnum opus is Volume 14 of his Collected Works, Mysterium Coniunctionis.Literature Alchemy has had a long-standing relationship with art, seen both in alchemical texts and in mainstream entertainment. Literary alchemy appears throughout the history of English literature from Shakespeare to J. K. Rowling, and also the popular Japanese manga Fullmetal Alchemist. Here, characters or plot structure follow an alchemical magnum opus. In the 14th century, Chaucer began a trend of alchemical satire that can still be seen in recent fantasy works like those of the late Sir Terry Pratchett.Visual artists had a similar relationship with alchemy. While some of them used alchemy as a source of satire, others worked with the alchemists themselves or integrated alchemical thought or symbols in their work. Music was also present in the works of alchemists and continues to influence popular performers. In the last hundred years, alchemists have been portrayed in a magical and spagyric role in fantasy fiction, film, television, novels, comics and video games.Science One goal of alchemy, the transmutation of base substances into gold, is now known to be impossible by chemical means but possible by physical means. Although not financially worthwhile, Gold was synthesized in particle accelerators as early as 1941.See also Alchemical symbolBiological transmutation in Corentin Louis KervranCupellationHistoricismHistory of chemistryList of alchemistsNuclear transmutationOutline of alchemyPorta AlchemicaRenaissance magicSpagyricSuperseded theories in scienceSynthesis of precious metalsWestern esotericismNotesReferencesCitationsBibliographyFurther readingGeneral  Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, Chicago, 2013.Jennifer M. Rampling. 2020. The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700. University of Chicago Press.Greco-Egyptian alchemyTexts  Marcellin Berthelot and Charles-Émile Ruelle (eds.), Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (CAAG), 3 vols., 1887–1888, Vol 1: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96492923, Vol 2: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9680734p, Vol. 3: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9634942s. André-Jean Festugière, La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2014  (, OCLC 897235256). Robert Halleux and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (eds.), Les alchimistes grecs, t. 1 : Papyrus de Leyde – Papyrus de Stockholm – Recettes, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1981. Otto Lagercrantz (ed), Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis, Uppsala, A.B. Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1913, https://archive.org/details/papyrusgraecusho00lage/page/n8. Michèle Mertens and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (ed.), Les alchimistes grecs, t. 4.1 : Zosime de Panopolis. Mémoires authentiques, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1995. Andrée Collinet and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (ed.), Les alchimistes grecs, t. 10 : L'Anonyme de Zuretti ou l'Art sacré and divin de la chrysopée par un anonyme, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000. Andrée Collinet (ed), Les alchimistes grecs, t. 11 : Recettes alchimiques (Par. Gr. 2419; Holkhamicus 109) – Cosmas le Hiéromoine – Chrysopée, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000. Matteo Martelli (ed), The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus, Maney Publishing, 2014.Studies  Dylan M. Burns, « μίξεώς τινι τέχνῃ κρείττονι : Alchemical Metaphor in the Paraphrase of Shem (NHC VII,1) », Aries 15 (2015), p. 79–106. Alberto Camplani, « Procedimenti magico-alchemici e discorso filosofico ermetico » in Giuliana Lanata (ed.), Il Tardoantico alle soglie del Duemila, ETS, 2000, p. 73–98. Alberto Camplani and Marco Zambon, « Il sacrificio come problema in alcune correnti filosofice di età imperiale », Annali di storia dell'esegesi 19 (2002), p. 59–99. Régine Charron and Louis Painchaud, « 'God is a Dyer,' The Background and Significance of a Puzzling Motif in the Coptic Gospel According to Philip (CG II, 3), Le Muséon 114 (2001), p. 41-50. Régine Charron, « The Apocryphon of John (NHC II,1) and the Greco-Egyptian Alchemical Literature », Vigiliae Christinae 59 (2005), p. 438-456. Philippe Derchain, "L'Atelier des Orfèvres à Dendara et les origines de l'alchimie," Chronique d'Égypte, vol. 65, no 130, 1990, p. 219–242. Korshi Dosoo, « A History of the Theban Magical Library », Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 53 (2016), p. 251–274. Olivier Dufault, Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity, California Classical Studies, 2019, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2ks0g83x. Sergio Knipe, « Sacrifice and self-transformation in the alchemical writings of Zosimus of Panopolis », in Christopher Kelly, Richard Flower, Michael Stuart Williams (eds.), Unclassical Traditions. Volume II: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 59–69. André-Jean Festugière, La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2014 , . Kyle A. Fraser, « Zosimos of Panopolis and the Book of Enoch: Alchemy as Forbidden Knowledge », Aries 4.2 (2004), p. 125–147. Kyle A. Fraser, « Baptized in Gnosis: The Spiritual Alchemy of Zosimos of Panopolis », Dionysius 25 (2007), p. 33–54. Kyle A. Fraser, « Distilling Nature’s Secrets: The Sacred Art of Alchemy », in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 721–742. 2018. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199734146.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199734146-e-76. Shannon Grimes, Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt, Auckland, Rubedo Press, 2018,  Paul T. Keyser, « Greco-Roman Alchemy and Coins of Imitation Silver », American Journal of Numismatics 7–8 (1995–1996), p. 209–234. Paul Keyser, « The Longue Durée of Alchemy », in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 409–430. Jean Letrouit, "Chronologie des alchimistes grecs," in Didier Kahn and Sylvain Matton, Alchimie: art, histoire et mythes, SEHA-Archè, 1995, p. 11–93. Lindsay, Jack. The Origins of Alchemy in Greco-Roman Egypt. Barnes & Noble, 1970. Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi (eds.), The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, La Pomme d'or, 2006. Matteo Martelli, « The Alchemical Art of Dyeing: The Fourfold Division of Alchemy and the Enochian Tradition » in Sven Dupré (ed.), Laboratories of Art, Springer, 2014, . Matteo Martelli, « Alchemy, Medicine and Religion: Zosimus of Panopolis and the Egyptian Priests », Religion in the Roman Empire 3.2 (2017), p. 202–220. Gerasimos Merianos, « Alchemy », In A. Kaldellis & N. Siniossoglou (eds.), The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium (pp. 234–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, . Efthymios Nikolaïdis (ed.), Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity, Brepols, 2019, . Daniel Stolzenberg, « Unpropitious Tinctures: Alchemy, Astrology & Gnosis According to Zosimos of Panopolis », Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences 49 (1999), p. 3–31. Cristina Viano, « Byzantine Alchemy, or the Era of Systematization », in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 943–964. C. Vlachou and al., « Experimental investigation of silvering in late Roman coinage », Material Research Society Symposium Proceedings 712 (2002), p. II9.2.1-II9.2.9, .Early modern  Principe, Lawrence and William Newman. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. University of Chicago Press, 2002.External links  SHAC: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry ESSWE: European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism Association for the Study of Esotericism The Alchemy Website. – Adam McLean's online collections and academic discussion.  Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Alchemy Book of Secrets: Alchemy and the European Imagination, 1500–2000 – A digital exhibition from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University Othmer MS 2 Alchemical Miscellany at OPenn Alchemy featured topic page on Science History Institute Digital Collections featuring selected manuscripts, rare books, paintings, and ephemera relating to alchemical topics and experimentation. EsotericismHermeticismHistory of philosophyHistory of science
Alien primarily refers to: Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country Enemy alien, the above in times of war Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth Specifically, intelligent extraterrestrial beings; see List of alleged extraterrestrial beings Introduced species, a species not native to its environmentAlien(s), or The Alien(s) may also refer to:Science and technology  AliEn (ALICE Environment), a grid framework Alien (file converter), a Linux program Alien Technology, a manufacturer of RFID technologyArts and entertainment  Alien (franchise), a media franchise Alien (creature in Alien franchise)Films Alien (film), a 1979 film by Ridley Scott Aliens (film), second film in the franchise from 1986 by James Cameron Alien 3, third film in the franchise from 1992 by David Fincher Alien Resurrection, fourth film in the franchise from 1997 by Jean-Pierre Jeunet Alien vs. Predator (film), fifth film in the franchise from 2004 by Paul W. S. Anderson Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, sixth film in the franchise from 2007 by the Brothers Strause Prometheus (2012 film), seventh film in the franchise from 2012 by Ridley Scott Alien: Covenant, eighth film in the franchise from 2017 by Ridley Scott Alien 2: On Earth, a 1980 unofficial sequel of the 1979 Alien filmAlien Visitor (also titled Epsilon) (1995 film) AustralianItalian science fiction film by Rolf de Heer The Alien (2016 film), a 2016 Mexican film The Alien (unproduced film), an incomplete 1960s IndianAmerican filmLiterature  Alien novels, an extension of the Alien franchise Aliens (Tappan Wright novel), a 1902 novel by Mary Tappan Wright The Alien (Animorphs), the eighth book in the Animorphs series The Aliens (play), a 2010 play by Annie BakerMusicPerformers  Alien (band), a 1980s Swedish rock group The Aliens (Australian band), a 1970s new wave group The Aliens (Scottish band), a 2005–2008 rock groupAlbums  Alien (soundtrack), 1979 Alien (Beam album), 2022 Alien (Northlane album), 2019 Alien (Strapping Young Lad album), 2005 Alien, a 1989 EP by Tankard Aliens (soundtrack), 1987Songs  "Alien" (Britney Spears song), 2013 "Alien" (Jonas Blue and Sabrina Carpenter song), 2018 "Alien", a song by Third Day from the album Conspiracy No. 5, 1997 "Alien", a song by Pennywise from the album Straight Ahead, 1999 "Alien", a song by Bush from the album Sixteen Stone, 1994 "Alien", a song by Erasure from the album Loveboat, 2000 "Alien", a song by Japan from the album Quiet Life, 1979 "Alien", a song by Lamb from the album Fear of Fours, 1999 "Alien", a song by Nerina Pallot from the album Dear Frustrated Superstar, 2001 "Alien", a song by P-Model from the album Landsale, 1980 "Alien", a song by Thriving Ivory from the album Thriving Ivory, 2003 "Alien", a song by Tokio Hotel from the album Humanoid, 2009. Fans of the band call themselves "Aliens". "Alien", a song by Atlanta Rhythm from the album Quinella, 1981 "Alien", a 2020 song by Lee Suhyun "Aliens" (song), a 2017 song by Coldplay "Aliens", a 1984 song by Warlord "The Alien", a song by Dream Theater from the album A View from the Top of the World, 2021Video games  Alien (1984 video game), based on the film Alien (Atari 2600), a 1982 maze game based on the 1979 film Alien: Isolation, a 2014 video game based on the Alien science fiction horror film series Aliens (1982 video game), a text-only clone of Space Invaders written for the CP/M operating system on the Kaypro computer Aliens (1990 video game), a game by Konami, based on the sequel of the filmOther media  Alien (Armenian TV series), a 2017 melodrama series Alien (sculpture), a 2012 work by David Breuer-Weil, in Mottisfont, Hampshire, England Aliens (Dark Horse Comics line) The Aliens (TV series), 2016 British sci-fi television series "Aliens" (Roseanne), a 1992 television episodeOther uses  Alien (shipping company), a Russian company Alien Sun (born 1974), Singaporean actress Alien, a perfume by Thierry MuglerSee also  Alians, an Islamic order Alien Project (disambiguation) Alien vs. Predator (disambiguation) Astrobiology, the study of hypothetical alien life ATLiens, a 1996 album by OutKast Predator (disambiguation) UFO (disambiguation) Unidentified flying object (disambiguation)
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either observational (by analyzing the data) or theoretical astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers study include planetary science, solar astronomy, the origin or evolution of stars, or the formation of galaxies. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which studies the Universe as a whole.TypesAstronomers usually fall under either of two main types: observational and theoretical. Observational astronomers make direct observations of celestial objects and analyze the data. In contrast, theoretical astronomers create and investigate models of things that cannot be observed. Because it takes millions to billions of years for a system of stars or a galaxy to complete a life cycle, astronomers must observe snapshots of different systems at unique points in their evolution to determine how they form, evolve, and die. They use these data to create models or simulations to theorize how different celestial objects work.Further subcategories under these two main branches of astronomy include planetary astronomy, galactic astronomy, or physical cosmology.Academic Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws. Today, that distinction has mostly disappeared and the terms "astronomer" and "astrophysicist" are interchangeable. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a PhD in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although they quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments, or aiding in the operation of an observatory.The American Astronomical Society, which is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America, has approximately 7,000 members. This number includes scientists from other fields such as physics, geology, and engineering, whose research interests are closely related to astronomy. The International Astronomical Union comprises almost 10,145 members from 70 different countries who are involved in astronomical research at the PhD level and beyond.Contrary to the classical image of an old astronomer peering through a telescope through the dark hours of the night, it is far more common to use a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera to record a long, deep exposure, allowing a more sensitive image to be created because the light is added over time. Before CCDs, photographic plates were a common method of observation. Modern astronomers spend relatively little time at telescopes usually just a few weeks per year. Analysis of observed phenomena, along with making predictions as to the causes of what they observe, takes the majority of observational astronomers' time.Astronomers who serve as faculty spend much of their time teaching undergraduate and graduate classes. Most universities also have outreach programs including public telescope time and sometimes planetariums as a public service to encourage interest in the field.Those who become astronomers usually have a broad background in maths, sciences and computing in high school. Taking courses that teach how to research, write, and present papers are also invaluable. In college/university most astronomers get a PhD in astronomy or physics.Amateur astronomers While there is a relatively low number of professional astronomers, the field is popular among amateurs. Most cities have amateur astronomy clubs that meet on a regular basis and often host star parties. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific is the largest general astronomical society in the world, comprising both professional and amateur astronomers as well as educators from 70 different nations. Like any hobby, most people who think of themselves as amateur astronomers may devote a few hours a month to stargazing and reading the latest developments in research. However, amateurs span the range from so-called "armchair astronomers" to the very ambitious, who own science-grade telescopes and instruments with which they are able to make their own discoveries and assist professional astronomers in research.See also  List of astronomers List of women astronomers List of Muslim astronomers List of French astronomers List of Hungarian astronomers List of Russian astronomers and astrophysicists List of Slovenian astronomersReferencesSourcesExternal links  American Astronomical Society European Astronomical Society International Astronomical Union Astronomical Society of the Pacific Space's astronomy newsAstronomy Science occupations
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Most modern character-encoding schemes are based on ASCII, although they support many additional characters.The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) prefers the name US-ASCII for this character encoding.ASCII is one of the IEEE milestones.OverviewASCII was developed from telegraph code. Its first commercial use was as a seven-bit teleprinter code promoted by Bell data services. Work on the ASCII standard began in May 1961, with the first meeting of the American Standards Association's (ASA) (now the American National Standards Institute or ANSI) X3.2 subcommittee. The first edition of the standard was published in 1963, underwent a major revision during 1967, and experienced its most recent update during 1986. Compared to earlier telegraph codes, the proposed Bell code and ASCII were both ordered for more convenient sorting (i.e., alphabetization) of lists and added features for devices other than teleprinters. The use of ASCII format for Network Interchange was described in 1969. That document was formally elevated to an Internet Standard in 2015.Originally based on the English alphabet, ASCII encodes 128 specified characters into seven-bit integers as shown by the ASCII chart above. Ninety-five of the encoded characters are printable: these include the digits 0 to 9, lowercase letters a to z, uppercase letters A to Z, and punctuation symbols. In addition, the original ASCII specification included 33 non-printing control codes which originated with Teletype machines; most of these are now obsolete, although a few are still commonly used, such as the carriage return, line feed, and tab codes.For example, lowercase i would be represented in the ASCII encoding by binary 1101001 = hexadecimal 69 (i is the ninth letter) = decimal 105.HistoryThe American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was developed under the auspices of a committee of the American Standards Association (ASA), called the X3 committee, by its X3.2 (later X3L2) subcommittee, and later by that subcommittee's X3.2.4 working group (now INCITS). The ASA later became the United States of America Standards Institute (USASI), and ultimately became the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).With the other special characters and control codes filled in, ASCII was published as ASA X3.4-1963, leaving 28 code positions without any assigned meaning, reserved for future standardization, and one unassigned control code. There was some debate at the time whether there should be more control characters rather than the lowercase alphabet. The indecision did not last long: during May 1963 the CCITT Working Party on the New Telegraph Alphabet proposed to assign lowercase characters to sticks 6 and 7, and International Organization for Standardization TC 97 SC 2 voted during October to incorporate the change into its draft standard. The X3.2.4 task group voted its approval for the change to ASCII at its May 1963 meeting. Locating the lowercase letters in sticks 6 and 7 caused the characters to differ in bit pattern from the upper case by a single bit, which simplified case-insensitive character matching and the construction of keyboards and printers.The X3 committee made other changes, including other new characters (the brace and vertical bar characters), renaming some control characters (SOM became start of header (SOH)) and moving or removing others (RU was removed). ASCII was subsequently updated as USAS X3.4-1967, then USAS X3.4-1968, ANSI X3.4-1977, and finally, ANSI X3.4-1986.Revisions of the ASCII standard: ASA X3.4-1963 ASA X3.4-1965 (approved, but not published, nevertheless used by IBM 2260 & 2265 Display Stations and IBM 2848 Display Control) USAS X3.4-1967 USAS X3.4-1968 ANSI X3.4-1977 ANSI X3.4-1986 ANSI X3.4-1986 (R1992) ANSI X3.4-1986 (R1997) ANSI INCITS 4-1986 (R2002) ANSI INCITS 4-1986 (R2007) (ANSI) INCITS 4-1986[R2012] (ANSI) INCITS 4-1986[R2017]In the X3.15 standard, the X3 committee also addressed how ASCII should be transmitted (least significant bit first), and how it should be recorded on perforated tape. They proposed a 9-track standard for magnetic tape, and attempted to deal with some punched card formats.Design considerationsBit widthThe X3.2 subcommittee designed ASCII based on the earlier teleprinter encoding systems. Like other character encodings, ASCII specifies a correspondence between digital bit patterns and character symbols (i.e. graphemes and control characters). This allows digital devices to communicate with each other and to process, store, and communicate character-oriented information such as written language. Before ASCII was developed, the encodings in use included 26 alphabetic characters, 10 numerical digits, and from 11 to 25 special graphic symbols. To include all these, and control characters compatible with the Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique (CCITT) International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2) standard of 1924, FIELDATA (1956), and early EBCDIC (1963), more than 64 codes were required for ASCII.ITA2 was in turn based on the 5-bit telegraph code that Émile Baudot invented in 1870 and patented in 1874.The committee debated the possibility of a shift function (like in ITA2), which would allow more than 64 codes to be represented by a six-bit code. In a shifted code, some character codes determine choices between options for the following character codes. It allows compact encoding, but is less reliable for data transmission, as an error in transmitting the shift code typically makes a long part of the transmission unreadable. The standards committee decided against shifting, and so ASCII required at least a seven-bit code.The committee considered an eight-bit code, since eight bits (octets) would allow two four-bit patterns to efficiently encode two digits with binary-coded decimal. However, it would require all data transmission to send eight bits when seven could suffice. The committee voted to use a seven-bit code to minimize costs associated with data transmission. Since perforated tape at the time could record eight bits in one position, it also allowed for a parity bit for error checking if desired. Eight-bit machines (with octets as the native data type) that did not use parity checking typically set the eighth bit to 0.Internal organizationThe code itself was patterned so that most control codes were together and all graphic codes were together, for ease of identification. The first two so-called ASCII sticks (32 positions) were reserved for control characters. The "space" character had to come before graphics to make sorting easier, so it became position 20hex; for the same reason, many special signs commonly used as separators were placed before digits. The committee decided it was important to support uppercase 64-character alphabets, and chose to pattern ASCII so it could be reduced easily to a usable 64-character set of graphic codes, as was done in the DEC SIXBIT code (1963). Lowercase letters were therefore not interleaved with uppercase. To keep options available for lowercase letters and other graphics, the special and numeric codes were arranged before the letters, and the letter A was placed in position 41hex to match the draft of the corresponding British standard. The digits 0–9 are prefixed with 011, but the remaining 4 bits correspond to their respective values in binary, making conversion with binary-coded decimal straightforward.Many of the non-alphanumeric characters were positioned to correspond to their shifted position on typewriters; an important subtlety is that these were based on mechanical typewriters, not electric typewriters. Mechanical typewriters followed the de facto standard set by the Remington No. 2 (1878), the first typewriter with a shift key, and the shifted values of 23456789- were "#$%_&'() early typewriters omitted 0 and 1, using O (capital letter o) and l (lowercase letter L) instead, but 1! and 0) pairs became standard once 0 and 1 became common. Thus, in ASCII !"#$% were placed in the second stick, positions 1–5, corresponding to the digits 1–5 in the adjacent stick. The parentheses could not correspond to 9 and 0, however, because the place corresponding to 0 was taken by the space character. This was accommodated by removing _ (underscore) from 6 and shifting the remaining characters, which corresponded to many European typewriters that placed the parentheses with 8 and 9. This discrepancy from typewriters led to bit-paired keyboards, notably the Teletype Model 33, which used the left-shifted layout corresponding to ASCII, differently from traditional mechanical typewriters. Electric typewriters, notably the IBM Selectric (1961), used a somewhat different layout that has become de facto standard on computers following the IBM PC (1981), especially Model M (1984) and thus shift values for symbols on modern keyboards do not correspond as closely to the ASCII table as earlier keyboards did. The /? pair also dates to the No. 2, and the ,< .> pairs were used on some keyboards (others, including the No. 2, did not shift , (comma) or . (full stop) so they could be used in uppercase without unshifting). However, ASCII split the ;: pair (dating to No. 2), and rearranged mathematical symbols (varied conventions, commonly -* =+) to :* ;+ -=.Some then-common typewriter characters were not included, notably ½ ¼ ¢, while ^ ` ~  were included as diacritics for international use, and < > for mathematical use, together with the simple line characters \ | (in addition to common /). The @ symbol was not used in continental Europe and the committee expected it would be replaced by an accented À in the French variation, so the @ was placed in position 40hex, right before the letter A.The control codes felt essential for data transmission were the start of message (SOM), end of address (EOA), end of message (EOM), end of transmission (EOT), "who are you?" (WRU), "are you?" (RU), a reserved device control (DC0), synchronous idle (SYNC), and acknowledge (ACK). These were positioned to maximize the Hamming distance between their bit patterns.Character orderASCII-code order is also called ASCIIbetical order. Collation of data is sometimes done in this order rather than "standard" alphabetical order (collating sequence). The main deviations in ASCII order are: All uppercase come before lowercase letters; for example, "Z" precedes "a" Digits and many punctuation marks come before lettersAn intermediate order converts uppercase letters to lowercase before comparing ASCII values.Character groupsControl charactersASCII reserves the first 32 codes (numbers 0–31 decimal) for control characters: codes originally intended not to represent printable information, but rather to control devices (such as printers) that make use of ASCII, or to provide meta-information about data streams such as those stored on magnetic tape.For example, character 10 represents the "line feed" function (which causes a printer to advance its paper), and character 8 represents "backspace".  refers to control characters that do not include carriage return, line feed or white space as non-whitespace control characters. Except for the control characters that prescribe elementary line-oriented formatting, ASCII does not define any mechanism for describing the structure or appearance of text within a document. Other schemes, such as markup languages, address page and document layout and formatting.The original ASCII standard used only short descriptive phrases for each control character. The ambiguity this caused was sometimes intentional, for example where a character would be used slightly differently on a terminal link than on a data stream, and sometimes accidental, for example with the meaning of "delete".Probably the most influential single device affecting the interpretation of these characters was the Teletype Model 33 ASR, which was a printing terminal with an available paper tape reader/punch option. Paper tape was a very popular medium for long-term program storage until the 1980s, less costly and in some ways less fragile than magnetic tape. In particular, the Teletype Model 33 machine assignments for codes 17 (Control-Q, DC1, also known as XON), 19 (Control-S, DC3, also known as XOFF), and 127 (Delete) became de facto standards. The Model 33 was also notable for taking the description of Control-G (code 7, BEL, meaning audibly alert the operator) literally, as the unit contained an actual bell which it rang when it received a BEL character.  Because the keytop for the O key also showed a left-arrow symbol (from ASCII-1963, which had this character instead of underscore), a noncompliant use of code 15 (Control-O, Shift In) interpreted as "delete previous character" was also adopted by many early timesharing systems but eventually became neglected.When a Teletype 33 ASR equipped with the automatic paper tape reader received a Control-S (XOFF, an abbreviation for transmit off), it caused the tape reader to stop; receiving Control-Q (XON, "transmit on") caused the tape reader to resume.  This so-called flow control technique became adopted by several early computer operating systems as a "handshaking" signal warning a sender to stop transmission because of impending buffer overflow; it persists to this day in many systems as a manual output control technique. On some systems, Control-S retains its meaning but Control-Q is replaced by a second Control-S to resume output.  The 33 ASR also could be configured to employ Control-R (DC2) and Control-T (DC4) to start and stop the tape punch; on some units equipped with this function, the corresponding control character lettering on the keycap above the letter was TAPE and TAPE respectively.Delete vs BackspaceThe Teletype could not move its typehead backwards, so it did not have a key on its keyboard to send a BS (backspace). Instead, there was a key marked  that sent code 127 (DEL). The purpose of this key was to erase mistakes in a manually-input paper tape: the operator had to push a button on the tape punch to back it up, then type the rubout, which punched all holes and replaced the mistake with a character that was intended to be ignored. Teletypes were commonly used with the less-expensive computers from Digital Equipment Corporation; these systems had to use what keys were available, and thus the DEL code was assigned to erase the previous character. Because of this, DEC video terminals (by default) sent the DEL code for the key marked "Backspace" while the separate key marked "Delete" sent an escape sequence; many other competing terminals sent a BS code for the Backspace key. The Unix terminal driver could only use one code to erase the previous character, this could be set to BS or DEL, but not both, resulting in recurring situations of ambiguity where users had to decide depending on what terminal they were using (shells that allow line editing, such as ksh, bash, and zsh, understand both). The assumption that no key sent a BS code allowed Control+H to be used for other purposes, such as the "help" prefix command in GNU Emacs.EscapeMany more of the control codes have been assigned meanings quite different from their original ones. The "escape" character (ESC, code 27), for example, was intended originally to allow sending of other control characters as literals instead of invoking their meaning, a so-called "escape sequence". This is the same meaning of "escape" encountered in URL encodings, C language strings, and other systems where certain characters have a reserved meaning. Over time this interpretation has been co-opted and has eventually been changed. In modern usage, an ESC sent to the terminal usually indicates the start of a command sequence usually in the form of a so-called "ANSI escape code" (or, more properly, a "Control Sequence Introducer") from ECMA-48 (1972) and its successors, beginning with ESC followed by a "[" (left-bracket) character. In contrast, an ESC sent from the terminal is most often used as an out-of-band character used to terminate an operation or special mode, as in the TECO and vi text editors. In graphical user interface (GUI) and windowing systems, ESC generally causes an application to abort its current operation or to exit (terminate) altogether.End of LineThe inherent ambiguity of many control characters, combined with their historical usage, created problems when transferring "plain text" files between systems. The best example of this is the newline problem on various operating systems. Teletype machines required that a line of text be terminated with both "Carriage Return" (which moves the printhead to the beginning of the line) and "Line Feed" (which advances the paper one line without moving the printhead). The name "Carriage Return" comes from the fact that on a manual typewriter the carriage holding the paper moved while the position where the typebars struck the ribbon remained stationary.  The entire carriage had to be pushed (returned) to the right in order to position the left margin of the paper for the next line.DEC operating systems (OS/8, RT-11, RSX-11, RSTS, TOPS-10, etc.) used both characters to mark the end of a line so that the console device (originally Teletype machines) would work. By the time so-called "glass TTYs" (later called CRTs or "dumb terminals") came along, the convention was so well established that backward compatibility necessitated continuing to follow it. When Gary Kildall created CP/M, he was inspired by some of the command line interface conventions used in DEC's RT-11 operating system. Until the introduction of PC DOS in 1981, IBM had no influence in this because their 1970s operating systems used EBCDIC encoding instead of ASCII, and they were oriented toward punch-card input and line printer output on which the concept of "carriage return" was meaningless. IBM's PC DOS (also marketed as MS-DOS by Microsoft) inherited the convention by virtue of being loosely based on CP/M, and Windows in turn inherited it from MS-DOS.Unfortunately, requiring two characters to mark the end of a line introduces unnecessary complexity and ambiguity as to how to interpret each character when encountered by itself. To simplify matters, plain text data streams, including files, on Multics used line feed (LF) alone as a line terminator. Unix and Unix-like systems, and Amiga systems, adopted this convention from Multics. On the other hand, the original Macintosh OS, Apple DOS, and ProDOS used carriage return (CR) alone as a line terminator; however, since Apple has now replaced these obsolete operating systems with the Unix-based macOS operating system, they now use line feed (LF) as well. The Radio Shack TRS-80 also used a lone CR to terminate lines.Computers attached to the ARPANET included machines running operating systems such as TOPS-10 and TENEX using CR-LF line endings; machines running operating systems such as Multics using LF line endings; and machines running operating systems such as OS/360 that represented lines as a character count followed by the characters of the line and which used EBCDIC rather than ASCII encoding.  The Telnet protocol defined an ASCII "Network Virtual Terminal" (NVT), so that connections between hosts with different line-ending conventions and character sets could be supported by transmitting a standard text format over the network. Telnet used ASCII along with CR-LF line endings, and software using other conventions would translate between the local conventions and the NVT. The File Transfer Protocol adopted the Telnet protocol, including use of the Network Virtual Terminal, for use when transmitting commands and transferring data in the default ASCII mode. This adds complexity to implementations of those protocols, and to other network protocols, such as those used for E-mail and the World Wide Web, on systems not using the NVT's CR-LF line-ending convention.End of File/StreamThe PDP-6 monitor, and its PDP-10 successor TOPS-10, used Control-Z (SUB) as an end-of-file indication for input from a terminal.  Some operating systems such as CP/M tracked file length only in units of disk blocks, and used Control-Z to mark the end of the actual text in the file. For these reasons, EOF, or end-of-file, was used colloquially and conventionally as a three-letter acronym for Control-Z instead of SUBstitute.  The end-of-text code (ETX), also known as Control-C, was inappropriate for a variety of reasons, while using Z as the control code to end a file is analogous to its position at the end of the alphabet, and serves as a very convenient mnemonic aid. A historically common and still prevalent convention uses the ETX code convention to interrupt and halt a program via an input data stream, usually from a keyboard.In C library and Unix conventions, the null character is used to terminate text strings; such null-terminated strings can be known in abbreviation as ASCIZ or ASCIIZ, where here Z stands for "zero".Control code chartOther representations might be used by specialist equipment, for example ISO 2047 graphics or hexadecimal numbers.Printable charactersCodes 20hex to 7Ehex, known as the printable characters, represent letters, digits, punctuation marks, and a few miscellaneous symbols. There are 95 printable characters in total.Code 20hex, the "space" character, denotes the space between words, as produced by the space bar of a keyboard. Since the space character is considered an invisible graphic (rather than a control character) it is listed in the table below instead of in the previous section.Code 7Fhex corresponds to the non-printable "delete" (DEL) control character and is therefore omitted from this chart; it is covered in the previous section's chart.  Earlier versions of ASCII used the up arrow instead of the caret (5Ehex) and the left arrow instead of the underscore (5Fhex).Character setUsageASCII was first used commercially during 1963 as a seven-bit teleprinter code for American Telephone & Telegraph's TWX (TeletypeWriter eXchange) network. TWX originally used the earlier five-bit ITA2, which was also used by the competing Telex teleprinter system. Bob Bemer introduced features such as the escape sequence. His British colleague Hugh McGregor Ross helped to popularize this work according to Bemer, "so much so that the code that was to become ASCII was first called the Bemer–Ross Code in Europe". Because of his extensive work on ASCII, Bemer has been called "the father of ASCII".On March 11, 1968, US President Lyndon B. Johnson mandated that all computers purchased by the United States Federal Government support ASCII, stating:I have also approved recommendations of the Secretary of Commerce [Luther H. Hodges] regarding standards for recording the Standard Code for Information Interchange on magnetic tapes and paper tapes when they are used in computer operations.All computers and related equipment configurations brought into the Federal Government inventory on and after July 1, 1969, must have the capability to use the Standard Code for Information Interchange and the formats prescribed by the magnetic tape and paper tape standards when these media are used.ASCII was the most common character encoding on the World Wide Web until December 2007, when UTF-8 encoding surpassed it; UTF-8 is backward compatible with ASCII.Variants and derivationsAs computer technology spread throughout the world, different standards bodies and corporations developed many variations of ASCII to facilitate the expression of non-English languages that used Roman-based alphabets. One could class some of these variations as "ASCII extensions", although some misuse that term to represent all variants, including those that do not preserve ASCII's character-map in the 7-bit range. Furthermore, the ASCII extensions have also been mislabelled as ASCII.7-bit codesFrom early in its development, ASCII was intended to be just one of several national variants of an international character code standard.Other international standards bodies have ratified character encodings such as ISO 646 (1967) that are identical or nearly identical to ASCII, with extensions for characters outside the English alphabet and symbols used outside the United States, such as the symbol for the United Kingdom's pound sterling (£); e.g. with code page 1104. Almost every country needed an adapted version of ASCII, since ASCII suited the needs of only the US and a few other countries. For example, Canada had its own version that supported French characters.Many other countries developed variants of ASCII to include non-English letters (e.g. é, ñ, ß, Ł), currency symbols (e.g. £, ¥), etc. See also YUSCII (Yugoslavia).It would share most characters in common, but assign other locally useful characters to several code points reserved for "national use". However, the four years that elapsed between the publication of ASCII-1963 and ISO's first acceptance of an international recommendation during 1967 caused ASCII's choices for the national use characters to seem to be de facto standards for the world, causing confusion and incompatibility once other countries did begin to make their own assignments to these code points.ISO/IEC 646, like ASCII, is a 7-bit character set. It does not make any additional codes available, so the same code points encoded different characters in different countries. Escape codes were defined to indicate which national variant applied to a piece of text, but they were rarely used, so it was often impossible to know what variant to work with and, therefore, which character a code represented, and in general, text-processing systems could cope with only one variant anyway.Because the bracket and brace characters of ASCII were assigned to "national use" code points that were used for accented letters in other national variants of ISO/IEC 646, a German, French, or Swedish, etc. programmer using their national variant of ISO/IEC 646, rather than ASCII, had to write, and, thus, read, something such asä aÄiÜ = 'Ön'; üinstead of{ a[i] = '\n'; }C trigraphs were created to solve this problem for ANSI C, although their late introduction and inconsistent implementation in compilers limited their use. Many programmers kept their computers on US-ASCII, so plain-text in Swedish, German etc. (for example, in e-mail or Usenet) contained "{, }" and similar variants in the middle of words, something those programmers got used to. For example, a Swedish programmer mailing another programmer asking if they should go for lunch, could get "N{ jag har sm|rg}sar" as the answer, which should be "Nä jag har smörgåsar" meaning "No I've got sandwiches".In Japan and Korea, still  a variation of ASCII is used, in which the backslash (5C hex) is rendered as ¥ (a Yen sign, in Japan) or ₩ (a Won sign, in Korea). This means that, for example, the file path C:\Users\Smith is shown as C:¥Users¥Smith (in Japan) or C:₩Users₩Smith (in Korea).8-bit codesEventually, as 8-, 16-, and 32-bit (and later 64-bit) computers began to replace 12-, 18-, and 36-bit computers as the norm, it became common to use an 8-bit byte to store each character in memory, providing an opportunity for extended, 8-bit relatives of ASCII. In most cases these developed as true extensions of ASCII, leaving the original character-mapping intact, but adding additional character definitions after the first 128 (i.e., 7-bit) characters.Encodings include ISCII (India), VISCII (Vietnam). Although these encodings are sometimes referred to as ASCII, true ASCII is defined strictly only by the ANSI standard.Most early home computer systems developed their own 8-bit character sets containing line-drawing and game glyphs, and often filled in some or all of the control characters from 0 to 31 with more graphics. Kaypro CP/M computers used the "upper" 128 characters for the Greek alphabet.The PETSCII code Commodore International used for their 8-bit systems is probably unique among post-1970 codes in being based on ASCII-1963, instead of the more common ASCII-1967, such as found on the ZX Spectrum computer. Atari 8-bit computers and Galaksija computers also used ASCII variants.The IBM PC defined code page 437, which replaced the control characters with graphic symbols such as smiley faces, and mapped additional graphic characters to the upper 128 positions. Operating systems such as DOS supported these code pages, and manufacturers of IBM PCs supported them in hardware. Digital Equipment Corporation developed the Multinational Character Set (DEC-MCS) for use in the popular VT220 terminal as one of the first extensions designed more for international languages than for block graphics. The Macintosh defined Mac OS Roman and Postscript also defined a set, both of these contained both international letters and typographic punctuation marks instead of graphics, more like modern character sets.The ISO/IEC 8859 standard (derived from the DEC-MCS) finally provided a standard that most systems copied (at least as accurately as they copied ASCII, but with many substitutions). A popular further extension designed by Microsoft, Windows-1252 (often mislabeled as ISO-8859-1), added the typographic punctuation marks needed for traditional text printing.  ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252, and the original 7-bit ASCII were the most common character encodings until 2008 when UTF-8 became more common.ISO/IEC 4873 introduced 32 additional control codes defined in the 80–9F hexadecimal range, as part of extending the 7-bit ASCII encoding to become an 8-bit system.UnicodeUnicode and the ISO/IEC 10646 Universal Character Set (UCS) have a much wider array of characters and their various encoding forms have begun to supplant ISO/IEC 8859 and ASCII rapidly in many environments. While ASCII is limited to 128 characters, Unicode and the UCS support more characters by separating the concepts of unique identification (using natural numbers called code points) and encoding (to 8-, 16-, or 32-bit binary formats, called UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32, respectively).ASCII was incorporated into the Unicode (1991) character set as the first 128 symbols, so the 7-bit ASCII characters have the same numeric codes in both sets. This allows UTF-8 to be backward compatible with 7-bit ASCII, as a UTF-8 file containing only ASCII characters is identical to an ASCII file containing the same sequence of characters.  Even more importantly, forward compatibility is ensured as software that recognizes only 7-bit ASCII characters as special and does not alter bytes with the highest bit set (as is often done to support 8-bit ASCII extensions such as ISO-8859-1) will preserve UTF-8 data unchanged.See also 3568 ASCII, an asteroid named after the character encoding Alt codes Ascii85 ASCII art ASCII Ribbon Campaign Basic Latin (Unicode block) (ASCII as a subset of Unicode) Extended ASCII HTML decimal character rendering Jargon File, a glossary of computer programmer slang which includes a list of common slang names for ASCII characters List of computer character sets List of Unicode charactersNotesReferencesFurther reading   from:External links    Computer-related introductions in 1963Character setsCharacter encodingLatin-script representationsPresentation layer protocols
Austin is the capital of Texas in the United States.Austin may also refer to:Geographical locationsAustralia Austin, Western AustraliaCanada Austin, Manitoba Austin, Ontario Austin, Quebec Austin Island, NunavutFrance Saint-Austin, hamlet at la Neuville-Chant-d'Oisel, NormandyHong Kong  Austin station (MTR), KowloonUnited States Austin, Arkansas Austin, Colorado Austin Township, Macon County, Illinois Austin, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois Austin, Indiana Austin, Kentucky Austin, Minnesota Austin, Missouri Austin, Nevada Austin, Ohio Austin, Oregon Austin, Pennsylvania Austin, Texas Austin County, Texas (note that the city of Austin, Texas is located in Travis County)Schools Austin College, Sherman, Texas University of Texas at Austin, flagship institution of the University of Texas System Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, TennesseeReligion Augustine of Hippo An adjective for the AugustiniansBusiness American Austin Car Company, short-lived American automobile maker Austin Automobile Company, short-lived American automobile company Austin Motor Company, British car manufacturer Austin cookies and crackers, Keebler Company brandEntertainment "Austin" (song), a single by Blake Shelton Austin, a kangaroo Beanie Baby produced by Ty, Inc. Austin the kangaroo from the children's television series The BackyardigansOther uses Austin (building), a building designed by artist Ellsworth Kelly under construction in Austin, Texas Austin (given name), a short form of Augustin, or Augustine, including fictional characters Austin (surname) USS Austin, three shipsSee also All pages beginning with Austin August (disambiguation) Augustin (disambiguation) Augustine (disambiguation) Austin station (disambiguation) Austins (disambiguation) Austen (disambiguation) Justice Austin (disambiguation) Austinburg (disambiguation)
Animation is a method in which figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation (which may have the look of traditional animation) can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth, or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two- and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets, or clay figures.An animated cartoon is an animated film, usually a short film aimed at children and featuring an exaggerated visual style. The style takes inspiration from comic strips, often featuring anthropomorphic animals, superheroes, or the adventures of child protagonists. Especially with animals that form a natural predator/prey relationship (e.g. cats and mice, coyotes and birds) the action often centers around violent pratfalls such as falls, collisions and explosions that would be lethal in real life.  Commonly, animators achieved the effect by a rapid succession of images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain. Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phénakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope, and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on computers, technology such as the animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.In addition to short films, feature films, television series, animated GIFs, and other media dedicated to the display of moving images, animation is also prevalent in video games, motion graphics, user interfaces, and visual effects.The physical movement of image parts through simple mechanics—for instance moving images in magic lantern shows—can also be considered animation. The mechanical manipulation of three-dimensional puppets and objects to emulate living beings has a very long history in automata. Electronic automata were popularized by Disney as animatronics.EtymologyThe word "animation" stems from the Latin "animātiōn", stem of "animātiō", meaning "a bestowing of life". The primary meaning of the English word is "liveliness" and has been in use much longer than the meaning of "moving image medium".HistoryBefore cinematographyHundreds of years before the introduction of true animation, people all over the world enjoyed shows with moving figures that were created and manipulated manually in puppetry, automata, shadow play, and the magic lantern. The multi-media phantasmagoria shows that were very popular in European theatres from the late 18th century through the first half of the 19th century, featured lifelike projections of moving ghosts and other frightful imagery in motion.In 1833, the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phénakisticope) introduced the principle of modern animation with sequential images that were shown one by one in quick succession to form an optical illusion of motion pictures. Series of sequential images had occasionally been made over thousands of years, but the stroboscopic disc provided the first method to represent such images in fluent motion and for the first time had artists creating series with a proper systematic breakdown of movements. The stroboscopic animation principle was also applied in the zoetrope (1866), the flip book (1868) and the praxinoscope (1877). A typical 19th-century animation contained about 12 images that were displayed as a continuous loop by spinning a device manually. The flip book often contained more pictures and had a beginning and end, but its animation would not last longer than a few seconds. The first to create much longer sequences seems to have been Charles-Émile Reynaud, who between 1892 and 1900 had much success with his 10- to 15-minute-long Pantomimes Lumineuses.Silent eraWhen cinematography eventually broke through in 1895 after animated pictures had been known for decades, the wonder of the realistic details in the new medium was seen as its biggest accomplishment. Animation on film was not commercialized until a few years later by manufacturers of optical toys, with chromolithography film loops (often traced from live-action footage) for adapted toy magic lanterns intended for kids to use at home. It would take some more years before animation reached movie theaters.After earlier experiments by movie pioneers J. Stuart Blackton, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, Segundo de Chomón, and Edwin S. Porter (among others), Blackton's The Haunted Hotel (1907) was the first huge stop motion success, baffling audiences by showing objects that apparently moved by themselves in full photographic detail, without signs of any known stage trick.Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie (1908) is the oldest known example of what became known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation. Other great artistic and very influential short films were created by Ladislas Starevich with his puppet animations since 1910 and by Winsor McCay with detailed drawn animation in films such as Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).During the 1910s, the production of animated "cartoons" became an industry in the US. Successful producer John Randolph Bray and animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process that dominated the animation industry for the rest of the century. Felix the Cat, who debuted in 1919, became the first animated superstar.American golden ageIn 1928, Steamboat Willie, featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, popularized film with synchronized sound and put Walt Disney's studio at the forefront of the animation industry.The enormous success of Mickey Mouse is seen as the start of the golden age of American animation that would last until the 1960s. The United States dominated the world market of animation with a plethora of cel-animated theatrical shorts. Several studios would introduce characters that would become very popular and would have long-lasting careers, including Maria Butinova Studios' Mapmo (1924), The Leo King Knott (1931), Walt Disney Productions' Goofy (1932) and Donald Duck (1934), Warner Bros. Cartoons' Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig (1935), Daffy Duck (1937), Bugs Bunny (1938–1940), Tweety (1941–1942), Sylvester the Cat (1945), Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner (1949), Fleischer Studios/Paramount Cartoon Studios' Betty Boop (1930), Popeye (1933), Superman (1941) and Casper (1945), MGM cartoon studio's Tom and Jerry (1940) and Droopy, Walter Lantz Productions/Universal Studio Cartoons' Woody Woodpecker (1940), Terrytoons/20th Century Fox's Dinky Duck (1939), Mighty Mouse (1942) and Heckle and Jeckle (1946) and United Artists' Pink Panther (1963).Features before CGIIn 1917, Italian-Argentine director Quirino Cristiani made the first feature-length film El Apóstol (now lost), which became a critical and commercial success. It was followed by Cristiani's Sin dejar rastros in 1918, but one day after its premiere, the film was confiscated by the government.After working on it for three years, Lotte Reiniger released the German feature-length silhouette animation Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in 1926, the oldest extant animated feature.In 1937, Walt Disney Studios premiered their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, still one of the highest-grossing traditional animation features . The Fleischer studios followed this example in 1939 with Gulliver's Travels with some success. Partly due to foreign markets being cut off by the Second World War, Disney's next features Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940) and Fleischer Studios' second animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941–1942) failed at the box office. For decades afterward, Disney would be the only American studio to regularly produce animated features, until Ralph Bakshi became the first to also release more than a handful features. Sullivan-Bluth Studios began to regularly produce animated features starting with An American Tail in 1986.Although relatively few titles became as successful as Disney's features, other countries developed their own animation industries that produced both short and feature theatrical animations in a wide variety of styles, relatively often including stop motion and cutout animation techniques. Russia's Soyuzmultfilm animation studio, founded in 1936, produced 20 films (including shorts) per year on average and reached 1,582 titles in 2018. China, Czechoslovakia / Czech Republic, Italy, France, and Belgium were other countries that more than occasionally released feature films, while Japan became a true powerhouse of animation production, with its own recognizable and influential anime style of effective limited animation.TelevisionAnimation became very popular on television since the 1950s, when television sets started to become common in most developed countries. Cartoons were mainly programmed for children, on convenient time slots, and especially US youth spent many hours watching Saturday-morning cartoons. Many classic cartoons found a new life on the small screen and by the end of the 1950s, the production of new animated cartoons started to shift from theatrical releases to TV series. Hanna-Barbera Productions was especially prolific and had huge hit series, such as The Flintstones (1960–1966) (the first prime time animated series), Scooby-Doo (since 1969) and Belgian co-production The Smurfs (1981–1989). The constraints of American television programming and the demand for an enormous quantity resulted in cheaper and quicker limited animation methods and much more formulaic scripts. Quality dwindled until more daring animation surfaced in the late 1980s and in the early 1990s with hit series such as The Simpsons (since 1989) as part of a "renaissance" of American animation.While US animated series also spawned successes internationally, many other countries produced their own child-oriented programming, relatively often preferring stop motion and puppetry over cel animation. Japanese anime TV series became very successful internationally since the 1960s, and European producers looking for affordable cel animators relatively often started co-productions with Japanese studios, resulting in hit series such as Barbapapa (The Netherlands/Japan/France 1973–1977), Wickie und die starken Männer/小さなバイキング ビッケ (Vicky the Viking) (Austria/Germany/Japan 1974), and The Jungle Book (Italy/Japan 1989).Switch from cels to computersComputer animation was gradually developed since the 1940s. 3D wireframe animation started popping up in the mainstream in the 1970s, with an early (short) appearance in the sci-fi thriller Futureworld (1976).The Rescuers Down Under was the first feature film to be completely created digitally without a camera. It was produced in a style that's very similar to traditional cel animation on the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), developed by The Walt Disney Company in collaboration with Pixar in the late 1980s.The so-called 3D style, more often associated with computer animation, has become extremely popular since Pixar's Toy Story (1995), the first computer-animated feature in this style.Most of the cel animation studios switched to producing mostly computer animated films around the 1990s, as it proved cheaper and more profitable. Not only the very popular 3D animation style was generated with computers, but also most of the films and series with a more traditional hand-crafted appearance, in which the charming characteristics of cel animation could be emulated with software, while new digital tools helped developing new styles and effects.Economic statusIn 2008, the animation market was worth US$68.4 billion. Animated feature-length films returned the highest gross margins (around 52%) of all film genres between 2004 and 2013. Animation as an art and industry continues to thrive as of the early 2020s.Education, propaganda and commercialsThe clarity of animation makes it a powerful tool for instruction, while its total malleability also allows exaggeration that can be employed to convey strong emotions and to thwart reality. It has therefore been widely used for other purposes than mere entertainment.During World War II, animation was widely exploited for propaganda. Many American studios, including Warner Bros. and Disney, lent their talents and their cartoon characters to convey to the public certain war values. Some countries, including China, Japan and the United Kingdom, produced their first feature-length animation for their war efforts.Animation has been very popular in television commercials, both due to its graphic appeal, and the humour it can provide. Some animated characters in commercials have survived for decades, such as Snap, Crackle and Pop in advertisements for Kellogg's cereals. The legendary animation director Tex Avery was the producer of the first Raid "Kills Bugs Dead" commercials in 1966, which were very successful for the company.Other media, merchandise and theme parksApart from their success in movie theaters and television series, many cartoon characters would also prove extremely lucrative when licensed for all kinds of merchandise and for other media.Animation has traditionally been very closely related to comic books. While many comic book characters found their way to the screen (which is often the case in Japan, where many manga are adapted into anime), original animated characters also commonly appear in comic books and magazines. Somewhat similarly, characters and plots for video games (an interactive animation medium) have been derived from films and vice versa.Some of the original content produced for the screen can be used and marketed in other media. Stories and images can easily be adapted into children's books and other printed media. Songs and music have appeared on records and as streaming media.While very many animation companies commercially exploit their creations outside moving image media, The Walt Disney Company is the best known and most extreme example. Since first being licensed for a children's writing tablet in 1929, their Mickey Mouse mascot has been depicted on an enormous amount of products, as have many other Disney characters. This may have influenced some pejorative use of Mickey's name, but licensed Disney products sell well, and the so-called Disneyana has many avid collectors, and even a dedicated Disneyana fanclub (since 1984).Disneyland opened in 1955 and features many attractions that were based on Disney's cartoon characters. Its enormous success spawned several other Disney theme parks and resorts. Disney's earnings from the theme parks have relatively often been higher than those from their movies.CriticismCriticism of animation has been common in media and cinema since its inception. With its popularity, a large amount of criticism has arisen, especially animated feature-length films. Many concerns of cultural representation, psychological effects on children have been brought up around the animation industry, which has remained rather politically unchanged and stagnant since its inception into mainstream culture.AwardsAs with any other form of media, animation has instituted awards for excellence in the field. The original awards for animation were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for animated shorts from the year 1932, during the 5th Academy Awards function. The first winner of the Academy Award was the short Flowers and Trees, a production by Walt Disney Productions. The Academy Award for a feature-length animated motion picture was only instituted for the year 2001, and awarded during the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. It was won by the film Shrek, produced by DreamWorks and Pacific Data Images. Disney Animation and Pixar has produced the most films either to win or be nominated for the award. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. Up and Toy Story 3 also received Best Picture nominations after the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten. Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Academy Award for Best Animated Short FilmSeveral other countries have instituted an award for the best-animated feature film as part of their national film awards: Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Animation (since 2008), BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006), César Award for Best Animated Film (since 2011), Golden Rooster Award for Best Animation (since 1981), Goya Award for Best Animated Film (since 1989), Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year (since 2007), National Film Award for Best Animated Film (since 2006). Also since 2007, the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film has been awarded at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Since 2009, the European Film Awards have awarded the European Film Award for Best Animated Film.The Annie Award is another award presented for excellence in the field of animation. Unlike the Academy Awards, the Annie Awards are only received for achievements in the field of animation and not for any other field of technical and artistic endeavour. They were re-organized in 1992 to create a new field for Best Animated Feature. The 1990s winners were dominated by Walt Disney; however, newer studios, led by Pixar & DreamWorks, have now begun to consistently vie for this award. The list of awardees is as follows: Annie Award for Best Animated Feature Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject Annie Award for Best Animated Television ProductionProductionThe creation of non-trivial animation works (i.e., longer than a few seconds) has developed as a form of filmmaking, with certain unique aspects. Traits common to both live-action and animated feature-length films are labor intensity and high production costs.The most important difference is that once a film is in the production phase, the marginal cost of one more shot is higher for animated films than live-action films. It is relatively easy for a director to ask for one more take during principal photography of a live-action film, but every take on an animated film must be manually rendered by animators (although the task of rendering slightly different takes has been made less tedious by modern computer animation). It is pointless for a studio to pay the salaries of dozens of animators to spend weeks creating a visually dazzling five-minute scene if that scene fails to effectively advance the plot of the film. Thus, animation studios starting with Disney began the practice in the 1930s of maintaining story departments where storyboard artists develop every single scene through storyboards, then handing the film over to the animators only after the production team is satisfied that all the scenes make sense as a whole. While live-action films are now also storyboarded, they enjoy more latitude to depart from storyboards (i.e., real-time improvisation).Another problem unique to animation is the requirement to maintain a film's consistency from start to finish, even as films have grown longer and teams have grown larger. Animators, like all artists, necessarily have individual styles, but must subordinate their individuality in a consistent way to whatever style is employed on a particular film. Since the early 1980s, teams of about 500 to 600 people, of whom 50 to 70 are animators, typically have created feature-length animated films. It is relatively easy for two or three artists to match their styles; synchronizing those of dozens of artists is more difficult.This problem is usually solved by having a separate group of visual development artists develop an overall look and palette for each film before the animation begins. Character designers on the visual development team draw model sheets to show how each character should look like with different facial expressions, posed in different positions, and viewed from different angles. On traditionally animated projects, maquettes were often sculpted to further help the animators see how characters would look from different angles.Unlike live-action films, animated films were traditionally developed beyond the synopsis stage through the storyboard format; the storyboard artists would then receive credit for writing the film. In the early 1960s, animation studios began hiring professional screenwriters to write screenplays (while also continuing to use story departments) and screenplays had become commonplace for animated films by the late 1980s.TechniquesTraditionalTraditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media with digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" (a play on the words "traditional" and "digital") to describe cel animation that uses significant computer technology.Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), Lucky and Zorba (Italy, 1998), and The Illusionist (British-French, 2010). Traditionally animated films produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994), The Prince of Egypt (US, 1998), Akira (Japan, 1988), Spirited Away (Japan, 2001), The Triplets of Belleville (France, 2003), and The Secret of Kells (Irish-French-Belgian, 2009).FullFull animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement, having a smooth animation. Fully animated films can be made in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works like those produced by the Walt Disney studio (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King) to the more 'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works, The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Fully animated films are animated at 24 frames per second, with a combination of animation on ones and twos, meaning that drawings can be held for one frame out of 24 or two frames out of 24.LimitedLimited animation involves the use of less detailed or more stylized drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement animation. Limited animation uses fewer drawings per second, thereby limiting the fluidity of the animation. This is a more economic technique. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing-Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and certain anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media for television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons).RotoscopingRotoscoping is a technique patented by Max Fleischer in 1917 where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are Fire and Ice (US, 1983), Heavy Metal (1981), and Aku no Hana (Japan, 2013).Live-action blendingLive-action/animation is a technique combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots or live-action actors into animated shots. One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live-action footage. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created a series of Alice Comedies (1923–1927), in which a live-action girl enters an animated world. Other examples include Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, 1976), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Volere volare (Italy 1991), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (US, 2001).Stop motionStop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation; traditional stop-motion animation is usually less expensive but more time-consuming to produce than current computer animation. Puppet animation  Typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting in a constructed environment, in contrast to real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady to constrain their motion to particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiří Trnka and the adult animated sketch-comedy television series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present). Puppetoon  Created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppet-animated films that typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet. Clay animation or Plasticine animation  (Often called claymation, which, however, is a trademarked name). It uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside, similar to the related puppet animation (below), that can be manipulated to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated works include The Gumby Show (US, 1957–1967), Mio Mao (Italy, 1974–2005), Morph shorts (UK, 1977–2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan Švankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue (Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films include Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain. Strata-cut animation  Most commonly a form of clay animation in which a long bread-like "loaf" of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the animation camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Cutout animation  A type of stop-motion animation produced by moving two-dimensional pieces of material paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam's animated sequences from Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK, 1969–1974); Fantastic Planet (France/Czechoslovakia, 1973); Tale of Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the adult television sitcom series (and sometimes in episodes) of South Park (US, 1997) and the music video Live for the moment, from Verona Riots band (produced by Alberto Serrano and Nívola Uyá, Spain 2014). Silhouette animation  A variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Weimar Republic, 1926) and Princes et Princesses (France, 2000). Model animation  Refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects and split screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films, Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and the work of Willis H. O'Brien on films, King Kong (1933).Go motion  A variant of model animation that uses various techniques to create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effect scenes for the film The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Another example is the dragon named "Vermithrax" from the 1981 film Dragonslayer. Object animation  Refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion animation, as opposed to specially created items. Graphic animation  Uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc.), which are sometimes manipulated frame by frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stop-motion camera is moved to create on-screen action. Brickfilm  A subgenre of object animation involving using Lego or other similar brick toys to make an animation. These have had a recent boost in popularity with the advent of video sharing sites, YouTube and the availability of cheap cameras and animation software. Pixilation  Involves the use of live humans as stop-motion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts, and the Academy Award-winning Neighbours by Norman McLaren.ComputerComputer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.2D2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics and 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques, interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation, and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.Final line advection animation is a technique used in 2D animation, to give artists and animators more influence and control over the final product as everything is done within the same department. Speaking about using this approach in Paperman, John Kahrs said that "Our animators can change things, actually erase away the CG underlayer if they want, and change the profile of the arm."3D3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The 3D model maker usually starts by creating a 3D polygon mesh for the animator to manipulate. A mesh typically includes many vertices that are connected by edges and faces, which give the visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment. Sometimes, the mesh is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to control the mesh by weighting the vertices. This process is called rigging and can be used in conjunction with key frames to create movement.Other techniques can be applied, mathematical functions (e.g., gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, and effects, fire and water simulations. These techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics.Terms Cel-shaded animation is used to mimic traditional animation using computer software. The shading looks stark, with less blending of colors. Examples include Skyland (2007, France), The Iron Giant (1999, United States), Futurama (1999, United States) Appleseed Ex Machina (2007, Japan), The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002, Japan), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, Japan) Machinima – Films created by screen capturing in video games and virtual worlds. The term originated from the software introduction in the 1980s demoscene, as well as the 1990s recordings of the first-person shooter video game Quake. Motion capture is used when live-action actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express (2004, US), Beowulf (2007, US), A Christmas Carol (2009, US), The Adventures of Tintin (2011, US) kochadiiyan (2014, India) Computer animation is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life, using advanced rendering that mimics in detail skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc. Examples include Up (2009, US), How to Train Your Dragon (2010, US) Physically based animation is animation using computer simulations.Mechanical Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines that seem animate rather than robotic. Audio-Animatronics and Autonomatronics is a form of robotics animation, combined with 3-D animation, created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks move and make noise (generally a recorded speech or song). They are fixed to whatever supports them. They can sit and stand, and they cannot walk. An Audio-Animatron is different from an android-type robot in that it uses prerecorded movements and sounds, rather than responding to external stimuli. In 2009, Disney created an interactive version of the technology called Autonomatronics. Linear Animation Generator is a form of animation by using static picture frames installed in a tunnel or a shaft. The animation illusion is created by putting the viewer in a linear motion, parallel to the installed picture frames. The concept and the technical solution were invented in 2007 by Mihai Girlovan in Romania. Chuckimation is a type of animation created by the makers of the television series Action League Now! in which characters/props are thrown, or chucked from off camera or wiggled around to simulate talking by unseen hands. The magic lantern used mechanical slides to project moving images, probably since Christiaan Huygens invented this early image projector in 1659.Other  Hydrotechnics: a technique that includes lights, water, fire, fog, and lasers, with high-definition projections on mist screens. Drawn on film animation: a technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock; for example, by Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage. Paint-on-glass animation: a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass, for example by Aleksandr Petrov. Erasure animation: a technique using traditional 2D media, photographed over time as the artist manipulates the image. For example, William Kentridge is famous for his charcoal erasure films, and Piotr Dumała for his auteur technique of animating scratches on plaster. Pinscreen animation: makes use of a screen filled with movable pins that can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation. Sand animation: sand is moved around on a back- or front-lighted piece of glass to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when animated because of the light contrast. Flip book: a flip book (sometimes, especially in British English, called a flick book) is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, they also are geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, they appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books. Character animation Multi-sketching Special effects animationSee also Twelve basic principles of animation Animated war film Animation department Animated series Architectural animation Avar Independent animation International Animation Day International Animated Film Association International Tournée of Animation List of film-related topics Motion graphic design Society for Animation Studies Wire-frame modelReferencesCitationsSourcesJournal articlesBooksOnline sourcesExternal links The making of an 8-minute cartoon short "Animando", a 12-minute film demonstrating 10 different animation techniques (and teaching how to use them). Bibliography on animation – Websiite "Histoire de la télévision"  CartooningArticles containing video clipsFilm and video technology
Apollo is one of the  Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more. One of the most important and complex of the Greek gods, he is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (ephebe, or a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.As the patron deity of Delphi (Apollo Pythios), Apollo is an oracular god—the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Apollo is the god who affords help and wards off evil; various epithets call him the "averter of evil". Delphic Apollo is the patron of seafarers, foreigners and the protector of fugitives and refugees.Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo delivered people from epidemics, yet he is also a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague with his arrows. The invention of archery itself is credited to Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo is usually described as carrying a golden bow and a quiver of silver arrows. Apollo's capacity to make youths grow is one of the best attested facets of his panhellenic cult persona. As the protector of young (kourotrophos), Apollo is concerned with the health and education of children. He presided over their passage into adulthood. Long hair, which was the prerogative of boys, was cut at the coming of age (ephebeia) and dedicated to Apollo.Apollo is an important pastoral deity, and was the patron of herdsmen and shepherds. Protection of herds, flocks and crops from diseases, pests and predators were his primary duties. On the other hand, Apollo also encouraged founding new towns and establishment of civil constitution. He is associated with dominion over colonists. He was the giver of laws, and his oracles were consulted before setting laws in a city.As the god of mousike, Apollo presides over all music, songs, dance and poetry. He is the inventor of string-music, and the frequent companion of the Muses, functioning as their chorus leader in celebrations. The lyre is a common attribute of Apollo. In Hellenistic times, especially during the 5th century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, the personification of the sun. In Latin texts, however, there was no conflation of Apollo with Sol among the classical Latin poets until 1st century CE. Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the 5th century CE.EtymologyApollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: , Apollōn ( ); Doric: , Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: , Apeilōn; Aeolic: , Aploun; )The name Apollo—unlike the related older name Paean—is generally not found in the Linear B (Mycenean Greek) texts, although there is a possible attestation in the lacunose form ]pe-rjo-[ (Linear B: ]-[) on the KN E 842 tablet, though it has also been suggested that the name might actually read "Hyperion" ([u]-pe-rjo-[ne]).The etymology of the name is uncertain. The spelling  ( in Classical Attic) had almost superseded all other forms by the beginning of the common era, but the Doric form, Apellon (), is more archaic, as it is derived from an earlier . It probably is a cognate to the Doric month Apellaios (), and the offerings apellaia () at the initiation of the young men during the family-festival apellai (). According to some scholars, the words are derived from the Doric word apella (), which originally meant "wall," "fence for animals" and later "assembly within the limits of the square." Apella () is the name of the popular assembly in Sparta, corresponding to the ecclesia (). R. S. P. Beekes rejected the connection of the theonym with the noun apellai and suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form *Apalyun.Several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollo's name with the Greek verb  (apollymi), "to destroy". Plato in Cratylus connects the name with  (apolysis), "redemption", with  (apolousis), "purification", and with  ([h]aploun), "simple", in particular in reference to the Thessalian form of the name, , and finally with  (aeiballon), "ever-shooting". Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric  (apella), which means "assembly", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation  (sekos), "fold", in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds. In the ancient Macedonian language  (pella) means "stone," and some toponyms may be derived from this word:  (Pella, the capital of ancient Macedonia) and  (Pellēnē/Pellene).A number of non-Greek etymologies have been suggested for the name, The Hittite form Apaliunas (d) is attested in the Manapa-Tarhunta letter. The Hittite testimony reflects an early form , which may also be surmised from comparison of Cypriot  with Doric . The name of the Lydian god Qλdãns /kʷʎðãns/ may reflect an earlier /kʷalyán-/ before palatalization, syncope, and the pre-Lydian sound change *y > d. Note the labiovelar in place of the labial /p/ found in pre-Doric Ἀπέλjων and Hittite Apaliunas.A Luwian etymology suggested for Apaliunas makes Apollo "The One of Entrapment", perhaps in the sense of "Hunter".Greco-Roman epithetsApollo's chief epithet was Phoebus ( ; , Phoibos ), literally "bright". It was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans for Apollo's role as the god of light. Like other Greek deities, he had a number of others applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god. However, while Apollo has a great number of appellations in Greek myth, only a few occur in Latin literature.SunAegletes ( ; Αἰγλήτης, Aiglētēs), from , "light of the sun" Helius ( ; , Helios), literally "sun" Lyceus ( ; , Lykeios, from Proto-Greek *), "light". The meaning of the epithet "Lyceus" later became associated with Apollo's mother Leto, who was the patron goddess of Lycia () and who was identified with the wolf ().Phanaeus ( ; , Phanaios), literally "giving or bringing light"Phoebus ( ; , Phoibos), literally "bright", his most commonly used epithet by both the Greeks and RomansSol (Roman) (), "sun" in LatinWolfLycegenes ( ; , Lukēgenēs), literally "born of a wolf" or "born of Lycia"Lycoctonus ( ; , Lykoktonos), from , "wolf", and , "to kill"Origin and birthApollo's birthplace was Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos.Cynthius ( ; , Kunthios), literally "Cynthian"Cynthogenes ( ; , Kynthogenēs), literally "born of Cynthus"Delius ( ; Δήλιος, Delios), literally "Delian"Didymaeus ( ; , Didymaios) from δίδυμος, "twin", as the twin of ArtemisPlace of worshipDelphi and Actium were his primary places of worship.Acraephius ( ; , Akraiphios, literally "Acraephian") or Acraephiaeus ( ; , Akraiphiaios), "Acraephian", from the Boeotian town of Acraephia (), reputedly founded by his son Acraepheus.Actiacus ( ; , Aktiakos), literally "Actian", after Actium ()Delphinius ( ; , Delphinios), literally "Delphic", after Delphi (Δελφοί). An etiology in the Homeric Hymns associated this with dolphins.Epactaeus, meaning "god worshipped on the coast", in Samos.Pythius ( ; , Puthios, from Πυθώ, Pythō), from the region around Delphi Smintheus ( ; , Smintheus), "Sminthian"—that is, "of the town of Sminthos or Sminthe" near the Troad town of HamaxitusNapaian Apollo (Ἀπόλλων Ναπαῖος), from the city of Nape at the island of LesbosHealing and diseaseAcesius ( ; , Akesios), from , "healing". Acesius was the epithet of Apollo worshipped in Elis, where he had a temple in the agora.Acestor ( ; , Akestōr), literally "healer"Culicarius (Roman) ( ), from Latin culicārius, "of midges"Iatrus ( ; , Iātros), literally "physician"Medicus (Roman) ( ), "physician" in Latin. A temple was dedicated to Apollo Medicus at Rome, probably next to the temple of Bellona.Paean ( ; , Paiān), physician, healerParnopius ( ; , Parnopios), from , "locust"Founder and protectorAgyieus ( ; , Aguīeus), from , "street", for his role in protecting roads and homesAlexicacus ( ; , Alexikakos), literally "warding off evil"Apotropaeus ( ; , Apotropaios), from , "to avert"Archegetes ( ; , Arkhēgetēs), literally "founder"Averruncus (Roman) ( ; from Latin āverruncare), "to avert"Clarius ( ; , Klārios), from Doric , "allotted lot"Epicurius ( ; , Epikourios), from , "to aid"Genetor ( ; , Genetōr), literally "ancestor"Nomius ( ; , Nomios), literally "pastoral"Nymphegetes ( ; , Numphēgetēs), from , "Nymph", and , "leader", for his role as a protector of shepherds and pastoral lifePatroos  from  , "related to one's father," for his role as father of Ion and founder of the Ionians, as worshipped at the Temple of Apollo Patroos in AthensSauroctunos, “lizard killer”, possibly a reference to his killing of PythonProphecy and truthCoelispex (Roman) ( ), from Latin coelum, "sky", and specere "to look at" Iatromantis ( ; , Iātromantis,) from , "physician", and , "prophet", referring to his role as a god both of healing and of prophecyLeschenorius ( ; , Leskhēnorios), from , "converser"Loxias ( ; , Loxias), from , "to say", historically associated with , "ambiguous"Manticus ( ; , Mantikos), literally "prophetic"Proopsios (), meaning "foreseer" or "first seen"Music and artsMusagetes ( ; Doric , Mousāgetās), from , "Muse", and  "leader" Musegetes ( ; , Mousēgetēs), as the precedingArcheryAphetor ( ; , Aphētōr), from , "to let loose"Aphetorus ( ; , Aphētoros), as the precedingArcitenens (Roman) ( ), literally "bow-carrying"Argyrotoxus ( ; , Argyrotoxos), literally "with silver bow"Clytotoxus ( ; , Klytótoxos), "he who is famous for his bow", the renowned archer.Hecaërgus ( ; , Hekaergos), literally "far-shooting"Hecebolus ( ; , Hekēbolos), "far-shooting"Ismenius ( ; , Ismēnios), literally "of Ismenus", after Ismenus, the son of Amphion and Niobe, whom he struck with an arrowAmazonsAmazonius (), Pausanias at the Description of Greece writes that near Pyrrhichus there was a sanctuary of Apollo, called Amazonius () with image of the god said to have been dedicated by the Amazons.Celtic epithets and cult titlesApollo was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. In the traditionally Celtic lands, he was most often seen as a healing and sun god. He was often equated with Celtic gods of similar character. Apollo Atepomarus ("the great horseman" or "possessing a great horse"). Apollo was worshipped at Mauvières (Indre). Horses were, in the Celtic world, closely linked to the sun. Apollo Belenus ("bright" or "brilliant"). This epithet was given to Apollo in parts of Gaul, Northern Italy and Noricum (part of modern Austria). Apollo Belenus was a healing and sun god. Apollo Cunomaglus ("hound lord"). A title given to Apollo at a shrine at Nettleton Shrub, Wiltshire. May have been a god of healing. Cunomaglus himself may originally have been an independent healing god. Apollo Grannus. Grannus was a healing spring god, later equated with Apollo. Apollo Maponus. A god known from inscriptions in Britain. This may be a local fusion of Apollo and Maponus. Apollo Moritasgus ("masses of sea water"). An epithet for Apollo at Alesia, where he was worshipped as god of healing and, possibly, of physicians. Apollo Vindonnus ("clear light"). Apollo Vindonnus had a temple at Essarois, near Châtillon-sur-Seine in present-day Burgundy. He was a god of healing, especially of the eyes. Apollo Virotutis ("benefactor of mankind"). Apollo Virotutis was worshipped, among other places, at Fins d'Annecy (Haute-Savoie) and at Jublains (Maine-et-Loire).OriginsThe cult centers of Apollo in Greece, Delphi and Delos, date from the 8th century BCE. The Delos sanctuary was primarily dedicated to Artemis, Apollo's twin sister. At Delphi, Apollo was venerated as the slayer of the monstrous serpent Python. For the Greeks, Apollo was the most Greek of all the gods, and through the centuries he acquired different functions. In Archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times was connected with "healing". In Classical Greece he was the god of light and of music, but in popular religion he had a strong function to keep away evil. Walter Burkert discerned three components in the prehistory of Apollo worship, which he termed "a Dorian-northwest Greek component, a Cretan-Minoan component, and a Syro-Hittite component."Healer and god-protector from evilIn classical times, his major function in popular religion was to keep away evil, and he was therefore called "apotropaios" (, "averting evil") and "alexikakos" ( "keeping off ill"; from v.  + n. ). Apollo also had many epithets relating to his function as a healer. Some commonly-used examples are "paion" ( literally "healer" or "helper") "epikourios" (, "succouring"), "oulios" (, "healer, baleful") and "loimios" (, "of the plague"). In later writers, the word, "paion", usually spelled "Paean", becomes a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing.Apollo in his aspect of "healer" has a connection to the primitive god Paean (), who did not have a cult of his own. Paean serves as the healer of the gods in the Iliad, and seems to have originated in a pre-Greek religion. It is suggested, though unconfirmed, that he is connected to the Mycenaean figure pa-ja-wo-ne (Linear B: ). Paean was the personification of holy songs sung by "seer-doctors" (), which were supposed to cure disease.Homer illustrated Paeon the god and the song both of apotropaic thanksgiving or triumph. Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo and afterwards to other gods: to Dionysus, to Apollo Helios, to Apollo's son Asclepius the healer. About the 4th century BCE, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become recognized as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won.In the Iliad, Apollo is the healer under the gods, but he is also the bringer of disease and death with his arrows, similar to the function of the Vedic god of disease Rudra. He sends a plague () to the Achaeans. Knowing that Apollo can prevent a recurrence of the plague he sent, they purify themselves in a ritual and offer him a large sacrifice of cows, called a hecatomb.Dorian originThe Homeric Hymn to Apollo depicts Apollo as an intruder from the north. The connection with the northern-dwelling Dorians and their initiation festival apellai is reinforced by the month Apellaios in northwest Greek calendars. The family-festival was dedicated to Apollo (Doric: ). Apellaios is the month of these rites, and Apellon is the "megistos kouros" (the great Kouros). However it can explain only the Doric type of the name, which is connected with the Ancient Macedonian word "pella" (Pella), stone. Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially in the oracular shrine of Delphi (Omphalos).Minoan originGeorge Huxley regarded the identification of Apollo with the Minoan deity Paiawon, worshipped in Crete, to have originated at Delphi. In the Homeric Hymn, Apollo appeared as a dolphin and carried Cretan priests to Delphi, where they evidently transferred their religious practices. Apollo Delphinios or Delphidios was a sea-god especially worshipped in Crete and in the islands. Apollo's sister Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting, is identified with Britomartis (Diktynna), the Minoan "Mistress of the animals". In her earliest depictions she was accompanied by the "Master of the animals", a bow-wielding god of hunting whose name has been lost; aspects of this figure may have been absorbed into the more popular Apollo.Anatolian originA non-Greek origin of Apollo has long been assumed in scholarship. The name of Apollo's mother Leto has Lydian origin, and she was worshipped on the coasts of Asia Minor. The inspiration oracular cult was probably introduced into Greece from Anatolia, which is the origin of Sibyl, and where some of the oldest oracular shrines originated. Omens, symbols, purifications, and exorcisms appear in old Assyro-Babylonian texts. These rituals were spread into the empire of the Hittites, and from there into Greece.Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. He is pictured as a terrible god, less trusted by the Greeks than other gods. The god seems to be related to Appaliunas, a tutelary god of Wilusa (Troy) in Asia Minor, but the word is not complete. The stones found in front of the gates of Homeric Troy were the symbols of Apollo. A western Anatolian origin may also be bolstered by references to the parallel worship of Artimus (Artemis) and Qλdãns, whose name may be cognate with the Hittite and Doric forms, in surviving Lydian texts. However, recent scholars have cast doubt on the identification of Qλdãns with Apollo.The Greeks gave to him the name  agyieus as the protector god of public places and houses who wards off evil and his symbol was a tapered stone or column. However, while usually Greek festivals were celebrated at the full moon, all the feasts of Apollo were celebrated at the seventh day of the month, and the emphasis given to that day (sibutu) indicates a Babylonian origin.The Late Bronze Age (from 1700 to 1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu was a god of plague, invoked during plague years. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it. Aplu, meaning the son of, was a title given to the god Nergal, who was linked to the Babylonian god of the sun Shamash. Homer interprets Apollo as a terrible god () who brings death and disease with his arrows, but who can also heal, possessing a magic art that separates him from the other Greek gods. In Iliad, his priest prays to Apollo Smintheus, the mouse god who retains an older agricultural function as the protector from field rats. All these functions, including the function of the healer-god Paean, who seems to have Mycenean origin, are fused in the cult of Apollo.Proto-Indo-European The Vedic Rudra has some similar functions with Apollo. The terrible god is called "the archer" and the bow is also an attribute of Shiva. Rudra could bring diseases with his arrows, but he was able to free people of them and his alternative Shiva is a healer physician god. However the Indo-European component of Apollo does not explain his strong relation with omens, exorcisms, and with the oracular cult.Oracular cult Unusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had widespread influence: Delos and Delphi. In cult practice, Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo (the Apollo of Delphi) were so distinct that they might both have shrines in the same locality. Lycia was sacred to the god, for this Apollo was also called Lycian. Apollo's cult was already fully established when written sources commenced, about 650 BCE. Apollo became extremely important to the Greek world as an oracular deity in the archaic period, and the frequency of theophoric names such as Apollodorus or Apollonios and cities named Apollonia testify to his popularity. Oracular sanctuaries to Apollo were established in other sites. In the 2nd and 3rd century CE, those at Didyma and Claros pronounced the so-called "theological oracles", in which Apollo confirms that all deities are aspects or servants of an all-encompassing, highest deity. "In the 3rd century, Apollo fell silent. Julian the Apostate (359–361) tried to revive the Delphic oracle, but failed."Oracular shrinesApollo had a famous oracle in Delphi, and other notable ones in Claros and Didyma. His oracular shrine in Abae in Phocis, where he bore the toponymic epithet Abaeus (, Apollon Abaios), was important enough to be consulted by Croesus.His oracular shrines include: Abae in Phocis. Bassae in the Peloponnese. At Clarus, on the west coast of Asia Minor; as at Delphi a holy spring which gave off a pneuma, from which the priests drank. In Corinth, the Oracle of Corinth came from the town of Tenea, from prisoners supposedly taken in the Trojan War. At Khyrse, in Troad, the temple was built for Apollo Smintheus. In Delos, there was an oracle to the Delian Apollo, during summer. The Hieron (Sanctuary) of Apollo adjacent to the Sacred Lake, was the place where the god was said to have been born. In Delphi, the Pythia became filled with the pneuma of Apollo, said to come from a spring inside the Adyton. In Didyma, an oracle on the coast of Anatolia, south west of Lydian (Luwian) Sardis, in which priests from the lineage of the Branchidae received inspiration by drinking from a healing spring located in the temple. Was believed to have been founded by Branchus, son or lover of Apollo. In Hierapolis Bambyce, Syria (modern Manbij), according to the treatise De Dea Syria, the sanctuary of the Syrian Goddess contained a robed and bearded image of Apollo. Divination was based on spontaneous movements of this image. At Patara, in Lycia, there was a seasonal winter oracle of Apollo, said to have been the place where the god went from Delos. As at Delphi the oracle at Patara was a woman. In Segesta in Sicily.Oracles were also given by sons of Apollo. In Oropus, north of Athens, the oracle Amphiaraus, was said to be the son of Apollo; Oropus also had a sacred spring. in Labadea,  east of Delphi, Trophonius, another son of Apollo, killed his brother and fled to the cave where he was also afterwards consulted as an oracle.Temples of ApolloMany temples were dedicated to Apollo in Greece and the Greek colonies. They show the spread of the cult of Apollo and the evolution of the Greek architecture, which was mostly based on the rightness of form and on mathematical relations. Some of the earliest temples, especially in Crete, do not belong to any Greek order. It seems that the first peripteral temples were rectangular wooden structures. The different wooden elements were considered divine, and their forms were preserved in the marble or stone elements of the temples of Doric order. The Greeks used standard types because they believed that the world of objects was a series of typical forms which could be represented in several instances. The temples should be canonic, and the architects were trying to achieve this esthetic perfection. From the earliest times there were certain rules strictly observed in rectangular peripteral and prostyle buildings. The first buildings were built narrowly in order to hold the roof, and when the dimensions changed some mathematical relations became necessary in order to keep the original forms. This probably influenced the theory of numbers of Pythagoras, who believed that behind the appearance of things there was the permanent principle of mathematics.The Doric order dominated during the 6th and the 5th century BC but there was a mathematical problem regarding the position of the triglyphs, which couldn't be solved without changing the original forms. The order was almost abandoned for the Ionic order, but the Ionic capital also posed an insoluble problem at the corner of a temple. Both orders were abandoned for the Corinthian order gradually during the Hellenistic age and under Rome.The most important temples are:Greek templesThebes, Greece: The oldest temple probably dedicated to Apollo Ismenius was built in the 9th century B.C. It seems that it was a curvilinear building. The Doric temple was built in the early 7th century B.C., but only some small parts have been found A festival called Daphnephoria was celebrated every ninth year in honour of Apollo Ismenius (or Galaxius). The people held laurel branches (daphnai), and at the head of the procession walked a youth (chosen priest of Apollo), who was called "daphnephoros".Eretria: According to the Homeric hymn to Apollo, the god arrived to the plain, seeking for a location to establish its oracle. The first temple of Apollo Daphnephoros, "Apollo, laurel-bearer", or "carrying off Daphne", is dated to 800 B.C. The temple was curvilinear hecatombedon (a hundred feet). In a smaller building were kept the bases of the laurel branches which were used for the first building. Another temple probably peripteral was built in the 7th century B.C., with an inner row of wooden columns over its Geometric predecessor. It was rebuilt peripteral around 510 B.C., with the stylobate measuring 21,00 x 43,00 m. The number of pteron column was 6 x 14. Dreros (Crete). The temple of Apollo Delphinios dates from the 7th century B.C., or probably from the middle of the 8th century B.C. According to the legend, Apollo appeared as a dolphin, and carried Cretan priests to the port of Delphi. The dimensions of the plan are 10,70 x 24,00 m and the building was not peripteral. It contains column-bases of the Minoan type, which may be considered as the predecessors of the Doric columns.Gortyn (Crete). A temple of Pythian Apollo, was built in the 7th century B.C. The plan measured 19,00 x 16,70 m and it was not peripteral. The walls were solid, made from limestone, and there was single door on the east side.Thermon (West Greece): The Doric temple of Apollo Thermios, was built in the middle of the 7th century B.C. It was built on an older curvilinear building dating perhaps from the 10th century B.C., on which a peristyle was added. The temple was narrow, and the number of pteron columns (probably wooden) was 5 x 15. There was a single row of inner columns. It measures 12.13 x 38.23 m at the stylobate, which was made from stones.  Corinth: A Doric temple was built in the 6th century B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 21.36 x 53.30 m, and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 15. There was a double row of inner columns. The style is similar with the Temple of Alcmeonidae at Delphi. The Corinthians were considered to be the inventors of the Doric order. Napes (Lesbos): An Aeolic temple probably of Apollo Napaios was built in the 7th century B.C. Some special capitals with floral ornament have been found, which are called Aeolic, and it seems that they were borrowed from the East. Cyrene, Libya: The oldest Doric temple of Apollo was built in c. 600 B.C. The number of pteron columns was 6 x 11, and it measures 16.75 x 30.05 m at the stylobate. There was a double row of sixteen inner columns on stylobates. The capitals were made from stone. Naukratis: An Ionic temple was built in the early 6th century B.C. Only some fragments have been found and the earlier, made from limestone, are identified among the oldest of the Ionic order.Syracuse, Sicily: A Doric temple was built at the beginning of the 6th century B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 21.47 x 55.36 m and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 17. It was the first temple in Greek west built completely out of stone. A second row of columns were added, obtaining the effect of an inner porch. Selinus (Sicily):The Doric Temple C dates from 550 B.C., and it was probably dedicated to Apollo. The temple's stylobate measures 10.48 x 41.63 m and the number of pteron columns was 6 x 17. There was portico with a second row of columns, which is also attested for the temple at Syracuse.Delphi: The first temple dedicated to Apollo, was built in the 7th century B.C. According to the legend, it was wooden made of laurel branches. The "Temple of Alcmeonidae" was built in c. 513 B.C. and it is the oldest Doric temple with significant marble elements. The temple's stylobate measures 21.65 x 58.00 m, and the number of pteron columns as 6 x 15. A fest similar with Apollo's fest at Thebes, Greece was celebrated every nine years. A boy was sent to the temple, who walked on the sacred road and returned carrying a laurel branch (dopnephoros). The maidens participated with joyful songs. Chios: An Ionic temple of Apollo Phanaios was built at the end of the 6th century B.C. Only some small parts have been found and the capitals had floral ornament. Abae (Phocis). The temple was destroyed by the Persians in the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B.C., and later by the Boeotians. It was rebuilt by Hadrian. The oracle was in use from early Mycenaean times to the Roman period, and shows the continuity of Mycenaean and Classical Greek religion.  Bassae (Peloponnesus):A temple dedicated to Apollo Epikourios ("Apollo the helper"), was built in 430 B.C. and it was designed by Iktinos.It combined Doric and Ionic elements, and the earliest use of column with a Corinthian capital in the middle. The temple is of a relatively modest size, with the stylobate measuring 14.5 x 38.3 metres containing a Doric peristyle of 6 x 15 columns. The roof left a central space open to admit light and air.Delos: A temple probably dedicated to Apollo and not peripteral, was built in the late 7th century B.C., with a plan measuring 10,00 x 15,60 m. The Doric Great temple of Apollo, was built in c. 475 B.C. The temple's stylobate measures 13.72 x 29.78 m, and the number of pteron columns as 6 x 13. Marble was extensively used.Ambracia: A Doric peripteral temple dedicated to Apollo Pythios Sotir was built in 500 B.C., and It is lying at the centre of the Greek city Arta. Only some parts have been found, and it seems that the temple was built on earlier sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo. The temple measures 20,75 x 44,00 m at the stylobate. The foundation which supported the statue of the god, still exists.Didyma (near Miletus): The gigantic Ionic temple of Apollo Didymaios started around 540 B.C. The construction ceased and then it was restarted in 330 B.C. The temple is dipteral, with an outer row of 10 x 21 columns, and it measures 28.90 x 80.75 m at the stylobate.Clarus (near ancient Colophon): According to the legend, the famous seer Calchas, on his return from Troy, came to Clarus. He challenged the seer Mopsus, and died when he lost. The Doric temple of Apollo Clarius was probably built in the 3rd century B.C., and it was peripteral with 6 x 11 columns. It was reconstructed at the end of the Hellenistic period, and later from the emperor Hadrian but Pausanias claims that it was still incomplete in the 2nd century B.C.Hamaxitus (Troad): In Iliad, Chryses the priest of Apollo, addresses the god with the epithet Smintheus (Lord of Mice), related with the god's ancient role as bringer of the disease (plague). Recent excavations indicate that the Hellenistic temple of Apollo Smintheus was constructed at 150–125 B.C., but the symbol of the mouse god was used on coinage probably from the 4th century B.C. The temple measures 40,00 x 23,00 m at the stylobate, and the number of pteron columns was 8 x 14.Pythion (), this was the name of a shrine of Apollo at Athens near the Ilisos river. It was created by Peisistratos, and tripods placed there by those who had won in the cyclic chorus at the Thargelia.Setae (Lydia): The temple of Apollo Aksyros located in the city.Apollonia Pontica: There were two temples of Apollo Healer in the city. One from the Late Archaic period and the other from the Early Classical period.Ikaros island in the Persian Gulf (modern Failaka Island): There was a temple of Apollo on the island.Etruscan and Roman templesVeii (Etruria): The temple of Apollo was built in the late 6th century B.C. and it indicates the spread of Apollo's culture (Aplu) in Etruria. There was a prostyle porch, which is called Tuscan, and a triple cella 18,50 m wide.Falerii Veteres (Etruria): A temple of Apollo was built probably in the 4th-3rd century B.C. Parts of a teraccotta capital, and a teraccotta base have been found. It seems that the Etruscan columns were derived from the archaic Doric. A cult of Apollo Soranus is attested by one inscription found near Falerii.Pompeii (Italy): The cult of Apollo was widespread in the region of Campania since the 6th century B.C. The temple was built in 120 B.V, but its beginnings lie in the 6th century B.C. It was reconstructed after an earthquake in A.D. 63. It demonstrates a mixing of styles which formed the basis of Roman architecture. The columns in front of the cella formed a Tuscan prostyle porch, and the cella is situated unusually far back. The peripteral colonnade of 48 Ionic columns was placed in such a way that the emphasis was given to the front side. Rome: The temple of Apollo Sosianus and the temple of Apollo Medicus. The first temple building dates to 431 B.C., and was dedicated to Apollo Medicus (the doctor), after a plague of 433 B.C. It was rebuilt by Gaius Sosius, probably in 34 B.C. Only three columns with Corinthian capitals exist today. It seems that the cult of Apollo had existed in this area since at least to the mid-5th century B.C.Rome:The temple of Apollo Palatinus was located on the Palatine hill within the sacred boundary of the city. It was dedicated by Augustus on 28 B.C. The façade of the original temple was Ionic and it was constructed from solid blocks of marble. Many famous statues by Greek masters were on display in and around the temple, including a marble statue of the god at the entrance and a statue of Apollo in the cella.Melite (modern Mdina, Malta): A Temple of Apollo was built in the city in the 2nd century A.D. Its remains were discovered in the 18th century, and many of its architectural fragments were dispersed among private collections or reworked into new sculptures. Parts of the temple's podium were rediscovered in 2002.MythologyApollo appears often in the myths, plays and hymns. As Zeus' favorite son, Apollo had direct access to the mind of Zeus and was willing to reveal this knowledge to humans. A divinity beyond human comprehension, he appears both as a beneficial and a wrathful god.BirthApollo was the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Leto, his previous wife or one of his mistresses. Growing up, Apollo was nursed by the nymphs Korythalia and Aletheia, the personification of truth.When Zeus' wife Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant, she banned Leto from giving birth on terra firma. Leto sought shelter in many lands, only to be rejected by them. Finally, the voice of unborn Apollo informed his mother about a floating island named Delos that had once been Asteria, Leto's own sister. Since it was neither a mainland nor an island, Leto was readily welcomed there and gave birth to her children under a palm tree. All the goddesses except Hera were present to witness the event. It is also stated that Hera kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods tricked Hera into letting her go by offering her a necklace of amber 9 yards (8.2 m) long.When Apollo was born, clutching a golden sword, everything on Delos turned into gold and the island was filled with ambrosial fragrance. Swans circled the island seven times and the nymphs sang in delight. He was washed clean by the goddesses who then covered him in white garment and fastened golden bands around him. Since Leto was unable to feed him, Themis, the goddess of divine law, fed him with nectar, or ambrosia. Upon tasting the divine food, Apollo broke free of the bands fastened onto him and declared that he would be the master of lyre and archery, and interpret the will of Zeus to humankind. Zeus, who had calmed Hera by then, came and adorned his son with a golden headband.Apollo's birth fixed the floating Delos to the earth. Leto promised that her son would be always favorable towards the Delians. According to some, Apollo secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean after some time. This island became sacred to Apollo and was one of the major cult centres of the god.Apollo was born on the seventh day (, hebdomagenes) of the month Thargelion—according to Delian tradition—or of the month Bysios—according to Delphian tradition. The seventh and twentieth, the days of the new and full moon, were ever afterwards held sacred to him. Mythographers agree that Artemis was born first and subsequently assisted with the birth of Apollo or was born on the island of Ortygia then helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.HyperboreaHyperborea, the mystical land of eternal spring, venerated Apollo above all the gods. The Hyperboreans always sang and danced in his honor and hosted Pythian games. There, a vast forest of beautiful trees was called "the garden of Apollo". Apollo spent the winter months among the Hyperboreans. His absence from the world caused coldness and this was marked as his annual death. No prophecies were issued during this time. He returned to the world during the beginning of the spring. The Theophania festival was held in Delphi to celebrate his return.It is said that Leto came to Delos from Hyperborea accompanied by a pack of wolves. Henceforth, Hyperborea became Apollo's winter home and wolves became sacred to him. His intimate connection to wolves is evident from his epithet Lyceus, meaning wolf-like. But Apollo was also the wolf-slayer in his role as the god who protected flocks from predators. The Hyperborean worship of Apollo bears the strongest marks of Apollo being worshipped as the sun god. Shamanistic elements in Apollo's cult are often liked to his Hyperborean origin, and he is likewise speculated to have originated as a solar shaman. Shamans like Abaris and Aristeas were also the followers of Apollo, who hailed from Hyperborea.In myths, the tears of amber Apollo shed when his son Asclepius died became the waters of the river Eridanos, which surrounded Hyperborea. Apollo also buried in Hyperborea the arrow which he had used to kill the Cyclopes. He later gave this arrow to Abaris.Childhood and youthAs a child, Apollo is said to have built a foundation and an altar on Delos using the horns of the goats that his sister Artemis hunted. Since he learnt the art of building when young, he later came to be known as Archegetes, the founder (of towns) and god who guided men to build new cities. From his father Zeus, Apollo had also received a golden chariot drawn by swans.In his early years when Apollo spent his time herding cows, he was reared by Thriae, the bee nymphs, who trained him and enhanced his prophetic skills. Apollo is also said to have invented the lyre, and along with Artemis, the art of archery. He then taught to the humans the art of healing and archery. Phoebe, his grandmother, gave the oracular shrine of Delphi to Apollo as a birthday gift. Themis inspired him to be the oracular voice of Delphi thereon.PythonPython, a chthonic serpent-dragon, was a child of Gaia and the guardian of the Delphic Oracle, whose death was foretold by Apollo when he was still in Leto's womb. Python was the nurse of the giant Typhon. In most of the traditions, Apollo was still a child when he killed Python.Python was sent by Hera to hunt the pregnant Leto to death, and had assaulted her. To avenge the trouble given to his mother, Apollo went in search of Python and killed it in the sacred cave at Delphi with the bow and arrows that he had received from Hephaestus. The Delphian nymphs who were present encouraged Apollo during the battle with the cry "Hie Paean". After Apollo was victorious, they also brought him gifts and gave the Corycian cave to him. According to Homer, Apollo had encountered and killed the Python when he was looking for a place to establish his shrine.According to another version, when Leto was in Delphi, Python had attacked her. Apollo defended his mother and killed Python. Euripides in his Iphigenia in Aulis gives an account of his fight with Python and the event's aftermath. You killed him, o Phoebus, while still a baby, still leaping in the arms of your dear mother, and you entered the holy shrine, and sat on the golden tripod, on your truthful throne distributing prophecies from the gods to mortals.A detailed account of Apollo's conflict with Gaia and Zeus' intervention on behalf of his young son is also given. But when Apollo came and sent Themis, the child of Earth, away from the holy oracle of Pytho, Earth gave birth to dream visions of the night; and they told to the cities of men the present, and what will happen in the future, through dark beds of sleep on the ground; and so Earth took the office of prophecy away from Phoebus, in envy, because of her daughter. The lord made his swift way to Olympus and wound his baby hands around Zeus, asking him to take the wrath of the earth goddess from the Pythian home. Zeus smiled, that the child so quickly came to ask for worship that pays in gold. He shook his locks of hair, put an end to the night voices, and took away from mortals the truth that appears in darkness, and gave the privilege back again to Loxias.Apollo also demanded that all other methods of divination be made inferior to his, a wish that Zeus granted him readily. Because of this, Athena, who had been practicing divination by throwing pebbles, cast her pebbles away in displeasure.However, Apollo had committed a blood murder and had to be purified. Because Python was a child of Gaia, Gaia wanted Apollo to be banished to Tartarus as a punishment. Zeus didn't agree and instead exiled his son from Olympus, and instructed him to get purified. Apollo had to serve as a slave for nine years. After the servitude was over, as per his father's order, he travelled to the Vale of Tempe to bath in waters of Peneus. There Zeus himself performed purificatory rites on Apollo. Purified, Apollo was escorted by his half sister Athena to Delphi where the oracular shrine was finally handed over to him by Gaia. According to a variation, Apollo had also travelled to Crete, where Carmanor purified him. Apollo later established the Pythian games to appropriate Gaia. Henceforth, Apollo became the god who cleansed himself from the sin of murder and, made men aware of their guilt and purified them.Soon after, Zeus instructed Apollo to go to Delphi and establish his law. But Apollo, disobeying his father, went to the land of Hyperborea and stayed there for a year. He returned only after the Delphians sang hymns to him and pleaded him to come back. Zeus, pleased with his son's integrity, gave Apollo the seat next to him on his right side. He also gave to Apollo various gifts, like a golden tripod, a golden bow and arrows, a golden chariot and the city of Delphi.Soon after his return, Apollo needed to recruit people to Delphi. So, when he spotted a ship sailing from Crete, he sprang aboard in the form of a dolphin. The crew was awed into submission and followed a course that led the ship to Delphi. There Apollo revealed himself as a god. Initiating them to his service, he instructed them to keep righteousness in their hearts. The Pythia was Apollo's high priestess and his mouthpiece through whom he gave prophecies. Pythia is arguably the constant favorite of Apollo among the mortals.TityosHera once again sent another giant, Tityos to rape Leto. This time Apollo shot him with his arrows and attacked him with his golden sword. According to other version, Artemis also aided him in protecting their mother by attacking Tityos with her arrows. After the battle Zeus finally relented his aid and hurled Tityos down to Tartarus. There, he was pegged to the rock floor, covering an area of , where a pair of vultures feasted daily on his liver.AdmetusAdmetus was the king of Pherae, who was known for his hospitality. When Apollo was exiled from Olympus for killing Python, he served as a herdsman under Admetus, who was then young and unmarried. Apollo is said to have shared a romantic relationship with Admetus during his stay. After completing his years of servitude, Apollo went back to Olympus as a god.Because Admetus had treated Apollo well, the god conferred great benefits on him in return. Apollo's mere presence is said to have made the cattle give birth to twins. Apollo helped Admetus win the hand of Alcestis, the daughter of King Pelias, by taming a lion and a boar to draw Admetus' chariot. He was present during their wedding to give his blessings. When Admetus angered the goddess Artemis by forgetting to give her the due offerings, Apollo came to the rescue and calmed his sister. When Apollo learnt of Admetus' untimely death, he convinced or tricked the Fates into letting Admetus live past his time.According to another version, or perhaps some years later, when Zeus struck down Apollo's son Asclepius with a lightning bolt for resurrecting the dead, Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclopes, who had fashioned the bolt for Zeus. Apollo would have been banished to Tartarus for this, but his mother Leto intervened, and reminding Zeus of their old love, pleaded him not to kill their son. Zeus obliged and sentenced Apollo to one year of hard labor once again under Admetus.The love between Apollo and Admetus was a favored topic of Roman poets like Ovid and Servius.NiobeThe fate of Niobe was prophesied by Apollo while he was still in Leto's womb. Niobe was the queen of Thebes and wife of Amphion. She displayed hubris when she boasted that she was superior to Leto because she had fourteen children (Niobids), seven male and seven female, while Leto had only two. She further mocked Apollo's effeminate appearance and Artemis' manly appearance. Leto, insulted by this, told her children to punish Niobe. Accordingly, Apollo killed Niobe's sons, and Artemis her daughters. According to some versions of the myth, among the Niobids, Chloris and her brother Amyclas were not killed because they prayed to Leto. Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge.A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylos in Asia Minor and turned into stone as she wept. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their death, when the gods themselves entombed them.When Chloris married and had children, Apollo granted her son Nestor the years he had taken away from the Niobids. Hence, Nestor was able to live for 3 generations.Building the walls of Troy Once Apollo and Poseidon served under the Trojan king Laomedon in accordance to Zeus' words. Apollodorus states that the gods willingly went to the king disguised as humans in order to check his hubris. Apollo guarded the cattle of Laomedon in the valleys of mount Ida, while Poseidon built the walls of Troy. Other versions make both Apollo and Poseidon the builders of the wall. In Ovid's account, Apollo completes his task by playing his tunes on his lyre.In Pindar's odes, the gods took a mortal named Aeacus as their assistant. When the work was completed, three snakes rushed against the wall, and though the two that attacked the sections of the wall built by the gods fell down dead, the third forced its way into the city through the portion of the wall built by Aeacus. Apollo immediately prophesied that Troy would fall at the hands of Aeacus's descendants, the Aeacidae (i.e. his son Telamon joined Heracles when he sieged the city during Laomedon's rule. Later, his great grandson Neoptolemus was present in the wooden horse that lead to the downfall of Troy).However, the king not only refused to give the gods the wages he had promised, but also threatened to bind their feet and hands, and sell them as slaves. Angered by the unpaid labour and the insults, Apollo infected the city with a pestilence and Posedion sent the sea monster Cetus. To deliver the city from it, Laomedon had to sacrifice his daughter Hesione (who would later be saved by Heracles).During his stay in Troy, Apollo had a lover named Ourea, who was a nymph and daughter of Poseidon. Together they had a son named Ileus, whom Apollo loved dearly.Trojan WarApollo sided with the Trojans during the Trojan War waged by the Greeks against the Trojans.During the war, the Greek king Agamemnon captured Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, and refused to return her. Angered by this, Apollo shot arrows infected with the plague into the Greek encampment. He demanded that they return the girl, and the Achaeans (Greeks) complied, indirectly causing the anger of Achilles, which is the theme of the Iliad.Receiving the aegis from Zeus, Apollo entered the battlefield as per his father's command, causing great terror to the enemy with his war cry. He pushed the Greeks back and destroyed many of the soldiers. He is described as "the rouser of armies" because he rallied the Trojan army when they were falling apart.When Zeus allowed the other gods to get involved in the war, Apollo was provoked by Poseidon to a duel. However, Apollo declined to fight him, saying that he wouldn't fight his uncle for the sake of mortals.When the Greek hero Diomedes injured the Trojan hero Aeneas, Aphrodite tried to rescue him, but Diomedes injured her as well. Apollo then enveloped Aeneas in a cloud to protect him. He repelled the attacks Diomedes made on him and gave the hero a stern warning to abstain himself from attacking a god. Aeneas was then taken to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy, where he was healed.After the death of Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, Apollo rescued the corpse from the battlefield as per his father's wish and cleaned it. He then gave it to Sleep (Hypnos) and Death (Thanatos). Apollo had also once convinced Athena to stop the war for that day, so that the warriors can relieve themselves for a while.The Trojan hero Hector (who, according to some, was the god's own son by Hecuba) was favored by Apollo. When he got severely injured, Apollo healed him and encouraged him to take up his arms. During a duel with Achilles, when Hector was about to lose, Apollo hid Hector in a cloud of mist to save him. When the Greek warrior Patroclus tried to get into the fort of Troy, he was stopped by Apollo. Encouraging Hector to attack Patroclus, Apollo stripped the armour of the Greek warrior and broke his weapons. Patroclus was eventually killed by Hector. At last, after Hector's fated death, Apollo protected his corpse from Achilles' attempt to mutilate it by creating a magical cloud over the corpse.Apollo held a grudge against Achilles throughout the war because Achilles had murdered his son Tenes before the war began and brutally assassinated his son Troilus in his own temple. Not only did Apollo save Hector from Achilles, he also tricked Achilles by disguising himself as a Trojan warrior and driving him away from the gates. He foiled Achilles' attempt to mutilate Hector's dead body.Finally, Apollo caused Achilles' death by guiding an arrow shot by Paris into Achilles' heel. In some versions, Apollo himself killed Achilles by taking the disguise of Paris.Apollo helped many Trojan warriors, including Agenor, Polydamas, Glaucus in the battlefield. Though he greatly favored the Trojans, Apollo was bound to follow the orders of Zeus and served his father loyally during the war.HeraclesAfter Heracles (then named Alcides) was struck with madness and killed his family, he sought to purify himself and consulted the oracle of Apollo. Apollo, through the Pythia, commanded him to serve king Eurystheus for twelve years and complete the ten tasks the king would give him. Only then would Alcides be absolved of his sin. Apollo also renamed him as Heracles.To complete his third task, Heracles had to capture the Ceryneian Hind, a hind sacred to Artemis, and bring back it alive. After chasing the hind for one year, the animal eventually got tired, and when it tried crossing the river Ladon, Heracles captured it. While he was taking it back, he was confronted by Apollo and Artemis, who were angered at Heracles for this act. However, Heracles soothed the goddess and explained his situation to her. After much pleading, Artemis permitted him to take the hind and told him to return it later.After he was freed from his servitude to Eurystheus, Heracles fell in conflict with Iphytus, a prince of Oechalia, and murdered him. Soon after, he contracted a terrible disease. He consulted the oracle of Apollo once again, in hope of ridding himself of the disease. The Pythia, however, denied to give any prophesy. In anger, Heracles snatched the sacred tripod and started walking away, intending to start his own oracle. However, Apollo did not tolerate this and stopped Heracles; a duel ensued between them. Artemis rushed to support Apollo, while Athena supported Heracles. Soon, Zeus threw his thunderbolt between the fighting brothers and separated them. He reprimanded Heracles for this act of violation and asked Apollo to give a solution to Heracles. Apollo then ordered the hero to serve under Omphale, queen of Lydia for one year in order to purify himself.PeriphasPeriphas was an Attican king and a priest of Apollo. He was noble, just and rich. He did all his duties justly. Because of this people were very fond of him and started honouring him to the same extent as Zeus. At one point, they worshipped Periphas in place of Zeus and set up shrines and temples for him. This annoyed Zeus, who decided to annihilate the entire family of Periphas. But because he was a just king and a good devotee, Apollo intervened and requested his father to spare Periphas. Zeus considered Apollo's words and agreed to let him live. But he metamorphosed Periphas into an eagle and made the eagle the king of birds. When Periphas' wife requested Zeus to let her stay with her husband, Zeus turned her into a vulture and fulfilled her wish.Plato's concept of soulmatesA long time ago, there were three kinds of human beings: male, descended from the sun; female, descended from the earth; and androgynous, descended from the moon. Each human being was completely round, with four arms and fours legs, two identical faces on opposite sides of a head with four ears, and all else to match. They were powerful and unruly. Otis and Ephialtes even dared to scale Mount Olympus.To check their insolence, Zeus devised a plan to humble them and improve their manners instead of completely destroying them. He cut them all in two and asked Apollo to make necessary repairs, giving humans the individual shape they still have now. Apollo turned their heads and necks around towards their wounds, he pulled together their skin at the abdomen, and sewed the skin together at the middle of it. This is what we call navel today. He smoothened the wrinkles and shaped the chest. But he made sure to leave a few wrinkles on the abdomen and around the navel so that they might be reminded of their punishment."As he [Zeus] cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn... Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So Apollo gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre [of the belly] which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few wrinkles, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.Nurturer of the youngApollo Kourotrophos is the god who nurtures and protects children and the young, especially boys. He oversees their education and their passage into adulthood. Education is said to have originated from Apollo and the Muses. Many myths have him train his children. It was a custom for boys to cut and dedicate their long hair to Apollo after reaching adulthood.Chiron, the abandoned centaur, was fostered by Apollo, who instructed him in medicine, prophecy, archery and more. Chiron would later become a great teacher himself.Asclepius in his childhood gained much knowledge pertaining to medicinal arts by his father. However, he was later entrusted to Chiron for further education.Anius, Apollo's son by Rhoeo, was abandoned by his mother soon after his birth. Apollo brought him up and educated him in mantic arts. Anius later became the priest of Apollo and the king of Delos.Iamus was the son of Apollo and Evadne. When Evadne went into labour, Apollo sent the Moirai to assist his lover. After the child was born, Apollo sent snakes to feed the child some honey. When Iamus reached the age of education, Apollo took him to Olympia and taught him many arts, including the ability to understand and explain the languages of birds.Idmon was educated by Apollo to be a seer. Even though he foresaw his death that would happen in his journey with the Argonauts, he embraced his destiny and died a brave death. To commemorate his son's bravery, Apollo commanded Boeotians to build a town around the tomb of the hero, and to honor him.Apollo adopted Carnus, the abandoned son of Zeus and Europa. He reared the child with the help of his mother Leto and educated him to be a seer.When his son Melaneus reached the age of marriage, Apollo asked the princess Stratonice to be his son's bride and carried her away from her home when she agreed.Apollo saved a shepherd boy (name unknown) from death in a large deep cave, by the means of vultures. To thank him, the shepherd built Apollo a temple under the name Vulturius.God of musicImmediately after his birth, Apollo demanded a lyre and invented the paean, thus becoming the god of music. As the divine singer, he is the patron of poets, singers and musicians. The invention of string music is attributed to him. Plato said that the innate ability of humans to take delight in music, rhythm and harmony is the gift of Apollo and the Muses. According to Socrates, ancient Greeks believed that Apollo is the god who directs the harmony and makes all things move together, both for the gods and the humans. For this reason, he was called Homopolon before the Homo was replaced by A. Apollo's harmonious music delivered people from their pain, and hence, like Dionysus, he is also called the liberator. The swans, which were considered to be the most musical among the birds, were believed to be the "singers of Apollo". They are Apollo's sacred birds and acted as his vehicle during his travel to Hyperborea. Aelian says that when the singers would sing hymns to Apollo, the swans would join the chant in unison.Among the Pythagoreans, the study of mathematics and music were connected to the worship of Apollo, their principal deity. Their belief was that the music purifies the soul, just as medicine purifies the body. They also believed that music was delegated to the same mathematical laws of harmony as the mechanics of the cosmos, evolving into an idea known as the music of the spheres.Apollo appears as the companion of the Muses, and as Musagetes ("leader of Muses") he leads them in dance. They spend their time on Parnassus, which is one of their sacred places. Apollo is also the lover of the Muses and by them he became the father of famous musicians like Orpheus and Linus.Apollo is often found delighting the immortal gods with his songs and music on the lyre. In his role as the god of banquets, he was always present to play music in weddings of the gods, like the marriage of Eros and Psyche, Peleus and Thetis. He is a frequent guest of the Bacchanalia, and many ancient ceramics depict him being at ease amidst the maenads and satyrs. Apollo also participated in musical contests when challenged by others. He was the victor in all those contests, but he tended to punish his opponents severely for their hubris.Apollo's lyreThe invention of lyre is attributed either to Hermes or to Apollo himself. Distinctions have been made that Hermes invented lyre made of tortoise shell, whereas the lyre Apollo invented was a regular lyre.Myths tell that the infant Hermes stole a number of Apollo's cows and took them to a cave in the woods near Pylos, covering their tracks. In the cave, he found a tortoise and killed it, then removed the insides. He used one of the cow's intestines and the tortoise shell and made his lyre.Upon discovering the theft, Apollo confronted Hermes and asked him to return his cattle. When Hermes acted innocent, Apollo took the matter to Zeus. Zeus, having seen the events, sided with Apollo, and ordered Hermes to return the cattle. Hermes then began to play music on the lyre he had invented. Apollo fell in love with the instrument and offered to exchange the cattle for the lyre. Hence, Apollo then became the master of the lyre.According to other versions, Apollo had invented the lyre himself, whose strings he tore in repenting of the excess punishment he had given to Marsyas. Hermes' lyre, therefore, would be a reinvention.Contest with PanOnce Pan had the audacity to compare his music with that of Apollo and to challenge the god of music to a contest. The mountain-god Tmolus was chosen to umpire. Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower, Midas, who happened to be present. Then, Apollo struck the strings of his lyre. It was so beautiful that Tmolus at once awarded the victory to Apollo, and everyone was pleased with the judgement. Only Midas dissented and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo did not want to suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer, and caused them to become the ears of a donkey.Contest with MarsyasMarsyas was a satyr who was punished by Apollo for his hubris. He had found an aulos on the ground, tossed away after being invented by Athena because it made her cheeks puffy. Athena had also placed a curse upon the instrument, that whoever would pick it up would be severely punished. When Marsyas played the flute, everyone became frenzied with joy. This led Marsyas to think that he was better than Apollo, and he challenged the god to a musical contest. The contest was judged by the Muses, or the nymphs of Nysa. Athena was also present to witness the contest.Marsyas taunted Apollo for "wearing his hair long, for having a fair face and smooth body, for his skill in so many arts". He also further said,'His [Apollo] hair is smooth and made into tufts and curls that fall about his brow and hang before his face. His body is fair from head to foot, his limbs shine bright, his tongue gives oracles, and he is equally eloquent in prose or verse, propose which you will. What of his robes so fine in texture, so soft to the touch, aglow with purple? What of his lyre that flashes gold, gleams white with ivory, and shimmers with rainbow gems? What of his song, so cunning and so sweet? Nay, all these allurements suit with naught save luxury. To virtue they bring shame alone!'The Muses and Athena sniggered at this comment. The contestants agreed to take turns displaying their skills and the rule was that the victor could "do whatever he wanted" to the loser.According to one account, after the first round, they both were deemed equal by the Nysiads. But in the next round, Apollo decided to play on his lyre and add his melodious voice to his performance. Marsyas argued against this, saying that Apollo would have an advantage and accused Apollo of cheating. But Apollo replied that since Marsyas played the flute, which needed air blown from the throat, it was similar to singing, and that either they both should get an equal chance to combine their skills or none of them should use their mouths at all. The nymphs decided that Apollo's argument was just. Apollo then played his lyre and sang at the same time, mesmerising the audience. Marsyas could not do this. Apollo was declared the winner and, angered with Marsyas' haughtiness and his accusations, decided to flay the satyr.According to another account, Marsyas played his flute out of tune at one point and accepted his defeat. Out of shame, he assigned to himself the punishment of being skinned for a wine sack. Another variation is that Apollo played his instrument upside down. Marsyas could not do this with his instrument. So the Muses who were the judges declared Apollo the winner. Apollo hung Marsyas from a tree to flay him.Apollo flayed the limbs of Marsyas alive in a cave near Celaenae in Phrygia for his hubris to challenge a god. He then gave the rest of his body for proper burial and nailed Marsyas' flayed skin to a nearby pine-tree as a lesson to the others. Marsyas' blood turned into the river Marsyas. But Apollo soon repented and being distressed at what he had done, he tore the strings of his lyre and threw it away. The lyre was later discovered by the Muses and Apollo's sons Linus and Orpheus. The Muses fixed the middle string, Linus the string struck with the forefinger, and Orpheus the lowest string and the one next to it. They took it back to Apollo, but the god, who had decided to stay away from music for a while, laid away both the lyre and the pipes at Delphi and joined Cybele in her wanderings to as far as Hyperborea.Contest with CinyrasCinyras was a ruler of Cyprus, who was a friend of Agamemnon. Cinyras promised to assist Agamemnon in the Trojan war, but did not keep his promise. Agamemnon cursed Cinyras. He invoked Apollo and asked the god to avenge the broken promise. Apollo then had a lyre-playing contest with Cinyras, and defeated him. Either Cinyras committed suicide when he lost, or was killed by Apollo.Patron of sailorsApollo functions as the patron and protector of sailors, one of the duties he shares with Poseidon. In the myths, he is seen helping heroes who pray to him for safe journey.When Apollo spotted a ship of Cretan sailors that was caught in a storm, he quickly assumed the shape of a dolphin and guided their ship safely to Delphi.When the Argonauts faced a terrible storm, Jason prayed to his patron, Apollo, to help them. Apollo used his bow and golden arrow to shed light upon an island, where the Argonauts soon took shelter. This island was renamed "Anaphe", which means "He revealed it".Apollo helped the Greek hero Diomedes, to escape from a great tempest during his journey homeward. As a token of gratitude, Diomedes built a temple in honor of Apollo under the epithet Epibaterius ("the embarker").During the Trojan War, Odysseus came to the Trojan camp to return Chriseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, and brought many offerings to Apollo. Pleased with this, Apollo sent gentle breezes that helped Odysseus return safely to the Greek camp.Arion was a poet who was kidnapped by some sailors for the rich prizes he possessed. Arion requested them to let him sing for the last time, to which the sailors consented. Arion began singing a song in praise of Apollo, seeking the god's help. Consequently, numerous dolphins surrounded the ship and when Arion jumped into the water, the dolphins carried him away safely.WarsTitanomachyOnce Hera, out of spite, aroused the Titans to war against Zeus and take away his throne. Accordingly, when the Titans tried to climb Mount Olympus, Zeus with the help of Apollo, Artemis and Athena, defeated them and cast them into tartarus.Trojan WarApollo played a pivotal role in the entire Trojan War. He sided with the Trojans, and sent a terrible plague to the Greek camp, which indirectly led to the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon. He killed the Greek heroes Patroclus, Achilles, and numerous Greek soldiers. He also helped many Trojan heroes, the most important one being Hector. After the end of the war, Apollo and Poseidon together cleaned the remains of the city and the camps.Telegony warA war broke out between the Brygoi and the Thesprotians, who had the support of Odysseus. The gods Athena and Ares came to the battlefield and took sides. Athena helped the hero Odysseus while Ares fought alongside of the Brygoi. When Odysseus lost, Athena and Ares came into a direct duel. To stop the battling gods and the terror created by their battle, Apollo intervened and stopped the duel between them .Indian warWhen Zeus suggested that Dionysus defeat the Indians in order to earn a place among the gods, Dionysus declared war against the Indians and travelled to India along with his army of Bacchantes and satyrs. Among the warriors was Aristaeus, Apollo's son. Apollo armed his son with his own hands and gave him a bow and arrows and fitted a strong shield to his arm. After Zeus urged Apollo to join the war, he went to the battlefield. Seeing several of his nymphs and Aristaeus drowning in a river, he took them to safety and healed them. He taught Aristaeus more useful healing arts and sent him back to help the army of Dionysus.Theban warDuring the war between the sons of Oedipus, Apollo favored Amphiaraus, a seer and one of the leaders in the war. Though saddened that the seer was fated to be doomed in the war, Apollo made Amphiaraus' last hours glorious by "lighting his shield and his helm with starry gleam". When Hypseus tried to kill the hero by a spear, Apollo directed the spear towards the charioteer of Amphiaraus instead. Then Apollo himself replaced the charioteer and took the reins in his hands. He deflected many spears and arrows away them. He also killed many of the enemy warriors like Melaneus, Antiphus, Aetion, Polites and Lampus. At last when the moment of departure came, Apollo expressed his grief with tears in his eyes and bid farewell to Amphiaraus, who was soon engulfed by the Earth.Slaying of giantsApollo killed the giants Python and Tityos, who had assaulted his mother Leto.GigantomachyDuring the gigantomachy, Apollo and Heracles blinded the giant Ephialtes by shooting him in his eyes, Apollo shooting his left and Heracles his right. He also killed Porphyrion, the king of giants, using his bow and arrows.AloadaeThe Aloadae, namely Otis and Ephialtes, were twin giants who decided to wage war upon the gods. They attempted to storm Mt. Olympus by piling up mountains, and threatened to fill the sea with mountains and inundate dry land. They even dared to seek the hand of Hera and Artemis in marriage. Angered by this, Apollo killed them by shooting them with arrows. According to another tale, Apollo killed them by sending a deer between them; as they tried to kill it with their javelins, they accidentally stabbed each other and died.PhorbasPhorbas was a savage giant king of Phlegyas who was described as having swine like features. He wished to plunder Delphi for its wealth. He seized the roads to Delphi and started harassing the pilgrims. He captured the old people and children and sent them to his army to hold them for ransom. And he challenged the young and sturdy men to a match of boxing, only to cut their heads off when they would get defeated by him. He hung the chopped off heads to an oak tree. Finally, Apollo came to put an end to this cruelty. He entered a boxing contest with Phorbas and killed him with a single blow.Other storiesIn the first Olympic games, Apollo defeated Ares and became the victor in wrestling. He outran Hermes in the race and won first place.Apollo divides months into summer and winter. He rides on the back of a swan to the land of the Hyperboreans during the winter months, and the absence of warmth in winters is due to his departure. During his absence, Delphi was under the care of Dionysus, and no prophecies were given during winters.Molpadia and Parthenos Molpadia and Parthenos were the sisters of Rhoeo, a former lover of Apollo. One day, they were put in charge of watching their father's ancestral wine jar but they fell asleep while performing this duty. While they were asleep, the wine jar was broken by the swines their family kept. When the sisters woke up and saw what had happened, they threw themselves off a cliff in fear of their father's wrath. Apollo, who was passing by, caught them and carried them to two different cities in Chersonesus, Molpadia to Castabus and Parthenos to Bubastus. He turned them into goddesses and they both received divine honors. Molpadia's name was changed to Hemithea upon her deification.Prometheus Prometheus was the titan who was punished by Zeus for stealing fire. He was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle was sent to eat Prometheus' liver, which would then grow back overnight to be eaten again the next day. Seeing his plight, Apollo pleaded Zeus to release the kind Titan, while Artemis and Leto stood behind him with tears in their eyes. Zeus, moved by Apollo's words and the tears of the goddesses, finally sent Heracles to free Prometheus.The rock of Leukas Leukatas was believed to be a white colored rock jutting out from the island of Leukas into the sea. It was present in the sanctuary of Apollo Leukates. A leap from this rock was believed to have put an end to the longings of love.Once, Aphrodite fell deeply in love with Adonis, a young man of great beauty who was later accidentally killed by a boar. Heartbroken, Aphrodite wandered looking for the rock of Leukas. When she reached the sanctuary of Apollo in Argos, she confided in him her love and sorrow. Apollo then brought her to the rock of Leukas and asked her to throw herself from the top of the rock. She did so and was freed from her love. When she sought for the reason behind this, Apollo told her that Zeus, before taking another lover, would sit on this rock to free himself from his love to Hera.Another tale relates that a man named Nireus, who fell in love with the cult statue of Athena, came to the rock and jumped in order relieve himself. After jumping, he fell into the net of a fisherman in which, when he was pulled out, he found a box filled with gold. He fought with the fisherman and took the gold, but Apollo appeared to him in the night in a dream and warned him not to appropriate gold which belonged to others.It was an ancestral custom among the Leukadians to fling a criminal from this rock every year at the sacrifice performed in honor of Apollo for the sake of averting evil. However, a number of men would be stationed all around below rock to catch the criminal and take him out of the borders in order to exile him from the island. This was the same rock from which, according to a legend, Sappho took her suicidal leap.Female loversLove affairs ascribed to Apollo are a late development in Greek mythology. Their vivid anecdotal qualities have made some of them favorites of painters since the Renaissance, the result being that they stand out more prominently in the modern imagination.Daphne was a nymph who scorned Apollo's advances and ran away from him. When Apollo chased her in order to persuade her, she changed herself into a laurel tree. According to other versions, she cried for help during the chase, and Gaia helped her by taking her in and placing a laurel tree in her place. According to Roman poet Ovid, the chase was brought about by Cupid, who hit Apollo with golden arrow of love and Daphne with leaden arrow of hatred. The myth explains the origin of the laurel and connection of Apollo with the laurel and its leaves, which his priestess employed at Delphi. The leaves became the symbol of victory and laurel wreaths were given to the victors of the Pythian games.Apollo is said to have been the lover of all nine Muses, and not being able to choose one of them, decided to remain unwed. He fathered the Corybantes by the Muse Thalia, Orpheus by Calliope, Linus of Thrace by Calliope or Urania and Hymenaios (Hymen) by one of the Muses.Cyrene was a Thessalian princess whom Apollo loved. In her honor, he built the city Cyrene and made her its ruler. She was later granted longevity by Apollo who turned her into a nymph. The couple had two sons, Aristaeus, and Idmon.Evadne was a nymph daughter of Poseidon and a lover of Apollo. She bore him a son, Iamos. During the time of the childbirth, Apollo sent Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth to assist her.Rhoeo, a princess of the island of Naxos was loved by Apollo. Out of affection for her, Apollo turned her sisters into goddesses. On the island Delos she bore Apollo a son named Anius. Not wanting to have the child, she entrusted the infant to Apollo and left. Apollo raised and educated the child on his own.Ourea, a daughter of Poseidon, fell in love with Apollo when he and Poseidon were serving the Trojan king Laomedon. They both united on the day the walls of Troy were built. She bore to Apollo a son, whom Apollo named Ileus, after the city of his birth, Ilion (Troy). Ileus was very dear to Apollo.Thero, daughter of Phylas, a maiden as beautiful as the moonbeams, was loved by the radiant Apollo, and she loved him in return. By their union, she became mother of Chaeron, who was famed as "the tamer of horses". He later built the city Chaeronea.Hyrie or Thyrie was the mother of Cycnus. Apollo turned both the mother and son into swans when they jumped into a lake and tried to kill themselves.Hecuba was the wife of King Priam of Troy, and Apollo had a son with her named Troilus. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated as long as Troilus reached the age of twenty alive. He was ambushed and killed by Achilleus, and Apollo avenged his death by killing Achilles. After the sack of Troy, Hecuba was taken to Lycia by Apollo.Coronis was daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths. While pregnant with Asclepius, Coronis fell in love with Ischys, son of Elatus and slept with him. When Apollo found out about her infidelity through his prophetic powers, he sent his sister, Artemis, to kill Coronis. Apollo rescued the baby by cutting open Koronis' belly and gave it to the centaur Chiron to raise.Dryope, the daughter of Dryops, was impregnated by Apollo in the form of a snake. She gave birth to a son named Amphissus.In Euripides' play Ion, Apollo fathered Ion by Creusa, wife of Xuthus. He used his powers to conceal her pregnancy from her father. Later, when Creusa left Ion to die in the wild, Apollo asked Hermes to save the child and bring him to the oracle at Delphi, where he was raised by a priestess.Male loversHyacinth (or Hyacinthus), a beautiful and athletic Spartan prince, was one of Apollo's favourite lovers. The pair was practicing throwing the discus when a discus thrown by Apollo was blown off course by the jealous Zephyrus and struck Hyacinthus in the head, killing him instantly. Apollo is said to be filled with grief. Out of Hyacinthus' blood, Apollo created a flower named after him as a memorial to his death, and his tears stained the flower petals with the interjection , meaning alas. He was later resurrected and taken to heaven. The festival Hyacinthia was a national celebration of Sparta, which commemorated the death and rebirth of Hyacinthus.Another male lover was Cyparissus, a descendant of Heracles. Apollo gave him a tame deer as a companion but Cyparissus accidentally killed it with a javelin as it lay asleep in the undergrowth. Cyparissus was so saddened by its death that he asked Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo granted the request by turning him into the Cypress named after him, which was said to be a sad tree because the sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.Admetus, the king of Pherae, was also Apollo's lover. During his exile, which lasted either for one year or nine years, Apollo served Admetus as a herdsman. The romantic nature of their relationship was first described by Callimachus of Alexandria, who wrote that Apollo was "fired with love" for Admetus. Plutarch lists Admetus as one of Apollo's lovers and says that Apollo served Admetus because he doted upon him. Latin poet Ovid in his Ars Amatoria said that even though he was a god, Apollo forsook his pride and stayed in as a servant for the sake of Admetus. Tibullus desrcibes Apollo's love to the king as servitium amoris (slavery of love) and asserts that Apollo became his servant not by force but by choice. He would also make cheese and serve it to Admetus. His domestic actions caused embarrassment to his family.When Admetus wanted to marry princess Alcestis, Apollo provided a chariot pulled by a lion and a boar he had tamed. This satisfied Alcestis' father and he let Admetus marry his daughter. Further, Apollo saved the king from Artemis' wrath and also convinced the Moirai to postpone Admetus' death once.Branchus, a shepherd, one day came across Apollo in the woods. Captivated by the god's beauty, he kissed Apollo. Apollo requited his affections and wanting to reward him, bestowed prophetic skills on him. His descendants, the Branchides, were an influential clan of prophets.Other male lovers of Apollo include:Adonis, who is said to have been the lover of both Apollo and Aphrodite. He behaved as a man with Aphrodite and as a woman with Apollo.Atymnius, otherwise known as a beloved of SarpedonBoreas, the god of North windsHelenus, the son of Priam and a Trojan Prince, was a lover of Apollo and received from him an ivory bow with which he later wounded Achilles in the hand.Hippolytus of Sicyon (not the same as Hippolytus, the son of Theseus)Hymenaios, the son of MagnesIapis, to whom Apollo taught the art of healingPhorbas, the dragon slayer (probably the son of Triopas)ChildrenApollo sired many children, from mortal women and nymphs as well as the goddesses. His children grew up to be physicians, musicians, poets, seers or archers. Many of his sons founded new cities and became kings. They were all usually very beautiful.Asclepius is the most famous son of Apollo. His skills as a physician surpassed that of Apollo's. Zeus killed him for bringing back the dead, but upon Apollo's request, he was resurrected as a god. Aristaeus was placed under the care of Chiron after his birth. He became the god of beekeeping, cheese making, animal husbandry and more. He was ultimately given immortality for the benefits he bestowed upon the humanity. The Corybantes were spear-clashing, dancing demigods.The sons of Apollo who participated in the Trojan War include the Trojan princes Hector and Troilus, as well as Tenes, the king of Tenedos, all three of whom were killed by Achilles over the course of the war.Apollo's children who became musicians and bards include Orpheus, Linus, Ialemus, Hymenaeus, Philammon, Eumolpus and Eleuther. Apollo fathered 3 daughters, Apollonis, Borysthenis and Cephisso, who formed a group of minor Muses, the "Musa Apollonides". They were nicknamed Nete, Mese and Hypate after the highest, middle and lowest strings of his lyre. Phemonoe was a seer and a poetess who was the inventor of Hexameter.Apis, Idmon, Iamus, Tenerus, Mopsus, Galeus, Telmessus and others were gifted seers. Anius, Pythaeus and Ismenus lived as high priests. Most of them were trained by Apollo himself.Arabus, Delphos, Dryops, Miletos, Tenes, Epidaurus, Ceos, Lycoras, Syrus, Pisus, Marathus, Megarus, Patarus, Acraepheus, Cicon, Chaeron and many other sons of Apollo, under the guidance of his words, founded eponymous cities.He also had a son named Chrysorrhoas who was a mechanic artist. His other daughters include Eurynome, Chariclo wife of Chiron, Eurydice the wife of Orpheus, Eriopis, famous for her beautiful hair, Melite the heroine, Pamphile the silk weaver, Parthenos, and by some accounts, Phoebe, Hilyra and Scylla. Apollo turned Parthenos into a constellation after her early death.Additionally, Apollo fostered and educated Chiron, the centaur who later became the greatest teacher and educated many demigods, including Apollo's sons. Apollo also fostered Carnus, the son of Zeus and Europa.Failed love attemptsMarpessa was kidnapped by Idas but was loved by Apollo as well. Zeus made her choose between them, and she chose Idas on the grounds that Apollo, being immortal, would tire of her when she grew old.Sinope, a nymph, was approached by the amorous Apollo. She made him promise that he would grant to her whatever she would ask for, and then cleverly asked him to let her stay a virgin. Apollo kept his promise and went back.Bolina was admired by Apollo but she refused him and jumped into the sea. To avoid her death, Apollo turned her into a nymph and let her go.Castalia was a nymph whom Apollo loved. She fled from him and dove into the spring at Delphi, at the base of Mt. Parnassos, which was then named after her. Water from this spring was sacred; it was used to clean the Delphian temples and inspire the priestesses.Cassandra, was a daughter of Hecuba and Priam. Apollo wished to court her. Cassandra promised to return his love on one condition - he should give her the power to see the future. Apollo fulfilled her wish, but she went back on her word and rejected him soon after. Angered that she broke her promise, Apollo cursed her that even though she would see the future, no one would ever believe her prophecies.Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, rejected both Apollo's and Poseidon's marriage proposals and swore that she would always stay unmarried.Female counterpartsArtemisArtemis as the sister of Apollo, is thea apollousa, that is, she as a female divinity represented the same idea that Apollo did as a male divinity. In the pre-Hellenic period, their relationship was described as the one between husband and wife, and there seems to have been a tradition which actually described Artemis as the wife of Apollo. However, this relationship was never sexual but spiritual, which is why they both are seen being unmarried in the Hellenic period.Artemis, like her brother, is armed with a bow and arrows. She is the cause of sudden deaths of women. She also is the protector of the young, especially girls. Though she has nothing to do with oracles, music or poetry, she sometimes led the female chorus on Olympus while Apollo sang. The laurel (daphne) was sacred to both. Artemis Daphnaia had her temple among the Lacedemonians, at a place called Hypsoi. Apollo Daphnephoros had a temple in Eretria, a "place where the citizens are to take the oaths". In later times when Apollo was regarded as identical with the sun or Helios, Artemis was naturally regarded as Selene or the moon.HecateHecate, the goddess of witchcraft and magic, is the chthonic counterpart of Apollo. They both are cousins, since their mothers - Leto and Asteria - are sisters. One of Apollo's epithets, Hecatos, is the masculine form of Hecate, and both the names mean "working from afar". While Apollo presided over the prophetic powers and magic of light and heaven, Hecate presided over the prophetic powers and magic of night and chthonian darkness. If Hecate is the "gate-keeper", Apollo Agyieus is the "door-keeper". Hecate is the goddess of crossroads and Apollo is the god and protector of streets.The oldest evidence found for Hecate's worship is at Apollo's temple in Miletos. There, Hecate was taken to be Apollo's sister counterpart in the absence of Artemis. Hecate's lunar nature makes her the goddess of the waning moon and contrasts and complements, at the same time, Apollo's solar nature.AthenaAs a deity of knowledge and great power, Apollo was seen being the male counterpart of Athena. Being Zeus' favorite children, they were given more powers and duties. Apollo and Athena often took up the role as protectors of cities, and were patrons of some of the important cities. Athena was the principle goddess of Athens, Apollo was the principle god of Sparta.As patrons of arts, Apollo and Athena were companions of the Muses, the former a much more frequent companion than the latter. Apollo was sometimes called the son of Athena and Hephaestus.In the Trojan war, as Zeus' executive, Apollo is seen holding the aegis like Athena usually does. Apollo's decisions were usually approved by his sister Athena, and they both worked to establish the law and order set forth by Zeus.Apollo in the OresteiaIn Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, Clytemnestra kills her husband, King Agamemnon because he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to proceed forward with the Trojan war. Apollo gives an order through the Oracle at Delphi that Agamemnon's son, Orestes, is to kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, her lover. Orestes and Pylades carry out the revenge, and consequently Orestes is pursued by the Erinyes or Furies (female personifications of vengeance).Apollo and the Furies argue about whether the matricide was justified; Apollo holds that the bond of marriage is sacred and Orestes was avenging his father, whereas the Erinyes say that the bond of blood between mother and son is more meaningful than the bond of marriage. They invade his temple, and he drives them away. He says that the matter should be brought before Athena. Apollo promises to protect Orestes, as Orestes has become Apollo's supplicant. Apollo advocates Orestes at the trial, and ultimately Athena rules in favor of Apollo.Roman ApolloThe Roman worship of Apollo was adopted from the Greeks. As a quintessentially Greek god, Apollo had no direct Roman equivalent, although later Roman poets often referred to him as Phoebus. There was a tradition that the Delphic oracle was consulted as early as the period of the kings of Rome during the reign of Tarquinius Superbus.On the occasion of a pestilence in the 430s BCE, Apollo's first temple at Rome was established in the Flaminian fields, replacing an older cult site there known as the "Apollinare". During the Second Punic War in 212 BCE, the Ludi Apollinares ("Apollonian Games") were instituted in his honor, on the instructions of a prophecy attributed to one Marcius. In the time of Augustus, who considered himself under the special protection of Apollo and was even said to be his son, his worship developed and he became one of the chief gods of Rome.After the battle of Actium, which was fought near a sanctuary of Apollo, Augustus enlarged Apollo's temple, dedicated a portion of the spoils to him, and instituted quinquennial games in his honour. He also erected a new temple to the god on the Palatine hill. Sacrifices and prayers on the Palatine to Apollo and Diana formed the culmination of the Secular Games, held in 17 BCE to celebrate the dawn of a new era.FestivalsThe chief Apollonian festival was the Pythian Games held every four years at Delphi and was one of the four great Panhellenic Games. Also of major importance was the Delia held every four years on Delos.Athenian annual festivals included the Boedromia, Metageitnia, Pyanepsia, and Thargelia.Spartan annual festivals were the Carneia and the Hyacinthia.Thebes every nine years held the Daphnephoria.Attributes and symbolsApollo's most common attributes were the bow and arrow. Other attributes of his included the kithara (an advanced version of the common lyre), the plectrum and the sword. Another common emblem was the sacrificial tripod, representing his prophetic powers. The Pythian Games were held in Apollo's honor every four years at Delphi. The bay laurel plant was used in expiatory sacrifices and in making the crown of victory at these games.The palm tree was also sacred to Apollo because he had been born under one in Delos. Animals sacred to Apollo included wolves, dolphins, roe deer, swans, cicadas (symbolizing music and song), ravens, hawks, crows (Apollo had hawks and crows as his messengers), snakes (referencing Apollo's function as the god of prophecy), mice and griffins, mythical eagle–lion hybrids of Eastern origin.Homer and Porphyry wrote that Apollo had a hawk as his messenger. In many myths Apollo is transformed into a hawk. In addition, Claudius Aelianus wrote that in Ancient Egypt people believed that hawks were sacred to the god and that according to the ministers of Apollo in Egypt there were certain men called "hawk-keepers" (ἱερακοβοσκοί) who fed and tended the hawks belonging to the god. Eusebius wrote that the second appearance of the moon is held sacred in the city of Apollo in Egypt and that the city's symbol is a man with a hawklike face (Horus). Claudius Aelianus wrote that Egyptians called Apollo Horus in their own language.As god of colonization, Apollo gave oracular guidance on colonies, especially during the height of colonization, 750–550 BCE. According to Greek tradition, he helped Cretan or Arcadian colonists found the city of Troy. However, this story may reflect a cultural influence which had the reverse direction: Hittite cuneiform texts mention an Asia Minor god called Appaliunas or Apalunas in connection with the city of Wilusa attested in Hittite inscriptions, which is now generally regarded as being identical with the Greek Ilion by most scholars. In this interpretation, Apollo's title of Lykegenes can simply be read as "born in Lycia", which effectively severs the god's supposed link with wolves (possibly a folk etymology).In literary contexts, Apollo represents harmony, order, and reason—characteristics contrasted with those of Dionysus, god of wine, who represents ecstasy and disorder. The contrast between the roles of these gods is reflected in the adjectives Apollonian and Dionysian. However, the Greeks thought of the two qualities as complementary: the two gods are brothers, and when Apollo at winter left for Hyperborea, he would leave the Delphic oracle to Dionysus. This contrast appears to be shown on the two sides of the Borghese Vase.Apollo is often associated with the Golden Mean. This is the Greek ideal of moderation and a virtue that opposes gluttony.Apollo in the artsApollo is a common theme in Greek and Roman art and also in the art of the Renaissance. The earliest Greek word for a statue is "delight" (, agalma), and the sculptors tried to create forms which would inspire such guiding vision. Greek art puts into Apollo the highest degree of power and beauty that can be imagined. The sculptors derived this from observations on human beings, but they also embodied in concrete form, issues beyond the reach of ordinary thought.The naked bodies of the statues are associated with the cult of the body that was essentially a religious activity. The muscular frames and limbs combined with slim waists indicate the Greek desire for health, and the physical capacity which was necessary in the hard Greek environment. The statues of Apollo embody beauty, balance and inspire awe before the beauty of the world.Archaic sculptureNumerous free-standing statues of male youths from Archaic Greece exist, and were once thought to be representations of Apollo, though later discoveries indicated that many represented mortals. In 1895, V. I. Leonardos proposed the term kouros ("male youth") to refer to those from Keratea; this usage was later expanded by Henri Lechat in 1904 to cover all statues of this format.The earliest examples of life-sized statues of Apollo may be two figures from the Ionic sanctuary on the island of Delos. Such statues were found across the Greek speaking world, the preponderance of these were found at the sanctuaries of Apollo with more than one hundred from the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoios, Boeotia alone. Significantly more rare are the life-sized bronze statues. One of the few originals which survived into the present day—so rare that its discovery in 1959 was described as "a miracle" by Ernst Homann-Wedeking—is the masterpiece bronze, Piraeus Apollo. It was found in Piraeus, a port city close to Athens, and is believed to have come from north-eastern Peloponnesus. It is the only surviving large-scale Peloponnesian statue.Classical sculptureThe famous Apollo of Mantua and its variants are early forms of the Apollo Citharoedus statue type, in which the god holds the cithara, a sophisticated seven-stringed variant of the lyre, in his left arm. While none of the Greek originals have survived, several Roman copies from approximately the late 1st or early 2nd century exist.Other notable forms are the Apollo Citharoedus and the Apollo Barberini.Hellenistic Greece-RomeApollo as a handsome beardless young man, is often depicted with a cithara (as Apollo Citharoedus) or bow in his hand, or reclining on a tree (the Apollo Lykeios and Apollo Sauroctonos types). The Apollo Belvedere is a marble sculpture that was rediscovered in the late 15th century; for centuries it epitomized the ideals of Classical Antiquity for Europeans, from the Renaissance through the 19th century. The marble is a Hellenistic or Roman copy of a bronze original by the Greek sculptor Leochares, made between 350 and 325 BCE.The life-size so-called "Adonis" found in 1780 on the site of a villa suburbana near the Via Labicana in the Roman suburb of Centocelle is identified as an Apollo by modern scholars. In the late 2nd century CE floor mosaic from El Djem, Roman Thysdrus, he is identifiable as Apollo Helios by his effulgent halo, though now even a god's divine nakedness is concealed by his cloak, a mark of increasing conventions of modesty in the later Empire.Another haloed Apollo in mosaic, from Hadrumentum, is in the museum at Sousse. The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the 3rd century BCE to depict Alexander the Great. Some time after this mosaic was executed, the earliest depictions of Christ would also be beardless and haloed.Modern receptionApollo often appears in modern and popular culture due to his status as the god of music, dance and poetry.Postclassical art and literatureDance and music Apollo has featured in dance and music in modern culture. Percy Bysshe Shelley composed a "Hymn of Apollo" (1820), and the god's instruction of the Muses formed the subject of Igor Stravinsky's Apollon musagète (1927–1928). In 1978, the Canadian band Rush released an album with songs "Apollo: Bringer of Wisdom"/"Dionysus: Bringer of Love".Books Apollo been portrayed in modern literature, such as when Charles Handy, in Gods of Management (1978) uses Greek gods as a metaphor to portray various types of organizational culture. Apollo represents a 'role' culture where order, reason, and bureaucracy prevail. In 2016, author Rick Riordan published the first book in the Trials of Apollo series, publishing four other books in the series in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.Film Apollo has been depicted in modern films—for instance, by Keith David in the 1997 animated feature film Hercules, by Luke Evans in the 2010 action film Clash of the Titans, and by Dimitri Lekkos in the 2010 film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.Video games Apollo has appeared in many modern video games. Apollo appears as a minor character in Santa Monica Studio's 2010 action-adventure game God of War III with his bow being used by Peirithous. He also appears in the 2014 Hi-Rez Studios Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game Smite as a playable character.Psychology and philosophy In philosophical discussion of the arts, a distinction is sometimes made between the Apollonian and Dionysian impulses where the former is concerned with imposing intellectual order and the latter with chaotic creativity. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that a fusion of the two was most desirable. Psychologist Carl Jung's Apollo archetype represents what he saw as the disposition in people to over-intellectualise and maintain emotional distance.Spaceflight In spaceflight, the 1960s and 1970s NASA program for orbiting and landing astronauts on the Moon was named after Apollo, by NASA manager Abe Silverstein: "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program."GenealogySee alsoFamily tree of the Greek godsDryadEpirusPhoebus (disambiguation)Sibylline oraclesTegyraTemple of Apollo (disambiguation)NotesReferencesSourcesPrimary sources Aelian, On Animals, Volume II: Books 6-11. Translated by A. F. Scholfield. Loeb Classical Library 447. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958. Aeschylus, The Eumenides in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes, Vol 2, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1926, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project. Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius: the Argonautica, translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, W. Heinemann, 1912. Internet Archive. Callimachus, Callimachus and Lycophron with an English Translation by A. W. Mair; Aratus, with an English Translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive. Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum in Cicero in Twenty-eight Volumes, XIX De Natura Deorum; Academica, with an english translation by H. Rackham, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd, 1967.  Internet Archive. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Volume III: Books 4.59-8, translated by C. H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library No. 340. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1939. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Online version by Bill Thayer. Herodotus, Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920. Online version available at The Perseus Digital Library. Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PhD in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Homer; The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Hyginus, Gaius Julius, De Astronomica, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText. Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText. Livy, The History of Rome, Books I and II With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Nonnus, Dionysiaca; translated by Rouse, W H D, I Books I-XV. Loeb Classical Library No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940. Internet Archive Nonnus, Dionysiaca; translated by Rouse, W H D, II Books XVI-XXXV. Loeb Classical Library No. 345, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940. Internet Archive Statius, Thebaid. Translated by Mozley, J H. Loeb Classical Library Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Sophocles, Oedipus Rex Palaephatus, On Unbelievable Tales 46. Hyacinthus (330 BCE) Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More, Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. 10. 162–219 (1–8 CE) Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions. Translated by Arthur Fairbanks. Loeb Classical Library No. 256. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931.  . Online version at Harvard University Press.  Internet Archive 1926 edition. i.24 Hyacinthus (170–245 CE) Philostratus the Younger, Imagines, in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions. Translated by Arthur Fairbanks. Loeb Classical Library No. 256. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931.  . Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive 1926 edition. 14. Hyacinthus (170–245 CE) Pindar, Odes, Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Plutarch. Lives, Volume I: Theseus and Romulus. Lycurgus and Numa. Solon and Publicola. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library No. 46. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Numa at the Perseus Digital Library. Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis, in Plutarch's morals, Volume V, edited and translated by William Watson Goodwin, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1874. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead. Dialogues of the Sea-Gods. Dialogues of the Gods. Dialogues of the Courtesans, translated by M. D. MacLeod, Loeb Classical Library No. 431, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1961. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive. First Vatican Mythographer, 197. Thamyris et Musae Tzetzes, John, Chiliades, editor Gottlieb Kiessling, F.C.G. Vogel, 1826. Google Books. (English translation: Book I by Ana Untila; Books II–IV, by Gary Berkowitz; Books V–VI by Konstantino Ramiotis; Books VII–VIII by Vasiliki Dogani; Books IX–X by Jonathan Alexander; Books XII–XIII by Nikolaos Giallousis. Internet Archive). Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica, translated by J. H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library No. 286. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Online translated text available at theoi.com. Vergil, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Secondary sources Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Johns Hopkins University Press; owlerirst Printing edition (May 29, 2013). . Google Books. M. Bieber, 1964. Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art. Chicago. Hugh Bowden, 2005. Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy. Cambridge University Press. Walter Burkert, 1985. Greek Religion (Harvard University Press) III.2.5 passim  Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, University of California Press, 1959. . Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes:  (Vol. 1),  (Vol. 2).  Miranda J. Green, 1997. Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend, Thames and Hudson. Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. . Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, . Google Books. Karl Kerenyi, 1953. Apollon: Studien über Antiken Religion und Humanität revised edition.  Kerényi, Karl 1951, The Gods of the Greeks,  Thames and Hudson, London. Mertens, Dieter; Schutzenberger, Margareta. Città e monumenti dei Greci d'Occidente: dalla colonizzazione alla crisi di fine V secolo a.C.. Roma L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2006. . Martin Nilsson, 1955. Die Geschichte der Griechische Religion, vol. I. C.H. Beck. Parada, Carlos, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology, Jonsered, Paul Åströms Förlag, 1993. . Pauly–Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft: II, "Apollon". The best repertory of cult sites (Burkert). Peck, Harry Thurston, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Pfeiff, K.A., 1943. Apollon: Wandlung seines Bildes in der griechischen Kunst. Traces the changing iconography of Apollo. D.S.Robertson (1945) A handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture Cambridge University Press Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Apollo"  Smith, William, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. William Smith, LLD. William Wayte. G. E. Marindin. Albemarle Street, London. John Murray. 1890. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Spivey Nigel (1997) Greek art Phaedon Press Ltd.External links Apollo at the Greek Mythology Link, by Carlos Parada The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database: ca 1650 images of ApolloBeauty godsHealth godsKnowledge godsLight deitiesMaintenance deitiesMusic and singing godsOracular godsSolar godsGreek godsRoman godsDragonslayersMythological Greek archersMythological rapistsHomosexuality and bisexuality deitiesDivine twinsDeities in the IliadMetamorphoses charactersCharacters in Greek mythology LGBT themes in Greek mythologyChildren of ZeusCharacters in the OdysseyCharacters in the Argonautica
Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other Grand Slam tournaments.Agassi was the first man to win four Australian Open singles titles in the Open Era (though later surpassed by Novak Djokovic, who won his fifth title in 2015 and has since won the tournament nine times). Agassi is the second of five men to achieve the career Grand Slam in the Open Era and the fifth of eight overall to make the achievement. He is also the first of two men to achieve the career Golden Slam (career Grand Slam and Olympic gold medal), and the only man to win a career Super Slam (career Grand Slam, plus the Olympic gold medal and the year-end championships).Agassi was the first man to win all four singles majors on three different surfaces (hard, clay and grass), and remains the most recent American man to win the French Open (in 1999) and the Australian Open (in 2003). He also won 17 ATP Masters Series titles and was part of the winning Davis Cup teams in 1990, 1992 and 1995. Agassi reached the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in 1995 but was troubled by personal issues during the mid-to-late 1990s and sank to No. 141 in 1997, prompting many to believe that his career was over. Agassi returned to No. 1 in 1999 and enjoyed the most successful run of his career over the next four years. During his 20-plus year tour career, Agassi was known by the nickname "The Punisher".After suffering from sciatica caused by two bulging discs in his back, a spondylolisthesis (vertebral displacement) and a bone spur that interfered with the nerve, Agassi retired from professional tennis on September 3, 2006, after losing in the third round of the US Open. He is the founder of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised over $60 million for at-risk children in Southern Nevada. In 2001, the Foundation opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a K–12 public charter school for at-risk children. He has been married to fellow tennis player Steffi Graf since 2001.1970–1985: Early lifeAndre Agassi was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, to Emmanuel "Mike" Agassi, a former Olympic boxer from Iran and American Elizabeth "Betty" Agassi (née Dudley). His father is of Armenian and Assyrian heritage. Andre Agassi's mother, Betty, is a breast cancer survivor. He has three older siblings – Rita (last wife of former number one Pancho Gonzales), Philip and Tami. Andre was given the middle name Kirk after Kirk Kerkorian, an Armenian American billionaire. Emmanuel Agassi, then a waiter at Tropicana Las Vegas, had met Kerkorian in 1963.At the age of 12, Agassi and his good friend and doubles partner, Roddy Parks, won the 1982 National Indoor Boys 14s Doubles Championship in Chicago. Agassi describes memorable experiences and juvenile pranks with Roddy in his book Open.When he was 13, Agassi was sent to Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Florida. He was meant to stay for only three months, because that was all his father could afford. After thirty minutes of watching Agassi play, Bollettieri, deeply impressed by his talent, called Mike and said: "Take your check back. He's here for free." Agassi then dropped out of school in the ninth grade to pursue a full-time tennis career.1986–2006: Professional career1986–1993: Breakthrough and the first major titleAgassi turned professional at the age of 16 and competed in his first tournament at La Quinta, California. He won his first match against John Austin, but then lost his second match to Mats Wilander. By the end of 1986, Agassi was ranked No. 91. He won his first top-level singles title in 1987 at the Sul American Open in Itaparica and ended the year ranked No. 25. He won six additional tournaments in 1988 (Memphis, U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, Forest Hills WCT, Stuttgart Outdoor, Volvo International and Livingston Open), and, by December of that year, he had surpassed US$1 million in career prize money after playing in just 43 tournaments—the fastest anyone in history had reached that level. During 1988, he also set the open-era record for most consecutive victories by a male teenager (a record that stood for 17 years until Rafael Nadal broke it in 2005). His year-end ranking was No. 3, behind second-ranked Ivan Lendl and top-ranked Mats Wilander. Both the Association of Tennis Professionals and Tennis magazine named Agassi the Most Improved Player of the Year for 1988.In addition to not playing the Australian Open (which later became his best Grand Slam event) for the first eight years of his career, Agassi chose not to play at Wimbledon from 1988 through 1990 and publicly stated that he did not wish to play there because of the event's traditionalism, particularly its "predominantly white" dress code to which players at the event are required to conform.Strong performances on the tour meant that Agassi was quickly tipped as a future Grand Slam champion. While still a teenager, he reached the semi-finals of both the French Open and the US Open in 1988 and made the US Open semi-finals in 1989. He began the 1990s with a series of near-misses. He reached his first Grand Slam final in 1990 at the French Open, where he was favored before losing in four sets to Andrés Gómez, which he later attributed in his book to worrying about his wig falling off during the match. He reached his second Grand Slam final of the year at the US Open, defeating defending champion Boris Becker in the semi-finals. His opponent in the final was Pete Sampras; a year earlier, Agassi had crushed Sampras, after which time he told his coach that he felt bad for Sampras because he was never going to make it as a pro. Agassi lost the US Open final to Sampras in three sets. The rivalry between these two American players became the biggest one in tennis over the rest of the decade. Agassi ended 1990 on a high note as he helped the United States win its first Davis Cup in 8 years and won his only Tennis Masters Cup, beating reigning Wimbledon champion Stefan Edberg in the final.In 1991, Agassi reached his second consecutive French Open final, where he faced fellow Bollettieri Academy alumnus Jim Courier. Courier emerged the victor in a five-set final. Agassi decided to play at Wimbledon in 1991, leading to weeks of speculation in the media about the clothes he would wear. He eventually emerged for the first round in a completely white outfit. He reached the quarterfinals on that occasion, losing in five sets to David Wheaton.Agassi's Grand Slam tournament breakthrough came at Wimbledon, not at the French Open or the US Open, where he had previously enjoyed success. In 1992, he defeated Goran Ivanišević in a five-set final. Along the way, Agassi overcame two former Wimbledon champions: Boris Becker and John McEnroe. No other baseliner would triumph at Wimbledon until Lleyton Hewitt ten years later. Agassi was named the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year in 1992. Agassi once again played on the United States' Davis Cup winning team in 1992. It was their second Davis cup title in three years. Agassi famously played the game wearing Oakley brand sunglasses, and a photo of him from the day appeared on the cover of Tennis magazine. In his memoir, he wrote that he was covering up bloodshot eyes from a hangover and claimed that the founder of Oakley, Jim Jannard, had sent him a Dodge Viper to thank him for the inadvertent publicity.In 1993, Agassi won the only doubles title of his career, at the Cincinnati Masters, partnered with Petr Korda. He missed much of the early part of that year due to injuries. Although he made the quarterfinals in his Wimbledon title defense, he lost to eventual champion and No. 1 Pete Sampras in five sets. Agassi lost in the first round at the US Open to Thomas Enqvist and required wrist surgery late in the year.1994–1997: Rise to the top, Olympic Gold and the fallWith new coach Brad Gilbert on board, Agassi began to employ more of a tactical, consistent approach, which fueled his resurgence. He started slowly in 1994, losing in the first week at the French Open and Wimbledon. Nevertheless, he emerged during the hard-court season, winning the Canadian Open. His comeback culminated at the 1994 US Open with a five-set fourth-round victory against Michael Chang. He then became the first man to capture the US Open as an unseeded player, beating Michael Stich in the final. Along the way, he beat 5 seeded players.In 1995, Agassi shaved his balding head, breaking with his old "image is everything" style. He competed in the 1995 Australian Open (his first appearance at the event) and won, beating Sampras in a four-set final. Agassi and Sampras met in five tournament finals in 1995, all on hardcourt, with Agassi winning three. Agassi won three Masters Series events in 1995 (Cincinnati, Key Biscayne, and the Canadian Open) and seven titles total. He compiled a career-best 26-match winning streak during the summer hard-court circuit, with the last victory being in an intense late-night four-set semi-final of the US Open against Boris Becker. The streak ended the next day when Agassi lost the final to Sampras.Agassi reached the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in April 1995. He held that ranking until November, for a total of 30 weeks. Agassi skipped most of the fall indoor season which allowed Sampras to surpass him and finish ranked No. 1 at the year-end ranking. In terms of win/loss record, 1995 was Agassi's best year. He won 73 and lost 9 matches, and was also once again a key player on the United States' Davis Cup winning team—the third and final Davis Cup title of his career.1996 was a less successful year for Agassi, as he failed to reach any Grand Slam final. He suffered two early-round losses to Chris Woodruff and Doug Flach at the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively, and lost to Chang in straight sets in the Australian and US Open semi-finals. At the time, Agassi blamed the Australian Open loss on the windy conditions, but later said in his biography that he had lost the match on purpose, as he did not want to play Boris Becker, whom he would have faced in that final. The high point for Agassi was winning the men's singles gold medal at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, beating Sergi Bruguera of Spain in the final. Agassi also successfully defended his singles titles in Cincinnati and Key Biscayne.1997 was the low point of Agassi's career. His wrist injury resurfaced, and he played only 24 matches during the year. He later confessed that he started using crystal methamphetamine at that time, allegedly on the urging of a friend. He failed an ATP drug test, but wrote a letter claiming the same friend had spiked a drink. The ATP dropped the failed drug test as a warning. In his autobiography, Agassi admitted that the letter was a lie. He quit the drug soon after. At this time Agassi was also in a failing marriage with actress, model, and socialite Brooke Shields and had lost interest in the game. He won no top-level titles, and his ranking sank to No. 141 on November 10, 1997, prompting many to believe that his run as one of the sport's premier competitors was over and he would never again win any significant championships.1998–2003: Return to glory and Career Super SlamIn 1998, Agassi began a rigorous conditioning program and worked his way back up the rankings by playing in Challenger Series tournaments, a circuit for pro players ranked outside the world's top 50. After returning to top physical and mental shape, Agassi recorded the most successful period of his tennis career and also played classic matches in that period against Pete Sampras and Patrick Rafter.In 1998, Agassi won five titles and leapt from No. 110 to No. 6, the highest jump into the top 10 made by any player during a calendar year. At Wimbledon, he had an early loss in the second round to Tommy Haas. He won five titles in ten finals and was runner-up at the Masters Series tournament in Key Biscayne, losing to Marcelo Ríos, who became No. 1 as a result. At the year end he was awarded the ATP Most Improved Player of the Year for the second time in his career (the first being 10 years earlier in 1988).Agassi entered the history books in 1999 when he came back from two sets to love down to beat Andrei Medvedev in a five-set French Open final, becoming, at the time, only the fifth male player (joining Rod Laver, Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Don Budge—these have since been joined by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic) to win all four Grand Slam singles titles during his career. Only Laver, Agassi, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have achieved this feat during the Open Era. This win also made him the first (of only four, the next being Federer, Nadal and Djokovic respectively) male player in history to have won all four Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces (clay, grass and hard courts).  Agassi also became the only male player to win the Career Super Slam, consisting of all four Grand Slam tournaments plus an Olympic gold medal in singles and a Year-end championship.Agassi followed his 1999 French Open victory by reaching the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Sampras in straight sets. He rebounded from his Wimbledon defeat by winning the US Open, beating Todd Martin in five sets (rallying from a two sets to one deficit) in the final. Overall during the year Agassi won 5 titles including two majors and the ATP Masters Series in Paris, where he beat Marat Safin. Agassi ended 1999 as the No. 1, ending Sampras's record of six consecutive year-ending top rankings (1993–98). This was the only time Agassi ended the year at No. 1.  Agassi was runner-up to Sampras at the year-end Tennis Masters Cup losing 1–6, 5–7, 4-6 despite beating Sampras in the round-robin 6–2, 6–2.He began the next year 2000 by capturing his second Australian Open title, beating Sampras in a five-set semi-final and Yevgeny Kafelnikov in a four-set final. He was the first male player to have reached four consecutive Grand Slam finals since Rod Laver achieved the Grand Slam in 1969.  At the time, Agassi was also only the fourth player since Laver to be the reigning champion of three of four Grand Slam events, missing only the Wimbledon title.. 2000 also saw Agassi reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon, where he lost in five sets to Rafter in a match considered by many to be one of the best ever at Wimbledon. At the inaugural Tennis Masters Cup in Lisbon, Agassi reached the final after defeating Marat Safin in the semi-finals to end the Russian's hopes to become the youngest No. 1 in the history of tennis. Agassi then lost to Gustavo Kuerten in the final, allowing Kuerten to be crowned year-end No. 1.Agassi opened 2001 by successfully defending his Australian Open title with a straight-sets final win over Arnaud Clément. En route, he beat a cramping Rafter in five sets in front of a sell-out crowd in what turned out to be the Aussie's last Australian Open. At Wimbledon, they met again in the semi-finals, where Agassi lost another close match to Rafter, 8–6 in the fifth set. In the quarterfinals at the US Open, Agassi lost a 3-hour, 33 minute epic match with Sampras, 7–6, 6–7, 6–7, 6–7, with no breaks of serve during the 52-game match. Despite the setback, Agassi finished 2001 ranked No. 3, becoming the only male tennis player to finish a year ranked in the top 3 in three different decades.2002 opened with disappointment for Agassi, as injury forced him to skip the Australian Open, where he was a two-time defending champion. Agassi recovered from the injury and later that year defended his Key Biscayne title beating then rising Roger Federer in a four-set final. The last duel between Agassi and Sampras came in the final of the US Open, which Sampras won in four sets and left Sampras with a 20–14 edge in their 34 career meetings. The match was the last of Sampras's career. Agassi's US Open finish, along with his Masters Series victories in Key Biscayne, Rome and Madrid, helped him finish 2002 as the oldest year-end No. 2 at 32 years and 8 months.In 2003, Agassi won the eighth (and final) Grand Slam title of his career at the Australian Open, where he beat Rainer Schüttler in straight sets in the final.On April 28, 2003, he recaptured the No. 1 ranking to become the oldest top-ranked male player since the ATP rankings began at 33 years and 13 days. The record was later surpassed by Roger Federer in 2018. He had held the No. 1 ranking for two weeks, when Lleyton Hewitt took it back on May 12, 2003. Agassi then recaptured the No. 1 ranking once again on June 16, 2003, which he held for 12 weeks until September 7, 2003. There he managed to reach the US Open semi-finals, where he lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero, surrendering his No. 1 ranking to him. During his career, Agassi held the ranking for a total of 101 weeks. Agassi's ranking slipped when injuries forced him to withdraw from a number of events. At the year-end Tennis Masters Cup, Agassi lost in the final to Federer, his third time to finish as runner-up in the event after losses in 1999 and 2000, and finished the year ranked No. 4. At age 33, he had been one of the oldest players to rank in the top 5 since Connors, at age 35, was No. 4 in 1987.2004–2006: Final yearsIn 2004, Agassi began the year with a five-set loss in the semi-finals of the Australian Open to Marat Safin; the loss ended Agassi's 26-match winning streak at the event. He won the Masters series event in Cincinnati to bring his career total to 59 top-level singles titles and a record 17 ATP Masters Series titles, having already won seven of the nine ATP Masters tournament—all except the tournaments in Monte Carlo and Hamburg. At 34, he became the second-oldest singles champion in Cincinnati tournament history (the tournament began in 1899), tied with Roger Federer and surpassed only by Ken Rosewall, who won the title in 1970 at age 35. He finished the year ranked No. 8, one of the oldest players to finish in the top 10 since the 36-year-old Connors was No. 7 in 1988. At the time, Agassi also became the sixth male player during the open era to reach 800 career wins with his first-round victory over Alex Bogomolov in Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles.Agassi's 2005 began with a quarterfinal loss to Federer at the Australian Open. Agassi had several other deep runs at tournaments, but had to withdraw from several events due to injury. He lost to Jarkko Nieminen in the first round of the French Open. He won his fourth title in Los Angeles and reached the final of the Rogers Cup, before falling to No. 2 Rafael Nadal.Agassi's 2005 was defined by an improbable run to the US Open final. After beating Răzvan Sabău and Ivo Karlović in straight sets and Tomáš Berdych in four sets, Agassi won three consecutive five-set matches to advance to the final. The most notable of these matches was his quarterfinal victory over James Blake, where he rallied from two sets down to win in the fifth set tie-breaker. His other five-set victories were on Xavier Malisse in the fourth round and Robby Ginepri in the semi-finals. In the final, Agassi faced Federer, who was seeking his second consecutive US Open title and his sixth Grand Slam title in two years. Federer defeated Agassi in four sets. Agassi finished 2005 ranked No. 7, his 16th time in the year-end top-10 rankings, which tied Connors for the most times ranked in the top 10 at year's end.Agassi had a poor start to 2006, as he was still recovering from an ankle injury and also suffering from back and leg pain and lack of match play. Agassi withdrew from the Australian Open because of the ankle injury, and his back injury and other pains forced him to withdraw from several other events, eventually skipping the entire clay-court season including the French Open. This caused his ranking to drop out of the top 10 for the last time. Agassi returned for the grass-court season, playing a tune-up, and then Wimbledon. He was defeated in the third round by world No. 2 (and eventual runner-up) Rafael Nadal. Against conventions, Agassi, the losing player, was interviewed on court after the match. At Wimbledon, Agassi announced his plans to retire following the US Open. Agassi played only two events during the summer hard-court season with his best result being a quarterfinal loss at the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles to Fernando González of Chile, which resulted in him being unseeded at the US Open.Agassi had a short, but dramatic, run in his final US Open. Because of extreme back pain, Agassi was forced to receive anti-inflammatory injections after every match. After a tough four-set win against Andrei Pavel, Agassi faced eighth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis in the second round who had earlier advanced to the 2006 Australian Open final and Wimbledon semi-finals. Agassi won in five tough sets as the younger Baghdatis succumbed to muscle cramping in the final set. In his last match, Agassi fell to 112th-ranked big-serving Benjamin Becker of Germany in four sets. Agassi received a four-minute standing ovation from the crowd after the match and delivered a retirement speech.RivalriesAgassi vs. SamprasThe rivalry has been called the greatest of the generation of players competing in the 1990s, as Sampras and Agassi were the most successful players of that decade. They also had very contrasting playing styles, with Sampras being considered the greatest server and Agassi the greatest serve returner at the time. Agassi and Sampras met 34 times on the tour level with Agassi trailing 14–20.The 1990 US Open was their first meeting in a Grand Slam tournament final. Agassi was favored as he was ranked No. 4 at the time, compared to the No. 12 ranking of Sampras and because Agassi had defeated Sampras in their only previously completed match. Agassi, however, lost the final to Sampras in straight sets. Their next meeting in a Grand Slam was at the 1992 French Open, where they met in the quarterfinals. Although Sampras was ranked higher, Agassi came out winning in straight sets. They met again on a Grand Slam level at the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 1993, where Agassi was the defending champion and Sampras was the newly minted world No. 1. Agassi dug himself out from a two-sets-to-love hole, levelling the match at two sets apiece; however, Sampras prevailed in five sets, and went on to win his first Wimbledon championship.With both Sampras and Agassi participating, the US won the Davis Cup in 1995. The year should be considered the peak of the rivalry as together they won three out of four major titles, meeting each other twice in the finals, and were occupying the top two spots in the rankings for the whole year. They met five times during the year, all in the title matches, including the Australian Open, the Newsweek Champions Cup (now Indian Wells), the Lipton International Players Championships (now Miami Open), the Canadian Open, and the US Open. Agassi won three of the finals, including the Australian Open; however, Sampras took the US Open title, ending Agassi's 26-match winning streak. After Agassi had taken most of the fall season off, Sampras took over the No. 1 ranking for the end of the season.In the following three years, while Sampras continued winning Grand Slam titles every season, Agassi slumped in the rankings and struggled in major competitions. The next time Sampras and Agassi met in a Grand Slam final was at Wimbledon in 1999, where Sampras won in straight sets. For both, it was considered a career rejuvenation, as Sampras had suffered a string of disappointments in the previous year while Agassi was regaining his status as a top-ranked player after winning the French Open. Sampras forfeited the No. 1 ranking to Agassi when injury forced him to withdraw from that year's US Open, which Agassi went on to win. They faced each other twice in the season-ending ATP Tour World Championships, with Sampras losing the round-robin match, but winning the final.In the 2000s, they met three more times on the Grand Slam level offering three memorable contests. In 2000, the top-ranked Agassi defeated No. 3 Sampras in the semi-finals of the Australian Open in five sets, which was an important win for Agassi who had lost 4 of the previous five matches against Sampras. In arguably their most memorable match ever, Sampras defeated Agassi in the 2001 US Open quarterfinals in four sets. There were no breaks of serve during the entire match. Reruns of the match are frequently featured on television, especially during US Open rain delays, and the match is considered one of the best in history because of the level of play presented by both players.Their last meeting was the final of the 2002 US Open, which was their third meeting in a US Open final, but the first since 1995. The match was also notable because they had defeated several up-and-coming players en route to the final. Sampras had defeated No. 3 Tommy Haas in the fourth round and future No. 1 Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals, while Agassi had defeated No. 1 and defending champion Lleyton Hewitt in the semi-finals. Sampras defeated Agassi in four sets. This was the final ATP tour singles match of Sampras's career.Agassi vs. ChangMichael Chang was the opponent Agassi faced most frequently from all the players other than Sampras. They met 22 times on the tour level with Agassi leading 15–7. Chang, unlike most of Agassi's big rivals, had a playing style similar to his. Both players preferred to stay at the baseline with Chang being more defensive-minded. The outcome was that most of their meetings were built on long and entertaining rallies. The rivalry began late in the 1980s with both players being considered the prodigies of the next great generation of American tennis players and both having foreign descent.Agassi won the first four matches including a straight-set victory in round 16 of the 1988 US Open and defeating Chang, the defending champion, in the 1990 French Open in a four-set quarterfinal. Arguably their best match took place in the round of 16 of the 1994 US Open. While both players presented high-quality shot-making, the momentum changed from set to set with Agassi eventually prevailing in a five-set victory. It turned out to be the toughest contest on his way to his first US Open title. Their next two Grand Slam meetings came in 1996, with Chang recording easy straight-set victories in the semi-finals of both the Australian Open and the US Open. Years after, Agassi shockingly admitted in his book that he had lost the first of the matches on purpose as he did not want to face Boris Becker, who was awaiting the winner in the final. Agassi won the last four of their matches, with the last being in 2003 at the Miami Open with Chang being clearly past his prime.Agassi vs. BeckerBoris Becker and Agassi played 14 times with Agassi leading 10–4. Becker won their first three matches in 1988 and 1989 before Agassi reversed the rivalry in 1990, and won 10 of their last 11 matches. They first played at Indian Wells in 1988, with Becker prevailing. Their most notable match was the 1989 Davis Cup semi-final match, which Becker won in five sets after losing the first two in tiebreaks. Agassi, considered a baseliner with a playing style not suiting grass, shocked Becker, a three-time champion, in a five-set quarterfinal at Wimbledon in 1992 on his way to his first Grand Slam title. The intensity of the rivalry peaked in 1995. Becker won that year's Wimbledon semi-final after being down a set and two breaks, to eventually win in four sets. In a highly anticipated rematch in the US Open semi-final, this time it was Agassi who came out victorious in four tight sets. Their final match was played at Hong Kong in 1999, which Agassi won in three sets.Agassi vs. RafterAgassi and Pat Rafter played fifteen times with Agassi leading 10–5. The rivalry has been considered special and delivered memorable encounters, because of the players' contrasting styles of play, with Rafter using traditional serve-&-volley methods against Agassi's variety of return of serves and passing shots as his main weapons. Agassi led 8–2 on hard courts, but Rafter surprisingly won their sole match on clay at the 1999 Rome Masters. They played four matches at Wimbledon with both winning two matches each. Agassi won the first two in 1993 and 1999, while Rafter took their 2000 and 2001 encounters, both of the gruelling 5-setters often being presented on the lists of best matches ever played. Agassi also won both their meetings at the Australian Open, in 1995 and 2001, on his way to the title on both occasions. Rafter, however, took their only US Open encounter in 1997 and went on to win the title.Agassi vs. FedererAgassi and Roger Federer played 11 times, and Federer led their head-to-head series 8–3. With the retirement of Sampras, the rivalry against the 11-years-younger Federer, who was another great server like Sampras, became Agassi's main rivalry for the final years of his career. Agassi won their first three matches, but then went on to lose eight consecutive ones. They first met in just the third tournament of Federer's career at the 1998 Swiss Indoors in Federer's hometown, with Agassi prevailing over the 17-year-old. Agassi also defeated Federer at the 2001 US Open and the finals of the Miami Open in 2002. Federer began to turn the tide at the Masters Cup in 2003, when he defeated Agassi in both the round-robin and the final. They played a memorable quarterfinal match at the 2004 US Open that spanned over two windy days, with Federer eventually prevailing in five sets. At the 2005 Dubai Championships, Federer and Agassi attracted worldwide headlines with a publicity stunt that saw the two tennis legends play on a helipad almost 220 meters above sea level at the hotel Burj al-Arab. Their final duel took place in the final of the 2005 US Open. In the historic clash of generations, Federer was victorious in four sets in front of a pro-Agassi crowd. The match was the last appearance by Agassi in any tournament final.Agassi vs. LendlAgassi and Ivan Lendl played eight times, and Lendl led their head-to-head series 6–2.Agassi vs. EdbergAgassi and Stefan Edberg played nine times, and Agassi led their head-to-head series 6–3.EarningsAgassi earned more than $30 million in prize-money during his career, sixth only to Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, Sampras and Murray to date (May 2018). He also earned more than $25 million a year through endorsements during his career, which was ranked fourth in all sports at the time.Post-retirementSince retiring after the 2006 US Open, Agassi has participated in a series of charity tournaments and continues his work with his own charity. On September 5, 2007, he was a surprise guest commentator for the Andy Roddick/Roger Federer US Open quarterfinal. He played an exhibition match at Wimbledon, teaming with his wife, Steffi Graf, to play with Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters. He played World Team Tennis for the Philadelphia Freedoms in the summer of 2009. At the 2009 French Open, Agassi was on hand to present Roger Federer, who completed his Career Grand Slam by winning the tournament and joined Agassi as one of six men to complete the Career Grand Slam, with the trophy.Also in 2009, Agassi played at the Outback Champions Series event for the first time. He played the Cancer Treatment Centers of America Tennis Championships at Surprise, Arizona, where he reached the final before bowing to eventual champion Todd Martin. Agassi returned to the tour renamed for the PowerShares Series in 2011 and participated in a total of seven events while winning two. Agassi beat Courier in the final of the Staples Champions Cup in Boston and later defeated Sampras at the CTCA Championships at his hometown Las Vegas.In 2012, Agassi took part in five tournaments, winning three of those. In November, at first he won BILT Champions Showdown in San Jose, beating John McEnroe in the final. The following day, he defended his title of the CTCA Championships, while defeating Courier in the decisive match. In the series season finale, he beat Michael Chang for the Acura Champions Cup. The series and Agassi came back to action in 2014. Agassi won both tournaments he participated in. At the Camden Wealth Advisors Cup's final in Houston, Agassi beat James Blake for a rematch of their 2005 US Open quarterfinal. He defeated Blake again in Portland to win the title of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America Championships. In 2015, Agassi took part in just one event of the PowerShares Series, losing to Mark Philippoussis in the final of the Champions Shootout. The following year he took part in two events, at first losing to Blake in Chicago, and the next day defeating Mardy Fish, but losing to Roddick in Charleston.In 2009, in Macau Agassi and Sampras met for the first time on court since the 2002 US Open final. Sampras won the exhibition in three sets. The rivalry between the former champions headlined sports media again in March 2010 after the two participated in the "Hit for Haiti" charity event organized to raise money for the victims of the earthquake. Partnered with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the old rivals began making jokes at each other's expense, which ended up with Sampras intentionally striking a serve at Agassi's body. After the event, Agassi admitted that he had crossed the line with his jokes and publicly apologized to Sampras. Agassi and Sampras met again one year later for an exhibition match at Madison Square Garden in New York in front of 19 000 spectators as Sampras defeated Agassi in two sets. On March 3, 2014, Agassi and Sampras squared off for an exhibition in London for the annual World Tennis Day. This time, it was Agassi who came out on top in two straight sets.He returned to the tour in May 2017 in the position of coach to Novak Djokovic for the French Open. Agassi announced the end of the partnership on March 31, 2018, stating that there were too many disagreements in the relationship.Playing styleEarly in his career, Agassi would look to end points quickly by playing first-strike tennis, typically by inducing a weak return with a deep, hard shot, and then playing a winner at an extreme angle. On the rare occasion that he charged the net, Agassi liked to take the ball in the air and hit a swinging volley for a winner. His favored groundstroke was his flat, accurate two-handed backhand, hit well cross-court but especially down the line. His forehand was nearly as strong, especially his inside-out to the ad court.Agassi's strength was in dictating play from the baseline, and he was able to consistently take the ball on the rise. While he was growing up, his father and Nick Bollettieri trained him in this way. When in control of a point, Agassi would often pass up an opportunity to attempt a winner and hit a conservative shot to minimize his errors, and to make his opponent run more. This change to more methodical, less aggressive baseline play was largely initiated by his longtime coach, Brad Gilbert, in their first year together in 1994. Gilbert encouraged Agassi to wear out opponents with his deep, flat groundstrokes and to use his fitness to win attrition wars, and noted Agassi's two-handed backhand down the line as his very best shot. A signature play later in his career was a change-up drop shot to the deuce court after deep penetrating groundstrokes. This would often be followed by a passing shot or lob if the opponent was fast enough to retrieve it.Agassi was raised on hardcourts, but found much of his early major-tournament success on the red clay of Roland Garros, reaching two consecutive finals there early in his career. Despite grass being his worst surface, his first major win was at the slick grass of Wimbledon in 1992, a tournament that he professed to hating at the time. His strongest surface over the course of his career, was indeed hardcourt, where he won six of his eight majors.Business venturesAgassi established a limited liability company named Andre Agassi Ventures (formerly named Agassi Enterprises). Agassi, along with five athlete partners (including Wayne Gretzky, Joe Montana, Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Monica Seles) opened a chain of sports-themed restaurant named Official All Star Café in April 1996. The restaurant closed down in 2001.In 1999, he paid $1 million for a 10 percent stake in Nevada First Bank and made a $10 million profit when it was sold to Western Alliance Bancorp in 2006.In 2002, he joined the Tennis Channel to promote the channel to consumers and cable and satellite industry, and made an equity investment in the network. After meeting chef Michael Mina at one of his restaurants in San Francisco, Agassi partnered with him in 2002 to start Mina Group Inc. and opened 18 concept restaurants in San Francisco, San Jose, Dana Point, Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Agassi was an equity investor of a group that acquired Golden Nugget Las Vegas and Golden Nugget Laughlin from MGM Mirage for $215 million in 2004. One year later, the group sold the hotel-casino to Landry's, Inc. for $163 million in cash and $182 million in assumed debt. In 2007, he sat on the board of Meadows Bank, an independent bank in Nevada. He has invested in start-up companies backed by Allen & Company.Agassi and Graf formed a company called Agassi Graf Holdings. They invested in PURE, a nightclub at Caesars Palace, which opened in 2004, and sold it to Angel Management Group in 2010. In August 2006, Agassi and Graf developed a joint venture with high-end furniture maker Kreiss Enterprises. They launched a furniture line called Agassi Graf Collection. In September, Agassi and Graf, through their company Agassi Graf Development LLC, along with Bayview Financial LP, finalized an agreement to develop a condominium hotel, Fairmont Tamarack, at Tamarack Resort in Donnelly, Idaho. Owing to difficult market conditions and delays, they withdrew from the project in 2009. The group still owns three small chunks of land. In September, they collaborated with Steve Case's Exclusive Resorts to co-develop luxury resorts and design Agassi-Graf Tennis and Fitness Centers.They also invested in online ticket reseller viagogo in 2009 and both serve as board members and advisors of the company.In October 2012, Village Roadshow and investors including Agassi and Graf announced plans to build a new water park called Wet'n'Wild Las Vegas in Las Vegas. Village Roadshow has a 51% stake in the park while Agassi, Graf, and other private investors hold the remaining 49%. The park opened in May 2013.IMG managed Agassi from the time he turned pro in 1986 through January 2000 before switching to SFX Sports Group. His business manager, lawyer and agent was childhood friend Perry Rogers, but they have been estranged since 2008. In 2009, he and Graf signed with CAA.Equipment and endorsementsAgassi used Prince Graphite rackets early in his career. He signed a $7 million endorsement contract with Belgian tennis racquet makers Donnay. He later switched to Head Ti Radical racket and Head's LiquidMetal Radical racket, having signed a multimillion-dollar endorsement deal with Head in 1993. He renewed his contract in 1999, and in November 2003 he signed a lifetime agreement with Head. He also endorses Penn tennis balls. On July 25, 2005, Agassi left Nike after 17 years and signed an endorsement deal with Adidas. A major reason for Agassi leaving Nike was because Nike refused to donate to Agassi's charities, and Adidas was more than happy to do so. On May 13, 2013, Agassi rejoined Nike.Agassi was sponsored by DuPont, Ebel, Mountain Dew in 1993, Mazda in 1997, Kia Motors in 2002, American Express and Deutsche Bank in 2003. In 1990, he appeared in a television commercial for Canon Inc., promoting the Canon EOS Rebel camera. Between 1999 and 2000, he signed a multimillion-dollar, multiyear endorsement deal with Schick and became the worldwide spokesman for the company. Agassi signed a multiyear contract with Twinlab and promoted the company's nutritional supplements. In mid-2003, he was named the spokesman of Aramis Life, a fragrance by Aramis, and signed a five-year deal with the company. In March 2004, he signed a ten-year agreement worth $1.5 million a year with 24 Hour Fitness, which will open five Andre Agassi fitness centers by year-end. Prior to the 2012 Australian Open, Agassi and Australian winemaker Jacobs Creek announced a three-year partnership and created the Open Film Series to "[share] personal stories about the life defining moments that shaped his character on and off the court." In 2007, watchmaker Longines named Agassi as their brand ambassador.Agassi and his mother appeared in a Got Milk? advertisement in 2002.Agassi has appeared in many advertisements and television commercials with Graf. They both endorsed Deutsche Telekom in 2002, Genworth Financial and Canon Inc. in 2004, LVMH in 2007, and Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit U and Longines in 2013.Personal lifeRelationships and familyIn the early 1990s, after dating Wendi Stewart, Agassi dated American singer and entertainer Barbra Streisand. He wrote about the relationship in his 2009 autobiography, "We agree that we're good for each other, and so what if she's twenty-eight years older? We're sympatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo – another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava."He was married to Brooke Shields from 1997 to 1999.He married Steffi Graf on October 22, 2001, at their Las Vegas home; the only witnesses were their mothers. They have two children: son Jaden Gil (born 2001) and daughter Jaz Elle (born 2003). Agassi has said that he and Graf are not pushing their children toward becoming tennis players. The Graf-Agassi family resides in Summerlin, a community in the Las Vegas Valley. Graf's mother and brother, Michael, with his four children, also live there.Long-time trainer Gil Reyes has been called one of Agassi's closest friends; some have described him as being a "father figure" to Agassi. In 2012, Agassi and Reyes introduced their own line of fitness equipment, BILT By Agassi and Reyes. In December 2008, Agassi's childhood friend and former business manager, Perry Rogers, sued Graf for $50,000 in management fees he claimed that she owed him.AutobiographyAgassi's autobiography, Open: An Autobiography, (written with assistance from J. R. Moehringer), was published in November 2009. In it, Agassi talks about his childhood and his unconventional Armenian father, who came to the United States from Iran where he was a professional boxer. Overly demanding and emotionally abusive to the whole family, his father groomed young Agassi for tennis greatness by building a tennis court in their backyard and sending Agassi to tennis boarding school under the supervision of Nick Bollettieri, who later coached and managed part of Agassi's professional career.There is also mention in the book of using and testing positive for methamphetamine in 1997. In response to this revelation, Roger Federer declared himself shocked and disappointed, while Marat Safin argued that Agassi should return his prize money and be stripped of his titles. In an interview with CBS, Agassi justified himself and asked for understanding, saying that "It was a period in my life where I needed help."Agassi said that he had always hated tennis during his career because of the constant pressure it exerted on him. He also said he wore a hairpiece earlier in his career and thought Pete Sampras was "robotic".The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list and received favorable reviews. It won the Autobiography category of the 2010 British Sports Book Awards. In 2018, the book was listed on Esquire as one of "The 30 Best Sports Books Ever Written", and was also recommended by self-help author Tim Ferriss who described it as "very candid, very amusing, and very instructional".In mediaIn 2017, Agassi appeared in the documentary film Love Means Zero, which highlighted the troubled relationship between his coach Nick Bollettieri and him.PoliticsAgassi has donated more than $100,000 to Democratic candidates, and $2,000 to Republicans. On September 1, 2010, when he appeared on daily WNYC public radio program The Brian Lehrer Show, he stated that he is registered as Independent.PhilanthropyAgassi founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Association in 1994, which assists Las Vegas' young people. He was awarded the ATP Arthur Ashe Humanitarian award in 1995 for his efforts to help disadvantaged youth. He has been cited as the most charitable and socially involved player in professional tennis. It has also been claimed that he may be the most charitable athlete of his generation.Agassi's charities help in assisting children reach their athletic potential. His Boys & Girls Club sees 2,000 children throughout the year and boasts a world-class junior tennis team. It also has a basketball program (the Agassi Stars) and a rigorous system that encourages a mix of academics and athletics.In 2001, Agassi opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children in the area. He personally donated $35 million to the school. In 2009, the graduating class had a 100 percent graduation rate and expected a 100 percent college acceptance rate. Among other child-related programs that Agassi supports through his Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation is Clark County's only residential facility for abused and neglected children, Child Haven. In 1997, Agassi donated funding to Child Haven for a six-room classroom building now named the Agassi Center for Education. His foundation also provided $720,000 to assist in the building of the Andre Agassi Cottage for Medically Fragile Children. This 20-bed facility opened in December 2001, and accommodates developmentally delayed or handicapped children and children quarantined for infectious diseases.In 2007, along with several other athletes, Agassi founded the charity Athletes for Hope, which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and aims to inspire all people to volunteer and support their communities. He created the Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, now known as the Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund. The Fund is an investment initiative for social change, focusing on the "nationwide effort to move charters from stopgap buildings into permanent campuses."In September 2013, the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education formed a partnership with V20 Foods to launch Box Budd!es, a line of kids' healthy snacks. All proceeds go to the Foundation.In February 2014, Agassi remodeled the vacant University of Phoenix building in Las Vegas as a new school, called the Doral Academy West through the Canyon-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund. Doral Academy opened in August 2014. The Fund purchased a 4.6-acre plot in Henderson, Nevada to house the Somerset Academy of Las Vegas, which will relocate from its campus inside a church.Career statisticsSingles performance timelineGrand Slam finals (8 titles, 7 runners-up)By winning the 1999 French Open, Agassi completed a men's singles Career Grand Slam. He is the 5th of 8 male players in history (after Budge, Perry, Laver and Emerson, and before Federer, Nadal and Djokovic) to achieve this.Open Era records  These records were attained in the Open Era of tennis and in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 series since 1990. Records in bold indicate peer-less achievements.LegacyConsidered by numerous sources to be one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Agassi has also been called one of the greatest service returners ever to play the game, and was described by the BBC upon his retirement as "perhaps the biggest worldwide star in the sport's history". As a result, he is credited for helping to revive the popularity of tennis during the 1990s.Professional awards ITF World Champion: 1999. ATP Player of the Year: 1999. ATP Most Improved Player: 1988, 1998Recognition In 1992, Agassi was named the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year. In 2010, Sports Illustrated named Agassi the 7th greatest male player of all time. On July 9, 2011, Agassi was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Newport, Rhode Island.Video Wimbledon 2000 Semi-final – Agassi vs. Rafter (2003) Starring: Andre Agassi, Patrick Rafter; Standing Room Only, DVD Release Date: August 16, 2005, Run Time: 213 minutes, . Charlie Rose with Andre Agassi (May 7, 2001) Charlie Rose, Inc., DVD Release Date: August 15, 2006, Run Time: 57 minutes. Wimbledon: The Record Breakers (2005) Starring: Andre Agassi, Boris Becker; Standing Room Only, DVD Release Date: August 16, 2005, Run Time: 52 minutes, .Video games Andre Agassi Tennis for the SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Master System, and Mobile phone Agassi Tennis Generation for PS2 and GBA Agassi Tennis Generation 2002 for Windows Smash Court Pro Tournament for PS2 Top Spin 4 (On cover of game) for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and WiiSee also Agassi–Sampras rivalry All-time tennis records – men's singles List of Grand Slam Men's Singles champions Tennis male players statistics Tennis records of the Open Era – men's singlesExplanatory notesReferencesFurther readingExternal links     Andre Agassi Ventures Farewell to Tennis Speech at the U.S. Open Agassi's Tennis Hall of Fame Induction for Steffi Graf  1970 birthsLiving people20th-century American businesspeople21st-century American businesspeopleAmerican autobiographersAmerican investorsAmerican male tennis playersAmerican people of Iranian descentAmerican people of Iranian-Assyrian descentAmerican sportspeople of Armenian descentAmerican real estate businesspeopleAmerican sportspeople in doping casesArmenian-American tennis playersAssyrian sportspeopleAustralian Open (tennis) championsDoping cases in tennisEthnic Armenian sportspeopleFrench Open championsGrand Slam (tennis) champions in men's singlesInternational Tennis Hall of Fame inducteesIranian Assyrian peopleIranian people of Armenian descentMedalists at the 1996 Summer OlympicsNevada DemocratsNovak Djokovic coachesOlympic gold medalists for the United States in tennisPhilanthropists from NevadaSportspeople from Las VegasSportspeople of Iranian descentSteffi GrafTennis people from NevadaTennis players at the 1996 Summer OlympicsUS Open (tennis) championsWimbledon championsWorld No. 1 tennis playersWriters from Las Vegas
The Austroasiatic languages , also known as Mon–Khmer , are a large language family in  Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China. There are around 117 million speakers of Austroasiatic languages. Of these languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have a long-established recorded history. Only two have official status as modern national languages: Vietnamese in Vietnam and Khmer in Cambodia.  The Mon language is a recognized indigenous language in Myanmar and Thailand. In Myanmar, the Wa language is the de facto official language of Wa State. Santali is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. The rest of the languages are spoken by minority groups and have no official status.Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhaps Shompen, which is poorly attested, as a fourteenth), which have traditionally been grouped into two, as Mon–Khmer, and Munda. However, one recent classification posits three groups (Munda, Nuclear Mon-Khmer, and Khasi–Khmuic), while another has abandoned Mon–Khmer as a taxon altogether, making it synonymous with the larger family.Austroasiatic languages have a disjunct distribution across Southeast Asia and parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal and East Asia, separated by regions where other languages are spoken. They appear to be the extant original languages of Mainland Southeast Asia (excluding the Andaman Islands), with the neighboring, and sometimes surrounding, Kra–Dai, Hmong-Mien, Austronesian, and Sino-Tibetan languages being the result of later migrations.EtymologyThe name Austroasiatic comes from a combination of the Latin words for "South" and "Asia", hence "South Asia".TypologyRegarding word structure, Austroasiatic languages are well known for having an iambic "sesquisyllabic" pattern, with basic nouns and verbs consisting of an initial, unstressed, reduced minor syllable followed by a stressed, full syllable. This reduction of presyllables has led to a variety among modern languages of phonological shapes of the same original Proto-Austroasiatic prefixes, such as the causative prefix, ranging from CVC syllables to consonant clusters to single consonants. As for word formation, most Austroasiatic languages have a variety of derivational prefixes, many have infixes, but suffixes are almost completely non-existent in most branches except Munda, and a few specialized exceptions in other Austroasiatic branches.The Austroasiatic languages are further characterized as having unusually large vowel inventories and employing some sort of register contrast, either between modal (normal) voice and breathy (lax) voice or between modal voice and creaky voice. Languages in the Pearic branch and some in the Vietic branch can have a three- or even four-way voicing contrast.However, some Austroasiatic languages have lost the register contrast by evolving more diphthongs or in a few cases, such as Vietnamese, tonogenesis. Vietnamese has been so heavily influenced by Chinese that its original Austroasiatic phonological quality is obscured and now resembles that of South Chinese languages, whereas Khmer, which had more influence from Sanskrit, has retained a more typically Austroasiatic structure.Proto-languageMuch work has been done on the reconstruction of Proto-Mon–Khmer in Harry L. Shorto's Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary. Little work has been done on the Munda languages, which are not well documented. With their demotion from a primary branch, Proto-Mon–Khmer becomes synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic. Paul Sidwell (2005) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Proto-Mon–Khmer as follows:This is identical to earlier reconstructions except for .   is better preserved in the Katuic languages, which Sidwell has specialized in.Internal classificationLinguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austroasiatic: the Mon–Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, Northeast India and the Nicobar Islands, and the Munda languages of East and Central India and parts of Bangladesh, parts of Nepal. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published.Each of the families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. By contrast, the relationships between these families within Austroasiatic are debated. In addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accepts traditional "Mon–Khmer" as a valid unit. However, little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review.In addition, there are suggestions that additional branches of Austroasiatic might be preserved in substrata of Acehnese in Sumatra (Diffloth), the Chamic languages of Vietnam, and the Land Dayak languages of Borneo (Adelaar 1995).Diffloth (1974)Diffloth's widely cited original classification, now abandoned by Diffloth himself, is used in Encyclopædia Britannica and—except for the breakup of Southern Mon–Khmer—in Ethnologue. Munda North Munda Korku Kherwarian South Munda Kharia–Juang Koraput Munda Mon–Khmer Eastern Mon–Khmer Khmer (Cambodian) Pearic Bahnaric Katuic Vietic (Vietnamese, Muong) Northern Mon–Khmer Khasi (Meghalaya, India) Palaungic Khmuic Southern Mon–Khmer Mon Aslian (Malaya) Nicobarese (Nicobar Islands)Peiros (2004) Peiros is a lexicostatistic classification, based on percentages of shared vocabulary. This means that languages can appear to be more distantly related than they actually are due to language contact. Indeed, when Sidwell (2009) replicated Peiros's study with languages known well enough to account for loans, he did not find the internal (branching) structure below. Nicobarese Munda–Khmer Munda Mon–Khmer Khasi Nuclear Mon–Khmer Mangic (Mang + Palyu) (perhaps in Northern MK) Vietic (perhaps in Northern MK) Northern Mon–Khmer Palaungic Khmuic Central Mon–Khmer Khmer dialects Pearic Asli-Bahnaric Aslian Mon–Bahnaric Monic Katu–Bahnaric Katuic BahnaricDiffloth (2005) Diffloth compares reconstructions of various clades, and attempts to classify them based on shared innovations, though like other classifications the evidence has not been published. As a schematic, we have:Or in more detail, Munda languages (India) Koraput: 7 languagesCore Munda languages Kharian–Juang: 2 languagesNorth Munda languages Korku Kherwarian: 12 languages Khasi–Khmuic languages (Northern Mon–Khmer) Khasian: 3 languages of north eastern India and adjacent region of BangladeshPalaungo-Khmuic languages Khmuic: 13 languages of Laos and ThailandPalaungo-Pakanic languages Pakanic or Palyu: 4 or 5 languages of southern China and Vietnam Palaungic: 21 languages of Burma, southern China, and Thailand Nuclear Mon–Khmer languages Khmero-Vietic languages (Eastern Mon–Khmer) Vieto-Katuic languages ? Vietic: 10 languages of Vietnam and Laos, including the Vietnamese language, which has the most speakers of any Austroasiatic language. Katuic: 19 languages of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. Khmero-Bahnaric languages Bahnaric: 40 languages of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.Khmeric languages The Khmer dialects of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Pearic: 6 languages of Cambodia. Nico-Monic languages (Southern Mon–Khmer) Nicobarese: 6 languages of the Nicobar Islands, a territory of India. Asli-Monic languages Aslian: 19 languages of peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. Monic: 2 languages, the Mon language of Burma and the Nyahkur language of Thailand.Sidwell (2009–2015) Paul Sidwell (2009), in a lexicostatistical comparison of 36 languages which are well known enough to exclude loanwords, finds little evidence for internal branching, though he did find an area of increased contact between the Bahnaric and Katuic languages, such that languages of all branches apart from the geographically distant Munda and Nicobarese show greater similarity to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are to those branches, without any noticeable innovations common to Bahnaric and Katuic.He therefore takes the conservative view that the thirteen branches of Austroasiatic should be treated as equidistant on current evidence. Sidwell & Blench (2011) discuss this proposal in more detail, and note that there is good evidence for a Khasi–Palaungic node, which could also possibly be closely related to Khmuic.If this would the case, Sidwell & Blench suggest that Khasic may have been an early offshoot of Palaungic that had spread westward. Sidwell & Blench (2011) suggest Shompen as an additional branch, and believe that a Vieto-Katuic connection is worth investigating. In general, however, the family is thought to have diversified too quickly for a deeply nested structure to have developed, since Proto-Austroasiatic speakers are believed by Sidwell to have radiated out from the central Mekong river valley relatively quickly.Subsequently, Sidwell (2015a: 179) proposed that Nicobarese subgroups with Aslian, just as how Khasian and Palaungic subgroup with each other.A subsequent computational phylogenetic analysis (Sidwell 2015b) suggests that Austroasiatic branches may have a loosely nested structure rather than a completely rake-like structure, with an east–west division (consisting of Munda, Khasic, Palaungic, and Khmuic forming a western group as opposed to all of the other branches) occurring possibly as early as 7,000 years before present. However, he still considers the subbranching dubious.Integrating computational phylogenetic linguistics with recent archaeological findings, Paul Sidwell (2015c) further expanded his Mekong riverine hypothesis by proposing that Austroasiatic had ultimately expanded into Indochina from the Lingnan area of southern China, with the subsequent Mekong riverine dispersal taking place after the initial arrival of Neolithic farmers from southern China.Sidwell (2015c) tentatively suggests that Austroasiatic may have begun to split up 5,000 years B.P. during the Neolithic transition era of mainland Southeast Asia, with all the major branches of Austroasiatic formed by 4,000 B.P. Austroasiatic would have had two possible dispersal routes from the western periphery of the Pearl River watershed of Lingnan, which would have been either a coastal route down the coast of Vietnam, or downstream through the Mekong River via Yunnan. Both the reconstructed lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic and the archaeological record clearly show that early Austroasiatic speakers around 4,000 B.P. cultivated rice and millet, kept livestock such as dogs, pigs, and chickens, and thrived mostly in estuarine rather than coastal environments.At 4,500 B.P., this "Neolithic package" suddenly arrived in Indochina from the Lingnan area without cereal grains and displaced the earlier pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer cultures, with grain husks found in northern Indochina by 4,100 B.P. and in southern Indochina by 3,800 B.P. However, Sidwell (2015c) found that iron is not reconstructable in Proto-Austroasiatic, since each Austroasiatic branch has different terms for iron that had been borrowed relatively lately from Tai, Chinese, Tibetan, Malay, and other languages.During the Iron Age about 2,500 B.P., relatively young Austroasiatic branches in Indochina such as Vietic, Katuic, Pearic, and Khmer were formed, while the more internally diverse Bahnaric branch (dating to about 3,000 B.P.) underwent more extensive internal diversification. By the Iron Age, all of the Austroasiatic branches were more or less in their present-day locations, with most of the diversification within Austroasiatic taking place during the Iron Age.Paul Sidwell (2018) considers the Austroasiatic language family to have rapidly diversified around 4,000 years B.P. during the arrival of rice agriculture in Indochina, but notes that the origin of Proto-Austroasiatic itself is older than that date. The lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic can be divided into an early and late stratum. The early stratum consists of basic lexicon including body parts, animal names, natural features, and pronouns, while the names of cultural items (agriculture terms and words for cultural artifacts, which are reconstructible in Proto-Austroasiatic) form part of the later stratum.Roger Blench (2017) suggests that vocabulary related to aquatic subsistence strategies (such as boats, waterways, river fauna, and fish capture techniques) can be reconstructed for Proto-Austroasiatic. Blench (2017) finds widespread Austroasiatic roots for 'river, valley', 'boat', 'fish', 'catfish sp.', 'eel', 'prawn', 'shrimp' (Central Austroasiatic), 'crab', 'tortoise', 'turtle', 'otter', 'crocodile', 'heron, fishing bird', and 'fish trap'. Archaeological evidence for the presence of agriculture in northern Indochina (northern Vietnam, Laos, and other nearby areas) dates back to only about 4,000 years ago (2,000 BC), with agriculture ultimately being introduced from further up to the north in the Yangtze valley where it has been dated to 6,000 B.P.Sidwell (2022) proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the Red River Delta area about 4,000-4,500 years before present, instead of the Middle Mekong as he had previously proposed. Austroasiatic dispersed coastal maritime routes and also upstream through river valleys. Khmuic, Palaungic, and Khasic resulted from a westward dispersal that ultimately came from the Red Valley valley. Based on their current distributions, about half of all Austroasiatic branches (including Nicobaric and Munda) can be traced to coastal maritime dispersals.Hence, this points to a relatively late riverine dispersal of Austroasiatic as compared to Sino-Tibetan, whose speakers had a distinct non-riverine culture. In addition to living an aquatic-based lifestyle, early Austroasiatic speakers would have also had access to livestock, crops, and newer types of watercraft. As early Austroasiatic speakers dispersed rapidly via waterways, they would have encountered speakers of older language families who were already settled in the area, such as Sino-Tibetan.Sidwell (2018)Sidwell (2018) (quoted in Sidwell 2021) gives a more nested classification of Austroasiatic branches as suggested by his computational phylogenetic analysis of Austroasiatic languages using a 200-word list. Many of the tentative groupings are likely linkages. Pakanic and Shompen were not included.Possible extinct branches Roger Blench (2009) also proposes that there might have been other primary branches of Austroasiatic that are now extinct, based on substrate evidence in modern-day languages. Pre-Chamic languages (the languages of coastal Vietnam before the Chamic migrations). Chamic has various Austroasiatic loanwords that cannot be clearly traced to existing Austroasiatic branches (Sidwell 2006, 2007). Larish (1999) also notes that Moklenic languages contain many Austroasiatic loanwords, some of which are similar to the ones found in Chamic. Acehnese substratum (Sidwell 2006). Acehnese has many basic words that are of Austroasiatic origin, suggesting that either Austronesian speakers have absorbed earlier Austroasiatic residents in northern Sumatra, or that words might have been borrowed from Austroasiatic languages in southern Vietnam – or perhaps a combination of both. Sidwell (2006) argues that Acehnese and Chamic had often borrowed Austroasiatic words independently of each other, while some Austroasiatic words can be traced back to Proto-Aceh-Chamic. Sidwell (2006) accepts that Acehnese and Chamic are related, but that they had separated from each other before Chamic had borrowed most of its Austroasiatic lexicon. Bornean substrate languages (Blench 2010). Blench cites Austroasiatic-origin words in modern-day Bornean branches such as Land Dayak (Bidayuh, Dayak Bakatiq, etc.), Dusunic (Central Dusun, Visayan, etc.), Kayan, and Kenyah, noting especially resemblances with Aslian. As further evidence for his proposal, Blench also cites ethnographic evidence such as musical instruments in Borneo shared in common with Austroasiatic-speaking groups in mainland Southeast Asia. Adelaar (1995) has also noticed phonological and lexical similarities between Land Dayak and Aslian. Lepcha substratum ("Rongic"). Many words of Austroasiatic origin have been noticed in Lepcha, suggesting a Sino-Tibetan superstrate laid over an Austroasiatic substrate. Blench (2013) calls this branch "Rongic" based on the Lepcha autonym Róng.Other languages with proposed Austroasiatic substrata are: Jiamao, based on evidence from the register system of Jiamao, a Hlai language (Thurgood 1992). Jiamao is known for its highly aberrant vocabulary in relation to other Hlai languages. Kerinci: van Reijn (1974) notes that Kerinci, a Malayic language of central Sumatra, shares many phonological similarities with Austroasiatic languages, such as sesquisyllabic word structure and vowel inventory.John Peterson (2017) suggests that "pre-Munda" ("proto-" in regular terminology) languages may have once dominated the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain, and were then absorbed by Indo-Aryan languages at an early date as Indo-Aryan spread east. Peterson notes that eastern Indo-Aryan languages display many morphosyntactic features similar to those of Munda languages, while western Indo-Aryan languages do not.Writing systems Other than Latin-based alphabets, many Austroasiatic languages are written with the Khmer, Thai, Lao, and Burmese alphabets. Vietnamese divergently had an indigenous script based on Chinese logographic writing. This has since been supplanted by the Latin alphabet in the 20th century. The following are examples of past-used alphabets or current alphabets of Austroasiatic languages. Chữ Nôm Khmer alphabet Khom script (used for a short period in the early 20th century for indigenous languages in Laos) Old Mon script Mon script Pahawh Hmong was once used to write Khmu, under the name "Pahawh Khmu" Tai Le (Palaung, Blang) Tai Tham (Blang) Ol Chiki alphabet (Santali alphabet) Mundari Bani (Mundari alphabet) Warang Citi (Ho alphabet) Sorang Sompeng alphabet (Sora alphabet)External relationsAustric languages Austroasiatic is an integral part of the controversial Austric hypothesis, which also includes the Austronesian languages, and in some proposals also the Kra–Dai languages and the Hmong–Mien languages.Hmong-Mien Several lexical resemblances are found between the Hmong-Mien and Austroasiatic language families (Ratliff 2010), some of which had earlier been proposed by Haudricourt (1951). This could imply a relation or early language contact along the Yangtze.According to Cai (et al. 2011), Hmong–Mien is at least partially related to Austroasiatic but was heavily influenced by Sino-Tibetan, especially Tibeto-Burman languages.Indo-Aryan languagesIt is suggested that the Austroasiatic languages have some influence on Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit and middle Indo-Aryan languages. Indian linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji pointed that a specific number of substantives in languages such as Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali were borrowed from Munda languages. Additionally, French linguist Jean Przyluski suggested a similarity between the tales from the Austroasiatic realm and the Indian mythological stories of Matsyagandha (from Mahabharata) and the Nāgas.Austroasiatic migrations and archaeogeneticsMitsuru Sakitani suggests that Haplogroup O1b1, which is common in Austroasiatic people and some other ethnic groups in southern China, and haplogroup O1b2, which is common in today Japanese, Koreans and some Manchu, are the carriers of early rice-agriculturalists from Indochina. Another study suggests that the haplogroup O1b1 is the major Austroasiatic paternal lineage and O1b2 the "para-Austroasiatic" lineage of the Mandchurian, Korean and Yayoi people.A 2021 study by Tagore et al. found that the proto-Austroasiatic-speakers split from an Basal-East Asian source population, native to Mainland Southeast Asia and Northeast India, which also gave rise to other East Asian-related populations, including Northeast Asians and Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The proto-Austroasiatic-speakers can be linked to the Hoabinhian material culture. From Mainland Southeast Asia, the Austroasiatic-speakers expanded into the Indian-subcontinent and Maritime Southeast Asia. There is evidence that later back migration from more northerly East Asian groups (such as Kra-Dai-speakers) merged with indigenous Southeast Asians, contributing to the fragmentation observed among modern day Austroasiatic-speakers. In the Indian subcontinent, Austroasiatic-speakers, specifically Mundari, intermixed with the local population. Furthermore they concluded that their results do not support a genetic relationship between Ancient Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers (Hoabinhians) with Papuan-related groups, as previously suggested by McColl et al. 2018, but that these Ancient Southeast Asians are characterized by Basal-East Asian ancestry. The authors finally concluded that genetics do not necessarily correspond with linguistic identity, pointing to the fragmentation of modern Austroasiatic-speakers.Larena et al. 2021 could reproduce the genetic evidence for the origin of Basal-East Asians in Mainland Southeast Asia, which are estimated to have formed about 50kya years ago, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards. Early Austroasiatic-speakers are estimated to have originated from an lineage, which split from Ancestral East Asians between 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, and were among the first wave to replace distinct Australasian-related groups in Insular Southeast Asia. Early Austroasiatic people were found to be best represented by the Mlabri people in modern day Thailand. Proposals for Austroasiatic substratum among later Austronesian languages in Western Indonesia, noteworthy among the Dayak languages, is strengthened by genetic data, suggesting Austroasiatic-speakers were assimilated by Austronesian-speakers.A study in November 2021 (Guo et al.) found that modern East-Eurasians can be modeled from four ancestry components, which descended from a common ancestor in Mainland Southeast Asia, one being the "Ancestral Austroasiatic" component (AAA), which is more prevalent among modern Southeast Asians, and making up the exclusive ancestry among Austroasiatic-speaking Lua and Mlabri people. The early Austroasiatic-speakers are suggested to have been hunter-gatherers but became rice-agriculturalists quite early, spreading from Mainland Southeast Asia northwards to the Yangtze river, westwards into the Indian subcontinent, and southwards into Insular Southeast Asia. Evidence for these migrations are Austroasiatic loanwords related to rice-agriculture found among non-Austroasiatic languages, and the presence of Austroasiatic genetic ancestry.According to a recent genetic study, Sundanese,  Javanese, and Balinese, has almost an equal ratio of genetic marker shared between Austronesian and Austroasiatic heritages.Migration into India According to Chaubey et al., "Austro-Asiatic speakers in India today are derived from dispersal from Southeast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations." According to Riccio et al., the Munda people are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from Southeast Asia.According to Zhang et al., Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia into India took place after the last Glacial maximum, circa 10,000 years ago. Arunkumar et al, suggest Austroasiatic migrations from Southeast Asia occurred into Northeast India 5.2 ± 0.6 kya and into East India 4.3 ± 0.2 kya.NotesReferencesSources  Adams, K. L. (1989). Systems of numeral classification in the Mon–Khmer, Nicobarese and Aslian subfamilies of Austroasiatic. Canberra, A.C.T., Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.   Alves, Mark J. (2015). Morphological functions among Mon-Khmer languages: beyond the basics. In N. J. Enfield & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: the state of the art. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 531–557. Bradley, David (2012). "Languages and Language Families in China", in Rint Sybesma (ed.), Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Chakrabarti, Byomkes. (1994). A Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali.  Diffloth, Gérard. (2005). "The contribution of linguistic palaeontology and Austro-Asiatic". in Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, eds. The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. 77–80. London: Routledge Curzon.  Filbeck, D. (1978). T'in: a historical study. Pacific linguistics, no. 49. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.  Hemeling, K. (1907). Die Nanking Kuanhua. (German language) Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell, eds (2015). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. Peck, B. M., Comp. (1988). An Enumerative Bibliography of South Asian Language Dictionaries. Peiros, Ilia. 1998. Comparative Linguistics in Southeast Asia. Pacific Linguistics Series C, No. 142. Canberra: Australian National University. Shorto, Harry L. edited by Sidwell, Paul, Cooper, Doug and Bauer, Christian (2006). A Mon–Khmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics.  Shorto, H. L. Bibliographies of Mon–Khmer and Tai Linguistics. London oriental bibliographies, v. 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.    van Driem, George. (2007). Austroasiatic phylogeny and the Austroasiatic homeland in light of recent population genetic studies. Mon-Khmer Studies, 37, 1-14. Zide, Norman H., and Milton E. Barker. (1966) Studies in Comparative Austroasiatic Linguistics, The Hague: Mouton (Indo-Iranian monographs, v. 5.).Further reading   Mann, Noel, Wendy Smith and Eva Ujlakyova. 2009. Linguistic clusters of Mainland Southeast Asia: an overview of the language families. Chiang Mai: Payap University.   Sidwell, Paul. 2016. Bibliography of Austroasiatic linguistics and related resources. E. K. Brown (ed.) Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier Press. Gregory D. S. Anderson and Norman H. Zide. 2002. Issues in Proto-Munda and Proto-Austroasiatic Nominal Derivation: The Bimoraic Constraint. In Marlys A. Macken (ed.) Papers from the 10th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, South East Asian Studies Program, Monograph Series Press. pp. 55–74.External links  Swadesh lists for Austro-Asiatic languages (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix) Austro-Asiatic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project (not functional as of 2014): Genealogical trees attributed to Sebeok 1942, Pinnow 1959, Diffloth 2005, and Matisoff 2006 Mon–Khmer.com: Lectures by Paul Sidwell Mon–Khmer Languages Project at SEAlang Munda Languages Project at SEAlang RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-66A4-2@view RWAAI Digital Archive Michel Ferlus's recordings of Mon-Khmer (Austroasiatic) languages (CNRS) Agglutinative languagesLanguage familiesSino-Austronesian languages
Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic), also known as Afrasian or Hamito-Semitic, Semito-Hamitic, or Erythraean, is a large language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and parts of the Sahel. With the exception of Semitic, all branches of the Afroаsiatic family are spoken exclusively on the African continent.Afroasiatic languages have over 500 million native speakers, which is the fourth largest number of native speakers of any language family (after Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan and Niger–Congo). The phylum has six branches: Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Omotic; however, the inclusion of Omotic remains controversial, and several linguists see it as independent language family that stood in long-term contact with Afroasiatic languages. By far the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language or dialect continuum is Arabic, a de facto group of distinct language varieties within the Semitic branch. The languages that evolved from Proto-Arabic have around 313 million native speakers, concentrated primarily in the Middle East and North Africa.In addition to languages spoken today, Afroasiatic includes several important ancient languages, such as Ancient Egyptian, which forms a distinct branch of the family, and within the Semitic family, Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew and Old Aramaic. There is no consensus among historical linguists concerning the original homeland of the Afroasiatic family, or the period when the parent language (i.e. Proto-Afroasiatic) was spoken. Proposed locations include the Horn of Africa, North Africa, the Eastern Sahara and the Levant.EtymologyIn the early 19th century, linguists grouped the Berber, Cushitic and Egyptian languages within a "Hamitic" phylum, in acknowledgement of these languages' genetic relation with each other and with those in the Semitic phylum. The terms "Hamitic" and "Semitic" were etymologically derived from the Book of Genesis, which describes various Biblical tribes descended from Ham and Shem, two sons of Noah. By the 1860s, the main constituent elements within the broader Afroasiatic family had been worked out.Friedrich Müller introduced the name "Hamito-Semitic" for the entire language family in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft (1876). Maurice Delafosse (1914) later coined the term "Afroasiatic" (often now spelled "Afro-Asiatic"). However, it did not come into general use until Joseph Greenberg (1950) formally proposed its adoption. In doing so, Greenberg sought to emphasize the fact that 'Hamitic' was not a valid group and that language cladistics did not reflect race.Individual scholars have also called the family "Erythraean" (Tucker 1966) and "Lisramic" (Hodge 1972). In lieu of "Hamito-Semitic", the Russian linguist Igor Diakonoff later suggested the term "Afrasian", meaning "half African, half Asiatic", in reference to the geographic distribution of the family's constituent languages.Distribution and branchesScholars generally treat the Afroasiatic language family as including the following five branches, whereas Omotic is disputed: Berber Chadic Cushitic Egyptian SemiticAlthough there is general agreement on these six families, linguists who study Afroasiatic raise some points of disagreement, in particular: The Omotic language branch is the most controversial member of Afroasiatic because the grammatical formatives to which most linguists have given the greatest weight in classifying languages in the family "are either absent or distinctly wobbly" (Hayward 1995). Greenberg (1963) and others considered it a subgroup of Cushitic, whereas others have raised doubts about its being part of Afroasiatic at all (e.g. Theil 2006). The Afroasiatic identity of Ongota is also broadly questioned, as is its position within Afroasiatic among those who accept it, due to the "mixed" appearance of the language and a paucity of research and data. Harold Fleming (2006) proposes that Ongota constitutes a separate branch of Afroasiatic. Bonny Sands (2009)  finds the proposal by Savà and Tosco (2003) the most convincing: namely that Ongota is an East Cushitic language with a Nilo-Saharan substratum. In other words, it would appear that the Ongota people once spoke a Nilo-Saharan language but then shifted to speaking a Cushitic language but retained some characteristics of their earlier Nilo-Saharan language. Beja, sometimes listed as a separate branch of Afroasiatic, is more often included in the Cushitic branch, which has a substantial degree of internal diversity. There is no consensus on the interrelationships of the five non-Omotic branches of Afroasiatic (see § Subgrouping below). This situation is not unusual, even among long-established language families: scholars also frequently disagree on the internal classification of the Indo-European languages, for instance. The extinct Meroitic language has been proposed (Bruce Trigger, 1964, 1977) as an unclassified Afroasiatic language, because it shares the phonotactics characteristic of the family, but there is not enough evidence to secure a classification (Fritz Hintze, 1974, The classification of Kujargé within Afroasiatic is not agreed upon. Blench (2008) notes that much of the basic vocabulary looks Cushitic, and speculates that Kujargé could even be a conservative language transitional between Chadic and Cushitic.DemographicsIn descending order of the number of speakers, widely-spoken Afroasiatic languages include: Arabic (Semitic), the most widely spoken Afroasiatic language, has over 300 million native speakers.  Hausa (Chadic), the dominant language of northern Nigeria and southern Niger, spoken as a first language by over 40 million people and used as a lingua franca by another 20 million across West Africa and the Sahel. Oromo (Cushitic), spoken in Ethiopia and Kenya by around 34 million people. Amharic (Semitic), spoken in Ethiopia, with over 25 million native speakers in addition to millions of other Ethiopians speaking it as a second language. Somali (Cushitic), spoken by 21.8 million people in Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya. Tigrinya (Semitic), spoken by around 9.73 million people in Eritrea and Tigray Region of Ethiopia.Afar (Cushitic), spoken by around 7.5 million people in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea.Shilha (Berber), spoken by around 7 million people in Morocco.Kabyle (Berber), spoken by around 5.6 million people in Algeria.Hebrew (Semitic), spoken by around 5 million native speakers, and additionally by 4 million second-language speakers in Israel and the Jewish diaspora; premodern Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism and of the Samaritan people.Central Atlas Tamazight (Berber), spoken by around 4.6 million people in Morocco.Riffian (Berber), spoken by around 4.2 million people in Morocco. Gurage languages (Semitic), a group of languages spoken by more than 2 million people in Ethiopia.Tigre (Semitic), spoken by around 2 million people in Eritrea.Wolaitta (Omotic), spoken by around 1.6 million people in Ethiopia.Maltese (Semitic), spoken by around half a million people in Malta and the Maltese diaspora. It descended from Siculo-Arabic independently from modern Arabic dialects, features Romance superstrates and has been written in the Latin script since at least the 14th century.Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (Semitic), a variety of modern Aramaic, spoken by more than 500,000 people in the Assyrian diaspora.Classification history In the 9th century the Hebrew grammarian Judah ibn Quraysh of Tiaret in Algeria became the first to link two branches of Afroasiatic together; he perceived a relationship between Berber and Semitic. He knew of Semitic through his study of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. In the course of the 19th century, Europeans also began suggesting such relationships. In 1844, Theodor Benfey proposed a language family consisting of Semitic, Berber, and Cushitic (he called the latter "Ethiopic"). In the same year T.N. Newman suggested a relationship between Semitic and Hausa, but this would long remain a topic of dispute and uncertainty. Friedrich Müller named the traditional Hamito-Semitic family in 1876 in his Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft ("Outline of Linguistics"), and defined it as consisting of a Semitic group plus a "Hamitic" group containing Egyptian, Berber, and Cushitic; he excluded the Chadic group. It was the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884) who restricted Hamitic to the non-Semitic languages in Africa, which are characterized by a grammatical  gender system. This "Hamitic language group" was proposed to unite various, mainly North-African, languages, including the Ancient Egyptian language, the Berber languages, the Cushitic languages, the Beja language, and the Chadic languages. Unlike Müller, Lepsius saw Hausa and Nama as part of the Hamitic group. These classifications relied in part on non-linguistic anthropological and racial arguments. Both authors used the skin-color, mode of subsistence, and other characteristics of native speakers as part of their arguments for grouping particular languages together.In 1912, Carl Meinhof published Die Sprachen der Hamiten ("The Languages of the Hamites"), in which he expanded Lepsius's model, adding the Fula, Maasai, Bari, Nandi,  Sandawe and Hadza languages to the Hamitic group. Meinhof's model was widely supported in the 1940s. Meinhof's system of classification of the Hamitic languages was based on a belief that "speakers of Hamitic became largely coterminous with cattle herding peoples with essentially Caucasian origins, intrinsically different from and superior to the 'Negroes of Africa'." However, in the case of the so-called Nilo-Hamitic languages (a concept he introduced), it was based on the typological feature of gender and a "fallacious theory of  language mixture". Meinhof did this although earlier work by scholars such as Lepsius and Johnston had substantiated that the languages which he would later dub "Nilo-Hamitic" were in fact Nilotic languages, with numerous similarities in vocabulary to other Nilotic languages.Leo Reinisch (1909) had already proposed linking Cushitic and Chadic while urging their more distant affinity with Egyptian and Semitic. However, his suggestion found little acceptance. Marcel Cohen (1924) rejected the idea of a distinct "Hamitic" subgroup and included Hausa (a Chadic language) in his comparative Hamito-Semitic vocabulary. Finally, Joseph Greenberg's 1950 work led to the widespread rejection of "Hamitic" as a language category by linguists. Greenberg refuted Meinhof's linguistic theories and rejected the use of racial and social evidence. In dismissing the notion of a separate "Nilo-Hamitic" language category, in particular, Greenberg was "returning to a view widely held a half-century earlier". He consequently rejoined Meinhof's so-called Nilo-Hamitic languages with their appropriate Nilotic siblings. He also added (and sub-classified) the Chadic languages, and proposed a new name, "Afroasiatic", for the family. Almost all scholars have accepted this classification as the new and continued consensus.Greenberg developed his model fully in his book The Languages of Africa (1963), in which he reassigned most of Meinhof's additions to Hamitic to other language families, notably Nilo-Saharan. Following Isaac Schapera and rejecting Meinhof, he classified the  Khoekhoe language as a member of the Khoisan languages, a grouping that has since proven inaccurate and excessively motivated on the presence of click sounds. To Khoisan he also added the Tanzanian Hadza and Sandawe, though this view has been discredited as linguists working on these languages regard them as linguistic isolates. Despite this, Greenberg's classification remains a starting point for modern work on many languages spoken in Africa, and the Hamitic category (and its extension to Nilo-Hamitic) has no part in this.Since the three traditional branches of the Hamitic languages (Berber, Cushitic and Egyptian) have not been shown to form an exclusive (monophyletic) phylogenetic unit of their own, separate from other Afroasiatic languages, linguists no longer use the term in this sense. Each of these branches is instead now regarded as an independent subgroup of the larger Afroasiatic family.In 1969, Harold Fleming proposed that what had previously been known as Western Cushitic is an independent branch of Afroasiatic, suggesting for it the new name  "Omotic". This proposal and name have met with widespread acceptance.Based on typological differences with the other Cushitic languages, Robert Hetzron proposed that Beja has to be removed from Cushitic, thus forming an independent branch of Afroasiatic. Most scholars, however, reject this proposal, and continue to group Beja as the sole member of a Northern branch within Cushitic.Glottolog does not accept that the inclusion or even unity of Omotic has been established, nor that of Ongota or the unclassified Kujarge. It therefore splits off the following groups as small families: South Omotic, Mao, Dizoid,  Gonga–Gimojan (North Omotic apart from the preceding), Ongota, and Kujarge.SubgroupingLittle agreement exists on the  subgrouping of the five or six branches of Afroasiatic: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic. However, Christopher Ehret (1979), Harold Fleming (1981), and Joseph Greenberg (1981) all agree that the Omotic branch split from the rest first.Otherwise: Paul Newman (1980) groups Berber with Chadic and Egyptian with Semitic, while questioning the inclusion of Omotic in Afroasiatic. Rolf Theil (2006) concurs with the exclusion of Omotic but does not otherwise address the structure of the family. Harold Fleming (1981) divides non-Omotic Afroasiatic, or "Erythraean", into three groups, Cushitic, Semitic, and Chadic-Berber-Egyptian. He later added Semitic and Beja to Chadic-Berber-Egyptian and tentatively proposed Ongota as a new third branch of Erythraean. He thus divided Afroasiatic into two major branches, Omotic and Erythraean, with Erythraean consisting of three sub-branches, Cushitic, Chadic-Berber-Egyptian-Semitic-Beja, and Ongota. Like Harold Fleming, Christopher Ehret (1995: 490) divides Afroasiatic into two branches, Omotic and Erythrean. He divides Omotic into two branches, North Omotic and South Omotic. He divides Erythrean into Cushitic, comprising Beja, Agaw, and East-South Cushitic, and North Erythrean, comprising Chadic and "Boreafrasian." According to his classification, Boreafrasian consists of Egyptian, Berber, and Semitic. Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova (1995) group Berber with Semitic and Chadic with Egyptian. They split up Cushitic into five or more independent branches of Afroasiatic, viewing Cushitic as a Sprachbund rather than a language family. Igor M. Diakonoff (1996) subdivides Afroasiatic in two, grouping Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as East-West Afrasian (ESA), and Chadic with Egyptian as North-South Afrasian (NSA). He excludes Omotic from Afroasiatic. Lionel Bender (1997) groups Berber, Cushitic, and Semitic together as "Macro-Cushitic". He regards Chadic and Omotic as the branches of Afroasiatic most remote from the others. Alexander Militarev (2000), on the basis of lexicostatistics, groups Berber with Chadic and both more distantly with Semitic, as against Cushitic and Omotic. He places Ongota in South Omotic.Position among the world's languagesAfroasiatic is one of the four major language families spoken in Africa identified by Joseph Greenberg in his book The Languages of Africa (1963). It is one of the few whose speech area is transcontinental, with languages from Afroasiatic's Semitic branch also spoken in the Middle East and Europe.There are no generally accepted relations between Afroasiatic and any other language family. However, several proposals grouping Afroasiatic with one or more other language families have been made. The best-known of these are the following: Hermann Möller (1906) argued for a relation between Semitic and the Indo-European languages. This proposal was accepted by a few linguists (e.g. Holger Pedersen and Louis Hjelmslev). (For a fuller account, see Indo-Semitic languages.) However, the theory has little currency today, although most linguists do not deny the existence of grammatical similarities between both families (such as grammatical gender, noun-adjective agreement, three-way number distinction, and vowel alternation as a means of derivation). Apparently influenced by Möller (a colleague of his at the University of Copenhagen), Holger Pedersen included Hamito-Semitic (the term replaced by Afroasiatic) in his proposed Nostratic macro-family (cf. Pedersen 1931:336–338), also included the Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Yukaghir languages, and Dravidian languages. This inclusion was retained by subsequent Nostraticists, starting with Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky. Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002) did not reject a relationship of Afroasiatic to these other languages, but he considered it more distantly related to them than they were to each other, grouping instead these other languages in a separate macro-family, which he called Eurasiatic, and to which he added Chukotian, Gilyak, Korean, Japanese-Ryukyuan, Eskimo–Aleut, and Ainu. Most recently, Sergei Starostin's school has accepted Eurasiatic as a subgroup of Nostratic, with Afroasiatic, Dravidian, and Kartvelian in Nostratic outside of Eurasiatic. The even larger Borean super-family contains Nostratic as well as Dené-Caucasian and Austric.Date of AfroasiaticThe earliest written evidence of an Afroasiatic language is an Ancient Egyptian inscription dated to c. 3400 BC (5,400 years ago). Symbols on Gerzean (Naqada II) pottery resembling Egyptian hieroglyphs date back to c. 4000 BC, suggesting an earlier possible dating. This gives us a minimum date for the age of Afroasiatic. However, Ancient Egyptian is highly divergent from Proto-Afroasiatic, and considerable time must have elapsed in between them. Estimates of the date at which the Proto-Afroasiatic language was spoken vary widely. They fall within a range between approximately 7,500 BC (9,500 years ago), and approximately 16,000 BC (18,000 years ago). According to Igor M. Diakonoff (1988: 33n), Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 10,000 BC. Christopher Ehret (2002: 35–36) asserts that Proto-Afroasiatic was spoken c. 11,000 BC at the latest, and possibly as early as c. 16,000 BC. These dates are older than those associated with other proto-languages.Afroasiatic UrheimatThe Afroasiatic urheimat, the hypothetical place where Proto-Afroasiatic language speakers lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into distinct languages, is unknown. Afroasiatic languages are today primarily spoken in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel. Their distribution seems to have been influenced by the Sahara pump operating over the last 10,000 years.While there is no definitive agreement on when or where the original homeland of this language family existed, many link the first speakers to the first farmers in the Levant who would later spread to North and East Africa. Others argue the first speakers were pre-agricultural and based in North East Africa.Similarities in grammar and syntax Widespread (though not universal) features of the Afroasiatic languages include: A set of emphatic consonants, variously realized as glottalized, pharyngealized, or implosive. VSO typology with SVO tendencies. A two-gender system in the singular, with the feminine marked by the sound /t/. All Afroasiatic subfamilies show evidence of a causative affix s. Semitic, Berber, Cushitic (including Beja), and Chadic support possessive suffixes. Nisba derivation in -j (earlier Egyptian) or -ī (Semitic) Morphology in which words inflect by changes within the root (vowel changes or gemination) as well as with prefixes and suffixes.One of the most remarkable shared features among the Afroasiatic languages is the prefixing verb conjugation (see the table at the start of this section), with a distinctive pattern of prefixes beginning with /ʔ t n y/, and in particular a pattern whereby third-singular masculine /y-/ is opposed to third-singular feminine and second-singular /t-/.According to Ehret (1996), tonal languages appear in the Omotic and Chadic branches of Afroasiatic, as well as in certain Cushitic languages. The Semitic, Berber and Egyptian branches generally do not use tones phonemically.The Berber and Semitic branches share certain grammatical features (e.g. alternative feminine endings *-ay/*-āy; corresponding vowel templates for verbal conjugations) which can be reconstructed for a higher-order proto-language (provisionally called "Proto-Berbero-Semitic" by Kossmann & Suchard (2018) and Putten (2018)). Whether this proto-language is ancestral to Berber and Semitic only, or also to other branches of Afroasiatic, still remains to be established.Shared vocabularyThe following are some examples of Afroasiatic cognates, including ten pronouns, three nouns, and three verbs. Source: Christopher Ehret, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).Note: Ehret does not make use of Berber in his etymologies, stating (1995: 12): "the kind of extensive reconstruction of proto-Berber lexicon that might help in sorting through alternative possible etymologies is not yet available." The Berber cognates here are taken from the previous version of the table in this article and need to be completed and referenced.Abbreviations: NOm = 'North Omotic', SOm = 'South Omotic'. MSA = 'Modern South Arabian', PSC = 'Proto-Southern Cushitic', PSom-II = 'Proto-Somali, stage 2'. masc. = 'masculine', fem. = 'feminine', sing. = 'singular', pl. = 'plural'. 1s. = 'first person singular', 2s. = 'second person singular'.Symbols: Following Ehret (1995: 70), a caron ˇ over a vowel indicates rising tone, and a circumflex ^ over a vowel indicates falling tone. V indicates a vowel of unknown quality. Ɂ indicates a glottal stop. * indicates reconstructed forms based on comparison of related languages.There are two etymological dictionaries of Afroasiatic, one by Christopher Ehret, and one by Vladimir Orel and Olga Stolbova. The two dictionaries disagree on almost everything. The following table contains the thirty roots or so (out of thousands) that represent a fragile consensus of present research:Etymological bibliographySome of the main sources for Afroasiatic etymologies include: Cohen, Marcel. 1947. Essai comparatif sur le vocabulaire et la phonétique du chamito-sémitique. Paris: Champion. Diakonoff, Igor M. et al. 1993–1997. "Historical-comparative vocabulary of Afrasian," St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies 2–6. Ehret, Christopher. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (= University of California Publications in Linguistics 126). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Orel, Vladimir E. and Olga V. Stolbova. 1995. Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction. Leiden: Brill. .See also Afroasiatic phonetic notation Borean languages Indo-European languages Indo-Semitic languages Languages of Africa Languages of Asia Languages of Europe Nostratic languages Proto-Afroasiatic languageReferencesCitationsWorks citedGeneral referencesAnthony, David. 2007. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Bender, Lionel et al. 2003. Selected Comparative-Historical Afro-Asiatic Studies in Memory of Igor M. Diakonoff. LINCOM.Bomhard, Alan R. 1996. Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis. Signum.Diakonoff, Igor M. 1988. Afrasian Languages. Moscow: Nauka.Diakonoff, Igor M. 1996. "Some reflections on the Afrasian linguistic macrofamily." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55, 293.Diakonoff, Igor M. 1998. "The earliest Semitic society: Linguistic data." Journal of Semitic Studies 43, 209.Dimmendaal, Gerrit, and Erhard Voeltz. 2007. "Africa". In Christopher Moseley, ed., Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages.Ehret, Christopher. 1995. Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (Proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Ehret, Christopher. 1997. Abstract of "The lessons of deep-time historical-comparative reconstruction in Afroasiatic: reflections on Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic: Vowels, Tone, Consonants, and Vocabulary (U.C. Press, 1995)", paper delivered at the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the North American Conference on Afro-Asiatic Linguistics, held in Miami, Florida, on 21–23 March 1997.Finnegan, Ruth H. 1970. "Afro-Asiatic languages West Africa". Oral Literature in Africa, pg 558.Fleming, Harold C. 2006. Ongota: A Decisive Language in African Prehistory. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. "Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. Hamito-Semitic." Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 6, 47–63.Greenberg, Joseph H. 1955. Studies in African Linguistic Classification. New Haven: Compass Publishing Company. (Photo-offset reprint of the SJA articles with minor corrections.)Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. The Languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University. (Heavily revised version of Greenberg 1955.)Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. The Languages of Africa (2nd ed. with additions and corrections). Bloomington: Indiana University.Greenberg, Joseph H. 1981. "African linguistic classification." General History of Africa, Volume 1: Methodology and African Prehistory, edited by Joseph Ki-Zerbo, 292–308. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000–2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar, Volume 2: Lexicon. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Hayward, R. J. 1995. "The challenge of Omotic: an inaugural lecture delivered on 17 February 1994". London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.Heine, Bernd and Derek Nurse. 2000. African Languages, Chapter 4. Cambridge University Press.Hodge, Carleton T. (editor). 1971. Afroasiatic: A Survey. The Hague – Paris: Mouton.Hodge, Carleton T. 1991. "Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic." In Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (editors), Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 141–165.Huehnergard, John. 2004. "Afro-Asiatic." In R.D. Woodard (editor), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, Cambridge – New York, 2004, 138–159.Militarev, Alexander. "Towards the genetic affiliation of Ongota, a nearly-extinct language of Ethiopia," 60 pp. In Orientalia et Classica: Papers of the Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies, Issue 5. Moscow. (Forthcoming.)Newman, Paul. 1980. The Classification of Chadic within Afroasiatic. Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden.Theil, R. 2006. Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic? Proceedings from the David Dwyer retirement symposium, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 21 October 2006.Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2020). Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond, Oxford University Press.  /External links Afro-Asiatic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project (not functional as of 2014): Genealogical trees attributed to Delafosse 1914, Greenberg 1950–1955, Greenberg 1963, Fleming 1976, Hodge 1976, Orel & Stolbova 1995, Diakonoff 1996–1998, Ehret 1995–2000, Hayward 2000, Militarev 2005, Blench 2006, and Fleming 2006 Afro-Asiatic and Semitic genealogical trees, presented by Alexander Militarev at his talk "Genealogical classification of Afro-Asiatic languages according to the latest data" at the conference on the 70th anniversary of V.M. Illich-Svitych, Moscow, 2004; short annotations of the talks given there  The prehistory of a dispersal: the Proto-Afrasian (Afroasiatic) farming lexicon, by Alexander Militarev in "Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis", eds. P. Bellwood & C. Renfrew. (McDonald Institute Monographs.) Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2002, p. 135–50. Once More About Glottochronology And The Comparative Method: The Omotic-Afrasian case, by Alexander Militarev in "Aspects of Comparative Linguistics", v. 1. Moscow: RSUH Publishers, 2005, pp. 339–408. Root Extension And Root Formation In Semitic And Afrasian, by Alexander Militarev in "Proceedings of the Barcelona Symposium on comparative Semitic", 19-20/11/2004. Aula Orientalis 23/1-2, 2005, pp. 83–129. Akkadian-Egyptian lexical matches, by Alexander Militarev in "Papers on Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics in Honor of Gene B. Gragg." Ed. by Cynthia L. Miller. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 60. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2007, p. 139–145. A comparison of Orel-Stolbova's and Ehret's Afro-Asiatic reconstructions "Is Omotic Afro-Asiatic?" by Rolf Theil (2006) NACAL The North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics, now in its 35th year Afro-Asiatic webpage of Roger Blench (with family tree). Language familiesEthnic groups in AfricaEthnic groups in AsiaEthnic groups in Europe
Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a sovereign landlocked microstate on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees, bordered by France to the north and Spain to the south. Believed to have been created by Charlemagne, Andorra was ruled by the count of Urgell until 988, when it was transferred to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Urgell. The present principality was formed by a charter in 1278. It is headed by two co-princes: the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, Spain and the President of France. Its capital and largest city is Andorra la Vella.Andorra is the sixth-smallest state in Europe, with an area of  and a population of approximately . The Andorran people are a Romance ethnic group of originally Catalan descent. Andorra is the world's 16th-smallest country by land and 11th-smallest by population. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of  above sea level. The official language is Catalan, but Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.Tourism in Andorra sees an estimated 10.2 million visitors annually. Andorra is not a member state of the European Union, but the euro is its official currency. It has been a member of the United Nations since 1993. In 2013, Andorra had the highest life expectancy in the world at 81 years, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study; in 2019, it had the 23rd-highest at 81.9 years, according to the United Nations Development Programme.EtymologyThe origin of the word Andorra is unknown, although several hypotheses have been formulated. The oldest derivation is from the Greek historian Polybius (The Histories III, 35, 1), who describes the Andosins, an Iberian Pre-Roman tribe, as historically located in the valleys of Andorra and facing the Carthaginian army in its passage through the Pyrenees during the Punic Wars. The word Andosini or Andosins () may derive from the Basque , meaning "big" or "giant". The Andorran toponymy shows evidence of Basque language in the area. Another theory suggests that the word Andorra may derive from the old word Anorra that contains the Basque word  (water).Another theory suggests that Andorra may derive from , meaning "the thickly wooded place". When the Arabs and Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula, the valleys of the High Pyrenees were covered by large tracts of forest. These regions were not administered by Muslims, because of the geographic difficulty of direct rule.Other theories suggest that the term derives from the Navarro-Aragonese "andurrial", which means "land covered with bushes" or "scrubland".The folk etymology holds that Charlemagne had named the region as a reference to the Biblical Canaanite valley of Endor or Andor (where the Midianites had been defeated), a name bestowed by his heir and son Louis the Pious after defeating the Moors in the "wild valleys of Hell".HistoryPrehistory La Balma de la Margineda, found by archaeologists at Sant Julià de Lòria, was settled in 9,500 BC as a passing place between the two sides of the Pyrenees. The seasonal camp was perfectly located for hunting and fishing by the groups of hunter-gatherers from Ariege and Segre.During the Neolithic Age, a group of people moved to the Valley of Madriu (the present-day Natural Parc located in Escaldes-Engordany declared UNESCO World Heritage Site) as a permanent camp in 6640 BC. The population of the valley grew cereals, raised domestic livestock, and developed a commercial trade with people from the Segre and Occitania.Other archaeological deposits include the Tombs of Segudet (Ordino) and Feixa del Moro (Sant Julià de Lòria), both dated in 4900–4300 BC as an example of the Urn culture in Andorra. The model of small settlements began to evolve to a complex urbanism during the Bronze Age. Metallurgical items of iron, ancient coins, and relicaries can be found in the ancient sanctuaries scattered around the country.The sanctuary of Roc de les Bruixes (Stone of the Witches) is perhaps the most important archeological complex of this age in Andorra, located in the parish of Canillo, about the rituals of funerals, ancient scripture and engraved stone murals.Iberian and Roman AndorraThe inhabitants of the valleys were traditionally associated with the Iberians and historically located in Andorra as the Iberian tribe Andosins or Andosini () during the 7th and 2nd centuries BC. Influenced by the Aquitanian, Basque and Iberian languages, the locals developed some current toponyms. Early writings and documents relating to this group of people goes back to the second century BC by the Greek writer Polybius in his Histories during the Punic Wars.Some of the most significant remains of this era are the Castle of the Roc d'Enclar (part of the early Marca Hispanica), l'Anxiu in Les Escaldes and Roc de L'Oral in Encamp.The presence of Roman influence is recorded from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD. The places with the most Roman presence are in Camp Vermell (Red Field) in Sant Julià de Lòria, and in some places in Encamp, as well as in the Roc d'Enclar. People continued trading, mainly with wine and cereals, with the Roman cities of Urgellet (the present-day La Seu d'Urgell) and all across Segre through the via romana Strata Ceretana (also known as Strata Confluetana).Visigoths and Carolingians: the legend of CharlemagneAfter the fall of the Roman Empire, Andorra came under the influence of the Visigoths, the Kingdom of Toledo, and the Diocese of Urgell. The Visigoths remained in the valleys for 200 years, during which time Christianity spread. When the Muslim Empire of Al-Andalus replaced the ruling Visigoths in most of the Iberian Peninsula, Andorra was sheltered from these invaders by the Franks.Tradition holds that Charles the Great (Charlemagne) granted a charter to the Andorran people for a contingent of 5,000 soldiers under the command of Marc Almugaver, in return for fighting against the Moors near Porté-Puymorens (Cerdanya).Andorra remained part of the Frankish Marca Hispanica, the buffer zone between the Frankish Empire and the Muslim territories, Andorra being part of the territory ruled by the Count of Urgell and eventually the bishop of the Diocese of Urgell. Tradition also holds that it was guaranteed by the son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, writing the Carta de Poblament or a local municipal charter circa 805.In 988, Borrell II, Count of Urgell, gave the Andorran valleys to the Diocese of Urgell in exchange for land in Cerdanya. Since then, the Bishop of Urgell, based in Seu d'Urgell, has been co-prince of Andorra.The first document that mentions Andorra as a territory is the Acta de Consagració i Dotació de la Catedral de la Seu d'Urgell (Deed of Consecration and Endowment of the Cathedral of La Seu d'Urgell). The document, dated 839, depicts the six old parishes of the Andorran valleys that made up the country's administrative division.Medieval Age: The Paréages and the founding of the Co-PrincipalityBefore 1095, Andorra had no military protection, and the Bishop of Urgell, who knew that the count of Urgell wanted to reclaim the Andorran valleys, asked the lord of Caboet for help and protection. In 1095, the Lord of Caboet and the bishop of Urgell signed under oath a declaration of their co-sovereignty over Andorra. Arnalda, daughter of Arnau of Caboet, married the viscount of Castellbò. Their daughter, Ermessenda, married the count of Foix, Roger-Bernard II. Roger-Bernard II and Ermessenda shared rule over Andorra with the bishop of Urgell.In the 13th century, a military dispute arose between the bishop of Urgell and the count of Foix as aftermath of the Cathar Crusade. The conflict was resolved in 1278 with the mediation of the king of Aragon, Peter III, between the bishop and the count, by the signing of the first paréage, which provided that Andorra's sovereignty be shared between the count of Foix (whose title would ultimately transfer to the French head of state) and the bishop of Urgell, in Catalonia. This gave the principality its territory and political form.A second paréage was signed in 1288 after a dispute when the count of Foix ordered the construction of a castle in Roc d'Enclar. The document was ratified by the noble notary Jaume Orig of Puigcerdà, and construction of military structures in the country was prohibited.In 1364, the political organization of the country named the figure of the syndic (now spokesman and president of the parliament) as representative of the Andorrans to their co-princes, making possible the creation of local departments (comuns, quarts and veïnats). After being ratified by Bishop Francesc Tovia and Count John I, the Consell de la Terra or Consell General de les Valls (General Council of the Valleys) was founded in 1419, the second oldest parliament in Europe. The syndic Andreu d'Alàs and the General Council organized the creation of the Justice Courts (La Cort de Justicia) in 1433 with the co-princes and the collection of taxes like foc i lloc (literally "fire and site", a national tax active since then).Although there are remains of ecclesiastical works dating before the 9th century (Sant Vicenç d'Enclar or Església de Santa Coloma), Andorra developed exquisite Romanesque Art during the 9th through 14th centuries, particularly in the construction of churches, bridges, religious murals and statues of the Virgin and Child (Our Lady of Meritxell being the most important). Nowadays, the Romanesque buildings that form part of Andorra's cultural heritage stand out in a remarkable way, with an emphasis on Església de Sant Esteve, Sant Joan de Caselles, Església de Sant Miquel d'Engolasters, Sant Martí de la Cortinada and the medieval bridges of Margineda and Escalls among many others.The Catalan Pyrenees were embryonic of the Catalan language at the end of the 11th century. Andorra was influenced by this language, which was adopted locally decades before it expanded to the rest of the Crown of Aragon.The local economy during the Middle Ages was based on livestock, agriculture, furs and weavers. Later, at the end of the 11th century, the first iron foundries began to appear in Northern Parishes like Ordino, much appreciated by the master artisans who developed the art of the forges, an important economic activity in the country from the 15th century.16th to 18th centuriesIn 1601, the Tribunal de Corts (High Court of Justice) was created as a result of Huguenot rebellions in France, Inquisition courts coming from Spain and witchcraft-related beliefs native to the area, in the context of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.With the passage of time, the co-title to Andorra passed to the kings of Navarre. After Henry III of Navarre became king of France, he issued an edict in 1607 that established the head of the French state and the bishop of Urgell as co-princes of Andorra, a political arrangement that still holds.During 1617, communal councils form the sometent (popular militia or army) to deal with the rise of bandolerisme (brigandage) and the Consell de la Terra was defined and structured in terms of its composition, organization and competences current today.Andorra continued with the same economic system that it had during the 12th–14th centuries with a large production of metallurgy (fargues, a system similar to Farga Catalana) and with the introduction of tobacco circa 1692 and import trade. In 1371, and 1448, the co-princes ratified the fair of Andorra la Vella, the most important annual national festival commercially ever since.The country had a unique and experienced guild of weavers, Confraria de Paraires i Teixidors, in Escaldes-Engordany. Founded in 1604, it took advantage of the local thermal waters. By this time, the country was characterized by the social system of prohoms (wealthy society) and casalers (rest of the population with smaller economic acquisition), deriving from the tradition of pubilla and hereu.Three centuries after its foundation, the Consell de la Terra located its headquarters and the Tribunal de Corts in Casa de la Vall in 1702. The manor house built in 1580 served as a noble fortress of the Busquets family. Inside the parliament was placed the Closet of the six keys (Armari de les sis claus), representative of each Andorran parish, where the Andorran constitution and other documents and laws were later kept.In both the Reapers' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, the Andorran people (while professing to be a neutral country) supported the Catalans who saw their rights reduced in 1716. The reaction was the promotion of Catalan writings in Andorra, with cultural works such as the Book of Privileges (Llibre de Privilegis de 1674), Manual Digest (1748) by Antoni Fiter i Rossell or the Polità andorrà (1763) by Antoni Puig.19th century: the New Reform and the Andorran QuestionAfter the French Revolution, Napoleon I reestablished the Co-Principate in 1809 and removed the French medieval title. In 1812–1813, the First French Empire annexed Catalonia during the Peninsular War () and divided the region into four départements, with Andorra as a part of the district of Puigcerdà. In 1814, an imperial decree reestablished the independence and economy of Andorra.During this period, Andorra's late medieval institutions and rural culture remained largely unchanged. In 1866, the syndic Guillem d'Areny-Plandolit led the reformist group in a Council General of 24 members elected by suffrage limited to heads of families. The Council General replaced the aristocratic oligarchy that previously ruled the state.The New Reform () began after ratification by both Co-Princes and established the basis of the constitution and symbolssuch as the tricolour flagof Andorra. A new service economy arose as a demand of the valley inhabitants and began to build infrastructure such as hotels, spa resorts, roads and telegraph lines.The authorities of the Co-Princes banned casinos and betting houses throughout the country. The ban resulted in an economic conflict and the Revolution of 1881, which began when revolutionaries assaulted the house of the syndic on 8 December 1880, and established the Provisional Revolutionary Council led by Joan Pla i Calvo and Pere Baró i Mas. The Provisional Revolutionary Council allowed for the construction of casinos and spas by foreign companies. From 7 to 9 June 1881, the loyalists of Canillo and Encamp reconquered the parishes of Ordino and La Massana by establishing contact with the revolutionary forces in Escaldes-Engordany. After a day of combat the Treaty of the Bridge of Escalls was signed on 10 June. The council was replaced and new elections were held. The economic situation worsened, as the populace was divided over the  – the "Andorran Question" in relation to the Eastern Question. The struggles continued between pro-bishops, pro-French, and nationalists based on the troubles of Canillo in 1882 and 1885.Andorra participated in the cultural movement of the Catalan Renaixença. Between 1882 and 1887, the first academic schools were formed where trilingualism coexisted with the official language, Catalan. Romantic authors from France and Spain reported the awakening of the national consciousness of the country. Jacint Verdaguer lived in Ordino during the 1880s where he wrote and shared works related to the Renaixença with writer and photographer, Joaquim de Riba.In 1848, Fromental Halévy had premiered the opera Le Val d'Andorre to great success in Europe, where the national consciousness of the valleys was exposed in the romantic work during the Peninsular War.20th and 21st century: Modernisation of the country and the Constitutional AndorraIn 1933, France occupied Andorra following social unrest which occurred before elections due to the Revolution of 1933 and the FHASA strikes (Vagues de FHASA); the revolt led by Joves Andorrans (a labour union group related to the Spanish CNT and FAI) called for political reforms, the universal suffrage vote of all Andorrans and acted in defense of the rights of local and foreign workers during the construction of FHASA's hydroelectric power station in Encamp. On 5 April 1933 Joves Andorrans seized the Andorran Parliament. These actions were preceded by the arrival of Colonel René-Jules Baulard with 50 gendarmes and the mobilization of 200 local militias or sometent led by the Síndic Francesc Cairat.On 6 July 1934, adventurer and nobleman Boris Skossyreff, with his promise of freedoms and modernization of the country and wealth through the establishment of a tax haven and foreign investments, received the support of the members of the General Council to proclaim himself the sovereign of Andorra. On 8 July 1934 Boris issued a proclamation in Urgell, declaring himself Boris I, King of Andorra, simultaneously declaring war on the Bishop of Urgell and approving the King's constitution on 10 July. He was arrested by the Co-Prince and Bishop Justí Guitart i Vilardebó and their authorities on 20 July and ultimately expelled from Spain. From 1936 until 1940, a French military detachment of Garde Mobile led by well-known Colonel René-Jules Baulard was garrisoned in Andorra to secure the principality against disruption from the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain and also face the rise of Republicanism in the aftermath of the 1933 Revolution. During the Spanish Civil War, the inhabitants of Andorra welcomed refugees from both sides, and many of them settled permanently in the country thus contributing to the subsequent economic boom and the entry into the capitalist era of Andorra. Francoist troops reached the Andorran border in the later stages of the war.During World War II, Andorra remained neutral and was an important smuggling route between Vichy France and Francoist Spain, two fascist states. Many Andorrans criticized the passivity of the General Council for impeding both the entry and expulsion of foreigners and refugees, committing economic crimes, reducing the rights of citizens and sympathy with Francoism. General Council members justified the council's political and diplomatic actions as necessary for Andorra's survival and the protection of its sovereignty. Andorra was relatively unscathed by the two world wars and the Spanish Civil War. Certain groups formed to help victims of oppression in Nazi-occupied countries, while participating in smuggling to help Andorra survive. Among the most prominent was the Hostal Palanques Evasion Network Command, which, in contact with the British Mi6, helped almost 400 fugitives, among whom were Allied military personnel. The Command remained active between 1941 and 1944, although there were struggles with pro-Axis informers and Gestapo agents in Andorra.In the capital city there was a smuggling black market of propaganda, culture and cinematic art not favorable to totalitarian regimes, promulgated in such places as the Hotel Mirador or the Casino Hotel, as a meeting place for people of ideologies close to Andorran and Spanish Republicanism and Free France. The network was maintained after the war, when film societies were formed, where movies, music and books censored in Franco's Spain were imported, becoming an anti-censorship attraction for the Catalan or foreign public even within Andorra. Andorran Group (Agrupament Andorrà), an anti-fascist organization linked to the Occitanie's French Resistance, accused the French representative (veguer) of collaboration with Nazism.The Andorran opening to the capitalist economy resulted in two axes: mass tourism and the country's tax exemption. The first steps toward the capitalist boom date from the 1930s, with the construction of FHASA and the creation of professional banking with Banc Agrícol (1930) and Crèdit Andorrà (1949), later with Banca Mora (1952), Banca Cassany (1958) and SOBANCA (1960). Shortly after activities such as skiing and shopping become a tourist attraction, with the inauguration of ski resorts and cultural entities in the late 1930s. All in all, a renovated hotel industry has developed. In April 1968 a social health insurance system was created (CASS).The Andorran government necessarily involved planning, projection and forecasts for the future: with the official visit of the French co-prince Charles de Gaulle in 1967 and 1969, it was given approval for the economic boom and national demands within the framework of human rights and international openness.Andorra lived an era commonly known as "Andorran dream" (in relation to the American dream) along with the Trente Glorieuses: the mass culture rooted the country experiencing radical changes in the economy and culture. Proof of this was Ràdio Andorra, the top musical radio station in Europe in this period, with guests and speakers of great importance promoting musical hits of chanson française, swing, rhythm & blues, jazz, rock and roll and American country music. During this period Andorra achieved a GDP per capita and a life expectancy higher than the most standard countries of the current economy.Given its relative isolation, Andorra has existed outside the mainstream of European history, with few ties to countries other than France, Spain and Portugal. But in recent times its thriving tourist industry along with developments in transport and communications have removed the country from its isolation. Since 1976 the country has seen the need to reform Andorran institutions due to anachronisms in sovereignty, human rights and the balance of powers as well as the need to adapt legislation to modern demands. In 1982, a first separation of powers took place when instituting the Govern d'Andorra, under the name of Executive Board (Consell Executiu), chaired by the first prime minister Òscar Ribas Reig with the co-princes' approval. In 1989, the Principality signed an agreement with the European Economic Community to regularize trade relations.Its political system was modernized in 1993 after the Andorran constitutional referendum, when the constitution was drafted by the co-princes and the General Council and approved on 14 March by 74.2% of voters, with a 76% turnout. The first elections under the new constitution were held later in the year. The same year, Andorra became a member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe.Andorra formalized diplomatic relations with the United States in 1996, participating in the 51st UN General Assembly. First General Syndic Marc Forné took part on a speech in Catalan in the General Assembly to defend the reform of the organization, and after three days he took part in the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe to defend Andorra's linguistic rights and economy. In 2006, a monetary agreement with the European Union was formalized that allows Andorra to use the euro in an official way, as well as coin its own euro currency.PoliticsAndorra is a parliamentary co-principality with the president of France and the Catholic bishop of Urgell (Catalonia, Spain) as co-princes. This peculiarity makes the president of France, in his capacity as prince of Andorra, an elected monarch, although he is not elected by a popular vote of the Andorran people. The politics of Andorra take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democracy with a unicameral legislature, and of a pluriform multi-party system. The head of government is the prime minister.The current head of government is Xavier Espot Zamora of the Democrats for Andorra (DA). Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both government and parliament.The Parliament of Andorra is known as the General Council. The General Council consists of between 28 and 42 councillors. The councillors serve for four-year terms, and elections are held between the 30th and 40th days following the dissolution of the previous Council.Half are elected in equal numbers by each of the seven administrative parishes, and the other half of the councillors are elected in a single national constituency. Fifteen days after the election, the councillors hold their inauguration. During this session, the Syndic General, who is the head of the General Council, and the Subsyndic General, his assistant, are elected. Eight days later, the Council convenes once more. During this session the head of government is chosen from among the councillors.Candidates can be proposed by a minimum of one-fifth of the councillors. The Council then elects the candidate with the absolute majority of votes to be head of government. The Syndic General then notifies the co-princes, who in turn appoint the elected candidate as the head of government of Andorra. The General Council is also responsible for proposing and passing laws. Bills may be presented to the council as Private Members' Bills by three of the local Parish Councils jointly or by at least one tenth of the citizens of Andorra.The council also approves the annual budget of the principality. The government must submit the proposed budget for parliamentary approval at least two months before the previous budget expires. If the budget is not approved by the first day of the next year, the previous budget is extended until a new one is approved. Once any bill is approved, the Syndic General is responsible for presenting it to the Co-Princes so that they may sign and enact it.If the head of government is not satisfied with the council, he may request that the co-princes dissolve the council and order new elections. In turn, the councillors have the power to remove the head of government from office. After a motion of censure is approved by at least one-fifth of the councillors, the council will vote and if it receives the absolute majority of votes, the head of government is removed.Law and criminal justiceThe judiciary is composed of the Magistrates Court, the Criminal Law Court, the High Court of Andorra, and the Constitutional Court. The High Court of Justice is composed of five judges: one appointed by the head of government, one each by the co-princes, one by the Syndic General, and one by the judges and magistrates. It is presided over by the member appointed by the Syndic General and the judges hold office for six-year terms.The magistrates and judges are appointed by the High Court, as is the president of the Criminal Law Court. The High Court also appoints members of the Office of the Attorney General. The Constitutional Court is responsible for interpreting the Constitution and reviewing all appeals of unconstitutionality against laws and treaties. It is composed of four judges, one appointed by each of the co-princes and two by the General Council. They serve eight-year terms. The Court is presided over by one of the judges on a two-year rotation so that each judge at one point will preside over the Court.Foreign relations, defence and securityAndorra does not have its own armed forces, although there is a small ceremonial army. Responsibility for defending the nation rests primarily with France and Spain. However, in case of emergencies or natural disasters, the Sometent (an alarm) is called and all able-bodied men between 21 and 60 of Andorran nationality must serve. This is why all Andorrans, and especially the head of each house (usually the eldest able-bodied man of a house) should, by law, keep a rifle, even though the law also states that the police will offer a firearm in case of need. Andorra is a full member of the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and has a special agreement with the European Union (EU), it also has observer status at the World Trade Organization (WTO). On 16 October 2020, Andorra became the 190th member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), during the COVID-19 pandemic.MilitaryAndorra has a small army, which has historically been raised or reconstituted at various dates, but has never in modern times amounted to a standing army. The basic principle of Andorran defence is that all able-bodied men are available to fight if called upon by the sounding of the Sometent. Being a landlocked country, Andorra has no navy.Before World War I, Andorra maintained an armed force of about 600 part-time militiamen under the supervision of a Captain (Capità or Cap de Sometent) and a Lieutenant (Desener or Lloctinent del Capità). This body was not liable for service outside the principality and was commanded by two officials (veguers) appointed by France and the Bishop of Urgell.In the modern era, the army has consisted of a very small body of volunteers willing to undertake ceremonial duties. Uniforms and weaponry were handed down from generation to generation within families and communities.The army's role in internal security was largely taken over by the formation of the Police Corps of Andorra in 1931. Brief civil disorder associated with the elections of 1933 led to assistance being sought from the French National Gendarmerie, with a detachment resident in Andorra for two months under the command of René-Jules Baulard. The Andorran Police was reformed in the following year, with eleven soldiers appointed to supervisory roles. The force consisted of six Corporals, one for each parish (although there are currently seven parishes, there were only six until 1978), plus four junior staff officers to co-ordinate action, and a commander with the rank of major. It was the responsibility of the six corporals, each in his own parish, to be able to raise a fighting force from among the able-bodied men of the parish.Today a small, twelve-man ceremonial unit remains the only permanent section of the Sometent, but all able-bodied men remain technically available for military service, with a requirement for each family to have access to a firearm. A shotgun per household is unregulated. Rifles and pistols require a license. The army has not fought for more than 700 years, and its main responsibility is to present the flag of Andorra at official ceremonial functions. According to Marc Forné Molné, Andorra's military budget is strictly from voluntary donations, and the availability of full-time volunteers.In more recent times there has only been a general emergency call to the popular army of Sometent during the floods of 1982 in the Catalan Pyrenees, where 12 citizens perished in Andorra, to help the population and establish a public order along with the Local Police units.Police CorpsAndorra maintains a small but modern and well-equipped internal police force, with around 240 police officers supported by civilian assistants. The principal services supplied by the corps are uniformed community policing, criminal detection, border control, and traffic policing. There are also small specialist units including police dogs, mountain rescue, and a bomb disposal team.GIPAThe Grup d'Intervenció Policia d'Andorra (GIPA) is a small special forces unit trained in counter-terrorism, and hostage recovery tasks. Although it is the closest in style to an active military force, it is part of the Police Corps, and not the army. As terrorist and hostage situations are a rare threat to the country, the GIPA is commonly assigned to prisoner escort duties, and at other times to routine policing.Fire brigadeThe Andorran Fire Brigade, with headquarters at Santa Coloma, operates from four modern fire stations, and has a staff of around 120 firefighters. The service is equipped with 16 heavy appliances (fire tenders, turntable ladders, and specialist four-wheel drive vehicles), four light support vehicles (cars and vans) and four ambulances.Historically, the families of the six ancient parishes of Andorra maintained local arrangements to assist each other in fighting fires. The first fire pump purchased by the government was acquired in 1943. Serious fires which lasted for two days in December 1959 led to calls for a permanent fire service, and the Andorran Fire Brigade was formed on 21 April 1961.The fire service maintains full-time cover with five fire crews on duty at any time: two at the brigade's headquarters in Santa Coloma, and one crew at each of the other three fire stations.GeographyParishesAndorra consists of seven parishes:  Andorra la Vella  Canillo  Encamp  Escaldes-Engordany  La Massana  Ordino  Sant Julià de LòriaPhysical geographyDue to its location in the eastern Pyrenees mountain range, Andorra consists predominantly of rugged mountains, the highest being the Coma Pedrosa at , and the average elevation of Andorra is . These are dissected by three narrow valleys in a Y shape that combine into one as the main stream, the Gran Valira river, leaves the country for Spain (at Andorra's lowest point of ). Andorra's land area is .EnvironmentPhytogeographically, Andorra belongs to the Atlantic European province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Andorra belongs to the ecoregion of Pyrenees conifer and mixed forests. Andorra had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.45/10, ranking it 127th globally out of 172 countries.Important Bird AreaThe whole country has been recognised as a single Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International, because it is important for forest and mountain birds and supports populations of red-billed choughs, citril finches and rock buntings.ClimateAndorra has alpine, continental and oceanic climates, depending on altitude. Its higher elevation means there is, on average, more snow in winter and it is slightly cooler in summer. The diversity of landmarks, the different orientation of the valleys and the irregularity relief typical of the Mediterranean climates make the country have a great diversity of microclimates that hinder the general dominance of the high mountain climate. The great differences of altitude in the minimum and maximum points, together with the influence of a Mediterranean climate, develop the climate of the Andorran Pyrenees.When in precipitation, a global model characterized by convective and abundant rains can be defined during spring and summer, which can last until autumn (May, June and August are usually the rainiest months). In winter, however, it is less rainy, except in the highlands, subject to the influence of fronts from the Atlantic, which explains the great amount of snowfall in the Andorran mountains. The temperature regime is characterized, broadly, by a temperate summer and a long and cold winter, in accordance with the mountainous condition of the Principality.EconomyTourism, the mainstay of Andorra's tiny, well-to-do economy, accounts for roughly 80% of GDP. An estimated 10.2 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts.One of the main sources of income in Andorra is tourism from ski resorts which total over  of ski ground. The sport brings in over 7 million visitors annually and an estimated 340 million euros per year, sustaining 2,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs at present since 2007.The banking sector, with its tax haven status, also contributes substantially to the economy with revenues raised exclusively through import tariffs (the financial and insurance sector accounts for approximately 19% of GDP). However, during the European sovereign-debt crisis of the 21st century, the tourist industry suffered a decline, partly caused by a drop in the prices of goods in Spain, undercutting duty-free shopping and increasing unemployment. On 1 January 2012, a business tax of 10% was introduced, followed by a sales tax of 2% a year later, which raised just over 14 million euros in its first quarter.Agricultural production is limited; only 1.7% of the land is arable, and most food has to be imported. Some tobacco is grown locally. The principal livestock activity is domestic sheep raising. Manufacturing output consists mainly of cigarettes, cigars, and furniture. Andorra's natural resources include hydroelectric power, mineral water, timber, iron ore, and lead.Andorra is not a member of the European Union, but enjoys a special relationship with it, such as being treated as an EU member for trade in manufactured goods (no tariffs) and as a non-EU member for agricultural products. Andorra lacked a currency of its own and used both the French franc and the Spanish peseta in banking transactions until 31 December 1999, when both currencies were replaced by the EU's single currency, the euro. Coins and notes of both the franc and the peseta remained legal tender in Andorra until 31 December 2002. Andorra negotiated to issue its own euro coins, beginning in 2014.Andorra has historically had one of the world's lowest unemployment rates. In 2019, it stood at 2%.On 31 May 2013, it was announced that Andorra intended to legislate for the introduction of an income tax by the end of June, against a background of increasing dissatisfaction with the existence of tax havens among EU members. The announcement was made following a meeting in Paris between the Head of Government Antoni Martí and the French President and Prince of Andorra François Hollande. Hollande welcomed the move as part of a process of Andorra "bringing its taxation in line with international standards".By the mid-2010s, the financial system comprised five banking groups, one specialised credit entity, eight investment undertaking management entities, three asset management companies, and 29 insurance companies, 14 of which are branches of foreign insurance companies authorised to operate in the principality.DemographicsPopulationThe population of Andorra is estimated at  (). The Andorrans are a Romance ethnic group of originally Catalan descent. The population has grown from 5,000 in 1900.Two-thirds of residents lack Andorran nationality and do not have the right to vote in communal elections. Moreover, they are not allowed to be elected as prime minister or to own more than 33% of the capital stock of a privately held company.LanguagesThe historic and official language is Catalan, a Romance language. The Andorran government encourages the use of Catalan. It funds a Commission for Catalan Toponymy in Andorra (Catalan: ), and provides free Catalan classes to assist immigrants. Andorran television and radio stations use Catalan.Because of immigration, historical links, and close geographic proximity, Spanish, Portuguese and French are commonly spoken. Most Andorran residents can speak one or more of these, in addition to Catalan. English is less commonly spoken among the general population, though it is understood to varying degrees in the major tourist resorts. Andorra is one of only four European countries (together with France, Monaco, and Turkey) that have never signed the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities.According to mother tongue percentage statistics by the Andorran Government released in 2018 the principality has the following:ReligionThe population of Andorra is predominantly (88.2%) Catholic. Their patron saint is Our Lady of Meritxell. There are also members of various Protestant denominations. There are also small numbers of Muslims, Hindus, and Bahá'ís, and roughly 100 Jews. (See History of the Jews in Andorra.)Largest citiesEducationSchoolsChildren between the ages of 6 and 16 are required by law to have full-time education. Education up to secondary level is provided free of charge by the government.There are three systems of school, Andorran, French and Spanish, which use Catalan, French and Spanish languages respectively, as the main language of instruction. Parents may choose which system their children attend. All schools are built and maintained by Andorran authorities, but teachers in the French and Spanish schools are paid for the most part by France and Spain. 39% of Andorran children attend Andorran schools, 33% attend French schools, and 28% Spanish schools.University of AndorraThe Universitat d'Andorra (UdA) is the state public university and is the only university in Andorra. It was established in 1997. The university provides first-level degrees in nursing, computer science, business administration, and educational sciences, in addition to higher professional education courses. The only two graduate schools in Andorra are the Nursing School and the School of Computer Science, the latter having a PhD programme.Virtual Studies CentreThe geographical complexity of the country as well as the small number of students prevents the University of Andorra from developing a full academic programme, and it serves principally as a centre for virtual studies, connected to Spanish and French universities. The Virtual Studies Centre (Centre d'Estudis Virtuals) at the university runs approximately 20 different academic degrees at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in fields including tourism, law, Catalan philology, humanities, psychology, political sciences, audiovisual communication, telecommunications engineering, and East Asia studies. The centre also runs various postgraduate programmes and continuing-education courses for professionals.TransportUntil the 20th century, Andorra had very limited transport links to the outside world, and development of the country was affected by its physical isolation. Even now, the nearest major airports at Toulouse and Barcelona are both three hours' drive from Andorra.Andorra has a road network of , of which  is unpaved. The two main roads out of Andorra la Vella are the CG-1 to the Spanish border near Sant Julià de Lòria, and the CG-2 to the French border via the Envalira Tunnel near El Pas de la Casa. Bus services cover all metropolitan areas and many rural communities, with services on most major routes running half-hourly or more frequently during peak travel times. There are frequent long-distance bus services from Andorra to Barcelona and Toulouse, plus a daily tour from the former city. Bus services mostly are run by private companies, but some local ones are operated by the government.There are no airports for fixed-wing aircraft within Andorra's borders but there are, however, heliports in La Massana (Camí Heliport), Arinsal and Escaldes-Engordany with commercial helicopter services and an airport located in the neighbouring Spanish comarca of Alt Urgell,  south of the Andorran-Spanish border. Since July 2015, Andorra–La Seu d'Urgell Airport has operated commercial flights to Madrid and Palma de Mallorca, and is the main hub for Air Andorra and Andorra Airlines. As of 11 July 2018, there are no regular commercial flights at the airport.Nearby airports located in Spain and France provide access to international flights for the principality. The nearest airports are at Perpignan, France ( from Andorra) and Lleida, Spain ( from Andorra). The largest nearby airports are at Toulouse, France ( from Andorra) and Barcelona, Spain ( from Andorra). There are hourly bus services from both Barcelona and Toulouse airports to Andorra.The nearest railway station is Andorre-L'Hospitalet station  east of Andorra which is on the -gauge line from Latour-de-Carol () southeast of Andorra, to Toulouse and on to Paris by the French high-speed trains. This line is operated by the SNCF. Latour-de-Carol has a scenic  trainline to Villefranche-de-Conflent, as well as the SNCF's  gauge line connecting to Perpignan, and the Renfe's  -gauge line to Barcelona. There are also direct Intercités de Nuit trains between L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre and Paris on certain dates.Media and telecommunicationsIn Andorra, mobile and fixed telephone and internet services are operated exclusively by the Andorran national telecommunications company, Andorra Telecom. The same company also manages the technical infrastructure for national broadcasting of digital television and radio. In 2010, Andorra became the first country to provide a direct optical fiber link to all homes (FTTH) and businesses.The first commercial radio station to broadcast was Radio Andorra, which was active from 1939 to 1981. On 12 October 1989, the General Council established radio and television as essential public services creating and managing the entity ORTA, becoming on 13 April 2000, in the public company Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra (RTVA). In 1990, the public radio was founded on the Radio Nacional d'Andorra. As an autochthonous television channel, there is only the national public television network Andorra Televisió, created in 1995. Additional TV and radio stations from Spain and France are available via digital terrestrial television and IPTV.There are three national newspapers, Diari d'Andorra, El Periòdic d'Andorra, and Bondia as well as several local newspapers. The history of the Andorran press begins in the period between 1917 and 1937 with the appearance of several periodicals papers such as Les Valls d'Andorra (1917), Nova Andorra (1932) and Andorra Agrícola (1933). In 1974, the Poble Andorrà became the first regular newspaper in Andorra. There is also an amateur radio society and news agency ANA with independent management.CultureAndorra is home to folk dances like the contrapàs and marratxa, which survive in Sant Julià de Lòria especially. Andorran folk music has similarities to the music of its neighbours, but is especially Catalan in character, especially in the presence of dances such as the sardana. Other Andorran folk dances include contrapàs in Andorra la Vella and Saint Anne's dance in Escaldes-Engordany. Andorra's national holiday is Our Lady of Meritxell Day, 8 September.Among the more important festivals and traditions are the Canólich Gathering in May, the Roser d'Ordino in July, the Meritxell Day (National Day of Andorra), the Andorra la Vella Fair, the Sant Jordi Day, the Santa Llúcia Fair, the Festivity from La Candelera to Canillo, the Carnival of Encamp, the sung of caramelles, the Festivity of Sant Esteve and the Festa del Poble.Andorra participated regularly in the Eurovision Song Contest between 2004 and 2009, being the only participating country presenting songs in Catalan.In popular folklore, the best-known Andorran legends are the legend of Charlemagne, according to which this Frankish King would have founded the country, the White Lady of Auvinyà, the Buner d'Ordino, the legend of Engolasters Lake and the legend of Our Lady of Meritxell.Andorran gastronomy is mainly Catalan, although it has also adopted other elements of French and Italian cuisines. The cuisine of the country has similar characteristics with the neighbours of the Cerdanya and the Alt Urgell, with whom it has a strong cultural ties. Andorra's cuisine is marked by its nature as mountain valleys. Typical dishes of the country are the quince all-i-oli, the duck with winter pear, the lamb in the oven with nuts, pork civet, the massegada cake, the escarole with pear trees, duck confit and mushrooms, escudella, spinach with raisins and pine nuts, jelly marmalade, stuffed murgues (mushrooms) with pork, dandelion salad and the Andorran trout of river. To drink, the mulled wine and beer are also popular. Some of the dishes are very common in the mountainous regions of Catalonia, such as trinxat, embotits, cooked snails, rice with mushrooms, mountain rice and mató.Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque art are one of the most important artistic manifestations and characteristics of the Principality. The Romanesque one allows to know the formation of the parochial communities, the relations of (social and political) power and the national culture. There are a total of forty Romanesque churches that stand out as being small austere ornamentation constructions, as well as bridges, fortresses and manor houses of the same period.Summer solstice fire festivals in the Pyrenees was included as UNESCO Intangible cultural heritage in 2015. Also the Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley became Andorra's first, and to date its only, UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004, with a small extension in 2006.SportsAndorra is famous for the practice of winter sports. Andorra has the largest territory of ski slopes in the Pyrenees (3100 hectares and about 350 km of slopes) and two ski resorts. Grandvalira is the largest and most popular resort. Other popular sports played in Andorra include football, rugby union, basketball, and roller hockey.For roller hockey, Andorra usually plays in CERH Euro Cup and in FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup. In 2011, Andorra was the host country to the 2011 European League Final Eight.The country is represented in association football by the Andorra national football team. The team gained its first competitive win in a European Championship qualifier on 11 October 2019, against Moldova. Football is governed in Andorra by the Andorran Football Federation – founded in 1994, it organizes the national competitions of association football (Primera Divisió, Copa Constitució and Supercopa) and futsal. Andorra was admitted to UEFA and FIFA in the same year, 1996. FC Andorra, a club based in Andorra la Vella founded in 1942, compete in the Spanish football league system.Rugby is a traditional sport in Andorra, mainly influenced by the popularity in southern France. The Andorra national rugby union team, nicknamed Els Isards, plays on the international stage in rugby union and rugby sevens. VPC Andorra XV is a rugby team based in Andorra la Vella, which actually plays in the French championship.Basketball popularity has increased in the country since the 1990s, when the Andorran team BC Andorra played in the top league of Spain (Liga ACB). After 18 years the club returned to the top league in 2014.Other sports practised in Andorra include cycling, volleyball, judo, Australian Rules football, handball, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, and motorsports. In 2012, Andorra raised its first national cricket team and played a home match against the Dutch Fellowship of Fairly Odd Places Cricket Club, the first match played in the history of Andorra at an altitude of .Andorra first participated at the Olympic Games in 1976. The country has appeared in every Winter Olympic Games since 1976. Andorra competes in the Games of the Small States of Europe, being twice the host country, in 1991 and 2005.As one of the Catalan Countries, Andorra is home to a team of castellers, or Catalan human tower builders. The , based in the town of Santa Coloma d'Andorra, are recognized by the , the governing body of castells.See also Index of Andorra-related articles Outline of Andorra Bibliography of AndorraExplanatory notesCitationsGeneral bibliographyFurther reading Berthet, Elie, The Valley of Andorra. Bristol, UK: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1886. Butler, Michael, Frisch: Andorra. Carrick, Noel, Let's Visit Andorra. London: Macmillan, 1988.  Deane, Shirley, The Road to Andorra. London: John Murray, 1960. Duursma, John C., Fragmentation and the International Relations of Micro-States. Cambridge University Press, 1996. Jenner, Paul & Christine Smith, Landscapes of the Pyrenees. London: Sunflower Books, 1990. Johnson, Virginia W., Two Quaint Republics: Andorra and San Marino. Leary, Lewis Gaston, Andorra the Hidden Republic. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912. Mackintosh, May, Assignment in Andorra. London: Pan, 1976. Murray, James Erskine, A Summer in the Pyrenees. London: John Macrone, 1837. Newman, Bernard, Round About Andorra. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1928. Piesold, Werner, Andorra. Reichert, Thomas, Andorra: A Country Survey. Nuremberg, 1986. Spender, Harold & H. Llewellyn Smith, Through the High Pyrenees. London: A. D. Innes, 1898. Vila, Linda Armengol, Approach to the History of Andorra. Perpignan: Institut d'Estudis Andorrans, 1989. Vilajoana, Ricard Fiter & M. Marti Rebols, All Andorra. Barcelona: Escudo de Oro, 1979. Waagenaar, Sam, The Little Five. London: Andre Deutsch, 1960.External links Govern d'Andorra Official governmental site  Andorra. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Portals to the World from the United States Library of Congress Andorra from UCB Libraries GovPubs  Andorra from the BBC News Andorra – Guía, turismo y de viajes History of Andorra: Primary Documents from EuroDocs A New Path for Andorra – slideshow by The New York Times   1278 establishments in EuropeCatalan CountriesChristian statesCountries in EuropeDiarchiesDuty-free zones of EuropeFrench-speaking countries and territoriesIberian PeninsulaImportant Bird Areas of AndorraLandlocked countriesMember states of the Council of EuropeMember states of the Organisation internationale de la FrancophonieCurrent member states of the United NationsMonarchies of EuropePrince-bishopricsPrincipalitiesPyreneesSouthern European countriesSouthwestern European countriesSpanish-speaking countries and territoriesSpecial economic zonesStates and territories established in 1278
In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean ( ) or arithmetic average, or simply just the mean or the average (when the context is clear), is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the count of numbers in the collection. The collection is often a set of results of an experiment or an observational study, or frequently a set of results from a survey. The term "arithmetic mean" is preferred in some contexts in mathematics and statistics, because it helps distinguish it from other means, such as the geometric mean and the harmonic mean.In addition to mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean is used frequently in many diverse fields such as economics, anthropology and history, and it is used in almost every academic field to some extent. For example, per capita income is the arithmetic average income of a nation's population.While the arithmetic mean is often used to report central tendencies, it is not a robust statistic, meaning that it is greatly influenced by outliers (values that are very much larger or smaller than most of the values). For skewed distributions, such as the distribution of income for which a few people's incomes are substantially greater than most people's, the arithmetic mean may not coincide with one's notion of "middle", and robust statistics, such as the median, may provide better description of central tendency.DefinitionGiven a data set , the arithmetic mean (or mean or average), denoted  (read  bar), is the mean of the  values .The arithmetic mean is the most commonly used and readily understood measure of central tendency in a data set. In statistics, the term average refers to any of the measures of central tendency. The arithmetic mean of a set of observed data is defined as being equal to the sum of the numerical values of each and every observation, divided by the total number of observations. Symbolically, if we have a data set consisting of the values , then the arithmetic mean  is defined by the formula:(for an explanation of the summation operator, see summation.)For example, consider the monthly salary of 10 employees of a firm: 2500, 2700, 2400, 2300, 2550, 2650, 2750, 2450, 2600, 2400. The arithmetic mean is If the data set is a statistical population (i.e., consists of every possible observation and not just a subset of them), then the mean of that population is called the population mean, and denoted by the Greek letter . If the data set is a statistical sample (a subset of the population), then we call the statistic resulting from this calculation a sample mean (which for a data set  is denoted as ).The arithmetic mean can be similarly defined for vectors in multiple dimension, not only scalar values; this is often referred to as a centroid. More generally, because the arithmetic mean is a convex combination (coefficients sum to 1), it can be defined on a convex space, not only a vector space.Motivating propertiesThe arithmetic mean has several properties that make it useful, especially as a measure of central tendency. These include: If numbers  have mean , then . Since  is the distance from a given number to the mean, one way to interpret this property is as saying that the numbers to the left of the mean are balanced by the numbers to the right of the mean. The mean is the only single number for which the residuals (deviations from the estimate) sum to zero. If it is required to use a single number as a "typical" value for a set of known numbers , then the arithmetic mean of the numbers does this best, in the sense of minimizing the sum of squared deviations from the typical value: the sum of . (It follows that the sample mean is also the best single predictor in the sense of having the lowest root mean squared error.) If the arithmetic mean of a population of numbers is desired, then the estimate of it that is unbiased is the arithmetic mean of a sample drawn from the population.Contrast with medianThe arithmetic mean may be contrasted with the median. The median is defined such that no more than half the values are larger than, and no more than half are smaller than, the median. If elements in the data increase arithmetically, when placed in some order, then the median and arithmetic average are equal. For example, consider the data sample . The average is , as is the median. However, when we consider a sample that cannot be arranged so as to increase arithmetically, such as , the median and arithmetic average can differ significantly. In this case, the arithmetic average is 6.2, while the median is 4. In general, the average value can vary significantly from most values in the sample, and can be larger or smaller than most of them.There are applications of this phenomenon in many fields. For example, since the 1980s, the median income in the United States has increased more slowly than the arithmetic average of income.GeneralizationsWeighted averageA weighted average, or weighted mean, is an average in which some data points count more heavily than others, in that they are given more weight in the calculation. For example, the arithmetic mean of  and  is , or equivalently . In contrast, a weighted mean in which the first number receives, for example, twice as much weight as the second (perhaps because it is assumed to appear twice as often in the general population from which these numbers were sampled) would be calculated as . Here the weights, which necessarily sum to the value one, are  and , the former being twice the latter. The arithmetic mean (sometimes called the "unweighted average" or "equally weighted average") can be interpreted as a special case of a weighted average in which all the weights are equal to each other (equal to  in the above example, and equal to  in a situation with  numbers being averaged).Continuous probability distributionsIf a numerical property, and any sample of data from it, could take on any value from a continuous range, instead of, for example, just integers, then the probability of a number falling into some range of possible values can be described by integrating a continuous probability distribution across this range, even when the naive probability for a sample number taking one certain value from infinitely many is zero. The analog of a weighted average in this context, in which there are an infinite number of possibilities for the precise value of the variable in each range, is called the mean of the probability distribution. A most widely encountered probability distribution is called the normal distribution; it has the property that all measures of its central tendency, including not just the mean but also the aforementioned median and the mode (the three M's), are equal to each other. This equality does not hold for other probability distributions, as illustrated for the log-normal distribution here.AnglesParticular care must be taken when using cyclic data, such as phases or angles. Naively taking the arithmetic mean of 1° and 359° yields a result of 180°.This is incorrect for two reasons: Firstly, angle measurements are only defined up to an additive constant of 360° (or 2π, if measuring in radians). Thus one could as easily call these 1° and −1°, or 361° and 719°, since each one of them gives a different average. Secondly, in this situation, 0° (equivalently, 360°) is geometrically a better average value: there is lower dispersion about it (the points are both 1° from it, and 179° from 180°, the putative average).In general application, such an oversight will lead to the average value artificially moving towards the middle of the numerical range. A solution to this problem is to use the optimization formulation (viz., define the mean as the central point: the point about which one has the lowest dispersion), and redefine the difference as a modular distance (i.e., the distance on the circle: so the modular distance between 1° and 359° is 2°, not 358°).Symbols and encoding The arithmetic mean is often denoted by a bar, (a.k.a vinculum or macron), for example as in  (read  bar).Some software (text processors, web browsers) may not display the x̄ symbol properly. For example, the x̄ symbol in HTML is actually a combination of two codes - the base letter x plus a code for the line above (&#772; or ¯).In some texts, such as pdfs, the x̄ symbol may be replaced by a cent (¢) symbol (Unicode &#162), when copied to text processor such as Microsoft Word.See also Fréchet mean Generalized mean Geometric mean Harmonic mean Inequality of arithmetic and geometric means Mode Sample mean and covariance Standard deviation Standard error of the mean Summary statisticsReferencesFurther readingExternal links Calculations and comparisons between arithmetic mean and geometric mean of two numbers Calculate the arithmetic mean of a series of numbers on fxSolverMeans
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. This conference currently contains 16 teams organized into 4 divisions, as does its counterpart, the National Football Conference (NFC). Both conferences were created as part of the 1970 merger between the National Football League, and the American Football League (AFL). All ten of the AFL teams, and three NFL teams, became members of the new AFC, with the remaining thirteen NFL teams forming the NFC. A series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making the current total of 16 teams in each conference. The current AFC champions are the Cincinnati Bengals, who defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2022 AFC Championship Game for their third conference championship, and their first since 1988.TeamsLike the NFC, the conference has 16 teams organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South and West.Season structureThis chart of the 2021 season standings displays an application of the NFL scheduling formula. The Bengals in 2021 (highlighted in green) finished in first place in the AFC North. Thus, in 2021, the Bengals are scheduled to play two games against each of its division rivals (highlighted in light blue), one game against each team in the AFC East and NFC South (highlighted in yellow), and one game each against the first-place finishers in the AFC South, AFC West (highlighted in orange), and NFC East (highlighted in pink).Currently, the fourteen opponents each team faces over the 17-game regular season schedule are set using a pre-determined formula:Each AFC team plays the other teams in their respective division twice (home and away) during the regular season, in addition to eleven other games assigned to their schedule by the NFL: three games are assigned on the basis of a particular team's final divisional standing from the previous season, and the remaining eight games are split between the roster of two other NFL divisions. This assignment shifts each year and will follow a standard cycle. Using the 2021 regular season schedule as an example, each team in the AFC West plays against every team in the AFC North and NFC East. In this way, non-divisional competition will be mostly among common opponents – the exception being the three games assigned based on the team's prior-season divisional standing.At the end of each season, the four division winners and three wild cards (non-division winners with best regular season record) in the AFC qualify for the playoffs. The AFC playoffs culminate in the AFC Championship Game, with the winner receiving the Lamar Hunt Trophy. The AFC champion then plays the NFC champion in the Super Bowl.HistoryBoth the AFC and the NFC were created after the NFL merged with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970. The AFL began play in 1960 with eight teams, and added two more expansion clubs (the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968) before the merger. In order to equalize the number of teams in each conference, three NFL teams that predated the AFL's launch (the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the then-Baltimore Colts) joined the ten former AFL teams to form the AFC. The two AFL divisions AFL East and AFL West were more or less intact, while the NFL's Century Division, in which the Browns and the Steelers had played since 1967, was moved from the NFL to become the new AFC Central. Upon the completion of the merger of the AFL and NFL in 1970, the newly minted American Football Conference had already agreed upon their divisional setup along mostly geographical lines for the 1970 season; the National Football Conference, however, could not agree upon their setup, and one was chosen from a fishbowl on January 16, 1970.Since the merger, five expansion teams have joined the AFC and two have left, thus making the current total 16. When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were temporarily placed in the NFC and AFC respectively. This arrangement lasted for one season only before the two teams switched conferences. The Seahawks eventually returned to the NFC as a result of the 2002 realignment. The expansion Jacksonville Jaguars joined the AFC in 1995. There have been five teams that have relocated at least once. In 1984, the Baltimore Colts relocated to Indianapolis. In 1995, the Cleveland Browns had attempted to move to Baltimore; the resulting dispute between Cleveland and the team led to Modell establishing the Baltimore Ravens with the players and personnel from the Browns, while the Browns were placed in suspended operations before they were reinstated by the NFL. The Ravens were treated as an expansion team.In California, the Oakland Raiders relocated to Los Angeles in 1982, back to Oakland in 1995, and then to Las Vegas in 2020, while the San Diego Chargers returned to Los Angeles in 2017 after 56 years in San Diego.The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, where they were renamed the Tennessee Oilers. The team would change its name again, two years later, to the Tennessee Titans.The NFL would again expand in 2002, adding the Houston Texans to the AFC. With the exception of the aforementioned relocations since that time, the divisional setup has remained static ever since.Between 1995 and 2021, the AFC has sent only 9 of its 16 teams to the Super Bowl: New England Patriots (10 times), Denver Broncos (4 times), Pittsburgh Steelers (4 times), Baltimore Ravens (2 times), Indianapolis Colts (2 times), Kansas City Chiefs (2 times), Cincinnati Bengals (1 time), Las Vegas Raiders (1 time), Tennessee Titans (1 time). By contrast, the NFC has sent 13 of the 16 NFC teams during that same time frame with only the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, and Washington Commanders missing out on an appearance in the Super Bowl. 17 of the 19 AFC champions from 2001 to 2019 have started one of just three quarterbacks - Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger - in the Super Bowl. The AFC has started 7 quarterbacks in the last 20 Super Bowls, while the NFC has started 16.LogoThe merged league created a new logo for the AFC that took elements of the old AFL logo, specifically the "A" and the six stars surrounding it. The AFC logo basically remained unchanged from 1970 to 2009. The 2010 NFL season introduced an updated AFC logo, with the most notable revision being the removal of two stars (leaving four representing the four divisions of the AFC), and moving the stars inside the letter, similar to the NFC logo.TelevisionNBC aired the AFC's Sunday afternoon and playoff games from 1970 through the 1997 season. From 1998 to 2013, CBS was the primary broadcast rightsholder to the AFC; in those years, all interconference games in which the AFC team was the visiting team were broadcast on either NBC or CBS. Since 2014, the cross-flex policy allows select AFC games (that involve them playing an NFC team at home or intraconference games) to be moved from CBS to Fox. Since 1990, select AFC playoff games have been seen on ABC or ESPN.ReferencesNational Football LeagueConferenceSports organizations established in 1970
Animal Farm is a satirical allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union.  Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the May Days conflicts between the POUM and Stalinist forces during the Spanish Civil War. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin (""), and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime, the Telugu version, kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like "A Satire" and "A Contemporary Satire". Orwell suggested the title  for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for "bear", a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, .Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the United Kingdom was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated. The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great commercial success when it did appear partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.Plot summaryThe poorly-run Manor Farm near Willingdon, England, is ripened for rebellion from its animal populace by neglect at the hands of the irresponsible and alcoholic farmer, Mr. Jones. One night, the exalted boar, Old Major, holds a conference, at which he calls for the overthrow of humans and teaches the animals a revolutionary song called "Beasts of England". When Old Major dies, two young pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, assume command and stage a revolt, driving Mr. Jones off the farm and renaming the property "Animal Farm". They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, "All animals are equal". The decree is painted in large letters on one side of the barn. Snowball teaches the animals to read and write, while Napoleon educates young puppies on the principles of Animalism. To commemorate the start of Animal Farm, Snowball raises a green flag with a white hoof and horn. Food is plentiful, and the farm runs smoothly. The pigs elevate themselves to positions of leadership and set aside special food items, ostensibly for their personal health. Following an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Jones and his associates to retake the farm (later dubbed the "Battle of the Cowshed"), Snowball announces his plans to modernise the farm by building a windmill. Napoleon disputes this idea, and matters come to head, which culminate in Napoleon's dogs chasing Snowball away and Napoleon declaring himself supreme commander.Napoleon enacts changes to the governance structure of the farm, replacing meetings with a committee of pigs who will run the farm. Through a young porker named Squealer, Napoleon claims credit for the windmill idea, claiming that Snowball was only trying to win animals to his side. The animals work harder with the promise of easier lives with the windmill. When the animals find the windmill collapsed after a violent storm, Napoleon and Squealer persuade the animals that Snowball is trying to sabotage their project, and begin to purge the farm of animals accused by Napoleon of consorting with his old rival. When some animals recall the Battle of the Cowshed, Napoleon (who was nowhere to be found during the battle) gradually smears Snowball to the point of saying he is a collaborator of Mr. Jones, even dismissing the fact that Snowball was given an award of courage while falsely representing himself as the main hero of the battle. "Beasts of England" is replaced with "Animal Farm", while an anthem glorifying Napoleon, who appears to be adopting the lifestyle of a man ("Comrade Napoleon"), is composed and sung. Napoleon then conducts a second purge, during which many animals who are alleged to be helping Snowball in plots are executed by Napoleon's dogs, which troubles the rest of the animals. Despite their hardships, the animals are easily placated by Napoleon's retort that they are better off than they were under Mr. Jones, as well as by the sheep's continual bleating of “four legs good, two legs bad”.Mr. Frederick, a neighbouring farmer, attacks the farm, using blasting powder to blow up the restored windmill. Although the animals win the battle, they do so at great cost, as many, including Boxer the workhorse, are wounded. Although he recovers from this, Boxer eventually collapses while working on the windmill (being almost 12 years old at that point). He is taken away in a knacker's van, and a donkey called Benjamin alerts the animals of this, but Squealer quickly waves off their alarm by persuading the animals that the van had been purchased from the knacker by an animal hospital and that the previous owner's signboard had not been repainted. Squealer subsequently reports Boxer's death and honours him with a festival the following day. (However, Napoleon had in fact engineered the sale of Boxer to the knacker, allowing him and his inner circle to acquire money to buy whisky for themselves.)Years pass, the windmill is rebuilt, and another windmill is constructed, which makes the farm a good amount of income. However, the ideals that Snowball discussed, including stalls with electric lighting, heating, and running water, are forgotten, with Napoleon advocating that the happiest animals live simple lives. Snowball has been forgotten, alongside Boxer, with "the exception of the few who knew him". Many of the animals who participated in the rebellion are dead or old. Mr. Jones is also dead, saying he "died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country". The pigs start to resemble humans, as they walk upright, carry whips, drink alcohol, and wear clothes. The Seven Commandments are abridged to just one phrase: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." The maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad" is similarly changed to "Four legs good, two legs better." Other changes include the Hoof and Horn flag being replaced with a plain green banner and Old Major's skull, which was previously put on display, being reburied.Napoleon holds a dinner party for the pigs and local farmers, with whom he celebrates a new alliance. He abolishes the practice of the revolutionary traditions and restores the name "The Manor Farm". The men and pigs start playing cards, flattering and praising each other while cheating at the game. Both Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington, one of the farmers, play the Ace of Spades at the same time and both sides begin fighting loudly over who cheated first. When the animals outside look at the pigs and men, they can no longer distinguish between the two.CharactersPigs Old Major – An aged prize Middle White boar provides the inspiration that fuels the rebellion. He is also called Willingdon Beauty when showing. He is an allegorical combination of Karl Marx, one of the creators of communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the communist leader of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet nation, in that he draws up the principles of the revolution. His skull being put on revered public display recalls Lenin, whose embalmed body was left in indefinite repose. By the end of the book, the skull is reburied. Napoleon – "A large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way". An allegory of Joseph Stalin,  Napoleon is the leader of Animal Farm.  Snowball – Napoleon's rival and original head of the farm after Jones' overthrow. His life parallels that of Leon Trotsky,  but may also combine elements from Lenin. Squealer – A small, white, fat porker who serves as Napoleon's second-in-command and minister of propaganda, holding a position similar to that of Vyacheslav Molotov. Minimus – A poetic pig who writes the second and third national anthems of Animal Farm after the singing of "Beasts of England" is banned. Literary theorist John Rodden compares him to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The piglets – Hinted to be the children of Napoleon and are the first generation of animals subjugated to his idea of animal inequality. The young pigs – Four pigs who complain about Napoleon's takeover of the farm but are quickly silenced and later executed, the first animals killed in Napoleon's farm purge. Probably based on the Great Purge of Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, and Alexei Rykov. Pinkeye – A minor pig who is mentioned only once; he is the taste tester that samples Napoleon's food to make sure it is not poisoned, in response to rumours about an assassination attempt on Napoleon.Humans Mr. Jones – A heavy drinker who is the original owner of Manor Farm, a farm in disrepair with farmhands who often loaf on the job. He is an allegory of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who abdicated following the February Revolution of 1917 and was murdered, along with the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918. The animals revolt after Jones goes on a drinking binge, returns hungover the following day and neglects them completely.  Jones is married, but his wife plays no active role in the book.  She seems to live with her husband's drunkenness, going to bed while he stays up drinking till late into the night.  In her only other appearance, she hastily throws a few things into a travel bag and flees when she sees that the animals are revolting.  Towards the end of the book, one of the farm sows wears her old Sunday dress. Mr. Frederick – The tough owner of Pinchfield Farm, a small but well-kept neighbouring farm, who briefly enters into an alliance with Napoleon. Animal Farm shares land boundaries with Pinchfield on one side and Foxwood on another, making Animal Farm a "buffer zone" between the two bickering farmers. The animals of Animal Farm are terrified of Frederick, as rumours abound of him abusing his animals and entertaining himself with cockfighting. Napoleon enters into an alliance with Frederick in order to sell surplus timber that Pilkington also sought, but is enraged to learn Frederick paid him in counterfeit money. Shortly after the swindling, Frederick and his men invade Animal Farm, killing many animals and destroying the windmill. The brief alliance and subsequent invasion may allude to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and Operation Barbarossa. Mr. Pilkington – The easy-going but crafty and well-to-do owner of Foxwood Farm, a large neighbouring farm overgrown with weeds. Pilkington is wealthier than Frederick and owns more land, but his farm is in need of care as opposed to Frederick's smaller but more efficiently run farm. Although on bad terms with Frederick, Pilkington is also concerned about the animal revolution that deposed Jones and worried that this could also happen to him. Mr. Whymper – A man hired by Napoleon to act as the liaison between Animal Farm and human society. At first, he is used to acquire necessities that cannot be produced on the farm, such as dog biscuits and paraffin wax, but later he procures luxuries like alcohol for the pigs.Equines Boxer – A loyal, kind, dedicated, extremely strong, hard-working, and respectable cart-horse, although quite naive and gullible. Boxer does a large share of the physical labour on the farm. He is shown to hold the belief that "Napoleon is always right." At one point, he had challenged Squealer's statement that Snowball was always against the welfare of the farm, earning him an attack from Napoleon's dogs. But Boxer's immense strength repels the attack, worrying the pigs that their authority can be challenged. Boxer has been compared to Alexey Stakhanov, a diligent and enthusiastic role model of the Stakhanovite movement. He has been described as "faithful and strong"; he believes any problem can be solved if he works harder. When Boxer is injured, Napoleon sells him to a local knacker to buy himself whisky, and Squealer gives a moving account, falsifying Boxer's death. Mollie – A self-centred, self-indulgent, and vain young white mare who quickly leaves for another farm after the revolution, in a manner similar to those who left Russia after the fall of the Tsar. She is only once mentioned again. Clover – A gentle, caring mare, who shows concern especially for Boxer, who often pushes himself too hard. Clover can read all the letters of the alphabet, but cannot "put words together". She seems to catch on to the sly tricks and schemes set up by Napoleon and Squealer. Benjamin – A donkey, one of the oldest, wisest animals on the farm, and one of the few who can read properly. He is sceptical, temperamental and cynical: his most frequent remark is, "Life will go on as it has always gone on – that is, badly."  The academic Morris Dickstein has suggested there is "a touch of Orwell himself in this creature's timeless scepticism" and indeed, friends called Orwell "Donkey George", "after his grumbling donkey Benjamin, in Animal Farm."Other animals Muriel – A wise old goat who is friends with all of the animals on the farm. Similarly to Benjamin, Muriel is one of the few animals on the farm who is not a pig but can read. The puppies – Offspring of Jessie and Bluebell, the puppies were taken away at birth by Napoleon and raised by him to serve as his powerful security force. Moses – The Raven, "Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker." Initially following Mrs. Jones into exile, he reappears several years later and resumes his role of talking but not working. He regales Animal Farm's denizens with tales of a wondrous place beyond the clouds called "Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labours!" Orwell portrays established religion as "the black raven of priestcraft – promising pie in the sky when you die, and faithfully serving whoever happens to be in power." His preaching to the animals heartens them, and Napoleon allows Moses to reside at the farm "with an allowance of a gill of beer daily", akin to how Stalin brought back the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War. The sheep – They are not given individual names or personalities.  They show limited understanding of Animalism and the political atmosphere of the farm, yet nonetheless they are the voice of blind conformity as they bleat their support of Napoleon's ideals with jingles during his speeches and meetings with Snowball. Their constant bleating of "four legs good, two legs bad" was used as a device to drown out any opposition or alternative views from Snowball, much as Stalin used hysterical crowds to drown out Trotsky. Towards the end of the book, Squealer (the propagandist) trains the sheep to alter their slogan to "four legs good, two legs better", which they dutifully do. The hens – Also unnamed, the hens are promised at the start of the revolution that they will get to keep their eggs, which are stolen from them under Mr. Jones. However, their eggs are soon taken from them under the premise of buying goods from outside Animal Farm. The hens are among the first to rebel, albeit unsuccessfully, against Napoleon. The cows – Also unnamed, the cows are enticed into the revolution by promises that their milk will not be stolen but can be used to raise their own calves. Their milk is then stolen by the pigs, who learn to milk them. The milk is stirred into the pigs' mash every day, while the other animals are denied such luxuries. The cat – Unnamed and never seen to carry out any work, the cat is absent for long periods and is forgiven because her excuses are so convincing and she "purred so affectionately that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions." She has no interest in the politics of the farm, and the only time she is recorded as having participated in an election, she is found to have actually "voted on both sides."  The ducks – Also unnamed. The roosters – One arranges to wake Boxer early, and a black one acts as a trumpeter for Napoleon. The geese – Also unnamed. One gander commits suicide by eating nightshade berries.Genre and style George Orwell's Animal Farm is an example of a political satire that was intended to have a "wider application", according to Orwell himself, in terms of its relevance. Stylistically, the work shares many similarities with some of Orwell's other works, most notably 1984, as both have been considered works of Swiftian Satire. Furthermore, these two prominent works seem to suggest Orwell's bleak view of the future for humanity; he seems to stress the potential/current threat of dystopias similar to those in Animal Farm and 1984. In these kinds of works, Orwell distinctly references the disarray and traumatic conditions of Europe following the Second World War. Orwell's style and writing philosophy as a whole were very concerned with the pursuit of truth in writing. Orwell was committed to communicating in a way that was straightforward, given the way that he felt words were commonly used in politics to deceive and confuse. For this reason, he is careful, in Animal Farm, to make sure the narrator speaks in an unbiased and uncomplicated fashion. The difference is seen in the way that the animals speak and interact, as the generally moral animals seem to speak their minds clearly, while the wicked animals on the farm, such as Napoleon, twist language in such a way that it meets their own insidious desires. This style reflects Orwell's close proximation to the issues facing Europe at the time and his determination to comment critically on Stalin's Soviet Russia.BackgroundOrigin and writingGeorge Orwell wrote the manuscript between November 1943 and February 1944 after his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, which he described in Homage to Catalonia (1938). In the preface of a 1947 Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, he explained how escaping the communist purges in Spain taught him "how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries." This motivated Orwell to expose and strongly condemn what he saw as the Stalinist corruption of the original socialist ideals. Homage to Catalonia sold poorly; after seeing Arthur Koestler's best-selling, Darkness at Noon, about the Moscow Trials, Orwell decided that fiction was the best way to describe totalitarianism.Immediately prior to writing the book, Orwell had quit the BBC. He was also upset about a booklet for propagandists the Ministry of Information had put out. The booklet included instructions on how to quell ideological fears of the Soviet Union, such as directions to claim that the Red Terror was a figment of Nazi imagination.In the preface, Orwell described the source of the idea of setting the book on a farm:In 1944, the manuscript was almost lost when a German V-1 flying bomb destroyed his London home. Orwell spent hours sifting through the rubble to find the pages intact.PublicationPublishingOrwell initially encountered difficulty getting the manuscript published, largely due to fears that the book might upset the alliance between Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Four publishers refused to publish Animal Farm, yet one had initially accepted the work, but declined it after consulting the Ministry of Information. Eventually, Secker and Warburg published the first edition in 1945.During the Second World War, it became clear to Orwell that anti-Soviet literature was not something which most major publishing houses would touch – including his regular publisher Gollancz. He also submitted the manuscript to Faber and Faber, where the poet T. S. Eliot (who was a director of the firm) rejected it; Eliot wrote back to Orwell praising the book's "good writing" and "fundamental integrity", but declared that they would only accept it for publication if they had some sympathy for the viewpoint "which I take to be generally Trotskyite". Eliot said he found the view "not convincing", and contended that the pigs were made out to be the best to run the farm; he posited that someone might argue "what was needed ... was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs". Orwell let André Deutsch, who was working for Nicholson & Watson in 1944, read the typescript, and Deutsch was convinced that Nicholson & Watson would want to publish it; however, they did not, and "lectured Orwell on what they perceived to be errors in Animal Farm." In his London Letter on 17 April 1944 for Partisan Review, Orwell wrote that it was "now next door to impossible to get anything overtly anti-Russian printed. Anti-Russian books do appear, but mostly from Catholic publishing firms and always from a religious or frankly reactionary angle."The publisher Jonathan Cape, who had initially accepted Animal Farm, subsequently rejected the book after an official at the British Ministry of Information warned him off – although the civil servant who it is assumed gave the order was later found to be a Soviet spy. Writing to Leonard Moore, a partner in the literary agency of Christy & Moore, publisher Jonathan Cape explained that the decision had been taken on the advice of a senior official in the Ministry of Information. Such flagrant anti-Soviet bias was unacceptable, and the choice of pigs as the dominant class was thought to be especially offensive. It may reasonably be assumed that the "important official" was a man named Peter Smollett, who was later unmasked as a Soviet agent.  Orwell was suspicious of Smollett/Smolka, and he would be one of the names Orwell included in his list of Crypto-Communists and Fellow-Travellers sent to the Information Research Department in 1949. The publisher wrote to Orwell, saying:Frederic Warburg also faced pressures against publication, even from people in his own office and from his wife Pamela, who felt that it was not the moment for ingratitude towards Stalin and the heroic Red Army, which had played a major part in defeating Adolf Hitler. A Russian translation was printed in the paper Posev, and in giving permission for a Russian translation of Animal Farm, Orwell refused in advance all royalties. A translation in Ukrainian, which was produced in Germany, was confiscated in large part by the American wartime authorities and handed over to the Soviet repatriation commission.In October 1945, Orwell wrote to Frederic Warburg expressing interest in pursuing the possibility that the political cartoonist David Low might illustrate Animal Farm. Low had written a letter saying that he had had "a good time with Animal Farm – an excellent bit of satire – it would illustrate perfectly." Nothing came of this, and a trial issue produced by Secker & Warburg in 1956 illustrated by John Driver was abandoned, but the Folio Society published an edition in 1984 illustrated by Quentin Blake and an edition illustrated by the cartoonist Ralph Steadman was published by Secker & Warburg in 1995 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first edition of Animal Farm.PrefaceOrwell originally wrote a preface complaining about British self-censorship and how the British people were suppressing criticism of the USSR, their World War II ally:Although the first edition allowed space for the preface, it was not included, and as of June 2009 most editions of the book have not included it.Secker and Warburg published the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945 without an introduction. However, the publisher had provided space for a preface in the author's proof composited from the manuscript. For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute.In 1972, Ian Angus found the original typescript titled "The Freedom of the Press", and Bernard Crick published it, together with his own introduction, in The Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 as "How the essay came to be written".  Orwell's essay criticised British self-censorship by the press, specifically the suppression of unflattering descriptions of Stalin and the Soviet government. The same essay also appeared in the Italian 1976 edition of Animal Farm with another introduction by Crick, claiming to be the first edition with the preface. Other publishers were still declining to publish it.ReceptionContemporary reviews of the work were not universally positive. Writing in the American New Republic magazine, George Soule expressed his disappointment in the book, writing that it "puzzled and saddened me. It seemed on the whole dull. The allegory turned out to be a creaking machine for saying in a clumsy way things that have been said better directly." Soule believed that the animals were not consistent enough with their real-world inspirations, and said, "It seems to me that the failure of this book (commercially it is already assured of tremendous success) arises from the fact that the satire deals not with something the author has experienced, but rather with stereotyped ideas about a country which he probably does not know very well".The Guardian on 24 August 1945 called Animal Farm "a delightfully humorous and caustic satire on the rule of the many by the few".  Tosco Fyvel, writing in Tribune on the same day, called the book "a gentle satire on a certain State and on the illusions of an age which may already be behind us." Julian Symons responded, on 7 September, "Should we not expect, in Tribune at least, acknowledgement of the fact that it is a satire not at all gentle upon a particular State – Soviet Russia? It seems to me that a reviewer should have the courage to identify Napoleon with Stalin, and Snowball with Trotsky, and express an opinion favourable or unfavourable to the author, upon a political ground. In a hundred years time perhaps, Animal Farm may be simply a fairy story; today it is a political satire with a good deal of point." Animal Farm has been subject to much comment in the decades since these early remarks.The CIA, from 1952 to 1957 in Operation Aedinosaur, sent millions of balloons carrying copies of the novel into Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, whose air forces tried to shoot the balloons down.Time magazine chose Animal Farm as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.Popular reading in schools, Animal Farm  was ranked the UK's favourite book from school in a 2016 poll.Animal Farm has also faced an array of challenges in school settings around the US. The following are examples of this controversy that has existed around Orwell's work: The John Birch Society in Wisconsin challenged the reading of Animal Farm in 1965 because of its reference to masses revolting. New York State English Council's Committee on Defense Against Censorship found that in 1968, Animal Farm had been widely deemed a "problem book". A censorship survey conducted in DeKalb County, Georgia, relating to the years 1979–1982, revealed that many schools had attempted to limit access to Animal Farm due to its "political theories". A superintendent in Bay County, Florida, banned Animal Farm at the middle school and high school levels in 1987. The Board quickly brought back the book, however, after receiving complaints of the ban as "unconstitutional". Animal Farm was removed from the Stonington, Connecticut school district curriculum in 2017.Animal Farm has also faced similar forms of resistance in other countries. The ALA also mentions the way that the book was prevented from being featured at the International Book Fair in Moscow, Russia, in 1977 and banned from schools in the United Arab Emirates for references to practices or actions that defy Arab or Islamic beliefs, such as pigs or alcohol.In the same manner, Animal Farm has also faced relatively recent issues in China. In 2018, the government made the decision to censor all online posts about or referring to Animal Farm. However the book itself, as of 2019, remains sold in stores. Amy Hawkins and Jeffrey Wasserstrom of The Atlantic stated in 2019 that the book is widely available in Mainland China for several reasons: censors believe the general public is unlikely to read a highbrow book , because the elites who do read books feel connected to the ruling party anyway, and because the Communist Party sees being too aggressive in blocking cultural products as a liability. The authors stated "It was—and remains—as easy to buy 1984 and Animal Farm in Shenzhen or Shanghai as it is in London or Los Angeles."An enhanced version of the book, launched in India in 2017, was widely praised for capturing the author's intent, by republishing the proposed preface of the First Edition and the preface he wrote for the Ukrainian edition.AnalysisAnimalismThe pigs Snowball, Napoleon, and Squealer adapt Old Major's ideas into "a complete system of thought", which they formally name Animalism, an allegoric reference to Communism, not to be confused with the philosophy Animalism. Soon after, Napoleon and Squealer partake in activities associated with the humans (drinking alcohol, sleeping in beds, trading), which were explicitly prohibited by the Seven Commandments. Squealer is employed to alter the Seven Commandments to account for this humanisation, an allusion to the Soviet government's revising of history in order to exercise control of the people's beliefs about themselves and their society.The original commandments are: Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. No animal shall wear clothes. No animal shall sleep in a bed. No animal shall drink alcohol. No animal shall kill any other animal. All animals are equal.These commandments are also distilled into the maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad!" which is primarily used by the sheep on the farm, often to disrupt discussions and disagreements between animals on the nature of Animalism.Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking. The changed commandments are as follows, with the changes bolded:Eventually, these are replaced with the maxims, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better" as the pigs become more human. This is an ironic twist to the original purpose of the Seven Commandments, which were supposed to keep order within Animal Farm by uniting the animals together against the humans and preventing animals from following the humans' evil habits. Through the revision of the commandments, Orwell demonstrates how simply political dogma can be turned into malleable propaganda.Significance and allegoryOrwell biographer Jeffrey Meyers has written, "virtually every detail has political significance in this allegory." Orwell himself wrote in 1946, "Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution ... [and] that kind of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters [-] revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert." In a preface for a 1947 Ukrainian edition, he stated, "for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement. On my return from Spain [in 1937] I thought of exposing the Soviet myth in a story that could be easily understood by almost anyone and which could be easily translated into other languages."The revolt of the animals against Farmer Jones is Orwell's analogy with the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The Battle of the Cowshed has been said to represent the allied invasion of Soviet Russia in 1918, and the defeat of the White Russians in the Russian Civil War.  The pigs' rise to preeminence mirrors the rise of a Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR, just as Napoleon's emergence as the farm's sole leader reflects Stalin's emergence. The pigs' appropriation of milk and apples for their own use, "the turning point of the story" as Orwell termed it in a letter to Dwight Macdonald, stands as an analogy for the crushing of the left-wing 1921 Kronstadt revolt against the Bolsheviks,  and the difficult efforts of the animals to build the windmill suggest the various Five Year Plans. The puppies controlled by Napoleon parallel the nurture of the secret police in the Stalinist structure, and the pigs' treatment of the other animals on the farm recalls the internal terror faced by the populace in the 1930s. In chapter seven, when the animals confess their non-existent crimes and are killed, Orwell directly alludes to the purges, confessions and show trials of the late 1930s. These contributed to Orwell's conviction that the Bolshevik revolution had been corrupted and the Soviet system become rotten.Peter Edgerly Firchow and Peter Davison contend that the Battle of the Windmill, specifically referencing the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Moscow,  represents World War II. During the battle, Orwell first wrote, "All the animals, including Napoleon" took cover. Orwell had the publisher alter this to "All the animals except Napoleon" in recognition of Stalin's decision to remain in Moscow during the German advance. Orwell requested the change after he met Józef Czapski in Paris in March 1945. Czapski, a survivor of the Katyn Massacre and an opponent of the Soviet regime, told Orwell, as Orwell wrote to Arthur Koestler, that it had been "the character [and] greatness of Stalin" that saved Russia from the German invasion.Other connections that writers have suggested illustrate Orwell's telescoping of Russian history from 1917 to 1943 include the wave of rebelliousness that ran through the countryside after the Rebellion, which stands for the abortive revolutions in Hungary and in Germany (Ch IV); the conflict between Napoleon and Snowball (Ch V), parallelling "the two rival and quasi-Messianic beliefs that seemed pitted against one another: Trotskyism, with its faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat of the West; and Stalinism with its glorification of Russia's socialist destiny"; Napoleon's dealings with Whymper and the Willingdon markets (Ch VI), paralleling the Treaty of Rapallo; and Frederick's forged bank notes, parallelling the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939, after which Frederick attacks Animal Farm without warning and destroys the windmill.The book's close, with the pigs and men in a kind of rapprochement, reflected Orwell's view of the 1943 Tehran Conference that seemed to display the establishment of "the best possible relations between the USSR and the West" – but in reality were destined, as Orwell presciently predicted, to continue to unravel. The disagreement between the allies and the start of the Cold War is suggested when Napoleon and Pilkington, both suspicious, each "played an ace of spades simultaneously".Similarly, the music in the novel, starting with "Beasts of England" and the later anthems, parallels "The Internationale" and its adoption and repudiation by the Soviet authorities as the anthem of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s.AdaptationsStage productionsIn 2021, the National Youth Theatre toured a stage version of Animal Farm.A solo version, adapted and performed by Guy Masterson, premièred at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in January 1995 and has toured worldwide since.A theatrical version, with music by Richard Peaslee and lyrics by Adrian Mitchell, was staged at the National Theatre London on 25 April 1984, directed by Peter Hall. It toured nine cities in 1985.A new adaptation written and directed by Robert Icke, designed by Bunny Christie with puppetry designed and directed by Toby Olié opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 2022 before touring the UK.FilmsAnimal Farm has been adapted to film twice. Both differ from the novel and have been accused of taking significant liberties, including sanitising some aspects. Animal Farm (1954) is an animated film, in which Napoleon is eventually overthrown in a second revolution. In 1974, E. Howard Hunt revealed that he had been sent by the CIA's Psychological Warfare department to obtain the film rights from Orwell's widow, and the resulting 1954 animation was funded by the agency. Animal Farm (1999) is a live-action TV version that shows Napoleon's regime collapsing in on itself, with the farm having new human owners, reflecting the collapse of Soviet communism.Andy Serkis is directing a film adaptation for Netflix, with Matt Reeves producing. Serkis began work on the film after finishing directing duties for Venom: Let There Be Carnage.Radio dramatisationsA BBC radio version, produced by Rayner Heppenstall, was broadcast in January 1947. Orwell listened to the production at his home in Canonbury Square, London, with Hugh Gordon Porteous, amongst others. Orwell later wrote to Heppenstall that Porteous, "who had not read the book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes."A further radio production, again using Orwell's own dramatisation of the book, was broadcast in January 2013 on BBC Radio 4. Tamsin Greig narrated, and the cast included Nicky Henson as Napoleon, Toby Jones as the propagandist Squealer, and Ralph Ineson as Boxer.Comic stripIn 1950, Norman Pett and his writing partner Don Freeman were secretly hired by the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret wing of the British Foreign Office, to adapt Animal Farm into a comic strip. This comic was not published in the U.K. but ran in Brazilian and Burmese newspapers.See also Information Research Department Authoritarian personality History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927) History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953) Ideocracy New class Anthems in Animal Farm Animals, an album based on Animal FarmBooks Gulliver's Travels was a favourite book of Orwell's. Swift reverses the role of horses and human beings in the fourth book. Orwell brought to Animal Farm "a dose of Swiftian misanthropy, looking ahead to a time 'when the human race had finally been overthrown.'" Bunt (Revolt), published in 1924, is a book by Polish Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont with a theme similar to Animal Farms. White Acre vs. Black Acre, published in 1856 and written by William M. Burwell, is a satirical novel that features allegories for slavery in the United States similar to Animal Farms portrayal of Soviet history. George Orwell's own Nineteen Eighty-Four, a classic dystopian novel about totalitarianism.ReferencesExplanatory notesCitationsGeneral sourcesFurther reading   O'Neill, Terry, Readings on Animal Farm (1998), Greenhaven Press. .External links   Animal Farm Book Notes from Literapedia Excerpts from Orwell's letters to his agent concerning Animal Farm Literary Journal review Orwell's original preface to the book Animal Farm Revisited by John Molyneux, International Socialism, 44 (1989) Animal Farm at the British Library Animal Farm (1954) 1945 British novelsAllegoryBritish novellasBritish novels adapted into filmsBritish novels adapted into playsBritish novels adapted into television showsBritish political novelsBritish satirical novelsCats in literatureCattle in literatureCensored booksDogs in literatureDystopian novelsEnglish novelsHugo Award for Best Novella winning worksNovels about animalsNovels about propagandaNovels about revolutionariesNovels about totalitarianismNovels adapted into comicsNovels adapted into radio programsNovels by George OrwellPigs in literaturePolitical literatureRoman à clef novelsSatirical novelsSecker & Warburg books
Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs. Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin. They are superficially similar to lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations for many species around the globe.The earliest amphibians ("crown") evolved in the Carboniferous period from sarcopterygian fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins, features that were helpful in adapting to dry land. They diversified and became dominant during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, but were later displaced by reptiles and other vertebrates. Over time, amphibians shrank in size and decreased in diversity, leaving only the modern subclass Lissamphibia.The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura (the frogs), Urodela (the salamanders), and Apoda (the caecilians). The number of known amphibian species is approximately 8,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. The smallest amphibian (and vertebrate) in the world is a frog from New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis) with a length of just . The largest living amphibian is the  South China giant salamander (Andrias sligoi), but this is dwarfed by the extinct  Prionosuchus from the middle Permian of Brazil. The study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology.Classification The word amphibian is derived from the Ancient Greek term  (), which means 'both kinds of life',  meaning 'of both kinds' and  meaning 'life'. The term was initially used as a general adjective for animals that could live on land or in water, including seals and otters. Traditionally, the class Amphibia includes all tetrapod vertebrates that are not amniotes. Amphibia in its widest sense () was divided into three subclasses, two of which are extinct:Subclass Lepospondyli† (small Paleozoic group, which are more closely related to amniotes than Lissamphibia) Subclass Temnospondyli† (diverse Paleozoic and early Mesozoic grade) Subclass Lissamphibia (all modern amphibians, including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians) Salientia (frogs, toads and relatives): Jurassic to present—7,360 current species in 53 families Caudata (salamanders, newts and relatives): Jurassic to present—764 current species in 9 families Gymnophiona (caecilians and relatives): Jurassic to present—215 current species in 10 familiesAllocaudata†  (Albanerpetontidae) Middle Jurassic - Early PleistoceneThe actual number of species in each group depends on the taxonomic classification followed. The two most common systems are the classification adopted by the website AmphibiaWeb, University of California, Berkeley and the classification by herpetologist Darrel Frost and the American Museum of Natural History, available as the online reference database "Amphibian Species of the World". The numbers of species cited above follows Frost and the total number of known amphibian species as of March 31, 2019 is exactly 8,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs.With the phylogenetic classification, the taxon Labyrinthodontia has been discarded as it is a polyparaphyletic group without unique defining features apart from shared primitive characteristics. Classification varies according to the preferred phylogeny of the author and whether they use a stem-based or a node-based classification. Traditionally, amphibians as a class are defined as all tetrapods with a larval stage, while the group that includes the common ancestors of all living amphibians (frogs, salamanders and caecilians) and all their descendants is called Lissamphibia. The phylogeny of Paleozoic amphibians is uncertain, and Lissamphibia may possibly fall within extinct groups, like the Temnospondyli (traditionally placed in the subclass Labyrinthodontia) or the Lepospondyli, and in some analyses even in the amniotes. This means that advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature have removed a large number of basal Devonian and Carboniferous amphibian-type tetrapod groups that were formerly placed in Amphibia in Linnaean taxonomy, and included them elsewhere under cladistic taxonomy. If the common ancestor of amphibians and amniotes is included in Amphibia, it becomes a paraphyletic group.All modern amphibians are included in the subclass Lissamphibia, which is usually considered a clade, a group of species that have evolved from a common ancestor. The three modern orders are Anura (the frogs), Caudata (or Urodela, the salamanders), and Gymnophiona (or Apoda, the caecilians). It has been suggested that salamanders arose separately from a Temnospondyl-like ancestor, and even that caecilians are the sister group of the advanced reptiliomorph amphibians, and thus of amniotes. Although the fossils of several older proto-frogs with primitive characteristics are known, the oldest "true frog" is Prosalirus bitis, from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. It is anatomically very similar to modern frogs. The oldest known caecilian is another Early Jurassic species, Eocaecilia micropodia, also from Arizona. The earliest salamander is Beiyanerpeton jianpingensis from the Late Jurassic of northeastern China.Authorities disagree as to whether Salientia is a superorder that includes the order Anura, or whether Anura is a sub-order of the order Salientia. The Lissamphibia are traditionally divided into three orders, but an extinct salamander-like family, the Albanerpetontidae, is now considered part of Lissamphibia alongside the superorder Salientia. Furthermore, Salientia includes all three recent orders plus the Triassic proto-frog, Triadobatrachus.Evolutionary history The first major groups of amphibians ("stem") developed in the Devonian period, around 370 million years ago, from lobe-finned fish which were similar to the modern coelacanth and lungfish. These ancient lobe-finned fish had evolved multi-jointed leg-like fins with digits that enabled them to crawl along the sea bottom. Some fish had developed primitive lungs that help them breathe air when the stagnant pools of the Devonian swamps were low in oxygen. They could also use their strong fins to hoist themselves out of the water and onto dry land if circumstances so required. Eventually, their bony fins would evolve into limbs and they would become the ancestors to all tetrapods, including modern amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Despite being able to crawl on land, many of these prehistoric tetrapodomorph fish still spent most of their time in the water. They had started to develop lungs, but still breathed predominantly with gills.Many examples of species showing transitional features have been discovered. Ichthyostega was one of the first primitive amphibians, with nostrils and more efficient lungs. It had four sturdy limbs, a neck, a tail with fins and a skull very similar to that of the lobe-finned fish, Eusthenopteron. Amphibians evolved adaptations that allowed them to stay out of the water for longer periods. Their lungs improved and their skeletons became heavier and stronger, better able to support the weight of their bodies on land. They developed "hands" and "feet" with five or more digits; the skin became more capable of retaining body fluids and resisting desiccation. The fish's hyomandibula bone in the hyoid region behind the gills diminished in size and became the stapes of the amphibian ear, an adaptation necessary for hearing on dry land. An affinity between the amphibians and the teleost fish is the multi-folded structure of the teeth and the paired supra-occipital bones at the back of the head, neither of these features being found elsewhere in the animal kingdom.At the end of the Devonian period (360 million years ago), the seas, rivers and lakes were teeming with life while the land was the realm of early plants and devoid of vertebrates, though some, such as Ichthyostega, may have sometimes hauled themselves out of the water. It is thought they may have propelled themselves with their forelimbs, dragging their hindquarters in a similar manner to that used by the elephant seal. In the early Carboniferous (360 to 345 million years ago), the climate became wet and warm. Extensive swamps developed with mosses, ferns, horsetails and calamites. Air-breathing arthropods evolved and invaded the land where they provided food for the carnivorous amphibians that began to adapt to the terrestrial environment. There were no other tetrapods on the land and the amphibians were at the top of the food chain, occupying the ecological position currently held by the crocodile. Though equipped with limbs and the ability to breathe air, most still had a long tapering body and strong tail. They were the top land predators, sometimes reaching several metres in length, preying on the large insects of the period and the many types of fish in the water. They still needed to return to water to lay their shell-less eggs, and even most modern amphibians have a fully aquatic larval stage with gills like their fish ancestors. It was the development of the amniotic egg, which prevents the developing embryo from drying out, that enabled the reptiles to reproduce on land and which led to their dominance in the period that followed.After the Carboniferous rainforest collapse amphibian dominance gave way to reptiles, and amphibians were further devastated by the Permian–Triassic extinction event. During the Triassic Period (250 to 200 million years ago), the reptiles continued to out-compete the amphibians, leading to a reduction in both the amphibians' size and their importance in the biosphere. According to the fossil record, Lissamphibia, which includes all modern amphibians and is the only surviving lineage, may have branched off from the extinct groups Temnospondyli and Lepospondyli at some period between the Late Carboniferous and the Early Triassic. The relative scarcity of fossil evidence precludes precise dating, but the most recent molecular study, based on multilocus sequence typing, suggests a Late Carboniferous/Early Permian origin for extant amphibians.The origins and evolutionary relationships between the three main groups of amphibians is a matter of debate. A 2005 molecular phylogeny, based on rDNA analysis, suggests that salamanders and caecilians are more closely related to each other than they are to frogs. It also appears that the divergence of the three groups took place in the Paleozoic or early Mesozoic (around 250 million years ago), before the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea and soon after their divergence from the lobe-finned fish. The briefness of this period, and the swiftness with which radiation took place, would help account for the relative scarcity of primitive amphibian fossils. There are large gaps in the fossil record, but the discovery of a Gerobatrachus hottoni from the Early Permian in Texas in 2008 provided a missing link with many of the characteristics of modern frogs. Molecular analysis suggests that the frog–salamander divergence took place considerably earlier than the palaeontological evidence indicates. Newer research indicates that the common ancestor of all Lissamphibians lived about 315 million years ago, and that stereospondyls are the closest relatives to the caecilians.As they evolved from lunged fish, amphibians had to make certain adaptations for living on land, including the need to develop new means of locomotion. In the water, the sideways thrusts of their tails had propelled them forward, but on land, quite different mechanisms were required. Their vertebral columns, limbs, limb girdles and musculature needed to be strong enough to raise them off the ground for locomotion and feeding. Terrestrial adults discarded their lateral line systems and adapted their sensory systems to receive stimuli via the medium of the air. They needed to develop new methods to regulate their body heat to cope with fluctuations in ambient temperature. They developed behaviours suitable for reproduction in a terrestrial environment. Their skins were exposed to harmful ultraviolet rays that had previously been absorbed by the water. The skin changed to become more protective and prevent excessive water loss.Characteristics The superclass Tetrapoda is divided into four classes of vertebrate animals with four limbs. Reptiles, birds and mammals are amniotes, the eggs of which are either laid or carried by the female and are surrounded by several membranes, some of which are impervious. Lacking these membranes, amphibians require water bodies for reproduction, although some species have developed various strategies for protecting or bypassing the vulnerable aquatic larval stage. They are not found in the sea with the exception of one or two frogs that live in brackish water in mangrove swamps; the Anderson's salamander meanwhile occurs in brackish or salt water lakes. On land, amphibians are restricted to moist habitats because of the need to keep their skin damp.Modern amphibians have a simplified anatomy compared to their ancestors due to paedomorphosis, caused by two evolutionary trends: miniaturization and an unusually large genome, which result in a slower growth and development rate compared to other vertebrates. Another reason for their size is associated with their rapid metamorphosis, which seems to have evolved only in the ancestors of lissamphibia; in all other known lines the development was much more gradual. Because a remodeling of the feeding apparatus means they don't eat during the metamorphosis, the metamorphosis has to go faster the smaller the individual is, so it happens at an early stage when the larvae are still small. (The largest species of salamanders don't go through a metamorphosis.) Amphibians that lay eggs on land often go through the whole metamorphosis inside the egg. An anamniotic terrestrial egg is less than 1 cm in diameter due to diffusion problems, a size which puts a limit on the amount of posthatching growth.The smallest amphibian (and vertebrate) in the world is a microhylid frog from New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis) first discovered in 2012. It has an average length of  and is part of a genus that contains four of the world's ten smallest frog species. The largest living amphibian is the  Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) but this is a great deal smaller than the largest amphibian that ever existed—the extinct  Prionosuchus, a crocodile-like temnospondyl dating to 270 million years ago from the middle Permian of Brazil. The largest frog is the African Goliath frog (Conraua goliath), which can reach  and weigh .Amphibians are ectothermic (cold-blooded) vertebrates that do not maintain their body temperature through internal physiological processes. Their metabolic rate is low and as a result, their food and energy requirements are limited. In the adult state, they have tear ducts and movable eyelids, and most species have ears that can detect airborne or ground vibrations. They have muscular tongues, which in many species can be protruded. Modern amphibians have fully ossified vertebrae with articular processes. Their ribs are usually short and may be fused to the vertebrae. Their skulls are mostly broad and short, and are often incompletely ossified. Their skin contains little keratin and lacks scales, apart from a few fish-like scales in certain caecilians. The skin contains many mucous glands and in some species, poison glands (a type of granular gland). The hearts of amphibians have three chambers, two atria and one ventricle. They have a urinary bladder and nitrogenous waste products are excreted primarily as urea. Most amphibians lay their eggs in water and have aquatic larvae that undergo metamorphosis to become terrestrial adults. Amphibians breathe by means of a pump action in which air is first drawn into the buccopharyngeal region through the nostrils. These are then closed and the air is forced into the lungs by contraction of the throat. They supplement this with gas exchange through the skin.Anura The order Anura (from the Ancient Greek a(n)- meaning "without" and oura meaning "tail") comprises the frogs and toads. They usually have long hind limbs that fold underneath them, shorter forelimbs, webbed toes with no claws, no tails, large eyes and glandular moist skin. Members of this order with smooth skins are commonly referred to as frogs, while those with warty skins are known as toads. The difference is not a formal one taxonomically and there are numerous exceptions to this rule. Members of the family Bufonidae are known as the "true toads". Frogs range in size from the  Goliath frog (Conraua goliath) of West Africa to the  Paedophryne amauensis, first described in Papua New Guinea in 2012, which is also the smallest known vertebrate. Although most species are associated with water and damp habitats, some are specialised to live in trees or in deserts. They are found worldwide except for polar areas.Anura is divided into three suborders that are broadly accepted by the scientific community, but the relationships between some families remain unclear. Future molecular studies should provide further insights into their evolutionary relationships. The suborder Archaeobatrachia contains four families of primitive frogs. These are Ascaphidae, Bombinatoridae, Discoglossidae and Leiopelmatidae which have few derived features and are probably paraphyletic with regard to other frog lineages. The six families in the more evolutionarily advanced suborder Mesobatrachia are the fossorial Megophryidae, Pelobatidae, Pelodytidae, Scaphiopodidae and Rhinophrynidae and the obligatorily aquatic Pipidae. These have certain characteristics that are intermediate between the two other suborders. Neobatrachia is by far the largest suborder and includes the remaining families of modern frogs, including most common species. Ninety-six percent of the over 5,000 extant species of frog are neobatrachians.Caudata The order Caudata (from the Latin cauda meaning "tail") consists of the salamanders—elongated, low-slung animals that mostly resemble lizards in form. This is a symplesiomorphic trait and they are no more closely related to lizards than they are to mammals. Salamanders lack claws, have scale-free skins, either smooth or covered with tubercles, and tails that are usually flattened from side to side and often finned. They range in size from the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), which has been reported to grow to a length of , to the diminutive Thorius pennatulus from Mexico which seldom exceeds  in length. Salamanders have a mostly Laurasian distribution, being present in much of the Holarctic region of the northern hemisphere. The family Plethodontidae is also found in Central America and South America north of the Amazon basin; South America was apparently invaded from Central America by about the start of the Miocene, 23 million years ago. Urodela is a name sometimes used for all the extant species of salamanders. Members of several salamander families have become paedomorphic and either fail to complete their metamorphosis or retain some larval characteristics as adults. Most salamanders are under  long. They may be terrestrial or aquatic and many spend part of the year in each habitat. When on land, they mostly spend the day hidden under stones or logs or in dense vegetation, emerging in the evening and night to forage for worms, insects and other invertebrates.The suborder Cryptobranchoidea contains the primitive salamanders. A number of fossil cryptobranchids have been found, but there are only three living species, the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus) and the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) from North America. These large amphibians retain several larval characteristics in their adult state; gills slits are present and the eyes are unlidded. A unique feature is their ability to feed by suction, depressing either the left side of their lower jaw or the right. The males excavate nests, persuade females to lay their egg strings inside them, and guard them. As well as breathing with lungs, they respire through the many folds in their thin skin, which has capillaries close to the surface.The suborder Salamandroidea contains the advanced salamanders. They differ from the cryptobranchids by having fused prearticular bones in the lower jaw, and by using internal fertilisation. In salamandrids, the male deposits a bundle of sperm, the spermatophore, and the female picks it up and inserts it into her cloaca where the sperm is stored until the eggs are laid. The largest family in this group is Plethodontidae, the lungless salamanders, which includes 60% of all salamander species. The family Salamandridae includes the true salamanders and the name "newt" is given to members of its subfamily Pleurodelinae.The third suborder, Sirenoidea, contains the four species of sirens, which are in a single family, Sirenidae. Members of this order are eel-like aquatic salamanders with much reduced forelimbs and no hind limbs. Some of their features are primitive while others are derived. Fertilisation is likely to be external as sirenids lack the cloacal glands used by male salamandrids to produce spermatophores and the females lack spermathecae for sperm storage. Despite this, the eggs are laid singly, a behaviour not conducive for external fertilisation.Gymnophiona The order Gymnophiona (from the Greek gymnos meaning "naked" and ophis meaning "serpent") or Apoda comprises the caecilians. These are long, cylindrical, limbless animals with a snake- or worm-like form. The adults vary in length from 8 to 75 centimetres (3 to 30 inches) with the exception of Thomson's caecilian (Caecilia thompsoni), which can reach . A caecilian's skin has a large number of transverse folds and in some species contains tiny embedded dermal scales. It has rudimentary eyes covered in skin, which are probably limited to discerning differences in light intensity. It also has a pair of short tentacles near the eye that can be extended and which have tactile and olfactory functions. Most caecilians live underground in burrows in damp soil, in rotten wood and under plant debris, but some are aquatic. Most species lay their eggs underground and when the larvae hatch, they make their way to adjacent bodies of water. Others brood their eggs and the larvae undergo metamorphosis before the eggs hatch. A few species give birth to live young, nourishing them with glandular secretions while they are in the oviduct. Caecilians have a mostly Gondwanan distribution, being found in tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Central and South America.Anatomy and physiologySkin The integumentary structure contains some typical characteristics common to terrestrial vertebrates, such as the presence of highly cornified outer layers, renewed periodically through a moulting process controlled by the pituitary and thyroid glands. Local thickenings (often called warts) are common, such as those found on toads. The outside of the skin is shed periodically mostly in one piece, in contrast to mammals and birds where it is shed in flakes. Amphibians often eat the sloughed skin. Caecilians are unique among amphibians in having mineralized dermal scales embedded in the dermis between the furrows in the skin. The similarity of these to the scales of bony fish is largely superficial. Lizards and some frogs have somewhat similar osteoderms forming bony deposits in the dermis, but this is an example of convergent evolution with similar structures having arisen independently in diverse vertebrate lineages.Amphibian skin is permeable to water. Gas exchange can take place through the skin (cutaneous respiration) and this allows adult amphibians to respire without rising to the surface of water and to hibernate at the bottom of ponds. To compensate for their thin and delicate skin, amphibians have evolved mucous glands, principally on their heads, backs and tails. The secretions produced by these help keep the skin moist. In addition, most species of amphibian have granular glands that secrete distasteful or poisonous substances. Some amphibian toxins can be lethal to humans while others have little effect. The main poison-producing glands, the parotoids, produce the neurotoxin bufotoxin and are located behind the ears of toads, along the backs of frogs, behind the eyes of salamanders and on the upper surface of caecilians.The skin colour of amphibians is produced by three layers of pigment cells called chromatophores. These three cell layers consist of the melanophores (occupying the deepest layer), the guanophores (forming an intermediate layer and containing many granules, producing a blue-green colour) and the lipophores (yellow, the most superficial layer). The colour change displayed by many species is initiated by hormones secreted by the pituitary gland. Unlike bony fish, there is no direct control of the pigment cells by the nervous system, and this results in the colour change taking place more slowly than happens in fish. A vividly coloured skin usually indicates that the species is toxic and is a warning sign to predators.Skeletal system and locomotion Amphibians have a skeletal system that is structurally homologous to other tetrapods, though with a number of variations. They all have four limbs except for the legless caecilians and a few species of salamander with reduced or no limbs. The bones are hollow and lightweight. The musculoskeletal system is strong to enable it to support the head and body. The bones are fully ossified and the vertebrae interlock with each other by means of overlapping processes. The pectoral girdle is supported by muscle, and the well-developed pelvic girdle is attached to the backbone by a pair of sacral ribs. The ilium slopes forward and the body is held closer to the ground than is the case in mammals.In most amphibians, there are four digits on the fore foot and five on the hind foot, but no claws on either. Some salamanders have fewer digits and the amphiumas are eel-like in appearance with tiny, stubby legs. The sirens are aquatic salamanders with stumpy forelimbs and no hind limbs. The caecilians are limbless. They burrow in the manner of earthworms with zones of muscle contractions moving along the body. On the surface of the ground or in water they move by undulating their body from side to side.In frogs, the hind legs are larger than the fore legs, especially so in those species that principally move by jumping or swimming. In the walkers and runners the hind limbs are not so large, and the burrowers mostly have short limbs and broad bodies. The feet have adaptations for the way of life, with webbing between the toes for swimming, broad adhesive toe pads for climbing, and keratinised tubercles on the hind feet for digging (frogs usually dig backwards into the soil). In most salamanders, the limbs are short and more or less the same length and project at right angles from the body. Locomotion on land is by walking and the tail often swings from side to side or is used as a prop, particularly when climbing. In their normal gait, only one leg is advanced at a time in the manner adopted by their ancestors, the lobe-finned fish. Some salamanders in the genus Aneides and certain plethodontids climb trees and have long limbs, large toepads and prehensile tails. In aquatic salamanders and in frog tadpoles, the tail has dorsal and ventral fins and is moved from side to side as a means of propulsion. Adult frogs do not have tails and caecilians have only very short ones.Salamanders use their tails in defence and some are prepared to jettison them to save their lives in a process known as autotomy. Certain species in the Plethodontidae have a weak zone at the base of the tail and use this strategy readily. The tail often continues to twitch after separation which may distract the attacker and allow the salamander to escape. Both tails and limbs can be regenerated. Adult frogs are unable to regrow limbs but tadpoles can do so.Circulatory system Amphibians have a juvenile stage and an adult stage, and the circulatory systems of the two are distinct. In the juvenile (or tadpole) stage, the circulation is similar to that of a fish; the two-chambered heart pumps the blood through the gills where it is oxygenated, and is spread around the body and back to the heart in a single loop. In the adult stage, amphibians (especially frogs) lose their gills and develop lungs. They have a heart that consists of a single ventricle and two atria. When the ventricle starts contracting, deoxygenated blood is pumped through the pulmonary artery to the lungs. Continued contraction then pumps oxygenated blood around the rest of the body. Mixing of the two bloodstreams is minimized by the anatomy of the chambers.Nervous and sensory systems The nervous system is basically the same as in other vertebrates, with a central brain, a spinal cord, and nerves throughout the body. The amphibian brain is less well developed than that of reptiles, birds and mammals but is similar in morphology and function to that of a fish. It is believed amphibians are capable of perceiving pain.  The brain consists of equal parts, cerebrum, midbrain and cerebellum. Various parts of the cerebrum process sensory input, such as smell in the olfactory lobe and sight in the optic lobe, and it is additionally the centre of behaviour and learning. The cerebellum is the center of muscular coordination and the medulla oblongata controls some organ functions including heartbeat and respiration. The brain sends signals through the spinal cord and nerves to regulate activity in the rest of the body. The pineal body, known to regulate sleep patterns in humans, is thought to produce the hormones involved in hibernation and aestivation in amphibians.Tadpoles retain the lateral line system of their ancestral fishes, but this is lost in terrestrial adult amphibians. Some caecilians possess electroreceptors that allow them to locate objects around them when submerged in water. The ears are well developed in frogs. There is no external ear, but the large circular eardrum lies on the surface of the head just behind the eye. This vibrates and sound is transmitted through a single bone, the stapes, to the inner ear. Only high-frequency sounds like mating calls are heard in this way, but low-frequency noises can be detected through another mechanism. There is a patch of specialized haircells, called papilla amphibiorum, in the inner ear capable of detecting deeper sounds. Another feature, unique to frogs and salamanders, is the columella-operculum complex adjoining the auditory capsule which is involved in the transmission of both airborne and seismic signals. The ears of salamanders and caecilians are less highly developed than those of frogs as they do not normally communicate with each other through the medium of sound.The eyes of tadpoles lack lids, but at metamorphosis, the cornea becomes more dome-shaped, the lens becomes flatter, and eyelids and associated glands and ducts develop. The adult eyes are an improvement on invertebrate eyes and were a first step in the development of more advanced vertebrate eyes. They allow colour vision and depth of focus. In the retinas are green rods, which are receptive to a wide range of wavelengths.Digestive and excretory systems Many amphibians catch their prey by flicking out an elongated tongue with a sticky tip and drawing it back into the mouth before seizing the item with their jaws. Some use inertial feeding to help them swallow the prey, repeatedly thrusting their head forward sharply causing the food to move backwards in their mouth by inertia. Most amphibians swallow their prey whole without much chewing so they possess voluminous stomachs. The short oesophagus is lined with cilia that help to move the food to the stomach and mucus produced by glands in the mouth and pharynx eases its passage. The enzyme chitinase produced in the stomach helps digest the chitinous cuticle of arthropod prey.Amphibians possess a pancreas, liver and gall bladder. The liver is usually large with two lobes. Its size is determined by its function as a glycogen and fat storage unit, and may change with the seasons as these reserves are built or used up. Adipose tissue is another important means of storing energy and this occurs in the abdomen (in internal structures called fat bodies), under the skin and, in some salamanders, in the tail.There are two kidneys located dorsally, near the roof of the body cavity. Their job is to filter the blood of metabolic waste and transport the urine via ureters to the urinary bladder where it is stored before being passed out periodically through the cloacal vent. Larvae and most aquatic adult amphibians excrete the nitrogen as ammonia in large quantities of dilute urine, while terrestrial species, with a greater need to conserve water, excrete the less toxic product urea. Some tree frogs with limited access to water excrete most of their metabolic waste as uric acid.Respiratory system The lungs in amphibians are primitive compared to those of amniotes, possessing few internal septa and large alveoli, and consequently having a comparatively slow diffusion rate for oxygen entering the blood. Ventilation is accomplished by buccal pumping. Most amphibians, however, are able to exchange gases with the water or air via their skin. To enable sufficient cutaneous respiration, the surface of their highly vascularised skin must remain moist to allow the oxygen to diffuse at a sufficiently high rate. Because oxygen concentration in the water increases at both low temperatures and high flow rates, aquatic amphibians in these situations can rely primarily on cutaneous respiration, as in the Titicaca water frog and the hellbender salamander. In air, where oxygen is more concentrated, some small species can rely solely on cutaneous gas exchange, most famously the plethodontid salamanders, which have neither lungs nor gills. Many aquatic salamanders and all tadpoles have gills in their larval stage, with some (such as the axolotl) retaining gills as aquatic adults.Reproduction For the purpose of reproduction most amphibians require fresh water although some lay their eggs on land and have developed various means of keeping them moist. A few (e.g. Fejervarya raja) can inhabit brackish water, but there are no true marine amphibians. There are reports, however, of particular amphibian populations unexpectedly invading marine waters. Such was the case with the Black Sea invasion of the natural hybrid Pelophylax esculentus reported in 2010.Several hundred frog species in adaptive radiations (e.g., Eleutherodactylus, the Pacific Platymantis, the Australo-Papuan microhylids, and many other tropical frogs), however, do not need any water for breeding in the wild. They reproduce via direct development, an ecological and evolutionary adaptation that has allowed them to be completely independent from free-standing water. Almost all of these frogs live in wet tropical rainforests and their eggs hatch directly into miniature versions of the adult, passing through the tadpole stage within the egg. Reproductive success of many amphibians is dependent not only on the quantity of rainfall, but the seasonal timing.In the tropics, many amphibians breed continuously or at any time of year. In temperate regions, breeding is mostly seasonal, usually in the spring, and is triggered by increasing day length, rising temperatures or rainfall. Experiments have shown the importance of temperature, but the trigger event, especially in arid regions, is often a storm. In anurans, males usually arrive at the breeding sites before females and the vocal chorus they produce may stimulate ovulation in females and the endocrine activity of males that are not yet reproductively active.In caecilians, fertilisation is internal, the male extruding an intromittent organ, the , and inserting it into the female cloaca. The paired Müllerian glands inside the male cloaca secrete a fluid which resembles that produced by mammalian prostate glands and which may transport and nourish the sperm. Fertilisation probably takes place in the oviduct.The majority of salamanders also engage in internal fertilisation. In most of these, the male deposits a spermatophore, a small packet of sperm on top of a gelatinous cone, on the substrate either on land or in the water. The female takes up the sperm packet by grasping it with the lips of the cloaca and pushing it into the vent. The spermatozoa move to the spermatheca in the roof of the cloaca where they remain until ovulation which may be many months later. Courtship rituals and methods of transfer of the spermatophore vary between species. In some, the spermatophore may be placed directly into the female cloaca while in others, the female may be guided to the spermatophore or restrained with an embrace called amplexus. Certain primitive salamanders in the families Sirenidae, Hynobiidae and Cryptobranchidae practice external fertilisation in a similar manner to frogs, with the female laying the eggs in water and the male releasing sperm onto the egg mass.With a few exceptions, frogs use external fertilisation. The male grasps the female tightly with his forelimbs either behind the arms or in front of the back legs, or in the case of Epipedobates tricolor, around the neck. They remain in amplexus with their cloacae positioned close together while the female lays the eggs and the male covers them with sperm. Roughened nuptial pads on the male's hands aid in retaining grip. Often the male collects and retains the egg mass, forming a sort of basket with the hind feet. An exception is the granular poison frog (Oophaga granulifera) where the male and female place their cloacae in close proximity while facing in opposite directions and then release eggs and sperm simultaneously. The tailed frog (Ascaphus truei) exhibits internal fertilisation. The "tail" is only possessed by the male and is an extension of the cloaca and used to inseminate the female. This frog lives in fast-flowing streams and internal fertilisation prevents the sperm from being washed away before fertilisation occurs. The sperm may be retained in storage tubes attached to the oviduct until the following spring.Most frogs can be classified as either prolonged or explosive breeders. Typically, prolonged breeders congregate at a breeding site, the males usually arriving first, calling and setting up territories. Other satellite males remain quietly nearby, waiting for their opportunity to take over a territory. The females arrive sporadically, mate selection takes place and eggs are laid. The females depart and territories may change hands. More females appear and in due course, the breeding season comes to an end. Explosive breeders on the other hand are found where temporary pools appear in dry regions after rainfall. These frogs are typically fossorial species that emerge after heavy rains and congregate at a breeding site. They are attracted there by the calling of the first male to find a suitable place, perhaps a pool that forms in the same place each rainy season. The assembled frogs may call in unison and frenzied activity ensues, the males scrambling to mate with the usually smaller number of females.There is a direct competition between males to win the attention of the females in salamanders and newts, with elaborate courtship displays to keep the female's attention long enough to get her interested in choosing him to mate with. Some species store sperm through long breeding seasons, as the extra time may allow for interactions with rival sperm.Life cycle Most amphibians go through metamorphosis, a process of significant morphological change after birth. In typical amphibian development, eggs are laid in water and larvae are adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Frogs, toads and salamanders all hatch from the egg as larvae with external gills. Metamorphosis in amphibians is regulated by thyroxine concentration in the blood, which stimulates metamorphosis, and prolactin, which counteracts thyroxine's effect. Specific events are dependent on threshold values for different tissues. Because most embryonic development is outside the parental body, it is subject to many adaptations due to specific environmental circumstances. For this reason tadpoles can have horny ridges instead of Teeth, whisker-like skin extensions or fins. They also make use of a sensory lateral line organ similar to that of fish. After metamorphosis, these organs become redundant and will be reabsorbed by controlled cell death, called apoptosis. The variety of adaptations to specific environmental circumstances among amphibians is wide, with many discoveries still being made.Eggs The egg of an amphibian is typically surrounded by a transparent gelatinous covering secreted by the oviducts and containing mucoproteins and mucopolysaccharides. This capsule is permeable to water and gases, and swells considerably as it absorbs water. The ovum is at first rigidly held, but in fertilised eggs the innermost layer liquefies and allows the embryo to move freely. This also happens in salamander eggs, even when they are unfertilised. Eggs of some salamanders and frogs contain unicellular green algae. These penetrate the jelly envelope after the eggs are laid and may increase the supply of oxygen to the embryo through photosynthesis. They seem to both speed up the development of the larvae and reduce mortality. Most eggs contain the pigment melanin which raises their temperature through the absorption of light and also protects them against ultraviolet radiation. Caecilians, some plethodontid salamanders and certain frogs lay eggs underground that are unpigmented. In the wood frog (Rana sylvatica), the interior of the globular egg cluster has been found to be up to  warmer than its surroundings, which is an advantage in its cool northern habitat.The eggs may be deposited singly or in small groups, or may take the form of spherical egg masses, rafts or long strings. In terrestrial caecilians, the eggs are laid in grape-like clusters in burrows near streams. The amphibious salamander Ensatina attaches its similar clusters by stalks to underwater stems and roots. The greenhouse frog (Eleutherodactylus planirostris) lays eggs in small groups in the soil where they develop in about two weeks directly into juvenile frogs without an intervening larval stage. The tungara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) builds a floating nest from foam to protect its eggs. First a raft is built, then eggs are laid in the centre, and finally a foam cap is overlaid. The foam has anti-microbial properties. It contains no detergents but is created by whipping up proteins and lectins secreted by the female.Larvae The eggs of amphibians are typically laid in water and hatch into free-living larvae that complete their development in water and later transform into either aquatic or terrestrial adults. In many species of frog and in most lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae), direct development takes place, the larvae growing within the eggs and emerging as miniature adults. Many caecilians and some other amphibians lay their eggs on land, and the newly hatched larvae wriggle or are transported to water bodies. Some caecilians, the alpine salamander (Salamandra atra) and some of the African live-bearing toads (Nectophrynoides spp.) are viviparous. Their larvae feed on glandular secretions and develop within the female's oviduct, often for long periods. Other amphibians, but not caecilians, are ovoviviparous. The eggs are retained in or on the parent's body, but the larvae subsist on the yolks of their eggs and receive no nourishment from the adult. The larvae emerge at varying stages of their growth, either before or after metamorphosis, according to their species. The toad genus Nectophrynoides exhibits all of these developmental patterns among its dozen or so members.Frogs Frog larvae are known as tadpoles and typically have oval bodies and long, vertically flattened tails with fins. The free-living larvae are normally fully aquatic, but the tadpoles of some species (such as Nannophrys ceylonensis) are semi-terrestrial and live among wet rocks. Tadpoles have cartilaginous skeletons, gills for respiration (external gills at first, internal gills later), lateral line systems and large tails that they use for swimming. Newly hatched tadpoles soon develop gill pouches that cover the gills. The lungs develop early and are used as accessory breathing organs, the tadpoles rising to the water surface to gulp air. Some species complete their development inside the egg and hatch directly into small frogs. These larvae do not have gills but instead have specialised areas of skin through which respiration takes place. While tadpoles do not have true teeth, in most species, the jaws have long, parallel rows of small keratinized structures called keradonts surrounded by a horny beak. Front legs are formed under the gill sac and hind legs become visible a few days later.Iodine and T4 (over stimulate the spectacular apoptosis [programmed cell death] of the cells of the larval gills, tail and fins) also stimulate the evolution of nervous systems transforming the aquatic, vegetarian tadpole into the terrestrial, carnivorous frog with better neurological, visuospatial, olfactory and cognitive abilities for hunting.In fact, tadpoles developing in ponds and streams are typically herbivorous. Pond tadpoles tend to have deep bodies, large caudal fins and small mouths; they swim in the quiet waters feeding on growing or loose fragments of vegetation. Stream dwellers mostly have larger mouths, shallow bodies and caudal fins; they attach themselves to plants and stones and feed on the surface films of algae and bacteria. They also feed on diatoms, filtered from the water through the gills, and stir up the sediment at bottom of the pond, ingesting edible fragments. They have a relatively long, spiral-shaped gut to enable them to digest this diet. Some species are carnivorous at the tadpole stage, eating insects, smaller tadpoles and fish. Young of the Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) can occasionally be cannibalistic, the younger tadpoles attacking a larger, more developed tadpole when it is undergoing metamorphosis.At metamorphosis, rapid changes in the body take place as the lifestyle of the frog changes completely. The spiral‐shaped mouth with horny tooth ridges is reabsorbed together with the spiral gut. The animal develops a large jaw, and its gills disappear along with its gill sac. Eyes and legs grow quickly, and a tongue is formed. There are associated changes in the neural networks such as development of stereoscopic vision and loss of the lateral line system. All this can happen in about a day. A few days later, the tail is reabsorbed, due to the higher thyroxine concentration required for this to take place.Salamanders At hatching, a typical salamander larva has eyes without lids, teeth in both upper and lower jaws, three pairs of feathery external gills, a somewhat laterally flattened body and a long tail with dorsal and ventral fins. The forelimbs may be partially developed and the hind limbs are rudimentary in pond-living species but may be rather more developed in species that reproduce in moving water. Pond-type larvae often have a pair of balancers, rod-like structures on either side of the head that may prevent the gills from becoming clogged up with sediment. Some members of the genera Ambystoma and Dicamptodon have larvae that never fully develop into the adult form, but this varies with species and with populations. The northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) is one of these and, depending on environmental factors, either remains permanently in the larval state, a condition known as neoteny, or transforms into an adult. Both of these are able to breed. Neoteny occurs when the animal's growth rate is very low and is usually linked to adverse conditions such as low water temperatures that may change the response of the tissues to the hormone thyroxine. Other factors that may inhibit metamorphosis include lack of food, lack of trace elements and competition from conspecifics. The tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) also sometimes behaves in this way and may grow particularly large in the process. The adult tiger salamander is terrestrial, but the larva is aquatic and able to breed while still in the larval state. When conditions are particularly inhospitable on land, larval breeding may allow continuation of a population that would otherwise die out. There are fifteen species of obligate neotenic salamanders, including species of Necturus, Proteus and Amphiuma, and many examples of facultative ones that adopt this strategy under appropriate environmental circumstances.Lungless salamanders in the family Plethodontidae are terrestrial and lay a small number of unpigmented eggs in a cluster among damp leaf litter. Each egg has a large yolk sac and the larva feeds on this while it develops inside the egg, emerging fully formed as a juvenile salamander. The female salamander often broods the eggs. In the genus Ensatinas, the female has been observed to coil around them and press her throat area against them, effectively massaging them with a mucous secretion.In newts and salamanders, metamorphosis is less dramatic than in frogs. This is because the larvae are already carnivorous and continue to feed as predators when they are adults so few changes are needed to their digestive systems. Their lungs are functional early, but the larvae do not make as much use of them as do tadpoles. Their gills are never covered by gill sacs and are reabsorbed just before the animals leave the water. Other changes include the reduction in size or loss of tail fins, the closure of gill slits, thickening of the skin, the development of eyelids, and certain changes in dentition and tongue structure. Salamanders are at their most vulnerable at metamorphosis as swimming speeds are reduced and transforming tails are encumbrances on land. Adult salamanders often have an aquatic phase in spring and summer, and a land phase in winter. For adaptation to a water phase, prolactin is the required hormone, and for adaptation to the land phase, thyroxine. External gills do not return in subsequent aquatic phases because these are completely absorbed upon leaving the water for the first time.Caecilians Most terrestrial caecilians that lay eggs do so in burrows or moist places on land near bodies of water. The development of the young of Ichthyophis glutinosus, a species from Sri Lanka, has been much studied. The eel-like larvae hatch out of the eggs and make their way to water. They have three pairs of external red feathery gills, a blunt head with two rudimentary eyes, a lateral line system and a short tail with fins. They swim by undulating their body from side to side. They are mostly active at night, soon lose their gills and make sorties onto land. Metamorphosis is gradual. By the age of about ten months they have developed a pointed head with sensory tentacles near the mouth and lost their eyes, lateral line systems and tails. The skin thickens, embedded scales develop and the body divides into segments. By this time, the caecilian has constructed a burrow and is living on land.In the majority of species of caecilians, the young are produced by viviparity. Typhlonectes compressicauda, a species from South America, is typical of these. Up to nine larvae can develop in the oviduct at any one time. They are elongated and have paired sac-like gills, small eyes and specialised scraping teeth. At first, they feed on the yolks of the eggs, but as this source of nourishment declines they begin to rasp at the ciliated epithelial cells that line the oviduct. This stimulates the secretion of fluids rich in lipids and mucoproteins on which they feed along with scrapings from the oviduct wall. They may increase their length sixfold and be two-fifths as long as their mother before being born. By this time they have undergone metamorphosis, lost their eyes and gills, developed a thicker skin and mouth tentacles, and reabsorbed their teeth. A permanent set of teeth grow through soon after birth.The ringed caecilian (Siphonops annulatus) has developed a unique adaptation for the purposes of reproduction. The progeny feed on a skin layer that is specially developed by the adult in a phenomenon known as maternal dermatophagy. The brood feed as a batch for about seven minutes at intervals of approximately three days which gives the skin an opportunity to regenerate. Meanwhile, they have been observed to ingest fluid exuded from the maternal cloaca.Parental care The care of offspring among amphibians has been little studied but, in general, the larger the number of eggs in a batch, the less likely it is that any degree of parental care takes place. Nevertheless, it is estimated that in up to 20% of amphibian species, one or both adults play some role in the care of the young. Those species that breed in smaller water bodies or other specialised habitats tend to have complex patterns of behaviour in the care of their young.Many woodland salamanders lay clutches of eggs under dead logs or stones on land. The black mountain salamander (Desmognathus welteri) does this, the mother brooding the eggs and guarding them from predation as the embryos feed on the yolks of their eggs. When fully developed, they break their way out of the egg capsules and disperse as juvenile salamanders. The male hellbender, a primitive salamander, excavates an underwater nest and encourages females to lay there. The male then guards the site for the two or three months before the eggs hatch, using body undulations to fan the eggs and increase their supply of oxygen.The male Colostethus subpunctatus, a tiny frog, protects the egg cluster which is hidden under a stone or log. When the eggs hatch, the male transports the tadpoles on his back, stuck there by a mucous secretion, to a temporary pool where he dips himself into the water and the tadpoles drop off. The male midwife toad (Alytes obstetricans) winds egg strings round his thighs and carries the eggs around for up to eight weeks. He keeps them moist and when they are ready to hatch, he visits a pond or ditch and releases the tadpoles. The female gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus spp.) reared larvae in her stomach after swallowing either the eggs or hatchlings; however, this stage was never observed before the species became extinct. The tadpoles secrete a hormone that inhibits digestion in the mother whilst they develop by consuming their very large yolk supply. The pouched frog (Assa darlingtoni) lays eggs on the ground. When they hatch, the male carries the tadpoles around in brood pouches on his hind legs. The aquatic Surinam toad (Pipa pipa) raises its young in pores on its back where they remain until metamorphosis. The granular poison frog (Oophaga granulifera) is typical of a number of tree frogs in the poison dart frog family Dendrobatidae. Its eggs are laid on the forest floor and when they hatch, the tadpoles are carried one by one on the back of an adult to a suitable water-filled crevice such as the axil of a leaf or the rosette of a bromeliad. The female visits the nursery sites regularly and deposits unfertilised eggs in the water and these are consumed by the tadpoles.Genetics and genomics Amphibians are notable among vertebrates for their diversity of chromosomes and genomes. The karyotypes (chromosomes) have been determined for at least 1,193 (14.5%) of the ~8,200 known (diploid) species, including 963 anurans, 209 salamanders, and 21 caecilians. Generally, the karyotypes of diploid amphibians are characterized by 20–26 bi-armed chromosomes. Amphibians have also very large genomes compared to other taxa of vertebrates and corresponding variation in genome size (C-value: picograms of DNA in haploid nuclei). The genome sizes range from 0.95 to 11.5 pg in frogs, from 13.89 to 120.56 pg in salamanders, and from 2.94 to 11.78 pg in caecilians.The large genome sizes have prevented whole-genome sequencing of amphibians although a number of genomes have been published recently. The 1.7GB draft genome  of Xenopus tropicalis was the first to be reported for amphibians in 2010. Compared to some salamanders this frog genome is tiny. For instance, the genome of the Mexican axolotl turned out to be 32 Gb, which is more than 10 times larger than the human genome (3GB).Feeding and diet With a few exceptions, adult amphibians are predators, feeding on virtually anything that moves that they can swallow. The diet mostly consists of small prey that do not move too fast such as beetles, caterpillars, earthworms and spiders. The sirens (Siren spp.) often ingest aquatic plant material with the invertebrates on which they feed and a Brazilian tree frog (Xenohyla truncata) includes a large quantity of fruit in its diet. The Mexican burrowing toad (Rhinophrynus dorsalis) has a specially adapted tongue for picking up ants and termites. It projects it with the tip foremost whereas other frogs flick out the rear part first, their tongues being hinged at the front.Food is mostly selected by sight, even in conditions of dim light. Movement of the prey triggers a feeding response. Frogs have been caught on fish hooks baited with red flannel and green frogs (Rana clamitans) have been found with stomachs full of elm seeds that they had seen floating past. Toads, salamanders and caecilians also use smell to detect prey. This response is mostly secondary because salamanders have been observed to remain stationary near odoriferous prey but only feed if it moves. Cave-dwelling amphibians normally hunt by smell. Some salamanders seem to have learned to recognize immobile prey when it has no smell, even in complete darkness.Amphibians usually swallow food whole but may chew it lightly first to subdue it. They typically have small hinged pedicellate teeth, a feature unique to amphibians. The base and crown of these are composed of dentine separated by an uncalcified layer and they are replaced at intervals. Salamanders, caecilians and some frogs have one or two rows of teeth in both jaws, but some frogs (Rana spp.) lack teeth in the lower jaw, and toads (Bufo spp.) have no teeth. In many amphibians there are also vomerine teeth attached to a facial bone in the roof of the mouth.The tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum) is typical of the frogs and salamanders that hide under cover ready to ambush unwary invertebrates. Others amphibians, such as the Bufo spp. toads, actively search for prey, while the Argentine horned frog (Ceratophrys ornata) lures inquisitive prey closer by raising its hind feet over its back and vibrating its yellow toes. Among leaf litter frogs in Panama, frogs that actively hunt prey have narrow mouths and are slim, often brightly coloured and toxic, while ambushers have wide mouths and are broad and well-camouflaged. Caecilians do not flick their tongues, but catch their prey by grabbing it with their slightly backward-pointing teeth. The struggles of the prey and further jaw movements work it inwards and the caecilian usually retreats into its burrow. The subdued prey is gulped down whole.When they are newly hatched, frog larvae feed on the yolk of the egg. When this is exhausted some move on to feed on bacteria, algal crusts, detritus and raspings from submerged plants. Water is drawn in through their mouths, which are usually at the bottom of their heads, and passes through branchial food traps between their mouths and their gills where fine particles are trapped in mucus and filtered out. Others have specialised mouthparts consisting of a horny beak edged by several rows of labial teeth. They scrape and bite food of many kinds as well as stirring up the bottom sediment, filtering out larger particles with the papillae around their mouths. Some, such as the spadefoot toads, have strong biting jaws and are carnivorous or even cannibalistic.Vocalization The calls made by caecilians and salamanders are limited to occasional soft squeaks, grunts or hisses and have not been much studied. A clicking sound sometimes produced by caecilians may be a means of orientation, as in bats, or a form of communication. Most salamanders are considered voiceless, but the California giant salamander (Dicamptodon ensatus) has vocal cords and can produce a rattling or barking sound. Some species of salamander emit a quiet squeak or yelp if attacked.Frogs are much more vocal, especially during the breeding season when they use their voices to attract mates. The presence of a particular species in an area may be more easily discerned by its characteristic call than by a fleeting glimpse of the animal itself. In most species, the sound is produced by expelling air from the lungs over the vocal cords into an air sac or sacs in the throat or at the corner of the mouth. This may distend like a balloon and acts as a resonator, helping to transfer the sound to the atmosphere, or the water at times when the animal is submerged. The main vocalisation is the male's loud advertisement call which seeks to both encourage a female to approach and discourage other males from intruding on its territory. This call is modified to a quieter courtship call on the approach of a female or to a more aggressive version if a male intruder draws near. Calling carries the risk of attracting predators and involves the expenditure of much energy. Other calls include those given by a female in response to the advertisement call and a release call given by a male or female during unwanted attempts at amplexus. When a frog is attacked, a distress or fright call is emitted, often resembling a scream. The usually nocturnal Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) produces a rain call when there is rainfall during daylight hours.Territorial behaviour Little is known of the territorial behaviour of caecilians, but some frogs and salamanders defend home ranges. These are usually feeding, breeding or sheltering sites. Males normally exhibit such behaviour though in some species, females and even juveniles are also involved. Although in many frog species, females are larger than males, this is not the case in most species where males are actively involved in territorial defence. Some of these have specific adaptations such as enlarged teeth for biting or spines on the chest, arms or thumbs.In salamanders, defence of a territory involves adopting an aggressive posture and if necessary attacking the intruder. This may involve snapping, chasing and sometimes biting, occasionally causing the loss of a tail. The behaviour of red back salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) has been much studied. 91% of marked individuals that were later recaptured were within a metre (yard) of their original daytime retreat under a log or rock. A similar proportion, when moved experimentally a distance of , found their way back to their home base. The salamanders left odour marks around their territories which averaged  in size and were sometimes inhabited by a male and female pair. These deterred the intrusion of others and delineated the boundaries between neighbouring areas. Much of their behaviour seemed stereotyped and did not involve any actual contact between individuals. An aggressive posture involved raising the body off the ground and glaring at the opponent who often turned away submissively. If the intruder persisted, a biting lunge was usually launched at either the tail region or the naso-labial grooves. Damage to either of these areas can reduce the fitness of the rival, either because of the need to regenerate tissue or because it impairs its ability to detect food.In frogs, male territorial behaviour is often observed at breeding locations; calling is both an announcement of ownership of part of this resource and an advertisement call to potential mates. In general, a deeper voice represents a heavier and more powerful individual, and this may be sufficient to prevent intrusion by smaller males. Much energy is used in the vocalization and it takes a toll on the territory holder who may be displaced by a fitter rival if he tires. There is a tendency for males to tolerate the holders of neighbouring territories while vigorously attacking unknown intruders. Holders of territories have a "home advantage" and usually come off better in an encounter between two similar-sized frogs. If threats are insufficient, chest to chest tussles may take place. Fighting methods include pushing and shoving, deflating the opponent's vocal sac, seizing him by the head, jumping on his back, biting, chasing, splashing, and ducking him under the water.Defence mechanisms Amphibians have soft bodies with thin skins, and lack claws, defensive armour, or spines. Nevertheless, they have evolved various defence mechanisms to keep themselves alive. The first line of defence in salamanders and frogs is the mucous secretion that they produce. This keeps their skin moist and makes them slippery and difficult to grip. The secretion is often sticky and distasteful or toxic. Snakes have been observed yawning and gaping when trying to swallow African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis), which gives the frogs an opportunity to escape. Caecilians have been little studied in this respect, but the Cayenne caecilian (Typhlonectes compressicauda) produces toxic mucus that has killed predatory fish in a feeding experiment in Brazil. In some salamanders, the skin is poisonous. The rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) from North America and other members of its genus contain the neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (TTX), the most toxic non-protein substance known and almost identical to that produced by pufferfish. Handling the newts does not cause harm, but ingestion of even the most minute amounts of the skin is deadly. In feeding trials, fish, frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals were all found to be susceptible. The only predators with some tolerance to the poison are certain populations of common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis).In locations where both snake and salamander co-exist, the snakes have developed immunity through genetic changes and they feed on the amphibians with impunity. Coevolution occurs with the newt increasing its toxic capabilities at the same rate as the snake further develops its immunity. Some frogs and toads are toxic, the main poison glands being at the side of the neck and under the warts on the back. These regions are presented to the attacking animal and their secretions may be foul-tasting or cause various physical or neurological symptoms. Altogether, over 200 toxins have been isolated from the limited number of amphibian species that have been investigated.Poisonous species often use bright colouring to warn potential predators of their toxicity. These warning colours tend to be red or yellow combined with black, with the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) being an example. Once a predator has sampled one of these, it is likely to remember the colouration next time it encounters a similar animal. In some species, such as the fire-bellied toad (Bombina spp.), the warning colouration is on the belly and these animals adopt a defensive pose when attacked, exhibiting their bright colours to the predator. The frog Allobates zaparo is not poisonous, but mimics the appearance of other toxic species in its locality, a strategy that may deceive predators.Many amphibians are nocturnal and hide during the day, thereby avoiding diurnal predators that hunt by sight. Other amphibians use camouflage to avoid being detected. They have various colourings such as mottled browns, greys and olives to blend into the background. Some salamanders adopt defensive poses when faced by a potential predator such as the North American northern short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda). Their bodies writhe and they raise and lash their tails which makes it difficult for the predator to avoid contact with their poison-producing granular glands. A few salamanders will autotomise their tails when attacked, sacrificing this part of their anatomy to enable them to escape. The tail may have a constriction at its base to allow it to be easily detached. The tail is regenerated later, but the energy cost to the animal of replacing it is significant.Some frogs and toads inflate themselves to make themselves look large and fierce, and some spadefoot toads (Pelobates spp) scream and leap towards the attacker. Giant salamanders of the genus Andrias, as well as Ceratophrine and Pyxicephalus frogs possess sharp teeth and are capable of drawing blood with a defensive bite. The blackbelly salamander (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) can bite an attacking common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) two or three times its size on the head and often manages to escape.Cognition In amphibians, there is evidence of habituation, associative learning through both classical and instrumental learning, and discrimination abilities.In one experiment, when offered live fruit flies (Drosophila virilis), salamanders chose the larger of 1 vs 2 and 2 vs 3. Frogs can distinguish between low numbers (1 vs 2, 2 vs 3, but not 3 vs 4) and large numbers (3 vs 6, 4 vs 8, but not 4 vs 6) of prey. This is irrespective of other characteristics, i.e. surface area, volume, weight and movement, although discrimination among large numbers may be based on surface area.Conservation Dramatic declines in amphibian populations, including population crashes and mass localized extinction, have been noted since the late 1980s from locations all over the world, and amphibian declines are thus perceived to be one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity. In 2004, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported stating that currently birds, mammals, and amphibians extinction rates were at minimum 48 times greater than natural extinction rates—possibly 1,024 times higher.In 2006, there were believed to be 4,035 species of amphibians that depended on water at some stage during their life cycle. Of these, 1,356 (33.6%) were considered to be threatened and this figure is likely to be an underestimate because it excludes 1,427 species for which there was insufficient data to assess their status. A number of causes are believed to be involved, including habitat destruction and modification, over-exploitation, pollution, introduced species, global warming, endocrine-disrupting pollutants, destruction of the ozone layer (ultraviolet radiation has shown to be especially damaging to the skin, eyes, and eggs of amphibians), and diseases like chytridiomycosis. However, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly understood, and are a topic of ongoing discussion.With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often considered to be ecological indicators. In many terrestrial ecosystems, they constitute one of the largest parts of the vertebrate biomass. Any decline in amphibian numbers will affect the patterns of predation. The loss of carnivorous species near the top of the food chain will upset the delicate ecosystem balance and may cause dramatic increases in opportunistic species. In the Middle East, a growing appetite for eating frog legs and the consequent gathering of them for food was linked to an increase in mosquitoes. Predators that feed on amphibians are affected by their decline. The western terrestrial garter snake (Thamnophis elegans) in California is largely aquatic and depends heavily on two species of frog that are decreasing in numbers, the Yosemite toad (Bufo canorus) and the mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), putting the snake's future at risk. If the snake were to become scarce, this would affect birds of prey and other predators that feed on it. Meanwhile, in the ponds and lakes, fewer frogs means fewer tadpoles. These normally play an important role in controlling the growth of algae and also forage on detritus that accumulates as sediment on the bottom. A reduction in the number of tadpoles may lead to an overgrowth of algae, resulting in depletion of oxygen in the water when the algae later die and decompose. Aquatic invertebrates and fish might then die and there would be unpredictable ecological consequences.A global strategy to stem the crisis was released in 2005 in the form of the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. Developed by over eighty leading experts in the field, this call to action details what would be required to curtail amphibian declines and extinctions over the following five years and how much this would cost. The Amphibian Specialist Group of the IUCN is spearheading efforts to implement a comprehensive global strategy for amphibian conservation. Amphibian Ark is an organization that was formed to implement the ex-situ conservation recommendations of this plan, and they have been working with zoos and aquaria around the world, encouraging them to create assurance colonies of threatened amphibians. One such project is the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project that built on existing conservation efforts in Panama to create a country-wide response to the threat of chytridiomycosis.See also  List of amphibians List of amphibian genera List of threatened reptiles and amphibians of the United StatesReferencesCited textsFurther readingExternal links  Amphibians – AnimalSpot.net ArchéoZooThèque : Amphibians skeletons drawings : available in vector, image and PDF formats Amphibian Specialist Group Amphibian Ark AmphibiaWeb Global Amphibian Assessment  Amphibian vocalisations on Archival Sound Recordings Amphibious organismsExtant Late Devonian first appearancesTaxa named by John Edward Gray
Alaska (; ; ; ; Yup'ik: Alaskaq; ) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., it borders the Canadian province of British Columbia and the territory of Yukon to the east and shares a maritime border with the Russian Federation's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug to the west, just across the Bering Strait. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas of the Arctic Ocean, while the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest.Alaska is by far the largest U.S. state by area, comprising more total area than the next three largest states (Texas, California, and Montana) combined. It represents the seventh largest subnational division in the world. It is the third-least populous and the most sparsely populated state, but by far the continent's most populous territory located mostly north of the 60th parallel, with a population of 736,081 as of 2020—more than quadruple the combined populations of Northern Canada and Greenland. Approximately half of Alaska's residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. The state capital of Juneau is the second-largest city in the United States by area, comprising more territory than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware. The former capital of Alaska, Sitka, is the largest U.S. city by area.Alaska was occupied by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The state is considered the entry point for the settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. The Russians were the first Europeans to settle the area beginning in the 18th century, eventually establishing Russian America, which spanned most of the current state. The expense and difficulty of maintaining this distant possession prompted its sale to the U.S. in 1867 for US$7.2 million (equivalent to $ million in ), or approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km2). The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.While it has one of the smallest state economies in the country, Alaska's per capita income is among the highest, owing to a diversified economy dominated by fishing, natural gas, and oil, all of which it has in abundance. United States armed forces bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy; more than half the state is federally owned public land, including a multitude of national forests, national parks, and wildlife refuges.The indigenous population of Alaska is proportionally the highest of any U.S. state, at over 15 percent. Close to two dozen native languages are spoken, and Alaskan Natives exercise considerable influence in local and state politics.EtymologyThe name "Alaska" () was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the Alaska Peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut-language idiom,  "alaxsxaq", meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". It is also known as "Alyeska", the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.HistoryPre-colonizationNumerous indigenous peoples occupied Alaska for thousands of years before the arrival of European peoples to the area. Linguistic and DNA studies done here have provided evidence for the settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. At the Upward Sun River site in the Tanana Valley in Alaska, remains of a six-week-old infant were found. The baby's DNA showed that she belonged to a population that was genetically separate from other native groups present elsewhere in the New World at the end of the Pleistocene. Ben Potter, the University of Alaska Fairbanks archaeologist who unearthed the remains at the Upward Sun River site in 2013, named this new group Ancient Beringians.The Tlingit people developed a society with a matrilineal kinship system of property inheritance and descent in what is today Southeast Alaska, along with parts of British Columbia and the Yukon. Also in Southeast were the Haida, now well known for their unique arts. The Tsimshian people came to Alaska from British Columbia in 1887, when President Grover Cleveland, and later the U.S. Congress, granted them permission to settle on Annette Island and found the town of Metlakatla. All three of these peoples, as well as other indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, experienced smallpox outbreaks from the late 18th through the mid-19th century, with the most devastating epidemics occurring in the 1830s and 1860s, resulting in high fatalities and social disruption.The Aleutian Islands are still home to the Aleut people's seafaring society, although they were the first Native Alaskans to be exploited by the Russians. Western and Southwestern Alaska are home to the Yup'ik, while their cousins the Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq live in what is now Southcentral Alaska. The Gwich'in people of the northern Interior region are Athabaskan and primarily known today for their dependence on the caribou within the much-contested Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The North Slope and Little Diomede Island are occupied by the widespread Inupiat people.ColonizationSome researchers believe the first Russian settlement in Alaska was established in the 17th century. According to this hypothesis, in 1648 several koches of Semyon Dezhnyov's expedition came ashore in Alaska by storm and founded this settlement. This hypothesis is based on the testimony of Chukchi geographer Nikolai Daurkin, who had visited Alaska in 1764–1765 and who had reported on a village on the Kheuveren River, populated by "bearded men" who "pray to the icons". Some modern researchers associate Kheuveren with Koyuk River.The first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fyodorov on August 21, 1732, during an expedition of Siberian Cossack A. F. Shestakov and Russian explorer Dmitry Pavlutsky (1729–1735). Another European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia toward the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784.Between 1774 and 1800, Spain sent several expeditions to Alaska to assert its claim over the Pacific Northwest. In 1789, a Spanish settlement and fort were built in Nootka Sound. These expeditions gave names to places such as Valdez, Bucareli Sound, and Cordova. Later, the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early-to-mid-19th century. Sitka, renamed New Archangel from 1804 to 1867, on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in what is now Southeast Alaska, became the capital of Russian America. It remained the capital after the colony was transferred to the United States. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. Evidence of Russian settlement in names and churches survive throughout southeastern Alaska.William H. Seward, the 24th United States Secretary of State, negotiated the Alaska Purchase (also known as Seward's Folly) with the Russians in 1867 for $7.2 million. Russia's contemporary ruler Tsar Alexander II, the Emperor of the Russian Empire, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, also planned the sale; the purchase was made on March 30, 1867. Six months later the commissioners arrived in Sitka and the formal transfer was arranged; the formal flag-raising took place at Fort Sitka on October 18, 1867. In the ceremony 250 uniformed U.S. soldiers marched to the governor's house at "Castle Hill", where the Russian troops lowered the Russian flag and the U.S. flag was raised. This event is celebrated as Alaska Day, a legal holiday on October 18.Alaska was loosely governed by the military initially, and was administered as a district starting in 1884, with a governor appointed by the United States president. A federal district court was headquartered in Sitka. For most of Alaska's first decade under the United States flag, Sitka was the only community inhabited by American settlers. They organized a "provisional city government", which was Alaska's first municipal government, but not in a legal sense. Legislation allowing Alaskan communities to legally incorporate as cities did not come about until 1900, and home rule for cities was extremely limited or unavailable until statehood took effect in 1959.Alaska as an incorporated U.S. territoryStarting in the 1890s and stretching in some places to the early 1910s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was officially incorporated as an organized territory in 1912. Alaska's capital, which had been in Sitka until 1906, was moved north to Juneau. Construction of the Alaska Governor's Mansion began that same year. European immigrants from Norway and Sweden also settled in southeast Alaska, where they entered the fishing and logging industries.During World War II, the Aleutian Islands Campaign focused on Attu, Agattu and Kiska, all which were occupied by the Empire of Japan. During the Japanese occupation, a white American civilian and two United States Navy personnel were killed at Attu and Kiska respectively, and nearly a total of 50 Aleut civilians and eight sailors were interned in Japan. About half of the Aleuts died during the period of internment. Unalaska/Dutch Harbor and Adak became significant bases for the United States Army, United States Army Air Forces and United States Navy. The United States Lend-Lease program involved flying American warplanes through Canada to Fairbanks and then Nome; Soviet pilots took possession of these aircraft, ferrying them to fight the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.StatehoodStatehood for Alaska was an important cause of James Wickersham early in his tenure as a congressional delegate. Decades later, the statehood movement gained its first real momentum following a territorial referendum in 1946. The Alaska Statehood Committee and Alaska's Constitutional Convention would soon follow. Statehood supporters also found themselves fighting major battles against political foes, mostly in the U.S. Congress but also within Alaska. Statehood was approved by the U.S. Congress on July 7, 1958; Alaska was officially proclaimed a state on January 3, 1959.Good Friday earthquakeOn March 27, 1964, the massive Good Friday earthquake killed 133 people and destroyed several villages and portions of large coastal communities, mainly by the resultant tsunamis and landslides. It was the second-most-powerful earthquake in recorded history, with a moment magnitude of 9.2 (more than a thousand times as powerful as the 1989 San Francisco earthquake). The time of day (5:36 pm), time of year (spring) and location of the epicenter were all cited as factors in potentially sparing thousands of lives, particularly in Anchorage.Alaska oil boom The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System led to an oil boom. Royalty revenues from oil have funded large state budgets from 1980 onward.That same year, not coincidentally, Alaska repealed its state income tax.In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Prince William Sound, spilling more than  of crude oil over  of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the proposed Pebble Mine.GeographyLocated at the northwest corner of North America, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States, but also has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about  of British Columbia (Canada) separates Alaska from Washington. It is technically part of the continental U.S., but is sometimes not included in colloquial use; Alaska is not part of the contiguous U.S., often called "the Lower 48". The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system.The state is bordered by Canada's Yukon and British Columbia to the east (making it the only state to border a Canadian territory); the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south and southwest; the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west; and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only  apart. Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.At  in area, Alaska is by far the largest state in the United States, and is more than twice the size of the second-largest U.S. state, Texas. Alaska is the seventh largest subnational division in the world, and if it was an independent nation would be the 16th largest country in the world, as it is larger than Iran.With its myriad islands, Alaska has nearly  of tidal shoreline. The Aleutian Islands chain extends west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians and in coastal regions. Unimak Island, for example, is home to Mount Shishaldin, which is an occasionally smoldering volcano that rises to  above the North Pacific. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland. Geologists have identified Alaska as part of Wrangellia, a large region consisting of multiple states and Canadian provinces in the Pacific Northwest, which is actively undergoing continent building.One of the world's largest tides occurs in Turnagain Arm, just south of Anchorage, where tidal differences can be more than .Alaska has more than three million lakes. Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover  (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Glacier ice covers about  of Alaska. The Bering Glacier is the largest glacier in North America, covering  alone.RegionsThere are no officially defined borders demarcating the various regions of Alaska, but there are six widely accepted regions:South CentralThe most populous region of Alaska, containing Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and the Kenai Peninsula. Rural, mostly unpopulated areas south of the Alaska Range and west of the Wrangell Mountains also fall within the definition of South Central, as do the Prince William Sound area and the communities of Cordova and Valdez.SoutheastAlso referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the contiguous states. As such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the United States. It contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaska's largest city. The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital surface transportation link throughout the area and country, as only three communities (Haines, Hyder and Skagway) enjoy direct connections to the contiguous North American road system.InteriorThe Interior is the largest region of Alaska; much of it is uninhabited wilderness. Fairbanks is the only large city in the region. Denali National Park and Preserve is located here. Denali, formerly Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain in North America, and is also located here.SouthwestSouthwest Alaska is a sparsely inhabited region stretching some  inland from the Bering Sea. Most of the population lives along the coast. Kodiak Island is also located in Southwest. The massive Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world, is here. Portions of the Alaska Peninsula are considered part of Southwest, with the remaining portions included with the Aleutian Islands (see below).North SlopeThe North Slope is mostly tundra peppered with small villages. The area is known for its massive reserves of crude oil and contains both the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska and the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. The city of Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, is the northernmost city in the United States and is located here. The Northwest Arctic area, anchored by Kotzebue and also containing the Kobuk River valley, is often regarded as being part of this region. However, the respective Inupiat of the North Slope and of the Northwest Arctic seldom consider themselves to be one people.Aleutian IslandsMore than 300 small volcanic islands make up this chain, which stretches more than  into the Pacific Ocean. Some of these islands fall in the Eastern Hemisphere, but the International Date Line was drawn west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire North American continent, within the same legal day. Two of the islands, Attu and Kiska, were occupied by Japanese forces during World War II.Land ownership According to an October 1998 report by the United States Bureau of Land Management, approximately 65% of Alaska is owned and managed by the U.S. federal government as public lands, including a multitude of national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. Of these, the Bureau of Land Management manages , or 23.8% of the state. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the world's largest wildlife refuge, comprising .Of the remaining land area, the state of Alaska owns , its entitlement under the Alaska Statehood Act. A portion of that acreage is occasionally ceded to the organized boroughs presented above, under the statutory provisions pertaining to newly formed boroughs. Smaller portions are set aside for rural subdivisions and other homesteading-related opportunities. These are not very popular due to the often remote and roadless locations. The University of Alaska, as a land grant university, also owns substantial acreage which it manages independently.Another  are owned by 12 regional, and scores of local, Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. Regional Native corporation Doyon, Limited often promotes itself as the largest private landowner in Alaska in advertisements and other communications. Provisions of ANCSA allowing the corporations' land holdings to be sold on the open market starting in 1991 were repealed before they could take effect. Effectively, the corporations hold title (including subsurface title in many cases, a privilege denied to individual Alaskans) but cannot sell the land. Individual Native allotments can be and are sold on the open market, however.Various private interests own the remaining land, totaling about one percent of the state. Alaska is, by a large margin, the state with the smallest percentage of private land ownership when Native corporation holdings are excluded.Alaska Heritage Resources Survey The Alaska Heritage Resources Survey (AHRS) is a restricted inventory of all reported historic and prehistoric sites within the U.S. state of Alaska; it is maintained by the Office of History and Archaeology. The survey's inventory of cultural resources includes objects, structures, buildings, sites, districts, and travel ways, with a general provision that they are more than fifty years old. , more than 35,000 sites have been reported.Cities, towns and boroughsAlaska is not divided into counties, as most of the other U.S. states, but it is divided into boroughs. Delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention wanted to avoid the pitfalls of the traditional county system and adopted their own unique model. Many of the more densely populated parts of the state are part of Alaska's 16 boroughs, which function somewhat similarly to counties in other states. However, unlike county-equivalents in the other 49 states, the boroughs do not cover the entire land area of the state. The area not part of any borough is referred to as the Unorganized Borough.The Unorganized Borough has no government of its own, but the U.S. Census Bureau in cooperation with the state divided the Unorganized Borough into 11 census areas solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation. A recording district is a mechanism for management of the public record in Alaska. The state is divided into 34 recording districts which are centrally administered under a state recorder. All recording districts use the same acceptance criteria, fee schedule, etc., for accepting documents into the public record.Whereas many U.S. states use a three-tiered system of decentralization—state/county/township—most of Alaska uses only two tiers—state/borough. Owing to the low population density, most of the land is located in the Unorganized Borough. As the name implies, it has no intermediate borough government but is administered directly by the state government. In 2000, 57.71% of Alaska's area has this status, with 13.05% of the population.Anchorage merged the city government with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough in 1975 to form the Municipality of Anchorage, containing the city proper and the communities of Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek, Girdwood, Bird, and Indian. Fairbanks has a separate borough (the Fairbanks North Star Borough) and municipality (the City of Fairbanks).The state's most populous city is Anchorage, home to 291,247 people in 2020. The richest location in Alaska by per capita income is Denali ($42,245). Yakutat City, Sitka, Juneau, and Anchorage are the four largest cities in the U.S. by area.Cities and census-designated places (by population)As reflected in the 2020 United States census, Alaska has a total of 355 incorporated cities and census-designated places (CDPs). The tally of cities includes four unified municipalities, essentially the equivalent of a consolidated city–county. The majority of these communities are located in the rural expanse of Alaska known as "The Bush" and are unconnected to the contiguous North American road network. The table at the bottom of this section lists the 100 largest cities and census-designated places in Alaska, in population order.Of Alaska's 2020 U.S. census population figure of 733,391, 16,655 people, or 2.27% of the population, did not live in an incorporated city or census-designated place. Approximately three-quarters of that figure were people who live in urban and suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city limits of Ketchikan, Kodiak, Palmer and Wasilla. CDPs have not been established for these areas by the United States Census Bureau, except that seven CDPs were established for the Ketchikan-area neighborhoods in the 1980 Census (Clover Pass, Herring Cove, Ketchikan East, Mountain Point, North Tongass Highway, Pennock Island and Saxman East), but have not been used since. The remaining population was scattered throughout Alaska, both within organized boroughs and in the Unorganized Borough, in largely remote areas.ClimateThe climate in south and southeastern Alaska is a mid-latitude oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb), and a subarctic oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) in the northern parts. On an annual basis, the southeast is both the wettest and warmest part of Alaska with milder temperatures in the winter and high precipitation throughout the year. Juneau averages over  of precipitation a year, and Ketchikan averages over . This is also the only region in Alaska in which the average daytime high temperature is above freezing during the winter months.The climate of Anchorage and south central Alaska is mild by Alaskan standards due to the region's proximity to the seacoast. While the area gets less rain than southeast Alaska, it gets more snow, and days tend to be clearer. On average, Anchorage receives  of precipitation a year, with around  of snow, although there are areas in the south central which receive far more snow. It is a subarctic climate (Köppen: Dfc) due to its brief, cool summers.The climate of western Alaska is determined in large part by the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. It is a subarctic oceanic climate in the southwest and a continental subarctic climate farther north. The temperature is somewhat moderate considering how far north the area is. This region has a tremendous amount of variety in precipitation. An area stretching from the northern side of the Seward Peninsula to the Kobuk River valley (i.e., the region around Kotzebue Sound) is technically a desert, with portions receiving less than  of precipitation annually. On the other extreme, some locations between Dillingham and Bethel average around  of precipitation.The climate of the interior of Alaska is subarctic. Some of the highest and lowest temperatures in Alaska occur around the area near Fairbanks. The summers may have temperatures reaching into the 90s °F (the low-to-mid 30s °C), while in the winter, the temperature can fall below . Precipitation is sparse in the Interior, often less than  a year, but what precipitation falls in the winter tends to stay the entire winter.The highest and lowest recorded temperatures in Alaska are both in the Interior. The highest is  in Fort Yukon (which is just  inside the arctic circle) on June 27, 1915, making Alaska tied with Hawaii as the state with the lowest high temperature in the United States. The lowest official Alaska temperature is  in Prospect Creek on January 23, 1971, one degree above the lowest temperature recorded in continental North America (in Snag, Yukon, Canada).The climate in the extreme north of Alaska is Arctic (Köppen: ET) with long, very cold winters and short, cool summers. Even in July, the average low temperature in Utqiaġvik is . Precipitation is light in this part of Alaska, with many places averaging less than  per year, mostly as snow which stays on the ground almost the entire year.DemographicsThe United States Census Bureau found in the 2020 United States census that the population of Alaska was 736,081 on April 1, 2020, a 3.6% increase since the 2010 United States census. According to the 2010 United States census, the U.S. state of Alaska had a population of 710,231, increasing from 626,932 at the 2000 U.S. census.In 2010, Alaska ranked as the 47th state by population, ahead of North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming (and Washington, D.C.). Estimates show North Dakota ahead . Alaska is the least densely populated state, and one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world, at , with the next state, Wyoming, at . Alaska is by far the largest U.S. state by area, and the tenth wealthiest (per capita income).  due to its population size, it is one of 14 U.S. states that still have only one telephone area code.Race and ethnicityThe 2019 American Community Survey estimated 60.2% of the population was non-Hispanic white, 3.7% Black or African American, 15.6% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.5% Asian, 1.4% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 7.5% two or more races, and 7.3% Hispanic or Latin American of any race. At the survey estimates, 7.8% of the total population was foreign-born from 2015 to 2019. In 2015, 61.3% was non-Hispanic white, 3.4% Black or African American, 13.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.2% Asian, 0.9% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 0.3% some other race, and 7.7% multiracial. Hispanics and Latin Americans were 7% of the state population in 2015. From 2015 to 2019, the largest Hispanic and Latin American groups were Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. The largest Asian groups living in the state were Filipinos, Korean Americans, and Japanese and Chinese Americans.The state was 66.7% White (64.1% non-Hispanic white), 14.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 5.4% Asian, 3.3% Black or African American, 1.0% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 1.6% from some other race, and 7.3% from two or more races in 2010. Hispanics or Latin Americans of any race made up 5.5% of the population in 2010. , 50.7% of Alaska's population younger than one year of age belonged to minority groups (i.e., did not have two parents of non-Hispanic white ancestry). In 1960, the United States Census Bureau reported Alaska's population as 77.2% White, 3% Black, and 18.8% American Indian and Alaska Native.LanguagesAccording to the 2011 American Community Survey, 83.4% of people over the age of five spoke only English at home. About 3.5% spoke Spanish at home, 2.2% spoke another Indo-European language, about 4.3% spoke an Asian language (including Tagalog), and about 5.3% spoke other languages at home. In 2019, the American Community Survey determined 83.7% spoke only English, and 16.3% spoke another language other than English. The most spoken European language after English was Spanish, spoken by approximately 4.0% of the state population. Collectively, Asian and Pacific Islander languages were spoken by 5.6% of Alaskans. Since 2010, a total of 5.2% of Alaskans speak one of the state's 20 indigenous languages, known locally as "native languages".The Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks claims that at least 20 Alaskan native languages exist and there are also some languages with different dialects. Most of Alaska's native languages belong to either the Eskimo–Aleut or Na-Dene language families; however, some languages are thought to be isolates (e.g. Haida) or have not yet been classified (e.g. Tsimshianic).  nearly all of Alaska's native languages were classified as either threatened, shifting, moribund, nearly extinct, or dormant languages.In October 2014, the governor of Alaska signed a bill declaring the state's 20 indigenous languages to have official status. This bill gave them symbolic recognition as official languages, though they have not been adopted for official use within the government. The 20 languages that were included in the bill are: Inupiaq Siberian Yupik Central Alaskan Yup'ik Alutiiq Unangax Dena'ina Deg Xinag Holikachuk Koyukon Upper Kuskokwim Gwich'in Tanana Upper Tanana Tanacross Hän Ahtna Eyak Tlingit Haida TsimshianReligionAccording to statistics collected by the Association of Religion Data Archives from 2010, about 34% of Alaska residents were members of religious congregations. Of the religious population, 100,960 people identified as evangelical Protestants; 50,866 as Roman Catholic; and 32,550 as mainline Protestants. Roughly 4% were Mormon, 0.5% Jewish, 0.5% Muslim, 1% Buddhist, 0.2% Baháʼí, and 0.5% Hindu. The largest religious denominations in Alaska  was the Catholic Church with 50,866 adherents; non-denominational Evangelicals with 38,070 adherents; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 32,170 adherents; and the Southern Baptist Convention with 19,891 adherents. Alaska has been identified, along with Pacific Northwest states Washington and Oregon, as being the least religious states of the USA, in terms of church membership.The Pew Research Center in 2014 determined 62% of the adult population practiced Christianity. Protestantism was the largest Christian tradition, dominated by Evangelicalism. Mainline Protestants were the second largest Protestant Christian group, followed by predominantly African American churches. The Catholic Church remained the largest single Christian tradition practiced in Alaska. Of the unaffiliated population, they made up the largest non-Christian religious affiliation. Atheists made up 5% of the population and the largest non-Christian religion was Buddhism.In 1795, the first Russian Orthodox Church was established in Kodiak. Intermarriage with Alaskan Natives helped the Russian immigrants integrate into society. As a result, an increasing number of Russian Orthodox churches gradually became established within Alaska. Alaska also has the largest Quaker population (by percentage) of any state. In 2009, there were 6,000 Jews in Alaska (for whom observance of halakha may pose special problems). Alaskan Hindus often share venues and celebrations with members of other Asian religious communities, including Sikhs and Jains. In 2010, Alaskan Hindus established the Sri Ganesha Temple of Alaska, making it the first Hindu Temple in Alaska and the northernmost Hindu Temple in the world. There are an estimated 2,000–3,000 Hindus in Alaska. The vast majority of Hindus live in Anchorage or Fairbanks.Estimates for the number of Muslims in Alaska range from 2,000 to 5,000. The Islamic Community Center of Anchorage began efforts in the late 1990s to construct a mosque in Anchorage. They broke ground on a building in south Anchorage in 2010 and were nearing completion in late 2014. When completed, the mosque will be the first in the state and one of the northernmost mosques in the world. There's also a Baháʼí center.EconomyAs of 2016, Alaska had a total employment of 266,072. The number of employer establishments was 21,077.The 2018 gross state product was $55 billion, 48th in the U.S.. Its per capita personal income for 2018 was $73,000, ranking 7th in the nation. According to a 2013 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Alaska had the fifth-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 6.75 percent. The oil and gas industry dominates the Alaskan economy, with more than 80% of the state's revenues derived from petroleum extraction. Alaska's main export product (excluding oil and natural gas) is seafood, primarily salmon, cod, Pollock and crab.Agriculture represents a very small fraction of the Alaskan economy. Agricultural production is primarily for consumption within the state and includes nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock. Manufacturing is limited, with most foodstuffs and general goods imported from elsewhere.Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. Military bases are a significant component of the economy in the Fairbanks North Star, Anchorage and Kodiak Island boroughs, as well as Kodiak. Federal subsidies are also an important part of the economy, allowing the state to keep taxes low. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products. There is also a growing service and tourism sector. Tourists have contributed to the economy by supporting local lodging.EnergyAlaska has vast energy resources, although its oil reserves have been largely depleted. Major oil and gas reserves were found in the Alaska North Slope (ANS) and Cook Inlet basins, but according to the Energy Information Administration, by February 2014 Alaska had fallen to fourth place in the nation in crude oil production after Texas, North Dakota, and California. Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope is still the second highest-yielding oil field in the United States, typically producing about , although by early 2014 North Dakota's Bakken Formation was producing over . Prudhoe Bay was the largest conventional oil field ever discovered in North America, but was much smaller than Canada's enormous Athabasca oil sands field, which by 2014 was producing about  of unconventional oil, and had hundreds of years of producible reserves at that rate.The Trans-Alaska Pipeline can transport and pump up to  of crude oil per day, more than any other crude oil pipeline in the United States. Additionally, substantial coal deposits are found in Alaska's bituminous, sub-bituminous, and lignite coal basins. The United States Geological Survey estimates that there are  of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas from natural gas hydrates on the Alaskan North Slope. Alaska also offers some of the highest hydroelectric power potential in the country from its numerous rivers. Large swaths of the Alaskan coastline offer wind and geothermal energy potential as well.Alaska's economy depends heavily on increasingly expensive diesel fuel for heating, transportation, electric power and light. Although wind and hydroelectric power are abundant and underdeveloped, proposals for statewide energy systems (e.g. with special low-cost electric interties) were judged uneconomical (at the time of the report, 2001) due to low (less than 50¢/gal) fuel prices, long distances and low population. The cost of a gallon of gas in urban Alaska today is usually thirty to sixty cents higher than the national average; prices in rural areas are generally significantly higher but vary widely depending on transportation costs, seasonal usage peaks, nearby petroleum development infrastructure and many other factors.Permanent FundThe Alaska Permanent Fund is a constitutionally authorized appropriation of oil revenues, established by voters in 1976 to manage a surplus in state petroleum revenues from oil, largely in anticipation of the then recently constructed Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The fund was originally proposed by Governor Keith Miller on the eve of the 1969 Prudhoe Bay lease sale, out of fear that the legislature would spend the entire proceeds of the sale (which amounted to $900 million) at once. It was later championed by Governor Jay Hammond and Kenai state representative Hugh Malone. It has served as an attractive political prospect ever since, diverting revenues which would normally be deposited into the general fund.The Alaska Constitution was written so as to discourage dedicating state funds for a particular purpose. The Permanent Fund has become the rare exception to this, mostly due to the political climate of distrust existing during the time of its creation. From its initial principal of $734,000, the fund has grown to $50 billion as a result of oil royalties and capital investment programs. Most if not all the principal is invested conservatively outside Alaska. This has led to frequent calls by Alaskan politicians for the Fund to make investments within Alaska, though such a stance has never gained momentum.Starting in 1982, dividends from the fund's annual growth have been paid out each year to eligible Alaskans, ranging from an initial $1,000 in 1982 (equal to three years' payout, as the distribution of payments was held up in a lawsuit over the distribution scheme) to $3,269 in 2008 (which included a one-time $1,200 "Resource Rebate"). Every year, the state legislature takes out 8% from the earnings, puts 3% back into the principal for inflation proofing, and the remaining 5% is distributed to all qualifying Alaskans. To qualify for the Permanent Fund Dividend, one must have lived in the state for a minimum of 12 months, maintain constant residency subject to allowable absences, and not be subject to court judgments or criminal convictions which fall under various disqualifying classifications or may subject the payment amount to civil garnishment.The Permanent Fund is often considered to be one of the leading examples of a basic income policy in the world.Cost of livingThe cost of goods in Alaska has long been higher than in the contiguous 48 states. Federal government employees, particularly United States Postal Service (USPS) workers and active-duty military members, receive a Cost of Living Allowance usually set at 25% of base pay because, while the cost of living has gone down, it is still one of the highest in the country.Rural Alaska suffers from extremely high prices for food and consumer goods compared to the rest of the country, due to the relatively limited transportation infrastructure.Agriculture and fishingDue to the northern climate and short growing season, relatively little farming occurs in Alaska. Most farms are in either the Matanuska Valley, about  northeast of Anchorage, or on the Kenai Peninsula, about  southwest of Anchorage. The short 100-day growing season limits the crops that can be grown, but the long sunny summer days make for productive growing seasons. The primary crops are potatoes, carrots, lettuce, and cabbage.The Tanana Valley is another notable agricultural locus, especially the Delta Junction area, about  southeast of Fairbanks, with a sizable concentration of farms growing agronomic crops; these farms mostly lie north and east of Fort Greely. This area was largely set aside and developed under a state program spearheaded by Hammond during his second term as governor. Delta-area crops consist predominantly of barley and hay. West of Fairbanks lies another concentration of small farms catering to restaurants, the hotel and tourist industry, and community-supported agriculture.Alaskan agriculture has experienced a surge in growth of market gardeners, small farms and farmers' markets in recent years, with the highest percentage increase (46%) in the nation in growth in farmers' markets in 2011, compared to 17% nationwide. The peony industry has also taken off, as the growing season allows farmers to harvest during a gap in supply elsewhere in the world, thereby filling a niche in the flower market.Alaska, with no counties, lacks county fairs. However, a small assortment of state and local fairs (with the Alaska State Fair in Palmer the largest), are held mostly in the late summer. The fairs are mostly located in communities with historic or current agricultural activity, and feature local farmers exhibiting produce in addition to more high-profile commercial activities such as carnival rides, concerts and food. "Alaska Grown" is used as an agricultural slogan.Alaska has an abundance of seafood, with the primary fisheries in the Bering Sea and the North Pacific. Seafood is one of the few food items that is often cheaper within the state than outside it. Many Alaskans take advantage of salmon seasons to harvest portions of their household diet while fishing for subsistence, as well as sport. This includes fish taken by hook, net or wheel.Hunting for subsistence, primarily caribou, moose, and Dall sheep is still common in the state, particularly in remote Bush communities. An example of a traditional native food is Akutaq, the Eskimo ice cream, which can consist of reindeer fat, seal oil, dried fish meat and local berries.Alaska's reindeer herding is concentrated on Seward Peninsula, where wild caribou can be prevented from mingling and migrating with the domesticated reindeer.Most food in Alaska is transported into the state from "Outside" (the other 49 US states), and shipping costs make food in the cities relatively expensive. In rural areas, subsistence hunting and gathering is an essential activity because imported food is prohibitively expensive. Although most small towns and villages in Alaska lie along the coastline, the cost of importing food to remote villages can be high, because of the terrain and difficult road conditions, which change dramatically, due to varying climate and precipitation changes. The cost of transport can reach as high as 50¢ per pound ($1.10/kg) or more in some remote areas, during the most difficult times, if these locations can be reached at all during such inclement weather and terrain conditions. The cost of delivering a  of milk is about $3.50 in many villages where per capita income can be $20,000 or less. Fuel cost per gallon is routinely twenty to thirty cents higher than the contiguous United States average, with only Hawaii having higher prices.CultureSome of Alaska's popular annual events are the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, the Blueberry Festival and Alaska Hummingbird Festival in Ketchikan, the Sitka Whale Fest, and the Stikine River Garnet Fest in Wrangell. The Stikine River attracts the largest springtime concentration of American bald eagles in the world.The Alaska Native Heritage Center celebrates the rich heritage of Alaska's 11 cultural groups. Their purpose is to encourage cross-cultural exchanges among all people and enhance self-esteem among Native people. The Alaska Native Arts Foundation promotes and markets Native art from all regions and cultures in the State, using the internet.MusicInfluences on music in Alaska include the traditional music of Alaska Natives as well as folk music brought by later immigrants from Russia and Europe. Prominent musicians from Alaska include singer Jewel, traditional Aleut flautist Mary Youngblood, folk singer-songwriter Libby Roderick, Christian music singer-songwriter Lincoln Brewster, metal/post hardcore band 36 Crazyfists and the groups Pamyua and Portugal. The Man.There are many established music festivals in Alaska, including the Alaska Folk Festival, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival the Anchorage Folk Festival, the Athabascan Old-Time Fiddling Festival, the Sitka Jazz Festival, and the Sitka Summer Music Festival. The most prominent orchestra in Alaska is the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, though the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and Juneau Symphony are also notable. The Anchorage Opera is currently the state's only professional opera company, though there are several volunteer and semi-professional organizations in the state as well.The official state song of Alaska is "Alaska's Flag", which was adopted in 1955; it celebrates the flag of Alaska.Alaska in film and on televisionAlaska's first independent picture entirely made in Alaska was The Chechahcos, produced by Alaskan businessman Austin E. Lathrop and filmed in and around Anchorage. Released in 1924 by the Alaska Moving Picture Corporation, it was the only film the company made.One of the most prominent movies filmed in Alaska is MGM's Eskimo/Mala The Magnificent, starring Alaska Native Ray Mala. In 1932, an expedition set out from MGM's studios in Hollywood to Alaska to film what was then billed as "The Biggest Picture Ever Made". Upon arriving in Alaska, they set up "Camp Hollywood" in Northwest Alaska, where they lived during the duration of the filming. Louis B. Mayer spared no expense in spite of the remote location, going so far as to hire the chef from the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to prepare meals.When Eskimo premiered at the Astor Theatre in New York City, the studio received the largest amount of feedback in its history. Eskimo was critically acclaimed and released worldwide; as a result, Mala became an international movie star. Eskimo won the first Oscar for Best Film Editing at the Academy Awards, and showcased and preserved aspects of Inupiat culture on film.The 1983 Disney movie Never Cry Wolf was at least partially shot in Alaska. The 1991 film White Fang, based on Jack London's 1906 novel and starring Ethan Hawke, was filmed in and around Haines. Steven Seagal's 1994 On Deadly Ground, starring Michael Caine, was filmed in part at the Worthington Glacier near Valdez. The 1999 John Sayles film Limbo, starring David Strathairn, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Kris Kristofferson, was filmed in Juneau.The psychological thriller Insomnia, starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, was shot in Canada, but was set in Alaska. The 2007 film directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild, was partially filmed and set in Alaska. The film, which is based on the novel of the same name, follows the adventures of Christopher McCandless, who died in a remote abandoned bus along the Stampede Trail west of Healy in 1992.Many films and television shows set in Alaska are not filmed there; for example, Northern Exposure, set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, was filmed in Roslyn, Washington. The 2007 horror feature 30 Days of Night is set in Barrow, Alaska, but was filmed in New Zealand.Many reality television shows are filmed in Alaska. In 2011, the Anchorage Daily News found ten set in the state.Public health and public safetyThe Alaska State Troopers are Alaska's statewide police force. They have a long and storied history, but were not an official organization until 1941. Before the force was officially organized, law enforcement in Alaska was handled by various federal agencies. Larger towns usually have their own local police and some villages rely on "Public Safety Officers" who have police training but do not carry firearms. In much of the state, the troopers serve as the only police force available. In addition to enforcing traffic and criminal law, wildlife Troopers enforce hunting and fishing regulations. Due to the varied terrain and wide scope of the Troopers' duties, they employ a wide variety of land, air, and water patrol vehicles.Many rural communities in Alaska are considered "dry", having outlawed the importation of alcoholic beverages. Suicide rates for rural residents are higher than urban.Domestic abuse and other violent crimes are also at high levels in the state; this is in part linked to alcohol abuse. Alaska has the highest rate of sexual assault in the nation, especially in rural areas. The average age of sexually assaulted victims is 16 years old. In four out of five cases, the suspects were relatives, friends or acquaintances.EducationThe Alaska Department of Education and Early Development administers many school districts in Alaska. In addition, the state operates a boarding school, Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, and provides partial funding for other boarding schools, including Nenana Student Living Center in Nenana and The Galena Interior Learning Academy in Galena.There are more than a dozen colleges and universities in Alaska. Accredited universities in Alaska include the University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Alaska Southeast, and Alaska Pacific University. Alaska is the only state that has no institutions that are part of NCAA Division I.The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development operates AVTEC, Alaska's Institute of Technology. Campuses in Seward and Anchorage offer one-week to 11-month training programs in areas as diverse as Information Technology, Welding, Nursing, and Mechanics.Alaska has had a problem with a "brain drain". Many of its young people, including most of the highest academic achievers, leave the state after high school graduation and do not return. , Alaska did not have a law school or medical school. The University of Alaska has attempted to combat this by offering partial four-year scholarships to the top 10% of Alaska high school graduates, via the Alaska Scholars Program.Beginning in 1998, schools in rural Alaska must have at least 10 students to retain funding from the state, and campuses not meeting the number close. This was due to the loss in oil revenues that previously propped up smaller rural schools. In 2015, there was a proposal to raise that minimum to 25, but legislators in the state largely did not agree.TransportationRoadsAlaska has few road connections compared to the rest of the U.S. The state's road system, covering a relatively small area of the state, linking the central population centers and the Alaska Highway, the principal route out of the state through Canada. The state capital, Juneau, is not accessible by road, only a car ferry; this has spurred debate over decades about moving the capital to a city on the road system, or building a road connection from Haines. The western part of Alaska has no road system connecting the communities with the rest of Alaska.The Interstate Highways in Alaska consists of a total of . One unique feature of the Alaska Highway system is the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, an active Alaska Railroad tunnel recently upgraded to provide a paved roadway link with the isolated community of Whittier on Prince William Sound to the Seward Highway about  southeast of Anchorage at Portage. At , the tunnel was the longest road tunnel in North America until 2007. The tunnel is the longest combination road and rail tunnel in North America.RailBuilt around 1915, the Alaska Railroad (ARR) played a key role in the development of Alaska through the 20th century. It links north Pacific shipping through providing critical infrastructure with tracks that run from Seward to Interior Alaska by way of South Central Alaska, passing through Anchorage, Eklutna, Wasilla, Talkeetna, Denali, and Fairbanks, with spurs to Whittier, Palmer and North Pole. The cities, towns, villages, and region served by ARR tracks are known statewide as "The Railbelt". In recent years, the ever-improving paved highway system began to eclipse the railroad's importance in Alaska's economy.The railroad played a vital role in Alaska's development, moving freight into Alaska while transporting natural resources southward, such as coal from the Usibelli coal mine near Healy to Seward and gravel from the Matanuska Valley to Anchorage. It is well known for its summertime tour passenger service.The Alaska Railroad was one of the last railroads in North America to use cabooses in regular service and still uses them on some gravel trains. It continues to offer one of the last flag stop routes in the country. A stretch of about  of track along an area north of Talkeetna remains inaccessible by road; the railroad provides the only transportation to rural homes and cabins in the area. Until construction of the Parks Highway in the 1970s, the railroad provided the only land access to most of the region along its entire route.In northern Southeast Alaska, the White Pass and Yukon Route also partly runs through the state from Skagway northwards into Canada (British Columbia and Yukon Territory), crossing the border at White Pass Summit. This line is now mainly used by tourists, often arriving by cruise liner at Skagway. It was featured in the 1983 BBC television series Great Little Railways.The Alaska Rail network is not connected to Outside. (The nearest link to the North American railway network is the northwest terminus of the Canadian National Railway at Prince Rupert, British Columbia, several hundred miles to the southeast.) In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized $6 million to study the feasibility of a rail link between Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48.Some private companies provides car float service between Whittier and Seattle.Marine transportMany cities, towns and villages in the state do not have road or highway access; the only modes of access involve travel by air, river, or the sea.Alaska's well-developed state-owned ferry system (known as the Alaska Marine Highway) serves the cities of southeast, the Gulf Coast and the Alaska Peninsula. The ferries transport vehicles as well as passengers. The system also operates a ferry service from Bellingham, Washington and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, in Canada through the Inside Passage to Skagway. The Inter-Island Ferry Authority also serves as an important marine link for many communities in the Prince of Wales Island region of Southeast and works in concert with the Alaska Marine Highway.In recent years, cruise lines have created a summertime tourism market, mainly connecting the Pacific Northwest to Southeast Alaska and, to a lesser degree, towns along Alaska's gulf coast. The population of Ketchikan for example fluctuates dramatically on many days—up to four large cruise ships can dock there at the same time.Air transportCities not served by road, sea, or river can be reached only by air, foot, dogsled, or snowmachine, accounting for Alaska's extremely well developed bush air services—an Alaskan novelty. Anchorage and, to a lesser extent Fairbanks, is served by many major airlines. Because of limited highway access, air travel remains the most efficient form of transportation in and out of the state. Anchorage recently completed extensive remodeling and construction at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to help accommodate the upsurge in tourism (in 2012–2013, Alaska received almost two million visitors).Regular flights to most villages and towns within the state that are commercially viable are challenging to provide, so they are heavily subsidized by the federal government through the Essential Air Service program. Alaska Airlines is the only major airline offering in-state travel with jet service (sometimes in combination cargo and passenger Boeing 737-400s) from Anchorage and Fairbanks to regional hubs like Bethel, Nome, Kotzebue, Dillingham, Kodiak, and other larger communities as well as to major Southeast and Alaska Peninsula communities.The bulk of remaining commercial flight offerings come from small regional commuter airlines such as Ravn Alaska, PenAir, and Frontier Flying Service. The smallest towns and villages must rely on scheduled or chartered bush flying services using general aviation aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan, the most popular aircraft in use in the state. Much of this service can be attributed to the Alaska bypass mail program which subsidizes bulk mail delivery to Alaskan rural communities. The program requires 70% of that subsidy to go to carriers who offer passenger service to the communities.Many communities have small air taxi services. These operations originated from the demand for customized transport to remote areas. Perhaps the most quintessentially Alaskan plane is the bush seaplane. The world's busiest seaplane base is Lake Hood, located next to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, where flights bound for remote villages without an airstrip carry passengers, cargo, and many items from stores and warehouse clubs.In 2006, Alaska had the highest number of pilots per capita of any U.S. state. In Alaska there are 8,795 active pilot certificates as of 2020.  Of these, there are 2,507 Private, 1,496 Commercial, 2,180 Airline Transport, and 2,239 Student. There are also 3,987 pilots with a Instrument rating and 1,511 Flight Instructors.Other transportAnother Alaskan transportation method is the dogsled. In modern times (that is, any time after the mid-late 1920s), dog mushing is more of a sport than a true means of transportation. Various races are held around the state, but the best known is the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, a  trail from Anchorage to Nome (although the distance varies from year to year, the official distance is set at ). The race commemorates the famous 1925 serum run to Nome in which mushers and dogs like Togo and Balto took much-needed medicine to the diphtheria-stricken community of Nome when all other means of transportation had failed. Mushers from all over the world come to Anchorage each March to compete for cash, prizes, and prestige. The "Serum Run" is another sled dog race that more accurately follows the route of the famous 1925 relay, leaving from the community of Nenana (southwest of Fairbanks) to Nome.In areas not served by road or rail, primary transportation in summer is by all-terrain vehicle and in winter by snowmobile or "snow machine", as it is commonly referred to in Alaska.Data transportAlaska's internet and other data transport systems are provided largely through the two major telecommunications companies: GCI and Alaska Communications. GCI owns and operates what it calls the Alaska United Fiber Optic system and, as of late 2011, Alaska Communications advertised that it has "two fiber optic paths to the lower 48 and two more across Alaska. In January 2011, it was reported that a $1 billion project to connect Asia and rural Alaska was being planned, aided in part by $350 million in stimulus from the federal government.Law and governmentState governmentLike all other U.S. states, Alaska is governed as a republic, with three branches of government: an executive branch consisting of the governor of Alaska and his or her appointees which head executive departments; a legislative branch consisting of the Alaska House of Representatives and Alaska Senate; and a judicial branch consisting of the Alaska Supreme Court and lower courts.The state of Alaska employs approximately 16,000 people statewide.The Alaska Legislature consists of a 40-member House of Representatives and a 20-member Senate. Senators serve four-year terms and House members two. The governor of Alaska serves four-year terms. The lieutenant governor runs separately from the governor in the primaries, but during the general election, the nominee for governor and nominee for lieutenant governor run together on the same ticket.Alaska's court system has four levels: the Alaska Supreme Court, the Alaska Court of Appeals, the superior courts and the district courts. The superior and district courts are trial courts. Superior courts are courts of general jurisdiction, while district courts hear only certain types of cases, including misdemeanor criminal cases and civil cases valued up to $100,000.The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals are appellate courts. The Court of Appeals is required to hear appeals from certain lower-court decisions, including those regarding criminal prosecutions, juvenile delinquency, and habeas corpus. The Supreme Court hears civil appeals and may in its discretion hear criminal appeals.State politicsAlthough in its early years of statehood Alaska was a Democratic state, since the early 1970s it has been characterized as Republican-leaning. Local political communities have often worked on issues related to land use development, fishing, tourism, and individual rights. Alaska Natives, while organized in and around their communities, have been active within the Native corporations. These have been given ownership over large tracts of land, which require stewardship.Alaska was formerly the only state in which possession of one ounce or less of marijuana in one's home was completely legal under state law, though the federal law remains in force.The state has an independence movement favoring a vote on secession from the United States, with the Alaskan Independence Party.Six Republicans and four Democrats have served as governor of Alaska. In addition, Republican governor Wally Hickel was elected to the office for a second term in 1990 after leaving the Republican party and briefly joining the Alaskan Independence Party ticket just long enough to be reelected. He officially rejoined the Republican party in 1994.Alaska's voter initiative making marijuana legal took effect on February 24, 2015, placing Alaska alongside Colorado and Washington as the first three U.S. states where recreational marijuana is legal. The new law means people over 21 can consume small amounts of cannabis. The first legal marijuana store opened in Valdez in October 2016.Voter registrationTaxesTo finance state government operations, Alaska depends primarily on petroleum revenues and federal subsidies. This allows it to have the lowest individual tax burden in the United States. It is one of five states with no sales tax, one of seven states with no individual income tax, and—along with New Hampshire—one of two that has neither. The Department of Revenue Tax Division reports regularly on the state's revenue sources. The Department also issues an annual summary of its operations, including new state laws that directly affect the tax division. In 2014, the Tax Foundation ranked Alaska as having the fourth most "business friendly" tax policy, behind only Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada.While Alaska has no state sales tax, 89 municipalities collect a local sales tax, from 1.0 to 7.5%, typically 3–5%. Other local taxes levied include raw fish taxes, hotel, motel, and bed-and-breakfast 'bed' taxes, severance taxes, liquor and tobacco taxes, gaming (pull tabs) taxes, tire taxes and fuel transfer taxes. A part of the revenue collected from certain state taxes and license fees (such as petroleum, aviation motor fuel, telephone cooperative) is shared with municipalities in Alaska.The fall in oil prices after the fracking boom in the early 2010s has decimated Alaska's state treasury, which has historically received about 85 percent of its revenue from taxes and fees imposed on oil and gas companies. The state government has had to drastically reduce its budget, and has brought its budget shortfall from over $2 billion in 2016 to under $500 million by 2018.  In 2020, Alaska's state government budget was $4.8 billion, while projected government revenues were only $4.5 billion.Federal politicsAlaska regularly supports Republicans in presidential elections and has done so since statehood. Republicans have won the state's electoral college votes in all but one election that it has participated in (1964). No state has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate fewer times. Alaska was carried by Democratic nominee Lyndon B. Johnson during his landslide election in 1964, while the 1960 and 1968 elections were close. Since 1972, however, Republicans have carried the state by large margins. In 2008, Republican John McCain defeated Democrat Barack Obama in Alaska, 59.49% to 37.83%. McCain's running mate was Sarah Palin, the state's governor and the first Alaskan on a major party ticket. Obama lost Alaska again in 2012, but he captured 40% of the state's vote in that election, making him the first Democrat to do so since 1968.The Alaska Bush, central Juneau, midtown and downtown Anchorage, and the areas surrounding the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus and Ester have been strongholds of the Democratic Party. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the majority of Fairbanks (including North Pole and the military base), and South Anchorage typically have the strongest Republican showing.ElectionsIn a 2020 study, Alaska was ranked as the 15th hardest state for citizens to vote in.In the 2020 election cycle, Alaskan voters approved Ballot Measure 2. The measure passed by a margin of 1.1%, or about 4,000 votes. The measure requires campaigns to disclose the original source and any intermediaries for campaign contributions over $2,000. The measure establishes non-partisan blanket primaries for statewide elections (like in Washington state and California) and ranked-choice voting (like in Maine). Alaska is the third state with jungle primaries for all statewide races, the second state with ranked voting, and the only state with both.The first race to use the new system of elections will be the 2022 Senate election in which Lisa Murkowski will run for re-election.See also Index of Alaska-related articles Outline of AlaskaNotesReferencesExternal links  Alaska's Digital Archives Alaska Inter-Tribal Council   Who Owns/Manages Alaska? (map) Carl J. Sacarlasen Diary Extracts at Dartmouth College Library M.E. Diemer Alaska Photographs at Dartmouth College Library Alfred Hulse Brooks Photographs and Papers. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.U.S. federal government Alaska State Guide from the Library of Congress Energy & Environmental Data for Alaska USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of Alaska US Census Bureau Alaska State Facts Alaska Statehood Subject Guide from the Eisenhower Presidential Library Alaska Statehood documents, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential LibraryAlaska state government State of Alaska website Alaska State Databases Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Recorder's Office Arctic OceanFormer Russian coloniesStates and territories established in 1959States of the United StatesStates of the West Coast of the United StatesU.S. states with multiple time zones1959 establishments in the United StatesWestern United StatesNorthern AmericaEnclaves and exclavesBeringia
Agriculture is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Pigs, sheep, and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture.The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, oils, meat, milk, eggs and fungi. Over one-third of the world's workers are employed in agriculture, second only to the service sector, although in recent decades, the global trend of a decreasing number of agricultural workers continues, especially in developing countries where smallholding is being overtaken by industrial agriculture and mechanization that brings an enormous crop yield increase.Modern agronomy, plant breeding, agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, and technological developments have sharply increased crop yields, but causing ecological and environmental damage. Selective breeding and modern practices in animal husbandry have similarly increased the output of meat, but have raised concerns about animal welfare and environmental damage. Environmental issues include contributions to global warming, depletion of aquifers, deforestation, antibiotic resistance, and growth hormones in industrial meat production. Agriculture is both a cause of and sensitive to environmental degradation, such as biodiversity loss, desertification, soil degradation and global warming, all of which can cause decreases in crop yield. Genetically modified organisms are widely used, although some are banned in certain countries.Etymology and scope The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin , from  'field' and  'cultivation' or 'growing'. While agriculture usually refers to human activities, certain species of ant, termite and beetle have been cultivating crops for up to 60 million years. Agriculture is defined with varying scopes, in its broadest sense using natural resources to "produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops, and their related services". Thus defined, it includes arable farming, horticulture, animal husbandry and forestry, but horticulture and forestry are in practice often excluded.HistoryOrigins The development of agriculture enabled the human population to grow many times larger than could be sustained by hunting and gathering. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa, in at least 11 separate centres of origin. Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 and 6,200 BC with the earliest known cultivation from 5,700 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan some 10,500 years ago. Pig production emerged in Eurasia, including Europe, East Asia and Southwest Asia, where wild boar were first domesticated about 10,500 years ago. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia. In Mesoamerica, wild teosinte was bred into maize by 6,000 years ago.Scholars have offered multiple hypotheses to explain the historical origins of agriculture. Studies of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies indicate an initial period of intensification and increasing sedentism; examples are the Natufian culture in the Levant, and the Early Chinese Neolithic in China. Then, wild stands that had previously been harvested started to be planted, and gradually came to be domesticated.Civilizations In Eurasia, the Sumerians started to live in villages from about 8,000 BC, relying on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a canal system for irrigation. Ploughs appear in pictographs around 3,000 BC; seed-ploughs around 2,300 BC. Farmers grew wheat, barley, vegetables such as lentils and onions, and fruits including dates, grapes, and figs. Ancient Egyptian agriculture relied on the Nile River and its seasonal flooding. Farming started in the predynastic period at the end of the Paleolithic, after 10,000 BC. Staple food crops were grains such as wheat and barley, alongside industrial crops such as flax and papyrus. In India, wheat, barley and jujube were domesticated by 9,000 BC, soon followed by sheep and goats. Cattle, sheep and goats were domesticated in Mehrgarh culture by 8,000–6,000 BC. Cotton was cultivated by the 5th–4th millennium BC. Archeological evidence indicates an animal-drawn plough from 2,500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilisation.In China, from the 5th century BC there was a nationwide granary system and widespread silk farming. Water-powered grain mills were in use by the 1st century BC, followed by irrigation. By the late 2nd century, heavy ploughs had been developed with iron ploughshares and mouldboards. These spread westwards across Eurasia. Asian rice was domesticated 8,200–13,500 years ago – depending on the molecular clock estimate that is used – on the Pearl River in southern China with a single genetic origin from the wild rice Oryza rufipogon. In Greece and Rome, the major cereals were wheat, emmer, and barley, alongside vegetables including peas, beans, and olives. Sheep and goats were kept mainly for dairy products.In the Americas, crops domesticated in Mesoamerica (apart from teosinte) include squash, beans, and cacao. Cocoa was being domesticated by the Mayo Chinchipe of the upper Amazon around 3,000 BC.The turkey was probably domesticated in Mexico or the American Southwest. The Aztecs developed irrigation systems, formed terraced hillsides, fertilized their soil, and developed chinampas or artificial islands. The Mayas used extensive canal and raised field systems to farm swampland from 400 BC. Coca was domesticated in the Andes, as were the peanut, tomato, tobacco, and pineapple. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 3,600 BC. Animals including llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs were domesticated there. In North America, the indigenous people of the East domesticated crops such as sunflower, tobacco, squash and Chenopodium. Wild foods including wild rice and maple sugar were harvested. The domesticated strawberry is a hybrid of a Chilean and a North American species, developed by breeding in Europe and North America. The indigenous people of the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest practiced forest gardening and fire-stick farming. The natives controlled fire on a regional scale to create a low-intensity fire ecology that sustained a low-density agriculture in loose rotation; a sort of "wild" permaculture. A system of companion planting called the Three Sisters was developed in North America. The three crops were winter squash, maize, and climbing beans.Indigenous Australians, long supposed to have been nomadic hunter-gatherers, practised systematic burning, possibly to enhance natural productivity in fire-stick farming. Scholars have pointed out that hunter-gatherers need a productive environment to support gathering without cultivation. Because the forests of New Guinea have few food plants, early humans may have used "selective burning" to increase the productivity of the wild karuka fruit trees to support the hunter-gatherer way of life.The Gunditjmara and other groups developed eel farming and fish trapping systems from some 5,000 years ago. There is evidence of 'intensification' across the whole continent over that period. In two regions of Australia, the central west coast and eastern central, early farmers cultivated yams, native millet, and bush onions, possibly in permanent settlements.Revolution In the Middle Ages, both in Europe and in the Islamic world, agriculture transformed with improved techniques and the diffusion of crop plants, including the introduction of sugar, rice, cotton and fruit trees (such as the orange) to Europe by way of Al-Andalus.After 1492 the Columbian exchange brought New World crops such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and manioc to Europe, and Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice and turnips, and livestock (including horses, cattle, sheep and goats) to the Americas.Irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers advanced from the 17th century with the British Agricultural Revolution, allowing global population to rise significantly. Since 1900 agriculture in developed nations, and to a lesser extent in the developing world, has seen large rises in productivity as mechanization replaces human labor, and assisted by synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and selective breeding. The Haber-Bosch method allowed the synthesis of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale, greatly increasing crop yields and sustaining a further increase in global population. Modern agriculture has raised or encountered ecological, political, and economic issues including water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs and farm subsidies, leading to alternative approaches such as the organic movement.Types Pastoralism involves managing domesticated animals. In nomadic pastoralism, herds of livestock are moved from place to place in search of pasture, fodder, and water. This type of farming is practised in arid and semi-arid regions of Sahara, Central Asia and some parts of India.In shifting cultivation, a small area of forest is cleared by cutting and burning the trees. The cleared land is used for growing crops for a few years until the soil becomes too infertile, and the area is abandoned. Another patch of land is selected and the process is repeated. This type of farming is practiced mainly in areas with abundant rainfall where the forest regenerates quickly. This practice is used in Northeast India, Southeast Asia, and the Amazon Basin.Subsistence farming is practiced to satisfy family or local needs alone, with little left over for transport elsewhere. It is intensively practiced in Monsoon Asia and South-East Asia. An estimated 2.5 billion subsistence farmers worked in 2018, cultivating about 60% of the earth's arable land.Intensive farming is cultivation to maximise productivity, with a low fallow ratio and a high use of inputs (water, fertilizer, pesticide and automation). It is practiced mainly in developed countries.Contemporary agricultureStatus From the twentieth century, intensive agriculture increased productivity. It substituted synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for labour, but caused increased water pollution, and often involved farm subsidies. In recent years there has been a backlash against the environmental effects of conventional agriculture, resulting in the organic, regenerative, and sustainable agriculture movements. One of the major forces behind this movement has been the European Union, which first certified organic food in 1991 and began reform of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2005 to phase out commodity-linked farm subsidies, also known as decoupling. The growth of organic farming has renewed research in alternative technologies such as integrated pest management, selective breeding, and controlled-environment agriculture. Recent mainstream technological developments include genetically modified food. Demand for non-food biofuel crops, development of former farm lands, rising transportation costs, climate change, growing consumer demand in China and India, and population growth, are threatening food security in many parts of the world. The International Fund for Agricultural Development posits that an increase in smallholder agriculture may be part of the solution to concerns about food prices and overall food security, given the favorable experience of Vietnam. Soil degradation and diseases such as stem rust are major concerns globally; approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. By 2015, the agricultural output of China was the largest in the world, followed by the European Union, India and the United States. Economists measure the total factor productivity of agriculture and by this measure agriculture in the United States is roughly 1.7 times more productive than it was in 1948.Workforce Following the three-sector theory, the number of people employed in agriculture and other primary activities (such as fishing) can be more than 80% in the least developed countries, and less than 2% in the most highly developed countries. Since the Industrial Revolution, many countries have made the transition to developed economies, and the proportion of people working in agriculture has steadily fallen. During the 16th century in Europe, for example, between 55 and 75% of the population was engaged in agriculture; by the 19th century, this had dropped to between 35 and 65%. In the same countries today, the figure is less than 10%.At the start of the 21st century, some one billion people, or over 1/3 of the available work force, were employed in agriculture. It constitutes approximately 70% of the global employment of children, and in many countries employs the largest percentage of women of any industry. The service sector overtook the agricultural sector as the largest global employer in 2007.Safety Agriculture, specifically farming, remains a hazardous industry, and farmers worldwide remain at high risk of work-related injuries, lung disease, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, as well as certain cancers related to chemical use and prolonged sun exposure. On industrialized farms, injuries frequently involve the use of agricultural machinery, and a common cause of fatal agricultural injuries in developed countries is tractor rollovers. Pesticides and other chemicals used in farming can be hazardous to worker health, and workers exposed to pesticides may experience illness or have children with birth defects. As an industry in which families commonly share in work and live on the farm itself, entire families can be at risk for injuries, illness, and death. Ages 0–6 May be an especially vulnerable population in agriculture; common causes of fatal injuries among young farm workers include drowning, machinery and motor accidents, including with all-terrain vehicles.The International Labour Organization considers agriculture "one of the most hazardous of all economic sectors". It estimates that the annual work-related death toll among agricultural employees is at least 170,000, twice the average rate of other jobs. In addition, incidences of death, injury and illness related to agricultural activities often go unreported. The organization has developed the Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention, 2001, which covers the range of risks in the agriculture occupation, the prevention of these risks and the role that individuals and organizations engaged in agriculture should play.In the United States, agriculture has been identified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as a priority industry sector in the National Occupational Research Agenda to identify and provide intervention strategies for occupational health and safety issues.In the European Union, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has issued guidelines on implementing health and safety directives in agriculture, livestock farming, horticulture, and forestry. The Agricultural Safety and Health Council of America (ASHCA) also holds a yearly summit to discuss safety.Production Overall production varies by country as listed.Crop cultivation systems Cropping systems vary among farms depending on the available resources and constraints; geography and climate of the farm; government policy; economic, social and political pressures; and the philosophy and culture of the farmer.Shifting cultivation (or slash and burn) is a system in which forests are burnt, releasing nutrients to support cultivation of annual and then perennial crops for a period of several years. Then the plot is left fallow to regrow forest, and the farmer moves to a new plot, returning after many more years (10–20). This fallow period is shortened if population density grows, requiring the input of nutrients (fertilizer or manure) and some manual pest control. Annual cultivation is the next phase of intensity in which there is no fallow period. This requires even greater nutrient and pest control inputs.Further industrialization led to the use of monocultures, when one cultivar is planted on a large acreage. Because of the low biodiversity, nutrient use is uniform and pests tend to build up, necessitating the greater use of pesticides and fertilizers. Multiple cropping, in which several crops are grown sequentially in one year, and intercropping, when several crops are grown at the same time, are other kinds of annual cropping systems known as polycultures.In subtropical and arid environments, the timing and extent of agriculture may be limited by rainfall, either not allowing multiple annual crops in a year, or requiring irrigation. In all of these environments perennial crops are grown (coffee, chocolate) and systems are practiced such as agroforestry. In temperate environments, where ecosystems were predominantly grassland or prairie, highly productive annual farming is the dominant agricultural system.Important categories of food crops include cereals, legumes, forage, fruits and vegetables. Natural fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Specific crops are cultivated in distinct growing regions throughout the world. Production is listed in millions of metric tons, based on FAO estimates.Livestock production systems Animal husbandry is the breeding and raising of animals for meat, milk, eggs, or wool, and for work and transport. Working animals, including horses, mules, oxen, water buffalo, camels, llamas, alpacas, donkeys, and dogs, have for centuries been used to help cultivate fields, harvest crops, wrangle other animals, and transport farm products to buyers.Livestock production systems can be defined based on feed source, as grassland-based, mixed, and landless. , 30% of Earth's ice- and water-free area was used for producing livestock, with the sector employing approximately 1.3 billion people. Between the 1960s and the 2000s, there was a significant increase in livestock production, both by numbers and by carcass weight, especially among beef, pigs and chickens, the latter of which had production increased by almost a factor of 10. Non-meat animals, such as milk cows and egg-producing chickens, also showed significant production increases. Global cattle, sheep and goat populations are expected to continue to increase sharply through 2050. Aquaculture or fish farming, the production of fish for human consumption in confined operations, is one of the fastest growing sectors of food production, growing at an average of 9% a year between 1975 and 2007.During the second half of the 20th century, producers using selective breeding focused on creating livestock breeds and crossbreeds that increased production, while mostly disregarding the need to preserve genetic diversity. This trend has led to a significant decrease in genetic diversity and resources among livestock breeds, leading to a corresponding decrease in disease resistance and local adaptations previously found among traditional breeds.Grassland based livestock production relies upon plant material such as shrubland, rangeland, and pastures for feeding ruminant animals. Outside nutrient inputs may be used, however manure is returned directly to the grassland as a major nutrient source. This system is particularly important in areas where crop production is not feasible because of climate or soil, representing 30–40 million pastoralists. Mixed production systems use grassland, fodder crops and grain feed crops as feed for ruminant and monogastric (one stomach; mainly chickens and pigs) livestock. Manure is typically recycled in mixed systems as a fertilizer for crops.Landless systems rely upon feed from outside the farm, representing the de-linking of crop and livestock production found more prevalently in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member countries. Synthetic fertilizers are more heavily relied upon for crop production and manure use becomes a challenge as well as a source for pollution. Industrialized countries use these operations to produce much of the global supplies of poultry and pork. Scientists estimate that 75% of the growth in livestock production between 2003 and 2030 will be in confined animal feeding operations, sometimes called factory farming. Much of this growth is happening in developing countries in Asia, with much smaller amounts of growth in Africa. Some of the practices used in commercial livestock production, including the usage of growth hormones, are controversial.Production practices Tillage is the practice of breaking up the soil with tools such as the plow or harrow to prepare for planting, for nutrient incorporation, or for pest control. Tillage varies in intensity from conventional to no-till. It may improve productivity by warming the soil, incorporating fertilizer and controlling weeds, but also renders soil more prone to erosion, triggers the decomposition of organic matter releasing CO2, and reduces the abundance and diversity of soil organisms.Pest control includes the management of weeds, insects, mites, and diseases. Chemical (pesticides), biological (biocontrol), mechanical (tillage), and cultural practices are used. Cultural practices include crop rotation, culling, cover crops, intercropping, composting, avoidance, and resistance. Integrated pest management attempts to use all of these methods to keep pest populations below the number which would cause economic loss, and recommends pesticides as a last resort.Nutrient management includes both the source of nutrient inputs for crop and livestock production, and the method of use of manure produced by livestock. Nutrient inputs can be chemical inorganic fertilizers, manure, green manure, compost and minerals. Crop nutrient use may also be managed using cultural techniques such as crop rotation or a fallow period. Manure is used either by holding livestock where the feed crop is growing, such as in managed intensive rotational grazing, or by spreading either dry or liquid formulations of manure on cropland or pastures.Water management is needed where rainfall is insufficient or variable, which occurs to some degree in most regions of the world. Some farmers use irrigation to supplement rainfall. In other areas such as the Great Plains in the U.S. and Canada, farmers use a fallow year to conserve soil moisture to use for growing a crop in the following year. Agriculture represents 70% of freshwater use worldwide.According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute, agricultural technologies will have the greatest impact on food production if adopted in combination with each other; using a model that assessed how eleven technologies could impact agricultural productivity, food security and trade by 2050, the International Food Policy Research Institute found that the number of people at risk from hunger could be reduced by as much as 40% and food prices could be reduced by almost half.Payment for ecosystem services is a method of providing additional incentives to encourage farmers to conserve some aspects of the environment. Measures might include paying for reforestation upstream of a city, to improve the supply of fresh water.Crop alteration and biotechnologyPlant breeding Crop alteration has been practiced by humankind for thousands of years, since the beginning of civilization. Altering crops through breeding practices changes the genetic make-up of a plant to develop crops with more beneficial characteristics for humans, for example, larger fruits or seeds, drought-tolerance, or resistance to pests. Significant advances in plant breeding ensued after the work of geneticist Gregor Mendel. His work on dominant and recessive alleles, although initially largely ignored for almost 50 years, gave plant breeders a better understanding of genetics and breeding techniques. Crop breeding includes techniques such as plant selection with desirable traits, self-pollination and cross-pollination, and molecular techniques that genetically modify the organism.Domestication of plants has, over the centuries increased yield, improved disease resistance and drought tolerance, eased harvest and improved the taste and nutritional value of crop plants. Careful selection and breeding have had enormous effects on the characteristics of crop plants. Plant selection and breeding in the 1920s and 1930s improved pasture (grasses and clover) in New Zealand. Extensive X-ray and ultraviolet induced mutagenesis efforts (i.e. primitive genetic engineering) during the 1950s produced the modern commercial varieties of grains such as wheat, corn (maize) and barley.The Green Revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to sharply increase yield by creating "high-yielding varieties". For example, average yields of corn (maize) in the US have increased from around 2.5 tons per hectare (t/ha) (40 bushels per acre) in 1900 to about 9.4 t/ha (150 bushels per acre) in 2001. Similarly, worldwide average wheat yields have increased from less than 1 t/ha in 1900 to more than 2.5 t/ha in 1990. South American average wheat yields are around 2 t/ha, African under 1 t/ha, and Egypt and Arabia up to 3.5 to 4 t/ha with irrigation. In contrast, the average wheat yield in countries such as France is over 8 t/ha. Variations in yields are due mainly to variation in climate, genetics, and the level of intensive farming techniques (use of fertilizers, chemical pest control, growth control to avoid lodging).Genetic engineering Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are organisms whose genetic material has been altered by genetic engineering techniques generally known as recombinant DNA technology. Genetic engineering has expanded the genes available to breeders to use in creating desired germlines for new crops. Increased durability, nutritional content, insect and virus resistance and herbicide tolerance are a few of the attributes bred into crops through genetic engineering. For some, GMO crops cause food safety and food labeling concerns. Numerous countries have placed restrictions on the production, import or use of GMO foods and crops. Currently a global treaty, the Biosafety Protocol, regulates the trade of GMOs. There is ongoing discussion regarding the labeling of foods made from GMOs, and while the EU currently requires all GMO foods to be labeled, the US does not.Herbicide-resistant seed has a gene implanted into its genome that allows the plants to tolerate exposure to herbicides, including glyphosate. These seeds allow the farmer to grow a crop that can be sprayed with herbicides to control weeds without harming the resistant crop. Herbicide-tolerant crops are used by farmers worldwide. With the increasing use of herbicide-tolerant crops, comes an increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicide sprays. In some areas glyphosate resistant weeds have developed, causing farmers to switch to other herbicides. Some studies also link widespread glyphosate usage to iron deficiencies in some crops, which is both a crop production and a nutritional quality concern, with potential economic and health implications.Other GMO crops used by growers include insect-resistant crops, which have a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which produces a toxin specific to insects. These crops resist damage by insects. Some believe that similar or better pest-resistance traits can be acquired through traditional breeding practices, and resistance to various pests can be gained through hybridization or cross-pollination with wild species. In some cases, wild species are the primary source of resistance traits; some tomato cultivars that have gained resistance to at least 19 diseases did so through crossing with wild populations of tomatoes.Environmental impactEffects and costs Agriculture is both a cause of and sensitive to environmental degradation, such as biodiversity loss, desertification, soil degradation and global warming, which cause decrease in crop yield. Agriculture is one of the most important drivers of environmental pressures, particularly habitat change, climate change, water use and toxic emissions. Agriculture is the main source of toxins released into the environment, including insecticides, especially those used on cotton. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy report stated that agricultural operations produced some 13 per cent of anthropogenic global greenhouse gas emissions. This includes gases from the use of inorganic fertilizers, agro-chemical pesticides, and herbicides, as well as fossil fuel-energy inputs. Agriculture imposes multiple external costs upon society through effects such as pesticide damage to nature (especially herbicides and insecticides), nutrient runoff, excessive water usage, and loss of natural environment. A 2000 assessment of agriculture in the UK determined total external costs for 1996 of £2,343 million, or £208 per hectare. A 2005 analysis of these costs in the US concluded that cropland imposes approximately $5 to $16 billion ($30 to $96 per hectare), while livestock production imposes $714 million. Both studies, which focused solely on the fiscal impacts, concluded that more should be done to internalize external costs. Neither included subsidies in their analysis, but they noted that subsidies also influence the cost of agriculture to society.Agriculture seeks to increase yield and to reduce costs. Yield increases with inputs such as fertilisers and removal of pathogens, predators, and competitors (such as weeds). Costs decrease with increasing scale of farm units, such as making fields larger; this means removing hedges, ditches and other areas of habitat. Pesticides kill insects, plants and fungi. These and other measures have cut biodiversity to very low levels on intensively farmed land. Effective yields fall with on-farm losses, which may be caused by poor production practices during harvesting, handling, and storage.Livestock issues A senior UN official, Henning Steinfeld, said that "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems". Livestock production occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture, or 30% of the land surface of the planet. It is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases, responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. It produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2.) It also generates 64% of the ammonia emission. Livestock expansion is cited as a key factor driving deforestation; in the Amazon basin 70% of previously forested area is now occupied by pastures and the remainder used for feedcrops. Through deforestation and land degradation, livestock is also driving reductions in biodiversity. Furthermore, the UNEP states that "methane emissions from global livestock are projected to increase by 60 per cent by 2030 under current practices and consumption patterns."Land and water issues Land transformation, the use of land to yield goods and services, is the most substantial way humans alter the Earth's ecosystems, and is the driving force causing biodiversity loss. Estimates of the amount of land transformed by humans vary from 39 to 50%. Land degradation, the long-term decline in ecosystem function and productivity, is estimated to be occurring on 24% of land worldwide, with cropland overrepresented. Land management is the driving factor behind degradation; 1.5 billion people rely upon the degrading land. Degradation can be through deforestation, desertification, soil erosion, mineral depletion, acidification, or salinization.Eutrophication, excessive nutrient enrichment in aquatic ecosystems resulting in algal blooms and anoxia, leads to fish kills, loss of biodiversity, and renders water unfit for drinking and other industrial uses. Excessive fertilization and manure application to cropland, as well as high livestock stocking densities cause nutrient (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) runoff and leaching from agricultural land. These nutrients are major nonpoint pollutants contributing to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems and pollution of groundwater, with harmful effects on human populations. Fertilisers also reduce terrestrial biodiversity by increasing competition for light, favouring those species that are able to benefit from the added nutrients.Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of withdrawals of freshwater resources. Agriculture is a major draw on water from aquifers, and currently draws from those underground water sources at an unsustainable rate. It is long known that aquifers in areas as diverse as northern China, the Upper Ganges and the western US are being depleted, and new research extends these problems to aquifers in Iran, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Increasing pressure is being placed on water resources by industry and urban areas, meaning that water scarcity is increasing and agriculture is facing the challenge of producing more food for the world's growing population with reduced water resources. Agricultural water usage can also cause major environmental problems, including the destruction of natural wetlands, the spread of water-borne diseases, and land degradation through salinization and waterlogging, when irrigation is performed incorrectly.Pesticides Pesticide use has increased since 1950 to 2.5million short tons annually worldwide, yet crop loss from pests has remained relatively constant. The World Health Organization estimated in 1992 that three million pesticide poisonings occur annually, causing 220,000 deaths. Pesticides select for pesticide resistance in the pest population, leading to a condition termed the "pesticide treadmill" in which pest resistance warrants the development of a new pesticide.An alternative argument is that the way to "save the environment" and prevent famine is by using pesticides and intensive high yield farming, a view exemplified by a quote heading the Center for Global Food Issues website: 'Growing more per acre leaves more land for nature'. However, critics argue that a trade-off between the environment and a need for food is not inevitable, and that pesticides simply replace good agronomic practices such as crop rotation. The Push–pull agricultural pest management technique involves intercropping, using plant aromas to repel pests from crops (push) and to lure them to a place from which they can then be removed (pull).Climate change Climate change and agriculture are interrelated on a global scale. Global warming affects agriculture through changes in average temperatures, rainfall, and weather extremes (like storms and heat waves); changes in pests and diseases; changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and ground-level ozone concentrations; changes in the nutritional quality of some foods; and changes in sea level. Global warming is already affecting agriculture, with effects unevenly distributed across the world. Future climate change will probably negatively affect crop production in low latitude countries, while effects in northern latitudes may be positive or negative. Global warming will probably increase the risk of food insecurity for some vulnerable groups, such as the poor.Animal husbandry is also responsible for greenhouse gas production of CO2 and a percentage of the world's methane, and future land infertility, and the displacement of wildlife. Agriculture contributes to climate change by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and by the conversion of non-agricultural land such as forest for agricultural use. Agriculture, forestry and land-use change contributed around 20 to 25% to global annual emissions in 2010. A range of policies can reduce the risk of negative climate change impacts on agriculture, and greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector.Sustainability Current farming methods have resulted in over-stretched water resources, high levels of erosion and reduced soil fertility. There is not enough water to continue farming using current practices; therefore how critical water, land, and ecosystem resources are used to boost crop yields must be reconsidered. A solution would be to give value to ecosystems, recognizing environmental and livelihood tradeoffs, and balancing the rights of a variety of users and interests. Inequities that result when such measures are adopted would need to be addressed, such as the reallocation of water from poor to rich, the clearing of land to make way for more productive farmland, or the preservation of a wetland system that limits fishing rights.Technological advancements help provide farmers with tools and resources to make farming more sustainable. Technology permits innovations like conservation tillage, a farming process which helps prevent land loss to erosion, reduces water pollution, and enhances carbon sequestration. Other potential practices include conservation agriculture, agroforestry, improved grazing, avoided grassland conversion, and biochar. Current mono-crop farming practices in the United States preclude widespread adoption of sustainable practices, such as 2-3 crop rotations that incorporate grass or hay with annual crops, unless negative emission goals such as soil carbon sequestration become policy.The International Food Policy Research Institute states that agricultural technologies will have the greatest impact on food production if adopted in combination with each other; using a model that assessed how eleven technologies could impact agricultural productivity, food security and trade by 2050, it found that the number of people at risk from hunger could be reduced by as much as 40% and food prices could be reduced by almost half. The food demand of Earth's projected population, with current climate change predictions, could be satisfied by improvement of agricultural methods, expansion of agricultural areas, and a sustainability-oriented consumer mindset.Energy dependence Since the 1940s, agricultural productivity has increased dramatically, due largely to the increased use of energy-intensive mechanization, fertilizers and pesticides. The vast majority of this energy input comes from fossil fuel sources. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, with world grain production increasing significantly (between 70% and 390% for wheat and 60% to 150% for rice, depending on geographic area) as world population doubled. Heavy reliance on petrochemicals has raised concerns that oil shortages could increase costs and reduce agricultural output.Industrialized agriculture depends on fossil fuels in two fundamental ways: direct consumption on the farm and manufacture of inputs used on the farm. Direct consumption includes the use of lubricants and fuels to operate farm vehicles and machinery.Indirect consumption includes the manufacture of fertilizers, pesticides, and farm machinery. In particular, the production of nitrogen fertilizer can account for over half of agricultural energy usage. Together, direct and indirect consumption by US farms accounts for about 2% of the nation's energy use. Direct and indirect energy consumption by U.S. farms peaked in 1979, and has since gradually declined. Food systems encompass not just agriculture but off-farm processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption, and disposal of food and food-related items. Agriculture accounts for less than one-fifth of food system energy use in the US.DisciplinesAgricultural economics Agricultural economics is economics as it relates to the "production, distribution and consumption of [agricultural] goods and services". Combining agricultural production with general theories of marketing and business as a discipline of study began in the late 1800s, and grew significantly through the 20th century. Although the study of agricultural economics is relatively recent, major trends in agriculture have significantly affected national and international economies throughout history, ranging from tenant farmers and sharecropping in the post-American Civil War Southern United States to the European feudal system of manorialism. In the United States, and elsewhere, food costs attributed to food processing, distribution, and agricultural marketing, sometimes referred to as the value chain, have risen while the costs attributed to farming have declined. This is related to the greater efficiency of farming, combined with the increased level of value addition (e.g. more highly processed products) provided by the supply chain. Market concentration has increased in the sector as well, and although the total effect of the increased market concentration is likely increased efficiency, the changes redistribute economic surplus from producers (farmers) and consumers, and may have negative implications for rural communities.National government policies can significantly change the economic marketplace for agricultural products, in the form of taxation, subsidies, tariffs and other measures. Since at least the 1960s, a combination of trade restrictions, exchange rate policies and subsidies have affected farmers in both the developing and the developed world. In the 1980s, non-subsidized farmers in developing countries experienced adverse effects from national policies that created artificially low global prices for farm products. Between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s, several international agreements limited agricultural tariffs, subsidies and other trade restrictions.However, , there was still a significant amount of policy-driven distortion in global agricultural product prices. The three agricultural products with the most trade distortion were sugar, milk and rice, mainly due to taxation. Among the oilseeds, sesame had the most taxation, but overall, feed grains and oilseeds had much lower levels of taxation than livestock products. Since the 1980s, policy-driven distortions have seen a greater decrease among livestock products than crops during the worldwide reforms in agricultural policy. Despite this progress, certain crops, such as cotton, still see subsidies in developed countries artificially deflating global prices, causing hardship in developing countries with non-subsidized farmers. Unprocessed commodities such as corn, soybeans, and cattle are generally graded to indicate quality, affecting the price the producer receives. Commodities are generally reported by production quantities, such as volume, number or weight.Agricultural science Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. It covers topics such as agronomy, plant breeding and genetics, plant pathology, crop modelling, soil science, entomology, production techniques and improvement, study of pests and their management, and study of adverse environmental effects such as soil degradation, waste management, and bioremediation.The scientific study of agriculture began in the 18th century, when Johann Friedrich Mayer conducted experiments on the use of gypsum (hydrated calcium sulphate) as a fertilizer. Research became more systematic when in 1843, John Lawes and Henry Gilbert began a set of long-term agronomy field experiments at Rothamsted Research Station in England; some of them, such as the Park Grass Experiment, are still running. In America, the Hatch Act of 1887 provided funding for what it was the first to call "agricultural science", driven by farmers' interest in fertilizers. In agricultural entomology, the USDA began to research biological control in 1881; it instituted its first large program in 1905, searching Europe and Japan for natural enemies of the gypsy moth and brown-tail moth, establishing parasitoids (such as solitary wasps) and predators of both pests in the USA.Policy Agricultural policy is the set of government decisions and actions relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Some overarching themes include risk management and adjustment (including policies related to climate change, food safety and natural disasters), economic stability (including policies related to taxes), natural resources and environmental sustainability (especially water policy), research and development, and market access for domestic commodities (including relations with global organizations and agreements with other countries). Agricultural policy can also touch on food quality, ensuring that the food supply is of a consistent and known quality, food security, ensuring that the food supply meets the population's needs, and conservation. Policy programs can range from financial programs, such as subsidies, to encouraging producers to enroll in voluntary quality assurance programs.There are many influences on the creation of agricultural policy, including consumers, agribusiness, trade lobbies and other groups. Agribusiness interests hold a large amount of influence over policy making, in the form of lobbying and campaign contributions. Political action groups, including those interested in environmental issues and labor unions, also provide influence, as do lobbying organizations representing individual agricultural commodities. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger and provides a forum for the negotiation of global agricultural regulations and agreements. Samuel Jutzi, director of FAO's animal production and health division, states that lobbying by large corporations has stopped reforms that would improve human health and the environment. For example, proposals in 2010 for a voluntary code of conduct for the livestock industry that would have provided incentives for improving standards for health, and environmental regulations, such as the number of animals an area of land can support without long-term damage, were successfully defeated due to large food company pressure.See also  Aeroponics Agricultural aircraft Agricultural engineering Agricultural robot Agroecology Agrominerals Building-integrated agriculture Contract farming Corporate farming Crofting Ecoagriculture Hill farming List of documentary films about agriculture Pharming (genetics) Remote sensing Subsistence economy Vertical farming Vegetable farmingReferencesCited sourcesExternal links  Food and Agriculture Organization United States Department of Agriculture Agriculture material from the World Bank Group  AgricultureAgronomyFood industry
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books—both novels and non-fiction works—as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism and universalism, addressing these subjects with works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945)—which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism—and The Doors of Perception (1954)—which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his vision of dystopia and utopia, respectively.Early life Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1894. He was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster Leonard Huxley, who edited The Cornhill Magazine, and his first wife, Julia Arnold, who founded Prior's Field School. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Julia named him Aldous after a character in one of her sister's novels. Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the zoologist, agnostic, and controversialist ("Darwin's Bulldog"). His brother Julian Huxley and half-brother Andrew Huxley also became outstanding biologists. Aldous had another brother, Noel Trevenen Huxley (1889–1914), who took his own life after a period of clinical depression.As a child, Huxley's nickname was "Ogie", short for "Ogre". He was described by his brother, Julian, as someone who frequently "[contemplated] the strangeness of things". According to his cousin and contemporary, Gervas Huxley, he had an early interest in drawing.Huxley's education began in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, after which he enrolled at Hillside School near Godalming. He was taught there by his own mother for several years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside he went on to Eton College. His mother died in 1908, when he was 14 (his father later remarried). He contracted the eye disease Keratitis punctata in 1911; this "left [him] practically blind for two to three years". This "ended his early dreams of becoming a doctor". In October 1913, Huxley entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied English literature. He volunteered for the British Army in January 1916, for the Great War; however, he was rejected on health grounds, being half-blind in one eye. His eyesight later partly recovered. He edited Oxford Poetry in 1916, and in June of that year graduated BA with first class honours. His brother Julian wrote:Following his years at Balliol, Huxley, being financially indebted to his father, decided to find employment. He taught French for a year at Eton College, where Eric Blair (who was to take the pen name George Orwell) and Steven Runciman were among his pupils. He was mainly remembered as being an incompetent schoolmaster unable to keep order in class. Nevertheless, Blair and others spoke highly of his excellent command of language.Huxley also worked for a time during the 1920s at Brunner and Mond, an advanced chemical plant in Billingham in County Durham, northeast England. According to the introduction to the latest edition of his science fiction novel Brave New World (1932), the experience he had there of "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence" was an important source for the novel.Career Huxley completed his first (unpublished) novel at the age of 17 and began writing seriously in his early twenties, establishing himself as a successful writer and social satirist. His first published novels were social satires, Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), and Point Counter Point (1928). Brave New World (1932) was his fifth novel and first dystopian work. In the 1920s, he was also a contributor to Vanity Fair and British Vogue magazines.Contact with the Bloomsbury Set During the First World War, Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor near Oxford, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, working as a farm labourer. While at the Manor, he met several Bloomsbury Group figures, including Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and Clive Bell. Later, in Crome Yellow (1921), he caricatured the Garsington lifestyle. Jobs were very scarce, but in 1919, John Middleton Murry was reorganising the Athenaeum and invited Huxley to join the staff. He accepted immediately, and quickly married the Belgian refugee Maria Nys (1899-1955), also at Garsington. They lived with their young son in Italy part of the time during the 1920s, where Huxley would visit his friend D. H. Lawrence. Following Lawrence's death in 1930, Huxley edited Lawrence's letters (1932). Very early in 1929, in London, Huxley met Gerald Heard, a brilliant writer and broadcaster, philosopher and interpreter of contemporary science.Works of this period included important novels on the dehumanising aspects of scientific progress, most famously Brave New World, and on pacifist themes (for example, Eyeless in Gaza). In Brave New World, set in a dystopian London, Huxley portrays a society operating on the principles of mass production and Pavlovian conditioning. Huxley was strongly influenced by F. Matthias Alexander, and included him as a character in Eyeless in Gaza (1936).Beginning in this period, Huxley began to write and edit non-fiction works on pacifist issues, including Ends and Means (1937), An Encyclopedia of Pacifism, and Pacifism and Philosophy, and was an active member of the Peace Pledge Union.Life in the United States In 1937, Huxley moved to Hollywood with his wife Maria, son Matthew Huxley, and friend Gerald Heard. He lived in the U.S., mainly in southern California, until his death, and also for a time in Taos, New Mexico, where he wrote Ends and Means (published in 1937). The book contains tracts on war, religion, nationalism, and ethics.Heard introduced Huxley to Vedanta (Upanishad-centered philosophy), meditation, and vegetarianism through the principle of ahimsa. In 1938, Huxley befriended Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose teachings he greatly admired. Huxley and Krishnamurti entered into an enduring exchange (sometimes edging on debate) over many years, with Krishnamurti representing the more rarefied, detached, ivory-tower perspective and Huxley, with his pragmatic concerns, the more socially and historically informed position. Huxley provided an introduction to Krishnamurti's quintessential statement, The First and Last Freedom (1954).Huxley also became a Vedantist in the circle of Hindu Swami Prabhavananda, and introduced Christopher Isherwood to this circle. Not long afterwards, Huxley wrote his book on widely held spiritual values and ideas, The Perennial Philosophy, which discussed the teachings of renowned mystics of the world. Huxley's book affirmed a sensibility that insists there are realities beyond the generally accepted "five senses" and that there is genuine meaning for humans beyond both sensual satisfactions and sentimentalities.Huxley became a close friend of Remsen Bird, president of Occidental College. He spent much time at the college, which is in the Eagle Rock neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The college appears as "Tarzana College" in his satirical novel After Many a Summer (1939). The novel won Huxley a British literary award, the 1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Huxley also incorporated Bird into the novel.During this period, Huxley earned a substantial income as a Hollywood screenwriter; Christopher Isherwood, in his autobiography My Guru and His Disciple, states that Huxley earned more than $3,000 per week (approximately $50,000 in 2020 dollars) as a screenwriter, and that he used much of it to transport Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. In March 1938, Huxley's friend Anita Loos, a novelist and screenwriter, put him in touch with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which hired him for Madame Curie which was originally to star Greta Garbo and be directed by George Cukor. (Eventually, the film was completed by MGM in 1943 with a different director and cast.) Huxley received screen credit for Pride and Prejudice (1940) and was paid for his work on a number of other films, including Jane Eyre (1944). He was commissioned by Walt Disney in 1945 to write a script based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the biography of the story's author, Lewis Carroll. The script was not used, however.Huxley wrote an introduction to the posthumous publication of J. D. Unwin's 1940 book Hopousia or The Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society.On 21 October 1949, Huxley wrote to George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, congratulating him on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is". In his letter to Orwell, he predicted:In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship and presented themselves for examination. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S. and would not state that his objections were based on religious ideals, the only excuse allowed under the McCarran Act, the judge had to adjourn the proceedings. He withdrew his application. Nevertheless, he remained in the U.S. In 1959, Huxley turned down an offer to be made a Knight Bachelor by the Macmillan government without putting forward a reason; his brother Julian had been knighted in 1958, while another brother Andrew would be knighted in 1974.In the fall semester of 1960 Huxley was invited by Professor Huston Smith to be the Carnegie Visiting Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As part of the MIT centennial program of events organised by the Department of Humanities, Huxley presented a series of lectures titled, "What a Piece of Work is a Man" which concerned history, language, and art.Late-in-life perspectives Biographer Harold H. Watts wrote that Huxley's writings in the "final and extended period of his life" are "the work of a man who is meditating on the central problems of many modern men". Huxley had deeply felt apprehensions about the future the developed world might make for itself. From these, he made some warnings in his writings and talks. In a 1958 televised interview conducted by journalist Mike Wallace, Huxley outlined several major concerns: the difficulties and dangers of world overpopulation; the tendency towards distinctly hierarchical social organisation; the crucial importance of evaluating the use of technology in mass societies susceptible to persuasion; the tendency to promote modern politicians to a naive public as well-marketed commodities. In a December 1962 letter to brother Julian, summarizing a paper he had presented in Santa Barbara, he wrote, "What I said was that if we didn't pretty quickly start thinking of human problems in ecological terms rather than in terms of power politics we should very soon be in a bad way."Huxley's engagement with Eastern wisdom traditions was entirely compatible with a strong appreciation of modern science. Biographer Milton Birnbaum wrote that Huxley "ended by embracing both science and Eastern religion". In his last book, Literature and Science, Huxley wrote that "The ethical and philosophical implications of modern science are more Buddhist than Christian...." In "A Philosopher's Visionary Prediction," published one month before he died, Huxley endorsed training in general semantics and "the nonverbal world of culturally uncontaminated consciousness," writing that "We must learn how to be mentally silent, we must cultivate the art of pure receptivity.... [T]he individual must learn to decondition himself, must be able to cut holes in the fence of verbalized symbols that hems him in."Association with Vedanta Beginning in 1939 and continuing until his death in 1963, Huxley had an extensive association with the Vedanta Society of Southern California, founded and headed by Swami Prabhavananda. Together with Gerald Heard, Christopher Isherwood and other followers, he was initiated by the Swami and was taught meditation and spiritual practices.In 1944, Huxley wrote the introduction to the "Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God", translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, which was published by the Vedanta Society of Southern California.From 1941 until 1960, Huxley contributed 48 articles to Vedanta and the West, published by the society. He also served on the editorial board with Isherwood, Heard, and playwright John Van Druten from 1951 through 1962.Huxley also occasionally lectured at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta temples. Two of those lectures have been released on CD: Knowledge and Understanding and Who Are We? from 1955. Nonetheless, Huxley's agnosticism, together with his speculative propensity, made it difficult for him to fully embrace any form of institutionalised religion.Psychedelic drug use and mystical experiencesIn the spring of 1953, Huxley had his first experience with the psychedelic drug mescaline. Huxley had initiated a correspondence with Doctor Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist then employed in a Canadian institution, and eventually asked him to supply a dose of mescaline; Osmond obliged and supervised Huxley's session in southern California. After the publication of The Doors of Perception, in which he recounted this experience, Huxley and Swami Prabhavananda disagreed about the meaning and importance of the psychedelic drug experience, which may have caused the relationship to cool, but Huxley continued to write articles for the society's journal, lecture at the temple, and attend social functions. Huxley later had an experience on mescaline that he considered more profound than those detailed in The Doors of Perception.Huxley wrote that "The mystical experience is doubly valuable; it is valuable because it gives the experiencer a better understanding of himself and the world and because it may help him to lead a less self-centered and more creative life."Eyesight Differing accounts exist about the details of the quality of Huxley's eyesight at specific points in his life. Circa 1939, Huxley encountered the Bates method, in which he was instructed by Margaret Darst Corbett. In 1940, Huxley relocated from Hollywood to a  ranchito in the high desert hamlet of Llano, California, in northern Los Angeles County. Huxley then said that his sight improved dramatically with the Bates Method and the extreme and pure natural lighting of the southwestern American desert. He reported that, for the first time in more than 25 years, he was able to read without glasses and without strain. He even tried driving a car along the dirt road beside the ranch. He wrote a book about his experiences with the Bates Method, The Art of Seeing, which was published in 1942 (U.S.), 1943 (UK). The book contained some generally disputed theories, and its publication created a growing degree of popular controversy about Huxley's eyesight.It was, and is, widely believed that Huxley was nearly blind since the illness in his teens, despite the partial recovery that had enabled him to study at Oxford. For example, some ten years after publication of The Art of Seeing, in 1952, Bennett Cerf was present when Huxley spoke at a Hollywood banquet, wearing no glasses and apparently reading his paper from the lectern without difficulty: "Then suddenly he faltered—and the disturbing truth became obvious. He wasn't reading his address at all. He had learned it by heart. To refresh his memory he brought the paper closer and closer to his eyes. When it was only an inch or so away he still couldn't read it, and had to fish for a magnifying glass in his pocket to make the typing visible to him. It was an agonising moment."Brazilian author João Ubaldo Ribeiro, who as a young journalist spent several evenings in the Huxleys' company in the late 1950s, wrote that Huxley had said to him, with a wry smile: "I can hardly see at all. And I don't give a damn, really."On the other hand, Huxley's second wife, Laura Archera, later emphasised in her biographical account, This Timeless Moment: "One of the great achievements of his life: that of having regained his sight." After revealing a letter she wrote to the Los Angeles Times disclaiming the label of Huxley as a "poor fellow who can hardly see" by Walter C. Alvarez, she tempered her statement: "Although I feel it was an injustice to treat Aldous as though he were blind, it is true there were many indications of his impaired vision. For instance, although Aldous did not wear glasses, he would quite often use a magnifying lens." Laura Huxley proceeded to elaborate a few nuances of inconsistency peculiar to Huxley's vision. Her account, in this respect, agrees with the following sample of Huxley's own words from The Art of Seeing: "The most characteristic fact about the functioning of the total organism, or any part of the organism, is that it is not constant, but highly variable." Nevertheless, the topic of Huxley's eyesight has continued to endure similar, significant controversy.American popular science author Steven Johnson, in his book Mind Wide Open, quotes Huxley about his difficulties with visual encoding: "I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in my mind. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what happened yesterday afternoon ..."Personal life Huxley married on 10 July 1919 Maria Nys (10 September 1899 – 12 February 1955), a Belgian epidemiologist from Bellem, a village near Aalter, he met at Garsington, Oxfordshire, in 1919. They had one child, Matthew Huxley (19 April 1920 – 10 February 2005), who had a career as an author, anthropologist, and prominent epidemiologist. In 1955, Maria Huxley died of cancer.In 1956, Huxley married Laura Archera (1911–2007), also an author, as well as a violinist and psychotherapist. She wrote This Timeless Moment, a biography of Huxley. She told the story of their marriage through Mary Ann Braubach's 2010 documentary, Huxley on Huxley.Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 1960; in the years that followed, with his health deteriorating, he wrote the Utopian novel Island, and gave lectures on "Human Potentialities" both at the UCSF Medical Center and at the Esalen Institute. These lectures were fundamental to the beginning of the Human Potential Movement.Huxley was a close friend of Jiddu Krishnamurti and Rosalind Rajagopal and was involved in the creation of the Happy Valley School, now Besant Hill School of Happy Valley, in Ojai, California.The most substantial collection of Huxley's few remaining papers, following the destruction of most in the 1961 Bel Air Fire, is at the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles. Some are also at the Stanford University Libraries.On 9 April 1962 Huxley was informed he was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature, the senior literary organisation in Britain, and he accepted the title via letter on 28 April 1962. The correspondence between Huxley and the society is kept at the Cambridge University Library. The society invited Huxley to appear at a banquet and give a lecture at Somerset House, London, in June 1963. Huxley wrote a draft of the speech he intended to give at the society; however, his deteriorating health meant he was not able to attend.Death On his deathbed, unable to speak owing to advanced laryngeal cancer, Huxley made a written request to his wife Laura for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular." According to her account of his death in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:20 a.m. and a second dose an hour later; Huxley died aged 69, at 5:20 p.m. (Los Angeles time), on 22 November 1963.Media coverage of Huxley's death, along with that of fellow British author C. S. Lewis, was overshadowed by the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy on the same day, less than seven hours before Huxley's death. In a 2009 article for New York magazine titled "The Eclipsed Celebrity Death Club", Christopher Bonanos wrote:This coincidence served as the basis for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley, which imagines a conversation among the three men taking place in Purgatory following their deaths.Huxley's memorial service took place in London in December 1963; it was led by his elder brother Julian. On 27 October 1971, his ashes were interred in the family grave at the Watts Cemetery, home of the Watts Mortuary Chapel in Compton, Guildford, Surrey, England.Huxley had been a long-time friend of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who dedicated his last orchestral composition to Huxley. What became Variations: Aldous Huxley in memoriam was begun in July 1963, completed in October 1964, and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 17 April 1965.Awards  1939: James Tait Black Memorial Prize  1959: American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit . 1962: Companion of LiteratureFilm adaptations of Huxley's work  1950: Prelude to Fame based upon Young Archimedes 1968: Point Counter Point  1971: The Devils  1980: Brave New World  1998: Brave New World  2020: Brave New WorldBibliographySee alsoList of peace activistsReferencesSources    . Reprinted in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, revised edition, edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone. New York: W. W. Norton, 1972.Further reading  Anderson, Jack. 4 July 1982. "Ballet: Suzanne Farrell in Variations Premiere". The New York Times. Atkins, John. Aldous Huxley: A Literary Study, J. Calder, 1956 Barnes, Clive. 1 April 1966. "Ballet: Still Another Balanchine-Stravinsky Pearl; City Troupe Performs in Premiere Here Variations for Huxley at State Theater". The New York Times, p. 28.  Firchow, Peter. Aldous Huxley: Satirist and Novelist, U of Minnesota P, 1972 Firchow, Peter. The End of Utopia: A Study of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Bucknell UP, 1984  Huxley, Aldous. The Human Situation: Aldous Huxley Lectures at Santa Barbara 1959, Flamingo Modern Classic, 1994,  Huxley, Laura Archera. This Timeless Moment, Celestial Arts, 2001,   Meckier, Jerome. Aldous Huxley: Modern Satirical Novelist of Ideas, Firchow and Nugel editors, LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2006,  Morgan, W. John, 'Pacifism or Bourgeois Pacifism? Huxley, Orwell, and Caudwell', Chapter 5 in Morgan, W. John and Guilherme, Alexandre (Eds.),Peace and War-Historical, Philosophical, and Anthropological Perspectives, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp, 71–96. . Murray, Nicholas. Aldous Huxley, Macmillan, 2003,  Poller, Jake. Aldous Huxley, Reaktion Critical Lives, 2021. . Poller, Jake. Aldous Huxley and Alternative Spirituality, Brill, 2019. . Rolo, Charles J. (ed.). The World of Aldous Huxley, Grosset Universal Library, 1947. Shaw, Jeffrey M. Illusions of Freedom: Thomas Merton and Jacques Ellul on Technology and the Human Condition. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. 2014. . Shadurski, Maxim. The Nationality of Utopia: H. G. Wells, England, and the World State. New York and London: Routledge, 2020. (Chapter 5)  Watt, Conrad (ed.). Aldous Huxley, Routledge, 1997,External links Aldous Huxley full interview 1958: The Problems of Survival and Freedom in America  Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery  Raymond Fraser, George Wickes (Spring 1960). "Interview: Aldous Huxley: The Art of Fiction No. 24". The Paris Review. BBC discussion programme In our time: "Brave New World". Huxley and the novel. 9 April 2009. (Audio, 45 minutes) BBC In their own words series. 12 October 1958 (video, 12 mins) "The Ultimate Revolution" (talk at UC Berkeley, 20 March 1962) Huxley interviewed on The Mike Wallace Interview 18 May 1958 (video) Centre for Huxley Research Aldous Huxley Papers at University of California, Los Angeles Library Special CollectionsOnline editions      1894 births1963 deaths20th-century English novelists20th-century essayistsAlumni of Balliol College, OxfordAnti-consumeristsBates methodEnglish emigrants to the United States20th-century British short story writersBurials in SurreyConsciousness researchers and theoristsDeaths from cancer in CaliforniaDeaths from laryngeal cancerDuke University facultyEnglish agnosticsEnglish essayistsEnglish expatriates in the United StatesEnglish male novelistsEnglish male poetsEnglish male short story writersEnglish pacifistsEnglish people of Cornish descentEnglish satiristsEnglish science fiction writersEnglish short story writersEnglish travel writersFuturologistsHuman Potential MovementAldousJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipientsMale essayistsMoral philosophersMysticsNeo-VedantaPeople educated at Eton CollegePeople from GodalmingPerennial philosophyPhilosophers of culturePhilosophers of ethics and moralityPhilosophers of literaturePhilosophers of mindPhilosophers of technologyPsychedelic drug advocatesWriters from Los AngelesWriters from Taos, New Mexico20th-century English philosophersLost Generation writers
Ada may refer to:PlacesAfrica Ada Foah or Ada, Ghana, a town Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) Ada, Osun, a town in Osun State, NigeriaAsia Adeh, Urmia, also known as Ada, a village in West Azerbaijan Province Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, TurkeyAustralia and New Zealand Ada River (disambiguation), three riversEurope Ada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a village Ada, Croatia, a village Ada, Serbia, a town and municipality Ada Ciganlija or Ada, a river island artificially turned into a peninsula in Belgrade, SerbiaNorth AmericaUnited States Ada, Alabama, an unincorporated community Ada County, Idaho Ada, Kansas, an unincorporated community Ada Township, Michigan Ada, Minnesota, a city Ada Township, Dickey County, North Dakota Ada, Ohio, a village Ada, Oklahoma, a city Ada, Oregon, an unincorporated community Ada Township, Perkins County, South Dakota Ada, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Ada, Wisconsin, an unincorporated communityOuter space 523 Ada, an asteroidFilm and television Ada TV, a television channel in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Ada (1961 film), a 1961 film by Daniel MannAda (2019 film), a short biopic about Ada Lovelace Ada... A Way of Life, a 2008 Bollywood musical by Tanvir Ahmed Ada (dog actor), a dog that played Colin on the sitcom Spaced Ada, one of the main characters in 1991 movie Armour of God II: Operation CondorBiology Ada (plant), a genus of orchids Adenosine deaminase, an enzyme involved in purine metabolism Ada (protein), an enzyme induced by treatment of bacterial cellsComputer science Ada (programming language), programming language based on Pascal Ada (computer virus)Air travel Ada Air, a regional airline based in Tirana, Albania Ada International Airport or Saipan International Airport, Saipan Island, Northern Mariana Islands Aerolínea de Antioquia, a Colombian airline Airline Deregulation Act, a 1978 US bill removing governmental control from commercial aviationSchools  Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, a further education college in Tottenham Hale, London Ada High School (Ohio), Ada, Ohio Ada High School (Oklahoma), Ada, OklahomaPeople Ada (name), a feminine given name and a surname, including a list of people and fictional charactersAda Lovelace (1815–1852), computer scientist sometimes regarded as the first computer programmerOther uses List of tropical storms named Ada Ada (food), a traditional Kerala delicacy Ada, the cryptocurrency of the Cardano blockchain platform Ada Bridge, Belgrade, Serbia , a cargo vessel built for the London and South Western Railway Ada (ship), a wooden ketch, wrecked near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, novel by Vladimir Nabokov Dangme language, spoken in Ghana (ISO 639-2 and 639-3 code "ada") Ada Health GmbH, a symptom checker appSee also ADA (disambiguation) Ada regulon, an Escherichia coli adaptive response protein Adah (disambiguation) Adha (disambiguation) Ada'a, a woreda in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia Ade (disambiguation) USS Little Ada (1864), a steamer captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War
Aberdeen is a city in Scotland, United Kingdom.Aberdeen may also refer to:PlacesAfrica  Aberdeen, Sierra Leone Aberdeen, Eastern Cape, South AfricaAsiaHong Kong  Aberdeen, Hong Kong, an area and town on southwest Hong Kong Island Aberdeen Channel, a channel between Ap Lei Chau (Aberdeen Island) and Nam Long Shan on the Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong Aberdeen Country Park, a country park in Hong Kong Island Aberdeen floating village, at Aberdeen Harbour, containing approximately 600 junks, which house an estimated 6,000 people Aberdeen Harbour, a harbour between Aberdeen, Hong Kong and Ap Lei Chau (Aberdeen Island) Aberdeen Tunnel, a tunnel in Hong Kong Island Aberdeen Tunnel Underground Laboratory, an underground particle physics laboratory in Hong Kong Island Ap Lei Chau or Aberdeen Island, an island of Hong Kong Aberdeen (constituency), a constituency of Southern District CouncilIndia  Aberdeen Bazaar, a shopping centre in Port Blair, South Andaman IslandSri Lanka  Aberdeen Falls, a waterfall in Sri LankaAustralia  Aberdeen, New South Wales Aberdeen, South Australia, one of the early townships that merged in 1940 to create the town of Burra Aberdeen, Tasmania, a suburb of the City of DevonportCaribbean  Aberdeen, Jamaica, a town in Saint Elizabeth, JamaicaEurope Aberdeen (Parliament of Scotland constituency) Aberdeen (UK Parliament constituency) 1832-1885 Aberdeen Burghs (UK Parliament constituency) 1801-1832 Aberdeen Central (Scottish Parliament constituency) Aberdeen Central (UK Parliament constituency) Aberdeen Donside (Scottish Parliament constituency) County of Aberdeen, a historic county of Scotland whose county town was Aberdeen Old Aberdeen, a part of the city of Aberdeen in ScotlandNorth AmericaCanada  Aberdeen, community in the township of Champlain, Prescott and Russell County, Ontario Aberdeen, Abbotsford, a neighbourhood in the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia Aberdeen Centre, a shopping mall in Richmond, British Columbia Aberdeen, Grey County, Ontario Aberdeen, Kamloops, an area in the City of Kamloops, British Columbia Aberdeen Lake (Nunavut), a lake in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada Aberdeen, Nova Scotia, part of the Municipality of Inverness County, Nova Scotia Aberdeen Parish, New Brunswick Rural Municipality of Aberdeen No. 373, Saskatchewan Aberdeen, Saskatchewan Aberdeen Bay, a bay between southern Baffin Island and north-eastern Hector Island in the Nunavut territory Aberdeen Township, Quebec, until 1960 part of Sheen-Esher-Aberdeen-et-Malakoff, now part of Rapides-des-Joachims, Quebec Aberdeen River, a tributary of rivière aux Castors Noirs in Mauricie, Québec New Aberdeen, Nova ScotiaUnited States  Aberdeen, Arkansas Aberdeen, Florida Aberdeen, Georgia Aberdeen, Idaho Aberdeen, Ohio County, Indiana Aberdeen, Porter County, Indiana Aberdeen, Kentucky Aberdeen, Maryland Aberdeen Proving Ground, a United States Army facility located near Aberdeen, Maryland Aberdeen, Massachusetts, a neighborhood of Brighton, Boston Aberdeen, Mississippi Aberdeen Lake (Mississippi), a lake in northeast Mississippi on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, close to Aberdeen, Mississippi Aberdeen Township, New Jersey Aberdeen, North Carolina Aberdeen Historic District (Aberdeen, North Carolina) Aberdeen, Ohio Aberdeen, South Dakota Aberdeen Historic District (Aberdeen, South Dakota) Aberdeen, Texas Aberdeen (Disputanta, Virginia) Aberdeen Gardens (Hampton, Virginia) Aberdeen, Washington Aberdeen Gardens, Washington Aberdeen, West VirginiaBusiness Abrdn, formerly Standard Life Aberdeen Aberdeen Asset ManagementEducation  Aberdeen Business School Aberdeen College, formerly one of the largest further education colleges in Scotland, merged with Banff & Buchan College to form North East Scotland College Aberdeen Grammar School, Aberdeen, Scotland Aberdeen Hall, a university-preparatory school in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada Aberdeen High School (disambiguation) King's College, Aberdeen University of Aberdeen, a public research university in the city of AberdeenEntertainment  Aberdeen (2000 film), a 2000 Norwegian-British film directed by Hans Petter Moland, starring Stellan Skarsgård and Lena Headey Aberdeen (2014 film), a 2014 Hong Kong film starring Louis Koo Aberdeen (band), an American rock band Aberdeen (song), a song by Cage The Elephant Aberdeen City (band), Boston based indie/alternative rock bandOther transportation  Aberdeen Airport (disambiguation) Aberdeen Lock and Dam, one of four lock and dam structures on the Tennessee-Tombigbee WaterwayRail  Aberdeen, Carolina and Western Railway, a short-line railroad operating in North Carolina Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad, a short-line railroad operating in North Carolina Aberdeen Corporation Tramways Aberdeen Line (disambiguation) Aberdeen station (disambiguation) Dundee and Perth and Aberdeen Junction Railway, a later name of the Dundee and Perth RailwayShipping  Aberdeen Line, a British shipping company founded in 1825 , one of several ships by that name , a sloop of the British Royal Navy that served between 1936 and 1948 , a  merchant ship operated during the latter stages of World War II, later commissioned as the USS AltairSports  Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta, the largest regular intercollegiate rowing event in the United States, named after its sponsor, Aberdeen Asset Management Aberdeen F.C. (disambiguation) Aberdeen GSFP RFC, an amateur rugby union club based in Aberdeen Aberdeen IronBirds, a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles Aberdeen L.F.C., a women's football team affiliated with Aberdeen F.C.See also  Aberdeen Act Aberdeen Angus, a Scottish breed of small beef cattle Aberdeen Central (disambiguation) Aberdeen Gardens (disambiguation) Aberdeen Historic District (disambiguation) Aberdeen Hospital (disambiguation) Aberdeen Quarry, a granite quarry in Colorado Battle of Aberdeen (disambiguation) Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, one of the seven dioceses of the Scottish Episcopal Church Etymology of Aberdeen Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular microalgae, such as Chlorella, Prototheca and the diatoms, to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelp, a large brown alga which may grow up to  in length. Most are aquatic and autotrophic (they generate food internally) and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem and phloem that are found in land plants. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds, while the most complex freshwater forms are the Charophyta, a division of green algae which includes, for example, Spirogyra and stoneworts.No definition of algae is generally accepted. One definition is that algae "have chlorophyll as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around their reproductive cells". Likewise, the colorless Prototheca under Chlorophyta are all devoid of any chlorophyll. Although cyanobacteria are often referred to as "blue-green algae", most authorities exclude all prokaryotes from the definition of algae.Algae constitute a polyphyletic group since they do not include a common ancestor, and although their plastids seem to have a single origin, from cyanobacteria, they were acquired in different ways. Green algae are examples of algae that have primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. Diatoms and brown algae are examples of algae with secondary chloroplasts derived from an endosymbiotic red alga. Algae exhibit a wide range of reproductive strategies, from simple asexual cell division to complex forms of sexual reproduction.Algae lack the various structures that characterize land plants, such as the phyllids (leaf-like structures) of bryophytes, rhizoids of nonvascular plants, and the roots, leaves, and other organs found in tracheophytes (vascular plants). Most are phototrophic, although some are mixotrophic, deriving energy both from photosynthesis and uptake of organic carbon either by osmotrophy, myzotrophy, or phagotrophy. Some unicellular species of green algae, many golden algae, euglenids, dinoflagellates, and other algae have become heterotrophs (also called colorless or apochlorotic algae), sometimes parasitic, relying entirely on external energy sources and have limited or no photosynthetic apparatus. Some other heterotrophic organisms, such as the apicomplexans, are also derived from cells whose ancestors possessed plastids, but are not traditionally considered as algae. Algae have photosynthetic machinery ultimately derived from cyanobacteria that produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, unlike other photosynthetic bacteria such as purple and green sulfur bacteria. Fossilized filamentous algae from the Vindhya basin have been dated back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago.Because of the wide range of types of algae, they have increasing different industrial and traditional applications in human society. Traditional seaweed farming practices have existed for thousands of years and have strong traditions in East Asia food cultures. More modern algaculture applications extend the food traditions for other applications include cattle feed, using algae for bioremediation or pollution control, transforming sunlight into algae fuels or other chemicals used in industrial processes, and in medical and scientific applications. A 2020 review, found that these applications of algae could play an important role in carbon sequestration in order to mitigate climate change while providing valuable value-add products for global economies.Etymology and studyThe singular  is the Latin word for 'seaweed' and retains that meaning in English. The etymology is obscure. Although some speculate that it is related to Latin , 'be cold', no reason is known to associate seaweed with temperature. A more likely source is , 'binding, entwining'.The Ancient Greek word for 'seaweed' was  (), which could mean either the seaweed (probably red algae) or a red dye derived from it. The Latinization, , meant primarily the cosmetic rouge. The etymology is uncertain, but a strong candidate has long been some word related to the Biblical  (), 'paint' (if not that word itself), a cosmetic eye-shadow used by the ancient Egyptians and other inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean. It could be any color: black, red, green, or blue.Accordingly, the modern study of marine and freshwater algae is called either phycology or algology, depending on whether the Greek or Latin root is used. The name fucus appears in a number of taxa.ClassificationsThe committee on the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has recommended certain suffixes for use in the classification of algae. These are -phyta for division, -phyceae for class, -phycideae for subclass, -ales for order, -inales for suborder, -aceae for family, -oidease for subfamily, a Greek-based name for genus, and a Latin-based name for species.Algal characteristics basic to primary classificationThe primary classification of algae is based on certain morphological features. The chief among these are (a) pigment constitution of the cell, (b) chemical nature of stored food materials, (c) kind, number, point of insertion and relative length of the flagella on the motile cell, (d) chemical composition of cell wall and (e) presence or absence of a definitely organized nucleus in the cell or any other significant details of cell structure.History of classification of algaeAlthough Carolus Linnaeus (1754) included algae along with lichens in his 25th class Cryptogamia, he did not elaborate further on the classification of algae.Jean Pierre Étienne Vaucher (1803) was perhaps the first to propose a system of classification of algae, and he recognized three groups, Conferves, Ulves, and Tremelles. While Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link (1820) classified algae on the basis of the colour of the pigment and structure, William Henry Harvey (1836) proposed a system of classification on the basis of the habitat and the pigment. J. G. Agardh (1849–1898) divided algae into six orders: Diatomaceae, Nostochineae, Confervoideae, Ulvaceae, Floriadeae and Fucoideae. Around 1880, algae along with fungi were grouped under Thallophyta, a division created by Eichler (1836). Encouraged by this, Adolf Engler and Karl A. E. Prantl (1912) proposed a revised scheme of classification of algae and included fungi in algae as they were of opinion that fungi have been derived from algae. The scheme proposed by Engler and Prantl is summarised as follows: Schizophyta Phytosarcodina Flagellata Dinoflagellata Bacillariophyta Conjugatae Chlorophyceae Charophyta Phaeophyceae Rhodophyceae Eumycetes (Fungi)The algae contain chloroplasts that are similar in structure to cyanobacteria. Chloroplasts contain circular DNA like that in cyanobacteria and are interpreted as representing reduced endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. However, the exact origin of the chloroplasts is different among separate lineages of algae, reflecting their acquisition during different endosymbiotic events. The table below describes the composition of the three major groups of algae. Their lineage relationships are shown in the figure in the upper right. Many of these groups contain some members that are no longer photosynthetic. Some retain plastids, but not chloroplasts, while others have lost plastids entirely.Phylogeny based on plastid not nucleocytoplasmic genealogy:Linnaeus, in Species Plantarum (1753), the starting point for modern botanical nomenclature, recognized 14 genera of algae, of which only four are currently considered among algae. In Systema Naturae, Linnaeus described the genera Volvox and Corallina, and a species of Acetabularia (as Madrepora), among the animals.In 1768, Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1744–1774) published the Historia Fucorum, the first work dedicated to marine algae and the first book on marine biology to use the then new binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus. It included elaborate illustrations of seaweed and marine algae on folded leaves.W. H. Harvey (1811–1866) and Lamouroux (1813) were the first to divide macroscopic algae into four divisions based on their pigmentation. This is the first use of a biochemical criterion in plant systematics. Harvey's four divisions are: red algae (Rhodospermae), brown algae (Melanospermae), green algae (Chlorospermae), and Diatomaceae.At this time, microscopic algae were discovered and reported by a different group of workers (e.g., O. F. Müller and Ehrenberg) studying the Infusoria (microscopic organisms). Unlike macroalgae, which were clearly viewed as plants, microalgae were frequently considered animals because they are often motile. Even the nonmotile (coccoid) microalgae were sometimes merely seen as stages of the lifecycle of plants, macroalgae, or animals.Although used as a taxonomic category in some pre-Darwinian classifications, e.g., Linnaeus (1753), de Jussieu (1789), Horaninow (1843), Agassiz (1859), Wilson & Cassin (1864), in further classifications, the "algae" are seen as an artificial, polyphyletic group.Throughout the 20th century, most classifications treated the following groups as divisions or classes of algae: cyanophytes, rhodophytes, chrysophytes, xanthophytes, bacillariophytes, phaeophytes, pyrrhophytes (cryptophytes and dinophytes), euglenophytes, and chlorophytes. Later, many new groups were discovered (e.g., Bolidophyceae), and others were splintered from older groups: charophytes and glaucophytes (from chlorophytes), many heterokontophytes (e.g., synurophytes from chrysophytes, or eustigmatophytes from xanthophytes), haptophytes (from chrysophytes), and chlorarachniophytes (from xanthophytes).With the abandonment of plant-animal dichotomous classification, most groups of algae (sometimes all) were included in Protista, later also abandoned in favour of Eukaryota. However, as a legacy of the older plant life scheme, some groups that were also treated as protozoans in the past still have duplicated classifications (see ambiregnal protists).Some parasitic algae (e.g., the green algae Prototheca and Helicosporidium, parasites of metazoans, or Cephaleuros, parasites of plants) were originally classified as fungi, sporozoans, or protistans of incertae sedis, while others (e.g., the green algae Phyllosiphon and Rhodochytrium, parasites of plants, or the red algae Pterocladiophila and Gelidiocolax mammillatus, parasites of other red algae, or the dinoflagellates Oodinium, parasites of fish) had their relationship with algae conjectured early. In other cases, some groups were originally characterized as parasitic algae (e.g., Chlorochytrium), but later were seen as endophytic algae. Some filamentous bacteria (e.g., Beggiatoa) were originally seen as algae. Furthermore, groups like the apicomplexans are also parasites derived from ancestors that possessed plastids, but are not included in any group traditionally seen as algae.Relationship to land plantsThe first land plants probably evolved from shallow freshwater charophyte algae much like Chara almost 500 million years ago. These probably had an isomorphic alternation of generations and were probably filamentous. Fossils of isolated land plant spores suggest land plants may have been around as long as 475 million years ago.MorphologyA range of algal morphologies is exhibited, and convergence of features in unrelated groups is common. The only groups to exhibit three-dimensional multicellular thalli are the reds and browns, and some chlorophytes. Apical growth is constrained to subsets of these groups: the florideophyte reds, various browns, and the charophytes. The form of charophytes is quite different from those of reds and browns, because they have distinct nodes, separated by internode 'stems'; whorls of branches reminiscent of the horsetails occur at the nodes. Conceptacles are another polyphyletic trait; they appear in the coralline algae and the Hildenbrandiales, as well as the browns.Most of the simpler algae are unicellular flagellates or amoeboids, but colonial and nonmotile forms have developed independently among several of the groups. Some of the more common organizational levels, more than one of which may occur in the lifecycle of a species, are Colonial: small, regular groups of motile cells Capsoid: individual non-motile cells embedded in mucilage Coccoid: individual non-motile cells with cell walls Palmelloid: nonmotile cells embedded in mucilage Filamentous: a string of nonmotile cells connected together, sometimes branching Parenchymatous: cells forming a thallus with partial differentiation of tissuesIn three lines, even higher levels of organization have been reached, with full tissue differentiation. These are the brown algae,—some of which may reach 50 m in length (kelps)—the red algae, and the green algae. The most complex forms are found among the charophyte algae (see Charales and Charophyta), in a lineage that eventually led to the higher land plants. The innovation that defines these nonalgal plants is the presence of female reproductive organs with protective cell layers that protect the zygote and developing embryo. Hence, the land plants are referred to as the Embryophytes.TurfsThe term algal turf is commonly used but poorly defined. Algal turfs are thick, carpet-like beds of seaweed that retain sediment and compete with foundation species like corals and kelps, and they are usually less than 15 cm tall. Such a turf may consist of one or more species, and will generally cover an area in the order of a square metre or more. Some common characteristics are listed: Algae that form aggregations that have been described as turfs include diatoms, cyanobacteria, chlorophytes, phaeophytes and rhodophytes. Turfs are often composed of numerous species at a wide range of spatial scales, but monospecific turfs are frequently reported. Turfs can be morphologically highly variable over geographic scales and even within species on local scales and can be difficult to identify in terms of the constituent species. Turfs have been defined as short algae, but this has been used to describe height ranges from less than 0.5 cm to more than 10 cm. In some regions, the descriptions approached heights which might be described as canopies (20 to 30 cm).PhysiologyMany algae, particularly members of the Characeae species, have served as model experimental organisms to understand the mechanisms of the water permeability of membranes, osmoregulation, turgor regulation, salt tolerance, cytoplasmic streaming, and the generation of action potentials.Phytohormones are found not only in higher plants, but in algae, too.Symbiotic algaeSome species of algae form symbiotic relationships with other organisms. In these symbioses, the algae supply photosynthates (organic substances) to the host organism providing protection to the algal cells. The host organism derives some or all of its energy requirements from the algae. Examples are:LichensLichens are defined by the International Association for Lichenology to be "an association of a fungus and a photosynthetic symbiont resulting in a stable vegetative body having a specific structure". The fungi, or mycobionts, are mainly from the Ascomycota with a few from the Basidiomycota. In nature they do not occur separate from lichens. It is unknown when they began to associate. One mycobiont associates with the same phycobiont species, rarely two, from the green algae, except that alternatively, the mycobiont may associate with a species of cyanobacteria (hence "photobiont" is the more accurate term). A photobiont may be associated with many different mycobionts or may live independently; accordingly, lichens are named and classified as fungal species. The association is termed a morphogenesis because the lichen has a form and capabilities not possessed by the symbiont species alone (they can be experimentally isolated). The photobiont possibly triggers otherwise latent genes in the mycobiont.Trentepohlia is an example of a common green alga genus worldwide that can grow on its own or be lichenised. Lichen thus share some of the habitat and often similar appearance with specialized species of algae (aerophytes) growing on exposed surfaces such as tree trunks and rocks and sometimes discoloring them.Coral reefs Coral reefs are accumulated from the calcareous exoskeletons of marine invertebrates of the order Scleractinia (stony corals). These animals metabolize sugar and oxygen to obtain energy for their cell-building processes, including secretion of the exoskeleton, with water and carbon dioxide as byproducts. Dinoflagellates (algal protists) are often endosymbionts in the cells of the coral-forming marine invertebrates, where they accelerate host-cell metabolism by generating sugar and oxygen immediately available through photosynthesis using incident light and the carbon dioxide produced by the host. Reef-building stony corals (hermatypic corals) require endosymbiotic algae from the genus Symbiodinium to be in a healthy condition. The loss of Symbiodinium from the host is known as coral bleaching, a condition which leads to the deterioration of a reef.Sea spongesEndosymbiontic green algae live close to the surface of some sponges, for example, breadcrumb sponges (Halichondria panicea). The alga is thus protected from predators; the sponge is provided with oxygen and sugars which can account for 50 to 80% of sponge growth in some species.LifecycleRhodophyta, Chlorophyta, and Heterokontophyta, the three main algal divisions, have lifecycles which show considerable variation and complexity. In general, an asexual phase exists where the seaweed's cells are diploid, a sexual phase where the cells are haploid, followed by fusion of the male and female gametes. Asexual reproduction permits efficient population increases, but less variation is possible. Commonly, in sexual reproduction of unicellular and colonial algae, two specialized, sexually compatible, haploid gametes make physical contact and fuse to form a zygote. To ensure a successful mating, the development and release of gametes is highly synchronized and regulated; pheromones may play a key role in these processes. Sexual reproduction allows for more variation and provides the benefit of efficient recombinational repair of DNA damages during meiosis, a key stage of the sexual cycle.  However, sexual reproduction is more costly than asexual reproduction. Meiosis has been shown to occur in many different species of algae.NumbersThe Algal Collection of the US National Herbarium (located in the National Museum of Natural History) consists of approximately 320,500 dried specimens, which, although not exhaustive (no exhaustive collection exists), gives an idea of the order of magnitude of the number of algal species (that number remains unknown). Estimates vary widely. For example, according to one standard textbook, in the British Isles the UK Biodiversity Steering Group Report estimated there to be 20,000 algal species in the UK. Another checklist reports only about 5,000 species. Regarding the difference of about 15,000 species, the text concludes: "It will require many detailed field surveys before it is possible to provide a reliable estimate of the total number of species ..."Regional and group estimates have been made, as well: 5,000–5,500 species of red algae worldwide "some 1,300 in Australian Seas" 400 seaweed species for the western coastline of South Africa, and 212 species from the coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Some of these are duplicates, as the range extends across both coasts, and the total recorded is probably about 500 species. Most of these are listed in List of seaweeds of South Africa. These exclude phytoplankton and crustose corallines. 669 marine species from California (US) 642 in the check-list of Britain and Irelandand so on, but lacking any scientific basis or reliable sources, these numbers have no more credibility than the British ones mentioned above. Most estimates also omit microscopic algae, such as phytoplankton.The most recent estimate suggests 72,500 algal species worldwide.DistributionThe distribution of algal species has been fairly well studied since the founding of phytogeography in the mid-19th century. Algae spread mainly by the dispersal of spores analogously to the dispersal of Plantae by seeds and spores. This dispersal can be accomplished by air, water, or other organisms. Due to this, spores can be found in a variety of environments: fresh and marine waters, air, soil, and in or on other organisms. Whether a spore is to grow into an organism depends on the combination of the species and the environmental conditions where the spore lands.The spores of freshwater algae are dispersed mainly by running water and wind, as well as by living carriers. However, not all bodies of water can carry all species of algae, as the chemical composition of certain water bodies limits the algae that can survive within them. Marine spores are often spread by ocean currents. Ocean water presents many vastly different habitats based on temperature and nutrient availability, resulting in phytogeographic zones, regions, and provinces.To some degree, the distribution of algae is subject to floristic discontinuities caused by geographical features, such as Antarctica, long distances of ocean or general land masses. It is, therefore, possible to identify species occurring by locality, such as "Pacific algae" or "North Sea algae". When they occur out of their localities, hypothesizing a transport mechanism is usually possible, such as the hulls of ships. For example, Ulva reticulata and U. fasciata travelled from the mainland to Hawaii in this manner.Mapping is possible for select species only: "there are many valid examples of confined distribution patterns." For example, Clathromorphum is an arctic genus and is not mapped far south of there. However, scientists regard the overall data as insufficient due to the "difficulties of undertaking such studies."EcologyAlgae are prominent in bodies of water, common in terrestrial environments, and are found in unusual environments, such as on snow and ice. Seaweeds grow mostly in shallow marine waters, under  deep; however, some such as Navicula pennata have been recorded to a depth of . A type of algae, Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, was found in Greenland in areas known as the 'Dark Zone', which caused an increase in the rate of melting ice sheet. Same algae was found in the Italian Alps, after pink ice appeared on parts of the Presena glacier.The various sorts of algae play significant roles in aquatic ecology. Microscopic forms that live suspended in the water column (phytoplankton) provide the food base for most marine food chains. In very high densities (algal blooms), these algae may discolor the water and outcompete, poison, or asphyxiate other life forms.Algae can be used as indicator organisms to monitor pollution in various aquatic systems. In many cases, algal metabolism is sensitive to various pollutants. Due to this, the species composition of algal populations may shift in the presence of chemical pollutants. To detect these changes, algae can be sampled from the environment and maintained in laboratories with relative ease.On the basis of their habitat, algae can be categorized as: aquatic (planktonic, benthic, marine, freshwater, lentic, lotic), terrestrial, aerial (subaerial), lithophytic, halophytic (or euryhaline), psammon, thermophilic, cryophilic, epibiont (epiphytic, epizoic), endosymbiont (endophytic, endozoic), parasitic, calcifilic or lichenic (phycobiont).Cultural associationsIn classical Chinese, the word  is used both for "algae" and (in the modest tradition of the imperial scholars) for "literary talent". The third island in Kunming Lake beside the Summer Palace in Beijing is known as the Zaojian Tang Dao, which thus simultaneously means "Island of the Algae-Viewing Hall" and "Island of the Hall for Reflecting on Literary Talent".CultivationSeaweed farmingBioreactorsUsesAgarAgar, a gelatinous substance derived from red algae, has a number of commercial uses. It is a good medium on which to grow bacteria and fungi, as most microorganisms cannot digest agar.AlginatesAlginic acid, or alginate, is extracted from brown algae. Its uses range from gelling agents in food, to medical dressings. Alginic acid also has been used in the field of biotechnology as a biocompatible medium for cell encapsulation and cell immobilization. Molecular cuisine is also a user of the substance for its gelling properties, by which it becomes a delivery vehicle for flavours.Between 100,000 and 170,000 wet tons of Macrocystis are harvested annually in New Mexico for alginate extraction and abalone feed.Energy sourceTo be competitive and independent from fluctuating support from (local) policy on the long run, biofuels should equal or beat the cost level of fossil fuels. Here, algae-based fuels hold great promise, directly related to the potential to produce more biomass per unit area in a year than any other form of biomass. The break-even point for algae-based biofuels is estimated to occur by 2025.FertilizerFor centuries, seaweed has been used as a fertilizer; George Owen of Henllys writing in the 16th century referring to drift weed in South Wales:Today, algae are used by humans in many ways; for example, as fertilizers, soil conditioners, and livestock feed. Aquatic and microscopic species are cultured in clear tanks or ponds and are either harvested or used to treat effluents pumped through the ponds. Algaculture on a large scale is an important type of aquaculture in some places. Maerl is commonly used as a soil conditioner.NutritionNaturally growing seaweeds are an important source of food, especially in Asia, leading some to label them as superfoods. They provide many vitamins including: A, B1, B2, B6, niacin, and C, and are rich in iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium, and calcium. In addition, commercially cultivated microalgae, including both algae and cyanobacteria, are marketed as nutritional supplements, such as spirulina, Chlorella and the vitamin-C supplement from Dunaliella, high in beta-carotene.Algae are national foods of many nations: China consumes more than 70 species, including fat choy, a cyanobacterium considered a vegetable; Japan, over 20 species such as nori and aonori; Ireland, dulse; Chile, cochayuyo. Laver is used to make laver bread in Wales, where it is known as ; in Korea, . It is also used along the west coast of North America from California to British Columbia, in Hawaii and by the Māori of New Zealand. Sea lettuce and badderlocks are salad ingredients in Scotland, Ireland, Greenland, and Iceland. Algae is being considered a potential solution for world hunger problem.Two popular forms of algae are used in cuisine: Chlorella: This form of alga is found in freshwater and contains photosynthetic pigments in its chloroplast. It is high in iron, zinc, magnesium, vitamin B2 and Omega-3 Fatty acids. Furthermore, it contains all nine of the essential amino acids the body does not produce on its own Spirulina: Known otherwise as a cyanobacterium (a prokaryote, incorrectly referred to as a "blue-green alga"), contains 10% more protein than Chlorella as well as more thiamine and copper.The oils from some algae have high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. For example, Parietochloris incisa is very high in arachidonic acid, where it reaches up to 47% of the triglyceride pool. Some varieties of algae favored by vegetarianism and veganism contain the long-chain, essential omega-3 fatty acids, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Fish oil contains the omega-3 fatty acids, but the original source is algae (microalgae in particular), which are eaten by marine life such as copepods and are passed up the food chain. Algae have emerged in recent years as a popular source of omega-3 fatty acids for vegetarians who cannot get long-chain EPA and DHA from other vegetarian sources such as flaxseed oil, which only contains the short-chain alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).Pollution control Sewage can be treated with algae, reducing the use of large amounts of toxic chemicals that would otherwise be needed. Algae can be used to capture fertilizers in runoff from farms. When subsequently harvested, the enriched algae can be used as fertilizer. Aquaria and ponds can be filtered using algae, which absorb nutrients from the water in a device called an algae scrubber, also known as an algae turf scrubber.Agricultural Research Service scientists found that 60–90% of nitrogen runoff and 70–100% of phosphorus runoff can be captured from manure effluents using a horizontal algae scrubber, also called an algal turf scrubber (ATS). Scientists developed the ATS, which consists of shallow, 100-foot raceways of nylon netting where algae colonies can form, and studied its efficacy for three years. They found that algae can readily be used to reduce the nutrient runoff from agricultural fields and increase the quality of water flowing into rivers, streams, and oceans. Researchers collected and dried the nutrient-rich algae from the ATS and studied its potential as an organic fertilizer. They found that cucumber and corn seedlings grew just as well using ATS organic fertilizer as they did with commercial fertilizers. Algae scrubbers, using bubbling upflow or vertical waterfall versions, are now also being used to filter aquaria and ponds.PolymersVarious polymers can be created from algae, which can be especially useful in the creation of bioplastics.  These include hybrid plastics, cellulose-based plastics, poly-lactic acid, and bio-polyethylene. Several companies have begun to produce algae polymers commercially, including for use in flip-flops and in surf boards.BioremediationThe alga Stichococcus bacillaris has been seen to colonize silicone resins used at archaeological sites; biodegrading the synthetic substance.PigmentsThe natural pigments (carotenoids and chlorophylls) produced by algae can be used as alternatives to chemical dyes and coloring agents.The presence of some individual algal pigments, together with specific pigment concentration ratios, are taxon-specific: analysis of their concentrations with various analytical methods, particularly high-performance liquid chromatography, can therefore offer deep insight into the taxonomic composition and relative abundance of natural algae populations in sea water samples.Stabilizing substancesCarrageenan, from the red alga Chondrus crispus, is used as a stabilizer in milk products.Additional imagesSee also AlgaeBase AlgaePARC Eutrophication Iron fertilization Marimo algae Microbiofuels Microphyte Photobioreactor Phycotechnology Plant Toxoid – anatoxinReferencesBibliographyGeneral      .RegionalBritain and IrelandAustraliaNew ZealandEuropeArcticGreenlandFaroe Islands .Canary IslandsMoroccoSouth AfricaNorth AmericaExternal links  – a database of all algal names including images, nomenclature, taxonomy, distribution, bibliography, uses, extracts            EnAlgae  Endosymbiotic eventsPolyphyletic groups
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means. ANOVA was developed by the statistician Ronald Fisher. ANOVA is based on the law of total variance, where the observed variance in a particular variable is partitioned into components attributable to different sources of variation. In its simplest form, ANOVA provides a statistical test of whether two or more population means are equal, and therefore generalizes the t-test beyond two means.HistoryWhile the analysis of variance reached fruition in the 20th century, antecedents extend centuries into the past according to Stigler.  These include hypothesis testing, the partitioning of sums of squares, experimental techniques and the additive model. Laplace was performing hypothesis testing in the 1770s. Around 1800,  Laplace and Gauss developed the least-squares method for combining observations, which improved upon methods then used in astronomy and geodesy. It also initiated much study of the contributions to sums of squares. Laplace knew how to estimate a variance from a residual (rather than a total) sum of squares. By 1827, Laplace was using least squares methods to address ANOVA problems regarding measurements of atmospheric tides. Before 1800, astronomers had isolated observational errors resulting from reaction times (the "personal equation") and had developed methods of reducing the errors.  The experimental methods used in the study of the personal equation were later accepted by the emerging field of psychology  which developed strong (full factorial) experimental methods to which randomization and blinding were soon added.  An eloquent non-mathematical explanation of the additive effects model was available in 1885.Ronald Fisher introduced the term variance and proposed its formal analysis in a 1918 article The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance.  His first application of the analysis of variance was published in 1921. Analysis of variance became widely known after being included in Fisher's 1925 book Statistical Methods for Research Workers.Randomization models were developed by several researchers.  The first was published in Polish by Jerzy Neyman in 1923.ExampleThe analysis of variance can be used to describe otherwise complex relations among variables.  A dog show provides an example.  A dog show is not a random sampling of the breed: it is typically limited to dogs that are adult, pure-bred, and exemplary.  A histogram of dog weights from a show might plausibly be rather complex, like the yellow-orange distribution shown in the illustrations.  Suppose we wanted to predict the weight of a dog based on a certain set of characteristics of each dog. One way to do that is to explain the distribution of weights by dividing the dog population into groups based on those characteristics. A successful grouping will split dogs such that (a) each group has a low variance of dog weights (meaning the group is relatively homogeneous) and (b) the mean of each group is distinct (if two groups have the same mean, then it isn't reasonable to conclude that the groups are, in fact, separate in any meaningful way).In the illustrations to the right, groups are identified as X1, X2, etc. In the first illustration, the dogs are divided according to the product (interaction) of two binary groupings: young vs old, and short-haired vs long-haired (e.g., group 1 is young, short-haired dogs, group 2 is young, long-haired dogs, etc.). Since the distributions of dog weight within each of the groups (shown in blue) has a relatively large variance, and since the means are very similar across groups, grouping dogs by these characteristics does not produce an effective way to explain the variation in dog weights: knowing which group a dog is in doesn't allow us to predict its weight much better than simply knowing the dog is in a dog show. Thus, this grouping fails to explain the variation in the overall distribution (yellow-orange).An attempt to explain the weight distribution by grouping dogs as pet vs working breed and less athletic vs more athletic would probably be somewhat more successful (fair fit).  The heaviest show dogs are likely to be big, strong, working breeds, while breeds kept as pets tend to be smaller and thus lighter.  As shown by the second illustration, the distributions have variances that are considerably smaller than in the first case, and the means are more distinguishable. However, the significant overlap of distributions, for example, means that we cannot distinguish X1 and X2 reliably. Grouping dogs according to a coin flip might produce distributions that look similar.An attempt to explain weight by breed is likely to produce a very good fit.  All Chihuahuas are light and all St Bernards are heavy.  The difference in weights between Setters and Pointers does not justify separate breeds.  The analysis of variance provides the formal tools to justify these intuitive judgments.  A common use of the method is the analysis of experimental data or the development of models.  The method has some advantages over correlation: not all of the data must be numeric and one result of the method is a judgment in the confidence in an explanatory relationship.Classes of models There are three classes of models used in the analysis of variance, and these are outlined here.Fixed-effects modelsThe fixed-effects model (class I) of analysis of variance applies to situations in which the experimenter applies one or more treatments to the subjects of the experiment to see whether the response variable values change. This allows the experimenter to estimate the ranges of response variable values that the treatment would generate in the population as a whole.Random-effects modelsRandom-effects model (class II) is used when the treatments are not fixed. This occurs when the various factor levels are sampled from a larger population. Because the levels themselves are random variables, some assumptions and the method of contrasting the treatments (a multi-variable generalization of simple differences) differ from the fixed-effects model.Mixed-effects modelsA mixed-effects model (class III) contains experimental factors of both fixed and random-effects types, with appropriately different interpretations and analysis for the two types.Example:Teaching experiments could be performed by a college or university department to find a good introductory textbook, with each text considered a treatment.  The fixed-effects model would compare a list of candidate texts.  The random-effects model would determine whether important differences exist among a list of randomly selected texts.  The mixed-effects model would compare the (fixed) incumbent texts to randomly selected alternatives.Defining fixed and random effects has proven elusive, with competing definitions arguably leading toward a linguistic quagmire.AssumptionsThe analysis of variance has been studied from several approaches, the most common of which uses a linear model that relates the response to the treatments and blocks. Note that the model is linear in parameters but may be nonlinear across factor levels. Interpretation is easy when data is balanced across factors but much deeper understanding is needed for unbalanced data.Textbook analysis using a normal distributionThe analysis of variance can be presented in terms of a linear model, which makes the following assumptions about the probability distribution of the responses: Independence of observations – this is an assumption of the model that simplifies the statistical analysis. Normality – the distributions of the residuals are normal. Equality (or "homogeneity") of variances, called homoscedasticity — the variance of data in groups should be the same.The separate assumptions of the textbook model imply that the errors are independently, identically, and normally distributed for fixed effects models, that is, that the errors () are independent andRandomization-based analysisIn a randomized controlled experiment, the treatments are randomly assigned to experimental units, following the experimental protocol. This randomization is objective and declared before the experiment is carried out. The objective random-assignment is used to test the significance of the null hypothesis, following the ideas of C. S. Peirce and Ronald Fisher. This design-based analysis was discussed and developed by Francis J. Anscombe at Rothamsted Experimental Station and by Oscar Kempthorne at Iowa State University. Kempthorne and his students make an assumption of unit treatment additivity, which is discussed in the books of Kempthorne and David R. Cox.Unit-treatment additivityIn its simplest form, the assumption of unit-treatment additivity states that the observed response  from experimental unit  when receiving treatment  can be written as the sum of the unit's response  and the treatment-effect , that is The assumption of unit-treatment additivity implies that, for every treatment , the th treatment has  exactly the same effect  on every experiment unit.The assumption of unit treatment additivity  usually cannot be directly falsified, according to Cox and Kempthorne. However, many consequences of treatment-unit additivity can be falsified. For a randomized experiment, the assumption of unit-treatment additivity implies that the variance is constant for all treatments. Therefore, by contraposition, a necessary condition for unit-treatment additivity is that the variance is constant.The use of unit treatment additivity and randomization is similar to the design-based inference that is standard in finite-population survey sampling.Derived linear modelKempthorne uses the randomization-distribution and the assumption of unit treatment additivity to produce a derived linear model, very similar to the textbook model discussed previously.  The test statistics of this derived linear model are closely approximated by the test statistics of an appropriate normal linear model, according to approximation theorems and simulation studies. However, there are differences. For example, the randomization-based analysis results in a small but (strictly) negative correlation between the observations. In the randomization-based analysis, there is no assumption of a normal distribution and certainly no assumption of independence. On the contrary, the observations are dependent!The randomization-based analysis has the disadvantage that its exposition involves tedious algebra and extensive time.  Since the randomization-based analysis is complicated and is closely approximated by the approach using a normal linear model, most teachers emphasize the normal linear model approach. Few statisticians object to model-based analysis of balanced randomized experiments.Statistical models for observational dataHowever, when applied to data from non-randomized experiments or observational studies, model-based analysis lacks the warrant of randomization. For observational data, the derivation of confidence intervals must use subjective models, as emphasized by Ronald Fisher and his followers. In practice, the estimates of treatment-effects from observational studies  generally are often inconsistent.  In practice, "statistical models" and observational data are useful for suggesting hypotheses that should be treated very cautiously by the public.Summary of assumptionsThe normal-model based ANOVA analysis assumes the independence, normality and homogeneity of variances of the residuals. The randomization-based analysis assumes only the homogeneity of the variances of the residuals (as a consequence of unit-treatment additivity) and uses the randomization procedure of the experiment. Both these analyses require homoscedasticity, as an assumption for the normal-model analysis and as a consequence of randomization and additivity for the randomization-based analysis.However, studies of processes that change variances rather than means (called dispersion effects) have been successfully conducted using ANOVA.  There are no necessary assumptions for ANOVA in its full generality, but the F-test used for ANOVA hypothesis testing has assumptions and practical limitations which are of continuing interest.Problems which do not satisfy the assumptions of ANOVA can often be transformed to satisfy the assumptions. The property of unit-treatment additivity is not invariant under a "change of scale", so statisticians often use transformations to achieve unit-treatment additivity. If the response variable is expected to follow a parametric family of probability distributions, then the statistician may specify (in the protocol for the experiment or observational study) that the responses be transformed to stabilize the variance. Also, a statistician may specify that logarithmic transforms be applied to the responses, which are believed to follow a multiplicative model.According to Cauchy's functional equation theorem, the logarithm is the only continuous transformation that transforms real multiplication to addition.CharacteristicsANOVA is used in the analysis of comparative experiments, those in which only the difference in outcomes is of interest.  The statistical significance of the experiment is determined by a ratio of two variances.  This ratio is independent of several possible alterations to the experimental observations: Adding a constant to all observations does not alter significance.  Multiplying all observations by a constant does not alter significance.  So ANOVA statistical significance result is independent of constant bias and scaling errors as well as the units used in expressing observations.  In the era of mechanical calculation it was common to subtract a constant from all observations (when equivalent to dropping leading digits) to simplify data entry.  This is an example of data coding.LogicThe calculations of ANOVA can be characterized as computing a number of means and variances, dividing two variances and comparing the ratio to a handbook value to determine statistical significance.  Calculating a treatment effect is then trivial: "the effect of any treatment is estimated by taking the difference between the mean of the observations which receive the treatment and the general mean".Partitioning of the sum of squaresANOVA uses traditional standardized terminology.  The definitional equation of sample variance is , where the divisor is called the degrees of freedom (DF), the summation is called the sum of squares (SS), the result is called the mean square (MS) and the squared terms are deviations from the sample mean.  ANOVA estimates 3 sample variances: a total variance based on all the observation deviations from the grand mean, an error variance based on all the observation deviations from their appropriate treatment means, and a treatment variance.  The treatment variance is based on the deviations of treatment means from the grand mean, the result being multiplied by the number of observations in each treatment to account for the difference between the variance of observations and the variance of means.The fundamental technique is a partitioning of the total sum of squares SS into components related to the effects used in the model. For example, the model for a simplified ANOVA with one type of treatment at different levels.The number of degrees of freedom DF can be partitioned in a similar way: one of these components (that for error) specifies a chi-squared distribution which describes the associated sum of squares, while the same is true for "treatments" if there is no treatment effect.See also Lack-of-fit sum of squares.The F-testThe F-test is used for comparing the factors of the total deviation. For example, in one-way, or single-factor ANOVA, statistical significance is tested for by comparing the F test statisticwhere MS is mean square,  is the number of treatments and  is the total number of casesto the F-distribution with ,   degrees of freedom. Using the F-distribution is a natural candidate because the test statistic is the ratio of two scaled sums of squares each of which follows a scaled chi-squared distribution.The expected value of F is  (where  is the treatment sample size) which is 1 for no treatment effect.  As values of F increase above 1, the evidence is increasingly inconsistent with the null hypothesis. Two apparent experimental methods of increasing F are increasing the sample size and reducing the error variance by tight experimental controls.There are two methods of concluding the ANOVA hypothesis test, both of which produce the same result: The textbook method is to compare the observed value of F with the critical value of F determined from tables. The critical value of F is a function of the degrees of freedom of the numerator and the denominator and the significance level (α).  If F ≥ FCritical, the null hypothesis is rejected. The computer method calculates the probability (p-value) of a value of F greater than or equal to the observed value.  The null hypothesis is rejected if this probability is less than or equal to the significance level (α).The ANOVA F-test is known to be nearly optimal in the sense of minimizing false negative errors for a fixed rate of false positive errors (i.e. maximizing power for a fixed significance level). For example, to test the hypothesis that various medical treatments have exactly the same effect, the F-test's p-values closely approximate the permutation test's p-values: The approximation is particularly close when the design is balanced. Such permutation tests characterize tests with maximum power against all alternative hypotheses, as observed by Rosenbaum. The ANOVA F-test (of the null-hypothesis that all treatments have exactly the same effect) is recommended as a practical test, because of its robustness against many alternative distributions.Extended logicANOVA consists of separable parts; partitioning sources of variance and hypothesis testing can be used individually.  ANOVA is used to support other statistical tools.  Regression is first used to fit more complex models to data, then ANOVA is used to compare models with the objective of selecting simple(r) models that adequately describe the data.  "Such models could be fit without any reference to ANOVA, but ANOVA tools could then be used to make some sense of the fitted models, and to test hypotheses about batches of coefficients."  "[W]e think of the analysis of variance as a way of understanding and structuring multilevel models—not as an alternative to regression but as a tool for summarizing complex high-dimensional inferences ..."For a single factorThe simplest experiment suitable for ANOVA analysis is the completely randomized experiment with a single factor.  More complex experiments with a single factor involve constraints on randomization and include completely randomized blocks and Latin squares (and variants: Graeco-Latin squares, etc.).  The more complex experiments share many of the complexities of multiple factors.  A relatively complete discussion of the analysis (models, data summaries, ANOVA table) of the completely randomized experiment is available.There are some alternatives to conventional one-way analysis of variance, e.g.: Welch's heteroscedastic F test, Welch's heteroscedastic F test with trimmed means and Winsorized variances, Brown-Forsythe test, Alexander-Govern test, James second order test and Kruskal-Wallis test, available in onewaytests RIt is useful to represent each data point in the following form, called a statistical model:where i = 1, 2, 3, …, R j = 1, 2, 3, …, C μ = overall average (mean) τj = differential effect (response) associated with the j level of X;  this assumes that overall the values of τj add to zero (that is, ) εij = noise or error associated with the particular ij data valueThat is, we envision an additive model that says every data point can be represented by summing three quantities: the true mean, averaged over all factor levels being investigated, plus an incremental component associated with the particular column (factor level), plus a final component associated with everything else affecting that specific data value.For multiple factorsANOVA generalizes to the study of the effects of multiple factors.  When the experiment includes observations at all combinations of levels of each factor, it is termed factorial.  Factorial experiments are more efficient than a series of single factor experiments and the efficiency grows as the number of factors increases.  Consequently, factorial designs are heavily used.The use of ANOVA to study the effects of multiple factors has a complication.  In a 3-way ANOVA with factors x, y and z, the ANOVA model includes terms for the main effects (x, y, z) and terms for interactions (xy, xz, yz, xyz).  All terms require hypothesis tests.  The proliferation of interaction terms increases the risk that some hypothesis test will produce a false positive by chance. Fortunately, experience says that high order interactions are rare.   The ability to detect interactions is a major advantage of multiple factor ANOVA.  Testing one factor at a time hides interactions, but produces apparently inconsistent experimental results.Caution is advised when encountering interactions; Test interaction terms first and expand the analysis beyond ANOVA if interactions are found.  Texts vary in their recommendations regarding the continuation of the ANOVA procedure after encountering an interaction.  Interactions complicate the interpretation of experimental data.  Neither the calculations of significance nor the estimated treatment effects can be taken at face value.  "A significant interaction will often mask the significance of main effects."  Graphical methods are recommended to enhance understanding.  Regression is often useful.  A lengthy discussion of interactions is available in Cox (1958).  Some interactions can be removed (by transformations) while others cannot.A variety of techniques are used with multiple factor ANOVA to reduce expense. One technique used in factorial designs is to minimize replication (possibly no replication with support of analytical trickery) and to combine groups when effects are found to be statistically (or practically) insignificant.  An experiment with many insignificant factors may collapse into one with a few factors supported by many replications.Associated analysisSome analysis is required in support of the design of the experiment while other analysis is performed after changes in the factors are formally found to produce statistically significant changes in the responses.  Because experimentation is iterative, the results of one experiment alter plans for following experiments.Preparatory analysisThe number of experimental unitsIn the design of an experiment, the number of experimental units is planned to satisfy the goals of the experiment. Experimentation is often sequential.Early experiments are often designed to provide mean-unbiased estimates of treatment effects and of experimental error. Later experiments are often designed to test a hypothesis that a treatment effect has an important magnitude; in this case, the number of experimental units is chosen so that the experiment is within budget and has adequate power, among other goals.Reporting sample size analysis is generally required in psychology. "Provide information on sample size and the process that led to sample size decisions."  The analysis, which is written in the experimental protocol before the experiment is conducted, is examined in grant applications and administrative review boards.Besides the power analysis, there are less formal methods for selecting the number of experimental units. These include graphical methods based on limiting the probability of false negative errors, graphical methods based on an expected variation increase (above the residuals) and methods based on achieving a desired confidence interval.Power analysisPower analysis is often applied in the context of ANOVA in order to assess the probability of successfully rejecting the null hypothesis if we assume a certain ANOVA design, effect size in the population, sample size and significance level. Power analysis can assist in study design by determining what sample size would be required in order to have a reasonable chance of rejecting the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.Effect sizeSeveral standardized measures of effect have been proposed for ANOVA to summarize the strength of the association between a predictor(s) and the dependent variable or the overall standardized difference of the complete model. Standardized effect-size estimates facilitate comparison of findings across studies and disciplines.  However, while standardized effect sizes are commonly used in much of the professional literature, a non-standardized measure of effect size that has immediately "meaningful" units may be preferable for reporting purposes.Model confirmationSometimes tests are conducted to determine whether the assumptions of ANOVA appear to be violated. Residuals are examined or analyzed to confirm homoscedasticity and gross normality.  Residuals should have the appearance of (zero mean normal distribution) noise when plotted as a function of anything including time and modeled data values. Trends hint at interactions among factors or among observations.Follow-up testsA statistically significant effect in ANOVA is often followed by additional tests. This can be done in order to assess which groups are different from which other groups or to test various other focused hypotheses. Follow-up tests are often distinguished in terms of whether they are "planned" (a priori) or "post hoc." Planned tests are determined before looking at the data, and post hoc tests are conceived only after looking at the data (though the term "post hoc" is inconsistently used).The follow-up tests may be "simple" pairwise comparisons of individual group means or may be "compound" comparisons (e.g., comparing the mean pooling across groups A, B and C to the mean of group D). Comparisons can also look at tests of trend, such as linear and quadratic relationships, when the independent variable involves ordered levels. Often the follow-up tests incorporate a method of adjusting for the multiple comparisons problem.Study designsThere are several types of ANOVA. Many statisticians base ANOVA on the design of the experiment, especially on the protocol that specifies the random assignment of treatments to subjects; the protocol's description of the assignment mechanism should include a specification of the structure of the treatments and of any blocking. It is also common to apply ANOVA to observational data using an appropriate statistical model.Some popular designs use the following types of ANOVA:One-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among two or more independent groups (means), e.g. different levels of urea application in a crop, or different levels of antibiotic action on several different bacterial species, or different levels of effect of some medicine on groups of patients. However, should these groups not be independent, and there is an order in the groups (such as mild, moderate and severe disease), or in the dose of a drug (such as 5 mg/mL, 10 mg/mL, 20 mg/mL) given to the same group of patients, then a linear trend estimation should be used. Typically, however, the one-way ANOVA is used to test for differences among at least three groups, since the two-group case can be covered by a t-test. When there are only two means to compare, the t-test and the ANOVA F-test are equivalent; the relation between ANOVA and t is given by .Factorial ANOVA is used when there is more than one factor.Repeated measures ANOVA is used when the same subjects are used for each factor (e.g., in a longitudinal study).Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) is used when there is more than one response variable.CautionsBalanced experiments (those with an equal sample size for each treatment) are relatively easy to interpret; unbalanced experiments offer more complexity.  For single-factor (one-way) ANOVA, the adjustment for unbalanced data is easy, but the unbalanced analysis lacks both robustness and power.  For more complex designs the lack of balance leads to further complications. "The orthogonality property of main effects and interactions present in balanced data does not carry over to the unbalanced case. This means that the usual analysis of variance techniques do not apply. Consequently, the analysis of unbalanced factorials is much more difficult than that for balanced designs."  In the general case, "The analysis of variance can also be applied to unbalanced data, but then the sums of squares, mean squares, and F-ratios will depend on the order in which the sources of variation are considered."ANOVA is (in part) a test of statistical significance.  The American Psychological Association (and many other organisations) holds the view that simply reporting statistical significance is insufficient and that reporting confidence bounds is preferred.GeneralizationsANOVA is considered to be a special case of linear regression which in turn is a special case of the general linear model. All consider the observations to be the sum of a model (fit) and a residual (error) to be minimized.The Kruskal–Wallis test and the Friedman test are nonparametric tests, which  do not rely on an assumption of normality.Connection to linear regressionBelow we make clear the connection between multi-way ANOVA and linear regression.Linearly re-order the data so that -th observation is associated with a response  and factors  where  denotes the different factors and  is the total number of factors. In one-way ANOVA  and in two-way ANOVA . Furthermore, we assume the -th factor has  levels, namely . Now, we can one-hot encode the factors into the  dimensional vector .The one-hot encoding function  is defined such that the -th entry of  isThe vector  is the concatenation of all of the above vectors for all . Thus, . In order to obtain a fully general -way interaction ANOVA we must also concatenate every additional interaction term in the vector  and then add an intercept term.  Let that vector be .With this notation in place, we now have the exact connection with linear regression. We simply regress response  against the vector . However, there is a concern about identifiability. In order to overcome such issues we assume that the sum of the parameters within each set of interactions is equal to zero. From here, one can use F-statistics or other methods to determine the relevance of the individual factors.ExampleWe can consider the 2-way interaction example where we assume that the first factor has 2 levels and the second factor has 3 levels.Define  if  and  if , i.e.  is the one-hot encoding of the first factor and  is the one-hot encoding of the second factor.With that,where the last term is an intercept term. For a more concrete example suppose thatThen,See alsoANOVA on ranksANOVA-simultaneous component analysisAnalysis of covariance (ANCOVA)Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA)Analysis of rhythmic variance (ANORVA)Explained variationLinear trend estimationMixed-design analysis of varianceMultivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA)Permutational analysis of varianceVariance decompositionExpected mean squaresFootnotesNotesReferences   Pre-publication chapters are available on-line.   Cohen, Jacob (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavior sciences (2nd ed.). Routledge  Cox, David R. (1958). Planning of experiments.  Reprinted as  Freedman, David A.(2005). Statistical Models: Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press.     Lehmann, E.L. (1959) Testing Statistical Hypotheses.  John Wiley & Sons.  Moore, David S. & McCabe, George P. (2003).  Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (4e).  W H Freeman & Co.   Rosenbaum, Paul R. (2002). Observational Studies (2nd ed.). New York: Springer-Verlag.Further reading     Cox, David R. & Reid, Nancy M. (2000). The theory of design of experiments.  (Chapman & Hall/CRC).    Freedman, David A.; Pisani, Robert; Purves, Roger (2007) Statistics, 4th edition. W.W. Norton & Company    Tabachnick, Barbara G. & Fidell, Linda S. (2007). Using Multivariate Statistics (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson International Edition.External links SOCR ANOVA Activity  Examples of all ANOVA and ANCOVA models with up to three treatment factors, including randomized block, split plot, repeated measures, and Latin squares, and their analysis in R (University of Southampton) NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods, section 7.4.3: "Are the means equal?"Analysis of variance: Introduction Design of experimentsStatistical testsParametric statistics
In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin (a historical trivial name that also has other meanings), is an acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which all the carbon–carbon bonds are single. Alkanes have the general chemical formula . The alkanes range in complexity from the simplest case of methane (), where n = 1 (sometimes called the parent molecule), to arbitrarily large and complex molecules, like pentacontane () or 6-ethyl-2-methyl-5-(1-methylethyl) octane, an isomer of tetradecane ().The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) defines alkanes as "acyclic branched or unbranched hydrocarbons having the general formula , and therefore consisting entirely of hydrogen atoms and saturated carbon atoms". However, some sources use the term to denote any saturated hydrocarbon, including those that are either monocyclic (i.e. the cycloalkanes) or polycyclic, despite their having a distinct general formula (i.e. cycloalkanes are ).In an alkane, each carbon atom is sp3-hybridized with 4 sigma bonds (either C–C or C–H), and each hydrogen atom is joined to one of the carbon atoms (in a C–H bond). The longest series of linked carbon atoms in a molecule is known as its carbon skeleton or carbon backbone. The number of carbon atoms may be considered as the size of the alkane.One group of the higher alkanes are waxes, solids at standard ambient temperature and pressure (SATP), for which the number of carbon atoms in the carbon backbone is greater than about 17.With their repeated – units, the alkanes constitute a homologous series of organic compounds in which the members differ in molecular mass by multiples of 14.03 u (the total mass of each such methylene-bridge unit, which comprises a single carbon atom of mass 12.01 u and two hydrogen atoms of mass ~1.01 u each).Methane is produced by methanogenic bacteria and some long-chain alkanes function as pheromones in certain animal species or as protective waxes in plants and fungi. Nevertheless, most alkanes do not have much biological activity.  They can be viewed as molecular trees upon which can be hung the more active/reactive functional groups of biological molecules.The alkanes have two main commercial sources: petroleum (crude oil) and natural gas.An alkyl group is an alkane-based molecular fragment that bears one open valence for bonding. They are generally abbreviated with the symbol for any organyl group, R, although Alk is sometimes used to specifically symbolize an alkyl group (as opposed to an alkenyl group or aryl group).Structure and classificationOrdinarily the C-C single bond distance is . Saturated hydrocarbons can be linear, branched, or cyclic. The third group is sometimes called cycloalkanes. Very complicated structures are possible by combining linear, branch, cyclic alkanes.IsomerismAlkanes with more than three carbon atoms can be arranged in various ways, forming structural isomers. The simplest isomer of an alkane is the one in which the carbon atoms are arranged in a single chain with no branches. This isomer is sometimes called the n-isomer (n for "normal", although it is not necessarily the most common). However, the chain of carbon atoms may also be branched at one or more points. The number of possible isomers increases rapidly with the number of carbon atoms. For example, for acyclic alkanes: C1: methane only C2: ethane only C3: propane only C4: 2 isomers: butane and isobutane C5: 3 isomers: pentane, isopentane, and neopentane C6: 5 isomers: hexane, 2-methylpentane, 3-methylpentane, 2,2-dimethylbutane, and 2,3-dimethylbutane C7: 9 isomers: heptane, methylhexane (2 isomers), dimethylpentane (4 isomers), 3-ethylpentane, 2,2,3-trimethylbutaneC8: 18 isomers: octane, 2-methylheptane, 3-methylheptane, 2,3-dimethylhexane, 3,4-dimethylhexane,  2,3,4-trimethylpentane, 3,3-dimethylhexane, 2,2-trimethylpentane, 2,4-dimethylhexane, 2,2,4-trimethylpentane, 2,3,3-Trimethylpentane, 3,3,4-trimethyl-pentane, 3,4,4-trimethylpentane, 2,4,4-trimethylpentane, (5 isomers) C9: 35 isomers C10: 75 isomers C12: 355 isomers C32: 27,711,253,769 isomers C60: 22,158,734,535,770,411,074,184 isomers, many of which are not stable.Branched alkanes can be chiral. For example, 3-methylhexane and its higher homologues are chiral due to their stereogenic center at carbon atom number 3. The above list only includes differences of connectivity, not stereochemistry. In addition to the alkane isomers, the chain of carbon atoms may form one or more rings. Such compounds are called cycloalkanes, and are also excluded from the above list because changing the number of rings changes the molecular formula. For example, cyclobutane and methylcyclopropane are isomers of each other (C4H8), but are not isomers of butane (C4H10).NomenclatureThe IUPAC nomenclature (systematic way of naming compounds) for alkanes is based on identifying hydrocarbon chains. Unbranched, saturated hydrocarbon chains are named systematically with a Greek numerical prefix denoting the number of carbons and the suffix "-ane".In 1866, August Wilhelm von Hofmann suggested systematizing nomenclature by using the whole sequence of vowels a, e, i, o and u to create suffixes -ane, -ene, -ine (or -yne), -one, -une, for the hydrocarbons CnH2n+2, CnH2n, CnH2n−2, CnH2n−4, CnH2n−6. In modern nomenclature, the first three specifically name hydrocarbons with single, double and triple bonds; while "-one" now represents a ketone.Linear alkanesStraight-chain alkanes are sometimes indicated by the prefix "n-" or "n-"(for "normal") where a non-linear isomer exists. Although this is not strictly necessary and is not part of the IUPAC naming system, the usage is still common in cases where one wishes to emphasize or distinguish between the straight-chain and branched-chain isomers, e.g., "n-butane" rather than simply "butane" to differentiate it from isobutane. Alternative names for this group used in the petroleum industry are linear paraffins or n-paraffins.The first six members of the series (in terms of number of carbon atoms) are named as follows: methane CH4 – one carbon and 4 hydrogen ethane  C2H6 – two carbon and 6 hydrogen propane C3H8 – three carbon and 8 hydrogen butane  C4H10 – four carbon and 10 hydrogen pentane C5H12 – five carbon and 12 hydrogen hexane  C6H14 – six carbon and 14 hydrogenThe first four names were derived from methanol, ether, propionic acid and butyric acid. Alkanes with five or more carbon atoms are named by adding the suffix -ane to the appropriate numerical multiplier prefix with elision of any terminal vowel (-a or -o) from the basic numerical term. Hence, pentane, C5H12; hexane, C6H14; heptane, C7H16; octane, C8H18; etc. The numeral prefix is generally Greek, however alkanes with a carbon atom count ending in nine, for example nonane, use the Latin prefix non-. For a more complete list, see list of straight-chain alkanes.Branched alkanesSimple branched alkanes often have a common name using a prefix to distinguish them from linear alkanes, for example n-pentane, isopentane, and neopentane.IUPAC naming conventions can be used to produce a systematic name.The key steps in the naming of more complicated branched alkanes are as follows: Identify the longest continuous chain of carbon atoms Name this longest root chain using standard naming rules Name each side chain by changing the suffix of the name of the alkane from "-ane" to "-yl" Number the longest continuous chain in order to give the lowest possible numbers for the side-chains Number and name the side chains before the name of the root chain If there are multiple side chains of the same type, use prefixes such as "di-" and "tri-" to indicate it as such, and number each one. Add side chain names in alphabetical (disregarding "di-" etc. prefixes) order in front of the name of the root chainSaturated cyclic hydrocarbonsThough technically distinct from the alkanes, this class of hydrocarbons is referred to by some as the "cyclic alkanes." As their description implies, they contain one or more rings.Simple cycloalkanes have a prefix "cyclo-" to distinguish them from alkanes. Cycloalkanes are named as per their acyclic counterparts with respect to the number of carbon atoms in their backbones, e.g., cyclopentane (C5H10) is a cycloalkane with 5 carbon atoms just like pentane (C5H12), but they are joined up in a five-membered ring. In a similar manner, propane and cyclopropane, butane and cyclobutane, etc.Substituted cycloalkanes are named similarly to substituted alkanes – the cycloalkane ring is stated, and the substituents are according to their position on the ring, with the numbering decided by the Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules.Trivial/common namesThe trivial (non-systematic) name for alkanes is 'paraffins'. Together, alkanes are known as the 'paraffin series'. Trivial names for compounds are usually historical artifacts. They were coined before the development of systematic names, and have been retained due to familiar usage in industry. Cycloalkanes are also called naphthenes.Branched-chain alkanes are called isoparaffins. "Paraffin" is a general term and often does not distinguish between pure compounds and mixtures of isomers, i.e., compounds of the same chemical formula, e.g., pentane and isopentane.In IUPACThe following trivial names are retained in the IUPAC system: isobutane for 2-methylpropane isopentane for 2-methylbutane neopentane for 2,2-dimethylpropane.Non-IUPACSome non-IUPAC trivial names are occasionally used: cetane, for hexadecane cerane, for hexacosanePhysical propertiesAll alkanes are colorless. Alkanes with the lowest molecular weights are gasses, those of intermediate molecular weight are liquids, and the heaviest are waxy solids.Table of alkanesBoiling pointAlkanes experience intermolecular van der Waals forces. Stronger intermolecular van der Waals forces give rise to greater boiling points of alkanes.There are two determinants for the strength of the van der Waals forces: the number of electrons surrounding the molecule, which increases with the alkane's molecular weight the surface area of the moleculeUnder standard conditions, from CH4 to C4H10 alkanes are gaseous; from C5H12 to C17H36 they are liquids; and after C18H38 they are solids. As the boiling point of alkanes is primarily determined by weight, it should not be a surprise that the boiling point has almost a linear relationship with the size (molecular weight) of the molecule. As a rule of thumb, the boiling point rises 20–30 °C for each carbon added to the chain; this rule applies to other homologous series.A straight-chain alkane will have a boiling point higher than a branched-chain alkane due to the greater surface area in contact, thus the greater van der Waals forces, between adjacent molecules. For example, compare isobutane (2-methylpropane) and n-butane (butane), which boil at −12 and 0 °C, and 2,2-dimethylbutane and 2,3-dimethylbutane which boil at 50 and 58 °C, respectively. On the other hand, cycloalkanes tend to have higher boiling points than their linear counterparts due to the locked conformations of the molecules, which give a plane of intermolecular contact.Melting pointsThe melting points of the alkanes follow a similar trend to boiling points for the same reason as outlined above. That is, (all other things being equal) the larger the molecule the higher the melting point. There is one significant difference between boiling points and melting points. Solids have more rigid and fixed structure than liquids. This rigid structure requires energy to break down. Thus the better put together solid structures will require more energy to break apart. For alkanes, this can be seen from the graph above (i.e., the blue line). The odd-numbered alkanes have a lower trend in melting points than even numbered alkanes. This is because even numbered alkanes pack well in the solid phase, forming a well-organized structure, which requires more energy to break apart. The odd-numbered alkanes pack less well and so the "looser" organized solid packing structure requires less energy to break apart. For a visualization of the crystal structures see.The melting points of branched-chain alkanes can be either higher or lower than those of the corresponding straight-chain alkanes, again depending on the ability of the alkane in question to pack well in the solid phase.Conductivity and solubilityAlkanes do not conduct electricity in any way, nor are they substantially polarized by an electric field. For this reason, they do not form hydrogen bonds and are insoluble in polar solvents such as water. Since the hydrogen bonds between individual water molecules are aligned away from an alkane molecule, the coexistence of an alkane and water leads to an increase in molecular order (a reduction in entropy). As there is no significant bonding between water molecules and alkane molecules, the second law of thermodynamics suggests that this reduction in entropy should be minimized by minimizing the contact between alkane and water: Alkanes are said to be hydrophobic as they are insoluble in water.Their solubility in nonpolar solvents is relatively high, a property that is called lipophilicity. Alkanes are, for example, miscible in all proportions among themselves.The density of the alkanes usually increases with the number of carbon atoms but remains less than that of water. Hence, alkanes form the upper layer in an alkane–water mixture.Molecular geometryThe molecular structure of the alkanes directly affects their physical and chemical characteristics. It is derived from the electron configuration of carbon, which has four valence electrons. The carbon atoms in alkanes are described as sp3 hybrids, that is to say that, to a good approximation, the valence electrons are in orbitals directed towards the corners of a tetrahedron which are derived from the combination of the 2s orbital and the three 2p orbitals.  Geometrically, the angle between the bonds are cos−1(−) ≈ 109.47°.  This is exact for the case of methane, while larger alkanes containing a combination of C–H and C–C bonds generally have bonds that are within several degrees of this idealized value.Bond lengths and bond anglesAn alkane has only C–H and C–C single bonds. The former result from the overlap of an sp3 orbital of carbon with the 1s orbital of a hydrogen; the latter by the overlap of two sp3 orbitals on adjacent carbon atoms. The bond lengths amount to 1.09 × 10−10 m for a C–H bond and 1.54 × 10−10 m for a C–C bond.The spatial arrangement of the bonds is similar to that of the four sp3 orbitals—they are tetrahedrally arranged, with an angle of 109.47° between them. Structural formulae that represent the bonds as being at right angles to one another, while both common and useful, do not accurately depict the geometry.ConformationThe structural formula and the bond angles are not usually sufficient to completely describe the geometry of a molecule. There is a further degree of freedom for each carbon–carbon bond: the torsion angle between the atoms or groups bound to the atoms at each end of the bond. The spatial arrangement described by the torsion angles of the molecule is known as its conformation.Ethane forms the simplest case for studying the conformation of alkanes, as there is only one C–C bond. If one looks down the axis of the C–C bond, one will see the so-called Newman projection. The hydrogen atoms on both the front and rear carbon atoms have an angle of 120° between them, resulting from the projection of the base of the tetrahedron onto a flat plane. However, the torsion angle between a given hydrogen atom attached to the front carbon and a given hydrogen atom attached to the rear carbon can vary freely between 0° and 360°. This is a consequence of the free rotation about a carbon–carbon single bond. Despite this apparent freedom, only two limiting conformations are important: eclipsed conformation and staggered conformation.The two conformations differ in energy: the staggered conformation is 12.6 kJ/mol (3.0 kcal/mol) lower in energy (more stable) than the eclipsed conformation (the least stable).This difference in energy between the two conformations, known as the torsion energy, is low compared to the thermal energy of an ethane molecule at ambient temperature. There is constant rotation about the C–C bond. The time taken for an ethane molecule to pass from one staggered conformation to the next, equivalent to the rotation of one CH3 group by 120° relative to the other, is of the order of 10−11 seconds.The case of higher alkanes is more complex but based on similar principles, with the antiperiplanar conformation always being the most favored around each carbon–carbon bond. For this reason, alkanes are usually shown in a zigzag arrangement in diagrams or in models. The actual structure will always differ somewhat from these idealized forms, as the differences in energy between the conformations are small compared to the thermal energy of the molecules: Alkane molecules have no fixed structural form, whatever the models may suggest.Spectroscopic propertiesVirtually all organic compounds contain carbon–carbon, and carbon–hydrogen bonds, and so show some of the features of alkanes in their spectra. Alkanes are notable for having no other groups, and therefore for the absence of other characteristic spectroscopic features of a functional group like –OH, –CHO, –COOH etc.Infrared spectroscopyThe carbon–hydrogen stretching mode gives a strong absorption between 2850 and 2960 cm−1, while the carbon–carbon stretching mode absorbs between 800 and 1300 cm−1. The carbon–hydrogen bending modes depend on the nature of the group: methyl groups show bands at 1450 cm−1 and 1375 cm−1, while methylene groups show bands at 1465 cm−1 and 1450 cm−1. Carbon chains with more than four carbon atoms show a weak absorption at around 725 cm−1.NMR spectroscopyThe proton resonances of alkanes are usually found at δH = 0.5–1.5. The carbon-13 resonances depend on the number of hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon: δC = 8–30 (primary, methyl, –CH3), 15–55 (secondary, methylene, –CH2–), 20–60 (tertiary, methyne, C–H) and quaternary. The carbon-13 resonance of quaternary carbon atoms is characteristically weak, due to the lack of nuclear Overhauser effect and the long relaxation time, and can be missed in weak samples, or samples that have not been run for a sufficiently long time.Mass spectrometryAlkanes have a high ionization energy, and the molecular ion is usually weak. The fragmentation pattern can be difficult to interpret, but, in the case of branched chain alkanes, the carbon chain is preferentially cleaved at tertiary or quaternary carbons due to the relative stability of the resulting free radicals. The fragment resulting from the loss of a single methyl group (M − 15) is often absent, and other fragments are often spaced by intervals of fourteen mass units, corresponding to sequential loss of CH2 groups.Chemical propertiesAlkanes are only weakly reactive with most chemical compounds. The acid dissociation constant (pKa) values of all alkanes are estimated to range from 50 to 70, depending on the extrapolation method, hence they are extremely weak acids that are practically inert to bases (see: carbon acids). They are also extremely weak bases, undergoing no observable protonation in pure sulfuric acid (H0 ~ −12), although superacids that are at least millions of times stronger have been known to protonate them to give hypercoordinate alkanium ions (see: methanium ion). Similarly, they only show reactivity with the strongest of electrophilic reagents (e.g., dioxiranes and salts containing the NF4+ cation).  By virtue of their strongly C–H bonds (~100 kcal/mol) and C–C bonds (~90 kcal/mol, but usually less sterically accessible), they are also relatively unreactive toward free radicals, although many electron-deficient radicals will react with alkanes in the absence of other electron-rich bonds (see below). This inertness is the source of the term paraffins (with the meaning here of "lacking affinity"). In crude oil the alkane molecules have remained chemically unchanged for millions of years.Free radicals, molecules with unpaired electrons, play a large role in most reactions of alkanes, such as cracking and reformation where long-chain alkanes are converted into shorter-chain alkanes and straight-chain alkanes into branched-chain isomers.  Moreover, redox reactions of alkanes involving free radical intermediates, in particular with oxygen and the halogens, are possible as the carbon atoms are in a strongly reduced state; in the case of methane, carbon is in its lowest possible oxidation state (−4). Reaction with oxygen (if present in sufficient quantity to satisfy the reaction stoichiometry) leads to combustion without any smoke, producing carbon dioxide and water. Free radical halogenation reactions occur with halogens, leading to the production of haloalkanes. In addition, alkanes have been shown to interact with, and bind to, certain transition metal complexes in C–H bond activation reactions.In highly branched alkanes, the bond angle may differ significantly from the optimal value (109.5°) to accommodate bulky groups. Such distortions introduce a tension in the molecule, known as steric hindrance or strain.  Strain substantially increases reactivity.However, in general and perhaps surprisingly, when branching is not extensive enough to make highly disfavorable 1,2- and 1,3-alkyl–alkyl steric interactions (worth ~3.1 kcal/mol and ~3.7 kcal/mol in the case of the eclipsing conformations of butane and pentane, respectively) unavoidable, the branched alkanes are actually more thermodynamically stable than their linear (or less branched) isomers.  For example, the highly branched 2,2,3,3-tetramethylbutane is about 1.9 kcal/mol more stable than its linear isomer, n-octane. Due to the subtlety of this effect, the exact reasons for this rule have been vigorously debated in the chemical literature and is yet unsettled.  Several explanations, including stabilization of branched alkanes by electron correlation, destabilization of linear alkanes by steric repulsion, stabilization by neutral hyperconjugation, and/or electrostatic effects have been advanced as possibilities. The controversy is related to the question of whether the traditional explanation of hyperconjugation is the primary factor governing the stability of alkyl radicals.Reactions with oxygen (combustion reaction)All alkanes react with oxygen in a combustion reaction, although they become increasingly difficult to ignite as the number of carbon atoms increases. The general equation for complete combustion is:CnH2n+2 + (n + ) O2 → (n + 1) H2O + n CO2or CnH2n+2 + () O2 → (n + 1) H2O + n CO2In the absence of sufficient oxygen, carbon monoxide or even soot can be formed, as shown below:CnH2n+2 + (n + ) O2 → (n + 1) H2O + n COCnH2n+2 + (n + ) O2 → (n + 1) H2O + n CFor example, methane:2 CH4 + 3 O2 → 4 H2O + 2 COCH4 + O2 → 2 H2O + CSee the alkane heat of formation table for detailed data.The standard enthalpy change of combustion, ΔcH⊖, for alkanes increases by about 650 kJ/mol per CH2 group. Branched-chain alkanes have lower values of ΔcH⊖ than straight-chain alkanes of the same number of carbon atoms, and so can be seen to be somewhat more stable.Reactions with halogens Alkanes react with halogens in a so-called free radical halogenation reaction. The hydrogen atoms of the alkane are progressively replaced by halogen atoms. Free radicals are the reactive species that participate in the reaction, which usually leads to a mixture of products. The reaction is highly exothermic with halogen fluorine and can lead to an explosion.These reactions are an important industrial route to halogenated hydrocarbons. There are three steps: Initiation the halogen radicals form by homolysis. Usually, energy in the form of heat or light is required. Chain reaction or Propagation then takes place—the halogen radical abstracts a hydrogen from the alkane to give an alkyl radical. This reacts further. Chain termination where the radicals recombine.Experiments have shown that all halogenation produces a mixture of all possible isomers, indicating that all hydrogen atoms are susceptible to reaction. The mixture produced, however, is not a statistical mixture: Secondary and tertiary hydrogen atoms are preferentially replaced due to the greater stability of secondary and tertiary free-radicals. An example can be seen in the monobromination of propane:Cracking Cracking breaks larger molecules into smaller ones. This can be done with a thermal or catalytic method. The thermal cracking process follows a homolytic mechanism with formation of free radicals. The catalytic cracking process involves the presence of acid catalysts (usually solid acids such as silica-alumina and zeolites), which promote a heterolytic (asymmetric) breakage of bonds yielding pairs of ions of opposite charges, usually a carbocation and the very unstable hydride anion. Carbon-localized free radicals and cations are both highly unstable and undergo processes of chain rearrangement, C–C scission in position beta (i.e., cracking) and intra- and intermolecular hydrogen transfer or hydride transfer. In both types of processes, the corresponding reactive intermediates (radicals, ions) are permanently regenerated, and thus they proceed by a self-propagating chain mechanism. The chain of reactions is eventually terminated by radical or ion recombination.Isomerization and reformation Dragan and his colleague were the first to report about isomerization in alkanes. Isomerization and reformation are processes in which straight-chain alkanes are heated in the presence of a platinum catalyst. In isomerization, the alkanes become branched-chain isomers. In other words, it does not lose any carbons or hydrogens, keeping the same molecular weight. In reformation, the alkanes become cycloalkanes or aromatic hydrocarbons, giving off hydrogen as a by-product. Both of these processes raise the octane number of the substance. Butane is the most common alkane that is put under the process of isomerization, as it makes many branched alkanes with high octane numbers.Other reactionsAlkanes will react with steam in the presence of a nickel catalyst to give hydrogen. Alkanes can be chlorosulfonated and nitrated, although both reactions require special conditions. The fermentation of alkanes to carboxylic acids is of some technical importance. In the Reed reaction, sulfur dioxide, chlorine and light convert hydrocarbons to sulfonyl chlorides. Nucleophilic Abstraction can be used to separate an alkane from a metal. Alkyl groups can be transferred from one compound to another by transmetalation reactions. A mixture of antimony pentafluoride (SbF5) and fluorosulfonic acid (HSO3F), called magic acid, can protonate alkanes.OccurrenceOccurrence of alkanes in the UniverseAlkanes form a small portion of the atmospheres of the outer gas planets such as Jupiter (0.1% methane, 2 ppm ethane), Saturn (0.2% methane, 5 ppm ethane), Uranus (1.99% methane, 2.5 ppm ethane) and Neptune (1.5% methane, 1.5 ppm ethane). Titan (1.6% methane), a satellite of Saturn, was examined by the Huygens probe, which indicated that Titan's atmosphere periodically rains liquid methane onto the moon's surface. Also on Titan the Cassini mission has imaged seasonal methane/ethane lakes near the polar regions of Titan. Methane and ethane have also been detected in the tail of the comet Hyakutake. Chemical analysis showed that the abundances of ethane and methane were roughly equal, which is thought to imply that its ices formed in interstellar space, away from the Sun, which would have evaporated these volatile molecules. Alkanes have also been detected in meteorites such as carbonaceous chondrites.Occurrence of alkanes on EarthTraces of methane gas (about 0.0002% or 1745 ppb) occur in the Earth's atmosphere, produced primarily by methanogenic microorganisms, such as Archaea in the gut of ruminants.The most important commercial sources for alkanes are natural gas and oil. Natural gas contains primarily methane and ethane, with some propane and butane: oil is a mixture of liquid alkanes and other hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons were formed when marine animals and plants (zooplankton and phytoplankton) died and sank to the bottom of ancient seas and were covered with sediments in an anoxic environment and converted over many millions of years at high temperatures and high pressure to their current form. Natural gas resulted thereby for example from the following reaction:C6H12O6 → 3 CH4 + 3 CO2These hydrocarbon deposits, collected in porous rocks trapped beneath impermeable cap rocks, comprise commercial oil fields. They have formed over millions of years and once exhausted cannot be readily replaced. The depletion of these hydrocarbons reserves is the basis for what is known as the energy crisis.Methane is also present in what is called biogas, produced by animals and decaying matter, which is a possible renewable energy source.Alkanes have a low solubility in water, so the content in the oceans is negligible; however, at high pressures and low temperatures (such as at the bottom of the oceans), methane can co-crystallize with water to form a solid methane clathrate (methane hydrate). Although this cannot be commercially exploited at the present time, the amount of combustible energy of the known methane clathrate fields exceeds the energy content of all the natural gas and oil deposits put together. Methane extracted from methane clathrate is, therefore, a candidate for future fuels.Biological occurrenceAcyclic alkanes occur in nature in various ways.Bacteria and archaeaCertain types of bacteria can metabolize alkanes: they prefer even-numbered carbon chains as they are easier to degrade than odd-numbered chains.On the other hand, certain archaea, the methanogens, produce large quantities of methane by the metabolism of carbon dioxide or other oxidized organic compounds. The energy is released by the oxidation of hydrogen:CO2 + 4 H2 → CH4 + 2 H2OMethanogens are also the producers of marsh gas in wetlands. The methane output of cattle and other herbivores, which can release 30 to 50 gallons per day, and of termites, is also due to methanogens. They also produce this simplest of all alkanes in the intestines of humans. Methanogenic archaea are, hence, at the end of the carbon cycle, with carbon being released back into the atmosphere after having been fixed by photosynthesis. It is probable that our current deposits of natural gas were formed in a similar way.Fungi and plantsAlkanes also play a role, if a minor role, in the biology of the three eukaryotic groups of organisms: fungi, plants and animals. Some specialized yeasts, e.g., Candida tropicale, Pichia sp., Rhodotorula sp., can use alkanes as a source of carbon or energy. The fungus Amorphotheca resinae prefers the longer-chain alkanes in aviation fuel, and can cause serious problems for aircraft in tropical regions.In plants, the solid long-chain alkanes are found in the plant cuticle and epicuticular wax of many species, but are only rarely major constituents. They protect the plant against water loss, prevent the leaching of important minerals by the rain, and protect against bacteria, fungi, and harmful insects. The carbon chains in plant alkanes are usually odd-numbered, between 27 and 33 carbon atoms in length and are made by the plants by decarboxylation of even-numbered fatty acids. The exact composition of the layer of wax is not only species-dependent but changes also with the season and such environmental factors as lighting conditions, temperature or humidity.More volatile short-chain alkanes are also produced by and found in plant tissues. The Jeffrey pine is noted for producing exceptionally high levels of n-heptane in its resin, for which reason its distillate was designated as the zero point for one octane rating. Floral scents have also long been known to contain volatile alkane components, and n-nonane is a significant component in the scent of some roses. Emission of gaseous and volatile alkanes such as ethane, pentane, and hexane by plants has also been documented at low levels, though they are not generally considered to be a major component of biogenic air pollution.Edible vegetable oils also typically contain small fractions of biogenic alkanes with a wide spectrum of carbon numbers, mainly 8 to 35, usually peaking in the low to upper 20s, with concentrations up to dozens of milligrams per kilogram (parts per million by weight) and sometimes over a hundred for the total alkane fraction.AnimalsAlkanes are found in animal products, although they are less important than unsaturated hydrocarbons. One example is the shark liver oil, which is approximately 14% pristane (2,6,10,14-tetramethylpentadecane, C19H40). They are important as pheromones, chemical messenger materials, on which insects depend for communication. In some species, e.g. the support beetle Xylotrechus colonus, pentacosane (C25H52), 3-methylpentaicosane (C26H54) and 9-methylpentaicosane (C26H54) are transferred by body contact. With others like the tsetse fly Glossina morsitans morsitans, the pheromone contains the four alkanes 2-methylheptadecane (C18H38), 17,21-dimethylheptatriacontane (C39H80), 15,19-dimethylheptatriacontane (C39H80) and 15,19,23-trimethylheptatriacontane (C40H82), and acts by smell over longer distances. Waggle-dancing honey bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane.Ecological relationsOne example, in which both plant and animal alkanes play a role, is the ecological relationship between the sand bee (Andrena nigroaenea) and the early spider orchid (Ophrys sphegodes); the latter is dependent for pollination on the former. Sand bees use pheromones in order to identify a mate; in the case of A. nigroaenea, the females emit a mixture of tricosane (C23H48), pentacosane (C25H52) and heptacosane (C27H56) in the ratio 3:3:1, and males are attracted by specifically this odor. The orchid takes advantage of this mating arrangement to get the male bee to collect and disseminate its pollen; parts of its flower not only resemble the appearance of sand bees but also produce large quantities of the three alkanes in the same ratio as female sand bees. As a result, numerous males are lured to the blooms and attempt to copulate with their imaginary partner: although this endeavor is not crowned with success for the bee, it allows the orchid to transfer its pollen,which will be dispersed after the departure of the frustrated male to other blooms.ProductionPetroleum refiningAs stated earlier, the most important source of alkanes is natural gas and crude oil. Alkanes are separated in an oil refinery by fractional distillation and processed into many products.Fischer–TropschThe Fischer–Tropsch process is a method to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons, including alkanes, from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This method is used to produce substitutes for petroleum distillates.Laboratory preparationThere is usually little need for alkanes to be synthesized in the laboratory, since they are usually commercially available. Also, alkanes are generally unreactive chemically or biologically, and do not undergo functional group interconversions cleanly. When alkanes are produced in the laboratory, it is often a side-product of a reaction. For example, the use of n-butyllithium as a strong base gives the conjugate acid, n-butane as a side-product: C4H9Li + H2O → C4H10 + LiOHHowever, at times it may be desirable to make a section of a molecule into an alkane-like functionality (alkyl group) using the above or similar methods. For example, an ethyl group is an alkyl group; when this is attached to a hydroxy group, it gives ethanol, which is not an alkane. To do so, the best-known methods are hydrogenation of alkenes:RCH=CH2 + H2 → RCH2CH3(R = alkyl)Alkanes or alkyl groups can also be prepared directly from alkyl halides in the Corey–House–Posner–Whitesides reaction. The Barton–McCombie deoxygenation removes hydroxyl groups from alcohols e.g.and the Clemmensen reduction removes carbonyl groups from aldehydes and ketones to form alkanes or alkyl-substituted compounds e.g.:Preparation from other organic compoundsAlkanes can be prepared from a variety of organic compounds. These include alkenes, alkynes, haloalkanes, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones and carboxylic acids.From alkenes and alkynesAddition of molecular hydrogen across the π bond(s) of alkenes and alkynes give alkanes. This hydrogenation reaction is typically performed using a powdered metal catalyst, such as palladium, platinum, or nickel. The reaction is exothermic because the product alkane is more stable. This is an important process in several fields of industrial and research chemistry.From haloalkanesSeveral methods produce alkanes from haloalkanes.In the Wurtz reaction, a haloalkane is treated with sodium in dry ether to yield an alkane having double the number of carbon atoms. This reaction proceeds through a free radical intermediate and has the possibility of alkene formation in case of tertiary haloalkanes and vicinal dihalides.2 R−X + 2 Na → R−R + 2 Na+XIn Corey–House synthesis, a haloalkane is treated with dialkyl lithium cuprate, a Gilman reagent, to yield a higher alkane:Li+[R–Cu–R]– + R'–X → R–R' + R–Cu + Li+XHaloalkanes can be reduced to alkanes by reaction with hydride reagents such as lithium aluminium hydride. R−X + H– → R−H + X–ApplicationsThe applications of alkanes depend on the number of carbon atoms. The first four alkanes are used mainly for heating and cooking purposes, and in some countries for electricity generation. Methane and ethane are the main components of natural gas; they are normally stored as gases under pressure. It is, however, easier to transport them as liquids: This requires both compression and cooling of the gas.Propane and butane are gases at atmospheric pressure that can be liquefied at fairly low pressures and are commonly known as liquified petroleum gas (LPG). Propane is used in propane gas burners and as a fuel for road vehicles, butane in space heaters and disposable cigarette lighters. Both are used as propellants in aerosol sprays.From pentane to octane the alkanes are highly volatile liquids. They are used as fuels in internal combustion engines, as they vaporize easily on entry into the combustion chamber without forming droplets, which would impair the uniformity of the combustion. Branched-chain alkanes are preferred as they are much less prone to premature ignition, which causes knocking, than their straight-chain homologues. This propensity to premature ignition is measured by the octane rating of the fuel, where 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane) has an arbitrary value of 100, and heptane has a value of zero. Apart from their use as fuels, the middle alkanes are also good solvents for nonpolar substances.Alkanes from nonane to, for instance, hexadecane (an alkane with sixteen carbon atoms) are liquids of higher viscosity, less and less suitable for use in gasoline. They form instead the major part of diesel and aviation fuel. Diesel fuels are characterized by their cetane number, cetane being an old name for hexadecane. However, the higher melting points of these alkanes can cause problems at low temperatures and in polar regions, where the fuel becomes too thick to flow correctly.Alkanes from hexadecane upwards form the most important components of fuel oil and lubricating oil. In the latter function, they work at the same time as anti-corrosive agents, as their hydrophobic nature means that water cannot reach the metal surface. Many solid alkanes find use as paraffin wax, for example, in candles. This should not be confused however with true wax, which consists primarily of esters.Alkanes with a chain length of approximately 35 or more carbon atoms are found in bitumen, used, for example, in road surfacing. However, the higher alkanes have little value and are usually split into lower alkanes by cracking.Some synthetic polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene are alkanes with chains containing hundreds or thousands of carbon atoms. These materials are used in innumerable applications, and billions of kilograms of these materials are made and used each year.Environmental transformationsAlkanes are chemically very inert apolar molecules which are not very reactive as organic compounds.  This inertness yields serious ecological issues if they are released into the environment. Due to their lack of functional groups and low water solubility, alkanes show poor bioavailability for microorganisms.There are, however, some microorganisms possessing the metabolic capacity to utilize n-alkanes as both carbon and energy sources. Some bacterial species are highly specialised in degrading alkanes; these are referred to as hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria.HazardsMethane is flammable, explosive and dangerous to inhale; because it is a colorless, odorless gas, special caution must be taken around methane. Ethane is also extremely flammable, explosive, and dangerous to inhale. Both of them may cause suffocation. Propane, too, is flammable and explosive, and may cause drowsiness or unconsciousness if inhaled. Butane presents the same hazards as propane.Alkanes also pose a threat to the environment. Branched alkanes have a lower biodegradability than unbranched alkanes. Methane is considered to be the greenhouse gas that is most dangerous to the environment, although the amount of methane in the atmosphere is relatively low.See also Alkene Alkyne Cycloalkane Higher alkanesReferencesFurther reading Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry A visualization of the crystal structures of alkanes up to nonan Hydrocarbons
United States appellate procedure involves the rules and regulations for filing appeals in state courts and federal courts. The nature of an appeal can vary greatly depending on the type of case and the rules of the court in the jurisdiction where the case was prosecuted. There are many types of standard of review for appeals, such as de novo and abuse of discretion. However, most appeals begin when a party files a petition for review to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision.An appellate court is a court that hears cases on appeal from another court. Depending on the particular legal rules that apply to each circumstance, a party to a court case who is unhappy with the result might be able to challenge that result in an appellate court on specific grounds. These grounds typically could include errors of law, fact, procedure or due process. In different jurisdictions, appellate courts are also called appeals courts, courts of appeals, superior courts, or supreme courts.The specific procedures for appealing, including even whether there is a right of appeal from a particular type of decision, can vary greatly from state to state. The right to file an appeal can also vary from state to state; for example, the New Jersey Constitution vests judicial power in a Supreme Court, a Superior Court, and other courts of limited jurisdiction, with an appellate court being part of the Superior Court.Access to appellant statusA party who files an appeal is called an "appellant", "plaintiff in error", "petitioner" or "pursuer", and a party on the other side is called an "appellee". A "cross-appeal" is an appeal brought by the respondent. For example, suppose at trial the judge found for the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to pay $50,000. If the defendant files an appeal arguing that he should not have to pay any money, then the plaintiff might file a cross-appeal arguing that the defendant should have to pay $200,000 instead of $50,000.The appellant is the party who, having lost part or all their claim in a lower court decision, is appealing to a higher court to have their case reconsidered. This is usually done on the basis that the lower court judge erred in the application of law, but it may also be possible to appeal on the basis of court misconduct, or that a finding of fact was entirely unreasonable to make on the evidence.The appellant in the new case can be either the plaintiff (or claimant), defendant, third-party intervenor, or respondent (appellee) from the lower case, depending on who was the losing party. The winning party from the lower court, however, is now the respondent. In unusual cases the appellant can be the victor in the court below, but still appeal.An appellee is the party to an appeal in which the lower court judgment was in its favor. The appellee is required to respond to the petition, oral arguments, and legal briefs of the appellant. In general, the appellee takes the procedural posture that the lower court's decision should be affirmed.Ability to appealAn appeal "as of right" is one that is guaranteed by statute or some underlying constitutional or legal principle.  The appellate court cannot refuse to listen to the appeal.  An appeal "by leave" or "permission" requires the appellant to obtain leave to appeal; in such a situation either or both of the lower court and the court may have the discretion to grant or refuse the appellant's demand to appeal the lower court's decision. In the Supreme Court, review in most cases is available only if the Court exercises its discretion and grants a writ of certiorari.In tort, equity, or other civil matters either party to a previous case may file an appeal.  In criminal matters, however, the state or prosecution generally has no appeal "as of right".  And due to the double jeopardy principle, the state or prosecution may never appeal a jury or bench verdict of acquittal.  But in some jurisdictions, the state or prosecution may appeal "as of right" from a trial court's dismissal of an indictment in whole or in part or from a trial court's granting of a defendant's suppression motion.  Likewise, in some jurisdictions, the state or prosecution may appeal an issue of law "by leave" from the trial court or the appellate court.  The ability of the prosecution to appeal a decision in favor of a defendant varies significantly internationally. All parties must present grounds to appeal, or it will not be heard.By convention in some law reports, the appellant is named first.  This can mean that where it is the defendant who appeals, the name of the case in the law reports reverses (in some cases twice) as the appeals work their way up the court hierarchy. This is not always true, however.  In the federal courts, the parties' names always stay in the same order as the lower court when an appeal is taken to the circuit courts of appeals, and are re-ordered only if the appeal reaches the Supreme Court.Direct or collateral: Appealing criminal convictionsMany jurisdictions recognize two types of appeals, particularly in the criminal context. The first is the traditional "direct" appeal in which the appellant files an appeal with the next higher court of review.  The second is the collateral appeal or post-conviction petition, in which the petitioner-appellant files the appeal in a court of first instance—usually the court that tried the case.The key distinguishing factor between direct and collateral appeals is that the former occurs in state courts, and the latter in federal courts.Relief in post-conviction is rare and is most often found in capital or violent felony cases.  The typical scenario involves an incarcerated defendant locating DNA evidence demonstrating the defendant's actual innocence.Appellate review"Appellate review" is the general term for the process by which courts with appellate jurisdiction take jurisdiction of matters decided by lower courts. It is distinguished from judicial review, which refers to the court's overriding constitutional or statutory right to determine if a legislative act or administrative decision is defective for jurisdictional or other reasons (which may vary by jurisdiction).In most jurisdictions the normal and preferred way of seeking appellate review is by filing an appeal of the final judgment. Generally, an appeal of the judgment will also allow appeal of all other orders or rulings made by the trial court in the course of the case.  This is because such orders cannot be appealed "as of right". However, certain critical interlocutory court orders, such as the denial of a request for an interim injunction, or an order holding a person in contempt of court, can be appealed immediately although the case may otherwise not have been fully disposed of.There are two distinct forms of appellate review, "direct" and "collateral". For example, a criminal defendant may be convicted in state court, and lose on "direct appeal" to higher state appellate courts, and if unsuccessful, mount a "collateral" action such as filing for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal courts. Generally speaking, "[d]irect appeal statutes afford defendants the opportunity to challenge the merits of a judgment and allege errors of law or fact. ... [Collateral review], on the other hand, provide[s] an independent and civil inquiry into the validity of a conviction and sentence, and as such are generally limited to challenges to constitutional, jurisdictional, or other fundamental violations that occurred at trial." "Graham v. Borgen", 483 F 3d. 475 (7th Cir. 2007) (no. 04–4103) (slip op. at 7) (citation omitted).In Anglo-American common law courts, appellate review of lower court decisions may also be obtained by filing a petition for review by prerogative writ in certain cases.  There is no corresponding right to a writ in any pure or continental civil law legal systems, though some mixed systems such as Quebec recognize these prerogative writs.Direct appealAfter exhausting the first appeal as of right, defendants usually petition the highest state court to review the decision. This appeal is known as a direct appeal. The highest state court, generally known as the Supreme Court, exercises discretion over whether it will review the case. On direct appeal, a prisoner challenges the grounds of the conviction based on an error that occurred at trial or some other stage in the adjudicative process.Preservation issuesAn appellant's claim(s) must usually be preserved at trial. This means that the defendant had to object to the error when it occurred in the trial. Because constitutional claims are of great magnitude, appellate courts might be more lenient to review the claim even if it was not preserved. For example, Connecticut applies the following standard to review unpreserved claims: 1.the record is adequate to review the alleged claim of error; 2. the claim is of constitutional magnitude alleging the violation of a fundamental right; 3. the alleged constitutional violation clearly exists and clearly deprived the defendant of a fair trial; 4. if subject to harmless error analysis, the state has failed to demonstrate harmlessness of the alleged constitutional violation beyond a reasonable doubt.State post-conviction relief: collateral appealAll States have a post-conviction relief process.  Similar to federal post-conviction relief, an appellant can petition the court to correct alleged fundamental errors that were not corrected on direct review.  Typical claims might include ineffective assistance of counsel and actual innocence based on new evidence. These proceedings are normally separate from the direct appeal, however some states allow for collateral relief to be sought on direct appeal. After direct appeal, the conviction is considered final. An appeal from the post conviction court proceeds just as a direct appeal. That is, it goes to the intermediate appellate court, followed by the highest court. If the petition is granted the appellant could be released from incarceration, the sentence could be modified, or a new trial could be ordered.Habeas corpusNotice of appealA "notice of appeal" is a form or document that in many cases is required to begin an appeal. The form is completed by the appellant or by the appellant's legal representative. The nature of this form can vary greatly from country to country and from court to court within a country.The specific rules of the legal system will dictate exactly how the appeal is officially begun. For example, the appellant might have to file the notice of appeal with the appellate court, or with the court from which the appeal is taken, or both.Some courts have samples of a notice of appeal on the court's own web site.  In New Jersey, for example, the Administrative Office of the Court has promulgated a form of notice of appeal for use by appellants, though using this exact form is not mandatory and the failure to use it is not a jurisdictional defect provided that all pertinent information is set forth in whatever form of notice of appeal is used.The deadline for beginning an appeal can often be very short: traditionally, it is measured in days, not months. This can vary from country to country, as well as within a country, depending on the specific rules in force. In the U.S. federal court system, criminal defendants must file a notice of appeal within 10 days of the entry of either the judgment or the order being appealed, or the right to appeal is forfeited.Appellate procedureGenerally speaking the appellate court examines the record of evidence presented in the trial court and the law that the lower court applied and decides whether that decision was legally sound or not.  The appellate court will typically be deferential to the lower court's findings of fact (such as whether a defendant committed a particular act), unless clearly erroneous, and so will focus on the court's application of the law to those facts (such as whether the act found by the court to have occurred fits a legal definition at issue).If the appellate court finds no defect, it "affirms" the judgment.  If the appellate court does find a legal defect in the decision "below" (i.e., in the lower court), it may "modify" the ruling to correct the defect, or it may nullify ("reverse" or "vacate") the whole decision or any part of it.  It may, in addition, send the case back ("remand" or "remit") to the lower court for further proceedings to remedy the defect.In some cases, an appellate court may review a lower court decision "de novo" (or completely), challenging even the lower court's findings of fact.  This might be the proper standard of review, for example, if the lower court resolved the case by granting a pre-trial motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment which is usually based only upon written submissions to the trial court and not on any trial testimony.Another situation is where appeal is by way of "re-hearing". Certain jurisdictions permit certain appeals to cause the trial to be heard afresh in the appellate court.Sometimes, the appellate court finds a defect in the procedure the parties used in filing the appeal and dismisses the appeal without considering its merits, which has the same effect as affirming the judgment below.  (This would happen, for example, if the appellant waited too long, under the appellate court's rules, to file the appeal.)Generally, there is no trial in an appellate court, only consideration of the record of the evidence presented to the trial court and all the pre-trial and trial court proceedings are reviewed—unless the appeal is by way of re-hearing, new evidence will usually only be considered on appeal in "very" rare instances, for example if that material evidence was unavailable to a party for some very significant reason such as prosecutorial misconduct.In some systems, an appellate court will only consider the written decision of the lower court, together with any written evidence that was before that court and is relevant to the appeal. In other systems, the appellate court will normally consider the record of the lower court. In those cases the record will first be certified by the lower court.The appellant has the opportunity to present arguments for the granting of the appeal and the appellee (or respondent) can present arguments against it.  Arguments of the parties to the appeal are presented through their appellate lawyers, if represented, or "pro se" if the party has not engaged legal representation.  Those arguments are presented in written briefs and sometimes in oral argument to the court at a hearing. At such hearings each party is allowed a brief presentation at which the appellate judges ask questions based on their review of the record below and the submitted briefs.In an adversarial system, appellate courts do not have the power to review lower court decisions unless a party appeals it. Therefore, if a lower court has ruled in an improper manner, or against legal precedent, that judgment will stand if not appealed – even if it might have been overturned on appeal.The United States legal system generally recognizes two types of appeals: a trial "de novo" or an appeal on the record.A trial de novo is usually available for review of informal proceedings conducted by some minor judicial tribunals in proceedings that do not provide all the procedural attributes of a formal judicial trial.  If unchallenged, these decisions have the power to settle more minor legal disputes once and for all.  If a party is dissatisfied with the finding of such a tribunal, one generally has the power to request a trial "de novo" by a court of record.  In such a proceeding, all issues and evidence may be developed newly, as though never heard before, and one is not restricted to the evidence heard in the lower proceeding.  Sometimes, however, the decision of the lower proceeding is itself admissible as evidence, thus helping to curb frivolous appeals.In some cases, an application for "trial de novo" effectively erases the prior trial as if it had never taken place.  The Supreme Court of Virginia has stated that '"This Court has repeatedly held that the effect of an appeal to circuit court is to "annul the judgment of the inferior tribunal as completely as if there had been no previous trial."'  The only exception to this is that if a defendant appeals a conviction for a crime having multiple levels of offenses, where they are convicted on a lesser offense, the appeal is of the lesser offense; the conviction represents an acquittal of the more serious offenses. "[A] trial on the same charges in the circuit court does not violate double jeopardy principles, . . . subject only to the limitation that conviction in [the] district court for an offense lesser included in the one charged constitutes an acquittal of the greater offense,permitting trial de novo in the circuit court only for the lesser-included offense."In an appeal on the record from a decision in a judicial proceeding, both appellant and respondent are bound to base their arguments wholly on the proceedings and body of evidence as they were presented in the lower tribunal.  Each seeks to prove to the higher court that the result they desired was the just result.  Precedent and case law figure prominently in the arguments.  In order for the appeal to succeed, the appellant must prove that the lower court committed reversible error, that is, an impermissible action by the court acted to cause a result that was unjust, and which would not have resulted had the court acted properly.  Some examples of reversible error would be erroneously instructing the jury on the law applicable to the case, permitting seriously improper argument by an attorney, admitting or excluding evidence improperly, acting outside the court's jurisdiction, injecting bias into the proceeding or appearing to do so, juror misconduct, etc.  The failure to formally object at the time, to what one views as improper action in the lower court, may result in the affirmance of the lower court's judgment on the grounds that one did not "preserve the issue for appeal" by objecting.In cases where a judge rather than a jury decided issues of fact, an appellate court will apply an "abuse of discretion" standard of review. Under this standard, the appellate court gives deference to the lower court's view of the evidence, and reverses its decision only if it were a clear abuse of discretion. This is usually defined as a decision outside the bounds of reasonableness.  On the other hand, the appellate court normally gives less deference to a lower court's decision on issues of law, and may reverse if it finds that the lower court applied the wrong legal standard.In some cases, an appellant may successfully argue that the law under which the lower decision was rendered was unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, or may convince the higher court to order a new trial on the basis that evidence earlier sought was concealed or only recently discovered.  In the case of new evidence, there must be a high probability that its presence or absence would have made a material difference in the trial.  Another issue suitable for appeal in criminal cases is effective assistance of counsel. If a defendant has been convicted and can prove that his lawyer did not adequately handle his case and that there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different had the lawyer given competent representation, he is entitled to a new trial.A lawyer traditionally starts an oral argument to any appellate court with the words "May it please the court."After an appeal is heard, the "mandate" is a formal notice of a decision by a court of appeal; this notice is transmitted to the trial court and, when filed by the clerk of the trial court, constitutes the final judgment on the case, unless the appeal court has directed further proceedings in the trial court. The mandate is distinguished from the appeal court's opinion, which sets out the legal reasoning for its decision. In some jurisdictions the mandate is known as the "remittitur".ResultsThe result of an appeal can be:Affirmed: Where the reviewing court basically agrees with the result of the lower courts' ruling(s). Reversed: Where the reviewing court basically disagrees with the result of the lower courts' ruling(s), and overturns their decision.Vacated: Where the reviewing court overturns the lower courts' ruling(s) as invalid, without necessarily disagreeing with it/them, e.g. because the case was decided on the basis of a legal principle that no longer applies.Remanded: Where the reviewing court sends the case back to the lower court.There can be multiple outcomes, so that the reviewing court can affirm some rulings, reverse others and remand the case all at the same time. Remand is not required where there is nothing left to do in the case.  "Generally speaking, an appellate court's judgment provides 'the final directive of the appeals courts as to the matter appealed, setting out with specificity the court's determination that the action appealed from should be affirmed, reversed, remanded or modified'".Some reviewing courts who have discretionary review may send a case back without comment other than review improvidently granted. In other words, after looking at the case, they chose not to say anything.  The result for the case of review improvidently granted is effectively the same as affirmed, but without that extra higher court stamp of approval.See also Appellate court Appellee Civil procedure Court of Appeals Courts-martial in the United States Criminal procedure Defendant En banc Interlocutory appeal List of legal topics List of wrongful convictions in the United States Petition for stay Plaintiff Pursuer Reversible error Supreme Court of the United States Writ of Certiorari Writ of habeas corpus Writ of mandamusReferencesExternal links    Legal procedureUnited States procedural law
In law, an answer was originally a solemn assertion in opposition to someone or something, and thus generally any counter-statement or defense, a reply to a question or response, or objection, or a correct solution of a problem.In the common law, an answer is the first pleading by a defendant, usually filed and served upon the plaintiff within a certain strict time limit after a civil complaint or criminal information or indictment has been served upon the defendant.  It may have been preceded by an optional "pre-answer" motion to dismiss or demurrer; if such a motion is unsuccessful, the defendant must file an answer to the complaint or risk an adverse default judgment.In a criminal case, there is usually an arraignment or some other kind of appearance before the defendant comes to court.  The pleading in the criminal case, which is entered on the record in open court, is usually either guilty or not guilty. Generally speaking in private, civil cases there is no plea entered of guilt or innocence. There is only a judgment that grants money damages or some other kind of equitable remedy such as restitution or a permanent injunction. Criminal cases may lead to fines or other punishment, such as imprisonment.The famous Latin Responsa Prudentium ("answers of the learned ones") were the accumulated views of many successive generations of Roman lawyers, a body of legal opinion which gradually became authoritative.During debates of a contentious nature, deflection, colloquially known as 'changing the topic', has been widely observed, and is often seen as a failure to answer a question.NotesCommon lawLegal documents
An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of the world, court systems are divided into at least three levels: the trial court, which initially hears cases and reviews evidence and testimony to determine the facts of the case; at least one intermediate appellate court; and a supreme court (or court of last resort) which primarily reviews the decisions of the intermediate courts, often on a discretionary basis. A particular court system's supreme court is its highest appellate court. Appellate courts nationwide can operate under varying rules.Under its standard of review, an appellate court decides the extent of the deference it would give to the lower court's decision, based on whether the appeal were one of fact or of law.  In reviewing an issue of fact, an appellate court ordinarily gives deference to the trial court's findings.  It is the duty of trial judges or juries to find facts, view the evidence firsthand, and observe witness testimony.  When reviewing lower decisions on an issue of fact, courts of appeal generally look for clear error.  The appellate court reviews issues of law de novo (anew, no deference) and may reverse or modify the lower court's decision if the appellate court believes the lower court misapplied the facts or the law.  An appellate court may also review the lower judge's discretionary decisions, such as whether the judge properly granted a new trial or disallowed evidence. The lower court's decision is only changed in cases of an "abuse of discretion". This standard tends to be even more deferential than the "clear error" standard.Before hearing any case, the Court must have jurisdiction to consider the appeal.  The authority of appellate courts to review the decisions of lower courts varies widely from one jurisdiction to another. In some areas, the appellate court has limited powers of review. Generally, an appellate court's judgment provides the final directive of the appeals courts as to the matter appealed, setting out with specificity the court's determination that the action appealed from should be affirmed, reversed, remanded or modified. Depending on the type of case and the decision below, appellate review primarily consists of: an entirely new hearing (a non trial de novo); a hearing where the appellate court gives deference to factual findings of the lower court; or review of particular legal rulings made by the lower court (an appeal on the record).Bifurcation of civil and criminal appealsWhile many appellate courts have jurisdiction over all cases decided by lower courts, some systems have appellate courts divided by the type of jurisdiction they exercise. Some jurisdictions have specialized appellate courts, such as the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which only hears appeals raised in criminal cases, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has general jurisdiction but derives most of its caseload from patent cases, on one hand, and appeals from the Court of Federal Claims on the other. In the United States, Alabama, Tennessee, and Oklahoma also have separate courts of criminal appeals. Texas and Oklahoma have the final determination of criminal cases vested in their respective courts of criminal appeals, while Alabama and Tennessee allow decisions of its court of criminal appeals to be finally appealed to the state supreme court.Courts of criminal appealsCivilianCourt of Criminal Appeal (England and Wales), abolished 1966Court of Criminal Appeal (Ireland), abolished 2014 U.S. States:Alabama Court of Criminal AppealsOklahoma Court of Criminal AppealsTennessee Court of Criminal AppealsTexas Court of Criminal AppealsMilitaryUnited States Army Court of Criminal AppealsNavy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (United States)Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals (United States)Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals (United States)Courts of civil appealsAlabama Court of Civil AppealsOklahoma Court of Civil AppealsAppellate courts by countryNew ZealandThe Court of Appeal of New Zealand, located in Wellington, is New Zealand's principal intermediate appellate court. In practice, most appeals are resolved at this intermediate appellate level, rather than in the Supreme Court.Sri LankaThe Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka, located in Colombo, is the second senior court in the Sri Lankan legal system.United KingdomUnited StatesIn the United States, both state and federal appellate courts are usually restricted to examining whether the lower court made the correct legal determinations, rather than hearing direct evidence and determining what the facts of the case were. Furthermore, U.S. appellate courts are usually restricted to hearing appeals based on matters that were originally brought up before the trial court. Hence, such an appellate court will not consider an appellant's argument if it is based on a theory that is raised for the first time in the appeal.In most U.S. states, and in U.S. federal courts, parties before the court are allowed one appeal as of right. This means that a party who is unsatisfied with the outcome of a trial may bring an appeal to contest that outcome. However, appeals may be costly, and the appellate court must find an error on the part of the court below that justifies upsetting the verdict. Therefore, only a small proportion of trial court decisions result in appeals. Some appellate courts, particularly supreme courts, have the power of discretionary review, meaning that they can decide whether they will hear an appeal brought in a particular case.Institutional titles Many U.S. jurisdictions title their appellate court a court of appeal or court of appeals. Historically, others have titled their appellate court a court of errors (or court of errors and appeals), on the premise that it was intended to correct errors made by lower courts. Examples of such courts include the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals (which existed from 1844 to 1947), the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors (which has been renamed the Connecticut Supreme Court), the Kentucky Court of Errors (renamed the Kentucky Supreme Court), and the Mississippi High Court of Errors and Appeals (since renamed the Supreme Court of Mississippi). In some jurisdictions, a court able to hear appeals is known as an appellate division.The phrase "court of appeals" most often refers to intermediate appellate courts.  However, the Maryland and New York systems are different. The Maryland Court of Appeals and the New York Court of Appeals are the highest appellate courts in those states. The New York Supreme Court is a trial court of general jurisdiction. Depending on the system, certain courts may serve as both trial courts and appellate courts, hearing appeals of decisions made by courts with more limited jurisdiction.See alsoCourt of Criminal Appeal (disambiguation)Court of Appeal (Hong Kong)High Court (Hong Kong)Court of Appeal (England and Wales)Court of cassationReferencesCitationsSources   Lax, Jeffrey R. "Constructing Legal Rules on Appellate Courts." American Political Science Review 101.3 (2007): 591–604. Sociological Abstracts; Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Web. 29 May 2012.Courts by typeAppellate courtsJurisdiction
Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant, to inform them of the charges against them. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea. Acceptable pleas vary among jurisdictions, but they generally include "guilty", "not guilty", and the peremptory pleas (or pleas in bar) setting out reasons why a trial cannot proceed. Pleas of "nolo contendere" (no contest) and the "Alford plea" are allowed in some circumstances.Australia In Australia, arraignment is the first of 11 stages in a criminal trial, and involves the clerk of the court reading out the indictment. The judge will testify during the indictment process.Canada In every province in Canada, except British Columbia, defendants are arraigned on the day of their trial.  In British Columbia, arraignment takes place in one of the first few court appearances by the defendant or their lawyer. The defendant is asked whether he or she pleads guilty or not guilty to each charge.France In France, the general rule is that one cannot remain in police custody for more than 24 hours from the time of the arrest. However, police custody can last another 24 hours in specific circumstances, especially if the offence is punishable by at least one year's imprisonment, or if the investigation is deemed to require the extra time, and can last up to 96 hours in certain cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking or organised crime. The police need to have the consent of the prosecutor, the procureur.  In the vast majority of cases, the prosecutor will consent.Germany In Germany, if one has been arrested and taken into custody by the police one must be brought before a judge as soon as possible and at the latest on the day after the arrest.New Zealand In New Zealand law, at the first appearance of the accused, they are read the charges and asked for a plea. The available pleas are: guilty, not guilty, and no plea.  No plea allows the defendant to get legal advice on the plea, which must be made on the second appearance.South Africa In South Africa, arraignment is defined as the calling upon the accused to appear, the informing of the accused of the crime charged against them, the demanding of the accused whether they plead guilty or not guilty, and the entering of their plea. Their plea having been entered, they are said to stand arraigned.United Kingdom In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, arraignment is the first of 11 stages in a criminal trial, and involves the clerk of the court reading out the indictment.In England and Wales, the police cannot legally detain anyone for more than 24 hours without charging them unless an officer with the rank of superintendent (or above) authorises detention for a further 12 hours (36 hours total), or a judge (who will be a magistrate) authorises detention by the police before charge for up to a maximum of 96 hours, but for terrorism-related offences people can be held by the police for up to 28 days before charge. If they are not released after being charged, they should be brought before a court as soon as practicable.United States Under the United States Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, "arraignment shall [...] [consist of an] open [...] reading [of] the indictment [...] to the defendant [...] and call[] on [them] to plead thereto. [They] shall be given a copy of the indictment [...] before [they are] called upon to plead."In federal courts, arraignment takes place in two stages. The first is called the "initial arraignment" and must take place within 48 hours of an individual's arrest, 72 hours if the individual was arrested on the weekend and not able to go before a judge until Monday. During this stage, the defendant is informed of the pending legal charges and is informed of his or her right to retain counsel. The presiding judge also decides at what amount, if any, to set bail. During the second stage, a post-indictment arraignment (PIA), the defendant is allowed to enter a plea.In New York, most people arrested must be released if they are not arraigned within 24 hours.In California, arraignments must be conducted without unnecessary delay and, in any event, within 48 hours of arrest, excluding weekends and holidays.Form of the arraignmentThe wording of the arraignment varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  However, it generally conforms with the following principles: The accused person (defendant) is addressed by name; The charge against the accused person is read, including the alleged date, time, and place of offense (and sometimes the names of the state's witnesses and the range of punishment for the charge(s)); and, The accused person is asked formally how he or she pleads.Video arraignmentVideo arraignment is the act of conducting the arraignment process using some form of videoconferencing technology. Use of video arraignment system allows the court to conduct the requisite arraignment process without the need to transport the defendant to the courtroom by using an audio-visual link between the location where the defendant is being held and the courtroom.Use of the video arraignment process addresses the problems associated with having to transport defendants. The transportation of defendants requires time, puts additional demands on the public safety organizations to provide for the safety of the public, court personnel and for the security of the population held in detention. It also addresses the rising costs of transportation.Guilty and not-guilty pleasIf the defendant pleads guilty, an evidentiary hearing usually follows. The court is not required to accept a guilty plea. During the hearing, the judge assesses the offense, the mitigating factors, and the defendant's character, and passes sentence.If the defendant pleads not guilty, a date is set for a preliminary hearing or a trial.In the past, a defendant who refused to plead (or "stood mute") was subject to peine forte et dure (Law French for "strong and hard punishment"). Today, in common law jurisdictions, the court enters a plea of not guilty for a defendant who refuses to enter a plea. The rationale for this is the defendant's right to silence.Pre-trial releaseThis is also often the stage at which arguments for or against pre-trial release and bail may be made, depending on the alleged crime and jurisdiction.See alsoDesk appearance ticketReferencesLegal terminologyProsecutionUnited States criminal procedureCriminal law of the United KingdomAustralian criminal law
"America the Beautiful" is a patriotic American song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two never met.Bates wrote the words as a poem originally entitled "Pikes Peak". It was first published in the Fourth of July 1895 edition of the church periodical, The Congregationalist. It was at that time that the poem was first entitled "America". Ward had initially composed the song's melody in 1882 to accompany lyrics to "Materna", basis of the hymn, "O Mother dear, Jerusalem", though the hymn was not first published until 1892. The combination of Ward's melody and Bates's poem was first entitled "America the Beautiful" in 1910. The song is one of the most popular of the many U.S. patriotic songs.HistoryIn 1893, at the age of 33, Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to teach at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem, including the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the "White City" with its promise of the future contained within its gleaming white buildings; the wheat fields of America's heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Pikes Peak.On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public's fancy. An amended version was published in 1904.The first known melody written for the song was sent in by Silas Pratt when the poem was published in The Congregationalist. By 1900, at least 75 different melodies had been written. A hymn tune composed in 1882 by Samuel A. Ward, the organist and choir director at Grace Church, Newark, was generally considered the best music as early as 1910 and is still the popular tune today. Just as Bates had been inspired to write her poem, Ward, too, was inspired. The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City after a leisurely summer day and he immediately wrote it down. He composed the tune for the old hymn "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem", retitling the work "Materna". Ward's music combined with Bates's poem were first published together in 1910 and titled "America the Beautiful".Ward died in 1903, not knowing the national stature his music would attain. Bates was more fortunate, since the song's popularity was well established by the time of her death in 1929. It is included in songbooks in many religious congregations in the United States.At various times in the more than one hundred years that have elapsed since the song was written, particularly during the John F. Kennedy administration, there have been efforts to give "America the Beautiful" legal status either as a national hymn or as a national anthem equal to, or in place of, "The Star-Spangled Banner", but so far this has not succeeded. Proponents prefer "America the Beautiful" for various reasons, saying it is easier to sing, more melodic, and more adaptable to new orchestrations while still remaining as easily recognizable as "The Star-Spangled Banner". Some prefer "America the Beautiful" over "The Star-Spangled Banner" due to the latter's war-oriented imagery; others prefer "The Star-Spangled Banner" for the same reason. While that national dichotomy has stymied any effort at changing the tradition of the national anthem, "America the Beautiful" continues to be held in high esteem by a large number of Americans, and was even being considered before 1931 as a candidate to become the national anthem of the United States.LyricsNotable performancesBing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).Frank Sinatra recorded the song with Nelson Riddle during the sessions for The Concert Sinatra in February 1963, for a projected 45 single release. The 45 was not commercially issued however, but the song was later added as a bonus track to the enhanced 2012 CD release of The Concert Sinatra.In 1976, while the United States celebrated its bicentennial, a soulful version popularized by Ray Charles peaked at number 98 on the US R&B chart. His version was traditionally played on New Year's Eve in Times Square following the ball drop.Three different renditions of the song have entered the Hot Country Songs charts. The first was by Charlie Rich, which went to number 22 in 1976. A second, by Mickey Newbury, peaked at number 82 in 1980. An all-star version of "America the Beautiful" performed by country singers Trace Adkins, Sherrié Austin, Billy Dean, Vince Gill, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Toby Keith, Brenda Lee, Lonestar, Lyle Lovett, Lila McCann, Lorrie Morgan, Jamie O'Neal, The Oak Ridge Boys, Collin Raye, Kenny Rogers, Keith Urban and Phil Vassar reached number 58 in July 2001. The song re-entered the chart following the September 11 attacks.Popularity of the song increased greatly following the September 11 attacks; at some sporting events it was sung in addition to the traditional singing of the national anthem. During the first taping of the Late Show with David Letterman following the attacks, CBS newsman Dan Rather cried briefly as he quoted the fourth verse.For Super Bowl XLVIII, The Coca-Cola Company aired a multilingual version of the song, sung in several different languages. The commercial received some criticism on social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, and from some conservatives, such as Glenn Beck. Despite the controversies, Coca-Cola later reused the Super Bowl ad during Super Bowl LI, the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2016 Summer Olympics and for patriotic holidays.On January 20, 2017, Jackie Evancho released Together We Stand, a disc containing three patriotic songs including "America the Beautiful". The song charted at No. 4 on Billboard's Classical Digital Song sales chart.An abbreviated cover with the 1911 lyrics was performed by Greg Jong for the soundtrack of the 2020 video game Wasteland 3, and is played during the final hostile encounters in the Denver section.Jennifer Lopez performed the song at President Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20, 2021 as the second half of a medley with "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie.Idioms"From sea to shining sea", originally used in the charters of some of the English Colonies in North America, is an American idiom meaning "from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean" (or vice versa). Other songs that have used this phrase include the American patriotic song "God Bless the U.S.A." and Schoolhouse Rock's "Elbow Room". The phrase and the song are also the namesake of the Shining Sea Bikeway, a bike path in Bates's hometown of Falmouth, Massachusetts. The phrase is similar to the Latin phrase "" ("From sea to sea"), which is the official motto of Canada."Purple mountain majesties" refers to the shade of the Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which inspired Bates to write the poem.In 2003, Tori Amos appropriated the phrase "for amber waves of grain" to create a personification for her song "Amber Waves". Amos imagines Amber Waves as an exotic dancer, like the character of the same name portrayed by Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights.BooksLynn Sherr's 2001 book America the Beautiful discusses the origins of the song and the backgrounds of its authors in depth. The book points out that the poem has the same meter as that of "Auld Lang Syne"; the songs can be sung interchangeably. Additionally, Sherr discusses the evolution of the lyrics, for instance, changes to the original third verse written by Bates.Melinda M. Ponder, in her 2017 biography Katharine Lee Bates: From Sea to Shining Sea, draws heavily on Bates's diaries and letters to trace the history of the poem and its place in American culture.See also  "God Bless America"NotesReferencesExternal links MP3 and RealAudio recordings available at the United States Library of Congress  Words, sheet music & MIDI file at the Cyber Hymnal America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs named for Katharine Lee Bates' words. Archival collection of America the Beautiful lantern slides from the 1930s. Another free sheet music1895 songsAmerican Christian hymnsAmerican patriotic songsPikes PeakHistory of Colorado Springs, ColoradoSongs based on poemsGrammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Assistive technology (AT) is a term for assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly. People with disabilities often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with assistance. ADLs are self-care activities that include toileting, mobility (ambulation), eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, and personal device care. Assistive technology can ameliorate the effects of disabilities that limit the ability to perform ADLs. Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks. For example, wheelchairs provide independent mobility for those who cannot walk, while assistive eating devices can enable people who cannot feed themselves to do so. Due to assistive technology, people with disability have an opportunity of a more positive and easygoing lifestyle, with an increase in "social participation," "security and control," and a greater chance to "reduce institutional costs without significantly increasing household expenses." In schools, assistive technology can be critical in allowing students with disabilities access the general education curriculum.  Students who experience challenges writing or keyboarding, for example, can use voice recognition software instead.Adaptive technologyAdaptive technology and assistive technology are different. Assistive technology is something that is used to help disabled people, while adaptive technology covers items that are specifically designed for disabled people and would seldom be used by a non-disabled person. In other words, assistive technology is any object or system that helps people with disabilities, while adaptive technology is specifically designed for disabled people. Consequently, adaptive technology is a subset of assistive technology. Adaptive technology often refers specifically to electronic and information technology access.Occupational therapyOccupational therapy (OT) is a healthcare profession that specializes in maintaining or improving the quality of life for individuals that experience challenges when independently performing life's occupations.  According to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (3rd ed.; AOTA, 2014), occupations include areas related to all basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADLs), rest and sleep, education, work, play, leisure and social participation. Occupational therapists have the specialized skill of employing assistive technology (AT) in the improvement and maintenance of optimal, functional participation in occupations.  The application of AT enables an individual to adapt aspects of the environment, that may otherwise be challenging, to the user in order to optimize functional participation in those occupations.  As a result, occupational therapists may educate, recommend, and promote the use of AT to improve the quality of life for their clients.Mobility impairmentsWheelchairs Wheelchairs are devices that can be manually propelled or electrically propelled, and that include a seating system and are designed to be a substitute for the normal mobility that most people have. Wheelchairs and other mobility devices allow people to perform mobility-related activities of daily living which include feeding, toileting, dressing, grooming, and bathing. The devices come in a number of variations where they can be propelled either by hand or by motors where the occupant uses electrical controls to manage motors and seating control actuators through a joystick, sip-and-puff control, head switches or other input devices. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing or input devices for caregivers. Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability. People with both sitting and walking disability often need to use a wheelchair or walker.Newer advancements in wheelchair design enable wheelchairs to climb stairs, go off-road or propel using segway technology or additional add-ons like handbikes or power assists.Transfer devices Patient transfer devices generally allow patients with impaired mobility to be moved by caregivers between beds, wheelchairs, commodes, toilets, chairs, stretchers, shower benches, automobiles, swimming pools, and other patient support systems (i.e., radiology, surgical, or examining tables). The most common devices are transfer benches, stretcher or convertible chairs (for lateral, supine transfer), sit-to-stand lifts (for moving patients from one seated position to another i.e., from wheelchairs to commodes), air bearing inflatable mattresses (for supine transfer i.e., transfer from a gurney to an operating room table),  gait belts (or transfer belt) and a slider board (or transfer board), usually used for transfer from a bed to a wheelchair or from a bed to an operating table. Highly dependent patients who cannot assist their caregiver in moving them often require a patient lift (a floor or ceiling-suspended sling lift) which though invented in 1955 and in common use since the early 1960s is still considered the state-of-the-art transfer device by OSHA and the American Nursing Association.Walkers A walker or walking frame or Rollator is a tool for disabled people who need additional support to maintain balance or stability while walking. It consists of a frame that is about waist high, approximately twelve inches deep and slightly wider than the user. Walkers are also available in other sizes, such as for children, or for heavy people. Modern walkers are height-adjustable. The front two legs of the walker may or may not have wheels attached depending on the strength and abilities of the person using it. It is also common to see caster wheels or glides on the back legs of a walker with wheels on the front.Prosthesis A prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb  is a device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscular, musculoskeletal, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury (traumatic) or missing from birth (congenital) or to supplement defective body parts. Inside the body, artificial heart valves are in common use with artificial hearts and lungs seeing less common use but under active technology development. Other medical devices and aids that can be considered prosthetics include hearing aids, artificial eyes, palatal obturator, gastric bands, and dentures.Prostheses are specifically not orthoses, although given certain circumstances a prosthesis might end up performing some or all of the same functionary benefits as an orthosis.  Prostheses are technically the complete finished item.  For instance, a C-Leg knee alone is not a prosthesis, but only a prosthetic component. The complete prosthesis would consist of the attachment system  to the residual limb — usually a "socket", and all the attachment hardware components all the way down to and including the terminal device. Despite the technical difference, the terms are often used interchangeably.The terms "prosthetic" and "orthotic" are adjectives used to describe devices such as a prosthetic knee.  The terms "prosthetics" and "orthotics" are used to describe the respective allied health fields.An Occupational Therapist's role in prosthetics include therapy, training and evaluations. Prosthetic training includes orientation to prosthetics components and terminology, donning and doffing, wearing schedule, and how to care for residual limb and the prosthesis.Exoskeletons A powered exoskeleton is a wearable mobile machine that is powered by a system of electric motors, pneumatics, levers, hydraulics, or a combination of technologies that allow for limb movement with increased strength and endurance. Its design aims to provide back support, sense the user's motion, and send a signal to motors which manage the gears. The exoskeleton supports the shoulder, waist and thigh, and assists movement for lifting and holding heavy items, while lowering back stress.Adaptive seating and positioning People with balance and motor function challenges often need specialized equipment to sit or stand safely and securely. This equipment is frequently specialized for specific settings such as in a classroom or nursing home.  Positioning is often important in seating arrangements to ensure that user's body pressure is distributed equally without inhibiting movement in a desired way.Positioning devices have been developed to aid in allowing people to stand and bear weight on their legs without risk of a fall.  These standers are generally grouped into two categories based on the position of the occupant.  Prone standers distribute the body weight to the front of the individual and usually have a tray in front of them.  This makes them good for users who are actively trying to carry out some task.  Supine standers distribute the body weight to the back and are good for cases where the user has more limited mobility or is recovering from injury.Visual impairments Many people with serious visual impairments live independently, using a wide range of tools and techniques.  Examples of assistive technology for visually impairment include screen readers, screen magnifiers, Braille embossers, desktop video magnifiers, and voice recorders.Screen readers Screen readers are used to help the visually impaired to easily access electronic information. These software programs run on a computer in order to convey the displayed information through voice (text-to-speech) or braille (refreshable braille displays) in combination with magnification for low vision users in some cases. There are a variety of platforms and applications available for a variety of costs with differing feature sets.Some example of screen readers are Apple VoiceOver, Google TalkBack and Microsoft Narrator. This software is provided free of charge on all Apple devices. Apple VoiceOver includes the option to magnify the screen, control the keyboard, and provide verbal descriptions to describe what is happening on the screen. There are thirty languages to select from. It also has the capacity to read aloud file content, as well as web pages, E-mail messages, and word processing files.As mentioned above, screen readers may rely on the assistance of text-to-speech tools. To use the text-to-speech tools, the documents must in an electronic form, that is uploaded as the digital format. However, people usually will use the hard copy documents scanned into the computer, which cannot be recognized by the text-to-speech software. To solve this issue, people always use Optical Character Recognition technology accompanied with text-to-speech software.Braille and braille embossers Braille is a system of raised dots formed into units called braille cells. A full braille cell is made up of six dots, with two parallel rows of three dots, but other combinations and quantities of dots represent other letters, numbers, punctuation marks, or words. People can then use their fingers to read the code of raised dots.A braille embosser is, simply put, a printer for braille. Instead of a standard printer adding ink onto a page, the braille embosser imprints the raised dots of braille onto a page. Some braille embossers combine both braille and ink so the documents can be read with either sight or touch.Refreshable braille display A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Computer users who cannot use a computer monitor use it to read a braille output version of the displayed text.Desktop video magnifier Desktop video magnifiers are electronic devices that use a camera and a display screen to perform digital magnification of printed materials. They enlarge printed pages for those with low vision. A camera connects to a monitor that displays real-time images, and the user can control settings such as magnification, focus, contrast, underlining, highlighting, and other screen preferences. They come in a variety of sizes and styles; some are small and portable with handheld cameras, while others are much larger and mounted on a fixed stand.Screen magnification software A screen magnifier is software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen content. It allows users to enlarge the texts and graphics on their computer screens for easier viewing. Similar to desktop video magnifiers, this technology assists people with low vision. After the user loads the software into their computer's memory, it serves as a kind of "computer magnifying glass." Wherever the computer cursor moves, it enlarges the area around it. This allows greater computer accessibility for a wide range of visual abilities.Large-print and tactile keyboards A large-print keyboard has large letters printed on the keys.  On the keyboard shown, the round buttons at the top control software which can magnify the screen (zoom in), change the background color of the screen, or make the mouse cursor on the screen larger.  The "bump dots" on the keys, installed in this case by the organization using the keyboards, help the user find the right keys in a tactile way.Navigation assistance Assistive technology for navigation has exploded on the IEEE Xplore database since 2000, with over 7,500 engineering articles written on assistive technologies and visual impairment in the past 25 years, and over 1,300 articles on solving the problem of navigation for people who are blind or visually impaired. As well, over 600 articles on augmented reality and visual impairment have appeared in the engineering literature since 2000. Most of these articles were published within the past 5 years, and the number of articles in this area is increasing every year. GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and cameras can pinpoint the exact location of the user and provide information on what is in the immediate vicinity, and assistance in getting to a destination.Wearable technology Wearable technology are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body as an implant or an accessory. New technologies are exploring how the visually impaired can receive visual information through wearable devices.Some wearable devices for visual impairment include: OrCam device eSight BrainportPersonal emergency response systemsPersonal emergency response systems (PERS), or Telecare (UK term), are a particular sort of assistive technology that use electronic sensors connected to an alarm system to help caregivers manage risk and help vulnerable people stay independent at home longer. An example would be the systems being put in place for senior people such as fall detectors, thermometers (for hypothermia risk), flooding and unlit gas sensors (for people with mild dementia). Notably, these alerts can be customized to the particular person's risks. When the alert is triggered, a message is sent to a caregiver or contact center who can respond appropriately.Accessibility softwareIn human–computer interaction, computer accessibility (also known as accessible computing) refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment, examples include web accessibility guidelines. Another approach is for the user to present a token to the computer terminal, such as a smart card, that has configuration information to adjust the computer speed, text size, etc. to their particular needs. This is useful where users want to access public computer based terminals in Libraries, ATM, Information kiosks etc. The concept is encompassed by the CEN EN 1332-4 Identification Card Systems – Man-Machine Interface. This development of this standard has been supported in Europe by SNAPI and has been successfully incorporated into the Lasseo specifications, but with limited success due to the lack of interest from public computer terminal suppliers.Hearing impairmentsPeople in the d/Deaf and hard of hearing community have a more difficult time receiving auditory information as compared to hearing individuals. These individuals often rely on visual and tactile mediums for receiving and communicating information. The use of assistive technology and devices provides this community with various solutions to auditory communication needs by providing higher sound (for those who are hard of hearing), tactile feedback, visual cues and improved technology access. Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing utilize a variety of assistive technologies that provide them with different access to information in numerous environments. Most devices either provide amplified sound or alternate ways to access information through vision and/or vibration. These technologies can be grouped into three general categories: Hearing Technology, alerting devices, and communication support.Hearing aids A hearing aid or deaf aid is an electro-acoustic device which is designed to amplify sound for the wearer, usually with the aim of making speech more intelligible, and to correct impaired hearing as measured by audiometry. This type of assistive technology helps people with hearing loss participate more fully in their hearing communities by allowing them to hear more clearly. They amplify any and all sound waves through use of a microphone, amplifier, and speaker. There is a wide variety of hearing aids available, including digital, in-the-ear, in-the-canal, behind-the-ear, and on-the-body aids.Assistive listening devices Assistive listening devices include FM, infrared, and loop assistive listening devices. This type of technology allows people with hearing difficulties to focus on a speaker or subject by getting rid of extra background noises and distractions, making places like auditoriums, classrooms, and meetings much easier to participate in. The assistive listening device usually uses a microphone to capture an audio source near to its origin and broadcast it wirelessly over an FM (Frequency Modulation) transmission, IR (Infra Red) transmission, IL (Induction Loop) transmission, or other transmission methods. The person who is listening may use an FM/IR/IL Receiver to tune into the signal and listen at his/her preferred volume.Amplified telephone equipment This type of assistive technology allows users to amplify the volume and clarity of their phone calls so that they can easily partake in this medium of communication. There are also options to adjust the frequency and tone of a call to suit their individual hearing needs. Additionally, there is a wide variety of amplified telephones to choose from, with different degrees of amplification. For example, a phone with 26 to 40 decibel is generally sufficient for mild hearing loss, while a phone with 71 to 90 decibel is better for more severe hearing loss.Augmentative and alternative communicationAugmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an umbrella term that encompasses methods of communication for those with impairments or restrictions on the production or comprehension of spoken or written language. AAC systems are extremely diverse and depend on the capabilities of the user. They may be as basic as pictures on a board that are used to request food, drink, or other care; or they can be advanced speech generating devices, based on speech synthesis, that are capable of storing hundreds of phrases and words.Cognitive impairmentsAssistive Technology for Cognition (ATC) is the use of technology (usually high tech) to augment and assist cognitive processes such as attention, memory, self-regulation, navigation, emotion recognition and management, planning, and sequencing activity. Systematic reviews of the field have found that the number of ATC are growing rapidly, but have focused on memory and planning, that there is emerging evidence for efficacy, that a lot of scope exists to develop new ATC. Examples of ATC include: NeuroPage which prompts users about meetings, Wakamaru, which provides companionship and reminds users to take medicine and calls for help if something is wrong, and telephone Reassurance systems.Memory aids Memory aids are any type of assistive technology that helps a user learn and remember certain information. Many memory aids are used for cognitive impairments such as reading, writing, or organizational difficulties. For example, a Smartpen records handwritten notes by creating both a digital copy and an audio recording of the text. Users simply tap certain parts of their notes, the pen saves it, and reads it back to them. From there, the user can also download their notes onto a computer for increased accessibility. Digital voice recorders are also used to record "in the moment" information for fast and easy recall at a later time.Educational software Educational software is software that assists people with reading, learning, comprehension, and organizational difficulties. Any accommodation software such as text readers, notetakers, text enlargers, organization tools, word predictions, and talking word processors falls under the category of educational software.Eating impairments Adaptive eating devices include items commonly used by the general population like spoons and forks and plates. However they become assistive technology when they are modified to accommodate the needs of people who have difficulty using standard cutlery due to a disabling condition. Common modifications include increasing the size of the utensil handle to make it easier to grasp. Plates and bowls may have a guard on the edge that stops food being pushed off of the dish when it is being scooped. More sophisticated equipment for eating includes manual and powered feeding devices. These devices support those who have little or no hand and arm function and enable them to eat independently.In sportsAssistive technology in sports is an area of technology design that is growing. Assistive technology is the array of new devices created to enable sports enthusiasts who have disabilities to play. Assistive technology may be used in adaptive sports, where an existing sport is modified to enable players with a disability to participate; or, assistive technology may be used to invent completely new sports with athletes with disabilities exclusively in mind.An increasing number of people with disabilities are participating in sports, leading to the development of new assistive technology. Assistive technology devices can be simple, or "low-technology", or they may use highly advanced technology. "Low-tech" devices can include velcro gloves and adaptive bands and tubes. "High-tech" devices can include all-terrain wheelchairs and adaptive bicycles. Accordingly, assistive technology can be found in sports ranging from local community recreation to the elite Paralympic Games. More complex assistive technology devices have been developed over time, and as a result, sports for people with disabilities "have changed from being a clinical therapeutic tool to an increasingly competition-oriented activity".In educationIn the United States there are two major pieces of legislation that govern the use of assistive technology within the school system. The first is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the second being the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which was first enacted in 1975 under the name The Education for All Handicapped Children Act.  In 2004, during the reauthorization period for IDEA, the National Instructional Material Access Center (NIMAC) was created which provided a repository of accessible text including publisher's textbooks to students with a qualifying disability.  Files provided are in XML format and used as a starting platform for braille readers, screen readers, and other digital text software.  IDEA defines assistive technology as follows: "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with a disability. (B) Exception.--The term does not include a medical device that is surgically implanted, or the replacement of such device."Assistive technology listed is a student's IEP is not only recommended, it is required (Koch, 2017). These devices help students both with and without disabilities access the curriculum in a way they were previously unable to (Koch, 2017). Occupational therapists play an important role in educating students, parents and teachers about the assistive technology they may interact with (Koch, 2017).Assistive technology in this area is broken down into low, mid, and high tech categories. Low tech encompasses equipment that is often low cost and does not include batteries or requires charging. Examples include adapted paper and pencil grips for writing or masks and color overlays for reading. Mid tech supports used in the school setting include the use of handheld spelling dictionaries and portable word processors used to keyboard writing. High tech supports involve the use of tablet devices and computers with accompanying software. Software supports for writing include the use of auditory feedback while keyboarding, word prediction for spelling, and speech to text. Supports for reading include the use of text to speech (TTS) software and font modification via access to digital text. Limited supports are available for math instruction and mostly consist of grid based software to allow younger students to keyboard equations and auditory feedback of more complex equations using MathML and Daisy.Dementia careAssistive technology for memory support A 2017 Cochrane Review highlighted the current lack of high-quality evidence to determine whether assistive technology effectively supports people with dementia to manage memory issues. Thus, it is not presently sure whether or not assistive technology is beneficial for memory problems.Computer accessibilityOne of the largest problems that affect disabled people is discomfort with prostheses. An experiment performed in Massachusetts utilized 20 people with various sensors attached to their arms. The subjects tried different arm exercises, and the sensors recorded their movements. All of the data helped engineers develop new engineering concepts for prosthetics.Assistive technology may attempt to improve the ergonomics of the devices themselves such as Dvorak and other alternative keyboard layouts, which offer more ergonomic layouts of the keys.Assistive technology devices have been created to enable disabled people to use modern touch screen mobile computers such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The Pererro is a plug and play adapter for iOS devices which uses the built in Apple VoiceOver feature in combination with a basic switch. This brings touch screen technology to those who were previously unable to use it. Apple, with the release of iOS 7 had introduced the ability to navigate apps using switch control. Switch access could be activated either through an external bluetooth connected switch, single touch of the screen, or use of right and left head turns using the device's camera. Additional accessibility features include the use of Assistive Touch which allows a user to access multi-touch gestures through pre-programmed onscreen buttons.For users with physical disabilities a large variety of switches are available and customizable to the user's needs varying in size, shape, or amount of pressure required for activation. Switch access may be placed near any area of the body which has consistent and reliable mobility and less subject to fatigue. Common sites include the hands, head, and feet. Eye gaze and head mouse systems can also be used as an alternative mouse navigation. A user may utilize single or multiple switch sites and the process often involves a scanning through items on a screen and activating the switch once the desired object is highlighted.Home automationThe form of home automation called assistive domotics focuses on making it possible for elderly and disabled people to live independently. Home automation is becoming a viable option for the elderly and disabled who would prefer to stay in their own homes rather than move to a healthcare facility. This field uses much of the same technology and equipment as home automation for security, entertainment, and energy conservation but tailors it towards elderly and disabled users. For example, automated prompts and reminders utilize motion sensors and pre-recorded audio messages; an automated prompt in the kitchen may remind the resident to turn off the oven, and one by the front door may remind the resident to lock the door.Impacts Overall, assistive technology aims to allow disabled people to "participate more fully in all aspects of life (home, school, and community)" and increases their opportunities for "education, social interactions, and potential for meaningful employment". It creates greater independence and control for disabled individuals. For example, in one study of 1,342 infants, toddlers and preschoolers, all with some kind of developmental, physical, sensory, or cognitive disability, the use of assistive technology created improvements in child development. These included improvements in "cognitive, social, communication, literacy, motor, adaptive, and increases in engagement in learning activities". Additionally, it has been found to lighten caregiver load.  Both family and professional caregivers benefit from assistive technology. Through its use, the time that a family member or friend would need to care for a patient significantly decreases. However, studies show that care time for a professional caregiver increases when assistive technology is used. Nonetheless, their work load is significantly easier as the assistive technology frees them of having to perform certain tasks. There are several platforms that use machine learning to identify the appropriate assistive device to suggest to patients, making assistive devices more accessible.See also Accessibility Assisted Living Augmentative and alternative communication Braille technology Design for All (in ICT) Disability Flag Durable medical equipment Matching person and technology model OATS: Open Source Assistive Technology Software Occupational Therapy Transgenerational design Universal access to educationReferencesBibliography          Educational technologyWeb accessibility
The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool which has been used since ancient times. It was used in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. The exact origin of the abacus has not yet emerged. It consists of rows of movable beads, or similar objects, strung on a wire. They represent digits. One of the two numbers is set up, and the beads are manipulated to perform an operation such as addition, or even a square or cubic root.In their earliest designs, the rows of beads could be loose on a flat surface or sliding in grooves. Later the beads were made to slide on rods and built into a frame, allowing faster manipulation. Abacuses are still made, often as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires. In the ancient world, particularly before the introduction of positional notation, abacuses were a practical calculating tool. The abacus is still used to teach the fundamentals of mathematics to some children, e.g., in post-Soviet states.Designs such as the Japanese soroban have been used for practical calculations of up to multi-digit numbers. Any particular abacus design supports multiple methods to perform calculations, including the four basic operations and square and cube roots. Some of these methods work with non-natural numbers (numbers such as  and ).Although calculators and computers are commonly used today instead of abacuses, abacuses remain in everyday use in some countries. Merchants, traders, and clerks in some parts of Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and Africa use abacuses. The abacus remains in common use as a scoring system in non-electronic table games. Others may use an abacus due to visual impairment that prevents the use of a calculator.EtymologyThe word abacus dates to at least AD 1387 when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin that described a sandboard abacus. The Latin word is derived from ancient Greek  (abax) which means something without a base, and colloquially, any piece of rectangular material.  Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust", or "drawing-board covered with dust (for the use of mathematics)" (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word,  (abakos). While the table strewn with dust definition is popular, some argue evidence is insufficient for that conclusion. Greek  probably borrowed from a Northwest Semitic language like Phoenician, evidenced by a cognate with the Hebrew word ʾābāq (), or “dust” (in the post-Biblical sense "sand used as a writing surface").Both abacuses and abaci (soft or hard "c") are used as plurals. The user of an abacus is called an abacist.HistoryMesopotamiaThe Sumerian abacus appeared between 2700–2300 BC. It held a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal (base 60) number system.Some scholars point to a character in Babylonian cuneiform that may have been derived from a representation of the abacus. It is the belief of Old Babylonian scholars, such as Ettore Carruccio, that Old Babylonians "may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations".EgyptGreek historian Herodotus mentioned the abacus in Ancient Egypt. He wrote that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument are yet to be discovered.PersiaAt around 600 BC, Persians first began to use the abacus, during the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Parthian, Sassanian, and Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and inventions with the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire- which is how the abacus may have been exported to other countries.Greece The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC. Demosthenes (384 BC–322 BC) complained that the need to use pebbles for calculations was too difficult. A play by Alexis from the 4th century BC mentions an abacus and pebbles for accounting, and both Diogenes and Polybius use the abacus as a metaphor for human behavior, stating "that men that sometimes stood for more and sometimes for less" like the pebbles on an abacus. The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome, and the Western Christian world until the French Revolution.A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet) dates to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble   in length,  wide, and  thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the tablet's center is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line. Also from this time frame, the Darius Vase was unearthed in 1851. It was covered with pictures, including a "treasurer" holding a wax tablet in one hand while manipulating counters on a table with the other.ChinaThe earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC.The Chinese abacus, also known as the suanpan (算盤/算盘, lit. "calculating tray"), is typically  tall and comes in various widths, depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom one. The beads are usually rounded and made of hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the beam; beads moved toward the beam are counted, while those moved away from it are not. One of the top beads is 5, while one of the bottom beads is 1. Each rod has a number under it, showing the place value. The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center.The prototype of the Chinese abacus appeared during the Han Dynasty, and the beads are oval. The Song Dynasty and earlier used the 1:4 type or four-beads abacus similar to the modern abacus including the shape of the beads commonly known as Japanese-style abacus.In the early Ming Dynasty, the abacus began to appear in a 1:5 ratio. The upper deck had one bead and the bottom had five beads. In the late Ming Dynasty, the abacus styles appeared in a 2:5 ratio.  The upper deck had two beads, and the bottom had five.Various calculation techniques were devised for Suanpan enabling efficient calculations. Some schools teach students how to use it.In the long scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan during the Song dynasty (960–1297), a suanpan is clearly visible beside an account book and doctor's prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao).The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the other, given evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. However, no direct connection has been demonstrated, and the similarity of the abacuses may be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model (like most modern Korean and Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the standard suanpan has 5 plus 2. Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system (or any base up to 18) which may have been used for traditional Chinese measures of weight. (Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese models, the Roman model used grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.)Another possible source of the suanpan is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal system but lacked the concept of zero as a placeholder. The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.RomeThe normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a smooth table. Originally pebbles (calculi) were used. Later, and in medieval Europe, jetons were manufactured. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens, etc. as in the Roman numeral system. This system of 'counter casting' continued into the late Roman empire and in medieval Europe and persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century. Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the abacus with modifications, it became widely used in Europe again during the 11th century This abacus used beads on wires, unlike the traditional Roman counting boards, which meant the abacus could be used much faster and was more easily moved.Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus.One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown nearby in reconstruction, dates to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives –five units, five tens, etc., essentially in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions).IndiaThe Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu (316-396), a Sanskrit work on Buddhist philosophy, says that the second-century CE philosopher Vasumitra said that "placing a wick (Sanskrit vartikā) on the number one (ekāṅka) means it is a one while placing the wick on the number hundred means it is called a hundred, and on the number one thousand means it is a thousand".  It is unclear exactly what this arrangement may have been. Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding new ways of recording the contents of the abacus. Hindu texts used the term śūnya (zero) to indicate the empty column on the abacus.JapanIn Japan, the abacus is called soroban (, lit. "counting tray"). It was imported from China in the 14th century. It was probably in use by the working class a century or more before the ruling class adopted it, as the class structure obstructed such changes. The 1:4 abacus, which removes the seldom-used second and fifth bead became popular in the 1940s.Today's Japanese abacus is a 1:4 type, four-bead abacus, introduced from China in the Muromachi era. It adopts the form of the upper deck one bead and the bottom four beads. The top bead on the upper deck was equal to five and the bottom one is similar to the Chinese or Korean abacus, and the decimal number can be expressed, so the abacus is designed as a one:four device. The beads are always in the shape of a diamond. The quotient division is generally used instead of the division method; at the same time, in order to make the multiplication and division digits consistently use the division multiplication. Later, Japan had a 3:5 abacus called 天三算盤, which is now in the Ize Rongji collection of Shansi Village in Yamagata City. Japan also used a 2:5 type abacus.The four-bead abacus spread, and became common  around the world. Improvements to the Japanese abacus arose in various places. In China an aluminium frame plastic bead abacus was used. The file is next to the four beads, and pressing the "clearing" button put the upper bead in the upper position, and the lower bead in the lower position.The abacus is still manufactured in Japan even with the proliferation, practicality, and affordability of pocket electronic calculators. The use of the soroban is still taught in Japanese primary schools as part of mathematics, primarily as an aid to faster mental calculation. Using visual imagery can complete a calculation as quickly as a physical instrument.KoreaThe Chinese abacus migrated from China to Korea around 1400 AD. Koreans call it jupan (주판), supan (수판) or jusan (주산). The four-beads abacus (1:4) was introduced during the Goryeo Dynasty. The 5:1 abacus was introduced to Korea from China during the Ming Dynasty.Native AmericaSome sources mention the use of an abacus called a nepohualtzintzin in ancient Aztec culture. This Mesoamerican abacus used a 5-digit base-20 system. The word Nepōhualtzintzin  comes from Nahuatl, formed by the roots; Ne – personal -; pōhual or pōhualli  – the account -; and tzintzin  – small similar elements. Its complete meaning was taken as: counting with small similar elements. Its use was taught in the Calmecac to the temalpouhqueh , who were students dedicated to taking the accounts of skies, from childhood.The Nepōhualtzintzin was divided into two main parts separated by a bar or intermediate cord. In the left part were four beads. Beads in the first row have unitary values (1, 2, 3, and 4), and on the right side,  three beads had values of 5, 10, and 15, respectively. In order to know the value of the respective beads of the upper rows, it is enough to multiply by 20 (by each row), the value of the corresponding count in the first row.The device featured 13 rows with 7 beads, 91 in total. This was a basic number for this culture. It had a close relation to natural phenomena, the underworld, and the cycles of the heavens. One Nepōhualtzintzin (91) represented the number of days that a season of the year lasts, two Nepōhualtzitzin (182) is the number of days of the corn's cycle, from its sowing to its harvest, three Nepōhualtzintzin (273) is the number of days of a baby's gestation, and four Nepōhualtzintzin (364) completed a cycle and approximated one year. When translated into modern computer arithmetic, the Nepōhualtzintzin amounted to the rank from 10 to 18 in floating point, which precisely calculated large and small amounts, although round off was not allowed.The rediscovery of the Nepōhualtzintzin was due to the Mexican engineer David Esparza Hidalgo, who in his travels throughout Mexico found diverse engravings and paintings of this instrument and reconstructed several of them in gold, jade, encrustations of shell, etc. Very old Nepōhualtzintzin are attributed to the Olmec culture, and some bracelets of Mayan origin, as well as a diversity of forms and materials in other cultures.Sanchez wrote in Arithmetic in Maya that another base 5, base 4 abacus had been found in the Yucatán Peninsula that also computed calendar data. This was a finger abacus, on one hand, 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were used; and on the other hand 0, 1, 2, and 3 were used. Note the use of zero at the beginning and end of the two cycles.The quipu of the Incas was a system of colored knotted cords used to record numerical data, like advanced tally sticks – but not used to perform calculations. Calculations were carried out using a yupana (Quechua for "counting tool"; see figure) which was still in use after the conquest of Peru. The working principle of a yupana is unknown, but in 2001 Italian mathematician De Pasquale proposed an explanation. By comparing the form of several yupanas, researchers found that calculations were based using the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and powers of 10, 20, and 40 as place values for the different fields in the instrument. Using the Fibonacci sequence would keep the number of grains within any one field at a minimum.RussiaThe Russian abacus, the schoty (, plural from , counting), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire (except one wire with four beads for quarter-ruble fractions). Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916. The Russian abacus is often used vertically, with each wire running horizontally. The wires are usually bowed upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either side. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. During manipulation, beads are moved to the left. For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire (the 5th and 6th bead) usually are of a different color from the other eight. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different color.The Russian abacus was in use in shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and its usage was taught in most schools until the 1990s. Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia; according to Yakov Perelman. Some businessmen attempting to import calculators into the Russian Empire were known to leave in despair after watching  a skilled abacus operator. Likewise, the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce abacus use in the Soviet Union. The Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of domestic microcalculators in 1974.The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who had served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia. The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid. The Turks and the Armenian people used abacuses similar to the Russian schoty. It was named a coulba by the Turks and a choreb by the Armenians.School abacusAround the world, abacuses have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic.In Western countries, a bead frame similar to the Russian abacus but with straight wires and a vertical frame is common (see image).The wireframe may be used either with positional notation like other abacuses (thus the 10-wire version may represent numbers up to 9,999,999,999), or each bead may represent one unit (e.g. 74 can be represented by shifting all beads on 7 wires and 4 beads on the 8th wire, so numbers up to 100 may be represented). In the bead frame shown, the gap between the 5th and 6th wire, corresponding to the color change between the 5th and the 6th bead on each wire, suggests the latter use. Teaching multiplication, e.g. 6 times 7, may be represented by shifting 7 beads on 6 wires.The red-and-white abacus is used in contemporary primary schools for a wide range of number-related lessons. The twenty bead version, referred to by its Dutch name rekenrek ("calculating frame"), is often used, either on a string of beads or on a rigid framework.Feynman vs the abacusPhysicist Richard Feynman was noted for facility in mathematical calculations. He wrote about an encounter in Brazil with a Japanese abacus expert, who challenged him to speed contests between Feynman's pen and paper, and the abacus. The abacus was much faster for addition, somewhat faster for multiplication, but Feynman was faster at division. When the abacus was used for a really difficult challenge, i.e. cube roots, Feynman won easily. However, the number chosen at random was close to a number Feynman happened to know was an exact cube, allowing him to use approximate methods.Neurological analysis Learning how to calculate with the abacus may improve capacity for mental calculation. Abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), which was derived from the abacus, is the act of performing calculations, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in the mind by manipulating an imagined abacus. It is a high-level cognitive skill that runs calculations with an effective algorithm. People doing long-term AMC training show higher numerical memory capacity and experience more effectively connected neural pathways. They are able to retrieve memory to deal with complex processes. AMC involves both visuospatial and visuomotor processing that generate the visual abacus and move the imaginary beads. Since it only requires that the final position of beads be remembered, it takes less memory and less computation time.Renaissance abacusesBinary abacusThe binary abacus is used to explain how computers manipulate numbers. The abacus shows how numbers, letters, and signs can be stored in a binary system on a computer, or via ASCII. The device consists of a series of beads on parallel wires arranged in three separate rows. The beads represent a switch on the computer in either an "on" or "off" position.Visually impaired usersAn adapted abacus, invented by Tim Cranmer, and called a Cranmer abacus is commonly used by visually impaired users. A piece of soft fabric or rubber is placed behind the beads, keeping them in place while the users manipulate them. The device is then used to perform the mathematical functions of multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root, and cube root.Although blind students have benefited from talking calculators, the abacus is often taught to these students in early grades. Blind students can also complete mathematical assignments using a braille-writer and Nemeth code (a type of braille code for mathematics) but large multiplication and long division problems are tedious. The abacus gives these students a tool to compute mathematical problems that equals the speed and mathematical knowledge required by their sighted peers using pencil and paper. Many blind people find this number machine a useful tool throughout life.See also Chinese Zhusuan Chisanbop Logical abacus Mental abacus Napier's bones Sand table Slide rule Soroban SuanpanNotesFootnotesReferencesReadingExternal linksTutorials  Min MultimediaAbacus curiosities  Abacus in Various Number Systems at cut-the-knot Java applet of Chinese, Japanese and Russian abaci An atomic-scale abacus Examples of Abaci Aztex Abacus Indian Abacus Mathematical toolsChinese mathematicsEgyptian mathematicsGreek mathematicsIndian mathematicsJapanese mathematicsRoman mathematics
An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e., hydrogen ion, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid, or, capable of forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis acid.The first category of acids are the proton donors, or Brønsted–Lowry acids. In the special case of aqueous solutions, proton donors form the hydronium ion H3O+ and are known as Arrhenius acids. Brønsted and Lowry generalized the Arrhenius theory to include non-aqueous solvents. A Brønsted or Arrhenius acid usually contains a hydrogen atom bonded to a chemical structure that is still energetically favorable after loss of H+.Aqueous Arrhenius acids have characteristic properties which provide a practical description of an acid. Acids form aqueous solutions with a sour taste, can turn blue litmus red, and react with bases and certain metals (like calcium) to form salts. The word acid is derived from the Latin acidus/acēre, meaning 'sour'. An aqueous solution of an acid has a pH less than 7 and is colloquially also referred to as "acid" (as in "dissolved in acid"), while the strict definition refers only to the solute. A lower pH means a higher acidity, and thus a higher concentration of positive hydrogen ions in the solution. Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic.Common aqueous acids include hydrochloric acid (a solution of hydrogen chloride which is found in gastric acid in the stomach and activates digestive enzymes), acetic acid (vinegar is a dilute aqueous solution of this liquid), sulfuric acid (used in car batteries), and citric acid (found in citrus fruits). As these examples show, acids (in the colloquial sense) can be solutions or pure substances, and can be derived from acids (in the strict sense) that are solids, liquids, or gases. Strong acids and some concentrated weak acids are corrosive, but there are exceptions such as carboranes and boric acid.The second category of acids are Lewis acids, which form a covalent bond with an electron pair. An example is boron trifluoride (BF3), whose boron atom has a vacant orbital which can form a covalent bond by sharing a lone pair of electrons on an atom in a base, for example the nitrogen atom in ammonia (NH3). Lewis considered this as a generalization of the Brønsted definition, so that an acid is a chemical species that accepts electron pairs either directly or by releasing protons (H+) into the solution, which then accept electron pairs. However, hydrogen chloride, acetic acid, and most other Brønsted–Lowry acids cannot form a covalent bond with an electron pair and are therefore not Lewis acids. Conversely, many Lewis acids are not Arrhenius or Brønsted–Lowry acids. In modern terminology, an acid is implicitly a Brønsted acid and not a Lewis acid, since chemists almost always refer to a Lewis acid explicitly as a Lewis acid.Definitions and conceptsModern definitions are concerned with the fundamental chemical reactions common to all acids.Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water, so the Arrhenius and Brønsted–Lowry definitions are the most relevant.The Brønsted–Lowry definition is the most widely used definition; unless otherwise specified, acid–base reactions are assumed to involve the transfer of a proton (H+) from an acid to a base.Hydronium ions are acids according to all three definitions. Although alcohols and amines can be Brønsted–Lowry acids, they can also function as Lewis bases due to the lone pairs of electrons on their oxygen and nitrogen atoms.Arrhenius acidsIn 1884, Svante Arrhenius attributed the properties of acidity to hydrogen ions (H+), later described as protons or hydrons. An Arrhenius acid is a substance that, when added to water, increases the concentration of H+ ions in the water. Note that chemists often write H+(aq) and refer to the hydrogen ion when describing acid–base reactions but the free hydrogen nucleus, a proton, does not exist alone in water, it exists as the hydronium ion (H3O+) or other forms (H5O2+, H9O4+). Thus, an Arrhenius acid can also be described as a substance that increases the concentration of hydronium ions when added to water. Examples include molecular substances such as hydrogen chloride and acetic acid.An Arrhenius base, on the other hand, is a substance which increases the concentration of hydroxide (OH−) ions when dissolved in water. This decreases the concentration of hydronium because the ions react to form H2O molecules:H3O + OH ⇌ H2O(liq) + H2O(liq)Due to this equilibrium, any increase in the concentration of hydronium is accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxide. Thus, an Arrhenius acid could also be said to be one that decreases hydroxide concentration, while an Arrhenius base increases it.In an acidic solution, the concentration of hydronium ions is greater than 10−7 moles per liter. Since pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions, acidic solutions thus have a pH of less than 7.Brønsted–Lowry acidsWhile the Arrhenius concept is useful for describing many reactions, it is also quite limited in its scope. In 1923, chemists Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry independently recognized that acid–base reactions involve the transfer of a proton. A Brønsted–Lowry acid (or simply Brønsted acid) is a species that donates a proton to a Brønsted–Lowry base. Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory has several advantages over Arrhenius theory. Consider the following reactions of acetic acid (CH3COOH), the organic acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste:Both theories easily describe the first reaction: CH3COOH acts as an Arrhenius acid because it acts as a source of H3O+ when dissolved in water, and it acts as a Brønsted acid by donating a proton to water. In the second example CH3COOH undergoes the same transformation, in this case donating a proton to ammonia (NH3), but does not relate to the Arrhenius definition of an acid because the reaction does not produce hydronium. Nevertheless, CH3COOH is both an Arrhenius and a Brønsted–Lowry acid.Brønsted–Lowry theory can be used to describe reactions of molecular compounds in nonaqueous solution or the gas phase. Hydrogen chloride (HCl) and ammonia combine under several different conditions to form ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. In aqueous solution HCl behaves as hydrochloric acid and exists as hydronium and chloride ions. The following reactions illustrate the limitations of Arrhenius's definition: H3O + Cl + NH3 → Cl + NH(aq) + H2O HCl(benzene) + NH3(benzene) → NH4Cl(s) HCl(g) + NH3(g) → NH4Cl(s)As with the acetic acid reactions, both definitions work for the first example, where water is the solvent and hydronium ion is formed by the HCl solute. The next two reactions do not involve the formation of ions but are still proton-transfer reactions. In the second reaction hydrogen chloride and ammonia (dissolved in benzene) react to form solid ammonium chloride in a benzene solvent and in the third gaseous HCl and NH3 combine to form the solid.Lewis acidsA third, only marginally related concept was proposed in 1923 by Gilbert N. Lewis, which includes reactions with acid–base characteristics that do not involve a proton transfer. A Lewis acid is a species that accepts a pair of electrons from another species; in other words, it is an electron pair acceptor. Brønsted acid–base reactions are proton transfer reactions while Lewis acid–base reactions are electron pair transfers. Many Lewis acids are not Brønsted–Lowry acids. Contrast how the following reactions are described in terms of acid–base chemistry:In the first reaction a fluoride ion, F−, gives up an electron pair to boron trifluoride to form the product tetrafluoroborate. Fluoride "loses" a pair of valence electrons because the electrons shared in the B—F bond are located in the region of space between the two atomic nuclei and are therefore more distant from the fluoride nucleus than they are in the lone fluoride ion. BF3 is a Lewis acid because it accepts the electron pair from fluoride. This reaction cannot be described in terms of Brønsted theory because there is no proton transfer. The second reaction can be described using either theory. A proton is transferred from an unspecified Brønsted acid to ammonia, a Brønsted base; alternatively, ammonia acts as a Lewis base and transfers a lone pair of electrons to form a bond with a hydrogen ion. The species that gains the electron pair is the Lewis acid; for example, the oxygen atom in H3O+ gains a pair of electrons when one of the H—O bonds is broken and the electrons shared in the bond become localized on oxygen. Depending on the context, a Lewis acid may also be described as an oxidizer or an electrophile. Organic Brønsted acids, such as acetic, citric, or oxalic acid, are not Lewis acids. They dissociate in water to produce a Lewis acid, H+, but at the same time also yield an equal amount of a Lewis base (acetate, citrate, or oxalate, respectively, for the acids mentioned). This article deals mostly with Brønsted acids rather than Lewis acids.Dissociation and equilibriumReactions of acids are often generalized in the form , where HA represents the acid and A− is the conjugate base. This reaction is referred to as protolysis. The protonated form (HA) of an acid is also sometimes referred to as the free acid.Acid–base conjugate pairs differ by one proton, and can be interconverted by the addition or removal of a proton (protonation and deprotonation, respectively). Note that the acid can be the charged species and the conjugate base can be neutral in which case the generalized reaction scheme could be written as . In solution there exists an equilibrium between the acid and its conjugate base. The equilibrium constant K is an expression of the equilibrium concentrations of the molecules or the ions in solution. Brackets indicate concentration, such that [H2O] means the concentration of H2O. The acid dissociation constant Ka is generally used in the context of acid–base reactions. The numerical value of Ka is equal to the product of the concentrations of the products divided by the concentration of the reactants, where the reactant is the acid (HA) and the products are the conjugate base and H+.The stronger of two acids will have a higher Ka than the weaker acid; the ratio of hydrogen ions to acid will be higher for the stronger acid as the stronger acid has a greater tendency to lose its proton. Because the range of possible values for Ka spans many orders of magnitude, a more manageable constant, pKa is more frequently used, where pKa = −log10 Ka. Stronger acids have a smaller pKa than weaker acids. Experimentally determined pKa at 25 °C in aqueous solution are often quoted in textbooks and reference material.NomenclatureArrhenius acids are named according to their anions. In the classical naming system, the ionic suffix is dropped and replaced with a new suffix, according to the table following. The prefix "hydro-" is used when the acid is made up of just hydrogen and one other element. For example, HCl has chloride as its anion, so the hydro- prefix is used, and the -ide suffix makes the name take the form hydrochloric acid.Classical naming system:In the IUPAC naming system, "aqueous" is simply added to the name of the ionic compound.    Thus, for hydrogen chloride, as an acid solution, the IUPAC name is aqueous hydrogen chloride.Acid strengthThe strength of an acid refers to its ability or tendency to lose a proton. A strong acid is one that completely dissociates in water; in other words, one mole of a strong acid HA dissolves in water yielding one mole of H+ and one mole of the conjugate base, A−, and none of the protonated acid HA. In contrast, a weak acid only partially dissociates and at equilibrium both the acid and the conjugate base are in solution. Examples of strong acids are hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydroiodic acid (HI), hydrobromic acid (HBr), perchloric acid (HClO4), nitric acid (HNO3) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4). In water each of these essentially ionizes 100%. The stronger an acid is, the more easily it loses a proton, H+. Two key factors that contribute to the ease of deprotonation are the polarity of the H—A bond and the size of atom A, which determines the strength of the H—A bond. Acid strengths are also often discussed in terms of the stability of the conjugate base.Stronger acids have a larger acid dissociation constant, Ka and a more negative pKa than weaker acids.Sulfonic acids, which are organic oxyacids, are a class of strong acids. A common example is toluenesulfonic acid (tosylic acid). Unlike sulfuric acid itself, sulfonic acids can be solids. In fact, polystyrene functionalized into polystyrene sulfonate is a solid strongly acidic plastic that is filterable.Superacids are acids stronger than 100% sulfuric acid. Examples of superacids are fluoroantimonic acid, magic acid and perchloric acid. Superacids can permanently protonate water to give ionic, crystalline hydronium "salts". They can also quantitatively stabilize carbocations.While Ka measures the strength of an acid compound, the strength of an aqueous acid solution is measured by pH, which is an indication of the concentration of hydronium in the solution.  The pH of a simple solution of an acid compound in water is determined by the dilution of the compound and the compound's Ka.Lewis acid strength in non-aqueous solutionsLewis acids have been classified in the ECW model and it has been shown that there is no one order of acid strengths.  The relative acceptor strength of Lewis acids toward a series of bases, versus other Lewis acids, can be illustrated by C-B plots.  It has been shown that to define the order of Lewis acid strength at least two properties must be considered. For Pearson's qualitative HSAB theory the two properties are hardness and strength while for Drago's quantitative ECW model the two properties are electrostatic and covalent.Chemical characteristicsMonoprotic acidsMonoprotic acids, also known as monobasic acids, are those acids that are able to donate one proton per molecule during the process of dissociation (sometimes called ionization) as shown below (symbolized by HA):      KaCommon examples of monoprotic acids in mineral acids include hydrochloric acid (HCl) and nitric acid (HNO3). On the other hand, for organic acids the term mainly indicates the presence of one carboxylic acid group and sometimes these acids are known as monocarboxylic acid. Examples in organic acids include formic acid (HCOOH), acetic acid (CH3COOH) and benzoic acid (C6H5COOH).Polyprotic acidsPolyprotic acids, also known as polybasic acids, are able to donate more than one proton per acid molecule, in contrast to monoprotic acids that only donate one proton per molecule. Specific types of polyprotic acids have more specific names, such as diprotic (or dibasic) acid (two potential protons to donate), and triprotic (or tribasic) acid (three potential protons to donate). Some macromolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids can have a very large number of acidic protons.A diprotic acid (here symbolized by H2A) can undergo one or two dissociations depending on the pH. Each dissociation has its own dissociation constant, Ka1 and Ka2.     Ka1       Ka2The first dissociation constant is typically greater than the second (i.e., Ka1 > Ka2). For example, sulfuric acid (H2SO4) can donate one proton to form the bisulfate anion (HSO), for which Ka1 is very large; then it can donate a second proton to form the sulfate anion (SO), wherein the Ka2 is intermediate strength. The large Ka1 for the first dissociation makes sulfuric a strong acid. In a similar manner, the weak unstable carbonic acid  can lose one proton to form bicarbonate anion  and lose a second to form carbonate anion (CO). Both Ka values are small, but Ka1 > Ka2 .A triprotic acid (H3A) can undergo one, two, or three dissociations and has three dissociation constants, where Ka1 > Ka2 > Ka3.      Ka1       Ka2      Ka3An inorganic example of a triprotic acid is orthophosphoric acid (H3PO4), usually just called phosphoric acid. All three protons can be successively lost to yield H2PO, then HPO, and finally PO, the orthophosphate ion, usually just called phosphate. Even though the positions of the three protons on the original phosphoric acid molecule are equivalent, the successive Ka values differ since it is energetically less favorable to lose a proton if the conjugate base is more negatively charged. An organic example of a triprotic acid is citric acid, which can successively lose three protons to finally form the citrate ion.Although the subsequent loss of each hydrogen ion is less favorable, all of the conjugate bases are present in solution. The fractional concentration, α (alpha), for each species can be calculated. For example, a generic diprotic acid will generate 3 species in solution: H2A, HA−, and A2−. The fractional concentrations can be calculated as below when given either the pH (which can be converted to the [H+]) or the concentrations of the acid with all its conjugate bases:A plot of these fractional concentrations against pH, for given K1 and K2, is known as a Bjerrum plot. A pattern is observed in the above equations and can be expanded to the general n -protic acid that has been deprotonated i -times:where K0 = 1 and the other K-terms are the dissociation constants for the acid.NeutralizationNeutralization is the reaction between an acid and a base, producing a salt and neutralized base; for example, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide form sodium chloride and water:HCl(aq) + NaOH(aq) → H2O(l) + NaCl(aq)Neutralization is the basis of titration, where a pH indicator shows equivalence point when the equivalent number of moles of a base have been added to an acid. It is often wrongly assumed that neutralization should result in a solution with pH 7.0, which is only the case with similar acid and base strengths during a reaction.Neutralization with a base weaker than the acid results in a weakly acidic salt. An example is the weakly acidic ammonium chloride, which is produced from the strong acid hydrogen chloride and the weak base ammonia. Conversely, neutralizing a weak acid with a strong base gives a weakly basic salt (e.g., sodium fluoride from hydrogen fluoride and sodium hydroxide).Weak acid–weak base equilibriumIn order for a protonated acid to lose a proton, the pH of the system must rise above the pKa of the acid. The decreased concentration of H+ in that basic solution shifts the equilibrium towards the conjugate base form (the deprotonated form of the acid). In lower-pH (more acidic) solutions, there is a high enough H+ concentration in the solution to cause the acid to remain in its protonated form.Solutions of weak acids and salts of their conjugate bases form buffer solutions.Titration To determine the concentration of an acid in an aqueous solution, an acid–base titration is commonly performed. A strong base solution with a known concentration, usually NaOH or KOH, is added to neutralize the acid solution according to the color change of the indicator with the amount of base added. The titration curve of an acid titrated by a base has two axes, with the base volume on the x-axis and the solution's pH value on the y-axis. The pH of the solution always goes up as the base is added to the solution.Example: Diprotic acid For each diprotic acid titration curve, from left to right, there are two midpoints, two equivalence points, and two buffer regions.Equivalence points Due to the successive dissociation processes, there are two equivalence points in the titration curve of a diprotic acid. The first equivalence point occurs when all first hydrogen ions from the first ionization are titrated. In other words, the amount of OH− added equals the original amount of H2A at the first equivalence point. The second equivalence point occurs when all hydrogen ions are titrated. Therefore, the amount of OH− added equals twice the amount of H2A at this time. For a weak diprotic acid titrated by a strong base, the second equivalence point must occur at pH above 7 due to the hydrolysis of the resulted salts in the solution. At either equivalence point, adding a drop of base will cause the steepest rise of the pH value in the system.Buffer regions and midpoints A titration curve for a diprotic acid contains two midpoints where pH=pKa. Since there are two different Ka values, the first midpoint occurs at pH=pKa1 and the second one occurs at pH=pKa2. Each segment of the curve which contains a midpoint at its center is called the buffer region. Because the buffer regions consist of the acid and its conjugate base, it can resist pH changes when base is added until the next equivalent points.Applications of acidsAcids exist universally in our lives. There are both numerous kinds of natural acid compounds with biological functions and massive synthesized acids which are used in many ways.In industryAcids are fundamental reagents in treating almost all processes in today's industry. Sulfuric acid, a diprotic acid, is the most widely used acid in industry, which is also the most-produced industrial chemical in the world. It is mainly used in producing fertilizer, detergent, batteries and dyes, as well as used in processing many products such like removing impurities. According to the statistics data in 2011, the annual production of sulfuric acid was around 200 million tonnes in the world. For example, phosphate minerals react with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid for the production of phosphate fertilizers, and zinc is produced by dissolving zinc oxide into sulfuric acid, purifying the solution and electrowinning.In the chemical industry, acids react in neutralization reactions to produce salts. For example, nitric acid reacts with ammonia to produce ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer. Additionally, carboxylic acids can be esterified with alcohols, to produce esters.Acids are often used to remove rust and other corrosion from metals in a process known as pickling. They may be used as an electrolyte in a wet cell battery, such as sulfuric acid in a car battery.In foodTartaric acid is an important component of some commonly used foods like unripened mangoes and tamarind. Natural fruits and vegetables also contain acids. Citric acid is present in oranges, lemon and other citrus fruits. Oxalic acid is present in tomatoes, spinach, and especially in carambola and rhubarb; rhubarb leaves and unripe carambolas are toxic because of high concentrations of oxalic acid. Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is an essential vitamin for the human body and is present in such foods as amla (Indian gooseberry), lemon, citrus fruits, and guava.Many acids can be found in various kinds of food as additives, as they alter their taste and serve as preservatives. Phosphoric acid, for example, is a component of cola drinks. Acetic acid is used in day-to-day life as vinegar. Citric acid is used as a preservative in sauces and pickles.Carbonic acid is one of the most common acid additives that are widely added in soft drinks. During the manufacturing process, CO2 is usually pressurized to dissolve in these drinks to generate carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is very unstable and tends to decompose into water and CO2 at room temperature and pressure. Therefore, when bottles or cans of these kinds of soft drinks are opened, the soft drinks fizz and effervesce as CO2 bubbles come out.Certain acids are used as drugs. Acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) is used as a pain killer and for bringing down fevers.In human bodiesAcids play important roles in the human body. The hydrochloric acid present in the stomach aids digestion by breaking down large and complex food molecules. Amino acids are required for synthesis of proteins required for growth and repair of body tissues. Fatty acids are also required for growth and repair of body tissues. Nucleic acids are important for the manufacturing of DNA and RNA and transmitting of traits to offspring through genes. Carbonic acid is important for maintenance of pH equilibrium in the body.Human bodies contain a variety of organic and inorganic compounds, among those dicarboxylic acids play an essential role in many biological behaviors. Many of those acids are amino acids which mainly serve as materials for the synthesis of proteins. Other weak acids serve as buffers with their conjugate bases to keep the body's pH from undergoing large scale changes which would be harmful to cells. The rest of the dicarboxylic acids also participate in the synthesis of various biologically important compounds in human bodies.Acid catalysisAcids are used as catalysts in industrial and organic chemistry; for example, sulfuric acid is used in very large quantities in the alkylation process to produce gasoline.  Some acids, such as sulfuric, phosphoric, and hydrochloric acids, also effect dehydration and condensation reactions. In biochemistry, many enzymes employ acid catalysis.Biological occurrenceMany biologically important molecules are acids. Nucleic acids, which contain acidic phosphate groups, include DNA and RNA. Nucleic acids contain the genetic code that determines many of an organism's characteristics, and is passed from parents to offspring. DNA contains the chemical blueprint for the synthesis of proteins which are made up of amino acid subunits. Cell membranes contain fatty acid esters such as phospholipids.An α-amino acid has a central carbon (the α or alpha carbon) which is covalently bonded to a carboxyl group (thus they are carboxylic acids), an amino group, a hydrogen atom and a variable group. The variable group, also called the R group or side chain, determines the identity and many of the properties of a specific amino acid. In glycine, the simplest amino acid, the R group is a hydrogen atom, but in all other amino acids it is contains one or more carbon atoms bonded to hydrogens, and may contain other elements such as sulfur, oxygen or nitrogen. With the exception of glycine, naturally occurring amino acids are chiral and almost invariably occur in the L-configuration. Peptidoglycan, found in some bacterial cell walls contains some D-amino acids. At physiological pH, typically around 7, free amino acids exist in a charged form, where the acidic carboxyl group (-COOH) loses a proton (-COO−) and the basic amine group (-NH2) gains a proton (-NH). The entire molecule has a net neutral charge and is a zwitterion, with the exception of amino acids with basic or acidic side chains. Aspartic acid, for example, possesses one protonated amine and two deprotonated carboxyl groups, for a net charge of −1 at physiological pH.Fatty acids and fatty acid derivatives are another group of carboxylic acids that play a significant role in biology. These contain long hydrocarbon chains and a carboxylic acid group on one end. The cell membrane of nearly all organisms is primarily made up of a phospholipid bilayer, a micelle of hydrophobic fatty acid esters with polar, hydrophilic phosphate "head" groups. Membranes contain additional components, some of which can participate in acid–base reactions.In humans and many other animals, hydrochloric acid is a part of the gastric acid secreted within the stomach to help hydrolyze proteins and polysaccharides, as well as converting the inactive pro-enzyme, pepsinogen into the enzyme, pepsin. Some organisms produce acids for defense; for example, ants produce formic acid.Acid–base equilibrium plays a critical role in regulating mammalian breathing. Oxygen gas (O2) drives cellular respiration, the process by which animals release the chemical potential energy stored in food, producing carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the lungs, and the body responds to changing energy demands by adjusting the rate of ventilation. For example, during periods of exertion the body rapidly breaks down stored carbohydrates and fat, releasing CO2 into the blood stream. In aqueous solutions such as blood CO2 exists in equilibrium with carbonic acid and bicarbonate ion. It is the decrease in pH that signals the brain to breathe faster and deeper, expelling the excess CO2 and resupplying the cells with O2. Cell membranes are generally impermeable to charged or large, polar molecules because of the lipophilic fatty acyl chains comprising their interior. Many biologically important molecules, including a number of pharmaceutical agents, are organic weak acids which can cross the membrane in their protonated, uncharged form but not in their charged form (i.e., as the conjugate base). For this reason the activity of many drugs can be enhanced or inhibited by the use of antacids or acidic foods. The charged form, however, is often more soluble in blood and cytosol, both aqueous environments. When the extracellular environment is more acidic than the neutral pH within the cell, certain acids will exist in their neutral form and will be membrane soluble, allowing them to cross the phospholipid bilayer. Acids that lose a proton at the intracellular pH will exist in their soluble, charged form and are thus able to diffuse through the cytosol to their target. Ibuprofen, aspirin and penicillin are examples of drugs that are weak acids.Common acidsMineral acids (inorganic acids) Hydrogen halides and their solutions: hydrofluoric acid (HF), hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydrobromic acid (HBr), hydroiodic acid (HI) Halogen oxoacids: hypochlorous acid (HClO), chlorous acid (HClO2), chloric acid (HClO3), perchloric acid (HClO4), and corresponding analogs for bromine and iodine Hypofluorous acid (HFO), the only known oxoacid for fluorine. Sulfuric acid (H2SO4) Fluorosulfuric acid (HSO3F) Nitric acid (HNO3) Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) Fluoroantimonic acid (HSbF6) Fluoroboric acid (HBF4) Hexafluorophosphoric acid (HPF6) Chromic acid (H2CrO4) Boric acid (H3BO3)Sulfonic acidsA sulfonic acid has the general formula RS(=O)2–OH, where R is an organic radical. Methanesulfonic acid (or mesylic acid, CH3SO3H) Ethanesulfonic acid (or esylic acid, CH3CH2SO3H) Benzenesulfonic acid (or besylic acid, C6H5SO3H) p-Toluenesulfonic acid (or tosylic acid, CH3C6H4SO3H) Trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (or triflic acid, CF3SO3H) Polystyrene sulfonic acid (sulfonated polystyrene, [CH2CH(C6H4)SO3H]n)Carboxylic acidsA carboxylic acid has the general formula R-C(O)OH, where R is an organic radical. The carboxyl group -C(O)OH contains a carbonyl group, C=O, and a hydroxyl group, O-H. Acetic acid (CH3COOH) Citric acid (C6H8O7) Formic acid (HCOOH) Gluconic acid HOCH2-(CHOH)4-COOH Lactic acid (CH3-CHOH-COOH) Oxalic acid (HOOC-COOH) Tartaric acid (HOOC-CHOH-CHOH-COOH)Halogenated carboxylic acidsHalogenation at alpha position increases acid strength, so that the following acids are all stronger than acetic acid. Fluoroacetic acid Trifluoroacetic acid Chloroacetic acid Dichloroacetic acid Trichloroacetic acidVinylogous carboxylic acidsNormal carboxylic acids are the direct union of a carbonyl group and a hydroxyl group.  In vinylogous carboxylic acids, a carbon-carbon double bond separates the carbonyl and hydroxyl groups. Ascorbic acidNucleic acids Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) Ribonucleic acid (RNA)References Listing of strengths of common acids and basesExternal links Curtipot: Acid–Base equilibria diagrams, pH calculation and titration curves simulation and analysis – freeware Acid–base chemistry
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος ásphaltos. The largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons, is the Pitch Lake located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad (Antilles island located on the northeastern coast of Venezuela), within the Siparia Regional Corporation.The primary use (70%) of asphalt is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs.In material sciences and engineering, the terms "asphalt" and "bitumen" are often used interchangeably to mean both natural and manufactured forms of the substance, although there is regional variation as to which term is most common. Worldwide, geologists tend to favor the term "bitumen" for the naturally occurring material. For the manufactured material, which is a refined residue from the distillation process of selected crude oils, "bitumen" is the prevalent term in much of the world; however, in American English, "asphalt" is more commonly used. To help avoid confusion, the phrases "liquid asphalt", "asphalt binder", or "asphalt cement" are used in the U.S. Colloquially, various forms of asphalt are sometimes referred to as "tar", as in the name of the La Brea Tar Pits, although tar is a different material.Naturally occurring asphalt is sometimes specified by the term "crude bitumen". Its viscosity is similar to that of cold molasses while the material obtained from the fractional distillation of crude oil boiling at  is sometimes referred to as "refined bitumen". The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves of natural asphalt in the Athabasca oil sands, which cover , an area larger than England.Asphalt properties change with temperature, which means that there is a specific range where viscosity permits adequate compaction by providing lubrication between particles during the compaction process. Low temperature prevents aggregate particles from moving, and the required density is not possible to achieve. Computer simulations of simplified model systems are able to reproduce some of asphalt's characteristic properties.TerminologyEtymologyThe word "asphalt" is derived from the late Middle English, in turn from French asphalte, based on Late Latin asphalton, asphaltum, which is the latinisation of the Greek  (ásphaltos, ásphalton), a word meaning "asphalt/bitumen/pitch", which perhaps derives from , "not, without", i.e. the alpha privative, and  (sphallein), "to cause to fall, baffle, (in passive) err, (in passive) be balked of". The first use of asphalt by the ancients was in the nature of a cement for securing or joining together various objects, and it thus seems likely that the name itself was expressive of this application. Specifically, Herodotus mentioned that bitumen was brought to Babylon to build its gigantic fortification wall. From the Greek, the word passed into late Latin, and thence into French (asphalte) and English ("asphaltum" and "asphalt"). In French, the term asphalte is used for naturally occurring asphalt-soaked limestone deposits, and for specialised manufactured products with fewer voids or greater bitumen content than the "asphaltic concrete" used to pave roads.The Latin source of the word "bitumen" is claimed by some to be originally gwitu-men (pertaining to pitch), and by others, pixtumens (exuding or bubbling pitch), which was subsequently shortened to bitumen, thence passing via French into English. From the same root is derived the Anglo-Saxon word cwidu (mastix), the German word Kitt (cement or mastic) and the old Norse word kvada.Modern terminologyIn British English, "bitumen" is used instead of "asphalt". The word "asphalt" is instead used to refer to asphalt concrete, a mixture of construction aggregate and asphalt itself (also called "tarmac" in common parlance). Bitumen mixed with clay was usually called "asphaltum", but the term is less commonly used today.In Australian English, the word "asphalt" is used to describe a mix of construction aggregate. "Bitumen" refers to the liquid derived from the heavy-residues from crude oil distillation.In American English, "asphalt" is equivalent to the British "bitumen". However, "asphalt" is also commonly used as a shortened form of "asphalt concrete" (therefore equivalent to the British "asphalt" or "tarmac").In Canadian English, the word "bitumen" is used to refer to the vast Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil, while "asphalt" is used for the oil refinery product. Diluted bitumen (diluted with naphtha to make it flow in pipelines) is known as "dilbit" in the Canadian petroleum industry, while bitumen "upgraded" to synthetic crude oil is known as "syncrude", and syncrude blended with bitumen is called "synbit"."Bitumen" is still the preferred geological term for naturally occurring deposits of the solid or semi-solid form of petroleum. "Bituminous rock" is a form of sandstone impregnated with bitumen. The oil sands of Alberta, Canada are a similar material.Neither of the terms "asphalt" or "bitumen" should be confused with tar or coal tars. Tar is the thick liquid product of the dry distillation and pyrolysis of organic hydrocarbons primarily sourced from vegetation masses, whether fossilized as with coal, or freshly harvested. The majority of bitumen, on the other hand, was formed naturally when vast quantities of organic animal materials were deposited by water and buried hundreds of metres deep at the diagenetic point, where the disorganized fatty hydrocarbon molecules joined together in long chains in the absence of oxygen. Bitumen occurs as a solid or highly viscous liquid. It may even be mixed in with coal deposits. Bitumen, and coal using the Bergius process, can be refined into petrols such as gasoline, and bitumen may be distilled into tar, not the other way around.CompositionNormal compositionThe components of asphalt include four main classes of compounds: Naphthene aromatics (naphthalene), consisting of partially hydrogenated polycyclic aromatic compounds Polar aromatics, consisting of high molecular weight phenols and carboxylic acids produced by partial oxidation of the material Saturated hydrocarbons; the percentage of saturated compounds in asphalt correlates with its softening point Asphaltenes, consisting of high molecular weight phenols and heterocyclic compoundsThe naphthene aromatics and polar aromatics are typically the majority components. Most natural bitumens also contain organosulfur compounds, resulting in an overall sulfur content of up to 4%. Nickel and vanadium are found at <10 parts per million, as is typical of some petroleum.The substance is soluble in carbon disulfide. It is commonly modelled as a colloid, with asphaltenes as the dispersed phase and maltenes as the continuous phase. "It is almost impossible to separate and identify all the different molecules of asphalt, because the number of molecules with different chemical structure is extremely large".Asphalt may be confused with coal tar, which is a visually similar black, thermoplastic material produced by the destructive distillation of coal. During the early and mid-20th century, when town gas was produced, coal tar was a readily available byproduct and extensively used as the binder for road aggregates. The addition of coal tar to macadam roads led to the word "tarmac", which is now used in common parlance to refer to road-making materials. However, since the 1970s, when natural gas succeeded town gas, asphalt has completely overtaken the use of coal tar in these applications. Other examples of this confusion include the La Brea Tar Pits and the Canadian oil sands, both of which actually contain natural bitumen rather than tar. "Pitch" is another term sometimes informally used at times to refer to asphalt, as in Pitch Lake.Additives, mixtures and contaminantsFor economic and other reasons, asphalt is sometimes sold combined with other materials, often without being labeled as anything other than simply "asphalt".Of particular note is the use of re-refined engine oil bottoms – "REOB" or "REOBs"the residue of recycled automotive engine oil collected from the bottoms of re-refining vacuum distillation towers, in the manufacture of asphalt. REOB contains various elements and compounds found in recycled engine oil: additives to the original oil and materials accumulating from its circulation in the engine (typically iron and copper). Some research has indicated a correlation between this adulteration of asphalt and poorer-performing pavement.OccurrenceThe majority of asphalt used commercially is obtained from petroleum. Nonetheless, large amounts of asphalt occur in concentrated form in nature. Naturally occurring deposits of bitumen are formed from the remains of ancient, microscopic algae (diatoms) and other once-living things. These natural deposits of bitumen have been formed during the Carboniferous period, when giant swamp forests dominated many parts of the Earth. They were deposited in the mud on the bottom of the ocean or lake where the organisms lived. Under the heat (above 50 °C) and pressure of burial deep in the earth, the remains were transformed into materials such as bitumen, kerogen, or petroleum.Natural deposits of bitumen include lakes such as the Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago and Lake Bermudez in Venezuela. Natural seeps occur in the La Brea Tar Pits and in the Dead Sea.Bitumen also occurs in unconsolidated sandstones known as "oil sands" in Alberta, Canada, and the similar "tar sands" in Utah, US.The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves, in three huge deposits covering , an area larger than England or New York state. These bituminous sands contain  of commercially established oil reserves, giving Canada the third largest oil reserves in the world. Although historically it was used without refining to pave roads, nearly all of the output is now used as raw material for oil refineries in Canada and the United States.The world's largest deposit of natural bitumen, known as the Athabasca oil sands, is located in the McMurray Formation of Northern Alberta. This formation is from the early Cretaceous, and is composed of numerous lenses of oil-bearing sand with up to 20% oil. Isotopic studies show the oil deposits to be about 110 million years old. Two smaller but still very large formations occur in the Peace River oil sands and the Cold Lake oil sands, to the west and southeast of the Athabasca oil sands, respectively. Of the Alberta deposits, only parts of the Athabasca oil sands are shallow enough to be suitable for surface mining. The other 80% has to be produced by oil wells using enhanced oil recovery techniques like steam-assisted gravity drainage.Much smaller heavy oil or bitumen deposits also occur in the Uinta Basin in Utah, US.  The Tar Sand Triangle deposit, for example, is roughly 6% bitumen.Bitumen may occur in hydrothermal veins. An example of this is within the Uinta Basin of Utah, in the US, where there is a swarm of laterally and vertically extensive veins composed of a solid hydrocarbon termed Gilsonite. These veins formed by the polymerization and solidification of hydrocarbons that were mobilized from the deeper oil shales of the Green River Formation during burial and diagenesis.Bitumen is similar to the organic matter in carbonaceous meteorites. However, detailed studies have shown these materials to be distinct. The vast Alberta bitumen resources are considered to have started out as living material from marine plants and animals, mainly algae, that died millions of years ago when an ancient ocean covered Alberta. They were covered by mud, buried deeply over time, and gently cooked into oil by geothermal heat at a temperature of . Due to pressure from the rising of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta, 80 to 55 million years ago, the oil was driven northeast hundreds of kilometres and trapped into underground sand deposits left behind by ancient river beds and ocean beaches, thus forming the oil sands.HistoryAncient timesThe use of natural bitumen for waterproofing, and as an adhesive dates at least to the fifth millennium BC, with a crop storage basket discovered in Mehrgarh, of the Indus Valley Civilization, lined with it. By the 3rd millennium BC refined rock asphalt was in use in the region, and was used to waterproof the Great Bath in Mohenjo-daro.In the ancient Middle East, the Sumerians used natural bitumen deposits for mortar between bricks and stones, to cement parts of carvings, such as eyes, into place, for ship caulking, and for waterproofing. The Greek historian Herodotus said hot bitumen was used as mortar in the walls of Babylon.The  long Euphrates Tunnel beneath the river Euphrates at Babylon in the time of Queen Semiramis (c. 800 BC) was reportedly constructed of burnt bricks covered with bitumen as a waterproofing agent.Bitumen was used by ancient Egyptians to embalm mummies. The Persian word for asphalt is moom, which is related to the English word mummy. The Egyptians' primary source of bitumen was the Dead Sea, which the Romans knew as Palus Asphaltites (Asphalt Lake).In approximately 40 AD, Dioscorides described the Dead Sea material as Judaicum bitumen, and noted other places in the region where it could be found. The Sidon bitumen is thought to refer to material found at Hasbeya in Lebanon. Pliny also refers to bitumen being found in Epirus. Bitumen was a valuable strategic resource. It was the object of the first known battle for a hydrocarbon deposit – between the Seleucids and the Nabateans in 312 BC.In the ancient Far East, natural bitumen was slowly boiled to get rid of the higher fractions, leaving a thermoplastic material of higher molecular weight that when layered on objects became quite hard upon cooling. This was used to cover objects that needed waterproofing, such as scabbards and other items. Statuettes of household deities were also cast with this type of material in Japan, and probably also in China.In North America, archaeological recovery has indicated that bitumen was sometimes used to adhere stone projectile points to wooden shafts. In Canada, aboriginal people used bitumen seeping out of the banks of the Athabasca and other rivers to waterproof birch bark canoes, and also heated it in smudge pots to ward off mosquitoes in the summer.Continental EuropeIn 1553, Pierre Belon described in his work Observations that pissasphalto, a mixture of pitch and bitumen, was used in the Republic of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik, Croatia) for tarring of ships.An 1838 edition of Mechanics Magazine cites an early use of asphalt in France. A pamphlet dated 1621, by "a certain Monsieur d'Eyrinys, states that he had discovered the existence (of asphaltum) in large quantities in the vicinity of Neufchatel", and that he proposed to use it in a variety of ways – "principally in the construction of air-proof granaries, and in protecting, by means of the arches, the water-courses in the city of Paris from the intrusion of dirt and filth", which at that time made the water unusable. "He expatiates also on the excellence of this material for forming level and durable terraces" in palaces, "the notion of forming such terraces in the streets not one likely to cross the brain of a Parisian of that generation".But the substance was generally neglected in France until the revolution of 1830. In the 1830s there was a surge of interest, and asphalt became widely used "for pavements, flat roofs, and the lining of cisterns, and in England, some use of it had been made of it for similar purposes". Its rise in Europe was "a sudden phenomenon", after natural deposits were found "in France at Osbann (Bas-Rhin), the Parc (Ain) and the Puy-de-la-Poix (Puy-de-Dôme)", although it could also be made artificially. One of the earliest uses in France was the laying of about 24,000 square yards of Seyssel asphalt at the Place de la Concorde in 1835.United KingdomAmong the earlier uses of bitumen in the United Kingdom was for etching. William Salmon's Polygraphice (1673) provides a recipe for varnish used in etching, consisting of three ounces of virgin wax, two ounces of mastic, and one ounce of asphaltum. By the fifth edition in 1685, he had included more asphaltum recipes from other sources.The first British patent for the use of asphalt was "Cassell's patent asphalte or bitumen" in 1834. Then on 25 November 1837, Richard Tappin Claridge patented the use of Seyssel asphalt (patent #7849), for use in asphalte pavement, having seen it employed in France and Belgium when visiting with Frederick Walter Simms, who worked with him on the introduction of asphalt to Britain. Dr T. Lamb Phipson writes that his father, Samuel Ryland Phipson, a friend of Claridge, was also "instrumental in introducing the asphalte pavement (in 1836)".Claridge obtained a patent in Scotland on 27 March 1838, and obtained a patent in Ireland on 23 April 1838. In 1851, extensions for the 1837 patent and for both 1838 patents were sought by the trustees of a company previously formed by Claridge. Claridge's Patent Asphalte Companyformed in 1838 for the purpose of introducing to Britain "Asphalte in its natural state from the mine at Pyrimont Seysell in France","laid one of the first asphalt pavements in Whitehall". Trials were made of the pavement in 1838 on the footway in Whitehall, the stable at Knightsbridge Barracks, "and subsequently on the space at the bottom of the steps leading from Waterloo Place to St. James Park". "The formation in 1838 of Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company (with a distinguished list of aristocratic patrons, and Marc and Isambard Brunel as, respectively, a trustee and consulting engineer), gave an enormous impetus to the development of a British asphalt industry". "By the end of 1838, at least two other companies, Robinson's and the Bastenne company, were in production", with asphalt being laid as paving at Brighton, Herne Bay, Canterbury, Kensington, the Strand, and a large floor area in Bunhill-row, while meantime Claridge's Whitehall paving "continue(d) in good order". The Bonnington Chemical Works manufactured asphalt using coal tar and by 1839 had installed it in Bonnington.In 1838, there was a flurry of entrepreneurial activity involving asphalt, which had uses beyond paving. For example, asphalt could also be used for flooring, damp proofing in buildings, and for waterproofing of various types of pools and baths, both of which were also proliferating in the 19th century. On the London stockmarket, there were various claims as to the exclusivity of asphalt quality from France, Germany and England. And numerous patents were granted in France, with similar numbers of patent applications being denied in England due to their similarity to each other. In England, "Claridge's was the type most used in the 1840s and 50s".In 1914, Claridge's Company entered into a joint venture to produce tar-bound macadam, with materials manufactured through a subsidiary company called Clarmac Roads Ltd. Two products resulted, namely Clarmac, and Clarphalte, with the former being manufactured by Clarmac Roads and the latter by Claridge's Patent Asphalte Co., although Clarmac was more widely used. However, the First World War ruined the Clarmac Company, which entered into liquidation in 1915. The failure of Clarmac Roads Ltd had a flow-on effect to Claridge's Company, which was itself compulsorily wound up, ceasing operations in 1917, having invested a substantial amount of funds into the new venture, both at the outset and in a subsequent attempt to save the Clarmac Company.Bitumen was thought in 19th century Britain to contain chemicals with medicinal properties. Extracts from bitumen were used to treat catarrh and some forms of asthma and as a remedy against worms, especially the tapeworm.United StatesThe first use of bitumen in the New World was by indigenous peoples. On the west coast, as early as the 13th century, the Tongva, Luiseño and Chumash peoples collected the naturally occurring bitumen that seeped to the surface above underlying petroleum deposits. All three groups used the substance as an adhesive. It is found on many different artifacts of tools and ceremonial items. For example, it was used on rattles to adhere gourds or turtle shells to rattle handles. It was also used in decorations. Small round shell beads were often set in asphaltum to provide decorations. It was used as a sealant on baskets to make them watertight for carrying water, possibly poisoning those who drank the water. Asphalt was used also to seal the planks on ocean-going canoes.Asphalt was first used to pave streets in the 1870s.  At first naturally occurring "bituminous rock" was used, such as at Ritchie Mines in Macfarlan in Ritchie County, West Virginia from 1852 to 1873. In 1876, asphalt-based paving was used to pave Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, in time for the celebration of the national centennial.In the horse-drawn era, US streets were mostly unpaved and covered with dirt or gravel.  Especially where mud or trenching often made streets difficult to pass, pavements were sometimes made of diverse materials including wooden planks, cobble stones or other stone blocks, or bricks. Unpaved roads produced uneven wear and hazards for pedestrians.   In the late 19th century with the rise of the popular bicycle, bicycle clubs were important in pushing for more general pavement of streets. Advocacy for pavement increased in the early 20th century with the rise of the automobile.  Asphalt gradually became an ever more common method of paving.  St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans was paved its whole length with asphalt by 1889.In 1900, Manhattan alone had 130,000 horses, pulling streetcars, wagons, and carriages, and leaving their waste behind. They were not fast, and pedestrians could dodge and scramble their way across the crowded streets.  Small towns continued to rely on dirt and gravel, but larger cities wanted much better streets. They looked to wood or granite blocks by the 1850s. In 1890, a third of Chicago's 2000 miles of streets were paved, chiefly with wooden blocks, which gave better traction than mud.  Brick surfacing was a good compromise, but even better was asphalt paving, which was easy to install and to cut through to get at sewers. With London and Paris serving as models, Washington laid 400,000 square yards of asphalt paving by 1882; it became the model for Buffalo, Philadelphia and elsewhere. By the end of the century, American cities boasted 30 million square yards of asphalt paving, well ahead of brick. The streets became faster and more dangerous so electric traffic lights were installed.  Electric trolleys (at 12 miles per hour) became the main transportation service for middle class shoppers and office workers until they bought automobiles after 1945 and commuted from more distant suburbs in privacy and comfort on asphalt highways.CanadaCanada has the world's largest deposit of natural bitumen in the Athabasca oil sands, and Canadian First Nations along the Athabasca River had long used it to waterproof their canoes. In 1719, a Cree named Wa-Pa-Su brought a sample for trade to Henry Kelsey of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was the first recorded European to see it. However, it wasn't until 1787 that fur trader and explorer Alexander MacKenzie saw the Athabasca oil sands and said, "At about 24 miles from the fork (of the Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers) are some bituminous fountains into which a pole of 20 feet long may be inserted without the least resistance."The value of the deposit was obvious from the start, but the means of extracting the bitumen was not. The nearest town, Fort McMurray, Alberta, was a small fur trading post, other markets were far away, and transportation costs were too high to ship the raw bituminous sand for paving. In 1915, Sidney Ells of the Federal Mines Branch experimented with separation techniques and used the product to pave 600 feet of road in Edmonton, Alberta. Other roads in Alberta were paved with material extracted from oil sands, but it was generally not economic. During the 1920s Dr. Karl A. Clark of the Alberta Research Council patented a hot water oil separation process and entrepreneur Robert C. Fitzsimmons built the Bitumount oil separation plant, which between 1925 and 1958 produced up to  per day of bitumen using Dr. Clark's method. Most of the bitumen was used for waterproofing roofs, but other uses included fuels, lubrication oils, printers ink, medicines, rust- and acid-proof paints, fireproof roofing, street paving, patent leather, and fence post preservatives. Eventually Fitzsimmons ran out of money and the plant was taken over by the Alberta government. Today the Bitumount plant is a Provincial Historic Site.Photography and artBitumen was used in early photographic technology. In 1826, or 1827, it was used by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce to make the oldest surviving photograph from nature. The bitumen was thinly coated onto a pewter plate which was then exposed in a camera. Exposure to light hardened the bitumen and made it insoluble, so that when it was subsequently rinsed with a solvent only the sufficiently light-struck areas remained. Many hours of exposure in the camera were required, making bitumen impractical for ordinary photography, but from the 1850s to the 1920s it was in common use as a photoresist in the production of printing plates for various photomechanical printing processes.Bitumen was the nemesis of many artists during the 19th century. Although widely used for a time, it ultimately proved unstable for use in oil painting, especially when mixed with the most common diluents, such as linseed oil, varnish and turpentine. Unless thoroughly diluted, bitumen never fully solidifies and will in time corrupt the other pigments with which it comes into contact. The use of bitumen as a glaze to set in shadow or mixed with other colors to render a darker tone resulted in the eventual deterioration of many paintings, for instance those of Delacroix. Perhaps the most famous example of the destructiveness of bitumen is Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (1818–1819), where his use of bitumen caused the brilliant colors to degenerate into dark greens and blacks and the paint and canvas to buckle.Modern useGlobal useThe vast majority of refined asphalt is used in construction: primarily as a constituent of products used in paving and roofing applications. According to the requirements of the end use, asphalt is produced to specification. This is achieved either by refining or blending. It is estimated that the current world use of asphalt is approximately 102 million tonnes per year. Approximately 85% of all the asphalt produced is used as the binder in asphalt concrete for roads. It is also used in other paved areas such as airport runways, car parks and footways. Typically, the production of asphalt concrete involves mixing fine and coarse aggregates such as sand, gravel and crushed rock with asphalt, which acts as the binding agent. Other materials, such as recycled polymers (e.g., rubber tyres), may be added to the asphalt to modify its properties according to the application for which the asphalt is ultimately intended.A further 10% of global asphalt production is used in roofing applications, where its waterproofing qualities are invaluable.The remaining 5% of asphalt is used mainly for sealing and insulating purposes in a variety of building materials, such as pipe coatings, carpet tile backing and paint. Asphalt is applied in the construction and maintenance of many structures, systems, and components, such as the following: Highways Airport runways Footways and pedestrian ways Car parks Racetracks Tennis courts Roofing Damp proofing Dams Reservoir and pool linings Soundproofing Pipe coatings Cable coatings Paints Building water proofing Tile underlying waterproofing Newspaper ink production and many other applicationsRolled asphalt concreteThe largest use of asphalt is for making asphalt concrete for road surfaces; this accounts for approximately 85% of the asphalt consumed in the United States. There are about 4,000 asphalt concrete mixing plants in the US, and a similar number in Europe.Asphalt concrete pavement mixes are typically composed of 5% asphalt cement and 95% aggregates (stone, sand, and gravel). Due to its highly viscous nature, asphalt cement must be heated so it can be mixed with the aggregates at the asphalt mixing facility. The temperature required varies depending upon characteristics of the asphalt and the aggregates, but warm-mix asphalt technologies allow producers to reduce the temperature required.The weight of an asphalt pavement depends upon the aggregate type, the asphalt, and the air void content. An average example in the United States is about 112 pounds per square yard, per inch of pavement thickness.When maintenance is performed on asphalt pavements, such as milling to remove a worn or damaged surface, the removed material can be returned to a facility for processing into new pavement mixtures. The asphalt in the removed material can be reactivated and put back to use in new pavement mixes. With some 95% of paved roads being constructed of or surfaced with asphalt, a substantial amount of asphalt pavement material is reclaimed each year. According to industry surveys conducted annually by the Federal Highway Administration and the National Asphalt Pavement Association, more than 99% of the asphalt removed each year from road surfaces during widening and resurfacing projects is reused as part of new pavements, roadbeds, shoulders and embankments or stockpiled for future use.Asphalt concrete paving is widely used in airports around the world. Due to the sturdiness and ability to be repaired quickly, it is widely used for runways.Mastic asphaltMastic asphalt is a type of asphalt that differs from dense graded asphalt (asphalt concrete) in that it has a higher asphalt (binder) content, usually around 7–10% of the whole aggregate mix, as opposed to rolled asphalt concrete, which has only around 5% asphalt. This thermoplastic substance is widely used in the building industry for waterproofing flat roofs and tanking underground. Mastic asphalt is heated to a temperature of  and is spread in layers to form an impervious barrier about  thick.Asphalt emulsionA number of technologies allow asphalt to be applied at mild temperatures. The viscosity can be lowered by emulsfying the asphalt by the addition of fatty amines. 2–25% is the content of these emulsifying agents. The cationic amines enhance the binding of the asphalt to the surface of the crushed rock.Asphalt emulsions are used in a wide variety of applications. Chipseal involves spraying the road surface with asphalt emulsion followed by a layer of crushed rock, gravel or crushed slag. Slurry seal is a mixture of asphalt emulsion and fine crushed aggregate that is spread on the surface of a road. Cold-mixed asphalt can also be made from asphalt emulsion to create pavements similar to hot-mixed asphalt, several inches in depth, and asphalt emulsions are also blended into recycled hot-mix asphalt to create low-cost pavements. Bitumen emulsion based techniques are known to be useful for all classes of roads, their use may also be possible in the following applications: 1. Asphalts for heavily trafficked roads (based on the use of polymer modified emulsions) 2. Warm emulsion based mixtures, to improve both their maturation time and mechanical properties 3. Half-warm technology, in which aggregates are heated up to 100 degrees, producing mixtures with similar properties to those of hot asphalts 4. High performance surface dressing.Synthetic crude oilSynthetic crude oil, also known as syncrude, is the output from a bitumen upgrader facility used in connection with oil sand production in Canada. Bituminous sands are mined using enormous (100-ton capacity) power shovels and loaded into even larger (400-ton capacity) dump trucks for movement to an upgrading facility. The process used to extract the bitumen from the sand is a hot water process originally developed by Dr. Karl Clark of the University of Alberta during the 1920s. After extraction from the sand, the bitumen is fed into a bitumen upgrader which converts it into a light crude oil equivalent. This synthetic substance is fluid enough to be transferred through conventional oil pipelines and can be fed into conventional oil refineries without any further treatment. By 2015 Canadian bitumen upgraders were producing over  per day of synthetic crude oil, of which 75% was exported to oil refineries in the United States.In Alberta, five bitumen upgraders produce synthetic crude oil and a variety of other products: The Suncor Energy upgrader near Fort McMurray, Alberta produces synthetic crude oil plus diesel fuel; the Syncrude Canada, Canadian Natural Resources, and Nexen upgraders near Fort McMurray produce synthetic crude oil; and the Shell Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton produces synthetic crude oil plus an intermediate feedstock for the nearby Shell Oil Refinery. A sixth upgrader, under construction in 2015 near Redwater, Alberta, will upgrade half of its crude bitumen directly to diesel fuel, with the remainder of the output being sold as feedstock to nearby oil refineries and petrochemical plants.Non-upgraded crude bitumenCanadian bitumen does not differ substantially from oils such as Venezuelan extra-heavy and Mexican heavy oil in chemical composition, and the real difficulty is moving the extremely viscous bitumen through oil pipelines to the refinery. Many modern oil refineries are extremely sophisticated and can process non-upgraded bitumen directly into products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and refined asphalt without any preprocessing. This is particularly common in areas such as the US Gulf coast, where refineries were designed to process Venezuelan and Mexican oil, and in areas such as the US Midwest where refineries were rebuilt to process heavy oil as domestic light oil production declined. Given the choice, such heavy oil refineries usually prefer to buy bitumen rather than synthetic oil because the cost is lower, and in some cases because they prefer to produce more diesel fuel and less gasoline. By 2015 Canadian production and exports of non-upgraded bitumen exceeded that of synthetic crude oil at over  per day, of which about 65% was exported to the United States.Because of the difficulty of moving crude bitumen through pipelines, non-upgraded bitumen is usually diluted with natural-gas condensate in a form called dilbit or with synthetic crude oil, called synbit. However, to meet international competition, much non-upgraded bitumen is now sold as a blend of multiple grades of bitumen, conventional crude oil, synthetic crude oil, and condensate in a standardized benchmark product such as Western Canadian Select. This sour, heavy crude oil blend is designed to have uniform refining characteristics to compete with internationally marketed heavy oils such as Mexican Mayan or Arabian Dubai Crude.Radioactive waste encapsulation matrixAsphalt was used starting in the 1960s as a hydrophobic matrix aiming to encapsulate radioactive waste such as medium-activity salts (mainly soluble sodium nitrate and sodium sulfate) produced by the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels or radioactive sludges from sedimentation ponds. Bituminised radioactive waste containing highly radiotoxic alpha-emitting transuranic elements from nuclear reprocessing plants have been produced at industrial scale in France, Belgium and Japan, but this type of waste conditioning has been abandoned because operational safety issues (risks of fire, as occurred in a bituminisation plant at Tokai Works in Japan) and long-term stability problems related to their geological disposal in deep rock formations. One of the main problems is the swelling of asphalt exposed to radiation and to water. Asphalt swelling is first induced by radiation because of the presence of hydrogen gas bubbles generated by alpha and gamma radiolysis. A second mechanism is the matrix swelling when the encapsulated hygroscopic salts exposed to water or moisture start to rehydrate and to dissolve. The high concentration of salt in the pore solution inside the bituminised matrix is then responsible for osmotic effects inside the bituminised matrix. The water moves in the direction of the concentrated salts, the asphalt acting as a semi-permeable membrane. This also causes the matrix to swell. The swelling pressure due to osmotic effect under constant volume can be as high as 200 bar. If not properly managed, this high pressure can cause fractures in the near field of a disposal gallery of bituminised medium-level waste. When the bituminised matrix has been altered by swelling, encapsulated radionuclides are easily leached by the contact of ground water and released in the geosphere. The high ionic strength of the concentrated saline solution also favours the migration of radionuclides in clay host rocks. The presence of chemically reactive nitrate can also affect the redox conditions prevailing in the host rock by establishing oxidizing conditions, preventing the reduction of redox-sensitive radionuclides. Under their higher valences, radionuclides of elements such as selenium, technetium, uranium, neptunium and plutonium have a higher solubility and are also often present in water as non-retarded anions. This makes the disposal of medium-level bituminised waste very challenging.Different types of asphalt have been used: blown bitumen (partly oxidized with air oxygen at high temperature after distillation, and harder) and direct distillation bitumen (softer). Blown bitumens like Mexphalte, with a high content of saturated hydrocarbons, are more easily biodegraded by microorganisms than direct distillation bitumen, with a low content of saturated hydrocarbons and a high content of aromatic hydrocarbons.Concrete encapsulation of radwaste is presently considered a safer alternative by the nuclear industry and the waste management organisations.Other usesRoofing shingles and roll roofing account for most of the remaining asphalt consumption. Other uses include cattle sprays, fence-post treatments, and waterproofing for fabrics. Asphalt is used to make Japan black, a lacquer known especially for its use on iron and steel, and it is also used in paint and marker inks by some exterior paint supply companies to increase the weather resistance and permanence of the paint or ink, and to make the color darker. Asphalt is also used to seal some alkaline batteries during the manufacturing process.ProductionAbout 40,000,000 tons were produced in 1984. It is obtained as the "heavy" (i.e., difficult to distill) fraction. Material with a boiling point greater than around 500 °C is considered asphalt. Vacuum distillation separates it from the other components in crude oil (such as naphtha, gasoline and diesel). The resulting material is typically further treated to extract small but valuable amounts of lubricants and to adjust the properties of the material to suit applications. In a de-asphalting unit, the crude asphalt is treated with either propane or butane in a supercritical phase to extract the lighter molecules, which are then separated. Further processing is possible by "blowing" the product: namely reacting it with oxygen. This step makes the product harder and more viscous.Asphalt is typically stored and transported at temperatures around . Sometimes diesel oil or kerosene are mixed in before shipping to retain liquidity; upon delivery, these lighter materials are separated out of the mixture. This mixture is often called "bitumen feedstock", or BFS. Some dump trucks route the hot engine exhaust through pipes in the dump body to keep the material warm. The backs of tippers carrying asphalt, as well as some handling equipment, are also commonly sprayed with a releasing agent before filling to aid release. Diesel oil is no longer used as a release agent due to environmental concerns.Oil sandsNaturally occurring crude bitumen impregnated in sedimentary rock is the prime feed stock for petroleum production from "oil sands", currently under development in Alberta, Canada. Canada has most of the world's supply of natural bitumen, covering 140,000 square kilometres (an area larger than England), giving it the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world. The Athabasca oil sands are the largest bitumen deposit in Canada and the only one accessible to surface mining, although recent technological breakthroughs have resulted in deeper deposits becoming producible by in situ methods. Because of oil price increases after 2003, producing bitumen became highly profitable, but as a result of the decline after 2014 it became uneconomic to build new plants again. By 2014, Canadian crude bitumen production averaged about  per day and was projected to rise to  per day by 2020. The total amount of crude bitumen in Alberta that could be extracted is estimated to be about , which at a rate of  would last about 200 years.Alternatives and bioasphaltAlthough uncompetitive economically, asphalt can be made from nonpetroleum-based renewable resources such as sugar, molasses and rice, corn and potato starches. Asphalt can also be made from waste material by fractional distillation of used motor oil, which is sometimes otherwise disposed of by burning or dumping into landfills. Use of motor oil may cause premature cracking in colder climates, resulting in roads that need to be repaved more frequently.Nonpetroleum-based asphalt binders can be made light-colored. Lighter-colored roads absorb less heat from solar radiation, reducing their contribution to the urban heat island effect. Parking lots that use asphalt alternatives are called green parking lots.Albanian depositsSelenizza is a naturally occurring solid hydrocarbon bitumen found in native deposits in Selenice, in Albania, the only European asphalt mine still in use. The bitumen is found in the form of veins, filling cracks in a more or less horizontal direction. The bitumen content varies from 83% to 92% (soluble in carbon disulphide), with a penetration value near to zero and a softening point (ring and ball) around 120 °C. The insoluble matter, consisting mainly of silica ore, ranges from 8% to 17%.Albanian bitumen extraction has a long history and was practiced in an organized way by the Romans. After centuries of silence, the first mentions of Albanian bitumen appeared only in 1868, when the Frenchman Coquand published the first geological description of the deposits of Albanian bitumen. In 1875, the exploitation rights were granted to the Ottoman government and in 1912, they were transferred to the Italian company Simsa. Since 1945, the mine was exploited by the Albanian government and from 2001 to date, the management passed to a French company, which organized the mining process for the manufacture of the natural bitumen on an industrial scale.Today the mine is predominantly exploited in an open pit quarry but several of the many underground mines (deep and extending over several km) still remain viable. Selenizza is produced primarily in granular form, after melting the bitumen pieces selected in the mine.Selenizza is mainly used as an additive in the road construction sector. It is mixed with traditional asphalt to improve both the viscoelastic properties and the resistance to ageing. It may be blended with the hot asphalt in tanks, but its granular form allows it to be fed in the mixer or in the recycling ring of normal asphalt plants. Other typical applications include the production of mastic asphalts for sidewalks, bridges, car-parks and urban roads as well as drilling fluid additives for the oil and gas industry. Selenizza is available in powder or in granular material of various particle sizes and is packaged in sacks or in thermal fusible polyethylene bags.A life-cycle assessment study of the natural selenizza compared with petroleum asphalt has shown that the environmental impact of the selenizza is about half the impact of the road asphalt produced in oil refineries in terms of carbon dioxide emission.Recycling Asphalt is a commonly recycled material in the construction industry. The two most common recycled materials that contain asphalt are reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS). RAP is recycled at a greater rate than any other material in the United States, and typically contains approximately 5 – 6% asphalt binder. Asphalt shingles typically contain 20 – 40% asphalt binder.Asphalt naturally becomes stiffer over time due to oxidation, evaporation, exudation, and physical hardening. For this reason, recycled asphalt is typically combined with virgin asphalt, softening agents, and/or rejuvenating additives to restore its physical and chemical properties.For information on the processing and performance of RAP and RAS, see Asphalt Concrete.For information on the different types of RAS and associated health and safety concerns, see Asphalt Shingles.For information on in-place recycling methods used to restore pavements and roadways, see Road Surface.EconomicsAlthough asphalt typically makes up only 4 to 5 percent (by weight) of the pavement mixture, as the pavement's binder, it is also the most expensive part of the cost of the road-paving material.During asphalt's early use in modern paving, oil refiners gave it away. However, asphalt is a highly traded commodity today. Its prices increased substantially in the early 21st Century. A U.S. government report states:"In 2002, asphalt sold for approximately $160 per ton. By the end of 2006, the cost had doubled to approximately $320 per ton, and then it almost doubled again in 2012 to approximately $610 per ton."The report indicates that an "average" 1-mile (1.6-kilometer)-long, four-lane highway would include "300 tons of asphalt," which, "in 2002 would have cost around $48,000. By 2006 this would have increased to $96,000 and by 2012 to $183,000... an increase of about $135,000 for every mile of highway in just 10 years."Health and safetyPeople can be exposed to asphalt in the workplace by breathing in fumes or skin absorption. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit of 5 mg/m3 over a 15-minute period.Asphalt is basically an inert material that must be heated or diluted to a point where it becomes workable for the production of materials for paving, roofing, and other applications. In examining the potential health hazards associated with asphalt, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that it is the application parameters, predominantly temperature, that affect occupational exposure and the potential bioavailable carcinogenic hazard/risk of the asphalt emissions. In particular, temperatures greater than 199 °C (390 °F), were shown to produce a greater exposure risk than when asphalt was heated to lower temperatures, such as those typically used in asphalt pavement mix production and placement. IARC has classified paving asphalt fumes as a Class 2B possible carcinogen, indicating inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.In 2020, scientists reported that asphalt currently is a significant and largely overlooked source of air pollution in urban areas, especially during hot and sunny periods.An asphalt-like substance found in the Himalayas and known as shilajit is sometimes used as an  Ayurveda medicine, but is not in fact a tar, resin or asphalt.See also Asphalt plant Asphaltene  Bioasphalt Bitumen-based fuel Bituminous rocks Blacktop Cariphalte Cooper Research Technology Duxit Macadam Oil sands Pitch drop experiment Pitch (resin) Road surface Tar Tarmac Sealcoat Stamped asphaltNotesReferencesSources Barth, Edwin J. (1962), Asphalt: Science and Technology, Gordon and Breach. .External links    Pavement Interactive – Asphalt CSU Sacramento, The World Famous Asphalt Museum!  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health – Asphalt FumesScientific American, "Asphalt", 20-Aug-1881, pp. 121 Amorphous solidsBuilding materialsChemical mixturesIARC Group 2B carcinogensPavementsPetroleum productsRoad construction materials
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI  ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international standards so that American products can be used worldwide.ANSI accredits standards that are developed by representatives of other standards organizations, government agencies, consumer groups, companies, and others. These standards ensure that the characteristics and performance of products are consistent, that people use the same definitions and terms, and that products are tested the same way. ANSI also accredits organizations that carry out product or personnel certification in accordance with requirements defined in international standards.The organization's headquarters are in Washington, D.C. ANSI's operations office is located in New York City. The ANSI annual operating budget is funded by the sale of publications, membership dues and fees, accreditation services, fee-based programs, and international standards programs.History ANSI was most likely originally formed in 1918, when five engineering societies and three government agencies founded the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC). In 1928, the AESC became the American Standards Association (ASA). In 1966, the ASA was reorganized and became United States of America Standards Institute (USASI). The present name was adopted in 1969.Prior to 1918, these five founding engineering societies: American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, now IEEE) American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) American Institute of Mining Engineers (AIME, now American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers) American Society for Testing and Materials (now ASTM International)had been members of the United Engineering Society (UES). At the behest of the AIEE, they invited the U.S. government Departments of War, Navy (combined in 1947 to become the Department of Defense or DOD) and Commerce to join in founding a national standards organization.According to Adam Stanton, the first permanent secretary and head of staff in 1919, AESC started as an ambitious program and little else. Staff for the first year consisted of one executive, Clifford B. LePage, who was on loan from a founding member, ASME. An annual budget of $7,500 was provided by the founding bodies.In 1931, the organization (renamed ASA in 1928) became affiliated with the U.S. National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which had been formed in 1904 to develop electrical and electronics standards.MembersANSI's members are government agencies, organizations, academic and international bodies, and individuals. In total, the Institute represents the interests of more than 270,000 companies and organizations and 30 million professionals worldwide.ProcessAlthough ANSI itself does not develop standards, the Institute oversees the development and use of standards by accrediting the procedures of standards developing organizations. ANSI accreditation signifies that the procedures used by standards developing organizations meet the institute's requirements for openness, balance, consensus, and due process.ANSI also designates specific standards as American National Standards, or ANS, when the Institute determines that the standards were developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders.Voluntary consensus standards quicken the market acceptance of products while making clear how to improve the safety of those products for the protection of consumers. There are approximately 9,500 American National Standards that carry the ANSI designation.The American National Standards process involves: consensus by a group that is open to representatives from all interested parties broad-based public review and comment on draft standards consideration of and response to comments incorporation of submitted changes that meet the same consensus requirements into a draft standard availability of an appeal by any participant alleging that these principles were not respected during the standards-development process.International activitiesIn addition to facilitating the formation of standards in the United States, ANSI promotes the use of U.S. standards internationally, advocates U.S. policy and technical positions in international and regional standards organizations, and encourages the adoption of international standards as national standards where appropriate.The institute is the official U.S. representative to the two major international standards organizations, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as a founding member, and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), via the U.S. National Committee (USNC). ANSI participates in almost the entire technical program of both the ISO and the IEC, and administers many key committees and subgroups. In many instances, U.S. standards are taken forward to ISO and IEC, through ANSI or the USNC, where they are adopted in whole or in part as international standards.Adoption of ISO and IEC standards as American standards increased from 0.2% in 1986 to 15.5% in May 2012.Standards panelsThe Institute administers nine standards panels: ANSI Homeland Defense and Security Standardization Collaborative (HDSSC) ANSI Nanotechnology Standards Panel (ANSI-NSP) ID Theft Prevention and ID Management Standards Panel (IDSP) ANSI Energy Efficiency Standardization Coordination Collaborative (EESCC) Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC) Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP) ANSI-NAM Network on Chemical Regulation ANSI Biofuels Standards Coordination Panel Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP)Each of the panels works to identify, coordinate, and harmonize voluntary standards relevant to these areas.In 2009, ANSI and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) formed the Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC). NESCC is a joint initiative to identify and respond to the current need for standards in the nuclear industry.American national standards The ASA (as for American Standards Association) photographic exposure system, originally defined in ASA Z38.2.1 (since 1943) and ASA PH2.5 (since 1954), together with the DIN system (DIN 4512 since 1934), became the basis for the ISO system (since 1974), currently used worldwide (ISO 6, ISO 2240, ISO 5800, ISO 12232). A standard for the set of values used to represent characters in digital computers. The ANSI code standard extended the previously created ASCII seven bit code standard (ASA X3.4-1963), with additional codes for European alphabets (see also Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code or EBCDIC). In Microsoft Windows, the phrase "ANSI" refers to the Windows ANSI code pages (even though they are not ANSI standards). Most of these are fixed width, though some characters for ideographic languages are variable width. Since these characters are based on a draft of the ISO-8859 series, some of Microsoft's symbols are visually very similar to the ISO symbols, leading many to falsely assume that they are identical. The first computer programming language standard was "American Standard Fortran" (informally known as "FORTRAN 66"), approved in March 1966 and published as ASA X3.9-1966. The programming language COBOL had ANSI standards in 1968, 1974, and 1985. The COBOL 2002 standard was issued by ISO. The original standard implementation of the C programming language was standardized as ANSI X3.159-1989, becoming the well-known ANSI C. The X3J13 committee was created in 1986 to formalize the ongoing consolidation of Common Lisp, culminating in 1994 with the publication of ANSI's first object-oriented programming standard. A popular Unified Thread Standard for nuts and bolts is ANSI/ASME B1.1 which was defined in 1935, 1949, 1989, and 2003. The ANSI-NSF International standards used for commercial kitchens, such as restaurants, cafeterias, delis, etc. The ANSI/APSP (Association of Pool & Spa Professionals) standards used for pools, spas, hot tubs, barriers, and suction entrapment avoidance. The ANSI/HI (Hydraulic Institute) standards used for pumps. The ANSI for eye protection is Z87.1, which gives a specific impact resistance rating to the eyewear. This standard is commonly used for shop glasses, shooting glasses, and many other examples of protective eyewear. The ANSI paper sizes (ANSI/ASME Y14.1).Other initiatives In 2008, ANSI, in partnership with Citation Technologies, created the first dynamic, online web library for ISO 14000 standards. On June 23, 2009, ANSI announced a product and services agreement with Citation Technologies to deliver all ISO Standards on a web-based platform. Through the ANSI-Citation partnership, 17,765 International Standards developed by more than 3,000 ISO technical bodies will be made available on the citation platform, arming subscribers with powerful search tools and collaboration, notification, and change-management functionality. ANSI, in partnership with Citation Technologies, AAMI, ASTM, and DIN, created a single, centralized database for medical device standards on September 9, 2009. In early 2009, ANSI launched a new Certificate Accreditation Program (ANSI-CAP) to provide neutral, third-party attestation that a given certificate program meets the American National Standard ASTM E2659-09. In 2009, ANSI began accepting applications for certification bodies seeking accreditation according to requirements defined under the Toy Safety Certification Program (TSCP) as the official third-party accreditor of TSCP's product certification bodies. In 2006, ANSI launched www.StandardsPortal.org, an online resource for facilitating more open and efficient trade between international markets in the areas of standards, conformity assessment, and technical regulations. The site currently features content for the United States, China, India, Korea, and Brazil, with additional countries and regions planned for future content. ANSI design standards have also been incorporated into building codes encompassing several specific building sub-sets, such as the ANSI/SPRI ES-1, which pertains to "Wind Design Standard for Edge Systems Used With Low Slope Roofing Systems", for example.See also Accredited Crane Operator Certification ANSI ASC X9 ANSI ASC X12 ANSI C Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) ISO (to which ANSI is the official US representative) National Information Standards Organization (NISO) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Open standardsReferencesExternal links   1918 establishments in the United States501(c)(3) organizationsCharities based in Washington, D.C.ISO member bodiesOrganizations established in 1918Technical specifications
In logic and philosophy, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:Mathematics and computer scienceArgument (complex analysis), a function which returns the polar angle of a complex numberCommand-line argument, an item of information provided to a program when it is startedParameter (computer programming), a piece of data provided as input to a subroutineArgument principle, a theorem in complex analysis An argument of a function, also known as an independent variableLanguage and rhetoricArgument (literature), a brief summary, often in prose, of a poem or section of a poem or other workArgument (linguistics), a phrase  that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clauseOral argument in the United States, a spoken presentation to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevailClosing argument, in law, the concluding statement of each party's counsel reiterating the important arguments in a court caseOther usesMusical argument, a concept in the theory of musical formArgument (ship), an Australian sloop wrecked in 1809Das Argument, a German academic journalArgument Clinic, a Monty Python sketchA disagreement between two or more parties or the discussion of the disagreementArgument (horse)See alsoThe Argument (disambiguation)
Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected  of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia.Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used Eagles ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space.Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."Background In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was engaged in the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and challenged American claims of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race to prove which superpower would achieve superior spaceflight capability. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the Sputnik challenge by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and initiating Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit. But on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth. Nearly a month later, on May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, completing a 15-minute suborbital journey. After being recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, he received a congratulatory telephone call from Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy.Since the Soviet Union had higher lift capacity launch vehicles, Kennedy chose, from among options presented by NASA, a challenge beyond the capacity of the existing generation of rocketry, so that the US and Soviet Union would be starting from a position of equality. A crewed mission to the Moon would serve this purpose.On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed the United States Congress on "Urgent National Needs" and declared:On September 12, 1962, Kennedy delivered another speech before a crowd of about 40,000 people in the Rice University football stadium in Houston, Texas. A widely quoted refrain from the middle portion of the speech reads as follows:In spite of that, the proposed program faced the opposition of many Americans and was dubbed a "moondoggle" by Norbert Wiener, a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The effort to land a man on the Moon already had a name: Project Apollo. When Kennedy met with Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the Soviet Union in June 1961, he proposed making the Moon landing a joint project, but Khrushchev did not take up the offer. Kennedy again proposed a joint expedition to the Moon in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 1963. The idea of a joint Moon mission was abandoned after Kennedy's death.An early and crucial decision was choosing lunar orbit rendezvous over both direct ascent and Earth orbit rendezvous. A space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver in which two spacecraft navigate through space and meet up. In July 1962 NASA head James Webb announced that lunar orbit rendezvous would be used and that the Apollo spacecraft would have three major parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. This design meant the spacecraft could be launched by a single Saturn V rocket that was then under development.Technologies and techniques required for Apollo were developed by Project Gemini. The Apollo project was enabled by NASA's adoption of new advances in semiconductor electronic technology, including metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) and silicon integrated circuit (IC) chips in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC).Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died, and the subsequent investigation. In October 1968, Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit, and in December Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit. In March 1969, Apollo 9 put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit, and in May Apollo 10 conducted a "dress rehearsal" in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon.The Soviet Union appeared  to be winning the Space Race by beating the US to firsts, but its early lead was overtaken by the US Gemini program and Soviet failure to develop the N1 launcher, which would have been comparable to the Saturn V. The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of uncrewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home. The Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.PersonnelPrime crew The initial crew assignment of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin on the backup crew for Apollo9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Lovell and Aldrin had previously flown together as the crew of Gemini 12. Due to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo8 and Apollo9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong's crew became the backup for Apollo8. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong was then expected to command Apollo 11.There would be one change. Michael Collins, the CMP on the Apollo8 crew, began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony growth between his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo8 crew, and when Collins recovered he joined Armstrong's crew as CMP. In the meantime, Fred Haise filled in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8. Apollo 11 was the second American mission where all the crew members had prior spaceflight experience, the first being Apollo 10. The next was STS-26 in 1988.Deke Slayton gave Armstrong the option to replace Aldrin with Lovell, since some thought Aldrin was difficult to work with. Armstrong had no issues working with Aldrin but thought it over for a day before declining. He thought Lovell deserved to command his own mission (eventually Apollo 13).The Apollo 11 prime crew had none of the close cheerful camaraderie characterized by that of Apollo 12. Instead, they forged an amiable working relationship. Armstrong in particular was notoriously aloof, but Collins, who considered himself a loner, confessed to rebuffing Aldrin's attempts to create a more personal relationship. Aldrin and Collins described the crew as "amiable strangers". Armstrong did not agree with the assessment, and said "... all the crews I was on worked very well together."Backup crew The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander, William Anders as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo8. In early 1969, he accepted a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Council effective August 1969, and announced he would retire as an astronaut at that time. Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable.By the normal crew rotation in place during Apollo, Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise were scheduled to fly on Apollo 14 after backing up for Apollo 11. Later, Lovell's crew was forced to switch places with Alan Shepard's tentative Apollo 13 crew to give Shepard more training time.Support crew During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists and mission ground rules, and ensured the prime and backup crews were apprised of changes. They developed procedures, especially those for emergency situations, so these were ready for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them. For Apollo 11, the support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly, Ronald Evans and Bill Pogue.Capsule communicators The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo 11, the CAPCOMs were: Charles Duke, Ronald Evans, Bruce McCandless II, James Lovell, William Anders, Ken Mattingly, Fred Haise, Don L. Lind, Owen K. Garriott and Harrison Schmitt.Flight directors The flight directors for this mission were:Other key personnel Other key personnel who played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission include the following.PreparationsInsignia The Apollo 11 mission emblem was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". At Lovell's suggestion, he chose the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, as the symbol. Tom Wilson, a simulator instructor, suggested an olive branch in its beak to represent their peaceful mission. Collins added a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. The sunlight in the image was coming from the wrong direction; the shadow should have been in the lower part of the Earth instead of the left. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins decided the Eagle and the Moon would be in their natural colors, and decided on a blue and gold border. Armstrong was concerned that "eleven" would not be understood by non-English speakers, so they went with "Apollo 11", and they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing".An illustrator at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) did the artwork, which was then sent off to NASA officials for approval. The design was rejected. Bob Gilruth, the director of the MSC felt the talons of the eagle looked "too warlike". After some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the talons. When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side. The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979.Call signs After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office at the MSC, to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. The name Snowcone was used for the CM and Haystack was used for the LM in both internal and external communications during early mission planning.The LM was named Eagle after the motif which was featured prominently on the mission insignia. At Scheer's suggestion, the CM was named Columbia after Columbiad, the giant cannon that launched a spacecraft (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. It also referred to Columbia, a historical name of the United States.  In Collins' 1976 book, he said Columbia was in reference to Christopher Columbus.Mementos The astronauts had personal preference kits (PPKs), small bags containing personal items of significance they wanted to take with them on the mission. Five  PPKs were carried on Apollo 11: three (one for each astronaut) were stowed on Columbia before launch, and two on Eagle.Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyers left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing, along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Slayton by the widows of the Apollo1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on that mission and given to Slayton afterwards, but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton. Armstrong took it with him on Apollo 11.Site selection NASA's Apollo Site Selection Board announced five potential landing sites on February 8, 1968. These were the result of two years' worth of studies based on high-resolution photography of the lunar surface by the five uncrewed probes of the Lunar Orbiter program and information about surface conditions provided by the Surveyor program. The best Earth-bound telescopes could not resolve features with the resolution Project Apollo required. The landing site had to be close to the lunar equator to minimize the amount of propellant required, clear of obstacles to minimize maneuvering, and flat to simplify the task of the landing radar. Scientific value was not a consideration.Areas that appeared promising on photographs taken on Earth were often found to be totally unacceptable. The original requirement that the site be free of craters had to be relaxed, as no such site was found. Five sites were considered: Sites1 and2 were in the Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis); Site3 was in the Central Bay (Sinus Medii); and Sites4 and5 were in the Ocean of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum).The final site selection was based on seven criteria: The site needed to be smooth, with relatively few craters; with approach paths free of large hills, tall cliffs or deep craters that might confuse the landing radar and cause it to issue incorrect readings; reachable with a minimum amount of propellant; allowing for delays in the launch countdown; providing the Apollo spacecraft with a free-return trajectory, one that would allow it to coast around the Moon and safely return to Earth without requiring any engine firings should a problem arise on the way to the Moon; with good visibility during the landing approach, meaning the Sun would be between 7and 20 degrees behind the LM; and a general slope of less than two degrees in the landing area.The requirement for the Sun angle was particularly restrictive, limiting the launch date to one day per month. A landing just after dawn was chosen to limit the temperature extremes the astronauts would experience. The Apollo Site Selection Board selected Site2, with Sites 3and5 as backups in the event of the launch being delayed. In May 1969, Apollo 10's lunar module flew to within  of Site2, and reported it was acceptable.First-step decision During the first press conference after the Apollo 11 crew was announced, the first question was, "Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step onto the lunar surface?" Slayton told the reporter it had not been decided, and Armstrong added that it was "not based on individual desire".One of the first versions of the egress checklist had the lunar module pilot exit the spacecraft before the commander, which matched what had been done on Gemini missions, where the commander had never performed the spacewalk. Reporters wrote in early 1969 that Aldrin would be the first man to walk on the Moon, and Associate Administrator George Mueller told reporters he would be first as well. Aldrin heard that Armstrong would be the first because Armstrong was a civilian, which made Aldrin livid. Aldrin attempted to persuade other lunar module pilots he should be first, but they responded cynically about what they perceived as a lobbying campaign. Attempting to stem interdepartmental conflict, Slayton told Aldrin that Armstrong would be first since he was the commander. The decision was announced in a press conference on April 14, 1969.For decades, Aldrin believed the final decision was largely driven by the lunar module's hatch location. Because the astronauts had their spacesuits on and the spacecraft was so small, maneuvering to exit the spacecraft was difficult. The crew tried a simulation in which Aldrin left the spacecraft first, but he damaged the simulator while attempting to egress. While this was enough for mission planners to make their decision, Aldrin and Armstrong were left in the dark on the decision until late spring. Slayton told Armstrong the plan was to have him leave the spacecraft first, if he agreed. Armstrong said, "Yes, that's the way to do it."The media accused Armstrong of exercising his commander's prerogative to exit the spacecraft first. Chris Kraft revealed in his 2001 autobiography that a meeting occurred between Gilruth, Slayton, Low, and himself to make sure Aldrin would not be the first to walk on the Moon. They argued that the first person to walk on the Moon should be like Charles Lindbergh, a calm and quiet person. They made the decision to change the flight plan so the commander was the first to egress from the spacecraft.Pre-launch The ascent stage of LM-5 Eagle arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on January 8, 1969, followed by the descent stage four days later, and CSM-107 Columbia on January 23. There were several differences between Eagle and Apollo 10's LM-4 Snoopy; Eagle had a VHF radio antenna to facilitate communication with the astronauts during their EVA on the lunar surface; a lighter ascent engine; more thermal protection on the landing gear; and a package of scientific experiments known as the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package (EASEP). The only change in the configuration of the command module was the removal of some insulation from the forward hatch. The CSM was mated on January 29, and moved from the Operations and Checkout Building to the Vehicle Assembly Building on April 14.The S-IVB third stage of Saturn V AS-506 had arrived on January 18, followed by the S-II second stage on February 6, S-IC first stage on February 20, and the Saturn V Instrument Unit on February 27. At 12:30 on May 20, the  assembly departed the Vehicle Assembly Building atop the crawler-transporter, bound for Launch Pad 39A, part of Launch Complex 39, while Apollo 10 was still on its way to the Moon. A countdown test commenced on June 26, and concluded on July 2. The launch complex was floodlit on the night of July 15, when the crawler-transporter carried the mobile service structure back to its parking area. In the early hours of the morning, the fuel tanks of the S-II and S-IVB stages were filled with liquid hydrogen. Fueling was completed by three hours before launch. Launch operations were partly automated, with 43 programs written in the ATOLL programming language.Slayton roused the crew shortly after 04:00, and they showered, shaved, and had the traditional pre-flight breakfast of steak and eggs with Slayton and the backup crew. They then donned their space suits and began breathing pure oxygen. At 06:30, they headed out to Launch Complex 39. Haise entered Columbia about three hours and ten minutes before launch time. Along with a technician, he helped Armstrong into the left-hand couch at 06:54. Five minutes later, Collins joined him, taking up his position on the right-hand couch. Finally, Aldrin entered, taking the center couch. Haise left around two hours and ten minutes before launch. The closeout crew sealed the hatch, and the cabin was purged and pressurized. The closeout crew then left the launch complex about an hour before launch time. The countdown became automated at three minutes and twenty seconds before launch time. Over 450 personnel were at the consoles in the firing room.MissionLaunch and flight to lunar orbit An estimated one million spectators watched the launch of Apollo 11 from the highways and beaches in the vicinity of the launch site. Dignitaries included the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General William Westmoreland, four cabinet members, 19 state governors, 40 mayors, 60 ambassadors and 200 congressmen. Vice President Spiro Agnew viewed the launch with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson. Around 3,500 media representatives were present. About two-thirds were from the United States; the rest came from 55 other countries. The launch was televised live in 33 countries, with an estimated 25 million viewers in the United States alone. Millions more around the world listened to radio broadcasts. President Richard Nixon viewed the launch from his office in the White House with his NASA liaison officer, Apollo astronaut Frank Borman.Saturn V AS-506 launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 EDT). At 13.2 seconds into the flight, the launch vehicle began to roll into its flight azimuth of 72.058°. Full shutdown of the first-stage engines occurred about 2minutes and 42 seconds into the mission, followed by separation of the S-IC and ignition of the S-II engines. The second stage engines then cut off and separated at about 9minutes and 8seconds, allowing the first ignition of the S-IVB engine a few seconds later.Apollo 11 entered a near-circular Earth orbit at an altitude of  by , twelve minutes into its flight. After one and a half orbits, a second ignition of the S-IVB engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later, with Collins in the left seat and at the controls, the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver was performed. This involved separating Columbia from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with Eagle still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon. This was done to avoid the third stage colliding with the spacecraft, the Earth, or the Moon. A slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an orbit around the Sun.On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility about  southwest of the crater Sabine D. The site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers and the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft, and because it was unlikely to present major landing or EVA challenges. It lay about  southeast of the Surveyor5 landing site, and  southwest of Ranger8's crash site.Lunar descent At 12:52:00 UTC on July 20, Aldrin and Armstrong entered Eagle, and began the final preparations for lunar descent. At 17:44:00 Eagle separated from Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged, and that the landing gear was correctly deployed. Armstrong exclaimed: "The Eagle has wings!"As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves passing landmarks on the surface two or three seconds early, and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point. Eagle was traveling too fast. The problem could have been mascons—concentrations of high mass in a region or regions of the Moon's crust that contains a gravitational anomaly, potentially altering Eagle'''s trajectory. Flight Director Gene Kranz speculated that it could have resulted from extra air pressure in the docking tunnel. Or it could have been the result of Eagles pirouette maneuver.Five minutes into the descent burn, and  above the surface of the Moon, the LM guidance computer (LGC) distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected 1201 and 1202 program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center, computer engineer Jack Garman told Guidance Officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all its tasks in real-time and had to postpone some of them. Margaret Hamilton, the Director of Apollo Flight Computer Programming at the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory later recalled:During the mission, the cause was diagnosed as the rendezvous radar switch being in the wrong position, causing the computer to process data from both the rendezvous and landing radars at the same time. Software engineer Don Eyles concluded in a 2005 Guidance and Control Conference paper that the problem was due to a hardware design bug previously seen during testing of the first uncrewed LM in Apollo 5. Having the rendezvous radar on (so it was warmed up in case of an emergency landing abort) should have been irrelevant to the computer, but an electrical phasing mismatch between two parts of the rendezvous radar system could cause the stationary antenna to appear to the computer as dithering back and forth between two positions, depending upon how the hardware randomly powered up. The extra spurious cycle stealing, as the rendezvous radar updated an involuntary counter, caused the computer alarms. Landing When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a  crater (later determined to be West crater), so he took semi-automatic control. Armstrong considered landing short of the boulder field so they could collect geological samples from it, but could not since their horizontal velocity was too high. Throughout the descent, Aldrin called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting Eagle. Now  above the surface, Armstrong knew their propellant supply was dwindling and was determined to land at the first possible landing site.Armstrong found a clear patch of ground and maneuvered the spacecraft towards it. As he got closer, now  above the surface, he discovered his new landing site had a crater in it. He cleared the crater and found another patch of level ground. They were now  from the surface, with only 90 seconds of propellant remaining. Lunar dust kicked up by the LM's engine began to impair his ability to determine the spacecraft's motion. Some large rocks jutted out of the dust cloud, and Armstrong focused on them during his descent so he could determine the spacecraft's speed.A light informed Aldrin that at least one of the  probes hanging from Eagle footpads had touched the surface a few moments before the landing and he said: "Contact light!" Armstrong was supposed to immediately shut the engine down, as the engineers suspected the pressure caused by the engine's own exhaust reflecting off the lunar surface could make it explode, but he forgot. Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong shut the engine down. Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA—out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged: "Out of detent. Auto." Aldrin continued: "Mode control—both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm—off. 413 is in."ACA was the Attitude Control Assembly—the LM's control stick. Output went to the LGC to command the reaction control system (RCS) jets to fire. "Out of Detent" meant the stick had moved away from its centered position; it was spring-centered like the turn indicator in a car. LGC address 413 contained the variable that indicated the LM had landed.Eagle landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with  of usable fuel remaining. Information available to the crew and mission controllers during the landing showed the LM had enough fuel for another 25 seconds of powered flight before an abort without touchdown would have become unsafe, but post-mission analysis showed that the real figure was probably closer to 50 seconds. Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than most subsequent missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of the propellant sloshing more than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post-landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to the CAPCOM, Charles Duke, with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan—Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth:He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. For this reason, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, Dean Woodruff. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20. The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period, but they chose to begin preparations for the EVA early, thinking they would be unable to sleep. Lunar surface operations Preparations for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk on the Moon began at 23:43. These took longer than expected; three and a half hours instead of two. During training on Earth, everything required had been neatly laid out in advance, but on the Moon the cabin contained a large number of other items as well, such as checklists, food packets, and tools. Six hours and thirty-nine minutes after landing Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, and Eagle was depressurized.Eagles hatch was opened at 02:39:33. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his portable life support system (PLSS). Some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress. At 02:51 Armstrong began his descent to the lunar surface. The remote control unit on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the modular equipment stowage assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle side and activate the TV camera.Apollo 11 used slow-scan television (TV) incompatible with broadcast TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor (thus, a broadcast of a broadcast), significantly reducing the quality of the picture. The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States, but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia. Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth. Copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, but recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were likely destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder", at 02:56:15, six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle footpad and declared: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. A more recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static. Other analysis points to the claims of static and slurring as "face-saving fabrication", and that Armstrong himself later admitted to misspeaking the line.About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. Twelve minutes after the sample was collected, he removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod. The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA. Still photography was accomplished with a Hasselblad camera that could be operated hand held or mounted on Armstrong's Apollo space suit. Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface. He described the view with the simple phrase: "Magnificent desolation."Armstrong said moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around." Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backward, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, but the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow. The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust, which soiled the outer part of their suits.The astronauts planted the Lunar Flag Assembly containing a flag of the United States on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Aldrin remembered, "Of all the jobs I had to do on the Moon the one I wanted to go the smoothest was the flag raising." But the astronauts struggled with the telescoping rod and could only jam the pole about  into the hard lunar surface. Aldrin was afraid it might topple in front of TV viewers. But he gave "a crisp West Point salute". Before Aldrin could take a photo of Armstrong with the flag, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission, which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House." Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief.They deployed the EASEP, which included a passive seismic experiment package used to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector array used for the lunar laser ranging experiment. Then Armstrong walked  from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater while Aldrin collected two core samples. He used the geologist's hammer to pound in the tubes—the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11—but was unable to penetrate more than  deep. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes. Aldrin shoveled  of soil into the box of rocks in order to pack them in tightly. Two types of rocks were found in the geological samples: basalt and breccia. Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. All have subsequently been found on Earth.While on the surface, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM ladder, bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read:At the behest of the Nixon administration to add a reference to God, NASA included the vague date as a reason to include A.D., which stands for Anno Domini, "in the year of our Lord" (although it should have been placed before the year, not after).Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong his metabolic rates were high, and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. As metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension. In a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon. Lunar ascent Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing  of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor (LEC). This proved to be an inefficient tool, and later missions preferred to carry equipment and samples up to the LM by hand. Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his sleeve pocket, and Aldrin tossed the bag down. Armstrong then jumped onto the ladder's third rung, and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for the return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, an empty Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. The hatch was closed again at 05:11:13. They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep.Presidential speech writer William Safire had prepared an In Event of Moon Disaster announcement for Nixon to read in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. The remarks were in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem, "The Soldier".While moving inside the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. A felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch.After more than  hours on the lunar surface, in addition to the scientific instruments, the astronauts left behind: an Apollo 1 mission patch in memory of astronauts Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Edward White, who died when their command module caught fire during a test in January 1967; two memorial medals of Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin, who died in 1967 and 1968 respectively; a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace; and a silicon message disk carrying the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon along with messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disk also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and then-current top management.After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54:00 UTC, they lifted off in Eagle ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit. Film taken from the LM ascent stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some  from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over." Subsequent Apollo missions planted their flags farther from the LM. Columbia in lunar orbit During his day flying solo around the Moon, Collins never felt lonely. Although it has been said "not since Adam has any human known such solitude", Collins felt very much a part of the mission. In his autobiography he wrote: "this venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two". In the 48 minutes of each orbit when he was out of radio contact with the Earth while Columbia passed round the far side of the Moon, the feeling he reported was not fear or loneliness, but rather "awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation".One of Collins' first tasks was to identify the lunar module on the ground. To give Collins an idea where to look, Mission Control radioed that they believed the lunar module landed about  off target. Each time he passed over the suspected lunar landing site, he tried in vain to find the module. On his first orbits on the back side of the Moon, Collins performed maintenance activities such as dumping excess water produced by the fuel cells and preparing the cabin for Armstrong and Aldrin to return.Just before he reached the dark side on the third orbit, Mission Control informed Collins there was a problem with the temperature of the coolant. If it became too cold, parts of Columbia might freeze. Mission Control advised him to assume manual control and implement Environmental Control System Malfunction Procedure 17. Instead, Collins flicked the switch on the system from automatic to manual and back to automatic again, and carried on with normal housekeeping chores, while keeping an eye on the temperature. When Columbia came back around to the near side of the Moon again, he was able to report that the problem had been resolved. For the next couple of orbits, he described his time on the back side of the Moon as "relaxing". After Aldrin and Armstrong completed their EVA, Collins slept so he could be rested for the rendezvous. While the flight plan called for Eagle to meet up with Columbia, Collins was prepared for a contingency in which he would fly Columbia down to meet Eagle. Return Eagle rendezvoused with Columbia at 21:24 UTC on July 21, and the two docked at 21:35. Eagles ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit at 23:41. Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface. In 2021, however, some calculations show that lander may still be in orbit.On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented: Aldrin added: Armstrong concluded: On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg was later thanked by Armstrong. Splashdown and quarantine The aircraft carrier , under the command of Captain Carl J. Seiberlich, was selected as the primary recovery ship (PRS) for Apollo 11 on June 5, replacing its sister ship, the LPH , which had recovered Apollo 10 on May 26. Hornet was then at her home port of Long Beach, California. On reaching Pearl Harbor on July 5, Hornet embarked the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters of HS-4, a unit which specialized in recovery of Apollo spacecraft, specialized divers of UDT Detachment Apollo, a 35-man NASA recovery team, and about 120 media representatives. To make room, most of Hornets air wing was left behind in Long Beach. Special recovery equipment was also loaded, including a boilerplate command module used for training.On July 12, with Apollo 11 still on the launch pad, Hornet departed Pearl Harbor for the recovery area in the central Pacific, in the vicinity of . A presidential party consisting of Nixon, Borman, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger flew to Johnston Atoll on Air Force One, then to the command ship USS Arlington in Marine One. After a night on board, they would fly to Hornet in Marine One for a few hours of ceremonies. On arrival aboard Hornet, the party was greeted by the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), Admiral John S. McCain Jr., and NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, who flew to Hornet from Pago Pago in one of Hornets carrier onboard delivery aircraft.Weather satellites were not yet common, but US Air Force Captain Hank Brandli had access to top-secret spy satellite images. He realized that a storm front was headed for the Apollo recovery area. Poor visibility which could make locating the capsule difficult, and strong upper-level winds which "would have ripped their parachutes to shreds" according to Brandli, posed a serious threat to the safety of the mission. Brandli alerted Navy Captain Willard S. Houston Jr., the commander of the Fleet Weather Center at Pearl Harbor, who had the required security clearance. On their recommendation, Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, commander of Manned Spaceflight Recovery Forces, Pacific, advised NASA to change the recovery area, each man risking his career. A new location was selected  northeast.This altered the flight plan. A different sequence of computer programs was used, one never before attempted. In a conventional entry, trajectory event P64 was followed by P67. For a skip-out re-entry, P65 and P66 were employed to handle the exit and entry parts of the skip. In this case, because they were extending the re-entry but not actually skipping out, P66 was not invoked and instead, P65 led directly to P67. The crew were also warned they would not be in a full-lift (heads-down) attitude when they entered P67. The first program's acceleration subjected the astronauts to ; the second, to .Before dawn on July 24, Hornet launched four Sea King helicopters and three Grumman E-1 Tracers. Two of the E-1s were designated as "air boss" while the third acted as a communications relay aircraft. Two of the Sea Kings carried divers and recovery equipment. The third carried photographic equipment, and the fourth carried the decontamination swimmer and the flight surgeon. At 16:44 UTC (05:44 local time) Columbias drogue parachutes were deployed. This was observed by the helicopters. Seven minutes later Columbia struck the water forcefully  east of Wake Island,  south of Johnston Atoll, and  from Hornet, at .  with  seas and winds at  from the east were reported under broken clouds at  with visibility of  at the recovery site. Reconnaissance aircraft flying to the original splashdown location reported the conditions Brandli and Houston had predicted.During splashdown, Columbia landed upside down but was righted within ten minutes by flotation bags activated by the astronauts. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to prevent it from drifting. More divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and positioned rafts for astronaut extraction.The divers then passed biological isolation garments (BIGs) to the astronauts, and assisted them into the life raft. The possibility of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, but NASA took precautions at the recovery site. The astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and Columbia wiped with Povidone-iodine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The astronauts were winched on board the recovery helicopter. BIGs were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board Hornet. The raft containing decontamination materials was intentionally sunk.After touchdown on Hornet at 17:53 UTC, the helicopter was lowered by the elevator into the hangar bay, where the astronauts walked the  to the Mobile quarantine facility (MQF), where they would begin the Earth-based portion of their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life, and the quarantine process dropped. Nixon welcomed the astronauts back to Earth. He told them: "[A]s a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."After Nixon departed, Hornet was brought alongside the  Columbia, which was lifted aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. It was then attached to the MQF with a flexible tunnel, allowing the lunar samples, film, data tapes and other items to be removed. Hornet returned to Pearl Harbor, where the MQF was loaded onto a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter and airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center. The astronauts arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 10:00 UTC on July 28. Columbia was taken to Ford Island for deactivation, and its pyrotechnics made safe. It was then taken to Hickham Air Force Base, from whence it was flown to Houston in a Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, reaching the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on July 30.In accordance with the Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, a set of regulations promulgated by NASA on July 16 to codify its quarantine protocol, the astronauts continued in quarantine. After three weeks in confinement (first in the Apollo spacecraft, then in their trailer on Hornet, and finally in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health. On August 10, 1969, the Interagency Committee on Back Contamination met in Atlanta and lifted the quarantine on the astronauts, on those who had joined them in quarantine (NASA physician William Carpentier and MQF project engineer John Hirasaki), and on Columbia itself. Loose equipment from the spacecraft remained in isolation until the lunar samples were released for study. Celebrations On August 13, the three astronauts rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees. On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official state dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger and his predecessor, Earl Warren, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. Nixon and Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.The three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on September 16, 1969. They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that they had carried with them to the surface of the Moon. The flag of American Samoa on Apollo 11 is on display at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa.This celebration began a 38-day world tour that brought the astronauts to 22 foreign countries and included visits with the leaders of many countries. The crew toured from September 29 to November 5. Many nations honored the first human Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins. Legacy  Cultural significance Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. In Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing, Kennedy's speech flashed on the screen, followed by the words "TASK ACCOMPLISHED, July 1969". The success of Apollo 11 demonstrated the United States' technological superiority; and with the success of Apollo 11, America had won the Space Race.New phrases permeated into the English language. "If they can send a man to the Moon, why can't they ...?" became a common saying following Apollo 11. Armstrong's words on the lunar surface also spun off various parodies.While most people celebrated the accomplishment, disenfranchised Americans saw it as a symbol of the divide in America, evidenced by protesters led by Ralph Abernathy outside of Kennedy Space Center the day before Apollo 11 launched. NASA Administrator Thomas Paine met with Abernathy at the occasion, both hoping that the space program can spur progress also in other regards, such as poverty in the US. Paine was then asked, and agreed, to host protesters as spectators at the launch, and Abernathy, awestruck by the spectacle, prayed for the astronauts. Racial and financial inequalities frustrated citizens who wondered why money spent on the Apollo program was not spent taking care of humans on Earth. A poem by Gil Scott-Heron called "Whitey on the Moon" (1970) illustrated the racial inequality in the United States that was highlighted by the Space Race. The poem starts with:Twenty percent of the world's population watched humans walk on the Moon for the first time. While Apollo 11 sparked the interest of the world, the follow-on Apollo missions did not hold the interest of the nation. One possible explanation was the shift in complexity. Landing someone on the Moon was an easy goal to understand; lunar geology was too abstract for the average person. Another is that Kennedy's goal of landing humans on the Moon had already been accomplished. A well-defined objective helped Project Apollo accomplish its goal, but after it was completed it was hard to justify continuing the lunar missions.While most Americans were proud of their nation's achievements in space exploration, only once during the late 1960s did the Gallup Poll indicate that a majority of Americans favored "doing more" in space as opposed to "doing less". By 1973, 59 percent of those polled favored cutting spending on space exploration. The Space Race had been won, and Cold War tensions were easing as the US and Soviet Union entered the era of détente. This was also a time when inflation was rising, which put pressure on the government to reduce spending. What saved the space program was that it was one of the few government programs that had achieved something great. Drastic cuts, warned Caspar Weinberger, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, might send a signal that "our best years are behind us".After the Apollo 11 mission, officials from the Soviet Union said landing humans on the Moon was dangerous and unnecessary. At the time the Soviet Union was attempting to retrieve lunar samples robotically. The Soviets publicly denied there was a race to the Moon, and indicated they were not making an attempt. Mstislav Keldysh said in July 1969, "We are concentrating wholly on the creation of large satellite systems." It was revealed in 1989 that the Soviets had tried to send people to the Moon, but were unable due to technological difficulties. The public's reaction in the Soviet Union was mixed. The Soviet government limited the release of information about the lunar landing, which affected the reaction. A portion of the populace did not give it any attention, and another portion was angered by it.The Apollo 11 landing is referenced in the songs "Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins" by The Byrds on the 1969 album Ballad of Easy Rider and "Coon on the Moon" by Howlin' Wolf on the 1973 album The Back Door Wolf. Spacecraft The command module Columbia went on a tour of the United States, visiting 49 state capitals, the District of Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska. In 1971, it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and was displayed at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC. It was in the central Milestones of Flight exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, Bell X-1, North American X-15 and Friendship 7.Columbia was moved in 2017 to the NASM Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to be readied for a four-city tour titled Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission. This included Space Center Houston from October 14, 2017, to March 18, 2018, the Saint Louis Science Center from April 14 to September 3, 2018, the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh from September 29, 2018, to February 18, 2019, and its last location at Museum of Flight in Seattle from March 16 to September 2, 2019. Continued renovations at the Smithsonian allowed time for an additional stop for the capsule, and it was moved to the Cincinnati Museum Center. The ribbon cutting ceremony was on September 29, 2019.For 40 years Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits were displayed in the museum's Apollo to the Moon exhibit, until it permanently closed on December 3, 2018, to be replaced by a new gallery which was scheduled to open in 2022. A special display of Armstrong's suit was unveiled for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in July 2019. The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar and the flotation bags are in the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, where they are on display along with a test lunar module.The descent stage of the LM Eagle remains on the Moon. In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts. The remains of the ascent stage lie at an unknown location on the lunar surface, after being abandoned and impacting the Moon. The location is uncertain because Eagle ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time.In March 2012 a team of specialists financed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines from the S-IC stage that launched Apollo 11 into space. They were found on the Atlantic seabed using advanced sonar scanning. His team brought parts of two of the five engines to the surface. In July 2013, a conservator discovered a serial number under the rust on one of the engines raised from the Atlantic, which NASA confirmed was from Apollo 11. The S-IVB third stage which performed Apollo 11's trans-lunar injection remains in a solar orbit near to that of Earth. Moon rocks The main repository for the Apollo Moon rocks is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. For safekeeping, there is also a smaller collection stored at White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Most of the rocks are stored in nitrogen to keep them free of moisture. They are handled only indirectly, using special tools. Over 100 research laboratories around the world conduct studies of the samples, and approximately 500 samples are prepared and sent to investigators every year.In November 1969, Nixon asked NASA to make up about 250 presentation Apollo 11 lunar sample displays for 135 nations, the fifty states of the United States and its possessions, and the United Nations. Each display included Moon dust from Apollo 11. The rice-sized particles were four small pieces of Moon soil weighing about 50 mg and were enveloped in a clear acrylic button about as big as a United States half dollar coin. This acrylic button magnified the grains of lunar dust. The Apollo 11 lunar sample displays were given out as goodwill gifts by Nixon in 1970.Earth magazine, March 2011, pp. 42–51 Experiment results The Passive Seismic Experiment ran until the command uplink failed on August 25, 1969. The downlink failed on December 14, 1969. , the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment remains operational. Armstrong's camera Armstrong's Hasselblad camera was thought to be lost or left on the Moon surface. LM memorabilia In 2015, after Armstrong died in 2012, his widow contacted the National Air and Space Museum to inform them she had found a white cloth bag in one of Armstrong's closets. The bag contained various items, which should have been left behind in the lunar module, including the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera that had been used to capture images of the first Moon landing. The camera is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum. Anniversary events  40th anniversary On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch. From July 16 to 24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred. It is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments. In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronized and released for the first time. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up an Adobe Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon.On July 20, 2009, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with US President Barack Obama at the White House. "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey." On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson and Florida Representative Alan Grayson.A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing: 50th anniversary On June 10, 2015, Congressman Bill Posey introduced resolution H.R. 2726 to the 114th session of the United States House of Representatives directing the United States Mint to design and sell commemorative coins in gold, silver and clad for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. On January 24, 2019, the Mint released the Apollo 11 Fiftieth Anniversary commemorative coins to the public on its website.A documentary film, Apollo 11, with restored footage of the 1969 event, premiered in IMAX on March 1, 2019, and broadly in theaters on March 8.The Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum and NASA sponsored the "Apollo 50 Festival" on the National Mall in Washington DC. The three day (July 18 to 20, 2019) outdoor festival featured hands-on exhibits and activities, live performances, and speakers such as Adam Savage and NASA scientists.As part of the festival, a projection of the  tall Saturn V rocket was displayed on the east face of the  tall Washington Monument from July 16 through the 20th from 9:30pm until 11:30pm (EDT). The program also included a 17-minute show that combined full-motion video projected on the Washington Monument to recreate the assembly and launch of the Saturn V rocket. The projection was joined by a  wide recreation of the Kennedy Space Center countdown clock and two large video screens showing archival footage to recreate the time leading up to the moon landing. There were three shows per night on July 19–20, with the last show on Saturday, delayed slightly so the portion where Armstrong first set foot on the Moon would happen exactly 50 years to the second after the actual event.On July 19, 2019, the Google Doodle paid tribute to the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, complete with a link to an animated YouTube video with voiceover by astronaut Michael Collins.Aldrin, Collins, and Armstrong's sons were hosted by President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Films and documentaries  Footprints on the Moon, a 1969 documentary film by Bill Gibson and Barry Coe, about the Apollo 11 mission Moonwalk One, a 1971 documentary film by Theo Kamecke Apollo 11: As it Happened, a 1994 six-hour documentary on ABC News' coverage of the event Apollo 11, a 2019 documentary film by Todd Douglas Miller with restored footage of the 1969 event Chasing the Moon, a July 2019 PBS three-night six-hour documentary, directed by Robert Stone, examined the events leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. An accompanying book of the same name was also released. 8 Days: To the Moon and Back, a PBS and BBC Studios 2019 documentary film by Anthony Philipson re-enacting major portions of the Apollo 11 mission using mission audio recordings, new studio footage, NASA and news archives, and computer-generated imagery.See also    Moon landing conspiracy theories References  Notes  Citations In some of the following sources, times are shown in the format hours:minutes:seconds (e.g. 109:24:15), referring to the mission's Ground Elapsed Time (GET), based on the official launch time of July 16, 1969, 13:32:00 UTC (000:00:00 GET). Sources                                   External links  "Apollo 11 transcripts" at Spacelog Apollo 11 in real time Multimedia  —Remastered videos of the original landing. Dynamic timeline of lunar excursion. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera   Apollo 11 Restored EVA Part 1 (1h of restored footage) Apollo 11: As They Photographed It (Augmented Reality) The New York Times'', Interactive, July 18, 2019 "Coverage of the Flight of Apollo 11" provided by Todd Kosovich for RadioTapes.com. Radio station recordings (airchecks) covering the flight of Apollo 11. Buzz AldrinNeil ArmstrongMichael Collins (astronaut)Apollo program missions1969 on the MoonSoft landings on the MoonSpacecraft launched by Saturn rocketsArticles containing video clipsCrewed missions to the Moon
Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, and also the first human spaceflight to reach another astronomical object, namely the Moon, which the crew orbited without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. These three astronauts—Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to witness and photograph an Earthrise.Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, and was the second crewed spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program after Apollo7, which stayed in Earth orbit. Apollo8 was the third flight and the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket, and was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center, located adjacent to Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida.Originally planned as the second crewed Apollo Lunar Module and command module test, to be flown in an elliptical medium Earth orbit in early 1969, the mission profile was changed in August 1968 to a more ambitious command-module-only lunar orbital flight to be flown in December, as the lunar module was not yet ready to make its first flight. Astronaut Jim McDivitt's crew, who were training to fly the first lunar module flight in low Earth orbit, became the crew for the Apollo9 mission, and Borman's crew were moved to the Apollo8 mission. This left Borman's crew with two to three months' less training and preparation time than originally planned, and replaced the planned lunar module training with translunar navigation training.Apollo 8 took 68 hours (almost three days) to travel the distance to the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times over the course of twenty hours, during which they made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo11 to fulfill U.S. president John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. The Apollo8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the northern Pacific Ocean. The crew members were named Time magazine's "Men of the Year" for 1968 upon their return.BackgroundIn the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was engaged in the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This unexpected success stoked fears and imaginations around the world. It not only demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, it challenged American claims of military, economic, and technological superiority. The launch precipitated the Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race.President John F. Kennedy believed that not only was it in the national interest of the United States to be superior to other nations, but that the perception of American power was at least as important as the actuality. It was therefore intolerable to him for the Soviet Union to be more advanced in the field of space exploration. He was determined that the United States should compete, and sought a challenge that maximized its chances of winning.The Soviet Union had heavier-lifting carrier rockets, which meant Kennedy needed to choose a goal that was beyond the capacity of the existing generation of rocketry, one where the US and Soviet Union would be starting from a position of equality—something spectacular, even if it could not be justified on military, economic, or scientific grounds. After consulting with his experts and advisors, he chose such a project: to land a man on the Moon and return him to the Earth. This project already had a name: Project Apollo.An early and crucial decision was the adoption of lunar orbit rendezvous, under which a specialized spacecraft would land on the lunar surface. The Apollo spacecraft therefore had three primary components: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that would return to Earth; a service module (SM) to provide the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a two-stage lunar module (LM), which comprised a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to return the astronauts to lunar orbit. This configuration could be launched by the Saturn V rocket that was then under development.FrameworkPrime crewThe initial crew assignment of Frank Borman as Commander, Michael Collins as Command Module Pilot (CMP) and William Anders as Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) for the third crewed Apollo flight was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Collins was replaced by Jim Lovell in July 1968, after suffering a cervical disc herniation that required surgery to repair. This crew was unique among pre-Space Shuttle era missions in that the commander was not the most experienced member of the crew: Lovell had flown twice before, on Gemini VII and Gemini XII. This would also be the first case of a commander of a previous mission (Lovell, Gemini XII) flying as a non-commander. This was also the first mission to reunite crewmates from a previous mission (Lovell and Borman, Gemini VII).As of 2021, all three Apollo 8 astronauts remain alive.Backup crewThe backup crew assignment of Neil Armstrong as Commander, Lovell as CMP, and Buzz Aldrin as LMP for the third crewed Apollo flight was officially announced at the same time as the prime crew. When Lovell was reassigned to the prime crew, Aldrin was moved to CMP, and Fred Haise was brought in as backup LMP. Armstrong would later command Apollo11, with Aldrin as LMP and Collins as CMP. Haise served on the backup crew of Apollo11 as LMP and flew on Apollo13 as LMP.Support personnelDuring Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had a prime and a backup crew. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was added, known as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists, and mission ground rules, and ensured that the prime and backup crews were apprised of any changes. The support crew developed procedures in the simulators, especially those for emergency situations, so that the prime and backup crews could practice and master them in their simulator training. For Apollo8, the support crew consisted of Ken Mattingly, Vance Brand, and Gerald Carr.The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo8, the CAPCOMs were Michael Collins, Gerald Carr, Ken Mattingly, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Vance Brand, and Fred Haise.The mission control teams rotated in three shifts, each led by a flight director. The directors for Apollo8 were Clifford E. Charlesworth (Green team), Glynn Lunney (Black team), and Milton Windler (Maroon team).Mission insignia and callsignThe triangular shape of the insignia refers to the shape of the Apollo CM. It shows a red figure8 looping around the Earth and Moon to reflect both the mission number and the circumlunar nature of the mission. On the bottom of the8 are the names of the three astronauts. The initial design of the insignia was developed by Jim Lovell, who reportedly sketched it while riding in the back seat of a T-38 flight from California to Houston shortly after learning of Apollo8's re-designation as a lunar-orbital mission.The crew wanted to name their spacecraft, but NASA did not allow it. The crew would have likely chosen Columbiad, the name of the giant cannon that launches a space vehicle in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. The Apollo11 CM was named Columbia in part for that reason.PreparationsMission scheduleOn September 20, 1967, NASA adopted a seven-step plan for Apollo missions, with the final step being a Moon landing. Apollo4 and Apollo6 were "A" missions, tests of the SaturnV launch vehicle using an uncrewed Block I production model of the command and service module (CSM) in Earth orbit. Apollo5 was a "B" mission, a test of the LM in Earth orbit. Apollo7, scheduled for October 1968, would be a "C" mission, a crewed Earth-orbit flight of the CSM. Further missions depended on the readiness of the LM. It had been decided as early as May 1967 that there would be at least four additional missions. Apollo8 was planned as the "D" mission, a test of the LM in a low Earth orbit in December 1968 by James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweickart, while Borman's crew would fly the "E" mission, a more rigorous LM test in an elliptical medium Earth orbit as Apollo9, in early 1969. The "F" Mission would test the CSM and LM in lunar orbit, and the "G" mission would be the finale, the Moon landing.Production of the LM fell behind schedule, and when Apollo8's LM-3 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in June 1968, more than a hundred significant defects were discovered, leading Bob Gilruth, the director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), and others to conclude that there was no prospect of LM-3 being ready to fly in 1968. Indeed, it was possible that delivery would slip to February or March 1969. Following the original seven-step plan would have meant delaying the "D" and subsequent missions, and endangering the program's goal of a lunar landing before the end of 1969. George Low, the Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, proposed a solution in August 1968 to keep the program on track despite the LM delay. Since the next CSM (designated as "CSM-103") would be ready three months before LM-3, a CSM-only mission could be flown in December 1968. Instead of repeating the "C" mission flight of Apollo7, this CSM could be sent all the way to the Moon, with the possibility of entering a lunar orbit and returning to Earth. The new mission would also allow NASA to test lunar landing procedures that would otherwise have had to wait until Apollo10, the scheduled "F" mission. This also meant that the medium Earth orbit "E" mission could be dispensed with. The net result was that only the "D" mission had to be delayed, and the plan for lunar landing in mid-1969 could remain on timeline.On August 9, 1968, Low discussed the idea with Gilruth, Flight Director Chris Kraft, and the Director of Flight Crew Operations, Donald Slayton. They then flew to the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, where they met with KSC Director Kurt Debus, Apollo Program Director Samuel C. Phillips, Rocco Petrone, and Wernher von Braun. Kraft considered the proposal feasible from a flight control standpoint; Debus and Petrone agreed that the next Saturn V, AS-503, could be made ready by December 1; and von Braun was confident the pogo oscillation problems that had afflicted Apollo6 had been fixed. Almost every senior manager at NASA agreed with this new mission, citing confidence in both the hardware and the personnel, along with the potential for a circumlunar flight providing a significant morale boost. The only person who needed some convincing was James E. Webb, the NASA administrator. Backed by the full support of his agency, Webb authorized the mission. Apollo8 was officially changed from a "D" mission to a "C-Prime" lunar-orbit mission.With the change in mission for Apollo 8, Slayton asked McDivitt if he still wanted to fly it. McDivitt turned it down; his crew had spent a great deal of time preparing to test the LM, and that was what he still wanted to do. Slayton then decided to swap the prime and backup crews of the Dand Emissions. This swap also meant a swap of spacecraft, requiring Borman's crew to use CSM-103, while McDivitt's crew would use CSM-104, since CM-104 could not be made ready by December. David Scott was not happy about giving up CM-103, the testing of which he had closely supervised, for CM-104, although the two were almost identical, and Anders was less than enthusiastic about being an LMP on a flight with no LM. Instead, in order that the spacecraft would have the correct weight and balance, Apollo8 would carry  LM test article, a boilerplate model of LM-3.Added pressure on the Apollo program to make its 1969 landing goal was provided by the Soviet Union's Zond5 mission, which flew some living creatures, including Russian tortoises, in a cislunar loop around the Moon and returned them to Earth on September 21. There was speculation within NASA and the press that they might be preparing to launch cosmonauts on a similar circumlunar mission before the end of 1968.The Apollo 8 crew, now living in the crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center, received a visit from Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the night before the launch. They talked about how, before his 1927 flight, Lindbergh had used a piece of string to measure the distance from New York City to Paris on a globe and from that calculated the fuel needed for the flight. The total he had carried was a tenth of the amount that the Saturn V would burn every second. The next day, the Lindberghs watched the launch of Apollo8 from a nearby dune.Saturn V redesignThe Saturn V rocket used by Apollo8 was designated AS-503, or the "03rd" model of the SaturnV ("5") Rocket to be used in the Apollo-Saturn ("AS") program. When it was erected in the Vehicle Assembly Building on December 20, 1967, it was thought that the rocket would be used for an uncrewed Earth-orbit test flight carrying a boilerplate command and service module. Apollo6 had suffered several major problems during its April 1968 flight, including severe pogo oscillation during its first stage, two second-stage engine failures, and a third stage that failed to reignite in orbit. Without assurances that these problems had been rectified, NASA administrators could not justify risking a crewed mission until additional uncrewed test flights proved the Saturn V was ready.Teams from the MSFC went to work on the problems. Of primary concern was the pogo oscillation, which would not only hamper engine performance, but could exert significant g-forces on a crew. A task force of contractors, NASA agency representatives, and MSFC researchers concluded that the engines vibrated at a frequency similar to the frequency at which the spacecraft itself vibrated, causing a resonance effect that induced oscillations in the rocket. A system that used helium gas to absorb some of these vibrations was installed.Of equal importance was the failure of three engines during flight. Researchers quickly determined that a leaking hydrogen fuel line ruptured when exposed to vacuum, causing a loss of fuel pressure in engine two. When an automatic shutoff attempted to close the liquid hydrogen valve and shut down engine two, it had accidentally shut down engine three's liquid oxygen due to a miswired connection. As a result, engine three failed within one second of engine two's shutdown. Further investigation revealed the same problem for the third-stage engine—a faulty igniter line. The team modified the igniter lines and fuel conduits, hoping to avoid similar problems on future launches.The teams tested their solutions in August 1968 at the MSFC. A Saturn stage IC was equipped with shock-absorbing devices to demonstrate the team's solution to the problem of pogo oscillation, while a Saturn Stage II was retrofitted with modified fuel lines to demonstrate their resistance to leaks and ruptures in vacuum conditions. Once NASA administrators were convinced that the problems had been solved, they gave their approval for a crewed mission using AS-503.The Apollo 8 spacecraft was placed on top of the rocket on September 21, and the rocket made the slow  journey to the launch pad on October9. Testing continued all through December until the day before launch, including various levels of readiness testing from December5 through 11. Final testing of modifications to address the problems of pogo oscillation, ruptured fuel lines, and bad igniter lines took place on December 18, three days before the scheduled launch.MissionParameter summaryAs the first crewed spacecraft to orbit more than one celestial body, Apollo8's profile had two different sets of orbital parameters, separated by a translunar injection maneuver. Apollo lunar missions would begin with a nominal  circular Earth parking orbit. Apollo8 was launched into an initial orbit with an apogee of  and a perigee of , with an inclination of 32.51° to the Equator, and an orbital period of 88.19 minutes. Propellant venting increased the apogee by  over the 2hours, 44 minutes, and 30 seconds spent in the parking orbit.This was followed by a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn of the S-IVB third stage for 318 seconds, accelerating the  command and service module and  LM test article from an orbital velocity of  to the injection velocity of  which set a record for the highest speed, relative to Earth, that humans had ever traveled. This speed was slightly less than the Earth's escape velocity of , but put Apollo8 into an elongated elliptical Earth orbit, close enough to the Moon to be captured by the Moon's gravity.The standard lunar orbit for Apollo missions was planned as a nominal  circular orbit above the Moon's surface. Initial lunar orbit insertion was an ellipse with a perilune of  and an apolune of , at an inclination of 12° from the lunar equator. This was then circularized at , with an orbital period of 128.7 minutes. The effect of lunar mass concentrations ("mascons") on the orbit was found to be greater than initially predicted; over the course of the ten lunar orbits lasting twenty hours, the orbital distance was perturbated to .Apollo 8 achieved a maximum distance from Earth of .Launch and trans-lunar injectionApollo 8 was launched at 12:51:00 UTC (07:51:00 Eastern Standard Time) on December 21, 1968, using the Saturn V's three stages to achieve Earth orbit. The S-IC first stage landed in the Atlantic Ocean at , and the S-II second stage landed at . The S-IVB third stage injected the craft into Earth orbit and remained attached to perform the TLI burn that would put the spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon.Once the vehicle reached Earth orbit, both the crew and Houston flight controllers spent the next 2hours and 38 minutes checking that the spacecraft was in proper working order and ready for TLI. The proper operation of the S-IVB third stage of the rocket was crucial, and in the last uncrewed test, it had failed to reignite for this burn. Collins was the first CAPCOM on duty, and at 2hours, 27 minutes and 22 seconds after launch he radioed, "Apollo8. You are Go for TLI." This communication meant that Mission Control had given official permission for Apollo8 to go to the Moon. The S-IVB engine ignited on time and performed the TLI burn perfectly. Over the next five minutes, the spacecraft's speed increased from .After the S-IVB had placed the mission on course for the Moon, the command and service modules (CSM), the remaining Apollo8 spacecraft, separated from it. The crew then rotated the spacecraft to take photographs of the spent stage and then practiced flying in formation with it. As the crew rotated the spacecraft, they had their first views of the Earth as they moved away from it—this marked the first time humans had viewed the whole Earth at once. Borman became worried that the S-IVB was staying too close to the CSM and suggested to Mission Control that the crew perform a separation maneuver. Mission Control first suggested pointing the spacecraft towards Earth and using the small reaction control system (RCS) thrusters on the service module (SM) to add  to their velocity away from the Earth, but Borman did not want to lose sight of the S-IVB. After discussion, the crew and Mission Control decided to burn in the Earth direction to increase speed, but at  instead. The time needed to prepare and perform the additional burn put the crew an hour behind their onboard tasks.Five hours after launch, Mission Control sent a command to the S-IVB to vent its remaining fuel, changing its trajectory. The S-IVB, with the test article attached, posed no further hazard to Apollo8, passing the orbit of the Moon and going into a  solar orbit with an inclination of 23.47° from the plane of the ecliptic, and an orbital period of 340.80 days. It became a derelict object, and will continue to orbit the Sun for many years, if not retrieved.The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to pass through the Van Allen radiation belts, which extend up to  from Earth. Scientists predicted that passing through the belts quickly at the spacecraft's high speed would cause a radiation dosage of no more than a chest X-ray, or 1milligray (mGy; during a year, the average human receives a dose of 2to 3mGy). To record the actual radiation dosages, each crew member wore a Personal Radiation Dosimeter that transmitted data to Earth, as well as three passive film dosimeters that showed the cumulative radiation experienced by the crew. By the end of the mission, the crew members experienced an average radiation dose of 1.6 mGy.Lunar trajectoryLovell's main job as Command Module Pilot was as navigator. Although Mission Control normally performed all the actual navigation calculations, it was necessary to have a crew member adept at navigation so that the crew could return to Earth in case communication with Mission Control was lost. Lovell navigated by star sightings using a sextant built into the spacecraft, measuring the angle between a star and the Earth's (or the Moon's) horizon. This task was made difficult by a large cloud of debris around the spacecraft, which made it hard to distinguish the stars.By seven hours into the mission, the crew was about 1hour and 40 minutes behind flight plan because of the problems in moving away from the S-IVB and Lovell's obscured star sightings. The crew placed the spacecraft into Passive Thermal Control (PTC), also called "barbecue roll", in which the spacecraft rotated about once per hour around its long axis to ensure even heat distribution across the surface of the spacecraft. In direct sunlight, parts of the spacecraft's outer surface could be heated to over , while the parts in shadow would be . These temperatures could cause the heat shield to crack and propellant lines to burst. Because it was impossible to get a perfect roll, the spacecraft swept out a cone as it rotated. The crew had to make minor adjustments every half hour as the cone pattern got larger and larger.The first mid-course correction came eleven hours into the flight. The crew had been awake for more than 16 hours. Before launch, NASA had decided at least one crew member should be awake at all times to deal with problems that might arise. Borman started the first sleep shift but found sleeping difficult because of the constant radio chatter and mechanical noises. Testing on the ground had shown that the service propulsion system (SPS) engine had a small chance of exploding when burned for long periods unless its combustion chamber was "coated" first by burning the engine for a short period. This first correction burn was only 2.4 seconds and added about  velocity prograde (in the direction of travel). This change was less than the planned , because of a bubble of helium in the oxidizer lines, which caused unexpectedly low propellant pressure. The crew had to use the small RCS thrusters to make up the shortfall. Two later planned mid-course corrections were canceled because the Apollo8 trajectory was found to be perfect.About an hour after starting his sleep shift, Borman obtained permission from ground control to take a Seconal sleeping pill. The pill had little effect. Borman eventually fell asleep, and then awoke feeling ill. He vomited twice and had a bout of diarrhea; this left the spacecraft full of small globules of vomit and feces, which the crew cleaned up as well as they could. Borman initially did not want everyone to know about his medical problems, but Lovell and Anders wanted to inform Mission Control. The crew decided to use the Data Storage Equipment (DSE), which could tape voice recordings and telemetry and dump them to Mission Control at high speed. After recording a description of Borman's illness they asked Mission Control to check the recording, stating that they "would like an evaluation of the voice comments".The Apollo 8 crew and Mission Control medical personnel held a conference using an unoccupied second-floor control room (there were two identical control rooms in Houston, on the second and third floors, only one of which was used during a mission). The conference participants concluded that there was little to worry about and that Borman's illness was either a 24-hour flu, as Borman thought, or a reaction to the sleeping pill. Researchers now believe that he was suffering from space adaptation syndrome, which affects about a third of astronauts during their first day in space as their vestibular system adapts to weightlessness. Space adaptation syndrome had not occurred on previous spacecraft (Mercury and Gemini), because those astronauts could not move freely in the small cabins of those spacecraft. The increased cabin space in the Apollo command module afforded astronauts greater freedom of movement, contributing to symptoms of space sickness for Borman and, later, astronaut Rusty Schweickart during Apollo9.The cruise phase was a relatively uneventful part of the flight, except for the crew's checking that the spacecraft was in working order and that they were on course. During this time, NASA scheduled a television broadcast at 31 hours after launch. The Apollo8 crew used a  camera that broadcast in black-and-white only, using a Vidicon tube. The camera had two lenses, a very wide-angle (160°) lens, and a telephoto (9°) lens.During this first broadcast, the crew gave a tour of the spacecraft and attempted to show how the Earth appeared from space. However, difficulties aiming the narrow-angle lens without the aid of a monitor to show what it was looking at made showing the Earth impossible. Additionally, without proper filters, the Earth image became saturated by any bright source. In the end, all the crew could show the people watching back on Earth was a bright blob. After broadcasting for 17 minutes, the rotation of the spacecraft took the high-gain antenna out of view of the receiving stations on Earth and they ended the transmission with Lovell wishing his mother a happy birthday.By this time, the crew had completely abandoned the planned sleep shifts. Lovell went to sleep 32-and-a-half hours into the flight – three-and-a-half hours before he had planned to. A short while later, Anders also went to sleep after taking a sleeping pill. The crew was unable to see the Moon for much of the outward cruise. Two factors made the Moon almost impossible to see from inside the spacecraft: three of the five windows fogging up due to out-gassed oils from the silicone sealant, and the attitude required for passive thermal control. It was not until the crew had gone behind the Moon that they would be able to see it for the first time.Apollo 8 made a second television broadcast at 55 hours into the flight. This time, the crew rigged up filters meant for the still cameras so they could acquire images of the Earth through the telephoto lens. Although difficult to aim, as they had to maneuver the entire spacecraft, the crew was able to broadcast back to Earth the first television pictures of the Earth. The crew spent the transmission describing the Earth, what was visible, and the colors they could see. The transmission lasted 23 minutes.Lunar sphere of influenceAt about 55 hours and 40 minutes into the flight, and 13 hours before entering lunar orbit, the crew of Apollo8 became the first humans to enter the gravitational sphere of influence of another celestial body. In other words, the effect of the Moon's gravitational force on Apollo8 became stronger than that of the Earth. At the time it happened, Apollo8 was  from the Moon and had a speed of  relative to the Moon. This historic moment was of little interest to the crew, since they were still calculating their trajectory with respect to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. They would continue to do so until they performed their last mid-course correction, switching to a reference frame based on ideal orientation for the second engine burn they would make in lunar orbit.The last major event before Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) was a second mid-course correction. It was in retrograde (against the direction of travel) and slowed the spacecraft down by , effectively reducing the closest distance at which the spacecraft would pass the Moon. At exactly 61 hours after launch, about  from the Moon, the crew burned the RCS for 11 seconds. They would now pass  from the lunar surface.At 64 hours into the flight, the crew began to prepare for Lunar Orbit Insertion1 (LOI-1). This maneuver had to be performed perfectly, and due to orbital mechanics had to be on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with the Earth. After Mission Control was polled for a "go/no go" decision, the crew was told at 68 hours that they were Go and "riding the best bird we can find". Lovell replied, "We'll see you on the other side", and for the first time in history, humans travelled behind the Moon and out of radio contact with the Earth.With ten minutes remaining before LOI-1, the crew began one last check of the spacecraft systems and made sure that every switch was in its correct position. At that time, they finally got their first glimpses of the Moon. They had been flying over the unlit side, and it was Lovell who saw the first shafts of sunlight obliquely illuminating the lunar surface. The LOI burn was only two minutes away, so the crew had little time to appreciate the view.Lunar orbitThe SPS was ignited at 69 hours, 8minutes, and 16 seconds after launch and burned for 4minutes and 7seconds, placing the Apollo8 spacecraft in orbit around the Moon. The crew described the burn as being the longest four minutes of their lives. If the burn had not lasted exactly the correct amount of time, the spacecraft could have ended up in a highly elliptical lunar orbit or even been flung off into space. If it had lasted too long, they could have struck the Moon. After making sure the spacecraft was working, they finally had a chance to look at the Moon, which they would orbit for the next 20 hours.On Earth, Mission Control continued to wait. If the crew had not burned the engine, or the burn had not lasted the planned length of time, the crew would have appeared early from behind the Moon. Exactly at the calculated moment the signal was received from the spacecraft, indicating it was in a  orbit around the Moon.After reporting on the status of the spacecraft, Lovell gave the first description of what the lunar surface looked like:Lovell continued to describe the terrain they were passing over. One of the crew's major tasks was reconnaissance of planned future landing sites on the Moon, especially one in Mare Tranquillitatis that was planned as the Apollo11 landing site. The launch time of Apollo8 had been chosen to give the best lighting conditions for examining the site. A film camera had been set up in one of the spacecraft windows to record one frame per second of the Moon below. Bill Anders spent much of the next 20 hours taking as many photographs as possible of targets of interest. By the end of the mission, the crew had taken over eight hundred 70 mm still photographs and  of 16 mm movie film.Throughout the hour that the spacecraft was in contact with Earth, Borman kept asking how the data for the SPS looked. He wanted to make sure that the engine was working and could be used to return early to the Earth if necessary. He also asked that they receive a "go/no go" decision before they passed behind the Moon on each orbit.As they reappeared for their second pass in front of the Moon, the crew set up equipment to broadcast a view of the lunar surface. Anders described the craters that they were passing over. At the end of this second orbit, they performed an 11-second LOI-2 burn of the SPS to circularize the orbit to .Throughout the next two orbits, the crew continued to check the spacecraft and to observe and photograph the Moon. During the third pass, Borman read a small prayer for his church. He had been scheduled to participate in a service at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church near Seabrook, Texas, but due to the Apollo8 flight, he was unable to attend. A fellow parishioner and engineer at Mission Control, Rod Rose, suggested that Borman read the prayer, which could be recorded and then replayed during the service.EarthriseWhen the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front, the crew witnessed an "Earthrise" in person for the first time in human history. NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 had taken the first picture of an Earthrise from the vicinity of the Moon, on August 23, 1966. Anders saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon and called in excitement to the others, taking a black-and-white photograph as he did so. Anders asked Lovell for color film and then took Earthrise, a now famous color photo, later picked by Life magazine as one of its hundred photos of the century.Due to the synchronous rotation of the Moon about the Earth, Earthrise is not generally visible from the lunar surface. This is because, as seen from any one place on the Moon's surface, Earth remains in approximately the same position in the lunar sky, either above or below the horizon. Earthrise is generally visible only while orbiting the Moon, and at selected surface locations near the Moon's limb, where libration carries the Earth slightly above and below the lunar horizon.Anders continued to take photographs while Lovell assumed control of the spacecraft so that Borman could rest. Despite the difficulty resting in the cramped and noisy spacecraft, Borman was able to sleep for two orbits, awakening periodically to ask questions about their status. Borman awoke fully when he started to hear his fellow crew members make mistakes. They were beginning to not understand questions and had to ask for the answers to be repeated. Borman realized that everyone was extremely tired from not having a good night's sleep in over three days. He ordered Anders and Lovell to get some sleep and that the rest of the flight plan regarding observing the Moon be scrubbed. Anders initially protested, saying that he was fine, but Borman would not be swayed. Anders finally agreed under the condition that Borman would set up the camera to continue to take automatic pictures of the Moon. Borman also remembered that there was a second television broadcast planned, and with so many people expected to be watching, he wanted the crew to be alert. For the next two orbits, Anders and Lovell slept while Borman sat at the helm.As they rounded the Moon for the ninth time, the astronauts began the second television transmission. Borman introduced the crew, followed by each man giving his impression of the lunar surface and what it was like to be orbiting the Moon. Borman described it as being "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing". Then, after talking about what they were flying over, Anders said that the crew had a message for all those on Earth. Each man on board read a section from the Biblical creation story from the Book of Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone on Earth. His message appeared to sum up the feelings that all three crewmen had from their vantage point in lunar orbit. Borman said, "And from the crew of Apollo8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth."The only task left for the crew at this point was to perform the trans-Earth injection (TEI), which was scheduled for  hours after the end of the television transmission. The TEI was the most critical burn of the flight, as any failure of the SPS to ignite would strand the crew in lunar orbit, with little hope of escape. As with the previous burn, the crew had to perform the maneuver above the far side of the Moon, out of contact with Earth. The burn occurred exactly on time. The spacecraft telemetry was reacquired as it re-emerged from behind the Moon at 89 hours, 28 minutes, and 39 seconds, the exact time calculated. When voice contact was regained, Lovell announced, "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus", to which Ken Mattingly, the current CAPCOM, replied, "That's affirmative, you are the best ones to know." The spacecraft began its journey back to Earth on December 25, Christmas Day.Unplanned manual realignmentLater, Lovell used some otherwise idle time to do some navigational sightings, maneuvering the module to view various stars by using the computer keyboard. He accidentally erased some of the computer's memory, which caused the inertial measurement unit (IMU) to contain data indicating that the module was in the same relative orientation it had been in before lift-off; the IMU then fired the thrusters to "correct" the module's attitude.Once the crew realized why the computer had changed the module's attitude, they realized that they would have to reenter data to tell the computer the module's actual orientation. It took Lovell ten minutes to figure out the right numbers, using the thrusters to get the stars Rigel and Sirius aligned, and another 15 minutes to enter the corrected data into the computer. Sixteen months later, during the Apollo13 mission, Lovell would have to perform a similar manual realignment under more critical conditions after the module's IMU had to be turned off to conserve energy.Cruise back to Earth and reentryThe cruise back to Earth was mostly a time for the crew to relax and monitor the spacecraft. As long as the trajectory specialists had calculated everything correctly, the spacecraft would reenter Earth's atmosphere two-and-a-half days after TEI and splash down in the Pacific.On Christmas afternoon, the crew made their fifth television broadcast. This time, they gave a tour of the spacecraft, showing how an astronaut lived in space. When they finished broadcasting, they found a small present from Slayton in the food locker: a real turkey dinner with stuffing, in the same kind of pack given to the troops in Vietnam.Another Slayton surprise was a gift of three miniature bottles of brandy, which Borman ordered the crew to leave alone until after they landed. They remained unopened, even years after the flight. There were also small presents to the crew from their wives. The next day, at about 124 hours into the mission, the sixth and final TV transmission showed the mission's best video images of the Earth, during a four-minute broadcast. After two uneventful days, the crew prepared for reentry. The computer would control the reentry, and all the crew had to do was put the spacecraft in the correct attitude, with the blunt end forward. In the event of computer failure, Borman was ready to take over.Separation from the service module prepared the command module for reentry by exposing the heat shield and shedding unneeded mass. The service module would burn up in the atmosphere as planned. Six minutes before they hit the top of the atmosphere, the crew saw the Moon rising above the Earth's horizon, just as had been calculated by the trajectory specialists. As the module hit the thin outer atmosphere, the crew noticed that it was becoming hazy outside as glowing plasma formed around the spacecraft. The spacecraft started slowing down, and the deceleration peaked at . With the computer controlling the descent by changing the attitude of the spacecraft, Apollo8 rose briefly like a skipping stone before descending to the ocean. At , the drogue parachute deployed, stabilizing the spacecraft, followed at  by the three main parachutes. The spacecraft splashdown position was officially reported as  in the North Pacific Ocean, southwest of Hawaii at 15:51:42 UTC on December 27, 1968.When the spacecraft hit the water, the parachutes dragged it over and left it upside down, in what was termed Stable2 position. As they were buffeted by a  swell, Borman was sick, waiting for the three flotation balloons to right the spacecraft. About six minutes after splashdown, the command module was righted into a normal apex-up (Stable 1) orientation by its inflatable bag uprighting system. The first frogman from aircraft carrier  arrived 43 minutes after splashdown. Forty-five minutes later, the crew was safe on the flight deck of the Yorktown.LegacyHistorical importanceApollo 8 came at the end of 1968, a year that had seen much upheaval in the United States and most of the world. Even though the year saw political assassinations, political unrest in the streets of Europe and America, and the Prague Spring, Time magazine chose the crew of Apollo8 as its Men of the Year for 1968, recognizing them as the people who most influenced events in the preceding year. They had been the first people ever to leave the gravitational influence of the Earth and orbit another celestial body. They had survived a mission that even the crew themselves had rated as having only a fifty-fifty chance of fully succeeding. The effect of Apollo8 was summed up in a telegram from a stranger, received by Borman after the mission, that stated simply, "Thank you Apollo8. You saved 1968."One of the most famous aspects of the flight was the Earthrise picture that the crew took as they came around for their fourth orbit of the Moon. This was the first time that humans had taken such a picture while actually behind the camera, and it has been credited as one of the inspirations of the first Earth Day in 1970. It was selected as the first of Life magazine's 100 Photographs That Changed the World.Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins said, "Eight's momentous historic significance was foremost"; while space historian Robert K. Poole saw Apollo8 as the most historically significant of all the Apollo missions. The mission was the most widely covered by the media since the first American orbital flight, Mercury-Atlas 6 by John Glenn, in 1962. There were 1,200 journalists covering the mission, with the BBC's coverage broadcast in 54 countries in 15 different languages. The Soviet newspaper Pravda featured a quote from Boris Nikolaevich Petrov, Chairman of the Soviet Interkosmos program, who described the flight as an "outstanding achievement of American space sciences and technology". It is estimated that a quarter of the people alive at the time saw—either live or delayed—the Christmas Eve transmission during the ninth orbit of the Moon. The Apollo8 broadcasts won an Emmy Award, the highest honor given by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.Madalyn Murray O'Hair, an atheist, later caused controversy by bringing a lawsuit against NASA over the reading from Genesis. O'Hair wanted the courts to ban American astronauts—who were all government employees—from public prayer in space. Though the case was rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States, apparently for lack of jurisdiction in outer space, it caused NASA to be skittish about the issue of religion throughout the rest of the Apollo program. Buzz Aldrin, on Apollo11, self-communicated Presbyterian Communion on the surface of the Moon after landing; he refrained from mentioning this publicly for several years and referred to it only obliquely at the time.In 1969, the United States Post Office Department issued a postage stamp (Scott catalogue #1371) commemorating the Apollo8 flight around the Moon. The stamp featured a detail of the famous photograph of the Earthrise over the Moon taken by Anders on Christmas Eve, and the words, "In the beginning God...", the first words of the book of Genesis. In January 1969, just 18 days after the crew's return to Earth, they appeared in the Super Bowl III pre-game show, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, before the national anthem was performed by trumpeter Lloyd Geisler of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra.Spacecraft locationIn January 1970, the spacecraft was delivered to Osaka, Japan, for display in the U.S. pavilion at Expo '70. It is now displayed at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, along with a collection of personal items from the flight donated by Lovell and the space suit worn by Frank Borman. Jim Lovell's Apollo8 space suit is on public display in the Visitor Center at NASA's Glenn Research Center. Bill Anders's space suit is on display at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom.In popular cultureApollo 8's historic mission has been depicted and referred to in several forms, both documentary and fiction. The various television transmissions and 16 mm footage shot by the crew of Apollo8 were compiled and released by NASA in the 1969 documentary Debrief: Apollo8, hosted by Burgess Meredith. In addition, Spacecraft Films released, in 2003, a three-disc DVD set containing all of NASA's TV and 16 mm film footage related to the mission, including all TV transmissions from space, training and launch footage, and motion pictures taken in flight. Other documentaries include "Race to the Moon" (2005) as part of season 18 of American Experience and In the Shadow of the Moon (2007). Apollo's Daring Mission aired on PBS' Nova in December 2018, marking the flight's 50th anniversary.Parts of the mission are dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode "1968". The S-IVB stage of Apollo8 was also portrayed as the location of an alien device in the 1970 UFO episode "Conflict". Apollo8's lunar orbit insertion was chronicled with actual recordings in the song "The Other Side", on the 2015 album The Race for Space, by the band Public Service Broadcasting.In the credits of the animated film Free Birds (2013) a newspaper front page about the Apollo 8 mission is doctored to read: "As one of the most turbulent, tragic years in American history drew to a close, millions around the world were watching and listening as the Apollo 8 astronauts – Frank Gobbler, Jim Snood, and Bill Wattles – became the first turkeys to orbit another world."A documentary film, First to the Moon: The Journey of Apollo 8 was released in 2018.The choral music piece Earthrise by Luke Byrne commemorates the mission. The piece was premièred on January 19, 2020, by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs at the Sydney Opera House.NotesReferencesBibliographyExternal links "Apollo 8" at Encyclopedia Astronautica  Article about the 40th anniversary of Apollo8Multimedia Apollo 8: Go for TLI 1969 NASA film at the Internet Archive Debrief: Apollo 8 1969 NASA film at the Internet Archive "Apollo 07 and 08 16mm Onboard Film (1968)" raw footage taken from Apollos 7and8 at the Internet Archive Apollo 8 Around the Moon and Back 2018 YouTube video Apollo 08Crewed missions to the MoonSpacecraft launched in 19681968 in the United StatesSpacecraft which reentered in 1968December 1968 eventsSpacecraft launched by Saturn rocketsJim LovellWilliam AndersFrank Borman
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek  (), meaning 'star', and  (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists."Astronaut" technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality or allegiance; however, astronauts fielded by Russia or the Soviet Union are typically known instead as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" (космос), meaning "space", also borrowed from Greek) in order to distinguish them from American or otherwise NATO-oriented space travellers. Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin "tàikōng" (), meaning "space"), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China, the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps astronauts and their foreign counterparts are all officially called hángtiānyuán (, meaning "heaven navigator" or literally "heaven-sailing staff").Since 1961, 600 astronauts have flown in space.  Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.Definition The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of . In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of  are awarded astronaut wings., 552 people from 36 countries have reached  or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon. Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice., under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above  altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded  in altitude, only one, Joseph A. Walker, exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62.1 miles) and he did it two times, becoming the first person in space twice. Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks. , the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space. Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.TerminologyIn 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts. Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in and to the broader cosmos, while the "astro" prefix suggested flight specifically to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term. When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".AstronautA professional space traveler is called an astronaut. The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps. The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.CosmonautBy convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts. The word is an Anglicization of kosmonavt ( ). Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian kosmonavt, such as the  (although Polish also uses , and the two words are considered synonyms).Coinage of the term  has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974). The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Russians, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961. Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963. On 14 March 1995, Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".TaikonautIn Chinese, the term  (, "cosmos navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general, while  (, "navigating celestial-heaven personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here,  (, literally "heaven-navigating", or spaceflight) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. Solar System. The phrase  (, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China. The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, and the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih () from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.ParastronautFor its 2022 Astronaut Group, ESA envisions recruiting an astronaut with a physical disability, a category they called "parastronauts", with the intention but not guarantee of spaceflight. The categories of disability considered for the program were individuals with lower limb deficiency (either through amputation or congenital), leg length difference, or a short stature (less than ).Other termsWith the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a crewed spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, e.g. the Soviet-led Interkosmos program. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut () is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word  for "space"; the Malay term  (deriving from angkasa meaning 'space') was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program (note its similarity with the Indonesian term antariksawan). Plans of the Indian Space Research Organisation to launch its crewed Gaganyaan spacecraft have spurred at times public discussion if another term than astronaut should be used for the crew members, suggesting vyomanaut (from the Sanskrit word / meaning 'sky' or 'space') or gagannaut (from the Sanskrit word  for 'sky'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as , from the Finnish word . Across Germanic languages, "astronaut" is used in conjunction with locally derived words like German's Raumfahrer, Dutch's ruimtevaarder, Swedish's rymdfarare and Norwegian's romfarer.As of 2021 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency: one who flies in a vehicle above  for NASA or the military is considered an astronaut (with no qualifier) one who flies in a vehicle to the International Space Station in a mission coordinated by NASA and Roscosmos is a spaceflight participant one who flies above  in a non-NASA vehicle as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety, or contribute to human space flight safety, is considered a commercial astronaut by the Federal Aviation Administration one who flies to the International Space Station as part of a "privately funded, dedicated commercial spaceflight on a commercial launch vehicle dedicated to the mission ... to conduct approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station (or in a commercial segment attached to the station)" is considered a private astronaut by NASA (as of 2020, nobody has yet qualified for this status) a generally-accepted but unofficial term for a paying non-crew passenger who flies a private non-NASA or military vehicles above  is a space tourist (as of 2020, nobody has yet qualified for this status)On July 20, 2021, the FAA issued an order redefining the eligibility criteria to be an astronaut in response to the private suborbital spaceflights of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. The new criteria states that one must have "[d]emonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed tohuman space flight safety" in order to qualify as an astronaut. This new definition excludes Bezos and Branson.Space travel milestonesThe first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on 12 April 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on 16 June 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on 5 May 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on 20 February 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on 18 June 1983. In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on 18 March 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission. This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.The first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on 2 April 1984.On 23 July 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37. Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space. The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985. In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space. In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station.With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft. In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of eight Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant. In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.On 15 October 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.On 30 May 2020, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken became the first astronauts to launch on a private crewed spacecraft, Crew Dragon.Age milestonesThe youngest person to reach space is Oliver Daemen, who was 18 years and 11 months old when he made a suborbital spaceflight lasting 7 minutes on July 20, 2021. Daemen, who was a commercial passenger aboard the New Shepard, broke the record of Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. Titov remains the youngest human to reach orbit; he rounded the planet 17 times. Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness and the first person to sleep in space, twice.On the same flight as Daemen was 82 year, 6-month-old Wally Funk, one of the women dubbed the Mercury 13, and now the oldest person in space. She is the first of the Mercury 13 to reach space, although the group was trained concurrently with the all-male Mercury 7, who would all engage in space travel. The oldest person to reach orbit is John Glenn, one of the Mercury 7, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95. For suborbital age records, see .Duration and distance milestones438 days is the longest time spent in space, by Russian Valeri Polyakov.As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was , when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.Civilian and non-government milestonesThe first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the  line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight. Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight.The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983. In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler and the first journalist in space for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut". Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on 28 April 2001.Self-funded travelersThe first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist. Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space: Dennis Tito (American): 28 April – 6 May 2001 (ISS) Mark Shuttleworth (South African): 25 April – 5 May 2002 (ISS) Gregory Olsen (American): 1–11 October 2005 (ISS) Anousheh Ansari (Iranian / American): 18–29 September 2006 (ISS) Charles Simonyi (Hungarian / American): 7–21 April 2007 (ISS), 26 March – 8 April 2009 (ISS) Richard Garriott (British / American): 12–24 October 2008 (ISS) Guy Laliberté (Canadian): 30 September 2009 – 11 October 2009 (ISS) Jared Isaacman (American): 15–18 September 2021 (Free Flier) Yusaku Maezawa (Japanese): 8 – 24 December 2021 (ISS)TrainingThe first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959. Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection. Selection was initially limited to military pilots. The earliest astronauts for both the US and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights. Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center. Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.NASA candidacy requirements The candidate must be a citizen of the United States. The candidate must complete a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics. The candidate must have at least two years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion or at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time on jet aircraft. The candidate must be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical. The candidate must also have skills in leadership, teamwork and communications.The master's degree requirement can also be met by: Two years of work toward a doctoral program in a related science, technology, engineering or math field. A completed Doctor of Medicine or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. Completion of a nationally recognized test pilot school program.Mission Specialist Educator Applicants must have a bachelor's degree with teaching experience, including work at the kindergarten through twelfth grade level. An advanced degree, such as a master's degree or a doctoral degree, is not required, but is strongly desired.Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist.The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s.Health risks of space travelAstronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury. A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space. More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space. Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.On 31 December 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).On 2 November 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.A study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centers. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.A 2020 study conducted on the brains of eight male Russian cosmonauts after they returned from long stays aboard the International Space Station showed that long-duration spaceflight causes many physiological adaptions, including macro- and microstructural changes. While scientists still know little about the effects of spaceflight on brain structure, this study showed that space travel can lead to new motor skills (dexterity), but also slightly weaker vision, both of which could possibly be long lasting. It was the first study to provide clear evidence of sensorimotor neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to change through growth and reorganization.Food and drinkAn astronaut on the International Space Station requires about  mass of food per meal each day (inclusive of about  packaging mass per meal).Space Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appealed to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus were selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment. Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula. On Earth, the average American uses about  of water every day. On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about  per day.InsigniaIn Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation. This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed  in altitude.Deaths , eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American, four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli., eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.Astronaut David Scott left a memorial consisting of a statuette titled Fallen Astronaut on the surface of the Moon during his 1971 Apollo 15 mission, along with a list of the names of eight of the astronauts and six cosmonauts known at the time to have died in service.The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, is maintained by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of an X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.See alsoNotesReferencesExternal links   NASA: How to become an astronaut 101  List of International partnership organizations  Encyclopedia Astronautica: Phantom cosmonauts collectSPACE: Astronaut appearances calendar spacefacts Spacefacts.de Manned astronautics: facts and figures Astronaut Candidate Brochure online  Science occupations1959 introductions
A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. The essay suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor, predominantly Irish Catholic (i.e., "Papists") as well as British policy toward the Irish in general.In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire.SynopsisSwift's essay is widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its shock value derives from the fact that the first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving beggars in Ireland, so that the reader is unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states: "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."Swift goes to great lengths to support his argument, including a list of possible preparation styles for the children, and calculations showing the financial benefits of his suggestion. He uses methods of argument throughout his essay which lampoon the then-influential William Petty and the social engineering popular among followers of Francis Bacon. These lampoons include appealing to the authority of "a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London" and "the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa" (who had already confessed to not being from Formosa in 1706).In the tradition of Roman satire, Swift introduces the reforms he is actually suggesting by paralipsis:Population solutionsGeorge Wittkowsky argued that Swift's main target in A Modest Proposal was not the conditions in Ireland, but rather the can-do spirit of the times that led people to devise a number of illogical schemes that would purportedly solve social and economic ills. Swift was especially attacking projects that tried to fix population and labour issues with a simple cure-all solution. A memorable example of these sorts of schemes "involved the idea of running the poor through a joint-stock company". In response, Swift's Modest Proposal was "a burlesque of projects concerning the poor" that were in vogue during the early 18th century.A Modest Proposal also targets the calculating way people perceived the poor in designing their projects. The pamphlet targets reformers who "regard people as commodities". In the piece, Swift adopts the "technique of a political arithmetician" to show the utter ridiculousness of trying to prove any proposal with dispassionate statistics.Critics differ about Swift's intentions in using this faux-mathematical philosophy. Edmund Wilson argues that statistically "the logic of the 'Modest proposal' can be compared with defence of crime (arrogated to Marx) in which he argues that crime takes care of the superfluous population". Wittkowsky counters that Swift's satiric use of statistical analysis is an effort to enhance his satire that "springs from a spirit of bitter mockery, not from the delight in calculations for their own sake".RhetoricAuthor Charles K. Smith argues that Swift's rhetorical style persuades the reader to detest the speaker and pity the Irish. Swift's specific strategy is twofold, using a "trap" to create sympathy for the Irish and a dislike of the narrator who, in the span of one sentence, "details vividly and with rhetorical emphasis the grinding poverty" but feels emotion solely for members of his own class. Swift's use of gripping details of poverty and his narrator's cool approach towards them create "two opposing points of view" that "alienate the reader, perhaps unconsciously, from a narrator who can view with 'melancholy' detachment a subject that Swift has directed us, rhetorically, to see in a much less detached way."Swift has his proposer further degrade the Irish by using language ordinarily reserved for animals. Lewis argues that the speaker uses "the vocabulary of animal husbandry" to describe the Irish. Once the children have been commodified, Swift's rhetoric can easily turn "people into animals, then meat, and from meat, logically, into tonnage worth a price per pound".Swift uses the proposer's serious tone to highlight the absurdity of his proposal. In making his argument, the speaker uses the conventional, textbook-approved order of argument from Swift's time (which was derived from the Latin rhetorician Quintilian). The contrast between the "careful control against the almost inconceivable perversion of his scheme" and "the ridiculousness of the proposal" create a situation in which the reader has "to consider just what perverted values and assumptions would allow such a diligent, thoughtful, and conventional man to propose so perverse a plan".InfluencesScholars have speculated about which earlier works Swift may have had in mind when he wrote A Modest Proposal.Tertullian's ApologyJames William Johnson argues that A Modest Proposal was largely influenced and inspired by Tertullian's Apology: a satirical attack against early Roman persecution of Christianity. Johnson believes that Swift saw major similarities between the two situations. Johnson notes Swift's obvious affinity for Tertullian and the bold stylistic and structural similarities between the works A Modest Proposal and Apology. In structure, Johnson points out the same central theme, that of cannibalism and the eating of babies as well as the same final argument, that "human depravity is such that men will attempt to justify their own cruelty by accusing their victims of being lower than human". Stylistically, Swift and Tertullian share the same command of sarcasm and language. In agreement with Johnson, Donald C. Baker points out the similarity between both authors' tones and use of irony. Baker notes the uncanny way that both authors imply an ironic "justification by ownership" over the subject of sacrificing children—Tertullian while attacking pagan parents, and Swift while attacking the English mistreatment of the Irish poor.Defoe's The Generous ProjectorIt has also been argued that A Modest Proposal was, at least in part, a response to the 1728 essay The Generous Projector or, A Friendly Proposal to Prevent Murder and Other Enormous Abuses, By Erecting an Hospital for Foundlings and Bastard Children by Swift's rival Daniel Defoe.Mandeville's Modest Defence of Publick Stews Bernard Mandeville's Modest Defence of Publick Stews asked to introduce public and state controlled bordellos. The 1726 paper acknowledges women's interests andwhile not being a completely satirical texthas also been discussed as an inspiration for Jonathan Swift's title. Mandeville had by 1705 already become famous for the Fable of The Bees and deliberations on private vices and public benefits.John Locke's First Treatise of Government John Locke commented: "Be it then as Sir Robert says, that Anciently, it was usual for Men to sell and Castrate their Children. Let it be, that they exposed them; Add to it, if you please, for this is still greater Power, that they begat them for their Tables to fat and eat them: If this proves a right to do so, we may, by the same Argument, justifie Adultery, Incest and Sodomy, for there are examples of these too, both Ancient and Modern; Sins, which I suppose, have the Principle Aggravation from this, that they cross the main intention of Nature, which willeth the increase of Mankind, and the continuation of the Species in the highest perfection, and the distinction of Families, with the Security of the Marriage Bed, as necessary thereunto". (First Treatise, sec. 59).Economic themesRobert Phiddian's article "Have you eaten yet? The Reader in A Modest Proposal" focuses on two aspects of A Modest Proposal: the voice of Swift and the voice of the Proposer. Phiddian stresses that a reader of the pamphlet must learn to distinguish between the satirical voice of Jonathan Swift and the apparent economic projections of the Proposer. He reminds readers that "there is a gap between the narrator's meaning and the text's, and that a moral-political argument is being carried out by means of parody".While Swift's proposal is obviously not a serious economic proposal, George Wittkowsky, author of "Swift's Modest Proposal: The Biography of an Early Georgian Pamphlet", argues that to understand the piece fully it is important to understand the economics of Swift's time. Wittowsky argues that not enough critics have taken the time to focus directly on the mercantilism and theories of labour in 18th century England. "If one regards the Modest Proposal simply as a criticism of condition, about all one can say is that conditions were bad and that Swift's irony brilliantly underscored this fact"."People are the riches of a nation"At the start of a new industrial age in the 18th century, it was believed that "people are the riches of the nation", and there was a general faith in an economy that paid its workers low wages because high wages meant workers would work less. Furthermore, "in the mercantilist view no child was too young to go into industry". In those times, the "somewhat more humane attitudes of an earlier day had all but disappeared and the laborer had come to be regarded as a commodity".Louis A. Landa composed a conducive analysis when he noted that it would have been healthier for the Irish economy to more appropriately utilize their human assets by giving the people an opportunity to "become a source of wealth to the nation" or else they "must turn to begging and thievery". This opportunity may have included giving the farmers more coin to work for, diversifying their professions, or even consider enslaving their people to lower coin usage and build up financial stock in Ireland. Landa wrote that, "Swift is maintaining that the maxim—people are the riches of a nation—applies to Ireland only if Ireland is permitted slavery or cannibalism"Landa presents Swift's A Modest Proposal as a critique of the popular and unjustified maxim of mercantilism in the 18th century that "people are the riches of a nation". Swift presents the dire state of Ireland and shows that mere population itself, in Ireland's case, did not always mean greater wealth and economy. The uncontrolled maxim fails to take into account that a person who does not produce in an economic or political way makes a country poorer, not richer. Swift also recognises the implications of this fact in making mercantilist philosophy a paradox: the wealth of a country is based on the poverty of the majority of its citizens. Swift however, Landa argues, is not merely criticising economic maxims but also addressing the fact that England was denying Irish citizens their natural rights and dehumanising them by viewing them as a mere commodity.The public's reaction Swift's essay created a backlash within the community after its publication. The work was aimed at the aristocracy, and they responded in turn. Several members of society wrote to Swift regarding the work. Lord Bathurst's letter intimated that he certainly understood the message, and interpreted it as a work of comedy:12 February 1729–30:Modern usageA Modest Proposal is included in many literature courses as an example of early modern western satire. It also serves as an introduction to the concept and use of argumentative language, lending itself to secondary and post-secondary essay courses. Outside of the realm of English studies, A Modest Proposal is included in many comparative and global literature and history courses, as well as those of numerous other disciplines in the arts, humanities, and even the social sciences.The essay's approach has been copied many times. In his book A Modest Proposal (1984), the evangelical author Francis Schaeffer emulated Swift's work in a social conservative polemic against abortion and euthanasia, imagining a future dystopia that advocates recycling of aborted embryos, fetuses, and some disabled infants with compound intellectual, physical and physiological difficulties. (Such Baby Doe Rules cases were then a major concern of the US anti-abortion movement of the early 1980s, which viewed selective treatment of those infants as disability discrimination.) In his book A Modest Proposal for America (2013), statistician Howard Friedman opens with a satirical reflection of the extreme drive to fiscal stability by ultra-conservatives.In the 1998 edition of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood there is a quote from A Modest Proposal before the introduction.A Modest Video Game Proposal is the title of an open letter sent by activist/former attorney Jack Thompson on 10 October 2005. He proposed that someone should "create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game" that would allow players to act out a scenario in which the game character kills video game developers.Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist includes a letter in which he uses Swift's approach in connection with the Vietnam War. Thompson writes a letter to a local Aspen newspaper informing them that, on Christmas Eve, he is going to use napalm to burn a number of dogs and hopefully any humans they find. The letter protests against the burning of Vietnamese people occurring overseas.The 2013 horror film Butcher Boys, written by the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre scribe Kim Henkel, is said to be an updating of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Henkel imagined the descendants of folks who actually took Swift up on his proposal.  The film opens with a quote from J. Swift. On 30 November 2017, Jonathan Swift's 350th birthday, The Washington Post published a column entitled "Why Alabamians should consider eating Democrats' babies", by Alexandra Petri.In July 2019, E. Jean Carroll published a book titled What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, discussing problematic behaviour of male humans.On 3 October 2019, a satirist spoke up at an event for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, claiming that a solution to the climate crisis was "we need to eat the babies". The individual also wore a T-shirt saying "Save The Planet, Eat The Children". This stunt was understood by many as a modern application of A Modest Proposal.On 16 January 2022, San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial by Joe Matthews titled "Opinion: Want true equity? I propose, modestly, forcing California parents to swap children" in which the author makes "a modest proposal" recommending that rich people give their children to poor people and poor people give their children to rich people as a way of achieving class equity.NotesReferences   (subscription needed)External links A Modest Proposal (CELT) A Modest Proposal (Gutenberg) A Modest Proposal – Annotated text aligned to Common Core Standards  A Modest Proposal BBC Radio 4 In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg 'A modest proposal For preventing the children of poor people From being a Burthen to their Parents or the Country, And for making them Beneficial to the publick. The Third Edition, Dublin, Printed: And Reprinted at London, for Weaver Bickerton, in Devereux-Court near the Middle-Temple, 1730. Proposal to eat the children a short movie based upon Swift's novel.Essays by Jonathan SwiftSatirical essaysPamphlets18th-century essaysWorks published anonymouslyBritish satire1729 in Great BritainCannibalism in fiction1729 books
The alkali metals consist of the chemical elements lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), caesium (Cs), and francium (Fr). Together with hydrogen they constitute group 1, which lies in the s-block of the periodic table. All alkali metals have their outermost electron in an s-orbital: this shared electron configuration results in their having very similar characteristic properties. Indeed, the alkali metals provide the best example of group trends in properties in the periodic table, with elements exhibiting well-characterised homologous behaviour. This family of elements is also known as the lithium family after its leading element.The alkali metals are all shiny, soft, highly reactive metals at standard temperature and pressure and readily lose their outermost electron to form cations with charge +1. They can all be cut easily with a knife due to their softness, exposing a shiny surface that tarnishes rapidly in air due to oxidation by atmospheric moisture and oxygen (and in the case of lithium, nitrogen). Because of their high reactivity, they must be stored under oil to prevent reaction with air, and are found naturally only in salts and never as the free elements. Caesium, the fifth alkali metal, is the most reactive of all the metals. All the alkali metals react with water, with the heavier alkali metals reacting more vigorously than the lighter ones.All of the discovered alkali metals occur in nature as their compounds: in order of abundance, sodium is the most abundant, followed by potassium, lithium, rubidium, caesium, and finally francium, which is very rare due to its extremely high radioactivity; francium occurs only in minute traces in nature as an intermediate step in some obscure side branches of the natural decay chains. Experiments have been conducted to attempt the synthesis of ununennium (Uue), which is likely to be the next member of the group; none was successful. However, ununennium may not be an alkali metal due to relativistic effects, which are predicted to have a large influence on the chemical properties of superheavy elements; even if it does turn out to be an alkali metal, it is predicted to have some differences in physical and chemical properties from its lighter homologues.Most alkali metals have many different applications. One of the best-known applications of the pure elements is the use of rubidium and caesium in atomic clocks, of which caesium atomic clocks form the basis of the second. A common application of the compounds of sodium is the sodium-vapour lamp, which emits light very efficiently. Table salt, or sodium chloride, has been used since antiquity. Lithium finds use as a psychiatric medication and as an anode in lithium batteries. Sodium and potassium are also essential elements, having major biological roles as electrolytes, and although the other alkali metals are not essential, they also have various effects on the body, both beneficial and harmful.History Sodium compounds have been known since ancient times; salt (sodium chloride) has been an important commodity in human activities, as testified by the English word salary, referring to salarium, money paid to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt. While potash has been used since ancient times, it was not understood for most of its history to be a fundamentally different substance from sodium mineral salts. Georg Ernst Stahl obtained experimental evidence which led him to suggest the fundamental difference of sodium and potassium salts in 1702, and Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau was able to prove this difference in 1736. The exact chemical composition of potassium and sodium compounds, and the status as chemical element of potassium and sodium, was not known then, and thus Antoine Lavoisier did not include either alkali in his list of chemical elements in 1789.Pure potassium was first isolated in 1807 in England by Humphry Davy, who derived it from caustic potash (KOH, potassium hydroxide) by the use of electrolysis of the molten salt with the newly invented voltaic pile. Previous attempts at electrolysis of the aqueous salt were unsuccessful due to potassium's extreme reactivity. Potassium was the first metal that was isolated by electrolysis. Later that same year, Davy reported extraction of sodium from the similar substance caustic soda (NaOH, lye) by a similar technique, demonstrating the elements, and thus the salts, to be different.Petalite (Li Al Si4O10) was discovered in 1800 by the Brazilian chemist José Bonifácio de Andrada in a mine on the island of Utö, Sweden. However, it was not until 1817 that Johan August Arfwedson, then working in the laboratory of the chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, detected the presence of a new element while analysing petalite ore. This new element was noted by him to form compounds similar to those of sodium and potassium, though its carbonate and hydroxide were less soluble in water and more alkaline than the other alkali metals. Berzelius gave the unknown material the name "lithion/lithina", from the Greek word λιθoς (transliterated as lithos, meaning "stone"), to reflect its discovery in a solid mineral, as opposed to potassium, which had been discovered in plant ashes, and sodium, which was known partly for its high abundance in animal blood. He named the metal inside the material "lithium". Lithium, sodium, and potassium were part of the discovery of periodicity, as they are among a series of triads of elements in the same group that were noted by Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner in 1850 as having similar properties.Rubidium and caesium were the first elements to be discovered using the spectroscope, invented in 1859 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff. The next year, they discovered caesium in the mineral water from Bad Dürkheim, Germany. Their discovery of rubidium came the following year in Heidelberg, Germany, finding it in the mineral lepidolite. The names of rubidium and caesium come from the most prominent lines in their emission spectra: a bright red line for rubidium (from the Latin word rubidus, meaning dark red or bright red), and a sky-blue line for caesium (derived from the Latin word caesius, meaning sky-blue).Around 1865 John Newlands produced a series of papers where he listed the elements in order of increasing atomic weight and similar physical and chemical properties that recurred at intervals of eight; he likened such periodicity to the octaves of music, where notes an octave apart have similar musical functions. His version put all the alkali metals then known (lithium to caesium), as well as copper, silver, and thallium (which show the +1 oxidation state characteristic of the alkali metals), together into a group. His table placed hydrogen with the halogens.After 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev proposed his periodic table placing lithium at the top of a group with sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, and thallium. Two years later, Mendeleev revised his table, placing hydrogen in group 1 above lithium, and also moving thallium to the boron group. In this 1871 version, copper, silver, and gold were placed twice, once as part of group IB, and once as part of a "group VIII" encompassing today's groups 8 to 11. After the introduction of the 18-column table, the group IB elements were moved to their current position in the d-block, while alkali metals were left in group IA. Later the group's name was changed to group 1 in 1988. The trivial name "alkali metals" comes from the fact that the hydroxides of the group 1 elements are all strong alkalis when dissolved in water.There were at least four erroneous and incomplete discoveries before Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute in Paris, France discovered francium in 1939 by purifying a sample of actinium-227, which had been reported to have a decay energy of 220 keV. However, Perey noticed decay particles with an energy level below 80 keV. Perey thought this decay activity might have been caused by a previously unidentified decay product, one that was separated during purification, but emerged again out of the pure actinium-227. Various tests eliminated the possibility of the unknown element being thorium, radium, lead, bismuth, or thallium. The new product exhibited chemical properties of an alkali metal (such as coprecipitating with caesium salts), which led Perey to believe that it was element 87, caused by the alpha decay of actinium-227. Perey then attempted to determine the proportion of beta decay to alpha decay in actinium-227. Her first test put the alpha branching at 0.6%, a figure that she later revised to 1%.     The next element below francium (eka-francium) in the periodic table would be ununennium (Uue), element 119. The synthesis of ununennium was first attempted in 1985 by bombarding a target of einsteinium-254 with calcium-48 ions at the superHILAC accelerator at Berkeley, California. No atoms were identified, leading to a limiting yield of 300 nb. +  → * → no atomsIt is highly unlikely that this reaction will be able to create any atoms of ununennium in the near future, given the extremely difficult task of making sufficient amounts of einsteinium-254, which is favoured for production of ultraheavy elements because of its large mass, relatively long half-life of 270 days, and availability in significant amounts of several micrograms, to make a large enough target to increase the sensitivity of the experiment to the required level; einsteinium has not been found in nature and has only been produced in laboratories, and in quantities smaller than those needed for effective synthesis of superheavy elements. However, given that ununennium is only the first period 8 element on the extended periodic table, it may well be discovered in the near future through other reactions, and indeed an attempt to synthesise it is currently ongoing in Japan. Currently, none of the period 8 elements has been discovered yet, and it is also possible, due to drip instabilities, that only the lower period 8 elements, up to around element 128, are physically possible. No attempts at synthesis have been made for any heavier alkali metals: due to their extremely high atomic number, they would require new, more powerful methods and technology to make.OccurrenceIn the Solar System The Oddo–Harkins rule holds that elements with even atomic numbers are more common that those with odd atomic numbers, with the exception of hydrogen. This rule argues that elements with odd atomic numbers have one unpaired proton and are more likely to capture another, thus increasing their atomic number. In elements with even atomic numbers, protons are paired, with each member of the pair offsetting the spin of the other, enhancing stability. All the alkali metals have odd atomic numbers and they are not as common as the elements with even atomic numbers adjacent to them (the noble gases and the alkaline earth metals) in the Solar System. The heavier alkali metals are also less abundant than the lighter ones as the alkali metals from rubidium onward can only be synthesised in supernovae and not in stellar nucleosynthesis. Lithium is also much less abundant than sodium and potassium as it is poorly synthesised in both Big Bang nucleosynthesis and in stars: the Big Bang could only produce trace quantities of lithium, beryllium and boron due to the absence of a stable nucleus with 5 or 8 nucleons, and stellar nucleosynthesis could only pass this bottleneck by the triple-alpha process, fusing three helium nuclei to form carbon, and skipping over those three elements.On Earth The Earth formed from the same cloud of matter that formed the Sun, but the planets acquired different compositions during the formation and evolution of the solar system. In turn, the natural history of the Earth caused parts of this planet to have differing concentrations of the elements. The mass of the Earth is approximately 5.98 kg. It is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements. Due to planetary differentiation, the core region is believed to be primarily composed of iron (88.8%), with smaller amounts of nickel (5.8%), sulfur (4.5%), and less than 1% trace elements.The alkali metals, due to their high reactivity, do not occur naturally in pure form in nature. They are lithophiles and therefore remain close to the Earth's surface because they combine readily with oxygen and so associate strongly with silica, forming relatively low-density minerals that do not sink down into the Earth's core. Potassium, rubidium and caesium are also incompatible elements due to their large ionic radii.Sodium and potassium are very abundant in earth, both being among the ten most common elements in Earth's crust; sodium makes up approximately 2.6% of the Earth's crust measured by weight, making it the sixth most abundant element overall and the most abundant alkali metal. Potassium makes up approximately 1.5% of the Earth's crust and is the seventh most abundant element. Sodium is found in many different minerals, of which the most common is ordinary salt (sodium chloride), which occurs in vast quantities dissolved in seawater. Other solid deposits include halite, amphibole, cryolite, nitratine, and zeolite. Many of these solid deposits occur as a result of ancient seas evaporating, which still occurs now in places such as Utah's Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. Despite their near-equal abundance in Earth's crust, sodium is far more common than potassium in the ocean, both because potassium's larger size makes its salts less soluble, and because potassium is bound by silicates in soil and what potassium leaches is absorbed far more readily by plant life than sodium.Despite its chemical similarity, lithium typically does not occur together with sodium or potassium due to its smaller size. Due to its relatively low reactivity, it can be found in seawater in large amounts; it is estimated that seawater is approximately 0.14 to 0.25 parts per million (ppm) or 25 micromolar. Its diagonal relationship with magnesium often allows it to replace magnesium in ferromagnesium minerals, where its crustal concentration is about 18 ppm, comparable to that of gallium and niobium. Commercially, the most important lithium mineral is spodumene, which occurs in large deposits worldwide.Rubidium is approximately as abundant as zinc and more abundant than copper. It occurs naturally in the minerals leucite, pollucite, carnallite, zinnwaldite, and lepidolite, although none of these contain only rubidium and no other alkali metals. Caesium is more abundant than some commonly known elements, such as antimony, cadmium, tin, and tungsten, but is much less abundant than rubidium.Francium-223, the only naturally occurring isotope of francium, is the product of the alpha decay of actinium-227 and can be found in trace amounts in uranium minerals. In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1018 uranium atoms. It has been calculated that there are at most 30 grams of francium in the earth's crust at any time, due to its extremely short half-life of 22 minutes.PropertiesPhysical and chemical The physical and chemical properties of the alkali metals can be readily explained by their having an ns1 valence electron configuration, which results in weak metallic bonding. Hence, all the alkali metals are soft and have low densities, melting and boiling points, as well as heats of sublimation, vaporisation, and dissociation. They all crystallise in the body-centered cubic crystal structure, and have distinctive flame colours because their outer s electron is very easily excited. The ns1 configuration also results in the alkali metals having very large atomic and ionic radii, as well as very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Their chemistry is dominated by the loss of their lone valence electron in the outermost s-orbital to form the +1 oxidation state, due to the ease of ionising this electron and the very high second ionisation energy. Most of the chemistry has been observed only for the first five members of the group. The chemistry of francium is not well established due to its extreme radioactivity; thus, the presentation of its properties here is limited. What little is known about francium shows that it is very close in behaviour to caesium, as expected. The physical properties of francium are even sketchier because the bulk element has never been observed; hence any data that may be found in the literature are certainly speculative extrapolations.The alkali metals are more similar to each other than the elements in any other group are to each other. Indeed, the similarity is so great that it is quite difficult to separate potassium, rubidium, and caesium, due to their similar ionic radii; lithium and sodium are more distinct. For instance, when moving down the table, all known alkali metals show increasing atomic radius, decreasing electronegativity, increasing reactivity, and decreasing melting and boiling points as well as heats of fusion and vaporisation. In general, their densities increase when moving down the table, with the exception that potassium is less dense than sodium. One of the very few properties of the alkali metals that does not display a very smooth trend is their reduction potentials: lithium's value is anomalous, being more negative than the others. This is because the Li+ ion has a very high hydration energy in the gas phase: though the lithium ion disrupts the structure of water significantly, causing a higher change in entropy, this high hydration energy is enough to make the reduction potentials indicate it as being the most electropositive alkali metal, despite the difficulty of ionising it in the gas phase.The stable alkali metals are all silver-coloured metals except for caesium, which has a pale golden tint: it is one of only three metals that are clearly coloured (the other two being copper and gold). Additionally, the heavy alkaline earth metals calcium, strontium, and barium, as well as the divalent lanthanides europium and ytterbium, are pale yellow, though the colour is much less prominent than it is for caesium. Their lustre tarnishes rapidly in air due to oxidation. They all crystallise in the body-centered cubic crystal structure, and have distinctive flame colours because their outer s electron is very easily excited. Indeed, these flame test colours are the most common way of identifying them since all their salts with common ions are soluble.All the alkali metals are highly reactive and are never found in elemental forms in nature. Because of this, they are usually stored in mineral oil or kerosene (paraffin oil). They react aggressively with the halogens to form the alkali metal halides, which are white ionic crystalline compounds that are all soluble in water except lithium fluoride (Li F). The alkali metals also react with water to form strongly alkaline hydroxides and thus should be handled with great care. The heavier alkali metals react more vigorously than the lighter ones; for example, when dropped into water, caesium produces a larger explosion than potassium if the same number of moles of each metal is used. The alkali metals have the lowest first ionisation energies in their respective periods of the periodic table because of their low effective nuclear charge and the ability to attain a noble gas configuration by losing just one electron. Not only do the alkali metals react with water, but also with proton donors like alcohols and phenols, gaseous ammonia, and alkynes, the last demonstrating the phenomenal degree of their reactivity. Their great power as reducing agents makes them very useful in liberating other metals from their oxides or halides.The second ionisation energy of all of the alkali metals is very high as it is in a full shell that is also closer to the nucleus; thus, they almost always lose a single electron, forming cations. The alkalides are an exception: they are unstable compounds which contain alkali metals in a −1 oxidation state, which is very unusual as before the discovery of the alkalides, the alkali metals were not expected to be able to form anions and were thought to be able to appear in salts only as cations. The alkalide anions have filled s-subshells, which gives them enough stability to exist. All the stable alkali metals except lithium are known to be able to form alkalides, and the alkalides have much theoretical interest due to their unusual stoichiometry and low ionisation potentials. Alkalides are chemically similar to the electrides, which are salts with trapped electrons acting as anions. A particularly striking example of an alkalide is "inverse sodium hydride", H+Na− (both ions being complexed), as opposed to the usual sodium hydride, Na+H−: it is unstable in isolation, due to its high energy resulting from the displacement of two electrons from hydrogen to sodium, although several derivatives are predicted to be metastable or stable.In aqueous solution, the alkali metal ions form aqua ions of the formula [M(H2O)n]+, where n is the solvation number. Their coordination numbers and shapes agree well with those expected from their ionic radii. In aqueous solution the water molecules directly attached to the metal ion are said to belong to the first coordination sphere, also known as the first, or primary, solvation shell. The bond between a water molecule and the metal ion is a dative covalent bond, with the oxygen atom donating both electrons to the bond. Each coordinated water molecule may be attached by hydrogen bonds to other water molecules. The latter are said to reside in the second coordination sphere. However, for the alkali metal cations, the second coordination sphere is not well-defined as the +1 charge on the cation is not high enough to polarise the water molecules in the primary solvation shell enough for them to form strong hydrogen bonds with those in the second coordination sphere, producing a more stable entity. The solvation number for Li+ has been experimentally determined to be 4, forming the tetrahedral [Li(H2O)4]+: while solvation numbers of 3 to 6 have been found for lithium aqua ions, solvation numbers less than 4 may be the result of the formation of contact ion pairs, and the higher solvation numbers may be interpreted in terms of water molecules that approach [Li(H2O)4]+ through a face of the tetrahedron, though molecular dynamic simulations may indicate the existence of an octahedral hexaaqua ion. There are also probably six water molecules in the primary solvation sphere of the sodium ion, forming the octahedral [Na(H2O)6]+ ion. While it was previously thought that the heavier alkali metals also formed octahedral hexaaqua ions, it has since been found that potassium and rubidium probably form the [K(H2O)8]+ and [Rb(H2O)8]+ ions, which have the square antiprismatic structure, and that caesium forms the 12-coordinate [Cs(H2O)12]+ ion.Lithium The chemistry of lithium shows several differences from that of the rest of the group as the small Li+ cation polarises anions and gives its compounds a more covalent character. Lithium and magnesium have a diagonal relationship due to their similar atomic radii, so that they show some similarities. For example, lithium forms a stable nitride, a property common among all the alkaline earth metals (magnesium's group) but unique among the alkali metals. In addition, among their respective groups, only lithium and magnesium form organometallic compounds with significant covalent character (e.g. LiMe and MgMe2).Lithium fluoride is the only alkali metal halide that is poorly soluble in water, and lithium hydroxide is the only alkali metal hydroxide that is not deliquescent. Conversely, lithium perchlorate and other lithium salts with large anions that cannot be polarised are much more stable than the analogous compounds of the other alkali metals, probably because Li+ has a high solvation energy. This effect also means that most simple lithium salts are commonly encountered in hydrated form, because the anhydrous forms are extremely hygroscopic: this allows salts like lithium chloride and lithium bromide to be used in dehumidifiers and air-conditioners.Francium Francium is also predicted to show some differences due to its high atomic weight, causing its electrons to travel at considerable fractions of the speed of light and thus making relativistic effects more prominent. In contrast to the trend of decreasing electronegativities and ionisation energies of the alkali metals, francium's electronegativity and ionisation energy are predicted to be higher than caesium's due to the relativistic stabilisation of the 7s electrons; also, its atomic radius is expected to be abnormally low. Thus, contrary to expectation, caesium is the most reactive of the alkali metals, not francium. All known physical properties of francium also deviate from the clear trends going from lithium to caesium, such as the first ionisation energy, electron affinity, and anion polarisability, though due to the paucity of known data about francium many sources give extrapolated values, ignoring that relativistic effects make the trend from lithium to caesium become inapplicable at francium. Some of the few properties of francium that have been predicted taking relativity into account are the electron affinity (47.2 kJ/mol) and the enthalpy of dissociation of the Fr2 molecule (42.1 kJ/mol). The CsFr molecule is polarised as Cs+Fr−, showing that the 7s subshell of francium is much more strongly affected by relativistic effects than the 6s subshell of caesium. Additionally, francium superoxide (FrO2) is expected to have significant covalent character, unlike the other alkali metal superoxides, because of bonding contributions from the 6p electrons of francium.Nuclear All the alkali metals have odd atomic numbers; hence, their isotopes must be either odd–odd (both proton and neutron number are odd) or odd–even (proton number is odd, but neutron number is even). Odd–odd nuclei have even mass numbers, whereas odd–even nuclei have odd mass numbers. Odd–odd primordial nuclides are rare because most odd–odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even–even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects.Due to the great rarity of odd–odd nuclei, almost all the primordial isotopes of the alkali metals are odd–even (the exceptions being the light stable isotope lithium-6 and the long-lived radioisotope potassium-40). For a given odd mass number, there can be only a single beta-stable nuclide, since there is not a difference in binding energy between even–odd and odd–even comparable to that between even–even and odd–odd, leaving other nuclides of the same mass number (isobars) free to beta decay toward the lowest-mass nuclide. An effect of the instability of an odd number of either type of nucleons is that odd-numbered elements, such as the alkali metals, tend to have fewer stable isotopes than even-numbered elements. Of the 26 monoisotopic elements that have only a single stable isotope, all but one have an odd atomic number and all but one also have an even number of neutrons. Beryllium is the single exception to both rules, due to its low atomic number.All of the alkali metals except lithium and caesium have at least one naturally occurring radioisotope: sodium-22 and sodium-24 are trace radioisotopes produced cosmogenically, potassium-40 and rubidium-87 have very long half-lives and thus occur naturally, and all isotopes of francium are radioactive. Caesium was also thought to be radioactive in the early 20th century, although it has no naturally occurring radioisotopes. (Francium had not been discovered yet at that time.) The natural long-lived radioisotope of potassium, potassium-40, makes up about 0.012% of natural potassium, and thus natural potassium is weakly radioactive. This natural radioactivity became a basis for a mistaken claim of the discovery for element 87 (the next alkali metal after caesium) in 1925. Natural rubidium is similarly slightly radioactive, with 27.83% being the long-lived radioisotope rubidium-87.Caesium-137, with a half-life of 30.17 years, is one of the two principal medium-lived fission products, along with strontium-90, which are responsible for most of the radioactivity of spent nuclear fuel after several years of cooling, up to several hundred years after use. It constitutes most of the radioactivity still left from the Chernobyl accident. Caesium-137 undergoes high-energy beta decay and eventually becomes stable barium-137. It is a strong emitter of gamma radiation. Caesium-137 has a very low rate of neutron capture and cannot be feasibly disposed of in this way, but must be allowed to decay. Caesium-137 has been used as a tracer in hydrologic studies, analogous to the use of tritium. Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Goiânia accident and the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Its chemical properties as one of the alkali metals make it one of most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products because it easily moves and spreads in nature due to the high water solubility of its salts, and is taken up by the body, which mistakes it for its essential congeners sodium and potassium.Periodic trends The alkali metals are more similar to each other than the elements in any other group are to each other. For instance, when moving down the table, all known alkali metals show increasing atomic radius, decreasing electronegativity, increasing reactivity, and decreasing melting and boiling points as well as heats of fusion and vaporisation. In general, their densities increase when moving down the table, with the exception that potassium is less dense than sodium.Atomic and ionic radii The atomic radii of the alkali metals increase going down the group. Because of the shielding effect, when an atom has more than one electron shell, each electron feels electric repulsion from the other electrons as well as electric attraction from the nucleus. In the alkali metals, the outermost electron only feels a net charge of +1, as some of the nuclear charge (which is equal to the atomic number) is cancelled by the inner electrons; the number of inner electrons of an alkali metal is always one less than the nuclear charge. Therefore, the only factor which affects the atomic radius of the alkali metals is the number of electron shells. Since this number increases down the group, the atomic radius must also increase down the group.The ionic radii of the alkali metals are much smaller than their atomic radii. This is because the outermost electron of the alkali metals is in a different electron shell than the inner electrons, and thus when it is removed the resulting atom has one fewer electron shell and is smaller. Additionally, the effective nuclear charge has increased, and thus the electrons are attracted more strongly towards the nucleus and the ionic radius decreases.First ionisation energy The first ionisation energy of an element or molecule is the energy required to move the most loosely held electron from one mole of gaseous atoms of the element or molecules to form one mole of gaseous ions with electric charge +1. The factors affecting the first ionisation energy are the nuclear charge, the amount of shielding by the inner electrons and the distance from the most loosely held electron from the nucleus, which is always an outer electron in main group elements. The first two factors change the effective nuclear charge the most loosely held electron feels. Since the outermost electron of alkali metals always feels the same effective nuclear charge (+1), the only factor which affects the first ionisation energy is the distance from the outermost electron to the nucleus. Since this distance increases down the group, the outermost electron feels less attraction from the nucleus and thus the first ionisation energy decreases. (This trend is broken in francium due to the relativistic stabilisation and contraction of the 7s orbital, bringing francium's valence electron closer to the nucleus than would be expected from non-relativistic calculations. This makes francium's outermost electron feel more attraction from the nucleus, increasing its first ionisation energy slightly beyond that of caesium.)The second ionisation energy of the alkali metals is much higher than the first as the second-most loosely held electron is part of a fully filled electron shell and is thus difficult to remove.Reactivity The reactivities of the alkali metals increase going down the group. This is the result of a combination of two factors: the first ionisation energies and atomisation energies of the alkali metals. Because the first ionisation energy of the alkali metals decreases down the group, it is easier for the outermost electron to be removed from the atom and participate in chemical reactions, thus increasing reactivity down the group. The atomisation energy measures the strength of the metallic bond of an element, which falls down the group as the atoms increase in radius and thus the metallic bond must increase in length, making the delocalised electrons further away from the attraction of the nuclei of the heavier alkali metals. Adding the atomisation and first ionisation energies gives a quantity closely related to (but not equal to) the activation energy of the reaction of an alkali metal with another substance. This quantity decreases going down the group, and so does the activation energy; thus, chemical reactions can occur faster and the reactivity increases down the group.Electronegativity Electronegativity is a chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom or a functional group to attract electrons (or electron density) towards itself. If the bond between sodium and chlorine in sodium chloride were covalent, the pair of shared electrons would be attracted to the chlorine because the effective nuclear charge on the outer electrons is +7 in chlorine but is only +1 in sodium. The electron pair is attracted so close to the chlorine atom that they are practically transferred to the chlorine atom (an ionic bond). However, if the sodium atom was replaced by a lithium atom, the electrons will not be attracted as close to the chlorine atom as before because the lithium atom is smaller, making the electron pair more strongly attracted to the closer effective nuclear charge from lithium. Hence, the larger alkali metal atoms (further down the group) will be less electronegative as the bonding pair is less strongly attracted towards them. As mentioned previously, francium is expected to be an exception.Because of the higher electronegativity of lithium, some of its compounds have a more covalent character. For example, lithium iodide (Li I) will dissolve in organic solvents, a property of most covalent compounds. Lithium fluoride (LiF) is the only alkali halide that is not soluble in water, and lithium hydroxide (LiOH) is the only alkali metal hydroxide that is not deliquescent.Melting and boiling points The melting point of a substance is the point where it changes state from solid to liquid while the boiling point of a substance (in liquid state) is the point where the vapour pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid and all the liquid changes state to gas. As a metal is heated to its melting point, the metallic bonds keeping the atoms in place weaken so that the atoms can move around, and the metallic bonds eventually break completely at the metal's boiling point. Therefore, the falling melting and boiling points of the alkali metals indicate that the strength of the metallic bonds of the alkali metals decreases down the group. This is because metal atoms are held together by the electromagnetic attraction from the positive ions to the delocalised electrons. As the atoms increase in size going down the group (because their atomic radius increases), the nuclei of the ions move further away from the delocalised electrons and hence the metallic bond becomes weaker so that the metal can more easily melt and boil, thus lowering the melting and boiling points. (The increased nuclear charge is not a relevant factor due to the shielding effect.)Density The alkali metals all have the same crystal structure (body-centred cubic) and thus the only relevant factors are the number of atoms that can fit into a certain volume and the mass of one of the atoms, since density is defined as mass per unit volume. The first factor depends on the volume of the atom and thus the atomic radius, which increases going down the group; thus, the volume of an alkali metal atom increases going down the group. The mass of an alkali metal atom also increases going down the group. Thus, the trend for the densities of the alkali metals depends on their atomic weights and atomic radii; if figures for these two factors are known, the ratios between the densities of the alkali metals can then be calculated. The resultant trend is that the densities of the alkali metals increase down the table, with an exception at potassium. Due to having the lowest atomic weight and the largest atomic radius of all the elements in their periods, the alkali metals are the least dense metals in the periodic table. Lithium, sodium, and potassium are the only three metals in the periodic table that are less dense than water: in fact, lithium is the least dense known solid at room temperature.Compounds The alkali metals form complete series of compounds with all usually encountered anions, which well illustrate group trends. These compounds can be described as involving the alkali metals losing electrons to acceptor species and forming monopositive ions. This description is most accurate for alkali halides and becomes less and less accurate as cationic and anionic charge increase, and as the anion becomes larger and more polarisable. For instance, ionic bonding gives way to metallic bonding along the series NaCl, Na2O, Na2S, Na3P, Na3As, Na3Sb, Na3Bi, Na.Hydroxides All the alkali metals react vigorously or explosively with cold water, producing an aqueous solution of a strongly basic alkali metal hydroxide and releasing hydrogen gas. This reaction becomes more vigorous going down the group: lithium reacts steadily with effervescence, but sodium and potassium can ignite, and rubidium and caesium sink in water and generate hydrogen gas so rapidly that shock waves form in the water that may shatter glass containers. When an alkali metal is dropped into water, it produces an explosion, of which there are two separate stages. The metal reacts with the water first, breaking the hydrogen bonds in the water and producing hydrogen gas; this takes place faster for the more reactive heavier alkali metals. Second, the heat generated by the first part of the reaction often ignites the hydrogen gas, causing it to burn explosively into the surrounding air. This secondary hydrogen gas explosion produces the visible flame above the bowl of water, lake or other body of water, not the initial reaction of the metal with water (which tends to happen mostly under water). The alkali metal hydroxides are the most basic known hydroxides.Recent research has suggested that the explosive behavior of alkali metals in water is driven by a Coulomb explosion rather than solely by rapid generation of hydrogen itself. All alkali metals melt as a part of the reaction with water. Water molecules ionise the bare metallic surface of the liquid metal, leaving a positively charged metal surface and negatively charged water ions. The attraction between the charged metal and water ions will rapidly increase the surface area, causing an exponential increase of ionisation. When the repulsive forces within the liquid metal surface exceeds the forces of the surface tension, it vigorously explodes.The hydroxides themselves are the most basic hydroxides known, reacting with acids to give salts and with alcohols to give oligomeric alkoxides. They easily react with carbon dioxide to form carbonates or bicarbonates, or with hydrogen sulfide to form sulfides or bisulfides, and may be used to separate thiols from petroleum. They react with amphoteric oxides: for example, the oxides of aluminium, zinc, tin, and lead react with the alkali metal hydroxides to give aluminates, zincates, stannates, and plumbates. Silicon dioxide is acidic, and thus the alkali metal hydroxides can also attack silicate glass.Intermetallic compounds The alkali metals form many intermetallic compounds with each other and the elements from groups 2 to 13 in the periodic table of varying stoichiometries, such as the sodium amalgams with mercury, including Na5Hg8 and Na3Hg. Some of these have ionic characteristics: taking the alloys with gold, the most electronegative of metals, as an example, NaAu and KAu are metallic, but RbAu and CsAu are semiconductors. NaK is an alloy of sodium and potassium that is very useful because it is liquid at room temperature, although precautions must be taken due to its extreme reactivity towards water and air. The eutectic mixture melts at −12.6 °C. An alloy of 41% caesium, 47% sodium, and 12% potassium has the lowest known melting point of any metal or alloy, −78 °C.Compounds with the group 13 elements The intermetallic compounds of the alkali metals with the heavier group 13 elements (aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium), such as NaTl, are poor conductors or semiconductors, unlike the normal alloys with the preceding elements, implying that the alkali metal involved has lost an electron to the Zintl anions involved. Nevertheless, while the elements in group 14 and beyond tend to form discrete anionic clusters, group 13 elements tend to form polymeric ions with the alkali metal cations located between the giant ionic lattice. For example, NaTl consists of a polymeric anion (—Tl−—)n with a covalent diamond cubic structure with Na+ ions located between the anionic lattice. The larger alkali metals cannot fit similarly into an anionic lattice and tend to force the heavier group 13 elements to form anionic clusters.Boron is a special case, being the only nonmetal in group 13. The alkali metal borides tend to be boron-rich, involving appreciable boron–boron bonding involving deltahedral structures, and are thermally unstable due to the alkali metals having a very high vapour pressure at elevated temperatures. This makes direct synthesis problematic because the alkali metals do not react with boron below 700 °C, and thus this must be accomplished in sealed containers with the alkali metal in excess. Furthermore, exceptionally in this group, reactivity with boron decreases down the group: lithium reacts completely at 700 °C, but sodium at 900 °C and potassium not until 1200 °C, and the reaction is instantaneous for lithium but takes hours for potassium. Rubidium and caesium borides have not even been characterised. Various phases are known, such as LiB10, NaB6, NaB15, and KB6. Under high pressure the boron–boron bonding in the lithium borides changes from following Wade's rules to forming Zintl anions like the rest of group 13.Compounds with the group 14 elements Lithium and sodium react with carbon to form acetylides, Li2C2 and Na2C2, which can also be obtained by reaction of the metal with acetylene. Potassium, rubidium, and caesium react with graphite; their atoms are intercalated between the hexagonal graphite layers, forming graphite intercalation compounds of formulae MC60 (dark grey, almost black), MC48 (dark grey, almost black), MC36 (blue), MC24 (steel blue), and MC8 (bronze) (M = K, Rb, or Cs). These compounds are over 200 times more electrically conductive than pure graphite, suggesting that the valence electron of the alkali metal is transferred to the graphite layers (e.g. ). Upon heating of KC8, the elimination of potassium atoms results in the conversion in sequence to KC24, KC36, KC48 and finally KC60. KC8 is a very strong reducing agent and is pyrophoric and explodes on contact with water. While the larger alkali metals (K, Rb, and Cs) initially form MC8, the smaller ones initially form MC6, and indeed they require reaction of the metals with graphite at high temperatures around 500 °C to form. Apart from this, the alkali metals are such strong reducing agents that they can even reduce buckminsterfullerene to produce solid fullerides MnC60; sodium, potassium, rubidium, and caesium can form fullerides where n = 2, 3, 4, or 6, and rubidium and caesium additionally can achieve n = 1.When the alkali metals react with the heavier elements in the carbon group (silicon, germanium, tin, and lead), ionic substances with cage-like structures are formed, such as the silicides M4Si4 (M = K, Rb, or Cs), which contains M+ and tetrahedral  ions. The chemistry of alkali metal germanides, involving the germanide ion Ge4− and other cluster (Zintl) ions such as , , , and [(Ge9)2]6−, is largely analogous to that of the corresponding silicides. Alkali metal stannides are mostly ionic, sometimes with the stannide ion (Sn4−), and sometimes with more complex Zintl ions such as , which appears in tetrapotassium nonastannide (K4Sn9). The monatomic plumbide ion (Pb4−) is unknown, and indeed its formation is predicted to be energetically unfavourable; alkali metal plumbides have complex Zintl ions, such as . These alkali metal germanides, stannides, and plumbides may be produced by reducing germanium, tin, and lead with sodium metal in liquid ammonia.Nitrides and pnictides Lithium, the lightest of the alkali metals, is the only alkali metal which reacts with nitrogen at standard conditions, and its nitride is the only stable alkali metal nitride. Nitrogen is an unreactive gas because breaking the strong triple bond in the dinitrogen molecule (N2) requires a lot of energy. The formation of an alkali metal nitride would consume the ionisation energy of the alkali metal (forming M+ ions), the energy required to break the triple bond in N2 and the formation of N3− ions, and all the energy released from the formation of an alkali metal nitride is from the lattice energy of the alkali metal nitride. The lattice energy is maximised with small, highly charged ions; the alkali metals do not form highly charged ions, only forming ions with a charge of +1, so only lithium, the smallest alkali metal, can release enough lattice energy to make the reaction with nitrogen exothermic, forming lithium nitride. The reactions of the other alkali metals with nitrogen would not release enough lattice energy and would thus be endothermic, so they do not form nitrides at standard conditions. Sodium nitride (Na3N) and potassium nitride (K3N), while existing, are extremely unstable, being prone to decomposing back into their constituent elements, and cannot be produced by reacting the elements with each other at standard conditions. Steric hindrance forbids the existence of rubidium or caesium nitride. However, sodium and potassium form colourless azide salts involving the linear  anion; due to the large size of the alkali metal cations, they are thermally stable enough to be able to melt before decomposing.All the alkali metals react readily with phosphorus and arsenic to form phosphides and arsenides with the formula M3Pn (where M represents an alkali metal and Pn represents a pnictogen – phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, or bismuth). This is due to the greater size of the P3− and As3− ions, so that less lattice energy needs to be released for the salts to form. These are not the only phosphides and arsenides of the alkali metals: for example, potassium has nine different known phosphides, with formulae K3P, K4P3, K5P4, KP, K4P6, K3P7, K3P11, KP10.3, and KP15. While most metals form arsenides, only the alkali and alkaline earth metals form mostly ionic arsenides. The structure of Na3As is complex with unusually short Na–Na distances of 328–330 pm which are shorter than in sodium metal, and this indicates that even with these electropositive metals the bonding cannot be straightforwardly ionic. Other alkali metal arsenides not conforming to the formula M3As are known, such as LiAs, which has a metallic lustre and electrical conductivity indicating the presence of some metallic bonding. The antimonides are unstable and reactive as the Sb3− ion is a strong reducing agent; reaction of them with acids form the toxic and unstable gas stibine (SbH3). Indeed, they have some metallic properties, and the alkali metal antimonides of stoichiometry MSb involve antimony atoms bonded in a spiral Zintl structure. Bismuthides are not even wholly ionic; they are intermetallic compounds containing partially metallic and partially ionic bonds.Oxides and chalcogenides All the alkali metals react vigorously with oxygen at standard conditions. They form various types of oxides, such as simple oxides (containing the O2− ion), peroxides (containing the  ion, where there is a single bond between the two oxygen atoms), superoxides (containing the  ion), and many others. Lithium burns in air to form lithium oxide, but sodium reacts with oxygen to form a mixture of sodium oxide and sodium peroxide. Potassium forms a mixture of potassium peroxide and potassium superoxide, while rubidium and caesium form the superoxide exclusively. Their reactivity increases going down the group: while lithium, sodium and potassium merely burn in air, rubidium and caesium are pyrophoric (spontaneously catch fire in air).The smaller alkali metals tend to polarise the larger anions (the peroxide and superoxide) due to their small size. This attracts the electrons in the more complex anions towards one of its constituent oxygen atoms, forming an oxide ion and an oxygen atom. This causes lithium to form the oxide exclusively on reaction with oxygen at room temperature. This effect becomes drastically weaker for the larger sodium and potassium, allowing them to form the less stable peroxides. Rubidium and caesium, at the bottom of the group, are so large that even the least stable superoxides can form. Because the superoxide releases the most energy when formed, the superoxide is preferentially formed for the larger alkali metals where the more complex anions are not polarised. (The oxides and peroxides for these alkali metals do exist, but do not form upon direct reaction of the metal with oxygen at standard conditions.) In addition, the small size of the Li+ and O2− ions contributes to their forming a stable ionic lattice structure. Under controlled conditions, however, all the alkali metals, with the exception of francium, are known to form their oxides, peroxides, and superoxides. The alkali metal peroxides and superoxides are powerful oxidising agents. Sodium peroxide and potassium superoxide react with carbon dioxide to form the alkali metal carbonate and oxygen gas, which allows them to be used in submarine air purifiers; the presence of water vapour, naturally present in breath, makes the removal of carbon dioxide by potassium superoxide even more efficient. All the stable alkali metals except lithium can form red ozonides (MO3) through low-temperature reaction of the powdered anhydrous hydroxide with ozone: the ozonides may be then extracted using liquid ammonia. They slowly decompose at standard conditions to the superoxides and oxygen, and hydrolyse immediately to the hydroxides when in contact with water. Potassium, rubidium, and caesium also form sesquioxides M2O3, which may be better considered peroxide disuperoxides, .Rubidium and caesium can form a great variety of suboxides with the metals in formal oxidation states below +1. Rubidium can form Rb6O and Rb9O2 (copper-coloured) upon oxidation in air, while caesium forms an immense variety of oxides, such as the ozonide CsO3 and several brightly coloured suboxides, such as Cs7O (bronze), Cs4O (red-violet), Cs11O3 (violet), Cs3O (dark green), CsO, Cs3O2, as well as Cs7O2. The last of these may be heated under vacuum to generate Cs2O.The alkali metals can also react analogously with the heavier chalcogens (sulfur, selenium, tellurium, and polonium), and all the alkali metal chalcogenides are known (with the exception of francium's). Reaction with an excess of the chalcogen can similarly result in lower chalcogenides, with chalcogen ions containing chains of the chalcogen atoms in question. For example, sodium can react with sulfur to form the sulfide (Na2S) and various polysulfides with the formula Na2Sx (x from 2 to 6), containing the  ions. Due to the basicity of the Se2− and Te2− ions, the alkali metal selenides and tellurides are alkaline in solution; when reacted directly with selenium and tellurium, alkali metal polyselenides and polytellurides are formed along with the selenides and tellurides with the  and  ions. They may be obtained directly from the elements in liquid ammonia or when air is not present, and are colourless, water-soluble compounds that air oxidises quickly back to selenium or tellurium. The alkali metal polonides are all ionic compounds containing the Po2− ion; they are very chemically stable and can be produced by direct reaction of the elements at around 300–400 °C.Halides, hydrides, and pseudohalides The alkali metals are among the most electropositive elements on the periodic table and thus tend to bond ionically to the most electronegative elements on the periodic table, the halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine), forming salts known as the alkali metal halides. The reaction is very vigorous and can sometimes result in explosions. All twenty stable alkali metal halides are known; the unstable ones are not known, with the exception of sodium astatide, because of the great instability and rarity of astatine and francium. The most well-known of the twenty is certainly sodium chloride, otherwise known as common salt. All of the stable alkali metal halides have the formula MX where M is an alkali metal and X is a halogen. They are all white ionic crystalline solids that have high melting points. All the alkali metal halides are soluble in water except for lithium fluoride (LiF), which is insoluble in water due to its very high lattice enthalpy. The high lattice enthalpy of lithium fluoride is due to the small sizes of the Li+ and F− ions, causing the electrostatic interactions between them to be strong: a similar effect occurs for magnesium fluoride, consistent with the diagonal relationship between lithium and magnesium.The alkali metals also react similarly with hydrogen to form ionic alkali metal hydrides, where the hydride anion acts as a pseudohalide: these are often used as reducing agents, producing hydrides, complex metal hydrides, or hydrogen gas. Other pseudohalides are also known, notably the cyanides. These are isostructural to the respective halides except for lithium cyanide, indicating that the cyanide ions may rotate freely. Ternary alkali metal halide oxides, such as Na3ClO, K3BrO (yellow), Na4Br2O, Na4I2O, and K4Br2O, are also known. The polyhalides are rather unstable, although those of rubidium and caesium are greatly stabilised by the feeble polarising power of these extremely large cations.Coordination complexes Alkali metal cations do not usually form coordination complexes with simple Lewis bases due to their low charge of just +1 and their relatively large size; thus the Li+ ion forms most complexes and the heavier alkali metal ions form less and less (though exceptions occur for weak complexes). Lithium in particular has a very rich coordination chemistry in which it exhibits coordination numbers from 1 to 12, although octahedral hexacoordination is its preferred mode. In aqueous solution, the alkali metal ions exist as octahedral hexahydrate complexes ([M(H2O)6)]+), with the exception of the lithium ion, which due to its small size forms tetrahedral tetrahydrate complexes ([Li(H2O)4)]+); the alkali metals form these complexes because their ions are attracted by electrostatic forces of attraction to the polar water molecules. Because of this, anhydrous salts containing alkali metal cations are often used as desiccants. Alkali metals also readily form complexes with crown ethers (e.g. 12-crown-4 for Li+, 15-crown-5 for Na+, 18-crown-6 for K+, and 21-crown-7 for Rb+) and cryptands due to electrostatic attraction.Ammonia solutions The alkali metals dissolve slowly in liquid ammonia, forming ammoniacal solutions of solvated metal cation M+ and solvated electron e−, which react to form hydrogen gas and the alkali metal amide (MNH2, where M represents an alkali metal): this was first noted by Humphry Davy in 1809 and rediscovered by W. Weyl in 1864. The process may be speeded up by a catalyst. Similar solutions are formed by the heavy divalent alkaline earth metals calcium, strontium, barium, as well as the divalent lanthanides, europium and ytterbium. The amide salt is quite insoluble and readily precipitates out of solution, leaving intensely coloured ammonia solutions of the alkali metals. In 1907, Charles Krause identified the colour as being due to the presence of solvated electrons, which contribute to the high electrical conductivity of these solutions. At low concentrations (below 3 M), the solution is dark blue and has ten times the conductivity of aqueous sodium chloride; at higher concentrations (above 3 M), the solution is copper-coloured and has approximately the conductivity of liquid metals like mercury. In addition to the alkali metal amide salt and solvated electrons, such ammonia solutions also contain the alkali metal cation (M+), the neutral alkali metal atom (M), diatomic alkali metal molecules (M2) and alkali metal anions (M−). These are unstable and eventually become the more thermodynamically stable alkali metal amide and hydrogen gas. Solvated electrons are powerful reducing agents and are often used in chemical synthesis.OrganometallicOrganolithium Being the smallest alkali metal, lithium forms the widest variety of and most stable organometallic compounds, which are bonded covalently. Organolithium compounds are electrically non-conducting volatile solids or liquids that melt at low temperatures, and tend to form oligomers with the structure (RLi)x where R is the organic group. As the electropositive nature of lithium puts most of the charge density of the bond on the carbon atom, effectively creating a carbanion, organolithium compounds are extremely powerful bases and nucleophiles. For use as bases, butyllithiums are often used and are commercially available. An example of an organolithium compound is methyllithium ((CH3Li)x), which exists in tetrameric (x = 4, tetrahedral) and hexameric (x = 6, octahedral) forms. Organolithium compounds, especially n-butyllithium, are useful reagents in organic synthesis, as might be expected given lithium's diagonal relationship with magnesium, which plays an important role in the Grignard reaction. For example, alkyllithiums and aryllithiums may be used to synthesise aldehydes and ketones by reaction with metal carbonyls. The reaction with nickel tetracarbonyl, for example, proceeds through an unstable acyl nickel carbonyl complex which then undergoes electrophilic substitution to give the desired aldehyde (using H+ as the electrophile) or ketone (using an alkyl halide) product.LiR + [Ni(CO)4]  Li+[RCONi(CO)3]−Li+[RCONi(CO)3]−  Li+ + RCHO + [(solvent)Ni(CO)3]Li+[RCONi(CO)3]−  Li+ + R'COR + [(solvent)Ni(CO)3]Alkyllithiums and aryllithiums may also react with N,N-disubstituted amides to give aldehydes and ketones, and symmetrical ketones by reacting with carbon monoxide. They thermally decompose to eliminate a β-hydrogen, producing alkenes and lithium hydride: another route is the reaction of ethers with alkyl- and aryllithiums that act as strong bases. In non-polar solvents, aryllithiums react as the carbanions they effectively are, turning carbon dioxide to aromatic carboxylic acids (ArCO2H) and aryl ketones to tertiary carbinols (Ar'2C(Ar)OH). Finally, they may be used to synthesise other organometallic compounds through metal-halogen exchange.Heavier alkali metals Unlike the organolithium compounds, the organometallic compounds of the heavier alkali metals are predominantly ionic. The application of organosodium compounds in chemistry is limited in part due to competition from organolithium compounds, which are commercially available and exhibit more convenient reactivity. The principal organosodium compound of commercial importance is sodium cyclopentadienide. Sodium tetraphenylborate can also be classified as an organosodium compound since in the solid state sodium is bound to the aryl groups. Organometallic compounds of the higher alkali metals are even more reactive than organosodium compounds and of limited utility. A notable reagent is Schlosser's base, a mixture of n-butyllithium and potassium tert-butoxide. This reagent reacts with propene to form the compound allylpotassium (KCH2CHCH2). cis-2-Butene and trans-2-butene equilibrate when in contact with alkali metals. Whereas isomerisation is fast with lithium and sodium, it is slow with the heavier alkali metals. The heavier alkali metals also favour the sterically congested conformation. Several crystal structures of organopotassium compounds have been reported, establishing that they, like the sodium compounds, are polymeric. Organosodium, organopotassium, organorubidium and organocaesium compounds are all mostly ionic and are insoluble (or nearly so) in nonpolar solvents.Alkyl and aryl derivatives of sodium and potassium tend to react with air. They cause the cleavage of ethers, generating alkoxides. Unlike alkyllithium compounds, alkylsodiums and alkylpotassiums cannot be made by reacting the metals with alkyl halides because Wurtz coupling occurs:RM + R'X → R–R' + MXAs such, they have to be made by reacting alkylmercury compounds with sodium or potassium metal in inert hydrocarbon solvents. While methylsodium forms tetramers like methyllithium, methylpotassium is more ionic and has the nickel arsenide structure with discrete methyl anions and potassium cations.The alkali metals and their hydrides react with acidic hydrocarbons, for example cyclopentadienes and terminal alkynes, to give salts. Liquid ammonia, ether, or hydrocarbon solvents are used, the most common of which being tetrahydrofuran. The most important of these compounds is sodium cyclopentadienide, NaC5H5, an important precursor to many transition metal cyclopentadienyl derivatives. Similarly, the alkali metals react with cyclooctatetraene in tetrahydrofuran to give alkali metal cyclooctatetraenides; for example, dipotassium cyclooctatetraenide (K2C8H8) is an important precursor to many metal cyclooctatetraenyl derivatives, such as uranocene. The large and very weakly polarising alkali metal cations can stabilise large, aromatic, polarisable radical anions, such as the dark-green sodium naphthalenide, Na+[C10H8•]−, a strong reducing agent.Representative reactions of alkali metalsReaction with oxygenUpon reacting with oxygen, alkali metals form oxides, peroxides, superoxides and suboxides. However, the first three are more common. The table below shows the types of compounds formed in reaction with oxygen. The compound in brackets represents the minor product of combustion.The alkali metal peroxides are ionic compounds that are unstable in water. The peroxide anion is weakly bound to the cation, and it is hydrolysed, forming stronger covalent bonds.Na2O2 + 2H2O → 2NaOH + H2O2The other oxygen compounds are also unstable in water.2KO2 + 2H2O → 2KOH + H2O2 + O2Li2O + H2O → 2LiOHReaction with sulfurWith sulfur, they form sulfides and polysulfides.2Na + 1/8S8 → Na2S + 1/8S8 → Na2S2...Na2S7Because alkali metal sulfides are essentially salts of a weak acid and a strong base, they form basic solutions.S2- + H2O → HS− + HO−HS− + H2O → H2S + HO−Reaction with nitrogenLithium is the only metal that combines directly with nitrogen at room temperature.3Li + 1/3N2 → Li3NLi3N can react with water to liberate ammonia.Li3N + 3H2O → 3LiOH + NH3Reaction with hydrogenWith hydrogen, alkali metals form saline hydrides that hydrolyse in water. Na + H2 → NaH (at high temperatures)NaH + H2O → NaOH + H2Reaction with carbonLithium is the only metal that reacts directly with carbon to give dilithium acetylide. Na and K can react with acetylene to give acetylides.2Li + 2C → Li2C2Na + C2H2 → NaC2H + 1/2H2 (at 1500C)Na + NaC2H → Na2C2 (at 2200C)Reaction with waterOn reaction with water, they generate hydroxide ions and hydrogen gas. This reaction is vigorous and highly exothermic and the hydrogen resulted may ignite in air or even explode in the case of Rb and Cs.Na + H2O → NaOH + 1/2H2Reaction with other saltsThe alkali metals are very good reducing agents. They can reduce metal cations that are less electropositive. Titanium is produced industrially by the reduction of titanium tetrachloride with Na at 4000C (van Arkel–de Boer process).TiCl4 + 4Na → 4NaCl + TiReaction with organohalide compoundsAlkali metals react with halogen derivatives to generate hydrocarbon via the Wurtz reaction.2CH3-Cl + 2Na → H3C-CH3 + 2NaClAlkali metals in liquid ammoniaAlkali metals dissolve in liquid ammonia or other donor solvents like aliphatic amines or hexamethylphosphoramide to give blue solutions. These solutions are believed to contain free electrons.Na + xNH3 → Na+ + e(NH3)x−Due to the presence of solvated electrons, these solutions are very powerful reducing agents used in organic synthesis.Reaction 1) is known as Birch reduction.Other reductions that can be carried by these solutions are:S8 + 2e− → S82- Fe(CO)5 + 2e− → Fe(CO)42- + COExtensions Although francium is the heaviest alkali metal that has been discovered, there has been some theoretical work predicting the physical and chemical characteristics of hypothetical heavier alkali metals. Being the first period 8 element, the undiscovered element ununennium (element 119) is predicted to be the next alkali metal after francium and behave much like their lighter congeners; however, it is also predicted to differ from the lighter alkali metals in some properties. Its chemistry is predicted to be closer to that of potassium or rubidium instead of caesium or francium. This is unusual as periodic trends, ignoring relativistic effects would predict ununennium to be even more reactive than caesium and francium. This lowered reactivity is due to the relativistic stabilisation of ununennium's valence electron, increasing ununennium's first ionisation energy and decreasing the metallic and ionic radii; this effect is already seen for francium. This assumes that ununennium will behave chemically as an alkali metal, which, although likely, may not be true due to relativistic effects. The relativistic stabilisation of the 8s orbital also increases ununennium's electron affinity far beyond that of caesium and francium; indeed, ununennium is expected to have an electron affinity higher than all the alkali metals lighter than it. Relativistic effects also cause a very large drop in the polarisability of ununennium. On the other hand, ununennium is predicted to continue the trend of melting points decreasing going down the group, being expected to have a melting point between 0 °C and 30 °C.The stabilisation of ununennium's valence electron and thus the contraction of the 8s orbital cause its atomic radius to be lowered to 240 pm, very close to that of rubidium (247 pm), so that the chemistry of ununennium in the +1 oxidation state should be more similar to the chemistry of rubidium than to that of francium. On the other hand, the ionic radius of the Uue+ ion is predicted to be larger than that of Rb+, because the 7p orbitals are destabilised and are thus larger than the p-orbitals of the lower shells. Ununennium may also show the +3 oxidation state, which is not seen in any other alkali metal, in addition to the +1 oxidation state that is characteristic of the other alkali metals and is also the main oxidation state of all the known alkali metals: this is because of the destabilisation and expansion of the 7p3/2 spinor, causing its outermost electrons to have a lower ionisation energy than what would otherwise be expected. Indeed, many ununennium compounds are expected to have a large covalent character, due to the involvement of the 7p3/2 electrons in the bonding.Not as much work has been done predicting the properties of the alkali metals beyond ununennium. Although a simple extrapolation of the periodic table (by the aufbau principle) would put element 169, unhexennium, under ununennium, Dirac-Fock calculations predict that the next element after ununennium with alkali-metal-like properties may be element 165, unhexpentium, which is predicted to have the electron configuration [Og] 5g18 6f14 7d10 8s2 8p1/22 9s1. This element would be intermediate in properties between an alkali metal and a group 11 element, and while its physical and atomic properties would be closer to the former, its chemistry may be closer to that of the latter. Further calculations show that unhexpentium would follow the trend of increasing ionisation energy beyond caesium, having an ionisation energy comparable to that of sodium, and that it should also continue the trend of decreasing atomic radii beyond caesium, having an atomic radius comparable to that of potassium. However, the 7d electrons of unhexpentium may also be able to participate in chemical reactions along with the 9s electron, possibly allowing oxidation states beyond +1, whence the likely transition metal behaviour of unhexpentium. Due to the alkali and alkaline earth metals both being s-block elements, these predictions for the trends and properties of ununennium and unhexpentium also mostly hold quite similarly for the corresponding alkaline earth metals unbinilium (Ubn) and unhexhexium (Uhh). Unsepttrium, element 173, may be an even better heavier homologue of ununennium; with a predicted electron configuration of [Usb] 6g1, it returns to the alkali-metal-like situation of having one easily removed electron far above a closed p-shell in energy, and is expected to be even more reactive than caesium.The probable properties of further alkali metals beyond unsepttrium have not been explored yet as of 2019, and they may or may not be able to exist. In periods 8 and above of the periodic table, relativistic and shell-structure effects become so strong that extrapolations from lighter congeners become completely inaccurate. In addition, the relativistic and shell-structure effects (which stabilise the s-orbitals and destabilise and expand the d-, f-, and g-orbitals of higher shells) have opposite effects, causing even larger difference between relativistic and non-relativistic calculations of the properties of elements with such high atomic numbers. Interest in the chemical properties of ununennium, unhexpentium, and unsepttrium stems from the fact that they are located close to the expected locations of islands of stability, centered at elements 122 (306Ubb) and 164 (482Uhq).Pseudo-alkali metals Many other substances are similar to the alkali metals in their tendency to form monopositive cations. Analogously to the pseudohalogens, they have sometimes been called "pseudo-alkali metals". These substances include some elements and many more polyatomic ions; the polyatomic ions are especially similar to the alkali metals in their large size and weak polarising power.Hydrogen The element hydrogen, with one electron per neutral atom, is usually placed at the top of Group 1 of the periodic table for convenience, but hydrogen is not normally considered to be an alkali metal; when it is considered to be an alkali metal, it is because of its atomic properties and not its chemical properties. Under typical conditions, pure hydrogen exists as a diatomic gas consisting of two atoms per molecule (H2); however, the alkali metals form diatomic molecules (such as dilithium, Li2) only at high temperatures, when they are in the gaseous state.Hydrogen, like the alkali metals, has one valence electron and reacts easily with the halogens, but the similarities mostly end there because of the small size of a bare proton H+ compared to the alkali metal cations. Its placement above lithium is primarily due to its electron configuration. It is sometimes placed above fluorine due to their similar chemical properties, though the resemblance is likewise not absolute.The first ionisation energy of hydrogen (1312.0 kJ/mol) is much higher than that of the alkali metals. As only one additional electron is required to fill in the outermost shell of the hydrogen atom, hydrogen often behaves like a halogen, forming the negative hydride ion, and is very occasionally considered to be a halogen on that basis. (The alkali metals can also form negative ions, known as alkalides, but these are little more than laboratory curiosities, being unstable.) An argument against this placement is that formation of hydride from hydrogen is endothermic, unlike the exothermic formation of halides from halogens. The radius of the H− anion also does not fit the trend of increasing size going down the halogens: indeed, H− is very diffuse because its single proton cannot easily control both electrons. It was expected for some time that liquid hydrogen would show metallic properties; while this has been shown to not be the case, under extremely high pressures, such as those found at the cores of Jupiter and Saturn, hydrogen does become metallic and behaves like an alkali metal; in this phase, it is known as metallic hydrogen. The electrical resistivity of liquid metallic hydrogen at 3000 K is approximately equal to that of liquid rubidium and caesium at 2000 K at the respective pressures when they undergo a nonmetal-to-metal transition.The 1s1 electron configuration of hydrogen, while analogous to that of the alkali metals (ns1), is unique because there is no 1p subshell. Hence it can lose an electron to form the hydron H+, or gain one to form the hydride ion H−. In the former case it resembles superficially the alkali metals; in the latter case, the halogens, but the differences due to the lack of a 1p subshell are important enough that neither group fits the properties of hydrogen well. Group 14 is also a good fit in terms of thermodynamic properties such as ionisation energy and electron affinity, but hydrogen cannot be tetravalent. Thus none of the three placements are entirely satisfactory, although group 1 is the most common placement (if one is chosen) because the hydron is by far the most important of all monatomic hydrogen species, being the foundation of acid-base chemistry. As an example of hydrogen's unorthodox properties stemming from its unusual electron configuration and small size, the hydrogen ion is very small (radius around 150 fm compared to the 50–220 pm size of most other atoms and ions) and so is nonexistent in condensed systems other than in association with other atoms or molecules. Indeed, transferring of protons between chemicals is the basis of acid-base chemistry. Also unique is hydrogen's ability to form hydrogen bonds, which are an effect of charge-transfer, electrostatic, and electron correlative contributing phenomena. While analogous lithium bonds are also known, they are mostly electrostatic. Nevertheless, hydrogen can take on the same structural role as the alkali metals in some molecular crystals, and has a close relationship with the lightest alkali metals (especially lithium).Ammonium and derivatives The ammonium ion () has very similar properties to the heavier alkali metals, acting as an alkali metal intermediate between potassium and rubidium, and is often considered a close relative. For example, most alkali metal salts are soluble in water, a property which ammonium salts share. Ammonium is expected to behave stably as a metal ( ions in a sea of delocalised electrons) at very high pressures (though less than the typical pressure where transitions from insulating to metallic behaviour occur around, 100 GPa), and could possibly occur inside the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, which may have significant impacts on their interior magnetic fields. It has been estimated that the transition from a mixture of ammonia and dihydrogen molecules to metallic ammonium may occur at pressures just below 25 GPa. Under standard conditions, ammonium can form a metallic amalgam with mercury.Other "pseudo-alkali metals" include the alkylammonium cations, in which some of the hydrogen atoms in the ammonium cation are replaced by alkyl or aryl groups. In particular, the quaternary ammonium cations () are very useful since they are permanently charged, and they are often used as an alternative to the expensive Cs+ to stabilise very large and very easily polarisable anions such as . Tetraalkylammonium hydroxides, like alkali metal hydroxides, are very strong bases that react with atmospheric carbon dioxide to form carbonates. Furthermore, the nitrogen atom may be replaced by a phosphorus, arsenic, or antimony atom (the heavier nonmetallic pnictogens), creating a phosphonium () or arsonium () cation that can itself be substituted similarly; while stibonium () itself is not known, some of its organic derivatives are characterised.Cobaltocene and derivatives Cobaltocene, Co(C5H5)2, is a metallocene, the cobalt analogue of ferrocene. It is a dark purple solid. Cobaltocene has 19 valence electrons, one more than usually found in organotransition metal complexes, such as its very stable relative, ferrocene, in accordance with the 18-electron rule. This additional electron occupies an orbital that is antibonding with respect to the Co–C bonds. Consequently, many chemical reactions of Co(C5H5)2 are characterized by its tendency to lose this "extra" electron, yielding a very stable 18-electron cation known as cobaltocenium. Many cobaltocenium salts coprecipitate with caesium salts, and cobaltocenium hydroxide is a strong base that absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide to form cobaltocenium carbonate. Like the alkali metals, cobaltocene is a strong reducing agent, and decamethylcobaltocene is stronger still due to the combined inductive effect of the ten methyl groups. Cobalt may be substituted by its heavier congener rhodium to give rhodocene, an even stronger reducing agent. Iridocene (involving iridium) would presumably be still more potent, but is not very well-studied due to its instability.Thallium Thallium is the heaviest stable element in group 13 of the periodic table. At the bottom of the periodic table, the inert pair effect is quite strong, because of the relativistic stabilisation of the 6s orbital and the decreasing bond energy as the atoms increase in size so that the amount of energy released in forming two more bonds is not worth the high ionisation energies of the 6s electrons. It displays the +1 oxidation state that all the known alkali metals display, and thallium compounds with thallium in its +1 oxidation state closely resemble the corresponding potassium or silver compounds stoichiometrically due to the similar ionic radii of the Tl+ (164 pm), K+ (152 pm) and Ag+ (129 pm) ions. It was sometimes considered an alkali metal in continental Europe (but not in England) in the years immediately following its discovery, and was placed just after caesium as the sixth alkali metal in Dmitri Mendeleev's 1869 periodic table and Julius Lothar Meyer's 1868 periodic table. (Mendeleev's 1871 periodic table and Meyer's 1870 periodic table put thallium in its current position in the boron group and left the space below caesium blank.) However, thallium also displays the oxidation state +3, which no known alkali metal displays (although ununennium, the undiscovered seventh alkali metal, is predicted to possibly display the +3 oxidation state). The sixth alkali metal is now considered to be francium. While Tl+ is stabilised by the inert pair effect, this inert pair of 6s electrons is still able to participate chemically, so that these electrons are stereochemically active in aqueous solution. Additionally, the thallium halides (except TlF) are quite insoluble in water, and TlI has an unusual structure because of the presence of the stereochemically active inert pair in thallium.Copper, silver, and gold The group 11 metals (or coinage metals), copper, silver, and gold, are typically categorised as transition metals given they can form ions with incomplete d-shells. Physically, they have the relatively low melting points and high electronegativity values associated with post-transition metals. "The filled d subshell and free s electron of Cu, Ag, and Au contribute to their high electrical and thermal conductivity. Transition metals to the left of group 11 experience interactions between s electrons and the partially filled d subshell that lower electron mobility." Chemically, the group 11 metals behave like main-group metals in their +1 valence states, and are hence somewhat related to the alkali metals: this is one reason for their previously being labelled as "group IB", paralleling the alkali metals' "group IA". They are occasionally classified as post-transition metals. Their spectra are analogous to those of the alkali metals. Their monopositive ions are paramagnetic and contribute no colour to their salts, like those of the alkali metals.In Mendeleev's 1871 periodic table, copper, silver, and gold are listed twice, once under group VIII (with the iron triad and platinum group metals), and once under group IB. Group IB was nonetheless parenthesised to note that it was tentative. Mendeleev's main criterion for group assignment was the maximum oxidation state of an element: on that basis, the group 11 elements could not be classified in group IB, due to the existence of copper(II) and gold(III) compounds being known at that time. However, eliminating group IB would make group I the only main group (group VIII was labelled a transition group) to lack an A–B bifurcation. Soon afterward, a majority of chemists chose to classify these elements in group IB and remove them from group VIII for the resulting symmetry: this was the predominant classification until the rise of the modern medium-long 18-column periodic table, which separated the alkali metals and group 11 metals.The coinage metals were traditionally regarded as a subdivision of the alkali metal group, due to them sharing the characteristic s1 electron configuration of the alkali metals (group 1: p6s1; group 11: d10s1). However, the similarities are largely confined to the stoichiometries of the +1 compounds of both groups, and not their chemical properties. This stems from the filled d subshell providing a much weaker shielding effect on the outermost s electron than the filled p subshell, so that the coinage metals have much higher first ionisation energies and smaller ionic radii than do the corresponding alkali metals. Furthermore, they have higher melting points, hardnesses, and densities, and lower reactivities and solubilities in liquid ammonia, as well as having more covalent character in their compounds. Finally, the alkali metals are at the top of the electrochemical series, whereas the coinage metals are almost at the very bottom. The coinage metals' filled d shell is much more easily disrupted than the alkali metals' filled p shell, so that the second and third ionisation energies are lower, enabling higher oxidation states than +1 and a richer coordination chemistry, thus giving the group 11 metals clear transition metal character. Particularly noteworthy is gold forming ionic compounds with rubidium and caesium, in which it forms the auride ion (Au−) which also occurs in solvated form in liquid ammonia solution: here gold behaves as a pseudohalogen because its 5d106s1 configuration has one electron less than the quasi-closed shell 5d106s2 configuration of mercury.Production and isolation The production of pure alkali metals is somewhat complicated due to their extreme reactivity with commonly used substances, such as water. From their silicate ores, all the stable alkali metals may be obtained the same way: sulfuric acid is first used to dissolve the desired alkali metal ion and aluminium(III) ions from the ore (leaching), whereupon basic precipitation removes aluminium ions from the mixture by precipitating it as the hydroxide. The remaining insoluble alkali metal carbonate is then precipitated selectively; the salt is then dissolved in hydrochloric acid to produce the chloride. The result is then left to evaporate and the alkali metal can then be isolated. Lithium and sodium are typically isolated through electrolysis from their liquid chlorides, with calcium chloride typically added to lower the melting point of the mixture. The heavier alkali metals, however, are more typically isolated in a different way, where a reducing agent (typically sodium for potassium and magnesium or calcium for the heaviest alkali metals) is used to reduce the alkali metal chloride. The liquid or gaseous product (the alkali metal) then undergoes fractional distillation for purification. Most routes to the pure alkali metals require the use of electrolysis due to their high reactivity; one of the few which does not is the pyrolysis of the corresponding alkali metal azide, which yields the metal for sodium, potassium, rubidium, and caesium and the nitride for lithium.Lithium salts have to be extracted from the water of mineral springs, brine pools, and brine deposits. The metal is produced electrolytically from a mixture of fused lithium chloride and potassium chloride.Sodium occurs mostly in seawater and dried seabed, but is now produced through electrolysis of sodium chloride by lowering the melting point of the substance to below 700 °C through the use of a Downs cell. Extremely pure sodium can be produced through the thermal decomposition of sodium azide. Potassium occurs in many minerals, such as sylvite (potassium chloride). Previously, potassium was generally made from the electrolysis of potassium chloride or potassium hydroxide, found extensively in places such as Canada, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Israel, United States, and Jordan, in a method similar to how sodium was produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It can also be produced from seawater. However, these methods are problematic because the potassium metal tends to dissolve in its molten chloride and vaporises significantly at the operating temperatures, potentially forming the explosive superoxide. As a result, pure potassium metal is now produced by reducing molten potassium chloride with sodium metal at 850 °C.Na (g) + KCl (l)  NaCl (l) + K (g)Although sodium is less reactive than potassium, this process works because at such high temperatures potassium is more volatile than sodium and can easily be distilled off, so that the equilibrium shifts towards the right to produce more potassium gas and proceeds almost to completion.Metals like sodium are obtained by electrolysis of molten salts. Rb & Cs obtained mainly as by products of Li processing. To make pure cesium, ores of cesium and rubidium are crushed and heated to 650 °C with sodium metal, generating an alloy that can then be separated via a fractional distillation technique. Because metallic cesium is too reactive to handle, it is normally offered as cesium azide (CsN3). Cesium hydroxide is formed when cesium interacts aggressively with water and ice (CsOH).Rubidium is the 16th most prevalent element in the earth's crust, however it is quite rare. Some minerals found in North America, South Africa, Russia, and Canada contain rubidium. Some potassium minerals (lepidolites, biotites, feldspar, carnallite) contain it, together with caesium. Pollucite, carnallite, leucite, and lepidolite are all minerals that contain rubidium. As a by-product of lithium extraction, it is commercially obtained from lepidolite. Rubidium is also found in potassium rocks and brines, which is a commercial supply. The majority of rubidium is now obtained as a byproduct of refining lithium. Rubidium is used in vacuum tubes as a getter, a material that combines with and removes trace gases from vacuum tubes.For several years in the 1950s and 1960s, a by-product of the potassium production called Alkarb was a main source for rubidium. Alkarb contained 21% rubidium while the rest was potassium and a small fraction of caesium. Today the largest producers of caesium, for example the Tanco Mine in Manitoba, Canada, produce rubidium as by-product from pollucite. Today, a common method for separating rubidium from potassium and caesium is the fractional crystallisation of a rubidium and caesium alum (Cs, Rb)Al(SO4)2·12H2O, which yields pure rubidium alum after approximately 30 recrystallisations. The limited applications and the lack of a mineral rich in rubidium limit the production of rubidium compounds to 2 to 4 tonnes per year. Caesium, however, is not produced from the above reaction. Instead, the mining of pollucite ore is the main method of obtaining pure caesium, extracted from the ore mainly by three methods: acid digestion, alkaline decomposition, and direct reduction. Both metals are produced as by-products of lithium production: after 1958, when interest in lithium's thermonuclear properties increased sharply, the production of rubidium and caesium also increased correspondingly. Pure rubidium and caesium metals are produced by reducing their chlorides with calcium metal at 750 °C and low pressure.As a result of its extreme rarity in nature, most francium is synthesised in the nuclear reaction 197Au + 18O → 210Fr + 5 n, yielding francium-209, francium-210, and francium-211. The greatest quantity of francium ever assembled to date is about 300,000 neutral atoms, which were synthesised using the nuclear reaction given above. When the only natural isotope francium-223 is specifically required, it is produced as the alpha daughter of actinium-227, itself produced synthetically from the neutron irradiation of natural radium-226, one of the daughters of natural uranium-238.Applications Lithium, sodium, and potassium have many applications, while rubidium and caesium are very useful in academic contexts but do not have many applications yet. Lithium is often used in lithium-ion batteries, and lithium oxide can help process silica. Lithium stearate is a thickener and can be used to make lubricating greases; it is produced from lithium hydroxide, which is also used to absorb carbon dioxide in space capsules and submarines. Lithium chloride is used as a brazing alloy for aluminium parts. Metallic lithium is used in alloys with magnesium and aluminium to give very tough and light alloys.Sodium compounds have many applications, the most well-known being sodium chloride as table salt. Sodium salts of fatty acids are used as soap. Pure sodium metal also has many applications, including use in sodium-vapour lamps, which produce very efficient light compared to other types of lighting, and can help smooth the surface of other metals. Being a strong reducing agent, it is often used to reduce many other metals, such as titanium and zirconium, from their chlorides. Furthermore, it is very useful as a heat-exchange liquid in fast breeder nuclear reactors due to its low melting point, viscosity, and cross-section towards neutron absorption.Potassium compounds are often used as fertilisers as potassium is an important element for plant nutrition. Potassium hydroxide is a very strong base, and is used to control the pH of various substances. Potassium nitrate and potassium permanganate are often used as powerful oxidising agents. Potassium superoxide is used in breathing masks, as it reacts with carbon dioxide to give potassium carbonate and oxygen gas. Pure potassium metal is not often used, but its alloys with sodium may substitute for pure sodium in fast breeder nuclear reactors.Rubidium and caesium are often used in atomic clocks. Caesium atomic clocks are extraordinarily accurate; if a clock had been made at the time of the dinosaurs, it would be off by less than four seconds (after 80 million years). For that reason, caesium atoms are used as the definition of the second. Rubidium ions are often used in purple fireworks, and caesium is often used in drilling fluids in the petroleum industry.Francium has no commercial applications, but because of francium's relatively simple atomic structure, among other things, it has been used in spectroscopy experiments, leading to more information regarding energy levels and the coupling constants between subatomic particles. Studies on the light emitted by laser-trapped francium-210 ions have provided accurate data on transitions between atomic energy levels, similar to those predicted by quantum theory.Biological role and precautionsMetals Pure alkali metals are dangerously reactive with air and water and must be kept away from heat, fire, oxidising agents, acids, most organic compounds, halocarbons, plastics, and moisture. They also react with carbon dioxide and carbon tetrachloride, so that normal fire extinguishers are counterproductive when used on alkali metal fires. Some Class D dry powder extinguishers designed for metal fires are effective, depriving the fire of oxygen and cooling the alkali metal.Experiments are usually conducted using only small quantities of a few grams in a fume hood. Small quantities of lithium may be disposed of by reaction with cool water, but the heavier alkali metals should be dissolved in the less reactive isopropanol. The alkali metals must be stored under mineral oil or an inert atmosphere. The inert atmosphere used may be argon or nitrogen gas, except for lithium, which reacts with nitrogen. Rubidium and caesium must be kept away from air, even under oil, because even a small amount of air diffused into the oil may trigger formation of the dangerously explosive peroxide; for the same reason, potassium should not be stored under oil in an oxygen-containing atmosphere for longer than 6 months.Ions The bioinorganic chemistry of the alkali metal ions has been extensively reviewed.Solid state crystal structures have been determined for many complexes of alkali metal ions in small peptides, nucleic acid constituents, carbohydrates and ionophore complexes.Lithium naturally only occurs in traces in biological systems and has no known biological role, but does have effects on the body when ingested. Lithium carbonate is used as a mood stabiliser in psychiatry to treat bipolar disorder (manic-depression) in daily doses of about 0.5 to 2 grams, although there are side-effects. Excessive ingestion of lithium causes drowsiness, slurred speech and vomiting, among other symptoms, and poisons the central nervous system, which is dangerous as the required dosage of lithium to treat bipolar disorder is only slightly lower than the toxic dosage. Its biochemistry, the way it is handled by the human body and studies using rats and goats suggest that it is an essential trace element, although the natural biological function of lithium in humans has yet to be identified.Sodium and potassium occur in all known biological systems, generally functioning as electrolytes inside and outside cells. Sodium is an essential nutrient that regulates blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH; the minimum physiological requirement for sodium is 500 milligrams per day. Sodium chloride (also known as common salt) is the principal source of sodium in the diet, and is used as seasoning and preservative, such as for pickling and jerky; most of it comes from processed foods. The Dietary Reference Intake for sodium is 1.5 grams per day, but most people in the United States consume more than 2.3 grams per day, the minimum amount that promotes hypertension; this in turn causes 7.6 million premature deaths worldwide.Potassium is the major cation (positive ion) inside animal cells, while sodium is the major cation outside animal cells. The concentration differences of these charged particles causes a difference in electric potential between the inside and outside of cells, known as the membrane potential. The balance between potassium and sodium is maintained by ion transporter proteins in the cell membrane. The cell membrane potential created by potassium and sodium ions allows the cell to generate an action potential—a "spike" of electrical discharge. The ability of cells to produce electrical discharge is critical for body functions such as neurotransmission, muscle contraction, and heart function. Disruption of this balance may thus be fatal: for example, ingestion of large amounts of potassium compounds can lead to hyperkalemia strongly influencing the cardiovascular system. Potassium chloride is used in the United States for lethal injection executions.Due to their similar atomic radii, rubidium and caesium in the body mimic potassium and are taken up similarly. Rubidium has no known biological role, but may help stimulate metabolism, and, similarly to caesium, replace potassium in the body causing potassium deficiency. Partial substitution is quite possible and rather non-toxic: a 70 kg person contains on average 0.36 g of rubidium, and an increase in this value by 50 to 100 times did not show negative effects in test persons. Rats can survive up to 50% substitution of potassium by rubidium. Rubidium (and to a much lesser extent caesium) can function as temporary cures for hypokalemia; while rubidium can adequately physiologically substitute potassium in some systems, caesium is never able to do so. There is only very limited evidence in the form of deficiency symptoms for rubidium being possibly essential in goats; even if this is true, the trace amounts usually present in food are more than enough.Caesium compounds are rarely encountered by most people, but most caesium compounds are mildly toxic. Like rubidium, caesium tends to substitute potassium in the body, but is significantly larger and is therefore a poorer substitute. Excess caesium can lead to hypokalemia, arrythmia, and acute cardiac arrest, but such amounts would not ordinarily be encountered in natural sources. As such, caesium is not a major chemical environmental pollutant. The median lethal dose (LD50) value for caesium chloride in mice is 2.3 g per kilogram, which is comparable to the LD50 values of potassium chloride and sodium chloride. Caesium chloride has been promoted as an alternative cancer therapy, but has been linked to the deaths of over 50 patients, on whom it was used as part of a scientifically unvalidated cancer treatment.Radioisotopes of caesium require special precautions: the improper handling of caesium-137 gamma ray sources can lead to release of this radioisotope and radiation injuries. Perhaps the best-known case is the Goiânia accident of 1987, in which an improperly-disposed-of radiation therapy system from an abandoned clinic in the city of Goiânia, Brazil, was scavenged from a junkyard, and the glowing caesium salt sold to curious, uneducated buyers. This led to four deaths and serious injuries from radiation exposure. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the Chernobyl disaster which constitute the greatest risk to health. Radioisotopes of francium would presumably be dangerous as well due to their high decay energy and short half-life, but none have been produced in large enough amounts to pose any serious risk.NotesReferences A Groups (periodic table)Periodic tableArticles containing video clips
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written symbols or graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllable, for instance, and logographic systems use characters to represent words, morphemes, or other semantic units.The first fully phonemic script, the Proto-Canaanite script, later known as the Phoenician alphabet, is considered to be the first alphabet, and is the ancestor of most modern alphabets, including Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and possibly Brahmic. It was created by Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in the Sinai Peninsula (as the Proto-Sinaitic script), by selecting a small number of hieroglyphs commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own Canaanite language. However, Peter T. Daniels distinguishes an abugida, or alphasyllabary, a set of graphemes that represent consonantal base letters which diacritics modify to represent vowels (as in Devanagari and other South Asian scripts), an abjad, in which letters predominantly or exclusively represent consonants (as in the original Phoenician, Hebrew or Arabic), and an "alphabet", a set of graphemes that represent both consonants and vowels. In this narrow sense of the word the first true alphabet was the Greek alphabet, which was developed on the basis of the earlier Phoenician alphabet.Of the dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular is the Latin alphabet, which was derived from the Greek, and which is now used by many languages world-wide, often with the addition of extra letters or diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille. The Khmer alphabet (for Khmer) is the longest, with 74 letters.Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of "numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists and number placements.EtymologyThe English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphabētos). The Greek word was made from the first two letters, alpha (α) and beta (β). The names for the Greek letters came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet; aleph, which also meant ox, and bet, which also meant house.Sometimes, like in the alphabet song in English, the term "ABCs" is used instead of the word "alphabet" (Now I know my ABCs...).  "Knowing one's ABCs", in general, can be used as a metaphor for knowing the basics about anything.HistoryAncient Northeast African and Middle Eastern scriptsThe history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. Egyptian writing had a set of some 24 hieroglyphs that are called uniliterals, to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names.In the Middle Bronze Age, an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script appears in Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai peninsula dated to circa the 15th century BC, apparently left by Canaanite workers. In 1999, John and Deborah Darnell discovered an even earlier version of this first alphabet at Wadi el-Hol dated to circa 1800 BC and showing evidence of having been adapted from specific forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs that could be dated to circa 2000 BC, strongly suggesting that the first alphabet had been developed about that time. Based on letter appearances and names, it is believed to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs. This script had no characters representing vowels, although originally it probably was a syllabary, but unneeded symbols were discarded. An alphabetic cuneiform script with 30 signs including three that indicate the following vowel was invented in Ugarit before the 15th century BC. This script was not used after the destruction of Ugarit.The Proto-Sinaitic script eventually developed into the Phoenician alphabet, which is conventionally called "Proto-Canaanite" before c. 1050 BC. The oldest text in Phoenician script is an inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram. This script is the parent script of all western alphabets. By the tenth century, two other forms can be distinguished, namely Canaanite and Aramaic. The Aramaic gave rise to the Hebrew script. The South Arabian alphabet, a sister script to the Phoenician alphabet, is the script from which the Ge'ez alphabet (an abugida) is descended. Vowelless alphabets are called abjads, currently exemplified in scripts including Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac. The omission of vowels was not always a satisfactory solution and some "weak" consonants are sometimes used to indicate the vowel quality of a syllable (matres lectionis). These letters have a dual function since they are also used as pure consonants.The Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Canaanite script and the Ugaritic script were the first scripts with a limited number of signs, in contrast to the other widely used writing systems at the time, Cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Linear B. The Phoenician script was probably the first phonemic script and it contained only about two dozen distinct letters, making it a script simple enough for common traders to learn. Another advantage of Phoenician was that it could be used to write down many different languages, since it recorded words phonemically.The script was spread by the Phoenicians across the Mediterranean. In Greece, the script was modified to add vowels, giving rise to the ancestor of all alphabets in the West. It was the first alphabet in which vowels have independent letter forms separate from those of consonants. The Greeks chose letters representing sounds that did not exist in Greek to represent vowels. Vowels are significant in the Greek language, and the syllabical Linear B script that was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BC had 87 symbols, including 5 vowels. In its early years, there were many variants of the Greek alphabet, a situation that caused many different alphabets to evolve from it.European alphabetsThe Greek alphabet, in its Euboean form, was carried over by Greek colonists to the Italian peninsula, where it gave rise to a variety of alphabets used to write the Italic languages. One of these became the Latin alphabet, which was spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their empire. Even after the fall of the Roman state, the alphabet survived in intellectual and religious works. It eventually became used for the descendant languages of Latin (the Romance languages) and then for most of the other languages of western and central Europe.Some adaptations of the Latin alphabet are augmented with ligatures, such as æ in Danish and Icelandic and Ȣ in Algonquian; by borrowings from other alphabets, such as the thorn þ in Old English and Icelandic, which came from the Futhark runes; and by modifying existing letters, such as the eth ð of Old English and Icelandic, which is a modified d. Other alphabets only use a subset of the Latin alphabet, such as Hawaiian, and Italian, which uses the letters j, k, x, y and w only in foreign words.Another notable script is Elder Futhark, which is believed to have evolved out of one of the Old Italic alphabets. Elder Futhark gave rise to a variety of alphabets known collectively as the Runic alphabets. The Runic alphabets were used for Germanic languages from AD 100 to the late Middle Ages. Its usage is mostly restricted to engravings on stone and jewelry, although inscriptions have also been found on bone and wood. These alphabets have since been replaced with the Latin alphabet, except for decorative usage for which the runes remained in use until the 20th century.The Old Hungarian script is a contemporary writing system of the Hungarians. It was in use during the entire history of Hungary, albeit not as an official writing system. From the 19th century it once again became more and more popular.The Glagolitic alphabet was the initial script of the liturgical language Old Church Slavonic and became, together with the Greek uncial script, the basis of the Cyrillic script. Cyrillic is one of the most widely used modern alphabetic scripts, and is notable for its use in Slavic languages and also for other languages within the former Soviet Union. Cyrillic alphabets include the Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. The Glagolitic alphabet is believed to have been created by Saints Cyril and Methodius, while the Cyrillic alphabet was invented by Clement of Ohrid, who was their disciple. They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed from or influenced by Greek and Hebrew.The longest European alphabet is the Latin-derived Slovak alphabet, which has 46 letters.Asian alphabetsBeyond the logographic Chinese writing, many phonetic scripts are in existence in Asia. The Arabic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet, and other abjads of the Middle East are developments of the Aramaic alphabet.Most alphabetic scripts of India and Eastern Asia are descended from the Brahmi script, which is often believed to be a descendant of Aramaic.In Korea, the Hangul alphabet was created by Sejong the Great. Hangul is a unique alphabet: it is a featural alphabet, where many of the letters are designed from a sound's place of articulation (P to look like the widened mouth, L to look like the tongue pulled in, etc.); its design was planned by the government of the day; and it places individual letters in syllable clusters with equal dimensions, in the same way as Chinese characters, to allow for mixed-script writing (one syllable always takes up one type-space no matter how many letters get stacked into building that one sound-block).Zhuyin (sometimes called Bopomofo) is a semi-syllabary used to phonetically transcribe Mandarin Chinese in the Republic of China. After the later establishment of the People's Republic of China and its adoption of Hanyu Pinyin, the use of Zhuyin today is limited, but it is still widely used in Taiwan where the Republic of China still governs. Zhuyin developed out of a form of Chinese shorthand based on Chinese characters in the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary. Like an alphabet the phonemes of syllable initials are represented by individual symbols, but like a syllabary the phonemes of the syllable finals are not; rather, each possible final (excluding the medial glide) is represented by its own symbol. For example, luan is represented as ㄌㄨㄢ (l-u-an), where the last symbol ㄢ represents the entire final -an. While Zhuyin is not used as a mainstream writing system, it is still often used in ways similar to a romanization system—that is, for aiding in pronunciation and as an input method for Chinese characters on computers and cellphones.European alphabets, especially Latin and Cyrillic, have been adapted for many languages of Asia. Arabic is also widely used, sometimes as an abjad (as with Urdu and Persian) and sometimes as a complete alphabet (as with Kurdish and Uyghur).TypesThe term "alphabet" is used by linguists and paleographers in both a wide and a narrow sense. In the wider sense, an alphabet is a script that is segmental at the phoneme level—that is, it has separate glyphs for individual sounds and not for larger units such as syllables or words. In the narrower sense, some scholars distinguish "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental script, abjads and abugidas. These three differ from each other in the way they treat vowels: abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed; abugidas are also consonant-based, but indicate vowels with diacritics to or a systematic graphic modification of the consonants. In alphabets in the narrow sense, on the other hand, consonants and vowels are written as independent letters. The earliest known alphabet in the wider sense is the Wadi el-Hol script, believed to be an abjad, which through its successor Phoenician is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin (via the Old Italic alphabet), Cyrillic (via the Greek alphabet) and Hebrew (via Aramaic).Examples of present-day abjads are the Arabic and Hebrew scripts; true alphabets include Latin, Cyrillic, and Korean hangul; and abugidas are used to write Tigrinya, Amharic, Hindi, and Thai. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics are also an abugida rather than a syllabary as their name would imply, since each glyph stands for a consonant that is modified by rotation to represent the following vowel. (In a true syllabary, each consonant-vowel combination would be represented by a separate glyph.)All three types may be augmented with syllabic glyphs. Ugaritic, for example, is basically an abjad, but has syllabic letters for . (These are the only time vowels are indicated.) Cyrillic is basically a true alphabet, but has syllabic letters for  (я, е, ю); Coptic has a letter for . Devanagari is typically an abugida augmented with dedicated letters for initial vowels, though some traditions use अ as a zero consonant as the graphic base for such vowels.The boundaries between the three types of segmental scripts are not always clear-cut. For example, Sorani Kurdish is written in the Arabic script, which is normally an abjad. However, in Kurdish, writing the vowels is mandatory, and full letters are used, so the script is a true alphabet. Other languages may use a Semitic abjad with mandatory vowel diacritics, effectively making them abugidas. On the other hand, the Phagspa script of the Mongol Empire was based closely on the Tibetan abugida, but all vowel marks were written after the preceding consonant rather than as diacritic marks. Although short a was not written, as in the Indic abugidas, one could argue that the linear arrangement made this a true alphabet. Conversely, the vowel marks of the Tigrinya abugida and the Amharic abugida (ironically, the original source of the term "abugida") have been so completely assimilated into their consonants that the modifications are no longer systematic and have to be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental script. Even more extreme, the Pahlavi abjad eventually became logographic. (See below.)Thus the primary classification of alphabets reflects how they treat vowels. For tonal languages, further classification can be based on their treatment of tone, though names do not yet exist to distinguish the various types. Some alphabets disregard tone entirely, especially when it does not carry a heavy functional load, as in Somali and many other languages of Africa and the Americas. Such scripts are to tone what abjads are to vowels. Most commonly, tones are indicated with diacritics, the way vowels are treated in abugidas. This is the case for Vietnamese (a true alphabet) and Thai (an abugida). In Thai, tone is determined primarily by the choice of consonant, with diacritics for disambiguation. In the Pollard script, an abugida, vowels are indicated by diacritics, but the placement of the diacritic relative to the consonant is modified to indicate the tone. More rarely, a script may have separate letters for tones, as is the case for Hmong and Zhuang. For most of these scripts, regardless of whether letters or diacritics are used, the most common tone is not marked, just as the most common vowel is not marked in Indic abugidas; in Zhuyin not only is one of the tones unmarked, but there is a diacritic to indicate lack of tone, like the virama of Indic.The number of letters in an alphabet can be quite small. The Book Pahlavi script, an abjad, had only twelve letters at one point, and may have had even fewer later on. Today the Rotokas alphabet has only twelve letters. (The Hawaiian alphabet is sometimes claimed to be as small, but it actually consists of 18 letters, including the ʻokina and five long vowels. However, Hawaiian Braille has only 13 letters.) While Rotokas has a small alphabet because it has few phonemes to represent (just eleven), Book Pahlavi was small because many letters had been conflated—that is, the graphic distinctions had been lost over time, and diacritics were not developed to compensate for this as they were in Arabic, another script that lost many of its distinct letter shapes. For example, a comma-shaped letter represented g, d, y, k, or j. However, such apparent simplifications can perversely make a script more complicated. In later Pahlavi papyri, up to half of the remaining graphic distinctions of these twelve letters were lost, and the script could no longer be read as a sequence of letters at all, but instead each word had to be learned as a whole—that is, they had become logograms as in Egyptian Demotic.The largest segmental script is probably an abugida, Devanagari. When written in Devanagari, Vedic Sanskrit has an alphabet of 53 letters, including the visarga mark for final aspiration and special letters for kš and jñ, though one of the letters is theoretical and not actually used. The Hindi alphabet must represent both Sanskrit and modern vocabulary, and so has been expanded to 58 with the khutma letters (letters with a dot added) to represent sounds from Persian and English. Thai has a total of 59 symbols, consisting of 44 consonants, 13 vowels and 2 syllabics, not including 4 diacritics for tone marks and one for vowel length.The largest known abjad is Sindhi, with 51 letters. The largest alphabets in the narrow sense include Kabardian and Abkhaz (for Cyrillic), with 58 and 56 letters, respectively, and Slovak (for the Latin script), with 46. However, these scripts either count di- and tri-graphs as separate letters, as Spanish did with ch and ll until recently, or uses diacritics like Slovak č.The Georgian alphabet ( ) is an alphabetic writing system. With 33 letters, it is the largest true alphabet where each letter is graphically independent. The original Georgian alphabet had 38 letters but 5 letters were removed in the 19th century by Ilia Chavchavadze. The Georgian alphabet is much closer to Greek than the other Caucasian alphabets. The letter order parallels the Greek, with the consonants without a Greek equivalent organized at the end of the alphabet. The origins of the alphabet are still unknown. Some Armenian and Western scholars believe it was created by Mesrop Mashtots (Armenian: Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց Mesrop Maštoc') also known as Mesrob the Vartabed, who was an early medieval Armenian linguist, theologian, statesman and hymnologist, best known for inventing the Armenian alphabet c. 405 AD; other Georgian and Western scholars are against this theory. Most scholars link the creation of the Georgian script to the process of Christianization of Iberia, a core Georgian kingdom of Kartli. The alphabet was therefore most probably created between the conversion of Iberia under King Mirian III (326 or 337) and the Bir el Qutt inscriptions of 430, contemporaneously with the Armenian alphabet.Syllabaries typically contain 50 to 400 glyphs, and the glyphs of logographic systems typically number from the many hundreds into the thousands. Thus a simple count of the number of distinct symbols is an important clue to the nature of an unknown script.The Armenian alphabet (  or  ) is a graphically unique alphabetical writing system that has been used to write the Armenian language. It was created in year 405 A.D. originally contained 36 letters. Two more letters, օ (o) and ֆ (f), were added in the Middle Ages. During the 1920s orthography reform, a new letter և (capital ԵՎ) was added, which was a ligature before ե+ւ, while the letter Ւ ւ was discarded and reintroduced as part of a new letter ՈՒ ու (which was a digraph before).The Armenian script's directionality is horizontal left-to-right, like the Latin and Greek alphabets. It also uses bicameral script like those. The Armenian word for "alphabet" is   (), named after the first two letters of the Armenian alphabet Ա այբ ayb and Բ բեն ben.Alphabetical orderAlphabets often come to be associated with a standard ordering of their letters, which can then be used for purposes of collation—namely for the listing of words and other items in what is called alphabetical order.The basic ordering of the Latin alphabet (ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ), which is derived from the Northwest Semitic "Abgad" order, is well established, although languages using this alphabet have different conventions for their treatment of modified letters (such as the French é, à, and ô) and of certain combinations of letters (multigraphs). In French, these are not considered to be additional letters for the purposes of collation. However, in Icelandic, the accented letters such as á, í, and ö are considered distinct letters representing different vowel sounds from the sounds represented by their unaccented counterparts. In Spanish, ñ is considered a separate letter, but accented vowels such as á and é are not. The ll and ch were also considered single letters, but in 1994 the Real Academia Española changed the collating order so that ll is between lk and lm in the dictionary and ch is between cg and ci, and in 2010 the tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies changed it so they were no longer letters at all.In German, words starting with sch- (which spells the German phoneme ) are inserted between words with initial sca- and sci- (all incidentally loanwords) instead of appearing after initial sz, as though it were a single letter—in contrast to several languages such as Albanian, in which dh-, ë-, gj-, ll-, rr-, th-, xh- and zh- (all representing phonemes and considered separate single letters) would follow the letters d, e, g, l, n, r, t, x and z respectively, as well as Hungarian and Welsh. Further, German words with an umlaut are collated ignoring the umlaut—contrary to Turkish that adopted the graphemes ö and ü, and where a word like tüfek, would come after tuz, in the dictionary. An exception is the German telephone directory where umlauts are sorted like ä = ae since names such as Jäger also appear with the spelling Jaeger, and are not distinguished in the spoken language.The Danish and Norwegian alphabets end with æ—ø—å, whereas the Swedish and Finnish ones conventionally put å—ä—ö at the end.It is unknown whether the earliest alphabets had a defined sequence. Some alphabets today, such as the Hanuno'o script, are learned one letter at a time, in no particular order, and are not used for collation where a definite order is required. However, a dozen Ugaritic tablets from the fourteenth century BC preserve the alphabet in two sequences. One, the ABCDE order later used in Phoenician, has continued with minor changes in Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, Gothic, Cyrillic, and Latin; the other, HMĦLQ, was used in southern Arabia and is preserved today in Ethiopic. Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000 years.Runic used an unrelated Futhark sequence, which was later simplified. Arabic uses its own sequence, although Arabic retains the traditional abjadi order for numbering.The Brahmic family of alphabets used in India use a unique order based on phonology: The letters are arranged according to how and where they are produced in the mouth. This organization is used in Southeast Asia, Tibet, Korean hangul, and even Japanese kana, which is not an alphabet.Names of lettersThe Phoenician letter names, in which each letter was associated with a word that begins with that sound (acrophony), continue to be used to varying degrees in Samaritan, Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic.The names were abandoned in Latin, which instead referred to the letters by adding a vowel (usually e) before or after the consonant; the two exceptions were Y and Z, which were borrowed from the Greek alphabet rather than Etruscan, and were known as Y Graeca "Greek Y" (pronounced I Graeca "Greek I") and zeta (from Greek)—this discrepancy was inherited by many European languages, as in the term zed for Z in all forms of English other than American English. Over time names sometimes shifted or were added, as in double U for W ("double V" in French), the English name for Y, and American zee for Z. Comparing names in English and French gives a clear reflection of the Great Vowel Shift: A, B, C and D are pronounced  in today's English, but in contemporary French they are . The French names (from which the English names are derived) preserve the qualities of the English vowels from before the Great Vowel Shift. By contrast, the names of F, L, M, N and S () remain the same in both languages, because "short" vowels were largely unaffected by the Shift.In Cyrillic originally the letters were given names based on Slavic words; this was later abandoned as well in favor of a system similar to that used in Latin.Letters of Armenian alphabet also have distinct letter names.Orthography and pronunciationWhen an alphabet is adopted or developed to represent a given language, an orthography generally comes into being, providing rules for the spelling of words in that language. In accordance with the principle on which alphabets are based, these rules will generally map letters of the alphabet to the phonemes (significant sounds) of the spoken language. In a perfectly phonemic orthography there would be a consistent one-to-one correspondence between the letters and the phonemes, so that a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker would always know the pronunciation of a word given its spelling, and vice versa. However, this ideal is not usually achieved in practice; some languages (such as Spanish and Finnish) come close to it, while others (such as English) deviate from it to a much larger degree.The pronunciation of a language often evolves independently of its writing system, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, so the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language.Languages may fail to achieve a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds in any of several ways: A language may represent a given phoneme by a combination of letters rather than just a single letter. Two-letter combinations are called digraphs and three-letter groups are called trigraphs. German uses the tetragraphs (four letters) "tsch" for the phoneme  and (in a few borrowed words) "dsch" for . Kabardian also uses a tetragraph for one of its phonemes, namely "кхъу". Two letters representing one sound occur in several instances in Hungarian as well (where, for instance, cs stands for [tʃ], sz for [s], zs for [ʒ], dzs for [dʒ]). A language may represent the same phoneme with two or more different letters or combinations of letters. An example is modern Greek which may write the phoneme  in six different ways: , , , , , and  (though the last is rare). A language may spell some words with unpronounced letters that exist for historical or other reasons. For example, the spelling of the Thai word for "beer" [เบียร์] retains a letter for the final consonant "r" present in the English word it was borrowed from, but silences it. Pronunciation of individual words may change according to the presence of surrounding words in a sentence (sandhi). Different dialects of a language may use different phonemes for the same word. A language may use different sets of symbols or different rules for distinct sets of vocabulary items, such as the Japanese hiragana and katakana syllabaries, or the various rules in English for spelling words from Latin and Greek, or the original Germanic vocabulary.National languages sometimes elect to address the problem of dialects by simply associating the alphabet with the national standard. Some national languages like Finnish, Armenian, Turkish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian (Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian) and Bulgarian have a very regular spelling system with a nearly one-to-one correspondence between letters and phonemes. Strictly speaking, these national languages lack a word corresponding to the verb "to spell" (meaning to split a word into its letters), the closest match being a verb meaning to split a word into its syllables. Similarly, the Italian verb corresponding to 'spell (out)', compitare, is unknown to many Italians because spelling is usually trivial, as Italian spelling is highly phonemic. In standard Spanish, one can tell the pronunciation of a word from its spelling, but not vice versa, as certain phonemes can be represented in more than one way, but a given letter is consistently pronounced. French, with its silent letters and its heavy use of nasal vowels and elision, may seem to lack much correspondence between spelling and pronunciation, but its rules on pronunciation, though complex, are actually consistent and predictable with a fair degree of accuracy.At the other extreme are languages such as English, where the pronunciations of many words simply have to be memorized as they do not correspond to the spelling in a consistent way. For English, this is partly because the Great Vowel Shift occurred after the orthography was established, and because English has acquired a large number of loanwords at different times, retaining their original spelling at varying levels. Even English has general, albeit complex, rules that predict pronunciation from spelling, and these rules are successful most of the time; rules to predict spelling from the pronunciation have a higher failure rate.Sometimes, countries have the written language undergo a spelling reform to realign the writing with the contemporary spoken language. These can range from simple spelling changes and word forms to switching the entire writing system itself, as when Turkey switched from the Arabic alphabet to a Latin-based Turkish alphabet, and as when Kazakh changes from an Arabic script to a Cyrillic script due to the Soviet Union's influence, and in 2021, having a transition to the Latin alphabet, just like Turkish. The Cyrillic script used to be official in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan before they all switched to the Latin alphabets, including Uzbekistan that is having a reform of the alphabet to use diacritics on the letters that is marked by apostrophes and the letters that are digraphs.The standard system of symbols used by linguists to represent sounds in any language, independently of orthography, is called the International Phonetic Alphabet.See also  A Is For Aardvark Abecedarium Acrophony Akshara Alphabet book Alphabet effect Alphabet song Alphabetical order Butterfly Alphabet Character encoding Constructed script Cyrillic English alphabet Hangul ICAO (NATO) spelling alphabet Lipogram List of writing systems Pangram Thai script Thoth Transliteration UnicodeReferencesBibliography    Overview of modern and some ancient writing systems.    Chapter 3 traces and summarizes the invention of alphabetic writing.         Chapter 4 traces the invention of writingExternal links  The Origins of abc "Language, Writing and Alphabet: An Interview with Christophe Rico",  Damqātum 3 (2007) Michael Everson's Alphabets of Europe Evolution of alphabets, animation by Prof. Robert Fradkin at the University of Maryland How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs—Biblical Archaeology Review An Early Hellenic Alphabet Museum of the Alphabet The Alphabet, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Eleanor Robson, Alan Millard and Rosalind Thomas (In Our Time, 18 Dec. 2003) Orthography
The atomic number or proton number (symbol Z) of a chemical element is the number of protons found in the nucleus of every atom of that element. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element. It is identical to the charge number of the nucleus. In an uncharged atom, the atomic number is also equal to the number of electrons.The sum of the atomic number Z and the number of neutrons N gives the mass number A of an atom. Since protons and neutrons have approximately the same mass (and the mass of the electrons is negligible for many purposes) and the mass defect of nucleon binding is always small compared to the nucleon mass, the atomic mass of any atom, when expressed in unified atomic mass units (making a quantity called the "relative isotopic mass"), is within 1% of the whole number A.Atoms with the same atomic number but different neutron numbers, and hence different mass numbers, are known as isotopes. A little more than three-quarters of naturally occurring elements exist as a mixture of isotopes (see monoisotopic elements), and the average isotopic mass of an isotopic mixture for an element (called the relative atomic mass) in a defined environment on Earth, determines the element's standard atomic weight. Historically, it was these atomic weights of elements (in comparison to hydrogen) that were the quantities measurable by chemists in the 19th century.The conventional symbol Z comes from the German word  'number', which, before the modern synthesis of ideas from chemistry and physics, merely denoted an element's numerical place in the periodic table, whose order was then approximately, but not completely, consistent with the order of the elements by atomic weights. Only after 1915, with the suggestion and evidence that this Z number was also the nuclear charge and a physical characteristic of atoms, did the word  (and its English equivalent atomic number) come into common use in this context.HistoryThe periodic table and a natural number for each elementLoosely speaking, the existence or construction of a periodic table of elements creates an ordering of the elements, and so they can be numbered in order.Dmitri Mendeleev claimed that he arranged his first periodic tables (first published on March 6, 1869) in order of atomic weight ("Atomgewicht"). However, in consideration of the elements' observed chemical properties, he changed the order slightly and placed tellurium (atomic weight 127.6) ahead of iodine (atomic weight 126.9). This placement is consistent with the modern practice of ordering the elements by proton number, Z, but that number was not known or suspected at the time.A simple numbering based on periodic table position was never entirely satisfactory, however. Besides the case of iodine and tellurium, later several other pairs of elements (such as argon and potassium, cobalt and nickel) were known to have nearly identical or reversed atomic weights, thus requiring their placement in the periodic table to be determined by their chemical properties. However the gradual identification of more and more chemically similar lanthanide elements, whose atomic number was not obvious, led to inconsistency and uncertainty in the periodic numbering of elements at least from lutetium (element 71) onward (hafnium was not known at this time).The Rutherford-Bohr model and van den BroekIn 1911, Ernest Rutherford gave a model of the atom in which a central nucleus held most of the atom's mass and a positive charge which, in units of the electron's charge, was to be approximately equal to half of the atom's atomic weight, expressed in numbers of hydrogen atoms. This central charge would thus be approximately half the atomic weight (though it was almost 25% different from the atomic number of gold , ), the single element from which Rutherford made his guess). Nevertheless, in spite of Rutherford's estimation that gold had a central charge of about 100 (but was element  on the periodic table), a month after Rutherford's paper appeared, Antonius van den Broek first formally suggested that the central charge and number of electrons in an atom was exactly equal to its place in the periodic table (also known as element number, atomic number, and symbolized Z). This proved eventually to be the case.Moseley's 1913 experiment The experimental position improved dramatically after research by Henry Moseley in 1913. Moseley, after discussions with Bohr who was at the same lab (and who had used Van den Broek's hypothesis in his Bohr model of the atom), decided to test Van den Broek's and Bohr's hypothesis directly, by seeing if spectral lines emitted from excited atoms fitted the Bohr theory's postulation that the frequency of the spectral lines be proportional to the square of Z.To do this, Moseley measured the wavelengths of the innermost photon transitions (K and L lines) produced by the elements from aluminum (Z = 13) to gold (Z = 79) used as a series of movable anodic targets inside an x-ray tube. The square root of the frequency of these photons  increased from one target to the next in an arithmetic progression. This led to the conclusion (Moseley's law) that the atomic number does closely correspond (with an offset of one unit for K-lines, in Moseley's work) to the calculated electric charge of the nucleus, i.e. the element number Z. Among other things, Moseley demonstrated that the lanthanide series (from lanthanum to lutetium inclusive) must have 15 members—no fewer and no more—which was far from obvious from known chemistry at that time.Missing elementsAfter Moseley's death in 1915, the atomic numbers of all known elements from hydrogen to uranium (Z = 92) were examined by his method. There were seven elements (with Z < 92) which were not found and therefore identified as still undiscovered, corresponding to atomic numbers 43, 61, 72, 75, 85, 87 and 91. From 1918 to 1947, all seven of these missing elements were discovered. By this time, the first four transuranium elements had also been discovered, so that the periodic table was complete with no gaps as far as curium (Z = 96).The proton and the idea of nuclear electronsIn 1915, the reason for nuclear charge being quantized in units of Z, which were now recognized to be the same as the element number, was not understood. An old idea called Prout's hypothesis had postulated that the elements were all made of residues (or "protyles") of the lightest element hydrogen, which in the Bohr-Rutherford model had a single electron and a nuclear charge of one. However, as early as 1907, Rutherford and Thomas Royds had shown that alpha particles, which had a charge of +2, were the nuclei of helium atoms, which had a mass four times that of hydrogen, not two times. If Prout's hypothesis were true, something had to be neutralizing some of the charge of the hydrogen nuclei present in the nuclei of heavier atoms.In 1917, Rutherford succeeded in generating hydrogen nuclei from a nuclear reaction between alpha particles and nitrogen gas, and believed he had proven Prout's law. He called the new heavy nuclear particles protons in 1920 (alternate names being proutons and protyles). It had been immediately apparent from the work of Moseley that the nuclei of heavy atoms have more than twice as much mass as would be expected from their being made of hydrogen nuclei, and thus there was required a hypothesis for the neutralization of the extra protons presumed present in all heavy nuclei. A helium nucleus was presumed to be composed of four protons plus two "nuclear electrons" (electrons bound inside the nucleus) to cancel two of the charges. At the other end of the periodic table, a nucleus of gold with a mass 197 times that of hydrogen was thought to contain 118 nuclear electrons in the nucleus to give it a residual charge of +79, consistent with its atomic number.The discovery of the neutron makes Z the proton numberAll consideration of nuclear electrons ended with James Chadwick's discovery of the neutron in 1932. An atom of gold now was seen as containing 118 neutrons rather than 118 nuclear electrons, and its positive charge now was realized to come entirely from a content of 79 protons. After 1932, therefore, an element's atomic number Z was also realized to be identical to the proton number of its nuclei.Chemical propertiesEach element has a specific set of chemical properties as a consequence of the number of electrons present in the neutral atom, which is Z (the atomic number). The configuration of these electrons follows from the principles of quantum mechanics. The number of electrons in each element's electron shells, particularly the outermost valence shell, is the primary factor in determining its chemical bonding behavior. Hence, it is the atomic number alone that determines the chemical properties of an element; and it is for this reason that an element can be defined as consisting of any mixture of atoms with a given atomic number.New elementsThe quest for new elements is usually described using atomic numbers. As of , all elements with atomic numbers 1 to 118 have been observed. Synthesis of new elements is accomplished by bombarding target atoms of heavy elements with ions, such that the sum of the atomic numbers of the target and ion elements equals the atomic number of the element being created. In general, the half-life of a nuclide becomes shorter as atomic number increases, though undiscovered nuclides with certain "magic" numbers of protons and neutrons may have relatively longer half-lives and comprise an island of stability. A hypothetical element composed only of neutrons has also been proposed and would have atomic number 0.See alsoEffective atomic numberMass numberNeutron numberAtomic theoryChemical elementHistory of the periodic tableList of elements by atomic numberProut's hypothesisReferencesChemical propertiesNuclear physicsAtomsDimensionless numbers of chemistryNumbers
Anatomy (Greek anatomē, 'dissection') is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science which deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times. Anatomy is inherently tied to developmental biology, embryology, comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, and phylogeny, as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated, both over immediate and long-term timescales. Anatomy and physiology, which study the structure and function of organisms and their parts respectively, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and are often studied together. Human anatomy is one of the essential basic sciences that are applied in medicine.The discipline of anatomy is divided into macroscopic and microscopic. Macroscopic anatomy, or gross anatomy, is the examination of an animal's body parts using unaided eyesight. Gross anatomy also includes the branch of superficial anatomy. Microscopic anatomy involves the use of optical instruments in the study of the tissues of various structures, known as histology, and also in the study of cells.The history of anatomy is characterized by a progressive understanding of the functions of the organs and structures of the human body. Methods have also improved dramatically, advancing from the examination of animals by dissection of carcasses and cadavers (corpses) to 20th century medical imaging techniques including X-ray, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging.Definition Derived from the Greek  anatomē "dissection" (from  anatémnō "I cut up, cut open" from ἀνά aná "up", and τέμνω témnō "I cut"), anatomy is the scientific study of the structure of organisms including their systems, organs and tissues. It includes the appearance and position of the various parts, the materials from which they are composed, their locations and their relationships with other parts. Anatomy is quite distinct from physiology and biochemistry, which deal respectively with the functions of those parts and the chemical processes involved. For example, an anatomist is concerned with the shape, size, position, structure, blood supply and innervation of an organ such as the liver; while a physiologist is interested in the production of bile, the role of the liver in nutrition and the regulation of bodily functions.The discipline of anatomy can be subdivided into a number of branches including gross or macroscopic anatomy and microscopic anatomy. Gross anatomy is the study of structures large enough to be seen with the naked eye, and also includes superficial anatomy or surface anatomy, the study by sight of the external body features. Microscopic anatomy is the study of structures on a microscopic scale, along with histology (the study of tissues), and embryology (the study of an organism in its immature condition).Anatomy can be studied using both invasive and non-invasive methods with the goal of obtaining information about the structure and organization of organs and systems. Methods used include dissection, in which a body is opened and its organs studied, and endoscopy, in which a video camera-equipped instrument is inserted through a small incision in the body wall and used to explore the internal organs and other structures. Angiography using X-rays or magnetic resonance angiography are methods to visualize blood vessels.The term "anatomy" is commonly taken to refer to human anatomy. However, substantially the same structures and tissues are found throughout the rest of the animal kingdom and the term also includes the anatomy of other animals. The term zootomy is also sometimes used to specifically refer to non-human animals. The structure and tissues of plants are of a dissimilar nature and they are studied in plant anatomy.Animal tissues The kingdom Animalia contains multicellular organisms that are heterotrophic and motile (although some have secondarily adopted a sessile lifestyle). Most animals have bodies differentiated into separate tissues and these animals are also known as eumetazoans. They have an internal digestive chamber, with one or two openings; the gametes are produced in multicellular sex organs, and the zygotes include a blastula stage in their embryonic development. Metazoans do not include the sponges, which have undifferentiated cells.Unlike plant cells, animal cells have neither a cell wall nor chloroplasts. Vacuoles, when present, are more in number and much smaller than those in the plant cell. The body tissues are composed of numerous types of cell, including those found in muscles, nerves and skin. Each typically has a cell membrane formed of phospholipids, cytoplasm and a nucleus.  All of the different cells of an animal are derived from the embryonic germ layers. Those simpler invertebrates which are formed from two germ layers of ectoderm and endoderm are called diploblastic and the more developed animals whose structures and organs are formed from three germ layers are called triploblastic. All of a triploblastic animal's tissues and organs are derived from the three germ layers of the embryo, the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm.Animal tissues can be grouped into four basic types: connective, epithelial, muscle and nervous tissue.Connective tissueConnective tissues are fibrous and made up of cells scattered among inorganic material called the extracellular matrix. Connective tissue gives shape to organs and holds them in place. The main types are loose connective tissue, adipose tissue, fibrous connective tissue, cartilage and bone. The extracellular matrix contains proteins, the chief and most abundant of which is collagen. Collagen plays a major part in organizing and maintaining tissues. The matrix can be modified to form a skeleton to support or protect the body. An exoskeleton is a thickened, rigid cuticle which is stiffened by mineralization, as in crustaceans or by the cross-linking of its proteins as in insects. An endoskeleton is internal and present in all developed animals, as well as in many of those less developed.EpitheliumEpithelial tissue is composed of closely packed cells, bound to each other by cell adhesion molecules, with little intercellular space. Epithelial cells can be squamous (flat), cuboidal or columnar and rest on a basal lamina, the upper layer of the basement membrane, the lower layer is the reticular lamina lying next to the connective tissue in the extracellular matrix secreted by the epithelial cells. There are many different types of epithelium, modified to suit a particular function. In the respiratory tract there is a type of ciliated epithelial lining; in the small intestine there are microvilli on the epithelial lining and in the large intestine there are intestinal villi. Skin consists of an outer layer of keratinized stratified squamous epithelium that covers the exterior of the vertebrate body. Keratinocytes make up to 95% of the cells in the skin. The epithelial cells on the external surface of the body typically secrete an extracellular matrix in the form of a cuticle. In simple animals this may just be a coat of glycoproteins. In more advanced animals, many glands are formed of epithelial cells.Muscle tissueMuscle cells (myocytes) form the active contractile tissue of the body. Muscle tissue functions to produce force and cause motion, either locomotion or movement within internal organs. Muscle is formed of contractile filaments and is separated into three main types; smooth muscle, skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle. Smooth muscle has no striations when examined microscopically. It contracts slowly but maintains contractibility over a wide range of stretch lengths. It is found in such organs as sea anemone tentacles and the body wall of sea cucumbers. Skeletal muscle contracts rapidly but has a limited range of extension. It is found in the movement of appendages and jaws. Obliquely striated muscle is intermediate between the other two. The filaments are staggered and this is the type of muscle found in earthworms that can extend slowly or make rapid contractions. In higher animals striated muscles occur in bundles attached to bone to provide movement and are often arranged in antagonistic sets. Smooth muscle is found in the walls of the uterus, bladder, intestines, stomach, oesophagus, respiratory airways, and blood vessels. Cardiac muscle is found only in the heart, allowing it to contract and pump blood round the body.Nervous tissueNervous tissue is composed of many nerve cells known as neurons which transmit information. In some slow-moving radially symmetrical marine animals such as ctenophores and cnidarians (including sea anemones and jellyfish), the nerves form a nerve net, but in most animals they are organized longitudinally into bundles. In simple animals, receptor neurons in the body wall cause a local reaction to a stimulus. In more complex animals, specialized receptor cells such as chemoreceptors and photoreceptors are found in groups and send messages along neural networks to other parts of the organism. Neurons can be connected together in ganglia. In higher animals, specialized receptors are the basis of sense organs and there is a central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and a peripheral nervous system. The latter consists of sensory nerves that transmit information from sense organs and motor nerves that influence target organs. The peripheral nervous system is divided into the somatic nervous system which conveys sensation and controls voluntary muscle, and the autonomic nervous system which involuntarily controls smooth muscle, certain glands and internal organs, including the stomach.Vertebrate anatomy All vertebrates have a similar basic body plan and at some point in their lives, mostly in the embryonic stage, share the major chordate characteristics; a stiffening rod, the notochord; a dorsal hollow tube of nervous material, the neural tube; pharyngeal arches; and a tail posterior to the anus. The spinal cord is protected by the vertebral column and is above the notochord and the gastrointestinal tract is below it. Nervous tissue is derived from the ectoderm, connective tissues are derived from mesoderm, and gut is derived from the endoderm. At the posterior end is a tail which continues the spinal cord and vertebrae but not the gut. The mouth is found at the anterior end of the animal, and the anus at the base of the tail. The defining characteristic of a vertebrate is the vertebral column, formed in the development of the segmented series of vertebrae. In most vertebrates the notochord becomes the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral discs. However, a few vertebrates, such as the sturgeon and the coelacanth retain the notochord into adulthood. Jawed vertebrates are typified by paired appendages, fins or legs, which may be secondarily lost. The limbs of vertebrates are considered to be homologous because the same underlying skeletal structure was inherited from their last common ancestor. This is one of the arguments put forward by Charles Darwin to support his theory of evolution.Fish anatomy The body of a fish is divided into a head, trunk and tail, although the divisions between the three are not always externally visible. The skeleton, which forms the support structure inside the fish, is either made of cartilage, in cartilaginous fish, or bone in bony fish. The main skeletal element is the vertebral column, composed of articulating vertebrae which are lightweight yet strong. The ribs attach to the spine and there are no limbs or limb girdles. The main external features of the fish, the fins, are composed of either bony or soft spines called rays, which with the exception of the caudal fins, have no direct connection with the spine. They are supported by the muscles which compose the main part of the trunk. The heart has two chambers and pumps the blood through the respiratory surfaces of the gills and on round the body in a single circulatory loop. The eyes are adapted for seeing underwater and have only local vision. There is an inner ear but no external or middle ear. Low frequency vibrations are detected by the lateral line system of sense organs that run along the length of the sides of fish, and these respond to nearby movements and to changes in water pressure.Sharks and rays are basal fish with numerous primitive anatomical features similar to those of ancient fish, including skeletons composed of cartilage. Their bodies tend to be dorso-ventrally flattened, they usually have five pairs of gill slits and a large mouth set on the underside of the head. The dermis is covered with separate dermal placoid scales. They have a cloaca into which the urinary and genital passages open, but not a swim bladder. Cartilaginous fish produce a small number of large, yolky eggs. Some species are ovoviviparous and the young develop internally but others are oviparous and the larvae develop externally in egg cases.The bony fish lineage shows more derived anatomical traits, often with major evolutionary changes from the features of ancient fish. They have a bony skeleton, are generally laterally flattened, have five pairs of gills protected by an operculum, and a mouth at or near the tip of the snout. The dermis is covered with overlapping scales. Bony fish have a swim bladder which helps them maintain a constant depth in the water column, but not a cloaca. They mostly spawn a large number of small eggs with little yolk which they broadcast into the water column.Amphibian anatomy Amphibians are a class of animals comprising frogs, salamanders and caecilians. They are tetrapods, but the caecilians and a few species of salamander have either no limbs or their limbs are much reduced in size. Their main bones are hollow and lightweight and are fully ossified and the vertebrae interlock with each other and have articular processes. Their ribs are usually short and may be fused to the vertebrae. Their skulls are mostly broad and short, and are often incompletely ossified. Their skin contains little keratin and lacks scales, but contains many mucous glands and in some species, poison glands. The hearts of amphibians have three chambers, two atria and one ventricle. They have a urinary bladder and nitrogenous waste products are excreted primarily as urea. Amphibians breathe by means of buccal pumping, a pump action in which air is first drawn into the buccopharyngeal region through the nostrils. These are then closed and the air is forced into the lungs by contraction of the throat. They supplement this with gas exchange through the skin which needs to be kept moist.In frogs the pelvic girdle is robust and the hind legs are much longer and stronger than the forelimbs. The feet have four or five digits and the toes are often webbed for swimming or have suction pads for climbing. Frogs have large eyes and no tail. Salamanders resemble lizards in appearance; their short legs project sideways, the belly is close to or in contact with the ground and they have a long tail. Caecilians superficially resemble earthworms and are limbless. They burrow by means of zones of muscle contractions which move along the body and they swim by undulating their body from side to side.Reptile anatomy Reptiles are a class of animals comprising turtles, tuataras, lizards, snakes and crocodiles. They are tetrapods, but the snakes and a few species of lizard either have no limbs or their limbs are much reduced in size. Their bones are better ossified and their skeletons stronger than those of amphibians. The teeth are conical and mostly uniform in size. The surface cells of the epidermis are modified into horny scales which create a waterproof layer. Reptiles are unable to use their skin for respiration as do amphibians and have a more efficient respiratory system drawing air into their lungs by expanding their chest walls. The heart resembles that of the amphibian but there is a septum which more completely separates the oxygenated and deoxygenated bloodstreams. The reproductive system has evolved for internal fertilization, with a copulatory organ present in most species. The eggs are surrounded by amniotic membranes which prevents them from drying out and are laid on land, or develop internally in some species. The bladder is small as nitrogenous waste is excreted as uric acid.Turtles are notable for their protective shells. They have an inflexible trunk encased in a horny carapace above and a plastron below. These are formed from bony plates embedded in the dermis which are overlain by horny ones and are partially fused with the ribs and spine. The neck is long and flexible and the head and the legs can be drawn back inside the shell. Turtles are vegetarians and the typical reptile teeth have been replaced by sharp, horny plates. In aquatic species, the front legs are modified into flippers.Tuataras superficially resemble lizards but the lineages diverged in the Triassic period. There is one living species, Sphenodon punctatus. The skull has two openings (fenestrae) on either side and the jaw is rigidly attached to the skull. There is one row of teeth in the lower jaw and this fits between the two rows in the upper jaw when the animal chews. The teeth are merely projections of bony material from the jaw and eventually wear down. The brain and heart are more primitive than those of other reptiles, and the lungs have a single chamber and lack bronchi. The tuatara has a well-developed parietal eye on its forehead.Lizards have skulls with only one fenestra on each side, the lower bar of bone below the second fenestra having been lost. This results in the jaws being less rigidly attached which allows the mouth to open wider. Lizards are mostly quadrupeds, with the trunk held off the ground by short, sideways-facing legs, but a few species have no limbs and resemble snakes. Lizards have moveable eyelids, eardrums are present and some species have a central parietal eye.Snakes are closely related to lizards, having branched off from a common ancestral lineage during the Cretaceous period, and they share many of the same features. The skeleton consists of a skull, a hyoid bone, spine and ribs though a few species retain a vestige of the pelvis and rear limbs in the form of pelvic spurs. The bar under the second fenestra has also been lost and the jaws have extreme flexibility allowing the snake to swallow its prey whole. Snakes lack moveable eyelids, the eyes being covered by transparent "spectacle" scales. They do not have eardrums but can detect ground vibrations through the bones of their skull. Their forked tongues are used as organs of taste and smell and some species have sensory pits on their heads enabling them to locate warm-blooded prey.Crocodilians are large, low-slung aquatic reptiles with long snouts and large numbers of teeth. The head and trunk are dorso-ventrally flattened and the tail is laterally compressed. It undulates from side to side to force the animal through the water when swimming. The tough keratinized scales provide body armour and some are fused to the skull. The nostrils, eyes and ears are elevated above the top of the flat head enabling them to remain above the surface of the water when the animal is floating. Valves seal the nostrils and ears when it is submerged. Unlike other reptiles, crocodilians have hearts with four chambers allowing complete separation of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.Bird anatomy Birds are tetrapods but though their hind limbs are used for walking or hopping, their front limbs are wings covered with feathers and adapted for flight. Birds are endothermic, have a high metabolic rate, a light skeletal system and powerful muscles. The long bones are thin, hollow and very light. Air sac extensions from the lungs occupy the centre of some bones. The sternum is wide and usually has a keel and the caudal vertebrae are fused. There are no teeth and the narrow jaws are adapted into a horn-covered beak. The eyes are relatively large, particularly in nocturnal species such as owls. They face forwards in predators and sideways in ducks.The feathers are outgrowths of the epidermis and are found in localized bands from where they fan out over the skin. Large flight feathers are found on the wings and tail, contour feathers cover the bird's surface and fine down occurs on young birds and under the contour feathers of water birds. The only cutaneous gland is the single uropygial gland near the base of the tail. This produces an oily secretion that waterproofs the feathers when the bird preens. There are scales on the legs, feet and claws on the tips of the toes.Mammal anatomy Mammals are a diverse class of animals, mostly terrestrial but some are aquatic and others have evolved flapping or gliding flight. They mostly have four limbs but some aquatic mammals have no limbs or limbs modified into fins and the forelimbs of bats are modified into wings. The legs of most mammals are situated below the trunk, which is held well clear of the ground. The bones of mammals are well ossified and their teeth, which are usually differentiated, are coated in a layer of prismatic enamel. The teeth are shed once (milk teeth) during the animal's lifetime or not at all, as is the case in cetaceans. Mammals have three bones in the middle ear and a cochlea in the inner ear. They are clothed in hair and their skin contains glands which secrete sweat. Some of these glands are specialized as mammary glands, producing milk to feed the young. Mammals breathe with lungs and have a muscular diaphragm separating the thorax from the abdomen which helps them draw air into the lungs. The mammalian heart has four chambers and oxygenated and deoxygenated blood are kept entirely separate. Nitrogenous waste is excreted primarily as urea.Mammals are amniotes, and most are viviparous, giving birth to live young. The exception to this are the egg-laying monotremes, the platypus and the echidnas of Australia. Most other mammals have a placenta through which the developing foetus obtains nourishment, but in marsupials, the foetal stage is very short and the immature young is born and finds its way to its mother's pouch where it latches on to a nipple and completes its development.Human anatomyHumans have the overall body plan of a mammal. Humans have a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), two arms and hands, and two legs and feet.Generally, students of certain biological sciences, paramedics, prosthetists and orthotists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, podiatrists, and medical students learn gross anatomy and microscopic anatomy from anatomical models, skeletons, textbooks, diagrams, photographs, lectures and tutorials and in addition, medical students generally also learn gross anatomy through practical experience of dissection and inspection of cadavers. The study of microscopic anatomy (or histology) can be aided by practical experience examining histological preparations (or slides) under a microscope.Human anatomy, physiology and biochemistry are complementary basic medical sciences, which are generally taught to medical students in their first year at medical school. Human anatomy can be taught regionally or systemically; that is, respectively, studying anatomy by bodily regions such as the head and chest, or studying by specific systems, such as the nervous or respiratory systems. The major anatomy textbook, Gray's Anatomy, has been reorganized from a systems format to a regional format, in line with modern teaching methods. A thorough working knowledge of anatomy is required by physicians, especially surgeons and doctors working in some diagnostic specialties, such as histopathology and radiology.Academic anatomists are usually employed by universities, medical schools or teaching hospitals. They are often involved in teaching anatomy, and research into certain systems, organs, tissues or cells.Invertebrate anatomy Invertebrates constitute a vast array of living organisms ranging from the simplest unicellular eukaryotes such as Paramecium to such complex multicellular animals as the octopus, lobster and dragonfly. They constitute about 95% of the animal species. By definition, none of these creatures has a backbone. The cells of single-cell protozoans have the same basic structure as those of multicellular animals but some parts are specialized into the equivalent of tissues and organs. Locomotion is often provided by cilia or flagella or may proceed via the advance of pseudopodia, food may be gathered by phagocytosis, energy needs may be supplied by photosynthesis and the cell may be supported by an endoskeleton or an exoskeleton. Some protozoans can form multicellular colonies.Metazoans are a multicellular organism, with different groups of cells serving different functions. The most basic types of metazoan tissues are epithelium and connective tissue, both of which are present in nearly all invertebrates. The outer surface of the epidermis is normally formed of epithelial cells and secretes an extracellular matrix which provides support to the organism. An endoskeleton derived from the mesoderm is present in echinoderms, sponges and some cephalopods. Exoskeletons are derived from the epidermis and is composed of chitin in arthropods (insects, spiders, ticks, shrimps, crabs, lobsters). Calcium carbonate constitutes the shells of molluscs, brachiopods and some tube-building polychaete worms and silica forms the exoskeleton of the microscopic diatoms and radiolaria. Other invertebrates may have no rigid structures but the epidermis may secrete a variety of surface coatings such as the pinacoderm of sponges, the gelatinous cuticle of cnidarians (polyps, sea anemones, jellyfish) and the collagenous cuticle of annelids. The outer epithelial layer may include cells of several types including sensory cells, gland cells and stinging cells. There may also be protrusions such as microvilli, cilia, bristles, spines and tubercles.Marcello Malpighi, the father of microscopical anatomy, discovered that plants had tubules similar to those he saw in insects like the silk worm. He observed that when a ring-like portion of bark was removed on a trunk a swelling occurred in the tissues above the ring, and he unmistakably interpreted this as growth stimulated by food coming down from the leaves, and being captured above the ring.Arthropod anatomy Arthropods comprise the largest phylum in the animal kingdom with over a million known invertebrate species.Insects possess segmented bodies supported by a hard-jointed outer covering, the exoskeleton, made mostly of chitin. The segments of the body are organized into three distinct parts, a head, a thorax and an abdomen. The head typically bears a pair of sensory antennae, a pair of compound eyes, one to three simple eyes (ocelli) and three sets of modified appendages that form the mouthparts. The thorax has three pairs of segmented legs, one pair each for the three segments that compose the thorax and one or two pairs of wings. The abdomen is composed of eleven segments, some of which may be fused and houses the digestive, respiratory, excretory and reproductive systems. There is considerable variation between species and many adaptations to the body parts, especially wings, legs, antennae and mouthparts.Spiders a class of arachnids have four pairs of legs; a body of two segments—a cephalothorax and an abdomen. Spiders have no wings and no antennae. They have mouthparts called chelicerae which are often connected to venom glands as most spiders are venomous. They have a second pair of appendages called pedipalps attached to the cephalothorax. These have similar segmentation to the legs and function as taste and smell organs. At the end of each male pedipalp is a spoon-shaped cymbium that acts to support the copulatory organ.Other branches of anatomy  Superficial or surface anatomy is important as the study of anatomical landmarks that can be readily seen from the exterior contours of the body. It enables physicians or veterinary surgeons to gauge the position and anatomy of the associated deeper structures. Superficial is a directional term that indicates that structures are located relatively close to the surface of the body. Comparative anatomy relates to the comparison of anatomical structures (both gross and microscopic) in different animals. Artistic anatomy relates to anatomic studies for artistic reasons.HistoryAncient In 1600 BCE, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, an Ancient Egyptian medical text, described the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder, and showed the blood vessels diverging from the heart. The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a "treatise on the heart", with vessels carrying all the body's fluids to or from every member of the body.Ancient Greek anatomy and physiology underwent great changes and advances throughout the early medieval world.  Over time, this medical practice expanded by a continually developing understanding of the functions of organs and structures in the body. Phenomenal anatomical observations of the human body were made, which have contributed towards the understanding of the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and the nervous system.The Hellenistic Egyptian city of Alexandria was the stepping-stone for Greek anatomy and physiology. Alexandria not only housed the biggest library for medical records and books of the liberal arts in the world during the time of the Greeks, but was also home to many medical practitioners and philosophers. Great patronage of the arts and sciences from the Ptolemy rulers helped raise Alexandria up, further rivalling the cultural and scientific achievements of other Greek states.Some of the most striking advances in early anatomy and physiology took place in Hellenistic Alexandria. Two of the most famous anatomists and physiologists of the third century were Herophilus and Erasistratus. These two physicians helped pioneer human dissection for medical research. They also conducted vivisections on the cadavers of condemned criminals, which was considered taboo until the Renaissance—Herophilus was recognized as the first person to perform systematic dissections. Herophilus became known for his anatomical works making impressing contributions to many branches of anatomy and many other aspects of medicine. Some of the works included classifying the system of the pulse, the discovery that human arteries had thicker walls than veins, and that the atria were parts of the heart. Herophilus's knowledge of the human body has provided vital input towards understanding the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and nervous system, and characterizing the course of disease. Erasistratus accurately described the structure of the brain, including the cavities and membranes, and made a distinction between its cerebrum and cerebellum During his study in Alexandria, Erasistratus was particularly concerned with studies of the circulatory and nervous systems. He was able to distinguish the sensory and the motor nerves in the human body and believed that air entered the lungs and heart, which was then carried throughout the body. His distinction between the arteries and veins—the arteries carrying the air through the body, while the veins carried the blood from the heart was a great anatomical discovery. Erasistratus was also responsible for naming and describing the function of the epiglottis and the valves of the heart, including the tricuspid. During the third century, Greek physicians were able to differentiate nerves from blood vessels and tendons and to realize that the nerves convey neural impulses. It was Herophilus who made the point that damage to motor nerves induced paralysis. Herophilus named the meninges and ventricles in the brain, appreciated the division between cerebellum and cerebrum and recognized that the brain was the "seat of intellect" and not a "cooling chamber" as propounded by Aristotle Herophilus is also credited with describing the optic, oculomotor, motor division of the trigeminal, facial, vestibulocochlear and hypoglossal nerves.Great feats were made during the third century BCE in both the digestive and reproductive systems. Herophilus was able to discover and describe not only the salivary glands, but the small intestine and liver. He showed that the uterus is a hollow organ and described the ovaries and uterine tubes. He recognized that spermatozoa were produced by the testes and was the first to identify the prostate gland.The anatomy of the muscles and skeleton is described in the Hippocratic Corpus, an Ancient Greek medical work written by unknown authors. Aristotle described vertebrate anatomy based on animal dissection. Praxagoras identified the difference between arteries and veins. Also in the 4th century BCE, Herophilos and Erasistratus produced more accurate anatomical descriptions based on vivisection of criminals in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic dynasty.In the 2nd century, Galen of Pergamum, an anatomist, clinician, writer and philosopher, wrote the final and highly influential anatomy treatise of ancient times. He compiled existing knowledge and studied anatomy through dissection of animals. He was one of the first experimental physiologists through his vivisection experiments on animals. Galen's drawings, based mostly on dog anatomy, became effectively the only anatomical textbook for the next thousand years. His work was known to Renaissance doctors only through Islamic Golden Age medicine until it was translated from the Greek some time in the 15th century.Medieval to early modern Anatomy developed little from classical times until the sixteenth century; as the historian Marie Boas writes, "Progress in anatomy before the sixteenth century is as mysteriously slow as its development after 1500 is startlingly rapid". Between 1275 and 1326, the anatomists Mondino de Luzzi, Alessandro Achillini and Antonio Benivieni at Bologna carried out the first systematic human dissections since ancient times. Mondino's Anatomy of 1316 was the first textbook in the medieval rediscovery of human anatomy. It describes the body in the order followed in Mondino's dissections, starting with the abdomen, then the thorax, then the head and limbs. It was the standard anatomy textbook for the next century.Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was trained in anatomy by Andrea del Verrocchio. He made use of his anatomical knowledge in his artwork, making many sketches of skeletal structures, muscles and organs of humans and other vertebrates that he dissected.Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, is considered the founder of modern human anatomy. Originally from Brabant, Vesalius published the influential book De humani corporis fabrica ("the structure of the human body"), a large format book in seven volumes, in 1543. The accurate and intricately detailed illustrations, often in allegorical poses against Italianate landscapes, are thought to have been made by the artist Jan van Calcar, a pupil of Titian.In England, anatomy was the subject of the first public lectures given in any science; these were given by the Company of Barbers and Surgeons in the 16th century, joined in 1583 by the Lumleian lectures in surgery at the Royal College of Physicians.Late modern In the United States, medical schools began to be set up towards the end of the 18th century. Classes in anatomy needed a continual stream of cadavers for dissection and these were difficult to obtain. Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York were all renowned for body snatching activity as criminals raided graveyards at night, removing newly buried corpses from their coffins. A similar problem existed in Britain where demand for bodies became so great that grave-raiding and even anatomy murder were practised to obtain cadavers. Some graveyards were in consequence protected with watchtowers. The practice was halted in Britain by the Anatomy Act of 1832, while in the United States, similar legislation was enacted after the physician William S. Forbes of Jefferson Medical College was found guilty in 1882 of "complicity with resurrectionists in the despoliation of graves in Lebanon Cemetery".The teaching of anatomy in Britain was transformed by Sir John Struthers, Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen from 1863 to 1889. He was responsible for setting up the system of three years of "pre-clinical" academic teaching in the sciences underlying medicine, including especially anatomy. This system lasted until the reform of medical training in 1993 and 2003. As well as teaching, he collected many vertebrate skeletons for his museum of comparative anatomy, published over 70 research papers, and became famous for his public dissection of the Tay Whale. From 1822 the Royal College of Surgeons regulated the teaching of anatomy in medical schools. Medical museums provided examples in comparative anatomy, and were often used in teaching. Ignaz Semmelweis investigated puerperal fever and he discovered how it was caused. He noticed that the frequently fatal fever occurred more often in mothers examined by medical students than by midwives. The students went from the dissecting room to the hospital ward and examined women in childbirth. Semmelweis showed that when the trainees washed their hands in chlorinated lime before each clinical examination, the incidence of puerperal fever among the mothers could be reduced dramatically.Before the modern medical era, the main means for studying the internal structures of the body were dissection of the dead and inspection, palpation and auscultation of the living. It was the advent of microscopy that opened up an understanding of the building blocks that constituted living tissues. Technical advances in the development of achromatic lenses increased the resolving power of the microscope and around 1839, Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann identified that cells were the fundamental unit of organization of all living things. Study of small structures involved passing light through them and the microtome was invented to provide sufficiently thin slices of tissue to examine. Staining techniques using artificial dyes were established to help distinguish between different types of tissue. Advances in the fields of histology and cytology began in the late 19th century along with advances in surgical techniques allowing for the painless and safe removal of biopsy specimens. The invention of the electron microscope brought a great advance in resolution power and allowed research into the ultrastructure of cells and the organelles and other structures within them. About the same time, in the 1950s, the use of X-ray diffraction for studying the crystal structures of proteins, nucleic acids and other biological molecules gave rise to a new field of molecular anatomy.Equally important advances have occurred in  non-invasive techniques for examining the interior structures of the body. X-rays can be passed through the body and used in medical radiography and fluoroscopy to differentiate interior structures that have varying degrees of opaqueness. Magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and ultrasound imaging have all enabled examination of internal structures in unprecedented detail to a degree far beyond the imagination of earlier generations.See also  Anatomical model Outline of human anatomy PlastinationNotesBibliography  "Anatomy of the Human Body". 20th edition. 1918. Henry GrayExternal links   Anatomy, In Our Time. BBC Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg with guests Ruth Richardson, Andrew Cunningham and Harold Ellis.  Anatomia Collection: anatomical plates 1522 to 1867 (digitized books and images)Lyman, Henry Munson. The Book of Health (1898). Science History Institute Digital Collections . Gunther von Hagens True Anatomy for New Ways of Teaching.  Branches of biologyMorphology (biology)
Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, fallacy of the converse, or confusion of necessity and sufficiency, is a formal fallacy of taking a true conditional statement (e.g., "If the lamp were broken, then the room would be dark"), and invalidly inferring its converse ("The room is dark, so the lamp is broken"), even though the converse may not be true. This arises when a consequent ("the room would be dark") has more than one other possible antecedent (for example, "the lamp is not plugged in" or "the lamp is in working order, but is switched off").Converse errors are common in everyday thinking and communication and can result from, among other causes, communication issues, misconceptions about logic, and failure to consider other causes.The opposite statement, denying the consequent, is a valid form of argument.Formal descriptionAffirming the consequent is the action of taking a true statement  and invalidly concluding its converse . The name affirming the consequent derives from using the consequent, Q, of , to conclude the antecedent P. This illogic can be summarized formally as  or, alternatively, .The root cause of such a logic error is sometimes failure to realize that just because P is a possible condition for Q, P may not be the only condition for Q, i.e. Q may follow from another condition as well.Affirming the consequent can also result from overgeneralizing the experience of many statements having true converses. If P and Q are "equivalent" statements, i.e. , it is possible to infer P under the condition Q. For example, the statements "It is August 13, so it is my birthday"  and "It is my birthday, so it is August 13"  are equivalent and both true consequences of the statement "August 13 is my birthday" (an abbreviated form of ). Using one statement to conclude the other is not an example of affirming the consequent, but some people may misapply the approach.Additional examplesExample 1One way to demonstrate the invalidity of this argument form is with a counterexample with true premises but an obviously false conclusion.  For example:If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then Bill Gates is rich.Bill Gates is rich.Therefore, Bill Gates owns Fort Knox.Owning Fort Knox is not the only way to be rich.  Any number of other ways to be rich exist.However, one can affirm with certainty that "if someone is not rich" (non-Q), then "this person does not own Fort Knox" (non-P). This is the contrapositive of the first statement, and it must be true if and only if the original statement is true.Example 2Here is another useful, obviously-fallacious example, but one that does not require familiarity with who Bill Gates is and what Fort Knox is:If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs.My cat has four legs.Therefore, my cat is a dog.Here, it is immediately intuitive that any number of other antecedents ("If an animal is a deer...", "If an animal is an elephant...", "If an animal is a moose...", etc.) can give rise to the consequent ("then it has four legs"), and that it is preposterous to suppose that having four legs must imply that the animal is a dog and nothing else.  This is useful as a teaching example since most people can immediately recognize that the conclusion reached must be wrong (intuitively, a cat cannot be a dog), and that the method by which it was reached must therefore be fallacious.Example 3Arguments of the same form can sometimes seem superficially convincing, as in the following example:If Brian had been thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower, then he would be dead.Brian is dead.Therefore, Brian was thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower.Being thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower is not the only cause of death, since there exist numerous different causes of death.Affirming the consequent is commonly used in rationalization, and thus appears as a coping mechanism in some people.Example 4In Catch-22, the chaplain is interrogated for supposedly being "Washington Irving"/"Irving Washington", who has been blocking out large portions of soldiers' letters home. The colonel has found such a letter, but with the Chaplain's name signed."You can read, though, can't you?" the colonel persevered sarcastically. "The author signed his name.""That's my name there.""Then you wrote it. Q.E.D."P in this case is 'The chaplain signs his own name', and Q 'The chaplain's name is written'. The chaplain's name may be written, but he did not necessarily write it, as the colonel falsely concludes.See also List of fallacies Abductive reasoning Appeal to consequences Confusion of the inverse Denying the antecedent ELIZA effect Fallacy of the single cause Fallacy of the undistributed middle Inference to the best explanation Modus ponens Modus tollens Post hoc ergo propter hoc'' Necessity and sufficiencyReferencesPropositional fallaciesLogic articles needing expert attention
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and film theorist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in Russian and world cinema. His films explored spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory.Tarkovsky studied film at Moscow's VGIK under filmmaker Mikhail Romm, and subsequently directed his first five features in the Soviet Union: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). A number of his films from this period are ranked among the best films ever made. After years of creative conflict with state film authorities, Tarkovsky left the country in 1979 and made his final two films abroad; Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986) were produced in Italy and Sweden respectively. In 1986, he also published a book about cinema and art entitled Sculpting in Time. He died of cancer later that year.Tarkovsky was the recipient of several awards at the Cannes Film Festival throughout his career (including the FIPRESCI prize, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury) and winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for his debut film Ivan's Childhood. In 1990, he was posthumously awarded the Soviet Union's prestigious Lenin Prize. Three of his films—Andrei Rublev, Mirror, and Stalker—featured in Sight & Sounds 2012 poll of the 100 greatest films of all time.Life and careerChildhood and early lifeAndrei Tarkovsky was born in the village of Zavrazhye in the Yuryevetsky District of the Ivanovo Industrial Oblast (modern-day Kadyysky District of the Kostroma Oblast, Russia) to the poet and translator Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky, a native of Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine, and Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova, a graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute who later worked as a corrector; she was born in Moscow in the Dubasov family estate.Andrei's paternal grandfather Aleksandr Karlovich Tarkovsky (in ) was a Polish nobleman who worked as a bank clerk. His wife Maria Danilovna Rachkovskaya was a Romanian teacher who arrived from Iași. Andrei's maternal grandmother Vera Nikolaevna Vishnyakova (née Dubasova) belonged to an old Dubasov family of Russian nobility that traces its history back to the 17th century; among her relatives was Admiral Fyodor Dubasov, a fact she had to conceal during the Soviet days. She was married to Ivan Ivanovich Vishnyakov, a native of the Kaluga Governorate who studied law at the Moscow State University and served as a judge in Kozelsk. from the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1890–1907 (Wikisource, in Russian)According to the family legend, Tarkovsky's ancestors on his father's side were princes from the Shamkhalate of Tarki, Dagestan, although his sister Marina Tarkovskaya who did a detailed research on their genealogy called it "a myth, even a prank of sorts," stressing that none of the documents confirms this version.Tarkovsky spent his childhood in Yuryevets. He was described by childhood friends as active and popular, having many friends and being typically in the center of action. His father left the family in 1937, subsequently volunteering for the army in 1941. He returned home in 1943, having been awarded a Red Star after being shot in one of his legs (which he would eventually need to amputate due to gangrene). Tarkovsky stayed with his mother, moving with her and his sister Marina to Moscow, where she worked as a proofreader at a printing press.In 1939, Tarkovsky enrolled at the Moscow School No. 554. During the war, the three evacuated to Yuryevets, living with his maternal grandmother. In 1943, the family returned to Moscow. Tarkovsky continued his studies at his old school, where the poet Andrei Voznesensky was one of his classmates. He studied piano at a music school and attended classes at an art school. The family lived on Shchipok Street in the Zamoskvorechye District in Moscow. From November 1947 to spring 1948 he was in the hospital with tuberculosis. Many themes of his childhood—the evacuation, his mother and her two children, the withdrawn father, the time in the hospital—feature prominently in his film Mirror.In his school years, Tarkovsky was a troublemaker and a poor student. He still managed to graduate, and from 1951 to 1952 studied Arabic at the Oriental Institute in Moscow, a branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Although he already spoke some Arabic and was a successful student in his first semesters, he did not finish his studies and dropped out to work as a prospector for the Academy of Science Institute for Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. He participated in a year-long research expedition to the river Kureyka near Turukhansk in the Krasnoyarsk Province. During this time in the taiga, Tarkovsky decided to study film.Film school studentUpon returning from the research expedition in 1954, Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film-directing program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush (Irina) whom he married in April 1957.The early Khrushchev era offered good opportunities for young film directors. Before 1953, annual film production was low and most films were directed by veteran directors. After 1953, more films were produced, many of them by young directors. The Khrushchev Thaw relaxed Soviet social restrictions a bit and permitted a limited influx of European and North American literature, films and music. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of the Italian neorealists, French New Wave, and of directors such as Kurosawa, Buñuel, Bergman, Bresson, Wajda (whose film Ashes and Diamonds influenced Tarkovsky) and Mizoguchi.Tarkovsky's teacher and mentor was Mikhail Romm, who taught many film students who would later become influential film directors. In 1956, Tarkovsky directed his first student short film, The Killers, from a short story of Ernest Hemingway. The longer television film There Will Be No Leave Today followed in 1959. Both films were a collaboration between the VGIK students. Classmate Aleksandr Gordon, who married Tarkovsky's sister, in particular directed, wrote, edited, and acted in the two films with Tarkovsky.An important influence on Tarkovsky was the film director Grigory Chukhray, who was teaching at the VGIK. Impressed by the talent of his student, Chukhray offered Tarkovsky a position as assistant director for his film Clear Skies. Tarkovsky initially showed interest but then decided to concentrate on his studies and his own projects.During his third year at the VGIK, Tarkovsky met Andrei Konchalovsky. They found much in common as they liked the same film directors and shared ideas on cinema and films. In 1959, they wrote the script Antarctica – Distant Country, which was later published in the Moskovsky Komsomolets. Tarkovsky submitted the script to Lenfilm, but it was rejected. They were more successful with the script The Steamroller and the Violin, which they sold to Mosfilm. This became Tarkovsky's graduation project, earning him his diploma in 1960 and winning First Prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1961.Film career in the Soviet UnionTarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He had inherited the film from director Eduard Abalov, who had to abort the project. The film earned Tarkovsky international acclaim and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in the year 1962. In the same year, on 30 September, his first son Arseny (called Senka in Tarkovsky's diaries) Tarkovsky was born.In 1965, he directed the film Andrei Rublev about the life of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter. Andrei Rublev was not, except for a single screening in Moscow in 1966, immediately released after completion due to problems with Soviet authorities. Tarkovsky had to cut the film several times, resulting in several different versions of varying lengths. The film was widely released in the Soviet Union in a cut version in 1971. Nevertheless, the film had a budget of more than 1 million rubles – a significant sum for that period. A version of the film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and won the FIPRESCI prize.He divorced his wife, Irina, in June 1970. In the same year, he married Larisa Kizilova (née Egorkina), who had been a production assistant for the film Andrei Rublev (they had been living together since 1965). Their son, Andrei Andreyevich Tarkovsky, (nicknamed Andriosha, meaning "little Andre" or "Andre Junior") was born in the same year on 7 August.In 1972, he completed Solaris, an adaptation of the novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem. He had worked on this together with screenwriter Friedrich Gorenstein as early as 1968. The film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival, won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or.From 1973 to 1974, he shot the film Mirror, a highly autobiographical and unconventionally structured film drawing on his childhood and incorporating some of his father's poems. In this film Tarkovsky portrayed the plight of childhood affected by war. Tarkovsky had worked on the screenplay for this film since 1967, under the consecutive titles Confession, White day and A white, white day. From the beginning the film was not well received by Soviet authorities due to its content and its perceived elitist nature. Soviet authorities placed the film in the "third category", a severely limited distribution, and only allowed it to be shown in third-class cinemas and workers' clubs. Few prints were made and the film-makers received no returns. Third category films also placed the film-makers in danger of being accused of wasting public funds, which could have serious effects on their future productivity. These difficulties are presumed to have made Tarkovsky play with the idea of going abroad and producing a film outside the Soviet film industry.During 1975, Tarkovsky also worked on the screenplay Hoffmanniana, about the German writer and poet E. T. A. Hoffmann. In December 1976, he directed Hamlet, his only stage play, at the Lenkom Theatre in Moscow. The main role was played by Anatoly Solonitsyn, who also acted in several of Tarkovsky's films. At the end of 1978, he also wrote the screenplay Sardor together with the writer Aleksandr Misharin.The last film Tarkovsky completed in the Soviet Union was Stalker, inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Tarkovsky had met the brothers first in 1971 and was in contact with them until his death in 1986. Initially he wanted to shoot a film based on their novel Dead Mountaineer's Hotel and he developed a raw script. Influenced by a discussion with Arkady Strugatsky he changed his plan and began to work on the script based on Roadside Picnic. Work on this film began in 1976. The production was mired in troubles; improper development of the negatives had ruined all the exterior shots. Tarkovsky's relationship with cinematographer Georgy Rerberg deteriorated to the point where he hired Alexander Knyazhinsky as a new first cinematographer. Furthermore, Tarkovsky suffered a heart attack in April 1978, resulting in further delay. The film was completed in 1979 and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. In a question and answer session at the Edinburgh Filmhouse on 11 February 1981, Tarkovsky trenchantly rejected suggestions that the film was either impenetrably mysterious or a political allegory.In 1979, Tarkovsky began production of the film The First Day (Russian: Первый День Pervyj Dyen), based on a script by his friend and long-term collaborator Andrei Konchalovsky. The film was set in 18th-century Russia during the reign of Peter the Great and starred Natalya Bondarchuk and Anatoli Papanov. To get the project approved by Goskino, Tarkovsky submitted a script that was different from the original script, omitting several scenes that were critical of the official atheism in the Soviet Union. After shooting roughly half of the film the project was stopped by Goskino after it became apparent that the film differed from the script submitted to the censors. Tarkovsky was reportedly infuriated by this interruption and destroyed most of the film.Film career outside the Soviet UnionDuring the summer of 1979, Tarkovsky traveled to Italy, where he shot the documentary Voyage in Time together with his long-time friend Tonino Guerra. Tarkovsky returned to Italy in 1980 for an extended trip, during which he and Guerra completed the script for the film Nostalghia. During this period, he took Polaroid photographs depicting his personal life.Tarkovsky returned to Italy in 1982 to start shooting Nostalghia, but Mosfilm then withdrew from the project, so he sought and received financial backing from the Italian RAI. Tarkovsky completed the film in 1983, and it was presented at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Tarkovsky also shared a special prize called Grand Prix du cinéma de creation with Robert Bresson. Soviet authorities lobbied to prevent the film from winning the Palme d'Or, a fact that hardened Tarkovsky's resolve to never work in the Soviet Union again. After Cannes he went to London to stage and choreograph the opera Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House under the musical direction of Claudio Abbado.At a press conference in Milan on 10 July 1984, he announced that he would never return to the Soviet Union and would remain in Western Europe. He stated, "I am not a Soviet dissident, I have no conflict with the Soviet Government," but if he returned home, he added, "I would be unemployed." At that time, his son Andriosha was still in the Soviet Union and not allowed to leave the country. On 28 August 1985, Tarkovsky was processed as a Soviet Defector at a refugee camp in Latina, Italy, registered with the serial number 13225/379, and officially welcomed to the West.Tarkovsky spent most of 1984 preparing the film The Sacrifice. It was finally shot in 1985 in Sweden, with many of the crew being alumni from Ingmar Bergman's films, including cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Tarkovsky's vision of his film was greatly influenced by Bergman's style.While The Sacrifice is about an apocalypse and impending death, faith, and possible redemption, in the making-of documentary Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, in a particularly poignant scene, writer/director Michal Leszczylowski follows Tarkovsky on a walk as he expresses his sentiments on death — he claims himself to be immortal and has no fear of dying. Ironically, at the end of the year Tarkovsky was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In January 1986, he began treatment in Paris and was joined there by his son, Andre Jr, who was finally allowed to leave the Soviet Union. What would be Tarkovsky's final film was dedicated to him.The Sacrifice was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. As Tarkovsky was unable to attend due to his illness, the prizes were collected by his son.DeathIn Tarkovsky's last diary entry (15 December 1986), he wrote: "But now I have no strength left — that is the problem". The diaries are sometimes also known as Martyrology and were published posthumously in 1989 and in English in 1991.Tarkovsky died in Paris on 29 December 1986. His funeral ceremony was held at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. He was buried on 3 January 1987 in the Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in France. The inscription on his gravestone, which was erected in 1994, was conceived by Tarkovsky's wife, Larisa, reads: To the man who saw the Angel. Larisa died in 1998 and is buried beside her husband.A conspiracy theory emerged in Russia in the early 1990s when it was alleged that Tarkovsky did not die of natural causes, but was assassinated by the KGB. Evidence for this hypothesis includes testimonies by former KGB agents who claim that Viktor Chebrikov gave the order to eradicate Tarkovsky to curtail what the Soviet government and the KGB saw as anti-Soviet propaganda by Tarkovsky. Other evidence includes several memoranda that surfaced after the 1991 coup and the claim by one of Tarkovsky's doctors that his cancer could not have developed from a natural cause.As with Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa and actor Anatoly Solonitsyn all died from the very same type of lung cancer. Vladimir Sharun, sound designer in Stalker, is convinced that they were all poisoned by the chemical plant where they were shooting the film.InfluencesTarkovsky became a film director during the mid and late 1950s, a period referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw, during which Soviet society opened to foreign films, literature and music, among other things. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of European, American and Japanese directors, an experience that influenced his own film making. His teacher and mentor at the film school, Mikhail Romm, allowed his students considerable freedom and emphasized the independence of the film director.Tarkovsky was, according to fellow student Shavkat Abdusalmov, fascinated by Japanese films. He was amazed by how every character on the screen is exceptional and how everyday events such as a Samurai cutting bread with his sword are elevated to something special and put into the limelight. Tarkovsky has also expressed interest in the art of Haiku and its ability to create "images in such a way that they mean nothing beyond themselves".Tarkovsky was also a deeply religious Orthodox Christian, who believed great art should have a higher spiritual purpose. He was a perfectionist not given to humor or humility: his signature style was ponderous and literary, having many characters that pondered over religious themes and issues regarding faith.Tarkovsky perceived that the art of cinema has only been truly mastered by very few filmmakers, stating in a 1970 interview with Naum Abramov that "they can be counted on the fingers of one hand". In 1972, Tarkovsky told film historian Leonid Kozlov his ten favorite films. The list includes: Diary of a Country Priest and Mouchette by Robert Bresson; Winter Light, Wild Strawberries, and Persona by Ingmar Bergman; Nazarín by Luis Buñuel; City Lights by Charlie Chaplin; Ugetsu by Kenji Mizoguchi; Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, and Woman in the Dunes by Hiroshi Teshigahara. Among his favorite directors were Buñuel, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Bresson, Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean Vigo, and Carl Theodor Dreyer.With the exception of City Lights, the list does not contain any films of the early silent era. The reason is that Tarkovsky saw film as an art as only a relatively recent phenomenon, with the early film-making forming only a prelude. The list has also no films or directors from Tarkovsky's native Russia, although he rated Soviet directors such as Boris Barnet, Sergei Parajanov and Alexander Dovzhenko highly. He said of Dovzhenko's Earth: "I have lived a lot among very simple farmers and met extraordinary people. They spread calmness, had such tact, they conveyed a feeling of dignity and displayed wisdom that I have seldom come across on such a scale. Dovzhenko had obviously understood wherein the sense of life resides. [...] This trespassing of the border between nature and mankind is an ideal place for the existence of man. Dovzhenko understood this."Andrei Tarkovsky was not a fan of science fiction, largely dismissing it for its "comic book" trappings and vulgar commercialism. However, in a famous exception Tarkovsky praised the blockbuster film The Terminator, saying that its "vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art". He was critical of the "brutality and low acting skills", but was nevertheless impressed by the film.Cinematic styleIn a 1962 interview, Tarkovsky argued: "All art, of course, is intellectual, but for me, all the arts, and cinema even more so, must above all be emotional and act upon the heart." His films are characterized by metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, and images often considered by critics to be of exceptional beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood, running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections, levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of long panning movements of the camera. He once said: "Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema."Tarkovsky incorporated levitation scenes into several of his films, most notably Solaris. To him these scenes possess great power and are used for their photogenic value and magical inexplicability. Water, clouds, and reflections were used by him for their surreal beauty and photogenic value, as well as their symbolism, such as waves or the forms of brooks or running water. Bells and candles are also frequent symbols. These are symbols of film, sight and sound, and Tarkovsky's film frequently has themes of self-reflection.Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time". By this he meant that the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium was to take our experience of time and alter it. Unedited movie footage transcribes time in real time. By using long takes and few cuts in his films, he aimed to give the viewers a sense of time passing, time lost, and the relationship of one moment in time to another.Up to, and including, his film Mirror, Tarkovsky focused his cinematic works on exploring this theory. After Mirror, he announced that he would focus his work on exploring the dramatic unities proposed by Aristotle: a concentrated action, happening in one place, within the span of a single day.Several of Tarkovsky's films have color or black-and-white sequences. This first occurs in the otherwise monochrome Andrei Rublev, which features a color epilogue of Rublev's authentic religious icon paintings. All of his films afterwards contain monochrome, and in Stalker's case sepia sequences, while otherwise being in color. In 1966, in an interview conducted shortly after finishing Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky dismissed color film as a "commercial gimmick" and cast doubt on the idea that contemporary films meaningfully use color. He claimed that in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors most of the time, and that color should therefore be used in film mainly to emphasize certain moments, but not all the time, as this distracts the viewer. To him, films in color were like moving paintings or photographs, which are too beautiful to be a realistic depiction of life.Bergman on TarkovskyIngmar Bergman, a renowned director, commented on Tarkovsky:Contrarily, however, Bergman conceded the truth in the claim made by a critic who wrote that "with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman", adding: "Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films, and that Fellini began to make Fellini films [...] Buñuel nearly always made Buñuel films." This pastiche of one's own work has been derogatorily termed as "self-karaoke".Vadim YusovTarkovsky worked in close collaboration with cinematographer Vadim Yusov from 1958 to 1972, and much of the visual style of Tarkovsky's films can be attributed to this collaboration. Tarkovsky would spend two days preparing for Yusov to film a single long take, and due to the preparation, usually only a single take was needed.Sven NykvistIn his last film, The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky worked with cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who had worked on many films with director Ingmar Bergman. (Nykvist was not alone: several people involved in the production had previously collaborated with Bergman, notably lead actor Erland Josephson, who had also acted for Tarkovsky in Nostalghia.) Nykvist complained that Tarkovsky would frequently look through the camera and even direct actors through it, but ultimately stated that choosing to work with Tarkovsky was one of the best choices he had ever made. Personal life  Sexuality Film scholars Vita T. Johnson and Graham Petrie, in The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue (1994), wrote that Tarkovsky was bisexual and speculated more controversially that he was also ephebophilic. Noting that Tarkovsky's favorite hair color was red, they argue that his work portrays female sexuality negatively except in the case of a sexually precocious red-haired child in Mirror who is also played by his own red-haired step-daughter. Film teacher David Pratt criticized the evidence given for the theory as insufficient. Dina Iordanova likewise found the claim on bisexuality too undeveloped. Donato Totaro, however, took this claim seriously and said that "perhaps the authors were 'protecting' their source, given that homosexuality is still a taboo subject in Russia."FilmographyTarkovsky is mainly known as a film director. During his career he directed seven feature films, as well as three shorts from his time at VGIK. His features are: Ivan's Childhood (1962) Andrei Rublev (1966) Solaris (1972) Mirror (1975) Stalker (1979) Nostalghia (1983) The Sacrifice (1986)He also wrote several screenplays. Furthermore, he directed the play Hamlet for the stage in Moscow, directed the opera Boris Godunov in London, and he directed a radio production of the short story Turnabout by William Faulkner. He also wrote Sculpting in Time, a book on film theory.Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He then directed Andrei Rublev in 1966, Solaris in 1972, Mirror in 1975 and Stalker in 1979. The documentary Voyage in Time was produced in Italy in 1982, as was Nostalghia in 1983. His last film The Sacrifice was produced in Sweden in 1986. Tarkovsky was personally involved in writing the screenplays for all his films, sometimes with a cowriter. Tarkovsky once said that a director who realizes somebody else's screenplay without being involved in it becomes a mere illustrator, resulting in dead and monotonous films.Published books Sculpting in Time, published in 1986 Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970–1986, published in 1989A book of 60 photos, Instant Light, Tarkovsky Polaroids, taken by Tarkovsky in Russia and Italy between 1979 and 1984 was published in 2006. The collection was selected by Italian photographer Giovanni Chiaramonte and Tarkovsky's son Andrey A. Tarkovsky.Unproduced screenplaysConcentrateConcentrate (, Kontsentrat) is a never-filmed 1958 screenplay by Tarkovsky. The screenplay is based on Tarkovsky's year in the taiga as a member of a research expedition, prior to his enrollment in film school. It's about the leader of a geological expedition, who waits for the boat that brings back the concentrates collected by the expedition. The expedition is surrounded by mystery, and its purpose is a state secret.Although some authors claim that the screenplay was filmed, according to Marina Tarkovskaya, Tarkovsky's sister (and wife of Aleksandr Gordon, a fellow student of Tarkovsky during his film school years) the screenplay was never filmed. Tarkovsky wrote the screenplay during his entrance examination at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in a single sitting. He earned the highest possible grade, "excellent" () for this work. In 1994, fragments of Concentrate were filmed and used in the documentary Andrei Tarkovsky's Taiga Summer by Marina Tarkovskaya and Aleksandr Gordon.HoffmannianaHoffmanniana () is a never-filmed 1974 screenplay by Tarkovsky. The screenplay is based on the life and work of German author E. T. A. Hoffmann. In 1974, an acquaintance from Tallinnfilm approached Tarkovsky to write a screenplay on a German theme. Tarkovsky considered Thomas Mann and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and also thought about Ibsen's Peer Gynt. In the end Tarkovsky signed a contract for a script based on the life and work of Hoffmann. He planned to write the script during the summer of 1974 at his dacha. Writing was not without difficulty, less than a month before the deadline he had not written a single page. He finally finished the project in late 1974 and submitted the final script to Tallinnfilm in October.Although the script was well received by the officials at Tallinnfilm, it was the consensus that no one but Tarkovsky would be able to direct it. The script was sent to Goskino in February 1976, and although approval was granted for proceeding with making the film, the screenplay was never realized. In 1984, during the time of his exile in the West, Tarkovsky revisited the screenplay and made a few changes. He also considered to finally direct a film based on the screenplay but ultimately dropped this idea.Films about Tarkovsky Voyage in Time (1983): documents the travels in Italy of Andrei Tarkovsky in preparation for the making of his film Nostalghia, Tonino Guerra. Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema (1984): directed by Donatella Baglivo. Moscow Elegy (1987): a documentary/homage to Tarkovsky by Aleksandr Sokurov. Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit (1988): Andrej Tarkowskijs Exil und Tod. Documentary directed by Ebbo Demant. Germany. One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (1999): French documentary film directed by Chris Marker. "Andrey" (color/b&w, short-fiction, 35 mm, 15 min, 2006) A film by Nariné Mktchyan and Arsen Azatyan. Festivals: Yerevan IFF 2006, Rotterdam IFF 2007, Busan IFF 2007, Sydney IFF 2007, Zerkalo FF Ivanovo (Special Prize) 2008, Kinoshock FF 2014. Tarkovsky: Time Within Time (2015): documentary by P. J. Letofsky. Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer (2019): a poetic documentary by Tarkovsky's son Andrei A. TarkovskyAwards and commemorationNumerous awards were bestowed on Tarkovsky throughout his lifetime. At the Venice Film Festival, the Golden Lion of the for Ivan's Childhood At the Cannes Film Festival, the FIPRESCI prize three times, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury three times (more than any other director), the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury twice, and the Best Director award once. He was also nominated for the Palme d'Or three times. In 1987, the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for The Sacrifice.Under the influence of Glasnost and Perestroika, Tarkovsky was finally recognized in the Soviet Union in the Autumn of 1986, shortly before his death, by a retrospective of his films in Moscow. After his death, an entire issue of the film magazine Iskusstvo Kino was devoted to Tarkovsky. In their obituaries, the film committee of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union and the Union of Soviet Film Makers expressed their sorrow that Tarkovsky had to spend the last years of his life in exile.Posthumously, he was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1990, one of the highest state honors in the Soviet Union. In 1989, the Andrei Tarkovsky Memorial Prize was established, with its first recipient being the Russian animator Yuri Norstein. In three consecutive events, the Moscow International Film Festival awarded the Andrei Tarkovsky Award in 1993, 1995, and 1997.In 1996, the Andrei Tarkovsky Museum opened in Yuryevets, his childhood town. A minor planet, 3345 Tarkovskij, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1982, has been named after him.Tarkovsky has been the subject of several documentaries. Most notable is the 1988 documentary Moscow Elegy, by Russian film director Alexander Sokurov. Sokurov's own work has been heavily influenced by Tarkovsky. The film consists mostly of narration over stock footage from Tarkovsky's films. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is a 1988 documentary film by Michal Leszczylowski, an editor of the film The Sacrifice. Film director Chris Marker produced the television documentary One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich as an homage to Andrei Tarkovsky in 2000.At the entrance to the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow, there is a monument that includes statues of Tarkovsky, Gennady Shpalikov and Vasily Shukshin.Reception and influence on othersAndrei Tarkovsky and his works have received praise from many filmmakers, critics and thinkers. The Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman was quoted as saying: "Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [of us all], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream".The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa remarked on Tarkovsky's films as saying: "His unusual sensitivity is both overwhelming and astounding. It almost reaches a pathological intensity. Probably there is no equal among film directors alive now." Kurosawa also commented: "I love all of Tarkovsky's films. I love his personality and all his works. Every cut from his films is a marvelous image in itself. But the finished image is nothing more than the imperfect accomplishment of his idea. His ideas are only realized in part. And he had to make do with it."The Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami remarked that: "Tarkovsky's works separate me completely from physical life, and are the most spiritual films I have seen".The Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski commented that: "Andrei Tarkovsky was one of the greatest directors of recent years," and regarded Tarkovsky's film, Ivan's Childhood as an influence on his own work.The Armenian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov remarked that watching Tarkovsky's film, Ivan's Childhood was his main inspiration to become a filmmaker by saying: "I did not know how to do anything and I would not have done anything if there had not been Ivan's Childhood".The Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke voted for Mirror on his top 10 films in the 2002 Sight & Sound directors' poll and later said that he has seen the picture at least 25 times.The German filmmaker Wim Wenders dedicated his film Wings of Desire to Tarkovsky (along with François Truffaut and Yasujirō Ozu).  The French filmmaker Chris Marker directed a documentary film as a homage to Tarkovsky called One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich and used Tarkovsky's concept of "The Zone" (from the film, Stalker) for his film, Sans Soleil.The Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos regarded Tarkokvsky's film Stalker as one of the films that influenced him. The Greek-Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas was "extremely influenced" by Tarkovsky's work and cited Stalker as one his favorite films.    The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre highly praised Tarkovsky's film Ivan's Childhood, saying that it was one of the most beautiful films he had ever seen.The Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii, known for his works such as Ghost in the Shell was influenced by Tarkovsky.The Indian-born British American novelist Salman Rushdie praised Tarkovsky and his work Solaris by calling it a "a sci-fi masterpiece".   Film historian Steven Dillon says that much of subsequent film was deeply influenced by the films of Tarkovsky.Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñarritu is a huge fan of Tarkovsky. He once said in an interview: "Andrei Rublev is maybe my favorite film ever", and in another interview, he added: "I remember, the first time I saw a Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I did not know what to do. I was shocked by it. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before". There are many direct references and hidden tributes to Tarkovsky's movies in Iñarritu's drama The Revenant. Danish film director Lars von Trier is a fervent admirer of Tarkovsky's. He dedicated his film Antichrist to him, and, while discussing it with critic David Jenkins, asked: “Have you seen Mirror? I was hypnotised! I’ve seen it 20 times. It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a religion – to me he is a god".See alsoEuropean art cinemaSlow cinemaMoscow International Film FestivalReferencesNotesBibliography'''Schmidt, Stefan W. (2016). "Somatography and Film: Nostalgia as Haunting Memory Shown in Tarkovsky's Nostalghia." Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 3 (1): 27–41. Somatography and Film: Nostalgia as Haunting Memory Shown in Tarkovsky's NostalghiaTumanov, Vladimir (2016). "Philosophy of Mind and Body in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris." Film-Philosophy''. 20 (2-3): 357–375. DOI: Philosophy of Mind and Body in Andrei Tarkovsky's SolarisFurther readingExternal linksAndrei Tarkovsky at Senses of CinemaWebsite about Andrei Tarkovsky, Films, Articles, InterviewsAndrei Tarkovsky: Biography wrestles with the filmmaker's remarkable lifeNostalghia.com - An Andrei Tarkovsky Information Site, at Film Studies Program in the Department of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary 1932 births1986 deaths20th-century Russian diarists20th-century Russian male actors20th-century Russian male writers20th-century Russian non-fiction writers20th-century Russian screenwritersBurials at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian CemeteryCannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winnersDeaths from cancer in FranceDeaths from lung cancerDirectors of Golden Lion winnersFilm directors from Kostroma OblastFilmmakers who won the Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA AwardGerasimov Institute of Cinematography alumniHigh Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors facultyLenin Prize winnersMale actors from Ivanovo OblastMale actors from Kostroma OblastPeople from Kadyysky DistrictPeople's Artists of the RSFSRRussian experimental filmmakersRussian male film actorsRussian opera directorsRussian Orthodox Christians from RussiaRussian people of Polish descentRussian people of Romanian descentScience fiction film directorsSoviet diaristsSoviet documentary film directorsSoviet emigrants to FranceSoviet emigrants to ItalySoviet film directorsSoviet male film actorsSoviet non-fiction writersSoviet screenwritersWriters from Ivanovo OblastWriters from Kostroma Oblast
Ambiguity is a type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. (The ambi- part of the term reflects an idea of "two", as in "two meanings".)The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be immediately obvious), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.Linguistic forms Lexical ambiguity is contrasted with semantic ambiguity. The former represents a choice between a finite number of known and meaningful context-dependent interpretations. The latter represents a choice between any number of possible interpretations, none of which may have a standard agreed-upon meaning. This form of ambiguity is closely related to vagueness.Linguistic ambiguity can be a problem in law, because the interpretation of written documents and oral agreements is often of paramount importance.Lexical ambiguity The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase pertains to its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. "Meaning" here refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For instance, the word "bank" has several distinct lexical definitions, including "financial institution" and "edge of a river". Or consider "apothecary". One could say "I bought herbs from the apothecary". This could mean one actually spoke to the apothecary (pharmacist) or went to the apothecary (pharmacy).The context in which an ambiguous word is used often makes it evident which of the meanings is intended. If, for instance, someone says "I buried $100 in the bank", most people would not think someone used a shovel to dig in the mud. However, some linguistic contexts do not provide sufficient information to disambiguate a used word.Lexical ambiguity can be addressed by algorithmic methods that automatically associate the appropriate meaning with a word in context, a task referred to as word sense disambiguation.The use of multi-defined words requires the author or speaker to clarify their context, and sometimes elaborate on their specific intended meaning (in which case, a less ambiguous term should have been used). The goal of clear concise communication is that the receiver(s) have no misunderstanding about what was meant to be conveyed. An exception to this could include a politician whose "weasel words" and obfuscation are necessary to gain support from multiple constituents with mutually exclusive conflicting desires from their candidate of choice. Ambiguity is a powerful tool of political science.More problematic are words whose senses express closely related concepts. "Good", for example, can mean "useful" or "functional" (That's a good hammer), "exemplary" (She's a good student), "pleasing" (This is good soup), "moral" (a good person versus the lesson to be learned from a story), "righteous", etc. "I have a good daughter" is not clear about which sense is intended. The various ways to apply prefixes and suffixes can also create ambiguity ("unlockable" can mean "capable of being unlocked" or "impossible to lock").Semantic and syntactic ambiguity Semantic ambiguity occurs when a word, phrase or sentence, taken out of context, has more than one interpretation. In "We saw her duck" (example due to Richard Nordquist), the words "her duck" can refer either to the person's bird (the noun "duck", modified by the possessive pronoun "her"), or to a motion she made (the verb "duck", the subject of which is the objective pronoun "her", object of the verb "saw").Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can have two (or more) different meanings because of the structure of the sentence—its syntax. This is often due to a modifying expression, such as a prepositional phrase, the application of which is unclear. "He ate the cookies on the couch", for example, could mean that he ate those cookies that were on the couch (as opposed to those that were on the table), or it could mean that he was sitting on the couch when he ate the cookies. "To get in, you will need an entrance fee of $10 or your voucher and your drivers' license." This could mean that you need EITHER ten dollars OR BOTH your voucher and your license. Or it could mean that you need your license AND you need EITHER ten dollars OR a voucher. Only rewriting the sentence, or placing appropriate punctuation can resolve a syntactic ambiguity.For the notion of, and theoretic results about, syntactic ambiguity in artificial, formal languages (such as computer programming languages), see Ambiguous grammar.Usually, semantic and syntactic ambiguity go hand in hand. The sentence "We saw her duck" is also syntactically ambiguous. Conversely, a sentence like "He ate the cookies on the couch" is also semantically ambiguous. Rarely, but occasionally, the different parsings of a syntactically ambiguous phrase result in the same meaning. For example, the command "Cook, cook!" can be parsed as "Cook (noun used as vocative), cook (imperative verb form)!", but also as "Cook (imperative verb form), cook (noun used as vocative)!". It is more common that a syntactically unambiguous phrase has a semantic ambiguity; for example, the lexical ambiguity in "Your boss is a funny man" is purely semantic, leading to the response "Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?"Spoken language can contain many more types of ambiguities which are called phonological ambiguities, where there is more than one way to compose a set of sounds into words. For example, "ice cream" and "I scream". Such ambiguity is generally resolved according to the context. A mishearing of such, based on incorrectly resolved ambiguity, is called a mondegreen.Metonymy involves referring to one entity by the name of a different but closely related entity (for example, using "wheels" to refer to a car, or "Wall Street" to refer to the stock exchanges located on that street or even the entire US financial sector). In the modern vocabulary of critical semiotics, metonymy encompasses any potentially ambiguous word substitution that is based on contextual contiguity (located close together), or a function or process that an object performs, such as "sweet ride" to refer to a nice car. Metonym miscommunication is considered a primary mechanism of linguistic humor.Philosophy Philosophers (and other users of logic) spend a lot of time and effort searching for and removing (or intentionally adding) ambiguity in arguments because it can lead to incorrect conclusions and can be used to deliberately conceal bad arguments. For example, a politician might say, "I oppose taxes which hinder economic growth", an example of a glittering generality. Some will think they oppose taxes in general because they hinder economic growth. Others may think they oppose only those taxes that they believe will hinder economic growth. In writing, the sentence can be rewritten to reduce possible misinterpretation, either by adding a comma after "taxes" (to convey the first sense) or by changing "which" to "that" (to convey the second sense) or by rewriting it in other ways. The devious politician hopes that each constituent will interpret the statement in the most desirable way, and think the politician supports everyone's opinion. However, the opposite can also be true—an opponent can turn a positive statement into a bad one if the speaker uses ambiguity (intentionally or not). The logical fallacies of amphiboly and equivocation rely heavily on the use of ambiguous words and phrases.In continental philosophy (particularly phenomenology and existentialism), there is much greater tolerance of ambiguity, as it is generally seen as an integral part of the human condition. Martin Heidegger argued that the relation between the subject and object is ambiguous, as is the relation of mind and body, and part and whole. In Heidegger's phenomenology, Dasein is always in a meaningful world, but there is always an underlying background for every instance of signification. Thus, although some things may be certain, they have little to do with Dasein's sense of care and existential anxiety, e.g., in the face of death. In calling his work Being and Nothingness an "essay in phenomenological ontology" Jean-Paul Sartre follows Heidegger in defining the human essence as ambiguous, or relating fundamentally to such ambiguity. Simone de Beauvoir tries to base an ethics on Heidegger's and Sartre's writings (The Ethics of Ambiguity), where she highlights the need to grapple with ambiguity: "as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it... And the ethics which they have proposed to their disciples has always pursued the same goal. It has been a matter of eliminating the ambiguity by making oneself pure inwardness or pure externality, by escaping from the sensible world or being engulfed by it, by yielding to eternity or enclosing oneself in the pure moment." Ethics cannot be based on the authoritative certainty given by mathematics and logic, or prescribed directly from the empirical findings of science. She states: "Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us, therefore, try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting". Other continental philosophers suggest that concepts such as life, nature, and sex are ambiguous. Corey Anton has argued that we cannot be certain what is separate from or unified with something else: language, he asserts, divides what is not, in fact, separate. Following Ernest Becker, he argues that the desire to 'authoritatively disambiguate' the world and existence has led to numerous ideologies and historical events such as genocide. On this basis, he argues that ethics must focus on 'dialectically integrating opposites' and balancing tension, rather than seeking a priori validation or certainty. Like the existentialists and phenomenologists, he sees the ambiguity of life as the basis of creativity.Literature and rhetoric In literature and rhetoric, ambiguity can be a useful tool. Groucho Marx's classic joke depends on a grammatical ambiguity for its humor, for example: "Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know". Songs and poetry often rely on ambiguous words for artistic effect, as in the song title "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" (where "blue" can refer to the color, or to sadness).In the narrative, ambiguity can be introduced in several ways: motive, plot, character. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the latter type of ambiguity with notable effect in his novel The Great Gatsby.Mathematical notation Mathematical notation, widely used in physics and other sciences, avoids many ambiguities compared to expression in natural language. However, for various reasons, several lexical, syntactic and semantic ambiguities remain.Names of functions The ambiguity in the style of writing a function should not be confused with a multivalued function, which can (and should) be defined in a deterministic and unambiguous way. Several special functions still do not have established notations. Usually, the conversion to another notation requires to scale the argument or the resulting value; sometimes, the same name of the function is used, causing confusions. Examples of such underestablished functions: Sinc function Elliptic integral of the third kind; translating elliptic integral form MAPLE to Mathematica, one should replace the second argument to its square, see Talk:Elliptic integral#List of notations; dealing with complex values, this may cause problems. Exponential integral Hermite polynomialExpressions Ambiguous expressions often appear in physical and mathematical texts.It is common practice to omit multiplication signs in mathematical expressions. Also, it is common to give the same name to a variable and a function, for example, . Then, if one sees , there is no way to distinguish whether it means  multiplied by , or function  evaluated at argument equal to . In each case of use of such notations, the reader is supposed to be able to perform the deduction and reveal the true meaning.Creators of algorithmic languages try to avoid ambiguities. Many algorithmic languages (C++ and Fortran) require the character * as symbol of multiplication. The Wolfram Language used in Mathematica allows the user to omit the multiplication symbol, but requires square brackets to indicate the argument of a function; square brackets are not allowed for grouping of expressions. Fortran, in addition, does not allow use of the same name (identifier) for different objects, for example, function and variable; in particular, the expression f=f(x) is qualified as an error.The order of operations may depend on the context. In most programming languages, the operations of division and multiplication have equal priority and are executed from left to right. Until the last century, many editorials assumed that multiplication is performed first, for example,  is interpreted as ; in this case, the insertion of parentheses is required when translating the formulas to an algorithmic language. In addition, it is common to write an argument of a function without parenthesis, which also may lead to ambiguity.In the scientific journal style, one uses roman letters to denote elementary functions, whereas variables are written using italics.For example, in mathematical journals the expressiondoes not denote the sine function, but theproduct of the three variables,,, although in the informal notation of a slide presentation it may stand for .Commas in multi-component subscripts and superscripts are sometimes omitted; this is also potentially ambiguous notation.For example, in the notation , the reader can only infer from the context whether it means a single-index object, taken with the subscript equal to product of variables ,  and , or it is an indication to a trivalent tensor.Examples of potentially confusing ambiguous mathematical expressions An expression such as  can be understood to mean either  or . Often the author's intention can be understood from the context, in cases where only one of the two makes sense, but an ambiguity like this should be avoided, for example by writing  or .The expression  means  in several texts, though it might be thought to mean , since  commonly means . Conversely,  might seem to mean , as this exponentiation notation usually denotes function iteration: in general,  means . However, for trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, this notation conventionally means exponentiation of the result of function application.The expression  can be interpreted as meaning ; however, it is more commonly understood to mean .Notations in quantum optics and quantum mechanics It is common to define the coherent states in quantum optics with  and states with fixed number of photons with . Then, there is an "unwritten rule": the state is coherent if there are more Greek characters than Latin characters in the argument, and photon state if the Latin characters dominate. The ambiguity becomes even worse, if  is used for the states with certain value of the coordinate, and  means the state with certain value of the momentum, which may be used in books on quantum mechanics. Such ambiguities easily lead to confusions, especially if some normalized adimensional, dimensionless variables are used. Expression  may mean a state with single photon, or the coherent state with mean amplitude equal to 1, or state with momentum equal to unity, and so on. The reader is supposed to guess from the context.Ambiguous terms in physics and mathematics Some physical quantities do not yet have established notations; their value (and sometimes even dimension, as in the case of the Einstein coefficients), depends on the system of notations. Many terms are ambiguous. Each use of an ambiguous term should be preceded by the definition, suitable for a specific case. Just like Ludwig Wittgenstein states in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "...Only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning."A highly confusing term is gain. For example, the sentence "the gain of a system should be doubled", without context, means close to nothing. It may mean that the ratio of the output voltage of an electric circuit to the input voltage should be doubled. It may mean that the ratio of the output power of an electric or optical circuit to the input power should be doubled. It may mean that the gain of the laser medium should be doubled, for example, doubling the population of the upper laser level in a quasi-two level system (assuming negligible absorption of the ground-state).The term intensity is ambiguous when applied to light. The term can refer to any of irradiance, luminous intensity, radiant intensity, or radiance, depending on the background of the person using the term.Also, confusions may be related with the use of atomic percent as measure of concentration of a dopant, or resolution of an imaging system, as measure of the size of the smallest detail which still can be resolved at the background of statistical noise. See also Accuracy and precision and its talk.The Berry paradox arises as a result of systematic ambiguity in the meaning of terms such as "definable" or "nameable". Terms of this kind give rise to vicious circle fallacies. Other terms with this type of ambiguity are: satisfiable, true, false, function, property, class, relation, cardinal, and ordinal.Mathematical interpretation of ambiguity In mathematics and logic, ambiguity can be considered to be an instance of the logical concept of underdetermination—for example,  leaves open what the value of X is—while its opposite is a self-contradiction, also called inconsistency, paradoxicalness, or oxymoron, or in mathematics an inconsistent system—such as , which has no solution.Logical ambiguity and self-contradiction is analogous to visual ambiguity and impossible objects, such as the Necker cube and impossible cube, or many of the drawings of M. C. Escher.Constructed language Some languages have been created with the intention of avoiding ambiguity, especially lexical ambiguity. Lojban and Loglan are two related languages which have been created for this, focusing chiefly on syntactic ambiguity as well. The languages can be both spoken and written. These languages are intended to provide a greater technical precision over big natural languages, although historically, such attempts at language improvement have been criticized. Languages composed from many diverse sources contain much ambiguity and inconsistency. The many exceptions to syntax and semantic rules are time-consuming and difficult to learn.Biology In structural biology, ambiguity has been recognized as a problem for studying protein conformations. The analysis of a protein three-dimensional structure consists in dividing the macromolecule into subunits called domains. The difficulty of this task arises from the fact that different definitions of what a domain is can be used (e.g. folding autonomy, function, thermodynamic stability, or domain motions), which sometimes results in a single protein having different—yet equally valid—domain assignments.Christianity and Judaism Christianity and Judaism employ the concept of paradox synonymously with "ambiguity". Many Christians and Jews endorse Rudolf Otto's description of the sacred as 'mysterium tremendum et fascinans', the awe-inspiring mystery which fascinates humans. The orthodox Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton regularly employed paradox to tease out the meanings in common concepts which he found ambiguous or to reveal meaning often overlooked or forgotten in common phrases. (The title of one of his most famous books, Orthodoxy, itself employing such a paradox.)Music In music, pieces or sections which confound expectations and may be or are interpreted simultaneously in different ways are ambiguous, such as some polytonality, polymeter, other ambiguous meters or rhythms, and ambiguous phrasing, or (Stein 2005, p.79) any aspect of music. The music of Africa is often purposely ambiguous. To quote Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1935, p.195), "Theorists are apt to vex themselves with vain efforts to remove uncertainty just where it has a high aesthetic value."Visual art In visual art, certain images are visually ambiguous, such as the Necker cube, which can be interpreted in two ways. Perceptions of such objects remain stable for a time, then may flip, a phenomenon called multistable perception.The opposite of such ambiguous images are impossible objects.Pictures or photographs may also be ambiguous at the semantic level: the visual image is unambiguous, but the meaning and narrative may be ambiguous: is a certain facial expression one of excitement or fear, for instance?Social psychology and the bystander effect In social psychology, ambiguity is a factor used in determining peoples' responses to various situations. High levels of ambiguity in an emergency (e.g. an unconscious man lying on a park bench) make witnesses less likely to offer any sort of assistance, due to the fear that they may have misinterpreted the situation and acted unnecessarily. Alternately, non-ambiguous emergencies (e.g. an injured person verbally asking for help) illicit more consistent intervention and assistance. With regard to the bystander effect, studies have shown that emergencies deemed ambiguous trigger the appearance of the classic bystander effect (wherein more witnesses decrease the likelihood of any of them helping) far more than non-ambiguous emergencies.Computer science In computer science, the SI prefixes kilo-, mega- and giga- were historically used in certain contexts to mean either the first three powers of 1024 (1024, 10242 and 10243) contrary to the metric system in which these units unambiguously mean one thousand, one million, and one billion. This usage is particularly prevalent with electronic memory devices (e.g. DRAM) addressed directly by a binary machine register where a decimal interpretation makes no practical sense.Subsequently, the Ki, Mi, and Gi prefixes were introduced so that binary prefixes could be written explicitly, also rendering k, M, and G unambiguous in texts conforming to the new standard—this led to a new ambiguity in engineering documents lacking outward trace of the binary prefixes (necessarily indicating the new style) as to whether the usage of k, M, and G remains ambiguous (old style) or not (new style). 1 M (where M is ambiguously 1,000,000 or 1,048,576) is less uncertain than the engineering value 1.0e6 (defined to designate the interval 950,000 to 1,050,000). As non-volatile storage devices begin to exceed 1 GB in capacity (where the ambiguity begins to routinely impact the second significant digit), GB and TB almost always mean 109 and 1012 bytes.See alsoReferencesExternal links Collection of Ambiguous or Inconsistent/Incomplete StatementsLeaving out ambiguities when writing SemanticsMathematical notationConcepts in epistemologyBarriers to critical thinkingFormal semantics (natural language)
Abel is a Biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He was the younger brother of Cain, and the younger son of Adam and Eve, the first couple in Biblical history. He was a shepherd who offered his firstborn flock up to God as an offering. God accepted his offering but not his brother's. Cain then killed Abel out of jealousy.According to Genesis, this was the first murder in the history of mankind.Genesis narrativeInterpretationsJewish and Christian interpretationsAccording to the narrative in Genesis, Abel ( Hébel, in pausa  Hā́ḇel;  Hábel; , Hābēl) is Eve's second son. His name in Hebrew is composed of the same three consonants as a root meaning "breath". Julius Wellhausen has proposed that the name is independent of the root. Eberhard Schrader had previously put forward the Akkadian (Old Assyrian dialect) ablu ("son") as a more likely etymology.In Christianity, comparisons are sometimes made between the death of Abel and that of Jesus, the former thus seen as being the first martyr. In  Jesus speaks of Abel as "righteous", and the Epistle to the Hebrews states that "The blood of sprinkling ... [speaks] better things than that of Abel" (). The blood of Jesus is interpreted as bringing mercy; but that of Abel as demanding vengeance (hence the curse and mark).Abel is invoked in the litany for the dying in the Roman Catholic Church, and his sacrifice is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass along with those of Abraham and Melchizedek. The Alexandrian Rite commemorates him with a feast day on December 28.According to the Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1–15), and the Syriac Cave of Treasures, Abel's body, after many days of mourning, was placed in the Cave of Treasures, before which Adam and Eve, and descendants, offered their prayers. In addition, the Sethite line of the Generations of Adam swear by Abel's blood to segregate themselves from the unrighteous.In the Book of Enoch (22:7), regarded by most Christian and Jewish traditions as extra-biblical, the soul of Abel is described as having been appointed as the chief of martyrs, crying for vengeance, for the destruction of the seed of Cain. This view is later repeated in the Testament of Abraham (A:13 / B:11), where Abel has been raised to the position as the judge of the souls.Sethian Gnostic interpretationIn the Apocryphon of John, a work belonging to Sethian Gnosticism, Abel is the offspring of Yaldaboath and Eve, who is placed over the elements of water and earth as Elohim, but was only given his name as a form of deception.Mandaean interpretationAccording to Mandaean beliefs and scriptures including the Qolastā, the Book of John and Genzā Rabbā, Abel is cognate with the angelic soteriological figure Hibil Ziwa, (, sometimes translated "Splendid Hibel"), who is spoken of as a son of Hayyi or of Manda d-Hayyi, and as a brother to Anush (Enosh) and to Sheetil (Seth), who is the son of Adam. Elsewhere, Anush is spoken of as the son of Sheetil, and Sheetil as the son of Hibil, where Hibil came to Adam and Eve as a young boy when they were still virgins, but was called their son. Hibil is an important lightworld being (uthra) who conquered the World of Darkness. As Yawar Hibil, he is one of multiple figures known as Yawar (), being so named by and after his father.Islamic interpretationAccording to Shi'a Muslim belief, Abel ("Habeel") is buried in the Nabi Habeel Mosque, located on the west mountains of Damascus, near the Zabadani Valley, overlooking the villages of the Barada river (Wadi Barada), in Syria. Shi'a are frequent visitors of this mosque for ziyarat. The mosque was built by Ottoman Wali Ahmad Pasha in 1599.NotesReferences  Bereshit (parashah)Biblical murder victimsBook of Genesis peopleChildren of Adam and EveMale murder victimsShepherdsUthrasHebrew Bible people in Mandaeism
An animal is a multicellular, eukaryotic organism of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa.Animal, Animals, or The Animal may also refer to:People The Animal (nickname), a set index of people nicknamed "The Animal" or "Animal"Professional wrestlers Road Warrior Animal, commonly shortened to "Animal", the best-known ring persona of Joe Laurinaitis (1960–2020) Animal Hamaguchi, ring name of Japanese retired wrestler Heigo Hamaguchi (born 1947) George Steele (1937–2017), American professional wrestler, author and actor known as "The Animal" Dave Bautista (born 1969), American retired professional wrestler whose nickname is "The Animal"Books and publications Animal (book), full title Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to The World's WildLife, a 2003 non-fiction book by David Burnie and several co-authors Animal, 2012 novel by K'wan Foye Animal (journal), full title: Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience, British academic journalAnimals (novel), a 2014 novel by Emma Jane UnsworthFilm and televisionFilm Animal (1977 film), a French film (L'Animal) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch Animal (2001 film), an Argentine comedy film by Sergio Bizzio with Carlos Roffé Animal (2005 film), an American direct-to-video action drama film starring Ving Rhames and Terrance Howard Animal (2014 film), an American horror film starring Keke Palmer Animals (2003 film), a stand-up show written and performed by Ricky Gervais Animals (2012 film), a Spanish film Animals (2014 film), a British drama film written by and starring David Dastmalchian Animals (2017 film), a German film Animals (2019 film), an Australian film The Animal, a 2001 American comedy film featuring Rob Schneider The Animals (film), a 2012 Filipino coming-of-age film by Gino M. SantosTelevision Animals (American TV series), a 2016–2018 animated series Animals (South Korean TV series), a 2015 reality-variety show "Animals" (The Goodies), a 1980 episode "Animals" (Men Behaving Badly), a 1992 episode "Animals" (Off the Air), a 2011 episode "Animals" (The Vicar of Dibley), a 1994 episode "The Animals" (Orange Is the New Black), a 2016 episode Animal (audio drama), a 2011 audio drama based on Doctor WhoCharacters Animal (Muppet), a character from the television series The Muppet Show Animal, a character in the television series Takeshi's Castle Animal, played by Ken Hudson Campbell, a character on the TV sitcom Herman's Head Dennis "Animal" Price, a character on the TV series Lou GrantMusic The Animals, a British rock band A.N.I.M.A.L., an Argentinian heavy metal band Animal (Nick Culmer) lead singer of the Anti-Nowhere LeagueAlbums Animal (Animosity album), 2007 Animal (Bar-Kays album), 1989 Animal (Big Scary album), 2016 Animal (Kesha album), 2010 Animal (Lump album), 2021 Animal (Motor Ace album), 2005 Animal (Maria Becerra album), 2021 Animals (Pink Floyd album), 1977 Animals (This Town Needs Guns album), 2008 Animals (EP) by Ryan Starx, 2013 The Animals (American album), by The Animals, 1964 The Animals (British album), by The Animals, 1964 Animal, a 2009 album by AutoKratz Animal, a 2013 album by Berlin Animal, a 2008 album by Far East Movement Animal!, a 2008 album by Margot & the Nuclear So and So'sSongs"Animal" "Animal", by Against Me! from New Wave "Animal" (Álvaro Soler song), 2017 "Animal", by Ani DiFranco from Educated Guess "Animal", by Aurora from A Different Kind of Human (Step 2) "Animal", by Black Light Burns from Cruel Melody "Animal" (Conor Maynard song), 2013 "Animal" (Def Leppard song), 1987 "Animal", by Ellie Goulding from Lights "Animal" (Jebediah song), 1999 "Animal" (Juvenile song), 2006 "Animal", by Karen O and the Kids from Where the Wild Things Are "Animal", by Kat DeLuna from 9 Lives "Animal", by Kesha from Animal "Animal", by the Men from Open Your Heart, 2012 "Animal" (Miike Snow song), 2009 "Animal", by Mindless Self Indulgence from If "Animal", by Mudmen from Overrated "Animal", by Nada Surf from You Know Who You Are, 2016 "Animal" (Neon Trees song), 2010 "Animal" (Pearl Jam song), 1994 "Animal" (R.E.M. song), 2004 "Animal" (R.I.O. song), 2011 "Animal", by Subhumans from Demolition War "Animal", by Sunhouse from Crazy On The Weekend "Animal", by The Kinks from To the Bone "Animal", by Toto from Past to Present 1977–1990 "Animal" (Troye Sivan song), 2018"Animals" "Animals" (Architects song), 2020 "Animals", by CocoRosie from The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn "Animals", by Coldplay as one of the B-sides for "Clocks" "Animals", by Dead Poetic from Vices "Animals" (Kevin Ayers song), 1980 "Animals" (Maroon 5 song), 2014 "Animals" (Martin Garrix song), 2013 "Animals" (Muse song), 2012 "Animals" (Nickelback song), 2005 "Animals", by Talking Heads from Fear of Music "Animals", by The End from Elementary "Animals", by Todrick Hall featuring Matt Bloyd from Forbidden "Animal (F**k Like a Beast)", by W.A.S.P., 1984"The Animal" "The Animal" (Disturbed song), 2010 "The Animal", by Steve Vai from Passion and WarfareOther ANIMAL (computer worm), an early self-replicating computer program ANIMAL (image processing), an interactive software environment for image processing Animals (Israeli organization),  an animal rights group based in IsraelSee also Animals, Animals, Animals, an American educational television series (1976–1981) Animalia (disambiguation) Animalism (disambiguation) Operation Animals, a World War II Allied deception operation in Greece
The aardvark ( ; Orycteropus afer) is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. Unlike most other insectivores, it has a long pig-like snout, which is used to sniff out food. It roams over most of the southern two-thirds of the African continent, avoiding areas that are mainly rocky. A nocturnal feeder, it subsists on ants and termites, which it will dig out of their hills using its sharp claws and powerful legs. It also digs to create burrows in which to live and rear its young. The animal is listed as "least concern" by the IUCN, although its numbers are decreasing. Aardvarks are afrotheres, a clade which also includes elephants, manatees, and hyraxes.Name and taxonomyName The aardvark is sometimes colloquially called the "African ant bear", "anteater" (not to be confused with the South American anteater), or the "Cape anteater" after the Cape of Good Hope. The name "aardvark" is Afrikaans (), comes from earlier Afrikaans erdvark and means "earth pig" or "ground pig" (aarde: "earth/ground", vark: "pig"), because of its burrowing habits. The name Orycteropus means "burrowing foot", and the name afer refers to Africa. The name of the aardvark's order, Tubulidentata, comes from the tubule-style teeth.Taxonomy The aardvark is not closely related to the pig; rather, it is the sole extant representative of the obscure mammalian order Tubulidentata, in which it is usually considered to form one variable species of the genus Orycteropus, the sole surviving genus in the family Orycteropodidae. The aardvark is not closely related to the South American anteater, despite sharing some characteristics and a superficial resemblance. The similarities are based on convergent evolution. The closest living relatives of the aardvark are the elephant shrews, tenrecs and golden moles. Along with the sirenians, hyraxes, elephants, and their extinct relatives, these animals form the superorder Afrotheria. Studies of the brain have shown the similarities with Condylarthra, and given the clade's status as a wastebasket taxon it may mean some species traditionally classified as "condylarths" are actually stem-aardvarks.Evolutionary history Based on fossils, Bryan Patterson has concluded that early relatives of the aardvark appeared in Africa around the end of the Paleocene. The ptolemaiidans, a mysterious clade of mammals with uncertain affinities, may actually be stem-aardvarks, either as a sister clade to Tubulidentata or as a grade leading to true tubulidentates.The first unambiguous tubulidentate was probably Myorycteropus africanus from Kenyan Miocene deposits. The earliest example from the genus Orycteropus was Orycteropus mauritanicus, found in Algeria in deposits from the middle Miocene, with an equally old version found in Kenya. Fossils from the aardvark have been dated to 5 million years, and have been located throughout Europe and the Near East.The mysterious Pleistocene Plesiorycteropus from Madagascar was originally thought to be a tubulidentate that was descended from ancestors that entered the island during the Eocene. However, a number of subtle anatomical differences coupled with recent molecular evidence now lead researchers to believe that Plesiorycteropus is a relative of golden moles and tenrecs that achieved an aardvark-like appearance and ecological niche through convergent evolution.SubspeciesThe aardvark has seventeen poorly defined subspecies listed: Orycteropus afer afer O. a. adametzi  Grote, 1921 O. a. aethiopicus  Sundevall, 1843 O. a. angolensis  Zukowsky & Haltenorth, 1957 O. a. erikssoni  Lönnberg, 1906 O. a. faradjius  Hatt, 1932 O. a. haussanus  Matschie, 1900 O. a. kordofanicus  Rothschild, 1927 O. a. lademanni  Grote, 1911 O. a. leptodon  Hirst, 1906 O. a. matschiei  Grote, 1921 O. a. observandus Grote, 1921 O. a. ruvanensis Grote, 1921 O. a. senegalensis Lesson, 1840 O. a. somalicus Lydekker, 1908 O. a. wardi Lydekker, 1908 O. a. wertheri  Matschie, 1898The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica also mentions O. a. capensis or Cape ant-bear from South Africa.DescriptionThe aardvark is vaguely pig-like in appearance. Its body is stout with a prominently arched back and is sparsely covered with coarse hairs. The limbs are of moderate length, with the rear legs being longer than the forelegs. The front feet have lost the pollex (or 'thumb'), resulting in four toes, while the rear feet have all five toes. Each toe bears a large, robust nail which is somewhat flattened and shovel-like, and appears to be intermediate between a claw and a hoof. Whereas the aardvark is considered digitigrade, it appears at times to be plantigrade. This confusion happens because when it squats it stands on its soles. A contributing characteristic to the burrow digging capabilities of aardvarks is an endosteal tissue called compacted coarse cancellous bone (CCCB). The stress and strain resistance provided by CCCB allows aardvarks to create their burrows, ultimately leading to a favorable environment for plants and a variety of animals.An aardvark's weight is typically between . An aardvark's length is usually between , and can reach lengths of  when its tail (which can be up to ) is taken into account. It is  tall at the shoulder, and has a girth of about . It is the largest member of the proposed clade Afroinsectiphilia. The aardvark is pale yellowish-gray in color and often stained reddish-brown by soil. The aardvark's coat is thin, and the animal's primary protection is its tough skin. Its hair is short on its head and tail; however its legs tend to have longer hair. The hair on the majority of its body is grouped in clusters of 3-4 hairs. The hair surrounding its nostrils is dense to help filter particulate matter out as it digs. Its tail is very thick at the base and gradually tapers.HeadThe greatly elongated head is set on a short, thick neck, and the end of the snout bears a disc, which houses the nostrils. It contains a thin but complete zygomatic arch. The head of the aardvark contains many unique and different features. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Tubulidentata is their teeth, Instead of having a pulp cavity, each tooth has a cluster of thin, hexagonal, upright, parallel tubes of vasodentin (a modified form of dentine), with individual pulp canals, held together by cementum. The number of columns is dependent on the size of the tooth, with the largest having about 1,500. The teeth have no enamel coating and are worn away and regrow continuously. The aardvark is born with conventional incisors and canines at the front of the jaw, which fall out and are not replaced. Adult aardvarks have only cheek teeth at the back of the jaw, and have a dental formula of:  These remaining teeth are peg-like and rootless and are of unique composition. The teeth consist of 14 upper and 12 lower jaw molars. The nasal area of the aardvark is another unique area, as it contains ten nasal conchae, more than any other placental mammal.The sides of the nostrils are thick with hair. The tip of the snout is highly mobile and is moved by modified mimetic muscles. The fleshy dividing tissue between its nostrils probably has sensory functions, but it is uncertain whether they are olfactory or vibratory in nature. Its nose is made up of more turbinate bones than any other mammal, with between 9 and 11, compared to dogs with 4 to 5. With a large quantity of turbinate bones, the aardvark has more space for the moist epithelium, which is the location of the olfactory bulb. The nose contains nine olfactory bulbs, more than any other mammal. Its keen sense of smell is not just from the quantity of bulbs in the nose but also in the development of the brain, as its olfactory lobe is very developed. The snout resembles an elongated pig snout. The mouth is small and tubular, typical of species that feed on ants and termites. The aardvark has a long, thin, snakelike, protruding tongue (as much as  long) and elaborate structures supporting a keen sense of smell. The ears, which are very effective, are disproportionately long, about  long. The eyes are small for its head, and consist only of rods.Digestive systemThe aardvark's stomach has a muscular pyloric area that acts as a gizzard to grind swallowed food up, thereby rendering chewing unnecessary. Its cecum is large. Both sexes emit a strong smelling secretion from an anal gland. Its salivary glands are highly developed and almost completely ring the neck; their output is what causes the tongue to maintain its tackiness. The female has two pairs of teats in the inguinal region.Genetically speaking, the aardvark is a living fossil, as its chromosomes are highly conserved, reflecting much of the early eutherian arrangement before the divergence of the major modern taxa.Habitat and rangeAardvarks are found in sub-Saharan Africa, where suitable habitat (savannas, grasslands, woodlands and bushland) and food (i.e., ants and termites) is available. They spend the daylight hours in dark burrows to avoid the heat of the day. The only major habitat that they are not present in is swamp forest, as the high water table precludes digging to a sufficient depth. They also avoid terrain rocky enough to cause problems with digging. They have been documented as high as  in Ethiopia. They are present throughout sub-Saharan Africa all the way to South Africa with few exceptions including the coastal areas of Namibia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. They are not found in Madagascar.Ecology and behaviourAardvarks live for up to 23 years in captivity. Its keen hearing warns it of predators: lions, leopards, cheetahs, African wild dogs, hyenas, and pythons. Some humans also hunt aardvarks for meat. Aardvarks can dig fast or run in zigzag fashion to elude enemies, but if all else fails, they will strike with their claws, tail and shoulders, sometimes flipping onto their backs lying motionless except to lash out with all four feet. They are capable of causing substantial damage to unprotected areas of an attacker. They will also dig to escape as they can. Sometimes, when pressed, aardvarks can dig extremely quickly.FeedingThe aardvark is nocturnal and is a solitary creature that feeds almost exclusively on ants and termites (myrmecophagy); the only fruit eaten by aardvarks is the aardvark cucumber. In fact, the cucumber and the aardvark have a symbiotic relationship as they eat the subterranean fruit, then defecate the seeds near their burrows, which then grow rapidly due to the loose soil and fertile nature of the area. The time spent in the intestine of the aardvark helps the fertility of the seed, and the fruit provides needed moisture for the aardvark. They avoid eating the African driver ant and red ants. Due to their stringent diet requirements, they require a large range to survive. An aardvark emerges from its burrow in the late afternoon or shortly after sunset, and forages over a considerable home range encompassing . While foraging for food, the aardvark will keep its nose to the ground and its ears pointed forward, which indicates that both smell and hearing are involved in the search for food. They zig-zag as they forage and will usually not repeat a route for 5–8 days as they appear to allow time for the termite nests to recover before feeding on it again.During a foraging period, they will stop to dig a "V" shaped trench with their forefeet and then sniff it profusely as a means to explore their location. When a concentration of ants or termites is detected, the aardvark digs into it with its powerful front legs, keeping its long ears upright to listen for predators, and takes up an astonishing number of insects with its long, sticky tongue—as many as 50,000 in one night have been recorded. Its claws enable it to dig through the extremely hard crust of a termite or ant mound quickly. It avoids inhaling the dust by sealing the nostrils. When successful, the aardvark's long (up to ) tongue licks up the insects; the termites' biting, or the ants' stinging attacks are rendered futile by the tough skin. After an aardvark visit at a termite mound, other animals will visit to pick up all the leftovers. Termite mounds alone don't provide enough food for the aardvark, so they look for termites that are on the move. When these insects move, they can form columns  long and these tend to provide easy pickings with little effort exerted by the aardvark. These columns are more common in areas of livestock or other hoofed animals. The trampled grass and dung attract termites from the Odontotermes, Microtermes, and Pseudacanthotermes genera.On a nightly basis they tend to be more active during the first portion of night (roughly the four hours between 8:00p.m. and 12:00a.m.); however, they don't seem to prefer bright or dark nights over the other. During adverse weather or if disturbed they will retreat to their burrow systems. They cover between  per night; however, some studies have shown that they may traverse as far as  in a night.VocalizationThe aardvark is a rather quiet animal. However, it does make soft grunting sounds as it forages and loud grunts as it makes for its tunnel entrance. It makes a bleating sound if frightened. When it is threatened it will make for one of its burrows. If one is not close it will dig a new one rapidly. This new one will be short and require the aardvark to back out when the coast is clear.MovementThe aardvark is known to be a good swimmer and has been witnessed successfully swimming in strong currents. It can dig a yard of tunnel in about five minutes, but otherwise moves fairly slowly.When leaving the burrow at night, they pause at the entrance for about ten minutes, sniffing and listening. After this period of watchfulness, it will bound out and within seconds it will be  away. It will then pause, prick its ears, twisting its head to listen, then jump and move off to start foraging.Aside from digging out ants and termites, the aardvark also excavates burrows in which to live, which generally fall into one of three categories: burrows made while foraging, refuge and resting location, and permanent homes. Temporary sites are scattered around the home range and are used as refuges, while the main burrow is also used for breeding. Main burrows can be deep and extensive, have several entrances and can be as long as . These burrows can be large enough for a person to enter. The aardvark changes the layout of its home burrow regularly, and periodically moves on and makes a new one. The old burrows are an important part of the African wildlife scene. As they are vacated, then they are inhabited by smaller animals like the African wild dog, ant-eating chat, Nycteris thebaica and warthogs. Other animals that use them are hares, mongooses, hyenas, owls, pythons, and lizards. Without these refuges many animals would die during wildfire season. Only mothers and young share burrows; however, the aardvark is known to live in small family groups or as a solitary creature. If attacked in the tunnel, it will escape by digging out of the tunnel thereby placing the fresh fill between it and its predator, or if it decides to fight it will roll onto its back, and attack with its claws. The aardvark has been known to sleep in a recently excavated ant nest, which also serves as protection from its predators.ReproductionAardvarks pair only during the breeding season; after a gestation period of seven months, one cub weighing around  is born during May–July. When born, the young has flaccid ears and many wrinkles. When nursing, it will nurse off each teat in succession. After two weeks, the folds of skin disappear and after three, the ears can be held upright. After 5–6 weeks, body hair starts growing. It is able to leave the burrow to accompany its mother after only two weeks and eats termites at 9 weeks, and is weaned between three months and 16 weeks. At six months of age, it is able to dig its own burrows, but it will often remain with the mother until the next mating season, and is sexually mature from approximately two years of age.ConservationAardvarks were thought to have declining numbers, however, this is possibly because they are not readily seen. There are no definitive counts because of their nocturnal and secretive habits; however, their numbers seem to be stable overall. They are not considered common anywhere in Africa, but due to their large range, they maintain sufficient numbers. There may be a slight decrease in numbers in eastern, northern, and western Africa. Southern African numbers are not decreasing. It receives an official designation from the IUCN as least concern. However, they are a species in a precarious situation, as they are so dependent on such specific food; therefore if a problem arises with the abundance of termites, the species as a whole would be affected drastically.Aardvarks handle captivity well. The first zoo to have one was London Zoo in 1869, which had an animal from South Africa.Mythology and popular cultureIn African folklore, the aardvark is much admired because of its diligent quest for food and its fearless response to soldier ants. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree. Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission. Also, some tribes, such as the Margbetu, Ayanda, and Logo, will use aardvark teeth to make bracelets, which are regarded as good luck charms. The meat, which has a resemblance to pork, is eaten in certain cultures.The ancient Egyptian god Set is usually depicted with the head of an unidentified animal, whose similarity to an aardvark has been noted in scholarship.The titular character of Arthur, an animated television series for children based on a book series and produced by WGBH, shown in more than 180 countries, is an aardvark. In the first book of the series, Arthur's Nose (1976), he has a long, aardvark-like nose, but in later books, his face becomes more rounded.Otis the Aardvark was a puppet character used on Children's BBC programming.An aardvark features as the antagonist in the cartoon The Ant and the Aardvark as well as in the Canadian animated series The Raccoons.The supersonic fighter-bomber F-111/FB-111 was nicknamed the Aardvark because of its long nose resembling the animal. It also had similarities with its nocturnal missions flown at a very low level employing ordnance that could penetrate deep into the ground. In the US Navy, the squadron VF-114 was nicknamed the Aardvarks, flying F-4s and then F-14s. The squadron mascot was adapted from the animal in the comic strip B.C., which the F-4 was said to resemble.Cerebus the Aardvark is a 300-issue comic book series by Dave Sim.FootnotesReferencesExternal links IUCN/SSC Afrotheria Specialist Group A YouTube video introducing the Bronx Zoo's aardvarks "The Biology of the Aardvark (Orycteropus afer)" a diploma thesis (without images) "The Biology of the Aardvark" (Orycteropus afer)" the thesis with images OrycteropusMammals of AfricaMyrmecophagous mammalsMammals described in 1766Extant Zanclean first appearancesTaxa named by Peter Simon Pallas
The aardwolf (Proteles cristata) is an insectivorous mammal in the family Hyaenidae, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called "maanhaar-jackal" (Afrikaans for "mane-jackal"), "termite-eating hyena" and "civet hyena", based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet. Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals. It eats insects and their larvae, mainly termites; one aardwolf can lap up as many as 250,000 termites during a single night using its long, sticky tongue. The aardwolf's tongue has adapted to be tough enough to withstand the strong bite of termites.The aardwolf lives in the shrublands of eastern and southern Africa – open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs. It is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to seek food.TaxonomyThe aardwolf is generally classified with the hyena family Hyaenidae, though it was formerly placed in its own family Protelidae. Early on, scientists felt that it was merely mimicking the striped hyena, which subsequently led to the creation of Protelidae. Recent studies have suggested that the aardwolf probably diverged from other hyaenids early on; how early is still unclear, as the fossil record and genetic studies disagree by 10 million years.The aardwolf is the only surviving species in the subfamily Protelinae. There is disagreement as to whether the species is monotypic, or can be divided into subspecies P. c. cristatus of Southern Africa and P. c. septentrionalis of East Africa.EtymologyThe generic name proteles comes from two words both of Greek origin, protos and teleos which combined means "complete in front" based on the fact that they have five toes on their front feet and four on the rear. The specific name, cristatus, comes from Latin and means "provided with a comb", relating to their mane.DescriptionThe aardwolf resembles a very thin striped hyena, but with a more slender muzzle, black vertical stripes on a coat of yellowish fur, and a long, distinct mane down the midline of the neck and back. It also has one or two diagonal stripes down the fore- and hind-quarters, along with several stripes on its legs. The mane is raised during confrontations to make the aardwolf appear larger. It is missing the throat spot that others in the family have. Its lower leg (from the knee down) is all black, and its tail is bushy with a black tip.The aardwolf is about  long, excluding its bushy tail, which is about  long, and stands about  tall at the shoulders. An adult aardwolf weighs approximately , sometimes reaching . The aardwolves in the south of the continent tend to be smaller (about )than the eastern version (around ). This makes the aardwolf, the smallest extant member of the Hyaenidae family. The front feet have five toes each, unlike the four-toed hyena. The teeth and skull are similar to those of other hyenas, though smaller, and its cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects. It does still have canines, but, unlike other hyenas, these teeth are used primarily for fighting and defense. Its ears, which are large, are very similar to those of the striped hyena.As an aardwolf ages, it will normally lose some of its teeth, though this has little impact on its feeding habits due to the softness of the insects that it eats.Distribution and habitatAardwolves live in open, dry plains and bushland, avoiding mountainous areas. Due to their specific food requirements, they are only found in regions where termites of the family Hodotermitidae occur. Termites of this family depend on dead and withered grass and are most populous in heavily grazed grasslands and savannahs, including farmland. For most of the year, aardwolves spend time in shared territories consisting of up to a dozen dens, which are occupied for six weeks at a time.There are two distinct populations: one in Southern Africa, and another in East and Northeast Africa. The species does not occur in the intermediary miombo forests.An adult pair, along with their most-recent offspring, occupies a territory of .BehaviorAardwolves are shy and nocturnal, sleeping in burrows by day. They will, on occasion during the winter, become diurnal feeders. This happens during the coldest periods as they then stay in at night to conserve heat.They have often been mistaken for solitary animals. In fact, they live as monogamous pairs with their young. If their territory is infringed upon, they will chase the intruder up to  or to the border. If the intruder is caught, which rarely happens, a fight will occur, which is accompanied by soft clucking, hoarse barking, and a type of roar. The majority of incursions occur during mating season, when they can occur once or twice per week. When food is scarce, the stringent territorial system may be abandoned and as many as three pairs may occupy a single territory.The territory is marked by both sexes, as they both have developed anal glands from which they extrude a black substance that is smeared on rocks or grass stalks in -long streaks. Aardwolves also have scent glands on the forefoot and penile pad. They often mark near termite mounds within their territory every 20 minutes or so. If they are patrolling their territorial boundaries, the marking frequency increases drastically, to once every . At this rate, an individual may mark 60 marks per hour, and upwards of 200 per night.An aardwolf pair may have up to 10 dens, and numerous feces middens, within their territory. When they deposit excreta at their middens, they dig a small hole and cover it with sand. Their dens are usually abandoned aardvark, springhare, or porcupine dens, or on occasion they are crevices in rocks. They will also dig their own dens, or enlarge dens started by springhares. They typically will only use one or two dens at a time, rotating through all of their dens every six months. During the summer, they may rest outside their den during the night, and sleep underground during the heat of the day.Aardwolves are not fast runners nor are they particularly adept at fighting off predators. Therefore, when threatened, the aardwolf may attempt to mislead its foe by doubling back on its tracks. If confronted, it may raise its mane in an attempt to appear more menacing. It also emits a foul-smelling liquid from its anal glands.FeedingThe aardwolf feeds primarily on termites and more specifically on Trinervitermes. This genus of termites has different species throughout the aardwolf's range. In East Africa, they eat Trinervitermes bettonianus, in central Africa, they eat Trinervitermes rhodesiensis, and in southern Africa, they eat T. trinervoides. Their technique consists of licking them off the ground as opposed to the aardvark, which digs into the mound. They locate their food by sound and also from the scent secreted by the soldier termites. An aardwolf may consume up to 250,000 termites per night using its long, sticky tongue.They do not destroy the termite mound or consume the entire colony, thus ensuring that the termites can rebuild and provide a continuous supply of food. They often memorize the location of such nests and return to them every few months. During certain seasonal events, such as the onset of the rainy season and the cold of midwinter, the primary termites become scarce, so the need for other foods becomes pronounced. During these times, the southern aardwolf will seek out Hodotermes mossambicus, a type of harvester termite active in the afternoon, which explains some of their diurnal behavior in the winter. The eastern aardwolf, during the rainy season, subsists on termites from the genera Odontotermes and Macrotermes. They are also known to feed on other insects, larvae, eggs, and, some sources say, occasionally small mammals and birds, but these constitute a very small percentage of their total diet.Unlike other hyenas, aardwolves do not scavenge or kill larger animals. Contrary to popular myths, aardwolves do not eat carrion, and if they are seen eating while hunched over a dead carcass, they are actually eating larvae and beetles. Also, contrary to some sources, they do not like meat, unless it is finely ground or cooked for them. The adult aardwolf was formerly assumed to forage in small groups, but more recent research has shown that they are primarily solitary foragers, necessary because of the scarcity of their insect prey. Their primary source, Trinervitermes, forages in small but dense patches of . While foraging, the aardwolf can cover about  per hour, which translates to  per summer night and  per winter night.BreedingThe breeding season varies depending on location, but normally takes place during autumn or spring. In South Africa, breeding occurs in early July. During the breeding season, unpaired male aardwolves search their own territory, as well as others, for a female to mate with. Dominant males also mate opportunistically with the females of less dominant neighboring aardwolves, which can result in conflict between rival males. Dominant males even go a step further and as the breeding season approaches, they make increasingly greater and greater incursions onto weaker males' territories. As the female comes into oestrus, they add pasting to their tricks inside of the other territories, sometimes doing so more in rivals' territories than their own. Females will also, when given the opportunity, mate with the dominant male, which increases the chances of the dominant male guarding "his" cubs with her. Copulation lasts between 1 and 4.5 hours.Gestation lasts between 89 and 92 days, producing two to five cubs (most often two or three) during the rainy season (November–December), when termites are more active. They are born with their eyes open, but initially are helpless, and weigh around . The first six to eight weeks are spent in the den with their parents. The male may spend up to six hours a night watching over the cubs while the mother is out looking for food. After three months, they begin supervised foraging, and by four months are normally independent, though they often share a den with their mother until the next breeding season. By the time the next set of cubs is born, the older cubs have moved on. Aardwolves generally achieve sexual maturity at one and a half to two years of age.ConservationThe aardwolf has not seen decreasing numbers and is relatively widespread throughout eastern Africa. They are not common throughout their range, as they maintain a density of no more than 1 per square kilometer, if food is abundant. Because of these factors, the IUCN has rated the aardwolf as least concern. In some areas, they are persecuted because of the mistaken belief that they prey on livestock; however, they are actually beneficial to the farmers because they eat termites that are detrimental. In other areas, the farmers have recognized this, but they are still killed, on occasion, for their fur. Dogs and insecticides are also common killers of the aardwolf.Interaction with humansAardwolves are rare sights at zoos. Frankfurt Zoo in Germany was home to the oldest recorded aardwolf in captivity at 18 years and 11 months.NotesReferencesReferencesFurther readingExternal links Animal Diversity Web IUCN Hyaenidae Specialist Group Aardwolf pages on hyaenidae.org Mammals described in 1783Carnivorans of AfricaHyenasMammals of Southern AfricaFauna of East AfricaMyrmecophagous mammalsTaxa named by Anders Sparrman
Adobe (; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials,  is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.Adobe architecture has been dated to before 5,100 B.C.DescriptionAdobe bricks are rectangular prisms small enough that they can quickly air dry individually without cracking. They can be subsequently assembled, with the application of adobe mud to bond the individual bricks into a structure.  There is no standard size, with substantial variations over the years and in different regions. In some areas a popular size measured  weighing about ; in other contexts the size is  weighing about . The maximum sizes can reach up to ; above this weight it becomes difficult to move the pieces, and it is preferred to ram the mud in situ, resulting in a different typology known as rammed earth.StrengthIn dry climates, adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not reinforced. Cases where adobe structures were widely damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the 2003 Bam earthquake, and the 2010 Chile earthquake.DistributionBuildings made of sun-dried earth are common throughout the world (Middle East, Western Asia, North Africa, West Africa, South America, southwestern North America, Spain, and Eastern Europe.) Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andes for several thousand years. Puebloan peoples built their adobe structures with handsful or basketsful of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to making bricks. Adobe bricks were used in Spain from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (eighth century BCE onwards). Its wide use can be attributed to its simplicity of design and manufacture, and economics.EtymologyThe word adobe  has existed for around 4000 years with relatively little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian (c. 2000 BC) word ḏbt "mud brick" (with vowels unwritten). Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian, Demotic or "pre-Coptic", and finally to Coptic (c. 600 BC), where it appeared as ⲧⲱⲃⲉ tōbə. This was adopted into Arabic as  aṭ-ṭawbu or aṭ-ṭūbu, with the definite article al- attached. tuba, This was assimilated into the Old Spanish language as adobe , probably via Mozarabic. English borrowed the word from Spanish in the early 18th century, still referring to mudbrick construction.In more modern English usage, the term "adobe" has come to include a style of architecture popular in the desert climates of North America, especially in New Mexico, regardless of the construction method.CompositionAn adobe brick is a composite material made of earth mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung. The soil composition typically contains sand, silt and clay. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick. Dung offers the same advantage. The most desirable soil texture for producing the mud of adobe is 15% clay, 10–30% silt, and 55–75% fine sand. Another source quotes 15–25% clay and the remainder sand and coarser particles up to cobbles , with no deleterious effect. Modern adobe is stabilized with either emulsified asphalt or Portland cement up to 10% by weight.No more than half the clay content should be expansive clays, with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick, resulting in cracking, while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick. Typically the soils of the Southwest United States, where such construction has been widely used, are an adequate composition.Material propertiesAdobe walls are load bearing, i.e. they carry their own weight into the foundation rather than by another structure, hence the adobe must have sufficient compressive strength. In the United States, most building codes call for a minimum compressive strength of 300 lbf/in2 (2.07 newton/mm2) for the adobe block. Adobe construction should be designed so as to avoid lateral structural loads that would cause bending loads. The building codes require the building sustain a 1 g lateral acceleration earthquake load. Such an acceleration will cause lateral loads on the walls, resulting in shear and bending and inducing tensile stresses. To withstand such loads, the codes typically call for a tensile modulus of rupture strength of at least 50 lbf/in2 (0.345 newton/mm2) for the finished block.In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe mediates the high and low temperatures of the day, moderating the temperature of the living space. The massive walls require a large and relatively long input of heat from the sun (radiation) and from the surrounding air (convection) before they warm through to the interior. After the sun sets and the temperature drops, the warm wall will continue to transfer heat to the interior for several hours due to the time-lag effect. Thus, a well-planned adobe wall of the appropriate thickness is very effective at controlling inside temperature through the wide daily fluctuations typical of desert climates, a factor which has contributed to its longevity as a building material.Thermodynamic material properties have significant variation in the literature. Some experiments suggest that the standard consideration of conductivity is not adequate for this material, as its main thermodynamic property is inertia, and conclude that experimental tests should be performed over a longer period of time than usual - preferably with changing thermal jumps. There is an effective R-value for a north facing 10-in wall of R0=10 hr ft2 °F/Btu, which corresponds to thermal conductivity k=10 in x 1 ft/12 in /R0=0.33 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.57 W/(m K) in agreement with the thermal conductivity reported from another source. To determine the total R-value of a wall, scale R0 by the thickness of the wall in inches. The thermal resistance of adobe is also stated as an R-value for a 10-inch wall R0=4.1 hr ft2 °F/Btu. Another source provides the following properties: conductivity=0.30 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.52 W/(m K); specific heat capacity=0.24 Btu/(lb °F) or 1 kJ/(kg K) and density=106 lb/ft3 or 1700 kg/m3, giving heat capacity=25.4 Btu/(ft3 °F) or 1700 kJ/(m3 K). Using the average value of the thermal conductivity as k = 32 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.55 W/(m K), the thermal diffusivity is calculated to be 0.013 ft2/h or 3.3x10−7 m2/s.UsesPoured and puddled adobe wallsPoured and puddled adobe (puddled clay, piled earth), today called cob, is made by placing soft adobe in layers, rather than by making individual dried bricks or using a form. "Puddle" is a general term for a clay or clay and sand-based material worked into a dense, plastic state. These are the oldest methods of building with adobe in the Americas until holes in the ground were used as forms, and later wooden forms used to make individual bricks were introduced by the Spanish.Adobe bricksBricks made from adobe are usually made by pressing the mud mixture into an open timber frame. In North America, the brick is typically about  in size. The mixture is molded into the frame, which is removed after initial setting. After drying for a few hours, the bricks are turned on edge to finish drying. Slow drying in shade reduces cracking.The same mixture, without straw, is used to make mortar and often plaster on interior and exterior walls. Some cultures used lime-based cement for the plaster to protect against rain damage.Depending on the form into which the mixture is pressed, adobe can encompass nearly any shape or size, provided drying is even and the mixture includes reinforcement for larger bricks. Reinforcement can include manure, straw, cement, rebar, or wooden posts. Straw, cement, or manure added to a standard adobe mixture can produce a stronger, more crack-resistant brick. A test is done on the soil content first. To do so, a sample of the soil is mixed into a clear container with some water, creating an almost completely saturated liquid. The container is shaken vigorously for one minute. It is then allowed to settle for a day until the soil has settled into layers. Heavier particles settle out first, sand above, silt above that, and very fine clay and organic matter will stay in suspension for days. After the water has cleared, percentages of the various particles can be determined. Fifty to 60 percent sand and 35 to 40 percent clay will yield strong bricks. The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service at New Mexico State University recommends a mix of not more than ⅓ clay, not less than ½ sand, and never more than ⅓ silt.During the  Great Depression, designer and builder Hugh W. Comstock used cheaper materials and made a specialized adobe brick called "Bitudobe." His first adobe house was built in 1936. In 1948, he published the book Post-Adobe; Simplified Adobe Construction Combining A Rugged Timber Frame And Modern Stabilized Adobe, which described his method of construction, including how to make "Bitudobe." In 1938, he served as an adviser to the architects Franklin & Kump Associates, who built the Carmel High School, which used his Post-adobe system.Adobe wall constructionThe ground supporting an adobe structure should be compressed, as the weight of adobe wall is significant and foundation settling may cause cracking of the wall. Footing depth is to be below the ground frost level. The footing and stem wall are commonly 24 and 14 inches thick, respectively.  Modern construction codes call for the use of reinforcing steel in the footing and stem wall. Adobe bricks are laid by course. Adobe walls usually never rise above two stories as they are load bearing and adobe has low structural strength. When creating window and door openings, a lintel is placed on top of the opening to support the bricks above. Atop the last courses of brick, bond beams made of heavy wood beams or modern reinforced concrete are laid to provide a horizontal bearing plate for the roof beams and to redistribute lateral earthquake loads to shear walls more able to carry the forces. To protect the interior and exterior adobe walls, finishes such as mud plaster, whitewash or stucco can be applied. These protect the adobe wall from water damage, but need to be reapplied periodically. Alternatively, the walls can be finished with other nontraditional plasters that provide longer protection. Bricks made with stabilized adobe generally do not need protection of plasters.Adobe roofThe traditional adobe roof has been constructed using a mixture of soil/clay, water, sand and organic materials. The mixture was then formed and pressed into wood forms, producing rows of dried earth bricks that would then be laid across a support structure of wood and plastered into place with more adobe.Depending on the materials available, a roof may be assembled using wood or metal beams to create a framework to begin layering adobe bricks. Depending on the thickness of the adobe bricks, the framework has been preformed using a steel framing and a layering of a metal fencing or wiring over the framework to allow an even load as masses of adobe are spread across the metal fencing like cob and allowed to air dry accordingly. This method was demonstrated with an adobe blend heavily impregnated with cement to allow even drying and prevent cracking.The more traditional flat adobe roofs are functional only in dry climates that are not exposed to snow loads. The heaviest wooden beams, called vigas, lie atop the wall. Across the vigas lie smaller members called latillas and upon those brush is then laid. Finally, the adobe layer is applied.To construct a flat adobe roof, beams of wood were laid to span the building, the ends of which were attached to the tops of the walls. Once the vigas, latillas and brush are laid, adobe bricks are placed. An adobe roof is often laid with bricks slightly larger in width to ensure a greater expanse is covered when placing the bricks onto the roof. Following each individual brick should be a layer of adobe mortar, recommended to be at least  thick to make certain there is ample strength between the brick's edges and also to provide a relative moisture barrier during rain.Roof design evolved around 1850 in the American Southwest. Three inches of adobe mud was applied on top of the latillas, then 18 inches of dry adobe dirt applied to the roof. The dirt was contoured into a low slope to a downspout aka a 'canal'. When moisture was applied to the roof the clay particles expanded to create a waterproof membrane. Once a year it was necessary to pull the weeds from the roof and re-slope the dirt as needed.Depending on the materials, adobe roofs can be inherently fire-proof. The construction of a chimney can greatly influence the construction of the roof supports, creating an extra need for care in choosing the materials. The builders can make an adobe chimney by stacking simple adobe bricks in a similar fashion as the surrounding walls.In 1927, the Uniform Building Code (UBC) was adopted in the United States. Local ordinances, referencing the UBC added requirements to building with adobe. These included: restriction of building height of adobe structures to 1-story, requirements for adobe mix (compressive and shear strength) and new requirements which stated that every building shall be designed to withstand seismic activity, specifically lateral forces. By the 1980s however, seismic related changes in the California Building Code effectively ended solid wall adobe construction in California; however Post-and-Beam adobe and veneers are still being used.Adobe around the worldThe largest structure ever made from adobe is the Arg-é Bam built by the Achaemenid Empire. Other large adobe structures are the Huaca del Sol in Peru, with 100 million signed bricks and the ciudellas of Chan Chan and Tambo Colorado, both in Peru.See also         used adobe walls   (waterproofing plaster)      (also known as Ctesiphon Arch) in Iraq is the largest mud brick arch in the world, built beginning in 540 ADReferencesExternal linksSoil-based building materialsMasonryAdobe buildings and structuresAppropriate technologyVernacular architectureSustainable buildingBuildings and structures by construction materialWestern (genre) staples and terminology
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with some potential for physical danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting or participating in extreme sports. Adventures are often undertaken to create psychological arousal or in order to achieve a greater goal such as the pursuit of knowledge that can only be obtained in a risky manner.MotivationAdventurous experiences create psychological arousal, which can be interpreted as negative (e.g. fear) or positive (e.g. flow).  For some people, adventure becomes a major pursuit in and of itself. According to adventurer André Malraux, in his La Condition Humaine (1933), "If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?".Similarly, Helen Keller stated that "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."Outdoor adventurous activities are typically undertaken for the purposes of recreation or excitement: examples are adventure racing and adventure tourism. Adventurous activities can also lead to gains in knowledge, such as those undertaken by explorers and pioneers – the British adventurer Jason Lewis, for example, uses adventures to draw global sustainability lessons from living within finite environmental constraints on expeditions to share with schoolchildren. Adventure education intentionally uses challenging experiences for learning.Author Jon Levy suggests that an experience should meet several criteria to be considered an adventure: Be remarkable—that is, worth talking about Involve adversity or perceived risk Bring about personal growthMythology and fictionSome of the oldest and most widespread stories in the world are stories of adventure such as Homer's The Odyssey.The knight errant was the form the "adventure seeker" character took in the late Middle Ages.The adventure novel exhibits these "protagonist on adventurous journey" characteristics as do many popular feature films, such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.OutdoorsAdventure books may have the theme of the hero or main character going to face the wilderness or Mother Nature. Examples include books such as Hatchet or My Side of the Mountain. These books are less about "questing", such as in mythology or other adventure novels, but more about surviving on their own, living off the land, gaining new experiences, and becoming closer to the natural world.QuestingMany adventures are based on the idea of a quest: the hero goes off in pursuit of a reward, whether it be a skill, prize, treasure, or perhaps the safety of a person. On the way, the hero must overcome various obstacles to obtain their reward.Video gamesIn video-game culture, an adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and  puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games (text and graphic) are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult.Nonfiction worksFrom ancient times, travelers and explorers have written about their adventures. Journals which became best-sellers in their day were written, such as Marco Polo's journal The Travels of Marco Polo or Mark Twain's Roughing It. Others were personal journals, only later published, such as the journals of Lewis and Clark or Captain James Cook's journals. There are also books written by those not directly a part of the adventure in question, such as The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe or books written by those participating in the adventure but in a format other than that of a journal, such as Conquistadors of the Useless by Lionel Terray. Documentaries often use the theme of adventure as well.Adventure sports There are many sports classified as adventure games or sports, due to their inherent danger and excitement. Some of these include mountain climbing, skydiving, or other extreme sports.Adventure sports has fast caught up in the Indian milieu. India offers immense opportunity for adventure lovers throughout its length and breadth. Angling & Fishing are two remarkable adventure activities among the many others that are offered in India. They are specially suited to the Indian subcontinent because of innumerable rivers that course through the expansive Gangetic Plains, and originate in the upper reaches of the magnificent Himalayas. The Indian Himalaya are an ultimate destination for adventure lovers and has attracted trekkers and lovers of nature Indian himalayas are the source of significant life giver rivers, like Ganges Beas, Satluj and their tributaries. The Himalayan mountain ranges of India offer breathtaking, highly challenging trekking routes. Mountaineering in India was introduced by the Europeans in the 18th century. India offers an exciting mountaineering experience to an adventure sport lover. The Himalayas that stretch from north-west of India to far north-east offers a number of high rise peaks that are considered ideal for mountaineering. Some of the places for mountaineering in India are Leh Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas in Uttarakhand, Kullu valley and Lahul Spiti in Himachal Pradesh, and Sikkim and some other parts of north-eastern region.See also Adventure film Adventure playground Adventure travel Exploration List of genres Sports Tourism TravelReferencesExternal links Martin Feeney Going on a journey: Life in Year 10 Website of the Research Unit "Philology of Adventure": ongoing research project on the literary history of the adventure pattern What is an adventure? A definition of "adventure", "hero" and "epic" with an illustration of the hero's journey. Wikivoyage
Asia () is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe, and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa and Europe. Asia covers an area of , about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people constituting roughly 60% of the world's population.In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. The border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. It is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural, linguistic, and ethnic differences, some of which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish Straits, the Ural Mountains and Ural River, and to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas, separating it from Europe.China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power and attracted many to the east, and for many the legendary wealth and prosperity of the ancient culture of India personified Asia, attracting European commerce, exploration and colonialism. The accidental discovery of a trans-Atlantic route from Europe to America by Columbus while in search for a route to India demonstrates this deep fascination. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism (particularly East Asia) as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, as well as many other religions.Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. It also has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot desert in the Middle East, temperate areas in the east and the  continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia.Definition and boundariesAsia–Africa boundaryThe boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.Asia–Europe boundaryThe threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BC, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni river) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on the Black Sea coast, through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC. During the Hellenistic period, this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the Tanais (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius, Strabo and Ptolemy.The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721. The major geographical theorist of the empire was a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, and was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book.In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north.Asia–Oceania boundaryThe border between Asia and the region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The Maluku Islands in Indonesia are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with New Guinea, to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process."Ongoing definitionGeographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them. For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia".Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—Afro-Eurasia (except for the Suez Canal)—and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and a major part of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate, adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plate and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range) on the North American Plate.EtymologyThe idea of a place called "Asia" was originally a concept of Greek civilization, though this might not correspond to the entire continent currently known by that name. The English word comes from Latin literature, where it has the same form, "Asia". Whether "Asia" in other languages comes from Latin of the Roman Empire is much less certain, and the ultimate source of the Latin word is uncertain, though several theories have been published. One of the first classical writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny. This metonymical change in meaning is common and can be observed in some other geographical names, such as Scandinavia (from Scania).Bronze AgeBefore Greek poetry, the Aegean Sea area was in a Greek Dark Age, at the beginning of which syllabic writing was lost and alphabetic writing had not begun. Prior to then in the Bronze Age the records of the Assyrian Empire, the Hittite Empire and the various Mycenaean states of Greece mention a region undoubtedly Asia, certainly in Anatolia, including if not identical to Lydia. These records are administrative and do not include poetry.The Mycenaean states were destroyed about 1200 BCE by unknown agents, though one school of thought assigns the Dorian invasion to this time. The burning of the palaces caused the  clay tablets holding the Mycenaean administrative records to be preserved by baking. These tablets were written in a Greek syllabic script called Linear B. This script was deciphered by a number of interested parties, most notably by a young World War II cryptographer, Michael Ventris, subsequently assisted by the scholar, John Chadwick.A major cache discovered by Carl Blegen at the site of ancient Pylos included hundreds of male and female names formed by different methods. Some of these are of women held in servitude (as study of the society implied by the content reveals). They were used in trades, such as cloth-making, and usually came with children. The epithet lawiaiai, "captives", associated with some of them identifies their origin. Some are ethnic names. One in particular, aswiai, identifies "women of Asia". Perhaps they were captured in Asia, but some others, Milatiai, appear to have been of Miletus, a Greek colony, which would not have been raided for slaves by Greeks. Chadwick suggests that the names record the locations where these foreign women were purchased. The name is also in the singular, Aswia, which refers both to the name of a country and to a female from there. There is a masculine form, . This Aswia appears to have been a remnant of a region known to the Hittites as Assuwa, centered on Lydia, or "Roman Asia". This name, Assuwa, has been suggested as the origin for the name of the continent "Asia". The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia, defeated by the Hittites under Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE.Classical antiquityLatin Asia and Greek Ἀσία appear to be the same word. Roman authors translated Ἀσία as Asia. The Romans named a province Asia, located in western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey). There was an Asia Minor and an Asia Major located in modern-day Iraq. As the earliest evidence of the name is Greek, it is likely circumstantially that Asia came from Ἀσία, but ancient transitions, due to the lack of literary contexts, are difficult to catch in the act. The most likely vehicles were the ancient geographers and historians, such as Herodotus, who were all Greek. Ancient Greek certainly evidences early and rich uses of the name.The first continental use of Asia is attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BCE), not because he innovated it, but because his Histories are the earliest surviving prose to describe it in any detail. He defines it carefully, mentioning the previous geographers whom he had read, but whose works are now missing. By it he means Anatolia and the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt.Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names were "given to a tract which is in reality one" (Europa, Asia, and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus (i.e. Hesione), but that the Lydians say it was named after Asies, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis. In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία) or "Asie" (Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia".In ancient Greek religion, places were under the care of female divinities, parallel to guardian angels. The poets detailed their doings and generations in allegoric language salted with entertaining stories, which subsequently playwrights transformed into classical Greek drama and became "Greek mythology". For example, Hesiod mentions the daughters of Tethys and Ocean, among whom are a "holy company", "who with the Lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping". Many of these are geographic: Doris, Rhodea, Europa, Asia. Hesiod explains:The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians (the tribe that replaced the Luvians in Lydia) in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian"); and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as . According to many Muslims, the term came from Ancient Egypt's Queen Asiya, the adoptive mother of Moses.HistoryThe history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Central Asian steppes. The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated.The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.The Islamic Caliphate's defeats of the Byzantine and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of Central Asia and western parts of South Asia under its control during its conquests of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song dynasty reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.The Black Death, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road.The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively. The Empire of Japan controlled most of East Asia and much of Southeast Asia, New Guinea and the Pacific islands until the end of World War II.Geography and climateAsia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at . Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, five of them (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) are transcontinental countries lying partly in Europe. Geographically, Russia is partly in Asia, but is considered a European nation, both culturally and politically.The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze River in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.Main regionsThere are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the UN statistics agency UNSD. This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories. North Asia (Siberia) Central Asia (The 'stans) Western Asia (The Middle East or Near East) South Asia (Indian subcontinent) East Asia (Far East) Southeast Asia (East Indies and Indochina)ClimateAsia has extremely diverse climate features. Climates range from arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere, and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan.A survey carried out in 2010 by global risk analysis farm Maplecroft identified 16 countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Each nation's vulnerability was calculated using 42 socio, economic and environmental indicators, which identified the likely climate change impacts during the next 30 years. The Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka were among the 16 countries facing extreme risk from climate change. Some shifts are already occurring. For example, in tropical parts of India with a semi-arid climate, the temperature increased by 0.4 °C between 1901 and 2003.A 2013 study by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) aimed to find science-based, pro-poor approaches and techniques that would enable Asia's agricultural systems to cope with climate change, while benefitting poor and vulnerable farmers. The study's recommendations ranged from improving the use of climate information in local planning and strengthening weather-based agro-advisory services, to stimulating diversification of rural household incomes and providing incentives to farmers to adopt natural resource conservation measures to enhance forest cover, replenish groundwater and use renewable energy.The ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam - are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the world, however, ASEAN's climate mitigation efforts are not commensurate with the climate threats and risks it faces.EconomyAsia has the largest continental economy by both GDP Nominal and PPP in the world, and is the fastest growing economic region. , the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Turkey based on GDP in both nominal and PPP. Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Around 68 percent of international firms have an office in Hong Kong.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of China and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very-high-growth nations in Asia include Israel, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and mineral-rich nations such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.According to economic historian Angus Maddison in his book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, India had the world's largest economy during 0 BCE and 1000 BCE. Historically, India was the largest economy in the world for most of the two millennia from the 1st until 19th century, contributing 25% of the world's industrial output. China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history and shared the mantle with India. For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy.In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined. In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/US$. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which have now all received developed country status, having the highest GDP per capita in Asia.It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2025. By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.According to Citigroup 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.Trade between Asian countries and countries on other continents is largely carried out on the sea routes that are important for Asia. Individual main routes have emerged from this. The main route leads from the Chinese coast south via Hanoi to Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur through the Strait of Malacca via the Sri Lankan Colombo to the southern tip of India via Malé to East Africa Mombasa, from there to Djibouti, then through the Red Sea over the Suez Canal into Mediterranean, there via Haifa, Istanbul and Athens to the upper Adriatic to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central and Eastern Europe or further to Barcelona and around Spain and France to the European northern ports. A far smaller part of the goods traffic runs via South Africa to Europe. A particularly significant part of the Asian goods traffic is carried out across the Pacific towards Los Angeles and Long Beach. In contrast to the sea routes, the Silk Road via the land route to Europe is on the one hand still under construction and on the other hand is much smaller in terms of scope. Intra-Asian trade, including sea trade, is growing rapidly.In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe.Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.TourismWith growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 international visitors.DemographicsEast Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago. Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.LanguagesAsia is home to several language families and many language isolates. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue, more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.ReligionsMany of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding irreligion), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism respectively. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in the Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noah—and later to Christians in the Old Testament, and to Muslims in the Quran—is earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Enûma Eliš and Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythology also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.AbrahamicThe Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze faith, and Baháʼí Faith originated in West Asia.Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation: which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions; though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million, although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400), Azerbaijan (9,100), Iran (8,756), India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000), among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.) Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010, and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014. Constituting around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion;  it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia and Georgia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion.  In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Anatolia and Fars, Syriac Christianity (Church of the East) and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Vibrant indigenous minorities in Western Asia are adhering to the Eastern Catholic Churches and Eastern Orthodoxy. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century. Significant Christian communities also found in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia.Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia. With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shi'a country.The Druze Faith or Druzism originated in Western Asia, is a monotheistic religion based on the teachings of figures like Hamza ibn-'Ali ibn-Ahmad and Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The number of Druze people worldwide is around one million, with about 45% to 50% live in Syria, 35% to 40% live in Lebanon, and less than 10% live in Israel, with recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.The Baháʼí Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Baháʼí activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baháʼí Temple in India.Indian and East Asian religionsAlmost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape., Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%), Thailand (95%), Burma (80–89%), Japan (36–96%), Bhutan (75–84%), Sri Lanka (70%), Laos (60–67%) and Mongolia (53–93%). Large Buddhist populations also exist in Singapore (33–51%), Taiwan (35–93%), South Korea (23–50%), Malaysia (19–21%), Nepal (9–11%), Vietnam (10–75%), China (20–50%), North Korea (2–14%), and small communities in India and Bangladesh. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.Jainism is found mainly in India and in overseas Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. In many Chinese communities, Taoism is easily syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism, thus exact religious statistics are difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.Modern conflictsSome of the events pivotal in the Asia territory related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-Second World War were: The Partition of India The Chinese Civil War The Kashmir conflict The Balochistan Conflict The Naxalite–Maoist insurgency in India The Korean War The French-Indochina War The Vietnam War The Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation The 1959 Tibetan uprising The Sino-Vietnamese War The Bangladesh Liberation War The Yom Kippur War The Xinjiang conflict The Iranian Revolution The Soviet–Afghan War The Iran–Iraq War The Cambodian Killing Fields The Insurgency in Laos The Lebanese Civil War The Sri Lankan Civil War The 1988 Maldives coup d'état The Dissolution of the Soviet Union The Gulf War The Nepalese Civil War The Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts The West Papua conflict The First Nagorno-Karabakh War The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Indonesian occupation of East Timor The 1999 Pakistani coup d'état The War in Afghanistan The Iraq War The South Thailand insurgency The 2006 Thai coup d'état The Burmese Civil War The Saffron Revolution The Kurdish-Turkish conflict The Arab Spring The Arab–Israeli conflict The Syrian Civil War The Sino-Indian War The 2014 Thai coup d'état The Moro conflict in the Philippines The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Turkish invasion of Syria The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen The Hong Kong protests The 2020 China–India skirmishes The 1969 inter-ethnic violence in Kuala LumpurCultureNobel prizesThe polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from Santiniketan, now in West Bengal, India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents for their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.Also, Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".Sir C.V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.Amartya Sen, (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Malala Yousafzai, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam and Malala Yousafzai, (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).In 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitute people with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified period and the incidence of default is very low.The Dalai Lama has received approximately eighty-four awards over his spiritual and political career. On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1989.Political geographyWithin the above-mentioned states are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:See alsoReferences to articles: Subregions of AsiaSpecial topics: Asian Century Asian cuisine Asian furniture Asian Games Asia-Pacific Asian Para Games Asian Monetary Unit Asian people Eastern world Eurasia Far East East Asia Southeast Asia South Asia Central Asia Western Asia North Asia Fauna of Asia Flags of Asia Middle East Eastern Mediterranean Levant Near East Pan-AsianismLists: List of cities in Asia List of metropolitan areas in Asia by population List of sovereign states and dependent territories in AsiaProjects Asian Highway Network Trans-Asian RailwayNotesReferencesBibliographyFurther reading Embree, Ainslie T., ed. Encyclopedia of Asian history (1988) vol. 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online; vol 4 online Higham, Charles. Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Facts on File library of world history. New York: Facts On File, 2004. Kamal, Niraj. "Arise Asia: Respond to White Peril". New Delhi: Wordsmith, 2002,  Kapadia, Feroz, and Mandira Mukherjee. Encyclopaedia of Asian Culture and Society. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1999. Levinson, David, and Karen Christensen, eds. Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. (6 vol. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002).External links     Continents
Aruba ( , , ) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about  north of the Venezuelan peninsula of Paraguaná  and  northwest of Curaçao. It measures  long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and  across at its widest point. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. Collectively, these and the other three Dutch substantial islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean, of which Aruba has about one-third of the population. In 1986, it became a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquired the formal name the Country of Aruba.Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Its capital is Oranjestad.Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. The climate has helped tourism, because visitors to the island can expect clear, sunny skies all year. Its area is  and it is quite densely populated, with 101,484 inhabitants as at the 2010 Census. A January 2019 estimate of the population placed it at 116,600.EtymologyThe name Aruba most likely came from the  Caquetio Oruba which means "Well situated island", seeing as it was the Caquetio who were present on the island when it was first colonised by Alonso de Ojeda. as of 1529 the name "Isla de Oruba" was used for the island by the Spanish until the Treaty of Westphalia, when the island was ceded to the Dutch and its name was changed to Aruba. There were many different names for Aruba used by other Amerindian groups, all of which could have contributed to the present-day name Aruba. Another Caquetio name for the island was Oibubia which means "Guided island". The Taino name for the island was Arubeira. The Kalinago also had two names for the island Ora Oubao which means "Shell island" and Oirubae which means "Companion of Curaçao".A common misconception is that the name Aruba came from the Spanish Oro hubo which means "There was gold". However the Spanish found no gold on Aruba during the time of their occupation, nicknaming Aruba and the rest of the  ABC islands Islas Inútiles, meaning "Useless islands" due to the lack of gold. It was not until much later in 1824 that gold was found on Aruba by Willem Rasmijn, staring the Aruban Gold Rush. Another early Spanish name for Aruba was Isla de Brasil, named as such because of the many  Brazilwood trees that grew on the island.HistoryPre-colonial eraThere has been a human presence on Aruba from as early as circa 2000 BC. The first identifiable group are the Arawak Caquetío Amerindians who migrated from South America about 1000 AD. Archaeological evidence suggests continuing links between these native Arubans and Amerindian peoples of mainland South America.Spanish colonization The first Europeans to visit Aruba were Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, who claimed the island for Spain. Both men described Aruba as an "island of giants", remarking on the comparatively large stature of the native Caquetíos. Vespucci returned to Spain with stocks of cotton and brazilwood from the island and described houses built into the ocean. Vespucci and Ojeda's tales spurred interest in Aruba, and the Spanish began colonising the island. Alonso de Ojeda was appointed the island's first governor in 1508. From 1513 the Spanish began enslaving the Caquetíos, sending many to a life of forced labour in the mines of Hispaniola. The island's low rainfall and arid landscape meant that it was not considered profitable for a slave-based plantation system, so the type of large-scale slavery so common on other Caribbean islands never became established on Aruba.Early Dutch periodThe Netherlands seized Aruba from Spain in 1636 in the course of the Thirty Years' War. Peter Stuyvesant, later appointed to New Amsterdam (New York), was the first Dutch governor. Those Arawak who had survived the depredations of the Spanish were allowed to farm and graze livestock, with the Dutch using the island as a source of meat for their other possessions in the Caribbean. Aruba's proximity to South America resulted in interactions with the cultures of the coastal areas; for example, architectural similarities can be seen between the 19th-century parts of Oranjestad and the nearby Venezuelan city of Coro in Falcón State. Historically, Dutch was not widely spoken on the island outside of colonial administration; its use increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Students on Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire were taught predominantly in Spanish until the late 18th century.During the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire took control of the island, occupying it between 1806 and 1816, before handing it back to the Dutch as per the terms of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. Aruba subsequently became part of the Colony of Curaçao and Dependencies along with Bonaire. During the 19th century, an economy based on gold mining, phosphate production and aloe vera plantations developed, but the island remained a relatively poor backwater.20th and 21st centuriesThe first oil refinery in Aruba was built in 1928 by Royal Dutch Shell. The facility was built just to the west of the capital city, Oranjestad, and was commonly called the Eagle. Immediately following that, another refinery was built by Lago Oil and Transport Company, in an area now known as San Nicolas on the east end of Aruba. The refineries processed crude oil from the vast Venezuelan oil fields, bringing greater prosperity to the island. The refinery on Aruba grew to become one of the largest in the world.During World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1940, the oil facilities in Aruba came under the administration of the Dutch government-in-exile in London, causing them to be attacked by the German navy in 1942.In August 1947, Aruba formulated its first Staatsreglement (constitution) for Aruba's status aparte as an autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, prompted by the efforts of Henny Eman, a noted Aruban politician. By 1954, the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established, providing a framework for relations between Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom. That created the Netherlands Antilles, which united all of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean into one administrative structure. Many Arubans were unhappy with the arrangement, however, as the new polity was perceived as being dominated by Curaçao.In 1972, at a conference in Suriname, Betico Croes, a politician from Aruba, proposed the creation of a Dutch Commonwealth of four states: Aruba, the Netherlands, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles, each to have its own nationality. Backed by his newly created party, the Movimiento Electoral di Pueblo, Croes sought greater autonomy for Aruba, with the long-term goal of independence, adopting the trappings of an independent state in 1976 with the creation of a flag and national anthem. In March 1977, a referendum was held with the support of the United Nations. 82% of the participants voted for complete independence from the Netherlands. Tensions mounted as Croes stepped up the pressure on the Dutch government by organising a general strike in 1977. Croes later met with Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, with the two sides agreeing to assign the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague to prepare a study for independence, entitled Aruba en Onafhankelijkheid, achtergronden, modaliteiten, en mogelijkheden; een rapport in eerste aanleg (Aruba and independence, backgrounds, modalities, and opportunities; a preliminary report) (1978).Autonomy In March 1983, Aruba reached an official agreement within the Kingdom for its independence, to be developed in a series of steps as the Crown granted increasing autonomy. In August 1985, Aruba drafted a constitution that was unanimously approved. On 1 January 1986, after elections were held for its first parliament, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles, officially becoming a country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with full independence planned for 1996. However, Croes was seriously injured in a traffic accident in 1985, slipping into a coma. He died in 1986, never seeing the enacting of status aparte for Aruba for which he had worked over many years.After his death, Croes was proclaimed Libertador di Aruba. Croes' successor, Henny Eman, of the Aruban People's Party (AVP), became the first Prime Minister of Aruba. In 1985, Aruba's oil refinery had closed. It had provided Aruba with 30 percent of its real income and 50 percent of government revenue. The significant blow to the economy led to a push for a dramatic increase in tourism, and that sector has expanded to become the island's largest industry. At a convention in The Hague in 1990, at the request of Aruba's Prime Minister Nelson Oduber, the governments of Aruba, the Netherlands, and the Netherlands Antilles postponed indefinitely Aruba's transition to full independence. The article scheduling Aruba's complete independence was rescinded in 1995, although it was decided that the process could be revived after another referendum.GeographyAruba is a generally flat, riverless island in the Leeward Antilles island arc of the Lesser Antilles in the southern part of the Caribbean. It lies  west of Curaçao and  north of Venezuela's Paraguaná Peninsula. Aruba has white sandy beaches on the western and southern coasts of the island, relatively sheltered from fierce ocean currents. This is where the bulk of the population live and where most tourist development has occurred. The northern and eastern coasts, lacking this protection, are considerably more battered by the sea and have been left largely untouched.The hinterland of the island features some rolling hills, such as Hooiberg at  and Mount Jamanota, the highest on the island at  above sea level. Oranjestad, the capital, is located at .The Natural Bridge was a large, naturally formed limestone bridge on the island's north shore. It was a popular tourist destination until its collapse in 2005.Cities and townsThe island, with a population of about 116,600 people (1 January 2019 estimate) does not have major cities. It is divided into six districts. Most of the island's population resides in or around the two major city-like districts of Oranjestad (the capital) and San Nicolaas. Oranjestad and San Nicolaas are both divided into two districts for census purposes only. The districts are as follows: Noord Oranjestad (East and West) Paradera San Nicolaas (North and South) Santa Cruz SavanetaFaunaThe isolation of Aruba from the mainland of South America has fostered the evolution of multiple endemic animals. The island provides a habitat for the endemic Aruban Whiptail and Aruba Rattlesnake, as well as an endemic subspecies of Burrowing Owl and Brown-throated Parakeet.FloraThe flora of Aruba differs from the typical tropical island vegetation. Xeric scrublands are common, with various forms of cacti, thorny shrubs, and evergreens. Aloe vera is also present, its economic importance earning it a place on the coat of arms of Aruba.Cacti like Melocactus and Opuntia are represented on Aruba by species like Opuntia stricta.Trees like Caesalpinia coriaria and Vachellia tortuosa are drought tolerant.Climate and natural hazardsBy the Köppen climate classification, Aruba has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh).   Rainfall is scarce, only 300 millimeters (12 inches) per year; in particular, rainy season is drier than it normally is in tropical climates; during the dry season, it almost never rains. Owing to the scarcity of rainfall, the landscape of Aruba is arid. Mean monthly temperature in Oranjestad varies little from  to , moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean, which come from the north-east. Yearly rainfall barely exceeds  in Oranjestad, although it is extremely variable and can range from as little as  during strong El Niño years (e.g. 1911/1912, 1930/1931, 1982/1983, 1997/1998) to over  in La Niña years like 1933/1934, 1970/1971 or 1988/1989.Aruba is south of the typical latitudes of hurricanes but was affected by two in their early stages in late 2020.DemographicsIn terms of country of birth, the population is estimated to be 66% Aruban, 9.1% Colombian, 4.3% Dutch, 4.1% Dominican, 3.2% Venezuelan, 2.2% Curaçaoan, 1.5% Haitian, 1.2% Surinamese, 1.1% Peruvian, 1.1% Chinese, 6.2% other.In terms of ethnic composition, the population is estimated to be 75% mestizo, 15% black and 10% other ethnicities. Arawak heritage is stronger on Aruba than on most Caribbean islands; although no full-blooded Aboriginals remain, the features of the islanders clearly indicate their genetic Arawak heritage. Most of the population is descended from Caquetio Indians, African slaves, and Dutch settlers, and to a lesser extent the various other groups that have settled on the island over time, such as the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Sephardic Jews.Recently, there has been substantial immigration to the island from neighbouring South American and Caribbean nations, attracted by the higher paid jobs. In 2007, new immigration laws were introduced to help control the growth of the population by restricting foreign workers to a maximum of three years residency on the island. Most notable are those from Venezuela, which lies just  to the south.In 2019, recently arrived Venezuelan refugees were estimated to number around 17,000, accounting for some 15% of the island's population.LanguageAruba's official languages are Dutch and Papiamento. While Dutch is the sole language for all administration and legal matters, Papiamento is the predominant language used on Aruba. Papiamento is a Portuguese- and Spanish-based creole language, spoken on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, that also incorporates words from Dutch and various West African languages. English and Spanish are also spoken, their usage having grown due to tourism. Other common languages spoken, based on the size of their community, are Portuguese, Cantonese, French and German.In recent years, the government of Aruba has shown an increased interest in acknowledging the cultural and historical importance of Papiamento. Although spoken Papiamento is fairly similar among the several Papiamento-speaking islands, there is a big difference in written Papiamento. The orthography differs per island, with Aruba using etymological spelling, and Curaçao and Bonaire a phonetic spelling. Some are more oriented towards Portuguese and use the equivalent spelling (e.g. "y" instead of "j"), where others are more oriented towards Dutch.The book Buccaneers of America, first published in 1678, states through eyewitness account that the natives on Aruba spoke Spanish already. Spanish became an important language in the 18th century due to the close economic ties with Spanish colonies in what are now Venezuela and Colombia. Venezuelan TV networks are received on the island, and Aruba also has significant Venezuelan and Colombian communities. Around 13% of the population today speaks Spanish natively. Use of English dates to the early 19th century, when the British took Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire. When Dutch rule resumed in 1815, officials already noted wide use of the language.Aruba has newspapers published in Papiamento: Diario, Bon Dia, Solo di Pueblo, and Awe Mainta, English: Aruba Daily, Aruba Today, and The News, and Dutch: Amigoe. Aruba has 18 radio stations (two AM and 16 FM) and two television stations (Telearuba and Channel 22).ReligionRoman Catholicism is the dominant religion, practiced by about 75% of the population. Various Protestant denominations are also present on the island.RegionsAruba is cartographically split into eight for censuses; these regions have no administrative function; some allude to parishes which include a few charitable community facilities:GovernmentAlong with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten, Aruba is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with internal autonomy. Matters such as foreign affairs and defense are handled by the Netherlands. Aruba's politics take place within a framework of a 21-member Staten (Parliament) and an eight-member Cabinet; the Staten's 21 members are elected by direct, popular vote to serve a four-year term. The governor of Aruba is appointed for a six-year term by the monarch, and the prime minister and deputy prime minister are indirectly elected by the Staten for four-year terms.Aruba was formerly a part of the (now-defunct) Netherlands Antilles; however, it separated from that entity in 1986, gaining its own constitution.Aruba is designated as a member of the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) and is thus officially not a part of the European Union, though Aruba can and does receive support from the European Development Fund.PoliticsThe Aruban legal system is based on the Dutch model. In Aruba, legal jurisdiction lies with the Gerecht in Eerste Aanleg (Court of First Instance) on Aruba, the Gemeenschappelijk Hof van Justitie van Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, en van Bonaire, Sint Eustatius en Saba (Joint Court of Justice of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) and the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden (Supreme Court of Justice of the Netherlands). The Korps Politie Aruba (Aruba Police Force) is the island's law enforcement agency and operates district precincts in Oranjestad, Noord, San Nicolaas, and Santa Cruz, where it is headquartered.Deficit spending has been a staple in Aruba's history, and modestly high inflation has been present as well. By 2006, the government's debt had grown to 1.883 billion Aruban florins. In 2006, the Aruban government changed several tax laws to reduce the deficit. Direct taxes have been converted to indirect taxes as proposed by the IMF.Foreign relationsAruba is one of the overseas countries and territories (OCT) of the European Union and maintains economic and cultural relations with the European Union and the United States of America. Aruba is also a member of several international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and Interpol.MilitaryDefence on Aruba is the responsibility of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Dutch Armed Forces  that protect the island include the Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coastguard including a platoon sized national guard.All forces are stationed at Marines base in Savaneta. Furthermore, in 1999, the U.S. Department of Defense established a Forward Operating Location (FOL) at the airport.EducationAruba's educational system is patterned after the Dutch system of education. The government of Aruba finances the public national education system.Schools are a mixture of public and private, including the International School of Aruba, the Schakel College and mostly the Colegio Arubano.There are three medical schools, American University School of Medicine Aruba (AUSOMA), Aureus University School of Medicine and Xavier University School of Medicine, as well as its own national university, the University of Aruba.EconomyThe island's economy is dominated by four main industries: tourism, aloe export, petroleum refining, and offshore banking. Aruba has one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean region. The GDP per capita (PPP) for Aruba was estimated to be $37,500 in 2017. Its main trading partners are Colombia, the United States, Venezuela, and the Netherlands.The agriculture and manufacturing sectors are fairly minimal. Gold mining was important in the 19th century. Aloe was introduced to Aruba in 1840 but did not become a big export until 1890. Cornelius Eman founded Aruba Aloe Balm, and over time the industry became very important to the economy. At one point, two-thirds of the island was covered in Aloe Vera fields, and Aruba became the largest exporter of aloe in the world. The industry continues today, though on a smaller scale.Access to biocapacity in Aruba is much lower than world average. In 2016, Aruba had 0.57 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Aruba used 6.5 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use almost 12 times the biocapacity that Aruba contains. This is the extent of Aruba's biocapacity deficit.The official exchange rate of the Aruban florin is pegged to the US dollar at 1.79 florins to US$1. This fact, and the majority of tourists being US, means businesses of hotel and resort districts prefer to bank and trade with the consumer in US dollars.Aruba is a prosperous country. Unemployment is low (although the government has not published statistics since 2013) and per capita income is one of the highest in the Caribbean (approximately $24,087). At the end of 2018, the labor force participation rate was 56.6% for women.Until the mid-1980s, Aruba's main industry was oil refining. Then the refinery was shut down and the island's economy shifted towards tourism. Currently, Aruba receives about 1,235,673 (2007) guests per year, of which three-quarters are Americans. Tourism is mainly focused on the beaches and the sea. The refinery has been closed and restarted repeatedly during the last decades. In recent years a letter of intent was signed with CITGO (the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA) to explore the possibility of reopening the refinery again.Until 2009, the Netherlands granted development aid to Aruba. This aid was mainly for law enforcement, education, administrative development, health care and sustainable economic development. This aid was discontinued at Aruba's request in 2009. Since 2015, however, a form of financial supervision has been reintroduced because Aruba's debt has risen sharply to over 80% of GDP.Aruba also has two free trade zones (Barcadera and Bushiri), where import and export and the movement of services are tax-free.TourismAruba has a large and well-developed tourism industry, receiving 1,082,000 tourists who stayed overnight in its territory in 2018. About  of the Aruban gross national product is earned through tourism and related activities. Most tourists are from North America, with a market-share of 73.3%, followed by Latin America with 15.2% and Europe with 8.3%. In 2018, there were 40,231 visitors from the Netherlands.For private aircraft passengers bound for the United States, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has a full pre-clearance facility since 1 February 2001 when Queen Beatrix Airport expanded. Since 2008, Aruba has been the only island to have this service for private flights.There are many luxury and lesser luxury hotels, concentrated mainly on the west coast beaches. In Palm Beach are the luxury hotels aimed at American tourists. This area is also called "Highrise-area", because most of the hotels are located in (by Aruban standards) high-rise buildings. Eagle Beach, a short distance from Palm Beach in the direction of Oranjestad, offers hotels on a somewhat smaller and more intimate scale in low-rise buildings, hence the name "lowrise-area".Oranjestad is the port for the many cruise ships that visit Aruba. The cruise industry is a very important pillar of tourism in Aruba, since during a cruise a large part of the passengers go ashore to visit the island. With 334 cruise calls, Aruba received 815,161 cruise tourists in 2018. The 2017/2018 cruise season brought $102.8 million to Aruba's economy. Oranjestad is also home to several luxury hotels, upscale shopping malls, tourist-oriented shopping streets, and hospitality facilities. The main street, called Caya G.F. (Betico) Croes, has been redesigned in recent years, including new paving, new palm trees and a streetcar line for tourists.CultureAruba has a varied culture. According to the Bureau Burgelijke Stand en Bevolkingsregister (BBSB), in 2005 there were ninety-two different nationalities living on the island. Dutch influence can still be seen, as in the celebration of "Sinterklaas" on 5 and 6 December and other national holidays like 27 April, when in Aruba and the rest of the Kingdom of the Netherlands the King's birthday or "Dia di Rey" (Koningsdag) is celebrated.On 18 March, Aruba celebrates its National Day. Christmas and New Year's Eve are celebrated with the typical music and songs for gaitas for Christmas and the Dande for New Year, and ayaca, ponche crema, ham, and other typical foods and drinks. On 25 January, Betico Croes' birthday is celebrated. Dia di San Juan is celebrated on 24 June. Besides Christmas, the religious holy days of the Feast of the Ascension and Good Friday are also holidays on the island.The festival of Carnaval is also an important one in Aruba, as it is in many Caribbean and Latin American countries. Its celebration in Aruba started in the 1950s, influenced by the inhabitants from Venezuela and the nearby islands (Curaçao, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Barbados, St. Maarten, and Anguilla) who came to work for the oil refinery.  Over the years, the Carnival Celebration has changed and now starts from the beginning of January until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, with a large parade on the last Sunday of the festivities (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday).Tourism from the United States has recently increased the visibility of American culture on the island, with such celebrations as Halloween in October and Thanksgiving Day in November.Architecture From the beginning of the colonization of the Netherlands until the beginning of the 20th century, the architecture in the most inhabited areas of Aruba was influenced by the Dutch colonial style and also some Spanish elements from the Catholic missionaries present in Aruba who later settled in Venezuela as well. After the boom of the oil industry and the tourist sector in the 20th century the architectural style of the island incorporated a more American and international influence. In addition, elements of the Art Deco style can still be seen in several buildings in San Nicolas. Therefore, it can be said that the island's architecture is a mixture of Spanish, Dutch, American and Caribbean influences.InfrastructureAruba's Queen Beatrix International Airport is near Oranjestad.Aruba has four ports: Barcadera, the main cargo port, Paardenbaai, the cruise ship terminal in Oranjestad/Taratata, Commandeurs Baai (Commander's Bay) in Savaneta, and Sint Nicolaas Baai in San Nicolaas. Paardenbaai services all the cruise-ship lines such as Royal Caribbean, Carnival, NCL, Holland America, MSC Cruises, Costa Cruises, P&O Cruises and Disney. Nearly one million tourists enter this port per year. Aruba Ports Authority, owned and operated by the Aruban government, runs these seaports.Arubus is a government-owned bus company. Its buses operate from 3:30 a.m. until 12:30 a.m., 365 days a year. Private minibuses/people movers service zones such as the Hotel Area, San Nicolaas, Santa Cruz and Noord.A streetcar service runs on rails on the Mainstreet of Oranjestad.UtilitiesWater- en Energiebedrijf Aruba, N.V. (W.E.B.) produces potable water and power; its eponymous plant was one of the world's largest desalination plants as of 2007. Average daily consumption in Aruba is about . N.V. Elmar is the sole distributor of electricity on the island of Aruba. In 2012, Aruba set a goal of 100% clean electricity by 2020, but no progress has been made toward this goal since, with most generation remaining heavy fuel oil and less than one fifth from wind power.CommunicationsThere are two telecommunications providers: government-based Setar, and privately owned Digicel. Digicel is Setar's competitor in wireless technology using the GSM platform.Places of interestBeachesNotable people Dave Benton, Aruban-Estonian musician Alfonso Boekhoudt, 4th Governor of Aruba Xander Bogaerts, shortstop in MLB Betico Croes, political activist Henny Eman, first Prime Minister of Aruba Mike Eman, 3rd Prime Minister of Aruba Bobby Farrell, musician Frans Figaroa, Lieutenant Governor of Aruba 1979-1982 Henry Habibe, poet Andrew Holleran, novelist  Maria Irausquin-Wajcberg, first elected female politician in Aruba Olindo Koolman, 2nd Governor of Aruba Macuarima, first Aruban Amerindian Chief killed by colonist  Hedwiges Maduro, footballer (or soccer player) in UEFA, La Liga and FIFA World Cup Jossy Mansur, editor of the Papiamento language newspaper, Diario Diederick Charles Mathew, politician John Merryweather (1932–2019), first Minister Plenipotentiary of Aruba Nelson Oduber, 2nd Prime Minister of Aruba Olga Orman, writer and poet Calvin Maduro, pitcher in MLB Sidney Ponson, pitcher in MLB Fredis Refunjol, 3rd Governor of Aruba Julia Renfro, newspaper editor and photographer Jeannette Richardson-Baars, Director of the Police Academy of Aruba Xiomara Ruiz-Maduro, Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs & Culture Chadwick Tromp, catcher in MLB Felipe Tromp, first Governor of Aruba Laura Wernet-Paskel, first female political candidate in Aruba Evelyn Wever-Croes, 4th Prime Minister of Aruba, first female Prime MinisterSee also Central Bank of Aruba Index of Aruba-related articles List of monuments of Aruba Military of Aruba Outline of ArubaFurther readingAymer, Paula L. - Uprooted Women: Migrant Domestics in the Caribbean.Brown, Enid - Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles: An Annotated English-Language Bibliography.Gerber, Stanford N. - The Family in the Caribbean: Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on the Family in the Caribbean, Aruba, 1969.Green, Vera M. - Migrants in Aruba: Interethnic Integration.Hartert, Ernst - On the Birds of the Islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire.Schoenhals, Kai, compiled - Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.ReferencesExternal links Official website of the government of Aruba Aruba.com – Official tourism website of Aruba Island countries10th-century establishments in Aruba1499 establishments in the Spanish Empire1636 disestablishments in the Spanish Empire1636 establishments in the Dutch Empire1799 disestablishments in the Dutch Empire1799 establishments in the British Empire1802 disestablishments in the British Empire1802 establishments in the Dutch Empire1804 disestablishments in the Dutch Empire1804 establishments in the British Empire1816 disestablishments in the British Empire1816 establishments in the Dutch Empire1986 disestablishments in the Netherlands Antilles1986 establishments in ArubaCaribbean countries of the Kingdom of the NetherlandsDutch-speaking countries and territoriesFormer Dutch coloniesFormer Spanish coloniesFormer British colonies and protectorates in the AmericasIslands of the Netherlands AntillesPopulated places established in the 10th centurySmall Island Developing StatesSpecial territories of the European UnionStates and territories established in 1986Dependent territories in the Caribbean
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. The Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1, 1781, after ratification by all the states. A guiding principle of the Articles was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the states. The weak central government established by the Articles received only those powers which the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament.The document provided clearly written rules for how the states' "league of friendship" would be organized. During the ratification process, the Congress looked to the Articles for guidance as it conducted business, directing the war effort, conducting diplomacy with foreign states, addressing territorial issues and dealing with Native American relations. Little changed politically once the Articles of Confederation went into effect, as ratification did little more than legalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation; but most Americans continued to call it the Continental Congress, since its organization remained the same.As the Confederation Congress attempted to govern the continually growing American states, delegates discovered that the limitations placed upon the central government rendered it ineffective at doing so. As the government's weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays' Rebellion, some prominent political thinkers in the fledgling union began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a stronger government. Initially, some states met to deal with their trade and economic problems. However, as more states became interested in meeting to change the Articles, a meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787. This became the Constitutional Convention. It was quickly agreed that changes would not work, and instead the entire Articles needed to be replaced.  On March 4, 1789, the government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a much stronger federal government by establishing a chief executive (the President), courts, and taxing powers.The Articles of Confederation is considered one of the United States' four major founding documents, along with the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.Background and contextThe political push to increase cooperation among the then-loyal colonies began with the Albany Congress in 1754 and Benjamin Franklin's proposed Albany Plan, an inter-colonial collaboration to help solve mutual local problems. Over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen; others would weaken, especially in the degree of loyalty (or lack thereof) owed the Crown. Civil disobedience resulted in coercive and quelling measures, such as the passage of what the colonials referred to as the Intolerable Acts in the British Parliament, and armed skirmishes which resulted in dissidents being proclaimed rebels. These actions eroded the number of Crown Loyalists (Tories) among the colonials and, together with the highly effective propaganda campaign of the Patriot leaders, caused an increasing number of colonists to begin agitating for independence from the mother country. In 1775, with events outpacing communications, the Second Continental Congress began acting as the provisional government.It was an era of constitution writing—most states were busy at the task—and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution; a "rulebook" for how the new nation should function. During the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic, military and economic authority. It adopted trade restrictions, established and maintained an army, issued fiat money, created a military code and negotiated with foreign governments.To transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it. In early 1776, Thomas Paine argued in the closing pages of the first edition of Common Sense that the "custom of nations" demanded a formal declaration of American independence if any European power were to mediate a peace between the Americans and Great Britain. The monarchies of France and Spain, in particular, could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch. Foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a "manifesto" which could also reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners. Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, "[t]he custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations."Beyond improving their existing association, the records of the Second Continental Congress show that the need for a declaration of independence was intimately linked with the demands of international relations. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution before the Continental Congress declaring the colonies independent; at the same time, he also urged Congress to resolve "to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances" and to prepare a plan of confederation for the newly independent states. Congress then created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a model treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The Declaration announced the states' entry into the international system; the model treaty was designed to establish amity and commerce with other states; and the Articles of Confederation, which established "a firm league" among the thirteen free and independent states, constituted an international agreement to set up central institutions for the conduct of vital domestic and foreign affairs.DraftingOn June 12, 1776, a day after appointing a committee to prepare a draft of the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress resolved to appoint a committee of 13 with one representative from each colony to prepare a draft of a constitution for a union of the states. The committee was made up of the following individuals: John Dickinson (Pennsylvania, chairman of the committee) Samuel Adams (Massachusetts) Josiah Bartlett (New Hampshire) Button Gwinnett (Georgia) Joseph Hewes (North Carolina) Stephen Hopkins (Rhode Island) Robert R. Livingston (New York) Thomas McKean (Delaware) Thomas Nelson (Virginia) Edward Rutledge (South Carolina) Roger Sherman (Connecticut) Thomas Stone (Maryland) Francis Hopkinson (New Jersey, added to the committee last)The committee met frequently, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12, 1776. Afterward, there were long debates on such issues as state sovereignty, the exact powers to be given to Congress, whether to have a judiciary, western land claims, and voting procedures. To further complicate work on the constitution, Congress was forced to leave Philadelphia twice, for Baltimore, Maryland, in the winter of 1776, and later for Lancaster then York, Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1777, to evade advancing British troops. Even so, the committee continued with its work.The final draft of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was completed on November 15, 1777. Consensus was achieved by: including language guaranteeing that each state retained its sovereignty, leaving the matter of western land claims in the hands of the individual states, including language stating that votes in Congress would be en bloc by state, and establishing a unicameral legislature with limited and clearly delineated powers.RatificationThe Articles of Confederation was submitted to the states for ratification in late November 1777. The first state to ratify was Virginia on December 16, 1777; 12 states had ratified the Articles by February 1779, 14 months into the process. The lone holdout, Maryland, refused to go along until the landed states, especially Virginia, had indicated they were prepared to cede their claims west of the Ohio River to the Union. It would be two years before the Maryland General Assembly became satisfied that the various states would follow through, and voted to ratify. During this time, Congress observed the Articles as its de facto frame of government. Maryland finally ratified the Articles on February 2, 1781. Congress was informed of Maryland's assent on March 1, and officially proclaimed the Articles of Confederation to be the law of the land.The several states ratified the Articles of Confederation on the following dates:Article summariesThe Articles of Confederation contain a preamble, thirteen articles, a conclusion, and a signatory section. The individual articles set the rules for current and future operations of the confederation's central government. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national Congress, which was empowered to make war and peace, negotiate diplomatic and commercial agreements with foreign countries, and to resolve disputes between the states. The document also stipulates that its provisions "shall be inviolably observed by every state" and that "the Union shall be perpetual".Summary of the purpose and content of each of the 13 articles: Establishes the name of the confederation with these words: "The stile of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" Asserts the sovereignty of each state, except for the specific powers delegated to the confederation government: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated." Declares the purpose of the confederation: "The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever." Elaborates upon the intent "to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this union," and to establish equal treatment and freedom of movement for the free inhabitants of each state to pass unhindered between the states, excluding "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice." All these people are entitled to equal rights established by the state into which they travel. If a crime is committed in one state and the perpetrator flees to another state, he will be extradited to and tried in the state in which the crime was committed. Allocates one vote in the Congress of the Confederation (the "United States in Congress Assembled") to each state, which is entitled to a delegation of between two and seven members. Members of Congress are to be appointed by state legislatures. No congressman may serve more than three out of any six years. Only the central government may declare war, or conduct foreign political or commercial relations. No state or official may accept foreign gifts or titles, and granting any title of nobility is forbidden to all. No states may form any sub-national groups. No state may tax or interfere with treaty stipulations already proposed. No state may wage war without permission of Congress, unless invaded or under imminent attack on the frontier; no state may maintain a peacetime standing army or navy, unless infested by pirates, but every State is required to keep ready, a well-trained, disciplined, and equipped militia. Whenever an army is raised for common defense, the state legislatures shall assign military ranks of colonel and below. Expenditures by the United States of America will be paid with funds raised by state legislatures, and apportioned to the states in proportion to the real property values of each. Powers and functions of the United States in Congress Assembled. Grants to the United States in Congress assembled the sole and exclusive right and power to determine peace and war; to exchange ambassadors; to enter into treaties and alliances, with some provisos; to establish rules for deciding all cases of captures or prizes on land or water; to grant letters of marque and reprisal (documents authorizing privateers) in times of peace; to appoint courts for the trial of pirates and crimes committed on the high seas; to establish courts for appeals in all cases of captures, but no member of Congress may be appointed a judge; to set weights and measures (including coins), and for Congress to serve as a final court for disputes between states. The court will be composed of jointly appointed commissioners or Congress shall appoint them. Each commissioner is bound by oath to be impartial. The court's decision is final. Congress shall regulate the post offices; appoint officers in the military; and regulate the armed forces. The United States in Congress assembled may appoint a president who shall not serve longer than one year per three-year term of the Congress. Congress may request requisitions (demands for payments or supplies) from the states in proportion with their population, or take credit. Congress may not declare war, enter into treaties and alliances, appropriate money, or appoint a commander in chief without nine states assenting. Congress shall keep a journal of proceedings and adjourn for periods not to exceed six months. When Congress is in recess, any of the powers of Congress may be executed by "The committee of the states, or any nine of them", except for those powers of Congress which require nine states in Congress to execute. If Canada [referring to the British Province of Quebec] accedes to this confederation, it will be admitted. No other colony could be admitted without the consent of nine states.Affirms that the Confederation will honor all bills of credit incurred, monies borrowed, and debts contracted by Congress before the existence of the Articles. Declares that the Articles shall be perpetual, and may be altered only with the approval of Congress and the ratification of all the state legislatures.Congress under the ArticlesArmyUnder the Articles, Congress had the authority to regulate and fund the Continental Army, but it lacked the power to compel the States to comply with requests for either troops or funding. This left the military vulnerable to inadequate funding, supplies, and even food. Further, although the Articles enabled the states to present a unified front when dealing with the European powers, as a tool to build a centralized war-making government, they were largely a failure; Historian Bruce Chadwick wrote:Phelps wrote:The Continental Congress, before the Articles were approved, had promised soldiers a pension of half pay for life. However Congress had no power to compel the states to fund this obligation, and as the war wound down after the victory at Yorktown the sense of urgency to support the military was no longer a factor. No progress was made in Congress during the winter of 1783–84. General Henry Knox, who would later become the first Secretary of War under the Constitution, blamed the weaknesses of the Articles for the inability of the government to fund the army. The army had long been supportive of a strong union.Knox wrote:As Congress failed to act on the petitions, Knox wrote to Gouverneur Morris, four years before the Philadelphia Convention was convened, "As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution."Once the war had been won, the Continental Army was largely disbanded. A very small national force was maintained to man the frontier forts and to protect against Native American attacks. Meanwhile, each of the states had an army (or militia), and 11 of them had navies. The wartime promises of bounties and land grants to be paid for service were not being met. In 1783, George Washington defused the Newburgh conspiracy, but riots by unpaid Pennsylvania veterans forced Congress to leave Philadelphia temporarily.The Congress from time to time during the Revolutionary War requisitioned troops from the states. Any contributions were voluntary, and in the debates of 1788, the Federalists (who supported the proposed new Constitution) claimed that state politicians acted unilaterally, and contributed when the Continental army protected their state's interests. The Anti-Federalists claimed that state politicians understood their duty to the Union and contributed to advance its needs. Dougherty (2009) concludes that generally the States' behavior validated the Federalist analysis. This helps explain why the Articles of Confederation needed reforms.Foreign policyThe 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended hostilities with Great Britain, languished in Congress for several months because too few delegates were present at any one time to constitute a quorum so that it could be ratified. Afterward, the problem only got worse as Congress had no power to enforce attendance. Rarely did more than half of the roughly sixty delegates attend a session of Congress at the time, causing difficulties in raising a quorum. The resulting paralysis embarrassed and frustrated many American nationalists, including George Washington. Many of the most prominent national leaders, such as Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin, retired from public life, served as foreign delegates, or held office in state governments; and for the general public, local government and self-rule seemed quite satisfactory. This served to exacerbate Congress's impotence.Inherent weaknesses in the confederation's frame of government also frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, concerned over the failure of Congress to fund an American naval force to confront the Barbary pirates, wrote in a diplomatic correspondence to James Monroe that, "It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth."Furthermore, the 1786 Jay–Gardoqui Treaty with Spain also showed weakness in foreign policy. In this treaty, which was never ratified, the United States was to give up rights to use the Mississippi River for 25 years, which would have economically strangled the settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains. Finally, due to the Confederation's military weakness, it could not compel the British army to leave frontier forts which were on American soil — forts which, in 1783, the British promised to leave, but which they delayed leaving pending U.S. implementation of other provisions such as ending action against Loyalists and allowing them to seek compensation. This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris would later be resolved by the implementation of Jay's Treaty in 1795 after the federal Constitution came into force.Taxation and commerceUnder the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power was kept quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures.Congress was denied any powers of taxation: it could only request money from the states. The states often failed to meet these requests in full, leaving both Congress and the Continental Army chronically short of money. As more money was printed by Congress, the continental dollars depreciated. In 1779, George Washington wrote to John Jay, who was serving as the president of the Continental Congress, "that a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions." Mr. Jay and the Congress responded in May by requesting $45 million from the States. In an appeal to the States to comply, Jay wrote that the taxes were "the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and posterity." He argued that Americans should avoid having it said "that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent" or that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith." The States did not respond with any of the money requested from them.Congress had also been denied the power to regulate either foreign trade or interstate commerce and, as a result, all of the States maintained control over their own trade policies. The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War. Some States paid off their war debts and others did not. Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.AccomplishmentsNevertheless, the Confederation Congress did take two actions with long-lasting impact. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance created territorial government, set up protocols for the admission of new states and the division of land into useful units, and set aside land in each township for public use. This system represented a sharp break from imperial colonization, as in Europe, and it established the precedent by which the national (later, federal) government would be sovereign and expand westward—as opposed to the existing states doing so under their sovereignty.The Land Ordinance of 1785 established both the general practices of land surveying in the west and northwest and the land ownership provisions used throughout the later westward expansion beyond the Mississippi River. Frontier lands were surveyed into the now-familiar squares of land called the township (36 square miles), the section (one square mile), and the quarter section (160 acres). This system was carried forward to most of the States west of the Mississippi (excluding areas of Texas and California that had already been surveyed and divided up by the Spanish Empire). Then, when the Homestead Act was enacted in 1867, the quarter section became the basic unit of land that was granted to new settler-farmers.The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 noted the agreement of the original states to give up northwestern land claims, organized the Northwest Territory and laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of new states. While it didn't happen under the articles, the land north of the Ohio River and west of the (present) western border of Pennsylvania ceded by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, eventually became the states of: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 also made great advances in the abolition of slavery. New states admitted to the union in this territory would never be slave states.No new states were admitted to the Union under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles provided for a blanket acceptance of the Province of Quebec (referred to as "Canada" in the Articles) into the United States if it chose to do so. It did not, and the subsequent Constitution carried no such special provision of admission. Additionally, ordinances to admit Frankland (later modified to Franklin), Kentucky, and Vermont to the Union were considered, but none were approved.Presidents of CongressUnder the Articles of Confederation, the presiding officer of Congress—referred to in many official records as President of the United States in Congress Assembled—chaired the Committee of the States when Congress was in recess, and performed other administrative functions. He was not, however, an executive in the way the later President of the United States is a chief executive, since all of the functions he executed were under the direct control of Congress.There were 10 presidents of Congress under the Articles. The first, Samuel Huntington, had been serving as president of the Continental Congress since September 28, 1779.U.S. under the ArticlesThe peace treaty left the United States independent and at peace but with an unsettled governmental structure. The Articles envisioned a permanent confederation but granted to the Congress—the only federal institution—little power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. There was no president, no executive agencies, no judiciary, and no tax base. The absence of a tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years except by requesting money from the states, which seldom arrived. Although historians generally agree that the Articles were too weak to hold the fast-growing nation together, they do give credit to the settlement of the western issue, as the states voluntarily turned over their lands to national control.By 1783, with the end of the British blockade, the new nation was regaining its prosperity. However, trade opportunities were restricted by the mercantilism of the British and French empires. The ports of the British West Indies were closed to all staple products which were not carried in British ships. France and Spain established similar policies. Simultaneously, new manufacturers faced sharp competition from British products which were suddenly available again. Political unrest in several states and efforts by debtors to use popular government to erase their debts increased the anxiety of the political and economic elites which had led the Revolution. The apparent inability of the Congress to redeem the public obligations (debts) incurred during the war, or to become a forum for productive cooperation among the states to encourage commerce and economic development, only aggravated a gloomy situation. In 1786–87, Shays' Rebellion, an uprising of dissidents in western Massachusetts against the state court system, threatened the stability of state government.The Continental Congress printed paper money which was so depreciated that it ceased to pass as currency, spawning the expression "not worth a continental". Congress could not levy taxes and could only make requisitions upon the States. Less than a million and a half dollars came into the treasury between 1781 and 1784, although the governors had been asked for two million in 1783 alone.When John Adams went to London in 1785 as the first representative of the United States, he found it impossible to secure a treaty for unrestricted commerce. Demands were made for favors and there was no assurance that individual states would agree to a treaty. Adams stated it was necessary for the States to confer the power of passing navigation laws to Congress, or that the States themselves pass retaliatory acts against Great Britain. Congress had already requested and failed to get power over navigation laws. Meanwhile, each State acted individually against Great Britain to little effect. When other New England states closed their ports to British shipping, Connecticut hastened to profit by opening its ports.By 1787 Congress was unable to protect manufacturing and shipping. State legislatures were unable or unwilling to resist attacks upon private contracts and public credit. Land speculators expected no rise in values when the government could not defend its borders nor protect its frontier population.The idea of a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation grew in favor. Alexander Hamilton realized while serving as Washington's top aide that a strong central government was necessary to avoid foreign intervention and allay the frustrations due to an ineffectual Congress. Hamilton led a group of like-minded nationalists, won Washington's endorsement, and convened the Annapolis Convention in 1786 to petition Congress to call a constitutional convention to meet in Philadelphia to remedy the long-term crisis.SignaturesThe Second Continental Congress approved the Articles for distribution to the states on November 15, 1777. A copy was made for each state and one was kept by the Congress. On November 28, the copies sent to the states for ratification were unsigned, and the cover letter, dated November 17, had only the signatures of Henry Laurens and Charles Thomson, who were the President and Secretary to the Congress.The Articles, however, were unsigned, and the date was blank. Congress began the signing process by examining their copy of the Articles on June 27, 1778. They ordered a final copy prepared (the one in the National Archives), and that delegates should inform the secretary of their authority for ratification.On July 9, 1778, the prepared copy was ready. They dated it and began to sign. They also requested each of the remaining states to notify its delegation when ratification was completed. On that date, delegates present from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina signed the Articles to indicate that their states had ratified. New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland could not, since their states had not ratified. North Carolina and Georgia also were unable to sign that day, since their delegations were absent.After the first signing, some delegates signed at the next meeting they attended. For example, John Wentworth of New Hampshire added his name on August 8. John Penn was the first of North Carolina's delegates to arrive (on July 10), and the delegation signed the Articles on July 21, 1778.The other states had to wait until they ratified the Articles and notified their Congressional delegation. Georgia signed on July 24, New Jersey on November 26, and Delaware on February 12, 1779. Maryland refused to ratify the Articles until every state had ceded its western land claims. Chevalier de La Luzerne, French Minister to the United States, felt that the Articles would help strengthen the American government. In 1780, when Maryland requested France provide naval forces in the Chesapeake Bay for protection from the British (who were conducting raids in the lower part of the bay), he indicated that French Admiral Destouches would do what he could but La Luzerne also "sharply pressed" Maryland to ratify the Articles, thus suggesting the two issues were related.On February 2, 1781, the much-awaited decision was taken by the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis. As the last piece of business during the afternoon Session, "among engrossed Bills" was "signed and sealed by Governor Thomas Sim Lee in the Senate Chamber, in the presence of the members of both Houses... an Act to empower the delegates of this state in Congress to subscribe and ratify the articles of confederation" and perpetual union among the states. The Senate then adjourned "to the first Monday in August next." The decision of Maryland to ratify the Articles was reported to the Continental Congress on February 12. The confirmation signing of the Articles by the two Maryland delegates took place in Philadelphia at noon time on March 1, 1781, and was celebrated in the afternoon. With these events, the Articles were entered into force and the United States of America came into being as a sovereign federal state.Congress had debated the Articles for over a year and a half, and the ratification process had taken nearly three and a half years. Many participants in the original debates were no longer delegates, and some of the signers had only recently arrived. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were signed by a group of men who were never present in the Congress at the same time.SignersThe signers and the states they represented were:Connecticut Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington Oliver Wolcott Titus Hosmer Andrew AdamsDelaware Thomas McKean John Dickinson Nicholas Van DykeGeorgia John Walton Edward Telfair Edward LangworthyMaryland John Hanson Daniel CarrollMassachusetts Bay John Hancock Samuel Adams Elbridge Gerry Francis Dana James Lovell Samuel HoltenNew Hampshire Josiah Bartlett John Wentworth Jr.New Jersey John Witherspoon Nathaniel ScudderNew York James Duane Francis Lewis William Duer Gouverneur MorrisNorth Carolina John Penn Cornelius Harnett John WilliamsPennsylvania Robert Morris Daniel Roberdeau Jonathan Bayard Smith William Clingan Joseph ReedRhode Island and Providence Plantations William Ellery Henry Marchant John CollinsSouth Carolina Henry Laurens William Henry Drayton John Mathews Richard Hutson Thomas Heyward Jr.Virginia Richard Henry Lee John Banister Thomas Adams John Harvie Francis Lightfoot LeeRoger Sherman (Connecticut) was the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.Robert Morris (Pennsylvania) signed three of the great state papers of the United States: the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.John Dickinson (Delaware), Daniel Carroll (Maryland) and Gouverneur Morris (New York), along with Sherman and Robert Morris, were the only five people to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution (Gouverneur Morris represented Pennsylvania when signing the Constitution).Parchment pages Original parchment pages of the Articles of Confederation, National Archives and Records Administration.Revision and replacementIn September 1786, delegates from five states met at what became known as the Annapolis Convention to discuss the need for reversing the protectionist interstate trade barriers that each state had erected. At its conclusion, delegates voted to invite all states to a larger convention to be held in Philadelphia in 1787. The Confederation Congress later endorsed this convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". Although the states' representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were only authorized to amend the Articles, delegates held secret, closed-door sessions and wrote a new constitution. The new frame of government gave much more power to the central government, but characterization of the result is disputed. The general goal of the authors was to get close to a republic as defined by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, while trying to address the many difficulties of the interstate relationships. Historian Forrest McDonald, using the ideas of James Madison from Federalist 39, described the change this way:In May 1786, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed that Congress revise the Articles of Confederation. Recommended changes included granting Congress power over foreign and domestic commerce, and providing means for Congress to collect money from state treasuries. Unanimous approval was necessary to make the alterations, however, and Congress failed to reach a consensus. The weakness of the Articles in establishing an effective unifying government was underscored by the threat of internal conflict both within and between the states, especially after Shays' Rebellion threatened to topple the state government of Massachusetts.Historian Ralph Ketcham commented on the opinions of Patrick Henry, George Mason, and other Anti-Federalists who were not so eager to give up the local autonomy won by the revolution:Historians have given many reasons for the perceived need to replace the articles in 1787. Jillson and Wilson (1994) point to the financial weakness as well as the norms, rules and institutional structures of the Congress, and the propensity to divide along sectional lines.Rakove identifies several factors that explain the collapse of the Confederation. The lack of compulsory direct taxation power was objectionable to those wanting a strong centralized state or expecting to benefit from such power. It could not collect customs after the war because tariffs were vetoed by Rhode Island. Rakove concludes that their failure to implement national measures "stemmed not from a heady sense of independence but rather from the enormous difficulties that all the states encountered in collecting taxes, mustering men, and gathering supplies from a war-weary populace." The second group of factors Rakove identified derived from the substantive nature of the problems the Continental Congress confronted after 1783, especially the inability to create a strong foreign policy. Finally, the Confederation's lack of coercive power reduced the likelihood for profit to be made by political means, thus potential rulers were uninspired to seek power.When the war ended in 1783, certain special interests had incentives to create a new "merchant state," much like the British state people had rebelled against. In particular, holders of war scrip and land speculators wanted a central government to pay off scrip at face value and to legalize western land holdings with disputed claims. Also, manufacturers wanted a high tariff as a barrier to foreign goods, but competition among states made this impossible without a central government.Legitimacy of closing downTwo prominent political leaders in the Confederation, John Jay of New York and Thomas Burke of North Carolina believed that "the authority of the congress rested on the prior acts of the several states, to which the states gave their voluntary consent, and until those obligations were fulfilled, neither nullification of the authority of congress, exercising its due powers, nor secession from the compact itself was consistent with the terms of their original pledges."According to Article XIII of the Confederation, any alteration had to be approved unanimously:[T]he Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.On the other hand, Article VII of the proposed Constitution stated that it would become effective after ratification by a mere nine states, without unanimity:The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.The apparent tension between these two provisions was addressed at the time, and remains a topic of scholarly discussion. In 1788, James Madison remarked (in Federalist No. 40) that the issue had become moot: "As this objection… has been in a manner waived by those who have criticised the powers of the convention, I dismiss it without further observation." Nevertheless, it is a historical and legal question whether opponents of the Constitution could have plausibly attacked the Constitution on that ground. At the time, there were state legislators who argued that the Constitution was not an alteration of the Articles of Confederation, but rather would be a complete replacement so the unanimity rule did not apply. Moreover, the Confederation had proven woefully inadequate and therefore was supposedly no longer binding.Modern scholars such as Francisco Forrest Martin agree that the Articles of Confederation had lost its binding force because many states had violated it, and thus "other states-parties did not have to comply with the Articles' unanimous consent rule". In contrast, law professor Akhil Amar suggests that there may not have really been any conflict between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution on this point; Article VI of the Confederation specifically allowed side deals among states, and the Constitution could be viewed as a side deal until all states ratified it.Final monthsOn July 3, 1788, the Congress received New Hampshire's all-important ninth ratification of the proposed Constitution, thus, according to its terms, establishing it as the new framework of governance for the ratifying states. The following day delegates considered a bill to admit Kentucky into the Union as a sovereign state. The discussion ended with Congress making the determination that, in light of this development, it would be "unadvisable" to admit Kentucky into the Union, as it could do so "under the Articles of Confederation" only, but not "under the Constitution".By the end of July 1788, 11 of the 13 states had ratified the new Constitution. Congress continued to convene under the Articles with a quorum until October. On Saturday, September 13, 1788, the Confederation Congress voted the resolve to implement the new Constitution, and on Monday, September 15 published an announcement that the new Constitution had been ratified by the necessary nine states, set the first Wednesday in January 1789 for appointing electors, set the first Wednesday in February 1789 for the presidential electors to meet and vote for a new president, and set the first Wednesday of March 1789 as the day "for commencing proceedings" under the new Constitution. On that same September 13, it determined that New York would remain the national capital.See also Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture Founding Fathers of the United States History of the United States (1776–1789) Libertarianism Perpetual Union VetocracyReferencesFurther reading                                  (Collection published 1995.)External links Text version of the Articles of Confederation Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Articles of Confederation and related resources, Library of Congress Today in History: November 15, Library of Congress United States Constitution Online—The Articles of Confederation Free Download of Articles of Confederation Audio Mobile friendly version of the Articles of Confederation 1777 in the United States1781 in law1781 in the United StatesDefunct constitutionsDocuments of the American RevolutionFederalism in the United StatesHistory of York County, PennsylvaniaLegal history of the United StatesOrdinances of the Continental CongressPennsylvania in the American RevolutionPolitical chartersUnited States documentsYork, Pennsylvania1777 in Pennsylvania
Asia Minor is an alternative name for Anatolia, the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey.Asia Minor may also refer to: Asia Minor (album), an album by Jamaican-born jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece "Asia Minor" (instrumental), a 1961 instrumental recording by Jimmy Wisner (operating under the name Kokomo)See also Asia Major (disambiguation)
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World.The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean at about 8°N.Scientific explorations of the Atlantic include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.Etymology The oldest known mentions of an "Atlantic" sea come from Stesichorus around mid-sixth century BC (Sch. A. R. 1. 211):  (Greek: ; English: 'the Atlantic sea'; etym. 'Sea of Atlas') and in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4):  (Greek: ; English: 'Sea of Atlas' or 'the Atlantic sea') where the name refers to "the sea beyond the pillars of Heracles" which is said to be part of the sea that surrounds all land. In these uses, the name refers to Atlas, the Titan in Greek mythology, who supported the heavens and who later appeared as a frontispiece in Medieval maps and also lent his name to modern atlases. On the other hand, to early Greek sailors and in Ancient Greek mythological literature such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, this all-encompassing ocean was instead known as Oceanus, the gigantic river that encircled the world; in contrast to the enclosed seas well known to the Greeks: the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In contrast, the term "Atlantic" originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word  has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of millions of years ago.The term "Aethiopian Ocean", derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century. During the Age of Discovery, the Atlantic was also known to English cartographers as the Great Western Ocean.The pond is a term often used by British and American speakers in reference to the Northern Atlantic Ocean, as a form of meiosis, or ironic understatement. It is used mostly when referring to events or circumstances "on this side of the pond" or "on the other side of the pond", rather than to discuss the ocean itself. The term dates to 1640, first appearing in print in pamphlet released during the reign of Charles I, and reproduced in 1869 in Nehemiah Wallington's Historical Notices of Events Occurring Chiefly in The Reign of Charles I, where "great Pond" is used in reference to the Atlantic Ocean by Francis Windebank, Charles I's Secretary of State.Extent and data The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) defined the limits of the oceans and seas in 1953, but some of these definitions have been revised since then and some are not used by various authorities, institutions, and countries, see for example the CIA World Factbook. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas vary.The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe: the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea—one of its marginal seas—and, in turn, the Black Sea, both of which also touch upon Asia) and Africa.In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean. The 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean.The Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs and seas. These include the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caribbean Sea, Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, part of the Drake Passage, Gulf of Mexico, Labrador Sea, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Norwegian Sea, almost all of the Scotia Sea, and other tributary water bodies. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures  compared to  for the Pacific.Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of  or 23.5% of the global ocean and has a volume of  or 23.3% of the total volume of the earth's oceans. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers  and has a volume of . The North Atlantic covers  (11.5%) and the South Atlantic  (11.1%). The average depth is  and the maximum depth, the Milwaukee Deep in the Puerto Rico Trench, is .Biggest seas in Atlantic OceanTop large seas: Sargasso Sea - 3.5 million km2 Caribbean Sea - 2.754 million km2 Mediterranean Sea - 2.510 million km2 Gulf of Guinea - 2.35 million km2 Gulf of Mexico - 1.550 million km2 Norwegian Sea - 1.383 million km2 Hudson Bay - 1.23 million km2 Greenland Sea - 1.205 million km2 Argentine Sea - 1 million km2 Labrador Sea - 841,000 km2 Irminger Sea - 780,000 km2 Baffin Bay - 689,000 km2 North Sea - 575,000 km2 Black Sea - 436,000 km2 Baltic Sea - 377,000 km2 Libyan Sea - 350,000 km2 Levantine Sea - 320,000 km2 Celtic Sea - 300,000 km2 Tyrrhenian Sea - 275,000 km2 Gulf of Saint Lawrence - 226,000 km2 Bay of Biscay - 223,000 km2 Aegean Sea - 214,000 km2 Ionian Sea - 169,000 km2 Balearic Sea - 150,000 km2 Adriatic Sea - 138,000 km2 Gulf of Bothnia - 116,300 km2 Sea of Crete - 95,000 km2 Gulf of Maine - 93,000 km2 Ligurian Sea - 80,000 km2 English Channel - 75,000 km2 James Bay - 68,300 km2 Bothnian Sea - 66,000 km2 Gulf of Sidra - 57,000 km2 Sea of the Hebrides - 47,000 km2 Irish Sea - 46,000 km2 Sea of Azov - 39,000 km2 Bothnian Bay - 36,800 km2 Gulf of Venezuela - 17,840 km2 Bay of Campeche - 16,000 km2 Gulf of Lion - 15,000 km2 Sea of Marmara - 11,350 km2 Wadden Sea - 10,000 km2 Archipelago Sea - 8,300 km2Bathymetry The bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR). It runs from 87°N or  south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 54°S.Mid-Atlantic Ridge The MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above  along most of its length, but is interrupted by larger transform faults at two places: the Romanche Trench near the Equator and the Gibbs Fracture Zone at 53°N. The MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other.The MAR rises  above the surrounding ocean floor and its rift valley is the divergent boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates in the North Atlantic and the South American and African plates in the South Atlantic. The MAR produces basaltic volcanoes in Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland, and pillow lava on the ocean floor. The depth of water at the apex of the ridge is less than  in most places, while the bottom of the ridge is three times as deep.The MAR is intersected by two perpendicular ridges: the Azores–Gibraltar Transform Fault, the boundary between the Nubian and Eurasian plates, intersects the MAR at the Azores Triple Junction, on either side of the Azores microplate, near the 40°N. A much vaguer, nameless boundary, between the North American and South American plates, intersects the MAR near or just north of the Fifteen-Twenty Fracture Zone, approximately at 16°N.In the 1870s, the Challenger expedition discovered parts of what is now known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, or: The remainder of the ridge was discovered in the 1920s by the German Meteor expedition using echo-sounding equipment. The exploration of the MAR in the 1950s led to the general acceptance of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics.Most of the MAR runs under water but where it reaches the surfaces it has produced volcanic islands. While nine of these have collectively been nominated a World Heritage Site for their geological value, four of them are considered of "Outstanding Universal Value" based on their cultural and natural criteria: Þingvellir, Iceland; Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture, Portugal; Gough and Inaccessible Islands, United Kingdom; and Brazilian Atlantic Islands: Fernando de Noronha and Atol das Rocas Reserves, Brazil.Ocean floor Continental shelves in the Atlantic are wide off Newfoundland, southernmost South America, and north-eastern Europe.In the western Atlantic carbonate platforms dominate large areas, for example, the Blake Plateau and Bermuda Rise.The Atlantic is surrounded by passive margins except at a few locations where active margins form deep trenches: the Puerto Rico Trench ( maximum depth) in the western Atlantic and South Sandwich Trench () in the South Atlantic. There are numerous submarine canyons off north-eastern North America, western Europe, and north-western Africa. Some of these canyons extend along the continental rises and farther into the abyssal plains as deep-sea channels.In 1922, a historic moment in cartography and oceanography occurred. The USS Stewart used a Navy Sonic Depth Finder to draw a continuous map across the bed of the Atlantic. This involved little guesswork because the idea of sonar is straightforward with pulses being sent from the vessel, which bounce off the ocean floor, then return to the vessel. The deep ocean floor is thought to be fairly flat with occasional deeps, abyssal plains, trenches, seamounts, basins, plateaus, canyons, and some guyots. Various shelves along the margins of the continents constitute about 11% of the bottom topography with few deep channels cut across the continental rise.The mean depth between 60°N and 60°S is , or close to the average for the global ocean, with a modal depth between .In the South Atlantic the Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise form barriers to ocean currents.The Laurentian Abyss is found off the eastern coast of Canada.Water characteristics Surface water temperatures, which vary with latitude, current systems, and season and reflect the latitudinal distribution of solar energy, range from below  to over . Maximum temperatures occur north of the equator, and minimum values are found in the polar regions. In the middle latitudes, the area of maximum temperature variations, values may vary by .From October to June the surface is usually covered with sea ice in the Labrador Sea, Denmark Strait, and Baltic Sea.The Coriolis effect circulates North Atlantic water in a clockwise direction, whereas South Atlantic water circulates counter-clockwise. The south tides in the Atlantic Ocean are semi-diurnal; that is, two high tides occur every 24 lunar hours. In latitudes above 40° North some east–west oscillation, known as the North Atlantic oscillation, occurs.Salinity On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean; surface water salinity in the open ocean ranges from 33 to 37 parts per thousand (3.3–3.7%) by mass and varies with latitude and season. Evaporation, precipitation, river inflow and sea ice melting influence surface salinity values. Although the lowest salinity values are just north of the equator (because of heavy tropical rainfall), in general, the lowest values are in the high latitudes and along coasts where large rivers enter. Maximum salinity values occur at about 25° north and south, in subtropical regions with low rainfall and high evaporation.The high surface salinity in the Atlantic, on which the Atlantic thermohaline circulation is dependent, is maintained by two processes: the Agulhas Leakage/Rings, which brings salty Indian Ocean waters into the South Atlantic, and the "Atmospheric Bridge", which evaporates subtropical Atlantic waters and exports it to the Pacific.Water masses The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major, upper water masses with distinct temperature and salinity. The Atlantic Subarctic Upper Water in the northernmost North Atlantic is the source for Subarctic Intermediate Water and North Atlantic Intermediate Water. North Atlantic Central Water can be divided into the Eastern and Western North Atlantic central Water since the western part is strongly affected by the Gulf Stream and therefore the upper layer is closer to underlying fresher subpolar intermediate water. The eastern water is saltier because of its proximity to Mediterranean Water. North Atlantic Central Water flows into South Atlantic Central Water at 15°N.There are five intermediate waters: four low-salinity waters formed at subpolar latitudes and one high-salinity formed through evaporation. Arctic Intermediate Water, flows from north to become the source for North Atlantic Deep Water south of the Greenland-Scotland sill. These two intermediate waters have different salinity in the western and eastern basins. The wide range of salinities in the North Atlantic is caused by the asymmetry of the northern subtropical gyre and the large number of contributions from a wide range of sources: Labrador Sea, Norwegian-Greenland Sea, Mediterranean, and South Atlantic Intermediate Water.The North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) is a complex of four water masses, two that form by deep convection in the open ocean — Classical and Upper Labrador Sea Water — and two that form from the inflow of dense water across the Greenland-Iceland-Scotland sill — Denmark Strait and Iceland-Scotland Overflow Water. Along its path across Earth the composition of the NADW is affected by other water masses, especially Antarctic Bottom Water and Mediterranean Overflow Water.The NADW is fed by a flow of warm shallow water into the northern North Atlantic which is responsible for the anomalous warm climate in Europe. Changes in the formation of NADW have been linked to global climate changes in the past. Since man-made substances were introduced into the environment, the path of the NADW can be traced throughout its course by measuring tritium and radiocarbon from nuclear weapon tests in the 1960s and CFCs.Gyres The clockwise warm-water North Atlantic Gyre occupies the northern Atlantic, and the counter-clockwise warm-water South Atlantic Gyre appears in the southern Atlantic.In the North Atlantic, surface circulation is dominated by three inter-connected currents: the Gulf Stream which flows north-east from the North American coast at Cape Hatteras; the North Atlantic Current, a branch of the Gulf Stream which flows northward from the Grand Banks; and the Subpolar Front, an extension of the North Atlantic Current, a wide, vaguely defined region separating the subtropical gyre from the subpolar gyre. This system of currents transport warm water into the North Atlantic, without which temperatures in the North Atlantic and Europe would plunge dramatically.North of the North Atlantic Gyre, the cyclonic North Atlantic Subpolar Gyre plays a key role in climate variability. It is governed by ocean currents from marginal seas and regional topography, rather than being steered by wind, both in the deep ocean and at sea level.The subpolar gyre forms an important part of the global thermohaline circulation. Its eastern portion includes eddying branches of the North Atlantic Current which transport warm, saline waters from the subtropics to the north-eastern Atlantic. There this water is cooled during winter and forms return currents that merge along the eastern continental slope of Greenland where they form an intense (40–50 Sv) current which flows around the continental margins of the Labrador Sea. A third of this water becomes part of the deep portion of the North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). The NADW, in its turn, feeds the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), the northward heat transport of which is threatened by anthropogenic climate change. Large variations in the subpolar gyre on a decade-century scale, associated with the North Atlantic oscillation, are especially pronounced in Labrador Sea Water, the upper layers of the MOC.The South Atlantic is dominated by the anti-cyclonic southern subtropical gyre. The South Atlantic Central Water originates in this gyre, while Antarctic Intermediate Water originates in the upper layers of the circumpolar region, near the Drake Passage and the Falkland Islands. Both these currents receive some contribution from the Indian Ocean. On the African east coast, the small cyclonic Angola Gyre lies embedded in the large subtropical gyre.The southern subtropical gyre is partly masked by a wind-induced Ekman layer. The residence time of the gyre is 4.4–8.5 years. North Atlantic Deep Water flows southward below the thermocline of the subtropical gyre.Sargasso Sea The Sargasso Sea in the western North Atlantic can be defined as the area where two species of Sargassum (S. fluitans and natans) float, an area  wide and encircled by the Gulf Stream, North Atlantic Drift, and North Equatorial Current. This population of seaweed probably originated from Tertiary ancestors on the European shores of the former Tethys Ocean and has, if so, maintained itself by vegetative growth, floating in the ocean for millions of years.Other species endemic to the Sargasso Sea include the sargassum fish, a predator with algae-like appendages which hovers motionless among the Sargassum. Fossils of similar fishes have been found in fossil bays of the former Tethys Ocean, in what is now the Carpathian region, that were similar to the Sargasso Sea. It is possible that the population in the Sargasso Sea migrated to the Atlantic as the Tethys closed at the end of the Miocene around 17 Ma. The origin of the Sargasso fauna and flora remained enigmatic for centuries. The fossils found in the Carpathians in the mid-20th century often called the "quasi-Sargasso assemblage", finally showed that this assemblage originated in the Carpathian Basin from where it migrated over Sicily to the Central Atlantic where it evolved into modern species of the Sargasso Sea.The location of the spawning ground for European eels remained unknown for decades. In the early 19th century it was discovered that the southern Sargasso Sea is the spawning ground for both the European and American eel and that the former migrate more than  and the latter . Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream transport eel larvae from the Sargasso Sea to foraging areas in North America, Europe, and Northern Africa. Recent but disputed research suggests that eels possibly use Earth's magnetic field to navigate through the ocean both as larvae and as adults.Climate Climate is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as winds. Because of the ocean's great capacity to store and release heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from water temperatures.The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents influence the climate by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. The winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents influence adjacent land areas.The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift is thought to have at least some influence on climate. For example, the Gulf Stream helps moderate winter temperatures along the coastline of southeastern North America, keeping it warmer in winter along the coast than inland areas. The Gulf Stream also keeps extreme temperatures from occurring on the Florida Peninsula. In the higher latitudes, the North Atlantic Drift, warms the atmosphere over the oceans, keeping the British Isles and north-western Europe mild and cloudy, and not severely cold in winter like other locations at the same high latitude. The cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada (the Grand Banks of Newfoundland area) and Africa's north-western coast. In general, winds transport moisture and air over land areas.Natural hazards Every winter, the Icelandic Low produces frequent storms. Icebergs are common from early February to the end of July across the shipping lanes near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The ice season is longer in the polar regions, but there is little shipping in those areas.Hurricanes are a hazard in the western parts of the North Atlantic during the summer and autumn. Due to a consistently strong wind shear and a weak Intertropical Convergence Zone, South Atlantic tropical cyclones are rare.Geology and plate tectonics The Atlantic Ocean is underlain mostly by dense mafic oceanic crust made up of basalt and gabbro and overlain by fine clay, silt and siliceous ooze on the abyssal plain. The continental margins and continental shelf mark lower density, but greater thickness felsic continental rock that is often much older than that of the seafloor. The oldest oceanic crust in the Atlantic is up to 145 million years and situated off the west coast of Africa and east coast of North America, or on either side of the South Atlantic.In many places, the continental shelf and continental slope are covered in thick sedimentary layers. For instance, on the North American side of the ocean, large carbonate deposits formed in warm shallow waters such as Florida and the Bahamas, while coarse river outwash sands and silt are common in shallow shelf areas like the Georges Bank. Coarse sand, boulders, and rocks were transported into some areas, such as off the coast of Nova Scotia or the Gulf of Maine during the Pleistocene ice ages.Central Atlantic The break-up of Pangaea began in the Central Atlantic, between North America and Northwest Africa, where rift basins opened during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. This period also saw the first stages of the uplift of the Atlas Mountains. The exact timing is controversial with estimates ranging from 200 to 170 Ma.The opening of the Atlantic Ocean coincided with the initial break-up of the supercontinent Pangaea, both of which were initiated by the eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), one of the most extensive and voluminous large igneous provinces in Earth's history associated with the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event, one of Earth's major extinction events.Theoliitic dikes, sills, and lava flows from the CAMP eruption at 200 Ma have been found in West Africa, eastern North America, and northern South America. The extent of the volcanism has been estimated to  of which  covered what is now northern and central Brazil.The formation of the Central American Isthmus closed the Central American Seaway at the end of the Pliocene 2.8 Ma ago. The formation of the isthmus resulted in the migration and extinction of many land-living animals, known as the Great American Interchange, but the closure of the seaway resulted in a "Great American Schism" as it affected ocean currents, salinity, and temperatures in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Marine organisms on both sides of the isthmus became isolated and either diverged or went extinct.Geologically, the Northern Atlantic is the area delimited to the south by two conjugate margins, Newfoundland and Iberia, and to the north by the Arctic Eurasian Basin. The opening of the Northern Atlantic closely followed the margins of its predecessor, the Iapetus Ocean, and spread from the Central Atlantic in six stages: Iberia–Newfoundland, Porcupine–North America, Eurasia–Greenland, Eurasia–North America. Active and inactive spreading systems in this area are marked by the interaction with the Iceland hotspot.Seafloor spreading led to the extension of the crust and formations of troughs and sedimentary basins. The Rockall Trough opened between 105 and 84 million years ago although along the rift failed along with one leading into the Bay of Biscay. Spreading began opening the Labrador Sea around 61 million years ago, continuing until 36 million years ago. Geologists distinguish two magmatic phases. One from 62 to 58 million years ago predates the separation of Greenland from northern Europe while the second from 56 to 52 million years ago happened as the separation occurred.Iceland began to form 62 million years ago due to a particularly concentrated mantle plume. Large quantities of basalt erupted at this time period are found on Baffin Island, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland, with ash falls in Western Europe acting as a stratigraphic marker.  The opening of the North Atlantic caused significant uplift of continental crust along the coast. For instance, in spite of 7 km thick basalt, Gunnbjorn Field in East Greenland is the highest point on the island, elevated enough that it exposes older Mesozoic sedimentary rocks at its base, similar to old lava fields above sedimentary rocks in the uplifted Hebrides of western Scotland. The North Atlantic Ocean contains about 810 seamounts, most of them situated along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  The OSPAR database (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) mentions 104 seamounts: 74 within the national Exclusive economic zone. Of these seamounts, 46 are located close to the Iberian Peninsula.South Atlantic West Gondwana (South America and Africa) broke up in the Early Cretaceous to form the South Atlantic. The apparent fit between the coastlines of the two continents was noted on the first maps that included the South Atlantic and it was also the subject of the first computer-assisted plate tectonic reconstructions in 1965. This magnificent fit, however, has since then proven problematic and later reconstructions have introduced various deformation zones along the shorelines to accommodate the northward-propagating break-up. Intra-continental rifts and deformations have also been introduced to subdivide both continental plates into sub-plates.Geologically the South Atlantic can be divided into four segments: Equatorial segment, from 10°N to the Romanche Fracture Zone (RFZ); Central segment, from RFZ to Florianopolis Fracture Zone (FFZ, north of Walvis Ridge and Rio Grande Rise); Southern segment, from FFZ to the Agulhas-Falkland Fracture Zone (AFFZ); and Falkland segment, south of AFFZ.In the southern segment the Early Cretaceous (133–130 Ma) intensive magmatism of the Paraná–Etendeka Large Igneous Province produced by the Tristan hotspot resulted in an estimated volume of . It covered an area of  in Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay and  in Africa. Dyke swarms in Brazil, Angola, eastern Paraguay, and Namibia, however, suggest the LIP originally covered a much larger area and also indicate failed rifts in all these areas. Associated offshore basaltic flows reach as far south as the Falkland Islands and South Africa. Traces of magmatism in both offshore and onshore basins in the central and southern segments have been dated to 147–49 Ma with two peaks between 143 and 121 Ma and 90–60 Ma.In the Falkland segment rifting began with dextral movements between the Patagonia and Colorado sub-plates between the Early Jurassic (190 Ma) and the Early Cretaceous (126.7 Ma). Around 150 Ma sea-floor spreading propagated northward into the southern segment. No later than 130 Ma rifting had reached the Walvis Ridge–Rio Grande Rise.In the central segment rifting started to break Africa in two by opening the Benue Trough around 118 Ma. Rifting in the central segment, however, coincided with the Cretaceous Normal Superchron (also known as the Cretaceous quiet period), a 40 Ma period without magnetic reversals, which makes it difficult to date sea-floor spreading in this segment.The equatorial segment is the last phase of the break-up, but, because it is located on the Equator, magnetic anomalies cannot be used for dating. Various estimates date the propagation of sea-floor spreading in this segment to the period 120–96 Ma. This final stage, nevertheless, coincided with or resulted in the end of continental extension in Africa.About 50 Ma the opening of the Drake Passage resulted from a change in the motions and separation rate of the South American and Antarctic plates. First small ocean basins opened and a shallow gateway appeared during the Middle Eocene. 34–30 Ma a deeper seaway developed, followed by an Eocene–Oligocene climatic deterioration and the growth of the Antarctic ice sheet.Closure of the Atlantic An embryonic subduction margin is potentially developing west of Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Arc in the western Mediterranean is migrating westward into the Central Atlantic where it joins the converging African and Eurasian plates. Together these three tectonic forces are slowly developing into a new subduction system in the eastern Atlantic Basin. Meanwhile, the Scotia Arc and Caribbean Plate in the western Atlantic Basin are eastward-propagating subduction systems that might, together with the Gibraltar system, represent the beginning of the closure of the Atlantic Ocean and the final stage of the Atlantic Wilson cycle.HistoryHuman origin Humans evolved in Africa; first by diverging from other apes around 7 mya; then developing stone tools around 2.6 mya; to finally evolve as modern humans around 200 kya. The earliest evidence for the complex behavior associated with this behavioral modernity has been found in the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) along the coast of South Africa. During the latest glacial stages, the now-submerged plains of the Agulhas Bank were exposed above sea level, extending the South African coastline farther south by hundreds of kilometers. A small population of modern humans — probably fewer than a thousand reproducing individuals — survived glacial maxima by exploring the high diversity offered by these Palaeo-Agulhas plains. The GCFR is delimited to the north by the Cape Fold Belt and the limited space south of it resulted in the development of social networks out of which complex Stone Age technologies emerged. Human history thus begins on the coasts of South Africa where the Atlantic Benguela Upwelling and Indian Ocean Agulhas Current meet to produce an intertidal zone on which shellfish, fur seal, fish and sea birds provided the necessary protein sources.The African origin of this modern behaviour is evidenced by 70,000 years-old engravings from Blombos Cave, South Africa.Old World Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies indicate that 80–60,000 years ago a major demographic expansion within Africa, derived from a single, small population, coincided with the emergence of behavioral complexity and the rapid MIS 5–4 environmental changes. This group of people not only expanded over the whole of Africa, but also started to disperse out of Africa into Asia, Europe, and Australasia around 65,000 years ago and quickly replaced the archaic humans in these regions. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 20,000 years ago humans had to abandon their initial settlements along the European North Atlantic coast and retreat to the Mediterranean. Following rapid climate changes at the end of the LGM this region was repopulated by Magdalenian culture. Other hunter-gatherers followed in waves interrupted by large-scale hazards such as the Laacher See volcanic eruption, the inundation of Doggerland (now the North Sea), and the formation of the Baltic Sea. The European coasts of the North Atlantic were permanently populated about 9–8.5 thousand years ago.This human dispersal left abundant traces along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. 50 kya-old, deeply stratified shell middens found in Ysterfontein on the western coast of South Africa are associated with the Middle Stone Age (MSA). The MSA population was small and dispersed and the rate of their reproduction and exploitation was less intense than those of later generations. While their middens resemble 12–11 kya-old Late Stone Age (LSA) middens found on every inhabited continent, the 50–45 kya-old Enkapune Ya Muto in Kenya probably represents the oldest traces of the first modern humans to disperse out of Africa.The same development can be seen in Europe. In La Riera Cave (23–13 kya) in Asturias, Spain, only some 26,600 molluscs were deposited over 10 kya. In contrast, 8–7 kya-old shell middens in Portugal, Denmark, and Brazil generated thousands of tons of debris and artefacts. The Ertebølle middens in Denmark, for example, accumulated  of shell deposits representing some 50 million molluscs over only a thousand years. This intensification in the exploitation of marine resources has been described as accompanied by new technologies — such as boats, harpoons, and fish-hooks — because many caves found in the Mediterranean and on the European Atlantic coast have increased quantities of marine shells in their upper levels and reduced quantities in their lower. The earliest exploitation, however, took place on the now submerged shelves, and most settlements now excavated were then located several kilometers from these shelves. The reduced quantities of shells in the lower levels can represent the few shells that were exported inland.New World During the LGM the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of northern North America while Beringia connected Siberia to Alaska. In 1973, late American geoscientist Paul S. Martin proposed a "blitzkrieg" colonization of the Americas by which Clovis hunters migrated into North America around 13,000 years ago in a single wave through an ice-free corridor in the ice sheet and "spread southward explosively, briefly attaining a density sufficiently large to overkill much of their prey." Others later proposed a "three-wave" migration over the Bering Land Bridge. These hypotheses remained the long-held view regarding the settlement of the Americas, a view challenged by more recent archaeological discoveries: the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas have been found in South America; sites in north-east Siberia report virtually no human presence there during the LGM; and most Clovis artefacts have been found in eastern North America along the Atlantic coast. Furthermore, colonisation models based on mtDNA, yDNA, and atDNA data respectively support neither the "blitzkrieg" nor the "three-wave" hypotheses but they also deliver mutually ambiguous results. Contradictory data from archaeology and genetics will most likely deliver future hypotheses that will, eventually, confirm each other. A proposed route across the Pacific to South America could explain early South American finds and another hypothesis proposes a northern path, through the Canadian Arctic and down the North American Atlantic coast.Early settlements across the Atlantic have been suggested by alternative theories, ranging from purely hypothetical to mostly disputed, including the Solutrean hypothesis and some of the Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories.The Norse settlement of the Faroe Islands and Iceland began during the 9th and 10th centuries. A settlement on Greenland was established before 1000 CE, but contact with it was lost in 1409 and it was finally abandoned during the early Little Ice Age. This setback was caused by a range of factors: an unsustainable economy resulted in erosion and denudation, while conflicts with the local Inuit resulted in the failure to adapt their Arctic technologies; a colder climate resulted in starvation, and the colony got economically marginalized as the Great Plague and Barbary pirates harvested its victims on Iceland in the 15th century.Iceland was initially settled 865–930 CE following a warm period when winter temperatures hovered around  which made farming favorable at high latitudes. This did not last, however, and temperatures quickly dropped; at 1080 CE summer temperatures had reached a maximum of . The Landnámabók (Book of Settlement) records disastrous famines during the first century of settlement — "men ate foxes and ravens" and "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs" — and by the early 1200s hay had to be abandoned for short-season crops such as barley.Atlantic World  Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in 1492 under Spanish flag. Six years later Vasco da Gama reached India under the Portuguese flag, by navigating south around the Cape of Good Hope, thus proving that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are connected. In 1500, in his voyage to India following Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral reached Brazil, taken by the currents of the South Atlantic Gyre. Following these explorations, Spain and Portugal quickly conquered and colonized large territories in the New World and forced the Amerindian population into slavery in order to explore the vast quantities of silver and gold they found. Spain and Portugal monopolized this trade in order to keep other European nations out, but conflicting interests nevertheless led to a series of Spanish-Portuguese wars. A peace treaty mediated by the Pope divided the conquered territories into Spanish and Portuguese sectors while keeping other colonial powers away. England, France, and the Dutch Republic enviously watched the Spanish and Portuguese wealth grow and allied themselves with pirates such as Henry Mainwaring and Alexandre Exquemelin. They could explore the convoys leaving the Americas because prevailing winds and currents made the transport of heavy metals slow and predictable.In the colonies of the Americas, depredation, smallpox and others diseases, and slavery quickly reduced the indigenous population of the Americas to the extent that the Atlantic slave trade had to be introduced to replace them — a trade that became the norm and an integral part of the colonization. Between the 15th century and 1888, when Brazil became the last part of the Americas to end the slave trade, an estimated ten million Africans were exported as slaves, most of them destined for agricultural labour. The slave trade was officially abolished in the British Empire and the United States in 1808, and slavery itself was abolished in the British Empire in 1838 and in the United States in 1865 after the Civil War.From Columbus to the Industrial Revolution Trans-Atlantic trade, including colonialism and slavery, became crucial for Western Europe. For European countries with direct access to the Atlantic (including Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) 1500–1800 was a period of sustained growth during which these countries grew richer than those in Eastern Europe and Asia. Colonialism evolved as part of the Trans-Atlantic trade, but this trade also strengthened the position of merchant groups at the expense of monarchs. Growth was more rapid in non-absolutist countries, such as Britain and the Netherlands, and more limited in absolutist monarchies, such as Portugal, Spain, and France, where profit mostly or exclusively benefited the monarchy and its allies.Trans-Atlantic trade also resulted in increasing urbanization: in European countries facing the Atlantic, urbanization grew from 8% in 1300, 10.1% in 1500, to 24.5% in 1850; in other European countries from 10% in 1300, 11.4% in 1500, to 17% in 1850. Likewise, GDP doubled in Atlantic countries but rose by only 30% in the rest of Europe. By end of the 17th century, the volume of the Trans-Atlantic trade had surpassed that of the Mediterranean trade.The Atlantic Ocean became the scene of one of the longest continuous naval military camapaigns throughout World War II, from 1939 to 1945.Economy The Atlantic has contributed significantly to the development and economy of surrounding countries. Besides major transatlantic transportation and communication routes, the Atlantic offers abundant petroleum deposits in the sedimentary rocks of the continental shelves.The Atlantic harbors petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales), sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, and precious stones.Gold deposits are a mile or two under water on the ocean floor, however, the deposits are also encased in rock that must be mined through. Currently, there is no cost-effective way to mine or extract gold from the ocean to make a profit.Various international treaties attempt to reduce pollution caused by environmental threats such as oil spills, marine debris, and the incineration of toxic wastes at sea.Fisheries The shelves of the Atlantic hosts one of the world's richest fishing resources. The most productive areas include the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the Scotian Shelf, Georges Bank off Cape Cod, the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland, the Irish Sea, the Bay of Fundy, the Dogger Bank of the North Sea, and the Falkland Banks.Fisheries have, however, undergone significant changes since the 1950s and global catches can now be divided into three groups of which only two are observed in the Atlantic: fisheries in the Eastern Central and South-West Atlantic oscillate around a globally stable value, the rest of the Atlantic is in overall decline following historical peaks. The third group, "continuously increasing trend since 1950", is only found in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific.In the North-East Atlantic total catches decreased between the mid-1970s and the 1990s and reached 8.7 million tons in 2013. Blue whiting reached a 2.4 million tons peak in 2004 but was down to 628,000 tons in 2013. Recovery plans for cod, sole, and plaice have reduced mortality in these species. Arctic cod reached its lowest levels in the 1960s–1980s but is now recovered. Arctic saithe and haddock are considered fully fished; Sand eel is overfished as was capelin which has now recovered to fully fished. Limited data makes the state of redfishes and deep-water species difficult to assess but most likely they remain vulnerable to overfishing. Stocks of northern shrimp and Norwegian lobster are in good condition. In the North-East Atlantic 21% of stocks are considered overfished.In the North-West Atlantic landings have decreased from 4.2 million tons in the early 1970s to 1.9 million tons in 2013. During the 21st century some species have shown weak signs of recovery, including Greenland halibut, yellowtail flounder, Atlantic halibut, haddock, spiny dogfish, while other stocks shown no such signs, including cod, witch flounder, and redfish. Stocks of invertebrates, in contrast, remain at record levels of abundance. 31% of stocks are overfished in the North-west Atlantic.In 1497, John Cabot became the first Western European since the Vikings to explore mainland North America and one of his major discoveries was the abundant resources of Atlantic cod off Newfoundland. Referred to as "Newfoundland Currency" this discovery yielded some 200 million tons of fish over five centuries. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries new fisheries started to exploit haddock, mackerel, and lobster. From the 1950s to the 1970s the introduction of European and Asian distant-water fleets in the area dramatically increased the fishing capacity and the number of exploited species. It also expanded the exploited areas from near-shore to the open sea and to great depths to include deep-water species such as redfish, Greenland halibut, witch flounder, and grenadiers. Overfishing in the area was recognised as early as the 1960s but, because this was occurring on international waters, it took until the late 1970s before any attempts to regulate was made. In the early 1990s, this finally resulted in the collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery. The population of a number of deep-sea fishes also collapsed in the process, including American plaice, redfish, and Greenland halibut, together with flounder and grenadier.In the Eastern Central Atlantic small pelagic fishes constitute about 50% of landings with sardine reaching 0.6–1.0 million tons per year. Pelagic fish stocks are considered fully fished or overfished, with sardines south of Cape Bojador the notable exception. Almost half of the stocks are fished at biologically unsustainable levels. Total catches have been fluctuating since the 1970s; reaching 3.9 million tons in 2013 or slightly less than the peak production in 2010.In the Western Central Atlantic, catches have been decreasing since 2000 and reached 1.3 million tons in 2013. The most important species in the area, Gulf menhaden, reached a million tons in the mid-1980s but only half a million tons in 2013 and is now considered fully fished. Round sardinella was an important species in the 1990s but is now considered overfished. Groupers and snappers are overfished and northern brown shrimp and American cupped oyster are considered fully fished approaching overfished. 44% of stocks are being fished at unsustainable levels.In the South-East Atlantic catches have decreased from 3.3 million tons in the early 1970s to 1.3 million tons in 2013. Horse mackerel and hake are the most important species, together representing almost half of the landings. Off South Africa and Namibia deep-water hake and shallow-water Cape hake have recovered to sustainable levels since regulations were introduced in 2006 and the states of Southern African pilchard and anchovy have improved to fully fished in 2013.In the South-West Atlantic, a peak was reached in the mid-1980s and catches now fluctuate between 1.7 and 2.6 million tons. The most important species, the Argentine shortfin squid, which reached half a million tons in 2013 or half the peak value, is considered fully fished to overfished. Another important species was the Brazilian sardinella, with a production of 100,000 tons in 2013 it is now considered overfished. Half the stocks in this area are being fished at unsustainable levels: Whitehead's round herring has not yet reached fully fished but Cunene horse mackerel is overfished. The sea snail perlemoen abalone is targeted by illegal fishing and remain overfished.Environmental issuesEndangered species Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds (petrels, auks), hastening the fish stock decline and contributing to international disputes.Waste and pollution Marine pollution is a generic term for the entry into the ocean of potentially hazardous chemicals or particles. The biggest culprits are rivers and with them many agriculture fertilizer chemicals as well as livestock and human waste. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.Marine debris, which is also known as marine litter, describes human-created waste floating in a body of water. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter. The North Atlantic garbage patch is estimated to be hundreds of kilometers across in size.Other pollution concerns include agricultural and municipal waste. Municipal pollution comes from the eastern United States, southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.A USAF C-124 aircraft from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware was carrying three nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean when it experienced a loss of power. For their own safety, the crew jettisoned two nuclear bombs, which were never recovered.Climate change North Atlantic hurricane activity has increased over past decades because of increased sea surface temperature (SST) at tropical latitudes, changes that can be attributed to either the natural Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) or to anthropogenic climate change.A 2005 report indicated that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) slowed down by 30% between 1957 and 2004. If the AMO were responsible for SST variability, the AMOC would have increased in strength, which is apparently not the case. Furthermore, it is clear from statistical analyses of annual tropical cyclones that these changes do not display multidecadal cyclicity. Therefore, these changes in SST must be caused by human activities.The ocean mixed layer plays an important role in heat storage over seasonal and decadal time-scales, whereas deeper layers are affected over millennia and have a heat capacity about 50 times that of the mixed layer. This heat uptake provides a time-lag for climate change but it also results in thermal expansion of the oceans which contributes to sea level rise. 21st-century global warming will probably result in an equilibrium sea-level rise five times greater than today, whilst melting of glaciers, including that of the Greenland ice-sheet, expected to have virtually no effect during the 21st century, will probably result in a sea-level rise of 3–6 m over a millennium.See also  List of countries and territories bordering the Atlantic Ocean List of rivers of the Americas by coastline#Atlantic Ocean coast Seven Seas Gulf Stream shutdown Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean Atlantic hurricanes Atlantic history Piracy in the Atlantic World Transatlantic crossing Atlantic Revolutions Natural delimitation between the Pacific and South Atlantic oceans by the Scotia ArcReferencesSources                               mapFurther readingExternal links  Atlantic Ocean. Cartage.org.lb. "Map of Atlantic Coast of North America from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida" from 1639 via the Library of Congress Oceans  Articles containing video clipsOceans surrounding Antarctica‎
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Those who have cited his influence include philosophers Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein, scientists Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein, psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, writers Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett, and composers Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler.LifeEarly life Arthur Schopenhauer was born on February 22, 1788, in Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; present-day Gdańsk, Poland) on Heiligegeistgasse (present day Św. Ducha 47), the son of Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener; 1766–1838) and Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer (1747–1805), both descendants of wealthy German-Dutch patrician families. Neither of them was very religious; both supported the French Revolution, and were republicans, cosmopolitans and Anglophiles. When Danzig became part of Prussia in 1793, Heinrich moved to Hamburg—a free city with a republican constitution. His firm continued trading in Danzig where most of their extended families remained. Adele, Arthur's only sibling, was born on July 12, 1797.In 1797, Arthur was sent to Le Havre to live with the family of his father's business associate, Grégoire de Blésimaire. He seemed to enjoy his two-year stay there, learning to speak French and fostering a life-long friendship with Jean Anthime Grégoire de Blésimaire. As early as 1799, Arthur started playing the flute. In 1803, he accompanied his parents on a European tour of Holland, Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria and Prussia. Viewed as primarily a pleasure tour, Heinrich used the opportunity to visit some of his business associates abroad.Heinrich offered Arthur a choice:  he could stay at home and start preparations for university, or he could travel with them and continue his merchant education. Arthur chose to travel with them.  He deeply regretted his choice later because the merchant training was very tedious. He spent twelve weeks of the tour attending school in Wimbledon, where he was disillusioned by strict and intellectually shallow Anglican religiosity.  He continued to sharply criticize Anglican religiosity later in life despite his general Anglophilia. He was also under pressure from his father, who became very critical of his educational results.In 1805, Heinrich drowned in a canal near their home in Hamburg. Although it was possible that his death was accidental, his wife and son believed that it was suicide. He was prone to anxiety and depression; each becoming more pronounced later in his life. Heinrich had become so fussy, even his wife started to doubt his mental health. "There was, in the father's life, some dark and vague source of fear which later made him hurl himself to his death from the attic of his house in Hamburg."Arthur showed similar moodiness during his youth and often acknowledged that he inherited it from his father. There were other instances of serious mental health history on his father's side of the family. Despite his hardship, Schopenhauer liked his father and later referred to him in a positive light. Heinrich Schopenhauer left the family with a significant inheritance that was split in three among Johanna and the children. Arthur Schopenhauer was entitled to control of his part when he reached the age of majority. He invested it conservatively in government bonds and earned annual interest that was more than double the salary of a university professor. After quitting his merchant apprenticeship, with some encouragement from his mother, he dedicated himself to studies at the Ernestine Gymnasium, Gotha, in Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. While there, he also enjoyed social life among the local nobility, spending large amounts of money, which deeply concerned his frugal mother. He left the Gymnasium after writing a satirical poem about one of the schoolmasters. Although Arthur claimed that he left voluntarily, his mother's letter indicates that he may have been expelled.Arthur spent two years as a merchant in honor of his dead father.  During this time, he had doubts about being able to start a new life as a scholar. Most of his prior education was as a practical merchant and he had trouble learning Latin; a prerequisite for an academic career.His mother moved away, with her daughter Adele, to Weimar—the then centre of German literature—to enjoy social life among writers and artists. Arthur and his mother did not part on good terms. In one letter, she wrote: "You are unbearable and burdensome, and very hard to live with; all your good qualities are overshadowed by your conceit, and made useless to the world simply because you cannot restrain your propensity to pick holes in other people." His mother, Johanna, was generally described as vivacious and sociable.  After they split, they did not meet again. She died 24 years later. Some of Arthur's negative opinions about women may be rooted in his troubled relationship with his mother.Arthur moved to Hamburg to live with his friend Jean Anthime, who was also studying to become a merchant.Education He moved to Weimar but did not live with his mother, who even tried to discourage him from coming by explaining that they would not get along very well. Their relationship deteriorated even further due to their temperamental differences. He accused his mother of being financially irresponsible, flirtatious and seeking to remarry, which he considered an insult to his father's memory. His mother, while professing her love to him, criticized him sharply for being moody, tactless, and argumentative, and urged him to improve his behavior so that he would not alienate people. Arthur concentrated on his studies, which were now going very well, and he also enjoyed the usual social life such as balls, parties and theater. By that time Johanna's famous salon was well established among local intellectuals and dignitaries, the most celebrated of them being Goethe. Arthur attended her parties, usually when he knew that Goethe would be there—although the famous writer and statesman seemed not even to notice the young and unknown student. It is possible that Goethe kept a distance because Johanna warned him about her son's depressive and combative nature, or because Goethe was then on bad terms with Arthur's language instructor and roommate, Franz Passow. Schopenhauer was also captivated by the beautiful Karoline Jagemann, mistress of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and he wrote to her his only known love poem. Despite his later celebration of asceticism and negative views of sexuality, Schopenhauer occasionally had sexual affairs—usually with women of lower social status, such as servants, actresses, and sometimes even paid prostitutes. In a letter to his friend Anthime he claims that such affairs continued even in his mature age and admits that he had two out-of-wedlock daughters (born in 1819 and 1836), both of whom died in infancy. In their youthful correspondence Arthur and Anthime were somewhat boastful and competitive about their sexual exploits—but Schopenhauer seemed aware that women usually did not find him very charming or physically attractive, and his desires often remained unfulfilled.He left Weimar to become a student at the University of Göttingen in 1809. There are no written reasons about why Schopenhauer chose that university instead of the then more famous University of Jena, but Göttingen was known as more modern and scientifically oriented, with less attention given to theology. Law or medicine were usual choices for young men of Schopenhauer's status who also needed career and income; he chose medicine due to his scientific interests. Among his notable professors were Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut, Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Friedrich Stromeyer, Heinrich Adolf Schrader, Johann Tobias Mayer and Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck. He studied metaphysics, psychology and logic under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of Aenesidemus, who made a strong impression and advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel Kant. He decided to switch from medicine to philosophy around 1810–11 and he left Göttingen, which did not have a strong philosophy program:  besides Schulze, the only other philosophy professor was Friedrich Bouterwek, whom Schopenhauer disliked. He did not regret his medicinal and scientific studies;  he claimed that they were necessary for a philosopher, and even in Berlin he attended more lectures in sciences than in philosophy. During his days at Göttingen, he spent considerable time studying, but also continued his flute playing and social life. His friends included Friedrich Gotthilf Osann, Karl Witte, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen, and William Backhouse Astor Sr.He arrived at the newly founded University of Berlin for the winter semester of 1811–12. At the same time, his mother had just begun her literary career; she published her first book in 1810, a biography of her friend Karl Ludwig Fernow, which was a critical success. Arthur attended lectures by the prominent post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, but quickly found many points of disagreement with his ; he also found Fichte's lectures tedious and hard to understand. He later mentioned Fichte only in critical, negative terms—seeing his philosophy as a lower-quality version of Kant's and considering it useful only because Fichte's poor arguments unintentionally highlighted some failings of Kantianism. He also attended the lectures of the famous Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, whom he also quickly came to dislike. His notes and comments on Schleiermacher's lectures show that Schopenhauer was becoming very critical of religion and moving towards atheism. He learned by self-directed reading; besides Plato, Kant and Fichte he also read the works of Schelling, Fries, Jacobi, Bacon, Locke, and much current scientific literature. He attended philological courses by August Böckh and Friedrich August Wolf and continued his naturalistic interests with courses by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Paul Erman, Johann Elert Bode, Ernst Gottfried Fischer, Johann Horkel, Friedrich Christian Rosenthal and Hinrich Lichtenstein (Lichtenstein was also a friend whom he met at one of his mother's parties in Weimar).Early work Schopenhauer left Berlin in a rush in 1813, fearing that the city could be attacked and that he could be pressed into military service as Prussia had just joined the war against France. He returned to Weimar but left after less than a month, disgusted by the fact that his mother was now living with her supposed lover, Georg Friedrich Konrad Ludwig Müller von Gerstenbergk (1778–1838), a civil servant twelve years younger than her; he considered the relationship an act of infidelity to his father's memory. He settled for a while in Rudolstadt, hoping that no army would pass through the small town.  He spent his time in solitude, hiking in the mountains and the Thuringian forest and writing his dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. He completed his dissertation at about the same time as the French army was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. He became irritated by the arrival of soldiers in the town and accepted his mother's invitation to visit her in Weimar. She tried to convince him that her relationship with Gerstenbergk was platonic and that she had no intention of remarrying. But Schopenhauer remained suspicious and often came in conflict with Gerstenbergk because he considered him untalented, pretentious, and nationalistic. His mother had just published her second book, Reminiscences of a Journey in the Years 1803, 1804, and 1805, a description of their family tour of Europe, which quickly became a hit. She found his dissertation incomprehensible and said it was unlikely that anyone would ever buy a copy. In a fit of temper Arthur told her that people would read his work long after the "rubbish" she wrote was totally forgotten. In fact, although they considered her novels of dubious quality, the Brockhaus publishing firm held her in high esteem because they consistently sold well. Hans Brockhaus (1888–1965) later claimed that his predecessors "saw nothing in this manuscript, but wanted to please one of our best-selling authors by publishing her son's work. We published more and more of her son Arthur's work and today nobody remembers Johanna, but her son's works are in steady demand and contribute to Brockhaus'[s] reputation." He kept large portraits of the pair in his office in Leipzig for the edification of his new editors.Also contrary to his mother's prediction, Schopenhauer's dissertation made an impression on Goethe, to whom he sent it as a gift. Although it is doubtful that Goethe agreed with Schopenhauer's philosophical positions, he was impressed by his intellect and extensive scientific education. Their subsequent meetings and correspondence were a great honor to a young philosopher, who was finally acknowledged by his intellectual hero. They mostly discussed Goethe's newly published (and somewhat lukewarmly received) work on color theory. Schopenhauer soon started writing his own treatise on the subject, On Vision and Colors, which in many points differed from his teacher's. Although they remained polite towards each other, their growing theoretical disagreements—and especially Schopenhauer's extreme self-confidence and tactless criticisms—soon made Goethe become distant again and after 1816 their correspondence became less frequent. Schopenhauer later admitted that he was greatly hurt by this rejection, but he continued to praise Goethe, and considered his color theory a great introduction to his own.Another important experience during his stay in Weimar was his acquaintance with Friedrich Majer—a historian of religion, orientalist and disciple of Herder—who introduced him to Eastern philosophy (see also Indology). Schopenhauer was immediately impressed by the Upanishads (he called them "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed that they contained superhuman concepts) and the Buddha, and put them on a par with Plato and Kant. He continued his studies by reading the Bhagavad Gita, an amateurish German journal Asiatisches Magazin and Asiatick Researches by the Asiatic Society. Schopenhauer held a profound respect for Indian philosophy; although he loved Hindu texts, he was more interested in Buddhism, which he came to regard as the best religion. His studies on Hindu and Buddhist texts were constrained by the lack of adequate literature, and the latter were mostly restricted to Early Buddhism. He also claimed that he formulated most of his ideas independently, and only later realized the similarities with Buddhism.Schopenhauer read the Latin translation and praised the Upanishads in his main work, The World as Will and Representation (1819), as well as in his Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), and commented,In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.As the relationship with his mother fell to a new low, in May 1814 he left Weimar and moved to Dresden. He continued his philosophical studies, enjoyed the cultural life, socialized with intellectuals and engaged in sexual affairs. His friends in Dresden were Johann Gottlob von Quandt, Friedrich Laun, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl, a young painter who made a romanticized portrait of him in which he improved some of Schopenhauer's unattractive physical features. His criticisms of local artists occasionally caused public quarrels when he ran into them in public. Schopenhauer's main occupation during his stay in Dresden was his seminal philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation, which he started writing in 1814 and finished in 1818. He was recommended to the publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus by Baron Ferdinand von Biedenfeld, an acquaintance of his mother. Although Brockhaus accepted his manuscript, Schopenhauer made a poor impression because of his quarrelsome and fussy attitude, as well as very poor sales of the book after it was published in December 1818.In September 1818, while waiting for his book to be published and conveniently escaping an affair with a maid that caused an unwanted pregnancy, Schopenhauer left Dresden for a year-long vacation in Italy. He visited Venice, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Milan, travelling alone or accompanied by mostly English tourists he met. He spent the winter months in Rome, where he accidentally met his acquaintance Karl Witte and engaged in numerous quarrels with German tourists in the Caffè Greco, among them Johann Friedrich Böhmer, who also mentioned his insulting remarks and unpleasant character. He enjoyed art, architecture, and ancient ruins, attended plays and operas, and continued his philosophical contemplation and love affairs. One of his affairs supposedly became serious, and for a while he contemplated marriage to a rich Italian noblewoman—but, despite his mentioning this several times, no details are known and it may have been Schopenhauer exaggerating. He corresponded regularly with his sister Adele and became close to her as her relationship with Johanna and Gerstenbergk also deteriorated. She informed him about their financial troubles as the banking house of A. L. Muhl in Danzig—in which her mother invested their whole savings and Arthur a third of his—was near bankruptcy. Arthur offered to share his assets, but his mother refused and became further enraged by his insulting comments. The women managed to receive only thirty percent of their savings while Arthur, using his business knowledge, took a suspicious and aggressive stance towards the banker and eventually received his part in full. The affair additionally worsened the relationships among all three members of the Schopenhauer family.He shortened his stay in Italy because of the trouble with Muhl and returned to Dresden. Disturbed by the financial risk and the lack of responses to his book he decided to take an academic position since it provided him with both income and an opportunity to promote his views. He contacted his friends at universities in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Berlin and found Berlin most attractive. He scheduled his lectures to coincide with those of the famous philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer described as a "clumsy charlatan". He was especially appalled by Hegel's supposedly poor knowledge of natural sciences and tried to engage him in a quarrel about it already at his test lecture in March 1820. Hegel was also facing political suspicions at the time, when many progressive professors were fired, while Schopenhauer carefully mentioned in his application that he had no interest in politics. Despite their differences and the arrogant request to schedule lectures at the same time as his own, Hegel still voted to accept Schopenhauer to the university. Only five students turned up to Schopenhauer's lectures, and he dropped out of academia. A late essay, "On University Philosophy", expressed his resentment towards the work conducted in academies.Later life After his tenure in academia, he continued to travel extensively, visiting Leipzig, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Schaffhausen, Vevey, Milan and spending eight months in Florence.  Before he left for his three-year travel, Schopenhauer had an incident with his Berlin neighbor, 47-year-old seamstress Caroline Louise Marquet.  The details of the August 1821 incident are unknown. He claimed that he had just pushed her from his entrance after she had rudely refused to leave, and that she had purposely fallen to the ground so that she could sue him.  She claimed that he had attacked her so violently that she had become paralyzed on her right side and unable to work.  She immediately sued him, and the process lasted until May 1827, when a court found Schopenhauer guilty and forced him to pay her an annual pension until her death in 1842.Schopenhauer enjoyed Italy, where he studied art and socialized with Italian and English nobles.  It was his last visit to the country.  He left for Munich and stayed there for a year, mostly recuperating from various health issues, some of them possibly caused by venereal diseases (the treatment his doctor used suggests syphilis).  He contacted publishers, offering to translate Hume into German and Kant into English, but his proposals were declined.  Returning to Berlin, he began to study Spanish so he could read some of his favorite authors in their original language.  He liked Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, and especially Baltasar Gracián.  He also made failed attempts to publish his translations of their works.  Few attempts to revive his lectures—again scheduled at the same time as Hegel's—also failed, as did his inquiries about relocating to other universities.During his Berlin years, Schopenhauer occasionally mentioned his desire to marry and have a family.  For a while he was unsuccessfully courting 17-year-old Flora Weiss, who was 22 years younger than himself.  His unpublished writings from that time show that he was already very critical of monogamy but still not advocating polygyny—instead musing about a polyamorous relationship that he called "tetragamy".  He had an on-and-off relationship with a young dancer, Caroline Richter (she also used the surname Medon after one of her ex-lovers). They met when he was 33 and she was 19 and working at the Berlin Opera. She had already had numerous lovers and a son out of wedlock, and later gave birth to another son, this time to an unnamed foreign diplomat (she soon had another pregnancy but the child was stillborn). As Schopenhauer was preparing to escape from Berlin in 1831, due to a cholera epidemic, he offered to take her with him on the condition that she left her young son behind. She refused and he went alone; in his will he left her a significant sum of money, but insisted that it should not be spent in any way on her second son.Schopenhauer claimed that, in his last year in Berlin, he had a prophetic dream that urged him to escape from the city. As he arrived in his new home in Frankfurt, he supposedly had another supernatural experience, an apparition of his dead father and his mother, who was still alive. This experience led him to spend some time investigating paranormal phenomena and magic. He was quite critical of the available studies and claimed that they were mostly ignorant or fraudulent, but he did believe that there are authentic cases of such phenomena and tried to explain them through his metaphysics as manifestations of the will.Upon his arrival in Frankfurt, he experienced a period of depression and declining health. He renewed his correspondence with his mother, and she seemed concerned that he might commit suicide like his father. By now Johanna and Adele were living very modestly. Johanna's writing did not bring her much income, and her popularity was waning. Their correspondence remained reserved, and Arthur seemed undisturbed by her death in 1838. His relationship with his sister grew closer and he corresponded with her until she died in 1849.In July 1832 Schopenhauer left Frankfurt for Mannheim but returned in July 1833 to remain there for the rest of his life, except for a few short journeys. He lived alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atman and Butz. In 1836, he published On the Will in Nature. In 1836, he sent his essay "On the Freedom of the Will" to the contest of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and won the prize for the following year.  He sent another essay, "On the Basis of Morality", to the Royal Danish Society for Scientific Studies, but did not win the prize despite being the only contestant.  The Society was appalled that several distinguished contemporary philosophers were mentioned in a very offensive manner, and claimed that the essay missed the point of the set topic and that the arguments were inadequate. Schopenhauer, who had been very confident that he would win, was enraged by this rejection. He published both essays as The Two Basic Problems of Ethics.  The first edition, published in 1841, again failed to draw attention to his philosophy. In the preface to the second edition, in 1860, he was still pouring insults on the Royal Danish Society.  Two years later, after some negotiations, he managed to convince his publisher, Brockhaus, to print the second, updated edition of The World as Will and Representation.  That book was again mostly ignored and the few reviews were mixed or negative.  Schopenhauer began to attract some followers, mostly outside academia, among practical professionals (several of them were lawyers) who pursued private philosophical studies. He jokingly referred to them as "evangelists" and "apostles". One of the most active early followers was Julius Frauenstädt, who wrote numerous articles promoting Schopenhauer's philosophy. He was also instrumental in finding another publisher after Brockhaus declined to publish Parerga and Paralipomena, believing that it would be another failure. Though Schopenhauer later stopped corresponding with him, claiming that he did not adhere closely enough to his ideas, Frauenstädt continued to promote Schopenhauer's work. They renewed their communication in 1859 and Schopenhauer named him heir for his literary estate.  Frauenstädt also became the editor of the first collected works of Schopenhauer.In 1848, Schopenhauer witnessed violent upheaval in Frankfurt after General Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald and Prince Felix Lichnowsky were murdered. He became worried for his own safety and property. Even earlier in life he had had such worries and kept a sword and loaded pistols near his bed to defend himself from thieves. He gave a friendly welcome to Austrian soldiers who wanted to shoot revolutionaries from his window and as they were leaving he gave one of the officers his opera glasses to help him monitor rebels. The rebellion passed without any loss to Schopenhauer and he later praised Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz for restoring order.  He even modified his will, leaving a large part of his property to a Prussian fund that helped soldiers who became invalids while fighting rebellion in 1848 or the families of soldiers who died in battle. As Young Hegelians were advocating change and progress, Schopenhauer claimed that misery is natural for humans and that, even if some utopian society were established, people would still fight each other out of boredom, or would starve due to overpopulation.In 1851, Schopenhauer published Parerga and Paralipomena, which, as the title says, contains essays that are supplementary to his main work. It was his first successful, widely read book, partly due to the work of his disciples who wrote praising reviews. The essays that proved most popular were the ones that actually did not contain the basic philosophical ideas of his system.  Many academic philosophers considered him a great stylist and cultural critic but did not take his philosophy seriously. His early critics liked to point out similarities of his ideas to those Fichte and Schelling, or to claim that there were numerous contradictions in his philosophy. Both criticisms enraged Schopenhauer. He was becoming less interested in intellectual fights, but encouraged his disciples to do so. His private notes and correspondence show that he acknowledged some of the criticisms regarding contradictions, inconsistencies, and vagueness in his philosophy, but claimed that he was not concerned about harmony and agreement in his propositions and that some of his ideas should not be taken literally but instead as metaphors.Academic philosophers were also starting to notice his work. In 1856, the University of Leipzig sponsored an essay contest about Schopenhauer's philosophy, which was won by Rudolf Seydel's very critical essay. Schopenhauer's friend Jules Lunteschütz made the first of his four portraits of him—which Schopenhauer did not particularly like—which was soon sold to a wealthy landowner, Carl Ferdinand Wiesike, who built a house to display it.  Schopenhauer seemed flattered and amused by this, and would claim that it was his first chapel. As his fame increased, copies of paintings and photographs of him were being sold and admirers were visiting the places where he had lived and written his works.  People visited Frankfurt's Englischer Hof to observe him dining. Admirers gave him gifts and asked for autographs.  He complained that he still felt isolated due to his not very social nature and the fact that many of his good friends had already died from old age.He remained healthy in his own old age, which he attributed to regular walks no matter the weather and always getting enough sleep. He had a great appetite and could read without glasses, but his hearing had been declining since his youth and he developed problems with rheumatism. He remained active and lucid, continued his reading, writing and correspondence until his death. The numerous notes that he made during these years, amongst others on aging, were published posthumously under the title Senilia. In the spring of 1860 his health began to decline, and he experienced shortness of breath and heart palpitations; in September he suffered inflammation of the lungs and, although he was starting to recover, he remained very weak. The last friend to visit him was Wilhelm Gwinner;  according to him, Schopenhauer was concerned that he would not be able to finish his planned additions to Parerga and Paralipomena but was at peace with dying. He died of pulmonary-respiratory failure on 21 September 1860 while sitting at home on his couch. He died at the age of 72 and had a funeral conducted by a Lutheran minister.PhilosophyThe world as representation Schopenhauer saw his philosophy as an extension of Kant's, and used the results of Kantian epistemological investigation (transcendental idealism) as starting point for his own. Kant had argued that the empirical world is merely a complex of appearances whose existence and connection occur only in our mental representations. Schopenhauer did not deny that the external world existed empirically but followed Kant in claiming that our knowledge and experience of the world is always indirect. Schopenhauer reiterates this in the first sentence of his main work: "The world is my representation (Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung)". Everything that there is for cognition (the entire world) exists simply as an object in relation to a subject—a 'representation' to a subject. Everything that belongs to the world is, therefore, 'subject-dependent'. In Book One of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer considers the world from this angle—that is, insofar as it is representation.Theory of perception In November 1813 Goethe invited Schopenhauer to help him on his Theory of Colours. Although Schopenhauer considered colour theory a minor matter, he accepted the invitation out of admiration for Goethe. Nevertheless, these investigations led him to his most important discovery in epistemology: finding a demonstration for the a priori nature of causality.Kant openly admitted that it was Hume's skeptical assault on causality that motivated the critical investigations in his Critique of Pure Reason and gave an elaborate proof to show that causality is a priori. After G. E. Schulze had made it plausible that Kant had not disproven Hume's skepticism, it was up to those loyal to Kant's project to prove this important matter.The difference between the approaches of Kant and Schopenhauer was this: Kant simply declared that the empirical content of perception is "given" to us from outside, an expression with which Schopenhauer often expressed his dissatisfaction. He, on the other hand, was occupied with the questions: how do we get this empirical content of perception; how is it possible to comprehend subjective sensations "limited to my skin" as the objective perception of things that lie "outside" of me?Causality is therefore not an empirical concept drawn from objective perceptions, as Hume had maintained;  instead, as Kant had said, objective perception presupposes knowledge of causality.By this intellectual operation, comprehending every effect in our sensory organs as having an external cause, the external world arises. With vision, finding the cause is essentially simplified due to light acting in straight lines. We are seldom conscious of the process that interprets the double sensation in both eyes as coming from one object, that inverts the impressions on the retinas, and that uses the change in the apparent position of an object relative to more distant objects provided by binocular vision to perceive depth and distance.Schopenhauer stresses the importance of the intellectual nature of perception; the senses furnish the raw material by which the intellect produces the world as representation. He set out his theory of perception for the first time in On Vision and Colors, and, in the subsequent editions of Fourfold Root, an extensive exposition is given in § 21.The world as will In Book Two of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer considers what the world is beyond the aspect of it that appears to us—that is, the aspect of the world beyond representation, the world considered "in-itself" or "noumena", its inner essence. The very being in-itself of all things, Schopenhauer argues, is will (Wille). The empirical world that appears to us as representation has plurality and is ordered in a spatio-temporal framework. The world as thing in-itself must exist outside the subjective forms of space and time. Although the world manifests itself to our experience as a multiplicity of objects (the "objectivation" of the will), each element of this multiplicity has the same blind essence striving towards existence and life. Human rationality is merely a secondary phenomenon that does not distinguish humanity from the rest of nature at the fundamental, essential level. The advanced cognitive abilities of human beings, Schopenhauer argues, serve the ends of willing—an illogical, directionless, ceaseless striving that condemns the human individual to a life of suffering unredeemed by any final purpose. Schopenhauer's philosophy of the will as the essential reality behind the world as representation is often called metaphysical voluntarism.For Schopenhauer, understanding the world as will leads to ethical concerns (see the ethics section below for further detail), which he explores in the Fourth Book of The World as Will and Representation and again in his two prize essays on ethics, On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morality. No individual human actions are free, Schopenhauer argues, because they are events in the world of appearance and thus are subject to the principle of sufficient reason: a person's actions are a necessary consequence of motives and the given character of the individual human. Necessity extends to the actions of human beings just as it does to every other appearance, and thus we cannot speak of freedom of individual willing. Albert Einstein quoted the Schopenhauerian idea that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will." Yet the will as thing in-itself is free, as it exists beyond the realm of representation and thus is not constrained by any of the forms of necessity that are part of the principle of sufficient reason.According to Schopenhauer, salvation from our miserable existence can come through the will's being "tranquillized" by the metaphysical insight that reveals individuality to be merely an illusion. The saint or 'great soul' intuitively "recognizes the whole, comprehends its essence, and finds that it is constantly passing away, caught up in vain strivings, inner conflict, and perpetual suffering". The negation of the will, in other words, stems from the insight that the world in-itself (free from the forms of space and time) is one. Ascetic practices, Schopenhauer remarks, are used to aid the will's "self-abolition", which brings about a blissful, redemptive "will-less" state of emptiness that is free from striving or suffering.Art and aesthetics For Schopenhauer, human "willing"—desiring, craving, etc.—is at the root of suffering. A temporary way to escape this pain is through aesthetic contemplation. Here one moves away from ordinary cognizance of individual things to cognizance of eternal Platonic Ideas—in other words, cognizance that is free from the service of will. In aesthetic contemplation, one no longer perceives an object of perception as something from which one is separated; rather "it is as if the object alone existed without anyone perceiving it, and one can thus no longer separate the perceiver from the perception, but the two have become one, the entirety of consciousness entirely filled and occupied by a single perceptual image". Subject and object are no longer distinguishable, and the Idea comes to the fore.From this aesthetic immersion, one is no longer an individual who suffers as a result of servitude to one's individual will but, rather, becomes a "pure, will-less, painless, timeless, subject of cognition". The pure, will-less subject of cognition is cognizant only of Ideas, not individual things: this is a kind of cognition that is unconcerned with relations between objects according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (time, space, cause and effect) and instead involves complete absorption in the object.Art is the practical consequence of this brief aesthetic contemplation, since it attempts to depict the essence/pure Ideas of the world. Music, for Schopenhauer, is the purest form of art because it is the one that depicts the will itself without it appearing as subject to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, therefore as an individual object. According to Daniel Albright, "Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself". He deemed music a timeless, universal language comprehended everywhere, that can imbue global enthusiasm, if in possession of a significant melody.Mathematics Schopenhauer's realist views on mathematics are evident in his criticism of contemporaneous attempts to prove the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry. Writing shortly before the discovery of hyperbolic geometry demonstrated the logical independence of the axiom—and long before the general theory of relativity revealed that it does not necessarily express a property of physical space—Schopenhauer criticized mathematicians for trying to use indirect concepts to prove what he held was directly evident from intuitive perception.Throughout his writings, Schopenhauer criticized the logical derivation of philosophies and mathematics from mere concepts, instead of from intuitive perceptions.Although Schopenhauer could see no justification for trying to prove Euclid's parallel postulate, he did see a reason for examining another of Euclid's axioms.This follows Kant's reasoning.Ethics Schopenhauer asserts that the task of ethics is not to prescribe moral actions that ought to be done, but to investigate moral actions. As such, he states that philosophy is always theoretical: its task to explain what is given.According to Kant's transcendental idealism, space and time are forms of our sensibility in which phenomena appear in multiplicity. Reality in itself is free from multiplicity, not in the sense that an object is one, but that it is outside the possibility of multiplicity. Two individuals, though they appear distinct, are in-themselves not distinct.Appearances are entirely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. The egoistic individual who focuses his aims on his own interests has to deal with empirical laws as well as he can.What is relevant for ethics are individuals who can act against their own self-interest. If we take a man who suffers when he sees his fellow men living in poverty and consequently uses a significant part of his income to support their needs instead of his own pleasures, then the simplest way to describe this is that he makes less distinction between himself and others than is usually made.Regarding how things appear to us, the egoist asserts a gap between two individuals, but the altruist experiences the sufferings of others as his own. In the same way a compassionate man cannot hurt animals, though they appear as distinct from himself.What motivates the altruist is compassion. The suffering of others is for him not a cold matter to which he is indifferent, but he feels connectiveness to all beings. Compassion is thus the basis of morality.Eternal justice Schopenhauer calls the principle through which multiplicity appears the principium individuationis. When we behold nature we see that it is a cruel battle for existence. Individual manifestations of the will can maintain themselves only at the expense of others—the will, as the only thing that exists, has no other option but to devour itself to experience pleasure. This is a fundamental characteristic of the will, and cannot be circumvented.Unlike temporal or human justice, which requires time to repay an evil deed and "has its seat in the state, as requiting and punishing", eternal justice "rules not the state but the world, is not dependent upon human institutions, is not subject to chance and deception, is not uncertain, wavering, and erring, but infallible, fixed, and sure". Eternal justice is not retributive, because retribution requires time. There are no delays or reprieves. Instead, punishment is tied to the offence, "to the point where the two become one. ... Tormenter and tormented are one. The [Tormenter] errs in that he believes he is not a partaker in the suffering; the [tormented], in that he believes he is not a partaker in the guilt."Suffering is the moral outcome of our attachment to pleasure. Schopenhauer deemed that this truth was expressed by the Christian dogma of original sin and, in Eastern religions, by the dogma of rebirth.Quietism He who sees through the principium individuationis and comprehends suffering in general as his own will see suffering everywhere and, instead of fighting for the happiness of his individual manifestation, will abhor life itself since he knows that it is inseparably connected with suffering. For him, a happy individual life in a world of suffering is like a beggar who dreams one night that he is a king.Those who have experienced this intuitive knowledge cannot affirm life, but exhibit asceticism and quietism, meaning that they are no longer sensitive to motives, are not concerned about their individual welfare, and accept without resistance the evil that others inflict on them. They welcome poverty and neither seek nor flee death. Schopenhauer referred to asceticism as the denial of the will to live.Human life is a ceaseless struggle for satisfaction and, instead of continuing their struggle, ascetics break it. It does not matter if these ascetics adhere to the dogmata of Christianity or to Dharmic religions, since their way of living is the result of intuitive knowledge.Psychology Philosophers have not traditionally been impressed by the necessity of sex, but Schopenhauer addressed sex and related concepts forthrightly:He named a force within man that he felt took invariable precedence over reason: the Will to Live or Will to Life (Wille zum Leben), defined as an inherent drive within human beings, and all creatures, to stay alive; a force that inveigles us into reproducing.Schopenhauer refused to conceive of love as either trifling or accidental, but rather understood it as an immensely powerful force that lay unseen within man's psyche, guaranteeing the quality of the human race:It has often been argued that Schopenhauer's thoughts on sexuality foreshadowed the theory of evolution, a claim met with satisfaction by Darwin as he included a quotation from Schopenhauer in his Descent of Man. This has also been noted about Freud's concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind, and evolutionary psychology in general.Political and social thoughtPolitics Schopenhauer's politics were an echo of his system of ethics, which he elucidated in detail in his Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik (the two essays On the Freedom of the Will and On the Basis of Morality).In occasional political comments in his Parerga and Paralipomena and Manuscript Remains, Schopenhauer described himself as a proponent of limited government. Schopenhauer shared the view of Thomas Hobbes on the necessity of the state and state action to check the innate destructive tendencies of our species. He also defended the independence of the legislative, judicial and executive branches of power, and a monarch as an impartial element able to practise justice (in a practical and everyday sense, not a cosmological one).He declared that monarchy is "natural to man in almost the same way as it is to bees and ants, to cranes in flight, to wandering elephants, to wolves in a pack in search of prey, and to other animals". Intellect in monarchies, he writes, always has "much better chances against stupidity, its implacable and ever-present foe, than it has in republics; but this is a great advantage." On the other hand, Schopenhauer disparaged republicanism as being "as unnatural to man as it is unfavorable to higher intellectual life and thus to the arts and sciences".By his own admission, Schopenhauer did not give much thought to politics, and several times he wrote proudly of how little attention he paid "to political affairs of [his] day".  In a life that spanned several revolutions in French and German government, and a few continent-shaking wars, he maintained his position of "minding not the times but the eternities".  He wrote many disparaging remarks about Germany and the Germans. A typical example is: "For a German it is even good to have somewhat lengthy words in his mouth, for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to reflect."Punishment The State, Schopenhauer claimed, punishes criminals to prevent future crimes. It places "beside every possible motive for committing a wrong a more powerful motive for leaving it undone, in the inescapable punishment. Accordingly, the criminal code is as complete a register as possible of counter-motives to all criminal actions that can possibly be imagined ..." He claimed that this doctrine was not original to him but had appeared in the writings of Plato, Seneca, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Anselm Feuerbach.Races and religions Schopenhauer attributed civilizational primacy to the northern "white races" due to their sensitivity and creativity (except for the ancient Egyptians and Hindus, whom he saw as equal):The highest civilization and culture, apart from the ancient Hindus and Egyptians, are found exclusively among the white races; and even with many dark peoples, the ruling caste or race is fairer in colour than the rest and has, therefore, evidently immigrated, for example, the Brahmans, the Incas, and the rulers of the South Sea Islands. All this is due to the fact that necessity is the mother of invention because those tribes that emigrated early to the north, and there gradually became white, had to develop all their intellectual powers and invent and perfect all the arts in their struggle with need, want and misery, which in their many forms were brought about by the climate. This they had to do in order to make up for the parsimony of nature and out of it all came their high civilization.Schopenhauer was fervently opposed to slavery. Speaking of the treatment of slaves in the slave-holding states of the United States, he condemned "those devils in human form, those bigoted, church-going, strict sabbath-observing scoundrels, especially the Anglican parsons among them" for how they "treat their innocent black brothers who through violence and injustice have fallen into their devil's claws". The slave-holding states of North America, Schopenhauer writes, are a "disgrace to the whole of humanity".In his Metaphysics of Sexual Love, Schopenhauer wrote:  Further, the consideration as to the complexion is very decided. Blondes prefer dark persons, or brunettes; but the latter seldom prefer the former. The reason is, that fair hair and blue eyes are in themselves a variation from the type, almost an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or at least to grey horses. In no part of the world, not even in the vicinity of the pole, are they indigenous, except in Europe, and are clearly of Scandinavian origin. I may here express my opinion in passing that the white colour of the skin is not natural to man, but that by nature he has a black or brown skin, like our forefathers the Hindus; that consequently a white man has never originally sprung from the womb of nature, and that thus there is no such thing as a white race, much as this is talked of, but every white man is a faded or bleached one. Forced into the strange world, where he only exists like an exotic plant, and like this requires in winter the hothouse, in the course of thousands of years man became white. The gipsies, an Indian race which immigrated only about four centuries ago, show the transition from the complexion of the Hindu to our own. Therefore in sexual love nature strives to return to dark hair and brown eyes as the primitive type; but the white colour of the skin has become a second nature, though not so that the brown of the Hindu repels us. Finally, each one also seeks in the particular parts of the body the corrective of his own defects and aberrations, and does so the more decidedly the more important the part is.Schopenhauer also maintained a marked metaphysical and political anti-Judaism. He argued that Christianity constituted a revolt against what he styled the materialistic basis of Judaism, exhibiting an Indian-influenced ethics reflecting the Aryan-Vedic theme of spiritual self-conquest. He saw this as opposed to the ignorant drive toward earthly utopianism and superficiality of a worldly "Jewish" spirit:[Judaism] is, therefore, the crudest and poorest of all religions and consists merely in an absurd and revolting theism. It amounts to this that the κύριος ['Lord'], who has created the world, desires to be worshipped and adored; and so above all he is jealous, is envious of his colleagues, of all the other gods; if sacrifices are made to them he is furious and his Jews have a bad time ... It is most deplorable that this religion has become the basis of the prevailing religion of Europe; for it is a religion without any metaphysical tendency. While all other religions endeavor to explain to the people by symbols the metaphysical significance of life, the religion of the Jews is entirely immanent and furnishes nothing but a mere war-cry in the struggle with other nations.Women In his 1851 essay "On Women", Schopenhauer expressed opposition to what he called "Teutonico-Christian stupidity" of "reflexive, unexamined reverence for the female (abgeschmackten Weiberveneration)". He wrote: "Women are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our early childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and short-sighted." He opined that women are deficient in artistic faculties and sense of justice, and expressed his opposition to monogamy. He claimed that "woman is by nature meant to obey". The essay does give some compliments: "women are decidedly more sober in their judgment than [men] are", and are more sympathetic to the suffering of others.Schopenhauer's writings influenced many, from Friedrich Nietzsche to nineteenth-century feminists. His biological analysis of the difference between the sexes, and their separate roles in the struggle for survival and reproduction, anticipates some of the claims that were later ventured by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists.When the elderly Schopenhauer sat for a sculpture portrait by the Prussian sculptor Elisabet Ney in 1859, he was much impressed by the young woman's wit and independence, as well as by her skill as a visual artist. After his time with Ney, he told Richard Wagner's friend Malwida von Meysenbug: "I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man."Pederasty In the third, expanded edition of The World as Will and Representation (1859), Schopenhauer added an appendix to his chapter on the Metaphysics of Sexual Love. He wrote that pederasty has the benefit of preventing ill-begotten children. Concerning this, he stated that "the vice we are considering appears to work directly against the aims and ends of nature, and that in a matter that is all important and of the greatest concern to her it must in fact serve these very aims, although only indirectly, as a means for preventing greater evils".Schopenhauer ends the appendix with the statement that "by expounding these paradoxical ideas, I wanted to grant to the professors of philosophy a small favour. I have done so by giving them the opportunity of slandering me by saying that I defend and commend pederasty."Heredity and eugenics Schopenhauer viewed personality and intellect as inherited. He quotes Horace's saying, "From the brave and good are the brave descended" (Odes, iv, 4, 29) and Shakespeare's line from Cymbeline, "Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base" (IV, 2) to reinforce his hereditarian argument.Mechanistically, Schopenhauer believed that a person inherits his intellect through his mother, and personal character through the father. This belief in heritability of traits informed Schopenhauer's view of love—placing it at the highest level of importance. For Schopenhauer the "final aim of all love intrigues, be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is nothing less than the composition of the next generation. ... It is not the weal or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to come, which is here at stake." This view of the importance for the species of whom we choose to love was reflected in his views on eugenics or good breeding. Here Schopenhauer wrote:With our knowledge of the complete unalterability both of character and of mental faculties, we are led to the view that a real and thorough improvement of the human race might be reached not so much from outside as from within, not so much by theory and instruction as rather by the path of generation. Plato had something of the kind in mind when, in the fifth book of his Republic, he explained his plan for increasing and improving his warrior caste. If we could castrate all scoundrels and stick all stupid geese in a convent, and give men of noble character a whole harem, and procure men, and indeed thorough men, for all girls of intellect and understanding, then a generation would soon arise which would produce a better age than that of Pericles.In another context, Schopenhauer reiterated his eugenic thesis: "If you want Utopian plans, I would say: the only solution to the problem is the despotism of the wise and noble members of a genuine aristocracy, a genuine nobility, achieved by mating the most magnanimous men with the cleverest and most gifted women. This proposal constitutes my Utopia and my Platonic Republic." Analysts (e.g., Keith Ansell-Pearson) have suggested that Schopenhauer's anti-egalitarianist sentiment and his support for eugenics influenced the neo-aristocratic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who initially considered Schopenhauer his mentor.Animal welfare As a consequence of his monistic philosophy, Schopenhauer was very concerned about animal welfare. For him, all individual animals, including humans, are essentially phenomenal manifestations of the one underlying Will.  For him the word "will" designates force, power, impulse, energy, and desire; it is the closest word we have that can signify both the essence of all external things and our own direct, inner experience. Since every living thing possesses will, humans and animals are fundamentally the same and can recognize themselves in each other. For this reason, he claimed that a good person would have sympathy for animals, who are our fellow sufferers.In 1841, he praised the establishment in London of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in Philadelphia of the Animals' Friends Society. Schopenhauer went so far as to protest using the pronoun "it" in reference to animals because that led to treatment of them as though they were inanimate things. To reinforce his points, Schopenhauer referred to anecdotal reports of the look in the eyes of a monkey who had been shot and also the grief of a baby elephant whose mother had been killed by a hunter.Schopenhauer was very attached to his succession of pet poodles. He criticized Spinoza's belief that animals are a mere means for the satisfaction of humans.Intellectual interests and affinitiesIndologySchopenhauer read the Latin translation of the ancient Hindu texts, the Upanishads, translated by French writer Anquetil du Perron from the Persian translation of Prince Dara Shukoh entitled Sirre-Akbar ("The Great Secret"). He was so impressed by its philosophy that he called it "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed it contained superhuman concepts. Schopenhauer considered India as "the land of the most ancient and most pristine wisdom, the place from which Europeans could trace their descent and the tradition by which they had been influenced in so many decisive ways", and regarded the Upanishads as "the most profitable and elevating reading which [...] is possible in the world. It has been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death."Schopenhauer was first introduced to Anquetil du Perron's translation by Friedrich Majer in 1814. They met during the winter of 1813–1814 in Weimar at the home of Schopenhauer's mother, according to the biographer Safranski. Majer was a follower of Herder, and an early Indologist. Schopenhauer did not begin serious study of the Indic texts until the summer of 1814. Safranski maintains that, between 1815 and 1817, Schopenhauer had another important cross-pollination with Indian thought in Dresden. This was through his neighbor of two years, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Krause was then a minor and rather unorthodox philosopher who attempted to mix his own ideas with ancient Indian wisdom. Krause had also mastered Sanskrit, unlike Schopenhauer, and they developed a professional relationship. It was from Krause that Schopenhauer learned meditation and received the closest thing to expert advice concerning Indian thought.The book Oupnekhat (Upanishad) always lay open on his table, and he invariably studied it before going to bed. He called the opening up of Sanskrit literature "the greatest gift of our century", and predicted that the philosophy and knowledge of the Upanishads would become the cherished faith of the West. Most noticeable, in the case of Schopenhauer's work, was the significance of the Chandogya Upanishad, whose Mahāvākya, Tat Tvam Asi, is mentioned throughout The World as Will and Representation.Buddhism Schopenhauer noted a correspondence between his doctrines and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire (taṇhā), and that the extinction of desire leads to liberation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. In Buddhism, while greed and lust are always unskillful, desire is ethically variable – it can be skillful, unskillful, or neutral.For Schopenhauer, will had ontological primacy over the intellect; desire is prior to thought. Schopenhauer felt this was similar to notions of puruṣārtha or goals of life in Vedānta Hinduism.In Schopenhauer's philosophy, denial of the will is attained by: personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to loss of the will to live; or knowledge of the essential nature of life in the world through observation of the suffering of other people.Buddhist nirvāṇa is not equivalent to the condition that Schopenhauer described as denial of the will. Nirvāṇa is not the extinguishing of the person as some Western scholars have thought, but only the "extinguishing" (the literal meaning of nirvana) of the flames of greed, hatred, and delusion that assail a person's character. Schopenhauer made the following statement in his discussion of religions:If I wished to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I should have to concede to Buddhism pre-eminence over the others. In any case, it must be a pleasure to me to see my doctrine in such close agreement with a religion that the majority of men on earth hold as their own, for this numbers far more followers than any other. And this agreement must be yet the more pleasing to me, inasmuch as in my philosophizing I have certainly not been under its influence [emphasis added]. For up till 1818, when my work appeared, there was to be found in Europe only a very few accounts of Buddhism.Buddhist philosopher Keiji Nishitani sought to distance Buddhism from Schopenhauer. While Schopenhauer's philosophy may sound rather mystical in such a summary, his methodology was resolutely empirical, rather than speculative or transcendental:Philosophy ... is a science, and as such has no articles of faith; accordingly, in it nothing can be assumed as existing except what is either positively given empirically, or demonstrated through indubitable conclusions.Also note:This actual world of what is knowable, in which we are and which is in us, remains both the material and the limit of our consideration.The argument that Buddhism affected Schopenhauer's philosophy more than any other Dharmic faith loses credence since he did not begin a serious study of Buddhism until after the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818. Scholars have started to revise earlier views about Schopenhauer's discovery of Buddhism. Proof of early interest and influence appears in Schopenhauer's 1815–16 notes (transcribed and translated by Urs App) about Buddhism. They are included in a recent case study that traces Schopenhauer's interest in Buddhism and documents its influence. Other scholarly work questions how similar Schopenhauer's philosophy actually is to Buddhism.Magic and occultismSome traditions in Western esotericism and parapsychology interested Schopenhauer and influenced his philosophical theories. He praised animal magnetism as evidence for the reality of magic in his On the Will in Nature, and went so far as to accept the division of magic into left-hand and right-hand magic, although he doubted the existence of demons.Schopenhauer grounded magic in the Will and claimed all forms of magical transformation depended on the human Will, not on ritual. This theory notably parallels Aleister Crowley's system of magick and its emphasis on human will. Given the importance of the Will to Schopenhauer's overarching system, this amounts to "suggesting his whole philosophical system had magical powers." Schopenhauer rejected the theory of disenchantment and claimed philosophy should synthesize itself with magic, which he believed amount to "practical metaphysics."Neoplatonism, including the traditions of Plotinus and to a lesser extent Marsilio Ficino, has also been cited as an influence on Schopenhauer.InterestsSchopenhauer had a wide range of interests, from science and opera to occultism and literature.In his student years, Schopenhauer went more often to lectures in the sciences than philosophy. He kept a strong interest as his personal library contained near to 200 books of scientific literature at his death, and his works refer to scientific titles not found in the library.Many evenings were spent in the theatre, opera and ballet; Schopenhauer especially liked the operas of Mozart, Rossini and Bellini. Schopenhauer considered music the highest art, and played the flute during his whole life.As a polyglot, he knew German, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Latin and ancient Greek, and was an avid reader of poetry and literature. He particularly revered Goethe, Petrarch, Calderón and Shakespeare.If Goethe had not been sent into the world simultaneously with Kant in order to counterbalance him, so to speak, in the spirit of the age, the latter would have been haunted like a nightmare many an aspiring mind and would have oppressed it with great affliction. But now the two have an infinitely wholesome effect from opposite directions and will probably raise the German spirit to a height surpassing even that of antiquity.In philosophy, his most important influences were, according to himself, Kant, Plato and the Upanishads. Concerning the Upanishads and Vedas, he writes in The World as Will and Representation:If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century (1818) may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I say, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him. It will not sound to him strange, as to many others, much less disagreeable; for I might, if it did not sound conceited, contend that every one of the detached statements which constitute the Upanishads, may be deduced as a necessary result from the fundamental thoughts which I have to enunciate, though those deductions themselves are by no means to be found there.Thoughts on other philosophersGiordano Bruno and Spinoza Schopenhauer saw Bruno and Spinoza as philosophers not bound to their age or nation. "Both were fulfilled by the thought, that as manifold the appearances of the world may be, it is still one being, that appears in all of them. ... Consequently, there is no place for God as creator of the world in their philosophy, but God is the world itself."Schopenhauer expressed regret that Spinoza stuck for the presentation of his philosophy with the concepts of scholasticism and Cartesian philosophy, and tried to use geometrical proofs that do not hold because of vague and overly broad definitions. Bruno on the other hand, who knew much about nature and ancient literature, presented his ideas with Italian vividness, and is amongst philosophers the only one who comes near Plato's poetic and dramatic power of exposition.Schopenhauer noted that their philosophies do not provide any ethics, and it is therefore very remarkable that Spinoza called his main work Ethics. In fact, it could be considered complete from the standpoint of life-affirmation, if one completely ignores morality and self-denial. It is yet even more remarkable that Schopenhauer mentions Spinoza as an example of the denial of the will, if one uses the French biography by Jean Maximilien Lucas as the key to Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione.Immanuel KantThe importance of Kant for Schopenhauer, in philosophy as well as on a personal level, cannot be overstated. Kant's philosophy was the foundation of Schopenhauer's, and he had high praise for the Transcendental Aesthetic section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Schopenhauer maintained that Kant stands in the same relation to philosophers such as Berkeley and Plato, as Copernicus to Hicetas, Philolaus, and Aristarchus: Kant succeeded in demonstrating what previous philosophers merely asserted.Schopenhauer writes about Kant's influence on his work in the preface to the second edition of The World as Will and Representation:In his study room, one bust was of Buddha, the other was of Kant. The bond which Schopenhauer felt with the philosopher of Königsberg is demonstrated in an unfinished poem he dedicated to Kant (included in volume 2 of the Parerga):Schopenhauer dedicated one fifth of his main work, The World as Will and Representation, to a detailed criticism of the Kantian philosophy.Schopenhauer praised Kant for his distinction between appearance and the thing-in-itself, whereas the general consensus in German idealism was that this was the weakest spot of Kant's theory, since, according to Kant, causality can find application on objects of experience only, and consequently, things-in-themselves cannot be the cause of appearances. The inadmissibility of this reasoning was also acknowledged by Schopenhauer. He insisted that this was a true conclusion, drawn from false premises.Post-Kantian schoolThe leading figures of post-Kantian philosophy—Johann Gottlieb Fichte, F. W. J. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel—were not respected by Schopenhauer. He argued that they were not philosophers at all, for they lacked "the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry." Rather, they were merely sophists who, excelling in the art of beguiling the public, pursued their own selfish interests (such as professional advancement within the university system). Diatribes against the vacuity, dishonesty, pomposity, and self-interest of these contemporaries are to be found throughout Schopenhauer's published writings. The following passage is an example:Schopenhauer deemed Schelling the most talented of the three and wrote that he would recommend his "elucidatory paraphrase of the highly important doctrine of Kant" concerning the intelligible character, if he had been honest enough to admit he was parroting Kant, instead of hiding this relation in a cunning manner.Schopenhauer reserved his most unqualified damning condemnation for Hegel, whom he considered less worthy than Fichte or Schelling. Whereas Fichte was merely a windbag (Windbeutel), Hegel was a "commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive, and ignorant charlatan." The philosophers Karl Popper and Mario Bunge agreed with this distinction. Hegel, Schopenhauer wrote in the preface to his Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, not only "performed no service to philosophy, but he has had a detrimental influence on philosophy, and thereby on German literature in general, really a downright stupefying, or we could even say a pestilential influence, which it is therefore the duty of everyone capable of thinking for himself and judging for himself to counteract in the most express terms at every opportunity."Influence and legacySchopenhauer remained the most influential German philosopher until the First World War. His philosophy was a starting point for a new generation of philosophers including Julius Bahnsen, Paul Deussen, Lazar von Hellenbach, Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, Ernst Otto Lindner, Philipp Mainländer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Olga Plümacher and Agnes Taubert. His legacy shaped the intellectual debate, and forced movements that were utterly opposed to him, neo-Kantianism and positivism, to address issues they would otherwise have completely ignored, and in doing so he changed them markedly. The French writer Maupassant commented that "to-day even those who execrate him seem to carry in their own souls particles of his thought". Other philosophers of the 19th century who cited his influence include Hans Vaihinger, Volkelt, Solovyov and Weininger.Schopenhauer was well read by physicists, most notably Einstein, Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Majorana. Einstein described Schopenhauer's thoughts as a "continual consolation" and called him a genius. In his Berlin study three figures hung on the wall: Faraday, Maxwell, Schopenhauer. Konrad Wachsmann recalled: "He often sat with one of the well-worn Schopenhauer volumes, and as he sat there, he seemed so pleased, as if he were engaged with a serene and cheerful work."When Erwin Schrödinger discovered Schopenhauer ("the greatest savant of the West") he considered switching his study of physics to philosophy. He maintained the idealistic views during the rest of his life. Wolfgang Pauli accepted the main tenet of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, that the thing-in-itself is will.But most of all Schopenhauer is famous for his influence on artists. Richard Wagner became one of the earliest and most famous adherents of the Schopenhauerian philosophy. The admiration was not mutual, and Schopenhauer proclaimed: "I remain faithful to Rossini and Mozart!"  So he has been nicknamed "the artist's philosopher". See also Influence of Schopenhauer on Tristan und Isolde.Under the influence of Schopenhauer, Leo Tolstoy became convinced that the truth of all religions lies in self-renunciation. When he read Schopenhauer's philosophy, Tolstoy exclaimed "at present I am convinced that Schopenhauer is the greatest genius among men. ... It is the whole world in an incomparably beautiful and clear reflection." He said that what he has written in War and Peace is also said by Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation.Jorge Luis Borges remarked that the reason he had never attempted to write a systematic account of his world view, despite his penchant for philosophy and metaphysics in particular, was because Schopenhauer had already written it for him.Other figures in literature who were strongly influenced by Schopenhauer were Thomas Mann, Thomas Hardy, Afanasy Fet, J.-K. Huysmans and George Santayana. In Herman Melville's final years, while he wrote Billy Budd, he read Schopenhauer's essays and marked them heavily. Scholar Brian Yothers notes that Melville "marked numerous misanthropic and even suicidal remarks, suggesting an attraction to the most extreme sorts of solitude, but he also made note of Schopenhauer's reflection on the moral ambiguities of genius." Schopenhauer's attraction to and discussions of both Eastern and Western religions in conjunction with each other made an impression on Melville in his final years.Sergei Prokofiev, although initially reluctant to engage with works noted for their pessimism, became fascinated with Schopenhauer after reading Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life in Parerga and Paralipomena. "With his truths Schopenhauer gave me a spiritual world and an awareness of happiness."Friedrich Nietzsche owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading The World as Will and Representation and admitted that he was one of the few philosophers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay "Schopenhauer als Erzieher" one of his Untimely Meditations.Early in his career, Ludwig Wittgenstein adopted Schopenhauer's epistemological idealism, and some traits of Schopenhauer's influence (particularly Schopenhauerian transcendentalism) can be observed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Later on, Wittgenstein rejected epistemological transcendental idealism for Gottlob Frege's conceptual realism. In later years, Wittgenstein became highly dismissive of Schopenhauer, describing him as an ultimately shallow thinker. His friend Bertrand Russell had a low opinion on the philosopher, and even came to attack him in his History of Western Philosophy for hypocritically praising asceticism yet not acting upon it.Opposite to Russell on the foundations of mathematics, the Dutch mathematician L. E. J. Brouwer incorporated Kant's and Schopenhauer's ideas in the philosophical school of intuitionism, where mathematics is considered as a purely mental activity instead of an analytic activity wherein objective properties of reality are revealed. Brouwer was also influenced by Schopenhauer's metaphysics, and wrote an essay on mysticism.Schopenhauer's philosophy has made its way into a novel, The Schopenhauer Cure, by American existential psychiatrist and emeritus professor of psychiatry Irvin Yalom.Schopenhauer's philosophy, and the discussions on philosophical pessimism it has engendered, has been the focus of contemporary thinkers such as David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, and Eugene Thacker. Their work also served as an inspiration for the popular HBO TV series True Detective.Selected bibliography  On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde), 1813 On Vision and Colors (Ueber das Sehn und die Farben), 1816  Theory of Colors (Theoria colorum), 1830. The World as Will and Representation (alternatively translated in English as The World as Will and Idea; original German is Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung): vol. 1818–1819, vol. 2, 1844 Vol. 1 Dover edition 1966,  Vol. 2 Dover edition 1966,  Peter Smith Publisher hardcover set 1969,  Everyman Paperback combined abridged edition (290 pp.)  The Art of Being Right (Eristische Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu Behalten), 1831 On the Will in Nature (Ueber den Willen in der Natur), 1836  On the Freedom of the Will (Ueber die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens), 1839  On the Basis of Morality (Ueber die Grundlage der Moral), 1840 The Two Basic Problems of Ethics: On the Freedom of the Will, On the Basis of Morality (Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik: Ueber die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, Ueber das Fundament der Moral), 1841. Parerga and Paralipomena (2 vols., 1851) – Reprint: (Oxford: Clarendon Press) (2 vols., 1974) (English translation by E. F. J. Payne) Printings: 1974 Hardcover, by ISBN Vols. 1 and 2, , Vol. 1, ISBN Vol. 2, , 1974–1980 Paperback, Vol. 1, , Vol. 2, , 2001 Paperback, Vol. 1, , Vol. 2,  Essays and Aphorisms, being excerpts from Volume 2 of Parerga und Paralipomena, selected and translated by R. J. Hollingdale, with Introduction by R J Hollingdale, Penguin Classics, 1970, Paperback 1973:  An Enquiry concerning Ghost-seeing, and what is connected therewith (Versuch über das Geistersehn und was damit zusammenhangt), 1851 Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, Volume II, Berg Publishers Ltd.,Online   The Art Of Controversy (Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten). (bilingual) [The Art of Being Right] Studies in Pessimism – audiobook from LibriVox The World as Will and Idea at Internet Archive: Volume I Volume II Volume III On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason and On the will in nature. Two essays: Internet Archive. Translated by Mrs. Karl Hillebrand (1903). Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection. Reprinted by Cornell University Library Digital Collections Facsimile edition of Schopenhauer's manuscripts in SchopenhauerSource Essays of SchopenhauerSee also  Antinatalism Existential nihilism Eye of a needle God in Buddhism Massacre of the Innocents (Guido Reni) Misotheism Mortal coil Nihilism Post-Schopenhauerian pessimismReferencesSources  Albright, Daniel (2004) Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press.  Beiser, Frederick C., Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).  Hannan, Barbara, The Riddle of the World: A Reconsideration of Schopenhauer's Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Magee, Bryan, Confessions of a Philosopher, Random House, 1998, . Chapters 20, 21. Safranski, Rüdiger (1990) Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy. Harvard University Press, ; orig. German Schopenhauer und Die wilden Jahre der Philosophie, Carl Hanser Verlag (1987) Thomas Mann editor, The Living Thoughts of Schopenhauer, Longmans Green & Co., 1939Further readingBiographies  Cartwright, David. Schopenhauer: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2010.  Frederick Copleston, Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher of pessimism (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1946) O. F. Damm, Arthur Schopenhauer – eine Biographie (Reclam, 1912) Kuno Fischer, Arthur Schopenhauer (Heidelberg: Winter, 1893); revised as Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre (Heidelberg: Winter, 1898). Eduard Grisebach, Schopenhauer – Geschichte seines Lebens (Berlin: Hofmann, 1876). D. W. Hamlyn, Schopenhauer, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (1980, 1985) Heinrich Hasse, Schopenhauer. (Reinhardt, 1926) Arthur Hübscher, Arthur Schopenhauer – Ein Lebensbild (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1938). Thomas Mann, Schopenhauer (Bermann-Fischer, 1938) Matthews, Jack, Schopenhauer's Will: Das Testament, Nine Point Publishing, 2015. . A recent creative biography by philosophical novelist Jack Matthews. Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer und die wilden Jahre der Philosophie – Eine Biographie, hard cover Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1987, , pocket edition Fischer: . Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, trans. Ewald Osers (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989) Walther Schneider, Schopenhauer – Eine Biographie (Vienna: Bermann-Fischer, 1937). William Wallace, Life of Arthur Schopenhauer (London: Scott, 1890; repr., St. Clair Shores, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1970) Helen Zimmern, Arthur Schopenhauer:  His Life and His Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1876)Other books  App, Urs. Arthur Schopenhauer and China. Sino-Platonic Papers Nr. 200 (April 2010) (PDF, 8.7 Mb PDF, 164 p.). Contains extensive appendixes with transcriptions and English translations of Schopenhauer's early notes about Buddhism and Indian philosophy. Atwell, John. Schopenhauer on the Character of the World, The Metaphysics of Will. --------, Schopenhauer, The Human Character. Edwards, Anthony. An Evolutionary Epistemological Critique of Schopenhauer's Metaphysics. 123 Books, 2011. Copleston, Frederick, Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism, 1946 (reprinted London: Search Press, 1975). Gardiner, Patrick, 1963. Schopenhauer. Penguin Books. --------, Schopenhauer: A Very Short introduction. Janaway, Christopher, 2003. Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy. Oxford University Press.  Magee, Bryan, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Oxford University Press (1988, reprint 1997).  Mannion, Gerard, "Schopenhauer, Religion and Morality – The Humble Path to Ethics", Ashgate Press, New Critical Thinking in Philosophy Series, 2003, 314pp. Trottier, Danick. L’influence de la philosophie schopenhauerienne dans la vie et l’oeuvre de Richard Wagner; et, Qu’est-ce qui séduit, obsède, magnétise le philosophe dans l’art des sons? deux études en esthétique musicale, Université du Québec à Montréal, Département de musique, 2000. Zimmern, Helen, Arthur Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy, London, Longman, and Co., 1876.Articles   Jiménez, Camilo, 2006, "Tagebuch eines Ehrgeizigen: Arthur Schopenhauers Studienjahre in Berlin," Avinus Magazin (in German). Luchte, James, 2009, "The Body of Sublime Knowledge: The Aesthetic Phenomenology of Arthur Schopenhauer," Heythrop Journal, Volume 50, Number 2, pp. 228–242. Mazard, Eisel, 2005, "Schopenhauer and the Empirical Critique of Idealism in the History of Ideas." On Schopenhauer's (debated) place in the history of European philosophy and his relation to his predecessors. Moges, Awet, 2006, "Schopenhauer's Philosophy." Galileian Library. Sangharakshita, 2004, "Schopenhauer and aesthetic appreciation."  Oxenford's "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy," (See p. 388) Thacker, Eugene, 2020. "A Philosophy in Ruins, An Unquiet Void." Introduction to Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World. Repeater Books.External links      Arthur Schopenhauer an article by Mary Troxell in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2011 Schopenhauersource: Reproductions of Schopenhauer's manuscripts Kant's philosophy as rectified by Schopenhauer Timeline of German Philosophers A Quick Introduction to Schopenhauer Ross, Kelley L., 1998, "Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)." Two short essays, on Schopenhauer's life and work, and on his dim view of academia. More Than 100 Years Later: A Schopenhauerian Revision of Breuer's Anna O  1788 births1860 deaths19th-century atheists19th-century essayists19th-century German male writers19th-century German non-fiction writers19th-century German philosophers19th-century German writers19th-century philosophersAestheticsAnimal rights scholarsAnti-natalistsAphoristsAtheist philosophersBurials at Frankfurt Main CemeteryContinental philosophersCritical theoristsCritics of ChristianityCritics of JudaismCritics of religionsCultural criticsEpistemologistsFlautistsGerman atheist writersGerman BuddhistsGerman scholars of BuddhismGerman ethicistsGerman eugenicistsGerman flautistsGerman logiciansGerman male essayistsGerman male non-fiction writersGerman monarchistsGerman people of Dutch descentGerman philologistsHumboldt University of Berlin facultyIdealistsKantian philosophersLogiciansMetaphilosophersMetaphysiciansMonismMoral philosophersOntologistsPhenomenologistsPhilosophers of artPhilosophers of culturePhilosophers of educationPhilosophers of ethics and moralityPhilosophers of historyPhilosophers of languagePhilosophers of literaturePhilosophers of logicPhilosophers of lovePhilosophers of mindPhilosophers of pessimismPhilosophers of psychologyPhilosophers of religionPhilosophers of sciencePhilosophy writersPolitical philosophersSimple living advocatesGerman social commentatorsSocial criticsSocial philosophersTheorists on Western civilizationUniversity of Göttingen alumniWriters from Gdańsk
Angola (; ), officially the Republic of Angola (), is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) country in both total area and population (behind Brazil), and is the seventh-largest country in Africa. It is bordered by Namibia to the south, the DR Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Angola has an exclave province, the province of Cabinda, that borders the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital and most populated city is Luanda.Angola has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Age. Its formation as a nation-state originates from Portuguese colonisation, which initially began with coastal settlements and trading posts founded in the 16th century. In the 19th century, European settlers gradually began to establish themselves in the interior. The Portuguese colony that became Angola did not have its present borders until the early 20th century, owing to resistance by native groups such as the Cuamato, the Kwanyama and the Mbunda.After a protracted anti-colonial struggle, Angola achieved independence in 1975 as a Marxist–Leninist one-party Republic. The country descended into a devastating civil war the same year, between the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the insurgent anti-communist National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), supported by the United States and South Africa, and the militant organisation National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), backed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country has been governed by MPLA ever since its independence in 1975. Following the end of the war in 2002, Angola emerged as a relatively stable unitary, presidential constitutional republic.Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war; however, economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small sector of the population and highly concentrated in China and in the United States. The standard of living remains low for most Angolans; life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, while infant mortality is among the highest. Since 2017, the government of João Lourenço has made fighting corruption its flagship, so much so that many individuals of the previous government are either jailed or awaiting trial. Whilst this effort has been recognised by foreign diplomats to be legitimate, some skeptics see the actions as being politically motivated.Angola is a member of the United Nations, OPEC, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, and the Southern African Development Community. As of 2021, the Angolan population is estimated at 32.87 million. Angola is multicultural and multiethnic. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese rule, namely the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church, intermingled with a variety of indigenous customs and traditions.EtymologyThe name Angola comes from the Portuguese colonial name  ('Kingdom of Angola'), which appeared as early as Paulo Dias de Novais's 1571 charter. The toponym was derived by the Portuguese from the title  held by the kings of Ndongo and Matamba. Ndongo in the highlands, between the Kwanza and Lucala Rivers, was nominally a possession of the Kingdom of Kongo, but was seeking greater independence in the 16th century.HistoryEarly migrations and political unitsModern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were neither pastoralists nor cultivators, but rather hunter-gatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north in the first millennium BC, most of whom likely originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain.A number of political entities were established; the best-known of these was the Kingdom of the Kongo, based in Angola, which extended northward to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Gabon. It established trade routes with other city-states and civilisations up to and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and even with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo, and right next to them lay the Kingdom of Matamba.Portuguese colonizationPortuguese explorer Diogo Cão reached the area in 1484. The previous year, the Portuguese had established relations with the Kongo, which stretched at the time from modern Gabon in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The Portuguese established their primary early trading post at Soyo, which is now the northernmost city in Angola apart from the Cabinda exclave. Paulo Dias de Novais founded São Paulo de Loanda (Luanda) in 1575 with a hundred families of settlers and four hundred soldiers. Benguela was fortified in 1587 and became a township in 1617.The Portuguese established several other settlements, forts and trading posts along the Angolan coast, principally trading in Angolan slaves for plantations. Local slave dealers provided a large number of slaves for the Portuguese Empire, usually in exchange for manufactured goods from Europe.This part of the Atlantic slave trade continued until after Brazil's independence in the 1820s.Despite Portugal's territorial claims in Angola, its control over much of the country's vast interior was minimal. In the 16th century Portugal gained control of the coast through a series of treaties and wars. Life for European colonists was difficult and progress was slow. John Iliffe notes that "Portuguese records of Angola from the 16th century show that a great famine occurred on average every seventy years; accompanied by epidemic disease, it might kill one-third or one-half of the population, destroying the demographic growth of a generation and forcing colonists back into the river valleys".During the Portuguese Restoration War, the Dutch West India Company occupied the principal settlement of Luanda in 1641, using alliances with local peoples to carry out attacks against Portuguese holdings elsewhere. A fleet under Salvador de Sá retook Luanda in 1648; reconquest of the rest of the territory was completed by 1650. New treaties with the Kongo were signed in 1649; others with Njinga's Kingdom of Matamba and Ndongo followed in 1656. The conquest of Pungo Andongo in 1671 was the last major Portuguese expansion from Luanda, as attempts to invade Kongo in 1670 and Matamba in 1681 failed. Colonial outposts also expanded inward from Benguela, but until the late 19th century the inroads from Luanda and Benguela were very limited. Hamstrung by a series of political upheavals in the early 1800s, Portugal was slow to mount a large scale annexation of Angolan territory.The slave trade was abolished in Angola in 1836, and in 1854 the colonial government freed all its existing slaves. Four years later, a more progressive administration appointed by Portugal abolished slavery altogether. However, these decrees remained largely unenforceable, and the Portuguese depended on assistance from the British Royal Navy to enforce their ban on the slave trade. This coincided with a series of renewed military expeditions into the bush.By the mid-nineteenth century Portugal had established its dominion as far north as the Congo River and as far south as Mossâmedes. Until the late 1880s, Portugal entertained proposals to link Angola with its colony in Mozambique but was blocked by British and Belgian opposition. In this period, the Portuguese came up against different forms of armed resistance from various peoples in Angola.The Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 set the colony's borders, delineating the boundaries of Portuguese claims in Angola, although many details were unresolved until the 1920s. Trade between Portugal and its African territories rapidly increased as a result of protective tariffs, leading to increased development, and a wave of new Portuguese immigrants.Angolan independenceUnder colonial law, black Angolans were forbidden from forming political parties or labour unions. The first nationalist movements did not take root until after World War II, spearheaded by a largely Westernised and Portuguese-speaking urban class, which included many mestiços. During the early 1960s they were joined by other associations stemming from ad hoc labour activism in the rural workforce. Portugal's refusal to address increasing Angolan demands for self-determination provoked an armed conflict, which erupted in 1961 with the Baixa de Cassanje revolt and gradually evolved into a protracted war of independence that persisted for the next twelve years. Throughout the conflict, three militant nationalist movements with their own partisan guerrilla wings emerged from the fighting between the Portuguese government and local forces, supported to varying degrees by the Portuguese Communist Party.The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) recruited from Bakongo refugees in Zaire. Benefiting from particularly favourable political circumstances in Léopoldville, and especially from a common border with Zaire, Angolan political exiles were able to build up a power base among a large expatriate community from related families, clans, and traditions. People on both sides of the border spoke mutually intelligible dialects and enjoyed shared ties to the historical Kingdom of Kongo. Though as foreigners skilled Angolans could not take advantage of Mobutu Sese Seko's state employment programme, some found work as middlemen for the absentee owners of various lucrative private ventures. The migrants eventually formed the FNLA with the intention of making a bid for political power upon their envisaged return to Angola.A largely Ovimbundu guerrilla initiative against the Portuguese in central Angola from 1966 was spearheaded by Jonas Savimbi and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). It remained handicapped by its geographic remoteness from friendly borders, the ethnic fragmentation of the Ovimbundu, and the isolation of peasants on European plantations where they had little opportunity to mobilise.During the late 1950s, the rise of the Marxist–Leninist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the east and Dembos hills north of Luanda came to hold special significance. Formed as a coalition resistance movement by the Angolan Communist Party, the organisation's leadership remained predominantly Ambundu and courted public sector workers in Luanda. Although both the MPLA and its rivals accepted material assistance from the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China, the former harboured strong anti-imperialist views and was openly critical of the United States and its support for Portugal. This allowed it to win important ground on the diplomatic front, soliciting support from nonaligned governments in Morocco, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and the United Arab Republic.The MPLA attempted to move its headquarters from Conakry to Léopoldville in October 1961, renewing efforts to create a common front with the FNLA, then known as the Union of Angolan Peoples (UPA) and its leader Holden Roberto. Roberto turned down the offer. When the MPLA first attempted to insert its own insurgents into Angola, the cadres were ambushed and annihilated by UPA partisans on Roberto's orders—setting a precedent for the bitter factional strife which would later ignite the Angolan Civil War.Angolan Civil WarThroughout the war of independence, the three rival nationalist movements were severely hampered by political and military factionalism, as well as their inability to unite guerrilla efforts against the Portuguese. Between 1961 and 1975 the MPLA, UNITA, and the FNLA competed for influence in the Angolan population and the international community. The Soviet Union and Cuba became especially sympathetic towards the MPLA and supplied that party with arms, ammunition, funding, and training. They also backed UNITA militants until it became clear that the latter was at irreconcilable odds with the MPLA.The collapse of Portugal's Estado Novo government following the 1974 Carnation Revolution suspended all Portuguese military activity in Africa and the brokering of a ceasefire pending negotiations for Angolan independence. Encouraged by the Organisation of African Unity, Holden Roberto, Jonas Savimbi, and MPLA chairman Agostinho Neto met in Mombasa in early January 1975 and agreed to form a coalition government. This was ratified by the Alvor Agreement later that month, which called for general elections and set the country's independence date for 11 November 1975. All three factions, however, followed up on the ceasefire by taking advantage of the gradual Portuguese withdrawal to seize various strategic positions, acquire more arms, and enlarge their militant forces. The rapid influx of weapons from numerous external sources, especially the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the escalation of tensions between the nationalist parties, fueled a new outbreak of hostilities. With tacit American and Zairean support the FNLA began massing large numbers of troops in northern Angola in an attempt to gain military superiority. Meanwhile, the MPLA began securing control of Luanda, a traditional Ambundu stronghold. Sporadic violence broke out in Luanda over the next few months after the FNLA attacked MPLA forces in March 1975. The fighting intensified with street clashes in April and May, and UNITA became involved after over two hundred of its members were massacred by an MPLA contingent that June. An upswing in Soviet arms shipments to the MPLA influenced a decision by the Central Intelligence Agency to likewise provide substantial covert aid to the FNLA and UNITA.In August 1975, the MPLA requested direct assistance from the Soviet Union in the form of ground troops. The Soviets declined, offering to send advisers but no troops; however, Cuba was more forthcoming and in late September dispatched nearly five hundred combat personnel to Angola, along with sophisticated weaponry and supplies. By independence, there were over a thousand Cuban soldiers in the country. They were kept supplied by a massive airbridge carried out with Soviet aircraft. The persistent buildup of Cuban and Soviet military aid allowed the MPLA to drive its opponents from Luanda and blunt an abortive intervention by Zairean and South African troops, which had deployed in a belated attempt to assist the FNLA and UNITA. The FNLA was largely annihilated, although UNITA managed to withdraw its civil officials and militia from Luanda and seek sanctuary in the southern provinces. From there, Savimbi continued to mount a determined insurgent campaign against the MPLA.Between 1975 and 1991, the MPLA implemented an economic and political system based on the principles of scientific socialism, incorporating central planning and a Marxist–Leninist one-party state. It embarked on an ambitious programme of nationalisation, and the domestic private sector was essentially abolished. Privately owned enterprises were nationalised and incorporated into a single umbrella of state-owned enterprises known as Unidades Economicas Estatais (UEE). Under the MPLA, Angola experienced a significant degree of modern industrialisation. However, corruption and graft also increased and public resources were either allocated inefficiently or simply embezzled by officials for personal enrichment. The ruling party survived an attempted coup d'état by the Maoist-oriented Communist Organisation of Angola (OCA) in 1977, which was suppressed after a series of bloody political purges left thousands of OCA supporters dead (see 1977 Angolan coup d'état attempt). In the same period, the civil war culminated in its climax in a tandem of engagements, particularly the Battle of Quifangondo and soon after the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, which marked a turning point with a subsequent defeat of the xenophobic South African Army.The MPLA abandoned its former Marxist ideology at its third party congress in 1990, and declared social democracy to be its new platform. Angola subsequently became a member of the International Monetary Fund; restrictions on the market economy were also reduced in an attempt to draw foreign investment. By May 1991 it reached a peace agreement with UNITA, the Bicesse Accords, which scheduled new general elections for September 1992. When the MPLA secured a major electoral victory, UNITA objected to the results of both the presidential and legislative vote count and returned to war. Following the election, the Halloween massacre occurred from 30 October to 1 November, where MPLA forces killed thousands of UNITA supporters.21st centuryOn 22 March 2002, Jonas Savimbi was killed in action against government troops. UNITA and the MPLA reached a cease-fire shortly afterwards. UNITA gave up its armed wing and assumed the role of a major opposition party. Although the political situation of the country began to stabilise, regular democratic processes did not prevail until the elections in Angola in 2008 and 2012 and the adoption of a new constitution in 2010, all of which strengthened the prevailing dominant-party system.Angola has a serious humanitarian crisis; the result of the prolonged war, of the abundance of minefields, and the continued political agitation in favour of the independence of the exclave of Cabinda (carried out in the context of the protracted Cabinda conflict by the FLEC). While most of the internally displaced have now squatted around the capital, in musseques (shanty towns) the general situation for Angolans remains desperate.A drought in 2016 caused the worst food crisis in Southern Africa in 25 years, affecting 1.4 million people across seven of Angola's 18 provinces. Food prices rose and acute malnutrition rates doubled, with more than 95,000 children affected.José Eduardo dos Santos stepped down as President of Angola after 38 years in 2017, being peacefully succeeded by João Lourenço, Santos' chosen successor.GeographyAt , Angola is the world's twenty-fourth largest country - comparable in size to Mali, or twice the size of France or of Texas. It lies mostly between latitudes 4° and 18°S, and longitudes 12° and 24°E.Angola borders Namibia to the south, Zambia to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north-east and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west.The coastal exclave of Cabinda in the north has borders with the Republic of the Congo to the north and with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south.Angola's capital, Luanda, lies on the Atlantic coast in the northwest of the country.Angola had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.35/10, ranking it 23rd globally out of 172 countries.ClimateAngola, although located in a tropical zone, has a climate uncharacteristic of this zone, due to the confluence of three factors: the cold Benguela Current flowing along the southern part of the coast the relief in the interior the influence of the Namib Desert in the southwestAngola's climate features two seasons: rainfall from November to April drought, known as Cacimbo, from May to October, drier, as the name implies, and with lower temperaturesWhile the coastline has high rainfall rates, decreasing from north to south and from  to , with average annual temperatures above , one can divide the interior zone into three areas: North, with high rainfall and high temperatures Central Plateau, with a dry season and average temperatures of the order of 19 °C South, with very high thermal amplitudes due to the proximity of the Kalahari Desert and the influence of masses of tropical airAdministrative divisions , Angola is divided into eighteen provinces (províncias) and 162 municipalities. The municipalities are further divided into 559 communes (townships). The provinces are:Exclave of CabindaWith an area of approximately , the Northern Angolan province of Cabinda is unusual in being separated from the rest of the country by a strip, some  wide, of the Democratic Republic of Congo along the lower Congo River. Cabinda borders the Congo Republic to the north and north-northeast and the DRC to the east and south. The town of Cabinda is the chief population centre.According to a 1995 census, Cabinda had an estimated population of 600,000, approximately 400,000 of whom are citizens of neighboring countries. Population estimates are, however, highly unreliable. Consisting largely of tropical forest, Cabinda produces hardwoods, coffee, cocoa, crude rubber and palm oil.The product for which it is best known, however, is its oil, which has given it the nickname, "the Kuwait of Africa". Cabinda's petroleum production from its considerable offshore reserves now accounts for more than half of Angola's output. Most of the oil along its coast was discovered under Portuguese rule by the Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) from 1968 onwards.Ever since Portugal handed over sovereignty of its former overseas province of Angola to the local independence groups (MPLA, UNITA and FNLA), the territory of Cabinda has been a focus of separatist guerrilla actions opposing the Government of Angola (which has employed its armed forces, the FAA—Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Cabindan separatists. The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda-Armed Forces of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC) announced the virtual Federal Republic of Cabinda under the Presidency of N'Zita Henriques Tiago. One of the characteristics of the Cabindan independence movement is its constant fragmentation, into smaller and smaller factions.Government and politics The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. The executive branch of the government is composed of the President, the Vice-Presidents and the Council of Ministers.The legislative branch comprises a 220-seat unicameral legislature, the National Assembly of Angola, elected from both provincial and nationwide constituencies. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the presidency.After 38 years of rule, in 2017 President dos Santos stepped down from MPLA leadership. The leader of the winning party at the parliamentary elections in August 2017 would become the next president of Angola. The MPLA selected the former Defense Minister João Lourenço as Santos' chosen successor.In what has been described as a political purge to cement his power and reduce the influence of the Dos Santos family, Lourenço subsequently sacked the chief of the national police, Ambrósio de Lemos, and the head of the intelligence service, Apolinário José Pereira. Both are considered allies of former president Dos Santos. He also removed Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of the former president, as head of the country's state oil company Sonangol.ConstitutionThe Constitution of 2010 establishes the broad outlines of government structure and delineates the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system is based on Portuguese law and customary law but is weak and fragmented, and courts operate in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court serves as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court does not hold the powers of judicial review. Governors of the 18 provinces are appointed by the president. After the end of the civil war, the regime came under pressure from within as well as from the international community to become more democratic and less authoritarian. Its reaction was to implement a number of changes without substantially changing its character.The new constitution, adopted in 2010, did away with presidential elections, introducing a system in which the president and the vice-president of the political party that wins the parliamentary elections automatically become president and vice-president. Directly or indirectly, the president controls all other organs of the state, so there is de facto no separation of powers. In the classifications used in constitutional law, this government falls under the category of authoritarian regime.Armed forcesThe Angolan Armed Forces (FAA, Forças Armadas Angolanas ) are headed by a Chief of Staff who reports to the Minister of Defence. There are three divisions—the Army (Exército), Navy (Marinha de Guerra, MGA) and National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional, FAN). Total manpower is 107,000; plus paramilitary forces of 10,000 (2015 est.).Its equipment includes Russian-manufactured fighters, bombers and transport planes. There are also Brazilian-made EMB-312 Tucanos for training, Czech-made L-39s for training and bombing, and a variety of western-made aircraft such as the C-212\Aviocar, Sud Aviation Alouette III, etc. A small number of AAF personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).PoliceThe National Police departments are Public Order, Criminal Investigation, Traffic and Transport, Investigation and Inspection of Economic Activities, Taxation and Frontier Supervision, Riot Police and the Rapid Intervention Police. The National Police are in the process of standing up an air wing, to provide helicopter support for operations. The National Police are developing their criminal investigation and forensic capabilities. The force has an estimated 6,000 patrol officers, 2,500 taxation and frontier supervision officers, 182 criminal investigators and 100 financial crimes detectives and around 90 economic activity inspectors.The National Police have implemented a modernisation and development plan to increase the capabilities and efficiency of the total force. In addition to administrative reorganisation, modernisation projects include procurement of new vehicles, aircraft and equipment, construction of new police stations and forensic laboratories, restructured training programmes and the replacement of AKM rifles with 9 mm Uzis for officers in urban areas.JusticeA Supreme Court serves as a court of appeal. The Constitutional Court is the supreme body of the constitutional jurisdiction, established with the approval of Law no. 2/08, of 17 June – Organic Law of the Constitutional Court and Law n. 3/08, of 17 June – Organic Law of the Constitutional Process. The legal system is based on Portuguese and customary law. There are 12 courts in more than 140 counties in the country. Its first task was the validation of the candidacies of the political parties to the legislative elections of 5 September 2008. Thus, on 25 June 2008, the Constitutional Court was institutionalized and its Judicial Counselors assumed the position before the President of the Republic. Currently, seven advisory judges are present, four men and three women. In 2014, a new penal code took effect in Angola. The classification of money-laundering as a crime is one of the novelties in the new legislation.Foreign relationsAngola is a founding member state of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.On 16 October 2014, Angola was elected for the second time a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, with 190 favorable votes out of a total of 193. The term of office began on 1 January 2015 and expired on 31 December 2016.Since January 2014, the Republic of Angola has been chairing the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (CIRGL). [80] In 2015, CIRGL Executive Secretary Ntumba Luaba said that Angola is the example to be followed by the members of the organization, due to the significant progress made during the 12 years of peace, namely in terms of socio-economic stability and political-military.Human rightsAngola is classified as 'not free' by Freedom House in the Freedom in the World 2014 report. The report noted that the August 2012 parliamentary elections, in which the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won more than 70% of the vote, suffered from serious flaws, including outdated and inaccurate voter rolls. Voter turnout dropped from 80% in 2008 to 60%.A 2012 report by the U.S. Department of State said, "The three most important human rights abuses [in 2012] were official corruption and impunity; limits on the freedoms of assembly, association, speech, and press; and cruel and excessive punishment, including reported cases of torture and beatings as well as unlawful killings by police and other security personnel."Angola ranked forty-two of forty-eight sub-Saharan African states on the 2007 Index of African Governance list and scored poorly on the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It was ranked 39 out of 52 sub-Saharan African countries, scoring particularly badly in the areas of participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development. The Ibrahim Index uses a number of variables to compile its list which reflects the state of governance in Africa.In 2019, homosexual acts were decriminalized in Angola, and the government also prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. The vote was overwhelming: 155 for, 1 against, 7 abstaining.EconomyAngola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper and rich wildlife (which was dramatically depleted during the civil war), forest and fossil fuels. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture dramatically dropped in the Angolan Civil War, but began to recover after 2002.Angola's economy has in recent years moved on from the disarray caused by a quarter-century of Angolan civil war to become the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest-growing in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20% between 2005 and 2007. In the period 2001–10, Angola had the world's highest annual average GDP growth, at 11.1%.In 2004, the Exim Bank of China approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola, to be used for rebuilding Angola's infrastructure, and to limit the influence of the International Monetary Fund there.China is Angola's biggest trade partner and export destination as well as the fourth-largest source of imports. Bilateral trade reached $27.67 billion in 2011, up 11.5% year-on-year. China's imports, mainly crude oil and diamonds, increased 9.1% to $24.89 billion while China's exports to Angola, including mechanical and electrical products, machinery parts and construction materials, surged 38.8%. The oil glut led to a local price for unleaded gasoline of £0.37 a gallon.The Angolan economy grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007. Due to the global recession, the economy contracted an estimated −0.3% in 2009. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has allowed the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons and a resulting large-scale increase in agriculture production. Angola's economy is expected to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2014 said the International Monetary Fund (IMF), robust growth in the non-oil economy, mainly driven by a very good performance in the agricultural sector, is expected to offset a temporary drop in oil production.Angola's financial system is maintained by the National Bank of Angola and managed by the governor Jose de Lima Massano. According to a study on the banking sector, carried out by Deloitte, the monetary policy led by Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), the Angolan national bank, allowed a decrease in the inflation rate put at 7.96% in December 2013, which contributed to the sector's growth trend. Estimates released by Angola's central bank, said country's economy should grow at an annual average rate of 5 per cent over the next four years, boosted by the increasing participation of the private sector.Although the country's economy has grown significantly since Angola achieved political stability in 2002, mainly due to fast-rising earnings in the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of almost continual armed conflict from 1961 on, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality chiefly stems from persistent authoritarianism, "neo-patrimonial" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military and economic structures, and of a pervasive corruption. The main beneficiaries are political, administrative, economic and military power holders, who have accumulated (and continue to accumulate) enormous wealth."Secondary beneficiaries" are the middle strata that are about to become social classes. However, almost half the population has to be considered poor, with dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities, where slightly more than 50% of the people reside.A study carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística found that in rural areas roughly 58% must be classified as "poor" according to UN norms but in the urban areas only 19%, and an overall rate of 37%. In cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, must adopt a variety of survival strategies. In urban areas social inequality is most evident and it is extreme in Luanda. In the Human Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group.In January 2020, a leak of government documents known as the Luanda Leaks showed that U.S. consulting companies such as Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers had helped members of the family of former President José Eduardo dos Santos (especially his daughter Isabel dos Santos) corruptly run Sonangol for their own personal profit, helping them use the company's revenues to fund vanity projects in France and Switzerland. After further revelations in the Pandora Papers, former generals Dias and do Nascimento and former presidential advisers were also accused of misappropriating significant public funds for personal benefit.The enormous differences between the regions pose a serious structural problem for the Angolan economy, illustrated by the fact that about one third of economic activities are concentrated in Luanda and neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior suffer economic stagnation and even regression.One of the economic consequences of social and regional disparities is a sharp increase in Angolan private investments abroad. The small fringe of Angolan society where most of the asset accumulation takes place seeks to spread its assets, for reasons of security and profit. For the time being, the biggest share of these investments is concentrated in Portugal where the Angolan presence (including the family of the state president) in banks as well as in the domains of energy, telecommunications, and mass media has become notable, as has the acquisition of vineyards and orchards as well as of tourism enterprises.Angola has upgraded critical infrastructure, an investment made possible by funds from the nation's development of oil resources. According to a report, just slightly more than ten years after the end of the civil war Angola's standard of living has overall greatly improved. Life expectancy, which was just 46 years in 2002, reached 51 in 2011. Mortality rates for children fell from 25 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent in 2010 and the number of students enrolled in primary school has tripled since 2001. However, at the same time the social and economic inequality that has characterised the country for so long has not diminished, but has deepened in all respects.With a stock of assets corresponding to 70 billion Kz (US$6.8 billion), Angola is now the third-largest financial market in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and South Africa. According to the Angolan Minister of Economy, Abraão Gourgel, the financial market of the country grew modestly since 2002 and now occupies third place in sub-Saharan Africa.On 19 December 2014, the Capital Market in Angola was launched. BODIVA (Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives, in English) was allocated the secondary public debt market, and was expected to launch the corporate debt market by 2015, though the stock market itself was only expected to commence trading in 2016.Natural resourcesThe Economist reported in 2008 that diamonds and oil make up 60% of Angola's economy, almost all of the country's revenue and all of its dominant exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed  in late 2005 and was expected to grow to  by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. In December 2006, Angola was admitted as a member of OPEC.According to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, oil production from Angola has increased so significantly that Angola now is China's biggest supplier of oil. "China has extended three multi-billion dollar lines of credit to the Angolan government; two loans of $2 billion from China Exim Bank, one in 2004, the second in 2007, as well as one loan in 2005 of $2.9 billion from China International Fund Ltd."Growing oil revenues also created opportunities for corruption: according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, 32 billion US dollars disappeared from government accounts in 2007–2010. Furthermore, Sonangol, the state-run oil company, controls 51% of Cabinda's oil. Due to this market control, the company ends up determining the profit received by the government and the taxes it pays. The council of foreign affairs states that the World Bank mentioned that Sonangol is a taxpayer, it carries out quasi-fiscal activities, it invests public funds, and, as concessionaire, it is a sector regulator. This multifarious work program creates conflicts of interest and characterises a complex relationship between Sonangol and the government that weakens the formal budgetary process and creates uncertainty as regards the actual fiscal stance of the state."In 2002, Angola demanded compensation for oil spills allegedly caused by Chevron Corporation, the first time it had fined a multinational corporation operating in its waters.Operations in its diamond mines include partnerships between state-run Endiama and mining companies such as ALROSA which operate in Angola.Access to biocapacity in Angola is higher than world average. In 2016, Angola had 1.9 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, slightly more than world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Angola used 1.01 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use about half as much biocapacity as Angola contains. As a result, Angola is running a biocapacity reserve.AgricultureAgriculture and forestry is an area of potential opportunity for the country. The African Economic Outlook organization states that "Angola requires 4.5 million tonnes a year of grain but grows only about 55% of the maize it needs, 20% of the rice and just 5% of its required wheat".In addition, the World Bank estimates that "less than 3 per cent of Angola's abundant fertile land is cultivated and the economic potential of the forestry sector remains largely unexploited".Before independence in 1975, Angola was a bread-basket of southern Africa and a major exporter of bananas, coffee and sisal, but three decades of civil war (1975–2002) destroyed fertile countryside, left it littered with landmines and drove millions into the cities.The country now depends on expensive food imports, mainly from South Africa and Portugal, while more than 90% of farming is done at the family and subsistence level. Thousands of Angolan small-scale farmers are trapped in poverty.Transport Transport in Angola consists of:Three separate railway systems totalling  of highway of which  is paved1,295 navigable inland waterwaysfive major sea ports  243 airports, of which 32 are paved.Angola centers its port trade in five main ports: Namibe, Lobito, Soyo, Cabinda and Luanda. The port of Luanda is the largest of the five, as well as being one of the busiest on the African continent.Travel on highways outside of towns and cities in Angola (and in some cases within) is often not best advised for those without four-by-four vehicles. While reasonable road infrastructure has existed within Angola, time and war have taken their toll on the road surfaces, leaving many severely potholed, littered with broken asphalt. In many areas drivers have established alternate tracks to avoid the worst parts of the surface, although careful attention must be paid to the presence or absence of landmine warning markers by the side of the road. The Angolan government has contracted the restoration of many of the country's roads. The road between Lubango and Namibe, for example, was completed recently with funding from the European Union, and is comparable to many European main routes. Completing the road infrastructure is likely to take some decades, but substantial efforts are already being made.TelecommunicationsThe telecommunications industry is considered one of the main strategic sectors in Angola.In October 2014, the building of an optic fiber underwater cable was announced. This project aims to turn Angola into a continental hub, thus improving Internet connections both nationally and internationally.On 11 March 2015, the First Angolan Forum of Telecommunications and Information Technology was held in Luanda under the motto "The challenges of telecommunications in the current context of Angola", to promote debate on topical issues on telecommunications in Angola and worldwide. A study of this sector, presented at the forum, said Angola had the first telecommunications operator in Africa to test LTE – with speeds up to 400 Mbit/s – and mobile penetration of about 75%; there are about 3.5 million smartphones in the Angolan market; There are about  of optical fibre installed in the country.The first Angolan satellite, AngoSat-1, was launched into orbit on 26 December 2017. It was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on board a Zenit 3F rocket. The satellite was built by Russia's RSC Energia, a subsidiary of the state-run space industry player Roscosmos. The satellite payload was supplied by Airbus Defence & Space. Due to an on-board power failure during solar panel deployment, on 27 December, RSC Energia revealed that they lost communications contact with the satellite. Although, subsequent attempts to restore communications with the satellite were successful, the satellite eventually stopped sending data and RSC Energia confirmed that AngoSat-1 was inoperable. The launch of AngoSat-1 was aimed at ensuring telecommunications throughout the country. According to Aristides Safeca, Secretary of State for Telecommunications, the satellite was aimed at providing telecommunications services, TV, internet and e-government and was expected to remain in orbit "at best" for 18 years. A replacement satellite named AngoSat-2 is in the works and is expected to be in service by 2020. As of February 2021, Ango-Sat-2 was about 60% ready. The officials reported the launch is expected in about 17 months, by July 2022.Technology The management of the top-level domain '.ao' passed from Portugal to Angola in 2015, following new legislation. A joint decree of Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technologies José Carvalho da Rocha and the minister of Science and Technology, Maria Cândida Pereira Teixeira, states that "under the massification" of that Angolan domain, "conditions are created for the transfer of the domain root '.ao' of Portugal to Angola".DemographicsAngola has a population of 24,383,301 inhabitants according to the preliminary results of its 2014 census, the first one conducted or carried out since 15 December 1970. It is composed of Ovimbundu (language Umbundu) 37%, Ambundu (language Kimbundu) 23%, Bakongo 13%, and 32% other ethnic groups (including the Chokwe, the Ovambo, the Ganguela and the Xindonga) as well as about 2% mulattos (mixed European and African), 1.6% Chinese and 1% European. The Ambundu and Ovimbundu ethnic groups combined form a majority of the population, at 62%. The population is forecast to grow to over 60 million people in 2050, 2.7 times the 2014 population. However, on 23 March 2016, official data revealed by Angola's National Statistic Institute – Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), states that Angola has a population of 25,789,024 inhabitants.It is estimated that Angola was host to 12,100 refugees and 2,900 asylum seekers by the end of 2007. 11,400 of those refugees were originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who arrived in the 1970s.  there were an estimated 400,000 Democratic Republic of the Congo migrant workers, at least 220,000 Portuguese, and about 259,000 Chinese living in Angola. 1 million Angolans are mixed race (black and white).Since 2003, more than 400,000 Congolese migrants have been expelled from Angola. Prior to independence in 1975, Angola had a community of approximately 350,000 Portuguese, but the vast majority left after independence and the ensuing civil war. However, Angola has recovered its Portuguese minority in recent years; currently, there are about 200,000 registered with the consulates, and increasing due to the debt crisis in Portugal and the relative prosperity in Angola. The Chinese population stands at 258,920, mostly composed of temporary migrants. Also, there is a small Brazilian community of about 5,000 people., the total fertility rate of Angola is 5.54 children born per woman (2012 estimates), the 11th highest in the world.Languages The languages in Angola are those originally spoken by the different ethnic groups and Portuguese, introduced during the Portuguese colonial era. The most widely spoken indigenous languages are Umbundu, Kimbundu and Kikongo, in that order. Portuguese is the official language of the country.Although the exact numbers of those fluent in Portuguese or who speak Portuguese as a first language are unknown, a 2012 study mentions that Portuguese is the first language of 39% of the population. In 2014, a census carried out by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística in Angola mentions that 71.15% of the nearly 25.8 million inhabitants of Angola (meaning around 18.3 million people) use Portuguese as a first or second language.According to the 2014 census, Portuguese is spoken by 71.1% of Angolans, Umbundu by 23%, Kikongo by 8.2%, Kimbundu by 7.8%, Chokwe by 6.5%, Nyaneka by 3.4%, Ngangela by 3.1%, Fiote by 2.4%, Kwanyama by 2.3%, Muhumbi by 2.1%, Luvale by 1%, and other languages by 4.1%.Religion There are about 1,000 religious communities, mostly Christian, in Angola. While reliable statistics are nonexistent, estimates have it that more than half of the population are Catholics, while about a quarter adhere to the Protestant churches introduced during the colonial period: the Congregationalists mainly among the Ovimbundu of the Central Highlands and the coastal region to its west, the Methodists concentrating on the Kimbundu speaking strip from Luanda to Malanje, the Baptists almost exclusively among the Bakongo of the north-west (now present in Luanda as well) and dispersed Adventists, Reformed and Lutherans.In Luanda and region there subsists a nucleus of the "syncretic" Tocoists and in the north-west a sprinkling of Kimbanguism can be found, spreading from the Congo/Zaïre. Since independence, hundreds of Pentecostal and similar communities have sprung up in the cities, whereby now about 50% of the population is living; several of these communities/churches are of Brazilian origin. the U.S. Department of State estimates the Muslim population at 80,000–90,000, less than 1% of the population, while the Islamic Community of Angola puts the figure closer to 500,000. Muslims consist largely of migrants from West Africa and the Middle East (especially Lebanon), although some are local converts. The Angolan government does not legally recognize any Muslim organizations and often shuts down mosques or prevents their construction.In a study assessing nations' levels of religious regulation and persecution with scores ranging from 0 to 10 where 0 represented low levels of regulation or persecution, Angola was scored 0.8 on Government Regulation of Religion, 4.0 on Social Regulation of Religion, 0 on Government Favoritism of Religion and 0 on Religious Persecution.Foreign missionaries were very active prior to independence in 1975, although since the beginning of the anti-colonial fight in 1961 the Portuguese colonial authorities expelled a series of Protestant missionaries and closed mission stations based on the belief that the missionaries were inciting pro-independence sentiments. Missionaries have been able to return to the country since the early 1990s, although security conditions due to the civil war have prevented them until 2002 from restoring many of their former inland mission stations.The Catholic Church and some major Protestant denominations mostly keep to themselves in contrast to the "New Churches" which actively proselytize. Catholics, as well as some major Protestant denominations, provide help for the poor in the form of crop seeds, farm animals, medical care and education.UrbanizationHealth Epidemics of cholera, malaria, rabies and African hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg hemorrhagic fever, are common diseases in several parts of the country. Many regions in this country have high incidence rates of tuberculosis and high HIV prevalence rates. Dengue, filariasis, leishmaniasis and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are other diseases carried by insects that also occur in the region. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world and one of the world's lowest life expectancies. A 2007 survey concluded that low and deficient niacin status was common in Angola. Demographic and Health Surveys is currently conducting several surveys in Angola on malaria, domestic violence and more.In September 2014, the Angolan Institute for Cancer Control (IACC) was created by presidential decree, and it will integrate the National Health Service in Angola. The purpose of this new centre is to ensure health and medical care in oncology, policy implementation, programmes and plans for prevention and specialised treatment. This cancer institute will be assumed as a reference institution in the central and southern regions of Africa.In 2014, Angola launched a national campaign of vaccination against measles, extended to every child under ten years old and aiming to go to all 18 provinces in the country. The measure is part of the Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Measles 2014–2020 created by the Angolan Ministry of Health which includes strengthening routine immunisation, a proper dealing with measles cases, national campaigns, introducing a second dose of vaccination in the national routine vaccination calendar and active epidemiological surveillance for measles. This campaign took place together with the vaccination against polio and vitamin A supplementation.A yellow fever outbreak, the worst in the country in three decades began in December 2015. By August 2016, when the outbreak began to subside, nearly 4,000 people were suspected of being infected. As many as 369 may have died. The outbreak began in the capital, Luanda, and spread to at least 16 of the 18 provinces.Education Although by law education in Angola is compulsory and free for eight years, the government reports that a percentage of pupils are not attending due to a lack of school buildings and teachers. Pupils are often responsible for paying additional school-related expenses, including fees for books and supplies.In 1999, the gross primary enrollment rate was 74 per cent and in 1998, the most recent year for which data are available, the net primary enrollment rate was 61 per cent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of pupils formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. There continue to be significant disparities in enrollment between rural and urban areas. In 1995, 71.2 per cent of children ages 7 to 14 years were attending school. It is reported that higher percentages of boys attend school than girls. During the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), nearly half of all schools were reportedly looted and destroyed, leading to current problems with overcrowding.The Ministry of Education recruited 20,000 new teachers in 2005 and continued to implement teacher training. Teachers tend to be underpaid, inadequately trained and overworked (sometimes teaching two or three shifts a day). Some teachers may reportedly demand payment or bribes directly from their pupils. Other factors, such as the presence of landmines, lack of resources and identity papers, and poor health prevent children from regularly attending school. Although budgetary allocations for education were increased in 2004, the education system in Angola continues to be extremely under-funded.According to estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the adult literacy rate in 2011 was 70.4%. By 2015, this had increased to 71.1%. 82.9% of men and 54.2% of women are literate as of 2001. Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Angolan students continued to be admitted every year at high schools, polytechnical institutes and universities in Portugal and Brazil through bilateral agreements; in general, these students belong to the elites.In September 2014, the Angolan Ministry of Education announced an investment of 16 million Euros in the computerisation of over 300 classrooms across the country. The project also includes training teachers at a national level, "as a way to introduce and use new information technologies in primary schools, thus reflecting an improvement in the quality of teaching".In 2010, the Angolan government started building the Angolan Media Libraries Network, distributed throughout several provinces in the country to facilitate the people's access to information and knowledge. Each site has a bibliographic archive, multimedia resources and computers with Internet access, as well as areas for reading, researching and socialising. The plan envisages the establishment of one media library in each Angolan province by 2017. The project also includes the implementation of several media libraries, in order to provide the several contents available in the fixed media libraries to the most isolated populations in the country. At this time, the mobile media libraries are already operating in the provinces of Luanda, Malanje, Uíge, Cabinda and Lunda South. As for REMA, the provinces of Luanda, Benguela, Lubango and Soyo have currently working media libraries.CultureAngolan culture has been heavily influenced by Portuguese culture, especially in language and religion, and the culture of the indigenous ethnic groups of Angola, predominantly Bantu culture.The diverse ethnic communities—the Ovimbundu, Ambundu, Bakongo, Chokwe, Mbunda and other peoples—to varying degrees maintain their own cultural traits, traditions and languages, but in the cities, where slightly more than half of the population now lives, a mixed culture has been emerging since colonial times; in Luanda, since its foundation in the 16th century.In this urban culture, Portuguese heritage has become more and more dominant. African roots are evident in music and dance and is moulding the way in which Portuguese is spoken. This process is well reflected in contemporary Angolan literature, especially in the works of Angolan authors.In 2014, Angola resumed the National Festival of Angolan Culture after a 25-year break. The festival took place in all the provincial capitals and lasted for 20 days, with the theme ”Culture as a Factor of Peace and Development.Cinema In 1972, one of Angola's first feature films, Sarah Maldoror's internationally co-produced Sambizanga, was released at the Carthage Film Festival to critical acclaim, winning the Tanit d'Or, the festival's highest prize.Literature Angolan Writer Ndalu de Almeida, pen name Ondjaki published a novel called "Transparent City" in 2012 that takes place in Luanda, Angola.Sports Basketball is the second most popular sport in Angola. Its national team has won the AfroBasket 11 times and holds the record of most titles. As a top team in Africa, it is a regular competitor at the Summer Olympic Games and the FIBA World Cup. Angola is home to one of Africa's first competitive leagues.In football, Angola hosted the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. The Angola national football team qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their first appearance in the World Cup finals. They were eliminated after one defeat and two draws in the group stage. They won three COSAFA Cups and finished runner-up in the 2011 African Nations Championship.Angola has participated in the World Women's Handball Championship for several years. The country has also appeared in the Summer Olympics for seven years and both regularly competes in and once has hosted the FIRS Roller Hockey World Cup, where the best finish is sixth. Angola is also often believed to have historic roots in the martial art "Capoeira Angola" and "Batuque" which were practised by enslaved African Angolans transported as part of the Atlantic slave trade.See alsoOutline of AngolaIndex of Angola-related articlesReferencesFurther reading   Birmingham, David (2006) Empire in Africa: Angola and its Neighbors, Ohio University Press: Athens, Ohio. Bösl, Anton (2008) Angola's Parliamentary Elections in 2008. A Country on its Way to One-Party-Democracy, KAS Auslandsinformationen 10/2008. Die Parlamentswahlen in Angola 2008 Cilliers, Jackie and Christian Dietrich, Eds. (2000). Angola's War Economy: The Role of Oil and Diamonds. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. Global Witness (1999). A Crude Awakening, The Role of Oil and Banking Industries in Angola's Civil War and the Plundering of State Assets. London, UK, Global Witness. A Crude Awakening Hodges, Tony (2001). Angola from Afro-Stalinism to Petro-Diamond Capitalism. Oxford: James Currey. Hodges, Tony (2004). Angola: The Anatomy of an Oil State. Oxford, UK and Indianapolis, US, The Fridtjol Nansen Institute & The International African Institute in association with James Currey and Indiana University Press. Human Rights Watch (2004). Some Transparency, No Accountability: The Use of Oil Revenues in Angola and Its Impact on Human Rights. New York, Human Rights Watch. Some Transparency, No Accountability: The Use of Oil Revenue in Angola and Its Impact on Human Rights (Human Rights Watch Report, January 2004) Human Rights Watch (2005). Coming Home, Return and Reintegration in Angola. New York, Human Rights Watch. Coming Home: Return and Reintegration in Angola James, Walter (1992). A political history of the civil war in Angola, 1964–1990. New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers. Kapuściński, Ryszard. Another Day of Life, Penguin, 1975. . A Polish journalist's account of Portuguese withdrawal from Angola and the beginning of the civil war. Kevlihan, R. (2003). "Sanctions and humanitarian concerns: Ireland and Angola, 2001-2". Irish Studies in International Affairs 14: 95–106. Lari, A. (2004). Returning home to a normal life? The plight of displaced Angolans. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. Lari, A. and R. Kevlihan (2004). "International Human Rights Protection in Situations of Conflict and Post-Conflict, A Case Study of Angola". African Security Review 13(4): 29–41. Le Billon, Philippe (2005) Aid in the Midst of Plenty: Oil Wealth, Misery and Advocacy in Angola, Disasters 29(1): 1–25. Le Billon, Philippe (2001). "Angola's Political Economy of War: The Role of Oil and Diamonds". African Affairs (100): 55–80.  MacQueen, Norrie An Ill Wind? Rethinking the Angolan Crisis and the Portuguese Revolution, 1974–1976, Itinerario: European Journal of Overseas History, 26/2, 2000, pp. 22–44 Médecins Sans Frontières (2002). Angola: Sacrifice of a People. Luanda, Angola, MSF. Mwakikagile, Godfrey Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Third Edition, Pretoria, South Africa, 2006, on Angola in Chapter 11, "American Involvement in Angola and Southern Africa: Nyerere's Response", pp. 324–346, . Pearce, Justin (2004). "War, Peace and Diamonds in Angola: Popular perceptions of the diamond industry in the Lundas". African Security Review 13 (2), pp 51–64. Wayback Machine Porto, João Gomes (2003). Cabinda: Notes on a soon to be forgotten war. Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies. Tvedten, Inge (1997). Angola, Struggle for Peace and Reconstruction. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press. Vines, Alex (1999). Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. New York and London, UK, Human Rights Watch.External links Angola. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.Angola from UCB Libraries GovPubs.Angola profile from the BBC News.Key Development Forecasts for Angola from International Futures.Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2012 – Angola Country ReportMarkus Weimer, "The Peace Dividend: Analysis of a Decade of Angolan Indicators, 2002–2012".The participation of Hungarian soldiers in UN peacekeeping operations in Angola 1975 establishments in AngolaCentral African countriesCountries in AfricaFormer Portuguese coloniesLeast developed countriesMember states of OPECMember states of the African UnionMember states of the Community of Portuguese Language CountriesCurrent member states of the United NationsPortuguese-speaking countries and territoriesRepublicsSouthern African countriesStates and territories established in 1975
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Angola, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.According to 2014 census data, Angola had a population of 25,789,024 inhabitants in 2014.Ethnically, there are three main groups, each speaking a Bantu language: the Ovimbundu who represent 37% of the population, the Ambundu with 25%, and the Bakongo 13%. Other numerically important groups include the closely interrelated Chokwe and Lunda, the Ganguela and Nyaneka-Khumbi (in both cases classification terms that stand for a variety of small groups), the Ovambo, the Herero,  the Xindonga and scattered residual groups of San. In addition, mixed race (European and African) people amount to about 2%, with a small (1%) population of whites, mainly ethnically Portuguese.As a former overseas territory of Portugal until 1975, Angola possesses a Portuguese population of over 200,000, a number that has been growing from 2000 onwards, because of Angola's growing demand for qualified human resources. Currently, over 300,000 Angolans are white, 1 million Angolans are mixed race (black and white) and 50,000 Angolans are from China, which accounts for 1.35 million people. In 1974, white Angolans made up a population of 330,000 to 350,000 people in an overall population of 6.3 million Angolans at that time. The only reliable source on these numbers is Gerald Bender & Stanley Yoder, Whites in Angola on the Eve of Independence: The Politics of Numbers, Africa Today, 21 (4) 1974, pp. 23 – 37. Today, many Angolans who are not ethnic Portuguese can claim Portuguese nationality under Portuguese law. Estimates on the overall population are given in O País Besides the Portuguese, significant numbers of people from other European and from diverse Latin American countries (especially Brazil) can be found. From the 2000s, many Chinese have settled and started up small businesses, while at least as many have come as workers for large enterprises (construction or other). Observers claim that the Chinese community in Angola might include as many as 300,000 persons at the end of 2010, but reliable statistics are not at this stage available. In 1974/75, over 25,000 Cuban soldiers arrived in Angola to help the MPLA forces at the beginning of the Angolan Civil War. Once this was over, a massive development cooperation in the field of health and education brought in numerous civil personnel from Cuba. However, only a very small percentage of all these people has remained in Angola, either for personal reasons (intermarriage) or as professionals (e.g., medical doctors).The largest religious denomination is Catholicism, to which adheres about half the population. Roughly 26% are followers of traditional forms of Protestantism (Congregationals, Methodists, Baptista, Lutherans, Reformed), but over the last decades there has in addition been a growth of Pentecostal communities and African Initiated Churches. In 2006, one out of 221 people were Jehovah's Witnesses. Blacks from Mali, Nigeria and Senegal are mostly Sunnite Muslims, but do not make up more than 1 - 2% of the population. By now few Angolans retain African traditional religions following different ethnic faiths.PopulationAccording to  the total population was  in , compared to only 4 148 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 46.6%, 50.9% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 2.5% was 65 years or older.Structure of the population (DHS 2011) (Males 19 707, Females 20 356 = 40 063) :Vital statisticsRegistration of vital events is in Angola not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations and the CIA World Factbook prepared the following estimates.Fertility and BirthsTotal Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted TFR) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR):Life expectancyOther demographics statisticsDemographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019.One birth every 25 seconds	One death every 2 minutes	One net migrant every Infinity minutes	Net gain of one person every 31 secondsThe following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated.Population30,355,880 (July 2018 est.) 29,310,273  (July 2017 est.)Age structure0-14 years: 48.07% (male 7,257,155 /female 7,336,084)15-24 years: 18.33% (male 2,701,123 /female 2,863,950)25-54 years: 27.95% (male 4,044,944 /female 4,441,028)55-64 years: 3.32% (male 466,085 /female 540,452)65 years and over: 2.32% (male 296,411 /female 408,648) (2018 est.)Median agetotal: 15.9 years. Country comparison to the world: 224thmale: 15.4 years female: 16.3 years (2018 est.)Population growth3.49% (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 2ndThe population is growing by 3.52% annually. There are 44.2 births and 9.2 deaths per 1,000 citizens. The net migration rate is 0.2 migrants per 1,000 citizens. The fertility rate of Angola is 6.16 children born per woman as of 2017. The infant mortality rate is 67.6 deaths for every 1,000 live births with 73.3 deaths for males and 61.8 deaths for females for every 1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth is 60.2 years; 58.2 years for males and 62.3 years for females.Total fertility rate6.09 children born/woman (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 2ndBirth rate43.7 births/1,000 population (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 1stDeath rate9 deaths/1,000 population (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 60thNet migration rate0.2 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2017 est.) Country comparison to the world: 67thMother's mean age at first birth19.4 years (2015/16 est.)note: median age at first birth among women 25-29Life expectancy at birthtotal population: 60.6 years (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 207thmale: 58.5 years (2018 est.)female: 62.7 years (2018 est.)Contraceptive prevalence rate57.1% (2012/13)School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)total: 10 years (2011)male: 13 years (2011)female: 8 years (2011)Sex ratioAt birth: 1.05 male(s)/femaleUnder 15 years: 1.02 male(s)/female15–64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female65 years and older: .79 male(s)/femaleTotal population: 1.02 male(s)/female (2011 est.)HealthAccording to the CIA World Factbook, 2% of adults (aged 15–49) are living with HIV/AIDS (as of 2009). The risk of contracting disease is very high. There are food and waterborne diseases, bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases, malaria, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness); respiratory disease: meningococcal meningitis, and schistosomiasis, a water contact disease, as of 2005.Ethnic groupsRoughly 37% of Angolans are Ovimbundu, 25% are Ambundu, 13% are Bakongo, 2% are mestiço, 1-2% are white Africans, and people from other African ethnicities make up 22% of Angola's population.ReligionsAngola is a majority Christian country. Official statistics do not exist, however it is estimated that over 80% belong to a Christian church or community. More than half are Catholic, the remaining ones comprising members of traditional Protestant churches as well as of Pentecostal communities. Only 0.1% are Muslims  - generally immigrants from other African countries. Traditional indigenous religions are practiced by a very small minority, generally in peripheral rural societies.EducationLiteracy is quite low, with 71.1% of the population over the age of 15 able to read and write in Portuguese. 82% of males and 60.7% of women are literate as of 2015.LanguagesPortuguese is the official language of Angola, but Bantu and other African languages are also widely spoken. In fact, Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu, Tuchokwe, Nganguela, and Ukanyama have the official status of "national languages". The mastery of Portuguese is widespread; in the cities the overwhelming majority are either fluent in Portuguese or have at least a reasonable working knowledge of this language; an increasing minority are native Portuguese speakers and have a poor, if any, knowledge of an African language.References 2003External links Population cartogram of Angola Angolan society
The Angolan government is composed of three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. For decades, political power has been concentrated in the presidency with the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola.History Since the adoption of a new constitution in 2010, the politics of Angola takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Angola is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the President, the government and parliament.Angola changed from a one-party Marxist-Leninist system ruled by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in place since independence in 1975, to a multiparty democracy based on a new constitution adopted in 1992.  That same year the first parliamentary and presidential elections were held. The MPLA won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections. In the presidential elections, President José Eduardo dos Santos won the first round election with more than 49% of the vote to Jonas Savimbi's 40%. A runoff election would have been necessary, but never took place. The renewal of civil war immediately after the elections, which were considered as fraudulent by UNITA, and the collapse of the Lusaka Protocol, created a split situation. To a certain degree the new democratic institutions worked, notably the National Assembly, with the active participation of UNITA's and the FNLA's elected MPs  - while José Eduardo dos Santos continued to exercise his functions without democratic legitimation. However the armed forces of the MPLA (now the official armed forces of the Angolan state) and of UNITA fought each other until the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in action in 2002.From 2002 to 2010, the system as defined by the constitution of 1992 functioned in a relatively normal way. The executive branch of the government was composed of the President, the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. The Council of Ministers, composed of all ministers and vice ministers, met regularly to discuss policy issues. Governors of the 18 provinces were appointed by and served at the pleasure of the president. The Constitutional Law of 1992 established the broad outlines of government structure and the rights and duties of citizens. The legal system was based on Portuguese and customary law but was weak and fragmented. Courts operated in only 12 of more than 140 municipalities. A Supreme Court served as the appellate tribunal; a Constitutional Court with powers of judicial review was never constituted despite statutory authorization. In practice,  power was more and more concentrated in the hands of the President who, supported by an ever-increasing staff, largely controlled parliament, government, and the judiciary.The 26-year-long civil war has ravaged the country's political and social institutions. The UN estimates of 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), while generally the accepted figure for war-affected people is 4 million. Daily conditions of life throughout the country and specifically Luanda (population approximately 6 million) mirror the collapse of administrative infrastructure as well as many social institutions. The ongoing grave economic situation largely prevents any government support for social institutions. Hospitals are without medicines or basic equipment, schools are without books, and public employees often lack the basic supplies for their day-to-day work.Executive branchThe 2010 constitution grants the President almost absolute power. Elections for the National assembly are to take place every five years, and the President is automatically the leader of the winning party or coalition. It is for the President to appoint (and dismiss) all of the following: The members of the government (state ministers, ministers, state secretaries and vice-ministers); The members of the Constitutional Court; The members of the Supreme Court; The members of the Court of Auditors; The members of the Military Supreme Court; The Governor and Vice-Governors of the Nacional Angolan Bank; The General-Attorney, the Vice-General-Attorneys and their deputies (as well as the military homologous); The Governors of the provinces; The members of the Republic Council; The members of the National Security Council; The members of the Superior Magistrates Councils; The General Chief of the Armed Forces and his deputy; All other command posts in the military; The Police General Commander, and the 2nd in command; All other command posts in the police; The chiefs and directors of the intelligence and security organs.The President is also provided a variety of powers, like defining the policy of the country. Even though it's not up to him/her to make laws (only to promulgate them and make edicts), the President is the leader of the winning party.The only "relevant" post that is not directly appointed by the President is the Vice-President, which is the second in the winning party.José Eduardo dos Santos stepped down as President of Angola after 38 years in 2017, being peacefully succeeded by João Lourenço, Santos' chosen successor.Legislative branchThe National Assembly (Assembleia Nacional) has 223 members, elected for a four-year term, 130 members by proportional representation, 90 members in provincial districts, and 3 members to represent Angolans abroad. The general elections in 1997 were rescheduled for 5 September 2008. The ruling party MPLA won 82% (191 seats in the National Assembly) and the main opposition party won only 10% (16 seats). The elections however have been described as only partly free but certainly not fair. A White Book on the elections in 2008 lists up all irregularities surrounding the Parliamentary elections of 2008.Political parties and electionsJudicial branchSupreme Court (or "Tribunal da Relacao") judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the president. The Constitutional Court, with the power of judicial review, contains 11 justices. Four are appointed by the President, four by the National Assembly, two by the Superior Council of the Judiciary, and one elected by the public.Administrative divisionsAngola has eighteen provinces: Bengo, Benguela, Bie, Cabinda, Cuando Cubango, Cuanza Norte, Cuanza Sul, Cunene, Huambo, Huila, Luanda, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Malanje, Moxico, Namibe, Uige, ZairePolitical pressure groups and leadersFront for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda or FLEC (Henrique N'zita Tiago; António Bento Bembe) note: FLEC is waging a small-scale, highly factionalized, armed struggle for the independence of Cabinda ProvinceInternational organization participationAfrican, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, AfDB, CEEAC, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, FAO, Group of 77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, International Criminal Court (signatory), ICFTU, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, International Development Association, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, International Labour Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Maritime Organization, Interpol, IOC, International Organization for Migration, ISO (correspondent), ITU, Non-Aligned Council (temporary), UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, World Customs Organization, World Federation of Trade Unions, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrOSee alsoReferencesFurther readingANGOLA LIVRO BRANCO SOBRE AS ELEIÇÕES DE 2008. http://www.kas.de/proj/home/pub/8/2/year-2009/dokument_id-17396/index.htmlBösl, Anton (2008). Angola's Parliamentary Elections in 2008. A Country on its Way to One-Party-Democracy, KAS Auslandsinformationen 10/2008. http://www.kas.de/wf/de/33.15186/ Amundsen, I. (2011) Angola Party Politics: Into the African Trend. Angola Brief vol. 1 no. 9External linksThe Chr. Michelsen Institute The largest centre for development research in Scandinavia. In particular, see their collaborative Angola Programme.
The economy of Angola remains heavily influenced by the effects of four decades of conflict in the last part of the 20th century, the war for independence from Portugal (1961–75) and the subsequent civil war (1975–2002). Despite extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land, Angola remains poor, and a third of the population relies on subsistence agriculture. Since 2002, when the 27-year civil war ended, government policy prioritized the repair and improvement of infrastructure and strengthening of political and social institutions.  During the first decade of the 21st century, Angola's economy was one of the fastest-growing in the world, with reported annual average GDP growth of 11.1 percent from 2001 to 2010. High international oil prices and rising oil production contributed to strong economic growth, although with high inequality, at that time.Corruption is rife throughout the economy and the country remains heavily dependent on the oil sector, which in 2017 accounted for over 90 percent of exports by value and 64 percent of government revenue. With the end of the oil boom, from 2015 Angola entered into a period of economic contraction.HistoryThe Angolan economy has been dominated by the production of raw materials and the use of cheap labor since European rule began in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese used Angola principally as a source for the thriving slave trade across the Atlantic; Luanda became the greatest slaving port in Africa. After the Portuguese Empire abolished the slave trade in Angola in 1858, it began using concessional agreements, granting exclusive rights to a private company to exploit land, people, and all other resources within a given territory. In Mozambique, this policy spawned a number of companies notorious for their exploitation of local labor. But in Angola, only Diamang showed even moderate success. At the same time, Portuguese began emigrating to Angola to establish farms and plantations (fazendas) to grow cash crops for export. Although these farms were only partially successful before World War II, they formed the basis for the later economic growth.The principal exports of the post-slave economy in the 19th century were rubber, beeswax, and ivory. Prior to the First World War, exportation of coffee, palm kernels and oil, cattle, leather and hides, and salt fish joined the principal exports, with small quantities of gold and cotton also being produced. Grains, sugar, and rum were also produced for local consumption. The principal imports were foodstuffs, cotton goods, hardware, and British coal. Legislation against foreign traders was implemented in the 1890s. The territory's prosperity, however, continued to depend on plantations worked by labor "indentured" from the interior.Before World War II, the Portuguese government was concerned primarily with keeping its colonies self-sufficient and therefore invested little capital in Angola's local economy. It built no roads until the mid-1920s, and the first railroad, the Benguela Railway, was not completed until 1929. Between 1900 and 1940, only 35,000 Portuguese emigrants settled in Angola, and most worked in commerce in the cities, facilitating trade with Portugal. In the rural areas, Portuguese settlers often found it difficult to make a living because of fluctuating world prices for sugarcane and sisal and the difficulties in obtaining cheap labor to farm their crops. As a result, they often suspended their operations until the market prices rose and instead marketed the produce of Angolan farmers.But in the wake of World War II, the rapid growth of industrialization worldwide and the parallel requirements for raw materials led Portugal to develop closer ties with its colonies and to begin actively developing the Angolan economy. In the 1930s, Portugal started to develop closer trade ties with its colonies, and by 1940 it absorbed 63 percent of Angolan exports and accounted for 47 percent of Angolan imports, up from 39 percent and 37 percent, respectively, a decade earlier. When the price of Angola's principal crops—coffee and sisal—jumped after the war, the Portuguese government began to reinvest some profits inside the country, initiating a series of projects to develop infrastructure. During the 1950s, Portugal built dams, hydroelectric power stations, and transportation systems. In addition, Portuguese citizens were encouraged to emigrate to Angola, where planned settlements (colonatos) were established for them in the rural areas. Finally, the Portuguese initiated mining operations for iron ore, manganese, and copper to complement industrial activities at home, and in 1955 the first successful oil wells were drilled in Angola. By 1960 the Angolan economy had been completely transformed, boasting a successful commercial agricultural sector, a promising mineral and petroleum production enterprise, and an incipient manufacturing industry.Yet by 1976, these encouraging developments had been reversed. The economy was in complete disarray in the aftermath of the war of independence and the subsequent internal fighting of the liberation movements. According to the ruling MPLA-PT, in August 1976 more than 80 percent of the agricultural plantations had been abandoned by their Portuguese owners; only 284 out of 692 factories continued to operate; more than 30,000 medium-level and high-level managers, technicians, and skilled workers had left the country; and 2,500 enterprises had been closed (75 percent of which had been abandoned by their owners). Furthermore, only 8,000 vehicles remained out of 153,000 registered, dozens of bridges had been destroyed, the trading network was disrupted, administrative services did not exist, and files and studies were missing.Angola's economic ills can also be traced to the legacy of Portuguese colonial development. Many of the white settlers had come to Angola after 1950 and were understandably quick to repatriate during the war of independence. During their stay, however, these settlers had appropriated Angolan lands, disrupting local peasant production of cash and subsistence crops. Moreover, Angola's industries depended on trade with Portugal—the colony's overwhelmingly dominant trade partner—for both markets and machinery. Only the petroleum and diamond industries boasted a wider clientele for investment and markets. Most important, the Portuguese had not trained Angolans to operate the larger industrial or agricultural enterprises, nor had they actively educated the population. Upon independence Angola thus found itself without markets or expertise to maintain even minimal economic growth.As a result, the government intervened, nationalizing most businesses and farms abandoned by the Portuguese. It established state farms to continue producing coffee, sugar, and sisal, and it took over the operations of all factories to maintain production. These attempts usually failed, primarily because of the lack of experienced managers and the continuing disruptions in rural areas caused by the UNITA insurgency. Only the petroleum sector continued to operate successfully, and by 1980 this sector had helped the gross domestic product reach US$3.6 billion, its highest level up to 1988. In the face of serious economic problems and the continuing war throughout the countryside, in 1987 the government announced plans to liberalize economic policies and promote private investment and involvement in the economy.1990sUnited Nations Angola Verification Mission III and MONUA spent US$1.5 billion overseeing implementation of the Lusaka Protocol, a 1994 peace accord that ultimately failed to end the civil war. The protocol prohibited UNITA from buying foreign arms, a provision the United Nations largely did not enforce, so both sides continued to build up their stockpile. UNITA purchased weapons in 1996 and 1997 from private sources in Albania and Bulgaria, and from Zaire, South Africa, Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Togo, and Burkina Faso. In October 1997 the UN imposed travel sanctions on UNITA leaders, but the UN waited until July 1998 to limit UNITA's exportation of diamonds and freeze UNITA bank accounts. While the U.S. government gave US$250 million to UNITA between 1986 and 1991, UNITA made US$1.72 billion between 1994 and 1999 exporting diamonds, primarily through Zaire to Europe. At the same time the Angolan government received large amounts of weapons from the governments of Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, and South Africa. While no arms shipment to the government violated the protocol, no country informed the U.N. Register on Conventional Weapons as required.Despite the increase in civil warfare in late 1998, the economy grew by an estimated 4% in 1999. The government introduced new currency denominations in 1999, including a 1 and 5 kwanza note.2000sAn economic reform effort was launched in 1998. Angola ranked 160 of 174 nations in the United Nations Human Development Index in 2000. In April 2000 Angola started an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Staff-Monitored Program (SMP). The program formally lapsed in June 2001, but the IMF remains engaged. In this context the Government of Angola has succeeded in unifying exchange rates and has raised fuel, electricity, and water rates. The Commercial Code, telecommunications law, and Foreign Investment Code are being modernized. A privatization effort, prepared with World Bank assistance, has begun with the BCI bank. Nevertheless, a legacy of fiscal mismanagement and corruption persists. The civil war internally displaced 3.8 million people, 32% of the population, by 2001. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has led to the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons, thus resulting in large-scale increases in agriculture production.Angola produced over  of diamonds in 2003, and production was expected to grow to  per year by 2007.  In 2004, China's Eximbank approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola to rebuild infrastructure. The economy grew 18% in 2005 and growth was expected to reach 26% in 2006 and stay above 10% for the rest of the decade. By 2020, Angola had a national debt of $76 billion, of which $20 billion is to China.The construction industry is taking advantage of the growing economy, with various housing projects stimulated by the government initiatives for example the Angola Investe program and the Casa Feliz or Meña projects. Not all public construction projects are functional. A case in point: Kilamba Kiaxi, where a whole new satellite town of Luanda, consisting of housing facilities for several hundreds of thousands of people, was completely uninhabited for over four years because of skyrocketing prices, but completely sold out after the government decreased the original price and created mortgage plans at around the election time thus made it affordable for middle-class people.  ChevronTexaco started pumping  from Block 14 in January 2000, but production decreased to  in 2007 due to poor-quality oil. Angola joined the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on January 1, 2007. Cabinda Gulf Oil Company found Malange-1, an oil reservoir in Block 14, on August 9, 2007.OverviewDespite its abundant natural resources, output per capita is among the world's lowest. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for 85% of the population. Oil production and the supporting activities are vital to the economy, contributing about 45% to GDP and 90% of exports. Growth is almost entirely driven by rising oil production which surpassed  in late-2005 and which is expected to grow to  by 2007. Control of the oil industry is consolidated in Sonangol Group, a conglomerate owned by the Angolan government. With revenues booming from oil exports, the government has started to implement ambitious development programs to build roads and other basic infrastructure for the nation.In the last decade of the colonial period, Angola was a major African food exporter but now imports almost all its food. Severe wartime conditions, including extensive planting of landmines throughout the countryside, have brought agricultural activities to a near-standstill. Some efforts to recover have gone forward, however, notably in fisheries. Coffee production, though a fraction of its pre-1975 level, is sufficient for domestic needs and some exports. Expanding oil production is now almost half of GDP and 90% of exports, at . Diamonds provided much of the revenue for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebellion through illicit trade. Other rich resources await development: gold, forest products, fisheries, iron ore, coffee, and fruits.This is a chart of trend of nominal gross domestic product of Angola at market prices using International Monetary Fund data; figures are in millions of units.The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017. Inflation below 5% is in green.AgricultureAngola produced, in 2018: 8.6 million tons of cassava (8th largest producer in the world); 3.5 million tons of banana (7th largest producer in the world, or the 10th largest, if we consider together with plantain); 2.2 million tons of maize; 1.2 million tons of sweet potato (10th largest producer in the world); 806 thousand tons of potato; 597 thousand tons of pineapple (13th largest producer in the world); 572 thousand tons of sugarcane; 355 thousand tons of cabbage; 314 thousand tons of beans; 280 thousand tons of palm oil; 154 thousand tons of peanut;In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, like coffee (16 thousand tons).Foreign tradeExports in 2004 reached US$10,530,764,911. The vast majority of Angola's exports, 92% in 2004, are petroleum products. US$785 million worth of diamonds, 7.5% of exports, were sold abroad that year. Nearly all of Angola's oil goes to the United States,  in 2006, making it the eighth largest supplier of oil to the United States, and to China,  in 2006. In the first quarter of 2008, Angola became the main exporter of oil to China. The rest of its petroleum exports go to Europe and Latin America. U.S. companies account for more than half the investment in Angola, with Chevron-Texaco leading the way. The U.S. exports industrial goods and services, primarily oilfield equipment, mining equipment, chemicals, aircraft, and food, to Angola, while principally importing petroleum. Trade between Angola and South Africa exceeded US$300 million in 2007. From the 2000s, many Chinese have settled and started up businesses.ResourcesPetroleumAngola produces and exports more petroleum than any other nation in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing Nigeria in the 2000s. In January 2007 Angola became a member of OPEC. By 2010 production is expected to double the 2006 output level with development of deep-water offshore oil fields. Oil sales generated US$1.71 billion in tax revenue in 2004 and now makes up 80% of the government's budget, a 5% increase from 2003, and 45% of GDP.Chevron Corporation produces and receives , 27% of Angolan oil. Total S.A., ExxonMobil, Eni, Petrobras and BP also operate in the country.Block Zero provides the majority of Angola's crude oil production with  produced annually. The largest fields in Block Zero are Takula (Area A), Numbi (Area A), and Kokongo (Area B). Chevron operates in Block Zero with a 39.2% share. SONANGOL, the state oil company, Total, and Eni own the rest of the block. Chevron also operates Angola's first producing deepwater section, Block 14, with .The United Nations has criticized the Angolan government for using torture, rape, summary executions, arbitrary detention, and disappearances, actions which Angolan government has justified on the need to maintain oil output.Angola is the third-largest trading partner of the United States in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely because of its petroleum exports. The U.S. imports 7% of its oil from Angola, about three times as much as it imported from Kuwait just prior to the Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Government has invested US$4 billion in Angola's petroleum sector.Oil makes up over 90% of Angola's exports.DiamondsAngola is the third largest producer of diamonds in Africa and has only explored 40% of the diamond-rich territory within the country, but has had difficulty in attracting foreign investment because of corruption, human rights violations, and diamond smuggling. Production rose by 30% in 2006 and Endiama, the national diamond company of Angola, expects production to increase by 8% in 2007 to 10 million carats annually. The government is trying to attract foreign companies to the provinces of Bié, Malanje and Uíge.The Angolan government loses $375 million annually from diamond smuggling. In 2003, the government began Operation Brilliant, an anti-smuggling investigation that arrested and deported 250,000 smugglers between 2003 and 2006. Rafael Marques, a journalist and human rights activist, described the diamond industry in his 2006 Angola's Deadly Diamonds report as plagued by "murders, beatings, arbitrary detentions and other human rights violations." Marques called on foreign countries to boycott Angola's "conflict diamonds". In December 2014, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor that classified Angola as one of the major diamond-producing African countries relying on both child labor and forced labor. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that "there is little publicly available information on [Angola's] efforts to enforce child labor law". Diamonds accounted for 1.48% of Angolan exports in 2014.IronUnder Portuguese rule, Angola began mining iron in 1957, producing 1.2 million tons in 1967 and 6.2 million tons by 1971. In the early 1970s, 70% of Portuguese Angola's iron exports went to Western Europe and Japan. After independence in 1975, the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002) destroyed most of the territory's mining infrastructure. The redevelopment of the Angolan mining industry started in the late 2000s.See alsoBanco Espírito Santo Angola United Nations Economic Commission for AfricaReferencesFurther readingMcCormick, Shawn H. The Angolan Economy: Prospects for Growth in a Postwar Environment, 1994.OECD, International Energy Agency. Angola: Towards an Energy Strategy, 2006.External linksMBendi overview of AngolaAngola latest trade data on ITC Trade MapExports to Angola Datasheet AngolaBlood diamondsAngolaAngola
Transport in Angola comprises:RoadsRailways There are three separate railway lines in Angola: Luanda Railway (CFL) (northern) Benguela Railway (CFB) (central) Moçâmedes Railway (CFM) (southern)Reconstruction of these three lines began in 2005 and they are now all operational. The Benguela Railway connects to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Waterways  1,300 km navigable (2008)country comparison to the world: 36Pipelines  gas, 2 km; crude oil 87 km (2008)In April 2012, the Zambian Development Agency (ZDA) and an Angolan company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to build a multi-product pipeline from Lobito to Lusaka, Zambia, to deliver various refined products to Zambia.Angola plans to build an oil refinery in Lobito in the coming years.Ports and harbors The government plans to build a deep-water port at Barra do Dande, north of Luanda, in Bengo province near Caxito.Merchant marine  total: 6country comparison to the world: 128 by type: cargo 1, passenger/cargo 2, petroleum tanker 2, roll on/roll off 1 foreign owned: 1 (Spain) registered in other countries: 6 (Bahamas) (2008)Airports  211 (2008)Airports – with paved runways  total: 30 over 3,047 m: 5 2,438 to 3,047 m: 8 1,524 to 2,437 m: 12 914 to 1,523 m: 4 under 914 m: 1 (2008)Airports – with unpaved runways  total:  181 (2008) over 3,047 m: 2 2,438 to 3,047 m: 5 1,524 to 2,437 m: 32 914 to 1,523 m: 100 under 914 m: 42 (2008)Angolan Airlines  TAAG Angola Airlines Sonair Fly AngolaInternational and domestic services are maintained by TAAG Angola Airlines, Aeroflot, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, Cubana, Ethiopian Airlines, Emirates, Delta Air Lines, Royal Air Maroc, Iberia, Hainan Airlines, Kenya Airways, South African Airways, TAP Air Portugal and several regional carriers.  There are airstrips at Benguela, Cabinda, Huambo, Moçâmedes, and Catumbela.References This article comes from the CIA World Factbook 2003.
The Angolan Armed Forces () or FAA is the military of Angola. The FAA include the General Staff of the Armed Forces and three components: the Army (Exército), the Navy (Marinha de Guerra) and the National Air Force (Força Aérea Nacional). Reported total manpower in 2013 was about 107,000. The FAA is headed by the Chief of the General Staff António Egídio de Sousa Santos since 2018, who reports to the Minister of National Defense, currently João Ernesto dos Santos.HistoryRoots The FAA succeeded to the previous People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) following the abortive Bicesse Accord with the Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola (FALA), armed wing of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). As part of the peace agreement, troops from both armies were to be demilitarized and then integrated. Integration was never completed as UNITA and FALA went back to war in 1992. Later, consequences for FALA personnel in Luanda were harsh with FAPLA veterans persecuting their erstwhile opponents in certain areas and reports of vigilantism.Founding The Angolan Armed Forces were created on 9 October 1991. The institutionalization of the FAA was made in the Bicesse Accords, signed in 1991, between the Angolan Government and UNITA. The principles that would govern the FAA were defined in a joint proposal presented on September 24, 1991 and approved on 9 October. On 14 November 1991, Generals João Baptista de Matos and Abílio Kamalata Numa were appointed to the Superior Command of the Armed Forces. The ceremony took place at the Hotel Presidente Luanda, and was presided over by the then-minister França Vandúnem.BranchesArmy The Army (Exército) is the land component of the FAA. It is organized in six military regions (Cabinda, Luanda, North, Center, East and South), with an infantry division being based in each one. Distributed by the six military regions / infantry divisions, there are 25 motorized infantry brigades, one tank brigade and one engineering brigade. The Army also includes an artillery regiment, the Military Artillery School, the Army Military Academy, an anti-aircraft defense group, a composite land artillery group, a military police regiment, a logistical transportation regiment and a field artillery brigade. The Army further includes the Special Forces Brigade (including Commandos and Special Operations units), but this unit is under the direct command of the General Staff of the FAA.Air Force The National Air Force of Angola (FANA, Força Aérea Nacional de Angola) is the air component of the FAA. It is organized in six aviation regiments, each including several squadrons. To each of the regiments correspond an air base. Besides the aviation regiments, there is also a Pilot Training School.The Air Force's personnel total about 8,000; its equipment includes transport aircraft and six Russian-manufactured Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft. In 2002, one was lost during the civil war with UNITA forces.In 1991, the Air Force/Air Defense Forces had 8,000 personnel and 90 combat-capable aircraft, including 22 fighters, 59 fighter ground attack aircraft and 16 attack helicopters.Navy The Angola Navy (MGA, Marinha de Guerra de Angola) is the naval component of the FAA. It is organized in two naval zones (North and South), with naval bases in Luanda, Lobito and Moçâmedes. It includes a Marines Brigade and a Marines School, based in Ambriz. The Navy numbers about 1,000 personnel and operates only a handful of small patrol craft and barges.The Navy has been neglected and ignored as a military arm mainly due to the guerrilla struggle against the Portuguese and the nature of the civil war. From the early 1990s to the present the Angolan Navy has shrunk from around 4,200 personnel to around 1,000, resulting in the loss of skills and expertise needed to maintain equipment. In order to protect Angola's 1 600 km long coastline, the Angolan Navy is undergoing modernisation but is still lacking in many ways. Portugal has been providing training through its Technical Military Cooperation (CTM) programme. The Navy is requesting procurement of a frigate, three corvettes, three offshore patrol vessel and additional fast patrol boats.Most of the vessels in the navy's inventory dates back from the 1980s or earlier, and many of its ships are inoperable due to age and lack of maintenance. However the navy acquired new boats from Spain and France in the 1990s. Germany has delivered several Fast Attack Craft for border protection in 2011.In September 2014 it was reported that the Angolan Navy would acquire seven Macaé-class patrol vessels from Brazil as part of a Technical Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) covering the production of the vessels as part of Angola's Naval Power Development Programme (Pronaval). The military of Angola aims to modernize its naval capability, presumably due to a rise in maritime piracy within the Gulf of Guinea which may have an adverse effect on the country's economy.The navy's current known inventory includes the following: Fast attack craft 4 Mandume class craft (Bazan Cormoran type, refurbished in 2009) Patrol Boats 3 18.3m long Patrulheiro patrol boats (refurbished in 2002) 5 ARESA PVC-170 2 Namacurra-class harbour patrol boats Fisheries Patrol Boats Ngola Kiluange and Nzinga Mbandi (delivered in September and October 2012 from Damen Shipyards)(Operated by Navy personnel under the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries) 28 metre FRV 2810 (Pensador) (Operated by Navy personnel under the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries) Landing craft LDM-400 - 1 or 3 (reportedly has serviceability issues) Coastal defense equipment (CRTOC) SS-C1 Sepal radar systemThe navy also has several aircraft for maritime patrol:Specialized unitsSpecial forces The FAA include several types of special forces, namely the Commandos, the Special Operations and the Marines. The Angolan special forces follow the general model of the analogous Portuguese special forces, receiving a similar training.The Commandos and the Special forces are part of the Special Forces Brigade (BRIFE, Brigada de Forças Especiais), based at Cabo Ledo, in the Bengo Province. The BRIFE includes two battalions of commandos, a battalion of special operations and sub-units of combat support and service support. The BRIFE also included the Special Actions Group (GAE, Grupo de Ações Especiais), which is presently inactive and that was dedicated to long range reconnaissance, covert and sabotage operations. In the Cabo Ledo base is also installed the Special Forces Training School (EFFE, Escola de Formação de Forças Especiais). Both the BRIFE and the EFFE are directly under the Directorate of Special Forces of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.The marines (fuzileiros navais) constitute the Marines Brigade of the Angolan Navy. The Marines Brigade is not permanently dependent of the Directorate of Special Forces, but can detach their units and elements to be put under the command of that body for the conduction of exercises or real operations.Since the disbandment of the Angolan Parachute Battalion in 2004, the FAA do not have a specialized paratrooper unit. However, elements of the commandos, special operations and marines are parachute qualified.Territorial troops The Directorate of People's Defense and Territorial Troops of the Defence Ministry or ODP was established in late 1975. It had 600,000 members, having personnel in virtually every village by 1979. It had both armed and unarmed units dispersed in villages throughout the country. The People's Vigilance Brigades () also serve a similar purpose.Training establishmentsArmed Forces Academy The Military Academy () is a military university public higher education establishment whos mission is to train officers of the Permanent Staff of the Army. It has been in operation since 21 August 2009 by presidential decree. Its headquarters are in Lobito. It trains in the following specialties:InfantryTanksLand ArtilleryAnti-Air DefenseMilitary EngineeringLogisticsTelecommunicationsHidden Direction of TroopsMilitary AdministrationArmament and TechniqueChemical DefenseOperational Military IntelligenceTechnical Repair and Maintenance Platoon of Auto and Armored TechniqueNavy  Naval War Institute (INSG) Naval Academy Naval Specialist SchoolAir Force  Angolan Military Aviation School Pilot Basic Training School (Lobito)Institutions/other unitsMuseum of the Armed ForcesMilitary Hospitals The Military hospital of the FAA is the Main Military Hospital. It has the following lineage: 1961 – Evacuation Infirmary 1962 – Military Hospital of Luanda 1975 - Military Hospital 1976 - Central Military Hospital 1989 - Main Military HospitalIt provides specialized medical assistance in accordance with the military health system; It also promotes post-graduate education and scientific research. Currently, the Main Military Hospital serves 39 special medical specialties. It is a headed by a Director General whose main supporting body is the Board of Directors.Supreme Military Court The Supreme Military Court is the highest organ of the hierarchy of military courts. The Presiding Judge, the Deputy Presiding Judge and the other Counselor Judges of the Supreme Military Court are appointed by the President of the Republic. The composition, organization, powers and functioning of the Supreme Military Court are established by law.Military Bands The FAA maintains Portuguese-style military bands in all three branches and in individual units. The primary band is the 100-member Music Band of the Presidential Security Household. The music band of the Army Command was created on 16 June 1994 and four years later, on 15 August 1998, the National Air Force created a music band within an artistic brigade. The navy has its own marching band, as well as a small musical group known as Banda 10 de Julho (10th July Band), based at the Luanda Naval Base.Foreign deployments The FAPLA's main counterinsurgency effort was directed against UNITA in the southeast, and its conventional capabilities were demonstrated principally in the undeclared South African Border War. The FAPLA first performed its external assistance mission with the dispatch of 1,000 to 1,500 troops to São Tomé and Príncipe in 1977 to bolster the socialist regime of President Manuel Pinto da Costa. During the next several years, Angolan forces conducted joint exercises with their counterparts and exchanged technical operational visits. The Angolan expeditionary force was reduced to about 500 in early 1985.The Angolan Armed Forces were controversially involved in training the armed forces of fellow Lusophone states Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. In the case of the latter, the 2012 Guinea-Bissau coup d'état was cited by the coup leaders as due to Angola's involvement in trying to "reform" the military in connivance with the civilian leadership.A small number of FAA personnel are stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville). A presence during the unrest in Ivory Coast, 2010–2011, were not officially confirmed. However, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing Jeune Afrique, said that among President Gbagbo's guards were 92 personnel of President Dos Santos's Presidential Guard Unit. Angola is basically interested in the participation of the FAA operations of the African Union and has formed special units for this purpose.ReferencesFurther readingHuman Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process, October 1999Utz Ebertz and Marie Müller, Legacy of a resource-fueled war: The role of generals in Angola's mining sector, BICC Focus, June 2013Area Handbook for Angola, August 1967, Angola, A Country Study (1979 and 1991)Rocky Williams, "National defence reform and the African Union." SIPRI Yearbook 2004: 231–249.Weigert, Stephen L. Angola: a modern military history, 1961–2002. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.Martin Rupiya et al., 'Angola', in Evolutions and RevolutionsThe Twenty-Seventh of May: An Historical Note on the Abortive 1977 "coup" in AngolaDavid Birmingham, African Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 309 (Oct. 1978), pp. 554–564Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African SocietyExternal linksOfficial site of the Angolan Ministry of National Defence World NaviesBrinkman, Inge "Language, Names, and War: The Case of Angola", African Studies ReviewMilitary of AngolaMilitary history of AngolaAngolan Civil War1991 establishments in AngolaMilitary units and formations established in 1991
The foreign relations of Angola are based on Angola's strong support of U.S. foreign policy as the Angolan economy is dependent on U.S. foreign aid.From 1975 to 1989, Angola was aligned with the Eastern bloc, in particular the Soviet Union, Libya, and Cuba. Since then, it has focused on improving relationships with Western countries, cultivating links with other Portuguese-speaking countries, and asserting its own national interests in Central Africa through military and diplomatic intervention. In 1993, it established formal diplomatic relations with the United States. It has entered the Southern African Development Community as a vehicle for improving ties with its largely Anglophone neighbors to the south. Zimbabwe and Namibia joined Angola in its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Angolan troops remain in support of the Joseph Kabila government. It also has intervened in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to support the existing government in that country.Since 1998, Angola has successfully worked with the United Nations Security Council to impose and carry out sanctions on UNITA. More recently, it has extended those efforts to controls on conflict diamonds, the primary source of revenue for UNITA during the Civil War that ended in 2002. At the same time, Angola has promoted the revival of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) as a forum for cultural exchange and expanding ties with Portugal (its former ruler) and Brazil (which shares many cultural affinities with Angola) in particular. Angola is a member of the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa (PMAESA).AfricaAmericasAsiaEuropeOceaniaSee also List of diplomatic missions in Angola List of diplomatic missions of Angola Visa requirements for Angolan citizensReferencesExternal links
Albert Sidney Johnston (February 2, 1803 – April 6, 1862) served as a general in three different armies: the Texian Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his 34-year military career, fighting actions in the Black Hawk War, the Texas War of Independence, the Mexican–American War, the Utah War, and the American Civil War.Considered by Confederate States President Jefferson Davis to be the finest general officer in the Confederacy before the later emergence of Robert E. Lee, he was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. Johnston was the highest-ranking Confederate officer killed during the entire war. Davis believed the loss of General Johnston "was the turning point of our fate."Johnston was unrelated to Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston.Early life and educationJohnston was born in Washington, Kentucky, the youngest son of Dr. John and Abigail (Harris) Johnston. His father was a native of Salisbury, Connecticut. Although Albert Johnston was born in Kentucky, he lived much of his life in Texas, which he considered his home. He was first educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, where he met fellow student Jefferson Davis. Both were appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Davis two years behind Johnston. In 1826, Johnston graduated eighth of 41 cadets in his class from West Point with a commission as a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Infantry.Johnston was assigned to posts in New York and Missouri and served in the brief Black Hawk War in 1832 as chief of staff to Bvt. Brig. Gen. Henry Atkinson.Marriage and familyIn 1829, he married Henrietta Preston, sister of Kentucky politician and future Civil War general William Preston. They had one son, William Preston Johnston, who became a colonel in the Confederate States Army. The senior Johnston resigned his commission in 1834 in order to care for his dying wife in Kentucky, who succumbed two years later to tuberculosis.After serving as Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas from 1838 to 1840, Johnston resigned and returned to Kentucky. In 1843, he married Eliza Griffin, his late wife's first cousin. The couple moved to Texas, where they settled on a large plantation in Brazoria County. Johnston named the property "China Grove". Here they raised Johnston's two children from his first marriage and the first three children born to Eliza and him. A sixth child was born later when the family lived in Los Angeles, where they had permanently settled.Texian ArmyIn 1836, Johnston moved to Texas. He enlisted as a private in the Texian Army during the Texas War of Independence from the Republic of Mexico.  He was named Adjutant General as a colonel in the Republic of Texas Army on August 5, 1836. On January 31, 1837, he became senior brigadier general in command of the Texas Army.On February 5, 1837, he fought in a duel with Texas Brig. Gen. Felix Huston, who was angered and offended by Johnston's promotion. Johnston was shot through the hip and severely wounded, requiring him to relinquish his post during his recovery. On December 22, 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas, appointed Johnston as Secretary of War. He provided for the defense of the Texas border against Mexican invasion, and in 1839 conducted a campaign against Indians in northern Texas. In February 1840, he resigned and returned to Kentucky.United States ArmyJohnston returned to Texas during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), under General Zachary Taylor as a colonel of the 1st Texas Rifle Volunteers. The Polk administration's preference for officers associated with the Democratic Party prevented the promotion of those, such as Johnston, who were perceived as Whigs: The enlistments of Johnston's volunteers ran out just before the Battle of Monterrey. Johnston convinced a few volunteers to stay and fight as he served as the inspector general of volunteers and fought at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista. Future Union general, Joseph Hooker, was with Johnston at Monterrey. Hooker wrote: "It was through [Johnston's] agency, mainly, that our division was saved from a cruel slaughter... The coolness and magnificent presence [that he] displayed on this field... left an impression on my mind that I have never forgotten."He remained on his plantation after the war until he was appointed by later 12th president Zachary Taylor to the U.S. Army as a major and was made a paymaster in December 1849. He served in that role for more than five years, making six tours, and traveling more than  annually on the Indian frontier of Texas. He served on the Texas frontier at Fort Mason and elsewhere in the West.In 1855, 14th president Franklin Pierce appointed him colonel of the new 2nd U.S. Cavalry (the unit that preceded the modern 5th U.S.), a new regiment, which he organized, his lieutenant colonel being Robert E. Lee, and his majors William J. Hardee and George H. Thomas. Other subordinates in this unit included Earl Van Dorn, Edmund Kirby Smith, Nathan G. Evans, Innis N. Palmer, George Stoneman, R.W. Johnson, John B. Hood, and Charles W. Field, all future Civil War generals.Utah WarAs a key figure in the Utah War, Johnston took command of the U.S forces in November 1857. This army was sent to install Alfred Cummings as governor of the Utah territory, in place of Brigham Young. After the army wintered at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, a peaceful resolution was reached and in late June 1858 Johnston led the army through Salt Lake city without incident to establish Camp Floyd some 50 miles distant.  He received a brevet promotion to brigadier general in 1857 for his service in Utah. He spent 1860 in Kentucky until December 21, when he sailed for California to take command of the Department of the Pacific.SlaveryJohnston was a proponent of slavery and a slaveholder. In 1846, he owned a family of four slaves in Texas. In 1855, having discovered that a slave was stealing from the army payroll, Johnston refused to have him physically punished and instead sold him for $1,000 to recoup the losses. Johnston explained that "whipping will not restore what is lost and it will not benefit the [culprit], whom a lifetime of kind treatment has failed to make honest."  In 1856, he called abolitionism "fanatical, idolotrous, negro worshipping" in a letter to his son, fearing that the abolitionists would incite a servile insurrection in the South. Upon moving to California, Johnston sold one slave to his son and freed another, Randolph or "Ran," who desired to accompany the family, on the condition of a $12/month contract for five more years of servitude. Ran accompanied Johnston throughout the Civil War, up until the latter's death. Johnston's wife, Eliza, celebrated the lack of black people in California, writing "where the darky is in any numbers it should be as slaves."Civil WarAt the outbreak of the American Civil War, Johnston was the commander of the U.S. Army Department of the Pacific in California. Like many regular army officers from the South, he was opposed to secession. But he resigned his commission soon after he heard of the secession of the Southern states. It was accepted by the War Department on May 6, 1861, effective May 3. On April 28 he moved to Los Angeles, the home of his wife's brother John Griffin. Considering staying in California with his wife and five children, Johnston remained there until May.  A sixth child was born in the family home at Los Angeles, where his eldest son, Capt. Albert S. Johnston, Jr. was later killed in an accidental explosion on a steamer ship while on liberty, in 1863.Soon, Johnston enlisted in the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles as a private, leaving Warner's Ranch May 27. He participated in their trek across the southwestern deserts to Texas, crossing the Colorado River into the Confederate Territory of Arizona on July 4, 1861.  His escort was commanded by Alonzo Ridley, Undersheriff of Los Angeles, who remained at Johnston's side until he was killed.Early in the Civil War, Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided that the Confederacy would attempt to hold as much of its territory as possible, and therefore distributed military forces around its borders and coasts. In the summer of 1861, Davis appointed several generals to defend Confederate lines from the Mississippi River east to the Allegheny Mountains.The most sensitive, and in many ways the most crucial areas, along the Mississippi River and in western Tennessee along the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers were placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Leonidas Polk and Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow. The latter had initially been in command in Tennessee as that State's top general. Their impolitic occupation of Columbus, Kentucky, on September 3, 1861, two days before Johnston arrived in the Confederacy's capital of Richmond, Virginia, after his cross-country journey, drove Kentucky from its stated neutrality. The majority of Kentuckians allied with the Union camp. Polk and Pillow's action gave Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant an excuse to take control of the strategically located town of Paducah, Kentucky, without raising the ire of most Kentuckians and the pro-Union majority in the State legislature.Confederate command in Western TheaterOn September 10, 1861, Johnston was assigned to command the huge area of the Confederacy west of the Allegheny Mountains, except for coastal areas. He became commander of the Confederacy's western armies in the area often called the Western Department or Western Military Department. Johnston's appointment as a full general by his friend and admirer Jefferson Davis already had been confirmed by the Confederate Senate on August 31, 1861. The appointment had been backdated to rank from May 30, 1861, making him the second highest ranking general in the Confederate States Army. Only Adjutant General and Inspector General Samuel Cooper ranked ahead of him. After his appointment, Johnston immediately headed for his new territory. He was permitted to call on governors of Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi for new troops, although this authority was largely stifled by politics, especially with respect to Mississippi. On September 13, 1861, Johnston ordered Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoffer with 4,000 men to occupy Cumberland Gap in Kentucky in order to block Union troops from coming into eastern Tennessee. The Kentucky legislature had voted to side with the Union after the occupation of Columbus by Polk. By September 18, Johnston had Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner with another 4,000 men blocking the railroad route to Tennessee at Bowling Green, Kentucky.Johnston had fewer than 40,000 men spread throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri. Of these, 10,000 were in Missouri under Missouri State Guard Maj. Gen. Sterling Price. Johnston did not quickly gain many recruits when he first requested them from the governors, but his more serious problem was lacking sufficient arms and ammunition for the troops he already had. As the Confederate government concentrated efforts on the units in the East, they gave Johnston small numbers of reinforcements and minimal amounts of arms and material. Johnston maintained his defense by conducting raids and other measures to make it appear he had larger forces than he did, a strategy that worked for several months. Johnston's tactics had so annoyed and confused Union Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in Kentucky that he became paranoid and mentally unstable. Sherman overestimated Johnston's forces, and had to be relieved by Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on November 9, 1861. However, in his Memoirs Sherman strongly refutes this account.Battle of Mill SpringsEast Tennessee (a heavily pro-Union region of the South during the Civil War) was held for the Confederacy by two unimpressive brigadier generals appointed by Jefferson Davis: Felix Zollicoffer, a brave but untrained and inexperienced officer, and soon-to-be Maj. Gen. George B. Crittenden, a former U.S. Army officer with apparent alcohol problems. While Crittenden was away in Richmond, Zollicoffer moved his forces to the north bank of the upper Cumberland River near Mill Springs (now Nancy, Kentucky), putting the river to his back and his forces into a trap. Zollicoffer decided it was impossible to obey orders to return to the other side of the river because of scarcity of transport and proximity of Union troops. When Union Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas moved against the Confederates, Crittenden decided to attack one of the two parts of Thomas's command at Logan's Cross Roads near Mill Springs before the Union forces could unite. At the Battle of Mill Springs on January 19, 1862, the ill-prepared Confederates, after a night march in the rain, attacked the Union force with some initial success. As the battle progressed, Zollicoffer was killed, Crittenden was unable to lead the Confederate force (he may have been intoxicated), and the Confederates were turned back and routed by a Union bayonet charge, suffering 533 casualties from their force of 4,000. The Confederate troops who escaped were assigned to other units as General Crittenden faced an investigation of his conduct.After the Confederate defeat at the Mill Springs, Davis sent Johnston a brigade and a few other scattered reinforcements. He also assigned him Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, who was supposed to attract recruits because of his victories early in the war, and act as a competent subordinate for Johnston. The brigade was led by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, considered incompetent. He took command at Fort Donelson as the senior general present just before Union Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attacked the fort. Historians believe the assignment of Beauregard to the west stimulated Union commanders to attack the forts before Beauregard could make a difference in the theater. Union officers heard that he was bringing 15 regiments with him, but this was an exaggeration of his forces.Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, NashvilleBased on the assumption that Kentucky neutrality would act as a shield against a direct invasion from the north, circumstances that no longer applied in September 1861, Tennessee initially had sent men to Virginia and concentrated defenses in the Mississippi Valley. Even before Johnston arrived in Tennessee, construction of two forts had been started to defend the Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers, which provided avenues into the State from the north. Both forts were located in Tennessee in order to respect Kentucky neutrality, but these were not in ideal locations. Fort Henry on the Tennessee River was in an unfavorable low-lying location, commanded by hills on the Kentucky side of the river. Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, although in a better location, had a vulnerable land side and did not have enough heavy artillery to defend against gunboats.Maj. Gen. Polk ignored the problems of the forts when he took command. After Johnston took command, Polk at first refused to comply with Johnston's order to send an engineer, Lt. Joseph K. Dixon, to inspect the forts. After Johnston asserted his authority, Polk had to allow Dixon to proceed. Dixon recommended that the forts be maintained and strengthened, although they were not in ideal locations, because much work had been done on them and the Confederates might not have time to build new ones. Johnston accepted his recommendations. Johnston wanted Major Alexander P. Stewart to command the forts but President Davis appointed Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman as commander.To prevent Polk from dissipating his forces by allowing some men to join a partisan group, Johnston ordered him to send Brig. Gen. Gideon Pillow and 5,000 men to Fort Donelson. Pillow took up a position at nearby Clarksville, Tennessee and did not move into the fort until February 7, 1862. Alerted by a Union reconnaissance on January 14, 1862, Johnston ordered Tilghman to fortify the high ground opposite Fort Henry, which Polk had failed to do despite Johnston's orders. Tilghman failed to act decisively on these orders, which in any event were too late to be adequately carried out.Gen. Beauregard arrived at Johnston's headquarters at Bowling Green on February 4, 1862, and was given overall command of Polk's force at the western end of Johnston's line at Columbus, Kentucky. On February 6, 1862, Union Navy gunboats quickly reduced the defenses of ill-sited Fort Henry, inflicting 21 casualties on the small remaining Confederate force. Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman surrendered the 94 remaining officers and men of his approximately 3,000-man force which had not been sent to Fort Donelson before U.S. Grant's force could even take up their positions. Johnston knew he could be trapped at Bowling Green if Fort Donelson fell, so he moved his force to Nashville, the capital of Tennessee and an increasingly important Confederate industrial center, beginning on February 11, 1862.Johnston also reinforced Fort Donelson with 12,000 more men, including those under Floyd and Pillow, a curious decision in view of his thought that the Union gunboats alone might be able to take the fort. He did order the commanders of the fort to evacuate the troops if the fort could not be held. The senior generals sent to the fort to command the enlarged garrison, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, squandered their chance to avoid having to surrender most of the garrison and on February 16, 1862, Brig. Gen. Simon Buckner, having been abandoned by Floyd and Pillow, surrendered Fort Donelson. Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped with his cavalry force of about 700 men before the surrender. The Confederates suffered about 1,500 casualties with an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 taken prisoner. Union casualties were 500 killed, 2,108 wounded, 224 missing.Johnston, who had little choice in allowing Floyd and Pillow to take charge at Fort Donelson on the basis of seniority after he ordered them to add their forces to the garrison, took the blame and suffered calls for his removal because a full explanation to the press and public would have exposed the weakness of the Confederate position. His passive defensive performance while positioning himself in a forward position at Bowling Green, spreading his forces too thinly, not concentrating his forces in the face of Union advances, and appointing or relying upon inadequate or incompetent subordinates subjected him to criticism at the time and by later historians. The fall of the forts exposed Nashville to imminent attack, and it fell without resistance to Union forces under Brig. Gen. Buell on February 25, 1862, two days after Johnston had to pull his forces out in order to avoid having them captured as well.Concentration at CorinthJohnston had various remaining military units scattered throughout his territory and retreating to the south to avoid being cut off. Johnston himself retreated with the force under his personal command, the Army of Central Kentucky, from the vicinity of Nashville. With Beauregard's help, Johnston decided to concentrate forces with those formerly under Polk and now already under Beauregard's command at the strategically located railroad crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi, which he reached by a circuitous route. Johnston kept the Union forces, now under the overall command of the ponderous Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, confused and hesitant to move, allowing Johnston to reach his objective undetected. This delay allowed Jefferson Davis finally to send reinforcements from the garrisons of coastal cities and another highly rated but prickly general, Braxton Bragg, to help organize the western forces. Bragg at least calmed the nerves of Beauregard and Polk, who had become agitated by their apparent dire situation in the face of numerically superior forces, before Johnston's arrival on March 24, 1862.Johnston's army of 17,000 men gave the Confederates a combined force of about 40,000 to 44,669 men at Corinth. On March 29, 1862, Johnston officially took command of this combined force, which continued to use the Army of the Mississippi name under which it had been organized by Beauregard on March 5.Johnston now planned to defeat the Union forces piecemeal before the various Union units in Kentucky and Tennessee under Grant with 40,000 men at nearby Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and the now Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on his way from Nashville with 35,000 men, could unite against him. Johnston started his army in motion on April 3, 1862, intent on surprising Grant's force as soon as the next day, but they moved slowly due to their inexperience, bad roads, and lack of adequate staff planning.  Due to the delays, as well as several contacts with the enemy, Johnston's second in command, P. G. T. Beauregard, felt the element of surprise had been lost and recommended calling off the attack.  Johnston decided to proceed as planned, stating "I would fight them if they were a million." His army was finally in position within a mile or two of Grant's force, and undetected, by the evening of April 5, 1862.Battle of Shiloh and deathJohnston launched a massive surprise attack with his concentrated forces against Grant at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. As the Confederate forces overran the Union camps, Johnston personally rallied troops up and down the line on his horse. One of his most famous moments in the battle occurred when he witnessed some of his soldiers breaking from the ranks to pillage and loot the Union camps, and was outraged to see a young lieutenant among them.  "None of that, sir," Johnston roared at the officer, "we are not here for plunder."  Then, realizing he had embarrassed the man, he picked up a tin cup off a table and announced, "Let this be my share of the spoils today," before directing his army onward.At about 2:30 pm, while leading one of those charges against a Union camp near the "Peach Orchard," he was wounded, taking a bullet behind his right knee. The bullet clipped a part of his popliteal artery and his boot filled up with blood.  There were no medical personnel on scene at the time, since Johnston had sent his personal surgeon to care for the wounded Confederate troops and Union prisoners earlier in the battle.Within a few minutes, Johnston was observed by his staff to be nearly fainting. Among his staff was Isham G. Harris, the Governor of Tennessee, who had ceased to make any real effort to function as governor after learning that Abraham Lincoln had appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee. Seeing Johnston slumping in his saddle and his face turning deathly pale, Harris asked: "General, are you wounded?" Johnston glanced down at his leg wound, then faced Harris and replied in a weak voice his last words: "Yes... and I fear seriously." Harris and other staff officers removed Johnston from his horse and carried him to a small ravine near the "Hornets Nest" and desperately tried to aid the general, who had lost consciousness by this point. Harris then sent an aide to fetch Johnston's surgeon but did not apply a tourniquet to Johnson's wounded leg. A few minutes later, before a doctor could be found, Johnston died from blood loss. It is believed that Johnston may have lived for as long as one hour after receiving his fatal wound.  Ironically, it was later discovered that Johnston had a tourniquet in his pocket when he died.Harris and the other officers wrapped General Johnston's body in a blanket so as not to damage the troops' morale with the sight of the dead general. Johnston and his wounded horse, Fire Eater, were taken to his field headquarters on the Corinth road, where his body remained in his tent for the remainder of the battle.  P. G. T. Beauregard assumed command of the army and resumed leading the Confederate assault, which continued advancing and pushed the Union force back to a final defensive line near the Tennessee river.  With his army exhausted and daylight almost gone, Beauregard called off the final Confederate attack around 1900 hours, figuring he could finish off the Union army the following morning.  However, Grant was reinforced by 20,000 fresh troops from Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio during the night, and led a successful counter-attack the following day, driving the Confederates from the field and winning the battle.  As the Confederate army retreated back to Corinth, Johnston's body was taken to the home of Colonel William Inge, which had been his headquarters in Corinth. It was covered in the Confederate flag and lay in state for several hours.It is possible that a Confederate soldier fired the fatal round, as many Confederates were firing at the Union lines while Johnston charged well in advance of his soldiers.  Alonzo Ridley of Los Angeles commanded the bodyguard “the Guides” of Gen. A. S. Johnston, and was by his side when he fell.Johnston was the highest-ranking fatality of the war on either side, and his death was a strong blow to the morale of the Confederacy. At the time, Davis considered him the best general in the country.Legacy and honorsJohnston was survived by his wife Eliza and six children. His wife and five younger children, including one born after he went to war, chose to live out their days at home in Los Angeles with Eliza's brother, Dr. John Strother Griffin. Johnston's eldest son, Albert Sidney Jr. (born in Texas), had already followed him into the Confederate States Army.  In 1863, after taking home leave in Los Angeles, Albert Jr. was on his way out of San Pedro harbor on a ferry.  While a steamer was taking on passengers from the ferry, a wave swamped the smaller boat, causing its boilers to explode. Albert Jr. was killed in the accident.Upon his passing General Johnston received the highest praise ever given by the Confederate government: accounts were published, on December 20, 1862, and thereafter, in the Los Angeles Star of his family's hometown. Johnston Street, Hancock Street, and Griffin Avenue, each in northeast Los Angeles, are named after the general and his family, who lived in the neighborhood.Johnston was initially buried in New Orleans. In 1866, a joint resolution of the Texas Legislature was passed to have his body moved and reinterred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The re-interment occurred in 1867. Forty years later, the state appointed Elisabet Ney to design a monument and sculpture of him to be erected at the grave site, installed in 1905.The Texas Historical Commission has erected a historical marker near the entrance of what was once Johnston's plantation. An adjacent marker was erected by the San Jacinto Chapter of the Daughters of The Republic of Texas and the Lee, Roberts, and Davis Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederate States of America.In 1916, the University of Texas at Austin recognized several confederate veterans (including Johnston) with statues on its South Mall. On August 21, 2017, as part of the wave of confederate monument removals in America, Johnston's statue was taken down. Plans were announced to add it to the Briscoe Center for American History on the east side of the university campus.Johnston was inducted to the Texas Military Hall of Honor in 1980.In the fall of 2018, A.S. Johnston Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, was renamed Cedar Crest Elementary. Johnston Middle School in Houston, Texas was also renamed to Meyerland Middle School. Three additional elementary schools named for Confederate veterans were renamed at the same time.See also List of American Civil War generals (Confederate) List of Confederate monuments and memorialsNotesReferences Beauregard, G. T. The Campaign of Shiloh. p. 579. In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. I, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence C. Buel. New York: Century Co., 1884–1888. .      Dupuy, Trevor N., Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard. Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. .    Hattaway, Herman, and Archer Jones. How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983. .     Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. .Further readingExternal linksEliza Johnston, Wife Of Confederate General Albert Sidney JohnstonAlbert Sidney Johnston at Handbook of Texas Online 1803 births1862 deaths Confederate States military personnel killed in the American Civil WarDeaths from bleedingBurials at Texas State CemeteryConfederate States Army full generalsPeople from Washington, KentuckyPeople from TexasPeople of California in the American Civil WarPeople of Texas in the American Civil WarAmerican people of the Black Hawk WarTransylvania University alumniUnited States Army generalsUnited States Military Academy alumniPeople of the Texas RevolutionPeople of the Utah WarUnited States politicians killed during the Civil WarPreston family of Virginia
An android is a humanoid robot or other artificial being often made from a flesh-like material. Historically, androids were completely within the domain of science fiction and frequently seen in film and television, but recent advances in robot technology now allow the design of functional and realistic humanoid robots.While the term "android" is used in reference to human-looking robots in general (not necessarily male-looking humanoid robots), a robot with a female appearance can also be referred to as a gynoid. Besides one can refer to robots without alluding to their sexual appearance by calling them anthrobots (merging the radical anthrōpos and the word robot; see anthrobotics) or anthropoids (short for anthropoid robots; the term  humanoids is not appropriate because it is already commonly used to refer to human-like organic species in the context of scientific fiction, futurism and speculative astrobiology).EtymologyThe Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest use (as "Androides") to Ephraim Chambers' 1728 Cyclopaedia, in reference to an automaton that St. Albertus Magnus allegedly created. By the late 1700s, "androides", elaborate mechanical devices resembling humans performing human activities, were displayed in exhibit halls.The term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature human-like toy automatons. The term android was used in a more modern sense by the French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam in his work Tomorrow's Eve (1886). This story features an artificial humanlike robot named Hadaly. As said by the officer in the story, "In this age of Realien advancement, who knows what goes on in the mind of those responsible for these mechanical dolls." The term made an impact into English pulp science fiction starting from Jack Williamson's The Cometeers (1936) and the distinction between mechanical robots and fleshy androids was popularized by Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future stories (1940–1944).Although Karel Čapek's robots in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1921)—the play that introduced the word robot to the world—were organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term "android" can mean either one of these, while a cyborg ("cybernetic organism" or "bionic man") would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts.The term "droid", popularized by George Lucas in the original Star Wars film and now used widely within science fiction, originated as an abridgment of "android", but has been used by Lucas and others to mean any robot, including distinctly non-human form machines like R2-D2. The word "android" was used in Star Trek: The Original Series episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" The abbreviation "andy", coined as a pejorative by writer Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, has seen some further usage, such as within the TV series Total Recall 2070.Authors have used the term android in more diverse ways than robot or cyborg. In some fictional works, the difference between a robot and android is only superficial, with androids being made to look like humans on the outside but with robot-like internal mechanics. In other stories, authors have used the word "android" to mean a wholly organic, yet artificial, creation. Other fictional depictions of androids fall somewhere in between.Eric G. Wilson, who defines an android as a "synthetic human being", distinguishes between three types of android, based on their body's composition: the mummy type –  made of "dead things" or "stiff, inanimate, natural material", such as mummies, puppets, dolls and statues the golem type – made from flexible, possibly organic material, including golems and homunculi the automaton type – made from a mix of dead and living parts, including automatons and robotsAlthough human morphology is not necessarily the ideal form for working robots, the fascination in developing robots that can mimic it can be found historically in the assimilation of two concepts: simulacra (devices that exhibit likeness) and automata (devices that have independence).ProjectsSeveral projects aiming to create androids that look, and, to a certain degree, speak or act like a human being have been launched or are underway.JapanJapanese robotics have been leading the field since the 1970s. Waseda University initiated the WABOT project in 1967, and in 1972 completed the WABOT-1, the first android, a full-scale humanoid intelligent robot. Its limb control system allowed it to walk with the lower limbs, and to grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile sensors. Its vision system allowed it to measure distances and directions to objects using external receptors, artificial eyes and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an artificial mouth.In 1984, WABOT-2 was revealed, and made a number of improvements. It was capable of playing the organ. Wabot-2 had ten fingers and two feet, and was able to read a score of music. It was also able to accompany a person. In 1986, Honda began its humanoid research and development program, to create humanoid robots capable of interacting successfully with humans.The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and the Kokoro company demonstrated the Actroid at Expo 2005 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan and released the Telenoid R1 in 2010. In 2006, Kokoro developed a new DER 2 android. The height of the human body part of DER2 is 165 cm. There are 47 mobile points. DER2 can not only change its expression but also move its hands and feet and twist its body. The "air servosystem" which Kokoro developed originally is used for the actuator. As a result of having an actuator controlled precisely with air pressure via a servosystem, the movement is very fluid and there is very little noise. DER2 realized a slimmer body than that of the former version by using a smaller cylinder. Outwardly DER2 has a more beautiful proportion. Compared to the previous model, DER2 has thinner arms and a wider repertoire of expressions. Once programmed, it is able to choreograph its motions and gestures with its voice.The Intelligent Mechatronics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Tokyo University of Science, has developed an android head called Saya, which was exhibited at Robodex 2002 in Yokohama, Japan. There are several other initiatives around the world involving humanoid research and development at this time, which will hopefully introduce a broader spectrum of realized technology in the near future. Now Saya is working at the Science University of Tokyo as a guide.The Waseda University (Japan) and NTT Docomo's manufacturers have succeeded in creating a shape-shifting robot WD-2. It is capable of changing its face. At first, the creators decided the positions of the necessary points to express the outline, eyes, nose, and so on of a certain person. The robot expresses its face by moving all points to the decided positions, they say. The first version of the robot was first developed back in 2003. After that, a year later, they made a couple of major improvements to the design. The robot features an elastic mask made from the average head dummy. It uses a driving system with a 3DOF unit. The WD-2 robot can change its facial features by activating specific facial points on a mask, with each point possessing three degrees of freedom. This one has 17 facial points, for a total of 56 degrees of freedom. As for the materials they used, the WD-2's mask is fabricated with a highly elastic material called Septom, with bits of steel wool mixed in for added strength. Other technical features reveal a shaft driven behind the mask at the desired facial point, driven by a DC motor with a simple pulley and a slide screw. Apparently, the researchers can also modify the shape of the mask based on actual human faces. To "copy" a face, they need only a 3D scanner to determine the locations of an individual's 17 facial points. After that, they are then driven into position using a laptop and 56 motor control boards. In addition, the researchers also mention that the shifting robot can even display an individual's hair style and skin color if a photo of their face is projected onto the 3D Mask.SingaporeProf Nadia Thalmann, a Nanyang Technological University scientist, directed efforts of the Institute for Media Innovation along with the School of Computer Engineering in the development of a social robot, Nadine. Nadine is powered by software similar to Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana. Nadine may become a personal assistant in offices and homes in future, or she may become a companion for the young and the elderly.Assoc Prof Gerald Seet from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and the BeingThere Centre led a three-year R&D development in tele-presence robotics, creating EDGAR. A remote user can control EDGAR with the user's face and expressions displayed on the robot's face in real time. The robot also mimics their upper body movements.South KoreaKITECH researched and developed EveR-1, an android interpersonal communications model capable of emulating human emotional expression via facial "musculature" and capable of rudimentary conversation, having a vocabulary of around 400 words. She is  tall and weighs , matching the average figure of a Korean woman in her twenties. EveR-1's name derives from the Biblical Eve, plus the letter r for robot. EveR-1's advanced computing processing power enables speech recognition and vocal synthesis, at the same time processing lip synchronization and visual recognition by 90-degree micro-CCD cameras with face recognition technology. An independent microchip inside her artificial brain handles gesture expression, body coordination, and emotion expression. Her whole body is made of highly advanced synthetic jelly silicon and with 60 artificial joints in her face, neck, and lower body; she is able to demonstrate realistic facial expressions and sing while simultaneously dancing. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has an ambitious plan to put a robot in every household by 2020. Several robot cities have been planned for the country: the first will be built in 2016 at a cost of 500 billion won (US$440 million), of which 50 billion is direct government investment. The new robot city will feature research and development centers for manufacturers and part suppliers, as well as exhibition halls and a stadium for robot competitions. The country's new Robotics Ethics Charter will establish ground rules and laws for human interaction with robots in the future, setting standards for robotics users and manufacturers, as well as guidelines on ethical standards to be programmed into robots to prevent human abuse of robots and vice versa.United StatesWalt Disney and a staff of Imagineers created Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair.Dr. William Barry, an Education Futurist and former visiting West Point Professor of Philosophy and Ethical Reasoning at the United States Military Academy, created an AI android character named "Maria Bot". This Interface AI android was named after the infamous fictional robot Maria in the 1927 film Metropolis, as a well-behaved distant relative. Maria Bot is the first AI Android Teaching Assistant at the university level. Maria Bot has appeared as a keynote speaker as a duo with Barry for a TEDx talk in Everett, Washington in February 2020.Resembling a human from the shoulders up, Maria Bot is a virtual being android that has complex facial expressions and head movement and engages in conversation about a variety of subjects. She uses AI to process and synthesize information to make her own decisions on how to talk and engage. She collects data through conversations, direct data inputs such as books or articles, and through internet sources.Maria Bot was built by an international high-tech company for Barry to help improve education quality and eliminate education poverty. Maria Bot is designed to create new ways for students to engage and discuss ethical issues raised by the increasing presence of robots and artificial intelligence. Barry also uses Maria Bot to demonstrate that programming a robot with life-affirming, ethical framework makes them more likely to help humans to do the same.Maria Bot is an ambassador robot for good and ethical AI technology.Hanson Robotics, Inc., of Texas and KAIST produced an android portrait of Albert Einstein, using Hanson's facial android technology mounted on KAIST's life-size walking bipedal robot body. This Einstein android, also called "Albert Hubo", thus represents the first full-body walking android in history. Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Arlington also developed the android portrait of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick (creator of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the basis for the film Blade Runner), with full conversational capabilities that incorporated thousands of pages of the author's works. In 2005, the PKD android won a first-place artificial intelligence award from AAAI.Use in fictionAndroids are a staple of science fiction. Isaac Asimov pioneered the fictionalization of the science of robotics and artificial intelligence, notably in his 1950s series I, Robot. One thing common to most fictional androids is that the real-life technological challenges associated with creating thoroughly human-like robots—such as the creation of strong artificial intelligence—are assumed to have been solved. Fictional androids are often depicted as mentally and physically equal or superior to humans—moving, thinking and speaking as fluidly as them.The tension between the nonhuman substance and the human appearance—or even human ambitions—of androids is the dramatic impetus behind most of their fictional depictions. Some android heroes seek, like Pinocchio, to become human, as in the film Bicentennial Man, or Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Others, as in the film Westworld, rebel against abuse by careless humans. Android hunter Deckard in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptation Blade Runner discovers that his targets appear to be, in some ways, more "human" than he is. Android stories, therefore, are not essentially stories "about" androids; they are stories about the human condition and what it means to be human.One aspect of writing about the meaning of humanity is to use discrimination against androids as a mechanism for exploring racism in society, as in Blade Runner. Perhaps the clearest example of this is John Brunner's 1968 novel Into the Slave Nebula, where the blue-skinned android slaves are explicitly shown to be fully human. More recently, the androids Bishop and Annalee Call in the films Aliens and Alien Resurrection are used as vehicles for exploring how humans deal with the presence of an "Other". The 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human also explores how androids are treated as second class citizens in a near future society.Female androids, or "gynoids", are often seen in science fiction, and can be viewed as a continuation of the long tradition of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Examples include the Greek myth of Pygmalion and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Some gynoids, like Pris in Blade Runner, are designed as sex-objects, with the intent of "pleasing men's violent sexual desires", or as submissive, servile companions, such as in The Stepford Wives. Fiction about gynoids has therefore been described as reinforcing "essentialist ideas of femininity", although others have suggested that the treatment of androids is a way of exploring racism and misogyny in society.The 2015 Japanese film Sayonara, starring Geminoid F, was promoted as "the first movie to feature an android performing opposite a human actor".See alsoReferencesFurther reading Kerman, Judith B. (1991). Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. . Perkowitz, Sidney (2004). Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids. Joseph Henry Press. . Shelde, Per (1993). Androids, Humanoids, and Other Science Fiction Monsters: Science and Soul in Science Fiction Films. New York: New York University Press. .Ishiguro, Hiroshi. "Android science." Cognitive Science Society. 2005.Glaser, Horst Albert and Rossbach, Sabine: The Artificial Human, Frankfurt/M., Bern, New York 2011 "The Artificial Human"TechCast Article Series, Jason Rupinski and Richard Mix, "Public Attitudes to Androids: Robot Gender, Tasks, & Pricing"An-droid, "Similar to the Android name" Carpenter, J. (2009). Why send the Terminator to do R2D2s job?: Designing androids as rhetorical phenomena. Proceedings of HCI 2009: Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century. Cambridge, UK. 1 September.Telotte, J.P. Replications: A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. University of Illinois Press, 1995.External links Japanese inventionsSouth Korean inventionsOsaka University researchScience fiction themesHuman–machine interactionRobots
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories (NWT) to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. It is one of the only two landlocked provinces in Canada. The eastern part of the province is occupied by the Great Plains, while the western part borders the Rocky Mountains. The province has a predominantly continental climate but experiences quick temperature changes due to air aridity. Seasonal temperature swings are less pronounced in western Alberta due to occasional chinook winds.Alberta is the 4th largest province by area at , and the 4th most populous, being home to 4,262,635 people. Alberta's capital is Edmonton, while Calgary is its largest city. The two are Alberta's largest census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and both exceed one million people. More than half of Albertans live in either Edmonton or Calgary, which contributes to continuing the rivalry between the two cities. English is the official language of the province. In 2016, 76.0% of Albertans were anglophone, 1.8% were francophone and 22.2% were allophone.The oil and gas industry is also a part of the province's identity. Alberta's economy is based on hydrocarbons, petrochemical industries, livestock, agriculture and frontier technologies. The oil industry has been a pillar of Alberta's economy since 1947, when substantial oil deposits were discovered at Leduc No. 1 well. Since Alberta is the province most rich in hydrocarbons, it provides 70% of the oil and natural gas exploited on Canadian soil. In 2018, Alberta's output was CDN$338.2 billion, 15.27% of Canada's GDP.In the past, Alberta's political landscape hosted parties like the left-wing Liberals and the agrarian United Farmers of Alberta. Today, Alberta is generally perceived as a conservative province. The right-wing Social Credit Party held office continually from 1935 to 1971 before the centre-right Progressive Conservatives held office continually from 1971 to 2015, the latter being the longest unbroken run in government at the provincial or federal level in Canadian history.Before becoming part of Canada, Alberta was home to several First Nations and was a territory used by fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. Canada acquired the lands that would become Alberta as part of the NWT on July 15, 1870. On September 1, 1905, Alberta was separated from the NWT as a result of the Alberta Act and designated the 8th province of Canada. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, many immigrants arrived, the biggest wave of which was pushed by Wilfrid Laurier, to prevent the prairies from being annexed by the United States. Massive oil resources were discovered in Alberta in 1947.Alberta is renowned for its natural beauty, richness in fossils and for housing important nature reserves. Alberta is home to six UNESCO designated World Heritage Sites: The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Dinosaur Provincial Park, the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Wood Buffalo National Park and Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. Other popular sites include Banff National Park, Elk Island National Park, Jasper National Park, Waterton Lakes National Park, and Drumheller.EtymologyAlberta was named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was the wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada (1878–83). Lake Louise and Mount Alberta were also named in her honour.The name "Alberta" itself is a feminine Latinized form of Albert, the name of Princess Louise's father, the Prince Consort ( , masculine) and its Germanic cognates, ultimately derived from the Proto-Germanic language *Aþalaberhtaz (compound of "noble" + "bright/famous").GeographyAlberta, with an area of , is the fourth-largest province after Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.Alberta's southern border is the 49th parallel north, which separates it from the U.S. state of Montana. The 60th parallel north divides Alberta from the Northwest Territories. The 110th meridian west separates it from the province of Saskatchewan; while on the west its boundary with British Columbia follows the 120th meridian west south from the Northwest Territories at 60°N until it reaches the Continental Divide at the Rocky Mountains, and from that point follows the line of peaks marking the Continental Divide in a generally southeasterly direction until it reaches the Montana border at 49°N.The province extends  north to south and  east to west at its maximum width. Its highest point is  at the summit of Mount Columbia in the Rocky Mountains along the southwest border while its lowest point is  on the Slave River in Wood Buffalo National Park in the northeast.With the exception of the semi-arid climate of the steppe in the south-eastern section, the province has adequate water resources. There are numerous rivers and lakes in Alberta used for swimming, fishing and a range of water sports. There are three large lakes, Lake Claire () in Wood Buffalo National Park, Lesser Slave Lake (), and Lake Athabasca (), which lies in both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The longest river in the province is the Athabasca River, which travels  from the Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains to Lake Athabasca.The largest river is the Peace River with an average flow of . The Peace River originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta and into the Slave River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River.Alberta's capital city, Edmonton, is located at about the geographic centre of the province. It is the most northerly major city in Canada and serves as a gateway and hub for resource development in northern Canada. With its proximity to Canada's largest oil fields, the region has most of western Canada's oil refinery capacity. Calgary is about  south of Edmonton and  north of Montana, surrounded by extensive ranching country. Almost 75% of the province's population lives in the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. The land grant policy to the railways served as a means to populate the province in its early years.Most of the northern half of the province is boreal forest, while the Rocky Mountains along the southwestern boundary are largely temperate coniferous forests of the Alberta Mountain forests and Alberta–British Columbia foothills forests. The southern quarter of the province is prairie, ranging from shortgrass prairie in the southeastern corner to mixed grass prairie in an arc to the west and north of it. The central aspen parkland region extending in a broad arc between the prairies and the forests, from Calgary, north to Edmonton, and then east to Lloydminster, contains the most fertile soil in the province and most of the population. Much of the unforested part of Alberta is given over either to grain or to dairy farming, with mixed farming more common in the north and centre, while ranching and irrigated agriculture predominate in the south.The Alberta badlands are located in southeastern Alberta, where the Red Deer River crosses the flat prairie and farmland, and features deep canyons and striking landforms. Dinosaur Provincial Park, near Brooks, showcases the badlands terrain, desert flora, and remnants from Alberta's past when dinosaurs roamed the then lush landscape.Climate Alberta extends for over  from north to south; its climate, therefore, varies considerably. Average high temperatures in January range from  in the southwest to  in the far north. The presence of the Rocky Mountains also influences the climate to the southwest, which disrupts the flow of the prevailing westerly winds and cause them to drop most of their moisture on the western slopes of the mountain ranges before reaching the province, casting a rain shadow over much of Alberta. The northerly location and isolation from the weather systems of the Pacific Ocean cause Alberta to have a dry climate with little moderation from the ocean. Annual precipitation ranges from  in the southeast to  in the north, except in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where total precipitation including snowfall can reach  annually.Northern Alberta is mostly covered by boreal forest and has a subarctic climate. The agricultural area of southern Alberta has a semi-arid steppe climate because the annual precipitation is less than the water that evaporates or is used by plants. The southeastern corner of Alberta, part of the Palliser Triangle, experiences greater summer heat and lower rainfall than the rest of the province, and as a result, suffers frequent crop yield problems and occasional severe droughts. Western Alberta is protected by the mountains and enjoys the mild temperatures brought by winter chinook winds. Central and parts of northwestern Alberta in the Peace River region are largely aspen parkland, a biome transitional between prairie to the south and boreal forest to the north.Alberta has a humid continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The province is open to cold Arctic weather systems from the north, which often produce cold winter conditions. As the fronts between the air masses shift north and south across Alberta, the temperature can change rapidly. Arctic air masses in the winter produce extreme minimum temperatures varying from  in northern Alberta to  in southern Alberta, although temperatures at these extremes are rare.In the summer, continental air masses have produced record maximum temperatures from  in the mountains to over  in southeastern Alberta. Alberta is a sunny province. Annual bright sunshine totals range between 1,900 up to just under 2,600 hours per year. Northern Alberta gets about 18 hours of daylight in the summer. The average daytime temperatures range from around  in the Rocky Mountain valleys and far north, up to around  in the dry prairie of the southeast. The northern and western parts of the province experience higher rainfall and lower evaporation rates caused by cooler summer temperatures. The south and east-central portions are prone to drought-like conditions sometimes persisting for several years, although even these areas can receive heavy precipitation, sometimes resulting in flooding.In the winter, the Alberta clipper, a type of intense, fast-moving winter storm that generally forms over or near the province and, pushed with great speed by the continental polar jetstream, descends over the rest of southern Canada and the northern tier of the United States. In southwestern Alberta, the cold winters are frequently interrupted by warm, dry chinook winds blowing from the mountains, which can propel temperatures upward from frigid conditions to well above the freezing point in a very short period. During one chinook recorded at Pincher Creek, temperatures soared from  in just one hour. The region around Lethbridge has the most chinooks, averaging 30 to 35 chinook days per year. Calgary has a 56% chance of a white Christmas, while Edmonton has an 86% chance.After Saskatchewan, Alberta experiences the most tornadoes in Canada with an average of 15 verified per year. Thunderstorms, some of them severe, are frequent in the summer, especially in central and southern Alberta. The region surrounding the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is notable for having the highest frequency of hail in Canada, which is caused by orographic lifting from the nearby Rocky Mountains, enhancing the updraft/downdraft cycle necessary for the formation of hail.EcologyFlora In central and northern Alberta the arrival of spring is marked by the early flowering of the prairie crocus (Pulsatilla nuttalliana) anemone; this member of the buttercup family has been recorded flowering as early as March, though April is the usual month for the general population. Other prairie flora known to flower early are the golden bean (Thermopsis rhombifolia) and wild rose (Rosa acicularis). Members of the sunflower (Helianthus) family blossom on the prairie in the summer months between July and September. The southern and east central parts of Alberta are covered by short prairie grass, which dries up as summer lengthens, to be replaced by hardy perennials such as the prairie coneflower (Ratibida), fleabane, and sage (Artemisia). Both yellow and white sweet clover (Melilotus) can be found throughout the southern and central areas of the province.The trees in the parkland region of the province grow in clumps and belts on the hillsides. These are largely deciduous, typically aspen, poplar, and willow. Many species of willow and other shrubs grow in virtually any terrain. North of the North Saskatchewan River, evergreen forests prevail for thousands of square kilometres. Aspen poplar, balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera) (or in some parts cottonwood (Populus deltoides), and paper birch (Betula papyrifera) are the primary large deciduous species. Conifers include jack pine (Pinus banksiana), Rocky Mountain pine, lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), both white and black spruce, and the deciduous conifer tamarack (Larix laricina).Fauna The four climatic regions (alpine, boreal forest, parkland, and prairie) of Alberta are home to many different species of animals. The south and central prairie was the homeland of the American bison, also known as buffalo, with its grasses providing pasture and breeding ground for millions of buffalo. The buffalo population was decimated during early settlement, but since then, buffalo have made a comeback, living on farms and in parks all over Alberta.Herbivores are found throughout the province. Moose, mule deer, elk, and white-tailed deer are found in the wooded regions, and pronghorn can be found in the prairies of southern Alberta. Bighorn sheep and mountain goats live in the Rocky Mountains. Rabbits, porcupines, skunks, squirrels, and many species of rodents and reptiles live in every corner of the province. Alberta is home to only one venomous snake species, the prairie rattlesnake.Alberta is home to many large carnivores such as wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, and mountain lions, which are found in the mountains and wooded regions. Smaller carnivores of the canine and feline families include coyotes, red foxes, Canada lynx, and bobcats. Wolverines can also be found in the northwestern areas of the province.Central and northern Alberta and the region farther north are the nesting ground of many migratory birds. Vast numbers of ducks, geese, swans and pelicans arrive in Alberta every spring and nest on or near one of the hundreds of small lakes that dot northern Alberta. Eagles, hawks, owls, and crows are plentiful, and a huge variety of smaller seed and insect-eating birds can be found. Alberta, like other temperate regions, is home to mosquitoes, flies, wasps, and bees. Rivers and lakes are populated with pike, walleye, whitefish, rainbow, speckled, brown trout, and sturgeon. Native to the province, the bull trout, is the provincial fish and an official symbol of Alberta. Turtles are found in some water bodies in the southern part of the province. Frogs and salamanders are a few of the amphibians that make their homes in Alberta.Alberta is the only province in Canada—as well as one of the few places in the world—that is free of Norwegian rats. Since the early 1950s, the Government of Alberta has operated a rat-control program, which has been so successful that only isolated instances of wild rat sightings are reported, usually of rats arriving in the province aboard trucks or by rail. In 2006, Alberta Agriculture reported zero findings of wild rats; the only rat interceptions have been domesticated rats that have been seized from their owners. It is illegal for individual Albertans to own or keep Norwegian rats of any description; the animals can only be kept in the province by zoos, universities and colleges, and recognized research institutions. In 2009, several rats werefound and captured, in small pockets in southern Alberta, putting Alberta's rat-free status in jeopardy. A colony of rats was subsequently found in a landfill near Medicine Hat in 2012 and again in 2014.Paleontology Alberta has one of the greatest diversities and abundances of Late Cretaceous dinosaur fossils worldwide. Taxa are represented by complete fossil skeletons, isolated material, microvertebrate remains, and even mass graves. At least 38 dinosaur type specimens were collected in the province. The Foremost Formation, Oldman Formation and Dinosaur Park Formations collectively comprise the Judith River Group and are the most thoroughly studied dinosaur-bearing strata in Alberta.Dinosaur-bearing strata are distributed widely throughout Alberta. The Dinosaur Provincial Park area contains outcrops of the Dinosaur Park Formation and Oldman Formation. In Alberta's central and southern regions are intermittent Scollard Formation outcrops. In the Drumheller Valley and Edmonton regions there are exposed Horseshoe Canyon facies. Other formations have been recorded as well, like the Milk River and Foremost Formations. The latter two have a lower diversity of documented dinosaurs, primarily due to their lower total fossil quantity and neglect from collectors who are hindered by the isolation and scarcity of exposed outcrops. Their dinosaur fossils are primarily teeth recovered from microvertebrate fossil sites. Additional geologic formations that have produced only a few fossils are the Belly River Group and St. Mary River Formations of the southwest and the northwestern Wapiti Formation, which contains two Pachyrhinosaurus bone beds. The Bearpaw Formation represents strata deposited during a marine transgression. Dinosaurs are known from this formation, but represent specimens washed out to sea or reworked from older sediments.History Paleo-Indians arrived in Alberta at least 10,000 years ago, toward the end of the last ice age. They are thought to have migrated from Siberia to Alaska on a land bridge across the Bering Strait and then possibly moved down the east side of the Rocky Mountains through Alberta to settle the Americas. Others may have migrated down the coast of British Columbia and then moved inland. Over time they differentiated into various First Nations peoples, including the Plains Indians of southern Alberta such as those of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Plains Cree, who generally lived by hunting buffalo, and the more northerly tribes such as the Woodland Cree and Chipewyan who hunted, trapped, and fished for a living.After the British arrival in Canada, approximately half of the province of Alberta, south of the Athabasca River drainage, became part of Rupert's Land which consisted of all land drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. This area was granted by Charles II of England to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1670, and rival fur trading companies were not allowed to trade in it.The Athabasca River and the rivers north of it were not in HBC territory because they drained into the Arctic Ocean instead of Hudson Bay, and they were prime habitats for fur-bearing animals. The first European explorer of the Athabasca region was Peter Pond, who learned of the Methye Portage, which allowed travel from southern rivers into the rivers north of Rupert's Land. Other North American fur traders formed the North West Company (NWC) of Montreal to compete with the HBC in 1779. The NWC occupied the northern part of Alberta territory. Peter Pond built Fort Athabasca on Lac la Biche in 1778. Roderick Mackenzie built Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca ten years later in 1788. His cousin, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, followed the North Saskatchewan River to its northernmost point near Edmonton, then setting northward on foot, trekked to the Athabasca River, which he followed to Lake Athabasca. It was there he discovered the mighty outflow river which bears his name—the Mackenzie River—which he followed to its outlet in the Arctic Ocean. Returning to Lake Athabasca, he followed the Peace River upstream, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean, and so he became the first European to cross the North American continent north of Mexico.The extreme southernmost portion of Alberta was part of the French (and Spanish) territory of Louisiana and was sold to the United States in 1803. In the Treaty of 1818, the portion of Louisiana north of the Forty-Ninth Parallel was ceded to Great Britain.Fur trade expanded in the north, but bloody battles occurred between the rival HBC and NWC, and in 1821 the British government forced them to merge to stop the hostilities. The amalgamated Hudson's Bay Company dominated trade in Alberta until 1870 when the newly formed Canadian Government purchased Rupert's Land. Northern Alberta was included in the North-Western Territory until 1870, when it and Rupert's land became Canada's North-West Territories.First Nations negotiated the Numbered Treaties with the Crown in which the Crown gained title to the land that would later become Alberta, and the Crown committed to the ongoing support of the First Nations and guaranteed their hunting and fishing rights. The most significant treaties for Alberta are Treaty 6 (1876), Treaty 7 (1877) and Treaty 8 (1899).The District of Alberta was created as part of the North-West Territories in 1882. As settlement increased, local representatives to the North-West Legislative Assembly were added. After a long campaign for autonomy, in 1905, the District of Alberta was enlarged and given provincial status, with the election of Alexander Cameron Rutherford as the first premier. Less than a decade later, the First World War presented special challenges to the new province as an extraordinary number of volunteers left relatively few workers to maintain services and production. Over 50% of Alberta's doctors volunteered for service overseas.On June 21, 2013, during the 2013 Alberta floods Alberta experienced heavy rainfall that triggered catastrophic flooding throughout much of the southern half of the province along the Bow, Elbow, Highwood and Oldman rivers and tributaries. A dozen municipalities in Southern Alberta declared local states of emergency on June 21 as water levels rose and numerous communities were placed under evacuation orders.In 2016, the Fort McMurray wildfire resulted in the largest fire evacuation of residents in Alberta's history, as more than 80,000 people were ordered to evacuate.Since 2020, Alberta has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.Demographics The 2021 Canadian census reported Alberta had a population of 4,262,635 living in 1,633,220 of its 1,772,670 total dwellings, an 4.8% change from its 2016 population of 4,067,175. With a land area of , it had a population density of  in 2021. Statistics Canada estimated the province to have a population of 4,464,170 in Q4 of 2021.Since 2000, Alberta's population has experienced a relatively high rate of growth, mainly because of its burgeoning economy. Between 2003 and 2004, the province had high birthrates (on par with some larger provinces such as British Columbia), relatively high immigration, and a high rate of interprovincial migration compared to other provinces. In 2016, Alberta continued to have the youngest population among the provinces with a median age of 36.7 years, compared with the national median of 41.2 years. Also in 2016, Alberta had the smallest proportion of seniors (12.3%) among the provinces and one of the highest population shares of children (19.2%), further contributing to Alberta's young and growing population.About 81% of the population lives in urban areas and only about 19% in rural areas. The Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is the most urbanized area in the province and is one of the most densely populated areas of Canada. Many of Alberta's cities and towns have experienced very high rates of growth in recent history. Alberta's population rose from 73,022 in 1901 to 3,290,350 according to the 2006 census.Census informationAccording to the 2016 census Alberta has 779,155 residents (19.2%) between the ages of 0-14, 2,787,805 residents (68.5%) between the ages of 15–64, and 500,215 residents (12.3%) aged 65 and over. English is the most common mother tongue, with 2,991,485 native speakers. This is followed by Tagalog, with 99,035 speakers, German, with 80,050 speakers, French, with 72,150 native speakers, and Hindi, with 68,695 speakers. 253,460 residents identify as Aboriginal, including 136,585 as First Nations, 114,370 as Métis, and 2,500 as Inuit. There are also 933,165 residents who identify as a visible minority, including 230,930 South Asian people, 166,195 Filipinos, and 158,200 Chinese respondents. 1,769,500 residents hold a postsecondary certificate, diploma or degree, 895,885 residents have obtained a secondary (high) school diploma or equivalency certificate, and 540,665 residents do not have any certificate, diploma or degree.The 2006 census found that English, with 2,576,670 native speakers, was the most common mother tongue of Albertans, representing 79.99% of the population. The next most common mother tongues were Chinese with 97,275 native speakers (3.02%), followed by German with 84,505 native speakers (2.62%) and French with 61,225 (1.90%). Other mother tongues include: Punjabi, with 36,320 native speakers (1.13%); Tagalog, with 29,740 (0.92%); Ukrainian, with 29,455 (0.91%); Spanish, with 29,125 (0.90%); Polish, with 21,990 (0.68%); Arabic, with 20,495 (0.64%); Dutch, with 19,980 (0.62%); and Vietnamese, with 19,350 (0.60%). The most common aboriginal language is Cree 17,215 (0.53%). Other common mother tongues include Italian with 13,095 speakers (0.41%); Urdu with 11,275 (0.35%); and Korean with 10,845 (0.33%); then Hindi 8,985 (0.28%); Farsi 7,700 (0.24%); Portuguese 7,205 (0.22%); and Hungarian 6,770 (0.21%).Alberta has considerable ethnic diversity. In line with the rest of Canada, many are descended from immigrants of Western European nations, notably England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France, but large numbers later came from other regions of Europe, notably Germany, Ukraine and Scandinavia. According to Statistics Canada, Alberta is home to the second-highest proportion (2%) of Francophones in western Canada (after Manitoba). Despite this, relatively few Albertans claim French as their mother tongue. Many of Alberta's French-speaking residents live in the central and northwestern regions of the province, after migration from other areas of Canada or descending from Métis. As reported in the 2001 census, the Chinese represented nearly 4% of Alberta's population, and South Asians represented more than 2%. Both Edmonton and Calgary have historic Chinatowns, and Calgary has Canada's third-largest Chinese community. The Chinese presence began with workers employed in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. Indigenous Albertans makeup approximately 3% of the population.In the 2006 Canadian census, the most commonly reported ethnic origins among Albertans were: 885,825 English (27.2%); 679,705 German (20.9%); 667,405 Canadian (20.5%); 661,265 Scottish (20.3%); 539,160 Irish (16.6%); 388,210 French (11.9%); 332,180 Ukrainian (10.2%); 172,910 Dutch (5.3%); 170,935 Polish (5.2%); 169,355 North American Indian (5.2%); 144,585 Norwegian (4.4%); and 137,600 Chinese (4.2%). (Each person could choose as many ethnicities as were applicable.) Amongst those of British heritage, the Scots have had a particularly strong influence on place-names, with the names of many cities and towns including Calgary, Airdrie, Canmore, and Banff having Scottish origins.Alberta is the third most diverse province in terms of visible minorities after British Columbia and Ontario with 13.9% of the population consisting of visible minorities in 2006. Over one-third of the populations of Calgary and Edmonton belong to a visible minority group. Aboriginal Identity Peoples made up 5.8% of the population in 2006, about half of whom consist of First Nations and the other half are Métis. There are also a small number of Inuit people in Alberta. The number of Aboriginal Identity Peoples have been increasing at a rate greater than the population of Alberta. As of the 2011 National Household Survey, the largest religious group was Roman Catholic, representing 24.3% of the population. Alberta had the second-highest percentage of non-religious residents among the provinces (after British Columbia) at 31.6% of the population. Of the remainder, 7.5% of the population identified themselves as belonging to the United Church of Canada, while 3.9% were Anglican. Lutherans made up 3.3% of the population while Baptists comprised 1.9%. The remainder belonged to a wide variety of different religious affiliations, none of which constituted more than 2% of the population.Members of LDS Church are mostly concentrated in the extreme south of the province. Alberta has a population of Hutterites, a communal Anabaptist sect similar to the Mennonites, and has a significant population of Seventh-day Adventists. Alberta is home to several Byzantine Rite Churches as part of the legacy of Eastern European immigration, including the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Edmonton, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada's Western Diocese which is based in Edmonton. Muslims made up 3.2% of the population, Sikhs 1.5%, Buddhists 1.2%, and Hindus 1.0%. Many of these are immigrants, but others have roots that go back to the first settlers of the prairies. Canada's oldest mosque, the Al-Rashid Mosque, is located in Edmonton, whereas Calgary is home to Canada's largest mosque, the Baitun Nur Mosque. Alberta is also home to a growing Jewish population of about 15,400 people who constituted 0.3% of Alberta's population. Most of Alberta's Jews live in the metropolitan areas of Calgary (8,200) and Edmonton (5,500).Municipalities Largest metro areas and municipalities by population as of 2016Economy Alberta's economy was one of the strongest in the world, supported by the burgeoning petroleum industry and to a lesser extent, agriculture and technology. In 2013, Alberta's per capita GDP exceeded that of the United States, Norway, or Switzerland, and was the highest of any province in Canada at  This was 56% higher than the national average of  and more than twice that of some of the Atlantic provinces. In 2006, the deviation from the national average was the largest for any province in Canadian history. According to the 2006 census, the median annual family income after taxes was $70,986 in Alberta (compared to $60,270 in Canada as a whole). In 2014, Alberta had the second-largest economy in Canada after Ontario, with a GDP exceeding . The GDP of the province calculated at basic prices rose by 4.6% in 2017 to $327.4 billion, which was the largest increase recorded in Canada, and it ended two consecutive years of decreases.Alberta's debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to peak at 12.1% in fiscal year 2021–2022, falling to 11.3% the following year.The Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the most urbanized region in the province and one of the densest in Canada. The region covers a distance of roughly  north to south. In 2001, the population of the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor was 2.15 million (72% of Alberta's population). It is also one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found the corridor to be the only Canadian urban centre to amass a United States level of wealth while maintaining a Canadian style quality of life, offering universal health care benefits. The study found that GDP per capita in the corridor was 10% above average United States metropolitan areas and 40% above other Canadian cities at that time.The Fraser Institute states that Alberta also has very high levels of economic freedom and rates Alberta as the freest economy in Canada, and second-freest economy amongst U.S. states and Canadian provinces.In 2014, merchandise exports totalled US$121.4 billion. Energy revenues totalled $111.7 billion and Energy resource exports totalled $90.8 billion. Farm Cash receipts from agricultural products totalled $12.9 billion. Shipments of forest products totalled $5.4 billion while exports were $2.7 billion. Manufacturing sales totalled $79.4 billion, and Alberta's information and communications technology (ICT) industries generated over $13 billion in revenue. In total, Alberta's 2014 GDP amassed $364.5 billion in 2007 dollars, or $414.3 billion in 2015 dollars. In 2015, Alberta's GDP grew unstably despite low oil prices, with growth rates as high 4.4% and as low as 0.2%.Agriculture and forestry Agriculture has a significant position in the province's economy. The province has over three million head of cattle, and Alberta beef has a healthy worldwide market. Nearly one half of all Canadian beef is produced in Alberta. Alberta is one of the top producers of plains buffalo (bison) for the consumer market. Sheep for wool and mutton are also raised.Wheat and canola are primary farm crops, with Alberta leading the provinces in spring wheat production; other grains are also prominent. Much of the farming is dryland farming, often with fallow seasons interspersed with cultivation. Continuous cropping (in which there is no fallow season) is gradually becoming a more common mode of production because of increased profits and a reduction of soil erosion. Across the province, the once common grain elevator is slowly being lost as rail lines are decreasing; farmers typically truck the grain to central points.Alberta is the leading beekeeping province of Canada, with some beekeepers wintering hives indoors in specially designed barns in southern Alberta, then migrating north during the summer into the Peace River valley where the season is short but the working days are long for honeybees to produce honey from clover and fireweed. Hybrid canola also requires bee pollination, and some beekeepers service this need.Forestry plays a vital role in Alberta's economy, providing over 15,000 jobs and contributing billions of dollars annually. Uses for harvested timber include pulpwood, hardwood, engineered wood and bioproducts such as chemicals and biofuels.Industry Alberta is the largest producer of conventional crude oil, synthetic crude, natural gas and gas products in Canada. Alberta is the world's second-largest exporter of natural gas and the fourth-largest producer. Two of the largest producers of petrochemicals in North America are located in central and north-central Alberta. In both Red Deer and Edmonton, polyethylene and vinyl manufacturers produce products that are shipped all over the world. Edmonton's oil refineries provide the raw materials for a large petrochemical industry to the east of Edmonton.The Athabasca oil sands surrounding Fort McMurray have estimated unconventional oil reserves approximately equal to the conventional oil reserves of the rest of the world, estimated to be 1.6 trillion barrels (254 km3). Many companies employ both conventional strip mining and non-conventional in situ methods to extract the bitumen from the oil sands. As of late 2006, there were over $100 billion in oil sands projects under construction or in the planning stages in northeastern Alberta.Another factor determining the viability of oil extraction from the oil sands is the price of oil. The oil price increases since 2003 have made it profitable to extract this oil, which in the past would give little profit or even a loss. By mid-2014, rising costs and stabilizing oil prices threatened the economic viability of some projects. An example of this was the shelving of the Joslyn north project in the Athabasca region in May 2014.With concerted effort and support from the provincial government, several high-tech industries have found their birth in Alberta, notably patents related to interactive liquid-crystal display systems. With a growing economy, Alberta has several financial institutions dealing with civil and private funds.Tourism Alberta has been a tourist destination from the early days of the  20th century, with attractions including outdoor locales for skiing, hiking, and camping, shopping locales such as West Edmonton Mall, Calgary Stampede, outdoor festivals, professional athletic events, international sporting competitions such as the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, as well as more eclectic attractions. According to Alberta Economic Development, Calgary and Edmonton both host over four million visitors annually. Banff, Jasper and the Rocky Mountains are visited by about three million people per year. Alberta tourism relies heavily on Southern Ontario tourists, as well as tourists from other parts of Canada, the United States, and many other countries.There are also natural attractions like Elk Island National Park, Wood Buffalo National Park, and the Columbia Icefield. Alberta's Rockies include well-known tourist destinations Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. The two mountain parks are connected by the scenic Icefields Parkway. Banff is located  west of Calgary on Highway 1, and Jasper is located  west of Edmonton on the Yellowhead Highway. Five of Canada's fourteen UNESCO World Heritage Sites are located within the province: Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Wood Buffalo National Park, Dinosaur Provincial Park and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. A number of these areas hold ski resorts, most notably Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise, Marmot Basin, Norquay and Nakiska.About 1.2 million people visit the Calgary Stampede, a celebration of Canada's own Wild West and the cattle ranching industry. About 700,000 people enjoy Edmonton's K-Days (formerly Klondike Days and Capital EX). Edmonton was the gateway to the only all-Canadian route to the Yukon gold fields, and the only route which did not require gold-seekers to travel the exhausting and dangerous Chilkoot Pass.Another tourist destination that draws more than 650,000 visitors each year is the Drumheller Valley, located northeast of Calgary. Drumheller, "Dinosaur Capital of The World", offers the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. Drumheller also had a rich mining history being one of Western Canada's largest coal producers during the war years. Another attraction in east-central Alberta is Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions, a popular tourist attraction operated out of Stettler, that offers train excursions into the prairie and caters to tens of thousands of visitors every year.Government and politicsThe Government of Alberta is organized as a parliamentary democracy with a unicameral legislature. Its unicameral legislature—the Legislative Assembly—consists of 87 members elected first past the post (FPTP) from single-member constituencies. Locally municipal governments and school boards are elected and operate separately. Their boundaries do not necessarily coincide.As Queen of Canada, Elizabeth II is the head of state for the Government of Alberta. Her duties in Alberta are carried out by Lieutenant Governor Salma Lakhani. The Queen and lieutenant governor are figureheads whose actions are highly restricted by custom and constitutional convention. The lieutenant governor handles numerous honorific duties in the name of the Queen. The government is headed by the premier. The premier is normally a member of the Legislative Assembly, and draws all the members of the Cabinet from among the members of the Legislative Assembly. The City of Edmonton is the seat of the provincial government—the capital of Alberta. The premier is Jason Kenney, sworn in on April 30, 2019.Alberta's elections have tended to yield much more conservative outcomes than those of other Canadian provinces. Since the 1960s, Alberta has had three main political parties, the Progressive Conservatives ("Conservatives" or "Tories"), the Liberals, and the social democratic New Democrats. The Wildrose Party, a more conservative party formed in early 2008, gained much support in the 2012 election and became the official opposition, a role it held until 2017 when it was dissolved and succeeded by the new United Conservative Party created by the merger of Wildrose and the Progressive Conservatives. The strongly conservative Social Credit Party was a power in Alberta for many decades, but fell from the political map after the Progressive Conservatives came to power in 1971.For 44 years the Progressive Conservatives governed Alberta. They lost the 2015 election to the NDP (which formed their own government for the first time in provincial history, breaking almost 80 consecutive years of right-wing rule), suggesting at the time a possible shift to the left in the province, also indicated by the election of progressive mayors in both of Alberta's major cities. Since becoming a province in 1905, Alberta has seen only five changes of government—only six parties have governed Alberta: the Liberals, from 1905 to 1921; the United Farmers of Alberta, from 1921 to 1935; the Social Credit Party, from 1935 to 1971; the Progressive Conservative Party, from 1971 to 2015; from 2015 to 2019, the Alberta New Democratic Party; and from 2019, the United Conservative Party, with the most recent transfer of power being the first time in provincial history that an incumbent government was not returned to a second term.Administrative divisionsThe province is divided into ten types of local governments – urban municipalities (including cities, towns, villages and summer villages), specialized municipalities, rural municipalities (including municipal districts (often named as counties), improvement districts, and special areas), Métis settlements, and Indian reserves. All types of municipalities are governed by local residents and were incorporated under various provincial acts, with the exception of improvement districts (governed by either the provincial or federal government), and Indian reserves (governed by local band governments under federal jurisdiction).Law enforcement Policing in the province of Alberta upon its creation was the responsibility of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. In 1917, due to pressures of the First World War, the Alberta Provincial Police was created. This organization policed the province until it was disbanded as a Great Depression-era cost-cutting measure in 1932. It was at that time the, now renamed, Royal Canadian Mounted Police resumed policing of the province, specifically RCMP "K" Division. With the advent of the Alberta Sheriffs Branch, the distribution of duties of law enforcement in Alberta has been evolving as certain aspects, such as traffic enforcement, mobile surveillance and the close protection of the Premier of Alberta have been transferred to the Sheriffs. In 2006, Alberta formed the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) to combat organized crime and the serious offences that accompany it. ALERT is made up of members of the RCMP, Sheriffs Branch, and various major municipal police forces in Alberta.Military Military bases in Alberta include Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Cold Lake, CFB Edmonton, CFB Suffield and CFB Wainwright. Air force units stationed at CFB Cold Lake have access to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. CFB Edmonton is the headquarters for the 3rd Canadian Division. CFB Suffield hosts British troops and is the largest training facility in Canada.Taxation According to Alberta's 2009 budget, government revenue in that year came mainly from royalties on non-renewable natural resources (30.4%), personal income taxes (22.3%), corporate and other taxes (19.6%), and grants from the federal government primarily for infrastructure projects (9.8%). In 2014, Alberta received $6.1 billion in bitumen royalties. With the drop in the price of oil in 2015 it was down to $1.4 billion. In 2016, Alberta received "about $837 million in royalty payments from oil sands Royalty Projects". According to the 2018–2021 fiscal plan, the two top sources of revenue in 2016 were personal income tax at $10,763 million and federal transfers of $7,976 million with total resource revenue at $3,097 million. Alberta is the only province in Canada without a provincial sales tax. Alberta residents are subject to the federal sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax of 5%.From 2001 to 2016, Alberta was the only Canadian province to have a flat tax of 10% of taxable income, which was introduced by Premier, Ralph Klein, as part of the Alberta Tax Advantage, which also included a zero-percent tax on income below a "generous personal exemption".In 2016, under Premier Rachel Notley, while most Albertans continued to pay the 10% income tax rate, new tax brackets 12%, 14%, and 15% for those with higher incomes ($128,145 annually or more) were introduced. Alberta's personal income tax system maintained a progressive character by continuing to grant residents personal tax exemptions of $18,451, in addition to a variety of tax deductions for persons with disabilities, students, and the aged. Alberta's municipalities and school jurisdictions have their own governments who usually work in co-operation with the provincial government. By 2018, most Albertans continued to pay the 10% income tax rate.According to a March 2015 Statistics Canada report, the median household income in Alberta in 2014 was about $100,000, which is 23% higher than the Canadian national average.Based on Statistic Canada reports, low-income Albertans, who earn less than $25,000 and those in the high-income bracket earning $150,000 or more, are the lowest-taxed people in Canada. Those in the middle income brackets representing those that earn about $25,000 to $75,000 pay more in provincial taxes than residents in British Columbia and Ontario. In terms of income tax, Alberta is the "best province" for those with a low income because there is no provincial income tax for those who earn $18,915 or less. Even with the 2016 progressive tax brackets up to 15%, Albertans who have the highest incomes, those with a $150,000 annual income or more—about 178,000 people in 2015, pay the least in taxes in Canada. — About 1.9 million Albertans earned between $25,000 and $150,000 in 2015.Alberta also privatized alcohol distribution. By 2010, privatization had increased outlets from 304 stores to 1,726; 1,300 jobs to 4,000 jobs; and 3,325 products to 16,495 products. Tax revenue also increased from $400 million to $700 million.In 2017/18 Alberta collected about $2.4 billion in education property taxes from municipalities. Alberta municipalities raise a significant portion of their income through levying property taxes. The value of assessed property in Alberta was approximately $727 billion in 2011. Most real property is assessed according to its market value. The exceptions to market value assessment are farmland, railways, machinery and equipment and linear property, all of which is assessed by regulated rates. Depending on the property type, property owners may appeal a property assessment to their municipal 'Local Assessment Review Board', 'Composite Assessment Review Board,' or the Alberta Municipal Government Board.Culture Summer brings many festivals to the province of Alberta, especially in Edmonton. The Edmonton Fringe Festival is the world's second-largest after the Edinburgh Festival. Both Calgary and Edmonton host many annual festivals and events, including folk music festivals. The city's "heritage days" festival sees the participation of over 70 ethnic groups. Edmonton's Churchill Square is home to a large number of the festivals, including the large Taste of Edmonton and The Works Art & Design Festival throughout the summer months.The City of Calgary is also famous for its Stampede, dubbed "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth". The Stampede is Canada's biggest rodeo festival and features various races and competitions, such as calf roping and bull riding. In line with the western tradition of rodeo are the cultural artisans that reside and create unique Alberta western heritage crafts.The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity hosts a range of festivals and other events including the international Mountain Film Festival. These cultural events in Alberta highlight the province's cultural diversity. Most of the major cities have several performing theatre companies who entertain in venues as diverse as Edmonton's Arts Barns and the Winspear Centre. Both Calgary and Edmonton are home to Canadian Football League and National Hockey League teams (the Stampeders/Flames and Edmonton Elks/Oilers respectively). Soccer, rugby union and lacrosse are also played professionally in Alberta.In 2019, the then Minister of Culture and Tourism Ricardo Miranda announced the Alberta Artist in Residence program in conjunction with the province's first Month of the Artist to celebrate the arts and the value they bring to the province, both socially and economically, The Artist is selected each year via a public and competitive process is expected to do community outreach and attend events to promote the arts throughout the province. The award comes with $60,000 funding which includes travel and materials costs. On January 31, 2019, Lauren Crazybull named Alberta's 1st Artist in Residence. Alberta is the first province to launch an Artist in Residence program in Canada.Education As with any Canadian province, the Alberta Legislature has (almost) exclusive authority to make laws respecting education. Since 1905, the Legislature has used this capacity to continue the model of locally elected public and separate school boards which originated prior to 1905, as well as to create and regulate universities, colleges, technical institutions, and other educational forms and institutions (public charter schools, private schools, homeschooling).Elementary and secondary There are forty-two public school jurisdictions in Alberta, and seventeen operating separate school jurisdictions. Sixteen of the operating separate school jurisdictions have a Catholic electorate, and one (St. Albert) has a Protestant electorate. In addition, one Protestant separate school district, Glen Avon, survives as a ward of the St. Paul Education Region. The City of Lloydminster straddles the Albertan/Saskatchewan border, and both the public and separate school systems in that city are counted in the above numbers: both of them operate according to Saskatchewan law.For many years the provincial government has funded the greater part of the cost of providing K–12 education. Prior to 1994 public and separate school boards in Alberta had the legislative authority to levy a local tax on property as supplementary support for local education. In 1994, the government of the province eliminated this right for public school boards, but not for separate school boards. Since 1994 there has continued to be a tax on property in support of K–12 education; the difference is that the provincial government now sets the mill rate, the money is collected by the local municipal authority and remitted to the provincial government. The relevant legislation requires that all the money raised by this property tax must go to support K–12 education provided by school boards. The provincial government pools the property tax funds from across the province and distributes them, according to a formula, to public and separate school jurisdictions and Francophone authorities.Public and separate school boards, charter schools, and private schools all follow the Program of Studies and the curriculum approved by the provincial department of education (Alberta Education). Homeschool tutors may choose to follow the Program of Studies or develop their own Program of Studies. Public and separate schools, charter schools, and approved private schools all employ teachers who are certificated by Alberta Education, they administer Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Examinations set by Alberta Education, and they may grant high school graduation certificates endorsed by Alberta Education.Post-secondary The University of Alberta, located in Edmonton and established in 1908, is Alberta's oldest and largest university. The University of Calgary, once affiliated with the University of Alberta, gained its autonomy in 1966 and is now the second-largest university in Alberta. Athabasca University, which focuses on distance learning, and the University of Lethbridge are located in Athabasca and Lethbridge respectively.In early September 2009, Mount Royal University became Calgary's second public university, and in late September 2009, a similar move made MacEwan University Edmonton's second public university. There are 15 colleges that receive direct public funding, along with two technical institutes, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Two of the colleges, Red Deer College and Grande Prairie Regional College, were approved by the Alberta government to become degree-granting universities.There are also many private post-secondary institutions, mostly Christian Universities, bringing the total number of universities to 12. Students may also receive government loans and grants while attending selected private institutions. There was some controversy in 2005 over the rising cost of post-secondary education for students (as opposed to taxpayers). In 2005, Premier Ralph Klein made a promise that he would freeze tuition and look into ways of reducing schooling costs.Health careAlberta provides a publicly funded, fully integrated health system, through Alberta Health Services (AHS)—a quasi-independent agency that delivers health care on behalf of the Government of Alberta's Ministry of Health. The Alberta government provides health services for all its residents as set out by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984. Alberta became Canada's second province (after Saskatchewan) to adopt a Tommy Douglas-style program in 1950, a precursor to the modern medicare system.Alberta's health care budget was $22.5 billion during the 2018–2019 fiscal year (approximately 45% of all government spending), making it the best-funded health-care system per-capita in Canada. Every hour the province spends more than $2.5 million, (or $60 million per day), to maintain and improve health care in the province.Notable health, education, research, and resources facilities in Alberta, all of which are located within Calgary or Edmonton. Health centres in Calgary include:Alberta Children's HospitalFoothills Medical CentreGrace Women's Health CentreLibin Cardiovascular Institute of AlbertaPeter Lougheed CentreRockyview General HospitalSouth Health CampusTom Baker Cancer CentreUniversity of Calgary Medical Centre (UCMC)Health centres in Edmonton include:Alberta Diabetes InstituteCross Cancer InstituteEdmonton ClinicGrey Nuns Community HospitalLois Hole Hospital for WomenMazankowski Alberta Heart InstituteMisericordia Community HospitalRexall Centre for Pharmacy and Health ResearchRoyal Alexandra HospitalStollery Children's HospitalUniversity of Alberta HospitalThe Edmonton Clinic complex, completed in 2012, provides a similar research, education, and care environment as the Mayo Clinic in the United States.All public health care services funded by the Government of Alberta are delivered operationally by Alberta Health Services. AHS is the province's single health authority, established on July 1, 2008, which replaced nine regional health authorities. AHS also funds all ground ambulance services in the province, as well as the province-wide Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) air ambulance service.TransportationAirAlberta is well-connected by air, with international airports in both Calgary and Edmonton. Calgary International Airport and Edmonton International Airport are the fourth- and fifth-busiest in Canada, respectively. Calgary's airport is a hub for WestJet Airlines and a regional hub for Air Canada, primarily serving the prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) for connecting flights to British Columbia, eastern Canada, fifteen major United States centres, nine European airports, one Asian airport and four destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean. Edmonton's airport acts as a hub for the Canadian north and has connections to all major Canadian airports as well as airports in the United States, Europe, Mexico, and the Caribbean .Public transitCalgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge have substantial public transit systems. In addition to buses, Calgary and Edmonton operate light rail transit (LRT) systems. Edmonton LRT, which is underground in the downtown core and on the surface outside the CBD, was the first of the modern generation of light rail systems to be built in North America, while the Calgary C Train has one of the highest numbers of daily riders of any LRT system in North America.RailThere are more than  of operating mainline railway in Alberta. The vast majority of this trackage is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway companies, which operate Rail freight transport across the province. Additional railfreight service in the province is provided by two shortline railways: the Battle River Railway and Forty Mile Rail. Passenger trains include Via Rail's Canadian (Toronto–Vancouver) or Jasper–Prince Rupert trains, which use the CN mainline and pass through Jasper National Park and parallel the Yellowhead Highway during at least part of their routes. The Rocky Mountaineer operates two sections: one from Vancouver to Banff and Calgary over CP tracks, and a section that travels over CN tracks to Jasper.RoadAlberta has over  of highways and roads, of which nearly  are paved. The main north–south corridor is Highway 2, which begins south of Cardston at the Carway border crossing and is part of the CANAMEX Corridor. Beginning at the Coutts border crossing and ending at Lethbridge, Highway 4, effectively extends Interstate 15 into Alberta and is the busiest United States gateway to the province. Highway 3 joins Lethbridge to Fort Macleod and links Highway 2 to Highway 4. Highway 2 travels north through Fort Macleod, Calgary, Red Deer, and Edmonton.North of Edmonton, the highway continues to Athabasca, then northwesterly along the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake into High Prairie, north to Peace River, west to Fairview and finally south to Grande Prairie, where it ends at an interchange with Highway 43. The section of Highway 2 between Calgary and Edmonton has been named the Queen Elizabeth II Highway to commemorate the visit of the monarch in 2005. Highway 2 is supplemented by two more highways that run parallel to it: Highway 22, west of Highway 2, known as Cowboy Trail, and Highway 21, east of Highway 2. Highway 43 travels northwest into Grande Prairie and the Peace River Country. Travelling northeast from Edmonton, the Highway 63 connects to Fort McMurrayand the Athabasca oil sands.Alberta has two main east-west corridors. The southern corridor, part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, enters the province near Medicine Hat, runs westward through Calgary, and leaves Alberta through Banff National Park. The northern corridor, also part of the Trans-Canada network and known as the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16), runs west from Lloydminster in eastern Alberta, through Edmonton and Jasper National Park into British Columbia. One of the most scenic drives is along the Icefields Parkway, which runs for  between Jasper and Lake Louise, with mountain ranges and glaciers on either side of its entire length. A third corridor stretches across southern Alberta; Highway 3 runs between Crowsnest Pass and Medicine Hat through Lethbridge and forms the eastern portion of the Crowsnest Highway. Another major corridor through central Alberta is Highway 11 (also known as the David Thompson Highway), which runs east from the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park through Rocky Mountain House and Red Deer, connecting with Highway 12,  west of Stettler. The highway connects many of the smaller towns in central Alberta with Calgary and Edmonton, as it crosses Highway 2 just west of Red Deer.Urban stretches of Alberta's major highways and freeways are often called trails. For example, Highway 2, the main north-south highway in the province, is called Deerfoot Trail as it passes through Calgary but becomes Calgary Trail (southbound) and Gateway Boulevard (northbound) as it enters Edmonton and then turns into St. Albert Trail as it leaves Edmonton for the City of St. Albert. Calgary, in particular, has a tradition of calling its largest urban expressways trails and naming many of them after prominent First Nations individuals and tribes, such as Crowchild Trail, Deerfoot Trail, and Stoney Trail.Friendship partners Alberta has relationships with many provinces, states, and other entities worldwide. Gangwon-do, South Korea (1974) Hokkaido, Japan (1980) Heilongjiang, China (1981) Montana, United States (1985) Tyumen, Russia (1992) Khanty–Mansi, Russia (1995) Yamalo-Nenets, Russia (1997) Jalisco, Mexico (1999) Alaska, United States (2002) Saxony, Germany (2002) Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine (2004) Lviv, Ukraine (2005) California, United States (1997) Guangdong, China (2017)See also Index of Alberta-related articles Outline of AlbertaNotesReferencesFurther readingExternal links  Government of Alberta website  Alberta Encyclopedia List of streets in Alberta with maps 1905 establishments in CanadaProvinces of CanadaStates and territories established in 1905Canadian Prairies
AJohn AdairB. R. AmbedkarGiulio AngioniJon AltmanArjun AppaduraiTalal AsadTimothy AschScott AtranMarc AugéBNigel BarleyFredrik BarthVasily BartoldKeith H. BassoDaisy BatesGregory BatesonMary Catherine BatesonRuth BeharRuth BenedictDorothy A. BennettCarl H. BerendtLee BergerBrent BerlinCatherine Helen Webb BerndtCatherine L. BestemanTheodore C. BestorLewis BinfordEvelyn BlackwoodWilhelm BleekMaurice BlochAnton BlokFranz BoasTom BoellstorffPaul BohannanDmitri BondarenkoPere Bosch-GimperaPierre BourdieuPhilippe BourgoisPaul BrocaChristian BrombergerKari BruwelheideCJulio Caro BarojaEdmund CarpenterNapoleon ChagnonPierre ClastresMabel Cook ColeMalcolm Carr CollierHarold C. ConklinCarleton S. CoonFrank Hamilton CushingDRegna DarnellRaymond DartEmma Lou DavisWade DavisErnesto de MartinoElla Cara DeloriaRaymond J. DeMalliePhilippe DescolaStanley DiamondMary DouglasCora Du BoisEugene DuboisAnn DunhamKatherine Dunham Elizabeth Cullen DunnÉmile DurkheimEMary Lindsay ElmendolfVerrier ElwinMatthew EngelkeFriedrich EngelsArturo EscobarE. E. Evans-PritchardFJames FergusonRaymond FirthRaymond D. FogelsonMeyer FortesGregory ForthDian FosseyKate FoxRobin FoxJames FrazerLina FruzzettiGClifford GeertzAlfred GellErnest GellnerHerb Di GioiaMax GluckmanMaurice GodelierJane GoodallMarjorie Harness GoodwinIgor GorevichHarold A. GouldDavid GraeberHilma GranqvistJ. Patrick GrayMarcel GriauleJacob GrimmWilhelm GrimmHAbdellah HammoudiMichael HarkinMichael HarnerJohn P. HarringtonMarvin HarrisK. David HarrisonKirsten HastrupJacquetta HawkesStephen C. HeadleyThor HeyerdahlTe Rangi Hīroa (Sir Peter Buck)Arthur Maurice HocartIan HodderE. Adamson HoebelEarnest HootonRobin W.G. HortonAleš HrdličkaEva Verbitsky HuntDell HymesIMiyako InoueBill IronsJIra JacknisJohn M. JanzenThomas Des JeanF. Landa JocanoAlfred E. JohnsonWilliam JonesMichal JosephyJeffrey S. JurisKSergei KanJomo KenyattaDavid KertzerAlice Beck KehoeAnatoly KhazanovRichard G. KleinChris KnightEduardo KohnDorinne K. KondoAndrey KorotayevConrad KottakCharles H. KraftGrover KrantzAlfred L. KroeberTheodora KroeberLars KrutakAdam KuperLWilliam LabovGeorge LakoffHarold E. LambertEdmund LeachEleanor LeacockMurray LeafLouis LeakeyMary LeakeyRichard LeakeyRichard Borshay LeeCharles Miller LeslieClaude Lévi-StraussEllen LewinC. Scott LittletonAlbert Buell LewisOscar LewisPhillip Harold LewisIris LópezRobert LowieNancy LurieM Alan MacfarlaneSaba MahmoodBronisław MalinowskiGeorge MarcusJonathan M. MarksKarl MarxJohn Alden MasonMichael Atwood MasonMarcel MaussPhillip McArthurIrma McClaurinCharles Harrison McNuttMargaret MeadMervyn MeggittJosef MengeleNicholas Miklouho-MaclayEmily MartinHorace Mitchell MinerSidney MintzAshley MontaguJames MooneyHenrietta L. MooreJohn H. MooreLewis H. MorganDesmond MorrisGeorge MurdockYolanda MurphyN Laura NaderMoni NagJeremy NarbyRaoul NarollJosiah NottErland NordenskiöldO Gananath ObeyesekereKaori O'ConnorAihwa OngMarvin OplerMorris OplerSherry OrtnerKeith F. OtterbeinP Elsie Clews ParsonsBronislav PilsudskiThomas J. PluckhahnHortense PowdermakerA.H.J. PrinsHarald E.L. PrinsQ Buell QuainJames QuesadaRPaul RabinowWilhelm RadloffLucinda RambergRoy RappaportHans RasAlfred Reginald Radcliffe-BrownGerardo Reichel-DolmatoffKathy ReichsAudrey RichardsW. H. R. RiversPaul RivetJoel RobbinsRenato RosaldoGayle RubinRobert A. RubinsteinSMarshall SahlinsNoel B. SalazarRoger SandallEdward SapirPatricia SawinNancy Scheper-HughesWilhelm SchmidtTobias SchneebaumJames C. ScottThayer ScudderElman ServiceAfanasy ShchapovGerald F. SchroedlFlorence Connolly ShipekSydel SilvermanCathy SmallChristen A. SmithJacques SoustelleMelford SpiroJames SpradleyJulian StewardHerbert SpencerMarilyn StrathernWilliam SturtevantNiara SudarkasaTMichael TaussigEdward Burnett TylorColin TurnbullVictor TurnerBruce TriggerVKarl VernerL. P. VidyarthiEduardo Viveiros de CastroChristoph von Fürer-HaimendorfWAnthony F. C. WallaceLee Henderson WatkinsCamilla WedgwoodHank WesselmanKath WestonDouglas R. WhiteIsobel Mary White Leslie WhiteTim WhiteBenjamin WhorfUnni WikanClark WisslerEric WolfAlvin WolfeSol WorthYNur YalmanKim YeshiZJarrett ZigonR. Tom ZuidemaFictional anthropologistsMary Albright (Jane Curtin) in the sitcom 3rd Rock from the SunTemperance "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel)  in the television series BonesTemperance Brennan in the novel series Temperance Brennan by Kathy ReichsChakotay (Robert Beltran) in the television series Star Trek: VoyagerMichael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in the television series Star Trek: DiscoveryDaniel Jackson (Michael Shanks, James Spader) in the television series and film Stargate SG-1Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) in the television series LostSee also List of female anthropologists List of Black AnthropologistsReferencesAnthropologists
Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a clade (traditionally class or subclass) of the bony fishes. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species.The ray-finned fishes are so-called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or horny spines (rays), as opposed to the fleshy, lobed fins that characterize the class Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish). These actinopterygian fin rays attach directly to the proximal or basal skeletal elements, the radials, which represent the link or connection between these fins and the internal skeleton (e.g., pelvic and pectoral girdles).By species count, actinopterygians dominate the vertebrates, and they comprise nearly 99% of the over 30,000 species of fish. They are ubiquitous throughout freshwater and marine environments from the deep sea to the highest mountain streams. Extant species can range in size from Paedocypris, at , to the massive ocean sunfish, at , and the long-bodied oarfish, at . The vast majority of Actinopterygii (~95%) are teleosts.CharacteristicsRay-finned fishes occur in many variant forms. The main features of a typical ray-finned fish are shown in the adjacent diagram. The swim bladder is the more derived structure.Ray-finned fishes have many different types of scales; but all teleosts, the most advanced actinopterygians, have leptoid scales. The outer part of these scales fan out with bony ridges while the inner part is crossed with fibrous connective tissue. Leptoid scales are thinner and more transparent than other types of scales, and lack the hardened enamel or dentine-like layers found in the scales of many other fish. Unlike ganoid scales, which are found in non-teleost actinopterygians, new scales are added in concentric layers as the fish grows.Ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes, including tetrapods, possessed lungs used for aerial respiration. Only bichirs retain ventrally budding lungs.Body shapes and fin arrangementsRay-finned fish vary in size and shape, in their feeding specializations, and in the number and arrangement of their ray-fins.ReproductionIn nearly all ray-finned fish, the sexes are separate, and in most species the females spawn eggs that are fertilized externally, typically with the male inseminating the eggs after they are laid. Development then proceeds with a free-swimming larval stage. However other patterns of ontogeny exist, with one of the commonest being sequential hermaphroditism. In most cases this involves protogyny, fish starting life as females and converting to males at some stage, triggered by some internal or external factor. Protandry, where a fish converts from male to female, is much less common than protogyny.Most families use external rather than internal fertilization. Of the oviparous teleosts, most (79%) do not provide parental care. Viviparity, ovoviviparity, or some form of parental care for eggs, whether by the male, the female, or both parents is seen in a significant fraction (21%) of the 422 teleost families; no care is likely the ancestral condition. The oldest case of viviparity in ray-finned fish is found in Middle Triassic species of Saurichthys. Viviparity is relatively rare and is found in about 6% of living teleost species; male care is far more common than female care. Male territoriality "preadapts" a species for evolving male parental care.There are a few examples of fish that self-fertilise. The mangrove rivulus is an amphibious, simultaneous hermaphrodite, producing both eggs and spawn and having internal fertilisation. This mode of reproduction may be related to the fish's habit of spending long periods out of water in the mangrove forests it inhabits. Males are occasionally produced at temperatures below  and can fertilise eggs that are then spawned by the female. This maintains genetic variability in a species that is otherwise highly inbred.Classification and fossil recordActinopterygii is divided into the classes Cladistia and Actinopteri. The latter comprises the subclasses Chondrostei and Neopterygii. The Neopterygii, in turn, is divided into the infraclasses Holostei and Teleostei. During the Mesozoic (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous) and Cenozoic the teleosts in particular diversified widely. As a result, 96% of living fish species are teleosts (40% of all fish species belong to the teleost subgroup Acanthomorpha), while all other groups of actinopterygians represent depauperate lineages.The classification of ray-finned fishes can be summarized as follows: Cladistia, which include bichirs and reedfish Actinopteri, which include: Chondrostei, which include Acipenseriformes (paddlefishes and sturgeons) Neopterygii, which include:Teleostei (most living fishes)Holostei, which include:Lepisosteiformes (gars)Amiiformes (bowfin)The cladogram below shows the main clades of living actinopterygians and their evolutionary relationships to other extant groups of fishes and the four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods). The latter include mostly terrestrial species but also groups that became secondarily aquatic (e.g. Whales and Dolphins). Tetrapods evolved from a group of bony fish during the Devonian period. Approximate divergence dates for the different actinopterygian clades (in millions of years, mya) are from Near et al., 2012.The polypterids (bichirs and reedfish) are the sister lineage of all other actinopterygians, the Acipenseriformes (sturgeons and paddlefishes) are the sister lineage of Neopterygii, and Holostei (bowfin and gars) are the sister lineage of teleosts. The Elopomorpha (eels and tarpons) appear to be the most basal teleosts.The earliest known fossil actinopterygian is Andreolepis hedei, dating back 420 million years (Late Silurian). Remains have been found in Russia, Sweden, and Estonia. The earliest fossil relatives of modern teleosts are from the Triassic period (Prohalecites, Pholidophorus), although it is suspected that teleosts originated already during the Paleozoic Era.TaxonomyThe listing below is a summary of all extinct (indicated by a dagger, †) and living groups of Actinopterygii with their respcective taxonomic rank. The taxonomy follows Phylogenetic Classification of Bony Fishes with notes when this differs from Nelson, ITIS and FishBase and extinct groups from Van der Laan 2016 and Xu 2021. Order †?Asarotiformes Schaeffer 1968 Order †?Discordichthyiformes Minikh 1998 Order †?Paphosisciformes Grogan & Lund 2015 Order †?Scanilepiformes Selezneya 1985 Order †Cheirolepidiformes Kazantseva-Selezneva 1977 Order †Paramblypteriformes Heyler 1969 Order †Rhadinichthyiformes Order †Palaeonisciformes Hay 1902 Order †Tarrasiiformes sensu Lund & Poplin 2002 Order †Ptycholepiformes Andrews et al. 1967 Order †Haplolepidiformes Westoll 1944 Order †Aeduelliformes Heyler 1969 Order †Platysomiformes Aldinger 1937 Order †Dorypteriformes Cope 1871 Order †Eurynotiformes Sallan & Coates 2013 Class Cladistia Pander 1860 Order †Guildayichthyiformes Lund 2000 Order Polypteriformes Bleeker 1859 (bichirs and reedfishes) Class Actinopteri Cope 1972 s.s. Order †Elonichthyiformes Kazantseva-Selezneva 1977 Order †Phanerorhynchiformes Order †Bobasatraniiformes Berg 1940 Order †Saurichthyiformes Aldinger 1937 Subclass Chondrostei Müller, 1844 Order †Birgeriiformes Heyler 1969 Order †Chondrosteiformes Aldinger, 1937 Order Acipenseriformes Berg 1940 (includes sturgeons and paddlefishes) Subclass Neopterygii Regan 1923 sensu Xu & Wu 2012 Order †Pholidopleuriformes Berg 1937Order †Redfieldiiformes Berg 1940Order †Platysiagiformes Brough 1939Order †Polzbergiiformes Griffith 1977Order †Perleidiformes Berg 1937Order †Louwoichthyiformes Xu 2021 Order †Peltopleuriformes Lehman 1966 Order †Luganoiiformes Lehman 1958 Order †Pycnodontiformes Berg 1937 Infraclass Holostei Müller 1844 Division Halecomorpha Cope 1872 sensu Grande & Bemis 1998 Order †Parasemionotiformes Lehman 1966 Order †Ionoscopiformes Grande & Bemis 1998 Order Amiiformes Huxley 1861 sensu Grande & Bemis 1998 (bowfins) Division Ginglymodi Cope 1871 Order †Dapediiformes Thies & Waschkewitz 2015 Order †Semionotiformes Arambourg & Bertin 1958 Order Lepisosteiformes Hay 1929 (gars) Clade Teleosteomorpha Arratia 2000 sensu Arratia 2013 Order †Prohaleciteiformes Arratia 2017 Division Aspidorhynchei Nelson, Grand & Wilson 2016 Order †Aspidorhynchiformes Bleeker 1859 Order †Pachycormiformes Berg 1937 Infraclass Teleostei Müller 1844 sensu Arratia 2013 Order †?Araripichthyiformes Order †?Ligulelliiformes Taverne 2011 Order †?Tselfatiiformes Nelson 1994 Order †Pholidophoriformes Berg 1940 Order †Dorsetichthyiformes Nelson, Grand & Wilson 2016 Order †Leptolepidiformes Order †Crossognathiformes Taverne 1989 Order †Ichthyodectiformes Bardeck & Sprinkle 1969 Teleocephala de Pinna 1996 s.s.Megacohort Elopocephalai Patterson 1977 sensu Arratia 1999 (Elopomorpha Greenwood et al. 1966) Order Elopiformes Gosline 1960 (ladyfishes and tarpon) Order Albuliformes Greenwood et al. 1966 sensu Forey et al. 1996 (bonefishes) Order Notacanthiformes Goodrich 1909 (halosaurs and spiny eels) Order Anguilliformes Jarocki 1822 sensu Goodrich 1909 (true eels) Megacohort Osteoglossocephalai sensu Arratia 1999Supercohort Osteoglossocephala sensu Arratia 1999 (Osteoglossomorpha Greenwood et al. 1966) Order †Lycopteriformes Chang & Chou 1977 Order Hiodontiformes McAllister 1968 sensu Taverne 1979 (mooneye and goldeye) Order Osteoglossiformes Regan 1909 sensu Zhang 2004 (bony-tongued fishes) Supercohort Clupeocephala Patterson & Rosen 1977 sensu Arratia 2010Cohort Otomorpha Wiley & Johnson 2010 (Otocephala; Ostarioclupeomorpha) Subcohort Clupei Wiley & Johnson 2010 (Clupeomorpha Greenwood et al. 1966) Order †Ellimmichthyiformes Grande 1982 Order Clupeiformes Bleeker 1859 (herrings and anchovies) Subcohort Alepocephali Order Alepocephaliformes Marshall 1962 Subcohort Ostariophysi Sagemehl 1885 Section Anotophysa (Rosen & Greenwood 1970) Sagemehl 1885 Order †Sorbininardiformes Taverne 1999 Order Gonorynchiformes Regan 1909 (milkfishes) Section Otophysa Garstang 1931 Order Cypriniformes Bleeker 1859 sensu Goodrich 1909 (barbs, carp, danios, goldfishes, loaches, minnows, rasboras) Order Characiformes Goodrich 1909 (characins, pencilfishes, hatchetfishes, piranhas, tetras, dourado / golden (genus Salminus) and pacu) Order Gymnotiformes Berg 1940 (electric eels and knifefishes) Order Siluriformes Cuvier 1817 sensu Hay 1929 (catfishes) Cohort Euteleosteomorpha (Greenwood et al. 1966) (Euteleostei Greenwood 1967 sensu Johnson & Patterson 1996)Subcohort Lepidogalaxii Lepidogalaxiiformes Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 (salamanderfish) Subcohort Protacanthopterygii Greenwood et al. 1966 sensu Johnson & Patterson 1996 Order Argentiniformes (barreleyes and slickheads) (formerly in Osmeriformes) Order Galaxiiformes Order Salmoniformes Bleeker 1859 sensu Nelson 1994 (salmon and trout) Order Esociformes Bleeker 1859 (pike) Subcohort Stomiati Order Osmeriformes (smelts) Order Stomiatiformes Regan 1909 (bristlemouths and marine hatchetfishes) Subcohort Neoteleostei Nelson 1969Infracohort Ateleopodia Order Ateleopodiformes (jellynose fish) Infracohort Eurypterygia Rosen 1973Section Aulopa [Cyclosquamata Rosen 1973] Order Aulopiformes Rosen 1973 (Bombay duck and lancetfishes) Section Ctenosquamata Rosen 1973Subsection Myctophata [Scopelomorpha] Order Myctophiformes Regan 1911 (lanternfishes) Subsection Acanthomorpha Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013Division Lampridacea Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 [Lampridomorpha; Lampripterygii] Order Lampriformes Regan 1909 (oarfish, opah and ribbonfishes) Division Paracanthomorphacea sensu Grande et al. 2013 (Paracanthopterygii Greenwood 1937) Order Percopsiformes Berg 1937 (cavefishes and trout-perches) Order †Sphenocephaliformes Rosen & Patterson 1969 Order Zeiformes Regan 1909 (dories) Order Stylephoriformes Miya et al. 2007 Order Gadiformes Goodrich 1909 (cods) Division Polymixiacea Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 (Polymyxiomorpha; Polymixiipterygii) Order †Pattersonichthyiformes Gaudant 1976 Order †Ctenothrissiformes Berg 1937 Order Polymixiiformes Lowe 1838 (beardfishes) Division Euacanthomorphacea Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 (Euacanthomorpha sensu Johnson & Patterson 1993; Acanthopterygii Gouan 1770 sensu])Subdivision Berycimorphaceae Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Beryciformes (fangtooths and pineconefishes) (incl. Stephanoberyciformes; Cetomimiformes) Subdivision Holocentrimorphaceae Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Holocentriformes (Soldierfishes) Subdivision Percomorphaceae Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 (Percomorpha sensu Miya et al. 2003; Acanthopteri)Series Ophidiimopharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Ophidiiformes (pearlfishes) Series Batrachoidimopharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Batrachoidiformes (toadfishes) Series Gobiomopharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Kurtiformes(Nurseryfishes and cardinalfishes) Order Gobiiformes(Sleepers and gobies) Series Scombrimopharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Order Syngnathiformes (seahorses, pipefishes, sea moths, cornetfishes and flying gurnards) Order Scombriformes (Tunas and (mackerels) Series Carangimopharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 Subseries Anabantaria Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2014 Order Synbranchiformes (swamp eels) Order Anabantiformes (Labyrinthici) (gouramies, snakeheads, ) Subseries Carangaria Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2014 Carangaria incertae sedis Order Istiophoriformes Betancur-Rodriguez 2013 (Marlins, swordfishes, billfishes) Order Carangiformes (Jack mackerels, pompanos) Order Pleuronectiformes Bleeker 1859 (flatfishes) Subseries Ovalentaria Smith & Near 2012 (Stiassnyiformes sensu Li et al. 2009) Ovalentaria incertae sedis Order Cichliformes Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013 (Cichlids, Convict blenny, leaf fishes) Order Atheriniformes Rosen 1964 (silversides and rainbowfishes) Order Cyprinodontiformes Berg 1940 (livebearers, killifishes) Order Beloniformes Berg 1940 (flyingfishes and ricefishes) Order Mugiliformes Berg 1940 (mullets) Order Blenniiformes Springer 1993 (Blennies) Order Gobiesociformes Gill 1872 (Clingfishes) Series Eupercaria Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2014 (Percomorpharia Betancur-Rodriguez et al. 2013)Eupercaria incertae sedis Order Gerreiformes (Mojarras) Order Labriformes (Wrasses and Parrotfishes) Order Caproiformes (Boarfishes) Order Lophiiformes Garman 1899 (Anglerfishes) Order Tetraodontiformes Regan 1929 (Filefishes and pufferfish) Order Centrarchiformes Bleeker 1859 (Sunfishes and mandarin fishes)Order Gasterosteiformes (Sticklebacks and relatives)Order Scorpaeniformes (Lionfishes and relatives) Order Perciformes Bleeker 1859ReferencesExternal links  Ray-finned fishFish classesSilurian bony fishExtant Silurian first appearances
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are together the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius".In 1905, a year sometimes described as his annus mirabilis ('miracle year'), Einstein published four groundbreaking papers. These outlined the theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced special relativity, and demonstrated mass-energy equivalence. Einstein thought that the laws of classical mechanics could no longer be reconciled with those of the electromagnetic field, which led him to develop his special theory of relativity. He then extended the theory to gravitational fields; he published a paper on general relativity in 1916, introducing his theory of gravitation. In 1917, he applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light and the quantum theory of radiation, which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. However, for much of the later part of his career, he worked on two ultimately unsuccessful endeavors. First, despite his great contributions to quantum mechanics, he opposed what it evolved into, objecting that nature "does not play dice". Second, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream of modern physics.Einstein was born in the German Empire, but moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg) the following year. In 1897, at the age of 17, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss Federal polytechnic school in Zürich, graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest of his life, and in 1903 he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he was awarded a PhD by the University of Zurich. In 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1917, Einstein became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics; he also became a German citizen again, this time Prussian.In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Einstein, of Jewish origin, objected to the policies of the newly elected Nazi government; he settled in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940. On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommending that the US begin similar research. Einstein supported the Allies but generally denounced the idea of nuclear weapons.Life and careerEarly life and education Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879 into a family of secular Ashkenazi Jews. His parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where Einstein's father and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich, from the age of five, for three years. At the age of eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium (now known as the Albert Einstein Gymnasium), where he received advanced primary and secondary school education until he left the German Empire seven years later.In 1894, Hermann and Jakob's company lost a bid to supply the city of Munich with electrical lighting because they lacked the capital to convert their equipment from the direct current (DC) standard to the more efficient alternating current (AC) standard. The loss forced the sale of the Munich factory. In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and a few months later to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein, then 15, stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with the authorities and resented the school's regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning. At the end of December 1894, he traveled to Italy to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor's note. During his time in Italy he wrote a short essay with the title "On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field".Einstein excelled at math and physics from a young age, reaching a mathematical level years ahead of his peers. The 12-year-old Einstein taught himself algebra and Euclidean geometry over a single summer. Einstein also independently discovered his own original proof of the Pythagorean theorem at age 12. A family tutor Max Talmud says that after he had given the 12-year-old Einstein a geometry textbook, after a short time "[Einstein] had worked through the whole book. He thereupon devoted himself to higher mathematics... Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high I could not follow." His passion for geometry and algebra led the 12-year-old to become convinced that nature could be understood as a "mathematical structure". Einstein started teaching himself calculus at 12, and as a 14-year-old he says he had "mastered integral and differential calculus".At age 13, when he had become more seriously interested in philosophy (and music), Einstein was introduced to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant became his favorite philosopher, his tutor stating: "At the time he was still a child, only thirteen years old, yet Kant's works, incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, seemed to be clear to him."In 1895, at the age of 16, Einstein took the entrance examinations for the Swiss Federal polytechnic school in Zürich (later the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, ETH). He failed to reach the required standard in the general part of the examination, but obtained exceptional grades in physics and mathematics. On the advice of the principal of the polytechnic school, he attended the Argovian cantonal school (gymnasium) in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1895 and 1896 to complete his secondary schooling. While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with Winteler's daughter, Marie. Albert's sister Maja later married Winteler's son Paul. In January 1896, with his father's approval, Einstein renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service. In September 1896 he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1–6. At 17, he enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Federal polytechnic school. Marie Winteler, who was a year older, moved to Olsberg, Switzerland, for a teaching post.Einstein's future wife, a 20-year-old Serbian named Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the polytechnic school that year. She was the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein's and Marić's friendship developed into a romance, and they spent countless hours debating and reading books together on extra-curricular physics in which they were both interested. Einstein wrote in his letters to Marić that he preferred studying alongside her. In 1900, Einstein passed the exams in Maths and Physics and was awarded a Federal teaching diploma. There is eyewitness evidence and several letters over many years that indicate Marić might have collaborated with Einstein prior to his landmark 1905 papers, known as the Annus Mirabilis papers, and that they developed some of the concepts together during their studies, although some historians of physics who have studied the issue disagree that she made any substantive contributions.Marriages and children Early correspondence between Einstein and Marić was discovered and published in 1987 which revealed that the couple had a daughter named "Lieserl", born in early 1902 in Novi Sad where Marić was staying with her parents. Marić returned to Switzerland without the child, whose real name and fate are unknown. The contents of Einstein's letter in September 1903 suggest that the girl was either given up for adoption or died of scarlet fever in infancy.Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert Einstein was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July 1910. The couple moved to Berlin in April 1914, but Marić returned to Zürich with their sons after learning that, despite their close relationship before, Einstein's chief romantic attraction was now his cousin Elsa Löwenthal; she was his first cousin maternally and second cousin paternally. Einstein and Marić divorced on 14 February 1919, having lived apart for five years. As part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed to give Marić his future (in the event, 1921) Nobel Prize money.In letters revealed in 2015, Einstein wrote to his early love Marie Winteler about his marriage and his strong feelings for her. He wrote in 1910, while his wife was pregnant with their second child: "I think of you in heartfelt love every spare minute and am so unhappy as only a man can be." He spoke about a "misguided love" and a "missed life" regarding his love for Marie.Einstein married Löwenthal in 1919, after having had a relationship with her since 1912. They emigrated to the United States in 1933. Elsa was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems in 1935 and died in December 1936.In 1923, Einstein fell in love with a secretary named Betty Neumann, the niece of a close friend, Hans Mühsam. In a volume of letters released by Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2006, Einstein described about six women, including Margarete Lebach (a blonde Austrian), Estella Katzenellenbogen (the rich owner of a florist business), Toni Mendel (a wealthy Jewish widow) and Ethel Michanowski (a Berlin socialite), with whom he spent time and from whom he received gifts while being married to Elsa. Later, after the death of his second wife Elsa, Einstein was briefly in a relationship with Margarita Konenkova. Konenkova was a Russian spy who was married to the noted Russian sculptor Sergei Konenkov (who created the bronze bust of Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton).Einstein's son Eduard had a breakdown at about age 20 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mother cared for him and he was also committed to asylums for several periods, finally being committed permanently after her death.Patent office After graduating in 1900, Einstein spent almost two frustrating years searching for a teaching post. He acquired Swiss citizenship in February 1901, but was not conscripted for medical reasons. With the help of Marcel Grossmann's father, he secured a job in Bern at the Swiss Patent Office, as an assistant examiner – level III.Einstein evaluated patent applications for a variety of devices including a gravel sorter and an electromechanical typewriter. In 1903, his position at the Swiss Patent Office became permanent, although he was passed over for promotion until he "fully mastered machine technology".Much of his work at the patent office related to questions about transmission of electric signals and electrical-mechanical synchronization of time, two technical problems that show up conspicuously in the thought experiments that eventually led Einstein to his radical conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time.With a few friends he had met in Bern, Einstein started a small discussion group in 1902, self-mockingly named "The Olympia Academy", which met regularly to discuss science and philosophy. Sometimes they were joined by Mileva who attentively listened but did not participate. Their readings included the works of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, and David Hume, which influenced his scientific and philosophical outlook.First scientific papers In 1900, Einstein's paper "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen" ("Conclusions from the Capillarity Phenomena") was published in the journal Annalen der Physik. On 30 April 1905, Einstein completed his dissertation, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions with Alfred Kleiner, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Zürich, serving as pro-forma advisor. His work was accepted in July, and Einstein was awarded a Ph.D.Also in 1905, which has been called Einstein's annus mirabilis (amazing year), he published four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy, which were to bring him to the notice of the academic world, at the age of 26.Academic career By 1908, he was recognized as a leading scientist and was appointed lecturer at the University of Bern. The following year, after he gave a lecture on electrodynamics and the relativity principle at the University of Zurich, Alfred Kleiner recommended him to the faculty for a newly created professorship in theoretical physics. Einstein was appointed associate professor in 1909.Einstein became a full professor at the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague in April 1911, accepting Austrian citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to do so. During his Prague stay, he wrote 11 scientific works, five of them on radiation mathematics and on the quantum theory of solids. In July 1912, he returned to his alma mater in Zürich. From 1912 until 1914, he was a professor of theoretical physics at the ETH Zurich, where he taught analytical mechanics and thermodynamics. He also studied continuum mechanics, the molecular theory of heat, and the problem of gravitation, on which he worked with mathematician and friend Marcel Grossmann.When the "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three" was published in October 1914—a document signed by a host of prominent German intellectuals that justified Germany's militarism and position during the First World War—Einstein was one of the few German intellectuals to rebut its contents and sign the pacifistic "Manifesto to the Europeans".In the spring of 1913, Einstein was enticed to move to Berlin with an offer that included membership in the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and a linked University of Berlin professorship, enabling him to concentrate exclusively on research. On 3 July 1913, he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Max Planck and Walther Nernst visited him the next week in Zurich to persuade him to join the academy, additionally offering him the post of director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, which was soon to be established. Membership in the academy included paid salary and professorship without teaching duties at Humboldt University of Berlin. He was officially elected to the academy on 24 July, and he moved to Berlin the following year. His decision to move to Berlin was also influenced by the prospect of living near his cousin Elsa, with whom he had started a romantic affair. Einstein assumed his position with the academy, and Berlin University, after moving into his Dahlem apartment on 1 April 1914. As World War I broke out that year, the plan for Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics was aborted. The institute was established on 1 October 1917, with Einstein as its director. In 1916, Einstein was elected president of the German Physical Society (1916–1918).In 1911, Einstein used his 1907 Equivalence principle to calculate the deflection of light from another star by the Sun's gravity. In 1913, Einstein improved upon those calculations by using Riemannian space-time to represent the gravity field. By the fall of 1915, Einstein had successfully completed his general theory of relativity, which he used to calculate that deflection, and the perihelion precession of Mercury. In 1919, that deflection prediction was confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919. Those observations were published in the international media, making Einstein world-famous. On 7 November 1919, the leading British newspaper The Times printed a banner headline that read: "Revolution in Science – New Theory of the Universe – Newtonian Ideas Overthrown".In 1920, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". While the general theory of relativity was still considered somewhat controversial, the citation also does not treat even the cited photoelectric work as an explanation but merely as a discovery of the law, as the idea of photons was considered outlandish and did not receive universal acceptance until the 1924 derivation of the Planck spectrum by S. N. Bose. Einstein was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1921. He also received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1925.Einstein resigned from the Prussian Academy in March 1933. Einstein's scientific accomplishments while in Berlin, included finishing the general theory of relativity, proving the gyromagnetic effect, contributing to the quantum theory of radiation, and Bose–Einstein statistics.1921–1922: Travels abroad Einstein visited New York City for the first time on 2 April 1921, where he received an official welcome by Mayor John Francis Hylan, followed by three weeks of lectures and receptions. He went on to deliver several lectures at Columbia University and Princeton University, and in Washington, he accompanied representatives of the National Academy of Sciences on a visit to the White House. On his return to Europe he was the guest of the British statesman and philosopher Viscount Haldane in London, where he met several renowned scientific, intellectual, and political figures, and delivered a lecture at King's College London.He also published an essay, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", in July 1921, in which he tried briefly to describe some characteristics of Americans, much as had Alexis de Tocqueville, who published his own impressions in Democracy in America (1835). For some of his observations, Einstein was clearly surprised: "What strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life ... The American is friendly, self-confident, optimistic, and without envy."In 1922, his travels took him to Asia and later to Palestine, as part of a six-month excursion and speaking tour, as he visited Singapore, Ceylon and Japan, where he gave a series of lectures to thousands of Japanese. After his first public lecture, he met the emperor and empress at the Imperial Palace, where thousands came to watch. In a letter to his sons, he described his impression of the Japanese as being modest, intelligent, considerate, and having a true feel for art. In his own travel diaries from his 1922–23 visit to Asia, he expresses some views on the Chinese, Japanese and Indian people, which have been described as xenophobic and racist judgments when they were rediscovered in 2018.Because of Einstein's travels to the Far East, he was unable to personally accept the Nobel Prize for Physics at the Stockholm award ceremony in December 1922. In his place, the banquet speech was made by a German diplomat, who praised Einstein not only as a scientist but also as an international peacemaker and activist.On his return voyage, he visited Palestine for 12 days, his only visit to that region. He was greeted as if he were a head of state, rather than a physicist, which included a cannon salute upon arriving at the home of the British high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel. During one reception, the building was stormed by people who wanted to see and hear him. In Einstein's talk to the audience, he expressed happiness that the Jewish people were beginning to be recognized as a force in the world.Einstein visited Spain for two weeks in 1923, where he briefly met Santiago Ramón y Cajal and also received a diploma from King Alfonso XIII naming him a member of the Spanish Academy of Sciences.From 1922 to 1932, Einstein was a member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations in Geneva (with a few months of interruption in 1923–1924), a body created to promote international exchange between scientists, researchers, teachers, artists, and intellectuals. Originally slated to serve as the Swiss delegate, Secretary-General Eric Drummond was persuaded by Catholic activists Oskar Halecki and Giuseppe Motta to instead have him become the German delegate, thus allowing Gonzague de Reynold to take the Swiss spot, from which he promoted traditionalist Catholic values. Einstein's former physics professor Hendrik Lorentz and the Polish chemist Marie Curie were also members of the committee.1925: Visit to South America In the months of March and April 1925, Einstein visited South America, where he spent about a month in Argentina, a week in Uruguay, and a week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Einstein's visit was initiated by Jorge Duclout (1856–1927) and Mauricio Nirenstein (1877–1935) with the support of several Argentine scholars, including Julio Rey Pastor, Jakob Laub, and Leopoldo Lugones. The visit by Einstein and his wife was financed primarily by the Council of the University of Buenos Aires and the Asociación Hebraica Argentina (Argentine Hebraic Association) with a smaller contribution from the Argentine-Germanic Cultural Institution.1930–1931: Travel to the US In December 1930, Einstein visited America for the second time, originally intended as a two-month working visit as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. After the national attention, he received during his first trip to the US, he and his arrangers aimed to protect his privacy. Although swamped with telegrams and invitations to receive awards or speak publicly, he declined them all.After arriving in New York City, Einstein was taken to various places and events, including Chinatown, a lunch with the editors of The New York Times, and a performance of Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was cheered by the audience on his arrival. During the days following, he was given the keys to the city by Mayor Jimmy Walker and met the president of Columbia University, who described Einstein as "the ruling monarch of the mind". Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor at New York's Riverside Church, gave Einstein a tour of the church and showed him a full-size statue that the church made of Einstein, standing at the entrance. Also during his stay in New York, he joined a crowd of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden during a Hanukkah celebration.Einstein next traveled to California, where he met Caltech president and Nobel laureate Robert A. Millikan. His friendship with Millikan was "awkward", as Millikan "had a penchant for patriotic militarism", where Einstein was a pronounced pacifist. During an address to Caltech's students, Einstein noted that science was often inclined to do more harm than good.This aversion to war also led Einstein to befriend author Upton Sinclair and film star Charlie Chaplin, both noted for their pacifism. Carl Laemmle, head of Universal Studios, gave Einstein a tour of his studio and introduced him to Chaplin. They had an instant rapport, with Chaplin inviting Einstein and his wife, Elsa, to his home for dinner. Chaplin said Einstein's outward persona, calm and gentle, seemed to conceal a "highly emotional temperament", from which came his "extraordinary intellectual energy".Chaplin's film, City Lights, was to premiere a few days later in Hollywood, and Chaplin invited Einstein and Elsa to join him as his special guests. Walter Isaacson, Einstein's biographer, described this as "one of the most memorable scenes in the new era of celebrity". Chaplin visited Einstein at his home on a later trip to Berlin and recalled his "modest little flat" and the piano at which he had begun writing his theory. Chaplin speculated that it was "possibly used as kindling wood by the Nazis".1933: Emigration to the US In February 1933, while on a visit to the United States, Einstein knew he could not return to Germany with the rise to power of the Nazis under Germany's new chancellor, Adolf Hitler.While at American universities in early 1933, he undertook his third two-month visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In February and March 1933, the Gestapo repeatedly raided his family's apartment in Berlin. He and his wife Elsa returned to Europe in March, and during the trip, they learned that the German Reichstag had passed the Enabling Act on 23 March, transforming Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship, and that they would not be able to proceed to Berlin. Later on, they heard that their cottage had been raided by the Nazis and Einstein's personal sailboat confiscated. Upon landing in Antwerp, Belgium on 28 March, Einstein immediately went to the German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship. The Nazis later sold his boat and converted his cottage into a Hitler Youth camp.Refugee status In April 1933, Einstein discovered that the new German government had passed laws barring Jews from holding any official positions, including teaching at universities. Historian Gerald Holton describes how, with "virtually no audible protest being raised by their colleagues", thousands of Jewish scientists were suddenly forced to give up their university positions and their names were removed from the rolls of institutions where they were employed.A month later, Einstein's works were among those targeted by the German Student Union in the Nazi book burnings, with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proclaiming, "Jewish intellectualism is dead." One German magazine included him in a list of enemies of the German regime with the phrase, "not yet hanged", offering a $5,000 bounty on his head. In a subsequent letter to physicist and friend Max Born, who had already emigrated from Germany to England, Einstein wrote, "... I must confess that the degree of their brutality and cowardice came as something of a surprise." After moving to the US, he described the book burnings as a "spontaneous emotional outburst" by those who "shun popular enlightenment", and "more than anything else in the world, fear the influence of men of intellectual independence".Einstein was now without a permanent home, unsure where he would live and work, and equally worried about the fate of countless other scientists still in Germany. He rented a house in De Haan, Belgium, where he lived for a few months. In late July 1933, he went to England for about six weeks at the personal invitation of British naval officer Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, who had become friends with Einstein in the preceding years. Locker-Lampson invited him to stay near his  home in a wooden cabin on Roughton Heath in the Parish of . To protect Einstein, Locker-Lampson had two bodyguards watch over him at his secluded cabin; a photo of them carrying shotguns and guarding Einstein was published in the Daily Herald on 24 July 1933.Locker-Lampson took Einstein to meet Winston Churchill at his home, and later, Austen Chamberlain and former Prime Minister Lloyd George. Einstein asked them to help bring Jewish scientists out of Germany. British historian Martin Gilbert notes that Churchill responded immediately, and sent his friend, physicist Frederick Lindemann, to Germany to seek out Jewish scientists and place them in British universities. Churchill later observed that as a result of Germany having driven the Jews out, they had lowered their "technical standards" and put the Allies' technology ahead of theirs.Einstein later contacted leaders of other nations, including Turkey's Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü, to whom he wrote in September 1933 requesting placement of unemployed German-Jewish scientists. As a result of Einstein's letter, Jewish invitees to Turkey eventually totaled over "1,000 saved individuals".Locker-Lampson also submitted a bill to parliament to extend British citizenship to Einstein, during which period Einstein made a number of public appearances describing the crisis brewing in Europe. In one of his speeches he denounced Germany's treatment of Jews, while at the same time he introduced a bill promoting Jewish citizenship in Palestine, as they were being denied citizenship elsewhere. In his speech he described Einstein as a "citizen of the world" who should be offered a temporary shelter in the UK. Both bills failed, however, and Einstein then accepted an earlier offer from the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, US, to become a resident scholar.Resident scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study In October 1933, Einstein returned to the US and took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, noted for having become a refuge for scientists fleeing Nazi Germany. At the time, most American universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Yale, had minimal or no Jewish faculty or students, as a result of their Jewish quotas, which lasted until the late 1940s.Einstein was still undecided on his future. He had offers from several European universities, including Christ Church, Oxford, where he stayed for three short periods between May 1931 and June 1933 and was offered a five-year studentship, but in 1935, he arrived at the decision to remain permanently in the United States and apply for citizenship.Einstein's affiliation with the Institute for Advanced Study would last until his death in 1955. He was one of the four first selected (along with John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel) at the new Institute, where he soon developed a close friendship with Gödel. The two would take long walks together discussing their work. Bruria Kaufman, his assistant, later became a physicist. During this period, Einstein tried to develop a unified field theory and to refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics, both unsuccessfully.World War II and the Manhattan Project In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leó Szilárd attempted to alert Washington to ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon." To make certain the US was aware of the danger, in July 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein to explain the possibility of atomic bombs, which Einstein, a pacifist, said he had never considered. He was asked to lend his support by writing a letter, with Szilárd, to President Roosevelt, recommending the US pay attention and engage in its own nuclear weapons research.The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. Some say that as a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the US entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project.For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt, some argue he went against his pacifist principles. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them ..." In 1955, Einstein and ten other intellectuals and scientists, including British philosopher Bertrand Russell, signed a manifesto highlighting the danger of nuclear weapons.US citizenship Einstein became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he expressed his appreciation of the meritocracy in American culture when compared to Europe. He recognized the "right of individuals to say and think what they pleased", without social barriers, and as a result, individuals were encouraged, he said, to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education.Einstein joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Princeton, where he campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans. He considered racism America's "worst disease", seeing it as "handed down from one generation to the next". As part of his involvement, he corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois and was prepared to testify on his behalf during his trial in 1951. When Einstein offered to be a character witness for Du Bois, the judge decided to drop the case.In 1946, Einstein visited Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically black college, where he was awarded an honorary degree. Lincoln was the first university in the United States to grant college degrees to African Americans; alumni include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. Einstein gave a speech about racism in America, adding, "I do not intend to be quiet about it." A resident of Princeton recalls that Einstein had once paid the college tuition for a black student. Einstein has said "Being a Jew myself, perhaps I can understand and empathize with how black people feel as victims of discrimination".Personal lifeAssisting Zionist causes Einstein was a figurehead leader in helping establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened in 1925 and was among its first Board of Governors. Earlier, in 1921, he was asked by the biochemist and president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, to help raise funds for the planned university. He also submitted various suggestions as to its initial programs.Among those, he advised first creating an Institute of Agriculture in order to settle the undeveloped land. That should be followed, he suggested, by a Chemical Institute and an Institute of Microbiology, to fight the various ongoing epidemics such as malaria, which he called an "evil" that was undermining a third of the country's development. Establishing an Oriental Studies Institute, to include language courses given in both Hebrew and Arabic, for scientific exploration of the country and its historical monuments, was also important.Einstein was not a nationalist; he was against the creation of an independent Jewish state, which would be established without his help as Israel in 1948. Einstein felt that the waves of arriving Jews of the Aliyah could live alongside existing Arabs in Palestine. His views were not shared by the majority of Jews seeking to form a new country; as a result, Einstein was limited to a marginal role in the Zionist movement.Chaim Weizmann later became Israel's first president. Upon his death while in office in November 1952 and at the urging of Ezriel Carlebach, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post. The offer was presented by Israel's ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer "embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons". Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was "deeply moved", and "at once saddened and ashamed" that he could not accept it.Love of music Einstein developed an appreciation for music at an early age. In his late journals he wrote: "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music."His mother played the piano reasonably well and wanted her son to learn the violin, not only to instill in him a love of music but also to help him assimilate into German culture. According to conductor Leon Botstein, Einstein began playing when he was 5. However, he did not enjoy it at that age.When he turned 13, he discovered the violin sonatas of Mozart, whereupon he became enamored of Mozart's compositions and studied music more willingly. Einstein taught himself to play without "ever practicing systematically". He said that "love is a better teacher than a sense of duty." At age 17, he was heard by a school examiner in Aarau while playing Beethoven's violin sonatas. The examiner stated afterward that his playing was "remarkable and revealing of 'great insight. What struck the examiner, writes Botstein, was that Einstein "displayed a deep love of the music, a quality that was and remains in short supply. Music possessed an unusual meaning for this student."Music took on a pivotal and permanent role in Einstein's life from that period on. Although the idea of becoming a professional musician himself was not on his mind at any time, among those with whom Einstein played chamber music were a few professionals, and he performed for private audiences and friends. Chamber music had also become a regular part of his social life while living in Bern, Zürich, and Berlin, where he played with Max Planck and his son, among others. He is sometimes erroneously credited as the editor of the 1937 edition of the Köchel catalog of Mozart's work; that edition was prepared by Alfred Einstein, who may have been a distant relation.In 1931, while engaged in research at the California Institute of Technology, he visited the Zoellner family conservatory in Los Angeles, where he played some of Beethoven and Mozart's works with members of the Zoellner Quartet. Near the end of his life, when the young Juilliard Quartet visited him in Princeton, he played his violin with them, and the quartet was "impressed by Einstein's level of coordination and intonation".Political views In 1918, Einstein was one of the founding members of the German Democratic Party, a liberal party. Later in his life, Einstein's political view was in favor of socialism and critical of capitalism, which he detailed in his essays such as "Why Socialism?" His opinions on the Bolsheviks also changed with time. In 1925, he criticized them for not having a 'well-regulated system of government' and called their rule a 'regime of terror and a tragedy in human history'. He later adopted a more moderated view, criticizing their methods but praising them, which is shown by his 1929 remark on Vladimir Lenin: "In Lenin I honor a man, who in total sacrifice of his own person has committed his entire energy to realizing social justice. I do not find his methods advisable. One thing is certain, however: men like him are the guardians and renewers of mankind's conscience." Einstein offered and was called on to give judgments and opinions on matters often unrelated to theoretical physics or mathematics. He strongly advocated the idea of a democratic global government that would check the power of nation-states in the framework of a world federation. He wrote "I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself." The FBI created a secret dossier on Einstein in 1932, and by the time of his death his FBI file was 1,427 pages long.Einstein was deeply impressed by Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he exchanged written letters. He described Gandhi as "a role model for the generations to come". The initial connection was established on 27 September 1931, when Wilfrid Israel took his Indian guest V. A. Sundaram to meet his friend Einstein at his summer home in the town of Caputh. Sundaram was Gandhi's disciple and special envoy, whom Wilfrid Israel met while visiting India and visiting the Indian leader's home in 1925. During the visit, Einstein wrote a short letter to Gandhi that was delivered to him through his envoy, and Gandhi responded quickly with his own letter. Although in the end Einstein and Gandhi were unable to meet as they had hoped, the direct connection between them was established through Wilfrid Israel.Religious and philosophical views Einstein spoke of his spiritual outlook in a wide array of original writings and interviews. He said he had sympathy for the impersonal pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza's philosophy. He did not believe in a personal god who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve. He clarified, however, that "I am not an atheist", preferring to call himself an agnostic, or a "deeply religious nonbeliever". When asked if he believed in an afterlife, Einstein replied, "No. And one life is enough for me."Einstein was primarily affiliated with non-religious humanist and Ethical Culture groups in both the UK and US. He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York, and was an honorary associate of the Rationalist Association, which publishes New Humanist in Britain. For the 75th anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, he stated that the idea of Ethical Culture embodied his personal conception of what is most valuable and enduring in religious idealism. He observed, "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."In a German-language letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, dated 3 January 1954, Einstein wrote:The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. ... I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.Death On 17 April 1955, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the state of Israel's seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live to complete it.Einstein refused surgery, saying, "I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly." He died in Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.During the autopsy, the pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain for preservation without the permission of his family, in the hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent. Einstein's remains were cremated in Trenton, New Jersey, and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.In a memorial lecture delivered on 13 December 1965 at UNESCO headquarters, nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer summarized his impression of Einstein as a person: "He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness ... There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn."Einstein bequeathed his personal archives, library and intellectual assets to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.Scientific career Throughout his life, Einstein published hundreds of books and articles. He published more than 300 scientific papers and 150 non-scientific ones. On 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einstein's papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents. Einstein's intellectual achievements and originality have made the word "Einstein" synonymous with "genius". In addition to the work he did by himself he also collaborated with other scientists on additional projects including the Bose–Einstein statistics, the Einstein refrigerator and others.1905 – Annus Mirabilis papers The Annus Mirabilis papers are four articles pertaining to the photoelectric effect (which gave rise to quantum theory), Brownian motion, the special theory of relativity, and E = mc2 that Einstein published in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905. These four works contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The four papers are:Statistical mechanicsThermodynamic fluctuations and statistical physics Einstein's first paper submitted in 1900 to Annalen der Physik was on capillary attraction. It was published in 1901 with the title "Folgerungen aus den Capillaritätserscheinungen", which translates as "Conclusions from the capillarity phenomena". Two papers he published in 1902–1903 (thermodynamics) attempted to interpret atomic phenomena from a statistical point of view. These papers were the foundation for the 1905 paper on Brownian motion, which showed that Brownian movement can be construed as firm evidence that molecules exist. His research in 1903 and 1904 was mainly concerned with the effect of finite atomic size on diffusion phenomena.Theory of critical opalescence Einstein returned to the problem of thermodynamic fluctuations, giving a treatment of the density variations in a fluid at its critical point. Ordinarily the density fluctuations are controlled by the second derivative of the free energy with respect to the density. At the critical point, this derivative is zero, leading to large fluctuations. The effect of density fluctuations is that light of all wavelengths is scattered, making the fluid look milky white. Einstein relates this to Rayleigh scattering, which is what happens when the fluctuation size is much smaller than the wavelength, and which explains why the sky is blue. Einstein quantitatively derived critical opalescence from a treatment of density fluctuations, and demonstrated how both the effect and Rayleigh scattering originate from the atomistic constitution of matter.Special relativity Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") was received on 30 June 1905 and published 26 September of that same year. It reconciled conflicts between Maxwell's equations (the laws of electricity and magnetism) and the laws of Newtonian mechanics by introducing changes to the laws of mechanics. Observationally, the effects of these changes are most apparent at high speeds (where objects are moving at speeds close to the speed of light). The theory developed in this paper later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity. There is evidence from Einstein's writings that he collaborated with his first wife, Mileva Marić, on this work. The decision to publish only under his name seems to have been mutual, but the exact reason is unknown.This paper predicted that, when measured in the frame of a relatively moving observer, a clock carried by a moving body would appear to slow down, and the body itself would contract in its direction of motion. This paper also argued that the idea of a luminiferous aether—one of the leading theoretical entities in physics at the time—was superfluous.In his paper on mass–energy equivalence, Einstein produced E = mc2 as a consequence of his special relativity equations. Einstein's 1905 work on relativity remained controversial for many years, but was accepted by leading physicists, starting with Max Planck.Einstein originally framed special relativity in terms of kinematics (the study of moving bodies). In 1908, Hermann Minkowski reinterpreted special relativity in geometric terms as a theory of spacetime. Einstein adopted Minkowski's formalism in his 1915 general theory of relativity.General relativityGeneral relativity and the equivalence principle General relativity (GR) is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Einstein between 1907 and 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses. General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape.As Einstein later said, the reason for the development of general relativity was that the preference of inertial motions within special relativity was unsatisfactory, while a theory which from the outset prefers no state of motion (even accelerated ones) should appear more satisfactory. Consequently, in 1907 he published an article on acceleration under special relativity. In that article titled "On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn from It", he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a free-falling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomena of gravitational time dilation, gravitational redshift and deflection of light.In 1911, Einstein published another article "On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light" expanding on the 1907 article, in which he estimated the amount of deflection of light by massive bodies. Thus, the theoretical prediction of general relativity could for the first time be tested experimentally.Gravitational wavesIn 1916, Einstein predicted gravitational waves, ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagate as waves, traveling outward from the source, transporting energy as gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational waves is possible under general relativity due to its Lorentz invariance which brings the concept of a finite speed of propagation of the physical interactions of gravity with it. By contrast, gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which postulates that the physical interactions of gravity propagate at infinite speed.The first, indirect, detection of gravitational waves came in the 1970s through observation of a pair of closely orbiting neutron stars, PSR B1913+16. The explanation of the decay in their orbital period was that they were emitting gravitational waves. Einstein's prediction was confirmed on 11 February 2016, when researchers at LIGO published the first observation of gravitational waves, detected on Earth on 14 September 2015, nearly one hundred years after the prediction.Hole argument and Entwurf theory While developing general relativity, Einstein became confused about the gauge invariance in the theory. He formulated an argument that led him to conclude that a general relativistic field theory is impossible. He gave up looking for fully generally covariant tensor equations and searched for equations that would be invariant under general linear transformations only.In June 1913, the Entwurf ('draft') theory was the result of these investigations. As its name suggests, it was a sketch of a theory, less elegant and more difficult than general relativity, with the equations of motion supplemented by additional gauge fixing conditions. After more than two years of intensive work, Einstein realized that the hole argument was mistaken and abandoned the theory in November 1915.Physical cosmology In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to the structure of the universe as a whole. He discovered that the general field equations predicted a universe that was dynamic, either contracting or expanding. As observational evidence for a dynamic universe was not known at the time, Einstein introduced a new term, the cosmological constant, to the field equations, in order to allow the theory to predict a static universe. The modified field equations predicted a static universe of closed curvature, in accordance with Einstein's understanding of Mach's principle in these years. This model became known as the Einstein World or Einstein's static universe.Following the discovery of the recession of the nebulae by Edwin Hubble in 1929, Einstein abandoned his static model of the universe, and proposed two dynamic models of the cosmos, The Friedmann-Einstein universe of 1931 and the Einstein–de Sitter universe of 1932. In each of these models, Einstein discarded the cosmological constant, claiming that it was "in any case theoretically unsatisfactory".In many Einstein biographies, it is claimed that Einstein referred to the cosmological constant in later years as his "biggest blunder". The astrophysicist Mario Livio has recently cast doubt on this claim, suggesting that it may be exaggerated.In late 2013, a team led by the Irish physicist Cormac O'Raifeartaigh discovered evidence that, shortly after learning of Hubble's observations of the recession of the nebulae, Einstein considered a steady-state model of the universe. In a hitherto overlooked manuscript, apparently written in early 1931, Einstein explored a model of the expanding universe in which the density of matter remains constant due to a continuous creation of matter, a process he associated with the cosmological constant. As he stated in the paper, "In what follows, I would like to draw attention to a solution to equation (1) that can account for Hubbel's [sic] facts, and in which the density is constant over time" ... "If one considers a physically bounded volume, particles of matter will be continually leaving it. For the density to remain constant, new particles of matter must be continually formed in the volume from space."It thus appears that Einstein considered a steady-state model of the expanding universe many years before Hoyle, Bondi and Gold. However, Einstein's steady-state model contained a fundamental flaw and he quickly abandoned the idea.Energy momentum pseudotensor General relativity includes a dynamical spacetime, so it is difficult to see how to identify the conserved energy and momentum. Noether's theorem allows these quantities to be determined from a Lagrangian with translation invariance, but general covariance makes translation invariance into something of a gauge symmetry. The energy and momentum derived within general relativity by Noether's prescriptions do not make a real tensor for this reason.Einstein argued that this is true for a fundamental reason: the gravitational field could be made to vanish by a choice of coordinates. He maintained that the non-covariant energy momentum pseudotensor was, in fact, the best description of the energy momentum distribution in a gravitational field. This approach has been echoed by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, and others, and has become standard.The use of non-covariant objects like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrödinger and others.Wormholes In 1935, Einstein collaborated with Nathan Rosen to produce a model of a wormhole, often called Einstein–Rosen bridges. His motivation was to model elementary particles with charge as a solution of gravitational field equations, in line with the program outlined in the paper "Do Gravitational Fields play an Important Role in the Constitution of the Elementary Particles?". These solutions cut and pasted Schwarzschild black holes to make a bridge between two patches.If one end of a wormhole was positively charged, the other end would be negatively charged. These properties led Einstein to believe that pairs of particles and antiparticles could be described in this way.Einstein–Cartan theory In order to incorporate spinning point particles into general relativity, the affine connection needed to be generalized to include an antisymmetric part, called the torsion. This modification was made by Einstein and Cartan in the 1920s.Equations of motion The theory of general relativity has a fundamental lawthe Einstein field equations, which describe how space curves. The geodesic equation, which describes how particles move, may be derived from the Einstein field equations.Since the equations of general relativity are non-linear, a lump of energy made out of pure gravitational fields, like a black hole, would move on a trajectory which is determined by the Einstein field equations themselves, not by a new law. So Einstein proposed that the path of a singular solution, like a black hole, would be determined to be a geodesic from general relativity itself.This was established by Einstein, Infeld, and Hoffmann for pointlike objects without angular momentum, and by Roy Kerr for spinning objects.Old quantum theoryPhotons and energy quanta In a 1905 paper, Einstein postulated that light itself consists of localized particles (quanta). Einstein's light quanta were nearly universally rejected by all physicists, including Max Planck and Niels Bohr. This idea only became universally accepted in 1919, with Robert Millikan's detailed experiments on the photoelectric effect, and with the measurement of Compton scattering.Einstein concluded that each wave of frequency f is associated with a collection of photons with energy hf each, where h is Planck's constant. He does not say much more, because he is not sure how the particles are related to the wave. But he does suggest that this idea would explain certain experimental results, notably the photoelectric effect.Quantized atomic vibrations In 1907, Einstein proposed a model of matter where each atom in a lattice structure is an independent harmonic oscillator. In the Einstein model, each atom oscillates independently—a series of equally spaced quantized states for each oscillator. Einstein was aware that getting the frequency of the actual oscillations would be difficult, but he nevertheless proposed this theory because it was a particularly clear demonstration that quantum mechanics could solve the specific heat problem in classical mechanics. Peter Debye refined this model.Adiabatic principle and action-angle variables Throughout the 1910s, quantum mechanics expanded in scope to cover many different systems. After Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus and proposed that electrons orbit like planets, Niels Bohr was able to show that the same quantum mechanical postulates introduced by Planck and developed by Einstein would explain the discrete motion of electrons in atoms, and the periodic table of the elements.Einstein contributed to these developments by linking them with the 1898 arguments Wilhelm Wien had made. Wien had shown that the hypothesis of adiabatic invariance of a thermal equilibrium state allows all the blackbody curves at different temperature to be derived from one another by a simple shifting process. Einstein noted in 1911 that the same adiabatic principle shows that the quantity which is quantized in any mechanical motion must be an adiabatic invariant. Arnold Sommerfeld identified this adiabatic invariant as the action variable of classical mechanics.Bose–Einstein statistics In 1924, Einstein received a description of a statistical model from Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, based on a counting method that assumed that light could be understood as a gas of indistinguishable particles. Einstein noted that Bose's statistics applied to some atoms as well as to the proposed light particles, and submitted his translation of Bose's paper to the Zeitschrift für Physik. Einstein also published his own articles describing the model and its implications, among them the Bose–Einstein condensate phenomenon that some particulates should appear at very low temperatures. It was not until 1995 that the first such condensate was produced experimentally by Eric Allin Cornell and Carl Wieman using ultra-cooling equipment built at the NIST–JILA laboratory at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Bose–Einstein statistics are now used to describe the behaviors of any assembly of bosons. Einstein's sketches for this project may be seen in the Einstein Archive in the library of the Leiden University.Wave–particle duality Although the patent office promoted Einstein to Technical Examiner Second Class in 1906, he had not given up on academia. In 1908, he became a Privatdozent at the University of Bern. In "Über die Entwicklung unserer Anschauungen über das Wesen und die Konstitution der Strahlung" ("The Development of our Views on the Composition and Essence of Radiation"), on the quantization of light, and in an earlier 1909 paper, Einstein showed that Max Planck's energy quanta must have well-defined momenta and act in some respects as independent, point-like particles. This paper introduced the photon concept (although the name photon was introduced later by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926) and inspired the notion of wave–particle duality in quantum mechanics. Einstein saw this wave–particle duality in radiation as concrete evidence for his conviction that physics needed a new, unified foundation.Zero-point energy In a series of works completed from 1911 to 1913, Planck reformulated his 1900 quantum theory and introduced the idea of zero-point energy in his "second quantum theory". Soon, this idea attracted the attention of Einstein and his assistant Otto Stern. Assuming the energy of rotating diatomic molecules contains zero-point energy, they then compared the theoretical specific heat of hydrogen gas with the experimental data. The numbers matched nicely. However, after publishing the findings, they promptly withdrew their support, because they no longer had confidence in the correctness of the idea of zero-point energy.Stimulated emission In 1917, at the height of his work on relativity, Einstein published an article in Physikalische Zeitschrift that proposed the possibility of stimulated emission, the physical process that makes possible the maser and the laser.This article showed that the statistics of absorption and emission of light would only be consistent with Planck's distribution law if the emission of light into a mode with n photons would be enhanced statistically compared to the emission of light into an empty mode. This paper was enormously influential in the later development of quantum mechanics, because it was the first paper to show that the statistics of atomic transitions had simple laws.Matter waves Einstein discovered Louis de Broglie's work and supported his ideas, which were received skeptically at first. In another major paper from this era, Einstein gave a wave equation for de Broglie waves, which Einstein suggested was the Hamilton–Jacobi equation of mechanics. This paper would inspire Schrödinger's work of 1926.Quantum mechanicsEinstein's objections to quantum mechanics Einstein played a major role in developing quantum theory, beginning with his 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. However, he became displeased with modern quantum mechanics as it had evolved after 1925, despite its acceptance by other physicists. He was skeptical that the randomness of quantum mechanics was fundamental rather than the result of determinism, stating that God "is not playing at dice". Until the end of his life, he continued to maintain that quantum mechanics was incomplete.Bohr versus Einstein  The Bohr–Einstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Einstein and Niels Bohr, who were two of its founders. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science. Their debates would influence later interpretations of quantum mechanics.Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox In 1935, Einstein returned to quantum mechanics, in particular to the question of its completeness, in the "EPR paper". In a thought experiment, he considered two particles, which had interacted such that their properties were strongly correlated. No matter how far the two particles were separated, a precise position measurement on one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the position of the other particle; likewise, a precise momentum measurement of one particle would result in equally precise knowledge of the momentum of the other particle, without needing to disturb the other particle in any way.Given Einstein's concept of local realism, there were two possibilities: (1) either the other particle had these properties already determined, or (2) the process of measuring the first particle instantaneously affected the reality of the position and momentum of the second particle. Einstein rejected this second possibility (popularly called "spooky action at a distance").Einstein's belief in local realism led him to assert that, while the correctness of quantum mechanics was not in question, it must be incomplete. But as a physical principle, local realism was shown to be incorrect when the Aspect experiment of 1982 confirmed Bell's theorem, which J. S. Bell had delineated in 1964. The results of these and subsequent experiments demonstrate that quantum physics cannot be represented by any version of the picture of physics in which "particles are regarded as unconnected independent classical-like entities, each one being unable to communicate with the other after they have separated."Although Einstein was wrong about local realism, his clear prediction of the unusual properties of its opposite, entangled quantum states, has resulted in the EPR paper becoming among the top ten papers published in Physical Review. It is considered a centerpiece of the development of quantum information theory.Unified field theory Following his research on general relativity, Einstein attempted to generalize his theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism as aspects of a single entity. In 1950, he described his "unified field theory" in a Scientific American article titled "On the Generalized Theory of Gravitation". Although he was lauded for this work, his efforts were ultimately unsuccessful.Notably, Einstein's unification project did not accommodate the strong and weak nuclear forces, neither of which were well understood until many years after his death. Although mainstream physics long ignored Einstein's approaches to unification, Einstein's work has motivated modern quests for a theory of everything, in particular string theory, where geometrical fields emerge in a unified quantum-mechanical setting.Other investigations Einstein conducted other investigations that were unsuccessful and abandoned. These pertain to force, superconductivity, and other research.Collaboration with other scientists In addition to longtime collaborators Leopold Infeld, Nathan Rosen, Peter Bergmann and others, Einstein also had some one-shot collaborations with various scientists.Einstein–de Haas experiment Einstein and De Haas demonstrated that magnetization is due to the motion of electrons, nowadays known to be the spin. In order to show this, they reversed the magnetization in an iron bar suspended on a torsion pendulum. They confirmed that this leads the bar to rotate, because the electron's angular momentum changes as the magnetization changes. This experiment needed to be sensitive because the angular momentum associated with electrons is small, but it definitively established that electron motion of some kind is responsible for magnetization.Schrödinger gas model Einstein suggested to Erwin Schrödinger that he might be able to reproduce the statistics of a Bose–Einstein gas by considering a box. Then to each possible quantum motion of a particle in a box associate an independent harmonic oscillator. Quantizing these oscillators, each level will have an integer occupation number, which will be the number of particles in it.This formulation is a form of second quantization, but it predates modern quantum mechanics. Erwin Schrödinger applied this to derive the thermodynamic properties of a semiclassical ideal gas. Schrödinger urged Einstein to add his name as co-author, although Einstein declined the invitation.Einstein refrigerator In 1926, Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd co-invented (and in 1930, patented) the Einstein refrigerator. This absorption refrigerator was then revolutionary for having no moving parts and using only heat as an input. On 11 November 1930,  was awarded to Einstein and Leó Szilárd for the refrigerator. Their invention was not immediately put into commercial production, and the most promising of their patents were acquired by the Swedish company Electrolux.Non-scientific legacy While traveling, Einstein wrote daily to his wife Elsa and adopted stepdaughters Margot and Ilse. The letters were included in the papers bequeathed to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Margot Einstein permitted the personal letters to be made available to the public, but requested that it not be done until twenty years after her death (she died in 1986). Barbara Wolff, of the Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, told the BBC that there are about 3,500 pages of private correspondence written between 1912 and 1955.Einstein's right of publicity was litigated in 2015 in a federal district court in California. Although the court initially held that the right had expired, that ruling was immediately appealed, and the decision was later vacated in its entirety. The underlying claims between the parties in that lawsuit were ultimately settled. The right is enforceable, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the exclusive representative of that right. Corbis, successor to The Roger Richman Agency, licenses the use of his name and associated imagery, as agent for the university.In popular culture Einstein became one of the most famous scientific celebrities, beginning with the confirmation of his theory of general relativity in 1919. Despite the general public having little understanding of his work, he was widely recognized and received adulation and publicity. In the period before World War II, The New Yorker published a vignette in their "The Talk of the Town" feature saying that Einstein was so well known in America that he would be stopped on the street by people wanting him to explain "that theory". He finally figured out a way to handle the incessant inquiries. He told his inquirers "Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein."Einstein has been the subject of or inspiration for many novels, films, plays, and works of music. He is a favorite model for depictions of absent-minded professors; his expressive face and distinctive hairstyle have been widely copied and exaggerated. Time magazine's Frederic Golden wrote that Einstein was "a cartoonist's dream come true".Many popular quotations are often misattributed to him.Awards and honors Einstein received numerous awards and honors, and in 1922, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". None of the nominations in 1921 met the criteria set by Alfred Nobel, so the 1921 prize was carried forward and awarded to Einstein in 1922.PublicationsScientific               First of a series of papers on this topic.          A reprint of this book was published by Edition Erbrich in 1982, . . Further information about the volumes published so far can be found on the webpages of the Einstein Papers Project and on the Princeton University Press Einstein PageOthers   . The chasing a light beam thought experiment is described on pages 48–51.See also  Albert Einstein House in Princeton Einstein's thought experiments Einstein notation The Einstein Theory of Relativity, an educational film Frist Campus Center at Princeton University room 302 is associated with Einstein. (The center was once the Palmer Physical Laboratory.) Heinrich Burkhardt Bern Historical Museum (Einstein Museum) History of gravitational theory List of coupled cousins List of German inventors and discoverers Jewish Nobel laureates List of peace activists Relativity priority dispute Sticky bead argumentNotesReferencesWorks citedFurther reading     , orExternal links      Einstein's Personal Correspondence: Religion, Politics, The Holocaust, and Philosophy Shapell Manuscript Foundation Federal Bureau of Investigation file on Albert Einstein Einstein and his love of music, Physics World  including the Nobel Lecture 11 July 1923 Fundamental ideas and problems of the theory of relativity Albert Einstein Archives Online (80,000+ Documents)  (MSNBC, 19 March 2012) Einstein's declaration of intention for American citizenship on the World Digital Library Albert Einstein Collection at Brandeis University The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein "Digital Einstein" at Princeton University  Home page of Albert Einstein at The Institute for Advanced Study Albert – The Digital Repository of the IAS, which contains many digitized original documents and photographs 1879 births1955 deaths20th-century American engineers20th-century American physicists20th-century American writersAmerican agnosticsAmerican humanistsAmerican letter writersAmerican Nobel laureatesAmerican pacifistsAmerican relativity theoristsAmerican science writersAmerican ZionistsAmerican Ashkenazi JewsCharles University facultySwiss cosmologistsDeaths from abdominal aortic aneurysmAlbertETH Zurich alumniETH Zurich facultyGerman agnosticsGerman Ashkenazi JewsGerman emigrants to SwitzerlandGerman humanists19th-century German JewsGerman Nobel laureatesGerman relativity theoristsInstitute for Advanced Study facultyJewish agnosticsJewish American physicistsJewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United StatesJewish physicistsMembers of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesMembers of the United States National Academy of SciencesNaturalised citizens of AustriaNaturalised citizens of SwitzerlandNaturalized citizens of the United StatesNew Jersey Hall of Fame inducteesNobel laureates in PhysicsPantheistsPatent examinersPeople who lost German citizenshipPhilosophers of mathematicsPhilosophers of sciencePhilosophy of scienceQuantum physicistsScientists from MunichSpinozistsStateless peopleDenaturalized citizens of GermanySwiss agnosticsSwiss emigrants to the United StatesSwiss Ashkenazi Jews20th-century Swiss inventors20th-century American inventorsSwiss physicistsWinners of the Max Planck MedalGoogle DoodlesUniversity of Zurich alumniUniversity of Bern facultyUniversity of Zurich facultySwiss Nobel laureatesPipe smokers
The Igreja Presbiteriana Conservadora do Brasil () (IPCB) is a Presbyterian Reformed denomination, founded in 1940, by the churches and members that separated from the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPIB). The main reason for the split was the decision of the IPIB General Assembly, in 1938, to appoint a commission to draw up a new confession of faith. This confession would replace the Westminster Confession of Faith and be tolerant of annihilationism. The members who opposed this split and formed the IPCB. It is currently the third largest reformed denomination in Brazil, right after the Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPB) and a IPIB, preserving traditional positions of Presbyterianism.History The Conservative Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPCB) emerged on February 11 of 1940, when, after two years of debates and internal discussions on doctrinal issues, the 2nd Independent Presbyterian Church of São Paulo shut down Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPIB) to become Conservative Presbyterian Church of São Paulo.The conflict began when the IPIB Synod, in 1938, recognized the existence of different positions within the denomination regarding Annihilationism and eternal punishment and appointed a commission to draft a new confession, which would replace the Westminster Confession of Faith hitherto adopted by the denomination. The 2nd Independent Presbyterian Church of São Paulo did not accept this modification and left the denomination. The first presbytery of the denomination consisted of 11 churches and 5 pastors or ministers. A seminary was organised in 1954. A Missionary Department was formed and as the church began to develop, some churches are among indigenous people.Theology The denomination subscribe:Apostles CreedWestminster Confession of FaithWestminster Shorter CatechismWestminster Larger CatechismThe IPCB does not admit ordination of woman and therefore only men can be pastors, elders and deacons. Since its foundation it has been an anti-Masonic church, cessationist, governs worship by the Regulative principle of worship and does not practice exclusive psalmody. The denomination also opposes the practice of clapping during the liturgy.Demographics According to denomination statistics, it had 3,578 members in 2006. In 2018, it published new statistics, which reported 4,371 members (3,716 communicants and 655 non-communicants), with a growth of 22.16% between 2006 and 2018. In the same period, the Brazilian population grew 11.31%.The IPCB consisted, in 2018, of 92 ecclesiastical work fronts with church or congregation status: 56 local churches, 19 local congregations, 4 presbyteral congregations, 13 congregations, congregations of the Missionary Department. In addition, it had 12 preaching points. The denomination is, therefore, present in 11 states of the federation (Central-West Region: Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul; Northern Brazil: Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia; Northeast Region: Alagoas, Bahia, Pernambuco; Southeast Region: Minas Gerais, São Paulo; Region Southern: Paraná).On July 19, 2009, the IPCB organized its General Meeting. Due to the growth of churches, in 2017, the denomination already consisted of 8 Presbyteries (Bandeirante, Brasil-Central, Centro-Sul, Guarulhos, Oeste Paulista, Paraná, Paulistano and Piratininga) and two Synods (Southeast and Midwest).Journal and seminary The church publishes its own newspaper the Conservative Presbyterian. It owns a seminary in San Bernando de Campo founded in 1953. In 1983 the denomination founded the Missionary Department and new church plans in various Brazilian cities are underway.References Presbyterian denominations in BrazilProtestant denominations
Afghanistan (), officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia it is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying  of land, the country is predominately mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. , its population is 40.2 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Kabul is the country's largest city and also serves as its capital.Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era, and the country's strategic location along the historic Silk Road connected it to the cultures of other parts of Asia as well as Europe, leaving behind a mosaic of ethnolinguistic and religious groups that has influenced the modern Afghan nation. Known as the Graveyard of Empires the land has historically been home to various peoples and has witnessed numerous military campaigns, including those by Alexander the Great, the Maurya Empire, Arab Muslims, the Mongols, the British, the Soviet Union, and most recently by an American-led coalition. Afghanistan also served as the source from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals, among others, rose to form major empires. The various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres made the area a center for Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam throughout history.The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani dynasty in the 18th century, with the Durrani Afghan Empire at its peak having spanned from eastern Iran to northern India. Following its decline and the death of Timur Shah, it was divided into the smaller independent kingdoms of Herat, Kandahar and Kabul, before being reunited in the 19th century after wars of unification led by Dost Mohammad Khan. During this time, Afghanistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between the British Empire (in British-ruled India) and the Russian Empire; from India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First Anglo-Afghan War; however, the Second Anglo-Afghan War saw a British victory and the successful establishment of British political influence over Afghanistan. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign dominance, and eventually emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in June 1926 under Amanullah Khan. This monarchy lasted almost 50 years, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973, following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established. Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan's history has been dominated by extensive warfare, including coups, revolutions, invasions, insurgencies, and civil wars. The country is currently under the control of the Taliban, an Islamist political movement which returned to power in 2021 after a 20-year-long war with the United States and its allies.The country has high levels of terrorism, poverty, and child malnutrition. Afghanistan's economy is the world's 96th-largest, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $72.9 billion by purchasing power parity; the country fares much worse in terms of per-capita GDP (PPP), ranking 169th out of 186 countries .Etymology The root name "Afghān" is, according to some scholars, derived from the Sanskrit name of the Aśvakan or Assakan, ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush region. Aśvakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or "cavalrymen" (from aśva or aspa, the Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically, the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns. The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afġān, was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam. The last part of the name, "-stan" is a Persian suffix for "place of". Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans", or "land of the Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam:History Many empires and kingdoms have also risen to power in Afghanistan, such as the Greco-Bactrians, Indo-Scythians, Kushans, Kidarites, Hephthalites, Alkhons, Nezaks, Zunbils, Turk Shahis, Hindu Shahis, Lawiks, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khaljis, Kartids, Lodis, Surs, Mughals, and finally, the Hotak and Durrani dynasties, which marked the political origins of the modern state. Throughout millennia several cities within the modern day Afghanistan served as capitals of various empires, namely, Bactra (Balkh), Alexandria on the Oxus (Ai-Khanoum), Kapisi, Sigal, Kabul, Kunduz, Zaranj, Firozkoh, Herat, Ghazna (Ghazni), Binban (Bamyan), and Kandahar.The country has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within vast regional empires; among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. For its success in resisting foreign occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries, Afghanistan has been called the "graveyard of empires", though it is unknown who coined the phrase.Prehistory and antiquityExcavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites.Ancient eraArchaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilization today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. In more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan, shows Afghanistan to have been a part of Indus Valley Civilization.After 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea. The region at the time was referred to as Ariana.By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia, Aria, and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia, around Kandahar in modern-day southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played a key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism".Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE when they gave much of it to the Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians. Much of it soon broke away from them and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in the late 2nd century BCE.The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE, and Afghanistan flourished with trade, with routes to China, India, Persia and north to the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point, such as Chinese silk, Persian silver and Roman gold, while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from the Badakhshan region.During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire, centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though the Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites. They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi. Much of the northeastern and southern areas of the country remained dominated by Buddhist culture.Medieval historyIslamic conquestArab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before the arrival of Islam, the region used to be home to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Syncretism between the dominant religions such as Zoroastrianism, Buddhism or Greco-Buddhism, Ancient Iranian religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Judaism. An exemplification of the syncretism in the region would be that people were patrons of Buddhism but still worshipped local Iranian gods such as Ahura Mazda, Lady Nana, Anahita or Mihr(Mithra) and portrayed Greek Gods like Heracles or Tyche as protectors of Buddha. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of the Hindu Kush. It is reported that Muslims and non-Muslims still lived side by side in Kabul before the Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century.By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan. Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi. The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by the Ghurids, whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam. The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215.Mongols and Babur with the Lodi DynastyIn 1219 CE, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region. His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan. The destruction caused by the Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane), who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance, whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth.In the early 16th century, Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty. Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat. Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara, Iranian Safavids, and Indian Mughals ruled parts of the territory. During the Medieval Period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan. Two of the four capitals of Khorasan (Herat and Balkh) are now located in Afghanistan, while the regions of Kandahar, Zabulistan, Ghazni, Kabulistan, and Afghanistan formed the frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan. However, up to the 19th century the term Khorasan was commonly used among natives to describe their country; Sir George Elphinstone wrote with amazement that the country known to outsiders as "Afghanistan" was referred to by its own inhabitants as "Khorasan" and that the first Afghan official whom he met at the border welcomed him to Khorasan.Modern historyHotak Dynasty In 1709, Mirwais Hotak, a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids. He defeated Gurgin Khan and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died of natural causes in 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, who was soon killed by Mirwais' son Mahmud for possibly planning to concede territories back to the Safavids. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan, captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan.Fall of the Hotak Dynasty In 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar in the Siege of Kandahar, the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak. Soon after, the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India, Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16 year old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747.Rise of the Durrani Empire After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with a contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns. The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his acension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led multiple campaigns against the Mughal Empire, Maratha Empire, and then receding, Afsharid Empire. Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan, (1750–1751) and (1754–1755). His first campaign had seen the siege of Mashhad, however he was forced to retreat after 4 months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur, however he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754, he captured Tun, and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, however Shah rokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to give up Torshiz, Bakharz, Jam, Khaf, and Turbat-e Haidari to the Afghans. Following this, Ahmad Shah had sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it.Objectives and Invasions of India Ahmad Shah invaded India 8 times during his reign. With the capture of Peshawar, Ahmad Shah had used this as a convenient striking point to lead his military campaigns into Punjab and India.Ahmad Shah had sought out multiple reasons for his invasions, Ahmad Shah saw Afghanistan in a dire state, and one that needed to expand and exploit a weak but rich neighboring country, which Ahmad Shah had capitalized on in multiple opportunities during his Invasions of India, he sought the reasons needed to fill his treasury in a war-plunder conquest based economy. Ahmad Shah had launched his first invasion in 1748, crossing the indus river, his armies sacked and absorbed Lahore into the Durrani Realm. Ahmad Shah had met Mughal armies at the Battle of Manupur (1748), where he was defeated and forced to retreat to back to Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah had returned the next year in 1749, where he had captured the area around Lahore and Punjab, presenting it as an Afghan victory for this campaign. From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah would lead 6 more invasions, the most important being his sixth invasion, with the Third Battle of Panipat, which created a power vacumn in northern India, halting Maratha expansion.Death of Ahmad Shah and his SuccessorsAhmad Shah Durrani had died in October 1772, what followed would be a civil war in succession, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after the defeat of his brother, Suleiman Mirza.Timur Shah Durrani ascended to the throne in November 1772, having defeated a coalition under Shah Wali Khan, the influential prime minister of the Durrani Empire, and Humayun Mirza. Timur Shah began his reign by consolidating power toward himself and people loyal to him, purging Durrani Sardars and influential tribal leaders in Kabul and Kandahar to bring support toward himself. Timur Shah's reforms also saw the capital of the Durrani Empire being shifted from Kandahar to Kabul, being able to cover the empire better as a base of ordination since it was essentially the heartland of the empire. This reform saw Kabul as the modern capital of Afghanistan today. Having consolidated power to himself, Timur Shah would fight multiple series of rebellions to consolidate and hold the empire apart, Timur Shah would also lead campaigns into Punjab against the Sikhs like his father did, however being more successful. Most prominent example of his battles during this campaign would be where Timur Shah led his forces under Zangi Khan Durrani, with over 18,000 men total of Afghan, Qizilbash, and Mongol cavalrymen. Against over 60,000 Sikh men. The Sikhs would lose over 30,000 in this battle and would stage a Durrani resurgence in Punjab. The Durranis lost Multan in 1772 after Ahmad Shah's death, following this victory by Timur Shah, Timur Shah was able to lay siege to Multan and recapture it, incorporating it into the Durrani empire once again, reintegrating it as a province until the Siege of Multan (1818). Timur Shah would be succeeded by his son, Zaman Shah Durrani after his death on 18 or 20 May 1793. Timur Shah's reign oversaw the attempted stabilization and consolidation of the empire. However, Timur Shah had over 24 sons, a mistake that would plunge the empire in civil war over succession crises.Zaman Shah Durrani would succeed to the Durrani Throne following the death of his father, Timur Shah Durrani. This instigated civil war with his brothers, Mahmud Shah Durrani, and Humayun Mirza revolting against him. With Humayun centered in Kandahar, and Mahmud Shah centered in Herat. Zaman Shah would defeat Humayun and also force the loyalty of Mahmud Shah Durrani. Securing his position on the throne, Zaman Shah had led 3 campaigns into Punjab, with the first two campaigns capturing Lahore, but being forced to retreat due to issues from a possible Qajar invasion, or his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani revolting. Zaman Shah embarked on his third campaign for Punjab in 1800 to deal with a rebellious Ranjit Singh. However, he was forced to withdraw, with his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani revolting, Zaman Shah would be toppled from his reign, replaced by his brother, Mahmud Shah Durrani. However, just under 2 years in his reign, Mahmud Shah Durrani would be deposed by his brother, Shah Shuja Durrani, on 13 July 1803. Shah Shuja would attempt to consolidate the Durrani Realm, which had been long striven by civil war. Shah Shuja would later be deposed by his brother at the Battle of Nimla (1809), where Mahmud Shah Durrani would defeat and force Shah Shuja to flee, with Shah Mahmud usurping the throne again for his second reign beginning on 3 May 1809.Barakzai dynasty and British wars By the early 19th century, the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in the west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Afghanistan was divided, including the Emirate of Herat centered in the east. Fateh Khan, leader of the Barakzai tribe, installed many of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire, mostly ruling as governors of major cities and provinces. After his murder for apparent treason against the Durrani king. Fateh Khan would be sentenced by Mahmud Shah Durrani, having him executed. His brothers, notably including Dost Mohammad Khan, rebelled and divided up the provinces of the empire between themselves. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan had many temporary rulers until Dost Mohammad Khan declared himself emir in 1826. Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh, who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured the city of Peshawar at the Battle of Nowshera. In 1837, during the Battle of Jamrud near the Khyber Pass, Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army, but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa, thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars. By this time the British were advancing from the east and the first major conflict during "the Great Game" was initiated.In 1838, a British expeditionary force marched into Afghanistan and arrested Dost Mohammad, sent him into exile in India and replaced him with Shah Shuja, the former Durrani king as a puppet on the throne. Following an uprising that saw the assassination of Shah Shuja, the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone's army, and the Battle of Kabul that led to its recapture, the British gave up on their attempts to try and subjugate Afghanistan, and allowed Dost Mohammad Khan as ruler and withdrew their military forces from Afghanistan. Dost Mohammad Khan would spend most of his reign consolidating the parts of Afghanistan that were lost in the Durrani civil wars. Dost Mohammad Khan would launch numerous campaigns, and also be able to reunite the Afghan realm in his reign, securing Herat (1793–1863) in the Herat Campaign of 1862–63. Dost Mohammad died on 9 June 1863, a few months after his campaign to capture Herat. Dost Mohammad's successors would fight for the throne of Afghanistan, between Sher Ali Khan, Mohammad Afzal Khan, and Mohammad Azam Khan in the Afghan Civil War (1863–1869). Sher Ali would win this civil war and would go on to rule the realm until In 1878, the British had returned in the Second Anglo-Afghan War which was fought over perceived Russian influence in the region, Abdur Rahman Khan replaced Ayub Khan who had succeeded Sher Ali Khan after his death in 1879. Britain would gain control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879, making it an official British Protected State. In 1893, Amir Abdur Rahman signed an agreement in which the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line, which forms the modern-day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shia-dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. The Iron Amir viewed railway and telegraph lines coming from the Russian and British as "trojan horses" and therefore prevented railway development in Afghanistan. He died in 1901, succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan.During the First World War, when Afghanistan was neutral, Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the Central Powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition, to declare full independence from the United Kingdom, join them and attack British India, as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy. Their efforts to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed, but it caused discontent among the population for keeping neutrality against the British. Habibullah was assassinated during a hunting trip in February 1919, and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions, Amanullah Khan provoked the Third Anglo-Afghan War, entering British India via the Khyber Pass.After the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the Emirate of Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state. He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community, particularly with the Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic of Germany. He proclaimed himself King of Afghanistan on 9 June 1926, when the Emirate of Afghanistan became the Kingdom of Afghanistan. Following a 1927–28 tour of Europe and Turkey, he introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution, which made elementary education compulsory. The institution of slavery was abolished in the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1923. King Amanullah's wife, Queen Soraya, was an important figure during this period in the fight for woman's education and against their oppression.Some of the reforms that were put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of several co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders, and this led to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). Faced with the overwhelming armed opposition, King Amanullah abdicated in January 1929, and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani. Prince Mohammed Nadir Shah, Amanullah's cousin, in turn defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929, and was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of King Amanullah in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization,  but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq, a fifteen-year-old Hazara student who was an Amanullah loyalist.Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned as King from 1933 to 1973. The tribal revolts of 1944–1947 saw King Zahir's reign challenged by Zadran, Safi, Mangal, and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran, Salemai, and Mirzali Khan, among others, many of whom were Amanullah loyalists. Close relations with the Muslim states Turkey, the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq and Iran/Persia were also pursued, while further international relations were sought by joining the League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads, infrastructure, the founding of a national bank, and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers, with Nazi Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time, along with the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan.Contemporary historyUntil 1946, King Zahir ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law, and a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan, leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. During his ten years at the post until 1963, Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. Afterward, the 1964 constitution was formed, and the first non-royal Prime Minister was sworn in.King Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. However, Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War thereafter. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure in the post-war period. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. Afghanistan had, therefore, good relations with both Cold War enemies. In 1973, while the King was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan, abolishing the monarchy.Democratic Republic and Soviet warIn April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan, in what is called the Saur Revolution. The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party general secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki. This would trigger a series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social, symbolic and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition, while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979, waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerrillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into a proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile, there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA – the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham.In September 1979, PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by fellow Khalq member, then-prime minister Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party. The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government, the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979, heading for Kabul and killing Amin just three days later. A Soviet-organized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq), filled the vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal, marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War. The United States and Pakistan, along with smaller actors like Saudi Arabia and China, continued supporting the rebels, delivering billions of dollars in cash and weapons including two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Lasting nine years, the war caused the deaths of between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans, and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran. Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages, millions of landmines were planted, and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province functioned as an organizational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, with the province's influential Deobandi ulama playing a major supporting role in promoting the 'jihad'. After the Soviet withdrawal, the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992.The Soviet-Afghan War had drastic social effects on Afghanistan. The militarization of society led to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, openly armed civil defense groups and other such things becoming the norm in Afghanistan for decades thereafter. The traditional power structure had shifted from clergy, community elders, intelligentsia and military in favor of powerful warlords.Post–Cold War conflictAnother civil war broke out after the creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting, various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion, while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as a movement and militia of students (talib) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan, who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year, they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996, where they established an emirate that gained international recognition from 3 countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women. During their rule, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes.After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed the Northern Alliance, later joined by others, to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1997 and 1998; Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf, began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000 the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory, cornered in the north-east. On 9 September 2001, Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley. Around 400,000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001.21st century In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks, who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps, and later working with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime came to an end.In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time, after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time, Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world, the lowest life expectancy, much of the population were hungry, and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country.Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help the rebuilding process. The Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. Over the next decade, ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban, but failed to fully defeat them. Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment, government corruption, and the Taliban insurgency. Meanwhile, Karzai attempted to unite the peoples of the country, and the Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Attempts were made, often with the support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces. Following 2002, nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140,000 in 2011, dropping to about 16,000 in 2018.In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after the 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against the Taliban. It was estimated in 2015 that "about 147,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 38,000 of those killed have been civilians". A report titled Body Count concluded that 106,000–170,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict.On 14 April 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after the withdrawal of NATO troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government, quickly advancing in front of collapsing Afghan government forces. On 15 August 2021, as the Taliban once again controlled a vast majority of Afghan territory, they re-captured the capital city of Kabul, and many civilians, government officials and foreign diplomats were evacuated. President Ghani fled Afghanistan that day. As of 16 August 2021, an unofficial Coordination Council led by senior statesmen was in the process of coordinating the transfer of the state institutions of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban. On 17 August, the First Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, proclaimed himself the caretaker President of Afghanistan and announced the formation of an anti-Taliban front with a reported 6,000+ troops in the Panjshir Valley, along with Ahmad Massoud. However, on 6 September, the Taliban took control of most of the Panjshir province, with resistance fighters retreating to the mountains to continue fighting within the province. Fights in the valley ceased mid-September, while resistances leaders Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud fled to neighboring Tajikistan.The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was swiftly restored as its opponents were defeated or left the country. It is apparently led by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and acting Prime Minister Hasan Akhund, who took office on 7 September 2021. Akhund is one of the four founders of the Taliban and was a deputy Prime Minister in their previous Emirate; his appointment was seen as a compromise between moderates and hardliners. A new, all-male cabinet was formed including Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai as Minister of Justice. On 20 September 2021, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres received a letter from acting minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi to formally claim Afghanistan's seat as a member state for their official spokesman in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, and asked to address the General Assembly. During the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, the United Nations never recognized their representatives and chose to work with the then-government in exile instead.Western nations have suspended most humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of the country in August 2021 and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted payments. In October 2021, more than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage. On 11 November 2021, the Human Rights Watch reported that Afghanistan was facing widespread famine due to an economic and banking crisis.Geography Afghanistan is located in Southern-Central Asia. The region centered at Afghanistan is considered the "crossroads of Asia", and the country has had the nickname Heart of Asia. The renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal once wrote about the country:At over , Afghanistan is the world's 41st largest country, slightly bigger than France and smaller than Myanmar, and about the size of Texas in the United States. There is no coastline, as Afghanistan is landlocked. Afghanistan shares its longest land border (the Durand Line) with Pakistan to the east and south, followed by borders with Tajikistan to the north-east, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the north-west, Uzbekistan to the north and China to the north-east; India recognizes a border with Afghanistan through Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Clockwise from south-west, Afghanistan shares borders with the Sistan and Baluchestan Province, South Khorasan Province and Razavi Khorasan Province of Iran; Ahal Region, Mary Region and Lebap Region of Turkmenistan; Surxondaryo Region of Uzbekistan; Khatlon Region and Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China; and the Gilgit-Baltistan territory, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Balochistan province of Pakistan.The geography in Afghanistan is varied, but is mostly mountainous and rugged, with some unusual mountain ridges accompanied by plateaus and river basins. It is dominated by the Hindu Kush range, the western extension of the Himalayas that stretches to eastern Tibet via the Pamir Mountains and Karakoram Mountains in Afghanistan's far north-east. Most of the highest points are in the east consisting of fertile mountain valleys, often considered part of the "Roof of the World". The Hindu Kush ends at the west-central highlands, creating plains in the north and southwest, namely the Turkestan Plains and the Sistan Basin; these two regions consist of rolling grasslands and semi-deserts, and hot windy deserts, respectively. Forests exist in the corridor between Nuristan and Paktika provinces (see East Afghan montane conifer forests), and tundra in the north-east. The country's highest point is Noshaq, at  above sea level. The lowest point lies in Jowzjan Province along the Amu River bank, at  above sea level.Despite having numerous rivers and reservoirs, large parts of the country are dry. The endorheic Sistan Basin is one of the driest regions in the world. The Amu Darya rises at the north of the Hindu Kush, while the nearby Hari Rud flows west towards Herat, and the Arghandab River from the central region southwards. To the south and west of the Hindu Kush flow a number of streams that are tributaries of the Indus River, such as the Helmand River. One exception is the Kabul River which flows in an easternly direction to the Indus ending at the Indian Ocean. Afghanistan receives heavy snow during the winter in the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, and the melting snow in the spring season enters the rivers, lakes, and streams. However, two-thirds of the country's water flows into the neighboring countries of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan. As reported in 2010, the state needs more than US$2 billion to rehabilitate its irrigation systems so that the water is properly managed.The northeastern Hindu Kush mountain range, in and around the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is in a geologically active area where earthquakes may occur almost every year. They can be deadly and destructive, causing landslides in some parts or avalanches during the winter. The last strong earthquakes were in 1998, which killed about 6,000 people in Badakhshan near Tajikistan. This was followed by the 2002 Hindu Kush earthquakes in which over 150 people were killed and over 1,000 injured. A 2010 earthquake left 11 Afghans dead, over 70 injured, and more than 2,000 houses destroyed.ClimateAfghanistan has a continental climate with harsh winters in the central highlands, the glaciated northeast (around Nuristan), and the Wakhan Corridor, where the average temperature in January is below  and can reach , and hot summers in the low-lying areas of the Sistan Basin of the southwest, the Jalalabad basin in the east, and the Turkestan plains along the Amu River in the north, where temperatures average over  in July and can go over . The country is generally arid in the summers, with most rainfall falling between December and April. The lower areas of northern and western Afghanistan are the driest, with precipitation more common in the east. Although proximate to India, Afghanistan is mostly outside the monsoon zone, except the Nuristan Province which occasionally receives summer monsoon rain.BiodiversitySeveral types of mammals exist throughout Afghanistan. Snow leopards, Siberian tigers and brown bears live in the high elevation alpine tundra regions. The Marco Polo sheep exclusively live in the Wakhan Corridor region of north-east Afghanistan. Foxes, wolves, otters, deer, wild sheep, lynx and other big cats populate the mountain forest region of the east. In the semi-desert northern plains, wildlife include a variety of birds, hedgehogs, gophers, and large carnivores such as jackals and hyenas.Gazelles, wild pigs and jackals populate the steppe plains of the south and west, while mongoose and cheetahs exist in the semi-desert south. Marmots and ibex also live in the high mountains of Afghanistan, and pheasants exist in some parts of the country. The Afghan hound is a native breed of dog known for its fast speed and its long hair; it is relatively known in the west.Endemic fauna of Afghanistan includes the Afghan flying squirrel, Afghan snowfinch, Afghanodon (or the "Paghman mountain salamander"), Stigmella kasyi, Vulcaniella kabulensis, Afghan leopard gecko, Wheeleria parviflorellus, amongst others. Endemic flora include Iris afghanica. Afghanistan has a wide variety of birds despite its relatively arid climate – an estimated 460 species of which 235 breed within.The forest region of Afghanistan has vegetation such as pine trees, spruce trees, fir trees and larches, whereas the steppe grassland regions consist of broadleaf trees, short grass, perennial plants and shrublands. The colder high elevation regions are composed of hardy grasses and small flowering plants. Several regions are designated protected areas; there are three national parks: Band-e Amir, Wakhan and Nuristan. Afghanistan had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.85/10, ranking it 15th globally out of 172 countries.Demographics The population of Afghanistan was estimated at 32.9 million as of 2019 by the Afghanistan Statistics and Information Authority, whereas the UN estimates over 38.0 million. In 1979 the total population was reported to be about 15.5 million. About 23.9% of them are urbanite, 71.4% live in rural areas, and the remaining 4.7% are nomadic. An additional 3 million or so Afghans are temporarily housed in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, most of whom were born and raised in those two countries. As of 2013, Afghanistan was the largest refugee-producing country in the world, a title held for 32 years.The current population growth rate is 2.37%, one of the highest in the world outside of Africa. This population is expected to reach 82 million by 2050 if current population trends continue. The population of Afghanistan increased steadily until the 1980s, when civil war caused millions to flee to other countries such as Pakistan. Millions have since returned and the war conditions contribute to the country having the highest fertility rate outside Africa. Afghanistan's healthcare has recovered since the turn of the century, causing falls in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy, although it has the lowest life expectance of any country outside Africa. This (along with other factors such as returning refugees) caused rapid population growth in the 2000s that has only recently started to slow down. The Gini coefficient in 2008 was 27.8.Ethnicity and languages Afghans are divided into several ethnolinguistic groups. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group, comprising 39% (2019 sociological research data by The Asia Foundation), followed by Tajiks (or Farsiwans), comprising 37%. of the country's population. Generally the other three major ethnic groups are the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. A further 10 other ethnic groups are recognized and each are represented in the Afghan National Anthem.Dari and Pashto are the official languages of Afghanistan; bilingualism is very common. Dari, which is a variety of and mutually intelligible with Persian (and very often called 'Farsi' by some Afghans like in Iran) functions as the lingua franca in Kabul as well as in much of the northern and northwestern parts of the country. Native speakers of Dari, of any ethnicity, are sometimes called Farsiwans. Pashto is the native tongue of the Pashtuns, although many of them are also fluent in Dari while some non-Pashtuns are fluent in Pashto. Despite the Pashtuns having been dominant in Afghan politics for centuries, Dari remained the preferred language for government and bureaucracy. According to CIA World Factbook, Dari Persian is spoken by 78% (L1 + L2) and functions as the lingua franca, while Pashto is spoken by 50%, Uzbek 10%, English 5%, Turkmen 2%, Urdu 2%, Pashayi 1%, Nuristani 1%, Arabic 1%, and Balochi 1% (2021 est). Data represent the most widely spoken languages; shares sum to more than 100% because there is much bilingualism in the country and because respondents were allowed to select more than one language.There are a number of smaller regional languages, including Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashayi, and Nuristani.When it comes to foreign languages among the populace, many are able to speak or understand Hindustani (Urdu-Hindi), partly due to returning Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the popularity of Bollywood films respectively. English is also understood by some of the population, and has been gaining popularity as of the 2000s. Some Afghans retain some ability in Russian, which was taught in public schools during the 1980s.Religion An estimated 99.7% of the Afghan population is Muslim and most are thought to adhere to the Sunni Hanafi school. According to Pew Research Center, as much as 90% are of the Sunni denomination, 7% Shia and 3% non-denominational. The CIA Factbook variously estimates up to 89.7% Sunni or up to 15% Shia. Michael Izady estimated 70% of the population to be followers of Sunni Islam, 25% Imami Shia Islam, 4.5% Ismaili Shia Islam, and 0.5% other religions.Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are also found in certain major cities (namely Kabul, Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kandahar) accompanied by gurdwaras and mandirs. According to Deutsche Welle in September 2021, 250 remain in the country after 67 were evacuated to India.There was a small Jewish community in Afghanistan, living mainly in Herat and Kabul. Over the years, this small community was forced leave due to decades of warfare and religious persecution. By the end of the twentieth century, the entire community had emigrated to Israel and the United States, with the exception of one person, Herat-born Zablon Simintov. He remained for years, being the caretaker of the only remaining Afghan synagogue. After the second Taliban takeover, he left Afghanistan for the United States.Afghan Christians, who number 500–8,000, practice their faith secretly due to intense societal opposition, and there are no public churches.UrbanizationAs estimated by the CIA World Factbook, 26% of the population was urbanized as of 2020. This is one of the lowest figures in the world; in Asia it is only higher than Cambodia, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Urbanization has increased rapidly, particularly in the capital Kabul, due to returning refugees from Pakistan and Iran after 2001, internally displaced people, and rural migrants. Urbanization in Afghanistan is different from typical urbanization in that it is centered on just a few cities.The only city with over a million residents is its capital, Kabul, located in the east of the country. The other large cities are located generally in the "ring" around the Central Highlands, namely Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west, Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz in the north, and Jalalabad in the east.Governance Following the effective collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the 2021 Taliban offensive, the Taliban declared the country an Islamic Emirate. A new caretaker government was announced on 7 September. As of 8 September 2021, no other country had formally recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the de jure government of Afghanistan.A traditional instrument of governance in Afghanistan is the loya jirga (grand assembly), a Pashtun consultative meeting that was mainly organized for choosing a new head of state, adopting a new constitution, or to settle national or regional issue such as war. Loya jirgas have been held since at least 1747, with the most recent one occurring in August 2020.Development of Taliban government On 17 August 2021, the leader of the Taliban-affiliated Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin party, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, met with both Hamid Karzai, the former President of Afghanistan, and Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation and former Chief Executive, in Doha, Qatar, with the aim of forming a government (though it is unclear whether either Karzai or Abdullah will be directly involved in any such government). President Ashraf Ghani, having fled the country during the Taliban advance to either Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, emerged in the United Arab Emirates and said that he supported such negotiations and was in talks to return to Afghanistan., the Islamic Emirate is undergoing a transitional political period with an unofficial Coordination Council led by senior statesmen in the process of coordinating the transfer of the state institutions of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Taliban forces, meanwhile, exercise effective police authority in the country. The Kabul meetings on government formation are men-only meetings according to Fawzia Koofi, former member of the Afghan National Assembly, who stated that a men-only government would "not be complete". Many figures within the Taliban generally agree that continuation of the Constitution of Afghanistan may, potentially, be workable as the basis for the new state as their objections to the former government were religious, and not political, in nature. On 20 August, Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in Kabul from Kandahar to begin formal negotiations with the Coordination Council on the composition and structure of the new government.Hours after the final flight of American troops left Kabul on 30 August, a Taliban official interviewed said that a new government would likely be announced as early as Friday 3 September after Jumu'ah. It was added that Hibatullah Akhundzada would be officially named Emir, with cabinet ministers being revealed at the Arg in an official ceremony. Abdul Ghani Baradar would be named head of government as Prime Minister, while other important positions would go to Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mohammad Yaqoob. Beneath the supreme leader, day-to-day governance will be entrusted to the cabinet.According to CNN, the new government is likely to be a unitary Deobandist Islamic republic. In a report by CNN-News18, sources said the new government was going to be governed similarly to Iran with Haibatullah Akhundzada as supreme leader similar to the role of Saayid Ali Khamenei, and would be based out of Kandahar. Baradar or Yaqoob would be head of government as Prime Minister. The government's ministries and agencies will be under a cabinet presided over by the Prime Minister. The Supreme Leader would preside over an executive body known Supreme Council with anywhere from 11 to 72 members. Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai is likely to be promoted to Chief Justice. According to the report, the new government will take place within the framework of an amended 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan.However, later interviews disclosed to News18 that negotiations were not yet completed and that representatives were still in Kandahar, and that the announcement of the new government would not take place until 4 September or later. Government formation was further delayed with the announcement postponed to some time during the week of 6 September, due to concerns about forming a broad-based government acceptable to the international community. It was later added however that the Taliban's Rahbari Shura, the group's leadership council was divided between the hardline Haqqani Network and moderate Abdul Ghani Baradar over appointments needed to form an "inclusive" government. This culminated in a skirmish which led to Baradar being injured and treated in Pakistan. It was speculated that the government would be announced on 11 September 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, with invitations possibly being extended to the governments of Turkey, China, Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar.As of early September, the Taliban were planning the Cabinet to be men-only, stating that women would not be allowed to "work in high-ranking posts" in the government and that women were "ruled out" from the Cabinet. Journalists and other human rights activists, mostly women, protested in Herat and Kabul, calling for women to be included in the Cabinet. The acting Cabinet announced on 7 September was men-only, and the Ministry of Women's Affairs appeared to have been abolished.Administrative divisions Afghanistan is administratively divided into 34 provinces (wilayat). Each province has a governor and a capital. The country is further divided into nearly 400 provincial districts, each of which normally covers a city or several villages. Each district is represented by a district governor.The provincial governors are now appointed by the Prime Minister of Afghanistan, and the district governors are selected by the provincial governors. The provincial governors are representatives of the central government in Kabul and are responsible for all administrative and formal issues within their provinces. There are also provincial councils that are elected through direct and general elections for four years. The functions of provincial councils are to take part in provincial development planning and to participate in the monitoring and appraisal of other provincial governance institutions.According to article 140 of the constitution and the presidential decree on electoral law, mayors of cities should be elected through free and direct elections for a four-year term. In practice however, mayors are appointed by the government.The following is a list of all the 34 provinces in alphabetical order: Badakhshan Badghis Baghlan Balkh Bamyan Daykundi Farah Faryab Ghazni Ghor Helmand Herat Jowzjan Kabul Kandahar Kapisa Khost Kunar Kunduz Laghman Logar Nangarhar Nimruz Nuristan Oruzgan Paktia Paktika Panjshir Parwan Samangan Sar-e Pol Takhar Wardak ZabulForeign relations Afghanistan became a member of the United Nations in 1946. Historically, Afghanistan had strong relations with Germany, one of the first countries to recognize Afghanistan's independence in 1919; the Soviet Union, which provided much aid and military training for Afghanistan's forces and includes the signing of a Treaty of Friendship in 1921 and 1978; and India, with which a friendship treaty was signed in 1950. Relations with Pakistan have often been tense for various reasons such as the Durand Line border issue and alleged Pakistani involvement in Afghan insurgent groups.The present Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is currently internationally unrecognized, but has had notable unofficial ties with China, Pakistan, and Qatar. Under the previous Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, it enjoyed cordial relations with a number of NATO and allied nations, particularly the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Turkey. In 2012, the United States and the then-republic in Afghanistan signed their Strategic Partnership Agreement in which Afghanistan became a major non-NATO ally.MilitaryThe Islamic Emirate Army captured a large amount of weapons, hardware, vehicles, aerocrafts, and equipment from the Afghan Armed Forces following the 2021 Taliban offensive and the Fall of Kabul. The total value of the captured equipment has been estimated at US$83 billion.Human rightsEconomy Afghanistan's nominal GDP was $21.7 billion in 2018, or $72.9 billion by purchasing power parity (PPP). Its GDP per capita is $2,024 (PPP). Despite having $1 trillion or more in mineral deposits, it remains one of the world's least developed countries. Afghanistan's rough physical geography and its landlocked status has been cited as reasons why the country has always been among the least developed in the modern era – a factor where progress is also slowed by contemporary conflict and political instability. The country imports over $7 billion worth of goods but exports only $784 million, mainly fruits and nuts. It has $2.8 billion in external debt. The service sector contributed the most to the GDP (55.9%) followed by agriculture (23%) and industry (21.1%).While the nation's current account deficit is largely financed with donor money, only a small portion is provided directly to the government budget. The rest is provided to non-budgetary expenditure and donor-designated projects through the United Nations system and non-governmental organizations.Da Afghanistan Bank serves as the central bank of the nation and the Afghani (AFN) is the national currency, with an exchange rate of about 75 Afghanis to 1 US dollar. A number of local and foreign banks operate in the country, including the Afghanistan International Bank, New Kabul Bank, Azizi Bank, Pashtany Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and the First Micro Finance Bank.One of the main drivers for the current economic recovery is the return of over 5 million expatriates, who brought with them entrepreneurship and wealth-creating skills as well as much needed funds to start up businesses. Many Afghans are now involved in construction, which is one of the largest industries in the country. Some of the major national construction projects include the $35 billion New Kabul City next to the capital, the Aino Mena project in Kandahar, and the Ghazi Amanullah Khan Town near Jalalabad. Similar development projects have also begun in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and other cities. An estimated 400,000 people enter the labor market each year.Several small companies and factories began operating in different parts of the country, which not only provide revenues to the government but also create new jobs. Improvements to the business environment have resulted in more than $1.5 billion in telecom investment and created more than 100,000 jobs since 2003. Afghan rugs are becoming popular again, allowing many carpet dealers around the country to hire more workers; in 2016–17 it was the fourth most exported group of items.Afghanistan is a member of WTO, SAARC, ECO, and OIC. It holds an observer status in SCO. In 2018, a majority of imports come from either Iran, China, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, while 84% of exports are to Pakistan and India.Since the Taliban's takeover of the country in August 2021, the United States has frozen about $9 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. bank accounts.AgricultureAgricultural production is the backbone of Afghanistan's economy and has traditionally dominated the economy, employing about 40% of the workforce as of 2018. The country is known for producing pomegranates, grapes, apricots, melons, and several other fresh and dry fruits. It is also known as the world's largest producer of opium – as much as 16% or more of the nation's economy is derived from the cultivation and sale of opium. It is also one of the world's top producers of cannabis.Saffron, the most expensive spice, grows in Afghanistan, particularly Herat Province. In recent years, there has been an uptick in saffron production, which authorities and farmers trying to replace poppy cultivation. Between 2012 and 2019, the saffron cultivated and produced in Afghanistan was consecutively ranked the world's best by the International Taste and Quality Institute. Production hit record high in 2019 (19,469 kg of saffron), and one kilogram is sold domestically between $634 and $1147.Mining The country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barite, sulfur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum. In 2010, US and Afghan government officials estimated that untapped mineral deposits located in 2007 by the US Geological Survey are worth at least .Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution estimated that if Afghanistan generates about $10 billion per year from its mineral deposits, its gross national product would double and provide long-term funding for Afghan security forces and other critical needs. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in 2006 that northern Afghanistan has an average  of crude oil,  of natural gas, and  of natural gas liquids. In 2011, Afghanistan signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for the development of three oil fields along the Amu Darya river in the north.The country has significant amounts of lithium, copper, gold, coal, iron ore, and other minerals. The Khanashin carbonatite in Helmand Province contains  of rare earth elements. In 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the Aynak copper mine to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan's history. The state-run Steel Authority of India won the mining rights to develop the huge Hajigak iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan. Government officials estimate that 30% of the country's untapped mineral deposits are worth at least . One official asserted that "this will become the backbone of the Afghan economy" and a Pentagon memo stated that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". The lithium reserves of 21 Mio. tons could amount to the ones of Bolivia, which is currently viewed as the country with the largest lithium reserves.  Other larger deposits are the ones of Bauxit and Cobalt. In a 2011 news story, the CSM reported, "The United States and other Western nations that have borne the brunt of the cost of the Afghan war have been conspicuously absent from the bidding process on Afghanistan's mineral deposits, leaving it mostly to regional powers."Access to biocapacity in Afghanistan is lower than world average. In 2016, Afghanistan had 0.43 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Afghanistan used 0.73 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use just under double as much biocapacity as Afghanistan contains. As a result, Afghanistan is running a biocapacity deficit.InfrastructureEnergyAccording to the World Bank, 98% of the rural population have access to electricity in 2018, up from 28% in 2008. Overall the figure stands at 98.7%. As of 2016, Afghanistan produces 1,400 megawatts of power, but still imports the majority of electricity via transmission lines from Iran and the Central Asian states. The majority of electricity production is via hydropower, helped by the amount of rivers and streams that flow from the mountains. However electricity is not always reliable and blackouts happen, including in Kabul. In recent years an increasing number of solar, biomass and wind power plants have been constructed. Currently under development are the CASA-1000 project which will transmit electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. Power is managed by the Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS, Afghanistan Electricity Company).Important dams include the Kajaki Dam, Dahla Dam, and the Sardeh Band Dam.Tourism Tourism is a small industry in Afghanistan due to security issues. Nevertheless, some 20,000 foreign tourists visit the country annually as of 2016. In particular an important region for domestic and international tourism is the picturesque Bamyan Valley, which includes lakes, canyons and historical sites, helped by the fact it is in a safe area away from insurgent activity. Smaller numbers visit and trek in regions such as the Wakhan Valley, which is also one of the world's most remote communities. From the late 1960s onwards, Afghanistan was a popular stop on the famous hippie trail, attracting many Europeans and Americans. Coming from Iran, the trail traveled through various Afghan provinces and cities including Herat, Kandahar and Kabul before crossing to northern Pakistan, northern India, and Nepal. Tourism peaked in 1977, the year before the start of political instability and armed conflict.The city of Ghazni has significant history and historical sites, and together with Bamyan city have in recent years been voted Islamic Cultural Capital and South Asia Cultural Capital respectively. The cities of Herat, Kandahar, Balkh, and Zaranj are also very historic. The Minaret of Jam in the Hari River valley is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A cloak reputedly worn by Islam's prophet Muhammad is kept inside the Shrine of the Cloak in Kandahar, a city founded by Alexander the Great and the first capital of Afghanistan. The citadel of Alexander in the western city of Herat has been renovated in recent years and is a popular attraction. In the north of the country is the Shrine of Ali, believed by many to be the location where Ali was buried. The National Museum of Afghanistan is located in Kabul and hosts a large number of Buddhist, Bactrian Greek and early Islamic antiquities; the museum suffered greatly by civil war but has been slowly restoring since the early 2000s.Communication Telecommunication services in Afghanistan are provided by Afghan Telecom, Afghan Wireless, Etisalat, MTN Group, and Roshan. The country uses its own space satellite called Afghansat 1, which provides services to millions of phone, internet, and television subscribers. By 2001 following years of civil war, telecommunications was virtually a non-existent sector, but by 2016 it had grown to a $2 billion industry, with 22 million mobile phone subscribers and 5 million internet users. The sector employs at least 120,000 people nationwide.Transportation Due to Afghanistan's geography, transport between various parts of the country has historically been difficult. The backbone of Afghanistan's road network is Highway 1, often called the "Ring Road", which extends for  and connects five major cities: Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, with spurs to Kunduz and Jalalabad and various border crossings, while skirting around the mountains of the Hindu Kush.The Ring Road is crucially important for domestic and international trade and the economy. A key portion of the Ring Road is the Salang Tunnel, completed in 1964, which facilitates travel through the Hindu Kush mountain range and connects northern and southern Afghanistan. It is the only land route that connects Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. Several mountain passes allow travel between the Hindu Kush in other areas. Serious traffic accidents are common on Afghan roads and highways, particularly on the Kabul–Kandahar and the Kabul–Jalalabad Road. Traveling by bus in Afghanistan remains dangerous due to militant activities.Air transport in Afghanistan is provided by the national carrier, Ariana Afghan Airlines, and by the private company Kam Air. Airlines from a number of countries also provide flights in and out of the country. These include Air India, Emirates, Gulf Air, Iran Aseman Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines, and Turkish Airlines. The country has four international airports: Hamid Karzai International Airport (formerly Kabul International Airport), Kandahar International Airport, Herat International Airport, and Mazar-e Sharif International Airport. Including domestic airports, there are 43. Bagram Air Base is a major military airfield.The country has three rail links: one, a  line from Mazar-i-Sharif to the Uzbekistan border; a  long line from Toraghundi to the Turkmenistan border (where it continues as part of Turkmen Railways); and a short link from Aqina across the Turkmen border to Kerki, which is planned to be extended further across Afghanistan. These lines are used for freight only and there is no passenger service. A rail line between Khaf, Iran and Herat, western Afghanistan, intended for both freight and passengers, is under construction as of 2019. About  of the line will lie on the Afghan side. There are various proposals for the construction of additional rail lines in the country.Private vehicle ownership has increased substantially since the early 2000s. Taxis are yellow in color and consist of both cars and auto rickshaws. In rural Afghanistan, villagers often use donkeys, mules or horses to transport or carry goods. Camels are primarily used by the Kochi nomads. Bicycles are popular throughout Afghanistan.Education Education in Afghanistan includes K–12 and higher education, which is overseen by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education. There are over 16,000 schools in the country and roughly 9 million students. Of this, about 60% are males and 40% females. However, the new regime has thus far forbidden girls and female teachers from returning to secondary schools. Over 174,000 students are enrolled in different universities around the country. About 21% of these are females. Former Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak had stated that construction of 8,000 schools is required for the remaining children who are deprived of formal learning.The top universities in Afghanistan are the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) followed by Kabul University (KU), both of which are located in Kabul. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan, modeled after the United States Military Academy at West Point, is a four-year military development institution dedicated to graduating officers for the Afghan Armed Forces. The Afghan Defense University was constructed near Qargha in Kabul. Major universities outside of Kabul include Kandahar University in the south, Herat University in the northwest, Balkh University and Kunduz University in the north, Nangarhar University and Khost University in the east. The United States is building six faculties of education and five provincial teacher training colleges around the country, two large secondary schools in Kabul, and one school in Jalalabad. Kabul University was founded in 1932 and is a respected institute that played a significant part in the country's education; from the 1960s the Kabul University was also a hotbed of radical political ideologies such as Marxism and Islamism, which played major parts in society, politics and the war that began in 1978.As of 2018 the literacy rate of the population age 15 and older is 43.02% (males 55.48% and females 29.81%). The Afghan National Security Forces are provided with mandatory literacy courses.Health According to the Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the 15th least developed country in the world. The average life expectancy is estimated to be around 60 years. The country's maternal mortality rate is 396 deaths/100,000 live births and its infant mortality rate is 66 to 112.8 deaths in every 1,000 live births. The Ministry of Public Health plans to cut the infant mortality rate to 400 for every 100,000 live births before 2020. The country has more than 3,000 midwives, with an additional 300 to 400 being trained each year.There are over 100 hospitals in Afghanistan, with the most advanced treatments being available in Kabul. The French Medical Institute for Children and Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul are the leading children's hospitals in the country. Some of the other leading hospitals in Kabul include the Jamhuriat Hospital and Jinnah Hospital. In spite of all this, many Afghans travel to Pakistan and India for advanced treatment.It was reported in 2006 that nearly 60% of the Afghan population lives within a two-hour walk of the nearest health facility. Disability rate is also high in Afghanistan due to the decades of war. It was reported recently that about 80,000 people are missing limbs. Non-governmental charities such as Save the Children and Mahboba's Promise assist orphans in association with governmental structures. Demographic and Health Surveys is working with the Indian Institute of Health Management Research and others to conduct a survey in Afghanistan focusing on maternal death, among other things.Culture Afghans have both common cultural features and those that differ between the regions of Afghanistan, each with distinctive cultures partly as a result of geographic obstacles that divide the country. Family is the mainstay of Afghan society and families are often headed by a patriarch. In the southern and eastern region, the people live according to the Pashtun culture by following Pashtunwali (the Pashtun way). Key tenets of Pashtunwali include hospitality, the provision of sanctuary to those seeking refuge, and revenge for the shedding of blood. The Pashtuns are largely connected to the culture of Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau. The remaining Afghans are culturally Persian and Turkic. Some non-Pashtuns who live in proximity with Pashtuns have adopted Pashtunwali in a process called Pashtunization, while some Pashtuns have been Persianized. Those who have lived in Pakistan and Iran over the last 30 years have been further influenced by the cultures of those neighboring nations. The Afghan people are known to be strongly religious.Afghans, particularly Pashtuns, are noted for their tribal solidarity and high regard for personal honor. One writer considers the tribal system to be the best way of organizing large groups of people in a country that is geographically difficult, and in a society that, from a materialistic point of view, has an uncomplicated lifestyle. There are various Afghan tribes, and an estimated 2–3 million nomads. Afghan culture is deeply Islamic, but pre-Islamic practices persist. One example is bacha bazi, a term for activities involving sexual relations between older men and younger adolescent men, or boys. Child marriage is prevalent in Afghanistan; the legal age for marriage is 16. The most preferred marriage in Afghan society is to one's parallel cousin, and the groom is often expected to pay a bride price.In the villages, families typically occupy mudbrick houses, or compounds with mudbrick or stone walled houses. Villages typically have a headman (malik), a master for water distribution (mirab) and a religious teacher (mullah). Men would typically work on the fields, joined by women during harvest. About 15% of the population are nomadic, locally called kochis. When nomads pass villages they often buy supplies such as tea, wheat and kerosene from the villagers; villagers buy wool and milk from the nomads.Afghan clothing for both men and women typically consists of various forms of shalwar kameez, especially perahan tunban and khet partug. Women would normally wear a chador for head covering; some women, typically from highly conservative communities, wear the burqa, a full body covering. These were worn by some women of the Pashtun community well before Islam came to the region, but the Taliban enforced this dress on women when they were in power. Another popular dress is the chapan which acts as a coat. The karakul is a hat made from the fur of a specific regional breed of sheep. It was favored by former kings of Afghanistan and became known to much of the world in the 21st century when it was constantly worn by President Hamid Karzai. The pakol is another traditional hat originating from the far east of the country; it was popularly worn by the guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Mazari hat originates from northern Afghanistan.ArchitectureThe nation has a complex history that has survived either in its current cultures or in the form of various languages and monuments. Afghanistan contains many remnants from all ages, including Greek and Buddhist stupas, monasteries, monuments, temples and Islamic minarets. Among the most well known are the Great Mosque of Herat, the Blue Mosque, the Minaret of Jam, the Chil Zena, the Qala-i Bost in Lashkargah, the ancient Greek city of Ai-Khanoum. However, many of its historic monuments have been damaged in modern times due to the civil wars. The two famous Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous. Despite that, archaeologists are still finding Buddhist relics in different parts of the country, some of them dating back to the 2nd century. As there was no colonialism in the modern era in Afghanistan, European-style architecture is rare but does exist: the Victory Arch at Paghman and the Darul Aman Palace in Kabul were built in this style in the 1920s by the Afghans themselves.Art and ceramicsCarpet weaving is an ancient practice in Afghanistan, and many of these are still handmade by tribal and nomadic people today. Carpets have been produced in the region for thousands of years and traditionally done by women. Some crafters express their feelings through the designs of rugs; for example after the outbreak of the Soviet-Afghan War, "war rugs", a variant of Afghan rugs, were created with designs representing pain and misery caused by the conflict. Every province has its own specific characteristics in making rugs. In some of the Turkic-populated areas in the north-west, bride and wedding ceremony prices are driven by the bride's weaving skills.Pottery has been crafted in Afghanistan for millennia. The village of Istalif, north of Kabul, is in particular a major center, known for its unique turquoise and green pottery, and their methods of crafting have remained the same for centuries. Much of lapis lazuli stones were earthed in modern-day Afghanistan which were used in Chinese porcelain as cobalt blue, later used in ancient Mesopotamia and Turkey.The lands of Afghanistan have a long history of art, with the world's earliest known usage of oil painting found in cave murals in the country. A notable art style that developed in Afghanistan and eastern Pakistan is Gandhara Art, produced by a fusion of Greco-Roman art and Buddhist art between the 1st and 7th centuries CE. Later eras saw increased use of the Persian miniature style, with Kamaleddin Behzad of Herat being one of the most notable miniature artists of the Timurid and early Safavid periods. Since the 1900s, the nation began to use Western techniques in art. Abdul Ghafoor Breshna was a prominent Afghan painter and sketch artist from Kabul during the 20th century.Media and entertainment Afghanistan has around 350 radio stations and over 200 television stations. Radio Television Afghanistan, originating from 1925, is the state public broadcaster. Television programs began airing in the 1970s and today there are many private television channels such as TOLO and Shamshad TV. The first Afghan newspaper was published in 1873, and there are hundreds of print outlets today. By the 1920s, Radio Kabul was broadcasting local radio services. Voice of America, BBC, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) broadcast in both of Afghanistan's official languages on radio. Press restrictions have been gradually relaxed and private media diversified since 2002, after more than two decades of tight controls.Afghans have long been accustomed to watching Indian Bollywood films and listening to its filmi songs. It has been claimed that Afghanistan is among the biggest markets for the Hindi film industry. The stereotypes of Afghans in India (Kabuliwala or Pathani) have also been represented in some Bollywood films by actors. Many Bollywood film stars have roots in Afghanistan, including Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan, Feroz Khan, Kader Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Zarine Khan, Celina Jaitly, and a number of others. Several Bollywood films have been shot inside Afghanistan, including Dharmatma, Khuda Gawah, Escape from Taliban, and Kabul Express.MusicAfghan classical music has close historical links with Indian classical music and use the same Hindustani terminology and theories like raga. Genres of this style of music include ghazal (poetic music) and instruments such as the Indian tabla, sitar and harmonium, and local instruments like zerbaghali, as well as dayereh and tanbur which are also known in Central Asia, the Caucusus and the Middle East. The rubab is the country's national instrument and precurses the Indian sarod instrument. Some of the famous artists of classical music include Ustad Sarahang and Sarban.Pop music developed in the 1950s through Radio Kabul and was influential in social change. During this time female artists also started appearing, at first Mermon Parwin. Perhaps the most famous artist of this genre was Ahmad Zahir, who synthesized many genres and continues to be renowned for his voice and rich lyrics long after his death in 1979. Other notable masters of traditional or popular Afghan music include Nashenas, Ubaidullah Jan, Mahwash, Ahmad Wali, Farhad Darya, and Naghma.Attan is the national dance of Afghanistan, a group dance popularly performed by Afghans of all backgrounds. The dance is considered part of Afghan identity.Cuisine Afghan cuisine is largely based upon the nation's chief crops, such as wheat, maize, barley and rice. Accompanying these staples are native fruits and vegetables as well as dairy products such as milk, yogurt and whey. Kabuli palaw is the national dish of Afghanistan. The nation's culinary specialties reflect its ethnic and geographic diversity. Afghanistan is known for its high quality pomegranates, grapes, and sweet melons. Tea is a favorite drink among Afghans, and a typical diet consists of naan, yoghurts, rice and meat.Literature Classic Persian and Pashto poetry are a cherished part of Afghan culture. Poetry has always been one of the major educational pillars in the region, to the level that it has integrated itself into culture. One of the poetic styles is called landay. A popular theme in Afghan folklore and mythology are Divs, monstrous creatures. Thursdays are traditionally "poetry night" in the city of Herat when men, women and children gather and recite both ancient and modern poems.The Afghan region has produced countless Persian-speaking poets and writers from the Middle Ages to the present day, among which three mystical authors are considered true national glories (although claimed with equal ardor by Iran), namely: Khwaja Abdullah Ansari of Herat, a great mystic and Sufi saint in the 11th century, Sanai of Ghazni, author of mystical poems in the 12th century, and, finally, Rumi of Balkh, in the 13th century, considered the persophonist throughout the world as the greatest mystical poet of the entire Muslim world. The Afghan Pashto literature, although quantitatively remarkable and in great growth in the last century, has always had an essentially local meaning and importance, feeling the influence of both Persian literature and the contiguous literatures of India. Both main literatures, from the second half of the nineteenth century, have shown themselves to be sensitive to genres (novel, theater), movements and stylistic features imported from Europe.Khushal Khan Khattak of the 17th century is considered the national poet. Other notable poets include Rabi'a Balkhi, Jami, Rahman Baba, Khalilullah Khalili, and Parween Pazhwak.Holidays and festivalsAfghanistan's official New Year starts with Nowruz, an ancient tradition that started as a Zoroastrian celebration in present-day Iran, and with which it shares the annual celebration along with several other countries. It occurs every year at the vernal equinox. In Afghanistan, Nowruz is typically celebrated with music and dance, as well as holding buzkashi tournaments.Yaldā, another nationally celebrated ancient tradition, commemorates the ancient goddess Mithra and marks the longest night of the year on the eve of the winter solstice (; usually falling on 20 or 21 December), during which families gather together to recite poetry and eat fruits—particularly the red fruits watermelon and pomegranate, as well as mixed nuts.Religious festivals are also celebrated; as a predominantly Muslim country, Islamic events and festivals such as Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Ashura are widely celebrated annually in Afghanistan. The Sikh festival of Vaisakhi is celebrated by the Sikh community and the Hindu festival Diwali by the Hindu community.National Independence Day is celebrated on 19 August to mark the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 under King Amanullah Khan and the country's full independence. Several international celebrations are also officially held in Afghanistan, such as International Workers' Day and International Women's Day. Some regional festivals include the Pamir Festival, which celebrates the culture of the Wakhi and Kyrgyz peoples, the Red Flower Festival (during Nowruz) in Mazar-i-Sharif and the Damboora Festival in Bamyan Province.Sports Sport in Afghanistan is managed by the Afghan Sports Federation. Cricket and Association football are the two most popular sports in the country. The Afghan Sports Federation promotes cricket, association football, basketball, volleyball, golf, handball, boxing, taekwondo, weightlifting, bodybuilding, track and field, skating, bowling, snooker, chess, and other sports.Afghanistan's sports teams are increasingly celebrating titles at international events. basketball team won the first team sports title at the 2010 South Asian Games. Later that year, the country's cricket team followed it with the winning of 2009–10 ICC Intercontinental Cup. In 2012, the country's 3x3 basketball team won the gold medal at the 2012 Asian Beach Games. In 2013, Afghanistan's football team followed as it won the SAFF Championship.The Afghan national cricket team, which was formed in 2001, participated in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier, 2010 ICC World Cricket League Division One and the 2010 ICC World Twenty20. It won the ACC Twenty20 Cup in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013. The team eventually made it and played in the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is the official governing body of the sport and is headquartered in Kabul. The Alokozay Kabul International Cricket Ground serves as the nation's main cricket stadium. There are several other stadiums throughout the country, including the Ghazi Amanullah Khan International Cricket Stadium near Jalalabad. Domestically, cricket is played between teams from different provinces.The Afghanistan national football team has been competing in international football since 1941. The national team plays its home games at the Ghazi Stadium in Kabul, while football in Afghanistan is governed by the Afghanistan Football Federation. The national team has never competed or qualified for the FIFA World Cup but has recently won an international football trophy in 2013. The country also has a national team in the sport of futsal, a 5-a-side variation of football.The traditional and the national sport of Afghanistan is buzkashi, mainly popular in the north, but also having a following in other parts of the country. It is similar to polo, played by horsemen in two teams, each trying to grab and hold a goat carcass. The Afghan Hound (a type of running dog) originated in Afghanistan and was formerly used in wolf hunting. In 2002, traveler Rory Stewart reported that dogs were still used for wolf hunting in remote areas.See also  Outline of AfghanistanNotesReferencesBibliographyExternal links  Afghanistan. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.   Research Guide to Afghanistan 1709 establishments in AsiaCentral Asian countriesCountries in AsiaIranian countries and territoriesIranian PlateauLandlocked countriesLeast developed countriesMember states of the Organisation of Islamic CooperationMember states of the South Asian Association for Regional CooperationCurrent member states of the United NationsPashto-speaking countries and territoriesPersian-speaking countries and territoriesSouth Asian countriesStates and territories established in 1709States and territories established in 1747Disputed territories in AsiaIslamic states
Albania ( ;  or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Sea within the Mediterranean Sea and shares land borders with Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south. Tirana is its capital and largest city, followed by Durrës, Vlorë and Shkodër.Albania displays varied climatic, geological, hydrological, and morphological conditions, defined in an area of . It possesses significant diversity with the landscape ranging from the snow-capped mountains in the Albanian Alps as well as the Korab, Skanderbeg, Pindus and Ceraunian Mountains to the hot and sunny coasts of the Albanian Adriatic and Ionian Sea along the Mediterranean Sea.Albania has been inhabited by different civilisations over time, such as the Illyrians, Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans. The Albanians established the autonomous Principality of Arbër in the 12th century. The Kingdom of Albania and Principality of Albania formed between the 13th and 14th centuries. Prior to the Ottoman conquest of Albania in the 15th century, the Albanian resistance to Ottoman expansion into Europe led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg won them acclaim over most of Europe. Albania remained under Ottoman rule for nearly five centuries, during which many Albanians (known  as Arnauts) attained high-ranking offices in the empire, especially in the Southern Balkans and Egypt. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, cultural developments, widely attributed to Albanians having gathered both spiritual and intellectual strength, conclusively led to the Albanian Renaissance. After the defeat of the Ottomans in the Balkan Wars, the modern nation state of Albania declared independence in 1912. In the 20th century, the Kingdom of Albania was invaded by Italy which formed Greater Albania before becoming a protectorate of Nazi Germany. Enver Hoxha formed the People's Socialist Republic of Albania after World War II, modeled under the terms of Hoxhaism. The Revolutions of 1991 concluded the fall of communism in Albania and eventually the establishment of the current Republic of Albania.Albania is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic and a developing country with an upper-middle income economy dominated by the service sector, followed by manufacturing. It went through a process of transition following the end of communism in 1990, from centralised planning to a market-based economy. Albania provides universal health care and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. Albania is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, UNESCO, NATO, WTO, COE, OSCE, and OIC. It is an official candidate for membership in the European Union since 2014. It is one of the founding members of the Energy Community, including the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and Union for the Mediterranean.Etymology The term Albania is the medieval Latin name of the country. It may be derived from the Illyrian tribe of Albani () recorded by Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer from Alexandria, who drafted a map in 150 AD which shows the city of Albanopolis located northeast of Durrës. The term may have a continuation in the name of a medieval settlement called Albanon or Arbanon, although it is not certain that this was the same place. In his history written in the 10th century, the Byzantine historian Michael Attaliates was the first to refer to Albanoi as having taken part in a revolt against Constantinople in 1043 and to the Arbanitai as subjects of the Duke of Dyrrachium. During the Middle Ages, the Albanians called their country  and referred to themselves as .Nowadays, Albanians call their country . The words Shqipëri and Shqiptar are attested from 14th century onwards, but it was only at the end of 17th and beginning of the early 18th centuries that the placename Shqipëria and the ethnic demonym Shqiptarë gradually replaced Arbëria and Arbëreshë amongst Albanian speakers. The two terms are popularly interpreted as "Land of the Eagles" and "Children of the Eagles".HistoryPrehistory The first attested traces of neanderthal presence in the territory of Albania dates back to the middle and upper Paleolithic period and were discovered in Xarrë and at Mount Dajt in the adjacent region of Tirana. Archaeological sites from this period include the Kamenica Tumulus, Konispol Cave and Pellumbas Cave.The discovered objects in a cave near Xarrë include flint and jasper objects along with fossilised animal bones, while those discoveries at Mount Dajt comprise bone and stone tools similar to those of the Aurignacian culture. They also demonstrate notable similarities with objects of the equivalent period found at Crvena Stijena in Montenegro and northwestern Greece.Multiple artefacts from the Iron and Bronze Ages near tumulus burials have been unearthed in central and southern Albania, which has similar affinity with the sites in southwestern Macedonia and Lefkada. Archaeologists have come to the conclusion that these regions were inhabited from the middle of the third millennium BC by Indo-European people who spoke a Proto-Greek language. Hence, a part of this historical population later moved to Mycenae around 1600 BC and properly established the Mycenaean civilisation.Antiquity In ancient times, the incorporated territory of Albania was historically inhabited by Indo-European peoples, among them numerous Illyrian tribes, Ancient Greeks and Thracians. In view of the Illyrian tribes, there is no evidence that these tribes used any collective nomenclature for themselves, while it is regarded to be unlikely that they used a common endonym. The endonym Illyrians seems to be the name applied to a specific Illyrian tribe, which was the first to come in liaison with the Ancient Greeks resulting in the endonym Illyrians to be applied pars pro toto to all people of similar language and customs.The territory referred to as Illyria corresponded roughly to the area east of the Adriatic Sea in the Mediterranean Sea extending in the south to the mouth of the Vjosë. The first account of the Illyrian groups comes from Periplus of the Euxine Sea, an ancient Greek text written in the middle of the 4th century BC. The west was inhabited by the Thracian tribe of the Bryges while the south was inhabited by the Ancient Greek-speaking tribe of the Chaonians, whose capital was at Phoenice. Other colonies such as Apollonia, Epidamnos and Amantia, were established by Ancient Greek city-states on the coast by the 7th century BC.The Illyrian Ardiaei tribe, centred in Montenegro, ruled over most of the territory of Albania. Their Ardiaean Kingdom reached its greatest extent under King Agron, the son of Pleuratus II. Agron extended his rule over other neighbouring tribes as well. Following Agron's death in 230 BC, his wife, Teuta, inherited the Ardiaean kingdom. Teuta's forces extended their operations further southwards to the Ionian Sea. In 229 BC, Rome declared war on the kingdom for extensively plundering Roman ships. The war ended in Illyrian defeat in 227 BC. Teuta was eventually succeeded by Gentius in 181 BC. Gentius clashed with the Romans in 168 BC, initiating the Third Illyrian War. The conflict resulted in Roman conquest of the region by 167 BC. The Romans split the region into three administrative divisions.Middle Ages The Roman Empire was split in 395 upon the death of Theodosius I into an Eastern and Western Roman Empire in part because of the increasing pressure from threats during the Barbarian Invasions. From the 6th century into the 7th century, the Slavs crossed the Danube and largely absorbed the indigenous Ancient Greeks, Illyrians and Thracians in the Balkans; thus, the Illyrians were mentioned for the last time in historical records in the 7th century.In the 11th century, the Great Schism formalised the break of communion between the Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Church that is reflected in Albania through the emergence of a Catholic north and Orthodox south. The Albanian people inhabited the west of Lake Ochrida and the upper valley of River Shkumbin and established the Principality of Arbanon in 1190 under the leadership of Progon of Kruja. The realm was succeeded by his sons Gjin and Dhimitri.Upon the death of Dhimiter, the territory came under the rule of the Albanian-Greek Gregory Kamonas and subsequently under the Golem of Kruja. In the 13th century, the principality was dissolved. Arbanon is considered to be the first sketch of an Albanian state, that retained a semi-autonomous status as the western extremity of the Byzantine Empire, under the Byzantine Doukai of Epirus or Laskarids of Nicaea.Towards the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, Serbs and Venetians started to take possession over the territory. The ethnogenesis of the Albanians is uncertain; however the first undisputed mention of Albanians dates back in historical records from 1079 or 1080 in a work by Michael Attaliates, who referred to the Albanoi as having taken part in a revolt against Constantinople. At this point the Albanians were fully Christianised.Few years after the dissolution of Arbanon, Charles of Anjou concluded an agreement with the Albanian rulers, promising to protect them and their ancient liberties. In 1272, he established the Kingdom of Albania and conquered regions back from the Despotate of Epirus. The kingdom claimed all of central Albania territory from Dyrrhachium along the Adriatic Sea coast down to Butrint. A catholic political structure was a basis for the papal plans of spreading Catholicism in the Balkan Peninsula. This plan found also the support of Helen of Anjou, a cousin of Charles of Anjou. Around 30 Catholic churches and monasteries were built during her rule mainly in northern Albania. Internal power struggles within the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century enabled Serbs' most powerful medieval ruler, Stefan Dusan, to establish a short-lived empire that included all of Albania except Durrës. In 1367, various Albanian rulers established the Despotate of Arta. During that time, several Albanian principalities were created, notably the Principality of Albania, Principality of Kastrioti, Lordship of Berat and Principality of Dukagjini. In the first half of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire invaded most of Albania, and the League of Lezhë was held under Skanderbeg as a ruler, who became the national hero of the Albanian medieval history.Ottoman Empire With the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire continued an extended period of conquest and expansion with its borders going deep into Southeast Europe. They reached the Albanian Ionian Sea Coast in 1385 and erected their garrisons across Southern Albania in 1415 and then occupied most of Albania in 1431. Thousands of Albanians consequently fled to Western Europe, particularly to Calabria, Naples, Ragusa and Sicily, whereby others sought protection at the often inaccessible Mountains of Albania.The Albanians, as Christians, were considered an inferior class of people, and as such they were subjected to heavy taxes among others by the Devshirme system that allowed the Sultan to collect a requisite percentage of Christian adolescents from their families to compose the Janissary. The Ottoman conquest was also accompanied with the gradual process of Islamisation and the rapid construction of mosques which consequently modified the religious picture of Albania.A prosperous and longstanding revolution erupted after the formation of the Assembly of Lezhë until the Siege of Shkodër under the leadership of Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, multiple times defeating major Ottoman armies led by Sultans Murad II and Mehmed II. Skanderbeg managed to gather several of the Albanian principals, amongst them the Arianitis, Dukagjinis, Zaharias and Thopias, and establish a centralised authority over most of the non-conquered territories, becoming the Lord of Albania.Skanderbeg consistently pursued the goal relentlessly but rather unsuccessfully to constitute a European coalition against the Ottomans. He thwarted every attempt by the Ottomans to regain Albania, which they envisioned as a springboard for the invasion of Italy and Western Europe. His unequal fight against them won the esteem of Europe also among others financial and military aid from the Papacy and Naples, Venice and Ragusa.When the Ottomans were gaining a firm foothold in the region, Albanian towns were organised into four principal sanjaks. The government fostered trade by settling a sizeable Jewish colony of refugees fleeing persecution in Spain. The city of Vlorë saw passing through its ports imported merchandise from Europe such as velvets, cotton goods, mohairs, carpets, spices and leather from Bursa and Constantinople. Some citizens of Vlorë even had business associates throughout Europe.The phenomenon of Islamisation among the Albanians became primarily widespread from the 17th century and continued into the 18th century. Islam offered them equal opportunities and advancement within the Ottoman Empire. However, motives for conversion were, according to some scholars, diverse depending on the context though the lack of source material does not help when investigating such issues. Because of increasing suppression of Catholicism, most Catholic Albanians converted in the 17th century, while Orthodox Albanians followed suit mainly in the following century.Since the Albanians were seen as strategically important, they made up a significant proportion of the Ottoman military and bureaucracy. A couple of Muslim Albanians attained important political and military positions who culturally contributed to the broader Muslim world. Enjoying this privileged position, they held various high administrative positions with over two dozen Albanian Grand Viziers. Others included members of the prominent Köprülü family, Zagan Pasha, Muhammad Ali of Egypt and Ali Pasha of Tepelena. Furthermore, two sultans, Bayezid II and Mehmed III, both had mothers of Albanian origin.Rilindja The Albanian Renaissance was a period with its roots in the late 18th century and continuing into the 19th century, during which the Albanian people gathered spiritual and intellectual strength for an independent cultural and political life within an independent nation. Modern Albanian culture flourished too, especially Albanian literature and arts, and was frequently linked to the influences of the Romanticism and Enlightenment principles.Prior to the rise of nationalism, Albania was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries, and Ottoman authorities suppressed any expression of national unity or conscience by the Albanian people. Through literature, Albanians started to make a conscious effort to awaken feelings of pride and unity among their people that would call to mind the rich history and hopes for a more decent future.The victory of Russia over the Ottoman Empire following the Russian-Ottoman Wars resulted the execution of the Treaty of San Stefano which overlooked to assign Albanian-populated lands to the Slavic and Greek neighbours. However, the United Kingdom and Austro-Hungarian Empire consequently blocked the arrangement and caused the Treaty of Berlin. From this point, Albanians started to organise themselves with the goal to protect and unite the Albanian-populated lands into a unitary nation, leading to the formation of the League of Prizren.The league had initially the assistance of the Ottoman authorities whose position was based on the religious solidarity of Muslim people and landlords connected with the Ottoman administration. They favoured and protected the Muslim solidarity and called for defence of Muslim lands simultaneously constituting the reason for titling the league Committee of the Real Muslims.Approximately 300 Muslims participated in the assembly composed by delegates from Bosnia, the administrator of the Sanjak of Prizren as representatives of the central authorities and no delegates from Vilayet of Scutari. Signed by only 47 Muslim deputies, the league issued the Kararname that contained a proclamation that the people from northern Albania, Epirus and Bosnia and Herzegovina are willing to defend the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire by all possible means against the troops of Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro.Ottomans authorities cancelled their assistance when the league, under Abdyl Frashëri, became focused on working towards Albanian autonomy and requested merging four vilayets, including Kosovo, Shkodër, Monastir and Ioannina, into an unified vilayet, the Albanian Vilayet. The league used military force to prevent the annexing areas of Plav and Gusinje assigned to Montenegro. After several successful battles with Montenegrin troops, such as the Battle of Novšiće, the league was forced to retreat from their contested regions. The league was later defeated by the Ottoman army sent by the sultan.Independence Albania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire on 28 November 1912, accompanied with the establishment of the Senate and Government by the Assembly of Vlorë on 4 December 1912. Its sovereignty was recognised by the Conference of London. On 29 July 1913, the Treaty of London delineated the borders of the country and its neighbours, leaving many Albanians outside Albania, predominantly partitioned between Montenegro, Serbia and Greece.Headquartered in Vlorë, the International Commission of Control was established on 15 October 1913 to take care of the administration of newly established Albania, until its own political institutions were in order. The International Gendarmerie was established as the first law enforcement agency of the Principality of Albania. In November, the first gendarmerie members arrived in the country. Prince of Albania Wilhelm of Wied (Princ Vilhelm Vidi) was selected as the first prince of the principality. On 7 March, he arrived in the provisional capital of Durrës and started to organise his government, appointing Turhan Pasha Përmeti to form the first Albanian cabinet.In November 1913, the Albanian pro-Ottoman forces had offered the throne of Albania to the Ottoman war Minister of Albanian origin, Ahmed Izzet Pasha. The pro-Ottoman peasants believed that the new regime was a tool of the six Christian Great Powers and local landowners, that owned half of the arable land.In February 1914, the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus was proclaimed in Gjirokastër by the local Greek population against incorporation to Albania. This initiative was short-lived, and in 1921 the southern provinces were incorporated into the Albanian Principality. Meanwhile, the revolt of Albanian peasants against the new Albanian regime erupted under the leadership of the group of Muslim clerics gathered around Essad Pasha Toptani, who proclaimed himself the saviour of Albania and Islam. In order to gain support of the Mirdita Catholic volunteers from the northern part of Albania, Prince Wied appointed their leader, Prênk Bibë Doda, to be the foreign minister of the Principality of Albania. In May and June 1914, the International Gendarmerie was joined by Isa Boletini and his men, mostly from Kosovo, and northern Mirdita Catholics, were defeated by the rebels who captured most of Central Albania by the end of August 1914. The regime of Prince Wied collapsed, and he left the country on 3 September 1914.First Republic Following the end of the government of Fan Noli, the parliament adopted a new constitution and proclaimed the country as a parliamentary republic in which King Zog I of Albania (Ahmet Muhtar Zogu) served as the head of state for a seven-year term. Immediately after, Tirana was endorsed officially as the country's permanent capital.The politics of Zogu was authoritarian and conservative with the primary aim of the maintenance of stability and order. He was forced to adopt a policy of cooperation with Italy where a pact had been signed between both countries, whereby Italy gained a monopoly on shipping and trade concessions. Italians exercised control over nearly every Albanian official through money and patronage. In 1928, the country was eventually replaced by another monarchy with a strong support by the fascist regime of Italy however, both maintained close relations until the Italian invasion of the country. Zogu remained a conservative but initiated reforms and placed great emphasis on the development of infrastructure.In an attempt at social modernisation, the custom of adding one's region to one's name was dropped. He also made donations of land to international organisations for the building of schools and hospitals. The armed forces were trained and supervised by instructors from Italy, and as a counterweight, he kept British officers in the Gendarmerie despite strong Italian pressure to remove them.After being militarily occupied by Italy from 1939 until 1943, the Kingdom of Albania was a protectorate and a dependency of the Kingdom of Italy governed by Victor Emmanuel III and his government. In October 1940, Albania served as a staging ground for an unsuccessful Italian invasion of Greece. A counterattack resulted in a sizeable portion of southern Albania coming under Greek military control until April 1941 when Greece capitulated during the German invasion. In April 1941, territories of Yugoslavia with substantial Albanian population were annexed to Albania inclusively western Macedonia, a strip of eastern Montenegro, the town of Tutin in central Serbia and most of Kosovo.Germans started to occupy the country in September 1943 and subsequently announced that they would recognise the independence of a neutral Albania and set about organising a new government, military and law enforcement. Balli Kombëtar, which had fought against Italy, formed a neutral government and side by side with the Germans fought against the communist-led National Liberation Movement of Albania.During the last years of the war, the country fell into a civil war-like state between the communists and nationalists. The communists defeated the last anti-communist forces in the south in 1944. Before the end of November, the main German troops had withdrawn from Tirana, and the communists took control by attacking it. The partisans entirely liberated the country from German occupation on 29 November 1944. A provisional government, which the communists had formed at Berat in October, administered Albania with Enver Hoxha as the head of government.By the end of the Second World War, the main military and political force of the nation, the Communist party sent forces to northern Albania against the nationalists to eliminate its rivals. They faced open resistance in Nikaj-Mërtur, Dukagjin and Kelmend led by Prek Cali. On 15 January 1945, a clash took place between partisans of the first Brigade and nationalist forces at the Tamara Bridge, resulting in the defeat of the nationalist forces. About 150 Kelmendi people were killed or tortured. This event was the starting point of many other issues which took place during Enver Hoxha's dictatorship. Class struggle was strictly applied, human freedom and human rights were denied. The Kelmend region was almost isolated by both the border and by a lack of roads for another 20 years, the institution of agricultural cooperatives brought about economic decline. Many Kelmendi people fled, and some were executed trying to cross the border.Communism In the aftermath of World War II and the defeat of the Axis Powers, the country became initially a satellite state of the Soviet Union, and Enver Hoxha emerged as the leader of the newly established People's Republic of Albania. Soviet-Albanian relations began to deteriorate after Stalin's death in 1953. At this point, the country started to develop foreign relations with other communist countries, among others with the People's Republic of China.During this period, the country experienced an increasing industrialisation and urbanisation, a rapid collectivisation and economic growth which led to a higher standard of living. The government called for the development of infrastructure and most notably the introduction of a railway system that completely revamped transportation.The new land reform laws were passed granting ownership of the land to the workers and peasants who tilled it. Agriculture became cooperative, and production increased significantly, leading to the country becoming agriculturally self-sufficient. In the field of education, illiteracy was eliminated among the country's adult population. The government also oversaw the emancipation of women and the expansion of healthcare and education throughout the country.The average annual increase in the country's national income was 29% and 56% higher than the world and European average, respectively. The nation incurred large debts initially with Yugoslavia until 1948, then the Soviet Union until 1961 and China from the middle of the 1950s. The constitution of the communist regime did not allow taxes on individuals, instead, taxes were imposed on cooperatives and other organisations, with much the same effect.Today a secular state without any official religion, religious freedoms and practises were severely curtailed during the communist era with all forms of worship being outlawed. In 1945, the Agrarian Reform Law meant that large swaths of property owned by religious groups were nationalised, mostly the waqfs along with the estates of mosques, tekkes, monasteries and dioceses. Many believers, along with the ulema and many priests, were arrested and executed. In 1949, a new Decree on Religious Communities required that all their activities be sanctioned by the state alone.After hundreds of mosques and dozens of Islamic libraries containing priceless manuscripts were destroyed, Hoxha proclaimed Albania the world's first atheist state in 1967. The churches had not been spared either and many were converted into cultural centres for young people. A 1967 law banned all fascist, religious, and antisocialist activity and propaganda. Preaching religion carried a three to ten-year prison sentence.Nonetheless, many Albanians continued to practise their beliefs secretly. The anti-religious policy of Hoxha attained its most fundamental legal and political expression a decade later: "The state recognises no religion", states the 1976 constitution, "and supports and carries out atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people".Fourth Republic After forty years of communism and isolation as well as the revolutions of 1989, people, most notably students, became politically active and campaigned against the government that led to the transformation of the existing order. Following the popular support in the first multi-party elections of 1991, the communists retained a stronghold in the parliament until the victory in the general elections of 1992 led by the Democratic Party.Considerable economic and financial resources were devoted to pyramid schemes that were widely supported by the government. The schemes swept up somewhere between one sixth and one third of the population of the country. Despite the warnings of the International Monetary Fund, Sali Berisha defended the schemes as large investment firms, leading more people to redirect their remittances and sell their homes and cattle for cash to deposit in the schemes.The schemes began to collapse in late 1996, leading many of the investors to join initially peaceful protests against the government, requesting their money back. The protests turned violent in February 1997 as government forces responded by firing on the demonstrators. In March, the Police and Republican Guard deserted, leaving their armouries open. These were promptly emptied by militias and criminal gangs. The resulting civil war caused a wave of evacuations of foreign nationals and refugees.The crisis led both Aleksandër Meksi and Sali Berisha to resign from office in the wake of the general election. In April 1997, Operation Alba, a UN peacekeeping force led by Italy, entered the country with two goals exclusively to assist with the evacuation of expatriates and to secure the ground for international organisations. The main international organisation that was involved was the Western European Union's multinational Albanian Police element, which worked with the government to restructure the judicial system and simultaneously the Albanian police.Contemporary Following the disintegration of the communist system, Albania focused on an active process of Westernisation with the goal of accession to the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). In 2009, the country, together with Croatia, gained active membership in NATO, becoming among the first countries in Southeast Europe to do so. It also applied to join the European Union on 28 April 2009, receiving official candidate status on 24 June 2014.Edi Rama of the Socialist Party won both the 2013 and 2017 parliamentary elections. As Prime Minister, he implemented numerous reforms focused on modernising the economy, as well as democratising state institutions, including the country's judiciary and law enforcement. Unemployment has been steadily reduced, with Albania achieving the 4th lowest unemployment rate in the Balkans. Rama has also placed gender equality at the centre of his agenda; since 2017 almost 50% of the ministers are female, the largest number of women serving in the country's history.On 26 November 2019, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake ravaged Albania with the epicentre positioned  southwest of the town of Mamurras. The tremor was felt in Tirana and in places as far away as Taranto, Italy, and Belgrade, Serbia, while the most affected areas were the coastal city of Durrës and the village of Kodër-Thumanë. Response to the earthquake included substantial humanitarian aid from the Albanian diaspora and several countries around the world.On 9 March 2020, COVID-19 was confirmed to have spread to Albania. From March to June 2020, the government declared a state of emergency as a measure to limit the rapid spread of the pandemic in the country. The country's COVID-19 vaccination campaign started on 11 January 2021, however, as of 11 August 2021, the total number of vaccines administered so far in Albania amounts to 1,280,239 doses.During the 2021 parliamentary elections, the ruling Socialist Party led by Edi Rama secured its third consecutive victory, winning nearly half of votes and enough seats in parliament to govern alone.Geography Albania has an area of  and is located on the Balkan Peninsula in South and Southeast Europe. Its shoreline faces the Adriatic Sea to the northwest and the Ionian Sea to the southwest along the Mediterranean Sea. Albania lies between latitudes 42° and 39° N, and longitudes 21° and 19° E. Its northernmost point is Vërmosh at 42° 35' 34" northern latitude; the southernmost is Konispol at 39° 40' 0" northern latitude; the westernmost point is Sazan at 19° 16' 50" eastern longitude; and the easternmost point is Vërnik at 21° 1' 26" eastern longitude. The highest point is Mount Korab at  above the Adriatic; the lowest point is the Mediterranean Sea at . The distance from the east to west is  and from the north to south about .For a small country, much of Albania rises into mountains and hills that run in different directions across the length and breadth of its territory. The most extensive mountain ranges are the Albanian Alps in the north, the Korab Mountains in the east, the Pindus Mountains in the southeast, the Ceraunian Mountains in the southwest and the Skanderbeg Mountains in the centre.Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the country is the presence of numerous important lakes. The Lake of Shkodër is the largest lake in Southern Europe and located in northwest. In the southeast rises the Lake of Ohrid that is one of the oldest continuously existing lakes in the world. Farther south extends the Large and Small Lake of Prespa, which are among the highest positioned lakes in the Balkans. Rivers rise mostly in the east of Albania and discharge into the Adriatic Sea but as well as into the Ionian Sea to a lesser extent. The longest river in the country, measured from its mouth to its source, is the Drin that starts at the confluence of its two headwaters, the Black and White Drin. Of particular concern is the Vjosë, which represents one of the last intact large river systems in Europe.Climate The climate in the country is extremely variable and diverse owing to the differences in latitude, longitude and altitude. Albania experiences predominantly a mediterranean and continental climate, with four distinct seasons. Defined by the Köppen classification, it accommodates five major climatic types ranging from mediterranean and subtropical in the western half to oceanic, continental and subarctic in the eastern half of Albania.The warmest areas of the country are immediately placed along the Adriatic and Ionian Sea Coasts. On the contrary, the coldest areas are positioned within the northern and eastern highlands. The mean monthly temperature ranges between  in winter to  in summer. The highest temperature of  was recorded in Kuçovë on 18 July 1973. The lowest temperature of  was registered in the village of Shtyllë, Librazhd on 9 January 2017.Rainfall naturally varies from season to season and from year to year. The country receives most of the precipitation in winter months and less in summer months. The average precipitation is about . The mean annual precipitation ranges between  and  depending on geographical location. The northwestern and southeastern highlands receive the intenser amount of precipitation, whilst the northeastern and southwestern highlands as well as the Western Lowlands the more limited amount.The Albanian Alps in the far north of the country are considered to be among the most humid regions of Europe, receiving at least  of rain annually. An expedition from the University of Colorado discovered four glaciers within these mountains at a relatively low altitude of , which is extremely rare for such a southerly latitude. Snowfall occurs frequently in winter in the highlands of the country, particularly on the mountains in the north and east, including the Albanian Alps and Korab Mountains. Snow also falls on the coastal areas in the southwest almost every winter such as in the Ceraunian Mountains, where it can lie even beyond March.Biodiversity A biodiversity hotspot, Albania possesses an exceptionally rich and contrasting biodiversity on account of its geographical location at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea and the great diversity in its climatic, geological and hydrological conditions. Because of remoteness, the mountains and hills of Albania are endowed with forests, trees and grasses that are essential to the lives for a wide variety of animals, among others for two of the most endangered species of the country, the lynx and brown bear, as well as the wildcat, grey wolf, red fox, golden jackal, egyptian vulture and golden eagle, the latter constituting the national animal of the country.The estuaries, wetlands and lakes are extraordinarily important for the greater flamingo, pygmy cormorant and the extremely rare and perhaps the most iconic bird of the country, the dalmatian pelican. Of particular importance are the mediterranean monk seal, loggerhead sea turtle and green sea turtle that use to nest on the country's coastal waters and shores.In terms of phytogeography, Albania is part of the Boreal Kingdom and stretches specifically within the Illyrian province of the Circumboreal and Mediterranean Region. Its territory can be subdivided into four terrestrial ecoregions of the Palearctic realm namely within the Illyrian deciduous forests, Balkan mixed forests, Pindus Mountains mixed forests and Dinaric Mountains mixed forests.Approximately 3,500 different species of plants can be found in Albania which refers principally to a Mediterranean and Eurasian character. The country maintains a vibrant tradition of herbal and medicinal practices. At the minimum 300 plants growing locally are used in the preparation of herbs and medicines. The trees within the forests are primarily made up of fir, oak, beech and pine.Protected areas The protected areas of Albania are areas designated and managed by the Albanian government. There are 15 national parks, 4 ramsar sites, 1 biosphere reserve and 786 other types of conservation reserves. Albania has fifteen officially designated national parks scattered across its territory. Encircled by numerous two-thousanders, Valbonë Valley National Park and Theth National Park cover a combined territory of  within the rugged Albanian Alps in northern Albania. Shebenik-Jabllanicë National Park and Prespa National Park protect the mountainous scenery of eastern Albania as well as the country's sections of the Great and Small Lakes of Prespa.Divjakë-Karavasta National Park extends along the central Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast and possesses one of the largest lagoons in the Mediterranean Sea, the Lagoon of Karavasta. The Ceraunian Mountains in southern Albania, rising immediately along the Albanian Ionian Sea Coast, characterises the topographical picture of Llogara National Park and continue on the Peninsula of Karaburun within the Karaburun-Sazan Marine Park. Further south sprawls the Butrint National Park on a peninsula that is surrounded by the Lake of Butrint and Channel of Vivari on the eastern half of the Straits of Corfu. Dajti National Park is equipped with a cable car and trails to some spectacular scenery is a popular retreat in the capital, Tirana.Environmental issues Environmental issues in Albania include air and water pollution, climate change, waste management, biodiversity loss and nature conservation. Climate change is predicted to have serious effects on the living conditions in Albania. The country is recognised as vulnerable to climate change impacts, ranked 80 among 181 countries in the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of 2019. Factors that account for the country's vulnerability to climate change risks include geological and hydrological hazards, including earthquakes, flooding, fires, landslides, torrential rains, river and coastal erosion.As a party to the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, Albania is committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 which, along with national policies, will help to mitigate the impacts of the climate change. The country has a moderate and improving performance in the Environmental Performance Index with an overall ranking of 62 out of 180 countries in 2020.Albania's ranking has however decreased since its highest placement at position 15 in the Environmental Performance Index of 2012. In 2019, Albania had a Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.77 from 10, ranking it 64th globally out of 172 countries.Governance Albania is a parliamentary constitutional republic and sovereign state whose politics operate under a framework laid out in the constitution wherein the president functions as the head of state and the prime minister as the head of government. The sovereignty is vested in the Albanian people and exercised by the Albanian people through their representatives or directly.The government is based on the separation and balancing of powers among the legislative, judiciary and executive. The legislative power is held by the parliament and is elected every four years by a system of party-list proportional representation by the Albanian people on the basis of free, equal, universal and periodic suffrage by secret ballot.The civil law, codified and based on the Napoleonic Code, is divided between courts with regular civil and criminal jurisdiction and administrative courts. The judicial power is vested in the supreme court, constitutional court, appeal court and administrative court. Law enforcement in the country is primarily the responsibility of the Albanian Police, the main and largest state law enforcement agency. It carries out nearly all general police duties including criminal investigation, patrol activity, traffic policing and border control.The executive power is exercised by the president and prime minister whereby the power of the president is very limited. The president is the commander-in-chief of the military and the representative of the unity of the Albanian people. The tenure of the president depends on the confidence of the parliament and is elected for a five-year term by the parliament by a majority of three-fifths of all its members. The prime minister, appointed by the president and approved by the parliament, is authorised to constitute the cabinet. The cabinet is composed primarily of the prime minister inclusively its deputies and ministers.Foreign relations In the time since the end of communism and isolationism, Albania has extended its responsibilities and position in continental and international affairs, developing and establishing friendly relations with other countries around the world. The country's foreign policy priorities are its accession into the European Union (EU), the international recognition of Kosovo and the expulsion of Cham Albanians, as well as helping and protecting the rights of the Albanians in Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Greece, Serbia, Italy and the Diaspora.Albania's admission into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was considered by Albanian politicians to be a significant ambition for the country's foreign policy. The country has been extensively engaged with the NATO and has maintained its position as a stability factor and a strong ally of the United States and the European Union (EU) in the region of the Balkans. Albania maintains strong ties with the United States ever after it supported the Albania's independence and democracy. Nowadays, both countries have signed a number of agreements and treaties. In 2007, Albania welcomed George W. Bush who became the first President of the United States ever to visit the country.Albania and Kosovo are culturally, socially and economically very closely rooted due to the Albanian majority population in Kosovo. In 1998, the country contributed in supporting allied efforts to end the humanitarian tragedy in Kosovo and secure the peace after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.Albania has been an active member of the United Nations since 1955. They country took on membership for the United Nations Economic and Social Council from 2005 to 2007 as well as in 2012. It served as vice president of the ECOSOC in 2006 and 2013. In 2014, it also joined the United Nations Human Rights Council from 2015 to 2017 and was elected vice president in 2015. Albania is a full member of numerous international organisations inclusively the Council of Europe, International Organisation for Migration, World Health Organization, Union for the Mediterranean, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and La Francophonie.Military The Albanian Armed Forces consist of Land, Air and Naval Forces and constitute the military and paramilitary forces of the country. They are led by a commander-in-chief under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence and by the President as the supreme commander during wartime however, in times of peace its powers are executed through the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister.The chief purpose of the armed forces of Albania is the defence of the independence, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the country, as well as the participation in humanitarian, combat, non-combat and peace support operations. Military service is voluntary since 2010 with the age of 19 being the legal minimum age for the duty.Albania has committed to increase the participations in multinational operations. Since the fall of communism, the country has participated in six international missions but participated in only one United Nations mission in Georgia, where it sent 3 military observers. Since February 2008, Albania has participated officially in NATO's Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean Sea. It was invited to join NATO on 3 April 2008, and it became a full member on 2 April 2009.Albania reduced the number of active troops from 65,000 in 1988 to 14,500 in 2009. The military now consists mainly of a small fleet of aircraft and sea vessels. In the 1990s, the country scrapped enormous amounts of obsolete hardware from China, such as tanks and SAM systems. Increasing the military budget was one of the most important conditions for NATO integration. Military spending has generally been low. As of 1996 military spending was an estimated 1.5% of the country's GDP, only to peak in 2009 at 2% and fall again to 1.5%.Administrative divisions Albania is defined within a territorial area of  in the Balkan Peninsula. The country is divided into three regions, the Northern, Central and Southern Region, which consist of a number of counties (qarqe) and municipalities (bashkia). The highest level of administrative divisions are the twelve constituent counties, all with the same status. They are further subdivided into 61 municipalities with each of them being responsible for geographical, economic, social and cultural purposes inside the counties.The counties were created on 31 July 2000 to replace the 36 former districts. The government introduced the new administrative divisions to be implemented in 2015, whereby municipalities were reduced to 61, while the rurals were abolished. The defunct municipalities are known as neighbourhoods or villages. There are overall 2980 villages or communities in the entire country, formerly known as localities. The municipalities are the first level of local governance, responsible for local needs and law enforcement.The largest county in Albania, by population, is Tirana County with over 800,000 people. The smallest county, by population, is Gjirokastër County with over 70,000 people. The largest in the county, by area, is Korçë County encompassing  of the southeast of Albania. The smallest county, by area, is Durrës County with an area of  in the west of Albania.Economy The transition from a socialist planned economy to a capitalist mixed economy in Albania has been largely successful. The country has a developing mixed economy classified by the World Bank as an upper-middle income economy. In 2016, it had the 4th lowest unemployment rate in the Balkans with an estimated value of 14.7%. Its largest trading partners are Italy, Greece, China, Spain, Kosovo and the United States. The lek (ALL) is the country's currency and is pegged at approximately 132,51 lek per euro.The cities of Tirana and Durrës constitute the economic and financial heart of Albania due to their high population, modern infrastructure and strategic geographical location. The country's most important infrastructure facilities take course through both of the cities, connecting the north to the south as well as the west to the east. Among the largest companies are the petroleum Taçi Oil, Albpetrol, ARMO and Kastrati, the mineral AlbChrome, the cement Antea, the investment BALFIN Group and the technology Albtelecom, Vodafone, Telekom Albania and others.In 2012, Albania's GDP per capita stood at 30% of the European Union average, while GDP (PPP) per capita was 35%. Albania was one of three countries in Europe to record an economic growth in the first quarter of 2010 after the global financial crisis. The International Monetary Fund predicted 2.6% growth for Albania in 2010 and 3.2% in 2011. According to Forbes, , the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was growing at 2.8%. The country had a trade balance of −9.7% and unemployment rate of 14.7%. The Foreign direct investment has increased significantly in recent years as the government has embarked on an ambitious programme to improve the business climate through fiscal and legislative reforms. The economy is expected to expand in the near term, driven by a recovery in consumption and robust investments. Growth is projected to be 3.2% in 2016, 3.5% in 2017, and 3.8% in 2018.Primary sector Agriculture in the country is based on small to medium-sized family-owned dispersed units. It remains a significant sector of the economy of Albania. It employs 41% of the population, and about 24.31% of the land is used for agricultural purposes. One of the earliest farming sites in Europe has been found in the southeast of the country. As part of the pre-accession process of Albania to the European Union, farmers are being aided through IPA funds to improve Albanian agriculture standards.Albania produces significant amounts of fruits (apples, olives, grapes, oranges, lemons, apricots, peaches, cherries, figs, sour cherries, plums, and strawberries), vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, maize, onions, and wheat), sugar beets, tobacco, meat, honey, dairy products, traditional medicine and aromatic plants. Further, the country is a worldwide significant producer of salvia, rosemary and yellow gentian. The country's proximity to the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea give the underdeveloped fishing industry great potential. The World Bank and European Community economists report that, Albania's fishing industry has good potential to generate export earnings because prices in the nearby Greek and Italian markets are many times higher than those in the Albanian market. The fish available off the coasts of the country are carp, trout, sea bream, mussels and crustaceans.Albania has one of Europe's longest histories of viticulture. The today's region was one of the few places where vine was naturally grown during the ice age. The oldest found seeds in the region are 4,000 to 6,000 years old. In 2009, the nation produced an estimated 17,500 tonnes of wine. During the communist era, the production area expanded to some .Secondary sector The secondary sector of Albania have undergone many changes and diversification, since the collapse of the communist regime in the country. It is very diversified, from electronics, manufacturing, textiles, to food, cement, mining, and energy. The Antea Cement plant in Fushë-Krujë is considered one of the largest industrial greenfield investments in the country. Albanian oil and gas is represents of the most promising albeit strictly regulated sectors of its economy. Albania has the second largest oil deposits in the Balkan peninsula after Romania, and the largest oil reserves in Europe. The Albpetrol company is owned by the Albanian state and monitors the state petroleum agreements in the country. The textile industry has seen an extensive expansion by approaching companies from the European Union (EU) in Albania. According to the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT) , the textile production marked an annual growth of 5.3% and an annual turnover of around 1.5 billion euros.Albania is a significant minerals producer and is ranked among the world's leading chromium producers and exporters. The nation is also a notable producer of copper, nickel and coal. The Batra mine, Bulqizë mine, and Thekna mine are among the most recognised Albanian mines that are still in operation.Tertiary sector The tertiary sector represents the fastest growing sector of the country's economy. 36% of the population work in the service sector which contributes to 65% of the country's GDP. Ever since the end of the 20th century, the banking industry is a major component of the tertiary sector and remains in good conditions overall due to privatisation and the commendable monetary policy.Previously one of the most isolated and controlled countries in the world, telecommunication industry represents nowadays another major contributor to the sector. It developed largely through privatisation and subsequent investment by both domestic and foreign investors. Eagle, Vodafone and Telekom Albania are the leading telecommunications service providers in the country.Tourism is recognised as an industry of national importance and has been steadily increasing since the beginnings of the 21st century. It directly accounted for 8.4% of GDP in 2016 though including indirect contributions pushes the proportion to 26%. In the same year, the country received approximately 4.74 million visitors mostly from across Europe and the United States as well.The increase of foreign visitors has been dramatic. Albania had only 500,000 visitors in 2005, while in 2012 had an estimated 4.2 million, an increase of 740 percent in only 7 years. In 2015, tourism in summer increased by 25 percent in contrast the previous year according to the country's tourism agency. In 2011, Lonely Planet named as a top travel destination, while The New York Times placed Albania as number 4 global touristic destination in 2014.The bulk of the tourist industry is concentrated along the Adriatic and Ionian Sea in the west of the country. However, the Albanian Riviera in the southwest has the most scenic and pristine beaches, and is often called the pearl of the Albanian coast. Its coastline has a considerable length of . The coast has a particular character because it is rich in varieties of virgin beaches, capes, coves, covered bays, lagoons, small gravel beaches, sea caves and many landforms. Some parts of this seaside are very clean ecologically, which represent in this prospective unexplored areas, which are very rare within the Mediterranean. Other attractions include the mountainous areas such as the Albanian Alps, Ceraunian Mountains and Korab Mountains but also the historical cities of Berat, Durrës, Gjirokastër, Sarandë, Shkodër and Korçë.Transport Transportation in Albania is managed within the functions of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy and entities such as the Albanian Road Authority (ARRSH), responsible for the construction and maintenance of the highways and motorways in Albania, as well as the Albanian Aviation Authority (AAC), with the responsibility of coordinating civil aviation and airports in the country.The international airport of Tirana is the premier air gateway to the country, and is also the principal hub for Albania's national flag carrier airline, Air Albania. The airport carried more than 3.3 million passengers in 2019 with connections to many destinations in other countries around Europe, Africa and Asia. The country plans to progressively increase the number of airports especially in the south with possible locations in Sarandë, Gjirokastër and Vlorë.The highways and motorways in Albania are properly maintained and often still under construction and renovation. The Autostrada 1 (A1) represents an integral transportation corridor in Albania and the longest motorway of the country. It will prospectively link Durrës on the Adriatic Sea across Pristina in Kosovo with the Pan-European Corridor X in Serbia. The Autostrada 2 (A2) is part of the Adriatic–Ionian Corridor as well as the Pan-European Corridor VIII and connects Fier with Vlorë. The Autostrada 3 (A3) is currently under construction and will connect, after its completion, Tirana and Elbasan with the Pan-European Corridor VIII. When all three corridors are completed, Albania will have an estimated  of highway linking it with all of its neighbouring countries.Durrës is the busiest and largest seaport in the country, followed by Vlorë, Shëngjin and Sarandë. , it is as one of the largest passenger ports on the Adriatic Sea with annual passenger volume of approximately 1.5 million. The principal ports serve a system of ferries connecting Albania with numerous islands and coastal cities in Croatia, Greece and Italy.The rail network is administered by the national railway company Hekurudha Shqiptare which was extensively promoted by the dictator Enver Hoxha. There has been a considerable increase in private car ownership and bus usage while rail use decreased since the end of communism. However, a new railway line from Tirana and its airport to Durrës is currently planned. The specific location of this railway, connecting the most populated urban areas in Albania, merely makes it an important economic development project.InfrastructureEducation In the country, education is secular, free, compulsory and based on three levels of education segmented in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The academic year is apportioned into two semesters beginning in September or October, and ending in June or July. Albanian serves as the primary language of instruction in all academic institutions across the country. The study of a first foreign language is mandatory and taught most often at elementary and bilingual schools. The languages taught in schools are English, Italian, French and German. The country has a school life expectancy of 16 years and a literacy rate of 98.7%, with 99.2% for males and 98.3% for females.Compulsory primary education is divided into two levels, elementary and secondary school, from grade one to five and six to nine, respectively. Pupils are required to attend school from the age of six until they turn 16. Upon successful completion of primary education, all pupils are entitled to attend high schools with specialising in any particular field including arts, sports, languages, sciences or technology.The country's tertiary education, an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education, has undergone a thorough reformation and restructuring in compliance with the principles of the Bologna Process. There is a significant number of private and public institutions of higher education well dispersed in the major cities of Albania. Studies in tertiary education are organised at three successive levels which include the bachelor, master and doctorate.Health The constitution of Albania guarantees equal, free and universal health care for all its citizens. The health care system of the country is currently organised in three levels, among others primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare, and is in a process of modernisation and development. The life expectancy at birth in Albania is at 77.8 years and ranks 37th in the world outperforming several developed countries. The average healthy life expectancy is at 68.8 years and ranks as well 37th in the world. The country's infant mortality rate is estimated at 12 per 1,000 live births in 2015. In 2000, the country had the 55th best healthcare performance in the world, as defined by the World Health Organization.Cardiovascular disease remain the principal cause of death in the country accounting 52% of total deaths. Accidents, injuries, malignant and respiratory diseases are other primary causes of death. Neuropsychiatric disease has also increased due to recent demographic, social and economic changes in the country.In 2009, the country had a fruit and vegetable supply of 886 grams per capita per day, the fifth highest supply in Europe. In comparison to other developed and developing countries, Albania has a relatively low rate of obesity probably thanks to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. According to World Health Organization data from 2016, 21.7% of adults in the country are clinically overweight, with a Body mass index (BMI) score of 25 or more.Energy Due to its geographical location and natural resources, Albania has a wide variety of energy resources ranging from gas, oil and coal, to wind, solar and water as well as other renewable sources. Currently, the electricity generation sector of Albania is dependent on hydroelectricity simultaneously ranking fifth in the world in percentage terms. The Drin, located in the north, hosts four hydroelectric power stations, including Fierza, Koman, Skavica and Vau i Dejës. Two other power stations, such as the Banjë and Moglicë, are located along the Devoll in the south.Albania has considerably large deposits of oil. It has the 10th largest oil reserves in Europe and the 58th in the world. The country's main petroleum deposits are located around the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast and Myzeqe Plain within the Western Lowlands, where the country's largest reserve is located. Patos-Marinza, also located within the area, is the largest onshore oil field in Europe.After the completion of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), Albania will be significantly connected to the planned Southern Gas Corridor, that will transport natural gas from the Caspian Sea through Albania to Europe. Withal the TAP runs for  across Albania's territory before entering the Albanian Adriatic Sea Coast approximately  northwest of Fier. In 2009, the company Enel announced plans to build an 800 MW coal-fired power plant in the country, to diversify electricity sources.The water resources of Albania are particularly abundant in all the regions of the country and comprise lakes, rivers, springs and groundwater aquifers. The country's available average quantity of fresh water is estimated at  per inhabitant per year, which is one of the highest rates in Europe. According to the data presented by the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) in 2015, about 93% of the country's total population had access to improved sanitation.Technology After the fall of communism in 1991, human resources in sciences and technology in Albania have drastically decreased. As of various reports, during 1991 to 2005 approximately 50% of the professors and scientists of the universities and science institutions in the country have left Albania. In 2009, the government approved the National Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation in Albania covering the period 2009 to 2015. It aims to triple public spending on research and development to 0.6% of GDP and augment the share of GDE from foreign sources, including the framework programmes for research of the European Union, to the point where it covers 40% of research spending, among others. Albania was ranked 83rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2019 and 2020.Telecommunication represents one of the fastest growing and dynamic sectors in Albania. Vodafone Albania, Telekom Albania and Albtelecom are the three large providers of mobile and internet in Albania. As of the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority (AKEP) in 2018, the country had approximately 2.7 million active mobile users with almost 1.8 million active broadband subscribers. Vodafone Albania alone served more than 931,000 mobile users, Telekom Albania had about 605,000 users and Albtelecom had more than 272,000 users.Demography As defined by the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the population of Albania was estimated in 2020 at 2,845,955. The country's total fertility rate of 1.51 children born per woman is one of the lowest in the world. Its population density stands at 259 inhabitants per square kilometre. The overall life expectancy at birth is 78.5 years; 75.8 years for males and 81.4 years for females. The country is the 8th most populous country in the Balkans and ranks as the 137th most populous country in the world. The country's population rose steadily from 2.5 million in 1979 until 1989, when it peaked at 3.1 million. It is forecast that the population will continue shrinking for the next decade at least, depending on the actual birth rate and the level of net migration.The explanation for the recent population decrease is the fall of communism in Albania in the late twentieth century. That period was marked by economic mass emigration from Albania to Greece, Italy and the United States. Four decades of total isolation from the world, combined with its disastrous economic, social and political situation, had caused this exodus. The external migration was prohibited outright during the communist era, while internal migration was quite limited, hence this was a new phenomenon. At least 900,000 people left Albania during this period, with about 600,000 of them settling in Greece. The migration affected the country's internal population distribution. It decreased particularly in the north and south, while it increased in the centre within the cities of Tirana and Durrës.About 53.4% of the country's population lives in cities. The three largest counties by population account for half of the total population. Almost 30% of the total population is found in Tirana County followed by Fier County with 11% and Durrës County with 10%. Over 1 million people are concentrated in Tirana and Durrës, making it the largest urban area in Albania. Tirana is one of largest cities in the Balkan Peninsula and ranks seventh with a population about 400,000. The second largest city in the country by population is Durrës, with a population of 113,000, followed by Vlorë with a population of 104,513.Minorities Issues of ethnicity are a delicate topic and subject to debate. Contrary to official statistics that show an over 97 per cent Albanian majority in the country, minority groups (such as Greeks, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Roma and Aromanians) have frequently disputed the official numbers, asserting a higher percentage of the country's population. According to the disputed 2011 census, ethnic affiliation was as follows: Albanians 2,312,356 (82.6% of the total), Greeks 24,243 (0.9%), Macedonians 5,512 (0.2%), Montenegrins 366 (0.01%), Aromanians 8,266 (0.30%), Romani 8,301 (0.3%), Balkan Egyptians 3,368 (0.1%), other ethnicities 2,644 (0.1%), no declared ethnicity 390,938 (14.0%), and not relevant 44,144 (1.6%). On the quality of the specific data the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities stated that "the results of the census should be viewed with the utmost caution and calls on the authorities not to rely exclusively on the data on nationality collected during the census in determining its policy on the protection of national minorities.".Albania recognises nine national or cultural minorities: Aromanian, Greek, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serb, Roma, Egyptian, Bosnian and Bulgarian peoples. Other Albanian minorities are the Gorani people and Jews. Regarding the Greeks, "it is difficult to know how many Greeks there are in Albania". The estimates vary between 60,000 and 300,000 ethnic Greeks in Albania. According to Ian Jeffries, most of Western sources put the number at around 200,000. The 300,000 mark is supported by Greek government as well. The CIA World Factbook estimates the Greek minority to constitute 0.9% of the total population. The US State Department estimates that Greeks make up 1.17%, and other minorities 0.23%, of the population. The latter questions the validity of the census data about the Greek minority, due to the fact that measurements have been affected by boycott.Macedonians and some Greek minority groups have sharply criticised Article 20 of the Census law, according to which a $1,000 fine will be imposed on anyone who will declare an ethnicity other than what is stated on his or her birth certificate. This is claimed to be an attempt to intimidate minorities into declaring Albanian ethnicity; according to them the Albanian government has stated that it will jail anyone who does not participate in the census or refuse to declare his or her ethnicity. Genc Pollo, the minister in charge has declared that: "Albanian citizens will be able to freely express their ethnic and religious affiliation and mother tongue. However, they are not forced to answer these sensitive questions". The amendments criticised do not include jailing or forced declaration of ethnicity or religion; only a fine is envisioned which can be overthrown by court.Greek representatives form part of the Albanian parliament and the government has invited Albanian Greeks to register, as the only way to improve their status. On the other hand, nationalists, various organisations and political parties in Albania have expressed their concern that the census might artificially increase the numbers of the Greek minority, which might be then exploited by Greece to threaten Albania's territorial integrity.Language The official language of the country is Albanian which is spoken by the vast majority of the country's population. Its standard spoken and written form is revised and merged from the two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk, though it is notably based more on the Tosk dialect. The Shkumbin river is the rough dividing line between the two dialects. Also a dialect of Greek that preserves features now lost in standard modern Greek is spoken in areas inhabited by the Greek minority. Other languages spoken by ethnic minorities in Albania include Aromanian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Gorani, and Roma. Macedonian is official in the Pustec Municipality in East Albania. According to the 2011 population census, 2,765,610 or 98.8% of the population declared Albanian as their mother tongue (mother tongue is defined as the first or main language spoken at home during childhood).In recent years, the shrinking number of pupils in schools dedicated to the Greek minority has caused problems for teachers. The Greek language is spoken by an important percentage in the southern part of the country, due to cultural and economic links with adjacent Greece. In a 2017 study carried out by Instat, the Albanian government statistical agency, 39.9% of the 25–64 years old is able to use at least one foreign language, with English first at 40.0%, followed by Italian with 27.8% and Greek with 22.9%. Among young people aged 25 or less, English, German and Turkish have seen rising interest after 2000. Italian and French have had a stable interest, while Greek has lost much of its previous interest. The trends are linked with cultural and economic factors.Greek is the second most-spoken language in the country, with 0.5 to 3% of the population speaking it as first language, and with two-thirds of mainly Albanian families having at least one member that speaks Greek, most having learned it in the post communist era (1992–present) due to private schools or migration to Greece. Outside of the small designated "minority area" in the south the teaching of Greek was banned during the communist era. As of 2003 Greek was offered at over 100 private tutoring centres all over Albania and at a private school in Tirana, the first of its kind outside Greece.Young people have shown a growing interest in German language in recent years. Some of them go to Germany for studying or various experiences. Albania and Germany have agreements for cooperating in helping young people of the two countries know both cultures better. Due to a sharp rise in economic relations with Turkey, interest in learning Turkish, in particular among young people, has been growing on a yearly basis. Young people, attracted by economic importance of Turkish investments and common values between the two nations, gain from cultural and academic collaboration of universities.Religion As of the 2011 census, there were 1,587,608 (56.7%) Sunni Muslims, 280,921 (10.03%) Roman Catholics, 188,992 (6.75%) Eastern Orthodox, 58,628 (2.09%) Bektashi Muslims, 3,797 (0.14%) Evangelicals, 1,919 (0.07%) other Christians, 602 (0.02%) of other religions and 153,630 (5.49%) believers without denomination in Albania. 69,995 people (2.5%) were irreligious while 386,024 (13.79%) did not declare their religion. Albania is nevertheless ranked among the least religious countries in the world. Religion constitute an important role in the lives of only 39% of the country's population. In another report, 56% considered themselves religious, 30% considered themselves non-religious, while 9% defined themselves as convinced atheists. 80% believed in God and 40% believed in life after death. However, 40% believed in hell, while 42% believed in heaven.The preliminary results of the 2011 census seemed to give widely different results, with 70% of respondents refusing to declare belief in any of the listed faiths. The Albanian Orthodox Church officially refused to recognize the results, claiming that 24% of the total population adhered to its faith. Some Muslim Community officials expressed unhappiness with the data claiming that many Muslims were not counted and that the number of adherents numbered some 70% of the Albanian population. The Albanian Catholic Bishops Conference also cast doubts on the census, complaining that many of its believers were not contacted. The Muslim Albanians are spread throughout the country. Orthodox and Bektashis are mostly found in the south, whereas Catholics mainly live in the north. In 2008, there were 694 Catholic churches and 425 orthodox churches, 568 mosques and 70 bektashi tekkes in the country.Albania is a secular and religiously diverse country with no official religion and thus, freedom of religion, belief and conscience are guaranteed under the country's constitution.During classical times, there are thought to have been about seventy Christian families in Durrës, as early as the time of the Apostles. The Archbishopric of Durrës was purportedly founded by Paul the Apostle, while preaching in Illyria and Epirus. Meanwhile, in medieval times, the Albanian people first appeared within historical records from the Byzantines. At this point, they were mostly Christianised. Islam arrived for the first time in the late 9th century to the region, when Arabs raided parts of the eastern banks of the Adriatic Sea. It later emerged as the majority religion, during centuries of Ottoman rule, though a significant Christian minority remained.During modern times, the Albanian republican, monarchic and later communist regimes followed a systematic policy of separating religion from official functions and cultural life. The country has never had an official religion either as a republic or as a kingdom. In the 20th century, the clergy of all faiths was weakened under the monarchy and ultimately eradicated during the 1950s and 1960s, under the state policy of obliterating all organised religion from the territories of Albania. The communist regime persecuted and suppressed religious observance and institutions and entirely banned religion. The country was then officially declared to be the world's first atheist state. Religious freedom has returned, however, since the end of communism.Islam survived communist era persecution and reemerged in the modern era as a practised religion in Albania. Some smaller Christian sects in Albania include Evangelicals and several Protestant communities including Seventh-day Adventist Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses. The first recorded Protestant of Albania was Said Toptani, who travelled around Europe and returned to Tirana in 1853, where he preached Protestantism. Due to that, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in 1864. The first evangelical Protestants appeared in the 19th century and the Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1892. Nowadays, it has 160 member congregations from different Protestant denominations. Following mass emigration to Israel after the fall of communism, there are only 200 Albanian Jews left in the country.CultureSymbols Albania shares many symbols associated with its history, culture and belief. These include the colours red and black, animals such as the golden eagle living across the country, costumes such as the fustanella, plis and opinga which are worn to special events and celebrations, plants such as the olive and red poppy growing as well across the country.The flag of Albania is a red flag with a black double-headed eagle positioned in the centre. The red colour used in the flag symbolises the bravery, strength and valour of the Albanian people, while the black colour appears as a symbol of freedom and heroism. The eagle has been used by Albanians since the Middle Ages including the establishment of the Principality of Arbër and by numerous noble ruling families such as the Kastrioti, Muzaka, Thopia and Dukagjini. Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu, who fought and began a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire which halted Ottoman advance into Europe for nearly 25 years, placed the double-headed eagle on his flag and seal.The country's national motto, Ti Shqipëri, më jep nder, më jep emrin Shqipëtar ("You Albania, you give me honour, you give me the name Albanian"), finds its origins in the Albanian National Awakening. The first to express this motto was Naim Frashëri in his poem Ti Shqipëri më jep nder.Arts The artistic history of Albania has been particularly influenced by a multitude of ancient and medieval people, traditions and religions. It covers a broad spectrum with mediums and disciplines that include painting, pottery, sculpture, ceramics and architecture all of them exemplifying a great variety in style and shape, in different regions and period.The rise of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages was accompanied by a corresponding growth in Christian and Islamic art in the lands of Albania which are apparent in examples of architecture and mosaics throughout the country. Centuries later, the Albanian Renaissance proved crucial to the emancipation of the modern Albanian culture and saw unprecedented developments in all fields of literature and art whereas artists sought to return to the ideals of Impressionism and Romanticism. However, Onufri, Kolë Idromeno, David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku and the Zografi Brothers are the most eminent representatives of Albanian art.The architecture of Albania reflects the legacy of various civilisations tracing back to the classical antiquity. Major cities in Albania have evolved from within the castle to include dwellings, religious and commercial structures, with constant redesigning of town squares and evolution of building techniques. Nowadays, the cities and towns reflect a whole spectrum of various architectural styles. In the 20th century, many historical as well as sacred buildings bearing the ancient influence were demolished during the communist era.Ancient architecture is found throughout Albania and most visible in Byllis, Amantia, Phoenice, Apollonia, Butrint, Antigonia, Shkodër and Durrës. Considering the long period of rule of the Byzantine Empire, they introduced castles, citadels, churches and monasteries with spectacular wealth of visible murals and frescos. Perhaps the best known examples can be found in the southern Albanian cities and surroundings of Korçë, Berat, Voskopojë and Gjirokastër. Involving the introduction of Ottoman architecture there was a development of mosques and other Islamic buildings, particularly seen in Berat and Gjirokastër.A productive period of Historicism, Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism merged into the 19th century, best exemplified in Korçë. The 20th century brought new architectural styles such as the modern Italian style, which is present in Tirana such as the Skanderbeg Square and Ministries. It is also present in Shkodër, Vlorë, Sarandë and Durrës. Moreover, other towns received their present-day Albania-unique appearance through various cultural or economic influences.Socialist classicism arrived during the communist era in Albania after the Second World War. At this period many socialist-styled complexes, wide roads and factories were constructed, while town squares were redesigned and numerous of historic and important buildings demolished. Notable examples of that style include the Mother Teresa Square, Pyramid of Tirana, Palace of Congresses and so on.Three Albanian archaeological sites are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These include the ancient remains of Butrint, the medieval Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastër, and Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Ohrid region site shared with North Macedonia since 2019. Furthermore, the royal Illyrian tombs, the remains of Apollonia, the ancient Amphitheatre of Durrës and the Fortress of Bashtovë has been included on the tentative list of Albania.Cuisine Throughout the centuries, Albanian cuisine has been widely influenced by Albanian culture, geography and history, and as such, different parts of the country enjoy specific regional cuisines. Cooking traditions especially vary between the north and the south, owing to differing topography and climate that essentially contribute to the excellent growth conditions for a wide array of herbs, fruits, and vegetables.Albanians produce and use many varieties of fruits such as lemons, oranges, figs, and most notably, olives, which are perhaps the most important element of Albanian cooking. Spices and other herbs such as basil, lavender, mint, oregano, rosemary, and thyme are widely used, as are vegetables such as garlic, onions, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, as well as legumes of all types.With a coastline along the Adriatic and Ionian in the Mediterranean Sea, fish, crustaceans, and seafood are a popular and an integral part of the Albanian diet. Otherwise, lamb is the traditional meat for different holidays and religious festivals for both Christians and Muslims, although poultry, beef, and pork are also in plentiful supply.Tavë kosi ("soured milk casserole") is the national dish of Albania, consisting of lamb and rice baked under a thick, tart veil of yoghurt. Fërgesë is another national dish, made up of peppers, tomatoes, and cottage cheese. Pite is also popular, a baked pastry with a filling of a mixture of spinach and gjizë (curd) or mish (ground meat).Petulla, a traditional fried dough, is also a popular speciality, and is served with powdered sugar or feta cheese and different sorts of fruit jams. Flia consists of multiple crêpe-like layers brushed with cream and served with sour cream. Krofne, similar to Berliner doughnuts, are filled with jam, or chocolate and often eaten during cold winter months.Coffee is an integral part of the Albanian lifestyle. The country has more coffee houses per capita than any other country in the world. Tea is also enjoyed both at home or outside at cafés, bars, or restaurants. Çaj Mali (Sideritis tea) is enormously beloved, and a part of the daily routine for most Albanians. It is cultivated across Southern Albania and noted for its medicinal properties. Black tea with a slice of lemon and sugar, milk, or honey is also popular.Albanian wine is also common throughout the country, and has been cultivated for thousands of years. Albania has a long and ancient history of wine production, and belongs to the Old World of wine producing countries. Its wine is characterised by its sweet taste and traditionally indigenous varieties.Media The freedom of press and speech, and the right to free expression is guaranteed in the constitution of Albania. Albania was ranked 84th on the Press Freedom Index of 2020 compiled by the Reporters Without Borders, with its score steadily declining since 2003. Nevertheless, in the 2020 report of Freedom in the World, the Freedom House classified the freedoms of press and speech in Albania as partly free from political interference and manipulation.Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH) is the national broadcaster corporation of Albania operating numerous television and radio stations in the country. The three major private broadcaster corporations are Top Channel, Televizioni Klan and Vizion Plus whose content are distributed throughout Albania and beyond its territory in Kosovo and other Albanian-speaking territories.Albanian cinema has its roots in the 20th century and developed after the country's declaration of independence. The first movie theater exclusively devoted to showing motion pictures was built in 1912 in Shkodër by an Austrian distribution company with strong efforts by Albanian painter Kolë Idromeno. The opening of other movie theaters followed by 1920 in Shkodër, Berat, Tirana and Vlorë.During the Peoples Republic of Albania, Albanian cinema developed rapidly with the inauguration of the Kinostudio Shqipëria e Re in Tirana. In 1953, the Albanian-Soviet epic film, the Great Warrior Skanderbeg, was released chronicling the life and fight of the medieval Albanian hero Skanderbeg. It went on to win the international prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. In 2003, the Tirana International Film Festival was established, the largest film festival in the country. Durrës is host to the Durrës International Film Festival, the second largest film festival, taking place at the Durrës Amphitheatre.Music Albanian folk music is a prominent part of the national identity, and continues to play a major part in overall Albanian music. Folk music can be divided into two stylistic groups, mainly the northern Gheg varieties, and southern Lab and Tosk varieties. Northern and southern traditions are contrasted by a rugged tone from the north, and the more relaxed southern form of music.Many songs concern events from Albanian history and culture, including traditional themes of honour, hospitality, treachery, and revenge. The first compilation of Albanian folk music was made by two Himariot musicians, Neço Muka and Koço Çakali, in Paris, during their work with Albanian soprano Tefta Tashko-Koço. Several gramophone compilations were recorded at the time by the three artists, which eventually led to the recognition of Albanian iso-polyphony as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.Festivali i Këngës is a traditional Albanian song contest organised by the national broadcaster Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH). The festival is celebrated annually since its inauguration in 1962 and has launched the careers of some of Albania's most successful singers including Vaçe Zela and Parashqevi Simaku. It is significantly a music competition among Albanian performers presenting unreleased songs in premiere, composed by Albanian authors and voted by juries or by public.Contemporary artists Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha, Era Istrefi, Dua Lipa, Ava Max, Bleona, Elvana Gjata, Ermonela Jaho, and Inva Mula have achieved international recognition for their music, while soprano Ermonela Jaho has been described by some as the "world's most acclaimed soprano". Albanian opera singer Saimir Pirgu was nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award.Traditional clothing Every cultural and geographical region of Albania has its own specific variety of costume that vary in style, material, colour, shape, detail, and form. Presently, national costumes are most often worn during special events and celebrations, mostly at ethnic festivals, religious holidays, weddings, and by performing dance groups. Some elderly people continue to wear traditional clothing in their daily lives. Clothing was traditionally made mainly from local materials such as leather, wool, linen, hemp fibre, and silk; Albanian textiles are still embroidered in elaborate ancient patterns.Literature The Albanian language comprises an independent branch and is a language isolate within the Indo-European family of languages; it is not connected to any other known living language in Europe. Its origin is conclusively unknown, but it is believed to have descended from an ancient Paleo-Balkan language.The cultural renaissance was first of all expressed through the development of the Albanian language in the area of church texts and publications, mainly of the Catholic region in the northern of Albania, but also of the Orthodox in the south. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition, when cleric Gjon Buzuku translated the Catholic liturgy into Albanian, trying to do for Albanian what Martin Luther had done for German. Meshari (The Missal) written by Gjon Buzuku was published in 1555 and is considered one of the first literary work of written Albanian during the Middle Ages. The refined level of the language and the stabilised orthography must be the result of an earlier tradition of written Albanian, a tradition that is not well understood. However, there is some fragmented evidence, pre-dating Buzuku, which indicates that Albanian was written from at least the 14th century.The earliest evidence dates from 1332 AD with a Latin report from the French Dominican Guillelmus Adae, Archbishop of Antivari, who wrote that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from Latin. Other significant examples include: a baptism formula (Unte paghesont premenit Atit et Birit et spertit senit) from 1462, written in Albanian within a Latin text by the Bishop of Durrës, Pal Engjëlli; a glossary of Albanian words of 1497 by Arnold von Harff, a German who had travelled through Albania, and a 15th-century fragment of the Bible from the Gospel of Matthew, also in Albanian, but written in Greek letters.Albanian writings from these centuries must not have been religious texts only, but historical chronicles too. They are mentioned by the humanist Marin Barleti, who in his book Siege of Shkodër (Rrethimi i Shkodrës) from 1504, confirms that he leafed through such chronicles written in the language of the people (in vernacula lingua) as well as his famous biography of Skanderbeg Historia de vita et gestis Scanderbegi Epirotarum principis (History of Skanderbeg) from 1508. The History of Skanderbeg is still the foundation of Skanderbeg studies and is considered an Albanian cultural treasure, vital to the formation of Albanian national self-consciousness.During the 16th and the 17th centuries, the catechism (E mbësuame krishterë) (Christian Teachings) from 1592 written by Lekë Matrënga, (Doktrina e krishterë) (The Christian Doctrine) from 1618 and (Rituale romanum) 1621 by Pjetër Budi, the first writer of original Albanian prose and poetry, an apology for George Castriot (1636) by Frang Bardhi, who also published a dictionary and folklore creations, the theological-philosophical treaty Cuneus Prophetarum (The Band of Prophets) (1685) by Pjetër Bogdani, the most universal personality of Albanian Middle Ages, were published in Albanian. The most famous Albanian writer in the 20th and 21st century is probably Ismail Kadare. He has been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.Sports Albania participated at the Olympic Games in 1972 for the first time. The country made their Winter Olympic Games debut in 2006. Albania missed the next four games, two of them due to the 1980 and 1984 boycotts, but returned for the 1992 games in Barcelona. Since then, Albania have participated in all games. Albania normally competes in events that include swimming, athletics, weightlifting, shooting and wrestling. The country have been represented by the National Olympic Committee of Albania since 1972. The nation has participated at the Mediterranean Games since the games of 1987 in Syria. The Albanian athletes have won a total of 43 (8 gold, 17 silver and 18 bronze) medals from 1987 to 2013.Popular sports in Albania include Football, weightlifting, basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, rugby union and gymnastics. Football is by far the most popular sport in Albania. It is governed by the Football Association of Albania (, F.SH.F.), which was created in 1930 and has membership in FIFA and UEFA. Football arrived in Albania early in the 20th century when the inhabitants of the northern city of Shkodër were surprised to see a strange game being played by students at a Christian mission.The Albania national football team, ranking 51st in the World in 2017 (highest 22nd on 22 August 2015) have won the 1946 Balkan Cup and the Malta Rothmans International Tournament 2000, but had never participated in any major UEFA or FIFA tournament, until UEFA Euro 2016, Albania's first ever appearance at the continental tournament and at a major men's football tournament. Albania scored their first ever goal in a major tournament and secured their first ever win in European Championship when they beat Romania by 1–0 in a UEFA Euro 2016 match on 19 June 2016. The most successful football clubs in the country are Skënderbeu, KF Tirana, Dinamo Tirana, Partizani and Vllaznia.Weightlifting is one of the most successful individual sport for the Albanians, with the national team winning medals at the European Weightlifting Championships and the rest international competitions. Albanian weightlifters have won a total of 16 medals at the European Championships with 1 of them being gold, 7 silver and 8 bronze. In the World Weightlifting Championships, the Albanian weightlifting team has won in 1972 a gold in 2002 a silver and in 2011 a bronze medal.Diaspora Historically, the Albanian people have established several communities in many regions throughout Southern Europe. The Albanian diaspora has been formed since the late Middle Ages, when they emigrated to places such as Italy, especially in Sicily and Calabria, and Greece to escape either various socio-political difficulties or the Ottoman conquest of Albania. Following the fall of communism, large numbers of Albanians have migrated to countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Scandinavia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. Albanian minorities are present in the neighbouring territories such as the west of North Macedonia, the east of Montenegro, Kosovo in its entirety and southern Serbia. In Kosovo, Albanians make up the largest ethnic group in the country. Altogether, the number of ethnic Albanian living abroad its territory is estimated to be higher than the total population inside the territory of Albania.See also  Outline of Albania Index of Albania-related articles Bibliography of AlbaniaNotesReferencesFurther reading  History of the Party of Labor of Albania. Tirana: Institute of Marxist–Leninist Studies, 1971. 691 p.External links albania.alpresident.alkryeministria.alparlament.alAlbania at The World Factbook by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Albanian-speaking countries and territoriesSouthern European countriesSoutheastern European countriesBalkan countriesMember states of NATOMember states of the Council of EuropeMember states of the Organisation internationale de la FrancophonieMember states of the Organisation of Islamic CooperationMember states of the Union for the MediterraneanCurrent member states of the United NationsRepublicsStates and territories established in 1912Countries in Europe
Allah (; , ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from al-ilāh, which means "the god", and is linguistically related to the  Aramaic words Elah and  (ʼAlâhâ) and the Hebrew word El (Elohim) for God.The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since pre-Islamic times. The pre-Islamic Arabs worshipped a supreme deity whom they called Allah, alongside other lesser deities. Muhammad used the word Allah to indicate the Islamic conception of God. Allah has been used as a term for God by Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) and even Arab Christians after the term "al-ilāh" and "Allah" were used interchangeably in Classical Arabic by the majority of Arabs who had become Muslims. It is also often, albeit not exclusively, used in this way by Bábists, Baháʼís, Mandaeans, Indonesian and Maltese Christians, and Sephardi Jews. Similar usage by Christians and Sikhs in West Malaysia has recently led to political and legal controversies.EtymologyThe etymology of the word Allāh has been discussed extensively by classical Arab philologists.  Grammarians of the Basra school regarded it as either formed "spontaneously" (murtajal) or as the definite form of lāh (from the verbal root lyh with the meaning of "lofty" or "hidden"). Others held that it was borrowed from Syriac or Hebrew, but most considered it to be derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and  "deity, god" to  meaning "the deity", or "the God". The majority of modern scholars subscribe to the latter theory, and view the loanword hypothesis with skepticism.Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic. The corresponding Aramaic form is Elah (), but its emphatic state is  (). It is written as  () in Biblical Aramaic and  () in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God". Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural (but functional singular) form Elohim (), but more rarely it also uses the singular form Eloah ().UsagePre-Islamic ArabiansRegional variants of the word Allah occur in both pagan and Christian pre-Islamic inscriptions. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of Allah in pre-Islamic polytheistic cults.  According to the Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir, Arab pagans considered Allah as an unseen God who created and controlled the Universe. Pagans believed worship of humans or animals who had lucky events in their life brought them closer to God. Pre-Islamic Meccans worshiped Allah alongside a host of lesser gods and those whom they called the “daughters of Allah.” Islam forbade worship of anyone or thing other than God. Some authors have suggested that polytheistic Arabs used the name as a reference to a creator god or a supreme deity of their pantheon. The term may have been vague in the Meccan religion. According to one hypothesis, which goes back to Julius Wellhausen, Allah (the supreme deity of the tribal federation around Quraysh) was a designation that consecrated the superiority of Hubal (the supreme deity of Quraysh) over the other gods. However, there is also evidence that Allah and Hubal were two distinct deities. According to that hypothesis, the Kaaba was first consecrated to a supreme deity named Allah and then hosted the pantheon of Quraysh after their conquest of Mecca, about a century before the time of Muhammad. Some inscriptions seem to indicate the use of Allah as a name of a polytheist deity centuries earlier, but nothing precise is known about this use. Some scholars have suggested that Allah may have represented a remote creator god who was gradually eclipsed by more particularized local deities. There is disagreement on whether Allah played a major role in the Meccan religious cult. No iconic representation of Allah is known to have existed. Allah is the only god in Mecca that did not have an idol. Muhammad's father's name was  meaning "the slave of Allāh".ChristianityArabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God". The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for "God" than "Allah", except Jehovah's Witnesses who add the biblical name "Jehovah" (يهوه) to the title "Allah". Similarly, the Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Catholic, uses Alla for "God".) Arab Christians, for example, use the terms  () for God the Father,  () for God the Son, and  () for God the Holy Spirit. (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God.)Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim , and also created their own Trinitized  as early as the 8th century. The Muslim  reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized  reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The Syriac, Latin and Greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitarian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.Some archaeological excavation quests have led to the discovery of ancient pre-Islamic inscriptions and tombs made by Arab Christians in the ruins of a church at Umm el-Jimal in Northern Jordan, which initially, according to Enno Littman (1949), contained references to Allah as the proper name of God. However, on a second revision by Bellamy et al. (1985 & 1988) the 5-versed-inscription was re-translated as "(1)This [inscription] was set up by colleagues of ʿUlayh, (2) son of ʿUbaydah, secretary (3) of the cohort Augusta Secunda (4) Philadelphiana; may he go mad who (5) effaces it."The syriac word ܐܠܗܐ (ʼĔlāhā) can be found in the reports and the lists of names of Christian martyrs in South Arabia, as reported by antique Syriac documents of the names of those martyrs from the era of the Himyarite and Aksumite kingdomsIn Ibn Ishaq's biography there is a Christian leader named Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad, who was martyred in Najran in 523, as he had worn a ring that said "Allah is my lord".In an inscription of Christian martyrion dated back to 512, references to 'l-ilah (الاله) can be found in both Arabic and Aramaic. The inscription starts with the statement "By the Help of 'l-ilah".In pre-Islamic Gospels, the name used for God was "Allah", as evidenced by some discovered Arabic versions of the New Testament written by Arab Christians during the pre-Islamic era in Northern and Southern Arabia. However most recent research in the field of Islamic Studies by Sydney Griffith et al. (2013), David D. Grafton (2014), Clair Wilde (2014) & ML Hjälm et al. (2016 & 2017) assert that "all one can say about the possibility of a pre-Islamic, Christian version of the Gospel in Arabic is that no sure sign of its actual existence has yet emerged." Additionally ML Hjälm in her most recent research (2017) inserts that "manuscripts containing translations of the gospels are encountered no earlier than the year 873"Irfan Shahîd quoting the 10th-century encyclopedic collection Kitab al-Aghani notes that pre-Islamic Arab Christians have been reported to have raised the battle cry "Ya La Ibad Allah" (O slaves of Allah) to invoke each other into battle. According to Shahid, on the authority of 10th-century Muslim scholar Al-Marzubani, "Allah" was also mentioned in pre-Islamic Christian poems by some Ghassanid and Tanukhid poets in Syria and Northern Arabia.IslamIn Islam, Allah is the unique, omnipotent and only deity and creator of the universe and is equivalent to God in other Abrahamic religions. Allah is usually seen as the personal name of God, a notion which became disputed in contemporary scholarship, including the question, whether or not the word Allah should be translated as God.According to Islamic belief, Allah is the most common word to represent God, and humble submission to his will, divine ordinances and commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith. "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind." "He is unique () and inherently one (), all-merciful and omnipotent."      No human eyes can see Allah till the Day Of Judgement. The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures." Allah doesn't depend on anything. God is not a part of the Christian Trinity. God has no parents and no children.The concept correlates to the Tawhid, where chapter 112 of the Qur'an (Al-'Ikhlās, The Sincerity) reads:۝ SAY, God is one GOD;۝ the eternal GOD:۝  He begetteth not, neither is He begotten:۝ and there is not any one like unto Him.and in the Ayat ul-Kursi ("Verse of the Throne"), which is the 255th verse and the powerful verse in the longest chapter (the 2nd chapter) of the Qur'an, Al-Baqarah ("The Cow") states:"Allah! There is no deity but Him, the Alive, the Eternal.Neither slumber nor sleep overtaketh Him.Unto Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth.Who could intercede in His presence without His permission?He knoweth that which is in front of them and that which is behind them,while they encompass nothing of His knowledge except what He wills.His throne includeth the heavens and the earth,and He is never weary of preserving them.He is the Sublime, the Tremendous."In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God ( lit. meaning: 'the best names' or 'the most beautiful names'), each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name. Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (ar-Raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (), including the forementioned above al-Aḥad ("the One, the Indivisible") and al-Wāḥid ("the Unique, the Single").Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase  (meaning 'if God wills') after references to future events. Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of  (meaning 'In the name of God'). There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "" (Glory be to God), "" (Praise be to God), "" (There is no deity but God) or sometimes "lā ilāha illā inta/ huwa" (There is no deity but You/ Him) and "" (God is the Most Great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (dhikr).In a Sufi practice known as dhikr Allah (Arabic: ذكر الله, lit. "Remembrance of God"), the Sufi repeats and contemplates the name Allah or other associated divine names to Him while controlling his or her breath. For example, in countless references in the context from the Qur'an forementioned above:1) Allah is referred to in the second person pronoun in Arabic as "Inta (Arabic: َإِنْت)" like the English "You", or commonly in the third person pronoun "Huwa (Arabic: َهُو)" like the English "He" and uniquely in the case pronoun of the oblique form "Hu/ Huw (Arabic: هو /-هُ)" like the English "Him" which rhythmically resonates and is chanted as considered a sacred sound or echo referring Allah as the "Absolute Breath or Soul of Life" - Al-Nafs al-Hayyah (Arabic: النّفس الحياة, an-Nafsu 'l-Ḥayyah) - notably among the 99 names of God, "the Giver of Life" (al-Muḥyī) and "the Bringer of Death" (al-Mumiyt);2) Allah is neither male or female (who has no gender), but who is the essence of the "Omnipotent, Selfless, Absolute Soul (an-Nafs, النّفس) and Holy Spirit" (ar-Rūḥ, الرّوح) - notably among the 99 names of God, "the All-Holy, All-Pure and All-Sacred" (al-Quddus);3) Allah is the originator of both before and beyond the cycle of creation, destruction and time, - notably among the 99 names of God, "the First, Beginning-less" (al-Awwal), "the End/ Beyond ["the Final Abode"]/ Endless" (al-Akhir/ al-Ākhir) and "the Timeless" (aṣ-Ṣabūr).According to Gerhard Böwering, in contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, God in Islam does not have associates and companions, nor is there any kinship between God and jinn. Pre-Islamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God.According to Francis Edward Peters, "The Qur’ān insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (). The Qur’an's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.PronunciationThe word Allāh is generally pronounced , exhibiting a heavy lām, , a velarized alveolar lateral approximant, a marginal phoneme in Modern Standard Arabic. Since the initial alef has no hamza, the initial  is elided when a preceding word ends in a vowel. If the preceding vowel is , the lām is light, , as in, for instance, the Basmala.As a loanwordEnglish and other European languagesThe history of the name Allāh in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in the 19th century; for example, Thomas Carlyle (1840) sometimes used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muḥammad (1934), Tor Andræ always used the term Allah, though he allows that this "conception of God" seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the word ojalá in the Spanish language and oxalá in the Portuguese language exist today, borrowed from Arabic inshalla (Arabic: إن شاء الله). This phrase literally means 'if God wills' (in the sense of "I hope so"). The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English, rather than using the English translation "God". The word has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.Malaysian and Indonesian languageChristians in Malaysia and Indonesia use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian and Indonesian languages (both of them standardized forms of the Malay language).  Mainstream Bible translations in the language use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God"). This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century. The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by Albert Cornelius Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin edition) recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt". Ruyl also translated the Gospel of Matthew in 1612 into the Malay language (an early Bible translation into a non-European language,made a year after the publication of the King James Version), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated the Gospel of Mark, published in 1638.The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the Malayan High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling it unconstitutional. While Allah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of Allah by the Roman Catholic newspaper The Herald. The government appealed the court ruling, and the High Court suspended implementation of its verdict until the hearing of the appeal. In October 2013 the court ruled in favor of the government's ban. In early 2014 the Malaysian government confiscated more than 300 bibles for using the word to refer to the Christian God in Peninsular Malaysia. However, the use of Allah is not prohibited in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak. The main reason it is not prohibited in these two states is that usage has been long-established and local Alkitab (Bibles) have been widely distributed freely in East Malaysia without restrictions for years. Both states also do not have similar Islamic state laws as those in West Malaysia.In reaction to some media criticism, the Malaysian government has introduced a "10-point solution" to avoid confusion and misleading information. The 10-point solution is in line with the spirit of the 18- and 20-point agreements of Sarawak and Sabah.National flags with "Allah" written on themTypographyThe word  is always written without an  to spell the  vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using  to spell . However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic  is added on top of the  to indicate the pronunciation.In the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription, God is referred to by the term , that is, alif-lam-alif-lam-ha. This presumably indicates Al-'ilāh = "the god", without alif for ā.Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.Since Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering  +  +  as the previous ligature is considered faulty which is the case with most common Arabic typefaces.UnicodeUnicode has a code point reserved for ,  = U+FDF2, in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which exists solely for "compatibility with some older, legacy character sets that encoded presentation forms directly"; this is discouraged for new text. Instead, the word  should be represented by its individual Arabic letters, while modern font technologies will render the desired ligature.The calligraphic variant of the word used as the Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at code point U+262B (☫).See also Abdullah (name) Allah as a lunar deity Emblem of Iran Ismul Azam Names of GodFurther readingOnline  Allah Qur'ān, in Encyclopædia Britannica Online, by Asma Afsaruddin, Brian Duignan, Thinley Kalsang Bhutia, Gloria Lotha, Marco Sampaolo, Matt StefonTesc, Noah Tesch and Adam ZeidanCitationsGeneral references  The Unicode Consortium, Unicode Standard 5.0, Addison-Wesley, 2006, , About the Unicode Standard Version 5.0 BookExternal links Names of Allah with Meaning on Website, Flash, and Mobile Phone Software Concept of God (Allah) in Islam The Concept of Allāh According to the Qur'an by Abdul Mannan Omar Allah, the Unique Name of God Typography Arabic Fonts and Mac OS X Programs for Arabic in Mac OS X Arabian deitiesArabian godsIslamic terminologyMiddle Eastern godsNames of God
Algorithms is a monthly peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal of mathematics, covering design, analysis, and experiments on algorithms. The journal is published by MDPI and was established in 2008. The founding editor-in-chief was Kazuo Iwama (Kyoto University). From May 2014 to September 2019, the editor-in-chief was Henning Fernau (Universität Trier). The current editor-in-chief is Frank Werner (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg).Abstracting and indexingThe journal is abstracted and indexed in:See alsoJournals with similar scope include:ACM Transactions on AlgorithmsAlgorithmicaJournal of Algorithms (Elsevier)ReferencesExternal linksComputer science journalsOpen access journalsMDPI academic journalsEnglish-language journalsPublications established in 2008Mathematics journalsMonthly journals
Azerbaijan (, ;  ), officially the Azerbaijan Republic or the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the South Caucasus region, and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia and Turkey to the west, and Iran to the south. Baku is the capital and largest city.The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and became the first secular democratic Muslim-majority state, taking its name from the adjacent region of northwestern Iran for political reasons. In 1922, the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR.The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same year. In September 1991, the ethnic Armenian majority of the Nagorno-Karabakh region formed self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh. The region and seven surrounding districts are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, while negotiations on the resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are facilitated by the OSCE. Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto independent with the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994.Following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, the seven districts and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh were returned to Azerbaijani control.Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic. It is one of six independent Turkic states and an active member of the Turkic Council and the TÜRKSOY community. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OSCE, and the NATO PfP program. It is one of the founding members of GUAM, the CIS, and the OPCW. Azerbaijan is also an observer state of the WTO.The vast majority of the country's population (97%) is Muslim, but the constitution does not declare an official religion and all major political forces in the country are secularist. Azerbaijan is a developing country and ranks 88th on the Human Development Index. It has a high rate of economic development, literacy, and a low rate of unemployment. The ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, in power since 1993, has been accused of authoritarian leadership and the deterioration of the country's human rights record, including increasing restrictions on civil liberties, particularly on press freedom and political repression.Etymology According to a modern etymology, the term Azerbaijan derives from that of Atropates, a Persian satrap under the Achaemenid Empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander the Great. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism. In the Avesta's Frawardin Yasht ("Hymn to the Guardian Angels"), there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, which literally translates from Avestan as "we worship the fravashi of the holy Atropatene." The name "Atropates" itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning "Protected by the (Holy) Fire" or "The Land of the (Holy) Fire". The Greek name was mentioned by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Over the span of millennia, the name evolved to  (Middle Persian), then to , ,  (New Persian) and present-day Azerbaijan.The name Azerbaijan was first adopted for the area of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan by the government of Musavat in 1918, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, when the independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established. Until then, the designation had been used exclusively to identify the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran, while the area of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was formerly referred to as Arran and Shirvan. On that basis Iran protested the newly adopted country name.During the Soviet rule, the country was also spelled in Latin from the Russian transliteration as Azerbaydzhan (). The country's name was also spelled in Cyrillic script from 1940 to 1991 as "Азәрбајҹан".HistoryAntiquityThe earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates back to the late Stone Age and is related to the Guruchay culture of Azykh Cave.Early settlements included the Scythians during the 9th century BC. Following the Scythians, Iranian Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras river. The Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which was integrated into the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids leading to the spread of Zoroastrianism.From the Sasanid period to the Safavid periodThe Sasanian Empire turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state in 252, while King Urnayr officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. Despite Sassanid rule, Albania remained an entity in the region until the 9th century, while fully subordinate to Sassanid Iran, and retained its monarchy. Despite being one of the chief vassals of the Sasanian emperor, the Albanian king had only a semblance of authority, and the Sasanian marzban (military governor) held most civil, religious, and military authority.In the first half of the 7th century, Caucasian Albania, as a vassal of the Sasanians, came under nominal Muslim rule due to the Muslim conquest of Persia. The Umayyad Caliphate repulsed both the Sasanians and Byzantines from the South Caucasus and turned Caucasian Albania into a vassal state after Christian resistance led by King Javanshir, was suppressed in 667. The power vacuum left by the decline of the Abbasid Caliphate was filled by numerous local dynasties such as the Sallarids, Sajids, and Shaddadids. At the beginning of the 11th century, the territory was gradually seized by the waves of Oghuz Turks from Central Asia, who adopted a Turkoman ethnonym at the time. The first of these Turkic dynasties established was the Seljuk Empire, which entered the area now known as Azerbaijan by 1067.The pre-Turkic population that lived on the territory of modern Azerbaijan spoke several Indo-European and Caucasian languages, among them Armenian and an Iranian language, Old Azeri, which was gradually replaced by a Turkic language, the early precursor of the Azerbaijani language of today. Some linguists have also stated that the Tati dialects of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Republic of Azerbaijan, like those spoken by the Tats, are descended from Old Azeri.Locally, the possessions of the subsequent Seljuk Empire were ruled by Eldiguzids, technically vassals of the Seljuk sultans, but sometimes de facto rulers themselves. Under the Seljuks, local poets such as Nizami Ganjavi and Khaqani gave rise to a blossoming of Persian literature on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan.The local dynasty of the Shirvanshahs became a vassal state of Timur's Empire and assisted him in his war with the ruler of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh. Following Timur's death, two independent and rival states emerged: Kara Koyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu. The Shirvanshahs returned, maintaining for numerous centuries to come a high degree of autonomy as local rulers and vassals as they had done since 861. In 1501, the Safavid dynasty of Iran subdued the Shirvanshahs and gained its possessions. In the course of the next century, the Safavids converted the formerly Sunni population to Shia Islam, as they did with the population in what is modern-day Iran. The Safavids allowed the Shirvanshahs to remain in power, under Safavid suzerainty, until 1538, when Safavid king Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576) completely deposed them, and made the area into the Safavid province of Shirvan. The Sunni Ottomans briefly managed to occupy parts of present-day Azerbaijan as a result of the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1578–1590; by the early 17th century, they were ousted by Safavid Iranian ruler Abbas I (r. 1588–1629). In the wake of the demise of the Safavid Empire, Baku and its environs were briefly occupied by the Russians as a consequence of the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723. Despite brief intermissions such as these by Safavid Iran's neighboring rivals, the land of what is today Azerbaijan remained under Iranian rule from the earliest advent of the Safavids up to the course of the 19th century.Contemporary historyAfter the Safavids, the area was ruled by the Iranian Afsharid dynasty. After the death of Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747), many of his former subjects capitalized on the eruption of instability. Numerous self-ruling khanates with various forms of autonomy emerged in the area. The rulers of these khanates were directly related to the ruling dynasties of Iran and were vassals and subjects of the Iranian shah. The khanates exercised control over their affairs via international trade routes between Central Asia and the West.Thereafter, the area was under the successive rule of the Iranian Zands and Qajars. From the late 18th century, Imperial Russia switched to a more aggressive geo-political stance towards its two neighbors and rivals to the south, namely Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Russia now actively tried to gain possession of the Caucasus region which was, for the most part, in the hands of Iran. In 1804, the Russians invaded and sacked the Iranian town of Ganja, sparking the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813. The militarily superior Russians ended the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 with a victory.Following Qajar Iran's loss in the 1804–1813 war, it was forced to concede suzerainty over most of the khanates, along with Georgia and Dagestan to the Russian Empire, per the Treaty of Gulistan.The area to the north of the river Aras, amongst which territory lies the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, was Iranian territory until Russia occupied it in the 19th century. About a decade later, in violation of the Gulistan treaty, the Russians invaded Iran's Erivan Khanate. This sparked the final bout of hostilities between the two, the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. The resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay, forced Qajar Iran to cede sovereignty over the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder of the Talysh Khanate, comprising the last parts of the soil of the contemporary Azerbaijani Republic that were still in Iranian hands. After the incorporation of all Caucasian territories from Iran into Russia, the new border between the two was set at the Aras River, which, upon the Soviet Union's disintegration, subsequently became part of the border between Iran and the Azerbaijan Republic.Qajar Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories to Russia in the 19th century, which thus included the territory of the modern-day Azerbaijan Republic, while as a result of that cession, the Azerbaijani ethnic group is nowadays parted between two nations: Iran and Azerbaijan.Despite the Russian conquest, throughout the entire 19th century, preoccupation with Iranian culture, literature, and language remained widespread amongst Shia and Sunni intellectuals in the Russian-held cities of Baku, Ganja and Tiflis (Tbilisi, now Georgia). Within the same century, in post-Iranian Russian-held East Caucasia, an Azerbaijani national identity emerged at the end of the 19th century.After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was declared, constituting the present-day republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia.It was followed by the March Days massacres that took place between 30 March and 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, the leading Musavat party declared independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), adopting the name of "Azerbaijan" for the new republic; a name that prior to the proclamation of the ADR was solely used to refer to the adjacent northwestern region of contemporary Iran. The ADR was the first modern parliamentary republic in the Muslim world. Among the important accomplishments of the Parliament was the extension of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim nation to grant women equal political rights with men. Another important accomplishment of ADR was the establishment of Baku State University, which was the first modern-type university founded in the Muslim East.By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified as Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's oil. Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR on 28 April 1920. Although the bulk of the newly formed Azerbaijani army was engaged in putting down an Armenian revolt that had just broken out in Karabakh, Azerbaijanis did not surrender their brief independence of 1918–20 quickly or easily. As many as 20,000 Azerbaijani soldiers died resisting what was effectively a Russian reconquest. Within the ensuing early Soviet period, the Azerbaijani national identity was finally forged.On 13 October 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed an agreement with Turkey known as the Treaty of Kars. The previously independent Republic of Aras would also become the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Azerbaijan SSR by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand, Armenia was awarded the region of Zangezur and Turkey agreed to return Gyumri (then known as Alexandropol).During World War II, Azerbaijan played a crucial role in the strategic energy policy of the Soviet Union, with 80 percent of the Soviet Union's oil on the Eastern Front being supplied by Baku. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February 1942, the commitment of more than 500 workers and employees of the oil industry of Azerbaijan were awarded orders and medals. Operation Edelweiss carried out by the German Wehrmacht targeted Baku because of its importance as the energy (petroleum) dynamo of the USSR. A fifth of all Azerbaijanis fought in the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. Approximately 681,000 people with over 100,000 of them women, went to the front, while the total population of Azerbaijan was 3.4 million at the time. Some 250,000 people from Azerbaijan were killed on the front. More than 130 Azerbaijanis were named Heroes of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijani Major-General Azi Aslanov was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.IndependenceFollowing the politics of glasnost, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to an already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession, which culminated in the Black January events in Baku. Later in 1990, the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR dropped the words "Soviet Socialist" from the title, adopted the "Declaration of Sovereignty of the Azerbaijan Republic" and restored the flag of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic as the state flag. As a consequence of the failed coup which occurred in August in Moscow, on 18 October 1991, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence which was affirmed by a nationwide referendum in December 1991, while the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The country now celebrates its Independence Day on 18 October.The early years of independence were overshadowed by the First Nagorno-Karabakh war with the ethnic Armenian majority of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia. By the end of the hostilities in 1994, Armenians controlled up to 14–16 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh itself. During the war many atrocities and pogroms by both sides were committed including the massacres at Malibeyli and Gushchular, the Garadaghly massacre and the Khojaly massacres, along with the Baku pogrom, the Maraga massacre and the Kirovabad pogrom. Furthermore, an estimated 30,000 people have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced, more than 800,000 Azerbaijanis and 300,000 Armenians. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) demand for "the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan." Many Russians and Armenians left and fled Azerbaijan as refugees during the 1990s. According to the 1970 census, there were 510,000 ethnic Russians and 484,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan.Heydar Aliyev, 1993-todayIn 1993, democratically elected president Abulfaz Elchibey was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel Surat Huseynov, which resulted in the rise to power of the former leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev. In 1994, Surat Huseynov, by that time the prime minister, attempted another military coup against Heydar Aliyev, but he was arrested and charged with treason. A year later, in 1995, another coup was attempted against Aliyev, this time by the commander of the OMON special unit, Rovshan Javadov. The coup was averted, resulting in the killing of the latter and disbanding of Azerbaijan's OMON units. At the same time, the country was tainted by rampant corruption in the governing bureaucracy. In October 1998, Aliyev was reelected for a second term. Despite the much improved economy, particularly with the exploitation of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field and Shah Deniz gas field, Aliyev's presidency was criticized due to suspected election fraud, high levels of economic inequality and domestic corruption.Ilham Aliyev, Heydar Aliyev's son, became chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party as well as President of Azerbaijan when his father died in 2003. He was reelected to a third term as president in October 2013. In April 2018, President Ilham Aliyev secured his fourth consecutive term in the election that was boycotted by the main opposition parties as fraudulent. On 27 September 2020, new clashes in the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resumed along the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact. Both the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia reported military and civilian casualties. The Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement and the end of the six-week war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was widely celebrated in Azerbaijan, as they made significant territorial gains.GeographyGeographically, Azerbaijan is located in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It lies between latitudes 38° and 42° N, and longitudes 44° and 51° E. The total length of Azerbaijan's land borders is , of which 1,007 kilometers are with Armenia, 756 kilometers with Iran, 480 kilometers with Georgia, 390 kilometers with Russia and 15 kilometers with Turkey. The coastline stretches for , and the length of the widest area of the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea is . The country has a landlocked exclave, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.Three physical features dominate Azerbaijan: the Caspian Sea, whose shoreline forms a natural boundary to the east; the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north; and the extensive flatlands at the country's center. There are also three mountain ranges, the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, and the Talysh Mountains, together covering approximately 40% of the country. The highest peak of Azerbaijan is Mount Bazardüzü (4,466 m), while the lowest point lies in the Caspian Sea (−28 m). Nearly half of all the mud volcanoes on Earth are concentrated in Azerbaijan, these volcanoes were also among nominees for the New7Wonders of Nature.The main water sources are surface waters. Only 24 of the 8,350 rivers are greater than  in length. All the rivers drain into the Caspian Sea in the east of the country. The largest lake is Sarysu (67 km2), and the longest river is Kur (1,515 km), which is transboundary with Armenia. Azerbaijan has several islands along the Caspian sea, mostly located in the Baku Archipelago.Since the independence of Azerbaijan in 1991, the Azerbaijani government has taken measures to preserve the environment of Azerbaijan. National protection of the environment accelerated after 2001 when the state budget increased due to new revenues provided by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Within four years, protected areas doubled and now make up eight percent of the country's territory. Since 2001 the government has set up seven large reserves and almost doubled the sector of the budget earmarked for environmental protection.LandscapeAzerbaijan is home to a wide variety of landscapes. Over half of Azerbaijan's landmass consists of mountain ridges, crests, highlands, and plateaus which rise up to hypsometric levels of 400–1000 meters (including the Middle and Lower lowlands), in some places (Talis, Jeyranchol-Ajinohur and Langabiz-Alat foreranges) up to 100–120 meters, and others from 0–50 meters and up (Qobustan, Absheron). The rest of Azerbaijan's terrain consists of plains and lowlands. Hypsometric marks within the Caucasus region vary from about −28 meters at the Caspian Sea shoreline up to 4,466 meters (Bazardüzü peak).The formation of climate in Azerbaijan is influenced particularly by cold arctic air masses of Scandinavian anticyclone, temperate air masses of Siberian anticyclone, and Central Asian anticyclone. Azerbaijan's diverse landscape affects the ways air masses enter the country. The Greater Caucasus protects the country from direct influences of cold air masses coming from the north. That leads to the formation of subtropical climate on most foothills and plains of the country. Meanwhile, plains and foothills are characterized by high solar radiation rates.9 out of 11 existing climate zones are present in Azerbaijan. Both the absolute minimum temperature (  ) and the absolute maximum temperature (  ) were observed in Julfa and Ordubad – regions of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The maximum annual precipitation falls in Lankaran () and the minimum in Absheron ().Rivers and lakes form the principal part of the water systems of Azerbaijan, they were formed over a long geological timeframe and changed significantly throughout that period. This is particularly evidenced by remnants of ancient rivers found throughout the country. The country's water systems are continually changing under the influence of natural forces and human-introduced industrial activities. Artificial rivers (canals) and ponds are a part of Azerbaijan's water systems. In terms of water supply, Azerbaijan is below the average in the world with approximately  per year of water per square kilometer. All big water reservoirs are built on Kur. The hydrography of Azerbaijan basically belongs to the Caspian Sea basin.The Kura and Aras are the major rivers in Azerbaijan. They run through the Kura-Aras Lowland. The rivers that directly flow into the Caspian Sea, originate mainly from the north-eastern slope of the Major Caucasus and Talysh Mountains and run along the Samur–Devechi and Lankaran lowlands.Yanar Dag, translated as "burning mountain", is a natural gas fire which blazes continuously on a hillside on the Absheron Peninsula on the Caspian Sea near Baku, which itself is known as the "land of fire." Flames jet out into the air from a thin, porous sandstone layer. It is a tourist attraction to visitors to the Baku area.BiodiversityThe first reports on the richness and diversity of animal life in Azerbaijan can be found in travel notes of Eastern travelers. Animal carvings on architectural monuments, ancient rocks, and stones survived up to the present times. The first information on flora and fauna of Azerbaijan was collected during the visits of naturalists to Azerbaijan in the 17th century.There are 106 species of mammals, 97 species of fish, 363 species of birds, 10 species of amphibians, and 52 species of reptiles which have been recorded and classified in Azerbaijan. The national animal of Azerbaijan is the Karabakh horse, a mountain-steppe racing and riding horse endemic to Azerbaijan. The Karabakh horse has a reputation for its good temper, speed, elegance, and intelligence. It is one of the oldest breeds, with ancestry dating to the ancient world, but today the horse is an endangered species.Azerbaijan's flora consists of more than 4,500 species of higher plants. Due to the unique climate in Azerbaijan, the flora is much richer in the number of species than the flora of the other republics of the South Caucasus. 66 percent of the species growing in the whole Caucasus can be found in Azerbaijan. The country lies within four ecoregions: Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests, Caucasus mixed forests, Eastern Anatolian montane steppe, and Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe. Azerbaijan had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.55/10, ranking it 72nd globally out of 172 countries.Government and politicsThe structural formation of Azerbaijan's political system was completed by the adoption of the new Constitution on 12 November 1995. According to Article 23 of the Constitution, the state symbols of the Azerbaijan Republic are the flag, the coat of arms, and the national anthem. The state power in Azerbaijan is limited only by law for internal issues, but international affairs are also limited by international agreements' provisions.The Constitution of Azerbaijan states that it is a presidential republic with three branches of power – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The legislative power is held by the unicameral National Assembly and the Supreme National Assembly in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The Parliament of Azerbaijan, called Milli Majlis, consists of 125 deputies elected based on majority vote, with a term of 5 years for each elected member. The elections are held every five years, on the first Sunday of November. The Parliament is not responsible for the formation of the government, but the Constitution requires the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers by Milli Majlis. The New Azerbaijan Party, and independents loyal to the ruling government, currently hold almost all of the Parliament's 125 seats. During the 2010 Parliamentary election, the opposition parties, Musavat and Azerbaijani Popular Front Party, failed to win a single seat. European observers found numerous irregularities in the run-up to the election and on election day.The executive power is held by the President, who is elected for a seven-year term by direct elections, and the Prime Minister. The president is authorized to form the Cabinet, a collective executive body accountable to both the President and the National Assembly. The Cabinet of Azerbaijan consists primarily of the prime minister, his deputies, and ministers. The president does not have the right to dissolve the National Assembly but has the right to veto its decisions. To override the presidential veto, the parliament must have a majority of 95 votes. The judicial power is vested in the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, and the Economic Court. The president nominates the judges in these courts. The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) report refers to the Azerbaijani justice model on the selection of new judges as best practice, reflecting the particular features and the course of development towards ensuring the independence and quality of the judiciary in a new democracy.Azerbaijan's system of governance nominally can be called two-tiered. The top or highest tier of the government is the Executive Power headed by President. The President appoints the Cabinet of Ministers and other high-ranking officials. The Local Executive Authority is merely a continuation of Executive Power. The Provision determines the legal status of local state administration in Azerbaijan on Local Executive Authority (Yerli Icra Hakimiyati), adopted 16 June 1999. In June 2012, the President approved the new Regulation, which granted additional powers to Local Executive Authorities, strengthening their dominant position in Azerbaijan's local affairs Chapter 9 of the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic addresses major issues of local self-government, such as the legal status of municipalities, types of local self-government bodies, their basic powers and relationships to other official entities. The other nominal tier of governance is municipalities (Bələdiyə), and members of municipalities are elected by a general vote in Municipal elections every five years. Currently, there are 1,607 municipalities across the country. The Law on Municipal Elections and the Law on the Status of Municipalities were the first to be adopted in the field of local government (2 July 1999). The Law on Municipal Service regulates the activities of municipal employees, their rights, duties, labor conditions, and social benefits and outlines the structure of the executive apparatus and the organization of municipal service. The Law on the Status of Municipalities regulates the role and structure of municipal bodies and outlines state guarantees of legal and financial autonomy. The law pays special attention to the adoption and execution of municipal programs concerning social protection, social and economic development, and the local environment.The Security Council is the deliberative body under the president, and he organizes it according to the Constitution. It was established on 10 April 1997. The administrative department is not a part of the president's office but manages the financial, technical and pecuniary activities of both the president and his office.Although Azerbaijan has held several elections since regaining its independence and it has many of the formal institutions of democracy, it remains classified as "not free" (on border with "partly free") by Freedom House. In recent years, large numbers of Azerbaijani journalists, bloggers, lawyers, and human rights activists have been rounded up and jailed for their criticism of President Aliyev and government authorities. A resolution adopted by the European Parliament in September 2015 described Azerbaijan as "having suffered the greatest decline in democratic governance in all of Eurasia over the past ten years," noting as well that its dialogue with the country on human rights has "not made any substantial progress." On 17 March 2016, the President of Azerbaijan signed a decree pardoning more than a dozen of the persons regarded as political prisoners by some NGOs. This decree was welcomed as a positive step by the US State Department. On 16 March 2017 another pardon decree was signed, which led to the release of additional persons regarded as political prisoners.Azerbaijan has been harshly criticized for bribing foreign officials and diplomats to promote its causes abroad and legitimize its elections at home, a practice termed Caviar diplomacy. However, on 6 March 2017, ESISC (European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center) published a report called "The Armenian Connection", in which it attacked human rights NGOs and research organisations criticising human rights violations and corruption in Azerbaijan.ESISC in that report asserted that the "Caviar Diplomacy" report elaborated by ESI aimed to create a climate of suspicion based on slander to form a network of MPs that would engage in a political war against Azerbaijan and that the network, composed of European PMs, Armenian officials, and some NGOs (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, "Human Rights House Foundation", "Open Dialog, European Stability Initiative, and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights) was financed by the Soros Foundation. According to Robert Coalson (Radio Free Europe), ESISC is a part of Baku's lobbying efforts to extend the use of front think tanks to shift public opinion. Freedom Files Analytical Centre said that "The report is written in the worst traditions of authoritarian propaganda".Foreign relationsThe short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic succeeded in establishing diplomatic relations with six countries, sending diplomatic representatives to Germany and Finland. The process of international recognition of Azerbaijan's independence from the collapsing Soviet Union lasted roughly one year. The most recent country to recognize Azerbaijan was Bahrain, on 6 November 1996. Full diplomatic relations, including mutual exchanges of missions, were first established with Turkey, Pakistan, the United States, Iran and Israel. Azerbaijan has placed a particular emphasis on its "special relationship" with Turkey.Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries so far and holds membership in 38 international organizations. It holds observer status in the Non-Aligned Movement and World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. On 9 May 2006 Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly. The term of office began on 19 June 2006. Azerbaijan was first elected as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2011 with the support of 155 countries.Foreign policy priorities of Azerbaijan include, first of all, the restoration of its territorial integrity; elimination of the consequences of occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other regions of Azerbaijan surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh; integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structure; contribution to international security; cooperation with international organizations; regional cooperation and bilateral relations; strengthening of defense capability; promotion of security by domestic policy means; strengthening of democracy; preservation of ethnic and religious tolerance; scientific, educational, and cultural policy and preservation of moral values; economic and social development; enhancing internal and border security; and migration, energy, and transportation security policy.Azerbaijan is an active member of international coalitions fighting international terrorism. Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to offer support after the September 11 attacks. The country is contributing to peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Azerbaijan is an active member of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. It also maintains good relations with the European Union and could potentially one day apply for membership.On 1 July 2021, the US Congress advanced legislation that will have an impact on the military aid that Washington has sent to Azerbaijan since 2012. This was due to the fact that the packages to Armenia, instead are significantly smaller.MilitaryThe history of the modern Azerbaijan army dates back to Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 when the National Army of the newly formed Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was created on 26 June 1918. When Azerbaijan gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were created according to the Law on the Armed Forces of 9 October 1991. The original date of the establishment of the short-lived National Army is celebrated as Army Day (26 June) in today's Azerbaijan.As of 2021, Azerbaijan had 126,000 active personnel in its armed forces. There are also 17,000 paramilitary troops and 330,00 reserve personnel. The armed forces have three branches: the Land Forces, the Air Forces and the Navy. Additionally the armed forces embrace several military sub-groups that can be involved in state defense when needed. These are the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Border Service, which includes the Coast Guard as well. The Azerbaijan National Guard is a further paramilitary force. It operates as a semi-independent entity of the Special State Protection Service, an agency subordinate to the President.Azerbaijan adheres to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and has signed all major international arms and weapons treaties. Azerbaijan closely cooperates with NATO in programs such as Partnership for Peace and Individual Partnership Action Plan/pfp and ipa. Azerbaijan has deployed 151 of its Peacekeeping Forces in Iraq and another 184 in Afghanistan.The defense budget of Azerbaijan for 2011 was set at US$3.1 billion. In addition to that, $1.36 billion was planned to be used for the needs of the defense industry, which bring up the total military budget to 4.6 billion. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on 26 June 2011 that the defence spending reached $3.3 billion that year.Azerbaijan's defense budget for 2013 is $3.7 billion.Azerbaijani defense industry manufactures small arms, artillery systems, tanks, armors and noctovision devices, aviation bombs, UAV'S/unmanned aerial vehicle, various military vehicles and military planes and helicopters.Administrative divisionsAzerbaijan is divided into 10 economic regions; 66 rayons (rayonlar, singular rayon) and 77 cities (şəhərlər, singular şəhər) of which 12 are under the direct authority of the republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan includes the Autonomous Republic (muxtar respublika) of Nakhchivan. The President of Azerbaijan appoints the governors of these units, while the government of Nakhchivan is elected and approved by the parliament of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.Absheron Economic Region Absheron (Abşeron) Khizi (Xızı) Baku (Bakı) Sumqayit (Sumqayıt)Aran Economic Region Aghjabadi (Ağcabədi) Aghdash (Ağdaş) Barda (Bərdə) Beylagan (Beyləqan) Bilasuvar (Biləsuvar) Goychay (Göyçay) Hajigabul (Hacıqabul) Imishli (İmişli) Kurdamir (Kürdəmir) Neftchala (Neftçala) Saatly (Saatlı) Sabirabad (Sabirabad) Salyan (Salyan) Ujar (Ucar) Yevlakh (Yevlax) Zardab (Zərdab) Mingachevir (Mingəçevir) Shirvan (Şirvan) Yevlakh (Yevlax)Mountainous Shirvan Economic Region Aghsu (Ağsu) Gobustan (Qobustan) Ismailly (İsmayıllı) Shamakhy (Şamaxı)Ganja-Qazakh Economic Region Aghstafa (Ağstafa) Dashkasan (Daşkəsən) Gadabay (Gədəbəy) Qazakh (Qazax) Goygol (Göygöl) Goranboy (Goranboy) Samukh (Samux) Shamkir (Şəmkir) Tovuz (Tovuz) Ganja (Gəncə) Naftalan (Naftalan)Quba-Khachmaz Economic Region Quba (Quba) Qusar (Qusar) Khachmaz (Xaçmaz) Shabran (Şabran) Siyazan (Siyəzən)Kalbajar-Lachin Economic Region Gubadly (Qubadlı) Kalbajar (Kəlbəcər) Lachin (Laçın) Zangilan (Zəngilan)Lankaran Economic Region Astara (Astara) Jalilabad (Cəlilabad) Lankaran (Lənkəran) Lerik (Lerik) Masally (Masallı) Yardimly (Yardımlı) Lankaran (Lənkəran)Nakhchivan Babek (Babək) Julfa (Culfa) Kangarli (Kəngərli) Ordubad (Ordubad) Sadarak (Sədərək) Shahbuz (Şahbuz) Sharur (Şərur) Nakhchivan (Naxçıvan)Shaki-Zagatala Economic Region Balakan (Balakən) Gabala (Qəbələ) Gakh (Qax) Oghuz (Oğuz) Shaki (Şəki) Zaqatala (Zaqatala) Shaki (Şəki)Upper Karabakh Economic Region Aghdam (Ağdam) Fuzuli (Füzuli) Jabrayil (Cəbrayıl) Khojaly (Xocalı) Khojavend (Xocavənd) Shusha (Şuşa) Tartar (Tərtər) Khankendi (Xankəndi) Shusha (Şuşa)Note: The cities under the direct authority of the republic in italics.EconomyAfter gaining independence in 1991, Azerbaijan became a member of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. The banking system of Azerbaijan consists of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, commercial banks, and non-banking credit organizations. The National (now Central) Bank was created in 1992 based on the Azerbaijan State Savings Bank, an affiliate of the former State Savings Bank of the USSR. The Central Bank serves as Azerbaijan's central bank, empowered to issue the national currency, the Azerbaijani manat, and to supervise all commercial banks. Two major commercial banks are UniBank and the state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan, run by Abbas Ibrahimov.Pushed up by spending and demand growth, the 2007 Q1 inflation rate reached 16.6%. Nominal incomes and monthly wages climbed 29% and 25% respectively against this figure, but price increases in the non-oil industry encouraged inflation. Azerbaijan shows some signs of the so-called "Dutch disease" because of its fast-growing energy sector, which causes inflation and makes non-energy exports more expensive.In the early 2000s, chronically high inflation was brought under control. This led to the launch of a new currency, the new Azerbaijani manat, on 1 January 2006, to cement the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy.In 2008, Azerbaijan was cited as one of the top 10 reformers by the World Bank's Doing Business Report.Azerbaijan is also ranked 57th in the Global Competitiveness Report for 2010–2011, above other CIS countries. By 2012 the GDP of Azerbaijan had increased 20-fold from its 1995 level.According to World Bank's Doing Business report 2019, Azerbaijan improved its position in the Ease of doing business rank from 57 to 25. As a result of implementing a record number of reforms mainly involving institutional changes among the 10 top improvers, to do business in Azerbaijan became easier, such as time and cost to get construction permit reduced significantly (time by 80 days and cost by 12.563 AZN), process of connecting electricity grid rationalized, as well as getting credit simplified.Energy and natural resources Two-thirds of Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural gas.The history of the oil industry of Azerbaijan dates back to the ancient period. Arabian historian and traveler Ahmed Al-Belaruri discussed the economy of the Absheron peninsula in antiquity, mentioning its oil in particular. There are many pipelines in Azerbaijan. The goal of the Southern Gas Corridor, which connects the giant Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Europe, is to reduce European Union's dependency on Russian gas.The region of the Lesser Caucasus accounts for most of the country's gold, silver, iron, copper, titanium, chromium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, complex ore and antimony. In September 1994, a 30-year contract was signed between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and 13 oil companies, among them Amoco, BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil and Equinor. As Western oil companies are able to tap deepwater oilfields untouched by the Soviet exploitation, Azerbaijan is considered one of the most important spots in the world for oil exploration and development. Meanwhile, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan was established as an extra-budgetary fund to ensure macroeconomic stability, transparency in the management of oil revenue, and safeguarding of resources for future generations.Access to biocapacity in Azerbaijan is less than world average. In 2016, Azerbaijan had 0.8 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, half the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Azerbaijan used 2.1 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Azerbaijan contains. As a result, Azerbaijan is running a biocapacity deficit.Azeriqaz, a sub-company of SOCAR, intends to ensure full gasification of the country by 2021.Azerbaijan is one of the sponsors of the east-west and north-south energy transport corridors. Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway line will connect the Caspian region with Turkey, which is expected to be completed in July 2017. The Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will deliver natural gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas to Turkey and Europe.Azerbaijan extended the agreement on development of ACG until 2050 according to the amended PSA signed on 14 September 2017 by SOCAR and co-ventures (BP, Chevron, Inpex, Equinor, ExxonMobil, TP, ITOCHU and ONGC Videsh).AgricultureAzerbaijan has the largest agricultural basin in the region. About 54.9 percent of Azerbaijan is agricultural land. At the beginning of 2007 there were 4,755,100 hectares of utilized agricultural area. In the same year the total wood resources counted 136 million m3. Azerbaijan's agricultural scientific research institutes are focused on meadows and pastures, horticulture and subtropical crops, green vegetables, viticulture and wine-making, cotton growing and medicinal plants. In some areas it is profitable to grow grain, potatoes, sugar beets, cotton and tobacco. Livestock, dairy products, and wine and spirits are also important farm products. The Caspian fishing industry concentrates on the dwindling stocks of sturgeon and beluga. In 2002 the Azerbaijani merchant marine had 54 ships.Some products previously imported from abroad have begun to be produced locally. Among them are Coca-Cola by Coca-Cola Bottlers LTD., beer by Baki-Kastel, parquet by Nehir and oil pipes by EUPEC Pipe Coating Azerbaijan.TourismTourism is an important part of the economy of Azerbaijan. The country was a well-known tourist spot in the 1980s. The fall of the Soviet Union, and the First Nagorno-Karabakh War during the 1990s, damaged the tourist industry and the image of Azerbaijan as a tourist destination.It was not until the 2000s that the tourism industry began to recover, and the country has since experienced a high rate of growth in the number of tourist visits and overnight stays. In the recent years, Azerbaijan has also become a popular destination for religious, spa, and health care tourism. During winter, the Shahdag Mountain Resort offers skiing with state of the art facilities.The government of Azerbaijan has set the development of Azerbaijan as an elite tourist destination as a top priority. It is a national strategy to make tourism a major, if not the single largest, contributor to the Azerbaijani economy. These activities are regulated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan.There are 63 countries which have a visa-free score.E-visa – for a visit of foreigners of visa-required countries to the Republic of Azerbaijan.According to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015 of the World Economic Forum, Azerbaijan holds 84th place.According to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council, Azerbaijan was among the top ten countries showing the strongest growth in visitor exports between 2010 and 2016, In addition, Azerbaijan placed first (46.1%) among countries with the fastest-developing travel and tourism economies, with strong indicators for inbound international visitor spending last year.TransportationThe convenient location of Azerbaijan on the crossroad of major international traffic arteries, such as the Silk Road and the south–north corridor, highlights the strategic importance of the transportation sector for the country's economy. The transport sector in the country includes roads, railways, aviation, and maritime transport.Azerbaijan is also an important economic hub in the transportation of raw materials. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (BTC) became operational in May 2006 and extends more than 1,774 kilometers through the territories of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. The BTC is designed to transport up to 50 million tons of crude oil annually and carries oil from the Caspian Sea oilfields to global markets. The South Caucasus Pipeline, also stretching through the territory of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, became operational at the end of 2006 and offers additional gas supplies to the European market from the Shah Deniz gas field. Shah Deniz is expected to produce up to 296 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Azerbaijan also plays a major role in the EU-sponsored Silk Road Project.In 2002, the Azerbaijani government established the Ministry of Transport with a broad range of policy and regulatory functions. In the same year, the country became a member of the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. Priorities are upgrading the transport network and improving transportation services to better facilitate the development of other sectors of the economy.The 2012 construction of Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway was meant to improve transportation between Asia and Europe by connecting the railways of China and Kazakhstan in the east to the European railway system in the west via Turkey. In 2010 Broad-gauge railways and electrified railways stretched for  and  respectively. By 2010, there were 35 airports and one heliport.Science and technologyIn the 21st century, a new oil and gas boom helped improve the situation in Azerbaijan's science and technology sectors. The government launched a campaign aimed at modernization and innovation. The government estimates that profits from the information technology and communication industry will grow and become comparable to those from oil production.Azerbaijan has a large and steadily growing Internet sector, mostly uninfluenced by the financial crisis of 2007–2008; rapid growth is forecast for at least five more years. Azerbaijan was ranked 82nd in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, up from 84th in 2019.The country has also been making progress in developing its telecoms sector. The Ministry of Communications & Information Technologies (MCIT) and an operator through its role in Aztelekom are both policy-makers and regulators. Public payphones are available for local calls and require the purchase of a token from the telephone exchange or some shops and kiosks. Tokens allow a call of indefinite duration. , there were 1,397,000 main telephone lines and 1,485,000 internet users. There are four GSM providers: Azercell, Bakcell, Azerfon (Nar Mobile), Nakhtel mobile network operators and one CDMA.In the 21st century a number of prominent Azerbaijani geodynamics and geotectonics scientists, inspired by the fundamental works of Elchin Khalilov and others, designed hundreds of earthquake prediction stations and earthquake-resistant buildings that now constitute the bulk of The Republican Center of Seismic Service.The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency launched its first satellite AzerSat 1 into orbit on 7 February 2013 from Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana at orbital positions 46° East. The satellite covers Europe and a significant part of Asia and Africa and serves the transmission of TV and radio broadcasting as well as the Internet. The launching of a satellite into orbit is Azerbaijan's first step in realizing its goal of becoming a nation with its own space industry, capable of successfully implementing more projects in the future.Demographics As of January 2019, 52.8% of Azerbaijan's total population of 9,981,457 is urban, with the remaining 47.2% being rural. 50.1% of the total population is female. The sex ratio in the same year was 0.99 males per female.The 2011 population growth-rate was 0.85%, compared to 1.09% worldwide. A significant factor restricting population growth is a high level of migration. In 2011 Azerbaijan saw a migration of −1.14/1,000 people.The Azerbaijani diaspora is found in 42 countries and in turn there are many centers for ethnic minorities inside Azerbaijan, including the German cultural society "Karelhaus", Slavic cultural center, Azerbaijani-Israeli community, Kurdish cultural center, International Talysh Association, Lezgin national center "Samur", Azerbaijani-Tatar community, Crimean Tatars society, etc.In total, Azerbaijan has 78 cities, 63 city districts, and one special legal status city. 261 urban-type settlements and 4248 villages follow these.EthnicityThe ethnic composition of the population according to the 2009 population census: 91.6% Azerbaijanis, 2.0% Lezgins, 1.4% Armenians (almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh), 1.3% Russians, 1.3% Talysh, 0.6% Avars, 0.4% Turks, 0.3% Tatars, 0.3% Tats, 0.2% Ukrainians, 0.1% Tsakhurs, 0.1% Georgians, 0.1% Jews, 0.1% Kurds, other 0.2%.LanguagesThe official language is Azerbaijani, which is a Turkic language. Azerbaijani is spoken by approximately 92% of the population as a mother tongue. Russian and Armenian (only in Nagorno-Karabakh) are also spoken, and each are the mother tongue of around 1.5% of the population respectively. There are a dozen other minority languages spoken natively in the country. Avar, Budukh, Georgian, Juhuri, Khinalug, Kryts, Lezgin, Rutul, Talysh, Tat, Tsakhur, and Udi are all spoken by small minorities. Some of these language communities are very small and their numbers are decreasing. Armenian was the majority language in Nagorno-Karabakh with around 76% in 1989. After the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, the population is almost exclusively Armenian at around 95%.ReligionAzerbaijan is considered the most secular Muslim-majority country. Around 97% of the population are Muslims. 85% of the Muslims are Shia and 15% Sunni; the Republic of Azerbaijan has the second-highest proportion of Shia Muslims of any country in the world. Other faiths are practised by the country's various ethnic groups. Under article 48 of its Constitution, Azerbaijan is a secular state and ensures religious freedom. In a 2006–2008 Gallup poll, only 21% of respondents from Azerbaijan stated that religion is an important part of their daily lives.Of the nation's religious minorities, the estimated 280,000 Christians (3.1%) are mostly Russian and Georgian Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic (almost all Armenians live in the break-away region of Nagorno-Karabakh). In 2003, there were 250 Roman Catholics. Other Christian denominations as of 2002 include Lutherans, Baptists and Molokans. There is also a small Protestant community. Azerbaijan also has an ancient Jewish population with a 2,000-year history; Jewish organizations estimate that 12,000 Jews remain in Azerbaijan, which is home to the only Jewish-majority town outside of Israel and the United States. Azerbaijan also is home to members of the Baháʼí, Hare Krishna and Jehovah's Witnesses communities, as well as adherents of the other religious communities. Some religious communities have been unofficially restricted from religious freedom. A U.S. State Department report on the matter mentions detention of members of certain Muslim and Christian groups, and many groups have difficulty registering with the SCWRA.EducationA relatively high percentage of Azerbaijanis have obtained some form of higher education, most notably in scientific and technical subjects. In the Soviet era, literacy and average education levels rose dramatically from their very low starting point, despite two changes in the standard alphabet, from Perso-Arabic script to Latin in the 1920s and from Roman to Cyrillic in the 1930s. According to Soviet data, 100 percent of males and females (ages nine to forty-nine) were literate in 1970. According to the United Nations Development Program Report 2009, the literacy rate in Azerbaijan is 99.5 percent.Since independence, one of the first laws that Azerbaijan's Parliament passed to disassociate itself from the Soviet Union was to adopt a modified-Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic. Other than that the Azerbaijani system has undergone little structural change. Initial alterations have included the reestablishment of religious education (banned during the Soviet period) and curriculum changes that have reemphasized the use of the Azerbaijani language and have eliminated ideological content. In addition to elementary schools, the education institutions include thousands of preschools, general secondary schools, and vocational schools, including specialized secondary schools and technical schools. Education through the ninth grade is compulsory.CultureThe culture of Azerbaijan has developed as a result of many influences; that's why Azerbaijanis are, in many ways, bi-cultural. Today, national traditions are well preserved in the country despite Western influences, including globalized consumer culture. Some of the main elements of the Azerbaijani culture are: music, literature, folk dances and art, cuisine, architecture, cinematography and Novruz Bayram. The latter is derived from the traditional celebration of the New Year in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. Novruz is a family holiday.The profile of Azerbaijan's population consists, as stated above, of Azerbaijanis, as well as other nationalities or ethnic groups, compactly living in various areas of the country. Azerbaijani national and traditional dresses are the Chokha and Papakhi. There are radio broadcasts in Russian, Georgian, Kurdish, Lezgian and Talysh languages, which are financed from the state budget. Some local radio stations in Balakan and Khachmaz organize broadcasts in Avar and Tat. In Baku several newspapers are published in Russian, Kurdish (Dengi Kurd), Lezgian (Samur) and Talysh languages. Jewish society "Sokhnut" publishes the newspaper Aziz.Music and folk dancesMusic of Azerbaijan builds on folk traditions that reach back nearly a thousand years. For centuries Azerbaijani music has evolved under the badge of monody, producing rhythmically diverse melodies. Azerbaijani music has a branchy mode system, where chromatization of major and minor scales is of great importance. Among national musical instruments there are 14 string instruments, eight percussion instruments and six wind instruments. According to The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion the Azerbaijani are musically much closer to Iran than Turkey."Mugham, meykhana and ashiq art are among the many musical traditions of Azerbaijan. Mugham is usually a suite with poetry and instrumental interludes. When performing mugham, the singers have to transform their emotions into singing and music. In contrast to the mugham traditions of Central Asian countries, Azerbaijani mugham is more free-form and less rigid; it is often compared to the improvised field of jazz. UNESCO proclaimed the Azerbaijani mugham tradition a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 7 November 2003. Meykhana is a kind of traditional Azerbaijani distinctive folk unaccompanied song, usually performed by several people improvising on a particular subject.Ashiq combines poetry, storytelling, dance, and vocal and instrumental music into a traditional performance art that stands as a symbol of Azerbaijani culture. It is a mystic troubadour or traveling bard who sings and plays the saz. This tradition has its origin in the Shamanistic beliefs of ancient Turkic peoples. Ashiqs' songs are semi-improvised around common bases. Azerbaijan's ashiq art was included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO on 30 September 2009.Since the mid-1960s, Western-influenced Azerbaijani pop music, in its various forms, that has been growing in popularity in Azerbaijan, while genres such as rock and hip hop are widely produced and enjoyed. Azerbaijani pop and Azerbaijani folk music arose with the international popularity of performers like Alim Qasimov, Rashid Behbudov, Vagif Mustafazadeh, Muslim Magomayev, Shovkat Alakbarova and Rubaba Muradova. Azerbaijan is an enthusiastic participant in the Eurovision Song Contest. Azerbaijan made its debut appearance at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. The country's entry gained third place in 2009 and fifth the following year. Ell and Nikki won the first place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song "Running Scared", entitling Azerbaijan to host the contest in 2012, in Baku. They have qualified for every Grand Final up until the 2018 edition of the contest, entering with X My Heart by singer Aisel.There are dozens of Azerbaijani folk dances. They are performed at formal celebrations and the dancers wear national clothes like the Chokha, which is well-preserved within the national dances. Most dances have a very fast rhythm.LiteratureAmong the medieval authors born within the territorial limits of modern Azerbaijani Republic was Persian poet and philosopher Nizami, called Ganjavi after his place of birth, Ganja, who was the author of the Khamseh ("The Quintuplet"), composed of five romantic poems, including "The Treasure of Mysteries," "Khosrow and Shīrīn," and "Leyli and Mejnūn."The earliest known figure in Azerbaijani literature was Izzeddin Hasanoglu, who composed a divan consisting of Persian and Turkic ghazals. In Persian ghazals he used his pen-name, while his Turkic ghazals were composed under his own name of Hasanoghlu.Classical literature in Azerbaijani was formed in the 14th century based on the various Early Middle Ages dialects of Tabriz and Shirvan. Among the poets of this period were Gazi Burhanaddin, Haqiqi (pen-name of Jahan-shah Qara Qoyunlu), and Habibi. The end of the 14th century was also the period of starting literary activity of Imadaddin Nasimi, one of the greatest Turkic Hurufi mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries and one of the most prominent early divan masters in Turkic literary history, who also composed poetry in Persian and Arabic. The divan and ghazal styles were further developed by poets Qasem-e Anvar, Fuzuli and Khatai (pen-name of Safavid Shah Ismail I).The Book of Dede Korkut consists of two manuscripts copied in the 16th century, and was not written earlier than the 15th century. It is a collection of 12 stories reflecting the oral tradition of Oghuz nomads. The 16th-century poet, Muhammed Fuzuli produced his timeless philosophical and lyrical Qazals in Arabic, Persian, and Azerbaijani. Benefiting immensely from the fine literary traditions of his environment, and building upon the legacy of his predecessors, Fuzuli was destined to become the leading literary figure of his society. His major works include The Divan of Ghazals and The Qasidas. In the same century, Azerbaijani literature further flourished with the development of Ashik () poetic genre of bards. During the same period, under the pen-name of Khatāī ( for sinner) Shah Ismail I wrote about 1400 verses in Azerbaijani, which were later published as his Divan. A unique literary style known as qoshma ( for improvisation) was introduced in this period, and developed by Shah Ismail and later by his son and successor, Shah Tahmasp I.In the span of the 17th and 18th centuries, Fuzuli's unique genres as well Ashik poetry were taken up by prominent poets and writers such as Qovsi of Tabriz, Shah Abbas Sani, Agha Mesih Shirvani, Nishat, Molla Vali Vidadi, Molla Panah Vagif, Amani, Zafar and others. Along with Turks, Turkmens and Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis also celebrate the Epic of Koroglu (from  for blind man's son), a legendary folk hero. Several documented versions of Koroglu epic remain at the Institute for Manuscripts of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.Modern Azerbaijani literature in Azerbaijan is based on the Shirvani dialect mainly, while in Iran it is based on the Tabrizi one. The first newspaper in Azerbaijani, Akinchi was published in 1875. In the mid-19th century, it was taught in the schools of Baku, Ganja, Shaki, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Since 1845, it was also taught in the University of Saint Petersburg in Russia.Folk artAzerbaijanis have a rich and distinctive culture, a major part of which is decorative and applied art. This art form is represented by a wide range of handicrafts, such as chasing, jeweling, engraving in metal, carving in wood, stone, bone, carpet-making, lasing, pattern weaving and printing, and knitting and embroidery. Each of these types of decorative art, evidence of the endowments of the Azerbaijan nation, is very much in favor here. Many interesting facts pertaining to the development of arts and crafts in Azerbaijan were reported by numerous merchants, travelers, and diplomats who had visited these places at different times.The Azerbaijani carpet is a traditional handmade textile of various sizes, with a dense texture and a pile or pile-less surface, whose patterns are characteristic of Azerbaijan's many carpet-making regions. In November 2010 the Azerbaijani carpet was proclaimed a Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage by UNESCO.Azerbaijan has been since ancient times known as a center of a large variety of crafts. The archeological dig on the territory of Azerbaijan testifies to the well-developed agriculture, stock raising, metalworking, pottery, ceramics, and carpet-weaving that date as far back as to the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological sites in Dashbulaq, Hasansu, Zayamchai, and Tovuzchai uncovered from the BTC pipeline have revealed early Iron Age artifacts.Azerbaijani carpets can be categorized under several large groups and a multitude of subgroups. Scientific research of the Azerbaijani carpet is connected with the name of Latif Karimov, a prominent scientist and artist. It was his classification that related the four large groups of carpets with the four geographical zones of Azerbaijan, Guba-Shirvan, Ganja-Kazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz.CuisineThe traditional cuisine is famous for an abundance of vegetables and greens used seasonally in the dishes. Fresh herbs, including mint, cilantro (coriander), dill, basil, parsley, tarragon, leeks, chives, thyme, marjoram, green onion, and watercress, are very popular and often accompany main dishes on the table. Climatic diversity and fertility of the land are reflected in the national dishes, which are based on fish from the Caspian Sea, local meat (mainly mutton and beef), and an abundance of seasonal vegetables and greens. Saffron-rice plov is the flagship food in Azerbaijan and black tea is the national beverage. Azerbaijanis often use traditional armudu (pear-shaped) glass as they have very strong tea culture. Popular traditional dishes include bozbash (lamb soup that exists in several regional varieties with the addition of different vegetables), qutab (fried turnover with a filling of greens or minced meat) and dushbara (sort of dumplings of dough filled with ground meat and flavor).ArchitectureAzerbaijani architecture typically combines elements of East and West. Azerbaijani architecture has heavy influences from Persian architecture. Many ancient architectural treasures such as the Maiden Tower and Palace of the Shirvanshahs in the Walled City of Baku survive in modern Azerbaijan. Entries submitted on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list include the Ateshgah of Baku, Momine Khatun Mausoleum, Hirkan National Park, Binagadi asphalt lake, Lökbatan Mud Volcano, Shusha State Historical and Architectural Reserve, Baku Stage Mountain, Caspian Shore Defensive Constructions, Ordubad National Reserve and the Palace of Shaki Khans.Among other architectural treasures are Quadrangular Castle in Mardakan, Parigala in Yukhary Chardaglar, a number of bridges spanning the Aras River, and several mausoleums. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, little monumental architecture was created, but distinctive residences were built in Baku and elsewhere. Among the most recent architectural monuments, the Baku subways are noted for their lavish decor.The task for modern Azerbaijani architecture is diverse application of modern aesthetics, the search for an architect's own artistic style and inclusion of the existing historico-cultural environment. Major projects such as Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center, Flame Towers, Baku Crystal Hall, Baku White City and SOCAR Tower have transformed the country's skyline and promotes its contemporary identity.Visual artThe Gamigaya Petroglyphs, which date back to the 1st to 4th millennium BC, are located in Azerbaijan's Ordubad District. They consist of some 1500 dislodged and carved rock paintings with images of deer, goats, bulls, dogs, snakes, birds, fantastic beings, and people, carriages, and various symbols were found on basalt rocks. Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was convinced that people from the area went to Scandinavia in about 100 AD, took their boat building skills with them, and transmuted them into the Viking boats in Northern Europe.Over the centuries, Azerbaijani art has gone through many stylistic changes. Azerbaijani painting is traditionally characterized by a warmth of colour and light, as exemplified in the works of Azim Azimzade and Bahruz Kangarli, and a preoccupation with religious figures and cultural motifs. Azerbaijani painting enjoyed preeminence in Caucasus for hundreds of years, from the Romanesque and Ottoman periods, and through the Soviet and Baroque periods, the latter two of which saw fruition in Azerbaijan. Other notable artists who fall within these periods include Sattar Bahlulzade, Togrul Narimanbekov, Tahir Salahov, Alakbar Rezaguliyev, Mirza Gadim Iravani, Mikayil Abdullayev and Boyukagha Mirzazade.CinemaThe film industry in Azerbaijan dates back to 1898. In fact, Azerbaijan was among the first countries involved in cinematography. Therefore, it is not surprising that this apparatus soon showed up in Baku – at the start of the 20th century, this bay town on the Caspian was producing more than 50 percent of the world's supply of oil. Just like today, the oil industry attracted foreigners eager to invest and to work. In 1919, during the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, a documentary The Celebration of the Anniversary of Azerbaijani Independence was filmed on the first anniversary of Azerbaijan's independence from Russia, 27 May, and premiered in June 1919 at several theatres in Baku. After the Soviet power was established in 1920, Nariman Narimanov, Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of Azerbaijan, signed a decree nationalizing Azerbaijan's cinema. This also influenced the creation of Azerbaijani animation.In 1991, after Azerbaijan gained its independence from the Soviet Union, the first Baku International Film Festival East-West was held in Baku. In December 2000, the former President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, signed a decree proclaiming 2 August to be the professional holiday of filmmakers of Azerbaijan. Today Azerbaijani filmmakers are again dealing with issues similar to those faced by cinematographers prior to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1920. Once again, both choices of content and sponsorship of films are largely left up to the initiative of the filmmaker.TelevisionThere are three state-owned television channels: AzTV, Idman TV and Medeniyyet TV. There is one public channel and 6 private channels: İctimai Television, Space TV, Lider TV, Azad Azerbaijan TV, Xazar TV, Real TV and ARB.Human rights in AzerbaijanThe Constitution of Azerbaijan claims to guarantee freedom of speech, but this is denied in practice. After several years of decline in press and media freedom, in 2014, the media environment in Azerbaijan deteriorated rapidly under a governmental campaign to silence any opposition and criticism, even while the country led the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (May–November 2014). Spurious legal charges and impunity in violence against journalists have remained the norm. All foreign broadcasts are banned in the country.According to the 2013 Freedom House Freedom of the Press report, Azerbaijan's press freedom status is "not free," and Azerbaijan ranks 177th out of 196 countries.Christianity is officially recognized. All religious communities are required to register to be allowed to meet, under the risk of imprisonment. This registration is often denied. "Racial discrimination contributes to the country’s lack of religious freedom, since many of the Christians are ethnic Armenian or Russian, rather than Azeri Muslim."Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America are banned in Azerbaijan. Discrimination against LGBT people in Azerbaijan is widespread.During the last few years, three journalists were killed and several prosecuted in trials described as unfair by international human rights organizations. Azerbaijan had the biggest number of journalists imprisoned in Europe in 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and is the 5th most censored country in the world, ahead of Iran and China. Some critical journalists have been arrested for their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan.A report by an Amnesty International researcher in October 2015 points to '...the severe deterioration of human rights in Azerbaijan over the past few years. Sadly Azerbaijan has been allowed to get away with unprecedented levels of repression and in the process almost wipe out its civil society'. Amnesty's 2015/16 annual report on the country stated ' ... persecution of political dissent continued. Human rights organizations remained unable to resume their work. At least 18 prisoners of conscience remained in detention at the end of the year. Reprisals against independent journalists and activists persisted both in the country and abroad, while their family members also faced harassment and arrests. International human rights monitors were barred and expelled from the country. Reports of torture and other ill-treatment persisted.The Guardian reported in April 2017 that "Azerbaijan's ruling elite operated a secret $2.9bn (£2.2bn) scheme to pay prominent Europeans, buy luxury goods and launder money through a network of opaque British companies .... Leaked data shows that the Azerbaijani leadership, accused of serial human rights abuses, systemic corruption and rigging elections, made more than 16,000 covert payments from 2012 to 2014. Some of this money went to politicians and journalists, as part of an international lobbying operation to deflect criticism of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, and to promote a positive image of his oil-rich country." There was no suggestion that all recipients were aware of the source of the money as it arrived via a disguised route.SportFreestyle wrestling has been traditionally regarded as Azerbaijan's national sport, in which Azerbaijan won up to fourteen medals, including four golds since joining the International Olympic Committee. Currently, the most popular sports include football and wrestling.Football is the most popular sport in Azerbaijan, and the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan with 9,122 registered players, is the largest sporting association in the country. The national football team of Azerbaijan demonstrates relatively low performance in the international arena compared to the nation football clubs. The most successful Azerbaijani football clubs are Neftchi Baku, Qarabağ, and Gabala. In 2012, Neftchi Baku became the first Azerbaijani team to advance to the group stage of a European competition, beating APOEL of Cyprus 4–2 on aggregate in the play-off round of the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League. In 2014, Qarabağ became the second Azerbaijani club advancing to the group stage of UEFA Europa League. In 2017, after beating Copenhagen 2–2 (a) in the play-off round of the UEFA Champions League, Qarabağ became the first Azerbaijani club to reach the Group stage. Futsal is another popular sport in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan national futsal team reached fourth place in the 2010 UEFA Futsal Championship, while domestic club Araz Naxçivan clinched bronze medals at the 2009–10 UEFA Futsal Cup and 2013–14 UEFA Futsal Cup. Azerbaijan was the main sponsor of Spanish football club Atlético de Madrid during seasons 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, a partnership that the club described should 'promote the image of Azerbaijan in the world'.Azerbaijan is one of the traditional powerhouses of world chess, having hosted many international chess tournaments and competitions and became European Team Chess Championship winners in 2009, 2013 and 2017. Notable chess players from the country's chess schools that have made a great impact on the game include Teimour Radjabov, Shahriyar Mammadyarov, Vladimir Makogonov, Vugar Gashimov and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. , country's home of Shamkir Chess a category 22 event and one of the highest rated tournaments of all time.Backgammon also plays a major role in Azerbaijani culture. The game is very popular in Azerbaijan and is widely played among the local public. There are also different variations of backgammon developed and analyzed by Azerbaijani experts.Azerbaijan Women's Volleyball Super League is one of the strongest women leagues in the world. Its women's national team came fourth at the 2005 European Championship. Over the last years, clubs like Rabita Baku and Azerrail Baku achieved great success at European cups. Azerbaijani volleyball players include likes of Valeriya Korotenko, Oksana Parkhomenko, Inessa Korkmaz, Natalya Mammadova and Alla Hasanova.Other Azerbaijani athletes are Namig Abdullayev, Toghrul Asgarov, Rovshan Bayramov, Sharif Sharifov, Mariya Stadnik and Farid Mansurov in wrestling, Nazim Huseynov, Elnur Mammadli, Elkhan Mammadov and Rustam Orujov in judo, Rafael Aghayev in karate, Magomedrasul Majidov and Aghasi Mammadov in boxing, Nizami Pashayev in Olympic weightlifting, Azad Asgarov in pankration, Eduard Mammadov in kickboxing, and K-1 fighter Zabit Samedov.Azerbaijan has a Formula One race-track, made in June 2012, and the country hosted its first Formula One Grand Prix on 19 June 2016 and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. Other annual sporting events held in the country are the Baku Cup tennis tournament and the Tour d'Azerbaïdjan cycling race.Azerbaijan hosted several major sport competitions since the late 2000s, including the 2013 F1 Powerboat World Championship, 2012 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships, 2010 European Wrestling Championships, 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, 2014 European Taekwondo Championships, 2014 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, and 2016 World Chess Olympiad. On 8 December 2012, Baku was selected to host the 2015 European Games, the first to be held in the competition's history. Baku also hosted the fourth Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017 and the 2019 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival, and it is also one of the hosts of UEFA Euro 2020, which because of Covid-19 is being held in 2021.See also Outline of Azerbaijan Index of Azerbaijan-related articles List of World Heritage Sites in Azerbaijan The Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook on Azerbaijan (2006)NotesReferencesFurther reading Altstadt, Audrey. Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan (2018)  Broers, Broers Laurence. Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a rivalry (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). Cornell, Svante E. Azerbaijan since independence (Routledge, 2015). Dragadze, Tamara. "Islam in Azerbaijan: The Position of Women" in Muslim Women’s Choices (Routledge, 2020) pp. 152–163. Ergun, Ayça. "Citizenship, National Identity, and Nation-Building in Azerbaijan: Between the Legacy of the Past and the Spirit of Independence." Nationalities Papers (2021): 1-18. online Goltz, Thomas. Azerbaijan Diary : A Rogue Reporter's Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic. M E Sharpe (1998).  Habibov, Nazim, Betty Jo Barrett, and Elena Chernyak. "Understanding women's empowerment and its determinants in post-communist countries: Results of Azerbaijan national survey." Women's Studies International Forum. Vol. 62. Pergamon, 2017. Olukbasi, Suha. Azerbaijan: A Political History. I.B. Tauris (2011). Focus on post-Soviet era.External linksGeneral information Azerbaijan International Heydar Aliyev Foundation  Azerbaijan. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Azerbaijan at University of Colorado at Boulder Country profile from BBC Key Development Forecasts for Azerbaijan from International Futures Visions of Azerbaijan Journal of The European Azerbaijan SocietyMajor government resources President of Azerbaijan website Azerbaijan State Statistical Committee United Nations Office in AzerbaijanMajor news media Network NEWS Azerbaijan  Azerbaijan Today Azerbaijan Press Agency Trend News Agency News.AzTourism Azerbaijan Tourism Portal  Travel in Azerbaijan in Visions of Azerbaijan Journal CaucasusCountries in AsiaCountries in EuropeEastern European countriesWestern Asian countriesLandlocked countriesMember states of the Turkic CouncilSouth CaucasusRepublicsMember states of the Commonwealth of Independent StatesMember states of the Council of EuropeMember states of the Organisation of Islamic CooperationCurrent member states of the United NationsStates and territories established in 19911991 establishments in Asia1991 establishments in EuropeAzerbaijani-speaking countries and territoriesRussian-speaking countries and territoriesTranscontinental countriesMembers of the International Organization of Turkic Culture
Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers make contributions in doing citizen science, such as by monitoring variable stars, double stars, sunspots, or occultations of stars by the Moon or asteroids, or by discovering transient astronomical events, such as comets, galactic novae or supernovae in other galaxies.Amateur astronomers do not use the field of astronomy as their primary source of income or support, and usually have no professional degree in astrophysics or advanced academic training in the subject.  Most amateurs are hobbyists, while others have a high degree of experience in astronomy and may often assist and work alongside professional astronomers. Many astronomers have studied the sky throughout history in an amateur framework; however, since the beginning of the twentieth century, professional astronomy has become an activity clearly distinguished from amateur astronomy and associated activities.Amateur astronomers typically view the sky at night, when most celestial objects and astronomical events are visible, but others observe during the daytime by viewing the Sun and solar eclipses.  Some just look at the sky using nothing more than their eyes or binoculars, but more dedicated amateurs often use portable telescopes or telescopes situated in their private or club observatories. Amateurs can also join as members of amateur astronomical societies, which can advise, educate or guide them towards ways of finding and observing celestial objects. They can also promote the science of astronomy among the general public.Objectives Collectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena.  Common targets of amateur astronomers include the Sun, the Moon, planets, stars, comets, meteor showers, and a variety of deep sky objects such as star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae.  Many amateurs like to specialise in observing particular objects, types of objects, or types of events which interest them. One branch of amateur astronomy, amateur astrophotography, involves the taking of photos of the night sky.  Astrophotography has become more popular with the introduction of far easier to use equipment including, digital cameras, DSLR cameras and relatively sophisticated purpose built high quality CCD cameras.Most amateur astronomers work at visible wavelengths, but a small minority experiment with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum.  An early pioneer of radio astronomy was Grote Reber, an  amateur astronomer who constructed the first purpose built radio telescope in the late 1930s to follow up on the discovery of radio wavelength emissions from space by Karl Jansky.  Non-visual amateur astronomy includes the use of infrared filters on conventional telescopes, and also the use of radio telescopes.  Some amateur astronomers use home-made radio telescopes, while others use radio telescopes that were originally built for astronomical research but have since been made available for use by amateurs.  The One-Mile Telescope is one such example.Common tools Amateur astronomers use a range of instruments to study the sky, depending on a combination of their interests and resources.  Methods include simply looking at the night sky with the naked eye, using binoculars, and using a variety of optical telescopes of varying power and quality, as well as additional sophisticated equipment, such as cameras, to study light from the sky in both the visual and non-visual parts of the spectrum.  Commercial telescopes are available, new and used, but it is also common for amateur astronomers to build (or commission the building of) their own custom telescopes.  Some people even focus on amateur telescope making as their primary interest within the hobby of amateur astronomy.Although specialized and experienced amateur astronomers tend to acquire more specialized and more powerful equipment over time, relatively simple equipment is often preferred for certain tasks. Binoculars, for instance, although generally of lower power than the majority of telescopes, also tend to provide a wider field of view, which is preferable for looking at some objects in the night sky.Amateur astronomers also use star charts that, depending on experience and intentions, may range from simple planispheres through to detailed charts of very specific areas of the night sky. A range of astronomy software is available and used by amateur astronomers, including software that generates maps of the sky, software to assist with astrophotography, observation scheduling software, and software to perform various calculations pertaining to astronomical phenomena.Amateur astronomers often like to keep records of their observations, which usually takes the form of an observing log.  Observing logs typically record details about which objects were observed and when, as well as describing the details that were seen.  Sketching is sometimes used within logs, and photographic records of observations have also been used in recent times. The information gathered is used to help studies and interactions between amateur astronomers in yearly gatherings. Although not professional information or credible, it is a way for the hobby lovers to share their new sightings and experiences.The popularity of imaging among amateurs has led to large numbers of web sites being written by individuals about their images and equipment. Much of the social interaction of amateur astronomy occurs on mailing lists or discussion groups. Discussion group servers host numerous astronomy lists. A great deal of the commerce of amateur astronomy, the buying and selling of equipment, occurs online. Many amateurs use online tools to plan their nightly observing sessions, using tools such as the Clear Sky Chart.Common techniques While a number of interesting celestial objects are readily identified by the naked eye, sometimes with the aid of a star chart, many others are so faint or inconspicuous that technical means are necessary to locate them. Although many methods are used in amateur astronomy, most are variations of a few specific techniques.Star hopping Star hopping is a method often used by amateur astronomers with low-tech equipment such as binoculars or a manually driven telescope.  It involves the use of maps (or memory) to locate known landmark stars, and "hopping" between them, often with the aid of a finderscope.  Because of its simplicity, star hopping is a very common method for finding objects that are close to naked-eye stars.More advanced methods of locating objects in the sky include telescope mounts with setting circles, which assist with pointing telescopes to positions in the sky that are known to contain objects of interest, and GOTO telescopes, which are fully automated telescopes that are capable of locating objects on demand (having first been calibrated).Mobile appsThe advent of mobile applications for use in smartphones has led to the creation of many dedicated apps. These apps allow any user to easily locate celestial objects of interest by simply pointing the smartphone device in that direction in the sky. These apps make use of the inbuilt hardware in the phone, such as GPS location and gyroscope. Useful information about the pointed object like celestial coordinates, the name of the object, its constellation, etc. are provided for a quick reference. Some paid versions give more information. These apps are gradually getting into regular use during observing, for the alignment process of telescopes.Setting circles Setting circles are angular measurement scales that can be placed on the two main rotation axes of some telescopes.  Since the widespread adoption of digital setting circles, any classical engraved setting circle is now specifically identified as an "analog setting circle" (ASC).  By knowing the coordinates of an object (usually given in equatorial coordinates), the telescope user can use the setting circle to align (i.e., point) the telescope in the appropriate direction before looking through its eyepiece.  A computerized setting circle is called a "digital setting circle" (DSC).  Although digital setting circles can be used to display a telescope's RA and Dec coordinates, they are not simply a digital read-out of what can be seen on the telescope's analog setting circles.  As with go-to telescopes, digital setting circle computers (commercial names include Argo Navis, Sky Commander, and NGC Max) contain databases of tens of thousands of celestial objects and projections of planet positions.To find a celestial object in a telescope equipped with a DSC computer, one does not need to look up the specific RA and Dec coordinates in a book or other resource, and then adjust the telescope to those numerical readings. Rather, the object is chosen from the electronic database, which causes distance values and arrow markers to appear in the display that indicate the distance and direction to move the telescope. The telescope is moved until the two angular distance values reach zero, indicating that the telescope is properly aligned. When both the RA and Dec axes are thus "zeroed out", the object should be in the eyepiece. Many DSCs, like go-to systems, can also work in conjunction with laptop sky programs.Computerized systems provide the further advantage of computing coordinate precession. Traditional printed sources are subtitled by the epoch year, which refers to the positions of celestial objects at a given time to the nearest year (e.g., J2005, J2007).  Most such printed sources have been updated for intervals of only about every fifty years (e.g., J1900, J1950, J2000).  Computerized sources, on the other hand, are able to calculate the right ascension and declination of the "epoch of date" to the exact instant of observation.GoTo telescopesGOTO telescopes have become more popular since the 1980s as technology has improved and prices have been reduced.  With these computer-driven telescopes, the user typically enters the name of the item of interest and the mechanics of the telescope point the telescope towards that item automatically.  They have several notable advantages for amateur astronomers intent on research.  For example, GOTO telescopes tend to be faster for locating items of interest than star hopping, allowing more time for studying of the object.  GOTO also allows manufacturers to add equatorial tracking to mechanically simpler alt-azimuth telescope mounts, allowing them to produce an overall less expensive product. GOTO telescopes usually have to be calibrated using alignment stars in order to provide accurate tracking and positioning. However, several telescope manufacturers have recently developed telescope systems that are calibrated with the use of built-in GPS, decreasing the time it takes to set up a telescope at the start of an observing session.Remote-controlled telescopesWith the development of fast Internet in the last part of the 20th century along with advances in computer controlled telescope mounts and CCD cameras "Remote Telescope" astronomy is now a viable means for amateur astronomers not aligned with major telescope facilities to partake in research and deep sky imaging. This enables anyone to control a telescope a great distance away in a dark location. The observer can image through the telescope using CCD cameras. The digital data collected by the telescope is then transmitted and displayed to the user by means of the Internet. An example of a digital remote telescope operation for public use via the Internet is the Bareket observatory, and there are telescope farms in New Mexico, Australia and Atacama in Chile.Imaging techniques Amateur astronomers engage in many imaging techniques including film, DSLR, LRGB, and CCD astrophotography. Because CCD imagers are linear, image processing may be used to subtract away the effects of light pollution, which has increased the popularity of astrophotography in urban areas. Narrowband filters may also be used to minimize light pollution.Scientific research Scientific research is most often not the main goal for many amateur astronomers, unlike professional astronomers.  Work of scientific merit is possible, however, and many amateurs successfully contribute to the knowledge base of professional astronomers.  Astronomy is sometimes promoted as one of the few remaining sciences for which amateurs can still contribute useful data.  To recognize this, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific annually gives Amateur Achievement Awards for significant contributions to astronomy by amateurs.The majority of scientific contributions by amateur astronomers are in the area of data collection.  In particular, this applies where large numbers of amateur astronomers with small telescopes are more effective than the relatively small number of large telescopes that are available to professional astronomers.  Several organizations, such as the American Association of Variable Star Observers and the British Astronomical Association, exist to help coordinate these contributions.Amateur astronomers often contribute toward activities such as monitoring the changes in brightness of variable stars and supernovae, helping to track asteroids, and observing occultations to determine both the shape of asteroids and the shape of the terrain on the apparent edge of the Moon as seen from Earth. With more advanced equipment, but still cheap in comparison to professional setups, amateur astronomers can measure the light spectrum emitted from astronomical objects, which can yield high-quality scientific data if the measurements are performed with due care.  A relatively recent role for amateur astronomers is searching for overlooked phenomena (e.g., Kreutz Sungrazers) in the vast libraries of digital images and other data captured by Earth and space based observatories, much of which is available over the Internet.In the past and present, amateur astronomers have played a major role in discovering new comets.  Recently however, funding of projects such as the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research and Near Earth Asteroid Tracking projects has meant that most comets are now discovered by automated systems long before it is possible for amateurs to see them.Societies There are a large number of amateur astronomical societies around the world, that serve as a meeting point for those interested in amateur astronomy. Members range from active observers with their own equipment to "armchair astronomers" who are simply interested in the topic. Societies range widely in their goals and activities, which may depend on a variety of factors such as geographic spread, local circumstances, size, and membership. For example, a small local society located in dark countryside may focus on practical observing and star parties, whereas a large one based in a major city might have numerous members but be limited by light pollution and thus hold regular indoor meetings with guest speakers instead. Major national or international societies generally publish their own journal or newsletter, and some hold large multi-day meetings akin to a scientific conference or convention. They may also have sections devoted to particular topics, such as lunar observation or amateur telescope making.Notable amateur astronomers George Alcock, discovered several comets and novae. Thomas Bopp, shared the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 with unemployed PhD physicist Alan Hale. Robert Burnham Jr. (1931–1993), author of the Celestial Handbook. Andrew Ainslie Common (1841–1903), built his own very large reflecting telescopes and demonstrated that photography could record astronomical features invisible to the human eye. Robert E. Cox (1917–1989) who conducted the "Gleanings for ATMs" column in Sky & Telescope magazine for 21 years. John Dobson (1915–2014), whose name is associated with the Dobsonian telescope. Robert Owen Evans is an amateur astronomer who holds the all-time record for visual discoveries of supernovae. Clinton B. Ford (1913–1992), who specialized in the observation of variable stars. John Ellard Gore (1845–1910), who specialized in the observation of variable stars. Edward Halbach (1909–2011), who specialized in the observation of variable stars. Will Hay, the famous comedian and actor, who discovered a white spot on Saturn. Walter Scott Houston (1912–1993) who wrote the "Deep-Sky Wonders" column in Sky & Telescope magazine for almost 50 years. Albert G. Ingalls (1888–1958), editor of Amateur Telescope Making, Vols. 1–3 and "The Amateur Scientist". Peter Jalowiczor (born in 1966) discovered four exoplanets David H. Levy discovered or co-discovered 22 comets including Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the most for any individual. Terry Lovejoy discovered five comets in the 21st century and developed modifications to DSLR cameras for astrophotography. Sir Patrick Moore (1923–2012), presenter of the BBC's long-running The Sky at Night and author of many books on astronomy. Leslie Peltier (1900–1980), a prolific discoverer of comets and well-known observer of variable stars. John M. Pierce (1886–1958) was one of the founders of the Springfield Telescope Makers. Russell W. Porter (1871–1949) founded Stellafane and has been referred to as the "founder" Grote Reber (1911–2002), pioneer of radio astronomy constructing the first purpose built radio telescope and conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequency. Isaac Roberts (1829–1904), early experimenter in astronomical photography.Discoveries with major contributions by amateur astronomers Cygnus A (1939) is a radio galaxy and one of the strongest radio sources on the sky.Dramatic period decrease in T Ursae Minoris using AAVSO observations (1995)McNeil's Nebula (2004) is a variable nebulaXO-1b (2006) is an exoplanettidal streams around NGC 5907 (2008)Voorwerpjes (2009) is a type of quasar ionization echo. Pea Galaxies (2009) are a type of galaxy. Most recent (2010) outburst of U ScorpiiKronberger 61 (2011) is a planetary nebula.Speca (2011) is a spiral galaxy containing contain DRAGNs (Double Radio-source Associated with Galactic Nucleus). 2011 HM102 (2013) is a Neptune Trojan.PH1b (2013) is an extrasolar planet in a circumbinary orbit in a quadruple star system. PH2b (2013) is an extrasolar gas giant planet located in its parent star's habitable zone.J1649+2635 (2014) is a spiral galaxy containing contain DRAGNs (Double Radio-source Associated with Galactic Nucleus). Yellowballs (2015) are a type of compact star-forming region.9Spitch (2015) is a distant gravitationally lensed galaxy with high star-forming rate. NGC 253-dw2 (2016) is a dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy candidate undergoing tidal disruption around the nearby galaxy NGC 253. The galaxy was discovered by an amateur astronomer with a small-aperture amateur telescope.KIC 8462852 (2016) is an F-type star showing unusual dimming events.HD 74389 (2016) contains a debris disk. It is the first debris disk discovered around a star with a companion white dwarf.AWI0005x3s (2016) is the oldest M-dwarf with a debris disk detected in a moving group at the time of the discovery.PSR J1913+1102 (2016) is a binary neutron star with the highest total mass at the time of the discovery.Donatiello I (2016) a nearby spheroidal dwarf galaxy discovered by the Italian amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello. It is also the first galaxy to be named after an amateur astronomer.Transiting Exocomets (2017)  are comets in an extrasolar system blocking some of the starlight while transiting in front of the extra-solar star.K2-138 (2018) is a planetary system with five confirmed planets in an unbroken 3:2-resonance chain.Supernova 2016gkg (2018) was observed by an amateur astronomer shortly after it began to erupt.PSR J1744−7619 (2018) is the first Pulsar to be detected only in gamma-rays and not in radio-waves.STEVE (2018) is an atmospheric phenomenon.K2-288Bb (2019) is an extrasolar planet in the habitable zone around a M-star, which belongs to a binary system.LSPM J0207+3331 (2019) is an old white dwarf containing a debris disk with two components.Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov (2019) is the first interstellar comet.Kojima-1Lb (confirmed in 2019) is a Neptune-sized exoplanet discovered by an amateur astronomer with the microlensing method. Kojima-1 is the brightest microlensing host discovered.WISE2150-7520AB (2019/2020) is a pair of brown dwarfs with the lowest binding energy at a total mass smaller than 0.1 solar masses not associated with a young cluster.GJ 3470 c (2020) is the first exoplanet candidate completely discovered by amateurs. Unlike Peter Jalowiczor, Kojima-1Lb and XO-1b, GJ 3470 c was fully discovered by an amateur in a project led by amateur astronomers.Pisces VII/Triangulum IIII (Psc VIII/Tri III) is an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy in Messier 31 system, a possible satellite of Messier 33. It is the second discovery credited to the Italian amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello, already discoverer of the dwarf galaxy Donatiello I. Donatiello II, Donatiello III and Donatiello IV, three new satellites of the nearby galaxy NGC 253, discovered in 2021 by the Italian amateur astronomer Giuseppe Donatiello. With these three new dwarf galaxies, Donatiello I and Pisces VII, his total discoveries in this topic are five.Prizes recognizing amateur astronomers  Amateur Achievement Award of Astronomical Society of the Pacific Chambliss Amateur Achievement AwardSee also  Astronomical object Caldwell catalogue A list of astronomical objects for observation by amateur astronomers compiled by Sir Patrick Caldwell-Moore. Clear Sky Chart Weather forecasts designed for amateur astronomers. List of astronomical societies List of telescope parts and construction Messier catalogue A set of astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771, which is still used by many amateurs as an observing list. Observation Observational astronomy Sidewalk astronomy Skygazing Star partyReferencesFurther readingExternal links  Amateur Astronomy Magazine Articles containing video clipsCitizen science
Aikido ( ,  , , ) is a modern Japanese martial art that is split into many different styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Aikikai and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practiced in around 140 countries. It was originally developed by Morihei Ueshiba, as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy and religious beliefs. Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attackers from injury. Aikido is often translated as "the way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the way of harmonious spirit". According to the founder's philosophy, the primary goal in the practice of aikido is to overcome oneself instead of cultivating violence or aggressiveness. Morihei Ueshiba used the phrase  to refer to this principle.Aikido's fundamental principles include:  (entering), ,  (breathing control),  (triangular principle) and  (turning) movements that redirect the opponent's attack momentum. Its curriculum comprises various techniques, primarily throws and joint locks. It also includes a weapons system encompassing the ,  and .Aikido derives mainly from the martial art of Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, but began to diverge from it in the late 1920s, partly due to Ueshiba's involvement with the Ōmoto-kyō religion. Ueshiba's early students' documents bear the term .Ueshiba's senior students have different approaches to aikido, depending partly on when they studied with him. Today, aikido is found all over the world in a number of styles, with broad ranges of interpretation and emphasis. However, they all share techniques formulated by Ueshiba and most have concern for the well-being of the attacker.Etymology and basic philosophyThe word "aikido" is formed of three kanji:  –  – harmony, unifying  –  – energy, spirit  –  – way, pathThe term  does not readily appear in the Japanese language outside the scope of budō. This has led to many possible interpretations of the word. () is mainly used in compounds to mean 'combine, unite, join together, meet', examples being  (combined/united),  (composition),  (unite/combine/join together),  (union/alliance/association),  (combine/unify), and  (mutual agreement). There is an idea of reciprocity,  (to get to know one another),  (talk/discussion/negotiation), and  (meet by appointment). () is often used to describe a feeling or emotive action, as in  ('I feel X', as in terms of thinking but with less cognitive reasoning), and  (feeling/sensation); it is used to mean energy or force, as in  (electricity) and  (magnetism); it can also refer to qualities or aspects of people or things, as in  (spirit/trait/temperament). The characters aeteological history can be traced back to the much older Chinese character of  () that is used extensively in Traditional Chinese medicine and acupunture.The term  in Aikido is found in many other Japanese martial arts such as, judo and kendo, and in various non-martial arts, such as Japanese calligraphy (), flower arranging () and tea ceremony ( or ).Therefore, from a purely literal interpretation, aikido is the "Way of combining forces" or "Way of unifying energy", in which the term  refers to the martial arts principle or tactic of blending with an attacker's movements for the purpose of controlling their actions with minimal effort. One applies  by understanding the rhythm and intent of the attacker to find the optimal position and timing to apply a counter-technique.HistoryAikido was created by  (1883–1969), referred to by some aikido practitioners as  (Great Teacher). The term aikido was coined in the 20th century. Ueshiba envisioned aikido not only as the synthesis of his martial training, but as an expression of his personal philosophy of universal peace and reconciliation. During Ueshiba's lifetime and continuing today, aikido has evolved from the  that Ueshiba studied into a variety of expressions by martial artists throughout the world.Initial developmentUeshiba developed aikido primarily during the late 1920s through the 1930s through the synthesis of the older martial arts that he had studied. The core martial art from which aikido derives is Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, which Ueshiba studied directly with Takeda Sōkaku, the reviver of that art. Additionally, Ueshiba is known to have studied Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū with Tozawa Tokusaburō in Tokyo in 1901, Gotōha Yagyū Shingan-ryū under Nakai Masakatsu in Sakai from 1903 to 1908, and judo with  (1894–1972) in Tanabe in 1911.The art of  is the primary technical influence on aikido. Along with empty-handed throwing and joint-locking techniques, Ueshiba incorporated training movements with weapons, such as those for the spear (), short staff (), and possibly the . Aikido also derives much of its technical structure from the art of swordsmanship ().Ueshiba moved to Hokkaidō in 1912, and began studying under Takeda Sokaku in 1915; His official association with Daitō-ryū continued until 1937. However, during the latter part of that period, Ueshiba had already begun to distance himself from Takeda and the . At that time Ueshiba referred to his martial art as "Aiki Budō". It is unclear exactly when Ueshiba began using the name "aikido", but it became the official name of the art in 1942 when the Greater Japan Martial Virtue Society () was engaged in a government sponsored reorganization and centralization of Japanese martial arts.Religious influencesAfter Ueshiba left Hokkaidō in 1919, he met and was profoundly influenced by Onisaburo Deguchi, the spiritual leader of the Ōmoto-kyō religion (a neo-Shinto movement) in Ayabe. One of the primary features of Ōmoto-kyō is its emphasis on the attainment of utopia during one's life. This idea was a great influence on Ueshiba's martial arts philosophy of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker.In addition to the effect on his spiritual growth, the connection with Deguchi gave Ueshiba entry to elite political and military circles as a martial artist. As a result of this exposure, he was able to attract not only financial backing but also gifted students. Several of these students would found their own styles of aikido.International disseminationAikido was first introduced to the rest of the world in 1951 by Minoru Mochizuki with a visit to France, where he demonstrated aikido techniques to judo students. He was followed by Tadashi Abe in 1952, who came as the official Aikikai Hombu representative, remaining in France for seven years. Kenji Tomiki toured with a delegation of various martial arts through 15 continental states of the United States in 1953. Later that year, Koichi Tohei was sent by Aikikai Hombu to Hawaii for a full year, where he set up several dōjō. This trip was followed by several subsequent visits and is considered the formal introduction of aikido to the United States. The United Kingdom followed in 1955; Italy in 1964 by Hiroshi Tada; and Germany in 1965 by Katsuaki Asai. Designated the "Official Delegate for Europe and Africa" by Morihei Ueshiba, Masamichi Noro arrived in France in September 1961. Seiichi Sugano was appointed to introduce aikido to Australia in 1965. Today there are aikido dōjō throughout the world.Proliferation of independent organizationsThe largest aikido organization is the Aikikai Foundation, which remains under the control of the Ueshiba family. However, aikido has developed into many styles, most of which were formed by Morihei Ueshiba's major students.The earliest independent styles to emerge were Yoseikan Aikido, begun by Minoru Mochizuki in 1931, Yoshinkan Aikido, founded by Gozo Shioda in 1955, and Shodokan Aikido, founded by Kenji Tomiki in 1967. The emergence of these styles pre-dated Ueshiba's death and did not cause any major upheavals when they were formalized. Shodokan Aikido, however, was controversial, since it introduced a unique rule-based competition that some felt was contrary to the spirit of aikido.After Ueshiba's death in 1969, two more major styles emerged. Significant controversy arose with the departure of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo's chief instructor Koichi Tohei, in 1974. Tohei left as a result of a disagreement with the son of the founder, Kisshomaru Ueshiba, who at that time headed the Aikikai Foundation. The disagreement was over the proper role of  development in regular aikido training. After Tohei left, he formed his own style, called Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido, and the organization that governs it, the Ki Society ().A final major style evolved from Ueshiba's retirement in Iwama, Ibaraki and the teaching methodology of long term student Morihiro Saito. It is unofficially referred to as the "Iwama style", and at one point a number of its followers formed a loose network of schools they called Iwama Ryu. Although Iwama style practitioners remained part of the Aikikai until Saito's death in 2002, followers of Saito subsequently split into two groups. One remained with the Aikikai and the other formed the independent Shinshin Aikishuren Kai in 2004 around Saito's son Hitohiro Saito.Today, the major styles of aikido are each run by a separate governing organization, have their own  in Japan, and are taught throughout the world.The study of  is an important component of aikido. The term does not specifically refer to either physical or mental training, as it encompasses both. The kanji for  was written in its older form as  up until the Japanese governmental writing reforms after World War II, and now is more prevalently seen in its modern form of . This form has the removal of the eight directions denoting the pre and post natal energies of  (Chinese – ) also known in the Art of Aikido as "Source energy".The character for  is used in everyday Japanese terms, such as , or .  has many meanings, including "ambience", "mind", "mood", or "intention and action", however, in traditional martial arts and medicine it is often referred to in its more general terminology as "life energy". Gozo Shioda's Yoshinkan Aikido, considered one of the "hard styles", largely follows Ueshiba's teachings from before World War II, and surmises that the secret to  lies in timing and the application of the whole body's strength to a single point. In later years, Ueshiba's application of  in aikido took on a softer, more gentle feel. This concept was known as Takemusu Aiki, and many of his later students teach about  from this perspective. Koichi Tohei's Ki Society centers almost exclusively around the study of the empirical (albeit subjective) experience of , with students' proficiency in aikido techniques and  development ranked separately.TrainingIn aikido, as in virtually all Japanese martial arts, there are both physical and mental aspects of training. The physical training in aikido is diverse, covering both general physical fitness and conditioning, as well as specific techniques. Because a substantial portion of any aikido curriculum consists of throws, beginners learn how to safely fall or roll. The specific techniques for attack include both strikes and grabs; the techniques for defense consist of throws and pins. After basic techniques are learned, students study freestyle defense against multiple opponents, and techniques with weapons.FitnessPhysical training goals pursued in conjunction with aikido include controlled relaxation, correct movement of joints such as hips and shoulders, flexibility, and endurance, with less emphasis on strength training. In aikido, pushing or extending movements are much more common than pulling or contracting movements. This distinction can be applied to general fitness goals for the aikido practitioner.In aikido, specific muscles or muscle groups are not isolated and worked to improve tone, mass, or power. Aikido-related training emphasizes the use of coordinated whole-body movement and balance similar to yoga or pilates. For example, many dōjōs begin each class with , which may include stretching and  (break falls).Roles of  and  Aikido training is based primarily on two partners practicing pre-arranged forms () rather than freestyle practice. The basic pattern is for the receiver of the technique () to initiate an attack against the person who applies the technique—the , or  (depending on aikido style), also referred to as  (when applying a throwing technique), who neutralises this attack with an aikido technique.Both halves of the technique, that of  and that of , are considered essential to aikido training. Both are studying aikido principles of blending and adaptation.  learns to blend with and control attacking energy, while  learns to become calm and flexible in the disadvantageous, off-balance positions in which  places them. This "receiving" of the technique is called .  continuously seeks to regain balance and cover vulnerabilities (e.g., an exposed side), while  uses position and timing to keep  off-balance and vulnerable. In more advanced training,  will sometimes apply  to regain balance and pin or throw . refers to the act of receiving a technique. Good  involves attention to the technique, the partner, and the immediate environment—it is considered an active part of the process of learning aikido. The method of falling itself is also important, and is a way for the practitioner to receive an aikido technique safely and minimize risk of injury.Initial attacksAikido techniques are usually a defense against an attack, so students must learn to deliver various types of attacks to be able to practice aikido with a partner. Although attacks are not studied as thoroughly as in striking-based arts, attacks with intent (such as a strong strike or an immobilizing grab) are needed to study correct and effective application of technique.Many of the  of aikido resemble cuts from a sword or other grasped object, which indicate its origins in techniques intended for armed combat. Other techniques, which explicitly appear to be punches (), are practiced as thrusts with a knife or sword. Kicks are generally reserved for upper-level variations; reasons cited include that falls from kicks are especially dangerous, and that kicks (high kicks in particular) were uncommon during the types of combat prevalent in feudal Japan.Some basic strikes include:  is a vertical knifehand strike to the head. In training, this is usually directed at the forehead or the crown for safety, but more dangerous versions of this attack target the bridge of the nose and the maxillary sinus.  is a diagonal knifehand strike to the side of the head or neck.  is a punch to the torso. Specific targets include the chest, abdomen, and solar plexus, sometimes referred to as , or .  is a punch to the face, sometimes referred to as .Beginners in particular often practice techniques from grabs, both because they are safer and because it is easier to feel the energy and the direction of the movement of force of a hold than it is for a strike. Some grabs are historically derived from being held while trying to draw a weapon, whereupon a technique could then be used to free oneself and immobilize or strike the attacker while they are grabbing the defender. The following are examples of some basic grabs: , when one hand grabs one wrist. , when both hands grab one wrist; sometimes referred to as  , when both hands grab both wrists; sometimes referred to as .  when one shoulder is grabbed. , when both shoulders are grabbed. It is sometimes combined with an overhead strike as . , when the lapel is grabbed; sometimes referred to as .Basic techniquesThe following are a sample of the basic or widely practiced throws and pins. Many of these techniques derive from Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, but some others were invented by Morihei Ueshiba. The precise terminology for some may vary between organisations and styles; the following are the terms used by the Aikikai Foundation. Note that despite the names of the first five techniques listed, they are not universally taught in numeric order. , a control technique using one hand on the elbow and one hand near the wrist which leverages  to the ground. This grip applies pressure into the ulnar nerve at the wrist.  is a pronating wristlock that torques the arm and applies painful nerve pressure. (There is an adductive wristlock or Z-lock in the  version.)  is a rotational wristlock that directs upward-spiraling tension throughout the arm, elbow and shoulder.  is a shoulder control technique similar to , but with both hands gripping the forearm. The knuckles (from the palm side) are applied to the recipient's radial nerve against the periosteum of the forearm bone. is a technique that is visually similar to , but with an inverted grip of the wrist, medial rotation of the arm and shoulder, and downward pressure on the elbow. Common in knife and other weapon take-aways.  is a throw during which 's hand is folded back past the shoulder, locking the shoulder joint.  is a supinating wristlock-throw that stretches the extensor digitorum.  is a loosely used umbrella term for various types of mechanically unrelated techniques;  generally do not use joint locks like other techniques. , throws in which  moves through the space occupied by . The classic form superficially resembles a "clothesline" technique. , a throw in which, beginning with , moving forward,  sweeps one hand low ("earth") and the other high ("heaven"), which unbalances  so that he or she easily topples over. , aikido's version of the hip throw;  drops their hips lower than those of , then flips  over the resultant fulcrum.  or , a throw that locks the arms against each other (the kanji for "10" is a cross-shape: ).  is a throw in which  sweeps 's arm back until it locks the shoulder joint, then uses forward pressure to throw them.ImplementationsAikido makes use of body movement () to blend the movement of  with the movement of . For example, an "entering" () technique consists of movements inward towards , while a  technique uses a pivoting motion.Additionally, an  technique takes place in front of , whereas an  technique takes place to their side; a  technique is applied with motion to the front of , and a  version is applied with motion towards the rear of , usually by incorporating a turning or pivoting motion. Finally, most techniques can be performed while in a seated posture (). Techniques where both  and  are standing are called , techniques where both start off in  are called , and techniques performed with  standing and  sitting are called  ().From these few basic techniques, there are numerous of possible implementations. For example,  can be applied to an opponent moving forward with a strike (perhaps with an  type of movement to redirect the incoming force), or to an opponent who has already struck and is now moving back to reestablish distance (perhaps an  version). Specific aikido  are typically referred to with the formula "attack-technique(-modifier)"; , for example, refers to any  technique executed when  is holding one wrist. This could be further specified as  (referring to any forward-moving  technique from that grab). are strikes (or feints) employed during an aikido technique. Some view  as attacks against "vital points" meant to cause damage in and of themselves. For instance, Gozo Shioda described using  in a brawl to quickly down a gang's leader. Others consider , especially to the face, to be methods of distraction meant to enable other techniques; a strike, even if it is blocked, can startle the target and break their concentration. Additionally, the target may also become unbalanced while attempting to avoid a strike (by jerking the head back, for example) which may allow for an easier throw. Many sayings about  are attributed to Morihei Ueshiba, who considered them an essential element of technique.WeaponsWeapons training in aikido traditionally includes the short staff () (these techniques closely resemble the use of the bayonet, or Jūkendō), the wooden sword (), and the knife (). Some schools incorporate firearm-disarming techniques, where either weapon-taking and/or weapon-retention may be taught. Some schools, such as the Iwama style of Morihiro Saito, usually spend substantial time practicing with both  and , under the names of , and , respectively.The founder developed many of the empty-handed techniques from traditional sword, spear and bayonet movements. Consequently, the practice of the weapons arts gives insight into the origin of techniques and movements, and reinforces the concepts of distance, timing, foot movement, presence and connectedness with one's training partner(s).Multiple attackers and One feature of aikido is training to defend against multiple attackers, often called , or . Freestyle practice with multiple attackers called  is a key part of most curricula and is required for the higher-level ranks.  exercises a person's ability to intuitively perform techniques in an unstructured environment. Strategic choice of techniques, based on how they reposition the student relative to other attackers, is important in  training. For instance, an  technique might be used to neutralise the current attacker while turning to face attackers approaching from behind.In Shodokan Aikido,  differs in that it is not performed with multiple persons with defined roles of defender and attacker, but between two people, where both participants attack, defend, and counter at will. In this respect it resembles judo .InjuriesIn applying a technique during training, it is the responsibility of  to prevent injury to  by employing a speed and force of application that is appropriate with their partner's proficiency in . When injuries (especially to the joints) occur, they are often the result of a  misjudging the ability of  to receive the throw or pin.A study of injuries in the martial arts showed that the type of injuries varied considerably from one art to the other. Soft tissue injuries are one of the most common types of injuries found within aikido, as well as joint strain and stubbed fingers and toes. Several deaths from head-and-neck injuries, caused by aggressive  in a  hazing context, have been reported.Mental trainingAikido training is mental as well as physical, emphasizing the ability to relax the mind and body even under the stress of dangerous situations. This is necessary to enable the practitioner to perform the 'enter-and-blend' movements that underlie aikido techniques, wherein an attack is met with confidence and directness. Morihei Ueshiba once remarked that one "must be willing to receive 99% of an opponent's attack and stare death in the face" in order to execute techniques without hesitation. As a martial art concerned not only with fighting proficiency but with the betterment of daily life, this mental aspect is of key importance to aikido practitioners.Uniforms and rankingAikido practitioners (commonly called  outside Japan) generally progress by promotion through a series of "grades" (), followed by a series of "degrees" (), pursuant to formal testing procedures. Some aikido organizations use belts to distinguish practitioners' grades, often simply white and black belts to distinguish  and  grades, although some use various belt colors. Testing requirements vary, so a particular rank in one organization is not comparable or interchangeable with the rank of another. Some dōjōs have an age requirement before students can take the  rank exam.The uniform worn for practicing aikido () is similar to the training uniform () used in most other modern martial arts; simple trousers and a wraparound jacket, usually white. Both thick ("judo-style"), and thin ("karate-style") cotton tops are used. Aikido-specific tops are available with shorter sleeves which reach to just below the elbow.Most aikido systems add a pair of wide pleated black or indigo trousers known as  (used also in Naginatajutsu, kendo, and iaido). In many schools, the wear of  is reserved for practitioners with  ranks or for instructors, while others allow all practitioners to wear a  regardless of rank.Aikido stylesAikido styles vary in their intention as due to its holistic nature. The most common differences noted in aikido, when observed externally, relate to the intensity and realism of training. Stanley Pranin has observed that some criticism may stem from weak attacks from , allowing for a conditioned response from , resulting in underdevelopment of the skills needed for the safe and effective practice of both partners.To counteract this, some styles allow students to become less compliant over time, but, in keeping with the core philosophies, this is after having demonstrated proficiency in being able to protect themselves and their training partners. Shodokan Aikido addresses the issue by practicing in a competitive format. Conversely other post-war styles emphasis spiritual development, enlightenment, peace studies, or the study of traditional medicine for health studies.Reasons for the difference and diversity of teachings, intention, and forms of aikido can be traced to the shift in training focus after the end of Ueshiba's seclusion in Iwama from 1942 to the mid-1950s, as he increasingly emphasized the spiritual and philosophical aspects of aikido. As a result, strikes to vital points by , entering () and initiation of techniques by , the distinction between  (front side) and  (back side) techniques, and the use of weapons, were all de-emphasized or eliminated from practice.Conversely, some styles of aikido place less importance on the spiritual practices emphasized by Ueshiba. According to Minoru Shibata of Aikido Journal:O-Sensei's aikido was not a continuation and extension of the old and has a distinct discontinuity with past martial and philosophical concepts.In other words, aikido practitioners who focus on aikido's roots in traditional  or  are said to be diverging from what Ueshiba taught, as some critics urge practitioners:[Ueshiba's] transcendence to the spiritual and universal reality were the fundamentals of the paradigm that he demonstrated.ReferencesExternal links AikiWeb Aikido Information site on aikido, with essays, forums, gallery, reviews, columns, wiki and other information. Japanese martial artsDōArticles containing video clips
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art, and ideas have changed over time. The three classical branches of visual art are painting, sculpture, and architecture. Theatre, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature, music, film and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts. The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. The resulting artworks are studied in the professional fields of art criticism and the history of art.OverviewIn the perspective of the history of art, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theorists feel that the typical concept of "artistic works" fits less well outside modern Western societies. One early sense of the definition of art is closely related to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft", as associated with words such as "artisan". English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.Over time, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and Kant, among others, questioned the meaning of art. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art: Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness (drunkenness, eroticism, and dreaming) in the Phaedrus (265a–c), and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetic art, and laughter as well. In Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer that he expresses in the Republic. The dialogue Ion suggests that Homer's Iliad functioned in the ancient Greek world as the Bible does today in the modern Christian world: as divinely inspired literary art that can provide moral guidance, if only it can be properly interpreted.With regards to the literary art and the musical arts, Aristotle considered epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, Dithyrambic poetry and music to be mimetic or imitative art, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language. The forms also differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average; whereas tragedy imitates men slightly better than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, and through drama or no drama. Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals.The more recent and specific sense of the word art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. Fine art refers to a skill used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of more refined or finer work of art.Within this latter sense, the word art may refer to several things: (i) a study of a creative skill, (ii) a process of using the creative skill, (iii) a product of the creative skill, or (iv) the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and convey a message, mood, or symbolism for the perceiver to interpret (art as experience).  Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. For some scholars, such as Kant, the sciences and the arts could be distinguished by taking science as representing the domain of knowledge and the arts as representing the domain of the freedom of artistic expression.Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference. However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.The nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture". Art has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation. Art as mimesis has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another. Benedetto Croce and R. G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator. The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Kant, and was developed in the early 20th century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell.  More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a community develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation. George Dickie has offered an institutional theory of art that defines a work of art as any artifact upon which a qualified person or persons acting on behalf of the social institution commonly referred to as "the art world" has conferred "the status of candidate for appreciation". Larry Shiner has described fine art as "not an essence or a fate but something we have made. Art as we have generally understood it is a European invention barely two hundred years old."Art may be characterized in terms of mimesis (its representation of reality), narrative (storytelling), expression, communication of emotion, or other qualities. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".HistoryA shell engraved by Homo erectus was determined to be between 430,000 and 540,000 years old. A set of eight 130,000 years old white-tailed eagle talons bear cut marks and abrasion that indicate manipulation by neanderthals, possibly for using it as jewelry. A series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave. Containers that may have been used to hold paints have been found dating as far back as 100,000 years.Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in its art. Because of the size and duration of these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.In Byzantine and Medieval art of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of subjects about Biblical and religious culture, and used styles that showed the higher glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless, a classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.Renaissance art had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three-dimensional picture space.In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance, while religious painting borrowed many conventions from sculpture and tended to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines. China saw the flourishing of many art forms: jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the stunning terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, etc. Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and each one is traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming dynasty paintings are busy and colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, or David's propagandistic paintings. This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism and fauvism among others.The history of 20th-century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art. Thus, Japanese woodblock prints (themselves influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse. Similarly, in the 19th and 20th centuries the West has had huge impacts on Eastern art with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting a powerful influence.Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Theodor W. Adorno said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist." Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with skepticism and irony. Furthermore, the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than of regional ones.In The Origin of the Work of Art, Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher and a seminal thinker, describes the essence of art in terms of the concepts of being and truth. He argues that art is not only a way of expressing the element of truth in a culture, but the means of creating it and providing a springboard from which "that which is" can be revealed. Works of art are not merely representations of the way things are, but actually produce a community's shared understanding. Each time a new artwork is added to any culture, the meaning of what it is to exist is inherently changed.Historically, art and artistic skills and ideas have often been spread through trade. An example of this is the Silk Road, where Hellenistic, Iranian, Indian and Chinese influences could mix. Greco Buddhist art is one of the most vivid examples of this interaction. The meeting of different cultures and worldviews also influenced artistic creation. An example of this is the multicultural port metropolis of Trieste at the beginning of the 20th century, where James Joyce met writers from Central Europe and the artistic development of New York City as a cultural melting pot.Forms, genres, media, and stylesThe creative arts are often divided into more specific categories, typically along perceptually distinguishable categories such as media, genre, styles, and form. Art form refers to the elements of art that are independent of its interpretation or significance. It covers the methods adopted by the artist and the physical composition of the artwork, primarily non-semantic aspects of the work (i.e., figurae), such as color, contour, dimension, medium, melody, space, texture, and value. Form may also include visual design principles, such as arrangement, balance, contrast, emphasis, harmony, proportion, proximity, and rhythm.In general there are three schools of philosophy regarding art, focusing respectively on form, content, and context. Extreme Formalism is the view that all aesthetic properties of art are formal (that is, part of the art form). Philosophers almost universally reject this view and hold that the properties and aesthetics of art extend beyond materials, techniques, and form. Unfortunately, there is little consensus on terminology for these informal properties. Some authors refer to subject matter and content – i.e., denotations and connotations – while others prefer terms like meaning and significance.Extreme Intentionalism holds that authorial intent plays a decisive role in the meaning of a work of art, conveying the content or essential main idea, while all other interpretations can be discarded. It defines the subject as the persons or idea represented, and the content as the artist's experience of that subject. For example, the composition of Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne is partly borrowed from the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. As evidenced by the title, the subject is Napoleon, and the content is Ingres's representation of Napoleon as "Emperor-God beyond time and space". Similarly to extreme formalism, philosophers typically reject extreme intentionalism, because art may have multiple ambiguous meanings and authorial intent may be unknowable and thus irrelevant. Its restrictive interpretation is "socially unhealthy, philosophically unreal, and politically unwise".Finally, the developing theory of post-structuralism studies art's significance in a cultural context, such as the ideas, emotions, and reactions prompted by a work. The cultural context often reduces to the artist's techniques and intentions, in which case analysis proceeds along lines similar to formalism and intentionalism. However, in other cases historical and material conditions may predominate, such as religious and philosophical convictions, sociopolitical and economic structures, or even climate and geography. Art criticism continues to grow and develop alongside art.Skill and craftArt can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy or depth. Art can be defined as an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations.There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes.A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability, an originality in stylistic approach, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt's work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artist who would become the era's most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects ("ready-made") and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin's My Bed, or Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living follow this example and also manipulate the mass media. Emin slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However, there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands-on works of art.Purpose Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated (Lévi-Strauss).Non-motivated functions The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility. Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility.Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry. – Aristotle Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry.The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. – Albert Einstein Expression of the imagination. Art provides a means to express the imagination in non-grammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are malleable.Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else—something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken. – Immanuel Kant Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'. – Silva TomaskovaMotivated functions Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) sell a product, or simply as a form of communication. Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.[Art is a set of] artefacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication. – Steve Mithen Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games. The Avant-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of early 20th-century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively referred to as the avant-garde arts.By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life. – André Breton (Surrealism) Art as a "free zone", removed from the action of the social censure. Unlike the avant-garde movements, which wanted to erase cultural differences in order to produce new universal values, contemporary art has enhanced its tolerance towards cultural differences as well as its critical and liberating functions (social inquiry, activism, subversion, deconstruction ...), becoming a more open place for research and experimentation. Art for social inquiry, subversion or anarchy. While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society. Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stencilled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism). Art for social causes. Art can be used to raise awareness for a large variety of causes. A number of art activities were aimed at raising awareness of autism, cancer, human trafficking, and a variety of other topics, such as ocean conservation, human rights in Darfur, murdered and missing Aboriginal women, elder abuse, and pollution. Trashion, using trash to make fashion, practiced by artists such as Marina DeBris is one example of using art to raise awareness about pollution. Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy. Art for propaganda, or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object. Art as a fitness indicator. It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by far exceeds what was needed for survival in the ancestral environment. One evolutionary psychology explanation for this is that the human brain and associated traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the human equivalent of the peacock's tail. The purpose of the male peacock's extravagant tail has been argued to be to attract females (see also Fisherian runaway and handicap principle). According to this theory superior execution of art was evolutionarily important because it attracted mates.The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i.e. the movie or video game.Public accessSince ancient times, much of the finest art has represented a deliberate display of wealth or power, often achieved by using massive scale and expensive materials. Much art has been commissioned by political rulers or religious establishments, with more modest versions only available to the most wealthy in society.Nevertheless, there have been many periods where art of very high quality was available, in terms of ownership, across large parts of society, above all in cheap media such as pottery, which persists in the ground, and perishable media such as textiles and wood. In many different cultures, the ceramics of indigenous peoples of the Americas are found in such a wide range of graves that they were clearly not restricted to a social elite, though other forms of art may have been. Reproductive methods such as moulds made mass-production easier, and were used to bring high-quality Ancient Roman pottery and Greek Tanagra figurines to a very wide market. Cylinder seals were both artistic and practical, and very widely used by what can be loosely called the middle class in the Ancient Near East. Once coins were widely used, these also became an art form that reached the widest range of society.Another important innovation came in the 15th century in Europe, when printmaking began with small woodcuts, mostly religious, that were often very small and hand-colored, and affordable even by peasants who glued them to the walls of their homes. Printed books were initially very expensive, but fell steadily in price until by the 19th century even the poorest could afford some with printed illustrations. Popular prints of many different sorts have decorated homes and other places for centuries.In 1661, the city of Basel, in Switzerland, opened the first public museum of art in the world, the Kunstmuseum Basel. Today, its collection is distinguished by an impressively wide historic span, from the early 15th century up to the immediate present. Its various areas of emphasis give it international standing as one of the most significant museums of its kind. These encompass: paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600, and on the art of the 19th to 21st centuries.Public buildings and monuments, secular and religious, by their nature normally address the whole of society, and visitors as viewers, and display to the general public has long been an important factor in their design. Egyptian temples are typical in that the most largest and most lavish decoration was placed on the parts that could be seen by the general public, rather than the areas seen only by the priests. Many areas of royal palaces, castles and the houses of the social elite were often generally accessible, and large parts of the art collections of such people could often be seen, either by anybody, or by those able to pay a small price, or those wearing the correct clothes, regardless of who they were, as at the Palace of Versailles, where the appropriate extra accessories (silver shoe buckles and a sword) could be hired from shops outside.Special arrangements were made to allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in galleries, as with the Orleans Collection mostly housed in a wing of the Palais Royal in Paris, which could be visited for most of the 18th century. In Italy the art tourism of the Grand Tour became a major industry from the Renaissance onwards, and governments and cities made efforts to make their key works accessible. The British Royal Collection remains distinct, but large donations such as the Old Royal Library were made from it to the British Museum, established in 1753. The Uffizi in Florence opened entirely as a gallery in 1765, though this function had been gradually taking the building over from the original civil servants' offices for a long time before. The building now occupied by the Prado in Madrid was built before the French Revolution for the public display of parts of the royal art collection, and similar royal galleries open to the public existed in Vienna, Munich and other capitals. The opening of the Musée du Louvre during the French Revolution (in 1793) as a public museum for much of the former French royal collection certainly marked an important stage in the development of public access to art, transferring ownership to a republican state, but was a continuation of trends already well established.Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. However, museums do not only provide availability to art, but do also influence the way art is being perceived by the audience, as studies found. Thus, the museum itself is not only a blunt stage for the presentation of art, but plays an active and vital role in the overall perception of art in modern society.Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum.) But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status.There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late 1960s and 1970s was to create art that could not be bought and sold. It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects" said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. "Democratic precepts revolving around the idea that a work of art is a commodity impelled the aesthetic innovation which germinated in the mid-1960s and was reaped throughout the 1970s. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art ... substituting performance and publishing activities for engagement with both the material and materialistic concerns of painted or sculptural form ... [have] endeavored to undermine the art object qua object."In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works, invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces. Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. "With the widespread use of DVD recording technology in the early 2000s, artists, and the gallery system that derives its profits from the sale of artworks, gained an important means of controlling the sale of video and computer artworks in limited editions to collectors."ControversiesArt has long been controversial, that is to say disliked by some viewers, for a wide variety of reasons, though most pre-modern controversies are dimly recorded, or completely lost to a modern view. Iconoclasm is the destruction of art that is disliked for a variety of reasons, including religious ones. Aniconism is a general dislike of either all figurative images, or often just religious ones, and has been a thread in many major religions. It has been a crucial factor in the history of Islamic art, where depictions of Muhammad remain especially controversial. Much art has been disliked purely because it depicted or otherwise stood for unpopular rulers, parties or other groups. Artistic conventions have often been conservative and taken very seriously by art critics, though often much less so by a wider public. The iconographic content of art could cause controversy, as with late medieval depictions of the new motif of the Swoon of the Virgin in scenes of the Crucifixion of Jesus. The Last Judgment by Michelangelo was controversial for various reasons, including breaches of decorum through nudity and the Apollo-like pose of Christ.The content of much formal art through history was dictated by the patron or commissioner rather than just the artist, but with the advent of Romanticism, and economic changes in the production of art, the artists' vision became the usual determinant of the content of his art, increasing the incidence of controversies, though often reducing their significance. Strong incentives for perceived originality and publicity also encouraged artists to court controversy. Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (c. 1820), was in part a political commentary on a recent event. Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863), was considered scandalous not because of the nude woman, but because she is seated next to men fully dressed in the clothing of the time, rather than in robes of the antique world. John Singer Sargent's Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madam X) (1884), caused a controversy over the reddish pink used to color the woman's ear lobe, considered far too suggestive and supposedly ruining the high-society model's reputation.The gradual abandonment of naturalism and the depiction of realistic representations of the visual appearance of subjects in the 19th and 20th centuries led to a rolling controversy lasting for over a century.In the 20th century, Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils, to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's Interrogation III (1981), depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1989) is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts.TheoryBefore Modernism, aesthetics in Western art was greatly concerned with achieving the appropriate balance between different aspects of realism or truth to nature and the ideal; ideas as to what the appropriate balance is have shifted to and fro over the centuries.  This concern is largely absent in other traditions of art.  The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin, who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. M. W. Turner, saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature.The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to assessing the aesthetic value of art: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.Arrival of ModernismThe arrival of Modernism in the late 19th century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art, and then again in the late 20th century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself". Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting: After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.Duchamp once proposed that art is any activity of any kind-everything. However, the way that only certain activities are classified today as art is a social construction. There is evidence that there may be an element of truth to this. In The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Larry Shiner examines the construction of the modern system of the arts, i.e. fine art. He finds evidence that the older system of the arts before our modern system (fine art) held art to be any skilled human activity; for example, Ancient Greek society did not possess the term art, but techne. Techne can be understood neither as art or craft, the reason being that the distinctions of art and craft are historical products that came later on in human history. Techne included painting, sculpting and music, but also cooking, medicine, horsemanship, geometry, carpentry, prophecy, and farming, etc.New Criticism and the "intentional fallacy"Following Duchamp during the first half of the 20th century, a significant shift to general aesthetic theory took place which attempted to apply aesthetic theory between various forms of art, including the literary arts and the visual arts, to each other. This resulted in the rise of the New Criticism school and debate concerning the intentional fallacy. At issue was the question of whether the aesthetic intentions of the artist in creating the work of art, whatever its specific form, should be associated with the criticism and evaluation of the final product of the work of art, or, if the work of art should be evaluated on its own merits independent of the intentions of the artist.In 1946, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley published a classic and controversial New Critical essay entitled "The Intentional Fallacy", in which they argued strongly against the relevance of an author's intention, or "intended meaning" in the analysis of a literary work. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, the words on the page were all that mattered; importation of meanings from outside the text was considered irrelevant, and potentially distracting.In another essay, "The Affective Fallacy", which served as a kind of sister essay to "The Intentional Fallacy" Wimsatt and Beardsley also discounted the reader's personal/emotional reaction to a literary work as a valid means of analyzing a text. This fallacy would later be repudiated by theorists from the reader-response school of literary theory. Ironically, one of the leading theorists from this school, Stanley Fish, was himself trained by New Critics. Fish criticizes Wimsatt and Beardsley in his 1970 essay "Literature in the Reader".As summarized by Gaut and Livingston in their essay "The Creation of Art": "Structuralist and post-structuralists theorists and critics were sharply critical of many aspects of New Criticism, beginning with the emphasis on aesthetic appreciation and the so-called autonomy of art, but they reiterated the attack on biographical criticisms' assumption that the artist's activities and experience were a privileged critical topic." These authors contend that: "Anti-intentionalists, such as formalists, hold that the intentions involved in the making of art are irrelevant or peripheral to correctly interpreting art. So details of the act of creating a work, though possibly of interest in themselves, have no bearing on the correct interpretation of the work."Gaut and Livingston define the intentionalists as distinct from formalists stating that: "Intentionalists, unlike formalists, hold that reference to intentions is essential in fixing the correct interpretation of works." They quote Richard Wollheim as stating that, "The task of criticism is the reconstruction of the creative process, where the creative process must in turn be thought of as something not stopping short of, but terminating on, the work of art itself.""Linguistic turn" and its debateThe end of the 20th century fostered an extensive debate known as the linguistic turn controversy, or the "innocent eye debate" in the philosophy of art. This debate discussed the encounter of the work of art as being determined by the relative extent to which the conceptual encounter with the work of art dominates over the perceptual encounter with the work of art.Decisive for the linguistic turn debate in art history and the humanities were the works of yet another tradition, namely the structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure and the ensuing movement of poststructuralism. In 1981, the artist Mark Tansey created a work of art titled "The Innocent Eye" as a criticism of the prevailing climate of disagreement in the philosophy of art during the closing decades of the 20th century. Influential theorists include Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The power of language, more specifically of certain rhetorical tropes, in art history and historical discourse was explored by Hayden White. The fact that language is not a transparent medium of thought had been stressed by a very different form of philosophy of language which originated in the works of Johann Georg Hamann and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Ernst Gombrich and Nelson Goodman in his book Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols came to hold that the conceptual encounter with the work of art predominated exclusively over the perceptual and visual encounter with the work of art during the 1960s and 1970s. He was challenged on the basis of research done by the Nobel prize winning psychologist Roger Sperry who maintained that the human visual encounter was not limited to concepts represented in language alone (the linguistic turn) and that other forms of psychological representations of the work of art were equally defensible and demonstrable. Sperry's view eventually prevailed by the end of the 20th century with aesthetic philosophers such as Nick Zangwill strongly defending a return to moderate aesthetic formalism among other alternatives.Classification disputes Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art. Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp's Fountain, the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes, conceptual art, and video games. Philosopher David Novitz has argued that disagreement about the definition of art are rarely the heart of the problem. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art." According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper. For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst's and Emin's work by arguing "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work. In 1998, Arthur Danto, suggested a thought experiment showing that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than its inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood."Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art; it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I, when he was making art from found objects. One of these,  Fountain (1917), an ordinary urinal, has achieved considerable prominence and influence on art. Anti-art is a feature of work by Situationist International, the lo-fi Mail art movement, and the Young British Artists, though it is a form still rejected by the Stuckists, who describe themselves as anti-anti-art.Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, or advertising, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example.Value judgmentSomewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions as "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception" (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity. Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly understood that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. For example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3 May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the zeitgeist. Art is often intended to appeal to and connect with human emotion. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art may be considered an exploration of the human condition; that is, what it is to be human. By extension, it has been argued by Emily L. Spratt that the development of artificial intelligence, especially in regard to its uses with images, necessitates a re-evaluation of aesthetic theory in art history today and a reconsideration of the limits of human creativity.Art and lawAn essential legal issue are art forgeries, plagiarism, replicas and works that are strongly based on other works of art.The trade in works of art or the export from a country may be subject to legal regulations. Internationally there are also extensive efforts to protect the works of art created. The UN, UNESCO and Blue Shield International try to ensure effective protection at the national level and to intervene directly in the event of armed conflicts or disasters. This can particularly affect museums, archives, art collections and excavation sites. This should also secure the economic basis of a country, especially because works of art are often of tourist importance. The founding president of Blue Shield International, Karl von Habsburg, explained an additional connection between the destruction of cultural property and the cause of flight during a mission in Lebanon in April 2019: “Cultural goods are part of the identity of the people who live in a certain place. If you destroy their culture, you also destroy their identity. Many people are uprooted, often no longer have any prospects and as a result flee from their homeland.”See also Applied arts Art movement Artist in residence Artistic freedom Cultural tourism Craftivism Formal analysis History of art List of artistic media List of art techniques Mathematics and art Street art (or "independent public art") Outline of the visual arts, a guide to the subject of art presented as a tree structured list of its subtopics.Visual impairment in artNotesBibliography Oscar Wilde, Intentions, 1891 Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, 1991 Nina Felshin, ed. But is it Art?, 1995 Catherine de Zegher (ed.). Inside the Visible. MIT Press, 1996 Evelyn Hatcher, ed. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art, 1999 Noel Carroll, Theories of Art Today, 2000 John Whitehead. Grasping for the Wind, 2001 Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey (eds.) Art History Aesthetics Visual Studies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.  Shiner, Larry. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.  Arthur Danto, The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art. 2003 Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson, eds. Art and Thought. London: Blackwell, 2003.  Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, 2005Further reading Antony Briant and Griselda Pollock, eds. Digital and Other Virtualities: Renegotiating the image. London and NY: I.B.Tauris, 2010.  Augros, Robert M., Stanciu, George N. The New Story of Science: mind and the universe, Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway, 1984.  (this book has significant material on art and science) Benedetto Croce. Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 2002 Botar, Oliver A.I. Technical Detours: The Early Moholy-Nagy Reconsidered. Art Gallery of The Graduate Center, The City University of New York and The Salgo Trust for Education, 2006.  Burguete, Maria, and Lam, Lui, eds. (2011). Arts: A Science Matter. World Scientific: Singapore.  Carol Armstrong and Catherine de Zegher, eds. Women Artists at the Millennium. Massachusetts: October Books/The MIT Press, 2006.  Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols. London: Pan Books, 1978.  E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art. London: Phaidon Press, 1995.  Florian Dombois, Ute Meta Bauer, Claudia Mareis and Michael Schwab, eds. Intellectual Birdhouse. Artistic Practice as Research. London: Koening Books, 2012.  Katharine Everett Gilbert and Helmut Kuhn, A History of Esthetics. Edition 2, revised. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1953. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986 Kleiner, Gardner, Mamiya and Tansey. Art Through the Ages, Twelfth Edition (2 volumes) Wadsworth, 2004.  (vol 1) and  (vol 2) Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects: An introduction to aesthetics. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.  Will Gompertz. What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye. New York: Viking, 2012.  Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980External links Art and Play from the Dictionary of the History of ideas In-depth directory of art Art and Artist Files in the Smithsonian Libraries Collection (2005) Smithsonian Digital Libraries Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) – online collections from UK museums, galleries, universities RevolutionArt – Art magazines with worldwide exhibitions, callings and competitions   AestheticsVisual arts
Agnostida is an order of arthropod which first developed near the end of the Early Cambrian period and thrived during the Middle Cambrian. They are present in the Lower Cambrian fossil record along with trilobites from the Redlichiida, Corynexochida, and Ptychopariida orders. The last agnostids went extinct in the Late Ordovician.SystematicsThe Agnostida are divided into two suborders — Agnostina and Eodiscina — which are then subdivided into a number of families. As a group, agnostids are isopygous, meaning their pygidium is similar in size and shape to their cephalon. Most agnostid species were eyeless.The systematic position of the order Agnostida within the class Trilobita remains uncertain, and there has been continuing debate whether they are trilobites or a stem group. The challenge to the status has focused on Agnostina partly due to the juveniles of one genus have been found with legs differing dramatically from those of adult trilobites, suggesting they are not members of the lamellipedian clade, of which trilobites are a part. Instead, the limbs of agnostids closely resemble those of stem group crustaceans, although they lack the proximal endite, which defines that group. They are likely the sister taxon to the crustacean stem lineage, and, as such, part of the clade, Crustaceomorpha. Other researchers have suggested, based on a cladistic analyses of dorsal exoskeletal features, that Eodiscina and Agnostida are closely united, and the Eodiscina descended from the trilobite order Ptychopariida.EcologyScientists have long debated whether the agnostids lived a pelagic or a benthic lifestyle. Their lack of eyes, a morphology not well-suited for swimming, and their fossils found in association with other benthic trilobites suggest a benthic (bottom-dwelling) mode of life. They are likely to have lived on areas of the ocean floor which received little or no light and fed on detritus which descended from upper layers of the sea to the bottom. Their wide geographic dispersion in the fossil record is uncharacteristic of benthic animals, suggesting a pelagic existence. The thoracic segment appears to form a hinge between the head and pygidium allowing for a bivalved ostracodan-type lifestyle. The orientation of the thoracic appendages appears ill-suited for benthic living. Recent work suggests that some agnostids were benthic predators, engaging in cannibalism and possibly pack-hunting behavior.They are sometimes preserved within the voids of other organisms, for instance within empty hyolith conchs, within sponges, worm tubes and under the carapaces of bivalved arthropods, presumably in order to hide from predators or strong storm currents; or maybe whilst scavenging for food. In the case of the tapering worm tubes Selkirkia, trilobites are always found with their heads directed towards the opening of the tube, suggesting that they reversed in; the absence of any moulted carapaces suggests that moulting was not their primary reason for seeking shelter.ReferencesExternal links Order Agnostida by Sam Gon III. The Virtual Fossil Museum – Trilobite Order Agnostida Agnostida fact sheet by Sam Gon III. "Earth's Early Cannibals Caught in the Act", by Larry O'Hanlon, news.discovery.com. Trilobite ordersCambrian trilobitesOrdovician trilobitesFossil taxa described in 1864Cambrian first appearancesLate Ordovician extinctionsTaxa named by John William Salter
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion" and occurs in approximately 30% to 40% of pregnancies. When deliberate steps are taken to end a pregnancy, it is called an induced abortion, or less frequently "induced miscarriage". The unmodified word abortion generally refers to an induced abortion. Although it prevents the birth of a child, abortion is not generally considered birth control (another term for contraception).When properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine,  but unsafe abortion is a major cause of maternal death, especially in the developing world, while making safe abortion legal and accessible reduces maternal deaths. It is safer than childbirth, which has a 14 times higher risk of death in the United States.Modern methods use medication or surgery for abortions. The drug mifepristone in combination with prostaglandin appears to be as safe and effective as surgery during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. The most common surgical technique involves dilating the cervix and using a suction device. Birth control, such as the pill or intrauterine devices, can be used immediately following abortion. When performed legally and safely on a woman who desires it, induced abortions do not increase the risk of long-term mental or physical problems. In contrast, unsafe abortions (those performed by unskilled individuals, with hazardous equipment, or in unsanitary facilities) cause 47,000 deaths and 5 million hospital admissions each year. The World Health Organization states that "access to legal, safe and comprehensive abortion care, including post-abortion care, is essential for the attainment of the highest possible level of sexual and reproductive health".Around 56 million abortions are performed each year in the world, with about 45% done unsafely. Abortion rates changed little between 2003 and 2008, before which they decreased for at least two decades as access to family planning and birth control increased. , 37% of the world's women had access to legal abortions without limits as to reason. Countries that permit abortions have different limits on how late in pregnancy abortion is allowed. Abortion rates are similar between countries that ban abortion and countries that allow it.Historically, abortions have been attempted using herbal medicines, sharp tools, forceful massage, or through other traditional methods. Abortion laws and cultural or religious views of abortions are different around the world. In some areas, abortion is legal only in specific cases such as rape, fetal defects, poverty, risk to a woman's health, or incest. There is debate over the moral, ethical, and legal issues of abortion. Those who oppose abortion often argue that an embryo or fetus is a person with a right to life, and thus equate abortion with murder. Those who support the legality of abortion often argue that it is part of a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. Others favor legal and accessible abortion as a public health measure.TypesInducedApproximately 205 million pregnancies occur each year worldwide. Over a third are unintended and about a fifth end in induced abortion. Most abortions result from unintended pregnancies. In the United Kingdom, 1 to 2% of abortions are done due to genetic problems in the fetus. A pregnancy can be intentionally aborted in several ways. The manner selected often depends upon the gestational age of the embryo or fetus, which increases in size as the pregnancy progresses. Specific procedures may also be selected due to legality, regional availability, and doctor or a woman's personal preference.Reasons for procuring induced abortions are typically characterized as either therapeutic or elective. An abortion is medically referred to as a therapeutic abortion when it is performed to save the life of the pregnant woman; to prevent harm to the woman's physical or mental health; to terminate a pregnancy where indications are that the child will have a significantly increased chance of mortality or morbidity; or to selectively reduce the number of fetuses to lessen health risks associated with multiple pregnancy. An abortion is referred to as an elective or voluntary abortion when it is performed at the request of the woman for non-medical reasons. Confusion sometimes arises over the term "elective" because "elective surgery" generally refers to all scheduled surgery, whether medically necessary or not.SpontaneousMiscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion, is the unintentional expulsion of an embryo or fetus before the 24th week of gestation. A pregnancy that ends before 37 weeks of gestation resulting in a live-born infant is a "premature birth" or a "preterm birth". When a fetus dies in utero after viability, or during delivery, it is usually termed "stillborn". Premature births and stillbirths are generally not considered to be miscarriages, although usage of these terms can sometimes overlap.Only 30% to 50% of conceptions progress past the first trimester. The vast majority of those that do not progress are lost before the woman is aware of the conception, and many pregnancies are lost before medical practitioners can detect an embryo. Between 15% and 30% of known pregnancies end in clinically apparent miscarriage, depending upon the age and health of the pregnant woman. 80% of these spontaneous abortions happen in the first trimester.The most common cause of spontaneous abortion during the first trimester is chromosomal abnormalities of the embryo or fetus, accounting for at least 50% of sampled early pregnancy losses. Other causes include vascular disease (such as lupus), diabetes, other hormonal problems, infection, and abnormalities of the uterus. Advancing maternal age and a woman's history of previous spontaneous abortions are the two leading factors associated with a greater risk of spontaneous abortion. A spontaneous abortion can also be caused by accidental trauma; intentional trauma or stress to cause miscarriage is considered induced abortion or feticide.MethodsMedicalMedical abortions are those induced by abortifacient pharmaceuticals. Medical abortion became an alternative method of abortion with the availability of prostaglandin analogs in the 1970s and the antiprogestogen mifepristone (also known as RU-486) in the 1980s.The most common early first-trimester medical abortion regimens use mifepristone in combination with misoprostol (or sometimes another prostaglandin analog, gemeprost) up to 10 weeks (70 days) gestational age, methotrexate in combination with a prostaglandin analog up to 7 weeks gestation, or a prostaglandin analog alone. Mifepristone–misoprostol combination regimens work faster and are more effective at later gestational ages than methotrexate–misoprostol combination regimens, and combination regimens are more effective than misoprostol alone. This regimen is effective in the second trimester. Medical abortion regimens involving mifepristone followed by misoprostol in the cheek between 24 and 48 hours later are effective when performed before 70 days' gestation.In very early abortions, up to 7 weeks gestation, medical abortion using a mifepristone–misoprostol combination regimen is considered to be more effective than surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration), especially when clinical practice does not include detailed inspection of aspirated tissue. Early medical abortion regimens using mifepristone, followed 24–48 hours later by buccal or vaginal misoprostol are 98% effective up to 9 weeks gestational age; from 9 to 10 weeks efficacy decreases modestly to 94%. If medical abortion fails, surgical abortion must be used to complete the procedure.Early medical abortions account for the majority of abortions before 9 weeks gestation in Britain, France, Switzerland, United States, and the Nordic countries.Medical abortion regimens using mifepristone in combination with a prostaglandin analog are the most common methods used for second-trimester abortions in Canada, most of Europe, China and India, in contrast to the United States where 96% of second-trimester abortions are performed surgically by dilation and evacuation.A 2020 Cochrane Systematic Review concluded that providing women with medications to take home to complete the second stage of the procedure for an early medical abortion results in an effective abortion. Further research is required to determine if self-administered medical abortion is as safe as provider-administered medical abortion, where a health care professional is present to help manage the medical abortion. Safely permitting women to self-administer abortion medication has the potential to improve access to abortion. Other research gaps that were identified include how to best support women who choose to take the medication home for a self-administered abortion.SurgicalUp to 15 weeks' gestation, suction-aspiration or vacuum aspiration are the most common surgical methods of induced abortion. Manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) consists of removing the fetus or embryo, placenta, and membranes by suction using a manual syringe, while electric vacuum aspiration (EVA) uses an electric pump. These techniques can both be used very early in pregnancy. MVA can be used up to 14 weeks but is more often used earlier in the U.S. EVA can be used later.MVA, also known as "mini-suction" and "menstrual extraction" or EVA can be used in very early pregnancy when cervical dilation may not be required. Dilation and curettage (D&C) refers to opening the cervix (dilation) and removing tissue (curettage) via suction or sharp instruments. D&C is a standard gynecological procedure performed for a variety of reasons, including examination of the uterine lining for possible malignancy, investigation of abnormal bleeding, and abortion. The World Health Organization recommends sharp curettage only when suction aspiration is unavailable.Dilation and evacuation (D&E), used after 12 to 16 weeks, consists of opening the cervix and emptying the uterus using surgical instruments and suction. D&E is performed vaginally and does not require an incision. Intact dilation and extraction (D&X) refers to a variant of D&E sometimes used after 18 to 20 weeks when removal of an intact fetus improves surgical safety or for other reasons.Abortion may also be performed surgically by hysterotomy or gravid hysterectomy. Hysterotomy abortion is a procedure similar to a caesarean section and is performed under general anesthesia. It requires a smaller incision than a caesarean section and can be used during later stages of pregnancy. Gravid hysterectomy refers to removal of the whole uterus while still containing the pregnancy.  Hysterotomy and hysterectomy are associated with much higher rates of maternal morbidity and mortality than D&E or induction abortion.First-trimester procedures can generally be performed using local anesthesia, while second-trimester methods may require deep sedation or general anesthesia.Labor induction abortionIn places lacking the necessary medical skill for dilation and extraction, or where preferred by practitioners, an abortion can be induced by first inducing labor and then inducing fetal demise if necessary. This is sometimes called "induced miscarriage". This procedure may be performed from 13 weeks gestation to the third trimester. Although it is very uncommon in the United States, more than 80% of induced abortions throughout the second trimester are labor-induced abortions in Sweden and other nearby countries.Only limited data are available comparing this method with dilation and extraction. Unlike D&E, labor-induced abortions after 18 weeks may be complicated by the occurrence of brief fetal survival, which may be legally characterized as live birth. For this reason, labor-induced abortion is legally risky in the United States.Other methodsHistorically, a number of herbs reputed to possess abortifacient properties have been used in folk medicine. Among these are: tansy, pennyroyal, black cohosh, and the now-extinct silphium.In 1978, one woman in Colorado died and another developed organ damage when they attempted to terminate their pregnancies by taking pennyroyal oil.Because the indiscriminant use of herbs as abortifacients can cause serious—even lethal—side effects, such as multiple organ failure, such use is not recommended by physicians.Abortion is sometimes attempted by causing trauma to the abdomen. The degree of force, if severe, can cause serious internal injuries without necessarily succeeding in inducing miscarriage. In Southeast Asia, there is an ancient tradition of attempting abortion through forceful abdominal massage. One of the bas reliefs decorating the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia depicts a demon performing such an abortion upon a woman who has been sent to the underworld.Reported methods of unsafe, self-induced abortion include misuse of misoprostol and insertion of non-surgical implements such as knitting needles and clothes hangers into the uterus. These and other methods to terminate pregnancy may be called "induced miscarriage".  Such methods are rarely used in countries where surgical abortion is legal and available.SafetyThe health risks of abortion depend principally upon whether the procedure is performed safely or unsafely. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines unsafe abortions as those performed by unskilled individuals, with hazardous equipment, or in unsanitary facilities. Legal abortions performed in the developed world are among the safest procedures in medicine. In the United States as of 2012, abortion was estimated to be about 14 times safer for women than childbirth. CDC estimated in 2019 that US pregnancy-related mortality was 17.2 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, while the US abortion mortality rate is 0.7 maternal deaths per 100,000 procedures. In the UK, guidelines of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists state that "Women should be advised that abortion is generally safer than continuing a pregnancy to term." Worldwide, on average, abortion is safer than carrying a pregnancy to term. A 2007 study reported that "26% of all pregnancies worldwide are terminated by induced abortion," whereas "deaths from improperly performed [abortion] procedures constitute 13% of maternal mortality globally." In Indonesia in 2000 it was estimated that 2 million pregnancies ended in abortion, 4.5 million pregnancies were carried to term, and 14-16 percent of maternal deaths resulted from abortion.In the US from 2000 to 2009, abortion had a mortality rate lower than plastic surgery, lower or similar to running a marathon, and about equivalent to traveling 760 miles in a passenger car. Five years after seeking abortion services, women who gave birth after being denied an abortion reported worse health than women who had either first or second trimester abortions. The risk of abortion-related mortality increases with gestational age, but remains lower than that of childbirth. Outpatient abortion is as safe from 64 to 70 days' gestation as it before 63 days.There is little difference in terms of safety and efficacy between medical abortion using a combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol and surgical abortion (vacuum aspiration) in early first trimester abortions up to 10 weeks gestation. Medical abortion using the prostaglandin analog misoprostol alone is less effective and more painful than medical abortion using a combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol or surgical abortion.Vacuum aspiration in the first trimester is the safest method of surgical abortion, and can be performed in a primary care office, abortion clinic, or hospital. Complications, which are rare, can include uterine perforation, pelvic infection, and retained products of conception requiring a second procedure to evacuate. Infections account for one-third of abortion-related deaths in the United States. The rate of complications of vacuum aspiration abortion in the first trimester is similar regardless of whether the procedure is performed in a hospital, surgical center, or office. Preventive antibiotics (such as doxycycline or metronidazole) are typically given before abortion procedures, as they are believed to substantially reduce the risk of postoperative uterine infection; however, antibiotics are not routinely given with abortion pills. The rate of failed procedures does not appear to vary significantly depending on whether the abortion is performed by a doctor or a mid-level practitioner.Complications after second-trimester abortion are similar to those after first-trimester abortion, and depend somewhat on the method chosen. The risk of death from abortion approaches roughly half the risk of death from childbirth the farther along a woman is in pregnancy; from one in a million before 9 weeks gestation to nearly one in ten thousand at 21 weeks or more (as measured from the last menstrual period). It appears that having had a prior surgical uterine evacuation (whether because of induced abortion or treatment of miscarriage) correlates with a small increase in the risk of preterm birth in future pregnancies. The studies supporting this did not control for factors not related to abortion or miscarriage, and hence the causes of this correlation have not been determined, although multiple possibilities have been suggested.Some purported risks of abortion are promoted primarily by anti-abortion groups,but lack scientific support. For example, the question of a link between induced abortion and breast cancer has been investigated extensively. Major medical and scientific bodies (including the WHO, National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Royal College of OBGYN and American Congress of OBGYN) have concluded that abortion does not cause breast cancer.In the past even illegality has not automatically meant that the abortions were unsafe. Referring to the U.S., historian Linda Gordon states: "In fact, illegal abortions in this country have an impressive safety record." According to Rickie Solinger,Authors Jerome Bates and Edward Zawadzki describe the case of an illegal abortionist in the eastern U.S. in the early 20th century who was proud of having successfully completed 13,844 abortions without any fatality.In 1870s New York City the famous abortionist/midwife Madame Restell (Anna Trow Lohman) appears to have lost very few women among her more than 100,000 patients—a lower mortality rate than the childbirth mortality rate at the time. In 1936, the prominent professor of obstetrics and gynecology Frederick J. Taussig wrote that a cause of increasing mortality during the years of illegality in the U.S. was thatMental healthCurrent evidence finds no relationship between most induced abortions and mental health problems other than those expected for any unwanted pregnancy. A report by the American Psychological Association concluded that a woman's first abortion is not a threat to mental health when carried out in the first trimester, with such women no more likely to have mental-health problems than those carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term; the mental-health outcome of a woman's second or greater abortion is less certain. Some older reviews concluded that abortion was associated with an increased risk of psychological problems; however, they did not use an appropriate control group.Although some studies show negative mental-health outcomes in women who choose abortions after the first trimester because of fetal abnormalities, more rigorous research would be needed to show this conclusively. Some proposed negative psychological effects of abortion have been referred to by anti-abortion advocates as a separate condition called "post-abortion syndrome", but this is not recognized by medical or psychological professionals in the United States.A long term-study among US women found that about 99% of women felt that they made the right decision five years after they had an abortion. Relief was the primary emotion with few women feeling sadness or guilt. Social stigma was a main factor predicting negative emotions and regret  years later.Unsafe abortionWomen seeking an abortion may use unsafe methods, especially when it is legally restricted. They may attempt self-induced abortion or seek the help of a person without proper medical training or facilities. This can lead to severe complications, such as incomplete abortion, sepsis, hemorrhage, and damage to internal organs.Unsafe abortions are a major cause of injury and death among women worldwide. Although data are imprecise, it is estimated that approximately 20 million unsafe abortions are performed annually, with 97% taking place in developing countries. Unsafe abortions are believed to result in millions of injuries. Estimates of deaths vary according to methodology, and have ranged from 37,000 to 70,000 in the past decade; deaths from unsafe abortion account for around 13% of all maternal deaths. The World Health Organization believes that mortality has fallen since the 1990s. To reduce the number of unsafe abortions, public health organizations have generally advocated emphasizing the legalization of abortion, training of medical personnel, and ensuring access to reproductive-health services. In response, opponents of abortion point out that abortion bans in no way affect prenatal care for women who choose to carry their fetus to term. The Dublin Declaration on Maternal Health, signed in 2012, notes, "the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women."A major factor in whether abortions are performed safely or not is the legal standing of abortion. Countries with restrictive abortion laws have higher rates of unsafe abortion and similar overall abortion rates compared to those where abortion is legal and available. For example, the 1996 legalization of abortion in South Africa had an immediate positive impact on the frequency of abortion-related complications, with abortion-related deaths dropping by more than 90%. Similar reductions in maternal mortality have been observed after other countries have liberalized their abortion laws, such as Romania and Nepal. A 2011 study concluded that in the United States, some state-level anti-abortion laws are correlated with lower rates of abortion in that state. The analysis, however, did not take into account travel to other states without such laws to obtain an abortion. In addition, a lack of access to effective contraception contributes to unsafe abortion. It has been estimated that the incidence of unsafe abortion could be reduced by up to 75% (from 20 million to 5 million annually) if modern family planning and maternal health services were readily available globally. Rates of such abortions may be difficult to measure because they can be reported variously as miscarriage, "induced miscarriage", "menstrual regulation", "mini-abortion", and "regulation of a delayed/suspended menstruation".Forty percent of the world's women are able to access therapeutic and elective abortions within gestational limits, while an additional 35 percent have access to legal abortion if they meet certain physical, mental, or socioeconomic criteria. While maternal mortality seldom results from safe abortions, unsafe abortions result in 70,000 deaths and 5 million disabilities per year. Complications of unsafe abortion account for approximately an eighth of maternal mortalities worldwide, though this varies by region. Secondary infertility caused by an unsafe abortion affects an estimated 24 million women. The rate of unsafe abortions has increased from 44% to 49% between 1995 and 2008. Health education, access to family planning, and improvements in health care during and after abortion have been proposed to address this phenomenon.IncidenceThere are two commonly used methods of measuring the incidence of abortion: Abortion rate – number of abortions annually per 1000 women between 15 and 44 years of age (some sources use a range of 15–49) Abortion percentage – number of abortions out of 100 known pregnancies (pregnancies include live births, abortions and miscarriages)In many places, where abortion is illegal or carries a heavy social stigma, medical reporting of abortion is not reliable. For this reason, estimates of the incidence of abortion must be made without determining certainty related to standard error.The number of abortions performed worldwide seems to have remained stable in recent years, with 41.6 million having been performed in 2003 and 43.8 million having been performed in 2008. The abortion rate worldwide was 28 per 1000 women per year, though it was 24 per 1000 women per year for developed countries and 29 per 1000 women per year for developing countries. The same 2012 study indicated that in 2008, the estimated abortion percentage of known pregnancies was at 21% worldwide, with 26% in developed countries and 20% in developing countries.On average, the incidence of abortion is similar in countries with restrictive abortion laws and those with more liberal access to abortion. However, restrictive abortion laws are associated with increases in the percentage of abortions performed unsafely. The unsafe abortion rate in developing countries is partly attributable to lack of access to modern contraceptives; according to the Guttmacher Institute, providing access to contraceptives would result in about 14.5 million fewer unsafe abortions and 38,000 fewer deaths from unsafe abortion annually worldwide.The rate of legal, induced abortion varies extensively worldwide. According to the report of employees of Guttmacher Institute it ranged from 7 per 1000 women per year (Germany and Switzerland) to 30 per 1000 women per year (Estonia) in countries with complete statistics in 2008. The proportion of pregnancies that ended in induced abortion ranged from about 10% (Israel, the Netherlands and Switzerland) to 30% (Estonia) in the same group, though it might be as high as 36% in Hungary and Romania, whose statistics were deemed incomplete.An American study in 2002 concluded that about half of women having abortions were using a form of contraception at the time of becoming pregnant. Inconsistent use was reported by half of those using condoms and three-quarters of those using the birth control pill; 42% of those using condoms reported failure through slipping or breakage. The Guttmacher Institute estimated that "most abortions in the United States are obtained by minority women" because minority women "have much higher rates of unintended pregnancy". In 2022, while people of color comprise 44% of the population in Mississippi, 59% of the population in Texas, 42% of the population in Louisiana, and 35% of the population in Alabama, they comprise 80%, 74%, 72%, and 70% of those receiving abortions.The abortion rate may also be expressed as the average number of abortions a woman has during her reproductive years; this is referred to as total abortion rate (TAR).Gestational age and methodAbortion rates also vary depending on the stage of pregnancy and the method practiced. In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 26% of reported legal induced abortions in the United States were known to have been obtained at less than 6 weeks' gestation, 18% at 7 weeks, 15% at 8 weeks, 18% at 9 through 10 weeks, 10% at 11 through 12 weeks, 6% at 13 through 15 weeks, 4% at 16 through 20 weeks and 1% at more than 21 weeks. 91% of these were classified as having been done by "curettage" (suction-aspiration, dilation and curettage, dilation and evacuation), 8% by "medical" means (mifepristone), >1% by "intrauterine instillation" (saline or prostaglandin), and 1% by "other" (including hysterotomy and hysterectomy). According to the CDC, due to data collection difficulties the data must be viewed as tentative and some fetal deaths reported beyond 20 weeks may be natural deaths erroneously classified as abortions if the removal of the dead fetus is accomplished by the same procedure as an induced abortion.The Guttmacher Institute estimated there were 2,200 intact dilation and extraction procedures in the US during 2000; this accounts for <0.2% of the total number of abortions performed that year. Similarly, in England and Wales in 2006, 89% of terminations occurred at or under 12 weeks, 9% between 13 and 19 weeks, and 2% at or over 20 weeks. 64% of those reported were by vacuum aspiration, 6% by D&E, and 30% were medical. There are more second trimester abortions in developing countries such as China, India and Vietnam than in developed countries.MotivationPersonalThe reasons why women have abortions are diverse and vary across the world. Some of the reasons may include an inability to afford a child, domestic violence, lack of support, feeling they are too young, and the wish to complete education or advance a career. Additional reasons include not being able or willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incestSocietalSome abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures. These might include the preference for children of a specific sex or race, disapproval of single or early motherhood, stigmatization of people with disabilities, insufficient economic support for families, lack of access to or rejection of contraceptive methods, or efforts toward population control (such as China's one-child policy). These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or sex-selective abortion.Maternal and fetal healthAn additional factor is maternal health which was listed as the main reason by about a third of women in 3 of 27 countries and about 7% of women in a further 7 of these 27 countries.In the U.S., the Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton: "ruled that the state's interest in the life of the fetus became compelling only at the point of viability, defined as the point at which the fetus can survive independently of its mother. Even after the point of viability, the state cannot favor the life of the fetus over the life or health of the pregnant woman. Under the right of privacy, physicians must be free to use their "medical judgment for the preservation of the life or health of the mother." On the same day that the Court decided Roe, it also decided Doe v. Bolton, in which the Court defined health very broadly: "The medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment."Public opinion shifted in America following television personality Sherri Finkbine's discovery during her fifth month of pregnancy that she had been exposed to thalidomide. Unable to obtain a legal abortion in the United States, she traveled to Sweden. From 1962 to 1965, an outbreak of German measles left 15,000 babies with severe birth defects. In 1967, the American Medical Association publicly supported liberalization of abortion laws. A National Opinion Research Center poll in 1965 showed 73% supported abortion when the mother's life was at risk, 57% when birth defects were present and 59% for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.CancerThe rate of cancer during pregnancy is 0.02–1%, and in many cases, cancer of the mother leads to consideration of abortion to protect the life of the mother, or in response to the potential damage that may occur to the fetus during treatment. This is particularly true for cervical cancer, the most common type of which occurs in 1 of every 2,000–13,000 pregnancies, for which initiation of treatment "cannot co-exist with preservation of fetal life (unless neoadjuvant chemotherapy is chosen)". Very early stage cervical cancers (I and IIa) may be treated by radical hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection, radiation therapy, or both, while later stages are treated by radiotherapy. Chemotherapy may be used simultaneously. Treatment of breast cancer during pregnancy also involves fetal considerations, because lumpectomy is discouraged in favor of modified radical mastectomy unless late-term pregnancy allows follow-up radiation therapy to be administered after the birth.Exposure to a single chemotherapy drug is estimated to cause a 7.5–17% risk of teratogenic effects on the fetus, with higher risks for multiple drug treatments. Treatment with more than 40 Gy of radiation usually causes spontaneous abortion. Exposure to much lower doses during the first trimester, especially 8 to 15 weeks of development, can cause intellectual disability or microcephaly, and exposure at this or subsequent stages can cause reduced intrauterine growth and birth weight. Exposures above 0.005–0.025 Gy cause a dose-dependent reduction in IQ. It is possible to greatly reduce exposure to radiation with abdominal shielding, depending on how far the area to be irradiated is from the fetus.The process of birth itself may also put the mother at risk. "Vaginal delivery may result in dissemination of neoplastic cells into lymphovascular channels, haemorrhage, cervical laceration and implantation of malignant cells in the episiotomy site, while abdominal delivery may delay the initiation of non-surgical treatment."History and religion Since ancient times abortions have been done using a number of methods, including herbal medicines, sharp tools, with force, or through other traditional methods. Induced abortion has a long history and can be traced back to civilizations as varied as ancient China (abortifacient knowledge is often attributed to the mythological ruler Shennong), ancient India since its Vedic age, ancient Egypt with its Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE), and the Roman Empire in the time of Juvenal (c. 200 CE). One of the earliest known artistic representations of abortion is in a bas relief at Angkor Wat (c. 1150). Found in a series of friezes that represent judgment after death in Hindu and Buddhist culture, it depicts the technique of abdominal abortion.Some medical scholars and abortion opponents have suggested that the Hippocratic Oath forbade Ancient Greek physicians from performing abortions; other scholars disagree with this interpretation, and state that the medical texts of Hippocratic Corpus contain descriptions of abortive techniques right alongside the Oath. The physician Scribonius Largus wrote in 43 CE that the Hippocratic Oath prohibits abortion, as did Soranus, although apparently not all doctors adhered to it strictly at the time. According to Soranus' 1st or 2nd century CE work Gynaecology, one party of medical practitioners banished all abortives as required by the Hippocratic Oath; the other party—to which he belonged—was willing to prescribe abortions, but only for the sake of the mother's health. Aristotle, in his treatise on government Politics (350 BCE), condemns infanticide as a means of population control. He preferred abortion in such cases, with the restriction "[that it] must be practised on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive".In Christianity, Pope Sixtus V (1585–90) was the first Pope before 1869 to declare that abortion is homicide regardless of the stage of pregnancy; and his pronouncement of 1588 was reversed three years later by Pope Gregory XIV. Through most of its history the Catholic Church was divided on whether it believed that early abortion was murder, and it did not begin vigorously opposing abortion until the 19th century. Several historians have written that prior to the 19th century most Catholic authors did not regard termination of pregnancy before "quickening" or "ensoulment" as an abortion. From 1750, excommunication became the punishment for abortions. Statements made in 1992 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the codified summary of the Church's teachings, opposed abortion.A 2014 Guttmacher survey of US abortion patients found that many reported a religious affiliation—24% were Catholic while 30% were Protestant.A 1995 survey reported that Catholic women are as likely as the general population to terminate a pregnancy, Protestants are less likely to do so, and Evangelical Christians are the least likely to do so. Islamic tradition has traditionally permitted abortion until a point in time when Muslims believe the soul enters the fetus, considered by various theologians to be at conception, 40 days after conception, 120 days after conception, or quickening. However, abortion is largely heavily restricted or forbidden in areas of high Islamic faith such as the Middle East and North Africa.In Europe and North America, abortion techniques advanced starting in the 17th century. However, the conservatism of most in the medical profession with regards to sexual matters prevented the wide expansion of abortion techniques. Other medical practitioners in addition to some physicians advertised their services, and they were not widely regulated until the 19th century, when the practice (sometimes called restellism) was banned in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Church groups as well as physicians were highly influential in anti-abortion movements. In the US, according to some sources, abortion was more dangerous than childbirth until about 1930 when incremental improvements in abortion procedures relative to childbirth made abortion safer. However, other sources maintain that in the 19th century early abortions under the hygienic conditions in which midwives usually worked were relatively safe.In addition, some commentators have written that, despite improved medical procedures, the period from the 1930s until legalization also saw more zealous enforcement of anti-abortion laws, and concomitantly an increasing control of abortion providers by organized crime.Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935), and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935, Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, abortion was legalized in a greater number of countries.Society and cultureAbortion debateInduced abortion has long been the source of considerable debate. Ethical, moral, philosophical, biological, religious and legal issues surrounding abortion are related to value systems. Opinions of abortion may be about fetal rights, governmental authority, and women's rights.In both public and private debate, arguments presented in favor of or against abortion access focus on either the moral permissibility of an induced abortion, or justification of laws permitting or restricting abortion. The World Medical Association Declaration on Therapeutic Abortion notes, "circumstances bringing the interests of a mother into conflict with the interests of her unborn child create a dilemma and raise the question as to whether or not the pregnancy should be deliberately terminated." Abortion debates, especially pertaining to abortion laws, are often spearheaded by groups advocating one of these two positions. Groups who favor greater legal restrictions on abortion, including complete prohibition, most often describe themselves as "pro-life" while groups who are against such legal restrictions describe themselves as "pro-choice". Generally, the former position argues that a human fetus is a human person with a right to live, making abortion morally the same as murder. The latter position argues that a woman has certain reproductive rights, especially the right to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.Modern abortion lawCurrent laws pertaining to abortion are diverse. Religious, moral, and cultural factors continue to influence abortion laws throughout the world. The right to life, the right to liberty, the right to security of person, and the right to reproductive health are major issues of human rights that sometimes constitute the basis for the existence or absence of abortion laws.In jurisdictions where abortion is legal, certain requirements must often be met before a woman may obtain a legal abortion (an abortion performed without the woman's consent is considered feticide). These requirements usually depend on the age of the fetus, often using a trimester-based system to regulate the window of legality, or as in the U.S., on a doctor's evaluation of the fetus' viability. Some jurisdictions require a waiting period before the procedure, prescribe the distribution of information on fetal development, or require that parents be contacted if their minor daughter requests an abortion. Other jurisdictions may require that a woman obtain the consent of the fetus' father before aborting the fetus, that abortion providers inform women of health risks of the procedure—sometimes including "risks" not supported by the medical literature—and that multiple medical authorities certify that the abortion is either medically or socially necessary. Many restrictions are waived in emergency situations. China, which has ended their one-child policy, and now has a two child policy, has at times incorporated mandatory abortions as part of their population control strategy.Other jurisdictions ban abortion almost entirely. Many, but not all, of these allow legal abortions in a variety of circumstances. These circumstances vary based on jurisdiction, but may include whether the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, the fetus' development is impaired, the woman's physical or mental well-being is endangered, or socioeconomic considerations make childbirth a hardship. In countries where abortion is banned entirely, such as Nicaragua, medical authorities have recorded rises in maternal death directly and indirectly due to pregnancy as well as deaths due to doctors' fears of prosecution if they treat other gynecological emergencies. Some countries, such as Bangladesh, that nominally ban abortion, may also support clinics that perform abortions under the guise of menstrual hygiene. This is also a terminology in traditional medicine. In places where abortion is illegal or carries heavy social stigma, pregnant women may engage in medical tourism and travel to countries where they can terminate their pregnancies. Women without the means to travel can resort to providers of illegal abortions or attempt to perform an abortion by themselves.The organization Women on Waves has been providing education about medical abortions since 1999. The NGO created a mobile medical clinic inside a shipping container, which then travels on rented ships to countries with restrictive abortion laws. Because the ships are registered in the Netherlands, Dutch law prevails when the ship is in international waters. While in port, the organization provides free workshops and education; while in international waters, medical personnel are legally able to prescribe medical abortion drugs and counseling.Sex-selective abortionSonography and amniocentesis allow parents to determine sex before childbirth. The development of this technology has led to sex-selective abortion, or the termination of a fetus based on its sex. The selective termination of a female fetus is most common.Sex-selective abortion is partially responsible for the noticeable disparities between the birth rates of male and female children in some countries. The preference for male children is reported in many areas of Asia, and abortion used to limit female births has been reported in Taiwan, South Korea, India, and China. This deviation from the standard birth rates of males and females occurs despite the fact that the country in question may have officially banned sex-selective abortion or even sex-screening. In China, a historical preference for a male child has been exacerbated by the one-child policy, which was enacted in 1979.Many countries have taken legislative steps to reduce the incidence of sex-selective abortion. At the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 over 180 states agreed to eliminate "all forms of discrimination against the girl child and the root causes of son preference", conditions also condemned by a PACE resolution in 2011. The World Health Organization and UNICEF, along with other United Nations agencies, have found that measures to reduce access to abortion are much less effective at reducing sex-selective abortions than measures to reduce gender inequality.Anti-abortion violenceIn a number of cases, abortion providers and these facilities have been subjected to various forms of violence, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, stalking, assault, arson, and bombing. Anti-abortion violence is classified by both governmental and scholarly sources as terrorism. In the U.S. and Canada, over 8,000 incidents of violence, trespassing, and death threats have been recorded by providers since 1977, including over 200 bombings/arsons and hundreds of assaults. The majority of abortion opponents have not been involved in violent acts.In the United States, four physicians who performed abortions have been murdered: David Gunn (1993), John Britton (1994), Barnett Slepian (1998), and George Tiller (2009). Also murdered, in the U.S. and Australia, have been other personnel at abortion clinics, including receptionists and security guards such as James Barrett, Shannon Lowney, Lee Ann Nichols, and Robert Sanderson. Woundings (e.g., Garson Romalis) and attempted murders have also taken place in the United States and Canada. Hundreds of bombings, arsons, acid attacks, invasions, and incidents of vandalism against abortion providers have occurred. Notable perpetrators of anti-abortion violence include Eric Robert Rudolph, Scott Roeder, Shelley Shannon, and Paul Jennings Hill, the first person to be executed in the United States for murdering an abortion provider.Legal protection of access to abortion has been brought into some countries where abortion is legal. These laws typically seek to protect abortion clinics from obstruction, vandalism, picketing, and other actions, or to protect women and employees of such facilities from threats and harassment.Far more common than physical violence is psychological pressure. In 2003, Chris Danze organized anti-abortion organizations throughout Texas to prevent the construction of a Planned Parenthood facility in Austin. The organizations released the personal information online, of those involved with construction, sending them up to 1200 phone calls a day and contacting their churches. Some protestors record women entering clinics on camera.Non-human examplesSpontaneous abortion occurs in various animals. For example, in sheep it may be caused by stress or physical exertion, such as crowding through doors or being chased by dogs. In cows, abortion may be caused by contagious disease, such as brucellosis or Campylobacter, but can often be controlled by vaccination. Eating pine needles can also induce abortions in cows.Several plants, including broomweed, skunk cabbage, poison hemlock, and tree tobacco, are known to cause fetal deformities and abortion in cattle and in sheep and goats. In horses, a fetus may be aborted or resorbed if it has lethal white syndrome (congenital intestinal aganglionosis). Foal embryos that are homozygous for the dominant white gene (WW) are theorized to also be aborted or resorbed before birth. In many species of sharks and rays, stress-induced abortions occur frequently on capture.Viral infection can cause abortion in dogs. Cats can experience spontaneous abortion for many reasons, including hormonal imbalance. A combined abortion and spaying is performed on pregnant cats, especially in trap–neuter–return programs, to prevent unwanted kittens from being born.Female rodents may terminate a pregnancy when exposed to the smell of a male not responsible for the pregnancy, known as the Bruce effect.Abortion may also be induced in animals, in the context of animal husbandry. For example, abortion may be induced in mares that have been mated improperly, or that have been purchased by owners who did not realize the mares were pregnant, or that are pregnant with twin foals. Feticide can occur in horses and zebras due to male harassment of pregnant mares or forced copulation, although the frequency in the wild has been questioned. Male gray langur monkeys may attack females following male takeover, causing miscarriage.NotesReferencesBibliographyExternal links First-trimester abortion in women with medical conditions. US Department of Health and Human Services Safe abortion: Technical & policy guidance for health systems, World Health Organization (2015) Human reproductionWikipedia medicine articles ready to translateWikipedia emergency medicine articles ready to translate
In law, an abstract is a brief statement that contains the most important points of a long legal document or of several related legal papers.Abstract of titleThe abstract of title, used in real estate transactions, is the more common form of abstract. An abstract of title lists all the owners of a piece of land, a house, or a building before it came into possession of the present owner. The abstract also records all deeds, wills, mortgages, and other documents that affect ownership of the property. An abstract describes a chain of transfers from owner to owner and any agreements by former owners that are binding on later owners.Patent lawIn the context of patent law and specifically in prior art searches, searching through abstracts is a common way to find relevant prior art document to question to novelty or inventive step (or non-obviousness in United States patent law) of an invention. Under United States patent law, the abstract may be called "Abstract of the Disclosure".ReferencesExternal links  , defining the requirements regarding the abstract in an international application filed under Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)  and  (previously ), defining the abstract-related requirements in a European patent applicationLegal research
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, secured a United States of America independent from Great Britain. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by France and Spain, conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and Atlantic Ocean. It ended on September 3, 1783 when Britain accepted American independence in the Treaty of Paris, while the Treaties of Versailles resolved separate conflicts with France and Spain.  Established by Royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries, the American colonies were largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain and its Caribbean colonies, as well as other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. After British victory in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions arose over trade, colonial policy in the Northwest Territory and taxation measures, including the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. Colonial opposition led to the 1770 Boston Massacre and 1773 Boston Tea Party, with Parliament responding by imposing the so-called Intolerable Acts. Established on September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress drafted a Petition to the King and organized a boycott of British goods. Despite attempts to achieve a peaceful solution, fighting began with the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775 and in June Congress authorized George Washington to create a Continental Army. Although the "coercion policy" advocated by the North ministry was opposed by a faction within Parliament, both sides increasingly viewed conflict as inevitable. The Olive Branch Petition sent by Congress to George III in July 1775 was rejected and in August Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion.   Following the loss of Boston in March 1776, Sir William Howe, the new British commander-in-chief, launched the New York and New Jersey campaign. He captured New York City in November, before Washington won small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton, which restored Patriot confidence. In summer 1777, Howe succeeded in taking Philadelphia, but in October a separate force under John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga. This victory was crucial in convincing powers like France and Spain an independent United States was a viable entity.  France provided the US informal economic and military support from the beginning of the rebellion, and after Saratoga the two countries signed a commercial agreement and a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In return for a guarantee of independence, Congress joined France in its global war with Britain and agreed to defend the French West Indies. Spain also allied with France against Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez (1779), though it did not formally ally with the Americans. Nevertheless, access to ports in Spanish Louisiana allowed the Patriots to import arms and supplies, while the Spanish Gulf Coast campaign deprived the Royal Navy of key bases in the south. This undermined the 1778 strategy devised by Howe's replacement, Sir Henry Clinton, which took the war into the Southern United States. Despite some initial success, by September 1781 Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American force in Yorktown. After an attempt to resupply the garrison failed, Cornwallis surrendered in October, and although the British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, this ended fighting in North America. In April 1782, the North ministry was replaced by a new British government which accepted American independence and began negotiating the Treaty of Paris, ratified on September 3, 1783.Prelude to revolution  The French and Indian War, part of the wider global conflict known as the Seven Years' War, ended with the 1763 Peace of Paris, which expelled France from its possessions in New France. Acquisition of territories in Atlantic Canada and West Florida, inhabited largely by French or Spanish-speaking Catholics, led the British authorities to consolidate their hold by populating them with English-speaking settlers. Preventing conflict between settlers and Native American tribes west of the Appalachian Mountains would also avoid the cost of an expensive military occupation. The Proclamation Line of 1763 was designed to achieve these aims by refocusing colonial expansion north into Nova Scotia and south into Florida, with the Mississippi River as the dividing line between British and Spanish possessions in the Americas. Settlement beyond the 1763 limits was tightly restricted, while claims by individual colonies west of this line were rescinded, most significantly Virginia and Massachusetts who argued their boundaries extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Ultimately the vast exchange of territory destabilized existing alliances and trade networks between settlers and Native Americans in the west, while it proved impossible to prevent encroachment beyond the Proclamation Line. With the exception of Virginia and others "deprived" of their rights in the western lands, the colonial legislatures generally agreed on the principle of boundaries but disagreed on where to set them, while many settlers resented the restrictions. Since enforcement required permanent garrisons along the frontier, it led to increasingly bitter disputes over who should pay for them.Taxation and legislationAlthough directly administered by the Crown, acting through a local Governor, the colonies were largely governed by native-born property owners. While external affairs were managed by London, colonial militia were funded locally but with the ending of the French threat in 1763, the legislatures expected less taxation, not more. At the same time, the huge debt incurred by the Seven Years' War and demands from British taxpayers for cuts in government expenditure meant Parliament expected the colonies to fund their own defense. The 1763 to 1765 Grenville ministry instructed the Royal Navy to stop the trade of smuggled goods and enforce customs duties levied in American ports. The most important was the 1733 Molasses Act; routinely ignored prior to 1763, it had a significant economic impact since 85% of New England rum exports were manufactured from imported molasses. These measures were followed by the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, which imposed additional taxes on the colonies to pay for defending the western frontier. In July 1765, the Whigs formed the First Rockingham ministry, which repealed the Stamp Act and reduced tax on foreign molasses to help the New England economy, but re-asserted Parliamentary authority in the Declaratory Act.However, this did little to end the discontent; in 1768, a riot started in Boston when the authorities seized the sloop Liberty on suspicion of smuggling. Tensions escalated further in March 1770 when British troops fired on rock-throwing civilians, killing five in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The Massacre coincided with the partial repeal of the Townshend Acts by the Tory-based North Ministry, which came to power in January 1770 and remained in office until 1781. North insisted on retaining duty on tea to enshrine Parliament's right to tax the colonies; the amount was minor, but ignored the fact it was that very principle Americans found objectionable.Tensions escalated following the destruction of a customs vessel in the June 1772 Gaspee Affair, then came to a head in 1773. A banking crisis led to the near-collapse of the East India Company, which dominated the British economy; to support it, Parliament passed the Tea Act, giving it a trading monopoly in the Thirteen Colonies. Since most American tea was smuggled by the Dutch, the Act was opposed by those who managed the illegal trade, while being seen as yet another attempt to impose the principle of taxation by Parliament. In December 1773, a group called the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk natives dumped 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor, an event later known as the Boston Tea Party. Parliament responded by passing the so-called Intolerable Acts, aimed specifically at Massachusetts, although many colonists and members of the Whig opposition considered them a threat to liberty in general. This led to increased sympathy for the Patriot cause locally, as well as in Parliament and the London press.Break with the British CrownOver the course of the 18th century, the elected lower houses in the colonial legislatures gradually wrested power from their Royal Governors. Dominated by smaller landowners and merchants, these Assemblies now established ad hoc provincial legislatures, variously called Congresses, Conventions, and Conferences, effectively replacing Royal control. With the exception of Georgia, twelve colonies sent representatives to the First Continental Congress to agree on a unified response to the crisis. Many of the delegates feared that an all-out boycott would result in war and sent a Petition to the King calling for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts. However, after some debate, on September 17, 1774, Congress endorsed the Massachusetts Suffolk Resolves and on October 20 passed the Continental Association; based on a draft prepared by the First Virginia Convention in August, this instituted economic sanctions against Britain.While denying its authority over internal American affairs, a faction led by James Duane and future Loyalist Joseph Galloway insisted Congress recognize Parliament's right to regulate colonial trade.  Expecting concessions by the North administration, Congress authorized the extralegal committees and conventions of the colonial legislatures to enforce the boycott; this succeeded in reducing British imports by 97% from 1774 to 1775. However, on February 9 Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion and instituted a blockade of the colony. In July, the Restraining Acts limited colonial trade with the British West Indies and Britain and barred New England ships from the Newfoundland cod fisheries. The increase in tension led to a scramble for control of militia stores, which each Assembly was legally obliged to maintain for defense. On April 19, a British attempt to secure the Concord arsenal culminated in the Battles of Lexington and Concord which began the war.Political reactionsAfter the Patriot victory at Concord, moderates in Congress led by John Dickinson drafted the Olive Branch Petition, offering to accept royal authority in return for George III mediating in the dispute. However, since it was immediately followed by the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, Colonial Secretary Dartmouth viewed the offer as insincere; he refused to present the petition to the king, which was therefore rejected in early September. Although constitutionally correct, since George could not oppose his own government, it disappointed those Americans who hoped he would mediate in the dispute, while the hostility of his language annoyed even Loyalist members of Congress. Combined with the Proclamation of Rebellion, issued on August 23 in response to the Battle at Bunker Hill, it ended hopes of a peaceful settlement.Backed by the Whigs, Parliament initially rejected the imposition of coercive measures by 170 votes, fearing an aggressive policy would simply drive the Americans towards independence. However, by the end of 1774 the collapse of British authority meant both North and George III were convinced war was inevitable. After Boston, Gage halted operations and awaited reinforcements; the Irish Parliament approved the recruitment of new regiments, while allowing Catholics to enlist for the first time. Britain also signed a series of treaties with German states to supply additional troops. Within a year it had an army of over 32,000 men in America, the largest ever sent outside Europe at the time.The employment of German mercenaries and Catholics against people viewed as British citizens was opposed by many in Parliament, as well as the colonial assemblies; combined with the lack of activity by Gage, it allowed the Patriots to take control of the legislatures. Support for independence was boosted by Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, which argued for American self-government, that was widely reprinted. To draft the Declaration of Independence, Congress appointed the Committee of Five, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. Identifying inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies as "one people", it simultaneously dissolved political links with Britain, while including a long list of alleged violations of "English rights" committed by George III.On July 2, Congress voted for independence and published the declaration on July 4, which Washington read to his troops in New York City on July 9. At this point, the Revolution ceased to be an internal dispute over trade and tax policies and became a civil war, since each state represented in Congress was engaged in a struggle with Britain, but also split between Patriots and Loyalists. Patriots generally supported independence from Britain and a new national union in Congress, while Loyalists remained faithful to British rule. Estimates of numbers vary, one suggestion being the population as a whole was split evenly between committed Patriots, committed Loyalists and those who were indifferent. Others calculate the spilt as 40% Patriot, 40% neutral, 20% Loyalist, but with considerable regional variations.At the onset of the war, Congress realized defeating Britain required foreign alliances and intelligence-gathering. The Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed for "the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain and other parts of the world". From 1775 to 1776, it shared information and built alliances through secret correspondence, as well as employing secret agents in Europe to gather intelligence, conduct undercover operations, analyze foreign publications and initiate Patriot propaganda campaigns. Paine served as secretary, while Silas Deane was instrumental in securing French aid in Paris.War breaks outAs the American Revolutionary War unfolded in North America, there were two principal campaign theaters within the thirteen states, and a smaller but strategically important one west of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River and north to the Great Lakes. The full-on military campaigning began in the states north of Maryland, and fighting was most frequent and severest there between 1775 and 1778. Patriots achieved several strategic victories in the South, the British lost their first army at Saratoga, and the French entered the war as an American ally.In the expanded Northern theater and wintering at Valley Forge, General Washington observed British operations coming out of New York at the 1778 Battle of Monmouth. He then closed off British initiatives by a series of raids that contained the British army in New York City. The same year, Spanish-supplied Virginia Colonel George Rogers Clark joined by Francophone settlers and their Indian allies conquered Western Quebec, the US Northwest Territory.Starting in 1779, the British initiated a southern strategy to begin at Savannah, gather Loyalist support, and reoccupy Patriot-controlled territory north to Chesapeake Bay. Initially the British were successful, and the Americans lost an entire army at the siege of Charleston, which caused a severe setback for Patriots in the region. But then British maneuvering north led to a combined American and French force cornering a second British army at Battle of Yorktown, and their surrender effectively ended the Revolutionary War.Early engagementsOn April 14, 1775, Sir Thomas Gage, Commander-in-Chief, North America since 1763 and also Governor of Massachusetts from 1774, received orders to take action against the Patriots. He decided to destroy militia ordnance stored at Concord, Massachusetts, and capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were considered the principal instigators of the rebellion. The operation was to begin around midnight on April 19, in the hope of completing it before the Patriots could respond. However, Paul Revere learned of the plan and notified Captain Parker, commander of the Concord militia, who prepared to resist the attempted seizure. British troops clashed with colonial forces at Lexington and Concord, suffering around 300 casualties before withdrawing to Boston, which was then besieged by the militia.In May, 4,500 British reinforcements arrived under Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Sir Henry Clinton. On June 17, they seized the Charlestown Peninsula at the Battle of Bunker Hill, a frontal assault in which they suffered over 1,000 casualties. Dismayed at the costly attack which had gained them little, Gage appealed to London for a larger army to suppress the revolt, but instead was replaced as commander by Howe.On June 14, 1775, Congress took control of Patriot forces outside Boston, and Congressional leader John Adams nominated George Washington as commander-in-chief of the new Continental Army. Washington previously commanded Virginia militia regiments in the French and Indian War,  and on June 16, John Hancock officially proclaimed him "General and Commander in Chief of the army of the United Colonies." On July 3, He assumed command on July 3, preferring to fortify Dorchester Heights outside Boston rather than assaulting it. In early March 1776, Colonel Henry Knox arrived with heavy artillery acquired in the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga. Under cover of darkness, on March 5 Washington placed these on Dorchester Heights, from where they could fire on the town and British ships in Boston Harbor. Fearing another Bunker Hill, Howe evacuated the city on March 17 without further loss and sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, while Washington moved south to New York City.Beginning in August 1775, American privateers raided towns in Nova Scotia, including Saint John, Charlottetown and Yarmouth. In 1776, John Paul Jones and Jonathan Eddy attacked Canso and Fort Cumberland respectively. British officials in Quebec began negotiating with the Iroquois for their support, while the Americans urged them to maintain neutrality. Aware of Native American leanings toward the British and fearing an Anglo-Indian attack from Canada, Congress authorized an invasion of Quebec in April 1775. A second American invasion was defeated at the Battle of Quebec on December 31, and after a loose siege the Americans withdrew on May 6, 1776. A failed counter-attack at Trois-Rivières on June 8 ended American operations in Quebec. However, British pursuit was blocked by American ships on Lake Champlain until they were cleared on October 11 at the Battle of Valcour Island. The American troops were forced to withdraw to Fort Ticonderoga, ending the campaign. In November 1776, a Massachusetts-sponsored uprising in Nova Scotia during the Battle of Fort Cumberland was dispersed. The cumulative failures cost the Patriots support in local public opinion, and aggressive anti-Loyalist policies in the New England colonies alienated the Canadians. The Patriots made no further attempts to invade north.In Virginia, an attempt by Governor Lord Dunmore to seize militia stores on April 20 1775 led to an increase in tension, although conflict was avoided for the time being. This changed after the publication of Dunmore's Proclamation on November 7, 1775, promising freedom to any slaves who fled their Patriot masters and agreed to fight for the Crown. British forces were defeated at Great Bridge on December 9 and took refuge on British ships anchored near the port of Norfolk. When the Third Virginia Convention refused to disband its militia or accept martial law, Dunmore ordered the Burning of Norfolk on January 1, 1776.The siege of Savage's Old Fields began on November 19 in South Carolina between Loyalist and Patriot militias, and the Loyalists were subsequently driven out of the colony in the Snow Campaign. Loyalists were recruited in North Carolina to reassert British rule in the South, but they were decisively defeated in the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. A British expedition sent to reconquer South Carolina launched an attack on Charleston in the Battle of Sullivan's Island on June 28, 1776, but it failed and left the South under Patriot control until 1780.A shortage of gunpowder led Congress to authorize a naval expedition against The Bahamas to secure ordnance stored there. On March 3, 1776, an American squadron landed at Nassau and encountered minimal resistance, confiscating what supplies they could before sailing for home on March 17. A month later, after a brief skirmish with , they returned to New London, Connecticut, the base for American naval operations during the Revolution.British New York counter-offensiveAfter regrouping at Halifax, Nova Scotia, William Howe was determined to take the fight to the Americans. He sailed for New York in June 1776 and began landing troops on Staten Island near the entrance to New York Harbor on July 2. The Americans rejected Howe's informal attempt to negotiate peace on July 30; Washington knew that an attack on the city was imminent and realized that he needed advance information to deal with disciplined British regular troops. On August 12, 1776, Patriot Thomas Knowlton was given orders to form an elite group for reconnaissance and secret missions. Knowlton's Rangers, which included Nathan Hale, became the Army's first intelligence unit. When Washington was driven off Long Island he soon realized that he would need more than military might and amateur spies to defeat the British. He was committed to professionalizing military intelligence, and with the aid of Benjamin Tallmadge, they launched the six-man Culper spy ring. The efforts of Washington and the Culper Spy Ring substantially increased effective allocation and deployment of Continental regiments in the field. Over the course of the war Washington spent more than 10 percent of his total military funds on intelligence operations.Washington split his army into positions on Manhattan Island and across the East River in western Long Island. On August 27 at the Battle of Long Island, Howe outflanked Washington and forced him back to Brooklyn Heights, but he did not attempt to encircle Washington's forces. Through the night of August 28, General Henry Knox bombarded the British. Knowing they were up against overwhelming odds, Washington ordered the assembly of a war council on August 29; all agreed to retreat to Manhattan. Washington quickly had his troops assembled and ferried them across the East River to Manhattan on flat-bottomed freight boats without any losses in men or ordnance, leaving General Thomas Mifflin's regiments as a rearguard.General Howe officially met with a delegation from Congress at the September Staten Island Peace Conference, but it failed to conclude peace as the British delegates only had the authority to offer pardons and could not recognize independence. On September 15, Howe seized control of New York City when the British landed at Kip's Bay and unsuccessfully engaged the Americans at the Battle of Harlem Heights the following day. On October 18 Howe failed to encircle the Americans at the Battle of Pell's Point, and the Americans withdrew. Howe declined to close with Washington's army on October 28 at the Battle of White Plains, and instead attacked a hill that was of no strategic value.Washington's retreat isolated his remaining forces and the British captured Fort Washington on November 16. The British victory there amounted to Washington's most disastrous defeat with the loss of 3,000 prisoners. The remaining American regiments on Long Island fell back four days later. General Sir Henry Clinton wanted to pursue Washington's disorganized army, but he was first required to commit 6,000 troops to capture Newport, Rhode Island to secure the Loyalist port. General Charles Cornwallis pursued Washington, but Howe ordered him to halt, leaving Washington unmolested.The outlook was bleak for the American cause: the reduced army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men and would be reduced further when enlistments expired at the end of the year. Popular support wavered, morale declined, and Congress abandoned Philadelphia and moved to Baltimore. Loyalist activity surged in the wake of the American defeat, especially in New York state.In London, news of the victorious Long Island campaign was well received with festivities held in the capital. Public support reached a peak, and King George III awarded the Order of the Bath to Howe. Strategic deficiencies among Patriot forces were evident: Washington divided a numerically weaker army in the face of a stronger one, his inexperienced staff misread the military situation, and American troops fled in the face of enemy fire. The successes led to predictions that the British could win within a year. In the meantime, the British established winter quarters in the New York City area and anticipated renewed campaigning the following spring.Two weeks after Congress withdrew to safer Maryland, Washington crossed the ice-choked Delaware River about 30 miles upriver from Philadelphia on the night of December 25–26, 1776. His approach over frozen trails surprised Hessian Colonel Johann Rall. The Continentals overwhelmed the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, and took 900 prisoners. The celebrated victory rescued the American army's flagging morale, gave new hope to the Patriot cause, and dispelled much of the fear of professional Hessian "mercenaries". Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton but was repulsed at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek; in the night of January 2, Washington outmaneuvered Cornwallis and defeated his rearguard in the Battle of Princeton the following day. The two victories helped to convince the French that the Americans were worthy military allies.Washington entered winter quarters from January to May 1778 at Morristown, New Jersey, and he received the Congressional direction to inoculate all Continental troops against smallpox. Although a Forage War between the armies continued until March, Howe did not attempt to attack the Americans over the winter of 1776–1777.British northern strategy failsThe 1776 campaign demonstrated regaining New England would be a prolonged affair, which led to a change in British strategy. This involved isolating the north from the rest of the country by taking control of the Hudson River, allowing them to focus on the south where Loyalist support was believed to be substantial. In December 1776, Howe wrote to the Colonial Secretary Lord Germain, proposing a limited offensive against Philadelphia, while a second force moved down the Hudson from Canada. Germain received this on February 23, 1777, followed a few days later by a memorandum from Burgoyne, then in London on leave.Burgoyne supplied several alternatives, all of which gave him responsibility for the offensive, with Howe remaining on the defensive. The option selected required him to lead the main force south from Montreal down the Hudson Valley, while a detachment under Barry St. Leger moved east from Lake Ontario. The two would meet at Albany, leaving Howe to decide whether to join them. Reasonable in principle, this did not account for the logistical difficulties involved and Burgoyne erroneously assumed Howe would remain on the defensive; Germain's failure to make this clear meant he opted to attack Philadelphia instead.Burgoyne set out on June 14, 1777, with a mixed force of British regulars, German auxiliaries and Canadian militia, and captured Fort Ticonderoga on July 5. As General Horatio Gates retreated, his troops blocked roads, destroyed bridges, dammed streams, and stripped the area of food. This slowed Burgoyne's progress and forced him to send out large foraging expeditions; on one of these, more than 700 British troops were captured at the Battle of Bennington on August 16. St Leger moved east and besieged Fort Stanwix; despite defeating an American relief force at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, he was abandoned by his Indian allies and withdrew to Quebec on August 22. Now isolated and outnumbered by Gates, Burgoyne continued onto Albany rather than retreating to Fort Ticonderoga, reaching Saratoga on September 13. He asked Clinton for support while constructing defenses around the town.Morale among his troops rapidly declined, and an unsuccessful attempt to break past Gates at the Battle of Freeman Farms on September 19 resulted in 600 British casualties. When Clinton advised he could not reach them, Burgoyne's subordinates advised retreat; a reconnaissance in force on October 7 was repulsed by Gates at the Battle of Bemis Heights, forcing them back into Saratoga with heavy losses. By October 11, all hope of escape had vanished; persistent rain reduced the camp to a "squalid hell" of mud and starving cattle, supplies were dangerously low and many of the wounded in agony. Burgoyne capitulated on October 17; around 6,222 soldiers, including German forces commanded by General Riedesel, surrendered their arms before being taken to Boston, where they were to be transported to England.After securing additional supplies, Howe made another attempt on Philadelphia by landing his troops in Chesapeake Bay on August 24. He now compounded failure to support Burgoyne by missing repeated opportunities to destroy his opponent, defeating Washington at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, then allowing him to withdraw in good order. After dispersing an American detachment at Paoli on September 20, Cornwallis occupied Philadelphia on September 26, with the main force of 9,000 under Howe based just to the north at Germantown. Washington attacked them on October 4, but was repulsed.To prevent Howe's forces in Philadelphia being resupplied by sea, the Patriots erected Fort Mifflin and nearby Fort Mercer on the east and west banks of the Delaware respectively, and placed obstacles in the river south of the city. This was supported by a small flotilla of Continental Navy ships on the Delaware, supplemented by the Pennsylvania State Navy, commanded by John Hazelwood. An attempt by the Royal Navy to take the forts in the October 20 to 22 Battle of Red Bank failed; a second attack captured Fort Mifflin on November 16, while Fort Mercer was abandoned two days later when Cornwallis breached the walls. His supply lines secured, Howe tried to tempt Washington into giving battle, but after inconclusive skirmishing at the Battle of White Marsh from December 5 to 8, he withdrew to Philadelphia for the winter.On December 19, the Americans followed suit and entered winter quarters at Valley Forge; while Washington's domestic opponents contrasted his lack of battlefield success with Gates' victory at Saratoga, foreign observers such as Frederick the Great were equally impressed with Germantown, which demonstrated resilience and determination. Over the winter, poor conditions, supply problems and low morale resulted in 2,000 deaths, with another 3,000 unfit for duty due to lack of shoes. However, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben took the opportunity to introduce Prussian Army drill and infantry tactics to the entire Continental Army; he did this by training "model companies" in each regiment, who then instructed their home units. Despite Valley Forge being only twenty miles away, Howe made no effort to attack their camp, an action some critics argue could have ended the war.Foreign interventionLike his predecessors, French foreign minister Vergennes considered the 1763 Peace a national humiliation* and viewed the war as an opportunity to weaken Britain. He initially avoided open conflict, but allowed American ships to take on cargoes in French ports, a technical violation of neutrality. Although public opinion favored the American cause, Finance Minister Turgot argued they did not need French help to gain independence and war was too expensive. Instead, Vergennes persuaded Louis XVI to secretly fund a government front company to purchase munitions for the Patriots, carried in neutral Dutch ships and imported through Sint Eustatius in the Caribbean.Many Americans opposed a French alliance, fearing to "exchange one tyranny for another", but this changed after a series of military setbacks in early 1776. As France had nothing to gain from the colonies reconciling with Britain, Congress had three choices; making peace on British terms, continuing the struggle on their own, or proclaiming independence, guaranteed by France. Although the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 had wide public support, Adams was among those reluctant to pay the price of an alliance with France, and over 20% of Congressmen voted against it. Congress agreed to the treaty with reluctance and as the war moved in their favor increasingly lost interest in it.Silas Deane was sent to Paris to begin negotiations with Vergennes, whose key objectives were replacing Britain as the United States' primary commercial and military partner while securing the French West Indies from American expansion. These islands were extremely valuable; in 1772, the value of sugar and coffee produced by Saint-Domingue on its own exceeded that of all American exports combined. Talks progressed slowly until October 1777, when British defeat at Saratoga and their apparent willingness to negotiate peace convinced Vergennes only a permanent alliance could prevent the "disaster" of Anglo-American rapprochement. Assurances of formal French support allowed Congress to reject the Carlisle Peace Commission and insist on nothing short of complete independence.On February 6, 1778, France and the United States signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce regulating trade between the two countries, followed by a defensive military alliance against Britain, the Treaty of Alliance. In return for French guarantees of American independence, Congress undertook to defend their interests in the West Indies, while both sides agreed not to make a separate peace; conflict over these provisions would lead to the 1798 to 1800 Quasi-War. Charles III of Spain was invited to join on the same terms but refused, largely due to concerns over the impact of the Revolution on Spanish colonies in the Americas. Spain had complained on multiple occasions about encroachment by American settlers into Louisiana, a problem that could only get worse once the United States replaced Britain.Although Spain ultimately made important contributions to American success, in the Treaty of Aranjuez (1779), Charles agreed only to support France's war with Britain outside America, in return for help in recovering Gibraltar, Menorca and Spanish Florida. The terms were confidential since several conflicted with American aims; for example, the French claimed exclusive control of the Newfoundland cod fisheries, a non-negotiable for colonies like Massachusetts. One less well-known impact of this agreement was the abiding American distrust of 'foreign entanglements'; the US would not sign another treaty until the NATO agreement in 1949. This was because the US had agreed not to make peace without France, while Aranjuez committed France to keep fighting until Spain recovered Gibraltar, effectively making it a condition of US independence without the knowledge of Congress.To encourage French participation in the struggle for independence, the US representative in Paris, Silas Deane promised promotion and command positions to any French officer who joined the Continental Army. Although many proved incompetent, one outstanding exception was Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, whom Congress appointed a major General. In addition to his military ability, Lafayette showed considerable political skill in building support for Washington among his officers and within Congress, liaising with French army and naval commanders, and promoting the Patriot cause in France.When the war started, Britain tried to borrow the Dutch-based Scots Brigade for service in America, but pro-Patriot sentiment led the States General to refuse. Although the Republic was no longer a major power, prior to 1774 they still dominated the European carrying trade, and Dutch merchants made large profits shipping French-supplied munitions to the Patriots. This ended when Britain declared war in December 1780, a conflict that proved disastrous to the Dutch economy. The Dutch were also excluded from the First League of Armed Neutrality, formed by Russia, Sweden and Denmark in March 1780 to protect neutral shipping from being stopped and searched for contraband by Britain and France.The British government failed to take into account the strength of the American merchant marine and support from European countries, which allowed the colonies to import munitions and continue trading with relative impunity. While well aware of this, the North administration delayed placing the Royal Navy on a war footing for cost reasons; this prevented the institution of an effective blockade and restricted them to ineffectual diplomatic protests. Traditional British policy was to employ European land-based allies to divert the opposition, a role filled by Prussia in the Seven Years' War; in 1778, they were diplomatically isolated and faced war on multiple fronts.Meanwhile, George III had given up on subduing America while Britain had a European war to fight. He did not welcome war with France, but he believed the British victories over France in the Seven Years' War as a reason to believe in ultimate victory over France. Britain could not find a powerful ally among the Great Powers to engage France on the European continent. Britain subsequently changed its focus into the Caribbean theater, and diverted major military resources away from America.Vergennes colleague "For her honour, France had to seize this opportunity to rise from her degradation......"If she neglected it, if fear overcame duty, she would add debasement to humiliation, and become an object of contempt to her own century and to all future peoples".Stalemate in the NorthAt the end of 1777, Howe resigned and was replaced by Sir Henry Clinton on May 24, 1778; with French entry into the war, he was ordered to consolidate his forces in New York. On June 18, the British departed Philadelphia with the reinvigorated Americans in pursuit; the Battle of Monmouth on June 28 was inconclusive but boosted Patriot morale. Washington had rallied Charles Lee's broken regiments, the Continentals repulsed British bayonet charges, the British rear guard lost perhaps 50 per-cent more casualties, and the Americans held the field at the end of the day. That midnight, the newly installed Clinton continued his retreat to New York.A French naval force under Admiral Charles Henri Hector d'Estaing was sent to assist Washington; deciding New York was too formidable a target, in August they launched a combined attack on Newport, with General John Sullivan commanding land forces. The resulting Battle of Rhode Island was indecisive; badly damaged by a storm, the French withdrew to avoid putting their ships at risk. Further activity was limited to British raids on Chestnut Neck and Little Egg Harbor in October.In July 1779, the Americans captured British positions at Stony Point and Paulus Hook. Clinton unsuccessfully tried to tempt Washington into a decisive engagement by sending General William Tryon to raid Connecticut. In July, a large American naval operation, the Penobscot Expedition, attempted to retake Maine, then part of Massachusetts, but was defeated. Persistent Iroquois raids along the border with Quebec led to the punitive Sullivan Expedition in April 1779, destroying many settlements but failing to stop them.During the winter of 1779–1780, the Continental Army suffered greater hardships than at Valley Forge. Morale was poor, public support fell away in the long war, the Continental dollar was virtually worthless, the army was plagued with supply problems, desertion was common, and mutinies occurred in the Pennsylvania Line and New Jersey Line regiments over the conditions in early 1780.In June 1780, Clinton sent 6,000 men under Wilhelm von Knyphausen to retake New Jersey, but they were halted by local militia at the Battle of Connecticut Farms; although the Americans withdrew, Knyphausen felt he was not strong enough to engage Washington's main force and retreated. A second attempt two weeks later ended in a British defeat at the Battle of Springfield, effectively ending their ambitions in New Jersey. In July, Washington appointed Benedict Arnold commander of West Point; his attempt to betray the fort to the British failed due to incompetent planning, and the plot was revealed when his British contact John André was captured and later executed. Arnold escaped to New York and switched sides, an action justified in a pamphlet addressed "To the Inhabitants of America"; the Patriots condemned his betrayal, while he found himself almost as unpopular with the British.The war to the west of the Appalachians was largely confined to skirmishing and raids. In February 1778, an expedition of militia to destroy British military supplies in settlements along the Cuyahoga River was halted by adverse weather. Later in the year, a second campaign was undertaken to seize the Illinois Country from the British. Virginia militia, Canadien settlers, and Indian allies commanded by Colonel George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia on July 4 then secured Vincennes, though Vincennes was recaptured by Quebec Governor Henry Hamilton. In early 1779, the Virginians counterattacked in the siege of Fort Vincennes and took Hamilton prisoner. Clark secured western British Quebec as the American Northwest Territory in the Treaty of Paris concluding the war.On May 25, 1780, British Colonel Henry Bird invaded Kentucky as part of a wider operation to clear American resistance from Quebec to the Gulf coast. Their Pensacola advance on New Orleans was overcome by Spanish Governor Gálvez's offensive on Mobile. Simultaneous British attacks were repulsed on St. Louis by the Spanish Lieutenant Governor de Leyba, and on the Virginia county courthouse at Cahokia by Lieutenant Colonel Clark. The British initiative under Bird from Detroit was ended at the rumored approach of Clark. The scale of violence in the Licking River Valley, such as during the Battle of Blue Licks, was extreme "even for frontier standards". It led to men of English and German settlements to join Clark's militia when the British and their auxiliaries withdrew to the Great Lakes. The Americans responded with a major offensive along the Mad River in August which met with some success in the Battle of Piqua but did not end Indian raids.French soldier Augustin de La Balme led a Canadian militia in an attempt to capture Detroit, but they dispersed when Miami natives led by Little Turtle attacked the encamped settlers on November 5. The war in the west had become a stalemate with the British garrison sitting in Detroit and the Virginians expanding westward settlements north of the Ohio River in the face of British-allied Indian resistance.War in the SouthThe "Southern Strategy" was developed by Lord Germain, based on input from London-based Loyalists like Joseph Galloway. They argued it made no sense to fight the Patriots in the north where they were strongest, while the New England economy was reliant on trade with Britain, regardless of who governed it. On the other hand, duties on tobacco made the South far more profitable for Britain, while local support meant securing it required small numbers of regular troops. Victory would leave a truncated United States facing British possessions in the south, Canada to the north, and Ohio on their western border; with the Atlantic seaboard controlled by the Royal Navy, Congress would be forced to agree to terms. However, assumptions about the level of Loyalist support proved wildly optimistic.Germain accordingly ordered Augustine Prévost, the British commander in East Florida, to advance into Georgia in December 1778. Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell, an experienced officer taken prisoner earlier in the war before being exchanged for Ethan Allen, captured Savannah on December 29, 1778. He recruited a Loyalist militia of nearly 1,100, many of whom allegedly joined only after Campbell threatened to confiscate their property. Poor motivation and training made them unreliable troops, as demonstrated in their defeat by Patriot militia at the Battle of Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779, although this was offset by British victory at Brier Creek on March 3.In June, Prévost launched an abortive assault on Charleston, before retreating to Savannah, an operation notorious for widespread looting by British troops that enraged both Loyalists and Patriots. In October, a joint French and American operation under Admiral d'Estaing and General Benjamin Lincoln failed to recapture Savannah. Prévost was replaced by Lord Cornwallis, who assumed responsibility for Germain's strategy; he soon realized estimates of Loyalist support were considerably over-stated, and he needed far larger numbers of regular forces.Reinforced by Clinton, his troops captured Charleston in May 1780, inflicting the most serious Patriot defeat of the war; over 5,000 prisoners were taken and the Continental Army in the south effectively destroyed. On May 29, Loyalist regular Banastre Tarleton defeated an American force of 400 at the Battle of Waxhaws; over 120 were killed, many allegedly after surrendering. Responsibility is disputed, Loyalists claiming Tarleton was shot at while negotiating terms of surrender, but it was later used as a recruiting tool by the Patriots.Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis to oversee the south; despite their success, the two men left barely on speaking terms, with dire consequences for the future conduct of the war. The Southern strategy depended on local support, but this was undermined by a series of coercive measures. Previously, captured Patriots were sent home after swearing not to take up arms against the king; they were now required to fight their former comrades, while the confiscation of Patriot-owned plantations led formerly neutral "grandees" to side with them. Skirmishes at Williamson's Plantation, Cedar Springs, Rocky Mount, and Hanging Rock signaled widespread resistance to the new oaths throughout South Carolina.In July, Congress appointed General Horatio Gates commander in the south; he was defeated at the Battle of Camden on August 16, leaving Cornwallis free to enter North Carolina. Despite battlefield success, the British could not control the countryside and Patriot attacks continued; before moving north, Cornwallis sent Loyalist militia under Major Patrick Ferguson to cover his left flank, leaving their forces too far apart to provide mutual support. In early October, Ferguson was defeated at the Battle of Kings Mountain, dispersing organized Loyalist resistance in the region. Despite this, Cornwallis continued into North Carolina hoping for Loyalist support, while Washington replaced Gates with General Nathanael Greene in December 1780.Greene divided his army, leading his main force southeast pursued by Cornwallis; a detachment was sent southwest under Daniel Morgan, who defeated Tarleton's British Legion at Cowpens on January 17, 1781, nearly eliminating it as a fighting force. The Patriots now held the initiative in the south, with the exception of a raid on Richmond led by Benedict Arnold in January 1781. Greene led Cornwallis on a series of countermarches around North Carolina; by early March, the British were exhausted and short of supplies and Greene felt strong enough to fight the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15. Although victorious, Cornwallis suffered heavy casualties and retreated to Wilmington, North Carolina seeking supplies and reinforcements.The Patriots now controlled most of the Carolinas and Georgia outside the coastal areas; after a minor reversal at the Battle of Hobkirk's Hill, they recaptured Fort Watson and Fort Motte on April 15. On June 6, Brigadier General Andrew Pickens captured Augusta, leaving the British in Georgia confined to Charleston and Savannah. The assumption Loyalists would do most of the fighting left the British short of troops and battlefield victories came at the cost of losses they could not replace. Despite halting Greene's advance at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, Cornwallis withdrew to Charleston with little to show for his campaign.Western campaignWhen Spain joined France's war against Britain in 1779, their treaty specifically excluded Spanish military action in North America. However, from the beginning of the war, Bernardo de Gálvez, the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, allowed the Americans to import supplies and munitions into New Orleans, then ship them to Pittsburgh. This provided an alternative transportation route for the Continental Army, bypassing the British blockade of the Atlantic Coast.The trade was organized by Oliver Pollock, a successful merchant in Havana and New Orleans who was appointed US "commercial agent". It also helped support the American campaign in the west; in the 1778 Illinois campaign, militia under General George Rogers Clark cleared the British from what was then part of Quebec, creating Illinois County, Virginia.Despite official neutrality, Gálvez initiated offensive operations against British outposts. First, he cleared British garrisons in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Fort Bute, and Natchez, Mississippi, and captured five forts. In doing so, Gálvez opened navigation on the Mississippi River north to the American settlement in Pittsburg.In 1781, Galvez and Pollock campaigned east along the Gulf Coast to secure West Florida, including British-held Mobile and Pensacola. The Spanish operations crippled the British supply of armaments to British Indian allies, which effectively suspended a military alliance to attack settlers between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains.British defeat in the United StatesClinton spent most of 1781 based in New York City; he failed to construct a coherent operational strategy, partly due to his difficult relationship with Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot. In Charleston, Cornwallis independently developed an aggressive plan for a campaign in Virginia, which he hoped would isolate Greene's army in the Carolinas and cause the collapse of Patriot resistance in the South. This was approved by Lord Germain in London, but neither of them informed Clinton.Washington and Rochambeau now discussed their options; the former wanted to attack New York, the latter Virginia, where Cornwallis' forces were less well-established and thus easier to defeat. Washington eventually gave way and Lafayette took a combined Franco-American force into Virginia, but Clinton misinterpreted his movements as preparations for an attack on New York. Concerned by this threat, he instructed Cornwallis to establish a fortified sea base where the Royal Navy could evacuate his troops to help defend New York.When Lafayette entered Virginia, Cornwallis complied with Clinton's orders and withdrew to Yorktown, where he constructed strong defenses and awaited evacuation. An agreement by the Spanish navy to defend the French West Indies allowed Admiral de Grasse to relocate to the Atlantic seaboard, a move Arbuthnot did not anticipate. This provided Lafayette naval support, while the failure of previous combined operations at Newport and Savannah meant their co-ordination was planned more carefully. Despite repeated urging from his subordinates, Cornwallis made no attempt to engage Lafayette before he could establish siege lines. Even worse, expecting to be withdrawn within a few days he abandoned the outer defenses, which were promptly occupied by the besiegers and hastened British defeat.On August 31, a British fleet under Thomas Graves left New York for Yorktown. After landing troops and munitions for the besiegers on August 30, de Grasse had remained in Chesapeake Bay and intercepted him on September 5; although the Battle of the Chesapeake was indecisive in terms of losses, Graves was forced to retreat, leaving Cornwallis isolated. An attempted breakout over the York River at Gloucester Point failed due to bad weather. Under heavy bombardment with dwindling supplies, Cornwallis felt his situation was hopeless and on October 16 sent emissaries to Washington to negotiate surrender; after twelve hours of negotiations, these were finalized the next day. Responsibility for defeat was the subject of fierce public debate between Cornwallis, Clinton and Germain. Despite criticism from his junior officers, Cornwallis retained the confidence of his peers and later held a series of senior government positions; Clinton ultimately took most of the blame and spent the rest of his life in obscurity.Subsequent to Yorktown, American forces were assigned to supervise the armistice between Washington and Clinton made to facilitate British departure following the January 1782 law of Parliament forbidding any further British offensive action in North America. British-American negotiations in Paris led to preliminaries signed November 1782 acknowledging US independence. The enacted Congressional war aim for British withdrawal from its North American claims to be ceded to the US was completed for the coastal cities in stages.In the South, Generals Greene and Wayne loosely invested the withdrawing British at Savanna and Charleston. There they observed the British finally taking off their regulars from Charleston December 14, 1782. Loyalist provincial militias of whites and free blacks, as well as Loyalists with their slaves were transported in a relocation to Nova Scotia and the British Caribbean. Native American allies of the British and some freed blacks were left to escape through the American lines unaided.Washington moved his army to New Windsor on the Hudson River about sixty miles north of New York City, and there the substance of the American army was furloughed home with officers at half pay until the Treaty of Paris formally ended the war on September 3, 1783. At that time, Congress decommissioned the regiments of Washington's Continental Army and began issuing land grants to veterans in the Northwest Territories for their war service. The last of the British occupation of New York City ended on November 25, 1783, with the departure of Clinton's replacement, General Sir Guy Carleton.Strategy and commanders To win their insurrection, the Americans needed to outlast the British will to continue the fight. To restore the empire, the British had to defeat the Continental Army in the early months, and compel the Congress to dissolve itself. Historian Terry M. Mays identifies three separate types of warfare, the first being a colonial conflict in which objections to Imperial trade regulation were as significant as taxation policy. The second was a civil war with all thirteen states split between Patriots, Loyalists and those who preferred to remain neutral. Particularly in the south, many battles were fought between Patriots and Loyalists with no British involvement, leading to divisions that continued after independence was achieved.The third element was a global war between France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and Britain, with America as one of a number of different theaters. After entering the war in 1778, France provided the Americans money, weapons, soldiers, and naval assistance, while French troops fought under US command in North America. While Spain did not formally join the war in America, they provided access to the Mississippi River and by capturing British possessions on the Gulf of Mexico denied bases to the Royal Navy, as well as retaking Menorca and besieging Gibraltar in Europe.Although the Dutch Republic was no longer a major power, prior to 1774 they still dominated the European carrying trade, and Dutch merchants made large profits by shipping French-supplied munitions to the Patriots. This ended when Britain declared war in December 1780 and the conflict proved disastrous to their economy. The Dutch were also excluded from the First League of Armed Neutrality, formed by Russia, Sweden and Denmark in March 1780 to protect neutral shipping from being stopped and searched for contraband by Britain and France. While of limited effect, these interventions forced the British to divert men and resources away from North America.American strategy Congress had multiple advantages if the rebellion turned into a protracted war. Their prosperous state populations depended on local production for food and supplies rather than on imports from their mother country that lay six to twelve weeks away by sail. They were spread across most of the North American Atlantic seaboard, stretching 1,000 miles. Most farms were remote from the seaports, and controlling four or five major ports did not give British armies control over the inland areas. Each state had established internal distribution systems.Each former colony had a long-established system of local militia, combat-tested in support of British regulars thirteen years before to secure an expanded British Empire. Together they took away French claims in North America west to the Mississippi River in the French and Indian War. The state legislatures independently funded and controlled their local militias. In the American Revolution, they trained and provided Continental Line regiments to the regular army, each with their own state officer corps. Motivation was also a major asset: each colonial capital had its own newspapers and printers, and the Patriots had more popular support than the Loyalists. British hoped that the Loyalists would do much of the fighting, but they fought less than expected.Continental Army When the war began, Congress lacked a professional army or navy, and each colony only maintained local militias. Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time and lacked the training and discipline of more experienced soldiers. Local county militias were reluctant to travel far from home and they were unavailable for extended operations. To compensate for this, Congress established a regular force known as the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, the origin of the modern United States Army, and appointed Washington as commander-in-chief. However, it suffered significantly from the lack of an effective training program and from largely inexperienced officers and sergeants, offset by a few senior officers.Each state legislature appointed officers for both county and state militias and their regimental Continental Line officers; although Washington was required to accept Congressional appointments, he was still permitted to choose and command his own generals, such as Nathanael Greene, his chief of artillery, Henry Knox, and Alexander Hamilton, the chief of staff. One of Washington's most successful recruits to general officer was Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff who wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in progress and Washington used both his regulars and state militia throughout the war; when properly employed, the combination allowed them to overwhelm smaller British forces, as at Concord, Boston, Bennington, and Saratoga. Both sides used partisan warfare, but the state militias effectively suppressed Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area.Washington designed the overall military strategy of the war in cooperation with Congress, established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs, personally recruited his senior officer corps, and kept the states focused on a common goal. For the first three years until after Valley Forge, the Continental Army was largely supplemented by local state militias. Initially, Washington employed the inexperienced officers and untrained troops in Fabian strategies rather than risk frontal assaults against Britain's professional soldiers and officers. Over the course of the entire war, Washington lost more battles than he won, but he never surrendered his troops and maintained a fighting force in the face of British field armies and never gave up fighting for the American cause.By prevailing European standards, the armies in America were relatively small, limited by lack of supplies and logistics; the British in particular were constrained by the difficulty of transporting troops across the Atlantic and dependence on local supplies. Washington never directly commanded more than 17,000 men, while the combined Franco-American army at Yorktown was only about 19,000. At the beginning of 1776, Patriot forces consisted of 20,000 men, with two-thirds in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias. About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militia for the Revolutionary cause over eight years during wartime, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at one time.As a whole, American officers never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuvers, and they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777), and Yorktown (1781) were won from trapping the British far from base with a greater number of troops. Nevertheless, after 1778, Washington's army was transformed into a more disciplined and effective force, mostly by Baron von Steuben's training. Immediately after the Army emerged from Valley Forge, it proved its ability to match the British troops in action at the Battle of Monmouth, including a black Rhode Island regiment fending off a British bayonet attack then counter-charging for the first time in Washington's army. Here Washington came to realize that saving entire towns was not necessary, but preserving his army and keeping the revolutionary spirit alive was more important in the long run. Washington informed Henry Laurens "that the possession of our towns, while we have an army in the field, will avail them little."Although Congress was responsible for the war effort and provided supplies to the troops, Washington took it upon himself to pressure the Congress and state legislatures to provide the essentials of war; there was never nearly enough. Congress evolved in its committee oversight and established the Board of War, which included members of the military. Because the Board of War was also a committee ensnared with its own internal procedures, Congress also created the post of Secretary of War, and appointed Major General Benjamin Lincoln in February 1781 to the position. Washington worked closely with Lincoln to coordinate civilian and military authorities and took charge of training and supplying the army.Continental Navy During the first summer of the war, Washington began outfitting schooners and other small seagoing vessels to prey on ships supplying the British in Boston. Congress established the Continental Navy on October 13, 1775, and appointed Esek Hopkins as its first commander; for most of the war, it consisted of a handful of small frigates and sloops, supported by numerous privateers. On November 10, 1775, Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Marines, forefather of the United States Marine Corps.John Paul Jones became the first American naval hero by capturing HMS Drake on April 24, 1778, the first victory for any American military vessel in British waters. The last was by the frigate USS Alliance commanded by Captain John Barry. On March 10, 1783, the Alliance outgunned HMS Sybil in a 45-minute duel while escorting Spanish gold from Havana to Congress. After Yorktown, all US Navy ships were sold or given away; it was the first time in America's history that it had no fighting forces on the high seas.Congress primarily commissioned privateers to reduce costs and to take advantage of the large proportion of colonial sailors found in the British Empire. Overall, they included 1,700 ships that successfully captured 2,283 enemy ships to damage the British effort and to enrich themselves with the proceeds from the sale of cargo and the ship itself. About 55,000 sailors served aboard American privateers during the war.France At the beginning of the war, the Americans had no major international allies, as most nation-states watched and waited to see how developments would unfold in British North America. Over time, the Continental Army acquitted itself well in the face of British regulars and their German auxiliaries known to all European great powers. Battles such as the Battle of Bennington, the Battles of Saratoga, and even defeats such as the Battle of Germantown, proved decisive in gaining the attention and support of powerful European nations including France and Spain, and the Dutch Republic; the latter moved from covertly supplying the Americans with weapons and supplies to overtly supporting them.The decisive American victory at Saratoga convinced France, who was already a long-time rival of Britain, to offer the Americans the Treaty of Amity and Commerce. The two nations also agreed to a defensive Treaty of Alliance to protect their trade and also guaranteed American independence from Britain. To engage the United States as a French ally militarily, the treaty was conditioned on Britain initiating a war on France to stop it from trading with the US. Spain and the Dutch Republic were invited to join by both France and the United States in the treaty, but neither made a formal reply.On June 13, 1778, France declared war on Great Britain, and it invoked the French military alliance with the US, which ensured additional US privateer support for French possessions in the Caribbean. Washington worked closely with the soldiers and navy that France would send to America, primarily through Lafayette on his staff. French assistance made critical contributions required to defeat General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.British strategy The British military had considerable experience of fighting in North America, most recently during the Seven Years' War which forced France to give up New France in 1763. However, in previous conflicts they benefited from local logistics, as well as support from the colonial militia, which was not available in the American Revolutionary War. Reinforcements had to come from Europe, and maintaining large armies over such distances was extremely complex; ships could take three months to cross the Atlantic, and orders from London were often outdated by the time they arrived.Prior to the conflict, the colonies were largely autonomous economic and political entities, with no centralized area of ultimate strategic importance. This meant that, unlike Europe where the fall of a capital city often ended wars, that in America continued even after the loss of major settlements such as Philadelphia, the seat of Congress, New York and Charleston. British power was reliant on the Royal Navy, whose dominance allowed them to resupply their own expeditionary forces while preventing access to enemy ports. However, the majority of the American population was agrarian, rather than urban; supported by the French navy and blockade runners based in the Dutch Caribbean, their economy was able to survive.The geographical size of the colonies and limited manpower meant the British could not simultaneously conduct military operations and occupy territory without local support. Debate persists over whether their defeat was inevitable; one British statesman described it as "like trying to conquer a map". While Ferling argues Patriot victory was nothing short of a miracle, Ellis suggests the odds always favored the Americans, especially after Howe squandered the chance of a decisive British success in 1776, an "opportunity that would never come again". The US military history speculates the additional commitment of 10,000 fresh troops in 1780 would have placed British victory "within the realm of possibility".British ArmyThe expulsion of France from North America in 1763 led to a drastic reduction in British troop levels in the colonies; in 1775, there were only 8,500 regular soldiers among a civilian population of 2.8 million. The bulk of military resources in the Americas were focused on defending sugar islands in the Caribbean; Jamaica alone generated more revenue than all thirteen American colonies combined. With the end of the Seven Years' War, the permanent army in Britain was also cut back, which resulted in administrative difficulties when the war began a decade later.Over the course of the war, there were four separate British commanders-in-chief, the first of whom was Thomas Gage; appointed in 1763, his initial focus was establishing British rule in former French areas of Canada. Rightly or wrongly, many in London blamed the revolt on his failure to take firm action earlier, and he was relieved after the heavy losses incurred at Bunker Hill. His replacement was Sir William Howe, a member of the Whig faction in Parliament who opposed the policy of coercion advocated by Lord North; Cornwallis, who later surrendered at Yorktown, was one of many senior officers who initially refused to serve in North America.The 1775 campaign showed the British overestimated the capabilities of their own troops and underestimated the colonial militia, requiring a reassessment of tactics and strategy. However, it allowed the Patriots to take the initiative and British authorities rapidly lost control over every colony. Howe's responsibility is still debated; despite receiving large numbers of reinforcements, Bunker Hill seems to have permanently affected his self-confidence and lack of tactical flexibility meant he often failed to follow up opportunities. Many of his decisions were attributed to supply problems, such as the delay in launching the New York campaign and failure to pursue Washington's beaten army. Having lost the confidence of his subordinates, he was recalled after Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga.Following the failure of the Carlisle Commission, British policy changed from treating the Patriots as subjects who needed to be reconciled to enemies who had to be defeated. In 1778, Howe was replaced by Sir Henry Clinton, appointed instead of Carleton who was considered overly cautious. Regarded as an expert on tactics and strategy, like his predecessors Clinton was handicapped by chronic supply issues. As a result, he was largely inactive in 1779 and much of 1780; in October 1780, he warned Germain of "fatal consequences" if matters did not improve.In addition, Clinton's strategy was compromised by conflict with political superiors in London and his colleagues in North America, especially Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot, replaced in early 1781 by Rodney. He was neither notified nor consulted when Germain approved Cornwallis' invasion of the south in 1781 and delayed sending him reinforcements believing the bulk of Washington's army was still outside New York City. After the surrender at Yorktown, Clinton was relieved by Carleton, whose major task was to oversee the evacuation of Loyalists and British troops from Savannah, Charleston, and New York City.German TroopsDuring the 18th century, all states commonly hired foreign soldiers, especially Britain; during the Seven Years' War, they comprised 10% of the British army and their use caused little debate. When it became clear additional troops were needed to suppress the revolt in America, it was decided to employ mercenaries. There were several reasons for this, including public sympathy for the Patriot cause, an historical reluctance to expand the British army and the time needed to recruit and train new regiments. An alternate source was readily available in the Holy Roman Empire, where many smaller states had a long tradition of renting their armies to the highest bidder. The most important was Hesse-Cassel, known as "the Mercenary State".The first supply agreements were signed by the North administration in late 1775; over the next decade, more than 40,000 Germans fought in North America, Gibraltar, South Africa and India, of whom 30,000 served in the American War. Often generically referred to as "Hessians", they included men from many other states, including Hanover and Brunswick. Sir Henry Clinton recommended recruiting Russian troops whom he rated very highly, having seen them in action against the Ottomans; however, negotiations with Catherine the Great made little progress.Unlike previous wars their use led to intense political debate in Britain, France, and even Germany, where Frederick the Great refused to provide passage through his territories for troops hired for the American war. In March 1776, the agreements were challenged in Parliament by Whigs who objected to "coercion" in general, and the use of foreign soldiers to subdue "British subjects". The debates were covered in detail by American newspapers, which reprinted key speeches and in May 1776 they received copies of the treaties themselves. Provided by British sympathizers, these were smuggled into North America from London by George Merchant, a recently released American prisoner.The prospect of mercenaries being used in the colonies bolstered support for independence, more so than taxation and other acts combined; the King was accused of declaring war on his own subjects, leading to the idea there were now two separate governments. By apparently showing Britain was determined to go to war, it made hopes of reconciliation seem naive and hopeless, while the employment of 'foreign mercenaries' became one of the charges levelled against George III in the Declaration of Independence. The Hessian reputation within Germany for brutality also increased support for the Patriot cause among German-American immigrants.The presence of over 150,000 German-Americans meant both sides felt these mercenaries might be persuaded to desert; one reason Clinton suggested employing Russians was that he felt they were less likely to defect. When the first German troops arrived on Staten Island in August 1776, Congress approved the printing of "handbills" promising land and citizenship to any willing to join the Patriot cause. The British launched a counter-campaign claiming deserters could well be executed for meddling in a war that was not theirs. Desertion among the Germans occurred throughout the war, with the highest rate of desertion occurring during the time between the surrender at Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris. German regiments were central to the British war effort; of the estimated 30,000 sent to America, some 13,000 became casualties.Revolution as civil warLoyalists Wealthy Loyalists convinced the British government that most of the colonists were sympathetic toward the Crown; consequently, British military planners relied on recruiting Loyalists, but had trouble recruiting sufficient numbers as the Patriots had widespread support. Nevertheless, they continued to deceive themselves on their level of American support as late as 1780, a year before hostilities ended.Approximately 25,000 Loyalists fought for the British throughout the war. Although Loyalists constituted about twenty percent of the colonial population, they were concentrated in distinct communities. Many of them lived among large plantation owners in the Tidewater region and South Carolina who produced cash crops in tobacco and indigo comparable to global markets in Caribbean sugar.When the British began probing the backcountry in 1777–1778, they were faced with a major problem: any significant level of organized Loyalist activity required a continued presence of British regulars. The available manpower that the British had in America was insufficient to protect Loyalist territory and counter American offensives. The Loyalist militias in the South were constantly defeated by neighboring Patriot militia. The most critical combat between the two partisan militias was at the Battle of Kings Mountain; the Patriot victory irreversibly crippled any further Loyalist militia capability in the South.When the early war policy was administered by General William Howe, the Crown's need to maintain Loyalist support prevented it from using the traditional revolt suppression methods. The British cause suffered when their troops ransacked local homes during an aborted attack on Charleston in 1779 that enraged both Patriots and Loyalists. After Congress rejected the Carlisle Peace Commission in 1778 and Westminster turned to "hard war" during Clinton's command, neutral colonists in the Carolinas often allied with the Patriots whenever brutal combat broke out between Tories and Whigs. Conversely, Loyalists gained support when Patriots intimidated suspected Tories by destroying property or tarring and feathering.A Loyalist militia unit—the British Legion—provided some of the best troops in British service that it received a commission in the British Army: it was a mixed regiment of 250 dragoons and 200 infantry supported by batteries of flying artillery. It was commanded by Banastre Tarleton and gained a fearsome reputation in the colonies for "brutality and needless slaughter". In May 1779 the British Legion was one of five regiments that formed the American Establishment.WomenWomen played various roles during the Revolutionary War; they often accompanied their husbands when permitted to do so. For example, throughout the war Martha Washington was known to visit and provide aid to her husband George at various American camps, and Frederika Charlotte Riedesel documented the Saratoga campaign. Women often accompanied armies as camp followers to sell goods and perform necessary tasks in hospitals and camps. They were a necessary part of eighteenth-century armies, and numbered in the thousands during the war.Women also assumed military roles: aside from auxiliary tasks like treating the wounded or setting up camp, some dressed as men to directly support combat, fight, or act as spies on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Anna Maria Lane joined her husband in the Army and wore men's clothes by the time the Battle of Germantown happened. The Virginia General Assembly later cited her bravery: she fought while dressed as a man and "performed extraordinary military services, and received a severe wound at the battle of Germantown ... with the courage of a soldier".On April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode to alert militia forces of Putnam County, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut, to warn them of the British's approach; she has been called the "female Paul Revere". A few others disguised themselves as men. Deborah Sampson fought until her gender was discovered and discharged as a result; Sally St. Clair was killed in action during the war.African AmericansWhen war began, the population of the Thirteen Colonies included an estimated 500,000 slaves, predominantly used as labor on Southern plantations. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to any Patriot-owned slaves willing to bear arms. Although the announcement helped to fill a temporary manpower shortage, white Loyalist prejudice meant recruits were eventually redirected to non-combatant roles. The Loyalists' motive was to deprive Patriot planters of labor rather than to end slavery; Loyalist-owned slaves were returned.The 1779 Philipsburg Proclamation issued by Clinton extended the offer of freedom to Patriot-owned slaves throughout the colonies. It persuaded entire families to escape to British lines, many of which were employed on farms to grow food for the army by removing the requirement for military service. While Clinton organized the Black Pioneers, he also ensured fugitive slaves were returned to Loyalist owners with orders that they were not to be punished for their attempted escape. As the war progressed, service as regular soldiers in British units became increasingly common; black Loyalists formed two regiments of the Charleston garrison in 1783.Estimates of the numbers who served the British during the war vary from 25,000 to 50,000, excluding those who escaped during wartime. Thomas Jefferson estimated that Virginia may have lost 30,000 slaves in total escapes. In South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves (about 30 percent of the enslaved population) either fled, migrated, or died, which significantly disrupted the plantation economies both during and after the war.Black Patriots were barred from the Continental Army until Washington convinced Congress in January 1778 that there was no other way to replace losses from disease and desertion. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment formed in February included former slaves whose owners were compensated; however, only 140 of its 225 soldiers were black and recruitment stopped in June 1788. Ultimately, around 5,000 African-Americans served in the Continental Army and Navy in a variety of roles, while another 4,000 were employed in Patriot militia units, aboard privateers, or as teamsters, servants, and spies. After the war, a small minority received land grants or Congressional pensions in old age; many others were returned to their masters post-war despite earlier promises of freedom.As a Patriot victory became increasingly likely, the treatment of Black Loyalists became a point of contention; after the surrender of Yorktown in 1781, Washington insisted all escapees be returned but Cornwallis refused. In 1782 and 1783, around 8,000 to 10,000 freed blacks were evacuated by the British from Charleston, Savannah, and New York; some moved onto London, while 3,000 to 4,000 settled in Nova Scotia, where they founded settlements such as Birchtown. White Loyalists transported 15,000 enslaved blacks to Jamaica and the Bahamas. The free Black Loyalists who migrated to the British West Indies included regular soldiers from Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, and those from Charleston who helped garrison the Leeward Islands.Native AmericansMost Native Americans east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many tribes were divided over how to respond to the conflict. A few tribes were friendly with the colonists, but most Natives opposed the union of the Colonies as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Natives fought on the British side, with the largest group coming from the Iroquois tribes who deployed around 1,500 men.Early in July 1776, Cherokee allies of Britain attacked the short-lived Washington District of North Carolina. Their defeat splintered both Cherokee settlements and people, and was directly responsible for the rise of the Chickamauga Cherokee, who perpetuated the Cherokee–American wars against American settlers for decades after hostilities with Britain ended.Creek and Seminole allies of Britain fought against Americans in Georgia and South Carolina. In 1778, a force of 800 Creeks destroyed American settlements along the Broad River in Georgia. Creek warriors also joined Thomas Brown's raids into South Carolina and assisted Britain during the Siege of Savannah. Many Native Americans were involved in the fight between Britain and Spain on the Gulf Coast and along the British side of the Mississippi River. Thousands of Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws fought in major battles such as the Battle of Fort Charlotte, the Battle of Mobile, and the Siege of Pensacola.The Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the American Revolutionary War, whatever side they took; the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes sided with the British; members of the Mohawks fought on both sides; and many Tuscarora and Oneida sided with the Americans. To retaliate against raids on American settlement by Loyalists and their Indian allies, the Continental Army dispatched the Sullivan Expedition on a punitive expedition throughout New York to cripple the Iroquois tribes that had sided with the British. Mohawk leaders Joseph Louis Cook and Joseph Brant sided with the Americans and the British respectively, which further exacerbated the split.In the western theater of the American Revolutionary War, conflicts between settlers and Native Americans led to lingering distrust. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Great Britain ceded control of the disputed lands between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, but the Indian inhabitants were not a part of the peace negotiations. Tribes in the Northwest Territory joined as the Western Confederacy and allied with the British to resist American settlement, and their conflict continued after the Revolutionary War as the Northwest Indian War.Britain's "American war" and peaceChanging Prime MinistersLord North, Prime Minister since 1770, delegated control of the war in North America to Lord George Germain and the Earl of Sandwich, who was head of the Royal Navy from 1771 to 1782. Defeat at Saratoga in 1777 made it clear the revolt would not be easily suppressed, especially after the Franco-American alliance of February 1778, and French declaration of war in June. With Spain also expected to join the conflict, the Royal Navy needed to prioritize either the war in America or in Europe; Germain advocated the former, Sandwich the latter.British negotiators now proposed a second peace settlement to Congress. The terms presented by the Carlisle Peace Commission included acceptance of the principle of self-government. Parliament would recognize Congress as the governing body, suspend any objectionable legislation, surrender its right to local colonial taxation, and discuss including American representatives in the House of Commons. In return, all property confiscated from Loyalists would be returned, British debts honored, and locally enforced martial law accepted. However, Congress demanded either immediate recognition of independence or the withdrawal of all British troops; they knew the commission were not authorized to accept these, bringing negotiations to a rapid end.When the commissioners returned to London in November 1778, they recommended a change in policy. Sir Henry Clinton, the new British Commander-in-Chief in America, was ordered to stop treating the rebels as enemies, rather than subjects whose loyalty might be regained. Those standing orders would be in effect for three years until Clinton was relieved.North initially backed the Southern strategy attempting to exploit divisions between the mercantile north and slave-owning south, but after the defeat of Yorktown, he was forced to accept the fact that this policy had failed. It was clear the war was lost, although the Royal Navy forced the French to relocate their fleet to the Caribbean in November 1781 and resumed a close blockade of American trade. The resulting economic damage and rising inflation meant the US was now eager to end the war, while France was unable to provide further loans; Congress could no longer pay its soldiers.On February 27, 1782, a Whig motion to end the offensive war in America was carried by 19 votes. North now resigned, obliging the king to invite Lord Rockingham to form a government; a consistent supporter of the Patriot cause, he made a commitment to US independence a condition of doing so. George III reluctantly accepted and the new government took office on March 27, 1782; however, Rockingham died unexpectedly on July 1, and was replaced by Lord Shelburne who acknowledged American independence.American Congress signs a peaceWhen Lord Rockingham, the Whig leader and friend of the American cause was elevated to Prime Minister, Congress consolidated its diplomatic consuls in Europe into a peace delegation at Paris. All were experienced in Congressional leadership. The dean of the delegation was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. He had become a celebrity in the French Court, but he was also an Enlightenment scientist with influence in the courts of European great powers in Prussia, England's former ally, and Austria, a Catholic empire like Spain. Since the 1760s he had been an organizer of British American inter-colony cooperation, and then a colonial lobbyist to Parliament in London. John Adams of Massachusetts had been consul to the Dutch Republic and was a prominent early New England Patriot. John Jay of New York had been consul to Spain and was a past president of the Continental Congress. As consul to the Dutch Republic, Henry Laurens of South Carolina had secured a preliminary agreement for a trade agreement. He had been a successor to John Jay as president of Congress and with Franklin was a member of the American Philosophical Society. Although active in the preliminaries, he was not a signer of the conclusive treaty.The Whig negotiators for Lord Rockingham and his successor, Prime Minister Lord Shelburne, included long-time friend of Benjamin Franklin from his time in London, David Hartley and Richard Oswald, who had negotiated Laurens' release from the Tower of London. The Preliminary Peace signed on November 30 met four key Congressional demands: independence, territory up to the Mississippi, navigation rights into the Gulf of Mexico, and fishing rights in Newfoundland.British strategy was to strengthen the US sufficiently to prevent France from regaining a foothold in North America, and they had little interest in these proposals. However, divisions between their opponents allowed them to negotiate separately with each to improve their overall position, starting with the American delegation in September 1782. The French and Spanish sought to improve their position by creating the U.S. dependent on them for support against Britain, thus reversing the losses of 1763. Both parties tried to negotiate a settlement with Britain excluding the Americans; France proposed setting the western boundary of the US along the Appalachians, matching the British 1763 Proclamation Line. The Spanish suggested additional concessions in the vital Mississippi River Basin, but required the cession of Georgia in violation of the Franco-American alliance.Facing difficulties with Spain over claims involving the Mississippi River, and from France who was still reluctant to agree to American independence until all her demands were met, John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them, cutting off France and Spain, and Prime Minister Lord Shelburne, in charge of the British negotiations, agreed. Key agreements for America in obtaining peace included recognition of United States independence, that she would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, and south of Canada; the granting of fishing rights in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; the United States and Great Britain were to each be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River.An Anglo-American Preliminary Peace was formally entered into in November 1782, and Congress endorsed the settlement on April 15, 1783. It announced the achievement of peace with independence; the "conclusive" treaty was signed on September 2, 1783, in Paris, effective the next day September 3, when Britain signed its treaty with France. John Adams, who helped draft the treaty, claimed it represented "one of the most important political events that ever happened on the globe". Ratified respectively by Congress and Parliament, the final versions were exchanged in Paris the following spring. On 25 November, the last British troops remaining in the US were evacuated from New York to Halifax.Aftermath Washington expressed astonishment that the Americans had won a war against a leading world power, referring to the American victory as "little short of a standing miracle". The conflict between British subjects with the Crown against those with the Congress had lasted over eight years from 1775 to 1783. The last uniformed British troops departed their last east coast port cities in Savannah, Charleston, and New York City, by November 25, 1783. That marked the end of British occupation in the new United States.On April 9, 1783, Washington issued orders that he had long waited to give, that "all acts of hostility" were to cease immediately. That same day, by arrangement with Washington, General Carleton issued a similar order to British troops. British troops, however, were not to evacuate until a prisoner of war exchange occurred, an effort that involved much negotiation and would take some seven months to effect.As directed by a Congressional resolution of May 26, 1783, all non-commissioned officers and enlisted were furloughed "to their homes" until the "definitive treaty of peace", when they would be automatically discharged. The US armies were directly disbanded in the field as of Washington's General Orders on Monday, June 2, 1783. Once the conclusive Treaty of Paris was signed with Britain, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief at Congress, leaving for his Army retirement at Mount Vernon.TerritoryThe expanse of territory that was now the United States was ceded from its colonial Mother country alone. It included millions of sparsely settled acres south of the Great Lakes Line between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The tentative colonial migration west became a flood during the years of the Revolutionary War. Virginia's Kentucky County counted 150 men in 1775. By 1790 fifteen years later, it numbered over 73,000 and was seeking statehood in the United States.Britain's extended post-war policy for the US continued to try to establish an Indian buffer state below the Great Lakes as late as 1814 during the War of 1812. The formally acquired western American lands continued to be populated by a dozen or so American Indian tribes that had been British allies for the most part. Though British forts on their lands had been ceded to either the French or the British prior to the creation of the United States, Natives were not referred to in the British cession to the US. While tribes were not consulted by the British for the treaty, in practice the British refused to abandon the forts on territory they formally transferred. Instead, they provisioned military allies for continuing frontier raids and sponsored the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), including erecting an additional British Fort Miami (Ohio). British sponsorship of local warfare on the United States continued until the Anglo-American Jay Treaty went into effect. At the same time, the Spanish also sponsored war within the US by Indian proxies in its Southwest Territory ceded by France to Britain, then Britain to the Americans.Of the European powers with American colonies adjacent to the newly created United States, Spain was most threatened by American independence, and it was correspondingly the most hostile to it. Its territory adjacent to the US was relatively undefended, so Spanish policy developed a combination of initiatives. Spanish soft power diplomatically challenged the British territorial cession west to the Mississippi and the previous northern boundaries of Spanish Florida. It imposed a high tariff on American goods, then blocked American settler access to the port of New Orleans. Spanish hard power extended war alliances and arms to Southwestern Natives to resist American settlement. A former Continental Army General, James Wilkinson settled in Kentucky County Virginia in 1784, and there he fostered settler secession from Virginia during the Spanish-allied Chickamauga Cherokee war. Beginning in 1787, he received pay as Spanish Agent 13, and subsequently expanded his efforts to persuade American settlers west of the Appalachians to secede from the United States, first in the Washington administration, and later again in the Jefferson administration.Casualties and lossesThe total loss of life throughout the conflict is largely unknown. As was typical in wars of the era, diseases such as smallpox claimed more lives than battle. Between 1775 and 1782, a smallpox epidemic broke out throughout North America, killing an estimated 130,000 among all its populations during those years. Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the disease was one of his most important decisions.Up to 70,000 American Patriots died during active military service. Of these, approximately 6,800 were killed in battle, while at least 17,000 died from disease. The majority of the latter died while prisoners of war of the British, mostly in the prison ships in New York Harbor. The number of Patriots seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000.The French suffered 2,112 killed in combat in the United States. The Spanish lost a total of 124 killed and 247 wounded in West Florida.A British report in 1781 puts their total Army deaths at 6,046 in North America (1775–1779). Approximately 7,774 Germans died in British service in addition to 4,888 deserters; of the former, it is estimated 1,800 were killed in combat.LegacyThe American Revolution established the United States with its numerous civil liberties and set an example to overthrow both monarchy and colonial governments. The United States has the world's oldest written constitution, and the constitutions of other free countries often bear a striking resemblance to the US Constitution, often word-for-word in places. It inspired the French, Haitian, Latin American Revolutions, and others into the modern era.Although the Revolution eliminated many forms of inequality, it did little to change the status of women, despite the role they played in winning independence. Most significantly, it failed to end slavery which continued to be a serious social and political issue and caused divisions that would ultimately end in civil war. While many were uneasy over the contradiction of demanding liberty for some, yet denying it to others, the dependence of southern states on slave labor made abolition too great a challenge. Between 1774 and 1780, many of the states banned the importation of slaves, but the institution itself continued.In 1782, Virginia passed a law permitting manumission and over the next eight years more than 10,000 slaves were given their freedom. With support from Benjamin Franklin, in 1790 the Quakers petitioned Congress to abolish slavery; the number of abolitionist movements greatly increased, and by 1804 all the northern states had outlawed it. However, even many like Adams who viewed slavery as a 'foul contagion' opposed the 1790 petition as a threat to the Union. In 1808, Jefferson passed legislation banning the importation of slaves, but allowed the domestic slave trade to continue, arguing the federal government had no right to regulate individual states.HistoriographyA large historiography concerns the reasons the Americans revolted and successfully broke away.  The "Patriots", an insulting term used by the British that was proudly adopted by the Americans, stressed the constitutional rights of Englishmen, especially "No taxation without representation." Contemporaries credited the American Enlightenment with laying the intellectual, moral and ethical foundations of the Revolution among the Founding Fathers. Founders referred to the liberalism in the philosophy of John Locke as powerful influences. Although  Two Treatises of Government has long been cited as a major influence on American thinkers, historians David Lundberg and Henry F. May demonstrate that Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding was far more widely read than were his political Treatises. Historians since the 1960s have emphasized that the Patriot constitutional argument was made possible by the emergence of a sense of American nationalism that united all 13 colonies. In turn, that nationalism was rooted in a Republican value system that demanded consent of the governed and opposed aristocratic control. In Britain itself, republicanism was a fringe view since it challenged the aristocratic control of the British political system. Political power was not controlled by an aristocracy or nobility in the 13 colonies, and instead, the colonial political system was based on the winners of free elections, which were open to the majority of white men. In the analysis of the coming of the Revolution, historians in recent decades have mostly used one of three approaches.The Atlantic history view places the American story in a broader context, including revolutions in France and Haiti. It tends to reintegrate the historiographies of the American Revolution and the British Empire.The "new social history" approach looks at community social structure to find cleavages that were magnified into colonial cleavages.The ideological approach that centers on republicanism in the United States. Republicanism dictated there would be no royalty, aristocracy or national church but allowed for continuation of the British common law, which American lawyers and jurists understood and approved and used in their everyday practice. Historians have examined how the rising American legal profession adopted British common law to incorporate republicanism by selective revision of legal customs and by introducing more choices for courts.Commemorations of the Revolutionary WarAfter the first U.S. postage stamp was issued in 1849, the U.S. Post Office frequently issued commemorative stamps celebrating the various people and events of the Revolutionary War. However, it would be more than 140 years after the Revolution before any stamp commemorating that war itself was ever issued. The first such stamp was the 'Liberty Bell' issue of 1926.See also 1776 in the United States: events, births, deaths, and other years Timeline of the American RevolutionTopics of the Revolution Committee of safety (American Revolution) Financial costs of the American Revolutionary War Flags of the American Revolution Naval operations in the American Revolutionary WarSocial history of the Revolution Black Patriot Christianity in the United States#American Revolution The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution History of Poles in the United States#American Revolution List of clergy in the American Revolution List of Patriots (American Revolution) Quakers in the American Revolution Scotch-Irish Americans#American RevolutionOthers in the American Revolution Nova Scotia in the American Revolution Watauga AssociationLists of Revolutionary military List of American Revolutionary War battles List of British Forces in the American Revolutionary War List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War List of infantry weapons in the American Revolution List of United States militia units in the American Revolutionary War"Thirteen Colony" economy Economic history of the US: Colonial economy to 1780 Shipbuilding in the American colonies Slavery in the United StatesLegacy and related American Revolution Statuary Commemoration of the American Revolution Founders Online Independence Day (United States) The Last Men of the Revolution List of plays and films about the American Revolution Museum of the American Revolution Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution United States Bicentennial List of wars of independenceBibliographies Bibliography of the American Revolutionary War Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson Bibliography of George WashingtonNotesCitationsYear dates enclosed in [brackets] denote year of original printingSources                                  Britannica.com                                    Dictionary of American Biography               Encyclopædia Britannica                                                                , p. 73                – Highly regarded examination of British strategy and leadership. An introduction by John W. Shy with his biographical sketch of Mackesy.                                                              Robinson Library                                                         (See also:British Warships in the Age of Sail)    Websites without authors  Canada's Digital Collections Program  History.org  Maryland State House  The History Place  Totallyhistory.com  U.S. Merchant Marine  U.S. National Archives  Valley Forge National Historic Park  Yale Law School, Massachusetts ActBibliographyA selection of works relating to the war not listed above; Allison, David, and Larrie D. Ferreiro, eds. The American Revolution: A World War (Smithsonian, 2018) excerpt Volumes committed to the American Revolution: Vol. 7; Vol. 8; Vol. 9; Vol. 10 Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. Penguin, 1998 (paperback reprint)      Chartrand, Rene. The French Army in the American War of Independence (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.    Commager, Henry Steele and Richard B. Morris, eds. The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six': The Story of the American Revolution as told by Participants. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958). online Conway, Stephen. The War of American Independence 1775–1783. Publisher: E. Arnold, 1995. . 280 pp.                       Kwasny, Mark V. Washington's Partisan War, 1775–1783. Kent, Ohio: 1996. . Militia warfare.    Library of Congress   May, Robin. The British Army in North America 1775–1783 (1993). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.      National Institute of Health  Neimeyer, Charles Patrick. America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (1995)         Royal Navy Museum        Stoker, Donald, Kenneth J. Hagan, and Michael T. McMaster, eds. Strategy in the American War of Independence: a global approach (Routledge, 2009) excerpt. Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution (1989), newly drawn maps emphasizing the movement of military units     U.S. Army, "The Winning of Independence, 1777–1783" American Military History Volume I, 2005. U.S. National Park Service      Zlatich, Marko; Copeland, Peter. General Washington's Army (1): 1775–78 (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions. ——. General Washington's Army (2): 1779–83 (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.Primary sourcesIn addition to this selection, many primary sources are available at the Princeton University Law School Avalon Project and at the Library of Congress Digital Collections (previously LOC webpage, American Memory). Original editions for titles related to the American Revolutionary War can be found open-sourced online at Internet Archive and Hathi Trust Digital Library.  Emmerich, Adreas. The Partisan in War, a treatise on light infantry tactics written by Colonel Andreas Emmerich in 1789.External links  Maps of the Revolutionary War from the United States Military AcademyBibliographies online Library of Congress Guide to the American Revolution Bibliographies of the War of American Independence compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History Political bibliography from Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Conflicts in 1775Conflicts in 1776Conflicts in 1777Conflicts in 1778Conflicts in 1779Conflicts in 1780Conflicts in 1781Conflicts in 1782Conflicts in 1783Global conflictsRebellions against the British EmpireWars between the United Kingdom and the United StatesWars of independence
The ampere (, ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp, is the base unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). It is named after André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), French mathematician and physicist, considered the father of electromagnetism along with the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted.The International System of Units defines the ampere in terms of other base units by measuring the electromagnetic force between electrical conductors carrying electric current. The earlier CGS system had two definitions of current, one essentially the same as the SI's and the other using electric charge as the base unit, with the unit of charge defined by measuring the force between two charged metal plates. The ampere was then defined as one coulomb of charge per second. In SI, the unit of charge, the coulomb, is defined as the charge carried by one ampere during one second.New definitions, in terms of invariant constants of nature, specifically the elementary charge, took effect on 20 May 2019.DefinitionThe ampere is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the elementary charge  to be 1.602 176 634 × 10−19 when expressed in the unit C, which is equal to A⋅s, where the second is defined in terms of , the unperturbed ground state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium-133 atom.The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, "is the quantity of electricity carried in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere". Conversely, a current of one ampere is one coulomb of charge going past a given point per second:In general, charge  is determined by steady current  flowing for a time  as .Constant, instantaneous and average current are expressed in amperes (as in "the charging current is 1.2 A") and the charge accumulated (or passed through a circuit) over a period of time is expressed in coulombs (as in "the battery charge is "). The relation of the ampere (C/s) to the coulomb is the same as that of the watt (J/s) to the joule.History The ampere is named for French physicist and mathematician André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), who studied electromagnetism and laid the foundation of electrodynamics. In recognition of Ampère's contributions to the creation of modern electrical science, an international convention, signed at the 1881 International Exposition of Electricity, established the ampere as a standard unit of electrical measurement for electric current.The ampere was originally defined as one tenth of the unit of electric current in the centimetre–gram–second system of units. That unit, now known as the abampere, was defined as the amount of current that generates a force of two dynes per centimetre of length between two wires one centimetre apart. The size of the unit was chosen so that the units derived from it in the MKSA system would be conveniently sized.The "international ampere" was an early realization of the ampere, defined as the current that would deposit  of silver per second from a silver nitrate solution. Later, more accurate measurements revealed that this current is .Since power is defined as the product of current and voltage, the ampere can alternatively be expressed in terms of the other units using the relationship , and thus 1 A = 1 W/V. Current can be measured by a multimeter, a device that can measure electrical voltage, current, and resistance.Former definition in the SIUntil 2019, the SI defined the ampere as follows:The ampere is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one metre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to  newtons per metre of length. Ampère's force law states that there is an attractive or repulsive force between two parallel wires carrying an electric current. This force is used in the formal definition of the ampere.The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, was then defined as "the quantity of electricity carried in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere". Conversely, a current of one ampere is one coulomb of charge going past a given point per second:In general, charge  was determined by steady current  flowing for a time  as .RealisationThe standard ampere is most accurately realised using a Kibble balance, but is in practice maintained via Ohm's law from the units of electromotive force and resistance, the volt and the ohm, since the latter two can be tied to physical phenomena that are relatively easy to reproduce, the Josephson effect and the quantum Hall effect, respectively.Techniques to establish the realisation of an ampere have a relative uncertainty of approximately a few parts in 10, and involve realisations of the watt, the ohm and the volt.See also  Ammeter Ampacity (current-carrying capacity) Electric current Electric shock Hydraulic analogy Magnetic constant Orders of magnitude (current)ReferencesExternal links  The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty NIST Definition of ampere and μ0SI base unitsUnits of electric current
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of well-defined instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing calculations and data processing. By making use of artificial intelligence, algorithms can perform automated deductions (referred to as automated reasoning) and use mathematical and logical tests to divert the code through various routes (referred to as automated decision-making). Using human characteristics as descriptors of machines in metaphorical ways was already practiced by Alan Turing with terms such as "memory", "search" and "stimulus".In contrast, a heuristic is an approach to problem solving that may not be fully specified or may not guarantee correct or optimal results, especially in problem domains where there is no well-defined correct or optimal result.As an effective method, an algorithm can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time, and in a well-defined formal language for calculating a function. Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty), the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input.History The concept of algorithm has existed since antiquity. Arithmetic algorithms, such as a division algorithm, were used by ancient Babylonian mathematicians c. 2500 BC and Egyptian mathematicians c. 1550 BC. Greek mathematicians later used algorithms in 240 BC in the sieve of Eratosthenes for finding prime numbers, and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. Arabic mathematicians such as al-Kindi in the 9th century used cryptographic algorithms for code-breaking, based on frequency analysis.The word algorithm is derived from the name of the 9th-century Persian mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, whose nisba (identifying him as from Khwarazm) was Latinized as Algoritmi (Arabized Persian الخوارزمی c. 780–850).Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, whose name means 'the native of Khwarazm', a region that was part of Greater Iran and is now in Uzbekistan. About 825, al-Khwarizmi wrote an Arabic language treatise on the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, which was translated into Latin during the 12th century. The manuscript starts with the phrase Dixit Algorizmi ('Thus spake Al-Khwarizmi'), where "Algorizmi" was the translator's Latinization of Al-Khwarizmi's name. Al-Khwarizmi was the most widely read mathematician in Europe in the late Middle Ages, primarily through another of his books, the Algebra. In late medieval Latin, algorismus, English 'algorism', the corruption of his name, simply meant the "decimal number system". In the 15th century, under the influence of the Greek word ἀριθμός (arithmos), 'number' (cf. 'arithmetic'), the Latin word was altered to algorithmus, and the corresponding English term 'algorithm' is first attested in the 17th century; the modern sense was introduced in the 19th century.Indian mathematics was predominantly algorithmic.Algorithms that are representative of the Indian mathematical tradition range from the ancient Śulbasūtrās to the medieval texts of the Kerala School.In English, the word algorithm was first used in about 1230 and then by Chaucer in 1391. English adopted the French term, but it was not until the late 19th century that "algorithm" took on the meaning that it has in modern English.Another early use of the word is from 1240, in a manual titled Carmen de Algorismo composed by Alexandre de Villedieu. It begins with:which translates to:The poem is a few hundred lines long and summarizes the art of calculating with the new styled Indian dice (Tali Indorum), or Hindu numerals.A partial formalization of the modern concept of algorithm began with attempts to solve the Entscheidungsproblem  (decision problem) posed by David Hilbert in 1928. Later formalizations were framed as attempts to define "effective calculability" or "effective method". Those formalizations included the Gödel–Herbrand–Kleene recursive functions of 1930, 1934 and 1935, Alonzo Church's lambda calculus of 1936, Emil Post's Formulation 1 of 1936, and Alan Turing's Turing machines of 1936–37 and 1939.Informal definitionAn informal definition could be "a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations", which would include all computer programs (including programs that do not perform numeric calculations), and (for example) any prescribed bureaucratic procedureor cook-book recipe.In general, a program is only an algorithm if it stops eventually—even though infinite loops may sometimes prove desirable.A prototypical example of an algorithm is the Euclidean algorithm, which is used to determine the maximum common divisor of two integers; an example (there are others) is described by the flowchart above and as an example in a later section. offer an informal meaning of the word "algorithm" in the following quotation:No human being can write fast enough, or long enough, or small enough† ( †"smaller and smaller without limit ... you'd be trying to write on molecules, on atoms, on electrons") to list all members of an enumerably infinite set by writing out their names, one after another, in some notation. But humans can do something equally useful, in the case of certain enumerably infinite sets: They can give explicit instructions for determining the nth member of the set, for arbitrary finite n. Such instructions are to be given quite explicitly, in a form in which they could be followed by a computing machine, or by a human who is capable of carrying out only very elementary operations on symbols.An "enumerably infinite set" is one whose elements can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the integers. Thus Boolos and Jeffrey are saying that an algorithm implies instructions for a process that "creates" output integers from an arbitrary "input" integer or integers that, in theory, can be arbitrarily large. For example, an algorithm can be an algebraic equation such as y = m + n (i.e., two arbitrary "input variables" m and n that produce an output y), but various authors' attempts to define the notion indicate that the word implies much more than this, something on the order of (for the addition example):Precise instructions (in a language understood by "the computer") for a fast, efficient, "good" process that specifies the "moves" of "the computer" (machine or human, equipped with the necessary internally contained information and capabilities) to find, decode, and then process arbitrary input integers/symbols m and n, symbols + and = ... and "effectively" produce, in a "reasonable" time, output-integer y at a specified place and in a specified format.The concept of algorithm is also used to define the notion of decidability—a notion that is central for explaining how formal systems come into being starting from a small set of axioms and rules. In logic, the time that an algorithm requires to complete cannot be measured, as it is not apparently related to the customary physical dimension. From such uncertainties, that characterize ongoing work, stems the unavailability of a definition of algorithm that suits both concrete (in some sense) and abstract usage of the term.Most algorithms are intended to be implemented as computer programs. However, algorithms are also implemented by other means, such as in a biological neural network (for example, the human brain implementing arithmetic or an insect looking for food), in an electrical circuit, or in a mechanical device.FormalizationAlgorithms are essential to the way computers process data. Many computer programs contain algorithms that detail the specific instructions a computer should perform—in a specific order—to carry out a specified task, such as calculating employees' paychecks or printing students' report cards. Thus, an algorithm can be considered to be any sequence of operations that can be simulated by a Turing-complete system. Authors who assert this thesis include Minsky (1967), Savage (1987) and Gurevich (2000): Minsky: "But we will also maintain, with Turing ... that any procedure which could "naturally" be called effective, can, in fact, be realized by a (simple) machine. Although this may seem extreme, the arguments ... in its favor are hard to refute". Gurevich: "… Turing's informal argument in favor of his thesis justifies a stronger thesis: every algorithm can be simulated by a Turing machine … according to Savage [1987], an algorithm is a computational process defined by a Turing machine".Turing machines can define computational processes that do not terminate. The informal definitions of algorithms generally require that the algorithm always terminates. This requirement renders the task of deciding whether a formal procedure is an algorithm impossible in the general case—due to a major theorem of computability theory known as the halting problem.Typically, when an algorithm is associated with processing information, data can be read from an input source, written to an output device and stored for further processing. Stored data are regarded as part of the internal state of the entity performing the algorithm. In practice, the state is stored in one or more data structures.For some of these computational processes, the algorithm must be rigorously defined: specified in the way it applies in all possible circumstances that could arise. This means that any conditional steps must be systematically dealt with, case-by-case; the criteria for each case must be clear (and computable).Because an algorithm is a precise list of precise steps, the order of computation is always crucial to the functioning of the algorithm. Instructions are usually assumed to be listed explicitly, and are described as starting "from the top" and going "down to the bottom"—an idea that is described more formally by flow of control.So far, the discussion on the formalization of an algorithm has assumed the premises of imperative programming. This is the most common conception—one which attempts to describe a task in discrete, "mechanical" means. Unique to this conception of formalized algorithms is the assignment operation, which sets the value of a variable. It derives from the intuition of "memory" as a scratchpad. An example of such an assignment can be found below.For some alternate conceptions of what constitutes an algorithm, see functional programming and logic programming.Expressing algorithmsAlgorithms can be expressed in many kinds of notation, including natural languages, pseudocode, flowcharts, drakon-charts, programming languages or control tables (processed by interpreters). Natural language expressions of algorithms tend to be verbose and ambiguous, and are rarely used for complex or technical algorithms. Pseudocode, flowcharts, drakon-charts and control tables are structured ways to express algorithms that avoid many of the ambiguities common in the statements based on natural language. Programming languages are primarily intended for expressing algorithms in a form that can be executed by a computer, but are also often used as a way to define or document algorithms.There is a wide variety of representations possible and one can express a given Turing machine program as a sequence of machine tables (see finite-state machine, state transition table and control table for more), as flowcharts and drakon-charts (see state diagram for more), or as a form of rudimentary machine code or assembly code called "sets of quadruples" (see Turing machine for more).Representations of algorithms can be classed into three accepted levels of Turing machine description, as follows: 1 High-level description "...prose to describe an algorithm, ignoring the implementation details. At this level, we do not need to mention how the machine manages its tape or head." 2 Implementation description "...prose used to define the way the Turing machine uses its head and the way that it stores data on its tape. At this level, we do not give details of states or transition function." 3 Formal description Most detailed, "lowest level", gives the Turing machine's "state table".For an example of the simple algorithm "Add m+n" described in all three levels, see Examples.DesignAlgorithm design refers to a method or a mathematical process for problem-solving and engineering algorithms. The design of algorithms is part of many solution theories of operation research, such as dynamic programming and divide-and-conquer. Techniques for designing and implementing algorithm designs are also called algorithm design patterns, with examples including the template method pattern and the decorator pattern.One of the most important aspects of algorithm design is resource (run-time, memory usage) efficiency; the big O notation is used to describe e.g. an algorithm's run-time growth as the size of its input increases.Typical steps in the development of algorithms: Problem definition Development of a model Specification of the algorithm Designing an algorithm Checking the correctness of the algorithm Analysis of algorithm Implementation of algorithm Program testing Documentation preparationComputer algorithms"Elegant" (compact) programs, "good" (fast) programs : The notion of "simplicity and elegance" appears informally in Knuth and precisely in Chaitin:Knuth: " ... we want good algorithms in some loosely defined aesthetic sense. One criterion ... is the length of time taken to perform the algorithm .... Other criteria are adaptability of the algorithm to computers, its simplicity and elegance, etc."Chaitin: " ... a program is 'elegant,' by which I mean that it's the smallest possible program for producing the output that it does"Chaitin prefaces his definition with: "I'll show you can't prove that a program is 'elegant—such a proof would solve the Halting problem (ibid).Algorithm versus function computable by an algorithm: For a given function multiple algorithms may exist. This is true, even without expanding the available instruction set available to the programmer. Rogers observes that "It is ... important to distinguish between the notion of algorithm, i.e. procedure and the notion of function computable by algorithm, i.e. mapping yielded by procedure. The same function may have several different algorithms".Unfortunately, there may be a tradeoff between goodness (speed) and elegance (compactness)—an elegant program may take more steps to complete a computation than one less elegant. An example that uses Euclid's algorithm appears below.Computers (and computors), models of computation: A computer (or human "computor") is a restricted type of machine, a "discrete deterministic mechanical device" that blindly follows its instructions. Melzak's and Lambek's primitive models reduced this notion to four elements: (i) discrete, distinguishable locations, (ii) discrete, indistinguishable counters (iii) an agent, and (iv) a list of instructions that are effective relative to the capability of the agent.Minsky describes a more congenial variation of Lambek's "abacus" model in his "Very Simple Bases for Computability". Minsky's machine proceeds sequentially through its five (or six, depending on how one counts) instructions unless either a conditional IF-THEN GOTO or an unconditional GOTO changes program flow out of sequence. Besides HALT, Minsky's machine includes three assignment (replacement, substitution) operations: ZERO (e.g. the contents of location replaced by 0: L ← 0), SUCCESSOR (e.g. L ← L+1), and DECREMENT (e.g. L ← L − 1). Rarely must a programmer write "code" with such a limited instruction set. But Minsky shows (as do Melzak and Lambek) that his machine is Turing complete with only four general types of instructions: conditional GOTO, unconditional GOTO, assignment/replacement/substitution, and HALT.  However, a few different assignment instructions (e.g. DECREMENT, INCREMENT, and ZERO/CLEAR/EMPTY for a Minsky machine) are also required for Turing-completeness; their exact specification is somewhat up to the designer. The unconditional GOTO is a convenience; it can be constructed by initializing a dedicated location to zero e.g. the instruction " Z ← 0 "; thereafter the instruction IF Z=0 THEN GOTO xxx is unconditional.Simulation of an algorithm: computer (computor) language: Knuth advises the reader that "the best way to learn an algorithm is to try it . . . immediately take pen and paper and work through an example". But what about a simulation or execution of the real thing? The programmer must translate the algorithm into a language that the simulator/computer/computor can effectively execute. Stone gives an example of this: when computing the roots of a quadratic equation the computor must know how to take a square root. If they don't, then the algorithm, to be effective, must provide a set of rules for extracting a square root.This means that the programmer must know a "language" that is effective relative to the target computing agent (computer/computor).But what model should be used for the simulation? Van Emde Boas observes "even if we base complexity theory on abstract instead of concrete machines, arbitrariness of the choice of a model remains. It is at this point that the notion of simulation enters". When speed is being measured, the instruction set matters. For example, the subprogram in Euclid's algorithm to compute the remainder would execute much faster if the programmer had a "modulus" instruction available rather than just subtraction (or worse: just Minsky's "decrement").Structured programming, canonical structures: Per the Church–Turing thesis, any algorithm can be computed by a model known to be Turing complete, and per Minsky's demonstrations, Turing completeness requires only four instruction types—conditional GOTO, unconditional GOTO, assignment, HALT. Kemeny and Kurtz observe that, while "undisciplined" use of unconditional GOTOs and conditional IF-THEN GOTOs can result in "spaghetti code", a programmer can write structured programs using only these instructions; on the other hand "it is also possible, and not too hard, to write badly structured programs in a structured language". Tausworthe augments the three Böhm-Jacopini canonical structures: SEQUENCE, IF-THEN-ELSE, and WHILE-DO, with two more: DO-WHILE and CASE. An additional benefit of a structured program is that it lends itself to proofs of correctness using mathematical induction.Canonical flowchart symbols: The graphical aide called a flowchart, offers a way to describe and document an algorithm (and a computer program of one). Like the program flow of a Minsky machine, a flowchart always starts at the top of a page and proceeds down. Its primary symbols are only four: the directed arrow showing program flow, the rectangle (SEQUENCE, GOTO), the diamond (IF-THEN-ELSE), and the dot (OR-tie). The Böhm–Jacopini canonical structures are made of these primitive shapes. Sub-structures can "nest" in rectangles, but only if a single exit occurs from the superstructure. The symbols, and their use to build the canonical structures are shown in the diagram.ExamplesAlgorithm exampleOne of the simplest algorithms is to find the largest number in a list of numbers of random order. Finding the solution requires looking at every number in the list. From this follows a simple algorithm, which can be stated in a high-level description in English prose, as:High-level description: If there are no numbers in the set then there is no highest number. Assume the first number in the set is the largest number in the set. For each remaining number in the set: if this number is larger than the current largest number, consider this number to be the largest number in the set. When there are no numbers left in the set to iterate over, consider the current largest number to be the largest number of the set.(Quasi-)formal description:Written in prose but much closer to the high-level language of a computer program, the following is the more formal coding of the algorithm in pseudocode or pidgin code:   Input: A list of numbers L.   Output: The largest number in the list L.   if L.size = 0 return null   largest ← L[0]   for each item in L, do     if item > largest, then       largest ← item   return largestEuclid's algorithmIn mathematics, the Euclidean algorithm, or Euclid's algorithm, is an efficient method for computing the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two integers (numbers), the largest number that divides them both without a remainder. It is named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, who first described it in his Elements (c. 300 BC). It is one of the oldest algorithms in common use. It can be used to reduce fractions to their simplest form, and is a part of many other number-theoretic and cryptographic calculations.Euclid poses the problem thus: "Given two numbers not prime to one another, to find their greatest common measure". He defines "A number [to be] a multitude composed of units": a counting number, a positive integer not including zero. To "measure" is to place a shorter measuring length s successively (q times) along longer length l until the remaining portion r is less than the shorter length s. In modern words, remainder r = l − q×s, q being the quotient, or remainder r is the "modulus", the integer-fractional part left over after the division.For Euclid's method to succeed, the starting lengths must satisfy two requirements: (i) the lengths must not be zero, AND (ii) the subtraction must be "proper"; i.e., a test must guarantee that the smaller of the two numbers is subtracted from the larger (or the two can be equal so their subtraction yields zero).Euclid's original proof adds a third requirement: the two lengths must not be prime to one another. Euclid stipulated this so that he could construct a reductio ad absurdum proof that the two numbers' common measure is in fact the greatest. While Nicomachus' algorithm is the same as Euclid's, when the numbers are prime to one another, it yields the number "1" for their common measure. So, to be precise, the following is really Nicomachus' algorithm.Computer language for Euclid's algorithmOnly a few instruction types are required to execute Euclid's algorithm—some logical tests (conditional GOTO), unconditional GOTO, assignment (replacement), and subtraction. A location is symbolized by upper case letter(s), e.g. S, A, etc. The varying quantity (number) in a location is written in lower case letter(s) and (usually) associated with the location's name. For example, location L at the start might contain the number l = 3009.An inelegant program for Euclid's algorithmThe following algorithm is framed as Knuth's four-step version of Euclid's and Nicomachus', but, rather than using division to find the remainder, it uses successive subtractions of the shorter length s from the remaining length r until r is less than s. The high-level description, shown in boldface, is adapted from Knuth 1973:2–4:INPUT:  [Into two locations L and S put the numbers l and s that represent the two lengths]:   INPUT L, S  [Initialize R: make the remaining length r equal to the starting/initial/input length l]:   R ← LE0: [Ensure r ≥ s.]  [Ensure the smaller of the two numbers is in S and the larger in R]:   IF R > S THEN     the contents of L is the larger number so skip over the exchange-steps 4, 5 and 6:     GOTO step 7   ELSE     swap the contents of R and S.    L ← R (this first step is redundant, but is useful for later discussion).    R ← S    S ← LE1: [Find remainder]: Until the remaining length r in R is less than the shorter length s in S, repeatedly subtract the measuring number s in S from the remaining length r in R.  IF S > R THEN     done measuring so     GOTO 10   ELSE     measure again,    R ← R − S    [Remainder-loop]:     GOTO 7.E2: [Is the remainder zero?]: EITHER (i) the last measure was exact, the remainder in R is zero, and the program can halt, OR (ii) the algorithm must continue: the last measure left a remainder in R less than measuring number in S.  IF R = 0 THEN      done so      GOTO step 15    ELSE      CONTINUE TO step 11,E3: [Interchange s and r]: The nut of Euclid's algorithm. Use remainder r to measure what was previously smaller number s; L serves as a temporary location.   L ← R   R ← S   S ← L   [Repeat the measuring process]:     GOTO 7OUTPUT:  [Done. S contains the greatest common divisor]:    PRINT SDONE:  HALT, END, STOP.An elegant program for Euclid's algorithm The flowchart of "Elegant" can be found at the top of this article. In the (unstructured) Basic language, the steps are numbered, and the instruction LET [] = [] is the assignment instruction symbolized by ←.  5 REM Euclid's algorithm for greatest common divisor  6 PRINT "Type two integers greater than 0"  10 INPUT A,B  20 IF B=0 THEN GOTO 80  30 IF A > B THEN GOTO 60  40 LET B=B-A  50 GOTO 20  60 LET A=A-B  70 GOTO 20  80 PRINT A  90 ENDHow "Elegant" works: In place of an outer "Euclid loop", "Elegant" shifts back and forth between two "co-loops", an A > B loop that computes A ← A − B, and a B ≤ A loop that computes B ← B − A. This works because, when at last the minuend M is less than or equal to the subtrahend S (Difference = Minuend − Subtrahend), the minuend can become s (the new measuring length) and the subtrahend can become the new r (the length to be measured); in other words the "sense" of the subtraction reverses.The following version can be used with programming languages from the C-family:// Euclid's algorithm for greatest common divisorint euclidAlgorithm (int A, int B){     A=abs(A);     B=abs(B);     while (B!=0){          while (A>B) A=A-B;          B=B-A;     }     return A;}Testing the Euclid algorithmsDoes an algorithm do what its author wants it to do? A few test cases usually give some confidence in the core functionality. But tests are not enough. For test cases, one source uses 3009 and 884. Knuth suggested 40902, 24140. Another interesting case is the two relatively prime numbers 14157 and 5950.But "exceptional cases" must be identified and tested. Will "Inelegant" perform properly when R > S, S > R, R = S? Ditto for "Elegant": B > A, A > B, A = B? (Yes to all). What happens when one number is zero, both numbers are zero? ("Inelegant" computes forever in all cases; "Elegant" computes forever when A = 0.) What happens if negative numbers are entered? Fractional numbers? If the input numbers, i.e. the domain of the function computed by the algorithm/program, is to include only positive integers including zero, then the failures at zero indicate that the algorithm (and the program that instantiates it) is a partial function rather than a total function. A notable failure due to exceptions is the Ariane 5 Flight 501 rocket failure (June 4, 1996).Proof of program correctness by use of mathematical induction: Knuth demonstrates the application of mathematical induction to an "extended" version of Euclid's algorithm, and he proposes "a general method applicable to proving the validity of any algorithm". Tausworthe proposes that a measure of the complexity of a program be the length of its correctness proof.Measuring and improving the Euclid algorithmsElegance (compactness) versus goodness (speed): With only six core instructions, "Elegant" is the clear winner, compared to "Inelegant" at thirteen instructions. However, "Inelegant" is faster (it arrives at HALT in fewer steps). Algorithm analysis indicates why this is the case: "Elegant" does two conditional tests in every subtraction loop, whereas "Inelegant" only does one. As the algorithm (usually) requires many loop-throughs, on average much time is wasted doing a "B = 0?" test that is needed only after the remainder is computed.Can the algorithms be improved?: Once the programmer judges a program "fit" and "effective"—that is, it computes the function intended by its author—then the question becomes, can it be improved?The compactness of "Inelegant" can be improved by the elimination of five steps. But Chaitin proved that compacting an algorithm cannot be automated by a generalized algorithm; rather, it can only be done heuristically; i.e., by exhaustive search (examples to be found at Busy beaver), trial and error, cleverness, insight, application of inductive reasoning, etc. Observe that steps 4, 5 and 6 are repeated in steps 11, 12 and 13. Comparison with "Elegant" provides a hint that these steps, together with steps 2 and 3, can be eliminated. This reduces the number of core instructions from thirteen to eight, which makes it "more elegant" than "Elegant", at nine steps.The speed of "Elegant" can be improved by moving the "B=0?" test outside of the two subtraction loops. This change calls for the addition of three instructions (B = 0?, A = 0?, GOTO). Now "Elegant" computes the example-numbers faster; whether this is always the case for any given A, B, and R, S would require a detailed analysis.Algorithmic analysisIt is frequently important to know how much of a particular resource (such as time or storage) is theoretically required for a given algorithm. Methods have been developed for the analysis of algorithms to obtain such quantitative answers (estimates); for example, an algorithm which adds up the elements of a list of n numbers would have a time requirement of O(n), using big O notation. At all times the algorithm only needs to remember two values: the sum of all the elements so far, and its current position in the input list. Therefore, it is said to have a space requirement of O(1), if the space required to store the input numbers is not counted, or O(n) if it is counted.Different algorithms may complete the same task with a different set of instructions in less or more time, space, or 'effort' than others. For example, a binary search algorithm (with cost O(log n)) outperforms a sequential search (cost O(n) ) when used for table lookups on sorted lists or arrays.Formal versus empiricalThe analysis, and study of algorithms is a discipline of computer science, and is often practiced abstractly without the use of a specific programming language or implementation. In this sense, algorithm analysis resembles other mathematical disciplines in that it focuses on the underlying properties of the algorithm and not on the specifics of any particular implementation. Usually pseudocode is used for analysis as it is the simplest and most general representation. However, ultimately, most algorithms are usually implemented on particular hardware/software platforms and their algorithmic efficiency is eventually put to the test using real code. For the solution of a "one off" problem, the efficiency of a particular algorithm may not have significant consequences (unless n is extremely large) but for algorithms designed for fast interactive, commercial or long life scientific usage it may be critical. Scaling from small n to large n frequently exposes inefficient algorithms that are otherwise benign.Empirical testing is useful because it may uncover unexpected interactions that affect performance. Benchmarks may be used to compare before/after potential improvements to an algorithm after program optimization.Empirical tests cannot replace formal analysis, though, and are not trivial to perform in a fair manner.Execution efficiency To illustrate the potential improvements possible even in well-established algorithms, a recent significant innovation, relating to FFT algorithms (used heavily in the field of image processing), can decrease processing time up to 1,000 times for applications like medical imaging. In general, speed improvements depend on special properties of the problem, which are very common in practical applications. Speedups of this magnitude enable computing devices that make extensive use of image processing (like digital cameras and medical equipment) to consume less power.Classification There are various ways to classify algorithms, each with its own merits.By implementation One way to classify algorithms is by implementation means. Recursion A recursive algorithm is one that invokes (makes reference to) itself repeatedly until a certain condition (also known as termination condition) matches, which is a method common to functional programming. Iterative algorithms use repetitive constructs like loops and sometimes additional data structures like stacks to solve the given problems. Some problems are naturally suited for one implementation or the other. For example, towers of Hanoi is well understood using recursive implementation. Every recursive version has an equivalent (but possibly more or less complex) iterative version, and vice versa. Logical An algorithm may be viewed as controlled logical deduction. This notion may be expressed as: Algorithm = logic + control. The logic component expresses the axioms that may be used in the computation and the control component determines the way in which deduction is applied to the axioms. This is the basis for the logic programming paradigm. In pure logic programming languages, the control component is fixed and algorithms are specified by supplying only the logic component. The appeal of this approach is the elegant semantics: a change in the axioms produces a well-defined change in the algorithm. Serial, parallel or distributed Algorithms are usually discussed with the assumption that computers execute one instruction of an algorithm at a time. Those computers are sometimes called serial computers. An algorithm designed for such an environment is called a serial algorithm, as opposed to parallel algorithms or distributed algorithms. Parallel algorithms take advantage of computer architectures where several processors can work on a problem at the same time, whereas distributed algorithms utilize multiple machines connected with a computer network. Parallel or distributed algorithms divide the problem into more symmetrical or asymmetrical subproblems and collect the results back together. The resource consumption in such algorithms is not only processor cycles on each processor but also the communication overhead between the processors. Some sorting algorithms can be parallelized efficiently, but their communication overhead is expensive. Iterative algorithms are generally parallelizable. Some problems have no parallel algorithms and are called inherently serial problems. Deterministic or non-deterministic Deterministic algorithms solve the problem with exact decision at every step of the algorithm whereas non-deterministic algorithms solve problems via guessing although typical guesses are made more accurate through the use of heuristics. Exact or approximate While many algorithms reach an exact solution, approximation algorithms seek an approximation that is closer to the true solution. The approximation can be reached by either using a deterministic or a random strategy. Such algorithms have practical value for many hard problems. One of the examples of an approximate algorithm is the Knapsack problem, where there is a set of given items. Its goal is to pack the knapsack to get the maximum total value. Each item has some weight and some value. Total weight that can be carried is no more than some fixed number X. So, the solution must consider weights of items as well as their value. Quantum algorithm They run on a realistic model of quantum computation. The term is usually used for those algorithms which seem inherently quantum, or use some essential feature of Quantum computing such as quantum superposition or quantum entanglement.By design paradigm Another way of classifying algorithms is by their design methodology or paradigm. There is a certain number of paradigms, each different from the other. Furthermore, each of these categories includes many different types of algorithms. Some common paradigms are: Brute-force or exhaustive search This is the naive method of trying every possible solution to see which is best. Divide and conquer A divide and conquer algorithm repeatedly reduces an instance of a problem to one or more smaller instances of the same problem (usually recursively) until the instances are small enough to solve easily. One such example of divide and conquer is merge sorting. Sorting can be done on each segment of data after dividing data into segments and sorting of entire data can be obtained in the conquer phase by merging the segments. A simpler variant of divide and conquer is called a decrease and conquer algorithm, which solves an identical subproblem and uses the solution of this subproblem to solve the bigger problem. Divide and conquer divides the problem into multiple subproblems and so the conquer stage is more complex than decrease and conquer algorithms. An example of a decrease and conquer algorithm is the binary search algorithm. Search and enumeration Many problems (such as playing chess) can be modeled as problems on graphs. A graph exploration algorithm specifies rules for moving around a graph and is useful for such problems. This category also includes search algorithms, branch and bound enumeration and backtracking.Randomized algorithm Such algorithms make some choices randomly (or pseudo-randomly). They can be very useful in finding approximate solutions for problems where finding exact solutions can be impractical (see heuristic method below). For some of these problems, it is known that the fastest approximations must involve some randomness. Whether randomized algorithms with polynomial time complexity can be the fastest algorithms for some problems is an open question known as the P versus NP problem. There are two large classes of such algorithms: Monte Carlo algorithms return a correct answer with high-probability. E.g. RP is the subclass of these that run in polynomial time. Las Vegas algorithms always return the correct answer, but their running time is only probabilistically bound, e.g. ZPP. Reduction of complexity This technique involves solving a difficult problem by transforming it into a better-known problem for which we have (hopefully) asymptotically optimal algorithms. The goal is to find a reducing algorithm whose complexity is not dominated by the resulting reduced algorithm's. For example, one selection algorithm for finding the median in an unsorted list involves first sorting the list (the expensive portion) and then pulling out the middle element in the sorted list (the cheap portion). This technique is also known as transform and conquer. Back tracking In this approach, multiple solutions are built incrementally and abandoned when it is determined that they cannot lead to a valid full solution.Optimization problems For optimization problems there is a more specific classification of algorithms; an algorithm for such problems may fall into one or more of the general categories described above as well as into one of the following: Linear programming When searching for optimal solutions to a linear function bound to linear equality and inequality constraints, the constraints of the problem can be used directly in producing the optimal solutions. There are algorithms that can solve any problem in this category, such as the popular simplex algorithm. Problems that can be solved with linear programming include the maximum flow problem for directed graphs. If a problem additionally requires that one or more of the unknowns must be an integer then it is classified in integer programming. A linear programming algorithm can solve such a problem if it can be proved that all restrictions for integer values are superficial, i.e., the solutions satisfy these restrictions anyway. In the general case, a specialized algorithm or an algorithm that finds approximate solutions is used, depending on the difficulty of the problem. Dynamic programming When a problem shows optimal substructures—meaning the optimal solution to a problem can be constructed from optimal solutions to subproblems—and overlapping subproblems, meaning the same subproblems are used to solve many different problem instances, a quicker approach called dynamic programming avoids recomputing solutions that have already been computed. For example, Floyd–Warshall algorithm, the shortest path to a goal from a vertex in a weighted graph can be found by using the shortest path to the goal from all adjacent vertices. Dynamic programming and memoization go together. The main difference between dynamic programming and divide and conquer is that subproblems are more or less independent in divide and conquer, whereas subproblems overlap in dynamic programming. The difference between dynamic programming and straightforward recursion is in caching or memoization of recursive calls. When subproblems are independent and there is no repetition, memoization does not help; hence dynamic programming is not a solution for all complex problems. By using memoization or maintaining a table of subproblems already solved, dynamic programming reduces the exponential nature of many problems to polynomial complexity. The greedy method A greedy algorithm is similar to a dynamic programming algorithm in that it works by examining substructures, in this case not of the problem but of a given solution. Such algorithms start with some solution, which may be given or have been constructed in some way, and improve it by making small modifications. For some problems they can find the optimal solution while for others they stop at local optima, that is, at solutions that cannot be improved by the algorithm but are not optimum. The most popular use of greedy algorithms is for finding the minimal spanning tree where finding the optimal solution is possible with this method. Huffman Tree, Kruskal, Prim, Sollin are greedy algorithms that can solve this optimization problem.The heuristic methodIn optimization problems, heuristic algorithms can be used to find a solution close to the optimal solution in cases where finding the optimal solution is impractical. These algorithms work by getting closer and closer to the optimal solution as they progress. In principle, if run for an infinite amount of time, they will find the optimal solution. Their merit is that they can find a solution very close to the optimal solution in a relatively short time. Such algorithms include local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, and genetic algorithms. Some of them, like simulated annealing, are non-deterministic algorithms while others, like tabu search, are deterministic. When a bound on the error of the non-optimal solution is known, the algorithm is further categorized as an approximation algorithm.By field of study Every field of science has its own problems and needs efficient algorithms. Related problems in one field are often studied together. Some example classes are search algorithms, sorting algorithms, merge algorithms, numerical algorithms, graph algorithms, string algorithms, computational geometric algorithms, combinatorial algorithms, medical algorithms, machine learning, cryptography, data compression algorithms and parsing techniques.Fields tend to overlap with each other, and algorithm advances in one field may improve those of other, sometimes completely unrelated, fields. For example, dynamic programming was invented for optimization of resource consumption in industry but is now used in solving a broad range of problems in many fields.By complexity Algorithms can be classified by the amount of time they need to complete compared to their input size: Constant time: if the time needed by the algorithm is the same, regardless of the input size. E.g. an access to an array element. Logarithmic time: if the time is a logarithmic function of the input size. E.g. binary search algorithm. Linear time: if the time is proportional to the input size. E.g. the traverse of a list. Polynomial time: if the time is a power of the input size. E.g. the bubble sort algorithm has quadratic time complexity. Exponential time: if the time is an exponential function of the input size. E.g. Brute-force search.Some problems may have multiple algorithms of differing complexity, while other problems might have no algorithms or no known efficient algorithms. There are also mappings from some problems to other problems. Owing to this, it was found to be more suitable to classify the problems themselves instead of the algorithms into equivalence classes based on the complexity of the best possible algorithms for them.Continuous algorithms The adjective "continuous" when applied to the word "algorithm" can mean: An algorithm operating on data that represents continuous quantities, even though this data is represented by discrete approximations—such algorithms are studied in numerical analysis; or An algorithm in the form of a differential equation that operates continuously on the data, running on an analog computer.Legal issues Algorithms, by themselves, are not usually patentable. In the United States, a claim consisting solely of simple manipulations of abstract concepts, numbers, or signals does not constitute "processes" (USPTO 2006), and hence algorithms are not patentable (as in Gottschalk v. Benson). However practical applications of algorithms are sometimes patentable. For example, in Diamond v. Diehr, the application of a simple feedback algorithm to aid in the curing of synthetic rubber was deemed patentable. The patenting of software is highly controversial, and there are highly criticized patents involving algorithms, especially data compression algorithms, such as Unisys' LZW patent.Additionally, some cryptographic algorithms have export restrictions (see export of cryptography).History: Development of the notion of "algorithm"Ancient Near East The earliest  evidence of algorithms is found in the Babylonian mathematics of ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). A Sumerian clay tablet found in Shuruppak near Baghdad and dated to circa 2500 BC described the earliest division algorithm. During the Hammurabi dynasty circa 1800-1600 BC, Babylonian clay tablets described algorithms for computing formulas. Algorithms were also used in Babylonian astronomy. Babylonian clay tablets describe and employ algorithmic procedures to compute the time and place of significant astronomical events.Algorithms for arithmetic are also found in ancient Egyptian mathematics, dating back to the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus circa 1550 BC. Algorithms were later used in ancient Hellenistic mathematics. Two examples are the Sieve of Eratosthenes, which was described in the Introduction to Arithmetic by Nicomachus, and the Euclidean algorithm, which was first described in Euclid's Elements (c. 300 BC).Discrete and distinguishable symbols Tally-marks: To keep track of their flocks, their sacks of grain and their money the ancients used tallying: accumulating stones or marks scratched on sticks or making discrete symbols in clay. Through the Babylonian and Egyptian use of marks and symbols, eventually Roman numerals and the abacus evolved (Dilson, p. 16–41). Tally marks appear prominently in unary numeral system arithmetic used in Turing machine and Post–Turing machine computations.Manipulation of symbols as "place holders" for numbers: algebra Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, a Persian mathematician, wrote the Al-jabr in the 9th century. The terms "algorism" and "algorithm" are derived from the name al-Khwārizmī, while the term "algebra" is derived from the book Al-jabr. In Europe, the word "algorithm" was originally used to refer to the sets of rules and techniques used by Al-Khwarizmi to solve algebraic equations, before later being generalized to refer to any set of rules or techniques. This eventually culminated in Leibniz's notion of the calculus ratiocinator (ca 1680):Cryptographic algorithms The first cryptographic algorithm for deciphering encrypted code was developed by Al-Kindi, a 9th-century Arab mathematician, in A Manuscript On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages. He gave the first description of cryptanalysis by frequency analysis, the earliest codebreaking algorithm.Mechanical contrivances with discrete states The clock: Bolter credits the invention of the weight-driven clock as "The key invention [of Europe in the Middle Ages]", in particular, the verge escapement that provides us with the tick and tock of a mechanical clock. "The accurate automatic machine" led immediately to "mechanical automata" beginning in the 13th century and finally to "computational machines"—the difference engine and analytical engines of Charles Babbage and Countess Ada Lovelace, mid-19th century. Lovelace is credited with the first creation of an algorithm intended for processing on a computer—Babbage's analytical engine, the first device considered a real Turing-complete computer instead of just a calculator—and is sometimes called "history's first programmer" as a result, though a full implementation of Babbage's second device would not be realized until decades after her lifetime.Logical machines 1870 – Stanley Jevons' "logical abacus" and "logical machine": The technical problem was to reduce Boolean equations when presented in a form similar to what is now known as Karnaugh maps. Jevons (1880) describes first a simple "abacus" of "slips of wood furnished with pins, contrived so that any part or class of the [logical] combinations can be picked out mechanically ... More recently, however, I have reduced the system to a completely mechanical form, and have thus embodied the whole of the indirect process of inference in what may be called a Logical Machine" His machine came equipped with "certain moveable wooden rods" and "at the foot are 21 keys like those of a piano [etc.] ...". With this machine he could analyze a "syllogism or any other simple logical argument".This machine he displayed in 1870 before the Fellows of the Royal Society. Another logician John Venn, however, in his 1881 Symbolic Logic, turned a jaundiced eye to this effort: "I have no high estimate myself of the interest or importance of what are sometimes called logical machines ... it does not seem to me that any contrivances at present known or likely to be discovered really deserve the name of logical machines"; see more at Algorithm characterizations. But not to be outdone he too presented "a plan somewhat analogous, I apprehend, to Prof. Jevon's abacus ... [And] [a]gain, corresponding to Prof. Jevons's logical machine, the following contrivance may be described. I prefer to call it merely a logical-diagram machine ... but I suppose that it could do very completely all that can be rationally expected of any logical machine".Jacquard loom, Hollerith punch cards, telegraphy and telephony – the electromechanical relay: Bell and Newell (1971) indicate that the Jacquard loom (1801), precursor to Hollerith cards (punch cards, 1887), and "telephone switching technologies" were the roots of a tree leading to the development of the first computers. By the mid-19th century the telegraph, the precursor of the telephone, was in use throughout the world, its discrete and distinguishable encoding of letters as "dots and dashes" a common sound. By the late 19th century the ticker tape (ca 1870s) was in use, as was the use of Hollerith cards in the 1890 U.S. census. Then came the teleprinter (ca. 1910) with its punched-paper use of Baudot code on tape.Telephone-switching networks of electromechanical relays (invented 1835) was behind the work of George Stibitz (1937), the inventor of the digital adding device. As he worked in Bell Laboratories, he observed the "burdensome' use of mechanical calculators with gears. "He went home one evening in 1937 intending to test his idea... When the tinkering was over, Stibitz had constructed a binary adding device".Davis (2000) observes the particular importance of the electromechanical relay (with its two "binary states" open and closed): It was only with the development, beginning in the 1930s, of electromechanical calculators using electrical relays, that machines were built having the scope Babbage had envisioned."Mathematics during the 19th century up to the mid-20th century Symbols and rules: In rapid succession, the mathematics of George Boole (1847, 1854), Gottlob Frege (1879), and Giuseppe Peano (1888–1889) reduced arithmetic to a sequence of symbols manipulated by rules. Peano's The principles of arithmetic, presented by a new method (1888) was "the first attempt at an axiomatization of mathematics in a symbolic language".But Heijenoort gives Frege (1879) this kudos: Frege's is "perhaps the most important single work ever written in logic. ... in which we see a " 'formula language', that is a lingua characterica, a language written with special symbols, "for pure thought", that is, free from rhetorical embellishments ... constructed from specific symbols that are manipulated according to definite rules". The work of Frege was further simplified and amplified by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell in their Principia Mathematica (1910–1913).The paradoxes: At the same time a number of disturbing paradoxes appeared in the literature, in particular, the Burali-Forti paradox (1897), the Russell paradox (1902–03), and the Richard Paradox. The resultant considerations led to Kurt Gödel's paper (1931)—he specifically cites the paradox of the liar—that completely reduces rules of recursion to numbers.Effective calculability: In an effort to solve the Entscheidungsproblem defined precisely by Hilbert in 1928, mathematicians first set about to define what was meant by an "effective method" or "effective calculation" or "effective calculability" (i.e., a calculation that would succeed). In rapid succession the following appeared: Alonzo Church, Stephen Kleene and J.B. Rosser's λ-calculus a finely honed definition of "general recursion" from the work of Gödel acting on suggestions of Jacques Herbrand (cf. Gödel's Princeton lectures of 1934) and subsequent simplifications by Kleene. Church's proof that the Entscheidungsproblem was unsolvable, Emil Post's definition of effective calculability as a worker mindlessly following a list of instructions to move left or right through a sequence of rooms and while there either mark or erase a paper or observe the paper and make a yes-no decision about the next instruction. Alan Turing's proof of that the Entscheidungsproblem was unsolvable by use of his "a- [automatic-] machine"—in effect almost identical to Post's "formulation", J. Barkley Rosser's definition of "effective method" in terms of "a machine". Kleene's proposal of a precursor to "Church thesis" that he called "Thesis I", and a few years later Kleene's renaming his Thesis "Church's Thesis" and proposing "Turing's Thesis".Emil Post (1936) and Alan Turing (1936–37, 1939) Emil Post (1936) described the actions of a "computer" (human being) as follows:"...two concepts are involved: that of a symbol space in which the work leading from problem to answer is to be carried out, and a fixed unalterable set of directions.His symbol space would be"a two-way infinite sequence of spaces or boxes... The problem solver or worker is to move and work in this symbol space, being capable of being in, and operating in but one box at a time.... a box is to admit of but two possible conditions, i.e., being empty or unmarked, and having a single mark in it, say a vertical stroke."One box is to be singled out and called the starting point. ...a specific problem is to be given in symbolic form by a finite number of boxes [i.e., INPUT] being marked with a stroke. Likewise, the answer [i.e., OUTPUT] is to be given in symbolic form by such a configuration of marked boxes..."A set of directions applicable to a general problem sets up a deterministic process when applied to each specific problem. This process terminates only when it comes to the direction of type (C ) [i.e., STOP]". See more at Post–Turing machineAlan Turing's work preceded that of Stibitz (1937); it is unknown whether Stibitz knew of the work of Turing. Turing's biographer believed that Turing's use of a typewriter-like model derived from a youthful interest: "Alan had dreamt of inventing typewriters as a boy; Mrs. Turing had a typewriter, and he could well have begun by asking himself what was meant by calling a typewriter 'mechanical'". Given the prevalence of Morse code and telegraphy, ticker tape machines, and teletypewriters we might conjecture that all were influences.Turing—his model of computation is now called a Turing machine—begins, as did Post, with an analysis of a human computer that he whittles down to a simple set of basic motions and "states of mind". But he continues a step further and creates a machine as a model of computation of numbers."Computing is normally done by writing certain symbols on paper. We may suppose this paper is divided into squares like a child's arithmetic book...I assume then that the computation is carried out on one-dimensional paper, i.e., on a tape divided into squares. I shall also suppose that the number of symbols which may be printed is finite..."The behavior of the computer at any moment is determined by the symbols which he is observing, and his "state of mind" at that moment. We may suppose that there is a bound B to the number of symbols or squares which the computer can observe at one moment. If he wishes to observe more, he must use successive observations. We will also suppose that the number of states of mind which need be taken into account is finite..."Let us imagine that the operations performed by the computer to be split up into 'simple operations' which are so elementary that it is not easy to imagine them further divided."Turing's reduction yields the following:"The simple operations must therefore include:"(a) Changes of the symbol on one of the observed squares"(b) Changes of one of the squares observed to another square within L squares of one of the previously observed squares."It may be that some of these change necessarily invoke a change of state of mind. The most general single operation must, therefore, be taken to be one of the following:"(A) A possible change (a) of symbol together with a possible change of state of mind."(B) A possible change (b) of observed squares, together with a possible change of state of mind""We may now construct a machine to do the work of this computer."A few years later, Turing expanded his analysis (thesis, definition) with this forceful expression of it:"A function is said to be "effectively calculable" if its values can be found by some purely mechanical process. Though it is fairly easy to get an intuitive grasp of this idea, it is nevertheless desirable to have some more definite, mathematical expressible definition ... [he discusses the history of the definition pretty much as presented above with respect to Gödel, Herbrand, Kleene, Church, Turing, and Post] ... We may take this statement literally, understanding by a purely mechanical process one which could be carried out by a machine. It is possible to give a mathematical description, in a certain normal form, of the structures of these machines. The development of these ideas leads to the author's definition of a computable function, and to an identification of computability † with effective calculability ... ."† We shall use the expression "computable function" to mean a function calculable by a machine, and we let "effectively calculable" refer to the intuitive idea without particular identification with any one of these definitions".J.B. Rosser (1939) and S.C. Kleene (1943) J. Barkley Rosser defined an 'effective [mathematical] method' in the following manner (italicization added):"'Effective method' is used here in the rather special sense of a method each step of which is precisely determined and which is certain to produce the answer in a finite number of steps. With this special meaning, three different precise definitions have been given to date. [his footnote #5; see discussion immediately below]. The simplest of these to state (due to Post and Turing) says essentially that an effective method of solving certain sets of problems exists if one can build a machine which will then solve any problem of the set with no human intervention beyond inserting the question and (later) reading the answer. All three definitions are equivalent, so it doesn't matter which one is used. Moreover, the fact that all three are equivalent is a very strong argument for the correctness of any one." (Rosser 1939:225–226)Rosser's footnote No. 5 references the work of (1) Church and Kleene and their definition of λ-definability, in particular, Church's use of it in his An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory (1936); (2) Herbrand and Gödel and their use of recursion, in particular, Gödel's use in his famous paper On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I (1931); and (3) Post (1936) and Turing (1936–37) in their mechanism-models of computation.Stephen C. Kleene defined as his now-famous "Thesis I" known as the Church–Turing thesis. But he did this in the following context (boldface in original):"12. Algorithmic theories... In setting up a complete algorithmic theory, what we do is to describe a procedure, performable for each set of values of the independent variables, which procedure necessarily terminates and in such manner that from the outcome we can read a definite answer, "yes" or "no," to the question, "is the predicate value true?"" (Kleene 1943:273)History after 1950 A number of efforts have been directed toward further refinement of the definition of "algorithm", and activity is on-going because of issues surrounding, in particular, foundations of mathematics (especially the Church–Turing thesis) and philosophy of mind (especially arguments about artificial intelligence). For more, see Algorithm characterizations.See also  Abstract machine Algorithm engineering Algorithm characterizations Algorithmic bias Algorithmic composition Algorithmic entities Algorithmic synthesis Algorithmic technique Algorithmic topology Garbage in, garbage out Introduction to Algorithms (textbook) List of algorithms List of algorithm general topics List of important publications in theoretical computer science – Algorithms Regulation of algorithms Theory of computation Computability theory Computational complexity theoryNotesBibliography  Bell, C. Gordon and Newell, Allen (1971), Computer Structures: Readings and Examples, McGraw–Hill Book Company, New York. .  Includes an excellent bibliography of 56 references. ,  : cf. Chapter 3 Turing machines where they discuss "certain enumerable sets not effectively (mechanically) enumerable".  Campagnolo, M.L., Moore, C., and Costa, J.F. (2000) An analog characterization of the subrecursive functions. In Proc. of the 4th Conference on Real Numbers and Computers, Odense University, pp. 91–109  Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 89ff. The first expression of "Church's Thesis". See in particular page 100 (The Undecidable) where he defines the notion of "effective calculability" in terms of "an algorithm", and he uses the word "terminates", etc.   Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 110ff. Church shows that the Entscheidungsproblem is unsolvable in about 3 pages of text and 3 pages of footnotes.   Davis gives commentary before each article. Papers of Gödel, Alonzo Church, Turing, Rosser, Kleene, and Emil Post are included; those cited in the article are listed here by author's name.  Davis offers concise biographies of Leibniz, Boole, Frege, Cantor, Hilbert, Gödel and Turing with von Neumann as the show-stealing villain. Very brief bios of Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Claude Shannon, Howard Aiken, etc.    ,  Yuri Gurevich, Sequential Abstract State Machines Capture Sequential Algorithms, ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, Vol 1, no 1 (July 2000), pp. 77–111. Includes bibliography of 33 sources. , 3rd edition 1976[?],  (pbk.) , . Cf. Chapter "The Spirit of Truth" for a history leading to, and a discussion of, his proof.  Presented to the American Mathematical Society, September 1935. Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 237ff. Kleene's definition of "general recursion" (known now as mu-recursion) was used by Church in his 1935 paper An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory that proved the "decision problem" to be "undecidable" (i.e., a negative result).  Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 255ff. Kleene refined his definition of "general recursion" and proceeded in his chapter "12. Algorithmic theories" to posit "Thesis I" (p. 274); he would later repeat this thesis (in Kleene 1952:300) and name it "Church's Thesis"(Kleene 1952:317) (i.e., the Church thesis).    Kosovsky, N.K. Elements of Mathematical Logic and its Application to the theory of Subrecursive Algorithms, LSU Publ., Leningrad, 1981  A.A. Markov (1954) Theory of algorithms. [Translated by Jacques J. Schorr-Kon and PST staff] Imprint Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1954 [i.e., Jerusalem, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1961; available from the Office of Technical Services, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Washington] Description 444 p. 28 cm. Added t.p. in Russian Translation of Works of the Mathematical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, v. 42. Original title: Teoriya algerifmov. [QA248.M2943 Dartmouth College library. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Office of Technical Services, number OTS .]  Minsky expands his "...idea of an algorithm – an effective procedure..." in chapter 5.1 Computability, Effective Procedures and Algorithms. Infinite machines.  Reprinted in The Undecidable, pp. 289ff. Post defines a simple algorithmic-like process of a man writing marks or erasing marks and going from box to box and eventually halting, as he follows a list of simple instructions. This is cited by Kleene as one source of his "Thesis I", the so-called Church–Turing thesis.   Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 223ff. Herein is Rosser's famous definition of "effective method": "...a method each step of which is precisely predetermined and which is certain to produce the answer in a finite number of steps... a machine which will then solve any problem of the set with no human intervention beyond inserting the question and (later) reading the answer" (p. 225–226, The Undecidable)      Cf. in particular the first chapter titled: Algorithms, Turing Machines, and Programs. His succinct informal definition: "...any sequence of instructions that can be obeyed by a robot, is called an algorithm" (p. 4).  . Corrections, ibid, vol. 43(1937) pp. 544–546. Reprinted in The Undecidable, p. 116ff. Turing's famous paper completed as a Master's dissertation while at King's College Cambridge UK.  Reprinted in The Undecidable, pp. 155ff. Turing's paper that defined "the oracle" was his PhD thesis while at Princeton. United States Patent and Trademark Office (2006), 2106.02 **>Mathematical Algorithms: 2100 Patentability, Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). Latest revision August 2006Further reading       Knuth, Donald E. (2000). Selected Papers on Analysis of Algorithms. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Knuth, Donald E. (2010). Selected Papers on Design of Algorithms. Stanford, California: Center for the Study of Language and Information.External links    Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures – National Institute of Standards and Technology Algorithm repositories The Stony Brook Algorithm Repository – State University of New York at Stony Brook Collected Algorithms of the ACM – Association for Computing Machinery The Stanford GraphBase – Stanford University Articles with example pseudocodeMathematical logicTheoretical computer science
An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical location, and may not correspond to the four traditional seasonal divisions of the year. With respect to the traditional seasons, annual plants are generally categorized into summer annuals and winter annuals. Summer annuals germinate during spring or early summer and mature by autumn of the same year. Winter annuals germinate during the autumn and mature during the spring or summer of the following calendar year.One seed-to-seed life cycle for an annual can occur in as little as a month in some species, though most last several months. Oilseed rapa can go from seed-to-seed in about five weeks under a bank of fluorescent lamps. This style of growing is often used in classrooms for education. Many desert annuals are therophytes, because their seed-to-seed life cycle is only weeks and they spend most of the year as seeds to survive dry conditions.CultivationIn cultivation, many food plants are, or are grown as, annuals, including virtually all domesticated grains. Some perennials and biennials are grown in gardens as annuals for convenience, particularly if they are not considered cold hardy for the local climate. Carrot, celery and parsley are true biennials that are usually grown as annual crops for their edible roots, petioles and leaves, respectively. Tomato, sweet potato and bell pepper are tender perennials usually grown as annuals. Ornamental perennials commonly grown as annuals are impatiens, mirabilis, wax begonia, snapdragon, pelargonium, coleus and petunia. Examples of true annuals include corn, wheat, rice, lettuce, peas, watermelon, beans, zinnia and marigold.SummerSummer annuals sprout, flower, produce seed, and die, during the warmer months of the year.The lawn weed crabgrass is a summer annual.WinterWinter annuals germinate in autumn or winter, live through the winter, then bloom in winter or spring.The plants grow and bloom during the cool season when most other plants are dormant or other annuals are in seed form waiting for warmer weather to germinate. Winter annuals die after flowering and setting seed. The seeds germinate in the autumn or winter when the soil temperature is cool.Winter annuals typically grow low to the ground, where they are usually sheltered from the coldest nights by snow cover, and make use of warm periods in winter for growth when the snow melts. Some common winter annuals include henbit, deadnettle, chickweed, and winter cress.Winter annuals are important ecologically, as they provide vegetative cover that prevents soil erosion during winter and early spring when no other cover exists and they provide fresh vegetation for animals and birds that feed on them. Although they are often considered to be weeds in gardens, this viewpoint is not always necessary, as most of them die when the soil temperature warms up again in early to late spring when other plants are still dormant and have not yet leafed out.Even though they do not compete directly with cultivated plants, sometimes winter annuals are considered a pest in commercial agriculture, because they can be hosts for insect pests or fungal diseases (such as ovary smut, Microbotryum sp.) which attack crops being cultivated.  The property that they prevent the soil from drying out can also be problematic for commercial agriculture.Molecular geneticsIn 2008, it was discovered that the inactivation of only two genes in one species of annual plant leads to its conversion into a perennial plant. Researchers deactivated the SOC1 and FUL genes (which control flowering time) of Arabidopsis thaliana. This switch established phenotypes common in perennial plants, such as wood formation.See alsoReferencesExternal links Garden plants
The anthophytes are a grouping of plant taxa bearing flower-like reproductive structures. They were formerly thought  to be a clade comprising plants bearing flower-like structures.  The group contained the angiosperms - the extant flowering plants, such as roses and grasses - as well as the Gnetales and the extinct Bennettitales.Detailed morphological and molecular studies have shown that the group is not actually monophyletic, with proposed floral homologies of the gnetophytes and the angiosperms having evolved in parallel.  This makes it easier to reconcile molecular clock data that suggests that the angiosperms diverged from the gymnosperms around 320-300 mya.Some more recent studies have used the word anthophyte to describe a group which includes the angiosperms and a variety of fossils (glossopterids, Pentoxylon, Bennettitales, and Caytonia), but not the Gnetales.ReferencesHistorically recognized plant taxa
An atlas is a collection of maps, originally named after the Ancient Greek deity.Atlas may also refer to:Mythology Atlas (mythology), an Ancient Greek Titanic deity who held up the celestial sphere Atlas, the first legendary king of Atlantis and further variant of the mythical Titan Atlas of Mauretania, a legendary king of Mauretania and variant of the mythical TitanPlacesUnited States Atlas, California Atlas, Illinois Atlas, Texas Atlas, West Virginia Atlas, Wisconsin Atlas District, an area in Washington, D.C. Atlas Peak AVA, a California wine region Atlas Township, MichiganOther Atlas Cinema, a historic movie theatre in Istanbul, Turkey Atlas Mountains, a set of mountain ranges in northwestern Africa Atlas, Nilüfer, a village in Nilüfer district of Bursa Province, TurkeyPeople with the name Atlas (graffiti artist), American graffiti artist  Atlas DaBone, American wrestler and football player Charles Atlas (1892–1972), Italian-American bodybuilder Charles Atlas (artist) David Atlas (born 1924), American meteorologist who pioneered weather radar James Atlas (1949-2019), American writer, editor and publisher Meir Atlas (1848–1926), Lithuanian rabbi Natacha Atlas (born 1964), Belgian singer Nava Atlas, American book artist and author Omar Atlas (born 1938), former Venezuelan professional wrestler Scott Atlas (born 1955), American conservative health care policy advisor Teddy Atlas (born 1956), American boxing trainer and commentator Tony Atlas (born 1954), American wrestler and bodybuilderArts, entertainment, and mediaComics Atlas (Drawn and Quarterly), a comic book series by Dylan Horrocks Agents of Atlas, a Marvel Comics mini-series Atlas Comics (1950s), a publisher Atlas/Seaboard Comics, a 1970s line of comicsFictional characters Atlas (DC Comics), the name of several of DC Comics' fictional characters, comic book superheroes, and deities Atlas (Teen Titans), Teen Titans character Atlas, an Astro Boy character Atlas, a BioShock character Atlas, a BattleMech in the BattleTech universe Atlas, an antagonist in Mega Man ZX Advent Atlas, a Portal 2 character Atlas, a PS238 character Erik Josten, a.k.a. Atlas, a Marvel Comics supervillain The Atlas, a strong driving force from No Man's SkyLiterature Atlas, a photography book by Gerhard Richter ATLAS of Finite Groups, a group theory book Atlas Shrugged, a novel by Ayn Rand The Atlas (novel), by William T. VollmannMusicGroups Atlas (band), a New Zealand rock band Atlas Sound, the solo musical project of Bradford Cox, lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band DeerhunterMusicians Black Atlass, a Canadian musicianAlbums Atlas (Kinky album) Atlas (Parkway Drive album), Parkway Drive's fourth album Atlas (Real Estate album) Atlas (RÜFÜS album)Operas Atlas (opera), 1991 opera by Meredith MonkAtlas: An Opera in Three Parts, 1993 recording of Monk's operaSongs "Atlas" (Battles song), 2007 song by Battles on the album Mirrored "Atlas" (Coldplay song), 2013 song by Coldplay from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack"Atlas", a song by Caligula's Horse from the album The Tide, the Thief & River's End "Atlas", the titular song from Parkway Drive's fourth album "Atlas", a song by Man Overboard from Man Overboard "Atlas", a song by Jake Chudnow used as main theme in the YouTube series Mind FieldPeriodicals Atlas (magazine) The Atlas, a newspaper published in England from 1826 to 1869Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media Atlas (film) Atlas (statue), iconic statue by Lee Lawrie in Rockefeller Center Atlas, a book about flora and/or fauna of a region, such as atlases of the flora and fauna of Britain and Ireland Atlas Entertainment, a film production company Atlas folio, a book size Atlas Media Corp., a non-fiction entertainment company Atlas Press, a UK publisher RTV Atlas, a broadcaster in Montenegro Atlas Sound, a solo musical project by Bradford Cox The Atlas (video game), a 1991 multiplatform strategy video game Atlas (video game), an upcoming massively-multiplayer online video game Atlas Corporation, a fictional arms manufacturer in the video game series Borderlands (series)Brands and enterprises Atlas (appliance company), a Belarusian company Atlas Consortium, a group of technology companies Atlas Copco, Swedish company founded in 1873 Atlas Corporation, an investment company Atlas Elektronik, a German naval/marine electronics and systems business Atlas Group, a Pakistani business group Atlas Mara Limited, formerly Atlas Mara Co-Nvest Limited, a financial holding company that owns banks in Africa Atlas Model Railroad, American maker of model trains and accessories Atlas Network, formerly Atlas Economic Research Foundation Atlas Press (tool company) Atlas Solutions, a subsidiary of Facebook for digital online advertising, formerly owned by Microsoft Atlas Telecom, a worldwide communications company Atlas Van Lines, a moving company Atlas-Imperial, an American diesel engine manufacturer Dresser Atlas, a provider of oilfield and factory automation services Tele Atlas, a Dutch mapping company Western Atlas, an oilfield services companyComputing and technology Atlas (computer), an early supercomputer, built in the 1960s Atlas (robot), a humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics and DARPA ATLAS (software), a software flagging naturalized American for denaturalization Atlas, a computer used at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2006 Abbreviated Test Language for All Systems, or ATLAS, a MILSPEC language for avionics equipment testing Advanced Technology Leisure Application Simulator, or ATLAS, a hydraulic motion simulator used in theme parks ASP.NET AJAX (formerly "Atlas"), a set of ASP.NET extensions ATLAS Transformation Language, programming language Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis program Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software, or ATLAS,  Texture atlas, or image sprite sheet UNIVAC 1101, an early American computer, built in the 1950sScienceAstronomy Atlas (comet) (C/2019 Y4) Atlas (crater) on the near side of the Moon Atlas (moon), a satellite of Saturn Atlas (star), also designated 27 Tauri, a triple star system in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Pleiades Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), a space-based lidar instrument on ICESat-2 Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)Mathematics Atlas (manifolds), a set of smooth charts Atlas (topology), a set of charts Smooth atlasPhysics Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System, or ATLAS, a linear accelerator at the Argonne National Laboratory ATLAS experiment, a particle detector for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN Atomic-terrace low-angle shadowing, or ATLAS, a nanofabrication techniqueBiology and healthcare Atlas (anatomy), part of the spine Atlas personality, a term used in psychology to describe the personality of someone whose childhood was characterized by excessive responsibilities Brain atlas, a neuroanatomical map of the brain of a human or other animalAnimals and plants Atlas bear Atlas beetle Atlas cedar Atlas moth Atlas pied flycatcher, a bird Atlas turtleSport Atlas Delmenhorst, a German association football club Atlas F.C., a Mexican professional football club Club Atlético Atlas, an Argentine amateur football club KK Atlas, a former men's professional basketball club based in Belgrade (today's Serbia)TransportAerospace Atlas (rocket family) SM-65 Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) AeroVelo Atlas, a human-powered helicopter Airbus A400M Atlas, a military aircraft produced 2007–present Armstrong Whitworth Atlas, a British military aeroplane produced 1927–1933 Atlas Air, an American cargo airline Atlas Aircraft, a 1940s aircraft manufacturer Atlas Aircraft Corporation, a South African military aircraft manufacturer Atlas Aviation, an aircraft maintenance firm Atlas Blue, a Moroccan low-cost airline Atlasjet, a Turkish airline Birdman Atlas, an ultralight aircraft HMLAT-303, U.S. Marine Corps helicopter training squadron La Mouette Atlas, a French hang glider designAutomotive Atlas (1951 automobile), a French mini-car Atlas (light trucks), a Greek motor vehicle manufacturer Atlas (Pittsburgh automobile), produced 1906–1907 Atlas (Springfield automobile), produced 1907–1913 Atlas, a British van by the Standard Motor Company produced 1958–1962 Atlas Drop Forge Company, a parts subsidiary of REO Motor Car Company Atlas Motor Buggy, an American highwheeler produced in 1909 General Motors Atlas engine Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan, a Pakistani car manufacturer Nissan Atlas, a Japanese light truck Volkswagen Atlas, a sport utility vehicleGeely Atlas, a sport utility vehicleShips and boats Atlas Werke, a former German shipbuilding company , the name of several Royal Navy ships ST Atlas, a Swedish tugboat , the name of several U.S. Navy shipsTrains Atlas, an 1863–1885 South Devon Railway Dido class locomotive Atlas, a 1927–1962 LMS Royal Scot Class locomotive Atlas Car and Manufacturing Company, a locomotive manufacturer Atlas Model RailroadOther uses Atlas (architecture) ATLAS (simulation) (Army Tactical Level Advanced Simulation), a Thai military system Atlas (storm), which hit the Midwestern United States in October 2013, named by The Weather Channel Agrupación de Trabajadores Latinoamericanos Sindicalistas, or ATLAS, a former Latin American trade union confederation in the early 1950s Atlas languages, Berber languages spoken in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco ATLAS Network, a network of European special police units Atlas Uranium MillSee also  Altas (disambiguation)
Mouthwash, mouth rinse, oral rinse, or mouth bath is a liquid which is held in the mouth passively or swilled around the mouth by contraction of the perioral muscles and/or movement of the head, and may be gargled, where the head is tilted back and the liquid bubbled at the back of the mouth.Usually mouthwashes are antiseptic solutions intended to reduce the microbial load in the mouth, although other mouthwashes might be given for other reasons such as for their analgesic, anti-inflammatory or anti-fungal action. Additionally, some rinses act as saliva substitutes to neutralize acid and keep the mouth moist in xerostomia (dry mouth). Cosmetic mouthrinses temporarily control or reduce bad breath and leave the mouth with a pleasant taste.Rinsing with water or mouthwash after brushing with a fluoride toothpaste can reduce the availability of salivary fluoride. This can lower the anti-cavity re-mineralization and antibacterial effects of fluoride. Fluoridated mouthwash may mitigate this effect or in high concentrations increase available fluoride, but is not as cost effective as leaving the fluoride toothpaste on the teeth after brushing. A group of experts discussing post brushing rinsing in 2012 found that although there was clear guidance given in many public health advice publications to "spit, avoid rinsing with water/excessive rinsing with water" they believed there was a limited evidence base for best practice.UseCommon use involves rinsing the mouth with about 20-50 ml (2/3 fl oz) of mouthwash. The wash is typically swished or gargled for about half a minute and then spat out. Most companies suggest not drinking water immediately after using mouthwash. In some brands, the expectorate is stained, so that one can see the bacteria and debris.Mouthwash should not be used immediately after brushing the teeth so as not to wash away the beneficial fluoride residue left from the toothpaste. Similarly, the mouth should not be rinsed out with water after brushing. Patients were told to "spit don't rinse" after toothbrushing as part of a National Health Service campaign in the UK. A fluoride mouthrinse can be used at a different time of the day to brushing.Gargling is where the head is tilted back, allowing the mouthwash to sit in the back of the mouth while exhaling, causing the liquid to bubble. Gargling is practiced in Japan for perceived prevention of viral infection. One commonly used way is with infusions or tea. In some cultures, gargling is usually done in private, typically in a bathroom at a sink so the liquid can be rinsed away.EffectsThe most-commonly-used mouthwashes are commercial antiseptics, which are used at home as part of an oral hygiene routine. Mouthwashes combine ingredients to treat a variety of oral conditions. Variations are common, and mouthwash has no standard formulation, so its use and recommendation involves concerns about patient safety. Some manufacturers of mouthwash state that their antiseptic and antiplaque mouthwashes kill the bacterial plaque that causes cavities, gingivitis, and bad breath. It is, however, generally agreed that the use of mouthwash does not eliminate the need for both brushing and flossing. The American Dental Association asserts that regular brushing and proper flossing are enough in most cases, in addition to regular dental check-ups, although they approve many mouthwashes.For many patients, however, the mechanical methods could be tedious and time-consuming, and, additionally, some local conditions may render them especially difficult. Chemotherapeutic agents, including mouthwashes, could have a key role as adjuncts to daily home care, preventing and controlling supragingival plaque, gingivitis and oral malodor.Minor and transient side effects of mouthwashes are very common, such as taste disturbance, tooth staining, sensation of a dry mouth, etc. Alcohol-containing mouthwashes may make dry mouth and halitosis worse, as they dry out the mouth. Soreness, ulceration and redness may sometimes occur (e.g., aphthous stomatitis or allergic contact stomatitis) if the person is allergic or sensitive to mouthwash ingredients, such as preservatives, coloring, flavors and fragrances. Such effects might be reduced or eliminated by diluting the mouthwash with water, using a different mouthwash (e.g. saltwater), or foregoing mouthwash entirely.Prescription mouthwashes are used prior to and after oral surgery procedures, such as tooth extraction, or to treat the pain associated with mucositis caused by radiation therapy or chemotherapy. They are also prescribed for aphthous ulcers, other oral ulcers, and other mouth pain. "Magic mouthwashes" are prescription mouthwashes compounded in a pharmacy from a list of ingredients specified by a doctor. Despite a lack of evidence that prescription mouthwashes are more effective in decreasing the pain of oral lesions, many patients and prescribers continue to use them. There has been only one controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of magic mouthwash; it shows no difference in efficacy between the most common magic-mouthwash formulation, on the one hand, and commercial mouthwashes (such as chlorhexidine) or a saline/baking soda solution, on the other. Current guidelines suggest that saline solution is just as effective as magic mouthwash in pain relief and in shortening the healing time of oral mucositis from cancer therapies.History The first known references to mouth rinsing is in Ayurveda for treatment of gingivitis. Later, in the Greek and Roman periods, mouth rinsing following mechanical cleansing became common among the upper classes, and Hippocrates recommended a mixture of salt, alum, and vinegar. The Jewish Talmud, dating back about 1,800 years, suggests a cure for gum ailments containing "dough water" and olive oil.Before Europeans came to the Americas, Native North American and Mesoamerican cultures used mouthwashes, often made from plants such as Coptis trifolia. Indeed, Aztec dentistry was more advanced than European dentistry of the age. Peoples of the Americas used salt water mouthwashes for sore throats, and other mouthwashes for problems such as teething and mouth ulcers.Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the famous 17th century microscopist, discovered living organisms (living, because they were mobile) in deposits on the teeth (what we now call dental plaque). He also found organisms in water from the canal next to his home in Delft. He experimented with samples by adding vinegar or brandy and found that this resulted in the immediate immobilization or killing of the organisms suspended in water. Next he tried rinsing the mouth of himself and somebody else with a mouthwash containing vinegar or brandy and found that living organisms remained in the dental plaque. He concluded—correctly—that the mouthwash either did not reach, or was not present long enough, to kill the plaque organisms.In 1892, German Richard Seifert invented mouthwash product Odol, which was produced by company founder Karl August Lingner (1861–1916) in Dresden.That remained the state of affairs until the late 1960s when Harald Loe (at the time a professor at the Royal Dental College in Aarhus, Denmark) demonstrated that a chlorhexidine compound could prevent the build-up of dental plaque. The reason for chlorhexidine's effectiveness is that it strongly adheres to surfaces in the mouth and thus remains present in effective concentrations for many hours.Since then commercial interest in mouthwashes has been intense and several newer products claim effectiveness in reducing the build-up in dental plaque and the associated severity of gingivitis, in addition to fighting bad breath. Many of these solutions aim to control the Volatile Sulfur Compound (VSC)-creating anaerobic bacteria that live in the mouth and excrete substances that lead to bad breath and unpleasant mouth taste. For example, the number of mouthwash variants in the United States of America has grown from 15 (1970) to 66 (1998) to 113 (2012).ResearchResearch in the field of microbiotas shows that only a limited set of microbes cause tooth decay, with most of the bacteria in the human mouth being harmless. Focused attention on cavity-causing bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans has led research into new mouthwash treatments that prevent these bacteria from initially growing. While current mouthwash treatments must be used with a degree of frequency to prevent this bacteria from regrowing, future treatments could provide a viable long-term solution.IngredientsAlcoholAlcohol is added to mouthwash not to destroy bacteria but to act as a carrier agent for essential active ingredients such as menthol, eucalyptol and thymol, which help to penetrate plaque. Sometimes a significant amount of alcohol (up to 27% vol) is added, as a carrier for the flavor, to provide "bite". Because of the alcohol content, it is possible to fail a breathalyzer test after rinsing, although breath alcohol levels return to normal after 10 minutes. In addition, alcohol is a drying agent, which encourages bacterial activity in the mouth, releasing more malodorous volatile sulfur compounds. Therefore, alcohol-containing mouthwash may temporarily worsen halitosis in those who already have it, or, indeed, be the sole cause of halitosis in other individuals.It is hypothesized that alcohol in mouthwashes acts as a carcinogen (cancer-inducing agent). Generally, there is no scientific consensus about this. One review stated:The same researchers also state that the risk of acquiring oral cancer rises almost five times for users of alcohol-containing mouthwash who neither smoke nor drink (with a higher rate of increase for those who do). In addition, the authors highlight side effects from several mainstream mouthwashes that included dental erosion and accidental poisoning of children. The review garnered media attention and conflicting opinions from other researchers. Yinka Ebo of Cancer Research UK disputed the findings, concluding that "there is still not enough evidence to suggest that using mouthwash that contains alcohol will increase the risk of mouth cancer". Studies conducted in 1985, 1995, 2003, and 2012 did not support an association between alcohol-containing mouth rinses and oral cancer. Andrew Penman, chief executive of The Cancer Council New South Wales, called for further research on the matter. In a March 2009 brief, the American Dental Association said "the available evidence does not support a connection between oral cancer and alcohol-containing mouthrinse". Many newer brands of mouthwash are alcohol free, not just in response to consumer concerns about oral cancer, but also to cater for religious groups who abstain from alcohol consumption.Benzydamine (analgesic)In painful oral conditions such as aphthous stomatitis, analgesic mouthrinses (e.g. benzydamine mouthwash, or "Difflam") are sometimes used to ease pain, commonly used before meals to reduce discomfort while eating.Benzoic acidBenzoic acid acts as a buffer.BetamethasoneBetamethasone is sometimes used as an anti-inflammatory, corticosteroid mouthwash. It may be used for severe inflammatory conditions of the oral mucosa such as the severe forms of aphthous stomatitis.Cetylpyridinium chloride (antiseptic, antimalodor)Cetylpyridinium chloride containing mouthwash (e.g. 0.05%) is used in some specialized mouthwashes for halitosis. Cetylpyridinium chloride mouthwash has less anti-plaque effect than chlorhexidine and may cause staining of teeth, or sometimes an oral burning sensation or ulceration.Chlorhexidine digluconate and hexetidine (antiseptic)Chlorhexidine digluconate is a chemical antiseptic and is used in a 0.12–0.2% solution as a mouthwash. However, there is no evidence to support that higher concentrations are more effective in controlling dental plaque and gingivitis. It has anti-plaque action, but also some anti-fungal action. It is especially effective against Gram-negative rods. The proportion of Gram-negative rods increase as gingivitis develops, so it is also used to reduce gingivitis. It is sometimes used as an adjunct to prevent dental caries and to treat gingivitis periodontal disease, although it does not penetrate into periodontal pockets well. Chlorhexidine mouthwash alone is unable to prevent plaque, so it is not a substitute for regular toothbrushing and flossing. Instead, chlorhexidine mouthwash is more effective when used as an adjunctive treatment with toothbrushing and flossing. In the short term, if toothbrushing is impossible due to pain, as may occur in primary herpetic gingivostomatitis, chlorhexidine mouthwash is used as a temporary substitute for other oral hygiene measures. It is not suited for use in acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, however. Rinsing with chlorhexidine mouthwash before a tooth extraction reduces the risk of a dry socket, a painful condition where the blood clot is lost from an extraction socket and bone is exposed to the oral cavity. Other uses of chlorhexidine mouthwash include prevention of oral candidiasis in immunocompromised persons, treatment of denture-related stomatitis, mucosal ulceration/erosions and oral mucosal lesions, general burning sensation and many other uses.Chlorhexidine has good substantivity (the ability of a mouthwash to bind to hard and soft tissues in the mouth). However, chlorhexidine binds to tannins, meaning that prolonged use in persons who consume coffee, tea or red wine is associated with extrinsic staining (i.e. removable staining) of teeth. Chlorhexidine mouthwash can also cause taste disturbance or alteration. Chlorhexidine is rarely associated with other issues like overgrowth of enterobacteria in persons with leukemia, desquamation and irritation of oral mucosa, salivary gland pain and swelling, and hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylaxis. A randomized clinical trial conducted in Rabat University in Morocco found better results in plaque inhibition when chlorohexidine with alcohol base 0.12% was used, when compared to an alcohol-free 0.1% chlorhexidine mouthrinse. Chlorhexidine mouthwashes increase staining of teeth over a period of time. However, many publications, and, in recent times, also a systematic review (van Swaaij 2020) revealed that an AntiDiscoloration System (ADS) based on L-ascorbic acid and sodium metabisulfite is able to reduce tooth staining without affecting the antibacterial effect of chlorhexidine. Hexetidine also has anti-plaque, analgesic, astringent and anti-malodor properties, but is considered an inferior alternative to chlorhexidine.Edible oilsIn traditional Ayurvedic medicine, the use of oil mouthwashes is called "Kavala" ("oil swishing") or "Gandusha", and this practice has more recently been re-marketed by the complementary and alternative medicine industry as "oil pulling". Its promoters claim it works by "pulling out" "toxins", which are known as ama in Ayurvedic medicine, and thereby reducing inflammation. Ayurvedic literature claims that oil pulling is capable of improving oral and systemic health, including a benefit in conditions such as headaches, migraines, diabetes mellitus, asthma, and acne, as well as whitening teeth.Oil pulling has received little study and there is little evidence to support claims made by the technique's advocates. When compared with chlorhexidine in one small study, it was found to be less effective at reducing oral bacterial load, and the other health claims of oil pulling have failed scientific verification or have not been investigated. There is a report of lipid pneumonia caused by accidental inhalation of the oil during oil pulling.The mouth is rinsed with approximately one tablespoon of oil for 10–20 minutes then spat out. Sesame oil, coconut oil and ghee are traditionally used, but newer oils such as sunflower oil are also used.Essential oilsPhenolic compounds and monoterpenes include essential oil constituents that have some antibacterial properties, such as eucalyptol, eugenol, hinokitiol, menthol, phenol, or thymol.Essential oils are oils which have been extracted from plants. Mouthwashes based on essential oils could be more effective than traditional mouthcare as anti-gingival treatments. They have been found effective in reducing halitosis, and are being used in several commercial mouthwashes.Fluoride (anticavity)Anti-cavity mouthwashes use sodium fluoride to protect against tooth decay. Fluoride-containing mouthwashes are used as prevention for dental caries for individuals who are considered at higher risk for tooth decay, whether due to xerostomia related to salivary dysfunction or side effects of medication, to not drinking fluoridated water, or to being physically unable to care for their oral needs (brushing and flossing), and as treatment for those with dentinal hypersensitivity, gingival recession/ root exposure.Flavoring agents and XylitolFlavoring agents include sweeteners such as sorbitol, sucralose, sodium saccharin, and xylitol, which stimulate salivary function due to their sweetness and taste and helps restore the mouth to a neutral level of acidity.Xylitol rinses double as a bacterial inhibitor, and have been used as substitute for alcohol to avoid dryness of mouth associated with alcohol.Hydrogen peroxideHydrogen peroxide can be used as an oxidizing mouthwash (e.g. Peroxyl, 1.5%). It kills anaerobic bacteria, and also has a mechanical cleansing action when it froths as it comes into contact with debris in mouth. It is often used in the short term to treat acute necrotising ulcerative gingivitis. Side effects can occur with prolonged use, including hypertrophy of the lingual papillae.Lactoperoxidase (saliva substitute)Enzymes and non-enzymatic proteins, such as lactoperoxidase, lysozyme, and lactoferrin, have been used in mouthwashes (e.g., Biotene) to reduce levels of oral bacteria, and, hence, of the acids produced by these bacteria.Lidocaine/xylocaineOral lidocaine is useful for the treatment of mucositis symptoms (inflammation of mucous membranes) induced by radiation or chemotherapy. There is evidence that lidocaine anesthetic mouthwash has the potential to be systemically absorbed, when it was tested in patients with oral mucositis who underwent a bone marrow transplant.Methyl salicylateMethyl salicylate functions as an antiseptic, antiinflammatory, and analgesic agent, a flavoring, and a fragrance. Methyl salicylate has some anti-plaque action, but less than chlorhexidine. Methyl salicylate does not stain teeth.NystatinNystatin suspension is an antifungal ingredient used for the treatment of oral candidiasis.Potassium oxalateA randomized clinical trial found promising results in controlling and reducing dentine hypersensitivity when potassium oxalate mouthwash was used in conjugation with toothbrushing.Povidone/iodine (PVP-I)A 2005 study found that gargling three times a day with simple water or with a povidone-iodine solution was effective in preventing upper respiratory infection and decreasing the severity of symptoms if contracted. Other sources attribute the benefit to a simple placebo effect.PVP-I in general covers "a wider virucidal spectrum, covering both enveloped and nonenveloped viruses, than the other commercially available antiseptics", which also includes the novel SARS-CoV-2 Virus.SanguinarineSanguinarine-containing mouthwashes are marketed as anti-plaque and anti-malodor treatments. Sanguinarine is a toxic alkaloid herbal extract, obtained from plants such as Sanguinaria canadensis (bloodroot), Argemone mexicana (Mexican prickly poppy), and others. However, its use is strongly associated with the development of leukoplakia (a white patch in the mouth), usually in the buccal sulcus. This type of leukoplakia has been termed "sanguinaria-associated keratosis", and more than 80% of people with leukoplakia in the vestibule of the mouth have used this substance. Upon stopping contact with the causative substance, the lesions may persist for years. Although this type of leukoplakia may show dysplasia, the potential for malignant transformation is unknown. Ironically, elements within the complementary and alternative medicine industry promote the use of sanguinaria as a therapy for cancer.Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)Sodium bicarbonate is sometimes combined with salt to make a simple homemade mouthwash, indicated for any of the reasons that a saltwater mouthwash might be used. Pre-mixed mouthwashes of 1% sodium bicarbonate and 1.5% sodium chloride in aqueous solution are marketed, although pharmacists will easily be able to produce such a formulation from the base ingredients when required. Sodium bicarbonate mouthwash is sometimes used to remove viscous saliva and to aid visualization of the oral tissues during examination of the mouth.Sodium chloride (salt)Saltwater mouthwash, also known as salt rinse, is made by dissolving 0.5–1 teaspoon of table salt into a cup of water which is as hot as possible without causing discomfort in the mouth. Saline has a mechanical cleansing action and an antiseptic action, as it is a hypertonic solution in relation to bacteria, which undergo lysis. The heat of the solution produces a therapeutic increase in blood flow (hyperemia) to the surgical site, promoting healing. Hot saltwater mouthwashes also encourage the draining of pus from dental abscesses. Conversely, if heat is applied on the side of the face (e.g., hot water bottle) rather than inside the mouth, it may cause a dental abscess to drain extra-orally, which is later associated with an area of fibrosis on the face (see cutaneous sinus of dental origin). Gargling with saltwater is said to reduce the symptoms of a sore throat.Hot saltwater mouth baths (or hot saltwater mouthwashes, sometimes abbreviated to "HSWMW") are also routinely used after oral surgery, to keep food debris out of healing wounds and to prevent infection. Some oral surgeons consider saltwater mouthwashes the mainstay of wound cleanliness after surgery. In dental extractions, hot saltwater mouthbaths should start about 24 hours after a dental extraction. The term mouth bath implies that the liquid is passively held in the mouth, rather than vigorously swilled around (which could dislodge a blood clot). Once the blood clot has stabilized, the mouthwash can be used more vigorously. These mouthwashes tend to be advised for use about 6 times per day, especially after meals (to remove food from the socket).Sodium lauryl sulfate (foaming agent)Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is used as a foaming agent in many oral hygiene products, including many mouthwashes. Some may suggest that it is probably advisable to use mouthwash at least an hour after brushing with toothpaste when the toothpaste contains SLS, since the anionic compounds in the SLS toothpaste can deactivate cationic agents present in the mouthwash.SucralfateSucralfate is a mucosal coating agent, composed of an aluminum salt of sulfated sucrose. It is not recommended for use in the prevention of oral mucositis in head and neck cancer patients receiving radiotherapy or chemoradiation, due to a lack of efficacy found in a well-designed, randomized controlled trial.Tetracycline (antibiotic)Tetracycline is an antibiotic which may sometimes be used as a mouthwash in adults (it causes red staining of teeth in children). It is sometimes use for herpetiforme ulceration (an uncommon type of aphthous stomatitis), but prolonged use may lead to oral candidiasis, as the fungal population of the mouth overgrows in the absence of enough competing bacteria. Similarly, minocycline mouthwashes of 0.5% concentrations can relieve symptoms of recurrent aphthous stomatitis. Erythromycin is similar.Tranexamic acidA 4.8% tranexamic acid solution is sometimes used as an antifibrinolytic mouthwash to prevent bleeding during and after oral surgery in persons with coagulopathies (clotting disorders) or who are taking anticoagulants (blood thinners such as warfarin).TriclosanTriclosan is a non-ionic chlorinate bisphenol antiseptic found in some mouthwashes. When used in mouthwash (e.g. 0.03%), there is moderate substantivity, broad spectrum anti-bacterial action, some anti-fungal action, and significant anti-plaque effect, especially when combined with a copolymer or zinc citrate. Triclosan does not cause staining of the teeth. The safety of triclosan has been questioned.ZincAstringents like zinc chloride provide a pleasant-tasting sensation and shrink tissues. Zinc, when used in combination with other antiseptic agents, can limit the buildup of tartar.See also  VirucideReferencesExternal links  Article on Bad-Breath Prevention Products – from MSNBC Mayo Clinic Q&A on Magic Mouthwash for chemotherapy sores Gargle at the Centre for Cancer Education, University of Newcastle upon TyneDentifricesOral hygieneDrug delivery devicesDosage forms
Alexander III of Macedon ( ; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. A member of the Argead dynasty, he was born in Pella—a city in Ancient Greece—in 356 BC. He succeeded his father King Philip II to the throne at the age of 20, and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Northeastern Africa. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. His father Philip was assassinated in 336 BC at the wedding of Cleopatra of Macedon, Alexander's sister, and Alexander assumed the throne of the Kingdom of Macedon. In 335 BC he campaigned in the Balkans, reasserting control over Thrace and Illyria before sacking the Greek city of Thebes. Alexander was then awarded the generalship of Greece. He used his authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project, assuming leadership over all the Greeks in their conquest of Persia.In 334 BC he invaded the Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire) and began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following his conquest of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, including those at Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. Alexander endeavored to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and invaded India in 326 BC, achieving an important victory over King Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He eventually turned back at the Beas River due to the demand of his homesick troops, dying in 323 BC in Babylon, the city he planned to establish as his capital. He did not manage to execute a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart.Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism and Hellenistic Judaism. He founded more than twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture resulted in Hellenistic civilization, which developed through the Roman Empire into modern Western culture. The Greek language became the lingua franca of the region and was the predominant language of the Byzantine Empire up until its end in the mid-15th century AD.  Greek-speaking communities in central and far eastern Anatolia survived until the Greek genocide and the population exchange in the 1920s. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mould of Achilles, featuring prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His military achievements and enduring, unprecedented success in battle made him the measure against which many later military leaders would compare themselves. Military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics.Early lifeLineage and childhoodAlexander was born in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedon, on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which probably corresponds to 20 July 356 BC (although the exact date is uncertain). He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his fourth wife, Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time, likely because she gave birth to Alexander.Several legends surround Alexander's birth and childhood. According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunderbolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away. Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations for these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious.On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies and that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander. Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception.In his early years, Alexander was raised by a nurse, Lanike, sister of Alexander's future general Cleitus the Black. Later in his childhood, Alexander was tutored by the strict Leonidas, a relative of his mother, and by Lysimachus of Acarnania. Alexander was raised in the manner of noble Macedonian youths, learning to read, play the lyre, ride, fight, and hunt.When Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted, and Philip ordered it away. Alexander, however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he eventually managed. Plutarch stated that Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", and bought the horse for him. Alexander named it Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head". Bucephalas carried Alexander as far as India. When the animal died (because of old age, according to Plutarch, at age thirty), Alexander named a city after him, Bucephala.EducationWhen Alexander was 13, Philip began to search for a tutor, and considered such academics as Isocrates and Speusippus, the latter offering to resign from his stewardship of the Academy to take up the post. In the end, Philip chose Aristotle and provided the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza as a classroom. In return for teaching Alexander, Philip agreed to rebuild Aristotle's hometown of Stageira, which Philip had razed, and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile.Mieza was like a boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles, such as Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and Cassander. Many of these students would become his friends and future generals, and are often known as the "Companions". Aristotle taught Alexander and his companions about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic, and art. Under Aristotle's tutelage, Alexander developed a passion for the works of Homer, and in particular the Iliad; Aristotle gave him an annotated copy, which Alexander later carried on his campaigns.Alexander was able to quote Euripides from memory.During his youth, Alexander was also acquainted with Persian exiles at the Macedonian court, who received the protection of Philip II for several years as they opposed Artaxerxes III. Among them were Artabazos II and his daughter Barsine, possible future mistress of Alexander, who resided at the Macedonian court from 352 to 342 BC, as well as Amminapes, future satrap of Alexander, or a Persian nobleman named Sisines. This gave the Macedonian court a good knowledge of Persian issues, and may even have influenced some of the innovations in the management of the Macedonian state.Suda writes that Anaximenes of Lampsacus was one of Alexander's teachers, and that Anaximenes also accompanied Alexander on his campaigns.Heir of Philip IIRegency and ascent of MacedonAt the age of 16, Alexander's education under Aristotle ended. Philip II had waged war against the Thracians to the north, which left Alexander in charge as regent and heir apparent.During Philip's absence, the Thracian tribe of Maedi revolted against Macedonia. Alexander responded quickly and drove them from their territory. The territory was colonized, and a city, named Alexandropolis, was founded.Upon Philip's return, Alexander was dispatched with a small force to subdue the revolts in southern Thrace. Campaigning against the Greek city of Perinthus, Alexander reportedly saved his father's life. Meanwhile, the city of Amphissa began to work lands that were sacred to Apollo near Delphi, a sacrilege that gave Philip the opportunity to further intervene in Greek affairs. While Philip was occupied in Thrace, Alexander was ordered to muster an army for a campaign in southern Greece. Concerned that other Greek states might intervene, Alexander made it look as though he was preparing to attack Illyria instead. During this turmoil, the Illyrians invaded Macedonia, only to be repelled by Alexander.Philip and his army joined his son in 338 BC, and they marched south through Thermopylae, taking it after stubborn resistance from its Theban garrison. They went on to occupy the city of Elatea, only a few days' march from both Athens and Thebes. The Athenians, led by Demosthenes, voted to seek alliance with Thebes against Macedonia. Both Athens and Philip sent embassies to win Thebes's favour, but Athens won the contest. Philip marched on Amphissa (ostensibly acting on the request of the Amphictyonic League), capturing the mercenaries sent there by Demosthenes and accepting the city's surrender. Philip then returned to Elatea, sending a final offer of peace to Athens and Thebes, who both rejected it.As Philip marched south, his opponents blocked him near Chaeronea, Boeotia. During the ensuing Battle of Chaeronea, Philip commanded the right wing and Alexander the left, accompanied by a group of Philip's trusted generals. According to the ancient sources, the two sides fought bitterly for some time. Philip deliberately commanded his troops to retreat, counting on the untested Athenian hoplites to follow, thus breaking their line. Alexander was the first to break the Theban lines, followed by Philip's generals. Having damaged the enemy's cohesion, Philip ordered his troops to press forward and quickly routed them. With the Athenians lost, the Thebans were surrounded. Left to fight alone, they were defeated.After the victory at Chaeronea, Philip and Alexander marched unopposed into the Peloponnese, welcomed by all cities; however, when they reached Sparta, they were refused, but did not resort to war. At Corinth, Philip established a "Hellenic Alliance" (modelled on the old anti-Persian alliance of the Greco-Persian Wars), which included most Greek city-states except Sparta. Philip was then named Hegemon (often translated as "Supreme Commander") of this league (known by modern scholars as the League of Corinth), and announced his plans to attack the Persian Empire.Exile and returnWhen Philip returned to Pella, he fell in love with and married Cleopatra Eurydice in 338 BC, the niece of his general Attalus. The marriage made Alexander's position as heir less secure, since any son of Cleopatra Eurydice would be a fully Macedonian heir, while Alexander was only half-Macedonian. During the wedding banquet, a drunken Attalus publicly prayed to the gods that the union would produce a legitimate heir.In 337 BC, Alexander fled Macedon with his mother, dropping her off with her brother, King Alexander I of Epirus in Dodona, capital of the Molossians. He continued to Illyria, where he sought refuge with one or more Illyrian kings, perhaps with Glaukias, and was treated as a guest, despite having defeated them in battle a few years before. However, it appears Philip never intended to disown his politically and militarily trained son. Accordingly, Alexander returned to Macedon after six months due to the efforts of a family friend, Demaratus, who mediated between the two parties.In the following year, the Persian satrap (governor) of Caria, Pixodarus, offered his eldest daughter to Alexander's half-brother, Philip Arrhidaeus. Olympias and several of Alexander's friends suggested this showed Philip intended to make Arrhidaeus his heir. Alexander reacted by sending an actor, Thessalus of Corinth, to tell Pixodarus that he should not offer his daughter's hand to an illegitimate son, but instead to Alexander. When Philip heard of this, he stopped the negotiations and scolded Alexander for wishing to marry the daughter of a Carian, explaining that he wanted a better bride for him. Philip exiled four of Alexander's friends, Harpalus, Nearchus, Ptolemy and Erigyius, and had the Corinthians bring Thessalus to him in chains.King of MacedonAccessionIn summer 336 BC, while at Aegae attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Olympias's brother, Alexander I of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, Pausanias. As Pausanias tried to escape, he tripped over a vine and was killed by his pursuers, including two of Alexander's companions, Perdiccas and Leonnatus. Alexander was proclaimed king on the spot by the nobles and army at the age of 20.Consolidation of powerAlexander began his reign by eliminating potential rivals to the throne. He had his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, executed. He also had two Macedonian princes from the region of Lyncestis killed, but spared a third, Alexander Lyncestes. Olympias had Cleopatra Eurydice and Europa, her daughter by Philip, burned alive. When Alexander learned about this, he was furious. Alexander also ordered the murder of Attalus, who was in command of the advance guard of the army in Asia Minor and Cleopatra's uncle.Attalus was at that time corresponding with Demosthenes, regarding the possibility of defecting to Athens. Attalus also had severely insulted Alexander, and following Cleopatra's murder, Alexander may have considered him too dangerous to leave alive. Alexander spared Arrhidaeus, who was by all accounts mentally disabled, possibly as a result of poisoning by Olympias.News of Philip's death roused many states into revolt, including Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, and the Thracian tribes north of Macedon. When news of the revolts reached Alexander, he responded quickly. Though advised to use diplomacy, Alexander mustered 3,000 Macedonian cavalry and rode south towards Thessaly. He found the Thessalian army occupying the pass between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa, and ordered his men to ride over Mount Ossa. When the Thessalians awoke the next day, they found Alexander in their rear and promptly surrendered, adding their cavalry to Alexander's force. He then continued south towards the Peloponnese.Alexander stopped at Thermopylae, where he was recognized as the leader of the Amphictyonic League before heading south to Corinth. Athens sued for peace and Alexander pardoned the rebels. The famous encounter between Alexander and Diogenes the Cynic occurred during Alexander's stay in Corinth. When Alexander asked Diogenes what he could do for him, the philosopher disdainfully asked Alexander to stand a little to the side, as he was blocking the sunlight. This reply apparently delighted Alexander, who is reported to have said "But verily, if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes." At Corinth, Alexander took the title of Hegemon ("leader") and, like Philip, was appointed commander for the coming war against Persia. He also received news of a Thracian uprising.Balkan campaignBefore crossing to Asia, Alexander wanted to safeguard his northern borders. In the spring of 335 BC, he advanced to suppress several revolts. Starting from Amphipolis, he travelled east into the country of the "Independent Thracians"; and at Mount Haemus, the Macedonian army attacked and defeated the Thracian forces manning the heights. The Macedonians marched into the country of the Triballi, and defeated their army near the Lyginus river (a tributary of the Danube). Alexander then marched for three days to the Danube, encountering the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. Crossing the river at night, he surprised them and forced their army to retreat after the first cavalry skirmish.News then reached Alexander that Cleitus, King of Illyria, and King Glaukias of the Taulantii were in open revolt against his authority. Marching west into Illyria, Alexander defeated each in turn, forcing the two rulers to flee with their troops. With these victories, he secured his northern frontier.While Alexander campaigned north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once again. Alexander immediately headed south. While the other cities again hesitated, Thebes decided to fight. The Theban resistance was ineffective, and Alexander razed the city and divided its territory between the other Boeotian cities. The end of Thebes cowed Athens, leaving all of Greece temporarily at peace. Alexander then set out on his Asian campaign, leaving Antipater as regent.Conquest of the Persian EmpireAsia MinorAfter his victory at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), Philip II began the work of establishing himself as hēgemṓn () of a league which according to Diodorus was to wage a campaign against the Persians for the sundry grievances Greece suffered in 480 and free the Greek cities of the western coast and islands from Achaemenid rule. In 336 he sent Parmenion, with Amyntas, Andromenes and Attalus, and an army of 10,000 men into Anatolia to make preparations for an invasion. At first, all went well. The Greek cities on the western coast of Anatolia revolted until the news arrived that Philip had been murdered and had been succeeded by his young son Alexander. The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated near Magnesia by the Achaemenids under the command of the mercenary Memnon of Rhodes.Taking over the invasion project of Philip II, Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC with approximately 48,100 soldiers, 6,100 cavalry and a fleet of 120 ships with crews numbering 38,000, drawn from Macedon and various Greek city-states, mercenaries, and feudally raised soldiers from Thrace, Paionia, and Illyria. He showed his intent to conquer the entirety of the Persian Empire by throwing a spear into Asian soil and saying he accepted Asia as a gift from the gods. This also showed Alexander's eagerness to fight, in contrast to his father's preference for diplomacy.After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis; he then proceeded along the Ionian coast, granting autonomy and democracy to the cities. Miletus, held by Achaemenid forces, required a delicate siege operation, with Persian naval forces nearby. Further south, at Halicarnassus, in Caria, Alexander successfully waged his first large-scale siege, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea. Alexander left the government of Caria to a member of the Hecatomnid dynasty, Ada, who adopted Alexander.From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities to deny the Persians naval bases. From Pamphylia onwards the coast held no major ports and Alexander moved inland. At Termessos, Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city. At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the hitherto unsolvable Gordian Knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia". According to the story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone and hacked it apart with his sword.The Levant and SyriaIn spring 333 BC, Alexander crossed the Taurus into Cilicia. After a long pause due to an illness, he marched on towards Syria. Though outmanoeuvered by Darius's significantly larger army, he marched back to Cilicia, where he defeated Darius at Issus. Darius fled the battle, causing his army to collapse, and left behind his wife, his two daughters, his mother Sisygambis, and a fabulous treasure. He offered a peace treaty that included the lands he had already lost, and a ransom of 10,000 talents for his family. Alexander replied that since he was now king of Asia, it was he alone who decided territorial divisions.Alexander proceeded to take possession of Syria, and most of the coast of the Levant. In the following year, 332 BC, he was forced to attack Tyre, which he captured after a long and difficult siege. The men of military age were massacred and the women and children sold into slavery.EgyptWhen Alexander destroyed Tyre, most of the towns on the route to Egypt quickly capitulated. However, Alexander was met with resistance at Gaza. The stronghold was heavily fortified and built on a hill, requiring a siege. When "his engineers pointed out to him that because of the height of the mound it would be impossible... this encouraged Alexander all the more to make theattempt". After three unsuccessful assaults, the stronghold fell, but not before Alexander had received a serious shoulder wound. As in Tyre, men of military age were put to the sword and the women and children were sold into slavery.Egypt was only one of a large number of territories taken by Alexander from the Persians. After his trip to Siwa, Alexander was crowned in the temple of Ptah at Memphis. It appears that the Egyptian people did not find it disturbing that he was a foreigner - nor that he was absent for virtually his entire reign. Alexander restored the temples neglected by the Persians and dedicated new monuments to the Egyptian gods. In the temple of Luxor, near Karnak, he built a chapel for the sacred barge. During his brief months in Egypt, he reformed the taxation system on the Greek models and organized the military occupation of the country, but, early in 331 BCE, he left for Asia in pursuit of the Persians.Alexander advanced on Egypt in later 332 BC, where he was regarded as a liberator. To legitimize taking power and be recognized as the descendant of the long line of pharaohs, Alexander made sacrifices to the gods at Memphis and went to consult the famous oracle of Amun-Ra at the Siwa Oasis. He was pronounced son of the deity Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert. Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and after his death, currency depicted him adorned with the Horns of Ammon as a symbol of his divinity. The Greeks interpreted this message - one that the gods addressed to all pharaohs - as a prophecy.During his stay in Egypt, he founded Alexandria, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom after his death. Control of Egypt passed to Ptolemy I (son of Lagos), the founder of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30 BCE) after the death of Alexander.Assyria and BabyloniaLeaving Egypt in 331 BC, Alexander marched eastward into Achaemenid Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia (now northern Iraq) and defeated Darius again at the Battle of Gaugamela. Darius once more fled the field, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. Gaugamela would be the final and decisive encounter between the two. Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan) while Alexander captured Babylon.Babylonian astronomical diaries says that "the king of the world, Alexander" sends his scouts with a message to the people of Babylon before entering the city: "I shall not enter your houses".PersiaFrom Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its treasury. He sent the bulk of his army to the Persian ceremonial capital of Persepolis via the Persian Royal Road. Alexander himself took selected troops on the direct route to the city. He then stormed the pass of the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains) which had been blocked by a Persian army under Ariobarzanes and then hurried to Persepolis before its garrison could loot the treasury.On entering Persepolis, Alexander allowed his troops to loot the city for several days. Alexander stayed in Persepolis for five months. During his stay a fire broke out in the eastern palace of Xerxes I and spread to the rest of the city. Possible causes include a drunken accident or deliberate revenge for the burning of the Acropolis of Athens during the Second Persian War by Xerxes; Plutarch and Diodorus allege that Alexander's companion, the hetaera Thaïs, instigated and started the fire. Even as he watched the city burn, Alexander immediately began to regret his decision. Plutarch claims that he ordered his men to put out the fires, but that the flames had already spread to most of the city. Curtius claims that Alexander did not regret his decision until the next morning. Plutarch recounts an anecdote in which Alexander pauses and talks to a fallen statue of Xerxes as if it were a live person:Fall of the Empire and the EastAlexander then chased Darius, first into Media, and then Parthia. The Persian king no longer controlled his own destiny, and was taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman. As Alexander approached, Bessus had his men fatally stab the Great King and then declared himself Darius's successor as Artaxerxes V, before retreating into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander. Alexander buried Darius's remains next to his Achaemenid predecessors in a regal funeral. He claimed that, while dying, Darius had named him as his successor to the Achaemenid throne. The Achaemenid Empire is normally considered to have fallen with Darius. However, as basic forms of community life and the general structure of government were maintained and resuscitated by Alexander under his own rule, he, in the words of the Iranologist Pierre Briant "may therefore be considered to have acted in many ways as the last of the Achaemenids."Alexander viewed Bessus as a usurper and set out to defeat him. This campaign, initially against Bessus, turned into a grand tour of central Asia. Alexander founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. The campaign took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan), and Scythia.In 329 BC, Spitamenes, who held an undefined position in the satrapy of Sogdiana, betrayed Bessus to Ptolemy, one of Alexander's trusted companions, and Bessus was executed. However, when, at some point later, Alexander was on the Jaxartes dealing with an incursion by a horse nomad army, Spitamenes raised Sogdiana in revolt. Alexander personally defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes and immediately launched a campaign against Spitamenes, defeating him in the Battle of Gabai. After the defeat, Spitamenes was killed by his own men, who then sued for peace.Problems and plots During this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, either a symbolic kissing of the hand, or prostration on the ground, that Persians showed to their social superiors. This was one aspect of Alexander's broad strategy aimed at securing the aid and support of the Iranian upper classes. The Greeks however regarded the gesture of proskynesis as the province of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. This cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen, and he eventually abandoned it.During the long rule of the Achaemenids, the elite positions in many segments of the empire including the central government, the army, and the many satrapies were specifically reserved for Iranians and to a major degree Persian noblemen. The latter were in many cases additionally connected through marriage alliances with the royal Achaemenid family. This created a problem for Alexander as to whether he had to make use of the various segments and people that had given the empire its solidity and unity for a lengthy period of time. Pierre Briant explains that Alexander realized that it was insufficient to merely exploit the internal contradictions within the imperial system as in Asia Minor, Babylonia or Egypt; he also had to (re)create a central government with or without the support of the Iranians. As early as 334 BC he demonstrated awareness of this, when he challenged incumbent King Darius III "by appropriating the main elements of the Achaemenid monarchy's ideology, particularly the theme of the king who protects the lands and the peasants". Alexander wrote a letter in 332 BC to Darius III, wherein he argued that he was worthier than Darius "to succeed to the Achaemenid throne". However, Alexander's eventual decision to burn the Achaemenid palace at Persepolis in conjunction with the major rejection and opposition of the "entire Persian people" made it impracticable for him to pose himself as Darius' legitimate successor. Against Bessus (Artaxerxes V) however, Briant adds, Alexander reasserted "his claim to legitimacy as the avenger of Darius III".A plot against his life was revealed, and one of his officers, Philotas, was executed for failing to alert Alexander. The death of the son necessitated the death of the father, and thus Parmenion, who had been charged with guarding the treasury at Ecbatana, was assassinated at Alexander's command, to prevent attempts at vengeance. Most infamously, Alexander personally killed the man who had saved his life at Granicus, Cleitus the Black, during a violent drunken altercation at Maracanda (modern day Samarkand in Uzbekistan), in which Cleitus accused Alexander of several judgmental mistakes and most especially, of having forgotten the Macedonian ways in favour of a corrupt oriental lifestyle.Later, in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life was revealed, this one instigated by his own royal pages. His official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus, was implicated in the plot, and in the Anabasis of Alexander, Arrian states that Callisthenes and the pages were then tortured on the rack as punishment, and likely died soon after. It remains unclear if Callisthenes was actually involved in the plot, for prior to his accusation he had fallen out of favour by leading the opposition to the attempt to introduce proskynesis.Macedon in Alexander's absenceWhen Alexander set out for Asia, he left his general Antipater, an experienced military and political leader and part of Philip II's "Old Guard", in charge of Macedon. Alexander's sacking of Thebes ensured that Greece remained quiet during his absence. The one exception was a call to arms by Spartan king Agis III in 331 BC, whom Antipater defeated and killed in the battle of Megalopolis. Antipater referred the Spartans' punishment to the League of Corinth, which then deferred to Alexander, who chose to pardon them. There was also considerable friction between Antipater and Olympias, and each complained to Alexander about the other.In general, Greece enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity during Alexander's campaign in Asia. Alexander sent back vast sums from his conquest, which stimulated the economy and increased trade across his empire. However, Alexander's constant demands for troops and the migration of Macedonians throughout his empire depleted Macedon's strength, greatly weakening it in the years after Alexander, and ultimately led to its subjugation by Rome after the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC).Indian campaignForays into the Indian subcontinent After the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Raoxshna in Old Iranian) to cement relations with his new satrapies, Alexander turned to the Indian subcontinent. He invited the chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara (a region presently straddling eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan), to come to him and submit to his authority. Omphis (Indian name Ambhi), the ruler of Taxila, whose kingdom extended from the Indus to the Hydaspes (Jhelum), complied, but the chieftains of some hill clans, including the Aspasioi and Assakenoi sections of the Kambojas (known in Indian texts also as Ashvayanas and Ashvakayanas), refused to submit. Ambhi hastened to relieve Alexander of his apprehension and met him with valuable presents, placing himself and all his forces at his disposal. Alexander not only returned Ambhi his title and the gifts but he also presented him with a wardrobe of "Persian robes, gold and silver ornaments, 30 horses and 1,000 talents in gold". Alexander was emboldened to divide his forces, and Ambhi assisted Hephaestion and Perdiccas in constructing a bridge over the Indus where it bends at Hund, supplied their troops with provisions, and received Alexander himself, and his whole army, in his capital city of Taxila, with every demonstration of friendship and the most liberal hospitality.On the subsequent advance of the Macedonian king, Taxiles accompanied him with a force of 5,000 men and took part in the battle of the Hydaspes River. After that victory he was sent by Alexander in pursuit of Porus, to whom he was charged to offer favourable terms, but narrowly escaped losing his life at the hands of his old enemy. Subsequently, however, the two rivals were reconciled by the personal mediation of Alexander; and Taxiles, after having contributed zealously to the equipment of the fleet on the Hydaspes, was entrusted by the king with the government of the whole territory between that river and the Indus. A considerable accession of power was granted him after the death of Philip, son of Machatas; and he was allowed to retain his authority at the death of Alexander himself (323 BC), as well as in the subsequent partition of the provinces at Triparadisus, 321 BC.In the winter of 327/326 BC, Alexander personally led a campaign against the Aspasioi of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus valley, and the Assakenoi of the Swat and Buner valleys. A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander was wounded in the shoulder by a dart, but eventually the Aspasioi lost. Alexander then faced the Assakenoi, who fought against him from the strongholds of Massaga, Ora and Aornos.The fort of Massaga was reduced only after days of bloody fighting, in which Alexander was wounded seriously in the ankle. According to Curtius, "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubble." A similar slaughter followed at Ora. In the aftermath of Massaga and Ora, numerous Assakenians fled to the fortress of Aornos. Alexander followed close behind and captured the strategic hill-fort after four bloody days.After Aornos, Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won an epic battle against King Porus, who ruled a region lying between the Hydaspes and the Acesines (Chenab), in what is now the Punjab, in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC. Alexander was impressed by Porus's bravery, and made him an ally. He appointed Porus as satrap, and added to Porus's territory land that he did not previously own, towards the south-east, up to the Hyphasis (Beas). Choosing a local helped him control these lands so distant from Greece. Alexander founded two cities on opposite sides of the Hydaspes river, naming one Bucephala, in honour of his horse, who died around this time. The other was Nicaea (Victory), thought to be located at the site of modern-day Mong, Punjab. Philostratus the Elder in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana writes that in the army of Porus there was an elephant who fought brave against Alexander's army and Alexander dedicated it to the Helios (Sun) and named it Ajax, because he thought that a so great animal deserved a great name. The elephant had gold rings around its tusks and an inscription was on them written in Greek: "Alexander the son of Zeus dedicates Ajax to the Helios" (ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ Ο ΔΙΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΑΙΑΝΤΑ ΤΩΙ ΗΛΙΩΙ).Revolt of the armyEast of Porus's kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the Nanda Empire of Magadha, and further east, the Gangaridai Empire of Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent. Fearing the prospect of facing other large armies and exhausted by years of campaigning, Alexander's army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (Beas), refusing to march farther east. This river thus marks the easternmost extent of Alexander's conquests.Alexander tried to persuade his soldiers to march farther, but his general Coenus pleaded with him to change his opinion and return; the men, he said, "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander eventually agreed and turned south, marching along the Indus. Along the way his army conquered the Malhi (in modern-day Multan) and other Indian tribes and Alexander sustained an injury during the siege.Alexander sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest back to Persia through the more difficult southern route along the Gedrosian Desert and Makran. Alexander reached Susa in 324 BC, but not before losing many men to the harsh desert.Last years in PersiaDiscovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed several of them as examples on his way to Susa. As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedon, led by Craterus. His troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis. They refused to be sent away and criticized his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units.After three days, unable to persuade his men to back down, Alexander gave Persians command posts in the army and conferred Macedonian military titles upon Persian units. The Macedonians quickly begged forgiveness, which Alexander accepted, and held a great banquet with several thousand of his men. In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, Alexander held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Susa, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year. Meanwhile, upon his return to Persia, Alexander learned that guards of the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae had desecrated it, and swiftly executed them. Alexander admired Cyrus the Great, from an early age reading Xenophon's Cyropaedia, which described Cyrus's heroism in battle and governance as a king and legislator. During his visit to Pasargadae Alexander ordered his architect Aristobulus to decorate the interior of the sepulchral chamber of Cyrus's tomb.Afterwards, Alexander travelled to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure. There, his closest friend and possible lover, Hephaestion, died of illness or poisoning. Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander, and he ordered the preparation of an expensive funeral pyre in Babylon, as well as a decree for public mourning. Back in Babylon, Alexander planned a series of new campaigns, beginning with an invasion of Arabia, but he would not have a chance to realize them, as he died shortly after Hephaestion.Death and successionOn either 10 or 11 June 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age 32. There are two different versions of Alexander's death, and details of the death differ slightly in each. Plutarch's account is that roughly 14 days before his death, Alexander entertained admiral Nearchus and spent the night and next day drinking with Medius of Larissa. Alexander developed a fever, which worsened until he was unable to speak. The common soldiers, anxious about his health, were granted the right to file past him as he silently waved at them. In the second account, Diodorus recounts that Alexander was struck with pain after downing a large bowl of unmixed wine in honour of Heracles, followed by 11 days of weakness; he did not develop a fever, instead dying after some agony. Arrian also mentioned this as an alternative, but Plutarch specifically denied this claim.Given the propensity of the Macedonian aristocracy to assassination, foul play featured in multiple accounts of his death. Diodorus, Plutarch, Arrian and Justin all mentioned the theory that Alexander was poisoned. Justin stated that Alexander was the victim of a poisoning conspiracy, Plutarch dismissed it as a fabrication, while both Diodorus and Arrian noted that they mentioned it only for the sake of completeness. The accounts were nevertheless fairly consistent in designating Antipater, recently removed as Macedonian viceroy, and at odds with Olympias, as the head of the alleged plot. Perhaps taking his summons to Babylon as a death sentence, and having seen the fate of Parmenion and Philotas, Antipater purportedly arranged for Alexander to be poisoned by his son Iollas, who was Alexander's wine-pourer. There was even a suggestion that Aristotle may have participated.The strongest argument against the poison theory is the fact that twelve days passed between the start of his illness and his death; such long-acting poisons were probably not available. However, in a 2003 BBC documentary investigating the death of Alexander, Leo Schep from the New Zealand National Poisons Centre proposed that the plant white hellebore (Veratrum album), which was known in antiquity, may have been used to poison Alexander. In a 2014 manuscript in the journal Clinical Toxicology, Schep suggested Alexander's wine was spiked with Veratrum album, and that this would produce poisoning symptoms that match the course of events described in the Alexander Romance. Veratrum album poisoning can have a prolonged course and it was suggested that if Alexander was poisoned, Veratrum album offers the most plausible cause. Another poisoning explanation put forward in 2010 proposed that the circumstances of his death were compatible with poisoning by water of the river Styx (modern-day Mavroneri in Arcadia, Greece) that contained calicheamicin, a dangerous compound produced by bacteria.Several natural causes (diseases) have been suggested, including malaria and typhoid fever. A 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed his death to typhoid fever complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis. Another recent analysis suggested pyogenic (infectious) spondylitis or meningitis. Other illnesses fit the symptoms, including acute pancreatitis, West Nile virus, and Guillain-Barré syndrome. Natural-cause theories also tend to emphasize that Alexander's health may have been in general decline after years of heavy drinking and severe wounds. The anguish that Alexander felt after Hephaestion's death may also have contributed to his declining health.After deathAlexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket. According to Aelian, a seer called Aristander foretold that the land where Alexander was laid to rest "would be happy and unvanquishable forever". Perhaps more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative.While Alexander's funeral cortege was on its way to Macedon, Ptolemy seized it and took it temporarily to Memphis. His successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, transferred the sarcophagus to Alexandria, where it remained until at least late Antiquity. Ptolemy IX Lathyros, one of Ptolemy's final successors, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one so he could convert the original to coinage. The recent discovery of an enormous tomb in northern Greece, at Amphipolis, dating from the time of Alexander the Great has given rise to speculation that its original intent was to be the burial place of Alexander. This would fit with the intended destination of Alexander's funeral cortege. However, the memorial was found to be dedicated to the dearest friend of Alexander the Great, Hephaestion.Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus all visited the tomb in Alexandria, where Augustus, allegedly, accidentally knocked the nose off. Caligula was said to have taken Alexander's breastplate from the tomb for his own use. Around AD 200, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb to the public. His son and successor, Caracalla, a great admirer, visited the tomb during his own reign. After this, details on the fate of the tomb are hazy.The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus", discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is so named not because it was thought to have contained Alexander's remains, but because its bas-reliefs depict Alexander and his companions fighting the Persians and hunting. It was originally thought to have been the sarcophagus of Abdalonymus (died 311 BC), the king of Sidon appointed by Alexander immediately following the battle of Issus in 331. However, more recently, it has been suggested that it may date from earlier than Abdalonymus's death.Demades likened the Macedonian army, after the death of Alexander, to the blinded Cyclops, due to the many random and disorderly movements that it made. In addition, Leosthenes, also, likened the anarchy between the generals, after Alexander's death, to the blinded Cyclops "who after he had lost his eye went feeling and groping about with his hands before him, not knowing where to lay them".Division of the empireAlexander's death was so sudden that when reports of his death reached Greece, they were not immediately believed. Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander's death. According to Diodorus, Alexander's companions asked him on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his kingdom; his laconic reply was "tôi kratistôi"—"to the strongest". Another theory is that his successors wilfully or erroneously misheard "tôi Kraterôi"—"to Craterus", the general leading his Macedonian troops home and newly entrusted with the regency of Macedonia.Arrian and Plutarch claimed that Alexander was speechless by this point, implying that this was an apocryphal story. Diodorus, Curtius and Justin offered the more plausible story that Alexander passed his signet ring to Perdiccas, a bodyguard and leader of the companion cavalry, in front of witnesses, thereby nominating him.Perdiccas initially did not claim power, instead suggesting that Roxane's baby would be king, if male; with himself, Craterus, Leonnatus, and Antipater as guardians. However, the infantry, under the command of Meleager, rejected this arrangement since they had been excluded from the discussion. Instead, they supported Alexander's half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus. Eventually, the two sides reconciled, and after the birth of Alexander IV, he and Philip III were appointed joint kings, albeit in name only.Dissension and rivalry soon afflicted the Macedonians, however. The satrapies handed out by Perdiccas at the Partition of Babylon became power bases each general used to bid for power. After the assassination of Perdiccas in 321 BC, Macedonian unity collapsed, and 40 years of war between "The Successors" (Diadochi) ensued before the Hellenistic world settled into four stable power blocs: Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Mesopotamia and Central Asia, Attalid Anatolia, and Antigonid Macedon. In the process, both Alexander IV and Philip III were murdered.Last plansDiodorus stated that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to Craterus some time before his death, which are known as Alexander's "last plans". Craterus started to carry out Alexander's commands, but the successors chose not to further implement them, on the grounds they were impractical and extravagant. Furthermore, Perdiccas had read the notebooks containing Alexander's last plans to the Macedonian troops in Babylon, who voted not to carry them out.According to Diodorus, Alexander's last plans called for military expansion into the southern and western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. It included: Construction of 1,000 ships larger than triremes, along with harbours and a road running along the African coast all the way to the Pillars of Hercules, to be used for an invasion of Carthage and the western Mediterranean; Erection of great temples in Delos, Delphi, Dodona, Dium, Amphipolis, all costing 1,500 talents, and a monumental temple to Athena at Troy Amalgamation of small settlements into larger cities ("synoecisms") and the "transplant of populations from Asia to Europe and in the opposite direction from Europe to Asia, in order to bring the largest continent to common unity and to friendship by means of intermarriage and family ties" Construction of a monumental tomb for his father Philip, "to match the greatest of the pyramids of Egypt" Conquest of Arabia Circumnavigation of AfricaThe enormous scale of these plans has led many scholars to doubt their historicity. Ernst Badian argued that they were exaggerated by Perdiccas in order to ensure that the Macedonian troops voted not to carry them out. Other scholars have proposed that they were invented by later authors within the tradition of the Alexander Romance.CharacterGeneralshipAlexander perhaps earned the epithet "the Great" due to his unparalleled success as a military commander; he never lost a battle, despite typically being outnumbered. This was due to use of terrain, phalanx and cavalry tactics, bold strategy, and the fierce loyalty of his troops. The Macedonian phalanx, armed with the sarissa, a spear  long, had been developed and perfected by Philip II through rigorous training, and Alexander used its speed and manoeuvrability to great effect against larger but more disparate Persian forces. Alexander also recognized the potential for disunity among his diverse army, which employed various languages and weapons. He overcame this by being personally involved in battle, in the manner of a Macedonian king.In his first battle in Asia, at Granicus, Alexander used only a small part of his forces, perhaps 13,000 infantry with 5,000 cavalry, against a much larger Persian force of 40,000. Alexander placed the phalanx at the center and cavalry and archers on the wings, so that his line matched the length of the Persian cavalry line, about . By contrast, the Persian infantry was stationed behind its cavalry. This ensured that Alexander would not be outflanked, while his phalanx, armed with long pikes, had a considerable advantage over the Persians' scimitars and javelins. Macedonian losses were negligible compared to those of the Persians.At Issus in 333 BC, his first confrontation with Darius, he used the same deployment, and again the central phalanx pushed through. Alexander personally led the charge in the center, routing the opposing army. At the decisive encounter with Darius at Gaugamela, Darius equipped his chariots with scythes on the wheels to break up the phalanx and equipped his cavalry with pikes. Alexander arranged a double phalanx, with the center advancing at an angle, parting when the chariots bore down and then reforming. The advance was successful and broke Darius's center, causing the latter to flee once again.When faced with opponents who used unfamiliar fighting techniques, such as in Central Asia and India, Alexander adapted his forces to his opponents' style. Thus, in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander successfully used his javelin throwers and archers to prevent outflanking movements, while massing his cavalry at the center. In India, confronted by Porus's elephant corps, the Macedonians opened their ranks to envelop the elephants and used their sarissas to strike upwards and dislodge the elephants' handlers.Physical appearanceHistorical sources frequently give conflicting accounts of Alexander's appearance, and the earliest sources are the most scant in their detail. During his lifetime, Alexander carefully curated his image by commissioning works from famous and great artists of the time. This included commissioning sculptures by Lysippos, paintings by Apelles and gem engravings by Pyrgoteles. Ancient authors recorded that Alexander was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he forbade other sculptors from crafting his image; scholars today, however, find the claim dubious. Nevertheless, Andrew Stewart highlights the fact that artistic portraits, not least because of who they are commissioned by, are always partisan, and that artistic portrayals of Alexander "seek to legitimize him (or, by extension, his Successors), to interpret him to their audiences, to answer their critiques, and to persuade them of his greatness", and thus should be considered within a framework of "praise and blame", in the same way sources such as praise poetry are. Despite those caveats, Lysippos's sculpture, famous for its naturalism, as opposed to a stiffer, more static pose, is thought to be the most faithful depiction.Curtius Rufus, a Roman historian from the first century AD, who wrote the Histories of Alexander the Great, gives this account of Alexander sitting on the throne of Darius III:Both Curtius and Diodorus report a story that when Darius III's mother, Sisygambis, first met Alexander and Hephaestion, she assumed that the latter was Alexander because he was the taller and more handsome of the two.Details from the Alexander Sarcophagus show that he had a fair complexion with ruddy cheeks. This is in line with the description of him given by the Greek biographer Plutarch ():Historians have understood the detail of the pleasant odour attributed to Alexander as stemming from a belief in ancient Greece that pleasant scents are characteristic of gods and heroes.The Alexander Mosaic and contemporary coins portray Alexander with "a straight nose, a slightly protruding jaw, full lips and eyes deep set beneath a strongly pronounced forehead". Although the Alexander Mosaic depicts him with brown hair, the ancient historian Aelian (c. 175 – c. 235 AD), in his Varia Historia (12.14), describes Alexander as having fair, or golden, hair.PersonalityBoth of Alexander's parents encouraged his ambitions. His father Philip was probably Alexander's most immediate and influential role model, as the young Alexander watched him campaign practically every year, winning victory after victory while ignoring severe wounds. Alexander's relationship with his father "forged" the competitive side of his personality; he had a need to outdo his father, illustrated by his reckless behavior in battle. While Alexander worried that his father would leave him "no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world", he also downplayed his father's achievements to his companions. Alexander's mother Olympia similarly had huge ambitions, and encouraged her son to believe it was his destiny to conquer the Persian Empire. She instilled a sense of destiny in him, and Plutarch tells how his ambition "kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years".According to Plutarch, Alexander also had a violent temper and rash, impulsive nature, and this could influence his decision making. Although Alexander was stubborn and did not respond well to orders from his father, he was open to reasoned debate. He had a calmer side—perceptive, logical, and calculating. He had a great desire for knowledge, a love for philosophy, and was an avid reader. This was no doubt in part due to Aristotle's tutelage; Alexander was intelligent and quick to learn. His intelligent and rational side was amply demonstrated by his ability and success as a general. He had great self-restraint in "pleasures of the body", in contrast with his lack of self-control with alcohol.Alexander was erudite and patronized both arts and sciences. However, he had little interest in sports or the Olympic Games (unlike his father), seeking only the Homeric ideals of honour (timê) and glory (kudos). He had great charisma and force of personality, characteristics which made him a great leader. His unique abilities were further demonstrated by the inability of any of his generals to unite Macedonia and retain the Empire after his death—only Alexander had the ability to do so.During his final years, and especially after the death of Hephaestion, Alexander began to exhibit signs of megalomania and paranoia. His extraordinary achievements, coupled with his own ineffable sense of destiny and the flattery of his companions, may have combined to produce this effect. His delusions of grandeur are readily visible in his will and in his desire to conquer the world, in as much as he is by various sources described as having boundless ambition, an epithet, the meaning of which has descended into an historical cliché.He appears to have believed himself a deity, or at least sought to deify himself. Olympias always insisted to him that he was the son of Zeus, a theory apparently confirmed to him by the oracle of Amun at Siwa. He began to identify himself as the son of Zeus-Ammon. Alexander adopted elements of Persian dress and customs at court, notably proskynesis, which was one aspect of Alexander's broad strategy aimed at securing the aid and support of the Iranian upper classes; however the practise of proskynesis was disapproved by the Macedonians, and they were unwilling to perform it. This behaviour cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen. However, Alexander also was a pragmatic ruler who understood the difficulties of ruling culturally disparate peoples, many of whom lived in kingdoms where the king was divine. Thus, rather than megalomania, his behaviour may simply have been a practical attempt at strengthening his rule and keeping his empire together.Personal relationshipsAlexander married three times: Roxana, daughter of the Sogdian nobleman Oxyartes of Bactria, out of love; and the Persian princesses Stateira and Parysatis, the former a daughter of Darius III and latter a daughter of Artaxerxes III, for political reasons. He apparently had two sons, Alexander IV of Macedon by Roxana and, possibly, Heracles of Macedon from his mistress Barsine. He lost another child when Roxana miscarried at Babylon.Alexander also had a close relationship with his friend, general, and bodyguard Hephaestion, the son of a Macedonian noble. Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander. This event may have contributed to Alexander's failing health and detached mental state during his final months.Alexander's sexuality has been the subject of speculation and controversy in modern times. The Roman era writer Athenaeus says, based on the scholar Dicaearchus, who was Alexander's contemporary, that the king "was quite excessively keen on boys", and that Alexander kissed the eunuch Bagoas in public. This episode is also told by Plutarch, probably based on the same source. None of Alexander's contemporaries, however, are known to have explicitly described Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion as sexual, though the pair was often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, whom classical Greek culture painted as a couple. Aelian writes of Alexander's visit to Troy where "Alexander garlanded the tomb of Achilles, and Hephaestion that of Patroclus, the latter hinting that he was a beloved of Alexander, in just the same way as Patroclus was of Achilles." Some modern historians (e.g., Robin Lane Fox) believe not only that Alexander's youthful relationship with Hephaestion was sexual, but that their sexual contacts may have continued into adulthood, which went against the social norms of at least some Greek cities, such as Athens, though some modern researchers have tentatively proposed that Macedonia (or at least the Macedonian court) may have been more tolerant of homosexuality between adults.Green argues that there is little evidence in ancient sources that Alexander had much carnal interest in women; he did not produce an heir until the very end of his life. However, Ogden calculates that Alexander, who impregnated his partners thrice in eight years, had a higher matrimonial record than his father at the same age. Two of these pregnancies — Stateira's and Barsine's — are of dubious legitimacy.According to Diodorus Siculus, Alexander accumulated a harem in the style of Persian kings, but he used it rather sparingly, "not wishing to offend the Macedonians", showing great self-control in "pleasures of the body". Nevertheless, Plutarch described how Alexander was infatuated by Roxana while complimenting him on not forcing himself on her. Green suggested that, in the context of the period, Alexander formed quite strong friendships with women, including Ada of Caria, who adopted him, and even Darius's mother Sisygambis, who supposedly died from grief upon hearing of Alexander's death.Battle recordLegacyAlexander's legacy extended beyond his military conquests, and his reign marked a turning point in European and Asian history. His campaigns greatly increased contacts and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the east were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence. Some of the cities he founded became major cultural centers, many surviving into the 21st century. His chroniclers recorded valuable information about the areas through which he marched, while the Greeks themselves got a sense of belonging to a world beyond the Mediterranean.Hellenistic kingdomsAlexander's most immediate legacy was the introduction of Macedonian rule to huge new swathes of Asia. At the time of his death, Alexander's empire covered some , and was the largest state of its time. Many of these areas remained in Macedonian hands or under Greek influence for the next 200–300 years. The successor states that emerged were, at least initially, dominant forces, and these 300 years are often referred to as the Hellenistic period.The eastern borders of Alexander's empire began to collapse even during his lifetime. However, the power vacuum he left in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent directly gave rise to one of the most powerful Indian dynasties in history, the Maurya Empire. Taking advantage of this power vacuum, Chandragupta Maurya (referred to in Greek sources as "Sandrokottos"), of relatively humble origin, took control of the Punjab, and with that power base proceeded to conquer the Nanda Empire.Founding of citiesOver the course of his conquests, Alexander founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most of them east of the Tigris. The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the leading Mediterranean cities. The cities' locations reflected trade routes as well as defensive positions. At first, the cities must have been inhospitable, little more than defensive garrisons. Following Alexander's death, many Greeks who had settled there tried to return to Greece. However, a century or so after Alexander's death, many of the Alexandrias were thriving, with elaborate public buildings and substantial populations that included both Greek and local peoples.The foundation of the "new" Smyrna was also associated with Alexander. According to the legend, after Alexander hunted on the Mount Pagus, he slept under a plane tree at the sanctuary of Nemesis. While he was sleeping, the goddess appeared and told him to found a city there and move into it the Smyrnaeans from the "old" city. The Smyrnaeans sent ambassadors to the oracle at Clarus to ask about this, and after the response from the oracle they decided to move to the "new" city.The city of Pella, in modern Jordan, was founded by veterans of Alexander's army, and named it after the city of Pella, in Greece, which was the birthplace of Alexander.Funding of templesIn 334 BC, Alexander the Great donated funds for the completion of the new temple of Athena Polias in Priene, in modern-day western Turkey. An inscription from the temple, now housed in the British Museum, declares: "King Alexander dedicated [this temple] to Athena Polias." This inscription is one of the few independent archaeological discoveries confirming an episode from Alexander's life. The temple was designed by Pytheos, one of the architects of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.Libanius wrote that Alexander founded the temple of Zeus Bottiaios (), in the place where later the city of Antioch was built.Suda wrote that Alexander built a big temple to Sarapis.HellenizationHellenization was coined by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to denote the spread of Greek language, culture, and population into the former Persian empire after Alexander's conquest. This process can be seen in such great Hellenistic cities as Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia (south of modern Baghdad). Alexander sought to insert Greek elements into Persian culture and to hybridize Greek and Persian culture, homogenizing the populations of Asia and Europe. Although his successors explicitly rejected such policies, Hellenization occurred throughout the region, accompanied by a distinct and opposite 'Orientalization' of the successor states.The core of the Hellenistic culture promulgated by the conquests was essentially Athenian. The close association of men from across Greece in Alexander's army directly led to the emergence of the largely Attic-based "koine", or "common" Greek dialect. Koine spread throughout the Hellenistic world, becoming the lingua franca of Hellenistic lands and eventually the ancestor of modern Greek. Furthermore, town planning, education, local government, and art current in the Hellenistic period were all based on Classical Greek ideals, evolving into distinct new forms commonly grouped as Hellenistic. Also, the New Testament was written in the Koine Greek language. Aspects of Hellenistic culture were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century.Hellenization in South and Central Asia Some of the most pronounced effects of Hellenization can be seen in Afghanistan and India, in the region of the relatively late-rising Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BC) (in modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan) and the Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – 10 AD) in modern Afghanistan and India. On the Silk Road trade routes, Hellenistic culture hybridized with Iranian and Buddhist cultures. The cosmopolitan art and mythology of Gandhara (a region spanning the upper confluence of the Indus, Swat and Kabul rivers in modern Pakistan) of the ~3rd century BC to the ~5th century AD are most evident of the direct contact between Hellenistic civilization and South Asia, as are the Edicts of Ashoka, which directly mention the Greeks within Ashoka's dominion as converting to Buddhism and the reception of Buddhist emissaries by Ashoka's contemporaries in the Hellenistic world. The resulting syncretism known as Greco-Buddhism influenced the development of Buddhism and created a culture of Greco-Buddhist art. These Greco-Buddhist kingdoms sent some of the first Buddhist missionaries to China, Sri Lanka and Hellenistic Asia and Europe (Greco-Buddhist monasticism).Some of the first and most influential figurative portrayals of the Buddha appeared at this time, perhaps modelled on Greek statues of Apollo in the Greco-Buddhist style. Several Buddhist traditions may have been influenced by the ancient Greek religion: the concept of Boddhisatvas is reminiscent of Greek divine heroes, and some Mahayana ceremonial practices (burning incense, gifts of flowers, and food placed on altars) are similar to those practised by the ancient Greeks; however, similar practices were also observed amongst the native Indic culture. One Greek king, Menander I, probably became Buddhist, and was immortalized in Buddhist literature as 'Milinda'. The process of Hellenization also spurred trade between the east and west. For example, Greek astronomical instruments dating to the 3rd century BC were found in the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai Khanoum in modern-day Afghanistan, while the Greek concept of a spherical earth surrounded by the spheres of planets eventually supplanted the long-standing Indian cosmological belief of a disc consisting of four continents grouped around a central mountain (Mount Meru) like the petals of a flower. The Yavanajataka (lit. Greek astronomical treatise) and Paulisa Siddhanta texts depict the influence of Greek astronomical ideas on Indian astronomy.Following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the east, Hellenistic influence on Indian art was far-ranging. In the area of architecture, a few examples of the Ionic order can be found as far as Pakistan with the Jandial temple near Taxila. Several examples of capitals displaying Ionic influences can be seen as far as Patna, especially with the Pataliputra capital, dated to the 3rd century BC. The Corinthian order is also heavily represented in the art of Gandhara, especially through Indo-Corinthian capitals.Influence on RomeAlexander and his exploits were admired by many Romans, especially generals, who wanted to associate themselves with his achievements. Polybius began his Histories by reminding Romans of Alexander's achievements, and thereafter Roman leaders saw him as a role model. Pompey the Great adopted the epithet "Magnus" and even Alexander's anastole-type haircut, and searched the conquered lands of the east for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which he then wore as a sign of greatness. Julius Caesar dedicated a Lysippean equestrian bronze statue but replaced Alexander's head with his own, while Octavian visited Alexander's tomb in Alexandria and temporarily changed his seal from a sphinx to Alexander's profile. The emperor Trajan also admired Alexander, as did Nero and Caracalla. The Macriani, a Roman family that in the person of Macrinus briefly ascended to the imperial throne, kept images of Alexander on their persons, either on jewellery, or embroidered into their clothes.On the other hand, some Roman writers, particularly Republican figures, used Alexander as a cautionary tale of how autocratic tendencies can be kept in check by republican values. Alexander was used by these writers as an example of ruler values such as  (friendship) and  (clemency), but also  (anger) and  (over-desire for glory).Emperor Julian in his satire called "The Caesars", describes a contest between the previous Roman emperors, with Alexander the Great called in as an extra contestant, in the presence of the assembled gods.The Itinerarium Alexandri is a 4th-century Latin Itinerarium which describes Alexander the Great's campaigns. Julius Caesar went to serve his quaestorship in Hispania after his wife's funeral, in the spring or early summer of 69 BC. While there, he encountered a statue of Alexander the Great, and realised with dissatisfaction that he was now at an age when Alexander had the world at his feet, while he had achieved comparatively little.Pompey posed as the "new Alexander" since he was his boyhood hero.After Caracalla concluded his campaign against the Alamanni, it became evident that he was inordinately preoccupied with Alexander the Great. He began openly mimicking Alexander in his personal style. In planning his invasion of the Parthian Empire, Caracalla decided to arrange 16,000 of his men in Macedonian-style phalanxes, despite the Roman army having made the phalanx an obsolete tactical formation. The historian Christopher Matthew mentions that the term Phalangarii has two possible meanings, both with military connotations. The first refers merely to the Roman battle line and does not specifically mean that the men were armed with pikes, and the second bears similarity to the 'Marian Mules' of the late Roman Republic who carried their equipment suspended from a long pole, which were in use until at least the 2nd century AD. As a consequence, the Phalangarii of Legio II Parthica may not have been pikemen, but rather standard battle line troops or possibly Triarii.Caracalla's mania for Alexander went so far that Caracalla visited Alexandria while preparing for his Persian invasion and persecuted philosophers of the Aristotelian school based on a legend that Aristotle had poisoned Alexander. This was a sign of Caracalla's increasingly erratic behaviour. But this mania for Alexander, strange as it was, was overshadowed by subsequent events in Alexandria.In 39, Caligula performed a spectacular stunt by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to the neighbouring port of Puteoli. It was said that the bridge was to rival the Persian king Xerxes' pontoon bridge crossing of the Hellespont. Caligula, who could not swim, then proceeded to ride his favourite horse Incitatus across, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great. This act was in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius's soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes that Caligula had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae".The diffusion of Greek culture and language cemented by Alexander's conquests in West Asia and North Africa served as a "precondition" for the later Roman expansion into these territories and entire basis for the Byzantine Empire, according to Errington.Unsuccessful plan to cut a canal through the isthmusPausanias writes that Alexander wanted to dig through the Mimas mountain (in today's Karaburun area), but didn't succeed. He says this was Alexander's only unsuccessful project. Pliny the Elder adds that the planned distance was , and the purpose was to cut a canal through the isthmus to connect the Caystrian and Hermaean bays.Naming of the Icarus island in the Persian GulfArrian wrote that Aristobulus said that Alexander named Icarus island (modern Failaka Island) in the Persian Gulf after Icarus island in the Aegean.LegendMany of the legends about Alexander derive from his own lifetime, probably encouraged by Alexander himself. His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing shortly after Alexander's death, Onesicritus invented a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. He reportedly read this passage to his patron King Lysimachus, who had been one of Alexander's generals and who quipped, "I wonder where I was at the time."In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, containing many dubious stories, and was translated into numerous languages.In ancient and modern cultureAlexander the Great's accomplishments and legacy have been depicted in many cultures. Alexander has figured in both high and popular culture beginning in his own era to the present day. The Alexander Romance, in particular, has had a significant impact on portrayals of Alexander in later cultures, from Persian to medieval European to modern Greek.Alexander features prominently in modern Greek folklore, more so than any other ancient figure. The colloquial form of his name in modern Greek ("O Megalexandros") is a household name, and he is the only ancient hero to appear in the Karagiozis shadow play. One well-known fable among Greek seamen involves a solitary mermaid who would grasp a ship's prow during a storm and ask the captain "Is King Alexander alive?" The correct answer is "He is alive and well and rules the world!" causing the mermaid to vanish and the sea to calm. Any other answer would cause the mermaid to turn into a raging Gorgon who would drag the ship to the bottom of the sea, all hands aboard.In pre-Islamic Middle Persian (Zoroastrian) literature, Alexander is referred to by the epithet gujastak, meaning "accursed", and is accused of destroying temples and burning the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. In Sunni Islamic Persia, under the influence of the Alexander Romance (in  Iskandarnamah), a more positive portrayal of Alexander emerges. Firdausi's Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings") includes Alexander in a line of legitimate Persian shahs, a mythical figure who explored the far reaches of the world in search of the Fountain of Youth. In the Shahnameh, Alexander's first journey is to Mecca to pray at the Kaaba. Alexander was depicted as performing a Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) many times in subsequent Islamic art and literature. Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality.The figure of Dhul-Qarnayn (literally "the Two-Horned One") mentioned in the Quran is believed by scholars to be based on later legends of Alexander. In this tradition, he was a heroic figure who built a wall to defend against the nations of Gog and Magog. He then travelled the known world in search of the Water of Life and Immortality, eventually becoming a prophet.The Syriac version of the Alexander Romance portrays him as an ideal Christian world conqueror who prayed to "the one true God". In Egypt, Alexander was portrayed as the son of Nectanebo II, the last pharaoh before the Persian conquest. His defeat of Darius was depicted as Egypt's salvation, "proving" Egypt was still ruled by an Egyptian.According to Josephus, Alexander was shown the Book of Daniel when he entered Jerusalem, which described a mighty Greek king who would conquer the Persian Empire. This is cited as a reason for sparing Jerusalem.In Hindi and Urdu, the name "Sikandar", derived from the Persian name for Alexander, denotes a rising young talent, and the Delhi Sultanate ruler Aladdin Khalji stylized himself as "Sikandar-i-Sani" (the Second Alexander the Great). In medieval India, Turkic and Afghan sovereigns from the Iranian-cultured region of Central Asia brought positive cultural connotations of Alexander to the Indian subcontinent, resulting in the efflorescence of Sikandernameh (Alexander Romances) written by Indo-Persian poets such as Amir Khusrow and the prominence of Alexander the Great as a popular subject in Mughal-era Persian miniatures. In medieval Europe, Alexander the Great was revered as a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes whose lives were believed to encapsulate all the ideal qualities of chivalry. During the first Italian campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars, in a question from Bourrienne, asking whether he gave his preference to Alexander or Caesar, Napoleon said that he places Alexander The Great in the first rank, the main reason being his campaign on Asia.In the Greek Anthology, there are poems referring to Alexander.Throughout time, art objects related to Alexander were being created. In addition to speech works, sculptures and paintings, in modern times Alexander is still the subject of musical and cinematic works. The song 'Alexander the Great' by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden is indicative. Some films that have been shot with the theme of Alexander are: Sikandar (1941), an Indian production directed by Sohrab Modi about the conquest of India by Alexander Alexander the Great (1956), produced by MGM and starring Richard Burton Sikandar-e-Azam (1965), an Indian production directed by Kedar Kapoor Alexander (2004), directed by Oliver Stone, starring Colin FarrellThere are also many references to other movies and TV series.Newer novels about Alexander are:The trilogy "Alexander the Great" by Valerio Massimo Manfredi consisting of "The son of the dream", "The sand of Amon", and "The ends of the world".The trilogy of Mary Renault consisting of "Fire from Heaven", "The Persian Boy" and "Funeral Games". The Virtues of War, about Alexander the Great (2004),  and "* The Afghan Campaign, about Alexander the Great's conquests in Afghanistan (2006), " by Steven Pressfield.Irish playwright Aubrey Thomas de Vere wrote Alexander the Great, a Dramatic Poem.HistoriographyApart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost. Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century. Of these, Arrian is generally considered the most reliable, given that he used Ptolemy and Aristobulus as his sources, closely followed by Diodorus.See also Ancient Macedonian army Bucephalus Chronology of European exploration of Asia Theories about Alexander the Great in the Quran Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great Gates of Alexander List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources List of people known as The GreatAnnotationsReferencesSourcesPrimary sources      .Secondary sourcesFurther reading                 , also (1974) New York: E. P. Dutton and (1986) London: Penguin Books.External links  Alexander the Great - By Kireet Joshi .  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.  . . . In Our Time: Alexander the Great BBC discussion with Paul Cartledge, Diana Spencer and Rachel Mairs hosted by Melvyn Bragg, first broadcast 1 October 2015. 356 BC births323 BC deaths4th-century BC Babylonian kings4th-century BC Macedonian monarchs4th-century BC PharaohsAncient LGBT peopleAncient Macedonian generalsAncient PellaeansArgead kings of MacedoniaCity foundersDeified peopleHellenistic-era peopleMonarchs of PersiaPeople in the deuterocanonical booksPharaohs of the Argead dynastyShahnameh characters
Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (, ; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is "The map is not the territory".Early life and careerBorn in Warsaw, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, Korzybski belonged to an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the Polish language at home and the Russian language in schools; and having a French and German governess, he became fluent in four languages as a child.Korzybski studied engineering at the Warsaw University of Technology. During the First World War (1914–1918) Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then to the United States) to coordinate the shipment of artillery to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. After the war he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. He met Mira Edgerly, a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the 1918 Armistice; They married in January 1919; the marriage lasted until his death.E. P. Dutton published Korzybski's first book, Manhood of Humanity, in 1921. In this work he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a "time-binding" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and abstractions through time which become accreted in cultures).General semanticsKorzybski's work culminated in the initiation of a discipline that he named general semantics (GS). This should not be confused with semantics. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are described in the publication Science and Sanity, published in 1933. In 1938, Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. The post-World War II housing shortage in Chicago cost him the institute's building lease, so in 1946 he moved the institute to Lakeville, Connecticut, U.S., where he directed it until his death in 1950.Korzybski maintained that humans are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Humans cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). These sometimes mislead us about what is the truth. Our understanding sometimes lacks similarity of structure with what is actually happening.He sought to train our awareness of abstracting, using techniques he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting". His system included the promotion of attitudes such as "I don't know; let's see," in order that we may better discover or reflect on its realities as revealed by modern science. Another technique involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience he termed, "silence on the objective levels"."To be"Many devotees and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb form "is" of the general verb "to be." His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different "orders of abstraction," and formulations such as "consciousness of abstracting." The contention that Korzybski opposed the use of the verb "to be" would be a profound exaggeration.He thought that certain uses of the verb "to be", called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication", were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Elizabeth is a fool" (said of a person named "Elizabeth" who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Elizabeth belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Elizabeth herself. Korzybski's remedy was to deny identity; in this example, to be aware continually that "Elizabeth" is not what we call her. We find Elizabeth not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed by Korzybski's most famous premise, "the map is not the territory". Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he said explicitly that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an auxiliary verb or when used to state existence or location. It was even acceptable at times to use the faulty forms of the verb "to be," as long as one was aware of their structural limitations.AnecdotesOne day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter."William Burroughs went to a Korzybski workshop in the Autumn of 1939. He was 25 years old, and paid $40. His fellow students—there were 38 in all—included young Samuel I. Hayakawa (later to become a Republican member of the U.S. Senate) and Wendell Johnson (founder of the Monster Study).Influence Korzybski was well received in numerous disciplines, as evidenced by the positive reactions from leading figures in the sciences and humanities in the 1940s and 1950s. These include author Robert A. Heinlein naming a character after him in his 1940 short story "Blowups Happen", and science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt in his novel "The World of Null-A", published in 1948.  Korzybski's ideas influenced philosopher Alan Watts who used his phrase "the map is not the territory" in lectures. Writer Robert Anton Wilson was also deeply influenced by Korzybski's ideas. As reported in the third edition of Science and Sanity, in World War II the US Army used Korzybski's system to treat battle fatigue in Europe, under the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who went on to become the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.Some of the General Semantics tradition was continued by Samuel I. Hayakawa.See also Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture Concept and object E-Prime Institute of General Semantics Robert Pula Structural differentialReferencesFurther reading Kodish, Bruce. 2011. Korzybski: A Biography. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing.  softcover, 978-09700664-28 hardcover. Kodish, Bruce and Susan Presby Kodish. 2011. Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Third Edition. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing.  Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity, foreword by Edward Kasner, notes by M. Kendig, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, hardcover, 2nd edition, 391 pages, . (Copy of the first edition.) Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, . (Full text online.) Alfred Korzybski, Collected Writings 1920-1950, Institute of General Semantics, 1990, hardcover,  Montagu, M. F. A. (1953). Time-binding and the concept of culture.  The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 1953), pp. 148–155. Murray, E. (1950). In memoriam: Alfred H. Korzybski.  Sociometry, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb., 1950), pp. 76–77.External links   Alfred Korzybski and Gestalt Therapy Website Australian General Semantics Society Institute of General Semantics Finding aid to Alfred Korzybski papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.1879 births1950 deathsWriters from WarsawClan AbdankPolish emigrants to the United StatesPolish engineers20th-century Polish philosophersPolish mathematiciansLinguists from PolandGeneral semanticsPeople from Lakeville, Connecticut
Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.Asteroids was one of the first major hits of the golden age of arcade games; the game sold over 70,000 arcade cabinets and proved both popular with players and influential with developers. In the 1980s it was ported to Atari's home systems, and the Atari VCS version sold over three million copies. The game was widely imitated, and it directly influenced Defender, Gravitar, and many other video games.Asteroids was conceived during a meeting between Logg and Rains, who decided to use hardware developed by Howard Delman previously used for Lunar Lander. Asteroids was based on an unfinished game titled Cosmos; its physics model, control scheme, and gameplay elements were derived from Spacewar!, Computer Space, and Space Invaders and refined through trial and error.  The game is rendered on a vector display in a two-dimensional view that wraps around both screen axes.GameplayThe objective of Asteroids is to destroy asteroids and saucers. The player controls a triangular ship that can rotate left and right, fire shots straight forward, and thrust forward. Once the ship begins moving in a direction, it will continue in that direction for a time without player intervention unless the player applies thrust in a different direction. The ship eventually comes to a stop when not thrusting. The player can also send the ship into hyperspace, causing it to disappear and reappear in a random location on the screen, at the risk of self-destructing or appearing on top of an asteroid.Each level starts with a few large asteroids drifting in various directions on the screen. Objects wrap around screen edges – for instance, an asteroid that drifts off the top edge of the screen reappears at the bottom and continues moving in the same direction. As the player shoots asteroids, they break into smaller asteroids that move faster and are more difficult to hit. Smaller asteroids are also worth more points. Two flying saucers appear periodically on the screen; the "big saucer" shoots randomly and poorly, while the "small saucer" fires frequently at the ship. After reaching a score of 40,000, only the small saucer appears. As the player's score increases, the angle range of the shots from the small saucer diminishes until the saucer fires extremely accurately. Once the screen has been cleared of all asteroids and flying saucers, a new set of large asteroids appears, thus starting the next level. The game gets harder as the number of asteroids increases until after the score reaches a range between 40,000 and 60,000. The player starts with 3–5 lives upon game start and gains an extra life per 10,000 points. Play continues to the last ship lost, which ends the game. Machine "turns over" at 99,990 points, which is the maximum high score that can be achieved.Lurking exploitIn the original game design, saucers were supposed to begin shooting as soon as they appeared, but this was changed.  Additionally, saucers can only aim at the player's ship on-screen; they are not capable of aiming across a screen boundary. These behaviors allow a "lurking" strategy, in which the player stays near the edge of the screen opposite the saucer. By keeping just one or two rocks in play, a player can shoot across the boundary and destroy saucers to accumulate points indefinitely with little risk of being destroyed.  Arcade operators began to complain about losing revenue due to this exploit. In response, Atari issued a patched EPROM and, due to the impact of this exploit, Atari (and other companies) changed their development and testing policies to try to prevent future games from having such exploits.DevelopmentConceptAsteroids was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed by Ed Logg with collaborations from other Atari staff. Logg was impressed with the Atari Video Computer System (later called the Atari 2600), and he joined Atari's coin-op division to work on Dirt Bike, which was never released due to an unsuccessful field test. Paul Mancuso joined the development team as Asteroids technician and engineer Howard Delman contributed to the hardware. During a meeting in April 1979, Rains discussed Planet Grab, a multiplayer arcade game later renamed to Cosmos. Logg did not know the name of the game, thinking Computer Space as "the inspiration for the two-dimensional approach". Rains conceived of Asteroids as a mixture of Computer Space and Space Invaders, combining the two-dimensional approach of Computer Space with Space Invaders addictive gameplay of "completion" and "eliminate all threats". The unfinished game featured a giant, indestructible asteroid, so Rains asked Logg: "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?" In response, Logg described a similar concept where the player selectively shoots at rocks that break into smaller pieces. Both agreed on the concept.HardwareAsteroids was implemented on hardware developed by Delman and is a vector game, in which the graphics are composed of lines drawn on a vector monitor. Rains initially wanted the game done in raster graphics, but Logg, experienced in vector graphics, suggested an XY monitor because the high image quality would permit precise aiming. The hardware is chiefly a MOS 6502 executing the game program, and QuadraScan, a high-resolution vector graphics processor developed by Atari and referred to as an "XY display system" and the "Digital Vector Generator (DVG)".The original design concepts for QuadraScan came out of Cyan Engineering, Atari's off-campus research lab in Grass Valley, California, in 1978. Cyan gave it to Delman, who finished the design and first used it for Lunar Lander. Logg received Delman's modified board with five buttons, 13 sound effects, and additional RAM, and he used it to develop Asteroids. The size of the board was 4 by 4 inches, and it was "linked up" to a monitor.ImplementationLogg modeled the player's ship, the five-button control scheme, and the game physics after Spacewar!, which he had played as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, but made several changes to improve playability. The ship was programmed into the hardware and rendered by the monitor, and it was configured to move with thrust and inertia. The hyperspace button was not placed near Logg's right thumb, which he was dissatisfied with, as he had a problem "tak[ing] his hand off the thrust button". Drawings of asteroids in various shapes were incorporated into the game. Logg copied the idea of a high score table with initials from Exidy's Star Fire.The two saucers were formulated to be different from each other. A steadily decreasing timer shortens intervals between saucer attacks to keep the player from not shooting asteroids and saucers. A "heartbeat" soundtrack quickens as the game progresses. The game does not have a sound chip. Delman created a hardware circuit for 13 sound effects by hand which was wired onto the board.A prototype of Asteroids was well received by several Atari staff and engineers, who "wander[ed] between labs, passing comment and stopping to play as they went". Logg was often asked when he would be leaving by employees eager to play the prototype, so he created a second prototype for staff to play. Atari tested the game in arcades in Sacramento, California, and also observed players during focus group sessions at Atari. Players used to Spacewar! struggled to maintain grip on the thrust button and requested a joystick; players accustomed to Space Invaders noted they get no break in the game. Logg and other engineers observed proceedings and documented comments in four pages.Asteroids slows down as the player gains 50–100 lives, because there is no limit to the number of lives displayed. The player can "lose" the game after more than 250 lives are collected.PortsAsteroids was released for the Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600) and Atari 8-bit family in 1981, then the Atari 7800 in 1986. A port for the Atari 5200, identical to the Atari 8-bit computer version, was in development in 1982, but was not published. The Atari 7800 version was a launch title and includes cooperative play; the asteroids have colorful textures and the "heartbeat" sound effect remains intact. Programmers Brad Stewart and Bob Smith were unable to fit the Atari VCS port into a 4 KB cartridge. It became the first game for the console to use bank switching, a technique that increases ROM size from 4 KB to 8 KB.ReceptionAsteroids was immediately successful upon release. It displaced Space Invaders by popularity in the United States and became Atari's best selling arcade game of all time, with over 70,000 units sold. Atari earned an estimated $150 million in sales from the game, and arcade operators earned a further $500 million from coin drops. Atari had been in the process of manufacturing another vector game, Lunar Lander, but demand for Asteroids was so high "that several hundred Asteroids games were shipped in Lunar Lander cabinets". Asteroids was so popular that some video arcade operators had to install large boxes to hold the number of coins spent by players. It replaced Space Invaders at the top of the US RePlay amusement arcade charts in April 1980, though Space Invaders remained the top game at street locations. Asteroids went on to become the highest-grossing arcade video game of 1980 in the United States, dethroning Space Invaders. It shipped 70,000 arcade units worldwide in 1980, including over 60,000 sold in the United States that year, and grossed about  worldwide ( adjusted for inflation) by 1980. The game remained at the top of the US RePlay charts through March 1981. However, the game did not perform as well overseas in Europe and Asia. It sold 30,000 arcade units overseas, for a total of 100,000 arcade units sold worldwide. Atari manufactured 76,312 units from its US and Ireland plants, including 21,394 Asteroids Deluxe units. It was a commercial failure in Japan when it released there in 1980, partly due to its complex controls and partly due to the Japanese market beginning to lose interest in space shoot 'em ups at the time.Asteroids received positive reviews from video game critics and has been regarded as Logg's magnum opus. Richard A. Edwards reviewed the 1981 Asteroids home cartridge in The Space Gamer No. 46. Edwards commented that "this home cartridge is a virtual duplicate of the ever-popular Atari arcade game. [...] If blasting asteroids is the thing you want to do then this is the game, but at this price I can't wholeheartedly recommend it". Video Games Player magazine reviewed the Atari VCS version, rating the graphics and sound a B, while giving the game an overall B+ rating. Electronic Fun with Computers & Games magazine gave the Atari VCS version an A rating.William Cassidy, writing for GameSpy's "Classic Gaming", noticed its innovations, including being one of the first video games to track initials and allow players to enter their initials for appearing in the top 10 high scores, and commented, "the vector graphics fit the futuristic outer space theme very well". In 1996, Next Generation listed it as number 39 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", particularly lauding the control dynamics which require "the constant juggling of speed, positioning, and direction". In 1999, Next Generation listed Asteroids as number 29 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that "Asteroid was a classic the day it was released, and it has never lost any of its appeal". Asteroids was ranked fourth on Retro Gamers list of "Top 25 Arcade Games"; the Retro Gamer staff cited its simplicity and the lack of a proper ending as allowances of revisiting the game. In 2012, Asteroids was listed on Time All-Time 100 greatest video games list. Entertainment Weekly named Asteroids one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 in 2013. It was added to the Museum of Modern Art's collection of video games. In 2021, The Guardian listed Asteroids as the second greatest video game of the 1970s, just below Galaxian (1979). By contrast, in March 1983 the Atari 8-bit port of Asteroids won sixth place in Softlines Dog of the Year awards "for badness in computer games", Atari division, based on reader submissions.Usage of the names of Saturday Night Live characters "Mr. Bill" and "Sluggo" to refer to the saucers in an Esquire article about the game led to Logg receiving a cease and desist letter from a lawyer with the "Mr. Bill Trademark".LegacyArcade sequelsReleased in 1981, Asteroids Deluxe was the first sequel to Asteroids. Dave Shepperd edited the code and made enhancements to the game without Logg's involvement. The onscreen objects are tinted blue, and hyperspace is replaced by a shield that depletes when used. The asteroids rotate, and new "killer satellite" enemies break into smaller ships that home in on the player's position. The arcade machine's monitor displays vector graphics overlaying a holographic backdrop. The game is more difficult than the original and enables saucers to shoot across the screen boundary, eliminating the lurking strategy for high scores in the original.It was followed by Owen Rubin's Space Duel in 1982, featuring colorful geometric shapes and co-op multiplayer gameplay.In 1987's Blasteroids, Ed Rotberg added "power-ups, ship morphing, branching levels, bosses, and the ability to dock your ships in multiplayer for added firepower". Blasteroids uses raster graphics instead of vectors.Re-releasesThe game is half of the Atari Lynx pairing Super Asteroids & Missile Command, and included in the 1993  Microsoft Arcade compilation.Activision published an enhanced version of Asteroids for the PlayStation (1998), Nintendo 64 (1999), Microsoft Windows (1998), Game Boy Color (1999), and Macintosh (2000). The Atari Flashback series of dedicated video game consoles have included both the 2600 and the arcade versions of Asteroids.Published by Crave Entertainment on December 14, 1999, Asteroids Hyper 64 made the ship and asteroids 3D and added new weapons and a multiplayer mode.A technical demo of Asteroids was developed by iThink for the Atari Jaguar but was never released. Unofficially referred to as Asteroids 2000, it was demonstrated at E-JagFest 2000.In 2001, Infogrames released Atari Anniversary Edition for the Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Microsoft Windows. Developed by Digital Eclipse, it includes emulated versions of Asteroids and other games. The arcade and Atari 2600 versions of Asteroids were included in Atari Anthology for both Xbox and PlayStation 2.Released on November 28, 2007, the Xbox Live Arcade port of Asteroids has revamped HD graphics along with an added intense "throttle monkey" mode. The arcade and 2600 versions were made available through Microsofts Game Room service in 2010. Glu Mobile released an enhanced mobile phone port.Asteroids is included on Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 for the Nintendo DS.An updated version of the game was announced in 2018 for the Intellivision Amico.Both the Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 versions of the game was included on Atari Collection 1 and 2 in 2020 for the Evercade.ClonesQuality Software's Asteroids in Space (1980) was one of the best selling games for the Apple II and voted one of the most popular software titles of 1978-80 by Softalk magazine.In December 1981, Byte reviewed eight Asteroids clones for home computers. Three other Apple II Asteroids clones were reviewed together in the 1982 Creative Computing Software Buyers Guide: The Asteroid Field, Asteron, and Apple-Oids. In the last of these, the asteroids are in the shape of apples. Two independent clones, Asteroid for the Apple II and Fasteroids for TRS-80, were renamed to Planetoids and sold by Adventure International. Others clones include Acornsoft's Meteors, Moons of Jupiter for the VIC-20, and MineStorm for the Vectrex.The Mattel Intellivision game Meteor! , an Asteroids clone, was cancelled to avoid a lawsuit, and was reworked as Astrosmash.  The game borrows elements from Asteroids and Space Invaders.Elon Musk, when he was a 12 year-old child, programmed a space shoot 'em up game inspired by Space Invaders and Asteroids, called Blastar, which was published for the Commodore VIC-20 in 1984.World recordsOn February 6, 1982, Leo Daniels of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, set a world record score of 40,101,910 points.  On November 13 of the same year, 15-year-old Scott Safran of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, set a new record at 41,336,440 points.  In 1998, to congratulate Safran on his accomplishment, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard searched for him for four years until 2002, when it was discovered that he had died in an accident in 1989. In a ceremony in Philadelphia on April 27, 2002, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies presented an award to the surviving members of Safran's family, commemorating his achievement. On April 5, 2010, John McAllister broke Safran's record with a high score of 41,838,740 in a 58-hour Internet livestream.Some claim that the true world record for Asteroids was set in a laundromat in Hyde Park, New York, from June 30 to July 3, 1982, and that details of the score of over 48 million were published in the July 4th edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal.ReferencesExternal links  at Atari     1979 video gamesArcade video gamesAtari 2600 gamesAtari 7800 gamesAtari 8-bit family gamesAtari arcade gamesAtari Lynx gamesCancelled Atari 5200 gamesCancelled Atari Jaguar gamesEd Logg gamesGame Boy gamesGame Boy Color gamesMultidirectional shootersMultiplayer and single-player video gamesScience fiction video gamesSega arcade gamesTaito arcade gamesXbox 360 gamesXbox 360 Live Arcade gamesVector arcade video gamesVideo games developed in the United States
Asparagales (asparagoid lilies) is an order of plants in modern classification systems such as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Web. The order takes its name from the type family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots amongst the lilioid monocots. The order has only recently been recognized in classification systems. It was first put forward by Huber in 1977 and later taken up in the Dahlgren system of 1985 and then the APG in 1998, 2003 and 2009. Before this, many of its families were assigned to the old order Liliales, a very large order containing almost all monocots with colorful tepals and lacking starch in their endosperm. DNA sequence analysis indicated that many of the taxa previously included in Liliales should actually be redistributed over three orders, Liliales, Asparagales, and Dioscoreales. The boundaries of the Asparagales and of its families have undergone a series of changes in recent years; future research may lead to further changes and ultimately greater stability. In the APG circumscription, Asparagales is the largest order of monocots with 14 families, 1,122 genera, and about 36,000 species.The order is clearly circumscribed on the basis of molecular phylogenetics, but it is difficult to define morphologically since its members are structurally diverse. Most species of Asparagales are herbaceous perennials, although some are climbers and some are tree-like. The order also contains many geophytes (bulbs, corms, and various kinds of tuber). According to telomere sequence, at least two evolutionary switch-points happened within the order. The basal sequence is formed by TTTAGGG like in the majority of higher plants. Basal motif was changed to vertebrate-like TTAGGG and finally, the most divergent motif CTCGGTTATGGG appears in Allium. One of the defining characteristics (synapomorphies) of the order is the presence of phytomelanin, a black pigment present in the seed coat, creating a dark crust. Phytomelanin is found in most families of the Asparagales (although not in Orchidaceae, thought to be the sister-group of the rest of the order).The leaves of almost all species form a tight rosette, either at the base of the plant or at the end of the stem, but occasionally along the stem. The flowers are not particularly distinctive, being 'lily type', with six tepals and up to six stamina.The order is thought to have first diverged from other related monocots some 120–130 million years ago (early in the Cretaceous period), although given the difficulty in classifying the families involved, estimates are likely to be uncertain.From an economic point of view, the order Asparagales is second in importance within the monocots only to the order Poales (which includes grasses and cereals). Species are used as food and flavourings (e.g. onion, garlic, leek, asparagus, vanilla, saffron), in medicinal or cosmetic applications (Aloe), as cut flowers (e.g. freesia, gladiolus, iris, orchids), and as garden ornamentals (e.g. day lilies, lily of the valley, Agapanthus).DescriptionAlthough most species in the order are herbaceous, some no more than 15 cm high, there are a number of climbers (e.g., some species of Asparagus), as well as several genera forming trees (e.g. Agave, Cordyline, Yucca, Dracaena, Aloe ), which can exceed 10 m in height. Succulent genera occur in several families (e.g. Aloe).Almost all species have a tight cluster of leaves (a rosette), either at the base of the plant or at the end of a more-or-less woody stem as with Yucca. In some cases, the leaves are produced along the stem. The flowers are in the main not particularly distinctive, being of a general 'lily type', with six tepals, either free or fused from the base and up to six stamina. They are frequently clustered at the end of the plant stem.The Asparagales are generally distinguished from the Liliales by the lack of markings on the tepals, the presence of septal nectaries in the ovaries, rather than the bases of the tepals or stamen filaments, and the presence of secondary growth. They are generally geophytes, but with linear leaves, and a lack of fine reticular venation.The seeds characteristically have the external epidermis either obliterated (in most species bearing fleshy fruit), or if present, have a layer of black carbonaceous phytomelanin in species with dry fruits (nuts). The inner part of the seed coat is generally collapsed, in contrast to Liliales whose seeds have a well developed outer epidermis, lack phytomelanin, and usually display a cellular inner layer.The orders which have been separated from the old Liliales are difficult to characterize. No single morphological character appears to be diagnostic of the order Asparagales. The flowers of Asparagales are of a general type among the lilioid monocots. Compared to Liliales, they usually have plain tepals without markings in the form of dots. If nectaries are present, they are in the septa of the ovaries rather than at the base of the tepals or stamens. Those species which have relatively large dry seeds have a dark, crust-like (crustose) outer layer containing the pigment phytomelan. However, some species with hairy seeds (e.g. Eriospermum, family Asparagaceae s.l.), berries (e.g. Maianthemum, family Asparagaceae s.l.), or highly reduced seeds (e.g. orchids) lack this dark pigment in their seed coats. Phytomelan is not unique to Asparagales (i.e. it is not a synapomorphy) but it is common within the order and rare outside it. The inner portion of the seed coat is usually completely collapsed. In contrast, the morphologically similar seeds of Liliales have no phytomelan, and usually retain a cellular structure in the inner portion of the seed coat. Most monocots are unable to thicken their stems once they have formed, since they lack the cylindrical meristem present in other angiosperm groups. Asparagales have a method of secondary thickening which is otherwise only found in Dioscorea (in the monocot order Disoscoreales). In a process called 'anomalous secondary growth', they are able to create new vascular bundles around which thickening growth occurs. Agave, Yucca, Aloe, Dracaena, Nolina and Cordyline can become massive trees, albeit not of the height of the tallest dicots, and with less branching. Other genera in the order, such as Lomandra and Aphyllanthes, have the same type of secondary growth but confined to their underground stems. Microsporogenesis (part of pollen formation) distinguishes some members of Asparagales from Liliales. Microsporogenesis involves a cell dividing twice (meiotically) to form four daughter cells. There are two kinds of microsporogenesis: successive and simultaneous (although intermediates exist). In successive microsporogenesis, walls are laid down separating the daughter cells after each division. In simultaneous microsporogenesis, there is no wall formation until all four cell nuclei are present. Liliales all have successive microsporogenesis, which is thought to be the primitive condition in monocots. It seems that when the Asparagales first diverged they developed simultaneous microsporogenesis, which the 'lower' Asparagale families retain. However, the 'core' Asparagales (see Phylogenetics ) have reverted to successive microsporogenesis. The Asparagales appear to be unified by a mutation affecting their telomeres (a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome). The typical 'Arabidopsis-type' sequence of bases has been fully or partially replaced by other sequences, with the 'human-type' predominating. Other apomorphic characters of the order according to Stevens are: the presence of chelidonic acid, anthers longer than wide, tapetal cells bi- to tetra-nuclear, tegmen not persistent, endosperm helobial, and loss of mitochondrial gene sdh3.TaxonomyAs circumscribed within the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system Asparagales is the largest order within the monocotyledons, with 14 families, 1,122 genera and about 25,000–42,000 species, thus accounting for about 50% of all monocots and 10–15% of the flowering plants (angiosperms). The attribution of botanical authority for the name Asparagales belongs to Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link (1767–1851) who coined the word 'Asparaginae' in 1829 for a higher order taxon that included Asparagus although Adanson and Jussieau had also done so earlier (see History). Earlier circumscriptions of Asparagales attributed the name to Bromhead (1838), who had been the first to use the term 'Asparagales'.HistoryPre-Darwinian The type genus, Asparagus, from which the name of the order is derived, was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, with ten species. He placed Asparagus within the Hexandria Monogynia (six stamens, one carpel) in his sexual classification in the Species Plantarum. The majority of taxa now considered to constitute Asparagales have historically been placed within the very large and diverse family, Liliaceae. The family Liliaceae was first described by Michel Adanson in 1763, and in his taxonomic scheme he created eight sections within it, including the Asparagi with Asparagus and three other genera. The system of organising genera into families is generally credited to Antoine Laurent de Jussieu who formally described both the Liliaceae and the type family of Asparagales, the Asparagaceae, as Lilia and Asparagi, respectively, in 1789. Jussieu established the hierarchical system of taxonomy (phylogeny), placing Asparagus and related genera within a division of Monocotyledons, a class (III) of Stamina Perigynia and 'order' Asparagi, divided into three subfamilies. The use of the term Ordo (order) at that time was closer to what we now understand as Family, rather than Order. In creating his scheme he used a modified form of Linnaeus' sexual classification but using the respective topography of stamens to carpels rather than just their numbers. While De Jussieu's Stamina Perigynia also included a number of 'orders' that would eventually form families within the Asparagales such as the Asphodeli (Asphodelaceae), Narcissi (Amaryllidaceae) and Irides (Iridaceae), the remainder are now allocated to other orders. Jussieu's Asparagi soon came to be referred to as Asparagacées in the French literature (Latin: Asparagaceae). Meanwhile, the 'Narcissi' had been renamed as the 'Amaryllidées' (Amaryllideae) in 1805, by Jean Henri Jaume Saint-Hilaire, using Amaryllis as the type species rather than Narcissus, and thus has the authority attribution for Amaryllidaceae. In 1810, Brown proposed that a subgroup of Liliaceae be distinguished on the basis of the position of the ovaries and be referred to as Amaryllideae and in 1813 de Candolle described Liliacées Juss. and Amaryllidées Brown as two quite separate families.The literature on the organisation of genera into families and higher ranks became available in the English language with Samuel Frederick Gray's A natural arrangement of British plants (1821). Gray used a combination of Linnaeus' sexual classification and Jussieu's natural classification to group together a number of families having in common six equal stamens, a single style and a perianth that was simple and petaloid, but did not use formal names for these higher ranks. Within the grouping he separated families by the characteristics of their fruit and seed. He treated groups of genera with these characteristics as separate families, such as Amaryllideae, Liliaceae, Asphodeleae and Asparageae.The circumscription of Asparagales has been a source of difficulty for many botanists from the time of John Lindley (1846), the other important British taxonomist of the early nineteenth century. In his first taxonomic work, An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany (1830) he partly followed Jussieu by describing a subclass he called Endogenae, or Monocotyledonous Plants (preserving de Candolle's Endogenæ phanerogamæ) divided into two tribes, the Petaloidea and Glumaceae. He divided the former, often referred to as petaloid monocots, into 32 orders, including the Liliaceae (defined narrowly), but also most of the families considered to make up the Asparagales today, including the Amaryllideae.By 1846, in his final scheme Lindley had greatly expanded and refined the treatment of the monocots, introducing both an intermediate ranking (Alliances) and tribes within orders (i.e. families). Lindley placed the Liliaceae within the Liliales, but saw it as a paraphyletic ("catch-all") family, being all Liliales not included in the other orders, but hoped that the future would reveal some characteristic that would group them better. The order Liliales was very large and had become a used to include almost all monocotyledons with colourful tepals and without starch in their endosperm (the lilioid monocots). The Liliales was difficult to divide into families because morphological characters were not present in patterns that clearly demarcated groups. This kept the Liliaceae separate from the Amaryllidaceae (Narcissales). Of these Liliaceae was divided into eleven tribes (with 133 genera) and Amaryllidaceae into four tribes (with 68 genera), yet both contained many genera that would eventually segregate to each other's contemporary orders (Liliales and Asparagales respectively). The Liliaceae would be reduced to a small 'core' represented by the tribe Tulipae, while large groups such Scilleae and Asparagae would become part of Asparagales either as part of the Amaryllidaceae or as separate families. While of the Amaryllidaceae, the Agaveae would be part of Asparagaceae but the Alstroemeriae would become a family within the Liliales.The number of known genera (and species) continued to grow and by the time of the next major British classification, that of the Bentham & Hooker system in 1883 (published in Latin) several of Lindley's other families had been absorbed into the Liliaceae. They used the term 'series' to indicate suprafamilial rank, with seven series of monocotyledons (including Glumaceae), but did not use Lindley's terms for these. However they did place the Liliaceous and Amaryllidaceous genera into separate series. The Liliaceae were placed in series Coronariae, while the Amaryllideae were placed in series Epigynae. The Liliaceae now consisted of twenty tribes (including Tulipeae, Scilleae and Asparageae), and the Amaryllideae of five (including Agaveae and Alstroemerieae). An important addition to the treatment of the Liliaceae was the recognition of the Allieae as a distinct tribe that would eventually find its way to the Asparagales as the subfamily Allioideae of the Amaryllidaceae.Post-Darwinian The appearance of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 changed the way that taxonomists considered plant classification, incorporating evolutionary information into their schemata. The Darwinian approach led to the concept of phylogeny (tree-like structure) in assembling classification systems, starting with Eichler. Eichler, having established a hierarchical system in which the flowering plants (angiosperms) were divided into monocotyledons and dicotyledons, further divided into former into seven orders. Within the Liliiflorae were seven families, including Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae. Liliaceae included Allium and Ornithogalum (modern Allioideae) and Asparagus.Engler, in his system developed Eichler's ideas into a much more elaborate scheme which he treated in a number of works including Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien (Engler and Prantl 1888) and Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien (1892–1924). In his treatment of Liliiflorae the Liliineae were a suborder which included both families Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae. The Liliaceae had eight subfamilies and the Amaryllidaceae four. In this rearrangement of Liliaceae, with fewer subdivisions, the core Liliales were represented as subfamily Lilioideae (with Tulipae and Scilleae as tribes), the Asparagae were represented as Asparagoideae and the Allioideae was preserved, representing the alliaceous genera. Allieae, Agapantheae and Gilliesieae were the three tribes within this subfamily. In the Amaryllidacea, there was little change from the Bentham & Hooker. A similar approach was adopted by Wettstein.Twentieth century In the twentieth century the Wettstein system (1901–1935) placed many of the taxa in an order called 'Liliiflorae'. Next Johannes Paulus Lotsy (1911) proposed dividing the Liliiflorae into a number of smaller families including Asparagaceae. Then Herbert Huber (1969, 1977), following Lotsy's example, proposed that the Liliiflorae be split into four groups including the  'Asparagoid' Liliiflorae.The widely used Cronquist system (1968–1988) used the very broadly defined order Liliales.These various proposals to separate small groups of genera into more homogeneous families made little impact till that of Dahlgren (1985) incorporating new information including synapomorphy. Dahlgren developed Huber's ideas further and popularised them, with a major deconstruction of existing families into smaller units. They created a new order, calling it Asparagales. This was one of five orders within the superorder Liliiflorae. Where Cronquist saw one family, Dahlgren saw forty distributed over three orders (predominantly Liliales and Asparagales).Over the 1980s, in the context of a more general review of the classification of angiosperms, the Liliaceae were subjected to more intense scrutiny. By the end of that decade, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the British Museum of Natural History and the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens formed a committee to examine the possibility of separating the family at least for the organization of their herbaria. That committee finally recommended that 24 new families be created in the place of the original broad Liliaceae, largely by elevating subfamilies to the rank of separate families.The order Asparagales as currently circumscribed has only recently been recognized in classification systems, through the advent of phylogenetics. The 1990s saw considerable progress in plant phylogeny and phylogenetic theory, enabling a phylogenetic tree to be constructed for all of the flowering plants. The establishment of major new clades necessitated a departure from the older but widely used classifications such as Cronquist and Thorne based largely on morphology rather than genetic data. This complicated discussion about plant evolution and necessitated a major restructuring. rbcL gene sequencing and cladistic analysis of monocots had redefined the Liliales in 1995. from four morphological orders sensu Dahlgren. The largest clade representing the Liliaceae, all previously included in Liliales, but including both the Calochortaceae and Liliaceae sensu Tamura. This redefined family, that became referred to as core Liliales, but corresponded to the emerging circumscription of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (1998).Phylogeny and APG systemThe 2009 revision of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, APG III, places the order in the clade monocots.From the Dahlgren system of 1985 onwards, studies based mainly on morphology had identified the Asparagales as a distinct group, but had also included groups now located in Liliales, Pandanales and Zingiberales. Research in the 21st century has supported the monophyly of Asparagales, based on morphology, 18S rDNA, and other DNA sequences, although some phylogenetic reconstructions based on molecular data have suggested that Asparagales may be paraphyletic, with Orchidaceae separated from the rest. Within the monocots, Asparagales is the sister group of the commelinid clade.This cladogram shows the placement of Asparagales within the orders of Lilianae sensu Chase & Reveal (monocots) based on molecular phylogenetic evidence. The lilioid monocot orders are bracketed, namely Petrosaviales, Dioscoreales, Pandanales, Liliales and Asparagales. These constitute a paraphyletic assemblage, that is groups with a common ancestor that do not include all direct descendants (in this case commelinids as the sister group to Asparagales); to form a clade, all the groups joined by thick lines would need to be included. While Acorales and Alismatales have been collectively referred to as "alismatid monocots" (basal or early branching monocots), the remaining clades (lilioid and commelinid monocots) have been referred to as the "core monocots". The relationship between the orders (with the exception of the two sister orders) is pectinate, that is diverging in succession from the line that leads to the commelinids. Numbers indicate crown group (most recent common ancestor of the sampled species of the clade of interest) divergence times in mya (million years ago).Subdivision A phylogenetic tree for the Asparagales, generally to family level, but including groups which were recently and widely treated as families but which are now reduced to subfamily rank, is shown below.The tree shown above can be divided into a basal paraphyletic group, the 'lower Asparagales (asparagoids)', from Orchidaceae to Asphodelaceae, and a well-supported monophyletic group of 'core Asparagales' (higher asparagoids), comprising the two largest families, Amaryllidaceae sensu lato and Asparagaceae sensu lato.Two differences between these two groups (although with exceptions) are: the mode of microsporogenesis and the position of the ovary. The 'lower Asparagales' typically have simultaneous microsporogenesis (i.e. cell walls develop only after both meiotic divisions), which appears to be an apomorphy within the monocots, whereas the 'core Asparagales' have reverted to successive microsporogenesis (i.e. cell walls develop after each division). The 'lower Asparagales' typically have an inferior ovary, whereas the 'core Asparagales' have reverted to a superior ovary. A 2002 morphological study by Rudall treated possessing an inferior ovary as a synapomorphy of the Asparagales, stating that reversions to a superior ovary in the 'core Asparagales' could be associated with the presence of nectaries below the ovaries. However, Stevens notes that superior ovaries are distributed among the 'lower Asparagales' in such a way that it is not clear where to place the evolution of different ovary morphologies. The position of the ovary seems a much more flexible character (here and in other angiosperms) than previously thought.Changes to family structure in APG III The APG III system when it was published in 2009, greatly expanded the families Xanthorrhoeaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Asparagaceae. Thirteen of the families of the earlier APG II system were thereby reduced to subfamilies within these three families. The expanded Xanthorrhoeaceae is now called "Asphodelaceae". The APG II families (left) and their equivalent APG III subfamilies (right) are as follows:Structure of AsparagalesOrchid cladeOrchidaceae is possibly the largest family of all angiosperms (only Asteraceae might - or might not - be more speciose) and hence by far the largest in the order. The Dahlgren system recognized three families of orchids, but DNA sequence analysis later showed that these families are polyphyletic and so should be combined. Several studies suggest (with high bootstrap support) that Orchidaceae is the sister of the rest of the Asparagales. Other studies have placed the orchids differently in the phylogenetic tree, generally among the Boryaceae-Hypoxidaceae clade. The position of Orchidaceae shown above seems the best current hypothesis, but cannot be taken as confirmed.Orchids have simultaneous microsporogenesis and inferior ovaries, two characters that are typical of the 'lower Asparagales'. However, their nectaries are rarely in the septa of the ovaries, and most orchids have dust-like seeds, atypical of the rest of the order. (Some members of Vanilloideae and Cypripedioideae have crustose seeds, probably associated with dispersal by birds and mammals that are attracted by fermenting fleshy fruit releasing fragrant compounds, e.g. vanilla.)In terms of the number of species, Orchidaceae diversification is remarkable. However, although the other Asparagales may be less rich in species, they are more variable morphologically, including tree-like forms.Boryaceae to HypoxidaceaeThe four families excluding Boryaceae form a well-supported clade in studies based on DNA sequence analysis. All four contain relatively few species, and it has been suggested that they be combined into one family under the name Hypoxidaceae sensu lato. The relationship between Boryaceae (which includes only two genera, Borya and Alania), and other Asparagales has remained unclear for a long time. The Boryaceae are mycorrhizal, but not in the same way as orchids. Morphological studies have suggested a close relationship between Boryaceae and Blandfordiaceae. There is relatively low support for the position of Boryaceae in the tree shown above.Ixioliriaceae to XeronemataceaeThe relationship shown between Ixioliriaceae and Tecophilaeaceae is still unclear. Some studies have supported a clade of these two families, others have not. The position of Doryanthaceae has also varied, with support for the position shown above, but also support for other positions.The clade from Iridaceae upwards appears to have stronger support. All have some genetic characteristics in common, having lost Arabidopsis-type telomeres. Iridaceae is distinctive among the Asparagales in the unique structure of the inflorescence (a rhipidium), the combination of an inferior ovary and three stamens, and the common occurrence of unifacial leaves whereas bifacial leaves are the norm in other Asparagales.Members of the clade from Iridaceae upwards have infra-locular septal nectaries, which Rudall interpreted as a driver towards secondarily superior ovaries.Asphodelaceae + 'core Asparagales'The next node in the tree (Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu lato + the 'core Asparagales') has strong support. 'Anomalous' secondary thickening occurs among this clade, e.g. in Xanthorrhoea (family Asphodelaceae) and Dracaena (family Asparagaceae sensu lato), with species reaching tree-like proportions.The 'core Asparagales', comprising Amaryllidaceae sensu lato and Asparagaceae sensu lato, are a strongly supported clade, as are clades for each of the families. Relationships within these broadly defined families appear less clear, particularly within the Asparagaceae sensu lato. Stevens notes that most of its subfamilies are difficult to recognize, and that significantly different divisions have been used in the past, so that the use of a broadly defined family to refer to the entire clade is justified. Thus the relationships among subfamilies shown above, based on APWeb , is somewhat uncertain.EvolutionSeveral studies have attempted to date the evolution of the Asparagales, based on phylogenetic evidence. Earlier studies generally give younger dates than more recent studies, which have been preferred in the table below.A 2009 study suggests that the Asparagales have the highest diversification rate in the monocots, about the same as the order Poales, although in both orders the rate is little over half that of the eudicot order Lamiales, the clade with the highest rate.Comparison of family structures  The taxonomic diversity of the monocotyledons is described in detail by Kubitzki. Up-to-date information on the Asparagales can be found on the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website.The APG III system's family circumscriptions are being used as the basis of the Kew-hosted World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. With this circumscription, the order consists of 14 families (Dahlgren had 31) with approximately 1120 genera and 26000 species.Order Asparagales Link Family Amaryllidaceae J.St.-Hil. (including Agapanthaceae F.Voigt, Alliaceae Borkh.) Family Asparagaceae Juss. (including Agavaceae Dumort. [which includes Anemarrhenaceae, Anthericaceae, Behniaceae and Herreriaceae], Aphyllanthaceae Burnett, Hesperocallidaceae Traub, Hyacinthaceae Batsch ex Borkh., Laxmanniaceae Bubani, Ruscaceae M.Roem. [which includes Convallariaceae] and Themidaceae Salisb.) Family Asteliaceae Dumort. Family Blandfordiaceae R.Dahlgren & Clifford Family Boryaceae M.W. Chase, Rudall & Conran Family Doryanthaceae R.Dahlgren & Clifford Family Hypoxidaceae R.Br. Family Iridaceae Juss. Family Ixioliriaceae Nakai Family Lanariaceae R.Dahlgren & A.E.van Wyk Family Orchidaceae Juss. Family Tecophilaeaceae Leyb. Family Xanthorrhoeaceae Dumort. (including Asphodelaceae Juss. and Hemerocallidaceae R.Br.), now Asphodelaceae Juss. Family Xeronemataceae M.W.Chase, Rudall & M.F.FayThe earlier 2003 version, APG II, allowed 'bracketed' families, i.e. families which could either be segregated from more comprehensive families or could be included in them. These are the families given under "including" in the list above. APG III does not allow bracketed families, requiring the use of the more comprehensive family; otherwise the circumscription of the Asparagales is unchanged. A separate paper accompanying the publication of the 2009 APG III system provided subfamilies to accommodate the families which were discontinued. The first APG system of 1998 contained some extra families, included in square brackets in the list above.Two older systems which use the order Asparagales are the Dahlgren system and the Kubitzki system. The families included in the circumscriptions of the order in these two systems are shown in the first and second columns of the table below. The equivalent family in the modern APG III system (see below) is shown in the third column. Note that although these systems may use the same name for a family, the genera which it includes may be different, so the equivalence between systems is only approximate in some cases.Uses The Asparagales include many important crop plants and ornamental plants. Crops include Allium, Asparagus and Vanilla, while ornamentals include irises, hyacinths and orchids.See also  Taxonomy of LiliaceaeNotesReferencesBibliographyBooks   Contents      *Chapters  , In . , in  , in  , inArticlesAPGHistorical sources          Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf          1st ed. 1901–1908; 2nd ed. 1910–1911; 3rd ed. 1923–1924; 4th ed. 1933–1935Websites      : Families included in the checklistReference materialsExternal links  Biodiversity Heritage Library Angiosperm ordersExtant Late Cretaceous first appearances
The Alismatales (alismatids) are an order of flowering plants including about 4500 species. Plants assigned to this order are mostly tropical or aquatic. Some grow in fresh water, some in marine habitats.DescriptionThe Alismatales comprise herbaceous flowering plants of often aquatic and marshy habitats, and the only monocots known to have green embryos other than the Amaryllidaceae. They also include the only marine angiosperms growing completely submerged, the seagrasses. The flowers are usually arranged in inflorescences, and the mature seeds lack endosperm.Both marine and freshwater forms include those with staminate flowers that detach from the parent plant and float to the surface. There they can pollinate carpellate flowers floating on the surface via long pedicels. In others, pollination occurs underwater, where pollen may form elongated strands, increasing chance of success. Most aquatic species have a totally submerged juvenile phase, and flowers are either floating or emergent. Vegetation may be totally submersed, have floating leaves, or protrude from the water. Collectively, they are commonly known as "water plantain".TaxonomyThe Alismatales contain about 165 genera in 13 families, with a cosmopolitan distribution. Phylogenetically, they are basal monocots, diverging early in evolution relative to the lilioid and commelinid monocot lineages. Together with the Acorales, the Alismatales are referred to informally as the alismatid monocots.Early systemsThe Cronquist system (1981) places the Alismatales in subclass Alismatidae, class Liliopsida [= monocotyledons] and includes only three families as shown: Alismataceae Butomaceae LimnocharitaceaeCronquist's subclass Alismatidae conformed fairly closely to the order Alismatales as defined by APG, minus the Araceae.The Dahlgren system places the Alismatales in the superorder Alismatanae in the subclass Liliidae [= monocotyledons] in the class Magnoliopsida [= angiosperms] with the following families included:  Alismataceae  Aponogetonaceae  Butomaceae  Hydrocharitaceae  LimnocharitaceaeIn Tahktajan's classification (1997), the order Alismatales contains only the Alismataceae and Limnocharitaceae, making it equivalent to the Alismataceae as revised in APG-III. Other families included in the Alismatates as currently defined are here distributed among 10 additional orders, all of which are assigned, with the following exception, to the Subclass Alismatidae. Araceae in Tahktajan 1997 is assigned to the Arales and placed in the Subclass Aridae; Tofieldiaceae to the Melanthiales and placed in the Liliidae.Angiosperm Phylogeny GroupThe Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system (APG) of 1998 and APG II (2003) assigned the Alismatales to the monocots, which may be thought of as an unranked clade containing the families listed below. The biggest departure from earlier systems (see below) is the inclusion of family Araceae. By its inclusion, the order has grown enormously in number of species. The family Araceae alone accounts for about a hundred genera, totaling over two thousand species. The rest of the families together contain only about five hundred species, many of which are in very small families.The APG III system (2009) differs only in that the Limnocharitaceae are combined with the Alismataceae; it was also suggested that the genus Maundia (of the Juncaginaceae) could be separated into a monogeneric family, the Maundiaceae, but the authors noted that more study was necessary before the Maundiaceae could be recognized. order Alismatales sensu APG III family Alismataceae (including Limnocharitaceae) family Aponogetonaceae family Araceae family Butomaceae  family Cymodoceaceae family Hydrocharitaceae family Juncaginaceae family Posidoniaceae family Potamogetonaceae family Ruppiaceae family Scheuchzeriaceae family Tofieldiaceae family ZosteraceaeIn APG IV (2016), it was decided that evidence was sufficient to elevate Maundia to family level as the monogeneric Maundiaceae. The authors considered including a number of the smaller orders within the Juncaginaceae, but an online survey of botanists and other users found little support for this "lumping" approach. Consequently, the family structure for APG IV is: family Alismataceae (including Limnocharitaceae) family Aponogetonaceae family Araceae family Butomaceae  family Cymodoceaceae family Hydrocharitaceae family Juncaginaceae family Maundiaceae family Posidoniaceae family Potamogetonaceae family Ruppiaceae family Scheuchzeriaceae family Tofieldiaceae family ZosteraceaePhylogeny Cladogram showing the orders of monocots (Lilianae sensu Chase & Reveal) based on molecular phylogenetic evidence:ReferencesFurther reading  B. C. J. du Mortier 1829. Analyse des Familles de Plantes : avec l'indication des principaux genres qui s'y rattachent. Imprimerie de J. Casterman, Tournay W. S. Judd, C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, M. J. Donoghue, 2002. Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach, 2nd edition. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts .    , inExternal links    Angiosperm orders
The Apiales are an order of flowering plants. The families are those recognized in the APG III system. This is typical of the newer classifications, though there is some slight variation and in particular, the Torriceliaceae may be divided.Under this definition, well-known members include carrots, celery, parsley, and Hedera helix (English ivy).The order Apiales is placed within the asterid group of eudicots as circumscribed by the APG III system. Within the asterids, Apiales belongs to an unranked group called the campanulids, and within the campanulids, it belongs to a clade known in phylogenetic nomenclature as Apiidae. In 2010, a subclade of Apiidae named Dipsapiidae was defined to consist of the three orders: Apiales, Paracryphiales, and Dipsacales.TaxonomyUnder the Cronquist system, only the Apiaceae and Araliaceae were included here, and the restricted order was placed among the rosids rather than the asterids. The Pittosporaceae were placed within the Rosales, and many of the other forms within the family Cornaceae. Pennantia was in the family Icacinaceae. In the classification system of Dahlgren the families Apiaceae and Araliaceae were placed in the order Ariales, in the superorder Araliiflorae (also called Aralianae).The present understanding of the Apiales is fairly recent and is based upon comparison of DNA sequences by phylogenetic methods. The circumscriptions of some of the families have changed. In 2009, one of the subfamilies of Araliaceae was shown to be polyphyletic.GynoeciaThe largest and obviously closely related families of Apiales are Araliaceae, Myodocarpaceae andApiaceae, which resemble each other in the structure of their gynoecia. In this respect however, the Pittosporaceae is notably distinct from them.Typical syncarpous gynoecia exhibit four vertical zones, determined by the extent of fusion of the carpels. In most plants the synascidiate (i.e. "united bottle-shaped") and symplicate zones are fertile and bear the ovules. Each of the first three families possess mainly bi- or multilocular ovaries in a gynoecium with a long synascidiate, but very short symplicate zone, where the ovules are inserted at their transition, the so-called cross-zone (or "Querzone").In gynoecia of the Pittosporaceae, the symplicate is much longer than the synascidiate zone, and the ovules are arranged along the first. Members of the latter family consequently have unilocular ovaries with a single cavity between adjacent carpels.References Angiosperm ordersTaxa named by Takenoshin Nakai
Asterales  is an order of dicotyledonous flowering plants that includes the large family Asteraceae (or Compositae) known for composite flowers made of florets, and ten families related to the Asteraceae. While asterids in general are characterized by fused petals, composite flowers consisting of many florets create the false appearance of separate petals (as found in the rosids).The order is cosmopolitan (plants found throughout most of the world including desert and frigid zones), and includes mostly herbaceous species, although a small number of trees (such as the Lobelia deckenii, the giant lobelia, and Dendrosenecio, giant groundsels) and shrubs are also present.Asterales are organisms that seem to have evolved from one common ancestor. Asterales share characteristics on morphological and biochemical levels. Synapomorphies (a character that is shared by two or more groups through evolutionary development) include the presence in the plants of oligosaccharide inulin, a nutrient storage molecule used instead of starch; and unique stamen morphology. The stamens are usually found around the style, either aggregated densely or fused into a tube, probably an adaptation in association with the plunger (brush; or secondary) pollination that is common among the families of the order, wherein pollen is collected and stored on the length of the pistil.Taxonomy The name and order Asterales is botanically venerable, dating back to at least 1926 in the  Hutchinson system of plant taxonomy when it contained only five families, of which only two are retained in the APG III classification. Under the Cronquist system of taxonomic classification of flowering plants, Asteraceae was the only family in the group, but newer systems (such as APG II and APG III) have expanded it to 11. In the classification system of Dahlgren the Asterales were in the superorder Asteriflorae (also called Asteranae).The order Asterales currently includes 11 families, the largest of which are the Asteraceae, with about 25,000 species, and the Campanulaceae ("bellflowers"), with about 2,000 species. The remaining families count together for less than 1500 species. The two large families are cosmopolitan, with many of their species found in the Northern Hemisphere, and the smaller families are usually confined to Australia and the adjacent areas, or sometimes South America.Only the Asteraceae have composite flower heads; the other families do not, but share other characteristics such as storage of inulin that define the 11 families as more closely related to each other than to other plant families or orders such as the rosids.The phylogenetic tree according to APG III for the Campanulid clade is as below.BiogeographyThe core Asterales are Stylidiaceae (six genera), APA clade (Alseuosmiaceae, Phellinaceae and Argophyllaceae, together 7 genera), MGCA clade (Menyanthaceae, Goodeniaceae, Calyceraceae, in total twenty genera), and Asteraceae (about sixteen hundred genera). Other Asterales are Rousseaceae (four genera), Campanulaceae (eighty four genera) and Pentaphragmataceae (one genus).All Asterales families are represented in the Southern Hemisphere; however, Asteraceae and Campanulaceae are cosmopolitan and Menyanthaceae nearly so.EvolutionAlthough most extant species of Asteraceae are herbaceous, the examination of the basal members in the family suggests that the common ancestor of the family was an arborescent plant, a tree or shrub, perhaps adapted to dry conditions, radiating from South America. Less can be said about the Asterales themselves with certainty, although since several families in Asterales contain trees, the ancestral member is most likely to have been a tree or shrub.Because all clades are represented in the southern hemisphere but many not in the northern hemisphere, it is natural to conjecture that there is a common southern origin to them. Asterales are angiosperms, flowering plants that appeared about 140 million years ago. The Asterales order probably originated in the Cretaceous (145 – 66 Mya) on the supercontinent Gondwana which broke up from 184 – 80 Mya, forming the area that is now Australia, South America, Africa, India and Antarctica.Asterales contain about 14% of eudicot diversity. From an analysis of relationships and diversities within the Asterales and with their superorders, estimates of the age of the beginning of the Asterales have been made, which range from 116 Mya to 82Mya. However few fossils have been found, of the Menyanthaceae-Asteraceae clade in the Oligocene, about 29 Mya.Fossil evidence of the Asterales is rare and belongs to rather recent epochs, so the precise estimation of the order's age is quite difficult. An Oligocene (34 – 23 Mya) pollen is known for Asteraceae and Goodeniaceae, and seeds from Oligocene and Miocene (23 – 5.3 Mya)  are known for Menyanthaceae and Campanulaceae respectively.Economic importanceThe Asterales, by dint of being a super-set of the family Asteraceae, include some species grown for food, including the sunflower (Helianthus annuus),  lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and chicory (Cichorium). Many are also used as spices and traditional medicines.Asterales are common plants and have many known uses. For example, pyrethrum (derived from Old World members of the genus Chrysanthemum) is a natural insecticide with minimal environmental impact. Wormwood, derived from a genus that includes the sagebrush, is used as a source of flavoring for absinthe, a bitter classical liquor of European origin.ReferencesCitationsGeneral references W. S. Judd, C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, M. J. Donoghue (2002). Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach, 2nd edition. pp. 476–486 (Asterales). Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts. .External links Angiosperm orders
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Historically, these terms have been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not resolve into a disc in a telescope and was not observed to have characteristics of an active comet such as a tail. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered that were found to have volatile-rich surfaces similar to comets, these came to be distinguished from the objects found in the main asteroid belt. Thus the term "asteroid" now generally refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System, including those co-orbital with Jupiter. Larger asteroids are often called planetoids.OverviewMillions of asteroids exist: many are shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets. The vast majority of known asteroids orbit within the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter (the Jupiter trojans). However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects. Individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbon-rich, metallic, and silicate (stony) compositions, respectively. The sizes of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost  across and massive enough to qualify as a dwarf planet.Asteroids are somewhat arbitrarily differentiated from comets and meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition: while asteroids are mainly composed of mineral and rock, comets are primarily composed of dust and ice. Furthermore, asteroids formed closer to the sun, preventing the development of cometary ice. The difference between asteroids and meteoroids is mainly one of size: meteoroids have a diameter of one meter or less, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Finally, meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials.Only one asteroid, 4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye, and this is only in very dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the naked eye for a short time. , the Minor Planet Center had data on 930,000 minor planets in the inner and outer Solar System, of which about 545,000 had enough information to be given numbered designations.The United Nations declared 30 June as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, Russian Federation, on 30 June 1908.In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It is 100 percent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 percent sure when." Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking,in his final book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that America is unprepared for an asteroid impact event, and has developed and released the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan" to better prepare. According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched.Discovery The first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres, was originally considered to be a new planet. This was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, which, with the equipment of the time, appeared to be points of light, like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though readily distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term "asteroid", coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής, or asteroeidēs, meaning 'star-like, star-shaped', and derived from the Ancient Greek  astēr 'star, planet'. In the early second half of the nineteenth century, the terms "asteroid" and "planet" (not always qualified as "minor") were still used interchangeably.Discovery timeline: 10 by 18491 Ceres, 1801 2 Pallas 1802 3 Juno 1804 4 Vesta 1807 5 Astraea 1845 in 1846, planet Neptune was discovered 6 Hebe July 1847 7 Iris August 1847 8 Flora  October 1847 9 Metis 25 April 1848 10 Hygiea 12 April 1849 tenth asteroid discovered 100 asteroids by 1868 1,000 by 1921 10,000 by 1989 100,000 by 2005 1,000,000 by 2020Historical methods Asteroid discovery methods have dramatically improved over the past two centuries.In the last years of the 18th century, Baron Franz Xaver von Zach organized a group of 24 astronomers to search the sky for the missing planet predicted at about 2.8 AU from the Sun by the Titius-Bode law, partly because of the discovery, by Sir William Herschel in 1781, of the planet Uranus at the distance predicted by the law. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the zodiacal band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would, hopefully, be spotted. The expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour, readily discernible by observers.The first object, Ceres, was not discovered by a member of the group, but rather by accident in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, director of the observatory of Palermo in Sicily. He discovered a new star-like object in Taurus and followed the displacement of this object during several nights. Later that year, Carl Friedrich Gauss used these observations to calculate the orbit of this unknown object, which was found to be between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Piazzi named it after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.Three other asteroids (2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vesta) were discovered over the next few years, with Vesta found in 1807. After eight more years of fruitless searches, most astronomers assumed that there were no more and abandoned any further searches.However, Karl Ludwig Hencke persisted, and began searching for more asteroids in 1830. Fifteen years later, he found 5 Astraea, the first new asteroid in 38 years. He also found 6 Hebe less than two years later. After this, other astronomers joined in the search and at least one new asteroid was discovered every year after that (except the wartime year 1945). Notable asteroid hunters of this early era were J.R. Hind, A. de Gasparis, R. Luther, H.M.S. Goldschmidt, J. Chacornac, J. Ferguson, N.R. Pogson, E.W. Tempel, J.C. Watson, C.H.F. Peters, A. Borrelly, J. Palisa, the Henry brothers and A. Charlois.In 1891, Max Wolf pioneered the use of astrophotography to detect asteroids, which appeared as short streaks on long-exposure photographic plates. This dramatically increased the rate of detection compared with earlier visual methods: Wolf alone discovered 248 asteroids, beginning with 323 Brucia, whereas only slightly more than 300 had been discovered up to that point. It was known that there were many more, but most astronomers did not bother with them, some calling them "vermin of the skies", a phrase variously attributed to E. Suess and E. Weiss. Even a century later, only a few thousand asteroids were identified, numbered and named.Manual methods of the 1900s and modern reporting Until 1998, asteroids were discovered by a four-step process. First, a region of the sky was photographed by a wide-field telescope, or astrograph. Pairs of photographs were taken, typically one hour apart. Multiple pairs could be taken over a series of days. Second, the two films or plates of the same region were viewed under a stereoscope. Any body in orbit around the Sun would move slightly between the pair of films. Under the stereoscope, the image of the body would seem to float slightly above the background of stars. Third, once a moving body was identified, its location would be measured precisely using a digitizing microscope. The location would be measured relative to known star locations.These first three steps do not constitute asteroid discovery: the observer has only found an apparition, which gets a provisional designation, made up of the year of discovery, a letter representing the half-month of discovery, and finally a letter and a number indicating the discovery's sequential number (example: ).The last step of discovery is to send the locations and time of observations to the Minor Planet Center, where computer programs determine whether an apparition ties together earlier apparitions into a single orbit. If so, the object receives a catalogue number and the observer of the first apparition with a calculated orbit is declared the discoverer, and granted the honor of naming the object subject to the approval of the International Astronomical Union.Computerized methods There is increasing interest in identifying asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's, and that could, given enough time, collide with Earth (see Earth-crosser asteroids). The three most important groups of near-Earth asteroids are the Apollos, Amors, and Atens. Various asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed, as early as the 1960s.The near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros had been discovered as long ago as 1898, and the 1930s brought a flurry of similar objects. In order of discovery, these were: 1221 Amor, 1862 Apollo, 2101 Adonis, and finally 69230 Hermes, which approached within 0.005 AU of Earth in 1937. Astronomers began to realize the possibilities of Earth impact.Two events in later decades increased the alarm: the increasing acceptance of the Alvarez hypothesis that an impact event resulted in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction, and the 1994 observation of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter. The U.S. military also declassified the information that its military satellites, built to detect nuclear explosions, had detected hundreds of upper-atmosphere impacts by objects ranging from one to ten meters across.All these considerations helped spur the launch of highly efficient surveys that consist of charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras and computers directly connected to telescopes. , it was estimated that 89% to 96% of near-Earth asteroids one kilometer or larger in diameter had been discovered. A list of teams using such systems includes: Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) Spacewatch Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) Pan-STARRS NEOWISE Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey (CINEOS) Japanese Spaceguard Association Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey (ADAS), the LINEAR system alone has discovered 147,132 asteroids. Among all the surveys, 19,266 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered including almost 900 more than  in diameter.Terminology Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as comets, asteroids, or meteoroids, with anything smaller than one meter across being called a meteoroid. Beech and Steel's 1995 paper proposed a meteoroid definition including size limits. The term "asteroid", from the Greek word for "star-like", never had a formal definition, with the broader term minor planet being preferred by the International Astronomical Union.However, following the discovery of asteroids below ten meters in size, Rubin and Grossman's 2010 paper revised the previous definition of meteoroid to objects between 10 µm and 1 meter in size in order to maintain the distinction between asteroids and meteoroids. The smallest asteroids discovered (based on absolute magnitude H) are  with  and  with  both with an estimated size of about 1 meter.In 2006, the term "small Solar System body" was also introduced to cover both most minor planets and comets. Other languages prefer "planetoid" (Greek for "planet-like"), and this term is occasionally used in English especially for larger minor planets such as the dwarf planets as well as an alternative for asteroids since they are not star-like. The word "planetesimal" has a similar meaning, but refers specifically to the small building blocks of the planets that existed when the Solar System was forming. The term "planetule" was coined by the geologist William Daniel Conybeare to describe minor planets, but is not in common use. The three largest objects in the asteroid belt, Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, grew to the stage of protoplanets. Ceres is a dwarf planet, the only one in the inner Solar System.When found, asteroids were seen as a class of objects distinct from comets, and there was no unified term for the two until "small Solar System body" was coined in 2006. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that a comet shows a coma due to sublimation of near-surface ices by solar radiation. A few objects have ended up being dual-listed because they were first classified as minor planets but later showed evidence of cometary activity. Conversely, some (perhaps all) comets are eventually depleted of their surface volatile ices and become asteroid-like. A further distinction is that comets typically have more eccentric orbits than most asteroids; most "asteroids" with notably eccentric orbits are probably dormant or extinct comets.For almost two centuries, from the discovery of Ceres in 1801 until the discovery of the first centaur, Chiron in 1977, all known asteroids spent most of their time at or within the orbit of Jupiter, though a few such as Hidalgo ventured far beyond Jupiter for part of their orbit. Those located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter were known for many years simply as The Asteroids. When astronomers started finding more small bodies that permanently resided further out than Jupiter, now called centaurs, they numbered them among the traditional asteroids, though there was debate over whether they should be considered asteroids or as a new type of object. Then, when the first trans-Neptunian object (other than Pluto), Albion, was discovered in 1992, and especially when large numbers of similar objects started turning up, new terms were invented to sidestep the issue: Kuiper-belt object, trans-Neptunian object, scattered-disc object, and so on. These inhabit the cold outer reaches of the Solar System where ices remain solid and comet-like bodies are not expected to exhibit much cometary activity; if centaurs or trans-Neptunian objects were to venture close to the Sun, their volatile ices would sublimate, and traditional approaches would classify them as comets and not asteroids.The innermost of these are the Kuiper-belt objects, called "objects" partly to avoid the need to classify them as asteroids or comets. They are thought to be predominantly comet-like in composition, though some may be more akin to asteroids. Furthermore, most do not have the highly eccentric orbits associated with comets, and the ones so far discovered are larger than traditional comet nuclei. (The much more distant Oort cloud is hypothesized to be the main reservoir of dormant comets.) Other recent observations, such as the analysis of the cometary dust collected by the Stardust probe, are increasingly blurring the distinction between comets and asteroids, suggesting "a continuum between asteroids and comets" rather than a sharp dividing line.The minor planets beyond Jupiter's orbit are sometimes also called "asteroids", especially in popular presentations. However, it is becoming increasingly common for the term "asteroid" to be restricted to minor planets of the inner Solar System. Therefore, this article will restrict itself for the most part to the classical asteroids: objects of the asteroid belt, Jupiter trojans, and near-Earth objects.When the IAU introduced the class small Solar System bodies in 2006 to include most objects previously classified as minor planets and comets, they created the class of dwarf planets for the largest minor planets – those that have enough mass to have become ellipsoidal under their own gravity. According to the IAU, "the term 'minor planet' may still be used, but generally, the term 'Small Solar System Body' will be preferred." Currently only the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres, at about  across, has been placed in the dwarf planet category.Formation It is thought that planetesimals in the asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of the solar nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt. Simulations and a discontinuity in spin rate and spectral properties suggest that asteroids larger than approximately  in diameter accreted during that early era, whereas smaller bodies are fragments from collisions between asteroids during or after the Jovian disruption. Ceres and Vesta grew large enough to melt and differentiate, with heavy metallic elements sinking to the core, leaving rocky minerals in the crust.In the Nice model, many Kuiper-belt objects are captured in the outer asteroid belt, at distances greater than 2.6 AU. Most were later ejected by Jupiter, but those that remained may be the D-type asteroids, and possibly include Ceres.Distribution within the Solar System Various dynamical groups of asteroids have been discovered orbiting in the inner Solar System. Their orbits are perturbed by the gravity of other bodies in the Solar System and by the Yarkovsky effect. Significant populations include:Asteroid belt The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, generally in relatively low-eccentricity (i.e. not very elongated) orbits. This belt is now estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than  in diameter, and millions of smaller ones. These asteroids may be remnants of the protoplanetary disk, and in this region the accretion of planetesimals into planets during the formative period of the Solar System was prevented by large gravitational perturbations by Jupiter.Trojans Trojans are populations that share an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but do not collide with it because they orbit in one of the two Lagrangian points of stability, L4 and L5, which lie 60° ahead of and behind the larger body.The most significant population of trojans are the Jupiter trojans. Although fewer Jupiter trojans have been discovered (), it is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids in the asteroid belt. Trojans have been found in the orbits of other planets, including Venus, Earth, Mars, Uranus, and Neptune.Near-Earth asteroids Near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are asteroids that have orbits that pass close to that of Earth. Asteroids that actually cross Earth's orbital path are known as Earth-crossers. , 14,464 near-Earth asteroids are known and approximately 900–1,000 have a diameter of over one kilometer.CharacteristicsSize distribution Asteroids vary greatly in size, from almost  for the largest down to rocks just 1 meter across. The three largest are very much like miniature planets: they are roughly spherical, have at least partly differentiated interiors, and are thought to be surviving protoplanets. The vast majority, however, are much smaller and are irregularly shaped; they are thought to be either battered planetesimals or fragments of larger bodies.The dwarf planet Ceres is by far the largest asteroid, with a diameter of . The next largest are 4 Vesta and 2 Pallas, both with diameters of just over . Vesta is the only main-belt asteroid that can, on occasion, be visible to the naked eye. On some rare occasions, a near-Earth asteroid may briefly become visible without technical aid; see 99942 Apophis.The mass of all the objects of the asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to be in the range of , about 4% of the mass of the Moon. Of this, Ceres comprises , about a third of the total. Adding in the next three most massive objects, Vesta (9%), Pallas (7%), and Hygiea (3%), brings this figure up to half, whereas the three most-massive asteroids after that, 511 Davida (1.2%), 704 Interamnia (1.0%), and 52 Europa (0.9%), constitute only another 3%. The number of asteroids increases rapidly as their individual masses decrease.The number of asteroids decreases markedly with size. Although this generally follows a power law, there are 'bumps' at  and , where more asteroids than expected from a logarithmic distribution are found.Largest asteroidsAlthough their location in the asteroid belt excludes them from planet status, the three largest objects, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas, are intact protoplanets that share many characteristics common to planets, and are atypical compared to the majority of irregularly shaped asteroids. The fourth-largest asteroid, Hygiea, appears nearly spherical although it may have an undifferentiated interior, like the majority of asteroids. Between them, the four largest asteroids constitute half the mass of the asteroid belt.Ceres is the only asteroid that appears to be plastic shape under its own gravity and hence the only one that is a likely dwarf planet. It has a much higher absolute magnitude than the other asteroids, of around 3.32, and may possess a surface layer of ice. Like the planets, Ceres is differentiated: it has a crust, a mantle and a core. No meteorites from Ceres have been found on Earth.Vesta, too, has a differentiated interior, though it formed inside the Solar System's frost line, and so is devoid of water; its composition is mainly of basaltic rock with minerals such as olivine. Aside from the large crater at its southern pole, Rheasilvia, Vesta also has an ellipsoidal shape. Vesta is the parent body of the Vestian family and other V-type asteroids, and is the source of the HED meteorites, which constitute 5% of all meteorites on Earth. Pallas is unusual in that, like Uranus, it rotates on its side, with its axis of rotation tilted at high angles to its orbital plane. Its composition is similar to that of Ceres: high in carbon and silicon, and perhaps partially differentiated. Pallas is the parent body of the Palladian family of asteroids.Hygiea is the largest carbonaceous asteroid and, unlike the other largest asteroids, lies relatively close to the plane of the ecliptic. It is the largest member and presumed parent body of the Hygiean family of asteroids. Because there is no sufficiently large crater on the surface to be the source of that family, as there is on Vesta, it is thought that Hygiea may have been completely disrupted in the collision that formed the Hygiean family and recoalesced after losing a bit less than 2% of its mass. Observations taken with the Very Large Telescope's SPHERE imager in 2017 and 2018, and announced in late 2019, revealed that Hygiea has a nearly spherical shape, which is consistent both with it being in hydrostatic equilibrium (and thus a dwarf planet), or formerly being in hydrostatic equilibrium, or with being disrupted and recoalescing.Rotation Measurements of the rotation rates of large asteroids in the asteroid belt show that there is an upper limit. Very few asteroids with a diameter larger than 100 meters have a rotation period smaller than 2.2 hours. For asteroids rotating faster than approximately this rate, the inertial force at the surface is greater than the gravitational force, so any loose surface material would be flung out. However, a solid object should be able to rotate much more rapidly. This suggests that most asteroids with a diameter over 100 meters are rubble piles formed through the accumulation of debris after collisions between asteroids.Composition The physical composition of asteroids is varied and in most cases poorly understood. Ceres appears to be composed of a rocky core covered by an icy mantle, where Vesta is thought to have a nickel-iron core, olivine mantle, and basaltic crust. 10 Hygiea, however, which appears to have a uniformly primitive composition of carbonaceous chondrite, is thought to be the largest undifferentiated asteroid, though it may be a differentiated asteroid that was globally disrupted by an impact and then reassembled. Other asteroids appear to be the remnant cores or mantles of proto-planets, high in rock and metal Most small asteroids are thought to be piles of rubble held together loosely by gravity, though the largest are probably solid. Some asteroids have moons or are co-orbiting binaries: Rubble piles, moons, binaries, and scattered asteroid families are thought to be the results of collisions that disrupted a parent asteroid, or, possibly, a planet.In the main asteroid belt, there appear to be two primary populations of asteroid: a dark, volatile-rich population, consisting of the C-type and P-type asteroids, with albedos less that 0.10 and densities under , and a dense, volatile-poor population, consisting of the S-type and M-type asteroids, with albedos over 0.15 and densities greater than 2.7. Within these populations, larger asteroids are denser, presumably due to compression. There appears to be minimal macro-porosity (interstitial vacuum) in the score of asteroids with masses greater than .Asteroids contain traces of amino acids and other organic compounds, and some speculate that asteroid impacts may have seeded the early Earth with the chemicals necessary to initiate life, or may have even brought life itself to Earth (also see panspermia). In August 2011, a report, based on NASA studies with meteorites found on Earth, was published suggesting DNA and RNA components (adenine, guanine and related organic molecules) may have been formed on asteroids and comets in outer space.Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density. The last can only be determined accurately by observing the orbits of moons the asteroid might have. So far, every asteroid with moons has turned out to be a rubble pile, a loose conglomeration of rock and metal that may be half empty space by volume. The investigated asteroids are as large as 280 km in diameter, and include 121 Hermione (268×186×183 km), and 87 Sylvia (384×262×232 km). Only half a dozen asteroids are larger than 87 Sylvia, though none of them have moons. The fact that such large asteroids as Sylvia may be rubble piles, presumably due to disruptive impacts, has important consequences for the formation of the Solar System: Computer simulations of collisions involving solid bodies show them destroying each other as often as merging, but colliding rubble piles are more likely to merge. This means that the cores of the planets could have formed relatively quickly.On 7 October 2009, the presence of water ice was confirmed on the surface of 24 Themis using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. The surface of the asteroid appears completely covered in ice. As this ice layer is sublimating, it may be getting replenished by a reservoir of ice under the surface. Organic compounds were also detected on the surface. Scientists hypothesize that some of the first water brought to Earth was delivered by asteroid impacts after the collision that produced the Moon. The presence of ice on 24 Themis supports this theory.In October 2013, water was detected on an extrasolar body for the first time, on an asteroid orbiting the white dwarf GD 61. On 22 January 2014, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. The detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding is unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are typically considered to "sprout jets and plumes". According to one of the scientists, "The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids."In May 2016, significant asteroid data arising from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and NEOWISE missions have been questioned. Although the early original criticism had not undergone peer review, a more recent peer-reviewed study was subsequently published.In November 2019, scientists reported detecting, for the first time, sugar molecules, including ribose, in meteorites, suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some fundamentally essential bio-ingredients important to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA world prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth, and possibly, as well, the notion of panspermia.Acfer 049, a meteorite discovered in Algeria in 1990, was shown in 2019 to have ice fossils inside it – the first direct evidence of water ice in the composition of asteroids.Findings have shown that solar winds can react with the oxygen in the upper layer of the asteroids and create water. It has been estimated that every cubic metre of irradiated rock could contain up to 20 litres.Surface features Most asteroids outside the "big four" (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Hygiea) are likely to be broadly similar in appearance, if irregular in shape. 50 km (31 mi) 253 Mathilde is a rubble pile saturated with craters with diameters the size of the asteroid's radius, and Earth-based observations of 300 km (186 mi) 511 Davida, one of the largest asteroids after the big four, reveal a similarly angular profile, suggesting it is also saturated with radius-size craters. Medium-sized asteroids such as Mathilde and 243 Ida that have been observed up close also reveal a deep regolith covering the surface. Of the big four, Pallas and Hygiea are practically unknown. Vesta has compression fractures encircling a radius-size crater at its south pole but is otherwise a spheroid. Ceres seems quite different in the glimpses Hubble has provided, with surface features that are unlikely to be due to simple craters and impact basins, but details will be expanded with the Dawn spacecraft, which entered Ceres orbit on 6 March 2015.Color Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. However evidence suggests most of the color change occurs rapidly, in the first hundred thousand years, limiting the usefulness of spectral measurement for determining the age of asteroids.Classification Asteroids are commonly categorized according to two criteria: the characteristics of their orbits, and features of their reflectance spectrum.Orbital classification Many asteroids have been placed in groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Apart from the broadest divisions, it is customary to name a group of asteroids after the first member of that group to be discovered. Groups are relatively loose dynamical associations, whereas families are tighter and result from the catastrophic break-up of a large parent asteroid sometime in the past. Families are more common and easier to identify within the main asteroid belt, but several small families have been reported among the Jupiter trojans. Main belt families were first recognized by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918 and are often called Hirayama families in his honor.About 30–35% of the bodies in the asteroid belt belong to dynamical families each thought to have a common origin in a past collision between asteroids. A family has also been associated with the plutoid dwarf planet .Quasi-satellites and horseshoe objects Some asteroids have unusual horseshoe orbits that are co-orbital with Earth or some other planet. Examples are 3753 Cruithne and . The first instance of this type of orbital arrangement was discovered between Saturn's moons Epimetheus and Janus.Sometimes these horseshoe objects temporarily become quasi-satellites for a few decades or a few hundred years, before returning to their earlier status. Both Earth and Venus are known to have quasi-satellites.Such objects, if associated with Earth or Venus or even hypothetically Mercury, are a special class of Aten asteroids. However, such objects could be associated with outer planets as well.Spectral classification In 1975, an asteroid taxonomic system based on color, albedo, and spectral shape was developed by Chapman, Morrison, and Zellner. These properties are thought to correspond to the composition of the asteroid's surface material. The original classification system had three categories: C-types for dark carbonaceous objects (75% of known asteroids), S-types for stony (silicaceous) objects (17% of known asteroids) and U for those that did not fit into either C or S. This classification has since been expanded to include many other asteroid types. The number of types continues to grow as more asteroids are studied.The two most widely used taxonomies now used are the Tholen classification and SMASS classification. The former was proposed in 1984 by David J. Tholen, and was based on data collected from an eight-color asteroid survey performed in the 1980s. This resulted in 14 asteroid categories. In 2002, the Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey resulted in a modified version of the Tholen taxonomy with 24 different types. Both systems have three broad categories of C, S, and X asteroids, where X consists of mostly metallic asteroids, such as the M-type. There are also several smaller classes.The proportion of known asteroids falling into the various spectral types does not necessarily reflect the proportion of all asteroids that are of that type; some types are easier to detect than others, biasing the totals.Problems Originally, spectral designations were based on inferences of an asteroid's composition. However, the correspondence between spectral class and composition is not always very good, and a variety of classifications are in use. This has led to significant confusion. Although asteroids of different spectral classifications are likely to be composed of different materials, there are no assurances that asteroids within the same taxonomic class are composed of the same (or similar) materials.Naming A newly discovered asteroid is given a provisional designation (such as ) consisting of the year of discovery and an alphanumeric code indicating the half-month of discovery and the sequence within that half-month. Once an asteroid's orbit has been confirmed, it is given a number, and later may also be given a name (e.g. ). The formal naming convention uses parentheses around the number – e.g. (433) Eros – but dropping the parentheses is quite common. Informally, it is common to drop the number altogether, or to drop it after the first mention when a name is repeated in running text. In addition, names can be proposed by the asteroid's discoverer, within guidelines established by the International Astronomical Union.Symbols The first asteroids to be discovered were assigned iconic symbols like the ones traditionally used to designate the planets. By 1855 there were two dozen asteroid symbols, which often occurred in multiple variants.In 1851, after the fifteenth asteroid (Eunomia) had been discovered, Johann Franz Encke made a major change in the upcoming 1854 edition of the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch (BAJ, Berlin Astronomical Yearbook). He introduced a disk (circle), a traditional symbol for a star, as the generic symbol for an asteroid. The circle was then numbered in order of discovery to indicate a specific asteroid (although he assigned ① to the fifth, Astraea, while continuing to designate the first four only with their existing iconic symbols). The numbered-circle convention was quickly adopted by astronomers, and the next asteroid to be discovered (16 Psyche, in 1852) was the first to be designated in that way at the time of its discovery. However, Psyche was given an iconic symbol as well, as were a few other asteroids discovered over the next few years (see chart above). 20 Massalia was the first asteroid that was not assigned an iconic symbol, and no iconic symbols were created after the 1855 discovery of 37 Fides. That year Astraea's number was increased to ⑤, but the first four asteroids, Ceres to Vesta, were not listed by their numbers until the 1867 edition. The circle was soon abbreviated to a pair of parentheses, which were easier to typeset and sometimes omitted altogether over the next few decades, leading to the modern convention.Exploration Until the age of space travel, objects in the asteroid belt were merely pinpricks of light in even the largest telescopes and their shapes and terrain remained a mystery. The best modern ground-based telescopes and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope can resolve a small amount of detail on the surfaces of the largest asteroids, but even these mostly remain little more than fuzzy blobs. Limited information about the shapes and compositions of asteroids can be inferred from their light curves (their variation in brightness as they rotate) and their spectral properties, and asteroid sizes can be estimated by timing the lengths of star occultations (when an asteroid passes directly in front of a star). Radar imaging can yield good information about asteroid shapes and orbital and rotational parameters, especially for near-Earth asteroids. In terms of delta-v and propellant requirements, NEOs are more easily accessible than the Moon.The first close-up photographs of asteroid-like objects were taken in 1971, when the Mariner 9 probe imaged Phobos and Deimos, the two small moons of Mars, which are probably captured asteroids. These images revealed the irregular, potato-like shapes of most asteroids, as did later images from the Voyager probes of the small moons of the gas giants.The first true asteroid to be photographed in close-up was 951 Gaspra in 1991, followed in 1993 by 243 Ida and its moon Dactyl, all of which were imaged by the Galileo probe en route to Jupiter.The first dedicated asteroid probe was NEAR Shoemaker, which photographed 253 Mathilde in 1997, before entering into orbit around 433 Eros, finally landing on its surface in 2001.Other asteroids briefly visited by spacecraft en route to other destinations include 9969 Braille (by Deep Space 1 in 1999), and 5535 Annefrank (by Stardust in 2002).From September to November 2005, the Japanese Hayabusa probe studied 25143 Itokawa in detail and was plagued with difficulties, but returned samples of its surface to Earth on 13 June 2010.The European Rosetta probe (launched in 2004) flew by 2867 Šteins in 2008 and 21 Lutetia, the third-largest asteroid visited to date, in 2010.In September 2007, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft, which orbited 4 Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012, and has been orbiting the dwarf planet 1 Ceres since 2015. 4 Vesta is the second-largest asteroid visited to date.On 13 December 2012, China's lunar orbiter Chang'e 2 flew within  of the asteroid 4179 Toutatis on an extended mission.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa2 probe in December 2014, and plans to return samples from 162173 Ryugu in December 2020.In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that America is unprepared for an asteroid impact event, and has developed and released the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan" to better prepare.In September 2016, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission to asteroid 101955 Bennu, which it reached in December 2018. On May 10 2021, the probe departed the asteroid with a sample from its surface, and is expected to return to Earth on September 24 2023.Planned and future missions In early 2013, NASA announced the planning stages of a mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid and move it into lunar orbit where it could possibly be visited by astronauts and later impacted into the Moon. On 19 June 2014, NASA reported that asteroid 2011 MD was a prime candidate for capture by a robotic mission, perhaps in the early 2020s.It has been suggested that asteroids might be used as a source of materials that may be rare or exhausted on Earth (asteroid mining), or materials for constructing space habitats (see Colonization of the asteroids). Materials that are heavy and expensive to launch from Earth may someday be mined from asteroids and used for space manufacturing and construction.In the U.S. Discovery program the Psyche spacecraft proposal to 16 Psyche and Lucy spacecraft to Jupiter trojans made it to the semi-finalist stage of mission selection.In January 2017, Lucy and Psyche mission were both selected as NASA's Discovery Program missions 13 and 14 respectively.In November 2021, NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroids or comets.Location of Ceres (within asteroid belt) compared to other bodies of the Solar SystemFiction Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spacecraft traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth or other inhabited planets, dwarf planets, and natural satellites by potential impact.GallerySee also  ʻOumuamua Active asteroid Amor asteroid Apollo asteroid Asteroid Day Asteroid impact avoidance Asteroids in astrology Aten asteroid Atira asteroid BOOTES (Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System) Category:Asteroid groups and families Category:Asteroids Category:Binary asteroids Centaur (minor planet) Chang'e 2 lunar orbiter Constellation program Dawn (spacecraft) Dwarf planet Impact event List of asteroid close approaches to Earth List of exceptional asteroids List of impact craters on Earth List of minor planets List of minor planets named after people List of minor planets named after places List of possible impact structures on Earth Lost minor planet Marco Polo (spacecraft) Meanings of minor planet names Mesoplanet Meteoroid Minor planet Near-Earth object NEOShield NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite) Canada's new satellite Pioneer 10 Rosetta (spacecraft)Explanatory notesReferencesFurther readingFurther information about asteroids  (see Logarithmic scale)External links              Minor planets
An allocution, or allocutus, is a formal statement made to the court by the defendant who has been found guilty prior to being sentenced. It is part of the criminal procedure in some jurisdictions using common law.Concept An allocution allows the defendant to explain why the sentence should be lenient. In plea bargains, an allocution may be required of the defendant. The defendant explicitly admits specifically and in detail the actions and their reasons in exchange for a reduced sentence.In principle, that removes any doubt as to the exact nature of the defendant's guilt in the matter.The term "allocution" is used generally only in jurisdictions in the United States, but there are vaguely similar processes in other common law countries. In many other jurisdictions, it is for the defense lawyer to mitigate on their  client's behalf, and the defendant rarely has the opportunity to speak.The right of victims to speak at sentencing is also sometimes referred to as allocution.AustraliaIn Australia, the term allocutus is used by the Clerk of Arraigns or another formal associate of the Court. It is generally phrased as, "Prisoner at the Bar, you have been found Guilty by a jury of your peers of the offense of XYZ. Do you have anything to say as to why the sentence of this Court should not now be passed upon you?" The defense counsel will then make a plea in mitigation (also called submissions on penalty) in an attempt to mitigate the relative seriousness of the offense and heavily refer to and rely upon the defendant's previous good character and good works, if any.The right to make a plea in mitigation is absolute. If a judge or magistrate refuses to hear such a plea or does not properly consider it, the sentence can be overturned on appeal.United StatesIn most of the United States, defendants are allowed the opportunity to allocute before a sentence is passed. Some jurisdictions hold that as an absolute right. In its absence, a sentence but not the conviction may be overturned, resulting in the need for a new sentencing hearing. In the federal system, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(4) provides that the court must "address the defendant personally in order to permit the defendant to speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence."The Federal Public Defender recommends that defendants speak in terms of how a lenient sentence will be sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with the statutory directives set forth in .See also Confession (law)ReferencesCriminal procedureEvidence law
An  ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an affiant or deponent under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statement is witnessed as to the authenticity of the affiant's signature by a taker of oaths, such as a notary public or commissioner of oaths. An affidavit is a type of verified statement or showing, or in other words, it contains a verification, which means that it is made under oath on penalty of perjury, and this serves as evidence for its veracity and is required in court proceedings.DefinitionAn affidavit is typically defined as a written declaration or statement that is sworn or affirmed before a person who has authority to administer an oath. There is no general defined form for an affidavit, although for some proceedings an affidavit must satisfy legal or statutory requirements in order to be considered. An affidavit may include, a commencement which identifies the affiant; an attestation clause, usually a jurat, at the end certifying that the affiant made the statement under oath on the specified date; signatures of the affiant and person who administered the oath.In some cases, an introductory clause, called a preamble, is added attesting that the affiant personally appeared before the authenticating authority. An affidavit may also recite that the statement it records was made under penalty of perjury.An affidavit that is prepared for use within the context of litigation may also include a caption that identifies the venue and parties to the relevant judicial proceedings.WorldwideAustraliaOn 2 March 2016, the High Court of Australia held that the ACT Uniform Evidence Legislation is neutral in the way sworn evidence and unsworn evidence is treated as being of equal weight.IndiaIn Indian law, although an affidavit may be taken as proof of the facts stated therein, the courts have no jurisdiction to admit evidence by way of affidavit. Affidavit is not treated as "evidence" within the meaning of Section 3 of the Evidence Act. However, it was held by the Supreme Court that an affidavit can be used as evidence only if the court so orders for sufficient reasons, namely, the right of the opposite party to have the deponent produced for cross-examination. Therefore, an affidavit cannot ordinarily be used as evidence in absence of a specific order of the court.Sri LankaIn Sri Lanka, under the Oaths Ordinance, with the exception of a court-martial, a person may submit an affidavit signed in the presence of a commissioner for oaths or a justice of the peace.IrelandAffidavits are made in a similar way as to England and Wales, although "make oath" is sometimes omitted. An affirmed affidavit may be substituted for an sworn affidavit in most cases for those opposed to swearing oaths. The person making the affidavit is known as the deponent and signs the affidavit. The affidavit concludes in the standard format "sworn/affirmed (declared) before me, [name of commissioner for oaths/solicitor], a commissioner for oaths (solicitor), on the [date] at [location] in the county/city of [county/city], and I know the deponent", and it is signed and stamped by the commissioner for oaths. It is important that the Commissioner states his/her name clearly, sometimes documents are rejected when the name cannot be ascertained.In August 2020, a new method of filing affidavits came into force.  Under Section 21 of the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 witnesses are no longer required to swear before God or make an affirmation when filing an affidavit. Instead, witnesses will make a non-religious “statement of truth” and, if it is breached, will be liable for up to one year in prison if convicted summarily or, upon conviction on indictment, to a maximum fine of €250,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years, or both.This is designed to replace affidavits and statutory declarations in situations where the electronic means of lodgement or filing of documents with the Court provided for in Section 20 is utilised. As of January 2022, it has yet to be adopted widely, and it is expected it will not be used for some time by lay litigants who will still lodge papers in person.United StatesIn American jurisprudence, under the rules for hearsay, admission of an unsupported affidavit as evidence is unusual (especially if the affiant is not available for cross-examination) with regard to material facts which may be dispositive of the matter at bar. Affidavits from persons who are dead or otherwise incapacitated, or who cannot be located or made to appear, may be accepted by the court, but usually only in the presence of corroborating evidence. An affidavit which reflected a better grasp of the facts close in time to the actual events may be used to refresh a witness's recollection. Materials used to refresh recollection are admissible as evidence. If the affiant is a party in the case, the affiant's opponent may be successful in having the affidavit admitted as evidence, as statements by a party-opponent are admissible through an exception to the hearsay rule.Affidavits are typically included in the response to interrogatories. Requests for admissions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36, however, are not required to be sworn.When a person signs an affidavit, that person is eligible to take the stand at a trial or evidentiary hearing. One party may wish to summon the affiant to verify the contents of the affidavit, while the other party may want to cross-examine the affiant about the affidavit.Some types of motions will not be accepted by the court unless accompanied by an independent sworn statement or other evidence in support of the need for the motion. In such a case, a court will accept an affidavit from the filing attorney in support of the motion, as certain assumptions are made, to wit: The affidavit in place of sworn testimony promotes judicial economy. The lawyer is an officer of the court and knows that a false swearing by them, if found out, could be grounds for severe penalty up to and including disbarment. The lawyer if called upon would be able to present independent and more detailed evidence to prove the facts set forth in his affidavit.The acceptance of an affidavit by one society does not confirm its acceptance as a legal document in other jurisdictions. Equally, the acceptance that a lawyer is an officer of the court (for swearing the affidavit) is not a given. This matter is addressed by the use of the apostille, a means of certifying the legalization of a document for international use under the terms of the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Documents which have been notarized by a notary public, and certain other documents, and then certified with a conformant apostille, are accepted for legal use in all the nations that have signed the Hague Convention. Thus most affidavits now require to be apostilled if used for cross border issues.See also Declaration (law) Deposition (law) Fishman Affidavit, a well-known example of an affidavit Performativity Statutory declaration Sworn declarationReferences Evidence lawLegal documentsNotary
Aries  is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is located in the Northern celestial hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for ram. Its old astronomical symbol is  (♈︎). It is one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations.  It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall size, with an area of 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere).Aries has represented a ram since late Babylonian times. Before that, the stars of Aries formed a farmhand. Different cultures have incorporated the stars of Aries into different constellations including twin inspectors in China and a porpoise in the Marshall Islands. Aries is a relatively dim constellation, possessing only four bright stars: Hamal (Alpha Arietis, second magnitude), Sheratan (Beta Arietis, third magnitude), Mesarthim (Gamma Arietis, fourth magnitude), and 41 Arietis (also fourth magnitude). The few deep-sky objects within the constellation are quite faint and include several pairs of interacting galaxies. Several meteor showers appear to radiate from Aries, including the Daytime Arietids and the Epsilon Arietids.History and mythology Aries is recognized as an official constellation now, albeit as a specific region of the sky, by the International Astronomical Union. It was originally defined in ancient texts as a specific pattern of stars, and has remained a constellation since ancient times; it now includes the ancient pattern as well as the surrounding stars. In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the constellation, now known as Aries, was the final station along the ecliptic. The MUL.APIN was a comprehensive table of the risings and settings of stars, which likely served as an agricultural calendar. Modern-day Aries was known as , "The Agrarian Worker" or "The Hired Man". Although likely compiled in the 12th or 11th century BC, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the vernal equinox, which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age. The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BC. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram figure is distinct from the other characters present. The shift in identification from the constellation as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created—by 1000 BC—modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzi's ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as a man with a ram's head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the vernal equinox, it was called the "Indicator of the Reborn Sun". During the times of the year when Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of "Lord of the Head" in Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.Aries was not fully accepted as a constellation until classical times. In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek mythology that rescued Phrixus and Helle on orders from Hermes, taking Phrixus to the land of Colchis. Phrixos and Helle were the son and daughter of King Athamas and his first wife Nephele. The king's second wife, Ino, was jealous and wished to kill his children. To accomplish this, she induced a famine in Boeotia, then falsified a message from the Oracle of Delphi that said Phrixos must be sacrificed to end the famine. Athamas was about to sacrifice his son atop Mount Laphystium when Aries, sent by Nephele, arrived. Helle fell off of Aries's back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in her honor.  Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the ram's muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure. Instead, it was listed as an "unformed star", and denoted as "the star over the head". John Flamsteed, in his Atlas Coelestis, followed Ptolemy's description by mapping it above the figure's head. Flamsteed followed the general convention of maps by depicting Aries lying down. Astrologically, Aries has been associated with the head and its humors. It was strongly associated with Mars, both the planet and the god. It was considered to govern Western Europe and Syria, and to indicate a strong temper in a person.The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia ago. Hipparchus defined it in 130 BC. as a point south of Gamma Arietis. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move into Aquarius by around 2600 AD. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through mid May, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of horns. Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured the Pleiades as the ram's tail. The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of thirteen stars in a figure along with five "unformed" stars, four of which were over the animal's hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Aries's head. Al-Sufi's depiction differed from both other Arab astronomers' and Flamsteed's, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.The obsolete constellations of Aries (Apes/Vespa/Lilium/Musca (Borealis)) all centred on the same the northern stars. In 1612, Petrus Plancius introduced Apes, a constellation representing a bee. In 1624, the same stars were used by Jakob Bartsch as for Vespa, representing a wasp. In 1679, Augustin Royer used these stars for his constellation Lilium, representing the fleur-de-lis. None of these constellation became widely accepted. Johann Hevelius renamed the constellation "Musca" in 1690 in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum. To differentiate it from Musca, the southern fly, it was later renamed Musca Borealis but it did not gain acceptance and its stars were ultimately officially reabsorbed into Aries. The asterism involved was 33, 35, 39, and 41 Arietis.In 1922, the International Astronomical Union defined its recommended three-letter abbreviation, "Ari". The official boundaries of Aries were defined in 1930 by Eugène Delporte as a polygon of 12 segments. Its right ascension is between 1h 46.4m and 3h 29.4m and its declination is between 10.36° and 31.22° in the equatorial coordinate system.In non-Western astronomy In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The brightest stars—Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis—formed a constellation called Lou (婁), variously translated as "bond", "lasso", and "sickle", which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle. This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox.  This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head. 35, 39, and 41 Arietis were part of a constellation called Wei (胃), which represented a fat abdomen and was the namesake of the 17th lunar mansion, which represented granaries. Delta and Zeta Arietis were a part of the constellation Tianyin (天陰), thought to represent the Emperor's hunting partner. Zuogeng (左更), a constellation depicting a marsh and pond inspector, was composed of Mu, Nu, Omicron, Pi, and Sigma Arietis. He was accompanied by Yeou-kang, a constellation depicting an official in charge of pasture distribution.In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called "Aswini", after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year began with the vernal equinox, the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-year's related hymns to the twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as "Aja" and "Mesha". In Hebrew astronomy Aries was named "Taleh"; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally symbolizes the "Lamb of the World". The neighboring Syrians named the constellation "Amru", and the bordering Turks named it "Kuzi". Half a world away, in the Marshall Islands, several stars from Aries were incorporated into a constellation depicting a porpoise, along with stars from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis formed the head of the porpoise, while stars from Andromeda formed the body and the bright stars of Cassiopeia formed the tail. Other Polynesian peoples recognized Aries as a constellation. The Marquesas islanders called it Na-pai-ka; the Māori constellation Pipiri may correspond to modern Aries as well. In indigenous Peruvian astronomy, a constellation with most of the same stars as Aries existed. It was called the "Market Moon" and the "Kneeling Terrace", as a reminder for when to hold the annual harvest festival, Ayri Huay.FeaturesStars Aries has three prominent stars forming an asterism, designated Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis by Johann Bayer. Alpha (Hamal) and Beta (Sheratan) are commonly used for navigation. There is also one other star above the fourth magnitude, 41 Arietis (Bharani).  α Arietis, called Hamal, is the brightest star in Aries. Its traditional name is derived from the Arabic word for "lamb" or "head of the ram" (ras al-hamal), which references Aries's mythological background. With a spectral class of K2 and a luminosity class of III, it is an orange giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.00, which lies 66 light-years from Earth. Hamal has a luminosity of  and its absolute magnitude is −0.1.β Arietis, also known as Sheratan, is a blue-white star with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.64. Its traditional name is derived from "sharatayn", the Arabic word for "the two signs", referring to both Beta and Gamma Arietis in their position as heralds of the vernal equinox. The two stars were known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal", "horns of the ram". It is 59 light-years from Earth. It has a luminosity of  and its absolute magnitude is 2.1. It is a spectroscopic binary star, one in which the companion star is only known through analysis of the spectra. The spectral class of the primary is A5. Hermann Carl Vogel determined that Sheratan was a spectroscopic binary in 1903; its orbit was determined by Hans Ludendorff in 1907. It has since been studied for its eccentric orbit.γ Arietis, with a common name of Mesarthim, is a binary star with two white-hued components, located in a rich field of magnitude 8–12 stars. Its traditional name has conflicting derivations. It may be derived from a corruption of "al-sharatan", the Arabic word meaning "pair" or a word for "fat ram". However, it may also come from the Sanskrit for "first star of Aries" or the Hebrew for "ministerial servants", both of which are unusual languages of origin for star names. Along with Beta Arietis, it was known to the Bedouin as "qarna al-hamal". The primary is of magnitude 4.59 and the secondary is of magnitude 4.68. The system is 164 light-years from Earth. The two components are separated by 7.8 arcseconds, and the system as a whole has an apparent magnitude of 3.9. The primary has a luminosity of  and the secondary has a luminosity of ; the primary is an A-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.2 and the secondary is a B9-type star with an absolute magnitude of 0.4. The angle between the two components is 1°. Mesarthim was discovered to be a double star by Robert Hooke in 1664, one of the earliest such telescopic discoveries. The primary, γ1 Arietis, is an Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variable star that has a range of 0.02 magnitudes and a period of 2.607 days. It is unusual because of its strong silicon emission lines.The constellation is home to several double stars, including Epsilon, Lambda, and Pi Arietis. ε Arietis is a binary star with two white components. The primary is of magnitude 5.2 and the secondary is of magnitude 5.5. The system is 290 light-years from Earth. Its overall magnitude is 4.63, and the primary has an absolute magnitude of 1.4. Its spectral class is A2. The two components are separated by 1.5 arcseconds. λ Arietis is a wide double star with a white-hued primary and a yellow-hued secondary. The primary is of magnitude 4.8 and the secondary is of magnitude 7.3. The primary is 129 light-years from Earth. It has an absolute magnitude of 1.7 and a spectral class of F0. The two components are separated by 36 arcseconds at an angle of 50°; the two stars are located 0.5° east of 7 Arietis. π Arietis is a close binary star with a blue-white primary and a white secondary. The primary is of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is of magnitude 8.5. The primary is 776 light-years from Earth. The primary itself is a wide double star with a separation of 25.2 arcseconds; the tertiary has a magnitude of 10.8. The primary and secondary are separated by 3.2 arcseconds.Most of the other stars in Aries visible to the naked eye have magnitudes between 3 and 5. δ Ari, called Boteïn, is a star of magnitude 4.35, 170 light-years away. It has an absolute magnitude of −0.1 and a spectral class of K2. ζ Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.89, 263 light-years away. Its spectral class is A0 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0. 14 Arietis is a star of magnitude 4.98, 288 light-years away. Its spectral class is F2 and its absolute magnitude is 0.6. 39 Arietis (Lilii Borea) is a similar star of magnitude 4.51, 172 light-years away. Its spectral class is K1 and its absolute magnitude is 0.0. 35 Arietis is a dim star of magnitude 4.55, 343 light-years away. Its spectral class is B3 and its absolute magnitude is −1.7. 41 Arietis, known both as c Arietis and Nair al Butain, is a brighter star of magnitude 3.63, 165 light-years away. Its spectral class is B8 and it has a luminosity of . Its absolute magnitude is −0.2. 53 Arietis is a runaway star of magnitude 6.09, 815 light-years away. Its spectral class is B2. It was likely ejected from the Orion Nebula approximately five million years ago, possibly due to supernovae. Finally, Teegarden's Star is the closest star to Earth in Aries. It is a brown dwarf of magnitude 15.14 and spectral class M6.5V. With a proper motion of 5.1 arcseconds per year, it is the 24th closest star to Earth overall.Aries has its share of variable stars, including R and U Arietis, Mira-type variable stars, and T Arietis, a semi-regular variable star. R Arietis is a Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 13.7 to a maximum of 7.4 with a period of 186.8 days. It is 4,080 light-years away. U Arietis is another Mira variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 15.2 to a maximum of 7.2 with a period of 371.1 days. T Arietis is a semiregular variable star that ranges in magnitude from a minimum of 11.3 to a maximum of 7.5 with a period of 317 days. It is 1,630 light-years away. One particularly interesting variable in Aries is SX Arietis, a rotating variable star considered to be the prototype of its class, helium variable stars. SX Arietis stars have very prominent emission lines of Helium I and Silicon III. They are normally main-sequence B0p—B9p stars, and their variations are not usually visible to the naked eye. Therefore, they are observed photometrically, usually having periods that fit in the course of one night. Similar to Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables, SX Arietis stars have periodic changes in their light and magnetic field, which correspond to the periodic rotation; they differ from the Alpha² Canum Venaticorum variables in their higher temperature. There are between 39 and 49 SX Arietis variable stars currently known; ten are noted as being "uncertain" in the General Catalog of Variable Stars.Sky objects NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 10.3, located southeast of β Arietis and 15 arcminutes west of 15 Arietis. It is a relatively bright galaxy and shows obvious nebulosity and ellipticity in an amateur telescope. It is 7.2 by 4.2 arcminutes, meaning that its surface brightness, magnitude 13.6, is significantly lower than its integrated magnitude. NGC 772 is a class SA(s)b galaxy, which means that it is an unbarred spiral galaxy without a ring that possesses a somewhat prominent bulge and spiral arms that are wound somewhat tightly. The main arm, on the northwest side of the galaxy, is home to many star forming regions; this is due to previous gravitational interactions with other galaxies. NGC 772 has a small companion galaxy, NGC 770, that is about 113,000 light-years away from the larger galaxy. The two galaxies together are also classified as Arp 78 in the Arp peculiar galaxy catalog. NGC 772 has a diameter of 240,000 light-years and the system is 114 million light-years from Earth. Another spiral galaxy in Aries is NGC 673, a face-on class SAB(s)c galaxy. It is a weakly barred spiral galaxy with loosely wound arms. It has no ring and a faint bulge and is 2.5 by 1.9 arcminutes. It has two primary arms with fragments located farther from the core. 171,000 light-years in diameter, NGC 673 is 235 million light-years from Earth.NGC 678 and NGC 680 are a pair of galaxies in Aries that are only about 200,000 light-years apart. Part of the NGC 691 group of galaxies, both are at a distance of approximately 130 million light-years. NGC 678 is an edge-on spiral galaxy that is 4.5 by 0.8 arcminutes. NGC 680, an elliptical galaxy with an asymmetrical boundary, is the brighter of the two at magnitude 12.9; NGC 678 has a magnitude of 13.35. Both galaxies have bright cores, but NGC 678 is the larger galaxy at a diameter of 171,000 light-years; NGC 680 has a diameter of 72,000 light-years. NGC 678 is further distinguished by its prominent dust lane. NGC 691 itself is a spiral galaxy slightly inclined to our line of sight. It has multiple spiral arms and a bright core. Because it is so diffuse, it has a low surface brightness. It has a diameter of 126,000 light-years and is 124 million light-years away. NGC 877 is the brightest member of an 8-galaxy group that also includes NGC 870, NGC 871, and NGC 876, with a magnitude of 12.53. It is 2.4 by 1.8 arcminutes and is 178 million light-years away with a diameter of 124,000 light-years. Its companion is NGC 876, which is about 103,000 light-years from the core of NGC 877. They are interacting gravitationally, as they are connected by a faint stream of gas and dust. Arp 276 is a different pair of interacting galaxies in Aries, consisting of NGC 935 and IC 1801.NGC 821 is an E6 elliptical galaxy. It is unusual because it has hints of an early spiral structure, which is normally only found in lenticular and spiral galaxies. NGC 821 is 2.6 by 2.0 arcminutes and has a visual magnitude of 11.3. Its diameter is 61,000 light-years and it is 80 million light-years away. Another unusual galaxy in Aries is Segue 2, a dwarf and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, recently discovered to be a potential relic of the epoch of reionization.Meteor showers Aries is home to several meteor showers. The Daytime Arietid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers that occurs during the day, lasting from 22 May to 2 July. It is an annual shower associated with the Marsden group of comets that peaks on 7 June with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of 54 meteors. Its parent body may be the asteroid Icarus. The meteors are sometimes visible before dawn, because the radiant is 32 degrees away from the Sun. They usually appear at a rate of 1–2 per hour as "earthgrazers", meteors that last several seconds and often begin at the horizon. Because most of the Daytime Arietids are not visible to the naked eye, they are observed in the radio spectrum. This is possible because of the ionized gas they leave in their wake. Other meteor showers radiate from Aries during the day; these include the Daytime Epsilon Arietids and the Northern and Southern Daytime May Arietids. The Jodrell Bank Observatory discovered the Daytime Arietids in 1947 when James Hey and G. S. Stewart adapted the World War II-era radar systems for meteor observations.The Delta Arietids are another meteor shower radiating from Aries. Peaking on 9 December with a low peak rate, the shower lasts from 8 December to 14 January, with the highest rates visible from 8 to 14 December. The average Delta Aquarid meteor is very slow, with an average velocity of  per second. However, this shower sometimes produces bright fireballs. This meteor shower has northern and southern components, both of which are likely associated with 1990 HA, a near-Earth asteroid.The Autumn Arietids also radiate from Aries. The shower lasts from 7 September to 27 October and peaks on 9 October. Its peak rate is low. The Epsilon Arietids appear from 12 to 23 October. Other meteor showers radiating from Aries include the October Delta Arietids, Daytime Epsilon Arietids, Daytime May Arietids, Sigma Arietids, Nu Arietids, and Beta Arietids. The Sigma Arietids, a class IV meteor shower, are visible from 12 to 19 October, with a maximum zenithal hourly rate of less than two meteors per hour on 19 October.Planetary systems Aries contains several stars with extrasolar planets. HIP 14810, a G5 type star, is orbited by three giant planets (those more than ten times the mass of Earth). HD 12661, like HIP 14810, is a G-type main sequence star, slightly larger than the Sun, with two orbiting planets. One planet is 2.3 times the mass of Jupiter, and the other is 1.57 times the mass of Jupiter. HD 20367 is a G0 type star, approximately the size of the Sun, with one orbiting planet. The planet, discovered in 2002, has a mass 1.07 times that of Jupiter and orbits every 500 days. In 2019, scientists conducting the CARMENES survey at the Calar Alto Observatory announced evidence of two Earth-mass exoplanets orbiting the star within its habitable zone.See also  Aries (Chinese astronomy)ReferencesExplanatory notesCitationsBibliographyOnline sources           SIMBADExternal links  The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aries The clickable Aries Star Tales – Aries Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (medieval and early modern images of Aries) ConstellationsConstellations listed by PtolemyNorthern constellations
Aquarius is a constellation of the zodiac, between Capricornus and Pisces. Its name is Latin for "water-carrier" or "cup-carrier", and its old astronomical symbol is  (♒︎), a representation of water. Aquarius is one of the oldest of the recognized constellations along the zodiac (the Sun's apparent path). It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of constellations with watery associations such as Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish, and Eridanus the river.At apparent magnitude 2.9, Beta Aquarii is the brightest star in the constellation.History and mythologyAquarius is identified as  "The Great One" in the Babylonian star catalogues and represents the god Ea himself, who is commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase. The Babylonian star-figure appears on entitlement stones and cylinder seals from the second millennium. It contained the winter solstice in the Early Bronze Age. In Old Babylonian astronomy, Ea was the ruler of the southernmost quarter of the Sun's path, the "Way of Ea", corresponding to the period of 45 days on either side of winter solstice. Aquarius was also associated with the destructive floods that the Babylonians regularly experienced, and thus was negatively connoted. In Ancient Egypt astronomy, Aquarius was associated with the annual flood of the Nile; the banks were said to flood when Aquarius put his jar into the river, beginning spring.In the Greek tradition, the constellation came to be represented simply as a single vase from which a stream poured down to Piscis Austrinus. The name in the Hindu zodiac is likewise kumbha "water-pitcher".In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. Aquarius is also sometimes identified with beautiful Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology and the son of Trojan king Tros, who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods. Neighboring Aquila represents the eagle, under Zeus' command, that snatched the young boy; some versions of the myth indicate that the eagle was in fact Zeus transformed. An alternative version of the tale recounts Ganymede's kidnapping by the goddess of the dawn, Eos, motivated by her affection for young men; Zeus then stole him from Eos and employed him as cup-bearer. Yet another figure associated with the water bearer is Cecrops I, a king of Athens who sacrificed water instead of wine to the gods.DepictionsIn the first century, Ptolemy's Almagest established the common Western depiction of Aquarius. His water jar, an asterism itself, consists of Gamma, Pi, Eta, and Zeta Aquarii; it pours water in a stream of more than 20 stars terminating with Fomalhaut, now assigned solely to Piscis Austrinus. The water bearer's head is represented by 5th magnitude 25 Aquarii while his left shoulder is Beta Aquarii; his right shoulder and forearm are represented by Alpha and Gamma Aquarii respectively.In Eastern astronomyIn Chinese astronomy, the stream of water flowing from the Water Jar was depicted as the "Army of Yu-Lin" (Yu-lim-kiun or Yulinjun, Hanzi: 羽林君). The name "Yu-lin" means "feathers and forests", referring to the numerous light-footed soldiers from the northern reaches of the empire represented by these faint stars. The constellation's stars were the most numerous of any Chinese constellation, numbering 45, the majority of which were located in modern Aquarius. The celestial army was protected by the wall Leibizhen (垒壁阵), which counted Iota, Lambda, Phi, and Sigma Aquarii among its 12 stars. 88, 89, and 98 Aquarii represent Fou-youe, the axes used as weapons and for hostage executions. Also in Aquarius is Loui-pi-tchin, the ramparts that stretch from 29 and 27 Piscium and 33 and 30 Aquarii through Phi, Lambda, Sigma, and Iota Aquarii to Delta, Gamma, Kappa, and Epsilon Capricorni.Near the border with Cetus, the axe Fuyue was represented by three stars; its position is disputed and may have instead been located in Sculptor. Tienliecheng also has a disputed position; the 13-star castle replete with ramparts may have possessed Nu and Xi Aquarii but may instead have been located south in Piscis Austrinus. The Water Jar asterism was seen to the ancient Chinese as the tomb, Fenmu. Nearby, the emperors' mausoleum Xiuliang stood, demarcated by Kappa Aquarii and three other collinear stars. Ku ("crying") and Qi ("weeping"), each composed of two stars, were located in the same region.Three of the Chinese lunar mansions shared their name with constellations. Nu, also the name for the 10th lunar mansion, was a handmaiden represented by Epsilon, Mu, 3, and 4 Aquarii. The 11th lunar mansion shared its name with the constellation Xu ("emptiness"), formed by Beta Aquarii and Alpha Equulei; it represented a bleak place associated with death and funerals. Wei, the rooftop and 12th lunar mansion, was a V-shaped constellation formed by Alpha Aquarii, Theta Pegasi, and Epsilon Pegasi; it shared its name with two other Chinese constellations, in modern-day Scorpius and Aries.FeaturesStarsDespite both its prominent position on the zodiac and its large size, Aquarius has no particularly bright stars, its four brightest stars being less than magnitude 2. However, recent research has shown that there are several stars lying within its borders that possess planetary systems.The two brightest stars, Alpha and Beta Aquarii, are luminous yellow supergiants, of spectral types G0Ib and G2Ib respectively, that were once hot blue-white B-class main sequence stars 5 to 9 times as massive as the Sun. The two are also moving through space perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way. Just shading Alpha, Beta Aquarii is the brightest star in Aquarius with an apparent magnitude of 2.91. It also has the proper name of Sadalsuud. Having cooled and swollen to around 50 times the Sun's diameter, it is around 2200 times as luminous as the Sun. It is around 6.4 times as massive as the Sun and around 56 million years old. Sadalsuud is 540 ± 20 light-years from Earth. Alpha Aquarii, also known as Sadalmelik, has an apparent magnitude of 2.94. It is 520 ± 20 light-years distant from Earth, and is around 6.5 times as massive as the Sun and 3000 times as luminous. It is 53 million years old.γ Aquarii, also called Sadachbia, is a white main sequence star of spectral type star of spectral type A0V that is between 158 and 315 million years old and is around two and a half times the Sun's mass, and double its radius. Of magnitude 3.85, it is 164 ± 9 light years away. It has a luminosity of . The name Sadachbia comes from the Arabic for "lucky stars of the tents", sa'd al-akhbiya.δ Aquarii, also known as Skat or Scheat is a blue-white A2 spectral type star of apparent magnitude 3.27 and luminosity of .ε Aquarii, also known as Albali, is a blue-white A1 spectral type star with an apparent magnitude of 3.77, an absolute magnitude of 1.2, and a luminosity of .ζ Aquarii is an F2 spectral type double star; both stars are white. Overall, it appears to be of magnitude 3.6 and luminosity of . The primary has a magnitude of 4.53 and the secondary a magnitude of 4.31, but both have an absolute magnitude of 0.6. Its orbital period is 760 years; the two components are currently moving farther apart.θ Aquarii, sometimes called Ancha, is a G8 spectral type star with an apparent magnitude of 4.16 and an absolute magnitude of 1.4.κ Aquarii, also called Situla, has an apparent magnitude of 5.03.λ Aquarii, also called Hudoor or Ekchusis, is an M2 spectral type star of magnitude 3.74 and luminosity of .ξ Aquarii, also called Bunda, is an A7 spectral type star with an apparent magnitude of 4.69 and an absolute magnitude of 2.4.π Aquarii, also called Seat, is a B0 spectral type star with an apparent magnitude of 4.66 and an absolute magnitude of −4.1.Planetary systemsTwelve exoplanet systems have been found in Aquarius as of 2013. Gliese 876, one of the nearest stars to Earth at a distance of 15 light-years, was the first red dwarf star to be found to possess a planetary system. It is orbited by four planets, including one terrestrial planet 6.6 times the mass of Earth. The planets vary in orbital period from 2 days to 124 days. 91 Aquarii is an orange giant star orbited by one planet, 91 Aquarii b. The planet's mass is 2.9 times the mass of Jupiter, and its orbital period is 182 days. Gliese 849 is a red dwarf star orbited by the first known long-period Jupiter-like planet, Gliese 849 b. The planet's mass is 0.99 times that of Jupiter and its orbital period is 1,852 days.There are also less-prominent systems in Aquarius. WASP-6, a type G8 star of magnitude 12.4, is host to one exoplanet, WASP-6 b. The star is 307 parsecs from Earth and has a mass of 0.888 solar masses and a radius of 0.87 solar radii. WASP-6 b was discovered in 2008 by the transit method. It orbits its parent star every 3.36 days at a distance of 0.042 astronomical units (AU). It is 0.503 Jupiter masses but has a proportionally larger radius of 1.224 Jupiter radii. HD 206610, a K0 star located 194 parsecs from Earth, is host to one planet, HD 206610 b. The host star is larger than the Sun; more massive at 1.56 solar masses and larger at 6.1 solar radii. The planet was discovered by the radial velocity method in 2010 and has a mass of 2.2 Jupiter masses. It orbits every 610 days at a distance of 1.68 AU. Much closer to its sun is WASP-47 b, which orbits every 4.15 days only 0.052 AU from its sun, yellow dwarf (G9V) WASP-47. WASP-47 is close in size to the Sun, having a radius of 1.15 solar radii and a mass even closer at 1.08 solar masses. WASP-47 b was discovered in 2011 by the transit method, like WASP-6 b. It is slightly larger than Jupiter with a mass of 1.14 Jupiter masses and a radius of 1.15 Jupiter masses.There are several more single-planet systems in Aquarius. HD 210277, a magnitude 6.63 yellow star located 21.29 parsecs from Earth, is host to one known planet: HD 210277 b. The 1.23 Jupiter mass planet orbits at nearly the same distance as Earth orbits the Sun1.1 AU, though its orbital period is significantly longer at around 442 days. HD 210277 b was discovered earlier than most of the other planets in Aquarius, detected by the radial velocity method in 1998. The star it orbits resembles the Sun beyond their similar spectral class; it has a radius of 1.1 solar radii and a mass of 1.09 solar masses. HD 212771 b, a larger planet at 2.3 Jupiter masses, orbits host star HD 212771 at a distance of 1.22 AU. The star itself, barely below the threshold of naked-eye visibility at magnitude 7.6, is a G8IV (yellow subgiant) star located 131 parsecs from Earth. Though it has a similar mass to the Sun1.15 solar massesit is significantly less dense with its radius of 5 solar radii. Its lone planet was discovered in 2010 by the radial velocity method, like several other exoplanets in the constellation.As of 2013, there were only two known multiple-planet systems within the bounds of Aquarius: the Gliese 876 and HD 215152 systems. The former is quite prominent; the latter has only two planets and has a host star farther away at 21.5 parsecs. The HD 215152 system consists of the planets HD 215152 b and HD 215152 c orbiting their K0-type, magnitude 8.13 sun. Both discovered in 2011 by the radial velocity method, the two tiny planets orbit very close to their host star. HD 215152 c is the larger at 0.0097 Jupiter masses (still significantly larger than the Earth, which weighs in at 0.00315 Jupiter masses); its smaller sibling is barely smaller at 0.0087 Jupiter masses. The error in the mass measurements (0.0032 and  respectively) is large enough to make this discrepancy statistically insignificant. HD 215152 c also orbits further from the star than HD 215152 b, 0.0852 AU compared to 0.0652.On 23 February 2017, NASA announced that ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 in Aquarius has seven Earth-like rocky planets. Of these, three are in the system's habitable zone, and may contain water. The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system is seen by astronomers as a significant step toward finding life beyond Earth.Deep sky objectsBecause of its position away from the galactic plane, the majority of deep-sky objects in Aquarius are galaxies, globular clusters, and planetary nebulae. Aquarius contains three deep sky objects that are in the Messier catalog: the globular clusters Messier 2, Messier 72, and the asterism Messier 73. While M73 was originally catalogued as a sparsely populated open cluster, modern analysis indicates the 6 main stars are not close enough together to fit this definition, reclassifying M73 as an asterism. Two well-known planetary nebulae are also located in Aquarius: the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), to the southeast of μ Aquarii; and the famous Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), southwest of δ Aquarii.M2, also catalogued as NGC 7089, is a rich globular cluster located approximately 37,000 light-years from Earth. At magnitude 6.5, it is viewable in small-aperture instruments, but a 100 mm aperture telescope is needed to resolve any stars. M72, also catalogued as NGC 6981, is a small 9th magnitude globular cluster located approximately 56,000 light-years from Earth. M73, also catalogued as NGC 6994, is an open cluster with highly disputed status.Aquarius is also home to several planetary nebulae. NGC 7009, also known as the Saturn Nebula, is an 8th magnitude planetary nebula located 3,000 light-years from Earth. It was given its moniker by the 19th century astronomer Lord Rosse for its resemblance to the planet Saturn in a telescope; it has faint protrusions on either side that resemble Saturn's rings. It appears blue-green in a telescope and has a central star of magnitude 11.3. Compared to the Helix Nebula, another planetary nebula in Aquarius, it is quite small. NGC 7293, also known as the Helix Nebula, is the closest planetary nebula to Earth at a distance of 650 light-years. It covers 0.25 square degrees, making it also the largest planetary nebula as seen from Earth. However, because it is so large, it is only viewable as a very faint object, though it has a fairly high integrated magnitude of 6.0.One of the visible galaxies in Aquarius is NGC 7727, of particular interest for amateur astronomers who wish to discover or observe supernovae. A spiral galaxy (type S), it has an integrated magnitude of 10.7 and is 3 by 3 arcseconds. NGC 7252 is a tangle of stars resulting from the collision of two large galaxies and is known as the Atoms-for-Peace galaxy because of its resemblance to a cartoon atom.Meteor showersThere are three major meteor showers with radiants in Aquarius: the Eta Aquariids, the Delta Aquariids, and the Iota Aquariids.The Eta Aquariids are the strongest meteor shower radiating from Aquarius. It peaks between 5 and 6 May with a rate of approximately 35 meteors per hour. Originally discovered by Chinese astronomers in 401, Eta Aquariids can be seen coming from the Water Jar beginning on 21 April and as late as 12 May. The parent body of the shower is Halley's Comet, a periodic comet. Fireballs are common shortly after the peak, approximately between 9 May and 11 May. The normal meteors appear to have yellow trails.The Delta Aquariids is a double radiant meteor shower that peaks first on 29 July and second on 6 August. The first radiant is located in the south of the constellation, while the second radiant is located in the northern circlet of Pisces asterism. The southern radiant's peak rate is about 20 meteors per hour, while the northern radiant's peak rate is about 10 meteors per hour.The Iota Aquariids is a fairly weak meteor shower that peaks on 6 August, with a rate of approximately 8 meteors per hour.Astrology, the Sun appears in the constellation Aquarius from 16 February to 12 March. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Aquarius from 20 January to 19 February, and in sidereal astrology, from 15 February to 14 March.Aquarius is also associated with the Age of Aquarius, a concept popular in 1960s counterculture. Despite this prominence, the Age of Aquarius will not dawn until the year 2597, as an astrological age does not begin until the Sun is in a particular constellation on the vernal equinox.NotesSee also Aquarius (Chinese astronomy)ReferencesExternal links The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Aquarius The clickable Aquarius Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (medieval and early modern images of Aquarius) ConstellationsEquatorial constellationsConstellations listed by Ptolemy
is hand-drawn and computer animation originating from Japan. In Japan and in Japanese,  (a term derived from the English word animation) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin. However, outside of Japan and in English, anime is colloquial for Japanese animation and refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. Animation produced outside of Japan with similar style to Japanese animation is referred to as anime-influenced animation.The earliest commercial Japanese animations date to 1917. A characteristic art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of cartoonist Osamu Tezuka and spread in following decades, developing a large domestic audience. Anime is distributed theatrically, through television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the Internet. In addition to original works, anime are often adaptations of Japanese comics (manga), light novels, or video games. It is classified into numerous genres targeting various broad and niche audiences.Anime is a diverse medium with distinctive production methods that have adapted in response to emergent technologies. It combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other forms of imaginative and individualistic techniques. Compared to Western animation, anime production generally focuses less on movement, and more on the detail of settings and use of "camera effects", such as panning, zooming, and angle shots. Diverse art styles are used, and character proportions and features can be quite varied, with a common characteristic feature being large and emotive eyes.The anime industry consists of over 430 production companies, including major studios like Studio Ghibli, Sunrise, Ufotable, CoMix Wave Films and Toei Animation. Since the 1980s, the medium has also seen international success with the rise of foreign dubbed, subtitled programming and its increasing distribution through streaming services. As of 2016, Japanese anime accounted for 60% of the world's animated television shows.In 2019, the annual overseas exports of Japanese animation exceeded $10 billion for the first time in history.Etymology As a type of animation, anime is an art form that comprises many genres found in other mediums; it is sometimes mistakenly classified as a genre itself. In Japanese, the term anime is used to refer to all animated works, regardless of style or origin. English-language dictionaries typically define anime () as "a style of Japanese animation" or as "a style of animation originating in Japan". Other definitions are based on origin, making production in Japan a requisite for a work to be considered "anime".The etymology of the term anime is disputed. The English word "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as  () and as  (, ) in its shortened form. Some sources claim that the term is derived from the French term for animation  ("cartoon", literally 'animated design'), but others believe this to be a myth derived from the popularity of anime in France in the late 1970s and 1980s.In English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun. (For example: "Do you watch anime?" or "How much anime have you collected?") As with a few other Japanese words, such as saké and Pokémon, English texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography may suggest. Prior to the widespread use of anime, the term Japanimation was prevalent throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the term anime began to supplant Japanimation; in general, the latter term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation.HistoryPrecursors Emakimono and kagee are considered precursors of Japanese animation. Emakimono was common in the eleventh century. Traveling storytellers narrated legends and anecdotes while the emakimono was unrolled from the right to left with chronological order, as a moving panorama. Kagee was popular during the Edo period and originated from the shadows play of China. Magic lanterns from the Netherlands were also popular in the eighteenth century. The paper play called Kamishibai surged in the twelfth century and remained popular in the street theater until the 1930s. Puppets of the bunraku theater and ukiyo-e prints are considered ancestors of characters of most Japanese animations. Finally, mangas were a heavy inspiration for Japanese anime. Cartoonists Kitzawa Rakuten and Okamoto Ippei used film elements in their strips.Pioneers Animation in Japan began in the early 20th century, when filmmakers started to experiment with techniques pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. A claim for the earliest Japanese animation is Katsudō Shashin (), a private work by an unknown creator. In 1917, the first professional and publicly displayed works began to appear; animators such as Ōten Shimokawa, Seitarō Kitayama, and Jun'ichi Kōuchi (considered the "fathers of anime") produced numerous films, the oldest surviving of which is Kōuchi's Namakura Gatana. Many early works were lost with the destruction of Shimokawa's warehouse in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.By the mid-1930s, animation was well-established in Japan as an alternative format to the live-action industry. It suffered competition from foreign producers, such as Disney, and many animators, including Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata, continued to work with cheaper cutout animation rather than cel animation. Other creators, including Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, nevertheless made great strides in technique, benefiting from the patronage of the government, which employed animators to produce educational shorts and propaganda. In 1940, the government dissolved several artists' organizations to form the  The first talkie anime was Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka (1933), a short film produced by Masaoka.  The first feature-length anime film was Momotaro: Sacred Sailors (1945), produced by Seo with a sponsorship from the Imperial Japanese Navy. The 1950s saw a proliferation of short, animated advertisements created for television.Modern eraIn the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified Disney animation techniques to reduce costs and limit frame counts in his productions. Originally intended as temporary measures to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with an inexperienced staff, many of his limited animation practices came to define the medium's style. Three Tales (1960) was the first anime film broadcast on television; the first anime television series was Instant History (1961–64). An early and influential success was Astro Boy (1963–66), a television series directed by Tezuka based on his manga of the same name. Many animators at Tezuka's Mushi Production later established major anime studios (including Madhouse, Sunrise, and Pierrot).The 1970s saw growth in the popularity of manga, many of which were later animated. Tezuka's work—and that of other pioneers in the field—inspired characteristics and genres that remain fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (also known as "mecha"), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the super robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino, who developed the real robot genre. Robot anime series such as Gundam and Super Dimension Fortress Macross became instant classics in the 1980s, and the genre remained one of the most popular in the following decades. The bubble economy of the 1980s spurred a new era of high-budget and experimental anime films, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987), and Akira (1988).Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), a television series produced by Gainax and directed by Hideaki Anno, began another era of experimental anime titles, such as Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Cowboy Bebop (1998). In the 1990s, anime also began attracting greater interest in Western countries; major international successes include Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, both of which were dubbed into more than a dozen languages worldwide. In 2003, Spirited Away, a Studio Ghibli feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. It later became the highest-grossing anime film, earning more than $355 million. Since the 2000s, an increased number of anime works have been adaptations of light novels and visual novels; successful examples include The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Fate/stay night (both 2006). Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train became the highest-grossing Japanese film and one of the world's highest-grossing films of 2020. It also became the fastest grossing film in Japanese cinema, because in 10 days it made 10 billion yen ($95.3m; £72m). It beat the previous record of Spirited Away which took 25 days.Attributes Anime differs greatly from other forms of animation by its diverse art styles, methods of animation, its production, and its process. Visually, anime works exhibit a wide variety of art styles, differing between creators, artists, and studios. While no single art style predominates anime as a whole, they do share some similar attributes in terms of animation technique and character design.Technique Modern anime follows a typical animation production process, involving storyboarding, voice acting, character design, and cel production. Since the 1990s, animators have increasingly used computer animation to improve the efficiency of the production process. Early anime works were experimental, and consisted of images drawn on blackboards, stop motion animation of paper cutouts, and silhouette animation. Cel animation grew in popularity until it came to dominate the medium. In the 21st century, the use of other animation techniques is mostly limited to independent short films, including the stop motion puppet animation work produced by Tadahito Mochinaga, Kihachirō Kawamoto and Tomoyasu Murata. Computers were integrated into the animation process in the 1990s, with works such as Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke mixing cel animation with computer-generated images. Fuji Film, a major cel production company, announced it would stop cel production, producing an industry panic to procure cel imports and hastening the switch to digital processes.Prior to the digital era, anime was produced with traditional animation methods using a pose to pose approach. The majority of mainstream anime uses fewer expressive key frames and more in-between animation.Japanese animation studios were pioneers of many limited animation techniques, and have given anime a distinct set of conventions. Unlike Disney animation, where the emphasis is on the movement, anime emphasizes the art quality and let limited animation techniques make up for the lack of time spent on movement. Such techniques are often used not only to meet deadlines but also as artistic devices. Anime scenes place emphasis on achieving three-dimensional views, and backgrounds are instrumental in creating the atmosphere of the work. The backgrounds are not always invented and are occasionally based on real locations, as exemplified in Howl's Moving Castle and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Oppliger stated that anime is one of the rare mediums where putting together an all-star cast usually comes out looking "tremendously impressive".The cinematic effects of anime differentiates itself from the stage plays found in American animation. Anime is cinematically shot as if by camera, including panning, zooming, distance and angle shots to more complex dynamic shots that would be difficult to produce in reality. In anime, the animation is produced before the voice acting, contrary to American animation which does the voice acting first.Characters The body proportions of human anime characters tend to accurately reflect the proportions of the human body in reality. The height of the head is considered by the artist as the base unit of proportion. Head heights can vary, but most anime characters are about seven to eight heads tall. Anime artists occasionally make deliberate modifications to body proportions to produce super deformed characters that feature a disproportionately small body compared to the head; many super deformed characters are two to four heads tall. Some anime works like Crayon Shin-chan completely disregard these proportions, in such a way that they resemble caricatured Western cartoons.A common anime character design convention is exaggerated eye size. The animation of characters with large eyes in anime can be traced back to Osamu Tezuka, who was deeply influenced by such early animation characters as Betty Boop, who was drawn with disproportionately large eyes. Tezuka is a central figure in anime and manga history, whose iconic art style and character designs allowed for the entire range of human emotions to be depicted solely through the eyes. The artist adds variable color shading to the eyes and particularly to the cornea to give them greater depth. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and a dark shade is used. Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and audiences do not perceive such stylized eyes as inherently more or less foreign. However, not all anime characters have large eyes. For example, the works of Hayao Miyazaki are known for having realistically proportioned eyes, as well as realistic hair colors on their characters.Hair in anime is often unnaturally lively and colorful or uniquely styled. The movement of hair in anime is exaggerated and "hair action" is used to emphasize the action and emotions of characters for added visual effect. Poitras traces hairstyle color to cover illustrations on manga, where eye-catching artwork and colorful tones are attractive for children's manga. Despite being produced for a domestic market, anime features characters whose race or nationality is not always defined, and this is often a deliberate decision, such as in the Pokémon animated series.Anime and manga artists often draw from a common canon of iconic facial expression illustrations to denote particular moods and thoughts. These techniques are often different in form than their counterparts in Western animation, and they include a fixed iconography that is used as shorthand for certain emotions and moods. For example, a male character may develop a nosebleed when aroused. A variety of visual symbols are employed, including sweat drops to depict nervousness, visible blushing for embarrassment, or glowing eyes for an intense glare. Another recurring sight gag is the use of chibi (deformed, simplified character designs) figures to comedically punctuate emotions like confusion or embarrassment.Music The opening and credits sequences of most anime television series are accompanied by J-pop or J-rock songs, often by reputed bands—as written with the series in mind—but are also aimed at the general music market, therefore they often allude only vaguely or not at all, to the thematic settings or plot of the series. Also, they are often used as incidental music ("insert songs") in an episode, in order to highlight particularly important scenes.Genres Anime are often classified by target demographic, including , ,  and a diverse range of genres targeting an adult audience. Shoujo and shounen anime sometimes contain elements popular with children of both sexes in an attempt to gain crossover appeal. Adult anime may feature a slower pace or greater plot complexity that younger audiences may typically find unappealing, as well as adult themes and situations. A subset of adult anime works featuring pornographic elements are labeled "R18" in Japan, and are internationally known as hentai (originating from ). By contrast, some anime subgenres incorporate ecchi, sexual themes or undertones without depictions of sexual intercourse, as typified in the comedic or harem genres; due to its popularity among adolescent and adult anime enthusiasts, the inclusion of such elements is considered a form of fan service. Some genres explore homosexual romances, such as yaoi (male homosexuality) and yuri (female homosexuality). While often used in a pornographic context, the terms yaoi and yuri can also be used broadly in a wider context to describe or focus on the themes or the development of the relationships themselves.Anime's genre classification differs from other types of animation and does not lend itself to simple classification. Gilles Poitras compared the labeling Gundam 0080 and its complex depiction of war as a "giant robot" anime akin to simply labeling War and Peace a "war novel". Science fiction is a major anime genre and includes important historical works like Tezuka's Astro Boy and Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28-go. A major subgenre of science fiction is mecha, with the Gundam metaseries being iconic. The diverse fantasy genre includes works based on Asian and Western traditions and folklore; examples include the Japanese feudal fairytale InuYasha, and the depiction of Scandinavian goddesses who move to Japan to maintain a computer called Yggdrasil in Ah! My Goddess. Genre crossing in anime is also prevalent, such as the blend of fantasy and comedy in Dragon Half, and the incorporation of slapstick humor in the crime anime film Castle of Cagliostro. Other subgenres found in anime include magical girl, harem, sports, martial arts, literary adaptations, medievalism, and war.Formats Early anime works were made for theatrical viewing, and required played musical components before sound and vocal components were added to the production. In 1958, Nippon Television aired Mogura no Abanchūru ("Mole's Adventure"), both the first televised and first color anime to debut. It was not until the 1960s when the first televised series were broadcast and it has remained a popular medium since. Works released in a direct to video format are called "original video animation" (OVA) or "original animation video" (OAV); and are typically not released theatrically or televised prior to home media release. The emergence of the Internet has led some animators to distribute works online in a format called "original net anime" (ONA).The home distribution of anime releases were popularized in the 1980s with the VHS and LaserDisc formats. The VHS NTSC video format used in both Japan and the United States is credited as aiding the rising popularity of anime in the 1990s. The LaserDisc and VHS formats were transcended by the DVD format which offered the unique advantages; including multiple subtitling and dubbing tracks on the same disc. The DVD format also has its drawbacks in its usage of region coding; adopted by the industry to solve licensing, piracy and export problems and restricted region indicated on the DVD player. The Video CD (VCD) format was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but became only a minor format in the United States that was closely associated with bootleg copies.A key characteristic of many anime television shows is serialization, where a continuous story arc stretches over multiple episodes or seasons. Traditional American television had an episodic format, with each episode typically consisting of a self-contained story. In contrast, anime shows such as Dragon Ball Z had a serialization format, where continuous story arcs stretch over multiple episodes or seasons, which distinguished them from traditional American television shows; serialization has since also become a common characteristic of American streaming television shows during the "Peak TV" era.Industry The animation industry consists of more than 430 production companies with some of the major studios including Toei Animation, Gainax, Madhouse, Gonzo, Sunrise, Bones, TMS Entertainment, Nippon Animation, P.A.Works, Studio Pierrot and Studio Ghibli. Many of the studios are organized into a trade association, The Association of Japanese Animations. There is also a labor union for workers in the industry, the Japanese Animation Creators Association. Studios will often work together to produce more complex and costly projects, as done with Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away. An anime episode can cost between US$100,000 and US$300,000 to produce. In 2001, animation accounted for 7% of the Japanese film market, above the 4.6% market share for live-action works. The popularity and success of anime is seen through the profitability of the DVD market, contributing nearly 70% of total sales. According to a 2016 article on Nikkei Asian Review, Japanese television stations have bought over  worth of anime from production companies "over the past few years", compared with under  from overseas. There has been a rise in sales of shows to television stations in Japan, caused by late night anime with adults as the target demographic. This type of anime is less popular outside Japan, being considered "more of a niche product". Spirited Away (2001) is the all-time highest-grossing film in Japan. It was also the highest-grossing anime film worldwide until it was overtaken by Makoto Shinkai's 2016 film Your Name. Anime films represent a large part of the highest-grossing Japanese films yearly in Japan, with 6 out of the top 10 in 2014, in 2015 and also in 2016.Anime has to be licensed by companies in other countries in order to be legally released. While anime has been licensed by its Japanese owners for use outside Japan since at least the 1960s, the practice became well-established in the United States in the late 1970s to early 1980s, when such TV series as Gatchaman and Captain Harlock were licensed from their Japanese parent companies for distribution in the US market. The trend towards American distribution of anime continued into the 1980s with the licensing of titles such as Voltron and the 'creation' of new series such as Robotech through use of source material from several original series.In the early 1990s, several companies began to experiment with the licensing of less children-oriented material. Some, such as A.D. Vision, and Central Park Media and its imprints, achieved fairly substantial commercial success and went on to become major players in the now very lucrative American anime market. Others, such as AnimEigo, achieved limited success. Many companies created directly by Japanese parent companies did not do as well, most releasing only one or two titles before completing their American operations.Licenses are expensive, often hundreds of thousands of dollars for one series and tens of thousands for one movie. The prices vary widely; for example, Jinki: Extend cost only $91,000 to license while Kurau Phantom Memory cost $960,000. Simulcast Internet streaming rights can be cheaper, with prices around $1,000-$2,000 an episode, but can also be more expensive, with some series costing more than  per episode.The anime market for the United States was worth approximately $2.74 billion in 2009, today in 2022 the anime market for the United States is worth approximately $25 billion. Dubbed animation began airing in the United States in 2000 on networks like The WB and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. In 2005, this resulted in five of the top ten anime titles having previously aired on Cartoon Network. As a part of localization, some editing of cultural references may occur to better follow the references of the non-Japanese culture. The cost of English localization averages US$10,000 per episode.The industry has been subject to both praise and condemnation for fansubs, the addition of unlicensed and unauthorized subtitled translations of anime series or films. Fansubs, which were originally distributed on VHS bootlegged cassettes in the 1980s, have been freely available and disseminated online since the 1990s. Since this practice raises concerns for copyright and piracy issues, fansubbers tend to adhere to an unwritten moral code to destroy or no longer distribute an anime once an official translated or subtitled version becomes licensed. They also try to encourage viewers to buy an official copy of the release once it comes out in English, although fansubs typically continue to circulate through file-sharing networks. Even so, the laid back regulations of the Japanese animation industry tend to overlook these issues, allowing it to grow underground and thus increasing the popularity until there is a demand for official high-quality releases for animation companies. This has led to an increase in global popularity with Japanese animations, reaching $40 million in sales in 2004.Since the 2010s anime has become a global multibillion industry setting a sales record in 2017 of ¥2.15 trillion ($19.8 billion), driven largely by demand from overseas audiences. In 2019, Japan's anime industry was valued at $24 billion a year with 48% of that revenue coming from overseas (which is now its largest industry sector). By 2025 the anime industry is expected to reach a value of $30 billion with over 60% of that revenue to come fromoverseas.Markets Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) valued the domestic anime market in Japan at  (), including  from licensed products, in 2005. JETRO reported sales of overseas anime exports in 2004 to be  (). JETRO valued the anime market in the United States at  (), including  in home video sales and over  from licensed products, in 2005. JETRO projected in 2005 that the worldwide anime market, including sales of licensed products, would grow to  (). The anime market in China was valued at  in 2017, and is projected to reach  by 2020. By 2030 the global anime market is expected to reach a value of $48.3 Billion with the largest contributors to this growth being North America, Europe, China and The Middle East.Awards The anime industry has several annual awards that honor the year's best works. Major annual awards in Japan include the Ōfuji Noburō Award, the Mainichi Film Award for Best Animation Film, the Animation Kobe Awards, the Japan Media Arts Festival animation awards, the Tokyo Anime Award and the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. In the United States, anime films compete in the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. There were also the American Anime Awards, which were designed to recognize excellence in anime titles nominated by the industry, and were held only once in 2006. Anime productions have also been nominated and won awards not exclusively for anime, like the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature or the Golden Bear.Working conditions In recent years the anime industry has been accused by both Japanese and foreign media for underpaying and overworking its animators. In response the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to improve the working conditions and salary of all animators and creators working in the industry. A few anime studios such as MAPPA have taken actions to improve the working conditions of their employees.Globalization and Cultural Impact Anime has become commercially profitable in Western countries, as demonstrated by early commercially successful Western adaptations of anime, such as Astro Boy and Speed Racer. Early American adaptions in the 1960s made Japan expand into the continental European market, first with productions aimed at European and Japanese children, such as Heidi, Vicky the Viking and Barbapapa, which aired in various countries.  Italy, Spain, and France grew a particular interest into Japan's output, due to its cheap selling price and productive output. In fact, Italy imported the most anime outside of Japan. These mass imports influenced anime popularity in South American, Arabic and German markets.The beginning of 1980 saw the introduction of Japanese anime series into the American culture. In the 1990s, Japanese animation slowly gained popularity in America. Media companies such as Viz and Mixx began publishing and releasing animation into the American market. The 1988 film Akira is largely credited with popularizing anime in the Western world during the early 1990s, before anime was further popularized by television shows such as Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z in the late 1990s. By 1997, Japanese anime was the fastest-growing genre in the American video industry. The growth of the Internet later provided international audiences an easy way to access Japanese content. Early on, online piracy played a major role in this, through over time many legal alternatives appeared. Since the 2010s various streaming services have become increasingly involved in the production and licensing of anime for the international markets. This is especially the case with net services such as Netflix and Crunchyroll which have large catalogs in Western countries, although as of 2020 anime fans in many developing non-Western countries, such as India and Philippines, have fewer options of obtaining access to legal content, and therefore still turn to online piracy. However beginning with the early 2020s anime has been experiencing yet another boom in global popularity and demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic and streaming services like Netflix, Prime video, Hulu and anime only services like Crunchyroll & Funimation increasing the international availability of the amount of new licensed anime shows as well as the size of their catalogs.Netflix reported that, between October 2019 and September 2020, more than  member households worldwide had watched at least one anime title on the platform. Anime titles appeared on the streaming platforms top 10 lists in almost 100 countries within the 1-year period.As of 2021 Japanese anime are the most demanded foreign language shows in the United States accounting for 30.5% of the market share(In comparison, Spanish and Korean shows account for 21% and 11% of the market share).In 2022 the anime series Attack on Titan won the award of "Most in-demand TV series in the world 2021" in the Global TV Demand Awards. Attack on Titan became the first ever non-English language series to earn the title of World’s Most In-Demand TV Show, previously held by only The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.Rising interest in anime as well as japanese video games has led to an increase of university students in the United Kingdom wanting to get a degree in the Japanese language.Various anime and manga series have influenced Hollywood in the making of numerous famous movies and characters. Hollywood itself has produced live-action adaptations of various anime series such as Ghost in the Shell, Death Note, Dragon Ball Evolution and Cowboy Bebop. However most of these adaptations have been reviewed negatively by both the critics and the audience and have become box-office flops. The main reasons for the unsuccessfulness of Hollywood's adaptions of anime being the often change of plot and characters from the original source material and the limited capabilities a live-action movie or series can do in comparison to an animated counterpart. One particular exception however is Alita: Battle Angel which has become a moderate commercial success, receiving generally positive reviews from both the critics and the audience for it's visual effects and following the source material. The movie grossed $404 million worldwide, making it directors Robert Rodriguez's highest-grossing film.Anime alongside many other parts of Japanese pop culture has helped Japan to gain a positive worldwide image and improve it's relations with other countries.In 2015 During remarks welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House, President Barack Obama thanked Japan for its cultural contributions to the United States by saying:This visit is a celebration of the ties of friendship and family that bind our peoples. I first felt it when I was 6 years old when my mother took me to Japan. I felt it growing up in Hawaii, like communities across our country, home to so many proud Japanese Americans, and Today is also a chance for Americans, especially our young people, to say thank you for all the things we love from Japan. Like karate and karaoke. Manga and anime. And, of course, emojis. In July 2020, after the approval of a Chilean government project in which citizens of Chile would be allowed to withdraw up to 10% of their privately held retirement savings, journalist Pamela Jiles celebrated by running through congress with her arms spread out behind her, imitating the move of many characters of the anime and manga series Naruto. In April 2021 Peruvian politicians Jorge Hugo Romero of the PPC and Milagros Juárez of the UPP cosplayed as anime characters to get the otaku vote.A 2018 survey conducted in 20 countries and territories using a sample consisting of 6,600 respondents held by Dentsu revealed that 34% of all surveyed people found excellency in anime and manga more than other Japanese cultural or technological aspects which makes this mass Japanese media the 3rd most liked "Japanese thing", below japanese cuisine (34.6%) and japanese robotics (35.1%). The advertisement company views anime as a profitable tool for marketing campaigns in foreign countries due it's popularity and high reception.Anime plays a role in driving tourism to Japan. In surveys held by Statista between 2019 and 2020, 24.2% of tourists from the United States, 7.7% of tourists from China and 6.1% of tourists from South Korea said they were motivated to visit Japan because of Japanese popular culture.In a 2021 survey held by Crunchyroll market research, 94% of Gen-Z's and 73% of the general population said that they are familiar with anime.Fan response  Anime clubs gave rise to anime conventions in the 1990s with the "anime boom", a period marked by anime's increased global popularity. These conventions are dedicated to anime and manga and include elements like cosplay contests and industry talk panels. Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is not unique to anime and has become popular in contests and masquerades at anime conventions. Japanese culture and words have entered English usage through the popularity of the medium, including otaku, an unflattering Japanese term commonly used in English to denote an obsessive fan of anime and/or manga. Another word that has arisen describing obsessive fans in the United States is wapanese meaning 'white individuals who want to be Japanese', or later known as weeaboo or weeb, individuals who demonstrate an obsession in Japanese anime subculture, a term that originated from abusive content posted on the website 4chan.org. While originally derogatory, the terms "Otaku" and "Weeb" have been reappropriated by some in the anime fandom overtime and today are used by some fans to refer to themselves in a comedic and more positive way.Anime enthusiasts have produced fan fiction and fan art, including computer wallpapers and anime music videos (AMVs).As of the 2020s, many anime fans use social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Reddit and Twitter (which has added an entire "anime and manga" category of topics)with online communities and databases such as MyAnimeList to discuss anime, manga and track their progress watching respective series as well as using news outlets such as Anime News Network.Due to anime's increased popularity in recent years, a large number of celebrities such as Elon Musk, BTS and Ariana Grande have come out as anime fans.Anime style One of the key points that made anime different from a handful of Western cartoons is the potential for visceral content. Once the expectation that the aspects of visual intrigue or animation being just for children is put aside, the audience can realize that themes involving violence, suffering, sexuality, pain, and death can all be storytelling elements utilized in anime just as much as other media. However, as anime itself became increasingly popular, its styling has been inevitably the subject of both satire and serious creative productions. South Parks "Chinpokomon" and "Good Times with Weapons" episodes, Adult Swim's Perfect Hair Forever, and Nickelodeon's Kappa Mikey are examples of Western satirical depictions of Japanese culture and anime, but anime tropes have also been satirized by some anime such as KonoSuba.Traditionally only Japanese works have been considered anime, but some works have sparked debate for blurring the lines between anime and cartoons, such as the American anime-style production Avatar: The Last Airbender. These anime-styled works have become defined as anime-influenced animation, in an attempt to classify all anime styled works of non-Japanese origin. Some creators of these works cite anime as a source of inspiration, for example the French production team for Ōban Star-Racers that moved to Tokyo to collaborate with a Japanese production team. When anime is defined as a "style" rather than as a national product, it leaves open the possibility of anime being produced in other countries,  but this has been contentious amongst fans, with John Oppliger stating, "The insistence on referring to original American art as Japanese "anime" or "manga" robs the work of its cultural identity."A U.A.E.-Filipino produced TV series called Torkaizer is dubbed as the "Middle East's First Anime Show", and is currently in production and looking for funding. Netflix has produced multiple anime series in collaboration with Japanese animation studios, and in doing so, has offered a more accessible channel for distribution to Western markets.The web-based series RWBY, produced by Texas-based company Rooster Teeth, is produced using an anime art style, and the series has been described as "anime" by multiple sources. For example, Adweek, in the headline to one of its articles, described the series as "American-made anime", and in another headline, The Huffington Post described it as simply "anime", without referencing its country of origin. In 2013, Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, said "Some believe just like Scotch needs to be made in Scotland, an American company can't make anime. I think that's a narrow way of seeing it. Anime is an art form, and to say only one country can make this art is wrong." RWBY has been released in Japan with a Japanese language dub; the CEO of Rooster Teeth, Matt Hullum, commented "This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that."Media franchises In Japanese culture and entertainment, media mix is a strategy to disperse content across multiple representations: different broadcast media, gaming technologies, cell phones, toys, amusement parks, and other methods. It is the Japanese term for a transmedia franchise. The term gained its circulation in late 1980s, but the origins of the strategy can be traced back to the 1960s with the proliferation of anime, with its interconnection of media and commodity goods.A number of anime and manga media franchises such as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Dragon Ball and Gundam have gained considerable global popularity, and are among the world's highest-grossing media franchises. Pokémon in particular is estimated to be the highest-grossing media franchise of all time.See also  Animation director Chinese animation Cinema of Japan Cool Japan Culture of Japan History of anime Japanophilia Japanese language Japanese popular culture  Korean animation Lists of anime  Manga Mechademia Otaku  Vtuber  Voice acting in JapanNotesReferencesSourcesExternal links    1917 introductionsAnime and manga terminologyJapanese inventions
Asterism may refer to: Asterism (astronomy), a pattern of stars Asterism (gemology), an optical phenomenon in gemstones Asterism (typography), (⁂) a moderately rare typographical symbol denoting a break in passagesSee also   Aster (disambiguation)
Ankara ( ,  ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, making it Turkey's second-largest city after Istanbul.Serving as the capital of the ancient Celtic state of Galatia (280–64 BC), and later of the Roman province with the same name (25 BC–7th century), the city is very old, with various Hattian, Hittite, Lydian, Phrygian, Galatian, Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman archeological sites. The Ottomans made the city the capital first of the Anatolia Eyalet (1393 – late 15th century) and then the Angora Vilayet (1867–1922). The historical center of Ankara is a rocky hill rising  over the left bank of the Ankara River, a tributary of the Sakarya River. The hill remains crowned by the ruins of Ankara Castle. Although few of its outworks have survived, there are well-preserved examples of Roman and Ottoman architecture throughout the city, the most remarkable being the 20 BC Temple of Augustus and Rome that boasts the Monumentum Ancyranum, the inscription recording the Res Gestae Divi Augusti.On 23 April 1920, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey was established in Ankara, which became the headquarters of the Turkish National Movement during the Turkish War of Independence. Ankara became the new Turkish capital upon the establishment of the Republic on 29 October 1923, succeeding in this role as the former Turkish capital Istanbul following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The government is a prominent employer, but Ankara is also an important commercial and industrial city located at the center of Turkey's road and railway networks. The city gave its name to the Angora wool shorn from Angora rabbits, the long-haired Angora goat (the source of mohair), and the Angora cat. The area is also known for its pears, honey and muscat grapes. Although situated in one of the driest regions of Turkey and surrounded mostly by steppe vegetation (except for the forested areas on the southern periphery), Ankara can be considered a green city in terms of green areas per inhabitant, at  per head.Etymology The orthography of the name Ankara has varied over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš,  although this remains a matter of debate. In classical antiquity and during the medieval period, the city was known as Ánkyra (,  "anchor") in Greek and Ancyra in Latin; the Galatian Celtic name was probably a similar variant. Following its annexation by the Seljuk Turks in 1073, the city became known in many European languages as Angora; it was also known in Ottoman Turkish as Engürü. The form "Angora" is preserved in the names of breeds of many different kinds of animals, and in the names of several locations in the US (see Angora).History The region's history can be traced back to the Bronze Age Hattic civilization, which was succeeded in the 2nd millennium BC by the Hittites, in the 10th century BC by the Phrygians, and later by the Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Galatians, Romans, Byzantines, and Turks (the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, the Ottoman Empire and finally republican Turkey).Ancient historyThe oldest settlements in and around the city center of Ankara belonged to the Hattic civilization which existed during the Bronze Age and was gradually absorbed c. 2000 – 1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. The city grew significantly in size and importance under the Phrygians starting around 1000 BC, and experienced a large expansion following the mass migration from Gordion, (the capital of Phrygia), after an earthquake which severely damaged that city around that time. In Phrygian tradition, King Midas was venerated as the founder of Ancyra, but Pausanias mentions that the city was actually far older, which accords with present archeological knowledge.Phrygian rule was succeeded first by Lydian and later by Persian rule, though the strongly Phrygian character of the peasantry remained, as evidenced by the gravestones of the much later Roman period. Persian sovereignty lasted until the Persians' defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great who conquered the city in 333 BC. Alexander came from Gordion to Ankara and stayed in the city for a short period. After his death at Babylon in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire among his generals, Ankara, and its environs fell into the share of Antigonus.Another important expansion took place under the Greeks of Pontos who came there around 300 BC and developed the city as a trading center for the commerce of goods between the Black Sea ports and Crimea to the north; Assyria, Cyprus, and Lebanon to the south; and Georgia, Armenia and Persia to the east. By that time the city also took its name Ἄγκυρα (Ánkyra, meaning anchor in Greek) which, in slightly modified form, provides the modern name of Ankara.Celtic historyIn 278 BC, the city, along with the rest of central Anatolia, was occupied by a Celtic group, the Galatians, who were the first to make Ankara one of their main tribal centers, the headquarters of the Tectosages tribe. Other centers were Pessinus, today's Ballıhisar, for the Trocmi tribe, and Tavium, to the east of Ankara, for the Tolistobogii tribe. The city was then known as Ancyra. The Celtic element was probably relatively small in numbers; a warrior aristocracy which ruled over Phrygian-speaking peasants. However, the Celtic language continued to be spoken in Galatia for many centuries. At the end of the 4th century, St. Jerome, a native of Dalmatia, observed that the language spoken around Ankara was very similar to that being spoken in the northwest of the Roman world near Trier.Roman historyThe city was subsequently passed under the control of the Roman Empire. In 25 BC, Emperor Augustus raised it to the status of a polis and made it the capital city of the Roman province of Galatia. Ankara is famous for the Monumentum Ancyranum (Temple of Augustus and Rome) which contains the official record of the Acts of Augustus, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, an inscription cut in marble on the walls of this temple. The ruins of Ancyra still furnish today valuable bas-reliefs, inscriptions and other architectural fragments. Two other Galatian tribal centers, Tavium near Yozgat, and Pessinus (Balhisar) to the west, near Sivrihisar, continued to be reasonably important settlements in the Roman period, but it was Ancyra that grew into a grand metropolis.An estimated 200,000 people lived in Ancyra in good times during the Roman Empire, a far greater number than was to be the case from after the fall of the Roman Empire until the early 20th century. The small Ankara River ran through the center of the Roman town. It has now been covered and diverted, but it formed the northern boundary of the old town during the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Çankaya, the rim of the majestic hill to the south of the present city center, stood well outside the Roman city, but may have been a summer resort. In the 19th century, the remains of at least one Roman villa or large house were still standing not far from where the Çankaya Presidential Residence stands today. To the west, the Roman city extended until the area of the Gençlik Park and Railway Station, while on the southern side of the hill, it may have extended downwards as far as the site presently occupied by Hacettepe University. It was thus a sizeable city by any standards and much larger than the Roman towns of Gaul or Britannia.Ancyra's importance rested on the fact that it was the junction point where the roads in northern Anatolia running north–south and east–west intersected, giving it major strategic importance for Rome's eastern frontier. The great imperial road running east passed through Ankara and a succession of emperors and their armies came this way. They were not the only ones to use the Roman highway network, which was equally convenient for invaders. In the second half of the 3rd century, Ancyra was invaded in rapid succession by the Goths coming from the west (who rode far into the heart of Cappadocia, taking slaves and pillaging) and later by the Arabs. For about a decade, the town was one of the western outposts of one of Palmyrean empress Zenobia in the Syrian Desert, who took advantage of a period of weakness and disorder in the Roman Empire to set up a short-lived state of her own.The town was reincorporated into the Roman Empire under Emperor Aurelian in 272. The tetrarchy, a system of multiple (up to four) emperors introduced by Diocletian (284–305), seems to have engaged in a substantial program of rebuilding and of road construction from Ancyra westwards to Germe and Dorylaeum (now Eskişehir).In its heyday, Roman Ancyra was a large market and trading center but it also functioned as a major administrative capital, where a high official ruled from the city's Praetorium, a large administrative palace or office. During the 3rd century, life in Ancyra, as in other Anatolian towns, seems to have become somewhat militarized in response to the invasions and instability of the town.Byzantine historyThe city is well known during the 4th century as a center of Christian activity (see also below), due to frequent imperial visits, and through the letters of the pagan scholar Libanius. Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra and Basil of Ancyra were active in the theological controversies of their day, and the city was the site of no less than three church synods in 314, 358 and 375, the latter two in favor of Arianism.The city was visited by Emperor Constans I (r. 337–350) in 347 and 350, Julian (r. 361–363) during his Persian campaign in 362, and Julian's successor Jovian (r. 363–364) in winter 363/364 (he entered his consulship while in the city). After Jovian's death soon after, Valentinian I (r. 364–375) was acclaimed emperor at Ancyra, and in the next year his brother Valens (r. 364–378) used Ancyra as his base against the usurper Procopius. When the province of Galatia was divided sometime in 396/99, Ancyra remained the civil capital of Galatia I, as well as its ecclesiastical center (metropolitan see). Emperor Arcadius (r. 383–408) frequently used the city as his summer residence, and some information about the ecclesiastical affairs of the city during the early 5th century is found in the works of Palladius of Galatia and Nilus of Galatia.In 479, the rebel Marcian attacked the city, without being able to capture it. In 610/11, Comentiolus, brother of Emperor Phocas (r. 602–610), launched his own unsuccessful rebellion in the city against Heraclius (r. 610–641). Ten years later, in 620 or more likely 622, it was captured by the Sassanid Persians during the Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628. Although the city returned to Byzantine hands after the end of the war, the Persian presence left traces in the city's archeology, and likely began the process of its transformation from a late antique city to a medieval fortified settlement.In 654, the city was captured for the first time by the Arabs of the Rashidun Caliphate, under Muawiyah, the future founder of the Umayyad Caliphate. At about the same time, the themes were established in Anatolia, and Ancyra became capital of the Opsician Theme, which was the largest and most important theme until it was split up under Emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775); Ancyra then became the capital of the new Bucellarian Theme. The city was captured at least temporarily by the Umayyad prince Maslama ibn Hisham in 739/40, the last of the Umayyads' territorial gains from the Byzantine Empire. Ancyra was attacked without success by Abbasid forces in 776 and in 798/99. In 805, Emperor Nikephoros I (r. 802–811) strengthened its fortifications, a fact which probably saved it from sack during the large-scale invasion of Anatolia by Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the next year. Arab sources report that Harun and his successor al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) took the city, but this information is later invention. In 838, however, during the Amorium campaign, the armies of Caliph al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842) converged and met at the city; abandoned by its inhabitants, Ancara was razed to the ground, before the Arab armies went on to besiege and destroy Amorium. In 859, Emperor Michael III (r. 842–867) came to the city during a campaign against the Arabs, and ordered its fortifications restored. In 872, the city was menaced, but not taken, by the Paulicians under Chrysocheir. The last Arab raid to reach the city was undertaken in 931, by the Abbasid governor of Tarsus, Thamal al-Dulafi, but the city again was not captured.Ecclesiastical history Early Christian martyrs of Ancyra, about whom little is known, included Proklos and Hilarios who were natives of the otherwise unknown nearby village of Kallippi, and suffered repression under the emperor Trajan (98–117). In the 280s we hear of Philumenos, a Christian corn merchant from southern Anatolia, being captured and martyred in Ankara, and Eustathius.As in other Roman towns, the reign of Diocletian marked the culmination of the persecution of the Christians. In 303, Ancyra was one of the towns where the co-emperors Diocletian and his deputy Galerius launched their anti-Christian persecution. In Ancyra, their first target was the 38-year-old Bishop of the town, whose name was Clement. Clement's life describes how he was taken to Rome, then sent back, and forced to undergo many interrogations and hardship before he, and his brother, and various companions were put to death. The remains of the church of St. Clement can be found today in a building just off Işıklar Caddesi in the Ulus district. Quite possibly this marks the site where Clement was originally buried. Four years later, a doctor of the town named Plato and his brother Antiochus also became celebrated martyrs under Galerius. Theodotus of Ancyra is also venerated as a saint.However, the persecution proved unsuccessful and in 314 Ancyra was the center of an important council of the early church; its 25 disciplinary canons constitute one of the most important documents in the early history of the administration of the Sacrament of Penance.  The synod also considered ecclesiastical policy for the reconstruction of the Christian Church after the persecutions, and in particular the treatment of lapsi—Christians who had given in to forced paganism (sacrifices) to avoid martyrdom during these persecutions.Though paganism was probably tottering in Ancyra in Clement's day, it may still have been the majority religion. Twenty years later, Christianity and monotheism had taken its place. Ancyra quickly turned into a Christian city, with a life dominated by monks and priests and theological disputes. The town council or senate gave way to the bishop as the main local figurehead. During the middle of the 4th century, Ancyra was involved in the complex theological disputes over the nature of Christ, and a form of Arianism seems to have originated there.In 362–363, Emperor Julian passed through Ancyra on his way to an ill-fated campaign against the Persians, and according to Christian sources, engaged in a persecution of various holy men. The stone base for a statue, with an inscription describing Julian as "Lord of the whole world from the British Ocean to the barbarian nations", can still be seen, built into the eastern side of the inner circuit of the walls of Ankara Castle. The Column of Julian which was erected in honor of the emperor's visit to the city in 362 still stands today. In 375, Arian bishops met at Ancyra and deposed several bishops, among them St. Gregory of Nyssa.In the late 4th century, Ancyra became something of an imperial holiday resort. After Constantinople became the East Roman capital, emperors in the 4th and 5th centuries would retire from the humid summer weather on the Bosporus to the drier mountain atmosphere of Ancyra. Theodosius II (408–450) kept his court in Ancyra in the summers. Laws issued in Ancyra testify to the time they spent there.The Metropolis of Ancyra continued to be a residential see of the Eastern Orthodox Church until the 20th century, with about 40,000 faithful, mostly Turkish-speaking, but that situation ended as a result of the 1923 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. The earlier Armenian genocide put an end to the residential eparchy of Ancyra of the Armenian Catholic Church, which had been established in 1850. It is also a titular metropolis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.Both the Ancient Byzantine Metropolitan archbishopric and the 'modern' Armenian eparchy are now listed by the Catholic Church as titular sees, with separate apostolic successions.Seljuk and Ottoman history After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks overran much of Anatolia. By 1073, the Turkish settlers had reached the vicinity of Ancyra, and the city was captured shortly after, at the latest by the time of the rebellion of Nikephoros Melissenos in 1081. In 1101, when the Crusade under Raymond IV of Toulouse arrived, the city had been under Danishmend control for some time. The Crusaders captured the city, and handed it over to the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118). Byzantine rule did not last long, and the city was captured by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum at some unknown point; in 1127, it returned to Danishmend control until 1143, when the Seljuks of Rum retook it.After the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, in which the Mongols defeated the Seljuks, most of Anatolia became part of the dominion of the Mongols. Taking advantage of Seljuk decline, a semi-religious cast of craftsmen and trade people named Ahiler chose Angora as their independent city-state in 1290. Orhan I, the second Bey of the Ottoman Empire, captured the city in 1356. Timur defeated Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and took the city, but in 1403 Angora was again under Ottoman control.The Levant Company maintained a factory in the town from 1639 to 1768. In the 19th century, its population was estimated at 20,000 to 60,000. It was sacked by Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha in 1832.From 1867 to 1922, the city served as the capital of the Angora Vilayet, which included most of ancient Galatia.Prior to World War I, the town had a British consulate and a population of around 28,000, roughly  of whom were Christian.Turkish republican capital Following the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the Ottoman capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and much of Anatolia was occupied by the Allies, who planned to share these lands between Armenia, France, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom, leaving for the Turks the core piece of land in central Anatolia. In response, the leader of the Turkish nationalist movement, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, established the headquarters of his resistance movement in Angora in 1920. After the Turkish War of Independence was won and the Treaty of Sèvres was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the Turkish nationalists replaced the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. A few days earlier, Angora had officially replaced Constantinople as the new Turkish capital city, on 13 October 1923, and Republican officials declared that the city's name is Ankara.After Ankara became the capital of the newly founded Republic of Turkey, new development divided the city into an old section, called Ulus, and a new section, called Yenişehir. Ancient buildings reflecting Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman history and narrow winding streets mark the old section. The new section, now centered on Kızılay Square, has the trappings of a more modern city: wide streets, hotels, theaters, shopping malls, and high-rises.Government offices and foreign embassies are also located in the new section. Ankara has experienced a phenomenal growth since it was made Turkey's capital in 1923, when it was "a small town of no importance". In 1924, the year after the government had moved there, Ankara had about 35,000 residents. By 1927 there were 44,553 residents and by 1950 the population had grown to 286,781. Ankara continued to grow rapidly during the latter half of the 20th century and eventually outranked Izmir as Turkey's second-largest city, after Istanbul. Ankara's urban population reached 4,587,558 in 2014, while the population of Ankara Province reached 5,150,072 in 2015.After 1930, it became known officially in Western languages as Ankara. After the late 1930s the public stopped using the name "Angora".Presidential Palace of Turkey is situated in Ankara. This building serves as the main residence of the president.Economy and infrastructure The city has exported mohair (from the Angora goat) and Angora wool (from the Angora rabbit) internationally for centuries. In the 19th century, the city also exported substantial amounts of goat and cat skins, gum, wax, honey, berries, and madder root. It was connected to Istanbul by railway before the First World War, continuing to export mohair, wool, berries, and grain.The Central Anatolia Region is one of the primary locations of grape and wine production in Turkey, and Ankara is particularly famous for its Kalecik Karası and Muscat grapes; and its Kavaklıdere wine, which is produced in the Kavaklıdere neighborhood within the Çankaya district of the city. Ankara is also famous for its pears. Another renowned natural product of Ankara is its indigenous type of honey (Ankara Balı) which is known for its light color and is mostly produced by the Atatürk Forest Farm and Zoo in the Gazi district, and by other facilities in the Elmadağ, Çubuk and Beypazarı districts. Çubuk-1 and Çubuk-2 dams on the Çubuk Brook in Ankara were among the first dams constructed in the Turkish Republic.Ankara is the center of the state-owned and private Turkish defence and aerospace companies, where the industrial plants and headquarters of the Turkish Aerospace Industries, MKE, ASELSAN, HAVELSAN, ROKETSAN, FNSS, Nurol Makina, and numerous other firms are located. Exports to foreign countries from these defense and aerospace firms have steadily increased in the past decades. The IDEF in Ankara is one of the largest international expositions of the global arms industry. A number of the global automotive companies also have production facilities in Ankara, such as the German bus and truck manufacturer MAN SE. Ankara hosts the OSTIM Industrial Zone, Turkey's largest industrial park.A large percentage of the complicated employment in Ankara is provided by the state institutions; such as the ministries, subministries, and other administrative bodies of the Turkish government. There are also many foreign citizens working as diplomats or clerks in the embassies of their respective countries.Geography Ankara and its province are located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The Çubuk Brook flows through the city center of Ankara. It is connected in the western suburbs of the city to the Ankara River, which is a tributary of the Sakarya River.Climate Ankara has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSk). Under the Trewartha climate classification, Ankara has a temperate continental climate (Dc). Due to its elevation and inland location, Ankara has cold and snowy winters, and hot and dry summers. Rainfall occurs mostly during the spring and autumn. The city lies in USDA Hardiness zone 7b, and its annual average precipitation is fairly low at , nevertheless precipitation can be observed throughout the year. Monthly mean temperatures range from  in January to  in July, with an annual mean of .Demographics Ankara had a population of 75,000 in 1927. As of 2019, Ankara Province has a population of 5,639,076.When Ankara became the capital of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, it was designated as a planned city for 500,000 future inhabitants. During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, the city grew in a planned and orderly pace. However, from the 1950s onward, the city grew much faster than envisioned, because unemployment and poverty forced people to migrate from the countryside into the city in order to seek a better standard of living. As a result, many illegal houses called gecekondu were built around the city, causing the unplanned and uncontrolled urban landscape of Ankara, as not enough planned housing could be built fast enough. Although precariously built, the vast majority of them have electricity, running water and modern household amenities.Nevertheless, many of these gecekondus have been replaced by huge public housing projects in the form of tower blocks such as Elvankent, Eryaman and Güzelkent; and also as mass housing compounds for military and civil service accommodation. Although many gecekondus still remain, they too are gradually being replaced by mass housing compounds, as empty land plots in the city of Ankara for new construction projects are becoming impossible to find.Çorum and Yozgat, which are located in Central Anatolia and whose population is decreasing, are the provinces with the highest net migration to Ankara. About one third of the Central Anatolia population of 15,608,868 people resides in Ankara.The population of Ankara has a higher education level than the country average. According to 2008 data, 15-years-higher literacy rate creates 88% of the total provincial population (91% in men and 86% in women). This ratio was 83% for Turkey (88% males, 79% females). This difference is particularly evident in the university educated segment of the population. The ratio of university and high school graduates to total population is 10.6% in Ankara, while 5.4% in Turkey.TransportationThe Electricity, Gas, Bus General Directorate (EGO) operates the Ankara Metro and other forms of public transportation. Ankara is served by a suburban rail named Ankaray (A1) and three subway lines (M1, M2, M3) of the Ankara Metro with about 300,000 total daily commuters, while an additional subway line (M4) is under construction. A  long gondola lift with four stations connects the district of Şentepe to the Yenimahalle metro station.The Ankara Central Station is a major rail hub in Turkey. The Turkish State Railways operates passenger train service from Ankara to other major cities, such as: Istanbul, Eskişehir, Balıkesir, Kütahya, İzmir, Kayseri, Adana, Kars, Elâzığ, Malatya, Diyarbakır, Karabük, Zonguldak and Sivas. Commuter rail also runs between the stations of Sincan and Kayaş. On 13 March 2009, the new Yüksek Hızlı Tren (YHT) high-speed rail service began operation between Ankara and Eskişehir. On 23 August 2011, another YHT high-speed line commercially started its service between Ankara and Konya. On 25 July 2014, the Ankara–Istanbul high-speed line of YHT entered service.Esenboğa International Airport, located in the north-east of the city, is Ankara's main airport.Ankara public transportation statisticsThe average amount of time people spend commuting on public transit in Ankara on a weekday is 71 minutes. 17% of public transit passengers, ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is sixteen minutes, while 28% of users wait for over twenty minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is , while 27% travel for over  in a single direction.Politics Since 8 April 2019, the Mayor of Ankara is Mansur Yavaş from the Republican People's Party (CHP), who won the mayoral election in 2019.Ankara is politically a triple battleground between the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP), the opposition Kemalist center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and the nationalist far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The province of Ankara is divided into 25 districts. The CHP's key and almost only political stronghold in Ankara lies within the central area of Çankaya, which is the city's most populous district. While the CHP has always gained between 60 and 70% of the vote in Çankaya since 2002, political support elsewhere throughout Ankara is minimal. The high population within Çankaya, as well as Yenimahalle to an extent, has allowed the CHP to take overall second place behind the AKP in both local and general elections, with the MHP a close third, despite the fact that the MHP is politically stronger than the CHP in almost every other district. Overall, the AKP enjoys the most support throughout the city. The electorate of Ankara thus tend to vote in favor of the political right, far more so than the other main cities of Istanbul and İzmir. In retrospect, the 2013–14 protests against the AKP government were particularly strong in Ankara, proving to be fatal on multiple occasions.The city suffered from a series of terrorist attacks in 2015 and 2016, most notably on 10 October 2015; 17 February 2016; 13 March 2016; and 15 July 2016.Melih Gökçek was the Metropolitan Mayor of Ankara between 1994 and 2017. Initially elected in the 1994 local elections, he was re-elected in 1999, 2004 and 2009. In the 2014 local elections, Gökçek stood for a fifth term. The MHP's metropolitan mayoral candidate for the 2009 local elections, Mansur Yavaş, stood as the CHP's candidate against Gökçek in 2014. In a heavily controversial election, Gökçek was declared the winner by just 1% ahead of Yavaş amid allegations of systematic electoral fraud. With the Supreme Electoral Council and courts rejecting his appeals, Yavaş declared his intention to take the irregularities to the European Court of Human Rights. Although Gökçek was inaugurated for a fifth term, most election observers believe that Yavaş was the winner of the election. Gökçek resigned on 28 October 2017 and was replaced by the former mayor of Sincan district, Mustafa Tuna; who was succeeded by Mansur Yavaş of the CHP, the current Mayor of Ankara, elected in 2019.Main sightsAncient/archeological sitesAnkara CitadelThe foundations of the Ankara castle and citadel were laid by the Galatians on a prominent lava outcrop (), and the rest was completed by the Romans. The Byzantines and Seljuks further made restorations and additions. The area around and inside the citadel, being the oldest part of Ankara, contains many fine examples of traditional architecture. There are also recreational areas to relax. Many restored traditional Turkish houses inside the citadel area have found new life as restaurants, serving local cuisine.The citadel was depicted in various Turkish banknotes during 1927–1952 and 1983–1989.Roman TheaterThe remains, the stage, and the backstage of the Roman theater can be seen outside the castle. Roman statues that were found here are exhibited in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The seating area is still under excavation.Temple of Augustus and RomeThe Augusteum, now known as the Temple of Augustus and Rome, was built 25  20 BC following the conquest of Central Anatolia by the Roman Empire. Ancyra then formed the capital of the new province of Galatia. After the death of Augustus in AD 14, a copy of the text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (the Monumentum Ancyranum) was inscribed on the interior of the temple's  in Latin and a Greek translation on an exterior wall of the . The temple on the ancient acropolis of Ancyra was enlarged in the 2nd century and converted into a church in the 5th century. It is located in the Ulus quarter of the city. It was subsequently publicized by the Austrian ambassador Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq in the 16th century.Roman BathsThe Roman Baths of Ankara have all the typical features of a classical Roman bath complex: a frigidarium (cold room), a tepidarium (warm room) and a caldarium (hot room). The baths were built during the reign of the Roman emperor Caracalla in the early 3rd century to honor Asclepios, the God of Medicine. Today, only the basement and first floors remain. It is situated in the Ulus quarter.Roman RoadThe Roman Road of Ankara or Cardo Maximus was found in 1995 by Turkish archeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoğlu. It is  long and  wide. Many ancient artifacts were discovered during the excavations along the road and most of them are displayed at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.Column of JulianThe Column of Julian or Julianus, now in the Ulus district, was erected in honor of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate's visit to Ancyra in 362.MosquesKocatepe MosqueKocatepe Mosque is the largest mosque in the city. Located in the Kocatepe quarter, it was constructed between 1967 and 1987 in classical Ottoman style with four minarets. Its size and prominent location have made it a landmark for the city.Ahmet Hamdi Akseki MosqueAhmet Hamdi Akseki Mosque is located near the Presidency of Religious Affairs on the Eskişehir Road. Built in the Turkish neoclassical style, it is one of the largest new mosques in the city, completed and opened in 2013. It can accommodate 6 thousand people during general prayers, and up to 30 thousand people during funeral prayers. The mosque was decorated with Anatolian Seljuk style patterns.Yeni (Cenab Ahmet) MosqueIt is the largest Ottoman mosque in Ankara and was built by the famous architect Sinan in the 16th century. The mimber (pulpit) and mihrap (prayer niche) are of white marble, and the mosque itself is of Ankara stone, an example of very fine workmanship.Hacı Bayram MosqueThis mosque, in the Ulus quarter next to the Temple of Augustus, was built in the early 15th century in Seljuk style by an unknown architect. It was subsequently restored by architect Mimar Sinan in the 16th century, with Kütahya tiles being added in the 18th century. The mosque was built in honor of Hacı Bayram-ı Veli, whose tomb is next to the mosque, two years before his death (1427–28). The usable space inside this mosque is  on the first floor and  on the second floor.Ahi Elvan MosqueIt was founded in the Ulus quarter near the Ankara Citadel and was constructed by the Ahi fraternity during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The finely carved walnut mimber (pulpit) is of particular interest.Alâeddin MosqueThe Alâeddin Mosque is the oldest mosque in Ankara. It has a carved walnut mimber, the inscription on which records that the mosque was completed in early AH 574 (which corresponds to the summer of 1178 AD) and was built by the Seljuk prince Muhiddin Mesud Şah (died 1204), the Bey of Ankara, who was the son of the Anatolian Seljuk sultan Kılıç Arslan II (reigned 1156–1192.)Modern monumentsVictory MonumentThe Victory Monument (Turkish: Zafer Anıtı) was crafted by Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel in 1925 and was erected in 1927 at Ulus Square. The monument is made of marble and bronze and features an equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal.Statue of AtatürkLocated at Zafer(Victory) Square (Turkish: Zafer Meydanı), the marble and bronze statue was crafted by the renowned Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica in 1927 and depicts a standing Atatürk who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal.Monument to a Secure, Confident FutureThis monument, located in Güven Park near Kızılay Square, was erected in 1935 and bears Atatürk's advice to his people: "Turk! Be proud, work hard, and believe in yourself."The monument was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 5 lira banknote of 1937–1952 and of the 1000 lira banknotes of 1939–1946.Hatti MonumentErected in 1978 at Sıhhiye Square, this impressive monument symbolizes the Hatti Sun Disc (which was later adopted by the Hittites) and commemorates Anatolia's earliest known civilization. The Hatti Sun Disc has been used in the previous logo of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality. It was also used in the previous logo of the Ministry of Culture & Tourism.InnsSuluhanSuluhan is a historical Inn in Ankara. It is also called the Hasanpaşa Han. It is about  southeast of Ulus Square and situated in the Hacıdoğan neighborhood. According to the vakfiye (inscription) of the building, the Ottoman era han was commissioned by Hasan Pasha, a regional beylerbey, and was constructed between 1508 and 1511, during the final years of the reign of Sultan Bayezid II.There are 102 rooms (now shops) which face the two yards. In each room there is a window, a niche and a chimney.Çengelhan Rahmi Koç MuseumÇengelhan Rahmi Koç Museum is a museum of industrial technology situated in Çengel Han, an Ottoman era Inn which was completed in 1523, during the early years of the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The exhibits include industrial/technological artifacts from the 1850s onwards. There are also sections about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey; Vehbi Koç, Rahmi Koç's father and one of the first industrialists of Turkey, and Ankara city.Shopping Foreign visitors to Ankara usually like to visit the old shops in Çıkrıkçılar Yokuşu (Weavers' Road) near Ulus, where myriad things ranging from traditional fabrics, hand-woven carpets and leather products can be found at bargain prices. Bakırcılar Çarşısı (Bazaar of Coppersmiths) is particularly popular, and many interesting items, not just of copper, can be found here like jewelry, carpets, costumes, antiques and embroidery. Up the hill to the castle gate, there are many shops selling a huge and fresh collection of spices, dried fruits, nuts, and other produce.Modern shopping areas are mostly found in Kızılay, or on Tunalı Hilmi Avenue, including the modern mall of Karum (named after the ancient Assyrian merchant colonies called Kârum that were established in central Anatolia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) which is located towards the end of the Avenue; and in Çankaya, the quarter with the highest elevation in the city. Atakule Tower next to Atrium Mall in Çankaya has views over Ankara and also has a revolving restaurant at the top. The symbol of the Armada Shopping Mall is an anchor, and there's a large anchor monument at its entrance, as a reference to the ancient Greek name of the city, Ἄγκυρα (Ánkyra), which means anchor. Likewise, the anchor monument is also related with the Spanish name of the mall, Armada, which means naval fleet.As Ankara started expanding westward in the 1970s, several modern, suburbia-style developments and mini-cities began to rise along the western highway, also known as the Eskişehir Road. The Armada, CEPA and Kentpark malls on the highway, the Galleria, Arcadium and Gordion in Ümitköy, and a huge mall, Real in Bilkent Center, offer North American and European style shopping opportunities (these places can be reached through the Eskişehir Highway.) There is also the newly expanded ANKAmall at the outskirts, on the Istanbul Highway, which houses most of the well-known international brands. This mall is the largest throughout the Ankara region. In 2014, a few more shopping malls were open in Ankara. They are Next Level and Taurus on the Boulevard of Mevlana (also known as Konya Road).CultureThe arts Turkish State Opera and Ballet, the national directorate of opera and ballet companies of Turkey, has its headquarters in Ankara, and serves the city with three venues:Ankara Opera House (Opera Sahnesi, also known as Büyük Tiyatro) is the largest of the three venues for opera and ballet in Ankara.Music Ankara is host to five classical music orchestras:Presidential Symphony Orchestra (Turkish Presidential Symphony Orchestra)Bilkent Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is a major symphony orchestra of Turkey.Hacettepe Symphony Orchestra was founded in 2003 and is conducted by Erol Erdinç.Başkent Oda Orkestrası (Chamber Orchestra of the Capital)There are four concert halls in the city:CSO Concert HallBilkent Concert Hall is a performing arts center in Ankara. It is located in the Bilkent University campus.MEB Şura Salonu (also known as the Festival Hall), It is noted for its tango performances.Çankaya Çağdaş Sanatlar Merkezi Concert Hall was founded in 1994.The city has been host to several well-established, annual theater, music, film festivals:Ankara International Music Festival, a music festival organized in the Turkish capital presenting classical music and ballet programs.Ankara also has a number of concert venues such as Eskiyeni, IF Performance Hall, Jolly Joker, Kite, Nefes Bar, Noxus Pub, Passage Pub and Route, which host the live performances and events of popular musicians.Theater The Turkish State Theatres also has its head office in Ankara and runs the following stages in the city:125. Yıl Çayyolu SahnesiBüyük Tiyatro,Küçük Tiyatro,Şinasi Sahnesi,Akün Sahnesi,Altındağ Tiyatrosu,İrfan Şahinbaş Atölye Sahnesi,Oda Tiyatrosu,Mahir Canova Sahnesi,Muhsin Ertuğrul Sahnesi.In addition, the city is served by several private theater companies, among which Ankara Sanat Tiyatrosu, who have their own stage in the city center, is a notable example.Museums There are about 50 museums in the city.Museum of Anatolian CivilizationsThe Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi) is situated at the entrance of the Ankara Castle. It is an old 15th century bedesten (covered bazaar) that has been restored and now houses a collection of Paleolithic, Neolithic, Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian and Roman works as well as a major section dedicated to Lydian treasures.Anıtkabir Anıtkabir is located on an imposing hill, which forms the Anıttepe quarter of the city, where the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, stands. Completed in 1953, it is an impressive fusion of ancient and modern architectural styles. An adjacent museum houses a wax statue of Atatürk, his writings, letters and personal items, as well as an exhibition of photographs recording important moments in his life and during the establishment of the Republic. Anıtkabir is open every day, while the adjacent museum is open every day except Mondays.Ankara Ethnography MuseumAnkara Ethnography Museum (Etnoğrafya Müzesi) is located opposite to the Ankara Opera House on Talat Paşa Boulevard, in the Ulus district. There is a fine collection of folkloric items, as well as artifacts from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods. In front of the museum building, there is a marble and bronze equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (who wears a Republic era modern military uniform, with the rank Field Marshal) which was crafted in 1927 by the renowned Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica.State Art and Sculpture MuseumThe State Art and Sculpture Museum (Resim-Heykel Müzesi) which opened to the public in 1980 is close to the Ethnography Museum and houses a rich collection of Turkish art from the late 19th century to the present day. There are also galleries which host guest exhibitions.Cer ModernCer Modern is the modern-arts museum of Ankara, inaugurated on 1 April 2010. It is situated in the renovated building of the historic TCDD Cer Atölyeleri, formerly a workshop of the Turkish State Railways. The museum incorporates the largest exhibition hall in Turkey. The museum holds periodic exhibitions of modern and contemporary art as well as hosting other contemporary arts events.War of Independence MuseumThe War of Independence Museum (Kurtuluş Savaşı Müzesi) is located on Ulus Square. It was originally the first Parliament building (TBMM) of the Republic of Turkey. The War of Independence was planned and directed here as recorded in various photographs and items presently on exhibition. In another display, wax figures of former presidents of the Republic of Turkey are on exhibit.Mehmet Akif Literature Museum LibraryThe Mehmet Akif Literature Museum Library is an important literary museum and archive opened in 2011 and dedicated to Mehmet Akif Ersoy (1873–1936), the poet of the Turkish National Anthem.TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive MuseumThe TCDD Open Air Steam Locomotive Museum is an open-air museum which traces the history of steam locomotives.Ankara Aviation MuseumAnkara Aviation Museum (Hava Kuvvetleri Müzesi Komutanlığı) is located near the Istanbul Road in Etimesgut. The museum opened to the public in September 1998. It is home to various missiles, avionics, aviation materials and aircraft that have served in the Turkish Air Force (e.g. combat aircraft such as the F-86 Sabre, F-100 Super Sabre, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-5 Freedom Fighter, F-4 Phantom; and cargo planes such as the Transall C-160.) Also a Hungarian MiG-21, a Pakistani MiG-19, and a Bulgarian MiG-17 are on display at the museum.METU Science and Technology MuseumThe METU Science and Technology Museum (ODTÜ Bilim ve Teknoloji Müzesi) is located inside the Middle East Technical University campus.Sports As with all other cities of Turkey, football is the most popular sport in Ankara. The city has two football clubs competing in the Turkish Süper Lig: Ankaragücü, founded in 1910, is the oldest club in Ankara and is associated with Ankara's military arsenal manufacturing company MKE. They were the Turkish Cup winners in 1972 and 1981. Gençlerbirliği, founded in 1923, are known as the Ankara Gale or the Poppies because of their colors: red and black. They were the Turkish Cup winners in 1987 and 2001. Gençlerbirliği's B team, Hacettepe S.K. (formerly known as Gençlerbirliği OFTAŞ) played in the Süper Lig but currently plays in the TFF Second League. A fourth team, Büyükşehir Belediye Ankaraspor, played in the Süper Lig until 2010, when they were expelled. The club was reconstituted in 2014 as Osmanlıspor but have since returned to their old identity as Ankaraspor. Ankaraspor currently play in the TFF First League at the Osmanlı Stadium in the Sincan district of Yenikent, outside the city center. Keçiörengücü also currently play in the TFF First League.Ankara has a large number of minor teams, playing at regional levels. In the TFF Second League: Mamak FK in Mamak, Ankara Demirspor in Çankaya, Etimesgut Belediyespor in Etimesgut; in the TFF Third League: Çankaya FK in Keçiören; Altındağspor in Altındağ; in the Amateur League: Turanspor in Etimesgut, Türk Telekomspor owned by the phone company in Yenimahalle, Çubukspor in Çubuk, and Bağlumspor in Keçiören.In the Turkish Basketball League, Ankara is represented by Türk Telekom, whose home is the Ankara Arena, and CASA TED Kolejliler, whose home is the TOBB Sports Hall.Halkbank Ankara is the leading domestic powerhouse in men's volleyball, having won many championships and cups in the Turkish Men's Volleyball League and even the CEV Cup in 2013.Ankara Buz Pateni Sarayı is where the ice skating and ice hockey competitions take place in the city.There are many popular spots for skateboarding which is active in the city since the 1980s. Skaters in Ankara usually meet in the park near the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.The 2012-built THF Sport Hall hosts the Handball Super League and Women's Handball Super League matches scheduled in Ankara.Parks Ankara has many parks and open spaces mainly established in the early years of the Republic and well maintained and expanded thereafter. The most important of these parks are: Gençlik Parkı (houses an amusement park with a large pond for rowing), the Botanical garden, Seğmenler Park, Anayasa Park, Kuğulu Park (famous for the swans received as a gift from the Chinese government), Abdi İpekçi Park, Esertepe Parkı, Güven Park (see above for the monument), Kurtuluş Park (has an ice-skating rink), Altınpark (also a prominent exposition/fair area), Harikalar Diyarı (claimed to be Biggest Park of Europe inside city borders) and Göksu Park. Dikmen Vadisi (Dikmen Valley) is a  park and recreation area situated in Çankaya district.Gençlik Park was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 100 lira banknotes of 1952–1976.Atatürk Forest Farm and Zoo (Atatürk Orman Çiftliği) is an expansive recreational farming area which houses a zoo, several small agricultural farms, greenhouses, restaurants, a dairy farm and a brewery. It is a pleasant place to spend a day with family, be it for having picnics, hiking, biking or simply enjoying good food and nature. There is also an exact replica of the house where Atatürk was born in 1881, in Thessaloniki, Greece. Visitors to the "Çiftlik" (farm) as it is affectionately called by Ankarans, can sample such famous products of the farm such as old-fashioned beer and ice cream, fresh dairy products and meat rolls/kebaps made on charcoal, at a traditional restaurant (Merkez Lokantası, Central Restaurant), cafés and other establishments scattered around the farm.EducationUniversitiesAnkara is noted, within Turkey, for the multitude of universities it is home to. These include the following, several of them being among the most reputable in the country:Ankara UniversityAtılım UniversityBaşkent UniversityBilkent UniversityÇankaya UniversityGazi UniversityGülhane Military Medical AcademyHacettepe Universityİpek UniversityMiddle East Technical UniversityTED UniversityTOBB University of Economics and TechnologyTurkish Aeronautical Association UniversityTurkish Military AcademyTurkish National Police AcademyUfuk UniversityYıldırım Beyazıt UniversityFaunaAngora catAnkara is home to a world-famous domestic cat breed – the Turkish Angora, called Ankara kedisi (Ankara cat) in Turkish. Turkish Angoras are one of the ancient, naturally occurring cat breeds, having originated in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia.They mostly have a white, silky, medium to long length coat, no undercoat and a fine bone structure. There seems to be a connection between the Angora Cats and Persians, and the Turkish Angora is also a distant cousin of the Turkish Van. Although they are known for their shimmery white coat, there are more than twenty varieties including black, blue and reddish fur. They come in tabby and tabby-white, along with smoke varieties, and are in every color other than pointed, lavender, and cinnamon (all of which would indicate breeding to an outcross.)Eyes may be blue, green, or amber, or even one blue and one amber or green. The W gene which is responsible for the white coat and blue eye is closely related to the hearing ability, and the presence of a blue eye can indicate that the cat is deaf to the side the blue eye is located. However, a great many blue and odd-eyed white cats have normal hearing, and even deaf cats lead a very normal life if kept indoors.Ears are pointed and large, eyes are almond shaped and the head is massive with a two plane profile. Another characteristic is the tail, which is often kept parallel to the back.Angora goatThe Angora goat () is a breed of domestic goat that originated in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia.This breed was first mentioned in the time of Moses, roughly in 1500 BC. The first Angora goats were brought to Europe by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, about 1554, but, like later imports, were not very successful. Angora goats were first introduced in the United States in 1849 by Dr. James P. Davis. Seven adult goats were a gift from Sultan Abdülmecid I in appreciation for his services and advice on the raising of cotton.The fleece taken from an Angora goat is called mohair. A single goat produces between  of hair per year. Angoras are shorn twice a year, unlike sheep, which are shorn only once. Angoras have high nutritional requirements due to their rapid hair growth. A poor quality diet will curtail mohair development. The United States, Turkey, and South Africa are the top producers of mohair.For a long period of time, Angora goats were bred for their white coat. In 1998, the Colored Angora Goat Breeders Association was set up to promote breeding of colored Angoras. Today, Angora goats produce white, black (deep black to greys and silver), red (the color fades significantly as the goat gets older), and brownish fiber.Angora goats were depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 50 lira banknotes of 1938–1952.Angora rabbitThe Angora rabbit () is a variety of domestic rabbit bred for its long, soft hair. The Angora is one of the oldest types of domestic rabbit, originating in Ankara and its surrounding region in central Anatolia, along with the Angora cat and Angora goat. The rabbits were popular pets with French royalty in the mid-18th century, and spread to other parts of Europe by the end of the century. They first appeared in the United States in the early 20th century. They are bred largely for their long Angora wool, which may be removed by shearing, combing, or plucking (gently pulling loose wool.)Angoras are bred mainly for their wool because it is silky and soft. They have a humorous appearance, as they oddly resemble a fur ball. Most are calm and docile but should be handled carefully. Grooming is necessary to prevent the fiber from matting and felting on the rabbit. A condition called "wool block" is common in Angora rabbits and should be treated quickly. Sometimes they are shorn in the summer as the long fur can cause the rabbits to overheat.International relationsTwin towns and sister citiesAnkara is twinned with: Seoul, South Korea (since 1971) Islamabad, Pakistan (since 1982) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (since 1984)  Beijing, China (since 1990) Amman, Jordan (since 1992) Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (since 1992)  Budapest, Hungary (since 1992) Khartoum, Sudan (since 1992) Moscow, Russia (since 1992) Sofia, Bulgaria (since 1992) Havana, Cuba (since 1993) Kyiv, Ukraine (since 1993) Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (since 1994) Kuwait City, Kuwait (since 1994) Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (since 1994) Tirana, Albania (since 1995) Tbilisi, Georgia (since 1996) Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia (since 1997) Alanya, Turkey Bucharest, Romania (since 1998) Hanoi, Vietnam (since 1998) Manama, Bahrain (since 2000) Mogadishu, Somalia (since 2000) Santiago, Chile (since 2000) Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan (since 2001) Dushanbe, Tajikistan (since 2003) Kabul, Afghanistan (since 2003) Ulan Bator, Mongolia (since 2003) Cairo, Egypt (since 2004) Chișinău, Moldova (since 2004) Sana'a, Yemen (since 2004) Tashkent, Uzbekistan (since 2004) Pristina, Kosovo (since 2005) Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia (since 2005) Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (since 2005) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (since 2006) Minsk, Belarus (since 2007) Zagreb, Croatia (since 2008) Damascus, Syria (since 2010) Bissau, Guinea-Bissau (since 2011) Washington, D.C., USA (since 2011) Bangkok, Thailand (since 2012) Tehran, Iran (since 2013) Doha, Qatar (since 2016) Podgorica, Montenegro (since 7 March 2019) North Nicosia, Northern Cyprus Djibouti City, Djibouti (since 2017)Partner cities Skopje, North Macedonia (since 1995) Vienna, AustriaSee also Angora catAngora goatAngora rabbitAnkara AgreementAnkara ArenaAnkara Central StationAnkara Esenboğa International AirportAnkara MetroAnkara ProvinceAnkara UniversityATO CongresiumBasil of AncyraBattle of AncyraBattle of AnkaraClement of AncyraGemellus of AncyraHistory of AnkaraList of hospitals in Ankara ProvinceList of mayors of AnkaraList of municipalities in Ankara ProvinceList of districts of AnkaraList of people from AnkaraList of tallest buildings in AnkaraMarcellus of AncyraMonumentum AncyranumNilus of AncyraRoman Baths of AnkaraSynod of AncyraTheodotus of Ancyra (bishop)Theodotus of Ancyra (martyr)Timeline of AnkaraTreaty of Ankara (disambiguation)Victory Monument (Ankara)NotesReferences43. ilişki durumu evli izleAttributionFurther readingExternal links  Governorate of Ankara Municipality of Ankara GCatholic – (former and) Latin titular see GCatholic – former and titular Armenian Catholic see Ankara Development Agency Esenboğa International Airport  Capitals in AsiaPopulated places in Ankara Province
Arabic (,   or ,   or ) is a Semitic language that first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. It is the lingua franca of the Arab world and the liturgical language of Islam. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living in the Arabian Peninsula bounded by eastern Egypt in the west, Mesopotamia in the east, and the Anti-Lebanon mountains and northern Syria in the north, as perceived by ancient Greek geographers. The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, also referred to as Literary Arabic, which is modernized Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as  ( "the eloquent Arabic") or simply  ().Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. Arabic, in its Modern Standard Arabic form, is an official language of 26 states and 1 disputed territory, the third most after English and French;it is also the liturgical language of the religion of Islam, since the Quran and the Hadiths were written in Classical Arabic.During the early Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in the Mediterranean region, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages—mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Catalan, and Sicilian—owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arabized civilizations and the long-lasting Muslim culture and Arabic language presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. The Maltese language is a Semitic language developed from a dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet. The Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have also acquired a significant number of words of Arabic origin through contact with Ottoman Turkish.Arabic has influenced many other languages around the globe throughout its history especially languages of Muslim cultures and countries that were conquered by Muslims. Some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Turkish, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Kashmiri, Kurdish, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Maldivian, Pashto, Punjabi, Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog, Sindhi, Odia Hebrew and Hausa and some languages in parts of Africa. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Aramaic as well as Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Persian and to a lesser extent Turkish (due to the Ottoman Empire), English and French (due to their colonization of the Levant) and other Semitic languages such as Abyssinian.Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.9 billion Muslims, and Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by perhaps as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic the fourth most useful language for business, after English, Standard Mandarin Chinese, and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography.Classification Arabic is usually, but not universally, classified as a Central Semitic language. It is related to languages in other subgroups of the Semitic language group (Northwest Semitic, South Semitic, East Semitic, West Semitic), such as Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Canaanite, Amorite, Ammonite, Eblaite, epigraphic Ancient North Arabian, epigraphic Ancient South Arabian, Ethiopic, Modern South Arabian, and numerous other dead and modern languages. Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups.The Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the emergence of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation (jalas-) into a past tense. The conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation (yajlis-) into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms (e.g., a present tense formed by doubling the middle root, a perfect formed by infixing a  after the first root consonant, probably a jussive formed by a stress shift) in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms (e.g., -u for indicative, -a for subjunctive, no ending for jussive, -an or -anna for energetic). The development of an internal passive.There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz. These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor, Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic: negative particles  * ;  * to Classical Arabic   G-passive participle prepositions and adverbs , , , ,  a subjunctive in - -demonstratives leveling of the - allomorph of the feminine ending  complementizer and subordinator the use of - to introduce modal clauses independent object pronoun in  vestiges of nunationHistoryOld Arabic Arabia boasted a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in a script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic. Finally, on the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B, Thamudic D, Safaitic, and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are in fact early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic.Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic" (a collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic) first emerged around the 1st century CE. Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat Al-Faw, in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as the conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum.It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced--epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after the towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to the fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic.The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel, and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription, an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From the 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolves into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria (Zabad, Jabal 'Usays, Harran, Umm al-Jimaal). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of the Qur'an are referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into "Classical Arabic".Old Hejazi and Classical ArabicIn late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra, most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from the "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Qur'an was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi.In the late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd, probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra. During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax.Standardization Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali (c. 603–689) is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar, or an-naḥw ( "the way"), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( nuqat l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( at-tashkil). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718 – 786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( "The Book of the Letter ع"), and is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody. Al-Jahiz (776-868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al-Kitāb, is based first of all upon a corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya.Spread Arabic spread with the spread of Islam. Following the early Muslim conquests, Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish. In the early Abbasid period, many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom.By the 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides, the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic—Arabic written in Hebrew script—including his famous The Guide for the Perplexed ( Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn).Development Ibn Jinni of Mosul, a pioneer in phonology, wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif, Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab, and .Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized the overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior.The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled  (لسان العرب, "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290.Neo-Arabic Charles Ferguson's koine theory (Ferguson 1959) claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on the eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA.In around the 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus, the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb.Nahda The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin, "Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to a wider audience."In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism, pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of  in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted the need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age. In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977),  (1993), and Tunis (1993). In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League. These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward the standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language. This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic.From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan.Classical, Modern Standard and spoken Arabic Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of a variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects, which are not necessarily mutually intelligible.Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran, used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate. Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisān al-ʻArab).Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era, especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while the latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages) in medieval and early modern Europe. This view though does not take into account the widespread use of Modern Standard Arabic as a medium of audiovisual communication in today's mass media—a function Latin has never performed.MSA is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic.Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: Certain grammatical constructions of CA that have no counterpart in any modern vernacular dialect (e.g., the energetic mood) are almost never used in Modern Standard Arabic.Case distinctions are very rare in Arabic vernaculars. As a result, MSA is generally composed without case distinctions in mind, and the proper cases are added after the fact, when necessary. Because most case endings are noted using final short vowels, which are normally left unwritten in the Arabic script, it is unnecessary to determine the proper case of most words. The practical result of this is that MSA, like English and Standard Chinese, is written in a strongly determined word order and alternative orders that were used in CA for emphasis are rare. In addition, because of the lack of case marking in the spoken varieties, most speakers cannot consistently use the correct endings in extemporaneous speech. As a result, spoken MSA tends to drop or regularize the endings except when reading from a prepared text. The numeral system in CA is complex and heavily tied in with the case system. This system is never used in MSA, even in the most formal of circumstances; instead, a significantly simplified system is used, approximating the system of the conservative spoken varieties.MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g.,  'to go') that is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g.,   'film' or   'democracy').However, the current preference is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g.,   'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization;   'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots (  'apoptosis', using the root  m/w/t 'death' put into the Xth form, or   'university', based on   'to gather, unite';   'republic', based on   'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g.,   'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)';   'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk').Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language and evolved from Classical Arabic. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations.The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows, as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising.The only variety of modern Arabic to have acquired official language status is Maltese, which is spoken in (predominantly Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin script. It is descended from Classical Arabic through Siculo-Arabic, but is not mutually intelligible with any other variety of Arabic. Most linguists list it as a separate language rather than as a dialect of Arabic.Even during Muhammad's lifetime, there were dialects of spoken Arabic. Muhammad spoke in the dialect of Mecca, in the western Arabian peninsula, and it was in this dialect that the Quran was written down. However, the dialects of the eastern Arabian peninsula were considered the most prestigious at the time, so the language of the Quran was ultimately converted to follow the eastern phonology. It is this phonology that underlies the modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. The phonological differences between these two dialects account for some of the complexities of Arabic writing, most notably the writing of the glottal stop or hamzah (which was preserved in the eastern dialects but lost in western speech) and the use of  (representing a sound preserved in the western dialects but merged with  in eastern speech).Language and dialectThe sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia, which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically, means the one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on the region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have “sub-dialects” of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. Arabic speakers often improve their familiarity with other dialects via music or film.The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese, Hindi and Urdu, Serbian and Croatian, Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a significant complicating factor: A single written form, significantly different from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites a number of sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak a single language, despite significant issues of mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions.From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages. This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for the Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb, a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq, much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages.Influence of Arabic on other languages The influence of Arabic has been most important in Islamic countries, because it is the language of the Islamic sacred book, the Quran. Arabic is also an important source of vocabulary for languages such as Amharic, Azerbaijani, Baluchi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Chaldean, Chechen, Chittagonian, Croatian, Dagestani, Dhivehi, English, German, Gujarati, Hausa, Hindi, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kutchi, Kyrgyz, Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Rohingya, Romance languages (French, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Sicilian, Spanish, etc.) Saraiki, Sindhi, Somali, Sylheti, Swahili, Tagalog, Tigrinya, Turkish, Turkmen, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Visayan and Wolof, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken.Modern Hebrew has been also influenced by Arabic especially during the process of revival, as MSA was used as a source for modern Hebrew vocabulary and roots, as well as much of Modern Hebrew's slang.The Education Minister of France Jean-Michel Blanquer has emphasized the learning and usage of Arabic in French schools.In addition, English has many Arabic loanwords, some directly, but most via other Mediterranean languages. Examples of such words include admiral, adobe, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkaline, almanac, amber, arsenal, assassin, candy, carat, cipher, coffee, cotton, ghoul, hazard, jar, kismet, lemon, loofah, magazine, mattress, sherbet, sofa, sumac, tariff, and zenith. Other languages such as Maltese and Kinubi derive ultimately from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary or grammatical rules.Terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber taẓallit, "prayer", from salat ( )), academic terms (like Uyghur mentiq, "logic"), and economic items (like English coffee) to placeholders (like Spanish fulano, "so-and-so"), everyday terms (like Hindustani lekin, "but", or Spanish taza and French tasse, meaning "cup"), and expressions (like Catalan a betzef, "galore, in quantity"). Most Berber varieties (such as Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow some numbers from Arabic. Most Islamic religious terms are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as  (salat), "prayer", and  (imam), "prayer leader."In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often transferred indirectly via other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic. For example, most Arabic loanwords in Hindustani and Turkish entered through Persian. Older Arabic loanwords in Hausa were borrowed from Kanuri. Most Arabic loanwords in Yoruba entered through Hausa.Arabic words also made their way into several West African languages as Islam spread across the Sahara. Variants of Arabic words such as  kitāb ("book") have spread to the languages of African groups who had no direct contact with Arab traders.Since, throughout the Islamic world, Arabic occupied a position similar to that of Latin in Europe, many of the Arabic concepts in the fields of science, philosophy, commerce, etc. were coined from Arabic roots by non-native Arabic speakers, notably by Aramaic and Persian translators, and then found their way into other languages. This process of using Arabic roots, especially in Kurdish and Persian, to translate foreign concepts continued through to the 18th and 19th centuries, when swaths of Arab-inhabited lands were under Ottoman rule.Influence of other languages on ArabicThe most important sources of borrowings into (pre-Islamic) Arabic are from the related (Semitic) languages Aramaic, which used to be the principal, international language of communication throughout the ancient Near and Middle East, and Ethiopic. In addition, many cultural, religious and political terms have entered Arabic from Iranian languages, notably Middle Persian, Parthian, and (Classical) Persian, and Hellenistic Greek (kīmiyāʼ has as origin the Greek khymia, meaning in that language the melting of metals; see Roger Dachez, Histoire de la Médecine de l'Antiquité au XXe siècle, Tallandier, 2008, p. 251), alembic (distiller) from ambix (cup), almanac (climate) from almenichiakon (calendar). (For the origin of the last three borrowed words, see Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Foundations of Islam, Seuil, L'Univers Historique, 2002.) Some Arabic borrowings from Semitic or Persian languages are, as presented in De Prémare's above-cited book: madīnah/medina (مدينة, city or city square), a word of Aramaic origin “madenta” (in which it means "a state"). jazīrah (جزيرة), as in the well-known form الجزيرة "Al-Jazeera," means "island" and has its origin in the Syriac ܓܙܝܪܗ gazarta. lāzaward (لازورد) is taken from Persian لاژورد lājvard, the name of a blue stone, lapis lazuli. This word was borrowed in several European languages to mean (light) blue – azure in English, azur in French and azul in Portuguese and Spanish.A comprehensive overview of the influence of other languages on Arabic is found in Lucas & Manfredi (2020).Arabic alphabet and nationalismThere have been many instances of national movements to convert Arabic script into Latin script or to Romanize the language. Currently, the only language derived from Classical Arabic to use Latin script is Maltese.LebanonThe Beirut newspaper La Syrie pushed for the change from Arabic script to Latin letters in 1922. The major head of this movement was Louis Massignon, a French Orientalist, who brought his concern before the Arabic Language Academy in Damascus in 1928. Massignon's attempt at Romanization failed as the Academy and population viewed the proposal as an attempt from the Western world to take over their country. Sa'id Afghani, a member of the Academy, mentioned that the movement to Romanize the script was a Zionist plan to dominate Lebanon.Said Akl created a Latin-based alphabet for Lebanese and used it in a newspaper he founded, Lebnaan, as well as in some books he wrote.EgyptAfter the period of colonialism in Egypt, Egyptians were looking for a way to reclaim and re-emphasize Egyptian culture. As a result, some Egyptians pushed for an Egyptianization of the Arabic language in which the formal Arabic and the colloquial Arabic would be combined into one language and the Latin alphabet would be used. There was also the idea of finding a way to use Hieroglyphics instead of the Latin alphabet, but this was seen as too complicated to use. A scholar, Salama Musa agreed with the idea of applying a Latin alphabet to Arabic, as he believed that would allow Egypt to have a closer relationship with the West. He also believed that Latin script was key to the success of Egypt as it would allow for more advances in science and technology. This change in alphabet, he believed, would solve the problems inherent with Arabic, such as a lack of written vowels and difficulties writing foreign words that made it difficult for non-native speakers to learn. Ahmad Lutfi As Sayid and Muhammad Azmi, two Egyptian intellectuals, agreed with Musa and supported the push for Romanization. The idea that Romanization was necessary for modernization and growth in Egypt continued with Abd Al-Aziz Fahmi in 1944. He was the chairman for the Writing and Grammar Committee for the Arabic Language Academy of Cairo. However, this effort failed as the Egyptian people felt a strong cultural tie to the Arabic alphabet. In particular, the older Egyptian generations believed that the Arabic alphabet had strong connections to Arab values and history, due to the long history of the Arabic alphabet (Shrivtiel, 189) in Muslim societies.The language of the Quran and its influence on poetryThe Quran introduced a new way of writing to the world. People began studying and applying the unique styles they learned from the Quran to not only their own writing, but also their culture. Writers studied the unique structure and format of the Quran in order to identify and apply the figurative devices and their impact on the reader.Quran's figurative devices The Quran inspired musicality in poetry through the internal rhythm of the verses. The arrangement of words, how certain sounds create harmony, and the agreement of rhymes create the sense of rhythm within each verse. At times, the chapters of the Quran only have the rhythm in common.The repetition in the Quran introduced the true power and impact repetition can have in poetry. The repetition of certain words and phrases made them appear more firm and explicit in the Quran. The Quran uses constant metaphors of blindness and deafness to imply unbelief. Metaphors were not a new concept to poetry, however the strength of extended metaphors was. The explicit imagery in the Quran inspired many poets to include and focus on the feature in their own work. The poet ibn al-Mu'tazz wrote a book regarding the figures of speech inspired by his study of the Quran. Poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab expresses his political opinion in his work through imagery inspired by the forms of more harsher imagery used in the Quran.The Quran uses figurative devices in order to express the meaning in the most beautiful form possible. The study of the pauses in the Quran as well as other rhetoric allow it to be approached in a multiple ways.StructureAlthough the Quran is known for its fluency and harmony, the structure can be best described as not always being inherently chronological, but can also flow thematically instead (the chapters in the Quran have segments that flow in chronological order, however segments can transition into other segments not related in chronology, but could be related in topic). The suras, also known as chapters of the Quran, are not placed in chronological order. The only constant in their structure is that the longest are placed first and shorter ones follow. The topics discussed in the chapters can also have no direct relation to each other (as seen in many suras) and can share in their sense of rhyme. The Quran introduces to poetry the idea of abandoning order and scattering narratives throughout the text. Harmony is also present in the sound of the Quran. The elongations and accents present in the Quran create a harmonious flow within the writing. Unique sound of the Quran recited, due to the accents, create a deeper level of understanding through a deeper emotional connection.The Quran is written in a language that is simple and understandable by people. The simplicity of the writing inspired later poets to write in a more clear and clear-cut style. The words of the Quran, although unchanged, are to this day understandable and frequently used in both formal and informal Arabic. The simplicity of the language makes memorizing and reciting the Quran a slightly easier task.Culture and the QuranThe writer al-Khattabi explains how culture is a required element to create a sense of art in work as well as understand it. He believes that the fluency and harmony which the Quran possess are not the only elements that make it beautiful and create a bond between the reader and the text. While a lot of poetry was deemed comparable to the Quran in that it is equal to or better than the composition of the Quran, a debate rose that such statements are not possible because humans are incapable of composing work comparable to the Quran.Because the structure of the Quran made it difficult for a clear timeline to be seen, Hadith were the main source of chronological order. The Hadith were passed down from generation to generation and this tradition became a large resource for understanding the context. Poetry after the Quran began possessing this element of tradition by including ambiguity and background information to be required to understand the meaning.After the Quran came down to the people, the tradition of memorizing the verses became present. It is believed that the greater the amount of the Quran memorized, the greater the faith. As technology improved over time, hearing recitations of the Quran became more available as well as more tools to help memorize the verses.The tradition of Love Poetry served as a symbolic representation of a Muslim's desire for a closer contact with their Lord.While the influence of the Quran on Arabic poetry is explained and defended by numerous writers, some writers such as Al-Baqillani believe that poetry and the Quran are in no conceivable way related due to the uniqueness of the Quran. Poetry's imperfections prove his points that they cannot be compared with the fluency the Quran holds.Arabic and Islam Classical Arabic is the language of poetry and literature (including news); it is also mainly the language of the Quran. Classical Arabic is closely associated with the religion of Islam because the Quran was written in it. Most of the world's Muslims do not speak Classical Arabic as their native language, but many can read the Quranic script and recite the Quran. Among non-Arab Muslims, translations of the Quran are most often accompanied by the original text. At present, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is also used in modernized versions of literary forms of the Quran.Some Muslims present a monogenesis of languages and claim that the Arabic language was the language revealed by God for the benefit of mankind and the original language as a prototype system of symbolic communication, based upon its system of triconsonantal roots, spoken by man from which all other languages were derived, having first been corrupted. Judaism has a similar account with the Tower of Babel.Dialects and descendants Colloquial Arabic is a collective term for the spoken dialects of Arabic used throughout the Arab world, which differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the varieties within and outside of the Arabian peninsula, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties. All the varieties outside of the Arabian peninsula (which include the large majority of speakers) have many features in common with each other that are not found in Classical Arabic. This has led researchers to postulate the existence of a prestige koine dialect in the one or two centuries immediately following the Arab conquest, whose features eventually spread to all newly conquered areas. These features are present to varying degrees inside the Arabian peninsula. Generally, the Arabian peninsula varieties have much more diversity than the non-peninsula varieties, but these have been understudied.Within the non-peninsula varieties, the largest difference is between the non-Egyptian North African dialects (especially Moroccan Arabic) and the others. Moroccan Arabic in particular is hardly comprehensible to Arabic speakers east of Libya (although the converse is not true, in part due to the popularity of Egyptian films and other media).One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fīh and North African kayən all mean 'there is', and all come from Classical Arabic forms (yakūn, fīhi, kā'in respectively), but now sound very different.ExamplesTranscription is a broad IPA transcription, so minor differences were ignored for easier comparison. Also, the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic differs significantly from region to region.Koiné According to Charles A. Ferguson, the following are some of the characteristic features of the koiné that underlies all the modern dialects outside the Arabian peninsula. Although many other features are common to most or all of these varieties, Ferguson believes that these features in particular are unlikely to have evolved independently more than once or twice and together suggest the existence of the koine: Loss of the dual number except on nouns, with consistent plural agreement (cf. feminine singular agreement in plural inanimates). Change of a to i in many affixes (e.g., non-past-tense prefixes ti- yi- ni-; wi- 'and'; il- 'the'; feminine -it in the construct state). Loss of third-weak verbs ending in w (which merge with verbs ending in y). Reformation of geminate verbs, e.g.,  'I untied' → . Conversion of separate words lī 'to me', laka 'to you', etc. into indirect-object clitic suffixes. Certain changes in the cardinal number system, e.g.,  'five days' → , where certain words have a special plural with prefixed t. Loss of the feminine elative (comparative). Adjective plurals of the form  'big' → . Change of nisba suffix  > . Certain lexical items, e.g.,  'bring' <  'come with';  'see';  'what' (or similar) <  'which thing';  (relative pronoun). Merger of  and .Dialect groups  Egyptian Arabic is spoken by around 53 million people in Egypt (55 million worldwide). It is one of the most understood varieties of Arabic, due in large part to the widespread distribution of Egyptian films and television shows throughout the Arabic-speaking world Levantine Arabic includes North Levantine Arabic, South Levantine Arabic and Cypriot Arabic. It is spoken by about 21 million people in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus and Turkey. Lebanese Arabic is a variety of Levantine Arabic spoken primarily in Lebanon. Jordanian Arabic is a continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by the population of the Kingdom of Jordan. Palestinian Arabic is a name of several dialects of the subgroup of Levantine Arabic spoken by the Palestinians in Palestine, by Arab citizens of Israel and in most Palestinian populations around the world. Samaritan Arabic, spoken by only several hundred in the Nablus region Cypriot Maronite Arabic, spoken in Cyprus Maghrebi Arabic, also called "Darija" spoken by about 70 million people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It also forms the basis of Maltese via the extinct Sicilian Arabic dialect. Maghrebi Arabic is very hard to understand for Arabic speakers from the Mashriq or Mesopotamia, the most comprehensible being Libyan Arabic and the most difficult Moroccan Arabic. The others such as Algerian Arabic can be considered in between the two in terms of difficulty. Libyan Arabic spoken in Libya and neighboring countries. Tunisian Arabic spoken in Tunisia and North-eastern Algeria Algerian Arabic spoken in Algeria Judeo-Algerian Arabic was spoken by Jews in Algeria until 1962 Moroccan Arabic spoken in Morocco Hassaniya Arabic (3 million speakers), spoken in Mauritania, Western Sahara, some parts of the Azawad in northern Mali, southern Morocco and south-western Algeria. Andalusian Arabic, spoken in Spain until the 16th century. Siculo-Arabic (Sicilian Arabic), was spoken in Sicily and Malta between the end of the 9th century and the end of the 12th century and eventually evolved into the Maltese language. Maltese, spoken on the island of Malta, is the only fully separate standardized language to have originated from an Arabic dialect (the extinct Siculo-Arabic dialect), with independent literary norms. Maltese has evolved independently of Modern Standard Arabic and its varieties into a standardized language over the past 800 years in a gradual process of Latinisation. Maltese is therefore considered an exceptional descendant of Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Maltese is also different from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by Romance languages, Italian and Sicilian. It is also the only Semitic language written in the Latin script. In terms of basic everyday language, speakers of Maltese are reported to be able to understand less than a third of what is said to them in Tunisian Arabic, which is related to Siculo-Arabic, whereas speakers of Tunisian are able to understand about 40% of what is said to them in Maltese. This asymmetric intelligibility is considerably lower than the mutual intelligibility found between Maghrebi Arabic dialects. Maltese has its own dialects, with urban varieties of Maltese being closer to Standard Maltese than rural varieties. Mesopotamian Arabic, spoken by about 41.2 million people in Iraq (where it is called "Aamiyah"), eastern Syria and southwestern Iran (Khuzestan) and in the southeastern of Turkey (in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeastern Anatolia Region)North Mesopotamian Arabic is a spoken north of the Hamrin Mountains in Iraq, in western Iran, northern Syria, and in southeastern Turkey (in the eastern Mediterranean Region, Southeastern Anatolia Region, and southern Eastern Anatolia Region).Judeo-Mesopotamian Arabic, also known as Iraqi Judeo Arabic and Yahudic, is a variety of Arabic spoken by Iraqi Jews of Mosul.Baghdad Arabic is the Arabic dialect spoken in Baghdad, and the surrounding cities and it is a subvariety of Mesopotamian Arabic.Baghdad Jewish Arabic is the dialect spoken by the Iraqi Jews of Baghdad.South Mesopotamian Arabic (Basrawi dialect) is the dialect spoken in southern Iraq, such as Basra, Dhi Qar and Najaf.Khuzestani Arabic is the dialect spoken in the Iranian province of Khuzestan. This dialect is a mix of Southen Mesopotamian Arabic and Gulf Arabic. Khorasani Arabic spoken in the Iranian province of Khorasan.Kuwaiti Arabic is a Gulf Arabic dialect spoken in Kuwait. Sudanese Arabic is spoken by 17 million people in Sudan and some parts of southern Egypt. Sudanese Arabic is quite distinct from the dialect of its neighbor to the north; rather, the Sudanese have a dialect similar to the Hejazi dialect. Juba Arabic spoken in South Sudan and southern Sudan Gulf Arabic, spoken by around four million people, predominantly in Kuwait, Bahrain, some parts of Oman, eastern Saudi Arabia coastal areas and some parts of UAE and Qatar. Also spoken in Iran's Bushehr and Hormozgan provinces. Although Gulf Arabic is spoken in Qatar, most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi). Omani Arabic, distinct from the Gulf Arabic of Eastern Arabia and Bahrain, spoken in Central Oman. With recent oil wealth and mobility has spread over other parts of the Sultanate. Hadhrami Arabic, spoken by around 8 million people, predominantly in Hadhramaut, and in parts of the Arabian Peninsula, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa by Hadhrami descendants. Yemeni Arabic spoken in Yemen, and southern Saudi Arabia by 15 million people. Similar to Gulf Arabic. Najdi Arabic, spoken by around 10 million people, mainly spoken in Najd, central and northern Saudi Arabia. Most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi). Hejazi Arabic (6 million speakers), spoken in Hejaz, western Saudi Arabia Saharan Arabic spoken in some parts of Algeria, Niger and Mali Baharna Arabic (600,000 speakers), spoken by Bahrani Shiʻah in Bahrain and Qatif, the dialect exhibits many big differences from Gulf Arabic. It is also spoken to a lesser extent in Oman. Judeo-Arabic dialects – these are the dialects spoken by the Jews that had lived or continue to live in the Arab World. As Jewish migration to Israel took hold, the language did not thrive and is now considered endangered. So-called Qəltu Arabic. Chadian Arabic, spoken in Chad, Sudan, some parts of South Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon Central Asian Arabic, spoken in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, is highly endangered Shirvani Arabic, spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan until the 1930s, now extinct.PhonologyHistory Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: , which merged with , while  became  (see Semitic languages). Various other consonants have changed their sound too, but have remained distinct. An original  lenited to , and  – consistently attested in pre-Islamic Greek transcription of Arabic languages – became palatalized to  or  by the time of the Quran and , ,  or  after early Muslim conquests and in MSA (see Arabic phonology#Local variations for more detail). An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative  became . Its emphatic counterpart  was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic (Hence the Classical Arabic's appellation   or "language of the "); for most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop  with loss of the laterality or with complete loss of any pharyngealization or velarization, . (The classical  pronunciation of pharyngealization  still occurs in the Mehri language, and the similar sound without velarization, , exists in other Modern South Arabian languages.)Other changes may also have happened. Classical Arabic pronunciation is not thoroughly recorded and different reconstructions of the sound system of Proto-Semitic propose different phonetic values. One example is the emphatic consonants, which are pharyngealized in modern pronunciations but may have been velarized in the eighth century and glottalized in Proto-Semitic.Reduction of  and  between vowels occurs in a number of circumstances and is responsible for much of the complexity of third-weak ("defective") verbs. Early Akkadian transcriptions of Arabic names shows that this reduction had not yet occurred as of the early part of the 1st millennium BC.The Classical Arabic language as recorded was a poetic koine that reflected a consciously archaizing dialect, chosen based on the tribes of the western part of the Arabian Peninsula, who spoke the most conservative variants of Arabic. Even at the time of Muhammed and before, other dialects existed with many more changes, including the loss of most glottal stops, the loss of case endings, the reduction of the diphthongs  and  into monophthongs , etc. Most of these changes are present in most or all modern varieties of Arabic.An interesting feature of the writing system of the Quran (and hence of Classical Arabic) is that it contains certain features of Muhammad's native dialect of Mecca, corrected through diacritics into the forms of standard Classical Arabic. Among these features visible under the corrections are the loss of the glottal stop and a differing development of the reduction of certain final sequences containing : Evidently, final  became  as in the Classical language, but final  became a different sound, possibly  (rather than again  in the Classical language). This is the apparent source of the alif maqṣūrah 'restricted alif' where a final  is reconstructed: a letter that would normally indicate  or some similar high-vowel sound, but is taken in this context to be a logical variant of alif and represent the sound .Although Classical Arabic was a unitary language and is now used in Quran, its pronunciation varies somewhat from country to country and from region to region within a country. It is influenced by colloquial dialects.Literary Arabic The "colloquial" spoken dialects of Arabic are learned at home and constitute the native languages of Arabic speakers. "Formal" Modern Standard Arabic is learned at school; although many speakers have a native-like command of the language, it is technically not the native language of any speakers. Both varieties can be both written and spoken, although the colloquial varieties are rarely written down and the formal variety is spoken mostly in formal circumstances, e.g., in radio and TV broadcasts, formal lectures, parliamentary discussions and to some extent between speakers of different colloquial dialects. Even when the literary language is spoken, however, it is normally only spoken in its pure form when reading a prepared text out loud and communication between speakers of different colloquial dialects. When speaking extemporaneously (i.e. making up the language on the spot, as in a normal discussion among people), speakers tend to deviate somewhat from the strict literary language in the direction of the colloquial varieties. In fact, there is a continuous range of "in-between" spoken varieties: from nearly pure Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), to a form that still uses MSA grammar and vocabulary but with significant colloquial influence, to a form of the colloquial language that imports a number of words and grammatical constructions in MSA, to a form that is close to pure colloquial but with the "rough edges" (the most noticeably "vulgar" or non-Classical aspects) smoothed out, to pure colloquial. The particular variant (or register) used depends on the social class and education level of the speakers involved and the level of formality of the speech situation. Often it will vary within a single encounter, e.g., moving from nearly pure MSA to a more mixed language in the process of a radio interview, as the interviewee becomes more comfortable with the interviewer. This type of variation is characteristic of the diglossia that exists throughout the Arabic-speaking world.Although Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a unitary language, its pronunciation varies somewhat from country to country and from region to region within a country. The variation in individual "accents" of MSA speakers tends to mirror corresponding variations in the colloquial speech of the speakers in question, but with the distinguishing characteristics moderated somewhat. It is important in descriptions of "Arabic" phonology to distinguish between pronunciation of a given colloquial (spoken) dialect and the pronunciation of MSA by these same speakers. Although they are related, they are not the same. For example, the phoneme that derives from Classical Arabic  has many different pronunciations in the modern spoken varieties, e.g.,  including the proposed original . Speakers whose native variety has either  or  will use the same pronunciation when speaking MSA. Even speakers from Cairo, whose native Egyptian Arabic has , normally use  when speaking MSA. The  of Persian Gulf speakers is the only variant pronunciation which isn't found in MSA;  is used instead, but may use [j] in MSA for comfortable pronunciation. Another reason of different pronunciations is influence of colloquial dialects. The differentiation of pronunciation of colloquial dialects is the influence from other languages previously spoken and some still presently spoken in the regions, such as Coptic in Egypt, Berber, Punic, or Phoenician in North Africa, Himyaritic, Modern South Arabian, and Old South Arabian in Yemen and Oman, and Aramaic and Canaanite languages (including Phoenician) in the Levant and Mesopotamia.Another example: Many colloquial varieties are known for a type of vowel harmony in which the presence of an "emphatic consonant" triggers backed allophones of nearby vowels (especially of the low vowels , which are backed to  in these circumstances and very often fronted to  in all other circumstances). In many spoken varieties, the backed or "emphatic" vowel allophones spread a fair distance in both directions from the triggering consonant; in some varieties (most notably Egyptian Arabic), the "emphatic" allophones spread throughout the entire word, usually including prefixes and suffixes, even at a distance of several syllables from the triggering consonant. Speakers of colloquial varieties with this vowel harmony tend to introduce it into their MSA pronunciation as well, but usually with a lesser degree of spreading than in the colloquial varieties. (For example, speakers of colloquial varieties with extremely long-distance harmony may allow a moderate, but not extreme, amount of spreading of the harmonic allophones in their MSA speech, while speakers of colloquial varieties with moderate-distance harmony may only harmonize immediately adjacent vowels in MSA.)Vowels Modern Standard Arabic has six pure vowels (while most modern dialects have eight pure vowels which includes the long vowels ), with short  and corresponding long vowels . There are also two diphthongs:  and .The pronunciation of the vowels differs from speaker to speaker, in a way that tends to reflect the pronunciation of the corresponding colloquial variety. Nonetheless, there are some common trends. Most noticeable is the differing pronunciation of  and , which tend towards fronted ,  or  in most situations, but a back  in the neighborhood of emphatic consonants. Some accents and dialects, such as those of the Hejaz region, have an open  or a central  in all situations. The vowel  varies towards  too. Listen to the final vowel in the recording of  at the beginning of this article, for example. The point is, Arabic has only three short vowel phonemes, so those phonemes can have a very wide range of allophones. The vowels  and  are often affected somewhat in emphatic neighborhoods as well, with generally more back or centralized allophones, but the differences are less great than for the low vowels. The pronunciation of short  and  tends towards  and , respectively, in many dialects.The definition of both "emphatic" and "neighborhood" vary in ways that reflect (to some extent) corresponding variations in the spoken dialects. Generally, the consonants triggering "emphatic" allophones are the pharyngealized consonants ; ; and , if not followed immediately by . Frequently, the  fricatives  also trigger emphatic allophones; occasionally also the pharyngeal consonants  (the former more than the latter). Many dialects have multiple emphatic allophones of each vowel, depending on the particular nearby consonants. In most MSA accents, emphatic coloring of vowels is limited to vowels immediately adjacent to a triggering consonant, although in some it spreads a bit farther: e.g.,    'time';    'homeland';    'downtown' (sometimes  or similar).In a non-emphatic environment, the vowel  in the diphthong  is pronounced  or : hence    'sword' but    'summer'. However, in accents with no emphatic allophones of  (e.g., in the Hejaz), the pronunciation  or  occurs in all situations.Consonants The phoneme  is represented by the Arabic letter  () and has many standard pronunciations.  is characteristic of north Algeria, Iraq, and most of the Arabian peninsula but with an allophonic  in some positions;  occurs in most of the Levant and most of North Africa; and  is used in most of Egypt and some regions in Yemen and Oman. Generally this corresponds with the pronunciation in the colloquial dialects. In some regions in Sudan and Yemen, as well as in some Sudanese and Yemeni dialects, it may be either  or , representing the original pronunciation of Classical Arabic. Foreign words containing  may be transcribed with , , , , ,  or , mainly depending on the regional spoken variety of Arabic or the commonly diacriticized Arabic letter. In northern Egypt, where the Arabic letter  () is normally pronounced , a separate phoneme , which may be transcribed with , occurs in a small number of mostly non-Arabic loanwords, e.g.,  'jacket'. () can be pronounced as . In some places of Maghreb it can be also pronounced as . and  () are velar, post-velar, or uvular.In many varieties,  () are epiglottal  in Western Asia. is pronounced as velarized  in الله , the name of God, q.e. Allah, when the word follows a, ā, u or ū (after i or ī it is unvelarized:  bismi l–lāh ). Some speakers velarize other occurrences of  in MSA, in imitation of their spoken dialects.The emphatic consonant  was actually pronounced , or possibly —either way, a highly unusual sound. The medieval Arabs actually termed their language  'the language of the Ḍād' (the name of the letter used for this sound), since they thought the sound was unique to their language. (In fact, it also exists in a few other minority Semitic languages, e.g., Mehri.)Arabic has consonants traditionally termed "emphatic"  (), which exhibit simultaneous pharyngealization  as well as varying degrees of velarization  (depending on the region), so they may be written with the "Velarized or pharyngealized" diacritic () as: . This simultaneous articulation is described as "Retracted Tongue Root" by phonologists. In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter, for example,  is written ; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it, for example, .Vowels and consonants can be phonologically short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark , which indicates doubled consonants. In actual pronunciation, doubled consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive:   'he accepted' vs.   'he kissed'.Syllable structure Arabic has two kinds of syllables: open syllables (CV) and (CVV)—and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). The syllable types with two morae (units of time), i.e. CVC and CVV, are termed heavy syllables, while those with three morae, i.e. CVVC and CVCC, are superheavy syllables. Superheavy syllables in Classical Arabic occur in only two places: at the end of the sentence (due to pausal pronunciation) and in words such as   'hot',   'stuff, substance',   'they disputed with each other', where a long  occurs before two identical consonants (a former short vowel between the consonants has been lost). (In less formal pronunciations of Modern Standard Arabic, superheavy syllables are common at the end of words or before clitic suffixes such as  'us, our', due to the deletion of final short vowels.)In surface pronunciation, every vowel must be preceded by a consonant (which may include the glottal stop ). There are no cases of hiatus within a word (where two vowels occur next to each other, without an intervening consonant). Some words do have an underlying vowel at the beginning, such as the definite article al- or words such as   'he bought',   'meeting'. When actually pronounced, one of three things happens: If the word occurs after another word ending in a consonant, there is a smooth transition from final consonant to initial vowel, e.g.,   'meeting' . If the word occurs after another word ending in a vowel, the initial vowel of the word is elided, e.g.,   'house of the director' . If the word occurs at the beginning of an utterance, a glottal stop  is added onto the beginning, e.g.,   'The house is ...' .Stress Word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic. It bears a strong relationship to vowel length. The basic rules for Modern Standard Arabic are: A final vowel, long or short, may not be stressed. Only one of the last three syllables may be stressed. Given this restriction, the last heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or ending in a consonant) is stressed, if it is not the final syllable. If the final syllable is super heavy and closed (of the form CVVC or CVCC) it receives stress. If no syllable is heavy or super heavy, the first possible syllable (i.e. third from end) is stressed. As a special exception, in Form VII and VIII verb forms stress may not be on the first syllable, despite the above rules: Hence  'he subscribed' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced),  'he subscribes' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced),  'he should subscribe (juss.)'. Likewise Form VIII  'he bought',  'he buys'.Examples: 'book',  'writer',  'desk',  'desks',  'library' (but  'library' in short pronunciation),  (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote' =  (dialect),  (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote it' =  (dialect),  (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they (dual, fem) wrote',  (Modern Standard Arabic) 'I wrote' =  (short form or dialect). Doubled consonants count as two consonants:  'magazine',  "place".These rules may result in differently stressed syllables when final case endings are pronounced, vs. the normal situation where they are not pronounced, as in the above example of  'library' in full pronunciation, but  'library' in short pronunciation.The restriction on final long vowels does not apply to the spoken dialects, where original final long vowels have been shortened and secondary final long vowels have arisen from loss of original final -hu/hi.Some dialects have different stress rules. In the Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, hence  'school',  'Cairo'. This also affects the way that Modern Standard Arabic is pronounced in Egypt. In the Arabic of Sanaa, stress is often retracted:  'two houses',  'their table',  'desks',  'sometimes',  'their school'. (In this dialect, only syllables with long vowels or diphthongs are considered heavy; in a two-syllable word, the final syllable can be stressed only if the preceding syllable is light; and in longer words, the final syllable cannot be stressed.)Levels of pronunciation The final short vowels (e.g., the case endings -a -i -u and mood endings -u -a) are often not pronounced in this language, despite forming part of the formal paradigm of nouns and verbs. The following levels of pronunciation exist:Full pronunciation with pausa This is the most formal level actually used in speech. All endings are pronounced as written, except at the end of an utterance, where the following changes occur: Final short vowels are not pronounced. (But possibly an exception is made for feminine plural -na and shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!'".) The entire indefinite noun endings -in and -un (with nunation) are left off. The ending -an is left off of nouns preceded by a tāʾ marbūṭah ة (i.e. the -t in the ending -at- that typically marks feminine nouns), but pronounced as -ā in other nouns (hence its writing in this fashion in the Arabic script). The tāʼ marbūṭah itself (typically of feminine nouns) is pronounced as h. (At least, this is the case in extremely formal pronunciation, e.g., some Quranic recitations. In practice, this h is usually omitted.)Formal short pronunciation This is a formal level of pronunciation sometimes seen. It is somewhat like pronouncing all words as if they were in pausal position (with influence from the colloquial varieties). The following changes occur: Most final short vowels are not pronounced. However, the following short vowels are pronounced: feminine plural -na shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!' second-person singular feminine past-tense -ti and likewise anti 'you (fem. sg.)' sometimes, first-person singular past-tense -tu sometimes, second-person masculine past-tense -ta and likewise anta 'you (masc. sg.)' final -a in certain short words, e.g., laysa 'is not', sawfa (future-tense marker) The nunation endings -an -in -un are not pronounced. However, they are pronounced in adverbial accusative formations, e.g.,  تَقْرِيبًا 'almost, approximately',  عَادَةً 'usually'. The tāʾ marbūṭah ending ة is unpronounced, except in construct state nouns, where it sounds as t (and in adverbial accusative constructions, e.g.,  عَادَةً 'usually', where the entire -tan is pronounced). The masculine singular nisbah ending  is actually pronounced  and is unstressed (but plural and feminine singular forms, i.e. when followed by a suffix, still sound as ). Full endings (including case endings) occur when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g.,  'us/our').Informal short pronunciation This is the pronunciation used by speakers of Modern Standard Arabic in extemporaneous speech, i.e. when producing new sentences rather than simply reading a prepared text. It is similar to formal short pronunciation except that the rules for dropping final vowels apply even when a clitic suffix is added. Basically, short-vowel case and mood endings are never pronounced and certain other changes occur that echo the corresponding colloquial pronunciations. Specifically: All the rules for formal short pronunciation apply, except as follows. The past tense singular endings written formally as -tu -ta -ti are pronounced -t -t -ti. But masculine  is pronounced in full. Unlike in formal short pronunciation, the rules for dropping or modifying final endings are also applied when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g.,  'us/our'). If this produces a sequence of three consonants, then one of the following happens, depending on the speaker's native colloquial variety: A short vowel (e.g., -i- or -ǝ-) is consistently added, either between the second and third or the first and second consonants. Or, a short vowel is added only if an otherwise unpronounceable sequence occurs, typically due to a violation of the sonority hierarchy (e.g., -rtn- is pronounced as a three-consonant cluster, but -trn- needs to be broken up). Or, a short vowel is never added, but consonants like r l m n occurring between two other consonants will be pronounced as a syllabic consonant (as in the English words "butter bottle bottom button"). When a doubled consonant occurs before another consonant (or finally), it is often shortened to a single consonant rather than a vowel added. (However, Moroccan Arabic never shortens doubled consonants or inserts short vowels to break up clusters, instead tolerating arbitrary-length series of arbitrary consonants and hence Moroccan Arabic speakers are likely to follow the same rules in their pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic.) The clitic suffixes themselves tend also to be changed, in a way that avoids many possible occurrences of three-consonant clusters. In particular, -ka -ki -hu generally sound as -ak -ik -uh. Final long vowels are often shortened, merging with any short vowels that remain. Depending on the level of formality, the speaker's education level, etc., various grammatical changes may occur in ways that echo the colloquial variants: Any remaining case endings (e.g. masculine plural nominative -ūn vs. oblique -īn) will be leveled, with the oblique form used everywhere. (However, in words like  'father' and  'brother' with special long-vowel case endings in the construct state, the nominative is used everywhere, hence  'father of',  'brother of'.) Feminine plural endings in verbs and clitic suffixes will often drop out, with the masculine plural endings used instead. If the speaker's native variety has feminine plural endings, they may be preserved, but will often be modified in the direction of the forms used in the speaker's native variety, e.g. -an instead of -na. Dual endings will often drop out except on nouns and then used only for emphasis (similar to their use in the colloquial varieties); elsewhere, the plural endings are used (or feminine singular, if appropriate).Colloquial varietiesVowelsAs mentioned above, many spoken dialects have a process of emphasis spreading, where the "emphasis" (pharyngealization) of emphatic consonants spreads forward and back through adjacent syllables, pharyngealizing all nearby consonants and triggering the back allophone  in all nearby low vowels. The extent of emphasis spreading varies. For example, in Moroccan Arabic, it spreads as far as the first full vowel (i.e. sound derived from a long vowel or diphthong) on either side; in many Levantine dialects, it spreads indefinitely, but is blocked by any  or ; while in Egyptian Arabic, it usually spreads throughout the entire word, including prefixes and suffixes. In Moroccan Arabic,  also have emphatic allophones  and , respectively.Unstressed short vowels, especially , are deleted in many contexts. Many sporadic examples of short vowel change have occurred (especially → and interchange ↔). Most Levantine dialects merge short /i u/ into  in most contexts (all except directly before a single final consonant). In Moroccan Arabic, on the other hand, short  triggers labialization of nearby consonants (especially velar consonants and uvular consonants), and then short /a i u/ all merge into , which is deleted in many contexts. (The labialization plus  is sometimes interpreted as an underlying phoneme .) This essentially causes the wholesale loss of the short-long vowel distinction, with the original long vowels  remaining as half-long , phonemically , which are used to represent both short and long vowels in borrowings from Literary Arabic.Most spoken dialects have monophthongized original  to  in most circumstances, including adjacent to emphatic consonants, while keeping them as the original diphthongs in others e.g.  . In most of the Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian (except Sahel and Southeastern) Arabic dialects, they have subsequently merged into original .ConsonantsIn most dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example,  is considered a native phoneme in most Arabic dialects except in Levantine dialects like Syrian or Lebanese where  is pronounced  and  is pronounced .  or  () is considered a native phoneme in most dialects except in Egyptian and a number of Yemeni and Omani dialects where  is pronounced .  or  and  are distinguished in the dialects of Egypt, Sudan, the Levant and the Hejaz, but they have merged as  in most dialects of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Tunisia and have merged as  in Morocco and Algeria. The usage of non-native   and   depends on the usage of each speaker but they might be more prevalent in some dialects than others. The Iraqi and Gulf Arabic also has the sound  and writes it and  with the Persian letters  and , as in   "plum";   "truffle".Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes  and  coalesced into a single phoneme . Many dialects (such as Egyptian, Levantine, and much of the Maghreb) subsequently lost  fricatives, converting  into . Most dialects borrow "learned" words from the Standard language using the same pronunciation as for inherited words, but some dialects without interdental fricatives (particularly in Egypt and the Levant) render original  in borrowed words as .Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render the original velar and uvular plosives ,  (Proto-Semitic ), and :   retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen, Morocco, and urban areas of the Maghreb. It is pronounced as a glottal stop  in several prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. But it is rendered as a voiced velar plosive  in Persian Gulf, Upper Egypt, parts of the Maghreb, and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan). In Iraqi Arabic it sometimes retains its original pronunciation and is sometimes rendered as a voiced velar plosive, depending on the word. Some traditionally Christian villages in rural areas of the Levant render the sound as , as do Shiʻi Bahrainis. In some Gulf dialects, it is palatalized to  or . It is pronounced as a voiced uvular constrictive  in Sudanese Arabic. Many dialects with a modified pronunciation for  maintain the  pronunciation in certain words (often with religious or educational overtones) borrowed from the Classical language.   is pronounced as an affricate in Iraq and much of the Arabian Peninsula but is pronounced  in most of North Egypt and parts of Yemen and Oman,  in Morocco, Tunisia, and the Levant, and ,  in most words in much of the Persian Gulf.   usually retains its original pronunciation but is palatalized to  in many words in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Iraq, and countries in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Often a distinction is made between the suffixes  ('you', masc.) and  ('you', fem.), which become  and , respectively. In Sana'a, Omani, and Bahrani  is pronounced .Pharyngealization of the emphatic consonants tends to weaken in many of the spoken varieties, and to spread from emphatic consonants to nearby sounds. In addition, the "emphatic" allophone  automatically triggers pharyngealization of adjacent sounds in many dialects. As a result, it may difficult or impossible to determine whether a given coronal consonant is phonemically emphatic or not, especially in dialects with long-distance emphasis spreading. (A notable exception is the sounds  vs.  in Moroccan Arabic, because the former is pronounced as an affricate  but the latter is not.)GrammarLiterary Arabic As in other Semitic languages, Arabic has a complex and unusual morphology (i.e. method of constructing words from a basic root). Arabic has a nonconcatenative "root-and-pattern" morphology: A root consists of a set of bare consonants (usually three), which are fitted into a discontinuous pattern to form words. For example, the word for 'I wrote' is constructed by combining the root  'write' with the pattern  'I Xed' to form  'I wrote'. Other verbs meaning 'I Xed' will typically have the same pattern but with different consonants, e.g.  'I read',  'I ate',  'I went', although other patterns are possible (e.g.  'I drank',  'I said',  'I spoke', where the subpattern used to signal the past tense may change but the suffix  is always used).From a single root , numerous words can be formed by applying different patterns: كَتَبْتُ  'I wrote' كَتَّبْتُ  'I had (something) written' كَاتَبْتُ  'I corresponded (with someone)' أَكْتَبْتُ  'I dictated' اِكْتَتَبْتُ  'I subscribed' تَكَاتَبْنَا  'we corresponded with each other' أَكْتُبُ  'I write' أُكَتِّبُ  'I have (something) written' أُكَاتِبُ  'I correspond (with someone)' أُكْتِبُ  'I dictate' أَكْتَتِبُ  'I subscribe' نَتَكَتِبُ  'we correspond each other' كُتِبَ  'it was written' أُكْتِبَ  'it was dictated' مَكْتُوبٌ  'written' مُكْتَبٌ  'dictated' كِتَابٌ  'book' كُتُبٌ  'books' كَاتِبٌ  'writer' كُتَّابٌ  'writers' مَكْتَبٌ  'desk, office' مَكْتَبَةٌ  'library, bookshop' etc.Nouns and adjectivesNouns in Literary Arabic have three grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive [also used when the noun is governed by a preposition]); three numbers (singular, dual and plural); two genders (masculine and feminine); and three "states" (indefinite, definite, and construct). The cases of singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) are indicated by suffixed short vowels (/-u/ for nominative, /-a/ for accusative, /-i/ for genitive).The feminine singular is often marked by ـَة /-at/, which is pronounced as /-ah/ before a pause. Plural is indicated either through endings (the sound plural) or internal modification (the broken plural). Definite nouns include all proper nouns, all nouns in "construct state" and all nouns which are prefixed by the definite article اَلْـ /al-/. Indefinite singular nouns (other than those that end in long ā) add a final /-n/ to the case-marking vowels, giving /-un/, /-an/ or /-in/ (which is also referred to as nunation or tanwīn).Adjectives in Literary Arabic are marked for case, number, gender and state, as for nouns. However, the plural of all non-human nouns is always combined with a singular feminine adjective, which takes the ـَة /-at/  suffix.Pronouns in Literary Arabic are marked for person, number and gender. There are two varieties, independent pronouns and enclitics. Enclitic pronouns are attached to the end of a verb, noun or preposition and indicate verbal and prepositional objects or possession of nouns. The first-person singular pronoun has a different enclitic form used for verbs (ـنِي /-nī/) and for nouns or prepositions (ـِي /-ī/ after consonants, ـيَ /-ya/ after vowels).Nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives agree with each other in all respects. However, non-human plural nouns are grammatically considered to be feminine singular. Furthermore, a verb in a verb-initial sentence is marked as singular regardless of its semantic number when the subject of the verb is explicitly mentioned as a noun. Numerals between three and ten show "chiasmic" agreement, in that grammatically masculine numerals have feminine marking and vice versa.VerbsVerbs in Literary Arabic are marked for person (first, second, or third), gender, and number. They are conjugated in two major paradigms (past and non-past); two voices (active and passive); and six moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, jussive, shorter energetic and longer energetic), the fifth and sixth moods, the energetics, exist only in Classical Arabic but not in MSA. There are also two participles (active and passive) and a verbal noun, but no infinitive.The past and non-past paradigms are sometimes also termed perfective and imperfective, indicating the fact that they actually represent a combination of tense and aspect. The moods other than the indicative occur only in the non-past, and the future tense is signaled by prefixing سَـ  or سَوْفَ  onto the non-past. The past and non-past differ in the form of the stem (e.g., past كَتَبـ vs. non-past ـكْتُبـ ), and also use completely different sets of affixes for indicating person, number and gender: In the past, the person, number and gender are fused into a single suffixal morpheme, while in the non-past, a combination of prefixes (primarily encoding person) and suffixes (primarily encoding gender and number) are used. The passive voice uses the same person/number/gender affixes but changes the vowels of the stem.The following shows a paradigm of a regular Arabic verb, كَتَبَ  'to write'. In Modern Standard, the energetic mood (in either long or short form, which have the same meaning) is almost never used.DerivationLike other Semitic languages, and unlike most other languages, Arabic makes much more use of nonconcatenative morphology (applying many templates applied roots) to derive words than adding prefixes or suffixes to words.For verbs, a given root can occur in many different derived verb stems (of which there are about fifteen), each with one or more characteristic meanings and each with its own templates for the past and non-past stems, active and passive participles, and verbal noun. These are referred to by Western scholars as "Form I", "Form II", and so on through "Form XV" (although Forms XI to XV are rare). These stems encode grammatical functions such as the causative, intensive and reflexive. Stems sharing the same root consonants represent separate verbs, albeit often semantically related, and each is the basis for its own conjugational paradigm. As a result, these derived stems are part of the system of derivational morphology, not part of the inflectional system.Examples of the different verbs formed from the root كتب  'write' (using حمر  'red' for Form IX, which is limited to colors and physical defects):Form II is sometimes used to create transitive denominative verbs (verbs built from nouns); Form V is the equivalent used for intransitive denominatives.The associated participles and verbal nouns of a verb are the primary means of forming new lexical nouns in Arabic. This is similar to the process by which, for example, the English gerund "meeting" (similar to a verbal noun) has turned into a noun referring to a particular type of social, often work-related event where people gather together to have a "discussion" (another lexicalized verbal noun). Another fairly common means of forming nouns is through one of a limited number of patterns that can be applied directly to roots, such as the "nouns of location" in ma- (e.g.  'desk, office' <  'write',  'kitchen' <  'cook').The only three genuine suffixes are as follows: The feminine suffix -ah; variously derives terms for women from related terms for men, or more generally terms along the same lines as the corresponding masculine, e.g.  'library' (also a writing-related place, but different from , as above). The nisbah suffix -iyy-. This suffix is extremely productive, and forms adjectives meaning "related to X". It corresponds to English adjectives in -ic, -al, -an, -y, -ist, etc. The feminine nisbah suffix -iyyah. This is formed by adding the feminine suffix -ah onto nisba adjectives to form abstract nouns. For example, from the basic root  'share' can be derived the Form VIII verb  'to cooperate, participate', and in turn its verbal noun  'cooperation, participation' can be formed. This in turn can be made into a nisbah adjective  'socialist', from which an abstract noun  'socialism' can be derived. Other recent formations are  'republic' (lit. "public-ness", <  'multitude, general public'), and the Gaddafi-specific variation  'people's republic' (lit. "masses-ness", <  'the masses', pl. of , as above).Colloquial varieties The spoken dialects have lost the case distinctions and make only limited use of the dual (it occurs only on nouns and its use is no longer required in all circumstances). They have lost the mood distinctions other than imperative, but many have since gained new moods through the use of prefixes (most often /bi-/ for indicative vs. unmarked subjunctive). They have also mostly lost the indefinite "nunation" and the internal passive.The following is an example of a regular verb paradigm in Egyptian Arabic.Writing system  The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic through Nabatean, to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic scripts to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (North African) and Middle Eastern versions of the alphabet—in particular, the faʼ had a dot underneath and qaf a single dot above in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals).However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like all other Semitic languages (except for the Latin-written Maltese, and the languages with the Ge'ez script), is written from right to left. There are several styles of scripts such as thuluth, muhaqqaq, tawqi, rayhan and notably naskh, which is used in print and by computers, and ruqʻah, which is commonly used for correspondence.Originally Arabic was made up of only rasm without diacritical marks Later diacritical points (which in Arabic are referred to as nuqaṯ) were added (which allowed readers to distinguish between letters such as b, t, th, n and y). Finally signs known as Tashkil were used for short vowels known as harakat and other uses such as final postnasalized or long vowels.Calligraphy After Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi finally fixed the Arabic script around 786, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Quran and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration.Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as calligraphy has in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin script, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Quran, a hadith, or simply a proverb. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. One of the current masters of the genre is Hassan Massoudy.In modern times the intrinsically calligraphic nature of the written Arabic form is haunted by the thought that a typographic approach to the language, necessary for digitized unification, will not always accurately maintain meanings conveyed through calligraphy.Romanization There are a number of different standards for the romanization of Arabic, i.e. methods of accurately and efficiently representing Arabic with the Latin script. There are various conflicting motivations involved, which leads to multiple systems. Some are interested in transliteration, i.e. representing the spelling of Arabic, while others focus on transcription, i.e. representing the pronunciation of Arabic. (They differ in that, for example, the same letter  is used to represent both a consonant, as in "you" or "yet", and a vowel, as in "me" or "eat".) Some systems, e.g. for scholarly use, are intended to accurately and unambiguously represent the phonemes of Arabic, generally making the phonetics more explicit than the original word in the Arabic script. These systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks such as "š" for the sound equivalently written sh in English. Other systems (e.g. the Bahá'í orthography) are intended to help readers who are neither Arabic speakers nor linguists with intuitive pronunciation of Arabic names and phrases. These less "scientific" systems tend to avoid diacritics and use digraphs (like sh and kh). These are usually simpler to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems, and may lead to ambiguities, e.g. whether to interpret sh as a single sound, as in gash, or a combination of two sounds, as in gashouse. The ALA-LC romanization solves this problem by separating the two sounds with a prime symbol ( ′ ); e.g., as′hal 'easier'.During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin script only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic script as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script, sometimes known as IM Arabic.To handle those Arabic letters that cannot be accurately represented using the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" may be used to represent the Arabic letter . There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet. Other systems of transliteration exist, such as using dots or capitalization to represent the "emphatic" counterparts of certain consonants. For instance, using capitalization, the letter , may be represented by d. Its emphatic counterpart, , may be written as D.Numerals In most of present-day North Africa, the Western Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) are used. However, in Egypt and Arabic-speaking countries to the east of it, the Eastern Arabic numerals ( –  –  –  –  –  –  –  –  – ) are in use. When representing a number in Arabic, the lowest-valued position is placed on the right, so the order of positions is the same as in left-to-right scripts. Sequences of digits such as telephone numbers are read from left to right, but numbers are spoken in the traditional Arabic fashion, with units and tens reversed from the modern English usage. For example, 24 is said "four and twenty" just like in the German language (vierundzwanzig) and Classical Hebrew, and 1975 is said "a thousand and nine-hundred and five and seventy" or, more eloquently, "a thousand and nine-hundred five seventy"Language-standards regulators Academy of the Arabic Language is the name of a number of language-regulation bodies formed in the Arab League. The most active are in Damascus and Cairo. They review language development, monitor new words and approve inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts.As a foreign language Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around the world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages, Middle Eastern studies, and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study the language. Software and books with tapes are also important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries.Status in the Arab world vs. other languages With the sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior.In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of the Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises."See also  Arabic Ontology Arabic diglossia Arabic influence on the Spanish languageArabic Language International Council Arabic literature Arabic–English Lexicon Arabist Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic Glossary of Islam International Association of Arabic Dialectology List of Arab newspapers List of Arabic-language television channels List of Arabic given names List of arabophones List of countries where Arabic is an official language List of French words of Arabic origin List of replaced loanwords in TurkishReferencesCitationsSources                   Suileman, Yasir. Arabic, Self and Identity: A Study in Conflict and Displacement. Oxford University Press, 2011. .External links  Dr. Nizar Habash's, Columbia University, Introduction to Arabic Natural Language Processing Google Ta3reeb – Google Transliteration Transliteration Arabic language pronunciation applet  Alexis Neme (2011), A lexicon of Arabic verbs constructed on the basis of Semitic taxonomy and using finite-state transducers  Alexis Neme and Eric Laporte (2013), Pattern-and-root inflectional morphology: the Arabic broken plural  Alexis Neme and Eric Laporte (2015), Do computer scientists deeply understand Arabic morphology? – , available also in Arabic, Indonesian, French  Arabic manuscripts, UA 5572 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University Online Arabic Keyboard  (Bilingual dictionary) Arabic Student's Dictionary Languages attested from the 9th century BCArticles containing video clipsCentral Semitic languagesFusional languagesLanguages of AlgeriaLanguages of BahrainLanguages of CameroonLanguages of ChadLanguages of the ComorosLanguages of DjiboutiLanguages of EritreaLanguages of GibraltarLanguages of IsraelLanguages of IranLanguages of IraqLanguages of JordanLanguages of KurdistanLanguages of KuwaitLanguages of LebanonLanguages of LibyaLanguages of MaliLanguages of MauritaniaLanguages of MoroccoLanguages of NigerLanguages of OmanLanguages of the State of PalestineLanguages of QatarLanguages of Saudi ArabiaLanguages of SenegalLanguages of South SudanLanguages of SicilyLanguages of SomaliaLanguages of SudanLanguages of SyriaLanguages of the United Arab EmiratesLanguages of TunisiaLanguages of YemenStress-timed languagesSubject–verb–object languagesVerb–subject–object languages
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock  (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker who was one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", he became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director despite five nominations. Hitchcock initially trained as a technical clerk and copy writer before entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. His directorial debut was the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden (1925). His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), helped to shape the thriller genre, and Blackmail (1929) was the first British "talkie". His thrillers The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938) are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century. By 1939, he had international recognition and producer David O. Selznick persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946). Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Hitchcock nominated as Best Director; he was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945). After a brief commercial lull, he returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954); he then went on to direct four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations.   The Birds (1963) and  Marnie (1964) were also financially successful and are highly regarded by film historians. The "Hitchcockian" style includes the use of camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into voyeurs, and framing shots to maximise anxiety and fear. The film critic Robin Wood wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film "is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole."  Hitchcock made multiple films with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including four with Cary Grant in the 1940s and 1950s, three with Ingrid Bergman in the last half of the 1940s, four with James Stewart over a ten-year span commencing in 1948, and three with Grace Kelly in the mid-1950s. Hitchcock became an American citizen in 1955.In 2012, Hitchcock's psychological thriller Vertigo, starring Stewart, displaced Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) as the British Film Institute's greatest film ever made based on its world-wide poll of hundreds of film critics. , nine of his films had been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry,  including his personal favourite, Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 1971, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979 and was knighted in December that year, four months before his death on 29 April 1980.BiographyEarly life: 1899–1919Early childhood and educationHitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in the flat above his parents' leased grocer's shop at 517 High Road, Leytonstone, on the outskirts of East London (then part of Essex), the youngest of three children: William Daniel (1890–1943), Ellen Kathleen ("Nellie") (1892–1979), and Alfred Joseph (1899–1980). His parents, Emma Jane Hitchcock ( Whelan; 1863–1942), and William Edgar Hitchcock (1862–1914), were both Roman Catholics, with partial roots in Ireland; His father was a greengrocer, as his grandfather had been.There was a large extended family, including uncle John Hitchcock with his five-bedroom Victorian house on Campion Road, Putney, complete with maid, cook, chauffeur and gardener. Every summer, his uncle rented a seaside house for the family in Cliftonville, Kent. Hitchcock said that he first became class-conscious there, noticing the differences between tourists and locals.Describing himself as a well-behaved boy—his father called him his "little lamb without a spot"—Hitchcock said he could not remember ever having had a playmate. One of his favourite stories for interviewers was about his father sending him to the local police station with a note when he was five; the policeman looked at the note and locked him in a cell for a few minutes, saying, "This is what we do to naughty boys." The experience left him, he said, with a lifelong fear of policemen; in 1973 he told Tom Snyder that he was "scared stiff of anything ... to do with the law" and wouldn't even drive a car in case he got a parking ticket.When he was six, the family moved to Limehouse and leased two stores at 130 and 175 Salmon Lane, which they ran as a fish-and-chips shop and fishmongers' respectively; they lived above the former. Hitchcock attended his first school, the Howrah House Convent in Poplar, which he entered in 1907, at age 7. According to biographer Patrick McGilligan, he stayed at Howrah House for at most two years. He also attended a convent school, the Wode Street School "for the daughters of gentlemen and little boys", run by the Faithful Companions of Jesus. He then attended a primary school near his home and was for a short time a boarder at Salesian College in Battersea.The family moved again when he was 11, this time to Stepney, and on 5 October 1910 Hitchcock was sent to St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, Tottenham (now in the London Borough of Haringey), a Jesuit grammar school with a reputation for discipline. The priests used a hard rubber cane on the boys, always at the end of the day, so the boys had to sit through classes anticipating the punishment if they had been written up for it. He later said that this is where he developed his sense of fear. The school register lists his year of birth as 1900 rather than 1899; biographer Donald Spoto says he was deliberately enrolled as a 10-year-old because he was a year behind with his schooling.While biographer Gene Adair reports that Hitchcock was "an average, or slightly above-average, pupil", Hitchcock said that he was "usually among the four or five at the top of the class"; at the end of his first year, his work in Latin, English, French and religious education was noted.  He told Peter Bogdanovich: "The Jesuits taught me organisation, control and, to some degree, analysis."His favourite subject was geography, and he became interested in maps, and railway, tram and bus timetables; according to John Russell Taylor, he could recite all the stops on the Orient Express. He also had a particular interest in London trams. An overwhelming majority of his films include rail or tram scenes, in particular The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train and Number Seventeen. A clapperboard shows the number of the scene and the number of takes, and Hitchcock would often take the two numbers on the clapperboard and whisper the London tram route names. For example, if the clapperboard showed Scene 23; Take 3; Hitchcock would whisper "Woodford, Hampstead" – Woodford being the terminus of the route 23 tram, and Hampstead the end of route 3.Henley'sHitchcock told his parents that he wanted to be an engineer, and on 25 July 1913, he left St Ignatius and enrolled in night classes at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar. In a book-length interview in 1962, he told François Truffaut that he had studied "mechanics, electricity, acoustics, and navigation". Then on 12 December 1914 his father, who had been suffering from emphysema and kidney disease, died at the age of 52. To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job, for 15 shillings a week (£ in ), as a technical clerk at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company in Blomfield Street near London Wall. He continued night classes, this time in art history, painting, economics, and political science. His older brother ran the family shops, while he and his mother continued to live in Salmon Lane.Hitchcock was too young to enlist when the First World War started in July 1914, and when he reached the required age of 18 in 1917, he received a C3 classification ("free from serious organic disease, able to stand service conditions in garrisons at home ... only suitable for sedentary work"). He joined a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers and took part in theoretical briefings, weekend drills, and exercises. John Russell Taylor wrote that, in one session of practical exercises in Hyde Park, Hitchcock was required to wear puttees. He could never master wrapping them around his legs, and they repeatedly fell down around his ankles.After the war, Hitchcock took an interest in creative writing. In June 1919, he became a founding editor and business manager of Henley's in-house publication, The Henley Telegraph (sixpence a copy), to which he submitted several short stories. Henley's promoted him to the advertising department, where he wrote copy and drew graphics for electric cable advertisements. He enjoyed the job and would stay late at the office to examine the proofs; he told Truffaut that this was his "first step toward cinema". He enjoyed watching films, especially American cinema, and from the age of 16 read the trade papers; he watched Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith and Buster Keaton, and particularly liked Fritz Lang's Der müde Tod (1921).Inter-war career: 1919–1939Famous Players-LaskyWhile still at Henley's, he read in a trade paper that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London. They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so he produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio. They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios in Poole Street, Hoxton, as a title-card designer.Donald Spoto wrote that most of the staff were Americans with strict job specifications, but the English workers were encouraged to try their hand at anything, which meant that Hitchcock gained experience as a co-writer, art director and production manager on at least 18 silent films. The Times wrote in February 1922 about the studio's "special art title department under the supervision of Mr. A. J. Hitchcock". His work included Number 13 (1922), also known as Mrs. Peabody; it was cancelled because of financial problems—the few finished scenes are lost—and Always Tell Your Wife (1923), which he and Seymour Hicks finished together when Hicks was about to give up on it. Hicks wrote later about being helped by "a fat youth who was in charge of the property room ... [n]one other than Alfred Hitchcock".Gainsborough Pictures and work in GermanyWhen Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures. Hitchcock worked on Woman to Woman (1923) with the director Graham Cutts, designing the set, writing the script and producing. He said: "It was the first film that I had really got my hands onto." The editor and "script girl" on Woman to Woman was Alma Reville, his future wife. He also worked as an assistant to Cutts on The White Shadow (1924), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard (1925), and The Prude's Fall (1925). The Blackguard was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, where Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film The Last Laugh (1924). He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions.In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka at the Geiselgasteig studio near Munich. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor. Although the film was a commercial flop, Balcon liked Hitchcock's work; a Daily Express headline called him the "Young man with a master mind". Production of The Pleasure Garden encountered obstacles which Hitchcock would later learn from: on arrival to Brenner Pass, he failed to declare his film stock to customs and it was confiscated; one actress could not enter the water for a scene because she was on her period; budget overruns meant that he had to borrow money from the actors. Hitchcock also needed a translator to give instructions to the cast and crew.In Germany, Hitchcock observed the nuances of German cinema and filmmaking which had a big influence on him. When he was not working, he would visit Berlin's art galleries, concerts and museums. He would also meet with actors, writers, and producers to build connections. Balcon asked him to direct a second film in Munich, The Mountain Eagle (1926), based on an original story titled Fear o' God. The film is lost, and Hitchcock called it "a very bad movie". A year later, Hitchcock wrote and directed The Ring; although the screenplay was credited solely to his name, Elliot Stannard assisted him with the writing. The Ring garnered positive reviews; the Bioscope magazine critic called it "the most magnificent British film ever made".When he returned to England, Hitchcock was one of the early members of the London Film Society, newly formed in 1925. Through the Society, he became fascinated by the work by Soviet filmmakers: Dziga Vertov, Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Vsevolod Pudovkin. He would also socialise with fellow English filmmakers Ivor Montagu and Adrian Brunel, and Walter C. Mycroft.Hitchcock's luck came with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), about the hunt for a serial killer, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays. A landlady suspects that her lodger is the killer, but he turns out to be innocent. To convey the impression footsteps were being heard from an upper floor, Hitchcock had a glass floor made so that the viewer could see the lodger pacing up and down in his room above the landlady. Hitchcock had wanted the leading man to be guilty, or for the film at least to end ambiguously, but the star was Ivor Novello, a matinée idol, and the "star system" meant that Novello could not be the villain. Hitchcock told Truffaut: "You have to clearly spell it out in big letters: 'He is innocent.'" (He had the same problem years later with Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941).) Released in January 1927, The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK. Hitchcock told Truffaut that the film was the first of his to be influenced by German Expressionism: "In truth, you might almost say that The Lodger was my first picture." He made his first cameo appearances in the film; he was depicted sitting in a newsroom, and in the second, standing in a crowd as the leading man is arrested.MarriageOn 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married the English screenwriter Alma Reville at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington. The couple honeymooned in Paris, Lake Como and St. Moritz, before returning to London to live in a leased flat on the top two floors of 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington. Reville, who was born just hours after Hitchcock, converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, apparently at the insistence of Hitchcock's mother; she was baptised on 31 May 1927 and confirmed at Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal Francis Bourne on 5 June.In 1928, when they learned that Reville was pregnant, the Hitchcocks purchased "Winter's Grace", a Tudor farmhouse set in 11 acres on Stroud Lane, Shamley Green, Surrey, for £2,500. Their daughter and only child, Patricia Alma Hitchcock, was born on 7 July that year. Patricia died on 9 August 2021 at 93.Reville became her husband's closest collaborator; Charles Champlin wrote in 1982: "The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma's." When Hitchcock accepted the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979, he said that he wanted to mention "four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville." Reville wrote or co-wrote on many of Hitchcock's films, including Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion and The 39 Steps.Early sound filmsHitchcock began work on his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), when its production company, British International Pictures (BIP), converted its Elstree studios to sound. The film was the first British "talkie"; this followed the rapid development of sound films in the United States, from the use of brief sound segments in The Jazz Singer (1927) to the first full sound feature Lights of New York (1928). Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder. During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP revue, Elstree Calling (1930), and directed a short film, An Elastic Affair (1930), featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners. An Elastic Affair is one of the lost films.In 1933, Hitchcock signed a multi-film contract with Gaumont-British, once again working for Michael Balcon. His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success; his second, The 39 Steps (1935), was acclaimed in the UK and gained him recognition in the United States. It also established the quintessential English "Hitchcock blonde" (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. Screenwriter Robert Towne remarked, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps". This film was one of the first to introduce the "MacGuffin" plot device, a term coined by the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail. The MacGuffin is an item or goal the protagonist is pursuing, one that otherwise has no narrative value; in The 39 Steps, the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans.Hitchcock released two spy thrillers in 1936. Sabotage was loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel, The Secret Agent (1907), about a woman who discovers that her husband is a terrorist, and Secret Agent, based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham.At this time, Hitchcock also became notorious for pranks against the cast and crew. These jokes ranged from simple and innocent to crazy and maniacal. For instance, he hosted a dinner party where he dyed all the food blue because he claimed there weren't enough blue foods. He also had a horse delivered to the dressing room of his friend, actor Gerald du Maurier. Hitchcock followed up with Young and Innocent in 1937, a crime thriller based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey. Starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney, the film was relatively enjoyable for the cast and crew to make. To meet distribution purposes in America, the film's runtime was cut and this included removal of one of Hitchcock's favourite scenes: a children's tea party which becomes menacing to the protagonists.Hitchcock's next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), "one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era", according to Philip French, in which Miss Froy (May Whitty), a British spy posing as a governess, disappears on a train journey through the fictional European country of Bandrika. The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director. Benjamin Crisler of the New York Times wrote in June 1938: "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not: Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world." The film was based on the novel The Wheel Spins (1936) written by Ethel Lina White.By 1938 Hitchcock was aware that he had reached his peak in Britain. He had received numerous offers from producers in the United States, but he turned them all down because he disliked the contractual obligations or thought the projects were repellent. However, producer David O. Selznick offered him a concrete proposal to make a film based on the sinking of , which was eventually shelved, but Selznick persuaded Hitchcock to come to Hollywood. In July 1938, Hitchcock flew to New York, and found that he was already a celebrity; he was featured in magazines and gave interviews to radio stations. In Hollywood, Hitchcock met Selznick for the first time. Selznick offered him a four-film contract, approximately $40,000 for each picture ().Early Hollywood years: 1939–1945Selznick contractSelznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in April 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood. The Hitchcocks lived in a spacious flat on Wilshire Boulevard, and slowly acclimatised themselves to the Los Angeles area. He and his wife Alma kept a low profile, and were not interested in attending parties or being celebrities. Hitchcock discovered his taste for fine food in West Hollywood, but still carried on his way of life from England. He was impressed with Hollywood's filmmaking culture, expansive budgets and efficiency, compared to the limits that he had often faced in Britain. In June that year, Life magazine called him the "greatest master of melodrama in screen history".Although Hitchcock and Selznick respected each other, their working arrangements were sometimes difficult. Selznick suffered from constant financial problems, and Hitchcock was often unhappy about Selznick's creative control and interference over his films. Selznick was also displeased with Hitchcock's method of shooting just what was in the script, and nothing more, which meant that the film could not be cut and remade differently at a later time. As well as complaining about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", their personalities were mismatched: Hitchcock was reserved whereas Selznick was flamboyant. Eventually, Selznick generously lent Hitchcock to the larger film studios. Selznick made only a few films each year, as did fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. In a later interview, Hitchcock said: "[Selznick] was the Big Producer. ... Producer was king. The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the 'only director' he'd 'trust with a film'."Hitchcock approached American cinema cautiously; his first American film was set in England in which the "Americanness" of the characters was incidental: Rebecca (1940) was set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier. Selznick insisted on a faithful adaptation of the book, and disagreed with Hitchcock with the use of humour. The film, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, concerns an unnamed naïve young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She lives in his large English country house, and struggles with the lingering reputation of his elegant and worldly first wife Rebecca, who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won Best Picture at the 13th Academy Awards; the statuette was given to producer Selznick. Hitchcock received his first nomination for Best Director, his first of five such nominations.Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, based on Vincent Sheean's book Personal History (1935) and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while Britain was at war; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort. Filmed in 1939, it was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as covered by an American newspaper reporter played by Joel McCrea. By mixing footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood backlot, the film avoided direct references to Nazism, Nazi Germany, and Germans, to comply with the Motion Picture Production Code at the time.Early war yearsIn September 1940 the Hitchcocks bought the  Cornwall Ranch near Scotts Valley, California, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Their primary residence was an English-style home in Bel Air, purchased in 1942. Hitchcock's films were diverse during this period, ranging from the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) to the bleak film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943).Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer and director. It is set in England; Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz for the English coastline sequence. The film is the first of four in which Cary Grant was cast by Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant plays a sinister character. Grant plays Johnnie Aysgarth, an English conman whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his shy young English wife, Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine). In one scene, Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife; the light ensures that the audience's attention is on the glass. Grant's character is actually a killer, as per written in the book, Before the Fact by Francis Iles, but the studio felt that Grant's image would be tarnished by that. Hitchcock therefore settled for an ambiguous finale, although he would have preferred to end with the wife's murder. Fontaine won Best Actress for her performance.Saboteur (1942) is the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal Studios during the decade. Hitchcock was forced by Universal to use Universal contract player Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, a freelancer who signed a one-picture deal with the studio, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. The story depicts a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty. Hitchcock took a three-day tour of New York City to scout for Saboteurs filming locations. He also directed Have You Heard? (1942), a photographic dramatisation for Life magazine of the dangers of rumours during wartime. In 1943, he wrote a mystery story for Look magazine, "The Murder of Monty Woolley", a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to find clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick, and make-up man Guy Pearce.Back in England, Hitchcock's mother Emma was severely ill; she died on 26 September 1942 at age 79. Hitchcock never spoke publicly about his mother, but his assistant said that he admired her. Four months later, on 4 January 1943, his brother William died of an overdose at age 52. Hitchcock was not very close to William, but his death made Hitchcock conscious about his own eating and drinking habits. He was overweight and suffering from back aches. His New Year's resolution in 1943 was to take his diet seriously with the help of a physician. In January that year, Shadow of a Doubt was released, which Hitchcock had fond memories of making. In the film, Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa.At 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock approached John Steinbeck with an idea for a film, which recorded the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack. Steinbeck began work on the script for what would become Lifeboat (1944). However, Steinbeck was unhappy with the film and asked that his name be removed from the credits, to no avail. The idea was rewritten as a short story by Harry Sylvester and published in Collier's in 1943. The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance; it was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for "Reduco-Obesity Slayer". He told Truffaut in 1962:Hitchcock's typical dinner before his weight loss had been a roast chicken, boiled ham, potatoes, bread, vegetables, relishes, salad, dessert, a bottle of wine and some brandy. To lose weight, his diet consisted of black coffee for breakfast and lunch, and steak and salad for dinner, but it was hard to maintain; Donald Spoto wrote that his weight fluctuated considerably over the next 40 years. At the end of 1943, despite the weight loss, the Occidental Insurance Company of Los Angeles refused his application for life insurance.Wartime non-fiction filmsHitchcock returned to the UK for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944. While there he made two short propaganda films, Bon Voyage (1944) and Aventure Malgache (1944), for the Ministry of Information. In June and July 1945, Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" on a Holocaust documentary that used Allied Forces footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The film was assembled in London and produced by Sidney Bernstein of the Ministry of Information, who brought Hitchcock (a friend of his) on board. It was originally intended to be broadcast to the Germans, but the British government deemed it too traumatic to be shown to a shocked post-war population. Instead, it was transferred in 1952 from the British War Office film vaults to London's Imperial War Museum and remained unreleased until 1985, when an edited version was broadcast as an episode of PBS Frontline, under the title the Imperial War Museum had given it: Memory of the Camps. The full-length version of the film, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, was restored in 2014 by scholars at the Imperial War Museum.Post-war Hollywood years: 1945–1953Later Selznick filmsHitchcock worked for David Selznick again when he directed Spellbound (1945), which explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned; Selznick edited it to make it "play" more effectively. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past. Two point-of-view shots were achieved by building a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on some copies of the black-and-white film. The original musical score by Miklós Rózsa makes use of the theremin, and some of it was later adapted by the composer into Rozsa's Piano Concerto Op. 31 (1967) for piano and orchestra.The spy film Notorious followed next in 1946. Hitchcock told François Truffaut that Selznick sold him, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Ben Hecht's screenplay, to RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) because of cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). Notorious stars Bergman and Grant, both Hitchcock collaborators, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium and South America. His prescient use of uranium as a plot device led to him being briefly placed under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to Patrick McGilligan, in or around March 1945, Hitchcock and Hecht consulted Robert Millikan of the California Institute of Technology about the development of a uranium bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction", only to be confronted by the news of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.Transatlantic PicturesHitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film. With Rope (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat. The film appears as a very limited number of continuous shots, but it was actually shot in 10 ranging from 4- to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film was the most that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. The film features James Stewart in the leading role, and was the first of four films that Stewart made with Hitchcock. It was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. Critical response at the time was mixed.Under Capricorn (1949), set in 19th-century Australia, also uses the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white for several years. Transatlantic Pictures became inactive after the last two films. Hitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) at Elstree Studios in England, where he had worked during his British International Pictures contract many years before. He paired one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the expatriate German actor Marlene Dietrich and used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first proper production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties.His thriller Strangers on a Train (1951) was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain. I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest.Peak years: 1954–1964Dial M for Murder and Rear WindowI Confess was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). In Dial M for Murder, Ray Milland plays the villain who tries to murder his unfaithful wife (Kelly) for her money. She kills the hired assassin in self-defence, so Milland manipulates the evidence to make it look like murder. Her lover, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) save her from execution. Hitchcock experimented with 3D cinematography for Dial M for Murder.Hitchcock moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character is a photographer called Jeff (based on Robert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. Out of boredom, he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, then becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Jeff eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment".Alfred Hitchcock PresentsFrom 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. The title-sequence of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of his profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled. The series theme tune was Funeral March of a Marionette by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893).His introductions always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are shown with a sign "Two chairs—no waiting!" He directed 18 episodes of the series, which aired from 1955 to 1965. It became The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962, and NBC broadcast the final episode on 10 May 1965. In the 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.Hitchcock's success in television spawned a set of short-story collections in his name; these included Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology, Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV, and Tales My Mother Never Told Me. In 1956, HSD Publications also licensed the director's name to create Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, a monthly digest specialising in crime and detective fiction. Hitchcock's television series' were very profitable, and his foreign-language versions of books were bringing revenues of up to $100,000 a year ().From To Catch a Thief to VertigoIn 1955, Hitchcock became a United States citizen. In the same year, his third Grace Kelly film, To Catch a Thief, was released; it is set in the French Riviera, and stars Kelly and Cary Grant. Grant plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him. "Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success." It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly; she married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and ended her film career afterward. Hitchcock then remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. This time, the film starred James Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song "Que Sera, Sera", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a big hit. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall.The Wrong Man (1956), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Bros., is a low-key black-and-white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock to star Henry Fonda, playing a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief, who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes.While directing episodes for Alfred Hitchcock Presents during the summer of 1957, Hitchcock was admitted to hospital for hernia and gallstones, and had to have his gallbladder removed. Following a successful surgery, he immediately returned to work to prepare for his next project. Vertigo (1958) again starred James Stewart, with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. He had wanted Vera Miles to play the lead, but she was pregnant. He told Oriana Fallaci: "I was offering her a big part, the chance to become a beautiful sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We'd have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children."In Vertigo, Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who becomes obsessed with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock did not opt for a happy ending. Some critics, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo is the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who moulds a woman into the person he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death, than any other work in his filmography.Vertigo contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts, commonly referred to as a dolly zoom, which has been copied by many filmmakers. The film premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and Hitchcock won the Silver Seashell prize. Vertigo is considered a classic, but it attracted mixed reviews and poor box-office receipts at the time; the critic from Variety magazine opined that the film was "too slow and too long". Bosley Crowther of the New York Times thought it was "devilishly far-fetched", but praised the cast performances and Hitchcock's direction. The picture was also the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock. In the 2002 Sight & Sound polls, it ranked just behind Citizen Kane (1941); ten years later, in the same magazine, critics chose it as the best film ever made.North by Northwest and PsychoAfter Vertigo, the rest of 1958 was a difficult year for Hitchcock. During pre-production of North by Northwest (1959), which was a "slow" and "agonising" process, his wife Alma was diagnosed with cancer. While she was in hospital, Hitchcock kept himself occupied with his television work and would visit her every day. Alma underwent surgery and made a full recovery, but it caused Hitchcock to imagine, for the first time, life without her.Hitchcock followed up with three more successful films, which are also recognised as among his best: North by Northwest, Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). In North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. He is pursued across the United States by enemy agents, including Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). At first, Thornhill believes Kendall is helping him, but then realises that she is an enemy agent; he later learns that she is working undercover for the CIA. During its opening two-week run at Radio City Music Hall, the film grossed $404,056 (equivalent to $ million in ), setting a non-holiday gross record for that theatre. Time magazine called the film "smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining".Psycho (1960) is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film. Based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel Psycho, which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein, the film was produced on a tight budget of $800,000 (equivalent to $ million in ) and shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early death of the heroine, and the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer became the hallmarks of a new horror-film genre. The film proved popular with audiences, with lines stretching outside theatres as viewers waited for the next showing. It broke box-office records in the United Kingdom, France, South America, the United States and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period.Psycho was the most profitable of Hitchcock's career, and he personally earned in excess of $15 million (equivalent to $ million in ). He subsequently swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder and his own boss at Universal, in theory at least, although that did not stop studio interference. Following the first film, Psycho became an American horror franchise: Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel, Psycho IV: The Beginning, and a colour 1998 remake of the original.Truffaut interviewOn 13 August 1962, Hitchcock's 63rd birthday, the French director François Truffaut began a 50-hour interview of Hitchcock, filmed over eight days at Universal Studios, during which Hitchcock agreed to answer 500 questions. It took four years to transcribe the tapes and organise the images; it was published as a book in 1967, which Truffaut nicknamed the "Hitchbook". The audio tapes were used as the basis of a documentary in 2015. Truffaut sought the interview because it was clear to him that Hitchcock was not simply the mass-market entertainer the American media made him out to be. It was obvious from his films, Truffaut wrote, that Hitchcock had "given more thought to the potential of his art than any of his colleagues". He compared the interview to "Oedipus' consultation of the oracle".The BirdsThe film scholar Peter William Evans wrote that The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964) are regarded as "undisputed masterpieces". Hitchcock had intended to film Marnie first, and in March 1962 it was announced that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco since 1956, would come out of retirement to star in it. When Kelly asked Hitchcock to postpone Marnie until 1963 or 1964, he recruited Evan Hunter, author of The Blackboard Jungle (1954), to develop a screenplay based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, "The Birds" (1952), which Hitchcock had republished in his My Favorites in Suspense (1959). He hired Tippi Hedren to play the lead role. It was her first role; she had been a model in New York when Hitchcock saw her, in October 1961, in an NBC television advert for Sego, a diet drink: "I signed her because she is a classic beauty. Movies don't have them any more. Grace Kelly was the last." He insisted, without explanation, that her first name be written in single quotation marks: 'Tippi'.In The Birds, Melanie Daniels, a young socialite, meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a bird shop; Jessica Tandy plays his possessive mother. Hedren visits him in Bodega Bay (where The Birds was filmed) carrying a pair of lovebirds as a gift. Suddenly waves of birds start gathering, watching, and attacking. The question: "What do the birds want?" is left unanswered. Hitchcock made the film with equipment from the Revue Studio, which made Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He said it was his most technically challenging film, using a combination of trained and mechanical birds against a backdrop of wild ones. Every shot was sketched in advance.An HBO/BBC television film, The Girl (2012), depicted Hedren's experiences on set; she said that Hitchcock became obsessed with her and sexually harassed her. He reportedly isolated her from the rest of the crew, had her followed, whispered obscenities to her, had her handwriting analysed, and had a ramp built from his private office directly into her trailer. Diane Baker, her co-star in Marnie, said: "[N]othing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was." While filming the attack scene in the attic—which took a week to film—she was placed in a caged room while two men wearing elbow-length protective gloves threw live birds at her. Toward the end of the week, to stop the birds' flying away from her too soon, one leg of each bird was attached by nylon thread to elastic bands sewn inside her clothes. She broke down after a bird cut her lower eyelid, and filming was halted on doctor's orders.MarnieIn June 1962, Grace Kelly announced that she had decided against appearing in Marnie (1964). Hedren had signed an exclusive seven-year, $500-a-week contract with Hitchcock in October 1961, and he decided to cast her in the lead role opposite Sean Connery. In 2016, describing Hedren's performance as "one of the greatest in the history of cinema", Richard Brody called the film a "story of sexual violence" inflicted on the character played by Hedren: "The film is, to put it simply, sick, and it's so because Hitchcock was sick. He suffered all his life from furious sexual desire, suffered from the lack of its gratification, suffered from the inability to transform fantasy into reality, and then went ahead and did so virtually, by way of his art." A 1964 New York Times film review called it Hitchcock's "most disappointing film in years", citing Hedren's and Connery's lack of experience, an amateurish script and "glaringly fake cardboard backdrops".In the film, Marnie Edgar (Hedren) steals $10,000 from her employer and goes on the run. She applies for a job at Mark Rutland's (Connery) company in Philadelphia and steals from there too. Earlier she is shown having a panic attack during a thunderstorm and fearing the colour red. Mark tracks her down and blackmails her into marrying him. She explains that she does not want to be touched, but during the "honeymoon", Mark rapes her. Marnie and Mark discover that Marnie's mother had been a prostitute when Marnie was a child, and that, while the mother was fighting with a client during a thunderstorm—the mother believed the client had tried to molest Marnie—Marnie had killed the client to save her mother. Cured of her fears when she remembers what happened, she decides to stay with Mark.Hitchcock told cinematographer Robert Burks that the camera had to be placed as close as possible to Hedren when he filmed her face. Evan Hunter, the screenwriter of The Birds who was writing Marnie too, explained to Hitchcock that, if Mark loved Marnie, he would comfort her, not rape her. Hitchcock reportedly replied: "Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face!" When Hunter submitted two versions of the script, one without the rape scene, Hitchcock replaced him with Jay Presson Allen.Later years: 1966–1980Final filmsFailing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal imposed two films on him, Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969), the latter of which is based on a Leon Uris novel, partly set in Cuba. Both were spy thrillers with Cold War-related themes. Torn Curtain, with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the 12-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock was unhappy with Herrmann's score and replaced him with John Addison, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Upon release, Torn Curtain was a box office disappointment, and Topaz was disliked by critics and the studio.Hitchcock returned to Britain to make his penultimate film, Frenzy (1972), based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (1966). After two espionage films, the plot marked a return to the murder-thriller genre. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect in the investigation into the "Necktie Murders", which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites as in Strangers on a Train.In Frenzy, Hitchcock allowed nudity for the first time. Two scenes show naked women, one of whom is being raped and strangled; Donald Spoto called the latter "one of the most repellent examples of a detailed murder in the history of film". Both actors, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anna Massey, refused to do the scenes, so models were used instead. Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the head of the Motion Picture Production Code. Hitchcock would add subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such material and were actually amused, as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences".Family Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It relates the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler, played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi-driver lover Bruce Dern, making a living from her phony powers. While Family Plot was based on the Victor Canning novel The Rainbird Pattern (1972), the novel's tone is more sinister. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman originally wrote the film, under the working title Deception, with a dark tone but was pushed to a lighter, more comical tone by Hitchcock where it took the name Deceit, then finally, Family Plot.Knighthood and death Toward the end of his life, Hitchcock was working on the script for a spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with James Costigan, Ernest Lehman and David Freeman. Despite preliminary work, it was never filmed. Hitchcock's health was declining and he was worried about his wife, who had suffered a stroke. The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's book The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock (1999).Having refused a CBE in 1962, Hitchcock was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1980 New Year Honours. He was too ill to travel to London—he had a pacemaker and was being given cortisone injections for his arthritis—so on 3 January 1980 the British consul general presented him with the papers at Universal Studios. Asked by a reporter after the ceremony why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, "I suppose it was a matter of carelessness." Cary Grant, Janet Leigh, and others attended a luncheon afterwards.His last public appearance was on 16 March 1980, when he introduced the next year's winner of the American Film Institute award. He died of kidney failure the following month, on 29 April, in his Bel Air home. Donald Spoto, one of Hitchcock's biographers, wrote that Hitchcock had declined to see a priest, but according to Jesuit priest Mark Henninger, he and another priest, Tom Sullivan, celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home, and Sullivan heard his confession. Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. His funeral was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills on 30 April, after which his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean on 10 May 1980.FilmmakingStyle and themesHitchcock's film production career evolved from small-scale silent films to financially significant sound films. Hitchcock remarked that he was influenced by early filmmakers George Méliès, D.W. Griffith and Alice Guy-Blaché. His silent films between 1925 and 1929 were in the crime and suspense genres, but also included melodramas and comedies. Whilst visual storytelling was pertinent during the silent era, even after the arrival of sound, Hitchcock still relied on visuals in cinema; Hitchcock referred to this emphasis on visual storytelling as "pure cinema". In Britain, he honed his craft so that by the time he moved to Hollywood, the director had perfected his style and camera techniques. Hitchcock later said that his British work was the "sensation of cinema", whereas the American phase was when his "ideas were fertilised". Scholar Robin Wood writes that the director's first two films, The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle, were influenced by German Expressionism. Afterward, he discovered Soviet cinema, and Sergei Eisenstein's and Vsevolod Pudovkin's theories of montage. 1926's The Lodger was inspired by both German and Soviet aesthetics, styles which solidified the rest of his career. Although Hitchcock's work in the 1920s found some success, several British reviewers criticised Hitchcock's films for being unoriginal and conceited. Raymond Durgnat opined that Hitchcock's films were carefully and intelligently constructed, but thought they can be shallow and rarely present a "coherent worldview".Earning the title "Master of Suspense", the director experimented with ways to generate tension in his work. He said, "My suspense work comes out of creating nightmares for the audience. And I play with an audience. I make them gasp and surprise them and shock them. When you have a nightmare, it's awfully vivid if you're dreaming that you're being led to the electric chair. Then you're as happy as can be when you wake up because you're relieved." During filming of North by Northwest, Hitchcock explained his reasons for recreating the set of Mount Rushmore: "The audience responds in proportion to how realistic you make it. One of the dramatic reasons for this type of photography is to get it looking so natural that the audience gets involved and believes, for the time being, what's going on up there on the screen."Hitchcock's films, from the silent to the sound era, contained a number of recurring themes that he is famous for. His films explored audience as a voyeur, notably in Rear Window, Marnie and Psycho. He understood that human beings enjoy voyeuristic activities and made the audience participate in it through the character's actions. Of his fifty-three films, eleven revolved around stories of mistaken identity, where an innocent protagonist is accused of a crime and is pursued by police. In most cases, it is an ordinary, everyday person who finds themselves in a dangerous situation. Hitchcock told Truffaut: "That's because the theme of the innocent man being accused, I feel, provides the audience with a greater sense of danger. It's easier for them to identify with him than with a guilty man on the run." One of his constant themes were the struggle of a personality torn between "order and chaos"; known as the notion of "double", which is a comparison or contrast between two characters or objects: the double representing a dark or evil side.According to Robin Wood, Hitchcock had mixed feelings towards homosexuality despite working with gay actors in his career. Donald Spoto suggests that Hitchcock's sexually repressive childhood may have contributed to his exploration of deviancy. During the 1950s, the Motion Picture Production Code prohibited direct references to homosexuality but the director was known for his subtle references, and pushing the boundaries of the censors. Moreover, Shadow of a Doubt has a double incest theme through the storyline, expressed implicitly through images. Author Jane Sloan argues that Hitchcock was drawn to both conventional and unconventional sexual expression in his work, and the theme of marriage was usually presented in a "bleak and skeptical" manner. It was also not until after his mother's death in 1942, that Hitchcock portrayed motherly figures as "notorious monster-mothers". The espionage backdrop, and murders committed by characters with psychopathic tendencies were common themes too. In Hitchcock's depiction of villains and murderers, they were usually charming and friendly, forcing viewers to identify with them. The director's strict childhood and Jesuit education may have led to his distrust of authoritarian figures such as policemen and politicians; a theme which he has explored. Also, he used the "MacGuffin"—the use of an object, person or event to keep the plot moving along even if it was non-essential to the story. Some examples include the microfilm in North by Northwest and the stolen $40,000 in Psycho.Hitchcock appears briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (Strangers on a Train), walking dogs out of a pet shop (The Birds), fixing a neighbour's clock (Rear Window), as a shadow (Family Plot), sitting at a table in a photograph (Dial M for Murder), and riding a bus (North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief).Representation of womenHitchcock's portrayal of women has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Bidisha wrote in The Guardian in 2010: "There's the vamp, the tramp, the snitch, the witch, the slink, the double-crosser and, best of all, the demon mommy. Don't worry, they all get punished in the end." In a widely cited essay in 1975, Laura Mulvey introduced the idea of the male gaze; the view of the spectator in Hitchcock's films, she argued, is that of the heterosexual male protagonist. "The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again", Roger Ebert wrote in 1996: "They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated."The victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps, Madeleine Carroll is put in handcuffs. Ingrid Bergman, whom Hitchcock directed three times (Spellbound, Notorious, and Under Capricorn), is dark blonde. In Rear Window, Lisa (Grace Kelly) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. In To Catch a Thief, Francie (also Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Vertigo and North by Northwest respectively, Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint play the blonde heroines. In Psycho, Janet Leigh's character steals $40,000 and is murdered by Norman Bates, a reclusive psychopath. Tippi Hedren, a blonde, appears to be the focus of the attacks in The Birds. In Marnie, the title character, again played by Hedren, is a thief. In Topaz, French actresses Dany Robin as Stafford's wife and Claude Jade as Stafford's daughter are blonde heroines, the mistress was played by brunette Karin Dor. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in Family Plot (1976), his final film. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black wears a long blonde wig in several scenes.His films often feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers, such as Norman Bates in Psycho. In North by Northwest, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds, the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself from a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in Frenzy has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious has a clearly conflicting relationship with his mother, who is (rightly) suspicious of his new bride, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman).Relationship with actorsHitchcock became known for having remarked that "actors should be treated like cattle". During the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Carole Lombard brought three cows onto the set wearing the name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise him. In an episode of The Dick Cavett Show, originally broadcast on 8 June 1972,  Dick Cavett stated as fact that Hitchcock had once called actors cattle. Hitchcock responded by saying that, at one time, he had been accused of calling actors cattle. "I said that I would never say such an unfeeling, rude thing about actors at all. What I probably said, was that all actors should be treated like cattle...In a nice way of course." He then described Carole Lombard's joke, with a smile.Hitchcock believed that actors should concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. He told Bryan Forbes in 1967: "I remember discussing with a method actor how he was taught and so forth. He said, 'We're taught using improvisation. We are given an idea and then we are turned loose to develop in any way we want to.' I said, 'That's not acting. That's writing.' "Recalling their experiences on Lifeboat for Charles Chandler, author of It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography, Walter Slezak said that Hitchcock "knew more about how to help an actor than any director I ever worked with", and Hume Cronyn dismissed the idea that Hitchcock was not concerned with his actors as "utterly fallacious", describing at length the process of rehearsing and filming Lifeboat.Critics observed that, despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, actors who worked with him often gave brilliant performances. He used the same actors in many of his films; Cary Grant and James Stewart both worked with Hitchcock four times, and Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly three. James Mason said that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props". For Hitchcock, the actors were part of the film's setting. He told François Truffaut: "The chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be used and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights."Writing, storyboards and productionHitchcock planned his scripts in detail with his writers. In Writing with Hitchcock (2001), Steven DeRosa noted that Hitchcock supervised them through every draft, asking that they tell the story visually. Hitchcock told Roger Ebert in 1969:Hitchcock's films were extensively storyboarded to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to, although in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternative takes to consider.This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, in his book Hitchcock at Work. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned. He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of North by Northwest was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film, and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they chose (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.LegacyAwards and honoursHitchcock was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 February 1960 with two stars: one for television and a second for his motion pictures. In 1978, John Russell Taylor described him as "the most universally recognizable person in the world" and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius". In 2002, MovieMaker named him the most influential director of all time, and a 2007 The Daily Telegraph critics' poll ranked him Britain's greatest director. David Gritten, the newspaper's film critic, wrote: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics' Poll ranked Hitchcock at No. 4 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time. In 2002, Hitchcock was ranked 2nd in the critics' top ten poll and 5th in the directors' top ten poll in the list of The Greatest Directors of All Time compiled by the Sight & Sound magazine. Hitchcock was voted the "Greatest Director of 20th Century" in a poll conducted by Japanese film magazine kinema Junpo. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Hitchcock at No. 1 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. Hitchcock was ranked at No. 2 on Empire magazine's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005. In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Hitchcock at No. 1 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.He won two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards, including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award and, in 1979, an AFI Life Achievement Award. He was nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Director. Rebecca, nominated for 11 Oscars, won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940; another Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent, was also nominated that year. By 2021, nine of his films had been selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry: Rebecca (1940; inducted 2018), Shadow of a Doubt (1943; inducted 1991), Notorious (1946; inducted 2006), Strangers on a Train (1951; inducted 2021), Rear Window (1954; inducted 1997), Vertigo (1958; inducted 1989), North by Northwest (1959; inducted 1995), Psycho (1960; inducted 1992), and The Birds (1963; inducted 2016).In 2012, Hitchcock was selected by artist Sir Peter Blake, author of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, to appear in a new version of the cover, along with other British cultural figures, and he was featured that year in a BBC Radio 4 series, The New Elizabethans, as someone "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character". In June 2013 nine restored versions of Hitchcock's early silent films, including The Pleasure Garden (1925), were shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre; known as "The Hitchcock 9", the travelling tribute was organised by the British Film Institute.ArchivesThe Alfred Hitchcock Collection is housed at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood, California. It includes home movies, 16mm film shot on the set of Blackmail (1929) and Frenzy (1972), and the earliest known colour footage of Hitchcock. The Academy Film Archive has preserved many of his home movies. The Alfred Hitchcock Papers are housed at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library. The David O. Selznick and the Ernest Lehman collections housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in Austin, Texas, contain material related to Hitchcock's work on the production of The Paradine Case, Rebecca, Spellbound, North by Northwest and Family Plot.Hitchcock portrayals Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock (2012) Toby Jones in The Girl (2012) Roger Ashton-Griffiths in Grace of Monaco (2014)FilmographyFilmsSilent filmsSound filmsSee also Alfred Hitchcock's unrealized projects List of Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearances List of film director and actor collaborationsNotes and sourcesNotesReferencesWorks citedBiographies (chronological)         MiscellaneousFurther readingArticles Hitchcock's Style  at the BFI's ScreenonlineBooks   Deflem, Mathieu. 2016. "Alfred Hitchcock: Visions of Guilt and Innocence."  pp. 203–227 in Framing Law and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Anthology, edited by Caroline Joan S. Picart, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, and Cecil Greek. Latham, MD; Madison, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield; Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.                    Slavoj Žižek et al.:Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock, London and New York, Verso, 2nd edition 2010External links       1899 births1980 deaths20th-century screenwriters20th-century English businesspeople20th-century English peopleAFI Life Achievement Award recipientsAmerican people of Irish descentArticles containing video clipsBAFTA fellowsBritish Army personnel of World War ICecil B. 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Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus Eunectes. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized.DescriptionAlthough the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species, in particular, the common or green anaconda (Eunectes murinus), which is the largest snake in the world by weight, and the second longest.EtymologyThe South American names anacauchoa and anacaona were suggested in an account by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, but the idea of a South American origin was questioned by Henry Walter Bates who, in his travels in South America, failed to find any similar name in use. The word anaconda is derived from the name of a snake from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) that John Ray described in Latin in his Synopsis Methodica Animalium (1693) as serpens indicus bubalinus anacandaia zeylonibus, ides bubalorum aliorumque jumentorum membra conterens. Ray used a catalogue of snakes from the Leyden museum supplied by Dr. Tancred Robinson, but the description of its habit was based on Andreas Cleyer who in 1684 described a gigantic snake that crushed large animals by coiling around their bodies and crushing their bones. Henry Yule in his Hobson-Jobson notes that the word became more popular due to a piece of fiction published in 1768 in the Scots Magazine by a certain R. Edwin. Edwin described a 'tiger' being crushed to death by an anaconda, when there actually never were any tigers in Sri Lanka. Yule and Frank Wall noted that the snake was in fact a python and suggested a Tamil origin anai-kondra meaning elephant killer. A Sinhalese origin was also suggested by Donald Ferguson who pointed out that the word Henakandaya (hena lightning/large and kanda stem/trunk) was used in Sri Lanka for the small whip snake (Ahaetulla pulverulenta) and somehow got misapplied to the python before myths were created.The name commonly used for the anaconda in Brazil is sucuri, sucuriju or sucuriuba.Species and other uses of the term "anaconda" The term "anaconda" has been used to refer to: Any member of the genus Eunectes, a group of large, aquatic snakes found in South America: Eunectes murinus, the green anaconda – the largest species, found east of the Andes in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago Eunectes notaeus, the yellow anaconda – a small species, found in eastern Bolivia, southern Brazil, Paraguay, and northeastern Argentina Eunectes deschauenseei, the darkly-spotted anaconda – a rare species, found in northeastern Brazil and coastal French Guiana Eunectes beniensis, the Bolivian anaconda – the most recently defined species, found in the Departments of Beni and Pando in Bolivia The term was previously applied imprecisely, indicating any large snake that constricts its prey, though this usage is now archaic. "Anaconda" is also used as a metaphor for an action aimed at constricting and suffocating an opponent – for example, the Anaconda Plan proposed at the beginning of the American Civil War, in which the Union Army was to effectively "suffocate" the Confederacy. Another example is the anaconda choke in the martial art Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is performed by wrapping your arms under the opponent's neck and through the armpit, and grasping the biceps of the opposing arm, when caught in this move, you will lose consciousness if you do not tap out.See also South American jaguar, a competitor or predatorNotesReferencesEunectesSnake common names
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a sprachbund (i.e. a linguistic area) and proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35 °N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority.The Altaic family was first proposed in the 18th century. It was widely accepted until the 1960s and is still listed in many encyclopedias and handbooks. Since the 1950s, many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned. Modern supporters of Altaic acknowledge that many shared features are the result of contact and convergence and thus cannot be taken as evidence for a genetic relationship, but they nevertheless argue that a core of existing correspondences goes back to a common ancestor.The original hypothesis unified only the Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic groups. Later proposals to include the Korean and Japanese languages into a "Macro-Altaic" family have always been controversial. The original proposal was sometimes called "Micro-Altaic" by retronymy. Most proponents of Altaic continue to support the inclusion of Korean. A common ancestral Proto-Altaic language for the "Macro" family has been tentatively reconstructed by Sergei Starostin and others. Some proposals also included Ainuic but this is not widely accepted even among Altaicists themselves.Micro-Altaic includes about 66 living languages, to which Macro-Altaic would add Korean, Jeju, Japanese, and the Ryukyuan languages, for a total of about 74 (depending on what is considered a language and what is considered a dialect). These numbers do not include earlier states of languages, such as Middle Mongol, Old Korean, or Old Japanese.Earliest attestations of the languagesThe earliest known texts in a Turkic language are the Orkhon inscriptions, 720–735 AD. They were deciphered in 1893 by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in a scholarly race with his rival, the German–Russian linguist Wilhelm Radloff. However, Radloff was the first to publish the inscriptions.The first Tungusic language to be attested is Jurchen, the language of the ancestors of the Manchus. A writing system for it was devised in 1119 AD and an inscription using this system is known from 1185 (see List of Jurchen inscriptions).The earliest Mongolic language of which we have written evidence is known as Middle Mongol. It is first attested by an inscription dated to 1224 or 1225 AD, the Stele of Yisüngge, and by the Secret History of the Mongols, written in 1228 (see Mongolic languages). The earliest Para-Mongolic text is the Memorial for Yelü Yanning, written in the Khitan large script and dated to 986 AD. However, the Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi, discovered in 1975 and analysed as being in an early form of Mongolic, has been dated to 604-620 AD. The Bugut inscription dates back to 584 AD.Japanese is first attested in the form of names contained in a few short inscriptions in Classical Chinese from the 5th century AD, such as found on the Inariyama Sword. The first substantial text in Japanese, however, is the Kojiki, which dates from 712 AD. It is followed by the Nihon shoki, completed in 720, and then by the Man'yōshū, which dates from c. 771–785, but includes material that is from about 400 years earlier.The most important text for the study of early Korean is the Hyangga, a collection of 25 poems, of which some go back to the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD), but are preserved in an orthography that only goes back to the 9th century AD. Korean is copiously attested from the mid-15th century on in the phonetically precise Hangul system of writing.History of the Altaic family conceptOriginsThe earliest known reference to a unified language group of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages is from the 1692 work of Nicolaes Witsen which may be based on a 1661 work of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Genealogy of the Turks.A proposed grouping of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was published in 1730 by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, a Swedish officer who traveled in the eastern Russian Empire while a prisoner of war after the Great Northern War. However, he may not have intended to imply a closer relationship among those languages.Uralo-Altaic hypothesisIn 1844, the Finnish philologist Matthias Castrén proposed a broader grouping, that later came to be called the Ural–Altaic family, which included Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic) as an "Altaic" branch, and also the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages as the "Uralic" branch (though Castrén himself used the terms "Tataric" and "Chudic"). The name "Altaic" referred to the Altai Mountains in East-Central Asia, which are approximately the center of the geographic range of the three main families. The name "Uralic" referred to the Ural Mountains.While the Ural-Altaic family hypothesis can still be found in some encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, after the 1960s it has been heavily criticized. Even linguists who accept the basic Altaic family, like Sergei Starostin, completely discard the inclusion of the "Uralic" branch.Korean and Japanese languagesIn 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding Japanese to the Ural–Altaic family.In the 1920s, G.J. Ramstedt and E.D. Polivanov advocated the inclusion of Korean. Decades later, in his 1952 book, Ramstedt rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis but again included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists (supporters of the theory) to date. His book contained the first comprehensive attempt to identify regular correspondences among the sound systems within the Altaic language families.In 1960, Nicholas Poppe published what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt's volume on phonology that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled. In his view, there were three possibilities: (1) Korean did not belong with the other three genealogically, but had been influenced by an Altaic substratum; (2) Korean was related to the other three at the same level they were related to each other; (3) Korean had split off from the other three before they underwent a series of characteristic changes.Roy Andrew Miller's 1971 book Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages convinced most Altaicists that Japanese also belonged to Altaic. Since then, the "Macro-Altaic" has been generally assumed to include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese.In 1990, Unger advocated a family consisting of Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic languages, but not Turkic or Mongolic.However, many linguists dispute the alleged affinities of Korean and Japanese to the other three groups. Some authors instead tried to connect Japanese to the Austronesian languages.In 2017, Martine Robbeets proposed that Japanese (and possibly Korean) originated as a hybrid language. She proposed that the ancestral home of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was somewhere in northwestern Manchuria. A group of those proto-Altaic ("Transeurasian") speakers would have migrated south into the modern Liaoning province, where they would have been mostly assimilated by an agricultural community with an Austronesian-like language. The fusion of the two languages would have resulted in proto-Japanese and proto-Korean.In a typological study that does not directly evaluate the validity of the Altaic hypothesis, Yurayong and Szeto (2020) discuss for Koreanic and Japonic the stages of convergence to the Altaic typological model and subsequent divergence from that model, which resulted in the present typological similarity between Koreanic and Japonic. They state that both are "still so different from the Core Altaic languages that we can even speak of an independent Japanese-Korean type of grammar. Given also that there is neither a strong proof of common Proto-Altaic lexical items nor solid regular sound correspondences but, rather, only lexical and structural borrowings between languages of the Altaic typology, our results indirectly speak in favour of a “Paleo-Asiatic” origin of the Japonic and Koreanic languages."The Ainu languageIn 1962, John C. Street proposed an alternative classification, with Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic in one grouping and Korean-Japanese-Ainu in another, joined in what he designated as the "North Asiatic" family. The inclusion of Ainu was adopted also by James Patrie in 1982.The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited in 2000–2002 by Joseph Greenberg. However, he treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed Eurasiatic.The inclusion of Ainu is not widely accepted by Altaicists. In fact, no convincing genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, and it is generally regarded as a language isolate.Early criticism and rejectionStarting in the late 1950s, some linguists became increasingly critical of even the minimal Altaic family hypothesis, disputing the alleged evidence of genetic connection between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages.Among the earlier critics were Gerard Clauson (1956), Gerhard Doerfer (1963), and Alexander Shcherbak. They claimed that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. In 1988, Doerfer again rejected all the genetic claims over these major groups.Modern controversyA major continuing supporter of the Altaic hypothesis has been Sergei Starostin, who published a comparative lexical analysis of the Altaic languages in 1991. He concluded that the analysis supported the Altaic grouping, although it was "older than most other language families in Eurasia, such as Indo-European or Finno-Ugric, and this is the reason why the modern Altaic languages preserve few common elements".In 1991 and again in 1996, Roy Miller defended the Altaic hypothesis and claimed that the criticisms of Clauson and Doerfer apply exclusively to the lexical correspondences, whereas the most pressing evidence for the theory is the similarities in verbal morphology.In 2003, Claus Schönig published a critical overview of the history of the Altaic hypothesis up to that time, siding with the earlier criticisms of Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak.In 2003, Starostin, Anna Dybo and Oleg Mudrak published the Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, which expanded the 1991 lexical lists and added other phonological and grammatical arguments.Starostin's book was criticized by Stefan Georg in 2004 and 2005, and by Alexander Vovin in 2005.Other defenses of the theory, in response to the criticisms of Georg and Vovin, were published by Starostin in 2005, Blažek in 2006, Robbeets in 2007, and Dybo and G. Starostin in 2008In 2010, Lars Johanson echoed Miller's 1996 rebuttal to the critics, and called for a muting of the polemic.List of supporters and critics of the Altaic hypothesisThe list below comprises linguists who have worked specifically on the Altaic problem since the publication of the first volume of Ramstedt's Einführung in 1952. The dates given are those of works concerning Altaic. For supporters of the theory, the version of Altaic they favor is given at the end of the entry, if other than the prevailing one of Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean–Japanese.Major supportersPentti Aalto (1955). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.Anna V. Dybo (S. Starostin et al. 2003, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).Frederik Kortlandt (2010).Karl H. Menges (1975). Common ancestor of Korean, Japanese and traditional Altaic dated back to the 7th or 8th millennium BC (1975: 125).Roy Andrew Miller (1971, 1980, 1986, 1996). Supported the inclusion of Korean and Japanese.Oleg A. Mudrak (S. Starostin et al. 2003).Nicholas Poppe (1965). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and perhaps Korean.Alexis Manaster Ramer.Martine Robbeets (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015) (in the form of "Transeurasian"). G. J. Ramstedt (1952–1957). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.George Starostin (A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).Sergei Starostin (1991, S. Starostin et al. 2003).John C. Street (1962). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped as "North Asiatic".Talat Tekin (1994). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.Major criticsGerard Clauson (1956, 1959, 1962).Gerhard Doerfer (1963, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1993).Susumu Ōno (1970, 2000)Juha Janhunen (1992, 1995) (tentative support of Mongolic-Tungusic).Claus Schönig (2003).Stefan Georg (2004, 2005).Alexander Vovin (2005, 2010, 2017). Formerly an advocate of Altaic (1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001), now a critic.Alexander Shcherbak.Alexander B. M. Stiven (2008, 2010).Advocates of alternative hypothesesJames Patrie (1982) and Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in a common taxon (cf. John C. Street 1962), called Eurasiatic by Greenberg.J. Marshall Unger (1990). Tungusic–Korean–Japanese ("Macro-Tungusic"), with Turkic and Mongolic as separate language families.Lars Johanson (2010). Agnostic, proponent of a "Transeurasian" verbal morphology not necessarily genealogically linked.LanguagesTungusic languagesWith fewer speakers than Mongolic or Turkic languages, Tungusic languages are distributed across most of Eastern Siberia (including the Sakhalin Island), northern Manchuria and extending into some parts of Xinjiang and Mongolia. Some Tungusic languages are extinct or endangered languages as a consequence of language shift to Chinese and Russian. In China, where the Tungusic population is over 10 million, just 46,000 still retain knowledge of their ethnic languages.Scholars have yet to reach agreement on how to classify the Tungusic languages but two subfamilies have been proposed: South Tungusic (or Manchu) and North Tungusic (Tungus). Jurchen (now extinct; Da Jin 大金), Manchu (critically endangered; Da Qing 大清), Sibe (Xibo 锡伯) and other minor languages comprise the Manchu group.The Northern Tungusic languages can be reclassified even further into the Siberian Tungusic languages (Evenki, Lamut, Solon and Negidal) and the Lower Amur Tungusic languages (Nanai, Ulcha, Orok to name a few).Significant disagreements remain, not only about the linguistic sub-classifications but also some controversy around the Chinese names of some ethnic groups, like the use of Hezhe (赫哲) for the Nanai people.Mongolic languagesMongolic languages are spoken in three geographic areas: Russia (especially Siberia), China and Mongolia. Although Russia and China host significant Mongol populations many of the Mongol people in these countries don't speak their own ethnic language.They are usually sub-classified into two groups: the Western languages (Oirat, Kalmyk and related dialects) and Eastern languages. The latter group can be further subdivided as follows:Southern Mongol - Ordos, Chakhar and KhorchinCentral Mongol - Khalkha, DarkhatNorthern Mongol - Buriat and dialects, KhamniganThere are also additional archaic and obscure languages within these groups: Moghol (Afghanistan), Dagur (Manchuria) and languages associated with Gansu and Qinghai.Linguisitically two branches emerge, the Common Mongolic and the Khitan/Serbi (sometimes called "para-Mongolic"). Of the latter, only Dagur survives into the present day.ArgumentsFor the Altaic groupingPhonological and grammatical featuresThe original arguments for grouping the "micro-Altaic" languages within a Uralo-Altaic family were based on such shared features as vowel harmony and agglutination.According to Roy Miller, the most pressing evidence for the theory is the similarities in verbal morphology.The Etymological Dictionary by Starostin and others (2003) proposes a set of sound change laws that would explain the evolution from Proto-Altaic to the descendant languages. For example, although most of today's Altaic languages have vowel harmony, Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by them lacked it; instead, various vowel assimilations between the first and second syllables of words occurred in Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic. They also included a number of grammatical correspondences between the languages.Shared lexiconStarostin claimed in 1991 that the members of the proposed Altaic group shared about 15–20% of apparent cognates within a 110-word Swadesh-Yakhontov list; in particular, Turkic–Mongolic 20%, Turkic–Tungusic 18%, Turkic–Korean 17%, Mongolic–Tungusic 22%, Mongolic–Korean 16%, and Tungusic–Korean 21%. The 2003 Etymological Dictionary includes a list of 2,800 proposed cognate sets, as well as a few important changes to the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic. The authors tried hard to distinguish loans between Turkic and Mongolic and between Mongolic and Tungusic from cognates; and suggest words that occur in Turkic and Tungusic but not in Mongolic. All other combinations between the five branches also occur in the book. It lists 144 items of shared basic vocabulary, including words for such items as 'eye', 'ear', 'neck', 'bone', 'blood', 'water', 'stone', 'sun', and 'two'.Robbeets and Bouckaert (2018) use Bayesian phylolinguistic methods to argue for the coherence of the "narrow" Altaic languages (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic) together with Japonic and Koreanic, which they refer to as the Transeurasian languages. Their results include the following phylogenetic tree:Martine Robbeets (2020) argues that early Transeurasian speakers were originally agriculturalists in northeastern China, only becoming pastoralists later on. Some lexical reconstructions of agricultural terms by Robbeets (2020) are listed below.AbbreviationsPTEA = Proto-TranseurasianPA = Proto-AltaicPTk = Proto-TurkicPMo = Proto-MongolicPTg = Proto-TungusicPJK = Proto-Japano-KoreanicPK = Proto-KoreanicPJ = Proto-JaponicAdditional family-level reconstructions of agricultural vocabulary from Robbeets et al. (2020): Proto-Turkic *ek- ‘to sprinkle with the hand; sow’ > *ek-e.g. ‘plow’ Proto-Turkic *tarï- ‘to cultivate (the ground)’ > *tarï-g ‘what is cultivated; crops, main crop, cultivated land’ Proto-Turkic *ko- ‘to put’ > *koːn- ‘to settle down (of animals), to take up residence (of people), to be planted (of plants)’ > *konak ‘foxtail millet (Setaria italica)’ Proto-Turkic *tög- ‘to hit, beat; to pound, crush (food in a mortar); to husk, thresh (cereals)’ > *tögi ‘husked millet; husked rice’ Proto-Turkic *ügür ‘(broomcorn) millet’ Proto-Turkic *arpa ‘barley (Hordeum vulgare)' < ? Proto-Iranian *arbusā ‘barley’ Proto-Mongolic *amun ‘cereals; broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)’ (Nugteren 2011: 268) Proto-Mongolic *konag ‘foxtail millet’ < PTk *konak ‘foxtail millet (Setaria italica)’ Proto-Mongolic *budaga ‘cooked cereals; porridge; meal’ Proto-Mongolic *tari- ‘to sow, plant’ (Nugteren 2011: 512–13) Proto-Macro-Mongolic *püre ‘seed; descendants’ Proto-Tungusic *pisi-ke ‘broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)’ Proto-Tungusic *jiya- ‘foxtail millet (Setaria italica)’ Proto-Tungusic *murgi ‘barley (Hordeum vulgare)’ Proto-Tungusic *üse- ~ *üsi- ‘to plant’ üse ~ üsi ‘seed, seedling’, üsi-n ‘field for cultivation’ Proto-Tungusic *tari- ‘to sow, to plant’ Proto-Koreanic *pisi ‘seed’, *pihi ‘barnyard millet’ < Proto-Transeurasian (PTEA) *pisi-i (sow-NMLZ) ‘seed’ ~ *pisi-ke (sow-RES.NMLZ) ‘what is sown, major crop’ Proto-Koreanic *patʌ-k ‘dry field’ < Proto-Japano-Koreanic (PJK) *pata ‘dry field’ < PTEA *pata ‘field for cultivation’ Proto-Koreanic *mutʌ-k ‘dry land’ < PJK *muta ‘land’ < PTEA *mudu ‘uncultivated land’ Proto-Koreanic *mat-ʌk ‘garden plot’ < PJK *mat ‘plot of land for cultivation’ Proto-Koreanic *non ‘rice paddy field’ < PJK *non ‘field’ Proto-Koreanic *pap ‘any boiled preparation of cereal; boiled rice’ Proto-Koreanic *pʌsal ‘hulled (of any grain); hulled corn of grain; hulled rice’ < Proto-Japonic *wasa-ra ‘early ripening (of any grain)’ Proto-Koreanic *ipi > *pi > *pye ‘(unhusked) rice’ < Proto-Japonic *ip-i (eat-NMLZ) ‘cooked millet, steamed rice’ Proto-Japonic *nuka ‘rice bran’ < PJ *nuka- (remove.NMLZ) Proto-Japonic *məmi ‘hulled rice’ < PJ *məm-i (move.back.and.forth.with.force-NMLZ) Proto-Japonic *ipi ‘cooked millet, steamed rice’ < *ip-i (eat-NMLZ) < PK *me(k)i ‘rice offered to a higher rank’ < *mek-i (eat-NMLZ) ‘what you eat, food’ < Proto-Austronesian *ka-en eat-OBJ.NMLZ Proto-Japonic *wasa- ~ *wəsə- ‘to be early ripening (of crops); an early ripening variety (of any crop); early-ripening rice plant’ Proto-Japonic *usu ‘(rice and grain) mortar’ < Para-Austronesian *lusuŋ ‘(rice) mortar’; cf. Proto-Austronesian *lusuŋ ‘(rice) mortar’ Proto-Japonic *kəmai ‘dehusked rice’ < Para-Austronesian *hemay < Proto-Macro-Austronesian *Semay ‘cooked rice’; cf. Proto-Austronesian *Semay ‘cooked rice’Against the groupingWeakness of lexical and typological dataAccording to G. Clauson (1956), G. Doerfer (1963), and A. Shcherbak (1963), many of the typological features of the supposed Altaic languages, particularly agglutinative strongly suffixing morphology and subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, often occur together in languages.Those critics also argued that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. They noted that there was little vocabulary shared by Turkic and Tungusic languages, though more shared with Mongolic languages. They reasoned that, if all three families had a common ancestor, we should expect losses to happen at random, and not only at the geographical margins of the family; and that the observed pattern is consistent with borrowing.According to C. Schönig (2003), after accounting for areal effects, the shared lexicon that could have a common genetic origin was reduced to a small number of monosyllabic lexical roots, including the personal pronouns and a few other deictic and auxiliary items, whose sharing could be explained in other ways; not the kind of sharing expected in cases of genetic relationship.The Sprachbund hypothesisInstead of a common genetic origin, Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak proposed (in 1956–1966) that Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages form a Sprachbund: a set of languages with similarities due to convergence through intensive borrowing and long contact, rather than common origin.Asya Pereltsvaig further observed in 2011 that, in general, genetically related languages and families tend to diverge over time: the earlier forms are more similar than modern forms. However, she claims that an analysis of the earliest written records of Mongolic and Turkic languages shows the opposite, suggesting that they do not share a common traceable ancestor, but rather have become more similar through language contact and areal effects.Hypothesis about the original homelandThe prehistory of the peoples speaking the "Altaic" languages is largely unknown. Whereas for certain other language families, such as the speakers of Indo-European, Uralic, and Austronesian, it is possible to frame substantial hypotheses, in the case of the proposed Altaic family much remains to be done.Some scholars have hypothesised a possible Uralic and Altaic homeland in the Central Asian steppes.According to Juha Janhunen, the ancestral languages of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese were spoken in a relatively small area comprising present-day North Korea, Southern Manchuria, and Southeastern Mongolia. However Janhunen is sceptical about an affiliation of Japanese to Altaic, while András Róna-Tas remarked that a relationship between Altaic and Japanese, if it ever existed, must be more remote than the relationship of any two of the Indo-European languages. Ramsey stated that "the genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, if it in fact exists, is probably more complex and distant than we can imagine on the basis of our present state of knowledge".Supporters of the Altaic hypothesis formerly set the date of the Proto-Altaic language at around 4000 BC, but today at around 5000 BC or 6000 BC. This would make Altaic a language family older than Indo-European (around 3000 to 4000 BC according to mainstream hypotheses) but considerably younger than Afroasiatic (c. 10,000 BC or 11,000 to 16,000 BC according to different sources).See alsoClassification of the Japonic languagesNostratic languagesPan-TuranismTurco-Mongol Uralo-Siberian languagesXiongnuComparison of Japanese and KoreanReferencesCitationsSourcesAalto, Pentti. 1955. "On the Altaic initial *p-." Central Asiatic Journal 1, 9–16.Anonymous. 2008. [title missing]. Bulletin of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, 31 March 2008, 264: .Anthony, David W. 2007. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Boller, Anton. 1857. Nachweis, daß das Japanische zum ural-altaischen Stamme gehört. Wien. Clauson, Gerard. 1959. "The case for the Altaic theory examined." Akten des vierundzwanzigsten internationalen Orientalisten-Kongresses, edited by H. Franke. Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, in Komission bei Franz Steiner Verlag.Clauson, Gerard. 1968. "A lexicostatistical appraisal of the Altaic theory." Central Asiatic Journal 13: 1–23. Doerfer, Gerhard. 1973. "Lautgesetze und Zufall: Betrachtungen zum Omnicomparativismus." Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 10.Doerfer, Gerhard. 1974. "Ist das Japanische mit den altaischen Sprachen verwandt?" Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 114.1.Doerfer, Gerhard. 1985. Mongolica-Tungusica. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Georg, Stefan. 1999 / 2000. "Haupt und Glieder der altaischen Hypothese: die Körperteilbezeichnungen im Türkischen, Mongolischen und Tungusischen" ('Head and members of the Altaic hypothesis: The body-part designations in Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic'). Ural-altaische Jahrbücher, neue Folge B 16, 143–182..Lee, Ki-Moon and S. Robert Ramsey. 2011. A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Menges, Karl. H. 1975. Altajische Studien II. Japanisch und Altajisch. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag. Miller, Roy Andrew. 1980. Origins of the Japanese Language: Lectures in Japan during the Academic Year 1977–1978. Seattle: University of Washington Press. . Ramstedt, G.J. 1952. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft I. Lautlehre, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 1: Phonology', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.Ramstedt, G.J. 1957. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft II. Formenlehre, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 2: Morphology', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.Ramstedt, G.J. 1966. Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft III. Register, 'Introduction to Altaic Linguistics, Volume 3: Index', edited and published by Pentti Aalto. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura.Robbeets, Martine. 2004. "Swadesh 100 on Japanese, Korean and Altaic." Tokyo University Linguistic Papers, TULIP 23, 99–118.Robbeets, Martine. 2005. Is Japanese related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic? Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Strahlenberg, P.J.T. von. 1730. Das nord- und ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia.... Stockholm. (Reprint: 1975. Studia Uralo-Altaica. Szeged and Amsterdam.)Strahlenberg, P.J.T. von. 1738. Russia, Siberia and Great Tartary, an Historico-geographical Description of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia.... (Reprint: 1970. New York: Arno Press.) English translation of the previous. Tekin, Talat. 1994. "Altaic languages." In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, edited by R.E. Asher. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press. Vovin, Alexander. 1993. "About the phonetic value of the Middle Korean grapheme ᅀ." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 56(2), 247–259.Vovin, Alexander. 1994. "Genetic affiliation of Japanese and methodology of linguistic comparison." Journal de la Société finno-ougrienne 85, 241–256.Vovin, Alexander. 2001. "Japanese, Korean, and Tungusic: evidence for genetic relationship from verbal morphology." Altaic Affinities (Proceedings of the 40th Meeting of PIAC, Provo, Utah, 1997), edited by David B. Honey and David C. Wright, 83–202. Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. Vovin, Alexander. 2010. Koreo-Japonica: A Re-Evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. University of Hawaii Press.Whitney Coolidge, Jennifer. 2005. Southern Turkmenistan in the Neolithic: A Petrographic Case Study. Oxbow Books.Further readingGreenberg, Joseph H. 1997. "Does Altaic exist?" In Irén Hegedus, Peter A. Michalove, and Alexis Manaster Ramer (editors), Indo-European, Nostratic and Beyond: A Festschrift for Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin, Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man, 1997, 88–93. (Reprinted in Joseph H. Greenberg, Genetic Linguistics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 325–330.)Hahn, Reinhard F. 1994. LINGUIST List 5.908, 18 August 1994. Janhune, Juha. 1995. "Prolegomena to a Comparative Analysis of Mongolic and Tungusic". Proceedings of the 38th Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC), 209–218. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Johanson, Lars. 1999. "Cognates and copies in Altaic verb derivation." Language and Literature – Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages: Studies in Honour of Roy Andrew Miller on His 75th Birthday, edited by Karl H. Menges and Nelly Naumann, 1–13. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (Also: HTML version.)Johanson, Lars. 1999. "Attractiveness and relatedness: Notes on Turkic language contacts." Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Caucasian, Dravidian, and Turkic Linguistics, edited by Jeff Good and Alan C.L. Yu, 87–94. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.Johanson, Lars. 2002. Structural Factors in Turkic Language Contacts, translated by Vanessa Karam. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press. Kortlandt, Frederik. 1993. "The origin of the Japanese and Korean accent systems." Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 26, 57–65.Robbeets, Martine. 2004. "Belief or argument? The classification of the Japanese language." Eurasia Newsletter 8. Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. Ruhlen, Merritt. 1987. A Guide to the World's Languages. Stanford University Press.Sinor, Denis. 1990. Essays in Comparative Altaic Linguistics. Bloomington: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. .Vovin, Alexander. 2009. Japanese, Korean, and other 'non-Altaic' languages. Central Asiatic Journal 53 (1): 105–147.External linksAltaic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project (not functional as of 2014): Genealogical trees attributed to Ramstedt 1957, Miller 1971, and Poppe 1982Swadesh vocabulary lists for Altaic languages (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)Monumenta altaica Altaic linguistics website, maintained by Ilya GruntovAltaic Etymological Dictionary, database version by Sergei A. Starostin, Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (does not include introductory chapters)LINGUIST List 5.911 defense of Altaic by Alexis Manaster Ramer (1994)LINGUIST List 5.926 1. Remarks by Alexander Vovin. 2. Clarification by J. Marshall Unger. (1994) Agglutinative languagesCentral AsiaProposed language families
Austrian German (), Austrian Standard German (ASG), Standard Austrian German (), or Austrian High German (), is the variety of Standard German written and spoken in Austria. It has the highest sociolinguistic prestige locally, as it is the variation used in the media and for other formal situations. In less formal situations, Austrians tend to use forms closer to or identical with the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects, traditionally spoken – but rarely written – in Austria.HistoryGerman in Austria (Austria German) has its beginning in the mid-18th century, when empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II introduced compulsory schooling (in 1774) and several reforms of administration in their multilingual Habsburg empire. At the time, the written standard was Oberdeutsche Schreibsprache (Upper German written language), which was highly influenced by the Bavarian and Alemannic dialects of Austria. Another option was to create a new standard based on the Southern German dialects, as proposed by the linguist Johann Siegmund Popowitsch. Instead they decided for pragmatic reasons to adopt the already standardized chancellery language of Saxony (Sächsische Kanzleisprache or Meißner Kanzleideutsch), which was based on the administrative language of the non-Austrian area of Meißen and Dresden.Austria High German (Hochdeutsch in Österreich, not to be confused with the Bavarian Austria German dialects) has the same geographic origin as the Swiss High German (Schweizer Hochdeutsch, not to be confused with the Alemannic Swiss German dialects).The process of introducing the new written standard was led by Joseph von Sonnenfels.Since 1951 the standardized form of Austrian German for official texts and schools has been defined by the Austrian Dictionary (), published under the authority of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture.General situation of GermanAs German is a pluricentric language, Austrian German is one among several varieties of German. Much like the relationship between British English and American English, the German varieties differ in minor respects (e.g., spelling, word usage and grammar) but are recognizably equivalent and largely mutually intelligible.Standard Austrian German in AustriaThe official Austrian dictionary, das Österreichische Wörterbuch, prescribes grammatical and spelling rules defining the official language.Austrian delegates participated in the international working group that drafted the German spelling reform of 1996—several conferences leading up to the reform were hosted in Vienna at the invitation of the Austrian federal government—and adopted it as a signatory, along with Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, of an international memorandum of understanding () signed in Vienna in 1996.The eszett or "sharp s" (ß) is used in Austria, as in Germany (but unlike in Switzerland).Because of the German language's pluricentric nature, German dialects in Austria should not be confused with the variety of Standard Austrian German spoken by most Austrians, which is distinct from that of Germany or Switzerland.Distinctions in vocabulary persist, for example, in culinary terms, where communication with Germans is frequently difficult, and administrative and legal language, which is due to Austria's exclusion from the development of a German nation-state in the late 19th century and its manifold particular traditions. A comprehensive collection of Austrian-German legal, administrative and economic terms is offered in Markhardt, Heidemarie: Wörterbuch der österreichischen Rechts-, Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsterminologie (Peter Lang, 2006).Former spoken standardUntil 1918, the spoken standard in Austria was the , a sociolect spoken by the imperial Habsburg family and the nobility of Austria-Hungary. The dialect was similar to Viennese German and other eastern dialects of German spoken in Austria, but was slightly nasalized.Special written formsFor many years, Austria had a special form of the language for official government documents. This form is known as , or "Austrian chancellery language". It is a very traditional form of the language, probably derived from medieval deeds and documents, and has a very complex structure and vocabulary generally reserved for such documents. For most speakers (even native speakers), this form of the language is generally difficult to understand, as it contains many highly specialised terms for diplomatic, internal, official, and military matters. There are no regional variations, because this special written form has mainly been used by a government that has now for centuries been based in Vienna. is now used less and less, thanks to various administrative reforms that reduced the number of traditional civil servants (). As a result, Standard Austrian German is replacing it in government and administrative texts.European UnionWhen Austria became a member of the European Union, 23 food-related terms were listed in its accession agreement as having the same legal status as the equivalent terms used in Germany, for example, the words for "potato", "tomato", and "Brussels sprouts". (Examples in "Vocabulary")Austrian German is the only variety of a pluricentric language recognized under international law or EU primary law.GrammarVerbsIn Austria, as in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and in southern Germany, verbs that express a state tend to use  as the auxiliary verb in the perfect, as well as verbs of movement. Verbs which fall into this category include sitzen (to sit), liegen (to lie) and, in parts of Carinthia, schlafen (to sleep). Therefore, the perfect of these verbs would be ich bin gesessen, ich bin gelegen and ich bin geschlafen respectively.In Germany, the words stehen (to stand) and gestehen (to confess) are identical in the present perfect: habe gestanden. The Austrian variant avoids this potential ambiguity (bin gestanden from stehen, "to stand"; and habe gestanden from gestehen, "to confess", e.g. "der Verbrecher ist vor dem Richter gestanden und hat gestanden").In addition, the preterite (simple past) is very rarely used in Austria, especially in the spoken language, with the exception of some modal verbs (i.e. ich sollte, ich wollte).VocabularyThere are many official terms that differ in Austrian German from their usage in most parts of Germany. Words used in Austria are Jänner (January) rather than Januar, Feber (seldom, February) along with Februar, heuer (this year) along with dieses Jahr, Stiege (stairs) along with Treppen, Rauchfang (chimney) instead of Schornstein, many administrative, legal and political terms, and many food terms, including the following: There are, however, some false friends between the two regional varieties:Kasten (wardrobe) along with or instead of Schrank (and, similarly, Eiskasten along with Kühlschrank, fridge), as opposed to Kiste (box) instead of Kasten. Kiste in Germany means both "box" and "chest".Sessel (chair) instead of Stuhl. Sessel means "" in Germany and Stuhl means "stool (faeces)" in both varieties.DialectsClassificationDialects of the Austro-Bavarian group, which also comprises dialects from BavariaCentral Austro-Bavarian (along the main rivers Isar and Danube, spoken in the northern parts of the State of Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and northern Burgenland)Viennese GermanSouthern Austro-Bavarian (in Tyrol, South Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria, and the southern parts of Salzburg and Burgenland)Vorarlbergerisch, spoken in Vorarlberg, is a High Alemannic dialect.Regional accentsIn addition to the standard variety, in everyday life most Austrians speak one of a number of Upper German dialects.While strong forms of the various dialects are not fully mutually intelligible to northern Germans, communication is much easier in Bavaria, especially rural areas, where the Bavarian dialect still predominates as the mother tongue. The Central Austro-Bavarian dialects are more intelligible to speakers of Standard German than the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tyrol.Viennese, the Austro-Bavarian dialect of Vienna, is seen for many in Germany as quintessentially Austrian. The people of Graz, the capital of Styria, speak yet another dialect which is not very Styrian and more easily understood by people from other parts of Austria than other Styrian dialects, for example from western Styria.Simple words in the various dialects are very similar, but pronunciation is distinct for each and, after listening to a few spoken words, it may be possible for an Austrian to realise which dialect is being spoken. However, in regard to the dialects of the deeper valleys of the Tyrol, other Tyroleans are often unable to understand them. Speakers from the different states of Austria can easily be distinguished from each other by their particular accents (probably more so than Bavarians), those of Carinthia, Styria, Vienna, Upper Austria, and the Tyrol being very characteristic. Speakers from those regions, even those speaking Standard German, can usually be easily identified by their accent, even by an untrained listener.Several of the dialects have been influenced by contact with non-Germanic linguistic groups, such as the dialect of Carinthia, where, in the past, many speakers were bilingual (and, in the southeastern portions of the state, many still are even today) with Slovene, and the dialect of Vienna, which has been influenced by immigration during the Austro-Hungarian period, particularly from what is today Czechia. The German dialects of South Tyrol have been influenced by local Romance languages, particularly noticeable with the many loanwords from Italian and Ladin.The geographic borderlines between the different accents (isoglosses) coincide strongly with the borders of the states and also with the border with Bavaria, with Bavarians having a markedly different rhythm of speech in spite of the linguistic similarities.ReferencesNotesCitationsWorks citedFurther reading: Die deutsche Sprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz: Das Problem der nationalen Varietäten. de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 1995.Ammon, Ulrich / Hans Bickel, Jakob Ebner u. a.: Variantenwörterbuch des Deutschen. Die Standardsprache in Österreich, der Schweiz und Deutschland sowie in Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Ostbelgien und Südtirol. Berlin/New York 2004, .Dollinger, Stefan: Österreichisches Deutsch oder Deutsch in Österreich? Identitäten im 21. Jahrhundert. New Academic Press, 2021. ISBN: 978-3-99036-023-1.Grzega, Joachim: „Deutschländisch und Österreichisches Deutsch: Mehr Unterschiede als nur in Wortschatz und Aussprache.“ In: Joachim Grzega: Sprachwissenschaft ohne Fachchinesisch. Shaker, Aachen 2001, S. 7–26. .Grzega, Joachim: "On the Description of National Varieties: Examples from (German and Austrian) German and (English and American) English". In: Linguistik Online 7 (2000).Grzega, Joachim: "Nonchalance als Merkmal des Österreichischen Deutsch". In: Muttersprache 113 (2003): 242–254.Muhr, Rudolf / Schrodt, Richard: Österreichisches Deutsch und andere nationale Varietäten plurizentrischer Sprachen in Europa. Wien, 1997Muhr, Rudolf/Schrodt, Richard/Wiesinger, Peter (eds.): Österreichisches Deutsch: Linguistische, sozialpsychologische und sprachpolitische Aspekte einer nationalen Variante des Deutschen. Wien, 1995.Pohl, Heinz Dieter: „Österreichische Identität und österreichisches Deutsch“ aus dem „Kärntner Jahrbuch für Politik 1999“Wiesinger, Peter: Die deutsche Sprache in Österreich. Eine Einführung, In: Wiesinger (Hg.): Das österreichische Deutsch. Schriften zur deutschen Sprache. Band 12.'' (Wien, Köln, Graz, 1988, Verlag, Böhlau)External links Austrian German – German DictionaryDas Österreichische VolkswörterbuchBavarian languageGerman dialectsGermanNational varieties of German
In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that a Cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of bins, each containing at least one object, it is possible to make a selection of exactly one object from each bin, even if the collection is infinite. Formally, it states that for every indexed family  of nonempty sets there exists an indexed family  of elements such that  for every .  The axiom of choice was formulated in 1904 by Ernst Zermelo in order to formalize his proof of the well-ordering theorem.In many cases, such a selection can be made without invoking the axiom of choice; this is in particular the case if the number of sets is finite, or if a selection rule is available – some distinguishing property that happens to hold for exactly one element in each set. An illustrative example is sets picked from the natural numbers. From such sets, one may always select the smallest number, e.g. given the sets {{4, 5, 6}, {10, 12}, {1, 400, 617, 8000}} the set containing each smallest element is {4, 10, 1}. In this case, "select the smallest number" is a choice function. Even if infinitely many sets were collected from the natural numbers, it will always be possible to choose the smallest element from each set to produce a set. That is, the choice function provides the set of chosen elements. However, no choice function is known for the collection of all non-empty subsets of the real numbers (if there are non-constructible reals). In that case, the axiom of choice must be invoked.Bertrand Russell coined an analogy: for any (even infinite) collection of pairs of shoes, one can pick out the left shoe from each pair to obtain an appropriate selection; this makes it possible to directly define a choice function. For an infinite collection of pairs of socks (assumed to have no distinguishing features), there is no obvious way to make a function that selects one sock from each pair, without invoking the axiom of choice.Although originally controversial, the axiom of choice is now used without reservation by most mathematicians, and it is included in the standard form of axiomatic set theory, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC). One motivation for this use is that a number of generally accepted mathematical results, such as Tychonoff's theorem, require the axiom of choice for their proofs. Contemporary set theorists also study axioms that are not compatible with the axiom of choice, such as the axiom of determinacy. The axiom of choice is avoided in some varieties of constructive mathematics, although there are varieties of constructive mathematics in which the axiom of choice is embraced.StatementA choice function (also called selector or selection) is a function f, defined on a collection X of nonempty sets, such that for every set A in X, f(A) is an element of A. With this concept, the axiom can be stated:Formally, this may be expressed as follows:Thus, the negation of the axiom of choice states that there exists a collection of nonempty sets that has no choice function. (, so  where  is negation.)Each choice function on a collection X of nonempty sets is an element of the Cartesian product of the sets in X. This is not the most general situation of a Cartesian product of a family of sets, where a given set can occur more than once as a factor; however, one can focus on elements of such a product that select the same element every time a given set appears as factor, and such elements correspond to an element of the Cartesian product of all distinct sets in the family. The axiom of choice asserts the existence of such elements; it is therefore equivalent to:Given any family of nonempty sets, their Cartesian product is a nonempty set.Nomenclature ZF, AC, and ZFCIn this article and other discussions of the Axiom of Choice the following abbreviations are common:AC – the Axiom of Choice.ZF – Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory omitting the Axiom of Choice.ZFC – Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, extended to include the Axiom of Choice.VariantsThere are many other equivalent statements of the axiom of choice. These are equivalent in the sense that, in the presence of other basic axioms of set theory, they imply the axiom of choice and are implied by it.One variation avoids the use of choice functions by, in effect, replacing each choice function with its range.Given any set X of pairwise disjoint non-empty sets, there exists at least one set C that contains exactly one element in common with each of the sets in X.This guarantees for any partition of a set X the existence of a subset C of X containing exactly one element from each part of the partition.Another equivalent axiom only considers collections X that are essentially powersets of other sets:For any set A, the power set of A (with the empty set removed) has a choice function.Authors who use this formulation often speak of the choice function on A, but this is a slightly different notion of choice function.  Its domain is the power set of A (with the empty set removed), and so makes sense for any set A, whereas with the definition used elsewhere in this article, the domain of a choice function on a collection of sets is that collection, and so only makes sense for sets of sets.  With this alternate notion of choice function, the axiom of choice can be compactly stated asEvery set has a choice function.which is equivalent toFor any set A there is a function f such that for any non-empty subset B of A, f(B) lies in B.The negation of the axiom can thus be expressed as:There is a set A such that for all functions f (on the set of non-empty subsets of A), there is a B such that f(B) does not lie in B.Restriction to finite setsThe statement of the axiom of choice does not specify whether the collection of nonempty sets is finite or infinite, and thus implies that every finite collection of nonempty sets has a choice function. However, that particular case is a theorem of the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory without the axiom of choice (ZF); it is easily proved by mathematical induction. In the even simpler case of a collection of one set, a choice function just corresponds to an element, so this instance of the axiom of choice says that every nonempty set has an element; this holds trivially. The axiom of choice can be seen as asserting the generalization of this property, already evident for finite collections, to arbitrary collections.UsageUntil the late 19th century, the axiom of choice was often used implicitly, although it had not yet been formally stated. For example, after having established that the set X contains only non-empty sets, a mathematician might have said "let F(s) be one of the members of s for all s in X" to define a function F.  In general, it is impossible to prove that F exists without the axiom of choice, but this seems to have gone unnoticed until Zermelo.Not every situation requires the axiom of choice. For finite sets X, the axiom of choice follows from the other axioms of set theory. In that case, it is equivalent to saying that if we have several (a finite number of) boxes, each containing at least one item, then we can choose exactly one item from each box. Clearly, we can do this: We start at the first box, choose an item; go to the second box, choose an item; and so on. The number of boxes is finite, so eventually, our choice procedure comes to an end. The result is an explicit choice function: a function that takes the first box to the first element we chose, the second box to the second element we chose, and so on. (A formal proof for all finite sets would use the principle of mathematical induction to prove "for every natural number k, every family of k nonempty sets has a choice function.") This method cannot, however, be used to show that every countable family of nonempty sets has a choice function, as is asserted by the axiom of countable choice. If the method is applied to an infinite sequence (Xi : i∈ω) of nonempty sets, a function is obtained at each finite stage, but there is no stage at which a choice function for the entire family is constructed, and no "limiting" choice function can be constructed, in general, in ZF without the axiom of choice.ExamplesThe nature of the individual nonempty sets in the collection may make it possible to avoid the axiom of choice even for certain infinite collections. For example, suppose that each member of the collection X is a nonempty subset of the natural numbers. Every such subset has a smallest element, so to specify our choice function we can simply say that it maps each set to the least element of that set. This gives us a definite choice of an element from each set, and makes it unnecessary to apply the axiom of choice.The difficulty appears when there is no natural choice of elements from each set.  If we cannot make explicit choices, how do we know that our set exists?  For example, suppose that X is the set of all non-empty subsets of the real numbers.  First we might try to proceed as if X were finite.  If we try to choose an element from each set, then, because X is infinite, our choice procedure will never come to an end, and consequently, we shall never be able to produce a choice function for all of X.  Next we might try specifying the least element from each set.  But some subsets of the real numbers do not have least elements. For example, the open interval (0,1) does not have a least element: if x is in (0,1), then so is x/2, and x/2 is always strictly smaller than x.  So this attempt also fails.Additionally, consider for instance the unit circle S, and the action on S by a group G consisting of all rational rotations. Namely, these are rotations by angles which are rational multiples of π. Here G is countable while S is uncountable. Hence S breaks up into uncountably many orbits under G. Using the axiom of choice, we could pick a single point from each orbit, obtaining an uncountable subset X of S with the property that all of its translates by G are disjoint from X. The set of those translates partitions the circle into a countable collection of disjoint sets, which are all pairwise congruent. Since X is not measurable for any rotation-invariant countably additive finite measure on S, finding an algorithm to select a point in each orbit requires the axiom of choice. See non-measurable set for more details.The reason that we are able to choose least elements from subsets of the natural numbers is the fact that the natural numbers are well-ordered: every nonempty subset of the natural numbers has a unique least element under the natural ordering.  One might say, "Even though the usual ordering of the real numbers does not work, it may be possible to find a different ordering of the real numbers which is a well-ordering.  Then our choice function can choose the least element of every set under our unusual ordering."  The problem then becomes that of constructing a well-ordering, which turns out to require the axiom of choice for its existence; every set can be well-ordered if and only if the axiom of choice holds.Criticism and acceptanceA proof requiring the axiom of choice may establish the existence of an object without explicitly defining the object in the language of set theory. For example, while the axiom of choice implies that there is a well-ordering of the real numbers, there are models of set theory with the axiom of choice in which no well-ordering of the reals is definable. Similarly, although a subset of the real numbers that is not Lebesgue measurable can be proved to exist using the axiom of choice, it is consistent that no such set is definable.The axiom of choice proves the existence of these intangibles (objects that are proved to exist, but which cannot be explicitly constructed), which may conflict with some philosophical principles. Because there is no canonical well-ordering of all sets, a construction that relies on a well-ordering may not produce a canonical result, even if a canonical result is desired (as is often the case in category theory). This has been used as an argument against the use of the axiom of choice.Another argument against the axiom of choice is that it implies the existence of objects that may seem counterintuitive. One example is the Banach–Tarski paradox which says that it is possible to decompose the 3-dimensional solid unit ball into finitely many pieces and, using only rotations and translations, reassemble the pieces into two solid balls each with the same volume as the original. The pieces in this decomposition, constructed using the axiom of choice, are non-measurable sets.Despite these seemingly paradoxical facts, most mathematicians accept the axiom of choice as a valid principle for proving new results in mathematics. The debate is interesting enough, however, that it is considered of note when a theorem in ZFC (ZF plus AC) is logically equivalent (with just the ZF axioms) to the axiom of choice, and mathematicians look for results that require the axiom of choice to be false, though this type of deduction is less common than the type which requires the axiom of choice to be true.It is possible to prove many theorems using neither the axiom of choice nor its negation; such statements will be true in any model of ZF, regardless of the truth or falsity of the axiom of choice in that particular model. The restriction to ZF renders any claim that relies on either the axiom of choice or its negation unprovable. For example, the Banach–Tarski paradox is neither provable nor disprovable from ZF alone: it is impossible to construct the required decomposition of the unit ball in ZF, but also impossible to prove there is no such decomposition. Similarly, all the statements listed below which require choice or some weaker version thereof for their proof are unprovable in ZF, but since each is provable in ZF plus the axiom of choice, there are models of ZF in which each statement is true. Statements such as the Banach–Tarski paradox can be rephrased as conditional statements, for example, "If AC holds, then the decomposition in the Banach–Tarski paradox exists." Such conditional statements are provable in ZF when the original statements are provable from ZF and the axiom of choice.In constructive mathematicsAs discussed above, in ZFC, the axiom of choice is able to provide "nonconstructive proofs" in which the existence of an object is proved although no explicit example is constructed. ZFC, however, is still formalized in classical logic. The axiom of choice has also been thoroughly studied in the context of constructive mathematics, where non-classical logic is employed. The status of the axiom of choice varies between different varieties of constructive mathematics.In Martin-Löf type theory and higher-order Heyting arithmetic, the appropriate statement of the axiom of choice is (depending on approach) included as an axiom or provable as a theorem. Errett Bishop argued that the axiom of choice was constructively acceptable, sayingIn constructive set theory, however, Diaconescu's theorem shows that the axiom of choice implies the law of excluded middle (unlike in Martin-Löf type theory, where it does not). Thus the axiom of choice is not generally available in constructive set theory. A cause for this difference is that the axiom of choice in type theory does not have the extensionality properties that the axiom of choice in constructive set theory does.Some results in constructive set theory use the axiom of countable choice or the axiom of dependent choice, which do not imply the law of the excluded middle in constructive set theory. Although the axiom of countable choice in particular is commonly used in constructive mathematics, its use has also been questioned.IndependenceIn 1938, Kurt Gödel showed that the negation of the axiom of choice is not a theorem of ZF by constructing an inner model (the constructible universe) which satisfies ZFC and thus showing that ZFC is consistent if ZF itself is consistent.   In 1963, Paul Cohen employed the technique of forcing, developed for this purpose, to show that, assuming ZF is consistent, the axiom of choice itself is not a theorem of ZF. He did this by constructing a much more complex model which satisfies ZF¬C (ZF with the negation of AC added as axiom) and thus showing that ZF¬C is consistent.Together these results establish that the axiom of choice is logically independent of ZF. The assumption that ZF is consistent is harmless because adding another axiom to an already inconsistent system cannot make the situation worse. Because of independence, the decision whether to use the axiom of choice (or its negation) in a proof cannot be made by appeal to other axioms of set theory. The decision must be made on other grounds.One argument given in favor of using the axiom of choice is that it is convenient to use it because it allows one to prove some simplifying propositions that otherwise could not be proved. Many theorems which are provable using choice are of an elegant general character: every ideal in a ring is contained in a maximal ideal, every vector space has a basis, and every product of compact spaces is compact. Without the axiom of choice, these theorems may not hold for mathematical objects of large cardinality.The proof of the independence result also shows that a wide class of mathematical statements, including all statements that can be phrased in the language of Peano arithmetic, are provable in ZF if and only if they are provable in ZFC. Statements in this class include the statement that P = NP, the Riemann hypothesis, and many other unsolved mathematical problems. When one attempts to solve problems in this class, it makes no difference whether ZF or ZFC is employed if the only question is the existence of a proof. It is possible, however, that there is a shorter proof of a theorem from ZFC than from ZF.The axiom of choice is not the only significant statement which is independent of ZF.  For example, the generalized continuum hypothesis (GCH) is not only independent of ZF, but also independent of ZFC. However, ZF plus GCH implies AC, making GCH a strictly stronger claim than AC, even though they are both independent of ZF.Stronger axiomsThe axiom of constructibility and the generalized continuum hypothesis each imply the axiom of choice and so are strictly stronger than it.  In class theories such as Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory and Morse–Kelley set theory, there is an axiom called the axiom of global choice that is stronger than the axiom of choice for sets because it also applies to proper classes. The axiom of global choice follows from the axiom of limitation of size. Tarski's axiom, which is used in Tarski–Grothendieck set theory and states (in the vernacular) that every set belongs to  Grothendieck universe, is stronger than the axiom of choice.EquivalentsThere are important statements that, assuming the axioms of ZF but neither AC nor ¬AC, are equivalent to the axiom of choice. The most important among them are Zorn's lemma and the well-ordering theorem. In fact, Zermelo initially introduced the axiom of choice in order to formalize his proof of the well-ordering theorem.Set theoryWell-ordering theorem: Every set can be well-ordered. Consequently, every cardinal has an initial ordinal.Tarski's theorem about choice: For every infinite set A, there is a bijective map between the sets  A and A×A.Trichotomy: If two sets are given, then either they have the same cardinality, or one has a smaller cardinality than the other.Given two non-empty sets, one has a surjection to the other.The Cartesian product of any family of nonempty sets is nonempty.König's theorem: Colloquially, the sum of a sequence of cardinals is strictly less than the product of a sequence of larger cardinals. (The reason for the term "colloquially" is that the sum or product of a "sequence" of cardinals cannot be defined without some aspect of the axiom of choice.)Every surjective function has a right inverse.Order theoryZorn's lemma: Every non-empty partially ordered set in which every chain (i.e., totally ordered subset) has an upper bound contains at least one maximal element.Hausdorff maximal principle: In any partially ordered set, every totally ordered subset is contained in a maximal totally ordered subset. The restricted principle "Every partially ordered set has a maximal totally ordered subset" is also equivalent to AC over ZF.Tukey's lemma: Every non-empty collection of finite character has a maximal element with respect to inclusion.Antichain principle: Every partially ordered set has a maximal antichain.Abstract algebraEvery vector space has a basis.Krull's theorem:  Every unital ring other than the trivial ring contains a maximal ideal.For every non-empty set S there is a binary operation defined on S that gives it a group structure. (A cancellative binary operation is enough, see group structure and the axiom of choice.)Every free abelian group is projective.Baer's criterion: Every divisible abelian group is injective.Every set is a projective object in the category Set of sets.Functional analysisThe closed unit ball of the dual of a normed vector space over the reals has an extreme point.Point-set topologyTychonoff's theorem: Every product of compact topological spaces is compact.In the product topology, the closure of a product of subsets is equal to the product of the closures.Mathematical logicIf S is a set of sentences of first-order logic and B is a consistent subset of S, then B is included in a set that is maximal among consistent subsets of S.  The special case where S is the set of all first-order sentences in a given signature is weaker, equivalent to the Boolean prime ideal theorem; see the section "Weaker forms" below.Graph theoryEvery connected graph has a spanning tree.Category theoryThere are several results in category theory which invoke the axiom of choice for their proof.  These results might be weaker than, equivalent to, or stronger than the axiom of choice, depending on the strength of the technical foundations.  For example, if one defines categories in terms of sets, that is, as sets of objects and morphisms (usually called a small category), or even locally small categories, whose hom-objects are sets, then there is no category of all sets, and so it is difficult for a category-theoretic formulation to apply to all sets.  On the other hand, other foundational descriptions of category theory are considerably stronger, and an identical category-theoretic statement of choice may be stronger than the standard formulation, à la class theory, mentioned above.Examples of category-theoretic statements which require choice include:Every small category has a skeleton.If two small categories are weakly equivalent, then they are equivalent.Every continuous functor on a small-complete category which satisfies the appropriate solution set condition has a left-adjoint (the Freyd adjoint functor theorem).Weaker formsThere are several weaker statements that are not equivalent to the axiom of choice, but are closely related. One example is the axiom of dependent choice (DC). A still weaker example is the axiom of countable choice (ACω or CC), which states that a choice function exists for any countable set of nonempty sets. These axioms are sufficient for many proofs in elementary mathematical analysis, and are consistent with some principles, such as the Lebesgue measurability of all sets of reals, that are disprovable from the full axiom of choice.Other choice axioms weaker than axiom of choice include the Boolean prime ideal theorem and the axiom of uniformization.  The former is equivalent in ZF to Tarski's 1930 ultrafilter lemma: every filter is a subset of some ultrafilter.Results requiring AC (or weaker forms) but weaker than itOne of the most interesting aspects of the axiom of choice is the large number of places in mathematics that it shows up. Here are some statements that require the axiom of choice in the sense that they are not provable from ZF but are provable from ZFC (ZF plus AC).  Equivalently, these statements are true in all models of ZFC but false in some models of ZF.Set theoryThe ultrafilter lemma (with ZF) can be used to prove the Axiom of choice for finite sets: Given  and a collection  of non-empty  sets, their product  is not empty.Any union of countably many countable sets is itself countable (because it is necessary to choose a particular ordering for each of the countably many sets).If the set A is infinite, then there exists an injection from the natural numbers N to A (see Dedekind infinite).Eight definitions of a finite set are equivalent.Every infinite game  in which  is a Borel subset of Baire space is determined.Measure theoryThe Vitali theorem on the existence of non-measurable sets which states that there is a subset of the real numbers that is not Lebesgue measurable.The Hausdorff paradox.The Banach–Tarski paradox.AlgebraEvery field has an algebraic closure.Every field extension has a transcendence basis.Stone's representation theorem for Boolean algebras needs the Boolean prime ideal theorem.The Nielsen–Schreier theorem, that every subgroup of a free group is free.The additive groups of R and C are isomorphic.Functional analysisThe Hahn–Banach theorem in functional analysis, allowing the extension of linear functionalsThe theorem that every Hilbert space has an orthonormal basis.The Banach–Alaoglu theorem about compactness of sets of functionals.The Baire category theorem about complete metric spaces, and its consequences, such as the open mapping theorem and the closed graph theorem.On every infinite-dimensional topological vector space there is a discontinuous linear map.General topologyA uniform space is compact if and only if it is complete and totally bounded.Every Tychonoff space has a Stone–Čech compactification.Mathematical logicGödel's completeness theorem for first-order logic: every consistent set of first-order sentences has a completion. That is, every consistent set of first-order sentences can be extended to a maximal consistent set.The compactness theorem: If  is a set of first-order (or alternatively, zero-order) sentences such that every finite subset of  has a model, then  has a model.Possibly equivalent implications of ACThere are several historically important set-theoretic statements implied by AC whose equivalence to AC is open. The partition principle, which was formulated before AC itself, was cited by Zermelo as a justification for believing AC. In 1906, Russell declared PP to be equivalent, but whether the partition principle implies AC is still the oldest open problem in set theory, and the equivalences of the other statements are similarly hard old open problems. In every known model of ZF where choice fails, these statements fail too, but it is unknown if they can hold without choice.Set theoryPartition principle: if there is a surjection from A to B, there is an injection from B to A. Equivalently, every partition P of a set S is less than or equal to S in size.Converse Schröder–Bernstein theorem: if two sets have surjections to each other, they are equinumerous.Weak partition principle: A partition of a set S cannot be strictly larger than S. If WPP holds, this already implies the existence of a non-measurable set. Each of the previous three statements is implied by the preceding one, but it is unknown if any of these implications can be reversed.There is no infinite decreasing sequence of cardinals. The equivalence was conjectured by Schoenflies in 1905.Abstract algebraHahn embedding theorem: Every ordered abelian group G order-embeds as a subgroup of the additive group  endowed with a lexicographical order, where Ω is the set of Archimedean equivalence classes of G. This equivalence was conjectured by Hahn in 1907.Stronger forms of the negation of ACIf we abbreviate by BP the claim that every set of real numbers has the property of Baire, then BP is stronger than ¬AC, which asserts the nonexistence of any choice function on perhaps only a single set of nonempty sets.  Strengthened negations may be compatible with weakened forms of AC.  For example, ZF + DC + BP is consistent, if ZF is.It is also consistent with ZF + DC that every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable; however, this consistency result, due to Robert M. Solovay, cannot be proved in ZFC itself, but requires a mild large cardinal assumption (the existence of an inaccessible cardinal). The much stronger axiom of determinacy, or AD, implies that every set of reals is Lebesgue measurable, has the property of Baire, and has the perfect set property (all three of these results are refuted by AC itself). ZF + DC + AD is consistent provided that a sufficiently strong large cardinal axiom is consistent (the existence of infinitely many Woodin cardinals).Quine's system of axiomatic set theory, "New Foundations" (NF), takes its name from the title ("New Foundations for Mathematical Logic") of the 1937 article which introduced it. In the NF axiomatic system, the axiom of choice can be disproved.Statements consistent with the negation of ACThere are models of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory in which the axiom of choice is false.  We shall abbreviate "Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory plus the negation of the axiom of choice" by ZF¬C.  For certain models of ZF¬C, it is possible to prove the negation of some standard facts.Any model of ZF¬C is also a model of ZF, so for each of the following statements, there exists a model of ZF in which that statement is true.In some model, there is a set that can be partitioned into strictly more equivalence classes than the original set has elements, and a function whose domain is strictly smaller than its range. In fact, this is the case in all known models.There is a function f from the real numbers to the real numbers such that f is not continuous at a, but f is sequentially continuous at a, i.e., for any sequence {xn} converging to a, limn f(xn)=f(a).In some model, there is an infinite set of real numbers without a countably infinite subset.In some model, the real numbers are a countable union of countable sets. This does not imply that the real numbers are countable: As pointed out above, to show that a countable union of countable sets is itself countable requires the Axiom of countable choice.In some model, there is a field with no algebraic closure.In all models of ZF¬C there is a vector space with no basis.In some model, there is a vector space with two bases of different cardinalities.In some model there is a free complete boolean algebra on countably many generators.In some model there is a set that cannot be linearly ordered.There exists a model of ZF¬C in which every set in Rn is measurable.  Thus it is possible to exclude counterintuitive results like the Banach–Tarski paradox which are provable in ZFC.  Furthermore, this is possible whilst assuming the Axiom of dependent choice, which is weaker than AC but sufficient to develop most of real analysis.In all models of ZF¬C, the generalized continuum hypothesis does not hold.For proofs, see .Additionally, by imposing definability conditions on sets (in the sense of descriptive set theory) one can often prove restricted versions of the axiom of choice from axioms incompatible with general choice.  This appears, for example, in the Moschovakis coding lemma.Axiom of choice in type theory In type theory, a different kind of statement is known as the axiom of choice. This form begins with two types, σ and τ, and a relation R between objects of type σ and objects of type τ. The axiom of choice states that if for each x of type σ there exists a y of type τ such that R(x,y), then there is a function f from objects of type σ to objects of type τ such that R(x,f(x)) holds for all x of type σ:Unlike in set theory, the axiom of choice in type theory is typically stated as an axiom scheme, in which R varies over all formulas or over all formulas of a particular logical form.QuotesThis is a joke: although the three are all mathematically equivalent, many mathematicians find the axiom of choice to be intuitive, the well-ordering principle to be counterintuitive, and Zorn's lemma to be too complex for any intuition.The observation here is that one can define a function to select from an infinite number of pairs of shoes by stating for example, to choose a left shoe.  Without the axiom of choice, one cannot assert that such a function exists for pairs of socks, because left and right socks are (presumably) indistinguishable.Polish-American mathematician Jan Mycielski relates this anecdote in a 2006 article in the Notices of the AMS.This quote comes from the famous April Fools' Day article in the computer recreations column of the Scientific American, April 1989.NotesReferences       Per Martin-Löf, "100 years of Zermelo's axiom of choice: What was the problem with it?", in Logicism, Intuitionism, and Formalism: What Has Become of Them?, Sten Lindström, Erik Palmgren, Krister Segerberg, and Viggo Stoltenberg-Hansen, editors (2008).   , available as a Dover Publications reprint, 2013, . Herman Rubin, Jean E. Rubin: Equivalents of the axiom of choice. North Holland, 1963. Reissued by Elsevier, April 1970. .Herman Rubin, Jean E. Rubin: Equivalents of the Axiom of Choice II. North Holland/Elsevier, July 1985, .    George Tourlakis, Lectures in Logic and Set Theory. Vol. II: Set Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2003.  Ernst Zermelo, "Untersuchungen über die Grundlagen der Mengenlehre I," Mathematische Annalen 65: (1908) pp. 261–81. PDF download via digizeitschriften.deTranslated in: Jean van Heijenoort, 2002. From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879–1931. New edition. Harvard University Press. 1904. "Proof that every set can be well-ordered," 139-41.1908. "Investigations in the foundations of set theory I," 199–215.External linksAxiom of Choice entry in the Springer Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Axiom of Choice and Its Equivalents entry at ProvenMath. Includes formal statement of the Axiom of Choice, Hausdorff's Maximal Principle, Zorn's Lemma and formal proofs of their equivalence down to the finest detail.Consequences of the Axiom of Choice, based on the book by Paul Howard and Jean Rubin..
Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe. He is also considered one of the most powerful rulers in world history.During his reign, he was one of the most feared enemies of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans, but was unable to take Constantinople. His unsuccessful campaign in Persia was followed in 441 by an invasion of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the success of which emboldened Attila to invade the West. He also attempted to conquer Roman Gaul (modern France), crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as far as Aurelianum (Orléans) before being stopped in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.He subsequently invaded Italy, devastating the northern provinces, but was unable to take Rome. He planned for further campaigns against the Romans, but died in 453. After Attila's death, his close adviser, Ardaric of the Gepids, led a Germanic revolt against Hunnic rule, after which the Hunnic Empire quickly collapsed. Attila would live on as a character in Germanic heroic legend.Appearance and character There is no surviving first-hand account of Attila's appearance, but there is a possible second-hand source provided by Jordanes, who cites a description given by Priscus.Some scholars have suggested that this description is typically East Asian, because it has all the combined features that fit the physical type of people from Eastern Asia, and Attila's ancestors may have come from there. Other historians also believed that the same descriptions were also evident on some Scythian people.Etymology Many scholars have argued that the name Attila derives from East Germanic origin; Attila is formed from the Gothic or Gepidic noun atta, "father", by means of the diminutive suffix -ila, meaning "little father", compare Wulfila from wulfs "wolf" and -ila, i.e. "little wolf". The Gothic etymology was first proposed by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century. Maenchen-Helfen notes that this derivation of the name "offers neither phonetic nor semantic difficulties", and Gerhard Doerfer notes that the name is simply correct Gothic. Alexander Savelyev and Choongwon Jeong (2020) similarly state that Attila's name "must have been Gothic in origin." The name has sometimes been interpreted as a Germanization of a name of Hunnic origin.Other scholars have argued for a Turkic origin of the name. Omeljan Pritsak considered Ἀττίλα (Attíla) a composite title-name which derived from Turkic *es (great, old), and *til (sea, ocean), and the suffix /a/. The stressed back syllabic til assimilated the front member es, so it became *as. It is a nominative, in form of attíl- (< *etsíl < *es tíl) with the meaning "the oceanic, universal ruler". J. J. Mikkola connected it with Turkic āt (name, fame).As another Turkic possibility, H. Althof (1902) considered it was related to Turkish atli (horseman, cavalier), or Turkish at (horse) and dil (tongue). Maenchen-Helfen argues that Pritsak's derivation is "ingenious but for many reasons unacceptable", while dismissing Mikkola's as "too farfetched to be taken seriously". M. Snædal similarly notes that none of these proposals has achieved wide acceptance.Criticizing the proposals of finding Turkic or other etymologies for Attila, Doerfer notes that King George VI of the United Kingdom had a name of Greek origin, and Süleyman the Magnificent had a name of Arabic origin, yet that does not make them Greeks or Arabs: it is therefore plausible that Attila would have a name not of Hunnic origin. Historian Hyun Jin Kim, however, has argued that the Turkic etymology is "more probable".M. Snædal, in a paper that rejects the Germanic derivation but notes the problems with the existing proposed Turkic etymologies, argues that Attila's name could have originated from Turkic-Mongolian at, adyy/agta (gelding, warhorse) and Turkish atli (horseman, cavalier), meaning "possessor of geldings, provider of warhorses".Historiography and source The historiography of Attila is faced with a major challenge, in that the only complete sources are written in Greek and Latin by the enemies of the Huns. Attila's contemporaries left many testimonials of his life, but only fragments of these remain. Priscus was a Byzantine diplomat and historian who wrote in Greek, and he was both a witness to and an actor in the story of Attila, as a member of the embassy of Theodosius II at the Hunnic court in 449. He was obviously biased by his political position, but his writing is a major source for information on the life of Attila, and he is the only person known to have recorded a physical description of him. He wrote a history of the late Roman Empire in eight books covering the period from 430 to 476.Only fragments of Priscus' work remain. It was cited extensively by 6th-century historians Procopius and Jordanes, especially in Jordanes' The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, which contains numerous references to Priscus's history, and it is also an important source of information about the Hunnic empire and its neighbors. He describes the legacy of Attila and the Hunnic people for a century after Attila's death. Marcellinus Comes, a chancellor of Justinian during the same era, also describes the relations between the Huns and the Eastern Roman Empire.Numerous ecclesiastical writings contain useful but scattered information, sometimes difficult to authenticate or distorted by years of hand-copying between the 6th and 17th centuries. The Hungarian writers of the 12th century wished to portray the Huns in a positive light as their glorious ancestors, and so repressed certain historical elements and added their own legends.The literature and knowledge of the Huns themselves was transmitted orally, by means of epics and chanted poems that were handed down from generation to generation. Indirectly, fragments of this oral history have reached us via the literature of the Scandinavians and Germans, neighbors of the Huns who wrote between the 9th and 13th centuries. Attila is a major character in many Medieval epics, such as the Nibelungenlied, as well as various Eddas and sagas.Archaeological investigation has uncovered some details about the lifestyle, art, and warfare of the Huns. There are a few traces of battles and sieges, but the tomb of Attila and the location of his capital have not yet been found.Early life and background The Huns were a group of Eurasian nomads, appearing from east of the Volga, who migrated further into Western Europe c. 370 and built up an enormous empire there. Their main military techniques were mounted archery and javelin throwing. They were in the process of developing settlements before their arrival in Western Europe, yet the Huns were a society of pastoral warriors whose primary form of nourishment was meat and milk, products of their herds.The origin and language of the Huns has been the subject of debate for centuries. According to some theories, their leaders at least may have spoken a Turkic language, perhaps closest to the modern Chuvash language. One scholar suggests a relationship to Yeniseian. According to the Encyclopedia of European Peoples, "the Huns, especially those who migrated to the west, may have been a combination of central Asian Turkic, Mongolic, and Ugric stocks".Attila's father Mundzuk was the brother of kings Octar and Ruga, who reigned jointly over the Hunnic empire in the early fifth century. This form of diarchy was recurrent with the Huns, but historians are unsure whether it was institutionalized, merely customary, or an occasional occurrence. His family was from a noble lineage, but it is uncertain whether they constituted a royal dynasty. Attila's birthdate is debated; journalist Éric Deschodt and writer Herman Schreiber have proposed a date of 395. However, historian Iaroslav Lebedynsky and archaeologist Katalin Escher prefer an estimate between the 390s and the first decade of the fifth century. Several historians have proposed 406 as the date.Attila grew up in a rapidly changing world. His people were nomads who had only recently arrived in Europe. They crossed the Volga river during the 370s and annexed the territory of the Alans, then attacked the Gothic kingdom between the Carpathian mountains and the Danube. They were a very mobile people, whose mounted archers had acquired a reputation for invincibility, and the Germanic tribes seemed unable to withstand them. Vast populations fleeing the Huns moved from Germania into the Roman Empire in the west and south, and along the banks of the Rhine and Danube. In 376, the Goths crossed the Danube, initially submitting to the Romans but soon rebelling against Emperor Valens, whom they killed in the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Large numbers of Vandals, Alans, Suebi, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine and invaded Roman Gaul on December 31, 406 to escape the Huns. The Roman Empire had been split in half since 395 and was ruled by two distinct governments, one based in Ravenna in the West, and the other in Constantinople in the East. The Roman Emperors, both East and West, were generally from the Theodosian family in Attila's lifetime (despite several power struggles).The Huns dominated a vast territory with nebulous borders determined by the will of a constellation of ethnically varied peoples. Some were assimilated to Hunnic nationality, whereas many retained their own identities and rulers but acknowledged the suzerainty of the king of the Huns. The Huns were also the indirect source of many of the Romans' problems, driving various Germanic tribes into Roman territory, yet relations between the two empires were cordial: the Romans used the Huns as mercenaries against the Germans and even in their civil wars. Thus, the usurper Joannes was able to recruit thousands of Huns for his army against Valentinian III in 424. It was Aëtius, later Patrician of the West, who managed this operation. They exchanged ambassadors and hostages, the alliance lasting from 401 to 450 and permitting the Romans numerous military victories. The Huns considered the Romans to be paying them tribute, whereas the Romans preferred to view this as payment for services rendered. The Huns had become a great power by the time that Attila came of age during the reign of his uncle Ruga, to the point that Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, deplored the situation with these words: "They have become both masters and slaves of the Romans".Campaigns against the Eastern Roman Empire The death of Rugila (also known as Rua or Ruga) in 434 left the sons of his brother Mundzuk, Attila and Bleda, in control of the united Hun tribes. At the time of the two brothers' accession, the Hun tribes were bargaining with Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II's envoys for the return of several renegades who had taken refuge within the Eastern Roman Empire, possibly Hunnic nobles who disagreed with the brothers' assumption of leadership.The following year, Attila and Bleda met with the imperial legation at Margus (Požarevac), all seated on horseback in the Hunnic manner, and negotiated an advantageous treaty. The Romans agreed to return the fugitives, to double their previous tribute of 350 Roman pounds (c. 115 kg) of gold, to open their markets to Hunnish traders, and to pay a ransom of eight solidi for each Roman taken prisoner by the Huns. The Huns, satisfied with the treaty, decamped from the Roman Empire and returned to their home in the Great Hungarian Plain, perhaps to consolidate and strengthen their empire. Theodosius used this opportunity to strengthen the walls of Constantinople, building the city's first sea wall, and to build up his border defenses along the Danube.The Huns remained out of Roman sight for the next few years while they invaded the Sassanid Empire. They were defeated in Armenia by the Sassanids, abandoned their invasion, and turned their attentions back to Europe. In 440, they reappeared in force on the borders of the Roman Empire, attacking the merchants at the market on the north bank of the Danube that had been established by the treaty of 435.Crossing the Danube, they laid waste to the cities of Illyricum and forts on the river, including (according to Priscus) Viminacium, a city of Moesia. Their advance began at Margus, where they demanded that the Romans turn over a bishop who had retained property that Attila regarded as his. While the Romans discussed the bishop's fate, he slipped away secretly to the Huns and betrayed the city to them.While the Huns attacked city-states along the Danube, the Vandals (led by Geiseric) captured the Western Roman province of Africa and its capital of Carthage. Africa was the richest province of the Western Empire and a main source of food for Rome. The Sassanid Shah Yazdegerd II invaded Armenia in 441.The Romans stripped the Balkan area of forces, sending them to Sicily in order to mount an expedition against the Vandals in Africa. This left Attila and Bleda a clear path through Illyricum into the Balkans, which they invaded in 441. The Hunnish army sacked Margus and Viminacium, and then took Singidunum (Belgrade) and Sirmium. During 442, Theodosius recalled his troops from Sicily and ordered a large issue of new coins to finance operations against the Huns. He believed that he could defeat the Huns and refused the Hunnish kings' demands.Attila responded with a campaign in 443. For the first time (as far as the Romans knew) his forces were equipped with battering rams and rolling siege towers, with which they successfully assaulted the military centers of Ratiara and Naissus (Niš) and massacred the inhabitants. Priscus said "When we arrived at Naissus we found the city deserted, as though it had been sacked; only a few sick persons lay in the churches. We halted at a short distance from the river, in an open space, for all the ground adjacent to the bank was full of the bones of men slain in war."Advancing along the Nišava River, the Huns next took Serdica (Sofia), Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and Arcadiopolis (Lüleburgaz). They encountered and destroyed a Roman army outside Constantinople but were stopped by the double walls of the Eastern capital. They defeated a second army near Callipolis (Gelibolu).Theodosius, unable to make effective armed resistance, admitted defeat, sending the Magister militum per Orientem Anatolius to negotiate peace terms. The terms were harsher than the previous treaty: the Emperor agreed to hand over 6,000 Roman pounds (c. 2000 kg) of gold as punishment for having disobeyed the terms of the treaty during the invasion; the yearly tribute was tripled, rising to 2,100 Roman pounds (c. 700 kg) in gold; and the ransom for each Roman prisoner rose to 12 solidi.Their demands were met for a time, and the Hun kings withdrew into the interior of their empire.  Bleda died following the Huns' withdrawal from Byzantium (probably around 445). Attila then took the throne for himself, becoming the sole ruler of the Huns.Solitary kingship In 447, Attila again rode south into the Eastern Roman Empire through Moesia. The Roman army, under Gothic magister militum Arnegisclus, met him in the Battle of the Utus and was defeated, though not without inflicting heavy losses. The Huns were left unopposed and rampaged through the Balkans as far as Thermopylae.Constantinople itself was saved by the Isaurian troops of magister militum per Orientem Zeno and protected by the intervention of prefect Constantinus, who organized the reconstruction of the walls that had been previously damaged by earthquakes and, in some places, to construct a new line of fortification in front of the old. Callinicus, in his Life of Saint Hypatius, wrote:In the west In 450, Attila proclaimed his intent to attack the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse by making an alliance with Emperor Valentinian III. He had previously been on good terms with the Western Roman Empire and its influential general Flavius Aëtius. Aëtius had spent a brief exile among the Huns in 433, and the troops that Attila provided against the Goths and Bagaudae had helped earn him the largely honorary title of magister militum in the west. The gifts and diplomatic efforts of Geiseric, who opposed and feared the Visigoths, may also have influenced Attila's plans.However, Valentinian's sister was Honoria, who had sent the Hunnish king a plea for help—and her engagement ring—in order to escape her forced betrothal to a Roman senator in the spring of 450. Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, but Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry.When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of his mother Galla Placidia convinced him to exile Honoria, rather than killing her. He also wrote to Attila, strenuously denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his.Attila interfered in a succession struggle after the death of a Frankish ruler. Attila supported the elder son, while Aëtius supported the younger. (The location and identity of these kings is not known and subject to conjecture.) Attila gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, among others—and began his march west. In 451, he arrived in Belgica with an army exaggerated by Jordanes to half a million strong.On April 7, he captured Metz. Other cities attacked can be determined by the hagiographic vitae written to commemorate their bishops: Nicasius was slaughtered before the altar of his church in Rheims; Servatus is alleged to have saved Tongeren with his prayers, as Saint Genevieve is said to have saved Paris. Lupus, bishop of Troyes, is also credited with saving his city by meeting Attila in person.Aëtius moved to oppose Attila, gathering troops from among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Celts. A mission by Avitus and Attila's continued westward advance convinced the Visigoth king Theodoric I (Theodorid) to ally with the Romans. The combined armies reached Orléans ahead of Attila, thus checking and turning back the Hunnish advance. Aëtius gave chase and caught the Huns at a place usually assumed to be near Catalaunum (modern Châlons-en-Champagne). Attila decided to fight the Romans on plains where he could use his cavalry.The two armies clashed in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, the outcome of which is commonly considered to be a strategic victory for the Visigothic-Roman alliance. Theodoric was killed in the fighting, and Aëtius failed to press his advantage, according to Edward Gibbon and Edward Creasy, because he feared the consequences of an overwhelming Visigothic triumph as much as he did a defeat. From Aëtius' point of view, the best outcome was what occurred: Theodoric died, Attila was in retreat and disarray, and the Romans had the benefit of appearing victorious.Invasion of Italy and death Attila returned in 452 to renew his marriage claim with Honoria, invading and ravaging Italy along the way. Communities became established in what would later become Venice as a result of these attacks when the residents fled to small islands in the Venetian Lagoon. His army sacked numerous cities and razed Aquileia so completely that it was afterwards hard to recognize its original site. Aëtius lacked the strength to offer battle, but managed to harass and slow Attila's advance with only a shadow force. Attila finally halted at the River Po. By this point, disease and starvation may have taken hold in Attila's camp, thus hindering his war efforts and potentially contributing to the cessation of invasion.Emperor Valentinian III sent three envoys, the high civilian officers Gennadius Avienus and Trigetius, as well as the Bishop of Rome Leo I, who met Attila at Mincio in the vicinity of Mantua and obtained from him the promise that he would withdraw from Italy and negotiate peace with the Emperor. Prosper of Aquitaine gives a short description of the historic meeting, but gives all the credit to Leo for the successful negotiation. Priscus reports that superstitious fear of the fate of Alaric gave him pause—as Alaric died shortly after sacking Rome in 410.Italy had suffered from a terrible famine in 451 and her crops were faring little better in 452. Attila's devastating invasion of the plains of northern Italy this year did not improve the harvest. To advance on Rome would have required supplies which were not available in Italy, and taking the city would not have improved Attila's supply situation. Therefore, it was more profitable for Attila to conclude peace and retreat to his homeland.Furthermore, an East Roman force had crossed the Danube under the command of another officer also named Aetius—who had participated in the Council of Chalcedon the previous year—and proceeded to defeat the Huns who had been left behind by Attila to safeguard their home territories. Attila, hence, faced heavy human and natural pressures to retire "from Italy without ever setting foot south of the Po". As Hydatius writes in his Chronica Minora:DeathIn the Eastern Roman Empire, Emperor Marcian succeeded Theodosius II, and stopped paying tribute to the Huns. Attila withdrew from Italy to his palace across the Danube, while making plans to strike at Constantinople once more to reclaim tribute. However, he died in the early months of 453.The conventional account from Priscus says that Attila was at a feast celebrating his latest marriage, this time to the beautiful young Ildico (the name suggests Gothic or Ostrogoth origins). In the midst of the revels, however, he suffered severe bleeding and died. He may have had a nosebleed and choked to death in a stupor. Or he may have succumbed to internal bleeding, possibly due to ruptured esophageal varices. Esophageal varices are dilated veins that form in the lower part of the esophagus, often caused by years of excessive alcohol consumption; they are fragile and can easily rupture, leading to death by hemorrhage.Another account of his death was first recorded 80 years after the events by Roman chronicler Marcellinus Comes. It reports that "Attila, King of the Huns and ravager of the provinces of Europe, was pierced by the hand and blade of his wife". One modern analyst suggests that he was assassinated, but most reject these accounts as no more than hearsay, preferring instead the account given by Attila's contemporary Priscus, recounted in the 6th century by Jordanes:Attila's sons Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak, "in their rash eagerness to rule they all alike destroyed his empire". They "were clamoring that the nations should be divided among them equally and that warlike kings with their peoples should be apportioned to them by lot like a family estate". Against the treatment as "slaves of the basest condition" a Germanic alliance led by the Gepid ruler Ardaric (who was noted for great loyalty to Attila) revolted and fought with the Huns in Pannonia in the Battle of Nedao 454 AD. Attila's eldest son Ellac was killed in that battle. Attila's sons "regarding the Goths as deserters from their rule, came against them as though they were seeking fugitive slaves", attacked Ostrogothic co-ruler Valamir (who also fought alongside Ardaric and Attila at the Catalaunian Plains), but were repelled, and some group of Huns moved to Scythia (probably those of Ernak). His brother Dengizich attempted a renewed invasion across the Danube in 468 AD, but was defeated at the Battle of Bassianae by the Ostrogoths. Dengizich was killed by Roman-Gothic general Anagast the following year, after which the Hunnic dominion ended.Attila's many children and relatives are known by name and some even by deeds, but soon valid genealogical sources all but dried up, and there seems to be no verifiable way to trace Attila's descendants. This has not stopped many genealogists from attempting to reconstruct a valid line of descent for various medieval rulers. One of the most credible claims has been that of the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans for mythological Avitohol and Irnik from the Dulo clan of the Bulgars.Later folklore and iconography Jordanes embellished the report of Priscus, reporting that Attila had possessed the "Holy War Sword of the Scythians", which was given to him by Mars and made him a "prince of the entire world".By the end of the 12th century the royal court of Hungary proclaimed their descent from Attila. Lampert of Hersfeld's contemporary chronicles report that shortly before the year 1071, the Sword of Attila had been presented to Otto of Nordheim by the exiled queen of Hungary, Anastasia of Kiev. This sword, a cavalry sabre now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, appears to be the work of Hungarian goldsmiths of the ninth or tenth century.An anonymous chronicler of the medieval period represented the meeting of Pope Leo and Atilla as attended also by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, "a miraculous tale calculated to meet the taste of the time" This apotheosis was later portrayed artistically by the Renaissance artist Raphael and sculptor Algardi, whom eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon praised for establishing "one of the noblest legends of ecclesiastical tradition".According to a version of this narrative related in the Chronicon Pictum, a mediaeval Hungarian chronicle, the Pope promised Attila that if he left Rome in peace, one of his successors would receive a holy crown (which has been understood as referring to the Holy Crown of Hungary).Some histories and chronicles describe him as a great and noble king, and he plays major roles in three Norse sagas: Atlakviða, Volsunga saga, and Atlamál. The Polish Chronicle represents Attila's name as Aquila.Frutolf of Michelsberg and Otto of Freising pointed out that some songs as "vulgar fables" made Theoderic the Great, Attila and Ermanaric contemporaries, when any reader of Jordanes knew that this was not the case. This refers to the so-called historical poems about Dietrich von Bern (Theoderic), in which Etzel (Attila) is Dietrich's refuge in exile from his wicked uncle Ermenrich (Ermanaric). Etzel is most prominent in the poems Dietrichs Flucht and the Rabenschlacht. Etzel also appears as Kriemhild's second noble husband in the Nibelungenlied, in which Kriemhild causes the destruction of both the Hunnish kingdom and that of her Burgundian relatives.In 1812, Ludwig van Beethoven conceived the idea of writing an opera about Attila and approached August von Kotzebue to write the libretto. It was, however, never written. In 1846, Giuseppe Verdi wrote the opera, loosely based on episodes in Attila's invasion of Italy.In World War I, Allied propaganda referred to Germans as the "Huns", based on a 1900 speech by Emperor Wilhelm II praising Attila the Hun's military prowess, according to Jawaharlal Nehru's Glimpses of World History. Der Spiegel commented on 6 November 1948, that the Sword of Attila was hanging menacingly over Austria.American writer Cecelia Holland wrote The Death of Attila (1973), a historical novel in which Attila appears as a powerful background figure whose life and death deeply affect the protagonists, a young Hunnic warrior and a Germanic one.The name has many variants in several languages: Atli and Atle in Old Norse; Etzel in Middle High German (Nibelungenlied); Ætla in Old English; Attila, Atilla, and Etele in Hungarian (Attila is the most popular); Attila, Atilla, Atilay, or Atila in Turkish; and Adil and Edil in Kazakh or Adil ("same/similar") or Edil ("to use") in Mongolian.In modern Hungary and in Turkey, "Attila" and its Turkish variation "Atilla" are commonly used as a male first name. In Hungary, several public places are named after Attila; for instance, in Budapest there are 10 Attila Streets, one of which is an important street behind the Buda Castle. When the Turkish Armed Forces invaded Cyprus in 1974, the operations were named after Attila ("The Attila Plan").The 1954 Universal International film Sign of the Pagan starred Jack Palance as Attila.Depictions of AttilaSee also Alaric I Arminius Bato (Daesitiate chieftain) Boiorix Brennus (4th century BC) Gaiseric Ermanaric Hannibal Mithridates VI of Pontus Onegesius Odoacer Radagaisus Spartacus Theodoric the Great TotilaNotesSourcesExternal links   Works about Attila at Project Gutenberg   5th-century Hunnic rulers5th-century monarchs in Europe406 births453 deathsDeaths from choking
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some 215,000 square kilometres. In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea by the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The Aegean Islands are located within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea reaches a maximum depth of 3,544 meters, to the east of Crete. The Thracian Sea and the Myrtoan Sea are subdivisions of the Aegean Sea.The Aegean Islands can be divided into several island groups, including the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the Sporades, the Saronic islands and the North Aegean Islands, as well as Crete and its surrounding islands. The Dodecanese, located to the southeast, includes the islands of Rhodes, Kos, and Patmos; the islands of Delos and Naxos are within the Cyclades to the south of the sea. Lesbos is part of the North Aegean Islands. Euboea, the second-largest island in Greece, is located in the Aegean, despite being administered as part of Central Greece. Nine out of twelve of the Administrative regions of Greece border the sea, along with the Turkish provinces of Edirne, Canakkale, Balıkesir, Izmir, Aydın and Muğla to the east of the sea. Various Turkish islands in the sea are Imbros, Tenedos, Cunda Island, and the Foça Islands.The Aegean Sea has been historically important, especially in regards to the civilization of Ancient Greece, who inhabited the area around the coast of the Aegean and the Aegean islands. The Aegean islands facilitated contact between the people of the area and between Europe and Asia. Along with the Greeks, Thracians lived among the northern coast. The Romans conquered the area under the Roman Empire, and later the Byzantine Empire held it against advances by the First Bulgarian Empire. The Fourth Crusade weakened Byzantine control of the area, and it was eventually conquered by the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Crete, which was a Venetian colony until 1669. The Greek War of Independence allowed a Greek state on the coast of the Aegean from 1829 onwards. The Ottoman Empire held a presence over the sea for over 500 years, until it was replaced by modern Turkey.The rocks making up the floor of the Aegean are mainly limestone, though often greatly altered by volcanic activity that has convulsed the region in relatively recent geologic times. Of particular interest are the richly coloured sediments in the region of the islands of Santorini and Milos, in the south Aegean. Notable cities on the Aegean coastline include Athens, Thessaloniki, Volos, Kavala and Heraklion in Greece, and İzmir and Bodrum in Turkey. The Aegean Sea groundwater itself has a high salinity content leading one to think that the soil would be infertile due to the volcanic region, but actually has an equilibrium with its soil content structure making it able to grow fertile crops on land that would seem infertile. A number of issues concerning sovereignty within the Aegean Sea are disputed between Greece and Turkey. The Aegean dispute has had a large effect on Greek-Turkish relations since the 1970s. Issues include the delimitation of territorial waters, national airspace, exclusive economic zones and flight information regions.Name and etymologyLate Latin authors referred the name Aegaeus to Aegeus, who was said to have jumped into that sea to drown himself (rather than throwing himself from the Athenian acropolis, as told by some Greek authors). He was the father of Theseus, the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. Aegeus had told Theseus to put up white sails when returning if he was successful in killing the Minotaur. When Theseus returned, he forgot these instructions, and Aegeus thinking his son to have died then drowned himself in the sea.The sea was known in Latin as Aegaeum mare under the control of the Roman Empire. The Venetians, who ruled many Greek islands in the High and Late Middle Ages, popularized the name Archipelago (Greek: αρχιπέλαγος, meaning "main sea" or "chief sea"), a name that held on in many European countries until the early modern period. In the South Slavic languages, the Aegean is called White Sea (Bulgarian: /; Macedonian: /; Serbo-Croatian: /). The Turkish name for the sea is Ege Denizi, derived from the Greek name.GeographyThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea, and covers about  in area, measuring about  longitudinally and  latitudinal. The sea's maximum depth is , located at a point east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south, generally from west to east: Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes. The Anatolian peninsula marks the eastern boundary of the sea, while the Greek mainland marks the west. Several seas are contained within the Aegean Sea; the Thracian Sea is a section of the Aegean located to the north, the Icarian Sea to the east, the Myrtoan Sea to the west, while the Sea of Crete is the southern section.The Greek regions that border the sea, in alphabetical order, are Attica, Central Greece, Central Macedonia, Crete, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, North Aegean, Peloponnese, South Aegean, and Thessaly. The historical region of Macedonia also borders the sea, to the north.The Aegean Islands, which almost all belong to Greece, can be divided into seven groups: Northeastern Aegean Islands, which lie in the Thracian Sea  East Aegean Islands (Euboea)  Northern Sporades Cyclades Saronic Islands (or Argo-Saronic Islands) Dodecanese (or Southern Sporades) CreteMany of the Aegean islands or island chains, are geographically extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, and a third extends across the Peloponnese and Crete to Rhodes, dividing the Aegean from the Mediterranean.The bays and gulfs of the Aegean beginning at the South and moving clockwise include on Crete, the Mirabello, Almyros, Souda and Chania bays or gulfs, on the mainland the Myrtoan Sea to the west with the Argolic Gulf, the Saronic Gulf northwestward, the Petalies Gulf which connects with the South Euboic Sea, the Pagasetic Gulf which connects with the North Euboic Sea, the Thermian Gulf northwestward, the Chalkidiki Peninsula including the Cassandra and the Singitic Gulfs, northward the Strymonian Gulf and the Gulf of Kavala and the rest are in Turkey; Saros Gulf, Edremit Gulf, Dikili Gulf, Gulf of Çandarlı, Gulf of İzmir, Gulf of Kuşadası, Gulf of Gökova, Güllük Gulf.The Aegean sea is connected to the Sea of Marmara by the Dardanelles, also known from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont. The Dardanelles are located to the northeast of the sea. It ultimately connects with the Black Sea through the Bosphoros strait, upon which lies the city of Istanbul. The Dardanelles and the Bosphoros are known as the Turkish Straits.ExtentAccording to the International Hydrographic Organization, the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows: On the south: A line running from Cape Aspro (28°16′E) in Asia Minor, to Cum Burnù (Capo della Sabbia) the Northeast extreme of the Island of Rhodes, through the island to Cape Prasonisi, the Southwest point thereof, on to Vrontos Point (35°33′N) in Skarpanto [Karpathos], through this island to Castello Point, the South extreme thereof, across to Cape Plaka (East extremity of Crete), through Crete to Agria Grabusa, the Northwest extreme thereof, thence to Cape Apolitares in Antikithera Island, through the island to Psira Rock (off the Northwest point) and across to Cape Trakhili in Kithera Island, through Kithera to the Northwest point (Cape Karavugia) and thence to Cape Santa Maria () in the Morea. In the Dardanelles: A line joining Kum Kale (26°11′E) and Cape Helles.HydrographyAegean surface water circulates in a counterclockwise gyre, with hypersaline Mediterranean water moving northward along the west coast of Turkey, before being displaced by less dense Black Sea outflow. The dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of , then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of . The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, then flows southwards along the east coast of Greece.The physical oceanography of the Aegean Sea is controlled mainly by the regional climate, the fresh water discharge from major rivers draining southeastern Europe, and the seasonal variations in the Black Sea surface water outflow through the Dardanelles Strait.Analysis of the Aegean during 1991 and 1992 revealed three distinct water masses: Aegean Sea Surface Water –  thick veneer, with summer temperatures of 21–26 °C and winter temperatures ranging from  in the north to  in the south. Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40 to 50 m to  with temperatures ranging from 11 to 18 °C. Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a very uniform temperature (13–14 °C) and salinity (3.91–3.92%).Climate The climate of the Aegean Sea largely reflects the climate of Greece and Western Turkey, which is to say, predominately Mediterranean. According to the Köppen climate classification, most of the Aegean is classified as Hot-summer Mediterranean (Csa), with hotter and drier summers along with milder and wetter winters. However, high temperatures during summers are generally not quite as high as those in arid or semiarid climates due to the presence of a large body of water. This is most predominant in the west and east coasts of the Aegean, and within the Aegean islands. In the north of the Aegean Sea, the climate is instead classified as Cold semi-arid (BSk), which feature cooler summers than Hot-summer Mediterranean climates.The Etesian winds are a dominant weather influence in the Aegean Basin.The below table lists climate conditions of some major Aegean cities:Population Numerous Greek and Turkish settlements are located along their mainland coast, as well as on towns on the Aegean islands. The largest cities are Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece and İzmir in Turkey. The most populated of the Aegean islands is Crete, followed by Euboea and Rhodes.Biogeography and ecologyProtected Areas Greece has established several marine protected areas along its coasts. According to the Network of Managers of Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean (MedPAN), four Greek MPAs are participating in the Network. These include Alonnisos Marine Park, while the Missolonghi–Aitoliko Lagoons and the island of Zakynthos are not on the Aegean.HistoryAncient history The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC. Before that time, at the peak of the last ice age (about 18,000 years ago) sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the present-day islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared around 9,000 years ago, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3,000 years after that.The subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times, the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Myceneans of the Peloponnese.The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean islands, flourishing from around 3000 to 1450 BC before a period of decline, finally ending at around 1100 BC. It represented the first advanced civilization in Europe, leaving behind massive building complexes, tools, stunning artwork, writing systems, and a massive network of trade. The Minoan period saw extensive trade between Crete, Aegean, and Mediterranean settlements, particularly the Near East. The most notable Minoan palace is that of Knossos, followed by that of Phaistos. The Mycenaean Greeks arose on the mainland, becoming the first advanced civilization in mainland Greece, which lasted from approximately 1600 to 1100 BC. It is believed that the site of Mycenae, which sits close to the Aegean coast, was the center of Mycenaean civilization. The Mycenaeans introduced several innovations in the fields of engineering, architecture and military infrastructure, while trade over vast areas of the Mediterranean, including the Aegean, was essential for the Mycenaean economy. Their syllabic script, the Linear B, offers the first written records of the Greek language and their religion already included several deities that can also be found in the Olympic Pantheon. Mycenaean Greece was dominated by a warrior elite society and consisted of a network of palace-centered states that developed rigid hierarchical, political, social and economic systems. At the head of this society was the king, known as wanax.The civilization of Mycenaean Greeks perished with the collapse of Bronze Age culture in the eastern Mediterranean, to be followed by the so-called Greek Dark Ages. It is undetermined what cause the collapse of the Mycenaeans. During the Greek Dark Ages, writing in the Linear B script ceased, vital trade links were lost, and towns and villages were abandoned.Ancient Greece The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages in the 8th century BC. Greece became divided into small self-governing communities, and adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, of which Athens, Sparta, and Corinth were closest to the Aegean Sea. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC many Greeks emigrated to form colonies in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The Aegean Sea was the setting for one of the most pivotal naval engagements in history, when on September 20, 480 B.C. the Athenian fleet gained a decisive victory over the Persian fleet of the Xerxes II of Persia at the Battle of Salamis. Thus ending any further attempt of western expansion by the Achaemenid Empire.The Aegean Sea would later come to be under the control, albeit briefly, of the Kingdom of Macedonia. Philip II and his son Alexander the Great led a series of conquests that led not only to the unification of the Greek mainland and the control of the Aegean Sea under his rule, but also the destruction of the Achaemenid Empire. After Alexander the Great's death, his empire was divided among his generals. Cassander became king of the Hellenistic kingdom of Macedon, which held territory along the western coast of the Aegean, roughly corresponding to modern-day Greece. The Kingdom of Lysimachus had control over the sea's eastern coast. Greece had entered the Hellenistic period.Roman rule The Macedonian Wars were a series of conflicts fought by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies in the eastern Mediterranean against several different major Greek kingdoms. They resulted in Roman control or influence over the eastern Mediterranean basin, including the Aegean, in addition to their hegemony in the western Mediterranean after the Punic Wars. During Roman rule, the land around the Aegean Sea fell under the provinces of Achaea, Macedonia, Thracia, Asia and Creta et Cyrenica (island of Crete)Medieval period The Fall of the Western Roman Empire allowed its successor state, the Byzantine Empire, to continue Roman control over the Aegean Sea. However, their territory would later be threatened by the Early Muslim conquests initiated by Muhammad in the 7th century. Although the Rashidun Caliphate did not manage to obtain land along the coast of the Aegean sea, its conquest of the Eastern Anatolian peninsula as well as Egypt, the Levant, and North Africa left the Byzantine Empire weakened. The Umayyad Caliphate expanded the territorial gains of the Rashidun Caliphate, conquering much of North Africa, and threatened the Byzantine Empire's control of Western Anatolia, where it meets the Aegean Sea.During the 820s, Crete was conquered by a group of Berbers Andalusians exiles led by Abu Hafs Umar al-Iqritishi, and it became an independent Islamic state. The Byzantine Empire launched a campaign that took most of the island back in 842 and 843 under Theoktistos, but the reconquest was not completed and was soon reversed. Later attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover the island were without success. For the approximately 135 years of its existence, the emirate of Crete was one of the major foes of Byzantium. Crete commanded the sea lanes of the Eastern Mediterranean and functioned as a forward base and haven for Muslim corsair fleets that ravaged the Byzantine-controlled shores of the Aegean Sea. Crete returned to Byzantine rule under Nikephoros Phokas, who launched a huge campaign against the Emirate of Crete in 960 to 961.Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Empire threatened Byzantine control of Northern Greece and the Aegean coast to the south. Under Presian I and his successor Boris I, the Bulgarian Empire managed to obtain a small portion of the northern Aegean coast. Simeon I of Bulgaria led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion, and managed to conqueror much of the northern and western coasts of the Aegean. The Byzantines later regained control. The Second Bulgarian Empire achieved similar success along, again, the northern and western coasts, under Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria.The Seljuq Turks, under the Seljuk Empire, invaded the Byzantine Empire in 1068, from which they annexed almost all the territories of Anatolia, including the east coast of the Aegean Sea, during the reign of Alp Arslan, the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire. After the death of his successor, Malik Shah I, the empire was divided, and Malik Shah was succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who founded the Sultanate of Rum. The Byzantines yet again recaptured the eastern coast of the Aegean.After Constantinople was occupied by Western European and Venetian forces during the Fourth Crusade, the area around the Aegean sea was fragmented into multiple entities, including the Latin Empire, the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Empire of Nicaea, the Principality of Achaea, and the Duchy of Athens. The Venetians created the maritime state of the Duchy of the Archipelago, which included all the Cyclades except Mykonos and Tinos. The Empire of Nicaea, a Byzantine rump state, managed to effect the Recapture of Constantinople from the Latins in 1261 and defeat Epirus. Byzantine successes were not to last; the Ottomans would conquer the area around the Aegean coast, but before their expansion the Byzantine Empire had already been weakened from internal conflict. By the late 14th century the Byzantine Empire had lost all control of the coast of the Aegean Sea and could exercise power around their capital, Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire then gained control of all the Aegean coast with the exception of Crete, which was a Venetian colony until 1669.Modern Period The Greek War of Independence allowed a Greek state on the coast of the Aegean from 1829 onward. The Ottoman Empire held a presence over the sea for over 500 years until its dissolution following World War I, when it was replaced by modern Turkey. During the war, Greece gained control over the area around the northern coast of the Aegean. By the 1930s, Greece and Turkey had about resumed their present-day borders.In the Italo-Turkish War of 1912, Italy captured the Dodecanese islands, and had occupied them since, reneging on the 1919 Venizelos–Tittoni agreement to cede them to Greece. The Greco-Italian War took place from October 1940 to April 1941 as part of the Balkans Campaign of World War II. The Italian war aim was to establish a Greek puppet state, which would permit the Italian annexation of the Sporades and the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea, to be administered as a part of the Italian Aegean Islands. The German invasion resulted in the Axis occupation of Greece. The German troops evacuated Athens on 12 October 1944, and by the end of the month, they had withdrawn from mainland Greece. Greece was then liberated by Allied troops.Economy and politicsMany of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays. In ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland, and to some extent, the coastal areas of Anatolia. Many of the islands are volcanic, and marble and iron are mined on other islands. The larger islands have some fertile valleys and plains.The Armenian king dynasty Achaemenids made one of the greatest highways of the Ancient world. Its name was "Royal road," its length was 2400km, and it was situated between  Persian Empire and the Aegean sea. A part of the road passed by the southwest of Armenia, which gave an excellent opportunity to participate in international trading. Of the main islands in the Aegean Sea, two belong to Turkey – Bozcaada (Tenedos) and Gökçeada (Imbros); the rest belong to Greece. Between the two countries, there are political disputes over several aspects of political control over the Aegean space, including the size of territorial waters, air control and the delimitation of economic rights to the continental shelf. These issues are known as the Aegean dispute.Transport Multiple ports are located along the Greek and Turkish coasts of the Aegean Sea. The port of Piraeus in Athens is the chief port in Greece, the largest passenger port in Europe and the third largest in the world, servicing about 20 million passengers annually. With a throughput of 1.4 million TEUs, Piraeus is placed among the top ten ports in container traffic in Europe and the top container port in the Eastern Mediterranean. Piraeus is also the commercial hub of Greek shipping. Piraeus bi-annually acts as the focus for a major shipping convention, known as Posidonia, which attracts maritime industry professionals from all over the world. Piraeus is currently Greece's third-busiest port in terms of tons of goods transported, behind Aghioi Theodoroi and Thessaloniki. The central port serves ferry routes to almost every island in the eastern portion of Greece, the island of Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and much of the northern and the eastern Aegean Sea, while the western part of the port is used for cargo services.As of 2007, the Port of Thessaloniki was the second-largest container port in Greece after the port of Piraeus, making it one of the busiest ports in Greece. In 2007, the Port of Thessaloniki handled 14,373,245 tonnes of cargo and 222,824 TEU's. Paloukia, on the island of Salamis, is a major passenger port.Fishing Fish are Greece's second-largest agricultural export, and Greece has Europe's largest fishing fleet. Fish captured include sardines, mackerel, grouper, grey mullets, sea bass, and seabream. There is a considerable difference between fish catches between the pelagic and demersal zones; with respect to pelagic fisheries, the catches from the northern, central and southern Aegean area groupings are dominated, respectively, by anchovy, horse mackerels, and boops. For demersal fisheries, the catches from the northern and southern Aegean area groupings are dominated by grey mullets and pickerel (Spicara smaris) respectively.The industry has been impacted by the Great Recession. Overfishing and habitat destruction is also a concern, threatening grouper, and seabream populations, resulting in perhaps a 50% decline of fish catch. To address these concerns, Greek fishermen have been offered a compensation by the government. Although some species are defined as protected or threatened under EU legislation, several illegal species such as the molluscs Pinna nobilis, Charonia tritonis and Lithophaga lithophaga, can be bought in restaurants and fish markets around Greece.Tourism The Aegean islands within the Aegean Sea are significant tourist destinations. Tourism to the Aegean islands contributes a significant portion of tourism in Greece, especially since the second half of the 20th century. A total of five UNESCO World Heritage sites are located the Aegean Islands; these include the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian and the Cave of the Apocalypse on Patmos, the Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos in Samos, the Nea Moni of Chios, the island of Delos, and the Medieval City of Rhodes.Greece is one of the most visited countries in Europe and the world with over 33 million visitors in 2018, and the tourism industry around a quarter of Greece's Gross Domestic Product. The islands of Santorini, Crete, Lesbos, Delos, and Mykonos are common tourist destinations. An estimated 2 million tourists visit Santorini annually. However, concerns relating to overtourism have arisen in recent years, such as issues of inadequate infrastructure and overcrowding. Alongside Greece, Turkey has also been successful in developing resort areas and attracting large number of tourists, contributing to tourism in Turkey. The phrase "Blue Cruise" refers to recreational voyages along the Turkish Riviera, including across the Aegean. The ancient city of Troy, a World Heritage Site, is on the Turkish coast of the Aegean.Greece and Turkey both take part in the Blue Flag beach certification programme of the Foundation for Environmental Education. The certification is awarded for beaches and marinas meeting strict quality standards including environmental protection, water quality, safety and services criteria. As of 2015, the Blue Flag has been awarded to 395 beaches and 9 marinas in Greece. Southern Aegean beaches on the Turkish coast include Muğla, with 102 beaches awarded with the blue flag, along with İzmir and Aydın, who have 49 and 30 beaches awarded respectively.See also Exclusive economic zone of Greece Geography of Turkey List of Greek place namesReferencesExternal links  Seas of GreeceSeas of TurkeyMarginal seas of the MediterraneanEuropean seasSeas of AsiaLandforms of Çanakkale ProvinceLandforms of Muğla ProvinceLandforms of İzmir ProvinceLandforms of Balıkesir ProvinceLandforms of Edirne ProvinceLandforms of Aydın Province
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat", which takes its name from the Russian suffix that is equivalent to '-teen' in English. According to Burgess, it was a jeu d'esprit written in just three weeks.In 2005, A Clockwork Orange was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The original manuscript of the book has been kept at McMaster University's William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since the institution purchased the documents in 1971.It is considered one of the most influential dystopian books.Plot summaryPart 1: Alex's worldAlex is a 15-year-old gang leader living in a near-future dystopian city. His friends ("droogs" in the novel's Anglo-Russian slang, "Nadsat") and fellow gang members are Dim, a slow-witted bruiser, who is the gang's muscle; Georgie, an ambitious second-in-command; and Pete, who mostly plays along as the droogs indulge their taste for "ultra-violence" (random, violent mayhem). Characterised as a sociopath and hardened juvenile delinquent, Alex is also intelligent, quick-witted, and enjoys classical music; he is particularly fond of Beethoven, whom he calls "Lovely Ludwig Van".The story begins with the droogs sitting in their favourite hangout, the Korova Milk Bar, and drinking "milk-plus" – a beverage consisting of milk laced with the customer's drug of choice – to prepare for a night of ultra-violence. They assault a scholar walking home from the public library; rob a store, leaving the owner and his wife bloodied and unconscious; beat up a beggar; then scuffle with a rival gang. Joyriding through the countryside in a stolen car, they break into an isolated cottage and terrorise the young couple living there, beating the husband and gang-raping his wife. In a metafictional touch, the husband is a writer working on a manuscript called "A Clockwork Orange", and Alex contemptuously reads out a paragraph that states the novel's main theme before shredding the manuscript. Back at the Korova, Alex strikes Dim for his crude response to a woman's singing of an operatic passage, and strains within the gang become apparent. At home in his parents' flat, Alex plays classical music at top volume, which he describes as giving him orgasmic bliss before falling asleep.Alex feigns illness to his parents to stay out of school the next day. Following an unexpected visit from P.R. Deltoid, his "post-corrective adviser", Alex visits a record store, where he meets two pre-teen girls. He invites them back to the flat, where he drugs and rapes them. That night after a nap, Alex finds his droogs in a mutinous mood, waiting downstairs in the torn-up and graffitied lobby. Georgie challenges Alex for leadership of the gang, demanding that they focus on higher-value targets in their robberies. Alex quells the rebellion by slashing Dim's hand and fighting with Georgie, then pacifies the gang by agreeing to Georgie's plan to rob the home of a wealthy elderly woman. Alex breaks in and knocks the woman unconscious; but, when he hears sirens and opens the door to flee, Dim strikes him in payback for the earlier fight. The gang abandons Alex on the front step to be arrested by the police; while in custody, he learns that the woman has died from her injuries.Part 2: The Ludovico TechniqueAlex is convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. His parents visit one day to inform him that Georgie has been killed in a botched robbery. Two years into his term, he has obtained a job in one of the prison chapels, playing music on the stereo to accompany the Sunday Christian services. The chaplain mistakes Alex's Bible studies for stirrings of faith; in reality, Alex is only reading Scripture for the violent or sexual passages. After his fellow cellmates blame him for beating a troublesome cellmate to death, he is chosen to undergo an experimental behaviour modification treatment called the Ludovico Technique in exchange for having the remainder of his sentence commuted. The technique is a form of aversion therapy in which Alex is injected with nausea-inducing drugs while watching graphically violent films, eventually conditioning him to become severely ill at the mere thought of violence. As an unintended consequence, the soundtrack to one of the films, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, renders Alex unable to enjoy his beloved classical music as before.The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated to a group of VIPs, who watch as Alex collapses before a bully and abases himself before a scantily clad young woman. Although the prison chaplain accuses the state of stripping Alex of free will, the government officials on the scene are pleased with the results, and Alex is released from prison.Part 3: After prisonAlex returns to his parents' flat, only to find that they are letting his room to a lodger. Now homeless, he wanders the streets and enters a public library, hoping to learn of a painless method for committing suicide. The old scholar whom Alex had assaulted in Part 1 finds him and beats him, with the help of several friends. Two policemen come to Alex's rescue, but they turn out to be Dim and Billyboy, a former rival gang leader. They take Alex outside town, brutalise him, and abandon him there. Alex collapses at the door of an isolated cottage, realising too late that it is the one he and his droogs invaded in Part 1.The writer, F. Alexander, still lives here, but his wife has since died of what he believes to be injuries she sustained in the rape. He does not recognise Alex but gives him shelter and questions him about the conditioning he has undergone. Alexander and his colleagues, all highly critical of the government, plan to use Alex as a symbol of state brutality and thus prevent the incumbent government from being re-elected. Alex inadvertently reveals that he was the ringleader of the home invasion; he is removed from the cottage and locked in an upper-story bedroom as a relentless barrage of classical music plays over speakers. He attempts suicide by leaping from the window.Alex wakes up in a hospital, where he is courted by government officials anxious to counter the bad publicity created by his suicide attempt. He is informed that Alexander has been "put away" for Alex's protection and his own. Alex is offered a well-paying job if he agrees to side with the government once he is discharged. A round of tests reveals that his old violent impulses have returned, indicating that the hospital doctors have undone the effects of his conditioning. As photographers snap pictures, Alex daydreams of orgiastic violence and reflects, "I was cured all right."In the final chapter, Alex — now 18 years old and working for the nation's musical recording archives — finds himself halfheartedly preparing for yet another night of crime with a new gang (Len, Rick and Bully). After a chance encounter with Pete, who has reformed and married, Alex finds himself taking less and less pleasure in acts of senseless violence. He begins contemplating giving up crime himself to become a productive member of society and start a family of his own, while reflecting on the notion that his own children could possibly end up being just as destructive as he has been, if not more so.Omission of the final chapter The book has three parts, each with seven chapters. Burgess has stated that the total of 21 chapters was an intentional nod to the age of 21 being recognised as a milestone in human maturation. The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986. In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that U.S. audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has simply gotten bored of violence and resolves to turn his life around.At the American publisher's insistence, Burgess allowed their editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the U.S. version, so that the tale would end on a darker note, with Alex becoming his old, ultraviolent self again – an ending which the publisher insisted would be "more realistic" and appealing to a US audience. The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the American edition of the book (which Burgess considered to be "badly flawed"). Kubrick called Chapter 21 "an extra chapter" and claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay and that he had never given serious consideration to using it. In Kubrick's opinion – as in the opinion of other readers, including the original American editor – the final chapter was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book.Characters Alex: The novel's protagonist and leader among his droogs. He often refers to himself as "Your Humble Narrator". Having coaxed two ten-year-old girls into his bedroom, Alex refers to himself as "Alexander the Large" while raping them; this was later the basis for Alex's claimed surname DeLarge in the 1971 film. George, Georgie or Georgie Boy: Effectively Alex's greedy second-in-command. Georgie attempts to undermine Alex's status as leader of the gang and take over their gang as the new leader. He is later killed during a botched robbery while Alex is in prison. Pete: The only one who does not take particular sides when the droogs fight among themselves. He later meets and marries a girl named Georgina, renouncing his violent ways and even losing his former (Nadsat) speech patterns. A chance encounter with Pete in the final chapter influences Alex to realise that he has grown bored with violence and recognise that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction. Dim: An idiotic and thoroughly gormless member of the gang, persistently condescended to by Alex, but respected to some extent by his droogs for his formidable fighting abilities, his weapon of choice being a length of bike chain. He later becomes a police officer, exacting his revenge on Alex for the abuse he once suffered under his command. P. R. Deltoid: A criminal rehabilitation social worker assigned the task of keeping Alex on the straight and narrow. He seemingly has no clue about dealing with young people, and is devoid of empathy or understanding for his troublesome charge. Indeed, when Alex is arrested for murdering an old woman and then ferociously beaten by several police officers, Deltoid simply spits on him. Prison Chaplain: The character who first questions whether it is moral to turn a violent person into a behavioural automaton who can make no choice in such matters. This is the only character who is truly concerned about Alex's welfare; he is not taken seriously by Alex, though. He is nicknamed by Alex "prison charlie" or "chaplin", a pun on Charlie Chaplin. Billyboy: A rival of Alex's. Early on in the story, Alex and his droogs battle Billyboy and his droogs, which ends abruptly when the police arrive. Later, after Alex is released from prison, Billyboy (along with Dim, who like Billyboy has become a police officer) rescues Alex from a mob, then subsequently beats him in a location out of town. Prison Governor: The man who decides to let Alex "choose" to be the first reformed by the Ludovico technique. The Minister of the Interior: The government high-official who determined that the Ludovico's technique will be used to cut recidivism. He is referred to as the Inferior by Alex. Dr Branom: A scientist, co-developer of the Ludovico technique. He appears friendly and almost paternal towards Alex at first, before forcing him into the theatre and what Alex calls the "chair of torture". Dr Brodsky: Branom's colleague and co-developer of the Ludovico technique. He seems much more passive than Branom and says considerably less. F. Alexander: An author who was in the process of typing his magnum opus  A Clockwork Orange when Alex and his droogs broke into his house, beat him, tore up his work and then brutally gang-raped his wife, which caused her subsequent death. He is left deeply scarred by these events and when he encounters Alex two years later, he uses him as a guinea pig in a sadistic experiment intended to prove the Ludovico technique unsound. The government imprisons him afterwards. He is given the name Frank Alexander in the film. Cat Woman: An indirectly named woman who blocks Alex's gang's entrance scheme, and threatens to shoot Alex and set her cats on him if he does not leave. After Alex breaks into her house, she fights with him, ordering her cats to join the melee, but reprimands Alex for fighting them off. She sustains a fatal blow to the head during the scuffle. She is given the name Miss Weathers in the film.AnalysisBackgroundA Clockwork Orange was written in Hove, then a senescent seaside town. Burgess had arrived back in Britain after his stint abroad to see that much had changed. A youth culture had developed, based around coffee bars, pop music and teenage gangs. England was gripped by fears over juvenile delinquency. Burgess stated that the novel's inspiration was his first wife Lynne's beating by a gang of drunk American servicemen stationed in England during World War II. She subsequently miscarried. In its investigation of free will, the book's target is ostensibly the concept of behaviourism, pioneered by such figures as B. F. Skinner.Burgess later stated that he wrote the book in three weeks.TitleBurgess has offered several clarifications about the meaning and origin of its title: He had overheard the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" in a London pub in 1945 and assumed it was a Cockney expression. In Clockwork Marmalade, an essay published in the Listener in 1972, he said that he had heard the phrase several times since that occasion. He also explained the title in response to a question from William Everson on the television programme Camera Three in 1972, "Well, the title has a very different meaning but only to a particular generation of London Cockneys. It's a phrase which I heard many years ago and so fell in love with, I wanted to use it, the title of the book. But the phrase itself I did not make up. The phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" is good old East London slang and it didn't seem to me necessary to explain it. Now, obviously, I have to give it an extra meaning. I've implied an extra dimension. I've implied the junction of the organic, the lively, the sweet – in other words, life, the orange – and the mechanical, the cold, the disciplined. I've brought them together in this kind of oxymoron, this sour-sweet word." Nonetheless, no other record of the expression being used before 1962 has ever appeared. Kingsley Amis notes in his Memoirs (1991) that no trace of it appears in Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Historical Slang.The saying "as queer as ..." followed by an improbable object: "... a clockwork orange", or "... a four-speed walking stick" or "... a left-handed corkscrew" etc. predates Burgess' novel. An early example, "as queer as Dick's hatband", appeared in 1796, and was alluded to in 1757. His second explanation was that it was a pun on the Malay word orang, meaning "man". The novella contains no other Malay words or links. In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, he wrote that the title was a metaphor for "an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into a mechanism". In his essay Clockwork Oranges, Burgess asserts that "this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian or mechanical laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness". While addressing the reader in a letter before some editions of the book, the author says that when a man ceases to have free will, they are no longer a man. "Just a clockwork orange", a shiny, appealing object, but "just a toy to be wound-up by either God or the Devil, or (what is increasingly replacing both) the State.This title alludes to the protagonist's negative emotional responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will subsequent to the administration of the Ludovico Technique. To induce this conditioning, Alex is forced to watch scenes of violence on a screen that are systematically paired with negative physical stimulation. The negative physical stimulation takes the form of nausea and "feelings of terror", which are caused by an emetic medicine administered just before the presentation of the films.Use of slangThe book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang argot which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slavic words, rhyming slang and derived Russian (like baboochka). For instance, these terms have the following meanings in Nadsat: droog (друг) = friend; moloko (молоко) = milk; gulliver (голова) = head; malchick (мальчик) or malchickiwick = boy; soomka (сумка) = sack or bag; Bog = God; horrorshow (хорошо) = good; prestoopnick (преступник) = criminal; rooker (рука) = hand; cal (кал) = crap; veck ("человек") = man or guy; litso (лицо) = face; malenky (маленький) = little; and so on. Some words Burgess invented himself or just adapted from pre-existing languages. Compare Polari.One of Alex's doctors explains the language to a colleague as "odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav propaganda. Subliminal penetration." Some words are not derived from anything, but merely easy to guess, e.g. "in-out, in-out" or "the old in-out" means sexual intercourse. Cutter, however, means "money", because "cutter" rhymes with "bread-and-butter"; this is rhyming slang, which is intended to be impenetrable to outsiders (especially eavesdropping policemen). Additionally, slang like appypolly loggy ("apology") seems to derive from school boy slang. This reflects Alex's age of 15.In the first edition of the book, no key was provided, and the reader was left to interpret the meaning from the context. In his appendix to the restored edition, Burgess explained that the slang would keep the book from seeming dated, and served to muffle "the raw response of pornography" from the acts of violence.The term "ultraviolence", referring to excessive or unjustified violence, was coined by Burgess in the book, which includes the phrase "do the ultra-violent". The term's association with aesthetic violence has led to its use in the media.Banning and censorship history in the USIn 1976, A Clockwork Orange was removed from an Aurora, Colorado high school because of "objectionable language". A year later in 1977 it was removed from high school classrooms in Westport, Massachusetts over similar concerns with "objectionable" language. In 1982, it was removed from two Anniston, Alabama libraries, later to be reinstated on a restricted basis. Also, in 1973 a bookseller was arrested for selling the novel. The charges were later dropped. However, each of these instances came after the release of Stanley Kubrick's popular 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, itself the subject of much controversy.ReceptionInitial responseThe Sunday Telegraph review was positive, and described the book as "entertaining ... even profound". Kingsley Amis in The Observer acclaimed the novel as "cheerful horror", writing "Mr Burgess has written a fine farrago of outrageousness, one which incidentally suggests a view of juvenile violence I can’t remember having met before". Malcolm Bradbury wrote "All of Mr Burgess’s  powers as a comic writer, which are considerable, have gone into the rich language of his inverted Utopia. If you can stomach the horrors, you’ll enjoy the manner". Roald Dahl called it "a terrifying and marvellous book".  Many reviewers praised the inventiveness of the language, but expressed unease at the violent subject matter. The Spectator praised Burgess's "extraordinary technical feat" but was uncomfortable with "a certain arbitrariness about the plot which is slightly irritating". New Statesman acclaimed Burgess for addressing "acutely and savagely the tendencies of our time" but called the book "a great strain to read". The Sunday Times review was negative, and described the book as "a very ordinary, brutal and psychologically shallow story". The Times also reviewed the book negatively, describing it as "a somewhat clumsy experiment with science fiction [with] clumsy cliches about juvenile delinquency". The violence was criticised as "unconvincing in detail".Writer's appraisalBurgess dismissed A Clockwork Orange as "too didactic to be artistic". He claimed that the violent content of the novel "nauseated" him.In 1985, Burgess published Flame into Being: The Life and Work of D. H. Lawrence and while discussing Lady Chatterley's Lover in his biography, Burgess compared that novel's notoriety with A Clockwork Orange: "We all suffer from the popular desire to make the known notorious. The book I am best known for, or only known for, is a novel I am prepared to repudiate: written a quarter of a century ago, a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, it became known as the raw material for a film which seemed to glorify sex and violence. The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me until I die. I should not have written the book because of this danger of misinterpretation, and the same may be said of Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover."Awards and nominations and rankings 1983 – Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee) 1999 – Prometheus Award (Nomination) 2002 – Prometheus Award (Nomination) 2003 – Prometheus Award (Nomination) 2006 – Prometheus Award (Nomination) 2008 – Prometheus Award (Hall of Fame Award)A Clockwork Orange was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language books from 1923 to 2005.AdaptationsA 1965 film by Andy Warhol entitled Vinyl was an adaptation of Burgess's novel.The best known adaptation of the novella to other forms is the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, featuring Malcolm McDowell as Alex. In 1987, Burgess published a stage play titled A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music. The play includes songs, written by Burgess, which are inspired by Beethoven and Nadsat slang.A manga anthology by Osamu Tezuka entitled Tokeijikake no Ringo (Clockwork Apple) was released in 1983.In 1988, a German adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at the intimate theatre of Bad Godesberg featured a musical score by the German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen which, combined with orchestral clips of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and "other dirty melodies" (so stated by the subtitle), was released on the album Ein kleines bisschen Horrorschau. The track Hier kommt Alex became one of the band's signature songs. In February 1990, another musical version was produced at the Barbican Theatre in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Titled A Clockwork Orange: 2004, it received mostly negative reviews, with John Peter of The Sunday Times of London calling it "only an intellectual Rocky Horror Show", and John Gross of The Sunday Telegraph calling it "a clockwork lemon". Even Burgess himself, who wrote the script based on his novel, was disappointed. According to The Evening Standard, he called the score, written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, "neo-wallpaper". Burgess had originally worked alongside the director of the production, Ron Daniels, and envisioned a musical score that was entirely classical. Unhappy with the decision to abandon that score, he heavily criticised the band's experimental mix of hip hop, liturgical and gothic music. Lise Hand of The Irish Independent reported The Edge as saying that Burgess's original conception was "a score written by a novelist rather than a songwriter". Calling it "meaningless glitz", Jane Edwardes of 20/20 magazine said that watching this production was "like being invited to an expensive French Restaurant – and being served with a Big Mac."In 1994, Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater put on a production of A Clockwork Orange directed by Terry Kinney.  The American premiere of novelist Anthony Burgess's own adaptation of his A Clockwork Orange starred K. Todd Freeman as Alex. In 2001, UNI Theatre (Mississauga, Ontario) presented the Canadian premiere of the play under the direction of Terry Costa.In 2002, Godlight Theatre Company presented the New York Premiere adaptation of A Clockwork Orange at Manhattan Theatre Source. The production went on to play at the SoHo Playhouse (2002), Ensemble Studio Theatre (2004), 59E59 Theaters (2005) and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2005). While at Edinburgh, the production received rave reviews from the press while playing to sold-out audiences. The production was directed by Godlight's artistic director, Joe Tantalo.In 2003, Los Angeles director Brad Mays and the ARK Theatre Company staged a multi-media adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, which was named "Pick of the Week" by the LA Weekly and nominated for three of the 2004 LA Weekly Theater Awards: Direction, Revival Production (of a 20th-century work), and Leading Female Performance. Vanessa Claire Smith won Best Actress for her gender-bending portrayal of Alex, the music-loving teenage sociopath. This production utilised three separate video streams outputted to seven onstage video monitors – six 19-inch and one 40-inch. In order to preserve the first-person narrative of the book, a pre-recorded video stream of Alex, "your humble narrator", was projected onto the 40-inch monitor, thereby freeing the onstage character during passages which would have been awkward or impossible to sustain in the breaking of the fourth wall.An adaptation of the work, based on the original novel, the film and Burgess's own stage version, was performed by the SiLo Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand in early 2007.In 2021, the International Anthony Burgess Foundation premiered a webpage cataloging various productions of A Clockwork Orange from around the world.Release details 1962, UK, William Heinemann (ISBN ?), December 1962, Hardcover 1962, US, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN ?), 1962, Hardcover 1963, US, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (), 1963, Paperback 1965, US, Ballantine Books (), 1965, Paperback 1969, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN ?), 1969, Paperback 1971, US, Ballantine Books (), 1971, Paperback, Movie released 1972, UK, Lorrimer, (), 11 September 1972, Hardcover 1972, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 25 January 1973, Paperback 1973, US, Caedmon Records, 1973, Vinyl LP (First 4 chapters read by Anthony Burgess) 1977, US, Ballantine Books (), 12 September 1977, Paperback 1979, US, Ballantine Books (), April 1979, Paperback 1983, US, Ballantine Books (), 12 July 1983, Unbound 1986, US, W. W. Norton & Company (), November 1986, Paperback (Adds final chapter not previously available in U.S. versions) 1987, UK, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (), July 1987, Hardcover 1988, US, Ballantine Books (), March 1988, Paperback 1995, UK, W. W. Norton & Co Ltd (), June 1995, Paperback 1996, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 25 April 1996, Paperback 1996, UK, HarperAudio (), September 1996, Audio Cassette 1997, UK, Heyne Verlag (), 31 January 1997, Paperback 1998, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 3 September 1998, Paperback 1999, UK, Rebound by Sagebrush (), October 1999, Library Binding 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 24 February 2000, Paperback 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 2 March 2000, Paperback 2000, UK, Turtleback Books (), November 2000, Hardback 2001, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (), 27 September 2001, Paperback 2002, UK, Thorndike Press (), October 2002, Hardback 2005, UK, Buccaneer Books (), 29 January 2005, Library Binding 2010, Greece, Anubis Publications (), 2010, Paperback (Adds final chapter not previously available in Greek versions) 2012, US, W. W. Norton & Company () 22 October 2012, Hardback (50th Anniversary Edition), revised text version. Andrew Biswell, PhD, director of the International Burgess Foundation, has taken a close look at the three varying published editions alongside the original typescript to recreate the novel as Anthony Burgess envisioned it.See also Classical conditioning List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange List of stories set in a future now past Project MKUltra Violence in artReferencesFurther reading A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music. Century Hutchinson Ltd. (1987). An extract is quoted on several web sites: Anthony Burgess from A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music (Century Hutchinson Ltd, 1987), , A Clockwork Orange - From A Clockwork Orange: A Play With Music Burgess, Anthony (1978). "Clockwork Oranges". In 1985. London: Hutchinson.  (extracts quoted here)External links  A Clockwork Orange at SparkNotes A Clockwork Orange  at Literapedia A Clockwork Orange (1962) | Last chapter | Anthony Burgess (1917–1993)Comparisons with the Kubrick film adaptation Dalrymple, Theodore. "A Prophetic and Violent Masterpiece", City Journal Giola, Ted. "A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess" at Conceptual Fiction Priestley, Brenton. "Of Clockwork Apples and Oranges: Burgess and Kubrick (2002)"Novel1962 British novels1962 science fiction novelsFiction about mind controlBooks written in fictional dialectsBritish novellasBritish novels adapted into filmsBritish novels adapted into playsBritish philosophical novelsBritish science fiction novelsCensored booksDystopian novelsFiction with unreliable narratorsNovels about musicNovels by Anthony BurgessObscenity controversies in literatureNovels about rapeHeinemann (publisher) booksEnglish-language novelsNovels set in LondonMetafictional novelsNovels about sociopathyScience fiction novels adapted into filmsCrime novels
Amsterdam ( ,  , ) is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands; with a population of 872,680 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Found within the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", due to the large number of canals which form a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Amsterdam was founded at the Amstel, that was dammed to control flooding; the city's name derives from the Amstel dam. Originating as a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, and became the leading centre for the finance and trade sectors. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned and built. The 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Sloten, annexed in 1921 by the municipality of Amsterdam, is the oldest part of the city, dating to the 9th century.Amsterdam's main attractions include its historic canals, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, Hermitage Amsterdam, the Concertgebouw, the Anne Frank House, the Scheepvaartmuseum, the Amsterdam Museum, the Heineken Experience, the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Natura Artis Magistra, Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, NEMO, the red-light district and many cannabis coffee shops. It drew more than 5 million international visitors in 2014. The city is also well known for its nightlife and festival activity; with several of its nightclubs (Melkweg, Paradiso) among the world's most famous. Primarily known for its artistic heritage, elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled façades; well-preserved legacies of the city's 17th-century Golden Age. These characteristics are arguably responsible for attracting millions of Amsterdam's visitors annually. Cycling is key to the city's character, and there are numerous biking paths and lanes spread throughout the entire city.The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is considered the oldest "modern" securities market stock exchange in the world. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered an alpha world city by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) study group. The city is also the cultural capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters in the city, including: the Philips conglomerate, AkzoNobel, Booking.com, TomTom, and ING. Moreover, many of the world's largest companies are based in Amsterdam or have established their European headquarters in the city, such as leading technology companies Uber, Netflix and Tesla. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second-best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and 12th globally on quality of living for environment and infrastructure by Mercer. The city was ranked 4th place globally as top tech hub in the Savills Tech Cities 2019 report (2nd in Europe), and 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Port of Amsterdam is the fifth largest in Europe. The KLM hub and Amsterdam's main airport, Schiphol, is the Netherlands' busiest airport as well as the third busiest in Europe and 11th busiest airport in the world. The Dutch capital is considered one of the most multicultural cities in the world, with at least 177 nationalities represented.A few of Amsterdam's notable residents throughout history include: painters Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the diarist Anne Frank, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza.HistoryPrehistoryDue to its geographical location in what used to be wet peatland, the founding of Amsterdam is of a younger age than the founding of other urban centers in the Low Countries. However, in and around the area of what later became Amsterdam, local farmers settled as early as three millennia ago. They lived along the prehistoric IJ river and upstream of its tributary Amstel. The prehistoric IJ was a shallow and quiet stream in peatland behind beach ridges. This secluded area could grow there into an important local settlement center, especially in the late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Roman Age. Neolithic and Roman artefacts have also been found downstream of this area, in the prehistoric Amstel bedding under Amsterdam's Damrak and Rokin, such as shards of Bell Beaker culture pottery (2200-2000 BC) and a granite grinding stone (2700-2750 BC). But the location of these artefacts around the river banks of the Amstel probably point to a presence of a modest semi-permanent or seasonal settlement of the previous mentioned local farmers. A permanent settlement would not have been possible, since the river mouth and the banks of the Amstel in this period in time were too wet for permanent habitation.Etymology and foundingThe origins of Amsterdam is linked to the development of the peatland called Amestelle, meaning 'watery area', from Aa(m) 'river' + stelle 'site at a shoreline', 'river bank'. In this area, land reclamation started as early as the late 10th century. Amestelle was located along a side arm of the IJ. This side arm took the name from the eponymous land: Amstel. Amestelle was inhabited by farmers, who lived more inland and more upstream, where the land was not as wet as at the banks of the downstream river mouth. These farmers were starting the reclamation around upstream Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, and later at the other side of the river at Amstelveen. The Van Amstel family, known in documents by this name since 1019, held the stewardship in this northwestern nook of the ecclesiastical district of the bishop of Utrecht. The family later served also under the count of Holland.A major turning point in the development of the Amstel river mouth is the All Saint's Flood of 1170. In an extremely short period of time, the shallow river IJ turned into a wide estuary, which from then on offered the Amstel an open connection to the Zuiderzee, IJssel and waterways further afield. This made the water flow of the Amstel more active, so excess water could be drained better. With drier banks, the downstream Amstel mouth became attractive for permanent habitation. Moreover, the river had grown from an insignificant peat stream into a junction of international waterways. A settlement was built here immediately after the landscape change of 1170, and right from the start of its foundation it focused on traffic, production and trade; not on farming, as opposed to how communities had lived further upstream for the past 200 years and northward for thousands of years. The construction of a dam at the mouth of the Amstel, eponymously named Dam, is historically estimated to have occurred between 1264 and 1275. The settlement first appeared in a document concerning a road toll granted by the count of Holland Floris V to the residents apud Amestelledamme 'at the dam in the Amstel' or 'at the dam of Amstelland'. This allowed the inhabitants of the village to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks and dams. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam.Middle AgesAmsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306. From the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League. In 1345, an alleged Eucharistic miracle in Kalverstraat rendered the city an important place of pilgrimage until the adoption of the Protestant faith. The Miracle devotion went underground but was kept alive. In the 19th century, especially after the jubilee of 1845, the devotion was revitalised and became an important national point of reference for Dutch Catholics. The Stille Omgang—a silent walk or procession in civil attire—is the expression of the pilgrimage within the Protestant Netherlands since the late 19th century. In the heyday of the Silent Walk, up to 90,000 pilgrims came to Amsterdam. In the 21st century, this has reduced to about 5,000.Conflict with SpainIn the 16th century, the Dutch rebelled against Philip II of Spain and his successors. The main reasons for the uprising were the imposition of new taxes, the tenth penny, and the religious persecution of Protestants by the newly introduced Inquisition. The revolt escalated into the Eighty Years' War, which ultimately led to Dutch independence. Strongly pushed by Dutch Revolt leader William the Silent, the Dutch Republic became known for its relative religious tolerance. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam. The influx of Flemish printers and the city's intellectual tolerance made Amsterdam a centre for the European free press.Centre of the Dutch Golden Age The 17th century is considered Amsterdam's Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the western world. Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network. Amsterdam's merchants had the largest share in both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company. These companies acquired overseas possessions that later became Dutch colonies.Amsterdam was Europe's most important point for the shipment of goods and was the leading financial centre of the western world. In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the international trading Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by trading in its own shares. The Bank of Amsterdam started operations in 1609, acting as a full-service bank for Dutch merchant bankers and as a reserve bank.Decline and modernisation Amsterdam's prosperity declined during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The wars of the Dutch Republic with England and France took their toll on Amsterdam. During the Napoleonic Wars, Amsterdam's significance reached its lowest point, with Holland being absorbed into the French Empire. However, the later establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 marked a turning point.The end of the 19th century is sometimes called Amsterdam's second Golden Age. New museums, a railway station, and the Concertgebouw were built; in this same time, the Industrial Revolution reached the city. The Amsterdam–Rhine Canal was dug to give Amsterdam a direct connection to the Rhine, and the North Sea Canal was dug to give the port a shorter connection to the North Sea. Both projects dramatically improved commerce with the rest of Europe and the world. In 1906, Joseph Conrad gave a brief description of Amsterdam as seen from the seaside, in The Mirror of the Sea.20th century–presentShortly before the First World War, the city started to expand again, and new suburbs were built. Even though the Netherlands remained neutral in this war, Amsterdam suffered a food shortage, and heating fuel became scarce. The shortages sparked riots in which several people were killed. These riots are known as the Aardappeloproer (Potato rebellion). People started looting stores and warehouses in order to get supplies, mainly food.On 1 January 1921, after a flood in 1916, the depleted municipalities of Durgerdam, Holysloot, Zunderdorp and Schellingwoude, all lying north of Amsterdam, were, at their own request, annexed to the city. Between the wars, the city continued to expand, most notably to the west of the Jordaan district in the Frederik Hendrikbuurt and surrounding neighbourhoods.Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and took control of the country. Some Amsterdam citizens sheltered Jews, thereby exposing themselves and their families to a high risk of being imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps, of whom some 60,000 lived in Amsterdam. In response, the Dutch Communist Party organized the February strike attended by 300,000 people to protest against the raids. Perhaps the most famous deportee was the young Jewish girl Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. At the end of the Second World War, communication with the rest of the country broke down, and food and fuel became scarce. Many citizens traveled to the countryside to forage. Dogs, cats, raw sugar beets, and tulip bulbs—cooked to a pulp—were consumed to stay alive. Many trees in Amsterdam were cut down for fuel, and wood was taken from the houses, apartments and other buildings of deported Jews.Many new suburbs, such as Osdorp, Slotervaart, Slotermeer and Geuzenveld, were built in the years after the Second World War.These suburbs contained many public parks and wide-open spaces, and the new buildings provided improved housing conditions with larger and brighter rooms, gardens, and balconies. Because of the war and other events of the 20th century, almost the entire city centre had fallen into disrepair. As society was changing, politicians and other influential figures made plans to redesign large parts of it. There was an increasing demand for office buildings, and also for new roads, as the automobile became available to most people. A metro started operating in 1977 between the new suburb of Bijlmermeer in the city's Zuidoost (southeast) exclave and the centre of Amsterdam. Further plans were to build a new highway above the metro to connect Amsterdam Centraal and the city centre with other parts of the city.The required large-scale demolitions began in Amsterdam's former Jewish neighborhood. Smaller streets, such as the Jodenbreestraat and Weesperstraat, were widened and almost all houses and buildings were demolished. At the peak of the demolition, the Nieuwmarktrellen (Nieuwmarkt Riots) broke out; the rioters expressed their fury about the demolition caused by the restructuring of the city.As a result, the demolition was stopped and the highway into the city's centre was never fully built; only the metro was completed. Only a few streets remained widened. The new city hall was built on the almost completely demolished Waterlooplein. Meanwhile, large private organizations, such as Stadsherstel Amsterdam, were founded to restore the entire city centre. Although the success of this struggle is visible today, efforts for further restoration are still ongoing. The entire city centre has reattained its former splendour and, as a whole, is now a protected area. Many of its buildings have become monuments, and in July 2010 the Grachtengordel (the three concentric canals: Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht) was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.In the 21st century, the Amsterdam city centre has attracted large numbers of tourists: between 2012 and 2015, the annual number of visitors rose from 10 to 17 million. Real estate prices have surged, and local shops are making way for tourist-oriented ones, making the centre unaffordable for the city's inhabitants. These developments have evoked comparisons with Venice, a city thought to be overwhelmed by the tourist influx.Construction of a new metro line connecting the part of the city north of the IJ to its southern part was started in 2003. The project was controversial because its cost had exceeded its budget by a factor three by 2008, because of fears of damage to buildings in the centre, and because construction had to be halted and restarted multiple times. The new metro line was completed in 2018.Since 2014, renewed focus has been given to urban regeneration and renewal, especially in areas directly bordering the city centre, such as Frederik Hendrikbuurt. This urban renewal and expansion of the traditional centre of the city—with the construction on artificial islands of the new eastern IJburg neighbourhood—is part of the Structural Vision Amsterdam 2040 initiative.GeographyAmsterdam is located in the Western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland, the capital of which is not Amsterdam, but rather Haarlem. The river Amstel ends in the city centre and connects to a large number of canals that eventually terminate in the IJ. Amsterdam is about  below sea level. The surrounding land is flat as it is formed of large polders. A man-made forest, Amsterdamse Bos, is in the southwest. Amsterdam is connected to the North Sea through the long North Sea Canal.Amsterdam is intensely urbanised, as is the Amsterdam metropolitan area surrounding the city. Comprising  of land, the city proper has 4,457 inhabitants per km2 and 2,275 houses per km2. Parks and nature reserves make up 12% of Amsterdam's land area.WaterAmsterdam has more than  of canals, most of which are navigable by boat. The city's three main canals are the Prinsengracht, Herengracht and Keizersgracht.In the Middle Ages, Amsterdam was surrounded by a moat, called the Singel, which now forms the innermost ring in the city, and gives the city centre a horseshoe shape. The city is also served by a seaport. It has been compared with Venice, due to its division into about 90 islands, which are linked by more than 1,200 bridges.Climate Amsterdam has an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) strongly influenced by its proximity to the North Sea to the west, with prevailing westerly winds. Amsterdam, as well as most of the North Holland province, lies in USDA Hardiness zone 8b. Frosts mainly occur during spells of easterly or northeasterly winds from the inner European continent. Even then, because Amsterdam is surrounded on three sides by large bodies of water, as well as having a significant heat-island effect, nights rarely fall below , while it could easily be  in Hilversum,  southeast.Summers are moderately warm with a number of hot and humid days every month. The average daily high in August is , and  or higher is only measured on average on 2.5 days, placing Amsterdam in AHS Heat Zone 2. The record extremes range from  to . Days with more than  of precipitation are common, on average 133 days per year.Amsterdam's average annual precipitation is . A large part of this precipitation falls as light rain or brief showers. Cloudy and damp days are common during the cooler months of October through March.DemographicsHistorical populationIn 1300, Amsterdam's population was around 1,000 people. While many towns in Holland experienced population decline during the 15th and 16th centuries, Amsterdam's population grew, mainly due to the rise of the profitable Baltic maritime trade after the Burgundian victory in the Dutch–Hanseatic War. Still, the population of Amsterdam was only modest compared to the towns and cities of Flanders and Brabant, which comprised the most urbanised area of the Low Countries.This changed when, during the Dutch Revolt, many people from the Southern Netherlands fled to the North, especially after Antwerp fell to Spanish forces in 1585. Jewish people from Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe similarly settled in Amsterdam, as did Germans and Scandinavians. In thirty years, Amsterdam's population more than doubled between 1585 and 1610. By 1600, its population was around 50,000. During the 1660s, Amsterdam's population reached 200,000. The city's growth levelled off and the population stabilised around 240,000 for most of the 18th century.In 1750, Amsterdam was the fourth largest city in Western Europe, behind London (676,000), Paris (560,000) and Naples (324,000). This was all the more remarkable as Amsterdam was neither the capital city nor the seat of government of the Dutch Republic, which itself was a much smaller state than England, France or the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to those other metropolises, Amsterdam was also surrounded by large towns such as Leiden (about 67,000), Rotterdam (45,000), Haarlem (38,000) and Utrecht (30,000).The city's population declined in the early 19th century, dipping under 200,000 in 1820. By the second half of the 19th century, industrialisation spurred renewed growth. Amsterdam's population hit an all-time high of 872,000 in 1959, before declining in the following decades due to government-sponsored suburbanisation to so-called groeikernen (growth centres) such as Purmerend and Almere. Between 1970 and 1980, Amsterdam experienced its sharp population decline, peaking at a net loss of 25,000 people in 1973. By 1985 the city had only 675,570 residents. This was soon followed by reurbanisation and gentrification, leading to renewed population growth in the 2010s. Also in the 2010s, much of Amsterdam's population growth was due to immigration to the city. Amsterdam's population failed to beat the expectations of 873,000 in 2019.ImmigrationIn the 16th and 17th century, non-Dutch immigrants to Amsterdam were mostly Huguenots, Flemings, Sephardi Jews and Westphalians. Huguenots came after the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, while the Flemish Protestants came during the Eighty Years' War. The Westphalians came to Amsterdam mostly for economic reasons – their influx continued through the 18th and 19th centuries. Before the Second World War, 10% of the city population was Jewish. Just twenty percent of them survived the Shoah.The first mass immigration in the 20th century was by people from Indonesia, who came to Amsterdam after the independence of the Dutch East Indies in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1960s guest workers from Turkey, Morocco, Italy, and Spain emigrated to Amsterdam. After the independence of Suriname in 1975, a large wave of Surinamese settled in Amsterdam, mostly in the Bijlmer area. Other immigrants, including refugees asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, came from Europe, America, Asia and Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, many 'old' Amsterdammers moved to 'new' cities like Almere and Purmerend, prompted by the third planological bill of the Dutch Government. This bill promoted suburbanisation and arranged for new developments in so-called "groeikernen", literally cores of growth. Young professionals and artists moved into neighborhoods De Pijp and the Jordaan abandoned by these Amsterdammers. The non-Western immigrants settled mostly in the social housing projects in Amsterdam-West and the Bijlmer. Today, people of non-Western origin make up approximately one-fifth of the population of Amsterdam, and more than 30% of the city's children. Ethnic Dutch (as defined by the Dutch census) now make up a minority of the total population, although by far the largest one. Only one in three inhabitants under 15 is an autochthon, or a person who has two parents of Dutch origin. Segregation along ethnic lines is clearly visible, with people of non-Western origin, considered a separate group by Statistics Netherlands, concentrating in specific neighbourhoods especially in Nieuw-West, Zeeburg, Bijlmer and in certain areas of Amsterdam-Noord.In 2000, Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (28% of the population). The next largest religion was Islam (8%), most of whose followers were Sunni. In 2015, Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (28% of the population). The next largest religion was Islam (7.1%), most of whose followers were Sunni.ReligionIn 1578, the largely Catholic city of Amsterdam joined the revolt against Spanish rule, late in comparison to other major northern Dutch cities. Catholic priests were driven out of the city. Following the Dutch takeover, all churches were converted to Protestant worship. Calvinism was declared the main religion; although Catholicism was not forbidden and priests allowed to serve, the Catholic hierarchy was prohibited. This led to the establishment of schuilkerken, covert religious buildings that were hidden in pre-existing buildings. Catholics, some Jewish and dissenting Protestants worshiped in such buildings. A large influx of foreigners of many religions came to 17th-century Amsterdam, in particular Sefardic Jews from Spain and Portugal, Huguenots from France, Lutherans, Mennonites, as well as Protestants from across the Netherlands. This led to the establishment of many non-Dutch-speaking churches. In 1603, the Jewish received permission to practice their religion in the city. In 1639, the first synagogue was consecrated. The Jews came to call the town 'Jerusalem of the West'.As they became established in the city, other Christian denominations used converted Catholic chapels to conduct their own services. The oldest English-language church congregation in the world outside the United Kingdom is found at the Begijnhof. Regular services there are still offered in English under the auspices of the Church of Scotland. Being Calvinists, the Huguenots soon integrated into the Dutch Reformed Church, though often retaining their own congregations. Some, commonly referred by the moniker 'Walloon', are recognizable today as they offer occasional services in French.In the second half of the 17th century, Amsterdam experienced an influx of Ashkenazim, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. Jews often fled the pogroms in those areas. The first Ashkenazis who arrived in Amsterdam were refugees from the Khmelnytsky Uprising occurring in Ukraine and the Thirty Years' War, which devastated much of Central Europe. They not only founded their own synagogues, but had a strong influence on the 'Amsterdam dialect' adding a large Yiddish local vocabulary. Despite an absence of an official Jewish ghetto, most Jews preferred to live in the eastern part, which used to be the center of medieval Amsterdam. The main street of this Jewish neighbourhood was Jodenbreestraat. The neighbourhood comprised the Waterlooplein and the Nieuwmarkt. Buildings in this neighbourhood fell into disrepair after the Second World War a large section of the neighbourhood was demolished during the construction of the metro system. This led to riots, and as a result the original plans for large-scale reconstruction were abandoned by the government. The neighbourhood was rebuilt with smaller-scale residence buildings on the basis of its original layout.Catholic churches in Amsterdam have been constructed since the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853. One of the principal architects behind the city's Catholic churches, Cuypers, was also responsible for the Amsterdam Centraal station and the Rijksmuseum.In 1924, the Catholic Church hosted the International Eucharistic Congress in Amsterdam; numerous Catholic prelates visited the city, where festivities were held in churches and stadiums. Catholic processions on the public streets, however, were still forbidden under law at the time. Only in the 20th century was Amsterdam's relation to Catholicism normalised, but despite its far larger population size, the episcopal see of the city was placed in the provincial town of Haarlem.Historically, Amsterdam has been predominantly Christian, in 1900 Christians formed the largest religious group in the city (70% of the population), Dutch Reformed Church formed 45% of the city population, while the Catholic Church formed 25% of the city population.In recent times, religious demographics in Amsterdam have been changed by immigration from former colonies. Hinduism has been introduced from the Hindu diaspora from Suriname and several distinct branches of Islam have been brought from various parts of the world. Islam is now the largest non-Christian religion in Amsterdam. The large community of Ghanaian immigrants have established African churches, often in parking garages in the Bijlmer area.Diversity and immigrationAmsterdam experienced an influx of religions and cultures after the Second World War. With 180 different nationalities, Amsterdam is home to one of the widest varieties of nationalities of any city in the world. The proportion of the population of immigrant origin in the city proper is about 50% and 88% of the population are Dutch citizens.Amsterdam has been one of the municipalities in the Netherlands which provided immigrants with extensive and free Dutch-language courses, which have benefited many immigrants.Cityscape and architectureAmsterdam fans out south from the Amsterdam Centraal station and Damrak, the main street off the station. The oldest area of the town is known as De Wallen (English: "The Quays"). It lies to the east of Damrak and contains the city's famous red-light district. To the south of De Wallen is the old Jewish quarter of Waterlooplein.The medieval and colonial age canals of Amsterdam, known as grachten, embraces the heart of the city where homes have interesting gables. Beyond the Grachtengordel are the former working-class areas of Jordaan and de Pijp. The Museumplein with the city's major museums, the Vondelpark, a 19th-century park named after the Dutch writer Joost van den Vondel, as well as the Plantage neighbourhood, with the zoo, are also located outside the Grachtengordel.Several parts of the city and the surrounding urban area are polders. This can be recognised by the suffix -meer which means lake, as in Aalsmeer, Bijlmermeer, Haarlemmermeer and Watergraafsmeer.CanalsThe Amsterdam canal system is the result of conscious city planning. In the early 17th century, when immigration was at a peak, a comprehensive plan was developed that was based on four concentric half-circles of canals with their ends emerging at the IJ bay. Known as the Grachtengordel, three of the canals were mostly for residential development: the Herengracht (where "Heren" refers to Heren Regeerders van de stad Amsterdam, ruling lords of Amsterdam, whilst gracht means canal, so that the name can be roughly translated as "Canal of the Lords"), Keizersgracht (Emperor's Canal) and Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal). The fourth and outermost canal is the Singelgracht, which is often not mentioned on maps because it is a collective name for all canals in the outer ring. The Singelgracht should not be confused with the oldest and innermost canal, the Singel.The canals served for defense, water management and transport. The defenses took the form of a moat and earthen dikes, with gates at transit points, but otherwise no masonry superstructures. The original plans have been lost, so historians, such as Ed Taverne, need to speculate on the original intentions: it is thought that the considerations of the layout were purely practical and defensive rather than ornamental.Construction started in 1613 and proceeded from west to east, across the breadth of the layout, like a gigantic windshield wiper as the historian Geert Mak calls it – and not from the centre outwards, as a popular myth has it. The canal construction in the southern sector was completed by 1656. Subsequently, the construction of residential buildings proceeded slowly. The eastern part of the concentric canal plan, covering the area between the Amstel river and the IJ bay, has never been implemented. In the following centuries, the land was used for parks, senior citizens' homes, theatres, other public facilities, and waterways without much planning. Over the years, several canals have been filled in, becoming streets or squares, such as the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and the Spui.ExpansionAfter the development of Amsterdam's canals in the 17th century, the city did not grow beyond its borders for two centuries. During the 19th century, Samuel Sarphati devised a plan based on the grandeur of Paris and London at that time. The plan envisaged the construction of new houses, public buildings and streets just outside the Grachtengordel. The main aim of the plan, however, was to improve public health. Although the plan did not expand the city, it did produce some of the largest public buildings to date, like the Paleis voor Volksvlijt.Following Sarphati, civil engineers Jacobus van Niftrik and Jan Kalff designed an entire ring of 19th-century neighbourhoods surrounding the city's centre, with the city preserving the ownership of all land outside the 17th-century limit, thus firmly controlling development. Most of these neighbourhoods became home to the working class.In response to overcrowding, two plans were designed at the beginning of the 20th century which were very different from anything Amsterdam had ever seen before: Plan Zuid (designed by the architect Berlage) and West. These plans involved the development of new neighbourhoods consisting of housing blocks for all social classes.After the Second World War, large new neighbourhoods were built in the western, southeastern, and northern parts of the city. These new neighbourhoods were built to relieve the city's shortage of living space and give people affordable houses with modern conveniences. The neighbourhoods consisted mainly of large housing blocks located among green spaces, connected to wide roads, making the neighbourhoods easily accessible by motor car. The western suburbs which were built in that period are collectively called the Westelijke Tuinsteden. The area to the southeast of the city built during the same period is known as the Bijlmer.ArchitectureAmsterdam has a rich architectural history. The oldest building in Amsterdam is the Oude Kerk (English: Old Church), at the heart of the Wallen, consecrated in 1306. The oldest wooden building is Het Houten Huys at the Begijnhof. It was constructed around 1425 and is one of only two existing wooden buildings. It is also one of the few examples of Gothic architecture in Amsterdam. The oldest stone building of the Netherlands, The Moriaan is built in 's-Hertogenbosch.In the 16th century, wooden buildings were razed and replaced with brick ones. During this period, many buildings were constructed in the architectural style of the Renaissance. Buildings of this period are very recognisable with their stepped gable façades, which is the common Dutch Renaissance style. Amsterdam quickly developed its own Renaissance architecture. These buildings were built according to the principles of the architect Hendrick de Keyser. One of the most striking buildings designed by Hendrick de Keyser is the Westerkerk. In the 17th century baroque architecture became very popular, as it was elsewhere in Europe. This roughly coincided with Amsterdam's Golden Age. The leading architects of this style in Amsterdam were Jacob van Campen, Philips Vingboons and Daniel Stalpaert.Philip Vingboons designed splendid merchants' houses throughout the city. A famous building in baroque style in Amsterdam is the Royal Palace on Dam Square. Throughout the 18th century, Amsterdam was heavily influenced by French culture. This is reflected in the architecture of that period. Around 1815, architects broke with the baroque style and started building in different neo-styles. Most Gothic style buildings date from that era and are therefore said to be built in a neo-gothic style. At the end of the 19th century, the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau style became popular and many new buildings were constructed in this architectural style. Since Amsterdam expanded rapidly during this period, new buildings adjacent to the city centre were also built in this style. The houses in the vicinity of the Museum Square in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid are an example of Jugendstil. The last style that was popular in Amsterdam before the modern era was Art Deco. Amsterdam had its own version of the style, which was called the Amsterdamse School. Whole districts were built this style, such as the Rivierenbuurt. A notable feature of the façades of buildings designed in Amsterdamse School is that they are highly decorated and ornate, with oddly shaped windows and doors.The old city centre is the focal point of all the architectural styles before the end of the 19th century.Jugendstil and Georgian are mostly found outside the city's centre in the neighbourhoods built in the early20th century, although there are also some striking examples of these styles in the city centre.Most historic buildings in the city centre and nearby are houses, such as the famous merchants' houses lining the canals.Parks and recreational areasAmsterdam has many parks, open spaces, and squares throughout the city. The Vondelpark, the largest park in the city, is located in the Oud-Zuid neighbourhood and is named after the 17th-century Amsterdam author Joost van den Vondel. Yearly, the park has around 10 million visitors. In the park is an open-air theatre, a playground and several horeca facilities. In the Zuid borough, is the Beatrixpark, named after Queen Beatrix. Between Amsterdam and Amstelveen is the Amsterdamse Bos ("Amsterdam Forest"), the largest recreational area in Amsterdam. Annually, almost 4.5 million people visit the park, which has a size of 1.000 hectares and is approximately three times the size of Central Park. The Amstelpark in the Zuid borough houses the Rieker windmill, which dates to 1636. Other parks include the Sarphatipark in the De Pijp neighbourhood, the Oosterpark in the Oost borough and the Westerpark in the Westerpark neighbourhood. The city has three beaches: Nemo Beach, Citybeach "Het stenen hoofd" (Silodam) and Blijburg, all located in the Centrum borough.The city has many open squares (plein in Dutch). The namesake of the city as the site of the original dam, Dam Square, is the main city square and has the Royal Palace and National Monument. Museumplein hosts various museums, including the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and Stedelijk Museum. Other squares include Rembrandtplein, Muntplein, Nieuwmarkt, Leidseplein, Spui and Waterlooplein. Also, near to Amsterdam is the Nekkeveld estate conservation project.EconomyAmsterdam is the financial and business capital of the Netherlands.According to the 2007 European Cities Monitor (ECM) – an annual location survey of Europe's leading companies carried out by global real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield – Amsterdam is one of the top European cities in which to locate an international business, ranking fifth in the survey. with the survey determining London, Paris, Frankfurt and Barcelona as the four European cities surpassing Amsterdam in this regard.A substantial number of large corporations and banks' headquarters are located in the Amsterdam area, including: AkzoNobel, Heineken International, ING Group, ABN AMRO, TomTom, Delta Lloyd Group, Booking.com and Philips. Although many small offices remain along the historic canals, centrally based companies have increasingly relocated outside Amsterdam's city centre. Consequently, the Zuidas (English: South Axis) has become the new financial and legal hub of Amsterdam, with the country's five largest law firms and several subsidiaries of large consulting firms, such as Boston Consulting Group and Accenture, as well as the World Trade Centre (Amsterdam) located in the Zuidas district. In addition to the Zuidas, there are three smaller financial districts in Amsterdam: around Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station. Where one can find the offices of several newspapers, such as De Telegraaf. as well as those of Deloitte, the Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (municipal public transport company), and the Dutch tax offices (Belastingdienst); around the Johan Cruyff Arena in Amsterdam Zuidoost, with the headquarters of ING Group; around the Amstel railway station in the Amsterdam-Oost district to the east of the historical city. Amsterdam's tallest building, the Rembrandt Tower, is located here. As are the headquarters of Philips, the Dutch multinational conglomerate. Amsterdam has been a leading city to reduce the use of raw materials and has created a plan to become a circular city by 2050.The adjoining municipality of Amstelveen is the location of KPMG International's global headquarters. Other non-Dutch companies have chosen to settle in communities surrounding Amsterdam since they allow freehold property ownership, whereas Amsterdam retains ground rent.The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX), now part of Euronext, is the world's oldest stock exchange and, due to Brexit, has overtaken LSE as the largest bourse in Europe. It is near Dam Square in the city centre.Port of AmsterdamThe Port of Amsterdam is the fourth-largest port in Europe, the 38th largest port in the world and the second-largest port in the Netherlands by metric tons of cargo. In 2014, the Port of Amsterdam had a cargo throughput of 97,4 million tons of cargo, which was mostly bulk cargo.Amsterdam has the biggest cruise port in the Netherlands with more than 150 cruise ships every year.In 2019, the new lock in IJmuiden opened; since then, the port has been able to grow to 125 million tonnes in capacity.TourismAmsterdam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, receiving more than 5.34 million international visitors annually, this is excluding the 16 million day-trippers visiting the city every year. The number of visitors has been growing steadily over the past decade. This can be attributed to an increasing number of European visitors. Two-thirds of the hotels are located in the city's centre. Hotels with 4 or 5 stars contribute 42% of the total beds available and 41% of the overnight stays in Amsterdam. The room occupation rate was 85% in 2017, up from 78% in 2006. The majority of tourists (74%) originate from Europe. The largest group of non-European visitors come from the United States, accounting for 14% of the total. Certain years have a theme in Amsterdam to attract extra tourists. For example, the year 2006 was designated "Rembrandt 400", to celebrate the 400th birthday of Rembrandt van Rijn. Some hotels offer special arrangements or activities during these years. The average number of guests per year staying at the four campsites around the city range from 12,000 to 65,000.De Wallen (red-light district)De Wallen, also known as Walletjes or Rosse Buurt, is a designated area for legalised prostitution and is Amsterdam's largest and best-known red-light district. This neighbourhood has become a famous attraction for tourists. It consists of a network of canals, streets, and alleys containing several hundred small, one-room apartments rented by sex workers who offer their services from behind a window or glass door, typically illuminated with red lights. In recent years, the city government has been closing and repurposing the famous red-light district windows in an effort to clean up the area and reduce the amount of party and sex tourism.RetailShops in Amsterdam range from large high-end department stores such as De Bijenkorf founded in 1870 to small speciality shops. Amsterdam's high-end shops are found in the streets P.C. Hooftstraat and Cornelis Schuytstraat, which are located in the vicinity of the Vondelpark. One of Amsterdam's busiest high streets is the narrow, medieval Kalverstraat in the heart of the city. Other shopping areas include the Negen Straatjes and Haarlemmerdijk and Haarlemmerstraat. Negen Straatjes are nine narrow streets within the Grachtengordel, the concentric canal system of Amsterdam. The Negen Straatjes differ from other shopping districts with the presence of a large diversity of privately owned shops. The Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk were voted best shopping street in the Netherlands in 2011. These streets have as the Negen Straatjes a large diversity of privately owned shops. However, as the Negen Straatjes are dominated by fashion stores, the Haarlemmerstraat and Haarlemmerdijk offer a wide variety of stores, just to name some specialities: candy and other food-related stores, lingerie, sneakers, wedding clothing, interior shops, books, Italian deli's, racing and mountain bikes, skatewear, etc.The city also features a large number of open-air markets such as the Albert Cuyp Market, Westerstraat-markt, Ten Katemarkt, and Dappermarkt. Some of these markets are held daily, like the Albert Cuypmarkt and the Dappermarkt. Others, like the Westerstraatmarkt, are held every week.FashionSeveral fashion brands and designers are based in Amsterdam. Fashion designers include Iris van Herpen, Mart Visser, Viktor & Rolf, Marlies Dekkers and Frans Molenaar. Fashion models like Yfke Sturm, Doutzen Kroes and Kim Noorda started their careers in Amsterdam. Amsterdam has its garment centre in the World Fashion Center. Fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin were born in Amsterdam.CultureDuring the later part of the 16th-century, Amsterdam's Rederijkerskamer (Chamber of rhetoric) organised contests between different Chambers in the reading of poetry and drama. In 1637, Schouwburg, the first theatre in Amsterdam was built, opening on 3 January 1638. The first ballet performances in the Netherlands were given in Schouwburg in 1642 with the Ballet of the Five Senses. In the 18th century, French theatre became popular. While Amsterdam was under the influence of German music in the 19th century there were few national opera productions; the Hollandse Opera of Amsterdam was built in 1888 for the specific purpose of promoting Dutch opera. In the 19th century, popular culture was centred on the Nes area in Amsterdam (mainly vaudeville and music-hall). An improved metronome was invented in 1812 by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel. The Rijksmuseum (1885) and Stedelijk Museum (1895) were built and opened. In 1888, the Concertgebouworkest orchestra was established. With the 20th century came cinema, radio and television. Though most studios are located in Hilversum and Aalsmeer, Amsterdam's influence on programming is very strong. Many people who work in the television industry live in Amsterdam. Also, the headquarters of the Dutch SBS Broadcasting Group is located in Amsterdam.MuseumsThe most important museums of Amsterdam are located on the Museumplein (Museum Square), located at the southwestern side of the Rijksmuseum. It was created in the last quarter of the 19th century on the grounds of the former World's fair. The northeastern part of the square is bordered by the large Rijksmuseum. In front of the Rijksmuseum on the square itself is a long, rectangular pond. This is transformed into an ice rink in winter. The northwestern part of the square is bordered by the Van Gogh Museum, House of Bols Cocktail & Genever Experience and Coster Diamonds. The southwestern border of the Museum Square is the Van Baerlestraat, which is a major thoroughfare in this part of Amsterdam. The Concertgebouw is located across this street from the square. To the southeast of the square are several large houses, one of which contains the American consulate. A parking garage can be found underneath the square, as well as a supermarket. The Museumplein is covered almost entirely with a lawn, except for the northeastern part of the square which is covered with gravel. The current appearance of the square was realised in 1999, when the square was remodelled. The square itself is the most prominent site in Amsterdam for festivals and outdoor concerts, especially in the summer. Plans were made in 2008 to remodel the square again because many inhabitants of Amsterdam are not happy with its current appearance.The Rijksmuseum possesses the largest and most important collection of classical Dutch art.It opened in 1885. Its collection consists of nearly one million objects. The artist most associated with Amsterdam is Rembrandt, whose work, and the work of his pupils, is displayed in the Rijksmuseum. Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch is one of the top pieces of art of the museum. It also houses paintings from artists like Bartholomeus van der Helst, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, Ferdinand Bol, Albert Cuyp, Jacob van Ruisdael and Paulus Potter. Aside from paintings, the collection consists of a large variety of decorative art. This ranges from Delftware to giant doll-houses from the 17th century. The architect of the gothic revival building was P.J.H. Cuypers. The museum underwent a 10-year, 375 million euro renovation starting in 2003. The full collection was reopened to the public on 13 April 2013 and the Rijksmuseum has remained the most visited museum in Amsterdam with 2.2 million visitors in 2016 and 2.16 million in 2017.Van Gogh lived in Amsterdam for a short while and there is a museum dedicated to his work. The museum is housed in one of the few modern buildings in this area of Amsterdam. The building was designed by Gerrit Rietveld. This building is where the permanent collection is displayed. A new building was added to the museum in 1999. This building, known as the performance wing, was designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. Its purpose is to house temporary exhibitions of the museum. Some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings, like The Potato Eaters and Sunflowers, are in the collection. The Van Gogh museum is the second most visited museum in Amsterdam, not far behind the Rijksmuseum in terms of the number of visits, being approximately 2.1 million in 2016, for example.Next to the Van Gogh museum stands the Stedelijk Museum. This is Amsterdam's most important museum of modern art. The museum is as old as the square it borders and was opened in 1895. The permanent collection consists of works of art from artists like Piet Mondrian, Karel Appel, and Kazimir Malevich. After renovations lasting several years, the museum opened in September 2012 with a new composite extension that has been called 'The Bathtub' due to its resemblance to one.Amsterdam contains many other museums throughout the city. They range from small museums such as the Verzetsmuseum (Resistance Museum), the Anne Frank House, and the Rembrandt House Museum, to the very large, like the Tropenmuseum (Museum of the Tropics), Amsterdam Museum (formerly known as Amsterdam Historical Museum), Hermitage Amsterdam (a dependency of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg) and the Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum). The modern-styled Nemo is dedicated to child-friendly science exhibitions.MusicAmsterdam's musical culture includes a large collection of songs that treat the city nostalgically and lovingly. The 1949 song "Aan de Amsterdamse grachten" ("On the canals of Amsterdam") was performed and recorded by many artists, including John Kraaijkamp Sr.; the best-known version is probably that by Wim Sonneveld (1962). In the 1950s Johnny Jordaan rose to fame with "Geef mij maar Amsterdam" ("I prefer Amsterdam"), which praises the city above all others (explicitly Paris); Jordaan sang especially about his own neighbourhood, the Jordaan ("Bij ons in de Jordaan"). Colleagues and contemporaries of Johnny include Tante Leen and Manke Nelis. Another notable Amsterdam song is "Amsterdam" by Jacques Brel (1964). A 2011 poll by Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool that Trio Bier's "Oude Wolf" was voted "Amsterdams lijflied". Notable Amsterdam bands from the modern era include the Osdorp Posse and The Ex.AFAS Live (formerly known as the Heineken Music Hall) is a concert hall located near the Johan Cruyff Arena (known as the Amsterdam Arena until 2018). Its main purpose is to serve as a podium for pop concerts for big audiences. Many famous international artists have performed there. Two other notable venues, Paradiso and the Melkweg are located near the Leidseplein. Both focus on broad programming, ranging from indie rock to hip hop, R&B, and other popular genres. Other more subcultural music venues are OCCII, OT301, De Nieuwe Anita, Winston Kingdom, and Zaal 100. Jazz has a strong following in Amsterdam, with the Bimhuis being the premier venue. In 2012, Ziggo Dome was opened, also near Amsterdam Arena, a state-of-the-art indoor music arena.AFAS Live is also host to many electronic dance music festivals, alongside many other venues. Armin van Buuren and Tiesto, some of the worlds leading Trance DJ's hail from the Netherlands and frequently perform in Amsterdam. Each year in October, the city hosts the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) which is one of the leading electronic music conferences and one of the biggest club festivals for electronic music in the world, attracting over 350,000 visitors each year. Another popular dance festival is 5daysoff, which takes place in the venues Paradiso and Melkweg. In the summertime, there are several big outdoor dance parties in or nearby Amsterdam, such as Awakenings, Dance Valley, Mystery Land, Loveland, A Day at the Park, Welcome to the Future, and Valtifest.Amsterdam has a world-class symphony orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Their home is the Concertgebouw, which is across the Van Baerlestraat from the Museum Square. It is considered by critics to be a concert hall with some of the best acoustics in the world. The building contains three halls, Grote Zaal, Kleine Zaal, and Spiegelzaal. Some nine hundred concerts and other events per year take place in the Concertgebouw, for a public of over 700,000, making it one of the most-visited concert halls in the world. The opera house of Amsterdam is located adjacent to the city hall. Therefore, the two buildings combined are often called the Stopera, (a word originally coined by protesters against it very construction: Stop the Opera[-house]). This huge modern complex, opened in 1986, lies in the former Jewish neighbourhood at Waterlooplein next to the river Amstel. The Stopera is the home base of Dutch National Opera, Dutch National Ballet and the Holland Symfonia. Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is a concert hall, which is located in the IJ near the central station. Its concerts perform mostly modern classical music. Located adjacent to it, is the Bimhuis, a concert hall for improvised and Jazz music.Performing artsAmsterdam has three main theatre buildings.The Stadsschouwburg at the Leidseplein is the home base of Toneelgroep Amsterdam. The current building dates from 1894. Most plays are performed in the Grote Zaal (Great Hall). The normal program of events encompasses all sorts of theatrical forms. The Stadsschouwburg is currently being renovated and expanded. The third theatre space, to be operated jointly with next door Melkweg, will open in late 2009 or early 2010.The Dutch National Opera and Ballet (formerly known as Het Muziektheater), dating from 1986, is the principal opera house and home to Dutch National Opera and Dutch National Ballet. Royal Theatre Carré was built as a permanent circus theatre in 1887 and is currently mainly used for musicals, cabaret performances, and pop concerts.The recently re-opened DeLaMar Theater houses more commercial plays and musicals. A new theatre has also moved into the Amsterdam scene in 2014, joining other established venues: Theater Amsterdam is located in the west part of Amsterdam, on the Danzigerkade. It is housed in a modern building with a panoramic view over the harbour. The theatre is the first-ever purpose-built venue to showcase a single play entitled ANNE, the play based on Anne Frank's life.On the east side of town, there is a small theatre in a converted bathhouse, the Badhuistheater. The theatre often has English programming.The Netherlands has a tradition of cabaret or kleinkunst, which combines music, storytelling, commentary, theatre and comedy. Cabaret dates back to the 1930s and artists like Wim Kan, Wim Sonneveld and Toon Hermans were pioneers of this form of art in the Netherlands. In Amsterdam is the Kleinkunstacademie (English: Cabaret Academy) and Nederlied Kleinkunstkoor (English: Cabaret Choir). Contemporary popular artists are Youp van 't Hek, Freek de Jonge, Herman Finkers, Hans Teeuwen, Theo Maassen, Herman van Veen, Najib Amhali, Raoul Heertje, Jörgen Raymann, Brigitte Kaandorp and Comedytrain. The English spoken comedy scene was established with the founding of Boom Chicago in 1993. They have their own theatre at Leidseplein.Nightlife Amsterdam is famous for its vibrant and diverse nightlife. Amsterdam has many cafés (bars). They range from large and modern to small and cosy. The typical Bruine Kroeg (brown café) breathe a more old fashioned atmosphere with dimmed lights, candles, and somewhat older clientele. These brown cafés mostly offer a wide range of local and international artisanal beers. Most cafés have terraces in summertime. A common sight on the Leidseplein during summer is a square full of terraces packed with people drinking beer or wine. Many restaurants can be found in Amsterdam as well. Since Amsterdam is a multicultural city, a lot of different ethnic restaurants can be found. Restaurants range from being rather luxurious and expensive to being ordinary and affordable. Amsterdam also possesses many discothèques. The two main nightlife areas for tourists are the Leidseplein and the Rembrandtplein. The Paradiso, Melkweg and Sugar Factory are cultural centres, which turn into discothèques on some nights. Examples of discothèques near the Rembrandtplein are the Escape, Air, John Doe and Club Abe. Also noteworthy are Panama, Hotel Arena (East), TrouwAmsterdam and Studio 80. In recent years '24-hour' clubs opened their doors, most notably Radion De School, Shelter and Marktkantine. Bimhuis located near the Central Station, with its rich programming hosting the best in the field is considered one of the best jazz clubs in the world. The Reguliersdwarsstraat is the main street for the LGBT community and nightlife.Festivals In 2008, there were 140 festivals and events in Amsterdam.Famous festivals and events in Amsterdam include: Koningsdag (which was named Koninginnedag until the crowning of King Willem-Alexander in 2013) (King's Day – Queen's Day); the Holland Festival for the performing arts; the yearly Prinsengrachtconcert (classical concerto on the Prinsen canal) in August; the 'Stille Omgang' (a silent Roman Catholic evening procession held every March); Amsterdam Gay Pride; The Cannabis Cup; and the Uitmarkt. On Koningsdag—that is held each year on 27 April—hundreds of thousands of people travel to Amsterdam to celebrate with the city's residents. The entire city becomes overcrowded with people buying products from the freemarket, or visiting one of the many music concerts.The yearly Holland Festival attracts international artists and visitors from all over Europe. Amsterdam Gay Pride is a yearly local LGBT parade of boats in Amsterdam's canals, held on the first Saturday in August. The annual Uitmarkt is a three-day cultural event at the start of the cultural season in late August. It offers previews of many different artists, such as musicians and poets, who perform on podia.SportsAmsterdam is home of the Eredivisie football club AFC Ajax. The stadium Johan Cruyff Arena is the home of Ajax. It is located in the south-east of the city next to the new Amsterdam Bijlmer ArenA railway station. Before moving to their current location in 1996, Ajax played their regular matches in the now demolished De Meer Stadion in the eastern part of the city or in the Olympic Stadium.In 1928, Amsterdam hosted the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium built for the occasion has been completely restored and is now used for cultural and sporting events, such as the Amsterdam Marathon. In 1920, Amsterdam assisted in hosting some of the sailing events for the Summer Olympics held in neighbouring Antwerp, Belgium by hosting events at Buiten IJ.The city holds the Dam to Dam Run, a  race from Amsterdam to Zaandam, as well as the Amsterdam Marathon. The ice hockey team Amstel Tijgers play in the Jaap Eden ice rink. The team competes in the Dutch ice hockey premier league. Speed skating championships have been held on the 400-meter lane of this ice rink.Amsterdam holds two American football franchises: the Amsterdam Crusaders and the Amsterdam Panthers. The Amsterdam Pirates baseball team competes in the Dutch Major League. There are three field hockey teams: Amsterdam, Pinoké and Hurley, who play their matches around the Wagener Stadium in the nearby city of Amstelveen. The basketball team MyGuide Amsterdam competes in the Dutch premier division and play their games in the Sporthallen Zuid.There is one rugby club in Amsterdam, which also hosts sports training classes such as RTC (Rugby Talenten Centrum or Rugby Talent Centre) and the National Rugby stadium.Since 1999, the city of Amsterdam honours the best sportsmen and women at the Amsterdam Sports Awards. Boxer Raymond Joval and field hockey midfielder Carole Thate were the first to receive the awards, in 1999.Amsterdam hosted the World Gymnaestrada in 1991 and will do so again in 2023.Politics The city of Amsterdam is a municipality under the Dutch Municipalities Act. It is governed by a directly elected municipal council, a municipal executive board and a mayor. Since 1981, the municipality of Amsterdam has gradually been divided into semi-autonomous boroughs, called stadsdelen or 'districts'. Over time, a total of 15 boroughs were created. In May 2010, under a major reform, the number of Amsterdam boroughs was reduced to eight: Amsterdam-Centrum covering the city centre including the canal belt, Amsterdam-Noord consisting of the neighbourhoods north of the IJ lake, Amsterdam-Oost in the east, Amsterdam-Zuid in the south, Amsterdam-West in the west, Amsterdam Nieuw-West in the far west, Amsterdam Zuidoost in the southeast, and Westpoort covering the Port of Amsterdam area.City governmentAs with all Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is governed by a directly elected municipal council, a municipal executive board and a government appointed mayor (burgemeester). The mayor is a member of the municipal executive board, but also has individual responsibilities in maintaining public order. On 27 June 2018, Femke Halsema (former member of House of Representatives for GroenLinks from 1998 to 2011) was appointed as the first woman to be Mayor of Amsterdam by the King's Commissioner of North Holland for a six-year term after being nominated by the Amsterdam municipal council and began serving a six-year term on 12 July 2018. She replaces Eberhard van der Laan (Labour Party) who was the Mayor of Amsterdam from 2010 until his death in October 2017. After the 2014 municipal council elections, a governing majority of D66, VVD and SP was formed – the first coalition without the Labour Party since World War II. Next to the Mayor, the municipal executive board consists of eight wethouders ('alderpersons') appointed by the municipal council: four D66 alderpersons, two VVD alderpersons and two SP alderpersons.On 18 September 2017, it was announced by Eberhard van der Laan in an open letter to Amsterdam citizens that Kajsa Ollongren would take up his office as acting Mayor of Amsterdam with immediate effect due to ill health. Ollongren was succeeded as acting Mayor by Eric van der Burg on 26 October 2017 and by Jozias van Aartsen on 4 December 2017.Unlike most other Dutch municipalities, Amsterdam is subdivided into eight boroughs, called stadsdelen or 'districts', a system that was implemented gradually in the 1980s to improve local governance. The boroughs are responsible for many activities that had previously been run by the central city. In 2010, the number of Amsterdam boroughs reached fifteen. Fourteen of those had their own district council (deelraad), elected by a popular vote. The fifteenth, Westpoort, covers the harbour of Amsterdam and had very few residents. Therefore, it was governed by the central municipal council.Under the borough system, municipal decisions are made at borough level, except for those affairs pertaining to the whole city such as major infrastructure projects, which are the jurisdiction of the central municipal authorities. In 2010, the borough system was restructured, in which many smaller boroughs merged into larger boroughs. In 2014, under a reform of the Dutch Municipalities Act, the Amsterdam boroughs lost much of their autonomous status, as their district councils were abolished.The municipal council of Amsterdam voted to maintain the borough system by replacing the district councils with smaller, but still directly elected district committees (bestuurscommissies). Under a municipal ordinance, the new district committees were granted responsibilities through delegation of regulatory and executive powers by the central municipal council.Metropolitan area"Amsterdam" is usually understood to refer to the municipality of Amsterdam. Colloquially, some areas within the municipality, such as the town of Durgerdam, may not be considered part of Amsterdam.Statistics Netherlands uses three other definitions of Amsterdam: metropolitan agglomeration Amsterdam (Grootstedelijke Agglomeratie Amsterdam, not to be confused with Grootstedelijk Gebied Amsterdam, a synonym of Groot Amsterdam), Greater Amsterdam (Groot Amsterdam, a COROP region) and the urban region Amsterdam (Stadsgewest Amsterdam). The Amsterdam Department for Research and Statistics uses a fourth conurbation, namely the Stadsregio Amsterdam ('City Region of Amsterdam'). The city region is similar to Greater Amsterdam but includes the municipalities of Zaanstad and Wormerland. It excludes Graft-De Rijp.The smallest of these areas is the municipality of Amsterdam with a population of 802,938 in 2013. The conurbation had a population of 1,096,042 in 2013. It includes the municipalities of Zaanstad, Wormerland, Oostzaan, Diemen and Amstelveen only, as well as the municipality of Amsterdam. Greater Amsterdam includes 15 municipalities, and had a population of 1,293,208 in 2013. Though much larger in area, the population of this area is only slightly larger, because the definition excludes the relatively populous municipality of Zaanstad. The largest area by population, the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (Dutch: Metropoolregio Amsterdam), has a population of 2,33 million. It includes for instance Zaanstad, Wormerland, Muiden, Abcoude, Haarlem, Almere and Lelystad but excludes Graft-De Rijp. Amsterdam is part of the conglomerate metropolitan area Randstad, with a total population of 6,659,300 inhabitants.Of these various metropolitan area configurations, only the Stadsregio Amsterdam (City Region of Amsterdam) has a formal governmental status. Its responsibilities include regional spatial planning and the metropolitan public transport concessions.National capitalUnder the Dutch Constitution, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. Since the 1983 constitutional revision, the constitution mentions "Amsterdam" and "capital" in chapter 2, article 32: The king's confirmation by oath and his coronation take place in "the capital Amsterdam" ("de hoofdstad Amsterdam"). Previous versions of the constitution only mentioned "the city of Amsterdam" ("de stad Amsterdam"). For a royal investiture, therefore, the States General of the Netherlands (the Dutch Parliament) meets for a ceremonial joint session in Amsterdam. The ceremony traditionally takes place at the Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square, immediately after the former monarch has signed the act of abdication at the nearby Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Normally, however, the Parliament sits in The Hague, the city which has historically been the seat of the Dutch government, the Dutch monarchy, and the Dutch supreme court. Foreign embassies are also located in The Hague.SymbolsThe coat of arms of Amsterdam is composed of several historical elements. First and centre are three St Andrew's crosses, aligned in a vertical band on the city's shield (although Amsterdam's patron saint was Saint Nicholas). These St Andrew's crosses can also be found on the city shields of neighbours Amstelveen and Ouder-Amstel. This part of the coat of arms is the basis of the flag of Amsterdam, flown by the city government, but also as civil ensign for ships registered in Amsterdam. Second is the Imperial Crown of Austria. In 1489, out of gratitude for services and loans, Maximilian I awarded Amsterdam the right to adorn its coat of arms with the king's crown. Then, in 1508, this was replaced with Maximilian's imperial crown when he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In the early years of the 17th century, Maximilian's crown in Amsterdam's coat of arms was again replaced, this time with the crown of Emperor Rudolph II, a crown that became the Imperial Crown of Austria. The lions date from the late 16th century, when city and province became part of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. Last came the city's official motto: Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig ("Heroic, Determined, Merciful"), bestowed on the city in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina, in recognition of the city's bravery during the Second World War.TransportMetro, tram and busCurrently, there are sixteen tram routes and five metro routes. All are operated by municipal public transport operator Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (GVB), which also runs the city bus network.Four fare-free GVB ferries carry pedestrians and cyclists across the IJ lake to the borough of Amsterdam-Noord, and two fare-charging ferries run east and west along the harbour. There are also privately operated water taxis, a water bus, a boat sharing operation, electric rental boats and canal cruises, that transport people along Amsterdam's waterways.Regional buses, and some suburban buses, are operated by Connexxion and EBS. International coach services are provided by Eurolines from Amsterdam Amstel railway station, IDBUS from Amsterdam Sloterdijk railway station, and Megabus from the Zuiderzeeweg in the east of the city.In order to facilitate easier transport to the centre of Amsterdam, the city has various P+R Locations where people can park their car at an affordable price and transfer to one of the numerous public transport lines.CarAmsterdam was intended in 1932 to be the hub, a kind of Kilometre Zero, of the highway system of the Netherlands, with freeways numbered One to Eight planned to originate from the city. The outbreak of the Second World War and shifting priorities led to the current situation, where only roads A1, A2, and A4 originate from Amsterdam according to the original plan. The A3 to Rotterdam was cancelled in 1970 in order to conserve the Groene Hart. Road A8, leading north to Zaandam and the A10 Ringroad were opened between 1968 and 1974. Besides the A1, A2, A4 and A8, several freeways, such as the A7 and A6, carry traffic mainly bound for Amsterdam.The A10 ringroad surrounding the city connects Amsterdam with the Dutch national network of freeways. Interchanges on the A10 allow cars to enter the city by transferring to one of the 18 city roads, numbered S101 through to S118. These city roads are regional roads without grade separation, and sometimes without a central reservation. Most are accessible by cyclists. The S100 Centrumring is a smaller ringroad circumnavigating the city's centre.In the city centre, driving a car is discouraged. Parking fees are expensive, and many streets are closed to cars or are one-way. The local government sponsors carsharing and carpooling initiatives such as Autodelen and Meerijden.nu. The local government has also started removing parking spaces in the city, with the goal of removing 10,000 spaces (roughly 1,500 per year) by 2025National railAmsterdam is served by ten stations of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways). Five are intercity stops: Sloterdijk, Zuid, Amstel, Bijlmer ArenA and Amsterdam Centraal. The stations for local services are: Lelylaan, RAI, Holendrecht, Muiderpoort and Science Park. Amsterdam Centraal is also an international railway station. From the station there are regular services to destinations such as Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Among these trains are international trains of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Amsterdam-Berlin), the Eurostar (Amsterdam-Brussels-London), Thalys (Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris/Lille), and Intercity-Express (Amsterdam–Cologne–Frankfurt).AirportAmsterdam Airport Schiphol is less than 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam Centraal station and is served by domestic and international intercity trains, such as Thalys, Eurostar and Intercity Brussel. Schiphol is the largest airport in the Netherlands, the third-largest in Europe, and the 14th-largest in the world in terms of passengers. It handles over 68 million passengers per year and is the home base of four airlines, KLM, Transavia, Martinair and Arkefly. , Schiphol was the fifth busiest airport in the world measured by international passenger numbers. This airport is 4 meters below sea level. Although Schiphol is internationally known as Amsterdam Schiphol Airport it actually lies in the neighbouring municipality of Haarlemmermeer, southwest of the city.CyclingAmsterdam is one of the most bicycle-friendly large cities in the world and is a centre of bicycle culture with good facilities for cyclists such as bike paths and bike racks, and several guarded bike storage garages (fietsenstalling) which can be used.According to the most recent figures published by Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in 2015 the 442.693 households (850.000 residents) in Amsterdam together owned 847.000 bicycles – 1.91 bicycle per household. Previously, wildly different figures were arrived at using a Wisdom of the crowd approach. Theft is widespreadin 2011, about 83,000 bicycles were stolen in Amsterdam. Bicycles are used by all socio-economic groups because of their convenience, Amsterdam's small size, the  of bike paths, the flat terrain, and the inconvenience of driving an automobile.EducationAmsterdam has two universities: the University of Amsterdam (Universiteit van Amsterdam, UvA), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). Other institutions for higher education include an art school – Gerrit Rietveld Academie, a university of applied sciences – the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Amsterdam's International Institute of Social History is one of the world's largest documentary and research institutions concerning social history, and especially the history of the labour movement. Amsterdam's Hortus Botanicus, founded in the early 17th century, is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world, with many old and rare specimens, among them the coffee plant that served as the parent for the entire coffee culture in Central and South America.There are over 200 primary schools in Amsterdam. Some of these primary schools base their teachings on particular pedagogic theories like the various Montessori schools. The biggest Montessori high school in Amsterdam is the Montessori Lyceum Amsterdam. Many schools, however, are based on religion. This used to be primarily Roman Catholicism and various Protestant denominations, but with the influx of Muslim immigrants, there has been a rise in the number of Islamic schools. Jewish schools can be found in the southern suburbs of Amsterdam.Amsterdam is noted for having five independent grammar schools (Dutch: gymnasia), the Vossius Gymnasium, Barlaeus Gymnasium, St. Ignatius Gymnasium, Het 4e Gymnasium and the Cygnus Gymnasium where a classical curriculum including Latin and classical Greek is taught. Though believed until recently by many to be an anachronistic and elitist concept that would soon die out, the gymnasia have recently experienced a revival, leading to the formation of a fourth and fifth grammar school in which the three aforementioned schools participate. Most secondary schools in Amsterdam offer a variety of different levels of education in the same school. The city also has various colleges ranging from art and design to politics and economics which are mostly also available for students coming from other countries.Schools for foreign nationals in Amsterdam include the Amsterdam International Community School, British School of Amsterdam, Albert Einstein International School Amsterdam, Lycée Vincent van Gogh La Haye-Amsterdam primary campus (French school), International School of Amsterdam, and the Japanese School of Amsterdam.Notable peopleMediaAmsterdam is a prominent centre for national and international media. Some locally based newspapers include Het Parool, a national daily paper; De Telegraaf, the largest Dutch daily newspaper; the daily newspapers Trouw, de Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad; De Groene Amsterdammer, a weekly newspaper; the free newspapers Metro and The Holland Times (printed in English).Amsterdam is home to the second-largest Dutch commercial TV group SBS Broadcasting Group, consisting of TV-stations SBS 6, Net 5 and Veronica. However, Amsterdam is not considered 'the media city of the Netherlands'. The town of Hilversum,  south-east of Amsterdam, has been crowned with this unofficial title. Hilversum is the principal centre for radio and television broadcasting in the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands, heard worldwide via shortwave radio since the 1920s, is also based there. Hilversum is home to an extensive complex of audio and television studios belonging to the national broadcast production company NOS, as well as to the studios and offices of all the Dutch public broadcasting organisations and many commercial TV production companies.In 2012, the music video of Far East Movement, 'Live My Life', was filmed in various parts of Amsterdam.Also, several movies were filmed in Amsterdam, such as James Bond's Diamonds Are Forever, Ocean's Twelve, Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Hitman's Bodyguard. Amsterdam is also featured in John Green's book The Fault in Our Stars, which has been made into a film as well that partly takes place in Amsterdam.HousingFrom the late 1960s onwards many buildings in Amsterdam have been squatted both for housing and for using as social centres. A number of these squats have legalised and become well known, such as OCCII, OT301, Paradiso and Vrankrijk.Sister cities Manchester, United Kingdom, 2007 Zapopan, Mexico, 2011See alsoNotes and referencesCitationsLiterature    Charles Caspers & Peter Jan Margry (2017), Het Mirakel van Amsterdam. Biografie van een betwiste devotie (Amsterdam, Prometheus).Further readingExternal links Amsterdam.nl – Official government site  I amsterdam – Portal for international visitors Tourist information about Amsterdam  – Website of the Netherlands  Capitals in EuropeCities in the NetherlandsMunicipalities of North HollandOlympic cycling venuesPopulated places established in the 13th centuryPopulated places in North HollandPort cities and towns in the NetherlandsPort cities and towns of the North SeaVenues of the 1928 Summer Olympics
The Museum of Work (Arbetets museum) is a museum located in Norrköping, Sweden. The museum is located in the Strykjärn (Clothes iron), a former weaving mill in the old industrial area on the Motala ström river in the city centre of Norrköping. The former textile factory  Holmens Bruk (sv)  operated in the building from 1917 to 1962.The museum documents work and everyday life by collecting personal stories about people's professional lives from both the past and the present. The museum's archive contain material from memory collections and documentation projects.Since 2009, the museum also houses the EWK — Center for Political Illustration Art, which is based on work of the satirist Ewert Karlsson (1918 — 2004). For decades he was frequently published in the Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet.Overview The museum is a national central museum with the task of preserving and telling about work and everyday life. It has, among other things, exhibitions on the terms and conditions of the work and the history of the industrial society. The museum is also known to highlight gender perspective in their exhibitions. The work museum documents work and everyday life by collecting personal stories, including people's professional life from both the past and present. In the museum's archive, there is a rich material of memory collections and documentation projects — over 2600 interviews, stories and photodocumentations have been collected since the museum opened.The museum is also a support for the country's approximately 1,500 working life museums that are old workplaces preserved to convey their history.Exhibitions The Museum of Work shows exhibitions going on over several years, but also shorter exhibitions — including several photo exhibitions on themes that can be linked to work and everyday life.The history of Alva The history of Alva Karlsson is the only exhibition in the museum that is permanent. The exhibition connects to the museum's building and its history as part of the textile industry in Norrköping. Alva worked as a rollers between the years 1927 — 1962.Industriland One of the museum long-term exhibitions is Industriland — when Sweden became modern, the exhibition was in 2007 — 2013 and consisted of an ongoing bond with various objects that were somehow significant both for working life and everyday during the period 1930 — 1980. The exhibition also consisted of presentations of the working life museums in Sweden and a number of rooms with themes such as: leisure, world, living and consumption.Framtidsland (Future country) In 2014, the exhibition was inaugurated that takes by where Industriland ends: Future country. It is an exhibition that investigates what a sustainable society is will be part of the museum's exhibitions until 2019. The exhibition consists of materials that are designed based on conversations between young people and researchers around Sweden. The exhibition addresses themes such as work, environment and everyday life. A tour version of the exhibition is given in the locations Falun, Kristianstad and Örebro.EWK — The Center for Political Illustration Art Since 2009, the Museum also houses EWK — center for political illustration art. The museum preserves, develops and conveys the political illustrator Ewert Karlsson's production. The museum also holds theme exhibitions with national and international political illustrators with the aim of highlighting and strengthening the political art.See also List of museums in Sweden Culture of SwedenReferencesExternal links  Arbetetsmuseum Official siteMuseums in Östergötland CountyNorrköpingIndustry museums in SwedenCultural heritage of Sweden
Audi AG () (commonly referred to as Audi) is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide.The origins of the company are complex, going back to the early 20th century and the initial enterprises (Horch and the Audiwerke) founded by engineer August Horch; and two other manufacturers (DKW and Wanderer), leading to the foundation of Auto Union in 1932. The modern Audi era began in the 1960s, when Auto Union was acquired by Volkswagen from Daimler-Benz. After relaunching the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi F103 series, Volkswagen merged Auto Union with NSU Motorenwerke in 1969, thus creating the present-day form of the company.The company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. , meaning "listen" in German, becomes  in Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union. Audi's slogan is , meaning "Being Ahead through Technology". Audi, along with fellow German marques BMW and Mercedes-Benz, is among the best-selling luxury automobile brands in the world.HistoryBirth of the company and its nameAutomobile company Wanderer was originally established in 1885, later becoming a branch of Audi AG. Another company, NSU, which also later merged into Audi, was founded during this time, and later supplied the chassis for Gottlieb Daimler's four-wheeler.On 14 November 1899, August Horch (1868–1951) established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne. In 1902, he moved with his company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On 10 May 1904, he founded the August Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau (State of Saxony).After troubles with Horch chief financial officer, August Horch left Motorwagenwerke and founded in Zwickau on 16 July 1909, his second company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement. The German Reichsgericht (Supreme Court) in Leipzig, eventually determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company.Since August Horch was prohibited from using "Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, he called a meeting with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company. During this meeting, Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father –  audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?" "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi" in the singular imperative form of "audire" – "to listen" – in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting. On 25 April 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau (from 1915 on Audiwerke AG Zwickau) was entered in the company's register of Zwickau registration court.The first Audi automobile, the Audi Type A 10/ Sport-Phaeton, was produced in the same year, followed by the successor Type B 10/28PS in the same year.Audi started with a 2,612 cc inline-four engine model Type A, followed by a 3,564 cc model, as well as 4,680 cc and 5,720 cc models. These cars were successful even in sporting events. The first six-cylinder model Type M, 4,655 cc appeared in 1924.August Horch left the Audiwerke in 1920 for a high position at the ministry of transport, but he was still involved with Audi as a member of the board of trustees. In September 1921, Audi became the first German car manufacturer to present a production car, the Audi Type K, with left-handed drive. Left-hand drive spread and established dominance during the 1920s because it provided a better view of oncoming traffic, making overtaking safer when driving on the right.The merger of the four companies under the logo of four ringsIn August 1928, Jørgen Rasmussen, the owner of Dampf-Kraft-Wagen (DKW), acquired the majority of shares in Audiwerke AG. In the same year, Rasmussen bought the remains of the U.S. automobile manufacturer Rickenbacker, including the manufacturing equipment for 8-cylinder engines. These engines were used in Audi Zwickau and Audi Dresden models that were launched in 1929. At the same time, 6-cylinder and 4-cylinder (the "four" with a Peugeot engine) models were manufactured. Audi cars of that era were luxurious cars equipped with special bodywork.In 1932, Audi merged with Horch, DKW, and Wanderer, to form Auto Union AG, Chemnitz. It was during this period that the company offered the Audi Front that became the first European car to combine a six-cylinder engine with front-wheel drive. It used a power train shared with the Wanderer, but turned 180 degrees, so that the drive shaft faced the front.Before World War II, Auto Union used the four interlinked rings that make up the Audi badge today, representing these four brands. However, this badge was used only on Auto Union racing cars in that period while the member companies used their own names and emblems. The technological development became more and more concentrated and some Audi models were propelled by Horch- or Wanderer-built engines.Reflecting the economic pressures of the time, Auto Union concentrated increasingly on smaller cars through the 1930s, so that by 1938 the company's DKW brand accounted for 17.9% of the German car market, while Audi held only 0.1%. After the final few Audis were delivered in 1939 the "Audi" name disappeared completely from the new car market for more than two decades.Post-World War IILike most German manufacturing, at the onset of World War II the Auto Union plants were retooled for military production, and were a target for allied bombing during the war which left them damaged.Overrun by the Soviet Army in 1945, on the orders of the Soviet Union military administration the factories were dismantled as part of war reparations. Following this, the company's entire assets were expropriated without compensation. On 17 August 1948, Auto Union AG of Chemnitz was deleted from the commercial register. These actions had the effect of liquidating Germany's Auto Union AG. The remains of the Audi plant of Zwickau became the VEB (for "People Owned Enterprise")  or AWZ (in English: Automobile Works Zwickau).With no prospect of continuing production in Soviet-controlled East Germany, Auto Union executives began the process of relocating what was left of the company to West Germany. A site was chosen in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, to start a spare parts operation in late 1945, which would eventually serve as the headquarters of the reformed Auto Union in 1949.The former Audi factory in Zwickau restarted assembly of the pre-war models in 1949. These DKW models were renamed to IFA F8 and IFA F9 and were similar to the West German versions. West and East German models were equipped with the traditional and renowned DKW two-stroke engines. The Zwickau plant manufactured the infamous Trabant until 1991, when it came under Volkswagen control—effectively bringing it under the same umbrella as Audi since 1945.New Auto Union unitA new West German headquartered Auto Union was launched in Ingolstadt with loans from the Bavarian state government and Marshall Plan aid. The reformed company was launched 3 September 1949 and continued DKW's tradition of producing front-wheel drive vehicles with two-stroke engines. This included production of a small but sturdy 125 cc motorcycle and a DKW delivery van, the DKW F89 L at Ingolstadt. The Ingolstadt site was large, consisting of an extensive complex of formerly military buildings which was suitable for administration as well as vehicle warehousing and distribution, but at this stage there was at Ingolstadt no dedicated plant suitable for mass production of automobiles: for manufacturing the company's first post-war mass-market passenger car plant capacity in Düsseldorf was rented from Rheinmetall-Borsig. It was only ten years later, after the company had attracted an investor, when funds became available for construction of major car plant at the Ingolstadt head office site.In 1958, in response to pressure from Friedrich Flick, then the company's largest single shareholder, Daimler-Benz took an 87% holding in the Auto Union company, and this was increased to a 100% holding in 1959. However, small two-stroke cars were not the focus of Daimler-Benz's interests, and while the early 1960s saw major investment in new Mercedes models and in a state of the art factory for Auto Union's, the company's aging model range at this time did not benefit from the economic boom of the early 1960s to the same extent as competitor manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Opel. The decision to dispose of the Auto Union business was based on its lack of profitability.  Ironically, by the time they sold the business, it also included a large new factory and near production-ready modern four-stroke engine, which would enable the Auto Union business, under a new owner, to embark on a period of profitable growth, now producing not Auto Unions or DKWs, but using the "Audi" name, resurrected in 1965 after a 25-year gap.In 1964, Volkswagen acquired a 50% holding in the business, which included the new factory in Ingolstadt, the DKW and Audi brands along with the rights to the new engine design which had been funded by Daimler-Benz, who in return retained the dormant Horch trademark and the Düsseldorf factory which became a Mercedes-Benz van assembly plant. Eighteen months later, Volkswagen bought complete control of Ingolstadt, and by 1966 were using the spare capacity of the Ingolstadt plant to assemble an additional 60,000 Volkswagen Beetles per year.  Two-stroke engines became less popular during the 1960s as customers were more attracted to the smoother four-stroke engines. In September 1965, the DKW F102 was fitted with a four-stroke engine and a facelift for the car's front and rear. Volkswagen dumped the DKW brand because of its associations with two-stroke technology, and having classified the model internally as the F103, sold it simply as the "Audi". Later developments of the model were named after their horsepower ratings and sold as the Audi 60, 75, 80, and Super 90, selling until 1972. Initially, Volkswagen was hostile to the idea of Auto Union as a standalone entity producing its own models having acquired the company merely to boost its own production capacity through the Ingolstadt assembly plant – to the point where Volkswagen executives ordered that the Auto Union name and flags bearing the four rings were removed from the factory buildings. Then VW chief Heinz Nordhoff explicitly forbade Auto Union from any further product development. Fearing that Volkswagen had no long-term ambition for the Audi brand, Auto Union engineers under the leadership of Ludwig Kraus developed the first Audi 100 in secret, without Nordhoff's knowledge. When presented with a finished prototype, Nordhoff was so impressed he authorised the car for production, which when launched in 1968, went on to be a huge success. With this, the resurrection of the Audi brand was now complete, this being followed by the first generation Audi 80 in 1972, which would in turn provide a template for VW's new front-wheel-drive water-cooled range which debuted from the mid-1970s onward.In 1969, Auto Union merged with NSU, based in Neckarsulm, near Stuttgart. In the 1950s, NSU had been the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles, but had moved on to produce small cars like the NSU Prinz, the TT and TTS versions of which are still popular as vintage race cars. NSU then focused on new rotary engines based on the ideas of Felix Wankel. In 1967, the new NSU Ro 80 was a car well ahead of its time in technical details such as aerodynamics, light weight, and safety. However, teething problems with the rotary engines put an end to the independence of NSU. The Neckarsulm plant is now used to produce the larger Audi models A6 and A8. The Neckarsulm factory is also home of the "quattro GmbH" (from November 2016 "Audi Sport GmbH"), a subsidiary responsible for development and production of Audi high-performance models: the R8 and the RS model range.Modern eraThe new merged company was incorporated on 1 January 1969 and was known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG, with its headquarters at NSU's Neckarsulm plant, and saw the emergence of Audi as a separate brand for the first time since the pre-war era. Volkswagen introduced the Audi brand to the United States for the 1970 model year.  That same year, the mid-sized car that NSU had been working on, the K70, originally intended to slot between the rear-engined Prinz models and the futuristic NSU Ro 80, was instead launched as a Volkswagen.After the launch of the Audi 100 of 1968, the Audi 80/Fox (which formed the basis for the 1973 Volkswagen Passat) followed in 1972 and the Audi 50 (later rebadged as the Volkswagen Polo) in 1974. The Audi 50 was a seminal design because it was the first incarnation of the Golf/Polo concept, one that led to a hugely successful world car. Ultimately, the Audi 80 and 100 (progenitors of the A4 and A6, respectively) became the company's biggest sellers, whilst little investment was made in the fading NSU range; the Prinz models were dropped in 1973 whilst the fatally flawed NSU Ro80 went out of production in 1977, spelling the effective end of the NSU brand. Production of the Audi 100 had been steadily moved from Ingolstadt to Neckarsulm as the 1970s had progressed, and by the appearance of the second generation C2 version in 1976, all production was now at the former NSU plant. Neckarsulm from that point onward would produce Audi's higher-end models.The Audi image at this time was a conservative one, and so, a proposal from chassis engineer Jörg Bensinger was accepted to develop the four-wheel drive technology in Volkswagen's Iltis military vehicle for an Audi performance car and rally racing car. The performance car, introduced in 1980, was named the "Audi Quattro", a turbocharged coupé which was also the first German large-scale production vehicle to feature permanent all-wheel drive through a centre differential. Commonly referred to as the "Ur-Quattro" (the "Ur-" prefix is a German augmentative used, in this case, to mean "original" and is also applied to the first generation of Audi's S4 and S6 Sport Saloons, as in "UrS4" and "UrS6"), few of these vehicles were produced (all hand-built by a single team), but the model was a great success in rallying. Prominent wins proved the viability of all-wheel-drive racecars, and the Audi name became associated with advances in automotive technology.In 1985, with the Auto Union and NSU brands effectively dead, the company's official name was now shortened to simply Audi AG. At the same time the company's headquarters moved back to Ingolstadt and two new wholly owned subsidiaries; Auto Union GmbH and NSU GmbH, were formed to own and manage the historical trademarks and intellectual property of the original constituent companies (the exception being Horch, which had been retained by Daimler-Benz after the VW takeover), and to operate Audi's heritage operations.In 1986, as the Passat-based Audi 80 was beginning to develop a kind of "grandfather's car" image, the type 89 was introduced. This completely new development sold extremely well. However, its modern and dynamic exterior belied the low performance of its base engine, and its base package was quite spartan (even the passenger-side mirror was an option.) In 1987, Audi put forward a new and very elegant Audi 90, which had a much superior set of standard features. In the early 1990s, sales began to slump for the Audi 80 series, and some basic construction problems started to surface.In the early part of the 21st century, Audi set forth on a German racetrack to claim and maintain several world records, such as top speed endurance. This effort was in-line with the company's heritage from the 1930s racing era Silver Arrows.Through the early 1990s, Audi began to shift its target market upscale to compete against German automakers Mercedes-Benz and BMW. This began with the release of the Audi V8 in 1990. It was essentially a new engine fitted to the Audi 100/200, but with noticeable bodywork differences. Most obvious was the new grille that was now incorporated in the bonnet.By 1991, Audi had the four-cylinder Audi 80, the 5-cylinder Audi 90 and Audi 100, the turbocharged Audi 200 and the Audi V8. There was also a coupé version of the 80/90 with both four- and five-cylinder engines.Although the five-cylinder engine was a successful and robust powerplant, it was still a little too different for the target market. With the introduction of an all-new Audi 100 in 1992, Audi introduced a 2.8L V6 engine. This engine was also fitted to a face-lifted Audi 80 (all 80 and 90 models were now badged 80 except for the USA), giving this model a choice of four-, five-, and six-cylinder engines, in saloon, coupé and convertible body styles.The five-cylinder was soon dropped as a major engine choice; however, a turbocharged  version remained. The engine, initially fitted to the 200 quattro 20V of 1991, was a derivative of the engine fitted to the Sport Quattro. It was fitted to the Audi Coupé, named the S2, and also to the Audi 100 body, and named the S4. These two models were the beginning of the mass-produced S series of performance cars.Audi 5000 unintended acceleration allegationsSales in the United States fell after a series of recalls from 1982 to 1987 of Audi 5000 models associated with reported incidents of sudden unintended acceleration linked to six deaths and 700 accidents.  At the time, NHTSA was investigating 50 car models from 20 manufacturers for sudden surges of power.A 60 Minutes report aired 23 November 1986, featuring interviews with six people who had sued Audi after reporting unintended acceleration, showing an Audi 5000 ostensibly suffering a problem when the brake pedal was pushed. Subsequent investigation revealed that 60 Minutes had engineered the failure – fitting a canister of compressed air on the passenger-side floor, linked via a hose to a hole drilled into the transmission.Audi contended, prior to findings by outside investigators, that the problems were caused by driver error, specifically pedal misapplication.  Subsequently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded that the majority of unintended acceleration cases, including all the ones that prompted the 60 Minutes report, were caused by driver error such as confusion of pedals.  CBS did not acknowledge the test results of involved government agencies, but did acknowledge the similar results of another study.In a review study published in 2012, NHTSA summarized its past findings about the Audi unintended acceleration problems: "Once an unintended acceleration had begun, in the Audi 5000, due to a failure in the idle-stabilizer system (producing an initial acceleration of 0.3g), pedal misapplication resulting from panic, confusion, or unfamiliarity with the Audi 5000 contributed to the severity of the incident."This summary is consistent with the conclusions of NHTSA's most technical analysis at the time: "Audi idle-stabilization systems were prone to defects which resulted in excessive idle speeds and brief unanticipated accelerations of up to 0.3g [which is similar in magnitude to an emergency stop in a subway car]. These accelerations could not be the sole cause of [(long-duration) sudden acceleration incidents (SAI)], but might have triggered some SAIs by startling the driver.  The defective idle-stabilization system performed a type of electronic throttle control. Significantly: multiple "intermittent malfunctions of the electronic control unit were observed and recorded ... and [were also observed and] reported by Transport Canada."With a series of recall campaigns, Audi made several modifications; the first adjusted the distance between the brake and accelerator pedal on automatic-transmission models. Later repairs, of 250,000 cars dating back to 1978, added a device requiring the driver to press the brake pedal before shifting out of park.  A legacy of the Audi 5000 and other reported cases of sudden unintended acceleration are intricate gear stick patterns and brake interlock mechanisms to prevent inadvertent shifting into forward or reverse. It is unclear how the defects in the idle-stabilization system were addressed.Audi's U.S. sales, which had reached 74,061 in 1985, dropped to 12,283 in 1991 and remained level for three years, – with resale values falling dramatically.  Audi subsequently offered increased warranty protection and renamed the affected models – with the 5000 becoming the 100 and 200 in 1989 – and reached the same sales levels again only by model year 2000.A 2010 BusinessWeek article – outlining possible parallels between Audi's experience and 2009–2010 Toyota vehicle recalls – noted a class-action lawsuit filed in 1987 by about 7,500 Audi 5000-model owners remains unsettled and remains contested in Chicago's Cook County after appeals at the Illinois state and U.S. federal levels.Model introductionsIn the mid-to-late 1990s, Audi introduced new technologies including the use of aluminium construction. Produced from 1999 to 2005, the Audi A2 was a futuristic super mini, born from the Al2 concept, with many features that helped regain consumer confidence, like the aluminium space frame, which was a first in production car design. In the A2 Audi further expanded their TDI technology through the use of frugal three-cylinder engines. The A2 was extremely aerodynamic and was designed around a wind tunnel. The Audi A2 was criticised for its high price and was never really a sales success but it planted Audi as a cutting-edge manufacturer. The model, a Mercedes-Benz A-Class competitor, sold relatively well in Europe. However, the A2 was discontinued in 2005 and Audi decided not to develop an immediate replacement.The next major model change came in 1995 when the Audi A4 replaced the Audi 80. The new nomenclature scheme was applied to the Audi 100 to become the Audi A6 (with a minor facelift). This also meant the S4 became the S6 and a new S4 was introduced in the A4 body. The S2 was discontinued. The Audi Cabriolet continued on (based on the Audi 80 platform) until 1999, gaining the engine upgrades along the way. A new A3 hatchback model (sharing the Volkswagen Golf Mk4's platform) was introduced to the range in 1996, and the radical Audi TT coupé and roadster were debuted in 1998 based on the same underpinnings.The engines available throughout the range were now a 1.4 L, 1.6 L and 1.8 L four-cylinder, 1.8 L four-cylinder turbo, 2.6 L and 2.8 L V6, 2.2 L turbo-charged five-cylinder and the 4.2 L V8 engine. The V6s were replaced by new 2.4 L and 2.8 L 30V V6s in 1998, with marked improvement in power, torque and smoothness. Further engines were added along the way, including a 3.7 L V8 and 6.0 L W12 engine for the A8.Audi AG todayAudi's sales grew strongly in the 2000s, with deliveries to customers increasing from 653,000 in 2000 to 1,003,000 in 2008. The largest sales increases came from Eastern Europe (+19.3%), Africa (+17.2%) and the Middle East (+58.5%). China in particular has become a key market, representing 108,000 out of 705,000 cars delivered in the first three quarters of 2009. One factor for its popularity in China is that Audis have become the car of choice for purchase by the Chinese government for officials, and purchases by the government are responsible for 20% of its sales in China. As of late 2009, Audi's operating profit of €1.17 billion ($1.85 billion) made it the biggest contributor to parent Volkswagen Group's nine-month operating profit of €1.5 billion, while the other marques in Group such as Bentley and SEAT had suffered considerable losses. May 2011 saw record sales for Audi of America with the new Audi A7 and Audi A3 TDI Clean Diesel. In May 2012, Audi reported a 10% increase in its sales—from 408 units to 480 in the last year alone.Audi manufactures vehicles in seven plants around the world, some of which are shared with other VW Group marques although many sub-assemblies such as engines and transmissions are manufactured within other Volkswagen Group plants.Audi's two principal assembly plants are: Ingolstadt, opened by Auto Union in 1964 (A3, A4, A5, Q5) Neckarsulm, acquired from NSU in 1969 (A4, A6, A7, A8, R8, and all RS variants)Outside of Germany, Audi produces vehicles at: Aurangabad, India, since 2006 Bratislava, Slovakia, shared with Volkswagen, SEAT, Škoda and Porsche (Q7 and Q8) Brussels, Belgium, acquired from Volkswagen in 2007 (e-tron) Changchun, China, since 1995 Győr, Hungary (TT and some A3 variants) Jakarta, Indonesia, since 2011 Martorell, Spain, shared with SEAT and Volkswagen (A1) San José Chiapa, Mexico (2nd gen Q5)In September 2012, Audi announced the construction of its first North American manufacturing plant in Puebla, Mexico. This plant became operative in 2016 and produces the second generation Q5.From 2002 up to 2003, Audi headed the Audi Brand Group, a subdivision of the Volkswagen Group's Automotive Division consisting of Audi, Lamborghini and SEAT, which was focused on sporty values, with the marques' product vehicles and performance being under the higher responsibility of the Audi brand.In January 2014, Audi, along with the Wireless Power Consortium, operated a booth which demonstrated a phone compartment using the Qi open interface standard at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). In May, most of the Audi dealers in the UK falsely claimed that the Audi A7, A8, and R8 were Euro NCAP safety tested, all achieving five out of five stars. In fact none were tested.In 2015, Audi admitted that at least 2.1 million Audi cars had been involved in the Volkswagen emissions testing scandal in which software installed in the cars manipulated emissions data to fool regulators and allow the cars to pollute at higher than government-mandated levels. The A1, A3, A4, A5, A6, TT, Q3 and Q5 models were implicated in the scandal. Audi promised to quickly find a technical solution and upgrade the cars so they can function within emissions regulations. Ulrich Hackenberg, the head of research and development at Audi, was suspended in relation to the scandal. Despite widespread media coverage about the scandal through the month of September, Audi reported that U.S. sales for the month had increased by 16.2%. Audi's parent company Volkswagen announced on 18 June 2018 that Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler had been arrested.In November 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implicated the 3-liter diesel engine versions of the 2016 Audi A6 Quattro, A7 Quattro, A8, A8L and the Q5 as further models that had emissions regulation defeat-device software installed. Thus, these models emitted nitrogen oxide at up to nine times the legal limit when the car detected that it was not hooked up to emissions testing equipment.In November 2016, Audi expressed an intention to establish an assembly factory in Pakistan, with the company's local partner acquiring land for a plant in Korangi Creek Industrial Park in Karachi. Approval of the plan would lead to an investment of $30 million in the new plant. Audi planned to cut 9,500 jobs in Germany starting from 2020 till 2025 to fund electric vehicles and digital working.In February 2020, Volkswagen AG announced that it plans to take over all Audi shares it does not own (totalling 0.36%) via a squeeze-out according to German stock corporation law, thus making Audi a fully owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. This change took effect from 16 November 2020, when Audi became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group.In January 2021, Audi announced that it is planning to sell 1 million vehicles in China in 2023, comparing to 726,000 vehicles in 2020.TechnologyAudi AI Audi AI is a driver assist feature offered by Audi. The company's stated intent is to offer fully autonomous driving at a future time, acknowledging that legal, regulatory and technical hurdles must be overcome to achieve this goal. On 4 June 2017, Audi stated that its new A8 will be fully self-driving for speeds up to 60 km/h using its Audi AI. Contrary to other cars, the driver will not have to do safety checks such as touching the steering wheel every 15 seconds to use this feature. The Audi A8 will therefore be the first production car to reach level 3 autonomous driving, meaning that the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. Audi will also be the first manufacturer to use a 3D Lidar system in addition to cameras and ultrasonic sensors for their AI.BodyshellsAudi produces 100% galvanised cars to prevent corrosion, and was the first mass-market vehicle to do so, following introduction of the process by Porsche, c. 1975. Along with other precautionary measures, the full-body zinc coating has proved to be very effective in preventing rust. The body's resulting durability even surpassed Audi's own expectations, causing the manufacturer to extend its original 10-year warranty against corrosion perforation to currently 12 years (except for aluminium bodies which do not rust).Space frameAudi introduced a new series of vehicles in the mid-1990s and continues to pursue new technology and high performance. An all-aluminium car was brought forward by Audi, and in 1994 the Audi A8 was launched, which introduced aluminium space frame technology (called Audi Space Frame or ASF) which saves weight and improves torsion rigidity compared to a conventional steel frame. Prior to that effort, Audi used examples of the Type 44 chassis fabricated out of aluminium as test-beds for the technique. The disadvantage of the aluminium frame is that it is very expensive to repair and requires a specialized aluminium bodyshop. The weight reduction is somewhat offset by the quattro four-wheel drive system which is standard in most markets. Nonetheless, the A8 is usually the lightest all-wheel drive car in the full-size luxury segment, also having best-in-class fuel economy.  The Audi A2, Audi TT and Audi R8 also use Audi Space Frame designs.DrivetrainsLayoutFor most of its lineup (excluding the A3, A1, and TT models), Audi has not adopted the transverse engine layout which is typically found in economy cars (such as Peugeot and Citroën), since that would limit the type and power of engines that can be installed. To be able to mount powerful engines (such as a V8 engine in the Audi S4 and Audi RS4, as well as the W12 engine in the Audi A8L W12), Audi has usually engineered its more expensive cars with a longitudinally front-mounted engine, in an "overhung" position, over the front wheels in front of the axle line - this layout dates back to the DKW and Auto Union saloons from the 1950s. But while this allows for the easy adoption of all-wheel drive, it goes against the ideal 50:50 weight distribution.In all its post Volkswagen-era models, Audi has firmly refused to adopt the traditional rear-wheel drive layout favored by its two archrivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW, favoring either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. The majority of Audi's lineup in the United States features all-wheel drive standard on most of its expensive vehicles (only the entry-level trims of the A4 and A6 are available with front-wheel drive), in contrast to Mercedes-Benz and BMW whose lineup treats all-wheel drive as an option. BMW did not offer all-wheel drive on its V8-powered cars (as opposed to crossover SUVs) until the 2010 BMW 7 Series and 2011 BMW 5 Series, while the Audi A8 has had all-wheel drive available/standard since the 1990s. Regarding high-performance variants, Audi S and RS models have always had all-wheel drive, unlike their direct rivals from BMW M and Mercedes-AMG whose cars are rear-wheel drive only (although their performance crossover SUVs are all-wheel drive).Audi has recently applied the quattro badge to models such as the A3 and TT which do not use the Torsen-based system as in prior years with a mechanical center differential, but with the Haldex Traction electro-mechanical clutch AWD system.EnginesPrior to the introduction of the Audi 80 and Audi 50 in 1972 and 1974, respectively, Audi had led the development of the EA111 and EA827 inline-four engine families.  These new power units underpinned the water-cooled revival of parent company Volkswagen (in the Polo, Golf, Passat and Scirocco), whilst the many derivatives and descendants of these two basic engine designs have appeared in every generation of VW Group vehicles right up to the present day.In the 1980s, Audi, along with Volvo, was the champion of the inline-five cylinder, 2.1/2.2 L engine as a longer-lasting alternative to more traditional six-cylinder engines. This engine was used not only in production cars but also in their race cars. The 2.1 L inline five-cylinder engine was used as a base for the rally cars in the 1980s, providing well over  after modification. Before 1990, there were engines produced with a displacement between 2.0 L and 2.3 L. This range of engine capacity allowed for both fuel economy and power.For the ultra-luxury version of its Audi A8 fullsize luxury flagship sedan, the Audi A8L W12, Audi uses the Volkswagen Group W12 engine instead of the conventional V12 engine favored by rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The W12 engine configuration (also known as a "WR12") is created by forming two imaginary narrow-angle 15° VR6 engines at an angle of 72°, and the narrow angle of each set of cylinders allows just two overhead camshafts to drive each pair of banks, so just four are needed in total. The advantage of the W12 engine is its compact packaging, allowing Audi to build a 12-cylinder sedan with all-wheel drive, whereas a conventional V12 engine could have only a rear-wheel drive configuration as it would have no space in the engine bay for a differential and other components required to power the front wheels. In fact, the 6.0 L W12 in the Audi A8L W12 is smaller in overall dimensions than the 4.2 L V8 that powers the Audi A8 4.2 variants. The 2011 Audi A8 debuted a revised 6.3-litre version of the W12 (WR12) engine with .Fuel Stratified InjectionNew models of the A3, A4, A6 and A8 have been introduced, with the ageing 1.8-litre engine now having been replaced by new Fuel Stratified Injection (FSI) engines. Nearly every petroleum burning model in the range now incorporates this fuel-saving technology.Direct-Shift GearboxIn 2003, Volkswagen introduced the Direct-Shift Gearbox (DSG), a type of dual-clutch transmission. It is a type of automatic transmission, drivable like a conventional torque converter automatic transmission. Based on the gearbox found in the Group B S1, the system includes dual electro-hydraulically controlled clutches instead of a torque converter. This is implemented in some VW Golfs, Audi A3, Audi A4 and TT models where DSG is called S-Tronic.LED daytime running lightsBeginning in 2005, Audi has implemented white LED technology as daytime running lights (DRL) in their products. The distinctive shape of the DRLs has become a trademark of sorts. LEDs were first introduced on the Audi A8 W12, the world's first production car to have LED DRLs, and have since spread throughout the entire model range. The LEDs are present on some Audi billboards.Since 2010, Audi has also offered the LED technology in low- and high-beam headlights.Multi Media InterfaceStarting with the 2003 Audi A8, Audi has used a centralised control interface for its on-board infotainment systems, called Multi Media Interface (MMI). It is essentially a rotating control knob and 'segment' buttons – designed to control all in-car entertainment devices (radio, CD changer, iPod, TV tuner), satellite navigation, heating and ventilation, and other car controls with a screen.The availability of MMI has gradually filtered down the Audi lineup, and following its introduction on the third generation A3 in 2011, MMI is now available across the entire range.  It has been generally well received, as it requires less menu-surfing with its segment buttons around a central knob, along with 'main function' direct access buttons – with shortcuts to the radio or phone functions. The colour screen is mounted on the upright dashboard, and on the A4 (new), A5, A6, A8, and Q7, the controls are mounted horizontally.Synthetic fuels Audi has assisted with technology to produce synthetic diesel from water and carbon dioxide. Audi calls the synthetic diesel E-diesel. It is also working on synthetic gasoline (which it calls E-gasoline).Logistics Audi uses scanning gloves for parts registration during assembly, and automatic robots to transfer cars from factory to rail cars.ModelsCurrent model rangeThe following tables list Audi production vehicles that are sold as of 2018:S and RS modelsElectric vehiclesAudi is planning an alliance with the Japanese electronics giant Sanyo to develop a pilot hybrid electric project for the Volkswagen Group. The alliance could result in Sanyo batteries and other electronic components being used in future models of the Volkswagen Group. Concept electric vehicles unveiled to date include the Audi A1 Sportback Concept, Audi A4 TDI Concept E, and the fully electric Audi e-tron Concept Supercar.Self-driving cars In December 2018, Audi announced to invest 14 billion Euro ($15.9 billion) in e-mobility, self-driving cars.Production figures Data from 1998 to 2010. Figures for different body types/versions of models have been merged to create overall figures for each model.MotorsportAudi has competed in various forms of motorsports. Audi's tradition in motorsport began with their former company Auto Union in the 1930s. In the 1990s, Audi found success in the Touring and Super Touring categories of motor racing after success in circuit racing in North America.RallyingIn 1980, Audi released the Quattro, a four-wheel drive (4WD) turbocharged car that went on to win rallies and races worldwide. It is considered one of the most significant rally cars of all time, because it was one of the first to take advantage of the then-recently changed rules which allowed the use of four-wheel drive in competition racing. Many critics doubted the viability of four-wheel drive racers, thinking them to be too heavy and complex, yet the Quattro was to become a successful car. It led its first rally before going off the road, however, the rally world had been served notice 4WD was the future. The Quattro went on to achieve much success in the World Rally Championship. It won the 1983 (Hannu Mikkola) and the 1984 (Stig Blomqvist) drivers' titles, and brought Audi the manufacturers' title in 1982 and 1984.In 1984, Audi launched the short-wheelbase Sport Quattro which dominated rally races in Monte Carlo and Sweden, with Audi taking all podium places, but succumbed to problems further into WRC contention. In 1985, after another season mired in mediocre finishes, Walter Röhrl finished the season in his Sport Quattro S1, and helped place Audi second in the manufacturers' points. Audi also received rally honours in the Hong Kong to Beijing rally in that same year. Michèle Mouton, the only female driver to win a round of the World Rally Championship and a driver for Audi, took the Sport Quattro S1, now simply called the "S1", and raced in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The  climb race pits a driver and car to drive to the summit of the  Pikes Peak mountain in Colorado, and in 1985, Michèle Mouton set a new record of 11:25.39, and being the first woman to set a Pikes Peak record. In 1986, Audi formally left international rally racing following an accident in Portugal involving driver Joaquim Santos in his Ford RS200. Santos swerved to avoid hitting spectators in the road, and left the track into the crowd of spectators on the side, killing three and injuring 30. Bobby Unser used an Audi in that same year to claim a new record for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb at 11:09.22.In 1987, Walter Röhrl claimed the title for Audi setting a new Pikes Peak International Hill Climb record of 10:47.85 in his Audi S1, which he had retired from the WRC two years earlier. The Audi S1 employed Audi's time-tested inline-five-cylinder turbocharged engine, with the final version generating .  The engine was mated to a six-speed gearbox and ran on Audi's famous four-wheel drive system. All of Audi's top drivers drove this car; Hannu Mikkola, Stig Blomqvist, Walter Röhrl and Michèle Mouton. This Audi S1 started the range of Audi 'S' cars, which now represents an increased level of sports-performance equipment within the mainstream Audi model range.In the United StatesAs Audi moved away from rallying and into circuit racing, they chose to move first into America with the Trans-Am in 1988.In 1989, Audi moved to International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) GTO with the Audi 90, however as they avoided the two major endurance events (Daytona and Sebring) despite winning on a regular basis, they would lose out on the title.Touring carsIn 1990, having completed their objective to market cars in North America, Audi returned to Europe, turning first to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) series with the Audi V8, and then in 1993, being unwilling to build cars for the new formula, they turned their attention to the fast-growing Super Touring series, which are a series of national championships. Audi first entered in the French Supertourisme and Italian Superturismo. In the following year, Audi would switch to the German Super Tourenwagen Cup (known as STW), and then to British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) the year after that.The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), having difficulty regulating the quattro four-wheel drive system, and the impact it had on the competitors, would eventually ban all four-wheel drive cars from competing in the series in 1998, but by then, Audi switched all their works efforts to sports car racing.By 2000, Audi would still compete in the US with their RS4 for the SCCA Speed World GT Challenge, through dealer/team Champion Racing competing against Corvettes, Vipers, and smaller BMWs (where it is one of the few series to permit 4WD cars). In 2003, Champion Racing entered an RS6. Once again, the quattro four-wheel drive was superior, and Champion Audi won the championship. They returned in 2004 to defend their title, but a newcomer, Cadillac with the new Omega Chassis CTS-V, gave them a run for their money. After four victories in a row, the Audis were sanctioned with several negative changes that deeply affected the car's performance. Namely, added ballast weights, and Champion Audi deciding to go with different tyres, and reducing the boost pressure of the turbocharger.In 2004, after years of competing with the TT-R in the revitalised DTM series, with privateer team Abt Racing/Christian Abt taking the 2002 title with Laurent Aïello, Audi returned as a full factory effort to touring car racing by entering two factory-supported Joest Racing A4 DTM cars.24 Hours of Le MansAudi began racing prototype sportscars in 1999, debuting at the Le Mans 24 hour. Two car concepts were developed and raced in their first season - the Audi R8R (open-cockpit 'roadster' prototype) and the Audi R8C (closed-cockpit 'coupé' GT-prototype). The R8R scored a credible podium on its racing debut at Le Mans and was the concept which Audi continued to develop into the 2000 season due to favourable rules for open-cockpit prototypes.However, most of the competitors (such as BMW, Toyota, Mercedes and Nissan) retired at the end of 1999.The factory-supported Joest Racing team won at Le Mans three times in a row with the Audi R8 (2000–2002), as well as winning every race in the American Le Mans Series in its first year. Audi also sold the car to customer teams such as Champion Racing.In 2003, two Bentley Speed 8s, with engines designed by Audi, and driven by Joest drivers loaned to the fellow Volkswagen Group company, competed in the GTP class, and finished the race in the top two positions, while the Champion Racing R8 finished third overall, and first in the LMP900 class. Audi returned to the winner's podium at the 2004 race, with the top three finishers all driving R8s: Audi Sport Japan Team Goh finished first, Audi Sport UK Veloqx second, and Champion Racing third.At the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans, Champion Racing entered two R8s, along with an R8 from the Audi PlayStation Team Oreca. The R8s (which were built to old LMP900 regulations) received a narrower air inlet restrictor, reducing power, and an additional  of weight compared to the newer LMP1 chassis. On average, the R8s were about 2–3 seconds off pace compared to the Pescarolo–Judd. But with a team of excellent drivers and experience, both Champion R8s were able to take first and third, while the Oreca team took fourth. The Champion team was also the first American team to win Le Mans since the Gulf Ford GTs in 1967. This also ends the long era of the R8; however, its replacement for 2006, called the Audi R10 TDI, was unveiled on 13 December 2005.The R10 TDI employed many new and innovative features, the most notable being the twin-turbocharged direct injection diesel engine. It was first raced in the 2006 12 Hours of Sebring as a race-test in preparation for the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans, which it later went on to win. Audi had a win in the first diesel sports car at 12 Hours of Sebring (the car was developed with a Diesel engine due to ACO regulations that favor diesel engines). As well as winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006, the R10 TDI beat the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in , and in , (however Peugeot won the 24h in 2009) with a podium clean-sweep (all four 908 entries retired) while breaking a distance record (set by the Porsche 917K of Martini Racing in ), in  with the R15 TDI Plus.Audi's sports car racing success would continue with the Audi R18's victory at the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi Sport Team Joest's Benoît Tréluyer earned Audi their first pole position in five years while the team's sister car locked out the front row.  Early accidents eliminated two of Audi's three entries, but the sole remaining Audi R18 TDI of Tréluyer, Marcel Fässler, and André Lotterer held off the trio of Peugeot 908s to claim victory by a margin of 13.8 seconds.ResultsAmerican Le Mans SeriesAudi entered a factory racing team run by Joest Racing into the American Le Mans Series under the Audi Sport North America name in 2000. This was a successful operation with the team winning on its debut in the series at the 2000 12 Hours of Sebring. Factory-backed Audi R8s were the dominant car in ALMS taking 25 victories between 2000 and the end of the 2002 season. In 2003, Audi sold customer cars to Champion Racing as well as continuing to race the factory Audi Sport North America team. Champion Racing won many races as a private team running Audi R8s and eventually replaced Team Joest as the Audi Sport North America between 2006 and 2008. Since 2009 Audi has not taken part in full American Le Mans Series Championships, but has competed in the series opening races at Sebring, using the 12-hour race as a test for Le Mans, and also as part of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship season calendar.ResultsEuropean Le Mans SeriesAudi participated in the 2003 1000km of Le Mans which was a one-off sports car race in preparation for the 2004 European Le Mans Series. The factory team Audi Sport UK won races and the championship in the 2004 season but Audi was unable to match their sweeping success of Audi Sport North America in the American Le Mans Series, partly due to the arrival of a factory competitor in LMP1, Peugeot. The French manufacturer's 908 HDi FAP became the car to beat in the series from 2008 onwards with 20 LMP wins. However, Audi were able to secure the championship in 2008 even though Peugeot scored more race victories in the season.ResultsWorld Endurance Championship2012In 2012, the FIA sanctioned a World Endurance Championship which would be organised by the ACO as a continuation of the ILMC. Audi competed won the first WEC race at Sebring and followed this up with a further three successive wins, including the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. Audi scored a final 5th victory in the 2012 WEC in Bahrain and were able to win the inaugural WEC Manufacturers' Championship.2013As defending champions, Audi once again entered the Audi R18 e-tron quattro chassis into the 2013 WEC and the team won the first five consecutive races, including the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans. The victory at Round 5, Circuit of the Americas, was of particular significance as it marked the 100th win for Audi in Le Mans prototypes.  Audi secured their second consecutive WEC Manufacturers' Championship at Round 6 after taking second place and half points in the red-flagged Fuji race.2014For the 2014 season, Audi entered a redesigned and upgraded R18 e-tron quattro which featured a 2 MJ energy recovery system. As defending champions, Audi would once again face a challenge in LMP1 from Toyota, and additionally from Porsche who returned to endurance racing after a 16-year absence. The season-opening 6hrs of Silverstone was a disaster for Audi who saw both cars retire from the race, marking the first time that an Audi car has failed to score a podium in a World Endurance Championship race.ResultsFormula EAudi provide factory support to Abt Sportsline in the FIA Formula E Championship, The team competed under the title of Audi Sport Abt Formula E Team in the inaugural 2014-15 Formula E season.  On 13 February 2014 the team announced its driver line up as Daniel Abt and World Endurance Championship driver Lucas di Grassi.Formula OneAudi has been linked to Formula One in recent years but has always resisted due to the company's opinion that it is not relevant to road cars, but hybrid power unit technology has been adopted into the sport, swaying the company's view and encouraging research into the program by former Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali.MarketingBrandingThe Audi emblem is four overlapping rings that represent the four marques of Auto Union. The Audi emblem symbolises the amalgamation of Audi with DKW, Horch and Wanderer: the first ring from the left represents Audi, the second represents DKW, third is Horch, and the fourth and last ring Wanderer.The design is popularly believed to have been the idea of Klaus von Oertzen, the director of sales at Wanderer – when Berlin was chosen as the host city for the 1936 Summer Olympics and that a form of the Olympic logo symbolized the newly established Auto Union's desire to succeed.  Somewhat ironically, the International Olympic Committee later sued Audi in the International Trademark Court in 1995, where they lost.The original "Audi" script, with the distinctive slanted tails on the "A" and "d" was created for the historic Audi company in 1920 by the famous graphic designer Lucian Bernhard, and was resurrected when Volkswagen revived the brand in 1965.  Following the demise of NSU in 1977, less prominence was given to the four rings, in preference to the "Audi" script encased within a black (later red) ellipse, and was commonly displayed next to the Volkswagen roundel when the two brands shared a dealer network under the V.A.G banner.  The ellipse (known as the Audi Oval) was phased out after 1994, when Audi formed its own independent dealer network, and prominence was given back to the four rings – at the same time Audi Sans (a derivative of Univers) was adopted as the font for all marketing materials, corporate communications and was also used in the vehicles themselves.As part of Audi's centennial celebration in 2009, the company updated the logo, changing the font to left-aligned Audi Type, and altering the shading for the overlapping rings. The revised logo was designed by Rayan Abdullah.Audi developed a Corporate Sound concept, with Audi Sound Studio designed for producing the Corporate Sound. The Corporate Sound project began with sound agency Klangerfinder GmbH & Co KG and s12 GmbH. Audio samples were created in Klangerfinder's sound studio in Stuttgart, becoming part of Audi Sound Studio collection. Other Audi Sound Studio components include The Brand Music Pool, The Brand Voice. Audi also developed Sound Branding Toolkit including certain instruments, sound themes, rhythm and car sounds which all are supposed to reflect the AUDI sound character.Audi started using a beating heart sound trademark beginning in 1996. An updated heartbeat sound logo, developed by agencies KLANGERFINDER GmbH & Co KG of Stuttgart and S12 GmbH of Munich, was first used in 2010 in an Audi A8 commercial with the slogan The Art of Progress.SlogansAudi's corporate tagline is  , meaning "Progress through Technology". The German-language tagline is used in many European countries, including the United Kingdom (but not in Italy, where  is used), and in other markets, such as Latin America, Oceania, Africa and parts of Asia including Japan. Originally, the American tagline was Innovation through technology, but in Canada Vorsprung durch Technik was used. Since 2007, Audi has used the slogan Truth in Engineering in the U.S. However, since the Audi emissions testing scandal came to light in September 2015, this slogan was lambasted for being discordant with reality. In fact, just hours after disgraced Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn admitted to cheating on emissions data, an advertisement during the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards promoted Audi's latest advances in low emissions technology with Kermit the Frog stating, "It's not that easy being green."Vorsprung durch Technik was first used in English-language advertising after Sir John Hegarty of the Bartle Bogle Hegarty advertising agency visited the Audi factory in 1982.  In the original British television commercials, the phrase was voiced by Geoffrey Palmer. After its repeated use in advertising campaigns, the phrase found its way into popular culture, including the British comedy Only Fools and Horses, the U2 song "Zooropa" and the Blur song "Parklife". Similar-sounding phrases have also been used, including as the punchline for a joke in the movie Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and in the British TV series Peep Show.TypographyAudi Sans (based on Univers Extended) was originally created in 1997 by Ole Schäfer for MetaDesign. MetaDesign was later commissioned for a new corporate typeface called Audi Type, designed by Paul van der Laan and Pieter van Rosmalen of Bold Monday. The font began to appear in Audi's 2009 products and marketing materials.SponsorshipsAudi is a strong partner of different kinds of sports. In football, long partnerships exist between Audi and domestic clubs including Bayern Munich, Hamburger SV, 1. FC Nürnberg, Hertha BSC, and Borussia Mönchengladbach and international clubs including Chelsea, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, A.C. Milan, AFC Ajax and Perspolis. Audi also sponsors winter sports: The Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup is named after the company. Additionally, Audi supports the German Ski Association (DSV) as well as the alpine skiing national teams of Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, Italy, Austria and the U.S. For almost two decades, Audi fosters golf sport: for example with the Audi quattro Cup and the HypoVereinsbank Ladies German Open presented by Audi. In sailing, Audi is engaged in the Medcup regatta and supports the team Luna Rossa during the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and also is the primary sponsor of the Melges 20 sailboat. Further, Audi sponsors the regional teams ERC Ingolstadt (hockey) and FC Ingolstadt 04 (soccer). In 2009, the year of Audi's 100th anniversary, the company organized the Audi Cup for the first time. Audi also sponsor the New York Yankees as well. In October 2010 they agreed to a three sponsorship year-deal with Everton. Audi also sponsors the England Polo Team and holds the Audi Polo Awards.Marvel Cinematic UniverseSince the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Audi signed a deal to sponsor, promote and provide vehicles for several films. So far these have been, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. The R8 supercar became the personal vehicle for Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) for six of these films. The e-tron vehicles were promoted in Endgame and Far From Home. Several commercials were co-produced by Marvel and Audi to promote several new concepts and some of the latest vehicles such as the A8, SQ7 and the e-Tron fleet.Multitronic campaignIn 2001, Audi promoted the new multitronic continuously variable transmission with television commercials throughout Europe, featuring an impersonator of musician and actor Elvis Presley. A prototypical dashboard figure – later named "Wackel-Elvis" ("Wobble Elvis" or "Wobbly Elvis") – appeared in the commercials to demonstrate the smooth ride in an Audi equipped with the multitronic transmission. The dashboard figure was originally intended for use in the commercials only, but after they aired the demand for Wackel-Elvis fans grew among fans and the figure was mass-produced in China and marketed by Audi in their factory outlet store.Audi TDIAs part of Audi's attempt to promote its Diesel technology in 2009, the company began Audi Mileage Marathon. The driving tour featured a fleet of 23 Audi TDI vehicles from 4 models (Audi Q7 3.0 TDI, Audi Q5 3.0 TDI, Audi A4 3.0 TDI, Audi A3 Sportback 2.0 TDI with S tronic transmission) travelling across the American continent from New York to Los Angeles, passing major cities like Chicago, Dallas and Las Vegas during the 13 daily stages, as well as natural wonders including the Rocky Mountains, Death Valley and the Grand Canyon.Audi e-tronThe next phase of technology Audi is developing is the e-tron electric drive powertrain system. They have shown several concept cars , each with different levels of size and performance. The original e-tron concept shown at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show is based on the platform of the R8 and has been scheduled for limited production. Power is provided by electric motors at all four wheels. The second concept was shown at the 2010 Detroit Motor Show. Power is provided by two electric motors at the rear axle. This concept is also considered to be the direction for a future mid-engined gas-powered 2-seat performance coupe. The Audi A1 e-tron concept, based on the Audi A1 production model, is a hybrid vehicle with a range extending Wankel rotary engine to provide power after the initial charge of the battery is depleted. It is the only concept of the three to have range-extending capability. The car is powered through the front wheels, always using electric power.It is all set to be displayed at the Auto Expo 2012 in New Delhi, India, from 5 January. Powered by a 1.4 litre engine, and can cover a distance up to 54 km s on a single charge. The e-tron was also shown in the 2013 blockbuster film Iron Man 3 and was driven by Tony Stark (Iron Man).In video gamesAudi has supported the European version of PlayStation Home, the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, by releasing a dedicated Home space. Audi is the first carmaker to develop such a space for Home. On 17 December 2009, Audi released two spaces; the Audi Home Terminal and the Audi Vertical Run. The Audi Home Terminal features an Audi TV channel delivering video content, an Internet Browser feature, and a view of a city. The Audi Vertical Run is where users can access the mini-game Vertical Run, a futuristic mini-game featuring Audi's e-tron concept. Players collect energy and race for the highest possible speeds and the fastest players earn a place in the Audi apartments located in a large tower in the centre of the Audi Space. In both the Home Terminal and Vertical Run spaces, there are teleports where users can teleport back and forth between the two spaces. Audi had stated that additional content would be added in 2010. On 31 March 2015 Sony shutdown the PlayStation Home service rendering all content for it inaccessible.See alsoDKWHorchWanderer (company)NotesReferencesExternal links  Companies based in Baden-WürttembergCar manufacturers of GermanyCompanies based in BavariaCompanies based in IngolstadtCompanies formerly listed on the Frankfurt Stock ExchangeVehicle manufacturing companies established in 1909Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1939Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1965Re-established companiesGerman brandsLuxury motor vehicle manufacturersCompanies based in SaxonySports car manufacturersVolkswagen GroupCar brandsGerman companies established in 1909
An aircraft is a vehicle or machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation. The science of aviation, including designing and building aircraft, is called aeronautics. Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as lift type, aircraft propulsion, usage and others.History Flying model craft and stories of manned flight go back many centuries; however, the first manned ascent — and safe descent — in modern times took place by larger hot-air balloons developed in the 18th century. Each of the two World Wars led to great technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras: Pioneers of flight, from the earliest experiments to 1914. First World War, 1914 to 1918. Aviation between the World Wars, 1918 to 1939. Second World War, 1939 to 1945. Postwar era, also called the Jet Age, 1945 to the present day.Methods of liftLighter than air – aerostatsAerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large cells or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, it adds up to the same weight as the air that the craft displaces.Small hot-air balloons, called sky lanterns, were first invented in ancient China prior to the 3rd century BC and used primarily in cultural celebrations, and were only the second type of aircraft to fly, the first being kites, which were first invented in ancient China over two thousand years ago. (See Han Dynasty)A balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs — usually fixed-wing. In 1919, Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to "ships of the air," with smaller passenger types as "Air yachts." In the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as "ships of the air" or "flying-ships". — though none had yet been built. The advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by a rigid outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced, the Zeppelins being the largest and most famous. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, so "airship" came to be synonymous with these aircraft. Then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a "balloon" is an unpowered aerostat and an "airship" is a powered one.A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible. Sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship (which may then be rigid or non-rigid). Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back. These soon became known as blimps. During World War II, this shape was widely adopted for tethered balloons; in windy weather, this both reduces the strain on the tether and stabilizes the balloon. The nickname blimp was adopted along with the shape. In modern times, any small dirigible or airship is called a blimp, though a blimp may be unpowered as well as powered.Heavier-than-air – aerodynes Heavier-than-air aircraft, such as airplanes, must find some way to push air or gas downwards so that a reaction occurs (by Newton's laws of motion) to push the aircraft upwards. This dynamic movement through the air is the origin of the term. There are two ways to produce dynamic upthrust — aerodynamic lift, and powered lift in the form of engine thrust.Aerodynamic lift involving wings is the most common, with fixed-wing aircraft being kept in the air by the forward movement of wings, and rotorcraft by spinning wing-shaped rotors sometimes called rotary wings. A wing is a flat, horizontal surface, usually shaped in cross-section as an aerofoil. To fly, air must flow over the wing and generate lift. A flexible wing is a wing made of fabric or thin sheet material, often stretched over a rigid frame. A kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the speed of the wind over its wings, which may be flexible or rigid, fixed, or rotary.With powered lift, the aircraft directs its engine thrust vertically downward. V/STOL aircraft, such as the Harrier Jump Jet and Lockheed Martin F-35B take off and land vertically using powered lift and transfer to aerodynamic lift in steady flight.A pure rocket is not usually regarded as an aerodyne because it does not depend on the air for its lift (and can even fly into space); however, many aerodynamic lift vehicles have been powered or assisted by rocket motors. Rocket-powered missiles that obtain aerodynamic lift at very high speed due to airflow over their bodies are a marginal case.Fixed-wing The forerunner of the fixed-wing aircraft is the kite. Whereas a fixed-wing aircraft relies on its forward speed to create airflow over the wings, a kite is tethered to the ground and relies on the wind blowing over its wings to provide lift. Kites were the first kind of aircraft to fly and were invented in China around 500 BC. Much aerodynamic research was done with kites before test aircraft, wind tunnels, and computer modelling programs became available.The first heavier-than-air craft capable of controlled free-flight were gliders. A glider designed by George Cayley carried out the first true manned, controlled flight in 1853.The practical, powered, fixed-wing aircraft (the airplane or aeroplane) was invented by Wilbur and Orville Wright. Besides the method of propulsion, fixed-wing aircraft are in general characterized by their wing configuration. The most important wing characteristics are: Number of wings — monoplane, biplane, etc. Wing support — Braced or cantilever, rigid, or flexible. Wing planform — including aspect ratio, angle of sweep, and any variations along the span (including the important class of delta wings). Location of the horizontal stabilizer, if any. Dihedral angle — positive, zero, or negative (anhedral).A variable geometry aircraft can change its wing configuration during flight.A flying wing has no fuselage, though it may have small blisters or pods. The opposite of this is a lifting body, which has no wings, though it may have small stabilizing and control surfaces.Wing-in-ground-effect vehicles are generally not considered aircraft. They "fly" efficiently close to the surface of the ground or water, like conventional aircraft during takeoff. An example is the Russian ekranoplan nicknamed the "Caspian Sea Monster". Man-powered aircraft also rely on ground effect to remain airborne with minimal pilot power, but this is only because they are so underpowered—in fact, the airframe is capable of flying higher.Rotorcraft Rotorcraft, or rotary-wing aircraft, use a spinning rotor with aerofoil section blades (a rotary wing) to provide lift. Types include helicopters, autogyros, and various hybrids such as gyrodynes and compound rotorcraft.Helicopters have a rotor turned by an engine-driven shaft. The rotor pushes air downward to create lift. By tilting the rotor forward, the downward flow is tilted backward, producing thrust for forward flight. Some helicopters have more than one rotor and a few have rotors turned by gas jets at the tips.Autogyros have unpowered rotors, with a separate power plant to provide thrust. The rotor is tilted backward. As the autogyro moves forward, air blows upward across the rotor, making it spin. This spinning increases the speed of airflow over the rotor, to provide lift. Rotor kites are unpowered autogyros, which are towed to give them forward speed or tethered to a static anchor in high-wind for kited flight.Cyclogyros rotate their wings about a horizontal axis.Compound rotorcraft have wings that provide some or all of the lift in forward flight. They are nowadays classified as powered lift types and not as rotorcraft. Tiltrotor aircraft (such as the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey), tiltwing, tail-sitter, and coleopter aircraft have their rotors/propellers horizontal for vertical flight and vertical for forward flight.Other methods of lift  A lifting body is an aircraft body shaped to produce lift. If there are any wings, they are too small to provide significant lift and are used only for stability and control. Lifting bodies are not efficient: they suffer from high drag, and must also travel at high speed to generate enough lift to fly. Many of the research prototypes, such as the Martin Marietta X-24, which led up to the Space Shuttle, were lifting bodies, though the Space Shuttle is not, and some supersonic missiles obtain lift from the airflow over a tubular body. Powered lift types rely on engine-derived lift for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). Most types transition to fixed-wing lift for horizontal flight. Classes of powered lift types include VTOL jet aircraft (such as the Harrier Jump Jet) and tiltrotors, such as the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, among others. A few experimental designs rely entirely on engine thrust to provide lift throughout the whole flight, including personal fan-lift hover platforms and jetpacks. VTOL research designs include the Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig. The Flettner airplane uses a rotating cylinder in place of a fixed wing, obtaining lift from the Magnus effect. The ornithopter obtains thrust by flapping its wings.Size and speed extremesSize The smallest aircraft are toys/recreational items, and nano aircraft.The largest aircraft by dimensions and volume (as of 2016) is the  long British Airlander 10, a hybrid blimp, with helicopter and fixed-wing features, and reportedly capable of speeds up to , and an airborne endurance of two weeks with a payload of up to .The largest aircraft by weight and largest regular fixed-wing aircraft ever built, , is the Antonov An-225 Mriya. That Ukrainian-built six-engine Russian transport of the 1980s is  long, with an  wingspan. It holds the world payload record, after transporting  of goods, and has recently flown  loads commercially. With a maximum loaded weight of , it is also the heaviest aircraft built to date. It can cruise at .The largest military airplanes are the Ukrainian Antonov An-124 Ruslan (world's second-largest airplane, also used as a civilian transport), and American Lockheed C-5 Galaxy transport, weighing, loaded, over . The 8-engine, piston/propeller Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" — an American World War II wooden flying boat transport with a greater wingspan (94m/260ft) than any current aircraft and a tail height equal to the tallest (Airbus A380-800 at 24.1m/78ft) — flew only one short hop in the late 1940s and never flew out of ground effect.The largest civilian airplanes, apart from the above-noted An-225 and An-124, are the Airbus Beluga cargo transport derivative of the Airbus A300 jet airliner, the Boeing Dreamlifter cargo transport derivative of the Boeing 747 jet airliner/transport (the 747-200B was, at its creation in the 1960s, the heaviest aircraft ever built, with a maximum weight of over ), and the double-decker Airbus A380 "super-jumbo" jet airliner (the world's largest passenger airliner).Speeds The fastest recorded powered aircraft flight and fastest recorded aircraft flight of an air-breathing powered aircraft was of the NASA X-43A Pegasus, a scramjet-powered, hypersonic, lifting body experimental research aircraft, at Mach 9.6, exactly . The X-43A set that new mark, and broke its own world record of Mach 6.3, exactly , set in March 2004, on its third and final flight on 16 November 2004.Prior to the X-43A, the fastest recorded powered airplane flight (and still the record for the fastest manned, powered airplane / fastest manned, non-spacecraft aircraft) was of the North American X-15A-2, rocket-powered airplane at Mach 6.72, or , on 3 October 1967. On one flight it reached an altitude of .The fastest known, production aircraft (other than rockets and missiles) currently or formerly operational (as of 2016) are: The fastest fixed-wing aircraft, and fastest glider, is the Space Shuttle, a rocket-glider hybrid, which has re-entered the atmosphere as a fixed-wing glider at more than Mach 25, equal to . The fastest military airplane ever built: Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, a U.S. reconnaissance jet fixed-wing aircraft, known to fly beyond Mach 3.3, equal to . On 28 July 1976, an SR-71 set the record for the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft with an absolute speed record of  and an absolute altitude record of . At its retirement in January 1990, it was the fastest air-breathing aircraft / fastest jet aircraft in the world, a record still standing .Note: Some sources refer to the above-mentioned X-15 as the "fastest military airplane" because it was partly a project of the U.S. Navy and Air Force; however, the X-15 was not used in non-experimental actual military operations. The fastest current military aircraft are the Soviet/Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 — capable of Mach 3.2, equal to , at the expense of engine damage, or Mach 2.83, equal to , normally — and the Russian Mikoyan MiG-31E (also capable of Mach 2.83 normally). Both are fighter-interceptor jet airplanes, in active operations as of 2016. The fastest civilian airplane ever built, and fastest passenger airliner ever built: the briefly operated Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic jet airliner (Mach 2.35, 1,600 mph, 2,587 km/h), which was believed to cruise at about Mach 2.2. The Tu-144 (officially operated from 1968 to 1978, ending after two crashes of the small fleet) was outlived by its rival, the Concorde (Mach 2.23), a French/British supersonic airliner, known to cruise at Mach 2.02 (1.450 mph, 2,333 kmh at cruising altitude), operating from 1976 until the small Concorde fleet was grounded permanently in 2003, following the crash of one in the early 2000s. The fastest civilian airplane currently flying: the Cessna Citation X, an American business jet, capable of Mach 0.935, or . Its rival, the American Gulfstream G650 business jet, can reach Mach 0.925, or  The fastest airliner currently flying is the Boeing 747, quoted as being capable of cruising over Mach 0.885, . Previously, the fastest were the troubled, short-lived Russian (Soviet Union) Tupolev Tu-144 SST (Mach 2.35; equal to ) and the French/British Concorde, with a maximum speed of Mach 2.23 or  and a normal cruising speed of Mach 2 or . Before them, the Convair 990 Coronado jet airliner of the 1960s flew at over .PropulsionUnpowered aircraft Gliders are heavier-than-air aircraft that do not employ propulsion once airborne. Take-off may be by launching forward and downward from a high location, or by pulling into the air on a tow-line, either by a ground-based winch or vehicle, or by a powered "tug" aircraft. For a glider to maintain its forward air speed and lift, it must descend in relation to the air (but not necessarily in relation to the ground). Many gliders can "soar", i.e., gain height from updrafts such as thermal currents. The first practical, controllable example was designed and built by the British scientist and pioneer George Cayley, whom many recognise as the first aeronautical engineer. Common examples of gliders are sailplanes, hang gliders and paragliders.Balloons drift with the wind, though normally the pilot can control the altitude, either by heating the air or by releasing ballast, giving some directional control (since the wind direction changes with altitude). A wing-shaped hybrid balloon can glide directionally when rising or falling; but a spherically shaped balloon does not have such directional control.Kites are aircraft that are tethered to the ground or other object (fixed or mobile) that maintains tension in the tether or kite line; they rely on virtual or real wind blowing over and under them to generate lift and drag. Kytoons are balloon-kite hybrids that are shaped and tethered to obtain kiting deflections, and can be lighter-than-air, neutrally buoyant, or heavier-than-air.Powered aircraft Powered aircraft have one or more onboard sources of mechanical power, typically aircraft engines although rubber and manpower have also been used. Most aircraft engines are either lightweight reciprocating engines or gas turbines. Engine fuel is stored in tanks, usually in the wings but larger aircraft also have additional fuel tanks in the fuselage.Propeller aircraft Propeller aircraft use one or more propellers (airscrews) to create thrust in a forward direction. The propeller is usually mounted in front of the power source in tractor configuration but can be mounted behind in pusher configuration. Variations of propeller layout include contra-rotating propellers and ducted fans.Many kinds of power plant have been used to drive propellers. Early airships used man power or steam engines. The more practical internal combustion piston engine was used for virtually all fixed-wing aircraft until World War II and is still used in many smaller aircraft. Some types use turbine engines to drive a propeller in the form of a turboprop or propfan. Human-powered flight has been achieved, but has not become a practical means of transport. Unmanned aircraft and models have also used power sources such as electric motors and rubber bands.Jet aircraft Jet aircraft use airbreathing jet engines, which take in air, burn fuel with it in a combustion chamber, and accelerate the exhaust rearwards to provide thrust.Different jet engine configurations include the turbojet and turbofan, sometimes with the addition of an afterburner. Those with no rotating turbomachinery include the pulsejet and ramjet. These mechanically simple engines produce no thrust when stationary, so the aircraft must be launched to flying speed using a catapult, like the V-1 flying bomb, or a rocket, for example. Other engine types include the motorjet and the dual-cycle Pratt & Whitney J58.Compared to engines using propellers, jet engines can provide much higher thrust, higher speeds and, above about , greater efficiency. They are also much more fuel-efficient than rockets. As a consequence nearly all large, high-speed or high-altitude aircraft use jet engines.Rotorcraft Some rotorcraft, such as helicopters, have a powered rotary wing or rotor, where the rotor disc can be angled slightly forward so that a proportion of its lift is directed forwards. The rotor may, like a propeller, be powered by a variety of methods such as a piston engine or turbine. Experiments have also used jet nozzles at the rotor blade tips.Other types of powered aircraft  Rocket-powered aircraft have occasionally been experimented with, and the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet fighter even saw action in the Second World War. Since then, they have been restricted to research aircraft, such as the North American X-15, which traveled up into space where air-breathing engines cannot work (rockets carry their own oxidant). Rockets have more often been used as a supplement to the main power plant, typically for the rocket-assisted take off of heavily loaded aircraft, but also to provide high-speed dash capability in some hybrid designs such as the Saunders-Roe SR.53. The ornithopter obtains thrust by flapping its wings. It has found practical use in a model hawk used to freeze prey animals into stillness so that they can be captured, and in toy birds.Design and construction Aircraft are designed according to many factors such as customer and manufacturer demand, safety protocols and physical and economic constraints. For many types of aircraft the design process is regulated by national airworthiness authorities.The key parts of an aircraft are generally divided into three categories: The structure comprises the main load-bearing elements and associated equipment. The propulsion system (if it is powered) comprises the power source and associated equipment, as described above. The avionics comprise the control, navigation and communication systems, usually electrical in nature.Structure The approach to structural design varies widely between different types of aircraft. Some, such as paragliders, comprise only flexible materials that act in tension and rely on aerodynamic pressure to hold their shape. A balloon similarly relies on internal gas pressure, but may have a rigid basket or gondola slung below it to carry its payload. Early aircraft, including airships, often employed flexible doped aircraft fabric covering to give a reasonably smooth aeroshell stretched over a rigid frame. Later aircraft employed semi-monocoque techniques, where the skin of the aircraft is stiff enough to share much of the flight loads. In a true monocoque design there is no internal structure left. With the recent emphasis on sustainability hemp has picked up some attention, having a way smaller carbon foot print and 10 times stronger than steel, hemp could become the standard of manufacturing in the future. The key structural parts of an aircraft depend on what type it is.Aerostats Lighter-than-air types are characterised by one or more gasbags, typically with a supporting structure of flexible cables or a rigid framework called its hull. Other elements such as engines or a gondola may also be attached to the supporting structure.Aerodynes Heavier-than-air types are characterised by one or more wings and a central fuselage. The fuselage typically also carries a tail or empennage for stability and control, and an undercarriage for takeoff and landing. Engines may be located on the fuselage or wings. On a fixed-wing aircraft the wings are rigidly attached to the fuselage, while on a rotorcraft the wings are attached to a rotating vertical shaft. Smaller designs sometimes use flexible materials for part or all of the structure, held in place either by a rigid frame or by air pressure. The fixed parts of the structure comprise the airframe.Avionics The avionics comprise the aircraft flight control systems and related equipment, including the cockpit instrumentation, navigation, radar, monitoring, and communications systems.Flight characteristicsFlight envelope The flight envelope of an aircraft refers to its approved design capabilities in terms of airspeed, load factor and altitude. The term can also refer to other assessments of aircraft performance such as maneuverability. When an aircraft is abused, for instance by diving it at too-high a speed, it is said to be flown outside the envelope, something considered foolhardy since it has been taken beyond the design limits which have been established by the manufacturer. Going beyond the envelope may have a known outcome such as flutter or entry to a non-recoverable spin (possible reasons for the boundary).Range The range is the distance an aircraft can fly between takeoff and landing, as limited by the time it can remain airborne.For a powered aircraft the time limit is determined by the fuel load and rate of consumption.For an unpowered aircraft, the maximum flight time is limited by factors such as weather conditions and pilot endurance. Many aircraft types are restricted to daylight hours, while balloons are limited by their supply of lifting gas. The range can be seen as the average ground speed multiplied by the maximum time in the air.The Airbus A350-900ULR is now the longest range airliner.Flight dynamics Flight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation around three axes which pass through the vehicle's center of gravity, known as pitch, roll, and yaw. Roll is a rotation about the longitudinal axis (equivalent to the rolling or heeling of a ship) giving an up-down movement of the wing tips measured by the roll or bank angle. Pitch is a rotation about the sideways horizontal axis giving an up-down movement of the aircraft nose measured by the angle of attack. Yaw is a rotation about the vertical axis giving a side-to-side movement of the nose known as sideslip.Flight dynamics is concerned with the stability and control of an aircraft's rotation about each of these axes.Stability An aircraft that is unstable tends to diverge from its intended flight path and so is difficult to fly. A very stable aircraft tends to stay on its flight path and is difficult to maneuver. Therefore, it is important for any design to achieve the desired degree of stability. Since the widespread use of digital computers, it is increasingly common for designs to be inherently unstable and rely on computerised control systems to provide artificial stability.A fixed wing is typically unstable in  pitch, roll, and yaw. Pitch and yaw stabilities of conventional fixed wing designs require horizontal and vertical stabilisers, which act similarly to the feathers on an arrow. These stabilizing surfaces allow equilibrium of aerodynamic forces and to stabilise the flight dynamics of pitch and yaw. They are usually mounted on the tail section (empennage), although in the canard layout, the main aft wing replaces the canard foreplane as pitch stabilizer. Tandem wing and tailless aircraft rely on the same general rule to achieve stability, the aft surface being the stabilising one.A rotary wing is typically unstable in yaw, requiring a vertical stabiliser.A balloon is typically very stable in pitch and roll due to the way the payload is slung underneath the center of lift.Control Flight control surfaces enable the pilot to control an aircraft's flight attitude and are usually part of the wing or mounted on, or integral with, the associated stabilizing surface. Their development was a critical advance in the history of aircraft, which had until that point been uncontrollable in flight.Aerospace engineers develop control systems for a vehicle's orientation (attitude) about its center of mass. The control systems include actuators, which exert forces in various directions, and generate rotational forces or moments about the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, and thus rotate the aircraft in pitch, roll, or yaw. For example, a pitching moment is a vertical force applied at a distance forward or aft from the aerodynamic center of the aircraft, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down. Control systems are also sometimes used to increase or decrease drag, for example to slow the aircraft to a safe speed for landing.The two main aerodynamic forces acting on any aircraft are lift supporting it in the air and drag opposing its motion. Control surfaces or other techniques may also be used to affect these forces directly, without inducing any rotation.Impacts of aircraft use Aircraft permit long distance, high speed travel and may be a more fuel efficient mode of transportation in some circumstances. Aircraft have environmental and climate impacts beyond fuel efficiency considerations, however. They are also relatively noisy compared to other forms of travel and high altitude aircraft generate contrails, which experimental evidence suggests may alter weather patterns.Uses for aircraft Aircraft are produced in several different types optimized for various uses; military aircraft, which includes not just combat types but many types of supporting aircraft, and civil aircraft, which include all non-military types, experimental and model.Military A military aircraft is any aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: Combat aircraft are aircraft designed to destroy enemy equipment using its own armament. Combat aircraft divide broadly into fighters and bombers, with several in-between types, such as fighter-bombers and attack aircraft, including attack helicopters. Non-combat aircraft are not designed for combat as their primary function, but may carry weapons for self-defense. Non-combat roles include search and rescue, reconnaissance, observation, transport, training, and aerial refueling. These aircraft are often variants of civil aircraft.Most military aircraft are powered heavier-than-air types. Other types, such as gliders and balloons, have also been used as military aircraft; for example, balloons were used for observation during the American Civil War and World War I, and military gliders were used during World War II to land troops.Civil Civil aircraft divide into commercial and general types, however there are some overlaps.Commercial aircraft include types designed for scheduled and charter airline flights, carrying passengers, mail and other cargo. The larger passenger-carrying types are the airliners, the largest of which are wide-body aircraft. Some of the smaller types are also used in general aviation, and some of the larger types are used as VIP aircraft.General aviation is a catch-all covering other kinds of private (where the pilot is not paid for time or expenses) and commercial use, and involving a wide range of aircraft types such as business jets (bizjets), trainers, homebuilt, gliders, warbirds and hot air balloons to name a few. The vast majority of aircraft today are general aviation types.Experimental An experimental aircraft is one that has not been fully proven in flight, or that carries a Special Airworthiness Certificate, called an Experimental Certificate in United States parlance. This often implies that the aircraft is testing new aerospace technologies, though the term also refers to amateur-built and kit-built aircraft, many of which are based on proven designs.Model A model aircraft is a small unmanned type made to fly for fun, for static display, for aerodynamic research or for other purposes. A scale model is a replica of some larger design.See alsoLists  Early flying machines Flight altitude record List of aircraft List of civil aircraft List of fighter aircraft List of individual aircraft List of large aircraft List of aviation, aerospace and aeronautical termsTopics  Aircraft hijacking Aircraft spotting Air traffic control Airport Flying car Personal air vehicle Powered parachute Spacecraft SpaceplaneReferencesExternal linksHistory The Evolution of Modern Aircraft (NASA) Virtual Museum Smithsonian Air and Space Museum — Online collection with a particular focus on history of aircraft and spacecraft Amazing Early Flying Machines  slideshow by Life magazineInformation Airliners.net Aviation Dictionary Free aviation terms, phrases and jargons New Scientist's Aviation page
Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( , ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize, though he also made several important contributions to science, holding 355 patents in his lifetime. Nobel's most famous invention was dynamite, a safer and easier means of harnessing the explosive power of nitroglycerin; it was patented in 1867 and was soon used worldwide for mining and infrastructure development. Nobel displayed an early aptitude for science and learning, particularly in chemistry and languages; he became fluent in six languages and filed his first patent at age 24. He embarked on many business ventures with his family, most notably owning Bofors, an iron and steel producer that he developed into a major manufacturer of cannons and other armaments. After reading an erroneous obituary condemning him as a war profiteer, Nobel was inspired to bequeath his fortune to the Nobel Prize institution, which would annually recognize those who "conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". The synthetic element nobelium was named after him, and his name and legacy also survives in companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, which descend from mergers with companies he founded.Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which, pursuant to his will, would be responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates in physics and in chemistry.Personal lifeEarly life and education Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway on 21 October 1833. He was the third son of Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872), an inventor and engineer, and Karolina Andriette Nobel (née Ahlsell 1805–1889). The couple married in 1827 and had eight children. The family was impoverished and only Alfred and his three brothers survived beyond childhood. Through his father, Alfred Nobel was a descendant of the Swedish scientist Olaus Rudbeck (1630–1702), and in his turn, the boy was interested in engineering, particularly explosives, learning the basic principles from his father at a young age. Alfred Nobel's interest in technology was inherited from his father, an alumnus of Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.Following various business failures, Nobel's father moved to Saint Petersburg, Russia and grew successful there as a manufacturer of machine tools and explosives. He invented the veneer lathe (which made possible the production of modern plywood) and started work on the torpedo. In 1842, the family joined him in the city. Now prosperous, his parents were able to send Nobel to private tutors and the boy excelled in his studies, particularly in chemistry and languages, achieving fluency in English, French, German and Russian. For 18 months, from 1841 to 1842, Nobel went to the only school he ever attended as a child, in Stockholm.Nobel gained proficiency in Swedish, French, Russian, English, German, and Italian. He also developed sufficient literary skill to write poetry in English. His Nemesis is a prose tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci. It was printed while he was dying, but the entire stock was destroyed immediately after his death except for three copies, being regarded as scandalous and blasphemous. It was published in Sweden in 2003 and has been translated into Slovenian and French.Religion Nobel was Lutheran and regularly attended the Church of Sweden Abroad during his Paris years, led by pastor Nathan Söderblom who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1930. He became an agnostic in youth and was an atheist later in life, though still donated generously to the Church.Health and relationships Nobel travelled for much of his business life, maintaining companies in Europe and America while keeping a home in Paris from 1873 to 1891. He remained a solitary character, given to periods of depression. He remained unmarried, although his biographers note that he had at least three loves, the first in Russia with a girl named Alexandra who rejected his proposal. In 1876, Austro-Bohemian Countess Bertha Kinsky became his secretary, but she left him after a brief stay to marry her previous lover Baron Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. Her contact with Nobel was brief, yet she corresponded with him until his death in 1896, and probably influenced his decision to include a peace prize in his will. She was awarded the 1905 Nobel Peace prize "for her sincere peace activities". Nobel's longest-lasting relationship was with Sofija Hess from Celje whom he met in 1876. The liaison lasted for 18 years.Residences In the years of 1865 to 1873, Alfred Nobel had his home in Krümmel, Hamburg, he afterward moved to a house in the Avenue Malakoff in Paris that same year.In 1894, when he acquired Bofors-Gullspång, the Björkborn Manor was included, he stayed at his manor house in Sweden during the summers. The manor house became his very last residence in Sweden and has after his death functioned as a museum.Alfred Nobel died on 10 December 1896, in Sanremo, Italy, at his very last residence, Villa Nobel, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.Scientific careerAs a young man, Nobel studied with chemist Nikolai Zinin; then, in 1850, went to Paris to further the work. There he met Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerin three years before. Sobrero strongly opposed the use of nitroglycerin because it was unpredictable, exploding when subjected to variable heat or pressure. But Nobel became interested in finding a way to control and use nitroglycerin as a commercially usable explosive; it had much more power than gunpowder. In 1851 at age 18, he went to the United States for one year to study, working for a short period under Swedish-American inventor John Ericsson, who designed the American Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor. Nobel filed his first patent, an English patent for a gas meter, in 1857, while his first Swedish patent, which he received in 1863, was on "ways to prepare gunpowder".The family factory produced armaments for the Crimean War (1853–1856), but had difficulty switching back to regular domestic production when the fighting ended and they filed for bankruptcy. In 1859, Nobel's father left his factory in the care of the second son, Ludvig Nobel (1831–1888), who greatly improved the business. Nobel and his parents returned to Sweden from Russia and Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the safe manufacture and use of nitroglycerin. Nobel invented a detonator in 1863, and in 1865 designed the blasting cap.On 3 September 1864, a shed used for preparation of nitroglycerin exploded at the factory in Heleneborg, Stockholm, Sweden, killing five people, including Nobel's younger brother Emil. Fazed by the accident, Nobel founded the company Nitroglycerin Aktiebolaget AB in Vinterviken so that he could continue to work in a more isolated area. Nobel invented dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin. Dynamite was patented in the US and the UK and was used extensively in mining and the building of transport networks internationally. In 1875, Nobel invented gelignite, more stable and powerful than dynamite, and in 1887, patented ballistite, a predecessor of cordite.Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that would later select laureates for two of the Nobel prizes, and he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1893.Nobel's brothers Ludvig and Robert founded the oil company Branobel and became hugely rich in their own right. Nobel invested in these and amassed great wealth through the development of these new oil regions. During his life, Nobel was issued 355 patents internationally, and by his death, his business had established more than 90 armaments factories, despite his apparently pacifist character.InventionsNobel found that when nitroglycerin was incorporated in an absorbent inert substance like kieselguhr (diatomaceous earth) it became safer and more convenient to handle, and this mixture he patented in 1867 as "dynamite". Nobel demonstrated his explosive for the first time that year, at a quarry in Redhill, Surrey, England. In order to help reestablish his name and improve the image of his business from the earlier controversies associated with dangerous explosives, Nobel had also considered naming the highly powerful substance "Nobel's Safety Powder", but settled with Dynamite instead, referring to the Greek word for "power" ().Nobel later combined nitroglycerin with various nitrocellulose compounds, similar to collodion, but settled on a more efficient recipe combining another nitrate explosive, and obtained a transparent, jelly-like substance, which was a more powerful explosive than dynamite. Gelignite, or blasting gelatine, as it was named, was patented in 1876; and was followed by a host of similar combinations, modified by the addition of potassium nitrate and various other substances. Gelignite was more stable, transportable and conveniently formed to fit into bored holes, like those used in drilling and mining, than the previously used compounds. It was adopted as the standard technology for mining in the "Age of Engineering", bringing Nobel a great amount of financial success, though at a cost to his health. An offshoot of this research resulted in Nobel's invention of ballistite, the precursor of many modern smokeless powder explosives and still used as a rocket propellant.Nobel PrizeIn 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. One French newspaper condemned him for his invention of military explosives—not, as is commonly quoted, dynamite, which was mainly used for civilian applications—and is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death. The obituary stated,  ("The merchant of death is dead"), and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday." Nobel read the obituary and was appalled at the idea that he would be remembered in this way. His decision to posthumously donate the majority of his wealth to found the Nobel Prize has been credited at least in part to him wanting to leave behind a better legacy.On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. After taxes and bequests to individuals, Nobel's will allocated 94% of his total assets, 31,225,000 Swedish kronor, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. This converted to £1,687,837 (GBP) at the time. In 2012, the capital was worth around SEK 3.1 billion (US$472 million, EUR 337 million), which is almost twice the amount of the initial capital, taking inflation into account.The first three of these prizes are awarded for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.The formulation for the literary prize being given for a work "in an ideal direction" ( in Swedish), is cryptic and has caused much confusion. For many years, the Swedish Academy interpreted "ideal" as "idealistic" () and used it as a reason not to give the prize to important but less romantic authors, such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy. This interpretation has since been revised, and the prize has been awarded to, for example, Dario Fo and José Saramago, who do not belong to the camp of literary idealism.There was room for interpretation by the bodies he had named for deciding on the physical sciences and chemistry prizes, given that he had not consulted them before making the will. In his one-page testament, he stipulated that the money go to discoveries or inventions in the physical sciences and to discoveries or improvements in chemistry. He had opened the door to technological awards, but had not left instructions on how to deal with the distinction between science and technology. Since the deciding bodies he had chosen were more concerned with the former, the prizes went to scientists more often than engineers, technicians or other inventors.Sweden's central bank Sveriges Riksbank celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1968 by donating a large sum of money to the Nobel Foundation to be used to set up a sixth prize in the field of economics in honour of Alfred Nobel.  In 2001, Alfred Nobel's great-great-nephew, Peter Nobel (born 1931), asked the Bank of Sweden to differentiate its award to economists given "in Alfred Nobel's memory" from the five other awards. This request added to the controversy over whether the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is actually a legitimate "Nobel Prize".Death Nobel was accused of high treason against France for selling Ballistite to Italy, so he moved from Paris to Sanremo, Italy in 1891. On 10 December 1896, he suffered a stroke and died. He had left most of his wealth in trust, unbeknownst to his family, in order to fund the Nobel Prize awards. He is buried in Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm.Monuments and legacy The Monument to Alfred Nobel (, ) in Saint Petersburg is located along the Bolshaya Nevka River on Petrogradskaya Embankment. It was dedicated in 1991 to mark the 90th anniversary of the first Nobel Prize presentation. Diplomat Thomas Bertelman and Professor Arkady Melua were initiators of the creation of the monument (1989). Professor A. Melua has provided funds for the establishment of the monument (J.S.Co. "Humanistica", 1990–1991). The abstract metal sculpture was designed by local artists Sergey Alipov and Pavel Shevchenko, and appears to be an explosion or branches of a tree. Petrogradskaya Embankment is the street where the Nobel's family lived until 1859.Criticism of Nobel focuses on his leading role in weapons manufacturing and sales, and some question his motives in creating his prizes, suggesting they are intended to improve his reputation.See also Nobel FoundationReferencesFurther reading Schück, H, and Sohlman, R., (1929). The Life of Alfred Nobel. London: William Heineman Ltd. Alfred Nobel US Patent No 78,317, dated 26 May 1868 Evlanoff, M. and Fluor, M. Alfred Nobel – The Loneliest Millionaire. Los Angeles, Ward Ritchie Press, 1969. Sohlman, R. The Legacy of Alfred Nobel, transl. Schubert E. London: The Bodley Head, 1983 (Swedish original, Ett Testamente, published in 1950).External links Alfred Nobel – Man behind the Prizes Biography at the Norwegian Nobel Institute Nobelprize.org Documents of Life and Activity of The Nobel Family. Under the editorship of Professor Arkady Melua. Series of books. "The Nobels in Baku" in Azerbaijan International, Vol 10.2 (Summer 2002), 56–59. The Nobel Prize in Postage Stamps A German branch or followup (German)   Alfred Nobel and his unknown coworker  1833 births1896 deathsBurials at Norra begravningsplatsenMembers of the Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesAlfredNobel PrizeEngineers from Stockholm19th-century Swedish businesspeople19th-century Swedish scientists19th-century Swedish engineersSwedish chemistsSwedish philanthropistsExplosives engineers
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a  Scottish-born inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech and both his mother and wife were deaf; profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study.Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. Although Bell was not one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society, he had a strong influence on the magazine while serving as the second president from January 7, 1898, until 1903.Beyond his work in engineering, Bell had a deep interest in the emerging science of heredity.Early lifeAlexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home was at South Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription marking it as Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace. He had two brothers: Melville James Bell (1845–1870) and Edward Charles Bell (1848–1867), both of whom would die of tuberculosis. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother was Eliza Grace Bell (née Symonds). Born as just "Alexander Bell", at age 10, he made a plea to his father to have a middle name like his two brothers. For his 11th birthday, his father acquiesced and allowed him to adopt the name "Graham", chosen out of respect for Alexander Graham, a Canadian being treated by his father who had become a family friend. To close relatives and friends he remained "Aleck".First inventionAs a child, young Bell displayed a curiosity about his world; he gathered botanical specimens and ran experiments at an early age. His best friend was Ben Herdman, a neighbour whose family operated a flour mill. At the age of 12, Bell built a homemade device that combined rotating paddles with sets of nail brushes, creating a simple dehusking machine that was put into operation at the mill and used steadily for a number of years. In return, Ben's father John Herdman gave both boys the run of a small workshop in which to "invent".From his early years, Bell showed a sensitive nature and a talent for art, poetry, and music that was encouraged by his mother. With no formal training, he mastered the piano and became the family's pianist. Despite being normally quiet and introspective, he revelled in mimicry and "voice tricks" akin to ventriloquism that continually entertained family guests during their occasional visits. Bell was also deeply affected by his mother's gradual deafness (she began to lose her hearing when he was 12), and learned a manual finger language so he could sit at her side and tap out silently the conversations swirling around the family parlour. He also developed a technique of speaking in clear, modulated tones directly into his mother's forehead wherein she would hear him with reasonable clarity. Bell's preoccupation with his mother's deafness led him to study acoustics.His family was long associated with the teaching of elocution: his grandfather, Alexander Bell, in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, in Edinburgh, were all elocutionists. His father published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are still well known, especially his The Standard Elocutionist (1860), which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. The Standard Elocutionist appeared in 168 British editions and sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone. In this treatise, his father explains his methods of how to instruct deaf-mutes (as they were then known) to articulate words and read other people's lip movements to decipher meaning. Bell's father taught him and his brothers not only to write Visible Speech but to identify any symbol and its accompanying sound. Bell became so proficient that he became a part of his father's public demonstrations and astounded audiences with his abilities. He could decipher Visible Speech representing virtually every language, including Latin, Scottish Gaelic, and even Sanskrit, accurately reciting written tracts without any prior knowledge of their pronunciation.EducationAs a young child, Bell, like his brothers, received his early schooling at home from his father. At an early age, he was enrolled at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, Scotland, which he left at the age of 15, having completed only the first four forms. His school record was undistinguished, marked by absenteeism and lacklustre grades. His main interest remained in the sciences, especially biology, while he treated other school subjects with indifference, to the dismay of his father. Upon leaving school, Bell travelled to London to live with his grandfather, Alexander Bell, on Harrington Square. During the year he spent with his grandfather, a love of learning was born, with long hours spent in serious discussion and study. The elder Bell took great efforts to have his young pupil learn to speak clearly and with conviction, the attributes that his pupil would need to become a teacher himself. At the age of 16, Bell secured a position as a "pupil-teacher" of elocution and music, in Weston House Academy at Elgin, Moray, Scotland. Although he was enrolled as a student in Latin and Greek, he instructed classes himself in return for board and £10 per session. The following year, he attended the University of Edinburgh, joining his older brother Melville who had enrolled there the previous year. In 1868, not long before he departed for Canada with his family, Bell completed his matriculation exams and was accepted for admission to University College London.First experiments with soundHis father encouraged Bell's interest in speech and, in 1863, took his sons to see a unique automaton developed by Sir Charles Wheatstone based on the earlier work of Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen. The rudimentary "mechanical man" simulated a human voice. Bell was fascinated by the machine and after he obtained a copy of von Kempelen's book, published in German, and had laboriously translated it, he and his older brother Melville built their own automaton head. Their father, highly interested in their project, offered to pay for any supplies and spurred the boys on with the enticement of a "big prize" if they were successful. While his brother constructed the throat and larynx, Bell tackled the more difficult task of recreating a realistic skull. His efforts resulted in a remarkably lifelike head that could "speak", albeit only a few words. The boys would carefully adjust the "lips" and when a bellows forced air through the windpipe, a very recognizable "Mama" ensued, to the delight of neighbours who came to see the Bell invention.Intrigued by the results of the automaton, Bell continued to experiment with a live subject, the family's Skye Terrier, "Trouve". After he taught it to growl continuously, Bell would reach into its mouth and manipulate the dog's lips and vocal cords to produce a crude-sounding "Ow ah oo ga ma ma". With little convincing, visitors believed his dog could articulate "How are you, grandmama?" Indicative of his playful nature, his experiments convinced onlookers that they saw a "talking dog". These initial forays into experimentation with sound led Bell to undertake his first serious work on the transmission of sound, using tuning forks to explore resonance.At age 19, Bell wrote a report on his work and sent it to philologist Alexander Ellis, a colleague of his father. Ellis immediately wrote back indicating that the experiments were similar to existing work in Germany, and also lent Bell a copy of Hermann von Helmholtz's work, The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music.Dismayed to find that groundbreaking work had already been undertaken by Helmholtz who had conveyed vowel sounds by means of a similar tuning fork "contraption", Bell pored over the German scientist's book. Working from his own erroneous mistranslation of a French edition, Bell fortuitously then made a deduction that would be the underpinning of all his future work on transmitting sound, reporting: "Without knowing much about the subject, it seemed to me that if vowel sounds could be produced by electrical means, so could consonants, so could articulate speech." He also later remarked: "I thought that Helmholtz had done it ... and that my failure was due only to my ignorance of electricity. It was a valuable blunder ... If I had been able to read German in those days, I might never have commenced my experiments!"Family tragedyIn 1865, when the Bell family moved to London, Bell returned to Weston House as an assistant master and, in his spare hours, continued experiments on sound using a minimum of laboratory equipment. Bell concentrated on experimenting with electricity to convey sound and later installed a telegraph wire from his room in Somerset College to that of a friend. Throughout late 1867, his health faltered mainly through exhaustion. His younger brother, Edward "Ted," was similarly bed-ridden, suffering from tuberculosis. While Bell recovered (by then referring to himself in correspondence as "A. G. Bell") and served the next year as an instructor at Somerset College, Bath, England, his brother's condition deteriorated. Edward would never recover. Upon his brother's death, Bell returned home in 1867. His older brother Melville had married and moved out. With aspirations to obtain a degree at University College London, Bell considered his next years as preparation for the degree examinations, devoting his spare time at his family's residence to studying.Helping his father in Visible Speech demonstrations and lectures brought Bell to Susanna E. Hull's private school for the deaf in South Kensington, London. His first two pupils were deaf-mute girls who made remarkable progress under his tutelage. While his older brother seemed to achieve success on many fronts including opening his own elocution school, applying for a patent on an invention, and starting a family, Bell continued as a teacher. However, in May 1870, Melville died from complications due to tuberculosis, causing a family crisis. His father had also suffered a debilitating illness earlier in life and had been restored to health by a convalescence in Newfoundland. Bell's parents embarked upon a long-planned move when they realized that their remaining son was also sickly. Acting decisively, Alexander Melville Bell asked Bell to arrange for the sale of all the family property, conclude all of his brother's affairs (Bell took over his last student, curing a pronounced lisp), and join his father and mother in setting out for the "New World". Reluctantly, Bell also had to conclude a relationship with Marie Eccleston, who, as he had surmised, was not prepared to leave England with him.CanadaIn 1870, 23-year-old Bell travelled with his parents and his brother's widow, Caroline Margaret Ottaway, to Paris, Ontario, to stay with Thomas Henderson, a Baptist minister and family friend. The Bell family soon purchased a farm of  at Tutelo Heights (now called Tutela Heights), near Brantford, Ontario. The property consisted of an orchard, large farmhouse, stable, pigsty, hen-house, and a carriage house, which bordered the Grand River.At the homestead, Bell set up his own workshop in the converted carriage house near to what he called his "dreaming place", a large hollow nestled in trees at the back of the property above the river. Despite his frail condition upon arriving in Canada, Bell found the climate and environs to his liking, and rapidly improved. He continued his interest in the study of the human voice and when he discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river at Onondaga, he learned the Mohawk language and translated its unwritten vocabulary into Visible Speech symbols. For his work, Bell was awarded the title of Honorary Chief and participated in a ceremony where he donned a Mohawk headdress and danced traditional dances.After setting up his workshop, Bell continued experiments based on Helmholtz's work with electricity and sound. He also modified a melodeon (a type of pump organ) so that it could transmit its music electrically over a distance. Once the family was settled in, both Bell and his father made plans to establish a teaching practice and in 1871, he accompanied his father to Montreal, where Melville was offered a position to teach his System of Visible Speech.Work with the deafBell's father was invited by Sarah Fuller, principal of the Boston School for Deaf Mutes (which continues today as the public Horace Mann School for the Deaf), in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, to introduce the Visible Speech System by providing training for Fuller's instructors, but he declined the post in favour of his son. Travelling to Boston in April 1871, Bell proved successful in training the school's instructors. He was subsequently asked to repeat the programme at the American Asylum for Deaf-mutes in Hartford, Connecticut, and the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.Returning home to Brantford after six months abroad, Bell continued his experiments with his "harmonic telegraph". The basic concept behind his device was that messages could be sent through a single wire if each message was transmitted at a different pitch, but work on both the transmitter and receiver was needed.Unsure of his future, he first contemplated returning to London to complete his studies, but decided to return to Boston as a teacher. His father helped him set up his private practice by contacting Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the president of the Clarke School for the Deaf for a recommendation. Teaching his father's system, in October 1872, Alexander Bell opened his "School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech" in Boston, which attracted a large number of deaf pupils, with his first class numbering 30 students. While he was working as a private tutor, one of his pupils was Helen Keller, who came to him as a young child unable to see, hear, or speak. She was later to say that Bell dedicated his life to the penetration of that "inhuman silence which separates and estranges". In 1893, Keller performed the sod-breaking ceremony for the construction of Bell's new Volta Bureau, dedicated to "the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf".Throughout his lifetime, Bell sought to integrate the deaf and hard of hearing with the hearing world. To achieve complete assimilation in society, Bell encouraged speech therapy and lip reading as well as sign language.  He outlined this in a 1898 paper detailing his belief that with resources and effort, the deaf could be taught to read lips and speak (known as oralism) thus enabling their integration within the wider society from which many were often being excluded. Owing to his efforts to balance oralism with the teaching of sign language, Bell is often viewed negatively by those embracing Deaf culture. Ironically, Bell's last words to his deaf wife, Mabell, were signed.Continuing experimentationIn 1872, Bell became professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at the Boston University School of Oratory. During this period, he alternated between Boston and Brantford, spending summers in his Canadian home. At Boston University, Bell was "swept up" by the excitement engendered by the many scientists and inventors residing in the city. He continued his research in sound and endeavored to find a way to transmit musical notes and articulate speech, but although absorbed by his experiments, he found it difficult to devote enough time to experimentation. While days and evenings were occupied by his teaching and private classes, Bell began to stay awake late into the night, running experiment after experiment in rented facilities at his boarding house. Keeping "night owl" hours, he worried that his work would be discovered and took great pains to lock up his notebooks and laboratory equipment. Bell had a specially made table where he could place his notes and equipment inside a locking cover. Worse still, his health deteriorated as he suffered severe headaches. Returning to Boston in fall 1873, Bell made a far-reaching decision to concentrate on his experiments in sound.Deciding to give up his lucrative private Boston practice, Bell retained only two students, six-year-old "Georgie" Sanders, deaf from birth, and 15-year-old Mabel Hubbard. Each pupil would play an important role in the next developments. George's father, Thomas Sanders, a wealthy businessman, offered Bell a place to stay in nearby Salem with Georgie's grandmother, complete with a room to "experiment". Although the offer was made by George's mother and followed the year-long arrangement in 1872 where her son and his nurse had moved to quarters next to Bell's boarding house, it was clear that Mr. Sanders was backing the proposal. The arrangement was for teacher and student to continue their work together, with free room and board thrown in. Mabel was a bright, attractive girl who was ten years Bell's junior but became the object of his affection. Having lost her hearing after a near-fatal bout of scarlet fever close to her fifth birthday, she had learned to read lips but her father, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell's benefactor and personal friend, wanted her to work directly with her teacher.The telephoneBy 1874, Bell's initial work on the harmonic telegraph had entered a formative stage, with progress made both at his new Boston "laboratory" (a rented facility) and at his family home in Canada a big success. While working that summer in Brantford, Bell experimented with a "phonautograph", a pen-like machine that could draw shapes of sound waves on smoked glass by tracing their vibrations. Bell thought it might be possible to generate undulating electrical currents that corresponded to sound waves. Bell also thought that multiple metal reeds tuned to different frequencies like a harp would be able to convert the undulating currents back into sound. But he had no working model to demonstrate the feasibility of these ideas.In 1874, telegraph message traffic was rapidly expanding and in the words of Western Union President William Orton, had become "the nervous system of commerce".  Orton had contracted with inventors Thomas Edison and Elisha Gray to find a way to send multiple telegraph messages on each telegraph line to avoid the great cost of constructing new lines. When Bell mentioned to Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders that he was working on a method of sending multiple tones on a telegraph wire using a multi-reed device, the two wealthy patrons began to financially support Bell's experiments. Patent matters would be handled by Hubbard's patent attorney, Anthony Pollok.In March 1875, Bell and Pollok visited the scientist Joseph Henry, who was then director of the Smithsonian Institution, and asked Henry's advice on the electrical multi-reed apparatus that Bell hoped would transmit the human voice by telegraph. Henry replied that Bell had "the germ of a great invention". When Bell said that he did not have the necessary knowledge, Henry replied, "Get it!" That declaration greatly encouraged Bell to keep trying, even though he did not have the equipment needed to continue his experiments, nor the ability to create a working model of his ideas. However, a chance meeting in 1874 between Bell and Thomas A. Watson, an experienced electrical designer and mechanic at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams, changed all that.With financial support from Sanders and Hubbard, Bell hired Thomas Watson as his assistant, and the two of them experimented with acoustic telegraphy. On June 2, 1875, Watson accidentally plucked one of the reeds and Bell, at the receiving end of the wire, heard the overtones of the reed; overtones that would be necessary for transmitting speech. That demonstrated to Bell that only one reed or armature was necessary, not multiple reeds. This led to the "gallows" sound-powered telephone, which could transmit indistinct, voice-like sounds, but not clear speech.The race to the patent officeIn 1875, Bell developed an acoustic telegraph and drew up a patent application for it. Since he had agreed to share U.S. profits with his investors Gardiner Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, Bell requested that an associate in Ontario, George Brown, attempt to patent it in Britain, instructing his lawyers to apply for a patent in the U.S. only after they received word from Britain (Britain would issue patents only for discoveries not previously patented elsewhere).Meanwhile, Elisha Gray was also experimenting with acoustic telegraphy and thought of a way to transmit speech using a water transmitter. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed a caveat with the U.S. Patent Office for a telephone design that used a water transmitter. That same morning, Bell's lawyer filed Bell's application with the patent office. There is considerable debate about who arrived first and Gray later challenged the primacy of Bell's patent. Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not arrive in Washington until February 26.Bell's patent 174,465, was issued to Bell on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. Patent Office. Bell's patent covered "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound" Bell returned to Boston the same day and the next day resumed work, drawing in his notebook a diagram similar to that in Gray's patent caveat.On March 10, 1876, three days after his patent was issued, Bell succeeded in getting his telephone to work, using a liquid transmitter similar to Gray's design. Vibration of the diaphragm caused a needle to vibrate in the water, varying the electrical resistance in the circuit. When Bell spoke the sentence "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter, Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly.Although Bell was, and still is, accused of stealing the telephone from Gray, Bell used Gray's water transmitter design only after Bell's patent had been granted, and only as a proof of concept scientific experiment, to prove to his own satisfaction that intelligible "articulate speech" (Bell's words) could be electrically transmitted. After March 1876, Bell focused on improving the electromagnetic telephone and never used Gray's liquid transmitter in public demonstrations or commercial use.The question of priority for the variable resistance feature of the telephone was raised by the examiner before he approved Bell's patent application. He told Bell that his claim for the variable resistance feature was also described in Gray's caveat. Bell pointed to a variable resistance device in his previous application in which he described a cup of mercury, not water. He had filed the mercury application at the patent office a year earlier on February 25, 1875, long before Elisha Gray described the water device. In addition, Gray abandoned his caveat, and because he did not contest Bell's priority, the examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3, 1876. Gray had reinvented the variable resistance telephone, but Bell was the first to write down the idea and the first to test it in a telephone.The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, later stated in an affidavit that he was an alcoholic who was much in debt to Bell's lawyer, Marcellus Bailey, with whom he had served in the Civil War. He claimed he showed Gray's patent caveat to Bailey. Wilber also claimed (after Bell arrived in Washington D.C. from Boston) that he showed Gray's caveat to Bell and that Bell paid him $100 (). Bell claimed they discussed the patent only in general terms, although in a letter to Gray, Bell admitted that he learned some of the technical details. Bell denied in an affidavit that he ever gave Wilber any money.Later developments On March 10, 1876, Bell used "the instrument" in Boston to call Thomas Watson who was in another room but out of earshot. He said, "Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you" and Watson soon appeared at his side.Continuing his experiments in Brantford, Bell brought home a working model of his telephone. On August 3, 1876, from the telegraph office in Brantford, Ontario, Bell sent a tentative telegram to the village of Mount Pleasant  distant, indicating that he was ready. He made a telephone call via telegraph wires and faint voices were heard replying. The following night, he amazed guests as well as his family with a call between the Bell Homestead and the office of the Dominion Telegraph Company in Brantford along an improvised wire strung up along telegraph lines and fences, and laid through a tunnel. This time, guests at the household distinctly heard people in Brantford reading and singing. The third test on August 10, 1876, was made via the telegraph line between Brantford and Paris, Ontario,  distant. This test was said by many sources to be the "world's first long-distance call". The final test certainly proved that the telephone could work over long distances, at least as a one-way call.The first two-way (reciprocal) conversation over a line occurred between Cambridge and Boston (roughly 2.5 miles) on October 9, 1876. During that conversation, Bell was on Kilby Street in Boston and Watson was at the offices of the Walworth Manufacturing Company.Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000. The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent. Bell's investors would become millionaires while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly one million dollars.Bell began a series of public demonstrations and lectures to introduce the new invention to the scientific community as well as the general public. A short time later, his demonstration of an early telephone prototype at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia brought the telephone to international attention. Influential visitors to the exhibition included Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. One of the judges at the Exhibition, Sir William Thomson (later, Lord Kelvin), a renowned Scottish scientist, described the telephone as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph".On January 14, 1878, at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, Bell demonstrated the device to Queen Victoria, placing calls to Cowes, Southampton and London. These were the first publicly witnessed long-distance telephone calls in the UK. The queen considered the process to be "quite extraordinary" although the sound was "rather faint". She later asked to buy the equipment that was used, but Bell offered to make "a set of telephones" specifically for her.The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, and by 1886, more than 150,000 people in the U.S. owned telephones. Bell Company engineers made numerous other improvements to the telephone, which emerged as one of the most successful products ever. In 1879, the Bell company acquired Edison's patents for the carbon microphone from Western Union. This made the telephone practical for longer distances, and it was no longer necessary to shout to be heard at the receiving telephone.Emperor Pedro II of Brazil was the first person to buy stock in Bell's company, the Bell Telephone Company. One of the first telephones in a private residence was installed in his palace in Petrópolis, his summer retreat  from Rio de Janeiro.In January 1915, Bell made the first ceremonial transcontinental telephone call. Calling from the AT&T head office at 15 Dey Street in New York City, Bell was heard by Thomas Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco. The New York Times reported:CompetitorsAs is sometimes common in scientific discoveries, simultaneous developments can occur, as evidenced by a number of inventors who were at work on the telephone. Over a period of 18 years, the Bell Telephone Company faced 587 court challenges to its patents, including five that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but none was successful in establishing priority over the original Bell patent and the Bell Telephone Company never lost a case that had proceeded to a final trial stage. Bell's laboratory notes and family letters were the key to establishing a long lineage to his experiments. The Bell company lawyers successfully fought off myriad lawsuits generated initially around the challenges by Elisha Gray and Amos Dolbear. In personal correspondence to Bell, both Gray and Dolbear had acknowledged his prior work, which considerably weakened their later claims.On January 13, 1887, the U.S. Government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided. By the time that the trial wound its way through nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents (No. 174,465 dated March 7, 1876, and No. 186,787 dated January 30, 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a precedent. With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the US Attorney General dropped the lawsuit on November 30, 1897, leaving several issues undecided on the merits.During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Italian inventor Antonio Meucci also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved, Meucci took the stand as a witness in the hope of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's testimony in this case was disputed due to a lack of material evidence for his inventions, as his working models were purportedly lost at the laboratory of American District Telegraph (ADT) of New York, which was later incorporated as a subsidiary of Western Union in 1901. Meucci's work, like many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon Meucci's death. However, due to the efforts of Congressman Vito Fossella, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 11, 2002, stated that Meucci's "work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged". This did not put an end to the still-contentious issue. Some modern scholars do not agree with the claims that Bell's work on the telephone was influenced by Meucci's inventions.The value of the Bell patent was acknowledged throughout the world, and patent applications were made in most major countries, but when Bell delayed the German patent application, the electrical firm of Siemens & Halske set up a rival manufacturer of Bell telephones under their own patent. The Siemens company produced near-identical copies of the Bell telephone without having to pay royalties. The establishment of the International Bell Telephone Company in Brussels, Belgium in 1880, as well as a series of agreements in other countries eventually consolidated a global telephone operation. The strain put on Bell by his constant appearances in court, necessitated by the legal battles, eventually resulted in his resignation from the company.Family lifeOn July 11, 1877, a few days after the Bell Telephone Company was established, Bell married Mabel Hubbard (1857–1923) at the Hubbard estate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His wedding present to his bride was to turn over 1,487 of his 1,497 shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company. Shortly thereafter, the newlyweds embarked on a year-long honeymoon in Europe. During that excursion, Bell took a handmade model of his telephone with him, making it a "working holiday". The courtship had begun years earlier; however, Bell waited until he was more financially secure before marrying. Although the telephone appeared to be an "instant" success, it was not initially a profitable venture and Bell's main sources of income were from lectures until after 1897. One unusual request exacted by his fiancée was that he use "Alec" rather than the family's earlier familiar name of "Aleck". From 1876, he would sign his name "Alec Bell". They had four children: Elsie May Bell (1878–1964) who married Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor of National Geographic fame. Marian Hubbard Bell (1880–1962) who was referred to as "Daisy". Married David Fairchild. Two sons who died in infancy (Edward in 1881 and Robert in 1883).The Bell family home was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until 1880 when Bell's father-in-law bought a house in Washington, D.C.; in 1882 he bought a home in the same city for Bell's family, so they could be with him while he attended to the numerous court cases involving patent disputes.Bell was a British subject throughout his early life in Scotland and later in Canada until 1882 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1915, he characterized his status as: "I am not one of those hyphenated Americans who claim allegiance to two countries." Despite this declaration, Bell has been proudly claimed as a "native son" by all three countries he resided in: the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.By 1885, a new summer retreat was contemplated. That summer, the Bells had a vacation on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, spending time at the small village of Baddeck. Returning in 1886, Bell started building an estate on a point across from Baddeck, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. By 1889, a large house, christened The Lodge was completed and two years later, a larger complex of buildings, including a new laboratory, were begun that the Bells would name Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic: Beautiful Mountain) after Bell's ancestral Scottish highlands. Bell also built the Bell Boatyard on the estate, employing up to 40 people building experimental craft as well as wartime lifeboats and workboats for the Royal Canadian Navy and pleasure craft for the Bell family. He was an enthusiastic boater, and Bell and his family sailed or rowed a long series of vessels on Bras d'Or Lake, ordering additional vessels from the H.W. Embree and Sons boatyard in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. In his final, and some of his most productive years, Bell split his residency between Washington, D.C., where he and his family initially resided for most of the year, and Beinn Bhreagh, where they spent increasing amounts of time.Until the end of his life, Bell and his family would alternate between the two homes, but Beinn Bhreagh would, over the next 30 years, become more than a summer home as Bell became so absorbed in his experiments that his annual stays lengthened. Both Mabel and Bell became immersed in the Baddeck community and were accepted by the villagers as "their own". The Bells were still in residence at Beinn Bhreagh when the Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917. Mabel and Bell mobilized the community to help victims in Halifax.Later inventionsAlthough Alexander Graham Bell is most often associated with the invention of the telephone, his interests were extremely varied. According to one of his biographers, Charlotte Gray, Bell's work ranged "unfettered across the scientific landscape" and he often went to bed voraciously reading the Encyclopædia Britannica, scouring it for new areas of interest. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for "hydroairplanes", and two for selenium cells. Bell's inventions spanned a wide range of interests and included a metal jacket to assist in breathing, the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems, a device to locate icebergs, investigations on how to separate salt from seawater, and work on finding alternative fuels.Bell worked extensively in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. During his Volta Laboratory period, Bell and his associates considered impressing a magnetic field on a record as a means of reproducing sound. Although the trio briefly experimented with the concept, they could not develop a workable prototype. They abandoned the idea, never realizing they had glimpsed a basic principle which would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the hard disc and floppy disc drive, and other magnetic media.Bell's own home used a primitive form of air conditioning, in which fans blew currents of air across great blocks of ice. He also anticipated modern concerns with fuel shortages and industrial pollution. Methane gas, he reasoned, could be produced from the waste of farms and factories. At his Canadian estate in Nova Scotia, he experimented with composting toilets and devices to capture water from the atmosphere. In a magazine interview published shortly before his death, he reflected on the possibility of using solar panels to heat houses.PhotophoneBell and his assistant Charles Sumner Tainter jointly invented a wireless telephone, named a photophone, which allowed for the transmission of both sounds and normal human conversations on a beam of light. Both men later became full associates in the Volta Laboratory Association.On June 21, 1880, Bell's assistant transmitted a wireless voice telephone message a considerable distance, from the roof of the Franklin School in Washington, D.C., to Bell at the window of his laboratory, some  away, 19 years before the first voice radio transmissions.Bell believed the photophone's principles were his life's "greatest achievement", telling a reporter shortly before his death that the photophone was "the greatest invention [I have] ever made, greater than the telephone". The photophone was a precursor to the fiber-optic communication systems which achieved popular worldwide usage in the 1980s. Its master patent was issued in December 1880, many decades before the photophone's principles came into popular use.Metal detectorBell is also credited with developing one of the early versions of a metal detector through the use of an induction balance, after the shooting of U.S. President James A. Garfield in 1881. According to some accounts, the metal detector worked flawlessly in tests but did not find Guiteau's bullet, partly because the metal bed frame on which the President was lying disturbed the instrument, resulting in static. Garfield's surgeons, led by self-appointed chief physician Doctor Willard Bliss, were skeptical of the device, and ignored Bell's requests to move the President to a bed not fitted with metal springs. Alternatively, although Bell had detected a slight sound on his first test, the bullet may have been lodged too deeply to be detected by the crude apparatus.Bell's own detailed account, presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1882, differs in several particulars from most of the many and varied versions now in circulation, by concluding that extraneous metal was not to blame for failure to locate the bullet. Perplexed by the peculiar results he had obtained during an examination of Garfield, Bell "proceeded to the Executive Mansion the next morning ... to ascertain from the surgeons whether they were perfectly sure that all metal had been removed from the neighborhood of the bed. It was then recollected that underneath the horse-hair mattress on which the President lay was another mattress composed of steel wires. Upon obtaining a duplicate, the mattress was found to consist of a sort of net of woven steel wires, with large meshes. The extent of the [area that produced a response from the detector] having been so small, as compared with the area of the bed, it seemed reasonable to conclude that the steel mattress had produced no detrimental effect." In a footnote, Bell adds, "The death of President Garfield and the subsequent post-mortem examination, however, proved that the bullet was at too great a distance from the surface to have affected our apparatus."HydrofoilsThe March 1906 Scientific American article by American pioneer William E. Meacham explained the basic principle of hydrofoils and hydroplanes. Bell considered the invention of the hydroplane as a very significant achievement. Based on information gained from that article, he began to sketch concepts of what is now called a hydrofoil boat. Bell and assistant Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin began hydrofoil experimentation in the summer of 1908 as a possible aid to airplane takeoff from water. Baldwin studied the work of the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and began testing models. This led him and Bell to the development of practical hydrofoil watercraft.During his world tour of 1910–11, Bell and Baldwin met with Forlanini in France. They had rides in the Forlanini hydrofoil boat over Lake Maggiore. Baldwin described it as being as smooth as flying. On returning to Baddeck, a number of initial concepts were built as experimental models, including the Dhonnas Beag (Scottish Gaelic for little devil), the first self-propelled Bell-Baldwin hydrofoil. The experimental boats were essentially proof-of-concept prototypes that culminated in the more substantial HD-4, powered by Renault engines. A top speed of  was achieved, with the hydrofoil exhibiting rapid acceleration, good stability, and steering, along with the ability to take waves without difficulty. In 1913, Dr. Bell hired Walter Pinaud, a Sydney yacht designer and builder as well as the proprietor of Pinaud's Yacht Yard in Westmount, Nova Scotia, to work on the pontoons of the HD-4. Pinaud soon took over the boatyard at Bell Laboratories on Beinn Bhreagh, Bell's estate near Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Pinaud's experience in boat-building enabled him to make useful design changes to the HD-4. After the First World War, work began again on the HD-4. Bell's report to the U.S. Navy permitted him to obtain two  engines in July 1919. On September 9, 1919, the HD-4 set a world marine speed record of , a record which stood for ten years.AeronauticsIn 1891, Bell had begun experiments to develop motor-powered heavier-than-air aircraft. The AEA was first formed as Bell shared the vision to fly with his wife, who advised him to seek "young" help as Bell was at the age of 60.In 1898, Bell experimented with tetrahedral box kites and wings constructed of multiple compound tetrahedral kites covered in maroon silk. The tetrahedral wings were named Cygnet I, II, and III, and were flown both unmanned and manned (Cygnet I crashed during a flight carrying Selfridge) in the period from 1907 to 1912. Some of Bell's kites are on display at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site.Bell was a supporter of aerospace engineering research through the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), officially formed at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in October 1907 at the suggestion of his wife Mabel and with her financial support after the sale of some of her real estate. The AEA was headed by Bell and the founding members were four young men: American Glenn H. Curtiss, a motorcycle manufacturer at the time and who held the title "world's fastest man", having ridden his self-constructed motor bicycle around in the shortest time, and who was later awarded the Scientific American Trophy for the first official one-kilometre flight in the Western hemisphere, and who later became a world-renowned airplane manufacturer; Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, an official observer from the U.S. Federal government and one of the few people in the army who believed that aviation was the future; Frederick W. Baldwin, the first Canadian and first British subject to pilot a public flight in Hammondsport, New York; and J. A. D. McCurdy–Baldwin and McCurdy being new engineering graduates from the University of Toronto.The AEA's work progressed to heavier-than-air machines, applying their knowledge of kites to gliders. Moving to Hammondsport, the group then designed and built the Red Wing, framed in bamboo and covered in red silk and powered by a small air-cooled engine. On March 12, 1908, over Keuka Lake, the biplane lifted off on the first public flight in North America. The innovations that were incorporated into this design included a cockpit enclosure and tail rudder (later variations on the original design would add ailerons as a means of control). One of the AEA's inventions, a practical  wingtip form of the aileron, was to become a standard component on all aircraft. The White Wing and June Bug were to follow and by the end of 1908, over 150 flights without mishap had been accomplished. However, the AEA had depleted its initial reserves and only a $15,000 grant from Mrs. Bell allowed it to continue with experiments. Lt. Selfridge had also become the first person killed in a powered heavier-than-air flight in a crash of the Wright Flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 17, 1908.Their final aircraft design, the Silver Dart, embodied all of the advancements found in the earlier machines. On February 23, 1909, Bell was present as the Silver Dart flown by J. A. D. McCurdy from the frozen ice of Bras d'Or made the first aircraft flight in Canada. Bell had worried that the flight was too dangerous and had arranged for a doctor to be on hand. With the successful flight, the AEA disbanded and the Silver Dart would revert to Baldwin and McCurdy, who began the Canadian Aerodrome Company and would later demonstrate the aircraft to the Canadian Army.Heredity and geneticsBell, along with many members of the scientific community at the time, took an interest in the popular science of heredity which grew out of the publication of Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species in 1859. On his estate in Nova Scotia, Bell conducted meticulously recorded breeding experiments with rams and ewes. Over the course of more than 30 years, Bell sought to produce a breed of sheep with multiple nipples that would bear twins. He specifically wanted to see if selective breeding could produce sheep with four functional nipples with enough milk for twin lambs. This interest in animal breeding caught the attention of scientists focused on the study of heredity and genetics in humans.In November 1883, Bell presented a paper at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race". The paper is a compilation of data on the hereditary aspects of deafness. Bell's research indicated that a hereditary tendency toward deafness, as indicated by the possession of deaf relatives, was an important element in determining the production of deaf offspring. He noted that the proportion of deaf children born to deaf parents was many times greater than the proportion of deaf children born to the general population. In the paper, Bell delved into social commentary and discussed hypothetical public policies to bring an end to deafness. He also criticized educational practices that segregated deaf children rather than integrated them fulling into mainstream classrooms. The paper did not propose sterilization of deaf people or prohibition on intermarriage, noting that “We cannot dictate to men and women whom they should marry and natural selection no longer influences mankind to any great extent.”A review of Bell's "Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race" appearing in an 1885 issue of the "American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb" states that "Dr. Bell does not advocate legislative interference with the marriages of the deaf for several reasons one of which is that the results of such marriages have not yet been sufficiently investigated." The article goes on to say that "the editorial remarks based thereon did injustice to the author." The paper's author concludes by saying “A wiser way to prevent the extension of hereditary deafness, it seems to us, would be to continue the investigations which Dr. Bell has so admirable begun until the laws of the transmission of the tendency to deafness are fully understood, and then by explaining those laws to the pupils of our schools to lead them to choose their partners in marriage in such a way that deaf-mute offspring will not be the result."Historians have noted that Bell explicitly opposed laws regulating marriage, and never mentioned sterilization in any of his writings. Even after Bell agreed to engage with scientists conducting eugenic research, he consistently refused to support public policy that limited the rights or privileges of the deaf.Bell's interest and research on heredity attracted the interest of Charles Davenport, a Harvard professor and head of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1906, Davenport, who was also the founder of the American Breeder's Association, approached Bell about joining a new committee on eugenics chaired by David Starr Jordan. In 1910, Davenport opened the Eugenics Records office at Cold Spring Harbor. To give the organization scientific credibility, Davenport set up a Board of Scientific Directors naming Bell as chairman. Other members of the board included Luther Burbank, Roswell H. Johnson, Vernon L. Kellogg, and William E. Castle.In 1921, a Second International Congress of Eugenics was held in New York at the Museum of Natural History and chaired by Davenport. Although Bell did not present any research or speak as part of the proceedings, he was named as honorary president as a means to attract other scientists to attend the event. A summary of the event notes that Bell was a "pioneering investigator in the field of human heredity".DeathBell died of complications arising from diabetes on August 2, 1922, at his private estate in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, at age 75. Bell had also been afflicted with pernicious anemia. His last view of the land he had inhabited was by moonlight on his mountain estate at 2:00 a.m. While tending to him after his long illness, Mabel, his wife, whispered, "Don't leave me." By way of reply, Bell signed "no...", lost consciousness, and died shortly after.On learning of Bell's death, the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, cabled Mrs. Bell, saying:Bell's coffin was constructed of Beinn Bhreagh pine by his laboratory staff, lined with the same red silk fabric used in his tetrahedral kite experiments. To help celebrate his life, his wife asked guests not to wear black (the traditional funeral color) while attending his service, during which soloist Jean MacDonald sang a verse of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem":Upon the conclusion of Bell's funeral, for one minute at 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time, "every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in honor of the man who had given to mankind the means for direct communication at a distance".Alexander Graham Bell was buried atop Beinn Bhreagh mountain, on his estate where he had resided increasingly for the last 35 years of his life, overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. He was survived by his wife Mabel, his two daughters, Elsie May and Marian, and nine of his grandchildren.Legacy and honorsHonors and tributes flowed to Bell in increasing numbers as his invention became ubiquitous and his personal fame grew. Bell received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities to the point that the requests almost became burdensome. During his life, he also received dozens of major awards, medals, and other tributes. These included statuary monuments to both him and the new form of communication his telephone created, including the Bell Telephone Memorial erected in his honor in Alexander Graham Bell Gardens in Brantford, Ontario, in 1917.A large number of Bell's writings, personal correspondence, notebooks, papers, and other documents reside in both the United States Library of Congress Manuscript Division (as the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers), and at the Alexander Graham Bell Institute, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia; major portions of which are available for online viewing.A number of historic sites and other marks commemorate Bell in North America and Europe, including the first telephone companies in the United States and Canada. Among the major sites are: The Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, maintained by Parks Canada, which incorporates the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, close to the Bell estate Beinn Bhreagh The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, includes the Bell family home, "Melville House", and farm overlooking Brantford, Ontario and the Grand River. It was their first home in North America; Canada's first telephone company building, the "Henderson Home" of the late 1870s, a predecessor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada (officially chartered in 1880). In 1969, the building was carefully moved to the historic Bell Homestead National Historic Site in Brantford, Ontario, and was refurbished to become a telephone museum. The Bell Homestead, the Henderson Home telephone museum, and the National Historic Site's reception centre are all maintained by the Bell Homestead Society; The Alexander Graham Bell Memorial Park, which features a broad neoclassical monument built in 1917 by public subscription. The monument depicts mankind's ability to span the globe through telecommunications; The Alexander Graham Bell Museum (opened in 1956), part of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site which was completed in 1978 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Many of the museum's artifacts were donated by Bell's daughters;In 1880, Bell received the Volta Prize with a purse of 50,000 French francs (approximately US$ in today's dollars) for the invention of the telephone from the French government. Among the luminaries who judged were Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, fils. The Volta Prize was conceived by Napoleon III in 1852, and named in honor of Alessandro Volta, with Bell becoming the second recipient of the grand prize in its history. Since Bell was becoming increasingly affluent, he used his prize money to create endowment funds (the 'Volta Fund') and institutions in and around the United States capital of Washington, D.C.. These included the prestigious 'Volta Laboratory Association' (1880), also known as the Volta Laboratory and as the 'Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory', and which eventually led to the Volta Bureau (1887) as a center for studies on deafness which is still in operation in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The Volta Laboratory became an experimental facility devoted to scientific discovery, and the very next year it improved Edison's phonograph by substituting wax for tinfoil as the recording medium and incising the recording rather than indenting it, key upgrades that Edison himself later adopted. The laboratory was also the site where he and his associate invented his "proudest achievement", "the photophone", the "optical telephone" which presaged fibre optical telecommunications while the Volta Bureau would later evolve into the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (the AG Bell), a leading center for the research and pedagogy of deafness.In partnership with Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Bell helped establish the publication Science during the early 1880s. In 1898, Bell was elected as the second president of the National Geographic Society, serving until 1903, and was primarily responsible for the extensive use of illustrations, including photography, in the magazine. He also served for many years as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution (1898–1922). The French government conferred on him the decoration of the Légion d'honneur (Legion of Honor); the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert Medal in 1902; the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted him a PhD, and he was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1912. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1884 and served as its president from 1891 to 1892. Bell was later awarded the AIEE's Edison Medal in 1914 "For meritorious achievement in the invention of the telephone".The bel (B) and the smaller decibel (dB) are units of measurement of sound pressure level (SPL) invented by Bell Labs and named after him.  Since 1976, the IEEE's Alexander Graham Bell Medal has been awarded to honor outstanding contributions in the field of telecommunications.In 1936, the US Patent Office declared Bell first on its list of the country's greatest inventors, leading to the US Post Office issuing a commemorative stamp honoring Bell in 1940 as part of its 'Famous Americans Series'. The First Day of Issue ceremony was held on October 28 in Boston, Massachusetts, the city where Bell spent considerable time on research and working with the deaf. The Bell stamp became very popular and sold out in little time. The stamp became, and remains to this day, the most valuable one of the series.The 150th anniversary of Bell's birth in 1997 was marked by a special issue of commemorative £1 banknotes from the Royal Bank of Scotland. The illustrations on the reverse of the note include Bell's face in profile, his signature, and objects from Bell's life and career: users of the telephone over the ages; an audio wave signal; a diagram of a telephone receiver; geometric shapes from engineering structures; representations of sign language and the phonetic alphabet; the geese which helped him to understand flight; and the sheep which he studied to understand genetics. Additionally, the Government of Canada honored Bell in 1997 with a C$100 gold coin, in tribute also to the 150th anniversary of his birth, and with a silver dollar coin in 2009 in honor of the 100th anniversary of flight in Canada. That first flight was made by an airplane designed under Dr. Bell's tutelage, named the Silver Dart. Bell's image, and also those of his many inventions have graced paper money, coinage, and postal stamps in numerous countries worldwide for many dozens of years.Alexander Graham Bell was ranked 57th among the 100 Greatest Britons (2002) in an official BBC nationwide poll, and among the Top Ten Greatest Canadians (2004), and the 100 Greatest Americans (2005). In 2006, Bell was also named as one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history after having been listed in the National Library of Scotland's 'Scottish Science Hall of Fame'. Bell's name is still widely known and used as part of the names of dozens of educational institutes, corporate namesakes, street and place names around the world.Honorary degreesAlexander Graham Bell, who could not complete the university program of his youth, received at least a dozen honorary degrees from academic institutions, including eight honorary LL.D.s (Doctorate of Laws), two Ph.D.s, a D.Sc., and an M.D.: Gallaudet College (then named National Deaf-Mute College) in Washington, D.C. (Ph.D.) in 1880 University of Würzburg in Würzburg, Bavaria (Ph.D.) in 1882 Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany (M.D.) in 1886 Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (LL.D.) in 1896 Illinois College, in Jacksonville, Illinois (LL.D.) in 1896, possibly 1881 Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts (LL.D.) in 1901 St. Andrew's University in St Andrews, Scotland (LL.D) in 1902 University of Oxford in Oxford, England (D.Sc.) in 1906 University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland (LL.D.) in 1906 George Washington University in Washington, D.C. (LL.D.) in 1913 Queen's University at Kingston in Kingston, Ontario, Canada (LL.D.) in 1908 Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (LL.D.) in 1913, possibly 1914Portrayal in film and television The 1939 film The Story of Alexander Graham Bell was based on his life and works. The 1992 film The Sound and the Silence was a TV film. Biography aired an episode Alexander Graham Bell: Voice of Invention on August 6, 1996. Eyewitness No. 90 A Great Inventor Is Remembered, a 1957 NFB short about Bell.Bibliography Also published as:See also Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site Bell Boatyard Bell Homestead National Historic Site Bell Telephone Memorial Berliner, Emile Bourseul, Charles IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal John Peirce, submitted telephone ideas to Bell Manzetti, Innocenzo Meucci, Antonio Oriental Telephone Company People on Scottish banknotes Pioneers, a Volunteer Network Reis, Philipp The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, a 1939 movie of his life The Telephone Cases Volta Laboratory and Bureau William Francis Channing, submitted telephone ideas to BellReferencesNotesCitationsFurther reading Mullett, Mary B. The Story of A Famous Inventor. New York: Rogers and Fowle, 1921. Walters, Eric. The Hydrofoil Mystery. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Puffin Books, 1999. . Winzer, Margret A. The History Of Special Education: From Isolation To Integration. Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press, 1993. .External links Alexander and Mabel Bell Legacy FoundationAlexander Graham Bell Institute at Cape Breton University Bell Telephone Memorial, Brantford, Ontario Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Brantford, Ontario Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada, Baddeck, Nova Scotia Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress  Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Science.ca profile: Alexander Graham Bell   Alexander Graham Bell's notebooks at the Internet Archive  "Téléphone et photophone : les contributions indirectes de Graham Bell à l'idée de la vision à distance par l'électricité" at the Histoire de la télévisionMultimedia Alexander Graham Bell at The Biography Channel     Shaping The Future, from the Heritage Minutes and Radio Minutes collection at HistoricaCanada.ca (1:31 audio drama, Adobe Flash required) 1847 births1922 deaths19th-century Scottish scientistsAlumni of the University of EdinburghAlumni of University College LondonAmerican agnosticsAmerican educational theoristsAmerican eugenicistsAmerican physicistsAmerican UnitariansAviation pioneersCanadian agnosticsCanadian Aviation Hall of Fame inducteesCanadian emigrants to the United StatesCanadian eugenicists19th-century Canadian inventorsCanadian physicistsCanadian UnitariansDeaths from diabetesFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesHistory of telecommunicationsIEEE Edison Medal recipientsLanguage teachersMembers of the American Philosophical SocietyMembers of the American Antiquarian SocietyMembers of the United States National Academy of SciencesNational Aviation Hall of Fame inducteesNational Geographic SocietyOfficiers of the Légion d'honneurPeople educated at the Royal High School, EdinburghPeople from Baddeck, Nova ScotiaBusinesspeople from BostonPeople from BrantfordScientists from EdinburghPeople from Washington, D.C.Scottish agnostics19th-century Scottish businesspeopleScottish emigrants to CanadaScottish eugenicistsScottish inventorsScottish UnitariansSmithsonian Institution peopleHall of Fame for Great Americans inducteesGeorge Washington University trusteesCanadian activistsGardiner familyArticles containing video clips19th-century British inventorsScottish emigrants to the United StatesJohn Fritz Medal recipients20th-century American scientists20th-century American inventorsCanadian educational theoristsScottish physicists19th-century Canadian scientists20th-century Canadian scientistsScottish Engineering Hall of Fame inductees
Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Turkish Straits to the northwest, the Black Sea to the north, the Armenian Highlands to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean seas through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the Balkan peninsula of Southeast Europe.The eastern border of Anatolia has been held to be a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, bounded by the Armenian Highlands to the east and Mesopotamia to the southeast. By this definition Anatolia comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. Today, Anatolia is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, thereby including the western part of the Armenian Highlands and northern Mesopotamia; its eastern and southern borders are coterminous with Turkey's borders.The ancient Anatolian peoples spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages of the Indo-European language family, which were largely replaced by the Greek language during classical antiquity as well as during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. The major Anatolian languages included Hittite, Luwian, and Lydian, while other, poorly attested local languages included Phrygian and Mysian. Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken in the southeastern kingdom of Mitanni, while Galatian, a Celtic language, was spoken in Galatia, central Anatolia. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the rule of the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and it continued under the rule of the Ottoman Empire between the late 13th and the early 20th century and it has continued under the rule of today's Republic of Turkey. However, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Neo-Aramaic, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian and Greek. Other ancient peoples in the region included Galatians, Hurrians, Assyrians, Hattians, Cimmerians, as well as Ionian, Dorian, and Aeolic Greeks.GeographyTraditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea, coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain.Following the Armenian genocide, Western Armenia was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly established Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into the Eastern Anatolia Region, which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia (named as such after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman/Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia (Eastern Armenia) in 387 AD). Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia (which had a sizeable Armenian population before the Armenian genocide) an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia."The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region (also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands) is Mount Ararat (5123 m). The Euphrates, Araxes, Karasu and Murat rivers connect the Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh, these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region.Etymology The English-language name Anatolia derives from the Greek  () meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. The Greek word refers to the direction where the sun rises, coming from ἀνατέλλω anatello '(Ι) rise up,' comparable to terms in other languages such as "levant" from Latin levo 'to rise,' "orient" from Latin orior 'to arise, to originate,' Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine,' Aramaic מִדְנָח midnaḥ from דְּנַח denaḥ 'to rise, to shine.'The use of Anatolian designations has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies situated along the eastern coasts of the Aegean Sea, but also encompassing eastern regions in general. Such use of Anatolian designations was employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian (284–305), who created the Diocese of the East, known in Greek as the Eastern (Ανατολής / Anatolian) Diocese, but completely unrelated to the regions of Asia Minor. In their widest territorial scope, Anatolian designations were employed during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine I (306–337), who created the Praetorian prefecture of the East, known in Greek as the Eastern (Ανατολής / Anatolian) Prefecture, encompassing all eastern regions of the Late Roman Empire and spaning from Thrace to Egypt.Only after the loss of other eastern regions during the 7th century and the reduction of Byzantine eastern domains to Asia Minor, that region became the only remaining part of the Byzantine East, and thus commonly referred to (in Greek) as the Eastern (Ανατολής / Anatolian) part of the Empire. In the same time, the Anatolic Theme (Ἀνατολικὸν θέμα / "the Eastern theme") was created, as a province (theme) covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region, centered around Iconium, but ruled from the city of Amorium.The Latinized form "," with its -ia ending, is probably a Medieval Latin innovation. The modern Turkish form Anadolu derives directly from the Greek name Aνατολή (Anatolḗ). The Russian male name Anatoly, the French Anatole and plain Anatol, all stemming from saints Anatolius of Laodicea (d. 283) and Anatolius of Constantinople (d. 458; the first Patriarch of Constantinople), share the same linguistic origin.Names The oldest known name for any region within Anatolia is related to its central area, known as the "Land of Hatti" – a designation that was initially used for the land of ancient Hattians, but later became the most common name for the entire territory under the rule of ancient Hittites.The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, though not particularly popular at the time, was Ἀσία (Asía), perhaps from an Akkadian expression for the "sunrise" or possibly echoing the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The Romans used it as the name of their province, comprising the west of the peninsula plus the nearby Aegean Islands. As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to the vaster region east of the Mediterranean, some Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Asia Minor (Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrà Asía), meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia, whereas the administration of the Empire preferred the description Ἀνατολή (Anatolḗ "the East").The endonym Ῥωμανία (Rōmanía "the land of the Romans, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire") was understood as another name for the province by the invading Seljuq Turks, who founded a Sultanate of Rûm in 1077. Thus (land of the) Rûm became another name for Anatolia. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia.During the era of the Ottoman Empire, mapmakers outside the Empire referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia. Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan. Geographers have variously used the terms East Anatolian Plateau and Armenian Plateau to refer to the region, although the territory encompassed by each term largely overlaps with the other. According to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, this difference in terminology "primarily result[s] from the shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century."Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two geographical regions of Turkey to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line, the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region, the former largely corresponding to the western part of the Armenian Highlands, the latter to the northern part of the Mesopotamian plain. According to Richard Hovannisian, this changing of toponyms was "necessary to obscure all evidence" of the Armenian presence as part of the policy of Armenian genocide denial embarked upon by the newly established Turkish government and what Hovannisian calls its "foreign collaborators."HistoryPrehistoric AnatoliaHuman habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic. Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevali Cori, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük Hacilar, Göbekli Tepe, Norşuntepe, Kosk, and Mersin. Çatalhöyük (7.000 BCE) is considered the most advanced of these.Neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the earliest attested branch of Indo-European, have been spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BCE.Ancient AnatoliaThe earliest historical data related to Anatolia appear during the Bronze Age and continue throughout the Iron Age. The most ancient period in the history of Anatolia spans from the emergence of ancient Hattians, up to the conquest of Anatolia by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BCE.Hattians and HurriansThe earliest historically attested populations of Anatolia were the Hattians in central Anatolia, and Hurrians further to the east. The Hattians were an indigenous people, whose main center was the city of Hattush. Affiliation of Hattian language remains unclear, while Hurrian language belongs to a distinctive family of Hurro-Urartian languages. All of those languages are extinct; relationships with indigenous languages of the Caucasus have been proposed, but are not generally accepted. The region became famous for exporting raw materials. Organized trade between Anatolia and Mesopotamia started to emerge during the period of the Akkadian Empire, and was continued and intensified during the period of the Old Assyrian Empire, between the 21st and the 18th centuries BCE. Assyrian traders were bringing tin and textiles in exchange for copper, silver or gold. Cuneiform records, dated circa 20th century BCE, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, use an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines.Hittite Anatolia (18th–12th century BCE)Unlike the Akkadians and Assyrians, whose Anatolian trading posts were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia, the Hittites were centered at Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) in north-central Anatolia by the 17th century BCE. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, or nesili (the language of Nesa) in Hittite. The Hittites originated from local ancient cultures that grew in Anatolia, in addition to the arrival of Indo-European languages. Attested for the first time in the Assyrian tablets of Nesa around 2000 BCE, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites (along with the other Indo-European ancient Anatolians) were themselves relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia from the north. However, they did not necessarily displace the population genetically; they assimilated into the former peoples' culture, preserving the Hittite language.The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script. In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom (c. 1650 BCE) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BCE after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and the defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BCE, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria, and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians, a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of the history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt, Assyria and the Mitanni.The Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire. The Assyrians and Hittites were then left to battle over control of eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria. The Assyrians had better success than the Egyptians, annexing much Hittite (and Hurrian) territory in these regions.Post-Hittite Anatolia (12th–6th century BCE)After 1180 BCE, during the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Hittite empire disintegrated into several independent Syro-Hittite states, subsequent to losing much territory to the Middle Assyrian Empire and being finally overrun by the Phrygians, another Indo-European people who are believed to have migrated from the Balkans. The Phrygian expansion into southeast Anatolia was eventually halted by the Assyrians, who controlled that region.LuwiansAnother Indo-European people, the Luwians, rose to prominence in central and western Anatolia circa 2000 BCE. Their language belonged to the same linguistic branch as Hittite. The general consensus amongst scholars is that Luwian was spoken across a large area of western Anatolia, including (possibly) Wilusa (Troy), the Seha River Land (to be identified with the Hermos and/or Kaikos valley), and the kingdom of Mira-Kuwaliya with its core territory of the Maeander valley. From the 9th century BCE, Luwian regions coalesced into a number of states such as Lydia, Caria, and Lycia, all of which had Hellenic influence.ArameansArameans encroached over the borders of south-central Anatolia in the century or so after the fall of the Hittite empire, and some of the Syro-Hittite states in this region became an amalgam of Hittites and Arameans. These became known as Syro-Hittite states.Neo-Assyrian EmpireFrom the 10th to late 7th centuries BCE, much of Anatolia (particularly the southeastern regions) fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, including all of the Syro-Hittite states, Tabal, Kingdom of Commagene, the Cimmerians and Scythians and swathes of Cappadocia.The Neo-Assyrian empire collapsed due to a bitter series of civil wars followed by a combined attack by Medes, Persians, Scythians and their own Babylonian relations. The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in southeast Anatolia. This city was the birthplace of the last king of Babylon, the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar. Much of the region then fell to the short-lived Iran-based Median Empire, with the Babylonians and Scythians briefly appropriating some territory.Cimmerian and Scythian invasionsFrom the late 8th century BCE, a new wave of Indo-European-speaking raiders entered northern and northeast Anatolia: the Cimmerians and Scythians. The Cimmerians overran Phrygia and the Scythians threatened to do the same to Urartu and Lydia, before both were finally checked by the Assyrians.Early Greek presenceThe north-western coast of Anatolia was inhabited by Greeks of the Achaean/Mycenaean culture from the 20th century BCE, related to the Greeks of southeastern Europe and the Aegean. Beginning with the Bronze Age collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by Ionian Greeks, usurping the area of the related but earlier Mycenaean Greeks. Over several centuries, numerous Ancient Greek city-states were established on the coasts of Anatolia. Greeks started Western philosophy on the western coast of Anatolia (Pre-Socratic philosophy).Classical AnatoliaIn classical antiquity, Anatolia was described by Herodotus and later historians as divided into regions that were diverse in culture, language and religious practices. The northern regions included Bithynia, Paphlagonia and Pontus; to the west were Mysia, Lydia and Caria; and Lycia, Pamphylia and Cilicia belonged to the southern shore. There were also several inland regions: Phrygia, Cappadocia, Pisidia and Galatia. Languages spoken included the late surviving Anatolic languages Isaurian and Pisidian, Greek in Western and coastal regions, Phrygian spoken until the 7th century CE, local variants of Thracian in the Northwest, the Galatian variant of Gaulish in Galatia until the 6th century CE, Cappadocian and Armenian in the East, and Kartvelian languages in the Northeast.Anatolia is known as the birthplace of minted coinage (as opposed to unminted coinage, which first appears in Mesopotamia at a much earlier date) as a medium of exchange, some time in the 7th century BCE in Lydia. The use of minted coins continued to flourish during the Greek and Roman eras.During the 6th century BCE, all of Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Persians having usurped the Medes as the dominant dynasty in Iran. In 499 BCE, the Ionian city-states on the west coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule. The Ionian Revolt, as it became known, though quelled, initiated the Greco-Persian Wars, which ended in a Greek victory in 449 BCE, and the Ionian cities regained their independence. By the Peace of Antalcidas (387 BCE), which ended the Corinthian War, Persia regained control over Ionia.In 334 BCE, the Macedonian Greek king Alexander the Great conquered the peninsula from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Alexander's conquest opened up the interior of Asia Minor to Greek settlement and influence.Following the death of Alexander and the breakup of his empire, Anatolia was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms, such as the Attalids of Pergamum and the Seleucids, the latter controlling most of Anatolia. A period of peaceful Hellenization followed, such that the local Anatolian languages had been supplanted by Greek by the 1st century BCE. In 133 BCE the last Attalid king bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman Republic, and western and central Anatolia came under Roman control, but Hellenistic culture remained predominant. Further annexations by Rome, in particular of the Kingdom of Pontus by Pompey, brought all of Anatolia under Roman control, except for the eastern frontier with the Parthian Empire, which remained unstable for centuries, causing a series of wars, culminating in the Roman-Parthian Wars.Early Christian PeriodAfter the division of the Roman Empire, Anatolia became part of the East Roman, or Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was one of the first places where Christianity spread, so that by the 4th century CE, western and central Anatolia were overwhelmingly Christian and Greek-speaking. For the next 600 years, while Imperial possessions in Europe were subjected to barbarian invasions, Anatolia would be the center of the Hellenic world.It was one of the wealthiest and most densely populated places in the Late Roman Empire. Anatolia's wealth grew during the 4th and 5th centuries thanks, in part, to the Pilgrim's Road that ran through the peninsula. Literary evidence about the rural landscape stems from the hagiographies of 6th century Nicholas of Sion and 7th century Theodore of Sykeon. Large urban centers included Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis and Aphrodisias. Scholars continue to debate the cause of urban decline in the 6th and 7th centuries variously attributing it to the Plague of Justinian (541), and the 7th century Persian incursion and Arab conquest of the Levant.In the ninth and tenth century a resurgent Byzantine Empire regained its lost territories, including even long lost territory such as Armenia and Syria (ancient Aram).Medieval PeriodIn the 10 years following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia migrated over large areas of Anatolia, with particular concentrations around the northwestern rim. The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking (although ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians remained numerous and retained Christianity and their native languages). In the following century, the Byzantines managed to reassert their control in western and northern Anatolia. Control of Anatolia was then split between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, with the Byzantine holdings gradually being reduced.In 1255, the Mongols swept through eastern and central Anatolia, and would remain until 1335. The Ilkhanate garrison was stationed near Ankara. After the decline of the Ilkhanate from 1335 to 1353, the Mongol Empire's legacy in the region was the Uyghur Eretna Dynasty that was overthrown by Kadi Burhan al-Din in 1381.By the end of the 14th century, most of Anatolia was controlled by various Anatolian beyliks. Smyrna fell in 1330, and the last Byzantine stronghold in Anatolia, Philadelphia, fell in 1390. The Turkmen Beyliks were under the control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk sultans. The Beyliks did not mint coins in the names of their own leaders while they remained under the suzerainty of the Mongol Ilkhanids. The Osmanli ruler Osman I was the first Turkish ruler who minted coins in his own name in 1320s; they bear the legend "Minted by Osman son of Ertugrul". Since the minting of coins was a prerogative accorded in Islamic practice only to a sovereign, it can be considered that the Osmanli, or Ottoman Turks, had become formally independent from the Mongol Khans.Ottoman EmpireAmong the Turkish leaders, the Ottomans emerged as great power under Osman I and his son Orhan I. The Anatolian beyliks were successively absorbed into the rising Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. It is not well understood how the Osmanlı, or Ottoman Turks, came to dominate their neighbours, as the history of medieval Anatolia is still little known. The Ottomans completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1517 with the taking of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum) from the Knights of Saint John.Modern timesWith the acceleration of the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, and as a result of the expansionist policies of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus, many Muslim nations and groups in that region, mainly Circassians, Tatars, Azeris, Lezgis, Chechens and several Turkic groups left their homelands and settled in Anatolia. As the Ottoman Empire further shrank in the Balkan regions and then fragmented during the Balkan Wars, much of the non-Christian populations of its former possessions, mainly Balkan Muslims (Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Turks, Muslim Bulgarians and Greek Muslims such as the Vallahades from Greek Macedonia), were resettled in various parts of Anatolia, mostly in formerly Christian villages throughout Anatolia.A continuous reverse migration occurred since the early 19th century, when Greeks from Anatolia, Constantinople and Pontus area migrated toward the newly independent Kingdom of Greece, and also towards the United States, the southern part of the Russian Empire, Latin America, and the rest of Europe.Following the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) and the incorporation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire, another migration involved the large Armenian population of Anatolia, which recorded significant migration rates from Western Armenia (Eastern Anatolia) toward the Russian Empire, especially toward its newly established Armenian provinces.Anatolia remained multi-ethnic until the early 20th century (see the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire). During World War I, the Armenian genocide, the Greek genocide (especially in Pontus), and the Assyrian genocide almost entirely removed the ancient indigenous communities of Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian populations in Anatolia and surrounding regions. Following the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, most remaining ethnic Anatolian Greeks were forced out during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Of the remainder, most have left Turkey since then, leaving fewer than 5,000 Greeks in Anatolia today.GeologyAnatolia's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs, covered by recent deposits and giving the appearance of a plateau with rough terrain, is wedged between two folded mountain ranges that converge in the east. True lowland is confined to a few narrow coastal strips along the Aegean, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea coasts. Flat or gently sloping land is rare and largely confined to the deltas of the Kızıl River, the coastal plains of Çukurova and the valley floors of the Gediz River and the Büyük Menderes River as well as some interior high plains in Anatolia, mainly around Lake Tuz (Salt Lake) and the Konya Basin (Konya Ovasi).There are two mountain ranges in southern Anatolia: the Taurus and the Zagros mountains.ClimateAnatolia has a varied range of climates. The central plateau is characterized by a continental climate, with hot summers and cold snowy winters. The south and west coasts enjoy a typical Mediterranean climate, with mild rainy winters, and warm dry summers. The Black Sea and Marmara coasts have a temperate oceanic climate, with cool foggy summers and much rainfall throughout the year.EcoregionsThere is a diverse number of plant and animal communities.The mountains and coastal plain of northern Anatolia experience a humid and mild climate. There are temperate broadleaf, mixed and coniferous forests. The central and eastern plateau, with its drier continental climate, has deciduous forests and forest steppes. Western and southern Anatolia, which have a Mediterranean climate, contain Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions. Euxine-Colchic deciduous forests: These temperate broadleaf and mixed forests extend across northern Anatolia, lying between the mountains of northern Anatolia and the Black Sea. They include the enclaves of temperate rainforest lying along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea in eastern Turkey and Georgia. Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests: These forests occupy the mountains of northern Anatolia, running east and west between the coastal Euxine-Colchic forests and the drier, continental climate forests of central and eastern Anatolia. Central Anatolian deciduous forests: These forests of deciduous oaks and evergreen pines cover the plateau of central Anatolia. Central Anatolian steppe: These dry grasslands cover the drier valleys and surround the saline lakes of central Anatolia, and include halophytic (salt tolerant) plant communities. Eastern Anatolian deciduous forests: This ecoregion occupies the plateau of eastern Anatolia. The drier and more continental climate is beneficial for steppe-forests dominated by deciduous oaks, with areas of shrubland, montane forest, and valley forest. Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests: These forests occupy the western, Mediterranean-climate portion of the Anatolian plateau. Pine forests and mixed pine and oak woodlands and shrublands are predominant. Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests: These Mediterranean-climate forests occupy the coastal lowlands and valleys of western Anatolia bordering the Aegean Sea. The ecoregion has forests of Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), oak forests and woodlands, and maquis shrubland of Turkish pine and evergreen sclerophyllous trees and shrubs, including Olive (Olea europaea), Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo), Arbutus andrachne, Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera), and Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis). Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests: These mountain forests occupy the Mediterranean-climate Taurus Mountains of southern Anatolia. Conifer forests are predominant, chiefly Anatolian black pine (Pinus nigra), Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), Taurus fir (Abies cilicica), and juniper (Juniperus foetidissima and J. excelsa). Broadleaf trees include oaks, hornbeam, and maples. Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests: This ecoregion occupies the coastal strip of southern Anatolia between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Plant communities include broadleaf sclerophyllous maquis shrublands, forests of Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) and Turkish Pine (Pinus brutia), and dry oak (Quercus spp.) woodlands and steppes.DemographicsSee also Aeolis Anatolian hypothesis Anatolianism Anatolian leopard Anatolian Plate Anatolian Shepherd Ancient kingdoms of Anatolia Antigonid dynasty Doris (Asia Minor) Empire of Nicaea Empire of Trebizond Gordium Lycaonia Midas Miletus Myra Pentarchy Pontic Greeks Rumi Saint Anatolia Saint John Saint Nicholas Saint Paul Seleucid Empire Seven churches of Asia Seven Sleepers Tarsus Troad Turkic migrationNotesReferencesCitationsSourcesFurther readingAkat, Uücel, Neşe Özgünel, and Aynur Durukan. 1991. Anatolia: A World Heritage. Ankara: Kültür Bakanliǧi.Brewster, Harry. 1993. Classical Anatolia: The Glory of Hellenism. London: I.B. Tauris.Donbaz, Veysel, and Şemsi Güner. 1995. The Royal Roads of Anatolia. Istanbul: Dünya.Dusinberre, Elspeth R. M. 2013. Empire, Authority, and Autonomy In Achaemenid Anatolia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Gates, Charles, Jacques Morin, and Thomas Zimmermann. 2009. Sacred Landscapes In Anatolia and Neighboring Regions. Oxford: Archaeopress.Mikasa, Takahito, ed. 1999. Essays On Ancient Anatolia. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Takaoğlu, Turan. 2004. Ethnoarchaeological Investigations In Rural Anatolia. İstanbul: Ege Yayınları.Taracha, Piotr. 2009. Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Taymaz, Tuncay, Y. Yilmaz, and Yildirim Dilek. 2007. The Geodynamics of the Aegean and Anatolia. London: Geological Society.External links  Peninsulas of AsiaGeography of Western AsiaGeography of the Middle EastNear EastGeography of ArmeniaGeography of TurkeyPeninsulas of TurkeyRegions of TurkeyRegions of AsiaAncient Near EastAncient Greek geographyPhysiographic provincesHistorical regionsEurasia
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company that specializes in consumer electronics, software and online services. Apple is the largest information technology company by revenue (totaling  in 2021) and, as of January 2021, it is the world's most valuable company, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales and second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977 and the company's next computer, the Apple II became a best seller. Apple went public in 1980, to instant financial success. The company went onto develop new computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, including the original Macintosh, announced in a critically acclaimed advertisement, "1984", directed by Ridley Scott. By 1985, the high cost of its products and power struggles between executives caused problems. Wozniak stepped back from Apple amicably, while Jobs resigned to found NeXT, taking some Apple employees with him.As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved throughout the 1990s, Apple lost considerable market share to the lower-priced duopoly of the Microsoft Windows operating system on Intel-powered PC clones (also known as "Wintel"). In 1997, weeks away from bankruptcy, the company bought NeXT to resolve Apple's unsuccessful operating system strategy and entice Jobs back to the company. Over the next decade, Jobs guided Apple back to profitability through a number of tactics including introducing the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad to critical acclaim, launching memorable advertising campaigns, opening the Apple Store retail chain, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the company's product portfolio. Jobs resigned in 2011 for health reasons, and died two months later. He was succeeded as CEO by Tim Cook.Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion in August 2018, then $2 trillion in August 2020, and most recently $3 trillion in January 2022. The company receives criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices, and its business ethics, including anti-competitive practices and materials sourcing. The company enjoys a high level of brand loyalty, and is ranked as one of the world's most valuable brands.History1976–1980: Founding and incorporation Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a business partnership. The company's first product was the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak. To finance its creation, Jobs sold his only motorized means of transportation, a VW Bus, for a few hundred dollars, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for . Wozniak debuted the first prototype Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer. It went on sale soon after debut for . Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits".Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated on January 3, 1977, without Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only twelve days after having co-founded Apple. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of  to Jobs and Wozniak during the incorporation of Apple. During the first five years of operations, revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118 million, an average annual growth rate of 533%.The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. While the Apple I and early Apple II models used ordinary audio cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a -inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II in 1978.The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer application" of the business world: VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program released in 1979. VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II: compatibility with the office. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore and Tandy. By the end of the 1970s, Apple had become the leading computer manufacturer in the United States.On December 12, 1980, Apple (ticker symbol "AAPL") went public selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share ($.39 per share when adjusting for stock splits ), generating over $100 million, which was more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956. By the end of the day, 300 millionaires were created, from a stock price of $29 per share and a market cap of $1.778 billion.1980–1990: Success with Macintosh A critical moment in the company's history came in December 1979 when Jobs and several Apple employees, including human–computer interface expert Jef Raskin, visited Xerox PARC in to see a demonstration of the Xerox Alto, a computer using a graphical user interface. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares (5.6 million split-adjusted shares ) of Apple at the pre-IPO price of $10 a share. After the demonstration, Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface, and development of a GUI began for the Apple Lisa, named after Jobs's daughter.The Lisa division would be plagued by infighting, and in 1982 Jobs was pushed off the project. The Lisa launched in 1983 and became the first personal computer sold to the public with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price and limited software titles.Jobs, angered by being pushed off the Lisa team, took over the company's Macintosh division. Wozniak and Raskin had envisioned the Macintosh as low-cost-computer with a text-based interface like the Apple II, but a plane crash in 1981 forced Wozniak to step back from the project. Jobs quickly redefined the Macintosh as a graphical system that would be cheaper than the Lisa, undercutting his former division. Jobs was also hostile to the Apple II division, which at the time, generated most of the company's revenue.In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language. Its debut was signified by "1984", a $1.5 million television advertisement directed by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. This is now hailed as a watershed event for Apple's success and was called a "masterpiece" by CNN and one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by TV Guide.The advertisement created great interest in the original Macintosh, and sales were initially good, but began to taper off dramatically after the first three months as reviews started to come in. Jobs had made the decision to equip the original Macintosh with 128 kilobytes of RAM, attempting to reach a  price point, which limited its speed and the software that could be used. The Macintosh would eventually ship for , a price panned by critics in light of its slow performance. In early 1985, this sales slump triggered a power struggle between Steve Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired away from Pepsi two years earlier by Jobs using the famous line, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?" Sculley decided to remove Jobs as the head of the Macintosh division, with unanimous support from the Apple board of directors.The board of directors instructed Sculley to contain Jobs and his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Informed by Jean-Louis Gassée, Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a boardroom coup and called an emergency meeting at which Apple's executive staff sided with Sculley and stripped Jobs of all operational duties. Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985 and took a number of Apple employees with him to found NeXT. Wozniak had also quit his active employment at Apple earlier in 1985 to pursue other ventures, expressing his frustration with Apple's treatment of the Apple II division and stating that the company had "been going in the wrong direction for the last five years". Despite Wozniak's grievances, he officially remained employed by Apple, and to this day continues to work for the company as a representative, receiving a stipend estimated to be $120,000 per year for this role. Both Jobs and Wozniak remained Apple shareholders after their departures.After the departures of Jobs and Wozniak, Sculley worked to improve the Macintosh in 1985 by quadrupling the RAM and introducing the LaserWriter, the first reasonably priced PostScript laser printer. PageMaker, an early desktop publishing application taking advantage of the PostScript language, was also released by Aldus Corporation in July 1985. It has been suggested that the combination of Macintosh, LaserWriter and PageMaker was responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market.This dominant position in the desktop publishing market allowed the company to focus on higher price points, the so-called "high-right policy" named for the position on a chart of price vs. profits. Newer models selling at higher price points offered higher profit margin, and appeared to have no effect on total sales as power users snapped up every increase in speed. Although some worried about pricing themselves out of the market, the high-right policy was in full force by the mid-1980s, notably due to Jean-Louis Gassée's mantra of "fifty-five or die", referring to the 55% profit margins of the Macintosh II.This policy began to backfire in the last years of the decade as desktop publishing programs appeared on PC clones that offered some or much of the same functionality of the Macintosh, but at far lower price points. The company lost its dominant position in the desktop publishing market and estranged many of its original consumer customer base who could no longer afford their high-priced products. The Christmas season of 1989 was the first in the company's history to have declining sales, which led to a 20% drop in Apple's stock price. During this period, the relationship between Sculley and Gassée deteriorated, leading Sculley to effectively demote Gassée in January 1990 by appointing Michael Spindler as the chief operating officer. Gassée left the company later that year.1990–1997: Decline and restructuring The company pivoted strategy and in October 1990 introduced three lower-cost models, the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC, and the Macintosh IIsi, all of which saw significant sales due to pent-up demand. In 1991, Apple introduced the hugely successful PowerBook with a design that set the current shape for almost all modern laptops. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Macintosh operating system, adding color to the interface and introducing new networking capabilities.The success of the lower-cost Macs and PowerBook brought increasing revenue. For some time, Apple was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.The success of Apple's lower-cost consumer models, especially the LC, also led to the cannibalization of their higher-priced machines. To address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at different price points, aimed at different markets: the high-end Quadra models, the mid-range Centris line, and the consumer-marketed Performa series. This led to significant market confusion, as customers did not understand the difference between models.The early 1990s also saw the discontinuation of the Apple II series, which was expensive to produce, and the company felt was still taking sales away from lower-cost Macintosh models. After the launch of the LC, Apple began encouraging developers to create applications for Macintosh rather than Apple II, and authorized salespersons to direct consumers towards Macintosh and away from Apple II. The Apple IIe was discontinued in 1993.Throughout this period, Microsoft continued to gain market share with its Windows graphical user interface that it sold to manufacturers of generally less expensive PC clones. While the Macintosh was more expensive, it offered a more tightly integrated user experience, but the company struggled to make the case to consumers.Apple also experimented with a number of other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s, including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video game consoles, the eWorld online service, and TV appliances. Most notably, enormous resources were invested in the problem-plagued Newton tablet division, based on John Sculley's unrealistic market forecasts.personal computers, while Apple was delivering a richly engineered but expensive experience. Apple relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response; instead, they sued Microsoft for using a GUI similar to the Apple Lisa in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. The lawsuit dragged on for years before it was finally dismissed.The major product flops and the rapid loss of market share to Windows sullied Apple's reputation, and in 1993 Sculley was replaced as CEO by Michael Spindler.With Spindler at the helm Apple, IBM, and Motorola formed the AIM alliance in 1994 with the goal of creating a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform; PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of Windows. The same year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh, the first of many Apple computers to use Motorola's PowerPC processor.In the wake of the alliance, Apple opened up to the idea of allowing Motorola and other companies to build Macintosh clones. Over the next two years, 75 distinct Macintosh clone models were  introduced. However, by 1996 Apple executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.In 1996, Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO. Hired for his reputation as a corporate rehabilitator, Amelio made deep changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting.This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Macintosh operating system (MacOS). The original Macintosh operating system (System 1) was not built for multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this with by introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but the company still felt it needed a more modern approach. This led to the Pink project in 1988, A/UX that same year, Copland in 1994, and the attempted purchase of BeOS in 1996. Talks with Be stalled the CEO, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée,  demanded $300 million instead of the $125 million Apple wanted to pay.Only weeks away from bankruptcy, Apple's board decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice for its next operating system and purchased NeXT in late 1996 for $429 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.1997–2007: Return to profitability The NeXT acquisition was finalized on February 9, 1997, and the board brought Jobs back to Apple as an advisor. On July 9, 1997, Jobs staged a boardroom coup that resulted in Amelio's resignation after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses.The board named Jobs as interim CEO and he immediately began a review of the company's products. Jobs would order 70% of the company's products to be cancelled, resulting in the loss of 3,000 jobs, and taking Apple back to the core of its computer offerings. The next month, in August 1997, Steve Jobs convinced Microsoft to make a $150 million investment in Apple and a commitment to continue developing software for the Mac. The investment was seen as an "antitrust insurance policy" for Microsoft who had recently settled with the Department of Justice over anti-competitive practices. Jobs also ended the Mac clone deals and in September 1997, purchased the largest clone maker, Power Computing. On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the Apple Store website, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing that had been successfully used by PC manufacturer Dell.The moves paid off for Jobs, at the end of his first year as CEO, the company turned a $309 million profit.On May 6, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh: the iMac. The iMac was a huge success for Apple selling 800,000 units in its first five months and ushered in major shifts in the industry by abandoning legacy technologies like the 3½-inch diskette, being an early adopter of the USB connector, and coming pre-installed with internet connectivity (the "i" in iMac) via Ethernet and a dial-up modem. The device also had a striking eardrop shape and translucent materials, designed by Jonathan Ive, who although hired by Amelio, would go on to work collaboratively with Jobs for the next decade to chart a new course the design of Apple's products.A little more than a year later on July 21, 1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a laptop for consumers. It was the culmination of a strategy established by Jobs to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Macintosh G3 desktop and PowerBook G3 laptop for professionals, along with the iMac desktop and iBook laptop for consumers. Jobs felt the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation.At around the same time, Apple also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media production software for both professionals and consumers. Apple acquired of Macromedia's Key Grip digital video editing software project which was renamed Final Cut Pro when it was launched on the retail market in April 1999. The development of Key Grip also led to Apple's release of the consumer video-editing product iMovie in October 1999. Next, Apple successfully acquired the German company Astarte in April 2000, which had developed the DVD authoring software DVDirector, which Apple would sell as the professional-oriented DVD Studio Pro software product, and used the same technology to create iDVD for the consumer market. In 2000, Apple purchased the SoundJam MP audio player software from Casady & Greene. Apple renamed the program iTunes, while simplifying the user interface and adding the ability to burn CDs.2001 would be a pivotal year for the Apple with the company making three announcements that would change the course of the company.The first announcement came on March 24, 2001, that Apple was nearly ready to release a new modern operating system, Mac OS X. The announcement came after numerous failed attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. Mac OS X was based on NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, and BSD Unix, with Apple aiming to combine the stability, reliability, and security of Unix with the ease of use afforded by an overhauled user interface, heavily influenced by NeXTSTEP. To aid users in migrating from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications within Mac OS X via the Classic Environment.In May 2001 the company opened its first two Apple Store retail locations in Virginia and California, offering an improved presentation of the company's products. At the time, many speculated that the stores would fail, but they went on to become highly successful, and the first of more than 500 stores around the world.On October 23, 2001, Apple debuted the iPod portable digital audio player. The product, which was first sold on November 10, 2001, was phenomenally successful with over 100 million units sold within six years.In 2003, Apple's iTunes Store was introduced. The service offered music downloads for $0.99 a song and integration with the iPod. The iTunes Store quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over five billion downloads by June 19, 2008. Two years later, the iTunes Store was the world's largest music retailer.In 2002, Apple purchased Nothing Real for their advanced digital compositing application Shake, as well as Emagic for the music productivity application Logic. The purchase of Emagic made Apple the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Apple's consumer-level GarageBand application. The release of iPhoto in the same year completed the iLife suite.At the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address on June 6, 2005, Jobs announced that Apple would move away from PowerPC processors, and the Mac would transition to Intel processors in 2006. On January 10, 2006, the new MacBook Pro and iMac became the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Apple made the transition to Intel chips for the entire Mac product line—over one year sooner than announced. The Power Mac, iBook, and PowerBook brands were retired during the transition; the Mac Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Pro became their respective successors. On April 29, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was building its own team of engineers to design microchips. Apple also introduced Boot Camp in 2006 to help users install Windows XP or Windows Vista on their Intel Macs alongside Mac OS X.Apple's success during this period was evident in its stock price. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from around $6 per share (split-adjusted) to over $80. When Apple surpassed Dell's market cap in January 2006, Jobs sent an email to Apple employees saying Dell's CEO Michael Dell should eat his words. Nine years prior, Dell had said that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders".2007–2011: Success with mobile devices During his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would thereafter be known as "Apple Inc.", because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV. The company sold 270,000 iPhone units during the first 30 hours of sales, and the device was called "a game changer for the industry".In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management (DRM) , thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players, if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Apple published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs on the iTunes Store are available without their FairPlay DRM.In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of $1 million, with Jobs speculating in August 2008 that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple. By October 2008, Apple was the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone.On January 14, 2009, Jobs announced in an internal memo that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Apple until the end of June 2009 and would spend the time focusing on his health. In the email, Jobs stated that "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well", and explained that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products". Though Jobs was absent, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession with revenue of $8.16 billion and profit of $1.21 billion.After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Apple unveiled a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad ran the same touch-based operating system as the iPhone, and all iPhone apps were compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch, though having very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US. It sold more than 300,000 units on its first day, and 500,000 by the end of the first week. In May of the same year, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989.In June 2010, Apple released the iPhone 4, which introduced video calling using FaceTime, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design that acted as the phone's antenna. Later that year, Apple again refreshed its iPod line of MP3 players by introducing a multi-touch iPod Nano, an iPod Touch with FaceTime, and an iPod Shuffle that brought back the clickwheel buttons of earlier generations. It also introduced the smaller, cheaper second generation Apple TV which allowed renting of movies and shows.On January 17, 2011, Jobs announced in an internal Apple memo that he would take another medical leave of absence for an indefinite period to allow him to focus on his health. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook assumed Jobs's day-to-day operations at Apple, although Jobs would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions". Apple became the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world. In June 2011, Jobs surprisingly took the stage and unveiled iCloud, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files, and software which replaced MobileMe, Apple's previous attempt at content syncing. This would be the last product launch Jobs would attend before his death.On August 24, 2011, Jobs resigned his position as CEO of Apple. He was replaced by Cook and Jobs became Apple's chairman. Apple did not have a chairman at the time and instead had two co-lead directors, Andrea Jung and Arthur D. Levinson, who continued with those titles until Levinson replaced Jobs as chairman of the board in November after Jobs' death.2011–present: Post–Jobs era, Tim Cook's leadership On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died, marking the end of an era for Apple. The first major product announcement by Apple following Jobs's passing occurred on January 19, 2012, when Apple's Phil Schiller introduced iBook's Textbooks for iOS and iBook Author for Mac OS X in New York City. Jobs stated in the biography "Jobs" that he wanted to reinvent the textbook industry and education.From 2011 to 2012, Apple released the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5, which featured improved cameras, an intelligent software assistant named Siri, and cloud-synced data with iCloud; the third and fourth generation iPads, which featured Retina displays; and the iPad Mini, which featured a 7.9-inch screen in contrast to the iPad's 9.7-inch screen. These launches were successful, with the iPhone 5 (released September 21, 2012) becoming Apple's biggest iPhone launch with over two million pre-orders and sales of three million iPads in three days following the launch of the iPad Mini and fourth generation iPad (released November 3, 2012). Apple also released a third-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display and new iMac and Mac Mini computers.On August 20, 2012, Apple's rising stock price increased the company's market capitalization to a then-record $624 billion. This beat the non-inflation-adjusted record for market capitalization previously set by Microsoft in 1999. On August 24, 2012, a US jury ruled that Samsung should pay Apple $1.05 billion (£665m) in damages in an intellectual property lawsuit. Samsung appealed the damages award, which was reduced by $450 million and further granted Samsung's request for a new trial. On November 10, 2012, Apple confirmed a global settlement that dismissed all existing lawsuits between Apple and HTC up to that date, in favor of a ten-year license agreement for current and future patents between the two companies. It is predicted that Apple will make $280 million a year from this deal with HTC.In May 2014, the company confirmed its intent to acquire Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's audio company Beats Electronics—producer of the "Beats by Dr. Dre" line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Beats Music—for $3 billion, and to sell their products through Apple's retail outlets and resellers. Iovine believed that Beats had always "belonged" with Apple, as the company modeled itself after Apple's "unmatched ability to marry culture and technology." The acquisition was the largest purchase in Apple's history.During a press event on September 9, 2014, Apple introduced a smartwatch, the Apple Watch. Initially, Apple marketed the device as a fashion accessory and a complement to the iPhone, that would allow people to look at their smartphones less. Over time, the company has focused on developing health and fitness-oriented features on the watch, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers. In January 2016, it was announced that one billion Apple devices were in active use worldwide.On June 6, 2016, Fortune released Fortune 500, their list of companies ranked on revenue generation. In the trailing fiscal year (2015), Apple appeared on the list as the top tech company. It ranked third, overall, with $233 billion in revenue. This represents a movement upward of two spots from the previous year's list.In June 2017, Apple announced the HomePod, its smart speaker aimed to compete against Sonos, Google Home, and Amazon Echo. Towards the end of the year, TechCrunch reported that Apple was acquiring Shazam, a company that introduced its products at WWDC and specializing in music, TV, film and advertising recognition. The acquisition was confirmed a few days later, reportedly costing Apple $400 million, with media reports noting that the purchase looked like a move to acquire data and tools bolstering the Apple Music streaming service. The purchase was approved by the European Union in September 2018.Also in June 2017, Apple appointed Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to head the newly formed worldwide video unit. In November 2017, Apple announced it was branching out into original scripted programming: a drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a reboot of the anthology series Amazing Stories with Steven Spielberg. In June 2018, Apple signed the Writers Guild of America's minimum basic agreement and Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year content partnership. Additional partnerships for original series include Sesame Workshop and DHX Media and its subsidiary Peanuts Worldwide, as well as a partnership with A24 to create original films. On August 19, 2020, Apple's share price briefly topped $467.77, making Apple the first US company with a market capitalization of $2 trillion.During its annual WWDC keynote speech on June 22, 2020, Apple announced it would move away from Intel processors, and the Mac would transition to processors developed in-house. The announcement was expected by industry analysts, and it has been noted that Macs featuring Apple's processors would allow for big increases in performance over current Intel-based models. On November 10, 2020, the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Mac Mini became the first Mac devices powered by an Apple-designed processor, the Apple M1.ProductsMacintosh Macintosh, commonly known as Mac, is Apple's line of personal computers that use the company's proprietary macOS operating system. Personal computers were Apple's original business line, but  they account for only about 10 percent of the company's revenue.The company is in the process of switching Mac computers from Intel processors to Apple silicon, a custom-designed system on a chip platform., there are five Macintosh computer families in production: iMac: Consumer all-in-one desktop computer, introduced in 1998. Mac Mini: Consumer sub-desktop computer, introduced in 2005. MacBook Pro: Professional notebook, introduced in 2006. Mac Pro: Professional workstation, introduced in 2006. MacBook Air: Consumer ultra-thin notebook, introduced in 2008.Apple also sells a variety of accessories for Macs, including the Pro Display XDR, Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard.The company also develops several pieces of software that are included in the purchase price of a Mac, including the Safari web browser, the iMovie video editor, the GarageBand audio editor and the iWork productivity suite.Additionally, the company sells several professional software applications including the Final Cut Pro video editor, Motion for video animations, the Logic Pro audio editor, MainStage for live audio production, and Compressor for media compression and encoding.iPhone iPhone is Apple's line of smartphones that use the company's proprietary iOS operating system, derived from macOS. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. Since then, Apple has annually released new iPhone models and iOS updates.The iPhone has a user interface built around a multi-touch screen, which at the time of its introduction was described as "revolutionary" and a "game-changer" for the mobile phone industry. The device has been credited with popularizing the smartphone and slate form factor, and with creating a large market for smartphone apps, or "app economy".iOS is one of the two largest smartphone platforms in the world alongside Android. The iPhone has generated large profits for the company, and is credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. , the iPhone accounts for more than half of the company's revenue., 33 iPhone models have been produced, with five smartphone families in production: iPhone 13 iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 12 iPhone SE (2nd generation) iPhone 11iPad iPad is Apple's line of tablet computers that use the company's proprietary iPadOS operating system, derived from macOS and iOS. The first-generation iPad was announced on January 27, 2010.The iPad took the multi-touch user interface first introduced in the iPhone, and adapted it to a larger screen, marked for interaction with multimedia formats including newspapers, books, photos, videos, music, documents, video games, and most existing iPhone apps. Earlier generations of the iPad used the same iOS operating system as the company's smartphones before being split off in 2019. Apple has sold more than 500 million iPads, though sales peaked in 2013. However, the iPad remains the most popular tablet computer by sales , and accounted for nine percent of the company's revenue .In recent years, Apple has started offering more powerful versions of the device, with the current iPad Pro sharing the same Apple silicon as Macintosh computers, along with a smaller version of the device called iPad mini, and an upgraded version called iPad Air., there are four iPad families in production: iPad (9th generation) iPad mini (6th generation) iPad Pro (5th generation) iPad Air (4th generation)Wearables, Home and Accessories Apple also makes several other products that it categorizes as "Wearables, Home and Accessories." These products include the AirPods line of wireless headphones, Apple TV digital media players, Apple Watch smartwatches, Beats headphones, HomePod Mini smart speakers, and the iPod touch, the last remaining device in Apple's successful line of iPod portable media players., this broad line of products comprises about 11% of the company's revenues.Services Apple also offers a broad line of services that it earns revenue on, including advertising in the App Store and Apple News app, the AppleCare+ extended warranty plan, the iCloud+ cloud-based data storage service, payment services through the Apple Card credit card and the Apple Pay processing platform, a digital content services including Apple Books, Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and the iTunes Store., services comprise about 19% of the company's revenue. Many of the services have been launched since 2019 when Apple announced it would be making a concerted effort to expand its service revenues.Corporate identityLogo According to Steve Jobs, the company's name was inspired by his visit to an apple farm while on a fruitarian diet. Jobs thought the name "Apple" was "fun, spirited and not intimidating".Apple's first logo, designed by Ron Wayne, depicts Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. It was almost immediately replaced by Rob Janoff's "rainbow Apple", the now-familiar rainbow-colored silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it. Janoff presented Jobs with several different monochromatic themes for the "bitten" logo, and Jobs immediately took a liking to it. However, Jobs insisted that the logo be colorized to humanize the company. The logo was designed with a bite so that it would not be confused with a cherry. The colored stripes were conceived to make the logo more accessible, and to represent the fact the Apple II could generate graphics in color. This logo is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both Janoff and Apple deny any homage to Turing in the design of the logo.On August 27, 1999 (the year following the introduction of the iMac G3), Apple officially dropped the rainbow scheme and began to use monochromatic logos nearly identical in shape to the previous rainbow incarnation. An Aqua-themed version of the monochrome logo was used from 1998 to 2003, and a glass-themed version was used from 2007 to 2013.Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were fans of the Beatles, but Apple Inc. had name and logo trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by the Beatles in 1968. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with the settling of their lawsuit in 2007.Advertising Apple's first slogan, "Byte into an Apple", was coined in the late 1970s. From 1997 to 2002, the slogan "Think Different" was used in advertising campaigns, and is still closely associated with Apple. Apple also has slogans for specific product lines — for example, "iThink, therefore iMac" was used in 1998 to promote the iMac, and "Say hello to iPhone" has been used in iPhone advertisements. "Hello" was also used to introduce the original Macintosh, Newton, iMac ("hello (again)"), and iPod.From the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, with the 1984 Super Bowl advertisement to the more modern Get a Mac adverts, Apple has been recognized for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for its products. However, claims made by later campaigns were criticized, particularly the 2005 Power Mac ads. Apple's product advertisements gained a lot of attention as a result of their eye-popping graphics and catchy tunes. Musicians who benefited from an improved profile as a result of their songs being included on Apple advertisements include Canadian singer Feist with the song "1234" and Yael Naïm with the song "New Soul".Brand loyalty Apple customers gained a reputation for devotion and loyalty early in the company's history. In 1984, BYTE stated that:Apple evangelists were actively engaged by the company at one time, but this was after the phenomenon had already been firmly established. Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has called the brand fanaticism "something that was stumbled upon," while Ive explained in 2014 that "People have an incredibly personal relationship" with Apple's products. Apple Store openings and new product releases can draw crowds of hundreds, with some waiting in line as much as a day before the opening. The opening of New York City's Apple Fifth Avenue store in 2006 was highly attended, and had visitors from Europe who flew in for the event. In June 2017, a newlywed couple took their wedding photos inside the then-recently opened Orchard Road Apple Store in Singapore. The high level of brand loyalty has been criticized and ridiculed, applying the epithet "Apple fanboy" and mocking the lengthy lines before a product launch. An internal memo leaked in 2015 suggested the company planned to discourage long lines and direct customers to purchase its products on its website.Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the United States in 2008, and in the world from 2008 to 2012. On September 30, 2013, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola to become the world's most valuable brand in the Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report. Boston Consulting Group has ranked Apple as the world's most innovative brand every year since 2005.The New York Times in 1985 stated that "Apple above all else is a marketing company". John Sculley agreed, telling The Guardian newspaper in 1997 that "People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade." Research in 2002 by NetRatings indicate that the average Apple consumer was usually more affluent and better educated than other PC company consumers. The research indicated that this correlation could stem from the fact that on average Apple Inc. products were more expensive than other PC products.In response to a query about the devotion of loyal Apple consumers, Jonathan Ive responded: there are 1.65 billion Apple products in active use.Headquarters and major facilities Apple Inc.'s world corporate headquarters are located in Cupertino, in the middle of California's Silicon Valley, at Apple Park, a massive circular groundscraper building with a circumference of . The building opened in April 2017 and houses more than 12,000 employees. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wanted Apple Park to look less like a business park and more like a nature refuge, and personally appeared before the Cupertino City Council in June 2011 to make the proposal, in his final public appearance before his death.Apple also operates from the Apple Campus (also known by its address, 1 Infinite Loop), a grouping of six buildings in Cupertino that total  located about  to the west of Apple Park. The Apple Campus was the company's headquarters from its opening in 1993, until the opening of Apple Park in 2017. The buildings, located at 1–6 Infinite Loop, are arranged in a circular pattern around a central green space, in a design that has been compared to that of a university.In addition to Apple Park and the Apple Campus, Apple occupies an additional thirty office buildings scattered throughout the city of Cupertino, including three buildings that also served as prior headquarters: "Stephens Creek Three" (1977–1978), Bandley One" (1978–1982), and "Mariani One" (1982–1993). In total, Apple occupies almost 40% of the available office space in the city.Apple's headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are located in Cork in the south of Ireland, called the Hollyhill campus. The facility, which opened in 1980, houses 5,500 people and was Apple's first location outside of the United States. Apple's international sales and distribution arms operate out of the campus in Cork.Apple has two campuses near Austin, Texas: a  campus opened in 2014 houses 500 engineers who work on Apple silicon and a  campus opened in 2021 where 6,000 people to work in technical support, supply chain management, online store curation, and Apple Maps data management.The company, also has several other locations in Boulder, Colo., Culver City, Calif., Herzliya (Israel), London, New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Seattle that each employ hundreds of people.Stores The first Apple Stores were originally opened as two locations in May 2001 by then-CEO Steve Jobs, after years of attempting but failing store-within-a-store concepts. Seeing a need for improved retail presentation of the company's products, he began an effort in 1997 to revamp the retail program to get an improved relationship to consumers, and hired Ron Johnson in 2000. Jobs relaunched Apple's online store in 1997, and opened the first two physical stores in 2001. The media initially speculated that Apple would fail, but its stores were highly successful, bypassing the sales numbers of competing nearby stores and within three years reached US$1 billion in annual sales, becoming the fastest retailer in history to do so. Over the years, Apple has expanded the number of retail locations and its geographical coverage, with 499 stores across 22 countries worldwide . Strong product sales have placed Apple among the top-tier retail stores, with sales over $16 billion globally in 2011.In May 2016, Angela Ahrendts, Apple's then Senior Vice President of Retail, unveiled a significantly redesigned Apple Store in Union Square, San Francisco, featuring large glass doors for the entry, open spaces, and re-branded rooms. In addition to purchasing products, consumers can get advice and help from "Creative Pros" – individuals with specialized knowledge of creative arts; get product support in a tree-lined Genius Grove; and attend sessions, conferences and community events, with Ahrendts commenting that the goal is to make Apple Stores into "town squares", a place where people naturally meet up and spend time. The new design will be applied to all Apple Stores worldwide, a process that has seen stores temporarily relocate or close.Many Apple Stores are located inside shopping malls, but Apple has built several stand-alone "flagship" stores in high-profile locations. It has been granted design patents and received architectural awards for its stores' designs and construction, specifically for its use of glass staircases and cubes. The success of Apple Stores have had significant influence over other consumer electronics retailers, who have lost traffic, control and profits due to a perceived higher quality of service and products at Apple Stores. Apple's notable brand loyalty among consumers causes long lines of hundreds of people at new Apple Store openings or product releases. Due to the popularity of the brand, Apple receives a large number of job applications, many of which come from young workers. Although Apple Store employees receive above-average pay, are offered money toward education and health care, and receive product discounts, there are limited or no paths of career advancement. A May 2016 report with an anonymous retail employee highlighted a hostile work environment with harassment from customers, intense internal criticism, and a lack of significant bonuses for securing major business contracts.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple closed its stores outside China until March 27, 2020. Despite the stores being closed, hourly workers continue to be paid. Workers across the company are allowed to work remotely if their jobs permit it. On March 24, 2020, in a memo, Senior Vice President of People and Retail Deirdre O’Brien announced that some of its retail stores are expected to reopen at the beginning of April.Corporate affairsCorporate culture Apple is one of several highly successful companies founded in the 1970s that bucked the traditional notions of corporate culture. Jobs often walked around the office barefoot even after Apple became a Fortune 500 company. By the time of the "1984" television advertisement, Apple's informal culture had become a key trait that differentiated it from its competitors. According to a 2011 report in Fortune, this has resulted in a corporate culture more akin to a startup rather than a multinational corporation. In a 2017 interview, Wozniak credited watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions while in his youth as a source of inspiration for his co-founding Apple.As the company has grown and been led by a series of differently opinionated chief executives, it has arguably lost some of its original character. Nonetheless, it has maintained a reputation for fostering individuality and excellence that reliably attracts talented workers, particularly after Jobs returned to the company. Numerous Apple employees have stated that projects without Jobs's involvement often took longer than projects with it.To recognize the best of its employees, Apple created the Apple Fellows program which awards individuals who make extraordinary technical or leadership contributions to personal computing while at the company. The Apple Fellowship has so far been awarded to individuals including Bill Atkinson, Steve Capps, Rod Holt, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki, Al Alcorn, Don Norman, Rich Page,  Steve Wozniak, and Phil Schiller.At Apple, employees are intended to be specialists who are not exposed to functions outside their area of expertise. Jobs saw this as a means of having "best-in-class" employees in every role. For instance, Ron Johnson—Senior Vice President of Retail Operations until November 1, 2011—was responsible for site selection, in-store service, and store layout, yet had no control of the inventory in his stores. This was done by Tim Cook, who had a background in supply-chain management. Apple is known for strictly enforcing accountability. Each project has a "directly responsible individual" or "DRI" in Apple jargon. As an example, when iOS senior vice president Scott Forstall refused to sign Apple's official apology for numerous errors in the redesigned Maps app, he was forced to resign. Unlike other major U.S. companies, Apple provides a relatively simple compensation policy for executives that does not include perks enjoyed by other CEOs like country club fees or private use of company aircraft. The company typically grants stock options to executives every other year.In 2015, Apple had 110,000 full-time employees. This increased to 116,000 full-time employees the next year, a notable hiring decrease, largely due to its first revenue decline. Apple does not specify how many of its employees work in retail, though its 2014 SEC filing put the number at approximately half of its employee base. In September 2017, Apple announced that it had over 123,000 full-time employees.Apple has a strong culture of corporate secrecy, and has an anti-leak Global Security team that recruits from the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service.In December 2017, Glassdoor said Apple was the 48th best place to work, having originally entered at rank 19 in 2009, peaking at rank 10 in 2012, and falling down the ranks in subsequent years.Lack of innovation An editorial article in The Verge in September 2016 by technology journalist Thomas Ricker explored some of the public's perceived lack of innovation at Apple in recent years, specifically stating that Samsung has "matched and even surpassed Apple in terms of smartphone industrial design" and citing the belief that Apple is incapable of producing another breakthrough moment in technology with its products. He goes on to write that the criticism focuses on individual pieces of hardware rather than the ecosystem as a whole, stating "Yes, iteration is boring. But it's also how Apple does business. [...] It enters a new market and then refines and refines and continues refining until it yields a success". He acknowledges that people are wishing for the "excitement of revolution", but argues that people want "the comfort that comes with harmony". Furthermore, he writes that "a device is only the starting point of an experience that will ultimately be ruled by the ecosystem in which it was spawned", referring to how decent hardware products can still fail without a proper ecosystem (specifically mentioning that Walkman did not have an ecosystem to keep users from leaving once something better came along), but how Apple devices in different hardware segments are able to communicate and cooperate through the iCloud cloud service with features including Universal Clipboard (in which text copied on one device can be pasted on a different device) as well as inter-connected device functionality including Auto Unlock (in which an Apple Watch can unlock a Mac in close proximity). He argues that Apple's ecosystem is its greatest innovation.The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2017 that Apple's increased reliance on Siri, its virtual personal assistant, has raised questions about how much Apple can actually accomplish in terms of functionality. Whereas Google and Amazon make use of big data and analyze customer information to personalize results, Apple has a strong pro-privacy stance, intentionally not retaining user data. "Siri is a textbook of leading on something in tech and then losing an edge despite having all the money and the talent and sitting in Silicon Valley", Holger Mueller, a technology analyst, told the Journal. The report further claims that development on Siri has suffered due to team members and executives leaving the company for competitors, a lack of ambitious goals, and shifting strategies. Though switching Siri's functions to machine learning and algorithms, which dramatically cut its error rate, the company reportedly still failed to anticipate the popularity of Amazon's Echo, which features the Alexa personal assistant. Improvements to Siri stalled, executives clashed, and there were disagreements over the restrictions imposed on third-party app interactions. While Apple acquired an England-based startup specializing in conversational assistants, Google's Assistant had already become capable of helping users select Wi-Fi networks by voice, and Siri was lagging in functionality.In December 2017, two articles from The Verge and ZDNet debated what had been a particularly devastating week for Apple's macOS and iOS software platforms. The former had experienced a severe security vulnerability, in which Macs running the then-latest macOS High Sierra software were vulnerable to a bug that let anyone gain administrator privileges by entering "root" as the username in system prompts, leaving the password field empty and twice clicking "unlock", gaining full access. The bug was publicly disclosed on Twitter, rather than through proper bug bounty programs. Apple released a security fix within a day and issued an apology, stating that "regrettably we stumbled" in regards to the security of the latest updates. After installing the security patch, however, file sharing was broken for users, with Apple releasing a support document with instructions to separately fix that issue. Though Apple publicly stated the promise of "auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again", users who installed the security update while running the older 10.13.0 version of the High Sierra operating system rather than the then-newest 10.13.1 release experienced that the "root" security vulnerability was re-introduced, and persisted even after fully updating their systems. On iOS, a date bug caused iOS devices that received local app notifications at 12:15am on December 2, 2017, to repeatedly restart. Users were recommended to turn off notifications for their apps. Apple quickly released an update, done during the nighttime in Cupertino, California time and outside of their usual software release window, with one of the headlining features of the update needing to be delayed for a few days. The combined problems of the week on both macOS and iOS caused The Verges Tom Warren to call it a "nightmare" for Apple's software engineers and described it as a significant lapse in Apple's ability to protect its more than 1 billion devices. ZDNets Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote that "it's hard to not come away from the last week with the feeling that Apple is slipping". Kingsley-Hughes also concluded his piece by referencing an earlier article, in which he wrote that "As much as I don't want to bring up the tired old 'Apple wouldn't have done this under Steve Jobs's watch' trope, a lot of what's happening at Apple lately is different from what they came to expect under Jobs. Not to say that things didn't go wrong under his watch, but product announcements and launches felt a lot tighter for sure, as did the overall quality of what Apple was releasing." He did, however, also acknowledge that such failures "may indeed have happened" with Jobs in charge, though returning to the previous praise for his demands of quality, stating "it's almost guaranteed that given his personality that heads would have rolled, which limits future failures".Manufacturing and assembling The company's manufacturing, procurement, and logistics enable it to execute massive product launches without having to maintain large, profit-sapping inventories. In 2011, Apple's profit margins were 40 percent, compared with between 10 and 20 percent for most other hardware companies. Cook's catchphrase to describe his focus on the company's operational arm is: "Nobody wants to buy sour milk".In May 2017, the company announced a $1 billion funding project for "advanced manufacturing" in the United States, and subsequently invested $200 million in Corning Inc., a manufacturer of toughened Gorilla Glass technology used in its iPhone devices. The following December, Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, told CNBC that the "$1 billion" amount was "absolutely not" the final limit on its spending, elaborating that "We're not thinking in terms of a fund limit. ... We're thinking about, where are the opportunities across the U.S. to help nurture companies that are making the advanced technology — and the advanced manufacturing that goes with that — that quite frankly is essential to our innovation".As of 2021, Apple uses components from 43 different countries. The majority of assembling is done by Taiwanese original design manufacturer firms Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics mostly in factories located inside China, but also Brazil, and India.During the Mac's early history Apple generally refused to adopt prevailing industry standards for hardware, instead creating their own. This trend was largely reversed in the late 1990s, beginning with Apple's adoption of the PCI bus in the 7500/8500/9500 Power Macs. Apple has since joined the industry standards groups to influence the future direction of technology standards such as USB, AGP, HyperTransport, Wi-Fi, NVMe, PCIe and others in its products. FireWire is an Apple-originated standard that was widely adopted across the industry after it was standardized as IEEE 1394 and is a legally mandated port in all Cable TV boxes in the United States.Apple has gradually expanded its efforts in getting its products into the Indian market. In July 2012, during a conference call with investors, CEO Tim Cook said that he "[loves] India", but that Apple saw larger opportunities outside the region. India's requirement that 30% of products sold be manufactured in the country was described as "really adds cost to getting product to market". In May 2016, Apple opened an iOS app development center in Bangalore and a maps development office for 4,000 staff in Hyderabad. In March, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple would begin manufacturing iPhone models in India "over the next two months", and in May, the Journal wrote that an Apple manufacturer had begun production of iPhone SE in the country, while Apple told CNBC that the manufacturing was for a "small number" of units. In April 2019, Apple initiated manufacturing of iPhone 7 at its Bengaluru facility, keeping in mind demand from local customers even as they seek more incentives from the government of India. At the beginning of 2020, Tim Cook announced that Apple schedules the opening of its first physical outlet in India for 2021, while an online store is to be launched by the end of the year.Labor practices The company advertised its products as being made in America until the late 1990s; however, as a result of outsourcing initiatives in the 2000s, almost all of its manufacturing is now handled abroad. According to a report by The New York Times, Apple insiders "believe the vast scale of overseas factories, as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers, have so outpaced their American counterparts that "Made in the USA" is no longer a viable option for most Apple products".In 2006, one complex of factories in Shenzhen, China that assembled the iPod and other items had over 200,000 workers living and working within it. Employees regularly worked more than 60 hours per week and made around $100 per month. A little over half of the workers' earnings was required to pay for rent and food from the company.Apple immediately launched an investigation after the 2006 media report, and worked with their manufacturers to ensure acceptable working conditions. In 2007, Apple started yearly audits of all its suppliers regarding worker's rights, slowly raising standards and pruning suppliers that did not comply. Yearly progress reports have been published since 2008. In 2011, Apple admitted that its suppliers' child labor practices in China had worsened.The Foxconn suicides occurred between January and November 2010, when 18 Foxconn (Chinese: 富士康) employees attempted suicide, resulting in 14 deaths—the company was the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, for clients including Apple, at the time. The suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn were investigated by Apple. Apple issued a public statement about the suicides, and company spokesperson Steven Dowling said:The statement was released after the results from the company's probe into its suppliers' labor practices were published in early 2010. Foxconn was not specifically named in the report, but Apple identified a series of serious labor violations of labor laws, including Apple's own rules, and some child labor existed in a number of factories. Apple committed to the implementation of changes following the suicides.Also in 2010, workers in China planned to sue iPhone contractors over poisoning by a cleaner used to clean LCD screens. One worker claimed that he and his coworkers had not been informed of possible occupational illnesses. After a high suicide rate in a Foxconn facility in China making iPads and iPhones, albeit a lower rate than that of China as a whole, workers were forced to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing that they would not kill themselves. Workers in factories producing Apple products have also been exposed to hexane, a neurotoxin that is a cheaper alternative than alcohol for cleaning the products.A 2014 BBC investigation found excessive hours and other problems persisted, despite Apple's promise to reform factory practice after the 2010 Foxconn suicides. The Pegatron factory was once again the subject of review, as reporters gained access to the working conditions inside through recruitment as employees. While the BBC maintained that the experiences of its reporters showed that labor violations were continuing since 2010, Apple publicly disagreed with the BBC and stated: "We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions".In December 2014, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights published a report which documented inhumane conditions for the 15,000 workers at a Zhen Ding Technology factory in Shenzhen, China, which serves as a major supplier of circuit boards for Apple's iPhone and iPad. According to the report, workers are pressured into 65-hour work weeks which leaves them so exhausted that they often sleep during lunch breaks. They are also made to reside in "primitive, dark and filthy dorms" where they sleep "on plywood, with six to ten workers in each crowded room." Omnipresent security personnel also routinely harass and beat the workers.In 2019, there were reports stating that some of Foxconn's managers had used rejected parts to build iPhones and that Apple was investigating the issue.Environmental practices and initiativesApple Energy Apple Energy, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc. that sells solar energy. , Apple's solar farms in California and Nevada have been declared to provide 217.9 megawatts of solar generation capacity. In addition to the company's solar energy production, Apple has received regulatory approval to construct a landfill gas energy plant in North Carolina. Apple will use the methane emissions to generate electricity. Apple's North Carolina data center is already powered entirely with energy from renewable sources.Energy and resources Following a Greenpeace protest, Apple released a statement on April 17, 2012, committing to ending its use of coal and shifting to 100% renewable clean energy. By 2013, Apple was using 100% renewable energy to power their data centers. Overall, 75% of the company's power came from clean renewable sources.In 2010, Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to directing consumers toward the greenest companies, gave Apple a score of 52 points out of a possible 100, which puts Apple in their top category "Striding". This was an increase from May 2008, when Climate Counts only gave Apple 11 points out of 100, which placed the company last among electronics companies, at which time Climate Counts also labeled Apple with a "stuck icon", adding that Apple at the time was "a choice to avoid for the climate-conscious consumer".In May 2015, Greenpeace evaluated the state of the Green Internet and commended Apple on their environmental practices saying, "Apple's commitment to renewable energy has helped set a new bar for the industry, illustrating in very concrete terms that a 100% renewable Internet is within its reach, and providing several models of intervention for other companies that want to build a sustainable Internet.", Apple states that 100% of its U.S. operations run on renewable energy, 100% of Apple's data centers run on renewable energy and 93% of Apple's global operations run on renewable energy. However, the facilities are connected to the local grid which usually contains a mix of fossil and renewable sources, so Apple carbon offsets its electricity use. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) allows consumers to see the effect a product has on the environment. Each product receives a Gold, Silver, or Bronze rank depending on its efficiency and sustainability. Every Apple tablet, notebook, desktop computer, and display that EPEAT ranks achieves a Gold rating, the highest possible. Although Apple's data centers recycle water 35 times, the increased activity in retail, corporate and data centers also increase the amount of water use to  in 2015.During an event on March 21, 2016, Apple provided a status update on its environmental initiative to be 100% renewable in all of its worldwide operations. Lisa P. Jackson, Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives who reports directly to CEO, Tim Cook, announced that , 93% of Apple's worldwide operations are powered with renewable energy. Also featured was the company's efforts to use sustainable paper in their product packaging; 99% of all paper used by Apple in the product packaging comes from post-consumer recycled paper or sustainably managed forests, as the company continues its move to all paper packaging for all of its products. Apple working in partnership with Conservation Fund, have preserved 36,000 acres of working forests in Maine and North Carolina. Another partnership announced is with the World Wildlife Fund to preserve up to  of forests in China. Featured was the company's installation of a 40 MW solar power plant in the Sichuan province of China that was tailor-made to coexist with the indigenous yaks that eat hay produced on the land, by raising the panels to be several feet off of the ground so the yaks and their feed would be unharmed grazing beneath the array. This installation alone compensates for more than all of the energy used in Apple's Stores and Offices in the whole of China, negating the company's energy carbon footprint in the country. In Singapore, Apple has worked with the Singaporean government to cover the rooftops of 800 buildings in the city-state with solar panels allowing Apple's Singapore operations to be run on 100% renewable energy. Liam was introduced to the world, an advanced robotic disassembler and sorter designed by Apple Engineers in California specifically for recycling outdated or broken iPhones. Reuses and recycles parts from traded in products.Apple announced on August 16, 2016, that Lens Technology, one of its major suppliers in China, has committed to power all its glass production for Apple with 100 percent renewable energy by 2018. The commitment is a large step in Apple's efforts to help manufacturers lower their carbon footprint in China. Apple also announced that all 14 of its final assembly sites in China are now compliant with UL's Zero Waste to Landfill validation. The standard, which started in January 2015, certifies that all manufacturing waste is reused, recycled, composted, or converted into energy (when necessary). Since the program began, nearly, 140,000 metric tons of waste have been diverted from landfills.On July 21, 2020, Apple announced its plan to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. In the next 10 years, Apple will try to lower emissions with a series of innovative actions, including: low carbon product design, expanding energy efficiency, renewable energy, process and material innovations, and carbon removal.In April 2021, Apple said that it had started a $200 million fund in order to combat climate change by removing 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.Toxins Following further campaigns by Greenpeace, in 2008, Apple became the first electronics manufacturer to fully eliminate all polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in its complete product line. In June 2007, Apple began replacing the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlit LCD displays in its computers with mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays and arsenic-free glass, starting with the upgraded MacBook Pro. Apple offers comprehensive and transparent information about the CO2e, emissions, materials, and electrical usage concerning every product they currently produce or have sold in the past (and which they have enough data needed to produce the report), in their portfolio on their homepage. Allowing consumers to make informed purchasing decisions on the products they offer for sale. In June 2009, Apple's iPhone 3GS was free of PVC, arsenic, and BFRs. All Apple products now have mercury-free LED-backlit LCD displays, arsenic-free glass, and non-PVC cables. All Apple products have EPEAT Gold status and beat the latest Energy Star guidelines in each product's respective regulatory category.In November 2011, Apple was featured in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics, which ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy policy, and how "green" their products are. The company ranked fourth of fifteen electronics companies (moving up five places from the previous year) with a score of 4.6/10. Greenpeace praises Apple's sustainability, noting that the company exceeded its 70% global recycling goal in 2010. It continues to score well on the products rating with all Apple products now being free of PVC plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Apple on the Energy criteria for not seeking external verification of its greenhouse gas emissions data and for not setting out any targets to reduce emissions. In January 2012, Apple requested that its cable maker, Volex, begin producing halogen-free USB and power cables.Green bonds In February 2016, Apple issued a US$1.5 billion green bond (climate bond), the first ever of its kind by a U.S. tech company. The green bond proceeds are dedicated to the financing of environmental projects.Racial Justice and Equality InitiativesIn June 2020, Apple committed $100 million for its Racial Equity and Justice initiative (REJI) and in Jan 2021 announced various projects as part of the initiative.Finance Apple is the world's largest information technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets, and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung.In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves. On March 19, 2012, Apple announced plans for a $2.65-per-share dividend beginning in fourth quarter of 2012, per approval by their board of directors.The company's worldwide annual revenue in 2013 totaled $170 billion. In May 2013, Apple entered the top ten of the Fortune 500 list of companies for the first time, rising 11 places above its 2012 ranking to take the sixth position. , Apple has around US$234 billion of cash and marketable securities, of which 90% is located outside the United States for tax purposes.Apple amassed 65% of all profits made by the eight largest worldwide smartphone manufacturers in quarter one of 2014, according to a report by Canaccord Genuity. In the first quarter of 2015, the company garnered 92% of all earnings.On April 30, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had cash reserves of $250 billion, officially confirmed by Apple as specifically $256.8 billion a few days later., Apple was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. On August 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market value. Apple was ranked No. 4 on the 2018 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.Tax practices Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world. According to The New York Times, in the 1980s Apple was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed the company to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes. In the late 1980s, Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich," which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean.British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Charlie Elphicke published research on October 30, 2012, which showed that some multinational companies, including Apple Inc., were making billions of pounds of profit in the UK, but were paying an effective tax rate to the UK Treasury of only 3 percent, well below standard corporation tax. He followed this research by calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to force these multinationals, which also included Google and The Coca-Cola Company, to state the effective rate of tax they pay on their UK revenues. Elphicke also said that government contracts should be withheld from multinationals who do not pay their fair share of UK tax.Apple Inc. claims to be the single largest taxpayer to the Department of the Treasury of the United States of America with an effective tax rate of approximately of 26% as of the second quarter of the Apple fiscal year 2016. In an interview with the German newspaper FAZ in October 2017, Tim Cook stated, that Apple is the biggest taxpayer worldwide.In 2015, Reuters reported that Apple had earnings abroad of $54.4 billion which were untaxed by the IRS of the United States. Under U.S. tax law governed by the IRC, corporations don't pay income tax on overseas profits unless the profits are repatriated into the United States and as such Apple argues that to benefit its shareholders it will leave it overseas until a repatriation holiday or comprehensive tax reform takes place in the United States.On July 12, 2016, the Central Statistics Office of Ireland announced that 2015 Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and 2015 Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%. The figures attracted international scorn, and were labelled by Nobel-prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, as leprechaun economics. It was not until 2018 that Irish economists could definitively prove that the 2015 growth was due to Apple restructuring its controversial double Irish subsidiaries (Apple Sales International), which Apple converted into a new Irish capital allowances for intangible assets tax scheme (expires in January 2020). The affair required the Central Bank of Ireland to create a new measure of Irish economic growth, Modified GNI* to replace Irish GDP, given the distortion of Apple's tax schemes. Irish GDP is 143% of Irish Modified GNI*.On August 30, 2016, after a two-year investigation, the EU Competition Commissioner concluded Apple received "illegal state aid" from Ireland. The EU ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion), plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes for 2004–2014. It is the largest tax fine in history. The Commission found that Apple had benefited from a private Irish Revenue Commissioners tax ruling regarding its double Irish tax structure, Apple Sales International (ASI). Instead of using two companies for its double Irish structure, Apple was given a ruling to split ASI into two internal "branches". The Chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern, put this decision into perspective by stating that "every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation"., Apple agreed to start paying €13 billion in back taxes to the Irish government, the repayments will be held in an escrow account while Apple and the Irish government continue their appeals in EU courts.On July 15, 2020, the EU General Court annuls the European Commission's decision in Apple State aid case: Apple will not have to repay €13 billion to Ireland.Board of directors  the following individuals sit on the board of Apple Inc. Arthur D. Levinson (chairman) Tim Cook (executive director and CEO) James A. Bell (non-executive director) Al Gore (non-executive director) Andrea Jung (non-executive director) Ronald Sugar (non-executive director) Susan Wagner (non-executive director)Executive management  the management of Apple Inc. includes: Tim Cook (chief executive officer) Jeff Williams (chief operating officer) Luca Maestri (senior vice president and chief financial officer) Katherine L. Adams (senior vice president and general counsel) Eddy Cue (senior vice president – Internet Software and Services) Craig Federighi (senior vice president – Software Engineering) John Giannandrea (senior vice president – Machine Learning and AI Strategy) Deirdre O'Brien (senior vice president – Retail + People) John Ternus (senior vice president – Hardware Engineering) Greg Josiwak (senior vice president – Worldwide Marketing) Johny Srouji (senior vice president – Hardware Technologies) Sabih Khan (senior vice president – Operations) Lisa P. Jackson (vice president – Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives) Isabel Ge Mahe (vice president and managing director – Greater China) Tor Myhren (vice president – Marketing Communications) Adrian Perica (vice president – Corporate Development)List of chief executives  Michael Scott (1977–1981) Mike Markkula (1981–1983) John Sculley (1983–1993) Michael Spindler (1993–1996) Gil Amelio (1996–1997) Steve Jobs (1997–2011) Tim Cook (2011–present)List of chairmen The role of chairman of the Board has not always been in use; notably, between 1981 to 1985, and 1997 to 2011. Mike Markkula (1977–1981) Steve Jobs (1985) Mike Markkula (1985–1993); second term John Sculley (1993) Mike Markkula (1993–1997); third term Steve Jobs (2011); second term Arthur D. Levinson (2011–present)Litigation Apple has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. Some litigation examples include Apple v. Samsung, Apple v. Microsoft, Motorola Mobility v. Apple Inc., and Apple Corps v. Apple Computer. Apple has also had to defend itself against charges on numerous occasions of violating intellectual property rights. Most have been dismissed in the courts as shell companies known as patent trolls, with no evidence of actual use of patents in question. On December 21, 2016, Nokia announced that in the U.S. and Germany, it has filed a suit against Apple, claiming that the latter's products infringe on Nokia's patents. Most recently, in November 2017, the United States International Trade Commission announced an investigation into allegations of patent infringement in regards to Apple's remote desktop technology; Aqua Connect, a company that builds remote desktop software, has claimed that Apple infringed on two of its patents.Privacy stance Apple has a notable pro-privacy stance, actively making privacy-conscious features and settings part of its conferences, promotional campaigns, and public image. With its iOS 8 mobile operating system in 2014, the company started encrypting all contents of iOS devices through users' passcodes, making it impossible at the time for the company to provide customer data to law enforcement requests seeking such information. With the popularity rise of cloud storage solutions, Apple began a technique in 2016 to do deep learning scans for facial data in photos on the user's local device and encrypting the content before uploading it to Apple's iCloud storage system. It also introduced "differential privacy", a way to collect crowdsourced data from many users, while keeping individual users anonymous, in a system that Wired described as "trying to learn as much as possible about a group while learning as little as possible about any individual in it". Users are explicitly asked if they want to participate, and can actively opt-in or opt-out.With Apple's release of an update to iOS 14, Apple required all developers of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch applications to directly ask iPhone users permission to track them. The feature, titled "App Tracking Transparency", received heavy criticism from Facebook, whose primary business model revolves around the tracking of users' data and sharing such data with advertisers so users can see more relevant ads, a technique commonly known as targeted advertising. Despite Facebook's measures, including purchasing full-page newspaper advertisements protesting App Tracking Transparency, Apple released the update in mid-spring 2021. A study by Verizon subsidiary Flurry Analytics reported only 4% of iOS users in the United States and 12% worldwide have opted into tracking.However, Apple aids law enforcement in criminal investigations by providing iCloud backups of users' devices, and the company's commitment to privacy has been questioned by its efforts to promote biometric authentication technology in its newer iPhone models, which don't have the same level of constitutional privacy as a passcode in the United States.Prior to the release of iOS 15, Apple announced new efforts at combating child sexual abuse material on iOS and Mac platforms. Parents of minor iMessage users can now be alerted if their child sends or receives nude photographs. Additionally, on-device hashing would take place on media destined for upload to iCloud, and hashes would be compared to a list of known abusive images provided by law enforcement; if enough matches were found, Apple would be alerted and authorities informed. The new features received praise from law enforcement and victims rights advocates, however privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, condemned the new features as invasive and highly prone to abuse by authoritarian governments.Charitable causes Apple is a partner of (PRODUCT)RED, a fundraising campaign for AIDS charity. In November 2014, Apple arranged for all App Store revenue in a two-week period to go to the fundraiser, generating more than US$20 million, and in March 2017, it released an iPhone 7 with a red color finish.Apple contributes financially to fundraisers in times of natural disasters. In November 2012, it donated $2.5 million to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy, and in 2017 it donated $5 million to relief efforts for both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, as well as for the 2017 Central Mexico earthquake. The company has also used its iTunes platform to encourage donations in the wake of environmental disasters and humanitarian crises, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Japan earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013, and the 2015 European migrant crisis. Apple emphasizes that it does not incur any processing or other fees for iTunes donations, sending 100% of the payments directly to relief efforts, though it also acknowledges that the Red Cross does not receive any personal information on the users donating and that the payments may not be tax deductible.On April 14, 2016, Apple and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced that they have engaged in a partnership to, "help protect life on our planet." Apple released a special page in the iTunes App Store, Apps for Earth. In the arrangement, Apple has committed that through April 24, WWF will receive 100% of the proceeds from the applications participating in the App Store via both the purchases of any paid apps and the In-App Purchases. Apple and WWF's Apps for Earth campaign raised more than $8 million in total proceeds to support WWF's conservation work. WWF announced the results at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco.During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple's CEO Cook announced that the company will be donating "millions" of masks to health workers in the United States and Europe.On January 13, 2021, Apple announced a $100 million "Racial Equity and Justice Initiative" to help combat institutional racism worldwide.Criticism and controversies Apple has been criticized for alleged unethical business practices such as anti-competitive behavior, rash litigation, dubious tax tactics, production methods involving the use of sweatshop labor, customer service issues involving allegedly misleading warranties and insufficient data security, and its products' environmental footprint. Apple has also received criticism for its willingness to work and conduct business with nations such as China and Russia, engaging in practices that have been criticized by human rights groups. Critics have claimed that Apple products combine stolen or purchased designs that Apple claims are its original creations. It has been criticized for its alleged collaboration with the U.S. surveillance program PRISM. The company denied any collaboration.Products and services Apple's issues regarding music over the years include those with the European Union regarding iTunes, trouble over updating the Spotify app on Apple devices and collusion with record labels.In 2018–19, Apple faced criticism for its failure to approve NVIDIA web drivers for GPUs installed on legacy Mac Pro machines (up to mid 2012 5,1 running macOS Mojave 10.14). Without access to Apple-approved NVIDIA web drivers, Apple users faced replacing their NVIDIA cards with graphic cards produced by supported brands (such as the AMD Radeon), from a list of recommendations provided by Apple to its consumers.In June 2019, Apple issued a recall for its 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15" following reports of batteries catching fire. The recall affected 432,000 units, and Apple was criticized for the long waiting periods consumers experienced, sometimes extending up to 3 weeks for replacements to arrive; the company also did not provide alternative replacements or repair options.In July 2019, following a campaign by the "right to repair" movement, challenging Apple's tech repair restrictions on devices, the FTC held a workshop to establish the framework of a future nationwide Right to Repair rule. The movement argues Apple is preventing consumers from legitimately fixing their devices at local repair shops which is having a negative impact on consumers.On November 19, 2020, it was announced that Apple will be paying out $113 million related to lawsuits stemming from their iPhone's battery problems and subsequent performance slow-downs. Apple continues to face litigation related to the performance throttling of iPhone 6 and 7 devices, an action that Apple argued was done in order to balance the functionality of the software with the impacts of a chemically aged battery. On January 25, 2021, Apple was hit with another lawsuit from an Italian consumer group, with more groups to follow, despite the rationale for the throttling.On November 30, 2020, the Italian antitrust authority AGCM fined Apple $12 million for misleading trade practices. AGCM stated that Apple's claims of the iPhone's water resistance weren't true as the phones could only resist water up to 4 meters deep in ideal laboratory conditions and not in regular circumstances. The authority added that Apple provided no assistance to customers with water-damaged phones, which it said constituted an aggressive trade practice.Privacy Ireland's Data Protection Commission also launched a privacy investigation to examine whether Apple complied with the EU's GDPR law following an investigation into how the company processes personal data with targeted ads on its platform.In December 2019, a report found that the iPhone 11 Pro continues tracking location and collecting user data even after users have disabled location services. In response, an Apple engineer said the Location Services icon "appears for system services that do not have a switch in settings."Antitrust The United States Department of Justice also began a review of Big Tech firms to establish whether they could be unlawfully stifling competition in a broad antitrust probe in 2019.On March 16, 2020, France fined Apple €1.1 billion for colluding with two wholesalers to stifle competition and keep prices high by handicapping independent resellers. The arrangement created aligned prices for Apple products such as iPads and personal computers for about half the French retail market. According to the French regulators, the abuses occurred between 2005 and 2017 but were first discovered after a complaint by an independent reseller, eBizcuss, in 2012.On August 13, 2020, Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite, sued Apple and Google after its hugely popular video game was removed from Apple and Google's App Store. The suits come after both Apple and Google blocked the game after it introduced a direct payment system, effectively shutting out the tech titans from collecting fees. In September 2020 Epic Games founded the Coalition for App Fairness together with other thirteen companies, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in the app stores. Later in December 2020, Facebook agreed to assist Epic in their legal game against Apple, planning to support the company by providing materials and documents to Epic. Facebook had, however, stated that the company will not participate directly with the lawsuit, although did commit to helping with the discovery of evidence relating to the trial of 2021. In the months prior to their agreement, Facebook had been dealing with feuds against Apple relating to the prices of paid apps as well as privacy rule changes. Head of ad products for Facebook Dan Levy commented, saying that "this is not really about privacy for them, this is about an attack on personalized ads and the consequences it's going to have on small-business owners," commenting on the full-page ads placed by Facebook in various newspapers in December 2020.Politics In January 2020, US President Donald Trump and attorney general William P. Barr criticized Apple for refusing to unlock two iPhones of a Saudi national, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who shot and killed three American sailors and injured eight others in the Naval Air Station Pensacola. The shooting was declared an "act of terrorism" by the FBI, but Apple denied the request to crack the phones to reveal possible terrorist information citing its data privacy policy.Apple Inc., shareholders increased pressure on the company to publicly commit “to respect freedom of expression as a human right”, upon which Apple committed to freedom of expression and information in its human rights policy document. It said that the policy is based on the guidelines of the United Nations on business and human rights, in early September 2020.In 2021, Apple complied with a request by the Chinese government to ban a Quran app from its devices and platforms. The request occurred in the context of the Chinese government's ongoing mass repression of Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang, which some have labeled a genocide. In December 2021, The Information reported that CEO Tim Cook had negotiated in 2016 a five-year agreement with the Chinese government, motivated in part to allay regulatory issues that had harmed the company's business in China. The agreement entailed promised investments totaling $275 billion.In September 2021, Apple removed an app from its App Store created by Alexei Navalny meant to coordinate protest voting during the 2021 Russian legislative election. The Russian government had threatened to arrest individual Apple employees working in the country unless Apple complied.Patents In January 2022, Ericsson sued Apple over payment of royalty of 5G technology.See also  List of Apple Inc. media events PixarReferencesBibliographyFurther readingExternal links     1976 establishments in California1980s initial public offeringsAmerican brandsCompanies based in Cupertino, CaliforniaCompanies in the Dow Jones Industrial AverageCompanies in the PRISM networkCompanies listed on the NasdaqComputer companies established in 1976Computer companies of the United StatesDisplay technology companiesElectronics companies of the United StatesHome computer hardware companiesMobile phone manufacturersMultinational companies headquartered in the United StatesNetworking hardware companiesPortable audio player manufacturersRetail companies of the United StatesSoftware companies based in the San Francisco Bay AreaSoftware companies established in 1976Steve JobsTechnology companies based in the San Francisco Bay AreaTechnology companies established in 1976Technology companies of the United States
Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland.It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially different boundaries. The Aberdeenshire Council area includes all of the area of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire (except the area making up the City of Aberdeen), as well as part of Banffshire. The county boundaries are officially used for a few purposes, namely land registration and lieutenancy.Aberdeenshire Council is headquartered at Woodhill House, in Aberdeen, making it the only Scottish council whose headquarters are located outside its jurisdiction. Aberdeen itself forms a different council area (Aberdeen City). Aberdeenshire borders onto Angus and Perth and Kinross to the south, Highland and Moray to the west and Aberdeen City to the east.Traditionally, it has been economically dependent upon the primary sector (agriculture, fishing, and forestry) and related processing industries. Over the last 40 years, the development of the oil and gas industry and associated service sector has broadened Aberdeenshire's economic base, and contributed to a rapid population growth of some 50% since 1975. Its land represents 8% of Scotland's overall territory. It covers an area of .HistoryAberdeenshire has a rich prehistoric and historic heritage. It is the locus of a large number of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites, including Longman Hill, Kempstone Hill, Catto Long Barrow and Cairn Lee. The area was settled in the Bronze Age by the Beaker culture, who arrived from the south around 2000–1800 BC. Stone circles and cairns were constructed predominantly in this era. In the Iron Age, hill forts were built. Around the 1st century AD, the Taexali people, who have left little history, were believed to have resided along the coast. The Picts were the next documented inhabitants of the area, and were no later than 800–900 AD. The Romans also were in the area during this period, as they left signs at Kintore. Christianity influenced the inhabitants early on, and there were Celtic monasteries at Old Deer and Monymusk.Since medieval times there have been a number of traditional paths that crossed the Mounth (a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven) through present-day Aberdeenshire from the Scottish Lowlands to the Highlands. Some of the most well known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth and Elsick Mounth.Aberdeenshire played an important role in the fighting between the Scottish clans. Clan MacBeth and the Clan Canmore were two of the larger clans. Macbeth fell at Lumphanan in 1057. During the Anglo-Norman penetration, other families arrive such as House of Balliol, Clan Bruce, and Clan Cumming (Comyn). When the fighting amongst these newcomers resulted in the Scottish Wars of Independence, the English king Edward I travelled across the area twice, in 1296 and 1303. In 1307, Robert the Bruce was victorious near Inverurie. Along with his victory came new families, namely the Forbeses and the Gordons.These new families set the stage for the upcoming rivalries during the 14th and 15th centuries. This rivalry grew worse during and after the Protestant Reformation, when religion was another reason for conflict between the clans. The Gordon family adhered to Catholicism and the Forbeses to Protestantism. Aberdeenshire was the historic seat of the clan Dempster. Three universities were founded in the area prior to the 17th century, King's College in Old Aberdeen (1494), Marischal College in Aberdeen (1593), and the University of Fraserburgh (1597).After the end of the Revolution of 1688, an extended peaceful period was interrupted only by such fleeting events such as the Rising of 1715 and the Rising of 1745. The latter resulted in the end of the ascendancy of Episcopalianism and the feudal power of landowners. An era began of increased agricultural and industrial progress. During the 17th century, Aberdeenshire was the location of more fighting, centred on the Marquess of Montrose and the English Civil Wars. This period also saw increased wealth due to the increase in trade with Germany, Poland, and the Low Countries.The present council area is named after the historic county of Aberdeenshire, which has different boundaries and was abandoned as an administrative area in 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. It was replaced by Grampian Regional Council and five district councils: Banff and Buchan, Gordon, Kincardine and Deeside, Moray and the City of Aberdeen. Local government functions were shared between the two levels. In 1996, under the Local Government, etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, the Banff and Buchan District, Gordon District and Kincardine and Deeside District were merged to form the present Aberdeenshire Council area. Moray and the City of Aberdeen were made their own council areas. The present Aberdeenshire Council area consists of all of the historic counties of Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire (except the area of those two counties making up the City of Aberdeen), as well as north-east portions of Banffshire.DemographicsThe population of the council area has risen over 50% since 1971 to approximately , representing 4.7% of Scotland's total. Aberdeenshire's population has increased by 9.1% since 2001, while Scotland's total population grew by  3.8%.The census lists a relatively high proportion of under 16s and slightly fewer people of working age compared with the Scottish average.Aberdeenshire is one of the most homogeneous/indigenous regions of the UK. In 2011, 82.2% of residents identified as 'White Scottish', followed by 12.3% who are 'White British', whilst ethnic minorities constitute only 0.9% of the population. The largest ethnic minority group are Asian Scottish/British at 0.8%. In addition to the English language, 48.8% of residents reported being able to speak and understand the Scots language.The fourteen biggest settlements in Aberdeenshire (with 2011 population estimates) are:Peterhead (17,790)Fraserburgh (12,540)Inverurie (11,529)Westhill (11,220)Stonehaven (10,820)Ellon (9,910)Portlethen (7,327)Banchory (7,111)Turriff (4,804)Kintore (4,476)Huntly (4,461)Banff (3,931)Kemnay (3,830)Macduff (3,711)EconomyAberdeenshire's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated at £3,496M (2011), representing 5.2% of the Scottish total. Aberdeenshire's economy is closely linked to Aberdeen City's (GDP £7,906M), and in 2011, the region as a whole was calculated to contribute 16.8% of Scotland's GDP. Between 2012 and 2014, the combined Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City economic forecast GDP growth rate is 8.6%, the highest growth rate of any local council area in the UK and above the Scottish rate of 4.8%.A significant proportion of Aberdeenshire's working residents commute to Aberdeen City for work, varying from 11.5% from Fraserburgh to 65% from Westhill.Average Gross Weekly Earnings (for full-time employees employed in workplaces in Aberdeenshire in 2011) are £572.60. This is lower than the Scottish average by £2.10 and a fall of 2.6% on the 2010 figure. The average gross weekly pay of people resident in Aberdeenshire is much higher, at £741.90, as many people commute outof Aberdeenshire, principally into Aberdeen City.Total employment (excluding farm data) in Aberdeenshire is estimated at 93,700 employees (Business Register andEmployment Survey 2009). The majority of employees work within the service sector, predominantly in public administration, education and health. Almost 19% of employment is within the public sector. Aberdeenshire's economy remains closely linked to Aberdeen City's and the North Sea oil industry, with many employees in oil-related jobs.The average monthly unemployment (claimant count) rate for Aberdeenshire in 2011 was 1.5%. This is lower than the average rate of Aberdeen City (2.3%), Scotland (4.2%) and the UK (3.8%).Major industries Energy – There are significant energy-related infrastructure, presence and expertise in Aberdeenshire. Peterhead is an important centre for the energy industry. Peterhead Port, which includes an extensive new quay with adjacent lay down area at Smith Quay, is a major support location for North Sea oil and gas exploration and production and the fast-growing global sub-sea sector. The Gas Terminal at St Fergus handles around 15% of the UK's natural gas requirements and the Peterhead power station is looking to host Britain's first carbon capture and storage power generation project.There are numerous offshore wind turbines near the coast. Fishing – Aberdeenshire is Scotland's foremost fishing area. In 2010, catches landed at Aberdeenshire's ports accounted for over half the total fish landings of Scotland, and almost 45% in the UK. Peterhead and Fraserburgh ports, alongside Aberdeen City, provide much of the employment in these sectors. The River Deeis also rich in salmon. Agriculture – Aberdeenshire is rich in arable land, with an estimated 9,000 people employed in the sector, and is best known for rearing livestock, mainly cattle. Sheep are important in the higher ground. Tourism – this sector continues to grow, with a range of sights to be seen in the area. From the lively Cairngorm Mountain range to the bustling fishing ports on the north-east coast, Aberdeenshire samples a bit of everything. Aberdeenshire also has a rugged coastline, many sandy beaches and is a hot spot for tourist activity throughout the year. Almost 1.3 million tourists visited the region in 2011 – up 3% on the previous year. Whisky distilling is still a practised art in the area.Governance and politicsThe council has 70 councillors, elected in 19 multi-member wards by single transferable vote. The 2017 elections resulted in the following representation:The overall political composition of the council, following subsequent defections and by-elections, is as follows: The council is the first in Scotland to have councillors form an Alba party political group: these councillors are Leigh Wilson, Alastair Bews and Brian Topping.The council's Revenue Budget for 2012/13 totals approx £548 million. The Education, Learning and Leisure Service takes the largest share of budget (52.3%), followed by Housing and Social Work (24.3%), Infrastructure Services (15.9%), Joint Boards (such as Fire and Police) and Misc services (7.9%) and Trading Activities (0.4%).21.5% of the revenue is raised locally through the Council Tax. Average Band D Council Tax is £1,141 (2012/13), no change on the previous year.The current chief executive of the council is Jim Savege and the elected Council Leader is Jim Gifford. Aberdeenshire also has a provost, who is Councillor Bill Howatson.The council has devolved power to six area committees: Banff and Buchan; Buchan; Formartine; Garioch; Marr; and Kincardine and Mearns. Each area committee takes decisions on local issues such as planning applications, and the split is meant to reflect the diverse circumstances of each area. (Boundary map)In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, 60.36% of voters in Aberdeenshire voted for the Union, while 39.64% opted for independence.Notable featuresThe following significant structures or places are within Aberdeenshire:Balmoral Castle, Scottish Highland residence of the British royal family.BennachieBurn O'VatCairness HouseCairngorms National ParkCorgarff CastleCrathes CastleCausey Mounth, an ancient roadDrum CastleDunnottar CastleFetteresso CastleFowlsheugh Nature ReserveHaddo HouseHerscha HillHuntly CastleKildrummy CastleLoch of StrathbegLochnagarMonboddo HouseMuchalls CastlePitfour estatePortlethen MossRaedykes Roman CampRiver DeeRiver DonSands of Forvie Nature ReserveSlains Castles, Old and NewStonehaven TolboothYthan Estuary Nature ReserveHydrology and climateThere are numerous rivers and burns in Aberdeenshire, including Cowie Water, Carron Water, Burn of Muchalls, River Dee, River Don, River Ury, River Ythan, Water of Feugh, Burn of Myrehouse, Laeca Burn and Luther Water. Numerous bays and estuaries are found along the seacoast of Aberdeenshire, including Banff Bay, Ythan Estuary, Stonehaven Bay and Thornyhive Bay. Aberdeenshire has a marine west coast climate on the Köppen climate classification.  Aberdeenshire is in the rain shadow of the Grampians, therefore it has a generally dry climate for a maritime region, with portions of the coast, receiving  of moisture annually. Summers are mild and winters are typically cold in Aberdeenshire; Coastal temperatures are moderated by the North Sea such that coastal areas are typically cooler in the summer and warmer in winter than inland locations. Coastal areas are also subject to haar, or coastal fog.Notable residentsJohn Skinner, (1721–1807) author, poet and ecclesiastic. Penned the famous verse, "Tullochgorum".Hugh Mercer, (1726–1777), born in the manse of Pitsligo Kirk, near Rosehearty, brigadier general of the Continental Army during the American Revolution.Alexander Garden, (1730–1791), born in Birse, noted naturalist and physician. He moved to North America in 1754, and discovered two species of lizards. He was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War, which led to the confiscation of his property and his banishment in 1782. The gardenia flower is named in his honour.John Kemp, (1763–1812), born in Auchlossan, was a noted educator at Columbia University who is said to have influenced DeWitt Clinton's opinions and policies.George MacDonald (1824–1905), author, poet, and theologian born and raised in Huntly.Dame Evelyn Glennie, DBE, born and raised in Ellon on 19 July 1965, is a virtuoso percussionist, and the first full-time solo percussionist in 20th-century western society. She is very highly regarded in the Scottish musical community, and has proven that her profound deafness does not inhibit her musical talent or day-to-day life.Evan Duthie, (born 2000), an award-winning DJ and producer. Peter Nicol, MBE, born in Inverurie on 5 April 1973, is a former professional squash player who represented first Scotland and then England in international squash.Peter Shepherd, (1841–1879), Surgeon Major, Royal Army Medical CorpsJohanna Basford (born 1983), illustrator and textile designerReferencesExternal linksAberdeenshire CouncilAberdeenshire Tourist GuideAberdeenshire Libraries ServiceAberdeenshire Museums ServicePeterhead and Buchan Tourism Web SiteAberdeenshire ArtsAberdeenshire Sports Council Council areas of Scotland
Aztlan Underground is a band from Los Angeles, California that combines Hip-Hop, Punk Rock, Jazz, and electronic music with Chicano and Native American themes, and indigenous instrumentation. They are often cited as progenitors of Chicano rap.Background The band traces its roots to the late-1980s hardcore scene in the Eastside of Los Angeles. They have played rapcore, with elements of punk, hip hop, rock, funk, jazz, indigenous music, and spoken word. Indigenous drums, flutes, and rattles are also commonly used in their music. Their lyrics often address the family and economic issues faced by the Chicano community, and they have been noted as activists for that community.As an example of the politically active and culturally important artists in Los Angeles in the 1990s, Aztlan Underground appeared on Culture Clash on Fox in 1993; and was part of Breaking Out, a concert on pay per view in 1998, The band was featured in the independent films Algun Dia and Frontierland in the 1990s, and on the upcoming Studio 49. The band has been mentioned or featured in various newspapers and magazines: the Vancouver Sun, New Times, BLU Magazine (an underground hip hop magazine), BAM Magazine, La Banda Elastica Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times calendar section. The band is also the subject of a chapter in the book It's Not About a Salary, by Brian Cross.Aztlan Underground remains active in the community, lending their voice to annual events such as The Farce of July, and the recent movement to recognize Indigenous People's Day in Los Angeles and beyond.In addition to forming their own label, Xicano Records and Film, Aztlan Underground were signed to the Basque record label Esan Ozenki in 1999 which enabled them to tour Spain extensively and perform in France and Portugal. Aztlan Underground have also performed in Canada, Australia, and Venezuela. The band has been recognized for their music with nominations in the New Times 1998 "Best Latin Influenced" category, the BAM Magazine 1999 "Best Rock en Español" category, and the LA Weekly 1999 "Best Hip Hop" category.  The release of their eponymous third album on August 29, 2009 was met with positive reviews and earned the band four Native American Music Award (NAMMY) nominations in 2010.DiscographyDecolonizeYear:1995 "Teteu Innan" "Killing Season" "Lost Souls" "My Blood Is Red" "Natural Enemy" "Sacred Circle" "Blood On Your Hands" "Interlude" "Aug 2 the 9" "Indigena" "Lyrical Drive By"Sub-VersesYear:1998 "Permiso" "They Move In Silence" "No Soy Animal" "Killing Season" "Blood On Your Hands" "Reality Check" "Lemon Pledge" "Revolution" "Preachers of the Blind State" "Lyrical Drive-By" "Nahui Ollin" "How to Catch a Bullet" "Ik Otik" "Obsolete Man" "Decolonize" "War Flowers"Aztlan Underground Year: 2009 "Moztlitta" "Be God" "Light Shines" "Prey" "In the Field" "9 10 11 12" "Smell the Dead" "Sprung" "Medicine" "Acabando" "Crescent Moon"See alsoChicano rapNative American hip hopRapcoreChicano rockReferencesExternal links Myspace link Facebook pageNative American rappersAmerican rappers of Mexican descentMusical groups from Los AngelesRapcore groupsWest Coast hip hop musicians
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (states that remained loyal to the federal union, or "the North") and the Confederacy (states that voted to secede, or "the South"). The central cause of the war was the status of slavery, especially the expansion of slavery into territories acquired as a result of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican–American War. On the eve of the Civil War in 1860, four million of the 32 million Americans (~13%) were enslaved black people, almost all in the South.The practice of slavery in the United States was one of the key political issues of the 19th century. Decades of political unrest over slavery led up to the Civil War. Disunion came after Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 United States presidential election on an anti-slavery expansion platform. An initial seven southern slave states declared their secession from the country to form the Confederacy. Confederate forces seized federal forts within territory they claimed. The last minute Crittenden Compromise tried to avert conflict but failed; both sides prepared for war. Fighting broke out in April 1861 when the Confederate army began the Battle of Fort Sumter in South Carolina, just over a month after the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. The Confederacy grew to control at least a majority of territory in eleven states (out of the 34 U.S. states in February 1861), and asserted claims to two more. Both sides raised large volunteer and conscription armies. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued.During 1861–1862 in the war's Western Theater, the Union made significant permanent gainsthough in the war's Eastern Theater the conflict was inconclusive. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal, declaring all persons held as slaves in states in rebellion "forever free." To the west, the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to General Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman and his march to the sea. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond.The Civil War effectively ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, after Lee had abandoned Petersburg and Richmond. Confederate generals throughout the Confederate army followed suit. The conclusion of the American Civil War lacks a clean end date: land forces continued surrendering until June 23. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially its railroads. The Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in a partially successful attempt to rebuild the country and grant civil rights to freed slaves.The Civil War is one of the most studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of particular interest is the persisting myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The American Civil War was among the earliest to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons saw wide use. In total the war left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian casualties. President Lincoln was assassinated just five days after Lee's surrender. The Civil War remains the deadliest military conflict in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming World Wars.Causes of secessionThe causes of secession were complex and have been controversial since the war began, but most academic scholars identify slavery as the central cause of the war. The issue has been further complicated by historical revisionists, who have tried to offer a variety of reasons for the war. Slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery to the territories, which, after they were admitted as states, would give the North greater representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln won, many Southern leaders felt that disunion was their only option, fearing that the loss of representation would hamper their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and policies. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln said that "slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."SlaverySlavery was the main cause of disunion. Slavery had been a controversial issue during the framing of the Constitution but had been left unsettled. The issue of slavery had confounded the nation since its inception, and increasingly separated the United States into a slaveholding South and a free North. The issue was exacerbated by the rapid territorial expansion of the country, which repeatedly brought to the fore the issue of whether new territory should be slaveholding or free. The issue had dominated politics for decades leading up to the war. Key attempts to solve the issue included the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, but these only postponed an inevitable showdown over slavery.The motivations of the average person were not inherently those of their faction; some Northern soldiers were even indifferent on the subject of slavery, but a general pattern can be established. Confederate soldiers fought the war primarily to protect a Southern society of which slavery was an integral part. From the anti-slavery perspective, the issue was primarily whether slavery was an anachronistic evil incompatible with republicanism. The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was containment—to stop the expansion of slavery and thereby put it on a path to ultimate extinction. The slaveholding interests in the South denounced this strategy as infringing upon their constitutional rights. Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the South's economy, due to the large amount of capital invested in slaves and fears of integrating the ex-slave black population. In particular, many Southerners feared a repeat of 1804 Haiti massacre (also known as "the horrors of Santo Domingo"), in which former slaves systematically murdered most of what was left of the country's white population — including men, women, children, and even many sympathetic to abolition — after the successful slave revolt in Haiti. Historian Thomas Fleming points to the historical phrase "a disease in the public mind" used by critics of this idea and proposes it contributed to the segregation in the Jim Crow era following emancipation. These fears were exacerbated by the 1859 attempt of John Brown to instigate an armed slave rebellion in the South.AbolitionistsThe abolitionists – those advocating the end of slavery – were very active in the decades leading up to the Civil War. They traced their philosophical roots back to the Puritans, who strongly believed that slavery was morally wrong. One of the early Puritan writings on this subject was The Selling of Joseph, by Samuel Sewall in 1700. In it, Sewall condemned slavery and the slave trade and refuted many of the era's typical justifications for slavery.The American Revolution and the cause of liberty added tremendous impetus to the abolitionist cause. Slavery, which had been around for thousands of years, was considered normal and was not a significant issue of public debate prior to the Revolution. The Revolution changed that and made it into an issue that had to be addressed. As a result, during and shortly after the Revolution, the northern states quickly started outlawing slavery. Even in southern states, laws were changed to limit slavery and facilitate manumission. The amount of indentured servitude dropped dramatically throughout the country. An Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves sailed through Congress with little opposition. President Thomas Jefferson supported it, and it went into effect on January 1, 1808. Benjamin Franklin and James Madison each helped found manumission societies. Influenced by the Revolution, many slave owners freed their slaves, but some, such as George Washington, did so only in their wills. The number of free blacks as a proportion of the black population in the upper South increased from less than 1 percent to nearly 10 percent between 1790 and 1810 as a result of these actions.The establishment of the Northwest Territory as "free soil" – no slavery – by Manasseh Cutler and Rufus Putnam (who both came from Puritan New England) would also prove crucial. This territory (which became the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota) doubled the size of the United States.In the decades leading up to the Civil War, abolitionists, such as Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Frederick Douglass, repeatedly used the Puritan heritage of the country to bolster their cause. The most radical anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, invoked the Puritans and Puritan values over a thousand times. Parker, in urging New England Congressmen to support the abolition of slavery, wrote that "The son of the Puritan ... is sent to Congress to stand up for Truth and Right...." Literature served as a means to spread the message to common folks. Key works included Twelve Years a Slave, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slavery as It Is, and the most important: Uncle Tom's Cabin, the best-selling book of the 19th century aside from the Bible.By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States. Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of moralism, and led directly to the Civil War. In churches, conventions and newspapers, reformers promoted an absolute and immediate rejection of slavery. Support for abolition among the religious was not universal though. As the war approached, even the main denominations split along political lines, forming rival southern and northern churches. In 1845, for example, Baptists split into the Northern Baptists and Southern Baptists over the issue of slavery.Abolitionist sentiment was not strictly religious or moral in origin. The Whig Party became increasingly opposed to slavery because they saw it as inherently against the ideals of capitalism and the free market. Whig leader William H. Seward (who would serve in Lincoln's cabinet) proclaimed that there was an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and free labor, and that slavery had left the South backward and undeveloped. As the Whig party dissolved in the 1850s, the mantle of abolition fell to its newly formed successor, the Republican Party.Territorial crisisManifest destiny heightened the conflict over slavery, as each new territory acquired had to face the thorny question of whether to allow or disallow the "peculiar institution". Between 1803 and 1854, the United States achieved a vast expansion of territory through purchase, negotiation, and conquest. At first, the new states carved out of these territories entering the union were apportioned equally between slave and free states. Pro- and anti-slavery forces collided over the territories west of the Mississippi.The Mexican–American War and its aftermath was a key territorial event in the leadup to the war. As the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo finalized the conquest of northern Mexico west to California in 1848, slaveholding interests looked forward to expanding into these lands and perhaps Cuba and Central America as well. Prophetically, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "Mexico will poison us", referring to the ensuing divisions around whether the newly conquered lands would end up slave or free. Northern "free soil" interests vigorously sought to curtail any further expansion of slave territory. The Compromise of 1850 over California balanced a free-soil state with stronger fugitive slave laws for a political settlement after four years of strife in the 1840s. But the states admitted following California were all free: Minnesota (1858), Oregon (1859), and Kansas (1861). In the Southern states, the question of the territorial expansion of slavery westward again became explosive. Both the South and the North drew the same conclusion: "The power to decide the question of slavery for the territories was the power to determine the future of slavery itself."By 1860, four doctrines had emerged to answer the question of federal control in the territories, and they all claimed they were sanctioned by the Constitution, implicitly or explicitly. The first of these "conservative" theories, represented by the Constitutional Union Party, argued that the Missouri Compromise apportionment of territory north for free soil and south for slavery should become a Constitutional mandate. The Crittenden Compromise of 1860 was an expression of this view.The second doctrine of Congressional preeminence, championed by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, insisted that the Constitution did not bind legislators to a policy of balance—that slavery could be excluded in a territory as it was done in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 at the discretion of Congress; thus Congress could restrict human bondage, but never establish it. The ill-fated Wilmot Proviso announced this position in 1846. The Proviso was a pivotal moment in national politics, as it was the first time slavery had become a major congressional issue based on sectionalism, instead of party lines. Its bipartisan support by northern Democrats and Whigs, and bipartisan opposition by southerners was a dark omen of coming divisions.Senator Stephen A. Douglas proclaimed the third doctrine: territorial or "popular" sovereignty, which asserted that the settlers in a territory had the same rights as states in the Union to establish or disestablish slavery as a purely local matter. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 legislated this doctrine. In the Kansas Territory, years of pro and anti-slavery violence and political conflict erupted; the U.S. House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas as a free state in early 1860, but its admission did not pass the Senate until January 1861, after the departure of Southern senators.The fourth doctrine was advocated by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, one of state sovereignty ("states' rights"), also known as the "Calhoun doctrine", named after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman John C. Calhoun. Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the federal union under the U.S. Constitution. "States' rights" was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority. As historian Thomas L. Krannawitter points out, the "Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of Federal power." These four doctrines comprised the dominant ideologies presented to the American public on the matters of slavery, the territories, and the U.S. Constitution before the 1860 presidential election.States' rightsA long running dispute over the origin of the Civil War is to what extent states' rights triggered the conflict. The consensus among historians is that the Civil War was  fought about states' rights. But the issue is frequently referenced in popular accounts of the war and has much traction among Southerners. The South argued that just as each state had decided to join the Union, a state had the right to secede—leave the Union—at any time. Northerners (including pro-slavery President Buchanan) rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the Founding Fathers, who said they were setting up a perpetual union.Historian James McPherson points out that even if Confederates genuinely fought over states' rights, it boiled down to states' right to slavery. McPherson writes concerning states' rights and other non-slavery explanations:Before the Civil War, the Southern states used federal powers in enforcing and extending slavery at the national level, with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. The faction that pushed for secession often infringed on states' rights. Because of the overrepresentation of pro-slavery factions in the federal government, many Northerners, even non-abolitionists, feared the Slave Power conspiracy. Some Northern states resisted the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Historian Eric Foner stated the act "could hardly have been designed to arouse greater opposition in the North. It overrode numerous state and local laws and legal procedures and 'commanded' individual citizens to assist, when called upon, in capturing runaways." He continues, "It certainly did not reveal, on the part of slaveholders, sensitivity to states’ rights." According to historian Paul Finkelman "the southern states mostly complained that the northern states were asserting their states’ rights and that the national government was not powerful enough to counter these northern claims." The Confederate constitution also "federally" required slavery to be legal in all Confederate states and claimed territories.SectionalismSectionalism resulted from the different economies, social structure, customs, and political values of the North and South. Regional tensions came to a head during the War of 1812, resulting in the Hartford Convention, which manifested Northern dissatisfaction with a foreign trade embargo that affected the industrial North disproportionately, the Three-Fifths Compromise, dilution of Northern power by new states, and a succession of Southern presidents. Sectionalism increased steadily between 1800 and 1860 as the North, which phased slavery out of existence, industrialized, urbanized, and built prosperous farms, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence agriculture for poor whites. In the 1840s and 1850s, the issue of accepting slavery (in the guise of rejecting slave-owning bishops and missionaries) split the nation's largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches) into separate Northern and Southern denominations.Historians have debated whether economic differences between the mainly industrial North and the mainly agricultural South helped cause the war. Most historians now disagree with the economic determinism of historian Charles A. Beard in the 1920s, and emphasize that Northern and Southern economies were largely complementary. While socially different, the sections economically benefited each other.ProtectionismOwners of slaves preferred low-cost manual labor with no mechanization. Northern manufacturing interests supported tariffs and protectionism while Southern planters demanded free trade. The Democrats in Congress, controlled by Southerners, wrote the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates so that the 1857 rates were the lowest since 1816. The Republicans called for an increase in tariffs in the 1860 election. The increases were only enacted in 1861 after Southerners resigned their seats in Congress. The tariff issue was a Northern grievance. However, neo-Confederate writers have claimed it as a Southern grievance. In 1860–61 none of the groups that proposed compromises to head off secession raised the tariff issue. Pamphleteers North and South rarely mentioned the tariff.Nationalism and honorNationalism was a powerful force in the early 19th century, with famous spokesmen such as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. While practically all Northerners supported the Union, Southerners were split between those loyal to the entirety of the United States (called "Southern Unionists") and those loyal primarily to the Southern region and then the Confederacy.Perceived insults to Southern collective honor included the enormous popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the actions of abolitionist John Brown in trying to incite a rebellion of slaves in 1859.While the South moved towards a Southern nationalism, leaders in the North were also becoming more nationally minded, and they rejected any notion of splitting the Union. The Republican national electoral platform of 1860 warned that Republicans regarded disunion as treason and would not tolerate it. The South ignored the warnings; Southerners did not realize how ardently the North would fight to hold the Union together.Lincoln's electionThe election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession. Efforts at compromise, including the Corwin Amendment and the Crittenden Compromise, failed. Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. When Lincoln won the presidential election in 1860, the South lost any hope of compromise. Jefferson Davis claimed that all the cotton states would secede from the Union. The Confederacy was formed of seven states of the Deep South: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas in January and February 1861. They wrote the Confederate Constitution, which provided greater states' rights than the Constitution of the United States. Until elections were held, Davis was the provisional president. Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.According to Lincoln, the American people had shown that they had been successful in establishing and administering a republic, but a third challenge faced the nation: maintaining a republic based on the people's vote, in the face of an attempt to destroy it.Outbreak of the warSecession crisisThe election of Lincoln provoked the legislature of South Carolina to call a state convention to consider secession. Before the war, South Carolina did more than any other Southern state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws, and even to secede from the United States. The convention unanimously voted to secede on December 20, 1860, and adopted a secession declaration. It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution. The "cotton states" of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861.Among the ordinances of secession passed by the individual states, those of three—Texas, Alabama, and Virginia—specifically mentioned the plight of the "slaveholding states" at the hands of Northern abolitionists. The rest make no mention of the slavery issue and are often brief announcements of the dissolution of ties by the legislatures. However, at least four states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas—also passed lengthy and detailed explanations of their causes for secession, all of which laid the blame squarely on the movement to abolish slavery and that movement's influence over the politics of the Northern states. The Southern states believed slaveholding was a constitutional right because of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution. These states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan said that the Dred Scott decision was proof that the South had no reason for secession, and that the Union "was intended to be perpetual", but that "The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union" was not among the "enumerated powers granted to Congress". One-quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison in Texas—was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, Republicans were able to pass projects that had been blocked by Southern senators before the war. These included the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morrill Act), a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad (the Pacific Railroad Acts), the National Bank Act, the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and the ending of slavery in the District of Columbia. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.In December 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to the north of the line while guaranteeing it to the south. The adoption of this compromise likely would have prevented the secession of the Southern states, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it. Lincoln stated that any compromise that would extend slavery would in time bring down the Union. A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington, proposing a solution similar to that of the Crittenden compromise; it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed an alternative compromise to not interfere with slavery where it existed but the South regarded it as insufficient. Nonetheless, the remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy following a two-to-one no-vote in Virginia's First Secessionist Convention on April 4, 1861.On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void". He had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but said that he would use force to maintain possession of Federal property, including forts, arsenals, mints, and customhouses that had been seized by the Southern states. The government would make no move to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where popular conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of Federal law, U.S. marshals and judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from U.S. mints in Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. He stated that it would be U.S. policy to only collect import duties at its ports; there could be no serious injury to the South to justify the armed revolution during his administration. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on "the mystic chords of memory" binding the two regions.The Davis government of the new Confederacy sent three delegates to Washington to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States of America. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents because he claimed the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. Lincoln instead attempted to negotiate directly with the governors of individual seceded states, whose administrations he continued to recognize.Complicating Lincoln's attempts to defuse the crisis were the actions of the new Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward had been Lincoln's main rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Shocked and deeply embittered by this defeat, Seward only agreed to support Lincoln's candidacy after he was guaranteed the executive office which was considered at that time to be by far the most powerful and important after the presidency itself. Even in the early stages of Lincoln's presidency Seward still held little regard for the new chief executive due to his perceived inexperience, and therefore viewed himself as the de facto head of government or "prime minister" behind the throne of Lincoln. In this role, Seward attempted to engage in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed. However, President Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy: Fort Monroe in Virginia, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson and Fort Taylor in Florida, and Fort Sumter – located at the cockpit of secession in Charleston, South Carolina.Battle of Fort SumterFort Sumter is located in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its garrison had recently moved there to avoid incidents with local militias in the streets of the city. Lincoln told its commander, Major Robert Anderson, to hold on until fired upon. Confederate president Jefferson Davis ordered the surrender of the fort. Anderson gave a conditional reply, which the Confederate government rejected, and Davis ordered General P. G. T. Beauregard to attack the fort before a relief expedition could arrive. He bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12–13, forcing its capitulation.The attack on Fort Sumter enormously invigorated the North to the defense of American nationalism.On April 15, 1861, Lincoln called on all the states to send forces to recapture the fort and other federal properties. The scale of the rebellion appeared to be small, so he called for only 75,000 volunteers for 90 days. In western Missouri, local secessionists seized Liberty Arsenal. On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for a period of three years. Shortly after this, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina seceded and joined the Confederacy. To reward Virginia, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond.Attitude of the border statesMaryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky were slave states that had divided loyalties to Northern and Southern businesses and family members. Some men enlisted in the Union Army and others in the Confederate Army. West Virginia separated from Virginia and was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863.Maryland's territory surrounded the United States' capital of Washington, D.C., and could cut it off from the North. It had numerous anti-Lincoln officials who tolerated anti-army rioting in Baltimore and the burning of bridges, both aimed at hindering the passage of troops to the South. Maryland's legislature voted overwhelmingly (53–13) to stay in the Union, but also rejected hostilities with its southern neighbors, voting to close Maryland's rail lines to prevent them from being used for war. Lincoln responded by establishing martial law and unilaterally suspending habeas corpus in Maryland, along with sending in militia units from the North. Lincoln rapidly took control of Maryland and the District of Columbia by seizing many prominent figures, including arresting 1/3 of the members of the Maryland General Assembly on the day it reconvened. All were held without trial, ignoring a ruling by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Roger Taney, a Maryland native, that only Congress (and not the president) could suspend habeas corpus (Ex parte Merryman). Federal troops imprisoned a prominent Baltimore newspaper editor, Frank Key Howard, Francis Scott Key's grandson, after he criticized Lincoln in an editorial for ignoring the Supreme Court Chief Justice's ruling.In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state (see also: Missouri secession). In the resulting vacuum, the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri.Kentucky did not secede; for a time, it declared itself neutral. When Confederate forces entered the state in September 1861, neutrality ended and the state reaffirmed its Union status while maintaining slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces in 1861, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, formed the shadow Confederate Government of Kentucky, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. Its jurisdiction extended only as far as Confederate battle lines in the Commonwealth, and it went into exile for good after October 1862.After Virginia's secession, a Unionist government in Wheeling asked 48 counties to vote on an ordinance to create a new state on October 24, 1861. A voter turnout of 34 percent approved the statehood bill (96 percent approving). Twenty-four secessionist counties were included in the new state, and the ensuing guerrilla war engaged about 40,000 Federal troops for much of the war. Congress admitted West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. West Virginia provided about 20,000–22,000 soldiers to both the Confederacy and the Union.A Unionist secession attempt occurred in East Tennessee, but was suppressed by the Confederacy, which arrested over 3,000 men suspected of being loyal to the Union. They were held without trial.General features of the warThe Civil War was a contest marked by the ferocity and frequency of battle. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, as were many more minor actions and skirmishes, which were often characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. In his book The American Civil War, John Keegan writes that "The American Civil War was to prove one of the most ferocious wars ever fought". In many cases, without geographic objectives, the only target for each side was the enemy's soldier.MobilizationAs the first seven states began organizing a Confederacy in Montgomery, the entire U.S. army numbered 16,000. However, Northern governors had begun to mobilize their militias. The Confederate Congress authorized the new nation up to 100,000 troops sent by governors as early as February. By May, Jefferson Davis was pushing for 100,000 men under arms for one year or the duration, and that was answered in kind by the U.S. Congress.In the first year of the war, both sides had far more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, reliance on the cohort of young men who came of age every year and wanted to join was not enough. Both sides used a draft law—conscription—as a device to encourage or force volunteering; relatively few were drafted and served. The Confederacy passed a draft law in April 1862 for young men aged 18 to 35; overseers of slaves, government officials, and clergymen were exempt. The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland.When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited by the states and used to meet the state quotas. States and local communities offered higher and higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and overt resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The draft riot in New York City in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city's Democratic political machine, not realizing it made them liable for the draft. Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who had their services conscripted.In both the North and South, the draft laws were highly unpopular. In the North, some 120,000 men evaded conscription, many of them fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 soldiers deserted during the war. At least 100,000 Southerners deserted, or about 10 percent; Southern desertion was high because, according to one historian writing in 1991, the highly localized Southern identity meant that many Southern men had little investment in the outcome of the war, with individual soldiers caring more about the fate of their local area than any grand ideal. In the North, "bounty jumpers" enlisted to get the generous bonus, deserted, then went back to a second recruiting station under a different name to sign up again for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed.From a tiny frontier force in 1860, the Union and Confederate armies had grown into the "largest and most efficient armies in the world" within a few years. Some European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional, but British historian John Keegan concluded that each outmatched the French, Prussian, and Russian armies of the time, and without the Atlantic, would have threatened any of them with defeat.PrisonersAt the start of the Civil War, a system of paroles operated. Captives agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile, they were held in camps run by their army. They were paid, but they were not allowed to perform any military duties. The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that, about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons during the war, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the conflict's fatalities.WomenHistorian Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that, according to various estimates, between five hundred and one thousand women enlisted as soldiers on both sides of the war, disguised as men.Women also served as spies, resistance activists, nurses, and hospital personnel.Women served on the Union hospital ship Red Rover and nursed Union and Confederate troops at field hospitals.Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, served in the Union Army and was given the medal for her efforts to treat the wounded during the war. Her name was deleted from the Army Medal of Honor Roll in 1917 (along with over 900 other, male MOH recipients); however, it was restored in 1977.Naval tacticsThe small U.S. Navy of 1861 was rapidly enlarged to 6,000 officers and 45,000 men in 1865, with 671 vessels, having a tonnage of 510,396. Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, take control of the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy. Meanwhile, the main riverine war was fought in the West, where a series of major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland. The U.S. Navy eventually gained control of the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers. In the East, the Navy shelled Confederate forts and provided support for coastal army operations.Modern navy evolvesThe Civil War occurred during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Many naval innovations emerged during this time, most notably the advent of the ironclad warship. It began when the Confederacy, knowing they had to meet or match the Union's naval superiority, responded to the Union blockade by building or converting more than 130 vessels, including twenty-six ironclads and floating batteries. Only half of these saw active service. Many were equipped with ram bows, creating "ram fever" among Union squadrons wherever they threatened. But in the face of overwhelming Union superiority and the Union's ironclad warships, they were unsuccessful.In addition to ocean-going warships coming up the Mississippi, the Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards at Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built new boats or modified steamboats for action.The Confederacy experimented with the submarine , which did not work satisfactorily, and with building an ironclad ship, , which was based on rebuilding a sunken Union ship, . On its first foray, on March 8, 1862, Virginia inflicted significant damage to the Union's wooden fleet, but the next day the first Union ironclad, , arrived to challenge it in the Chesapeake Bay. The resulting three-hour Battle of Hampton Roads was a draw, but it proved that ironclads were effective warships. Not long after the battle, the Confederacy was forced to scuttle the Virginia to prevent its capture, while the Union built many copies of the Monitor. Lacking the technology and infrastructure to build effective warships, the Confederacy attempted to obtain warships from Great Britain. However, this failed, because Great Britain had no interest in selling warships to a nation that was at war with a far stronger enemy, and doing so could sour relations with the U.S.Union blockade By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible. Scott argued that a Union blockade of the main ports would weaken the Confederate economy. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan, but he overruled Scott's caution about 90-day volunteers. Public opinion, however, demanded an immediate attack by the army to capture Richmond.In April 1861, Lincoln announced the Union blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended. The South blundered in embargoing cotton exports in 1861 before the blockade was effective; by the time they realized the mistake, it was too late. "King Cotton" was dead, as the South could export less than 10 percent of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton, especially New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service.Blockade runners The Confederates began the war short on military supplies and in desperate need of large quantities of arms which the agrarian South could not provide. Arms manufactures in the industrial North were restricted by an arms embargo, keeping shipments of arms from going to the South, and ending all existing and future contracts. The Confederacy subsequently looked to foreign sources for their enormous military needs and sought out financiers and companies like S. Isaac, Campbell & Company and the London Armoury Company in Britain, who acted as purchasing agents for the Confederacy, connecting them with Britain's many arms manufactures, and ultimately becoming the Confederacy's main source of arms.To get the arms safely to the Confederacy British investors built small, fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and supplies brought in from Britain through Bermuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas in return for high-priced cotton. Many of the ships were lightweight and designed for speed and could only carry a relatively small amount of cotton back to England. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a prize of war and sold, with the proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen were mostly British, and they were released.Economic impactThe Southern economy nearly collapsed during the war. There were multiple reasons for this: the severe deterioration of food supplies, especially in cities, the failure of Southern railroads, the loss of control of the main rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate armies.Most historians agree that the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy; however, Wise argues that the blockade runners provided just enough of a lifeline to allow Lee to continue fighting for additional months, thanks to fresh supplies of 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that the homefront economy could no longer supply.Surdam argues that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, at the cost of few lives in combat. Practically, the entire Confederate cotton crop was useless (although it was sold to Union traders), costing the Confederacy its main source of income. Critical imports were scarce and the coastal trade was largely ended as well. The measure of the blockade's success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it. Merchant ships owned in Europe could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade, so they stopped calling at Confederate ports.To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased ships in Britain, converted them to warships, and raided American merchant ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Insurance rates skyrocketed and the American flag virtually disappeared from international waters. However, the same ships were reflagged with European flags and continued unmolested. After the war ended, the U.S. government demanded that Britain compensate them for the damage done by the raiders outfitted in British ports. Britain acquiesced to their demand, paying the U.S. $15 million in 1871.DiplomacyAlthough the Confederacy hoped that Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely, and so they instead tried to bring the British and French governments in as mediators. The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, worked to block this and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war to get cotton, but this did not work. Worse, Europe turned to Egypt and India for cotton, which they found superior, hindering the South's recovery after the war.Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860–62 crop failures in Europe made the North's grain exports of critical importance. It also helped to turn European opinion further away from the Confederacy. It was said that "King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton", as U.S. grain went from a quarter of the British import trade to almost half. Meanwhile, the war created employment for arms makers, ironworkers, and ships to transport weapons.Lincoln's administration initially failed to appeal to European public opinion. At first, diplomats explained that the United States was not committed to the ending of slavery, and instead repeated legalistic arguments about the unconstitutionality of secession. Confederate representatives, on the other hand, started off much more successful, by ignoring slavery and instead focusing on their struggle for liberty, their commitment to free trade, and the essential role of cotton in the European economy. The European aristocracy was "absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed. European government leaders welcomed the fragmentation of the ascendant American Republic." However, there was still a European public with liberal sensibilities, that the U.S. sought to appeal to by building connections with the international press. As early as 1861, many Union diplomats such as Carl Schurz realized emphasizing the war against slavery was the Union's most effective moral asset in the struggle for public opinion in Europe. Seward was concerned that an overly radical case for reunification would distress the European merchants with cotton interests; even so, Seward supported a widespread campaign of public diplomacy.U.S. minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept and convinced Britain not to openly challenge the Union blockade. The Confederacy purchased several warships from commercial shipbuilders in Britain (, , , , , and some others). The most famous, the , did considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery in Britain created a political liability for British politicians, where the anti-slavery movement was powerful.War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent affair, involving the U.S. Navy's boarding of the British ship  and seizing two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington were able to smooth over the problem after Lincoln released the two. Prince Albert had left his deathbed to issue diplomatic instructions to Lord Lyons during the Trent affair, which began when the United States Navy captured two Confederate envoys from a British ship. His request was honored due to the respect he enjoyed by the government. As a result, the British response to the United States was toned down and helped avert the British becoming involved in the war. In 1862, the British government considered mediating between the Union and Confederacy, though even such an offer would have risked war with the United States. British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times when deciding on what his decision would be.The Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused the British to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation over time would reinforce the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Realizing that Washington could not intervene in Mexico as long as the Confederacy controlled Texas, France invaded Mexico in 1861. Washington repeatedly protested France's violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France's seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred it from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers and ensured that they would remain neutral.Russia supported the Union, largely because it believed that the U.S. served as a counterbalance to its geopolitical rival, the United Kingdom. In 1863, the Russian Navy's Baltic and Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively.Eastern theaterThe Eastern theater refers to the military operations east of the Appalachian Mountains, including the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the coastal fortifications and seaports of North Carolina.Background  Army of the PotomacMaj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26, 1861 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. The 1862 Union strategy called for simultaneous advances along four axes: McClellan would lead the main thrust in Virginia towards Richmond. Ohio forces would advance through Kentucky into Tennessee. The Missouri Department would drive south along the Mississippi River. The westernmost attack would originate from Kansas. Army of Northern VirginiaThe primary Confederate force in the Eastern theater was the Army of Northern Virginia. The Army originated as the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac, which was organized on June 20, 1861, from all operational forces in northern Virginia. On July 20 and 21, the Army of the Shenandoah and forces from the District of Harpers Ferry were added. Units from the Army of the Northwest were merged into the Army of the Potomac between March 14 and May 17, 1862. The Army of the Potomac was renamed Army of Northern Virginia on March 14. The Army of the Peninsula was merged into it on April 12, 1862.When Virginia declared its secession in April 1861, Robert E. Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.Lee's biographer, Douglas S. Freeman, asserts that the army received its final name from Lee when he issued orders assuming command on June 1, 1862. However, Freeman does admit that Lee corresponded with Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston, his predecessor in army command, before that date and referred to Johnston's command as the Army of Northern Virginia. Part of the confusion results from the fact that Johnston commanded the Department of Northern Virginia (as of October 22, 1861) and the name Army of Northern Virginia can be seen as an informal consequence of its parent department's name. Jefferson Davis and Johnston did not adopt the name, but it is clear that the organization of units as of March 14 was the same organization that Lee received on June 1, and thus it is generally referred to today as the Army of Northern Virginia, even if that is correct only in retrospect.On July 4 at Harper's Ferry, Colonel Thomas J. Jackson assigned Jeb Stuart to command all the cavalry companies of the Army of the Shenandoah. He eventually commanded the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry.Battles In one of the first highly visible battles, in July 1861, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces led by Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard near Washington was repulsed at the First Battle of Bull Run (also known as First Manassas).The Union had the upper hand at first, nearly pushing confederate forces holding a defensive position into a rout, but Confederate reinforcements under Joseph E. Johnston arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad, and the course of the battle quickly changed. A brigade of Virginians under the relatively unknown brigadier general from the Virginia Military Institute, Thomas J. Jackson, stood its ground, which resulted in Jackson receiving his famous nickname, "Stonewall".Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. McClellan's army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign,Also in the spring of 1862, in the Shenandoah Valley, Stonewall Jackson led his Valley Campaign. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies (52,000 men), including those of Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Fremont, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond. The swiftness of Jackson's men earned them the nickname of "foot cavalry".Johnston halted McClellan's advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, but he was wounded in the battle, and Robert E. Lee assumed his position of command. General Lee and top subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat.The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet another victory for the South. McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck's orders to send reinforcements to John Pope's Union Army of Virginia, which made it easier for Lee's Confederates to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North with the Maryland Campaign. General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope's troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history. Lee's army checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when more than 12,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during repeated futile frontal assaults against Marye's Heights. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee's army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, his Chancellorsville Campaign proved ineffective and he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Chancellorsville is known as Lee's "perfect battle" because his risky decision to divide his army in the presence of a much larger enemy force resulted in a significant Confederate victory. Gen. Stonewall Jackson was shot in the arm by accidental friendly fire during the battle and subsequently died of complications. Lee famously said: "He has lost his left arm, but I have lost my right arm."The fiercest fighting of the battle—and the second bloodiest day of the Civil War—occurred on May 3 as Lee launched multiple attacks against the Union position at Chancellorsville. That same day, John Sedgwick advanced across the Rappahannock River, defeated the small Confederate force at Marye's Heights in the Second Battle of Fredericksburg, and then moved to the west. The Confederates fought a successful delaying action at the Battle of Salem Church.Gen. Hooker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee's second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863). This was the bloodiest battle of the war and has been called the war's turning point. Pickett's Charge on July 3 is often considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy because it signaled the collapse of serious Confederate threats of victory. Lee's army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade's 23,000).Western theaterThe Western theater refers to military operations between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, including the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as parts of Louisiana.Background  Army of the Tennessee and Army of the CumberlandThe primary Union forces in the Western theater were the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland, named for the two rivers, the Tennessee River and Cumberland River. After Meade's inconclusive fall campaign, Lincoln turned to the Western Theater for new leadership. At the same time, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg surrendered, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River, permanently isolating the western Confederacy, and producing the new leader Lincoln needed, Ulysses S. Grant. Army of TennesseeThe primary Confederate force in the Western theater was the Army of Tennessee. The army was formed on November 20, 1862, when General Braxton Bragg renamed the former Army of Mississippi. While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern Theater, they were defeated many times in the West.Battles The Union's key strategist and tactician in the West was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry (February 6, 1862) and Donelson (February 11 to 16, 1862), earning him the nickname of "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, by which the Union seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Nathan Bedford Forrest rallied nearly 4,000 Confederate troops and led them to escape across the Cumberland. Nashville and central Tennessee thus fell to the Union, leading to attrition of local food supplies and livestock and a breakdown in social organization.Leonidas Polk's invasion of Columbus ended Kentucky's policy of neutrality and turned it against the Confederacy. Grant used river transport and Andrew Foote's gunboats of the Western Flotilla to threaten the Confederacy's "Gibraltar of the West" at Columbus, Kentucky. Although rebuffed at Belmont, Grant cut off Columbus. The Confederates, lacking their gunboats, were forced to retreat and the Union took control of western Kentucky and opened Tennessee in March 1862.At the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), in Tennessee in April 1862, the Confederates made a surprise attack that pushed Union forces against the river as night fell. Overnight, the Navy landed additional reinforcements, and Grant counter-attacked. Grant and the Union won a decisive victory—the first battle with the high casualty rates that would repeat over and over. The Confederates lost Albert Sidney Johnston, considered their finest general before the emergence of Lee.One of the early Union objectives in the war was the capture of the Mississippi River, to cut the Confederacy in half. The Mississippi River was opened to Union traffic to the southern border of Tennessee with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee.In April 1862, the Union Navy captured New Orleans. "The key to the river was New Orleans, the South's largest port [and] greatest industrial center." U.S. Naval forces under Farragut ran past Confederate defenses south of New Orleans. Confederate forces abandoned the city, giving the Union a critical anchor in the deep South. which allowed Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi. Memphis fell to Union forces on June 6, 1862, and became a key base for further advances south along the Mississippi River. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented Union control of the entire river.Bragg's second invasion of Kentucky in the Confederate Heartland Offensive included initial successes such as Kirby Smith's triumph at the Battle of Richmond and the capture of the Kentucky capital of Frankfort on September 3, 1862. However, the campaign ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville. Bragg was forced to end his attempt at invading Kentucky and retreat due to lack of logistical support and lack of infantry recruits for the Confederacy in that state.Bragg was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee, the culmination of the Stones River Campaign.Naval forces assisted Grant in the long, complex Vicksburg Campaign that resulted in the Confederates surrendering at the Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, which cemented Union control of the Mississippi River and is considered one of the turning points of the war.The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. After Rosecrans' successful Tullahoma Campaign, Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's corps (from Lee's army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas.Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged in the Chattanooga Campaign. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga, eventually causing Longstreet to abandon his Knoxville Campaign and driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.Trans-Mississippi theaterBackground The Trans-Mississippi theater refers to military operations west of the Mississippi River, encompassing most of Missouri, Arkansas, most of Louisiana, and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Trans-Mississippi District was formed by the Confederate Army to better coordinate Ben McCulloch's command of troops in Arkansas and Louisiana, Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard, as well as the portion of Earl Van Dorn's command that included the Indian Territory and excluded the Army of the West. The Union's command was the Trans-Mississippi Division, or the Military Division of West Mississippi.Battles The first battle of the Trans-Mississippi theater was the Battle of Wilson's Creek (August 1861). The Confederates were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.Extensive guerrilla warfare characterized the trans-Mississippi region, as the Confederacy lacked the troops and the logistics to support regular armies that could challenge Union control. Roving Confederate bands such as Quantrill's Raiders terrorized the countryside, striking both military installations and civilian settlements. The "Sons of Liberty" and "Order of the American Knights" attacked pro-Union people, elected officeholders, and unarmed uniformed soldiers. These partisans could not be entirely driven out of the state of Missouri until an entire regular Union infantry division was engaged. By 1864, these violent activities harmed the nationwide anti-war movement organizing against the re-election of Lincoln. Missouri not only stayed in the Union but Lincoln took 70 percent of the vote for re-election.Numerous small-scale military actions south and west of Missouri sought to control Indian Territory and New Mexico Territory for the Union. The Battle of Glorieta Pass was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign. The Union repulsed Confederate incursions into New Mexico in 1862, and the exiled Arizona government withdrew into Texas. In the Indian Territory, civil war broke out within tribes. About 12,000 Indian warriors fought for the Confederacy and smaller numbers for the Union. The most prominent Cherokee was Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender.After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, General Kirby Smith in Texas was informed by Jefferson Davis that he could expect no further help from east of the Mississippi River. Although he lacked resources to beat Union armies, he built up a formidable arsenal at Tyler, along with his own Kirby Smithdom economy, a virtual "independent fiefdom" in Texas, including railroad construction and international smuggling. The Union, in turn, did not directly engage him. Its 1864 Red River Campaign to take Shreveport, Louisiana, was a failure and Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war.Lower Seaboard theaterBackground The Lower Seaboard theater refers to military and naval operations that occurred near the coastal areas of the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) as well as the southern part of the Mississippi River (Port Hudson and south). Union Naval activities were dictated by the Anaconda Plan.Battles One of the earliest battles of the war was fought at Port Royal Sound (November, 1861), south of Charleston. Much of the war along the South Carolina coast concentrated on capturing Charleston. In attempting to capture Charleston, the Union military tried two approaches: by land over James or Morris Islands or through the harbor. However, the Confederates were able to drive back each Union attack. One of the most famous of the land attacks was the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, in which the 54th Massachusetts Infantry took part. The Union suffered a serious defeat in this battle, losing 1,515 men while the Confederates lost only 174.Fort Pulaski on the Georgia coast was an early target for the Union navy. Following the capture of Port Royal, an expedition was organized with engineer troops under the command of Captain Quincy A. Gillmore, forcing a Confederate surrender. The Union army occupied the fort for the rest of the war after repairing it.In April 1862, a Union naval task force commanded by Commander David D. Porter attacked Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which guarded the river approach to New Orleans from the south. While part of the fleet bombarded the forts, other vessels forced a break in the obstructions in the river and enabled the rest of the fleet to steam upriver to the city. A Union army force commanded by Major General Benjamin Butler landed near the forts and forced their surrender. Butler's controversial command of New Orleans earned him the nickname "Beast."The following year, the Union Army of the Gulf commanded by Major General Nathaniel P. Banks laid siege to Port Hudson for nearly eight weeks, the longest siege in US military history. The Confederates attempted to defend with the Bayou Teche Campaign but surrendered after Vicksburg. These two surrenders gave the Union control over the entire Mississippi.Several small skirmishes were fought in Florida, but no major battles. The biggest was the Battle of Olustee in early 1864.Pacific Coast theaterThe Pacific Coast theater refers to military operations on the Pacific Ocean and in the states and Territories west of the Continental Divide.Conquest of VirginiaAt the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would end the war. This was total war not in killing civilians but rather in taking provisions and forage and destroying homes, farms, and railroads, that Grant said "would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end." Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions. Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond, General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley, General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean), Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.Grant's Overland Campaign Grant's army set out on the Overland Campaign intending to draw Lee into a defense of Richmond, where they would attempt to pin down and destroy the Confederate army. The Union army first attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles, notably at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. These battles resulted in heavy losses on both sides and forced Lee's Confederates to fall back repeatedly. At the Battle of Yellow Tavern, the Confederates lost Jeb Stuart.An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Each battle resulted in setbacks for the Union that mirrored what they had suffered under prior generals, though, unlike those prior generals, Grant fought on rather than retreat. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. While Lee was preparing for an attack on Richmond, Grant unexpectedly turned south to cross the James River and began the protracted Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.Sheridan's Valley Campaign Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was initially repelled at the Battle of New Market by former U.S. vice president and Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge. The Battle of New Market was the Confederacy's last major victory of the war and included a charge by teenage VMI cadets. After redoubling his efforts, Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.Sherman's March to the Sea Meanwhile, Sherman maneuvered from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, guaranteed the reelection of Lincoln as president. Hood left the Atlanta area to swing around and menace Sherman's supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin–Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood's army.Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman's army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20 percent of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea". He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia, in December 1864. Sherman's army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the March. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee's army.The Waterloo of the Confederacy Lee's army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant's. One last Confederate attempt to break the Union hold on Petersburg failed at the decisive Battle of Five Forks (sometimes called "the Waterloo of the Confederacy") on April 1. This meant that the Union now controlled the entire perimeter surrounding Richmond-Petersburg, completely cutting it off from the Confederacy. Realizing that the capital was now lost, Lee decided to evacuate his army. The Confederate capital fell to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west after a defeat at Sayler's Creek.Confederacy surrendersInitially, Lee did not intend to surrender but planned to regroup at the village of Appomattox Court House, where supplies were to be waiting and then continue the war. Grant chased Lee and got in front of him so that when Lee's army reached Appomattox Court House, they were surrounded. After an initial battle, Lee decided that the fight was now hopeless, and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House. In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant's respect and anticipation of peacefully restoring Confederate states to the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his sword and his horse, Traveller. His men were paroled, and a chain of Confederate surrenders began.On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln died early the next morning. Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, was unharmed, because his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, lost his nerve, so Johnson was immediately sworn in as president. Meanwhile, Confederate forces across the South surrendered as news of Lee's surrender reached them. On April 26, 1865, the same day Boston Corbett killed Booth at a tobacco barn, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered nearly 90,000 men of the Army of Tennessee to Major General William Tecumseh Sherman at Bennett Place near present-day Durham, North Carolina. It proved to be the largest surrender of Confederate forces. On May 4, all remaining Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi surrendered. President Johnson officially declared an end to the insurrection on May 9, 1865; Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, was captured the following day. On June 2, Kirby Smith officially surrendered his troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department. On June 23, Cherokee leader Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces. The final Confederate surrender was by the Shenandoah on November 6, 1865, bringing all hostilities of the four-year war to a close.Home frontsUnion victory and aftermathExplaining the Union victoryThe causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering contention today. The North and West grew rich while the once-rich South became poor for a century. The national political power of the slaveowners and rich Southerners ended. Historians are less sure about the results of the postwar Reconstruction, especially regarding the second-class citizenship of the freedmen and their poverty.Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war. Most scholars, including James McPherson, argue that Confederate victory was at least possible. McPherson argues that the North's advantage in population and resources made Northern victory likely but not guaranteed. He also argues that if the Confederacy had fought using unconventional tactics, they would have more easily been able to hold out long enough to exhaust the Union.Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory to win but only needed to fight a defensive war to convince the North that the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies to win. Lincoln was not a military dictator and could continue to fight the war only as long as the American public supported a continuation of the war. The Confederacy sought to win independence by outlasting Lincoln; however, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, all hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had secured the support of the Republicans, War Democrats, the border states, emancipated slaves, and the neutrality of Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads and their peace platform.Some scholars argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, only delayed defeat. Civil War historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly: "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back .... If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War."A minority view among historians is that the Confederacy lost because, as E. Merton Coulter put it, "people did not will hard enough and long enough to win." However, most historians reject the argument. McPherson, after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, found strong patriotism that continued to the end; they truly believed they were fighting for freedom and liberty. Even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing in 1864–65, he says most Confederate soldiers were fighting hard. Historian Gary Gallagher cites General Sherman who in early 1864 commented, "The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired." Despite their loss of slaves and wealth, with starvation looming, Sherman continued, "yet I see no sign of let-up—some few deserters—plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out."Also important were Lincoln's eloquence in rationalizing the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. The Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the President's war powers. The Confederate government failed in its attempt to get Europe involved in the war militarily, particularly Britain and France. Southern leaders needed to get European powers to help break up the blockade the Union had created around the Southern ports and cities. Lincoln's naval blockade was 95% effective at stopping trade goods; as a result, imports and exports to the South declined significantly. The abundance of European cotton and Britain's hostility to the institution of slavery, along with Lincoln's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that either Britain or France would enter the war.Historian Don Doyle has argued that the Union victory had a major impact on the course of world history. The Union victory energized popular democratic forces. A Confederate victory, on the other hand, would have meant a new birth of slavery, not freedom. Historian Fergus Bordewich, following Doyle, argues that:Scholars have debated what the effects of the war were on political and economic power in the South. The prevailing view is that the southern planter elite retained its powerful position in the South. However, a 2017 study challenges this, noting that while some Southern elites retained their economic status, the turmoil of the 1860s created greater opportunities for economic mobility in the South than in the North.CasualtiesThe war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease—and 50,000 civilians. Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker believes the number of soldier deaths was approximately 750,000, 20 percent higher than traditionally estimated, and possibly as high as 850,000. A novel way of calculating casualties by looking at the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm through analysis of census data found that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000 people, but most likely 761,000 people, died through the war.As historian McPherson notes, the war's "cost in American lives was as great as in all of the nation's other wars combined through Vietnam" (referring to the Vietnam War).Based on 1860 census figures, 8 percent of all white men aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6 percent in the North and 18 percent in the South. About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War. An estimated 60,000 men lost limbs in the war.Of the 359,528 Union army dead, amounting to 15 percent of the over two million who served: 110,070 were killed in action (67,000) or died of wounds (43,000). 199,790 died of disease (75 percent was due to the war, the remainder would have occurred in civilian life anyway) 24,866 died in Confederate prison camps 9,058 were killed by accidents or drowning 15,741 other/unknown deathsIn addition there were 4,523 deaths in the Navy (2,112 in battle) and 460 in the Marines (148 in battle).Black troops made up 10 percent of the Union death toll, they amounted to 15 percent of disease deaths but less than 3 percent of those killed in battle. Losses among African Americans were high. In the last year and a half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20 percent of all African Americans enrolled in the military lost their lives during the Civil War. Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers. While 15.2% of United States Volunteers and just 8.6% of white Regular Army troops died, 20.5% of United States Colored Troops died.Confederate records compiled by historian William F. Fox list 74,524 killed and died of wounds and 59,292 died of disease. Including Confederate estimates of battle losses where no records exist would bring the Confederate death toll to 94,000 killed and died of wounds. However, this excludes the 30,000 deaths of Confederate troops in prisons, which would raise the minimum number of deaths to 290,000.The United States National Park Service uses the following figures in its official tally of war losses:Union: 853,838 110,100 killed in action 224,580 disease deaths 275,154 wounded in action 211,411 captured (including 30,192 who died as POWs)Confederate: 914,660 94,000 killed in action 164,000 disease deaths 194,026 wounded in action 462,634 captured (including 31,000 who died as POWs)While the figures of 360,000 army deaths for the Union and 260,000 for the Confederacy remained commonly cited, they are incomplete. In addition to many Confederate records being missing, partly as a result of Confederate widows not reporting deaths due to being ineligible for benefits, both armies only counted troops who died during their service and not the tens of thousands who died of wounds or diseases after being discharged. This often happened only a few days or weeks later. Francis Amasa Walker, superintendent of the 1870 census, used census and surgeon general data to estimate a minimum of 500,000 Union military deaths and 350,000 Confederate military deaths, for a total death toll of 850,000 soldiers. While Walker's estimates were originally dismissed because of the 1870 census's undercounting, it was later found that the census was only off by 6.5% and that the data Walker used would be roughly accurate.Analyzing the number of dead by using census data to calculate the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm suggests that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000, but most likely 761,000 soldiers, died in the war. This would break down to approximately 350,000 Confederate and 411,000 Union military deaths, going by the proportion of Union to Confederate battle losses.Deaths among former slaves has proven much harder to estimate, due to the lack of reliable census data at the time, though they were known to be considerable, as former slaves were set free or escaped in massive numbers in an area where the Union army did not have sufficient shelter, doctors, or food for them. University of Connecticut Professor James Downs states that tens to hundreds of thousands of slaves died during the war from disease, starvation, or exposure and that if these deaths are counted in the war's total, the death toll would exceed 1 million.Losses were far higher than during the recent defeat of Mexico, which saw roughly thirteen thousand American deaths, including fewer than two thousand killed in battle, between 1846 and 1848. One reason for the high number of battle deaths during the war was the continued use of tactics similar to those of the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the century, such as charging. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Minié balls, and (near the end of the war for the Union army) repeating firearms such as the Spencer Repeating Rifle and the Henry Repeating Rifle, soldiers were mowed down when standing in lines in the open. This led to the adoption of trench warfare, a style of fighting that defined much of World War I.EmancipationAbolishing slavery was not a Union war goal from the outset, but it quickly became one. Lincoln's initial claims were that preserving the Union was the central goal of the war. In contrast, the South saw itself as fighting to preserve slavery. While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting for slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee's army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. However, as the war dragged on it became clear that slavery was the central factor of the conflict, and that emancipation was (to quote the Emancipation Proclamation) "a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the] rebellion," Lincoln and his cabinet made ending slavery a war goal, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation angered both Peace Democrats ("Copperheads") and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans. By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans' counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats losing decisively in the 1863 elections in the northern state of Ohio when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment.Emancipation ProclamationSlavery for the Confederacy's 3.5 million blacks effectively ended in each area when Union armies arrived; they were nearly all freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. The last Confederate slaves were freed on June 19, 1865, celebrated as the modern holiday of Juneteenth. Slaves in the border states and those located in some former Confederate territory occupied before the Emancipation Proclamation were freed by state action or (on December 6, 1865) by the Thirteenth Amendment. The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army. About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery.During the Civil War, sentiment concerning slaves, enslavement and emancipation in the United States was divided. Lincoln's fears of making slavery a war issue were based on a harsh reality: abolition did not enjoy wide support in the west, the territories, and the border states. In 1861, Lincoln worried that premature attempts at emancipation would mean the loss of the border states, and that "to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game." Copperheads and some War Democrats opposed emancipation, although the latter eventually accepted it as part of the total war needed to save the Union.At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Generals John C. Frémont (in Missouri) and David Hunter (in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida) to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats. Lincoln warned the border states that a more radical type of emancipation would happen if his gradual plan based on compensated emancipation and voluntary colonization was rejected. But only the District of Columbia accepted Lincoln's gradual plan, which was enacted by Congress. When Lincoln told his cabinet about his proposed emancipation proclamation, Seward advised Lincoln to wait for a victory before issuing it, as to do otherwise would seem like "our last shriek on the retreat". Lincoln laid the groundwork for public support in an open letter published in response to Horace Greeley's "The Prayer of Twenty Millions." He also laid the groundwork at a meeting at the White House with five African American representatives on August 14, 1862. Arranging for a reporter to be present, he urged his visitors to agree to the voluntary colonization of black people, apparently to make his forthcoming preliminary emancipation proclamation more palatable to racist white people. A Union victory in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, provided Lincoln with an opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and the subsequent War Governors' Conference added support for the proclamation.Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In his letter to Albert G. Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong .... And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling .... I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."Lincoln's moderate approach succeeded in inducing the border states to remain in the Union and War Democrats to support the Union. The border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware) and Union-controlled regions around New Orleans, Norfolk, and elsewhere, were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. All abolished slavery on their own, except Kentucky and Delaware. Still, the proclamation did not enjoy universal support. It caused much unrest in what were then considered western states, where racist sentiments led to a great fear of abolition. There was some concern that the proclamation would lead to the secession of western states, and its issuance prompted the stationing of Union troops in Illinois in case of rebellion.Since the Emancipation Proclamation was based on the President's war powers, it applied only in territory held by Confederates at the time. However, the Proclamation became a symbol of the Union's growing commitment to add emancipation to the Union's definition of liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation greatly reduced the Confederacy's hope of being recognized or otherwise aided by Britain or France. By late 1864, Lincoln was playing a leading role in getting Congress to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment, which made emancipation universal and permanent unless it was repealed by another constitutional amendment.ReconstructionThe war had utterly devastated the South, and posed serious questions of how the South would be re-integrated to the Union. The war destroyed much of the wealth that had existed in the South. All accumulated investment Confederate bonds were forfeit; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. The income per person in the South dropped to less than 40 percent of that of the North, a condition that lasted until well into the 20th century. Southern influence in the U.S. federal government, previously considered, was greatly diminished until the latter half of the 20th century. Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, and it continued until 1877. It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the outstanding issues of the war's aftermath, the most important of which were the three "Reconstruction Amendments" to the Constitution: the 13th outlawing slavery (1865), the 14th guaranteeing citizenship to slaves (1868) and the 15th ensuring voting rights to slaves (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to consolidate the Union victory on the battlefield by reuniting the Union; to guarantee a "republican form of government" for the ex-Confederate states, and to permanently end slavery—and prevent semi-slavery status.President Johnson took a lenient approach and saw the achievement of the main war goals as realized in 1865 when each ex-rebel state repudiated secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Radical Republicans demanded proof that Confederate nationalism was dead and that the slaves were truly free. They came to the fore after the 1866 elections and undid much of Johnson's work. In 1872, the "Liberal Republicans" argued that the war goals had been achieved and that Reconstruction should end. They ran a presidential ticket in 1872 but were decisively defeated. In 1874, Democrats, primarily Southern, took control of Congress and opposed further reconstruction. The Compromise of 1877 closed with a national consensus that the Civil War had finally ended. With the withdrawal of federal troops, however, whites retook control of every Southern legislature, and the Jim Crow era of disenfranchisement and legal segregation was ushered in.The Civil War would have a huge impact on American politics in the years to come. Many veterans on both sides were subsequently elected to political office, including five U.S. Presidents: General Ulysses Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley.Memory and historiographyThe Civil War is one of the central events in American collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books, and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war's aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war. The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and heroism behind the lines, and issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an "Empire of Liberty" influencing the world.Professional historians have paid much more attention to the causes of the war than to the war itself. Military history has largely developed outside academia, leading to a proliferation of studies by non-scholars who nevertheless are familiar with the primary sources and pay close attention to battles and campaigns and who write for the general public. Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote are among the best known. Practically every major figure in the war, both North and South, has had a serious biographical study.Lost CauseThe memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the "Lost Cause": that the Confederate cause was just and heroic. The myth shaped regional identity and race relations for generations. Alan T. Nolan notes that the Lost Cause was expressly a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery; some appeals highlight cultural differences between North and South; the military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized; in any case, secession was said to be lawful. Nolan argues that the adoption of the Lost Cause perspective facilitated the reunification of the North and the South while excusing the "virulent racism" of the 19th century, sacrificing black American progress to white man's reunification. He also deems the Lost Cause "a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter" in every instance. The Lost Cause myth was formalized by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, whose The Rise of American Civilization (1927) spawned "Beardian historiography". The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. Though this interpretation was abandoned by the Beards in the 1940s, and by historians generally by the 1950s, Beardian themes still echo among Lost Cause writers.Battlefield preservationThe first efforts at Civil War battlefield preservation and memorialization came during the war itself with the establishment of National Cemeteries at Gettysburg, Mill Springs and Chattanooga. Soldiers began erecting markers on battlefields beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, but the oldest surviving monument is the Hazen Brigade Monument near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, built in the summer of 1863 by soldiers in Union Col. William B. Hazen's brigade to mark the spot where they buried their dead following the Battle of Stones River. In the 1890s, the United States government established five Civil War battlefield parks under the jurisdiction of the War Department, beginning with the creation of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Tennessee and the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland in 1890. The Shiloh National Military Park was established in 1894, followed by the Gettysburg National Military Park in 1895 and Vicksburg National Military Park in 1899. In 1933, these five parks and other national monuments were transferred to the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Chief among modern efforts to preserve Civil War sites has been the American Battlefield Trust, with more than 130 battlefields in 24 states. The five major Civil War battlefield parks operated by the National Park Service (Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Vicksburg) had a combined 3.1 million visitors in 2018, down 70% from 10.2 million in 1970.Civil War commemorationThe American Civil War has been commemorated in many capacities ranging from the reenactment of battles to statues and memorial halls erected, to films being produced, to stamps and coins with Civil War themes being issued, all of which helped to shape public memory. This varied advent occurred in greater proportions on the 100th and 150th anniversary.Hollywood's take on the war has been especially influential in shaping public memory, as seen in such film classics as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Lincoln (2012). Ken Burns's PBS television series The Civil War (1990) is especially well-remembered, though criticized for its historical accuracy.Technological significanceNumerous technological innovations during the Civil War had a great impact on 19th-century science. The Civil War was one of the earliest examples of an "industrial war", in which technological might is used to achieve military supremacy in a war. New inventions, such as the train and telegraph, delivered soldiers, supplies and messages at a time when horses were considered to be the fastest way to travel. It was also in this war that aerial warfare, in the form of reconnaissance balloons, was first used. It saw the first action involving steam-powered ironclad warships in naval warfare history. Repeating firearms such as the Henry rifle, Spencer rifle, Colt revolving rifle, Triplett & Scott carbine and others, first appeared during the Civil War; they were a revolutionary invention that would soon replace muzzle-loading and single-shot firearms in warfare. The war also saw the first appearances of rapid-firing weapons and machine guns such as the Agar gun and the Gatling gun.In works of culture and artThe Civil War is one of the most studied events in American history, and the collection of cultural works around it is enormous. This section gives an abbreviated overview of the most notable works.Literature When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and O Captain! My Captain! (1865) by Walt Whitman, famous eulogies to Lincoln Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) poetry by Herman Melville The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881) by Jefferson Davis The Private History of a Campaign That Failed (1885) by Mark Twain Texar's Revenge, or, North Against South (1887) by Jules Verne An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890) by Ambrose Bierce The Red Badge of Courage (1895) by Stephen Crane Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell North and South (1982) by John JakesFilm The Birth of a Nation (1915, US) The General (1926, US) Operator 13 (1934, US) Gone with the Wind (1939, US) The Red Badge of Courage (1951, US) The Horse Soldiers (1959, US) Shenandoah (1965, US) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966, Italy-Spain-FRG) The Beguiled (1971, US) The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976, US) Glory (1989, US) The Civil War (1990, US) Gettysburg (1993, US) The Last Outlaw (1993, US) Cold Mountain (2003, US) Gods and Generals (2003, US) North and South (miniseries) Lincoln (2012, US) 12 Years a Slave (2013, US) Free State of Jones (2016, US)MusicDixieBattle Cry of FreedomBattle Hymn of the RepublicThe Bonnie Blue FlagJohn Brown's BodyWhen Johnny Comes Marching HomeMarching Through GeorgiaThe Night They Drove Old Dixie DownVideo games North & South (1989, FR) Sid Meier's Gettysburg! (1997, US) Sid Meier's Antietam! (1999, US) American Conqest: Divided Nation (2006, US) Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War (2006, US) The History Channel: Civil War – A Nation Divided (2006, US) Ageod's American Civil War (2007, US/FR) History Civil War: Secret Missions (2008, US) Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (2009, US) Darkest of Days (2009, US) Victoria II: A House Divided (2011, US) Ageod's American Civil War II (2013, US/FR) Ultimate General: Gettysburg (2014, UKR) Ultimate General: Civil War (2016, UKR)See alsoGeneral reference American Civil War Corps Badges List of American Civil War battles List of costliest American Civil War land battles List of weapons in the American Civil War Second American Civil WarUnion Presidency of Abraham Lincoln Uniform of the Union ArmyConfederacy Central Confederacy Uniforms of the Confederate States Armed ForcesEthnic articles African Americans in the American Civil War German Americans in the American Civil War Irish Americans in the American Civil War Italian Americans in the American Civil War Native Americans in the American Civil WarTopical articles Commemoration of the American Civil War Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps Dorothea Dix Education of freed people during the Civil War  Spies in the American Civil War Infantry in the American Civil War List of ships captured in the 19th century#American Civil War Slavery during the American Civil WarNational articles Canada in the American Civil War Foreign enlistment in the American Civil War Prussia in the American Civil War United Kingdom in the American Civil WarState articles :Category:American Civil War by stateMemorials List of Confederate monuments and memorials List of memorials and monuments at Arlington National Cemetery List of memorials to Jefferson Davis List of memorials to Robert E. Lee List of memorials to Stonewall Jackson List of monuments erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield List of Union Civil War monuments and memorials Memorials to Abraham Lincoln Removal of Confederate monuments and memorialsOther modern civil wars in the world Boxer Rebellion Chinese Civil War Finnish Civil War Mexican Revolution Russian Civil War Spanish Civil War Taiping RebellionReferencesNotesCitationsBibliography    Beringer, Richard E., Archer Jones, and Herman Hattaway, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1986), influential analysis of factors; an abridged version is The Elements of Confederate Defeat: Nationalism, War Aims, and Religion (1988)                 Gallagher, Gary W. (2011). The Union War. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. . Gara, Larry. 1964. The Fugitive Slave Law: A Double Paradox in Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970 (originally published in Civil War History, X, No. 3, September 1964)                             Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union, an 8-volume set (1947–1971). the most detailed political, economic and military narrative; by Pulitzer Prize-winner 1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852 online; 2. A House Dividing, 1852–1857; 3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857–1859; 4. Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861; vols 5–8 have the series title War for the Union; 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; 6. online; War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865         Sheehan-Dean, Aaron. A Companion to the U.S. Civil War 2 vol. (April 2014) Wiley-Blackwell, New York . 1232pp; 64 Topical chapters by scholars and experts; emphasis on historiography.   Stoker, Donald. The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (2010) excerpt            Borrow book at: archive.orgFurther reading Bibliography of the American Civil War Bibliography of American Civil War naval historyExternal links West Point Atlas of Civil War Battles Civil War photos at the National Archives View images from the Civil War Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress American Battlefield Trust – A non-profit land preservation and educational organization with two divisions, the Civil War Trust and the Revolutionary War Trust, dedicated to preserving America's battlefields through land acquisitions. Civil War Era Digital Collection at Gettysburg College – This collection contains digital images of political cartoons, personal papers, pamphlets, maps, paintings and photographs from the Civil War Era held in Special Collections at Gettysburg College. Civil War 150  – Washington Post interactive website on the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War. Civil War in the American South  – An Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) portal with links to almost 9,000 digitized Civil War-era items—books, pamphlets, broadsides, letters, maps, personal papers, and manuscripts—held at ASERL member libraries The Civil War – site with 7,000 pages, including the complete run of Harper's Weekly newspapers from the Civil War  "American Civil World" maps at the Persuasive Cartography, The PJ Mode Collection, Cornell University Library Civil War Manuscripts at Shapell Manuscript Foundation Statements of each state as to why they were seceding Rebellions against the United StatesConflicts in 1861Conflicts in 1862Conflicts in 1863Conflicts in 1864Conflicts in 186519th-century conflictsCivil War1860s in the United StatesWars of independenceInternal wars of the United States1860s conflicts
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Warhol initially pursued a successful career as a commercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in several galleries in the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons. He promoted a collection of personalities known as Warhol superstars, and is credited with inspiring the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". In the late 1960s he managed and produced the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground and founded Interview magazine. He authored numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He lived openly as a gay man before the gay liberation movement. In June 1968, he was almost killed by radical feminist Valerie Solanas,  who shot him inside his studio. After gallbladder surgery, Warhol died of cardiac arrhythmia in February 1987 at the age of 58 in New York.Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city of Pittsburgh, which holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives, is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist. A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is $105 million for a 1963 serigraph titled Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster). His works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.BiographyEarly life and beginnings (1928–1949)Warhol was born on August 6, 1928, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of Ondrej Warhola (Americanized as Andrew Warhola, Sr., 1889–1942) and Julia (née Zavacká, 1892–1972), whose first child was born in their homeland of Austria-Hungary and died before their move to the U.S.His parents were working-class Lemkos emigrants from Mikó, Austria-Hungary (now called Miková, located in today's northeastern Slovakia). Warhol's father emigrated to the United States in 1914, and his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Ruthenian Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol had two elder brothers—Pavol (Paul), the eldest, was born before the family emigrated; Ján was born in Pittsburgh. Pavol's son, James Warhola, became a successful children's book illustrator.In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham's chorea (also known as St. Vitus' Dance), the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. At times when he was confined to bed, he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences. When Warhol was 13, his father died in an accident.As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School in 1945, and as a teen, Warhol also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh in the hope of becoming an art teacher, but his plans changed and he enrolled in the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he studied commercial art. During his time there, Warhol joined the campus Modern Dance Club and Beaux Arts Society. He also served as art director of the student art magazine, Cano, illustrating a cover in 1948 and a full-page interior illustration in 1949. These are believed to be his first two published artworks. Warhol earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in pictorial design in 1949. Later that year, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising.1950sWarhol's early career was dedicated to commercial and advertising art, where his first commission had been to draw shoes for Glamour magazine in the late 1940s. In the 1950s, Warhol worked as a designer for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller. While working in the shoe industry, Warhol developed his "blotted line" technique, applying ink to paper and then blotting the ink while still wet, which was akin to a printmaking process on the most rudimentary scale. His use of tracing paper and ink allowed him to repeat the basic image and also to create endless variations on the theme. American photographer John Coplans recalled thatIn 1952, Warhol had his first solo show at the Hugo Gallery in New York, and although that show was not well received, by 1956, he was included in his first group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Warhol's "whimsical" ink drawings of shoe advertisements figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York in 1957.Warhol habitually used the expedient of tracing photographs projected with an epidiascope. Using prints by Edward Wallowitch, his "first boyfriend," the photographs would undergo a subtle transformation during Warhol's often cursory tracing of contours and hatching of shadows. Warhol used Wallowitch's photograph Young Man Smoking a Cigarette (c.1956), for a 1958 design for a book cover he submitted to Simon and Schuster for the Walter Ross pulp novel The Immortal, and later used others for his series of paintings.With the rapid expansion of the record industry, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.1960sWarhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings. In 1962, Warhol was taught silk screen printmaking techniques by Max Arthur Cohn at his graphic arts business in Manhattan. In his book Popism: The Warhol Sixties, Warhol writes: "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."In May 1962, Warhol was featured in an article in Time magazine with his painting Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962), which initiated his most sustained motif, the Campbell's soup can. That painting became Warhol's first to be shown in a museum when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in July 1962. On July 9, 1962, Warhol's exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles with Campbell's Soup Cans, marking his West Coast debut of pop art.In November 1962, Warhol had an exhibition at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery in New York. The exhibit included the works Gold Marilyn, eight of the classic “Marilyn” series also named "Flavor Marilyns", Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coke Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills.  The Flavor Marilyns were selected from a group of fourteen canvases in the sub-series, each measuring 20″ x 16″. Some of the canvases were named after various candy Life Savers flavors, including Cherry Marilyn, Lemon Marilyn, Mint, Lavender, Grape or Licorice Marilyn. The others are identified by their background colors. Gold Marilyn, was bought by the architect Philip Johnson and donated to the Museum of Modern Art. At the exhibit, Warhol met poet John Giorno, who would star in Warhol's first film, Sleep, in 1964.It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds, electric chairs, Campbell's soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign in the civil rights movement. During these years, he founded his studio, "The Factory" and gathered about him a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. His work became popular and controversial. Warhol had this to say about Coca-Cola:In December 1962, New York City's Museum of Modern Art hosted a symposium on pop art, during which artists such as Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were appalled by Warhol's open acceptance of market culture, which set the tone for his reception.Warhol had his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in the spring of 1964, which featured sculptures of commercial boxes stacked and scattered throughout the space to resemble a warehouse. For the exhibition, Warhol custom ordered wooden boxes and silkscreened graphics onto them. The sculptures—Brillo Box, Del Monte Peach Box, Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box, Kellog's Cornflakes Box, Campbell's Tomato Juice Box, and Mott's Apple Juice Box—sold for $200 to $400 depending on the size of the box.A pivotal event was The American Supermarket exhibition at Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery in the fall of 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, among them were sculpture Claes Oldenburg, Mary Inman and Bob Watts. Warhol designed a $12 paper shopping bag—plain white with a red Campbell's soup can. His painting of a can of a Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for 3 for $18, $6.50 each. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; this was particularly true in the 1960s. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with the production of silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape-record his phone conversations).During the 1960s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian and counterculture eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "superstars", including Nico, Joe Dallesandro, Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, and Candy Darling. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some—like Berlin—remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films (many premiering at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse) of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this time. Less well known was his support and collaboration with several teenagers during this era, who would achieve prominence later in life including writer David Dalton, photographer Stephen Shore and artist Bibbe Hansen (mother of pop musician Beck).Attempted murder: 1968 On June 3, 1968, radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and Mario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol's studio, The Factory. Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She authored in 1967 the SCUM Manifesto, a separatist feminist tract that advocated the elimination of men; and appeared in the 1968 Warhol film I, a Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script had apparently been misplaced.Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived. He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgical corset. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.Solanas was arrested the day after the assault, after turning herself in to police. By way of explanation, she said that Warhol "had too much control over my life". She was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and eventually sentenced to three years under the control of the Department of Corrections. After the shooting, the Factory scene heavily increased its security, and for many the "Factory 60s" ended ("The superstars from the old Factory days didn't come around to the new Factory much").Warhol had this to say about the attack:In 1969, Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock founded Interview magazine.1970sWarhol had a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971. His famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. In 1975, he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). An idea expressed in the book: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s were a much quieter decade, as he became more entrepreneurial. He socialized at various nightspots in New York City, including Max's Kansas City and, later in the 1970s, Studio 54. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square".In 1977, Warhol was commissioned by art collector Richard Weisman to create, Athletes, ten portraits consisting of the leading athletes of the day.According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions—including Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, his wife Empress Farah Pahlavi, his sister Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Brigitte Bardot. In 1979, reviewers disliked his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects.In 1979, Warhol and his longtime friend Stuart Pivar founded the New York Academy of Art.1980sWarhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of 1980s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and other so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. Warhol also earned street credibility and graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy paid homage to Warhol by painting an entire train with Campbell soup cans.Warhol was also being criticized for becoming merely a "business artist". Critics panned his 1980 exhibition Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, which Warhol—who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews—had described in his diary as "They're going to sell." In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." Warhol occasionally walked the fashion runways and did product endorsements, represented by Zoli Agency and later Ford Models.Before the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he teamed with 15 other artists, including David Hockney and Cy Twombly, and contributed a Speed Skater print to the Art and Sport collection. The Speed Skater was used for the official Sarajevo Winter Olympics poster.In 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to produce a portrait of Prince, in order to accompany an article that celebrated the success of Purple Rain and its accompanying movie. Referencing the many celebrity portraits produced by Warhol across his career, Orange Prince (1984) was created using a similar composition to the Marilyn "Flavors" series from 1962, among some of Warhol's first celebrity portraits. Prince is depicted in a pop color palette commonly used by Warhol, in bright orange with highlights of bright green and blue. The facial features and hair are screen-printed in black over the orange background.In September 1985, Warhol's joint exhibition with Basquiat, Paintings, opened to negative reviews at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. That month, despite apprehension from Warhol, his silkscreen series Reigning Queens was shown at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In the Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol wrote, "They were supposed to be only for Europe—nobody here cares about royalty and it'll be another bad review."In January 1987, Warhol traveled to Milan for the opening of his last exhibition, Last Supper, at the Palazzo delle Stelline. The next month, Warhol and jazz musician Miles Davis modeled for Koshin Satoh's fashion show at the Tunnel in New York City on February 17, 1987.DeathWarhol died in Manhattan at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987, at age 58. According to news reports, he had been making a good recovery from gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden post-operative irregular heartbeat. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors. His family sued the hospital for inadequate care, saying that the arrhythmia was caused by improper care and water intoxication. The malpractice case was quickly settled out of court; Warhol's family received an undisclosed sum of money.Shortly before Warhol's death, doctors expected Warhol to survive the surgery, though a re-evaluation of the case about thirty years after his death showed many indications that Warhol's surgery was in fact riskier than originally thought. It was widely reported at the time that Warhol died of a "routine" surgery, though when considering factors such as his age, a family history of gallbladder problems, his previous gunshot wound, and his medical state in the weeks leading up to the procedure, the potential risk of death following the surgery appeared to have been significant.Warhol's brothers took his body back to Pittsburgh, where an open-coffin wake was held at the Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home. The solid bronze casket had gold-plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol was dressed in a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was laid out holding a small prayer book and a red rose. The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Yoko Ono and John Richardson were speakers. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns. After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh.At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Warhol's friend and advertising director of Interview Paige Powell dropped a copy of the magazine, an Interview T-shirt, and a bottle of the Estée Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father. A memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol at St. Patrick's Cathedral on April 1, 1987.Art worksPaintings By the beginning of the 1960s, pop art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the "Pope of Pop", turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Marilyn Monroe was a pop art painting that Warhol had done and it was very popular. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Willem de Kooning). Warhol's first pop art paintings were displayed in April 1961, serving as the backdrop for New York Department Store Bonwit Teller's window display. This was the same stage his Pop Art contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Robert Rauschenberg had also once graced.It was the gallerist Muriel Latow who came up with the ideas for both the soup cans and Warhol's dollar paintings. On November 23, 1961, Warhol wrote Latow a check for $50 which, according to the 2009 Warhol biography, Pop, The Genius of Warhol, was payment for coming up with the idea of the soup cans as subject matter. For his first major exhibition, Warhol painted his famous cans of Campbell's soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.From these beginnings, he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the handmade from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques—silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors—whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters, as in the 1962–63 Death and Disaster series.In 1979, Warhol was commissioned to paint a BMW M1 Group 4 racing version for the fourth installment of the BMW Art Car project. He was initially asked to paint a BMW 320i in 1978, but the car model was changed and it didn't qualify for the race that year. Warhol was the first artist to paint directly onto the automobile himself instead of letting technicians transfer a scale-model design to the car. Reportedly, it took him only 23 minutes to paint the entire car. Racecar drivers Hervé Poulain, Manfred Winkelhock and Marcel Mignot drove the car at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.Some of Warhol's work, as well as his own personality, has been described as being Keatonesque. Warhol has been described as playing dumb to the media. He sometimes refused to explain his work. He has suggested that all one needs to know about his work is "already there 'on the surface.His Rorschach inkblots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works—and their means of production—mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory". Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":Warhol's 1982 portrait of Basquiat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, is a silkscreen over an oxidized copper "piss painting." After many years of silkscreen, oxidation, photography, etc., Warhol returned to painting with a brush in hand. In 1983, Warhol began collaborating with Basquiat and Clemente. Warhol and Basquiat created a series of more than 50 large collaborative works between 1984 and 1985. Despite criticism when these were first shown, Warhol called some of them "masterpieces," and they were influential for his later work.In 1984, Warhol was commissioned by collector and gallerist Alexander Iolas to produce work based on Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper for an exhibition at the old refectory of the Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, opposite from the Santa Maria delle Grazie where Leonardo da Vinci's mural can be seen. Warhol exceeded the demands of the commission and produced nearly 100 variations on the theme, mostly silkscreens and paintings, and among them a collaborative sculpture with Basquiat, the Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper).The Milan exhibition that opened in January 1987 with a set of 22 silk-screens, was the last exhibition for both the artist and the gallerist. The series of The Last Supper was seen by some as "arguably his greatest," but by others as "wishy-washy, religiose" and "spiritless". It is the largest series of religious-themed works by any U.S. artist. Artist Maurizio Cattelan describes that it is difficult to separate daily encounters from the art of Andy Warhol: "That's probably the greatest thing about Warhol: the way he penetrated and summarized our world, to the point that distinguishing between him and our everyday life is basically impossible, and in any case useless." Warhol was an inspiration towards Cattelan's magazine and photography compilations, such as Permanent Food, Charley, and Toilet Paper.In the period just before his death, Warhol was working on Cars, a series of paintings for Mercedes-Benz.Art market The value of Andy Warhol's work has been on an endless upward trajectory since his death in 1987. In 2014, his works accumulated $569 million at auction, which accounted for more than a sixth of the global art market. However, there have been some dips. According to art dealer Dominique Lévy, "The Warhol trade moves something like a seesaw being pulled uphill: it rises and falls, but each new high and low is above the last one." She attributes this to the consistent influx of new collectors intrigued by Warhol. "At different moments, you've had different groups of collectors entering the Warhol market, and that resulted in peaks in demand, then satisfaction and a slow down," before the process repeats another demographic or the next generation.In 1998, Orange Marilyn (1964), a depiction of Marilyn Monroe, sold for $17.3 million, which at the time set a new record as the highest price paid for a Warhol artwork. In 2007, one of Warhol's 1963 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz (Colored Liz), which was owned by actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.7 million at Christie's.In 2007, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson sold Warhol's Turquoise Marilyn (1964) to financier Steven A. Cohen for $80 million. In May 2007, Green Car Crash (1963) sold for $71.1 million and Lemon Marilyn (1962) sold for $28 million at Christie's post-war and contemporary art auction. In 2007, Large Campbell's Soup Can (1964) was sold at a Sotheby's auction to a South American collector for 7.4 million. In November 2009, 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) at Sotheby's for $43.8 million.In 2008, Eight Elvises (1963) was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer. The work depicts Elvis Presley in a gunslinger pose. It was first exhibited in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Warhol made 22 versions of the Double Elvis, nine of which are held in museums. In May 2012, Double Elvis (Ferus Type) sold at auction at Sotheby's for $37 million. In November 2014, Triple Elvis (Ferus Type)  sold for $81.9 million at Christie's.In May 2010, a purple self-portrait of Warhol from 1986 that was owned by fashion designer Tom Ford sold for $32.6 million at Sotheby's. In November 2010, Men in Her Life (1962), based on Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury and Coca-Cola (4) (1962) sold for $35.3 million at Sotheby's. In May 2011, Warhol's first self-portrait from 1963–64 sold for $38.4 million and a red self-portrait from 1986 sold for $27.5 million at Christie's. In May 2011, Liz #5 (Early Colored Liz) sold for $26.9 million at Phillips.In November 2013, Warhol's rarely seen 1963 diptych, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), sold at Sotheby's for $105.4 million, a new record for the artist. In November 2013, Coca-Cola (3) (1962) sold for $57.3 million at Christie's. In May 2014, White Marilyn (1962) sold for $41 million at Christie's. In November 2014, Four Marlons (1964), which depicts Marlon Brando, sold for $69.6 million at Christie's. In May 2015, Silver Liz (diptych), painted in 1963–65, sold for $28 million and Colored Mona Lisa (1963) sold for $56.2 million at Christie's. In May 2017, Warhol's 1962 painting Big Campbell's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) sold for $27.5 million at Christie's.CollectorsAmong Warhol's early collectors and influential supporters were Emily and Burton Tremaine. Among the over 15 artworks purchased, Marilyn Diptych (now at Tate Modern, London) and A boy for Meg (now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC), were purchased directly out of Warhol's studio in 1962. One Christmas, Warhol left a small Head of Marilyn Monroe by the Tremaine's door at their New York apartment in gratitude for their support and encouragement.WorksFilmographyWarhol attended the 1962 premiere of the static composition by La Monte Young called Trio for Strings and subsequently created his famous series of static films. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who accompanied Warhol to the Trio premiere, claims Warhol's static films were directly inspired by the performance. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than 60 films, plus some 500 short black-and-white "screen test" portraits of Factory visitors. One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film Blow Job is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.Batman Dracula is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman  series, Warhol's movie was an "homage" to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis.Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.His most popular and critically successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm-films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s.Warhol was a fan of filmmaker Radley Metzger film work and commented that Metzger's film, The Lickerish Quartet, was "an outrageously kinky masterpiece". Blue Movie—a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love in bed with Louis Waldon, another Warhol superstar—was Warhol's last film as director. The film, a seminal film in the Golden Age of Porn, was, at the time, controversial for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. Blue Movie was publicly screened in New York City in 2005, for the first time in more than 30 years.In the wake of the 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh, Trash, and Heat. All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred Joe Dallesandro—more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.In the early 1970s, most of the films directed by Warhol were pulled out of circulation by Warhol and the people around him who ran his business. After Warhol's death, the films were slowly restored by the Whitney Museum and are occasionally projected at museums and film festivals. Few of the Warhol-directed films are available on video or DVD.MusicIn the mid-1960s, Warhol adopted the band the Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). While managing The Velvet Underground, Andy would have them dressed in all black to perform in front of movies that he was also presenting. In 1966, he "produced" their first album The Velvet Underground & Nico, as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and their artistic friendship ended. In 1989, after Warhol's death, Reed and John Cale re-united for the first time since 1972 to write, perform, record and release the concept album Songs for Drella, a tribute to Warhol. In October 2019, an audio tape of publicly unknown music by Reed, based on Warhols' 1975 book, "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again", was reported to have been discovered in an archive at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, This Is John Wallowitch!!! (1964). He designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones' albums Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love You Live (1977), and the John Cale albums The Academy in Peril (1972) and Honi Soit in 1981. One of Warhol's last works was a portrait of Aretha Franklin for the cover of her 1986 gold album Aretha.Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/punk rock band Devo, as well as David Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", about Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, and this version was released on the VU album in 1985. Bowie would later play Warhol in the 1996 movie, Basquiat. Bowie recalled how meeting Warhol in real life helped him in the role, and recounted his early meetings with him:The band Triumph also wrote a song about Andy Warhol, "Stranger In A Strange Land" off their 1984 album Thunder Seven.Books and printBeginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand-colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy No. 4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover and given to Geraldine Stutz, was used for a facsimile printing in 1987, and the original was auctioned in May 2006 for US$35,000 by Doyle New York.Other self-published books by Warhol include: A Gold Book Wild Raspberries Holy CatsWarhol's book A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu (1955) marked his "transition from commercial to gallery artist". (The title is a play on words by Warhol on the title of French author Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.)After gaining fame, Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially published: a, A Novel (1968, ) is a literal transcription—containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling—of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again) (1975, )—according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello. Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett, is a retrospective view of the 1960s and the role of pop art. The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ), edited by Pat Hackett, is a diary dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started the diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.Other mediaAlthough Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he authored works in many different media. Drawing: Warhol started his career as a commercial illustrator, producing drawings in "blotted-ink" style for advertisements and magazine articles. Best known of these early works are his drawings of shoes. Some of his personal drawings were self-published in small booklets, such as Yum, Yum, Yum (about food), Ho, Ho, Ho (about Christmas) and Shoes, Shoes, Shoes. His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably A Gold Book, compiled of sensitive drawings of young men. A Gold Book is so named because of the gold leaf that decorates its pages. In April 2012 a sketch of 1930s singer Rudy Vallee claimed to have been drawn by Andy Warhol was found at a Las Vegas garage sale. The image was said to have been drawn when Andy was nine or 10. Various authorities have challenged the image's authenticity. Sculpture: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his Brillo Boxes, silkscreened ink on wood replicas of the large, branded cardboard boxes used to hold 24 packages of Brillo soap pads. The original Brillo design was by commercial artist James Harvey. Warhol's sculpture was part of a series of "grocery carton" works that also included Heinz ketchup and Campbell's tomato juice cases. Other famous works include the Silver Clouds—helium filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped balloons. A Silver Cloud was included in the traveling exhibition Air Art (1968–1969) curated by Willoughby Sharp. Clouds was also adapted by Warhol for avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham's dance piece RainForest (1968). Audio: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife". Some of these tapes were the basis for his literary work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his Invisible Sculpture, a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer. Time Capsules: In 1973, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life—correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets and food—which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated "capsules". The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum. Television: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television special about a favorite subject of hisNothingthat he would call The Nothing Special. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous "fifteen minutes of fame" quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat wherein a Midwestern wife (Marion Ross) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (Tom Bosley, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom Happy Days) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Schrafft's Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the "Underground Sundae". Fashion: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?" One of his best-known superstars, Edie Sedgwick, aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend Halston was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject. Warhol himself has been described as a modern dandy, whose authority "rested more on presence than on words". Performance Art: Warhol and his friends staged theatrical multimedia happenings at parties and public venues, combining music, film, slide projections and even Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable in 1966 was the culmination of this area of his work.Theater: Warhol's play Andy Warhol's Pork opened on May 5, 1971, at LaMama theater in New York for a two-week run and was brought to the Roundhouse in London for a longer run in August 1971. Pork was based on tape-recorded conversations between Brigid Berlin and Andy during which Brigid would play for Andy tapes she had made of phone conversations between herself and her mother, socialite Honey Berlin. The play featured Jayne County as "Vulva" and Cherry Vanilla as "Amanda Pork". In 1974, Andy Warhol also produced the stage musical Man on the Moon, which was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. Photography: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera, The Big Shot, that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous number of photographs of Factory visitors, friends, acquired by Stanford University. Music: In 1963, Warhol founded The Druds, a short-lived avant-garde noise music band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-conceptual art and minimal art community. Computer: Warhol used Amiga computers to generate digital art, including You Are the One, which he helped design and build with Amiga, Inc. He also displayed the difference between slow fill and fast fill on live TV with Debbie Harry as a model.Personal lifeSexualityWarhol was homosexual. In 1980, he told an interviewer that he was still a virgin. Biographer Bob Colacello, who was present at the interview, felt it was probably true and that what little sex he had was probably "a mixture of voyeurism and masturbation—to use [Andy's] word abstract". Warhol's assertion of virginity would seem to be contradicted by his hospital treatment in 1960 for condylomata, a sexually transmitted disease. It has also been contradicted by his lovers, including Warhol muse BillyBoy, who has said they had sex to orgasm: "When he wasn't being Andy Warhol and when you were just alone with him he was an incredibly generous and very kind person. What seduced me was the Andy Warhol who I saw alone. In fact when I was with him in public he kind of got on my nerves....I'd say: 'You're just obnoxious, I can't bear you.'" Billy Name also denied that Warhol was only a voyeur, saying: "He was the essence of sexuality. It permeated everything. Andy exuded it, along with his great artistic creativity....It brought a joy to the whole art world in New York." "But his personality was so vulnerable that it became a defense to put up the blank front." Warhol's lovers included John Giorno, Billy Name, Charles Lisanby, and Jon Gould. His boyfriend of 12 years was Jed Johnson, whom he met in 1968, and who later achieved fame as an interior designer.The fact that Warhol's homosexuality influenced his work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (e.g., Popism: The Warhol 1960s). Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor, and films such as Blow Job, My Hustler and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. As has been addressed by a range of scholars, many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and 55th Street Playhouse, in the late 1960s.The first works that Warhol submitted to a fine art gallery, homoerotic drawings of male nudes, were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the filmmaker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then-more-famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them". In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period—the late 1950s and early 1960s—as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Um, no" and "Um, yes", and often allowing others to speak for him)—and even the evolution of his pop style—can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.Religious beliefsWarhol was a practicing Ruthenian Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York City, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of Warhol's later works depicted religious subjects, including two series, Details of Renaissance Paintings (1984) and The Last Supper (1986). In addition, a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate.During his life, Warhol regularly attended Liturgy, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent Ferrer, said that the artist went there almost daily, although he was not observed taking Communion or going to Confession and sat or knelt in the pews at the back. The priest thought he was afraid of being recognized; Warhol said he was self-conscious about being seen in a Roman Rite church crossing himself "in the Orthodox way" (right to left instead of the reverse).His art is noticeably influenced by the Eastern Christian tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private". Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood".CollectionsWarhol was an avid collector. His friends referred to his numerous collections, which filled not only his four-story townhouse, but also a nearby storage unit, as "Andy's Stuff". The true extent of his collections was not discovered until after his death, when The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh took in 641 boxes of his "Stuff".Warhol's collections included a Coca-Cola memorabilia sign, and 19th century paintings along with airplane menus, unpaid invoices, pizza dough, pornographic pulp novels, newspapers, stamps, supermarket flyers, and cookie jars, among other eccentricities. It also included significant works of art, such as George Bellows's Miss Bentham. One of his main collections was his wigs. Warhol owned more than 40 and felt very protective of his hairpieces, which were sewn by a New York wig-maker from hair imported from Italy. In 1985, a girl snatched Warhol's wig off his head. It was later discovered in Warhol's diary entry for that day that he wrote: "I don't know what held me back from pushing her over the balcony."In 1960, he had bought a drawing of a light bulb by Jasper Johns.Another item found in Warhol's boxes at the museum in Pittsburgh was a mummified human foot from Ancient Egypt. The curator of anthropology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History felt that Warhol most likely found it at a flea market.Andy Warhol also collected many books, with more than 1200 titles in his personal collection. Of these, 139 titles have been publicly identified through a 1988 Sotheby's Auction catalog, The Andy Warhol Collection and can be viewed online. His book collection reflects his eclectic taste and interests, and includes books written by and about some of his acquaintances and friends. Some of the titles in his collection include The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel by Dominick Dunne, Artists in Uniform by Max Eastman, Andrews' Diseases of the Skin: Clinical Dermatology by George Clinton Andrews, D.V. by Diana Vreeland, Blood of a Poet by Jean Cocteau, Watercolours by Francesco Clemente, Little World, Hello! by Jimmy Savo, Hidden Faces by Salvador Dalí, and The Dinah Shore Cookbook by Dinah Shore.Legacy In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service issued an 18-cent stamp commemorating Warhol. Designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Arizona, the stamp was unveiled at a ceremony at The Andy Warhol Museum and features Warhol's painting "Self-Portrait, 1964". In March 2011, a chrome statue of Andy Warhol and his Polaroid camera was revealed at Union Square in New York City.A crater on Mercury was named after Warhol in 2012.Warhol FoundationWarhol's will dictated that his entire estate—with the exception of a few modest legacies to family members—would go to create a foundation dedicated to the "advancement of the visual arts". Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million.In 1987, in accordance with Warhol's will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts began. The foundation serves as the estate of Andy Warhol, but also has a mission "to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process" and is "focused primarily on supporting work of a challenging and often experimental nature".The Artists Rights Society is the U.S. copyright representative for the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for all Warhol works with the exception of Warhol film stills. The U.S. copyright representative for Warhol film stills is the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreements in place for its image archive. All digital images of Warhol are exclusively managed by Corbis, while all transparency images of Warhol are managed by Art Resource.The Andy Warhol Foundation released its 20th Anniversary Annual Report as a three-volume set in 2007: Vol. I, 1987–2007; Vol. II, Grants & Exhibitions; and Vol. III, Legacy Program.The Foundation is in the process of compiling its catalogue raisonné of paintings and sculptures in volumes covering blocks of years of the artist's career. Volumes IV and V were released in 2019. The subsequent volumes are still in the process of being compiled.The Foundation remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the U.S.Many of Warhol's works and possessions are on display at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The foundation donated more than 3,000 works of art to the museum.In pop cultureWarhol founded Interview magazine, a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.)  One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian "Superstar" and the Warholian portrait). Warhol endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from Love Boat to Saturday Night Live and the Richard Pryor movie Dynamite Chicken).In this respect Warhol was a fan of "Art Business" and "Business Art"—he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again.FilmsWarhol appeared as himself in the film Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and in the film Tootsie (1982).After his death, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone's film The Doors (1991), by David Bowie in Julian Schnabel's film Basquiat (1996), and by Jared Harris in Mary Harron's film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's opera Jackie O (1997). Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Warhol's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film 54 (1998). Guy Pearce portrayed Warhol in the film Factory Girl (2007) about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the film Watchmen (2009).In the movie Highway to Hell a group of Andy Warhols are part of the Good Intentions Paving Company where good-intentioned souls are ground into pavement. In the film Men in Black 3 (2012) Andy Warhol turns out to really be undercover MIB Agent W (played by Bill Hader). Warhol is throwing a party at The Factory in 1969, where he is looked up by MIB Agents K and J (J from the future). Agent W is desperate to end his undercover job ("I'm so out of ideas I'm painting soup cans and bananas, for Christ sakes!", "You gotta fake my death, okay? I can't listen to sitar music anymore." and "I can't tell the women from the men.").Andy Warhol (portrayed by Tom Meeten) is one of main characters of the 2012 British television show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy. The character is portrayed as having robot-like mannerisms. In the 2017 feature The Billionaire Boys Club Cary Elwes portrays Warhol in a film based on the true story about Ron Levin (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) a friend of Warhol's who was murdered in 1986. In September 2016, it was announced that Jared Leto would portray the title character in Warhol, an upcoming American biographical drama film produced by Michael De Luca and written by Terence Winter, based on the book Warhol: The Biography by Victor Bockris.DocumentariesThe documentary Absolut Warhola (2001) was produced by Polish director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia. Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film (2006) is a reverential, four-hour movie by Ric Burns that won a Peabody Award in 2006. Andy Warhol: Double Denied (2006) is a 52-minute movie by Ian Yentob about the difficulties authenticating Warhol's work. Andy Warhol's People Factory (2008), a three-part television documentary directed by Catherine Shorr, features interviews with several of Warhol's associates.TelevisionWarhol appeared as a recurring character in TV series Vinyl, played by John Cameron Mitchell. Warhol was portrayed by Evan Peters in the American Horror Story: Cult episode "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag". The episode depicts the attempted assassination of Warhol by Valerie Solanas (Lena Dunham).In early 1969, Andy Warhol was commissioned by Braniff International to appear in two television commercials to promote the luxury airline's "When You Got It – Flaunt It" campaign. The campaign was created by the advertising agency Lois Holland Calloway, which was led by George Lois, creator of a famed series of Esquire Magazine covers. The first commercial series involved pairing unlikely people who shared the fact that they both flew Braniff Airways. Warhol was paired with boxing legend Sonny Liston. The odd commercial worked as did the others that featured unlikely fellow travelers such as painter Salvador Dalí and baseball legend Whitey Ford.Two additional commercials for Braniff were created that featured famous persons entering a Braniff jet and being greeted by a Braniff hostess while espousing their like for flying Braniff. Warhol was also featured in the first of these commercials that were also produced by Lois and were released in the summer of 1969. Lois has incorrectly stated that he was commissioned by Braniff in 1967 for representation during that year, but at that time Madison Avenue advertising doyenne Mary Wells Lawrence, who was married to Braniff's chairman and president Harding Lawrence, was representing the Dallas-based carrier at that time. Lois succeeded Wells Rich Greene Agency on December 1, 1968. The rights to Warhol's films for Braniff and his signed contracts are owned by a private trust and are administered by Braniff Airways Foundation in Dallas, Texas.BooksA biography of Andy Warhol written by art critic Blake Gopnik was published in 2020 under the title Warhol.See also Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board Andy Warhol Bridge, Pittsburgh, PA LGBT culture in New York City List of LGBT people from New York City Moon Museum Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000ReferencesFurther reading "A symposium on Pop Art". Arts Magazine, April 1963, pp. 36–45. The symposium was held in 1962, at The Museum of Modern Art, and published in this issue the following year.  Celant, Germano. Andy Warhol: A Factory. Kunstmuseum Wolfsbug, 1999.     Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz, eds (1996). Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Durham: Duke University Press. Duncan Fallowell, 20th Century Characters, ch. Andy Lives (London, Vintage, 1994)    James, James, "Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author", in Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s (1989), pp. 58–84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  Krauss, Rosalind E. "Warhol's Abstract Spectacle". In Abstraction, Gesture, Ecriture: Paintings from the Daros Collection. New York: Scalo, 1999, pp. 123–33. Lippard, Lucy R., Pop Art, Thames and Hudson, 1970 (1985 reprint),    Scherman, Tony, & David Dalton, POP: The Genius of Andy Warhol, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009 Suarez, Juan Antonio (1996). Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.External linksAndy Warhol at the National Gallery of Art Warhol Foundation in New York City Andy Warhol Collection in Pittsburgh The work of Andy Warhol spoken about by David Cronenberg Warholstars: Andy Warhol Films, Art and Superstars Warhol & The Computer Andy Warhol Andy Warhol at the Jewish Museum A Piece of Work podcast, WNYC Studios/MoMA, Tavi Gevinson and Abbi Jacobson discuss Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans Andy Warhol's Personal Book Shelf 1928 births1987 deaths20th-century American musicians20th-century American paintersAmerican male painters20th-century American photographers20th-century American writersAlbum-cover and concert-poster artistsAmerican cinematographersAmerican contemporary artistsAmerican Eastern CatholicsAmerican experimental filmmakersAmerican film producersAmerican portrait paintersAmerican people of Lemko descentAmerican pop artistsAmerican printmakersAmerican male screenwritersAmerican shooting survivorsAmerican socialitesArtists from New York (state)Artists from PittsburghBurials in PennsylvaniaCarnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts alumniCatholics from PennsylvaniaCensorship in the artsFashion illustratorsFilm directors from New York (state)Film directors from PennsylvaniaGay artistsAmerican gay writersHypochondriacsLGBT photographers from the United StatesLGBT Roman CatholicsLGBT people from New York (state)LGBT people from PennsylvaniaLGBT producersPhotographers from New York (state)American portrait photographersPostmodern artistsRuthenian Greek CatholicsSchenley High School alumniThe Velvet UndergroundWarhola familyWriters from New York (state)Writers from PittsburghExperiments in Art and Technology collaborating artistsPeople associated with The Factory20th-century American male writers20th-century American screenwritersGoogle DoodlesLGBT film directors
Alp Arslan (honorific in Turkic meaning "Heroic or Great Lion"; in ; Arabic epithet: Diyā ad-Dunyā wa ad-Dīn Adud ad-Dawlah Abu Shujā' Muhammad Ālp Ārslan ibn Dawūd, ; 20 January 1029 – 24 November 1072), real name: Muhammad bin Dawud Chaghri, was the second Sultan of the Seljuk Empire and great-grandson of Seljuk, the eponymous founder of the dynasty. He greatly expanded the Seljuk territory and consolidated his power, defeating rivals to south and northwest and his victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, in 1071, ushered in the Turkoman settlement of Anatolia. For his military prowess and fighting skills, he obtained the name Alp Arslan, which means "Heroic Lion" in Turkish.Early lifeAlp Arslan was the son of Chaghri and nephew of Tughril, the founding Sultans of the Seljuk Empire. His grandfather was Mikail, who in turn was the son of the warlord Seljuk. He was the father of numerous children, including Malik-Shah I and Tutush I. It is unclear who the mother or mothers of his children were. He was known to have been married at least twice. His wives included the widow of his uncle Tughril, a Kara-Khanid princess known as Aka Khatun, and the daughter or niece of Bagrat IV of Georgia (who would later marry his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk). One of Seljuk's other sons was the Turkic chieftain Arslan Isra'il, whose son, Kutalmish, contested his nephew's succession to the sultanate. Alp Arslan's younger brothers Suleiman ibn Chaghri and Qavurt were his rivals. Kilij Arslan, the son and successor of Suleiman ibn Kutalmish (Kutalmish's son, who would later become Sultan of Rûm), was a major opponent of the Franks during the First Crusade and the Crusade of 1101.Early career Alp Arslan accompanied his uncle Tughril on campaigns in the south against the Fatimids while his father Chaghri remained in Khorasan. Upon Alp Arslan's return to Khorasan, he began his work in administration at his father's suggestion. While there, his father introduced him to Nizam al-Mulk, one of the most eminent statesmen in early Muslim history and Alp Arslan's future vizier.After the death of his father, Alp Arslan succeeded him as governor of Khorasan in 1059. His uncle Tughril died in 1063 and had designated his successor as Suleiman, Arslan's infant brother. Arslan and his uncle Kutalmish both contested this succession which was resolved at the battle of Damghan in 1063. Arslan defeated Kutalmish for the throne and succeeded on 27 April 1064 as sultan of the Seljuk Empire, thus becoming sole monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris.In consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions, Arslan was ably assisted by Nizam al-Mulk, and the two are credited with helping to stabilize the empire after the death of Tughril. With peace and security established in his dominions, Arslan convoked an assembly of the states and in 1066, he declared his son Malik Shah I his heir and successor. With the hope of capturing Caesarea Mazaca, the capital of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkoman cavalry, crossed the Euphrates, and entered and invaded the city. Along with Nizam al-Mulk, he then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which he conquered in 1064. After a siege of 25 days, the Seljuks captured Ani, the capital city of Armenia. An account of the sack and massacres in Ani is given by the historian Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, who quotes an eyewitness saying:Byzantine struggle In route to fight the Fatimids in Syria in 1068, Alp Arslan invaded the Byzantine Empire. The Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, assuming command in person, met the invaders in Cilicia. In three arduous campaigns, the Turks were defeated in detail and driven across the Euphrates in 1070. The first two campaigns were conducted by the emperor himself, while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenos, great-uncle of Emperor Manuel Comnenos. During this time, Arslan gained the allegiance of Rashid al-Dawla Mahmud, the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo.In 1071, Romanos again took the field and advanced into Armenia with possibly 30,000 men, including a contingent of Cuman Turks as well as contingents of Franks and Normans, under Ursel de Baieul. Alp Arslan, who had moved his troops south to fight the Fatimids, quickly reversed to meet the Byzantines. At Manzikert, on the Murat River, north of Lake Van, the two forces waged the Battle of Manzikert. The Cuman mercenaries among the Byzantine forces immediately defected to the Turkic side. Seeing this, "the Western mercenaries rode off and took no part in the battle." To be exact, Romanos was betrayed by general Andronikos Doukas, son of the Caesar (Romanos's stepson), who pronounced him dead and rode off with a large part of the Byzantine forces at a critical moment. The Byzantines were totally routed.Emperor Romanos IV was himself taken prisoner and conducted into the presence of Alp Arslan. After a ritual humiliation, Arslan treated him with generosity. After peace terms were agreed to, Arslan dismissed the Emperor, loaded with presents and respectfully attended by a military guard. The following conversation is said to have taken place after Romanos was brought as a prisoner before the Sultan:Alp Arslan's victories changed the balance in near Asia completely in favour of the Seljuq Turks and Sunni Muslims. While the Byzantine Empire was to continue for nearly four more centuries, the victory at Manzikert signalled the beginning of Turkmen ascendancy in Anatolia. The victory at Manzikert became so popular among the Turks that later every noble family in Anatolia claimed to have had an ancestor who had fought on that day.Most historians, including Edward Gibbon, date the defeat at Manzikert as the beginning of the end of the Eastern Roman Empire.State organization Alp Arslan's strength lay in the military realm. Domestic affairs were handled by his able vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, the founder of the administrative organization that characterized and strengthened the sultanate during the reigns of Alp Arslan and his son, Malik Shah. Military fiefs, governed by Seljuq princes, were established to provide support for the soldiery and to accommodate the nomadic Turks to the established Anatolian agricultural scene. This type of military fiefdom enabled the nomadic Turks to draw on the resources of the sedentary Persians, Turks, and other established cultures within the Seljuq realm, and allowed Alp Arslan to field a huge standing army without depending on tribute from conquest to pay his soldiers. He not only had enough food from his subjects to maintain his military, but the taxes collected from traders and merchants added to his coffers sufficiently to fund his continuous wars.Suleiman ibn Qutalmish was the son of the contender for Arslan's throne; he was appointed governor of the north-western provinces and assigned to completing the invasion of Anatolia. An explanation for this choice can only be conjectured from Ibn al-Athir's account of the battle between Alp-Arslan and Kutalmish, in which he writes that Alp-Arslan wept for the latter's death and greatly mourned the loss of his kinsman.Death After Manzikert, the dominion of Alp Arslan extended over much of western Asia. He soon prepared to march for the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his ancestors. With a powerful army he advanced to the banks of the Oxus. Before he could pass the river with safety, however, it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which was for several days vigorously defended by the Kurdish rebel, Yusuf al-Kharezmi or Yusuf al-Harani. Perhaps over-eager to press on against his Qarakhanid enemy, Alp Arslan gained the governor's submission by promising the rebel ‘perpetual ownership of his lands’. When Yusuf al-Harani was brought before him, the Sultan ordered that he be shot, but before the archers could raise their bows Yusuf seized a knife and threw himself at Alp Arslan, striking three blows before being slain. Four days later on 24 November 1072, Alp Arslan died and was buried at Merv, having designated his 18-year-old son Malik Shah as his successor.FamilyOne of his wives was Safariyya Khatun. She had a daughter, Sifri Khatun, who in 1071–72, married Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadi. Safariyya died in Isfahan in 1073–4. Another of his wives was Akka Khatun. She had been formerly the wife of Sultan Tughril. Alp Arslan married her after Tughril's death in 1063. Another of his wives was Shah Khatun. She was the daughter of Qadir Khan Yusuf, and had been formerly married to Ghaznavid Mas'ud. Another of his wives was the daughter of the Georgian king Bagrat. They married in 1067–68. He divorced her soon after, and married her to Fadlun. His sons were Malik-Shah I, Tutush I, Tekish, and Arslan Arghun. One of his daughters, married the son of Kurd Surkhab, son of Bard in 1068. Another daughter, Zulaikha Khatun, was married to Muslim, son of Quraish in 1086–7. Another daughter, Aisha Khatun married Shams al-Mulk Nasr, son of Ibrahim Khan Tamghach.Legacy Alp Arslan's conquest of Anatolia from the Byzantines is also seen as one of the pivotal precursors to the launch of the Crusades.From 2002 to July 2008 under Turkmen calendar reform, the month of August was named after Alp Arslan.The 2nd Training Motorized Rifle Division of the Turkmen Ground Forces is named in his honour.ReferencesSources        Çoban, R. V. (2020). The Manzikert Battle and Sultan Alp Arslan with European Perspective in the 15st Century in the Miniatures of Giovanni Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium"s 226 and 232. French Manuscripts in Bibliothèque Nationale de France. S. Karakaya ve V. Baydar (Ed.), in 2nd International Muş Symposium Articles Book (pp. 48-64). Muş: Muş Alparslan University. Source11th-century births1072 deathsSeljuk rulersByzantine–Seljuk wars11th-century murdered monarchs11th-century Turkic peopleDeaths by stabbingShahanshahs
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.LeadershipThe institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business, and academic communities. The board of trustees is chaired by Kathleen Kennedy and the board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale. Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. (from the organization's inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007).HistoryThe American Film Institute was founded by a 1965 presidential mandate announced in the Rose Garden of the White House by Lyndon B. Johnson—to establish a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmakers, and honor the artists and their work. Two years later, in 1967, AFI was established, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Ford Foundation.The original 22-member Board of Trustees included actor Gregory Peck as chairman and actor Sidney Poitier as vice-chairman, as well as director Francis Ford Coppola, film historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., lobbyist Jack Valenti, and other representatives from the arts and academia.The institute established a training program for filmmakers known then as the Center for Advanced Film Studies. Also created in the early years were a repertory film exhibition program at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the AFI Catalog of Feature Films — a scholarly source for American film history. The institute moved to its current eight-acre Hollywood campus in 1981. The film training program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate school.AFI moved its presentation of first-run and auteur films from the Kennedy Center to the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, which hosts the AFI DOCS film festival, making AFI the largest nonprofit film exhibitor in the world. AFI educates audiences and recognizes artistic excellence through its awards programs and 10 Top 10 Lists.List of programs in briefAFI educational and cultural programs include: AFI Awards – an honor celebrating the creative ensembles of the most outstanding motion picture and television programs of the year AFI Catalog of Feature Films and AFI Archive – the written history of all feature films during the first 100 years of the art form – accessible free online AFI Conservatory – a film school led by master filmmakers in a graduate-level program AFI Directing Workshop for Women – a production-based training program committed to increasing the number of women working professionally in screen directing AFI Life Achievement Award – a tradition since 1973, a high honor for a career in film AFI 100 Years... series –  television events and movie reference lists AFI's two film festivals – AFI Fest in Los Angeles and AFI Docs in Washington, D.C. and Silver Spring, Maryland AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center – a historic theater with year-round art house, first-run and classic film programming in Silver Spring, Maryland American Film – a magazine that explores the art of new and historic film classics, now a blog on AFI.comAFI ConservatoryIn 1969, the institute established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California. The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel, and Paul Schrader. That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design, and screenwriting. Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer, and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined as the artistic director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise, and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years. Jan Schuette took over as dean in 2014 and served until 2017. Film producer Richard Gladstein was dean from 2017 until 2019, when Susan Ruskin was appointed.Notable alumniAFI Conservatory's alumni have careers in film, television and on the web. They have been recognized with all of the major industry awards—Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award.Among the alumni of AFI are Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank), Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan), Carl Colpaert (Gas Food Lodging, Hurlyburly, Swimming with Sharks), Doug Ellin (Entourage), Todd Field (In the Bedroom, Little Children), Jack Fisk (Badlands, Days of Heaven, There Will Be Blood), Carl Franklin (One False Move, Devil in a Blue Dress, House of Cards), Patty Jenkins (Monster, Wonder Woman), Janusz Kamiński (Lincoln, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan), Matthew Libatique (Noah, Black Swan), David Lynch (Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet), Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life), Victor Nuñez, (Ruby in Paradise, Ulee's Gold), Wally Pfister (Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception), Robert Richardson (Platoon, JFK, Django Unchained), Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar),  and many others.AFI programsAFI Catalog of Feature FilmsThe AFI Catalog, started in 1968, is a web-based filmographic database. A research tool for film historians, the catalog consists of entries on more than 60,000 feature films and 17,000 short films produced from 1893 to 2011, as well as AFI Awards Outstanding Movies of the Year from 2000 through 2010. Early print copies of this catalog may also be found at local libraries.AFI Life Achievement AwardAFI AwardsCreated in 2000, the AFI Awards honor the ten outstanding films ("Movies of the Year") and ten outstanding television programs ("TV Programs of the Year"). The awards are a non-competitive acknowledgment of excellence.The awards are announced in December, and a private luncheon for award honorees takes place the following January.AFI Maya Deren AwardAFI 100 Years... seriesThe AFI 100 Years... series, which ran from 1998 to 2008 and created jury-selected lists of America's best movies in categories such as Musicals, Laughs and Thrills, prompted new generations to experience classic American films. The juries consisted of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics, and historians. Citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice.AFI film festivalsAFI operates two film festivals: AFI Fest in Los Angeles, and AFI Docs (formally known as Silverdocs) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.AFI FestAFI Fest is the American Film Institute's annual celebration of artistic excellence. It is a showcase for the best festival films of the year and an opportunity for master filmmakers and emerging artists to come together with audiences in the movie capital of the world. It is the only festival of its stature that is free to the public. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognizes AFI Fest as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for the annual Academy Awards.The festival has paid tribute to numerous influential filmmakers and artists over the years, including Agnès Varda, Pedro Almodóvar and David Lynch as guest artistic directors, and has screened scores of films that have produced Oscar nominations and wins.AFI DocsHeld annually in June, AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) is a documentary festival in Washington, D.C. The festival attracts over 27,000 documentary enthusiasts.AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural CenterThe AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is a moving image exhibition, education and cultural center located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Anchored by the restoration of noted architect John Eberson's historic 1938 Silver Theatre, it features 32,000 square feet of new construction housing two stadium theatres, office and meeting space, and reception and exhibit areas.The AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center presents film and video programming, augmented by filmmaker interviews, panels, discussions, and musical performances.The AFI Directing Workshop for WomenThe Directing Workshop for Women is a training program committed to educating and mentoring participants in an effort to increase the number of women working professionally in screen directing. In this tuition-free program, each participant is required to complete a short film by the end of the year-long program.Alumnae of the program include Maya Angelou, Anne Bancroft, Dyan Cannon, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Getzinger, Lesli Linka Glatter, Lily Tomlin, Susan Oliver and Nancy Malone.AFI Directors SeriesAFI released a set of hour-long programs reviewing the career of acclaimed directors. The Directors Series content was copyrighted in 1997 by Media Entertainment Inc and The American Film Institute, and the VHS and DVDs were released between 1999 and 2001 on Winstar TV and Video.Directors featured included: John McTiernan (WHE73067) Ron Howard (WHE73068) Sydney Pollack (WHE73071) Norman Jewison (WHE73076) Lawrence Kasdan (WHE73088) Terry Gilliam (WHE73089) Spike Lee (WHE73090) Barry Levinson (WHE73093) Miloš Forman (WHE73094) Martin Scorsese (WHE73098) Barbra Streisand (WHE73099) David Cronenberg (WHE73101) Robert Zemeckis (WHE73131) Robert Altman John Frankenheimer Adrian Lyne Garry Marshall William Friedkin Clint Eastwood David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker Roger Corman Michael Mann James Cameron Rob Reiner Joel Schumacher Steven Spielberg Wes CravenSee also British Film Institute, the British equivalent to AFIReferencesExternal linksAFI Los Angeles Film Festival - history and information Arts organizations based in CaliforniaCinema of Southern CaliforniaHollywood history and cultureLos Feliz, Los AngelesOrganizations based in Los Angeles1967 establishments in CaliforniaOrganizations established in 1967
was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in film history.Kurosawa entered the Japanese film industry in 1936, following a brief stint as a painter. After years of working on numerous films as an assistant director and scriptwriter, he made his debut as a director during World War II with the popular action film Sanshiro Sugata. After the war, the critically acclaimed Drunken Angel (1948), in which Kurosawa cast the then little-known actor Toshiro Mifune in a starring role, cemented the director's reputation as one of the most important young filmmakers in Japan. The two men would go on to collaborate on another fifteen films.Rashomon, which premiered in Tokyo, became the surprise winner of the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. The commercial and critical success of that film opened up Western film markets for the first time to the products of the Japanese film industry, which in turn led to international recognition for other Japanese filmmakers. Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often adapted) films, such as Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). After the 1960s he became much less prolific; even so, his later work—including two of his final films, Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985)—continued to receive great acclaim.In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Posthumously, he was named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture" category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited there as being among the five people who most prominently contributed to the improvement of Asia in the 20th century. His career has been honored by many retrospectives, critical studies and biographies in both print and video, and by releases in many consumer media.BiographyChildhood to war years (1910–1945)Childhood and youth (1910–1935) Kurosawa was born on March 23, 1910, in Ōimachi in the Ōmori district of Tokyo. His father Isamu (1864–1948), a member of a samurai family from Akita Prefecture, worked as the director of the Army's Physical Education Institute's lower secondary school, while his mother Shima (1870–1952) came from a merchant's family living in Osaka. Akira was the eighth and youngest child of the moderately wealthy family, with two of his siblings already grown up at the time of his birth and one deceased, leaving Kurosawa to grow up with three sisters and a brother.In addition to promoting physical exercise, Isamu Kurosawa was open to Western traditions and considered theatre and motion pictures to have educational merit. He encouraged his children to watch films; young Akira viewed his first movies at the age of six. An important formative influence was his elementary school teacher Mr. Tachikawa, whose progressive educational practices ignited in his young pupil first a love of drawing and then an interest in education in general. During this time, the boy also studied calligraphy and Kendo swordsmanship.Another major childhood influence was Heigo Kurosawa (1906-1933), Akira's older brother by four years. In the aftermath of the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, Heigo took the thirteen-year-old Akira to view the devastation. When the younger brother wanted to look away from the corpses of humans and beasts scattered everywhere, Heigo forbade him to do so, encouraging Akira instead to face his fears by confronting them directly. Some commentators have suggested that this incident would influence Kurosawa's later artistic career, as the director was seldom hesitant to confront unpleasant truths in his work.Heigo was academically gifted, but soon after failing to secure a place in Tokyo's foremost high school, he began to detach himself from the rest of the family, preferring to concentrate on his interest in foreign literature. In the late 1920s, Heigo became a benshi (silent film narrator) for Tokyo theaters showing foreign films and quickly made a name for himself. Akira, who at this point planned to become a painter, moved in with him, and the two brothers became inseparable. With Heigo's guidance, Akira devoured not only films but also theater and circus performances, while exhibiting his paintings and working for the left-wing Proletarian Artists' League. However, he was never able to make a living with his art, and, as he began to perceive most of the proletarian movement as "putting unfulfilled political ideals directly onto the canvas", he lost his enthusiasm for painting.With the increasing production of talking pictures in the early 1930s, film narrators like Heigo began to lose work, and Akira moved back in with his parents. In July 1933, Heigo committed suicide. Kurosawa has commented on the lasting sense of loss he felt at his brother's death and the chapter of his autobiography (Something Like an Autobiography) that describes it—written nearly half a century after the event—is titled, "A Story I Don't Want to Tell". Only four months later, Kurosawa's eldest brother also died, leaving Akira, at age 23, the only one of the Kurosawa brothers still living, together with his three surviving sisters.Director in training (1935–1941) In 1935, the new film studio Photo Chemical Laboratories, known as P.C.L. (which later became the major studio Toho), advertised for assistant directors. Although he had demonstrated no previous interest in film as a profession, Kurosawa submitted the required essay, which asked applicants to discuss the fundamental deficiencies of Japanese films and find ways to overcome them. His half-mocking view was that if the deficiencies were fundamental, there was no way to correct them. Kurosawa's essay earned him a call to take the follow-up exams, and director Kajirō Yamamoto, who was among the examiners, took a liking to Kurosawa and insisted that the studio hire him. The 25-year-old Kurosawa joined P.C.L. in February 1936.During his five years as an assistant director, Kurosawa worked under numerous directors, but by far the most important figure in his development was Yamamoto. Of his 24 films as A.D., he worked on 17 under Yamamoto, many of them comedies featuring the popular actor Ken'ichi Enomoto, known as "Enoken". Yamamoto nurtured Kurosawa's talent, promoting him directly from third assistant director to chief assistant director after a year. Kurosawa's responsibilities increased, and he worked at tasks ranging from stage construction and film development to location scouting, script polishing, rehearsals, lighting, dubbing, editing, and second-unit directing. In the last of Kurosawa's films as an assistant director for Yamamoto, Horse (Uma, 1941), Kurosawa took over most of the production, as his mentor was occupied with the shooting of another film.Yamamoto advised Kurosawa that a good director needed to master screenwriting. Kurosawa soon realized that the potential earnings from his scripts were much higher than what he was paid as an assistant director. He later wrote or co-wrote all his films, and frequently penned screenplays for other directors such as Satsuo Yamamoto's film, A Triumph of Wings (Tsubasa no gaika, 1942). This outside scriptwriting would serve Kurosawa as a lucrative sideline lasting well into the 1960s, long after he became famous.Wartime films and marriage (1942–1945) In the two years following the release of Horse in 1941, Kurosawa searched for a story he could use to launch his directing career. Towards the end of 1942, about a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, novelist Tsuneo Tomita published his Musashi Miyamoto-inspired judo novel, Sanshiro Sugata, the advertisements for which intrigued Kurosawa. He bought the book on its publication day, devoured it in one sitting, and immediately asked Toho to secure the film rights. Kurosawa's initial instinct proved correct as, within a few days, three other major Japanese studios also offered to buy the rights. Toho prevailed, and Kurosawa began pre-production on his debut work as director.Shooting of Sanshiro Sugata began on location in Yokohama in December 1942. Production proceeded smoothly, but getting the completed film past the censors was an entirely different matter. The censorship office considered the work to be objectionably "British-American" by the standards of wartime Japan, and it was only through the intervention of director Yasujirō Ozu, who championed the film, that Sanshiro Sugata was finally accepted for release on March 25, 1943. (Kurosawa had just turned 33.) The movie became both a critical and commercial success. Nevertheless, the censorship office would later decide to cut out some 18 minutes of footage, much of which is now considered lost.He next turned to the subject of wartime female factory workers in The Most Beautiful, a propaganda film which he shot in a semi-documentary style in early 1944. To elicit realistic performances from his actresses, the director had them live in a real factory during the shoot, eat the factory food and call each other by their character names. He would use similar methods with his performers throughout his career.During production, the actress playing the leader of the factory workers, Yōko Yaguchi, was chosen by her colleagues to present their demands to the director. She and Kurosawa were constantly at odds, and it was through these arguments that the two paradoxically became close. They married on May 21, 1945, with Yaguchi two months pregnant (she never resumed her acting career), and the couple would remain together until her death in 1985. They had two children, both surviving Kurosawa : a son, Hisao, born December 20, 1945, who served as producer on some of his father's last projects, and Kazuko, a daughter, born April 29, 1954, who became a costume designer.Shortly before his marriage, Kurosawa was pressured by the studio against his will to direct a sequel to his debut film. The often blatantly propagandistic Sanshiro Sugata Part II, which premiered in May 1945, is generally considered one of his weakest pictures.Kurosawa decided to write the script for a film that would be both censor-friendly and less expensive to produce. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, based on the Kabuki play Kanjinchō and starring the comedian Enoken, with whom Kurosawa had often worked during his assistant director days, was completed in September 1945. By this time, Japan had surrendered and the occupation of Japan had begun. The new American censors interpreted the values allegedly promoted in the picture as overly "feudal" and banned the work. It was not released until 1952, the year another Kurosawa film, Ikiru, was also released. Ironically, while in production, the film had already been savaged by Japanese wartime censors as too Western and "democratic" (they particularly disliked the comic porter played by Enoken), so the movie most probably would not have seen the light of day even if the war had continued beyond its completion.Early postwar years to Red Beard (1946–65)First postwar works (1946–50) After the war, Kurosawa, influenced by the democratic ideals of the Occupation, sought to make films that would establish a new respect towards the individual and the self. The first such film, No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), inspired by both the 1933 Takigawa incident and the Hotsumi Ozaki wartime spy case, criticized Japan's prewar regime for its political oppression. Atypically for the director, the heroic central character is a woman, Yukie (Setsuko Hara), who, born into upper-middle-class privilege, comes to question her values in a time of political crisis. The original script had to be extensively rewritten and, because of its controversial theme and gender of its protagonist, the completed work divided critics. Nevertheless, it managed to win the approval of audiences, who turned variations on the film's title into a postwar catchphrase.His next film, One Wonderful Sunday premiered in July 1947 to mixed reviews. It is a relatively uncomplicated and sentimental love story dealing with an impoverished postwar couple trying to enjoy, within the devastation of postwar Tokyo, their one weekly day off. The movie bears the influence of Frank Capra, D. W. Griffith and F. W. Murnau, each of whom was among Kurosawa's favorite directors. Another film released in 1947 with Kurosawa's involvement was the action-adventure thriller, Snow Trail, directed by Senkichi Taniguchi from Kurosawa's screenplay. It marked the debut of the intense young actor Toshiro Mifune. It was Kurosawa who, with his mentor Yamamoto, had intervened to persuade Toho to sign Mifune, during an audition in which the young man greatly impressed Kurosawa, but managed to alienate most of the other judges.Drunken Angel is often considered the director's first major work. Although the script, like all of Kurosawa's occupation-era works, had to go through rewrites due to American censorship, Kurosawa felt that this was the first film in which he was able to express himself freely. A gritty story of a doctor who tries to save a gangster (yakuza) with tuberculosis, it was also the first time that Kurosawa directed Mifune, who went on to play major roles in all but one of the director's next 16 films (the exception being Ikiru). While Mifune was not cast as the protagonist in Drunken Angel, his explosive performance as the gangster so dominates the drama that he shifted the focus from the title character, the alcoholic doctor played by Takashi Shimura, who had already appeared in several Kurosawa movies. However, Kurosawa did not want to smother the young actor's immense vitality, and Mifune's rebellious character electrified audiences in much the way that Marlon Brando's defiant stance would startle American film audiences a few years later. The film premiered in Tokyo in April 1948 to rave reviews and was chosen by the prestigious Kinema Junpo critics poll as the best film of its year, the first of three Kurosawa movies to be so honored.Kurosawa, with producer Sōjirō Motoki and fellow directors and friends Kajiro Yamamoto, Mikio Naruse and Senkichi Taniguchi, formed a new independent production unit called Film Art Association (Eiga Geijutsu Kyōkai). For this organization's debut work, and first film for Daiei studios, Kurosawa turned to a contemporary play by Kazuo Kikuta and, together with Taniguchi, adapted it for the screen. The Quiet Duel starred Toshiro Mifune as an idealistic young doctor struggling with syphilis, a deliberate attempt by Kurosawa to break the actor away from being typecast as gangsters. Released in March 1949, it was a box office success, but is generally considered one of the director's lesser achievements.His second film of 1949, also produced by Film Art Association and released by Shintoho, was Stray Dog. It is a detective movie (perhaps the first important Japanese film in that genre) that explores the mood of Japan during its painful postwar recovery through the story of a young detective, played by Mifune, and his fixation on the recovery of his handgun, which was stolen by a penniless war veteran who proceeds to use it to rob and murder. Adapted from an unpublished novel by Kurosawa in the style of a favorite writer of his, Georges Simenon, it was the director's first collaboration with screenwriter Ryuzo Kikushima, who would later help to script eight other Kurosawa films. A famous, virtually wordless sequence, lasting over eight minutes, shows the detective, disguised as an impoverished veteran, wandering the streets in search of the gun thief; it employed actual documentary footage of war-ravaged Tokyo neighborhoods shot by Kurosawa's friend, Ishirō Honda, the future director of Godzilla. The film is considered a precursor to the contemporary police procedural and buddy cop film genres.Scandal, released by Shochiku in April 1950, was inspired by the director's personal experiences with, and anger towards, Japanese yellow journalism. The work is an ambitious mixture of courtroom drama and social problem film about free speech and personal responsibility, but even Kurosawa regarded the finished product as dramatically unfocused and unsatisfactory, and almost all critics agree. However, it would be Kurosawa's second film of 1950, Rashomon, that would ultimately win him, and Japanese cinema, a whole new international audience.International recognition (1950–58) After finishing Scandal, Kurosawa was approached by Daiei studios to make another film for them. Kurosawa picked a script by an aspiring young screenwriter, Shinobu Hashimoto, who would eventually work on nine of his films. Their first joint effort was based on Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's experimental short story "In a Grove", which recounts the murder of a samurai and the rape of his wife from various different and conflicting points-of-view. Kurosawa saw potential in the script, and with Hashimoto's help, polished and expanded it and then pitched it to Daiei, who were happy to accept the project due to its low budget.The shooting of Rashomon began on July 7, 1950, and, after extensive location work in the primeval forest of Nara, wrapped on August 17. Just one week was spent in hurried post-production, hampered by a studio fire, and the finished film premiered at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre on August 25, expanding nationwide the following day. The movie was met by lukewarm reviews, with many critics puzzled by its unique theme and treatment, but it was nevertheless a moderate financial success for Daiei.Kurosawa's next film, for Shochiku, was The Idiot, an adaptation of the novel by the director's favorite writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The story is relocated from Russia to Hokkaido, but otherwise adheres closely to the original, a fact seen by many critics as detrimental to the work. A studio-mandated edit shortened it from Kurosawa's original cut of 265 minutes to just 166 minutes, making the resulting narrative exceedingly difficult to follow. The severely edited film version is widely considered to be one of the director's least successful works and the original full-length version no longer exists. Contemporary reviews of the much shortened edited version were very negative, but the film was a moderate success at the box office, largely because of the popularity of one of its stars, Setsuko Hara.Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Kurosawa, Rashomon had been entered in the Venice Film Festival, due to the efforts of Giuliana Stramigioli, a Japan-based representative of an Italian film company, who had seen and admired the movie and convinced Daiei to submit it. On September 10, 1951, Rashomon was awarded the festival's highest prize, the Golden Lion, shocking not only Daiei but the international film world, which at the time was largely unaware of Japan's decades-old cinematic tradition.After Daiei briefly exhibited a subtitled print of the film in Los Angeles, RKO purchased distribution rights to Rashomon in the United States. The company was taking a considerable gamble. It had put out only one prior subtitled film in the American market, and the only previous Japanese talkie commercially released in New York had been Mikio Naruse's comedy, Wife! Be Like a Rose, in 1937: a critical and box-office flop. However, Rashomons commercial run, greatly helped by strong reviews from critics and even the columnist Ed Sullivan, earned $35,000 in its first three weeks at a single New York theatre, an almost unheard-of sum at the time.This success in turn led to a vogue in America and the West for Japanese movies throughout the 1950s, replacing the enthusiasm for Italian neorealist cinema. By the end of 1952 Rashomon was released in Japan, the United States, and most of Europe. Among the Japanese film-makers whose work, as a result, began to win festival prizes and commercial release in the West were Kenji Mizoguchi (The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) and, somewhat later, Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon)—artists highly respected in Japan but, before this period, almost totally unknown in the West. Kurosawa's growing reputation among Western audiences in the 1950s would make Western audiences more sympathetic to the reception of later generations of Japanese film-makers ranging from Kon Ichikawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Nagisa Oshima and Shohei Imamura to Juzo Itami, Takeshi Kitano and Takashi Miike.His career boosted by his sudden international fame, Kurosawa, now reunited with his original film studio, Toho (which would go on to produce his next 11 films), set to work on his next project, Ikiru. The movie stars Takashi Shimura as a cancer-ridden Tokyo bureaucrat, Watanabe, on a final quest for meaning before his death. For the screenplay, Kurosawa brought in Hashimoto as well as writer Hideo Oguni, who would go on to co-write twelve Kurosawa films. Despite the work's grim subject matter, the screenwriters took a satirical approach, which some have compared to the work of Brecht, to both the bureaucratic world of its hero and the U.S. cultural colonization of Japan. (American pop songs figure prominently in the film.) Because of this strategy, the film-makers are usually credited with saving the picture from the kind of sentimentality common to dramas about characters with terminal illnesses. Ikiru opened in October 1952 to rave reviews—it won Kurosawa his second Kinema Junpo "Best Film" award—and enormous box office success. It remains the most acclaimed of all the artist's films set in the modern era.In December 1952, Kurosawa took his Ikiru screenwriters, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni, for a forty-five-day secluded residence at an inn to create the screenplay for his next movie, Seven Samurai. The ensemble work was Kurosawa's first proper samurai film, the genre for which he would become most famous. The simple story, about a poor farming village in Sengoku period Japan that hires a group of samurai to defend it against an impending attack by bandits, was given a full epic treatment, with a huge cast (largely consisting of veterans of previous Kurosawa productions) and meticulously detailed action, stretching out to almost three-and-a-half hours of screen time.Three months were spent in pre-production and a month in rehearsals. Shooting took up 148 days spread over almost a year, interrupted by production and financing troubles and Kurosawa's health problems. The film finally opened in April 1954, half a year behind its original release date and about three times over budget, making it at the time the most expensive Japanese film ever made. (However, by Hollywood standards, it was a quite modestly budgeted production, even for that time.) The film received positive critical reaction and became a big hit, quickly making back the money invested in it and providing the studio with a product that they could, and did, market internationally—though with extensive edits. Over time—and with the theatrical and home video releases of the uncut version—its reputation has steadily grown. It is now regarded by some commentators as the greatest Japanese film ever made, and in 1979, a poll of Japanese film critics also voted it the best Japanese film ever made. In the most recent (2012) version of the widely respected British Film Institute (BFI) Sight & Sound "Greatest Films of All Time" poll, Seven Samurai placed 17th among all films from all countries in both the critics' and the directors' polls, receiving a place in the Top Ten lists of 48 critics and 22 directors.In 1954, nuclear tests in the Pacific were causing radioactive rainstorms in Japan and one particular incident in March had exposed a Japanese fishing boat to nuclear fallout, with disastrous results. It is in this anxious atmosphere that Kurosawa's next film, Record of a Living Being, was conceived. The story concerned an elderly factory owner (Toshiro Mifune) so terrified of the prospect of a nuclear attack that he becomes determined to move his entire extended family (both legal and extra-marital) to what he imagines is the safety of a farm in Brazil. Production went much more smoothly than the director's previous film, but a few days before shooting ended, Kurosawa's composer, collaborator and close friend Fumio Hayasaka died (of tuberculosis) at the age of 41. The film's score was finished by Hayasaka's student, Masaru Sato, who would go on to score all of Kurosawa's next eight films. Record of a Living Being opened in November 1955 to mixed reviews and muted audience reaction, becoming the first Kurosawa film to lose money during its original theatrical run. Today, it is considered by many to be among the finest films dealing with the psychological effects of the global nuclear stalemate.Kurosawa's next project, Throne of Blood, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth—set, like Seven Samurai, in the Sengoku Era—represented an ambitious transposition of the English work into a Japanese context. Kurosawa instructed his leading actress, Isuzu Yamada, to regard the work as if it were a cinematic version of a Japanese rather than a European literary classic. Given Kurosawa's appreciation of traditional Japanese stage acting, the acting of the players, particularly Yamada, draws heavily on the stylized techniques of the Noh theater. It was filmed in 1956 and released in January 1957 to a slightly less negative domestic response than had been the case with the director's previous film. Abroad, Throne of Blood, regardless of the liberties it takes with its source material, quickly earned a place among the most celebrated Shakespeare adaptations.Another adaptation of a classic European theatrical work followed almost immediately, with production of The Lower Depths, based on a play by Maxim Gorky, taking place in May and June 1957. In contrast to the Shakespearean sweep of Throne of Blood, The Lower Depths was shot on only two confined sets, in order to emphasize the restricted nature of the characters' lives. Though faithful to the play, this adaptation of Russian material to a completely Japanese setting—in this case, the late Edo period—unlike his earlier The Idiot, was regarded as artistically successful. The film premiered in September 1957, receiving a mixed response similar to that of Throne of Blood. However, some critics rank it among the director's most underrated works.Kurosawa's three next movies after Seven Samurai had not managed to capture Japanese audiences in the way that that film had. The mood of the director's work had been growing increasingly pessimistic and dark, with the possibility of redemption through personal responsibility now very much questioned, particularly in Throne of Blood and The Lower Depths. He recognized this, and deliberately aimed for a more light-hearted and entertaining film for his next production, while switching to the new widescreen format that had been gaining popularity in Japan. The resulting film, The Hidden Fortress, is an action-adventure comedy-drama about a medieval princess, her loyal general and two peasants who all need to travel through enemy lines in order to reach their home region. Released in December 1958, The Hidden Fortress became an enormous box office success in Japan and was warmly received by critics both in Japan and abroad. Today, the film is considered one of Kurosawa's most lightweight efforts, though it remains popular, not least because it is one of several major influences on George Lucas's 1977 space opera, Star Wars.Birth of a company and Red Beard (1959–65) Starting with Rashomon, Kurosawa's productions had become increasingly large in scope and so had the director's budgets. Toho, concerned about this development, suggested that he might help finance his own works, therefore making the studio's potential losses smaller, while in turn allowing himself more artistic freedom as co-producer. Kurosawa agreed, and the Kurosawa Production Company was established in April 1959, with Toho as the majority shareholder.Despite risking his own money, Kurosawa chose a story that was more directly critical of the Japanese business and political elites than any previous work. The Bad Sleep Well, based on a script by Kurosawa's nephew Mike Inoue, is a revenge drama about a young man who is able to infiltrate the hierarchy of a corrupt Japanese company with the intention of exposing the men responsible for his father's death. Its theme proved topical: while the film was in production, the massive Anpo protests were held against the new U.S.–Japan Security treaty, which was seen by many Japanese, particularly the young, as threatening the country's democracy by giving too much power to corporations and politicians. The film opened in September 1960 to positive critical reaction and modest box office success. The 25-minute opening sequence depicting a corporate wedding reception is widely regarded as one of Kurosawa's most skillfully executed set pieces, but the remainder of the film is often perceived as disappointing by comparison. The movie has also been criticized for employing the conventional Kurosawan hero to combat a social evil that cannot be resolved through the actions of individuals, however courageous or cunning.Yojimbo (The Bodyguard), Kurosawa Production's second film, centers on a masterless samurai, Sanjuro, who strolls into a 19th-century town ruled by two opposing violent factions and provokes them into destroying each other. The director used this work to play with many genre conventions, particularly the Western, while at the same time offering an unprecedentedly (for the Japanese screen) graphic portrayal of violence. Some commentators have seen the Sanjuro character in this film as a fantasy figure who magically reverses the historical triumph of the corrupt merchant class over the samurai class. Featuring Tatsuya Nakadai in his first major role in a Kurosawa movie, and with innovative photography by Kazuo Miyagawa (who shot Rashomon) and Takao Saito, the film premiered in April 1961 and was a critically and commercially successful venture, earning more than any previous Kurosawa film. The movie and its blackly comic tone were also widely imitated abroad. Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was a virtual (unauthorized) scene-by-scene remake with Toho filing a lawsuit on Kurosawa's behalf and prevailing.Following the success of Yojimbo, Kurosawa found himself under pressure from Toho to create a sequel. Kurosawa turned to a script he had written before Yojimbo, reworking it to include the hero of his previous film. Sanjuro was the first of three Kurosawa films to be adapted from the work of the writer Shūgorō Yamamoto (the others would be Red Beard and Dodeskaden). It is lighter in tone and closer to a conventional period film than Yojimbo, though its story of a power struggle within a samurai clan is portrayed with strongly comic undertones. The film opened on January 1, 1962, quickly surpassing Yojimbos box office success and garnering positive reviews.Kurosawa had meanwhile instructed Toho to purchase the film rights to King's Ransom, a novel about a kidnapping written by American author and screenwriter Evan Hunter, under his pseudonym of Ed McBain, as one of his 87th Precinct series of crime books. The director intended to create a work condemning kidnapping, which he considered one of the very worst crimes. The suspense film, titled High and Low, was shot during the latter half of 1962 and released in March 1963. It broke Kurosawa's box office record (the third film in a row to do so), became the highest grossing Japanese film of the year, and won glowing reviews. However, his triumph was somewhat tarnished when, ironically, the film was blamed for a wave of kidnappings which occurred in Japan about this time (he himself received kidnapping threats directed at his young daughter, Kazuko). High and Low is considered by many commentators to be among the director's strongest works.Kurosawa quickly moved on to his next project, Red Beard. Based on a short story collection by Shūgorō Yamamoto and incorporating elements from Dostoyevsky's novel The Insulted and Injured, it is a period film, set in a mid-nineteenth century clinic for the poor, in which Kurosawa's humanist themes receive perhaps their fullest statement. A conceited and materialistic, foreign-trained young doctor, Yasumoto, is forced to become an intern at the clinic under the stern tutelage of Doctor Niide, known as "Akahige" ("Red Beard"), played by Mifune. Although he resists Red Beard initially, Yasumoto comes to admire his wisdom and courage, and to perceive the patients at the clinic, whom he at first despised, as worthy of compassion and dignity.Yūzō Kayama, who plays Yasumoto, was an extremely popular film and music star at the time, particularly for his "Young Guy" (Wakadaishō) series of musical comedies, so signing him to appear in the film virtually guaranteed Kurosawa strong box-office. The shoot, the film-maker's longest ever, lasted well over a year (after five months of pre-production), and wrapped in spring 1965, leaving the director, his crew and his actors exhausted. Red Beard premiered in April 1965, becoming the year's highest-grossing Japanese production and the third (and last) Kurosawa film to top the prestigious Kinema Jumpo yearly critics poll. It remains one of Kurosawa's best-known and most-loved works in his native country. Outside Japan, critics have been much more divided. Most commentators concede its technical merits and some praise it as among Kurosawa's best, while others insist that it lacks complexity and genuine narrative power, with still others claiming that it represents a retreat from the artist's previous commitment to social and political change.The film marked something of an end of an era for its creator. The director himself recognized this at the time of its release, telling critic Donald Richie that a cycle of some kind had just come to an end and that his future films and production methods would be different. His prediction proved quite accurate. Beginning in the late 1950s, television began increasingly to dominate the leisure time of the formerly large and loyal Japanese cinema audience. And as film company revenues dropped, so did their appetite for risk—particularly the risk represented by Kurosawa's costly production methods.Red Beard also marked the midway point, chronologically, in the artist's career. During his previous twenty-nine years in the film industry (which includes his five years as assistant director), he had directed twenty-three films, while during the remaining twenty-eight years, for many and complex reasons, he would complete only seven more. Also, for reasons never adequately explained, Red Beard would be his final film starring Toshiro Mifune. Yu Fujiki, an actor who worked on The Lower Depths, observed, regarding the closeness of the two men on the set, "Mr. Kurosawa's heart was in Mr. Mifune's body." Donald Richie has described the rapport between them as a unique "symbiosis".Hollywood ambitions to last films (1966–98)Hollywood detour (1966–68) When Kurosawa's exclusive contract with Toho came to an end in 1966, the 56-year-old director was seriously contemplating change. Observing the troubled state of the domestic film industry, and having already received dozens of offers from abroad, the idea of working outside Japan appealed to him as never before.For his first foreign project, Kurosawa chose a story based on a Life magazine article. The Embassy Pictures action thriller, to be filmed in English and called simply Runaway Train, would have been his first in color. But the language barrier proved a major problem, and the English version of the screenplay was not even finished by the time filming was to begin in autumn 1966. The shoot, which required snow, was moved to autumn 1967, then canceled in 1968. Almost two decades later, another foreign director working in Hollywood, Andrei Konchalovsky, finally made Runaway Train (1985), though from a new script loosely based on Kurosawa's.The director meanwhile had become involved in a much more ambitious Hollywood project. Tora! Tora! Tora!, produced by 20th Century Fox and Kurosawa Production, would be a portrayal of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from both the American and the Japanese points of view, with Kurosawa helming the Japanese half and an Anglophonic film-maker directing the American half. He spent several months working on the script with Ryuzo Kikushima and Hideo Oguni, but very soon the project began to unravel. The director of the American sequences turned out not to be David Lean, as originally planned, but American Richard Fleischer. The budget was also cut, and the screen time allocated for the Japanese segment would now be no longer than 90 minutes—a major problem, considering that Kurosawa's script ran over four hours. After numerous revisions with the direct involvement of Darryl Zanuck, a more or less finalized cut screenplay was agreed upon in May 1968.Shooting began in early December, but Kurosawa would last only a little over three weeks as director. He struggled to work with an unfamiliar crew and the requirements of a Hollywood production, while his working methods puzzled his American producers, who ultimately concluded that the director must be mentally ill. Kurosawa was examined at Kyoto University Hospital by a neuropsychologist, Dr. Murakami, whose diagnosis was forwarded to Darryl Zanuck and Richard Zanuck at Fox studios indicating a diagnosis of neurasthenia stating that, "He is suffering from disturbance of sleep, agitated with feelings of anxiety and in manic excitement caused by the above mentioned illness. It is necessary for him to have rest and medical treatment for more than two months." On Christmas Eve 1968, the Americans announced that Kurosawa had left the production due to "fatigue", effectively firing him. He was ultimately replaced, for the film's Japanese sequences, with two directors, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda.Tora! Tora! Tora!, finally released to unenthusiastic reviews in September 1970, was, as Donald Richie put it, an "almost unmitigated tragedy" in Kurosawa's career. He had spent years of his life on a logistically nightmarish project to which he ultimately did not contribute a foot of film shot by himself. (He had his name removed from the credits, though the script used for the Japanese half was still his and his co-writers'.) He became estranged from his longtime collaborator, writer Ryuzo Kikushima, and never worked with him again. The project had inadvertently exposed corruption in his own production company (a situation reminiscent of his own movie, The Bad Sleep Well). His very sanity had been called into question. Worst of all, the Japanese film industry—and perhaps the man himself—began to suspect that he would never make another film.A difficult decade (1969–77) Knowing that his reputation was at stake following the much publicised Tora! Tora! Tora! debacle, Kurosawa moved quickly to a new project to prove he was still viable. To his aid came friends and famed directors Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and Kon Ichikawa, who together with Kurosawa established in July 1969 a production company called the Club of the Four Knights (Yonki no kai). Although the plan was for the four directors to create a film each, it has been suggested that the real motivation for the other three directors was to make it easier for Kurosawa to successfully complete a film, and therefore find his way back into the business.The first project proposed and worked on was a period film to be called Dora-heita, but when this was deemed too expensive, attention shifted to Dodesukaden, an adaptation of yet another Shūgorō Yamamoto work, again about the poor and destitute. The film was shot quickly (by Kurosawa's standards) in about nine weeks, with Kurosawa determined to show he was still capable of working quickly and efficiently within a limited budget. For his first work in color, the dynamic editing and complex compositions of his earlier pictures were set aside, with the artist focusing on the creation of a bold, almost surreal palette of primary colors, in order to reveal the toxic environment in which the characters live. It was released in Japan in October 1970, but though a minor critical success, it was greeted with audience indifference. The picture lost money and caused the Club of the Four Knights to dissolve. Initial reception abroad was somewhat more favorable, but Dodesukaden has since been typically considered an interesting experiment not comparable to the director's best work.After struggling through the production  of Dodesukaden, Kurosawa turned to television work the following year for the only time in his career with Song of the Horse,  a documentary about thoroughbred race horses. It featured a voice-over narrated by a fictional man and a child (voiced by the same actors as the beggar and his son in Dodesukaden). It is the only documentary in Kurosawa's filmography; the small crew included his frequent collaborator Masaru Sato, who composed the music. Song of the Horse is also unique in Kurosawa's oeuvre in that it includes an editor's credit, suggesting that it is the only Kurosawa film that he did not cut himself.Unable to secure funding for further work and allegedly suffering from health problems, Kurosawa apparently reached the breaking point: on December 22, 1971, he slit his wrists and throat multiple times. The suicide attempt proved unsuccessful and the director's health recovered fairly quickly, with Kurosawa now taking refuge in domestic life, uncertain if he would ever direct another film.In early 1973, the Soviet studio Mosfilm approached the film-maker to ask if he would be interested in working with them. Kurosawa proposed an adaptation of Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenyev's autobiographical work Dersu Uzala. The book, about a Goldi hunter who lives in harmony with nature until destroyed by encroaching civilization, was one that he had wanted to make since the 1930s. In December 1973, the 63-year-old Kurosawa set off for the Soviet Union with four of his closest aides, beginning a year-and-a-half stay in the country. Shooting began in May 1974 in Siberia, with filming in exceedingly harsh natural conditions proving very difficult and demanding. The picture wrapped in April 1975, with a thoroughly exhausted and homesick Kurosawa returning to Japan and his family in June. Dersu Uzala had its world premiere in Japan on August 2, 1975, and did well at the box office. While critical reception in Japan was muted, the film was better reviewed abroad, winning the Golden Prize at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival, as well as an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Today, critics remain divided over the film: some see it as an example of Kurosawa's alleged artistic decline, while others count it among his finest works.Although proposals for television projects were submitted to him, he had no interest in working outside the film world. Nevertheless, the hard-drinking director did agree to appear in a series of television ads for Suntory whiskey, which aired in 1976. While fearing that he might never be able to make another film, the director nevertheless continued working on various projects, writing scripts and creating detailed illustrations, intending to leave behind a visual record of his plans in case he would never be able to film his stories.Two epics (1978–86) In 1977, American director George Lucas released Star Wars, a wildly successful science fiction film influenced by Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, among other works. Lucas, like many other New Hollywood directors, revered Kurosawa and considered him a role model, and was shocked to discover that the Japanese film-maker was unable to secure financing for any new work. The two met in San Francisco in July 1978 to discuss the project Kurosawa considered most financially viable: Kagemusha, the epic story of a thief hired as the double of a medieval Japanese lord of a great clan. Lucas, enthralled by the screenplay and Kurosawa's illustrations, leveraged his influence over 20th Century Fox to coerce the studio that had fired Kurosawa just ten years earlier to produce Kagemusha, then recruited fellow fan Francis Ford Coppola as co-producer.Production began the following April, with Kurosawa in high spirits. Shooting lasted from June 1979 through March 1980 and was plagued with problems, not the least of which was the firing of the original lead actor, Shintaro Katsu—creator of the very popular Zatoichi character—due to an incident in which the actor insisted, against the director's wishes, on videotaping his own performance. (He was replaced by Tatsuya Nakadai, in his first of two consecutive leading roles in a Kurosawa movie.) The film was completed only a few weeks behind schedule and opened in Tokyo in April 1980. It quickly became a massive hit in Japan. The film was also a critical and box office success abroad, winning the coveted Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival in May, though some critics, then and now, have faulted the film for its alleged coldness. Kurosawa spent much of the rest of the year in Europe and America promoting Kagemusha, collecting awards and accolades, and exhibiting as art the drawings he had made to serve as storyboards for the film.The international success of Kagemusha allowed Kurosawa to proceed with his next project, Ran, another epic in a similar vein. The script, partly based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, depicted a ruthless, bloodthirsty daimyō (warlord), played by Tatsuya Nakadai, who, after foolishly banishing his one loyal son, surrenders his kingdom to his other two sons, who then betray him, thus plunging the entire kingdom into war. As Japanese studios still felt wary about producing another film that would rank among the most expensive ever made in the country, international help was again needed. This time it came from French producer Serge Silberman, who had produced Luis Buñuel's final movies. Filming did not begin until December 1983 and lasted more than a year.In January 1985, production of Ran was halted as Kurosawa's 64-year-old wife Yōko fell ill. She died on February 1. Kurosawa returned to finish his film and Ran premiered at the Tokyo Film Festival on May 31, with a wide release the next day. The film was a moderate financial success in Japan, but a larger one abroad and, as he had done with Kagemusha, Kurosawa embarked on a trip to Europe and America, where he attended the film's premieres in September and October.Ran won several awards in Japan, but was not quite as honored there as many of the director's best films of the 1950s and 1960s had been. The film world was surprised, however, when Japan passed over the selection of Ran in favor of another film as its official entry to compete for an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category, which was ultimately rejected for competition at the 58th Academy Awards. Both the producer and Kurosawa himself attributed the failure to even submit Ran for competition to a misunderstanding: because of the Academy's arcane rules, no one was sure whether Ran qualified as a Japanese film, a French film (due to its financing), or both, so it was not submitted at all. In response to what at least appeared to be a blatant snub by his own countrymen, the director Sidney Lumet led a successful campaign to have Kurosawa receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director that year (Sydney Pollack ultimately won the award for directing Out of Africa). Rans costume designer, Emi Wada, won the movie's only Oscar.Kagemusha and Ran, particularly the latter, are often considered to be among Kurosawa's finest works. After Rans release, Kurosawa would point to it as his best film, a major change of attitude for the director who, when asked which of his works was his best, had always previously answered "my next one".Final works and last years (1987–98) For his next movie, Kurosawa chose a subject very different from any that he had ever filmed before. While some of his previous pictures (for example, Drunken Angel and Kagemusha) had included brief dream sequences, Dreams was to be entirely based upon the director's own dreams. Significantly, for the first time in over forty years, Kurosawa, for this deeply personal project, wrote the screenplay alone. Although its estimated budget was lower than the films immediately preceding it, Japanese studios were still unwilling to back one of his productions, so Kurosawa turned to another famous American fan, Steven Spielberg, who convinced Warner Bros. to buy the international rights to the completed film. This made it easier for Kurosawa's son, Hisao, as co-producer and soon-to-be head of Kurosawa Production, to negotiate a loan in Japan that would cover the film's production costs. Shooting took more than eight months to complete, and Dreams premiered at Cannes in May 1990 to a polite but muted reception, similar to the reaction the picture would generate elsewhere in the world. In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In his acceptance speech, he famously said "I'm a little worried because I don't feel that I understand cinema yet."Kurosawa now turned to a more conventional story with Rhapsody in August—the director's first film fully produced in Japan since Dodeskaden over twenty years before—which explored the scars of the nuclear bombing which destroyed Nagasaki at the very end of World War II. It was adapted from a Kiyoko Murata novel, but the film's references to the Nagasaki bombing came from the director rather than from the book. This was his only movie to include a role for an American movie star: Richard Gere, who plays a small role as the nephew of the elderly heroine. Shooting took place in early 1991, with the film opening on May 25 that year to a largely negative critical reaction, especially in the United States, where the director was accused of promulgating naïvely anti-American sentiments, though Kurosawa rejected these accusations.Kurosawa wasted no time moving onto his next project: Madadayo, or Not Yet. Based on autobiographical essays by Hyakken Uchida, the film follows the life of a Japanese professor of German through the Second World War and beyond. The narrative centers on yearly birthday celebrations with his former students, during which the protagonist declares his unwillingness to die just yet—a theme that was becoming increasingly relevant for the film's 81-year-old creator. Filming began in February 1992 and wrapped by the end of September. Its release on April 17, 1993, was greeted by an even more disappointed reaction than had been the case with his two preceding works.Kurosawa nevertheless continued to work. He wrote the original screenplays The Sea is Watching in 1993 and After the Rain in 1995. While putting finishing touches on the latter work in 1995, Kurosawa slipped and broke the base of his spine. Following the accident, he would use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, putting an end to any hopes of him directing another film. His longtime wish—to die on the set while shooting a movie—was never to be fulfilled.After his accident, Kurosawa's health began to deteriorate. While his mind remained sharp and lively, his body was giving up, and for the last half-year of his life, the director was largely confined to bed, listening to music and watching television at home. On September 6, 1998, Kurosawa died of a stroke in Setagaya, Tokyo, at the age of 88. At the time of his death, Kurosawa had two children, his son Hisao Kurosawa who married Hiroko Hayashi and his daughter Kazuko Kurosawa who married Harayuki Kato, along with several grandchildren. One of his grandchildren, the actor Takayuki Kato and grandson by Kazuko, became a supporting actor in two films posthumously developed from screenplays written by Kurosawa which remained unproduced during his own lifetime, Takashi Koizumi's After the Rain (1999) and Kei Kumai's The Sea is Watching (2002).Creative works/filmography Although Kurosawa is primarily known as a film-maker, he also worked in theater and television, and wrote books. A detailed list, including his complete filmography, can be found in the list of creative works by Akira Kurosawa.Style and main themes Kurosawa displayed a bold, dynamic style, strongly influenced by Western cinema yet distinct from it; he was involved with all aspects of film production. He was a gifted screenwriter and worked closely with his co-writers from the film's development onward to ensure a high-quality script, which he considered the firm foundation of a good film. He frequently served as editor of his own films.  His team, known as the "Kurosawa-gumi" (Kurosawa group), which included the cinematographer Asakazu Nakai, the production assistant Teruyo Nogami and the actor Takashi Shimura, was notable for its loyalty and dependability.Kurosawa's style is marked by a number of devices and techniques. In his films of the 1940s and 1950s, he frequently employs the "axial cut", in which the camera moves toward or away from the subject through a series of matched jump cuts rather than tracking shots or dissolves. Another stylistic trait is "cut on motion", which displays the motion on the screen in two or more shots instead of one uninterrupted one. A form of cinematic punctuation strongly identified with Kurosawa is the wipe, an effect created through an optical printer: a line or bar appears to move across the screen, wiping away the end of a scene and revealing the first image of the next. As a transitional device, it is used as a substitute for the straight cut or the dissolve; in his mature work, the wipe became Kurosawa's signature.In the film's soundtrack, Kurosawa favored the sound-image counterpoint, in which the music or sound effects appeared to comment ironically on the image rather than emphasizing it. Teruyo Nogami's memoir gives several such examples from Drunken Angel and Stray Dog. Kurosawa was also involved with several of Japan's outstanding contemporary composers, including Fumio Hayasaka  and Tōru Takemitsu.Kurosawa employed a number of recurring themes in his films: the master-disciple relationship between a usually older mentor and one or more novices, which often involves spiritual as well as technical mastery and self-mastery; the heroic champion, the exceptional individual who emerges from the mass of people to produce something or right some wrong;  the depiction of extremes of weather as both dramatic devices and symbols of human passion; and the recurrence of cycles of savage violence within history. According to Stephen Prince, the last theme, which he calls, "the countertradition to the committed, heroic mode of Kurosawa's cinema," began with Throne of Blood (1957), and recurred in the films of the 1980s.LegacyLegacy of general criticism Kenji Mizoguchi, the acclaimed director of Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954) was eleven years Kurosawa's senior. After the mid-1950s, some critics of the French New Wave began to favor Mizoguchi to Kurosawa. New Wave critic and film-maker Jacques Rivette, in particular, thought Mizoguchi to be the only Japanese director whose work was at once entirely Japanese and truly universal; Kurosawa, by contrast was thought to be more influenced by Western cinema and culture, a view that has been disputed.In Japan, some critics and film-makers considered Kurosawa to be elitist.  They viewed him to center his effort and attention on exceptional or heroic characters. In her D.V.D. commentary on Seven Samurai, Joan Mellen argued that certain shots of the samurai characters Kambei and Kyuzo,  which show Kurosawa to have accorded higher status or validity to them, constitutes evidence for this point of view. These Japanese critics argued that Kurosawa was not sufficiently progressive because the peasants were unable to find leaders from within their ranks. In an interview with Mellen, Kurosawa defended himself, saying, I wanted to say that after everything the peasants were the stronger, closely clinging to the earth ... It was the samurai who were weak because they were being blown by the winds of time.From the early 1950s, Kurosawa was also charged with catering to Western tastes due to his popularity in Europe and America. In the 1970s, the left-wing director Nagisa Oshima, who was noted for his critical reaction to Kurosawa's work, accused Kurosawa of pandering to Western beliefs and ideologies. Author Audie Block, however, assessed Kurosawa to have never played up to a non-Japanese viewing public and to have denounced those directors who did.Reputation among film-makers Many film-makers have been influenced by Kurosawa's work. Ingmar Bergman called his own film The Virgin Spring a "touristic... lousy imitation of Kurosawa", and added, "At that time my admiration for the Japanese cinema was at its height. I was almost a samurai myself!" Federico Fellini considered Kurosawa to be "the greatest living example of all that an author of the cinema should be". Satyajit Ray, who was posthumously awarded the  Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1992, had said earlier of Rashomon: "The effect of the film on me [upon first seeing it in Calcutta in 1952] was electric. I saw it three times on consecutive days, and wondered each time if there was another film anywhere which gave such sustained and dazzling proof of a director's command over every aspect of film making."Roman Polanski considered Kurosawa to be among the three film-makers he favored most, along with Fellini and Orson Welles, and picked Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and The Hidden Fortress for praise. Bernardo Bertolucci considered Kurosawa's influence to be seminal: "Kurosawa's movies and La Dolce Vita of Fellini are the things that pushed me, sucked me into being a film director." Andrei Tarkovsky cited Kurosawa as one of his favorites and named Seven Samurai as one of his ten favorite films. Sidney Lumet called Kurosawa the "Beethoven of movie directors". Werner Herzog reflected on film-makers with whom he feels kinship and the movies that he admires:  Griffith - especially his Birth of a Nation and Broken Blossoms - Murnau, Buñuel, Kurosawa and Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, ... all come to mind. ... I like Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Pudovkin’s Storm Over Asia and Dovzhenko’s Earth, ... Mizoguchi's Ugetsu Monogatari, Satyajit Ray's The Music Room ... I have always wondered how Kurosawa made something as good as Rashomon; the equilibrium and flow are perfect, and he uses space in such a well-balanced way. It is one of the best films ever made.According to an assistant, Stanley Kubrick considered Kurosawa to be "one of the great film directors" and spoke of him "consistently and admiringly", to the point that a letter from him "meant more than any Oscar" and caused him to agonize for months over drafting a reply. Robert Altman upon first seeing Rashomon was so impressed by the sequence of frames of the sun that he began to shoot the same sequences in his work the very next day, he claimed. Kurosawa was ranked 3rd in the directors' poll and 5th in the critics' poll in Sight & Sound's 2002 list of the greatest directors of all time.Posthumous screenplays Following Kurosawa's death, several posthumous works based on his unfilmed screenplays have been produced. After the Rain, directed by Takashi Koizumi, was released in 1999, and The Sea Is Watching, directed by Kei Kumai, premiered in 2002. A script created by the Yonki no Kai ("Club of the Four Knights") (Kurosawa, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichikawa), around the time that Dodeskaden was made, finally was filmed and released (in 2000) as Dora-heita, by the only surviving founding member of the club, Kon Ichikawa. Huayi Brothers Media and CKF Pictures in China announced in 2017 plans to produce a film of Kurosawa's posthumous screenplay of The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe for 2020, to be entitled The Mask of the Black Death. Patrick Frater writing for Variety magazine in May 2017 stated that another two unfinished films by Kurosawa were planned, with Silvering Spear to start filming in 2018.Kurosawa Production Company In September 2011, it was reported that remake rights to most of Kurosawa's movies and unproduced screenplays were assigned by the Akira Kurosawa 100 Project to the L.A.-based company Splendent. Splendent's chief Sakiko Yamada, stated that he aimed to "help contemporary film-makers introduce a new generation of moviegoers to these unforgettable stories".Kurosawa Production Co., established in 1959, continues to oversee many of the aspects of Kurosawa's legacy. The director's son, Hisao Kurosawa, is the current head of the company. Its American subsidiary, Kurosawa Enterprises, is located in Los Angeles. Rights to Kurosawa's works were then held by Kurosawa Production and the film studios under which he worked, most notably Toho. These rights were then assigned to the Akira Kurosawa 100 Project before being reassigned in 2011 to the L.A. based company Splendent. Kurosawa Production works closely with the Akira Kurosawa Foundation, established in December 2003 and also run by Hisao Kurosawa. The foundation organizes an annual short film competition and spearheads Kurosawa-related projects, including a recently shelved one to build a memorial museum for the director.Film studios and awards In 1981, the Kurosawa Film Studio was opened in Yokohama; two additional locations have since been launched in Japan. A large collection of archive material, including scanned screenplays, photos and news articles, has been made available through the Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive, a Japanese proprietary website maintained by Ryukoku University Digital Archives Research Center in collaboration with Kurosawa Production. Anaheim University's Akira Kurosawa School of Film was launched in spring 2009 with the backing of Kurosawa Production. It offers online programs in digital film making, with headquarters in Anaheim and a learning center in Tokyo.Two film awards have also been named in Kurosawa's honor. The Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film Directing is awarded during the San Francisco International Film Festival, while the Akira Kurosawa Award is given during the Tokyo International Film Festival.Kurosawa is often cited as one of the greatest film-makers of all time. In 1999, he was named "Asian of the Century" in the "Arts, Literature, and Culture" category by AsianWeek magazine and CNN, cited as "one of the [five] people who contributed most to the betterment of Asia in the past 100 years". In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Kurosawa's birth in 2010, a project called AK100 was launched in 2008. The AK100 Project aims to "expose young people who are the representatives of the next generation, and all people everywhere, to the light and spirit of Akira Kurosawa and the wonderful world he created".Anaheim University in cooperation with the Kurosawa Family established the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film to offer online and blended learning programs on Akira Kurosawa and film-making. The animated Wes Anderson film Isle of Dogs () is partially inspired by Kurosawa's filming techniques. At the 64th Sydney Film Festival, there was a retrospective of Akira Kurosawa where films of his were screened to remember the great legacy he has created from his work.Documentaries A significant number of short and full-length documentaries concerning the life and work of Kurosawa were made both during his artistic heyday and after his death. AK, by French video essay director Chris Marker, was filmed while Kurosawa was working on Ran; however, the documentary is more concerned about Kurosawa's distant yet polite personality than on the making of the film. Other documentaries concerning Kurosawa's life and works produced posthumously include: Kurosawa: The Last Emperor (Alex Cox, 1999) A Message from Akira Kurosawa: For Beautiful Movies (Hisao Kurosawa, 2000) Kurosawa (Adam Low, 2001) Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create (Toho Masterworks, 2002) Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and the Intimate (2010) Kurosawa's Way (Catherine Cadou, 2011)NotesReferencesSourcesFurther reading  Buchanan, Judith (2005). Shakespeare on Film. Pearson Longman. . Burch, Nöel (1979). To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema. University of California Press. . Cowie, Peter (2010). Akira Kurosawa: Master of Cinema. Rizzoli Publications. . Davies, Anthony (1990). Filming Shakespeare's Plays: The Adaptions of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa. Cambridge University Press. . Desser, David (1983). The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa (Studies in Cinema No. 23). UMI Research Press. .       Leonard, Kendra Preston (2009). Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations. Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press. .       Sorensen, Lars-Martin (2009). Censorship of Japanese Films During the U.S. Occupation of Japan: The Cases of Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. Edwin Mellen Press. .   Wild, Peter. (2014) Akira Kurosawa Reaktion BooksExternal links    Akira Kurosawa at the Criterion Collection Akira Kurosawa: News, Information and Discussion Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database Akira Kurosawa at Japanese celebrity's grave guide   Several trailers Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film  1910 births1998 deaths20th-century Japanese writers20th-century male writersAcademy Honorary Award recipientsAkira Kurosawa Award winnersBest Director BAFTA Award winnersCésar Award winnersDavid di Donatello winnersDirectors Guild of America Award winnersDirectors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winnersDirectors of Palme d'Or winnersDirectors of Golden Lion winnersFilmmakers who won the Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA AwardFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesJapanese film directorsJapanese film editorsJapanese film producersJapanese male writersJapanese screenwritersKyoto laureates in Arts and PhilosophyRecipients of the Legion of HonourMale screenwritersPeople from ShinagawaPeople of the Empire of JapanPeople's Honour Award winnersPersons of Cultural MeritPropaganda film directorsRamon Magsaysay Award winnersRecipients of the Order of CultureRecipients of the Order of Friendship of PeoplesRecipients of the Praemium ImperialeSamurai film directorsSilver Bear for Best Director recipientsWriters from TokyoYakuza film directorsGoogle Doodles
Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River, situated in the place that is now the country Egypt. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes (often identified with Narmer). The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, ruling much of Nubia and a sizable portion of the Near East, after which it entered a period of slow decline. During the course of its history Egypt was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign powers, including the Hyksos, the Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Macedonians under the command of Alexander the Great. The Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom, formed in the aftermath of Alexander's death, ruled Egypt until 30BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province.The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs.The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known planked boats, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with the Hittites. Ancient Egypt has left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for millennia. A newfound respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Europeans and Egyptians led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy.HistoryThe Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization. Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the river region.Predynastic periodIn Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated.By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Southern) Egypt was the Badarian culture, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high-quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper.The Badari was followed by the Naqada culture: the Amratian (Naqada I), the Gerzeh (Naqada II), and Semainean (Naqada III). These brought a number of technological improvements. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast. Over a period of about 1,000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. Establishing a power center at Nekhen (in Greek, Hierakonpolis), and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east, initiating a period of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations.The Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language.Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150–2686 BC)The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia and of ancient Elam. The third-centuryBC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of kings from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. He began his official history with the king named "Meni" (or Menes in Greek), who was believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt.The transition to a unified state happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers represented, and there is no contemporary record of Menes. Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have been the king Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial Narmer Palette, in a symbolic act of unification. In the Early Dynastic Period, which began about 3000BC, the first of the Dynastic kings solidified control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which he could control the labour force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the kings during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified king after his death. The strong institution of kingship developed by the kings served to legitimize state control over the land, labour, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization.Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC)Major advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration. Some of ancient Egypt's crowning achievements, the Giza pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order. With the rising importance of central administration in Egypt, a new class of educated scribes and officials arose who were granted estates by the king in payment for their services. Kings also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the king after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic vitality of Egypt, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration. As the power of the kings diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the office of king. This, coupled with severe droughts between 2200 and 2150BC, is believed to have caused the country to enter the 140-year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period.First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC)After Egypt's central government collapsed at the end of the Old Kingdom, the administration could no longer support or stabilize the country's economy. Regional governors could not rely on the king for help in times of crisis, and the ensuing food shortages and political disputes escalated into famines and small-scale civil wars. Yet despite difficult problems, local leaders, owing no tribute to the king, used their new-found independence to establish a thriving culture in the provinces. Once in control of their own resources, the provinces became economically richer—which was demonstrated by larger and better burials among all social classes. In bursts of creativity, provincial artisans adopted and adapted cultural motifs formerly restricted to the royalty of the Old Kingdom, and scribes developed literary styles that expressed the optimism and originality of the period.Free from their loyalties to the king, local rulers began competing with each other for territorial control and political power. By 2160BC, rulers in Herakleopolis controlled Lower Egypt in the north, while a rival clan based in Thebes, the Intef family, took control of Upper Egypt in the south. As the Intefs grew in power and expanded their control northward, a clash between the two rival dynasties became inevitable. Around 2055BC the northern Theban forces under Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II finally defeated the Herakleopolitan rulers, reuniting the Two Lands. They inaugurated a period of economic and cultural renaissance known as the Middle Kingdom.Middle Kingdom (2134–1690 BC)The kings of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's stability and prosperity, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Mentuhotep II and his Eleventh Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming the kingship at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty around 1985BC, shifted the kingdom's capital to the city of Itjtawy, located in Faiyum. From Itjtawy, the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region. Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia that was rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the "Walls of the Ruler", to defend against foreign attack.With the kings having secured the country militarily and politically and with vast agricultural and mineral wealth at their disposal, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom displayed an increase in expressions of personal piety. Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style. The relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured subtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical sophistication.The last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Semitic-speaking Canaanite settlers from the Near East into the Delta region to provide a sufficient labour force for his especially active mining and building campaigns. These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with severe Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties. During this decline, the Canaanite settlers began to assume greater control of the Delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos.Second Intermediate Period (1674–1549 BC) and the HyksosAround 1785BC, as the power of the Middle Kingdom kings weakened, a Western Asian people called the Hyksos, who had already settled in the Delta, seized control of Egypt and established their capital at Avaris, forcing the former central government to retreat to Thebes. The king was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute. The Hyksos ("foreign rulers") retained Egyptian models of government and identified as kings, thereby integrating Egyptian elements into their culture. They and other invaders introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot.After retreating south, the native Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Canaanite Hyksos ruling the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south. After years of vassalage, Thebes gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that lasted more than 30 years, until 1555BC. The kings Seqenenre Tao II and Kamose were ultimately able to defeat the Nubians to the south of Egypt, but failed to defeat the Hyksos. That task fell to Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. He established a new dynasty and, in the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the kings, who sought to expand Egypt's borders and attempted to gain mastery of the Near East.New Kingdom (1549–1069 BC)The New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan. Military campaigns waged under Tuthmosis I and his grandson Tuthmosis III extended the influence of the pharaohs to the largest empire Egypt had ever seen. Beginning with Merneptah the rulers of Egypt adopted the title of pharaoh.Between their reigns, Hatshepsut, a queen who established herself as pharaoh, launched many building projects, including the restoration of temples damaged by the Hyksos, and sent trading expeditions to Punt and the Sinai. When Tuthmosis III died in 1425BC, Egypt had an empire extending from Niya in north west Syria to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in Nubia, cementing loyalties and opening access to critical imports such as bronze and wood.The New Kingdom pharaohs began a large-scale building campaign to promote the god Amun, whose growing cult was based in Karnak. They also constructed monuments to glorify their own achievements, both real and imagined. The Karnak temple is the largest Egyptian temple ever built.Around 1350BC, the stability of the New Kingdom was threatened when Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and instituted a series of radical and chaotic reforms. Changing his name to Akhenaten, he touted the previously obscure sun deity Aten as the supreme deity, suppressed the worship of most other deities, and moved the capital to the new city of Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna). He was devoted to his new religion and artistic style. After his death, the cult of the Aten was quickly abandoned and the traditional religious order restored. The subsequent pharaohs, Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb, worked to erase all mention of Akhenaten's heresy, now known as the Amarna Period.Around 1279BC, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ascended the throne, and went on to build more temples, erect more statues and obelisks, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in history. A bold military leader, Ramesses II led his army against the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh (in modern Syria) and, after fighting to a stalemate, finally agreed to the first recorded peace treaty, around 1258BC.Egypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a conjectured confederation of seafarers from the Aegean Sea. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Canaan, much of it falling to the Assyrians. The effects of external threats were exacerbated by internal problems such as corruption, tomb robbery, and civil unrest. After regaining their power, the high priests at the temple of Amun in Thebes accumulated vast tracts of land and wealth, and their expanded power splintered the country during the Third Intermediate Period.Third Intermediate Period (1069–653 BC)Following the death of Ramesses XI in 1078BC, Smendes assumed authority over the northern part of Egypt, ruling from the city of Tanis. The south was effectively controlled by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, who recognized Smendes in name only. During this time, Libyans had been settling in the western delta, and chieftains of these settlers began increasing their autonomy. Libyan princes took control of the delta under Shoshenq I in 945BC, founding the so-called Libyan or Bubastite dynasty that would rule for some 200 years. Shoshenq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions. Libyan control began to erode as a rival dynasty in the delta arose in Leontopolis, and Kushites threatened from the south.Around 727BC the Kushite king Piye invaded northward, seizing control of Thebes and eventually the Delta, which established the 25th Dynasty. During the 25th Dynasty, Pharaoh Taharqa created an empire nearly as large as the New Kingdom's. Twenty-fifth Dynasty pharaohs built, or restored, temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, and Jebel Barkal. During this period, the Nile valley saw the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in modern Sudan) since the Middle Kingdom.Egypt's far-reaching prestige declined considerably toward the end of the Third Intermediate Period. Its foreign allies had fallen under the Assyrian sphere of influence, and by 700BC war between the two states became inevitable. Between 671 and 667BC the Assyrians began the Assyrian conquest of Egypt. The reigns of both Taharqa and his successor, Tanutamun, were filled with constant conflict with the Assyrians, against whom Egypt enjoyed several victories. Ultimately, the Assyrians pushed the Kushites back into Nubia, occupied Memphis, and sacked the temples of Thebes.Late Period (653–332 BC)The Assyrians left control of Egypt to a series of vassals who became known as the Saite kings of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. By 653BC, the Saite king Psamtik I was able to oust the Assyrians with the help of Greek mercenaries, who were recruited to form Egypt's first navy. Greek influence expanded greatly as the city-state of Naukratis became the home of Greeks in the Nile Delta. The Saite kings based in the new capital of Sais witnessed a brief but spirited resurgence in the economy and culture, but in 525BC, the powerful Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium. Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from Iran, leaving Egypt under the control of a satrap. A few successful revolts against the Persians marked the 5th centuryBC, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians.Following its annexation by Persia, Egypt was joined with Cyprus and Phoenicia in the sixth satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This first period of Persian rule over Egypt, also known as the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, ended in 402BC, when Egypt regained independence under a series of native dynasties. The last of these dynasties, the Thirtieth, proved to be the last native royal house of ancient Egypt, ending with the kingship of Nectanebo II. A brief restoration of Persian rule, sometimes known as the Thirty-First Dynasty, began in 343BC, but shortly after, in 332BC, the Persian ruler Mazaces handed Egypt over to Alexander the Great without a fight.Ptolemaic period (332–30 BC)In 332BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. The administration established by Alexander's successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Kingdom, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria. The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city—as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority.Hellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs. Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV. In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country. Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire.Roman period (30 BC – AD 641)Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30BC, following the defeat of Mark Antony and Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium. The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period. Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome.Although the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued. The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship. Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians.From the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt and it was originally seen as another cult that could be accepted. However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from the pagan Egyptian and Greco-Roman religions and threatened popular religious traditions. This led to the persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in 303, but eventually Christianity won out. In 391 the Christian emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples. Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed. As a consequence, Egypt's native religious culture was continually in decline. While the native population continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished. The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert.In the fourth century, as the Roman Empire divided, Egypt found itself in the Eastern Empire with its capital at Constantinople. In the waning years of the Empire, Egypt fell to the Sasanian Persian army in the Sasanian conquest of Egypt (618–628). It was then recaptured by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (629–639), and was finally captured by Muslim Rashidun army in 639–641, ending Byzantine rule.Government and economyAdministration and commerceThe pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The king was the supreme military commander and head of the government, who relied on a bureaucracy of officials to manage his affairs. In charge of the administration was his second in command, the vizier, who acted as the king's representative and coordinated land surveys, the treasury, building projects, the legal system, and the archives. At a regional level, the country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes each governed by a nomarch, who was accountable to the vizier for his jurisdiction. The temples formed the backbone of the economy. Not only were they places of worship, but were also responsible for collecting and storing the kingdom's wealth in a system of granaries and treasuries administered by overseers, who redistributed grain and goods.Much of the economy was centrally organized and strictly controlled. Although the ancient Egyptians did not use coinage until the Late period, they did use a type of money-barter system, with standard sacks of grain and the deben, a weight of roughly  of copper or silver, forming a common denominator. Workers were paid in grain; a simple laborer might earn 5 sacks (200 kg or 400 lb) of grain per month, while a foreman might earn 7 sacks (250 kg or 550 lb). Prices were fixed across the country and recorded in lists to facilitate trading; for example a shirt cost five copper deben, while a cow cost 140deben. Grain could be traded for other goods, according to the fixed price list. During the fifth centuryBC coined money was introduced into Egypt from abroad. At first the coins were used as standardized pieces of precious metal rather than true money, but in the following centuries international traders came to rely on coinage.Social statusEgyptian society was highly stratified, and social status was expressly displayed. Farmers made up the bulk of the population, but agricultural produce was owned directly by the state, temple, or noble family that owned the land. Farmers were also subject to a labor tax and were required to work on irrigation or construction projects in a corvée system. Artists and craftsmen were of higher status than farmers, but they were also under state control, working in the shops attached to the temples and paid directly from the state treasury. Scribes and officials formed the upper class in ancient Egypt, known as the "white kilt class" in reference to the bleached linen garments that served as a mark of their rank. The upper class prominently displayed their social status in art and literature. Below the nobility were the priests, physicians, and engineers with specialized training in their field. It is unclear whether slavery as understood today existed in ancient Egypt; there is difference of opinions among authors.The ancient Egyptians viewed men and women, including people from all social classes, as essentially equal under the law, and even the lowliest peasant was entitled to petition the vizier and his court for redress. Although slaves were mostly used as indentured servants, they were able to buy and sell their servitude, work their way to freedom or nobility, and were usually treated by doctors in the workplace. Both men and women had the right to own and sell property, make contracts, marry and divorce, receive inheritance, and pursue legal disputes in court. Married couples could own property jointly and protect themselves from divorce by agreeing to marriage contracts, which stipulated the financial obligations of the husband to his wife and children should the marriage end. Compared with their counterparts in ancient Greece, Rome, and even more modern places around the world, ancient Egyptian women had a greater range of personal choices, legal rights, and opportunities for achievement. Women such as Hatshepsut and Cleopatra VII even became pharaohs, while others wielded power as Divine Wives of Amun. Despite these freedoms, ancient Egyptian women did not often take part in official roles in the administration, aside from the royal high priestesses, apparently served only secondary roles in the temples (not much data for many dynasties), and were not so likely to be as educated as men.Legal systemThe head of the legal system was officially the pharaoh, who was responsible for enacting laws, delivering justice, and maintaining law and order, a concept the ancient Egyptians referred to as Ma'at. Although no legal codes from ancient Egypt survive, court documents show that Egyptian law was based on a common-sense view of right and wrong that emphasized reaching agreements and resolving conflicts rather than strictly adhering to a complicated set of statutes. Local councils of elders, known as Kenbet in the New Kingdom, were responsible for ruling in court cases involving small claims and minor disputes. More serious cases involving murder, major land transactions, and tomb robbery were referred to the Great Kenbet, over which the vizier or pharaoh presided. Plaintiffs and defendants were expected to represent themselves and were required to swear an oath that they had told the truth. In some cases, the state took on both the role of prosecutor and judge, and it could torture the accused with beatings to obtain a confession and the names of any co-conspirators. Whether the charges were trivial or serious, court scribes documented the complaint, testimony, and verdict of the case for future reference.Punishment for minor crimes involved either imposition of fines, beatings, facial mutilation, or exile, depending on the severity of the offense. Serious crimes such as murder and tomb robbery were punished by execution, carried out by decapitation, drowning, or impaling the criminal on a stake. Punishment could also be extended to the criminal's family. Beginning in the New Kingdom, oracles played a major role in the legal system, dispensing justice in both civil and criminal cases. The procedure was to ask the god a "yes" or "no" question concerning the right or wrong of an issue. The god, carried by a number of priests, rendered judgement by choosing one or the other, moving forward or backward, or pointing to one of the answers written on a piece of papyrus or an ostracon.Agriculture A combination of favorable geographical features contributed to the success of ancient Egyptian culture, the most important of which was the rich fertile soil resulting from annual inundations of the Nile River. The ancient Egyptians were thus able to produce an abundance of food, allowing the population to devote more time and resources to cultural, technological, and artistic pursuits. Land management was crucial in ancient Egypt because taxes were assessed based on the amount of land a person owned.Farming in Egypt was dependent on the cycle of the Nile River. The Egyptians recognized three seasons: Akhet (flooding), Peret (planting), and Shemu (harvesting). The flooding season lasted from June to September, depositing on the river's banks a layer of mineral-rich silt ideal for growing crops. After the floodwaters had receded, the growing season lasted from October to February. Farmers plowed and planted seeds in the fields, which were irrigated with ditches and canals. Egypt received little rainfall, so farmers relied on the Nile to water their crops. From March to May, farmers used sickles to harvest their crops, which were then threshed with a flail to separate the straw from the grain. Winnowing removed the chaff from the grain, and the grain was then ground into flour, brewed to make beer, or stored for later use.The ancient Egyptians cultivated emmer and barley, and several other cereal grains, all of which were used to make the two main food staples of bread and beer. Flax plants, uprooted before they started flowering, were grown for the fibers of their stems. These fibers were split along their length and spun into thread, which was used to weave sheets of linen and to make clothing. Papyrus growing on the banks of the Nile River was used to make paper. Vegetables and fruits were grown in garden plots, close to habitations and on higher ground, and had to be watered by hand. Vegetables included leeks, garlic, melons, squashes, pulses, lettuce, and other crops, in addition to grapes that were made into wine.AnimalsThe Egyptians believed that a balanced relationship between people and animals was an essential element of the cosmic order; thus humans, animals and plants were believed to be members of a single whole. Animals, both domesticated and wild, were therefore a critical source of spirituality, companionship, and sustenance to the ancient Egyptians. Cattle were the most important livestock; the administration collected taxes on livestock in regular censuses, and the size of a herd reflected the prestige and importance of the estate or temple that owned them. In addition to cattle, the ancient Egyptians kept sheep, goats, and pigs. Poultry, such as ducks, geese, and pigeons, were captured in nets and bred on farms, where they were force-fed with dough to fatten them. The Nile provided a plentiful source of fish. Bees were also domesticated from at least the Old Kingdom, and provided both honey and wax.The ancient Egyptians used donkeys and oxen as beasts of burden, and they were responsible for plowing the fields and trampling seed into the soil. The slaughter of a fattened ox was also a central part of an offering ritual. Horses were introduced by the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period. Camels, although known from the New Kingdom, were not used as beasts of burden until the Late Period. There is also evidence to suggest that elephants were briefly utilized in the Late Period but largely abandoned due to lack of grazing land. Cats, dogs, and monkeys were common family pets, while more exotic pets imported from the heart of Africa, such as Sub-Saharan African lions, were reserved for royalty. Herodotus observed that the Egyptians were the only people to keep their animals with them in their houses. During the Late Period, the worship of the gods in their animal form was extremely popular, such as the cat goddess Bastet and the ibis god Thoth, and these animals were kept in large numbers for the purpose of ritual sacrifice.Natural resourcesEgypt is rich in building and decorative stone, copper and lead ores, gold, and semiprecious stones. These natural resources allowed the ancient Egyptians to build monuments, sculpt statues, make tools, and fashion jewelry. Embalmers used salts from the Wadi Natrun for mummification, which also provided the gypsum needed to make plaster. Ore-bearing rock formations were found in distant, inhospitable wadis in the Eastern Desert and the Sinai, requiring large, state-controlled expeditions to obtain natural resources found there. There were extensive gold mines in Nubia, and one of the first maps known is of a gold mine in this region. The Wadi Hammamat was a notable source of granite, greywacke, and gold. Flint was the first mineral collected and used to make tools, and flint handaxes are the earliest pieces of evidence of habitation in the Nile valley. Nodules of the mineral were carefully flaked to make blades and arrowheads of moderate hardness and durability even after copper was adopted for this purpose. Ancient Egyptians were among the first to use minerals such as sulfur as cosmetic substances.The Egyptians worked deposits of the lead ore galena at Gebel Rosas to make net sinkers, plumb bobs, and small figurines. Copper was the most important metal for toolmaking in ancient Egypt and was smelted in furnaces from malachite ore mined in the Sinai. Workers collected gold by washing the nuggets out of sediment in alluvial deposits, or by the more labor-intensive process of grinding and washing gold-bearing quartzite. Iron deposits found in upper Egypt were utilized in the Late Period. High-quality building stones were abundant in Egypt; the ancient Egyptians quarried limestone all along the Nile valley, granite from Aswan, and basalt and sandstone from the wadis of the Eastern Desert. Deposits of decorative stones such as porphyry, greywacke, alabaster, and carnelian dotted the Eastern Desert and were collected even before the First Dynasty. In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, miners worked deposits of emeralds in Wadi Sikait and amethyst in Wadi el-Hudi.TradeThe ancient Egyptians engaged in trade with their foreign neighbors to obtain rare, exotic goods not found in Egypt. In the Predynastic Period, they established trade with Nubia to obtain gold and incense. They also established trade with Palestine, as evidenced by Palestinian-style oil jugs found in the burials of the First Dynasty pharaohs. An Egyptian colony stationed in southern Canaan dates to slightly before the First Dynasty. Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan and exported back to Egypt.By the Second Dynasty at latest, ancient Egyptian trade with Byblos yielded a critical source of quality timber not found in Egypt. By the Fifth Dynasty, trade with Punt provided gold, aromatic resins, ebony, ivory, and wild animals such as monkeys and baboons. Egypt relied on trade with Anatolia for essential quantities of tin as well as supplementary supplies of copper, both metals being necessary for the manufacture of bronze. The ancient Egyptians prized the blue stone lapis lazuli, which had to be imported from far-away Afghanistan. Egypt's Mediterranean trade partners also included Greece and Crete, which provided, among other goods, supplies of olive oil.LanguageHistorical developmentThe Egyptian language is a northern Afro-Asiatic language closely related to the Berber and Semitic languages. It has the second longest known history of any language (after Sumerian), having been written from c. 3200BC to the Middle Ages and remaining as a spoken language for longer. The phases of ancient Egyptian are Old Egyptian, Middle Egyptian (Classical Egyptian), Late Egyptian, Demotic and Coptic. Egyptian writings do not show dialect differences before Coptic, but it was probably spoken in regional dialects around Memphis and later Thebes.Ancient Egyptian was a synthetic language, but it became more analytic later on. Late Egyptian developed prefixal definite and indefinite articles, which replaced the older inflectional suffixes. There was a change from the older verb–subject–object word order to subject–verb–object. The Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic scripts were eventually replaced by the more phonetic Coptic alphabet. Coptic is still used in the liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and traces of it are found in modern Egyptian Arabic.Sounds and grammarAncient Egyptian has 25 consonants similar to those of other Afro-Asiatic languages. These include pharyngeal and emphatic consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless fricatives and voiced and voiceless affricates. It has three long and three short vowels, which expanded in Late Egyptian to about nine. The basic word in Egyptian, similar to Semitic and Berber, is a triliteral or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the person. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton  is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is , 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb: , 'the woman hears'.Adjectives are derived from nouns through a process that Egyptologists call nisbation because of its similarity with Arabic. The word order is  in verbal and adjectival sentences, and  in nominal and adverbial sentences. The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun. Verbs and nouns are negated by the particle n, but nn is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. Stress falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC).WritingHieroglyphic writing dates from c. 3000BC, and is composed of hundreds of symbols. A hieroglyph can represent a word, a sound, or a silent determinative; and the same symbol can serve different purposes in different contexts. Hieroglyphs were a formal script, used on stone monuments and in tombs, that could be as detailed as individual works of art. In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, called hieratic, which was quicker and easier. While formal hieroglyphs may be read in rows or columns in either direction (though typically written from right to left), hieratic was always written from right to left, usually in horizontal rows. A new form of writing, Demotic, became the prevalent writing style, and it is this form of writing—along with formal hieroglyphs—that accompany the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone.Around the first century AD, the Coptic alphabet started to be used alongside the Demotic script. Coptic is a modified Greek alphabet with the addition of some Demotic signs. Although formal hieroglyphs were used in a ceremonial role until the fourth century, towards the end only a small handful of priests could still read them. As the traditional religious establishments were disbanded, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was mostly lost. Attempts to decipher them date to the Byzantine and Islamic periods in Egypt, but only in the 1820s, after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and years of research by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, were hieroglyphs substantially deciphered.LiteratureWriting first appeared in association with kingship on labels and tags for items found in royal tombs. It was primarily an occupation of the scribes, who worked out of the Per Ankh institution or the House of Life. The latter comprised offices, libraries (called House of Books), laboratories and observatories. Some of the best-known pieces of ancient Egyptian literature, such as the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, were written in Classical Egyptian, which continued to be the language of writing until about 1300BC. Late Egyptian was spoken from the New Kingdom onward and is represented in Ramesside administrative documents, love poetry and tales, as well as in Demotic and Coptic texts. During this period, the tradition of writing had evolved into the tomb autobiography, such as those of Harkhuf and Weni. The genre known as Sebayt ("instructions") was developed to communicate teachings and guidance from famous nobles; the Ipuwer papyrus, a poem of lamentations describing natural disasters and social upheaval, is a famous example.The Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be the classic of Egyptian literature. Also written at this time was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. The Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of Near Eastern literature. Towards the end of the New Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often employed to write popular pieces like the Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. The former tells the story of a noble who is robbed on his way to buy cedar from Lebanon and of his struggle to return to Egypt. From about 700BC, narrative stories and instructions, such as the popular Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, as well as personal and business documents were written in the demotic script and phase of Egyptian. Many stories written in demotic during the Greco-Roman period were set in previous historical eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great pharaohs such as Ramesses II.CultureDaily lifeMost ancient Egyptians were farmers tied to the land. Their dwellings were restricted to immediate family members, and were constructed of mudbrick designed to remain cool in the heat of the day. Each home had a kitchen with an open roof, which contained a grindstone for milling grain and a small oven for baking the bread. Ceramics served as household wares for the storage, preparation, transport, and consumption of food, drink, and raw materials. Walls were painted white and could be covered with dyed linen wall hangings. Floors were covered with reed mats, while wooden stools, beds raised from the floor and individual tables comprised the furniture.The ancient Egyptians placed a great value on hygiene and appearance. Most bathed in the Nile and used a pasty soap made from animal fat and chalk. Men shaved their entire bodies for cleanliness; perfumes and aromatic ointments covered bad odors and soothed skin. Clothing was made from simple linen sheets that were bleached white, and both men and women of the upper classes wore wigs, jewelry, and cosmetics. Children went without clothing until maturity, at about age 12, and at this age males were circumcised and had their heads shaved. Mothers were responsible for taking care of the children, while the father provided the family's income.Music and dance were popular entertainments for those who could afford them. Early instruments included flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes developed later and became popular. In the New Kingdom, the Egyptians played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes and lyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-like musical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.The ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of leisure activities, including games and music. Senet, a board game where pieces moved according to random chance, was particularly popular from the earliest times; another similar game was mehen, which had a circular gaming board. “Hounds and Jackals” also known as 58 holes is another example of board games played in ancient Egypt. The first complete set of this game was discovered from a Theban tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat IV that dates to the 13th Dynasty. Juggling and ball games were popular with children, and wrestling is also documented in a tomb at Beni Hasan. The wealthy members of ancient Egyptian society enjoyed hunting, fishing, and boating as well.The excavation of the workers' village of Deir el-Medina has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world, which spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organization, social interactions, and working and living conditions of a community have been studied in such detail.CuisineEgyptian cuisine remained remarkably stable over time; indeed, the cuisine of modern Egypt retains some striking similarities to the cuisine of the ancients. The staple diet consisted of bread and beer, supplemented with vegetables such as onions and garlic, and fruit such as dates and figs. Wine and meat were enjoyed by all on feast days while the upper classes indulged on a more regular basis. Fish, meat, and fowl could be salted or dried, and could be cooked in stews or roasted on a grill.ArchitectureThe architecture of ancient Egypt includes some of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Pyramids of Giza and the temples at Thebes. Building projects were organized and funded by the state for religious and commemorative purposes, but also to reinforce the wide-ranging power of the pharaoh. The ancient Egyptians were skilled builders; using only simple but effective tools and sighting instruments, architects could build large stone structures with great accuracy and precision that is still envied today.The domestic dwellings of elite and ordinary Egyptians alike were constructed from perishable materials such as mudbricks and wood, and have not survived. Peasants lived in simple homes, while the palaces of the elite and the pharaoh were more elaborate structures. A few surviving New Kingdom palaces, such as those in Malkata and Amarna, show richly decorated walls and floors with scenes of people, birds, water pools, deities and geometric designs. Important structures such as temples and tombs that were intended to last forever were constructed of stone instead of mudbricks. The architectural elements used in the world's first large-scale stone building, Djoser's mortuary complex, include post and lintel supports in the papyrus and lotus motif.The earliest preserved ancient Egyptian temples, such as those at Giza, consist of single, enclosed halls with roof slabs supported by columns. In the New Kingdom, architects added the pylon, the open courtyard, and the enclosed hypostyle hall to the front of the temple's sanctuary, a style that was standard until the Greco-Roman period. The earliest and most popular tomb architecture in the Old Kingdom was the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular structure of mudbrick or stone built over an underground burial chamber. The step pyramid of Djoser is a series of stone mastabas stacked on top of each other. Pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but most later rulers abandoned them in favor of less conspicuous rock-cut tombs. The use of the pyramid form continued in private tomb chapels of the New Kingdom and in the royal pyramids of Nubia.ArtThe ancient Egyptians produced art to serve functional purposes. For over 3500 years, artists adhered to artistic forms and iconography that were developed during the Old Kingdom, following a strict set of principles that resisted foreign influence and internal change. These artistic standards—simple lines, shapes, and flat areas of color combined with the characteristic flat projection of figures with no indication of spatial depth—created a sense of order and balance within a composition. Images and text were intimately interwoven on tomb and temple walls, coffins, stelae, and even statues. The Narmer Palette, for example, displays figures that can also be read as hieroglyphs. Because of the rigid rules that governed its highly stylized and symbolic appearance, ancient Egyptian art served its political and religious purposes with precision and clarity.Ancient Egyptian artisans used stone as a medium for carving statues and fine reliefs, but used wood as a cheap and easily carved substitute. Paints were obtained from minerals such as iron ores (red and yellow ochres), copper ores (blue and green), soot or charcoal (black), and limestone (white). Paints could be mixed with gum arabic as a binder and pressed into cakes, which could be moistened with water when needed.Pharaohs used reliefs to record victories in battle, royal decrees, and religious scenes. Common citizens had access to pieces of funerary art, such as shabti statues and books of the dead, which they believed would protect them in the afterlife. During the Middle Kingdom, wooden or clay models depicting scenes from everyday life became popular additions to the tomb. In an attempt to duplicate the activities of the living in the afterlife, these models show laborers, houses, boats, and even military formations that are scale representations of the ideal ancient Egyptian afterlife.Despite the homogeneity of ancient Egyptian art, the styles of particular times and places sometimes reflected changing cultural or political attitudes. After the invasion of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, Minoan-style frescoes were found in Avaris. The most striking example of a politically driven change in artistic forms comes from the Amarna Period, where figures were radically altered to conform to Akhenaten's revolutionary religious ideas. This style, known as Amarna art, was quickly abandoned after Akhenaten's death and replaced by the traditional forms.Religious beliefsBeliefs in the divine and in the afterlife were ingrained in ancient Egyptian civilization from its inception; pharaonic rule was based on the divine right of kings. The Egyptian pantheon was populated by gods who had supernatural powers and were called on for help or protection. However, the gods were not always viewed as benevolent, and Egyptians believed they had to be appeased with offerings and prayers. The structure of this pantheon changed continually as new deities were promoted in the hierarchy, but priests made no effort to organize the diverse and sometimes conflicting myths and stories into a coherent system. These various conceptions of divinity were not considered contradictory but rather layers in the multiple facets of reality.Gods were worshiped in cult temples administered by priests acting on the king's behalf. At the center of the temple was the cult statue in a shrine. Temples were not places of public worship or congregation, and only on select feast days and celebrations was a shrine carrying the statue of the god brought out for public worship. Normally, the god's domain was sealed off from the outside world and was only accessible to temple officials. Common citizens could worship private statues in their homes, and amulets offered protection against the forces of chaos. After the New Kingdom, the pharaoh's role as a spiritual intermediary was de-emphasized as religious customs shifted to direct worship of the gods. As a result, priests developed a system of oracles to communicate the will of the gods directly to the people.The Egyptians believed that every human being was composed of physical and spiritual parts or aspects. In addition to the body, each person had a šwt (shadow), a ba (personality or soul), a ka (life-force), and a name. The heart, rather than the brain, was considered the seat of thoughts and emotions. After death, the spiritual aspects were released from the body and could move at will, but they required the physical remains (or a substitute, such as a statue) as a permanent home. The ultimate goal of the deceased was to rejoin his ka and ba and become one of the "blessed dead", living on as an akh, or "effective one". For this to happen, the deceased had to be judged worthy in a trial, in which the heart was weighed against a "feather of truth." If deemed worthy, the deceased could continue their existence on earth in spiritual form. If they were not deemed worthy, their heart was eaten by Ammit the Devourer and they were erased from the Universe.Burial customsThe ancient Egyptians maintained an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death. These customs involved preserving the body by mummification, performing burial ceremonies, and interring with the body goods the deceased would use in the afterlife. Before the Old Kingdom, bodies buried in desert pits were naturally preserved by desiccation. The arid, desert conditions were a boon throughout the history of ancient Egypt for burials of the poor, who could not afford the elaborate burial preparations available to the elite. Wealthier Egyptians began to bury their dead in stone tombs and use artificial mummification, which involved removing the internal organs, wrapping the body in linen, and burying it in a rectangular stone sarcophagus or wooden coffin. Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, some parts were preserved separately in canopic jars.By the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had perfected the art of mummification; the best technique took 70 days and involved removing the internal organs, removing the brain through the nose, and desiccating the body in a mixture of salts called natron. The body was then wrapped in linen with protective amulets inserted between layers and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin. Mummies of the Late Period were also placed in painted cartonnage mummy cases. Actual preservation practices declined during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, while greater emphasis was placed on the outer appearance of the mummy, which was decorated.Wealthy Egyptians were buried with larger quantities of luxury items, but all burials, regardless of social status, included goods for the deceased. Funerary texts were often included in the grave, and, beginning in the New Kingdom, so were shabti statues that were believed to perform manual labor for them in the afterlife. Rituals in which the deceased was magically re-animated accompanied burials. After burial, living relatives were expected to occasionally bring food to the tomb and recite prayers on behalf of the deceased.MilitaryThe ancient Egyptian military was responsible for defending Egypt against foreign invasion, and for maintaining Egypt's domination in the ancient Near East. The military protected mining expeditions to the Sinai during the Old Kingdom and fought civil wars during the First and Second Intermediate Periods. The military was responsible for maintaining fortifications along important trade routes, such as those found at the city of Buhen on the way to Nubia. Forts also were constructed to serve as military bases, such as the fortress at Sile, which was a base of operations for expeditions to the Levant. In the New Kingdom, a series of pharaohs used the standing Egyptian army to attack and conquer Kush and parts of the Levant.Typical military equipment included bows and arrows, spears, and round-topped shields made by stretching animal skin over a wooden frame. In the New Kingdom, the military began using chariots that had earlier been introduced by the Hyksos invaders. Weapons and armor continued to improve after the adoption of bronze: shields were now made from solid wood with a bronze buckle, spears were tipped with a bronze point, and the khopesh was adopted from Asiatic soldiers. The pharaoh was usually depicted in art and literature riding at the head of the army; it has been suggested that at least a few pharaohs, such as Seqenenre Tao II and his sons, did do so. However, it has also been argued that "kings of this period did not personally act as frontline war leaders, fighting alongside their troops." Soldiers were recruited from the general population, but during, and especially after, the New Kingdom, mercenaries from Nubia, Kush, and Libya were hired to fight for Egypt.Technology, medicine, and mathematicsTechnologyIn technology, medicine, and mathematics, ancient Egypt achieved a relatively high standard of productivity and sophistication. Traditional empiricism, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri (c. 1600BC), is first credited to Egypt. The Egyptians created their own alphabet and decimal system.Faience and glassEven before the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had developed a glassy material known as faience, which they treated as a type of artificial semi-precious stone. Faience is a non-clay ceramic made of silica, small amounts of lime and soda, and a colorant, typically copper. The material was used to make beads, tiles, figurines, and small wares. Several methods can be used to create faience, but typically production involved application of the powdered materials in the form of a paste over a clay core, which was then fired. By a related technique, the ancient Egyptians produced a pigment known as Egyptian blue, also called blue frit, which is produced by fusing (or sintering) silica, copper, lime, and an alkali such as natron. The product can be ground up and used as a pigment.The ancient Egyptians could fabricate a wide variety of objects from glass with great skill, but it is not clear whether they developed the process independently. It is also unclear whether they made their own raw glass or merely imported pre-made ingots, which they melted and finished. However, they did have technical expertise in making objects, as well as adding trace elements to control the color of the finished glass. A range of colors could be produced, including yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and white, and the glass could be made either transparent or opaque.MedicineThe medical problems of the ancient Egyptians stemmed directly from their environment. Living and working close to the Nile brought hazards from malaria and debilitating schistosomiasis parasites, which caused liver and intestinal damage. Dangerous wildlife such as crocodiles and hippos were also a common threat. The lifelong labors of farming and building put stress on the spine and joints, and traumatic injuries from construction and warfare all took a significant toll on the body. The grit and sand from stone-ground flour abraded teeth, leaving them susceptible to abscesses (though caries were rare).The diets of the wealthy were rich in sugars, which promoted periodontal disease. Despite the flattering physiques portrayed on tomb walls, the overweight mummies of many of the upper class show the effects of a life of overindulgence. Adult life expectancy was about 35 for men and 30 for women, but reaching adulthood was difficult as about one-third of the population died in infancy.Ancient Egyptian physicians were renowned in the ancient Near East for their healing skills, and some, such as Imhotep, remained famous long after their deaths. Herodotus remarked that there was a high degree of specialization among Egyptian physicians, with some treating only the head or the stomach, while others were eye-doctors and dentists. Training of physicians took place at the Per Ankh or "House of Life" institution, most notably those headquartered in Per-Bastet during the New Kingdom and at Abydos and Saïs in the Late period. Medical papyri show empirical knowledge of anatomy, injuries, and practical treatments.Wounds were treated by bandaging with raw meat, white linen, sutures, nets, pads, and swabs soaked with honey to prevent infection, while opium, thyme, and belladona were used to relieve pain. The earliest records of burn treatment describe burn dressings that use the milk from mothers of male babies. Prayers were made to the goddess Isis. Moldy bread, honey, and copper salts were also used to prevent infection from dirt in burns. Garlic and onions were used regularly to promote good health and were thought to relieve asthma symptoms. Ancient Egyptian surgeons stitched wounds, set broken bones, and amputated diseased limbs, but they recognized that some injuries were so serious that they could only make the patient comfortable until death occurred.Maritime technologyEarly Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull and had mastered advanced forms of shipbuilding as early as 3000BC. The Archaeological Institute of America reports that the oldest planked ships known are the Abydos boats. A group of 14 discovered ships in Abydos were constructed of wooden planks "sewn" together. Discovered by Egyptologist David O'Connor of New York University, woven straps were found to have been used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally they were all thought to have belonged to him, but one of the 14 ships dates to 3000BC, and the associated pottery jars buried with the vessels also suggest earlier dating. The ship dating to 3000BC was  long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh, perhaps one as early as Hor-Aha.Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, using pitch for caulking the seams. The "Khufu ship", a  vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2500BC, is a full-size surviving example that may have filled the symbolic function of a solar barque. Early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints.Large seagoing ships are known to have been heavily used by the Egyptians in their trade with the city states of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Byblos (on the coast of modern-day Lebanon), and in several expeditions down the Red Sea to the Land of Punt. In fact one of the earliest Egyptian words for a seagoing ship is a "Byblos Ship", which originally defined a class of Egyptian seagoing ships used on the Byblos run; however, by the end of the Old Kingdom, the term had come to include large seagoing ships, whatever their destination.In 1977, an ancient north–south canal was discovered extending from Lake Timsah to the Ballah Lakes. It was dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt by extrapolating dates of ancient sites constructed along its course.In 2011, archaeologists from Italy, the United States, and Egypt excavating a dried-up lagoon known as Mersa Gawasis have unearthed traces of an ancient harbor that once launched early voyages like Hatshepsut's Punt expedition onto the open ocean. Some of the site's most evocative evidence for the ancient Egyptians' seafaring prowess include large ship timbers and hundreds of feet of ropes, made from papyrus, coiled in huge bundles. In 2013, a team of Franco-Egyptian archaeologists discovered what is believed to be the world's oldest port, dating back about 4500 years, from the time of King Cheops on the Red Sea coast near Wadi el-Jarf (about 110 miles south of Suez).MathematicsThe earliest attested examples of mathematical calculations date to the predynastic Naqada period, and show a fully developed numeral system. The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor, and grain. Texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus show that the ancient Egyptians could perform the four basic mathematical operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—use fractions, calculate the areas of rectangles, triangles, and circles and compute the volumes of boxes, columns and pyramids. They understood basic concepts of algebra and geometry, and could solve simple sets of simultaneous equations.Mathematical notation was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight times respectively. Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, they had to write fractions as the sum of several fractions. For example, they resolved the fraction two-fifths into the sum of one-third + one-fifteenth. Standard tables of values facilitated this. Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph—the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right.Ancient Egyptian mathematicians knew the Pythagorean theorem as an empirical formula. They were aware, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result:Area ≈ [()D]2 = ()r2 ≈ 3.16r2,a reasonable approximation of the formula .The golden ratio seems to be reflected in many Egyptian constructions, including the pyramids, but its use may have been an unintended consequence of the ancient Egyptian practice of combining the use of knotted ropes with an intuitive sense of proportion and harmony.Population Estimates of the size of the population range from 1-1.5 million in the 3rd millennium BCE to possibly 2-3 million by the 1st millennium BCE, before growing significantly towards the end of that millennium.DNAIn 2012, the DNA of the 20th dynasty mummies of Ramesses III and another mummy believed to be Ramesses III's son Pentawer were analyzed by Albert Zink, Yehia Z Gad and a team of researchers under Zahi Hawass, then Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt. Genetic kinship analyses revealed identical haplotypes in both mummies. Using the Whit Athey's haplogroup predictor, they identified the Y chromosomal haplogroup E1b1a (E-M2).In 2017, a team led by led by researchers from the University of Tuebingen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena tested the maternal DNA (mitochondrial) of 90 mummies from Abusir el-Meleq in northern Egypt (near Cairo), which was the first reliable data  using high-throughput DNA sequencing methods. Additionally, three of the mummies were also analyzed for Y-DNA. Two were assigned to West Asian J and one to haplogroup E1b1b1 both common in North Africa. The researchers cautioned that the affinities of the examined ancient Egyptian specimens may not be representative of those of all ancient Egyptians since they were from a single archaeological site. Whilst not conclusive since the few relatively older mummies only go back to the 18th-19th dynasty, the rest being from then up to late Roman period, the authors of this study said the Abusir el-Meleq mummies "closely resembled ancient and modern Near Eastern populations, especially those in the Levant." The genetics of the mummies remained remarkably consistent within this range even as different powers—including Nubians, Greeks, and Romans—conquered the empire."  A wide range of mtDNA haplogroups were found including clades of J, U, H, HV, M, R0, R2, K, T, L, I, N, X, W. The authors of the study noted that the mummies at Abusir el-Meleq have 6–15% maternal sub-Saharan DNA while modern Egyptians have a little more sub-Saharan ancestry, 15% to 20%, suggesting some degree of influx after the end of the empire. Other genetic studies show greater levels of sub-Saharan African ancestry in modern southern Egyptian populations and anticipate that mummies from southern Egypt would show greater levels of sub-Saharan African ancestry.In 2018, the 4000-year-old mummified head of Djehutynakht, a governor in the Middle Kingdom of the 11th or 12th dynasty, was analyzed for mitochondrial DNA. The sequence of the mummy most closely resembles a U5a lineage from sample JK2903, a much more recent 2000-year-old skeleton from the Abusir el-Meleq site in Egypt, although no direct matches to the Djehutynakht sequence have been reported. Haplogroup U5 is also found in modern-day Berbers from the Siwa Oasis in Egypt. A 2008 article by C. Coudray, "The complex and diversified mitochondrial gene pool of Berber populations", recorded haplogroup U5 at 16.7% for the Siwa whereas haplogroup U6 is more common in other Berber populations to the west of Egypt.In 2020, Yehia Z Gad and other researchers of the Hawass team published results of an analysis of the maternal and paternal haplogroups of several 18th dynasty mummies, including Tutankhamun.Genetic analysis indicated the following haplogroups: Tutankhamun YDNA R1b / mtDNA K Akhenaten YDNA R1b / mtDNA K Amenhotep III YDNA R1b / mtDNA K Yuya G2a / mtDNA K Tiye mtDNA K Thuya mtDNA KThe clade of R1b was not determined. A high frequency of R1b1a2 (R-V88) (26.9%) was observed among the Berbers from the Siwa Oasis. This haplogroup reaches its highest frequency in northern Cameroon, northern Nigeria, Chad, and Niger.LegacyThe culture and monuments of ancient Egypt have left a lasting legacy on the world. Egyptian civilization significantly influenced the Kingdom of Kush and Meroë with both adopting Egyptian religious and architectural norms (hundreds of pyramids (6–30 meters high) were built in Egypt/Sudan), as well as using Egyptian writing as the basis of the Meroitic script. Meroitic is the oldest written language in Africa, other than Egyptian, and was used from the 2nd century BC until the early 5th century AD. The cult of the goddess Isis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome. The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian-style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery.During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Egyptian pagan culture was in decline after the rise of Christianity and later Islam, but interest in Egyptian antiquity continued in the writings of medieval scholars such as Dhul-Nun al-Misri and al-Maqrizi. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European travelers and tourists brought back antiquities and wrote stories of their journeys, leading to a wave of Egyptomania across Europe. This renewed interest sent collectors to Egypt, who took, purchased, or were given many important antiquities. Napoleon arranged the first studies in Egyptology when he brought some 150 scientists and artists to study and document Egypt's natural history, which was published in the Description de l'Égypte.In the 20th century, the Egyptian Government and archaeologists alike recognized the importance of cultural respect and integrity in excavations. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (formerly Supreme Council of Antiquities) now approves and oversees all excavations, which are aimed at finding information rather than treasure. The council also supervises museums and monument reconstruction programs designed to preserve the historical legacy of Egypt.See also Glossary of ancient Egypt artifacts Index of ancient Egypt–related articles Outline of ancient Egypt List of ancient Egyptians List of Ancient Egyptian inventions and discoveries Archaeology of Ancient Egypt British school of diffusionismNotesCitationReferencesFurther reading     :de:Lexikon der ÄgyptologieExternal links  BBC History: Egyptiansprovides a reliable general overview and further links World History Encyclopedia on Egypt  Ancient Egyptian Science: A Source Book Door Marshall Clagett, 1989 Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy A site that shows the history of Egyptian metalworking Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt, Art History. Digital Egypt for Universities. Scholarly treatment with broad coverage and cross references (internal and external). Artifacts used extensively to illustrate topics. Priests of Ancient Egypt In-depth-information about Ancient Egypt's priests, religious services and temples. Much picture material and bibliography. In English and German. Ancient Egypt at History.com UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology Ancient Egypt and the Role of Women by Dr Joann Fletcher Full-length account of Ancient Egypt as part of history of the world Ancient EgyptCivilizationsEgyptFormer empires in AsiaAncient peoplesHistory of EgyptHistory of the Mediterranean
Analog Brothers were an experimental hip hop band featuring Tracy "Ice Oscillator" Marrow (Ice-T) on keyboards, drums and vocals, Keith "Keith Korg" Thornton (Ultramagnetic MCs' Kool Keith) on bass, strings and vocals, Marc "Mark Moog" Giveand (Raw Breed's Marc Live) on drums, violins and vocals, Christopher "Silver Synth" Rodgers (Black Silver) on synthesizer, lazar bell and vocals, and Rex Colonel "Rex Roland JX3P" Doby Jr. (Pimpin' Rex) on keyboards, vocals and production. Its album Pimp to Eat featured guest appearances by various members of Rhyme Syndicate, Odd Oberheim, Jacky Jasper (who appears as Jacky Jasper on the song "We Sleep Days" and H-Bomb on "War"), D.J. Cisco from S.M., Synth-A-Size Sisters and Teflon.While the group only recorded one album together as the Analog Brothers, a few bootlegs of its live concert performances, including freestyles with original lyrics, have occasionally surfaced online. After Pimp to Eat, the Analog Brothers continued performing together in various line ups. Kool Keith and Marc Live joined with Jacky Jasper to release two albums as KHM. Marc Live rapped with Ice T's group SMG. Marc also formed a group with Black Silver called Live Black, but while five of their tracks were released on a demo CD sold at concerts, Live Black's first album has yet to be released.In 2008, Ice-T and Black Silver toured together as Black Ice, and released an album together called Urban Legends.In 2013, Black Silver and newest member to Analog Brothers, Kiew Kurzweil (Kiew Nikon of Kinetic) collaborated on the joint album called Slang Banging (Return to Analog) with production by Junkadelic Music. In addition to all this, the Analog Brothers continue to make frequent appearances on each other's solo albums.Discography 2000 - 2005 A.D. (single), Ground Control Records/Nu Gruv 2000 - Pimp to Eat (LP), Ground Control Records/Mello Music Group 2014 - Slang Banging (Return to Analog), Junkadelic MusicReferencesExternal linksKool Keith's SiteUltrakeithAnalog Brothers at DiscogsIce-TAmerican hip hop groups
Motor neuron diseases or motor neurone diseases (MNDs) are a group of rare neurodegenerative disorders that selectively affect motor neurons, the cells which control voluntary muscles of the body. They include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), progressive bulbar palsy (PBP), pseudobulbar palsy, progressive muscular atrophy (PMA), primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and monomelic amyotrophy (MMA), as well as some rarer variants resembling ALS.Motor neuron diseases affect both children and adults. While each motor neuron disease affects patients differently, they all cause movement-related symptoms, mainly muscle weakness. Most of these diseases seem to occur randomly without known causes, but some forms are inherited. Studies into these inherited forms have led to discoveries of various genes (e.g. SOD1) that are thought to be important in understanding how the disease occurs.Symptoms of motor neuron diseases can be first seen at birth or can come on slowly later in life. Most of these diseases worsen over time; while some, such as ALS, shorten one's life expectancy, others do not. Currently, there are no approved treatments for the majority of motor neuron disorders, and care is mostly symptomatic.Signs and symptoms Signs and symptoms depend on the specific disease, but motor neuron diseases typically manifest as a group of movement-related symptoms. They come on slowly, and worsen over the course of more than three months. Various patterns of muscle weakness are seen, and muscle cramps and spasms may occur. One can have difficulty breathing with climbing stairs (exertion), difficulty breathing when lying down (orthopnea), or even respiratory failure if breathing muscles become involved. Bulbar symptoms, including difficulty speaking (dysarthria), difficulty swallowing (dysphagia), and excessive saliva production (sialorrhea), can also occur. Sensation, or the ability to feel, is typically not affected. Emotional disturbance (e.g. pseudobulbar affect) and cognitive and behavioural changes (e.g. problems in word fluency, decision-making, and memory) are also seen. There can be lower motor neuron findings (e.g. muscle wasting, muscle twitching), upper motor neuron findings (e.g. brisk reflexes, Babinski reflex, Hoffman's reflex, increased muscle tone), or both.Motor neuron diseases are seen both in children and in adults. Those that affect children tend to be inherited or familial, and their symptoms are either present at birth or appear before learning to walk. Those that affect adults tend to appear after age 40. The clinical course depends on the specific disease, but most progress or worsen over the course of months. Some are fatal (e.g. ALS), while others are not (e.g. PLS).Patterns of weakness Various patterns of muscle weakness occur in different motor neuron diseases. Weakness can be symmetric or asymmetric, and it can occur in body parts that are distal, proximal, or both... According to Statland et al., there are three main weakness patterns that are seen in motor neuron diseases, which are: Asymmetric distal weakness without sensory loss (e.g. ALS, PLS, PMA, MMA) Symmetric weakness without sensory loss (e.g. PMA, PLS) Symmetric focal midline proximal weakness (neck, trunk, bulbar involvement; e.g. ALS, PBP, PLS)Lower and upper motor neuron findings Motor neuron diseases are on a spectrum in terms of upper and lower motor neuron involvement. Some have just lower or upper motor neuron findings, while others have a mix of both. Lower motor neuron (LMN) findings include muscle atrophy and fasciculations, and upper motor neuron (UMN) findings include hyperreflexia, spasticity, muscle spasm, and abnormal reflexes.Pure upper motor neuron diseases, or those with just UMN findings, include PLS.Pure lower motor neuron diseases, or those with just LMN findings, include PMA.Motor neuron diseases with both UMN and LMN findings include both familial and sporadic ALS.Causes Most cases are sporadic and their causes are usually not known. It is thought that environmental, toxic, viral, or genetic factors may be involved.DNA damageTARDBP (TAR DNA-binding protein 43), also referred to as TDP-43, is a critical component of the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) enzymatic pathway that repairs DNA double-strand breaks in pluripotent stem cell-derived motor neurons. TDP-43 is rapidly recruited to double-strand breaks where it acts as a scaffold for the recruitment of the XRCC4-DNA ligase protein complex that then acts to repair double-strand breaks. About 95% of ALS patients have abnormalities in the nucleus-cytoplasmic localization in spinal motor neurons of TDP43. In TDP-43 depleted human neural stem cell-derived motor neurons, as well as in sporadic ALS patients’ spinal cord specimens there is significant double-strand break accumulation and reduced levels of NHEJ.Associated risk factors In adults, men are more commonly affected than women.Diagnosis Differential diagnosis can be challenging due to the number of overlapping symptoms, shared between several motor neuron diseases. Frequently, the diagnosis is based on clinical findings (i.e. LMN vs. UMN signs and symptoms, patterns of weakness), family history of MND, and a variation of tests, many of which are used to rule out disease mimics, which can manifest with identical symptoms.Classification Motor neuron disease describes a collection of clinical disorders, characterized by progressive muscle weakness and the degeneration of the motor neuron on electrophysiological testing. As discussed above, the term "motor neuron disease" has varying meanings in different countries. Similarly, the literature inconsistently classifies which degenerative motor neuron disorders can be included under the umbrella term "motor neuron disease". The four main types of MND are marked (*) in the table below.All types of MND can be differentiated by two defining characteristics: Is the disease sporadic or inherited? Is there involvement of the upper motor neurons (UMN), the lower motor neurons (LMN), or both?Sporadic or acquired MNDs occur in patients with no family history of degenerative motor neuron disease. Inherited or genetic MNDs adhere to one of the following inheritance patterns: autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, or X-linked. Some disorders, like ALS, can occur sporadically (85%) or can have a genetic cause (15%) with the same clinical symptoms and progression of disease.UMNs are motor neurons that project from the cortex down to the brainstem or spinal cord. LMNs originate in the anterior horns of the spinal cord and synapse on peripheral muscles. Both motor neurons are necessary for the strong contraction of a muscle, but damage to an UMN can be distinguished from damage to a LMN by physical exam.Tests  Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tests: Analysis of the fluid from around the brain and spinal cord could reveal signs of an infection or inflammation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): An MRI of the brain and spinal cord is recommended in patients with UMN signs and symptoms to explore other causes, such as a tumor, inflammation, or lack of blood supply (stroke). Electromyogram (EMG) & nerve conduction study (NCS): The EMG, which evaluates muscle function, and NCS, which evaluates nerve function, are performed together in patients with LMN signs. For patients with MND affecting the LMNs, the EMG will show evidence of: (1) acute denervation, which is ongoing as motor neurons degenerate, and (2) chronic denervation and reinnervation of the muscle, as the remaining motor neurons attempt to fill in for lost motor neurons. By contrast, the NCS in these patients is usually normal. It can show a low compound muscle action potential (CMAP), which results from the loss of motor neurons, but the sensory neurons should remain unaffected. Tissue biopsy: Taking a small sample of a muscle or nerve may be necessary if the EMG/NCS is not specific enough to rule out other causes of progressive muscle weakness, but it is rarely used.Treatment There are no known curative treatments for the majority of motor neuron disorders. Please refer to the articles on individual disorders for more details.Prognosis The table below lists life expectancy for patients who are diagnosed with MND.TerminologyIn the United States and Canada, the term motor neuron disease usually refers to the group of disorders while amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is frequently called Lou Gehrig's disease. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the term motor neuron(e) disease is used for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, although is not uncommon to refer to the entire group.While MND refers to a specific subset of similar diseases, there are numerous other diseases of motor neurons that are referred to collectively as "motor neuron disorders", for instance the diseases belonging to the spinal muscular atrophies group. However, they are not classified as "motor neuron diseases" by the 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), which is the definition followed in this article.See also  Spinal muscular atrophies Hereditary motor and sensory neuropathiesReferencesExternal links  Motor neuron diseasesRare diseasesSystemic atrophies primarily affecting the central nervous system
An abjad (, ; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with true alphabets, which provide glyphs for both consonants and vowels. The term was introduced in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. Other terms for the same concept include: partial phonemic script, segmentally linear defective phonographic script, consonantary, consonant writing, and consonantal alphabet.Impure abjads represent vowels with either optional diacritics, a limited number of distinct vowel glyphs, or both.  The name abjad is based on the Arabic alphabet's first (in its original order)  four letters — corresponding to a, b, j, d — to replace the more common terms "consonantary" and "consonantal alphabet", in describing the family of scripts classified  as "West Semitic".EtymologyThe name "abjad" is derived from pronouncing the first letters of the Arabic alphabet order, in its original order. This ordering matches that of the older Phoenician, Hebrew  and Semitic proto-alphabets: specifically, aleph, bet, gimel, dalet.TerminologyAccording to the formulations of Peter T. Daniels, abjads differ from alphabets in that only consonants, not vowels, are represented among the basic graphemes. Abjads differ from abugidas, another category defined by Daniels, in that in abjads, the vowel sound is implied by phonology, and where vowel marks exist for the system, such as nikkud for Hebrew and ḥarakāt for Arabic, their use is optional and not the dominant (or literate) form. Abugidas mark all vowels (other than the "inherent" vowel) with a diacritic, a minor attachment to the letter, a standalone glyph, or (in Canadian Aboriginal syllabics) by rotation of the letter. Some abugidas use a special symbol to suppress the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a syllabary, a grapheme denotes a complete syllable, that is, either a lone vowel sound or a combination of a vowel sound with one or more consonant sounds.The antagonism of abjad versus alphabet, as it was formulated by Daniels, has been rejected by some scholars because abjad is also used as a term not only for the Arabic numeral system but (most importantly in terms of historical grammatology) also as a term for the alphabetic device (i.e. letter order) of ancient Northwest Semitic scripts in opposition to the 'south Arabian' order. This caused fatal effects on terminology in general and especially in (ancient) Semitic philology. Also, it suggests that consonantal alphabets, in opposition to, for instance, the Greek alphabet, were not yet true alphabets and not yet entirely complete, lacking something important to be a fully working script system. It has also been objected that, as a set of letters, an alphabet is not the mirror of what should be there in a language from a phonological point of view; rather, it is the data stock of what provides maximum efficiency with least effort from a semantic point of view.OriginsThe first abjad to gain widespread usage was the Phoenician abjad. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Phoenician script consisted of only a few dozen symbols. This made the script easy to learn, and seafaring Phoenician merchants took the script throughout the then-known world.The Phoenician abjad was a radical simplification of phonetic writing, since hieroglyphics required the writer to pick a hieroglyph starting with the same sound that the writer wanted to write in order to write phonetically, much as man'yōgana (kanji used solely for phonetic use) was used to represent Japanese phonetically before the invention of kana.Phoenician gave rise to a number of new writing systems, including the widely used Aramaic abjad and the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as Latin and Cyrillic, while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia.Impure abjadsImpure abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators. However, most modern abjads, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Pahlavi, are "impure" abjadsthat is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly approximants that sound similar to long vowels. A "pure" abjad is exemplified (perhaps) by very early forms of ancient Phoenician, though at some point (at least by the 9th century BC) it and most of the contemporary Semitic abjads had begun to overload a few of the consonant symbols with a secondary function as vowel markers, called matres lectionis. This practice was at first rare and limited in scope but became increasingly common and more developed in later times.Addition of vowelsIn the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the guttural sounds represented by aleph, he, heth or ayin, so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters waw and yod were also adapted into vowel signs; along with he, these were already used as matres lectionis in Phoenician. The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants (as opposed to syllabaries such as Linear B which usually have vowel symbols but cannot combine them with consonants to form arbitrary syllables).Abugidas developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the South Arabian abjad evolved into the Ge'ez abugida of Ethiopia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly,  the  Brāhmī abugida of the Indian subcontinent developed around the 3rd century BC (from the Aramaic abjad, it has been hypothesized).The other major family of abugidas, Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, was initially developed in the 1840s by missionary and linguist James Evans for the Cree and Ojibwe languages. Evans used features of Devanagari script and Pitman shorthand to create his initial abugida. Later in the 19th century, other missionaries adapted Evans's system to other Canadian aboriginal languages. Canadian syllabics differ from other abugidas in that the vowel is indicated by rotation of the consonantal symbol, with each vowel having a consistent orientation.Abjads and the structure of Semitic languagesThe abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the morphological structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from a root consisting of (usually) three consonants, the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. For instance, according to Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic, from the Arabic root  Dh-B-Ḥ (to slaughter) can be derived the forms   (he slaughtered),   (you (masculine singular) slaughtered),   (he slaughters), and   (slaughterhouse). In most cases, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, allowing readers to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar roots (especially in conjunction with context clues) and improving word recognition while reading for practiced readers.By contrast, the Arabic and Hebrew scripts sometimes perform the role of true alphabets rather than abjads when used to write certain Indo-European languages, including Kurdish, Bosnian, and Yiddish.Comparative chart of Abjads, extinct and extantSee also Abjad numerals (Arabic alphanumeric code) Abugida Gematria (Hebrew & English system of alphanumeric code) Numerology Shorthand (constructed writing systems that are structurally abjads)ReferencesSourcesExternal linksThe Science of Arabic Letters, Abjad and Geometry, by Jorge Lupin  Arabic orthography
An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional (although in less formal contexts, all three types of script may be termed alphabets). The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which the symbols cannot be split into separate consonants and vowels.Related concepts were introduced independently in 1948 by James Germain Février (using the term ) and David Diringer (using the term semisyllabary), then in 1959 by Fred Householder (introducing the term pseudo-alphabet). The Ethiopic term "abugida" was chosen as a designation for the concept in 1990 by Peter T. Daniels. In 1992, Faber suggested "segmentally coded syllabically linear phonographic script", and in 1992 Bright used the term alphasyllabary, and Gnanadesikan and Rimzhim, Katz, & Fowler have suggested aksara or āksharik.Abugidas include the extensive Brahmic family of scripts of Tibet, South and Southeast Asia, Semitic Ethiopic scripts, and Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. As is the case for syllabaries, the units of the writing system may consist of the representations both of syllables and of consonants. For scripts of the Brahmic family, the term akshara is used for the units.TerminologyIn several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea, abugida traditionally meant letters of the Ethiopic or Ge‘ez script in which many of these languages are written. Ge'ez is one of several segmental writing systems in the world, others include Indic/Brahmic scripts and Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. The word abugida is derived from the four letters, ä, bu, gi, and da, in much the same way that abecedary is derived from Latin letters a be ce de, abjad is derived from the Arabic a b j d, and alphabet is derived from the names of the two first letters in the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. Abugida as a term in linguistics was proposed by Peter T. Daniels in his 1990 typology of writing systems.As Daniels used the word, an abugida is in contrast with a syllabary, where letters with shared consonants or vowels show no particular resemblance to one another, and also with an alphabet proper, where independent letters are used to denote both consonants and vowels. The term alphasyllabary was suggested for the Indic scripts in 1997 by William Bright, following South Asian linguistic usage, to convey the idea that "they share features of both alphabet and syllabary."General descriptionThe formal definitions given by Daniels and Bright for abugida and alphasyllabary differ; some writing systems are abugidas but not alphasyllabaries, and some are alphasyllabaries but not abugidas. An abugida is defined as "a type of writing system whose basic characters denote consonants followed by a particular vowel, and in which diacritics denote other vowels". (This 'particular vowel' is referred to as the inherent or implicit vowel, as opposed to the explicit vowels marked by the 'diacritics'.)An alphasyllabary is defined as "a type of writing system in which the vowels are denoted by subsidiary symbols not all of which occur in a linear order (with relation to the consonant symbols) that is congruent with their temporal order in speech". Bright did not require that an alphabet explicitly represent all vowels. ʼPhags-pa is an example of an abugida that is not an alphasyllabary, and modern Lao is an example of an alphasyllabary that is not an abugida, for its vowels are always explicit.This description is expressed in terms of an abugida. Formally, an alphasyllabary that is not an abugida can be converted to an abugida by adding a purely formal vowel sound that is never used and declaring that to be the inherent vowel of the letters representing consonants. This may formally make the system ambiguous, but in practice this is not a problem, for then the interpretation with the never-used inherent vowel sound will always be a wrong interpretation. Note that the actual pronunciation may be complicated by interactions between the sounds apparently written just as the sounds of the letters in the English words wan, gem and war are affected by neighbouring letters.The fundamental principles of an abugida apply to words made up of consonant-vowel (CV) syllables. The syllables are written as a linear sequences of the units of the script. Each syllable is either a letter that represents the sound of a consonant and its inherent vowel or a letter modified to indicate the vowel, either by means of diacritics or by changes in the form of the letter itself. If all modifications are by diacritics and all diacritics follow the direction of the writing of the letters, then the abugida is not an alphasyllabary.However, most languages have words that are more complicated than a sequence of CV syllables, even ignoring tone.The first complication is syllables that consist of just a vowel (V). This issue does not arise in some languages because every syllable starts with a consonant. This is common in Semitic languages and in languages of mainland SE Asia; for such languages this issue need not arise. For some languages, a zero consonant letter is used as though every syllable began with a consonant. For other languages, each vowel has a separate letter that is used for each syllable consisting of just the vowel.These letters are known as independent vowels, and are found in most Indic scripts. These letters may be quite different from the corresponding diacritics, which by contrast are known as dependent vowels. As a result of the spread of writing systems, independent vowels may be used to represent syllables beginning with a glottal stop, even for non-initial syllables.The next two complications are sequences of consonants before a vowel (CCV) and syllables ending in a consonant (CVC). The simplest solution, which is not always available, is to break with the principle of writing words as a sequence of syllables and use a unit representing just a consonant (C). This unit may be represented with:a modification that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel (virama),a lack of vowel marking (often with ambiguity between no vowel and a default inherent vowel),vowel marking for a short or neutral vowel such as schwa (with ambiguity between no vowel and that short or neutral vowel), ora visually unrelated letter.In a true abugida, the lack of distinctive marking may result from the diachronic loss of the inherent vowel, e.g. by syncope and apocope in Hindi.When not handled by decomposition into C + CV, CCV syllables are handled by combining the two consonants. In the Indic scripts, the earliest method was simply to arrange them vertically, but the two consonants may merge as a conjunct consonant letters, where two or more letters are graphically joined in a ligature, or otherwise change their shapes. Rarely, one of the consonants may be replaced by a gemination mark, e.g. the Gurmukhi addak.When they are arranged vertically, as in Burmese or Khmer, they are said to be 'stacked'. Often there has been a change to writing the two consonants side by side. In the latter case, the fact of combination may be indicated by a diacritic on one of the consonants or a change in the form of one of the consonants, e.g. the half forms of Devanagari. Generally, the reading order is top to bottom or the general reading order of the script, but sometimes the order is reversed.The division of a word into syllables for the purposes of writing does not always accord with the natural phonetics of the language. For example, Brahmic scripts commonly handle a phonetic sequence CVC-CV as CV-CCV or CV-C-CV. However, sometimes phonetic CVC syllables are handled as single units, and the final consonant may be represented:in much the same way as the second consonant in CCV, e.g. in the Tibetan, Khmer and Tai Tham scripts.   The positioning of the components may be slightly different, as in Khmer and Tai Tham.by a special dependent consonant sign, which may be a smaller or differently placed version of the full consonant letter, or may be a distinct sign altogether.not at all.  For example, repeated consonants need not be represented, homorganic nasals may be ignored, and in Philippine scripts, the syllable-final consonant was traditionally never represented.More complicated unit structures (e.g. CC or CCVC) are handled by combining the various techniques above.Family-specific featuresThere are three principal families of abugidas, depending on whether vowels are indicated by modifying consonants by diacritics, distortion, or orientation.The oldest and largest is the Brahmic family of India and Southeast Asia, in which vowels are marked with diacritics and syllable-final consonants, when they occur, are indicated with ligatures, diacritics, or with a special vowel-canceling mark.In the Ethiopic family, vowels are marked by modifying the shapes of the consonants, and one of the vowel-forms serves additionally to indicate final consonants.In Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, vowels are marked by rotating or flipping the consonants, and final consonants are indicated with either special diacritics or superscript forms of the main initial consonants.Tāna of the Maldives has dependent vowels and a zero vowel sign, but no inherent vowel.Indic (Brahmic)Indic scripts originated in India and spread to Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Mongolia, and Russia. All surviving Indic scripts are descendants of the Brahmi alphabet. Today they are used in most languages of South Asia (although replaced by Perso-Arabic in Urdu, Kashmiri and some other languages of Pakistan and India), mainland Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), Tibet (Tibetan), Indonesian archipelago (Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese), Philippines (Baybayin, Buhid, Hanunuo, Kulitan, and Aborlan Tagbanwa), Malaysia (Rencong, etc.).The primary division is into North Indic scripts used in Northern India, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and Russia and Southern Indic scripts used in South India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. South Indic letter forms are very rounded; North Indic less so, though Odia, Golmol and Litumol of Nepal script are rounded. Most North Indic scripts' full letters incorporate a horizontal line at the top, with Gujarati and Odia as exceptions; South Indic scripts do not.Indic scripts indicate vowels through dependent vowel signs (diacritics) around the consonants, often including a sign that explicitly indicates the lack of a vowel. If a consonant has no vowel sign, this indicates a default vowel. Vowel diacritics may appear above, below, to the left, to the right, or around the consonant.The most widely used Indic script is Devanagari, shared by Hindi, Bihari, Marathi, Konkani, Nepali, and often Sanskrit. A basic letter such as क in Hindi represents a syllable with the default vowel, in this case ka (). In some languages, including Hindi, it becomes a final closing consonant at the end of a word, in this case k. The inherent vowel may be changed by adding vowel mark (diacritics), producing syllables such as कि ki, कु ku, के ke,  को ko.In many of the Brahmic scripts, a syllable beginning with a cluster is treated as a single character for purposes of vowel marking, so a vowel marker like ि -i, falling before the character it modifies, may appear several positions before the place where it is pronounced. For example, the game cricket in Hindi is क्रिकेट cricket; the diacritic for  appears before the consonant cluster , not before the . A more unusual example is seen in the Batak alphabet: Here the syllable bim is written ba-ma-i-(virama). That is, the vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable.In many abugidas, there is also a diacritic to suppress the inherent vowel, yielding the bare consonant. In Devanagari, क् is k, and ल् is l. This is called the virāma or halantam in Sanskrit. It may be used to form consonant clusters, or to indicate that a consonant occurs at the end of a word. Thus in Sanskrit, a default vowel consonant such as क does not take on a final consonant sound. Instead, it keeps its vowel. For writing two consonants without a vowel in between, instead of using diacritics on the first consonant to remove its vowel, another popular method of special conjunct forms is used in which two or more consonant characters are merged to express a cluster, such as Devanagari: क्ल kla. (Note that some fonts display this as क् followed by ल, rather than forming a conjunct. This expedient is used by ISCII and South Asian scripts of Unicode.) Thus a closed syllable such as kal requires two aksharas to write.The Róng script used for the Lepcha language goes further than other Indic abugidas, in that a single akshara can represent a closed syllable: Not only the vowel, but any final consonant is indicated by a diacritic. For example, the syllable [sok] would be written as something like s̥̽, here with an underring representing  and an overcross representing the diacritic for final . Most other Indic abugidas can only indicate a very limited set of final consonants with diacritics, such as  or , if they can indicate any at all.EthiopicIn Ethiopic or Ge'ez script, fidels (individual "letters" of the script) have "diacritics" that are fused with the consonants to the point that they must be considered modifications of the form of the letters. Children learn each modification separately, as in a syllabary; nonetheless, the graphic similarities between syllables with the same consonant are readily apparent, unlike the case in a true syllabary.Though now an abugida, the Ge'ez script, until the advent of Christianity (ca. AD 350), had originally been what would now be termed an abjad. In the Ge'ez abugida (or fidel), the base form of the letter (also known as fidel) may be altered. For example, ሀ hä  (base form), ሁ hu (with a right-side diacritic that doesn't alter the letter), ሂ hi (with a subdiacritic that compresses the consonant, so it is the same height), ህ hə  or  (where the letter is modified with a kink in the left arm).Canadian Aboriginal syllabicsIn the family known as Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, which was inspired by the Devanagari script of India, vowels are indicated by changing the orientation of the syllabogram. Each vowel has a consistent orientation; for example, Inuktitut ᐱ pi, ᐳ pu, ᐸ pa; ᑎ ti, ᑐ tu, ᑕ ta. Although there is a vowel inherent in each, all rotations have equal status and none can be identified as basic. Bare consonants are indicated either by separate diacritics, or by superscript versions of the aksharas; there is no vowel-killer mark.Borderline casesVowelled abjadsConsonantal scripts ("abjads") are normally written without indication of many vowels. However, in some contexts like teaching materials or scriptures, Arabic and Hebrew are written with full indication of vowels via diacritic marks (harakat, niqqud) making them effectively alphasyllabaries. The Brahmic and Ethiopic families are thought to have originated from the Semitic abjads by the addition of vowel marks.The Arabic scripts used for Kurdish in Iraq and for Uyghur in Xinjiang, China, as well as the Hebrew script of Yiddish, are fully vowelled, but because the vowels are written with full letters rather than diacritics (with the exception of distinguishing between /a/ and /o/ in the latter) and there are no inherent vowels, these are considered alphabets, not abugidas.PhagspaThe imperial Mongol script called Phagspa was derived from the Tibetan abugida, but all vowels are written in-line rather than as diacritics. However, it retains the features of having an inherent vowel /a/ and having distinct initial vowel letters.PahawhPahawh Hmong is a non-segmental script that indicates syllable onsets and rimes, such as consonant clusters and vowels with final consonants. Thus it is not segmental and cannot be considered an abugida. However, it superficially resembles an abugida with the roles of consonant and vowel reversed. Most syllables are written with two letters in the order rime–onset (typically vowel-consonant), even though they are pronounced as onset-rime (consonant-vowel), rather like the position of the  vowel in Devanagari, which is written before the consonant. Pahawh is also unusual in that, while an inherent rime  (with mid tone) is unwritten, it also has an inherent onset . For the syllable , which requires one or the other of the inherent sounds to be overt, it is  that is written. Thus it is the rime (vowel) that is basic to the system.MeroiticIt is difficult to draw a dividing line between abugidas and other segmental scripts. For example, the Meroitic script of ancient Sudan did not indicate an inherent a (one symbol stood for both m and ma, for example), and is thus similar to Brahmic family of abugidas. However, the other vowels were indicated with full letters, not diacritics or modification, so the system was essentially an alphabet that did not bother to write the most common vowel.ShorthandSeveral systems of shorthand use diacritics for vowels, but they do not have an inherent vowel, and are thus more similar to Thaana and Kurdish script than to the Brahmic scripts. The Gabelsberger shorthand system and its derivatives modify the following consonant to represent vowels. The Pollard script, which was based on shorthand, also uses diacritics for vowels; the placements of the vowel relative to the consonant indicates tone. Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle marks in different orientations as the principal "alphabet" of consonants; vowels are shown as light and heavy dots, dashes and other marks in one of 3 possible positions to indicate the various vowel-sounds. However, to increase writing speed, Pitman has rules for "vowel indication" using the positioning or choice of consonant signs so that writing vowel-marks can be dispensed with.DevelopmentAs the term alphasyllabary suggests, abugidas have been considered an intermediate step between alphabets and syllabaries. Historically, abugidas appear to have evolved from abjads (vowelless alphabets). They contrast with syllabaries, where there is a distinct symbol for each syllable or consonant-vowel combination, and where these have no systematic similarity to each other, and typically develop directly from logographic scripts. Compare the examples above to sets of syllables in the Japanese hiragana syllabary: か ka, き ki, く ku, け ke, こ ko have nothing in common to indicate k; while ら ra, り ri, る ru, れ re, ろ ro have neither anything in common for r, nor anything to indicate that they have the same vowels as the k set.Most Indian and Indochinese abugidas appear to have first been developed from abjads with the Kharoṣṭhī and Brāhmī scripts; the abjad in question is usually considered to be the Aramaic one, but while the link between Aramaic and Kharosthi is more or less undisputed, this is not the case with Brahmi. The Kharosthi family does not survive today, but Brahmi's descendants include most of the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia.Ge'ez derived from a different abjad, the Sabean script of Yemen; the advent of vowels coincided with the introduction or adoption of Christianity about AD 350. The Ethiopic script is the elaboration of an abjad.The Cree syllabary was invented with full knowledge of the Devanagari system.The Meroitic script was developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs, within which various schemes of 'group writing' had been used for showing vowels.List of abugidasBrahmic family, descended from Brāhmī (c. 6th century BC)AhomAssameseBalineseBatakToba and other Batak languagesBaybayinIlocano, Pangasinan, Tagalog, Bikol languages, Visayan languages, and possibly other Philippine languagesBengaliBengali, Assamese, Meitei, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Kokborok, Khasi, Bodo languageBhaiksuki BrahmiSanskrit, PrakritBuhidBurmeseBurmese, Karen languages, Mon, and ShanChakma ChamDevanagariHindi, Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, Konkani and other languages of northern IndiaDhives AkuruGranthaSanskritGujaratiGujarāti, KachchiGurmukhi scriptPunjabiHanunó’oJavaneseKagangaLampung, Rencong, RejangKaithiBhojpuri and other languages of northern and eastern IndiaKannadaKannada, Tulu, Konkani, KodavaKawiKhmerKhojkiKhotaneseKhudawadiKolezhuthuTamil, MalayalamKulitanLaoLekeLepchaLimbuLontara'Buginese, Makassar, and MandarMahajaniMalayalamMalayalamMalayanmaMalayalamMarchenZhang-ZhungMeetei MayekMeroiticModiMarathiMultaniSaraikiNandinagariSanskritNewarNepal Bhasa, SanskritNew Tai LueOdiaPallava scriptTamil, Sanskrit, various PrakritsPhags-paMongolian, Chinese, and other languages of the Yuan dynasty Mongol EmpireRanjanaNepal Bhasa, SanskritSharadaSanskritSiddhamSanskritSinhalaSourashtraSoyomboSundaneseSylheti NagriSylheti languageTagbanwaPalawan languagesTai DamTai LeTai ThamKhün, and Northern ThaiTakriTamilTeluguThaiTibetanTigalariSanskrit, TuluTirhutaMaithiliTocharianVatteluttuTamil, MalayalamZanabazar SquareZhang zhung scriptsKharoṣṭhī, from the 3rd century BCGe'ez, from the 4th century ADCanadian Aboriginal syllabicsCreeOjibwe syllabicsBlackfoot syllabicsCarrier syllabicsInuktitut syllabicsPollard scriptPitman shorthandFictional TengwarIhathvé SabethiredAbugida-like scriptsMeroitic (an alphabet with an inherent vowel) – Meroitic, Old Nubian (possibly)Thaana (abugida with no inherent vowel)ReferencesExternal linksSyllabic alphabets – Omniglot's list of abugidas, including examples of various writing systemsAlphabets – list of abugidas and other scripts (in Spanish)Comparing Devanagari with Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Tai Tham scripts
ABBA ( , ) are  a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's name is an acronym of the first letters of their first names arranged as a palindrome. One of the most popular and successful musical groups of all time, they became one of the best-selling music acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1974 to 1983, and in 2021.In 1974, ABBA were Sweden's first winner of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Waterloo", which in 2005 was chosen as the best song in the competition's history as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the contest. During the band's main active years, it consisted of two married couples: Fältskog and Ulvaeus, and Lyngstad and Andersson. With the increase of their popularity, their personal lives suffered, which eventually resulted in the collapse of both marriages. The relationship changes were reflected in the group's music, with latter compositions featuring darker and more introspective lyrics. After ABBA separated in December 1982, Andersson and Ulvaeus continued their success writing music for multiple audiences including stage, musicals and movies, while Fältskog and Lyngstad pursued solo careers.Ten years after the group broke up, a compilation, ABBA Gold, was released, becoming a worldwide best-seller. In 1999, ABBA's music was adapted into Mamma Mia!, a successful musical that toured worldwide and, as of November 2021, is still in the top-ten longest running productions on both Broadway (closed in 2015) and the West End (still running). A film of the same name, released in 2008, became the highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom that year. A sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, was released in 2018.In 2016, the group reunited and started working on a digital avatar concert tour. Newly recorded songs were announced in 2018. Voyage, their first new album in 40 years, was released on November 5, 2021. ABBA Voyage, a concert residency featuring ABBA as virtual avatars – dubbed 'ABBAtars' – is due to take place in London from May to December 2022.ABBA is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with record sales estimated to be between 150 million to 385 million sold worldwide and the group were ranked 3rd best-selling singles artists in the United Kingdom with a total of 11.3 million singles sold by 3 November 2012. ABBA were the first group from a non-English-speaking country to achieve consistent success in the charts of English-speaking countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They are the best-selling Swedish band of all time and the best-selling band originating in continental Europe. ABBA had eight consecutive number-one albums in the UK. The group also enjoyed significant success in Latin America and recorded a collection of their hit songs in Spanish. ABBA were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, the first and only recording artists to receive this honour from outside an Anglophone country. In 2015, their song "Dancing Queen" was inducted into the Recording Academy's Grammy Hall of Fame.History1958–1970: Before ABBAMember origins and collaboration Benny Andersson (born 16 December 1946 in Stockholm, Sweden) became (at age 18) a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars, that performed, among other things, covers of international hits. The Hep Stars were known as "the Swedish Beatles". They also set up Hep House, their equivalent of Apple Corps. Andersson played the keyboard and eventually started writing original songs for his band, many of which became major hits, including "No Response", which hit number three in 1965, and "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", and "Consolation", all of which hit number one in 1966. Andersson also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote his first Svensktoppen entry, "Sagan om lilla Sofie" ("The tale of Little Sophie") in 1968.Björn Ulvaeus (born 25 April 1945 in Gothenburg, Sweden) also began his musical career at the age of 18 (as a singer and guitarist), when he fronted the Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk–skiffle group. Ulvaeus started writing English-language songs for his group, and even had a brief solo career alongside. The Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring. In June 1966, Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together. Their first attempt was "Isn't It Easy to Say", a song was later recorded by the Hep Stars. Stig Anderson was the manager of the Hootenanny Singers and founder of the Polar Music label. He saw potential in the collaboration, and encouraged them to write more. The two also began playing occasionally with the other's bands on stage and on record, although it was not until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first real hits together: "Ljuva sextital" ("Sweet Sixties"), recorded by Brita Borg, and the Hep Stars' 1969 hit "Speleman" ("Fiddler").Andersson wrote and submitted the song "Hej, Clown" for Melodifestivalen 1969, the national festival to select the Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The song tied for first place, but re-voting relegated Andersson's song to second place. On that occasion Andersson briefly met his future spouse, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who also participated in the contest. A month later, the two had become a couple. As their respective bands began to break up during 1969, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and recorded their first album together in 1970, called Lycka ("Happiness"), which included original songs sung by both men. Their partners were often present in the recording studio, and sometimes added backing vocals; Fältskog even co-wrote a song with the two. Ulvaeus still occasionally recorded and performed with the Hootenanny Singers until the middle of 1974, and Andersson took part in producing their records.Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad (born 15 November 1945 in Bjørkåsen in Ballangen, Norway) sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands, and worked mainly in a jazz-oriented cabaret style. She also formed her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. In the middle of 1967, she won a national talent competition with "En ledig dag" ("A Day Off") a Swedish version of the bossa nova song "A Day in Portofino", which is included in the EMI compilation Frida 1967–1972. The first prize was a recording contract with EMI Sweden and to perform live on the most popular TV shows in the country. This TV performance, amongst many others, is included in the 3½-hour documentary Frida – The DVD. Lyngstad released several schlager style singles on EMI without much success. When Benny Andersson started to produce her recordings in 1971, she had her first number-one single, "Min egen stad" ("My Own Town"), written by Benny and featuring all the future ABBA members on backing vocals. Lyngstad toured and performed regularly in the folkpark circuit and made appearances on radio and TV. She met Ulvaeus briefly in 1963 during a talent contest, and Fältskog during a TV show in early 1968.Lyngstad linked up with her future bandmates in 1969. On 1 March 1969, she participated in the Melodifestival, where she met Andersson for the first time. A few weeks later they met again during a concert tour in southern Sweden and they soon became a couple. Andersson produced her single "Peter Pan" in September 1969—her first collaboration with Benny & Björn, as they had written the song. Andersson would then produce Lyngstad's debut studio album, Frida, which was released in March 1971. Lyngstad also played in several revues and cabaret shows in Stockholm between 1969 and 1973. After ABBA formed, she recorded another successful album in 1975, Frida ensam, which included a Swedish rendition of "Fernando", a hit on the Swedish radio charts before the English version was released.Agnetha Fältskog (born 5 April 1950 in Jönköping, Sweden) sang with a local dance band headed by Bernt Enghardt who sent a demo recording of the band to Karl Gerhard Lundkvist. The demo tape featured a song written and sung by Agnetha: "Jag var så kär" ("I Was So in Love"). Lundkvist was so impressed with her voice that he was convinced she would be a star. After going through considerable effort to locate the singer, he arranged for Agnetha to come to Stockholm and to record two of her own songs. This led to Agnetha at the age of 18 having a number-one record in Sweden with a self-composed song, which later went on to sell over 80,000 copies. She was soon noticed by the critics and songwriters as a talented singer/songwriter of schlager style songs. Fältskog's main inspiration in her early years was singers such as Connie Francis. Along with her own compositions, she recorded covers of foreign hits and performed them on tours in Swedish folkparks. Most of her biggest hits were self-composed, which was quite unusual for a female singer in the 1960s. Agnetha released four solo LPs between 1968 and 1971. She had many successful singles in the Swedish charts.During filming of a Swedish TV special in May 1969, Fältskog met Ulvaeus and they married on 6 July 1971. Fältskog and Ulvaeus eventually were involved in each other's recording sessions, and soon even Andersson and Lyngstad added backing vocals to Fältskog's third studio album, Som jag är ("As I Am") (1970). In 1972, Fältskog starred as Mary Magdalene in the original Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar and attracted favourable reviews. Between 1967 and 1975, Fältskog released five studio albums.First live performance and the start of "Festfolket" An attempt at combining their talents occurred in April 1970 when the two couples went on holiday together to the island of Cyprus. What started as singing for fun on the beach ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the United Nations soldiers stationed on the island. Andersson and Ulvaeus were at this time recording their first album together, Lycka, which was to be released in September 1970. Fältskog and Lyngstad added backing vocals on several tracks during June, and the idea of their working together saw them launch a stage act, "Festfolket" (which translates from Swedish to "Party People" and in pronunciation also "engaged couples"), on 1 November 1970 in Gothenburg.The cabaret show attracted generally negative reviews, except for the performance of the Andersson and Ulvaeus hit "Hej, gamle man" ("Hello, Old Man")–the first Björn and Benny recording to feature all four. They also performed solo numbers from respective albums, but the lukewarm reception convinced the foursome to shelve plans for working together for the time being, and each soon concentrated on individual projects again.First record together "Hej, gamle man" "Hej, gamle man", a song about an old Salvation Army soldier, became the quartet's first hit. The record was credited to Björn & Benny and reached number five on the sales charts and number one on Svensktoppen, staying on the latter chart (which was not a chart linked to sales or airplay) for 15 weeks.It was during 1971 that the four artists began working together more, adding vocals to the others' recordings. Fältskog, Andersson and Ulvaeus toured together in May, while Lyngstad toured on her own. Frequent recording sessions brought the foursome closer together during the summer.1970–1973: Forming the group After the 1970 release of Lycka, two more singles credited to "Björn & Benny" were released in Sweden, "Det kan ingen doktor hjälpa" ("No Doctor Can Help with That") and "Tänk om jorden vore ung" ("Imagine If Earth Was Young"), with more prominent vocals by Fältskog and Lyngstad–and moderate chart success.Fältskog and Ulvaeus, now married, started performing together with Andersson on a regular basis at the Swedish folkparks in the middle of 1971.Stig Anderson, founder and owner of Polar Music, was determined to break into the mainstream international market with music by Andersson and Ulvaeus. "One day the pair of you will write a song that becomes a worldwide hit," he predicted. Stig Anderson encouraged Ulvaeus and Andersson to write a song for Melodifestivalen, and after two rejected entries in 1971, Andersson and Ulvaeus submitted their new song "Säg det med en sång" ("Say It with a Song") for the 1972 contest, choosing newcomer Lena Anderson to perform. The song came in third place, encouraging Stig Anderson, and became a hit in Sweden.The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Andersson and Ulvaeus single "She's My Kind of Girl" was released through Epic Records in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit. Two more singles were released in Japan, "En Carousel" ("En Karusell" in Scandinavia, an earlier version of "Merry-Go-Round") and "Love Has Its Ways" (a song they wrote with Kōichi Morita).First hit as Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements. "People Need Love" was released in June 1972, featuring guest vocals by the women, who were now given much greater prominence. Stig Anderson released it as a single, credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song peaked at number 17 in the Swedish combined single and album charts, enough to convince them they were on to something. The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at number 114 on the Cashbox singles chart and number 117 on the Record World singles chart. Labelled as Björn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka- meaning Swedish Girl), it was released there through Playboy Records. This association with Playboy caused much confusion, many mistaking it for soft-core porn, including the record companies in the US and the UK, according to Ulvaeus, since it was common in Sweden at the time. According to Stig Anderson, "People Need Love" could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers."Ring Ring" In 1973, the band and their manager Stig Anderson decided to have another try at Melodifestivalen, this time with the song "Ring Ring". The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a "wall of sound" production technique that became a distinctive new sound thereafter associated with ABBA. Stig Anderson arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a success. However, on 10 February 1973, the song came third in Melodifestivalen; thus it never reached the Eurovision Song Contest itself. Nevertheless, the group released their debut studio album, also called Ring Ring. The album did well and the "Ring Ring" single was a hit in many parts of Europe and also in South Africa. However, Stig Anderson felt that the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit.When Agnetha Fältskog gave birth to her daughter Linda in 1973, she was replaced for a short period by Inger Brundin on a trip to West Germany.Official naming In 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA (a palindrome). At first, this was a play on words, as Abba is also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden, and itself an abbreviation. However, since the fish-canners were unknown outside Sweden, Anderson came to believe the name would work in international markets. A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper and it was officially announced in the summer that the group were to be known as "ABBA". The group negotiated with the canners for the rights to the name. Fred Bronson reported for Billboard that Fältskog told him in a 1988 interview that "[ABBA] had to ask permission and the factory said, 'O.K., as long as you don't make us feel ashamed for what you're doing. "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid. The earliest known example of "ABBA" written on paper is on a recording session sheet from the Metronome Studio in Stockholm dated 16 October 1973. This was first written as "Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida", but was subsequently crossed out with "ABBA" written in large letters on top.Official logo Their official logo, distinct with the backward 'B', was designed by Rune Söderqvist, who designed most of ABBA's record sleeves. The ambigram first appeared on the French compilation album, Golden Double Album, released in May 1976 by Disques Vogue, and would henceforth be used for all official releases.The idea for the official logo was made by the German photographer  on a velvet jumpsuit photo shoot for the teenage magazine Bravo. In the photo, the ABBA members held giant initial letters of their names. After the pictures were made, Heilemann found out that Benny Andersson reversed his letter "B"; this prompted discussions about the mirrored "B", and the members of ABBA agreed on the mirrored letter. From 1976 onward, the first "B" in the logo version of the name was "mirror-image" reversed on the band's promotional material, thus becoming the group's registered trademark.Following their acquisition of the group's catalogue, PolyGram began using variations of the ABBA logo, employing a different font. In 1992, Polygram added a crown emblem to it for the first release of the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation. After Universal Music purchased PolyGram (and, thus, ABBA's label Polar Music International), control of the group's catalogue returned to Stockholm. Since then, the original logo has been reinstated on all official products.1973–1976: BreakthroughEurovision Song Contest 1974 As the group entered the Melodifestivalen with "Ring Ring" but failed to qualify as the 1973 Swedish entry, Stig Anderson immediately started planning for the 1974 contest. Ulvaeus, Andersson and Stig Anderson believed in the possibilities of using the Eurovision Song Contest as a way to make the music business aware of them as songwriters, as well as the band itself. In late 1973, they were invited by Swedish television to contribute a song for the Melodifestivalen 1974 and from a number of new songs, the upbeat song "Waterloo" was chosen; the group were now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England.ABBA won their nation's hearts on Swedish television on 9 February 1974, and with this third attempt were far more experienced and better prepared for the Eurovision Song Contest. Winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest on 6 April 1974 (and singing "Waterloo" in English instead of their native tongue) gave ABBA the chance to tour Europe and perform on major television shows; thus the band saw the "Waterloo" single chart in many European countries. Following their success at the Eurovision Song Contest, ABBA spent an evening of glory partying in the appropriately named first-floor Napoleon suite of The Grand Brighton Hotel."Waterloo" was ABBA's first major hit in numerous countries, becoming their first number-one single in nine western and northern European countries, including the big markets of the UK and West Germany, and in South Africa. It also made the top ten in several other countries, including rising to number three in Spain, number four in Australia and France, and number seven in Canada. In the United States, the song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album and their first trip as a group there. Albeit a short promotional visit, it included their first performance on American television, The Mike Douglas Show. The album Waterloo only peaked at number 145 on the Billboard 200 chart, but received unanimous high praise from the US critics: Los Angeles Times called it "a compelling and fascinating debut album that captures the spirit of mainstream pop quite effectively ... an immensely enjoyable and pleasant project", while Creem characterised it as "a perfect blend of exceptional, lovable compositions".ABBA's follow-up single, "Honey, Honey", peaked at number 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100, reached the top twenty in several other countries, and was a number-two hit in West Germany although it only reached the top 30 in Australia and the US. In the United Kingdom, ABBA's British record label, Epic, decided to re-release a remixed version of "Ring Ring" instead of "Honey, Honey", and a cover version of the latter by Sweet Dreams peaked at number 10. Both records debuted on the UK chart within one week of each other. "Ring Ring" failed to reach the Top 30 in the UK, increasing growing speculation that the group were simply a Eurovision one-hit wonder.Post-Eurovision In November 1974, ABBA embarked on their first European tour, playing dates in Denmark, West Germany and Austria. It was not as successful as the band had hoped, since most of the venues did not sell out. Due to a lack of demand, they were even forced to cancel a few shows, including a sole concert scheduled in Switzerland. The second leg of the tour, which took them through Scandinavia in January 1975, was very different. They played to full houses everywhere and finally got the reception they had aimed for. Live performances continued in the middle of 1975 when ABBA embarked on a fourteen open-air date tour of Sweden and Finland. Their Stockholm show at the Gröna Lund amusement park had an estimated audience of 19,200. Björn Ulvaeus later said that "If you look at the singles we released straight after Waterloo, we were trying to be more like The Sweet, a semi-glam rock group, which was stupid because we were always a pop group."In late 1974, "So Long" was released as a single in the United Kingdom but it received no airplay from Radio 1 and failed to chart in the UK; the only countries in which it was successful were Austria, Sweden and Germany, reaching the top ten in the first two and number 21 in the latter. In the middle of 1975, ABBA released "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", which again received little airplay on Radio 1, but did manage to climb to number 38 on the UK chart, while making top five in several northern and western European countries, and number one in South Africa. Later that year, the release of their self-titled third studio album ABBA and single "SOS" brought back their chart presence in the UK, where the single hit number six and the album peaked at number 13. "SOS" also became ABBA's second number-one single in Germany, their third in Australia and their first in France, plus reached number two in several other European countries, including Italy.  Success was further solidified with "Mamma Mia" reaching number-one in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia and the top two in a few other western and northern European countries. In the United States, both  "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" and  "SOS" peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the latter picking up the BMI Award along the way as one of the most played songs on American radio in 1975. "Mamma Mia", however, stalled at number 32. In Canada, the three songs rose to number 12, nine and 18, respectively.The success of the group in the United States had until that time been limited to single releases. By early 1976, the group already had four Top 30 singles on the US charts, but the album market proved to be tough to crack. The eponymous ABBA  album generated three American hits, but it only peaked at number 165 on the Cashbox album chart and number 174 on the Billboard 200 chart. Opinions were voiced, by Creem in particular, that in the US ABBA had endured "a very sloppy promotional campaign". Nevertheless, the group enjoyed warm reviews from the American press. Cashbox went as far as saying that "there is a recurrent thread of taste and artistry inherent in Abba's marketing, creativity and presentation that makes it almost embarrassing to critique their efforts", while Creem wrote: "SOS is surrounded on this LP by so many good tunes that the mind boggles."In Australia, the airing of the music videos for "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" and "Mamma Mia" on the nationally broadcast TV pop show Countdown (which premiered in November 1974) saw the band rapidly gain enormous popularity, and Countdown become a key promoter of the group via their distinctive music videos. This started an immense interest for ABBA in Australia, resulting in "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" staying at number one for three weeks, then "SOS" spending a week there, followed by "Mamma Mia" staying there for ten weeks, and the album holding down the number one position for months. The three songs were also successful in nearby New Zealand with the first two topping that chart and the third reaching number two.1976–1981: SuperstardomGreatest Hits and Arrival In March 1976, the band released the compilation album Greatest Hits. It became their first UK number-one album, and also took ABBA into the Top 50 on the US album charts for the first time, eventually selling more than a million copies there. Also included on Greatest Hits was a new single, "Fernando", which went to number-one in at least thirteen countries all over the world, including the UK, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa and Mexico, and the top five in most other significant markets, including, at number four, becoming their biggest hit to date in Canada; the single went on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide. In Australia, "Fernando" occupied the top position for a then record breaking 14 weeks (and stayed in the chart for 40 weeks), and was the longest-running chart-topper there for over 40 years until it was overtaken by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" in May 2017. It still remains as one of the best-selling singles of all time in Australia. Also in 1976, the group received its first international prize, with "Fernando" being chosen as the "Best Studio Recording of 1975". In the United States, "Fernando" reached the Top 10 of the Cashbox Top 100 singles chart and number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, ABBA's first American number-one single on any chart. At the same time, a compilation named The Very Best of ABBA was released in Germany, becoming a number-one album there whereas the Greatest Hits compilation which followed a few months later ascended to number two in Germany, despite all similarities with The Very Best album.The group's fourth studio album, Arrival, a number-one best-seller in parts of Europe, the UK and Australia, and a number-three hit in Canada and Japan, represented a new level of accomplishment in both songwriting and studio work, prompting rave reviews from more rock-oriented UK music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express, and mostly appreciative notices from US critics. Hit after hit flowed from Arrival: "Money, Money, Money", another number-one in Germany, France, Australia and other countries of western and northern Europe, plus number two in the UK; and, "Knowing Me, Knowing You", ABBA's sixth consecutive German number-one, as well as another UK number-one, plus a top five hit in many other countries, although it was only a number nine hit in Australia and France. The real sensation was the first single, "Dancing Queen", not only topping the charts in loyal markets like the UK, Germany, Sweden, several other western and northern European countries, and Australia, but also reaching number-one in the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union and Japan, and the top ten in France, Spain and Italy. All three songs were number-one hits in Mexico. In South Africa, ABBA had astounding success with each of "Fernando", "Dancing Queen" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" being among the top 20 best-selling singles for 1976–77. In 1977, Arrival was nominated for the inaugural BRIT Award in the category "Best International Album of the Year". By this time ABBA were popular in the UK, most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In Frida – The DVD, Lyngstad explains how she and Fältskog developed as singers, as ABBA's recordings grew more complex over the years.The band's popularity in the United States would remain on a comparatively smaller scale, and "Dancing Queen" became the only Billboard Hot 100 number-one single ABBA with "Knowing Me, Knowing You" later peaking at number seven; "Money, Money, Money", however, had barely charted there or in Canada (where "Knowing Me, Knowing You" had reached number five). They did, however, get three more singles to the number-one position on other Billboard US charts, including Billboard Adult Contemporary and Hot Dance Club Play). Nevertheless, Arrival finally became a true breakthrough release for ABBA on the US album market where it peaked at number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified gold by RIAA.European and Australian tour In January 1977, ABBA embarked on their first major tour. The group's status had changed dramatically and they were clearly regarded as superstars. They opened their much anticipated tour in Oslo, Norway, on 28 January, and mounted a lavishly produced spectacle that included a few scenes from their self-written mini-operetta The Girl with the Golden Hair. The concert attracted immense media attention from across Europe and Australia. They continued the tour through Western Europe, visiting Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Essen, Hanover, and Hamburg and ending with shows in the United Kingdom in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. Tickets for these two shows were available only by mail application and it was later revealed that the box-office received 3.5 million requests for tickets, enough to fill the venue 580 times. Along with praise ("ABBA turn out to be amazingly successful at reproducing their records", wrote Creem), there were complaints that "ABBA performed slickly...but with a zero personality coming across from a total of 16 people on stage" (Melody Maker). One of the Royal Albert Hall concerts was filmed as a reference for the filming of the Australian tour for what became ABBA: The Movie, though it is not exactly known how much of the concert was filmed.After the European leg of the tour, in March 1977, ABBA played 11 dates in Australia before a total of 160,000 people. The opening concert in Sydney at the Sydney Showground on 3 March to an audience of 20,000 was marred by torrential rain with Lyngstad slipping on the wet stage during the concert. However, all four members would later recall this concert as the most memorable of their career. Upon their arrival in Melbourne, a civic reception was held at the Melbourne Town Hall and ABBA appeared on the balcony to greet an enthusiastic crowd of 6,000. In Melbourne, the group gave three concerts at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl with 14,500 at each including the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his family. At the first Melbourne concert, an additional 16,000 people gathered outside the fenced-off area to listen to the concert. In Adelaide, the group performed one concert at Football Park in front of 20,000 people, with another 10,000 listening outside. During the first of five concerts in Perth, there was a bomb scare with everyone having to evacuate the Entertainment Centre. The trip was accompanied by mass hysteria and unprecedented media attention ("Swedish ABBA stirs box-office in Down Under tour...and the media coverage of the quartet rivals that set to cover the upcoming Royal tour of Australia", wrote Variety), and is captured on film in ABBA: The Movie, directed by Lasse Hallström.The Australian tour and its subsequent ABBA: The Movie produced some ABBA lore, as well. Fältskog's blonde good looks had long made her the band's "pin-up girl", a role she disdained. During the Australian tour, she performed in a skin-tight white jumpsuit, causing one Australian newspaper to use the headline "Agnetha's bottom tops dull show". When asked about this at a news conference, she replied: "Don't they have bottoms in Australia?"ABBA: The Album In December 1977, ABBA followed up Arrival with the more ambitious fifth album, ABBA: The Album, released to coincide with the debut of ABBA: The Movie.  Although the album was less well received by UK reviewers, it did spawn more worldwide hits: "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me", which both topped the UK charts and racked up impressive sales in most countries, although "The Name of the Game" was generally the more successful in the Nordic countries and Down Under, while "Take a Chance on Me" was more successful in North America and the German-speaking countries."The Name of the Game" was a number two hit in the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden while also making the Top 5 in Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Australia, while only peaking at numbers 10, 12 and 15 in Mexico, the US and Canada.  "Take a Chance on Me" was a number one hit in Austria, Belgium and Mexico, made the Top 3 in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, while only reaching numbers 12 and 14 in Australia and New Zealand, respectively.  Both songs were Top 10 hits in countries as far afield as Rhodesia and South Africa, as well as in France.  Although "Take a Chance on Me" did not top the American charts, it proved to be ABBA's biggest hit single there, selling more copies than "Dancing Queen". The drop in sales in Australia was felt to be inevitable by industry observers as an "Abba-Fever" that had existed there for almost three years could only last so long as adolescents would naturally begin to move away a group so deified by both their parents and grandparents.A third single, "Eagle", was released in continental Europe and Down Under becoming a number one hit in Belgium and a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and South Africa, but barely charting Down Under. The B-side of "Eagle" was "Thank You for the Music", and it was belatedly released as an A-side single in the both the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1983. "Thank You for the Music" has become one of the best loved and best known ABBA songs without being released as a single during the group's lifetime.  ABBA: The Album topped the album charts in the UK, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, while ascending to the Top 5 in Australia, Germany, Austria, Finland and Rhodesia, and making the Top 10 in Canada and Japan.  Sources also indicate that sales in Poland exceeded 1 million copies and that sales demand in Russia could not be met by the supply available.  The album peaked at number 14 in the US.Polar Music Studio formation By 1978, ABBA were one of the biggest bands in the world. They converted a vacant cinema into the Polar Music Studio, a state-of-the-art studio in Stockholm. The studio was used by several other bands; notably Genesis' Duke and Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door were recorded there. During May 1978, the group went to the United States for a promotional campaign, performing alongside Andy Gibb on Olivia Newton-John's TV show. Recording sessions for the single "Summer Night City" were an uphill struggle, but upon release the song became another hit for the group. The track would set the stage for ABBA's foray into disco with their next album.On 9 January 1979, the group performed "Chiquitita" at the Music for UNICEF Concert held at the United Nations General Assembly to celebrate UNICEF's Year of the Child. ABBA donated the copyright of this worldwide hit to the UNICEF; see Music for UNICEF Concert. The single was released the following week, and reached number-one in ten countries.North American and European tours In mid-January 1979, Ulvaeus and Fältskog announced they were getting divorced. The news caused interest from the media and led to speculation about the band's future. ABBA assured the press and their fan base they were continuing their work as a group and that the divorce would not affect them. Nonetheless, the media continued to confront them with this in interviews. To escape the media swirl and concentrate on their writing, Andersson and Ulvaeus secretly travelled to Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, where for two weeks they prepared their next album's songs.The group's sixth studio album, Voulez-Vous, was released in April 1979, with its title track recorded at the famous Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, with the assistance of recording engineer Tom Dowd amongst others. The album topped the charts across Europe and in Japan and Mexico, hit the Top 10 in Canada and Australia and the Top 20 in the US. While none of the singles from the album reached number one on the UK chart, the lead single, "Chiquitita", and the fourth single, "I Have a Dream", both ascended to number two, and the other two, "Does Your Mother Know" and "Angeleyes" (with "Voulez-Vous", released as a double A-side) both made the top 5. All four singles reached number one in Belgium, although the last three did not chart in Sweden or Norway. "Chiquitita", which was featured in the Music for UNICEF Concert after which ABBA decided to donate half of the royalties from the song to UNICEF, topped the singles charts in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, Rhodesia and New Zealand, rose to number two in Sweden, and made the Top 5 in Germany, Austria, Norway and Australia, although it only reached number 29 in the US. "I Have a Dream" was a sizeable hit reaching number one in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria, number three in South Africa, and number four in Germany, although it only reached number 64 in Australia.  In Canada, "I Have a Dream" became ABBA's second number one on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart (after "Fernando" hit the top previously) although it did not chart in the US.  "Does Your Mother Know", a rare song in which Ulvaeus sings lead vocals, was a Top 5 hit in the Netherlands and Finland, and a Top 10 hit in Germany, Switzerland, Australia, although it only reached number number 27 in New Zealand.  It did better in North America than "Chiquitita", reaching number 12 in Canada and number 19 in the US, and made the Top 20 in Japan.  "Voulez-Vous" was a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands and Switzerland, a Top 20 hit in Germany and Finland, but only peaked in the 80s in Australia, Canada and the US.Also in 1979, the group released their second compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which featured a brand new track: "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", which was a Top 3 hit in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland and Norway, and returned ABBA to the Top 10 in Australia. Greatest Hits Vol. 2 went to number one in the UK, Belgium, Canada and Japan while making the Top 5 in several other countries, but only reaching number 20 in Australia and number 46 in the US. In Russia during the late 1970s, the group were paid in oil commodities because of an embargo on the ruble.On 13 September 1979, ABBA began ABBA: The Tour at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, Canada, with a full house of 14,000. "The voices of the band, Agnetha's high sauciness combined with round, rich lower tones of Anni-Frid, were excellent...Technically perfect, melodically correct and always in perfect pitch...The soft lower voice of Anni-Frid and the high, edgy vocals of Agnetha were stunning", raved Edmonton Journal.  During the next four weeks they played a total of 17 sold-out dates, 13 in the United States and four in Canada. The last scheduled ABBA concert in the United States in Washington, D.C. was cancelled due to Fältskog's emotional distress suffered during the flight from New York to Boston, when the group's private plane was subjected to extreme weather conditions and was unable to land for an extended period. They appeared at the Boston Music Hall for the performance 90 minutes late. The tour ended with a show in Toronto, Canada at Maple Leaf Gardens before a capacity crowd of 18,000. "ABBA plays with surprising power and volume; but although they are loud, they're also clear, which does justice to the signature vocal sound... Anyone who's been waiting five years to see Abba will be well satisfied", wrote Record World.  On 19 October 1979, the tour resumed in Western Europe where the band played 23 sold-out gigs, including six sold-out nights at London's Wembley Arena.Progression In March 1980, ABBA travelled to Japan where upon their arrival at Narita International Airport, they were besieged by thousands of fans. The group performed eleven concerts to full houses, including six shows at Tokyo's Budokan. This tour was the last "on the road" adventure of their career.In July 1980, ABBA released the single "The Winner Takes It All", the group's eighth UK chart topper (and their first since 1978). The song is widely misunderstood as being written about Ulvaeus and Fältskog's marital tribulations; Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics, but has stated they were not about his own divorce; Fältskog has repeatedly stated she was not the loser in their divorce. In the United States, the single peaked at number-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became ABBA's second Billboard Adult Contemporary number-one. It was also re-recorded by Andersson and Ulvaeus with a slightly different backing track, by French chanteuse Mireille Mathieu at the end of 1980 – as "Bravo tu as gagné", with French lyrics by Alain Boublil. November the same year saw the release of ABBA's seventh album Super Trouper, which reflected a certain change in ABBA's style with more prominent use of synthesizers and increasingly personal lyrics. It set a record for the most pre-orders ever received for a UK album after one million copies were ordered before release. The second single from the album, "Super Trouper", also hit number-one in the UK, becoming the group's ninth and final UK chart-topper. Another track from the album, "Lay All Your Love on Me", released in 1981 as a Twelve-inch single only in selected territories, managed to top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and peaked at number-seven on the UK singles chart becoming, at the time, the highest ever charting 12-inch release in UK chart history.Also in 1980, ABBA recorded a compilation of Spanish-language versions of their hits called Gracias Por La Música. This was released in Spanish-speaking countries as well as in Japan and Australia. The album became a major success, and along with the Spanish version of "Chiquitita", this signalled the group's breakthrough in Latin America. ABBA Oro: Grandes Éxitos, the Spanish equivalent of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, was released in 1999.1981–1982: The Visitors and later performances In January 1981, Ulvaeus married Lena Källersjö, and manager Stig Anderson celebrated his 50th birthday with a party. For this occasion, ABBA recorded the track "Hovas Vittne" (a pun on the Swedish name for Jehovah's Witness and Anderson's birthplace, Hova) as a tribute to him, and released it only on 200 red vinyl copies, to be distributed to the guests attending the party. This single has become a sought-after collectable. In mid-February 1981, Andersson and Lyngstad announced they were filing for divorce. Information surfaced that their marriage had been an uphill struggle for years, and Benny had already met another woman, Mona Nörklit, whom he married in November 1981.Andersson and Ulvaeus had songwriting sessions in early 1981, and recording sessions began in mid-March. At the end of April, the group recorded a TV special, Dick Cavett Meets ABBA with the US talk show host Dick Cavett. The Visitors, ABBA's eighth studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placing the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies. Although not revealed at the time of its release, the album's title track, according to Ulvaeus, refers to the secret meetings held against the approval of totalitarian governments in Soviet-dominated states, while other tracks address topics like failed relationships, the threat of war, ageing, and loss of innocence. The album's only major single release, "One of Us", proved to be the last of ABBA's nine number-one singles in Germany, this being in December 1981; and the swansong of their sixteen Top 5 singles on the South African chart. "One of Us" was also ABBA's final Top 3 hit in the UK, reaching number-three on the UK Singles Chart.Although it topped the album charts across most of Europe, including Ireland, the UK and Germany, The Visitors was not as commercially successful as its predecessors, showing a commercial decline in previously loyal markets such as France, Australia and Japan. A track from the album, "When All Is Said and Done", was released as a single in North America, Australia and New Zealand, and fittingly became ABBA's final Top 40 hit in the US (debuting on the US charts on 31 December 1981), while also reaching the US Adult Contemporary Top 10, and number-four on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart in Canada. The song's lyrics, as with "The Winner Takes It All" and "One of Us", dealt with the painful experience of separating from a long-term partner, though it looked at the trauma more optimistically. With the now publicised story of Andersson and Lyngstad's divorce, speculation increased of tension within the band. Also released in the United States was the title track of The Visitors, which hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.Later recording sessions In the spring of 1982, songwriting sessions had started and the group came together for more recordings. Plans were not completely clear, but a new album was discussed and the prospect of a small tour suggested. The recording sessions in May and June 1982 were a struggle, and only three songs were eventually recorded: "You Owe Me One", "I Am the City" and "Just Like That". Andersson and Ulvaeus were not satisfied with the outcome, so the tapes were shelved and the group took a break for the summer.Back in the studio again in early August, the group had changed plans for the rest of the year: they settled for a Christmas release of a double album compilation of all their past single releases to be named The Singles: The First Ten Years. New songwriting and recording sessions took place, and during October and December, they released the singles "The Day Before You Came"/"Cassandra" and "Under Attack"/"You Owe Me One", the A-sides of which were included on the compilation album. Neither single made the Top 20 in the United Kingdom, though "The Day Before You Came" became a Top 5 hit in many European countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The album went to number one in the UK and Belgium, Top 5 in the Netherlands and Germany and Top 20 in many other countries. "Under Attack", the group's final release before disbanding, was a Top 5 hit in the Netherlands and Belgium."I Am the City" and "Just Like That" were left unreleased on The Singles: The First Ten Years for possible inclusion on the next projected studio album, though this never came to fruition. "I Am the City" was eventually released on the compilation album More ABBA Gold in 1993, while "Just Like That" has been recycled in new songs with other artists produced by Andersson and Ulvaeus. A reworked version of the verses ended up in the musical Chess. The chorus section of "Just Like That" was eventually released on a retrospective box set in 1994, as well as in the ABBA Undeleted medley featured on disc 9 of The Complete Studio Recordings. Despite a number of requests from fans, Ulvaeus and Andersson are still refusing to release ABBA's version of "Just Like That" in its entirety, even though the complete version has surfaced on bootlegs.The group travelled to London to promote The Singles: The First Ten Years in the first week of November 1982, appearing on Saturday Superstore and The Late, Late Breakfast Show, and also to West Germany in the second week, to perform on Show Express. On 19 November 1982, ABBA appeared for the last time in Sweden on the TV programme Nöjesmaskinen, and on 11 December 1982, they made their last performance ever, transmitted to the UK on Noel Edmonds' The Late, Late Breakfast Show, through a live link from a TV studio in Stockholm.Later performances Andersson and Ulvaeus began collaborating with Tim Rice in early 1983 on writing songs for the musical project Chess, while Fältskog and Lyngstad both concentrated on international solo careers. While Andersson and Ulvaeus were working on the musical, a further co-operation among the three of them came with the musical Abbacadabra that was produced in France for television. It was a children's musical using 14 ABBA songs. Alain and Daniel Boublil, who wrote Les Misérables, had been in touch with Stig Anderson about the project, and the TV musical was aired over Christmas on French TV and later a Dutch version was also broadcast. Boublil previously also wrote the French lyric for Mireille Mathieu's version of "The Winner Takes It All".Lyngstad, who had recently moved to Paris, participated in the French version, and recorded a single, "Belle", a duet with French singer Daniel Balavoine. The song was a cover of ABBA's 1976 instrumental track "Arrival". As the single "Belle" sold well in France, Cameron Mackintosh wanted to stage an English-language version of the show in London, with the French lyrics translated by David Wood and Don Black; Andersson and Ulvaeus got involved in the project, and contributed with one new song, "I Am the Seeker". "Abbacadabra" premiered on 8 December 1983 at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in London, to mixed reviews and full houses for eight weeks, closing on 21 January 1984. Lyngstad was also involved in this production, recording "Belle" in English as "Time", a duet with actor and singer B. A. Robertson: the single sold well, and was produced and recorded by Mike Batt. In May 1984, Lyngstad performed "I Have a Dream" with a children's choir at the United Nations Organisation Gala, in Geneva, Switzerland.All four members made their (at the time, final) public appearance as four friends more than as ABBA in January 1986, when they recorded a video of themselves performing an acoustic version of "Tivedshambo" (which was the first song written by their manager Stig Anderson), for a Swedish TV show honouring Anderson on his 55th birthday. The four had not seen each other for more than two years. That same year they also performed privately at another friend's 40th birthday: their old tour manager, Claes af Geijerstam. They sang a self-written song titled "Der Kleine Franz" that was later to resurface in Chess. Also in 1986, ABBA Live was released, featuring selections of live performances from the group's 1977 and 1979 tours. The four members were guests at the 50th birthday of Görel Hanser in 1999. Hanser was a long-time friend of all four, and also former secretary of Stig Anderson. Honouring Görel, ABBA performed a Swedish birthday song "Med en enkel tulipan" a cappella.Andersson has on several occasions performed ABBA songs. In June 1992, he and Ulvaeus appeared with U2 at a Stockholm concert, singing the chorus of "Dancing Queen", and a few years later during the final performance of the B & B in Concert in Stockholm, Andersson joined the cast for an encore at the piano. Andersson frequently adds an ABBA song to the playlist when he performs with his BAO band. He also played the piano during new recordings of the ABBA songs "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, and "When All Is Said and Done" with Swede Viktoria Tolstoy. In 2002, Andersson and Ulvaeus both performed an a cappella rendition of the first verse of "Fernando" as they accepted their Ivor Novello award in London. Lyngstad performed and recorded an a cappella version of "Dancing Queen" with the Swedish group the Real Group in 1993, and also re-recorded "I Have a Dream" with Swiss singer Dan Daniell in 2003.Break and reunion ABBA never officially announced the end of the group or an indefinite break, but it was long considered dissolved after their final public performance together in 1982. Their final public performance together as ABBA before their 2016 reunion was on the British TV programme The Late, Late Breakfast Show (live from Stockholm) on 11 December 1982. While reminiscing on "The Day Before You Came", Ulvaeus said: "we might have continued for a while longer if that had been a number one". In January 1983, Fältskog started recording sessions for a solo album, as Lyngstad had successfully released her album Something's Going On some months earlier. Ulvaeus and Andersson, meanwhile, started songwriting sessions for the musical Chess. In interviews at the time, Björn and Benny denied the split of ABBA ("Who are we without our ladies? Initials of Brigitte Bardot?"), and Lyngstad and Fältskog kept claiming in interviews that ABBA would come together for a new album repeatedly during 1983 and 1984. Internal strife between the group and their manager escalated and the band members sold their shares in Polar Music during 1983. Except for a TV appearance in 1986, the foursome did not come together publicly again until they were reunited at the Swedish premiere of the Mamma Mia! movie on 4 July 2008. The individual members' endeavours shortly before and after their final public performance coupled with the collapse of both marriages and the lack of significant activity in the following few years after that widely suggested that the group had broken up.In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph following the premiere, Ulvaeus and Andersson said that there was nothing that could entice them back on stage again. Ulvaeus said: "We will never appear on stage again. [...] There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were. Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition. I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff. I think that hit the nail on the head."However, on 3 January 2011, Fältskog, long considered to be the most reclusive member of the group and a major obstacle to any reunion, raised the possibility of reuniting for a one-off engagement. She admitted that she has not yet brought the idea up to the other three members. In April 2013, she reiterated her hopes for reunion during an interview with Die Zeit, stating: "If they ask me, I'll say yes."In a May 2013 interview, Fältskog, aged 63 at the time, stated that an ABBA reunion would never occur: "I think we have to accept that it will not happen, because we are too old and each one of us has their own life. Too many years have gone by since we stopped, and there's really no meaning in putting us together again". Fältskog further explained that the band members remained on amicable terms: "It's always nice to see each other now and then and to talk a little and to be a little nostalgic." In an April 2014 interview, Fältskog, when asked about whether the band might reunite for a new recording said: "It's difficult to talk about this because then all the news stories will be: 'ABBA is going to record another song!' But as long as we can sing and play, then why not? I would love to, but it's up to Björn and Benny."Resurgence of public interest The same year the members of ABBA went their separate ways, the French production of a "tribute" show (a children's TV musical named Abbacadabra using 14 ABBA songs) spawned new interest in the group's music.After receiving little attention during the mid-to-late-1980s, ABBA's music experienced a resurgence in the early 1990s due to the UK synth-pop duo Erasure, who released Abba-esque, a four track extended play release featuring cover versions of ABBA songs which topped several European charts in 1992. As U2 arrived in Stockholm for a concert in June of that year, the band paid homage to ABBA by inviting Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to join them on stage for a rendition of "Dancing Queen", playing guitar and keyboards. September 1992 saw the release of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, a new compilation album. The single "Dancing Queen" received radio airplay in the UK in the middle of 1992 to promote the album. The song returned to the Top 20 of the UK singles chart in August that year, this time peaking at number 16. With sales of 30 million, Gold is the best-selling ABBA album, as well as one of the best-selling albums worldwide. With sales of 5.5 million copies it is the second-highest selling album of all time in the UK, after Queen's Greatest Hits. More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits, a follow-up to Gold, was released in 1993.In 1994, two Australian cult films caught the attention of the world's media, both focusing on admiration for ABBA: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding. The same year, Thank You for the Music, a four-disc box set comprising all the group's hits and stand-out album tracks, was released with the involvement of all four members. "By the end of the twentieth century," American critic Chuck Klosterman wrote a decade later, "it was far more contrarian to hate ABBA than to love them."ABBA were soon recognised and embraced by other acts: Evan Dando of the Lemonheads recorded a cover version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You"; Sinéad O'Connor and Boyzone's Stephen Gately have recorded "Chiquitita"; Tanita Tikaram, Blancmange and Steven Wilson paid tribute to "The Day Before You Came". Cliff Richard covered "Lay All Your Love on Me", while Dionne Warwick, Peter Cetera, Frank Sidebottom and Celebrity Skin recorded their versions of "SOS". US alternative-rock musician Marshall Crenshaw has also been known to play a version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" in concert appearances, while legendary English Latin pop songwriter Richard Daniel Roman has recognised ABBA as a major influence. Swedish metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen covered "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" with slightly altered lyrics.Two different compilation albums of ABBA songs have been released. ABBA: A Tribute coincided with the 25th anniversary celebration and featured 17 songs, some of which were recorded especially for this release. Notable tracks include Go West's "One of Us", Army of Lovers "Hasta Mañana", Information Society's "Lay All Your Love on Me", Erasure's "Take a Chance on Me" (with MC Kinky), and Lyngstad's a cappella duet with the Real Group of "Dancing Queen". A second 12-track album was released in 1999, titled ABBAmania, with proceeds going to the Youth Music charity in England. It featured all new cover versions: notable tracks were by Madness ("Money, Money, Money"), Culture Club ("Voulez-Vous"), the Corrs ("The Winner Takes It All"), Steps ("Lay All Your Love on Me", "I Know Him So Well"), and a medley titled "Thank ABBA for the Music" performed by several artists and as featured on the Brits Awards that same year.In 1998, an ABBA tribute group was formed, the ABBA Teens, which was subsequently renamed the A-Teens to allow the group some independence. The group's first album, The ABBA Generation, consisting solely of ABBA covers reimagined as 1990s pop songs, was a worldwide success and so were subsequent albums. The group disbanded in 2004 due to a gruelling schedule and intentions to go solo. In Sweden, the growing recognition of the legacy of Andersson and Ulvaeus resulted in the 1998 B & B Concerts, a tribute concert (with Swedish singers who had worked with the songwriters through the years) showcasing not only their ABBA years, but hits both before and after ABBA. The concert was a success, and was ultimately released on CD. It later toured Scandinavia and even went to Beijing in the People's Republic of China for two concerts. In 2000 ABBA were reported to have turned down an offer of approximately one billion US dollars to do a reunion tour consisting of 100 concerts.For the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, staged in Istanbul 30 years after ABBA had won the contest in Brighton, all four members made cameo appearances in a special comedy video made for the interval act, titled Our Last Video Ever. Other well-known stars such as Rik Mayall, Cher and Iron Maiden's Eddie also made appearances in the video. It was not included in the official DVD release of the 2004 Eurovision contest, but was issued as a separate DVD release, retitled The Last Video at the request of the former ABBA members. The video was made using puppet models of the members of the band. The video has surpassed 13 million views on YouTube as of November 2020.In 2005, all four members of ABBA appeared at the Stockholm premiere of the musical Mamma Mia!. On 22 October 2005, at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history. In the same month, American singer Madonna released the single "Hung Up", which contains a sample of the keyboard melody from ABBA's 1979 song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)"; the song was a smash hit, peaking at number one in at least 50 countries. On 4 July 2008, all four ABBA members were reunited at the Swedish premiere of the film Mamma Mia!. It was only the second time all of them had appeared together in public since 1986. During the appearance, they re-emphasised that they intended never to officially reunite, citing the opinion of Robert Plant that the re-formed Led Zeppelin was more like a cover band of itself than the original band. Ulvaeus stated that he wanted the band to be remembered as they were during the peak years of their success.Gold returned to number-one in the UK album charts for the fifth time on 3 August 2008. On 14 August 2008, the Mamma Mia! The Movie film soundtrack went to number-one on the US Billboard charts, ABBA's first US chart-topping album. During the band's heyday the highest album chart position they had ever achieved in America was number 14. In November 2008, all eight studio albums, together with a ninth of rare tracks, were released as The Albums. It hit several charts, peaking at number-four in Sweden and reaching the Top 10 in several other European territories.In 2008, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in collaboration with Universal Music Group Sweden AB, released SingStar ABBA on both the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 games consoles, as part of the SingStar music video games. The PS2 version features 20 ABBA songs, while 25 songs feature on the PS3 version.On 22 January 2009, Fältskog and Lyngstad appeared together on stage to receive the Swedish music award "Rockbjörnen" (for "lifetime achievement"). In an interview, the two women expressed their gratitude for the honorary award and thanked their fans. On 25 November 2009, PRS for Music announced that the British public voted ABBA as the band they would most like to see re-form. On 27 January 2010, ABBAWORLD, a 25-room touring exhibition featuring interactive and audiovisual activities, debuted at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London. According to the exhibition's website, ABBAWORLD is "approved and fully supported" by the band members."Mamma Mia" was released as one of the first few non-premium song selections for the online RPG game Bandmaster. On 17 May 2011, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" was added as a non-premium song selection for the Bandmaster Philippines server. On 15 November 2011, Ubisoft released a dancing game called ABBA: You Can Dance for the Wii. In January 2012, Universal Music announced the re-release of ABBA's final album The Visitors, featuring a previously unheard track "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel".A book titled ABBA: The Official Photo Book was published in early 2014 to mark the 40th anniversary of the band's Eurovision victory. The book reveals that part of the reason for the band's outrageous costumes was that Swedish tax laws at the time allowed the cost of garish outfits that were not suitable for daily wear to be tax deductible.A sequel to the 2008 movie Mamma Mia!, titled Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, was announced in May 2017; the film was released on 20 July 2018. Cher, who appeared in the movie, also released Dancing Queen, an ABBA cover album, in September 2018.In June 2017, a blue plaque outside Brighton Dome was set to commemorate their 1974 Eurovision win.In May 2020, it was announced that ABBA's entire studio discography would be released on coloured vinyl for the first time, in a box set titled ABBA: The Studio Albums. The initial release sold out in just a few hours.2016–present: Reunion, Voyage and ABBAtars On 20 January 2016, all four members of ABBA made a public appearance at Mamma Mia! The Party in Stockholm.On 6 June 2016, the quartet appeared together at a private party at Berns Salonger in Stockholm, which was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Andersson and Ulvaeus's first meeting. Fältskog and Lyngstad performed live, singing "The Way Old Friends Do" before they were joined on stage by Andersson and Ulvaeus.British manager Simon Fuller announced in a statement in October 2016 that the group would be reuniting to work on a new 'digital entertainment experience'. The project would feature the members in their "life-like" avatar form, called ABBAtars, based on their late 1970s tour and would be set to launch by the spring of 2019.On 27 April 2018, all four original members of ABBA made a joint announcement that they had recorded two new songs, titled "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", to feature in a TV special set to air later that year. In September 2018, Ulvaeus stated that the two new songs, as well as the aforementioned TV special, now called ABBA: Thank You for the Music, An All-Star Tribute, would not be released until 2019. The TV special was later revealed to be scrapped by 2018, as Andersson and Ulvaeus rejected Fuller's project, and instead partnered with visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic to prepare the ABBAtars for a music video and a concert. In January 2019, it was revealed that neither song would be released before the summer. Andersson hinted at the possibility of a third song.In June 2019, Ulvaeus announced that the first new song and video containing the ABBAtars would be released in November 2019. In September, he stated in an interview that there were now five new ABBA songs to be released in 2020. In early 2020, Andersson confirmed that he was aiming for the songs to be released in September 2020.In April 2020, Ulvaeus gave an interview saying that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the avatar project had been delayed by six months. As of 2020, five out of the eight original songs written by Benny for the new album had been recorded by the two female members, and the release of a new music video with new unseen technology that cost £15 million was to be decided. In July 2020, Ulvaeus told podcaster Geoff Lloyd that the release of the new ABBA recordings had been delayed until 2021.On 22 September 2020, all four ABBA members reunited at Ealing Studios in London to continue working on the avatar project and filming for the tour. Björn said that the avatar tour would be scheduled for 2022 since the nature of the technology was complex. When questioned if the new recordings were definitely coming out in 2021, Björn said "There will be new music this year, that is definite, it's not a case anymore of it might happen, it will happen."On 26 August 2021, a new website was launched, with the title ABBA Voyage. On the page, visitors were prompted to subscribe "to be the first in line to hear more about ABBA Voyage". Simultaneously with the launch of the webpage, new ABBA Voyage social media accounts were launched, and billboards around London started to appear, all showing the date "02.09.21", leading to expectation of what was to be revealed on that date. On 29 August, the band officially joined TikTok with a video of Benny Andersson playing "Dancing Queen" on the piano, and media reported on a new album to be announced on 2 September. On that date, Voyage, their first new album in 40 years, was announced to be released on 5 November 2021, along with ABBA Voyage, a concert residency in London featuring the motion capture digital avatars of the four band members alongside a 10-piece live band, due to start in May 2022. Fältskog stated that the Voyage album and tour are likely to be their last.The announcement of the new album was accompanied by the release of the previously-announced new singles "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down". The music video for "I Still Have Faith in You", featuring footage of the band during their performing years and also a first look at the ABBAtars, earned over a million views in its first three hours. "Don't Shut Me Down" became the first ABBA release since October 1978 to top the singles chart in Sweden. In October 2021, the third single "Just a Notion" was released, and it was announced that ABBA would split for good after the release of Voyage. However, in an interview with BBC Radio 2 on 11 November, Lyngstad stated "don't be too sure" that Voyage is the final ABBA album. Also, in an interview with BBC News on 5 November, Andersson stated "if they (the ladies) twist my arm I might change my mind." The fourth single from the album, “Little Things”, was released on 3 December.ArtistryRecording process ABBA were perfectionists in the studio, working on tracks until they got them right rather than leaving them to come back to later on. They spent the bulk of their time within the studio; in separate 2021 interviews Ulvaeus stated they may have toured for only 6 months while Andersson said they played fewer than 100 shows during the band's career.The band created a basic rhythm track with a drummer, guitarist and bass player, and overlaid other arrangements and instruments. Vocals were then added, and orchestra overdubs were usually left until last.Fältskog and Lyngstad contributed ideas at the studio stage. Andersson and Ulvaeus played them the backing tracks and they made comments and suggestions. According to Fältskog, she and Lyngstad had the final say in how the lyrics were shaped. After vocals and overdubs were done, the band took up to five days to mix a song.Their single "S.O.S." was "heavily influenced by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and the melodies of the Beach Boys", according to Billboard writer Fred Bronson, who also reported that Ulvaeus had said, "Because there was the Latin-American influence, the German, the Italian, the English, the American, all of that. I suppose we were a bit exotic in every territory in an acceptable way."Fashion, style, videos, advertising campaigns ABBA was widely noted for the colourful and trend-setting costumes its members wore. The reason for the wild costumes was Swedish tax law: the cost of the clothes was deductible only if they could not be worn other than for performances. Choreography by Graham Tainton also contributed to their performance style.The videos that accompanied some of the band's biggest hits are often cited as being among the earliest examples of the genre. Most of ABBA's videos (and ABBA: The Movie) were directed by Lasse Hallström, who would later direct the films My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.ABBA made videos because their songs were hits in many different countries and personal appearances were not always possible. This was also done in an effort to minimise travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. Fältskog and Ulvaeus had two young children and Fältskog, who was also afraid of flying, was very reluctant to leave her children for such a long time. ABBA's manager, Stig Anderson, realised the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicise a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour. Some of these videos have become classics because of the 1970s-era costumes and early video effects, such as the grouping of the band members in different combinations of pairs, overlapping one singer's profile with the other's full face, and the contrasting of one member against another.In 1976, ABBA participated in an advertising campaign to promote the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.'s brand, National, in Australia. The campaign was also broadcast in Japan. Five commercial spots, each of approximately one minute, were produced, each presenting the "National Song"  performed by ABBA using the melody and instrumental arrangements of "Fernando" and revised lyrics.Political use of ABBA's music In September 2010, band members Andersson and Ulvaeus criticised the right-wing Danish People's Party (DF) for using the ABBA song "Mamma Mia" (with modified lyrics referencing Pia Kjærsgaard) at rallies. The band threatened to file a lawsuit against the DF, saying they never allowed their music to be used politically and that they had absolutely no interest in supporting the party. Their record label Universal Music later said that no legal action would be taken because an agreement had been reached.Success in the United States During their active career, from 1972 to 1982, 20 of ABBA's singles entered the Billboard Hot 100; 14 of these made the Top 40 (13 on the Cashbox Top 100), with 10 making the Top 20 on both charts. A total of four of those singles reached the Top 10, including "Dancing Queen", which reached number one in April 1977. While "Fernando" and "SOS" did not break the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching number 13 and 15 respectively), they did reach the Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando") and Record World ("SOS") charts. Both "Dancing Queen" and "Take a Chance on Me" were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies each.The group also had 12 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All", reaching number one. "Lay All Your Love on Me" was ABBA's fourth number-one single on a Billboard chart, topping the Hot Dance Club Play chart.Ten ABBA albums have made their way into the top half of the Billboard 200 album chart, with eight reaching the Top 50, five reaching the Top 20 and one reaching the Top 10. In November 2021, Voyage became ABBA's highest charting album on the Billboard 200 peaking at No. 2. Five albums received RIAA gold certification (more than 500,000 copies sold), while three acquired platinum status (selling more than one million copies).The compilation album ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in August 2008 (15 years after it was first released in the US in 1993), becoming the group's first number-one album ever on any of the Billboard album charts. It has sold 6 million copies there.On 15 March 2010, ABBA were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bee Gees members Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The group were represented by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson.in November 2021, ABBA received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.  The single, "I Still Have Faith In You", from the album, Voyage, was their first ever nomination.Band members  Agnetha Fältskog – lead and backing vocals Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad – lead and backing vocals Björn Ulvaeus – guitars, backing and lead vocals Benny Andersson – keyboards, synthesizers, piano, accordion, guitars, backing and lead vocalsThe members of ABBA were married as follows: Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus from 1971 to 1980: Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad from 1978 to 1981.In addition to the four members of ABBA, other musicians played on their studio recordings, live appearances and concert performances.  These include Rutger Gunnarsson (1972–1982) bass guitar and string arrangements, Ola Brunkert (1972–1981) drums, Mike Watson (1972–1980) bass guitar, Janne Schaffer (1972–1982) lead electric guitar, Roger Palm (1972–1979) drums, Malando Gassama (1973–1979) percussion, Lasse Wellander (1974–2021) lead electric guitar, and Per Lindvall (1980–2021) drums.ABBA-related tributesMusical groups  Abbaesque – An Irish ABBA tribute band A-Teens – A pop music group from Stockholm, Sweden Björn Again – An Australian tribute band; notable as the earliest-formed ABBA tribute band (1988) and, as of 2021, still currently touring. Gabba – An ABBA–Ramones tribute band that covers the former in the style of the latter, the name being a reference to the Ramones catchphrase "Gabba Gabba Hey".Media  Saturday Night (1975) (TV) .... Season 1 Episode 5 (Hosted by Robert Klein with Musical Numbers by ABBA and Loudon Wainwright III) Abbacadabra – A French children's musical based on songs from ABBA Abba-esque – A 1992 cover EP by Erasure Abbasalutely – A compilation album released in 1995 as a tribute album to ABBA Mamma Mia! – A musical stage show based on songs of ABBA ABBAmania – An ITV programme and tribute album to ABBA released in 1999 Mamma Mia! – A film adaptation of the musical stage show Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – A prequel/sequel to the original film ABBA: You Can Dance – A dance video game released by Ubisoft in 2011 with songs from ABBA and also a spin-off of Just Dance video game series Dancing Queen - A 2018 cover album by CherDiscography Studio albums Ring Ring (1973) Waterloo (1974) ABBA (1975) Arrival (1976) The Album (1977) Voulez-Vous (1979) Super Trouper (1980) The Visitors (1981) Voyage (2021)Tours  1973: Swedish Folkpark Tour 1974–1975: European Tour 1977: European & Australian Tour 1979–1980: ABBA: The Tour 2022: ABBA VoyageAwards and nominationsSee also  ABBA: The Museum ABBA City Walks – Stockholm City Museum ABBAMAIL List of best-selling music artists List of Swedes in music Music of Sweden Popular music in SwedenCitationsReferencesBibliographyFurther reading   Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Judy Craymer: Mamma Mia! How Can I Resist You?: The Inside Story of Mamma Mia! and the Songs of ABBA. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006 Carl Magnus Palm. ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions (1994) Carl Magnus Palm (2000). From "ABBA" to "Mamma Mia!"  Elisabeth Vincentelli: ABBA Treasures: A Celebration of the Ultimate Pop Group. Omnibus Press, 2010,  Oldham, Andrew, Calder, Tony & Irvin, Colin (1995) "ABBA: The Name of the Game",  Potiez, Jean-Marie (2000). ABBA – The Book  Simon Sheridan: The Complete ABBA. Titan Books, 2012,  Anna Henker (ed.), Astrid Heyde (ed.): Abba – Das Lexikon. Northern Europe Institut, Humboldt-University Berlin, 2015 (German) Steve Harnell (ed.): Classic Pop Presents Abba: A Celebration. Classic Pop Magazine (special edition), November 2016Documentaries  A for ABBA. BBC, 20 July 1993 Thierry Lecuyer, Jean-Marie Potiez: Thank You ABBA. Willow Wil Studios/A2C Video, 1993 Barry Barnes: ABBA − The History. Polar Music International AB, 1999 Chris Hunt: The Winner Takes it All − The ABBA Story. Littlestar Services/lambic Productions, 1999 Steve Cole, Chris Hunt: Super Troupers − Thirty Years of ABBA. BBC, 2004 The Joy of ABBA. BBC 4, 27 December 2013 (BBC page) Carl Magnus Palm, Roger Backlund: ABBA – When Four Became One. SVT, 2 January 2012 Carl Magnus Palm, Roger Backlund: ABBA – Absolute Image. SVT, 2 January 2012 ABBA – Bang a boomerang. ABC 1, 30 January 2013 (ABC page) ABBA: When All Is Said and Done, 2017 Thank you for the music . Sunday Night (7 News), 1 October 2019External links   Official ABBA Voyage website  Owen Gleibermann: The Secret Majesty of ABBA: They Were the Feminine Pop Opera of Their Time. Variety, 22 July 2018 Barry Walters: ABBA's Essential, Influential Melancholy. NPR, 23 May 2015 Jackie Mansky: What’s Behind ABBA’s Staying Power?. Smithonian, 20 July 2018 ABBAinter.net TV-performances archive  ABBA Songs – ABBA Album and Song details. Abba – The Articles – extensive collection of contemporary international newspaper and magazine articles on Abba 1972 establishments in SwedenAtlantic Records artistsEnglish-language singers from SwedenEpic Records artistsEurodisco groupsEurovision Song Contest entrants for SwedenEurovision Song Contest entrants of 1974Eurovision Song Contest winnersMelodifestivalen contestantsMelodifestivalen winnersMusical groups disestablished in 1982Musical groups established in 1972Musical groups from StockholmMusical groups reestablished in 2018Musical quartetsPalindromesRCA Records artistsSchlager groupsSwedish dance music groupsSwedish musical groupsSwedish pop music groupsSwedish pop rock music groupsSwedish-language singers
An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign.EtymologyFrom Middle English ligeaunce (see medieval Latin ligeantia, "a  liegance"). The al- prefix was probably added through confusion with another legal term, allegeance, an "allegation" (the French allegeance comes from the English). Allegiance is formed from "liege," from Old French liege, "liege, free", of Germanic origin. The connection with Latin ligare, "to bind," is erroneous.UsageTraditionally, English legal commentators used the term allegiance in two ways. In one sense, it referred to the deference which anyone, even foreigners, was expected to pay to the institutions of the country where one lived. In the other sense, it meant national character and the subjection due to that character.Types Local allegiance Natural allegianceUnited KingdomThe English doctrine, which was at one time adopted in the United States, asserted that allegiance was indelible: "Nemo potest exuere patriam". As the law stood prior to 1870, every person who by birth or naturalisation satisfied the conditions set forth, even if removed in infancy to another country where their family resided, owed an allegiance to the British crown which they could never resign or lose, except by act of parliament or by the recognition of the independence or the cession of the portion of British territory in which they resided.This refusal to accept any renunciation of allegiance to the Crown led to conflict with the United States over impressment, which led to further conflicts during the War of 1812, when thirteen Irish American prisoners of war were executed as traitors after the Battle of Queenston Heights; Winfield Scott urged American reprisal, but none was carried out.Allegiance was the tie which bound the subject to the sovereign, in return for that protection which the sovereign afforded the subject. It was the mutual bond and obligation between monarch and subjects, whereby subjects were called their liege subjects, because they are bound to obey and serve them; and the monarch was called their liege lord, because they should maintain and defend them (Ex parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525; China Navigation Co v Attorney-General (1932) 48 TLR 375; Attorney-General v Nissan [1969] 1 All ER 629; Oppenheimer v Cattermole [1972] 3 All ER 1106). The duty of the crown towards its subjects was to govern and protect them. The reciprocal duty of the subject towards the crown was that of allegiance.At common law, allegiance was a true and faithful obedience of the subject due to their sovereign. As the subject owed to their sovereign their true and faithful allegiance and obedience, so the sovereign  (Calvin's Case (1608) 7 Co Rep 1a; Jenk 306; 2 State Tr 559; 77 ER 377).Natural allegiance and obedience is an incident inseparable to every subject, for parte Anderson (1861) 3 El & El 487; 121 ER 525). Natural-born subjects owe allegiance wherever they may be. Where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)).Allegiance is owed both to the sovereign as a natural person  and to the sovereign in the political capacity (Re Stepney Election Petition, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54 (per Lord Coleridge CJ)). Attachment to the person of the reigning sovereign is not sufficient. Loyalty requires affection also to the office of the sovereign, attachment to royalty, attachment to the law and to the constitution of the realm, and he who would, by force or by fraud, endeavour to prostrate that law and constitution, though he may retain his affection for its head, can boast but an imperfect and spurious species of loyalty (R v O'Connell (1844) 7 ILR 261).There were four kinds of allegiances (Rittson v Stordy (1855) 3 Sm & G 230; De Geer v Stone (1882) 22 Ch D 243; Isaacson v Durant (1886) 54 LT 684; Gibson, Gavin v Gibson [1913] 3 KB 379; Joyce v DPP [1946] AC 347; Collingwood v Pace (1661) O Bridg 410; Lane v Bennett (1836) 1 M & W 70; Lyons Corp v East India Co (1836) 1 Moo PCC 175; Birtwhistle v Vardill (1840) 7 Cl & Fin 895; R v Lopez, R v Sattler (1858) Dears & B 525; Ex p Brown (1864) 5 B & S 280);(a) Ligeantia naturalis, absoluta, pura et indefinita, and this originally is due by nature and birthright, and is called alta ligeantia, and those that owe this are called subditus natus;(b) Ligeantia acquisita, not by nature but by acquisition or denization, being called a denizen, or rather denizon, because they are subditus datus;(c) Ligeantia localis, by operation of law, when a friendly alien enters the country, because so long as they are in the country they are within the sovereign's protection, therefore they owe the sovereign a local obedience or allegiance (R v Cowle (1759) 2 Burr 834; Low v Routledge (1865) 1 Ch App 42; Re Johnson, Roberts v Attorney-General [1903] 1 Ch 821; Tingley v Muller [1917] 2 Ch 144; Rodriguez v Speyer [1919] AC 59; Johnstone v Pedlar [1921] 2 AC 262; R v Tucker (1694) Show Parl Cas 186; R v Keyn (1876) 2 Ex  D 63; Re Stepney Election Petn, Isaacson v Durant (1886) 17 QBD 54);(d) A legal obedience, where a particular law requires the taking of an oath of allegiance by subject or alien alike.Natural allegiance was acquired by birth within the sovereign's dominions (except for the issue of diplomats or of invading forces or of an alien in an enemy occupied territory). The natural allegiance and obedience are an incident inseparable from every subject, for as soon as they are born they owe by birthright allegiance and obedience to the Sovereign (Ex p. Anderson (1861) 3 E & E 487). A natural-born subject owes allegiance wherever they may be, so that where territory is occupied in the course of hostilities by an enemy's force, even if the annexation of the occupied country is proclaimed by the enemy, there can be no change of allegiance during the progress of hostilities on the part of a citizen of the occupied country (R v Vermaak (1900) 21 NLR 204 (South Africa)).Acquired allegiance was acquired by naturalisation or denization. Denization, or ligeantia acquisita, appears to be threefold (Thomas v Sorrel (1673) 3 Keb 143); (a) absolute, as the common denization, without any limitation or restraint; (b) limited, as when the sovereign grants letters of denization to an alien, and the alien's male heirs, or to an alien for the term of their life; (c) It may be granted upon condition, cujus est dare, ejus est disponere, and this denization of an alien may come about three ways: by parliament; by letters patent, which was the usual manner; and by conquest.Local allegiance was due by an alien while in the protection of the crown. All friendly resident aliens incurred all the obligations of subjects (The Angelique (1801) 3 Ch Rob App 7). An alien, coming into a colony, also became, temporarily, a subject of the crown, and acquired rights both within and beyond the colony, and these latter rights could not be affected by the laws of that colony (Routledge v Low (1868) LR 3 HL 100; 37 LJ Ch 454; 18 LT 874; 16 WR 1081, HL; Reid v Maxwell (1886) 2 TLR 790; Falcon v Famous Players Film Co [1926] 2 KB 474).A resident alien owed allegiance even when the protection of the crown was withdrawn owing to the occupation of an enemy, because the absence of the crown's protection was temporary and involuntary (de Jager v Attorney-General of Natal [1907] AC 326).Legal allegiance was due when an alien took an oath of allegiance required for a particular office under the crown.By the Naturalisation Act 1870, it was made possible for British subjects to renounce their nationality and allegiance, and the ways in which that nationality is lost were defined. So British subjects voluntarily naturalized in a foreign state are deemed aliens from the time of such naturalization, unless, in the case of persons naturalized before the passing of the act, they had declared their desire to remain British subjects within two years from the passing of the act. Persons who, from having been born within British territory, are British subjects, but who, at birth, came under the law of any foreign state or of subjects of such state, and, also, persons who, though born abroad, are British subjects by reason of parentage, may, by declarations of alienage, get rid of British nationality. Emigration to an uncivilized country left British nationality unaffected: indeed the right claimed by all states to follow with their authority their subjects so emigrating was one of the usual and recognized means of colonial expansion.United StatesThe doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in the United States, and Chief Justice John Rutledge also declared in Talbot v. Janson, "a man may, at the same time, enjoy the rights of citizenship under two governments."  On July 27, 1868, the day before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, U.S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that "the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and (Section I) one of "the fundamental principles of this government" (United States Revised Statutes, sec. 1999). Every natural-born citizen of a foreign state who is also an American citizen, and every natural-born American citizen who is also a citizen of a foreign land, owes a double allegiance, one to the United States, and one to their homeland (in the event of an immigrant becoming a citizen of the US) or to their adopted land (in the event of an emigrant natural-born citizen of the  US becoming a citizen of another nation). If these allegiances come into conflict, the person may be guilty of treason against one or both. If the demands of these two sovereigns upon their duty of allegiance come into conflict, those of the United States have the paramount authority in American law; likewise, those of the foreign land have paramount authority in their legal system. In such a situation, it may be incumbent on the individual to renounce one of their citizenships, to avoid possibly being forced into situations where countervailing duties are required of them, such as might occur in the event of war.Oath of allegianceThe oath of allegiance is an oath of fidelity to the sovereign taken by all persons holding important public office and as a condition of naturalization. By ancient common law, it was required of all persons above the age of 12, and it was repeatedly used as a test for the disaffected. In England, it was first imposed by statute in the reign of Elizabeth I (1558), and its form has, more than once, been altered since. Up to the time of the revolution, the promise was "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute non-resistance, and, accordingly, the Convention Parliament enacted the form that has been in use since that time – "I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty ..."In the United States and some other republics, the oath is known as the Pledge of Allegiance. Instead of declaring fidelity to a monarch, the pledge is made to the flag, the republic, and to the core values of the country, specifically liberty and justice. The reciting of the pledge in the United States is voluntary because of the rights guaranteed to the people under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution - specifically, the guarantee of freedom of speech, which inherently includes the freedom not to speak.In IslamThe word used in the Arabic language for allegiance is bay'at (Arabic: بيعة), which means "taking hand". The practice is sanctioned in the Quran by Surah 48:10: "Verily, those who give thee their allegiance, they give it but to Allah Himself". The word is used for the oath of allegiance to an emir. It is also used for the initiation ceremony specific to many Sufi orders.See also Impressment Legitimacy (political) Mandate of Heaven Renunciation of citizenship Treason Usurpation War of 1812 Winfield ScottReferencesFurther reading Salmond on "Citizenship and Allegiance," in the Law Quarterly Review (July 1901, January 1902). Nationalismde:Loyalitätes:Lealtadko:충no:Lojalitetsv:Lojalitet
Altenberg (German for "old mountain" or "mountain of the old") may refer to:PlacesAustria Altenberg, a town in Sankt Andrä-Wördern, Tulln District Altenberg bei Linz, in Upper Austria Altenberg an der Rax, in StyriaGermany Altenberg (Bergisches Land), an area in Odenthal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Altenberg Abbey, Cistercian monastery in Altenberg (Bergisches Land) Altenberger Dom sometimes called Altenberg Cathedral, the former church of this Cistercian monastery Altenberg, Saxony, a town in the Free State of Saxony Altenberga, a municipality in the Saale-Holzfeld district, Thuringia Altenberg Abbey, Solms, a former Premonstratensian nunnery near Wetzlar in Hesse Zinkfabrik Altenberg, a former zinc factory, now a branch of the LVR Industrial Museum, Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia Grube Altenberg, a show mine near Kreuztal, North Rhine-WestphaliaOther places Altenberg, the German name for Vieille Montagne (old mountain in French), a former zinc mine in Kelmis, Moresnet, Belgium Altenberg, a district in the city of Bern, SwitzerlandOther uses Altenberg Lieder (Five Orchestral Songs), composed by Alban Berg in 1911/12 Altenberg Publishing (1880–1934), a former Polish publishing house Altenberg Trio, a Viennese piano trioPeople with the surname Jakob Altenberg (1875–1944), Austrian businessman Lee Altenberg, theoretical biologist Peter Altenberg (1859–1919), nom de plume of Austrian writer and poet Richard EngländerSee also  Altenburg (disambiguation)
The MessagePad is a discontinued series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993.  Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was undertaken in Japan by the Sharp. The devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software and were developed and marketed by Apple. The devices ran the Newton OS.History The development of Newton Message first began when Apple's former senior vice president of research and development, Jean-Louis Gassée; his team includes Steve Capps, co-writer of macOS Finder, and an employed engineer named Steve Sakoman. Since then, the development of the Newton Message Pad operates in secret until it was eventually revealed to the Apple Board of Directors in late 1990.When Gassee resigned from his position due to a significant disagreement with the board, seeing how his employer was treated, Sakoman also stopped developing the MessagePad on March 2, 1990. Bill Atkinson, an Apple Executive responsible for the company's Lisa's graphical interface, invited Steve Capps, John Sculley, Andy Hertzfeld, Susan Kare, and Marc Porat to a meeting on March 11, 1990. There, they brainstormed a way of saving the MessagePad. Sculley suggested adding new features, including libraries, museums, databases, or institutional archives features, allowing customers to navigate through various window tabs or opened galleries/stacks. The Board later approved his suggestion; he then gave Newton it is official and full backing.The first MessagePad on May 29, 1992 was unveiled by Sculley at the summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago. Even so, Sculley caved in to pressure too early because the Newton did not officially ship for another 14 months on August 2, 1993.Over 50,000 units were sold near late November 1993, starting at the price of $900 to $1,569.DetailsScreen and inputWith the MessagePad 120 with Newton OS 2.0, the Newton Keyboard by Apple became available, which can also be used via the dongle on Newton devices with a Newton InterConnect port, most notably the Apple MessagePad 2000/2100 series, as well as the Apple eMate 300.Newton devices featuring Newton OS 2.1 or higher can be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting rotates the contents of the display by 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Handwriting recognition still works properly with the display rotated, although display calibration is needed when rotation in any direction is used for the first time or when the Newton device is reset.Handwriting recognitionIn initial versions (Newton OS 1.x) the handwriting recognition gave extremely mixed results for users and was sometimes inaccurate. The original handwriting recognition engine was called Calligrapher, and was licensed from a Russian company called Paragraph International. Calligrapher's design was quite sophisticated; it attempted to learn the user's natural handwriting, using a database of known words to make guesses as to what the user was writing, and could interpret writing anywhere on the screen, whether hand-printed, in cursive, or a mix of the two. By contrast, Palm Pilot's Graffiti had a less sophisticated design than Calligrapher, but was sometimes found to be more accurate and precise due to its reliance on a fixed, predefined stroke alphabet. The stroke alphabet used letter shapes which resembled standard handwriting, but which were modified to be both simple and very easy to differentiate. Palm Computing also released two versions of Graffiti for Newton devices.  The Newton version sometimes performed better and could also show strokes as they were being written as input was done on the display itself, rather than on a silkscreen area.For editing text, Newton had a very intuitive system for handwritten editing, such as scratching out words to be deleted, circling text to be selected, or using written carets to mark inserts.Later releases of the Newton operating system retained the original recognizer for compatibility, but added a hand-printed-text-only (not cursive) recognizer, called "Rosetta", which was developed by Apple, included in version 2.0 of the Newton operating system, and refined in Newton 2.1. Rosetta is generally considered a significant improvement and many reviewers, testers, and most users consider the Newton 2.1 handwriting recognition software better than any of the alternatives even 10 years after it was introduced.  Recognition and computation of handwritten horizontal and vertical formulas such as "1 + 2 =" was also under development but never released. However, users wrote similar programs which could evaluate mathematical formulas using the Newton OS Intelligent Assistant, a unique part of every Newton device.The handwriting recognition and parts of the user interface for the Newton are best understood in the context of the broad history of pen computing, which is quite extensive.A vital feature of the Newton handwriting recognition system is the modeless error correction. That is, correction done in situ without using a separate window or widget, using a minimum of gestures. If a word is recognized improperly, the user could double-tap the word and a list of alternatives would pop up in a menu under the stylus. Most of the time, the correct word will be in the list. If not, a button at the bottom of the list allows the user to edit individual characters in that word. Other pen gestures could do such things as transpose letters (also in situ). The correction popup also allowed the user to revert to the original, un-recognized letter shapes - this would be useful in note-taking scenarios if there was insufficient time to make corrections immediately. To conserve memory and storage space, alternative recognition hypotheses would not be saved indefinitely. If the user returned to a note a week later, for example, they would only see the best match. Error correction in many current handwriting systems provides such functionality but adds more steps to the process, greatly increasing the interruption to a user's workflow that a given correction requires.User interfaceText could also be entered by tapping with the stylus on a small on-screen pop-up QWERTY virtual keyboard, although more layouts were developed by users. Newton devices could also accept free-hand "Sketches", "Shapes", and "Ink Text", much like a desktop computer graphics tablet. With "Shapes", Newton could recognize that the user was attempting to draw a circle, a line, a polygon, etc., and it would clean them up into perfect vector representations (with modifiable control points and defined vertices) of what the user was attempting to draw. "Shapes" and "Sketches" could be scaled or deformed once drawn. "Ink text" captured the user's free-hand writing but allowed it to be treated somewhat like recognized text when manipulating for later editing purposes ("ink text" supported word wrap, could be formatted to be bold, italic, etc.). At any time a user could also direct their Newton device to recognize selected "ink text" and turn it into recognized text (deferred recognition). A Newton note (or the notes attached to each contact in Names and each Dates calendar or to-do event) could contain any mix of interleaved text, Ink Text, Shapes, and Sketches.While the Newton offered handwriting recognition training and would clean up sketches into vector shapes, both were unreliable and required much rewriting and redrawing. The most reliable application of the Newton was collecting and organizing address and phone numbers. While handwritten messages could be stored, they could not be easily filed, sorted or searched. While the technology was a probable cause for the failure of the device (which otherwise met or exceeded expectations), the technology has been instrumental in producing the future generation of handwriting software that realizes the potential and promise that began in the development of Newton-Apple's Ink Handwriting Recognition.ConnectivityThe MessagePad 100 series of devices used Macintosh's proprietary serial ports—round Mini-DIN 8 connectors. The MessagePad 2000/2100 models (as well as the eMate 300) have a small, proprietary Newton InterConnect port. However, the development of the Newton hardware/software platform was canceled by Steve Jobs on February 27, 1998, so the InterConnect port, while itself very advanced, can only be used to connect a serial dongle. A prototype multi-purpose InterConnect device containing serial, audio in, audio out, and other ports was also discovered. In addition, all Newton devices have infrared connectivity, initially only the Sharp ASK protocol, but later also IrDA, though the Sharp ASK protocol was kept in for compatibility reasons. Unlike the Palm Pilot, all Newton devices are equipped with a standard PC Card expansion slot (two on the 2000/2100). This allows native modem and even Ethernet connectivity; Newton users have also written drivers for 802.11b wireless networking cards and ATA-type flash memory cards (including the popular CompactFlash format), as well as for Bluetooth cards. Newton can also dial a phone number through the built-in speaker of the Newton device by simply holding a telephone handset up to the speaker and transmitting the appropriate tones. Fax and printing support is also built in at the operating system level, although it requires peripherals such as parallel adapters, PCMCIA cards, or serial modems, the most notable of which is the lightweight Newton Fax Modem released by Apple in 1993. It is powered by 2 AA batteries, and can also be used with a power adapter. It provides data transfer at 2,400 bit/s, and can also send and receive fax messages at 9,600 and 4,800 bit/s respectively.Power optionsThe original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 used four AAA batteries. They were eventually replaced by AA batteries with the release of the Apple MessagePad 110.The use of 4 AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (MP2x00 series, eMate 300) give a runtime of up to 30 hours (MP2100 with two 20 MB Linear Flash memory PC Cards, no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the handheld Newton devices than AAA batteries or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gives the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with the flash memory used as internal storage starting with the Apple MessagePad 120 (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the non-volatility of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries".Later efforts and improvementsThe Apple MessagePad 2000/2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162 MHz StrongARM SA-110 RISC processor, Newton OS 2.1, and a better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits.eMate 300The eMate 300 was a Newton device in a laptop form factor offered to schools in 1997 as an inexpensive ($799 US, originally sold to education markets only) and durable computer for classroom use. However, in order to achieve its low price, the eMate 300 did not have all the speed and features of the contemporary MessagePad equivalent, the MessagePad 2000. The eMate was cancelled along with the rest of the Newton products in 1998. It is the only Newton device to use the ARM710 microprocessor (running at 25 MHz), have an integrated keyboard, use Newton OS 2.2 (officially numbered 2.1), and its batteries are officially irreplaceable, although several users replaced them with longer-lasting ones without any damage to the eMate hardware whatsoever.PrototypesMany prototypes of additional Newton devices were spotted. Most notable was a Newton tablet or "slate", a large, flat screen that could be written on. Others included a "Kids Newton" with side handgrips and buttons, "VideoPads" which would have incorporated a video camera and screen on their flip-top covers for two-way communications, the "Mini 2000" which would have been very similar to a Palm Pilot, and the NewtonPhone developed by Siemens, which incorporated a handset and a keyboard.Market receptionFourteen months after Sculley demoed it at the May 1992, Chicago CES, the MessagePad was first offered for sale on August 2, 1993, at the Boston Macworld Expo. The hottest item at the show, it cost $900. 50,000 MessagePads were sold in the device's first three months on the market.The original Apple MessagePad and MessagePad 100 were limited by the very short lifetime of their inadequate AAA batteries.Critics also panned the handwriting recognition that was available in the debut models, which had been trumpeted in the Newton's marketing campaign.  It was this problem that was skewered in the Doonesbury comic strips in which a written text entry is (erroneously) translated as "Egg Freckles?", as well as in the animated series The Simpsons. However, the word 'freckles' was not included in the Newton dictionary, although a user could add it themselves. Difficulties were in part caused by the long time requirements for the Calligrapher handwriting recognition software to "learn" the user's handwriting; this process could take from two weeks to two months.Another factor which limited the early Newton devices' appeal was that desktop connectivity was not included in the basic retail package, a problem that was later solved with 2.x Newton devices - these were bundled with a serial cable and the appropriate Newton Connection Utilities software.Later versions of Newton OS offered improved handwriting recognition, quite possibly a leading reason for the continued popularity of the devices among Newton users. Even given the age of the hardware and software, Newtons still demand a sale price on the used market far greater than that of comparatively aged PDAs produced by other companies. In 2006, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to a Samsung Q1, and the Newton was declared better. In 2009, CNET compared an Apple MessagePad 2000 to an iPhone 3GS, and the Newton was declared more innovative at its time of release.A chain of dedicated Newton only stores called Newton Source existed from 1994 until 1998. Locations included New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The Westwood Village, California, near U.C.L.A. featured the trademark red and yellow light bulb Newton logo in neon. The stores provided an informative educational venue to learn about the Newton platform in a hands on relaxed fashion. The stores had no traditional computer retail counters and featured oval desktops where interested users could become intimately involved with the Newton product range. The stores were a model for the later Apple Stores.Newton device models{| class="wikitable"|+!Brand| colspan="2" |Apple |Sharp |Siemens| colspan="2" |Apple |Sharp |Apple |Digital Ocean |Motorola|Harris |Digital Ocean | colspan="4" |Apple | colspan="3" |Harris|Siemens|Schlumberger|-!Device|OMP (Original Newton MessagePad)|Newton "Dummy"|ExpertPad PI-7000|Notephone.[better source needed]|MessagePad 100|MessagePad 110|Sharp ExpertPad PI-7100|MessagePad 120|Tarpon|Marco|SuperTech 2000|Seahorse|MessagePad 130|eMate 300|MessagePad 2000|MessagePad 2100|Access Device 2000|Access Device, GPS|Access Device, Wireline|Online Terminal, also known as Online Access Device(OAD)|Watson |-!Introduced|August 3, 1993 (US) December 1993 (Germany)|?|August 3, 1993(US), ? (Japan)|1993?| colspan="2" |March 1994|April 1994|October 1994 (Germany), January 1995 (US)| colspan="2" |January 1995 (US)|August 1995 in the US|January 1996 in the US|March 1996| colspan="2" |March 1997|November 1997| colspan="3" |1998|Announced 1997|?|-!Discontinued| colspan="3" |March 1994|?| colspan="2" |April 1995|late 1994|June 1996|?|?|?|?|April 1997| colspan="3" |February 1998||||||-!Code name|Junior||?|?|Junior|Lindy|?|Gelato|?|?|?|?|Dante|?|Q|?||||||-!Model No.|H1000||?|?|H1000|H0059|?|H0131|?|?|?|?|H0196|H0208|H0136|H0149||||||-!Processor| colspan="13" |ARM 610 (20 MHz)|ARM 710a (25 MHz)| colspan="7" |StrongARM SA-110 (162 MHz)|-!ROM| colspan="7" |4 MB| colspan="2" |4 MB (OS 1.3) or 8 MB (OS 2.0) |5 MB|4 MB| colspan="5" |8 MB ||||||-!System Memory (RAM)| colspan="5" |490 KB* SRAM|544 KB SRAM|490 KB* SRAM| colspan="2" |639/687 KB DRAM|544 KB SRAM|639 KB DRAM| colspan="2" |1199 KB DRAM|1 MB DRAM (Upgradable) |1 MB DRAM |4 MB DRAM | colspan="3" |1 MB DRAM|?|1 MB DRAM|-!User Storage | colspan="5" |150 KB* SRAM|480 KB SRAM|150 KB* SRAM| colspan="2" |385/1361 KB Flash RAM|480 KB SRAM|385 KB Flash RAM| colspan="2" |1361 KB Flash RAM|2 MB Flash RAM(Upgradable) | colspan="5" |4 MB Flash RAM|?|4 MB Flash RAM|-!Total RAM| colspan="5" |640 KB |1 MB |640 KB| colspan="2" |1.0/2.0 MB | colspan="2" |1 MB | colspan="2" |2.5 MB |3 MB (Upgradable via Internal Expansion)|5 MB |8 MB| colspan="3" |5 MB|?|5 MB|-!Display| colspan="5" |336 × 240 (B&W)|320 × 240 (B&W)|336 × 240 (B&W)|320 × 240 (B&W)|320 × 240 (B&W) w/ backlight|320 × 240 (B&W)| colspan="3" |320 × 240 (B&W) w/ backlight| colspan="6" |480 × 320 grayscale (16 shades) w/ backlight||480 × 320 greyscale (16 shades) w/ backlight|-!Newton OS version| colspan="3" |1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11|1.11| colspan="2" |1.2 or 1.3|1.3| colspan="2" |1.3 or 2.0| colspan="2" |1.3| colspan="2" |2.0|2.1 (2.2)| colspan="2" |2.1| colspan="5" |2.1|-!Newton OS languages|English or German||English or Japanese|German|English, German or French|English or French|English or Japanese|English, German or French| colspan="4" |English|English or German| colspan="2" |English|English or German| colspan="3" |English|German|French|-!Connectivity| colspan="3" |RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared|Modem and Telephone dock Attachment| colspan="4" |RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared|RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared|RS422, LocalTalk, Infrared, ARDIS Network|RS232, LocalTalk WLAN, V.22bis modem, Analog/Digital Cellular, CDPD, RAM, ARDIS , Trunk Radio|RS232, LocalTalk, CDPD, WLAN, Optional dGPS, GSM, or IR via modular attachments|RS422, LocalTalk & SHARP ASK Infrared|IrDA, headphone port, Interconnect port, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock|Dual-mode IR;IrDA & SHARP ASK, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock, Phone I/O|Dual-mode IR; IrDA & SHARP ASK, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock| colspan="3" |Dual-mode IR;IrDA & SHARP ASK, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock, Phone I/O|?|Dual-mode IR;IrDA & SHARP ASK, LocalTalk, Audio I/O, Autodock, Phone I/O|-!PCMCIA| colspan="13" |1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v|1 PCMCIA-slot I/II/III, 5v| colspan="2" |2 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v| colspan="2" |1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v|1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v, 2nd slot Propriety Rado Card| colspan="2" |1 PCMCIA-slot II, 5v or 12v, 1 Smart Card Reader|-!Power| colspan="5" |4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply|4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply |4 AAA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply|4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply| colspan="2" |NiCd battery pack or external power supply|4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply|NiCd battery pack or external power supply|4 AA or NiCd rechargeable or external power supply|NiMH battery pack (built-in) or external power supply| colspan="2" |4 AA or NiMH rechargeable or external power supply| colspan="3" |Custom NiMH rechargeable or external power supply|? Unknown, but likely external power supply|4 AA or NiMH rechargeable or external power supply|-!Dimensions(HxWxD)|||(lid open)| colspan="2" |||(lid open)||||?|||| colspan="2" ||?|?|?|9 x 14.5 x 5.1 inches(23 x 37 x 13 cm)|?|-!Weight|||with batteries installed||| with batteries installed|with batteries installed|with batteries installed|||?||with batteries installed|| colspan="2" ||?|?|?|?|?|}*  Varies with Installed OSNotes: The eMate 300 actually has ROM chips silk screened with 2.2 on them. Stephanie Mak on her website discusses this:If one removes all patches to the eMate 300 (by replacing the ROM chip, and then putting in the original one again, as the eMate and the MessagePad 2000/2100 devices erase their memory completely after replacing the chip), the result will be the Newton OS saying that this is version 2.2.00. Also, the Original MessagePad and the MessagePad 100 share the same model number, as they only differ in the ROM chip version. (The OMP has OS versions 1.0 to 1.05, or 1.10 to 1.11, while the MP100 has 1.3 that can be upgraded with various patches.)Other usesThere were a number of projects that used the Newton as a portable information device in cultural settings such as museums. For example, Visible Interactive created a walking tour in San Francisco's Chinatown but the most significant effort took place in Malaysia at the Petronas Discovery Center, known as Petrosains.In 1995, an exhibit design firm, DMCD Inc., was awarded the contract to design a new  science museum in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. A major factor in the award was the concept that visitors would use a Newton device to access additional information, find out where they were in the museum, listen to audio, see animations, control robots and other media, and to bookmark information for printout at the end of the exhibit.The device became known as the ARIF, a Malay word for "wise man" or "seer" and it was also an acronym for A Resourceful Informative Friend. Some 400 ARIFS were installed and over 300 are still in use today.  The development of the ARIF system was extremely complex and required a team of hardware and software engineers, designers, and writers. ARIF is an ancestor of the PDA systems used in museums today and it boasted features that have not been attempted since.Anyway & Company firm was involved with the Petronas Discovery Center project back in 1998 and NDAs were signed which prevents getting to know more information about this project.  It was confirmed that they purchased of MP2000u or MP2100's by this firm on the behalf of the project under the name of "Petrosains Project Account". By 1998 they had invested heavily into the R&D of this project with the Newton at the center. After Apple officially cancelled the Newton in 1998 they had to acquire as many Newtons as possible for this project. It was estimated initially 1000 Newtons, but later readjusted the figure to possibly 750 Newtons. They placed an “Internet Call” for Newtons. They purchased them in large and small quantities.The Newton was also used in healthcare applications, for example in collecting data directly from patients. Newtons were used as electronic diaries, with patients entering their symptoms and other information concerning their health status on a daily basis. The compact size of the device and its ease of use made it possible for the electronic diaries to be carried around and used in the patients' everyday life setting. This was an early example of electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO)See also Newton (platform) Newton OS eMate 300 NewtonScript Orphaned technology Pen computingReferencesBibliography Apple's press release on the debut of the MessagePad 2100 Apple's overview of features & limitations of Newton Connection Utilities Newton overview at Newton Source archived from Apple Newton FAQ Pen Computing's First Look at Newton OS 2.0 Newton Gallery Birth of the Newton The Newton Hall of Fame: People behind the Newton Pen Computing's Why did Apple kill the Newton? Pen Computing's Newton Notes column archive A.I. Magazine article by Yaeger on Newton HWR design, algorithms, & quality and associated slides Info on Newton HWR from Apple's HWR Technical LeadExternal linksAdditional resources and information Defying Gravity: The Making of Newton, by Kounalakis & Menuez (Hardcover) Hardcover: 192 pages Publisher: Beyond Words Publishing (October 1993)    Complete Developer's manual for the StrongARM SA-110 Beginner's overview of the StrongARM SA-110 MicroprocessorReviews MessagePad 2000 review at "The History and Macintosh Society" Prof. Wittmann's collection of Newton & MessagePad reviewsApple NewtonProducts introduced in 1993Apple Inc. personal digital assistants
Alfred Elton van Vogt  (; April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author. His fragmented, bizarre narrative style influenced later science fiction writers, notably Philip K. Dick. He was one of the most popular and influential practitioners of science fiction in the mid-twentieth century, the genre's so-called Golden Age, and one of the most complex. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him their 14th Grand Master in 1995 (presented 1996).Early lifeAlfred Vogt (both "Elton" and "van" were added much later) was born on April 26, 1912, on his grandparents' farm in Edenburg, Manitoba, a tiny (and now defunct) Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada, in the Mennonite West Reserve.  He was the third of six children born to Heinrich "Henry" Vogt and Aganetha "Agnes" Vogt (née Buhr), both of whom were born in Manitoba and grew up in heavily immigrant communities.  Until age four, van Vogt and his family spoke only Plautdietsch at home.For the first dozen or so years of his life, van Vogt's father, Henry Vogt, a lawyer, moved his family several times within western Canada, moving to Neville, Saskatchewan; Morden, Manitoba; and finally Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Alfred Vogt found these moves difficult, later remarking:By the 1920s, living in Winnipeg, father Henry worked as an agent for a steamship company, but the stock market crash of 1929 proved financially disastrous, and the family could not afford to send Alfred to college.  During his teen years, Alfred worked as a farmhand and a truck driver, and by the age of 19, he was working in Ottawa for the Canadian Census Bureau.  He began his writing career with stories in the true confession style of pulp magazines such as True Story.  Most of these stories were published anonymously, with the first-person narratives allegedly being written by people (often women) in extraordinary, emotional, and life-changing circumstances.After a year in Ottawa, he moved back to Winnipeg, where he sold newspaper advertising space and continued to write.  While continuing to pen melodramatic "true confessions" stories through 1937, he also began writing short radio dramas for local radio station CKY, as well as conducting interviews published in trade magazines.  He added the middle name "Elton" at some point in the mid-1930s, and at least one confessional story (1937's "To Be His Keeper") was sold to the Toronto Star, who misspelled his name "Alfred Alton Bogt" in the byline.  Shortly thereafter, he added the "van" to his surname, and from that point forward he used the name "A. E. van Vogt" both personally and professionally.CareerBy 1938, van Vogt decided to switch to writing science fiction, a genre he enjoyed reading.  He was inspired by the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, which he picked up at a newsstand. John W. Campbell's novelette "Who Goes There?" (later adapted into The Thing from Another World and The Thing) inspired van Vogt to write "Vault of the Beast", which he submitted to that same magazine. Campbell, who edited Astounding (and had written the story under a pseudonym), sent van Vogt a rejection letter, but one which encouraged van Vogt to try again. Van Vogt sent another story, entitled "Black Destroyer", which was accepted. It featured a fierce, carnivorous alien stalking the crew of a spaceship, and served as the inspiration for multiple science fiction movies, including Alien (1979). A revised version of "Vault of the Beast" was published in 1940.While still living in Winnipeg, in 1939 van Vogt married Edna Mayne Hull, a fellow Manitoban.  Hull, who had previously worked as a private secretary, went on to act as van Vogt's typist, and was credited with writing several SF stories of her own throughout the early 1940s.The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 caused a change in van Vogt's circumstances.  Ineligible for military service due to his poor eyesight, he accepted a clerking job with the Canadian Department of National Defence.  This necessitated a move back to Ottawa, where he and his wife stayed for the next year and a half.Meanwhile, his writing career continued.  "Discord in Scarlet" was van Vogt's second story to be published, also appearing as the cover story. It was accompanied by interior illustrations created by Frank Kramer and Paul Orban. (Van Vogt and Kramer thus debuted in the issue of Astounding that is sometimes identified as the start of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.) Among his most famous works of this era, "Far Centaurus" appeared in the January 1944 edition of Astounding.Van Vogt's first completed novel, and one of his most famous, is Slan (Arkham House, 1946), which Campbell serialized in Astounding (September to December 1940). Using what became one of van Vogt's recurring themes, it told the story of a nine-year-old superman living in a world in which his kind are slain by Homo sapiens.Others saw van Vogt's talent from his first story, and in May 1941 van Vogt decided to become a full-time writer, quitting his job at the Canadian Department of National Defence. Freed from the necessity of living in Ottawa, he and his wife lived for a time in the Gatineau region of Quebec before moving to Toronto in the fall of 1941.Prolific throughout this period, van Vogt wrote many of his more famous short stories and novels in the years from 1941 through 1944. The novels The Book of Ptath and The Weapon Makers both appeared in magazines in serial form during this period; they were later published in book form after World War II.  As well, several (though not all) of the stories that were compiled to make up the novels The Weapon Shops of Isher, The Mixed Men and The War Against the Rull were published during this time.California and post-war writing (1944–1950)In November 1944, van Vogt and Hull moved to Hollywood; van Vogt would spend the rest of his life in California.  He had been using the name "A. E. van Vogt" in his public life for several years, and as part of the process of obtaining American citizenship in 1945 he finally and formally changed his legal name from Alfred Vogt to Alfred Elton van Vogt.  To his friends in the California science fiction community, he was known as "Van".Method and themesVan Vogt systematized his writing method, using scenes of 800 words or so where a new complication was added or something resolved. Several of his stories hinge on temporal conundra, a favorite theme. He stated that he acquired many of his writing techniques from three books: Narrative Technique by Thomas Uzzell, The Only Two Ways to Write a Story by John Gallishaw, and Twenty Problems of the Fiction Writer by Gallishaw.  He also claimed many of his ideas came from dreams; throughout his writing life he arranged to be awakened every 90 minutes during his sleep period so he could write down his dreams.Van Vogt was also always interested in the idea of all-encompassing systems of knowledge (akin to modern meta-systems).  The characters in his very first story used a system called "Nexialism" to analyze the alien's behavior. Around this time, he became particularly interested in the general semantics of Alfred Korzybski.He subsequently wrote a novel merging these overarching themes, The World of Ā, originally serialized in Astounding in 1945. Ā (often rendered as Null-A), or non-Aristotelian logic, refers to the capacity for, and practice of, using intuitive, inductive reasoning (compare fuzzy logic), rather than reflexive, or conditioned, deductive reasoning.  The novel recounts the adventures of an individual living in an apparent Utopia, where those with superior brainpower make up the ruling class... though all is not as it seems.  A sequel, The Players of Ā (later re-titled The Pawns of Null-A) was serialized in 1948–49.At the same time, in his fiction, van Vogt was consistently sympathetic to absolute monarchy as a form of government. This was the case, for instance, in the Weapon Shop series, the Mixed Men series, and in single stories such as "Heir Apparent" (1945), whose protagonist was described as a "benevolent dictator".  These sympathies were the subject of much critical discussion during van Vogt's career, and afterwards.Van Vogt published "Enchanted Village" in the July 1950 issue of Other Worlds Science Stories. It was reprinted in over 20 collections or anthologies, and appeared many times in translation.Dianetics and fix-ups (1950–1961)In 1950, van Vogt was briefly appointed as head of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics operation in California.  Van Vogt had first met Hubbard in 1945, and became interested in his Dianetics theories, which were published shortly thereafter.  Dianetics was the secular precursor to Hubbard's Church of Scientology; van Vogt would have no association with Scientology, as he did not approve of its mysticism.The California Dianetics operation went broke nine months later, but never went bankrupt, due to van Vogt's arrangements with creditors. Very shortly after that, van Vogt and his wife opened their own Dianetics center, partly financed by his writings, until he "signed off" around 1961.  From 1951 until 1961, van Vogt's focus was on Dianetics, and no new story ideas flowed from his typewriter.Fix-upsHowever, during the 1950s, van Vogt retrospectively patched together many of his previously published stories into novels, sometimes creating new interstitial material to help bridge gaps in the narrative.  Van Vogt referred to the resulting books as "fix-ups", a term that entered the vocabulary of science-fiction criticism. When the original stories were closely related this was often successful, although some van Vogt fix-ups featured disparate stories thrown together that bore little relation to each other, generally making for a less coherent plot.  One of his best-known (and well-regarded) novels, The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) was a fix-up of four short stories including "Discord in Scarlet"; it was published in at least five European languages by 1955.Although Van Vogt averaged a new book title every ten months from 1951 to 1961, none of them were new stories; they were all fix-ups, collections of previously published stories, expansions of previously published short stories to novel length, or republications of previous books under new titles and all based on story material written and originally published between 1939 and 1950. Examples include The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951), The Mixed Men (1952), The War Against the Rull (1959), and the two "Clane" novels, Empire of the Atom (1957) and The Wizard of Linn (1962), which were inspired (like Asimov's Foundation series) by Roman imperial history; specifically, as Damon Knight wrote, the plot of Empire of the Atom was "lifted almost bodily" from that of Robert Graves' I, Claudius. (Also, one non-fiction work, The Hypnotism Handbook, appeared in 1956, though it had apparently been written much earlier.)After more than a decade of running their Dianetics center, Hull and van Vogt closed it in 1961.  Nevertheless, van Vogt maintained his association with the organization and was still president of the Californian Association of Dianetic Auditors into the 1980s.Return to writing and later career (1962–1986)Though the constant re-packaging of his older work meant that he had never really been away from the book publishing world, van Vogt had not published any wholly new fiction for almost 12 years when he decided to return to writing in 1962.  He did not return immediately to science fiction, but instead wrote the only mainstream, non-sf novel of his career. Van Vogt was profoundly affected by revelations of totalitarian police states that emerged after World War II. Accordingly, he wrote a mainstream novel that he set in Communist China, The Violent Man (1962).  Van Vogt explained that to research this book he had read 100 books about China. Into this book he incorporated his view of "the violent male type", which he described as a "man who had to be right", a man who "instantly attracts women" and who he said were the men who "run the world".  Contemporary reviews were lukewarm at best, and van Vogt thereafter returned to science fiction.From 1963 through the mid-1980s, van Vogt once again published new material on a regular basis, though fix-ups and reworked material also appeared relatively often.  His later novels included fix-ups such as The Beast (also known as Moonbeast) (1963), Rogue Ship (1965), Quest for the Future (1970) and Supermind (1977).  He also wrote novels by expanding previously published short stories; works of this type include The Darkness on Diamondia (1972) and Future Glitter (also known as Tyranopolis; 1973).Novels that were written simply as novels, and not serialized magazine pieces or fix-ups, had been very rare in van Vogt's oeuvre, but began to appear regularly beginning in the 1970s.  Van Vogt's original novels included Children of Tomorrow (1970), The Battle of Forever (1971) and The Anarchistic Colossus (1977).  Over the years, many sequels to his classic works were promised, but only one appeared:  Null-A Three (1984; originally published in French). Several later books were initially published in Europe, and at least one novel only ever appeared in foreign language editions and was never published in its original English.Final yearsWhen the 1979 film Alien appeared, it was noted that the plot closely matched the plots of both Black Destroyer and Discord in Scarlet, both published in Astounding magazine in 1939, and then later published in the 1950 book Voyage of the Space Beagle. Van Vogt sued the production company for plagiarism, and eventually collected an out-of-court settlement of $50,000 from 20th Century Fox. In increasingly frail health, van Vogt published his final short story in 1986.Personal lifeVan Vogt's first wife, Edna Mayne Hull, died in 1975.  Van Vogt married Lydia Bereginsky in 1979; they remained together until his death.DeathOn January 26, 2000, A. E. van Vogt died in Los Angeles from Alzheimer's disease.  He was survived by his second wife.Critical receptionCritical opinion about the quality of van Vogt's work is sharply divided. An early and articulate critic was Damon Knight. In a 1945 chapter-long essay reprinted in In Search of Wonder, entitled "Cosmic Jerrybuilder: A. E. van Vogt", Knight described van Vogt as "no giant; he is a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter". Knight described The World of Null-A as "one of the worst allegedly adult science fiction stories ever published". Concerning van Vogt's writing, Knight said:About Empire of the Atom Knight wrote:Knight also expressed misgivings about van Vogt's politics. He noted that van Vogt's stories almost invariably present absolute monarchy in a favorable light. In 1974, Knight retracted some of his criticism after finding out about Vogt's writing down his dreams as a part of his working methods:Knight's criticism greatly damaged van Vogt's reputation. On the other hand, when science fiction author Philip K. Dick was asked  which science fiction writers had influenced his work the most, he replied:Dick also defended van Vogt against Damon Knight's criticisms:In a review of Transfinite: The Essential A. E. van Vogt, science fiction writer Paul Di Filippo said:In The John W. Campbell Letters, Campbell says, "The son-of-a-gun gets hold of you in the first paragraph, ties a knot around you, and keeps it tied in every paragraph thereafter—including the ultimate last one".Harlan Ellison (who had begun reading van Vogt as a teenager) wrote, "Van was the first writer to shine light on the restricted ways in which I had been taught to view the universe and the human condition".Writing in 1984, David Hartwell said:The literary critic Leslie A. Fiedler said something similar:American literary critic Fredric Jameson says of van Vogt:Van Vogt still has his critics. For example, Darrell Schweitzer, writing to The New York Review of Science Fiction in 1999, quoted a passage from the original van Vogt novelette "The Mixed Men", which he was then reading, and remarked:RecognitionIn 1946, van Vogt and his first wife, Edna Mayne Hull, were Guests of Honor at the fourth World Science Fiction Convention.In 1980, van Vogt received a "Casper Award" (precursor to the Canadian Prix Aurora Awards) for Lifetime Achievement.In 1996, van Vogt received a Special Award from the World Science Fiction Convention "for six decades of golden age science fiction". That same year, he was inducted as an inaugural member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.The Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) named him its 14th Grand Master in 1995 (presented 1996). Great controversy within SFWA accompanied its long wait in bestowing its highest honor (limited to living writers, no more than one annually). Writing an obituary of van Vogt, Robert J. Sawyer, a fellow Canadian writer of science fiction, remarked:It is generally held that a key factor in the delay was "damnable SFWA politics" reflecting the concerns of Damon Knight, the founder of the SFWA, who abhorred van Vogt's style and politics and thoroughly demolished his literary reputation in the 1950s.Harlan Ellison was more explicit in 1999 introduction to Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A. E. van Vogt:In 1996, van Vogt received a Special Award from the World Science Fiction Convention "for six decades of golden age science fiction". That same year, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons, along with writer Jack Williamson (also living) and editors Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell.The works of van Vogt were translated into French by the surrealist Boris Vian (The World of Null-A as Le Monde des Å in 1958), and van Vogt's works were "viewed as great literature of the surrealist school". In addition, Slan was published in French, translated by Jean Rosenthal, under the title À la poursuite des Slans, as part of the paperback series 'Editions J'ai Lu: Romans-Texte Integral' in 1973. This edition also listing the following works by van Vogt as having been published in French as part of this series: Le Monde des Å, La faune de l'espace, Les joueurs du Å, L'empire de l'atome, Le sorcier de Linn, Les armureries d'Isher, Les fabricants d'armes, and Le livre de Ptath.WorksNovels and novellasSpecial works published as books Planets For Sale by E. Mayne Hull (1954). A fix-up of five stories by Hull, originally published 1942 to 1946. Certain later editions (from 1965) credit both authors.  The Enchanted Village (1979). A 25-page chapbook of a short story originally published in 1950. Slan Hunter by Kevin J. Anderson (2007). A sequel to Slan, based  an unfinished draft by van Vogt. Null-A Continuum by John C. Wright (2008). An authorized continuation of the Null-A series which ignored the events of Null-A Three.Collections Out of the Unknown (1948), with Edna Mayne Hull Masters of Time (1950) (a.k.a. Recruiting Station) [also includes The Changeling, both works were later published separately] Triad (1951) omnibus of The World of Null A, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Slan. Away and Beyond (1952) (abridged in paperback in 1959; abridged (differently) in paperback in 1963) Destination: Universe! (1952) The Twisted Men (1964) Monsters (1965) (later as SF Monsters (1967)) abridged as The Blal (1976) A Van Vogt Omnibus (1967), omnibus of Planets for Sale (with Edna Mayne Hull), The Beast, The Book of Ptath The Far Out Worlds of Van Vogt (1968) The Sea Thing and Other Stories (1970) (expanded from Out of the Unknown by adding an original story by Hull; later abridged in paperback as Out of the Unknown by removing 2 of the stories) M33 in Andromeda (1971) More Than Superhuman (1971) The Proxy Intelligence and Other Mind Benders, ), with Edna Mayne Hull (1971), revised as The Gryb (1976) Van Vogt Omnibus 2 (1971), omnibus of The Mind Cage, The Winged Man (with Edna Mayne Hull), Slan. The Book of Van Vogt (1972), also published as Lost: Fifty Suns (1979) The Three Eyes of Evil Including Earth's Last Fortress (1973) The Best of A. E. van Vogt (1974) later split into 2 volumes The Worlds of A. E. van Vogt (1974) (expanded from The Far Out Worlds of Van Vogt by adding 3 stories) The Best of A. E. van Vogt (1976) [differs to 1974 edition] Away and Beyond (1977) Pendulum (1978) (almost all original stories and articles) Futures Past: The Best Short Fiction of A.E. Van Vogt (1999) Transfinite: The Essential A.E. van Vogt (2002) Transgalactic (2006)Nonfiction The Hypnotism Handbook (1956, Griffin Publishing Company, with Charles Edward Cooke) The Money Personality (1972, Parker Publishing Company Inc., West Nyack, NY, ) Reflections of A. E. Van Vogt: The Autobiography of a Science Fiction Giant (1979, Fictioneer Books Ltd., Lakemont, GA) A Report on the Violent Male (1992, Paupers' Press, UK, )See also  NotesReferencesBibliography  External links   Sevagram, the A.E. van Vogt information site Obituary at LocusOnline'' (Locus Publications) "Writers: A. E. van Vogt (1912–2000, Canada)" – bibliography at SciFan A. E. van Vogt Papers (MS 322) at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas   A. E. van Vogt's fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online  1912 births2000 deaths20th-century American novelistsAmerican male novelistsAmerican science fiction writersCanadian male novelistsCanadian science fiction writersCanadian male short story writersCanadian emigrants to the United StatesNeurological disease deaths in CaliforniaDeaths from Alzheimer's diseaseSFWA Grand MastersScience Fiction Hall of Fame inducteesWriters from ManitobaMennonite writersCanadian MennonitesAmerican male short story writers20th-century Canadian short story writers20th-century American short story writers20th-century Canadian male writersWeird fiction writersPulp fiction writersWriters from Winnipeg20th-century American male writers
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (; born 7 June 1981) is a Russian former professional tennis player and American television personality. Her appearance  and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google Search.Despite never winning a singles title, she reached No. 8 in the world in 2000. She achieved greater success playing doubles, where she was at times the world No. 1 player. With Martina Hingis as her partner, she won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002, and the WTA Championships in 1999 and 2000. They referred to themselves as the "Spice Girls of Tennis".Kournikova retired from professional tennis in 2003 due to serious back and spinal problems, including a herniated disk. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and played in occasional exhibitions and in doubles for the St. Louis Aces of World Team Tennis before the team folded in 2011. She was a new trainer for season 12 of the television show The Biggest Loser, replacing Jillian Michaels, but did not return for season 13. In addition to her tennis and television work, Kournikova serves as a Global Ambassador for Population Services International's "Five & Alive" program, which addresses health crises facing children under the age of five and their families.Early life Kournikova was born in Moscow, Russia on 7 June 1981. Her father, Sergei Kournikov (born 1961), a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion, eventually earned a PhD and was a professor at the University of Physical Culture and Sport in Moscow. As of 2001, he was still a part-time martial arts instructor there. Her mother Alla (born 1963) had been a 400-metre runner. Her younger half-brother, Allan, is a youth golf world champion who was featured in the 2013 documentary film The Short Game.Sergei Kournikov has said, "We were young and we liked the clean, physical life, so Anna was in a good environment for sport from the beginning".Kournikova received her first tennis racquet as a New Year gift in 1986 at the age of five. Describing her early regimen, she said, "I played two times a week from age six. It was a children's program. And it was just for fun; my parents didn't know I was going to play professionally, they just wanted me to do something because I had lots of energy. It was only when I started playing well at seven that I went to a professional academy. I would go to school, and then my parents would take me to the club, and I'd spend the rest of the day there just having fun with the kids." In 1986, Kournikova became a member of the Spartak Tennis Club, coached by Larissa Preobrazhenskaya. In 1989, at the age of eight, Kournikova began appearing in junior tournaments, and by the following year, was attracting attention from tennis scouts across the world. She signed a management deal at age ten and went to Bradenton, Florida, to train at Nick Bollettieri's celebrated tennis academy.Tennis career1989–1997: Early years and breakthrough Following her arrival in the United States, she became prominent on the tennis scene. At the age of 14, she won the European Championships and the Italian Open Junior tournament. In December 1995, she became the youngest player to win the 18-and-under division of the Junior Orange Bowl tennis tournament. By the end of the year, Kournikova was crowned the ITF Junior World Champion U-18 and Junior European Champion U-18.Earlier, in September 1995, Kournikova, still only 14 years of age, debuted in the WTA Tour, when she received a wildcard into the qualifications at the WTA tournament in Moscow, the Moscow Ladies Open, and qualified before losing in the second round of the main draw to third-seeded Sabine Appelmans. She also reached her first WTA Tour doubles final in that debut appearance — partnering with 1995 Wimbledon girls' champion in both singles and doubles Aleksandra Olsza, she lost the title match to Meredith McGrath and Larisa Savchenko-Neiland.In February–March 1996, Kournikova won two ITF titles, in Midland, Michigan and Rockford, Illinois. Still only 14 years of age, in April 1996 she debuted at the Fed Cup for Russia, the youngest player ever to participate and win a match.In 1996, she started playing under a new coach, Ed Nagel. Her six-year association with Nagel was successful. At 15, she made her Grand Slam debut, reaching the fourth round of the 1996 US Open, losing to Steffi Graf, the eventual champion. After this tournament, Kournikova's ranking jumped from No. 144 to debut in the Top 100 at No. 69. Kournikova was a member of the Russian delegation to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1996, she was named WTA Newcomer of the Year, and she was ranked No. 57 in the end of the season.Kournikova entered the 1997 Australian Open as world No. 67, where she lost in the first round to world No. 12, Amanda Coetzer. At the Italian Open, Kournikova lost to Amanda Coetzer in the second round. She reached the semi-finals in the doubles partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, before losing to the sixth seeds Mary Joe Fernández and Patricia Tarabini.At the French Open, Kournikova made it to the third round before losing to world No. 1, Martina Hingis. She also reached the third round in doubles with Likhovtseva. At the Wimbledon Championships, Kournikova became only the second woman in the open era to reach the semi-finals in her Wimbledon debut, the first being Chris Evert in 1972. There she lost to eventual champion Martina Hingis.At the US Open, she lost in the second round to the eleventh seed Irina Spîrlea. Partnering with Likhovtseva, she reached the third round of the women's doubles event. Kournikova played her last WTA Tour event of 1997 at Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Filderstadt, losing to Amanda Coetzer in the second round of singles, and in the first round of doubles to Lindsay Davenport and Jana Novotná partnering with Likhovtseva. She broke into the top 50 on 19 May, and was ranked No. 32 in singles and No. 41 in doubles at the end of the season.1998–2000: Success and stardom In 1998, Kournikova broke into the WTA's top 20 rankings for the first time, when she was ranked No. 16. At the Australian Open, Kournikova lost in the third round to world No. 1 player, Martina Hingis. She also partnered with Larisa Savchenko-Neiland in women's doubles, and they lost to eventual champions Hingis and Mirjana Lučić in the second round. Although she lost in the second round of the Paris Open to Anke Huber in singles, Kournikova reached her second doubles WTA Tour final, partnering with Larisa Savchenko-Neiland. They lost to Sabine Appelmans and Miriam Oremans. Kournikova and Savchenko-Neiland reached their second consecutive final at the Linz Open, losing to Alexandra Fusai and Nathalie Tauziat. At the Miami Open, Kournikova reached her first WTA Tour singles final, before losing to Venus Williams in the final.Kournikova then reached two consecutive quarterfinals, at Amelia Island and the Italian Open, losing respectively to Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis. At the German Open, she reached the semi-finals in both singles and doubles, partnering with Larisa Savchenko-Neiland. At the French Open Kournikova had her best result at this tournament, making it to the fourth round before losing to Jana Novotná. She also reached her first Grand Slam doubles semi-finals, losing with Savchenko-Neiland to Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva. During her quarterfinals match at the grass-court Eastbourne Open versus Steffi Graf, Kournikova injured her thumb, which would eventually force her to withdraw from the 1998 Wimbledon Championships. However, she won that match, but then withdrew from her semi-finals match against Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Kournikova returned for the Du Maurier Open and made it to the third round, before losing to Conchita Martínez. At the US Open Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Her strong year qualified her for the year-end 1998 WTA Tour Championships, but she lost to Monica Seles in the first round. However, with Seles, she won her first WTA doubles title, in Tokyo, beating Mary Joe Fernández and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the final. At the end of the season, she was ranked No. 10 in doubles.At the start of the 1999 season, Kournikova advanced to the fourth round in singles before losing to Mary Pierce. However, Kournikova won her first doubles Grand Slam title, partnering with Martina Hingis. The two defeated Lindsay Davenport and Natasha Zvereva in the final. At the Tier I Family Circle Cup, Kournikova reached her second WTA Tour final, but lost to Martina Hingis. She then defeated Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Patty Schnyder on her route to the Bausch & Lomb Championships semi-finals, losing to Ruxandra Dragomir. At The French Open, Kournikova reached the fourth round before losing to eventual champion Steffi Graf. Once the grass-court season commenced in England, Kournikova lost to Nathalie Tauziat in the semi-finals in Eastbourne. At Wimbledon, Kournikova lost to Venus Williams in the fourth round. She also reached the final in mixed doubles, partnering with Jonas Björkman, but they lost to Leander Paes and Lisa Raymond. Kournikova again qualified for year-end WTA Tour Championships, but lost to Mary Pierce in the first round, and ended the season as World No. 12.While Kournikova had a successful singles season, she was even more successful in doubles. After their victory at the Australian Open, she and Martina Hingis won tournaments in Indian Wells, Rome, Eastbourne and the WTA Tour Championships, and reached the final of The French Open where they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering with Elena Likhovtseva, Kournikova also reached the final in Stanford. On 22 November 1999 she reached the world No. 1 ranking in doubles, and ended the season at this ranking. Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis were presented with the WTA Award for Doubles Team of the Year.Kournikova opened her 2000 season winning the Gold Coast Open doubles tournament partnering with Julie Halard. She then reached the singles semi-finals at the Medibank International Sydney, losing to Lindsay Davenport. At the Australian Open, she reached the fourth round in singles and the semi-finals in doubles. That season, Kournikova reached eight semi-finals (Sydney, Scottsdale, Stanford, San Diego, Luxembourg, Leipzig and Tour Championships), seven quarterfinals (Gold Coast, Tokyo, Amelia Island, Hamburg, Eastbourne, Zürich and Philadelphia) and one final. On 20 November 2000 she broke into top 10 for the first time, reaching No. 8. She was also ranked No. 4 in doubles at the end of the season. Kournikova was once again, more successful in doubles. She reached the final of the US Open in mixed doubles, partnering with Max Mirnyi, but they lost to Jared Palmer and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. She also won six doubles titles – Gold Coast (with Julie Halard), Hamburg (with Natasha Zvereva), Filderstadt, Zürich, Philadelphia and the Tour Championships (with Martina Hingis).2001–2003: Injuries and final years Her 2001 season was plagued by injuries, including a left foot stress fracture which made her withdraw from 12 tournaments, including the French Open and Wimbledon. She underwent surgery in April. She reached her second career grand slam quarterfinals, at the Australian Open. Kournikova then withdrew from several events due to continuing problems with her left foot and did not return until Leipzig. With Barbara Schett, she won the doubles title in Sydney. She then lost in the finals in Tokyo, partnering with Iroda Tulyaganova, and at San Diego, partnering with Martina Hingis. Hingis and Kournikova also won the Kremlin Cup. At the end of the 2001 season, she was ranked No. 74 in singles and No. 26 in doubles.Kournikova regained some success in 2002. She reached the semi-finals of Auckland, Tokyo, Acapulco and San Diego, and the final of the China Open, losing to Anna Smashnova. This was Kournikova's last singles final. With Martina Hingis, she lost in the final at Sydney, but they won their second Grand Slam title together, the Australian Open. They also lost in the quarterfinals of the US Open. With Chanda Rubin, Kournikova played the semi-finals of Wimbledon, but they lost to Serena and Venus Williams. Partnering with Janet Lee, she won the Shanghai title. At the end of 2002 season, she was ranked No. 35 in singles and No. 11 in doubles.In 2003, Anna Kournikova achieved her first Grand Slam match victory in two years at the Australian Open. She defeated Henrieta Nagyová in the first round, and then lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne in the 2nd round. She withdrew from Tokyo due to a sprained back suffered at the Australian Open and did not return to Tour until Miami. On 9 April, in what would be the final WTA match of her career, Kournikova dropped out in the first round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, due to a left adductor strain. Her singles world ranking was 67. She reached the semi-finals at the ITF tournament in Sea Island, before withdrawing from a match versus Maria Sharapova due to the adductor injury. She lost in the first round of the ITF tournament in Charlottesville. She did not compete for the rest of the season due to a continuing back injury. At the end of the 2003 season and her professional career, she was ranked No. 305 in singles and No. 176 in doubles.Kournikova's two Grand Slam doubles titles came in 1999 and 2002, both at the Australian Open in the Women's Doubles event with partner Martina Hingis. Kournikova proved a successful doubles player on the professional circuit, winning 16 tournament doubles titles, including two Australian Opens and being a finalist in mixed doubles at the US Open and at Wimbledon, and reaching the No. 1 ranking in doubles in the WTA Tour rankings. Her pro career doubles record was 200–71. However, her singles career plateaued after 1999. For the most part, she managed to retain her ranking between 10 and 15 (her career high singles ranking was No.8), but her expected finals breakthrough failed to occur; she only reached four finals out of 130 singles tournaments, never in a Grand Slam event, and never won one.Her singles record is 209–129. Her final playing years were marred by a string of injuries, especially back injuries, which caused her ranking to erode gradually. As a personality Kournikova was among the most common search strings for both articles and images in her prime.2004–present: Exhibitions and World Team Tennis Kournikova has not played on the WTA Tour since 2003, but still plays exhibition matches for charitable causes. In late 2004, she participated in three events organized by Elton John and by fellow tennis players Serena Williams and Andy Roddick. In January 2005, she played in a doubles charity event for the Indian Ocean tsunami with John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, and Chris Evert. In November 2005, she teamed up with Martina Hingis, playing against Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur in the WTT finals for charity. Kournikova is also a member of the St. Louis Aces in the World Team Tennis (WTT), playing doubles only.In September 2008, Kournikova showed up for the 2008 Nautica Malibu Triathlon held at Zuma Beach in Malibu, California. The Race raised funds for children's Hospital Los Angeles. She won that race for women's K-Swiss team. On 27 September 2008, Kournikova played exhibition mixed doubles matches in Charlotte, North Carolina, partnering with Tim Wilkison and Karel Nováček. Kournikova and Wilkison defeated Jimmy Arias and Chanda Rubin, and then Kournikova and Novacek defeated Rubin and Wilkison.On 12 October 2008, Anna Kournikova played one exhibition match for the annual charity event, hosted by Billie Jean King and Elton John, and raised more than $400,000 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund. She played doubles with Andy Roddick (they were coached by David Chang) versus Martina Navratilova and Jesse Levine (coached by Billie Jean King); Kournikova and Roddick won.Kournikova competed alongside John McEnroe, Tracy Austin and Jim Courier at the "Legendary Night", which was held on 2 May 2009, at the Turning Stone Event Center in Verona, New York. The exhibition included a mixed doubles match of McEnroe and Austin against Courier and Kournikova.In 2008, she was named a spokesperson for K-Swiss. In 2005, Kournikova stated that if she were 100% fit, she would like to come back and compete again.In June 2010, Kournikova reunited with her doubles partner Martina Hingis to participate in competitive tennis for the first time in seven years in the Invitational Ladies Doubles event at Wimbledon. On 29 June 2010 they defeated the British pair Samantha Smith and Anne Hobbs.Playing style Kournikova plays right-handed with a two-handed backhand. She is a great player at the net. She can hit forceful groundstrokes and also drop shots.Her playing style fits the profile for a doubles player, and is complemented by her height. She has been compared to such doubles specialists as Pam Shriver and Peter Fleming.Personal life Kournikova was in a relationship with fellow Russian, Pavel Bure, an NHL ice hockey player. The two met in 1999, when Kournikova was still linked to Bure's former Russian teammate Sergei Fedorov. Bure and Kournikova were reported to have been engaged in 2000 after a reporter took a photo of them together in a Florida restaurant where Bure supposedly asked Kournikova to marry him. As the story made headlines in Russia, where they were both heavily followed in the media as celebrities, Bure and Kournikova both denied any engagement. Kournikova, 10 years younger than Bure, was 18 years old at the time.Fedorov claimed that he and Kournikova were married in 2001, and divorced in 2003. Kournikova's representatives deny any marriage to Fedorov; however, Fedorov's agent Pat Brisson claims that although he does not know when they got married, he knew "Fedorov was married".Kournikova started dating singer Enrique Iglesias in late 2001 after she had appeared in his music video for "Escape". She has consistently refused to directly confirm or deny the status of her personal relationships. In June 2008, Iglesias was quoted by the Daily Star as having married Kournikova the previous year. They reportedly split in October 2013 but reconciled. The couple have a son and daughter, Nicholas and Lucy, who are fraternal twins born on 16 December 2017. On 30 January 2020, their third child, a daughter, Mary, was born.It was reported in 2010 that Kournikova had become an American citizen.Media publicity In 2000, Kournikova became the new face for Berlei's shock absorber sports bras, and appeared in the "only the ball should bounce" billboard campaign. Following that, she was cast by the Farrelly brothers for a minor role in the 2000 film Me, Myself & Irene starring Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger. Photographs of her have appeared on covers of various publications, including men's magazines, such as one in the much-publicized 2004 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, where she posed in bikinis and swimsuits, as well as in FHM and Maxim.Kournikova was named one of Peoples 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998 and was voted "hottest female athlete" on ESPN.com. In 2002, she also placed first in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World in US and UK editions. By contrast, ESPN – citing the degree of hype as compared to actual accomplishments as a singles player – ranked Kournikova 18th in its "25 Biggest Sports Flops of the Past 25 Years". Kournikova was also ranked No. 1 in the ESPN Classic series "Who's number 1?" when the series featured sport's most overrated athletes.She continued to be the most searched athlete on the Internet through 2008 even though she had retired from the professional tennis circuit years earlier. After slipping from first to sixth among athletes in 2009, she moved back up to third place among athletes in terms of search popularity in 2010.In October 2010, Kournikova headed to NBC's The Biggest Loser where she led the contestants in a tennis-workout challenge. In May 2011, it was announced that Kournikova would join The Biggest Loser as a regular celebrity trainer in season 12. She did not return for season 13.Legacy and influence on popular culture  A variation of a White Russian made with skim milk is known as an Anna Kournikova. A video game featuring Kournikova's licensed appearance, titled Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis, was developed by Namco and released for the PlayStation in Japan and Europe in November 1998. A computer virus named after her spread worldwide beginning on 12 February 2001 infecting computers through email in a matter of hours. The Texas hold 'em opening hand of Ace-King is sometimes referred to as an Anna Kournikova, both for the initials on the cards and because the hand looks better than it performs.Career statistics and awardsDoubles performance timelineGrand Slam tournament finalsDoubles: 3 (2–1)Mixed doubles: 2 (0–2)Awards  1996: WTA Newcomer of the Year 1999: WTA Doubles Team of the Year (with Martina Hingis)Books  Anna Kournikova by Susan Holden (2001) ( / ) Anna Kournikova by Connie Berman (2001) (Women Who Win) ( / )ReferencesExternal links             1981 birthsLiving peopleAustralian Open (tennis) championsGrand Slam (tennis) champions in women's doublesOlympic tennis players of RussiaParticipants in American reality television seriesRussian emigrants to the United StatesRussian female tennis playersRussian female modelsRussian socialitesSportspeople from Miami-Dade County, FloridaTennis players from MoscowTennis players at the 1996 Summer OlympicsPeople with acquired American citizenshipIglesias family
Alfons Maria Jakob (2 July 1884 – 17 October 1931) was a German neurologist who worked in the field of neuropathology.He was born in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria and educated in medicine at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Strasbourg, where he received his doctorate in 1908. During the following year, he began clinical work under the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin and did laboratory work with Franz Nissl and Alois Alzheimer in Munich.In 1911, by way of an invitation from Wilhelm Weygandt, he relocated to Hamburg, where he worked with Theodor Kaes and eventually became head of the laboratory of anatomical pathology at the psychiatric State Hospital Hamburg-Friedrichsberg. Following the death of Kaes in 1913, Jakob succeeded him as prosector. During World War I he served as an army physician in Belgium, and afterwards returned to Hamburg. In 1919, he obtained his habilitation for neurology and in 1924 became a professor of neurology. Under Jakob's guidance the department grew rapidly. He made significant contributions to knowledge on concussion and secondary nerve degeneration and became a doyen of neuropathology.Jakob was the author of five monographs and nearly 80 scientific papers. His neuropathological research contributed greatly to the delineation of several diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Friedreich's ataxia. He first recognised and described Alper's disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (named along with Munich neuropathologist Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt). He gained experience in neurosyphilis, having a 200-bed ward devoted entirely to that disorder. Jakob made a lecture tour of the United States (1924) and South America (1928), of which, he wrote a paper on the neuropathology of yellow fever.He suffered from chronic osteomyelitis for the last seven years of his life. This eventually caused a retroperitoneal abscess and paralytic ileus from which he died following operation.Associated eponym Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease: A very rare and incurable degenerative neurological disease. It is the most common form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies caused by prions. Eponym introduced by Walther Spielmeyer in 1922.Bibliography Die extrapyramidalen Erkrankungen. In: Monographien aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Neurologie und Psychiatry, Berlin, 1923 Normale und pathologische Anatomie und Histologie des Grosshirns. Separate printing of Handbuch der Psychiatry. Leipzig, 1927–1928 Das Kleinhirn. In: Handbuch der mikroskopischen Anatomie, Berlin, 1928 Die Syphilis des Gehirns und seiner Häute. In: Oswald Bumke (edit.): Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten, Berlin, 1930.References People from AschaffenburgUniversity of Hamburg facultyGerman neurologistsGerman neuroscientists1884 births1931 deaths
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist." The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe."Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife; and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods".Defining agnosticism Being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnosticism as a form of demarcation. A hypothesis with no supporting, objective, testable evidence is not an objective, scientific claim. As such, there would be no way to test said hypotheses, leaving the results inconclusive. His agnosticism was not compatible with forming a belief as to the truth, or falsehood, of the claim at hand. Karl Popper would also describe himself as an agnostic. According to philosopher William L. Rowe, in this strict sense, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.George H. Smith, while admitting that the narrow definition of atheist was the common usage definition of that word, and admitting that the broad definition of agnostic was the common usage definition of that word, promoted broadening the definition of atheist and narrowing the definition of agnostic. Smith rejects agnosticism as a third alternative to theism and atheism and promotes terms such as agnostic atheism (the view of those who do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable) and agnostic theism (the view of those who believe in the existence of a deity(s), but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable).EtymologyAgnostic () was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 to describe his philosophy, which rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge.Early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gnosis (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge". Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense.Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry.The term Agnostic is also cognate with the Sanskrit word Ajñasi which translates literally to "not knowable", and relates to the ancient Indian philosophical school of Ajñana, which proposes that it is impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it is useless and disadvantageous for final salvation.In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable".In technical and marketing literature, "agnostic" can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, "platform agnostic" (referring to cross-platform software)or "hardware-agnostic".Qualifying agnosticismScottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. He asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (e.g. tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three corners").TypesStrong agnosticism (also called "hard", "closed", "strict", or "permanent agnosticism") The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."Weak agnosticism (also called "soft", "open", "empirical", or "temporal agnosticism") The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable; therefore, one will withhold judgment until evidence, if any, becomes available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out."Apathetic agnosticism The view that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs and should be of little interest. An apathetic agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deity exists or not, and I don't care if any deity exists or not."HistoryHindu philosophyThroughout the history of Hinduism there has been a strong tradition of philosophic speculation and skepticism.The Rig Veda takes an agnostic view on the fundamental question of how the universe and the gods were created. Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) in the tenth chapter of the Rig Veda says:Hume, Kant, and KierkegaardAristotle,Anselm,Aquinas,Descartes,and Gödelpresented arguments attempting to rationally prove the existence of God. The skeptical empiricism of David Hume, the antinomies of Immanuel Kant, and the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard convinced many later philosophers to abandon these attempts, regarding it impossible to construct any unassailable proof for the existence or non-existence of God.In his 1844 book, Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard writes:Hume was Huxley's favourite philosopher, calling him "the Prince of Agnostics". Diderot wrote to his mistress, telling of a visit by Hume to the Baron D'Holbach, and describing how a word for the position that Huxley would later describe as agnosticism didn't seem to exist, or at least wasn't common knowledge, at the time.United KingdomCharles DarwinRaised in a religious environment, Charles Darwin (1809–1882) studied to be an Anglican clergyman. While eventually doubting parts of his faith, Darwin continued to help in church affairs, even while avoiding church attendance. Darwin stated that it would be "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist". Although reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."Thomas Henry HuxleyAgnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley (1825–1895) to sum up his thoughts on contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (William Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer). Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively:And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863:Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave the following account:In 1889, Huxley wrote:Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we have no real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of composition of the Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that nothing better than more or less probable guesses can be arrived at on that subject.William Stewart RossWilliam Stewart Ross (1844–1906) wrote under the name of Saladin.  He was associated with Victorian Freethinkers and the organization the British Secular Union. He edited the Secular Review from 1882; it was renamed Agnostic Journal and Eclectic Review and closed in 1907. Ross championed agnosticism in opposition to the atheism of Charles Bradlaugh as an open-ended spiritual exploration.In Why I am an Agnostic (c. 1889) he claims that agnosticism is "the very reverse of atheism".Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell (1872–1970) declared Why I Am Not a Christian in 1927, a classic statement of agnosticism.He calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look fair and square at the world with a fearless attitude and a free intelligence".In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on The existence and nature of God, in which he characterized himself as an atheist. He said:However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states:In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, Am I An Atheist or an Agnostic? (subtitled A Plea For Tolerance in the Face of New Dogmas), he ruminates on the problem of what to call himself:In his 1953 essay, What Is An Agnostic? Russell states:Later in the essay, Russell adds:Leslie WeatherheadIn 1965, Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) published The Christian Agnostic, in which he argues:Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's agnosticism falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of weak agnosticism:United StatesRobert G. IngersollRobert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899), an Illinois lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-known and sought-after orator in 19th-century America, has been referred to as the "Great Agnostic".In an 1896 lecture titled Why I Am An Agnostic, Ingersoll related why he was an agnostic:In the conclusion of the speech he simply sums up the agnostic position as:In 1885, Ingersoll explained his comparative view of agnosticism and atheism as follows:Bernard Iddings Bell Canon Bernard Iddings Bell (1886–1958), a popular cultural commentator, Episcopal priest, and author, lauded the necessity of agnosticism in Beyond Agnosticism: A Book for Tired Mechanists, calling it the foundation of "all intelligent Christianity." Agnosticism was a temporary mindset in which one rigorously questioned the truths of the age, including the way in which one believed God. His view of Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine was that they were not denouncing true Christianity but rather "a gross perversion of it." Part of the misunderstanding stemmed from ignorance of the concepts of God and religion. Historically, a god was any real, perceivable force that ruled the lives of humans and inspired admiration, love, fear, and homage; religion was the practice of it. Ancient peoples worshiped gods with real counterparts, such as Mammon (money and material things), Nabu (rationality), or Ba'al (violent weather); Bell argued that modern peoples were still paying homage—with their lives and their children's lives—to these old gods of wealth, physical appetites, and self-deification. Thus, if one attempted to be agnostic passively, he or she would incidentally join the worship of the world's gods.In Unfashionable Convictions (1931), he criticized the Enlightenment's complete faith in human sensory perception, augmented by scientific instruments, as a means of accurately grasping Reality. Firstly, it was fairly new, an innovation of the Western World, which Aristotle invented and Thomas Aquinas revived among the scientific community. Secondly, the divorce of "pure" science from human experience, as manifested in American Industrialization, had completely altered the environment, often disfiguring it, so as to suggest its insufficiency to human needs. Thirdly, because scientists were constantly producing more data—to the point where no single human could grasp it all at once—it followed that human intelligence was incapable of attaining a complete understanding of universe; therefore, to admit the mysteries of the unobserved universe was to be actually scientific.Bell believed that there were two other ways that humans could perceive and interact with the world. Artistic experience was how one expressed meaning through speaking, writing, painting, gesturing—any sort of communication which shared insight into a human's inner reality. Mystical experience was how one could "read" people and harmonize with them, being what we commonly call love. In summary, man was a scientist, artist, and lover. Without exercising all three, a person became "lopsided."Bell considered a humanist to be a person who cannot rightly ignore the other ways of knowing. However, humanism, like agnosticism, was also temporal, and would eventually lead to either scientific materialism or theism. He lays out the following thesis: Truth cannot be discovered by reasoning on the evidence of scientific data alone. Modern peoples' dissatisfaction with life is the result of depending on such incomplete data. Our ability to reason is not a way to discover Truth but rather a way to organize our knowledge and experiences somewhat sensibly. Without a full, human perception of the world, one's reason tends to lead them in the wrong direction. Beyond what can be measured with scientific tools, there are other types of perception, such as one's ability know another human through loving. One's loves cannot be dissected and logged in a scientific journal, but we know them far better than we know the surface of the sun. They show us an undefinable reality that is nevertheless intimate and personal, and they reveal qualities lovelier and truer than detached facts can provide. To be religious, in the Christian sense, is to live for the Whole of Reality (God) rather than for a small part (gods). Only by treating this Whole of Reality as a person—good and true and perfect—rather than an impersonal force, can we come closer to the Truth. An ultimate Person can be loved, but a cosmic force cannot. A scientist can only discover peripheral truths, but a lover is able to get at the Truth. There are many reasons to believe in God but they are not sufficient for an agnostic to become a theist. It is not enough to believe in an ancient holy book, even though when it is accurately analyzed without bias, it proves to be more trustworthy and admirable than what we are taught in school. Neither is it enough to realize how probable it is that a personal God would have to show human beings how to live, considering they have so much trouble on their own. Nor is it enough to believe for the reason that, throughout history, millions of people have arrived at this Wholeness of Reality only through religious experience. The aforementioned reasons may warm one toward religion, but they fall short of convincing. However, if one presupposes that God is in fact a knowable, loving person, as an experiment, and then lives according that religion, he or she will suddenly come face to face with experiences previously unknown. One's life becomes full, meaningful, and fearless in the face of death. It does not defy reason but exceeds it. Because God has been experienced through love, the orders of prayer, fellowship, and devotion now matter. They create order within one's life, continually renewing the "missing piece" that had previously felt lost. They empower one to be compassionate and humble, not small-minded or arrogant. No truth should be denied outright, but all should be questioned. Science reveals an ever-growing vision of our universe that should not be discounted due to bias toward older understandings. Reason is to be trusted and cultivated. To believe in God is not to forego reason or to deny scientific facts, but to step into the unknown and discover the fullness of life.DemographicsDemographic research services normally do not differentiate between various types of non-religious respondents, so agnostics are often classified in the same category as atheists or other non-religious people.A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious people or the agnostics made up about 9.6% of the world's population.A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The rates of agnosticism in the United States were at 14%, while the rates of agnosticism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (20%), Spain (30%), Great Britain (35%), Germany (25%), and France (32%).A study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that about 16% of the world's people, the third largest group after Christianity and Islam, have no religious affiliation.According to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, agnostics made up 3.3% of the US adult population.In the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, 55% of agnostic respondents expressed "a belief in God or a universal spirit",whereas 41% stated that they thought that they felt a tension "being non-religious in a society where most people are religious".According to the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 22% of Australians have "no religion", a category that includes agnostics.Between 64% and 65%of Japanese and up to 81%of Vietnamese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god. An official European Union survey reported that 3% of the EU population is unsure about their belief in a god or spirit.CriticismAgnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some atheists criticize the use of the term agnosticism as functionally indistinguishable from atheism; this results in frequent criticisms of those who adopt the term as avoiding the atheist label.TheisticTheistic critics claim that agnosticism is impossible in practice, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist (etsi deus non-daretur), or as if God did exist (etsi deus daretur).ChristianAccording to Pope Benedict XVI, strong agnosticism in particular contradicts itself in affirming the power of reason to know scientific truth. He blames the exclusion of reasoning from religion and ethics for dangerous pathologies such as crimes against humanity and ecological disasters."Agnosticism", said Benedict, "is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man ... The knowledge of God has always existed". He asserted that agnosticism is a choice of comfort, pride, dominion, and utility over truth, and is opposed by the following attitudes: the keenest self-criticism, humble listening to the whole of existence, the persistent patience and self-correction of the scientific method, a readiness to be purified by the truth.The Catholic Church sees merit in examining what it calls "partial agnosticism", specifically those systems that "do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of truth, notably religious, from the domain of knowledge". However, the Church is historically opposed to a full denial of the capacity of human reason to know God. The Council of the Vatican declares, "God, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of human reason, be known with certainty from the works of creation".Blaise Pascal argued that even if there were truly no evidence for God, agnostics should consider what is now known as Pascal's Wager: the infinite expected value of acknowledging God is always greater than the finite expected value of not acknowledging his existence, and thus it is a safer "bet" to choose God.AtheisticAccording to Richard Dawkins, a distinction between agnosticism and atheism is unwieldy and depends on how close to zero a person is willing to rate the probability of existence for any given god-like entity. About himself, Dawkins continues, "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." Dawkins also identifies two categories of agnostics; "Temporary Agnostics in Practice" (TAPs), and "Permanent Agnostics in Principle" (PAPs). He states that "agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn't. It is a scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something pretty strong about the probability" and considers PAP a "deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting".IgnosticismA related concept is ignosticism, the view that a coherent definition of a deity must be put forward before the question of the existence of a deity can be meaningfully discussed. If the chosen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of a deity is meaningless or empirically untestable. A. J. Ayer, Theodore Drange, and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as incompatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism accept the statement "a deity exists" as a meaningful proposition that can be argued for or against.See alsoReferencesFurther reading  Alexander, Nathan G. "An Atheist with a Tall Hat On: The Forgotten History of Agnosticism." The Humanist, February 19, 2019.   Annan, Noel. Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian (U of Chicago Press, 1984) Cockshut, A.O.J. The Unbelievers, English Thought, 1840–1890 (1966). Dawkins, Richard. "The poverty of agnosticism", in The God Delusion, Black Swan, 2007 ().     Lightman, Bernard. The Origins of Agnosticism (1987). Royle, Edward. Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester UP, 1980).External links     Albert Einstein on Religion Shapell Manuscript Foundation Why I Am An Agnostic by Robert G. Ingersoll, [1896]. Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Agnosticism Agnosticism from INTERS – Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science Agnosticism – from ReligiousTolerance.org What do Agnostics Believe? – A Jewish perspective Fides et Ratio  – the relationship between faith and reason Karol Wojtyla [1998] The Natural Religion by Dr Brendan Connolly, 2008  Epistemological theoriesPhilosophy of religionSkepticismIrreligionDoubt
Argon is a chemical element with the symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third-most abundant gas in the Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as abundant as water vapor (which averages about 4000 ppmv, but varies greatly), 23 times as abundant as carbon dioxide (400 ppmv), and more than 500 times as abundant as neon (18 ppmv). Argon is the most abundant noble gas in Earth's crust, comprising 0.00015% of the crust.Nearly all of the argon in the Earth's atmosphere is radiogenic argon-40, derived from the decay of potassium-40 in the Earth's crust. In the universe, argon-36 is by far the most common argon isotope, as it is the most easily produced by stellar nucleosynthesis in supernovas.The name "argon" is derived from the Greek word , neuter singular form of  meaning 'lazy' or 'inactive', as a reference to the fact that the element undergoes almost no chemical reactions. The complete octet (eight electrons) in the outer atomic shell makes argon stable and resistant to bonding with other elements. Its triple point temperature of 83.8058 K is a defining fixed point in the International Temperature Scale of 1990.Argon is extracted industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air. Argon is mostly used as an inert shielding gas in welding and other high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily unreactive substances become reactive; for example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning. Argon is also used in incandescent, fluorescent lighting, and other gas-discharge tubes. Argon makes a distinctive blue-green gas laser. Argon is also used in fluorescent glow starters.CharacteristicsArgon has approximately the same solubility in water as oxygen and is 2.5 times more soluble in water than nitrogen. Argon is colorless, odorless, nonflammable and nontoxic as a solid, liquid or gas. Argon is chemically inert under most conditions and forms no confirmed stable compounds at room temperature.Although argon is a noble gas, it can form some compounds under various extreme conditions. Argon fluorohydride (HArF), a compound of argon with fluorine and hydrogen that is stable below , has been demonstrated. Although the neutral ground-state chemical compounds of argon are presently limited to HArF, argon can form clathrates with water when atoms of argon are trapped in a lattice of water molecules. Ions, such as , and excited-state complexes, such as ArF, have been demonstrated. Theoretical calculation predicts several more argon compounds that should be stable but have not yet been synthesized.HistoryArgon (Greek , neuter singular form of  meaning "lazy" or "inactive") is named in reference to its chemical inactivity. This chemical property of this first noble gas to be discovered impressed the namers. An unreactive gas was suspected to be a component of air by Henry Cavendish in 1785.Argon was first isolated from air in 1894 by Lord Rayleigh and Sir William Ramsay at University College London by removing oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen from a sample of clean air. They first accomplished this by replicating an experiment of Henry Cavendish's. They trapped a mixture of atmospheric air with additional oxygen in a test-tube (A) upside-down over a large quantity of dilute alkali solution (B), which in Cavendish's original experiment was potassium hydroxide, and conveyed a current through wires insulated by U-shaped glass tubes (CC) which sealed around the platinum wire electrodes, leaving the ends of the wires (DD) exposed to the gas and insulated from the alkali solution. The arc was powered by a battery of five Grove cells and a Ruhmkorff coil of medium size. The alkali absorbed the oxides of nitrogen produced by the arc and also carbon dioxide. They operated the arc until no more reduction of volume of the gas could be seen for at least an hour or two and the spectral lines of nitrogen disappeared when the gas was examined. The remaining oxygen was reacted with alkaline pyrogallate to leave behind an apparently non-reactive gas which they called argon.Before isolating the gas, they had determined that nitrogen produced from chemical compounds was 0.5% lighter than nitrogen from the atmosphere. The difference was slight, but it was important enough to attract their attention for many months. They concluded that there was another gas in the air mixed in with the nitrogen. Argon was also encountered in 1882 through independent research of H. F. Newall and W. N. Hartley. Each observed new lines in the emission spectrum of air that did not match known elements.Until 1957, the symbol for argon was "A", but now it is "Ar".OccurrenceArgon constitutes 0.934% by volume and 1.288% by mass of the Earth's atmosphere. Air is the primary industrial source of purified argon products. Argon is isolated from air by fractionation, most commonly by cryogenic fractional distillation, a process that also produces purified nitrogen, oxygen, neon, krypton and xenon. The Earth's crust and seawater contain 1.2 ppm and 0.45 ppm of argon, respectively.IsotopesThe main isotopes of argon found on Earth are  (99.6%),  (0.34%), and  (0.06%). Naturally occurring , with a half-life of 1.25 years, decays to stable  (11.2%) by electron capture or positron emission, and also to stable  (88.8%) by beta decay. These properties and ratios are used to determine the age of rocks by K–Ar dating.In the Earth's atmosphere,  is made by cosmic ray activity, primarily by neutron capture of  followed by two-neutron emission. In the subsurface environment, it is also produced through neutron capture by , followed by proton emission.  is created from the neutron capture by  followed by an alpha particle emission as a result of subsurface nuclear explosions. It has a half-life of 35 days.Between locations in the Solar System, the isotopic composition of argon varies greatly. Where the major source of argon is the decay of  in rocks,  will be the dominant isotope, as it is on Earth. Argon produced directly by stellar nucleosynthesis is dominated by the alpha-process nuclide . Correspondingly, solar argon contains 84.6%  (according to solar wind measurements), and the ratio of the three isotopes 36Ar : 38Ar : 40Ar in the atmospheres of the outer planets is 8400 : 1600 : 1. This contrasts with the low abundance of primordial  in Earth's atmosphere, which is only 31.5 ppmv (= 9340 ppmv × 0.337%), comparable with that of neon (18.18 ppmv) on Earth and with interplanetary gasses, measured by probes.The atmospheres of Mars, Mercury and Titan (the largest moon of Saturn) contain argon, predominantly as , and its content may be as high as 1.93% (Mars).The predominance of radiogenic  is the reason the standard atomic weight of terrestrial argon is greater than that of the next element, potassium, a fact that was puzzling when argon was discovered. Mendeleev positioned the elements on his periodic table in order of atomic weight, but the inertness of argon suggested a placement before the reactive alkali metal. Henry Moseley later solved this problem by showing that the periodic table is actually arranged in order of atomic number (see History of the periodic table).CompoundsArgon's complete octet of electrons indicates full s and p subshells. This full valence shell makes argon very stable and extremely resistant to bonding with other elements. Before 1962, argon and the other noble gases were considered to be chemically inert and unable to form compounds; however, compounds of the heavier noble gases have since been synthesized. The first argon compound with tungsten pentacarbonyl, W(CO)5Ar, was isolated in 1975. However it was not widely recognised at that time. In August 2000, another argon compound, argon fluorohydride (HArF), was formed by researchers at the University of Helsinki, by shining ultraviolet light onto frozen argon containing a small amount of hydrogen fluoride with caesium iodide. This discovery caused the recognition that argon could form weakly bound compounds, even though it was not the first. It is stable up to 17 kelvins (−256 °C). The metastable  dication, which is valence-isoelectronic with carbonyl fluoride and phosgene, was observed in 2010. Argon-36, in the form of argon hydride (argonium) ions, has been detected in interstellar medium associated with the Crab Nebula supernova; this was the first noble-gas molecule detected in outer space.Solid argon hydride (Ar(H2)2) has the same crystal structure as the MgZn2 Laves phase. It forms at pressures between 4.3 and 220 GPa, though Raman measurements suggest that the H2 molecules in Ar(H2)2 dissociate above 175 GPa.ProductionIndustrialArgon is extracted industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air in a cryogenic air separation unit; a process that separates liquid nitrogen, which boils at 77.3 K, from argon, which boils at 87.3 K, and liquid oxygen, which boils at 90.2 K. About 700,000 tonnes of argon are produced worldwide every year.In radioactive decays40Ar, the most abundant isotope of argon, is produced by the decay of 40K with a half-life of 1.25 years by electron capture or positron emission. Because of this, it is used in potassium–argon dating to determine the age of rocks.ApplicationsArgon has several desirable properties: Argon is a chemically inert gas. Argon is the cheapest alternative when nitrogen is not sufficiently inert. Argon has low thermal conductivity. Argon has electronic properties (ionization and/or the emission spectrum) desirable for some applications.Other noble gases would be equally suitable for most of these applications, but argon is by far the cheapest. Argon is inexpensive, since it occurs naturally in air and is readily obtained as a byproduct of cryogenic air separation in the production of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen: the primary constituents of air are used on a large industrial scale. The other noble gases (except helium) are produced this way as well, but argon is the most plentiful by far. The bulk of argon applications arise simply because it is inert and relatively cheap.Industrial processesArgon is used in some high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily non-reactive substances become reactive. For example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning.For some of these processes, the presence of nitrogen or oxygen gases might cause defects within the material. Argon is used in some types of arc welding such as gas metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding, as well as in the processing of titanium and other reactive elements. An argon atmosphere is also used for growing crystals of silicon and germanium.Argon is used in the poultry industry to asphyxiate birds, either for mass culling following disease outbreaks, or as a means of slaughter more humane than electric stunning. Argon is denser than air and displaces oxygen close to the ground during inert gas asphyxiation. Its non-reactive nature makes it suitable in a food product, and since it replaces oxygen within the dead bird, argon also enhances shelf life.Argon is sometimes used for extinguishing fires where valuable equipment may be damaged by water or foam.Scientific researchLiquid argon is used as the target for neutrino experiments and direct dark matter searches. The interaction between the hypothetical WIMPs and an argon nucleus produces scintillation light that is detected by photomultiplier tubes. Two-phase detectors containing argon gas are used to detect the ionized electrons produced during the WIMP–nucleus scattering. As with most other liquefied noble gases, argon has a high scintillation light yield (about 51 photons/keV), is transparent to its own scintillation light, and is relatively easy to purify. Compared to xenon, argon is cheaper and has a distinct scintillation time profile, which allows the separation of electronic recoils from nuclear recoils. On the other hand, its intrinsic beta-ray background is larger due to  contamination, unless one uses argon from underground sources, which has much less  contamination. Most of the argon in the Earth's atmosphere was produced by electron capture of long-lived  ( + e− →  + ν) present in natural potassium within the Earth. The  activity in the atmosphere is maintained by cosmogenic production through the knockout reaction (n,2n) and similar reactions. The half-life of  is only 269 years. As a result, the underground Ar, shielded by rock and water, has much less  contamination. Dark-matter detectors currently operating with liquid argon include DarkSide, WArP, ArDM, microCLEAN and DEAP. Neutrino experiments include ICARUS and MicroBooNE, both of which use high-purity liquid argon in a time projection chamber for fine grained three-dimensional imaging of neutrino interactions.At Linköping University, Sweden, the inert gas is being utilized in a vacuum chamber in which plasma is introduced to ionize metallic films. This process results in a film usable for manufacturing computer processors. The new process would eliminate the need for chemical baths and use of expensive, dangerous and rare materials.PreservativeArgon is used to displace oxygen- and moisture-containing air in packaging material to extend the shelf-lives of the contents (argon has the European food additive code E938). Aerial oxidation, hydrolysis, and other chemical reactions that degrade the products are retarded or prevented entirely. High-purity chemicals and pharmaceuticals are sometimes packed and sealed in argon.In winemaking, argon is used in a variety of activities to provide a barrier against oxygen at the liquid surface, which can spoil wine by fueling both microbial metabolism (as with acetic acid bacteria) and standard redox chemistry.Argon is sometimes used as the propellant in aerosol cans.Argon is also used as a preservative for such products as varnish, polyurethane, and paint, by displacing air to prepare a container for storage.Since 2002, the American National Archives stores important national documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution within argon-filled cases to inhibit their degradation. Argon is preferable to the helium that had been used in the preceding five decades, because helium gas escapes through the intermolecular pores in most containers and must be regularly replaced.Laboratory equipmentArgon may be used as the inert gas within Schlenk lines and gloveboxes. Argon is preferred to less expensive nitrogen in cases where nitrogen may react with the reagents or apparatus.Argon may be used as the carrier gas in gas chromatography and in electrospray ionization mass spectrometry; it is the gas of choice for the plasma used in ICP spectroscopy. Argon is preferred for the sputter coating of specimens for scanning electron microscopy. Argon gas is also commonly used for sputter deposition of thin films as in microelectronics and for wafer cleaning in microfabrication.Medical useCryosurgery procedures such as cryoablation use liquid argon to destroy tissue such as cancer cells. It is used in a procedure called "argon-enhanced coagulation", a form of argon plasma beam electrosurgery. The procedure carries a risk of producing gas embolism and has resulted in the death of at least one patient.Blue argon lasers are used in surgery to weld arteries, destroy tumors, and correct eye defects.Argon has also been used experimentally to replace nitrogen in the breathing or decompression mix known as Argox, to speed the elimination of dissolved nitrogen from the blood.LightingIncandescent lights are filled with argon, to preserve the filaments at high temperature from oxidation. It is used for the specific way it ionizes and emits light, such as in plasma globes and calorimetry in experimental particle physics. Gas-discharge lamps filled with pure argon provide lilac/violet light; with argon and some mercury, blue light. Argon is also used for blue and green argon-ion lasers.Miscellaneous usesArgon is used for thermal insulation in energy-efficient windows. Argon is also used in technical scuba diving to inflate a dry suit because it is inert and has low thermal conductivity.Argon is used as a propellant in the development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR). Compressed argon gas is allowed to expand, to cool the seeker heads of some versions of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and other missiles that use cooled thermal seeker heads. The gas is stored at high pressure.Argon-39, with a half-life of 269 years, has been used for a number of applications, primarily ice core and ground water dating. Also, potassium–argon dating and related argon-argon dating is used to date sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.Argon has been used by athletes as a doping agent to simulate hypoxic conditions. In 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added argon and xenon to the list of prohibited substances and methods, although at this time there is no reliable test for abuse.SafetyAlthough argon is non-toxic, it is 38% more dense than air and therefore considered a dangerous asphyxiant in closed areas. It is difficult to detect because it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. A 1994 incident, in which a man was asphyxiated after entering an argon-filled section of oil pipe under construction in Alaska, highlights the dangers of argon tank leakage in confined spaces and emphasizes the need for proper use, storage and handling.See also Industrial gas Oxygen–argon ratio, a ratio of two physically similar gases, which has importance in various sectors.ReferencesFurther reading   On triple point pressure at 69 kPa.  On triple point pressure at 83.8058 K.External links Argon at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) USGS Periodic Table – Argon Diving applications: Why Argon? Chemical elementsE-number additivesNoble gasesIndustrial gases
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but only the gray form, which has a metallic appearance, is important to industry.The primary use of arsenic is in alloys of lead (for example, in car batteries and ammunition). Arsenic is a common n-type dopant in semiconductor electronic devices. It is also a component of the III-V compound semiconductor gallium arsenide. Arsenic and its compounds, especially the trioxide, are used in the production of pesticides, treated wood products, herbicides, and insecticides. These applications are declining with the increasing recognition of the toxicity of arsenic and its compounds.A few species of bacteria are able to use arsenic compounds as respiratory metabolites. Trace quantities of arsenic are an essential dietary element in rats, hamsters, goats, chickens, and presumably other species. A role in human metabolism is not known. However, arsenic poisoning occurs in multicellular life if quantities are larger than needed. Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a problem that affects millions of people across the world.The United States' Environmental Protection Agency states that all forms of arsenic are a serious risk to human health. The United States' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry ranked arsenic as number 1 in its 2001 Priority List of Hazardous Substances at Superfund sites. Arsenic is classified as a Group-A carcinogen.CharacteristicsPhysical characteristics The three most common arsenic allotropes are gray, yellow, and black arsenic, with gray being the most common. Gray arsenic (α-As, space group Rm No. 166) adopts a double-layered structure consisting of many interlocked, ruffled, six-membered rings. Because of weak bonding between the layers, gray arsenic is brittle and has a relatively low Mohs hardness of 3.5. Nearest and next-nearest neighbors form a distorted octahedral complex, with the three atoms in the same double-layer being slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a high density of 5.73 g/cm3. Gray arsenic is a semimetal, but becomes a semiconductor with a bandgap of 1.2–1.4 eV if amorphized. Gray arsenic is also the most stable form. Yellow arsenic is soft and waxy, and somewhat similar to tetraphosphorus (). Both have four atoms arranged in a tetrahedral structure in which each atom is bound to each of the other three atoms by a single bond. This unstable allotrope, being molecular, is the most volatile, least dense, and most toxic. Solid yellow arsenic is produced by rapid cooling of arsenic vapor, . It is rapidly transformed into gray arsenic by light. The yellow form has a density of 1.97 g/cm3. Black arsenic is similar in structure to black phosphorus.Black arsenic can also be formed by cooling vapor at around 100–220 °C and by crystallization of amorphous arsenic in the presence of mercury vapors. It is glassy and brittle. It is also a poor electrical conductor. As arsenic's triple point is at 3.628 MPa (35.81 atm), it does not have a melting point at standard pressure but instead sublimes from solid to vapor at 887 K (615 °C or 1137 °F).Isotopes Arsenic occurs in nature as a monoisotopic element, composed of one stable isotope, 75As. As of 2003, at least 33 radioisotopes have also been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 60 to 92. The most stable of these is 73As with a half-life of 80.30 days. All other isotopes have half-lives of under one day, with the exception of 71As (t1/2=65.30 hours), 72As (t1/2=26.0 hours), 74As (t1/2=17.77 days), 76As (t1/2=1.0942 days), and 77As (t1/2=38.83 hours). Isotopes that are lighter than the stable 75As tend to decay by β+ decay, and those that are heavier tend to decay by β− decay, with some exceptions.At least 10 nuclear isomers have been described, ranging in atomic mass from 66 to 84. The most stable of arsenic's isomers is 68mAs with a half-life of 111 seconds.Chemistry Arsenic has a similar electronegativity and ionization energies to its lighter congener phosphorus and accordingly readily forms covalent molecules with most of the nonmetals. Though stable in dry air, arsenic forms a golden-bronze tarnish upon exposure to humidity which eventually becomes a black surface layer. When heated in air, arsenic oxidizes to arsenic trioxide; the fumes from this reaction have an odor resembling garlic. This odor can be detected on striking arsenide minerals such as arsenopyrite with a hammer. It burns in oxygen to form arsenic trioxide and arsenic pentoxide, which have the same structure as the more well-known phosphorus compounds, and in fluorine to give arsenic pentafluoride. Arsenic (and some arsenic compounds) sublimes upon heating at atmospheric pressure, converting directly to a gaseous form without an intervening liquid state at . The triple point is 3.63 MPa and . Arsenic makes arsenic acid with concentrated nitric acid, arsenous acid with dilute nitric acid, and arsenic trioxide with concentrated sulfuric acid; however, it does not react with water, alkalis, or non-oxidising acids. Arsenic reacts with metals to form arsenides, though these are not ionic compounds containing the As3− ion as the formation of such an anion would be highly endothermic and even the group 1 arsenides have properties of intermetallic compounds. Like germanium, selenium, and bromine, which like arsenic succeed the 3d transition series, arsenic is much less stable in the group oxidation state of +5 than its vertical neighbors phosphorus and antimony, and hence arsenic pentoxide and arsenic acid are potent oxidizers.Compounds Compounds of arsenic resemble in some respects those of phosphorus which occupies the same group (column) of the periodic table. The most common oxidation states for arsenic are: −3 in the arsenides, which are alloy-like intermetallic compounds, +3 in the arsenites, and +5 in the arsenates and most organoarsenic compounds. Arsenic also bonds readily to itself as seen in the square As ions in the mineral skutterudite. In the +3 oxidation state, arsenic is typically pyramidal owing to the influence of the lone pair of electrons.Inorganic compounds One of the simplest arsenic compound is the trihydride, the highly toxic, flammable, pyrophoric arsine (AsH3). This compound is generally regarded as stable, since at room temperature it decomposes only slowly. At temperatures of 250–300 °C decomposition to arsenic and hydrogen is rapid. Several factors, such as humidity, presence of light and certain catalysts (namely aluminium) facilitate the rate of decomposition. It oxidises readily in air to form arsenic trioxide and water, and analogous reactions take place with sulfur and selenium instead of oxygen.Arsenic forms colorless, odorless, crystalline oxides As2O3 ("white arsenic") and As2O5 which are hygroscopic and readily soluble in water to form acidic solutions. Arsenic(V) acid is a weak acid and the salts are called arsenates, the most common arsenic contamination of groundwater, and a problem that affects many people. Synthetic arsenates include Scheele's Green (cupric hydrogen arsenate, acidic copper arsenate), calcium arsenate, and lead hydrogen arsenate. These three have been used as agricultural insecticides and poisons.The protonation steps between the arsenate and arsenic acid are similar to those between phosphate and phosphoric acid. Unlike phosphorous acid, arsenous acid is genuinely tribasic, with the formula As(OH)3.A broad variety of sulfur compounds of arsenic are known. Orpiment (As2S3) and realgar (As4S4) are somewhat abundant and were formerly used as painting pigments. In As4S10, arsenic has a formal oxidation state of +2 in As4S4 which features As-As bonds so that the total covalency of As is still 3. Both orpiment and realgar, as well as As4S3, have selenium analogs; the analogous As2Te3 is known as the mineral kalgoorlieite, and the anion As2Te− is known as a ligand in cobalt complexes.All trihalides of arsenic(III) are well known except the astatide, which is unknown. Arsenic pentafluoride (AsF5) is the only important pentahalide, reflecting the lower stability of the +5 oxidation state; even so, it is a very strong fluorinating and oxidizing agent. (The pentachloride is stable only below −50 °C, at which temperature it decomposes to the trichloride, releasing chlorine gas.)Alloys Arsenic is used as the group 5 element in the III-V semiconductors gallium arsenide, indium arsenide, and aluminium arsenide. The valence electron count of GaAs is the same as a pair of Si atoms, but the band structure is completely different which results in distinct bulk properties. Other arsenic alloys include the II-V semiconductor cadmium arsenide.Organoarsenic compounds A large variety of organoarsenic compounds are known. Several were developed as chemical warfare agents during World War I, including vesicants such as lewisite and vomiting agents such as adamsite. Cacodylic acid, which is of historic and practical interest, arises from the methylation of arsenic trioxide, a reaction that has no analogy in phosphorus chemistry.  Cacodyl was the first organometallic compound known (even though arsenic is not a true metal) and was named from the Greek κακωδία "stink" for its offensive odor; it is very poisonous.Occurrence and production Arsenic comprises about 1.5 ppm (0.00015%) of the Earth's crust, and is the 53rd most abundant element. Typical background concentrations of arsenic do not exceed 3 ng/m3 in the atmosphere; 100 mg/kg in soil; 400 μg/kg in vegetation; 10 μg/L in freshwater and 1.5 μg/L in seawater.Minerals with the formula MAsS and MAs2 (M = Fe, Ni, Co) are the dominant commercial sources of arsenic, together with realgar (an arsenic sulfide mineral) and native (elemental) arsenic. An illustrative mineral is arsenopyrite (FeAsS), which is structurally related to iron pyrite. Many minor As-containing minerals are known. Arsenic also occurs in various organic forms in the environment.In 2014, China was the top producer of white arsenic with almost 70% world share, followed by Morocco, Russia, and Belgium, according to the British Geological Survey and the United States Geological Survey. Most arsenic refinement operations in the US and Europe have closed over environmental concerns. Arsenic is found in the smelter dust from copper, gold, and lead smelters, and is recovered primarily from copper refinement dust.On roasting arsenopyrite in air, arsenic sublimes as arsenic(III) oxide leaving iron oxides, while roasting without air results in the production of gray arsenic. Further purification from sulfur and other chalcogens is achieved by sublimation in vacuum, in a hydrogen atmosphere, or by distillation from molten lead-arsenic mixture.History The word arsenic has its origin in the Syriac word  (al) zarniqa, from Arabic al-zarnīḵ   'the orpiment’, based on Persian zar 'gold' from the word  zarnikh, meaning "yellow" (literally "gold-colored") and hence "(yellow) orpiment". It was adopted into Greek as arsenikon (), a form that is folk etymology, being the neuter form of the Greek word arsenikos (), meaning "male", "virile".The Greek word was adopted in Latin as arsenicum, which in French became arsenic, from which the English word arsenic is taken. Arsenic sulfides (orpiment, realgar) and oxides have been known and used since ancient times. Zosimos (circa 300 AD) describes roasting sandarach (realgar) to obtain cloud of arsenic (arsenic trioxide), which he then reduces to gray arsenic. As the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are not very specific, it was frequently used for murder until the advent of the Marsh test, a sensitive chemical test for its presence. (Another less sensitive but more general test is the Reinsch test.) Owing to its use by the ruling class to murder one another and its potency and discreetness, arsenic has been called the "poison of kings" and the "king of poisons".During the Bronze Age, arsenic was often included in bronze, which made the alloy harder (so-called "arsenical bronze").The isolation of arsenic was described by Jabir ibn Hayyan before 815 AD. Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great, 1193–1280) later isolated the element from a compound in 1250, by heating soap together with arsenic trisulfide. In 1649, Johann Schröder published two ways of preparing arsenic. Crystals of elemental (native) arsenic are found in nature, although rare.Cadet's fuming liquid (impure cacodyl), often claimed as the first synthetic organometallic compound, was synthesized in 1760 by Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt by the reaction of potassium acetate with arsenic trioxide.In the Victorian era, "arsenic" ("white arsenic" or arsenic trioxide) was mixed with vinegar and chalk and eaten by women to improve the complexion of their faces, making their skin paler to show they did not work in the fields. The accidental use of arsenic in the adulteration of foodstuffs led to the Bradford sweet poisoning in 1858, which resulted in 21 deaths. Wallpaper production also began to use dyes made from arsenic, which was thought to increase the pigment's brightness.Two arsenic pigments have been widely used since their discovery – Paris Green and Scheele's Green. After the toxicity of arsenic became widely known, these chemicals were used less often as pigments and more often as insecticides. In the 1860s, an arsenic byproduct of dye production, London Purple, was widely used. This was a solid mixture of arsenic trioxide, aniline, lime, and ferrous oxide, insoluble in water and very toxic by inhalation or ingestion But it was later replaced with Paris Green, another arsenic-based dye. With better understanding of the toxicology mechanism, two other compounds were used starting in the 1890s. Arsenite of lime and arsenate of lead were used widely as insecticides until the discovery of DDT in 1942.ApplicationsAgricultural The toxicity of arsenic to insects, bacteria, and fungi led to its use as a wood preservative. In the 1930s, a process of treating wood with chromated copper arsenate (also known as CCA or Tanalith) was invented, and for decades, this treatment was the most extensive industrial use of arsenic. An increased appreciation of the toxicity of arsenic led to a ban of CCA in consumer products in 2004, initiated by the European Union and United States. However, CCA remains in heavy use in other countries (such as on Malaysian rubber plantations).Arsenic was also used in various agricultural insecticides and poisons. For example, lead hydrogen arsenate was a common insecticide on fruit trees, but contact with the compound sometimes resulted in brain damage among those working the sprayers. In the second half of the 20th century, monosodium methyl arsenate (MSMA) and disodium methyl arsenate (DSMA) – less toxic organic forms of arsenic – replaced lead arsenate in agriculture. These organic arsenicals were in turn phased out by 2013 in all agricultural activities except cotton farming.The biogeochemistry of arsenic is complex and includes various adsorption and desorption processes. The toxicity of arsenic is connected to its solubility and is affected by pH. Arsenite () is more soluble than arsenate () and is more toxic; however, at a lower pH, arsenate becomes more mobile and toxic. It was found that addition of sulfur, phosphorus, and iron oxides to high-arsenite soils greatly reduces arsenic phytotoxicity.Arsenic is used as a feed additive in poultry and swine production, in particular in the U.S. to increase weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and prevent disease. An example is roxarsone, which had been used as a broiler starter by about 70% of U.S. broiler growers. Alpharma, a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., which produces roxarsone, voluntarily suspended sales of the drug in response to studies showing elevated levels of inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, in treated chickens. A successor to Alpharma, Zoetis, continues to sell nitarsone, primarily for use in turkeys.Arsenic is intentionally added to the feed of chickens raised for human consumption. Organic arsenic compounds are less toxic than pure arsenic, and promote the growth of chickens. Under some conditions, the arsenic in chicken feed is converted to the toxic inorganic form.A 2006 study of the remains of the Australian racehorse, Phar Lap, determined that the 1932 death of the famous champion was caused by a massive overdose of arsenic. Sydney veterinarian Percy Sykes stated, "In those days, arsenic was quite a common tonic, usually given in the form of a solution (Fowler's Solution) ... It was so common that I'd reckon 90 per cent of the horses had arsenic in their system."Medical use During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a number of arsenic compounds were used as medicines, including arsphenamine (by Paul Ehrlich) and arsenic trioxide (by Thomas Fowler). Arsphenamine, as well as neosalvarsan, was indicated for syphilis, but has been superseded by modern antibiotics. However, arsenicals such as melarsoprol are still used for the treatment of trypanosomiasis, since although these drugs have the disadvantage of severe toxicity, the disease is almost uniformly fatal if untreated.Arsenic trioxide has been used in a variety of ways over the past 500 years, most commonly in the treatment of cancer, but also in medications as diverse as Fowler's solution in psoriasis. The US Food and Drug Administration in the year 2000 approved this compound for the treatment of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia that is resistant to all-trans retinoic acid.A 2008 paper reports success in locating tumors using arsenic-74 (a positron emitter). This isotope produces clearer PET scan images than the previous radioactive agent, iodine-124, because the body tends to transport iodine to the thyroid gland producing signal noise. Nanoparticles of arsenic have shown ability to kill cancer cells with lesser cytotoxicity than other arsenic formulations.In subtoxic doses, soluble arsenic compounds act as stimulants, and were once popular in small doses as medicine by people in the mid-18th to 19th centuries; its use as a stimulant was especially prevalent as sport animals such as race horses or with work dogs.Alloys The main use of arsenic is in alloying with lead. Lead components in car batteries are strengthened by the presence of a very small percentage of arsenic. Dezincification of brass (a copper-zinc alloy) is greatly reduced by the addition of arsenic. "Phosphorus Deoxidized Arsenical Copper" with an arsenic content of 0.3% has an increased corrosion stability in certain environments. Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material, used in integrated circuits. Circuits made from GaAs are much faster (but also much more expensive) than those made from silicon. Unlike silicon, GaAs has a direct bandgap, and can be used in laser diodes and LEDs to convert electrical energy directly into light.Military After World War I, the United States built a stockpile of 20,000 tons of weaponized lewisite (ClCH=CHAsCl2), an organoarsenic vesicant (blister agent) and lung irritant. The stockpile was neutralized with bleach and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s. During the Vietnam War, the United States used Agent Blue, a mixture of sodium cacodylate and its acid form, as one of the rainbow herbicides to deprive North Vietnamese soldiers of foliage cover and rice.Other uses  Copper acetoarsenite was used as a green pigment known under many names, including Paris Green and Emerald Green. It caused numerous arsenic poisonings. Scheele's Green, a copper arsenate, was used in the 19th century as a coloring agent in sweets. Arsenic is used in bronzing and pyrotechnics. As much as 2% of produced arsenic is used in lead alloys for lead shot and bullets. Arsenic is added in small quantities to alpha-brass to make it dezincification-resistant. This grade of brass is used in plumbing fittings and other wet environments. Arsenic is also used for taxonomic sample preservation. Arsenic was used as an opacifier in ceramics, creating white glazes.  Until recently, arsenic was used in optical glass. Modern glass manufacturers, under pressure from environmentalists, have ceased using both arsenic and lead.Biological roleBacteria Some species of bacteria obtain their energy in the absence of oxygen by oxidizing various fuels while reducing arsenate to arsenite. Under oxidative environmental conditions some bacteria use arsenite as fuel, which they oxidize to arsenate. The enzymes involved are known as arsenate reductases (Arr).In 2008, bacteria were discovered that employ a version of photosynthesis in the absence of oxygen with arsenites as electron donors, producing arsenates (just as ordinary photosynthesis uses water as electron donor, producing molecular oxygen). Researchers conjecture that, over the course of history, these photosynthesizing organisms produced the arsenates that allowed the arsenate-reducing bacteria to thrive. One strain PHS-1 has been isolated and is related to the gammaproteobacterium Ectothiorhodospira shaposhnikovii. The mechanism is unknown, but an encoded Arr enzyme may function in reverse to its known homologues.In 2011, it was postulated that a strain of Halomonadaceae could be grown in the absence of phosphorus if that element were substituted with arsenic, exploiting the fact that the arsenate and phosphate anions are similar structurally. The study was widely criticised and subsequently refuted by independent researcher groups.Essential trace element in higher animals Some evidence indicates that arsenic is an essential trace mineral in birds (chickens), and in mammals (rats, hamsters, and goats). However, the biological function is not known.Heredity Arsenic has been linked to epigenetic changes, heritable changes in gene expression that occur without changes in DNA sequence. These include DNA methylation, histone modification, and RNA interference. Toxic levels of arsenic cause significant DNA hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes p16 and p53, thus increasing risk of carcinogenesis. These epigenetic events have been studied in vitro using human kidney cells and in vivo using rat liver cells and peripheral blood leukocytes in humans. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is used to detect precise levels of intracellular arsenic and other arsenic bases involved in epigenetic modification of DNA. Studies investigating arsenic as an epigenetic factor can be used to develop precise biomarkers of exposure and susceptibility.The Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata) hyperaccumulates arsenic from the soil into its leaves and has a proposed use in phytoremediation.Biomethylation Inorganic arsenic and its compounds, upon entering the food chain, are progressively metabolized through a process of methylation. For example, the mold Scopulariopsis brevicaulis produces trimethylarsine if inorganic arsenic is present. The organic compound arsenobetaine is found in some marine foods such as fish and algae, and also in mushrooms in larger concentrations. The average person's intake is about 10–50 µg/day. Values about 1000 µg are not unusual following consumption of fish or mushrooms, but there is little danger in eating fish because this arsenic compound is nearly non-toxic.Environmental issuesExposure Naturally occurring sources of human exposure include volcanic ash, weathering of minerals and ores, and mineralized groundwater. Arsenic is also found in food, water, soil, and air. Arsenic is absorbed by all plants, but is more concentrated in leafy vegetables, rice, apple and grape juice, and seafood. An additional route of exposure is inhalation of atmospheric gases and dusts.During the Victorian era, arsenic was widely used in home decor, especially wallpapers.Occurrence in drinking water Extensive arsenic contamination of groundwater has led to widespread arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh and neighboring countries. It is estimated that approximately 57 million people in the Bengal basin are drinking groundwater with arsenic concentrations elevated above the World Health Organization's standard of 10 parts per billion (ppb). However, a study of cancer rates in Taiwan suggested that significant increases in cancer mortality appear only at levels above 150 ppb. The arsenic in the groundwater is of natural origin, and is released from the sediment into the groundwater, caused by the anoxic conditions of the subsurface. This groundwater was used after local and western NGOs and the Bangladeshi government undertook a massive shallow tube well drinking-water program in the late twentieth century. This program was designed to prevent drinking of bacteria-contaminated surface waters, but failed to test for arsenic in the groundwater. Many other countries and districts in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, have geological environments that produce groundwater with a high arsenic content. Arsenicosis was reported in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand in 1987, and the Chao Phraya River probably contains high levels of naturally occurring dissolved arsenic without being a public health problem because much of the public uses bottled water. In Pakistan, more than 60 million people are exposed to arsenic polluted drinking water indicated by a recent report of Science. Podgorski's team investigated more than 1200 samples and more than 66% exceeded the WHO minimum contamination level.Since the 1980s, residents of the Ba Men region of Inner Mongolia, China have been chronically exposed to arsenic through drinking water from contaminated wells. A 2009 research study observed an elevated presence of skin lesions among residents with well water arsenic concentrations between 5 and 10 µg/L, suggesting that arsenic induced toxicity may occur at relatively low concentrations with chronic exposure. Overall, 20 of China's 34 provinces have high arsenic concentrations in the groundwater supply, potentially exposing 19 million people to hazardous drinking water.In the United States, arsenic is most commonly found in the ground waters of the southwest. Parts of New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas are also known to have significant concentrations of arsenic in ground water. Increased levels of skin cancer have been associated with arsenic exposure in Wisconsin, even at levels below the 10 part per billion drinking water standard. According to a recent film funded by the US Superfund, millions of private wells have unknown arsenic levels, and in some areas of the US, more than 20% of the wells may contain levels that exceed established limits.Low-level exposure to arsenic at concentrations of 100 parts per billion (i.e., above the 10 parts per billion drinking water standard) compromises the initial immune response to H1N1 or swine flu infection according to NIEHS-supported scientists. The study, conducted in laboratory mice, suggests that people exposed to arsenic in their drinking water may be at increased risk for more serious illness or death from the virus.Some Canadians are drinking water that contains inorganic arsenic. Private-dug–well waters are most at risk for containing inorganic arsenic. Preliminary well water analysis typically does not test for arsenic. Researchers at the Geological Survey of Canada have modeled relative variation in natural arsenic hazard potential for the province of New Brunswick. This study has important implications for potable water and health concerns relating to inorganic arsenic.Epidemiological evidence from Chile shows a dose-dependent connection between chronic arsenic exposure and various forms of cancer, in particular when other risk factors, such as cigarette smoking, are present. These effects have been demonstrated at contaminations less than 50 ppb. Arsenic is itself a constituent of tobacco smoke.Analyzing multiple epidemiological studies on inorganic arsenic exposure suggests a small but measurable increase in risk for bladder cancer at 10 ppb. According to Peter Ravenscroft of the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge, roughly 80 million people worldwide consume between 10 and 50 ppb arsenic in their drinking water. If they all consumed exactly 10 ppb arsenic in their drinking water, the previously cited multiple epidemiological study analysis would predict an additional 2,000 cases of bladder cancer alone. This represents a clear underestimate of the overall impact, since it does not include lung or skin cancer, and explicitly underestimates the exposure. Those exposed to levels of arsenic above the current WHO standard should weigh the costs and benefits of arsenic remediation.Early (1973) evaluations of the processes for removing dissolved arsenic from drinking water demonstrated the efficacy of co-precipitation with either iron or aluminum oxides. In particular, iron as a coagulant was found to remove arsenic with an efficacy exceeding 90%. Several adsorptive media systems have been approved for use at point-of-service in a study funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). A team of European and Indian scientists and engineers have set up six arsenic treatment plants in West Bengal based on in-situ remediation method (SAR Technology). This technology does not use any chemicals and arsenic is left in an insoluble form (+5 state) in the subterranean zone by recharging aerated water into the aquifer and developing an oxidation zone that supports arsenic oxidizing micro-organisms. This process does not produce any waste stream or sludge and is relatively cheap.Another effective and inexpensive method to avoid arsenic contamination is to sink wells 500 feet or deeper to reach purer waters. A recent 2011 study funded by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Superfund Research Program shows that deep sediments can remove arsenic and take it out of circulation. In this process, called adsorption, arsenic sticks to the surfaces of deep sediment particles and is naturally removed from the ground water.Magnetic separations of arsenic at very low magnetic field gradients with high-surface-area and monodisperse magnetite (Fe3O4) nanocrystals have been demonstrated in point-of-use water purification. Using the high specific surface area of Fe3O4 nanocrystals, the mass of waste associated with arsenic removal from water has been dramatically reduced.Epidemiological studies have suggested a correlation between chronic consumption of drinking water contaminated with arsenic and the incidence of all leading causes of mortality. The literature indicates that arsenic exposure is causative in the pathogenesis of diabetes.Chaff-based filters have recently been shown to reduce the arsenic content of water to 3 µg/L. This may find applications in areas where the potable water is extracted from underground aquifers.San Pedro de Atacama For several centuries, the people of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile have been drinking water that is contaminated with arsenic, and some evidence suggests they have developed some immunity.Hazard maps for contaminated groundwater Around one-third of the world's population drinks water from groundwater resources. Of this, about 10 percent, approximately 300 million people, obtains water from groundwater resources that are contaminated with unhealthy levels of arsenic or fluoride. These trace elements derive mainly from minerals and ions in the ground.Redox transformation of arsenic in natural waters Arsenic is unique among the trace metalloids and oxyanion-forming trace metals (e.g. As, Se, Sb, Mo, V, Cr, U, Re). It is sensitive to mobilization at pH values typical of natural waters (pH 6.5–8.5) under both oxidizing and reducing conditions. Arsenic can occur in the environment in several oxidation states (−3, 0, +3 and +5), but in natural waters it is mostly found in inorganic forms as oxyanions of trivalent arsenite [As(III)] or pentavalent arsenate [As(V)]. Organic forms of arsenic are produced by biological activity, mostly in surface waters, but are rarely quantitatively important. Organic arsenic compounds may, however, occur where waters are significantly impacted by industrial pollution.Arsenic may be solubilized by various processes. When pH is high, arsenic may be released from surface binding sites that lose their positive charge. When water level drops and sulfide minerals are exposed to air, arsenic trapped in sulfide minerals can be released into water. When organic carbon is present in water, bacteria are fed by directly reducing As(V) to As(III) or by reducing the element at the binding site, releasing inorganic arsenic.The aquatic transformations of arsenic are affected by pH, reduction-oxidation potential, organic matter concentration and the concentrations and forms of other elements, especially iron and manganese. The main factors are pH and the redox potential. Generally, the main forms of arsenic under oxic conditions are H3AsO4, H2AsO4−, HAsO42−, and AsO43− at pH 2, 2–7, 7–11 and 11, respectively. Under reducing conditions, H3AsO4 is predominant at pH 2–9.Oxidation and reduction affects the migration of arsenic in subsurface environments. Arsenite is the most stable soluble form of arsenic in reducing environments and arsenate, which is less mobile than arsenite, is dominant in oxidizing environments at neutral pH. Therefore, arsenic may be more mobile under reducing conditions. The reducing environment is also rich in organic matter which may enhance the solubility of arsenic compounds. As a result, the adsorption of arsenic is reduced and dissolved arsenic accumulates in groundwater. That is why the arsenic content is higher in reducing environments than in oxidizing environments.The presence of sulfur is another factor that affects the transformation of arsenic in natural water. Arsenic can precipitate when metal sulfides form. In this way, arsenic is removed from the water and its mobility decreases. When oxygen is present, bacteria oxidize reduced sulfur to generate energy, potentially releasing bound arsenic.Redox reactions involving Fe also appear to be essential factors in the fate of arsenic in aquatic systems. The reduction of iron oxyhydroxides plays a key role in the release of arsenic to water. So arsenic can be enriched in water with elevated Fe concentrations. Under oxidizing conditions, arsenic can be mobilized from pyrite or iron oxides especially at elevated pH. Under reducing conditions, arsenic can be mobilized by reductive desorption or dissolution when associated with iron oxides. The reductive desorption occurs under two circumstances. One is when arsenate is reduced to arsenite which adsorbs to iron oxides less strongly. The other results from a change in the charge on the mineral surface which leads to the desorption of bound arsenic.Some species of bacteria catalyze redox transformations of arsenic. Dissimilatory arsenate-respiring prokaryotes (DARP) speed up the reduction of As(V) to As(III). DARP use As(V) as the electron acceptor of anaerobic respiration and obtain energy to survive. Other organic and inorganic substances can be oxidized in this process. Chemoautotrophic arsenite oxidizers (CAO) and heterotrophic arsenite oxidizers (HAO) convert As(III) into As(V). CAO combine the oxidation of As(III) with the reduction of oxygen or nitrate. They use obtained energy to fix produce organic carbon from CO2. HAO cannot obtain energy from As(III) oxidation. This process may be an arsenic detoxification mechanism for the bacteria.Equilibrium thermodynamic calculations predict that As(V) concentrations should be greater than As(III) concentrations in all but strongly reducing conditions, i.e. where SO42− reduction is occurring. However, abiotic redox reactions of arsenic are slow. Oxidation of As(III) by dissolved O2 is a particularly slow reaction. For example, Johnson and Pilson (1975) gave half-lives for the oxygenation of As(III) in seawater ranging from several months to a year. In other studies, As(V)/As(III) ratios were stable over periods of days or weeks during water sampling when no particular care was taken to prevent oxidation, again suggesting relatively slow oxidation rates. Cherry found from experimental studies that the As(V)/As(III) ratios were stable in anoxic solutions for up to 3 weeks but that gradual changes occurred over longer timescales. Sterile water samples have been observed to be less susceptible to speciation changes than non-sterile samples. Oremland found that the reduction of As(V) to As(III) in Mono Lake was rapidly catalyzed by bacteria with rate constants ranging from 0.02 to 0.3-day−1.Wood preservation in the US As of 2002, US-based industries consumed 19,600 metric tons of arsenic. Ninety percent of this was used for treatment of wood with chromated copper arsenate (CCA). In 2007, 50% of the 5,280 metric tons of consumption was still used for this purpose. In the United States, the voluntary phasing-out of arsenic in production of consumer products and residential and general consumer construction products began on 31 December 2003, and alternative chemicals are now used, such as Alkaline Copper Quaternary, borates, copper azole, cyproconazole, and propiconazole.Although discontinued, this application is also one of the most concerning to the general public. The vast majority of older pressure-treated wood was treated with CCA. CCA lumber is still in widespread use in many countries, and was heavily used during the latter half of the 20th century as a structural and outdoor building material. Although the use of CCA lumber was banned in many areas after studies showed that arsenic could leach out of the wood into the surrounding soil (from playground equipment, for instance), a risk is also presented by the burning of older CCA timber. The direct or indirect ingestion of wood ash from burnt CCA lumber has caused fatalities in animals and serious poisonings in humans; the lethal human dose is approximately 20 grams of ash. Scrap CCA lumber from construction and demolition sites may be inadvertently used in commercial and domestic fires. Protocols for safe disposal of CCA lumber are not consistent throughout the world. Widespread landfill disposal of such timber raises some concern, but other studies have shown no arsenic contamination in the groundwater.Mapping of industrial releases in the US One tool that maps the location (and other information) of arsenic releases in the United States is TOXMAP. TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the Division of Specialized Information Services of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) funded by the US Federal Government. With marked-up maps of the United States, TOXMAP enables users to visually explore data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory and Superfund Basic Research Programs. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET), PubMed, and from other authoritative sources.Bioremediation Physical, chemical, and biological methods have been used to remediate arsenic contaminated water. Bioremediation is said to be cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Bioremediation of ground water contaminated with arsenic aims to convert arsenite, the toxic form of arsenic to humans, to arsenate. Arsenate (+5 oxidation state) is the dominant form of arsenic in surface water, while arsenite (+3 oxidation state) is the dominant form in hypoxic to anoxic environments. Arsenite is more soluble and mobile than arsenate. Many species of bacteria can transform arsenite to arsenate in anoxic conditions by using arsenite as an electron donor. This is a useful method in ground water remediation. Another bioremediation strategy is to use plants that accumulate arsenic in their tissues via phytoremediation but the disposal of contaminated plant material needs to be considered.Bioremediation requires careful evaluation and design in accordance with existing conditions. Some sites may require the addition of an electron acceptor while others require microbe supplementation (bioaugmentation). Regardless of the method used, only constant monitoring can prevent future contamination.Toxicity and precautions Arsenic and many of its compounds are especially potent poisons.Classification Elemental arsenic and arsenic sulfate and trioxide compounds are classified as "toxic" and "dangerous for the environment" in the European Union under directive 67/548/EEC.The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recognizes arsenic and inorganic arsenic compounds as group 1 carcinogens, and the EU lists arsenic trioxide, arsenic pentoxide, and arsenate salts as category 1 carcinogens.Arsenic is known to cause arsenicosis when present in drinking water, "the most common species being arsenate [; As(V)] and arsenite [H3AsO3; As(III)]".Legal limits, food, and drink In the United States since 2006, the maximum concentration in drinking water allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is 10 ppb and the FDA set the same standard in 2005 for bottled water. The Department of Environmental Protection for New Jersey set a drinking water limit of 5 ppb in 2006. The IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) value for arsenic metal and inorganic arsenic compounds is 5 mg/m3 (5 ppb). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set the permissible exposure limit (PEL) to a time-weighted average (TWA) of 0.01 mg/m3 (0.01 ppb), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set the recommended exposure limit (REL) to a 15-minute constant exposure of 0.002 mg/m3 (0.002 ppb). The PEL for organic arsenic compounds is a TWA of 0.5 mg/m3. (0.5 ppb).In 2008, based on its ongoing testing of a wide variety of American foods for toxic chemicals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration set the "level of concern" for inorganic arsenic in apple and pear juices at 23 ppb, based on non-carcinogenic effects, and began blocking importation of products in excess of this level; it also required recalls for non-conforming domestic products. In 2011, the national Dr. Oz television show broadcast a program highlighting tests performed by an independent lab hired by the producers. Though the methodology was disputed (it did not distinguish between organic and inorganic arsenic) the tests showed levels of arsenic up to 36 ppb. In response, FDA tested the worst brand from the Dr. Oz show and found much lower levels. Ongoing testing found 95% of the apple juice samples were below the level of concern. Later testing by Consumer Reports showed inorganic arsenic at levels slightly above 10 ppb, and the organization urged parents to reduce consumption. In July 2013, on consideration of consumption by children, chronic exposure, and carcinogenic effect, the FDA established an "action level" of 10 ppb for apple juice, the same as the drinking water standard.Concern about arsenic in rice in Bangladesh was raised in 2002, but at the time only Australia had a legal limit for food (one milligram per kilogram). Concern was raised about people who were eating U.S. rice exceeding WHO standards for personal arsenic intake in 2005. In 2011, the People's Republic of China set a food standard of 150 ppb for arsenic.In the United States in 2012, testing by separate groups of researchers at the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth College (early in the year, focusing on urinary levels in children) and Consumer Reports (in November) found levels of arsenic in rice that resulted in calls for the FDA to set limits. The FDA released some testing results in September 2012, and as of July 2013, is still collecting data in support of a new potential regulation. It has not recommended any changes in consumer behavior.Consumer Reports recommended:  That the EPA and FDA eliminate arsenic-containing fertilizer, drugs, and pesticides in food production; That the FDA establish a legal limit for food; That industry change production practices to lower arsenic levels, especially in food for children; and That consumers test home water supplies, eat a varied diet, and cook rice with excess water, then draining it off (reducing inorganic arsenic by about one third along with a slight reduction in vitamin content). Evidence-based public health advocates also recommend that, given the lack of regulation or labeling for arsenic in the U.S., children should eat no more than 1.5 servings per week of rice and should not drink rice milk as part of their daily diet before age 5. They also offer recommendations for adults and infants on how to limit arsenic exposure from rice, drinking water, and fruit juice.A 2014 World Health Organization advisory conference was scheduled to consider limits of 200–300 ppb for rice.Reducing arsenic content in riceIn 2020, scientists assessed multiple preparation procedures of rice for their capacity to reduce arsenic content and preserve nutrients, recommending a procedure involving parboiling and water-absorption.Occupational exposure limitsEcotoxicity Arsenic is bioaccumulative in many organisms, marine species in particular, but it does not appear to biomagnify significantly in food webs. In polluted areas, plant growth may be affected by root uptake of arsenate, which is a phosphate analog and therefore readily transported in plant tissues and cells. In polluted areas, uptake of the more toxic arsenite ion (found more particularly in reducing conditions) is likely in poorly-drained soils.Toxicity in animalsBiological mechanism Arsenic's toxicity comes from the affinity of arsenic(III) oxides for thiols. Thiols, in the form of cysteine residues and cofactors such as lipoic acid and coenzyme A, are situated at the active sites of many important enzymes.Arsenic disrupts ATP production through several mechanisms. At the level of the citric acid cycle, arsenic inhibits lipoic acid, which is a cofactor for pyruvate dehydrogenase. By competing with phosphate, arsenate uncouples oxidative phosphorylation, thus inhibiting energy-linked reduction of NAD+, mitochondrial respiration and ATP synthesis. Hydrogen peroxide production is also increased, which, it is speculated, has potential to form reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. These metabolic interferences lead to death from multi-system organ failure. The organ failure is presumed to be from necrotic cell death, not apoptosis, since energy reserves have been too depleted for apoptosis to occur.Exposure risks and remediation Occupational exposure and arsenic poisoning may occur in persons working in industries involving the use of inorganic arsenic and its compounds, such as wood preservation, glass production, nonferrous metal alloys, and electronic semiconductor manufacturing. Inorganic arsenic is also found in coke oven emissions associated with the smelter industry.The conversion between As(III) and As(V) is a large factor in arsenic environmental contamination. According to Croal, Gralnick, Malasarn and Newman, "[the] understanding [of] what stimulates As(III) oxidation and/or limits As(V) reduction is relevant for bioremediation of contaminated sites (Croal). The study of chemolithoautotrophic As(III) oxidizers and the heterotrophic As(V) reducers can help the understanding of the oxidation and/or reduction of arsenic.Treatment Treatment of chronic arsenic poisoning is possible. British anti-lewisite (dimercaprol) is prescribed in doses of 5 mg/kg up to 300 mg every 4 hours for the first day, then every 6 hours for the second day, and finally every 8 hours for 8 additional days. However the USA's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) states that the long-term effects of arsenic exposure cannot be predicted. Blood, urine, hair, and nails may be tested for arsenic; however, these tests cannot foresee possible health outcomes from the exposure. Long-term exposure and consequent excretion through urine has been linked to bladder and kidney cancer in addition to cancer of the liver, prostate, skin, lungs, and nasal cavity.See also  Aqua Tofana Arsenic and Old Lace Arsenic biochemistry Arsenic compounds Arsenic poisoning Arsenic toxicity Arsenic trioxide Fowler's solution GFAJ-1 Grainger challenge Hypothetical types of biochemistry Organoarsenic chemistry Toxic heavy metal White arsenicReferencesBibliographyFurther readingExternal links  Arsenic Cancer Causing Substances, U.S. National Cancer Institute. CTD's Arsenic page and CTD's Arsenicals page from the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database Arsenic intoxication: general aspects and chelating agents, by Geir Bjørklund, Massimiliano Peana et al. Archives of Toxicology (2020) 94:1879–1897. A Small Dose of Toxicology Arsenic in groundwater Book on arsenic in groundwater by IAH's Netherlands Chapter and the Netherlands Hydrological Society Contaminant Focus: Arsenic by the EPA. Environmental Health Criteria for Arsenic and Arsenic Compounds, 2001 by the WHO.  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health – Arsenic Page Arsenic at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) Chemical elementsMetalloidsHepatotoxinsPnictogensBiology and pharmacology of chemical elementsEndocrine disruptorsIARC Group 1 carcinogensTrigonal mineralsMinerals in space group 166TeratogensFetotoxicantsSuspected testicular toxicantsNative element mineralsChemical elements with rhombohedral structure
Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from ) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were powdered for use as medicine and cosmetics, often known by the Arabic name kohl. The earliest known description of the metal in the West was written in 1540 by Vannoccio Biringuccio.China is the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. The industrial methods for refining antimony from stibnite are roasting followed by reduction with carbon, or direct reduction of stibnite with iron.The largest applications for metallic antimony are in alloys with lead and tin, which have improved properties for solders, bullets, and plain bearings. It improves the rigidity of lead-alloy plates in lead–acid batteries. Antimony trioxide is a prominent additive for halogen-containing flame retardants. Antimony is used as a dopant in semiconductor devices.CharacteristicsPropertiesAntimony is a member of group 15 of the periodic table, one of the elements called pnictogens, and has an electronegativity of 2.05. In accordance with periodic trends, it is more electronegative than tin or bismuth, and less electronegative than tellurium or arsenic. Antimony is stable in air at room temperature, but reacts with oxygen if heated to produce antimony trioxide, Sb2O3.Antimony is a silvery, lustrous gray metalloid with a Mohs scale hardness of 3, which is too soft to make hard objects. Coins of antimony were issued in China's Guizhou province in 1931; durability was poor, and minting was soon discontinued. Antimony is resistant to attack by acids.Four allotropes of antimony are known: a stable metallic form, and three metastable forms (explosive, black, and yellow). Elemental antimony is a brittle, silver-white, shiny metalloid. When slowly cooled, molten antimony crystallizes into a trigonal cell, isomorphic with the gray allotrope of arsenic. A rare explosive form of antimony can be formed from the electrolysis of antimony trichloride. When scratched with a sharp implement, an exothermic reaction occurs and white fumes are given off as metallic antimony forms; when rubbed with a pestle in a mortar, a strong detonation occurs. Black antimony is formed upon rapid cooling of antimony vapor. It has the same crystal structure as red phosphorus and black arsenic; it oxidizes in air and may ignite spontaneously. At 100 °C, it gradually transforms into the stable form. The yellow allotrope of antimony is the most unstable; it has been generated only by oxidation of stibine (SbH3) at −90 °C. Above this temperature and in ambient light, this metastable allotrope transforms into the more stable black allotrope.Elemental antimony adopts a layered structure (space group Rm No. 166) whose layers consist of fused, ruffled, six-membered rings. The nearest and next-nearest neighbors form an irregular octahedral complex, with the three atoms in each double layer slightly closer than the three atoms in the next. This relatively close packing leads to a high density of 6.697 g/cm3, but the weak bonding between the layers leads to the low hardness and brittleness of antimony.IsotopesAntimony has two stable isotopes: 121Sb with a natural abundance of 57.36% and 123Sb with a natural abundance of 42.64%. It also has 35 radioisotopes, of which the longest-lived is 125Sb with a half-life of 2.75 years. In addition, 29 metastable states have been characterized. The most stable of these is 120m1Sb with a half-life of 5.76 days. Isotopes that are lighter than the stable 123Sb tend to decay by β+ decay, and those that are heavier tend to decay by β− decay, with some exceptions.OccurrenceThe abundance of antimony in the Earth's crust is estimated to be 0.2 to 0.5 parts per million, comparable to thallium at 0.5 parts per million and silver at 0.07 ppm. Even though this element is not abundant, it is found in more than 100 mineral species. Antimony is sometimes found natively (e.g. on Antimony Peak), but more frequently it is found in the sulfide stibnite (Sb2S3) which is the predominant ore mineral.CompoundsAntimony compounds are often classified according to their oxidation state: Sb(III) and Sb(V). The +5 oxidation state is more stable.Oxides and hydroxidesAntimony trioxide is formed when antimony is burnt in air. In the gas phase, the molecule of the compound is , but it polymerizes upon condensing. Antimony pentoxide () can be formed only by oxidation with concentrated nitric acid. Antimony also forms a mixed-valence oxide, antimony tetroxide (), which features both Sb(III) and Sb(V). Unlike oxides of phosphorus and arsenic, these oxides are amphoteric, do not form well-defined oxoacids, and react with acids to form antimony salts.Antimonous acid  is unknown, but the conjugate base sodium antimonite () forms upon fusing sodium oxide and . Transition metal antimonites are also known. Antimonic acid exists only as the hydrate , forming salts as the antimonate anion . When a solution containing this anion is dehydrated, the precipitate contains mixed oxides.Many antimony ores are sulfides, including stibnite (), pyrargyrite (), zinkenite, jamesonite, and boulangerite. Antimony pentasulfide is non-stoichiometric and features antimony in the +3 oxidation state and S–S bonds. Several thioantimonides are known, such as  and .HalidesAntimony forms two series of halides:  and . The trihalides , , , and  are all molecular compounds having trigonal pyramidal molecular geometry.The trifluoride  is prepared by the reaction of  with HF: + 6 HF → 2  + 3 It is Lewis acidic and readily accepts fluoride ions to form the complex anions  and . Molten  is a weak electrical conductor. The trichloride  is prepared by dissolving  in hydrochloric acid: + 6 HCl → 2  + 3 The pentahalides  and  have trigonal bipyramidal molecular geometry in the gas phase, but in the liquid phase,  is polymeric, whereas  is monomeric.  is a powerful Lewis acid used to make the superacid fluoroantimonic acid ("H2SbF7").Oxyhalides are more common for antimony than for arsenic and phosphorus. Antimony trioxide dissolves in concentrated acid to form oxoantimonyl compounds such as SbOCl and .Antimonides, hydrides, and organoantimony compoundsCompounds in this class generally are described as derivatives of Sb3−. Antimony forms antimonides with metals, such as indium antimonide (InSb) and silver antimonide (). The alkali metal and zinc antimonides, such as Na3Sb and Zn3Sb2, are more reactive. Treating these antimonides with acid produces the highly unstable gas stibine, : + 3  → Stibine can also be produced by treating  salts with hydride reagents such as sodium borohydride. Stibine decomposes spontaneously at room temperature. Because stibine has a positive heat of formation, it is thermodynamically unstable and thus antimony does not react with hydrogen directly.Organoantimony compounds are typically prepared by alkylation of antimony halides with Grignard reagents. A large variety of compounds are known with both Sb(III) and Sb(V) centers, including mixed chloro-organic derivatives, anions, and cations. Examples include Sb(C6H5)3 (triphenylstibine), Sb2(C6H5)4 (with an Sb-Sb bond), and cyclic [Sb(C6H5)]n. Pentacoordinated organoantimony compounds are common, examples being Sb(C6H5)5 and several related halides.HistoryAntimony(III) sulfide, Sb2S3, was recognized in predynastic Egypt as an eye cosmetic (kohl) as early as about 3100 BC, when the cosmetic palette was invented.An artifact, said to be part of a vase, made of antimony dating to about 3000 BC was found at Telloh, Chaldea (part of present-day Iraq), and a copper object plated with antimony dating between 2500 BC and 2200 BC has been found in Egypt. Austen, at a lecture by Herbert Gladstone in 1892, commented that "we only know of antimony at the present day as a highly brittle and crystalline metal, which could hardly be fashioned into a useful vase, and therefore this remarkable 'find' (artifact mentioned above) must represent the lost art of rendering antimony malleable."The British archaeologist Roger Moorey was unconvinced the artifact was indeed a vase, mentioning that Selimkhanov, after his analysis of the Tello object (published in 1975), "attempted to relate the metal to Transcaucasian natural antimony" (i.e. native metal) and that "the antimony objects from Transcaucasia are all small personal ornaments." This weakens the evidence for a lost art "of rendering antimony malleable."The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder described several ways of preparing antimony sulfide for medical purposes in his treatise Natural History, around 77 AD. Pliny the Elder also made a distinction between "male" and "female" forms of antimony; the male form is probably the sulfide, while the female form, which is superior, heavier, and less friable, has been suspected to be native metallic antimony.The Greek naturalist Pedanius Dioscorides mentioned that antimony sulfide could be roasted by heating by a current of air. It is thought that this produced metallic antimony.The intentional isolation of antimony is described by Jabir ibn Hayyan before 815 AD. A description of a procedure for isolating antimony is later given in the 1540 book De la pirotechnia by Vannoccio Biringuccio, predating the more famous 1556 book by Agricola, De re metallica. In this context Agricola has been often incorrectly credited with the discovery of metallic antimony. The book Currus Triumphalis Antimonii (The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony), describing the preparation of metallic antimony, was published in Germany in 1604. It was purported to be written by a Benedictine monk, writing under the name Basilius Valentinus in the 15th century; if it were authentic, which it is not, it would predate Biringuccio.The metal antimony was known to German chemist Andreas Libavius in 1615 who obtained it by adding iron to a molten mixture of antimony sulfide, salt and potassium tartrate. This procedure produced antimony with a crystalline or starred surface.With the advent of challenges to phlogiston theory, it was recognized that antimony is an element forming sulfides, oxides, and other compounds, as do other metals.The first discovery of naturally occurring pure antimony in the Earth's crust was described by the Swedish scientist and local mine district engineer Anton von Swab in 1783; the type-sample was collected from the Sala Silver Mine in the Bergslagen mining district of Sala, Västmanland, Sweden.EtymologyThe medieval Latin form, from which the modern languages and late Byzantine Greek take their names for antimony, is antimonium. The origin of this is uncertain; all suggestions have some difficulty either of form or interpretation. The popular etymology, from ἀντίμοναχός anti-monachos or French antimoine, still has adherents; this would mean "monk-killer", and is explained by many early alchemists being monks, and antimony being poisonous. However, the low toxicity of antimony (see below) makes this unlikely.Another popular etymology is the hypothetical Greek word ἀντίμόνος antimonos, "against aloneness", explained as "not found as metal", or "not found unalloyed". Lippmann conjectured a hypothetical Greek word ανθήμόνιον anthemonion, which would mean "floret", and cites several examples of related Greek words (but not that one) which describe chemical or biological efflorescence.The early uses of antimonium include the translations, in 1050–1100, by Constantine the African of Arabic medical treatises. Several authorities believe antimonium is a scribal corruption of some Arabic form; Meyerhof derives it from ithmid; other possibilities include athimar, the Arabic name of the metalloid, and a hypothetical as-stimmi, derived from or parallel to the Greek.The standard chemical symbol for antimony (Sb) is credited to Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who derived the abbreviation from stibium.The ancient words for antimony mostly have, as their chief meaning, kohl, the sulfide of antimony.The Egyptians called antimony mśdmt; in hieroglyphs, the vowels are uncertain, but the Coptic form of the word is ⲥⲧⲏⲙ (stēm). Egyptian stm: O34:D46-G17-F21:D4The Greek word, στίμμι (stimmi) is used by Attic tragic poets of the 5th century BC, and is possibly a loan word from Arabic or from Egyptian stm. Later Greeks also used στἰβι stibi, as did Celsus and Pliny, writing in Latin, in the first century AD. Pliny also gives the names stimi, larbaris, alabaster, and the "very common" platyophthalmos, "wide-eye" (from the effect of the cosmetic). Later Latin authors adapted the word to Latin as stibium.The Arabic word for the substance, as opposed to the cosmetic, can appear as إثمد ithmid, athmoud, othmod, or uthmod. Littré suggests the first form, which is the earliest, derives from stimmida, an accusative for stimmi.ProductionProcessThe extraction of antimony from ores depends on the quality and composition of the ore. Most antimony is mined as the sulfide; lower-grade ores are concentrated by froth flotation, while higher-grade ores are heated to 500–600 °C, the temperature at which stibnite melts and separates from the gangue minerals. Antimony can be isolated from the crude antimony sulfide by reduction with scrap iron: + 3 Fe → 2 Sb + 3 FeSThe sulfide is converted to an oxide; the product is then roasted, sometimes for the purpose of vaporizing the volatile antimony(III) oxide, which is recovered. This material is often used directly for the main applications, impurities being arsenic and sulfide. Antimony is isolated from the oxide by a carbothermal reduction:2  + 3 C → 4 Sb + 3 The lower-grade ores are reduced in blast furnaces while the higher-grade ores are reduced in reverberatory furnaces.Top producers and production volumesThe British Geological Survey (BGS) reported that in 2005 China was the top producer of antimony with approximately 84% of the world share, followed at a distance by South Africa, Bolivia and Tajikistan. Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan province has the largest deposits in China with an estimated deposit of 2.1 million metric tons.In 2016, according to the US Geological Survey, China accounted for 76.9% of total antimony production, followed in second place by Russia with 6.9% and Tajikistan with 6.2%.Chinese production of antimony is expected to decline in the future as mines and smelters are closed down by the government as part of pollution control. Especially due to an environmental protection law having gone into effect in January 2015 and revised "Emission Standards of Pollutants for Stanum, Antimony, and Mercury" having gone into effect, hurdles for economic production are higher. According to the National Bureau of Statistics in China, by September 2015 50% of antimony production capacity in the Hunan province (the province with biggest antimony reserves in China) had not been used.Reported production of antimony in China has fallen and is unlikely to increase in the coming years, according to the Roskill report. No significant antimony deposits in China have been developed for about ten years, and the remaining economic reserves are being rapidly depleted.The world's largest antimony producers, according to Roskill, are listed below:ReservesSupply riskFor antimony-importing regions such as Europe and the U.S., antimony is considered to be a critical mineral for industrial manufacturing that is at risk of supply chain disruption. With  global  production coming mainly from China (74%), Tajikistan(8%), and Russia(4%), these sources are critical to supply.European Union: Antimony is considered a critical raw material for defense, automotive, construction and textiles. The E.U. sources are 100% imported, coming mainly from Turkey (62%), Bolivia (20%) and Guatemala (7%).United Kingdom: The British Geological Survey's 2015 risk list ranks antimony second highest (after rare earth elements) on the relative supply risk index.United States: Antimony is a mineral commodity considered critical to the economic and national security. In 2021, no antimony was mined in the U.S.ApplicationsAbout 60% of antimony is consumed in flame retardants, and 20% is used in alloys for batteries, plain bearings, and solders.Flame retardants Antimony is mainly used as the trioxide for flame-proofing compounds, always in combination with halogenated flame retardants except in halogen-containing polymers. The flame retarding effect of antimony trioxide is produced by the formation of halogenated antimony compounds, which react with hydrogen atoms, and probably also with oxygen atoms and OH radicals, thus inhibiting fire. Markets for these flame-retardants include children's clothing, toys, aircraft, and automobile seat covers. They are also added to polyester resins in fiberglass composites for such items as light aircraft engine covers. The resin will burn in the presence of an externally generated flame, but will extinguish when the external flame is removed.Alloys Antimony forms a highly useful alloy with lead, increasing its hardness and mechanical strength. For most applications involving lead, varying amounts of antimony are used as alloying metal. In lead–acid batteries, this addition improves plate strength and charging characteristics. For sailboats, lead keels are used to provide righting moment, ranging from 600 lbs to over 200 tons for the largest sailing superyachts; to improve hardness and tensile strength of the lead keel, antimony is mixed with lead between 2% and 5% by volume. Antimony is used in antifriction alloys (such as Babbitt metal), in bullets and lead shot, electrical cable sheathing, type metal (for example, for linotype printing machines), solder (some "lead-free" solders contain 5% Sb), in pewter, and in hardening alloys with low tin content in the manufacturing of organ pipes.Other applications Three other applications consume nearly all the rest of the world's supply. One application is as a stabilizer and catalyst for the production of polyethylene terephthalate. Another is as a fining agent to remove microscopic bubbles in glass, mostly for TV screens - antimony ions interact with oxygen, suppressing the tendency of the latter to form bubbles. The third application is pigments.In 1990s antimony was increasingly being used in semiconductors as a dopant in n-type silicon wafers for diodes, infrared detectors, and Hall-effect devices. In the 1950s, the emitters and collectors of n-p-n alloy junction transistors were doped with tiny beads of a lead-antimony alloy. Indium antimonide is used as a material for mid-infrared detectors.Biology and medicine have few uses for antimony. Treatments containing antimony, known as antimonials, are used as emetics. Antimony compounds are used as antiprotozoan drugs. Potassium antimonyl tartrate, or tartar emetic, was once used as an anti-schistosomal drug from 1919 on. It was subsequently replaced by praziquantel. Antimony and its compounds are used in several veterinary preparations, such as anthiomaline and lithium antimony thiomalate, as a skin conditioner in ruminants. Antimony has a nourishing or conditioning effect on keratinized tissues in animals.Antimony-based drugs, such as meglumine antimoniate, are also considered the drugs of choice for treatment of leishmaniasis in domestic animals. Besides having low therapeutic indices, the drugs have minimal penetration of the bone marrow, where some of the Leishmania amastigotes reside, and curing the disease – especially the visceral form – is very difficult. Elemental antimony as an antimony pill was once used as a medicine. It could be reused by others after ingestion and elimination.Antimony(III) sulfide is used in the heads of some safety matches. Antimony sulfides help to stabilize the friction coefficient in automotive brake pad materials. Antimony is used in bullets, bullet tracers, paint, glass art, and as an opacifier in enamel. Antimony-124 is used together with beryllium in neutron sources; the gamma rays emitted by antimony-124 initiate the photodisintegration of beryllium. The emitted neutrons have an average energy of 24 keV. Natural antimony is used in startup neutron sources.Historically, the powder derived from crushed antimony (kohl) has been applied to the eyes with a metal rod and with one's spittle, thought by the ancients to aid in curing eye infections. The practice is still seen in Yemen and in other Muslim countries.Precautions The effects of antimony and its compounds on human and environmental health differ widely. Elemental antimony metal does not affect human and environmental health. Inhalation of antimony trioxide (and similar poorly soluble Sb(III) dust particles such as antimony dust) is considered harmful and suspected of causing cancer. However, these effects are only observed with female rats and after long-term exposure to high dust concentrations. The effects are hypothesized to be attributed to inhalation of poorly soluble Sb particles leading to impaired lung clearance, lung overload, inflammation and ultimately tumour formation, not to exposure to antimony ions (OECD, 2008). Antimony chlorides are corrosive to skin. The effects of antimony are not comparable to those of arsenic; this might be caused by the significant differences of uptake, metabolism, and excretion between arsenic and antimony.For oral absorption, ICRP (1994) has recommended values of 10% for tartar emetic and 1% for all other antimony compounds. Dermal absorption for metals is estimated to be at most 1% (HERAG, 2007). Inhalation absorption of antimony trioxide and other poorly soluble Sb(III) substances (such as antimony dust) is estimated at 6.8% (OECD, 2008), whereas a value <1% is derived for Sb(V) substances. Antimony(V) is not quantitatively reduced to antimony(III) in the cell, and both species exist simultaneously.Antimony is mainly excreted from the human body via urine. Antimony and its compounds do not cause acute human health effects, with the exception of antimony potassium tartrate ("tartar emetic"), a prodrug that is intentionally used to treat leishmaniasis patients.Prolonged skin contact with antimony dust may cause dermatitis. However, it was agreed at the European Union level that the skin rashes observed are not substance-specific, but most probably due to a physical blocking of sweat ducts (ECHA/PR/09/09, Helsinki, 6 July 2009). Antimony dust may also be explosive when dispersed in the air; when in a bulk solid it is not combustible.Antimony is incompatible with strong acids, halogenated acids, and oxidizers; when exposed to newly formed hydrogen it may form stibine (SbH3).The 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) is set at 0.5 mg/m3 by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists and by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as a legal permissible exposure limit (PEL) in the workplace. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) of 0.5 mg/m3 as an 8-hour TWA.Antimony compounds are used as catalysts for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) production. Some studies report minor antimony leaching from PET bottles into liquids, but levels are below drinking water guidelines. Antimony concentrations in fruit juice concentrates were somewhat higher (up to 44.7 µg/L of antimony), but juices do not fall under the drinking water regulations. The drinking water guidelines are: World Health Organization: 20 µg/L Japan: 15 µg/L United States Environmental Protection Agency, Health Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Environment: 6 µg/L EU and German Federal Ministry of Environment: 5 µg/LThe tolerable daily intake (TDI) proposed by WHO is 6 µg antimony per kilogram of body weight. The immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) value for antimony is 50 mg/m3.Toxicity Certain compounds of antimony appear to be toxic, particularly antimony trioxide and antimony potassium tartrate. Effects may be similar to arsenic poisoning. Occupational exposure may cause respiratory irritation, pneumoconiosis, antimony spots on the skin, gastrointestinal symptoms, and cardiac arrhythmias. In addition, antimony trioxide is potentially carcinogenic to humans.Adverse health effects have been observed in humans and animals following inhalation, oral, or dermal exposure to antimony and antimony compounds. Antimony toxicity typically occurs either due to occupational exposure, during therapy or from accidental ingestion. It is unclear if antimony can enter the body through the skin. The presence of low levels of antimony in saliva may also be associated with dental decay.See also  Phase change memoryNotesReferencesBibliography  Edmund Oscar von Lippmann (1919) Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie, teil 1. Berlin: Julius Springer (in German). Public Health Statement for AntimonyExternal links International Antimony Association vzw (i2a) Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Antimony Antimony at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) CDC – NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards – Antimony Antimony Mineral data and specimen images Chemical elementsMetalloidsNative element mineralsNuclear materialsPnictogensTrigonal mineralsMinerals in space group 166Materials that expand upon freezingChemical elements with rhombohedral structure
Actinium is a chemical element with the symbol Ac and atomic number 89. It was first isolated by Friedrich Oskar Giesel in 1902, who gave it the name emanium; the element got its name by being wrongly identified with a substance André-Louis Debierne found in 1899 and called actinium. Actinium gave the name to the actinide series, a group of 15 similar elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table. Together with polonium, radium, and radon, actinium was one of the first non-primordial radioactive elements to be isolated.A soft, silvery-white radioactive metal, actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that prevents further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and many actinides, actinium assumes oxidation state +3 in nearly all its chemical compounds. Actinium is found only in traces in uranium and thorium ores as the isotope 227Ac, which decays with a half-life of 21.772 years, predominantly emitting beta and sometimes alpha particles, and 228Ac, which is beta active with a half-life of 6.15 hours. One tonne of natural uranium in ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of actinium-227, and one tonne of thorium contains about 5 nanograms of actinium-228. The close similarity of physical and chemical properties of actinium and lanthanum makes separation of actinium from the ore impractical. Instead, the element is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of  in a nuclear reactor. Owing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, actinium has no significant industrial use. Its current applications include a neutron source and an agent for radiation therapy.HistoryAndré-Louis Debierne, a French chemist, announced the discovery of a new element in 1899. He separated it from pitchblende residues left by Marie and Pierre Curie after they had extracted radium. In 1899, Debierne described the substance as similar to titanium and (in 1900) as similar to thorium. Friedrich Oskar Giesel found in 1902 a substance similar to lanthanum and called it "emanium" in 1904. After a comparison of the substances' half-lives determined by Debierne, Harriet Brooks in 1904, and Otto Hahn and Otto Sackur in 1905, Debierne's chosen name for the new element was retained because it had seniority, despite the contradicting chemical properties he claimed for the element at different times.Articles published in the 1970s and later suggest that Debierne's results published in 1904 conflict with those reported in 1899 and 1900. Furthermore, the now-known chemistry of actinium precludes its presence as anything other than a minor constituent of Debierne's 1899 and 1900 results; in fact, the chemical properties he reported make it likely that he had, instead, accidentally identified protactinium, which would not be discovered for another fourteen years, only to have it disappear due to its hydrolysis and adsorption onto his laboratory equipment. This has led some authors to advocate that Giesel alone should be credited with the discovery. A less confrontational vision of scientific discovery is proposed by Adloff. He suggests that hindsight criticism of the early publications should be mitigated by the then nascent state of radiochemistry: highlighting the prudence of Debierne's claims in the original papers, he notes that nobody can contend that Debierne's substance did not contain actinium. Debierne, who is now considered by the vast majority of historians as the discoverer, lost interest in the element and left the topic. Giesel, on the other hand, can rightfully be credited with the first preparation of radiochemically pure actinium and with the identification of its atomic number 89.The name actinium originates from the Ancient Greek aktis, aktinos (ακτίς, ακτίνος), meaning beam or ray. Its symbol Ac is also used in abbreviations of other compounds that have nothing to do with actinium, such as acetyl, acetate and sometimes acetaldehyde.PropertiesActinium is a soft, silvery-white, radioactive, metallic element. Its estimated shear modulus is similar to that of lead. Owing to its strong radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light, which originates from the surrounding air ionized by the emitted energetic particles. Actinium has similar chemical properties to lanthanum and other lanthanides, and therefore these elements are difficult to separate when extracting from uranium ores. Solvent extraction and ion chromatography are commonly used for the separation.The first element of the actinides, actinium gave the group its name, much as lanthanum had done for the lanthanides. The group of elements is more diverse than the lanthanides and therefore it was not until 1945 that the most significant change to Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table since the recognition of the lanthanides, the introduction of the actinides, was generally accepted after Glenn T. Seaborg's research on the transuranium elements (although it had been proposed as early as 1892 by British chemist Henry Bassett).Actinium reacts rapidly with oxygen and moisture in air forming a white coating of actinium oxide that impedes further oxidation. As with most lanthanides and actinides, actinium exists in the oxidation state +3, and the Ac3+ ions are colorless in solutions. The oxidation state +3 originates from the [Rn]6d17s2 electronic configuration of actinium, with three valence electrons that are easily donated to give the stable closed-shell structure of the noble gas radon. The rare oxidation state +2 is only known for actinium dihydride (AcH2); even this may in reality be an electride compound like its lighter congener LaH2 and thus have actinium(III). Ac3+ is the largest of all known tripositive ions and its first coordination sphere contains approximately 10.9 ± 0.5 water molecules.Chemical compoundsDue to actinium's intense radioactivity, only a limited number of actinium compounds are known. These include: AcF3, AcCl3, AcBr3, AcOF, AcOCl, AcOBr, Ac2S3, Ac2O3, AcPO4 and Ac(NO3)3. Except for AcPO4, they are all similar to the corresponding lanthanum compounds. They all contain actinium in the oxidation state +3. In particular, the lattice constants of the analogous lanthanum and actinium compounds differ by only a few percent.Here a, b and c are lattice constants, No is space group number and Z is the number of formula units per unit cell. Density was not measured directly but calculated from the lattice parameters.OxidesActinium oxide (Ac2O3) can be obtained by heating the hydroxide at 500 °C or the oxalate at 1100 °C, in vacuum. Its crystal lattice is isotypic with the oxides of most trivalent rare-earth metals.HalidesActinium trifluoride can be produced either in solution or in solid reaction. The former reaction is carried out at room temperature, by adding hydrofluoric acid to a solution containing actinium ions. In the latter method, actinium metal is treated with hydrogen fluoride vapors at 700 °C in an all-platinum setup. Treating actinium trifluoride with ammonium hydroxide at 900–1000 °C yields oxyfluoride AcOF. Whereas lanthanum oxyfluoride can be easily obtained by burning lanthanum trifluoride in air at 800 °C for an hour, similar treatment of actinium trifluoride yields no AcOF and only results in melting of the initial product.AcF3 + 2 NH3 + H2O → AcOF + 2 NH4FActinium trichloride is obtained by reacting actinium hydroxide or oxalate with carbon tetrachloride vapors at temperatures above 960 °C. Similar to oxyfluoride, actinium oxychloride can be prepared by hydrolyzing actinium trichloride with ammonium hydroxide at 1000 °C. However, in contrast to the oxyfluoride, the oxychloride could well be synthesized by igniting a solution of actinium trichloride in hydrochloric acid with ammonia.Reaction of aluminium bromide and actinium oxide yields actinium tribromide:Ac2O3 + 2 AlBr3 → 2 AcBr3 + Al2O3and treating it with ammonium hydroxide at 500 °C results in the oxybromide AcOBr.Other compoundsActinium hydride was obtained by reduction of actinium trichloride with potassium at 300 °C, and its structure was deduced by analogy with the corresponding LaH2 hydride. The source of hydrogen in the reaction was uncertain.Mixing monosodium phosphate (NaH2PO4) with a solution of actinium in hydrochloric acid yields white-colored actinium phosphate hemihydrate (AcPO4·0.5H2O), and heating actinium oxalate with hydrogen sulfide vapors at 1400 °C for a few minutes results in a black actinium sulfide Ac2S3. It may possibly be produced by acting with a mixture of hydrogen sulfide and carbon disulfide on actinium oxide at 1000 °C.IsotopesNaturally occurring actinium is composed of two radioactive isotopes;  (from the radioactive family of ) and  (a granddaughter of ).  decays mainly as a beta emitter with a very small energy, but in 1.38% of cases it emits an alpha particle, so it can readily be identified through alpha spectrometry. Thirty-six radioisotopes have been identified, the most stable being  with a half-life of 21.772 years,  with a half-life of 10.0 days and  with a half-life of 29.37 hours. All remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 10 hours and the majority of them have half-lives shorter than one minute. The shortest-lived known isotope of actinium is  (half-life of 69 nanoseconds) which decays through alpha decay. Actinium also has two known meta states. The most significant isotopes for chemistry are 225Ac, 227Ac, and 228Ac.Purified  comes into equilibrium with its decay products after about a half of year. It decays according to its 21.772-year half-life emitting mostly beta (98.62%) and some alpha particles (1.38%); the successive decay products are part of the actinium series. Owing to the low available amounts, low energy of its beta particles (maximum 44.8 keV) and low intensity of alpha radiation,  is difficult to detect directly by its emission and it is therefore traced via its decay products. The isotopes of actinium range in atomic weight from 205 u () to 236 u ().Occurrence and synthesisActinium is found only in traces in uranium ores – one tonne of uranium in ore contains about 0.2 milligrams of 227Ac – and in thorium ores, which contain about 5 nanograms of 228Ac per one tonne of thorium. The actinium isotope 227Ac is a transient member of the uranium-actinium series decay chain, which begins with the parent isotope 235U (or 239Pu) and ends with the stable lead isotope 207Pb. The isotope 228Ac is a transient member of the thorium series decay chain, which begins with the parent isotope 232Th and ends with the stable lead isotope 208Pb. Another actinium isotope (225Ac) is transiently present in the neptunium series decay chain, beginning with 237Np (or 233U) and ending with thallium (205Tl) and near-stable bismuth (209Bi); even though all primordial 237Np has decayed away, it is continuously produced by neutron knock-out reactions on natural 238U.The low natural concentration, and the close similarity of physical and chemical properties to those of lanthanum and other lanthanides, which are always abundant in actinium-bearing ores, render separation of actinium from the ore impractical, and complete separation was never achieved. Instead, actinium is prepared, in milligram amounts, by the neutron irradiation of  in a nuclear reactor.^{226}_{88}Ra + ^{1}_{0}n -> ^{227}_{88}Ra ->[\beta^-][42.2 \ \ce{min}] ^{227}_{89}AcThe reaction yield is about 2% of the radium weight. 227Ac can further capture neutrons resulting in small amounts of 228Ac. After the synthesis, actinium is separated from radium and from the products of decay and nuclear fusion, such as thorium, polonium, lead and bismuth. The extraction can be performed with thenoyltrifluoroacetone-benzene solution from an aqueous solution of the radiation products, and the selectivity to a certain element is achieved by adjusting the pH (to about 6.0 for actinium). An alternative procedure is anion exchange with an appropriate resin in nitric acid, which can result in a separation factor of 1,000,000 for radium and actinium vs. thorium in a two-stage process. Actinium can then be separated from radium, with a ratio of about 100, using a low cross-linking cation exchange resin and nitric acid as eluant.225Ac was first produced artificially at the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) in Germany using a cyclotron and at St George Hospital in Sydney using a linac in 2000. This rare isotope has potential applications in radiation therapy and is most efficiently produced by bombarding a radium-226 target with 20–30 MeV deuterium ions. This reaction also yields 226Ac which however decays with a half-life of 29 hours and thus does not contaminate 225Ac.Actinium metal has been prepared by the reduction of actinium fluoride with lithium vapor in vacuum at a temperature between 1100 and 1300 °C. Higher temperatures resulted in evaporation of the product and lower ones lead to an incomplete transformation. Lithium was chosen among other alkali metals because its fluoride is most volatile.ApplicationsOwing to its scarcity, high price and radioactivity, 227Ac currently has no significant industrial use, but 225Ac is currently being studied for use in cancer treatments such as targeted alpha therapies.227Ac is highly radioactive and was therefore studied for use as an active element of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, for example in spacecraft. The oxide of 227Ac pressed with beryllium is also an efficient neutron source with the activity exceeding that of the standard americium-beryllium and radium-beryllium pairs. In all those applications, 227Ac (a beta source) is merely a progenitor which generates alpha-emitting isotopes upon its decay. Beryllium captures alpha particles and emits neutrons owing to its large cross-section for the (α,n) nuclear reaction: ^{9}_{4}Be + ^{4}_{2}He -> ^{12}_{6}C + ^{1}_{0}n + \gammaThe 227AcBe neutron sources can be applied in a neutron probe – a standard device for measuring the quantity of water present in soil, as well as moisture/density for quality control in highway construction. Such probes are also used in well logging applications, in neutron radiography, tomography and other radiochemical investigations.225Ac is applied in medicine to produce  in a reusable generator or can be used alone as an agent for radiation therapy, in particular targeted alpha therapy (TAT). This isotope has a half-life of 10 days, making it much more suitable for radiation therapy than 213Bi (half-life 46 minutes). Additionally, 225Ac decays to nontoxic 209Bi rather than stable but toxic lead, which is the final product in the decay chains of several other candidate isotopes, namely 227Th, 228Th, and 230U. Not only 225Ac itself, but also its daughters, emit alpha particles which kill cancer cells in the body. The major difficulty with application of 225Ac was that intravenous injection of simple actinium complexes resulted in their accumulation in the bones and liver for a period of tens of years. As a result, after the cancer cells were quickly killed by alpha particles from 225Ac, the radiation from the actinium and its daughters might induce new mutations. To solve this problem, 225Ac was bound to a chelating agent, such as citrate, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) or diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA). This reduced actinium accumulation in the bones, but the excretion from the body remained slow. Much better results were obtained with such chelating agents as HEHA () or DOTA () coupled to trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody that interferes with the HER2/neu receptor. The latter delivery combination was tested on mice and proved to be effective against leukemia, lymphoma, breast, ovarian, neuroblastoma and prostate cancers.The medium half-life of 227Ac (21.77 years) makes it very convenient radioactive isotope in modeling the slow vertical mixing of oceanic waters. The associated processes cannot be studied with the required accuracy by direct measurements of current velocities (of the order 50 meters per year). However, evaluation of the concentration depth-profiles for different isotopes allows estimating the mixing rates. The physics behind this method is as follows: oceanic waters contain homogeneously dispersed 235U. Its decay product, 231Pa, gradually precipitates to the bottom, so that its concentration first increases with depth and then stays nearly constant. 231Pa decays to 227Ac; however, the concentration of the latter isotope does not follow the 231Pa depth profile, but instead increases toward the sea bottom. This occurs because of the mixing processes which raise some additional 227Ac from the sea bottom. Thus analysis of both 231Pa and 227Ac depth profiles allows researchers to model the mixing behavior.There are theoretical predictions that AcHx hydrides (in this case with very high pressure) are a candidate for a near room-temperature superconductor as they have Tc significantly higher than H3S, possibly near 250 K.Precautions227Ac is highly radioactive and experiments with it are carried out in a specially designed laboratory equipped with a tight glove box. When actinium trichloride is administered intravenously to rats, about 33% of actinium is deposited into the bones and 50% into the liver. Its toxicity is comparable to, but slightly lower than that of americium and plutonium. For trace quantities, fume hoods with good aeration suffice; for gram amounts, hot cells with shielding from the intense gamma radiation emitted by 227Ac are necessary.See also Actinium seriesNotesReferencesBibliography Meyer, Gerd and Morss, Lester R. (1991) Synthesis of lanthanide and actinide compounds, Springer.External links Actinium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) NLM Hazardous Substances Databank – Actinium, Radioactive Actinium in  Chemical elementsActinides
Americium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is a transuranic member of the actinide series, in the periodic table located under the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was named after the Americas.Americium was first produced in 1944 by the group of Glenn T. Seaborg from Berkeley, California, at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, as part of the Manhattan Project. Although it is the third element in the transuranic series, it was discovered fourth, after the heavier curium. The discovery was kept secret and only released to the public in November 1945. Most americium is produced by uranium or plutonium being bombarded with neutrons in nuclear reactors – one tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of americium. It is widely used in commercial ionization chamber smoke detectors, as well as in neutron sources and industrial gauges. Several unusual applications, such as nuclear batteries or fuel for space ships with nuclear propulsion, have been proposed for the isotope 242mAm, but they are as yet hindered by the scarcity and high price of this nuclear isomer.Americium is a relatively soft radioactive metal with silvery appearance. Its most common isotopes are 241Am and 243Am. In chemical compounds, americium usually assumes the oxidation state +3, especially in solutions. Several other oxidation states are known, ranging from +2 to +7, and can be identified by their characteristic optical absorption spectra. The crystal lattice of solid americium and its compounds contain small intrinsic radiogenic defects, due to metamictization induced by self-irradiation with alpha particles, which accumulates with time; this can cause a drift of some material properties over time, more noticeable in older samples.HistoryAlthough americium was likely produced in previous nuclear experiments, it was first intentionally synthesized, isolated and identified in late autumn 1944, at the University of California, Berkeley, by Glenn T. Seaborg, Leon O. Morgan, Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso. They used a 60-inch cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. The element was chemically identified at the Metallurgical Laboratory (now Argonne National Laboratory) of the University of Chicago. Following the lighter neptunium, plutonium, and heavier curium, americium was the fourth transuranium element to be discovered. At the time, the periodic table had been restructured by Seaborg to its present layout, containing the actinide row below the lanthanide one. This led to americium being located right below its twin lanthanide element europium; it was thus by analogy named after the Americas: "The name americium (after the Americas) and the symbol Am are suggested for the element on the basis of its position as the sixth member of the actinide rare-earth series, analogous to europium, Eu, of the lanthanide series."The new element was isolated from its oxides in a complex, multi-step process. First plutonium-239 nitrate (239PuNO3) solution was coated on a platinum foil of about 0.5 cm2 area, the solution was evaporated and the residue was converted into plutonium dioxide (PuO2) by calcining. After cyclotron irradiation, the coating was dissolved with nitric acid, and then precipitated as the hydroxide using concentrated aqueous ammonia solution. The residue was dissolved in perchloric acid. Further separation was carried out by ion exchange, yielding a certain isotope of curium. The separation of curium and americium was so painstaking that those elements were initially called by the Berkeley group as pandemonium (from Greek for all demons or hell) and delirium (from Latin for madness).Initial experiments yielded four americium isotopes: 241Am, 242Am, 239Am and 238Am. Americium-241 was directly obtained from plutonium upon absorption of two neutrons. It decays by emission of a α-particle to 237Np; the half-life of this decay was first determined as  years but then corrected to 432.2 years.  The times are half-livesThe second isotope 242Am was produced upon neutron bombardment of the already-created 241Am. Upon rapid β-decay, 242Am converts into the isotope of curium 242Cm (which had been discovered previously). The half-life of this decay was initially determined at 17 hours, which was close to the presently accepted value of 16.02 h. The discovery of americium and curium in 1944 was closely related to the Manhattan Project; the results were confidential and declassified only in 1945. Seaborg leaked the synthesis of the elements 95 and 96 on the U.S. radio show for children Quiz Kids five days before the official presentation at an American Chemical Society meeting on 11 November 1945, when one of the listeners asked whether any new transuranium element besides plutonium and neptunium had been discovered during the war. After the discovery of americium isotopes 241Am and 242Am, their production and compounds were patented listing only Seaborg as the inventor. The initial americium samples weighed a few micrograms; they were barely visible and were identified by their radioactivity. The first substantial amounts of metallic americium weighing 40–200 micrograms were not prepared until 1951 by reduction of americium(III) fluoride with barium metal in high vacuum at 1100 °C.OccurrenceThe longest-lived and most common isotopes of americium, 241Am and 243Am, have half-lives of 432.2 and 7,370 years, respectively. Therefore, any primordial americium (americium that was present on Earth during its formation) should have decayed by now. Trace amounts of americium probably occur naturally in uranium minerals as a result of nuclear reactions, though this has not been confirmed.Existing americium is concentrated in the areas used for the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted between 1945 and 1980, as well as at the sites of nuclear incidents, such as the Chernobyl disaster. For example, the analysis of the debris at the testing site of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, Ivy Mike, (1 November 1952, Enewetak Atoll), revealed high concentrations of various actinides including americium; but due to military secrecy, this result was not published until later, in 1956. Trinitite, the glassy residue left on the desert floor near Alamogordo, New Mexico, after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on 16 July 1945, contains traces of americium-241. Elevated levels of americium were also detected at the crash site of a US Boeing B-52 bomber aircraft, which carried four hydrogen bombs, in 1968 in Greenland.In other regions, the average radioactivity of surface soil due to residual americium is only about 0.01 picocuries/g (0.37 mBq/g). Atmospheric americium compounds are poorly soluble in common solvents and mostly adhere to soil particles. Soil analysis revealed about 1,900 times higher concentration of americium inside sandy soil particles than in the water present in the soil pores; an even higher ratio was measured in loam soils.Americium is produced mostly artificially in small quantities, for research purposes. A tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of various americium isotopes, mostly 241Am and 243Am. Their prolonged radioactivity is undesirable for the disposal, and therefore americium, together with other long-lived actinides, must be neutralized. The associated procedure may involve several steps, where americium is first separated and then converted by neutron bombardment in special reactors to short-lived nuclides. This procedure is well known as nuclear transmutation, but it is still being developed for americium. The transuranic elements from americium to fermium occurred naturally in the natural nuclear fission reactor at Oklo, but no longer do so.Americium is also one of the elements that have been detected in Przybylski's Star.Synthesis and extractionIsotope nucleosynthesisAmericium has been produced in small quantities in nuclear reactors for decades, and kilograms of its 241Am and 243Am isotopes have been accumulated by now. Nevertheless, since it was first offered for sale in 1962, its price, about US$1,500 per gram of 241Am, remains almost unchanged owing to the very complex separation procedure. The heavier isotope 243Am is produced in much smaller amounts; it is thus more difficult to separate, resulting in a higher cost of the order 100,000–160,000 USD/g.Americium is not synthesized directly from uranium – the most common reactor material – but from the plutonium isotope 239Pu. The latter needs to be produced first, according to the following nuclear process: ^{238}_{92}U ->[\ce{(n,\gamma)}] ^{239}_{92}U ->[\beta^-][23.5 \ \ce{min}] ^{239}_{93}Np ->[\beta^-][2.3565 \ \ce{d}] ^{239}_{94}PuThe capture of two neutrons by 239Pu (a so-called (n,γ) reaction), followed by a β-decay, results in 241Am: ^{239}_{94}Pu ->[\ce{2(n,\gamma)}] ^{241}_{94}Pu ->[\beta^-][14.35 \ \ce{yr}] ^{241}_{95}AmThe plutonium present in spent nuclear fuel contains about 12% of 241Pu. Because it spontaneously converts to 241Am, 241Pu can be extracted and may be used to generate further 241Am. However, this process is rather slow: half of the original amount of 241Pu decays to 241Am after about 15 years, and the 241Am amount reaches a maximum after 70 years.The obtained 241Am can be used for generating heavier americium isotopes by further neutron capture inside a nuclear reactor. In a light water reactor (LWR), 79% of 241Am converts to 242Am and 10% to its nuclear isomer 242mAm:Americium-242 has a half-life of only 16 hours, which makes its further conversion to 243Am extremely inefficient. The latter isotope is produced instead in a process where 239Pu captures four neutrons under high neutron flux: ^{239}_{94}Pu ->[\ce{4(n,\gamma)}] \ ^{243}_{94}Pu ->[\beta^-][4.956 \ \ce{h}] ^{243}_{95}AmMetal generation Most synthesis routines yield a mixture of different actinide isotopes in oxide forms, from which isotopes of americium can be separated. In a typical procedure, the spent reactor fuel (e.g. MOX fuel) is dissolved in nitric acid, and the bulk of uranium and plutonium is removed using a PUREX-type extraction (Plutonium–URanium EXtraction) with tributyl phosphate in a hydrocarbon. The lanthanides and remaining actinides are then separated from the aqueous residue (raffinate) by a diamide-based extraction, to give, after stripping, a mixture of trivalent actinides and lanthanides. Americium compounds are then selectively extracted using multi-step chromatographic and centrifugation techniques with an appropriate reagent. A large amount of work has been done on the solvent extraction of americium. For example, a 2003 EU-funded project codenamed "EUROPART" studied triazines and other compounds as potential extraction agents. A bis-triazinyl bipyridine complex was proposed in 2009 as such a reagent is highly selective to americium (and curium). Separation of americium from the highly similar curium can be achieved by treating a slurry of their hydroxides in aqueous sodium bicarbonate with ozone, at elevated temperatures. Both Am and Cm are mostly present in solutions in the +3 valence state; whereas curium remains unchanged, americium oxidizes to soluble Am(IV) complexes which can be washed away.Metallic americium is obtained by reduction from its compounds. Americium(III) fluoride was first used for this purpose. The reaction was conducted using elemental barium as reducing agent in a water- and oxygen-free environment inside an apparatus made of tantalum and tungsten. An alternative is the reduction of americium dioxide by metallic lanthanum or thorium:Physical propertiesIn the periodic table, americium is located to the right of plutonium, to the left of curium, and below the lanthanide europium, with which it shares many physical and chemical properties. Americium is a highly radioactive element. When freshly prepared, it has a silvery-white metallic lustre, but then slowly tarnishes in air. With a density of 12 g/cm3, americium is less dense than both curium (13.52 g/cm3) and plutonium (19.8 g/cm3); but has a higher density than europium (5.264 g/cm3)—mostly because of its higher atomic mass. Americium is relatively soft and easily deformable and has a significantly lower bulk modulus than the actinides before it: Th, Pa, U, Np and Pu. Its melting point of 1173 °C is significantly higher than that of plutonium (639 °C) and europium (826 °C), but lower than for curium (1340 °C).At ambient conditions, americium is present in its most stable α form which has a hexagonal crystal symmetry, and a space group P63/mmc with cell parameters a = 346.8 pm and c = 1124 pm, and four atoms per unit cell. The crystal consists of a double-hexagonal close packing with the layer sequence ABAC and so is isotypic with α-lanthanum and several actinides such as α-curium. The crystal structure of americium changes with pressure and temperature. When compressed at room temperature to 5 GPa, α-Am transforms to the β modification, which has a face-centered cubic (fcc) symmetry, space group Fmm and lattice constant a = 489 pm. This fcc structure is equivalent to the closest packing with the sequence ABC. Upon further compression to 23 GPa, americium transforms to an orthorhombic γ-Am structure similar to that of α-uranium. There are no further transitions observed up to 52 GPa, except for an appearance of a monoclinic phase at pressures between 10 and 15 GPa. There is no consistency on the status of this phase in the literature, which also sometimes lists the α, β and γ phases as I, II and III. The β-γ transition is accompanied by a 6% decrease in the crystal volume; although theory also predicts a significant volume change for the α-β transition, it is not observed experimentally. The pressure of the α-β transition decreases with increasing temperature, and when α-americium is heated at ambient pressure, at 770 °C it changes into an fcc phase which is different from β-Am, and at 1075 °C it converts to a body-centered cubic structure. The pressure-temperature phase diagram of americium is thus rather similar to those of lanthanum, praseodymium and neodymium.As with many other actinides, self-damage of the crystal structure due to alpha-particle irradiation is intrinsic to americium. It is especially noticeable at low temperatures, where the mobility of the produced structure defects is relatively low, by broadening of X-ray diffraction peaks. This effect makes somewhat uncertain the temperature of americium and some of its properties, such as electrical resistivity. So for americium-241, the resistivity at 4.2 K increases with time from about 2 µOhm·cm to 10 µOhm·cm after 40 hours, and saturates at about 16 µOhm·cm after 140 hours. This effect is less pronounced at room temperature, due to annihilation of radiation defects; also heating to room temperature the sample which was kept for hours at low temperatures restores its resistivity. In fresh samples, the resistivity gradually increases with temperature from about 2 µOhm·cm at liquid helium to 69 µOhm·cm at room temperature; this behavior is similar to that of neptunium, uranium, thorium and protactinium, but is different from plutonium and curium which show a rapid rise up to 60 K followed by saturation. The room temperature value for americium is lower than that of neptunium, plutonium and curium, but higher than for uranium, thorium and protactinium.Americium is paramagnetic in a wide temperature range, from that of liquid helium, to room temperature and above. This behavior is markedly different from that of its neighbor curium which exhibits antiferromagnetic transition at 52 K. The thermal expansion coefficient of americium is slightly anisotropic and amounts to  along the shorter a axis and  for the longer c hexagonal axis. The enthalpy of dissolution of americium metal in hydrochloric acid at standard conditions is , from which the standard enthalpy change of formation (ΔfH°) of aqueous Am3+ ion is . The standard potential Am3+/Am0 is .Chemical propertiesAmericium metal readily reacts with oxygen and dissolves in aqueous acids. The most stable oxidation state for americium is +3,. The chemistry of americium(III) has many similarities to the chemistry of lanthanide(III) compounds. For example, trivalent americium forms insoluble fluoride, oxalate, iodate, hydroxide, phosphate and other salts. Compounds of americium in oxidation states 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 have also been studied. This is the widest range that has been observed with actinide elements. The color of americium compounds in aqueous solution is as follows: Am3+ (yellow-reddish), Am4+ (yellow-reddish), AmV; (yellow), AmVI (brown) and AmVII (dark green). The absorption spectra have sharp peaks, due to f-f transitions' in the visible and near-infrared regions. Typically, Am(III) has absorption maxima at ca. 504 and 811 nm, Am(V) at ca. 514 and 715 nm, and Am(VI) at ca. 666 and 992 nm.Americium compounds with oxidation state +4 and higher are strong oxidizing agents, comparable in strength to the permanganate ion () in acidic solutions. Whereas the Am4+ ions are unstable in solutions and readily convert to Am3+, compounds such as americium dioxide (AmO2) and americium(IV) fluoride (AmF4) are stable in the solid state.The pentavalent oxidation state of americium was first observed in 1951. In acidic aqueous solution the  ion is unstable with respect to disproportionation. The reaction 3[AmO2]+ + 4H+ -> 2[AmO2]2+ + Am3+ + 2H2Ois typical. The chemistry of Am(V) and Am(VI) is comparable to the chemistry of uranium in those oxidation states. In particular, compounds like Li3AmO4 and Li6AmO6 are comparable to uranates and the ion AmO22+ is comparable to the uranyl ion, UO22+. Such compounds can be prepared by oxidation of Am(III) in dilute nitric acid with ammonium persulfate. Other oxidising agents that have been used include silver(I) oxide, ozone and sodium persulfate.Chemical compoundsOxygen compoundsThree americium oxides are known, with the oxidation states +2 (AmO), +3 (Am2O3) and +4 (AmO2). Americium(II) oxide was prepared in minute amounts and has not been characterized in detail. Americium(III) oxide is a red-brown solid with a melting point of 2205 °C. Americium(IV) oxide is the main form of solid americium which is used in nearly all its applications. As most other actinide dioxides, it is a black solid with a cubic (fluorite) crystal structure.The oxalate of americium(III), vacuum dried at room temperature, has the chemical formula Am2(C2O4)3·7H2O. Upon heating in vacuum, it loses water at 240 °C and starts decomposing into AmO2 at 300 °C, the decomposition completes at about 470 °C. The initial oxalate dissolves in nitric acid with the maximum solubility of 0.25 g/L.HalidesHalides of americium are known for the oxidation states +2, +3 and +4, where the +3 is most stable, especially in solutions.Reduction of Am(III) compounds with sodium amalgam yields Am(II) salts – the black halides AmCl2, AmBr2 and AmI2. They are very sensitive to oxygen and oxidize in water, releasing hydrogen and converting back to the Am(III) state. Specific lattice constants are: Orthorhombic AmCl2: a = , b =  and c =  Tetragonal AmBr2: a =  and c = . They can also be prepared by reacting metallic americium with an appropriate mercury halide HgX2, where X = Cl, Br or I: {Am} + \underset{mercury\ halide}{HgX2} ->[{} \atop 400 - 500 ^\circ \ce C] {AmX2} + {Hg}Americium(III) fluoride (AmF3) is poorly soluble and precipitates upon reaction of Am3+ and fluoride ions in weak acidic solutions: Am^3+ + 3F^- -> AmF3(v)The tetravalent americium(IV) fluoride (AmF4) is obtained by reacting solid americium(III) fluoride with molecular fluorine: 2AmF3 + F2 -> 2AmF4Another known form of solid tetravalent americium fluoride is KAmF5. Tetravalent americium has also been observed in the aqueous phase. For this purpose, black Am(OH)4 was dissolved in 15-M NH4F with the americium concentration of 0.01 M. The resulting reddish solution had a characteristic optical absorption spectrum which is similar to that of AmF4 but differed from other oxidation states of americium. Heating the Am(IV) solution to 90 °C did not result in its disproportionation or reduction, however a slow reduction was observed to Am(III) and assigned to self-irradiation of americium by alpha particles.Most americium(III) halides form hexagonal crystals with slight variation of the color and exact structure between the halogens. So, chloride (AmCl3) is reddish and has a structure isotypic to uranium(III) chloride (space group P63/m) and the melting point of 715 °C. The fluoride is isotypic to LaF3 (space group P63/mmc) and the iodide to BiI3 (space group R). The bromide is an exception with the orthorhombic PuBr3-type structure and space group Cmcm. Crystals of americium hexahydrate (AmCl3·6H2O) can be prepared by dissolving americium dioxide in hydrochloric acid and evaporating the liquid. Those crystals are hygroscopic and have yellow-reddish color and a monoclinic crystal structure.Oxyhalides of americium in the form AmVIO2X2, AmVO2X, AmIVOX2 and AmIIIOX can be obtained by reacting the corresponding americium halide with oxygen or Sb2O3, and AmOCl can also be produced by vapor phase hydrolysis: AmCl3 + H2O -> AmOCl + 2HClChalcogenides and pnictidesThe known chalcogenides of americium include the sulfide AmS2, selenides AmSe2 and Am3Se4, and tellurides Am2Te3 and AmTe2. The pnictides of americium (243Am) of the AmX type are known for the elements phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth. They crystallize in the rock-salt lattice.Silicides and boridesAmericium monosilicide (AmSi) and "disilicide" (nominally AmSix with: 1.87 < x < 2.0) were obtained by reduction of americium(III) fluoride with elementary silicon in vacuum at 1050 °C (AmSi) and 1150−1200 °C (AmSix). AmSi is a black solid isomorphic with LaSi, it has an orthorhombic crystal symmetry. AmSix has a bright silvery lustre and a tetragonal crystal lattice (space group I41/amd), it is isomorphic with PuSi2 and ThSi2. Borides of americium include AmB4 and AmB6. The tetraboride can be obtained by heating an oxide or halide of americium with magnesium diboride in vacuum or inert atmosphere.Organoamericium compoundsAnalogous to uranocene, americium forms the organometallic compound amerocene with two cyclooctatetraene ligands, with the chemical formula (η8-C8H8)2Am. A cyclopentadienyl complex is also known that is likely to be stoichiometrically AmCp3.Formation of the complexes of the type Am(n-C3H7-BTP)3, where BTP stands for 2,6-di(1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)pyridine, in solutions containing n-C3H7-BTP and Am3+ ions has been confirmed by EXAFS. Some of these BTP-type complexes selectively interact with americium and therefore are useful in its selective separation from lanthanides and another actinides.Biological aspectsAmericium is an artificial element of recent origin, and thus does not have a biological requirement. It is harmful to life. It has been proposed to use bacteria for removal of americium and other heavy metals from rivers and streams. Thus, Enterobacteriaceae of the genus Citrobacter precipitate americium ions from aqueous solutions, binding them into a metal-phosphate complex at their cell walls. Several studies have been reported on the biosorption and bioaccumulation of americium by bacteria and fungi.FissionThe isotope 242mAm (half-life 141 years) has the largest cross sections for absorption of thermal neutrons (5,700 barns), that results in a small critical mass for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass for a bare 242mAm sphere is about 9–14 kg (the uncertainty results from insufficient knowledge of its material properties). It can be lowered to 3–5 kg with a metal reflector and should become even smaller with a water reflector. Such small critical mass is favorable for portable nuclear weapons, but those based on 242mAm are not known yet, probably because of its scarcity and high price. The critical masses of two other readily available isotopes, 241Am and 243Am, are relatively high – 57.6 to 75.6 kg for 241Am and 209 kg for 243Am. Scarcity and high price yet hinder application of americium as a nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors.There are proposals of very compact 10-kW high-flux reactors using as little as 20 grams of 242mAm. Such low-power reactors would be relatively safe to use as neutron sources for radiation therapy in hospitals.IsotopesAbout 19 isotopes and 8 nuclear isomers are known for americium. There are two long-lived alpha-emitters; 243Am has a half-life of 7,370 years and is the most stable isotope, and 241Am has a half-life of 432.2 years. The most stable nuclear isomer is 242m1Am; it has a long half-life of 141 years. The half-lives of other isotopes and isomers range from 0.64 microseconds for 245m1Am to 50.8 hours for 240Am. As with most other actinides, the isotopes of americium with odd number of neutrons have relatively high rate of nuclear fission and low critical mass.Americium-241 decays to 237Np emitting alpha particles of 5 different energies, mostly at 5.486 MeV (85.2%) and 5.443 MeV (12.8%). Because many of the resulting states are metastable, they also emit gamma rays with the discrete energies between 26.3 and 158.5 keV.Americium-242 is a short-lived isotope with a half-life of 16.02 h. It mostly (82.7%) converts by β-decay to 242Cm, but also by electron capture to 242Pu (17.3%). Both 242Cm and 242Pu transform via nearly the same decay chain through 238Pu down to 234U.Nearly all (99.541%) of 242m1Am decays by internal conversion to 242Am and the remaining 0.459% by α-decay to 238Np. The latter subsequently decays to 238Pu and then to 234U.Americium-243 transforms by α-emission into 239Np, which converts by β-decay to 239Pu, and the 239Pu changes into 235U by emitting an α-particle.ApplicationsIonization-type smoke detectorAmericium is used in the most common type of household smoke detector, which uses 241Am in the form of americium dioxide as its source of ionizing radiation. This isotope is preferred over 226Ra because it emits 5 times more alpha particles and relatively little harmful gamma radiation.The amount of americium in a typical new smoke detector is 1 microcurie (37 kBq) or 0.29 microgram. This amount declines slowly as the americium decays into neptunium-237, a different transuranic element with a much longer half-life (about 2.14 million years). With its half-life of 432.2 years, the americium in a smoke detector includes about 3% neptunium after 19 years, and about 5% after 32 years. The radiation passes through an ionization chamber, an air-filled space between two electrodes, and permits a small, constant current between the electrodes. Any smoke that enters the chamber absorbs the alpha particles, which reduces the ionization and affects this current, triggering the alarm. Compared to the alternative optical smoke detector, the ionization smoke detector is cheaper and can detect particles which are too small to produce significant light scattering; however, it is more prone to false alarms.RadionuclideAs 241Am has a roughly similar half-life to 238Pu (432.2 years vs. 87 years), it has been proposed as an active element of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, for example in spacecraft. Although americium produces less heat and electricity – the power yield is 114.7 mW/g for 241Am and 6.31 mW/g for 243Am (cf. 390 mW/g for 238Pu) – and its radiation poses more threat to humans owing to neutron emission, the European Space Agency is considering using americium for its space probes.Another proposed space-related application of americium is a fuel for space ships with nuclear propulsion. It relies on the very high rate of nuclear fission of 242mAm, which can be maintained even in a micrometer-thick foil. Small thickness avoids the problem of self-absorption of emitted radiation. This problem is pertinent to uranium or plutonium rods, in which only surface layers provide alpha-particles. The fission products of 242mAm can either directly propel the spaceship or they can heat a thrusting gas. They can also transfer their energy to a fluid and generate electricity through a magnetohydrodynamic generator.One more proposal which utilizes the high nuclear fission rate of 242mAm is a nuclear battery. Its design relies not on the energy of the emitted by americium alpha particles, but on their charge, that is the americium acts as the self-sustaining "cathode". A single 3.2 kg 242mAm charge of such battery could provide about 140 kW of power over a period of 80 days. Even with all the potential benefits, the current applications of 242mAm are as yet hindered by the scarcity and high price of this particular nuclear isomer.In 2019, researchers at the UK National Nuclear Laboratory and the University of Leicester demonstrated the use of heat generated by americium to illuminate a small light bulb. This technology could lead to systems to power missions with durations up to 400 years into interstellar space, where solar panels do not function.Neutron sourceThe oxide of 241Am pressed with beryllium is an efficient neutron source. Here americium acts as the alpha source, and beryllium produces neutrons owing to its large cross-section for the (α,n) nuclear reaction: ^{241}_{95}Am -> ^{237}_{93}Np + ^{4}_{2}He + \gamma ^{9}_{4}Be + ^{4}_{2}He -> ^{12}_{6}C + ^{1}_{0}n + \gammaThe most widespread use of 241AmBe neutron sources is a neutron probe – a device used to measure the quantity of water present in soil, as well as moisture/density for quality control in highway construction. 241Am neutron sources are also used in well logging applications, as well as in neutron radiography, tomography and other radiochemical investigations.Production of other elementsAmericium is a starting material for the production of other transuranic elements and transactinides – for example, 82.7% of 242Am decays to 242Cm and 17.3% to 242Pu. In the nuclear reactor, 242Am is also up-converted by neutron capture to 243Am and 244Am, which transforms by β-decay to 244Cm: ^{243}_{95}Am ->[\ce{(n,\gamma)}] ^{244}_{95}Am ->[\beta^-][10.1 \ \ce{h}] ^{244}_{96}CmIrradiation of 241Am by 12C or 22Ne ions yields the isotopes 247Es (einsteinium) or 260Db (dubnium), respectively. Furthermore, the element berkelium (243Bk isotope) had been first intentionally produced and identified by bombarding 241Am with alpha particles, in 1949, by the same Berkeley group, using the same 60-inch cyclotron. Similarly, nobelium was produced at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia, in 1965 in several reactions, one of which included irradiation of 243Am with 15N ions. Besides, one of the synthesis reactions for lawrencium, discovered by scientists at Berkeley and Dubna, included bombardment of 243Am with 18O.SpectrometerAmericium-241 has been used as a portable source of both gamma rays and alpha particles for a number of medical and industrial uses. The 59.5409 keV gamma ray emissions from 241Am in such sources can be used for indirect analysis of materials in radiography and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, as well as for quality control in fixed nuclear density gauges and nuclear densometers. For example, the element has been employed to gauge glass thickness to help create flat glass. Americium-241 is also suitable for calibration of gamma-ray spectrometers in the low-energy range, since its spectrum consists of nearly a single peak and negligible Compton continuum (at least three orders of magnitude lower intensity). Americium-241 gamma rays were also used to provide passive diagnosis of thyroid function. This medical application is however obsolete.Health concernsAs a highly radioactive element, americium and its compounds must be handled only in an appropriate laboratory under special arrangements. Although most americium isotopes predominantly emit alpha particles which can be blocked by thin layers of common materials, many of the daughter products emit gamma-rays and neutrons which have a long penetration depth.If consumed, most of the americium is excreted within a few days, with only 0.05% absorbed in the blood, of which roughly 45% goes to the liver and 45% to the bones, and the remaining 10% is excreted. The uptake to the liver depends on the individual and increases with age. In the bones, americium is first deposited over cortical and trabecular surfaces and slowly redistributes over the bone with time. The biological half-life of 241Am is 50 years in the bones and 20 years in the liver, whereas in the gonads (testicles and ovaries) it remains permanently; in all these organs, americium promotes formation of cancer cells as a result of its radioactivity.Americium often enters landfills from discarded smoke detectors. The rules associated with the disposal of smoke detectors are relaxed in most jurisdictions. In 1994, 17-year-old David Hahn extracted the americium from about 100 smoke detectors in an attempt to build a breeder nuclear reactor. There have been a few cases of exposure to americium, the worst case being that of chemical operations technician Harold McCluskey, who at the age of 64 was exposed to 500 times the occupational standard for americium-241 as a result of an explosion in his lab. McCluskey died at the age of 75 of unrelated pre-existing disease.See also Actinides in the environment :Category:Americium compoundsNotesReferencesBibliography  Penneman, R. A. and Keenan T. K. The radiochemistry of americium and curium, University of California, Los Alamos, California, 1960Further reading Nuclides and Isotopes – 14th Edition, GE Nuclear Energy, 1989.External links Americium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) ATSDR – Public Health Statement: Americium World Nuclear Association – Smoke Detectors and Americium  Chemical elementsActinidesCarcinogensSynthetic elements
Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. All of astatine's isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours. A sample of the pure element has never been assembled, because any macroscopic specimen would be immediately vaporized by the heat of its own radioactivity.The bulk properties of astatine are not known with certainty. Many of them have been estimated based on the element's position on the periodic table as a heavier analog of iodine, and a member of the halogens (the group of elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine). However, astatine also falls roughly along the dividing line between metals and nonmetals, and some metallic behavior has also been observed and predicted for it. Astatine is likely to have a dark or lustrous appearance and may be a semiconductor or possibly a metal. Chemically, several anionic species of astatine are known and most of its compounds resemble those of iodine, but it also sometimes displays metallic characteristics and shows some similarities to silver.The first synthesis of the element was in 1940 by Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio G. Segrè at the University of California, Berkeley, who named it from the Ancient Greek  () 'unstable'. Four isotopes of astatine were subsequently found to be naturally occurring, although much less than one gram is present at any given time in the Earth's crust. Neither the most stable isotope astatine-210, nor the medically useful astatine-211, occur naturally; they can only be produced synthetically, usually by bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles.Characteristics Astatine is an extremely radioactive element; all its isotopes have half-lives of 8.1 hours or less, decaying into other astatine isotopes, bismuth, polonium, or radon. Most of its isotopes are very unstable, with half-lives of one second or less. Of the first 101 elements in the periodic table, only francium is less stable, and all the astatine isotopes more stable than francium are in any case synthetic and do not occur in nature.The bulk properties of astatine are not known with any certainty. Research is limited by its short half-life, which prevents the creation of weighable quantities. A visible piece of astatine would immediately vaporize itself because of the heat generated by its intense radioactivity. It remains to be seen if, with sufficient cooling, a macroscopic quantity of astatine could be deposited as a thin film. Astatine is usually classified as either a nonmetal or a metalloid; metal formation has also been predicted.Physical Most of the physical properties of astatine have been estimated (by interpolation or extrapolation), using theoretically or empirically derived methods. For example, halogens get darker with increasing atomic weight – fluorine is nearly colorless, chlorine is yellow green, bromine is red brown, and iodine is dark gray/violet. Astatine is sometimes described as probably being a black solid (assuming it follows this trend), or as having a metallic appearance (if it is a metalloid or a metal).Astatine sublimes less readily than does iodine, having a lower vapor pressure. Even so, half of a given quantity of astatine will vaporize in approximately an hour if put on a clean glass surface at room temperature. The absorption spectrum of astatine in the middle ultraviolet region has lines at 224.401 and 216.225 nm, suggestive of 6p to 7s transitions.The structure of solid astatine is unknown. As an analogue of iodine it may have an orthorhombic crystalline structure composed of diatomic astatine molecules, and be a semiconductor (with a band gap of 0.7 eV). Alternatively, if condensed astatine forms a metallic phase, as has been predicted, it may have a monatomic face-centered cubic structure; in this structure it may well be a superconductor, like the similar high-pressure phase of iodine. Evidence for (or against) the existence of diatomic astatine (At2) is sparse and inconclusive. Some sources state that it does not exist, or at least has never been observed, while other sources assert or imply its existence. Despite this controversy, many properties of diatomic astatine have been predicted; for example, its bond length would be , dissociation energy , and heat of vaporization (∆Hvap) 54.39 kJ/mol. Many values have been predicted for the melting and boiling points of astatine, but only for At2.Chemical The chemistry of astatine is "clouded by the extremely low concentrations at which astatine experiments have been conducted, and the possibility of reactions with impurities, walls and filters, or radioactivity by-products, and other unwanted nano-scale interactions". Many of its apparent chemical properties have been observed using tracer studies on extremely dilute astatine solutions, typically less than 10−10 mol·L−1. Some properties, such as anion formation, align with other halogens. Astatine has some metallic characteristics as well, such as plating onto a cathode, and coprecipitating with metal sulfides in hydrochloric acid. It forms complexes with EDTA, a metal chelating agent, and is capable of acting as a metal in antibody radiolabeling; in some respects astatine in the +1 state is akin to silver in the same state. Most of the organic chemistry of astatine is, however, analogous to that of iodine. It has been suggested that astatine can form a stable monatomic cation in aqueous solution, but electromigration evidence suggests that the cationic At(I) species is protonated hypoastatous acid (H2OAt+), showing analogy to iodine.Astatine has an electronegativity of 2.2 on the revised Pauling scale – lower than that of iodine (2.66) and the same as hydrogen. In hydrogen astatide (HAt), the negative charge is predicted to be on the hydrogen atom, implying that this compound could be referred to as astatine hydride according to certain nomenclatures. That would be consistent with the electronegativity of astatine on the Allred–Rochow scale (1.9) being less than that of hydrogen (2.2). However, official IUPAC stoichiometric nomenclature is based on an idealized convention of determining the relative electronegativities of the elements by the mere virtue of their position within the periodic table. According to this convention, astatine is handled as though it is more electronegative than hydrogen, irrespective of its true electronegativity. The electron affinity of astatine, at 233 kJ mol−1, is 21% less than that of iodine. In comparison, the value of Cl (349) is 6.4% higher than F (328); Br (325) is 6.9% less than Cl; and I (295) is 9.2% less than Br. The marked reduction for At was predicted as being due to spin–orbit interactions. The first ionisation energy of astatine is about 899 kJ mol−1, which continues the trend of decreasing first ionisation energies down the halogen group (fluorine, 1681; chlorine, 1251; bromine, 1140; iodine, 1008).Compounds Less reactive than iodine, astatine is the least reactive of the halogens. Its compounds have been synthesized in microscopic amounts and studied as intensively as possible before their radioactive disintegration. The reactions involved have been typically tested with dilute solutions of astatine mixed with larger amounts of iodine. Acting as a carrier, the iodine ensures there is sufficient material for laboratory techniques (such as filtration and precipitation) to work. Like iodine, astatine has been shown to adopt odd-numbered oxidation states ranging from −1 to +7.Only a few compounds with metals have been reported, in the form of astatides of sodium, palladium, silver, thallium, and lead. Some characteristic properties of silver and sodium astatide, and the other hypothetical alkali and alkaline earth astatides, have been estimated by extrapolation from other metal halides.The formation of an astatine compound with hydrogen – usually referred to as hydrogen astatide – was noted by the pioneers of astatine chemistry. As mentioned, there are grounds for instead referring to this compound as astatine hydride. It is easily oxidized; acidification by dilute nitric acid gives the At0 or At+ forms, and the subsequent addition of silver(I) may only partially, at best, precipitate astatine as silver(I) astatide (AgAt). Iodine, in contrast, is not oxidized, and precipitates readily as silver(I) iodide.Astatine is known to bind to boron, carbon, and nitrogen. Various boron cage compounds have been prepared with At–B bonds, these being more stable than At–C bonds. Astatine can replace a hydrogen atom in benzene to form astatobenzene C6H5At; this may be oxidized to C6H5AtCl2 by chlorine. By treating this compound with an alkaline solution of hypochlorite, C6H5AtO2 can be produced. The dipyridine-astatine(I) cation, [At(C5H5N)2]+, forms ionic compounds with perchlorate (a non-coordinating anion) and with nitrate, [At(C5H5N)2]NO3. This cation exists as a coordination complex in which two dative covalent bonds separately link the astatine(I) centre with each of the pyridine rings via their nitrogen atoms.With oxygen, there is evidence of the species AtO− and AtO+ in aqueous solution, formed by the reaction of astatine with an oxidant such as elemental bromine or (in the last case) by sodium persulfate in a solution of perchloric acid: the latter species might also be protonated astatous acid, . The species previously thought to be  has since been determined to be , a hydrolysis product of AtO+ (another such hydrolysis product being AtOOH). The well characterized  anion can be obtained by, for example, the oxidation of astatine with potassium hypochlorite in a solution of potassium hydroxide. Preparation of lanthanum triastatate La(AtO3)3, following the oxidation of astatine by a hot Na2S2O8 solution, has been reported. Further oxidation of , such as by xenon difluoride (in a hot alkaline solution) or periodate (in a neutral or alkaline solution), yields the perastatate ion ; this is only stable in neutral or alkaline solutions. Astatine is also thought to be capable of forming cations in salts with oxyanions such as iodate or dichromate; this is based on the observation that, in acidic solutions, monovalent or intermediate positive states of astatine coprecipitate with the insoluble salts of metal cations such as silver(I) iodate or thallium(I) dichromate.Astatine may form bonds to the other chalcogens; these include S7At+ and  with sulfur, a coordination selenourea compound with selenium, and an astatine–tellurium colloid with tellurium.Astatine is known to react with its lighter homologs iodine, bromine, and chlorine in the vapor state; these reactions produce diatomic interhalogen compounds with formulas AtI, AtBr, and AtCl. The first two compounds may also be produced in water – astatine reacts with iodine/iodide solution to form AtI, whereas AtBr requires (aside from astatine) an iodine/iodine monobromide/bromide solution. The excess of iodides or bromides may lead to  and  ions, or in a chloride solution, they may produce species like  or  via equilibrium reactions with the chlorides. Oxidation of the element with dichromate (in nitric acid solution) showed that adding chloride turned the astatine into a molecule likely to be either AtCl or AtOCl. Similarly,  or  may be produced. The polyhalides PdAtI2, CsAtI2, TlAtI2, and PbAtI are known or presumed to have been precipitated. In a plasma ion source mass spectrometer, the ions [AtI]+, [AtBr]+, and [AtCl]+ have been formed by introducing lighter halogen vapors into a helium-filled cell containing astatine, supporting the existence of stable neutral molecules in the plasma ion state. No astatine fluorides have been discovered yet. Their absence has been speculatively attributed to the extreme reactivity of such compounds, including the reaction of an initially formed fluoride with the walls of the glass container to form a non-volatile product. Thus, although the synthesis of an astatine fluoride is thought to be possible, it may require a liquid halogen fluoride solvent, as has already been used for the characterization of radon fluoride.History In 1869, when Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table, the space under iodine was empty; after Niels Bohr established the physical basis of the classification of chemical elements, it was suggested that the fifth halogen belonged there. Before its officially recognized discovery, it was called "eka-iodine" (from Sanskrit eka – "one") to imply it was one space under iodine (in the same manner as eka-silicon, eka-boron, and others). Scientists tried to find it in nature; given its extreme rarity, these attempts resulted in several false discoveries.The first claimed discovery of eka-iodine was made by Fred Allison and his associates at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in 1931. The discoverers named element 85 "alabamine", and assigned it the symbol Ab, designations that were used for a few years. In 1934, H. G. MacPherson of University of California, Berkeley disproved Allison's method and the validity of his discovery. There was another claim in 1937, by the chemist Rajendralal De. Working in Dacca in British India (now Dhaka in Bangladesh), he chose the name "dakin" for element 85, which he claimed to have isolated as the thorium series equivalent of radium F (polonium-210) in the radium series. The properties he reported for dakin do not correspond to those of astatine; moreover, astatine is not found in the thorium series, and the true identity of dakin is not known.In 1936, the team of Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and French physicist Yvette Cauchois claimed to have discovered element 85 via X-ray analysis. In 1939, they published another paper which supported and extended previous data. In 1944, Hulubei published a summary of data he had obtained up to that time, claiming it was supported by the work of other researchers. He chose the name "dor", presumably from the Romanian for "longing" [for peace], as World War II had started five years earlier. As Hulubei was writing in French, a language which does not accommodate the "ine" suffix, dor would likely have been rendered in English as "dorine", had it been adopted. In 1947, Hulubei's claim was effectively rejected by the Austrian chemist Friedrich Paneth, who would later chair the IUPAC committee responsible for recognition of new elements. Even though Hulubei's samples did contain astatine, his means to detect it were too weak, by current standards, to enable correct identification. He had also been involved in an earlier false claim as to the discovery of element 87 (francium) and this is thought to have caused other researchers to downplay his work.In 1940, the Swiss chemist Walter Minder announced the discovery of element 85 as the beta decay product of radium A (polonium-218), choosing the name "helvetium" (from , the Latin name of Switzerland). Berta Karlik and Traude Bernert were unsuccessful in reproducing his experiments, and subsequently attributed Minder's results to contamination of his radon stream (radon-222 is the parent isotope of polonium-218). In 1942, Minder, in collaboration with the English scientist Alice Leigh-Smith, announced the discovery of another isotope of element 85, presumed to be the product of thorium A (polonium-216) beta decay. They named this substance "anglo-helvetium", but Karlik and Bernert were again unable to reproduce these results.Later in 1940, Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè isolated the element at the University of California, Berkeley. Instead of searching for the element in nature, the scientists created it by bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles in a cyclotron (particle accelerator) to produce, after emission of two neutrons, astatine-211. The discoverers, however, did not immediately suggest a name for the element. The reason for this was that at the time, an element created synthetically in "invisible quantities" that had not yet been discovered in nature was not seen as a completely valid one; in addition, chemists were reluctant to recognize radioactive isotopes as legitimately as stable ones. In 1943, astatine was found as a product of two naturally occurring decay chains by Berta Karlik and Traude Bernert, first in the so-called uranium series, and then in the actinium series. (Since then, astatine was also found in a third decay chain, the neptunium series.) Friedrich Paneth in 1946 called to finally recognize synthetic elements, quoting, among other reasons, recent confirmation of their natural occurrence, and proposed that the discoverers of the newly discovered unnamed elements name these elements. In early 1947, Nature published the discoverers' suggestions; a letter from Corson, MacKenzie, and Segrè suggested the name "astatine" coming from the Greek astatos (αστατος) meaning "unstable", because of its propensity for radioactive decay, with the ending "-ine", found in the names of the four previously discovered halogens. The name was also chosen to continue the tradition of the four stable halogens, where the name referred to a property of the element.Corson and his colleagues classified astatine as a metal on the basis of its analytical chemistry. Subsequent investigators reported iodine-like, cationic, or amphoteric behavior. In a 2003 retrospective, Corson wrote that "some of the properties [of astatine] are similar to iodine … it also exhibits metallic properties, more like its metallic neighbors Po and Bi."Isotopes There are 39 known isotopes of astatine, with atomic masses (mass numbers) of 191–229. Theoretical modeling suggests that 37 more isotopes could exist. No stable or long-lived astatine isotope has been observed, nor is one expected to exist.Astatine's alpha decay energies follow the same trend as for other heavy elements. Lighter astatine isotopes have quite high energies of alpha decay, which become lower as the nuclei become heavier. Astatine-211 has a significantly higher energy than the previous isotope, because it has a nucleus with 126 neutrons, and 126 is a magic number corresponding to a filled neutron shell. Despite having a similar half-life to the previous isotope (8.1 hours for astatine-210 and 7.2 hours for astatine-211), the alpha decay probability is much higher for the latter: 41.81% against only 0.18%. The two following isotopes release even more energy, with astatine-213 releasing the most energy. For this reason, it is the shortest-lived astatine isotope. Even though heavier astatine isotopes release less energy, no long-lived astatine isotope exists, because of the increasing role of beta decay (electron emission). This decay mode is especially important for astatine; as early as 1950 it was postulated that all isotopes of the element undergo beta decay, though nuclear mass measurements indicate that 215At is in fact beta-stable, as it has the lowest mass of all isobars with A = 215. A beta decay mode has been found for all other astatine isotopes except for astatine-213, astatine-214, and astatine-216m. Astatine-210 and lighter isotopes exhibit beta plus decay (positron emission), astatine-216 and heavier isotopes exhibit beta minus decay, and astatine-212 decays via both modes, while astatine-211 undergoes electron capture.The most stable isotope is astatine-210, which has a half-life of 8.1 hours. The primary decay mode is beta plus, to the relatively long-lived (in comparison to astatine isotopes) alpha emitter polonium-210. In total, only five isotopes have half-lives exceeding one hour (astatine-207 to -211). The least stable ground state isotope is astatine-213, with a half-life of 125 nanoseconds. It undergoes alpha decay to the extremely long-lived bismuth-209.Astatine has 24 known nuclear isomers, which are nuclei with one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) in an excited state. A nuclear isomer may also be called a "meta-state", meaning the system has more internal energy than the "ground state" (the state with the lowest possible internal energy), making the former likely to decay into the latter. There may be more than one isomer for each isotope. The most stable of these nuclear isomers is astatine-202m1, which has a half-life of about 3 minutes, longer than those of all the ground states bar those of isotopes 203–211 and 220. The least stable is astatine-214m1; its half-life of 265 nanoseconds is shorter than those of all ground states except that of astatine-213.Natural occurrence Astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element. The total amount of astatine in the Earth's crust (quoted mass 2.36 × 1025 grams) is estimated by some to be less than one gram at any given time. Other sources estimate the amount of ephemeral astatine, present on earth at any given moment, to be up to one ounce (about 28 grams).Any astatine present at the formation of the Earth has long since disappeared; the four naturally occurring isotopes (astatine-215, -217, -218 and -219) are instead continuously produced as a result of the decay of radioactive thorium and uranium ores, and trace quantities of neptunium-237. The landmass of North and South America combined, to a depth of 16 kilometers (10 miles), contains only about one trillion astatine-215 atoms at any given time (around 3.5 × 10−10 grams). Astatine-217 is produced via the radioactive decay of neptunium-237. Primordial remnants of the latter isotope—due to its relatively short half-life of 2.14 million years—are no longer present on Earth. However, trace amounts occur naturally as a product of transmutation reactions in uranium ores. Astatine-218 was the first astatine isotope discovered in nature. Astatine-219, with a half-life of 56 seconds, is the longest lived of the naturally occurring isotopes.Isotopes of astatine are sometimes not listed as naturally occurring because of misconceptions that there are no such isotopes, or discrepancies in the literature. Astatine-216 has been counted as a naturally occurring isotope but reports of its observation (which were described as doubtful) have not been confirmed.SynthesisFormation Astatine was first produced by bombarding bismuth-209 with energetic alpha particles, and this is still the major route used to create the relatively long-lived isotopes astatine-209 through astatine-211. Astatine is only produced in minuscule quantities, with modern techniques allowing production runs of up to 6.6 giga becquerels (about 86 nanograms or 2.47 × 1014 atoms). Synthesis of greater quantities of astatine using this method is constrained by the limited availability of suitable cyclotrons and the prospect of melting the target. Solvent radiolysis due to the cumulative effect of astatine decay is a related problem. With cryogenic technology, microgram quantities of astatine might be able to be generated via proton irradiation of thorium or uranium to yield radon-211, in turn decaying to astatine-211. Contamination with astatine-210 is expected to be a drawback of this method.The most important isotope is astatine-211, the only one in commercial use. To produce the bismuth target, the metal is sputtered onto a gold, copper, or aluminium surface at 50 to 100 milligrams per square centimeter. Bismuth oxide can be used instead; this is forcibly fused with a copper plate. The target is kept under a chemically neutral nitrogen atmosphere, and is cooled with water to prevent premature astatine vaporization. In a particle accelerator, such as a cyclotron, alpha particles are collided with the bismuth. Even though only one bismuth isotope is used (bismuth-209), the reaction may occur in three possible ways, producing astatine-209, astatine-210, or astatine-211. In order to eliminate undesired nuclides, the maximum energy of the particle accelerator is set to a value (optimally 29.17 MeV) above that for the reaction producing astatine-211 (to produce the desired isotope) and below the one producing astatine-210 (to avoid producing other astatine isotopes).Separation methods Since astatine is the main product of the synthesis, after its formation it must only be separated from the target and any significant contaminants. Several methods are available, "but they generally follow one of two approaches—dry distillation or [wet] acid treatment of the target followed by solvent extraction." The methods summarized below are modern adaptations of older procedures, as reviewed by Kugler and Keller. Pre-1985 techniques more often addressed the elimination of co-produced toxic polonium; this requirement is now mitigated by capping the energy of the cyclotron irradiation beam.Dry The astatine-containing cyclotron target is heated to a temperature of around 650 °C. The astatine volatilizes and is condensed in (typically) a cold trap. Higher temperatures of up to around 850 °C may increase the yield, at the risk of bismuth contamination from concurrent volatilization. Redistilling the condensate may be required to minimize the presence of bismuth (as bismuth can interfere with astatine labeling reactions). The astatine is recovered from the trap using one or more low concentration solvents such as sodium hydroxide, methanol or chloroform. Astatine yields of up to around 80% may be achieved. Dry separation is the method most commonly used to produce a chemically useful form of astatine.Wet The irradiated bismuth (or sometimes bismuth trioxide) target is first dissolved in, for example, concentrated nitric or perchloric acid. Following this first step, the acid can be distilled away to leave behind a white residue that contains both bismuth and the desired astatine product. This residue is then dissolved in a concentrated acid, such as hydrochloric acid. Astatine is extracted from this acid using an organic solvent such as butyl or isopropyl ether, diisopropylether (DIPE), or thiosemicarbazide. Using liquid-liquid extraction, the astatine product can be repeatedly washed with an acid, such as HCl, and extracted into the organic solvent layer. A separation yield of 93% using nitric acid has been reported, falling to 72% by the time purification procedures were completed (distillation of nitric acid, purging residual nitrogen oxides, and redissolving bismuth nitrate to enable liquid–liquid extraction). Wet methods involve "multiple radioactivity handling steps" and have not been considered well suited for isolating larger quantities of astatine. However, wet extraction methods are being examined for use in production of larger quantities of astatine-211, as it is thought that wet extraction methods can provide more consistency. They can enable the production of astatine in a specific oxidation state and may have greater applicability in experimental radiochemistry.Uses and precautions {| class="wikitable"|+ Several 211At-containing molecules and their experimental uses! Agent! Applications|-| [211At]astatine-tellurium colloids| Compartmental tumors|-| 6-[211At]astato-2-methyl-1,4-naphtaquinol diphosphate| Adenocarcinomas|-| 211At-labeled methylene blue| Melanomas|-| Meta-[211At]astatobenzyl guanidine| Neuroendocrine tumors|-| 5-[211At]astato-2'-deoxyuridine| Various|-| 211At-labeled biotin conjugates| Various pretargeting|-| 211At-labeled octreotide| Somatostatin receptor|-| 211At-labeled monoclonal antibodies and fragments| Various|-| 211At-labeled bisphosphonates| Bone metastases|}Newly formed astatine-211 is the subject of ongoing research in nuclear medicine. It must be used quickly as it decays with a half-life of 7.2 hours; this is long enough to permit multistep labeling strategies. Astatine-211 has potential for targeted alpha-particle therapy, since it decays either via emission of an alpha particle (to bismuth-207), or via electron capture (to an extremely short-lived nuclide, polonium-211, which undergoes further alpha decay), very quickly reaching its stable granddaughter lead-207. Polonium X-rays emitted as a result of the electron capture branch, in the range of 77–92 keV, enable the tracking of astatine in animals and patients. Although astatine-210 has a slightly longer half-life, it is wholly unsuitable because it usually undergoes beta plus decay to the extremely toxic polonium-210.The principal medicinal difference between astatine-211 and iodine-131 (a radioactive iodine isotope also used in medicine) is that iodine-131 emits high-energy beta particles, and astatine does not. Beta particles have much greater penetrating power through tissues than do the much heavier alpha particles. An average alpha particle released by astatine-211 can travel up to 70 µm through surrounding tissues; an average-energy beta particle emitted by iodine-131 can travel nearly 30 times as far, to about 2 mm. The short half-life and limited penetrating power of alpha radiation through tissues offers advantages in situations where the "tumor burden is low and/or malignant cell populations are located in close proximity to essential normal tissues." Significant morbidity in cell culture models of human cancers has been achieved with from one to ten astatine-211 atoms bound per cell.Several obstacles have been encountered in the development of astatine-based radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. World War II delayed research for close to a decade. Results of early experiments indicated that a cancer-selective carrier would need to be developed and it was not until the 1970s that monoclonal antibodies became available for this purpose. Unlike iodine, astatine shows a tendency to dehalogenate from molecular carriers such as these, particularly at sp3 carbon sites (less so from sp2 sites). Given the toxicity of astatine accumulated and retained in the body, this emphasized the need to ensure it remained attached to its host molecule. While astatine carriers that are slowly metabolized can be assessed for their efficacy, more rapidly metabolized carriers remain a significant obstacle to the evaluation of astatine in nuclear medicine. Mitigating the effects of astatine-induced radiolysis of labeling chemistry and carrier molecules is another area requiring further development. A practical application for astatine as a cancer treatment would potentially be suitable for a "staggering" number of patients; production of astatine in the quantities that would be required remains an issue.Animal studies show that astatine, similarly to iodine – although to a lesser extent, perhaps because of its slightly more metallic nature  – is preferentially (and dangerously) concentrated in the thyroid gland. Unlike iodine, astatine also shows a tendency to be taken up by the lungs and spleen, possibly because of in-body oxidation of At– to At+. If administered in the form of a radiocolloid it tends to concentrate in the liver. Experiments in rats and monkeys suggest that astatine-211 causes much greater damage to the thyroid gland than does iodine-131, with repetitive injection of the nuclide resulting in necrosis and cell dysplasia within the gland. Early research suggested that injection of astatine into female rodents caused morphological changes in breast tissue; this conclusion remained controversial for many years. General agreement was later reached that this was likely caused by the effect of breast tissue irradiation combined with hormonal changes due to irradiation of the ovaries. Trace amounts of astatine can be handled safely in fume hoods if they are well-aerated; biological uptake of the element must be avoided.See also  Radiation protectionNotesReferencesBibliographyExternal links  Astatine at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) Astatine: Halogen or Metal? HalogensMetalloidsChemical elements
An atom is the smallest unit of ordinary matter that forms a chemical element. Every solid, liquid, gas, and plasma is composed of neutral or ionized atoms. Atoms are extremely small, typically around 100 picometers across. They are so small that accurately predicting their behavior using classical physics—as if they were tennis balls, for example—is not possible due to quantum effects.Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. More than 99.94% of an atom's mass is in the nucleus. The protons have a positive electric charge, the electrons have a negative electric charge, and the neutrons have no electric charge. If the number of protons and electrons are equal, then the atom is electrically neutral. If an atom has more or fewer electrons than protons, then it has an overall negative or positive charge, respectively – such atoms are called ions.The electrons of an atom are attracted to the protons in an atomic nucleus by the electromagnetic force. The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are attracted to each other by the nuclear force. This force is usually stronger than the electromagnetic force that repels the positively charged protons from one another. Under certain circumstances, the repelling electromagnetic force becomes stronger than the nuclear force. In this case, the nucleus splits and leaves behind different elements. This is a form of nuclear decay.The number of protons in the nucleus is the atomic number and it defines to which chemical element the atom belongs. For example, any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. The number of neutrons defines the isotope of the element. Atoms can attach to one or more other atoms by chemical bonds to form chemical compounds such as molecules or crystals. The ability of atoms to associate and dissociate is responsible for most of the physical changes observed in nature. Chemistry is the discipline that studies these changes.History of atomic theoryIn philosophyThe basic idea that matter is made up of tiny, indivisible particles appears in many ancient cultures such as those of Greece and India. The word atom is derived from the ancient Greek word atomos (a combination of the negative term "a-" and "τομή," the term for "cut") that means "uncuttable". This ancient idea was based in philosophical reasoning rather than scientific reasoning; modern atomic theory is not based on these old concepts. Nonetheless, the term "atom" was used throughout the ages by thinkers who suspected that matter was ultimately granular in nature. It has since been discovered that "atoms" can be split, but the misnomer is still used.Dalton's law of multiple proportionsIn the early 1800s, the English chemist John Dalton compiled experimental data gathered by himself and other scientists and discovered a pattern now known as the "law of multiple proportions". He noticed that in chemical compounds which contain a particular chemical element, the content of that element in these compounds will differ by ratios of small whole numbers. This pattern suggested to Dalton that each chemical element combines with other elements by some basic and consistent unit of mass.For example, there are two types of tin oxide: one is a black powder that is 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen, and the other is a white powder that is 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen. Adjusting these figures, in the black oxide there is about 13.5 g of oxygen for every 100 g of tin, and in the white oxide there is about 27 g of oxygen for every 100 g of tin. 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2. In these oxides, for every tin atom there are one or two oxygen atoms respectively (SnO and SnO2).As a second example, Dalton considered two iron oxides: a black powder which is 78.1% iron and 21.9% oxygen, and a red powder which is 70.4% iron and 29.6% oxygen. Adjusting these figures, in the black oxide there is about 28 g of oxygen for every 100 g of iron, and in the red oxide there is about 42 g of oxygen for every 100 g of iron. 28 and 42 form a ratio of 2:3. In these respective oxides, for every two atoms of iron, there are two or three atoms of oxygen (Fe2O2 and Fe2O3).As a final example: nitrous oxide is 63.3% nitrogen and 36.7% oxygen, nitric oxide is 44.05% nitrogen and 55.95% oxygen, and nitrogen dioxide is 29.5% nitrogen and 70.5% oxygen. Adjusting these figures, in nitrous oxide there is 80 g of oxygen for every 140 g of nitrogen, in nitric oxide there is about 160 g of oxygen for every 140 g of nitrogen, and in nitrogen dioxide there is 320 g of oxygen for every 140 g of nitrogen. 80, 160, and 320 form a ratio of 1:2:4. The respective formulas for these oxides are N2O, NO, and NO2.Kinetic theory of gasesIn the late 18th century, a number of scientists found that they could better explain the behavior of gases by describing them as collections of sub-microscopic particles and modelling their behavior using statistics and probability. Unlike Dalton's atomic theory, the kinetic theory of gases describes not how gases react chemically with each other to form compounds, but how they behave physically: diffusion, viscosity, conductivity, pressure, etc.Brownian motionIn 1827, botanist Robert Brown used a microscope to look at dust grains floating in water and discovered that they moved about erratically, a phenomenon that became known as "Brownian motion". This was thought to be caused by water molecules knocking the grains about. In 1905, Albert Einstein proved the reality of these molecules and their motions by producing the first statistical physics analysis of Brownian motion. French physicist Jean Perrin used Einstein's work to experimentally determine the mass and dimensions of molecules, thereby providing physical evidence for the particle nature of matter.Discovery of the electronIn 1897, J. J. Thomson discovered that cathode rays are not electromagnetic waves but made of particles that are 1,800 times lighter than hydrogen (the lightest atom). Thomson concluded that these particles came from the atoms within the cathode — they were subatomic particles. He called these new particles corpuscles but they were later renamed electrons. Thomson also showed that electrons were identical to particles given off by photoelectric and radioactive materials. It was quickly recognized that electrons are the particles that carry electric currents in metal wires. Thomson concluded that these electrons emerged from the very atoms of the cathode in his instruments, which meant that atoms are not indivisible as the name atomos suggests.Discovery of the nucleusJ. J. Thomson thought that the negatively-charged electrons were distributed throughout the atom in a sea of positive charge that was distributed across the whole volume of the atom. This model is sometimes known as the plum pudding model.Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden came to have doubts about the Thomson model after they encountered difficulties when they tried to build an instrument to measure the charge-to-mass ratio of alpha particles (these are positively-charged particles emitted by certain radioactive substances such as radium). The alpha particles were being scattered by the air in the detection chamber, which made the measurements unreliable.  Thomson had encountered a similar problem in his work on cathode rays, which he solved by creating a near-perfect vacuum in his instruments. Rutherford didn't think he'd run into this same problem because alpha particles are much heavier than electrons. According to Thomson's model of the atom, the positive charge in the atom is not concentrated enough to produce an electric field strong enough to deflect an alpha particle, and the electrons are so lightweight they should be pushed aside effortlessly by the much heavier alpha particles. Yet there was scattering, so Rutherford and his colleagues decided to investigate this scattering carefully.Between 1908 and 1913, Rutheford and his colleagues performed a series of experiments in which they bombarded thin foils of metal with alpha particles. They spotted alpha particles being deflected by angles greater than 90°. To explain this, Rutherford proposed that the positive charge of the atom is not distributed throughout the atom's volume as Thomson believed, but is concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the center. Only such an intense concentration of charge could produce an electric field strong enough to deflect the alpha particles as observed.Discovery of isotopesWhile experimenting with the products of radioactive decay, in 1913 radiochemist Frederick Soddy discovered that there appeared to be more than one type of atom at each position on the periodic table. The term isotope was coined by Margaret Todd as a suitable name for different atoms that belong to the same element. J. J. Thomson created a technique for isotope separation through his work on ionized gases, which subsequently led to the discovery of stable isotopes.Bohr modelIn 1913, the physicist Niels Bohr proposed a model in which the electrons of an atom were assumed to orbit the nucleus but could only do so in a finite set of orbits, and could jump between these orbits only in discrete changes of energy corresponding to absorption or radiation of a photon. This quantization was used to explain why the electrons' orbits are stable (given that normally, charges in acceleration, including circular motion, lose kinetic energy which is emitted as electromagnetic radiation, see synchrotron radiation) and why elements absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation in discrete spectra.Later in the same year Henry Moseley provided additional experimental evidence in favor of Niels Bohr's theory. These results refined Ernest Rutherford's and Antonius van den Broek's model, which proposed that the atom contains in its nucleus a number of positive nuclear charges that is equal to its (atomic) number in the periodic table. Until these experiments, atomic number was not known to be a physical and experimental quantity. That it is equal to the atomic nuclear charge remains the accepted atomic model today.Chemical bonds between atoms were explained by Gilbert Newton Lewis in 1916, as the interactions between their constituent electrons. As the chemical properties of the elements were known to largely repeat themselves according to the periodic law, in 1919 the American chemist Irving Langmuir suggested that this could be explained if the electrons in an atom were connected or clustered in some manner. Groups of electrons were thought to occupy a set of electron shells about the nucleus.The Bohr model of the atom was the first complete physical model of the atom. It described the overall structure of the atom, how atoms bond to each other, and predicted the spectral lines of hydrogen. Bohr's model was not perfect and was soon superseded by the more accurate Schrödinger model, but it was sufficient to evaporate any remaining doubts that matter is composed of atoms. For chemists, the idea of the atom had been a useful heuristic tool, but physicists had doubts as to whether matter really is made up of atoms as nobody had yet developed a complete physical model of the atom.The Schrödinger modelThe Stern–Gerlach experiment of 1922 provided further evidence of the quantum nature of atomic properties. When a beam of silver atoms was passed through a specially shaped magnetic field, the beam was split in a way correlated with the direction of an atom's angular momentum, or spin. As this spin direction is initially random, the beam would be expected to deflect in a random direction. Instead, the beam was split into two directional components, corresponding to the atomic spin being oriented up or down with respect to the magnetic field.In 1925, Werner Heisenberg published the first consistent mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics (matrix mechanics). One year earlier, Louis de Broglie had proposed the de Broglie hypothesis: that all particles behave like waves to some extent, and in 1926 Erwin Schrödinger used this idea to develop the Schrödinger equation, a mathematical model of the atom (wave mechanics) that described the electrons as three-dimensional waveforms rather than point particles.A consequence of using waveforms to describe particles is that it is mathematically impossible to obtain precise values for both the position and momentum of a particle at a given point in time; this became known as the uncertainty principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927. In this concept, for a given accuracy in measuring a position one could only obtain a range of probable values for momentum, and vice versa.This model was able to explain observations of atomic behavior that previous models could not, such as certain structural and spectral patterns of atoms larger than hydrogen. Thus, the planetary model of the atom was discarded in favor of one that described atomic orbital zones around the nucleus where a given electron is most likely to be observed.Discovery of the neutronThe development of the mass spectrometer allowed the mass of atoms to be measured with increased accuracy. The device uses a magnet to bend the trajectory of a beam of ions, and the amount of deflection is determined by the ratio of an atom's mass to its charge. The chemist Francis William Aston used this instrument to show that isotopes had different masses. The atomic mass of these isotopes varied by integer amounts, called the whole number rule. The explanation for these different isotopes awaited the discovery of the neutron, an uncharged particle with a mass similar to the proton, by the physicist James Chadwick in 1932. Isotopes were then explained as elements with the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons within the nucleus.Fission, high-energy physics and condensed matterIn 1938, the German chemist Otto Hahn, a student of Rutherford, directed neutrons onto uranium atoms expecting to get transuranium elements. Instead, his chemical experiments showed barium as a product. A year later, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch verified that Hahn's result were the first experimental nuclear fission. In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Despite Hahn's efforts, the contributions of Meitner and Frisch were not recognized.In the 1950s, the development of improved particle accelerators and particle detectors allowed scientists to study the impacts of atoms moving at high energies. Neutrons and protons were found to be hadrons, or composites of smaller particles called quarks. The standard model of particle physics was developed that so far has successfully explained the properties of the nucleus in terms of these sub-atomic particles and the forces that govern their interactions.StructureSubatomic particlesThough the word atom originally denoted a particle that cannot be cut into smaller particles, in modern scientific usage the atom is composed of various subatomic particles. The constituent particles of an atom are the electron, the proton and the neutron.The electron is by far the least massive of these particles at , with a negative electrical charge and a size that is too small to be measured using available techniques. It was the lightest particle with a positive rest mass measured, until the discovery of neutrino mass. Under ordinary conditions, electrons are bound to the positively charged nucleus by the attraction created from opposite electric charges. If an atom has more or fewer electrons than its atomic number, then it becomes respectively negatively or positively charged as a whole; a charged atom is called an ion. Electrons have been known since the late 19th century, mostly thanks to J.J. Thomson; see history of subatomic physics for details.Protons have a positive charge and a mass 1,836 times that of the electron, at . The number of protons in an atom is called its atomic number. Ernest Rutherford (1919) observed that nitrogen under alpha-particle bombardment ejects what appeared to be hydrogen nuclei. By 1920 he had accepted that the hydrogen nucleus is a distinct particle within the atom and named it proton.Neutrons have no electrical charge and have a free mass of 1,839 times the mass of the electron, or . Neutrons are the heaviest of the three constituent particles, but their mass can be reduced by the nuclear binding energy. Neutrons and protons (collectively known as nucleons) have comparable dimensions—on the order of —although the 'surface' of these particles is not sharply defined. The neutron was discovered in 1932 by the English physicist James Chadwick.In the Standard Model of physics, electrons are truly elementary particles with no internal structure, whereas protons and neutrons are composite particles composed of elementary particles called quarks. There are two types of quarks in atoms, each having a fractional electric charge. Protons are composed of two up quarks (each with charge +) and one down quark (with a charge of −). Neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks. This distinction accounts for the difference in mass and charge between the two particles.The quarks are held together by the strong interaction (or strong force), which is mediated by gluons. The protons and neutrons, in turn, are held to each other in the nucleus by the nuclear force, which is a residuum of the strong force that has somewhat different range-properties (see the article on the nuclear force for more). The gluon is a member of the family of gauge bosons, which are elementary particles that mediate physical forces.NucleusAll the bound protons and neutrons in an atom make up a tiny atomic nucleus, and are collectively called nucleons. The radius of a nucleus is approximately equal to  femtometres, where  is the total number of nucleons. This is much smaller than the radius of the atom, which is on the order of 105 fm. The nucleons are bound together by a short-ranged attractive potential called the residual strong force. At distances smaller than 2.5 fm this force is much more powerful than the electrostatic force that causes positively charged protons to repel each other.Atoms of the same element have the same number of protons, called the atomic number. Within a single element, the number of neutrons may vary, determining the isotope of that element. The total number of protons and neutrons determine the nuclide. The number of neutrons relative to the protons determines the stability of the nucleus, with certain isotopes undergoing radioactive decay.The proton, the electron, and the neutron are classified as fermions. Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle which prohibits identical fermions, such as multiple protons, from occupying the same quantum state at the same time. Thus, every proton in the nucleus must occupy a quantum state different from all other protons, and the same applies to all neutrons of the nucleus and to all electrons of the electron cloud.A nucleus that has a different number of protons than neutrons can potentially drop to a lower energy state through a radioactive decay that causes the number of protons and neutrons to more closely match. As a result, atoms with matching numbers of protons and neutrons are more stable against decay, but with increasing atomic number, the mutual repulsion of the protons requires an increasing proportion of neutrons to maintain the stability of the nucleus.The number of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus can be modified, although this can require very high energies because of the strong force. Nuclear fusion occurs when multiple atomic particles join to form a heavier nucleus, such as through the energetic collision of two nuclei. For example, at the core of the Sun protons require energies of 3 to 10 keV to overcome their mutual repulsion—the coulomb barrier—and fuse together into a single nucleus. Nuclear fission is the opposite process, causing a nucleus to split into two smaller nuclei—usually through radioactive decay. The nucleus can also be modified through bombardment by high energy subatomic particles or photons. If this modifies the number of protons in a nucleus, the atom changes to a different chemical element.If the mass of the nucleus following a fusion reaction is less than the sum of the masses of the separate particles, then the difference between these two values can be emitted as a type of usable energy (such as a gamma ray, or the kinetic energy of a beta particle), as described by Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence formula, , where  is the mass loss and  is the speed of light. This deficit is part of the binding energy of the new nucleus, and it is the non-recoverable loss of the energy that causes the fused particles to remain together in a state that requires this energy to separate.The fusion of two nuclei that create larger nuclei with lower atomic numbers than iron and nickel—a total nucleon number of about 60—is usually an exothermic process that releases more energy than is required to bring them together. It is this energy-releasing process that makes nuclear fusion in stars a self-sustaining reaction. For heavier nuclei, the binding energy per nucleon in the nucleus begins to decrease. That means fusion processes producing nuclei that have atomic numbers higher than about 26, and atomic masses higher than about 60, is an endothermic process. These more massive nuclei can not undergo an energy-producing fusion reaction that can sustain the hydrostatic equilibrium of a star.Electron cloudThe electrons in an atom are attracted to the protons in the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. This force binds the electrons inside an electrostatic potential well surrounding the smaller nucleus, which means that an external source of energy is needed for the electron to escape. The closer an electron is to the nucleus, the greater the attractive force. Hence electrons bound near the center of the potential well require more energy to escape than those at greater separations.Electrons, like other particles, have properties of both a particle and a wave. The electron cloud is a region inside the potential well where each electron forms a type of three-dimensional standing wave—a wave form that does not move relative to the nucleus. This behavior is defined by an atomic orbital, a mathematical function that characterises the probability that an electron appears to be at a particular location when its position is measured. Only a discrete (or quantized) set of these orbitals exist around the nucleus, as other possible wave patterns rapidly decay into a more stable form. Orbitals can have one or more ring or node structures, and differ from each other in size, shape and orientation.Each atomic orbital corresponds to a particular energy level of the electron. The electron can change its state to a higher energy level by absorbing a photon with sufficient energy to boost it into the new quantum state. Likewise, through spontaneous emission, an electron in a higher energy state can drop to a lower energy state while radiating the excess energy as a photon. These characteristic energy values, defined by the differences in the energies of the quantum states, are responsible for atomic spectral lines.The amount of energy needed to remove or add an electron—the electron binding energy—is far less than the binding energy of nucleons. For example, it requires only 13.6 eV to strip a ground-state electron from a hydrogen atom, compared to 2.23 million eV for splitting a deuterium nucleus. Atoms are electrically neutral if they have an equal number of protons and electrons. Atoms that have either a deficit or a surplus of electrons are called ions. Electrons that are farthest from the nucleus may be transferred to other nearby atoms or shared between atoms. By this mechanism, atoms are able to bond into molecules and other types of chemical compounds like ionic and covalent network crystals.PropertiesNuclear propertiesBy definition, any two atoms with an identical number of protons in their nuclei belong to the same chemical element. Atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number of neutrons are different isotopes of the same element. For example, all hydrogen atoms admit exactly one proton, but isotopes exist with no neutrons (hydrogen-1, by far the most common form, also called protium), one neutron (deuterium), two neutrons (tritium) and more than two neutrons. The known elements form a set of atomic numbers, from the single-proton element hydrogen up to the 118-proton element oganesson. All known isotopes of elements with atomic numbers greater than 82 are radioactive, although the radioactivity of element 83 (bismuth) is so slight as to be practically negligible.About 339 nuclides occur naturally on Earth, of which 252 (about 74%) have not been observed to decay, and are referred to as "stable isotopes". Only 90 nuclides are stable theoretically, while another 162 (bringing the total to 252) have not been observed to decay, even though in theory it is energetically possible. These are also formally classified as "stable". An additional 34 radioactive nuclides have half-lives longer than 100 million years, and are long-lived enough to have been present since the birth of the Solar System. This collection of 286 nuclides are known as primordial nuclides. Finally, an additional 53 short-lived nuclides are known to occur naturally, as daughter products of primordial nuclide decay (such as radium from uranium), or as products of natural energetic processes on Earth, such as cosmic ray bombardment (for example, carbon-14).For 80 of the chemical elements, at least one stable isotope exists. As a rule, there is only a handful of stable isotopes for each of these elements, the average being 3.2 stable isotopes per element. Twenty-six elements have only a single stable isotope, while the largest number of stable isotopes observed for any element is ten, for the element tin. Elements 43, 61, and all elements numbered 83 or higher have no stable isotopes.Stability of isotopes is affected by the ratio of protons to neutrons, and also by the presence of certain "magic numbers" of neutrons or protons that represent closed and filled quantum shells. These quantum shells correspond to a set of energy levels within the shell model of the nucleus; filled shells, such as the filled shell of 50 protons for tin, confers unusual stability on the nuclide. Of the 252 known stable nuclides, only four have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 (deuterium), lithium-6, boron-10 and nitrogen-14. Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd-odd nuclides have a half-life over a billion years: potassium-40, vanadium-50, lanthanum-138 and tantalum-180m. Most odd-odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even-even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects.MassThe large majority of an atom's mass comes from the protons and neutrons that make it up. The total number of these particles (called "nucleons") in a given atom is called the mass number. It is a positive integer and dimensionless (instead of having dimension of mass), because it expresses a count. An example of use of a mass number is "carbon-12," which has 12 nucleons (six protons and six neutrons).The actual mass of an atom at rest is often expressed in daltons (Da), also called the unified atomic mass unit (u). This unit is defined as a twelfth of the mass of a free neutral atom of carbon-12, which is approximately . Hydrogen-1 (the lightest isotope of hydrogen which is also the nuclide with the lowest mass) has an atomic weight of 1.007825 Da. The value of this number is called the atomic mass. A given atom has an atomic mass approximately equal (within 1%) to its mass number times the atomic mass unit (for example the mass of a nitrogen-14 is roughly 14 Da), but this number will not be exactly an integer except (by definition) in the case of carbon-12. The heaviest stable atom is lead-208, with a mass of .As even the most massive atoms are far too light to work with directly, chemists instead use the unit of moles. One mole of atoms of any element always has the same number of atoms (about ). This number was chosen so that if an element has an atomic mass of 1 u, a mole of atoms of that element has a mass close to one gram. Because of the definition of the unified atomic mass unit, each carbon-12 atom has an atomic mass of exactly 12 Da, and so a mole of carbon-12 atoms weighs exactly 0.012 kg.Shape and sizeAtoms lack a well-defined outer boundary, so their dimensions are usually described in terms of an atomic radius. This is a measure of the distance out to which the electron cloud extends from the nucleus. This assumes the atom to exhibit a spherical shape, which is only obeyed for atoms in vacuum or free space. Atomic radii may be derived from the distances between two nuclei when the two atoms are joined in a chemical bond. The radius varies with the location of an atom on the atomic chart, the type of chemical bond, the number of neighboring atoms (coordination number) and a quantum mechanical property known as spin. On the periodic table of the elements, atom size tends to increase when moving down columns, but decrease when moving across rows (left to right). Consequently, the smallest atom is helium with a radius of 32 pm, while one of the largest is caesium at 225 pm.When subjected to external forces, like electrical fields, the shape of an atom may deviate from spherical symmetry. The deformation depends on the field magnitude and the orbital type of outer shell electrons, as shown by group-theoretical considerations. Aspherical deviations might be elicited for instance in crystals, where large crystal-electrical fields may occur at low-symmetry lattice sites. Significant ellipsoidal deformations have been shown to occur for sulfur ions and chalcogen ions in pyrite-type compounds.Atomic dimensions are thousands of times smaller than the wavelengths of light (400–700 nm) so they cannot be viewed using an optical microscope, although individual atoms can be observed using a scanning tunneling microscope. To visualize the minuteness of the atom, consider that a typical human hair is about 1 million carbon atoms in width. A single drop of water contains about 2 sextillion () atoms of oxygen, and twice the number of hydrogen atoms. A single carat diamond with a mass of  contains about 10 sextillion (1022) atoms of carbon. If an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple.Radioactive decayEvery element has one or more isotopes that have unstable nuclei that are subject to radioactive decay, causing the nucleus to emit particles or electromagnetic radiation. Radioactivity can occur when the radius of a nucleus is large compared with the radius of the strong force, which only acts over distances on the order of 1 fm.The most common forms of radioactive decay are: Alpha decay: this process is caused when the nucleus emits an alpha particle, which is a helium nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons. The result of the emission is a new element with a lower atomic number. Beta decay (and electron capture): these processes are regulated by the weak force, and result from a transformation of a neutron into a proton, or a proton into a neutron. The neutron to proton transition is accompanied by the emission of an electron and an antineutrino, while proton to neutron transition (except in electron capture) causes the emission of a positron and a neutrino. The electron or positron emissions are called beta particles. Beta decay either increases or decreases the atomic number of the nucleus by one. Electron capture is more common than positron emission, because it requires less energy. In this type of decay, an electron is absorbed by the nucleus, rather than a positron emitted from the nucleus. A neutrino is still emitted in this process, and a proton changes to a neutron. Gamma decay: this process results from a change in the energy level of the nucleus to a lower state, resulting in the emission of electromagnetic radiation. The excited state of a nucleus which results in gamma emission usually occurs following the emission of an alpha or a beta particle. Thus, gamma decay usually follows alpha or beta decay.Other more rare types of radioactive decay include ejection of neutrons or protons or clusters of nucleons from a nucleus, or more than one beta particle. An analog of gamma emission which allows excited nuclei to lose energy in a different way, is internal conversion—a process that produces high-speed electrons that are not beta rays, followed by production of high-energy photons that are not gamma rays. A few large nuclei explode into two or more charged fragments of varying masses plus several neutrons, in a decay called spontaneous nuclear fission.Each radioactive isotope has a characteristic decay time period—the half-life—that is determined by the amount of time needed for half of a sample to decay. This is an exponential decay process that steadily decreases the proportion of the remaining isotope by 50% every half-life. Hence after two half-lives have passed only 25% of the isotope is present, and so forth.Magnetic momentElementary particles possess an intrinsic quantum mechanical property known as spin. This is analogous to the angular momentum of an object that is spinning around its center of mass, although strictly speaking these particles are believed to be point-like and cannot be said to be rotating. Spin is measured in units of the reduced Planck constant (ħ), with electrons, protons and neutrons all having spin ½ ħ, or "spin-½". In an atom, electrons in motion around the nucleus possess orbital angular momentum in addition to their spin, while the nucleus itself possesses angular momentum due to its nuclear spin.The magnetic field produced by an atom—its magnetic moment—is determined by these various forms of angular momentum, just as a rotating charged object classically produces a magnetic field, but the most dominant contribution comes from electron spin. Due to the nature of electrons to obey the Pauli exclusion principle, in which no two electrons may be found in the same quantum state, bound electrons pair up with each other, with one member of each pair in a spin up state and the other in the opposite, spin down state. Thus these spins cancel each other out, reducing the total magnetic dipole moment to zero in some atoms with even number of electrons.In ferromagnetic elements such as iron, cobalt and nickel, an odd number of electrons leads to an unpaired electron and a net overall magnetic moment. The orbitals of neighboring atoms overlap and a lower energy state is achieved when the spins of unpaired electrons are aligned with each other, a spontaneous process known as an exchange interaction. When the magnetic moments of ferromagnetic atoms are lined up, the material can produce a measurable macroscopic field. Paramagnetic materials have atoms with magnetic moments that line up in random directions when no magnetic field is present, but the magnetic moments of the individual atoms line up in the presence of a field.The nucleus of an atom will have no spin when it has even numbers of both neutrons and protons, but for other cases of odd numbers, the nucleus may have a spin. Normally nuclei with spin are aligned in random directions because of thermal equilibrium, but for certain elements (such as xenon-129) it is possible to polarize a significant proportion of the nuclear spin states so that they are aligned in the same direction—a condition called hyperpolarization. This has important applications in magnetic resonance imaging.Energy levelsThe potential energy of an electron in an atom is negative relative to when the distance from the nucleus goes to infinity; its dependence on the electron's position reaches the minimum inside the nucleus, roughly in inverse proportion to the distance. In the quantum-mechanical model, a bound electron can occupy only a set of states centered on the nucleus, and each state corresponds to a specific energy level; see time-independent Schrödinger equation for a theoretical explanation. An energy level can be measured by the amount of energy needed to unbind the electron from the atom, and is usually given in units of electronvolts (eV). The lowest energy state of a bound electron is called the ground state, i.e. stationary state, while an electron transition to a higher level results in an excited state. The electron's energy increases along with n because the (average) distance to the nucleus increases. Dependence of the energy on  is caused not by the electrostatic potential of the nucleus, but by interaction between electrons.For an electron to transition between two different states, e.g. ground state to first excited state, it must absorb or emit a photon at an energy matching the difference in the potential energy of those levels, according to the Niels Bohr model, what can be precisely calculated by the Schrödinger equation.Electrons jump between orbitals in a particle-like fashion. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon; see Electron properties.The energy of an emitted photon is proportional to its frequency, so these specific energy levels appear as distinct bands in the electromagnetic spectrum. Each element has a characteristic spectrum that can depend on the nuclear charge, subshells filled by electrons, the electromagnetic interactions between the electrons and other factors.When a continuous spectrum of energy is passed through a gas or plasma, some of the photons are absorbed by atoms, causing electrons to change their energy level. Those excited electrons that remain bound to their atom spontaneously emit this energy as a photon, traveling in a random direction, and so drop back to lower energy levels. Thus the atoms behave like a filter that forms a series of dark absorption bands in the energy output. (An observer viewing the atoms from a view that does not include the continuous spectrum in the background, instead sees a series of emission lines from the photons emitted by the atoms.) Spectroscopic measurements of the strength and width of atomic spectral lines allow the composition and physical properties of a substance to be determined.Close examination of the spectral lines reveals that some display a fine structure splitting. This occurs because of spin-orbit coupling, which is an interaction between the spin and motion of the outermost electron. When an atom is in an external magnetic field, spectral lines become split into three or more components; a phenomenon called the Zeeman effect. This is caused by the interaction of the magnetic field with the magnetic moment of the atom and its electrons. Some atoms can have multiple electron configurations with the same energy level, which thus appear as a single spectral line. The interaction of the magnetic field with the atom shifts these electron configurations to slightly different energy levels, resulting in multiple spectral lines. The presence of an external electric field can cause a comparable splitting and shifting of spectral lines by modifying the electron energy levels, a phenomenon called the Stark effect.If a bound electron is in an excited state, an interacting photon with the proper energy can cause stimulated emission of a photon with a matching energy level. For this to occur, the electron must drop to a lower energy state that has an energy difference matching the energy of the interacting photon. The emitted photon and the interacting photon then move off in parallel and with matching phases. That is, the wave patterns of the two photons are synchronized. This physical property is used to make lasers, which can emit a coherent beam of light energy in a narrow frequency band.Valence and bonding behaviorValency is the combining power of an element. It is determined by the number of bonds it can form to other atoms or groups. The outermost electron shell of an atom in its uncombined state is known as the valence shell, and the electrons inthat shell are called valence electrons. The number of valence electrons determines the bondingbehavior with other atoms. Atoms tend to chemically react with each other in a manner that fills (or empties) their outer valence shells. For example, a transfer of a single electron between atoms is a useful approximation for bonds that form between atoms with one-electron more than a filled shell, and others that are one-electron short of a full shell, such as occurs in the compound sodium chloride and other chemical ionic salts. Many elements display multiple valences, or tendencies to share differing numbers of electrons in different compounds. Thus, chemical bonding between these elements takes many forms of electron-sharing that are more than simple electron transfers. Examples include the element carbon and the organic compounds.The chemical elements are often displayed in a periodic table that is laid out to display recurring chemical properties, and elements with the same number of valence electrons form a group that is aligned in the same column of the table. (The horizontal rows correspond to the filling of a quantum shell of electrons.) The elements at the far right of the table have their outer shell completely filled with electrons, which results in chemically inert elements known as the noble gases.StatesQuantities of atoms are found in different states of matter that depend on the physical conditions, such as temperature and pressure. By varying the conditions, materials can transition between solids, liquids, gases and plasmas. Within a state, a material can also exist in different allotropes. An example of this is solid carbon, which can exist as graphite or diamond. Gaseous allotropes exist as well, such as dioxygen and ozone.At temperatures close to absolute zero, atoms can form a Bose–Einstein condensate, at which point quantum mechanical effects, which are normally only observed at the atomic scale, become apparent on a macroscopic scale. This super-cooled collection of atomsthen behaves as a single super atom, which may allow fundamental checks of quantum mechanical behavior.IdentificationWhile atoms are too small to be seen, devices such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) enable their visualization at the surfaces of solids. The microscope uses the quantum tunneling phenomenon, which allows particles to pass through a barrier that would be insurmountable in the classical perspective. Electrons tunnel through the vacuum between two biased electrodes, providing a tunneling current that is exponentially dependent on their separation. One electrode is a sharp tip ideally ending with a single atom. At each point of the scan of the surface the tip's height is adjusted so as to keep the tunneling current at a set value. How much the tip moves to and away from the surface is interpreted as the height profile. For low bias, the microscope images the averaged electron orbitals across closely packed energy levels—the local density of the electronic states near the Fermi level. Because of the distances involved, both electrodes need to be extremely stable; only then periodicities can be observed that correspond to individual atoms. The method alone is not chemically specific, and cannot identify the atomic species present at the surface.Atoms can be easily identified by their mass. If an atom is ionized by removing one of its electrons, its trajectory when it passes through a magnetic field will bend. The radius by which the trajectory of a moving ion is turned by the magnetic field is determined by the mass of the atom. The mass spectrometer uses this principle to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. If a sample contains multiple isotopes, the mass spectrometer can determine the proportion of each isotope in the sample by measuring the intensity of the different beams of ions. Techniques to vaporize atoms include inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, both of which use a plasma to vaporize samples for analysis.The atom-probe tomograph has sub-nanometer resolution in 3-D and can chemically identify individual atoms using time-of-flight mass spectrometry.Electron emission techniques such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), which measure the binding energies of the core electrons, are used to identify the atomic species present in a sample in a non-destructive way. With proper focusing both can be made area-specific. Another such method is electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), which measures the energy loss of an electron beam within a transmission electron microscope when it interacts with a portion of a sample.Spectra of excited states can be used to analyze the atomic composition of distant stars. Specific light wavelengths contained in the observed light from stars can be separated out and related to the quantized transitions in free gas atoms. These colors can be replicated using a gas-discharge lamp containing the same element. Helium was discovered in this way in the spectrum of the Sun 23 years before it was found on Earth.Origin and current stateBaryonic matter forms about 4% of the total energy density of the observable Universe, with an average density of about 0.25 particles/m3 (mostly protons and electrons). Within a galaxy such as the Milky Way, particles have a much higher concentration, with the density of matter in the interstellar medium (ISM) ranging from 105 to 109 atoms/m3. The Sun is believed to be inside the Local Bubble, so the density in the solar neighborhood is only about 103 atoms/m3. Stars form from dense clouds in the ISM, and the evolutionary processes of stars result in the steady enrichment of the ISM with elements more massive than hydrogen and helium.Up to 95% of the Milky Way's baryonic matter are concentrated inside stars, where conditions are unfavorable for atomic matter. The total baryonic mass is about 10% of the mass of the galaxy; the remainder of the mass is an unknown dark matter. High temperature inside stars makes most "atoms" fully ionized, that is, separates all electrons from the nuclei. In stellar remnants—with exception of their surface layers—an immense pressure make electron shells impossible.FormationElectrons are thought to exist in the Universe since early stages of the Big Bang. Atomic nuclei forms in nucleosynthesis reactions. In about three minutes Big Bang nucleosynthesis produced most of the helium, lithium, and deuterium in the Universe, and perhaps some of the beryllium and boron.Ubiquitousness and stability of atoms relies on their binding energy, which means that an atom has a lower energy than an unbound system of the nucleus and electrons. Where the temperature is much higher than ionization potential, the matter exists in the form of plasma—a gas of positively charged ions (possibly, bare nuclei) and electrons. When the temperature drops below the ionization potential, atoms become statistically favorable. Atoms (complete with bound electrons) became to dominate over charged particles 380,000 years after the Big Bang—an epoch called recombination, when the expanding Universe cooled enough to allow electrons to become attached to nuclei.Since the Big Bang, which produced no carbon or heavier elements, atomic nuclei have been combined in stars through the process of nuclear fusion to produce more of the element helium, and (via the triple alpha process) the sequence of elements from carbon up to iron; see stellar nucleosynthesis for details.Isotopes such as lithium-6, as well as some beryllium and boron are generated in space through cosmic ray spallation. This occurs when a high-energy proton strikes an atomic nucleus, causing large numbers of nucleons to be ejected.Elements heavier than iron were produced in supernovae and colliding neutron stars through the r-process, and in AGB stars through the s-process, both of which involve the capture of neutrons by atomic nuclei. Elements such as lead formed largely through the radioactive decay of heavier elements.EarthMost of the atoms that make up the Earth and its inhabitants were present in their current form in the nebula that collapsed out of a molecular cloud to form the Solar System. The rest are the result of radioactive decay, and their relative proportion can be used to determine the age of the Earth through radiometric dating. Most of the helium in the crust of the Earth (about 99% of the helium from gas wells, as shown by its lower abundance of helium-3) is a product of alpha decay.There are a few trace atoms on Earth that were not present at the beginning (i.e., not "primordial"), nor are results of radioactive decay. Carbon-14 is continuously generated by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. Some atoms on Earth have been artificially generated either deliberately or as by-products of nuclear reactors or explosions. Of the transuranic elements—those with atomic numbers greater than 92—only plutonium and neptunium occur naturally on Earth. Transuranic elements have radioactive lifetimes shorter than the current age of the Earth and thus identifiable quantities of these elements have long since decayed, with the exception of traces of plutonium-244 possibly deposited by cosmic dust. Natural deposits of plutonium and neptunium are produced by neutron capture in uranium ore.The Earth contains approximately  atoms. Although small numbers of independent atoms of noble gases exist, such as argon, neon, and helium, 99% of the atmosphere is bound in the form of molecules, including carbon dioxide and diatomic oxygen and nitrogen. At the surface of the Earth, an overwhelming majority of atoms combine to form various compounds, including water, salt, silicates and oxides. Atoms can also combine to create materials that do not consist of discrete molecules, including crystals and liquid or solid metals. This atomic matter forms networked arrangements that lack the particular type of small-scale interrupted order associated with molecular matter.Rare and theoretical formsSuperheavy elementsAll nuclides with atomic numbers higher than 82 (lead) are known to be radioactive. No nuclide with an atomic number exceeding 92 (uranium) exists on Earth as a primordial nuclide, and heavier elements generally have shorter half-lives. Nevertheless, an "island of stability" encompassing relatively long-lived isotopes of superheavy elements with atomic numbers 110 to 114 might exist. Predictions for the half-life of the most stable nuclide on the island range from a few minutes to millions of years. In any case, superheavy elements (with Z > 104) would not exist due to increasing Coulomb repulsion (which results in spontaneous fission with increasingly short half-lives) in the absence of any stabilizing effects.Exotic matterEach particle of matter has a corresponding antimatter particle with the opposite electrical charge. Thus, the positron is a positively charged antielectron and the antiproton is a negatively charged equivalent of a proton. When a matter and corresponding antimatter particle meet, they annihilate each other. Because of this, along with an imbalance between the number of matter and antimatter particles, the latter are rare in the universe. The first causes of this imbalance are not yet fully understood, although theories of baryogenesis may offer an explanation. As a result, no antimatter atoms have been discovered in nature. In 1996, the antimatter counterpart of the hydrogen atom (antihydrogen) was synthesized at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.Other exotic atoms have been created by replacing one of the protons, neutrons or electrons with other particles that have the same charge. For example, an electron can be replaced by a more massive muon, forming a muonic atom. These types of atoms can be used to test fundamental predictions of physics.See alsoNotesReferencesBibliographyFurther readingExternal links   ChemistryArticles containing video clips
Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. Alternatively, for the purposes of agricultural statistics, the term often has a more precise definition: A more concise definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual rather than potential uses: "land worked (ploughed or tilled) regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation".Non-arable land can sometimes be converted to arable land through methods such as loosening and tilling (breaking up) of the soil, though in more extreme cases the degree of modification required to make certain types of land arable can become prohibitively expensive.In Britain, arable land has traditionally been contrasted with pasturable land such as heaths, which could be used for sheep-rearing but not as farmland.Arable land areaAccording to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2013, the world's arable land amounted to 1.407 billion hectares, out of a total of 4.924 billion hectares of land used for agriculture.Arable land (hectares per person)Non-arable landAgricultural land that is not arable according to the FAO definition above includes: Meadows and pasturesland used as pasture and grazed range, and those natural grasslands and sedge meadows that are used for hay production in some regions. Permanent cropland that produces crops from woody vegetation, e.g. orchard land, vineyards, coffee plantations, rubber plantations, and land producing nut trees;Other non-arable land includes land that is not suitable for any agricultural use. Land that is not arable, in the sense of lacking capability or suitability for cultivation for crop production, has one or more limitationsa lack of sufficient freshwater for irrigation, stoniness, steepness, adverse climate, excessive wetness with the impracticality of drainage, excessive salts, or a combination of these, among others. Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, and some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, large areas unsuitable for cultivation may still be agriculturally productive. For example, United States NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock. In British Columbia, Canada, 41 percent of the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve area is unsuitable for the production of cultivated crops, but is suitable for uncultivated production of forage usable by grazing livestock. Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere.Land incapable of being cultivated for the production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food and can reduce starvation. This outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable often involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, aqueducts, desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert, hydroponics, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides, reverse osmosis water processors, PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, and installing greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas. Such modifications are often prohibitively expensive. An alternative is the seawater greenhouse, which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea.The use of artifices does not make the land arable. Rock still remains rock, and shallowless than turnable soil is still not considered toilable. The use of artifice is an open-air none recycled water hydroponics relationship. The below described circumstances are not in perspective, have limited duration, and have a tendency to accumulate trace materials in soil that either there or elsewhere cause deoxygenation. The use of vast amounts of fertilizer may have unintended consequences for the environment by devastating rivers, waterways, and river endings through the accumulation of non-degradable toxins and nitrogen-bearing molecules that remove oxygen and cause non-aerobic processes to form.Examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land include: Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland (not to be confused with the Isle of Arran in Scotland's Firth of Clyde) were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky. The people covered the islands with a shallow layer of seaweed and sand from the ocean. Today, crops are grown there, even though the islands are still considered non-arable. Israel: The construction of desalination plants along Israel's coast allowed agriculture in some areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have produced a new source of water for farming, drinking, and washing. Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash, but these expire within a few years. Terra preta, fertile tropical soils produced by adding charcoal.Examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land include: Droughts such as the "Dust Bowl" of the Great Depression in the US turned farmland into desert. Each year, arable land is lost due to desertification and human-induced erosion. Improper irrigation of farmland can wick the sodium, calcium, and magnesium from the soil and water to the surface. This process steadily concentrates salt in the root zone, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant. Rainforest deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren (about ten percent of the country) as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives.See also Development easement Land use statistics by country List of environment topics Soil fertilityReferencesExternal links Article from Technorati on Shrinking Arable Farmland in the world Surface area of the EarthAgricultural land
Aluminium (or aluminum in American English and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has a great affinity towards oxygen, and forms a protective layer of oxide on the surface when exposed to air. Aluminium visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, non-magnetic and ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al; this isotope is very common, making aluminium the twelfth most common element in the Universe. The radioactivity of 26Al is used in radiodating.Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ is small and highly charged; as such, it is polarizing, and bonds aluminium forms tend towards covalency. The strong affinity towards oxygen leads to aluminium's common association with oxygen in nature in the form of oxides; for this reason, aluminium is found on Earth primarily in rocks in the crust, where it is the third most abundant element after oxygen and silicon, rather than in the mantle, and virtually never as the free metal.The discovery of aluminium was announced in 1825 by Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted. The first industrial production of aluminium was initiated by French chemist Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville in 1856. Aluminium became much more available to the public with the Hall–Héroult process developed independently by French engineer Paul Héroult and American engineer Charles Martin Hall in 1886, and the mass production of aluminium led to its extensive use in industry and everyday life. In World Wars I and II, aluminium was a crucial strategic resource for aviation. In 1954, aluminium became the most produced non-ferrous metal, surpassing copper. In the 21st century, most aluminium was consumed in transportation, engineering, construction, and packaging in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan.Despite its prevalence in the environment, no living organism is known to use aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of the abundance of these salts, the potential for a biological role for them is of continuing interest, and studies continue.Physical characteristicsIsotopes Of aluminium isotopes, only  is stable. This situation is common for elements with an odd atomic number. It is the only primordial aluminium isotope, i.e. the only one that has existed on Earth in its current form since the formation of the planet. Nearly all aluminium on Earth is present as this isotope, which makes it a mononuclidic element and means that its standard atomic weight is virtually the same as that of the isotope. This makes aluminium very useful in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), as its single stable isotope has a high NMR sensitivity. The standard atomic weight of aluminium is low in comparison with many other metals.All other isotopes of aluminium are radioactive. The most stable of these is 26Al: while it was present along with stable 27Al in the interstellar medium from which the Solar System formed, having been produced by stellar nucleosynthesis as well, its half-life is only 717,000 years and therefore a detectable amount has not survived since the formation of the planet. However, minute traces of 26Al are produced from argon in the atmosphere by spallation caused by cosmic ray protons. The ratio of 26Al to 10Be has been used for radiodating of geological processes over 105 to 106 year time scales, in particular transport, deposition, sediment storage, burial times, and erosion. Most meteorite scientists believe that the energy released by the decay of 26Al was responsible for the melting and differentiation of some asteroids after their formation 4.55 billion years ago.The remaining isotopes of aluminium, with mass numbers ranging from 22 to 43, all have half-lives well under an hour. Three metastable states are known, all with half-lives under a minute.Electron shell An aluminium atom has 13 electrons, arranged in an electron configuration of [Ne] 3s2 3p1, with three electrons beyond a stable noble gas configuration. Accordingly, the combined first three ionization energies of aluminium are far lower than the fourth ionization energy alone. Such an electron configuration is shared with the other well-characterized members of its group, boron, gallium, indium, and thallium; it is also expected for nihonium. Aluminium can relatively easily surrender its three outermost electrons in many chemical reactions (see below). The electronegativity of aluminium is 1.61 (Pauling scale).A free aluminium atom has a radius of 143 pm. With the three outermost electrons removed, the radius shrinks to 39 pm for a 4-coordinated atom or 53.5 pm for a 6-coordinated atom. At standard temperature and pressure, aluminium atoms (when not affected by atoms of other elements) form a face-centered cubic crystal system bound by metallic bonding provided by atoms' outermost electrons; hence aluminium (at these conditions) is a metal. This crystal system is shared by many other metals, such as lead and copper; the size of a unit cell of aluminium is comparable to that of those other metals. The system, however, is not shared by the other members of its group; boron has ionization energies too high to allow metallization, thallium has a hexagonal close-packed structure, and gallium and indium have unusual structures that are not close-packed like those of aluminium and thallium. The few electrons that are available for metallic bonding in aluminium metal are a probable cause for it being soft with a low melting point and low electrical resistivity.Bulk Aluminium metal has an appearance ranging from silvery white to dull gray, depending on the surface roughness. A fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector (approximately 92%) of visible light and an excellent reflector (as much as 98%) of medium and far infrared radiation. Aluminium mirrors are the most reflective of all metal mirrors for the near ultraviolet and far infrared light, and one of the most reflective in the visible spectrum, nearly on par with silver, and the two therefore look similar. Aluminium is also good at reflecting solar radiation, although prolonged exposure to sunlight in air adds wear to the surface of the metal; this may be prevented if aluminium is anodized, which adds a protective layer of oxide on the surface.The density of aluminium is 2.70 g/cm3, about 1/3 that of steel, much lower than other commonly encountered metals, making aluminium parts easily identifiable through their lightness. Aluminium's low density compared to most other metals arises from the fact that its nuclei are much lighter, while difference in the unit cell size does not compensate for this difference. The only lighter metals are the metals of groups 1 and 2, which apart from beryllium and magnesium are too reactive for structural use (and beryllium is very toxic). Aluminium is not as strong or stiff as steel, but the low density makes up for this in the aerospace industry and for many other applications where light weight and relatively high strength are crucial.Pure aluminium is quite soft and lacking in strength. In most applications various aluminium alloys are used instead because of their higher strength and hardness. The yield strength of pure aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium is ductile, with a percent elongation of 50-70%, and malleable allowing it to be easily drawn and extruded. It is also easily machined and cast.Aluminium is an excellent thermal and electrical conductor, having around 60% the conductivity of copper, both thermal and electrical, while having only 30% of copper's density. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a superconducting critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin and a critical magnetic field of about 100 gauss (10 milliteslas). It is paramagnetic and thus essentially unaffected by static magnetic fields. The high electrical conductivity, however, means that it is strongly affected by alternating magnetic fields through the induction of eddy currents.Chemistry Aluminium combines characteristics of pre- and post-transition metals. Since it has few available electrons for metallic bonding, like its heavier group 13 congeners, it has the characteristic physical properties of a post-transition metal, with longer-than-expected interatomic distances. Furthermore, as Al3+ is a small and highly charged cation, it is strongly polarizing and bonding in aluminium compounds tends towards covalency; this behavior is similar to that of beryllium (Be2+), and the two display an example of a diagonal relationship.The underlying core under aluminium's valence shell is that of the preceding noble gas, whereas those of its heavier congeners gallium, indium, thallium, and nihonium also include a filled d-subshell and in some cases a filled f-subshell. Hence, the inner electrons of aluminium shield the valence electrons almost completely, unlike those of aluminium's heavier congeners. As such, aluminium is the most electropositive metal in its group, and its hydroxide is in fact more basic than that of gallium. Aluminium also bears minor similarities to the metalloid boron in the same group: AlX3 compounds are valence isoelectronic to BX3 compounds (they have the same valence electronic structure), and both behave as Lewis acids and readily form adducts. Additionally, one of the main motifs of boron chemistry is regular icosahedral structures, and aluminium forms an important part of many icosahedral quasicrystal alloys, including the Al–Zn–Mg class.Aluminium has a high chemical affinity to oxygen, which renders it suitable for use as a reducing agent in the thermite reaction. A fine powder of aluminium metal reacts explosively on contact with liquid oxygen; under normal conditions, however, aluminium forms a thin oxide layer (~5 nm at room temperature) that protects the metal from further corrosion by oxygen, water, or dilute acid, a process termed passivation. Because of its general resistance to corrosion, aluminium is one of the few metals that retains silvery reflectance in finely powdered form, making it an important component of silver-colored paints. Aluminium is not attacked by oxidizing acids because of its passivation. This allows aluminium to be used to store reagents such as nitric acid, concentrated sulfuric acid, and some organic acids.In hot concentrated hydrochloric acid, aluminium reacts with water with evolution of hydrogen, and in aqueous sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide at room temperature to form aluminates—protective passivation under these conditions is negligible. Aqua regia also dissolves aluminium. Aluminium is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, which is why household plumbing is never made from aluminium. The oxide layer on aluminium is also destroyed by contact with mercury due to amalgamation or with salts of some electropositive metals. As such, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion-resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper, and aluminium's corrosion resistance is greatly reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals.Aluminium reacts with most nonmetals upon heating, forming compounds such as aluminium nitride (AlN), aluminium sulfide (Al2S3), and the aluminium halides (AlX3). It also forms a wide range of intermetallic compounds involving metals from every group on the periodic table.Inorganic compounds The vast majority of compounds, including all aluminium-containing minerals and all commercially significant aluminium compounds, feature aluminium in the oxidation state 3+. The coordination number of such compounds varies, but generally Al3+ is either six- or four-coordinate. Almost all compounds of aluminium(III) are colorless.In aqueous solution, Al3+ exists as the hexaaqua cation [Al(H2O)6]3+, which has an approximate Ka of 10−5. Such solutions are acidic as this cation can act as a proton donor and progressively hydrolyze until a precipitate of aluminium hydroxide, Al(OH)3, forms. This is useful for clarification of water, as the precipitate nucleates on suspended particles in the water, hence removing them. Increasing the pH even further leads to the hydroxide dissolving again as aluminate, [Al(H2O)2(OH)4]−, is formed.Aluminium hydroxide forms both salts and aluminates and dissolves in acid and alkali, as well as on fusion with acidic and basic oxides. This behavior of Al(OH)3 is termed amphoterism and is characteristic of weakly basic cations that form insoluble hydroxides and whose hydrated species can also donate their protons. One effect of this is that aluminium salts with weak acids are hydrolyzed in water to the aquated hydroxide and the corresponding nonmetal hydride: for example, aluminium sulfide yields hydrogen sulfide. However, some salts like aluminium carbonate exist in aqueous solution but are unstable as such; and only incomplete hydrolysis takes place for salts with strong acids, such as the halides, nitrate, and sulfate. For similar reasons, anhydrous aluminium salts cannot be made by heating their "hydrates": hydrated aluminium chloride is in fact not AlCl3·6H2O but [Al(H2O)6]Cl3, and the Al–O bonds are so strong that heating is not sufficient to break them and form Al–Cl bonds instead:2[Al(H2O)6]Cl3  Al2O3 + 6 HCl + 9 H2OAll four trihalides are well known. Unlike the structures of the three heavier trihalides, aluminium fluoride (AlF3) features six-coordinate aluminium, which explains its involatility and insolubility as well as high heat of formation. Each aluminium atom is surrounded by six fluorine atoms in a distorted octahedral arrangement, with each fluorine atom being shared between the corners of two octahedra. Such {AlF6} units also exist in complex fluorides such as cryolite, Na3AlF6. AlF3 melts at  and is made by reaction of aluminium oxide with hydrogen fluoride gas at .With heavier halides, the coordination numbers are lower. The other trihalides are dimeric or polymeric with tetrahedral four-coordinate aluminium centers. Aluminium trichloride (AlCl3) has a layered polymeric structure below its melting point of  but transforms on melting to Al2Cl6 dimers. At higher temperatures those increasingly dissociate into trigonal planar AlCl3 monomers similar to the structure of BCl3. Aluminium tribromide and aluminium triiodide form Al2X6 dimers in all three phases and hence do not show such significant changes of properties upon phase change. These materials are prepared by treating aluminium metal with the halogen. The aluminium trihalides form many addition compounds or complexes; their Lewis acidic nature makes them useful as catalysts for the Friedel–Crafts reactions. Aluminium trichloride has major industrial uses involving this reaction, such as in the manufacture of anthraquinones and styrene; it is also often used as the precursor for many other aluminium compounds and as a reagent for converting nonmetal fluorides into the corresponding chlorides (a transhalogenation reaction).Aluminium forms one stable oxide with the chemical formula Al2O3, commonly called alumina. It can be found in nature in the mineral corundum, α-alumina; there is also a γ-alumina phase. Its crystalline form, corundum, is very hard (Mohs hardness 9), has a high melting point of , has very low volatility, is chemically inert, and a good electrical insulator, it is often used in abrasives (such as toothpaste), as a refractory material, and in ceramics, as well as being the starting material for the electrolytic production of aluminium metal. Sapphire and ruby are impure corundum contaminated with trace amounts of other metals. The two main oxide-hydroxides, AlO(OH), are boehmite and diaspore. There are three main trihydroxides: bayerite, gibbsite, and nordstrandite, which differ in their crystalline structure (polymorphs). Many other intermediate and related structures are also known. Most are produced from ores by a variety of wet processes using acid and base. Heating the hydroxides leads to formation of corundum. These materials are of central importance to the production of aluminium and are themselves extremely useful. Some mixed oxide phases are also very useful, such as spinel (MgAl2O4), Na-β-alumina (NaAl11O17), and tricalcium aluminate (Ca3Al2O6, an important mineral phase in Portland cement).The only stable chalcogenides under normal conditions are aluminium sulfide (Al2S3), selenide (Al2Se3), and telluride (Al2Te3). All three are prepared by direct reaction of their elements at about  and quickly hydrolyze completely in water to yield aluminium hydroxide and the respective hydrogen chalcogenide. As aluminium is a small atom relative to these chalcogens, these have four-coordinate tetrahedral aluminium with various polymorphs having structures related to wurtzite, with two-thirds of the possible metal sites occupied either in an orderly (α) or random (β) fashion; the sulfide also has a γ form related to γ-alumina, and an unusual high-temperature hexagonal form where half the aluminium atoms have tetrahedral four-coordination and the other half have trigonal bipyramidal five-coordination. Four pnictides – aluminium nitride (AlN), aluminium phosphide (AlP), aluminium arsenide (AlAs), and aluminium antimonide (AlSb) – are known. They are all III-V semiconductors isoelectronic to silicon and germanium, all of which but AlN have the zinc blende structure. All four can be made by high-temperature (and possibly high-pressure) direct reaction of their component elements.Aluminium alloys well with most other metals (with the exception of most alkali metals and group 13 metals) and over 150 intermetallics with other metals are known. Preparation involves heating fixed metals together in certain proportion, followed by gradual cooling and annealing. Bonding in them is predominantly metallic and the crystal structure primarily depends on efficiency of packing.There are few compounds with lower oxidation states. A few aluminium(I) compounds exist: AlF, AlCl, AlBr, and AlI exist in the gaseous phase when the respective trihalide is heated with aluminium, and at cryogenic temperatures. A stable derivative of aluminium monoiodide is the cyclic adduct formed with triethylamine, Al4I4(NEt3)4. Al2O and Al2S also exist but are very unstable. Very simple aluminium(II) compounds are invoked or observed in the reactions of Al metal with oxidants. For example, aluminium monoxide, AlO, has been detected in the gas phase after explosion and in stellar absorption spectra. More thoroughly investigated are compounds of the formula R4Al2 which contain an Al–Al bond and where R is a large organic ligand.Organoaluminium compounds and related hydrides A variety of compounds of empirical formula AlR3 and AlR1.5Cl1.5 exist. The aluminium trialkyls and triaryls are reactive, volatile, and colorless liquids or low-melting solids. They catch fire spontaneously in air and react with water, thus necessitating precautions when handling them. They often form dimers, unlike their boron analogues, but this tendency diminishes for branched-chain alkyls (e.g. Pri, Bui, Me3CCH2); for example, triisobutylaluminium exists as an equilibrium mixture of the monomer and dimer. These dimers, such as trimethylaluminium (Al2Me6), usually feature tetrahedral Al centers formed by dimerization with some alkyl group bridging between both aluminium atoms. They are hard acids and react readily with ligands, forming adducts. In industry, they are mostly used in alkene insertion reactions, as discovered by Karl Ziegler, most importantly in "growth reactions" that form long-chain unbranched primary alkenes and alcohols, and in the low-pressure polymerization of ethene and propene. There are also some heterocyclic and cluster organoaluminium compounds involving Al–N bonds.The industrially most important aluminium hydride is lithium aluminium hydride (LiAlH4), which is used in as a reducing agent in organic chemistry. It can be produced from lithium hydride and aluminium trichloride. The simplest hydride, aluminium hydride or alane, is not as important. It is a polymer with the formula (AlH3)n, in contrast to the corresponding boron hydride that is a dimer with the formula (BH3)2.Natural occurrenceSpace Aluminium's per-particle abundance in the Solar System is 3.15 ppm (parts per million). It is the twelfth most abundant of all elements and third most abundant among the elements that have odd atomic numbers, after hydrogen and nitrogen. The only stable isotope of aluminium, 27Al, is the eighteenth most abundant nucleus in the Universe. It is created almost entirely after fusion of carbon in massive stars that will later become Type II supernovas: this fusion creates 26Mg, which, upon capturing free protons and neutrons becomes aluminium. Some smaller quantities of 27Al are created in hydrogen burning shells of evolved stars, where 26Mg can capture free protons. Essentially all aluminium now in existence is 27Al. 26Al was present in the early Solar System with abundance of 0.005% relative to 27Al but its half-life of 728,000 years is too short for any original nuclei to survive; 26Al is therefore extinct. Unlike for 27Al, hydrogen burning is the primary source of 26Al, with the nuclide emerging after a nucleus of 25Mg catches a free proton. However, the trace quantities of 26Al that do exist are the most common gamma ray emitter in the interstellar gas; if the original 26Al were still present, gamma ray maps of the Milky Way would be brighter.Earth Overall, the Earth is about 1.59% aluminium by mass (seventh in abundance by mass). Aluminium occurs in greater proportion in the Earth's crust than in the Universe at large, because aluminium easily forms the oxide and becomes bound into rocks and stays in the Earth's crust, while less reactive metals sink to the core. In the Earth's crust, aluminium is the most abundant metallic element (8.23% by mass) and the third most abundant of all elements (after oxygen and silicon). A large number of silicates in the Earth's crust contain aluminium. In contrast, the Earth's mantle is only 2.38% aluminium by mass. Aluminium also occurs in seawater at a concentration of 2 μg/kg.Because of its strong affinity for oxygen, aluminium is almost never found in the elemental state; instead it is found in oxides or silicates. Feldspars, the most common group of minerals in the Earth's crust, are aluminosilicates. Aluminium also occurs in the minerals beryl, cryolite, garnet, spinel, and turquoise. Impurities in Al2O3, such as chromium and iron, yield the gemstones ruby and sapphire, respectively. Native aluminium metal is extremely rare and can only be found as a minor phase in low oxygen fugacity environments, such as the interiors of certain volcanoes. Native aluminium has been reported in cold seeps in the northeastern continental slope of the South China Sea. It is possible that these deposits resulted from bacterial reduction of tetrahydroxoaluminate Al(OH)4−.Although aluminium is a common and widespread element, not all aluminium minerals are economically viable sources of the metal. Almost all metallic aluminium is produced from the ore bauxite (AlOx(OH)3–2x). Bauxite occurs as a weathering product of low iron and silica bedrock in tropical climatic conditions. In 2017, most bauxite was mined in Australia, China, Guinea, and India.History The history of aluminium has been shaped by usage of alum. The first written record of alum, made by Greek historian Herodotus, dates back to the 5th century BCE. The ancients are known to have used alum as a dyeing mordant and for city defense. After the Crusades, alum, an indispensable good in the European fabric industry, was a subject of international commerce; it was imported to Europe from the eastern Mediterranean until the mid-15th century.The nature of alum remained unknown. Around 1530, Swiss physician Paracelsus suggested alum was a salt of an earth of alum. In 1595, German doctor and chemist Andreas Libavius experimentally confirmed this. In 1722, German chemist Friedrich Hoffmann announced his belief that the base of alum was a distinct earth. In 1754, German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf synthesized alumina by boiling clay in sulfuric acid and subsequently adding potash.Attempts to produce aluminium metal date back to 1760. The first successful attempt, however, was completed in 1824 by Danish physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted. He reacted anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium amalgam, yielding a lump of metal looking similar to tin. He presented his results and demonstrated a sample of the new metal in 1825. In 1827, German chemist Friedrich Wöhler repeated Ørsted's experiments but did not identify any aluminium. (The reason for this inconsistency was only discovered in 1921.) He conducted a similar experiment in the same year by mixing anhydrous aluminium chloride with potassium and produced a powder of aluminium. In 1845, he was able to produce small pieces of the metal and described some physical properties of this metal. For many years thereafter, Wöhler was credited as the discoverer of aluminium.As Wöhler's method could not yield great quantities of aluminium, the metal remained rare; its cost exceeded that of gold. The first industrial production of aluminium was established in 1856 by French chemist Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville and companions. Deville had discovered that aluminium trichloride could be reduced by sodium, which was more convenient and less expensive than potassium, which Wöhler had used. Even then, aluminium was still not of great purity and produced aluminium differed in properties by sample.The first industrial large-scale production method was independently developed in 1886 by French engineer Paul Héroult and American engineer Charles Martin Hall; it is now known as the Hall–Héroult process. The Hall–Héroult process converts alumina into metal. Austrian chemist Carl Joseph Bayer discovered a way of purifying bauxite to yield alumina, now known as the Bayer process, in 1889. Modern production of the aluminium metal is based on the Bayer and Hall–Héroult processes.Prices of aluminium dropped and aluminium became widely used in jewelry, everyday items, eyeglass frames, optical instruments, tableware, and foil in the 1890s and early 20th century. Aluminium's ability to form hard yet light alloys with other metals provided the metal with many uses at the time. During World War I, major governments demanded large shipments of aluminium for light strong airframes; during World War II, demand by major governments for aviation was even higher.By the mid-20th century, aluminium had become a part of everyday life and an essential component of housewares. In 1954, production of aluminium surpassed that of copper, historically second in production only to iron, making it the most produced non-ferrous metal. During the mid-20th century, aluminium emerged as a civil engineering material, with building applications in both basic construction and interior finish work, and increasingly being used in military engineering, for both airplanes and land armor vehicle engines. Earth's first artificial satellite, launched in 1957, consisted of two separate aluminium semi-spheres joined and all subsequent space vehicles have used aluminium to some extent. The aluminium can was invented in 1956 and employed as a storage for drinks in 1958.Throughout the 20th century, the production of aluminium rose rapidly: while the world production of aluminium in 1900 was 6,800 metric tons, the annual production first exceeded 100,000 metric tons in 1916; 1,000,000 tons in 1941; 10,000,000 tons in 1971. In the 1970s, the increased demand for aluminium made it an exchange commodity; it entered the London Metal Exchange, the oldest industrial metal exchange in the world, in 1978. The output continued to grow: the annual production of aluminium exceeded 50,000,000 metric tons in 2013.The real price for aluminium declined from $14,000 per metric ton in 1900 to $2,340 in 1948 (in 1998 United States dollars). Extraction and processing costs were lowered over technological progress and the scale of the economies. However, the need to exploit lower-grade poorer quality deposits and the use of fast increasing input costs (above all, energy) increased the net cost of aluminium; the real price began to grow in the 1970s with the rise of energy cost. Production moved from the industrialized countries to countries where production was cheaper. Production costs in the late 20th century changed because of advances in technology, lower energy prices, exchange rates of the United States dollar, and alumina prices. The BRIC countries' combined share in primary production and primary consumption grew substantially in the first decade of the 21st century. China is accumulating an especially large share of the world's production thanks to an abundance of resources, cheap energy, and governmental stimuli; it also increased its consumption share from 2% in 1972 to 40% in 2010. In the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, most aluminium was consumed in transportation, engineering, construction, and packaging. In 2021, prices for industrial metals such as aluminium have soared to near-record levels as energy shortages in China drive up costs for electricity.Etymology The names aluminium and aluminum are derived from the word alumine, an obsolete term for alumina, a naturally occurring oxide of aluminium. Alumine was borrowed from French, which in turn derived it from alumen, the classical Latin name for alum, the mineral from which it was collected. The Latin word alumen stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *alu- meaning "bitter" or "beer".Coinage British chemist Humphry Davy, who performed a number of experiments aimed to isolate the metal, is credited as the person who named the element. The first name proposed for the metal to be isolated from alum was alumium, which Davy suggested in an 1808 article on his electrochemical research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. It appeared that the name was coined from the English word alum and the Latin suffix -ium; however, it was customary at the time that the elements should have names originating in the Latin language, and as such, this name was not adopted universally. This name was criticized by contemporary chemists from France, Germany, and Sweden, who insisted the metal should be named for the oxide, alumina, from which it would be isolated. The English word name alum does not directly reference the Latin language, whereas alumine/alumina easily references the Latin word alumen (upon declension, alumen changes to alumin-).One example was a writing in French by Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius titled Essai sur la Nomenclature chimique, published in July 1811; in this essay, among other things, Berzelius used the name aluminium for the element that would be synthesized from alum. (Another article in the same journal issue also refers to the metal whose oxide forms the basis of sapphire as to aluminium.) A January 1811 summary of one of Davy's lectures at the Royal Society mentioned the name aluminium as a possibility. The following year, Davy published a chemistry textbook in which he used the spelling aluminum. Both spellings have coexisted since; however, their usage has split by region: aluminum is the primary spelling in the United States and Canada while aluminium is in the rest of the English-speaking world.Spelling In 1812, British scientist Thomas Young wrote an anonymous review of Davy's book, in which he proposed the name aluminium instead of aluminum, which he felt had a "less classical sound". This name did catch on: while the  spelling was occasionally used in Britain, the American scientific language used  from the start. Most scientists used  throughout the world in the 19th century, and it was entrenched in many other European languages, such as French, German, or Dutch. In 1828, American lexicographer Noah Webster used exclusively the aluminum spelling in his American Dictionary of the English Language. In the 1830s, the  spelling started to gain usage in the United States; by the 1860s, it had become the more common spelling there outside science. In 1892, Hall used the  spelling in his advertising handbill for his new electrolytic method of producing the metal, despite his constant use of the  spelling in all the patents he filed between 1886 and 1903. It remains unknown whether this spelling was introduced by mistake or intentionally; however, Hall preferred aluminum since its introduction because it resembled platinum, the name of a prestigious metal. By 1890, both spellings had been common in the U.S. overall, the  spelling being slightly more common; by 1895, the situation had reversed; by 1900, aluminum had become twice as common as aluminium; during the following decade, the  spelling dominated American usage. In 1925, the American Chemical Society adopted this spelling.The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted aluminium as the standard international name for the element in 1990. In 1993, they recognized aluminum as an acceptable variant; the most recent 2005 edition of the IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry acknowledges this spelling as well. IUPAC official publications use the  spelling as primary but list both where appropriate.Production and refinement The production of aluminium starts with the extraction of bauxite rock from the ground. The bauxite is processed and transformed using the Bayer process into alumina, which is then processed using the Hall–Héroult process, resulting in the final aluminium metal.Aluminium production is highly energy-consuming, and so the producers tend to locate smelters in places where electric power is both plentiful and inexpensive. As of 2019, the world's largest smelters of aluminium are located in China, India, Russia, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates, while China is by far the top producer of aluminium with a world share of fifty-five percent.According to the International Resource Panel's Metal Stocks in Society report, the global per capita stock of aluminium in use in society (i.e. in cars, buildings, electronics, etc.) is . Much of this is in more-developed countries ( per capita) rather than less-developed countries ( per capita).Bayer process Bauxite is converted to alumina by the Bayer process. Bauxite is blended for uniform composition and then is ground. The resulting slurry is mixed with a hot solution of sodium hydroxide; the mixture is then treated in a digester vessel at a pressure well above atmospheric, dissolving the aluminium hydroxide in bauxite while converting impurities into relatively insoluble compounds:After this reaction, the slurry is at a temperature above its atmospheric boiling point. It is cooled by removing steam as pressure is reduced. The bauxite residue is separated from the solution and discarded. The solution, free of solids, is seeded with small crystals of aluminium hydroxide; this causes decomposition of the [Al(OH)4]− ions to aluminium hydroxide. After about half of aluminium has precipitated, the mixture is sent to classifiers. Small crystals of aluminium hydroxide are collected to serve as seeding agents; coarse particles are converted to alumina by heating; the excess solution is removed by evaporation, (if needed) purified, and recycled.Hall–Héroult process The conversion of alumina to aluminium metal is achieved by the Hall–Héroult process. In this energy-intensive process, a solution of alumina in a molten () mixture of cryolite (Na3AlF6) with calcium fluoride is electrolyzed to produce metallic aluminium. The liquid aluminium metal sinks to the bottom of the solution and is tapped off, and usually cast into large blocks called aluminium billets for further processing.Anodes of the electrolysis cell are made of carbon—the most resistant material against fluoride corrosion—and either bake at the process or are prebaked. The former, also called Söderberg anodes, are less power-efficient and fumes released during baking are costly to collect, which is why they are being replaced by prebaked anodes even though they save the power, energy, and labor to prebake the cathodes. Carbon for anodes should be preferably pure so that neither aluminium nor the electrolyte is contaminated with ash. Despite carbon's resistivity against corrosion, it is still consumed at a rate of 0.4–0.5 kg per each kilogram of produced aluminium. Cathodes are made of anthracite; high purity for them is not required because impurities leach only very slowly. The cathode is consumed at a rate of 0.02–0.04 kg per each kilogram of produced aluminium. A cell is usually terminated after 2–6 years following a failure of the cathode.The Hall–Heroult process produces aluminium with a purity of above 99%. Further purification can be done by the Hoopes process. This process involves the electrolysis of molten aluminium with a sodium, barium, and aluminium fluoride electrolyte. The resulting aluminium has a purity of 99.99%.Electric power represents about 20 to 40% of the cost of producing aluminium, depending on the location of the smelter. Aluminium production consumes roughly 5% of electricity generated in the United States. Because of this, alternatives to the Hall–Héroult process have been researched, but none has turned out to be economically feasible.RecyclingRecovery of the metal through recycling has become an important task of the aluminium industry. Recycling was a low-profile activity until the late 1960s, when the growing use of aluminium beverage cans brought it to public awareness. Recycling involves melting the scrap, a process that requires only 5% of the energy used to produce aluminium from ore, though a significant part (up to 15% of the input material) is lost as dross (ash-like oxide). An aluminium stack melter produces significantly less dross, with values reported below 1%.White dross from primary aluminium production and from secondary recycling operations still contains useful quantities of aluminium that can be extracted industrially. The process produces aluminium billets, together with a highly complex waste material. This waste is difficult to manage. It reacts with water, releasing a mixture of gases (including, among others, hydrogen, acetylene, and ammonia), which spontaneously ignites on contact with air; contact with damp air results in the release of copious quantities of ammonia gas. Despite these difficulties, the waste is used as a filler in asphalt and concrete.ApplicationsMetal The global production of aluminium in 2016 was 58.8 million metric tons. It exceeded that of any other metal except iron (1,231 million metric tons).Aluminium is almost always alloyed, which markedly improves its mechanical properties, especially when tempered. For example, the common aluminium foils and beverage cans are alloys of 92% to 99% aluminium. The main alloying agents are copper, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and silicon (e.g., duralumin) with the levels of other metals in a few percent by weight. Aluminium, both wrought and cast, has been alloyed with: manganese, silicon, magnesium, copper and zinc among others. For example, the Kynal family of alloys was developed by the British chemical manufacturer Imperial Chemical Industries.The major uses for aluminium metal are in: Transportation (automobiles, aircraft, trucks, railway cars, marine vessels, bicycles, spacecraft, etc.). Aluminium is used because of its low density; Packaging (cans, foil, frame, etc.). Aluminium is used because it is non-toxic (see below), non-adsorptive, and splinter-proof; Building and construction (windows, doors, siding, building wire, sheathing, roofing, etc.). Since steel is cheaper, aluminium is used when lightness, corrosion resistance, or engineering features are important; Electricity-related uses (conductor alloys, motors, and generators, transformers, capacitors, etc.). Aluminium is used because it is relatively cheap, highly conductive, has adequate mechanical strength and low density, and resists corrosion; A wide range of household items, from cooking utensils to furniture. Low density, good appearance, ease of fabrication, and durability are the key factors of aluminium usage; Machinery and equipment (processing equipment, pipes, tools). Aluminium is used because of its corrosion resistance, non-pyrophoricity, and mechanical strength. Portable computer cases. Currently rarely used without alloying, but aluminium can be recycled and clean aluminium has residual market value: for example, the used beverage can (UBC) material was used to encase the electronic components of MacBook Air laptop, Pixel 5 smartphone or Summit Lite smartwatch.CompoundsThe great majority (about 90%) of aluminium oxide is converted to metallic aluminium. Being a very hard material (Mohs hardness 9), alumina is widely used as an abrasive; being extraordinarily chemically inert, it is useful in highly reactive environments such as high pressure sodium lamps. Aluminium oxide is commonly used as a catalyst for industrial processes; e.g. the Claus process to convert hydrogen sulfide to sulfur in refineries and to alkylate amines. Many industrial catalysts are supported by alumina, meaning that the expensive catalyst material is dispersed over a surface of the inert alumina. Another principal use is as a drying agent or absorbent.Several sulfates of aluminium have industrial and commercial application. Aluminium sulfate (in its hydrate form) is produced on the annual scale of several millions of metric tons. About two-thirds is consumed in water treatment. The next major application is in the manufacture of paper. It is also used as a mordant in dyeing, in pickling seeds, deodorizing of mineral oils, in leather tanning, and in production of other aluminium compounds. Two kinds of alum, ammonium alum and potassium alum, were formerly used as mordants and in leather tanning, but their use has significantly declined following availability of high-purity aluminium sulfate. Anhydrous aluminium chloride is used as a catalyst in chemical and petrochemical industries, the dyeing industry, and in synthesis of various inorganic and organic compounds. Aluminium hydroxychlorides are used in purifying water, in the paper industry, and as antiperspirants. Sodium aluminate is used in treating water and as an accelerator of solidification of cement.Many aluminium compounds have niche applications, for example: Aluminium acetate in solution is used as an astringent. Aluminium phosphate is used in the manufacture of glass, ceramic, pulp and paper products, cosmetics, paints, varnishes, and in dental cement. Aluminium hydroxide is used as an antacid, and mordant; it is used also in water purification, the manufacture of glass and ceramics, and in the waterproofing of fabrics. Lithium aluminium hydride is a powerful reducing agent used in organic chemistry. Organoaluminiums are used as Lewis acids and co-catalysts. Methylaluminoxane is a co-catalyst for Ziegler–Natta olefin polymerization to produce vinyl polymers such as polyethene. Aqueous aluminium ions (such as aqueous aluminium sulfate) are used to treat against fish parasites such as Gyrodactylus salaris. In many vaccines, certain aluminium salts serve as an immune adjuvant (immune response booster) to allow the protein in the vaccine to achieve sufficient potency as an immune stimulant.Biology Despite its widespread occurrence in the Earth's crust, aluminium has no known function in biology. At pH 6–9 (relevant for most natural waters), aluminium precipitates out of water as the hydroxide and is hence not available; most elements behaving this way have no biological role or are toxic. Aluminium salts are nontoxic. Aluminium sulfate has an LD50 of 6207 mg/kg (oral, mouse), which corresponds to 435 grams for an  person, though lethality and neurotoxicity differ in their implications. Andrási et al. discovered "significantly higher Aluminum" content in some brain regions when necroscopies of subjects with Alzheimer disease were compared to subjects without. Aluminium chelates with glyphosate.Toxicity Aluminium is classified as a non-carcinogen by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. A review published in 1988 said that there was little evidence that normal exposure to aluminium presents a risk to healthy adult, and a 2014 multi-element toxicology review was unable to find deleterious effects of aluminium consumed in amounts not greater than 40 mg/day per kg of body mass. Most aluminium consumed will leave the body in feces; most of the small part of it that enters the bloodstream, will be excreted via urine; nevertheless some aluminium does pass the blood-brain barrier and is lodged preferentially in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Evidence published in 1989 indicates that, for Alzheimer's patients, aluminium may act by electrostatically crosslinking proteins, thus down-regulating genes in the superior temporal gyrus.Effects Aluminium, although rarely, can cause vitamin D-resistant osteomalacia, erythropoietin-resistant microcytic anemia, and central nervous system alterations. People with kidney insufficiency are especially at a risk. Chronic ingestion of hydrated aluminium silicates (for excess gastric acidity control) may result in aluminium binding to intestinal contents and increased elimination of other metals, such as iron or zinc; sufficiently high doses (>50 g/day) can cause anemia.During the 1988 Camelford water pollution incident people in Camelford had their drinking water contaminated with aluminium sulfate for several weeks. A final report into the incident in 2013 concluded it was unlikely that this had caused long-term health problems.Aluminium has been suspected of being a possible cause of Alzheimer's disease, but research into this for over 40 years has found, , no good evidence of causal effect.Aluminium increases estrogen-related gene expression in human breast cancer cells cultured in the laboratory. In very high doses, aluminium is associated with altered function of the blood–brain barrier. A small percentage of people have contact allergies to aluminium and experience itchy red rashes, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, poor memory, insomnia, depression, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, or other symptoms upon contact with products containing aluminium.Exposure to powdered aluminium or aluminium welding fumes can cause pulmonary fibrosis. Fine aluminium powder can ignite or explode, posing another workplace hazard.Exposure routes Food is the main source of aluminium. Drinking water contains more aluminium than solid food; however, aluminium in food may be absorbed more than aluminium from water. Major sources of human oral exposure to aluminium include food (due to its use in food additives, food and beverage packaging, and cooking utensils), drinking water (due to its use in municipal water treatment), and aluminium-containing medications (particularly antacid/antiulcer and buffered aspirin formulations). Dietary exposure in Europeans averages to 0.2–1.5 mg/kg/week but can be as high as 2.3 mg/kg/week. Higher exposure levels of aluminium are mostly limited to miners, aluminium production workers, and dialysis patients.Consumption of antacids, antiperspirants, vaccines, and cosmetics provide possible routes of exposure. Consumption of acidic foods or liquids with aluminium enhances aluminium absorption, and maltol has been shown to increase the accumulation of aluminium in nerve and bone tissues.Treatment In case of suspected sudden intake of a large amount of aluminium, the only treatment is deferoxamine mesylate which may be given to help eliminate aluminium from the body by chelation. However, this should be applied with caution as this reduces not only aluminium body levels, but also those of other metals such as copper or iron.Environmental effectsHigh levels of aluminium occur near mining sites; small amounts of aluminium are released to the environment at the coal-fired power plants or incinerators. Aluminium in the air is washed out by the rain or normally settles down but small particles of aluminium remain in the air for a long time.Acidic precipitation is the main natural factor to mobilize aluminium from natural sources and the main reason for the environmental effects of aluminium; however, the main factor of presence of aluminium in salt and freshwater are the industrial processes that also release aluminium into air.In water, aluminium acts as a toxiс agent on gill-breathing animals such as fish when the water is acidic, in which aluminium may precipitate on gills, which causes loss of plasma- and hemolymph ions leading to osmoregulatory failure. Organic complexes of aluminium may be easily absorbed and interfere with metabolism in mammals and birds, even though this rarely happens in practice.Aluminium is primary among the factors that reduce plant growth on acidic soils. Although it is generally harmless to plant growth in pH-neutral soils, in acid soils the concentration of toxic Al3+ cations increases and disturbs root growth and function. Wheat has developed a tolerance to aluminium, releasing organic compounds that bind to harmful aluminium cations. Sorghum is believed to have the same tolerance mechanism.Aluminium production possesses its own challenges to the environment on each step of the production process. The major challenge is the greenhouse gas emissions. These gases result from electrical consumption of the smelters and the byproducts of processing. The most potent of these gases are perfluorocarbons from the smelting process. Released sulfur dioxide is one of the primary precursors of acid rain.A Spanish scientific report from 2001 claimed that the fungus Geotrichum candidum consumes the aluminium in compact discs. Other reports all refer back to that report and there is no supporting original research. Better documented, the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the fungus Cladosporium resinae are commonly detected in aircraft fuel tanks that use kerosene-based fuels (not avgas), and laboratory cultures can degrade aluminium. However, these life forms do not directly attack or consume the aluminium; rather, the metal is corroded by microbe waste products.See also  Aluminium granules Aluminium joining Aluminium–air battery Panel edge staining Quantum clockNotesReferencesBibliographyFurther reading Mimi Sheller, Aluminum Dream: The Making of Light Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2014.External links Aluminium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) Toxic Substances Portal – Aluminum – from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, United States Department of Health and Human Services CDC – NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards – Aluminum World production of primary aluminium, by country Price history of aluminum, according to the IMF History of Aluminium – from the website of the International Aluminium Institute Emedicine – Aluminium  AluminiumElectrical conductorsPyrotechnic fuelsAirship technologyChemical elementsPost-transition metalsReducing agentsE-number additivesNative element mineralsChemical elements with face-centered cubic structure
Advanced Chemistry is a German hip hop group from Heidelberg, a scenic city in Baden-Württemberg, South Germany. Advanced Chemistry was founded in 1987 by Toni L, Linguist, Gee-One, DJ Mike MD (Mike Dippon) and MC Torch. Each member of the group holds German citizenship, and Toni L, Linguist, and Torch are of Italian, Ghanaian, and Haitian backgrounds, respectively.Influenced by North American socially conscious rap and the Native tongues movement, Advanced Chemistry is regarded as one of the main pioneers in German hip hop. They were one of the first groups to rap in German (although their name is in English). Furthermore, their songs tackled controversial social and political issues, distinguishing them from early German hip hop group "Die Fantastischen Vier" (The Fantastic Four),  which had a more light-hearted, playful, party image.CareerAdvanced Chemistry frequently rapped about their lives and experiences as children of immigrants, exposing the marginalization experienced by most ethnic minorities in Germany, and the feelings of frustration and resentment that being denied a German identity can cause. The song "Fremd im eigenen Land" (Foreign in your own nation) was released by Advanced Chemistry in November 1992. The single became a staple in the German hip hop scene. It made a strong statement about the status of immigrants throughout Germany, as the group was composed of multi-national and multi-racial members. The video shows several members brandishing their German passports as a demonstration of their German citizenship to skeptical and unaccepting 'ethnic' Germans.This idea of national identity is important, as many rap artists in Germany have been of foreign origin. These so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers) children saw breakdance, graffiti, rap music, and hip hop culture as a means of expressing themselves. Since the release of "Fremd im eigenen Land", many other German-language rappers have also tried to confront anti-immigrant ideas and develop themes of citizenship. However, though many ethnic minority youth in Germany find  these German identity themes appealing, others view the desire of immigrants to be seen as German negatively, and they have actively sought to revive and recreate concepts of identity in connection to traditional ethnic origins.Advanced Chemistry helped to found the German chapter of the Zulu nation.The rivalry between Advanced Chemistry and Die Fantastischen Vier has served to highlight a dichotomy in the routes that hip hop has taken in becoming a part of the German soundscape.  While Die Fantastischen Vier may be said to view hip hop primarily as an aesthetic art form,  Advanced Chemistry understand hip hop as being inextricably linked to the social and political circumstances under which it is created.  For Advanced Chemistry, hip hop is a “vehicle of general human emancipation,”.  In their undertaking of social and political issues, the band introduced the term "Afro-German" into the context of German hip hop, and the theme of race is highlighted in much of their music.With the release of the single “Fremd im eigenen Land”, Advanced Chemistry separated itself from the rest of the rap being produced in Germany.  This single was the first of its kind to go beyond simply imitating US rap and addressed the current issues of the time. Fremd im eigenen Land which translates to “foreign in my own country” dealt with the widespread racism that non-white German citizens faced.  This change from simple imitation to political commentary was the start of German identification with rap. The sound of “Fremd im eigenen Land” was influenced by the 'wall of noise' created by Public Enemy's producers, The Bomb Squad.After the reunification of Germany, an abundance of anti-immigrant sentiment emerged, as well as attacks on the homes of refugees in the early 1990s.  Advanced Chemistry came to prominence in the wake of these actions because of their pro-multicultural society stance in their music.  Advanced Chemistry's attitudes revolve around their attempts to create a distinct "Germanness" in hip hop, as opposed to imitating American hip hop as other groups had done.  Torch has said, "What the Americans do is exotic for us because we don't live like they do.  What they do seems to be more interesting and newer. But not for me.  For me it's more exciting to experience my fellow Germans in new contexts...For me, it's interesting to see what the kids try to do that's different from what I know."  Advanced Chemistry were the first to use the term "Afro-German" in a hip hop context.  This was part of the pro-immigrant political message they sent via their music.While Advanced Chemistry's use of the German language in their rap allows them to make claims to authenticity and true German heritage, bolstering pro-immigration sentiment, their style can also be problematic for immigrant notions of any real ethnic roots. Indeed, part of the Turkish ethnic minority of Frankfurt views Advanced Chemistry's appeal to the German image as a "symbolic betrayal of the right of ethnic minorities to 'roots' or to any expression of cultural heritage." In this sense, their rap represents a complex social discourse internal to the German soundscape in which they attempt to negotiate immigrant assimilation into a xenophobic German culture with the maintenance of their own separate cultural traditions. It is quite possibly the feelings of alienation from the pure-blooded German demographic that drive Advanced Chemistry to attack nationalistic ideologies by asserting their "Germanness" as a group composed primarily of ethnic others. The response to this pseudo-German authenticity can be seen in what Andy Bennett refers to as "alternative forms of local hip hop culture which actively seek to rediscover and, in many cases, reconstruct notions of identity tied to cultural roots." These alternative local hip hop cultures include oriental hip hop, the members of which cling to their Turkish heritage and are confused by Advanced Chemistry's elicitation of a German identity politics to which they technically do not belong. This cultural binary illustrates that rap has taken different routes in Germany and that, even among an already isolated immigrant population, there is still disunity and, especially, disagreement on the relative importance of assimilation versus cultural defiance. According to German hip hop enthusiast 9@home, Advanced Chemistry is part of a "hip-hop movement [which] took a clear stance for the minorities and against the [marginalization] of immigrants who...might be German on paper, but not in real life," which speaks to the group's hope of actually being recognized as German citizens and not foreigners, despite their various other ethnic and cultural ties.InfluencesAdvanced Chemistry's work was rooted in German history and the country's specific political realities. However, they also drew inspiration from African-American hip-hop acts like A Tribe Called Quest and Public Enemy, who had helped bring a soulful sound and political consciousness to American hip-hop. One member, Torch, later explicitly listed his references on his solo song "Als (When I Was in School):" "My favorite subject, which was quickly discovered poetry in load Poets, awakens the intellect or policy at Chuck D I'll never forget the lyrics by Public Enemy." Torch goes on to list other American rappers like Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane and Dr. Dre as influences.Discography 1992 - "Fremd im eigenen Land" (12"/MCD, MZEE) 1993 - "Welcher Pfad führt zur Geschichte" (12"/MCD, MZEE) 1994 - "Operation § 3" (12"/MCD) 1994 - "Dir fehlt der Funk!" (12"/MCD) 1995 - Advanced Chemistry (2xLP/CD)External linksOfficial Website of MC TorchWebsite of Toni L Official Website of LinguistOfficial Website DJ Mike MD (Mike Dippon)Website of 360° RecordsBibliographyEl-Tayeb, Fatima “‘If You Cannot Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me Pride.’ Afro-German Activism, Gender, and Hip Hop,” Gender & History15/3(2003):459-485.Felbert, Oliver von. “Die Unbestechlichen.” Spex (March 1993): 50–53.Weheliye, Alexander G. Phonographies:Grooves in Sonic Afro-Modernity, Duke University Press, 2005.ReferencesGerman hip hop groups
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The Archbishop of Canterbury (currently Justin Welby) in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares ("first among equals"), but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.The Anglican Communion was officially and formally organised and recognised as such at the Lambeth Conference in 1867 in London under the leadership of Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury. The churches of the Anglican Communion consider themselves to be part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, and to be both catholic and reformed. As in the Church of England itself, the Anglican Communion includes the broad spectrum of beliefs and liturgical practises found in the Evangelical, Central and Anglo-Catholic traditions of Anglicanism. Each national or regional church is fully independent, retaining its own legislative process and episcopal polity under the leadership of local primates. For some adherents, Anglicanism represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others a form of Protestantism though without a guiding figure such as Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli or Wesley, or for yet others a combination of the two.Most of its members live in the Anglosphere of former British territories. Full participation in the sacramental life of each church is available to all communicant members. Because of their historical link to England (ecclesia anglicana means "English church"), some of the member churches are known as "Anglican", such as the Anglican Church of Canada. Others, for example the Church of Ireland and the Scottish and American Episcopal churches, have official names that do not include "Anglican". Additionally, some churches which use the name "Anglican" are not part of the communion.Ecclesiology, polity and ethosThe Anglican Communion has no official legal existence nor any governing structure which might exercise authority over the member churches. There is an Anglican Communion Office in London, under the aegis of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it only serves in a supporting and organisational role. The communion is held together by a shared history, expressed in its ecclesiology, polity and ethos, and also by participation in international consultative bodies.Three elements have been important in holding the communion together: first, the shared ecclesial structure of the component churches, manifested in an episcopal polity maintained through the apostolic succession of bishops and synodical government; second, the principle of belief expressed in worship, investing importance in approved prayer books and their rubrics; and third, the historical documents and the writings of early Anglican divines that have influenced the ethos of the communion.Originally, the Church of England was self-contained and relied for its unity and identity on its own history, its traditional legal and episcopal structure, and its status as an established church of the state. As such, Anglicanism was from the outset a movement with an explicitly episcopal polity, a characteristic that has been vital in maintaining the unity of the communion by conveying the episcopate's role in manifesting visible catholicity and ecumenism.Early in its development following the English Reformation, Anglicanism developed a vernacular prayer book, called the Book of Common Prayer. Unlike other traditions, Anglicanism has never been governed by a magisterium nor by appeal to one founding theologian, nor by an extra-credal summary of doctrine (such as the Westminster Confession of the Presbyterian churches). Instead, Anglicans have typically appealed to the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and its offshoots as a guide to Anglican theology and practise. This has had the effect of inculcating in Anglican identity and confession the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi ("the law of praying [is] the law of believing").Protracted conflict through the 17th century, with radical Protestants on the one hand and Roman Catholics who recognised the primacy of the Pope on the other, resulted in an association of churches that was both deliberately vague about doctrinal principles, yet bold in developing parameters of acceptable deviation. These parameters were most clearly articulated in the various rubrics of the successive prayer books, as well as the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1563). These articles have historically shaped and continue to direct the ethos of the communion, an ethos reinforced by its interpretation and expansion by such influential early theologians such as Richard Hooker, Lancelot Andrewes and John Cosin.With the expansion of the British Empire the growth of Anglicanism outside Great Britain and Ireland, the communion sought to establish new vehicles of unity. The first major expressions of this were the Lambeth Conferences of the communion's bishops, first convened in 1867 by Charles Longley, the Archbishop of Canterbury. From the beginning, these were not intended to displace the autonomy of the emerging provinces of the communion, but to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action".Chicago Lambeth QuadrilateralOne of the enduringly influential early resolutions of the conference was the so-called Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888. Its intent was to provide the basis for discussions of reunion with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, but it had the ancillary effect of establishing parameters of Anglican identity. It establishes four principles with these words:Instruments of communionAs mentioned above, the Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation. The Archbishop of Canterbury's role is strictly symbolic and unifying and the communion's three international bodies are consultative and collaborative, their resolutions having no legal effect on the autonomous provinces of the communion. Taken together, however, the four do function as "instruments of communion", since all churches of the communion participate in them. In order of antiquity, they are: The Archbishop of Canterbury functions as the spiritual head of the communion. The archbishop is the focus of unity, since no church claims membership in the Communion without being in communion with him. The present archbishop is Justin Welby. The Lambeth Conference (first held in 1867) is the oldest international consultation. It is a forum for bishops of the communion to reinforce unity and collegiality through manifesting the episcopate, to discuss matters of mutual concern, and to pass resolutions intended to act as guideposts. It is held roughly every 10 years and invitation is by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglican Consultative Council (first met in 1971) was created by a 1968 Lambeth Conference resolution, and meets usually at three-yearly intervals. The council consists of representative bishops, other clergy and laity chosen by the 38 provinces. The body has a permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is president. The Primates' Meeting (first met in 1979) is the most recent manifestation of international consultation and deliberation, having been first convened by Archbishop Donald Coggan as a forum for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation".Since there is no binding authority in the Anglican Communion, these international bodies are a vehicle for consultation and persuasion. In recent times, persuasion has tipped over into debates over conformity in certain areas of doctrine, discipline, worship and ethics. The most notable example has been the objection of many provinces of the communion (particularly in Africa and Asia) to the changing acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals in the North American churches (e.g., by blessing same-sex unions and ordaining and consecrating same-sex relationships) and to the process by which changes were undertaken. (See Anglican realignment)Those who objected condemned these actions as unscriptural, unilateral, and without the agreement of the communion prior to these steps being taken. In response, the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada answered that the actions had been undertaken after lengthy scriptural and theological reflection, legally in accordance with their own canons and constitutions and after extensive consultation with the provinces of the communion.The Primates' Meeting voted to request the two churches to withdraw their delegates from the 2005 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Canada and the United States decided to attend the meeting but without exercising their right to vote. They have not been expelled or suspended, since there is no mechanism in this voluntary association to suspend or expel an independent province of the communion. Since membership is based on a province's communion with Canterbury, expulsion would require the Archbishop of Canterbury's refusal to be in communion with the affected jurisdictions. In line with the suggestion of the Windsor Report, Rowan Williams (the then Archbishop of Canterbury) established a working group to examine the feasibility of an Anglican covenant which would articulate the conditions for communion in some fashion.OrganisationProvincesThe Anglican communion consists of forty-one autonomous provinces each with its own primate and governing structure. These provinces may take the form of national churches (such as in Canada, Uganda, or Japan) or a collection of nations (such as the West Indies, Central Africa, or Southeast Asia).Extraprovincial churchesIn addition to the forty-one provinces, there are five extraprovincial churches under the metropolitical authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.Former provincesNew provinces in formationAt its Autumn 2020 meeting the provincial standing committee of the Church of Southern Africa approved a plan to form the dioceses in Mozambique and Angola into a separate autonomous province of the Anglican Communion, to be named the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola  (IAMA). The plans were also outlined to the Mozambique and Angola Anglican Association (MANNA) at its September 2020 annual general meeting. The new province is Portuguese-speaking, and consists of twelve dioceses (four in Angola, and eight in Mozambique). The twelve proposed new dioceses have been defined and named, and each has a "Task Force Committee" working towards its establishment as a diocese. The plan received the consent of the bishops and diocesan synods of all four existing dioceses in the two nations, and was submitted to the Anglican Consultative Council.In September 2020 the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that he had asked the bishops of the Church of Ceylon to begin planning for the formation of an autonomous province of Ceylon, so as to end his current position as Metropolitan of the two dioceses in that country.Churches in full communionIn addition to other member churches, the churches of the Anglican Communion are in full communion with the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Scandinavian Lutheran churches of the Porvoo Communion in Europe, the India-based Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian and Malabar Independent Syrian churches and the Philippine Independent Church, also known as the Aglipayan Church.History The Anglican Communion traces much of its growth to the older mission organisations of the Church of England such as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (founded 1698), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (founded 1701) and the Church Missionary Society (founded 1799). The Church of England (which until the 20th century included the Church in Wales) initially separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 in the reign of Henry VIII, reunited in 1555 under Mary I and then separated again in 1570 under Elizabeth I (the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Elizabeth I in 1570 in response to the Act of Supremacy 1559).The Church of England has always thought of itself not as a new foundation but rather as a reformed continuation of the ancient "English Church" (Ecclesia Anglicana) and a reassertion of that church's rights. As such it was a distinctly national phenomenon. The Church of Scotland was formed as a separate church from the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the Scottish Reformation in 1560 and the later formation of the Scottish Episcopal Church began in 1582 in the reign of James VI over disagreements about the role of bishops.The oldest-surviving Anglican church building outside the British Isles (Britain and Ireland) is St Peter's Church in St. George's, Bermuda, established in 1612 (though the actual building had to be rebuilt several times over the following century). This is also the oldest surviving non-Roman Catholic church in the New World. It remained part of the Church of England until 1978 when the Anglican Church of Bermuda separated. The Church of England was the established church not only in England, but in its trans-Oceanic colonies.Thus the only member churches of the present Anglican Communion existing by the mid-18th century were the Church of England, its closely linked sister church the Church of Ireland (which also separated from Roman Catholicism under Henry VIII) and the Scottish Episcopal Church which for parts of the 17th and 18th centuries was partially underground (it was suspected of Jacobite sympathies).Global spread of AnglicanismThe enormous expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries of the British Empire brought Anglicanism along with it. At first all these colonial churches were under the jurisdiction of the bishop of London. After the American Revolution, the parishes in the newly independent country found it necessary to break formally from a church whose supreme governor was (and remains) the British monarch. Thus they formed their own dioceses and national church, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, in a mostly amicable separation.At about the same time, in the colonies which remained linked to the crown, the Church of England began to appoint colonial bishops. In 1787, a bishop of Nova Scotia was appointed with a jurisdiction over all of British North America; in time several more colleagues were appointed to other cities in present-day Canada. In 1814, a bishop of Calcutta was made; in 1824 the first bishop was sent to the West Indies and in 1836 to Australia. By 1840 there were still only ten colonial bishops for the Church of England; but even this small beginning greatly facilitated the growth of Anglicanism around the world. In 1841, a "Colonial Bishoprics Council" was set up and soon many more dioceses were created.In time, it became natural to group these into provinces and a metropolitan bishop was appointed for each province. Although it had at first been somewhat established in many colonies, in 1861 it was ruled that, except where specifically established, the Church of England had just the same legal position as any other church. Thus a colonial bishop and colonial diocese was by nature quite a different thing from their counterparts back home. In time bishops came to be appointed locally rather than from England and eventually national synods began to pass ecclesiastical legislation independent of England.A crucial step in the development of the modern communion was the idea of the Lambeth Conferences (discussed above). These conferences demonstrated that the bishops of disparate churches could manifest the unity of the church in their episcopal collegiality despite the absence of universal legal ties. Some bishops were initially reluctant to attend, fearing that the meeting would declare itself a council with power to legislate for the church; but it agreed to pass only advisory resolutions. These Lambeth Conferences have been held roughly every 10 years since 1878 (the second such conference) and remain the most visible coming-together of the whole Communion.The Lambeth Conference of 1998 included what has been seen by Philip Jenkins and others as a "watershed in global Christianity". The 1998 Lambeth Conference considered the issue of the theology of same-sex attraction in relation to human sexuality. At this 1998 conference for the first time in centuries the Christians of developing regions, especially, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, prevailed over the bishops of more prosperous countries (many from the US, Canada, and the UK) who supported a redefinition of Anglican doctrine. Seen in this light 1998 is a date that marked the shift from a West-dominated Christianity to one wherein the growing churches of the two-thirds world are predominant, but the gay bishop controversy in subsequent years led to the reassertion of Western dominance, this time of the liberal variety.Ecumenical relationsHistoric episcopateThe churches of the Anglican Communion have traditionally held that ordination in the historic episcopate is a core element in the validity of clerical ordinations. The Roman Catholic Church, however, does not recognise Anglican orders (see Apostolicae curae). Some Eastern Orthodox churches have issued statements to the effect that Anglican orders could be accepted, yet have still reordained former Anglican clergy; other Eastern Orthodox churches have rejected Anglican orders altogether. Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware explains this apparent discrepancy as follows:ControversiesOne effect of the Communion's dispersed authority has been the conflicts arising over divergent practices and doctrines in parts of the Communion. Disputes that had been confined to the Church of England could be dealt with legislatively in that realm, but as the Communion spread out into new nations and disparate cultures, such controversies multiplied and intensified. These controversies have generally been of two types: liturgical and social.Anglo-CatholicismThe first such controversy of note concerned that of the growing influence of the Catholic Revival manifested in the Tractarian and so-called Ritualist controversies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This controversy produced the Free Church of England and, in the United States and Canada, the Reformed Episcopal Church.Social changesLater, rapid social change and the dissipation of British cultural hegemony over its former colonies contributed to disputes over the role of women, the parameters of marriage and divorce, and the practices of contraception and abortion. In the late 1970s, the Continuing Anglican movement produced a number of new church bodies in opposition to women's ordination, prayer book changes, and the new understandings concerning marriage.Same-sex unions and LGBT clergyMore recently, disagreements over homosexuality have strained the unity of the communion as well as its relationships with other Christian denominations, leading to another round of withdrawals from the Anglican Communion. Some churches were founded outside the Anglican Communion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, largely in opposition to the ordination of openly homosexual bishops and other clergy and are usually referred to as belonging to the Anglican realignment movement, or else as "orthodox" Anglicans. These disagreements were especially noted when the Episcopal Church (US) consecrated an openly gay bishop in a same-sex relationship, Gene Robinson, in 2003, which led some Episcopalians to defect and found the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA); then, the debate re-ignited when the Church of England agreed to allow clergy to enter into same-sex civil partnerships, as long as they remained celibate, in 2005. The Church of Nigeria opposed the Episcopal Church's decision as well as the Church of England's approval for celibate civil partnerships."The more liberal provinces that are open to changing Church doctrine on marriage in order to allow for same-sex unions include Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, South India, South Africa, the US and Wales". The Church of England does not allow same-gender marriages or blessing rites, but does permit special prayer services for same-sex couples following a civil marriage or partnership. The Church of England also permits clergy to enter into same-sex civil partnerships. The Church of Ireland has no official position on civil unions, and one senior cleric has entered into a same-sex civil partnership. The Church of Ireland recognised that it will "treat civil partners the same as spouses". The Anglican Church of Australia does not have an official position on homosexuality.The conservative Anglican churches, encouraging the realignment movement, are more concentrated in the Global South. For example, the Anglican Church of Kenya, the Church of Nigeria and the Church of Uganda have opposed homosexuality. GAFCON, a fellowship of conservative Anglican churches, has appointed "missionary bishops" in response to the disagreements with the perceived liberalisation in the Anglican churches in North America and Europe.Debates about social theology and ethics have occurred at the same time as debates on prayer book revision and the acceptable grounds for achieving full communion with non-Anglican churches.See also Acts of Supremacy English Reformation Dissolution of the Monasteries Ritualism in the Church of England Apostolicae curae Affirming Catholicism Anglican ministry Anglo-Catholicism British Israelism Church Society Church's Ministry Among Jewish People Compass rose Evangelical Anglicanism Flag of the Anglican Communion Liberal Anglo-Catholicism List of conservative evangelical Anglican churches in England List of heroes of the Christian Church in the Anglican Communion List of the largest Protestant bodies Reform (Anglican) Anglican UseNotesReferencesCitationsSourcesFurther reading Buchanan, Colin. Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism (2nd ed. 2015) excerpt   Hebert, A. G. The Form of the Church. London: Faber and Faber, 1944. Wild, John. What is the Anglican Communion?, in series, The Advent Papers. Cincinnati, Ohio: Forward Movement Publications, [196-]. Note.: Expresses the "Anglo-Catholic" viewpoint.External links  Anglicans Online Project Canterbury Anglican historical documents from around the world Brief description and history of the Anglican Communion 1997 article from the Anglican Communion Office 1867 establishments in EnglandReligious organizations established in 1867Religion in the British Empire
Arne Kaijser (born 1950) is a professor emeritus of history of technology at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and a former president of the Society for the History of Technology.Kaijser has published two books in Swedish: Stadens ljus. Etableringen av de första svenska gasverken and I fädrens spår. Den svenska infrastrukturens historiska utveckling och framtida utmaningar, and has co-edited several anthologies. Kaijser is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences since 2007 and also a member of the editorial board of two scientific journals: Journal of Urban Technology and Centaurus. Lately, he has been occupied with the history of Large Technical Systems.ReferencesExternal links  Homepage Extended homepage1950 birthsLiving peopleSwedish historiansKTH Royal Institute of Technology facultyMembers of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering SciencesHistorians of scienceHistorians of technologyLinköping University alumni
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archipelago, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Lakshadweep Islands, the Galápagos Islands, the Japanese Archipelago, the Philippine Archipelago, the Maldives, the Balearic Isles, the Bahamas, the Aegean Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the Canary Islands, Malta, the Azores, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the British Isles, the islands of the Archipelago Sea, and Shetland. They are sometimes defined by political boundaries. The Gulf archipelago off the north-eastern Pacific coast forms part of a larger archipelago that geographically includes Washington state's San Juan Islands. While the Gulf archipelago and San Juan Islands are geographically related, they are not technically included in the same archipelago due to manmade geopolitical borders.EtymologyThe word archipelago is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄρχι-(arkhi-, "chief") and πέλαγος (pélagos, "sea") through the Italian arcipelago. In antiquity, "Archipelago" (from medieval Greek *ἀρχιπέλαγος and Latin ) was the proper name for the Aegean Sea. Later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands (since the sea has a large number of islands).Geographic typesArchipelagos may be found isolated in large amounts of water or neighbouring a large land mass. For example, Scotland has more than 700 islands surrounding its mainland which form an archipelago.Archipelagos are often volcanic, forming along island arcs generated by subduction zones or hotspots, but may also be the result of erosion, deposition, and land elevation. Depending on their geological origin, islands forming archipelagos can be referred to as oceanic islands, continental fragments, and continental islands.Oceanic islandsOceanic islands are mainly of volcanic origin, and widely separated from any adjacent continent. The Hawaiian Islands and Easter Island in the Pacific, and Île Amsterdam in the south Indian Ocean are examples.Continental fragmentsContinental fragments correspond to land masses that have separated from a continental mass due to tectonic displacement. The Farallon Islands off the coast of California are an example.Continental archipelagosSets of islands formed close to the coast of a continent are considered continental archipelagos when they form part of the same continental shelf, when those islands are above-water extensions of the shelf. The islands of the Inside Passage off the coast of British Columbia and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are examples.Artificial archipelagosArtificial archipelagos have been created in various countries for different purposes. Palm Islands and the World Islands off Dubai were or are being created for leisure and tourism purposes. Marker Wadden in the Netherlands is being built as a conservation area for birds and other wildlife.Further examplesThe largest archipelagic state in the world by area, and by population, is Indonesia.See also  Island arc List of landforms List of archipelagos by number of islands List of archipelagos Archipelagic state List of islands AquapelagoReferencesExternal links   30 Most Incredible Island Archipelagos Coastal and oceanic landformsOceanographical terminology
An author is the creator or originator of any written work such as a book or play, and is also considered a writer or poet. More broadly defined, an author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created.Legal significance of authorshipTypically, the first owner of a copyright is the person who created the work, i.e. the author. If more than one person created the work, then a case of joint authorship can be made provided some criteria are met. In the copyright laws of various jurisdictions, there is a necessity for little flexibility regarding what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office, for example, defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to authors of 'original works of authorship.'"Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, [or] certain other intellectual works" gives rights to this person, the owner of the copyright, especially the exclusive right to engage in or authorize any production or distribution of their work. Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, and often will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright laws in many jurisdictions – mostly following the lead of the United States, in which the entertainment and publishing industries have very strong lobbying power – have been amended repeatedly since their inception, to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is exclusively controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns their work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time it's created. A notable aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that, in many jurisdictions, it can be passed down to another upon one's death. The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, but enjoys the same legal benefits.Questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction?  If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music, and other considerations, come into play? Additionally, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even stopping the fan fiction?  This particular sort of case also illustrates how complex intellectual property law can be, since such fiction may also involved trademark law (e.g. for names of characters in media franchises), likeness rights (such as for actors, or even entirely fictional entities), fair use rights held by the public (including the right to parody or satirize), and many other interacting complications.Authors may portion out different rights they hold to different parties, at different times, and for different purposes or uses, such as the right to adapt a plot into a film, but only with different character names, because the characters have already been optioned by another company for a television series or a video game.  An author may also not have rights when working under contract that they would otherwise have, such as when creating a work for hire (e.g., hired to write a city tour guide by a municipal government that totally owns the copyright to the finished work), or when writing material using intellectual property owned by others (such as when writing a novel or screenplay that is a new installment in an already established media franchise).Philosophical views of the nature of authorshipIn literary theory, critics find complications in the term author beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text.Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author. He writes, in his essay "Death of the Author" (1968), that "it is language which speaks, not the author." The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, and not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production. Every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture"; it is never original. With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us." The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author.Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" (1969) that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author." For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function." Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a written work, a part of its structure, but not necessarily part of the interpretive process. The author's name "indicates the status of the discourse within a society and culture," and at one time was used as an anchor for interpreting a text, a practice which Barthes would argue is not a particularly relevant or valid endeavour.Expanding upon Foucault's position, Alexander Nehamas writes that Foucault suggests "an author [...] is whoever can be understood to have produced a particular text as we interpret it," not necessarily who penned the text. It is this distinction between producing a written work and producing the interpretation or meaning in a written work that both Barthes and Foucault are interested in. Foucault warns of the risks of keeping the author's name in mind during interpretation, because it could affect the value and meaning with which one handles an interpretation.Literary critics Barthes and Foucault suggest that readers should not rely on or look for the notion of one overarching voice when interpreting a written work, because of the complications inherent with a writer's title of "author." They warn of the dangers interpretations could suffer from when associating the subject of inherently meaningful words and language with the personality of one authorial voice. Instead, readers should allow a text to be interpreted in terms of the language as "author."Relationship with publisherSelf-publishingSelf-publishing, self-publishing, independent publishing, or artisanal publishing is the "publication of any book, album or other media by its author without the involvement of a traditional publisher. It is the modern equivalent to traditional publishing."TypesUnless a book is to be sold directly from the author to the public, an ISBN is required to uniquely identify the title. ISBN is a global standard used for all titles worldwide. Most self-publishing companies either provide their own ISBN to a title or can provide direction; it may be in the best interest of the self-published author to retain ownership of ISBN and copyright instead of using a number owned by a vanity press. A separate ISBN is needed for each edition of the book.Electronic (e-book) publishing There are a variety of book formats and tools that can be used to create them. Because it is possible to create e-books with no up-front or per-book costs, this is a popular option for self-publishers. E-book publishing platforms include Pronoun, Smashwords, Blurb, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, CinnamonTeal Publishing, Papyrus Editor, ebook leap, Bookbaby, Pubit, Lulu, Llumina Press, and CreateSpace. E-book formats include epub, mobi, and PDF, among others.Print-on-demandPrint-on-demand (POD) publishing refers to the ability to print high-quality books as needed. For self-published books, this is often a more economical option than conducting a print run of hundreds or thousands of books. Many companies, such as Createspace (owned by Amazon.com), Outskirts Press, Blurb, Lulu, Llumina Press, ReadersMagnet, and iUniverse, allow printing single books at per-book costs not much higher than those paid by publishing companies for large print runs.Traditional publishingWith commissioned publishing, the publisher makes all the publication arrangements and the author covers all expenses.The author of a work may receive a percentage calculated on a wholesale or a specific price or a fixed amount on each book sold. Publishers, at times, reduced the risk of this type of arrangement, by agreeing only to pay this after a certain number of copies had sold. In Canada, this practice occurred during the 1890s, but was not commonplace until the 1920s. Established and successful authors may receive advance payments, set against future royalties, but this is no longer common practice. Most independent publishers pay royalties as a percentage of net receipts – how net receipts are calculated varies from publisher to publisher. Under this arrangement, the author does not pay anything towards the expense of publication. The costs and financial risk are all carried by the publisher, who will then take the greatest percentage of the receipts. See Compensation for more.Vanity publishingThis type of publisher normally charges a flat fee for arranging publication, offers a platform for selling, and then takes a percentage of the sale of every copy of a book. The author receives the rest of the money made.Relationship with editorThe relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach their audience, often through publication, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act. There are three principal areas covered by editors – Proofing (checking the Grammar and spelling, looking for typing errors), Story (potentially an area of deep angst for both author and publisher), and Layout (the setting of the final proof ready for publishing often requires minor text changes so a layout editor is required to ensure that these do not alter the sense of the text).Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field. Bourdieu claims that the "field of position-takings [...] is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality. In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer". As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions.According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception.Compensation Authors rely on advance fees, royalty payments, adaptation of work to a screenplay, and fees collected from giving speeches.A standard contract for an author will usually include provision for payment in the form of an advance and royalties. An advance is a lump sum paid in advance of publication. An advance must be earned out before royalties are payable. An advance may be paid in two lump sums: the first payment on contract signing, and the second on delivery of the completed manuscript or on publication.Royalty payment is the sum paid to authors for each copy of a book sold and is traditionally around 10-12%, but self-published authors can earn about 40% – 60% royalties per each book sale. An author's contract may specify, for example, that they will earn 10% of the retail price of each book sold. Some contracts specify a scale of royalties payable (for example, where royalties start at 10% for the first 10,000 sales, but then increase to a higher percentage rate at higher sale thresholds).An author's book must earn the advance before any further royalties are paid. For example, if an author is paid a modest advance of $2000, and their royalty rate is 10% of a book priced at $20 – that is, $2 per book – the book will need to sell 1000 copies before any further payment will be made. Publishers typically withhold payment of a percentage of royalties earned against returns.In some countries, authors also earn income from a government scheme such as the ELR (educational lending right) and PLR (public lending right) schemes in Australia. Under these schemes, authors are paid a fee for the number of copies of their books in educational and/or public libraries.These days, many authors supplement their income from book sales with public speaking engagements, school visits, residencies, grants, and teaching positions.Ghostwriters, technical writers, and textbooks writers are typically paid in a different way: usually a set fee or a per word rate rather than on a percentage of sales.In the year 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 130,000 people worked in the U.S. as authors making an average of $61,240 per year.See alsoAcademic authorshipAuteurAuthors' editorDistributive writingLead authorList of novelistsLists of poetsLists of writersNovelistProfessional writingReferencesWriting occupationsLiterary criticism
Andrey Andreyevich Markov (14 June 1856 – 20 July 1922) was a Russian mathematician best known for his work on stochastic processes. A primary subject of his research later became known as Markov chains or Markov processes.Markov and his younger brother Vladimir Andreevich Markov (1871–1897) proved the Markov brothers' inequality.His son, another Andrey Andreyevich Markov (1903–1979), was also a notable mathematician, making contributions to constructive mathematics and recursive function theory.Biography Andrey Markov was born on 14 June 1856 in Russia. He attended the St. Petersburg Grammar School, where some teachers saw him as a rebellious student. In his academics he performed poorly in most subjects other than mathematics.  Later in life he attended Saint Petersburg Imperial University (now Saint Petersburg State University). among his teachers were Yulian Sokhotski (differential calculus, higher algebra), Konstantin Posse (analytic geometry), Yegor Zolotarev (integral calculus), Pafnuty Chebyshev (number theory and probability theory), Aleksandr Korkin (ordinary and partial differential equations), Mikhail Okatov (mechanism theory), Osip Somov (mechanics), and Nikolai Budajev (descriptive and higher geometry).  He completed his studies at the university and was later asked if he would like to stay and have a career as a Mathematician. He later taught at high schools and continued his own mathematical studies. In this time he found a practical use for his mathematical skills. He figured out that he could use chains to model the alliteration of vowels and consonants in Russian literature. He also contributed to many other mathematical aspects in his time. He died at age 66 on 20 July 1922.Timeline In 1877, Markov was awarded a gold medal for his outstanding solution of the problemAbout Integration of Differential Equations by Continued Fractions with an Application to the Equation .During the following year, he passed the candidate's examinations, and he remained at the university to prepare for a lecturer's position.In April 1880, Markov defended his master's thesis "On the Binary Square Forms with Positive Determinant", which was directed by Aleksandr Korkin and Yegor Zolotarev. Four years later in 1884, he defended his doctoral thesis titled "On Certain Applications of the Algebraic Continuous Fractions".His pedagogical work began after the defense of his master's thesis in autumn 1880. As a privatdozent he lectured on differential and integral calculus. Later he lectured alternately on "introduction to analysis", probability theory (succeeding Chebyshev, who had left the university in 1882) and the calculus of differences. From 1895 through 1905 he also lectured in differential calculus.One year after the defense of his doctoral thesis, Markov was appointed extraordinary professor (1886) and in the same year he was elected adjunct to the Academy of Sciences. In 1890, after the death of Viktor Bunyakovsky, Markov became an extraordinary member of the academy. His promotion to an ordinary professor of St. Petersburg University followed in the fall of 1894.In 1896, Markov was elected an ordinary member of the academy as the successor of Chebyshev. In 1905, he was appointed merited professor and was granted the right to retire, which he did immediately. Until 1910, however, he continued to lecture in the calculus of differences.In connection with student riots in 1908, professors and lecturers of St. Petersburg University were ordered to monitor their students. Markov refused to accept this decree, and he wrote an explanation in which he declined to be an "agent of the governance". Markov was removed from further teaching duties at St. Petersburg University, and hence he decided to retire from the university.Markov was an atheist. In 1912, he protested Leo Tolstoy's excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church by requesting his own excommunication. The Church complied with his request.In 1913, the council of St. Petersburg elected nine scientists honorary members of the university. Markov was among them, but his election was not affirmed by the minister of education. The affirmation only occurred four years later, after the February Revolution in 1917. Markov then resumed his teaching activities and lectured on probability theory and the calculus of differences until his death in 1922.See also  List of things named after Andrey Markov Chebyshev–Markov–Stieltjes inequalities Gauss–Markov theorem Gauss–Markov process Hidden Markov model Markov blanket Markov chain Markov decision process Markov's inequality Markov brothers' inequality Markov information source Markov network Markov number Markov property Markov process Stochastic matrix (also known as Markov matrix) Subjunctive possibilityNotesReferencesFurther reading   А. А. Марков. "Распространение закона больших чисел на величины, зависящие друг от друга". "Известия Физико-математического общества при Казанском университете", 2-я серия, том 15, с. 135–156, 1906. A. A. Markov.  "Extension of the limit theorems of probability theory to a sum of variables connected in a chain". reprinted in Appendix B of: R. Howard.  Dynamic Probabilistic Systems, volume 1: Markov Chains. John Wiley and Sons, 1971.External links   Markov, Andrei AndreyevichMarkov, Andrei Andreyevich19th-century Russian mathematicians20th-century Russian mathematiciansRussian atheistsFormer Russian Orthodox ChristiansProbability theoristsSaint Petersburg State University alumniFull members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of SciencesFull Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925)People from RyazanRussian statisticians
Angst is fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and the words anxious and anxiety are of similar origin). The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity.EtymologyThe word angst was introduced into English from the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch word  and the German word . It is attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Kierkegaard and Freud. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil.In other languages (with words from the Latin  for "fear" or "panic"), the derived words differ in meaning; for example, as in the French  and . The word angst has existed since the 8th century, from the Proto-Indo-European root , "restraint" from which Old High German  developed. It is pre-cognate with the Latin , "tensity, tightness" and , "choking, clogging"; compare to the Ancient Greek  () "strangle".Existentialist angst In existentialist philosophy, the term angst carries a specific conceptual meaning. The use of the term was first attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). In The Concept of Anxiety (also known as The Concept of Dread, depending on the translation), Kierkegaard used the word Angest (in common Danish, angst, meaning "dread" or "anxiety") to describe a profound and deep-seated condition. Where non-human animals are guided solely by instinct, said Kierkegaard, human beings enjoy a freedom of choice that we find both appealing and terrifying. It is the anxiety of understanding of being free when considering undefined possibilities of one's life and the immense responsibility of having the power of choice over them. Kierkegaard's concept of angst reappeared in the works of existentialist philosophers who followed, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger, each of whom developed the idea further in individual ways. While Kierkegaard's angst referred mainly to ambiguous feelings about moral freedom within a religious personal belief system, later existentialists discussed conflicts of personal principles, cultural norms, and existential despair.Music Existential angst makes its appearance in classical musical composition in the early twentieth century as a result of both philosophical developments and as a reflection of the war-torn times. Notable composers whose works are often linked with the concept include Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss (operas Elektra and Salome), Claude-Achille Debussy (opera Pelleas et Melisande, ballet Jeux, other works), Jean Sibelius (especially the Fourth Symphony), Arnold Schoenberg (A Survivor from Warsaw, other works), Alban Berg, Francis Poulenc (opera Dialogues of the Carmelites), Dmitri Shostakovich (opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, symphonies and chamber music), Béla Bartók (opera Bluebeard's Castle, other works), and Krzysztof Penderecki (especially Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima). Angst began to be discussed in reference to popular music in the mid- to late 1950s amid widespread concerns over international tensions and nuclear proliferation. Jeff Nuttall's book Bomb Culture (1968) traced angst in popular culture to Hiroshima. Dread was expressed in works of folk rock such as Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" (1963) and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". The term often makes an appearance in reference to punk rock, grunge, nu metal, and works of emo where expressions of melancholy, existential despair, or nihilism predominate.See alsoReferencesExternal linksAnxietyEmotionsExistentialist concepts
Anxiety is an emotion characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over anticipated events. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing. It is often accompanied by muscular tension, restlessness, fatigue, inability to catch one's breath, tightness in the abdominal region, and problems in concentration. Anxiety is closely related to fear, which is a response to a real or perceived immediate threat; anxiety involves the expectation of future threat including dread. People facing anxiety may withdraw from situations which have provoked anxiety in the past.Though anxiety is a normal human response, when excessive or persisting beyond developmentally appropriate periods it may be diagnosed as an anxiety disorder. There are multiple forms of anxiety disorder (such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) with specific clinical definitions. Part of the definition of an anxiety disorder, which distinguishes it from every day anxiety, is that it is persistent, typically lasting 6 months or more, although the criterion for duration is intended as a general guide with allowance for some degree of flexibility and is sometimes of shorter duration in children.Anxiety vs. fearAnxiety is distinguished from fear, which is an appropriate cognitive and emotional response to a perceived threat. Anxiety is related to the specific behaviors of fight-or-flight responses, defensive behavior or escape. There is a false presumption that often circulates that anxiety only occurs in situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable, but this is not always so. David Barlow defines anxiety as "a future-oriented mood state in which one is not ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events," and that it is a distinction between future and present dangers which divides anxiety and fear. Another description of anxiety is agony, dread, terror, or even apprehension. In positive psychology, anxiety is described as the mental state that results from a difficult challenge for which the subject has insufficient coping skills.Fear and anxiety can be differentiated into four domains: (1) duration of emotional experience, (2) temporal focus, (3) specificity of the threat, and (4) motivated direction. Fear is short-lived, present-focused, geared towards a specific threat, and facilitating escape from threat. On the other hand, anxiety is long-acting, future-focused, broadly focused towards a diffuse threat, and promoting excessive caution while approaching a potential threat and interferes with constructive coping.Joseph E. LeDoux and Lisa Feldman Barrett have both sought to separate automatic threat responses from additional associated cognitive activity within anxiety.SymptomsAnxiety can be experienced with long, drawn-out daily symptoms that reduce quality of life, known as chronic (or generalized) anxiety, or it can be experienced in short spurts with sporadic, stressful panic attacks, known as acute anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety can range in number, intensity, and frequency, depending on the person. While almost everyone has experienced anxiety at some point in their lives, most do not develop long-term problems with anxiety.Anxiety may cause psychiatric and physiological symptoms.The risk of anxiety leading to depression could possibly even lead to an individual harming themselves, which is why there are many 24-hour suicide prevention hotlines.The behavioral effects of anxiety may include withdrawal from situations which have provoked anxiety or negative feelings in the past. Other effects may include changes in sleeping patterns, changes in habits, increase or decrease in food intake, and increased motor tension (such as foot tapping).The emotional effects of anxiety may include "feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) of danger, and, feeling like your mind's gone blank" as well as "nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, déjà vu, a trapped-in-your-mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary."  It may include a vague experience and feeling of helplessness.The cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying: "You may ... fear that the chest pains are a deadly heart attack or that the shooting pains in your head are the result of a tumor or an aneurysm. You feel an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can't get it out of your mind."The physiological symptoms of anxiety may include:Neurological, as headache, paresthesias, fasciculations, vertigo, or presyncope.Digestive, as abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, indigestion, dry mouth, or bolus. Stress hormones released in an anxious state have an impact on bowel function and can manifest physical symptoms that may contribute to or exacerbate IBS.Respiratory, as shortness of breath or sighing breathing.Cardiac, as palpitations, tachycardia, or chest pain.Muscular, as fatigue, tremors, or tetany.Cutaneous, as perspiration, or itchy skin.Uro-genital, as frequent urination, urinary urgency, dyspareunia, or impotence, chronic pelvic pain syndrome.TypesThere are various types of anxiety. Existential anxiety can occur when a person faces angst, an existential crisis, or nihilistic feelings. People can also face mathematical anxiety, somatic anxiety, stage fright, or test anxiety. Social anxiety refers to a fear of rejection and negative evaluation (being judged) by other people.ExistentialThe philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Anxiety (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In Art and Artist (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation.The theologian Paul Tillich characterized existential anxiety as "the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he listed three categories for the nonbeing and resulting anxiety: ontic (fate and death), moral (guilt and condemnation), and spiritual (emptiness and meaninglessness). According to Tillich, the last of these three types of existential anxiety, i.e. spiritual anxiety, is predominant in modern times while the others were predominant in earlier periods. Tillich argues that this anxiety can be accepted as part of the human condition or it can be resisted but with negative consequences. In its pathological form, spiritual anxiety may tend to "drive the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of meaning which are supported by tradition and authority" even though such "undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality".According to Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning, when a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near.Depending on the source of the threat, psychoanalytic theory distinguishes the following types of anxiety: realistic neurotic moralTest and performanceAccording to Yerkes-Dodson law, an optimal level of arousal is necessary to best complete a task such as an exam, performance, or competitive event. However, when the anxiety or level of arousal exceeds that optimum, the result is a decline in performance.Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students who have test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth; fear of embarrassment by a teacher; fear of alienation from parents or friends; time pressures; or feeling a loss of control. Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeats, nausea, fidgeting, uncontrollable crying or laughing and drumming on a desk are all common. Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia. The DSM-IV classifies test anxiety as a type of social phobia.While the term "test anxiety" refers specifically to students, many workers share the same experience with regard to their career or profession. The fear of failing at a task and being negatively evaluated for failure can have a similarly negative effect on the adult. Management of test anxiety focuses on achieving relaxation and developing mechanisms to manage anxiety.Stranger, social, and intergroup anxietyHumans generally require social acceptance and thus sometimes dread the disapproval of others. Apprehension of being judged by others may cause anxiety in social environments.Anxiety during social interactions, particularly between strangers, is common among young people. It may persist into adulthood and become social anxiety or social phobia. "Stranger anxiety" in small children is not considered a phobia. In adults, an excessive fear of other people is not a developmentally common stage; it is called social anxiety. According to Cutting, social phobics do not fear the crowd but the fact that they may be judged negatively.Social anxiety varies in degree and severity. For some people, it is characterized by experiencing discomfort or awkwardness during physical social contact (e.g. embracing, shaking hands, etc.), while in other cases it can lead to a fear of interacting with unfamiliar people altogether. Those suffering from this condition may restrict their lifestyles to accommodate the anxiety, minimizing social interaction whenever possible. Social anxiety also forms a core aspect of certain personality disorders, including avoidant personality disorder.To the extent that a person is fearful of social encounters with unfamiliar others, some people may experience anxiety particularly during interactions with outgroup members, or people who share different group memberships (i.e., by race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.). Depending on the nature of the antecedent relations, cognitions, and situational factors, intergroup contact may be stressful and lead to feelings of anxiety. This apprehension or fear of contact with outgroup members is often called interracial or intergroup anxiety.As is the case with the more generalized forms of social anxiety, intergroup anxiety has behavioral, cognitive, and affective effects. For instance, increases in schematic processing and simplified information processing can occur when anxiety is high. Indeed, such is consistent with related work on attentional bias in implicit memory. Additionally recent research has found that implicit racial evaluations (i.e. automatic prejudiced attitudes) can be amplified during intergroup interaction. Negative experiences have been illustrated in producing not only negative expectations, but also avoidant, or antagonistic, behavior such as hostility. Furthermore, when compared to anxiety levels and cognitive effort (e.g., impression management and self-presentation) in intragroup contexts, levels and depletion of resources may be exacerbated in the intergroup situation.TraitAnxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term personality "trait." Trait anxiety reflects a stable tendency across the lifespan of responding with acute, state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening situations (whether they are actually deemed threatening or not). A meta-analysis showed that a high level of neuroticism is a risk factor for development of anxiety symptoms and disorders. Such anxiety may be conscious or unconscious.Personality can also be a trait leading to anxiety and depression. Through experience, many find it difficult to collect themselves due to their own personal nature.Choice or decision Anxiety induced by the need to choose between similar options is increasingly being recognized as a problem for individuals and for organizations. In 2004, Capgemini wrote: "Today we're all faced with greater choice, more competition and less time to consider our options or seek out the right advice."In a decision context, unpredictability or uncertainty may trigger emotional responses in anxious individuals that systematically alter decision-making. There are primarily two forms of this anxiety type. The first form refers to a choice in which there are multiple potential outcomes with known or calculable probabilities. The second form refers to the uncertainty and ambiguity related to a decision context in which there are multiple possible outcomes with unknown probabilities.Panic disorderPanic disorder may share symptoms of stress and anxiety, but it is actually very different. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs without any triggers. According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, this disorder can be distinguished by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear. Someone who suffers from panic disorder will eventually develop constant fear of another attack and as this progresses it will begin to affect daily functioning and an individual's general quality of life. It is reported by the Cleveland Clinic that panic disorder affects 2 to 3 percent of adult Americans and can begin around the time of the teenage and early adult years.  Some symptoms include: difficulty breathing, chest pain, dizziness, trembling or shaking, feeling faint, nausea, fear that you are losing control or are about to die.  Even though they suffer from these symptoms during an attack, the main symptom is the persistent fear of having future panic attacks.Anxiety disordersAnxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by exaggerated feelings of anxiety and fear responses. Anxiety is a worry about future events and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a fast heart rate and shakiness. There are a number of anxiety disorders: including generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, and selective mutism. The disorder differs by what results in the symptoms. People often have more than one anxiety disorder.Anxiety disorders are caused by a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. To be diagnosed, symptoms typically need to be present for at least six months, be more than would be expected for the situation, and decrease a person's ability to function in their daily lives. Other problems that may result in similar symptoms include hyperthyroidism, heart disease, caffeine, alcohol, or cannabis use, and withdrawal from certain drugs, among others.Without treatment, anxiety disorders tend to remain. Treatment may include lifestyle changes, counselling, and medications. Counselling is typically with a type of cognitive behavioural therapy. Medications, such as antidepressants or beta blockers, may improve symptoms.About 12% of people are affected by an anxiety disorder in a given year and between 5–30% are affected at some point in their life. They occur about twice as often in women than they do in men, and generally begin before the age of 25. The most common are specific phobia which affects nearly 12% and social anxiety disorder which affects 10% at some point in their life. They affect those between the ages of 15 and 35 the most and become less common after the age of 55. Rates appear to be higher in the United States and Europe.Short- and long-term anxietyAnxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "trait." Whereas trait anxiety represents worrying about future events, anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by feelings of anxiety and fears.Four Ways to Be AnxiousIn his book Anxious: the modern mind in the age of anxiety Joseph LeDoux examines four experiences of anxiety through a brain-based lens: In the presence of an existing or imminent external threat, you worry about the event and its implications for your physical and/or psychological well-being. When a threat signal occurs, it signifies either that danger is present or near in space and time or that it might be coming in the future. Nonconscius threats processing by the brain activates defensive survival circuits, resulting in changes in information processing in the brain, controlled in part by increases in arousal and behavioral  and physiological responses in the body that then produce signals that feed back to the brain and complement the physiological changes there, intensifying them and extending their duration. When you notice body sensations, you worry about what they might mean for your physical and/or psychological well-being. The trigger stimulus does not have to be an external stimulus but can be an internal one, as some people are particularly sensitive to body signals. Thoughts and memories may lead to you to worry about your physical and/or psychological well-being. We do not need to be presence of an external or internal stimulus to be anxious. An episodic memory of a past trauma or of a panic attack in the past is sufficient to activate the defence circuits. Thoughts and memories may result in existential dread, such as worry about leading a meaningful life or the eventuality of death. Examples are contemplations of whether one's life has been meaningful, the inevitability of death, or the difficulty of making decisions that have a moral value. These do not necessarily activate defensive systems; they are more or less pure forms of cognitive anxiety.Co-morbidityAnxiety disorders often occur with other mental health disorders, particularly major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or certain personality disorders. It also commonly occurs with personality traits such as neuroticism. This observed co-occurrence is partly due to genetic and environmental influences shared between these traits and anxiety.It is common for those with obsessive-compulsive disorder to experience anxiety. Anxiety is also commonly found in those who experience panic disorders, phobic anxiety disorders, severe stress, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, and some neurotic disorders.Risk factorsAnxiety disorders are partly genetic, with twin studies suggesting 30-40% genetic influence on individual differences in anxiety. Environmental factors are also important. Twin studies show that individual-specific environments have a large influence on anxiety, whereas shared environmental influences (environments that affect twins in the same way) operate during childhood but decline through adolescence. Specific measured ‘environments’ that have been associated with anxiety include child abuse, family history of mental health disorders, and poverty. Anxiety is also associated with drug use, including alcohol, caffeine, and benzodiazepines (which are often prescribed to treat anxiety).NeuroanatomyNeural circuitry involving the amygdala (which regulates emotions like anxiety and fear, stimulating the HPA axis and sympathetic nervous system) and hippocampus (which is implicated in emotional memory along with the amygdala) is thought to underlie anxiety. People who have anxiety tend to show high activity in response to emotional stimuli in the amygdala. Some writers believe that excessive anxiety can lead to an overpotentiation of the limbic system (which includes the amygdala and nucleus accumbens), giving increased future anxiety, but this does not appear to have been proven.Research upon adolescents who as infants had been highly apprehensive, vigilant, and fearful finds that their nucleus accumbens is more sensitive than that in other people when deciding to make an action that determined whether they received a reward. This suggests a link between circuits responsible for fear and also reward in anxious people. As researchers note, "a sense of 'responsibility', or self-agency, in a context of uncertainty (probabilistic outcomes) drives the neural system underlying appetitive motivation (i.e., nucleus accumbens) more strongly in temperamentally inhibited than noninhibited adolescents".The gut-brain axis The microbes of the gut can connect with the brain to affect anxiety. There are various pathways along which this communication can take place. One is through the major neurotransmitters. The gut microbes such as Bifidobacterium and Bacillus produce the neurotransmitters GABA and dopamine, respectively. The neurotransmitters signal to the nervous system of the gastrointestinal tract, and those signals will be carried to the brain through the vagus nerve or the spinal system. This is demonstrated by the fact that altering the microbiome has shown anxiety- and depression-reducing effects in mice, but not in subjects without vagus nerves.Another key pathway is the HPA axis, as mentioned above. The microbes can control the levels of cytokines in the body, and altering cytokine levels creates direct effects on areas of the brain such as the hypothalmus, the area that triggers HPA axis activity. The HPA axis regulates production of cortisol, a hormone that takes part in the body's stress response. When HPA activity spikes, cortisol levels increase, processing and reducing anxiety in stressful situations. These pathways, as well as the specific effects of individual taxa of microbes, are not yet completely clear, but the communication between the gut microbiome and the brain is undeniable, as is the ability of these pathways to alter anxiety levels.With this communication comes the potential to treat anxiety. Prebiotics and probiotics have been shown to reduced anxiety. For example, experiments in which mice were given fructo- and galacto-oligosaccharide prebiotics and Lactobacillus probiotics have both demonstrated a capability to reduce anxiety. In humans, results are not as concrete, but promising.GeneticsGenetics and family history (e.g. parental anxiety) may put an individual at increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally external stimuli will trigger its onset or exacerbation. Estimates of genetic influence on anxiety, based on studies of twins, range from 25 to 40% depending on the specific type and age-group under study. For example, genetic differences account for about 43% of variance in panic disorder and 28% in generalized anxiety disorder. Longitudinal twin studies have shown the moderate stability of anxiety from childhood through to adulthood is mainly influenced by stability in genetic influence. When investigating how anxiety is passed on from parents to children, it is important to account for sharing of genes as well as environments, for example using the intergenerational children-of-twins design.Many studies in the past used a candidate gene approach to test whether single genes were associated with anxiety. These investigations were based on hypotheses about how certain known genes influence neurotransmitters (such as serotonin and norepinephrine) and hormones (such as cortisol) that are implicated in anxiety. None of these findings are well replicated, with the possible exception of TMEM132D, COMT and MAO-A. The epigenetic signature of BDNF, a gene that codes for a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor that is found in the brain, has also been associated with anxiety and specific patterns of neural activity. and a receptor gene for BDNF called NTRK2 was associated with anxiety in a large genome-wide investigation. The reason that most candidate gene findings have not replicated is that anxiety is a complex trait that is influenced by many genomic variants, each of which has a small effect on its own. Increasingly, studies of anxiety are using a hypothesis-free approach to look for parts of the genome that are implicated in anxiety using big enough samples to find associations with variants that have small effects. The largest explorations of the common genetic architecture of anxiety have been facilitated by the UK Biobank, the ANGST consortium and the CRC Fear, Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders.Medical conditionsMany medical conditions can cause anxiety. This includes conditions that affect the ability to breathe, like COPD and asthma, and the difficulty in breathing that often occurs near death. Conditions that cause abdominal pain or chest pain can cause anxiety and may in some cases be a somatization of anxiety; the same is true for some sexual dysfunctions. Conditions that affect the face or the skin can cause social anxiety especially among adolescents, and developmental disabilities often lead to social anxiety for children as well. Life-threatening conditions like cancer also cause anxiety.Furthermore, certain organic diseases may present with anxiety or symptoms that mimic anxiety. These disorders include certain endocrine diseases (hypo- and hyperthyroidism, hyperprolactinemia), metabolic disorders (diabetes), deficiency states (low levels of vitamin D, B2, B12, folic acid), gastrointestinal diseases (celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, inflammatory bowel disease), heart diseases, blood diseases (anemia), cerebral vascular accidents (transient ischemic attack, stroke), and brain degenerative diseases (Parkinson's disease, dementia, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease), among others.Substance-inducedSeveral drugs can cause or worsen anxiety, whether in intoxication, withdrawal or as side effect. These include alcohol, tobacco, sedatives (including prescription benzodiazepines), opioids (including prescription pain killers and illicit drugs like heroin), stimulants (such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines), hallucinogens, and inhalants.While many often report self-medicating anxiety with these substances, improvements in anxiety from drugs are usually short-lived (with worsening of anxiety in the long term, sometimes with acute anxiety as soon as the drug effects wear off) and tend to be exaggerated. Acute exposure to toxic levels of benzene may cause euphoria, anxiety, and irritability lasting up to 2 weeks after the exposure.PsychologicalPoor coping skills (e.g., rigidity/inflexible problem solving, denial, avoidance, impulsivity, extreme self-expectation, negative thoughts, affective instability, and inability to focus on problems) are associated with anxiety. Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person's own pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback negativity. Temperament (e.g., neuroticism) and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety.Cognitive distortions such as overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, mind reading, emotional reasoning, binocular trick, and mental filter can result in anxiety. For example, an overgeneralized belief that something bad "always" happens may lead someone to have excessive fears of even minimally risky situations and to avoid benign social situations due to anticipatory anxiety of embarrassment. In addition, those who have high anxiety can also create future stressful life events. Together, these findings suggest that anxious thoughts can lead to anticipatory anxiety as well as stressful events, which in turn cause more anxiety. Such unhealthy thoughts can be targets for successful treatment with cognitive therapy.Psychodynamic theory posits that anxiety is often the result of opposing unconscious wishes or fears that manifest via maladaptive defense mechanisms (such as suppression, repression, anticipation, regression, somatization, passive aggression, dissociation) that develop to adapt to problems with early objects (e.g., caregivers) and empathic failures in childhood. For example, persistent parental discouragement of anger may result in repression/suppression of angry feelings which manifests as gastrointestinal distress (somatization) when provoked by another while the anger remains unconscious and outside the individual's awareness. Such conflicts can be targets for successful treatment with psychodynamic therapy. While psychodynamic therapy tends to explore the underlying roots of anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy has also been shown to be a successful treatment for anxiety by altering irrational thoughts and unwanted behaviors.Evolutionary psychologyAn evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This may cause false positive reactions but an individual suffering from anxiety may also avoid real threats. This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents. There is ample empirical evidence that anxiety can have adaptive value. Within a school, timid fish are more likely than bold fish to survive a predator.When people are confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased blood flow in the amygdala. In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors.SocialSocial risk factors for anxiety include a history of trauma (e.g., physical, sexual or emotional abuse or assault), bullying, early life experiences and parenting factors (e.g., rejection, lack of warmth, high hostility, harsh discipline, high parental negative affect, anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing behaviour, discouragement of emotions, poor socialization, poor attachment, and child abuse and neglect), cultural factors (e.g., stoic families/cultures, persecuted minorities including the disabled), and socioeconomics (e.g., uneducated, unemployed, impoverished although developed countries have higher rates of anxiety disorders than developing countries). A 2019 comprehensive systematic review of over 50 studies showed that food insecurity in the United States is strongly associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Food-insecure individuals had an almost 3 fold risk increase of testing positive for anxiety when compared to food-secure individuals.Gender socializationContextual factors that are thought to contribute to anxiety include gender socialization and learning experiences. In particular, learning mastery (the degree to which people perceive their lives to be under their own control) and instrumentality, which includes such traits as self-confidence, self-efficacy, independence, and competitiveness fully mediate the relation between gender and anxiety. That is, though gender differences in anxiety exist, with higher levels of anxiety in women compared to men, gender socialization and learning mastery explain these gender differences.TreatmentThe first step in the management of a person with anxiety symptoms involves evaluating the possible presence of an underlying medical cause, the recognition of which is essential in order to decide the correct treatment. Anxiety symptoms may mask an organic disease, or appear associated with or as a result of a medical disorder.Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for anxiety disorders and is a first line treatment. CBT appears to be equally effective when carried out via the internet. While evidence for mental health apps is promising, it is preliminary.Psychopharmacological treatment can be used in parallel to CBT or can be used alone. As a general rule, most anxiety disorders respond well to first-line agents. Such drugs, also used as anti-depressants, are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, that work by blocking the reuptake of specific neurotransmitters and resulting in the increase in availability of these neurotransmitters. Additionally,  benzodiazepines are often prescribed to individuals with anxiety disorder. Benzodiazepines produce an anxiolytic response by modulating GABA and increasing its receptor binding. A third common treatment involves a category of drug known as serotonin agonists. This category of drug works by initiating a physiological response at 5-HT1A receptor by increasing the action of serotonin at this receptor. Other treatment options include pregabalin, tricyclic antidepressants, and moclobemide, among others.PreventionThe above risk factors give natural avenues for prevention. A 2017 review found that psychological or educational interventions have a small yet statistically significant benefit for the prevention of anxiety in varied population types.PathophysiologyAnxiety disorder appears to be a genetically inherited neurochemical dysfunction that may involve autonomic imbalance; decreased GABA-ergic tone; allelic polymorphism of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene; increased adenosine receptor function; increased cortisol.In the central nervous system (CNS), the major mediators of the symptoms of anxiety disorders appear to be norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Other neurotransmitters and peptides, such as corticotropin-releasing factor, may be involved. Peripherally, the autonomic nervous system, especially the sympathetic nervous system, mediates many of the symptoms. Increased flow in the right parahippocampal region and reduced serotonin type 1A receptor binding in the anterior and posterior cingulate and raphe of patients are the diagnostic factors for prevalence of anxiety disorder.The amygdala is central to the processing of fear and anxiety, and its function may be disrupted in anxiety disorders. Anxiety processing in the basolateral amygdala has been implicated with expansion of dendritic arborization of the amygdaloid neurons. SK2 potassium channels mediate inhibitory influence on action potentials and reduce arborization.See also List of people with an anxiety disorderReferencesExternal links    Emotions
Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. Milne served in both World Wars, joining the British Army in World War I, and as a captain of the British Home Guard in World War II.He was the father of bookseller Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based.Early life and military careerAlan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to John Vine Milne, who was born in England, and Sarah Marie Milne (née Heginbotham). He grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small independent school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells, who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship, graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903. He edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor. Considered a talented cricket fielder, Milne played for two amateur teams that were largely composed of British writers: the Allahakbarries and the Authors XI. His teammates included fellow writers J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse.Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, on 1 February 1915 as a second lieutenant (on probation). His commission was confirmed on 20 December 1915. On 7 July 1916, he was injured in the Battle of the Somme and invalided back to England. Having recuperated, he was recruited into Military Intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI7 (b) between 1916 and 1918. He was discharged on 14 February 1919, and settled in Mallord Street, Chelsea. He relinquished his commission on 19 February 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant.After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of fellow English writer (and Authors XI cricket teammate) P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend (e.g. in The Mating Season) by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."Milne married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt (1890–1971) in 1913 and their son Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920. In 1925, Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex.During World War II, Milne was a captain in the British Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain "Mr. Milne" to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid, and by August 1953, "he seemed very old and disenchanted." Milne died in January 1956, aged 74.Literary career1903 to 1925After graduating from Cambridge University in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor.During this period he published 18 plays and three novels, including the murder mystery The Red House Mystery (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems, When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children A Gallery of Children, and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry, writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films (founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel). These were The Bump, starring Aubrey Smith; Twice Two; Five Pound Reward; and Bookworms. Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute. Milne had met Howard when the actor starred in Milne's play Mr Pim Passes By in London.Looking back on this period (in 1926), Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a "Punch humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years, he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory con amore as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others."1926 to 1928Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne (1920–1996), and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named Edward, was renamed Winnie after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The Pooh" comes from a swan the young Milne named "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy Growler ("a magnificent bear") as the model. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A. A. Milne's stories, and two more characters – Rabbit and Owl – were created by Milne's imagination. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now on display in New York where 750,000 people visit them every year.The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England, where the Pooh stories were set. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest at Cotchford Farm, , and took his son walking there. E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books. The adult Christopher Robin commented: "Pooh's Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical." Popular tourist locations at Ashdown Forest include: Galleon's Lap, The Enchanted Place, the Heffalump Trap and Lone Pine, Eeyore’s Sad and Gloomy Place, and the wooden Pooh Bridge where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks.Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch magazine in February 1924 and republished in When We Were Very Young. Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort of Bees". Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All four books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress. The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.1929 onwardsThe success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot in his essay The Simple Art of Murder in the eponymous collection that appeared in 1950). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.Another reason Milne stopped writing children's books, and especially about Winnie-the-Pooh, was that he felt "amazement and disgust" over the fame his son was exposed to, and said that "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him. I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert."In his literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem "The Norman Church" and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).In 1930, Milne adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall. The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel.Milne and his wife became estranged from their son, who came to resent what he saw as his father's exploitation of his childhood and came to hate the books that had thrust him into the public eye. Christopher's marriage to his first cousin, Lesley de Sélincourt, distanced him still further from his parents – Lesley's father and Christopher's mother had not spoken to each other for 30 years.Death and legacyCommemoration A. A. Milne died at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, on 31 January 1956, nearly two weeks after his 74th birthday. After a memorial service in London, his ashes were scattered in a crematorium's memorial garden in Brighton.The rights to A. A. Milne's Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries: his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club. After Milne's death in 1956, thirteen days after his 74th birthday, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger's death to the Walt Disney Company, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise. In 2001, the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $350m. Previously Disney had been paying twice-yearly royalties to these beneficiaries. The estate of E. H. Shepard also received a sum in the deal. The UK copyright on the text of the original Winnie the Pooh books expires on 1 January 2027; at the beginning of the year after the 70th anniversary of the author's death (PMA-70), and has already expired in those countries with a PMA-50 rule. This applies to all of Milne's works except those first published posthumously. The illustrations in the Pooh books will remain under copyright until the same amount of time has passed, after the illustrator's death; in the UK, this will be on 1 January 2047. In the United States, copyright will not expire until 95 years after publication for each of Milne's books first published before 1978, but this includes the illustrations.In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction in Sotheby's, London. Forbes magazine ranked Winnie the Pooh the most valuable fictional character in 2002; Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $5.9 billion. In 2005, Winnie the Pooh generated $6 billion, a figure surpassed only by Mickey Mouse.A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest, unveiled by Christopher Robin in 1979, commemorates the work of A. A. Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh. Milne once wrote of Ashdown Forest: "In that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."In 2003, Winnie the Pooh was listed at number 7 on the BBC's poll The Big Read which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time. In 2006, Winnie the Pooh received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, marking the 80th birthday of Milne's creation. That same year a UK poll saw Winnie the Pooh voted onto the list of icons of England.Marking the 90th anniversary of Milne's creation of the character, and the 90th birthday of Elizabeth II, in 2016 a new story sees Winnie the Pooh meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The illustrated and audio adventure is titled Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen, and has been narrated by actor Jim Broadbent. Also in 2016, a new character, a Penguin, was unveiled in The Best Bear in All the World, which was inspired by a long-lost photograph of Milne and his son Christopher with a toy penguin.Several of Milne's children's poems were set to music by the composer Harold Fraser-Simson. His poems have been parodied many times, including with the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty. The 1963 film The King's Breakfast was based on Milne's poem of the same name.The Pooh books were used as the basis for two academic satires by Frederick C Crews: 'The Pooh Perplex'(1963–4) and 'Postmodern Pooh'(2002).An exhibition entitled "Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic" appeared at the V & A from 9 December 2017 to 8 April 2018.An elementary school in Houston, Texas, United States, operated by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), is named after Milne. The school, A. A. Milne Elementary School in Brays Oaks, opened in 1991.Archive The bulk of A. A. Milne's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection, established at the center in 1964, consists of manuscript drafts and fragments for over 150 of Milne's works, as well as correspondence, legal documents, genealogical records, and some personal effects. The library division holds several books formerly belonging to Milne and his wife Dorothy. The Harry Ransom Center also has small collections of correspondence from Christopher Robin Milne and Milne's frequent illustrator Ernest Shepard.The original manuscripts for Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner are archived separately at Trinity College Library, Cambridge.Religious viewsMilne did not speak out much on the subject of religion, although he used religious terms to explain his decision, while remaining a pacifist, to join the British Home Guard: "In fighting Hitler," he wrote, "we are truly fighting the Devil, the Anti-Christ ... Hitler was a crusader against God."His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death:He wrote in the poem "Explained":He also wrote in the poem "Vespers":WorksNovels Lovers in London (1905. Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne did not like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.) Once on a Time (1917) Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his 1919 play Mr. Pim Passes By) The Red House Mystery (1922). Serialised: London (Daily News), serialised daily from 3 to 28 August 1921 Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.) Four Days' Wonder (1933) Chloe Marr (1946)Non-fiction Peace With Honour (1934) It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939) War With Honour (1940) War Aims Unlimited (1941) Year In, Year Out (1952) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)Punch articles The Day's Play (1910) The Holiday Round (1912) Once a Week (1914) The Sunny Side (1921) Those Were the Days (1929) [The four volumes above, compiled]Newspaper articles and book introductions The Chronicles of Clovis by "Saki" (1911) [Introduction to] Not That It Matters (1919) If I May (1920) By Way of Introduction (1929) ‘'Women and Children First!’’. John Bull, 10 November 1934 It Depends on the Book (1943, in September issue of Red Cross Newspaper The Prisoner of War)Story collections for children A Gallery of Children (1925) Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard) The House at Pooh Corner (1928) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard) Short StoriesPoetry collections for children When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard) Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)Story collections The Secret and other stories (1929) The Birthday Party (1948) A Table Near the Band (1950)Poetry When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard) For the Luncheon Interval (1925) [poems from Punch] Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard) Behind the Lines (1940) The Norman Church (1948)Screenplays and plays Wurzel-Flummery (1917) Belinda (1918) The Boy Comes Home (1918) Make-Believe (1918) (children's play) The Camberley Triangle (1919) Mr. Pim Passes By (1919) The Red Feathers (1920) The Romantic Age (1920) The Stepmother (1920) The Truth About Blayds (1920) The Bump (1920, Minerva Films), starring C. Aubrey Smith and Faith Celli Twice Two (1920, Minerva Films) Five Pound Reward (1920, Minerva Films) Bookworms (1920, Minerva Films) The Great Broxopp (1921) The Dover Road (1921) The Lucky One (1922) The Truth About Blayds (1922) The Artist: A Duologue (1923) Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the UK) Ariadne (1924) The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924) To Have the Honour (1924) Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926) Success (1926) Miss Marlow at Play (1927) Winnie the Pooh. Written specially by Milne for a 'Winnie the Pooh Party' in aid of the National Mother-Saving Campaign, and performed once at Seaford House on 17 March 1928 The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928) (later adapted for the film Birds of Prey (1930), directed by Basil Dean) The Ivory Door (1929) Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows) Michael and Mary (1930) Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm) Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936) [based on Pride and Prejudice] Sarah Simple (1937) Gentleman Unknown (1938) The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross The Ugly Duckling (1941) Before the Flood (1951).PortrayalMilne is portrayed by Domhnall Gleeson in Goodbye Christopher Robin, a 2017 film.In the 2018 fantasy film Christopher Robin, an extension of the Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise, Tristan Sturrock plays A.A. Milne.ReferencesFurther reading Thwaite, Ann. A.A. Milne: His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.  Toby, Marlene. A.A. Milne, Author of Winnie-the-Pooh. Chicago: Children's Press, 1995.External links A. A. Milne Papers at the Harry Ransom Center    Works by A. A. Milne at BiblioWiki (Canada) includes the complete text of the four Pooh books   Portraits of A. A. Milne in the National Portrait Gallery Essays by Milne at Quotidiana.org Milne extract in The Guardian Profile  at Just-Pooh.com A. A. Milne at poeticous.com  AA Milne | Books | The Guardian Finding aid to the A.A. Milne letters at Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library 1882 births1956 deathsEnglish people of Scottish descentPeople from HampsteadPeople from Kilburn, London20th-century British dramatists and playwrights20th-century British short story writers20th-century English novelists20th-century English poetsAlumni of Trinity College, CambridgeBritish Army personnel of World War IBritish Home Guard officersRoyal Warwickshire Fusiliers officersEnglish children's writersMembers of the Detection ClubPeople educated at Westminster School, LondonPunch (magazine) peopleEnglish male poetsWinnie-the-PoohWriters from LondonEnglish male novelistsChildren's poetsRoyal Corps of Signals officersMilitary personnel from London
Asociación Alumni, usually just Alumni, is an Argentine rugby union club located in Tortuguitas, Greater Buenos Aires. The senior squad currently competes at Top 12, the first division of the Unión de Rugby de Buenos Aires league system.The club has ties with former football club Alumni because both were established by Buenos Aires English High School students.HistoryBackgroundThe first club with the name "Alumni" played association football, having been found in 1898 by students of Buenos Aires English High School (BAEHS) along with director Alexander Watson Hutton. Originally under the name "English High School A.C.", the team would be later obliged by the Association to change its name, therefore "Alumni" was chosen, following a proposal by Carlos Bowers, a former student of the school.Alumni was the most successful team during the first years of Argentine football, winning 10 of 14 league championships contested. Alumni is still considered the first great football team in the country. Alumni was reorganised in 1908, "in order to encourage people to practise all kind of sports, specially football". This was the last try to develop itself as a sports club rather than just a football team, such as Lomas, Belgrano and Quilmes had successfully done in the past, but the efforts were not enough. Alumni played its last game in 1911 and was definitely dissolved on April 24, 1913.Rebirth through rugbyIn 1951, two guards of the BAEHS, Daniel Ginhson (also a former player of Buenos Aires F.C.) and Guillermo Cubelli, supported by the school's alumni and fathers of the students, they decided to establish a club focused on rugby union exclusively. Former players still alive of Alumni football club and descendants of other players already dead gave their permission to use the name "Alumni".On December 13, in a meeting presided by Carlos Bowers himself (who had proposed the name "Alumni" to the original football team 50 years before), the club was officially established under the name "Asociación Juvenil Alumni", also adopting the same colors as its predecessor.The team achieved good results and in 1960 the club presented a team that won the third division of the Buenos Aires league, reaching the second division. Since then, Alumni has played at the highest level of Argentine rugby and its rivalry with Belgrano Athletic Club is one of the fiercest local derbies in Buenos Aires. Alumni would later climb up to first division winning 5 titles: 4 consecutive between 1989 and 1992, and the other in 2001.In 2002, Alumni won its first Nacional de Clubes title, defeating Jockey Club de Rosario 23–21 in the final.PlayersCurrent rosterAs of January 2018: Federico Lucca Gaspar Baldunciel Guido Cambareri Iñaki Etchegaray Bernardo Quaranta Tobias Moyano Mariano Romanini Santiago Montagner Tomas Passerotti Lucas Frana Luca Sabato Franco Batezzatti Franco Sabato Rafael Desanto Nito Provenzano Tomas Bivort Juan.P Ceraso Santiago Alduncin Juan.P Anderson Lucas Magnasco Joaquin Diaz Luzzi Felipe Martignone Tomas CorneilleHonoursNacional de Clubes (1): 2002Torneo de la URBA (6): 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2018See also Buenos Aires English High School Alumni Athletic ClubReferencesExternal links Rugby clubs established in 1951A1951 establishments in Argentina
An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word  (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'.The term has subtle differences in definition when used in the context of different fields of study. As defined in classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so evident or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question. As used in modern logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning. As used in mathematics, the term axiom is used in two related but distinguishable senses: "logical axioms" and "non-logical axioms". Logical axioms are usually statements that are taken to be true within the system of logic they define and are often shown in symbolic form (e.g., (A and B) implies A), while non-logical axioms (e.g., ) are actually substantive assertions about the elements of the domain of a specific mathematical theory (such as arithmetic).When used in the latter sense, "axiom", "postulate", and "assumption" may be used interchangeably. In most cases, a non-logical axiom is simply a formal logical expression used in deduction to build a mathematical theory, and might or might not be self-evident in nature (e.g., parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry). To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that its claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of sentences (the axioms), and there may be multiple ways to axiomatize a given mathematical domain.Any axiom is a statement that serves as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. Whether it is meaningful (and, if so, what it means) for an axiom to be "true" is a subject of debate in the philosophy of mathematics.EtymologyThe word axiom comes from the Greek word  (axíōma), a verbal noun from the verb  (axioein), meaning "to deem worthy", but also "to require", which in turn comes from  (áxios), meaning "being in balance", and hence "having (the same) value (as)", "worthy", "proper". Among the ancient Greek philosophers an axiom was a claim which could be seen to be self-evidently true without any need for proof.The root meaning of the word postulate is to "demand"; for instance, Euclid demands that one agree that some things can be done (e.g., any two points can be joined by a straight line).Ancient geometers maintained some distinction between axioms and postulates. While commenting on Euclid's books, Proclus remarks that "Geminus held that this [4th] Postulate should not be classed as a postulate but as an axiom, since it does not, like the first three Postulates, assert the possibility of some construction but expresses an essential property." Boethius translated 'postulate' as petitio and called the axioms  notiones communes but in later manuscripts this usage was not always strictly kept.Historical developmentEarly GreeksThe logico-deductive method whereby conclusions (new knowledge) follow from premises (old knowledge) through the application of sound arguments (syllogisms, rules of inference) was developed by the ancient Greeks, and has become the core principle of modern mathematics. Tautologies excluded, nothing can be deduced if nothing is assumed. Axioms and postulates are thus the basic assumptions underlying a given body of deductive knowledge. They are accepted without demonstration. All other assertions (theorems, in the case of mathematics) must be proven with the aid of these basic assumptions. However, the interpretation of mathematical knowledge has changed from ancient times to the modern, and consequently the terms axiom and postulate hold a slightly different meaning for the present day mathematician, than they did for Aristotle and Euclid.The ancient Greeks considered geometry as just one of several sciences, and held the theorems of geometry on par with scientific facts. As such, they developed and used the logico-deductive method as a means of avoiding error, and for structuring and communicating knowledge. Aristotle's posterior analytics is a definitive exposition of the classical view.An "axiom", in classical terminology, referred to a self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. A good example would be the assertion that When an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results.At the foundation of the various sciences lay certain additional hypotheses that were accepted without proof. Such a hypothesis was termed a postulate. While the axioms were common to many sciences, the postulates of each particular science were different. Their validity had to be established by means of real-world experience. Aristotle warns that the content of a science cannot be successfully communicated if the learner is in doubt about the truth of the postulates.The classical approach is well-illustrated by Euclid's Elements, where a list of postulates is given (common-sensical geometric facts drawn from our experience), followed by a list of "common notions" (very basic, self-evident assertions).Postulates It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any other point. It is possible to extend a line segment continuously in both directions. It is possible to describe a circle with any center and any radius. It is true that all right angles are equal to one another. ("Parallel postulate") It is true that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, intersect on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.Common notions Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another. If equals are added to equals, the wholes are equal. If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal. Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another. The whole is greater than the part.Modern developmentA lesson learned by mathematics in the last 150 years is that it is useful to strip the meaning away from the mathematical assertions (axioms, postulates, propositions, theorems) and definitions. One must concede the need for primitive notions, or undefined terms or concepts, in any study. Such abstraction or formalization makes mathematical knowledge more general, capable of multiple different meanings, and therefore useful in multiple contexts. Alessandro Padoa, Mario Pieri, and Giuseppe Peano were pioneers in this movement.Structuralist mathematics goes further, and develops theories and axioms (e.g. field theory, group theory, topology, vector spaces) without any particular application in mind. The distinction between an "axiom" and a "postulate" disappears. The postulates of Euclid are profitably motivated by saying that they lead to a great wealth of geometric facts. The truth of these complicated facts rests on the acceptance of the basic hypotheses. However, by throwing out Euclid's fifth postulate, one can get theories that have meaning in wider contexts (e.g., hyperbolic geometry). As such, one must simply be prepared to use labels such as "line" and "parallel" with greater flexibility. The development of hyperbolic geometry taught mathematicians that it is useful to regard postulates as purely formal statements, and not as facts based on experience.When mathematicians employ the field axioms, the intentions are even more abstract. The propositions of field theory do not concern any one particular application; the mathematician now works in complete abstraction. There are many examples of fields; field theory gives correct knowledge about them all.It is not correct to say that the axioms of field theory are "propositions that are regarded as true without proof." Rather, the field axioms are a set of constraints. If any given system of addition and multiplication satisfies these constraints, then one is in a position to instantly know a great deal of extra information about this system.Modern mathematics formalizes its foundations to such an extent that mathematical theories can be regarded as mathematical objects, and mathematics itself can be regarded as a branch of logic. Frege, Russell, Poincaré, Hilbert, and Gödel are some of the key figures in this development.Another lesson learned in modern mathematics is to examine purported proofs carefully for hidden assumptions.In the modern understanding, a set of axioms is any collection of formally stated assertions from which other formally stated assertions follow – by the application of certain well-defined rules. In this view, logic becomes just another formal system. A set of axioms should be consistent; it should be impossible to derive a contradiction from the axioms. A set of axioms should also be non-redundant; an assertion that can be deduced from other axioms need not be regarded as an axiom.It was the early hope of modern logicians that various branches of mathematics, perhaps all of mathematics, could be derived from a consistent collection of basic axioms. An early success of the formalist program was Hilbert's formalization of Euclidean geometry, and the related demonstration of the consistency of those axioms.In a wider context, there was an attempt to base all of mathematics on Cantor's set theory. Here, the emergence of Russell's paradox and similar antinomies of naïve set theory raised the possibility that any such system could turn out to be inconsistent.The formalist project suffered a decisive setback, when in 1931 Gödel showed that it is possible, for any sufficiently large set of axioms (Peano's axioms, for example) to construct a statement whose truth is independent of that set of axioms. As a corollary, Gödel proved that the consistency of a theory like Peano arithmetic is an unprovable assertion within the scope of that theory.It is reasonable to believe in the consistency of Peano arithmetic because it is satisfied by the system of natural numbers, an infinite but intuitively accessible formal system. However, at present, there is no known way of demonstrating the consistency of the modern Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms for set theory. Furthermore, using techniques of forcing (Cohen) one can show that the continuum hypothesis (Cantor) is independent of the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms. Thus, even this very general set of axioms cannot be regarded as the definitive foundation for mathematics.Other sciencesExperimental sciences - as opposed to mathematics and logic - also have general founding assertions from which a deductive reasoning can be built so as to express propositions that predict properties - either still general or much more specialized to a specific experimental context. For instance, Newton's laws in classical mechanics, Maxwell's equations in classical electromagnetism, Einstein's equation in general relativity, Mandel's laws of genetics, Darwin's Natural selection law, etc. These founding assertions are usually called principles or postulates so as to distinguish from mathematical axioms. As a matter of facts, the role of axioms in mathematics and postulates in experimental sciences is different. In mathematics one neither "proves" nor "disproves" an axiom. A set of mathematical axioms gives a set of rules that fix a conceptual realm, in which the theorems logically follow. In contrast, in experimental sciences, a set of postulates shall allow deducing results that match or do not match experimental results. If postulates do not allow deducing experimental predictions, they do not set a scientific conceptual framework and have to be completed or made more accurate. If the postulates allow deducing predictions of experimental results, the comparison with experiments allows falsifying (falsified) the theory that the postulates install. A theory is considered valid as long as it has not been falsified. Now, the transition between the mathematical axioms and  scientific postulates is always slightly blurred, especially in physics. This is due to the heavy use of mathematical tools to support the physical theories. For instance, the introduction of Newton's laws rarely establishes as a prerequisite neither Euclidian geometry or differential calculus that they imply. It became more apparent when Albert Einstein first introduced special relativity where the invariant quantity is no more the Euclidian length  (defined as ) > but the Minkowski spacetime interval  (defined as ), and then general relativity where flat Minkowskian geometry is replaced with pseudo-Riemannian geometry on curved manifolds.In quantum physics, two sets of postulates have coexisted for some time, which provide a very nice example of falsification. The 'Copenhagen school' (Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born) developed an operational approach with a complete mathematical formalism that involves the description of quantum system by vectors ('states') in a separable Hilbert space, and physical quantities as linear operators that act in this Hilbert space. This approach is fully falsifiable and has so far produced the most accurate predictions in physics. But it has the unsatisfactory aspect of not allowing answers to questions one would naturally ask. For this reason, another 'hidden variables' approach was developed for some time by Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, David Bohm. It was created so as to try to give deterministic explanation to phenomena such as entanglement. This approach assumed that the Copenhagen school description was not complete, and postulated that some yet unknown variable was to be added to the theory so as to allow answering some of the questions it does not answer (the founding elements of which were discussed as the EPR paradox in 1935). Taking this ideas seriously, John Bell derived in 1964 a prediction that would lead to different experimental results (Bell's inequalities) in the Copenhagen and the Hidden variable case. The experiment was conducted first by Alain Aspect in the early 1980's, and the result excluded the simple hidden variable approach (sophisticated hidden variables could still exist but their properties would still be more disturbing than the problems they try to solve). This does not mean that the conceptual framework of quantum physics can be considered as complete now, since some open questions still exist (the limit between the quantum and classical realms, what happens during a quantum measurement, what happens in a completely closed quantum system such as the universe itself, etc).Mathematical logicIn the field of mathematical logic, a clear distinction is made between two notions of axioms: logical and non-logical (somewhat similar to the ancient distinction between "axioms" and "postulates" respectively).Logical axiomsThese are certain formulas in a formal language that are universally valid, that is, formulas that are satisfied by every assignment of values.  Usually one takes as logical axioms at least some minimal set of tautologies that is sufficient for proving all tautologies in the language; in the case of predicate logic more logical axioms than that are required, in order to prove logical truths that are not tautologies in the strict sense.ExamplesPropositional logicIn propositional logic it is common to take as logical axioms all formulae of the following forms, where , , and  can be any formulae of the language and where the included primitive connectives are only "" for negation of the immediately following proposition and "" for implication from antecedent to consequent propositions:Each of these patterns is an axiom schema, a rule for generating an infinite number of axioms.  For example, if , , and  are propositional variables, then  and  are both instances of axiom schema 1, and hence are axioms.  It can be shown that with only these three axiom schemata and modus ponens, one can prove all tautologies of the propositional calculus.  It can also be shown that no pair of these schemata is sufficient for proving all tautologies with modus ponens.Other axiom schemata involving the same or different sets of primitive connectives can be alternatively constructed.These axiom schemata are also used in the predicate calculus, but additional logical axioms are needed to include a quantifier in the calculus.First-order logicAxiom of Equality. Let  be a first-order language. For each variable , the formulais universally valid.This means that, for any variable symbol  the formula  can be regarded as an axiom. Also, in this example, for this not to fall into vagueness and a never-ending series of "primitive notions", either a precise notion of what we mean by   (or, for that matter, "to be equal") has to be well established first, or a purely formal and syntactical usage of the symbol   has to be enforced, only regarding it as a string and only a string of symbols, and mathematical logic does indeed do that.Another, more interesting example axiom scheme, is that which provides us with what is known as Universal Instantiation:Axiom scheme for Universal Instantiation. Given a formula  in a first-order language , a variable  and a term  that is substitutable for  in , the formulais universally valid.Where the symbol  stands for the formula  with the term  substituted for . (See Substitution of variables.) In informal terms, this example allows us to state that, if we know that a certain property  holds for every  and that  stands for a particular object in our structure, then we should be able to claim . Again, we are claiming that the formula  is valid, that is, we must be able to give a "proof" of this fact, or more properly speaking, a metaproof.  These examples are metatheorems of our theory of mathematical logic since we are dealing with the very concept of proof itself. Aside from this, we can also have Existential Generalization:Axiom scheme for Existential Generalization. Given a formula  in a first-order language , a variable  and a term  that is substitutable for  in , the formulais universally valid.Non-logical axiomsNon-logical axioms are formulas that play the role of theory-specific assumptions.  Reasoning about two different structures, for example, the natural numbers and the integers, may involve the same logical axioms; the non-logical axioms aim to capture what is special about a particular structure (or set of structures, such as groups).  Thus non-logical axioms, unlike logical axioms, are not tautologies.  Another name for a non-logical axiom is postulate.Almost every modern mathematical theory starts from a given set of non-logical axioms, and it was thought that in principle every theory could be axiomatized in this way and formalized down to the bare language of logical formulas.Non-logical axioms are often simply referred to as axioms in mathematical discourse.  This does not mean that it is claimed that they are true in some absolute sense.  For example, in some groups, the group operation is commutative, and this can be asserted with the introduction of an additional axiom, but without this axiom, we can do quite well developing (the more general) group theory, and we can even take its negation as an axiom for the study of non-commutative groups.Thus, an axiom is an elementary basis for a formal logic system that together with the rules of inference define a deductive system.ExamplesThis section gives examples of mathematical theories that are developed entirely from a set of non-logical axioms (axioms, henceforth). A rigorous treatment of any of these topics begins with a specification of these axioms.Basic theories, such as arithmetic, real analysis and complex analysis are often introduced non-axiomatically, but implicitly or explicitly there is generally an assumption that the axioms being used are the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with choice, abbreviated ZFC, or some very similar system of axiomatic set theory like Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, a conservative extension of ZFC. Sometimes slightly stronger theories such as Morse–Kelley set theory or set theory with a strongly inaccessible cardinal allowing the use of a Grothendieck universe is used, but in fact, most mathematicians can actually prove all they need in systems weaker than ZFC, such as second-order arithmetic.The study of topology in mathematics extends all over through point set topology, algebraic topology, differential topology, and all the related paraphernalia, such as homology theory, homotopy theory. The development of abstract algebra brought with itself group theory, rings, fields, and Galois theory.This list could be expanded to include most fields of mathematics, including measure theory, ergodic theory, probability, representation theory, and differential geometry.ArithmeticThe Peano axioms are the most widely used axiomatization of first-order arithmetic.  They are a set of axioms strong enough to prove many important facts about number theory and they allowed Gödel to establish his famous second incompleteness theorem.We have a language  where  is a constant symbol and  is a unary function and the following axioms:    for any  formula  with one free variable.The standard structure is  where  is the set of natural numbers,  is the successor function and  is naturally interpreted as the number 0.Euclidean geometryProbably the oldest, and most famous, list of axioms are the 4 + 1 Euclid's postulates of plane geometry.  The axioms are referred to as "4 + 1" because for nearly two millennia the fifth (parallel) postulate ("through a point outside a line there is exactly one parallel") was suspected of being derivable from the first four.  Ultimately, the fifth postulate was found to be independent of the first four. One can assume that exactly one parallel through a point outside a line exists, or that infinitely many exist.  This choice gives us two alternative forms of geometry in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to exactly 180 degrees or less, respectively, and are known as Euclidean and hyperbolic geometries. If one also removes the second postulate ("a line can be extended indefinitely") then elliptic geometry arises, where there is no parallel through a point outside a line, and in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to more than 180 degrees.Real analysisThe objectives of the study are within the domain of real numbers.  The real numbers are uniquely picked out (up to isomorphism) by the properties of a Dedekind complete ordered field, meaning that any nonempty set of real numbers with an upper bound has a least upper bound. However, expressing these properties as axioms requires the use of second-order logic. The Löwenheim–Skolem theorems tell us that if we restrict ourselves to first-order logic, any axiom system for the reals admits other models, including both models that are smaller than the reals and models that are larger.  Some of the latter are studied in non-standard analysis.Role in mathematical logicDeductive systems and completenessA deductive system consists of a set  of logical axioms, a set  of non-logical axioms, and a set  of rules of inference.  A desirable property of a deductive system is that it be complete.  A system is said to be complete if, for all formulas ,that is, for any statement that is a logical consequence of  there actually exists a deduction of the statement from .  This is sometimes expressed as "everything that is true is provable", but it must be understood that "true" here means "made true by the set of axioms", and not, for example, "true in the intended interpretation". Gödel's completeness theorem establishes the completeness of a certain commonly used type of deductive system.Note that "completeness" has a different meaning here than it does in the context of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, which states that no recursive, consistent set of non-logical axioms  of the Theory of Arithmetic is complete, in the sense that there will always exist an arithmetic statement  such that neither  nor  can be proved from the given set of axioms.There is thus, on the one hand, the notion of completeness of a deductive system and on the other hand that of completeness of a set of non-logical axioms.  The completeness theorem and the incompleteness theorem, despite their names, do not contradict one another.Further discussionEarly mathematicians regarded axiomatic geometry as a model of physical space, and obviously, there could only be one such model. The idea that alternative mathematical systems might exist was very troubling to mathematicians of the 19th century and the developers of systems such as Boolean algebra made elaborate efforts to derive them from traditional arithmetic. Galois showed just before his untimely death that these efforts were largely wasted. Ultimately, the abstract parallels between algebraic systems were seen to be more important than the details, and modern algebra was born.  In the modern view, axioms may be any set of formulas, as long as they are not known to be inconsistent.See also Axiomatic system Dogma First principle, axiom in science and philosophy List of axioms Model theory Regulæ Juris Theorem Presupposition Physical law PrincipleNotesReferencesFurther reading Mendelson, Elliot (1987). Introduction to mathematical logic. Belmont, California: Wadsworth & Brooks.External links   Metamath axioms page Ancient Greek philosophyConcepts in ancient Greek metaphysicsConcepts in epistemologyConcepts in ethicsConcepts in logicConcepts in metaphysicsConcepts in the philosophy of scienceDeductive reasoningFormal systemsHistory of logicHistory of mathematicsHistory of philosophyHistory of scienceIntellectual historyLogicMathematical logicMathematical terminologyPhilosophical terminologyReasoning
Alpha  (uppercase , lowercase ; , álpha, or ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , which is the West Semitic word for "ox". Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin letter A and the Cyrillic letter А.UsesGreekIn Ancient Greek, alpha was pronounced  and could be either phonemically long ([aː]) or short ([a]). Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with a macron and breve today: Ᾱᾱ, Ᾰᾰ.ὥρα = ὥρᾱ hōrā  "a time"γλῶσσα = γλῶσσᾰ glôssa  "tongue"In Modern Greek, vowel length has been lost, and all instances of alpha simply represent .In the polytonic orthography of Greek, alpha, like other vowel letters, can occur with several diacritic marks: any of three accent symbols (), and either of two breathing marks (), as well as combinations of these. It can also combine with the iota subscript ().Greek grammarIn the Attic–Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha  fronted to  (eta). In Ionic, the shift took place in all positions. In Attic, the shift did not take place after epsilon, iota, and rho (ε, ι, ρ; e, i, r). In Doric and Aeolic, long alpha is preserved in all positions.Doric, Aeolic, Attic  chṓrā – Ionic  chṓrē, "country"Doric, Aeolic  phā́mā – Attic, Ionic  phḗmē, "report"Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefix ἀ- or ἀν- a-, an-, added to words to negate them. It originates from the Proto-Indo-European * (syllabic nasal) and is cognate with English un-.Copulative a is the Greek prefix ἁ- or ἀ- ha-, a-. It comes from Proto-Indo-European *.Mathematics and scienceThe letter alpha represents various concepts in physics and chemistry, including alpha radiation, angular acceleration, alpha particles, alpha carbon and strength of electromagnetic interaction (as Fine-structure constant). Alpha also stands for thermal expansion coefficient of a compound in physical chemistry. It is also commonly used in mathematics in algebraic solutions representing quantities such as angles. Furthermore, in mathematics, the letter alpha is used to denote the area underneath a normal curve in statistics to denote significance level when proving null and alternative hypotheses. In ethology, it is used to name the dominant individual in a group of animals. In aerodynamics, the letter is used as a symbol for the angle of attack of an aircraft and the word "alpha" is used as a synonym for this property. In mathematical logic, α is sometimes used as a placeholder for ordinal numbers.The proportionality operator "∝" (in Unicode: U+221D) is sometimes mistaken for alpha.The uppercase letter alpha is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin A.International Phonetic AlphabetIn the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter ɑ, which looks similar to the lower-case alpha, represents the open back unrounded vowel.History and symbolismOriginThe Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek in the early 8th century BC, perhaps in Euboea. The majority of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet were adopted into Greek with much the same sounds as they had had in Phoenician, but ʼāleph, the Phoenician letter representing the glottal stop ,was adopted as representing the vowel ; similarly,   hē   and ʽayin  are Phoenician consonants that became Greek vowels, epsilon  and omicron , respectively.PlutarchPlutarch, in Moralia, presents a discussion on why the letter alpha stands first in the alphabet. Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being a Boeotian, has to say for Cadmus, the Phoenician who reputedly settled in Thebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placing alpha first because it is the Phoenician name for ox—which, unlike Hesiod, the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities. "Nothing at all," Plutarch replied. He then added that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. For Lamprias had said that the first articulate sound made is "alpha", because it is very plain and simple—the air coming off the mouth does not require any motion of the tongue—and therefore this is the first sound that children make.According to Plutarch's natural order of attribution of the vowels to the planets, alpha was connected with the Moon.Alpha and OmegaAs the first letter of the alphabet, Alpha as a Greek numeral came to represent the number 1.Therefore, Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to the "first", or "primary", or "principal" (most significant) occurrence or status of a thing. The New Testament has God declaring himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13, KJV, and see also 1:8).Consequently, the term "alpha" has also come to be used to denote "primary" position in social hierarchy, examples being "alpha males" or pack leaders.Computer encodings Greek alpha / Coptic alfaFor accented Greek characters, see Greek diacritics: Computer encoding. Latin / IPA alpha Mathematical / Technical alphaReferencesGreek lettersVowel letters
Alvin Toffler (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's outstanding futurists.Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed "information overload." In 1970, his first major book about the future, Future Shock, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies.He and his wife Heidi Toffler, who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, The Third Wave in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication. His later focus, via their other best-seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant. Toffler's ideas and writings were a significant influence on the thinking of business and government leaders worldwide, including China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL founder Steve Case.Early lifeAlvin Toffler was born on October 4, 1928, in New York City, and raised in Brooklyn. He was the son of Rose (Albaum) and Sam Toffler, a furrier, both Jewish immigrants from Poland. He had one younger sister. He was inspired to become a writer at the age of 7 by his aunt and uncle, who lived with the Tofflers. "They were Depression-era literary intellectuals," Toffler said, "and they always talked about exciting ideas."Toffler graduated from New York University in 1950 as an English major, though by his own account he was more focused on political activism than grades. He met his future wife, Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell (nicknamed "Heidi"), when she was starting a graduate course in linguistics. Being radical students, they decided against further graduate work and moved to the Midwest, where they married on April 29, 1950.CareerSeeking experiences to write about, Alvin and Heidi Toffler spent the next five years as blue collar workers on assembly lines while studying industrial mass production in their daily work. He compared his own desire for experience to other writers, such as Jack London, who in his quest for subjects to write about sailed the seas, and John Steinbeck, who went to pick grapes with migrant workers. In their first factory jobs, Heidi became a union shop steward in the aluminum foundry where she worked. Alvin became a millwright and welder. In the evenings Alvin would write poetry and fiction, but discovered he was proficient at neither.His hands-on practical labor experience helped Alvin Toffler land a position at a union-backed newspaper, a transfer to its Washington bureau in 1957, then three years as a White House correspondent, covering Congress and the White House for a Pennsylvania daily newspaper.They returned to New York City in 1959 when Fortune magazine invited Alvin to become its labor columnist, later having him write about business and management. After leaving Fortune magazine in 1962, Toffler began a freelance career, writing long form articles for scholarly journals and magazines. His 1964 Playboy interviews with Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand were considered among the magazine's best. His interview with Rand was the first time the magazine had given such a platform to a female intellectual, which as one commentator said, "the real bird of paradise Toffler captured for Playboy in 1964 was Ayn Rand."Toffler was hired by IBM to conduct research and write a paper on the social and organizational impact of computers, leading to his contact with the earliest computer "gurus" and artificial intelligence researchers and proponents. Xerox invited him to write about its research laboratory and AT&T consulted him for strategic advice. This AT&T work led to a study of telecommunications, which advised the company's top management to break up the company more than a decade before the government forced AT&T to break up.In the mid-1960s, the Tofflers began five years of research on what would become Future Shock, published in 1970. It has sold over 6 million copies worldwide, according to the New York Times, or over 15 million copies according to the Tofflers' Web site. Toffler coined the term "future shock" to refer to what happens to a society when change happens too fast, which results in social confusion and normal decision-making processes breaking down. The book has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages.He continued the theme in The Third Wave in 1980. While he describes the first and second waves as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the "third wave," a phrase he coined, represents the current information, computer-based revolution. He forecast the spread of the Internet and email, interactive media, cable television, cloning, and other digital advancements. He claimed that one of the side effects of the digital age has been "information overload," another term he coined. In 1990, he wrote Powershift, also with the help of his wife, Heidi.In 1996, with American business consultant Tom Johnson, they co-founded Toffler Associates, an advisory firm designed to implement many of the ideas the Tofflers had written on. The firm worked with businesses, NGOs, and governments in the United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. During this period in his career, Toffler lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met world leaders, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, along with key executives and military officials.Ideas and opinionsToffler stated many of his ideas during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1998. "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest," he said. "Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone."His opinions about the future of education, many of which were in Future Shock, have often been quoted. An often misattributed quote, however, is that of psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn."Early in his career, after traveling to other countries, he became aware of the new and myriad inputs that visitors received from these other cultures. He explained during an interview that some visitors would become "truly disoriented and upset" by the strange environment, which he described as a reaction to culture shock. From that issue, he foresaw another problem for the future, when a culturally "new environment comes to you ... and comes to you rapidly." That kind of sudden cultural change within one's own country, which he felt many would not understand, would lead to a similar reaction, one of "future shock", which he wrote about in his book by that title. Toffler writes:In The Third Wave, Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside. He describes the "First Wave" as the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures. The "Second Wave," he labels society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century). That period saw the increase of urban industrial populations which had undermined the traditional nuclear family, and initiated a factory-like education system, and the growth of the corporation. Toffler said:The "Third Wave" was a term he coined to describe the post-industrial society, which began in the late 1950s. His description of this period dovetails with other futurist writers, who also wrote about the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, terms which highlighted a scientific-technological revolution. The Tofflers claimed to have predicted a number of geopolitical events, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the future economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.Influences and popular cultureToffler often visited with dignitaries in Asia, including China's Zhao Ziyang, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and South Korea's Kim Dae Jung, all of whom were influenced by his views as Asia's emerging markets increased in global significance during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they had originally censored some of his books and ideas, China's government cited him along with Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Gates as being among the Westerners who had most influenced their country. The Third Wave along with a video documentary based on it became best-sellers in China and were widely distributed to schools. The video's success inspired the marketing of videos on related themes in the late 1990s by Infowars, whose name is derived from the term coined by Toffler in the book. Toffler's influence on Asian thinkers was summed up in an article in Daedalus, published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences:U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich publicly lauded his ideas about the future, and urged members of Congress to read Toffler's book, Creating a New Civilization (1995). Others, such as AOL founder Steve Case, cited Toffler's The Third Wave as a formative influence on his thinking, which inspired him to write The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future in 2016. Case said that Toffler was a "real pioneer in helping people, companies and even countries lean into the future."In 1980, Ted Turner founded CNN, which he said was inspired by Toffler's forecasting the end of the dominance of the three main television networks. Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting, published Toffler's Creating a New Civilization in 1995. Shortly after the book was released, the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosted the Global Governance Conference in San Francisco with the theme, Toward a New Civilization, which was attended by dozens of world figures, including the Tofflers, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Carl Sagan, Abba Eban and Turner with his then-wife, actress Jane Fonda.Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was influenced by his works, and became a friend of the writer. Global marketer J.D. Power also said he was inspired by Toffler's works.Since the 1960s, people had tried to make sense out of the effect of new technologies and social change, a problem which made Toffler's writings widely influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic, and public policy. His works and ideas have been subject to various criticisms, usually with the same argumentation used against futurology: that foreseeing the future is nigh impossible.Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in The Third Wave as inspiring him to use the word "techno" to describe the musical style he helped to createMusician Curtis Mayfield released a disco song called "Future Shock," later covered in an electro version by Herbie Hancock. Science fiction author John Brunner wrote "The Shockwave Rider," from the concept of "future shock."The nightclub Toffler, in Rotterdam, is named after him.In the song "Victoria" by The Exponents, the protagonist's daily routine and cultural interests are described: "She's up in time to watch the soap operas, reads Cosmopolitan and Alvin Toffler".Critical assessment Accenture, the management consultancy firm, identified Toffler in 2002 as being among the most influential voices in business leaders, along with Bill Gates and Peter Drucker. Toffler has also been described in a Financial Times interview as the "world's most famous futurologist". In 2006, the People's Daily classed him among the 50 foreigners who shaped modern China, which one U.S. newspaper notes made him a "guru of sorts to world statesmen." Chinese Premier and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was greatly influenced by Toffler. He convened conferences to discuss The Third Wave in the early 1980s, and in 1985 the book was the No. 2 best seller in China.Author Mark Satin characterizes Toffler as an important early influence on radical centrist political thought.Newt Gingrich became close to the Tofflers in the 1970s and said The Third Wave had immensely influenced his own thinking and was "one of the great seminal works of our time."Selected awardsToffler has received several prestigious prizes and awards, including the McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions to Management Literature, Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and appointments, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.In 2006, Alvin and Heidi Toffler were recipients of Brown University's Independent Award.Personal lifeToffler was married to Heidi Toffler, also a writer and futurist. They lived in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California, and previously lived in Redding, Connecticut.The couple's only child, Karen Toffler (1954–2000), died at age 46 after more than a decade suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome.Alvin Toffler died in his sleep on June 27, 2016, at his home in Los Angeles. No cause of death was given. He is buried at Westwood Memorial Park.BibliographyAlvin Toffler co-wrote his books with his wife Heidi. The Culture Consumers (1964) St. Martin's Press,  The Schoolhouse in the City (1968) Praeger (editors),  Future Shock (1970) Bantam Books,  The Futurists (1972) Random House (editors),  Learning for Tomorrow (1974) Random House (editors),  The Eco-Spasm Report (1975) Bantam Books,  The Third Wave (1980) Bantam Books,  Previews & Premises (1983) William Morrow & Co,  The Adaptive Corporation (1985) McGraw-Hill,  Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990) Bantam Books,  War and Anti-War (1993) Warner Books,  Creating a New Civilization (1995) Turner Pub,  Revolutionary Wealth (2006) Knopf,See also Daniel Bell Norman Swan Human nature John NaisbittReferencesExternal links  – official Alvin Toffler site Toffler Associates Interview with Alvin Toffler by the World Affairs Council  Discuss Alvin Toffler's Future Shock with other readers, BookTalk.org   Alvin Toffler at Find a GraveFuture Shock Forum 2018Finding aid to the Alvin and Heidi Toffler papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library1928 births2016 deathsAmerican people of Polish-Jewish descentAmerican technology writersAmerican futurologistsBurials at Westwood Village Memorial Park CemeteryJewish American writersPeople from Ridgefield, ConnecticutWriters from ConnecticutWriters from Brooklyn20th-century American non-fiction writers21st-century American non-fiction writersAmerican transhumanistsNew York University alumniSingularitariansPeople from Redding, Connecticut20th-century American male writersAmerican male non-fiction writersJewish American journalistsPeople from Bel Air, Los Angeles21st-century American male writers21st-century American Jews
The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the fictional superhero Spider-Man as its main protagonist. Being in the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a bimonthly periodical (as Amazing Fantasy had been), quickly being increased to monthly, and was published continuously, with a brief interruption in 1995, until its second volume with a new numbering order in 1999. In 2003, the series reverted to the numbering order of the first volume. The title has occasionally been published biweekly, and was published three times a month from 2008 to 2010.After DC Comics' relaunch of Action Comics and Detective Comics with new No. 1 issues in 2011, it had been the highest-numbered American comic still in circulation until it was cancelled. The title ended its 50-year run as a continuously published comic with the landmark issue #700 in December 2012. It was replaced by The Superior Spider-Man as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch of Marvel's comic lines.Volume 3 of The Amazing Spider-Man was published in April 2014, following the conclusion of The Superior Spider-Man story arc. In late 2015, the series was relaunched with a 4th volume, following the 2015 Secret Wars event. The 5th and current volume began in 2018, as part of Marvel's Fresh Start series of comic relaunches.Publication historyWriter-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Steve Ditko created the character of Spider-Man, and the pair produced 38 issues from March 1963 to July 1966. Ditko left after the 38th issue, while Lee remained as writer until issue 100. Since then, many writers and artists have taken over the monthly comic through the years, chronicling the adventures of Marvel's most identifiable hero.The Amazing Spider-Man has been the character's flagship series for his first fifty years in publication, and was the only monthly series to star Spider-Man until Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, in 1976, although 1972 saw the debut of Marvel Team-Up, with the vast majority of issues featuring Spider-Man along with a rotating cast of other Marvel characters. Most of the major characters and villains of the Spider-Man saga have been introduced in Amazing, and with few exceptions, it is where most key events in the character's history have occurred. The title was published continuously until No. 441 (Nov. 1998) when Marvel Comics relaunched it as vol. 2 No. 1 (Jan. 1999), but on Spider-Man's 40th anniversary, this new title reverted to using the numbering of the original series, beginning again with issue No. 500 (Dec. 2003) and lasting until the final issue, No. 700 (Feb. 2013).1960sDue to strong sales on the character's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy No. 15, Spider-Man was given his own ongoing series in March 1963. The initial years of the series, under Lee and Ditko, chronicled Spider-Man's nascent career as a masked super-human vigilante with his civilian life as hard-luck yet perpetually good-humored and well-meaning teenager Peter Parker. Peter balanced his career as Spider-Man with his job as a freelance photographer for The Daily Bugle under the bombastic editor-publisher J. Jonah Jameson to support himself and his frail Aunt May. At the same time, Peter dealt with public hostility towards Spider-Man and the antagonism of his classmates Flash Thompson and Liz Allan at Midtown High School, while embarking on a tentative, ill-fated romance with Jameson's secretary, Betty Brant.By focusing on Parker's everyday problems, Lee and Ditko created a groundbreakingly flawed, self-doubting superhero, and the first major teenaged superhero to be a protagonist and not a sidekick. Ditko's quirky art provided a stark contrast to the more cleanly dynamic stylings of Marvel's most prominent artist, Jack Kirby, and combined with the humor and pathos of Lee's writing to lay the foundation for what became an enduring mythos.Most of Spider-Man's key villains and supporting characters were introduced during this time. Issue No. 1 (March 1963) featured the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson and his astronaut son John Jameson, and the supervillain the Chameleon. It included the hero's first encounter with the superhero team the Fantastic Four. Issue No. 2 (May 1963) featured the first appearance of the Vulture and the Tinkerer as well as the beginning of Parker's freelance photography career at the newspaper The Daily Bugle.The Lee-Ditko era continued to usher in a significant number of villains and supporting characters, including Doctor Octopus in No. 3 (July 1963); the Sandman and Betty Brant in No. 4 (Sept. 1963); the Lizard in No. 6 (Nov. 1963); Living Brain in (#8, January 1964); Electro in No. 9 (March 1964); Mysterio in No. 13 (June 1964); the Green Goblin in No. 14 (July 1964); Kraven The Hunter in No. 15 (Aug. 1964); reporter Ned Leeds in No. 18 (Nov. 1964); and the Scorpion in No. 20 (Jan. 1965). The Molten Man was introduced in No. 28 (Sept. 1965) which also featured Parker's graduation from high school. Peter began attending Empire State University in No. 31 (Dec. 1965), the issue which featured the first appearances of friends and classmates Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn. Harry's father, Norman Osborn first appeared in No. 23 (April 1965) as a member of Jameson's country club but is not named nor revealed as Harry's father until No. 37 (June 1966).One of the most celebrated issues of the Lee-Ditko run is No. 33 (Feb. 1966), the third part of the story arc "If This Be My Destiny...!", which features the dramatic scene of Spider-Man, through force of will and thoughts of family, escaping from being pinned by heavy machinery. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Steve Ditko squeezes every ounce of anguish out of Spider-Man's predicament, complete with visions of the uncle he failed and the aunt he has sworn to save." Peter David observed that "After his origin, this two-page sequence from Amazing Spider-Man No. 33 is perhaps the best-loved sequence from the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era." Steve Saffel stated the "full page Ditko image from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 33 is one of the most powerful ever to appear in the series and influenced writers and artists for many years to come." and Matthew K. Manning wrote that "Ditko's illustrations for the first few pages of this Lee story included what would become one of the most iconic scenes in Spider-Man's history." The story was chosen as No. 15 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that "These first five pages are a modern-day equivalent to Shakespeare as Parker's soliloquy sets the stage for his next action. And with dramatic pacing and storytelling, Ditko delivers one of the great sequences in all comics."Although credited only as artist for most of his run, Ditko would eventually plot the stories as well as draw them, leaving Lee to script the dialogue. A rift between Ditko and Lee developed, and the two men were not on speaking terms long before Ditko completed his last issue, The Amazing Spider-Man No. 38 (July 1966). The exact reasons for the Ditko-Lee split have never been fully explained. Spider-Man successor artist John Romita Sr., in a 2010 deposition, recalled that Lee and Ditko "ended up not being able to work together because they disagreed on almost everything, cultural, social, historically, everything, they disagreed on characters..."In successor penciler Romita Sr.'s first issue, No. 39 (Aug. 1966), nemesis the Green Goblin discovers Spider-Man's secret identity and reveals his own to the captive hero. Romita's Spider-Man – more polished and heroic-looking than Ditko's – became the model for two decades. The Lee-Romita era saw the introduction of such characters as Daily Bugle managing editor Robbie Robertson in No. 52 (Sept. 1967) and NYPD Captain George Stacy, father of Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, in No. 56 (Jan. 1968). The most important supporting character to be introduced during the Romita era was Mary Jane Watson, who made her first full appearance in No. 42, (Nov. 1966), although she first appeared in No. 25 (June 1965) with her face obscured and had been mentioned since No. 15 (Aug. 1964). Peter David wrote in 2010 that Romita "made the definitive statement of his arrival by pulling Mary Jane out from behind the oversized potted plant [that blocked the readers' view of her face in issue #25] and placing her on panel in what would instantly become an iconic moment." Romita has stated that in designing Mary Jane, he "used Ann-Margret from the movie Bye Bye Birdie as a guide, using her coloring, the shape of her face, her red hair and her form-fitting short skirts."Lee and Romita toned down the prevalent sense of antagonism in Parker's world by improving Parker's relationship with the supporting characters and having stories focused as much on the social and college lives of the characters as they did on Spider-Man's adventures. The stories became more topical, addressing issues such as civil rights, racism, prisoners' rights, the Vietnam War, and political elections.Issue No. 50 (June 1967) introduced the highly enduring criminal mastermind the Kingpin, who would become a major force as well in the superhero series Daredevil. Other notable first appearances in the Lee-Romita era include the Rhino in No. 41 (Oct. 1966), the Shocker in No. 46 (March 1967), the Prowler in No. 78 (Nov. 1969), and the Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk, in No. 83 (April 1970).1970sSeveral spin-off series debuted in the 1970s: Marvel Team-Up in 1972, and The Spectacular Spider-Man in 1976. A short-lived series titled Giant-Size Spider-Man began in July 1974 and ran six issues through 1975. Spidey Super Stories, a series aimed at children ages 6–10, ran for 57 issues from October 1974 through 1982.The flagship title's second decade took a grim turn with a story in #89-90 (Oct.-Nov. 1970) featuring the death of Captain George Stacy. This was the first Spider-Man story to be penciled by Gil Kane, who would alternate drawing duties with Romita for the next year-and-a-half and would draw several landmark issues.One such story took place in the controversial issues #96–98 (May–July 1971). Writer-editor Lee defied the Comics Code Authority with this story, in which Parker's friend Harry Osborn, was hospitalized after over-dosing on pills. Lee wrote this story upon a request from the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for a story about the dangers of drugs. Citing its dictum against depicting drug use, even in an anti-drug context, the CCA refused to put its seal on these issues. With the approval of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, Lee had the comics published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms."The Six Arms Saga" of #100–102 (Sept.–Nov. 1971) introduced Morbius, the Living Vampire. The second installment was the first Amazing Spider-Man story not written by co-creator Lee, with Roy Thomas taking over writing the book for several months before Lee returned to write #105–110 (Feb.-July 1972). Lee, who was going on to become Marvel Comics' publisher, with Thomas becoming editor-in-chief, then turned writing duties over to 19-year-old Gerry Conway, who scripted the series through 1975. Romita penciled Conway's first half-dozen issues, which introduced the gangster Hammerhead in No. 113 (Oct. 1972). Kane then succeeded Romita as penciler, although Romita would continue inking Kane for a time.Issues 121–122 (June–July 1973, by Conway-Kane-Romita), which featured the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" in issue No. 121. Her demise and the Goblin's apparent death one issue later formed a story arc widely considered as the most defining in the history of Spider-Man. The aftermath of the story deepened both the characterization of Mary Jane Watson and her relationship with Parker.In 1973, Gil Kane was succeeded by Ross Andru, whose run lasted from issue No. 125 (October 1973) to No. 185 (October 1978). Issue#129 (Feb. 1974) introduced the Punisher, who would become one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters. The Conway-Andru era featured the first appearances of the Man-Wolf in #124–125 (Sept.-Oct. 1973); the near-marriage of Doctor Octopus and Aunt May in No. 131 (April 1974); Harry Osborn stepping into his father's role as the Green Goblin in #135–137 (Aug.-Oct.1974); and the original "Clone Saga", containing the introduction of Spider-Man's clone, in #147–149 (Aug.-Oct. 1975).Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane produced the title's 150th issue (Nov. 1975) before Len Wein became writer with issue No. 151. During Wein's tenure, Harry Osborn and Liz Allen dated and became engaged; J. Jonah Jameson was introduced to his eventual second wife, Marla Madison; and Aunt May suffered a heart attack. Wein's last story on Amazing was a five-issue arc in #176–180 (Jan.-May 1978) featuring a third Green Goblin (Harry Osborn's psychiatrist, Bart Hamilton).Marv Wolfman, Marvel's editor-in-chief from 1975 to 1976, succeeded Wein as writer, and in his first issue, No. 182 (July 1978), had Parker propose marriage to Watson who refused, in the following issue. Keith Pollard succeeded Ross Andru as artist shortly afterward, and with Wolfman introduced the likable rogue the Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) in No. 194 (July 1979). As a love interest for Spider-Man, the Black Cat would go on to be an important supporting character for the better part of the next decade, and remain a friend and occasional lover into the 2010s.1980sThe Amazing Spider-Man No. 200 (Jan. 1980) featured the return and death of the burglar who killed Spider-Man's Uncle Ben. Writer Marv Wolfman and penciler Keith Pollard both left the title by mid-year, succeeded by Dennis O'Neil, a writer known for groundbreaking 1970s work at rival DC Comics, and penciler John Romita Jr. O'Neil wrote two issues of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual which were both drawn by Frank Miller.  The 1980 Annual featured a team-up with Doctor Strange while the 1981 Annual showcased a meeting with the Punisher. Roger Stern, who had written nearly 20 issues of sister title The Spectacular Spider-Man, took over Amazing with issue No. 224 (January 1982). During his two years on the title, Stern augmented the backgrounds of long-established Spider-Man villains, and with Romita Jr. created the mysterious supervillain the Hobgoblin in #238–239 (March–April 1983). Fans engaged with the mystery of the Hobgoblin's secret identity, which continued throughout #244–245 and 249–251 (Sept.-Oct. 1983 and Feb.-April 1984). One lasting change was the reintroduction of Mary Jane Watson as a more serious, mature woman who becomes Peter's confidante after she reveals that she knows his secret identity.  Stern also wrote "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 248 (January 1984), a story which ranks among his most popular.By mid-1984, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over scripting and penciling. DeFalco helped establish Parker and Watson's mature relationship, laying the foundation for the characters' wedding in 1987. Notably, in No. 257 (Oct. 1984), Watson tells Parker that she knows he is Spider-Man, and in No. 259 (Dec. 1984), she reveals to Parker the extent of her troubled childhood. Other notable issues of the DeFalco-Frenz era include No. 252 (May 1984), with the first appearance of Spider-Man's black costume, which the hero would wear almost exclusively for the next four years' worth of comics; the debut of criminal mastermind the Rose, in No. 253 (June 1984); the revelation in No. 258 (Nov. 1984) that the black costume is a living being, a symbiote; and the introduction of the female mercenary Silver Sable in No. 265 (June 1985).Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz were both removed from The Amazing Spider-Man in 1986 by editor Jim Owsley under acrimonious circumstances. A succession of artists including Alan Kupperberg, John Romita Jr., and Alex Saviuk penciled the series from 1987 to 1988; Owsley wrote the book for the first half of 1987, scripting the five-part "Gang War" story (#284–288) that DeFalco plotted. Former Spectacular Spider-Man writer Peter David scripted No. 289 (June 1987), which revealed Ned Leeds as being the Hobgoblin although this was retconned in 1996 by Roger Stern into Leeds not being the original Hobgoblin after all.David Michelinie took over as writer in the next issue, for a story arc in #290–292 (July–Sept. 1987) that led to the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 21. The "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod crossed over into The Amazing Spider-Man No. 293 and 294. Issue No. 298 (March 1988) was the first Spider-Man comic to be drawn by future industry star Todd McFarlane, the first regular artist on The Amazing Spider-Man since Frenz's departure. McFarlane revolutionized Spider-Man's look. His depiction – "Ditko-esque" poses, large-eyed, with wiry, contorted limbs, and messy, knotted, convoluted webbing – influenced the way virtually all subsequent artists would draw the character. McFarlane's other significant contribution to the Spider-Man canon was the design for what would become one of Spider-Man's most wildly popular antagonists, the supervillain Venom. Issue No. 299 (April 1988) featured Venom's first appearance (a last-page cameo) before his first full appearance in No. 300 (May 1988). The latter issue featured Spider-Man reverting to his original red-and-blue costume.Other notable issues of the Michelinie-McFarlane era include No. 312 (Feb. 1989), featuring the Green Goblin vs. the Hobgoblin; and #315–317 (May–July 1989), with the return of Venom. In July 2012, Todd McFarlane's original cover art for The Amazing Spider-Man No. 328 sold for a bid of $657,250, making it the most expensive American comic book art ever sold at auction.1990sWith a civilian life as a married man, the Spider-Man of the 1990s was different from the superhero of the previous three decades. McFarlane left the title in 1990 to write and draw a new series titled simply Spider-Man. His successor, Erik Larsen, penciled the book from early 1990 to mid-1991. After issue No. 350, Larsen was succeeded by Mark Bagley, who had won the 1986 Marvel Tryout Contest and was assigned a number of low-profile penciling jobs followed by a run on New Warriors in 1990. Bagley penciled the flagship Spider-Man title from 1991 to 1996. During that time, Bagley's rendition of Spider-Man was used extensively for licensed material and merchandise.Issues #361–363 (April–June 1992) introduced Carnage, a second symbiote nemesis for Spider-Man. The series' 30th-anniversary issue, No. 365 (Aug. 1992), was a double-sized, hologram-cover issue with the cliffhanger ending of Peter Parker's parents, long thought dead, reappearing alive. It would be close to two years before they were revealed to be impostors, who are killed in No. 388 (April 1994), scripter Michelinie's last issue. His 1987–1994 stint gave him the second-longest run as writer on the title, behind Stan Lee.Issue No. 375 was released with a gold foil cover. There was an error affecting some issues and which are missing the majority of the foil.With No. 389, writer J. M. DeMatteis, whose Spider-Man credits included the 1987 "Kraven's Last Hunt" story arc and a 1991–1993 run on The Spectacular Spider-Man, took over the title. From October 1994 to June 1996, Amazing stopped running stories exclusive to it, and ran installments of multi-part stories that crossed over into all the Spider-Man books. One of the few self-contained stories during this period was in No. 400 (April 1995), which featured the death of Aunt May – later revealed to have been faked (although the death still stands in the MC2 continuity). The "Clone Saga" culminated with the revelation that the Spider-Man who had appeared in the previous 20 years of comics was a clone of the real Spider-Man. This plot twist was massively unpopular with many readers, and was later reversed in the "Revelations" story arc that crossed over the Spider-Man books in late 1996.The Clone Saga tied into a publishing gap after No. 406 (Oct. 1995), when the title was temporarily replaced by The Amazing Scarlet Spider #1–2 (Nov.-Dec. 1995), featuring Ben Reilly. The series picked up again with No. 407 (Jan. 1996), with Tom DeFalco returning as writer. Bagley completed his 5½-year run by September 1996. A succession of artists, including Ron Garney, Steve Skroce, Joe Bennett, Rafael Kayanan and John Byrne penciled the book until the final issue, No. 441 (Nov. 1998), after which Marvel rebooted the title with vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan. 1999).Relaunch and the 2000sMarvel began The Amazing Spider-Man relaunching the 'Amazing' comic book series with (vol. 2) #1 (Jan. 1999). Howard Mackie wrote the first 29 issues. The relaunch included the Sandman being regressed to his criminal ways and the "death" of Mary Jane, which was ultimately reversed. Other elements included the introduction of a new Spider-Woman (who was spun off into her own short-lived series) and references to John Byrne's miniseries Spider-Man: Chapter One, which was launched at the same time as the reboot. Byrne also penciled issues #1–18 (from 1999 to 2000) and wrote #13–14, John Romita Jr. took his place soon after in October 2000. Mackie's run ended with The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2001, which saw the return of Mary Jane, who then left Parker upon reuniting with him.With issue #30 (June 2001), J. Michael Straczynski took over as writer and oversaw additional storylines – most notably his lengthy "Spider-Totem" arc, which raised the issue of whether Spider-Man's powers were magic-based, rather than as the result of a radioactive spider's bite. Additionally, Straczynski resurrected the plot point of Aunt May discovering her nephew was Spider-Man, and returned Mary Jane, with the couple reuniting in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #50. Straczynski gave Spider-Man a new profession, having Parker teach at his former high school.Issue #30 began a dual numbering system, with the original series numbering (#471) returned and placed alongside the volume two number on the cover. Other longtime, rebooted Marvel Comics titles, including Fantastic Four, likewise were given the dual numbering around this time. After (vol. 2) #58 (Nov. 2003), the title reverted completely to its original numbering for issue #500 (Dec. 2003). Mike Deodato, Jr. penciled the series from mid-2004 until 2006.That year Peter Parker revealed his Spider-Man identity on live television in the company-crossover storyline "Civil War", in which the superhero community is split over whether to conform to the federal government's new Superhuman Registration Act. This knowledge was erased from the world with the event of the four-part, crossover story arc, "One More Day", written partially by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Joe Quesada, running through The Amazing Spider-Man #544–545 (Nov.-Dec. 2007), Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man No. 24 (Nov. 2007) and The Sensational Spider-Man No. 41 (Dec. 2007), the final issues of those two titles. Here, the demon Mephisto makes a Faustian bargain with Parker and Mary Jane, offering to save Parker's dying Aunt May if the couple will allow their marriage to have never existed, rewriting that portion of their pasts. This story arc marked the end of Straczynski's work on the title.Following this, Marvel made The Amazing Spider-Man the company's sole Spider-Man title, increasing its frequency of publication to three issues monthly, and inaugurating the series with a sequence of "back to basics" story arcs under the banner of "Brand New Day". Parker now exists in a changed world where he and Mary Jane had never married, and Parker has no memory of being married to her, with domino effect differences in their immediate world. The most notable of these revisions to Spider-Man continuity are the return of Harry Osborn, whose death in The Spectacular Spider-Man No. 200 (May 1993) is erased; and the reestablishment of Spider-Man's secret identity, with no one except Mary Jane able to recall that Parker is Spider-Man (although he soon reveals his secret identity to the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four). Under the banner of Brand New Day, Marvel tried to only use newly created villains instead of relying on older ones. Characters like Mister Negative and Overdrive both in Free Comic Book Day 2007 Spider-Man (July 2007), Menace in No. 549 (March 2008),  Ana and Sasha Kravinoff in No. 565 (September 2008) and  No. 567 (October 2008) respectively, and several more were introduced. The alternating regular writers were initially Dan Slott, Bob Gale, Marc Guggenheim,  and Zeb Wells, joined by a rotation of artists that included Steve McNiven, Salvador Larroca, Phil Jimenez, Barry Kitson, Chris Bachalo, Mike McKone, Marcos Martín, and John Romita Jr. Joe Kelly, Mark Waid, Fred Van Lente and Roger Stern later joined the writing team and Paolo Rivera, Lee Weeks and Marco Checchetto the artist roster. Waid's work on the series included a meeting between Spider-Man and Stephen Colbert in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 573 (Dec. 2008).Issue No. 583 (March 2009) included a back-up story in which Spider-Man meets President Barack Obama.2010s and temporary end of publicationMark Waid scripted the opening of "The Gauntlet" storyline in issue No. 612 (Jan. 2010). The Gauntlet story was concluded by Grim Hunt (No. 634-637) which saw the resurrection of long-dead Spider-Man villain, Kraven the Hunter. The series became a twice-monthly title with Dan Slott as sole writer at issue No. 648 (Jan. 2011), launching the Big Time storyline. Eight additional pages were added per issue. Big Time saw major changes in Spider-Man/Peter Parker's life, Peter would start working at Horizon Labs and begin a relationship with Carlie Cooper (his first serious relationship since his marriage to Mary Jane), Mac Gargan returned as Scorpion after spending the past few years as Venom, Phil Urich would take up the mantle of Hobgoblin, and the death of J. Jonah Jameson's wife, Marla Jameson. Issues 654 and 654.1 saw the birth of Agent Venom, Flash Thompson bonded with the Venom symbiote, which would lead to Venom getting his own series Venom (volume 2). Starting in No. 659 and going to No. 655, the series built-up to the Spider-Island event which officially started in No. 666 and ended in No. 673. Ends of the Earth was the next event that ran from No. 682 through No. 687. This publishing format lasted until issue No. 700, which concluded the "Dying Wish" storyline, in which Parker and Doctor Octopus swapped bodies, and the latter taking on the mantle of Spider-Man when Parker apparently died in Doctor Octopus' body. The Amazing Spider-Man ended with this issue, with the story continuing in the new series The Superior Spider-Man. Despite The Superior Spider-Man being considered a different series to The Amazing Spider-Man, the first 33 issue run goes towards the legacy numbering of The Amazing Spider-Man acting as issues 701–733. In December 2013, the series returned for five issues, numbered 700.1 through 700.5, with the first two written by David Morrell and drawn by Klaus Janson.2014 relaunchIn January 2014, Marvel confirmed that The Amazing Spider-Man would be relaunched on April 30, 2014, starting from issue No. 1, with Peter Parker as Spider-Man once again.The first issue of this new version of The Amazing Spider-Man was, according to Diamond Comics Distributors, the "best-selling comic book... in over a decade."Issues #1–6 were a story arc called "Lucky to be Alive", taking place immediately after "Goblin Nation", with issues No. 4 and No. 5 being a crossover with the Original Sin storyline. Issue No. 4 introduced Silk, a new heroine who was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker. Issues #7–8 featured a team-up between Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man, and had backup stories that tied into "Edge of Spider-Verse". The next major plot arc, titled "Spider-Verse", began in Issue No. 9 and ended in No. 15, features every Spider-Man from across the dimensions being hunted by Morlun, and a team-up to stop him, with Peter Parker of Earth-616 in command of the Spider-Men's Alliance. The Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 1 of the relaunched series was released in December 2014, featuring stories unrelated to "Spider-Verse".The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your VowsIn 2015, Marvel started the universe wide Secret Wars event where the core and several other Marvel universes were combined into one big planet called Battleworld. Battleworld was divided into sections with most of them being self-contained universes. Marvel announced that several of these self-contained universes would get their own tie in series and one of them was Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, an alternate universe where Peter Parker and Mary Jane are still married and give birth to their child Annie May Parker, written by Dan Slott. Despite the series being considered separate from the main Amazing Spider-Man series, the original 5 issue run is counted towards its legacy numbering acting as No. 752-756.2015 relaunchFollowing the 2015 Secret Wars event, a number of Spider-Man-related titles were either relaunched or created as part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event. Among them, The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched as well and primarily focuses on Peter Parker continuing to run Parker Industries, and becoming a successful businessman who is operating worldwide. It also tied with Civil War II (involving an Inhuman who can predict possible future named Ulysses Cain), Dead No More (where Ben Reilly [the original Scarlet Spider] revealed to be revived and as one of the antagonists instead), and Secret Empire (during Hydra's reign led by a Hydra influenced Captain America/Steve Rogers, and the dismissal of Parker Industries by Peter Parker to stop Otto Octavius). Starting in September 2017, Marvel started the Marvel Legacy event which renumbered several Marvel series to their original numbering, The Amazing Spider-Man was put back to its original numbering for issue 789. Issues 789 through 791 focused on the aftermath of Peter destroying Parker Industries and his fall from grace. Issues 792 and 793 were part of the Venom Inc. story. Threat Level: Red was the story for the next three issues which saw Norman Osborn obtain and bond with the Carnage symbiote. Go Down Swinging saw the results of the combination of Osborn's goblin serum and Carnage symbiote creating the Red Goblin. Issue 801 was Dan Slott's goodbye issue.2018 relaunchIn March 2018, it was announced that writer Nick Spencer would be writing the main bi-monthly The Amazing Spider-Man series beginning with a new No. 1, replacing long-time writer Dan Slott, as part of the Fresh Start relaunch that July.The first five-issue story arc was titled 'Back to Basics.' During the Back to Basics story, Kindred, a mysterious villain with some relation to Peter's past, was introduced. The first major story under Spencer was Hunted which ran through issues 16 through 23, the story also included four ".HU" issues for issues 16, 18, 19, and 20. The end of the story saw the death of long-running Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter, being replaced by his clone son, The Last Son of Kraven.2020sIssue 45 kicked off the Sins Rising story which saw the resurrected Sin-Eater carry out the plans of Kindred to cleanse the world of sin, particularly that of Norman Osborn. The story concluded with issue 49, issue 850 in legacy numbering, seeing Spider-Man and Green Goblin team up to defeat Sin-Eater. Last Remains started in issue 50 and concluded in issue 55, the story saw Kindred's plans come to fruition as he tormented Spider-Man. The story has also saw five ".LR" for issues 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 which focused on The Order of the Web, a new faction of Spider-People consisting of Julia Carpenter (Madame Web), Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Gwen Stacy (Ghost-Spider), Cindy Moon (Silk), Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman), and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl) . The story also revealed that Kindred is Harry Osborn. Last Remains also received two fallout issues called Last Remains Post-Mortem.Nick Spencer concluded his run with the Sinister War story which wrapped up in Np. 74 (legacy numbering 875). The story saw several retcons to the Spider-Man mythos including that Kindred was Gabriel and Sarah Stacy all along, the fact that the Stacy twins were actually genetically engineered beings using Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy's DNA, that the Harry Osborn that returned in Brand New Day was actually a clone, and that Norman had made a deal with Mephisto where he sold Harry's soul to the demon. The story ended with the deaths of the Harry clone, Gabriel, and Sarah and the real Harry's soul being freed from Mephisto's grasp.After Spencer left the book, Marvel announced the "Beyond" era of Spider-Man which would start in No. 75. The book would be moving back to the format it had during Brand New Day where the it would have a rotating cast of writers including Kelly Thompson, Saladin Ahmed, Cody Ziglar, Patrick Gleason, and Zeb Wells. The book would also release three times a month. Beyond would focus on Ben Reilly taking up the mantle of Spider-Man once again, but backed by the Beyond corporation. Peter also falls ill and cannot be Spider-Man so he gives Ben his blessing to carry on as the main Spider-Man.Collected editionsBlack-and-white Essential Spider-Man Vol. 1 [#1–20, Annual #1; Amazing Fantasy #15] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 2 [#21–43, Annual #2–3] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 3 [#44–65, Annual #4] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 4 [#66–89, Annual #5] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 5 [#90–113] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 6 [#114–137; Giant-Size Super Heroes #1; Giant-Size Spider-Man #1–2] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 7 [#138–160, Annual #10; Giant-Size Spider-Man #4–5] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 8 [#161–185, Annual #11; Giant-Size Spider-Man #6; Nova #12] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 9 [#186–210, Annual #13–14; Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #1] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 10 [#211–230, Annual #15] () Essential Spider-Man Vol. 11 [#231–248, Annual #16–17] ()Major story arcs/artist runs Marvel Visionaries: John Romita Sr. [#39–40, 42, 50, 108–109, 365; Daredevil #16–17; Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1] () Spider-Man: The Death of Captain Stacy [#88–90] () Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy [#96–98, 121–122; Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #1] () Spider-Man: Death of the Stacys [#88–92, 121–122] () A New Goblin [#176–180] () Spider-Man vs. the Black Cat [#194–195, 204–205, 226–227] () Spider-Man: Origin of The Hobgoblin [#238–239, 244–245, 249–251, Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 1) #85] () Spider-Man: Birth of Venom [#252–259, 298–300, 315–317, Annual #25; Fantastic Four #274; Secret Wars #8; Web of Spider-Man #1] () The Amazing Spider-Man: The Wedding [#290–292, Annual #2, Not Brand Echh #6] () Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt [#293–294; Web of Spider-Man #31–32; The Spectacular Spider-Man #131–132] () Visionaries: Todd McFarlane [#298–305] () Legends, Vol. 2: Todd McFarlane [#306–314; The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10] () Legends, Vol. 3: Todd McFarlane [#315–323, 325, 328] () Spider-Man: Venom Returns [#330–333, 344–347;Annual #25] () Spider-Man: Carnage [#344–345, 359–363] ()Collections Vol. 1: Coming Home [#30-35/471-476] () Vol. 2: Revelations [#36-39/477-480] () Vol. 3: Until the Stars Turn Cold [#40-45/481-486] () Vol. 4: The Life and Death of Spiders [#46-50/487-491] () Vol. 5: Unintended Consequences [#51-56/492-497] () Vol. 6: Happy Birthday [#57–58,500-502/498-502] () Vol. 7: The Book of Ezekiel [#503–508] () Vol. 8: Sins Past [#509–514] () Vol. 9: Skin Deep [#515–518] () Vol. 10: New Avengers [#519–524] () Spider-Man: The Other [#525–528; Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1–4; Marvel Knights Spider-Man #19–22] () Civil War: The Road to Civil War [#529–531; New Avengers: Illuminati (one-shot); Fantastic Four #536–537] () Vol. 11: Civil War [#532–538] () Vol. 12: Back in Black [#539–543; Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #17–23, Annual #1] () Spider-Man: One More Day [#544–545; Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24; The Sensational Spider-Man #41; Marvel Spotlight: Spider-Man – One More Day/Brand New Day] () Brand New Day Vol. 1 [#546–551; The Amazing Spider-Man: Swing Shift (Director's Cut); Venom Super-Special] () Brand New Day Vol. 2 [#552–558] () Brand New Day Vol. 3 [#559–563] () Kraven's First Hunt [#564–567; The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #1 (story #2)] () New Ways to Die [#568–573; Marvel Spotlight: Spider-Man – Brand New Day] () Crime and Punisher [#574–577; The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #1 (story #1)] () Death and Dating [#578–583, Annual #35/1] () Election Day [#584–588; The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #1 (story #3), 3 (story #1); The Amazing Spider-Man Presidents' Day Special] () 24/7 [#589–594; The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #2] () American Son [#595–599; material from The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #3] () Died in Your Arms Tonight [#600–601, Annual #36; material from Amazing Spider-Man Family #7] () Red-Headed Stranger [#602–605] () Return of the Black Cat [#606–611; material from Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #1] () The Gauntlet Book 1: Electro and Sandman [#612–616; Dark Reign: The List – The Amazing Spider-Man; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #2 (Electro story)] () The Gauntlet Book 2: Rhino and Mysterio [#617–621; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #3–4] () The Gauntlet Book 3: Vulture and Morbius [#622–625; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #2, 5 (Vulture story)] () The Gauntlet Book 4: Juggernaut [#229–230, 626–629] () The Gauntlet Book 5: Lizard [#629–633; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #6] () Spider-Man: Grim Hunt [#634–637; The Amazing Spider-Man: Extra! #3; Spider-Man: Grim Hunt – The Kraven Saga; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #7] () One Moment in Time [#638–641] () Origin of the Species [#642–647; Spider-Man Saga; Web of Spider-Man (vol. 2) #12] () Big Time [#648–651] () Matters of Life and Death [#652–657, 654.1] () Spider-Man: The Fantastic Spider-Man [#658–662] () Spider-Man: The Return Of Anti-Venom [#663–665; Free Comic Book Day 2011: Spider-Man] () Spider-Man: Spider-Island [#666–673; Venom (2011) #6–8, Spider-Island: Deadly Foes; Infested prologues from #659–660 and 662–665] () Spider-Man: Flying Blind [#674–677; Daredevil #8] () Spider-Man: Trouble on the Horizon [#678–681, 679.1] () Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth [#682–687; Amazing Spider-Man: Ends of the Earth #1; Avenging Spider-Man #8] () Spider-Man: Lizard – No Turning Back [#688–691; Untold Tales of Spider-Man #9] () Spider-Man: Danger Zone [#692–697; Avenging Spider-Man #11] () Spider-Man: Dying Wish [#698–700] () The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 [#1–38, Annual #1–2; Amazing Fantasy #15; Strange Tales Annual #2; Fantastic Four Annual #1] () The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 2 [#39–67, Annual #3–5; Spectacular Spider-Man #1–2] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 [#1–10; Amazing Fantasy #15] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2 [#11–19, Annual #1] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 [#20–30, Annual #2] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 4 [#31–40] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5 [#41–50, Annual #3] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 [#51–61, Annual #4] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7 [#62–67, Annual #5; The Spectacular Spider-Man #1–2 (magazine)] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 8 [#68–77; Marvel Super Heroes #14] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 9 [#78–87] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 10 [#88–99] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 11 [#100–109] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 12 [#110–120] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 13 [#121–131] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 14 [#132–142; Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 15 [#143–155; Marvel Special Edition Treasury #1] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 16 [#156–168; Annual #10] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 17 [#169–180; Annual #11; Nova #12; Marvel Treasury Edition #14] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 18 [#181–192; Mighty Marvel Comics Calendar 1978; material From Annual #12] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 19 [#193–202; Annual #13; Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #1] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 20 [#203–212; Annual #14] () Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 21 [#213–223; Annual #15] () Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1: (The) Parker Luck [Vol. 3 #1 - 6 (e.g. legacy #732 - 737)] () Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2: Spider-Verse Prelude [#7 - 8 (e.g. legacy #738 - 739); Superior Spider-Man #32 - 33; Free Comic Book Day 2014 (Guardians of the Galaxy) #1] () Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3: Spider-Verse [#09 - 15 (e.g. legacy #740 - 746)] () Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 4: Graveyard Shift [#16 - 18 (e.g. legacy #747 - 749); Annual 2015] () Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5: Spiral [#16.1-20.1(e.g. legacy #750 - 751)] () Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows [#1 - 5 (e.g. legacy #752 - 756)] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 1 [Vol. 4 #1 – 5] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 2 [#6 – 11] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 3 [#12 – 15] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 4 [#16 – 19] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 5 [#20 – 24, Annual #1] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 6 [#25 – 28] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 7 [#29 – 32 (e.g. legacy #785 - 788), #789 - 791] Amazing Spider-Man: Venom Inc. [Venom Inc. Alpha, Venom Inc. Omega, #792 - 793, Venom #159 - 160]  Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 8 [#794-796, Annual] Amazing Spider-Man Worldwide Vol. 9 [#797-801] Amazing Spider-Man: Red Goblin [#794-801] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1: Back to Basics [#1-5, FCBD 2018: Amazing Spider-Man] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2: Friends and Foes [#6-10] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3: Lifetime Achievement [#11-15] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 4: Hunted [#16-23, #16.1, #18.1-20.1] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5: Behind the Scenes [#24-28] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6: Absolute Carnage [#29-31] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 7: 2099 [#32-36] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 8: Threats & Menaces [#37 - 43 (e.g. legacy #838 - 844)] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 9: Sins Rising [#44-47, Amazing Spider Man: Sins Rising #1] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 10: Green Goblin Returns [#48-49, Amazing Spider-Man: The Sins of Norman Osborn #1, FCBD 2020: Spider-Man/Venom] Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 11: Last Remains [#50-55]Amazing Spider-Man: Last Remains Companion [#50.1-54.1]Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 12: Shattered Web [#56-60]Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 13: King's Ransom [#61-65, Giant Size Amazing Spider-Man: King's Ransom #1]Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 14: Chameleon Conspiracy [#66-69, Giant Size Amazing Spider-Man: Chameleon Conspiracy #1]Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 15: What Cost Victory? [#70-74]Amazing Spider-Man: Beyond Vol. 1 [#75-80]See alsoReferencesExternal links   The Amazing Spider-Man comic book sales figures from 1966–present at The Comics Chronicles Spider-Man at Marvel Comics wikia The Amazing Spider-Man cover gallery Spiderman Videos1963 comics debutsComics by Archie Goodwin (comics)Comics by Dennis O'NeilComics by Gerry ConwayComics by J. M. DeMatteisComics by J. Michael StraczynskiComics by John Byrne (comics)Comics by Len WeinComics by Mark WaidComics by Marv WolfmanComics by Stan LeeComics by Steve DitkoSpider-Man titles
AM may refer to:Arts and entertainmentMusic Skengdo & AM, British rap duo  AM (musician), American musician A.M. (musician), Canadian musician DJ AM, American DJ and producer AM (Abraham Mateo album) A.M. (Wilco album) A.M. (Chris Young album) AM (Arctic Monkeys album) Am, the A minor chord symbol A minor, a minor scale in musicArmeemarschsammlung, Prussian Army March Collection (Preußische Armeemarschsammlung)Television and radio AM (ABC Radio), Australian radio programme American Morning, American television program Am, Antes del Mediodia, Argentine television programOther media  Allied Mastercomputer, the antagonist of the short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"Education Master of Arts, an academic degree Arts et Métiers ParisTech, a French engineering school Active Minds, a mental health awareness charityScience Americium, a chemical element Attometre, a unit of length Adrenomedullin, a protein Air mass (astronomy) attomolar (aM), a unit of molar concentration Am, tropical monsoon climate in the Köppen climate classification AM, a complexity class related to Arthur–Merlin protocolTechnology .am, Internet domain for Armenia .am, a file extension associated with Automake software Agile modeling, a software engineering methodology for modeling and documenting software systems Amplitude modulation, an electronic communication technique Additive Manufacturing, a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. AM broadcasting, radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation Anti-materiel rifle Automated Mathematician, an artificial intelligence programTimekeeping ante meridiem, Latin for "before midday" Anno Mundi, a calendar era based on the biblical creation of the world Anno Martyrum, a method of numbering years in the Coptic calendarTransportation A.M. (automobile), a 1906 French car Aeroméxico (IATA airline code AM) Arkansas and Missouri Railroad All-mountain, a discipline of mountain bikingMilitary AM, the United States Navy hull classification symbol for "minesweeper" Air marshal, a senior air officer rank used in Commonwealth countries Anti-materiel rifle Aviation Structural Mechanic, a U.S. Navy occupational ratingOther uses Am (cuneiform), a written syllable Member of the Order of Australia, postnominal letters which can be used by a Member of the Order Assembly Member (disambiguation), a political office Member of the National Assembly for Wales Member of the London Assembly Amharic language (ISO 639-1 language code am) Armenia (ISO country code AM) Attacking midfielder, a position in association footballFirst person singular present of the copula verb to be.See also     Pro–am `am (disambiguation) A&M (disambiguation) AM2 (disambiguation) AMS (disambiguation)
Antigua and Barbuda (; ) is a sovereign island country in the West Indies in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major islands, Antigua and Barbuda separated by around , and smaller islands (including Great Bird, Green, Guiana, Long, Maiden, Prickly Pear, York Islands, Redonda). The permanent population number is about 97,120 (2019 est.), with 97% residing on Antigua. The capital and largest port and city is St. John's on Antigua, with Codrington being the largest town on Barbuda. Lying near each other, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17°N of the equator.The island of Antigua was explored by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and named for the Church of Santa María La Antigua. Antigua was colonized by Britain in 1632; Barbuda island was first colonised in 1678. Having been part of the Federal Colony of the Leeward Islands from 1871, Antigua and Barbuda joined the West Indies Federation in 1958. With the breakup of the federation, it became one of the West Indies Associated States in 1967. Following self-governance in its internal affairs, independence was granted from the United Kingdom on 1 November 1981. Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the Commonwealth and Elizabeth II is the country's queen and head of state.The economy of Antigua and Barbuda is particularly dependent on tourism, which accounts for 80% of GDP. Like other island nations, Antigua and Barbuda is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, and increased intensity of extreme weather like hurricanes, which have direct impacts on the island through coastal erosion, water scarcity, and other challenges. As of 2019, Antigua and Barbuda has a 0% individual income tax rate, as does neighboring St. Kitts and Nevis.Etymology  is Spanish for 'ancient' and  is Spanish for 'bearded'. The island of Antigua was originally called  by Arawaks and is locally known by that name today; Caribs possibly called Barbuda . Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493 may have named it , after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. The "bearded" of Barbuda is thought to refer either to the male inhabitants of the island, or the bearded fig trees present there.HistoryPre-colonial periodAntigua was first settled by archaic age hunter-gatherer Amerindians called the Ciboney. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC. They were succeeded by the ceramic age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River. They introduced agriculture, raising, among other crops, the famous Antigua black pineapple (Ananas comosus), corn, sweet potatoes, chiles, guava, tobacco, and cotton. Later on the more bellicose Caribs also settled the island, possibly by force.European arrival and settlementChristopher Columbus was the first European to sight the islands in 1493. The Spanish did not colonise Antigua until after a combination of European and African diseases, malnutrition, and slavery eventually extirpated most of the native population; smallpox was probably the greatest killer.The English settled on Antigua in 1632; Christopher Codrington settled on Barbuda in 1685. Tobacco and then sugar was grown, worked by a large population of slaves from West Africa who soon came to vastly outnumber the European settlers.Colonial eraThe English maintained control of the islands, repulsing an attempted French attack in 1666. The brutal conditions endured by the slaves led to revolts in 1701 and 1729 and a planned revolt in 1736, the last led by Prince Klaas, though it was discovered before it began and the ringleaders were executed. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, affecting the economy. This was exacerbated by natural disasters such as the 1843 earthquake and the 1847 hurricane. Mining occurred on the isle of Redonda, however, this ceased in 1929 and the island has since remained uninhabited.Part of the Leeward Islands colony, Antigua and Barbuda became part of the short-lived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. Antigua and Barbuda subsequently became an associated state of the United Kingdom with full internal autonomy on 27 February 1967. The 1970s were dominated by discussions as to the islands' future and the rivalry between Vere Bird of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) (Premier from 1967 to 1971 and 1976 to 1981) and the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) of George Walter (Premier 1971–1976). Eventually, Antigua and Barbuda gained full independence on 1 November 1981; Vere Bird became Prime Minister of the new country. The country opted to remain within the Commonwealth, retaining Queen Elizabeth as head of state, with the last Governor, Sir Wilfred Jacobs, as Governor-General.Independence eraThe first two decades of Antigua's independence were dominated politically by the Bird family and the ABLP, with Vere Bird ruling from 1981 to 1994, followed by his son Lester Bird from 1994 to 2004. Though providing a degree of political stability, and boosting tourism to the country, the Bird governments were frequently accused of corruption, cronyism and financial malfeasance. Vere Bird Jr., the elder son, was forced to leave the cabinet in 1990 following a scandal in which he was accused of smuggling Israeli weapons to Colombian drug-traffickers. Another son, Ivor Bird, was convicted of selling cocaine in 1995.In 1995, Hurricane Luis caused severe damage on Barbuda.The ABLP's dominance of Antiguan politics ended with the 2004 Antiguan general election, which was won by Winston Baldwin Spencer's United Progressive Party (UPP). Winston Baldwin Spencer was Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda from 2004 to 2014. However the UPP lost the 2014 Antiguan general election, with the ABLP returning to power under Gaston Browne. ABLP won 15 of the 17 seats in the 2018 snap election under the leadership of incumbent Prime Minister Gaston Browne.Most of Barbuda was devastated in early September 2017 by Hurricane Irma, which brought winds with speeds reaching 295 km/h (185 mph). The storm damaged or destroyed 95% of the island's buildings and infrastructure, leaving Barbuda "barely habitable" according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne. Nearly everyone on the island was evacuated to Antigua.Amidst the following rebuilding efforts on Barbuda that were estimated to cost at least $100 million, the government announced plans to revoke a century-old law of communal land ownership by allowing residents to buy land; a move that has been criticised as promoting "disaster capitalism".GeographyAntigua and Barbuda both are generally low-lying islands whose terrain has been influenced more by limestone formations than volcanic activity. The highest point on Antigua and Barbuda is Boggy Peak, located in southwestern Antigua, which is the remnant of a volcanic crater rising .The shorelines of both islands are greatly indented with beaches, lagoons, and natural harbours. The islands are rimmed by reefs and shoals. There are few streams as rainfall is slight. Both islands lack adequate amounts of fresh groundwater.About  south-west of Antigua lies the small, rocky island of Redonda, which is uninhabited.Cities and villages The most populous cities in Antigua and Barbuda are mostly on Antigua, being Saint John's, All Saints, Piggotts, and Liberta. The most populous city on Barbuda is Codrington. It is estimated that 25% of the population lives in an Urban area, which is much lower than the international average of 55%.IslandsAntigua and Barbuda consists mostly of its two namesake islands, Antigua, and Barbuda, other than that, Antigua and Barbuda's biggest islands are Guiana Island and Long Island off the coast of Antigua, and Redonda island, which is far from both of the main islands.Climate Rainfall averages  per year, with the amount varying widely from season to season. In general the wettest period is between September and November. The islands generally experience low humidity and recurrent droughts. Temperatures average , with a range from  to  in the winter to from  to  in the summer and autumn. The coolest period is between December and February.Hurricanes strike on an average of once a year, including the powerful Category 5 Hurricane Irma, on 6 September 2017, which damaged 95% of the structures on Barbuda. Some 1,800 people were evacuated to Antigua.An estimate published by Time indicated that over $100 million would be required to rebuild homes and infrastructure. Philmore Mullin, Director of Barbuda's National Office of Disaster Services, said that "all critical infrastructure and utilities are non-existent – food supply, medicine, shelter, electricity, water, communications, waste management". He summarised the situation as follows: "Public utilities need to be rebuilt in their entirety... It is optimistic to think anything can be rebuilt in six months ... In my 25 years in disaster management, I have never seen something like this."Environmental issuesDemographicsEthnic groupsAntigua has a population of , mostly made up of people of West African, British, and Madeiran descent. The ethnic distribution consists of 91% Black, 4.4% mixed race, 1.7% White, and 2.9% other (primarily East Indian). Most Whites are of British descent. Christian Levantine Arabs and a small number of East Asians and Sephardic Jews make up the remainder of the population.An increasingly large percentage of the population lives abroad, most notably in the United Kingdom (Antiguan Britons), the United States and Canada. A minority of Antiguan residents are immigrants from other countries, particularly from Dominica, Guyana and Jamaica, and, increasingly, from the Dominican Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Nigeria. An estimated 4,500 American citizens also make their home in Antigua and Barbuda, making their numbers one of the largest American populations in the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean.LanguagesEnglish is the official language. The Barbudan accent is slightly different from the Antiguan.In the years before Antigua and Barbuda's independence, Standard English was widely spoken in preference to Antiguan Creole. Generally, the upper and middle classes shun Antiguan Creole. The educational system dissuades the use of Antiguan Creole and instruction is done in Standard (British) English.Many of the words used in the Antiguan dialect are derived from British as well as African languages. This can be easily seen in phrases such as: "Ent it?" meaning "Ain't it?" which is itself dialectal and means "Isn't it?". Common island proverbs can often be traced to Africa.Spanish is spoken by around 10,000 inhabitants.ReligionA majority (77%) of Antiguans are Christians, with the Anglicans (17.6%) being the largest single denomination. Other Christian denominations present are Seventh-day Adventist Church (12.4%), Pentecostalism (12.2%), Moravian Church (8.3%), Roman Catholics(8.2%), Methodist Church (5.6%), Wesleyan Holiness Church (4.5%), Church of God (4.1%), Baptists (3.6%), Mormonism (<1.0%), as well as Jehovah's Witnesses.Non-Christian religions practiced in the islands include the Rastafari, Islam, and Baháʼí Faith.GovernancePolitical systemThe politics of Antigua and Barbuda take place within a framework of a unitary, parliamentary, representative democratic monarchy, in which the head of State is the monarch who appoints the Governor-General as vice-regal representative. Elizabeth II is the present Queen of Antigua and Barbuda, having served in that position since the islands' independence from the United Kingdom in 1981. The Queen is currently represented by Governor-General Sir Rodney Williams. A council of ministers is appointed by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister, currently Gaston Browne (2014–). The prime minister is the head of government.Executive power is exercised by the government while legislative power is vested in both the government and the two Chambers of Parliament. The bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate (17 members appointed by members of the government and the opposition party, and approved by the Governor-General), and the House of Representatives (17 members elected by first past the post) to serve five-year terms.The current Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is the United Progressive Party Member of Parliament (MP), the Honourable Baldwin Spencer.ElectionsThe last election was held on 21 March 2018. The Antigua Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) led by Prime Minister Gaston Browne won 15 of the 17 seats in the House of Representatives. The previous election was on 12 June 2014, during which the Antigua Labour Party won 14 seats, and the United Progressive Party 3 seats.Since 1951, elections have been won by the populist Antigua Labour Party. However, in the Antigua and Barbuda legislative election of 2004 saw the defeat of the longest-serving elected government in the Caribbean.Vere Bird was Prime Minister from 1981 to 1994 and Chief Minister of Antigua from 1960 to 1981, except for the 1971–1976 period when the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) defeated his party. Bird, the nation's first Prime Minister, is credited with having brought Antigua and Barbuda and the Caribbean into a new era of independence. Prime Minister Lester Bryant Bird succeeded the elder Bird in 1994.Party electionsGaston Browne defeated his predecessor Lester Bryant Bird at the Antigua Labour Party's biennial convention in November 2012 held to elect a political leader and other officers. The party then altered its name from the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) to the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP). This was done to officially include the party's presence on the sister island of Barbuda in its organisation, the only political party on the mainland to have a physical branch in Barbuda.Judiciary The Judicial branch is the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (based in Saint Lucia; one judge of the Supreme Court is a resident of the islands and presides over the High Court of Justice). Antigua is also a member of the Caribbean Court of Justice. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council serves as its Supreme Court of Appeal.Foreign relationsAntigua and Barbuda is a member of the United Nations, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Caribbean Community, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the Organization of American States, the World Trade Organization and the Eastern Caribbean's Regional Security System.Antigua and Barbuda is also a member of the International Criminal Court (with a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of Protection for the US military as covered under Article 98 of the Rome Statute).In 2013, Antigua and Barbuda called for reparations for slavery at the United Nations. Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said "We have recently seen a number of leaders apologising", and that they should now "match their words with concrete and material benefits."MilitaryThe Royal Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force has around 260 members dispersed between the line infantry regiment, service and support unit and coast guard. There is also the Antigua and Barbuda Cadet Corps made up of 200 teenagers between the ages of 12 to 18.In 2018, Antigua and Barbuda signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.Administrative divisionsAntigua and Barbuda is divided into six parishes and two dependencies:Note: Though Barbuda and Redonda are called dependencies they are integral parts of the state, making them essentially administrative divisions. Dependency is simply a title.Human rightsAntigua and Barbuda does not allow discrimination in employment, child labor, human trafficking, and there are laws against domestic abuse and child abuse.  Although it has not been enforced or a case brought to trial in many years, like other Caribbean islands, same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Antigua and Barbuda and punishable by prison time. There are several current movements under way to repeal the buggery laws.EconomyTourism dominates the economy, accounting for more than half of the gross domestic product (GDP). Antigua is famous for its many luxury resorts as an ultra-high-end travel destination. Weakened tourist activity in the lower and middle market segments since early 2000 has slowed the economy, however, and squeezed the government into a tight fiscal corner. Antigua and Barbuda has enacted policies to attract high-net-worth citizens and residents, such as enacting a 0% personal income tax rate in 2019.Investment banking and financial services also make up an important part of the economy. Major world banks with offices in Antigua include the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Scotiabank. Financial-services corporations with offices in Antigua include PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank, owned by Texas billionaire Allen Stanford, of orchestrating a huge fraud which may have bilked investors of some $8 billion.The twin-island nation's agricultural production is focused on its domestic market and constrained by a limited water supply and a labour shortage stemming from the lure of higher wages in tourism and construction work.Manufacturing is made up of enclave-type assembly for export, the major products being bedding, handicrafts and electronic components. Prospects for economic growth in the medium term will continue to depend on income growth in the industrialised world, especially in the United States, from which about one-third of all tourists come.Access to biocapacity is lower than world average. In 2016, Antigua and Barbuda had 0.8 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016, Antigua and Barbuda used 4.3 global hectares of biocapacity per person – their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use more biocapacity than Antigua and Barbuda contains. As a result, Antigua and Barbuda are running a biocapacity deficit.Following the opening of the American University of Antigua College of Medicine by investor and attorney Neil Simon in 2003, a new source of revenue was established. The university employs many local Antiguans and the approximate 1000 students consume a large amount of the goods and services.Antigua and Barbuda also uses an economic citizenship program to spur investment into the country.TransportEducationCultureThe culture is predominantly a mixture of West African and British cultural influences.Cricket is the national sport. Other popular sports include football, boat racing and surfing. (Antigua Sailing Week attracts locals and visitors from all over the world).MusicFestivalsThe national Carnival held each August commemorates the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies, although on some islands, Carnival may celebrate the coming of Lent. Its festive pageants, shows, contests and other activities are a major tourist attraction.CuisineMediaThere are three newspapers: the Antigua Daily Observer, Antigua New Room and The Antiguan Times.  The Antigua Observer is the only daily printed newspaper.The local television channel ABS TV 10 is available (it is the only station that shows exclusively local programs). There are also several local and regional radio stations, such as V2C-AM 620, ZDK-AM 1100, VYBZ-FM 92.9, ZDK-FM 97.1, Observer Radio 91.1 FM, DNECA Radio 90.1 FM, Second Advent Radio 101.5 FM, Abundant Life Radio 103.9 FM, Crusader Radio 107.3 FM, Nice FM 104.3.LiteratureAntiguan author Jamaica Kincaid has published over 20 works of literature.SportsThe Antigua and Barbuda national cricket team represented the country at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, but Antiguan cricketers otherwise play for the Leeward Islands cricket team in domestic matches and the West Indies cricket team internationally. The 2007 Cricket World Cup was hosted in the West Indies from 11 March to 28 April 2007.Antigua hosted eight matches at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, which was completed on 11 February 2007 and can hold up to 20,000 people.Antigua is a Host of Stanford Twenty20 – Twenty20 Cricket, a version started by Allen Stanford in 2006 as a regional cricket game with almost all Caribbean islands taking part.Sir Vivian Richards Stadium is set to host 2022 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup.Rugby and Netball are popular as well.Association football, or soccer, is also a very popular sport. Antigua has a national football team which entered World Cup qualification for the 1974 tournament and for 1986 and beyond. A professional team was formed in 2011, Antigua Barracuda FC, which played in the USL Pro, a lower professional league in the USA. The nation's team had a major achievement in 2012, getting out of its preliminary group for the 2014 World Cup, notably due to a victory over powerful Haiti. In its first game in the next CONCACAF group play on 8 June 2012 in Tampa, FL, Antigua and Barbuda, comprising 17 Barracuda players and 7 from the lower English professional leagues, scored a goal against the United States. However, the team lost 3:1 to the US.Daniel Bailey had become the first Antiguan to reach a world indoor final, where he won a bronze medal at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships. He was also the first Antiguan to make a 100m final at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, and the first Antiguan to run under 10 seconds over 100m.Brendan Christian won a gold medal in the 200m and bronze medal in the 100m at the 2007 Pan American Games. James Grayman won a bronze medal at the same games in the men's High Jump.Miguel Francis is the first Antiguan to run sub 20 seconds in the 200mHeather Samuel won a bronze medal at the 1995 Pan American Games over 100m.400m Hurdles Olympian Gold Medalist Rai Benjamin previously represented Antigua and Barbuda before representing the United States. His Silver medal run at the 2020 Olympic Games made him the second-fastest person in history over 400m Hurdles with a time of 46.17.Notable peopleSymbols The national bird is the frigate bird, and the national tree is the Bucida buceras (Whitewood tree).Clare Waight Keller included agave karatto to represent Antigua and Barbuda in Meghan Markle's wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country.Despite being an introduced species, the European fallow deer (Dama dama) is the national animal.In 1992, the government ran a national competition to design a new national dress for the country; this was won by artist Heather Doram.See also Geology of Antigua and Barbuda Outline of Antigua and Barbuda Index of Antigua and Barbuda–related articles Transport in Antigua and BarbudaReferencesWorks citedFurther reading Nicholson, Desmond V., Antigua, Barbuda, and Redonda: A Historical Sketch, St. Johns, Antigua: Antigua and Barbuda Museum, 1991. Dyde, Brian, A History of Antigua: The Unsuspected Isle, London: Macmillan Caribbean, 2000. Gaspar, David Barry – Bondmen & Rebels: A Study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua, with Implications for Colonial America. Harris, David R. – Plants, Animals, and Man in the Outer Leeward Islands, West Indies. An Ecological Study of Antigua, Barbuda, and Anguilla. Henry, Paget – Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua. Lazarus-Black, Mindie – Legitimate Acts and Illegal Encounters: Law and Society in Antigua and Barbuda. Riley, J. H. – Catalogue of a Collection of Birds from Barbuda and Antigua, British West Indies. Rouse, Irving and Birgit Faber Morse – Excavations at the Indian Creek Site, Antigua, West Indies. Thomas Hearne. Southampton.External links   Antigua and Barbuda, United States Library of Congress Antigua and Barbuda. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Antigua and Barbuda from UCB Libraries GovPubs  Antigua and Barbuda from the BBC News World Bank's country data profile for Antigua and Barbuda ArchaeologyAntigua.org – 2010March13 source of archaeological information for Antigua and Barbuda Countries in the CaribbeanIsland countriesCommonwealth realmsCountries in North AmericaEnglish-speaking countries and territoriesMember states of the Caribbean CommunityMember states of the Commonwealth of NationsMember states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean StatesCurrent member states of the United NationsSmall Island Developing StatesBritish Leeward IslandsFormer British colonies and protectorates in the AmericasFormer colonies in North America1630s establishments in the Caribbean1632 establishments in the British Empire1981 disestablishments in the United KingdomStates and territories established in 1981
Azincourt (), historically known in English as Agincourt ( ), is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. It is situated  north-west of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise on the D71 road between Hesdin and FrugesThe Late Medieval Battle of Agincourt between the English and the French took place in the commune in 1415.ToponymThe name is attested as Aisincurt in 1175, derived from a Germanic masculine name Aizo, Aizino and the early Northern French word curt (which meant a farm with a courtyard; derived from the Late Latin cortem). The name has no etymological link with Agincourt, Meurthe-et-Moselle (attested as Egincourt 875), which is derived separately from another Germanic male name *Ingin-.HistoryAzincourt is famous as being near the site of the battle fought on 25 October 1415 in which the army led by King Henry V of England defeated the forces led by Charles d'Albret on behalf of Charles VI of France, which has gone down in history as the Battle of Agincourt. According to M. Forrest, the French knights were so encumbered by their armour that they were exhausted even before the start of the battle.Later on, when he became king in 1509, Henry VIII is supposed to have commissioned an English translation of a Life of Henry V so that he could emulate him, on the grounds that he thought that launching a campaign against France would help him to impose himself on the European stage. In 1513, Henry VIII crossed the English Channel, stopping by at Azincourt.The battle, as was the tradition, was named after a nearby castle called Azincourt.  The castle has since disappeared and the settlement now known as Azincourt adopted the name in the seventeenth century.John Cassell wrote in 1857 that "the village of Azincourt itself is now a group of dirty farmhouses and wretched cottages, but where the hottest of the battle raged, between that village and the commune of Tramecourt, there still remains a wood precisely corresponding with the one in which Henry placed his ambush; and there are yet existing the foundations of the castle of Azincourt, from which the king named the field."PopulationSightsThe original battlefield museum in the village featured model knights made out of Action Man figures. This has now been replaced by the Centre historique médiéval d'Azincourt (CHM)a more professional museum, conference centre and exhibition space incorporating laser, video, slide shows, audio commentaries, and some interactive elements. The museum building is shaped like a longbow similar to those used at the battle by archers under King Henry.Since 2004 a large medieval festival organised by the local community, the CHM, The Azincourt Alliance, and various other UK societies commemorating the battle, local history and medieval life, arts and crafts has been held in the village. Prior to this date the festival was held in October, but due to the inclement weather and local heavy clay soil (like the battle) making the festival difficult, it was moved to the last Sunday in July.International relationsAzincourt is twinned with Middleham, United Kingdom.See also Communes of the Pas-de-Calais department The neighbourhood of Agincourt, Toronto, Canada, named for Azincourt, not Agincourt, Meurthe-et-MoselleReferences INSEE commune fileCommunes of Pas-de-Calais
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to 20 years in prison.An architect by training, Speer joined the Nazi Party in 1931. His architectural skills made him increasingly prominent within the Party, and he became a member of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler commissioned him to design and construct structures including the Reich Chancellery and the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. In 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for Berlin. In this capacity he was responsible for the Central Department for Resettlement that evicted Jewish tenants from their homes in Berlin. In February 1942, Speer was appointed as Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production. Using misleading statistics, he promoted himself as having performed an "armaments miracle" that was widely credited with keeping Germany in the war. In 1944, Speer established a task force to increase production of fighter aircraft. It became instrumental in the exploitation of slave labor for the benefit of the German war effort.After the war, Speer was among the 24 "major war criminals" arrested and charged with the crimes of the Nazi regime at the Nuremberg trials. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor, narrowly avoiding a death sentence. Having served his full term, Speer was released in 1966. He used his writings from the time of imprisonment as the basis for two autobiographical books, Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Speer's books were a success; the public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich. Speer died of a stroke in 1981. Little remains of his personal architectural work.Through his autobiographies and interviews, Speer carefully constructed an image of himself as a man who deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. He continued to deny explicit knowledge of, and responsibility for the Holocaust. This image dominated his historiography in the decades following the war, giving rise to the "Speer Myth": the perception of him as an apolitical technocrat responsible for revolutionizing the German war machine. The myth began to fall apart in the 1980s, when the armaments miracle was attributed to Nazi propaganda. Adam Tooze wrote in The Wages of Destruction that the idea that Speer was an apolitical technocrat was "absurd". Martin Kitchen, writing in Speer: Hitler's Architect, stated that much of the increase in Germany's arms production was actually due to systems instituted by Speer's predecessor (Fritz Todt) and furthermore that Speer was intimately involved in the "Final Solution".Early years and personal lifeSpeer was born in Mannheim, into an upper-middle-class family. He was the second of three sons of Luise Máthilde Wilhelmine (Hommel) and Albert Friedrich Speer. In 1918, the family leased their Mannheim residence and moved to a home they had in Heidelberg. Henry T. King, deputy prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials who later wrote a book about Speer said, "Love and warmth were lacking in the household of Speer's youth." His brothers, Ernst and Hermann, bullied him throughout his childhood. Speer was active in sports, taking up skiing and mountaineering. He followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and studied architecture.Speer began his architectural studies at the University of Karlsruhe instead of a more highly acclaimed institution because the hyperinflation crisis of 1923 limited his parents' income. In 1924, when the crisis had abated, he transferred to the "much more reputable" Technical University of Munich. In 1925, he transferred again, this time to the Technical University of Berlin where he studied under Heinrich Tessenow, whom Speer greatly admired. After passing his exams in 1927, Speer became Tessenow's assistant, a high honor for a man of 22. As such, Speer taught some of his classes while continuing his own postgraduate studies. In Munich Speer began a close friendship, ultimately spanning over 50 years, with Rudolf Wolters, who also studied under Tessenow.In mid-1922, Speer began courting Margarete (Margret) Weber (1905–1987), the daughter of a successful craftsman who employed 50 workers. The relationship was frowned upon by Speer's class-conscious mother, who felt the Webers were socially inferior. Despite this opposition, the two married in Berlin on 28 August 1928; seven years elapsed before Margarete was invited to stay at her in-laws' home. The couple would have six children together, but Albert Speer grew increasingly distant from his family after 1933. He remained so even after his release from imprisonment in 1966, despite their efforts to forge closer bonds.Party architect and government functionaryJoining the Nazis (1931–1934)In January 1931, Speer applied for Nazi Party membership, and on 1 March 1931, he became member number 474,481. The same year, with stipends shrinking amid the Depression, Speer surrendered his position as Tessenow's assistant and moved to Mannheim, hoping to make a living as an architect. After he failed to do so, his father gave him a part-time job as manager of his properties. In July 1932, the Speers visited Berlin to help out the Party before the Reichstag elections. While they were there his friend, Nazi Party official Karl Hanke recommended the young architect to Joseph Goebbels to help renovate the Party's Berlin headquarters. When the commission was completed, Speer returned to Mannheim and remained there as Hitler took office in January 1933.The organizers of the 1933 Nuremberg Rally asked Speer to submit designs for the rally, bringing him into contact with Hitler for the first time. Neither the organizers nor Rudolf Hess were willing to decide whether to approve the plans, and Hess sent Speer to Hitler's Munich apartment to seek his approval. This work won Speer his first national post, as Nazi Party "Commissioner for the Artistic and Technical Presentation of Party Rallies and Demonstrations".Shortly after Hitler came into power, he began to make plans to rebuild the chancellery. At the end of 1933, he contracted Paul Troost to renovate the entire building. Hitler appointed Speer, whose work for Goebbels had impressed him, to manage the building site for Troost. As Chancellor, Hitler had a residence in the building and came by every day to be briefed by Speer and the building supervisor on the progress of the renovations. After one of these briefings, Hitler invited Speer to lunch, to the architect's great excitement. Speer quickly became part of Hitler's inner circle; he was expected to call on him in the morning for a walk or chat, to provide consultation on architectural matters, and to discuss Hitler's ideas. Most days he was invited to dinner.In the English version of his memoirs, Speer says that his political commitment merely consisted of paying his "monthly dues". He assumed his German readers would not be so gullible and told them the Nazi Party offered a "new mission". He was more forthright in an interview with William Hamsher in which he said he joined the party in order to save "Germany from Communism". After the war, he claimed to have had little interest in politics at all and had joined almost by chance. Like many of those in power in the Third Reich, he was not an ideologue, "nor was he anything more than an instinctive anti-Semite." The historian Magnus Brechtken, discussing Speer, said he did not give anti-Jewish public speeches and that his anti-Semitism can best be understood through his actions—which were anti-Semitic. Brechtken added that, throughout Speer's life, his central motives were to gain power, rule, and acquire wealth.Nazi architect (1934–1937)When Troost died on 21 January 1934, Speer effectively replaced him as the Party's chief architect. Hitler appointed Speer as head of the Chief Office for Construction, which placed him nominally on Hess's staff.One of Speer's first commissions after Troost's death was the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg. It was used for Nazi propaganda rallies and can be seen in Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The building was able to hold 340,000 people. Speer insisted that as many events as possible be held at night, both to give greater prominence to his lighting effects and to hide the overweight Nazis. Nuremberg was the site of many official Nazi buildings. Many more buildings were planned. If built, the German Stadium would have accommodated 400,000 spectators. Speer modified Werner March's design for the Olympic Stadium being built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. He added a stone exterior that pleased Hitler. Speer designed the German Pavilion for the 1937 international exposition in Paris.Berlin's General Building Inspector (1937–1942)On 30 January 1937, Hitler appointed Speer as General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital. This carried with it the rank of State Secretary in the Reich government and gave him extraordinary powers over the Berlin city government. He was to report directly to Hitler, and was independent of both the mayor and the Gauleiter of Berlin. Hitler ordered Speer to develop plans to rebuild Berlin. These centered on a three-mile-long grand boulevard running from north to south, which Speer called the Prachtstrasse, or Street of Magnificence; he also referred to it as the "North–South Axis". At the northern end of the boulevard, Speer planned to build the Volkshalle, a huge domed assembly hall over  high, with floor space for 180,000 people. At the southern end of the avenue, a great triumphal arch, almost  high and able to fit the Arc de Triomphe inside its opening, was planned. The existing Berlin railroad termini were to be dismantled, and two large new stations built. Speer hired Wolters as part of his design team, with special responsibility for the Prachtstrasse. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the postponement, and later the abandonment, of these plans.Plans to build a new Reich chancellery had been underway since 1934. Land had been purchased by the end of 1934 and starting in March 1936 the first buildings were demolished to create space at Voßstraße. Speer was involved virtually from the beginning. In the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives, he had been commissioned to renovate the Borsig Palace on the corner of Voßstraße and Wilhelmstraße as headquarters of the Sturmabteilung (SA). He completed the preliminary work for the new chancellery by May 1936. In June 1936 he charged a personal honorarium of 30,000 Reichsmark and estimated the chancellery would be completed within three to four years. Detailed plans were completed in July 1937 and the first shell of the new chancellery was complete on 1 January 1938. On 27 January 1938, Speer received plenipotentiary powers from Hitler to finish the new chancellery by 1 January 1939. For propaganda Hitler claimed during the topping-out ceremony on 2 August 1938, that he had ordered Speer to complete the new chancellery that year. Shortages of labor meant the construction workers had to work in ten-to-twelve-hour shifts. The Schutzstaffel (SS) built two concentration camps in 1938 and used the inmates to quarry stone for its construction. A brick factory was built near the Oranienburg concentration camp at Speer's behest; when someone commented on the poor conditions there, Speer stated, "The Yids got used to making bricks while in Egyptian captivity". The chancellery was completed in early January 1939. The building itself was hailed by Hitler as the "crowning glory of the greater German political empire".During the Chancellery project, the pogrom of Kristallnacht took place. Speer made no mention of it in the first draft of Inside the Third Reich. It was only on the urgent advice of his publisher that he added a mention of seeing the ruins of the Central Synagogue in Berlin from his car. Kristallnacht accelerated Speer's ongoing efforts to dispossess Berlin's Jews from their homes. From 1939 on, Speer's Department used the Nuremberg Laws to evict Jewish tenants of non-Jewish landlords in Berlin, to make way for non-Jewish tenants displaced by redevelopment or bombing. Eventually, 75,000 Jews were displaced by these measures. Speer denied he knew they were being put on Holocaust trains and claimed that those displaced were, "Completely free and their families were still in their apartments". He also said: " ... en route to my ministry on the city highway, I could see ... crowds of people on the platform of nearby Nikolassee Railroad Station. I knew that these must be Berlin Jews who were being evacuated. I am sure that an oppressive feeling struck me as I drove past. I presumably had a sense of somber events." Matthias Schmidt said Speer had personally inspected concentration camps and described his comments as an "outright farce". Martin Kitchen described Speer's often repeated line that he knew nothing of the "dreadful things" as hollow—because not only was he fully aware of the fate of the Jews he was actively participating in their persecution.As Germany started World War II in Europe, Speer instituted quick-reaction squads to construct roads or clear away debris; before long, these units would be used to clear bomb sites. Speer used forced Jewish labor on these projects, in addition to regular German workers. Construction stopped on the Berlin and Nüremberg plans at the outbreak of war. Though stockpiling of materials and other work continued, this slowed to a halt as more resources were needed for the armament industry. Speer's offices undertook building work for each branch of the military, and for the SS, using slave labor. Speer's building work made him among the wealthiest of the Nazi elite.Minister of ArmamentsAppointment and increasing powerIn 1941, Speer was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 2 (Berlin-West). On 8 February 1942, Reich Minister of Armaments and Munitions Fritz Todt died in a plane crash shortly after taking off from Hitler's eastern headquarters at Rastenburg. Speer arrived there the previous evening and accepted Todt's offer to fly with him to Berlin. Speer cancelled some hours before take-off because the previous night he had been up late in a meeting with Hitler. Hitler appointed Speer in Todt's place. Martin Kitchen, a British historian, says that the choice was not surprising. Speer was loyal to Hitler, and his experience building prisoner of war camps and other structures for the military qualified him for the job. Speer succeeded Todt not only as Reich Minister but in all his other powerful positions, including Inspector General of German Roadways, Inspector General for Water and Energy and Head of the Nazi Party's Office of Technology. At the same time, Hitler also appointed Speer as head of the Organisation Todt, a massive, government-controlled construction company. Characteristically Hitler did not give Speer any clear remit; he was left to fight his contemporaries in the regime for power and control. As an example, he wanted to be given power over all armaments issues under Hermann Göring's Four Year Plan. Göring was reluctant to grant this. However Speer secured Hitler's support, and on 1 March 1942, Göring signed a decree naming Speer "General Plenipotentiary for Armament Tasks" in the Four Year Plan. Speer proved to be ambitious, unrelenting and ruthless. Speer set out to gain control not just of armaments production in the army, but in the whole armed forces. It did not immediately dawn on his political rivals that his calls for rationalization and reorganization were hiding his desire to sideline them and take control. By April 1942, Speer had persuaded Göring to create a three-member Central Planning Board within the Four Year Plan, which he used to obtain supreme authority over procurement and allocation of raw materials and scheduling of production in order to consolidate German war production in a single agency.Speer was fêted at the time, and in the post-war era, for performing an "armaments miracle" in which German war production dramatically increased. This "miracle" was brought to a halt in the summer of 1943 by, among other factors, the first sustained Allied bombing. Other factors probably contributed to the increase more than Speer himself. Germany's armaments production had already begun to result in increases under his predecessor, Todt. Naval armaments were not under Speer's supervision until October 1943, nor the Luftwaffe's armaments until June of the following year. Yet each showed comparable increases in production despite not being under Speer's control. Another factor that produced the boom in ammunition was the policy of allocating more coal to the steel industry. Production of every type of weapon peaked in June and July 1944, but there was now a severe shortage of fuel. After August 1944, oil from the Romanian fields was no longer available. Oil production became so low that any possibility of offensive action became impossible and weaponry lay idle.As Minister of Armaments, Speer was responsible for supplying weapons to the army. With Hitler's full agreement, he decided to prioritize tank production, and he was given unrivaled power to ensure success. Hitler was closely involved with the design of the tanks, but kept changing his mind about the specifications. This delayed the program, and Speer was unable to remedy the situation. In consequence, despite tank production having the highest priority, relatively little of the armaments budget was spent on it. This led to a significant German Army failure at the Battle of Prokhorovka, a major turning point on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Red Army.As head of Organisation Todt, Speer was directly involved in the construction and alteration of concentration camps. He agreed to expand Auschwitz and some other camps, allocating 13.7 million Reichsmarks for the work to be carried out. This allowed an extra 300 huts to be built at Auschwitz, increasing the total human capacity to 132,000. Included in the building works was material to build gas chambers, crematoria and morgues. The SS called this "Professor Speer's Special Programme".Speer realized that with six million workers drafted into the armed forces, there was a labor shortage in the war economy, and not enough workers for his factories. In response, Hitler appointed Fritz Sauckel as a "manpower dictator" to obtain new workers. Speer and Sauckel cooperated closely to meet Speer's labor demands. Hitler gave Sauckel a free hand to obtain labor, something that delighted Speer, who had requested 1,000,000 "voluntary" laborers to meet the need for armament workers. Sauckel had whole villages in France, Holland and Belgium forcibly rounded up and shipped to Speer's factories. Sauckel obtained new workers often using the most brutal methods. In occupied areas of the Soviet Union, that had been subject to partisan action, civilian men and women were rounded up en masse and sent to work forcibly in Germany. By April 1943, Sauckel had supplied 1,568,801 "voluntary" laborers, forced laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners to Speer for use in his armaments factories. It was for the maltreatment of these people, that Speer was principally convicted at the Nuremberg Trials.Consolidation of arms productionFollowing his appointment as Minister of Armaments, Speer was in control of armaments production solely for the Army. He coveted control of the production of armaments for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine as well. He set about extending his power and influence with unexpected ambition. His close relationship with Hitler provided him with political protection, and he was able to outwit and outmaneuver his rivals in the regime. Hitler's cabinet was dismayed at his tactics, but, regardless, he was able to accumulate new responsibilities and more power. By July 1943, he had gained control of armaments production for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. In August 1943, he took control of most of the Ministry of Economics, to become, in Admiral Dönitz's words, "Europe's economic dictator". His formal title was changed on 2 September 1943, to "Reich Minister for Armaments and War Production". He had become one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany.Speer and his hand-picked director of submarine construction Otto Merker believed that the shipbuilding industry was being held back by outdated methods, and revolutionary new approaches imposed by outsiders would dramatically improve output. This belief proved incorrect, and Speer and Merker's attempt to build the Kriegsmarines new generation of submarines, the Type XXI and Type XXIII, as prefabricated sections at different facilities rather than at single dockyards contributed to the failure of this strategically important program. The designs were rushed into production, and the completed submarines were crippled by flaws which resulted from the way they had been constructed. While dozens of submarines were built, few ever entered service.In December 1943, Speer visited Organisation Todt workers in Lapland, while there he seriously damaged his knee and was incapacitated for several months. He was under the dubious care of Professor Karl Gebhardt at a medical clinic called Hohenlychen where patients "mysteriously failed to survive". In mid-January 1944, Speer had a lung embolism and fell seriously ill. Concerned about retaining power, he did not appoint a deputy and continued to direct work of the Armaments Ministry from his bedside. Speer's illness coincided with the Allied "Big Week", a series of bombing raids on the German aircraft factories that were a devastating blow to aircraft production. His political rivals used the opportunity to undermine his authority and damage his reputation with Hitler. He lost Hitler's unconditional support and began to lose power.In response to the Allied Big Week, Adolf Hitler authorized the creation of a Fighter Staff committee. Its aim was to ensure the preservation and growth of fighter aircraft production. The task force was established by 1 March 1944, orders of Speer, with support from Erhard Milch of the Reich Aviation Ministry. Production of German fighter aircraft more than doubled between 1943 and 1944. The growth, however, consisted in large part of models that were becoming obsolescent and proved easy prey for Allied aircraft. On 1 August 1944, Speer merged the Fighter Staff into a newly formed Armament Staff committee.The Fighter Staff committee was instrumental in bringing about the increased exploitation of slave labor in the war economy. The SS provided 64,000 prisoners for 20 separate projects from various concentration camps including Mittelbau-Dora. Prisoners worked for Junkers, Messerschmitt, Henschel and BMW, among others. To increase production, Speer introduced a system of punishments for his workforce. Those who feigned illness, slacked off, sabotaged production or tried to escape were denied food or sent to concentration camps. In 1944, this became endemic; over half a million workers were arrested. By this time, 140,000 people were working in Speer's underground factories. These factories were death-traps; discipline was brutal, with regular executions. There were so many corpses at the Dora underground factory, for example, that the crematorium was overwhelmed. Speer's own staff described the conditions there as "hell".The largest technological advance under Speer's command came through the rocket program. It began in 1932 but had not supplied any weaponry. Speer enthusiastically supported the program and in March 1942 made an order for A4 rockets, the predecessor of the world's first ballistic missile, the V-2 rocket. The rockets were researched at a facility in Peenemünde along with the V-1 flying bomb. The V-2's first target was Paris on 8 September 1944. The program while advanced proved to be an impediment to the war economy. The large capital investment was not repaid in military effectiveness. The rockets were built at an underground factory at Mittelwerk. Labor to build the A4 rockets came from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Of the 60,000 people who ended up at the camp 20,000 died, due to the appalling conditions.On 14 April 1944, Speer lost control of Organisation Todt to his Deputy, Franz Xaver Dorsch. He opposed the assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944. He was not involved in the plot, and played a minor role in the regime's efforts to regain control over Berlin after Hitler survived. After the plot Speer's rivals attacked some of his closest allies and his management system fell out of favor with radicals in the party. He lost yet more authority.Defeat of Nazi GermanyLosses of territory and a dramatic expansion of the Allied strategic bombing campaign caused the collapse of the German economy from late 1944. Air attacks on the transport network were particularly effective, as they cut the main centres of production off from essential coal supplies. In January 1945, Speer told Goebbels that armaments production could be sustained for at least a year. However, he concluded that the war was lost after Soviet forces captured the important Silesian industrial region later that month. Nevertheless, Speer believed that Germany should continue the war for as long as possible with the goal of winning better conditions from the Allies than the unconditional surrender they insisted upon. During January and February, Speer claimed that his ministry would deliver "decisive weapons" and a large increase in armaments production which would "bring about a dramatic change on the battlefield". Speer gained control over the railways in February, and asked Heinrich Himmler to supply concentration camp prisoners to work on their repair.By mid-March, Speer had accepted that Germany's economy would collapse within the next eight weeks. While he sought to frustrate directives to destroy industrial facilities in areas at risk of capture, so that they could be used after the war, he still supported the war's continuation. Speer provided Hitler with a memorandum on 15 March, which detailed Germany's dire economic situation and sought approval to cease demolitions of infrastructure. Three days later, he also proposed to Hitler that Germany's remaining military resources be concentrated along the Rhine and Vistula rivers in an attempt to prolong the fighting. This ignored military realities, as the German armed forces were unable to match the Allies' firepower and were facing total defeat. Hitler rejected Speer's proposal to cease demolitions. Instead, he issued the "Nero Decree" on 19 March, which called for the destruction of all infrastructure as the army retreated. Speer was appalled by this order, and persuaded several key military and political leaders to ignore it. During a meeting with Speer on 28/29 March, Hitler rescinded the decree and gave him authority over demolitions. Speer ended them, though the army continued to blow up bridges.By April, little was left of the armaments industry, and Speer had few official duties. Speer visited the Führerbunker on 22 April for the last time. He met Hitler and toured the damaged Chancellery before leaving Berlin to return to Hamburg. On 29 April, the day before committing suicide, Hitler dictated a final political testament which dropped Speer from the successor government. Speer was to be replaced by his subordinate, Karl-Otto Saur. Speer was disappointed that Hitler had not selected him as his successor. After Hitler's death, Speer offered his services to the so-called Flensburg Government, headed by Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz. He took a role in that short-lived regime as Minister of Industry and Production. Speer provided information to the Allies, regarding the effects of the air war, and on a broad range of subjects, beginning on 10 May. On 23 May, two weeks after the surrender of German forces, British troops arrested the members of the Flensburg Government and brought Nazi Germany to a formal end.Post-warNuremberg trialSpeer was taken to several internment centres for Nazi officials and interrogated. In September 1945, he was told that he would be tried for war crimes, and several days later, he was moved to Nuremberg and incarcerated there. Speer was indicted on four counts: participating in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace; war crimes; and crimes against humanity.The chief United States prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, of the U.S. Supreme Court said, "Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation." Speer's attorney, Hans Flächsner, presented Speer as an artist thrust into political life who had always remained a non-ideologue.Speer was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, principally for the use of slave labor and forced labor. He was acquitted on the other two counts. He had claimed that he was unaware of Nazi extermination plans, and the Allies had no proof that he was aware. His claim was revealed to be false in a private correspondence written in 1971 and publicly disclosed in 2007. On 1 October 1946, he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. While three of the eight judges (two Soviet and American Francis Biddle) advocated the death penalty for Speer, the other judges did not, and a compromise sentence was reached after two days of discussions.ImprisonmentOn 18 July 1947, Speer was transferred to Spandau Prison in Berlin to serve his prison term. There he was known as Prisoner Number Five. Speer's parents died while he was incarcerated. His father, who died in 1947, despised the Nazis and was silent upon meeting Hitler. His mother died in 1952. As a Nazi Party member, she had greatly enjoyed dining with Hitler. Wolters and longtime Speer secretary Annemarie Kempf, while not permitted direct communication with Speer in Spandau, did what they could to help his family and carry out the requests Speer put in letters to his wife—the only written communication he was officially allowed. Beginning in 1948, Speer had the services of Toni Proost, a sympathetic Dutch orderly to smuggle mail and his writings.In 1949, Wolters opened a bank account for Speer and began fundraising among those architects and industrialists who had benefited from Speer's activities during the war. Initially, the funds were used only to support Speer's family, but increasingly the money was used for other purposes. They paid for Toni Proost to go on holiday, and for bribes to those who might be able to secure Speer's release. Once Speer became aware of the existence of the fund, he sent detailed instructions about what to do with the money. Wolters raised a total of DM158,000 for Speer over the final seventeen years of his sentence.The prisoners were forbidden to write memoirs. Speer was able to have his writings sent to Wolters, however, and they eventually amounted to 20,000 pages. He had completed his memoirs by November 1953, which became the basis of Inside the Third Reich. In Spandau Diaries, Speer aimed to present himself as a tragic hero who had made a Faustian bargain for which he endured a harsh prison sentence.Much of Speer's energy was dedicated to keeping fit, both physically and mentally, during his long confinement. Spandau had a large enclosed yard where inmates were allocated plots of land for gardening. Speer created an elaborate garden complete with lawns, flower beds, shrubbery, and fruit trees. To make his daily walks around the garden more engaging Speer embarked on an imaginary trip around the globe. Carefully measuring distance travelled each day, he mapped distances to the real-world geography. He had walked more than , ending his sentence near Guadalajara, Mexico. Speer also read, studied architectural journals, and brushed up on English and French. In his writings, Speer claimed to have finished five thousand books while in prison, a gross exaggeration. His sentence amounted to 7,300 days, which only allotted one and a half days per book.Speer's supporters maintained calls for his release. Among those who pledged support for his sentence to be commuted were Charles de Gaulle and US diplomat George Wildman Ball. Willy Brandt was an advocate of his release, putting an end to the de-Nazification proceedings against him, which could have caused his property to be confiscated. Speer's efforts for an early release came to naught. The Soviet Union, having demanded a death sentence at trial, was unwilling to entertain a reduced sentence. Speer served a full term and was released at midnight on 1 October 1966.Release and later lifeSpeer's release from prison was a worldwide media event. Reporters and photographers crowded both the street outside Spandau and the lobby of the Hotel Berlin where Speer spent the night. He said little, reserving most comments for a major interview published in Der Spiegel in November 1966. Although he stated he hoped to resume an architectural career, his sole project, a collaboration for a brewery, was unsuccessful. Instead, he revised his Spandau writings into two autobiographical books, and later published a work about Himmler and the SS. His books included Inside the Third Reich (in German, Erinnerungen, or Reminiscences) and Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Speer was aided in shaping the works by Joachim Fest and Wolf Jobst Siedler from the publishing house Ullstein. He found himself unable to re-establish a relationship with his children, even with his son Albert who had also become an architect. According to Speer's daughter Hilde Schramm, "One by one my sister and brothers gave up. There was no communication." He supported Hermann, his brother, financially after the war. However, his other brother Ernst had died in the Battle of Stalingrad, despite repeated requests from his parents for Speer to repatriate him.Following his release from Spandau, Speer donated the Chronicle, his personal diary, to the German Federal Archives. It had been edited by Wolters and made no mention of the Jews. David Irving discovered discrepancies between the deceptively edited Chronicle and independent documents. Speer asked Wolters to destroy the material he had omitted from his donation but Wolters refused and retained an original copy. Wolters' friendship with Speer deteriorated and one year before Speer's death Wolters gave Matthias Schmidt access to the unedited Chronicle. Schmidt authored the first book that was highly critical of Speer.Speer's memoirs were a phenomenal success. The public was fascinated by an inside view of the Third Reich and a major war criminal became a popular figure almost overnight. Importantly, he provided an alibi to older Germans who had been Nazis. If Speer, who had been so close to Hitler, had not known the full extent of the crimes of the Nazi regime and had just been "following orders", then they could tell themselves and others they too had done the same. So great was the need to believe this "Speer Myth" that Fest and Siedler were able to strengthen it—even in the face of mounting historical evidence to the contrary.DeathSpeer made himself widely available to historians and other enquirers. In October 1973, he made his first trip to Britain, flying to London to be interviewed on the BBC Midweek programme. In the same year, he appeared on the television programme The World at War. Speer returned to London in 1981 to participate in the BBC Newsnight programme. He suffered a stroke and died in London on 1 September.He had remained married to his wife, but he had formed a relationship with a German woman living in London and was with her at the time of his death. His daughter, Margret Nissen, wrote in her 2005 memoirs that after his release from Spandau he spent all of his time constructing the "Speer Myth".The Speer mythThe Good NaziAfter his release from Spandau, Speer portrayed himself as the "good Nazi". He was well-educated, middle class, and bourgeois, and could contrast himself with those who, in the popular mind, typified "bad Nazis". In his memoirs and interviews, he had distorted the truth and made so many major omissions that his lies became known as "myths". Speer took his myth-making to a mass media level and his "cunning apologies" were reproduced countless times in post-war Germany. Isabell Trommer writes in her biography of Speer that Fest and Siedler were co-authors of Speer's memoirs and co-creators of his myths. In return they were paid handsomely in royalties and other financial inducements. Speer, Siedler and Fest had constructed a masterpiece; the image of the "good Nazi" remained in place for decades, despite historical evidence indicating that it was false.Speer had carefully constructed an image of himself as an apolitical technocrat who deeply regretted having failed to discover the monstrous crimes of the Third Reich. This construction was accepted almost at face value by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper when investigating the death of Adolf Hitler for British Intelligence and in writing The Last Days of Hitler.  Trevor-Roper frequently refers to Speer as "a technocrat [who] nourished a technocrat's philosophy", one who cared only for his building projects or his ministerial duties, and who thought that politics was irrelevant, at least until Hitler's Nero Decree which Speer, according to his own telling, worked assiduously to counter.  Trevor-Roper – who calls Speer an administrative genius whose basic instincts were peaceful and constructive – does take Speer to task, however, for his failure to recognize the immorality of Hitler and Nazism, calling him "the real criminal of Nazi Germany":For ten years he sat at the very centre of political power; his keen intelligence diagnosed the nature and observed the mutations of Nazi government and policy; he saw and despised the personalities around him; he heard their outrageous orders and understood their fantastic ambitions; but he did nothing.  Supposing politics to be irrelevant, he turned aside and built roads and bridges and factories, while the logical consequences of government by madmen emerged. Ultimately, when their emergence involved the ruin of all his work, Speer accepted the consequences and acted.  Then it was too late; Germany had been destroyed.After Speer's death, Matthias Schmidt published a book that demonstrated that Speer had ordered the eviction of Jews from their Berlin homes. By 1999, historians had amply demonstrated that he had lied extensively. Even so, public perceptions of Speer did not change substantially until Heinrich Breloer aired a biographical film on TV in 2004. The film began a process of demystification and critical reappraisal. Adam Tooze in his book The Wages of Destruction said Speer had manoeuvred himself through the ranks of the regime skillfully and ruthlessly and that the idea he was a technocrat blindly carrying out orders was "absurd". Trommer said he was not an apolitical technocrat; instead, he was one of the most powerful and unscrupulous leaders in the Nazi regime. Kitchen said he had deceived the Nuremberg Tribunal and post-war Germany. Brechtken said that if his extensive involvement in the Holocaust had been known at the time of his trial he would have been sentenced to death.The image of the good Nazi was supported by numerous Speer myths. In addition to the myth that he was an apolitical technocrat, he claimed he did not have full knowledge of the Holocaust or the persecution of the Jews. Another myth posits that Speer revolutionized the German war machine after his appointment as Minister of Armaments. He was credited with a dramatic increase in the shipment of arms that was widely reported as keeping Germany in the war. Another myth centered around a faked plan to assassinate Hitler with poisonous gas. The idea for this myth came to him after he recalled the panic when car fumes came through an air ventilation system. He fabricated the additional details. Brechtken wrote that his most brazen lie was fabricated during an interview with a French journalist in 1952. The journalist described an invented scenario in which Speer had refused Hitler's orders and Hitler had left with tears in his eyes. Speer liked the scenario so much that he wrote it into his memoirs. The journalist had unwittingly collaborated in one of his myths.Speer also sought to portray himself as an opponent of Hitler's leadership. Despite his opposition to the 20 July plot, he falsely claimed in his memoirs to have been sympathetic to the plotters. He maintained Hitler was cool towards him for the remainder of his life after learning they had included him on a list of potential ministers. This formed a key element of the myths Speer encouraged. Speer also falsely claimed that he had realised the war was lost at an early stage, and thereafter worked to preserve the resources needed for the civilian population's survival. In reality, he had sought to prolong the war until further resistance was impossible, thus contributing to the large number of deaths and the extensive destruction Germany suffered in the conflict's final months.Denial of responsibilitySpeer maintained at the Nuremberg trials and in his memoirs that he had no direct knowledge of the Holocaust. He admitted only to being uncomfortable around Jews in the published version of the Spandau Diaries. More broadly, Speer accepted responsibility for the Nazi regime's actions. Historian Martin Kitchen states that Speer was actually "fully aware of what had happened to the Jews" and was "intimately involved in the 'Final Solution'". Brechtken said Speer only admitted to a generalized responsibility for the Holocaust to hide his direct and actual responsibility. Speer was photographed with slave laborers at Mauthausen concentration camp during a visit on 31 March 1943; he also visited Gusen concentration camp. Although survivor Francisco Boix testified at the Nuremberg trials about Speer's visit, Taylor writes that, had the photo been available, he would have been hanged. In 2005, The Daily Telegraph reported that documents had surfaced indicating that Speer had approved the allocation of materials for the expansion of Auschwitz concentration camp after two of his assistants inspected the facility on a day when almost a thousand Jews were massacred. Heinrich Breloer, discussing the construction of Auschwitz, said Speer was not just a cog in the work—he was the "terror itself".Speer did not deny being present at the Posen speeches to Nazi leaders at a conference in Posen (Poznań) on 6 October 1943, but claimed to have left the auditorium before Himmler said during his speech: "The grave decision had to be taken to cause this people to vanish from the earth", and later, "The Jews must be exterminated". Speer is mentioned several times in the speech, and Himmler addresses him directly. In 2007, The Guardian reported that a letter from Speer dated 23 December 1971, had been found in a collection of his correspondence with Hélène Jeanty, the widow of a Belgian resistance fighter. In the letter, Speer says, "There is no doubt—I was present as Himmler announced on October 6, 1943, that all Jews would be killed."Armaments "miracle"Speer was credited with an "armaments miracle". During the winter of 1941–42, in the light of Germany's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Moscow, the German leadership including Friedrich Fromm, Georg Thomas and Fritz Todt had come to the conclusion that the war could not be won. The rational position to adopt was to seek a political solution that would end the war without defeat. Speer in response used his propaganda expertise to display a new dynamism of the war economy. He produced spectacular statistics, claiming a sixfold increase in munitions production, a fourfold increase in artillery production, and he sent further propaganda to the newsreels of the country. He was able to curtail the discussion that the war should be ended.The armaments "miracle" was a myth; Speer had used statistical manipulation to support his claims. The production of armaments did go up; however, this was due to the normal causes of reorganization before Speer came to office, the relentless mobilization of slave labor and a deliberate reduction in the quality of output to favor quantity. By July 1943 Speer's armaments propaganda became irrelevant because a catalogue of dramatic defeats on the battlefield meant the prospect of losing the war could no longer be hidden from the German public. Brechtken writes that Speer knew Germany was going to lose the war and deliberately extended its length, thus causing the deaths of millions of people in the death camps and on the battlefield who would have otherwise lived. Kitchen said, "There can be no doubt that Speer did indeed help to prolong the war longer than many thought possible, as a result of which millions were killed and Germany reduced to a pile of rubble".Architectural legacyLittle remains of Speer's personal architectural works, other than the plans and photographs. No buildings designed by Speer during the Nazi era are extant in Berlin, other than the 4 entrance pavilions and underpasses leading to the Victory Column or Siegessäule, and the Schwerbelastungskörper, a heavy load-bearing body built around 1941. The concrete cylinder,  high, was used to measure ground subsidence as part of feasibility studies for a massive triumphal arch and other large structures proposed as part of Welthauptstadt Germania, Hitler's planned post-war renewal project for the city. The cylinder is now a protected landmark and is open to the public. The tribune of the Zeppelinfeld stadium in Nuremberg, though partly demolished, can also be seen.During the war, the Speer-designed Reich Chancellery was largely destroyed by air raids and in the Battle of Berlin. The exterior walls survived, but they were eventually dismantled by the Soviets. Unsubstantiated rumors have claimed that the remains were used for other building projects such as the Humboldt University, Mohrenstraße metro station and Soviet war memorials in Berlin.See alsoSpeer Goes to HollywoodDownfall, 2004 German film where he was portrayed by actor Heino Ferch Legion Speer Transportflotte Speer Transportkorps Speer Hermann GieslerReferencesInformational notesCitationsBibliographyPrinted sources                        Online sources       Further reading Causey, Charles M. (2016). The Lion and the Lamb: The True Holocaust Story of a Powerful Nazi Leader and a Dutch Resistance Worker,External links   Francisco Boix identifies Speer at Nuremberg 1905 births1981 deaths20th-century German architectsArticles containing video clipsDeaths from cerebrovascular disease20th-century German male writersGerman people convicted of crimes against humanityHolocaust perpetratorsKarlsruhe Institute of Technology alumniMembers of the Reichstag of Nazi GermanyArchitects in the Nazi PartyNazi Germany ministersNazi Party officialsNeoclassical architectsOfficials of Nazi GermanyPeople convicted by the International Military Tribunal in NurembergPoliticians from MannheimPeople from the Grand Duchy of BadenRecipients of the Knights Cross of the War Merit CrossTechnical University of Berlin alumniTechnical University of Munich alumniArchitects from MannheimNeurological disease deaths in England
The family Asteraceae (), alternatively Compositae (), consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae were first described in the year 1740. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger family is unclear as the quantity of extant species in each family is unknown. Most species of Asteraceae are annual, biennial, or perennial herbaceous plants, but there are also shrubs, vines, and trees. The family has a widespread distribution, from subpolar to tropical regions in a wide variety of habitats. Most occur in hot desert and cold or hot semi-desert climates, and they are found on every continent but Antarctica. The primary common characteristic is the existence of sometimes hundreds of tiny individual florets which are held together by protective involucres in flower heads, or more technically, capitula.The oldest known fossils are pollen grains from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian to Maastrichtian) of Antarctica, dated to c. 76–66 million years (myr). It is estimated that the crown group of Asteraceae evolved at least 85.9 myr (Late Cretaceous, Santonian) with a stem node age of 88–89 myr (Late Cretaceous, Coniacian).Asteraceae is an economically important family, providing food staples, garden plants, and herbal medicines. Species outside of their native ranges can be considered weedy or invasive.DescriptionMembers of the Asteraceae are mostly herbaceous plants, but some shrubs, vines, and trees (such as Lachanodes arborea) do exist. Asteraceae species are generally easy to distinguish from other plants because of their unique inflorescence and other shared characteristics, such as the joined anthers of the stamens. However, determining genera and species of some groups such as Hieracium is notoriously difficult (see "damned yellow composite" for example).RootsMembers of the family Asteraceae generally produce taproots, but sometimes they possess fibrous root systems. Some species have underground stems in the form of caudices or rhizomes. These can be fleshy or woody depending on the species.StemsStems are herbaceous, aerial, branched, and cylindrical with glandular hairs, generally erect, but can be prostrate to ascending. The stems can contain secretory canals with resin, or latex which is particularly common among the Cichorioideae.LeavesLeaves can be alternate, opposite, or whorled. They may be simple, but are often deeply lobed or otherwise incised, often conduplicate or revolute. The margins also can be entire or toothed. Resin or latex also can be present in the leaves.InflorescencesNearly all Asteraceae bear their flowers in dense flower heads called capitula. They are surrounded by involucral bracts, and when viewed from a distance, each capitulum may appear to be a single flower. Enlarged outer (peripheral) flowers in the capitulum may resemble petals, and the involucral bracts may look like a calyx.Floral heads In plants of the family Asteraceae, what appears to be a single flower is actually a cluster of much smaller flowers. The overall appearance of the cluster, as a single flower, functions in attracting pollinators in the same way as the structure of an individual flower in some other plant families. The older family name, Compositae, comes from the fact that what appears to be a single flower is actually a composite of smaller flowers.The "petals" or "sunrays" in a sunflower head are actually individual strap-shaped flowers called ray flowers, and the "sun disk" is made of smaller circular shaped individual flowers called disc flowers. The word "aster" means "star" in Greek, referring to the appearance of some family members, as a "star" surrounded by "rays". The cluster of flowers that may appear to be a single flower, is called a head. The entire head may move tracking the sun, like a "smart" solar panel, which maximizes reflectivity of the whole unit and can thereby attract more pollinators.On the outside the flower heads are small bracts that look like scales. These are called phyllaries, and together they form the involucre that protects the individual flowers in the head before they open. The individual heads have the smaller individual flowers arranged on a round or dome-like structure called the receptacle. The flowers mature first at the outside, moving toward the center, with the youngest in the middle.The individual flowers in a head have 5 fused petals (rarely 4), but instead of sepals, have threadlike, hairy, or bristly structures singularly called a pappus, plural pappi, which surround the fruit and can stick to animal fur or be lifted by wind, aiding in seed dispersal. The whitish fluffy head of a dandelion, commonly blown on by children, is made of pappi with tiny seeds attached at the ends. The pappi provide a parachute like structure to help the seed be carried away in the wind.A ray flower is a 3-tipped (3-lobed), strap-shaped, individual flower in the head of some members of the family Asteraceae. Sometimes a ray flower is 2-tipped (2-lobed). The corolla of the ray flower may have 2 tiny teeth opposite the 3-lobed strap, or tongue, indicating evolution by fusion from an originally 5-part corolla. Sometimes, the 3:2 arrangement is reversed, with 2 tips on the tongue, and 0 or 3 tiny teeth opposite the tongue. A ligulate flower is a 5-tipped, strap-shaped, individual flower in the heads of other members. A ligule is the strap-shaped tongue of the corolla of either a ray flower or of a ligulate flower. A disk flower (or disc flower) is a radially symmetric (i.e., with identical shaped petals arranged in circle around the center) individual flower in the head, which is ringed by ray flowers when both are present. Sometimes ray flowers may be slightly off from radial symmetry, or weakly bilaterally symmetric, as in the case of desert pincushions Chaenactis fremontii.A radiate head has disc flowers surrounded by ray flowers. A ligulate head has all ligulate flowers. When a sunflower family flower head has only disc flowers that are sterile, male, or have both male and female parts, it is a discoid head. Disciform heads have only disc flowers, but may have two kinds (male flowers and female flowers) in one head, or may have different heads of two kinds (all male, or all female). Pistillate heads have all female flowers. Staminate heads have all male flowers. Sometimes, but rarely, the head contains only a single flower, or has a single flowered pistillate (female) head, and a multi-flowered male staminate (male) head.Floral structures The distinguishing characteristic of Asteraceae is their inflorescence, a type of specialised, composite flower head or pseudanthium, technically called a calathium or capitulum, that may look superficially like a single flower. The capitulum is a contracted raceme composed of numerous individual sessile flowers, called florets, all sharing the same receptacle.A set of bracts forms an involucre surrounding the base of the capitulum. These are called "phyllaries", or "involucral bracts". They may simulate the sepals of the pseudanthium. These are mostly herbaceous but can also be brightly coloured (e.g. Helichrysum) or have a scarious (dry and membranous) texture. The phyllaries can be free or fused, and arranged in one to many rows, overlapping like the tiles of a roof (imbricate) or not (this variation is important in identification of tribes and genera).Each floret may be subtended by a bract, called a "palea" or "receptacular bract". These bracts are often called "chaff". The presence or absence of these bracts, their distribution on the receptacle, and their size and shape are all important diagnostic characteristics for genera and tribes.The florets have five petals fused at the base to form a corolla tube and they may be either actinomorphic or zygomorphic. Disc florets are usually actinomorphic, with five petal lips on the rim of the corolla tube. The petal lips may be either very short, or long, in which case they form deeply lobed petals. The latter is the only kind of floret in the Carduoideae, while the first kind is more widespread. Ray florets are always highly zygomorphic and are characterised by the presence of a ligule, a strap-shaped structure on the edge of the corolla tube consisting of fused petals. In the Asteroideae and other minor subfamilies these are usually borne only on florets at the circumference of the capitulum and have a 3+2 scheme – above the fused corolla tube, three very long fused petals form the ligule, with the other two petals being inconspicuously small. The Cichorioideae has only ray florets, with a 5+0 scheme – all five petals form the ligule. A 4+1 scheme is found in the Barnadesioideae. The tip of the ligule is often divided into teeth, each one representing a petal. Some marginal florets may have no petals at all (filiform floret).The calyx of the florets may be absent, but when present is always modified into a pappus of two or more teeth, scales or bristles and this is often involved in the dispersion of the seeds. As with the bracts, the nature of the pappus is an important diagnostic feature.There are usually five stamens. The filaments are fused to the corolla, while the anthers are generally connate (syngenesious anthers), thus forming a sort of tube around the style (theca). They commonly have basal and/or apical appendages. Pollen is released inside the tube and is collected around the growing style, and then, as the style elongates, is pushed out of the tube (nüdelspritze).The pistil consists of two connate carpels. The style has two lobes. Stigmatic tissue may be located in the interior surface or form two lateral lines. The ovary is inferior and has only one ovule, with basal placentation.Fruits and seeds In members of the Asteraceae the fruit is achene-like, and is called a cypsela (plural cypselae). Although there are two fused carpels, there is only one locule, and only one seed per fruit is formed. It may sometimes be winged or spiny because the pappus, which is derived from calyx tissue often remains on the fruit (for example in dandelion). In some species, however, the pappus falls off (for example in Helianthus). Cypsela morphology is often used to help determine plant relationships at the genus and species level. The mature seeds usually have little endosperm or none.Pollen The pollen of composites is typically echinolophate, a morphological term meaning "with elaborate systems of ridges and spines dispersed around and between the apertures."Metabolites In Asteraceae, the energy store is generally in the form of inulin rather than starch. They produce iso/chlorogenic acid, sesquiterpene lactones, pentacyclic triterpene alcohols, various alkaloids, acetylenes (cyclic, aromatic, with vinyl end groups), tannins. They have terpenoid essential oils which never contain iridoids.Asteraceae produce secondary metabolites, such as flavonoids and terpenoids. Some of these molecules can inhibit protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium, Trypanosoma, Leishmania and parasitic intestinal worms, and thus have potential in medicine.TaxonomyHistoryCompositae, the original name for Asteraceae, were first described in 1740 by Dutch botanist Adriaan van Royen. Traditionally, two subfamilies were recognised: Asteroideae (or Tubuliflorae) and Cichorioideae (or Liguliflorae). The latter has been shown to be extensively paraphyletic, and has now been divided into 12 subfamilies, but the former still stands. The study of this family is known as synantherology.PhylogenyThe phylogenetic tree presented below is based on Panero & Funk (2002) updated in 2014, and now also includes the monotypic Famatinanthoideae.The diamond (♦) denotes a very poorly supported node (<50% bootstrap support), the dot (•) a poorly supported node (<80%).The family includes over 32,000 currently accepted species, in over 1,900 genera (list) in 13 subfamilies. The number of species in the family Asteraceae is rivaled only by Orchidaceae. Which is the larger family is unclear, because of the uncertainty about how many extant species each family includes. The four subfamilies Asteroideae, Cichorioideae, Carduoideae and Mutisioideae contain 99% of the species diversity of the whole family (approximately 70%, 14%, 11% and 3% respectively).Because of the morphological complexity exhibited by this family, agreeing on generic circumscriptions has often been difficult for taxonomists. As a result, several of these genera have required multiple revisions.Paleontology and evolutionary processes The oldest known fossils of members of Asteraceae are pollen grains from the Late Cretaceous of Antarctica, dated to ∼76–66 myr (Campanian to Maastrichtian) and assigned to the extant genus Dasyphyllum. Barreda, et al. (2015) estimated that the crown group of Asteraceae evolved at least 85.9 myr (Late Cretaceous, Santonian) with a stem node age of 88–89 myr (Late Cretaceous, Coniacian).It is not known whether the precise cause of their great success was the development of the highly specialised capitulum, their ability to store energy as fructans (mainly inulin), which is an advantage in relatively dry zones, or some combination of these and possibly other factors. Heterocarpy, or the ability to produce different fruit morphs, has evolved and is common in Asteraceae. It allows seeds to be dispersed over varying distances and each is adapted to different environments, increasing chances of survival.Etymology and pronunciation The name Asteraceae () comes to international scientific vocabulary from New Latin, from  Aster, the type genus, + -aceae, a standardized suffix for plant family names in modern taxonomy. The genus name comes from the Classical Latin word , "star", which came from Ancient Greek  (), "star". It refers to the star-like form of the inflorescence. The original name Compositae is still valid under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. It refers to the "composite" nature of the capitula, which consist of a few or many individual flowers.The vernacular name daisy, widely applied to members of this family, is derived from the Old English name of the daisy (Bellis perennis): , meaning "day's eye". This is because the petals open at dawn and close at dusk.Distribution and habitat Asteraceae species have a widespread distribution, from subpolar to tropical regions in a wide variety of habitats. Most occur in hot desert and cold or hot semi-desert climates, and they are found on every continent but Antarctica. They are especially numerous in tropical and subtropical regions (notably Central America, eastern Brazil, the Mediterranean, the Levant, southern Africa, central Asia, and southwestern China). The largest proportion of the species occur in the arid and semi-arid regions of subtropical and lower temperate latitudes. The Asteraceae family comprises 10% of all flowering plant species.Ecology Asteraceae are especially common in open and dry environments. Many members of Asteraceae are pollinated by insects, which explains their value in attracting beneficial insects, but anemophily is also present (e.g. Ambrosia, Artemisia). There are many apomictic species in the family.Seeds are ordinarily dispersed intact with the fruiting body, the cypsela. Anemochory (wind dispersal) is common, assisted by a hairy pappus. Epizoochory is another common method, in which the dispersal unit, a single cypsela (e.g. Bidens) or entire capitulum (e.g. Arctium) has hooks, spines or some structure to attach to the fur or plumage (or even clothes, as in the photo) of an animal just to fall off later far from its mother plant. Some members of Asteraceae are economically important as weeds. Notable in the United States are Senecio jacobaea (ragwort), Senecio vulgaris (groundsel), and Taraxacum (dandelion). Some are invasive species in particular regions, often having been introduced by human agency. Examples include various tumbleweeds, Bidens, ragweeds, thistles, and dandelion. Dandelion was introduced into North America by European settlers who used the young leaves as a salad green.Uses Asteraceae is an economically important family, providing products such as cooking oils, leaf vegetables like lettuce, sunflower seeds, artichokes, sweetening agents, coffee substitutes and herbal teas. Several genera are of horticultural importance, including pot marigold (Calendula officinalis), Echinacea (coneflowers), various daisies, fleabane, chrysanthemums, dahlias, zinnias, and heleniums. Asteraceae are important in herbal medicine, including Grindelia, yarrow, and many others.Commercially important plants in Asteraceae include the food crops Lactuca sativa (lettuce), Cichorium (chicory), Cynara scolymus (globe artichoke), Helianthus annuus (sunflower), Smallanthus sonchifolius (yacón), Carthamus tinctorius (safflower) and Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke).Plants are used as herbs and in herbal teas and other beverages. Chamomile, for example, comes from two different species: the annual Matricaria chamomilla (German chamomile) and the perennial Chamaemelum nobile (Roman chamomile). Calendula (known as pot marigold) is grown commercially for herbal teas and potpourri. Echinacea is used as a medicinal tea. The wormwood genus Artemisia includes absinthe (A. absinthium) and tarragon (A. dracunculus). Winter tarragon (Tagetes lucida), is commonly grown and used as a tarragon substitute in climates where tarragon will not survive.Many members of the family are grown as ornamental plants for their flowers, and some are important ornamental crops for the cut flower industry. Some examples are Chrysanthemum, Gerbera, Calendula, Dendranthema, Argyranthemum, Dahlia, Tagetes, Zinnia, and many others.Many species of this family possess medicinal properties and are used as traditional antiparasitic medicine.Members of the family are also commonly featured in medical and phytochemical journals because the sesquiterpene lactone compounds contained within them are an important cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Allergy to these compounds is the leading cause of allergic contact dermatitis in florists in the US. Pollen from ragweed Ambrosia is among the main causes of so-called hay fever in the United States.Asteraceae are also used for some industrial purposes. French Marigold (Tagetes patula) is common in commercial poultry feeds and its oil is extracted for uses in cola and the cigarette industry. The genera Chrysanthemum, Pulicaria, Tagetes, and Tanacetum contain species with useful insecticidal properties. Parthenium argentatum (guayule) is a source of hypoallergenic latex.Several members of the family are copious nectar producers and are useful for evaluating pollinator populations during their bloom. Centaurea (knapweed), Helianthus annuus (domestic sunflower), and some species of Solidago (goldenrod) are major "honey plants" for beekeepers. Solidago produces relatively high protein pollen, which helps honey bees over winter.ReferencesBibliographyExternal links  Asteraceae at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website Compositae.org – Compositae Working Group (CWG) and Global Compositae Database (GCD) Asterales familiesExtant Campanian first appearances
Apiaceae or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus Apium and commonly known as the celery, carrot or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering plants, with more than 3,700 species in 434 genera including such well-known and economically important plants such as ajwain, angelica, anise, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, cow parsley, parsley, parsnip and sea holly, as well as silphium, a plant whose identity is unclear and which may be extinct.The family Apiaceae includes a significant number of phototoxic species, such as giant hogweed, and a smaller number of highly poisonous species, such as poison hemlock, water hemlock, spotted cowbane, fool's parsley, and various species of water dropwort.Description Most Apiaceae are annual, biennial or perennial herbs (frequently with the leaves aggregated toward the base), though a minority are woody shrubs or small trees such as Bupleurum fruticosum. Their leaves are of variable size and alternately arranged, or with the upper leaves becoming nearly opposite. The leaves may be petiolate or sessile. There are no stipules but the petioles are frequently sheathing and the leaves may be perfoliate. The leaf blade is usually dissected, ternate, or pinnatifid, but simple and entire in some genera, e.g. Bupleurum. Commonly, their leaves emit a marked smell when crushed, aromatic to foetid, but absent in some species.The defining characteristic of this family is the inflorescence, the flowers nearly always aggregated in terminal umbels, that may be simple or more commonly compound, often umbelliform cymes. The flowers are usually perfect (hermaphroditic) and actinomorphic, but there may be zygomorphic flowers at the edge of the umbel, as in carrot (Daucus carota) and coriander, with petals of unequal size, the ones pointing outward from the umbel larger than the ones pointing inward. Some are andromonoecious, polygamomonoecious, or even dioecious (as in Acronema), with a distinct calyx and corolla, but the calyx is often highly reduced, to the point of being undetectable in many species, while the corolla can be white, yellow, pink or purple. The flowers are nearly perfectly pentamerous, with five petals and five stamens.There is often variation in the functionality of the stamens even within a single inflorescence. Some flowers are functionally staminate (where a pistil may be present but has no ovules capable of being fertilized) while others are functionally pistillate (where stamens are present but their anthers do not produce viable pollen). Pollination of one flower by the pollen of a different flower of the same plant (geitonogamy) is common. The gynoecium consists of two carpels fused into a single, bicarpellate pistil with an inferior ovary. Stylopodia support two styles and secrete nectar, attracting pollinators like flies, mosquitoes, gnats, beetles, moths, and bees. The fruit is a schizocarp consisting of two fused carpels that separate at maturity into two mericarps, each containing a single seed. The fruits of many species are dispersed by wind but others such as those of Daucus spp., are covered in bristles, which may be hooked in sanicle Sanicula europaea and thus catch in the fur of animals. The seeds have an oily endosperm and often contain essential oils, containing aromatic compounds that are responsible for the flavour of commercially important umbelliferous seed such as anise, cumin and coriander. The shape and details of the ornamentation of the ripe fruits are important for identification to species level.Taxonomy Apiaceae was first described by John Lindley in 1836. The name is derived from the type genus Apium, which was originally used by Pliny the Elder circa 50 AD for a celery-like plant. The alternative name for the family, Umbelliferae, derives from the inflorescence being generally in the form of a compound umbel. The family was one of the first to be recognized as a distinct group in Jacques Daleschamps' 1586 Historia generalis plantarum. With Robert Morison's 1672 Plantarum umbelliferarum distribution nova it became the first group of plants for which a systematic study was published.The family is solidly placed within the Apiales order in the APG III system. It is closely related to Araliaceae and the boundaries between these families remain unclear. Traditionally groups within the family have been delimited largely based on fruit morphology, and the results from this have not been congruent with the more recent molecular phylogenetic analyses. The subfamilial and tribal classification for the family is currently in a state of flux, with many of the groups being found to be grossly paraphyletic or polyphyletic.GeneralAccording to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website , 434 genera are in the family Apiaceae.Ecology The black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes, uses the family Apiaceae for food and host plants for oviposition. The 22-spot ladybird is also commonly found eating mildew on these shrubs.Uses Many members of this family are cultivated for various purposes. Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa), carrot (Daucus carota) and Hamburg parsley (Petroselinum crispum) produce tap roots that are large enough to be useful as food. Many species produce essential oils in their leaves or fruits and as a result are flavourful aromatic herbs. Examples are parsley (Petroselinum crispum), coriander (Coriandrum sativum), culantro, and dill (Anethum graveolens). The seeds may be used in cuisine, as with coriander (Coriandrum sativum), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), cumin (Cuminum cyminum), and caraway (Carum carvi).Other notable cultivated Apiaceae include chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium), angelica (Angelica spp.), celery (Apium graveolens), arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza), sea holly (Eryngium spp.), asafoetida (Ferula asafoetida), galbanum (Ferula gummosa), cicely (Myrrhis odorata), anise (Pimpinella anisum), lovage (Levisticum officinale), and hacquetia (Hacquetia epipactis).Cultivation Generally, all members of this family are best cultivated in the cool-season garden; indeed, they may not grow at all if the soils are too warm.  Almost every widely cultivated plant of this group is a considered useful as a companion plant. One reason is because the tiny flowers clustered into umbels, are well suited for ladybugs, parasitic wasps, and predatory flies, which actually drink nectar when not reproducing. They then prey upon insect pests on nearby plants.  Some of the members of this family considered "herbs" produce scents that are believed to ...mask the odours of nearby plants, thus making them harder for insect pests to find.Other uses The poisonous members of the Apiaceae have been used for a variety of purposes globally. The poisonous Oenanthe crocata has been used to stupefy fish, Cicuta douglasii has been used as an aid in suicides, and arrow poisons have been made from various other family species.Daucus carota has been used as coloring for butter.Dorema ammoniacum, Ferula galbaniflua, and Ferula moschata (sumbul) are sources of incense.The woody Azorella compacta Phil. has been used in South America for fuel.Toxicity Many species in the family Apiaceae produce phototoxic substances (called furanocoumarins) that sensitize human skin to sunlight. Contact with plant parts that contain furanocoumarins, followed by exposure to sunlight, may cause phytophotodermatitis, a serious skin inflammation. Phototoxic species include Ammi majus, Notobubon galbanum, the parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) and numerous species of the genus Heracleum, especially the giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum). Of all the plant species that have been reported to induce phytophotodermatitis, approximately half belong to the family Apiaceae.The family Apiaceae also includes a smaller number of poisonous species, including poison hemlock, water hemlock, spotted cowbane, fool's parsley, and various species of water dropwort.Some members of the family Apiaceae, including carrot, celery, fennel, parsley and parsnip, contain polyynes, an unusual class of organic compounds that exhibit cytotoxic effects.ReferencesFurther reading  Constance, L. (1971). "History of the classification of Umbelliferae (Apiaceae)." in Heywood, V. H. [ed.], The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 1–11. Academic Press, London. Cronquist, A. (1968). The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.  French, D. H. (1971). "Ethnobotany of the Umbelliferae." in Heywood, V. H. [ed.], The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 385–412. Academic Press, London. Hegnauer, R. (1971) "Chemical Patterns and Relationships of Umbelliferae." in Heywood, V. H. [ed.], The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 267–277. Academic Press, London. Heywood, V. H. (1971). "Systematic survey of Old World Umbelliferae." in Heywood, V. H. [ed.], The biology and chemistry of the Umbelliferae, 31–41. Academic Press, London. Judd, W. S. et al. (1999). Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.    Nieto Feliner, Gonzalo; Jury, Stephen Leonard & Herrero Nieto, Alberto (eds.) Flora iberica. Plantas vasculares de la Península Ibérica e Islas Baleares. Vol. X. "Araliaceae-Umbelliferae" (2003) Madrid: Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC (in Spanish).External links  Umbelliferae at The Families of Flowering Plants (DELTA) Apiaceae at Discover Life Umbellifer Resource Centre at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Umbellifer Information Server at Moscow State University Asterid families
An axon (from Greek ἄξων áxōn, axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, that typically conducts electrical impulses known as action potentials away from the nerve cell body. The function of the axon is to transmit information to different neurons, muscles, and glands. In certain sensory neurons (pseudounipolar neurons), such as those for touch and warmth, the axons are called afferent nerve fibers and the electrical impulse travels along these from the periphery to the cell body and from the cell body to the spinal cord along another branch of the same axon. Axon dysfunction has caused many inherited and acquired neurological disorders which can affect both the peripheral and central neurons. Nerve fibers are classed into three types – group A nerve fibers, group B nerve fibers, and group C nerve fibers. Groups A and B are myelinated, and group C are unmyelinated. These groups include both sensory fibers and motor fibers. Another classification groups only the sensory fibers as Type I, Type II, Type III, and Type IV.An axon is one of two types of cytoplasmic protrusions from the cell body of a neuron; the other type is a dendrite. Axons are distinguished from dendrites by several features, including shape (dendrites often taper while axons usually maintain a constant radius), length (dendrites are restricted to a small region around the cell body while axons can be much longer), and function (dendrites receive signals whereas axons transmit them). Some types of neurons have no axon and transmit signals from their dendrites. In some species, axons can emanate from dendrites known as axon-carrying dendrites. No neuron ever has more than one axon; however in invertebrates such as insects or leeches the axon sometimes consists of several regions that function more or less independently of each other.Axons are covered by a membrane known as an axolemma; the cytoplasm of an axon is called axoplasm. Most axons branch, in some cases very profusely. The end branches of an axon are called telodendria. The swollen end of a telodendron is known as the axon terminal which joins the dendron or cell body of another neuron forming a synaptic connection. Axons make contact with other cells—usually other neurons but sometimes muscle or gland cells—at junctions called synapses. In some circumstances, the axon of one neuron may form a synapse with the dendrites of the same neuron, resulting in an autapse. At a synapse, the membrane of the axon closely adjoins the membrane of the target cell, and special molecular structures serve to transmit electrical or electrochemical signals across the gap. Some synaptic junctions appear along the length of an axon as it extends—these are called en passant ("in passing") synapses and can be in the hundreds or even the thousands along one axon. Other synapses appear as terminals at the ends of axonal branches.A single axon, with all its branches taken together, can innervate multiple parts of the brain and generate thousands of synaptic terminals. A bundle of axons make a nerve tract in the central nervous system, and a fascicle in the peripheral nervous system. In placental mammals the largest white matter tract in the brain is the corpus callosum, formed of some 200 million axons in the human brain.AnatomyAxons are the primary transmission lines of the nervous system, and as bundles they form nerves. Some axons can extend up to one meter or more while others extend as little as one millimeter. The longest axons in the human body are those of the sciatic nerve, which run from the base of the spinal cord to the big toe of each foot. The diameter of axons is also variable. Most individual axons are microscopic in diameter (typically about one micrometer (µm) across). The largest mammalian axons can reach a diameter of up to 20 µm. The squid giant axon, which is specialized to conduct signals very rapidly, is close to 1 millimetre in diameter, the size of a small pencil lead. The numbers of axonal telodendria (the branching structures at the end of the axon) can also differ from one nerve fiber to the next. Axons in the central nervous system (CNS) typically show multiple telodendria, with many synaptic end points. In comparison, the cerebellar granule cell axon is characterized by a single T-shaped branch node from which two parallel fibers extend. Elaborate branching allows for the simultaneous transmission of messages to a large number of target neurons within a single region of the brain.There are two types of axons in the nervous system: myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Myelin is a layer of a fatty insulating substance, which is formed by two types of glial cells: Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes. In the peripheral nervous system Schwann cells form the myelin sheath of a myelinated axon. In the central nervous system oligodendrocytes form the insulating myelin. Along myelinated nerve fibers, gaps in the myelin sheath known as nodes of Ranvier occur at evenly spaced intervals. The myelination enables an especially rapid mode of electrical impulse propagation called saltatory conduction.The myelinated axons from the cortical neurons form the bulk of the neural tissue called white matter in the brain. The myelin gives the white appearance to the tissue in contrast to the grey matter of the cerebral cortex which contains the neuronal cell bodies. A similar arrangement is seen in the cerebellum. Bundles of myelinated axons make up the nerve tracts in the CNS. Where these tracts cross the midline of the brain to connect opposite regions they are called commissures. The largest of these is the corpus callosum that connects the two cerebral hemispheres, and this has around 20 million axons.The structure of a neuron is seen to consist of two separate functional regions, or compartments – the cell body together with the dendrites as one region, and the axonal region as the other.Axonal regionThe axonal region or compartment, includes the axon hillock, the initial segment, the rest of the axon, and the axon telodendria, and axon terminals. It also includes the myelin sheath. The Nissl bodies that produce the neuronal proteins are absent in the axonal region. Proteins needed for the growth of the axon, and the removal of waste materials, need a framework for transport. This axonal transport is provided for in the axoplasm by arrangements of microtubules and intermediate filaments known as neurofilaments.Axon hillockThe axon hillock is the area formed from the cell body of the neuron as it extends to become the axon. It precedes the initial segment. The received action potentials that are summed in the neuron are transmitted to the axon hillock for the generation of an action potential from the initial segment.Axonal initial segmentThe axonal initial segment (AIS) is a structurally and functionally separate microdomain of the axon. One function of the initial segment is to separate the main part of an axon from the rest of the neuron; another function is to help initiate action potentials. Both of these functions support neuron cell polarity, in which dendrites (and, in some cases the soma) of a neuron receive input signals at the basal region, and at the apical region the neuron's axon provides output signals.The axon initial segment is unmyelinated and contains a specialized complex of proteins. It is between approximately 20 and 60 µm in length and functions as the site of action potential initiation. Both the position on the axon and the length of the AIS can change showing a degree of plasticity that can fine-tune the neuronal output. A longer AIS is associated with a greater excitability. Plasticity is also seen in the ability of the AIS to change its distribution and to maintain the activity of neural circuitry at a constant level.The AIS is highly specialized for the fast conduction of nerve impulses. This is achieved by a high concentration of voltage-gated sodium channels in the initial segment where the action potential is initiated. The ion channels are accompanied by a high number of cell adhesion molecules and scaffolding proteins that anchor them to the cytoskeleton. Interactions with ankyrin G are important as it is the major organizer in the AIS.Axonal transportThe axoplasm is the equivalent of cytoplasm in the cell. Microtubules form in the axoplasm at the axon hillock. They are arranged along the length of the axon, in overlapping sections, and all point in the same direction – towards the axon terminals. This is noted by the positive endings of the microtubules. This overlapping arrangement provides the routes for the transport of different materials from the cell body. Studies on the axoplasm has shown the movement of numerous vesicles of all sizes to be seen along cytoskeletal filaments – the microtubules, and neurofilaments, in both directions between the axon and its terminals and the cell body.Outgoing anterograde transport from the cell body along the axon, carries mitochondria and membrane proteins needed for growth to the axon terminal. Ingoing retrograde transport carries cell waste materials from the axon terminal to the cell body. Outgoing and ingoing tracks use different sets of motor proteins. Outgoing transport is provided by kinesin, and ingoing return traffic is provided by dynein. Dynein is minus-end directed. There are many forms of kinesin and dynein motor proteins, and each is thought to carry a different cargo. The studies on transport in the axon led to the naming of kinesin.Myelination In the nervous system, axons may be myelinated, or unmyelinated. This is the provision of an insulating layer, called a myelin sheath. The myelin membrane is unique in its relatively high lipid to protein ratio.In the peripheral nervous system axons are myelinated by glial cells known as Schwann cells. In the central nervous system the myelin sheath is provided by another type of glial cell, the oligodendrocyte. Schwann cells myelinate a single axon. An oligodendrocyte can myelinate up to 50 axons.The composition of myelin is different in the two types. In the CNS the major myelin protein is proteolipid protein, and in the PNS it is myelin basic protein.Nodes of RanvierNodes of Ranvier (also known as myelin sheath gaps) are short unmyelinated segments of a myelinated axon, which are found periodically interspersed between segments of the myelin sheath. Therefore, at the point of the node of Ranvier, the axon is reduced in diameter. These nodes are areas where action potentials can be generated. In saltatory conduction, electrical currents produced at each node of Ranvier are conducted with little attenuation to the next node in line, where they remain strong enough to generate another action potential. Thus in a myelinated axon, action potentials effectively "jump" from node to node, bypassing the myelinated stretches in between, resulting in a propagation speed much faster than even the fastest unmyelinated axon can sustain.Axon terminalsAn axon can divide into many branches called telodendria (Greek–end of tree). At the end of each telodendron is an axon terminal (also called a synaptic bouton, or terminal bouton). Axon terminals contain synaptic vesicles that store the neurotransmitter for release at the synapse. This makes multiple synaptic connections with other neurons possible. Sometimes the axon of a neuron may synapse onto dendrites of the same neuron, when it is known as an autapse.Action potentialsMost axons carry signals in the form of action potentials, which are discrete electrochemical impulses that travel rapidly along an axon, starting at the cell body and terminating at points where the axon makes synaptic contact with target cells. The defining characteristic of an action potential is that it is "all-or-nothing" — every action potential that an axon generates has essentially the same size and shape. This all-or-nothing characteristic allows action potentials to be transmitted from one end of a long axon to the other without any reduction in size. There are, however, some types of neurons with short axons that carry graded electrochemical signals, of variable amplitude.When an action potential reaches a presynaptic terminal, it activates the synaptic transmission process. The first step is rapid opening of calcium ion channels in the membrane of the axon, allowing calcium ions to flow inward across the membrane. The resulting increase in intracellular calcium concentration causes synaptic vesicles (tiny containers enclosed by a lipid membrane) filled with a neurotransmitter chemical to fuse with the axon's membrane and empty their contents into the extracellular space. The neurotransmitter is released from the presynaptic nerve through exocytosis. The neurotransmitter chemical then diffuses across to receptors located on the membrane of the target cell. The neurotransmitter binds to these receptors and activates them. Depending on the type of receptors that are activated, the effect on the target cell can be to excite the target cell, inhibit it, or alter its metabolism in some way. This entire sequence of events often takes place in less than a thousandth of a second. Afterward, inside the presynaptic terminal, a new set of vesicles is moved into position next to the membrane, ready to be released when the next action potential arrives. The action potential is the final electrical step in the integration of synaptic messages at the scale of the neuron.Extracellular recordings of action potential propagation in axons has been demonstrated in freely moving animals. While extracellular somatic action potentials have been used to study cellular activity in freely moving animals such as place cells, axonal activity in both white and gray matter can also be recorded. Extracellular recordings of axon action potential propagation is distinct from somatic action potentials in three ways: 1. The signal has a shorter peak-trough duration (~150μs) than of pyramidal cells (~500μs) or interneurons (~250μs). 2. The voltage change is triphasic. 3. Activity recorded on a tetrode is seen on only one of the four recording wires. In recordings from freely moving rats, axonal signals have been isolated in white matter tracts including the alveus and the corpus callosum as well hippocampal gray matter.In fact, the generation of action potentials in vivo is sequential in nature, and these sequential spikes constitute the digital codes in the neurons. Although previous studies indicate an axonal origin of a single spike evoked by short-term pulses, physiological signals in vivo trigger the initiation of sequential spikes at the cell bodies of the neurons.In addition to propagating action potentials to axonal terminals, the axon is able to amplify the action potentials, which makes sure a secure propagation of sequential action potentials toward the axonal terminal. In terms of molecular mechanisms, voltage-gated sodium channels in the axons possess lower threshold and shorter refractory period in response to short-term pulses.Development and growthDevelopmentThe development of the axon to its target, is one of the six major stages in the overall development of the nervous system. Studies done on cultured hippocampal neurons suggest that neurons initially produce multiple neurites that are equivalent, yet only one of these neurites is destined to become the axon. It is unclear whether axon specification precedes axon elongation or vice versa, although recent evidence points to the latter. If an axon that is not fully developed is cut, the polarity can change and other neurites can potentially become the axon. This alteration of polarity only occurs when the axon is cut at least 10 μm shorter than the other neurites. After the incision is made, the longest neurite will become the future axon and all the other neurites, including the original axon, will turn into dendrites. Imposing an external force on a neurite, causing it to elongate, will make it become an axon. Nonetheless, axonal development is achieved through a complex interplay between extracellular signaling, intracellular signaling and cytoskeletal dynamics.Extracellular signalingThe extracellular signals that propagate through the extracellular matrix surrounding neurons play a prominent role in axonal development. These signaling molecules include proteins, neurotrophic factors, and extracellular matrix and adhesion molecules. Netrin (also known as UNC-6) a secreted protein, functions in axon formation. When the UNC-5 netrin receptor is mutated, several neurites are irregularly projected out of neurons and finally a single axon is extended anteriorly. The neurotrophic factors – nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin-3 (NTF3) are also involved in axon development and bind to Trk receptors.The ganglioside-converting enzyme plasma membrane ganglioside sialidase (PMGS), which is involved in the activation of TrkA at the tip of neutrites, is required for the elongation of axons. PMGS asymmetrically distributes to the tip of the neurite that is destined to become the future axon.Intracellular signalingDuring axonal development, the activity of PI3K is increased at the tip of destined axon. Disrupting the activity of PI3K inhibits axonal development. Activation of PI3K results in the production of phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PtdIns) which can cause significant elongation of a neurite, converting it into an axon. As such, the overexpression of phosphatases that dephosphorylate PtdIns leads into the failure of polarization.Cytoskeletal dynamicsThe neurite with the lowest actin filament content will become the axon. PGMS concentration and f-actin content are inversely correlated; when PGMS becomes enriched at the tip of a neurite, its f-actin content is substantially decreased. In addition, exposure to actin-depolimerizing drugs and toxin B (which inactivates Rho-signaling) causes the formation of multiple axons. Consequently, the interruption of the actin network in a growth cone will promote its neurite to become the axon.GrowthGrowing axons move through their environment via the growth cone, which is at the tip of the axon. The growth cone has a broad sheet-like extension called a lamellipodium which contain protrusions called filopodia. The filopodia are the mechanism by which the entire process adheres to surfaces and explores the surrounding environment. Actin plays a major role in the mobility of this system.  Environments with high levels of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) create an ideal environment for axonal growth. This seems to provide a "sticky" surface for axons to grow along. Examples of CAM's specific to neural systems include N-CAM, TAG-1—an axonal glycoprotein——and MAG, all of which are part of the immunoglobulin superfamily. Another set of molecules called extracellular matrix-adhesion molecules also provide a sticky substrate for axons to grow along. Examples of these molecules include laminin, fibronectin, tenascin, and perlecan. Some of these are surface bound to cells and thus act as short range attractants or repellents. Others are difusible ligands and thus can have long range effects.Cells called guidepost cells assist in the guidance of neuronal axon growth. These cells that help axon guidance, are typically other neurons that are sometimes immature. When the axon has completed its growth at its connection to the target, the diameter of the axon can increase by up to five times, depending on the speed of conduction required.It has also been discovered through research that if the axons of a neuron were damaged, as long as the soma (the cell body of a neuron) is not damaged, the axons would regenerate and remake the synaptic connections with neurons with the help of guidepost cells. This is also referred to as neuroregeneration.Nogo-A is a type of neurite outgrowth inhibitory component that is present in the central nervous system myelin membranes (found in an axon). It has a crucial role in restricting axonal regeneration in adult mammalian central nervous system. In recent studies, if Nogo-A is blocked and neutralized, it is possible to induce long-distance axonal regeneration which leads to enhancement of functional recovery in rats and mouse spinal cord. This has yet to be done on humans. A recent study has also found that macrophages activated through a specific inflammatory pathway activated by the Dectin-1 receptor are capable of promoting axon recovery, also however causing neurotoxicity in the neuron.Length regulationAxons vary largely in length from a few micrometers up to meters in some animals. This emphasizes that there must be a cellular length regulation mechanism allowing the neurons both to sense the length of their axons and to control their growth accordingly. It was discovered that motor proteins play an important role in regulating the length of axons. Based on this observation, researchers developed an explicit model for axonal growth describing how motor proteins could affect the axon length on the molecular level. These studies suggest that motor proteins carry signaling molecules from the soma to the growth cone and vice versa whose concentration oscillates in time with a length-dependent frequency.ClassificationThe axons of neurons in the human peripheral nervous system can be classified based on their physical features and signal conduction properties. Axons were known to have different thicknesses (from 0.1 to 20 µm) and these differences were thought to relate to the speed at which an action potential could travel along the axon – its conductance velocity. Erlanger and Gasser proved this hypothesis, and identified several types of nerve fiber, establishing a relationship between the diameter of an axon and its nerve conduction velocity. They published their findings in 1941 giving the first classification of axons.Axons are classified in two systems. The first one introduced by Erlanger and Gasser, grouped the fibers into three main groups using the letters A, B, and C. These groups, group A, group B, and group C include both the sensory fibers (afferents) and the motor fibres (efferents). The first group A, was subdivided into alpha, beta, gamma, and delta fibers — Aα, Aβ, Aγ, and Aδ. The motor neurons of the different motor fibers, were the lower motor neurons – alpha motor neuron, beta motor neuron, and gamma motor neuron having the Aα, Aβ, and Aγ nerve fibers respectively.Later findings by other researchers identified two groups of Aa fibers that were sensory fibers. These were then introduced into a system that only included sensory fibers (though some of these were mixed nerves and were also motor fibers). This system refers to the sensory groups as Types and uses Roman numerals: Type Ia, Type Ib, Type II, Type III, and Type IV.Lower motor neurons have two kind of fibers:Different sensory receptors innervate different types of nerve fibers. Proprioceptors are innervated by type Ia, Ib and II sensory fibers, mechanoreceptors by type II and III sensory fibers and nociceptors and thermoreceptors by type III and IV sensory fibers.AutonomicThe autonomic nervous system has two kinds of peripheral fibers:Clinical significanceIn order of degree of severity, injury to a nerve can be described as neurapraxia, axonotmesis, or neurotmesis.Concussion is considered a mild form of diffuse axonal injury. Axonal injury can also cause central chromatolysis. The dysfunction of axons in the nervous system is one of the major causes of many inherited neurological disorders that affect both peripheral and central neurons.When an axon is crushed, an active process of axonal degeneration takes place at the part of the axon furthest from the cell body. This degeneration takes place quickly following the injury, with the part of the axon being sealed off at the membranes and broken down by macrophages. This is known as Wallerian degeneration. Dying back of an axon can also take place in many neurodegenerative diseases, particularly when axonal transport is impaired, this is known as Wallerian-like degeneration. Studies suggest that the degeneration happens asa result of the axonal protein NMNAT2, being prevented from reaching all of the axon. Demyelination of axons causes the multitude of neurological symptoms found in the disease multiple sclerosis.Dysmyelination is the abnormal formation of the myelin sheath. This is implicated in several leukodystrophies, and also in schizophrenia.A severe traumatic brain injury can result in widespread lesions to nerve tracts damaging the axons in a condition known as diffuse axonal injury. This can lead to a persistent vegetative state. It has been shown in studies on the rat that axonal damage from a single mild traumatic brain injury, can leave a susceptibility to further damage, after repeated mild traumatic brain injuries.A nerve guidance conduit is an artificial means of guiding axon growth to enable neuroregeneration, and is one of the many treatments used for different kinds of nerve injury.HistoryGerman anatomist Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters is generally credited with the discovery of the axon by distinguishing it from the dendrites. Swiss Rüdolf Albert von Kölliker and German Robert Remak were the first to identify and characterize the axon initial segment. Kölliker named the axon in 1896. Louis-Antoine Ranvier was the first to describe the gaps or nodes found on axons and for this contribution these axonal features are now commonly referred to as the nodes of Ranvier. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish anatomist, proposed that axons were the output components of neurons, describing their functionality. Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser earlier developed the classification system for peripheral nerve fibers, based on axonal conduction velocity, myelination, fiber size etc. Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley also employed the squid giant axon (1939) and by 1952 they had obtained a full quantitative description of the ionic basis of the action potential, leading to the formulation of the Hodgkin–Huxley model. Hodgkin and Huxley were awarded jointly the Nobel Prize for this work in 1963. The formulae detailing axonal conductance were extended to vertebrates in the Frankenhaeuser–Huxley equations. The understanding of the biochemical basis for action potential propagation has advanced further, and includes many details about individual ion channels.Other animalsThe axons in invertebrates have been extensively studied. The longfin inshore squid, often used as a model organism has the longest known axon. The giant squid has the largest axon known. Its size ranges from a half (typically) to one millimetre in diameter and is used in the control of its jet propulsion system. The fastest recorded conduction speed of 210 m/s, is found in the ensheathed axons of some pelagic Penaeid shrimps and the usual range is between 90 and 200 m/s (cf 100–120 m/s for the fastest myelinated vertebrate axon.)In other cases as seen in rat studies an axon originates from a dendrite; such axons are said to have "dendritic origin". Some axons with dendritic origin similarly have a "proximal" initial segment that starts directly at the axon origin, while others have a "distal" initial segment, discernibly separated from the axon origin. In many species some of the neurons have axons that emanate from the dendrite and not from the cell body, and these are known as axon-carrying dendrites. In many cases, an axon originates at an axon hillock on the soma; such axons are said to have "somatic origin". Some axons with somatic origin have a "proximal" initial segment adjacent the axon hillock, while others have a "distal" initial segment, separated from the soma by an extended axon hillock.See also ElectrophysiologyGanglionic eminenceGiant axonal neuropathy Neuronal tracingPioneer axonReferencesExternal links   — "Slide 3 Spinal cord"Neurohistology
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, itself a derivative of the Phoenician alphabet, for the writing of Hebrew. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels.The Aramaic alphabet is historically significant since virtually all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it as well as numerous non-Chinese writing systems of Central and East Asia. That is primarily from the widespread usage of the Aramaic language as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, and their successor, the Achaemenid Empire. Among the scripts in modern use, the Hebrew alphabet bears the closest relation to the Imperial Aramaic script of the 5th century BC, with an identical letter inventory and, for the most part, nearly identical letter shapes. The Aramaic alphabet was an ancestor to the Nabataean alphabet and the later Arabic alphabet.Writing systems (like the Aramaic one) that indicate consonants but do not indicate most vowels other than by means of matres lectionis or added diacritical signs, have been called abjads by Peter T. Daniels to distinguish them from alphabets, such as the Greek alphabet, which represent vowels more systematically. The term was coined to avoid the notion that a writing system that represents sounds must be either a syllabary or an alphabet, which would imply that a system like Aramaic must be either a syllabary (as argued by Ignace Gelb) or an incomplete or deficient alphabet (as most other writers have said). Rather, it is a different type.OriginsThe earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the alphabet developed into the form shown below. Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and then displacing Assyrian cuneiform, as the predominant writing system.Achaemenid Empire (The First Persian Empire) Around 500 BC, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Persians as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast Persian empire with its different peoples and languages. The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed as Official Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic or Achaemenid Aramaic, can be assumed to have greatly contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenid Persians in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did."Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect and was inevitably influenced by Old Persian. The Aramaic glyph forms of the period are often divided into two main styles, the "lapidary" form, usually inscribed on hard surfaces like stone monuments, and a cursive form whose lapidary form tended to be more conservative by remaining more visually similar to Phoenician and early Aramaic. Both were in use through the Achaemenid Persian period, but the cursive form steadily gained ground over the lapidary, which had largely disappeared by the 3rd century BC.For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC, Imperial Aramaic, or something near enough to it to be recognisable, would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages. The Aramaic script would survive as the essential characteristics of the Iranian Pahlavi writing system.30 Aramaic documents from Bactria have been recently discovered, an analysis of which was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana.The widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew. Formerly, Hebrew had been written using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.Aramaic-derived scriptsSince the evolution of the Aramaic alphabet out of the Phoenician one was a gradual process, the division of the world's alphabets into the ones derived from the Phoenician one directly and the ones derived from Phoenician via Aramaic is somewhat artificial. In general, the alphabets of the Mediterranean region (Anatolia, Greece, Italy) are classified as Phoenician-derived, adapted from around the 8th century BC, and those of the East (the Levant, Persia, Central Asia and India) are considered Aramaic-derived, adapted from around the 6th century BC from the Imperial Aramaic script of the Achaemenid Empire.After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, diversifying into a number of descendant cursives.The Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) alleges that not only the old Nabataean writing was influenced by the "Syrian script" (i.e. Aramaic), but also the old Chaldean script.A cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD, but it remained restricted to the status of a variant used alongside the noncursive. By contrast, the cursive developed out of the Nabataean alphabet in the same period soon became the standard for writing Arabic, evolving into the Arabic alphabet as it stood by the time of the early spread of Islam.The development of cursive versions of Aramaic also led to the creation of the Syriac, Palmyrene and Mandaic alphabets, which formed the basis of the historical scripts of Central Asia, such as the Sogdian and Mongolian alphabets.The Old Turkic script is generally considered to have its ultimate origins in Aramaic, in particular via the Pahlavi or Sogdian alphabets, as suggested by V. Thomsen, or possibly via Kharosthi (cf., Issyk inscription).Brahmi script was also possibly derived or inspired by Aramaic. Brahmic family of scripts includes Devanagari.Languages using the alphabetToday, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the modern-Hebrew alphabet (distinguished from the Old Hebrew script). In classical Jewish literature, the name given to the modern-Hebrew script was "Ashurit" (the ancient Assyrian script), a script now known widely as the Aramaic script. It is believed that during the period of Assyrian dominion that Aramaic script and language received official status. Syriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are today written in the Syriac alphabet, which script has superseded the more ancient Assyrian script and now bears its name. Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. The near-identical nature of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets caused Aramaic text to be typeset mostly in the standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature.MaaloulaIn Maaloula, one of few surviving communities in which a Western Aramaic dialect is still spoken, an Aramaic institute was established in 2007 by Damascus University that teaches courses to keep the language alive. The institute's activities were suspended in 2010 amidst fears that the square Aramaic alphabet used in the program too closely resembled the square script of the Hebrew alphabet and all the signs with the square Aramaic script were taken down. The program stated that they would instead use the more distinct Syriac alphabet, although use of the Aramaic alphabet has continued to some degree. Al Jazeera Arabic also broadcast a program about Western Neo-Aramaic and the villages in which it is spoken with the square script still in use.LettersMatres lectionisIn Aramaic writing, Waw and Yodh serve a double function. Originally, they represented only the consonants w and y, but they were later adopted to indicate the long vowels ū and ī respectively as well (often also ō and ē respectively). In the latter role, they are known as  or "mothers of reading".Ālap, likewise, has some of the characteristics of a  because in initial positions, it indicates a glottal stop (followed by a vowel), but otherwise, it often also stands for the long vowels ā or ē. Among Jews, the influence of Hebrew often led to the use of Hē instead, at the end of a word.The practice of using certain letters to hold vowel values spread to Aramaic-derived writing systems, such as in Arabic and Hebrew, which still follow the practice.UnicodeThe Imperial Aramaic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009, with the release of version 5.2.The Unicode block for Imperial Aramaic is U+10840–U+1085F:The Syriac Aramaic alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999, with the release of version 3.0.The Syriac Abbreviation (a type of overline) can be represented with a special control character called the Syriac Abbreviation Mark (U+070F). The Unicode block for Syriac Aramaic is U+0700–U+074F:See alsoSyriac alphabetReferencesSources Byrne, Ryan. "Middle Aramaic Scripts". Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier. (2006) Daniels, Peter T., et al. eds. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford. (1996) Coulmas, Florian. The Writing Systems of the World. Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford. (1989) Rudder, Joshua.  Learn to Write Aramaic: A Step-by-Step Approach to the Historical & Modern Scripts. n.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. 220 pp. . Includes a wide variety of Aramaic scripts. Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic on Coins, reading and transliterating Proto-Hebrew, online edition (Judaea Coin Archive).External links Comparison of Aramaic to related alphabets Omniglot entry 8th-century BC establishmentsObsolete writing systemsPersian scriptsRight-to-left writing systems
"American shot" or "cowboy shot" is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, plan américain, and refers to a medium-long ("knee") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera. The usual arrangement is for the actors to stand in an irregular line from one side of the screen to the other, with the actors at the end coming forward a little and standing more in profile than the others. The purpose of the composition is to allow complex dialogue scenes to be played out without changes in camera position. In some literature, this is simply referred to as a 3/4 shot.One of the other main reasons why French critics called it "American shot" was its frequent use in western genre. This was because a shot that started at knee level would reveal the weapon of a cowboy, usually holstered at his waist. It is actually the closest the camera can get to an actor while keeping both his face and his holstered gun in frame.The French critics thought it was characteristic of American films of the 1930s or 1940s; however, it was mostly characteristic of cheaper American movies, such as Charlie Chan mysteries where people collected in front of a fireplace or at the foot of the stairs in order to explain what happened a few minutes ago.Howard Hawks legitimized this style in his films, allowing characters to act, even when not talking, when most of the audience would not be paying attention. It became his trademark style.References Cinematography
Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), or acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis, is a rare autoimmune disease marked by a sudden, widespread attack of inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. As well as causing the brain and spinal cord to become inflamed, ADEM also attacks the nerves of the central nervous system and damages their myelin insulation, which, as a result, destroys the white matter. It is often triggered by a viral infection or (very rarely) vaccinations.ADEM's symptoms resemble the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), so the disease itself is sorted into the classification of the multiple sclerosis borderline diseases. However, ADEM has several features that distinguish it from MS. Unlike MS, ADEM occurs usually in children and is marked with rapid fever, although adolescents and adults can get the disease too. ADEM consists of a single flare-up whereas MS is marked with several flare-ups (or relapses), over a long period of time. Relapses following ADEM are reported in up to a quarter of patients, but the majority of these 'multiphasic' presentations following ADEM likely represent MS. ADEM is also distinguished by a loss of consciousness, coma and death, which is very rare in MS, except in severe cases.It affects about 8 per 1,000,000 people per year. Although it occurs in all ages, most reported cases are in children and adolescents, with the average age around 5 to 8 years old. The disease affects males and females almost equally. ADEM shows seasonal variation with higher incidence in winter and spring months which may coincide with higher viral infections during these months. The mortality rate may be as high as 5%; however, full recovery is seen in 50 to 75% of cases with increase in survival rates up to 70 to 90% with figures including minor residual disability as well. The average time to recover from ADEM flare-ups is one to six months.ADEM produces multiple inflammatory lesions in the brain and spinal cord, particularly in the white matter. Usually these are found in the subcortical and central white matter and cortical gray-white junction of both cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord, but periventricular white matter and gray matter of the cortex, thalami and basal ganglia may also be involved.When a person has more than one demyelinating episode of ADEM, the disease is then called recurrent disseminated encephalomyelitis or multiphasic disseminated encephalomyelitis (MDEM). Also, a fulminant course in adults has been described.Signs and symptomsADEM has an abrupt onset and a monophasic course. Symptoms usually begin 1–3 weeks after infection. Major symptoms include fever, headache, nausea and vomiting, confusion, vision impairment, drowsiness, seizures and coma. Although initially the symptoms are usually mild, they worsen rapidly over the course of hours to days, with the average time to maximum severity being about four and a half days. Additional symptoms include hemiparesis, paraparesis, and cranial nerve palsies.ADEM in COVID-19 Neurological symptoms were the main presentation of COVID-19, which did not correlate with the severity of respiratory symptoms. The high incidence of ADEM with hemorrhage is striking. Brain inflammation is likely caused by an immune response to the disease rather than neurotropism. CSF analysis was not indicative of an infectious process, neurological impairment was not present in the acute phase of the infection, and neuroimaging findings were not typical of classical toxic and metabolic disorders. The finding of bilateral periventricular relatively asymmetrical lesions allied with deep white matter involvement, that may also be present in cortical gray-white matter junction, thalami, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and brainstem suggests an acute demyelination process. Additionally, hemorrhagic white matter lesions, clusters of macrophages related to axonal injury and ADEM-like appearance were also found in subcortical white matter.CausesSince the discovery of the anti-MOG specificity against multiple sclerosis diagnosis it is considered that ADEM is one of the possible clinical causes of anti-MOG associated encephalomyelitisAbout how the anti-MOG antibodies appear in the patients serum there are several theories: A preceding antigenic challenge can be identified in approximately two-thirds of people. Some viral infections thought to induce ADEM include influenza virus, dengue, enterovirus, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella zoster, Epstein–Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, hepatitis A, coxsackievirus and COVID-19. Bacterial infections include Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Borrelia burgdorferi, Leptospira, and beta-hemolytic Streptococci. Exposure to vaccines: The only vaccine proven related to ADEM is the Semple form of the rabies vaccine, but hepatitis B, pertussis, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcus, varicella, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, and polio vaccines have all been implicated. The majority of the studies that correlate vaccination with ADEM onset use small samples or case studies. Large scale epidemiological studies (e.g., of MMR vaccine or smallpox vaccine) do not show increased risk of ADEM following vaccination. An upper bound for the risk of ADEM from measles vaccination, if it exists, can be estimated to be 10 per million, which is far lower than the risk of developing ADEM from an actual measles infection, which is about 1 per 1,000 cases. For a rubella infection, the risk is 1 per 5,000 cases. Some early vaccines, later shown to have been contaminated with host animal CNS tissue, had ADEM incident rates as high as 1 in 600. In rare cases, ADEM seems to follow from organ transplantation.DiagnosisADEM term has been inconsistently used at different times. Currently, the commonly accepted international standard for the clinical case definition is the one published by the International Pediatric MS Study Group, revision 2007.Given that the definition is clinical, it is currently unknown if all the cases with ADEM are positive for anti-MOG autoantibody, but in any case, it seems strongly related to ADEM diagnosis.Differential diagnosisMultiple sclerosisWhile ADEM and MS both involve autoimmune demyelination, they differ in many clinical, genetic, imaging, and histopathological aspects. Some authors consider MS and its borderline forms to constitute a spectrum, differing only in chronicity, severity, and clinical course, while others consider them discretely different diseases.Typically, ADEM appears in children following an antigenic challenge and remains monophasic. Nevertheless, ADEM does occur in adults, and can also be clinically multiphasic.Problems for differential diagnosis increase due to the lack of agreement for a definition of multiple sclerosis. If MS were defined just by the separation in time and space of the demyelinating lesions as McDonald did, it would not be enough to make a difference, as some cases of ADEM satisfy these conditions. Therefore, some authors propose to establish the separation line in the shape of the lesions around the veins, being therefore "perivenous vs. confluent demyelination".The pathology of ADEM is very similar to that of MS with some differences. The pathological hallmark of ADEM is perivenular inflammation with limited "sleeves of demyelination". Nevertheless, MS-like plaques (confluent demyelination) can appearPlaques in the white matter in MS are sharply delineated, while the glial scar in ADEM is smooth. Axons are better preserved in ADEM lesions. Inflammation in ADEM is widely disseminated and ill-defined, and finally, lesions are strictly perivenous, while in MS they are disposed around veins, but not so sharply.Nevertheless, the co-occurrence of perivenous and confluent demyelination in some individuals suggests pathogenic overlap between acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis and misclassification even with biopsy or even postmortem  ADEM in adults can progress to MSMultiphasic disseminated encephalomyelitisWhen the person has more than one demyelinating episode of ADEM, the disease is then called recurrent disseminated encephalomyelitis or multiphasic disseminated encephalomyelitis (MDEM).It has been found that anti-MOG auto-antibodies are related to this kind of ADEMAnother variant of ADEM in adults has been described, also related to anti-MOG auto-antibodies, has been named fulminant disseminated encephalomyelitis, and it has been reported to be clinically ADEM, but showing MS-like lesions on autopsy. It has been classified inside the anti-MOG associated inflammatory demyelinating diseases.Acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitisAcute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (AHL, or AHLE), acute hemorrhagic encephalomyelitis (AHEM), acute necrotizing hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis (ANHLE), Weston-Hurst syndrome, or Hurst's disease, is a hyperacute and frequently fatal form of ADEM. AHL is relatively rare (less than 100 cases have been reported in the medical literature ), it is seen in about 2% of ADEM cases, and is characterized by necrotizing vasculitis of venules and hemorrhage, and edema. Death is common in the first week and overall mortality is about 70%, but increasing evidence points to favorable outcomes after aggressive treatment with corticosteroids, immunoglobulins, cyclophosphamide, and plasma exchange. About 70% of survivors show residual neurological deficits, but some survivors have shown surprisingly little deficit considering the magnitude of the white matter affected.This disease has been occasionally associated with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, malaria, sepsis associated with immune complex deposition, methanol poisoning, and other underlying conditions. Also anecdotal association with MS has been reportedLaboratory studies that support diagnosis of AHL are: peripheral leukocytosis, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis associated with normal glucose and increased protein. On magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), lesions of AHL typically show extensive T2-weighted and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) white matter hyperintensities with areas of hemorrhages, significant edema, and mass effect.TreatmentNo controlled clinical trials have been conducted on ADEM treatment, but aggressive treatment aimed at rapidly reducing inflammation of the CNS is standard. The widely accepted first-line treatment is high doses of intravenous corticosteroids, such as methylprednisolone or dexamethasone, followed by 3–6 weeks of gradually lower oral doses of prednisolone. Patients treated with methylprednisolone have shown better outcomes than those treated with dexamethasone. Oral tapers of less than three weeks duration show a higher chance of relapsing, and tend to show poorer outcomes. Other anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive therapies have been reported to show beneficial effect, such as plasmapheresis, high doses of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), mitoxantrone and cyclophosphamide. These are considered alternative therapies, used when corticosteroids cannot be used or fail to show an effect.There is some evidence to suggest that patients may respond to a combination of methylprednisolone and immunoglobulins if they fail to respond to either separatelyIn a study of 16 children with ADEM, 10 recovered completely after high-dose methylprednisolone, one severe case that failed to respond to steroids recovered completely after IV Ig; the five most severe cases – with ADAM and severe peripheral neuropathy – were treated with combined high-dose methylprednisolone and immunoglobulin, two remained paraplegic, one had motor and cognitive handicaps, and two recovered. A recent review of IVIg treatment of ADEM (of which the previous study formed the bulk of the cases) found that 70% of children showed complete recovery after treatment with IVIg, or IVIg plus corticosteroids. A study of IVIg treatment in adults with ADEM showed that IVIg seems more effective in treating sensory and motor disturbances, while steroids seem more effective in treating impairments of cognition, consciousness and rigor. This same study found one subject, a 71-year-old man who had not responded to steroids, that responded to an IVIg treatment 58 days after disease onset.PrognosisFull recovery is seen in 50 to 70% of cases, ranging to 70 to 90% recovery with some minor residual disability (typically assessed using measures such as mRS or EDSS), average time to recover is one to six months. The mortality rate may be as high as 5–10%. Poorer outcomes are associated with unresponsiveness to steroid therapy, unusually severe neurological symptoms, or sudden onset. Children tend to have more favorable outcomes than adults, and cases presenting without fevers tend to have poorer outcomes. The latter effect may be due to either protective effects of fever, or that diagnosis and treatment is sought more rapidly when fever is present.ADEM can progress to MS. It will be considered MS if some lesions appear in different times and brain areasMotor deficitsResidual motor deficits are estimated to remain in about 8 to 30% of cases, the range in severity from mild clumsiness to ataxia and hemiparesis.NeurocognitivePatients with demyelinating illnesses, such as MS, have shown cognitive deficits even when there is minimal physical disability. Research suggests that similar effects are seen after ADEM, but that the deficits are less severe than those seen in MS. A study of six children with ADEM (mean age at presentation 7.7 years) were tested for a range of neurocognitive tests after an average of 3.5 years of recovery. All six children performed in the normal range on most tests, including verbal IQ and performance IQ, but performed at least one standard deviation below age norms in at least one cognitive domain, such as complex attention (one child), short-term memory (one child) and internalizing behaviour/affect (two children). Group means for each cognitive domain were all within one standard deviation of age norms, demonstrating that, as a group, they were normal. These deficits were less severe than those seen in similar aged children with a diagnosis of MS.Another study compared nineteen children with a history of ADEM, of which 10 were five years of age or younger at the time (average age 3.8 years old, tested an average of 3.9 years later) and nine were older (mean age 7.7y at time of ADEM, tested an average of 2.2 years later) to nineteen matched controls. Scores on IQ tests and educational achievement were lower for the young onset ADEM group (average IQ 90) compared to the late onset (average IQ 100) and control groups (average IQ 106), while the late onset ADEM children scored lower on verbal processing speed. Again, all groups means were within one standard deviation of the controls, meaning that while effects were statistically reliable, the children were as a whole, still within the normal range. There were also more behavioural problems in the early onset group, although there is some suggestion that this may be due, at least in part, to the stress of hospitalization at a young age.ResearchThe relationship between ADEM and anti-MOG associated encephalomyelitis is currently under research. A new entity called MOGDEM has been proposed.About animal models, the main animal model for MS, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is also an animal model for ADEM. Being an acute monophasic illness, EAE is far more similar to ADEM than MS.See also  Optic neuritis Transverse myelitis Victoria ArlenReferencesExternal links    Information for parents about Acute disseminated encephalomyelitisMultiple sclerosisAutoimmune diseasesCentral nervous system disordersEnterovirus-associated diseasesMeasles
Ataxia is a neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements that can include gait abnormality, speech changes, and abnormalities in eye movements. Ataxia is a clinical manifestation indicating dysfunction of the parts of the nervous system that coordinate movement, such as the cerebellum. Ataxia can be limited to one side of the body, which is referred to as hemiataxia. Several possible causes exist for these patterns of neurological dysfunction. Dystaxia is a mild degree of ataxia. Friedreich's ataxia has gait abnormality as the most commonly presented symptom. The word is from Greek α- [a negative prefix] + -τάξις [order] = "lack of order".TypesCerebellar The term cerebellar ataxia is used to indicate ataxia due to dysfunction of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is responsible for integrating a significant amount of neural information that is used to coordinate smoothly ongoing movements and to participate in motor planning. Although ataxia is not present with all cerebellar lesions, many conditions affecting the cerebellum do produce ataxia. People with cerebellar ataxia may have trouble regulating the force, range, direction, velocity, and rhythm of muscle contractions. This results in a characteristic type of irregular, uncoordinated movement that can manifest itself in many possible ways, such as asthenia, asynergy, delayed reaction time, and dyschronometria. Individuals with cerebellar ataxia could also display instability of gait, difficulty with eye movements, dysarthria, dysphagia, hypotonia, dysmetria, and dysdiadochokinesia. These deficits can vary depending on which cerebellar structures have been damaged, and whether the lesion is bi- or unilateral.People with cerebellar ataxia may initially present with poor balance, which could be demonstrated as an inability to stand on one leg or perform tandem gait. As the condition progresses, walking is characterized by a widened base and high stepping, as well as staggering and lurching from side to side. Turning is also problematic and could result in falls. As cerebellar ataxia becomes severe, great assistance and effort are needed to stand and walk. Dysarthria, an impairment with articulation, may also be present and is characterized by "scanning" speech that consists of slower rate, irregular rhythm, and variable volume. Also, slurring of speech, tremor of the voice, and ataxic respiration may occur. Cerebellar ataxia could result with incoordination of movement, particularly in the extremities. Overshooting (or hypermetria) occurs with finger-to-nose testing and heel to shin testing; thus, dysmetria is evident. Impairments with alternating movements (dysdiadochokinesia), as well as dysrhythmia, may also be displayed. Tremor of the head and trunk (titubation) may be seen in individuals with cerebellar ataxia.Dysmetria is thought to be caused by a deficit in the control of interaction torques in multijoint motion. Interaction torques are created at an associated joint when the primary joint is moved. For example, if a movement required reaching to touch a target in front of the body, flexion at the shoulder would create a torque at the elbow, while extension of the elbow would create a torque at the wrist. These torques increase as the speed of movement increases and must be compensated and adjusted for to create coordinated movement. This may, therefore, explain decreased coordination at higher movement velocities and accelerations. Dysfunction of the vestibulocerebellum (flocculonodular lobe) impairs balance and the control of eye movements. This presents itself with postural instability, in which the person tends to separate his/her feet upon standing, to gain a wider base and to avoid titubation (bodily oscillations tending to be forward-backward ones). The instability is, therefore, worsened when standing with the feet together, regardless of whether the eyes are open or closed. This is a negative Romberg's test, or more accurately, it denotes the individual's inability to carry out the test, because the individual feels unstable even with open eyes.  Dysfunction of the spinocerebellum  (vermis and associated areas near the midline) presents itself with a wide-based "drunken sailor" gait (called truncal ataxia), characterised by uncertain starts and stops, lateral deviations, and unequal steps. As a result of this gait impairment, falling is a concern in patients with ataxia. Studies examining falls in this population show that 74–93% of patients have fallen at least once in the past year and up to 60% admit to fear of falling. 'Dysfunction of the cerebrocerebellum' (lateral hemispheres) presents as disturbances in carrying out voluntary, planned movements by the extremities (called appendicular ataxia). These include:Intention tremor (coarse trembling, accentuated over the execution of voluntary movements, possibly involving the head and eyes, as well as the limbs and torso)Peculiar writing abnormalities (large, unequal letters, irregular underlining)A peculiar pattern of dysarthria (slurred speech, sometimes characterised by explosive variations in voice intensity despite a regular rhythm)Inability to perform rapidly alternating movements, known as dysdiadochokinesia, occurs, and could involve rapidly switching from pronation to supination of the forearm. Movements become more irregular with increases of speed.Inability to judge distances or ranges of movement happens. This dysmetria is often seen as undershooting, hypometria, or overshooting, hypermetria, the required distance or range to reach a target. This is sometimes seen when a patient is asked to reach out and touch someone's finger or touch his or her own nose.The rebound phenomenon, also known as the loss of the check reflex, is also sometimes seen in patients with cerebellar ataxia, for example, when  patients are flexing their elbows isometrically against a resistance. When the resistance is suddenly removed without warning, the patients' arms may swing up and even strike themselves. With an intact check reflex, the patients check and activate the opposing triceps to slow and stop the movement.Patients may exhibit a constellation of subtle to overt cognitive symptoms, which are gathered under the terminology of Schmahmann's syndrome.Sensory The term sensory ataxia is used to indicate ataxia due to loss of proprioception, the loss of sensitivity to the positions of joint and body parts. This is generally caused by dysfunction of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord, because they carry proprioceptive information up to the brain. In some cases, the cause of sensory ataxia may instead be dysfunction of the various parts of the brain that receive positional information, including the cerebellum, thalamus, and parietal lobes.Sensory ataxia presents itself with an unsteady "stomping" gait with heavy heel strikes, as well as a postural instability that is usually worsened when the lack of proprioceptive input cannot be compensated for by visual input, such as in poorly lit environments.Physicians can find evidence of sensory ataxia during physical examination by having patients stand with their feet together and eyes shut. In affected patients, this will cause the instability to worsen markedly, producing wide oscillations and possibly a fall; this is called a positive Romberg's test. Worsening of the finger-pointing test with the eyes closed is another feature of sensory ataxia. Also, when patients are standing with arms and hands extended toward the physician, if the eyes are closed, the patients' fingers tend to "fall down" and then be restored to the horizontal extended position by sudden muscular contractions (the "ataxic hand").Vestibular The term vestibular ataxia is used to indicate ataxia due to dysfunction of the vestibular system, which in acute and unilateral cases is associated with prominent vertigo, nausea, and vomiting. In slow-onset, chronic bilateral cases of vestibular dysfunction, these characteristic manifestations may be absent, and dysequilibrium may be the sole presentation.Causes The three types of ataxia have overlapping causes, so can either coexist or occur in isolation. Cerebellar ataxia can have many causes despite normal neuroimaging.Focal lesions Any type of focal lesion of the central nervous system (such as stroke, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory [such as sarcoidosis], and "chronic lymphocytyc inflammation with pontine perivascular enhancement responsive to steroids syndrome" [CLIPPERS]) will cause the type of ataxia corresponding to the site of the lesion: cerebellar if in the cerebellum; sensory if in the dorsal spinal cord...to include cord compression by thickened ligamentum flavum or stenosis of the boney spinal canal...(and rarely in the thalamus or parietal lobe); or vestibular if in the vestibular system (including the vestibular areas of the cerebral cortex).Exogenous substances (metabolic ataxia) Exogenous substances that cause ataxia mainly do so because they have a depressant effect on central nervous system function. The most common example is ethanol (alcohol), which is capable of causing reversible cerebellar and vestibular ataxia. Chronic intake of ethanol causes atrophy of the cerebellum by oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stresses induced by thiamine deficiency.  Other examples include various prescription drugs (e.g. most antiepileptic drugs have cerebellar ataxia as a possible adverse effect), Lithium level over 1.5mEq/L, synthetic cannabinoid HU-211 ingestion and various other medical and recreational drugs (e.g. ketamine, PCP or dextromethorphan, all of which are NMDA receptor antagonists that produce a dissociative state at high doses). A further class of pharmaceuticals which can cause short term ataxia, especially in high doses, are benzodiazepines. Exposure to high levels of methylmercury, through consumption of fish with high mercury concentrations, is also a known cause of ataxia and other neurological disorders.Radiation poisoning Ataxia can be induced as a result of severe acute radiation poisoning with an absorbed dose of more than 30 grays.Vitamin B12 deficiency Vitamin B12 deficiency may cause, among several neurological abnormalities, overlapping cerebellar and sensory ataxia.Hypothyroidism Symptoms of neurological dysfunction may be the presenting feature in some patients with hypothyroidism. These include reversible cerebellar ataxia, dementia, peripheral neuropathy, psychosis and coma. Most of the neurological complications improve completely after thyroid hormone replacement therapy.Causes of isolated sensory ataxia Peripheral neuropathies may cause generalised or localised sensory ataxia (e.g. a limb only) depending on the extent of the neuropathic involvement. Spinal disorders of various types may cause sensory ataxia from the lesioned level below, when they involve the dorsal columns.Non-hereditary cerebellar degeneration Non-hereditary causes of cerebellar degeneration include chronic alcohol use disorder, head injury, paraneoplastic and non-paraneoplastic autoimmune ataxia, high altitude cerebral oedema, coeliac disease, normal pressure hydrocephalus and infectious or post-infectious cerebellitis.Hereditary ataxias Ataxia may depend on hereditary disorders consisting of degeneration of the cerebellum or of the spine; most cases feature both to some extent, and therefore present with overlapping cerebellar and sensory ataxia, even though one is often more evident than the other. Hereditary disorders causing ataxia include autosomal dominant ones such as spinocerebellar ataxia, episodic ataxia, and dentatorubropallidoluysian atrophy, as well as autosomal recessive disorders such as Friedreich's ataxia (sensory and cerebellar, with the former predominating) and Niemann Pick disease, ataxia-telangiectasia (sensory and cerebellar, with the latter predominating), and abetalipoproteinaemia. An example of X-linked ataxic condition is the rare fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome or FXTAS.Arnold–Chiari malformation (congenital ataxia) Arnold–Chiari malformation is a malformation of the brain. It consists of a downward displacement of the cerebellar tonsils and the medulla through the foramen magnum, sometimes causing hydrocephalus as a result of obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid outflow.Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency is an autosomal-recessive gene disorder where mutations in the ALDH5A1 gene results in the accumulation of gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in the body. GHB accumulates in the nervous system and can cause ataxia as well as other neurological dysfunction.Wilson's disease Wilson's disease is an autosomal-recessive gene disorder whereby an alteration of the ATP7B gene results in an inability to properly excrete copper from the body. Copper accumulates in the nervous system and liver and can cause ataxia as well as other neurological and organ impairments.Gluten ataxia Gluten ataxia is an autoimmune disease triggered by the ingestion of gluten. Early diagnosis and treatment with a gluten-free diet can improve ataxia and prevent its progression. The effectiveness of the treatment depends on the elapsed time from the onset of the ataxia until diagnosis, because the death of neurons in the cerebellum as a result of gluten exposure is irreversible. It accounts for 40% of ataxias of unknown origin and 15% of all ataxias. Less than 10% of people with gluten ataxia present any gastrointestinal symptom and only about 40% have intestinal damage. This entity is classified into primary auto-immune cerebellar ataxias (PACA).Potassium pump Malfunction of the sodium-potassium pump may be a factor in some ataxias. The - pump has been shown to control and set the intrinsic activity mode of cerebellar Purkinje neurons. This suggests that the pump might not simply be a homeostatic, "housekeeping" molecule for ionic gradients; but could be a computational element in the cerebellum and the brain. Indeed, an ouabain block of - pumps in the cerebellum of a live mouse results in it displaying ataxia and dystonia. Ataxia is observed for lower ouabain concentrations, dystonia is observed at higher ouabain concentrations.Cerebellar ataxia associated with anti-GAD antibodies Antibodies against the enzyme glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD: enzyme changing glutamate into GABA) cause cerebellar deficits. The antibodies impair motor learning and cause behavioral deficits.GAD antibodies related ataxia is part of the group called immune-mediated cerebellar ataxias. The antibodies induce a synaptopathy. The cerebellum is particularly vulnerable to autoimmune disorders. Cerebellar circuitry has capacities to compensate and restore function thanks to cerebellar reserve, gathering multiple forms of plasticity. LTDpathies gather immune disorders targeting long-term depression (LTD), a form of plasticity.Diagnosis   Imaging studies - A CT scan or MRI of the brain might help determine potential causes. An MRI can sometimes show shrinkage of the cerebellum and other brain structures in people with ataxia. It may also show other treatable findings, such as a blood clot or benign tumour, that could be pressing on the cerebellum. Lumbar puncture (spinal tap) - A needle is inserted into the lower back (lumbar region) between two lumbar vertebrae to obtain a sample of cerebrospinal fluid for testing. Genetic testing - Determines whether the mutation that causes one of the hereditary ataxic conditions is present. Tests are available for many but not all of the hereditary ataxias.Treatment The treatment of ataxia and its effectiveness depend on the underlying cause. Treatment may limit or reduce the effects of ataxia, but it is unlikely to eliminate them entirely. Recovery tends to be better in individuals with a single focal injury (such as stroke or a benign tumour), compared to those who have a neurological degenerative condition. A review of the management of degenerative ataxia was published in 2009. A small number of rare conditions presenting with prominent cerebellar ataxia are amenable to specific treatment and recognition of these disorders is critical. Diseases include vitamin E deficiency, abetalipoproteinemia, cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis, Niemann–Pick type C disease, Refsum's disease, glucose transporter type 1 deficiency, episodic ataxia type 2, gluten ataxia, glutamic acid decarboxylase ataxia. Novel therapies target the RNA defects associated with cerebellar disorders, using in particular anti-sense oligonucleotides.The movement disorders associated with ataxia can be managed by pharmacological treatments and through physical therapy and occupational therapy to reduce disability. Some drug treatments that have been used to control ataxia include: 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), idebenone, amantadine, physostigmine, L-carnitine or derivatives, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, vigabatrin, phosphatidylcholine, acetazolamide, 4-aminopyridine, buspirone, and a combination of coenzyme Q10 and vitamin E.Physical therapy requires a focus on adapting activity and facilitating motor learning for retraining specific functional motor patterns. A recent systematic review suggested that physical therapy is effective, but there is only moderate evidence to support this conclusion. The most commonly used physical therapy interventions for cerebellar ataxia are vestibular habituation, Frenkel exercises, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), and balance training; however, therapy is often highly individualized and gait and coordination training are large components of therapy.Current research suggests that, if a person is able to walk with or without a mobility aid, physical therapy should include an exercise program addressing five components: static balance, dynamic balance, trunk-limb coordination, stairs, and contracture prevention. Once the physical therapist determines that the individual is able to safely perform parts of the program independently, it is important that the individual be prescribed and regularly engage in a supplementary home exercise program that incorporates these components to further improve long term outcomes. These outcomes include balance tasks, gait, and individual activities of daily living. While the improvements are attributed primarily to changes in the brain and not just the hip or ankle joints, it is still unknown whether the improvements are due to adaptations in the cerebellum or compensation by other areas of the brain.Decomposition, simplification, or slowing of multijoint movement may also be an effective strategy that therapists may use to improve function in patients with ataxia. Training likely needs to be intense and focused—as indicated by one study performed with stroke patients experiencing limb ataxia who underwent intensive upper limb retraining. Their therapy consisted of constraint-induced movement therapy which resulted in improvements of their arm function. Treatment should likely include strategies to manage difficulties with everyday activities such as walking. Gait aids (such as a cane or walker) can be provided to decrease the risk of falls associated with impairment of balance or poor coordination. Severe ataxia may eventually lead to the need for a wheelchair. To obtain better results, possible coexisting motor deficits need to be addressed in addition to those induced by ataxia. For example, muscle weakness and decreased endurance could lead to increasing fatigue and poorer movement patterns.There are several assessment tools available to therapists and health care professionals working with patients with ataxia. The International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS) is one of the most widely used and has been proven to have very high reliability and validity. Other tools that assess motor function, balance and coordination are also highly valuable to help the therapist track the progress of their patient, as well as to quantify the patient's functionality. These tests include, but are not limited to: The Berg Balance Scale Tandem Walking (to test for Tandem gaitability) Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) tapping tests – The person must quickly and repeatedly tap their arm or leg while the therapist monitors the amount of dysdiadochokinesia. finger-nose testing – This test has several variations including finger-to-therapist's finger, finger-to-finger, and alternate nose-to-finger.Industry Insights According to the report published by the Facts and Factors, global demand for the ataxia market was estimated at approximately USD 29,401.1 Million in 2020 and is expected to generate revenue of around USD 46,000.8 Million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of around 10.2% between 2021 and 2026.Other uses The term "ataxia" is sometimes used in a broader sense to indicate lack of coordination in some physiological process. Examples include optic ataxia (lack of coordination between visual inputs and hand movements, resulting in inability to reach and grab objects) and ataxic respiration (lack of coordination in respiratory movements, usually due to dysfunction of the respiratory centres in the medulla oblongata). Optic ataxia may be caused by lesions to the posterior parietal cortex, which is responsible for combining and expressing positional information and relating it to movement. Outputs of the posterior parietal cortex include the spinal cord, brain stem motor pathways, pre-motor and pre-frontal cortex, basal ganglia and the cerebellum. Some neurons in the posterior parietal cortex are modulated by intention. Optic ataxia is usually part of Balint's syndrome, but can be seen in isolation with injuries to the superior parietal lobule, as it represents a disconnection between visual-association cortex and the frontal premotor and motor cortex.See also  Ataxic cerebral palsy Spinocerebellar ataxia Bruns apraxiaReferencesFurther readingExternal links Symptoms and signs: Nervous systemStroke
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.Ada Byron was the only child of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron. All of Byron's other children were born out of wedlock to other women. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever. Four months later, he commemorated the parting in a poem that begins, "Is thy face like thy mother's my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?". He died in Greece when Ada was eight years old. Her mother remained bitter and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing her father's perceived insanity. Despite this, Ada remained interested in him, naming her two sons Byron and Gordon. Upon her death, she was buried next to him at her request. Although often ill in her childhood, Ada pursued her studies assiduously. She married William King in 1835. King was made Earl of Lovelace in 1838, Ada thereby becoming Countess of Lovelace.Her educational and social exploits brought her into contact with scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Charles Babbage, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens, contacts which she used to further her education. Ada described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)".When she was a teenager (18), her mathematical talents led her to a long working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, who is known as "the father of computers". She was in particular interested in Babbage's work on the Analytical Engine. Lovelace first met him in June 1833, through their mutual friend, and her private tutor, Mary Somerville.Between 1842 and 1843, Ada translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea about the Analytical Engine, supplementing it with an elaborate set of notes, simply called "Notes". Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers, containing what many consider to be the first computer program—that is, an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine. Other historians reject this perspective and point out that Babbage's personal notes from the years 1836/1837 contain the first programs for the engine. She also developed a vision of the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching, while many others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Her mindset of "poetical science" led her to ask questions about the Analytical Engine (as shown in her notes) examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool.She died of uterine cancer in 1852 at the age of 36, the same age at which her father died.BiographyChildhoodLord Byron expected his child to be a "glorious boy" and was disappointed when Lady Byron gave birth to a girl. The child was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself. On 16 January 1816, at Lord Byron's command, Lady Byron left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory, taking their five-week-old daughter with her. Although English law at the time granted full custody of children to the father in cases of separation, Lord Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights, but did request that his sister keep him informed of Ada's welfare.On 21 April, Lord Byron signed the deed of separation, although very reluctantly, and left England for good a few days later. Aside from an acrimonious separation, Lady Byron continued throughout her life to make allegations about her husband's immoral behaviour. This set of events made Lovelace infamous in Victorian society. Ada did not have a relationship with her father. He died in 1824 when she was eight years old. Her mother was the only significant parental figure in her life. Lovelace was not shown the family portrait of her father until her 20th birthday.Lovelace did not have a close relationship with her mother. She was often left in the care of her maternal grandmother Judith, Hon. Lady Milbanke, who doted on her. However, because of societal attitudes of the time—which favoured the husband in any separation, with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Lady Byron had to present herself as a loving mother to the rest of society. This included writing anxious letters to Lady Milbanke about her daughter's welfare, with a cover note saying to retain the letters in case she had to use them to show maternal concern. In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred to her daughter as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under your own." Lady Byron had her teenage daughter watched by close friends for any sign of moral deviation. Lovelace dubbed these observers the "Furies" and later complained they exaggerated and invented stories about her.Lovelace was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she experienced headaches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, something which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. Despite the illnesses, she developed her mathematical and technological skills.Ada Byron had an affair with a tutor in early 1833. She tried to elope with him after she was caught, but the tutor's relatives recognised her and contacted her mother. Lady Byron and her friends covered the incident up to prevent a public scandal. Lovelace never met her younger half-sister, Allegra, the daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont. Allegra died in 1822 at the age of five. Lovelace did have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh, who purposely avoided Lovelace as much as possible when introduced at court.Adult yearsLovelace became close friends with her tutor Mary Somerville, who introduced her to Charles Babbage in 1833. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville, and they corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included the scientists Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens. She was presented at Court at the age of seventeen "and became a popular belle of the season" in part because of her "brilliant mind." By 1834 Ada was a regular at Court and started attending various events. She danced often and was able to charm many people, and was described by most people as being dainty, although John Hobhouse, Byron's friend, described her as "a large, coarse-skinned young woman but with something of my friend's features, particularly the mouth". This description followed their meeting on 24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably due to her mother's influence, which led her to dislike all of her father's friends. This first impression was not to last, and they later became friends.On 8 July 1835, she married William, 8th Baron King, becoming Lady King. They had three homes: Ockham Park, Surrey; a Scottish estate on Loch Torridon in Ross-shire; and a house in London. They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset. The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation for their honeymoon. It later became their summer retreat and was further improved during this time. From 1845, the family's main house was Horsley Towers, built in the Tudorbethan fashion by the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Charles Barry, and later greatly enlarged to Lovelace's own designs.They had three children: Byron (born 1836); Anne Isabella (called Annabella, born 1837); and Ralph Gordon (born 1839). Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King experienced "a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure." Ada was a descendant of the extinct Barons Lovelace and in 1838, her husband was made Earl of Lovelace and Viscount Ockham, meaning Ada became the Countess of Lovelace. In 1843–44, Ada's mother assigned William Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children and to act as a "moral" instructor for Ada. He quickly fell for her and encouraged her to express any frustrated affections, claiming that his marriage meant he would never act in an "unbecoming" manner. When it became clear that Carpenter was trying to start an affair, Ada cut it off.In 1841, Lovelace and Medora Leigh (the daughter of Lord Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh) were told by Ada's mother that Ada's father was also Medora's father. On 27 February 1841, Ada wrote to her mother: "I am not in the least astonished. In fact, you merely confirm what I have for years and years felt scarcely a doubt about, but should have considered it most improper in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected." She did not blame the incestuous relationship on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh: "I fear she is more inherently wicked than he ever was." In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly, from a relaxed approach to extra-marital relationships with men, leading to rumours of affairs; and secondly, from her love of gambling. She apparently lost more than £3,000 on the horses during the later 1840s. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt to the syndicate, forcing her to admit it all to her husband. She had a shadowy relationship with Andrew Crosse's son John from 1844 onwards. John Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. She bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her. During her final illness, she would panic at the idea of the younger Crosse being kept from visiting her.EducationFrom 1832, when she was seventeen, her mathematical abilities began to emerge, and her interest in mathematics dominated the majority of her adult life. Her mother's obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age. She was privately educated in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King, and Mary Somerville, the noted 19th-century researcher and scientific author. In the 1840s, the mathematician Augustus De Morgan extended her "much help in her mathematical studies" including study of advanced calculus topics including the "numbers of Bernoulli" (that formed her celebrated algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine). In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested that Ada's skill in mathematics might lead her to become "an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence."Lovelace often questioned basic assumptions through integrating poetry and science. Whilst studying differential calculus, she wrote to De Morgan:I may remark that the curious transformations many formulae can undergo, the unsuspected and to a beginner apparently impossible identity of forms exceedingly dissimilar at first sight, is I think one of the chief difficulties in the early part of mathematical studies. I am often reminded of certain sprites and fairies one reads of, who are at one's elbows in one shape now, and the next minute in a form most dissimilar.Lovelace believed that intuition and imagination were critical to effectively applying mathematical and scientific concepts. She valued metaphysics as much as mathematics, viewing both as tools for exploring "the unseen worlds around us."DeathLovelace died at the age of 36 on 27 November 1852, from uterine cancer. The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother's influence, Ada had a religious transformation and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor. She lost contact with her husband after confessing something to him on 30 August which caused him to abandon her bedside. It is not known what she told him. She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. A memorial plaque, written in Latin, to her and her father is in the chapel attached to Horsley Towers.WorkThroughout her life, Lovelace was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology and mesmerism. After her work with Babbage, Lovelace continued to work on other projects. In 1844, she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system"). She never achieved this, however. In part, her interest in the brain came from a long-running pre-occupation, inherited from her mother, about her "potential" madness. As part of her research into this project, she visited the electrical engineer Andrew Crosse in 1844 to learn how to carry out electrical experiments. In the same year, she wrote a review of a paper by Baron Karl von Reichenbach, Researches on Magnetism, but this was not published and does not appear to have progressed past the first draft. In 1851, the year before her cancer struck, she wrote to her mother mentioning "certain productions" she was working on regarding the relation of maths and music.Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in June 1833, through their mutual friend Mary Somerville. Later that month, Babbage invited Lovelace to see the prototype for his difference engine. She became fascinated with the machine and used her relationship with Somerville to visit Babbage as often as she could. Babbage was impressed by Lovelace's intellect and analytic skills. He called her "The Enchantress of Number." In 1843, he wrote to her:During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Lovelace translated the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's article on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. Explaining the Analytical Engine's function was a difficult task, as many other scientists did not really grasp the concept and the British establishment had shown little interest in it. Lovelace's notes even had to explain how the Analytical Engine differed from the original Difference Engine. Her work was well received at the time; the scientist Michael Faraday described himself as a supporter of her writing.The notes are around three times longer than the article itself and include (in Note G), in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers using the Analytical Engine, which might have run correctly had it ever been built (only Babbage's Difference Engine has been built, completed in London in 2002). Based on this work, Lovelace is now considered by many to be the first computer programmer and her method has been called the world's first computer program. Others dispute this because some of Charles Babbage's earlier writings could be considered computer programs.Note G also contains Lovelace's dismissal of artificial intelligence. She wrote that "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths." This objection has been the subject of much debate and rebuttal, for example by Alan Turing in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence".Lovelace and Babbage had a minor falling out when the papers were published, when he tried to leave his own statement (criticising the government's treatment of his Engine) as an unsigned preface, which could have been mistakenly interpreted as a joint declaration. When Taylor's Scientific Memoirs ruled that the statement should be signed, Babbage wrote to Lovelace asking her to withdraw the paper. This was the first that she knew he was leaving it unsigned, and she wrote back refusing to withdraw the paper. The historian Benjamin Woolley theorised that "His actions suggested he had so enthusiastically sought Ada's involvement, and so happily indulged her ... because of her 'celebrated name'." Their friendship recovered, and they continued to correspond. On 12 August 1851, when she was dying of cancer, Lovelace wrote to him asking him to be her executor, though this letter did not give him the necessary legal authority. Part of the terrace at Worthy Manor was known as Philosopher's Walk, as it was there that Lovelace and Babbage were reputed to have walked while discussing mathematical principles.First computer programIn 1840, Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin about his Analytical Engine. Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer and the future Prime Minister of Italy, transcribed Babbage's lecture into French, and this transcript was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque universelle de Genève in October 1842.Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned Ada Lovelace to translate Menabrea's paper into English. She then augmented the paper with notes, which were added to the translation. Ada Lovelace spent the better part of a year doing this, assisted with input from Babbage. These notes, which are more extensive than Menabrea's paper, were then published in the September 1843 edition of Taylor's Scientific Memoirs under the initialism AAL.Ada Lovelace's notes were labelled alphabetically from A to G. In note G, she describes an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is considered to be the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada Lovelace has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason. The engine was never completed so her program was never tested.In 1953, more than a century after her death, Ada Lovelace's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished as an appendix to B. V. Bowden's Faster than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines. The engine has now been recognised as an early model for a computer and her notes as a description of a computer and software.Insight into potential of computing devicesIn her notes, Ada Lovelace emphasised the difference between the Analytical Engine and previous calculating machines, particularly its ability to be programmed to solve problems of any complexity. She realised the potential of the device extended far beyond mere number crunching. In her notes, she wrote:This analysis was an important development from previous ideas about the capabilities of computing devices and anticipated the implications of modern computing one hundred years before they were realised. Walter Isaacson ascribes Ada's insight regarding the application of computing to any process based on logical symbols to an observation about textiles: "When she saw some mechanical looms that used punchcards to direct the weaving of beautiful patterns, it reminded her of how Babbage's engine used punched cards to make calculations." This insight is seen as significant by writers such as Betty Toole and Benjamin Woolley, as well as the programmer John Graham-Cumming, whose project Plan 28 has the aim of constructing the first complete Analytical Engine.According to the historian of computing and Babbage specialist Doron Swade: Ada saw something that Babbage in some sense failed to see. In Babbage's world his engines were bound by number...What Lovelace saw...was that number could represent entities other than quantity. So once you had a machine for manipulating numbers, if those numbers represented other things, letters, musical notes, then the machine could manipulate symbols of which number was one instance, according to rules. It is this fundamental transition from a machine which is a number cruncher to a machine for manipulating symbols according to rules that is the fundamental transition from calculation to computation—to general-purpose computation—and looking back from the present high ground of modern computing, if we are looking and sifting history for that transition, then that transition was made explicitly by Ada in that 1843 paper.Controversy over contributionThough Lovelace is often referred to as the first computer programmer, some biographers, computer scientists and historians of computing claim otherwise.Allan G. Bromley, in the 1990 article Difference and Analytical Engines:Bruce Collier, who later wrote a biography of Babbage, wrote in his 1970 Harvard University PhD thesis that Lovelace "made a considerable contribution to publicizing the Analytical Engine, but there is no evidence that she advanced the design or theory of it in any way".Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole consider it "incorrect" to regard Lovelace as the first computer programmer, as Babbage wrote the initial programs for his Analytical Engine, although the majority were never published. Bromley notes several dozen sample programs prepared by Babbage between 1837 and 1840, all substantially predating Lovelace's notes. Dorothy K. Stein regards Lovelace's notes as "more a reflection of the mathematical uncertainty of the author, the political purposes of the inventor, and, above all, of the social and cultural context in which it was written, than a blueprint for a scientific development."Doron Swade, a specialist on history of computing known for his work on Babbage, discussed Lovelace during a lecture on Babbage's analytical engine. He explained that Ada was only a "promising beginner" instead of genius in mathematics, that she began studying basic concepts of mathematics five years after Babbage conceived the analytical engine so she could not have made important contributions to it, and that she only published the first computer program instead of actually writing it. But he agrees that Ada was the only person to see the potential of the analytical engine as a machine capable of expressing entities other than quantities.In his self-published book, Idea Makers, Stephen Wolfram defends Lovelace's contributions. While acknowledging that Babbage wrote several unpublished algorithms for the Analytical Engine prior to Lovelace's notes, Wolfram argues that "there's nothing as sophisticated—or as clean—as Ada's computation of the Bernoulli numbers. Babbage certainly helped and commented on Ada's work, but she was definitely the driver of it." Wolfram then suggests that Lovelace's main achievement was to distill from Babbage's correspondence "a clear exposition of the abstract operation of the machine—something which Babbage never did."In popular culture1810sLord Byron wrote the poem "Fare Thee Well" to his wife Lady Byron in 1816, following their separation after the birth of Ada Lovelace. In the poem he writes:And when thou would'st solace gather—When our child's first accents flow—Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"Though his care she must forego?When her little hands shall press thee—When her lip to thine is pressed—Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee—Think of him thy love had blessed!Should her lineaments resembleThose thou never more may'st see,Then thy heart will softly trembleWith a pulse yet true to me.1970sLovelace is portrayed in Romulus Linney's 1977 play Childe Byron.1990sIn the 1990 steampunk novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, Lovelace delivers a lecture on the "punched cards" programme which proves Gödel's incompleteness theorems decades before their actual discovery.In the 1997 film Conceiving Ada, a computer scientist obsessed with Ada finds a way of communicating with her in the past by means of "undying information waves".In Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, the precocious teenage genius Thomasina Coverly—a character "apparently based" on Ada Lovelace (the play also involves Lord Byron)—comes to understand chaos theory, and theorises the second law of thermodynamics, before either is officially recognised.2000sLovelace features in John Crowley's 2005 novel, Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, as an unseen character whose personality is forcefully depicted in her annotations and anti-heroic efforts to archive her father's lost novel.2010sThe 2015 play Ada and the Engine by Lauren Gunderson portrays Lovelace and Charles Babbage in unrequited love, and it imagines a post-death meeting between Lovelace and her father.Lovelace and Babbage are the main characters in Sydney Padua's webcomic and graphic novel The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. The comic features extensive footnotes on the history of Ada Lovelace, and many lines of dialogue are drawn from actual correspondence.Lovelace and Mary Shelley as teenagers are the central characters in Jordan Stratford's steampunk series, The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.Lovelace, identified as Ada Augusta Byron, is portrayed by Lily Lesser in the second season of The Frankenstein Chronicles. She is employed as an "analyst" to provide the workings of a life-sized humanoid automaton. The brass workings of the machine are reminiscent of Babbage's analytical engine. Her employment is described as keeping her occupied until she returns to her studies in advanced mathematics.Lovelace and Babbage appear as characters in the second season of the ITV series Victoria (2017). Emerald Fennell portrays Lovelace in the episode, "The Green-Eyed Monster."The Cardano cryptocurrency platform, which was launched in 2017, uses Ada as the name for their cryptocurrency and Lovelace as the smallest sub-unit of an Ada."Lovelace" is the name given to the operating system designed by the character Cameron Howe in Halt and Catch Fire.Lovelace is a primary character in the 2019 Big Finish Doctor Who audio play The Enchantress of Numbers, starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Jane Slavin as his current companion, WPC Ann Kelso. Lovelace is played by Finty Williams.In 2019, Lovelace is a featured character in the play STEM FEMMES by Philadelphia theater company Applied Mechanics.2020sLovelace features as a character in "Spyfall, Part 2", the second episode of Doctor Who, series 12, which first aired on BBC One on 5 January 2020. The character was portrayed by Sylvie Briggs, alongside characterisations of Charles Babbage and Noor Inayat Khan. In 2021, Nvidia named their upcoming GPU architecture (to be released in 2022), "Ada Lovelace", after her.CommemorationThe computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on 10 December 1980 and the Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, MIL-STD-1815, was given the number of the year of her birth.In 1981, the Association for Women in Computing inaugurated its Ada Lovelace Award. Since 1998, the British Computer Society (BCS) has awarded the Lovelace Medal, and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students. BCSWomen sponsors the Lovelace Colloquium, an annual conference for women undergraduates. Ada College is a further-education college in Tottenham Hale, London, focused on digital skills.Ada Lovelace Day is an annual event celebrated on the second Tuesday of October, which began in 2009. Its goal is to "... raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering, and maths," and to "create new role models for girls and women" in these fields. Events have included Wikipedia edit-a-thons with the aim of improving the representation of women on Wikipedia in terms of articles and editors to reduce unintended gender bias on Wikipedia. The Ada Initiative was a non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing the involvement of women in the free culture and open source movements.The Engineering in Computer Science and Telecommunications College building in Zaragoza University is called the Ada Byron Building. The computer centre in the village of Porlock, near where Lovelace lived, is named after her. Ada Lovelace House is a council-owned building in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, near where Lovelace spent her infancy.In 2012, a Google Doodle and blog post honoured her on her birthday. In 2013, Ada Developers Academy was founded and named after her. The mission of Ada Developers Academy is to diversify tech by providing women and gender diverse people the skills, experience, and community support to become professional software developers to change the face of tech.On 17 September 2013, an episode of Great Lives about Ada Lovelace aired.As of November 2015, all new British passports have included an illustration of Lovelace and Babbage.In 2017, a Google Doodle honoured her with other women on International Women's Day.On 2 February 2018, Satellogic, a high-resolution Earth observation imaging and analytics company, launched a ÑuSat type micro-satellite named in honour of Ada Lovelace.In March 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for Ada Lovelace.On 27 July 2018, Senator Ron Wyden submitted, in the United States Senate, the designation of 9 October 2018 as National Ada Lovelace Day: "To honor the life and contributions of Ada Lovelace as a leading woman in science and mathematics". The resolution (S.Res.592) was considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by unanimous consent.In November 2020 it was announced that Trinity College Dublin whose library had previously held forty busts, all of them of men, was commissioning four new busts of women, one of whom was to be Lovelace.BicentenaryThe bicentenary of Ada Lovelace's birth was celebrated with a number of events, including: The Ada Lovelace Bicentenary Lectures on Computability, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, 20 December 2015 – 31 January 2016. Ada Lovelace Symposium, University of Oxford, 13–14 October 2015.Ada.Ada.Ada, a one-woman show about the life and work of Ada Lovelace (using an LED dress), premiered at Edinburgh International Science Festival on 11 April 2015, and continues to touring internationally to promote diversity on STEM at technology conferences, businesses, government and educational organisations.Special exhibitions were displayed by the Science Museum in London, England and the Weston Library (part of the Bodleian Library) in Oxford, England.Publications Lovelace, Ada King. Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and her Description of the First Computer. Mill Valley, CA: Strawberry Press, 1992. .Publication history Six copies of the 1843 first edition of Sketch of the Analytical Engine with Ada Lovelace's "Notes" have been located. Three are held at Harvard University, one at the University of Oklahoma, and one at the United States Air Force Academy. On 20 July 2018, the sixth copy was sold at auction to an anonymous buyer for £95,000. A digital facsimile of one of the copies in the Harvard University Library is available online.In December 2016, a letter written by Ada Lovelace was forfeited by Martin Shkreli to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance for unpaid taxes owed by Shkreli.See also Ai-Da (robot) Code: Debugging the Gender Gap List of pioneers in computer science Timeline of women in science Women in computing Women in STEM fieldsExplanatory notesReferencesGeneral sources . . . . . .   .  With notes upon the memoir by the translator. Miller, Clair Cain. "Ada Lovelace, 1815–1852," New York Times, 8 March 2018. . . . . .  . .Further reading Miranda Seymour, In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace, Pegasus, 2018, 547 pp. Christopher Hollings, Ursula Martin, and Adrian Rice, Ada Lovelace: The Making of a Computer Scientist, Bodleian Library, 2018, 114 pp. Jenny Uglow, "Stepping Out of Byron's Shadow", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 18 (22 November 2018), pp. 30–32. Jennifer Chiaverini,  Enchantress of Numbers, Dutton, 2017, 426 pp.External links "Ada's Army gets set to rewrite history at Inspirefest 2018" by Luke Maxwell, 4 August 2018  "Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace" by Stephen Wolfram, December 2015            1815 births1852 deaths19th-century British women scientists19th-century British writers19th-century English mathematicians19th-century English women writers19th-century British inventors19th-century English nobilityAda (programming language)British countessesBritish women computer scientistsBritish women mathematiciansBurials in NottinghamshireAdaWomen computer scientistsComputer designersDaughters of baronsDeaths from cancer in EnglandDeaths from uterine cancerEnglish computer programmersEnglish people of Scottish descentEnglish women poetsLord ByronMathematicians from LondonWomen of the Victorian eraBurials at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Hucknall
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the cosmic horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including  historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography.A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing.LifeThe son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise Volk, Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin. He was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, Walt Whitman, H. L. Mencken's The American Mercury, Samuel Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, Alexandre Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott, and Henry David Thoreau's Walden.Forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist Jim Stephens, he sold his first story, "Bat's Belfry", to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth wrote throughout his four years at the University of Wisconsin, where he received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based Fawcett Publications Mystic Magazine.Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend Mark Schorer (later Chairman of the University of California, Berkeley English Department). They rented a cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling themto Weird Tales magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for Five Alone, published in Place of Hawks, but was first found in Pagany magazine.As a result of his early work on the Sac Prairie Saga, Derleth was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were Helen C. White, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and poet Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame.In the mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local school board, served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a parent-teacher association. He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of Outdoors Magazine.With longtime friend Donald Wandrei, Derleth in 1939 founded Arkham House.  Its initial objective was to publish the works of H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Derleth had corresponded since his teenage years. At the same time, he began teaching a course in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin.In 1941, he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, philately and comic-strips (Derleth reportedly used the funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.).  Derleth's true avocation, however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye.Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to a million words yearly, very little of it pulp material."In 1948, he was elected president of the Associated Fantasy Publishers at the 6th World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto.He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters.  They divorced six years later.  Derleth retained custody of the couple's two children, April Rose and Walden William. April earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994. She remained in that capacity until her death. She was known in the community as a naturalist and humanitarian. April died on March 21, 2011.In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill, dedicated to poems of man and nature.Derleth died of a heart attack on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City. The U.S. 12 bridge over the Wisconsin River is named in his honor. Derleth was Roman Catholic.CareerDerleth wrote more than 150 short stories and more than 100 books during his lifetime.The Sac Prairie SagaDerleth wrote an expansive series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about Sac Prairie (whose prototype is Sauk City). Derleth intended this series to comprise up to 50 novels telling the projected life-story of the region from the 19th century onwards, with analogies to Balzac's Human Comedy and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.This, and other early work by Derleth, made him a well-known figure among the regional literary figures of his time: early Pulitzer Prize winners Hamlin Garland and Zona Gale, as well as Sinclair Lewis, the last both an admirer and critic of Derleth.As Edward Wagenknecht wrote in Cavalcade of the American Novel, "What Mr. Derleth has that is lacking...in modern novelists generally, is a country. He belongs. He writes of a land and a people that are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In his fictional world, there is a unity much deeper and more fundamental than anything that can be conferred by an ideology. It is clear, too, that he did not get the best, and most fictionally useful, part of his background material from research in the library; like Scott, in his Border novels, he gives, rather, the impression of having drunk it in with his mother's milk."Jim Stephens, editor of An August Derleth Reader, (1992), argues: "what Derleth accomplished....was to gather a Wisconsin mythos which gave respect to the ancient fundament of our contemporary life."The author inaugurated the Sac Prairie Saga with four novellas comprising Place of Hawks, published by Loring & Mussey in 1935. At publication, The Detroit News wrote: "Certainly with this book Mr. Derleth may be added to the American writers of distinction."Derleth's first novel, Still is the Summer Night, was published two years later by the famous Charles Scribners' editor Maxwell Perkins, and was the second in his Sac Prairie Saga.Village Year, the first in a series of journals – meditations on nature, Midwestern village American life, and more – was published in 1941 to praise from The New York Times Book Review: "A book of instant sensitive responsiveness...recreates its scene with acuteness and beauty, and makes an unusual contribution to the Americana of the present day." The New York Herald Tribune observed that "Derleth...deepens the value of his village setting by presenting in full the enduring natural background; with the people projected against this, the writing comes to have the quality of an old Flemish picture, humanity lively and amusing and loveable in the foreground and nature magnificent beyond." James Grey, writing in the St. Louis Dispatch concluded, "Derleth has achieved a kind of prose equivalent of the Spoon River Anthology."In the same year, Evening in Spring was published by Charles Scribners & Sons. This work Derleth considered among his finest. What The Milwaukee Journal called "this beautiful little love story", is an autobiographical novel of first love beset by small-town religious bigotry. The work received critical praise: The New Yorker considered it a story told "with tenderness and charm", while the Chicago Tribune  concluded: "It's as though he turned back the pages of an old diary and told, with rekindled emotion, of the pangs of pain and the sharp, clear sweetness of a boy's first love." Helen Constance White, wrote in The Capital Times that it was "...the best articulated, the most fully disciplined of his stories."These were followed in 1943 with Shadow of Night, a Scribners' novel of which The Chicago Sun wrote: "Structurally it has the perfection of a carved jewel...A psychological novel of the first order, and an adventure tale that is unique and inspiriting."In November 1945, however, Derleth's work was attacked by his one-time admirer and mentor, Sinclair Lewis. Writing in Esquire, Lewis observed, "It is a proof of Mr. Derleth's merit that he makes one want to make the journey and see his particular Avalon: The Wisconsin River shining among its islands, and the castles of Baron Pierneau and Hercules Dousman.  He is a champion and a justification of regionalism.  Yet he is also a burly, bounding, bustling, self-confident, opinionated, and highly-sweatered young man with faults so grievous that a melancholy perusal of them may be of more value to apprentices than a study of his serious virtues.  If he could ever be persuaded that he isn't half as good as he thinks he is, if he would learn the art of sitting still and using a blue pencil, he might become twice as good as he thinks he is – which would about rank him with Homer." Derleth good-humoredly reprinted the criticism along with a photograph of himself sans sweater, on the back cover of his 1948 country journal: Village Daybook.A lighter side to the Sac Prairie Saga is a series of quasi-autobiographical short stories known as the "Gus Elker Stories", amusing tales of country life that Peter Ruber, Derleth's last editor, said were "...models of construction and...fused with some of the most memorable characters in American literature." Most were written between 1934 and the late 1940s, though the last, "Tail of the Dog", was published in 1959 and won the Scholastic Magazine short story award for the year. The series was collected and republished in Country Matters in 1996.Walden West, published in 1961, is considered by many Derleth's finest work. This prose meditation is built out of the same fundamental material as the series of Sac Prairie journals, but is organized around three themes: "the persistence of memory...the sounds and odors of the country...and Thoreau's observation that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'"  A blend of nature writing, philosophic musings, and careful observation of the people and place of "Sac Prairie." Of this work, George Vukelich, author of "North Country Notebook", writes: "Derleth's Walden West is...the equal of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology."  This was followed eight years later by Return to Walden West, a work of similar quality, but with a more noticeable environmentalist edge to the writing, notes critic Norbert Blei.A close literary relative of the Sac Prairie Saga was Derleth's Wisconsin Saga, which comprises several historical novels.Detective and mystery fictionDetective fiction represented another substantial body of Derleth's work. Most notable among this work was a series of 70 stories in affectionate pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, whose creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he admired greatly. These included one published novel as well (Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey). The series features a (Sherlock Holmes-styled) British detective named Solar Pons, of 7B Praed Street in London. The series was greatly admired by such notable writers and critics of mystery and detective fiction as Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay), Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett and Howard Haycraft.In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's The Norcross Riddle, an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured the spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "...and his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature."  Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons, wrote that the series is "...as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end."Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in the post-World War I era, in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles, editor Peter Ruber wrote: "...Derleth produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction."Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because the stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery fiction, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes."Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called "Mycroft & Moran", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars.  For approximately a decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars.In 1946, Conan Doyle's two sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful and eventually withdrawn.Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as the central character.Youth and children's fictionDerleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Jacques Marquette, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.  Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series, also known as the Mill Creek Irregulars series.  The ten-volume series, published between 1958 and 1970, is set in Sac Prairie of the 1920s and can thus be considered in its own right a part of the Sac Prairie Saga, as well as an extension of Derleth's body of mystery fiction.  Robert Hood, writing in the New York Times said: "Steve and Sim, the major characters, are twentieth-century cousins of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; Derleth's minor characters, little gems of comic drawing." The first novel in the series, The Moon Tenders, does, in fact, involve a rafting adventure down the Wisconsin River, which led regional writer Jesse Stuart to suggest the novel was one that "older people might read to recapture the spirit and dream of youth." The connection to the Sac Prairie Saga was noted by the Chicago Tribune: "Once again a small midwest community in 1920s is depicted with perception, skill, and dry humor."Arkham House and the "Cthulhu Mythos"Derleth was a correspondent and friend of H. P. Lovecraft – when Lovecraft wrote about "le Comte d'Erlette" in his fiction, it was in homage to Derleth.  Derleth invented the term "Cthulhu Mythos" to describe the fictional universe depicted in the series of stories shared by Lovecraft and other writers in his circle.When Lovecraft died in 1937, Derleth and Donald Wandrei assembled a collection of Lovecraft's stories and tried to get them published. Existing publishers showed little interest, so Derleth and Wandrei founded Arkham House in 1939 for that purpose. The name of the company derived from Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, which features in many of his stories. In 1939, Arkham House published The Outsider and Others, a huge collection that contained most of Lovecraft's known short stories. Derleth and Wandrei soon expanded Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its second book, Someone in the Dark, a collection of some of Derleth's own horror stories, was published  in 1941.Following Lovecraft's death, Derleth wrote a number of stories based on fragments and notes left by Lovecraft. These were published in Weird Tales and later in book form, under the byline "H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", with Derleth calling himself a "posthumous collaborator." This practice has raised objections in some quarters that Derleth simply used Lovecraft's name to market what was essentially his own fiction; S. T. Joshi refers to the "posthumous collaborations" as marking the beginning of "perhaps the most disreputable phase of Derleth's activities".Dirk W. Mosig, S. T. Joshi, and Richard L. Tierney were dissatisfied with Derleth's invention of the term Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft himself used Yog-Sothothery) and his presentation of Lovecraft's fiction as having an overall pattern reflecting Derleth's own Christian world view, which they contrast with Lovecraft's depiction of an amoral universe. However, Robert M. Price points out that while Derleth's tales are distinct from Lovecraft's in their use of hope and his depiction of a struggle between good and evil, nevertheless the basis of Derlerth's systemization are found in Lovecraft. He also suggests that the differences can be overstated:Derleth was more optimistic than Lovecraft in his conception of the Mythos, but we are dealing with a difference more of degree than kind. There are indeed tales wherein Derleth's protagonists get off scot-free (like "The Shadow in the Attic", "Witches' Hollow", or "The Shuttered Room"), but often the hero is doomed (e.g., "The House in the Valley", "The Peabody Heritage", "Something in Wood"), as in Lovecraft. And it must be remembered that an occasional Lovecraftian hero does manage to overcome the odds, e.g., in "The Horror in the Museum", "The Shunned House", and 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'.  Derleth also treated Lovecraft's Great Old Ones as representatives of elemental forces, creating new fictional entities to flesh out this framework.Such debates aside, Derleth's founding of Arkham House and his successful effort to rescue Lovecraft from literary oblivion are widely acknowledged by practitioners in the horror field as seminal events in the field. For instance, Ramsey Campbell has acknowledged Derleth's encouragement and guidance during the early part of his own writing career, and Kirby McCauley has cited Derleth and Arkham House as an inspiration for his own anthology Dark Forces.  Arkham House and Derleth published Dark Carnival, the first book by Ray Bradbury, as well. Brian Lumley cites the importance of Derleth to his own Lovecraftian work, and contends in a 2009 introduction to Derleth's work that he was "...one of the first, finest, and most discerning editors and publishers of macabre fiction."Important as was Derleth's work to rescue H.P. Lovecraft from literary obscurity at the time of Lovecraft's death, Derleth also built a body of horror and spectral fiction of his own; still frequently anthologized. The best of this work, recently reprinted in four volumes of short stories – most of which were originally published in Weird Tales, illustrates Derleth's original abilities in the genre. While Derleth considered his work in this genre less important than his most serious literary efforts, the compilers of these four anthologies, including Ramsey Campbell, note that the stories still resonate after more than 50 years.In 2009, The Library of America selected Derleth's story The Panelled Room for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales.Other worksDerleth also wrote many historical novels, as part of both the Sac Prairie Saga and the Wisconsin Saga. He also wrote history; arguably most notable among these was The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles, published in 1942.  The work was one in a series entitled "The Rivers of America", conceived by writer Constance Lindsay Skinner in the Great Depression as a series that would connect Americans to their heritage through the history of the great rivers of the nation. Skinner wanted the series to be written by artists, not academicians. Derleth, while not a trained historian, was, according to former Wisconsin state historian William F. Thompson, "...a very competent regional historian who based his historical writing upon research in the primary documents and who regularly sought the help of professionals... ."  In the foreword to the 1985 reissue of the work by The University of Wisconsin Press, Thompson concluded: "No other writer, of whatever background or training, knew and understood his particular 'corner of the earth' better than August Derleth."Additionally, Derleth wrote a number of volumes of poetry. Three of his collections – Rind of Earth (1942), Selected Poems (1944), and The Edge of Night (1945) – were published by the Decker Press, which also printed the work of other Midwestern poets such as Edgar Lee Masters.Derleth was also the author of several biographies of other writers, including Zona Gale, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.He also wrote introductions to several collections of classic early 20th century comics, such as Buster Brown, Little Nemo in Slumberland, and Katzenjammer Kids, as well as a book of children's poetry entitled A Boy's Way, and the foreword to Tales from an Indian Lodge by Phebe Jewell Nichols. Derleth also wrote under the noms de plume Stephen Grendon, Kenyon Holmes and Tally Mason.Derleth's papers were donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.BibliographyAwards O'Brien Roll of Honour for short story, 1933 Guggenheim fellow, 1938See also August Derleth Award List of authors of new Sherlock Holmes stories List of horror fiction authors List of people from Wisconsin Mark Schorer Sherlock Holmes pastichesNotesReferences         Meudt, Edna. 'August Derleth: "A simple, honorable man",' Wisconsin Academy Review, 19:2 (Summer, 1972) 8–11.   Schorer, Mark. "An Appraisal of the Work of August Derleth", The Capital Times, July 9, 1971.Further reading Robert Bloch. "Two Great Editors". Is No 4 (Oct 1971). Reprint in Bloch's Out of My Head. Cambridge MA: NESFA Press, 1986, 71–79. Lin Carter. "A Day in Derleth Country".  Is No 4 (Oct 1971). Reprint in Crypt of Cthulhu 1, No 6. John Howard. "The Ghosts of Sauk County". All Hallows 18 (1998); in Howard's Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic. Staffordshire UK: Alchemy Press, 2014. David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi (eds). Eccentric, Impractical Devils: The Letters of August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith. NY: Hippocampus Press, 2020.External links The August Derleth Society A biography August Derleth BibliographyWorks    Online catalog of Derleth's collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society   1909 births1971 deathsUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison alumniAmerican CatholicsAmerican short story writersAmerican mystery writersAmerican speculative fiction editors20th-century American novelistsCthulhu Mythos writersAmerican horror writersPeople from Sauk City, WisconsinNovelists from WisconsinScience fiction editorsSolar PonsAnthologistsAmerican male novelistsAmerican male short story writersCatholics from Wisconsin20th-century Roman CatholicsWriters from WisconsinWeird fiction writers20th-century American male writers
The Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately  across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia. The Alpine arch generally extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening  caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at  is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than .The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of , and plants such as Edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations. Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks.The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. The traditional culture of farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still exists in Alpine villages, although the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded greatly after World War II to become the dominant industry by the end of the century. The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. At present, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.Etymology and toponymy The English word Alps comes from the Latin Alpes.The Latin word Alpes could possibly come from the adjective albus ("white"), or could possibly come from the Greek goddess Alphito, whose name is related to alphita, the "white flour"; alphos, a dull white leprosy; and finally the Proto-Indo-European word *albʰós. Similarly, the river god Alpheus is also supposed to derive from the Greek alphos and means whitish.In his commentary on the Aeneid of Vergil, the late fourth-century grammarian Maurus Servius Honoratus says that all high mountains are called Alpes by Celts.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Latin Alpes might possibly derive from a pre-Indo-European word *alb "hill"; "Albania" is a related derivation. Albania, a name not native to the region known as the country of Albania, has been used as a name for a number of mountainous areas across Europe. In Roman times, "Albania" was a name for the eastern Caucasus, while in the English languages "Albania" (or "Albany") was occasionally used as a name for Scotland, although it is more likely derived from the Latin word albus, the color white.In modern languages the term alp, alm, albe or alpe refers to a grazing pastures in the alpine regions below the glaciers, not the peaks. An alp refers to a high mountain pasture, typically near or above the tree line, where cows and other livestock are taken to be grazed during the summer months and where huts and hay barns can be found, sometimes constituting tiny hamlets. Therefore, the term "the Alps", as a reference to the mountains, is a misnomer. The term for the mountain peaks varies by nation and language: words such as Horn, Kogel, Kopf, Gipfel, Spitze, Stock, and Berg are used in German-speaking regions; Mont, Pic, Tête, Pointe, Dent, Roche, and Aiguille in French-speaking regions; and Monte, Picco, Corno, Punta, Pizzo, or Cima in Italian-speaking regions.Geography The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in an  arc (curved line) from east to west and is  in width. The mean height of the mountain peaks is . The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, and stretching eastward through mid and southern Switzerland. The range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia. To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the southern border of Bavaria in Germany. In areas like Chiasso, Switzerland, and Allgäu, Bavaria, the demarcation between the mountain range and the flatlands are clear; in other places such as Geneva, the demarcation is less clear.The countries with the greatest alpine territory are Austria (28.7% of the total area), Italy (27.2%), France (21.4%) and Switzerland (13.2%).The highest portion of the range is divided by the glacial trough of the Rhône valley, from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa on the southern side, and the Bernese Alps on the northern. The peaks in the easterly portion of the range, in Austria and Slovenia, are smaller than those in the central and western portions. The variances in nomenclature in the region spanned by the Alps makes classification of the mountains and subregions difficult, but a general classification is that of the Eastern Alps and Western Alps with the divide between the two occurring in eastern Switzerland according to geologist Stefan Schmid, near the Splügen Pass. The highest peaks of the Western Alps and Eastern Alps, respectively, are Mont Blanc, at  and Piz Bernina at . The second-highest major peaks are Monte Rosa at  and Ortler, at , respectively.Series of lower mountain ranges run parallel to the main chain of the Alps, including the French Prealps in France and the Jura Mountains in Switzerland and France. The secondary chain of the Alps follows the watershed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Wienerwald, passing over many of the highest and most well-known peaks in the Alps. From the Colle di Cadibona to Col de Tende it runs westwards, before turning to the northwest and then, near the Colle della Maddalena, to the north. Upon reaching the Swiss border, the line of the main chain heads approximately east-northeast, a heading it follows until its end near Vienna.The northeast end of the Alpine arc directly on the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea, is the Leopoldsberg near Vienna. In contrast, the southeastern part of the Alps ends on the Adriatic Sea in the area around Trieste towards Duino and Barcola.Passes The Alps have been crossed for war and commerce, and by pilgrims, students and tourists. Crossing routes by road, train or foot are known as passes, and usually consist of depressions in the mountains in which a valley leads from the plains and hilly pre-mountainous zones. In the medieval period hospices were established by religious orders at the summits of many of the main passes. The most important passes are the Col de l'Iseran (the highest), the Col Agnel, the Brenner Pass, the Mont-Cenis, the Great St. Bernard Pass, the Col de Tende, the Gotthard Pass, the Semmering Pass, the Simplon Pass, and the Stelvio Pass.Crossing the Italian-Austrian border, the Brenner Pass separates the Ötztal Alps and Zillertal Alps and has been in use as a trading route since the 14th century. The lowest of the Alpine passes at , the Semmering crosses from Lower Austria to Styria; since the 12th century when a hospice was built there, it has seen continuous use. A railroad with a tunnel  long was built along the route of the pass in the mid-19th century. With a summit of , the Great St. Bernard Pass is one of the highest in the Alps, crossing the Italian-Swiss border east of the Pennine Alps along the flanks of Mont Blanc. The pass was used by Napoleon Bonaparte to cross 40,000 troops in 1800.The Mont Cenis pass has been a major commercial and military road between Western Europe and Italy. The pass was crossed by many troops on their way to the Italian peninsula. From Constantine I, Pepin the Short and Charlemagne to Henry IV, Napoléon and more recently the German Gebirgsjägers during World War II.Now the pass has been supplanted by the Fréjus Highway Tunnel (opened 1980) and Rail Tunnel (opened 1871).The Saint Gotthard Pass crosses from Central Switzerland to Ticino; in 1882 the  Saint Gotthard Railway Tunnel was opened connecting Lucerne in Switzerland, with Milan in Italy. 98 years later followed Gotthard Road Tunnel ( long) connecting the A2 motorway in Göschenen on the north side with Airolo on the south side, exactly like the railway tunnel.On 1 June 2016 the world's longest railway tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was opened, which connects Erstfeld in canton of Uri with Bodio in canton of Ticino by two single tubes of . It is the first tunnel that traverses the Alps on a flat route.From 11 December 2016, it has been part of the regular railway timetable and used hourly as standard ride between Basel/Lucerne/Zurich and Bellinzona/Lugano/Milan.The highest pass in the alps is the col de l'Iseran in Savoy (France) at , followed by the Stelvio Pass in northern Italy at ; the road was built in the 1820s.Highest mountains The Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA) has defined a list of 82 "official" Alpine summits that reach at least . The list includes not only mountains, but also subpeaks with little prominence that are considered important mountaineering objectives. Below are listed the 29 "four-thousanders" with at least  of prominence.While Mont Blanc was first climbed in 1786 and the Jungfrau in 1811, most of the Alpine four-thousanders were climbed during the second half of the 19th century, notably Piz Bernina (1850), the Dom (1858), the Grand Combin (1859), the Weisshorn (1861) and the Barre des Écrins (1864); the ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 marked the end of the golden age of alpinism. Karl Blodig (1859–1956) was among the first to successfully climb all the major 4,000 m peaks. He completed his series of ascents in 1911. Many of the big Alpine three-thousanders were climbed in the early 19th century, notably the Grossglockner (1800) and the Ortler (1804), although some of them were climbed only much later, such at Mont Pelvoux (1848), Monte Viso (1861) and La Meije (1877).The first British Mont Blanc ascent was in 1788; the first female ascent in 1819. By the mid-1850s Swiss mountaineers had ascended most of the peaks and were eagerly sought as mountain guides. Edward Whymper reached the top of the Matterhorn in 1865 (after seven attempts), and in 1938 the last of the six great north faces of the Alps was climbed with the first ascent of the Eiger Nordwand (north face of the Eiger).Geology and orogeny Important geological concepts were established as naturalists began studying the rock formations of the Alps in the 18th century. In the mid-19th century the now-defunct theory of geosynclines was used to explain the presence of "folded" mountain chains but by the mid-20th century the theory of plate tectonics became widely accepted.The formation of the Alps (the Alpine orogeny) was an episodic process that began about 300 million years ago. In the Paleozoic Era the Pangaean supercontinent consisted of a single tectonic plate; it broke into separate plates during the Mesozoic Era and the Tethys sea developed between Laurasia and Gondwana during the Jurassic Period. The Tethys was later squeezed between colliding plates causing the formation of mountain ranges called the Alpide belt, from Gibraltar through the Himalayas to Indonesia—a process that began at the end of the Mesozoic and continues into the present. The formation of the Alps was a segment of this orogenic process, caused by the collision between the African and the Eurasian plates that began in the late Cretaceous Period.Under extreme compressive stresses and pressure, marine sedimentary rocks were uplifted, creating characteristic recumbent folds, or nappes, and thrust faults. As the rising peaks underwent erosion, a layer of marine flysch sediments was deposited in the foreland basin, and the sediments became involved in younger nappes (folds) as the orogeny progressed. Coarse sediments from the continual uplift and erosion were later deposited in foreland areas as molasse. The molasse regions in Switzerland and Bavaria were well-developed and saw further upthrusting of flysch.The Alpine orogeny occurred in ongoing cycles through to the Paleogene causing differences in nappe structures, with a late-stage orogeny causing the development of the Jura Mountains. A series of tectonic events in the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods caused different paleogeographic regions. The Alps are subdivided by different lithology (rock composition) and nappe structure according to the orogenic events that affected them. The geological subdivision differentiates the Western, Eastern Alps and Southern Alps: the Helveticum in the north, the Penninicum and Austroalpine system in the centre and, south of the Periadriatic Seam, the Southern Alpine system.According to geologist Stefan Schmid, because the Western Alps underwent a metamorphic event in the Cenozoic Era while the Austroalpine peaks underwent an event in the Cretaceous Period, the two areas show distinct differences in nappe formations. Flysch deposits in the Southern Alps of Lombardy probably occurred in the Cretaceous or later.Peaks in France, Italy and Switzerland lie in the "Houillière zone", which consists of basement with sediments from the Mesozoic Era. High "massifs" with external sedimentary cover are more common in the Western Alps and were affected by Neogene Period thin-skinned thrusting whereas the Eastern Alps have comparatively few high peaked massifs. Similarly the peaks in eastern Switzerland extending to western Austria (Helvetic nappes) consist of thin-skinned sedimentary folding that detached from former basement rock.In simple terms, the structure of the Alps consists of layers of rock of European, African and oceanic (Tethyan) origin. The bottom nappe structure is of continental European origin, above which are stacked marine sediment nappes, topped off by nappes derived from the African plate. The Matterhorn is an example of the ongoing orogeny and shows evidence of great folding. The tip of the mountain consists of gneisses from the African plate; the base of the peak, below the glaciated area, consists of European basement rock. The sequence of Tethyan marine sediments and their oceanic basement is sandwiched between rock derived from the African and European plates.The core regions of the Alpine orogenic belt have been folded and fractured in such a manner that erosion created the characteristic steep vertical peaks of the Swiss Alps that rise seemingly straight out of the foreland areas. Peaks such as Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and high peaks in the Pennine Alps, the Briançonnais, and Hohe Tauern consist of layers of rock from the various orogenies including exposures of basement rock.Due to the ever-present geologic instability, earthquakes continue in the Alps to this day. Typically, the largest earthquakes in the alps have been between magnitude 6 and 7 on the Richter scale.Minerals The Alps are a source of minerals that have been mined for thousands of years. In the 8th to 6th centuries BC during the Hallstatt culture, Celtic tribes mined copper; later the Romans mined gold for coins in the Bad Gastein area. Erzberg in Styria furnishes high-quality iron ore for the steel industry. Crystals, such as cinnabar, amethyst, and quartz, are found throughout much of the Alpine region. The cinnabar deposits in Slovenia are a notable source of cinnabar pigments.Alpine crystals have been studied and collected for hundreds of years, and began to be classified in the 18th century. Leonhard Euler studied the shapes of crystals, and by the 19th century crystal hunting was common in Alpine regions. David Friedrich Wiser amassed a collection of 8000 crystals that he studied and documented. In the 20th century Robert Parker wrote a well-known work about the rock crystals of the Swiss Alps; at the same period a commission was established to control and standardize the naming of Alpine minerals.Glaciers In the Miocene Epoch the mountains underwent severe erosion because of glaciation, which was noted in the mid-19th century by naturalist Louis Agassiz who presented a paper proclaiming the Alps were covered in ice at various intervals—a theory he formed when studying rocks near his Neuchâtel home which he believed originated to the west in the Bernese Oberland. Because of his work he came to be known as the "father of the ice-age concept" although other naturalists before him put forth similar ideas.Agassiz studied glacier movement in the 1840s at the Unteraar Glacier where he found the glacier moved  per year, more rapidly in the middle than at the edges. His work was continued by other scientists and now a permanent laboratory exists inside a glacier under the Jungfraujoch, devoted exclusively to the study of Alpine glaciers.Glaciers pick up rocks and sediment with them as they flow. This causes erosion and the formation of valleys over time. The Inn valley is an example of a valley carved by glaciers during the ice ages with a typical terraced structure caused by erosion. Eroded rocks from the most recent ice age lie at the bottom of the valley while the top of the valley consists of erosion from earlier ice ages. Glacial valleys have characteristically steep walls (reliefs); valleys with lower reliefs and talus slopes are remnants of glacial troughs or previously infilled valleys. Moraines, piles of rock picked up during the movement of the glacier, accumulate at edges, centre and the terminus of glaciers.Alpine glaciers can be straight rivers of ice, long sweeping rivers, spread in a fan-like shape (Piedmont glaciers), and curtains of ice that hang from vertical slopes of the mountain peaks. The stress of the movement causes the ice to break and crack loudly, perhaps explaining why the mountains were believed to be home to dragons in the medieval period. The cracking creates unpredictable and dangerous crevasses, often invisible under new snowfall, which cause the greatest danger to mountaineers.Glaciers end in ice caves (the Rhône Glacier), by trailing into a lake or river, or by shedding snowmelt on a meadow. Sometimes a piece of glacier will detach or break resulting in flooding, property damage and loss of life.High levels of precipitation cause the glaciers to descend to permafrost levels in some areas whereas in other, more arid regions, glaciers remain above about the  level. The  of the Alps covered by glaciers in 1876 had shrunk to  by 1973, resulting in decreased river run-off levels. Forty percent of the glaciation in Austria has disappeared since 1850, and 30% of that in Switzerland.Rivers and lakes The Alps provide lowland Europe with drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectric power. Although the area is only about 11% of the surface area of Europe, the Alps provide up to 90% of water to lowland Europe, particularly to arid areas and during the summer months. Cities such as Milan depend on 80% of water from Alpine runoff. Water from the rivers is used in at least 550 hydroelectricity power plants, considering only those producing at least 10MW of electricity.Major European rivers flow from the Alps, such as the Rhine, the Rhône, the Inn, and the Po, all of which have headwaters in the Alps and flow into neighbouring countries, finally emptying into the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea. Other rivers such as the Danube have major tributaries flowing into them that originate in the Alps. The Rhône is second to the Nile as a freshwater source to the Mediterranean Sea; the river begins as glacial meltwater, flows into Lake Geneva, and from there to France where one of its uses is to cool nuclear power plants. The Rhine originates in a  area in Switzerland and represents almost 60% of water exported from the country. Tributary valleys, some of which are complicated, channel water to the main valleys which can experience flooding during the snowmelt season when rapid runoff causes debris torrents and swollen rivers.The rivers form lakes, such as Lake Geneva, a crescent-shaped lake crossing the Swiss border with Lausanne on the Swiss side and the town of Evian-les-Bains on the French side. In Germany, the medieval St. Bartholomew's chapel was built on the south side of the Königssee, accessible only by boat or by climbing over the abutting peaks.Additionally, the Alps have led to the creation of large lakes in Italy. For instance, the Sarca, the primary inflow of Lake Garda, originates in the Italian Alps. The Italian Lakes are a popular tourist destination since the Roman Era for their mild climate.Scientists have been studying the impact of climate change and water use. For example, each year more water is diverted from rivers for snowmaking in the ski resorts, the effect of which is yet unknown. Furthermore, the decrease of glaciated areas combined with a succession of winters with lower-than-expected precipitation may have a future impact on the rivers in the Alps as well as an effect on the water availability to the lowlands.Climate The Alps are a classic example of what happens when a temperate area at lower altitude gives way to higher-elevation terrain. Elevations around the world that have cold climates similar to those of the polar regions have been called Alpine. A rise from sea level into the upper regions of the atmosphere causes the temperature to decrease (see adiabatic lapse rate). The effect of mountain chains on prevailing winds is to carry warm air belonging to the lower region into an upper zone, where it expands in volume at the cost of a proportionate loss of temperature, often accompanied by precipitation in the form of snow or rain. The height of the Alps is sufficient to divide the weather patterns in Europe into a wet north and a dry south because moisture is sucked from the air as it flows over the high peaks.The severe weather in the Alps has been studied since the 18th century; particularly the weather patterns such as the seasonal foehn wind. Numerous weather stations were placed in the mountains early in the early 20th century, providing continuous data for climatologists. Some of the valleys are quite arid such as the Aosta valley in Italy, the Maurienne in France, the Valais in Switzerland, and northern Tyrol.The areas that are not arid and receive high precipitation experience periodic flooding from rapid snowmelt and runoff. The mean precipitation in the Alps ranges from a low of  per year to  per year, with the higher levels occurring at high altitudes. At altitudes between , snowfall begins in November and accumulates through to April or May when the melt begins. Snow lines vary from , above which the snow is permanent and the temperatures hover around the freezing point even during July and August. High-water levels in streams and rivers peak in June and July when the snow is still melting at the higher altitudes.The Alps are split into five climatic zones, each with different vegetation. The climate, plant life and animal life vary among the different sections or zones of the mountains. The lowest zone is the colline zone, which exists between , depending on the location. The montane zone extends from , followed by the sub-Alpine zone from . The Alpine zone, extending from tree line to snow line, is followed by the glacial zone, which covers the glaciated areas of the mountain. Climatic conditions show variances within the same zones; for example, weather conditions at the head of a mountain valley, extending directly from the peaks, are colder and more severe than those at the mouth of a valley which tend to be less severe and receive less snowfall.Various models of climate change have been projected into the 22nd century for the Alps, with an expectation that a trend toward increased temperatures will have an effect on snowfall, snowpack, glaciation, and river runoff. Significant changes, of both natural and anthropogenic origins, have already been diagnosed from observations.EcologyFlora Thirteen thousand species of plants have been identified in the Alpine regions. Alpine plants are grouped by habitat and soil type which can be limestone or non-calcareous. The habitats range from meadows, bogs, woodland (deciduous and coniferous) areas to soil-less scree and moraines, and rock faces and ridges. A natural vegetation limit with altitude is given by the presence of the chief deciduous trees—oak, beech, ash and sycamore maple. These do not reach exactly to the same elevation, nor are they often found growing together; but their upper limit corresponds accurately enough to the change from a temperate to a colder climate that is further proved by a change in the presence of wild herbaceous vegetation. This limit usually lies about  above the sea on the north side of the Alps, but on the southern slopes it often rises to , sometimes even to .Above the forestry, there is often a band of short pine trees (Pinus mugo), which is in turn superseded by Alpenrosen, dwarf shrubs, typically Rhododendron ferrugineum (on acid soils) or Rhododendron hirsutum (on alkaline soils). Although the Alpenrose prefers acidic soil, the plants are found throughout the region. Above the tree line is the area defined as "alpine" where in the alpine meadow plants are found that have adapted well to harsh conditions of cold temperatures, aridity, and high altitudes. The alpine area fluctuates greatly because of regional fluctuations in tree lines.Alpine plants such as the Alpine gentian grow in abundance in areas such as the meadows above the Lauterbrunnental. Gentians are named after the Illyrian king Gentius, and 40 species of the early-spring blooming flower grow in the Alps, in a range of . Writing about the gentians in Switzerland D. H. Lawrence described them as "darkening the day-time, torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom." Gentians tend to "appear" repeatedly as the spring blooming takes place at progressively later dates, moving from the lower altitude to the higher altitude meadows where the snow melts much later than in the valleys. On the highest rocky ledges the spring flowers bloom in the summer.At these higher altitudes, the plants tend to form isolated cushions. In the Alps, several species of flowering plants have been recorded above , including Ranunculus glacialis, Androsace alpina and Saxifraga biflora. Eritrichium nanum, commonly known as the King of the Alps, is the most elusive of the alpine flowers, growing on rocky ridges at . Perhaps the best known of the alpine plants is Edelweiss which grows in rocky areas and can be found at altitudes as low as  and as high as . The plants that grow at the highest altitudes have adapted to conditions by specialization such as growing in rock screes that give protection from winds.The extreme and stressful climatic conditions give way to the growth of plant species with secondary metabolites important for medicinal purposes. Origanum vulgare, Prunella vulgaris, Solanum nigrum and Urtica dioica are some of the more useful medicinal species found in the Alps.Human interference has nearly exterminated the trees in many areas, and, except for the beech forests of the Austrian Alps, forests of deciduous trees are rarely found after the extreme deforestation between the 17th and 19th centuries. The vegetation has changed since the second half of the 20th century, as the high alpine meadows cease to be harvested for hay or used for grazing which eventually might result in a regrowth of forest. In some areas, the modern practice of building ski runs by mechanical means has destroyed the underlying tundra from which the plant life cannot recover during the non-skiing months, whereas areas that still practice a natural piste type of ski slope building preserve the fragile underlayers.Fauna The Alps are a habitat for 30,000 species of wildlife, ranging from the tiniest snow fleas to brown bears, many of which have made adaptations to the harsh cold conditions and high altitudes to the point that some only survive in specific micro-climates either directly above or below the snow line.The largest mammal to live in the highest altitudes are the alpine ibex, which have been sighted as high as . The ibex live in caves and descend to eat the succulent alpine grasses. Classified as antelopes, chamois are smaller than ibex and found throughout the Alps, living above the tree line and are common in the entire alpine range. Areas of the eastern Alps are still home to brown bears. In Switzerland the canton of Bern was named for the bears but the last bear is recorded as having been killed in 1792 above Kleine Scheidegg by three hunters from Grindelwald.Many rodents such as voles live underground. Marmots live almost exclusively above the tree line as high as . They hibernate in large groups to provide warmth, and can be found in all areas of the Alps, in large colonies they build beneath the alpine pastures. Golden eagles and bearded vultures are the largest birds to be found in the Alps; they nest high on rocky ledges and can be found at altitudes of . The most common bird is the alpine chough which can be found scavenging at climber's huts or at the Jungfraujoch, a high altitude tourist destination.Reptiles such as adders and vipers live up to the snow line; because they cannot bear the cold temperatures they hibernate underground and soak up the warmth on rocky ledges. The high-altitude Alpine salamanders have adapted to living above the snow line by giving birth to fully developed young rather than laying eggs. Brown trout can be found in the streams up to the snow line. Molluscs such as the wood snail live up the snow line. Popularly gathered as food, the snails are now protected.A number of species of moths live in the Alps, some of which are believed to have evolved in the same habitat up to 120 million years ago, long before the Alps were created. Blue butterflies can commonly be seen drinking from the snowmelt; some species of blues fly as high as . The butterflies tend to be large, such as those from the swallowtail Parnassius family, with a habitat that ranges to . Twelve species of beetles have habitats up to the snow line; the most beautiful and formerly collected for its colours but now protected is Rosalia alpina. Spiders, such as the large wolf spider, live above the snow line and can be seen as high as . Scorpions can be found in the Italian Alps.Some of the species of moths and insects show evidence of having been indigenous to the area from as long ago as the Alpine orogeny. In Emosson in Valais, Switzerland, dinosaur tracks were found in the 1970s, dating probably from the Triassic Period.HistoryPrehistory to Christianity About 10,000 years ago, when the ice melted after the Würm glaciation, late Palaeolithic communities were established along the lake shores and in cave systems. Evidence of human habitation has been found in caves near Vercors, close to Grenoble; in Austria the Mondsee culture shows evidence of houses built on piles to keep them dry. Standing stones have been found in Alpine areas of France and Italy. The Rock Drawings in Valcamonica are more than 5000 years old; more than 200,000 drawings and etchings have been identified at the site.In 1991, a mummy of a neolithic body, known as Ötzi the Iceman, was discovered by hikers on the Similaun glacier. His clothing and gear indicate that he lived in an alpine farming community, while the location and manner of his death – an arrowhead was discovered in his shoulder – suggests he was travelling from one place to another. Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of Ötzi, has shown that he belongs to the K1 subclade which cannot be categorized into any of the three modern branches of that subclade. The new subclade has provisionally been named K1ö for Ötzi.Celtic tribes settled in Switzerland between 1500 and 1000 BC. The Raetians lived in the eastern regions, while the west was occupied by the Helvetii and the Allobrogi settled in the Rhône valley and in Savoy. The Ligurians and Adriatic Veneti lived in north-west Italy and Triveneto respectively. Among the many substances Celtic tribes mined was salt in areas such as Salzburg in Austria where evidence of the Hallstatt culture was found by a mine manager in the 19th century. By the 6th century BC the La Tène culture was well established in the region, and became known for high quality decorated weapons and jewellery. The Celts were the most widespread of the mountain tribes—they had warriors that were strong, tall and fair skinned, and skilled with iron weapons, which gave them an advantage in warfare.During the Second Punic War in 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal probably crossed the Alps with an army numbering 38,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, and 37 war elephants. This was one of the most celebrated achievements of any military force in ancient warfare, although no evidence exists of the actual crossing or the place of crossing. The Romans, however, had built roads along the mountain passes, which continued to be used through the medieval period to cross the mountains and Roman road markers can still be found on the mountain passes.The Roman expansion brought the defeat of the Allobrogi in 121 BC and during the Gallic Wars in 58 BC Julius Caesar overcame the Helvetii. The Rhaetians continued to resist but were eventually conquered when the Romans turned northward to the Danube valley in Austria and defeated the Brigantes. The Romans built settlements in the Alps; towns such as Aosta (named for Augustus) in Italy, Martigny and Lausanne in Switzerland, and Partenkirchen in Bavaria show remains of Roman baths, villas, arenas and temples. Much of the Alpine region was gradually settled by Germanic tribes, (Lombards, Alemanni, Bavarii, and Franks) from the 6th to the 13th centuries mixing with the local Celtic tribes.Christianity, feudalism, and Napoleonic wars Christianity was established in the region by the Romans, and saw the establishment of monasteries and churches in the high regions. The Frankish expansion of the Carolingian Empire and the Bavarian expansion in the eastern Alps introduced feudalism and the building of castles to support the growing number of dukedoms and kingdoms. Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento, Italy, still has intricate frescoes, excellent examples of Gothic art, in a tower room. In Switzerland, Château de Chillon is preserved as an example of medieval architecture.Much of the medieval period was a time of power struggles between competing dynasties such as the House of Savoy, the Visconti in northern Italy and the House of Habsburg in Austria and Slovenia. In 1291, to protect themselves from incursions by the Habsburgs, four cantons in the middle of Switzerland drew up a charter that is considered to be a declaration of independence from neighbouring kingdoms. After a series of battles fought in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, more cantons joined the confederacy and by the 16th century Switzerland was well-established as a separate state.During the Napoleonic Wars in the late 18th century and early 19th century, Napoleon annexed territory formerly controlled by the Habsburgs and Savoys. In 1798, he established the Helvetic Republic in Switzerland; two years later he led an army across the St. Bernard pass and conquered almost all of the Alpine regions.After the fall of Napoléon, many alpine countries developed heavy protections to prevent any new invasion. Thus, Savoy built a series of fortifications in the Maurienne valley in order to protect the major alpine passes, such as the col du Mont-Cenis that was even crossed by Charlemagne and his father to defeat the Lombards. The later indeed became very popular after the construction of a paved road ordered by Napoléon Bonaparte.The Barrière de l'Esseillon is a series of forts with heavy batteries, built on a cliff with a perfect view of the valley, a gorge on one side and steep mountains on the other side.In the 19th century, the monasteries built in the high Alps during the medieval period to shelter travellers and as places of pilgrimage, became tourist destinations. The Benedictines had built monasteries in Lucerne, Switzerland, and Oberammergau; the Cistercians in the Tyrol and at Lake Constance; and the Augustinians had abbeys in the Savoy and one in the centre of Interlaken, Switzerland. The Great St Bernard Hospice, built in the 9th or 10th centuries, at the summit of the Great Saint Bernard Pass was a shelter for travellers and place for pilgrims since its inception; by the 19th century it became a tourist attraction with notable visitors such as author Charles Dickens and mountaineer Edward Whymper.Exploration Radiocarbon-dated charcoal placed around 50,000 years ago was found in the Drachloch (Dragon's Hole) cave above the village of Vattis in the canton of St. Gallen, proving that the high peaks were visited by prehistoric people. Seven bear skulls from the cave may have been buried by the same prehistoric people. The peaks, however, were mostly ignored except for a few notable examples, and long left to the exclusive attention of the people of the adjoining valleys. The mountain peaks were seen as terrifying, the abode of dragons and demons, to the point that people blindfolded themselves to cross the Alpine passes. The glaciers remained a mystery and many still believed the highest areas to be inhabited by dragons.Charles VII of France ordered his chamberlain to climb Mont Aiguille in 1356. The knight reached the summit of Rocciamelone where he left a bronze triptych of three crosses, a feat which he conducted with the use of ladders to traverse the ice. In 1492, Antoine de Ville climbed Mont Aiguille, without reaching the summit, an experience he described as "horrifying and terrifying." Leonardo da Vinci was fascinated by variations of light in the higher altitudes, and climbed a mountain—scholars are uncertain which one; some believe it may have been Monte Rosa. From his description of a "blue like that of a gentian" sky it is thought that he reached a significantly high altitude. In the 18th century four Chamonix men almost made the summit of Mont Blanc but were overcome by altitude sickness and snowblindness.Conrad Gessner was the first naturalist to ascend the mountains in the 16th century, to study them, writing that in the mountains he found the "theatre of the Lord". By the 19th century more naturalists began to arrive to explore, study and conquer the high peaks. Two men who first explored the regions of ice and snow were Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799) in the Pennine Alps, and the Benedictine monk of Disentis Placidus a Spescha (1752–1833). Born in Geneva, Saussure was enamoured with the mountains from an early age; he left a law career to become a naturalist and spent many years trekking through the Bernese Oberland, the Savoy, the Piedmont and Valais, studying the glaciers and the geology, as he became an early proponent of the theory of rock upheaval. Saussure, in 1787, was a member of the third ascent of Mont Blanc—today the summits of all the peaks have been climbed.The Romantics and Alpinists Albrecht von Haller's poem Die Alpen (1732) described the mountains as an area of mythical purity. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was another writer who presented the Alps as a place of allure and beauty, in his novel Julie, or the New Heloise (1761), Later the first wave of Romantics such as Goethe and Turner came to admire the scenery; Wordsworth visited the area in 1790, writing of his experiences in The Prelude (1799). Schiller later wrote the play William Tell (1804), which tells the story the legendary Swiss marksman William Tell as part of the greater Swiss struggle for independence from the Habsburg Empire in the early 14th century. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Alpine countries began to see an influx of poets, artists, and musicians, as visitors came to experience the sublime effects of monumental nature.In 1816, Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley visited Geneva and all three were inspired by the scenery in their writings. During these visits Shelley wrote the poem "Mont Blanc", Byron wrote "The Prisoner of Chillon" and the dramatic poem Manfred, and Mary Shelley, who found the scenery overwhelming, conceived the idea for the novel Frankenstein in her villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in the midst of a thunderstorm. When Coleridge travelled to Chamonix, he declaimed, in defiance of Shelley, who had signed himself "Atheos" in the guestbook of the Hotel de Londres near Montenvers, "Who would be, who could be an atheist in this valley of wonders".By the mid-19th century scientists began to arrive en masse to study the geology and ecology of the region.From the beginning of the 19th century, the tourism and mountaineering development of the Alps began. In the early years of the "golden age of alpinism" initially scientific activities were mixed with sport, for example by the physicist John Tyndall, with the first ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper being the highlight. In the later years, the "silver age of alpinism", the focus was on mountain sports and climbing. The first president of the Alpine Club, John Ball, is considered the discoverer of the Dolomites, which for decades were the focus of climbers like Paul Grohmann, Michael Innerkofler and Angelo Dibona.The Nazis Austrian-born Adolf Hitler had a lifelong romantic fascination with the Alps and by the 1930s established a home at Berghof, in the Obersalzberg region outside of Berchtesgaden. His first visit to the area was in 1923 and he maintained a strong tie there until the end of his life. At the end of World War II, the US Army occupied Obersalzberg, to prevent Hitler from retreating with the Wehrmacht into the mountains.By 1940 many of the Alpine countries were under the control of the Axis powers. Austria underwent a political coup that made it part of the Third Reich; France had been invaded and Italy was a fascist regime. Switzerland and Liechtenstein were the only countries to avoid an Axis takeover. The Swiss Confederation mobilized its troops—the country follows the doctrine of "armed neutrality" with all males required to have military training—a number that General Eisenhower estimated to be about 850,000. The Swiss commanders wired the infrastructure leading into the country with explosives, and threatened to destroy bridges, railway tunnels and roads across passes in the event of a Nazi invasion; and if there was an invasion the Swiss army would then have retreated to the heart of the mountain peaks, where conditions were harsher, and a military invasion would involve difficult and protracted battles.German Ski troops were trained for the war, and battles were waged in mountainous areas such as the battle at Riva Ridge in Italy, where the American 10th Mountain Division encountered heavy resistance in February 1945. At the end of the war, a substantial amount of Nazi plunder was found stored in Austria, where Hitler had hoped to retreat as the war drew to a close. The salt mines surrounding the Altaussee area, where American troops found  of gold coins stored in a single mine, were used to store looted art, jewels, and currency; vast quantities of looted art were found and returned to the owners.Largest citiesThe largest city within the Alps is the city of Grenoble in France. Other larger and important cities within the Alps with over 100,000 inhabitants are in Tyrol with Bolzano (Italy), Trento (Italy) and Innsbruck (Austria). Larger cities outside the Alps are Milan, Verona, Turin (Italy), Munich (Germany), Graz, Vienna, Salzburg (Austria), Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj (Slovenia), Zurich, Geneva (Switzerland), Nice and Lyon (France).Cities with over 100,000 inhabitants in the Alps are:Alpine people and culture The population of the region is 14 million spread across eight countries. On the rim of the mountains, on the plateaus and the plains the economy consists of manufacturing and service jobs whereas in the higher altitudes and in the mountains farming is still essential to the economy. Farming and forestry continue to be mainstays of Alpine culture, industries that provide for export to the cities and maintain the mountain ecology.The Alpine regions are multicultural and linguistically diverse. Dialects are common, and vary from valley to valley and region to region. In the Slavic Alps alone 19 dialects have been identified. Some of the Romance dialects spoken in the French, Swiss and Italian alps of Aosta Valley derive from Arpitan, while the southern part of the western range is related to Occitan; the German dialects derive from Germanic tribal languages. Romansh, spoken by two percent of the population in southeast Switzerland, is an ancient Rhaeto-Romanic language derived from Latin, remnants of ancient Celtic languages and perhaps Etruscan.Much of the Alpine culture is unchanged since the medieval period when skills that guaranteed survival in the mountain valleys and in the highest villages became mainstays, leading to strong traditions of carpentry, woodcarving, baking and pastry-making, and cheesemaking.Farming has been a traditional occupation for centuries, although it became less dominant in the 20th century with the advent of tourism. Grazing and pasture land are limited because of the steep and rocky topography of the Alps. In mid-June cows are moved to the highest pastures close to the snowline, where they are watched by herdsmen who stay in the high altitudes often living in stone huts or wooden barns during the summers. Villagers celebrate the day the cows are herded up to the pastures and again when they return in mid-September. The Almabtrieb, Alpabzug, Alpabfahrt, Désalpes ("coming down from the alps") is celebrated by decorating the cows with garlands and enormous cowbells while the farmers dress in traditional costumes.Cheesemaking is an ancient tradition in most Alpine countries. A wheel of cheese from the Emmental in Switzerland can weigh up to , and the Beaufort in Savoy can weigh up to . Owners of the cows traditionally receive from the cheesemakers a portion in relation to the proportion of the cows' milk from the summer months in the high alps. Haymaking is an important farming activity in mountain villages that has become somewhat mechanized in recent years, although the slopes are so steep that scythes are usually necessary to cut the grass. Hay is normally brought in twice a year, often also on festival days. In the high villages, people live in homes built according to medieval designs that withstand cold winters. The kitchen is separated from the living area (called the stube, the area of the home heated by a stove), and second-floor bedrooms benefit from rising heat. The typical Swiss chalet originated in the Bernese Oberland. Chalets often face south or downhill, and are built of solid wood, with a steeply gabled roof to allow accumulated snow to slide off easily. Stairs leading to upper levels are sometimes built on the outside, and balconies are sometimes enclosed.Food is passed from the kitchen to the stube, where the dining room table is placed. Some meals are communal, such as fondue, where a pot is set in the middle of the table for each person to dip into. Other meals are still served in a traditional manner on carved wooden plates. Furniture has been traditionally elaborately carved and in many Alpine countries carpentry skills are passed from generation to generation.Roofs are traditionally constructed from Alpine rocks such as pieces of schist, gneiss or slate. Such chalets are typically found in the higher parts of the valleys, as in the Maurienne valley in Savoy, where the amount of snow during the cold months is important. The inclination of the roof cannot exceed 40%, allowing the snow to stay on top, thereby functioning as insulation from the cold. In the lower areas where the forests are widespread, wooden tiles are traditionally used. Commonly made of Norway spruce, they are called "tavaillon". In the German-speaking parts of the Alps (Austria, Bavaria, South Tyrol, Liechtenstein and Switzerland), there is a strong tradition of Alpine folk culture. Old traditions are carefully maintained among inhabitants of Alpine areas, even though this is seldom obvious to the visitor: many people are members of cultural associations where the Alpine folk culture is cultivated. At cultural events, traditional folk costume (in German Tracht) is expected: typically lederhosen for men and dirndls for women. Visitors can get a glimpse of the rich customs of the Alps at public Volksfeste. Even when large events feature only a little folk culture, all participants take part with gusto. Good opportunities to see local people celebrating the traditional culture occur at the many fairs, wine festivals and firefighting festivals which fill weekends in the countryside from spring to autumn. Alpine festivals vary from country to country. Frequently they include music (e.g. the playing of Alpenhorns), dance (e.g. Schuhplattler), sports (e.g. wrestling marches and archery), as well as traditions with pagan roots such as the lighting of fires on Walpurgis Night and Saint John's Eve. Many areas celebrate Fastnacht in the weeks before Lent. Folk costume also continues to be worn for most weddings and festivals.Tourism The Alps are one of the more popular tourist destinations in the world with many resorts such Oberstdorf, in Bavaria, Saalbach in Austria, Davos in Switzerland, Chamonix in France, and Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy recording more than a million annual visitors. With over 120 million visitors a year, tourism is integral to the Alpine economy with much it coming from winter sports, although summer visitors are also an important component.The tourism industry began in the early 19th century when foreigners visited the Alps, travelled to the bases of the mountains to enjoy the scenery, and stayed at the spa-resorts. Large hotels were built during the Belle Époque; cog-railways, built early in the 20th century, brought tourists to ever-higher elevations, with the Jungfraubahn terminating at the Jungfraujoch, well above the eternal snow-line, after going through a tunnel in Eiger. During this period winter sports were slowly introduced: in 1882 the first figure skating championship was held in St. Moritz, and downhill skiing became a popular sport with English visitors early in the 20th century, as the first ski-lift was installed in 1908 above Grindelwald.In the first half of the 20th century the Olympic Winter Games were held three times in Alpine venues: the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France; the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland; and the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. During World War II the winter games were cancelled but after that time the Winter Games have been held in St. Moritz (1948), Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956), Innsbruck, Austria (1964 and 1976), Grenoble, France, (1968), Albertville, France, (1992), and Torino (2006). In 1930, the Lauberhorn Rennen (Lauberhorn Race), was run for the first time on the Lauberhorn above Wengen; the equally demanding Hahnenkamm was first run in the same year in Kitzbühl, Austria. Both races continue to be held each January on successive weekends. The Lauberhorn is the more strenuous downhill race at  and poses danger to racers who reach  within seconds of leaving the start gate.During the post-World War I period, ski-lifts were built in Swiss and Austrian towns to accommodate winter visitors, but summer tourism continued to be important; by the mid-20th century the popularity of downhill skiing increased greatly as it became more accessible and in the 1970s several new villages were built in France devoted almost exclusively to skiing, such as Les Menuires. Until this point, Austria and Switzerland had been the traditional and more popular destinations for winter sports, but by the end of the 20th century and into the early 21st century, France, Italy and the Tyrol began to see increases in winter visitors. From 1980 to the present, ski-lifts have been modernized and snow-making machines installed at many resorts, leading to concerns regarding the loss of traditional Alpine culture and questions regarding sustainable development. Probably due to climate change, the number of ski resorts and piste kilometres has declined since 2015Avalanche/snow-slide  17th century French-Italian border avalanche: in the 17th century about 2500 people were killed by an avalanche in a village on the French-Italian border. 19th century Zermatt avalanche: in the 19th century, 120 homes in a village near Zermatt were destroyed by an avalanche. December 13, 1916 Marmolada-mountain-avalanche 1950–1951 winter-of-terror avalanches February 10, 1970 Val d'Isère avalanche February 9, 1999 Montroc avalanche February 21, 1999 Evolène avalanche February 23, 1999 Galtür avalanche the deadliest avalanche in the Alps in 40 years.  July 2014 Mont-Blanc avalanche January 13, 2016 Les-Deux-Alpes avalanche January 18, 2016 Valfréjus avalancheTransportation The region is serviced by  of roads used by six million vehicles per year. Train travel is well established in the Alps, with, for instance  of track for every  in a country such as Switzerland. Most of Europe's highest railways are located there. In 2007, the new  Lötschberg Base Tunnel was opened, which circumvents the 100 years older Lötschberg Tunnel. With the opening of the  Gotthard Base Tunnel on June 1, 2016, it bypasses the Gotthard Tunnel built in the 19th century and realizes the first flat route through the Alps.Some high mountain villages are car-free either because of inaccessibility or by choice. Wengen, and Zermatt (in Switzerland) are accessible only by cable car or cog-rail trains. Avoriaz (in France), is car-free, with other Alpine villages considering becoming car-free zones or limiting the number of cars for reasons of sustainability of the fragile Alpine terrain.The lower regions and larger towns of the Alps are well-served by motorways and main roads, but higher mountain passes and byroads, which are amongst the highest in Europe, can be treacherous even in summer due to steep slopes. Many passes are closed in winter. A number of airports around the Alps (and some within), as well as long-distance rail links from all neighbouring countries, afford large numbers of travellers easy access.See alsoNotesReferencesWorks cited  Alpine Convention. (2010). The Alps: People and pressures in the mountains, the facts at a glance Allaby, Michael et al. The Encyclopedia of Earth. (2008). Berkeley: University of California Press.  Beattie, Andrew. (2006). The Alps: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press.  Benniston, Martin, et al. (2011). "Impact of Climatic Change on Water and Natural Hazards in the Alps". Environmental Science and Policy. Volume 30. 1–9 Cebon, Peter, et al. (1998). Views from the Alps: Regional Perspectives on Climate Change. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.  Chatré, Baptiste, et al. (2010). The Alps: People and Pressures in the Mountains, the Facts at a Glance. Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention (alpconv.org). Retrieved August 4, 2012.  De Graciansky, Pierre-Charles et al. (2011). The Western Alps, From Rift to Passive Margin to Orogenic Belt. Amsterdam: Elsevier.  Feuer, A.B. (2006). Packs On!: Memoirs of the 10th Mountain Division in World War II. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books.  Fleming, Fergus. (2000). Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps. New York: Grove.  Gerrard, AJ. (1990) Mountain Environments: An Examination of the Physical Geography of Mountains. Boston: MIT Press.  Halbrook, Stephen P. (1998). Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Rockville Center, NY: Sarpedon.  Halbrook, Stephen P. (2006). The Swiss and the Nazis: How the Alpine Republic Survived in the Shadow of the Third Reich. Havertown, PA: Casemate.  Hudson, Simon. (2000). Snow Business: A Study of the International Ski Industry. New York: Cengage   Körner, Christian. (2003). Alpine Plant Life. New York: Springer Verlag.  Lancel, Serge. (1999). Hannibal. Oxford: Blackwell.  Mitchell, Arthur H. (2007). Hitler's Mountain. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.  Prevas, John. (2001). Hannibal Crosses The Alps: The Invasion Of Italy And The Punic Wars. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.  Reynolds, Kev. (2012) The Swiss Alps. Cicerone Press.  Roth, Philipe. (2007). Minerals first Discovered in Switzerland. Lausanne, CH: Museum of Geology.  Schmid, Stefan M. (2004). "Regional tectonics: from the Rhine graben to the Po plain, a summary of the tectonic evolution of the Alps and their forelands". Basel: Geologisch-Paläontologisches Institut Sharp, Hilary. (2002). Trekking and Climbing in the Western Alps. London: New Holland.   Shoumatoff, Nicholas and Nina. (2001).