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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian%20Air%20Force
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Syrian Air Force
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The Syrian Air Force (SyAF or SAF), officially the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF or SAAF; ), is the air force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It was established in 1948. Land-based air defense systems are grouped under the Syrian Arab Air Defense Force, which split from both the Air Force and the Army.
History
1940s
The end of World War II led to a withdrawal of the United Kingdom and France from the Middle East, and this included a withdrawal from Syria. In 1948, the Syrian Air Force was officially established after the first class of pilots graduated from a French-run flight school at Estabel airfield in Lebanon, using aircraft left behind by the French. Further training of early Syrian military fliers was continued with help of a sizeable group of Croat and German instructors, contracted by the Lebanese and Syrian governments from refugee camps in Italy. Among the foreign instructors were Mato Dukovac (a leading Croatian Air Force fighter ace of World War II) and Fritz Strehle (former Me.262 pilot with Jagdgeschwader 7 of the Luftwaffe), who trained Syrian pilots at Estabel in 1948 and at Nayrab airfield (south of Aleppo) in 1949.
Organized into three squadrons, one of which was equipped with North American T-6 Harvards, the air force participated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, conducting bombing raids against Israeli forces and settlements. One T-6 was lost to ground fire while attacking Ayelet Hashahar on 16 July, and another possibly shot down by Morris Mann (flying an Avia S-199) on 10 June. The Syrian Air Force claimed its sole kill of the war on 10 July when a rear gunner of a Harvard shot down an Avia S-199 flown by Lionel Bloch.
Aircraft in 1948
Planes of the Syrian Air Force in 1948.
1950s
During and immediately after this war, successive governments sought to bolster the air force through the acquisition of Fiat G.55s, Fiat G.59B-2s, and Fiat G.46-1s from Italy. In January 1950, a set of contracts was signed with London, providing for training of Syrian officers and pilots, along with the acquisition of de Havilland Chipmunk basic trainers, Supermarine Spitfire Mk 22s, and Gloster Meteor F.Mk 8 and T.Mk 7 jets from Great Britain. While the Chipmunks and Spitfires arrived without problems and entered service with the Flight School at Nayrab, the delivery of Meteors was held up by a temporary British arms embargo.
The original batch of Meteors manufactured for Syria was sold to France instead. It was only following additional negotiations that SyAF received its first jet aircraft, in form of two Meteor F.Mk 8s. All 12 were in Syria by 9 March 1953. Another batch of seven refurbished ex-RAF F.Mk 8s and two FR.Mk 9 reconnaissance fighters followed in 1956. In summer 1954, six ex-RF Meteor NF.Mk 13 were delivered without their radar equipment: in Syria, they were used for training purposes until 1958. Because the government of Great Britain imposed additional arms embargoes, most of pilots for Meteors had to be trained in Egypt.
In 1955, Syria placed its first order for 24 MiG-15bis fighters and 4 MiG-15UTI two-seat conversion trainers from Czechoslovakia ('Operation 104'). Another batch of 24 MiG-15s was ordered in early 1956. All these aircraft were delivered to Egypt, by October 1956, but their pilots and ground crews were still undergoing training when Israel, followed by France and Great Britain, invaded Egypt in the course of the Suez Crisis of 1956. Three MiG-15UTIs were evacuated to Syria via Saudi Arabia and Jordan; 20 MiG-15bis and 1 MiG-15UTI were destroyed in British attacks on Abu Suweir Air Base. The second batch of 20 MiG-15bis' was not yet assembled: the aircraft in question were all damaged by British air strikes, but subsequently repaired and donated to Egypt. On 6 November 1956, Meteors from No. 9 Squadron Syrian Air Force had shot down a Royal Air Force Canberra PR.7 that was involved in reconnaissance of Syria and Iraq. The aircraft crashed on the border to Lebanon: one crewmember was killed, while two were captured alive.
Sixty MiG-17s - including 20 radar-equipped MiG-17PFs - were ordered at the end of 1956 and Syrian pilots were dispatched to the USSR and Poland for training. The first aircraft arrived in January 1957 and by the end of the year, two MiG-17 squadrons were defending the capital from their base at Damasucus' Mezzeh Military Airport. By the end of the year, additional orders were placed in the USSR for 12 Ilyushin Il-28 bombers.
In February 1958 Syria and Egypt joined to create the United Arab Republic. The Syrian Air Force was integrated into the United Arab Republic Air Force (UARAF) and ceased to exist. Nearly all of its aircraft and personnel, all of training aids and most of the equipment were re-deployed to Egypt, and replaced by two squadrons of MiG-17Fs of the UARAF. For example, recently delivered MiG-17PFs and their pilots formed the No. 31 'Crow-Bat' Squadron of the UARAF. During the times of the United Arab Republic, this unit was always commanded by a Syrian officer.
1960s
The union ended following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. The new military flying service - officially designated the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) - was re-established later the same year, using aircraft left behind by the Egyptians, including about 40 MiG-17Fs and 4 Il-28s.
The new government of the Syrian Arab Republic attempted to buy additional aircraft in Germany and Italy, in 1961 and 1962. When all related efforts failed, Syria was left without a choice but to turn to Czechoslovakia for arms. By the time, Czechoslovakia was out of the business of producing fighters and interceptors, and thus the Syrians had to buy from Soviet Union instead. On 19 June 1962, Damascus and Moscow signed a major contract for arms, including an order for 34 MiG-21F-13 interceptors and 4 MiG-21U conversion trainers.
Delivered starting in spring 1963, MiG-21s entered service with two squadrons of the 3rd Air Brigade, based at Dmeyr Air Base, 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Damascus. MiG-17s were meanwhile operated by two squadrons of the 7th Air Brigade, based at Almezzeh Air Base, in Damascus.
With the ascent to power of the Baath Party, during the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, Hafez Al-Assad (former Meteor- and MiG-17PF-pilot), was appointed the Commander of SyAAF. Preoccupied with his involvement in domestic politics, Assad left the effective command of the SyAAF to his Deputy, Brigadier-General Mohammad Assad Moukiiad (former Meteor-pilot trained in Great Britain).
During the Six-Day War, the SyAAF flew few air strikes on targets in northern Israel on the first day of the conflict but was subsequently evacuated to air bases in remote parts of Syria. In this fashion it evaded most of Israeli air strikes that caused massive damage to Egyptian and Jordanian air bases. This, in turn, helped the IDF in defeating the Syrian Army on the ground and led to the occupation of the Golan Heights. After this conflict, Syria continued acquiring small numbers of MiG-17s from East Germany and MiG-21s from the Soviet Union.
1970s
In May 1973, a new arms deal was signed with the Soviet Union, resulting in deliveries of over 100 additional MiG-21M/MFs by the end of the year. The Yom Kippur War provided initial success for both Syria and Egypt, but the SyAAF suffered extensive losses in air combats, prompting the Soviets to launch an air-bridge to Aleppo and Damascus, starting on 9 October 1973. Replacement aircraft initially included only MiG-17s and MiG-21s: in April 1974, Syria received the first two batches of MiG-23 fighter-bombers. Acquisition of additional aircraft from the USSR was stopped in 1975 due to differences of political nature between Damascus and Moscow.
In the late 1970s, an insurgency characterised by dozens of assassinations of government officials and military officers erupted in Syria. By 1978, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria joined the armed uprising. Concerned by destabilisation of the government of President Hafez al-Assad, Moscow decided to restart providing arms and military aid. In April of the same year, a new arms deal was signed, including deliveries of advanced MiG-23MF and MiG-25 interceptors, and additional MiG-23BN and Su-22 fighter-bombers, and deployment of up to 4000 of Soviet advisors. However, the insurgency continued to spread and included attacks on Soviet advisors.
1980s
In 1981, the commander of the SyAAF, Major-General Mamdouh Hamdi Abaza, was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. In early 1982, hundreds of SyAAF officers became involved in a coup attempt against President Hafez al-Assad, originally planned to take place in coordination with an armed uprising in the city of Hama. The government bloodily crushed the uprising in Hama, and subsequently purged the SyAAF.
The Syrian Arab Air Force thus entered the 1982 Lebanon War in significantly weakened condition and suffered massive losses in a series of aerial combat between 6 and 11 June 1982. Israel claimed the destruction of 85 Syrian MiGs (including MiG-21s as well as MiG-23s). No evidence was ever provided for Soviet and Russian claims that the SyAAF had shot down up to 60 Israeli aircraft in return. Nevertheless, unofficial Russian, and a few unofficial Syrian sources continue to claim a modicum of success against Israeli aircraft in this conflict. At low altitude the Syrian Air Force effectively used Aerospatiale Gazelle helicopters in the anti-armour role against advancing Israeli ground forces. In one such engagement, an Israeli tank column was stopped for some hours by SAF Gazelle missile strikes while approaching Ein Zehalta.
Immediately after the 1982 Lebanon War, the USSR continued to refuse deliveries of more advanced aircraft. It was only in August 1982, that Moscow changed its mind and granted permission for delivery of MiG-23ML interceptors, followed by advanced Su-22M-4 fighter-bombers. In an attempt to help Syria establish a strategic balance with Israel, in 1986 the Syrians were granted permission to place orders for 24 MiG-29s and 24 Su-24s. Deliveries of these commenced in 1987, but were still incomplete by the time the Soviet Union officially ceased providing military aid to Syria, in 1989.
1990s/2000s
Short on spares and lacking funding for fuel and maintenance, the SyAAF was largely grounded for most of the 1990s and 2000s. Reports regarding purchases of Su-27s in 2000–2001, MiG-29SMTs, MiG-31s, and Yak-130s from the period 2006–2008, have all proven to be unfounded. The only reinforcement the air force acquired during this period came in form of 28 MiG-23MLDs and 5 MiG-23UBs acquired from Belarus in 2008. In 2008, Syria has agreed to purchase 36 aircraft, but delivery of these has been postponed by Russia due to the conflict in Syria. In May 2014 Russia announced that it would supply Syria with Yakovlev Yak-130s. Syria was expected to receive nine aircraft by the end of 2014, 12 in 2015 and 15 in 2016, for a total of 36 airplanes. However, as of 2022, no deliveries had taken place.
2010s
In July 2012 at the Farnborough Air Show it was announced that Russia would not deliver any new aircraft including the MiG-29M/M2s and Yak-130s while there was still a crisis in Syria, but it would still respect any previous refurbishment and maintenance contracts such as the MiG-25s.
Operations during the Syrian civil war
During the initial phase of the Syrian civil war, up to mid-2012, the Syrian Air Force was involved in secondary roles, with no firing from aircraft and helicopters.
The situation changed on 22 March 2012, with an escalation in the use of airpower by Government forces, starting with armed Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopter gunships firing rockets and machine guns.
The air war escalated further in mid June 2012, with the use of Mi-24/25 attack helicopters capable of dropping standard aviation bombs weighing up to 250 kg, while the transport helicopters started dropping barrel bombs, aerial IEDs.
On 24 July 2012, attack sorties by fixed-wing aircraft were reported by the rebels and recorded on video: initially L-39 COIN armed trainers began using rockets, bombs and guns but they were quickly joined by MiG-21s and MiG-23s. A few weeks later Su-22 ground attack aircraft were used and in November 2012, Su-24 medium bombers were filmed bombing rebels.
In December 2012, conventionally armed Scud missiles and other similar ballistic missiles were fired against rebel positions.
Following a report on the appearance of newly delivered S-8 air-to-ground rocket pods previously not operated by the Syrian Air Force, being employed on different aircraft, on 22 October 2013, a S-8 armed MiG-29 was spotted and recorded on video while flying over Damascus, suggesting that the type was pushed into action for ground attack, possibly after the pilots attended specific training on the type. Subsequently, MiG-29's were recorded performing rocket and gun attack runs on rebel positions.
The first reported activity of Syrian MiG-25 aircraft in the civil war was recorded on 8 February 2014, when two Turkish Air Force F-16s were scrambled to intercept a Syrian MiG-25 which was approaching the Turkish border. On 27 March 2014, a MiG-25 was clearly filmed while flying at medium altitude over Hama Eastern countryside, possibly delivering the bomb seen hitting the ground in the same video. Until February 2014, Syrian MiG-25s were not seen, perhaps due to the type of war, different from the role of the MiG-25 and possibly due to initial technical difficulties in keeping the MiG-25 fleet operational. The use of the MiG-25 in the Syrian Civil War marks the starting point since when all the known types of Syrian combat aircraft and ballistic missiles came into use.
With the start of aerial operations by the Syrian Air Force, in August 2012, online publications probably overestimating rebels' claims on the number of destroyed aircraft, assumed that the Syrian Air Force was suffering significant technical difficulties, resulting in less than half of the best SAAF ground attack aircraft such as the Mi-25 Hind-D being serviceable. The publications reported that an increased number of conflict fronts and severe maintenance burdens dramatically worsened the situation, which was reportedly difficult before the war. These problems were thought to account for the use of L-39ZA (attack variant) jets, before further escalations. Operational limitations were overcome during 2013 as Syrian pilots and technicians with the assistance of foreign advisers and technicians began to improve their operational skills. In December 2013 Jane's reported that the Syrian Air Force had dramatically improved its operational capabilities during 2013, and was now frequently conducting up to 100 sorties per day with half of these constituting combat sorties.
Insurgents counter the Syrian Air Force with truck mounted, medium and heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, small arms fire and starting in late 2012, MANPADS up to modern Russian and Chinese designs.
As the Syrian Air Force became more involved, the insurgents obtained more anti-aircraft equipment, captured air defense sites and warehouses while receiving shipments of Chinese and Russian material from external sponsors. An improvement in accuracy was achieved and several Syrian Air Force jets and helicopters were shot down from August 2012. Since insurgents besieged many airports, many of the aircraft were shot down taking off or landing. The raiding and shelling of airbases led to aircraft and helicopters being damaged or destroyed on the ground.
In spite of occasional losses the Syrian Air Force remained largely unchallenged, efficient and feared by the rebels. Compared to Western air forces fighting against similarly armed enemies in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the main disadvantage of the Syrian Air Force is the lack of precision guided weapons which allow the aircraft to stay out of range of small arms fire, AAA and MANPADS, while bombing accurately. The same weakness prevents them from hitting targets of opportunity in the same mission. In 2014, Jane's Defence and Combat Aircraft Monthly report some MiG-29s and possibly some Su-24s capable of launching precision guided ammunitions.
Syrian pilots spend most of their flying time at low to medium altitude where battlefield threats are more potent.
Based on the aircraft type, Syrian pilots use different attack techniques for unguided munitions. L-39s attack in a dive, fast jets usually attacked in a low to medium altitude bombing run at high speed, firing thermal decoy flares against IR homing missiles and zooming after the attack. Later, fast jets added rocket and gun diving attacks. Helicopters were seen flying at unusually high altitudes which minimized their accuracy and increased collateral damage, but reduced losses since they did not have the high speed and acceleration of jet fighters; the altitude putting them out of range of most of the ground threats. Mi-24/25 gunships were observed delivering decoy flares as well.
The Syrian Air Force frequently attacks insurgent forces with helicopter gunships in populated areas with unguided weaponry and the bombings often cause collateral damage to the civilian population and infrastructure.
From the end of 2012 until December 2014, Syrian Air Force L-39 were seldom seen, one of the two airbases for L-39 was captured and the other was besieged. In December 2014, videos surfaced showing the aircraft coming back to operational status after a factory overhaul inside Syria.
At the beginning of August 2015, a summary of the recent Syrian Air Force activity reported that during July 2015, the Syrian Air Force performed 6,673 air attacks, the highest number since the beginning of the war. It was reported that between October 2014 and July 2015, at least 26,517 attacks were made. This showed that aircraft losses had been overestimated, while the airframe overhauling and rotation increased the overall combat readiness of the Syrian Air Force since Syria could not count on replacements, apart from some refurbished ex-Iraqi Su-22s, delivered from Iran in the Spring of 2015, which had been flown there during the Gulf War in 1991. In early 2015, it was rumored that Russian pilots were flying operations for the Syrian Air Force.
On 18 June 2017, US military officials confirmed that a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Sukhoi Su-22 after the warplane dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqa.
Organization
As of 2017, the Syrian Arab Air force consisted of following units:
20th Air Division, with 3 fighter-bomber brigades, 3 helicopter brigades, and 1 transport brigade (southern Syria)
22nd Air Division, with 4 fighter-bomber brigades, 1 helicopter brigade, and Air Force College (central and north-western Syria)
These included following units:
17 Interceptor and fighter-bomber squadrons (each with 1-5 operational aircraft)
8 helicopter squadrons (each with 2-8 operational helicopters)
1 VIP transport group
1 training group
Air bases
Syrian insurgents overran several air bases in north-western, northern and southern Syria, including Marj al-Sultan and Taftanaz Air Base (mid-January 2013), Dhab'a Air Base (better known as al-Qussayr, in April 2013), and Kshesh Air Base (October 2013).
Forces of The Islamic State captured Tabqa Air Base on 24 August 2014.
Pre Syrian civil war aircraft inventory
Due to the high security level on everything military related, the past and present of the Syrian Arab Air Force is still largely unknown. This makes it hard to judge the real strength of the air force today. Additionally, considerable losses to the opposition forces in the country's ongoing civil war are not accounted for here. The following information is compiled from multiple, pre 2012 Syrian civil war sources.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2011 the aircraft inventory from Syrian Arab Air Force estimations was:
575 Fixed-wing aircraft:
Combat/Reconnaissance/OCU aircraft: 461
Training aircraft: 76
Transport aircraft: 26
191 Rotary-wing aircraft:
Attack helicopters: 71
Armed transport/utility helicopters: 120
Aircraft
Retired
Previous aircraft operated by the Air Force were the Gloster Meteor, Supermarine Spitfire, Sukhoi Su-7, MiG-17, MiG-19, Douglas C-47, Junkers Ju 52, T-6 Texan, Fiat G.46, Beriev Be-12, L-29 Delfin, MBB 223 Flamingo, Mil Mi-6, and Mil Mi-4.
Lost during Syrian Civil War
During the ongoing Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Air force suffered numerous losses of fixed, and rotary aircraft in the opening years. However, with Russian and Iranian support, combat readiness of the Syrian Arab Air Force assets has significantly increased during the later years of the conflict.
Commanders
The following officers have served as Commanders of the Air Force:
(1948–1948) Colonel Abdel Wahad al-Hakim
(1948–1949) Colonel Sallahaddin Hankin
(1950–1951) Colonel Sayed Habbi
(1951–1953) Brigadier-General Souheil Ashi
(1953–1957) UARAF period (two MiG-17F-units based in Syria were controlled by the 'UARAF Eastern Division', commanded by Brigadier-General Rashed Kelani)
(1957–1963) Major General Wadih Moukabari
(1963–1963) Major General Nur Allah Haj Ibrahim
(1963–1965) Major General Louis Dakar
(1965–1970) Brigadier General Hafez al-Assad (actually serving as commander only 1965–1966; subsequently preoccupied with involvement in internal politics, therefore appointed Brigadier General Moukiiad as his Deputy)
(1966–1970) Brigadier General Mohammad Assad Moukiiad
(1971–1976) Major General Naji Jamil
(1976–1978) Subhi Haddad
(1978–1981) Major General Mamdouh Hamdi Abazza
list incomplete
(–1994) Ali Malahafji
(1994–1999) Major General Muhammad al-Khuli
(2006–2010) Major General Yusef Al-Ahmad
list incomplete
(2010) Major General Ahmad al-Ratyb
(2010 – 2012) Major General Ali Mahmoud
(2012–present) Major General Issam Hallaq
Ranks
Commissioned officer ranks
The rank insignia of commissioned officers.
Other ranks
The rank insignia of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel.
Markings
The roundel used by the Syrian Arab Air Force has the same generic design as that used by the Egyptian Air Force. It consists of three concentric circles, with a red outer part, white middle and black inner part. The unique part of the Syrian roundel is the presence of two green stars in the white circle, which is reflective of the two stars on the national flag. The fin flash is also an image of the flag.
See also
Air Force Intelligence Directorate
Notes
References
Further reading
Nicolle, David. "Arab-Italian Fighters: Fiats and Macchis in Egyptian and Syrian Service 1948-1956". Air Enthusiast, No. 55, Autumn 1994, pp. 32–36.
External links
Military units and formations established in 1948
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle%20plume
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Mantle plume
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A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii or Iceland, and large igneous provinces such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps. Some such volcanic regions lie far from tectonic plate boundaries, while others represent unusually large-volume volcanism near plate boundaries.
Concepts
Mantle plumes were first proposed by J. Tuzo Wilson in 1963 and further developed by W. Jason Morgan in 1971 and 1972. A mantle plume is posited to exist where super-heated material forms (nucleates) at the core-mantle boundary and rises through the Earth's mantle. Rather than a continuous stream, plumes should be viewed as a series of hot bubbles of material. Reaching the brittle upper Earth's crust they form diapirs. These diapirs are "hotspots" in the crust. In particular, the concept that mantle plumes are fixed relative to one another and anchored at the core-mantle boundary would provide a natural explanation for the time-progressive chains of older volcanoes seen extending out from some such hotspots, for example, the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. However, paleomagnetic data show that mantle plumes can also be associated with Large Low Shear Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs) and do move relative to each other.
The current mantle plume theory is that material and energy from Earth's interior are exchanged with the surface crust in two distinct and largely independent convective flows:
as previously theorized and widely accepted, the predominant, steady state plate tectonic regime driven by upper mantle convection, mainly the sinking of cold plates of lithosphere back into the asthenosphere.
the punctuated, intermittently dominant mantle overturn regime driven by plume convection that carries heat upward from the core-mantle boundary in a narrow column. This second regime, while often discontinuous, is periodically significant in mountain building and continental breakup.
The plume hypothesis was simulated by laboratory experiments in small fluid-filled tanks in the early 1970s. Thermal or compositional fluid-dynamical plumes produced in that way were presented as models for the much larger postulated mantle plumes. Based on these experiments, mantle plumes are now postulated to comprise two parts: a long thin conduit connecting the top of the plume to its base, and a bulbous head that expands in size as the plume rises. The entire structure resembles a mushroom. The bulbous head of thermal plumes forms because hot material moves upward through the conduit faster than the plume itself rises through its surroundings. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, experiments with thermal models showed that as the bulbous head expands it may entrain some of the adjacent mantle into itself.
The size and occurrence of mushroom mantle plumes can be predicted by the transient instability theory of Tan and Thorpe. The theory predicts mushroom-shaped mantle plumes with heads of about 2000 km diameter that have a critical time (time from onset of heating of the lower mantle to formation of a plume) of about 830 million years for a core mantle heat flux of 20 mW/m2, while the cycle time (the time between plume formation events) is about 2000 million years. The number of mantle plumes is predicted to be about 17.
When a plume head encounters the base of the lithosphere, it is expected to flatten out against this barrier and to undergo widespread decompression melting to form large volumes of basalt magma. It may then erupt onto the surface. Numerical modelling predicts that melting and eruption will take place over several million years. These eruptions have been linked to flood basalts, although many of those erupt over much shorter time scales (less than 1 million years). Examples include the Deccan traps in India, the Siberian traps of Asia, the Karoo-Ferrar basalts/dolerites in South Africa and Antarctica, the Paraná and Etendeka traps in South America and Africa (formerly a single province separated by opening of the South Atlantic Ocean), and the Columbia River basalts of North America. Flood basalts in the oceans are known as oceanic plateaus, and include the Ontong Java plateau of the western Pacific Ocean and the Kerguelen Plateau of the Indian Ocean.
The narrow vertical conduit, postulated to connect the plume head to the core-mantle boundary, is viewed as providing a continuous supply of magma to a hotspot. As the overlying tectonic plate moves over this hotspot, the eruption of magma from the fixed plume onto the surface is expected to form a chain of volcanoes that parallels plate motion. The Hawaiian Islands chain in the Pacific Ocean is the archetypal example. It has recently been discovered that the volcanic locus of this chain has not been fixed over time, and it thus joined the club of the many type examples that do not exhibit the key characteristic originally proposed.
The eruption of continental flood basalts is often associated with continental rifting and breakup. This has led to the hypothesis that mantle plumes contribute to continental rifting and the formation of ocean basins.
Chemistry, heat flow and melting
The chemical and isotopic composition of basalts found at hotspots differs subtly from mid-ocean-ridge basalts. These basalts, also called ocean island basalts (OIBs), are analysed in their radiogenic and stable isotope compositions. In radiogenic isotope systems the originally subducted material creates diverging trends, termed mantle components. Identified mantle components are DMM (depleted mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) mantle), HIMU (high U/Pb-ratio mantle), EM1 (enriched mantle 1), EM2 (enriched mantle 2) and FOZO (focus zone). This geochemical signature arises from the mixing of near-surface materials such as subducted slabs and continental sediments, in the mantle source. There are two competing interpretations for this. In the context of mantle plumes, the near-surface material is postulated to have been transported down to the core-mantle boundary by subducting slabs, and to have been transported back up to the surface by plumes. In the context of the Plate hypothesis, subducted material is mostly re-circulated in the shallow mantle and tapped from there by volcanoes.
Stable isotopes like Fe are used to track processes that the uprising material experiences during melting.
The processing of oceanic crust, lithosphere, and sediment through a subduction zone decouples the water-soluble trace elements (e.g., K, Rb, Th) from the immobile trace elements (e.g., Ti, Nb, Ta), concentrating the immobile elements in the oceanic slab (the water-soluble elements are added to the crust in island arc volcanoes). Seismic tomography shows that subducted oceanic slabs sink as far as the bottom of the mantle transition zone at 650 km depth. Subduction to greater depths is less certain, but there is evidence that they may sink to mid-lower-mantle depths at about 1,500 km depth.
The source of mantle plumes is postulated to be the core-mantle boundary at 3,000 km depth. Because there is little material transport across the core-mantle boundary, heat transfer must occur by conduction, with adiabatic gradients above and below this boundary. The core-mantle boundary is a strong thermal (temperature) discontinuity. The temperature of the core is approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius higher than that of the overlying mantle. Plumes are postulated to rise as the base of the mantle becomes hotter and more buoyant.
Plumes are postulated to rise through the mantle and begin to partially melt on reaching shallow depths in the asthenosphere by decompression melting. This would create large volumes of magma. This melt rises to the surface and erupts to form hotspots.
The lower mantle and the core
The most prominent thermal contrast known to exist in the deep (1000 km) mantle is at the core-mantle boundary at 2900 km. Mantle plumes were originally postulated to rise from this layer because the hotspots that are assumed to be their surface expression were thought to be fixed relative to one another. This required that plumes were sourced from beneath the shallow asthenosphere that is thought to be flowing rapidly in response to motion of the overlying tectonic plates. There is no other known major thermal boundary layer in the deep Earth, and so the core-mantle boundary was the only candidate.
The base of the mantle is known as the D″ layer, a seismological subdivision of the Earth. It appears to be compositionally distinct from the overlying mantle and may contain partial melt.
Two very broad, large low-shear-velocity provinces exist in the lower mantle under Africa and under the central Pacific. It is postulated that plumes rise from their surface or their edges. Their low seismic velocities were thought to suggest that they are relatively hot, although it has recently been shown that their low wave velocities are due to high density caused by chemical heterogeneity.
Evidence for the theory
Some common and basic lines of evidence cited in support of the theory are linear volcanic chains, noble gases, geophysical anomalies, and geochemistry.
Linear volcanic chains
The age-progressive distribution of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain has been explained as a result of a fixed, deep-mantle plume rising into the upper mantle, partly melting, and causing a volcanic chain to form as the plate moves overhead relative to the fixed plume source. Other hotspots with time-progressive volcanic chains behind them include Réunion, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, the Louisville Ridge, the Ninety East Ridge and Kerguelen, Tristan, and Yellowstone.
While there is evidence that the chains listed above are time-progressive, it has been shown that they are not fixed relative to one another. The most remarkable example of this is the Emperor chain, the older part of the Hawaii system, which was formed by migration of the hotspot in addition to the plate motion. Another example is the Canary Islands in the northeast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.
Noble gas and other isotopes
Helium-3 is a primordial isotope that formed in the Big Bang. Very little is produced, and little has been added to the Earth by other processes since then. Helium-4 includes a primordial component, but it is also produced by the natural radioactive decay of elements such as uranium and thorium. Over time, helium in the upper atmosphere is lost into space. Thus, the Earth has become progressively depleted in helium, and 3He is not replaced as 4He is. As a result, the ratio 3He/4He in the Earth has decreased over time.
Unusually high 3He/4He have been observed in some, but not all, hotspots. This is explained by plumes tapping a deep, primordial reservoir in the lower mantle, where the original, high 3He/4He ratios have been preserved throughout geologic time.
Other elements, e.g. osmium, have been suggested to be tracers of material arising from near to the Earth's core, in basalts at oceanic islands. However, so far conclusive proof for this is lacking.
Geophysical anomalies
The plume hypothesis has been tested by looking for the geophysical anomalies predicted to be associated with them. These include thermal, seismic, and elevation anomalies. Thermal anomalies are inherent in the term "hotspot". They can be measured in numerous different ways, including surface heat flow, petrology, and seismology. Thermal anomalies produce anomalies in the speeds of seismic waves, but unfortunately so do composition and partial melt. As a result, wave speeds cannot be used simply and directly to measure temperature, but more sophisticated approaches must be taken.
Seismic anomalies are identified by mapping variations in wave speed as seismic waves travel through Earth. A hot mantle plume is predicted to have lower seismic wave speeds compared with similar material at a lower temperature. Mantle material containing a trace of partial melt (e.g., as a result of it having a lower melting point), or being richer in Fe, also has a lower seismic wave speed and those effects are stronger than temperature. Thus, although unusually low wave speeds have been taken to indicate anomalously hot mantle beneath hotspots, this interpretation is ambiguous. The most commonly cited seismic wave-speed images that are used to look for variations in regions where plumes have been proposed come from seismic tomography. This method involves using a network of seismometers to construct three-dimensional images of the variation in seismic wave speed throughout the mantle.
Seismic waves generated by large earthquakes enable structure below the Earth's surface to be determined along the ray path. Seismic waves that have traveled a thousand or more kilometers (also called teleseismic waves) can be used to image large regions of Earth's mantle. They also have limited resolution, however, and only structures at least several hundred kilometers in diameter can be detected.
Seismic tomography images have been cited as evidence for a number of mantle plumes in Earth's mantle. There is, however, vigorous on-going discussion regarding whether the structures imaged are reliably resolved, and whether they correspond to columns of hot, rising rock.
The mantle plume hypothesis predicts that domal topographic uplifts will develop when plume heads impinge on the base of the lithosphere. An uplift of this kind occurred when the north Atlantic Ocean opened about 54 million years ago. Some scientists have linked this to a mantle plume postulated to have caused the breakup of Eurasia and the opening of the north Atlantic, now suggested to underlie Iceland. Current research has shown that the time-history of the uplift is probably much shorter than predicted, however. It is thus not clear how strongly this observation supports the mantle plume hypothesis.
Geochemistry
Basalts found at oceanic islands are geochemically distinct from mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB). Ocean island basalt (OIB) is more diverse compositionally than MORB, and the great majority of ocean islands are composed of alkali basalt enriched in sodium and potassium relative to MORB. Larger islands, such as Hawaii or Iceland, are mostly tholeiitic basalt, with alkali basalt limited to late stages of their development, but this tholeiitic basalt is chemically distinct from the tholeiitic basalt of mid-ocean ridges. OIB tends to be more enriched in magnesium, and both alkali and tholeiitic OIB is enriched in trace incompatible elements, with the light rare earth elements showing particular enrichment compared with heavier rare earth elements. Stable isotope ratios of the elements strontium, neodymium, hafnium, lead, and osmium show wide variations relative to MORB, which is attributed to the mixing of at least three mantle components: HIMU with a high proportion of radiogenic lead, produced by decay of uranium and other heavy radioactive elements; EM1 with less enrichment of radiogenic lead; and EM2 with a high 87Sr/86Sr ratio. Helium in OIB shows a wider variation in the 3He/4He ratio than MORB, with some values approaching the primordial value.
The composition of ocean island basalts is attributed to the presence of distinct mantle chemical reservoirs formed by subduction of oceanic crust. These include reservoirs corresponding to HUIMU, EM1, and EM2. These reservoirs are thought to have different major element compositions, based on the correlation between major element compositions of OIB and their stable isotope ratios. Tholeiitic OIB is interpreted as a product of a higher degree of partial melting in particularly hot plumes, while alkali OIB is interpreted as a product of a lower degree of partial melting in smaller, cooler plumes.
Seismology
In 2015, based on data from 273 large earthquakes, researchers compiled a model based on full waveform tomography, requiring the equivalent of 3 million hours of supercomputer time. Due to computational limitations, high-frequency data still could not be used, and seismic data remained unavailable from much of the seafloor. Nonetheless, vertical plumes, 400 C hotter than the surrounding rock, were visualized under many hotspots, including the Pitcairn, Macdonald, Samoa, Tahiti, Marquesas, Galapagos, Cape Verde, and Canary hotspots. They extended nearly vertically from the core-mantle boundary (2900 km depth) to a possible layer of shearing and bending at 1000 km. They were detectable because they were 600–800 km wide, more than three times the width expected from contemporary models. Many of these plumes are in the large low-shear-velocity provinces under Africa and the Pacific, while some other hotspots such as Yellowstone were less clearly related to mantle features in the model.
The unexpected size of the plumes leaves open the possibility that they may conduct the bulk of the Earth's 44 terawatts of internal heat flow from the core to the surface, and means that the lower mantle convects less than expected, if at all. It is possible that there is a compositional difference between plumes and the surrounding mantle that slows them down and broadens them.
Suggested mantle plume locations
Mantle plumes have been suggested as the source for flood basalts. These extremely rapid, large scale eruptions of basaltic magmas have periodically formed continental flood basalt provinces on land and oceanic plateaus in the ocean basins, such as the Deccan Traps, the Siberian Traps the Karoo-Ferrar flood basalts of Gondwana, and the largest known continental flood basalt, the Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP).
Many continental flood basalt events coincide with continental rifting. This is consistent with a system that tends toward equilibrium: as matter rises in a mantle plume, other material is drawn down into the mantle, causing rifting.
Alternative hypotheses
In parallel with the mantle plume model, two alternative explanations for the observed phenomena have been considered: the plate hypothesis and the impact hypothesis.
The plate hypothesis
Beginning in the early 2000s, dissatisfaction with the state of the evidence for mantle plumes and the proliferation of ad hoc hypotheses drove a number of geologists, led by Don L. Anderson, Gillian Foulger, and Warren B. Hamilton, to propose a broad alternative based on shallow processes in the upper mantle and above, with an emphasis on plate tectonics as the driving force of magmatism.
The plate hypothesis suggests that "anomalous" volcanism results from lithospheric extension that permits melt to rise passively from the asthenosphere beneath. It is thus the conceptual inverse of the plume hypothesis because the plate hypothesis attributes volcanism to shallow, near-surface processes associated with plate tectonics, rather than active processes arising at the core-mantle boundary.
Lithospheric extension is attributed to processes related to plate tectonics. These processes are well understood at mid-ocean ridges, where most of Earth's volcanism occurs. It is less commonly recognised that the plates themselves deform internally, and can permit volcanism in those regions where the deformation is extensional. Well-known examples are the Basin and Range Province in the western USA, the East African Rift valley, and the Rhine Graben. Under this hypothesis, variable volumes of magma are attributed to variations in chemical composition (large volumes of volcanism corresponding to more easily molten mantle material) rather than to temperature differences.
While not denying the presence of deep mantle convection and upwelling in general, the plate hypothesis holds that these processes do not result in mantle plumes, in the sense of columnar vertical features that span most of the Earth's mantle, transport large amounts of heat, and contribute to surface volcanism.
Under the umbrella of the plate hypothesis, the following sub-processes, all of which can contribute to permitting surface volcanism, are recognised:
Continental break-up;
Fertility at mid-ocean ridges;
Enhanced volcanism at plate boundary junctions;
Small-scale sublithospheric convection;
Oceanic intraplate extension;
Slab tearing and break-off;
Shallow mantle convection;
Abrupt lateral changes in stress at structural discontinuities;
Continental intraplate extension;
Catastrophic lithospheric thinning;
Sublithospheric melt ponding and draining.
The impact hypothesis
In addition to these processes, impact events such as ones that created the Addams crater on Venus and the Sudbury Igneous Complex in Canada are known to have caused melting and volcanism. In the impact hypothesis, it is proposed that some regions of hotspot volcanism can be triggered by certain large-body oceanic impacts which are able to penetrate the thinner oceanic lithosphere, and flood basalt volcanism can be triggered by converging seismic energy focused at the antipodal point opposite major impact sites. Impact-induced volcanism has not been adequately studied and comprises a separate causal category of terrestrial volcanism with implications for the study of hotspots and plate tectonics.
Comparison of the hypotheses
In 1997 it became possible using seismic tomography to image submerging tectonic slabs penetrating from the surface all the way to the core-mantle boundary.
For the Hawaii hotspot, long-period seismic body wave diffraction tomography provided evidence that a mantle plume is responsible, as had been proposed as early as 1971. For the Yellowstone hotspot, seismological evidence began to converge from 2011 in support of the plume model, as concluded by James et al., "we favor a lower mantle plume as the origin for the Yellowstone hotspot." Data acquired through Earthscope, a program collecting high-resolution seismic data throughout the contiguous United States has accelerated acceptance of a plume underlying Yellowstone.
Although there is thus strong evidence that at least these two deep mantle plumes rise from the core-mantle boundary, confirmation that other hypotheses can be dismissed may require similar tomographic evidence for other hotspots.
See also
References
External links
by Facts In Motion.
Seismic-tomography image of Yellowstone mantle plume
Large Igneous Provinces Commission
Mantleplumes.org: mantle-plume skeptic website – managed and maintained by Gillian R. Foulger.
Geodynamics
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No%2C%20No%2C%20Nanette
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No, No, Nanette
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No, No, Nanette is a musical comedy with lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, music by Vincent Youmans, and a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends. The farcical story involves three couples who find themselves together at a cottage in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the midst of a blackmail scheme, focusing on a young, fun-loving Manhattan heiress who naughtily runs off for a weekend, leaving her unhappy fiancé. Its songs include the well-known "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy".
During its 1924 pre-Broadway tour, No, No, Nanette became a hit in Chicago, and the production stayed there for over a year. In 1925, the show opened both on Broadway and in the West End, running 321 and 665 performances respectively. Film versions and revivals followed. A popular 1971 Broadway revival, with a book adapted by Burt Shevelove, led to the piece becoming a favorite of school and community groups for a time.
A popular myth holds that the show was financed by selling baseball's Boston Red Sox superstar Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, resulting in the "Curse of the Bambino." However, it was My Lady Friends, rather than No, No, Nanette, that was directly financed by the Ruth sale.
History
Original production and aftermath
No, No, Nanette was not successful in its first pre-Broadway tour in 1924. When the production arrived in Chicago, producer Harry Frazee re-cast the show with new stars, had the book rewritten and asked Youmans and Caesar to write additional songs. These additional songs, "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy", would become the hit songs of the show. The Chicago production was a hit and ran for over a year. Frazee capitalized on this success by mounting a production in the West End in London. The show opened on March 11, 1925, at the Palace Theatre, where it starred Binnie Hale, Joseph Coyne and George Grossmith Jr. and became a hit, running for 665 performances. The London production featured two songs that were not included in the earlier U.S. productions: "I've Confessed to the Breeze" and "Take a Little One-Step". Three touring productions were circulating throughout the U.S. when the Broadway production finally opened on September 16, 1925, at the Globe Theatre, starring Louise Groody and Charles Winninger. It ran for 321 performances.
The musical was translated into various languages and enjoyed regional productions, U.S. tours and international success through the end of the decade. It was made into films in both 1930 and 1940, with both film adaptations featuring ZaSu Pitts. A 1950 film, Tea for Two, was a very loose adaptation of the show. It starred Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Eve Arden (who was also in the 1940 film), and Billy DeWolfe. The musical was seen with decreasing frequency in the following decades.
In 1926 Frazee produced what he marketed as a companion musical to No, No, Nanette at the Four Cohans Theatre in Chicago: the musical Yes, Yes, Yvette. It premiered on December 5, 1926, to positive reviews in the Chicago press and in Billboard. After the production had a successful run in Chicago, it was a flop on Broadway in 1927.
1971 revival and later productions
For the nostalgic 1971 Broadway revival conceived and produced by Harry Rigby, Burt Shevelove freely adapted the book from the 1925 original. While the 1925 book was considered quite racy at the time of the original production, Shevelove wrote from a nostalgic perspective, depicting the 1920s as a time of innocent fun. He made extensive changes and cuts to the book, but most of the original score was left intact, with only a few cuts and interpolations. The cast featured veteran screen star Ruby Keeler and included Helen Gallagher, Bobby Van, Jack Gilford, Patsy Kelly and Susan Watson. A young Ed Dixon was in the ensemble. Busby Berkeley, nearing the end of his career, was credited as supervising the production, although members of the cast and crew later stated that his name was his primary contribution to the show. Among a number of extensive dance sequences, Keeler – who returned from retirement for the production – was lauded for energetic tap routines incorporated into "I Want to Be Happy" and "Take a Little One-Step". Rigby's acrimonious relationship with fellow producer Cyma Rubin led to Rubin's terminating Rigby's contract and removing his credit as co-producer, but insiders claimed he deserved full credit for the show's success. Rigby later accepted a $300,000 settlement from Rubin.
The 1971 production was well-reviewed and ran for 861 performances. It sparked interest in the revival of similar musicals from the 1920s and 1930s. Tony and Drama Desk Awards went to costume designer Raoul Pène Du Bois, choreographer Donald Saddler, and Gallagher as best leading actress; Kelly won a Tony as best featured actress, and Shevelove earned a Drama Desk Award for outstanding book. This production transferred to London in 1973, with a cast starring Anna Neagle, Anne Rogers, Tony Britton and Teddy Green. Further tours and international productions followed. Performance rights are available for the 1971 version, which has become the most frequently performed musical of the 1920s.
City Center's Encores! presented a semi-staged production of No, No, Nanette in May 2008, directed by Walter Bobbie, with choreography by Randy Skinner, starring Sandy Duncan, Beth Leavel and Rosie O'Donnell.
Curse of the Bambino
Some years after the premiere, it was claimed that producer Harry Frazee, a former owner of the Boston Red Sox, financed No, No, Nanette by selling baseball superstar Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, resulting in the "Curse of the Bambino", which, according to a popular superstition, kept the Red Sox from winning the World Series from until . In the 1990s, that story was partially debunked on the grounds that the sale of Ruth had occurred five years earlier. Leigh Montville discovered during research for his 2006 book, The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, that No, No, Nanette had originated as a non-musical stage play called My Lady Friends, which opened on Broadway in December 1919. That play had, indeed, been financed by the Ruth sale to the Yankees.
Synopsis
Based on 1971 Revised Production
Act I 1925. The home of James Smith, New York City.
Jimmy Smith, a millionaire Bible publisher, is married to the overly frugal Sue. Jimmy thus has plenty of disposable income, and, because he likes to use his money to make people happy, he has secretly become the (platonic) benefactor of three beautiful women: Betty from Boston, Winnie from Washington, D.C., and Flora from San Francisco. Sue's best friend, Lucille, is married to Jimmy's lawyer and friend, Billy Early. Lucille is a spendthrift and delights in spending all the money Billy makes. Jimmy and Sue have a young ward, Nanette, who they hope will become a respectable young lady. At Jimmy and Sue's home in New York, many young men come to call on Nanette. Lucille advises the young people that having one steady boyfriend is better than many flirtations ("Too Many Rings Around Rosie"). Tom Trainor, Billy's nephew and assistant, works up the courage to tell Nanette that he loves her, and she returns his sentiments ("I've Confessed to the Breeze"). Tom wants to settle down and get married as soon as possible, but Nanette has an untapped wild side and wants to have some fun first.
Jimmy's lady friends are attempting to blackmail him, and he, afraid that Sue will find out about them, enlists Billy's legal help to discreetly ease the girls out of his life. Billy suggests that Jimmy take refuge in Philadelphia. Unknown to Jimmy, Billy decides to take Tom and meet the three ladies at the Smiths' seaside home, Chickadee Cottage, in Atlantic City, New Jersey ("Call of the Sea"). Sue and Lucille, hearing that both their husbands will be away on business, also decide to take a vacation to the cottage.
Nanette wants to go to Atlantic City with her friends, but Sue forbids her to go. Jimmy, wanting to make Nanette happy, gives her $200 and agrees to secretly take her to Chickadee Cottage, with the grumpy cook, Pauline, acting as Nanette's chaperone ("I Want to Be Happy"). Nanette is tired of everyone (especially Tom) trying to control her behavior and dreams of the extravagant fun she will have ("No No Nanette"). To tease Tom, she shows him the $200 and refuses to tell him how she got it. Tom angrily breaks off his relationship with Nanette, and, under the pretense that she is going to visit her grandmother in Trenton, New Jersey, Nanette leaves for Atlantic City (Finaletto Act I).
Act II The garden and living room of Chickadee Cottage, Atlantic City.
Nanette arrives in Atlantic City and quickly becomes the most popular girl on the beach ("Peach on the Beach"). Meanwhile, Jimmy crosses paths with his three girlfriends, who confront him with the promises he made to them ("The Three Happies"). Tom meets up with Nanette, and they resolve their quarrel, fantasizing about being happily married one day ("Tea for Two"). Lucille runs into Billy, and though she is surprised to meet him in Atlantic City, she assures him that she does not mind whether he spends time with other women as long as she's there to watch – and he comes home with her at the end of the evening ("You Can Dance with Any Girl At All").
Sue is shocked to find Nanette in Atlantic City. Nanette at first lies and said she was only visiting her grandmother in Trenton, but Sue knows that cannot be true: Nanette's only living grandmother lives in Omaha, Nebraska. Nanette admits that she actually spent the night in Atlantic City. Against her protests, Sue arranges for her to go back to New York with Pauline. Sue overhears Billy speaking to the women and, assuming that he is having an affair with them, tells Lucille. Billy, to keep Jimmy's secret, does not deny it, and Lucille says she is leaving him. Meanwhile, Tom, shocked by Nanette's behavior, breaks off their relationship. Jimmy is oblivious to the confusion he's created (Finaletto Act II).
Act III
Billy tries to call Lucille on the telephone, but she refuses to answer. Flora, Winnie, and Betty tempt him to spend time with them instead ("Telephone Girlie"). Lucille, finding herself alone, realizes that she misses Billy, and nothing else can make her feel better ("Where-Has-My-Hubby-Gone Blues"). The truth begins to emerge as Lucille realizes that Billy cannot be the benefactor of the three girls; he never has any money to spend because Lucille spends it all! Jimmy finally pays off the ladies, and finally the truth comes out: Billy has not been cheating on Lucille, and though Jimmy has been spending his money on the three girls, it is strictly platonic.
Nanette and Pauline, unable to catch a train to New York, return to the cottage, where Tom and Nanette make up; however, it appears that once more, Tom wants to settle down while Nanette wants to enjoy being single. Tom produces a magnificent engagement ring, and Nanette has a change of heart, now insisting that they should get married today ("Waiting for You"). Sue and Lucille decide that in order to ensure Jimmy never again has philandering opportunities, Sue must spend all of Jimmy's money herself. The show ends with a tea dance, where Sue wows Jimmy with a fancy dress and a final dance number ("Take a Little One-Step"; "Finale").
Musical numbers
1925 Original Broadway production
Act I
"Flappers Are We" – Pauline and Chorus
"Call of the Sea" – Billy and Chorus
"Too Many Rings Around Rosie" – Lucille and Chorus
"Waiting for You" – Nanette and Tom
"I Want to Be Happy" – Nanette, Jimmy and Chorus
"No, No, Nanette" – Nanette and Men
Act II
"The Deep Blue Sea (Peach on the Beach)" – Nanette and Chorus
"My Doctor" – Pauline
"Fight Over Me" – Jimmy, Betty, Winnie and Women
"Tea for Two" – Nanette, Tom and Chorus
"You Can Dance with Any Girl" – Lucille, Billy and Chorus
"I Want to Be Happy (reprise)" – Jimmy, Billy, Flora, Betty and Winnie
Act III
"Telephone Girlie" – Billy, Betty, Winnie, Flora and Chorus
"Where-Has-My-Hubby-Gone Blues" – Lucille and Men
"Pay Day Pauline" – Pauline, Jimmy and Billy
1971 revised production
Act I
"Only a Moment Ago" - Sue and Jimmy
"Too Many Rings Around Rosie" – Lucille, Boys
"I've Confessed to the Breeze" – Tom, Nanette
"Call of the Sea" – Billy
"I Want to Be Happy (and dance)" – Jimmy, Nanette, Boys
"No, No, Nanette/Finaletto Act I" – Nanette, Tom, Chorus
Act II
"Peach on the Beach (and dance)" – Chorus and Nanette
"The Three Happies" – Flora, Betty, Winnie
"Tea for Two (and dance)" – Tom, Nanette, Chorus
"You Can Dance with Any Girl (and dance)" – Lucille, Billy
"Finaletto Act II" – Company
Act III
"Telephone Girlie" – Billy, Flora, Betty, Winnie
"Where-Has-My-Hubby-Gone Blues" – Lucille, Boys
"Waiting for You" – Tom, Nanette
"Take a Little One-Step" – Sue, Company
"Finale" – Company
Critical reception
The original Broadway production opened to positive reviews; in The New York Times, Herman J. Mankiewicz pronounced it "full of much vigorous merriment and many agreeable tunes," and "a highly meritorious paradigm of its kind." It acknowledged that the plot was slight but praised the score, noting that "I Want to be Happy" and "Tea for Two" were already hit tunes (having premiered in the Chicago production the previous year). Robert C. Benchley in Life magazine admitted "We had a preconceived notion that No, No, Nanette! was a pretty dull show, probably because it had been running so long before it came to New York...No, No, Nanette! is really very amusing."<ref name=Benchley>{{cite book|author-link=Robert Benchley|last=Benchley|first=Robert C.|trans-title=Life|date=February 4, 1926|editor1-link=Anthony Slide|editor1-first=Anthony|editor1-last=Slide|title=Selected Theatre Criticism Volume 2: 1920-1930|location=Metuchen, N.J.|publisher=The Scarecrow Press|pages=157–58|isbn=0-8108-1844-2|url=https://archive.org/details/selectedtheatrec02anth/page/157}}</ref> Charles Winninger, in the role of Jimmy Smith, received particular praise for his comedic abilities. The New York Times proclaimed "Winninger gave the greatest performance of his career...it was a more than hardened theatre-goer who was not moved to near hysterics by his every appearance." Benchley stated that "Winninger and Wellington Cross, with that ease and facile kidding which comes to comedians after a long run, are a highly comic pair."
The 1971 revival also received almost uniformly positive reviews from major newspapers, which welcomed its innocent nostalgia. Clive Barnes of the New York Times stated: "For everyone who wishes the world were 50 years younger ... the revival of the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette should provide a delightful, carefree evening. ... This is far closer to a musical of the twenties than anything New York has seen since the twenties, but it is seen through a contemporary sensibility." Douglas Watt, in the New York Daily News, agreed. However, there was some critical disagreement concerning the overall tone of the production. The New York Times thought it "attractively tongue-in-cheek", while John O'Connor of The Wall Street Journal deemed it "a sparkling revival" that was "spiked with jiggers of self-conscious and self-congratulatory camp." T. E. Kalem, in Time magazine, stated: "The show is a copious delight, but it has a sizable temperamental flaw. No strict decision was made as to whether it should be played straight or campy." Jack Kroll of Newsweek considered it a sincere representation of the 1920s, declaring it a "very moving show."
Ruby Keeler's tap-dancing and charm in the revival were widely praised; Richard Watts in the New York Post'' stated "Ruby Keeler, looking every bit as attractive as in her heyday as a film star, can still do a tap dance or a soft shoe number that is a joy." O'Connor found her charming and warm, writing, "she smartly whisks the delirious audience right back to those good old Busby Berkeley movies." The score was also lauded. Barnes stated "the melodies are light, cheerful and exuberant", and the lyrics "[deserve] a place in any museum of American musical comedy, and yet live wonderfully today." Multiple critics cited Busby Berkeley's supervision as a contributing factor to the show's success; Kroll asked rhetorically "the production has dignity, taste and wit, and how else could it be under the aegis of 75-year-old Busby Berkeley, that authentic genius of the old Hollywood musicals?" Stage veterans Bobby Van and Helen Gallagher received particular praise for their performances. O'Connor stated that "the best performances came from Bobby Van as the suave, debonair dancing lawyer...and the adorable Helen Gallagher as his short-suffering wife." Watt pronounced Van "a hoofer par excellence" and said that Gallagher gave "a most stylish performance."
Awards and nominations
1971 Tony Award nominations
Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical – Bobby Van
Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical – Helen Gallagher (Winner)
Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Patsy Kelly (Winner)
Tony Award for Best Costume Design – Production Design by Raoul Pène Du Bois (Winner)
Tony Award for Best Choreography – Donald Saddler (Winner)
Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical – Burt Shevelove
Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award – Roger Rathburn (Winner)
1971 Drama Desk Award nominations
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book – Book adapted by Burt Shevelove (for the adaptation) (Winner)
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography – Donald Saddler (Winner)
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design – Production Design by Raoul Pène Du Bois (Winner)
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance – Helen Gallagher (Winner)
See also
No, No, Nanette (1930 film)
No, No, Nanette (1940 film)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Information about London and New York productions of No, No, Nanette
Information about recordings
London production
No, No, Nanette at Floormic.com
1925 musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals based on plays
Musicals set in the Roaring Twenties
West End musicals
Musicals by Otto Harbach
Tony Award-winning musicals
Musicals set in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Musicals set in New York City
Musicals by Irving Caesar
Musicals by Vincent Youmans
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%20Boccanegra
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Simon Boccanegra
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Simon Boccanegra () is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play El trovador had been the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, Il trovatore.
Simon Boccanegra was first performed at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 March 1857. Given the complications of the original plot and the generally poor popular response – although the critical one was more encouraging – the opera dropped out of favour after 1866. Finally, 23 years later, Verdi's publisher persuaded the composer to revise the opera, with text changes to be prepared by Arrigo Boito, the librettist who aspired to work with the aging composer on a project which eventually became a new opera, Otello, but to which Verdi had not totally committed at that time.
The revised version of Simon Boccanegra, with the now-famous Council Chamber scene, was first performed at La Scala in Milan on 24 March 1881. It is this version which is the one most frequently performed today.
Composition history: the 1857 version
Musicologist and author Julian Budden points to three projects which the composer had in mind when, at the beginning of 1855, he turned down an invitation from La Fenice to write a new opera for them for the following year. He responded: "the chief obstacle is my unshakable determination not to bind myself anymore to a definite period for either the composition or the production". While that approach did not turn out to be practicable at that time, it was an ultimate goal and, in aiming to achieve it, his partner of the previous four years, Giuseppina Strepponi greatly encouraged it when she wrote to him at the time of his frustrations two years earlier when working in Paris on Les vêpres siciliennes.
The only project for which there was forward motion was towards accomplishing his long-planned Re Lear, an opera to be based on King Lear, for which his new librettist (following Salvadore Cammarano's death) was Antonio Somma. But a year later, when overseeing a revival of La traviata at La Fenice, he agreed to a new opera for that house for the 1856/7 season, and he proposed the Gutiérrez play, which Budden presumes he had read in translation. Budden also presumes that the translation had been done by Strepponi, because she had been the translator of Gutiérrez' other play which had become Il trovatore.
The somewhat convoluted plot of Simon Boccanegra can be hard to follow. Budden notes: "All the characters define themselves against an ingeniously shifting pattern of intrigue such as can be highly effective in a play but well-nigh impossible to follow in an opera". Verdi had gone so far as to actually write out the scenario in prose, which he then submitted to Piave in August; all that he expected from his librettist was that it would be turned into poetry, so Verdi balked somewhat when the censors demanded a complete poetic version: "what does it matter for the moment it's in prose or verse?" He pushed harder, stating that "I plan to compose music for a prose libretto! What do you think of that?" In the end, there was a poetic version and all was well: it was accepted by the opera house and the censors.
Beginning in July and throughout most of the period of the preparation of the libretto, the composer and Strepponi had been in Paris taking care of securing various performance and publication rights, including working on a translated version of Il trovatore, the opera which became Le trouvère. Piave was informed that Verdi's stay would need to be lengthened and everything would be handled between them and the Venetian authorities by mail.
However, Verdi's dissatisfaction with some of the librettist's work led him to find a local collaborator to help revise some of the sections. Accordingly, he called upon an Italian exile in Paris, the politician, former professor of law, poet and writer Giuseppe Montanelli, to do this. Piave learned nothing of the revisions until he received a note from Verdi: "Here is the libretto, shortened and altered more or less as it must be. You can put your name to or it, just as you please". However, he also learned nothing of the anonymous collaborator either. After the premiere of Le trouvère on 12 January 1857, Verdi and Strepponi left Paris to return to Italy, then both went to Venice for the March premiere.
However, the relationship was soon restored and Piave came to Sant'Agata in April to work on some revisions, but it was the libretto which came in for the heaviest criticism: "It was generally condemned as one of the most unintelligible to have reached the stage" notes Kimbell and its general dark and gloomy feel was to affect its fortunes for many years.
Composition history: the 1881 revision
In 1868, Giulio Ricordi suggested the idea of revisions to Boccanegra; the idea was again broached ten years later, early in 1879, but was shrugged off by Verdi with a note saying that the 1857 score, which had been sent to the composer for review, would remain untouched "just as you sent it to me". Persisting with further attempts to convince the composer, Ricordi had also broached the idea of a collaboration with Arrigo Boito for a new opera based on Shakespeare's Othello. Musicologist Roger Parker speculates that Verdi's final agreement to revise Boccanegra was based on a desire to "test the possibility" of working with Boito before possibly embarking on the larger project.
Once Verdi began to re-look at his earlier work, objections – and new ideas – began to emerge: "the score is not possible as it stands" and "I shall have to redo all the second act [1857: act 2, which became act 1 in the 1881 revision] and give it more contrast and variety, more life" are examples of his reasoning, which he laid out in a letter to Ricordi in November 1880. His principal concern was how to make changes to the 1857, act 2. "I have said in general it needs something to give life and variety to the drama's excessive gloom", he writes and he continues by recalling:
two magnificent letters of Petrarch's, one addressed to [the historical] Boccanegra, the other to the [then-]Doge of Venice, warning them not to start a fratricidal war, and reminding them that both were sons of the same mother, Italy, and so on. This idea of an Italian fatherland at this time was quite sublime!
In spite of the complexity of many of Boito's proposed ideas, along with his alternative scenarios, which are expressed in a long letter to Verdi (most of which the composer regarded as excessive), the Council Chamber scene emerged as the focus of the new collaboration. Although he had confidence in the young librettist's abilities ("[The scene] written by you could not possibly be dull"), Verdi did caution Boito that he appeared to be "aiming at a perfection impossible here. I [Verdi] aim lower and am more optimistic than you and I don't despair", in essence, expressing an unwillingness to re-write the opera as completely as Boito had proposed. It would have been far more work than the composer wished to be involved in at the time.
The pair spent the latter part of 1880 and into January 1881 with back-and-forth additions and revisions (the composer in Genoa, the librettist in Milan and meeting only once), all of which are heavily documented in the Verdi-Boito correspondence, the Carteggio Verdi-Boito, and significantly quoted in Budden. All this was the build-up to performances in Milan the following March, although the composer was constantly concerned about the suitability of the singers engaged there for that season, and he threatened to withdraw the opera on more than one occasion.
The result was the contrast, which Parker describes, between the original 1857 act 2 finale, "set in a large square in Genoa, [as] a conventional four-movement concertante finale, a grand ceremonial scene" whereas, in the 1881 revision, "[Verdi] injected into the heart of the work an episode of enormous vividness and power, enriching the character of Boccanegra in such a way that his subsequent death scene gains considerably in impressiveness". And, as Budden puts it, "Simone (sic) rises to spiritual greatness. For the first time, his moral authority puts forth all its strength, ... positively as in the appeal for peace ..."
Performance history
Original 1857 version
While not a popular success, it did garner some critical acclaim, "with the music being praised for its fidelity to the text, the orchestration for its elegance, the melody for its inspiration" noted the Gazzetta Musicale, but Budden notes that "complaints of 'obscurity', 'severity', harmonic abstruseness' are heard from even the most respectful of critics". And Verdi himself was fairly blunt in his assessment: "I've had a fiasco in Venice almost as great as that of La traviata" he reported to Clara Maffei.
Following its 1857 premiere, Simon Boccanegra was performed in Reggio Emilia, "where it triumphed ... ... and again in Naples in 1858 ..." There was similar acclaim after the Rome presentation about the same time, but "on the other hand, Boccanegra had been laughed off the stage in Florence" and "had been a fiasco at La Scala in 1859".
It was given in Malta in 1860, Madrid and Lisbon in 1861, and Buenos Aires and Montevideo in 1862, but, after that, it almost completely disappeared with only a sporadic performance or two, including Corfu in 1870 and Alexandria in late 1880.
A concert performance of the original version, possibly its first hearing in 100 years (and its UK premiere), took place at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London on 2 August 1975 before an invited audience "masterminded" by Julian Budden with Sesto Bruscantini in the title role and André Turp as Gabriele. This production was broadcast on 1 January 1976 and issued on CD. It was also performed by the Royal Opera, London in concert in June 1995 with Anthony Michaels-Moore and José Cura and staged at Covent Garden in June 1997 with Sergei Leiferkus and Plácido Domingo in the two aforementioned male roles. The Amelias in the 1995 and 1997 versions were Amanda Roocroft and Kallen Esperian respectively.
In August 1999 there was a set of performances at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca, which was recorded. That same year it was given by New York Grand Opera, this being its first New York performance. Sarasota Opera, in its "Verdi Cycle" series of all of the composer's works, gave it its American premiere in 1992.
Revised version of 1881
It is this later version, unveiled in 1881 in Milan, and given in Vienna and Paris in 1882 and 1883, respectively, that has become part of the standard operatic repertory. The British premiere did not occur until 1948, when it was given in English at Sadler's Wells, with Arnold Matters (Simone), James Johnston (Adorno), Joyce Gartside (Amelia) and Howell Glynne (Fiesco).
Roles
Synopsis
Time: The middle of the 14th century.
Place: In and around Genoa.
Prologue
(Act 1 in the 1857 original)
A piazza in front of the Fieschi palace
Paolo Albiani, a plebeian, tells his ally Pietro that in the forthcoming election of the Doge, his choice for the plebeian candidate is Simon Boccanegra. Boccanegra arrives and is persuaded to stand when Paolo hints that if Boccanegra becomes Doge, the aristocratic Jacopo Fiesco will surely allow him to wed his daughter Maria. When Boccanegra has gone, Paolo gossips about Boccanegra's love affair with Maria Fiesco – Boccanegra and Maria have had a child, and the furious Fiesco has locked his daughter away in his palace. Pietro rallies a crowd of citizens to support Boccanegra. After the crowd has dispersed, Fiesco comes out of his palace, stricken with grief; Maria has just died (Il lacerato spirito – "The tortured soul of a sad father"). He swears vengeance on Boccanegra for destroying his family. When he meets Boccanegra he does not inform him of Maria's death. Boccanegra offers reconciliation and Fiesco promises clemency only if Boccanegra lets him have his granddaughter. Boccanegra explains he cannot because the child, put in the care of a nurse, has vanished. He enters the palace and finds the body of his beloved just before crowds pour in, hailing him as the new Doge.
Act 1
(Act 2 in the 1857 original)
[Twenty-five years have passed. Historically the action has moved from 1339, the year of Simon's election in the prologue, forward to 1363, the year of the historical Simone Boccanegra's death – for acts 1, 2 and 3.]
[The Doge has exiled many of his political opponents and confiscated their property. Among them is Jacopo Fiesco, who has been living in the Grimaldi palace, using the name Andrea Grimaldi to avoid discovery and plotting with Boccanegra's enemies to overthrow the Doge. The Grimaldis have adopted an orphaned child of unknown parentage after discovering her in a convent (she is in fact Boccanegra's child, Maria – known as Amelia – named after her mother, and she is Fiesco's granddaughter). They called her Amelia, hoping that she would be the heir to their family's fortune, their sons having been exiled and their own baby daughter having died. Amelia is now a young woman.]
Scene 1: A garden in the Grimaldi palace, before sunrise
Amelia is awaiting her lover, Gabriele Adorno (Aria:Come in quest'ora bruna – "How in the morning light / The sea and stars shine brightly"). She suspects him of plotting against the Doge and when he arrives she warns him of the dangers of political conspiracy. Word arrives that the Doge is coming. Amelia, fearing that the Doge will force her to marry Paolo, now his councilor, urges Adorno to ask her guardian Andrea (in reality, Fiesco) for permission for them to marry: Sì, sì dell'ara il giubilo / contrasti il fato avverso – "Yes, let the joy of marriage be set against unkind fate".
[1857 original version: the duet ended with a cabaletta (set to the same words as the 1881 text) then "a coda and a battery of chords followed by applause."]
Fiesco reveals to Adorno that Amelia is not a Grimaldi, but a foundling adopted by the family. When Adorno says that he does not care, Fiesco blesses the marriage. Boccanegra enters and tells Amelia that he has pardoned her exiled brothers. She tells him that she is in love, but not with Paolo, whom she refuses to marry. Boccanegra has no desire to force Amelia into a marriage against her will. She tells him that she was adopted and that she has one souvenir of her mother, a picture in a locket. The two compare Amelia's picture with Boccanegra's, and Boccanegra realizes that she is his long-lost daughter. Finally reunited, they are overcome with joy. Amelia goes into the palace. Soon after, Paolo arrives to find out if Amelia has accepted him. Boccanegra tells him that the marriage will not take place. Furious, Paolo arranges for Amelia to be kidnapped.
Scene 2: The council chamber
[1881 revision: This entire scene was added by Verdi and Boito in place of the 1857 scene, which took place in a large square in Genoa.]
The Doge encourages his councillors to make peace with Venice. He is interrupted by the sounds of a mob calling for blood. Paolo suspects that his kidnapping plot has failed. The Doge prevents anyone leaving the council chamber and orders the doors to be thrown open. A crowd bursts in, chasing Adorno. Adorno confesses to killing Lorenzino, a plebeian, who had kidnapped Amelia, claiming to have done so at the order of a high-ranking official. Adorno incorrectly guesses the official was Boccanegra and is about to attack him when Amelia rushes in and stops him (Aria: Nell'ora soave – "At that sweet hour which invites ecstasy / I was walking alone by the sea"). She describes her abduction and escape. Before she is able to identify her kidnapper, fighting breaks out once more. Boccanegra establishes order and has Adorno arrested for the night (Aria: Plebe! Patrizi! Popolo! – "Plebeians! Patricians! Inheritors / Of a fierce history"). He orders the crowd to make peace and they praise his mercy. Realizing that Paolo is responsible for the kidnapping, Boccanegra places him in charge of finding the culprit. He then makes everyone, including Paolo, utter a curse on the kidnapper.
Act 2
(Act 3 in the 1857 original)
The Doge's apartments
[1881 revised version: There are some small adjustments in this act which include expanding Paolo's opening aria, thus giving him greater stature in the work: Me stesso ho maledetto! / "I have cursed myself", the wording of which was originally: O doge ingrato ... ch'io rinunci Amelia e i suoi tesori? / "O ungrateful Doge! ... Must I give up Amelia and her charms".]
Paolo has imprisoned Fiesco. Determined to kill Boccanegra, Paolo pours a slow-acting poison into the Doge's water, and then tries to convince Fiesco to murder Boccanegra in return for his freedom. Fiesco refuses. Paolo next suggests to Adorno that Amelia is the Doge's mistress, hoping Adorno will murder Boccanegra in a jealous rage. Adorno is furious (Aria: Sento avvampar nell'anima – "I feel a furious jealousy / Setting my soul on fire"). Amelia enters the Doge's apartments, seeming to confirm Adorno's suspicions, and he angrily accuses her of infidelity. She claims only to love him, but cannot reveal her secret – that Boccanegra is her father – because Adorno's family were killed by the Doge. Adorno hides as Boccanegra is heard approaching. Amelia confesses to Boccanegra that she is in love with his enemy Adorno. Boccanegra is angry, but tells his daughter that if the young nobleman changes his ways, he may pardon him. He asks Amelia to leave, and then takes a drink of the poisoned water, which Paolo has placed on the table. He falls asleep. Adorno emerges and is about to kill Boccanegra, when Amelia returns in time to stop him. Boccanegra wakes and reveals to Adorno that Amelia is his daughter. Adorno begs for Amelia's forgiveness (Trio: Perdon, Amelia ... Indomito – "Forgive me, Amelia ... A wild, / Jealous love was mine"). Noises of fighting are heard – Paolo has stirred up a revolution against the Doge. Adorno promises to fight for Boccanegra, who vows that Adorno shall marry Amelia if he can crush the rebels.
Act 3
(Act 4 in the 1857 original)
[1857 original version: Act 4 opened with a double male voice chorus, and a confused dialogue involving references to details in the original play.]
Inside the Doge's palace
The uprising against the Doge has been put down. Paolo has been condemned to death for fighting with the rebels against the Doge. Fiesco is released from prison by the Doge's men. On his way to the scaffold, Paolo boasts to Fiesco that he has poisoned Boccanegra. Fiesco is deeply shocked. He confronts Boccanegra, who is now dying from Paolo's poison. Boccanegra recognizes his old enemy and tells Fiesco that Amelia is his granddaughter. Fiesco feels great remorse and tells Boccanegra about the poison. Adorno and Amelia, newly married, arrive to find the two men reconciled. Boccanegra tells Amelia that Fiesco is her grandfather and, before he dies, names Adorno his successor. The crowd mourns the death of the Doge.
Music
Budden makes a useful observation on the musical qualities of the original version: "all the devices that we associate with the term bel canto are sparingly used" and he suggests that, at mid-century, "this amounted to a denial of Italy's national birthright" for an audience brought up on the conventions employed by Vincenzo Bellini or Gaetano Donizetti. In his "Introduction to the 1881 Score", James Hepokoski emphasizes that Budden's assertion appeared to be true, since the 1857 original "resounded with clear echoes of [Verdi's] earlier style" and that he employed the known techniques but, at the same time, moved away from them, so that:
the basic musical conventions of the Risorgimento (separate numbers with breaks for applause, multi-movement arias and duets with repetitive codas, cadenzas and repeated cabalettas, static concertato ensembles, and so on) were indeed present, if usually modified [so that] the musical discourse was characteristically terse, angular, and muscular.
Budden goes on to suggest the implications of this move away from the standard forms, albeit that "[it] was a daring, innovative work. Without altering the letter of the contemporary Italian forms, it certainly altered their spirit ... Quite unheard of was a protagonist without a single extended lyrical solo to himself. Additionally, Budden suggests that musically "the richness and subtlety of the musical language acquired over twenty-four years suffice to fill out Simon's personality further.
The 1881 revisions then, which, in most cases, did not require changes in the libretto, were made to the music by Verdi. As David Kimbell demonstrates with a few examples, areas such as which illustrate more refined use of the orchestra include the first scene of the Prologue: "the dialogue, instead of being punctuated by the customary figurations of accompanied recitative, is set against a gravely flowing orchestral theme."
Recordings
1857 original version
1881 revised version
References
Notes
Cited sources
Budden, Julian (1984), The Operas of Verdi, Volume 2: From Il Trovatore to La Forza del destino. London: Cassell. (hardcover) (paperback).
Kahn, Gary (Ed.) (2011), Simon Boccanegra: Giuseppe Verdi, (Overture Opera Guides). London, Overture Publishing in association with English National Opera.
Kimbell, David (2001), in Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam.
Loewenberg, Alfred (1978), Annals of Opera, 1597 to 1940. London, John Calder.
Osborne, Charles (1993), The Complete Opera of Verdi, New York: Da Capo Press, Inc.
Parker, Roger (1998), "Simon Boccanegra", in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. Four. London: Macmillan Publishers. 1998
Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane (1993), Verdi: A Biography, London & New York: Oxford University Press.
Werfel, Franz and Stefan, Paul (1973), Verdi: The Man and His Letters, New York, Vienna House.
Other sources
Baldini, Gabriele, (trans. Roger Parker) (1980), The Story of Giuseppe Verdi: Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera. Cambridge, et al: Cambridge University Press.
Busch, Hans (1988), Verdi's Otello and Simon Boccanegra (revised version); two volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chusid, Martin, (Ed.) (1997), Verdi’s Middle Period, 1849 to 1859, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Conati, Marcello and Mario Medici (Eds.) (Trans. William Weaver) (1994), The Verdi-Boito Correspondence, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
De Van, Gilles (trans. Gilda Roberts) (1998), Verdi’s Theater: Creating Drama Through Music. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. (hardback),
Gossett, Philip (2006), Divas and Scholar: Performing Italian Opera, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Martin, George (1983), Verdi: His Music, Life and Times. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.
Parker, Roger (2007), The New Grove Guide to Verdi and His Operas, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Pistone, Danièle (1995), Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera: From Rossini to Puccini, Portland, OR: Amadeus Press.
Toye, Francis (1931), Giuseppe Verdi: His Life and Works, New York: Knopf
Walker, Frank, The Man Verdi (1982), New York: Knopf, 1962, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera New York: OUP.
External links
Greatest Verdi singers, Verdi's friends and collaborators, a genealogy opera per opera project on geni.com
Arias and roles of Simon Boccanegra from aria-database.com
Operas by Giuseppe Verdi
Italian-language operas
1857 operas
Operas
Operas set in Italy
Operas based on plays
Opera world premieres at La Fenice
1881 operas
Opera world premieres at La Scala
Libretti by Arrigo Boito
Cultural depictions of Italian men
Cultural depictions of politicians
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louth%2C%20Lincolnshire
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Louth, Lincolnshire
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Louth () is a market town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. Louth serves as an important town for a large rural area of eastern Lincolnshire. Visitor attractions include St James' Church, Hubbard's Hills, the market, many independent retailers and Lincolnshire's last remaining cattle market.
Geography
Louth is at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds where they meet the Lincolnshire Marsh. It developed where the ancient trackway along the Wolds, known as the Barton Street, crossed the River Lud. The town is east of a gorge carved into the Wolds that forms the Hubbard's Hills. This area was formed from a glacial overspill channel in the last glacial period. The River Lud meanders through the gorge before entering the town.
To the direct southeast of Louth is the village of Legbourne, to the northeast is the village of Keddington, to the northwest is the village of South Elkington, and to the southwest is the village of Hallington. The towns of Wragby, Market Rasen, Horncastle, Mablethorpe, Grimsby and Alford are close to the town as well.
The Greenwich Meridian passes through the town and is marked on Eastgate with plaques on the north and south sides of the street, just east of the junction with Northgate, although this location is known to be incorrect as the line actually passes through a point just west of Eastgate's junction with Church Street. A three-mile (5 km) £6.6 million A16 Louth Bypass opened in 1991. The former route through the town is now designated as the B1520.
History
Three handaxes have been found on the wolds surrounding Louth, dating from between 424,000 and 191,000 years ago, indicating inhabitation in the Paleolithic era. Bronze Age archeological finds include a 'barbed and tanged' arrowhead found in the grounds of Monks' Dyke Tennyson College.
St Helen's Spring, at the Gatherums, off Aswell Street, is dedicated to a popular medieval saint, the mother of Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, but is thought to be a Christianised Romano-British site for veneration of the pagan water-goddess Alauna.
The Anglo-Saxon pagan burial ground, northwest of Louth, dates from the fifth to sixth centuries, and was first excavated in 1946. With an estimated 1200 urn burials it is one of the largest Anglo-Saxon cremation cemeteries in England.
Æthelhard, a Bishop of Winchester who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 793, was an abbot of Louth in his early life.
Louth is listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as a town of 124 households.
Louth Park Abbey was founded in 1139 by the Bishop Alexander of Lincoln as a daughter-house of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. Following its dissolution in 1536 it fell into ruin and, today, only earthworks survive, on private land, between Louth and Keddington. Some of the ruins were incorporated into The Priory (now a hotel) by Thomas Espin. Monks' Dyke, now a ditch, was originally dug to supply the abbey with water from the springs of Ashwell and St. Helen's at Louth.
In 1643, Sir Charles Bolles, a resident of Louth, raised a 'hastily-got-up soldiery' for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Fighting took place in, and around the town and, at one point, Bolles was forced to take refuge under the Ramsgate bridge. By the battle's end 'Three strangers, being souldgeres, was slain at a skirmish at Lowth, and was buryed'. Human remains, found during archaeological visits to Louth Park Abbey during the 1800s, in 'a little space surrounded by a ditch', were believed to date from the Civil War as two cannonballs, from that era, were found with the bodies.
The Louth flood of 1920 occurred in the town on 29 May 1920, causing 23 deaths. One woman climbed a chimney to survive, another was the only survivor from a row of twelve terrace houses, which were destroyed by the flood waters. Four stone plaques exist in the town to show how high the water level reached. Other, less devastating floods occurred in July 1968 and on 25 June and 20 July in 2007.
Margaret Wintringham succeeded her dead husband at the Louth by-election in September 1921, to become the Liberals' first female MP, and Britain's third female MP.
Between December 1969 and October 1974, Jeffrey Archer was Louth's MP.
St Herefrith of Louth
St Herefrith, or Herefrid, is Louth's 'forgotten saint', whose feast day is 27 February. He was a bishop, who died around 873, possibly killed by the Danes. An 11th-century text describes Herefrith as Bishop of Lincoln, but as the bishopric there dates to 1072, Lincoln more probably refers to Lindsey, the early name for Lincolnshire. Similar confusion exists in an inventory of Louth's St. James Church, written in 1486 and transcribed in 1512, where he is referred to as a Bishop of Auxerre, France.
At some point, following his death, a shrine venerating him was established at Louth. Æthelwold, the Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, was actively seeking relics for his newly rebuilt Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire and sent his monks to Louth to raid Herefrith's shrine. From an 11th-century account, Æthelwold had:
...heard of the merits of the blessed Herefrid bishop of Lincoln resting in Louth a chief town of the same church. When all those dwelling there had been put to sleep by a cunning ruse, a trusty servant took him out of the ground, wrapped him in fine line cloth, and with all his fellows rejoicing brought him to the monastery of Thorney and re-interred him.
A church dedicated to St. Herefrith, at Louth, appears in accounts from the 13th to 15th centuries, and one of his relics, an ivory comb, is recorded among the possessions of Louth's St. James Church in 1486. Suggestions that the shrine, and later church, of St. Herefrith, were earlier incarnations of St. James has 'no supportive evidence' but St James' is the site of two earlier churches of which little is known, although the possession of relics of Herefrith within the parish church of St James and the continued celebration of his feast-day until the reformation period are suggestive of this possibility.
Transport
There are regular buses connecting Louth with the nearby Grimsby, Skegness, Mablethorpe and Lincoln. All services are operated by different companies but the main one is Stagecoach. However, unlike other town, the town is not served by late-night services with the last bus departing the town at 7:30pm.
The nearest active railway stations are now at Market Rasen, Grimsby Town and Skegness.
Louth is on two National Express coach routes. One is from Grimsby to Birmingham via Lincoln and Leicester and the other is from Grimsby to London via Lincoln and Nottingham.
Louth railway station was a major intermediate station on the East Lincolnshire Railway which ran from Boston to Grimsby from 1848 and was also once served by rail motor services. The station had an extensive good yards which served the malt kilns.
Louth was the northern terminus of the Mablethorpe Loop. The line which ran through the nearby villages and seaside towns of Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, Grimoldby, Saltfleetby, Theddlethorpe, Mumby and Willoughby. The station was the terminus on the Louth to Bardney Line which opened in 1876 but closed in 1951 to passengers and to freight traffic in 1960. Bardney was the connection of the branch line and the Lincolnshire Loop Line
The station closed to passengers in 1970 along with the Mablethorpe Loop Line and the section from Firsby to Louth of the East Lincolnshire Railway. The section to Grimsby remained in use for freight traffic until December 1980 when it closed and was later removed.
The station building and Louth North Signal Box remain in situ to this day as private dwellings. All of the station site has been built on by residential and commercial outlets.
There are plans to eventually have Louth as the southern terminus of the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway which would utilise the trackbed from Louth to Holton-Le-Clay, although it will be to the north of Louth due to the station building now being occupied and the station site around it built over. This would mean Louth would have a rail connection for the first time in almost 50 years, since the closure to passengers in 1970, but at a new station site.
Louth Canal was built between 1765 and 1770 to connect Louth to the sea at Tetney. It was formally abandoned in 1924.
St James' Church
The town was the origin of the Lincolnshire Rising, which started on 1 October 1536 in St James Church. The rising began after Rev. Thomas Kendall, the incumbent, gave an 'emotive sermon', the evening before the King's Commissioners were due to arrive and assess the church's wealth. Some of the townspeople, fearful that the church treasury would be seized by the men of the Crown, demanded the building's keys. The townspeople kept vigil that night, and, the following day, rang the church bells, 'an ancient call to rebellion', to gather a crowd. Having begun marching from Louth, 50,000 supporters converged to camp at Hembleton Hill, the following evening, before they continued to Lincoln to confront the King's Commissioners.
The town's skyline is dominated by the spire of St James' Church. A recent survey has confirmed the height of the stonework as and to the top of the cockerel weather vane as . It also confirms it as one of the very finest medieval steeples in the country. Though shorter than both Norwich Cathedral () and Salisbury Cathedral (), it is the tallest medieval parish church spire in the United Kingdom. The building of the spire started in 1501 and was finally completed in 1515.
In 2015 two pieces of a pre-Conquest standing stone cross dating to were found in the adjoining rectory garden. The cross is of the 'ring' or 'wheel head' type, the central design being of Christ crucified, a form more commonly seen today in Ireland. The cross and its implications for the archaeology, history and the early church in Louth are discussed in an article in the journal Medieval Archaeology. The Louth Cross is on display within the church and a small booklet is available from the gift shop.
In 2017 funding was raised to fit a viewing door to the cell just below the spire floor that holds the original medieval treadwheel that was used to haul up the stone and mortar for the building of the spire (1501–1515). Substantial records exist in the churchwardens' accounts from 1501 onward for the construction and use of the wheel which was to become known as The Wild Mare. A small booklet about this rare survival is available from the church gift shop.
Landmarks and places of interest
Much of the town centre is lined with brick buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Louth Museum was designed by John James Cresswell in 1910. It has a Panorama Gallery, which features two back-lit replicas of William Brown's Panorama of Louth viewed from the top of St James' spire in 1844. The two original paintings that together form the panorama hang side-by-side in the Louth Town Council building – the Sessions House – on Eastgate. The panorama gives a unique and vivid representation of the streets, businesses, homes and people of the town and the landscape as far as the North Sea to the east and northwards to the Humber Estuary and beyond.
ABM Pauls (now ) used to have a large malt kiln, which was the first of its kind built in Europe to an American design out of reinforced concrete in 1949. The site had been the location of a maltings since 1870 which was destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and had to be built on the old site to qualify for war compensation. At its height the maltings processed 50,000 tonnes of barley per year, with exports handled through the nearby port of Immingham. The maltings closed in 1998 and the tall structure was left derelict for many years. The German supermarket chain Aldi was granted permission to build a new store on the site, and it was demolished in 2014/15.
Hubbard's Hills is one of the town's main attractions. It was opened to the public in 1907. The park is in a glacial overspill channel that forged the course for a small river, the Lud. It meanders along the deep, flat valley bottom between steep, wooded slopes on either side.
The Belmont television and radio mast, once one of the tallest structures in the European Union (until its height was reduced in 2010), is in the nearby village of Donington on Bain, west of the town.
Louth will be the eventual southern terminus of the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway, based at nearby Ludborough. The town was formerly on the East Lincolnshire Railway from Peterborough to Grimsby, an important north–south route especially for holidaymakers in the summer. It opened in 1848. The line to Mablethorpe started in the town from 1877, closing in 1960. The section to Wainfleet closed in 1961, with the Louth to Grimsby section later continuing for passengers until October 1970, with freight stopping in 1980. The former station is now residential flats; there are other reminders still standing.
Louth Town Hall, which was designed in the Palazzo style, was completed in 1854. Louth Cemetery, with its distinctive gate lodge, opened in 1855.
Alfred Lord Tennyson was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School. A stone inscription to commemorate this forms part of a wall on Schoolhouse Lane in Louth.
St James' Church has the tallest church spire in Lincolnshire and is one of the tallest spires on a church in England. It is the tallest building in Louth and can be seen for miles on a clear day.
Shopping and local economy
Louth is noted for the wide selection of independent retailers, with around 70% of businesses independently owned. In 2012, it was named 'Britain's Favourite market town' by the BBC's Countryfile.
The town's long retail history is represented by a number of longstanding businesses, including the department store Eve and Ranshaw which closed down on the 4th February 2023 after 240 years. Dales & Sons, poulterers since 1896, and the century-old butchers, Lakings of Louth.
The first building society branch office was opened by the Peterborough Building Society (now Norwich & Peterborough) in 1973. The town was also the headquarters of the former Louth, Mablethorpe and Sutton Building Society, a local society with several branches and agents in Lincolnshire, which was taken over by the Bradford & Bingley in 1990.
Louth is also known for its specialist grocers, and local butchers, Meridian Meats, have won numerous awards. It is also home to The Cheese Shop, which has gained nationwide recognition, including in The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and on The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain.
Louth holds market days on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. There is a farmers' market on the fourth Wednesday of each month. A cattle market is held each Thursday at the Louth Livestock Centre on Newmarket.
There is a small Morrisons, formerly a Somerfield store, which opened in 1985, and a Co-operative supermarket, which opened in 1989. The Co-op was given approval for an additional smaller store in 2013.
In 2008, a local pressure group, Keep Louth Special, was formed by residents, shoppers and business owners, to lobby against a proposal for a major supermarket on the former cattle market site. The group was criticised by a town councillor, the following year, as 'outsiders' who wanted to live in a 'museum town', but a 2012 council report, while recommending a 'large retail development' as ‘necessary’, acknowledged that 'a majority 50 per cent' of surveyed residents opposed it.
An initial 2009 planning application by Sainsbury's for a new store, was rejected by the council, after appeal, in 2012.
Keep Louth Special described a 2013 proposal for an Aldi store as 'not bad news' because it was intended for an 'eyesore' site, and as Aldi stocks 'own brands and a limited fresh-food offering', it would not be 'going head-to-head' with the town market or independent retailers.
Many national food campaigning organisations are based on Eastgate under the umbrella organisation the Processed Vegetable Growers Association, notably:
The Asparagus Growers Association
The Brassica Growers Association
The British Herb Trade Association
The British Onion Producers Association
The Leek Growers Association
The Radish Growers Association
The Turfgrass Association
Community and culture
The town's Playhouse Cinema is on Cannon Street, and is home to Louth Film Club, which won the British Federation of Film Societies' Film Society of the Year Award in 2008. Louth Playgoers Society's Riverhead Theatre is on Victoria Road, to the east of the town.
Louth is home to The New Orleans Club, a not-for-profit members' club dedicated to keeping alive the music of jazz.
Corinne Drewery, of British pop band Swing Out Sister, grew up in the area and retired English rock drummer Robert Wyatt is a resident.
Transition Town Louth is a community project, which organizes various events in and around the town aimed at promoting awareness of climate change and unsustainable resources. Part of a large social movement, many Transition Towns are now developing. A sub-group, the Community Food Gardens are encouraging a shift towards sustainable communities.
Sport and leisure
The Meridian Leisure Centre opened on 6 February 2010. By 2013 had received almost one million visits and was home to over 20 clubs. It cost £12 million and consists of an 8-lane, 25-metre swimming pool and a two-level gym with over 80 pieces of equipment, along with a sports hall and other facilities. Louth Technology Hub, which is using 3D display technology, with a focus on sports groups and clubs, opened on the centre's upper floor in October 2013.
Louth Tennis Centre is situated on Fairfield Industrial Estate to the north of the town and has indoor and outdoor tennis facilities.
There is a multiuse sports pavilion on London Road, which includes football pitches, a cricket pitch and a multi-use astroturf pitch.
Louth Cricket Club was formed in 1822 and play their home games at the London Road sports pavilion.
Louth is home to Louth Town Football Club which plays in the Lincolnshire Football League.
In the Wolds to the south-west of the town, around away, is Cadwell Park motor racing circuit between the villages of Scamblesby and Tathwell.
Louth also hosts Louth Cycle Club, Louth Swimming Club, Louth Old Boys (Football), Yom Chi Taekwondo, Kendojo Martial Arts, Louth Storm Basketball, Louth Chess Club, Louth Golf Course (Crowtree Lane) and Kenwick Park Golf Course (on the outskirts of the town) as well as archery, a model aircraft club which uses Strubby and Manby Airfields and a model radio controlled car club which uses Louth Tennis Centre.
Media
Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and ITV Yorkshire. Television signals are received from the Belmont TV transmitter. The town’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Lincolnshire on 94.9 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Lincolnshire on 102.2 FM, DAB radio station, Lincs FM and County Linx Radio, a community online station. Louth’s local newspapers is the Louth Leader and Lincolnshire Echo.
Education
Primary schools
Kidgate Primary School
Lacey Gardens Junior School
St. Michael's C of E Primary School
Eastfield Infants and Nursery School
Secondary schools
King Edward VI Grammar School
Cordeaux Academy (closed in 2017)
Monks' Dyke Tennyson College (closed in 2017)
Both of the above merged to become:
Louth Academy
Further education
A £3-million further education college, called Wolds College, was next to the Cordeaux School. Construction by the Lindum Group started in November 2007, and the college officially opened in October 2008. Unlike many Lincolnshire secondary modern schools, both Cordeaux and Monks' Dyke have their own sixth forms; East Lindsey's only other secondary modern with a sixth form is at Skegness. Although the town is well served for A-level provision, vocational courses were less well served until the college opened in this part of East Lindsey in September 2008, although there is the Grimsby Institute some away.
Twin town
Louth's twin town is La Ferté-Bernard, close to Le Mans in Pays de la Loire, France.
Ludensians
Inhabitants of Louth are known as Ludensians, taken from the Latin name of the town (Lude, Luda).
Ronni Ancona Comedian and actress was born in the town.
Jeffrey Archer was elected the town's Member of Parliament in a by-election in 1969. He stood down at the October 1974 general election.
Thomas Wilkinson Wallis established his wood carving business in Louth, Silver Award given to his Trophy of Spring carving – currently in Louth Museum. More carvings can also be found in St James' Church, Louth and Louth Market Hall.
Jim Broadbent, actor, lives in a small village just outside Louth.
Brigid Brophy, writer, lived in Louth for many years.
Roy 'Chubby' Brown, adult comedian, (real name Royston Vasey) lives in nearby Fulstow.
Leanda Cave, triathlete, was born in Louth
Julie Christie, actress, has a home in Louth, and sometimes works with the local Film Club.
George Davenport, Anglo/American frontiersman, US Army officer, was born in Louth
Barbara Dickson, singer and actress, lived in Louth
Corinne Drewery, lead singer of the band Swing Out Sister, attended schools in the town whilst growing up in the village of Authorpe, between Louth and Alford.
Graham Fellows, also known as John Shuttleworth and Jilted John, a singer-songwriter and comedian lives in the town.
Michael Foale, astronaut from the International Space Station was born at Crowtree Lane Hospital, now the Humanities block of King Edward VI Grammar School. His father was stationed at a nearby Royal Air Force base at Manby.
Dave Formula, member of New Wave pioneers Magazine, lives in Louth and often plays locally with other The Finks.
James Gillick Figurative artist, works from his studio in Louth and lives nearby.
Ron Grant, former motorcycle road racer and tuner.
Dan Haigh, bass guitarist in rock band Fightstar, born in Grimsby, was brought up near the town.
Simon Hanson, drummer with the band Squeeze lived in Louth and attended King Edward VI school.
Graham Higman, mathematician, was born in Louth.
Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden, (1 April 1822 – 19 June 1886), English naval captain and Turkish admiral, was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School.
Andreas Kalvos (1792 – 3 November 1869), Greek writer, lived in Louth from 1852 until his death. He was the first national Greek poet. In 1960, Greece's ambassador to the UK and Nobel Prize-winner for poetry, George Seferis, arranged for his remains to be reburied in Calvos' native Zakinthos.
Rev. Thomas Kendall, incumbent of St. James Church, Louth and leader of Lincolnshire Rising, 1 October 1536.
Cate Kennedy, author
Sir Michael Levey, art historian and director of the National Gallery from 1973 to 1986, lived in Louth from the late 1980s until his death in 2008.
Chris Staniland, 1905–1942 racing driver and pilot, attended King Edward VI Grammar School. He raced cars successfully at Brooklands pre-war and by 1930 was chief test pilot for Fairey Aviation. He was killed in a crash on 26 June 1942 while testing a new aircraft and is buried in Keddington churchyard.
Thomas Louth, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in the 1330s, was born in the town and took his surname from it.
Matthew Macfadyen, actor, spent his childhood in the town.
Harry Mallett, cricketer, was born in Louth.
Patrick Mower, actor, currently seen in TV soap-opera Emmerdale lives in the area in Little Carlton.
Philip Norton, Baron Norton of Louth (born 5 March 1951), leading expert on the British Parliament, Conservative politician, author and Professor of Politics at the University of Hull
Jim Payne, professional golfer who won two European Tour tournaments.
Adrian Royle, retired long-distance runner, lives in Louth.
Ted Savage, footballer, was born in Louth.
Edith Sharpley, Classical Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge, was born in Louth.
Captain John Smith, English, soldier, sailor and founder of the Commonwealth of Virginia, although born in Willoughby, attended the King Edward VI Grammar School, where his name is adorned upon a tablet in the school's 'Edward Street Hall'. A cast iron bust of him also stands within the school's canteen.
Jessie Stephenson, Suffragette, organiser of 1911 census boycott.
Stuart Storey, BBC sports commentator.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born in Somersby, between Louth and Horncastle, and was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Watson VC, also educated at the King Edward VI Grammar
Graham Winteringham, architect, was born in Louth.
Margaret Wintringham, first English woman to sit as an M.P. lived most of her life just outside the town at Little Grimsby Hall, and was elected M.P. for Louth in 1920.
Robert Wyatt, English musician and former member of Soft Machine, now lives in Louth.
Freedom
The Following have received the Freedom of Louth.
The College of Air Warfare Manby: 21 October 1965.
Arms
References
External links
Louth Town Partnership
Louth Leader
Louth Museum
Transition Town Louth
St. James' Church
Hubbard's Hills
Louth Town Council
Louth Navigation Trust
Civil parishes in Lincolnshire
Market towns in Lincolnshire
Towns in Lincolnshire
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford%20Country%20Squire
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Ford Country Squire
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The Ford Country Squire is a series of full-size station wagons that were assembled by American automaker Ford. Positioned as the top-level station wagon of the Ford division, the Country Squire was distinguished by woodgrain bodyside trim. From 1950 through the 1991 model years, eight generations of the Country Squire were produced. Following the discontinuation of Edsel Bermuda, Mercury marketed the Mercury Colony Park as a divisional counterpart of the Country Squire, sharing bodywork and trim while the Mercury was not available with a six cylinder engine and was more expensive due to the optional equipment on the Ford that was standard on the Mercury.
As part of the full-size Ford model range, the Country Squire was the top trim package station wagon counterpart of several model lines. For its first two generations, the Country Squire was based upon the Ford Custom Deluxe and the Ford Crestline that replaced it, along with the more modestly equipped Ford Country Sedan which was identical in dimensions except for the woodgrain appearance and minimal standard equipment. For its next three generations, the Country Squire was a distinct model range; initially sharing its trim with the Ford Fairlane, the Country Squire later adopted trim of the Ford Galaxie. For its final two generations, the Country Squire became a counterpart of Ford LTD and the Ford LTD Crown Victoria after its downsizing for the last generation, while sharing multiple passenger accommodation duties with the Ford Aerostar.
The Country Squire was discontinued as part of the development of the 1992 Ford Crown Victoria and passenger carrying duties were given to the Ford Windstar. The decline in full-size station wagon sales meant the Crown Victoria was exclusively a four-door sedan. The 41-year production run of the Country Squire is the third-longest of a Ford car nameplate in North America, surpassed only by the Ford Thunderbird and Ford Mustang which is to date still in production.
The term squire is a British term that refers to a village leader or a lord of the manor, which is also called a "squire", and the term was applied to members of the landed gentry.
Woodgrain trim
Although all Ford Country Squires feature wood-grain body trim, only the first-generation 1950-1951 versions are true "Woodies". The genuine wood body panels were manufactured at the Ford Iron Mountain Plant in the Michigan Upper Peninsula from lumber owned by Ford Motor Company. For 1952, all-steel bodies replaced wooden body structures to reduce production costs. Subsequently, exterior body trim consisted of simulated woodgrain (with varying degrees of coverage on the body).
During the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, Ford would use the Squire nameplate on intermediate, mid-size, compact, and subcompact vehicles, denoting station wagons with woodgrain exterior trim. Alongside full-size Fords, the Squire name was used for the Falcon, Fairlane, Torino, Pinto, Granada, Gran Torino, LTD II, Fairmont, Escort, and mid-size LTD (the last model range to use the name). The Squire name was also used on woodgrain-trim versions of the Ranchero; in 1976, Ford offered a Pinto Squire two-door hatchback.
First generation (1950–1951)
For the 1949 model year, Ford introduced its first post-war model line. While retaining body-on-frame construction, the 1949 Ford chassis abandoned several design elements retained by Ford since the Model T, including a torque tube driveshaft and transverse leaf springs. In a major change, Ford sought to change the marketing of station wagons, transitioning their use from a commercial vehicle to a premium family vehicle. The listed retail price was US$2,119 ($ in dollars ) and 31,412 were manufactured.
Designed by Eugene Gregorie and Ross Cousins, the Ford station wagon marked the first transition away from the full "woodie". In place of a complete wooden body aft of the firewall, the 1949 Ford station wagon was designed with a steel roof, rear fenders, and tailgate frame. Wood construction remained for the side bodywork and upper and lower tailgate (using mahogany plywood trimmed by maple or birch). Sharing its body with Mercury, the Ford station wagon was offered in Custom trim. To reduce noise and improve sealing, the station wagon was offered with two doors instead of four; however, three seats were used, allowing eight-passenger seating.
For the 1950 model year, Ford renamed its model lines; initially, the station wagon was a Custom Deluxe with the all new "Country Squire" name introduced in early 1950. Several revisions were made for 1950 to improve functionality and capability. The second and third-row seats were redesigned, allowing their removal without tools. In another change, the Country Squire also received heavier-duty rear-suspension, wider tires, and a larger fuel tank over Ford sedans.
Following its introduction, the Country Squire underwent several revisions distinct from Ford sedans. For 1950, the spare-tire cover was deleted; in April 1950, the lower tailgate was redesigned, changing from all-wood construction to steel construction (with wood trim). For 1951, the Country Squire retained the dashboard of the 1950 Ford (with the 1951 steering column).
Assembly
As a true "woodie", assembly of the Country Squire was labor-intensive, requiring completion at three assembly plants. Initial assembly of the steel body was completed at the Dearborn Assembly Plant, with the incomplete body shipped to the Iron Mountain plant for the fitment of wood paneling; upon completion, the bodies were shipped back to various Ford assembly facilities for final assembly (mounting to frames, fitment of interiors).
For 1951, Ford outsourced final assembly of the Country Squire, contracting Ionia Body Company (an assembler of wood-bodied station wagons for General Motors).
Powertrain
During its production, the first-generation Country Squire was available with engines shared with Ford sedans. The standard engine was a 226 cubic-inch 95 hp H-series inline-6, with a 239 cubic-inch 100 hp Flathead V8. For 1950, a 3-speed manual was standard, with a 3-speed Ford-O-Matic automatic becoming an option in 1951.
Sales
Second generation (1952–1954)
Following a redesign of the Ford model line for the 1952 model year, the second generation of the Country Squire was introduced, marking several major changes to the model line. While sharing much of its body (though not its wheelbase) with the newly introduced Mercury Monterey, only the Country Squire featured wood paneling as standard. In a wider revision for 1952, Ford introduced station wagon counterparts for each of its sedan lines; the Country Squire was the equivalent of the Crestline sedan. Slotted below the Country Squire were the four-door Country Sedan (Customline) and the two-door Ranch Wagon (Mainline).
Model overview
Designed by Gordon Buehrig, the second-generation Country Squire was developed under a goal to maximize parts commonality between sedan and station wagon model lines. While gaining an inch in wheelbase, the second-generation Country Squire was reduced approximately 10 inches in length over its predecessor while adding two more doors for rear passengers.
In contrast to the Country Sedan, two-tone paint was not offered for the Country Squire; and the only exterior colors offered were Alpine Blue, Carnival Red metallic, Meadowbrook Green, Sungate Ivory and Glenmist Green, and they were color-keyed to the wood exterior trim. Matching the wood trim, the interior was offered in a single tan/brown color scheme. As with the previous generation, the second-generation Country Squire used a two-piece tailgate. The spare tire was relocated under the load floor, with the upper half of the tailgate opened by counterbalanced hinges. The listed retail price was US$2,384 ($ in dollars ) and production numbers dropped significantly with the introduction of the all steel bodied Country Sedan and the more upscale Mercury Monterey wood-bodied station wagon, having only built 5,426.
Over its production, the second generation received several minor revisions. For 1953 (marking the 50th anniversary of Ford), the Country Squire featured a commemorative steering wheel center and rear-door armrests became standard. For 1954, the range of color choices were expanded from six to twelve (remaining single-color exteriors), with red, blue/white, or green/white interiors replacing the previous tan/brown interior. Several power-assisted features became introduced; in 1953, power steering became an option, with power brakes and a power-adjusted front seat introduced for 1954.
Powertrain
For the 1952 and 1953 model years, the Country Squire was offered with a 110 hp 239 cubic-inch V8 (inline-sixes were offered only for the Ranch Wagon). For 1954, in line with all Fords, the Flathead V8 was replaced by the overhead-valve Y-block V8. While built with the same displacement as the Flathead V8, the Y-block increased output from . The inline-six was redesigned, with a version becoming the standard engine, producing .
Assembly changes
Marketed as premium vehicles, wood-bodied station wagons were labor-intensive to assemble (and maintain). To reduce assembly and ownership costs, the Country Squire abandoned wood-paneled construction for a full-steel body. To distinguish itself from the Country Sedan, DI-NOC (vinyl transfers) was used to simulate the mahogany paneling, accented by birch or maple. To further simulate the "woodie" look, woodgrain transfers were applied to the window frames and upper liftgate. For 1954, the wood trim was replaced by fiberglass, colored with a woodgrain finish.
Sales
Third generation (1955–1956)
For the 1955 model year, the third generation of the Country Squire was introduced. Functionally an update of the second generation, the body underwent several styling revisions, along with multiple functional upgrades. The Crestline was discontinued, with the Country Squire becoming the counterpart of the all-new top level Fairlane sedan line. The listed retail price was $2,392 ($ in dollars ) and production increased to 19,011.
For 1955, Ford consolidated its three station wagons into a distinct model line separate from its sedans. In a change that would last through 1968, the Country Squire was the flagship Ford station wagon, with the four-door (non-wood) Country Sedan and the two-door Ranch Wagon. In 1956, the two-door Parklane was introduced; intended to compete with the Chevrolet Nomad, the Parklane combined the body of the Ranch Wagon with the trim of the Fairlane (similar to the Country Squire interior).
Model overview
Largely carryover from 1954, the Country Squire chassis retained its 115.5 inch wheelbase and chassis underpinnings. While the roofline from the B-pillar rearward was essentially identical from the previous generation, a panoramic windshield (with a vertical A-pillar) was introduced. The wood trim was revised, with the DI-NOC transfers adopting the style of a wood-bodied motorboat; the fiberglass trim was extended into the front fenders (the simulated "ponton fender" was removed). For the first time, power windows were offered as an option, at the time considered a luxury feature.
For 1956, alongside all Fords, the Country Squire received a new grille, distinguished by rectangular turn signals/parking lights and wider openings. In a functional change, Ford upgraded to a 12-volt electrical system, allowing additional starting power and capability with electrical-power options. Coinciding with the upgrade, air conditioning was introduced as an option. The Lifeguard option package was introduced, offering a deep-dish steering wheel, upgraded door latches (to prevent ejection); as an option, seat belts and a padded dashboard were offered.
Powertrain
Carried over from the previous generation, the standard engine of the third-generation Country Squire was the "Mileage Maker" inline-6, increasing output to . For the first time, the Country Squire was available with several optional V8 engines with multiple power outputs. Shared with the Fairlane, a Y-block V8 produced (2-barrel carburetor) or (4-barrel carburetor). Shared with the Thunderbird, a V8 produced 198 hp. For 1956, the 272 was replaced by the 292, increased to . A Y-block (shared with the Thunderbird and Mercury) offered up to was optional only by special order.
Sales
Fourth generation (1957-1959)
For 1957, the Ford model line underwent its first complete redesign for the first time since 1952. In line with other American manufacturers, a central part of the redesign was lower body height, requiring an all-new chassis to accommodate a lower floor. The only station wagon with standard-equipment wood paneling (of any type) from 1954 to 1956, the Country Squire was joined by the Mercury Colony Park in 1957 and briefly with the Edsel Bermuda in 1958.
Model overview
Coinciding with the use of a lower body and interior floor, the fourth generation was wider than its predecessor, increasing from eight passenger-seating to nine for the first time. For the fourth-generation Country Squire, Ford returned to extensive annual model revisions, with only the roofline and doors shared between all three model years. For 1957 27,690 were manufactured with a listed retail price of $2,556 ($ in dollars ).
Chassis specifications
The 1957 Ford chassis was a split-wheelbase platform; the 118-inch wheelbase was exclusive to the Fairlane, with Ford (and Edsel) station wagons sharing a 116-inch wheelbase with the Ford Custom. To allow for a lower floor, the frame layout changed from a truck-style ladder frame to a perimeter frame. A configuration used until the 2011 discontinuation of the Ford Crown Victoria, the perimeter frame allowed the floorpan to sit between the frame rails (instead of above them). To further reduce vehicle height, the rear leaf springs were moved outboard of the frame rails and the wheels were decreased in diameter from 15 to 14 inches.
For 1958, rear air suspension became an option for the first time; intended to keep the load floor at a constant height, the system saw few buyers. In line with all Ford sedans, the 1959 Country Squire adopted the 118-inch wheelbase previously exclusive to the Fairlane.
Powertrain
For 1957, the Country Squire carried over all three engines from the 1956 model year, with revised power outputs. A 144 hp 223 cubic-inch Mileage Maker inline-6 was the standard engine. The 292 cubic-inch V8 returned (with a two-barrel carburetor), producing 212 hp. Three versions of the 312 cubic-inch V8 were offered: 245 hp (four-barrel), 270 hp (dual four-barrel), and 300 hp (dual four-barrel, supercharger).
For 1958, while the inline-6 returned, the Y-block engines were replaced with an all-new set of V8 engines, named the FE-series (Ford/Edsel). Two displacements were available, a 332 cubic-inch V8 (240 hp with a 2-barrel carburetor; 265 hp with a 4-barrel carburetor) or 352 cubic inches (300 horsepower, four-barrel carburetor). For 1959, the engine line was revised further, with a 200 hp 292 V8 becoming the standard V8, the two-barrel 332 detuned to 225 hp (the four-barrel version discontinued); the 300-hp 352 V8 remained.
Alongside the 3-speed and 4-speed manual transmissions, Ford offered the 3-speed Fordomatic automatic. Coinciding with the 1958 introduction of the FE-series V8s, the 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic was introduced. Designed to make better use of all three gears, Cruise-O-Matic started in first gear (Fordomatic started in second, with first gear selected by downshifting into "L").
Body
In a major shift, for 1957, Ford station wagons no longer shared a body with a Mercury counterpart; instead, the body was developed for the Edsel line of station wagons, with the Country Squire becoming the counterpart of the Edsel Bermuda (distinguished by its combination of woodgrain sides and two-tone paint). While based on the shorter wheelbase of the Ford Custom, the Country Squire still shared trim with the Fairlane. Along with Ford sedans, the Country Squire adopted several design elements of the 1957 Ford Thunderbird, including its wraparound windshield (restyled with a forward-slanted A-pillar), short tailfins, and large round taillamps.
To further expand load capacity, the folding mechanism of the middle seat was redesigned, allowing for a completely flat load floor when stowed (the rear seat still had to be removed). To improve loading, the top half of the liftgate was widened, extending into the D-pillars.
For 1958, the front and rear fascias underwent a revision; while largely to accommodate quad headlamps, the taillamp design was revised (replacing two round taillamps with four oval ones) alongside the design of the wood trim. In a functional change, the liftgate mechanism was redesigned.
For 1959, coinciding with the wheelbase extension, the Country Squire grew over five inches in length. Adopting styling elements of the Mercury Country Cruiser Colony Park and the Edsel Villager, the Country Squire had a less angled front fascia with a wider grille, two large round taillamps, and redesigned tailfins (with turn signal lenses). In a major change, the simulated wood trim around the roof pillars was replaced by stainless steel, leaving the wood trim below the window line. The third seat was redesigned, allowing it to fold flat (after seat cushions were removed and stowed).
Sales
Fifth generation (1960–1964)
For the 1960 model year, in place of a yearly update, the Ford model line underwent a complete redesign. Coinciding with the introduction of the compact Falcon, full-size Fords grew in size, adopting a 119-inch wheelbase. As part of a model shift, the Galaxie was slotted above the Fairlane as the flagship Ford model range, with the Country Squire becoming its station wagon counterpart for 1960. For 1961, Mercury revised its model range following the discontinuation of Edsel, with the Monterey becoming a longer-wheelbase version of the Galaxie; in a change that would last until their 1991 discontinuation, the Colony Park became the more exclusive and upscale Mercury counterpart to the Country Squire. The 1960 version with the V8 was listed at US$3,080 ($ in dollars ) before optional equipment was added. Starting with 1962, the Galaxie became the senior, full-size model series when the Ford Fairlane became the intermediate model series on a shorter wheelbase, and was also offered as a station wagon with optionally available woodgrained appearance.
Model overview
Retaining the use of a perimeter frame, the Country Squire grew in size over its predecessor, five inches wider and five inches longer than its predecessor. The wood exterior trim returned to the appearance of boat decking, with a simpler border trim design. To improve entry and exit, the forward-sloping A-pillar was replaced by a rearward-sloping design, allowing for wider front door opening. While the third-row seat still required the removal of the lower cushion to fold flat, access was improved as one-third of the second-row seat folded separately.
Chassis specifications
The 1960 Ford chassis, used by the fifth-generation Country Squire with a 119-inch wheelbase, shared with all other full-size Ford models. To improve handling, the rear leaf suspension was redesigned with longer springs, as part of anti-dive and anti-squat control. The front suspension is a double wishbone configuration, with ball-jointed A-arms. Shared with the F-Series, the Country Squire used 11-inch drum brakes on all four wheels.
Powertrain
At its launch, the fifth-generation retained several engines from the previous generation. A 145 hp 223 cubic-inch inline-six was standard, with three optional V8 engines. A 292 cubic-inch V8 (retuned to 185 hp) made its return, along with a 352 cubic-inch V8 (235 hp with 2-barrel; 300 hp with 4-barrel). For 1961, the engines were detuned, with the six making 135 hp, the 292 175 hp, and the 352 220 hp (the 300 hp V8 remained). For 1962, the engines were retuned to 138 hp for the inline-6 and 170 hp for the 292; while the 220 hp version of the 352 remained, the 300 hp version was replaced by a 390 cubic-inch V8 producing 300 hp (the only version of the 390 offered with the Country Squire). For 1963, the 292 V8 was discontinued, replaced by a 164 hp 260 cubic-inch V8. For 1964, the 260 V8 was expanded to 289 cubic inches (producing 195 hp); the 352 was retuned to 250 hp.
As with the previous generation, three and four-speed (overdrive) manual transmissions were offered, along with three-speed Fordomatic or Cruise-O-Matic automatics. For 1964, the 3-speed manual was redesigned, becoming synchronized in all three gears.
Body
In contrast to the fourth generation Country Squire, the fifth generation largely abandoned yearly body updates. The body design was more conservative, integrating the headlights into the grille and fairing the bumper more closely into the fenders. For 1961, the rear tailgate underwent a complete redesign, abandoning the two-piece tailgate for a one-piece tailgate with a roll-down window which had been previously offered on Mercury station wagons as standard equipment beginning in 1957. As part of the tailgate design, a safety lockout required the rear window to be fully lowered before the tailgate could be lowered; the window was lowered either manually or electrically. On both tailgate designs, the tailgate used a torsion bar spring to counterbalance its hinge.
Coinciding with the liftgate redesign for 1961, the front and rear fascias were redesigned, marking the return of (small) tailfins and large round taillamps, in line with the Ford Thunderbird. For 1964, the Country Squire underwent a facelift of its rear fascia (deleting the tailfins) and its side trim, with a redesign of the wood trim.
Sales
Sixth generation (1965–1968)
For the 1965 model year, the full-size Ford model line underwent a complete redesign with an all-new chassis. Alongside the introduction of the Ford LTD, the Country Squire was a counterpart of the Galaxie 500 model line alongside the non-woodgrain Country Sedan (alongside the standard Galaxie). The 1965 version with the V8 was listed at US$3,216 ($ in dollars ).
During the production of the sixth-generation Country Squire, wood-trimmed station wagons (in simulated form) underwent a revival in production. Previously exclusive to Ford and Mercury from 1954 to 1965, counterpart station wagons entered production during the end of the 1960s. For 1966, Chrysler reintroduced wood trim for the Town & Country station wagon (and for the first Dodge Monaco station wagon). General Motors introduced wood trim for the 1966 Chevrolet Caprice Estate and in 1967 for the Buick Sport Wagon and Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. As part of the 1968 introduction of the intermediate Ford Torino and Mercury Montego, a Torino Squire and Montego Villager station wagon were introduced with woodgrain exterior trim.
As the LTD became a full model line for the 1968 model year, the Country Squire became its station wagon counterpart, with Ford adding "LTD" badging to the hood.
Model overview
To comply with the implementation of safety regulations in the United States, many running changes were made during this generation, effectively standardizing the equipment introduced by the Lifeguard option package. For 1966, Ford standardized front and rear seat belts, a padded dashboard and sun visors, a deep-dish steering wheel, reinforced door latches, and emergency flashers. For 1967, as part of federal regulations, the steering wheel was fitted with a padded center and fitted to an energy-absorbing (collapsible) steering column; other requirements included padded interior surfaces, recessed controls on the instrument panel, and front outboard shoulder belt anchors. As an added degree of redundancy, a dual-chamber brake master cylinder was added for the 1968 model year (on the Country Squire, alongside all other vehicles sold in the United States).
Chassis specifications
The rear-wheel drive 1965 Ford chassis used by the sixth-generation Country Squire retained the 119-inch wheelbase of the previous generation. For higher strength and rigidity, the frame rails became fully-boxed; the perimeter frame configuration was retained. While again using a double-wishbone, ball-jointed A-arm configuration for the front suspension, the front track width was widened to improve handling. The rear leaf springs were discontinued, replaced with a three-link coil-sprung solid rear axle; in various forms, Ford would use this suspension configuration on rear-wheel drive full-size vehicles through the production of the final Ford Crown Victoria in 2011.
Powertrain
For the sixth generation, the Country Squire (alongside Ford full-size Country Sedan and F-Series trucks) received a new standard engine, with a 240 cubic-inch "Big Six" inline-6 (producing 150 hp) replacing the 223 cubic-inch "Mileage Maker" six. The three V8 engines were retained from the previous generations, with a 200 hp 289 cubic-inch V8, a 250 hp 352 cubic-inch V8, and a 300 hp 390 cubic-inch V8. For 1966, two versions of the 390 were introduced, producing 275 hp (2-bbl) or 315 hp (4-bbl). For the first time, a 428 cubic-inch V8 was offered on the Country Squire, producing 345 hp. For 1967, the 352 FE V8 was dropped, largely replaced by the 2-bbl version of the 390 (producing 270 hp). For 1968, the 289 was expanded to , producing 210 hp. The 2-bbl 390 and 428 were retuned, making 265 and 340 hp, respectively.
While maintaining powertrain commonality with the Ford Galaxie, on an official basis, Ford did not offer the Country Squire with any version of the 428 V8 producing over 345 hp, nor any 427 V8.
For the sixth-generation Country Squire, the 3-speed column-shifted manual made its return, along with the 4-speed overdrive manual. For 1967 only, a floor-shifted 4-speed manual was offered for the Country Squire (only with the 390 and 428 V8s). The Fordomatic 3-speed automatic was retired, with Cruise-O-Matic replaced by several 3-speed automatic designs marketed under the SelectShift name; the C4 was developed for inline-6 and small V8s, while the C6 was developed for large V8s; the FMX was introduced for medium-size engines in 1968.
Body
For the sixth generation, the Country Squire again shared its doors with four-door Ford sedans. While the roofline of the Country Squire was shared with the Mercury Colony Park, the two model lines shared different bodywork below the window lines (including front fascias and rear quarter panels). In a major styling change, full-size Ford's adopted vertically-stacked headlamps, raising the hood line and enlarging the grille.
In a design change that would last through its 1991 discontinuation, the 1965 Country Squire replaced the third-row rear seat configuration for two (optional) flat-folding rear seats facing towards the center of the cargo area, expanding seating to 10 passengers. Coinciding with all full-size Fords, the Country Squire adopted two-sided keys for 1965, introducing a valet key (while unlocking the front doors and starting the car, the key would not unlock the glovebox and rear cargo door).
Following a minor grille update for the 1967 model year, the Country Squire underwent an exterior update for the 1968 model year. Coinciding with the introduction of the 1966 Ford Thunderbird and its alignment with the Ford LTD, the Country Squire adopted its split-grille front fascia, adopting vacuum-operated hidden headlamps; as a fail-safe, the system retracted the headlamp covers if engine vacuum was lost. While the feature was shared with the Colony Park (and its Marquis counterpart), the redesign marked a significant differentiation of front fascia designs between the two model lines. In another change, the taillamps switched from a square design (derived from the traditional Ford round taillamps of the 1940s and 1950s) to a vertically-oriented rectangle (a design used to 1991).
Magic Doorgate
For 1966, all Ford wagons introduced the Magic Doorgate rear door configuration. Engineered by Donald N. Frey, the two-way tailgate configuration allowed the rear door to fold down (like a traditional tailgate) or hinge open to the side (as a door). The Magic Doorgate was made possible through a traditional stationary hinge on the passenger side and a combination of hinges on the driver side, carrying the weight of the tailgate when it swung outward. While opened by the exterior or interior door handle, the rear door would not open to the side or fold down unless the rear window was retracted.
In various adaptations, the two-way rear door would become utilized on full-size station wagons across Ford, General Motors, and AMC during the 1970s.
Sales
Seventh generation (1969–1978)
For the 1969 model year, the full-size Ford model line underwent a complete redesign, increasing in wheelbase from 119 inches to 121 inches. In a consolidation of its branding, Ford station wagons and sedans were no longer distinct model lines. After adding LTD hood badging in 1968, the Country Squire was added to the model range for 1969, slotted above the (Galaxie) Country Sedan and (Custom 500) Ranch Wagon. Starting with 1969 the Big Six six-cylinder was no longer offered on the Country Squire while it continued with the Country Sedan and Ranch Wagon. The 1969 ten-passenger version was listed at US$3,721 ($ in dollars ).
1969–1972
For the 1969 model year, a new generation of Ford and Mercury cars made their debut; station wagons for both divisions rode on a 121-inch wheelbase shared with the Ford sedan line, a gain of two inches. The "Magic Doorgate" tailgate was updated to a 3-way design: it could now swing down like a tailgate or swing out with the window down or up (the latter was previously not possible).
As part of the LTD line, the Country Squire wore similar interior trim; with the obvious exception of its simulated woodgrain paneling, Country Squires wore the same bodywork from the windshield forward as their LTD sedan counterparts. For the 1970 model year, visible changes were limited to detail changes in bumper and grille trim and lost the divider bar. In 1971, the Country Squire would be given an extensive facelift with only the roof and tailgate carried over from the 1970 model, sharing visual similarities with the 1970 Ford Thunderbird; as with the LTD, it would lose its hidden headlamps in the grille while the feature was added to the Mercury Colony Park due to its luxurious appearance shared with the 1969 Lincoln Continental.
Initially, the standard engine was a 302 cubic-inch V8, replaced by a 351 cubic-inch V8 midway through the 1969 model year. As with its LTD counterpart, the 390 and 429 V8 engines were options. In 1971, the 390 V8 was replaced by a 402 cubic-inch V8 (though sold as a 400). For a variety of reasons, 1972 saw a major decrease in powertrain output. That year, gross horsepower was replaced by SAE net horsepower. The addition of emissions controls and the adoption of unleaded fuel required lowered compression ratios and retarded ignition timing. In one example, the range-topping 429 V8 would see its output drop from 365 hp to 212 hp from 1971 to 1972. In 1972, the 429 was joined by a 224-hp 460 cubic-inch V8 seen previously in the Lincoln lineup.
Sales
1973–1978
For the 1973 model year, the Ford full-size car line was given a major update. While still built on the same chassis and 121-inch wheelbase, the addition of 5 mph bumpers would add over six inches in length to the LTD Country Squire by the end of the 1974 model year. These would also be the longest and heaviest station wagons ever produced by Ford. The 1973 ten-passenger was listed at US$4,401 ($ in dollars ).
For 1974, 5-mph bumpers were added to the rear, a transistorized ignition system was introduced, as well as a new hood ornament. In addition, the 429 was dropped, largely replaced by the essentially identical 460 V8.
For 1975, Ford began to pare down its wagon lineup as the Custom 500 Ranch Wagon was relegated exclusively to fleet sales and the Galaxie Country Sedan was discontinued, replaced by a non-woodgrain LTD wagon. To better distinguish the LTD Country Squire, Ford returned hidden headlamps to the model, a feature associated with top-line LTD Landau (and Mercury Marquis) models. In all models, catalytic converters were now standard equipment to comply with emissions regulations.
1975-1978 models were nearly identical except for small differences in trim and emblems from year to year. As a move to increase fuel economy, the 351 cubic-inch V8 was reintroduced for 1978.
The standard engine on all other full-size Ford sedans and wagons was the 351 Windsor V8. The Country Squire however, came standard with the Cleveland 400M V8, while the 385-series 429 and 460 V8s were optional. With manual transmissions being dropped from the lineup, the C6 3-speed automatic transmission was now the only transmission option for full-size Fords. The 429 and 460 V8s were a common option due to the especially sluggish performance of the detuned 400 engine that was now struggling to drive the ever-increasing weight of a Country Squire.
Eighth generation (1979–1991)
For 1979, Ford downsized its full-size car lines. Eleven inches shorter and nearly 1000 pounds lighter than its 1978 predecessor, the redesigned Country Squire retained its 8-passenger seating capability with only slightly reduced cargo capacity. While retaining a V8 engine, the Country Squire shifted from the 400 and 460 V8 to the and Windsor V8s, sharing engines with the Ford Granada. When this generation of station wagon was introduced, the wheelbase was longer than the intermediate 1962 Ford Fairlane station wagon and was shorter than the 1972 Ford Gran Torino Squire station wagon.
For 1983, as Ford underwent a revision of its full-size model lines, the Country Squire remained in production; as the LTD became the replacement for the mid-size Granada, the Country Squire became the counterpart for the LTD Crown Victoria. In another change, the 4.9L V8 adopted throttle-body fuel injection. For 1986, the V8 was updated again, adopting sequential multi-port fuel injection (identified by a large EFI 5.0-badged intake above the engine).
For 1988, the Country Squire received its first external updates since 1979, sharing the front fascia update of its sedan counterpart; new front seats received larger head restraints. For 1990, the dashboard received its first major update (since 1979) with the addition of a driver-side airbag; the outboard rear seats received 3-point seatbelts. For 1991, the front turn signal/parking lamp lenses were changed from amber to clear.
Discontinuation
During the mid-1980s, sales of full-size station wagons began to decline, following the introduction of the Chrysler minivans and the Ford Aerostar. By 1991, the Country Squire was the slowest-selling Ford vehicle in North America, with less than 4,000 produced. Production of the 1991 model ceased in December 1990.
For 1992, as Ford redesigned its Ford and Mercury full-size vehicles, the station wagon body style was not included in the redesign, although there is published photographic evidence that a full-size clay model for a 1992 Country Sedan was made in 1988. General Motors redesigned its B-platform station wagons for 1991, which were poorly received in the marketplace.
At Ford, the role of the 8-passenger station wagon was passed onto the Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable; redesigned alongside the Crown Victoria for 1992, the Ford Taurus became the best-selling car in the United States. Functionally, the role of the family towing vehicle in the Ford product line was split between the Aerostar (and the larger Ford Club Wagon) as well as the then-new Ford Explorer (as buyers began to shift towards SUVs).
†non-woodgrain LTD Crown Victoria and Country Squire wagons counted as one total starting in 1983††286,673 units total, including non-woodgrain wagons produced 1979–1982
Unique options and features
With certain versions of the Country Squire, an AM/FM-Cassette stereo with a combined and fully integrated Citizens' Band (CB) two-way radio, and replacement dual-purpose automatic antenna (with only one visible difference; the aerial mast was a larger diameter, and black-band at approximately half-way up). The radio would then have the appearance of an original equipment, factory radio.
Other options included opposing side-facing rear seats, which could be folded down to make a durable cargo surface. Available for use with the side-facing rear seats was a folding table with an integrated magnetic checkers board. Magnets under the plastic checker pieces would keep them from sliding on the board while the vehicle was in motion.
Behind a rear fender well was a hidden, lockable compartment, not visible when the rear seatback was in the upright position.
GM, Chrysler and AMC would adopt a similar configuration by the end of the 1960s. An advanced version of this was the 3-way tailgate which permitted opening the door sideways with the window up. Otherwise, the tailgate could be hinged downwards only after operating the lock which was accessible from the outside only with the window lowered.
References
External links
Smithsonian Institution 1955 Ford Country Squire in the Smithsonian Automobile Collection
LTDworld.com Website featuring a 1975 Ford LTD Country Squire
Grandmarq.net Forum dedicated to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury Panther Chassis
Country Squire
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Station wagons
Full-size vehicles
1960s cars
1970s cars
1980s cars
1990s cars
Cars introduced in 1951
Motor vehicles manufactured in the United States
Ford Panther platform
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Baddiel
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David Baddiel
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David Lionel Baddiel FRSL (; born 28 May 1964) is an English comedian, presenter, screenwriter, and author. He is known for his work alongside Rob Newman in The Mary Whitehouse Experience and his comedy partnership with Frank Skinner. He has also written the children's books The Parent Agency, The Person Controller, AniMalcolm, Birthday Boy, Head Kid, and The Taylor TurboChaser.
Early life
David Lionel Baddiel was born on 28 May 1964 in Troy, New York, the son of a Welsh father and German mother. He moved to England with his family when he was four months old. His parents were both Jewish: his father, Colin Brian Baddiel, came from a working-class Swansea family and worked as a research chemist with Unilever before being made redundant in the 1980s, after which he sold Dinky Toys at Grays Antique Market. His mother, Sarah, was born in Nazi Germany; a swastika appeared on her birth certificate.
She was five months old when she was taken to England by her parents in 1939 after the family had fled Nazi Germany, where her wealthy father had been stripped of his assets as a victim of Kristallnacht. Soon after their arrival in the United Kingdom, her father was interned as an "enemy alien" on the Isle of Man for a year. He had mental health issues, sometimes requiring hospitalisation, for the rest of his life. Baddiel said in 2022 that he had been parented by his elder brother Ivor, as "my dad was unemployed and angry, while my mum was distracted by her passionate affair".
An episode of the BBC genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? investigated Baddiel's heritage in some detail, but failed to prove his theory that his mother had been secretly adopted from another Jewish family who had no hope of escaping. He grew up in the Dollis Hill area of London alongside his two brothers Ivor and Dan (one older, one younger). Ivor is a writer. Baddiel attended the North West London Jewish Day School in Brent, and the public school Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree. He studied English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, and graduated with a double first BA. He began studies for a PhD in English at University College London, but did not complete it.
Career
The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Newman and Baddiel
After leaving university, Baddiel became a professional stand-up comedian in London, as well as a writer for acts such as Rory Bremner and series including Spitting Image. His first television appearance came in one episode of the showbiz satire Filthy, Rich and Catflap. In 1988 he was introduced to Rob Newman, and the two formed a writing partnership. Subsequently, paired up with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, another comedy duo, they began writing and performing in The Mary Whitehouse Experience on BBC Radio 1, where the show ran for four series and a special. This success led the show to transfer to BBC2, where it ran for two series, after which both duos decided to end the show. During this time, Baddiel also co-hosted the Channel 4 programme A Stab in the Dark.
After The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Baddiel and Newman re-teamed up for Newman and Baddiel in Pieces, which ran for seven episodes on BBC2, featuring character sketches, monologues, and observation routines. Despite a fraught working relationship, the show saw Newman and Baddiel find enormous success as live performers, held up as examples of comedy as ‘the new rock ’n’ roll’, with their tour (Newman and Baddiel: Live and In Pieces) culminating in the first-ever sold-out gig for a comedy act at Wembley Arena, playing to 12,500 people. Despite this success, increasing tension between the pair led to them announcing the tour would be their last together. Their final tour was the subject of a BBC2 documentary, Newman and Baddiel on the Road to Wembley.
Collaboration with Frank Skinner
Baddiel subsequently met and began sharing a flat with fellow comedian Frank Skinner. Both lifelong football fans (Baddiel is a Chelsea F.C. fan), the pair created, wrote and performed Fantasy Football League, a popular entertainment show based on fantasy football. Running for three series on BBC2, followed by a series of live specials throughout the 1998 World Cup and then again through the 2004 European Championship, as well as a series of podcasts for The Times from Germany at the 2006 World Cup, and another series for Absolute Radio from South Africa during the 2010 World Cup (amassing over three million downloads). During this time the duo also twice topped the UK Singles Chart with the football anthem "Three Lions", co-written and performed with The Lightning Seeds.
The song was originally written as the England football team's official anthem for UEFA Euro 1996 and was re-recorded with updated lyrics as the unofficial anthem for the 1998 World Cup. The song continues to be popular with England fans and returned to the charts in July 2018, celebrating the progress of the England national football team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup with the phrase "it's coming home" featuring heavily on social media and television.
Baddiel received criticism for his impression of black footballer Jason Lee in Fantasy Football League, which involved him wearing a pineapple on his head and using blackface. Lee said he considered this a form of bullying. Baddiel has issued a number of apologies on social media and in an article for The Daily Telegraph, saying it was "part of a very bad racist tradition". Lee said in 2020 that he had not received a direct apology from Baddiel or Skinner over the series of sketches, but in 2022, Baddiel met Lee to apologise in his Channel 4 documentary. In his 2021 book Jews Don't Count, Baddiel said the use of blackface was racist, but also wrote that many people asking for him to apologise for the performance only did so after he publicly spoke out against antisemitism.
After ending Fantasy Football League, the pair took an improvised question-and-answer show to the Edinburgh Fringe which then became a television series, Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned, which ran for five series on ITV, as well as a West End run at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2001.
The pair also appeared on a celebrity special of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2001, becoming the first celebrity contestants to reach £250,000 for their charities, the Catholic Children's Society and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.
In February 2022, a clip emerged from Baddiel's 2004 guest appearance on the Frank Skinner Show. In the clip, Baddiel uses "pikey", a pejorative term used to refer to people who are of a Traveller community, to negatively denote his own appearance. Critics accused Baddiel of hypocrisy given his own polemic, Jews Don't Count.
Solo work
Baddiel has written four novels: Time for Bed (1996), Whatever Love Means (2002), The Secret Purposes (2006), and The Death of Eli Gold (2011). In June 2015, he published his first children's novel, The Parent Agency, which won the LOLLIE award (the successor to the Roald Dahl Funny Book Awards) for "Best Laugh Out Loud Book for 9–13-Year-Olds" and is set to be developed into a feature film (also written and produced by Baddiel) through Fox 2000 Pictures. His subsequent children's novels include The Person Controller (2015), AniMalcolm (2016), Birthday Boy (2017) and Head Kid (2018). He wrote The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked, a short story published for World Book Day in 2016.
In 2001, Baddiel wrote and starred in Baddiel's Syndrome, a sitcom for Sky 1 which also starred Morwenna Banks, Stephen Fry and Jonathan Bailey, which ran for fourteen episodes. He also wrote the comedy film, The Infidel, starring Omid Djalili, Richard Schiff, Matt Lucas and Miranda Hart. Baddiel has since adapted the film into a musical with music by Erran Baron Cohen. Baddiel directed the production which ran at London's Theatre Royal Stratford East in late 2014. Baddiel's other writing credits include The Norris McWhirter Chronicles for Sky 1, which starred Alistair McGowan and John Thomson and which Baddiel also directed, and two episodes of the ITV reboot of Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds Are Go!
In 2004, Baddiel created and hosted Heresy, a BBC Radio 4 panel show which sees celebrity guests trying to overthrow popular prejudice and received wisdom. The show is currently in its 10th series and has been hosted by Victoria Coren since 2008, with Baddiel returning regularly as a guest. In 2014 Baddiel created and hosted Don't Make Me Laugh, a new panel show for Radio 4 that tasks guests with talking for as long as possible on obviously humorous subjects without getting laughs. The second series aired in 2016. In 2015, he created and fronted David Baddiel Tries to Understand..., a BBC Radio 4 show which sees Baddiel try to understand famously complex subjects as suggested by his followers on Twitter, and has now run for three series.
Baddiel has appeared in shows including Little Britain, Skins, The Life of Rock with Brian Pern and Horrible Histories and is a regular guest on panel shows including 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, QI and Alan Davies’ As Yet Untitled. In 2016, he fronted a four-part travel documentary for Discovery entitled David Baddiel On the Silk Road, a 4,000-mile journey to explore the most famous trade route in history, as well as presenting two episodes of BBC2's Artsnight and becoming a regular presenter of The Penguin Podcast in which he interviews authors about the objects that inspired their books, which has seen him interview guests including Johnny Marr, Zadie Smith and Ruby Wax. Other documentaries he has fronted include Baddiel and the Missing Nazi Billions (BBC2), Who Do You Want Your Child to Be? (BBC2), World's Most Dangerous Roads (BBC2), and an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1). He appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2018.
Baddiel filmed a documentary about his father's dementia, The Trouble with Dad, shown on Channel 4 in 2017.
In 2019 Baddiel featured in Taskmaster series 9. He won one episode and finished fifth out of five in the overall series.
In January 2021, it was announced Baddiel would appear as a contestant on the 4th series of The Great Stand Up to Cancer Bake Off, which aired in Spring 2021.
Stand-up
In 2013, he returned to stand-up comedy with his critically acclaimed show Fame (Not the Musical), which ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before transferring to London's Menier Chocolate Factory and a subsequent nationwide tour. In Spring 2016 Baddiel premiered a new show, My Family: Not the Sitcom, again at the Menier Chocolate Factory; the confessional show tells the true story of Baddiel's recently deceased mother and dementia-suffering father.
Following a five-week run, the show transferred to London's West End in September 2016 for another five-week run at the Vaudeville Theatre. In spring 2017 it was announced that the show would return to the West End for one final ten-week run at the Playhouse Theatre in March 2017. In the same month, it was announced that the show was nominated for an Olivier Award, in The Entertainment and Family category. Rob Newman saw one of these performances, the first time the two had been in the same room since 1993.The show was performed as part of the Montreal Comedy Festival in 2017 and will tour the UK in 2018. Most recently, Baddiel took the show to a four-city tour of Australia. His new show about social media, Trolls: Not The Dolls, tours the UK in 2020.
Plays and books
In October 2019 Baddiel's play God's Dice was produced at the Soho Theatre, London. The title is an allusion to Einstein's view of quantum uncertainty: "God does not play dice with the universe". The work deals with "an ageing [quantum physicist] seduced into supporting a radical religious sect".
Baddiel has written books for both adults and children and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019.
TV at Channel 4
In November 2022 Baddiel fronted a Channel 4 documentary David Baddiel: Jews Don't Count. The Guardian TV section summed it up as:Baddiel focuses on the ideas that formed his 2021 book of the same title. His central thesis is that “Jews don’t count as a proper minority” when it comes to contemporary notions of prejudice and racism. He sets out to explore why so many people seem to ignore antisemitism, as well as “the dysfunction between progressives and Jews.The Financial Times review remarked:That Baddiel and Channel 4 have already received a torrent of scorn online for making the programme only serves to highlight its importance.
Other interests
Politics
Baddiel is a Labour Party voter, but does not describe himself as a "Labour supporter". He has said, "I would never support a political party like that, regardless of what I believe personally. My job is to be funny and that might involve me being funny at the expense of whoever's stepped in shit that week."
In February 2016, Baddiel commented on the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader: "I think it's interesting to think that we've got a proper left-wing Labour politician. My main thing about Corbyn is I think the scaremongering about him by the right-wing press is so absurd it makes me want to support Corbyn, even though in some ways I might not. Some of the people around him I personally wouldn't trust but I think he himself is a decent man."
In April 2017, Baddiel wrote an article for The Guardian in which he was critical of Ken Livingstone's comments regarding Adolf Hitler and Zionism, but also made it clear that he was not a Zionist and that he disagreed with "religion being the basis for statehood" and what he called "the appalling actions of the present Israeli government".
In March 2018, Baddiel appeared on Daily Politics, in which he described antisemitism as "sort of invisible" to Corbyn and others on the political left because they are focused on "fighting the good fight against capitalism".
In February 2020, he told The Guardian that Holocaust denial is "a direct way of saying Jews are liars, Jews have tricked the world for their own gain, Jews are the most evil, pernicious race that exist". He further said, "It is hate speech. There's no other conclusion.”
In February 2021, Baddiel's non-fiction book Jews Don't Count was published by The Times Literary Supplement. The book is largely about the alleged double standards extensively employed (either knowingly or unknowingly) by anti-racists when dealing with antisemitism, stating that "a sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren't in it". Much of the book consists of examples used as evidence that such progressives have a blind spot when it comes to antisemitism.
Charity
Baddiel is a patron of Humanists UK and the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). He acted as compere for the Stand-Up to Stop Suicide event organised by Claire Anstey and the charity, and has appeared on radio advertisements publicising the issue of young male suicide.
In February 2009, Baddiel and several other entertainers wrote an open letter in The Times supporting leaders of the Baháʼí Faith who were then on trial in Iran.
Following his experiences with his father, Baddiel has worked closely with a number of charities supporting the victims of dementia and their families. He performed a special one-off charity gala of his My Family: Not the Sitcom show at the Vaudeville Theatre, with all proceeds from the evening being split between the Alzheimer's Society, the National Brain Appeal, and the Unforgettable Foundation. There were also collections made for the charities throughout the run of the show.
In 2017, it was announced that Baddiel would take part in Comic Relief's Red Nose Convoy, in which three pairs of celebrities travel in convoy from Kenya to Uganda while delivering aid.
To benefit the cancer charity CLIC Sargent, Baddiel narrated the 2018 short film To Trend on Twitter with fellow comedians Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, and Helen Lederer, and actor Jason Flemyng.
In March 2019, Baddiel hosted Comic Relief Does University Challenge on BBC One as part of Red Nose Day.
Personal life
Baddiel and fellow comedian Morwenna Banks live in North London with their two children: a daughter named Dolly (b. 2001) and a son named Ezra (b. 2004). Despite his upbringing, he has described himself as a "10 out of 10 atheist" and as a "fundamentalist" Jewish atheist. He suffers from insomnia, about which he has written guest articles.
Baddiel is an avid fan of the rock band Genesis and introduced them at their Turn It On Again: The Tour press conference in 2006. He also provided sleeve notes for the reissue of the album Nursery Cryme as part of the Genesis 1970–1975 boxed set. He is a fan of the band's former lead singer Peter Gabriel, and a diarist for The Times once incorrectly reported that he had been "loud and offensive" while attending one of Gabriel's concerts, something Baddiel has referred to in his live act. He is also a fan of David Bowie and marked Bowie's 65th birthday in 2012 by expressing a desire to see him come out of retirement. He attended the tribute concert to Bowie at London's Union Chapel following Bowie's death in 2016 and addressed the audience, describing Bowie as "the greatest tunesmith we have".
Bibliography
References
External links
1964 births
Living people
20th-century American comedians
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century English comedians
20th-century English male actors
20th-century English novelists
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American male writers
21st-century English comedians
21st-century English male actors
21st-century English novelists
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
Alumni of University College London
American male comedy actors
American male screenwriters
American people of German-Jewish descent
American people of Welsh-Jewish descent
British male television writers
Comedians from London
English atheists
English film producers
English humanists
English Jewish writers
English male comedians
English male film actors
English male screenwriters
English male songwriters
English people of German-Jewish descent
English singers
English television presenters
English television producers
Epic Records artists
Jewish American male comedians
Jewish American male actors
Jewish American writers
Jewish atheists
Jewish British male actors
Jewish male comedians
Jewish novelists
Male actors from London
Male actors from New York (state)
People educated at Haberdashers' Boys' School
People from Willesden
Reform Jews
Writers on antisemitism
Jewish English comedians
Comedians from New York (state)
Actors from Troy, New York
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Tales%20of%20Hoffmann
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The Tales of Hoffmann
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The Tales of Hoffmann (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in October 1880, four months before the premiere.
Composition history and sources
Offenbach saw a play, , written by Barbier and Michel Carré and produced at the Odéon Theatre in Paris in 1851.
After returning from America in 1876, Offenbach learned that Barbier had adapted the play, which had now set to music at the Opéra. Salomon handed the project to Offenbach. Work proceeded slowly, interrupted by the composition of profitable lighter works. Offenbach had a premonition, like Antonia, the heroine of Act 2, that he would die prior to its completion.
Offenbach continued working on the opera throughout 1880, attending some rehearsals. On 5 October 1880, he died with the manuscript in his hand, just four months before the opening. Shortly before he died, he wrote to Léon Carvalho: ""("Hurry up and stage my opera. I have not much time left, and my only wish is to attend the opening night.")
The stories in the opera include:
"" ("The Sandman"), 1816.
"Rath Krespel" ("Councillor Krespel", also known in English as "The Cremona Violin") 1818.
"" ("The Lost Reflection") from Die Abenteuer der Sylvester-Nacht (The Adventures of New Year's Eve), 1814.
Performance history
The opera was first performed in a public venue at the Opéra-Comique on 10 February 1881, without the third (Venice) act. It was presented in an abridged form at Offenbach's house, 8 Boulevard des Capucines, on 18 May 1879, with Madame Franck-Duvernoy in the soprano roles, Auguez as Hoffmann (baritone) and Émile-Alexandre Taskin in the four villain roles, with Edmond Duvernoy at the piano and a chorus directed by Albert Vizentini. Besides Léon Carvalho, director of the Opéra-Comique, the director of the Ringtheater in Vienna, Franz von Jauner, was also present. Both men requested the rights, but Offenbach granted them to Carvalho.
A four-act version with recitatives was staged at the Ringtheater on 7 December 1881, conducted by Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., although a gas explosion and fire occurred at the theatre after the second performance.
The opera reached its hundredth performance at the Salle Favart on 15 December 1881. The fire at the Opéra-Comique in 1887 destroyed the orchestral parts, and it was not seen again in Paris until 1893, at the Salle de la Renaissance du Théâtre-Lyrique, when it received 20 performances. A new production by Albert Carré (including the Venice act) was mounted at the Opéra-Comique in 1911, with Léon Beyle in the title role and Albert Wolff conducting. This production remained in the repertoire until World War II, receiving 700 performances. Following a recording by Opéra-Comique forces in March 1948, Louis Musy created the first post-war production in Paris, conducted by André Cluytens. The Paris Opera first staged the work in October 1974, directed by Patrice Chéreau with Nicolai Gedda in the title role.
Outside France, the piece was performed in Geneva, Budapest, Hamburg, New York, and Mexico in 1882, Vienna (Theater an der Wien), Prague, and Antwerp in 1883, and Lvov and Berlin in 1884. Local premieres included Buenos Aires in 1894, St Petersburg in 1899, Barcelona in 1905, and London in 1910.
Roles
Synopsis
Prologue
A tavern in Nuremberg: The Muse appears and reveals to the audience her purpose is to draw Hoffmann's attention, and make him abjure all other loves, so he can be devoted to her: poetry. She takes the appearance of Hoffmann's closest friend, Nicklausse. The prima donna Stella, performing Mozart's Don Giovanni, sends a letter to Hoffmann, requesting a meeting in her dressing room after the performance. The letter and the key to the room are intercepted by Councillor Lindorf ("" – In the languid lovers' roles), the first of the opera's incarnations of evil, Hoffmann's nemesis. Lindorf intends to replace Hoffmann at the rendezvous. In the tavern, students wait for Hoffmann. He finally arrives, and entertains them with the legend of Kleinzach the dwarf ("" – Once upon a time at the court of Eisenach). Lindorf coaxes Hoffmann into telling the audience about his three great loves.
Act 1 (Olympia)
This act is based on a portion of "Der Sandmann".
Parlor of a scientist, Paris: Hoffmann's first love is Olympia, an automaton created by the scientist Spalanzani. Hoffmann falls in love with her, not knowing Olympia is a mechanical doll ("" – Come on! Courage and trust... Ah! to live together!). To warn Hoffmann, Nicklausse, possessing the truth about Olympia, sings a story of a mechanical doll with the appearance of a human, but Hoffmann ignores her ("" – A doll with enamel eyes). Coppélius, Olympia's co-creator and this act's incarnation of Nemesis, sells Hoffmann magic glasses to make Olympia appear as a real woman ("" – I have eyes).
Olympia sings one of the opera's most famous arias, "" (The birds in the bower, nicknamed "The Doll Song"), during which she runs-down and needs to be wound-up before she can continue. Hoffmann is tricked into believing his affections are returned, to the bemusement of Nicklausse, subtly attempting to warn his friend ("" – See her under her fan). While dancing with Olympia, Hoffmann falls on the ground and his glasses break. At the same time, Coppélius appears, tearing Olympia apart to retaliate against Spalanzani after cheating him of his fees. With the crowd ridiculing him, Hoffmann realizes he loved an automaton.
Act 2 (Antonia)
This act is based on "".
Crespel's house, Munich: After a long search, Hoffmann finds the house where Crespel and his daughter Antonia are hiding. Hoffmann and Antonia loved each other, but were separated after Crespel decided to hide his daughter from Hoffmann. Antonia inherited her mother's talent for singing, but her father forbids her to sing because of her mysterious illness. Antonia wishes her lover would return to her ("" – "She fled, the dove"). Her father also forbids her to see Hoffmann, who encourages Antonia in her musical career, and therefore, endangers her without knowing it. Crespel tells Frantz, his servant, to stay with his daughter, and after Crespel leaves, Frantz sings a comical song about his talents "" – "Day and night, I quarter my mind."
After Crespel leaves his house, Hoffmann takes advantage of the occasion to sneak in, and the lovers are re-united (love duet: "" – "It's a love song"). After Crespel returns, he receives a visit from Dr Miracle, the act's Nemesis, forcing Crespel to let him heal her. Eavesdropping, Hoffmann learns Antonia may die if she sings too much. He returns to her boudoir, and makes her promise to give up her artistic-dreams. Antonia reluctantly accepts her lover's will. After she is alone, Dr Miracle enters Antonia's boudoir to persuade her to sing and follow her mother's path to glory, stating Hoffmann is sacrificing her to his brutishness, and loves her only for her beauty. With mystic powers, he raises a vision of Antonia's dead mother and induces Antonia to sing, causing her death. Crespel arrives just in time to witness his daughter's last breath. Hoffmann enters, and Crespel wants to kill him, thinking he is responsible for his daughter's death. Nicklausse saves his friend from the old man's vengeance.
Act 3 (Giulietta)
This act is loosely-based on (A New Year's Eve Adventure).
A gallery in a palace, Venice. The act opens with the barcarolle "" – "Beautiful night, oh night of love". Hoffmann falls in love with the courtesan Giulietta, and thinks she returns his affections ("" – "Friends, tender and dreamy love"). Giulietta is not in love with Hoffmann, but seducing him under the orders of Captain Dapertutto, who promises her a diamond if she steals Hoffmann's reflection from a mirror ("" – "Sparkle, diamond"). The jealous Schlemil (cf. Peter Schlemihl for a literary antecedent), a previous victim of Giulietta and Dapertutto (he gave Giulietta his shadow), challenges the poet to a duel, but is killed, thanks to the magic sword Hoffmann was supplied with by Dapertutto. Nicklausse wants to take Hoffmann away from Venice, and goes looking for horses. Meanwhile, Hoffmann meets Giulietta, and cannot resist her ("" – "O God! of what intoxication"): he gives her his reflection, only to be abandoned by the courtesan, to Dapertutto's great pleasure.
Note: In the original version, Hoffmann, furious at being betrayed, tries to stab Giulietta but - blinded by Dapertutto - mistakenly kills his dwarf Pittichinaccio; in Richard Bonynge's version, Giulietta is poisoned and dies, by accidentally drinking the philter Dapertutto prepares for Nicklausse.
Epilogue
The tavern in Nuremberg: Hoffmann, drunk, swears he will never love again, and explains Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta are three facets of the same person, Stella. They represent, respectively, the young girl's, the musician's, and the courtesan's side of the prima donna. After Hoffmann says he doesn't want to love any more, Nicklausse reveals she is the Muse and reclaims Hoffmann: "Be reborn a poet! I love you, Hoffmann! Be mine!" – "" The magic of poetry reaches Hoffmann as he sings " – "O God! of what intoxication" once more, ending with "Muse, whom I love, I am yours!" – "" At this moment, Stella, tired of waiting for Hoffmann to come to her rendezvous, enters the tavern and finds him drunk. The poet tells her to leave ("Farewell, I will not follow you, phantom, spectre of the past" – ""), and Lindorf, waiting in the shadows, comes forth. Nicklausse explains to Stella that Hoffmann does not love her anymore, but Councillor Lindorf is waiting for her. Some students enter the room for more drinking, while Stella and Lindorf leave together.
Musical numbers
Prologue
1. Prélude.
2. Introduction et Couplets: "Glou! Glou!... La vérité, dit-on, sortait d'un puits" (La Muse, Chorus).
3. Récitatif: "Le conseiller Lindorf, morbleu!" (Lindorf, Andrès).
4. Couplets: "Dans les rôles d'amoureux langoureux" (Lindorf).
5. Scène et Choeur: "Deux heures devant moi... Drig, drig" (Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
6. Scène: "Vrai Dieu! Mes amis" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
7. Chanson: "Il était une fois à la cour d'Eisenach!" (Hoffmann, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
8. Scène: "Peuh! Cette bière est détestable" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
9. Duo et Scène: "Et par où votre Diablerie" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
10. Final: "Je vous dis, moi" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
Act 1: Olympia
11. Entracte.
12. Récitatif: "Allons! Courage et confiance!" (Hoffmann).
13. Scène et Couplets: "Pardieu! J'étais bien sur" (Nicklausse, Hoffmann).
14. Trio: "C'est moi, Coppélius" (Coppélius, Hoffmann, Nicklausse).
15. Scène: "Non aucun hôte vraiment" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Cochenille, Olympia, Spallanzani, Chorus).
16. Chanson: "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" (Olympia, Chorus).
17. Scène: "Ah! Mon ami! Quel accent!" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Cochenille, Olympia, Spallanzani, Chorus).
18. Récitatif et Romance: "Ils se sont éloignés enfin!" (Hoffmann, Olympia).
19. Duo: "Tu me fuis?" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Coppélius).
20. Final: "En place les danseurs" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Coppélius, Cochenille, Olympia, Spallanzani, Chorus).
Act 2: Antonia
21. Entracte.
22. Rêverie: "Elle a fui, la tourterelle" (Antonia).
23. Couplets: "Jour et nuit" (Frantz).
24. Récitatif: "Enfin je vais avoir pourquoi" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse).
25. Air du Violon: "Vois sous l'archet frémissant" (Nicklausse).
26. Scène: "Ah! J'ai le savais bien" (Hoffmann, Antonia).
27. Duo: "C'est une chanson d'amour" (Hoffmann, Antonia).
28. Quatuor: "Pour conjurer le danger" (Hoffmann, Crespel, Miracle, Antonia).
29. Trio: "Tu ne chanteras plus?" (Miracle, Antonia, Le Fantôme)
30. Final: "Mon enfant, ma fille! Antonia!" (Crespel, Antonia, Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Miracle).
Act 3: Giulietta
31. Entracte.
32. Barcarolle: "Messieurs, silence!... Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Giulietta, Chorus).
33. Chant Bacchique: "Et moi, ce n'est pas là, pardieu!... Amis, l'amour tendre et rêveur" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse).
34. Mélodrame (Musique-de-scène).
35. Chanson du Diamant: "Tourne, tourne, miroir" (Dappertutto).
36. Mélodrame (Musique-de-scène).
37. Scène de Jeu: "Giulietta, palsambleu!" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Dappertutto, Pittichinaccio, Giulietta, Schlémil, Chorus).
38. Récitatif et Romance: "Ton ami dit vrai!... Ô Dieu, de quelle ivresse" (Hoffmann, Giulietta).
39. Duo de Reflet: "Jusque-là cependant" (Hoffmann, Giulietta).
40. Final: "Ah! Tu m'as défiée" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Dappertutto, Pittichinaccio, Giulietta, le capitaine des sbires, Chorus).
Epilogue: Stella
41. Entracte.
42. Chœur: "Folie! Oublie tes douleurs!" (Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
43. Chœur: "Glou! Glou! Glou!" (Hoffmann, Nicklausse, Lindorf, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
44. Couplet: "Pour le cœur de Phrygné" (Hoffmann, Chorus)
45. Apothéose: "Des cendres de ton cœur" (Hoffmann, La Muse, Lindorf, Andrès, Stella, Luther, Nathanaël, Hermann, Wilhelm, Wolfram, Chorus).
The aria "" (Song of little Zaches) in the prologue is based on the short story "" ("Little Zaches, called cinnabar"), 1819. The barcarolle, "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" in the Venetian act, is the opera's famous number, borrowed by Offenbach from his earlier opera Rheinnixen (French: Les fées du Rhin).
Editions
Offenbach did not live to see his opera performed. He died on 5 October 1880, four months before its premiere, but after completing the piano score and orchestrating the prologue and first act. As a result, different editions of the opera emerged, some bearing little resemblance to the authentic work. The version performed at the opera's premiere was by Ernest Guiraud, after completing Offenbach's scoring and recitatives. Over the decades, new editions continue to appear, although the emphasis, particularly since the 1970s, shifted to authenticity. In this regard, a milestone was the Michael Kaye edition of 1992 (first performed on stage at the L.A Opera in 1988), but, then, additional authentic music was found, and published in 1999. In 2011, two competing publishing houses – one French, one German – released a joint edition reflecting and reconciling the research of recent decades. Here are some of the edition "variables" circulating since Offenbach died:
Addition of extra music not intended by Offenbach for the opera
Commonly, directors choose among two numbers in the Giulietta act:
"", based on a tune from the overture to Offenbach's operetta A Journey to the Moon and included by André Bloch for a Monaco production in 1908.
The Sextet (sometimes called Septet, counting the chorus as a character) of unknown origin, but containing elements of the barcarolle.
Changes to the sequence of the acts
The three acts, telling different stories from the life of Hoffmann, are independent (with the exception of a mention of Olympia in the Antonia act), easily swapped without affecting the story. Offenbach's order was Prologue–Olympia–Antonia–Giulietta–Epilogue, but during the 20th century, the work was usually performed with Giulietta's act preceding Antonia's. Recently, the original order was restored, but the practice is not universal. The general reason for the switch is that the Antonia act is more musically accomplished.
Naming of the acts
The designation of the acts is disputed. The German scholar , among others, favours numbering the Prologue as Act One, and the Epilogue as Act Five, with Olympia as Act Two, Antonia as Act Three, and Giulietta as Act Four.
Changes to the story
The opera was sometimes performed (for example, during the premiere at the Opéra-Comique) without the entire Giulietta act, although the famous barcarolle from that act was inserted into the Antonia act, and Hoffmann's aria "Ô Dieu, de quelle ivresse" was inserted into the epilogue. In 1881, before the opera was performed in Vienna, the Giulietta act was restored, but modified so the courtesan does not die at the end by accidental poisoning, but exits in a gondola accompanied by her servant Pitichinaccio.
Spoken dialogue or recitative
Due to its opéra-comique genre, the original score contained much dialogue, sometimes replaced by recitative, and this lengthened the opera so much, some acts were removed (see above).
The number of singers performing
Offenbach intended the four soprano roles be played by the same singer, for Olympia, Giulietta, and Antonia are three facets of Stella, Hoffmann's unreachable love. Similarly, the four villains (Lindorf, Coppélius, Miracle, and Dapertutto) would be performed by the same bass-baritone, because they are all manifestations of evil. While the doubling of the four villains is quite common, most performances of the work use different singers for the loves of Hoffmann because different skills are needed for each role: Olympia requires a skilled-coloratura singer with stratospheric-high notes, Antonia is written for a lyrical voice, and Giulietta is usually performed by a dramatic soprano or a mezzo-soprano. Any performance with all three roles (four if the role of Stella is counted) performed by a single soprano in a performance is considered one of the largest challenges in the lyric coloratura repertoire. Notable sopranos performing all three roles include Karan Armstrong, Vina Bovy, Patrizia Ciofi, Edita Gruberová, Fanny Heldy, Catherine Malfitano, Anja Silja, Beverly Sills, Sonya Yoncheva, Luciana Serra, Ruth Ann Swenson, Carol Vaness, Faith Esham, Ninon Vallin and Virginia Zeani. All four roles were performed by Josephine Barstow, Sumi Jo, Mireille Delunsch, Diana Damrau, Julia Migenes, Elizabeth Futral, Marlis Petersen, Anna Moffo, Georgia Jarman, Elena Moșuc, Joan Sutherland, Melitta Muszely, Olga Peretyatko, Patricia Petibon, Pretty Yende, Jessica Pratt and Nicole Chevalier.
A recent version including the authentic music by Offenbach was reconstructed by the French Offenbach scholar Jean-Christophe Keck. A successful performance of this version was produced at the Lausanne Opera (Switzerland). Another recent edition by Michael Kaye was performed at the Opéra National de Lyon in 2013 with Patrizia Ciofi singing the roles of Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta ; and at Hamburg State Opera with Elena Moșuc singing the roles of Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta, and Stella in the 2007 production.
In early 2016, Jean-Christophe Keck announced he traced and identified the full manuscript of the Prologue and the Olympia act, with vocal lines by Offenbach and instrumentation by Guiraud. The Antonia act and epilogue are in the BnF, while the Giulietta act is in the Offenbach-family archives.
Recordings
The opera is frequently recorded. Well-regarded recordings include:
a 1964–65 recording conducted by André Cluytens with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and Nicolai Gedda
a 1971 recording by Richard Bonynge with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Plácido Domingo, Joan Sutherland, Huguette Tourangeau and Gabriel Bacquier
a 1972 recording by Julius Rudel with the London Symphony Orchestra, Stuart Burrows, Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle, and Susanne Marsee.
a 1988 recording by Sylvain Cambreling, Brussels Opéra National du Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie; EMI, Cat: 358613–2, studio recording based on the Oeser version
a 1986 recording by Seiji Ozawa, French National Orchestra, ; Deutsche Grammophon label Cat: 427682; with Plácido Domingo and Edita Gruberová
a 1996 studio recording by Kent Nagano, Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon and Roberto Alagna as Hoffmann; Erato, Cat: 0630-14330-2. This recording is based on the Kaye-Keck version of the opera.
Film
Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1916), a silent German film adaptation directed by Richard Oswald
The Tales of Hoffmann (1923), an Austrian silent film directed by and starring Max Neufeld
The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), a British film adaptation written, produced, and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
(1970), a German film adaptation directed by Walter Felsenstein and Georg F. Mielke
References
External links
: libretto of a modified version (as first performed in the USA) in French and English
Analysis of The Tales of Hoffman in The Ultimate Art, Chap. 13: "The Odd Couple: Offenbach and Hoffmann"
Reviews of current and past productions of The Tales of Hoffmann since 2007 (mainly in German)
Operas based on works by E. T. A. Hoffmann
Operas by Jacques Offenbach
French-language operas
Libretti by Jules Barbier
Libretti by Michel Carré
1881 operas
Unfinished operas
Operas completed by others
Operas
Opera world premieres at the Opéra-Comique
Operas based on literature
Operas adapted into films
Works based on The Sandman (short story)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandi%20Toksvig
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Sandi Toksvig
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Sandra Birgitte Toksvig (; ; born 3 May 1958) is a Danish-British writer, comedian and broadcaster on British radio, stage and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She has written plays, novels and books for children. In 1994, she came out as a lesbian.
Toksvig took over from Stephen Fry as host of the BBC television quiz show QI in 2016 (series 'N'), having been a guest a number of times and she spent ten years hosting The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4. From 2017 to 2020 she was co-presenter of The Great British Bake Off, alongside comedian Noel Fielding. In 2020, she stepped down and was replaced by Matt Lucas.
Toksvig was the president of the Women of the Year Lunch from 2015 to 2017.
Early life
Toksvig was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her father, Claus Toksvig, was a Danish journalist, broadcaster, and foreign correspondent; as a result, Toksvig spent most of her youth outside Denmark, mostly in New York City. Her mother, Julie Anne Toksvig (née Brett), is British. She has an older brother, Nick, who is a journalist, and a younger sister, Jenifer, a librettist, who was born when Sandi was 12. When Sandi was 24, she was appointed Jenifer's legal guardian. In 1969, her father covered the landing of the first man on the moon from mission control; she was holding the hand of Neil Armstrong's secretary during the landing. While her father was based in London, she attended Tormead School, an independent girls' school near Guildford. Her first job, at the age of 18, was as a follow spot operator for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
She read law, archaeology and anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree and receiving two prizes (The Raemakers and the Theresa Montefiore Awards) for outstanding achievement. One of her law supervisors was Lord Denning.
Career
Beginnings
Toksvig began her comedy career at Girton, where she wrote and performed in the first all-woman show at the Footlights. She was there at the same time as Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson, and wrote additional material for the Perrier award-winning Cambridge Footlights Revue. She was also a member of the Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society.
She started her television career on children's television, presenting No. 73 (1982–1986), the Sandwich Quiz, The Saturday Starship, Motormouth, Gilbert's Fridge, for Television South, and factual programmes such as Island Race and The Talking Show, produced by Open Media for Channel 4. In 2000, she appeared as a guest presenter on Time Team, at a dig in York (season 7 episode 13).
Comedy
In the comedy circuit, Toksvig performed at the first night of the Comedy Store in London, and was once part of their Players, an improvisational comedy team.
In television, she appeared as a panellist in comedy shows such as Call My Bluff (a regular as a team captain), Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Mock the Week, QI, and Have I Got News for You, where she appeared on the first episode in 1990. She was also the host of What the Dickens, a Sky Arts quiz show.
On radio, she is a familiar voice for BBC Radio 4 listeners, having appeared on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, The Unbelievable Truth, and as the chair of The News Quiz, where she replaced Simon Hoggart in September 2006, but left in June 2015 in order to enter politics to champion women's rights. Her final show was first broadcast on 26 June 2015. She presented Radio 4's travel programme Excess Baggage until it was axed in 2012.
Drama and factual
In 1993, Toksvig wrote a musical, Big Night Out at the Little Sands Picture Palace, for Nottingham Playhouse, co-starring with Anita Dobson and Una Stubbs. In 2002, it was re-written, with Dilly Keane, for the Watford Palace Theatre, in which they appeared with Bonnie Langford. Toksvig and Elly Brewer wrote a Shakespeare deconstruction, The Pocket Dream, which Toksvig performed at the Nottingham Playhouse and which transferred to the West End for a short run. The pair also wrote the 1992 TV series The Big One, in which she also starred. She has appeared in a number of stage plays, including Androcles and the Lion, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Comedy of Errors.
In 1996, she narrated the Dragons! interactive CD-ROM published by Oxford University Press and developed by Inner Workings, along with Harry Enfield. The software was primarily aimed at children and featured songs and poems about dragons. She also narrated the Winnie the Witch CD-ROM. She appeared in the Doctor Who audio drama Red by Big Finish Productions, released in August 2006. In December 2006, she hosted and sang at the London Gay Men's Chorus sold-out Christmas show, Make the Yuletide Gay, at the Barbican Centre. Over Christmas and New Year 2007/2008, she narrated the pantomime Cinderella at the Old Vic Theatre. In October 2011, she narrated the new musical Soho Cinders at the Queen's Theatre, London. In 2011, she hosted a second season of BBC Two's Antiques Master.
Toksvig wrote a play entitled Bully Boy which focused on post-traumatic stress among British servicemen. The play premièred at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton in May 2011, and starred Anthony Andrews. The play then launched the debut season of St James Theatre in September 2012, the first new West End theatre to open in 30 years.
In the 2013 Christmas Special of BBC's Call the Midwife, Toksvig made a cameo appearance as grumpy ward nurse Sister Gibbs.
On 28 April 2015, it was announced that Toksvig would leave BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz in June at the end of the 28th series, which was scheduled to begin on 15 May of that year. She said: "I have decided it is time to move on and, of course, I feel sad but I think it's the right moment. The show is in great shape and, like a good house guest, you should always depart when people still wish you'd stay a bit longer." The BBC said Toksvig had made the "difficult decision" to leave in order "to embark on a new and exciting stage of her career". On 30 April 2015, Toksvig announced that her decision to quit The News Quiz had been made in order to allow her to help set up a new political party named the Women's Equality Party.
In November 2015, Toksvig was a guest of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Her choices included Joe Nichols ("What's a Guy Gotta Do"), Gustav Winckler, The Weather Girls, Barbra Streisand, and Bonnie Langford. Her book choice was The Ashley Book of Knots, and her luxury item was an endless supply of the Daily Mail.
Her most recent play Silver Lining opened at the Rose Theatre Kingston on 11 February 2017, before touring to Portsmouth, Oxford, Cambridge, Ipswich, Keswick, York, and Salford. It centres around five elderly ladies and a young carer in a retirement home which is about to be flooded by a storm. It stars Rachel Davies, Keziah Joseph, Maggie McCarthy, Joanna Monro, Sheila Reid, and Amanda Walker. Toksvig's son, Theo Toksvig-Stewart, made his professional stage debut in the play.
On 11 June 2019, Toksvig appeared on former Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard's podcast. Notably, Toksvig states "Wikipedia is a marvelous idea and the idea is that it is a crowd sourced encyclopedia of knowledge, what a fantastic notion. But what's happening is that women are disappearing, so 90% of Wikipedia's content is about men and their achievements, and 9% is about women. 1% are still making up their mind. So that proportion is completely out of kilter and we desperately need to do something about it. Part of the problem is that it is edited by volunteers but there are about 350,000 "uber" volunteers that tend, no offence to them, to be the same kind of guy who has the time to sit and do it and doesn't have laundry to do and are actively editing women out. There are two issues: 1) women's achievements are not being inputted and 2) women are actively being edited out... I am intent on trying to change this if we can."
During the COVID-19 lockdown period in 2020, Toksvig created and performed "Vox Tox", a YouTube mini-series, from her home. These 10-minute sessions promoted the activities of women across the ages, being inspired by items from Toksvig's own library of books and biographies.
Writing
Toksvig has written more than twenty fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, starting in 1994 with Tales from the Norse's Mouth, a fiction tale for children. In 1995, she sailed around the coast of Britain with John McCarthy, who had been held hostage in Beirut. In 2003, she published Gladys Reunited: A Personal American Journey, about her travels in the USA retracing her childhood. She writes regular columns for Good Housekeeping, the Sunday Telegraph and The Lady. In October 2008, she published Girls Are Best, a history book for girls.
In 2009, her collected columns for The Sunday Telegraph were published in book form as The Chain of Curiosity. In 2012, she published her book, Valentine Grey, an historical novel set in the Boer War. Her 2006 young adult book, Hitler's Canary is a Holocaust story told by a boy named Bamse and his family. The characters are based on Toksvig's own father and grandmother; the family heroism in the story closely resembles the author's father's own experiences during the war. Her memoir Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus was published on 29 October 2019.
In 2020, Toksvig wrote and presented a podcast series called We Will Get Past This which aimed to provide "virtual chicken soup for the soul" during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK, by sharing stories of notable women from her book collection.
Television presenter
In 2012–13 Toksvig presented 1001 Things You Should Know for Channel 4 daytime. Toksvig began presenting the revival edition of the daytime game show Fifteen-to-One in April 2014. It is an hour-long instead of the original half-hour edition presented by William G. Stewart. After two series had been broadcast, in June 2015, Channel 4 announced that a further eight series would be made, hosted by Toksvig until the revived series ended on 28 June 2019.
Toksvig took over from Stephen Fry as host of QI, making her "the first female presenter of a British mainstream TV comedy panel show", a fact she found extraordinary in 2016. Her first appearance as host (or Bantermeister) was the first episode of the show's series "N", which was broadcast on 21 October 2016.
On 16 March 2017, she was announced as the new co-presenter of The Great British Bake Off on Channel 4, alongside Noel Fielding. They replaced the previous hosts, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. In January 2020, she announced she was leaving the show to focus on other work commitments, and was replaced by Matt Lucas.
Toksvig presented Channel 4's four-part travel series Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig, which premiered on 10 February 2021. In December 2021, Channel 4 renewed the series for a second series, which premiered on 17 February 2022. Series three premiered on 7 June 2023.
Politics and activism
Toksvig first came to wider public prominence in 1994 because the charity Save the Children dropped her services as compere of its 75th anniversary celebrations after she came out. The decision led to a direct action protest by the Lesbian Avengers, and the charity apologised.
Toksvig supports the charity and pressure group Liberty, hosting its 2012 awards ceremony. She was appointed president of the Women of the Year Lunch. An atheist and humanist, Toksvig is a patron of Humanists UK.
In October 2012, as the scale of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal became apparent, and amid claims that during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, there was a culture within the BBC which tolerated sexual harassment, Toksvig stated that she was groped by a "famous individual" on air in the 1980s. Toksvig said the allegations of inappropriate behaviour at the BBC "did not surprise me at all". In September 2018, as the BBC gender pay gap controversy continued to unfold, Toksvig reported that she was only paid 40% of what Fry, her predecessor, had received. Toksvig had earlier told the Radio Times it would be "absurd" if she did not receive the same salary as him for chairing QI.
In 2003, she stood as a candidate in the election for the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford, supporting a campaign against student fees. She was defeated in the first round of voting, achieving 1,179 first-place votes out of about 8,000 cast. The election was won by Chris Patten. Almost a decade later she succeeded Sheila Hancock as Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth.
Toksvig's party-political sympathies have developed over the years. She was part of Red Wedge's comedy tour in the 1980s, which supported the Labour Party. By the 2004 elections, she was a high-profile celebrity supporter of the Liberal Democrats. She has received some criticism for joking about the Tories in 2011 (they've "put the 'N' into cuts" to child benefit), but has said Prime Minister Theresa May is "a good person". She has also joked about UKIP leader Nigel Farage. In 2012, she said in an interview that "I don't think there's a party that represents anything I believe in".
In 2023, Toksvig stated the reluctance of the Church of England to accept same sex marriage was harming gay people. Toksvig stated "The problem is there is only one side that is impinging on the lives of others. And I'm afraid the very conservative people who interpret the Bible with less love than I would hope are causing severe mental health problems for the LGBTQ+ community. My wife works in mental health with the queer community and the figures are shocking for a young LGBT person committing suicide, or attempting suicide, not because they feel bad about who they are, but because of the way society stigmatises them. So it's not an equal battle that we're having here." Toksvig is campaigning to end 26 Church of England bishops sitting in the House of Lords.
Women's Equality Party
In April 2015, Toksvig chaired the first, informal, conference of a new political party, the Women's Equality Party, and then left her job as presenter of The News Quiz to formally co-found it. She later explained that she had decided that it was "not too late to fight the good fight, after all". In September the same year, she announced the dates for a comedy tour to raise funds for the party. The party's full set of policies was launched at Conway Hall, 20 October 2015.
Personal life
Toksvig is the mother of two daughters and a son, born in 1988, 1990 and 1994 respectively. The children were carried by her partner, Peta Stewart, and were conceived through artificial insemination by donor Christopher Lloyd-Pack, younger brother of the actor Roger Lloyd-Pack.
It was having three young children that made her decide to come out, because, to the best of her knowledge, there were no out lesbians in British public life, and she did not want her children to grow up ashamed of having two mothers. Toksvig was warned she might never work again, and the family faced death threats and had to go into hiding.
Toksvig and Stewart separated in 1997. Toksvig now lives on a houseboat in Wandsworth with psychotherapist Debbie Toksvig, whom she joined in a civil partnership in 2007. They renewed their vows on 29 March 2014, the day same-sex marriage was introduced in England and Wales, and in December 2014, their civil partnership was converted into a marriage.
Toksvig became a British citizen in 2013. She describes her "posh" accent as being the result of a deliberate attempt to copy the voice of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, after being ostracised at boarding school for having an American accent.
In her late 50s, she lost a significant amount of weight on medical advice and credits this with giving her the confidence to go back to television.
In late 2022, Toksvig was hospitalised in Australia with bronchial pneumonia, and was forced to cancel her upcoming New Zealand tour dates. On 6 December 2022, she announced that she had left hospital, but was still not well enough to travel. On 15 December, it was reported that she had returned to the UK.
Honours and awards
1997 – The Grand Order of Water Rats Show Business Personality of the Year
2007 – Political Humourist of the Year at the Channel 4 Political Awards and 2007 – Radio Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild
2007 – Read it or Else Award from Coventry Inspiration Book Awards for Hitler's Canary
2008 – Broadcaster of the Year at the Stonewall Awards
2009 – Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Individual Contribution to Radio
2013 – Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Excellence in Broadcasting (Roberts Radio Special Award)
2017 – CoScan (Confederation of Scandinavian Societies) International Award
National honours
Decorations and medals
Scholastic
University degrees
Chancellor, visitor, governor, rector and fellowships
Honorary degrees
Bibliography
Books for adults
Books for children
References
External links
1958 births
Living people
Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge
British humanists
British atheists
British radio personalities
British television presenters
British women comedians
British women in politics
Danish emigrants to England
Danish humanists
Danish atheists
LGBT producers
English lesbian actresses
English lesbian writers
Danish lesbian writers
Danish lesbian actresses
English LGBT broadcasters
English LGBT comedians
Danish LGBT comedians
Lesbian comedians
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Tormead School
Actresses from Copenhagen
Political party founders
Danish people of British descent
Women's Equality Party people
Politicians from London
People associated with the University of Portsmouth
British women television presenters
Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge
Fellows of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge
Honorary Fellows of Newnham College, Cambridge
People associated with York St John University
People associated with the University of Surrey
People associated with the University of Westminster
20th-century English LGBT people
21st-century English LGBT people
20th-century Danish LGBT people
21st-century Danish LGBT people
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les%20Huguenots
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Les Huguenots
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() is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer and is one of the most popular and spectacular examples of grand opera. In five acts, to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps, it premiered in Paris on 29 February 1836.
Composition history
Les Huguenots was some five years in creation. Meyerbeer prepared carefully for this opera after the sensational success of Robert le diable, recognising the need to continue to present lavish staging, a highly dramatic storyline, impressive orchestration and virtuoso parts for the soloists – the essential elements of the new genre of Grand Opera. Meyerbeer and his librettist for Robert le Diable, Eugène Scribe, had agreed to collaborate on an epic work concerning the French Wars of Religion, with a drama partly based on Prosper Mérimée's 1829 novel Chronique du règne de Charles IX.
Coming from a wealthy family, Meyerbeer could afford to take his time, dictate his own terms, and to be a perfectionist. The very detailed contract which Meyerbeer arranged with Louis-Désiré Véron, director of the Opéra, for Les Huguenots (and which was drawn up for him by the lawyer Adolphe Crémieux) is a testament to this. While Meyerbeer was writing the opera, another opera with a similar setting and theme (Le pré aux clercs by Ferdinand Hérold) was also produced in Paris (1832). Like Meyerbeer's, Hérold's work was extremely popular in its time, although it is now only seldom performed.
Meyerbeer decided that he wanted more historical details of the period and a greater psychological depth to the characters than Scribe's text was supplying so he obtained Scribe's approval to invite a second librettist, Émile Deschamps, to collaborate on the text in order to furnish these elements. Meyerbeer was recommended to take his wife to a warmer climate for her health, and while in Italy for that purpose he consulted with the librettist of his earlier Italian operas, Gaetano Rossi. With his advice Meyerbeer himself re-wrote the part of Marcel, one of the most striking and original characters in the piece. Meyerbeer also accepted the advice of star tenor
Adolphe Nourrit, chosen to create the part of Raoul, to expand the love duet in Act 4, which became one of the most famous numbers in the opera.
Performance history
Les Huguenots was premiered by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier on 29 February 1836 (conductor: François Habeneck), and was an immediate success. Both Adolphe Nourrit and Cornélie Falcon were particularly praised by the critics for their singing and performances. It was indeed Falcon's last important creation before her voice so tragically failed in April of the following year. Hector Berlioz called the score "a musical encyclopedia". Les Huguenots was the first opera to be performed at the Opéra more than 1,000 times (the 1,000th performance being on 16 May 1906) and continued to be produced regularly up to 1936, more than a century after its premiere.(The Paris Opera opened a new production of Les Huguenots in September 2018, the first time since 1936 for the opera to be performed there). Its many performances in all other of the world's major opera houses give it a claim to being the most successful opera of the 19th century.
Other first performances included London (Covent Garden Theatre), 20 June 1842, and New Orleans (Théâtre d'Orléans) on 29 April 1839. Due to its subject matter it was sometimes staged under different titles such as The Guelfs and the Ghibellines (in Vienna before 1848), Renato di Croenwald in Rome, or The Anglicans and the Puritans (in Munich), to avoid inflaming religious tensions among its audiences.
Les Huguenots was chosen to open the present building of the Covent Garden Theatre in 1858. During the 1890s, when it was performed at the Metropolitan Opera, it was often called 'the night of the seven stars', as the cast would include Lillian Nordica, Nellie Melba, Sofia Scalchi, Jean de Reszke, Édouard de Reszke, Victor Maurel and Pol Plançon. The opera was performed in Italian at the Met in the 19th century as Gli Ugonotti.
Soviet adaptation
In the Soviet Union, the opera was given a new libretto as Dekabristy, about the historical Decembrists.
Modern revivals
As with Meyerbeer's other operas, Les Huguenots lost favor in the early part of the twentieth century and it fell out of the operatic repertoire worldwide, except for very occasional revivals. Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge were the major force in the opera's revival during the second half of the 20th century. Sutherland chose the opera for her final performance at the Sydney Opera House on 2 October 1990, Bonynge conducting the Opera Australia Orchestra.
Amongst reasons often adduced for the dearth of productions in the 20th century were the scale of the work and the cost of mounting it, as well as the alleged lack of virtuoso singers capable of doing justice to Meyerbeer's demanding music. However, recent successful productions of the opera at relatively small centres such as Metz (2004) show that this conventional wisdom can be challenged. Since then, there have been highly successful new productions of Les Huguenots at major opera houses in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. Performances of Les Huguenots are no longer rare in Europe.
Roles
Synopsis
The story culminates in the historical St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 in which thousands of French Huguenots (Protestants) were slaughtered by Catholics in an effort to rid France of Protestant influence. Although the massacre was a historical event, the rest of the action, which primarily concerns the love between the Catholic Valentine and the Protestant Raoul, is wholly a creation of Scribe.
A short orchestral prelude, featuring Martin Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg", replaces the extended overture Meyerbeer originally intended for the opera.
Act 1
The stage represents the chateau of the Count of Nevers, in Touraine. In the background, large open windows show gardens and a lawn, on which several lords play ball; on the right, a door leading into the inner apartments; at left, a window closed by a curtain and which is supposed to lead to a prayer room; at the front of the stage, other lords are playing dice, cup and ball,etc. Nevers, Tavannes, Cossé, Retz, Thoré, Méru and other Catholic lords look at them and talk to each other
The Catholic Count of Nevers is entertaining his fellow noblemen. Their host informs them that before they can go to dinner, they must await the arrival of Raoul, a young Huguenot sent to them from the King in an effort to reconcile Protestant and Catholic. Raoul enters, very impressed with the surroundings and to be in the company of the noblemen. Lavish dishes of food and copious supplies of wine are brought in and the nobles encourage Raoul to drink ( L’orgie: "Bonheur de la table"). The Count of Nevers announces that he has just become engaged and that he must now give up his mistresses. However, he invites his guests to describe the ones they are in love with and asks the latest arrival, Raoul de Nangis. Raoul then tells how he rescued a girl from an attack on her in the street. Although he does not know her name or her origins, he immediately fell in love (Romance: "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine"). (With a daring and unusual stroke of orchestration, Meyerbeer accompanies this aria with a solo viola d'amore). Raoul's Protestant servant Marcel enters and the old man is shocked to see his master in such wicked company enjoying games, drinking and tales of love. Marcel sings a hearty Protestant prayer (to the tune of 'Ein feste Burg') while the Catholic lords toast their mistresses. One of the Catholics recognises the old man from a battle they fought and asks him to have a drink with him to bury any grudge. Marcel refuses, and then, at the Catholics' request,he sings a Huguenot battle song from the siege of La Rochelle, calling for the extermination of Catholics (Chanson huguenote: "Piff, paff, piff, paff"). The Catholics are merely amused by this.
A valet of the Count of Nevers informs his master that a mysterious woman wishes to speak to him. The count goes out to meet the stranger. Catholic lords wonder about the identity of the unknown woman and try to see her. They invite Raoul to do the same. Recognizing the young woman he saved and fell in love with, the young Huguenot, believing she is one of the mistresses of the Count of Nevers he has been boasting about, swears never to see her again. In fact she is Nevers' intended bride, Valentine (daughter of St. Bris), instructed by the Queen to break off her engagement. The page Urbain enters with a secret message for Raoul, daring him to come blindfolded to a secret rendezvous with an unnamed woman ( Cavatina: "Une dame noble et sage"). The Catholics recognize the seal on the letter as belonging to the Queen of Navarre and drink to Raoul's health as he is led away.
Act 2
The castle and gardens at the Château de Chenonceaux. The river meanders to the middle of the stage, disappearing from time to time behind clumps of green trees. On the right, a wide staircase by which we descend from the castle into the gardens.
Queen Marguerite looks into a mirror held by her enamoured page Urbain, and sings a virtuoso pastorale (O beau pays de la Touraine). She hopes to avoid the religious strife plaguing France by remaining in the beautiful countryside (Cabaletta: A ce mot seul s’anime et renaît la nature).Valentine enters and reports that Nevers has agreed to break the engagement, which delights Marguerite as, knowing that Valentine has fallen in love with Raoul de Nangis, she is sure that she will be able to persuade Valentine's father, the Catholic Saint-Bris, to allow his daughter to marry the young Protestant as a step towards ending sectarian strife. Marguerite's entourage of ladies enter dressed for bathing. This leads to a ballet during which the page Urbain attempts to spy on the scantily clad ladies as they frolic in the water. Urbain laughingly describes the journey of Raoul, blindfolded, to the castle (Rondeau: "Non, non, non, vous n’avez jamais, je gage") He enters and the Queen tells her ladies to leave him alone with her. With his sight restored, Raoul is amazed by the beauty of his surroundings as well as that of the young woman who stands before him, while she is tempted to try to keep the charming young man for herself rather than have him marry Valentine as she had planned (Duet: "Beauté divine enchanteresse").The lords and ladies of the court, including Nevers and Saint-Bris enter, and the Queen orders everyone to swear friendship and peace, which all aver, except for Marcel, who disapproves of his master mixing with Catholics (Oath:Par l’honneur, par le nom que portaient). The Queen presents Valentine to Raoul as the girl he loves and will marry to cement relations between the Protestant and Catholic factions. In a complex final ensemble, Raoul, who believes Valentine is the mistress of Nevers, refuses to comply with the Queen's command. The nobles then swear revenge, Valentine is devastated by this insult to her honour, the Queen does not understand Raoul's reason for rejecting the marriage and Marcel reproaches Raoul for consorting with Catholics.
Act 3
Paris, the 'Pré aux clercs' on the left bank of the Seine, at sunset. On the left, a tavern where Catholic students sit with girls; on the right, another tavern in front of which Huguenot soldiers drink and play dice. In the background, on the left, the entrance to a chapel. In the middle, a huge tree shading the meadow. At the front of the stage, clerics from La Basoche and grisettes sit on chairs and chat between themselves. Others are walking around. Workers, merchants,traveling musicians, monks, and middle-class townspeople. It is six o'clock in the evening, in the month of August.
Citizens enjoy a stroll on a beautiful Sunday evening (Entracte et chœur: C’est le jour de dimanche). The Huguenot soldiers sing a blood-thirsty war song in praise of the Protestant Admiral Coligny (Couplets militaires: "Prenant son sabre de bataille"). A procession of Catholic girls crosses the scene on the way to the chapel where Valentine and Nevers are about to be married, chanting praise to the Virgin (Litanies :" Vierge Marie, soyez bénie !") Marcel enters with a letter from Raoul to Saint-Bris and interrupts the procession, seeking to know Saint-Bris's whereabouts. The Catholics are outraged by Marcel's sacrilege but the Huguenot soldiers defend him. Tension is rising when a band of gypsies enter, dancing and telling fortunes, and calm things down (Ronde bohémienne: "Venez ! – Vous qui voulez savoir d’avance" and gypsy dance). Valentine has just married Nevers, but remains in the chapel to pray. Marcel delivers a challenge from Raoul. Saint-Bris decides to kill Raoul, but is overheard by Valentine. The town crier declares curfew (the scene anticipating a similar one in Wagner's Die Meistersinger) and the crowds disperse. Valentine, in disguise, tells Marcel of the plot by her father and others to murder Raoul (Duet:Dans la nuit où seul je veille). Valentine realises that despite the public humiliation inflicted on her by Raoul she still loves him and returns to the chapel. Raoul, Saint-Bris and their witnesses arrive for the duel, each confident of success (Septet: "En mon bon droit j’ai confiance"). Marcel calls for assistance from the Huguenot soldiers in the tavern on the right and Saint-Bris to the Catholic students in the tavern on the left and a near-riot ensues. Only the arrival of the Queen, on horseback, stems the chaos. Raoul realises that Valentine has saved him and that his suspicions of her were unfounded. However, now she is married to his enemy and indeed at that moment an illuminated barge appears on the river with wedding guests serenading the newly wedded couple (Wedding chorus:"Au banquet où le ciel leur apprête"). Nevers leads her away in a splendid procession as Catholics and Protestants loudly proclaim their murderous hatred of each other (Chorus of fighters:"Non, plus de paix ni trêve").
Act 4
A room in Nevers' Parisian town-house. Family portraits decorate the walls. In the background, a large door and a large Gothic cross. On the left, a door that leads to Valentine's bedroom. On the right, a big chimney, and near the chimney the entrance to a room closed by a tapestry. On the right, and in the foreground, a window overlooking the street.
Valentine, alone, expresses her sorrow at being married to Nevers when she is really in love with Raoul (Air: "Parmi les pleurs mon rêve se ranime"). She is surprised by Raoul who wishes to have one last meeting with her. The sound of approaching people leads Raoul to hide behind a curtain, where he hears the Catholic nobles pledge to murder the Huguenots. They are accompanied by three monks, who bless the swords and daggers to be used in the massacre, declaring it to be God's will that the heretics be killed. Only Nevers does not join in the oath (Conjuration:"Des troubles renaissants"). This scene is generally judged the most gripping in the opera, and is accompanied by some of its most dramatic music. When the nobles have departed, Raoul re-appears and is torn between warning his fellows and staying with Valentine (Duet:"Ô ciel! où courez-vous ?"). Valentine is desperate to prevent him from meeting death by going to the assistance of his fellow Protestants and admits she loves him, which sends Raoul into raptures. However they hear the bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois ringing, the signal for the massacre to begin, and Valentine faints as Raoul leaps out the window to join his co-religionists.
Act 5
Scene 1: A beautifully lit ballroom in the Hôtel de Nesle
The Protestants are celebrating the marriage of the Queen to Henry of Navarre. The tolling of a bell interrupts the dancing and festivities, as does the entrance of Raoul, in torn clothing covered in blood, who informs the assembly that the second stroke was the signal for the Catholic massacre of the Huguenots. Admiral Coligny has been assassinated, Raoul tells them, and Protestant men, women and children are being slaughtered in the street by the thousands. The women flee, panic-stricken, as the Protestant men prepare to defend themselves.
Scene 2: A cemetery: in the background, a Protestant church whose stained glass windows are visible. On the left, a small door that leads into the interior of the church. On the right, a gate that overlooks a crossroads
Under the leadership of Marcel, Protestant women take refuge with their children in the church. It is there that Raoul finds his old servant, who, resigned, prepares to die. Valentine arrives and tells Raoul that his life will be saved if he agrees to wear a white scarf around his arm, indicating that he is Catholic. She also informs the young man that she is now free, Nevers having been killed after having defended Protestants. Raoul seems to hesitate but finally refuses Valentine's proposal to pass as Catholic. She immediately decides to share the fate of the one she loves by abjuring the Catholic faith. She asks Marcel to bless her. Marcel does so and declares the couple married in the sight of God (Trio: "Savez-vous qu’en joignant vos mains"). Meanwhile, the Protestants who barricaded themselves in the church intone Luther's hymn "Ein feste Burg". Suddenly, the singing inside the church is interrupted. The Catholics have broken down the door of the church and threaten to kill all the Protestant women and children if they do not renounce their faith. After refusing, the Protestants resume their singing, interrupted several times by musket shots. Finally, the song is no longer heard: all were massacred. At the height of exaltation, Marcel thinks he hears the march of angels leading the martyrs to God. Valentine and Raoul share this vision of heaven 'with six harps'. (Trio: "Ah ! voyez ! Le ciel s’ouvre et rayonne !"). Catholic soldiers enter the cemetery, seize Raoul, Valentine and Marcel and drag them away, wounding all three, after they refuse to abjure their faith.
Scene 3: A street in Paris, on the night of 23 to 24 August 1572
Wounded, they are finally murdered by St. Bris and his men, he realising only too late that he has killed his own daughter. (Cf. the closing scene of Fromental Halévy's opera, La Juive, libretto also by Scribe, produced a year earlier than Les Huguenots). It is at this moment that Marguerite's litter appears. She also recognizes Valentine and tries to stop the massacre, to no avail. A chorus of soldiers, hunting for more Protestants to murder and singing 'God wants blood!', brings the opera to a close.
Analysis
Libretto
In Les Huguenots, Scribe and Meyerbeer depicted religious fanaticism and sectarianism causing bloody civil division for the first time. The composer Robert Schumann in a scathing review of the piece, objected to the use of the hymn "Ein feste Burg" as a musical theme recurring throughout the opera, and to the depiction of religious division, writing "I am not a moralist, but for a good Protestant it is offensive to hear his most cherished song being yelled on the stage and to see the bloodiest drama in the history of his faith degraded to the level of a fairground farce. Meyerbeer's highest ambition is to startle or titillate, and he certainly succeeds in that with the theatre-going rabble." George Sand at first refused to attend a performance of the opera, saying that she did not want to watch Catholics and Protestants slit each other's throats to music written by a Jew. When eventually she did see the piece, however, she was overwhelmed and wrote to Meyerbeer that "Though you are a musician, you are more a poet than any of us!" and called the opera "an evangel of love".
Franz Liszt observed of the libretto "If one continually reproaches the poet for striving after dramatic effects, it would be unjust not to acknowledge how thrilling these can often be" while Hector Berlioz in his review of the premiere wrote "the new libretto by M. Scribe seems to us to be admirably arranged for music and full of situations of undoubted dramatic interest".
Some writers have condemned as nothing more than "kitsch melodrama" the central and fictitious love story between Raoul and Valentine, dependent on Raoul's mistaken belief that she is Nevers' mistress, a misunderstanding that goes on for three acts when it could easily have been cleared up much sooner. Other critics have praised the psychological realism of the characters, Ernest Newman, for instance, stating that "Meyerbeer gave his audiences the delighted feeling that they were being brought into touch with real life, and that the characters they saw on the boards were men and women such as they might meet any day themselves." The character of Marcel, a creation both textually and musically of Meyerbeer, has met particular praise from critics, evolving as he does from the status of intolerant servant in the first act to that of visionary spiritual guide in the last. Liszt wrote "The role of Marcel, the purest type of popular pride and religious sacrifice, seems to us to be the most complete and living character. The unmistakable solemnity of his airs, which expresses so eloquently the moral grandeur of this man of the people, as well as his simplicity, the noble nature of his thought, remains striking from the beginning to the end of the opera."
Meyerbeer had intended a singing role for the character of Catherine de' Medici, Queen Mother at the time of the massacre, in the scene of the blessing of the daggers in Act 4, but the state censorship would not permit a royal personage to be depicted in such an unfavourable light.
Victor Hugo, in his preface to Cromwell (1827), called for the introduction of local colour into historical dramas. For music critic Robert Letellier, this request is perfectly met by Act 3 of Les Huguenots, with its strolling promenaders of all classes setting the scene and its squabbles of Catholics and Protestants interrupted by gypsy dancers and fortune-tellers, reminiscent of episodes from Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).
Letellier has also written of the masterly way Scribe's libretto moves from light to darkness. Act 1 is set in the daytime, in the hedonistic surroundings of a chateau belonging to a pleasure-loving Catholic noble (with one of the musical numbers even marked "The Orgy".) Act 2 is set in sparkling sunshine in the beautiful countryside. Act 3, with near riots between Catholic and Protestant factions, as dusk falls. Act 4, with the plotting to massacre the Protestants, at night, and Act 5, with the actual massacre, in the darkness of the early hours of the morning.
In the assessment of music historian David Charlton, Scribe and Meyerbeer in Les Huguenots "created a masterpiece of romantic tragedy".
Music
Reviewing the premiere of the opera, Hector Berlioz wrote "The dramatic expression is always true and profound, with fresh colours, warm movement, elegant forms; in instrumentation, in effects of vocal masses, this score surpasses all that has been attempted to this day."
One of the most striking innovations is the treatment of Luther's chorale "Ein feste Burg" as a leitmotif developed and varied throughout the opera. The theme is present from the outset where it is subject to a series of variations that symbolize, according to Letellier, the feelings inspired by religion: recollection, love, consolation, exaltation, but also intolerance and fanaticism. In the song of Marcel in the first act, it corresponds to an expression of faith, full of conviction and aspiration to transcendence. In the finale of the second act, it is used as a cantus firmus to affirm the resolution and strength of Protestants in the face of danger. In the third act, it is a call to arms to escape traps and betrayals. Finally, in the last act, it becomes the stifled and distant prayer of the Protestants who seek to escape the massacre to become an ultimate cry of defiance against the Catholic executioners and is also sung in unison by Valentine, Raoul and Marcel as they have an ecstatic vision of heaven awaiting them upon their imminent deaths.
Also very innovatory were the huge multiple choruses, as for instance in the Pré-aux-Clercs scene at the start of Act 3, when Protestant soldiers sing a "rataplan" chorus, Catholic girls cross the stage chanting praise to the Virgin with a third chorus of law clerks. These are all first heard separately, then combined and to this mix is then added the wives and girlfriends of the Catholic students and Protestant soldiers hurling abuse at each other. Berlioz marveled that "The richness of texture in the Pré-aux-Clercs scene [of act III] […] was extraordinary, yet the ear could follow it with such ease that every strand in the composer's complex thought was continually apparent—a marvel of dramatic counterpoint'. and said the music in that act "dazzles the ear as bright light does the eye".
Both Liszt and Berlioz greatly admired the instrumentation of the opera. Liszt wrote that "the orchestral effects are so cleverly combined and diversified that we have never been able to attend a performance of the Huguenots without a new feeling of surprise and admiration for the art of the master who has managed to dye in a thousand shades, almost ungraspable in their delicacy, the rich fabric of his musical poem".
Meyerbeer used a variety of novel and unusual orchestral effects in the opera. Marcel's utterances are usually accompanied by two cellos and a double bass. The composer revived an archaic instrument, the viola d'amore, which had fallen into complete disuse in the 19th century, for Raoul's aria "Plus blanche que la blanche hermine" and used the bass clarinet for the first time in an opera in the scene in the last act during which Marcel "marries" Valentine and Raoul just before they are murdered, creating an other-worldly, funereal effect.
Influence
Following five years after Meyerbeer's own Robert le diable and a year after Fromental Halévy's La Juive, Les Huguenots consolidated the genre of Grand Opera, in which the Paris Opéra would specialise for the next generation, and which became a major box-office attraction for opera houses all over the world. Hector Berlioz's contemporary account is full of praise, with 'Meyerbeer in command at the first desk [of violins] [...] from beginning to end I found [the orchestral playing] superb in its beauty and refinement [...] .
The immense success of the opera encouraged many musicians, including Franz Liszt and Sigismond Thalberg, to create virtuosic piano works based on its themes.
A military slow march based on the prelude to Les Huguenots is played every year during the ceremony of Trooping the Colour at Horse Guards Parade in London.
Selected recordings
Audio recordings
Video recordings
Scores
Réminiscences des Huguenots, p. 412 for piano by Franz Liszt at 412_(Liszt%2C_Franz) IMSLP
Grande Fantaisie sur l'opera de Meyerbeer 'Les Huguenots', Op.43 for piano by Sigismond Thalberg at IMSLP
References
Notes
Sources
Berlioz, Hector; Cairns, David, translator (1969). The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz. London: Gollancz.
Brzoska, Matthias; Smith, Christopher, translation (2003). "Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable and Les Huguenots" in The Cambridge Companion to Grand Opera (David Charlton, editor). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Chouquet, Gustave (1873). Histoire de la musique dramatique en France depuis ses origines jusqu'à nos jours (in French). Paris: Didot. View at Google Books.
Huebner, Steven (1992). "Huguenots, Les" in Sadie 1992, vol. 2, pp. 765–768.
Kelly, Thomas Forrest (2004). "Les Huguenots" in First Nights at the Opera. New Haven: Yale University Press. .
Kobbé, Gustav (1976). The New Kobbé's Complete Opera Book, edited and revised by the Earl of Harewood. New York: Putnam. .
Kutsch, K. J.; Riemens, Leo (2003). Großes Sängerlexikon (fourth edition, in German). Munich: K. G. Saur. .
Letellier, Robert (2006). The Operas of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. .
Meyerbeer, Giacomo (n.d. [ca. 1900]). Les Huguenots (piano vocal score). Paris: Benoit. IMSLP file #72250, .
Meyerbeer, Giacomo; Arsenty, Richard, translation; Letellier, Robert Ignatius, introduction (2009). The Meyerbeer Libretti: Grand Opéra 2 'Les Huguenots'''. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. .
Paget, Julian, Discovering London Ceremonials and Traditions, Gutenburg Press Limited 1989
Pitou, Spire (1990). The Paris Opéra. An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers: Growth and Grandeur, 1815–1914. New York: Greenwood Press. .
Rosenthal, Harold; Warrack, John (1979). "Les Huguenots", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
Sadie, Stanley, editor (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. .
Tamvaco, Jean-Louis (2000). Les Cancans de l'Opéra. Chroniques de l'Académie Royale de Musique et du théâtre, à Paris sous les deux restorations (2 volumes, in French). Paris: CNRS Editions. .
Wolff, Stéphane (1962). L'Opéra au Palais Garnier (1875–1962). Paris: l'Entr'acte. Paris: Slatkine (1983 reprint): .
External links
Les Huguenots full score (Schlesinger, Paris, 1836) at Saxon State and University Library Dresden
Les Huguenots French libretto in Oeuvres complètes de Scribe'', vol. 2, pp. 73–160 (Paris, 1841) at Google Books
Les Huguenots French libretto (Braun, Paris, 1965) at Gallica
Gli Ugonotti : opera in 5 atti, 1850 publication, Italian, digitized by BYU on archive.org
Operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Libretti by Eugène Scribe
French-language operas
Operas set in France
Grand operas
1836 operas
Operas
Opera world premieres at the Paris Opera
Fiction set in the 1570s
Operas set in the 16th century
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis
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Ekphrasis
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The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the written description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined. Thus, "an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art." In ancient times, it might refer more broadly to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ἐκ ek and φράσις phrásis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, and the verb ἐκφράζειν ekphrázein, 'to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name'.
The works of art described or evoked, may be real or imagined; and this may be difficult to discern. Ancient ekphrastic writing can be useful evidence for art historians, especially for paintings, as virtually no original Greco-Roman examples survive.
Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness.
A descriptive work of prose or poetry, a film, or even a photograph may highlight through its rhetorical vividness what is happening or what is shown. For example, in the visual arts, it may enhance the original art and so take on a life of its own through its brilliant description. One example is a painting of a sculpture: the painting is "telling the story of" the sculpture, and so becoming a storyteller, as well as a story (work of art) itself. Virtually any type of artistic medium may be the actor of or subject of ekphrasis. Although, for example, it may not be possible to make an accurate sculpture of a book to retell the story in an authentic way, it is the spirit of the book that may be conveyed by virtually any medium and thereby enhance the artistic impact of the original book through synergy.
History
Plato's forms, the beginning of ekphrasis
In the Republic, Book X, Plato discusses forms by using real things, such as a bed, for example, and calls each way a bed has been made a "bedness". He commences with the original form of a bed, one of a variety of ways a bed may have been constructed by a craftsman and compares that form with an ideal form of a bed, of a perfect archetype or image in the form of which beds ought to be made; in short, the epitome of bedness.
In his analogy, one bedness form shares its own bedness – with all its shortcomings – with that of the ideal form, or template. A third bedness, too, may share the ideal form. He continues with the fourth form also containing elements of the ideal template or archetype which in this way remains an ever-present and invisible ideal version with which the craftsman compares his work. As bedness after bedness shares the ideal form and template of all creation of beds, and each bedness is associated with another ad infinitum, it is called an "infinite regress of forms".
From form to ekphrasis
It was this epitome, this template of the ideal form, that a craftsman or later an artist would try to reconstruct in his attempt to achieve perfection in his work, that was to manifest itself in ekphrasis at a later stage.
Artists began to use their own literary and artistic genre of art to work and reflect on another art to illuminate what the eye might not see in the original, to elevate it and possibly even surpass it.
Plato and Aristotle
For Plato (and Aristotle), it is not so much the form of each bed that defines bedness as the mimetic stages at which beds may be viewed that defines bedness.
a bed as a physical entity is a mere form of bed
any view from whichever perspective, be it a side elevation, a full panoramic view from above, or looking at a bed end-on is at a second remove
a full picture, characterizing the whole bed is at a third remove
ekphrasis of a bed in another art form is at a fourth remove
Socrates and Phaedrus
In another instance, Socrates talks about ekphrasis to Phaedrus thus:
"You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever".
Genre
In literature
The fullest example of ekphrasis in antiquity can be found in Philostratus of Lemnos' Eikones which describes 64 pictures in a Neapolitan villa. Modern critics have debated as to whether the paintings described should be considered as real or imagined, or the reader left uncertain. Ekphrasis is described in Aphthonius' Progymnasmata, his textbook of style, and later classical literary and rhetorical textbooks, and with other classical literary techniques. It was keenly revived in the Renaissance.
In the Middle Ages, ekphrasis was less often practiced, especially regarding real objects. Historians of medieval art have complained that the accounts of monastic chronicles recording now vanished art concentrate on objects made from valuable materials or with the status of relics. They rarely give more than the cost and weight of objects, and perhaps a mention of the subject matter of the iconography.
The Renaissance and Baroque periods made much use of ekphrasis, typically mainly of imagined works. In Renaissance Italy, Canto 33 of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso describes a picture gallery created by Merlin. In Spain, Lope de Vega often used allusions and descriptions of Italian art in his plays, and included the painter Titian as one of his characters. Calderón de la Barca also incorporated works of art in dramas such as The Painter of his Dishonor. Miguel de Cervantes, who spent his youth in Italy, used many Renaissance frescoes and paintings in Don Quixote and many of his other works. In England, Shakespeare briefly describes a group of erotic paintings in Cymbeline, but his most extended exercise is a 200-line description of the Greek army before Troy in The Rape of Lucrece. Ekphrasis seems to have been less common in France during these periods.
Instances of ekphrasis in 19th century literature can be found in the works of such influential figures as Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós, French poet, painter and novelist Théophile Gautier, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or The Whale features an intense use of ekphrasis as a stylistic manifesto of the book in which it appears. In the chapter "The Spouter Inn", a painting hanging on the wall of a whaler's inn is described as irreconcilably unclear, over scrawled with smoke and defacements. The narrator, so-called Ishmael, describes how this painting can be both lacking any definition and still provoking in the viewer dozens of distinct possible understandings, until the great mass of interpretations resolves into a Whale. This grounds all the interpretations while containing them, an indication of how Melville sees his own book unfolding around this chapter.
The many uses of art in Pérez Galdós have been described by Peter Bly. For example, in La incógnita (1889), there are many allusions and descriptions of Italian art, including references to Botticelli, Mantegna, Masaccio, Raphael, Titian, and others. In Our Friend Manso (1882), the narrator describes two paintings by Théodore Géricault to point to the shipwreck of ideals. In this novel, as well as in Miau (1888), as Frederick A. de Armas has pointed out, there are numerous allusive ekphrasis to paintings of Bartholomew the Apostle
In Ibsen's 1888 work The Lady from the Sea, the first act begins with the description of a painting of a mermaid dying on the shore and is followed by a description of a sculpture that depicts a woman having a nightmare of an ex-lover returning to her. Both works of art can be interpreted as having much importance in the overall meaning of the play as protagonist Ellida Wangel both yearns for her lost youth spent on an island out at sea and is later in the play visited by a lover she thought dead. Furthermore, as an interesting example of the back-and-forth dynamic that exists between literary ekphrasis and art, in 1896 (eight years after the play was written) Norwegian painter Edvard Munch painted an image similar to the one described by Ibsen in a painting he also entitled Lady from the Sea. Ibsen's last work When We Dead Awaken also contains examples of ekphrasis as the play's protagonist, Arnold Rubek, is a sculptor. Several times throughout the play he describes his masterpiece "Resurrection Day" at length and in the many different forms the sculpture took throughout the stages of its creation. Once again the evolution of the sculpture as described in the play can be read as a reflection on the transformation undergone by Rubek himself and even as a statement on the progression Ibsen's own plays took. Many scholars have read this final play (stated by Ibsen himself to be an 'epilogue') as the playwright's reflection on his own work as an artist.
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky employed ekphrasis most notably in his novel The Idiot. In this novel, the protagonist, Prince Myshkin, sees a painting of a dead Christ in the house of Rogozhin that has a profound effect on him. Later in the novel, another character, Hippolite, describes the painting at much length depicting the image of Christ as one of brutal realism that lacks any beauty or sense of the divine. Rogozhin, who is himself the owner of the painting, at one moment says that the painting has the power to take away a man's faith. This is a comment that Dostoyevsky himself made to his wife Anna upon seeing the actual painting that the painting in the novel is based on, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by Hans Holbein. The painting was seen shortly before Dostoyevsky began the novel. Though this is the major instance of ekphrasis in the novel, and the one which has the most thematic importance to the story as a whole, other instances can be spotted when Prince Myshkin sees a painting of Swiss landscape that reminds him of a view he saw while at a sanatorium in Switzerland, and also when he first sees the face of his love interest, Nastasya, in the form of a painted portrait. At one point in the novel, Nastasya, too, describes a painting of Christ, her own imaginary work that portrays Christ with a child, an image which naturally evokes comparison between the image of the dead Christ.
The Irish aesthete and novelist Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/1891) tells how Basil Hallward paints a picture of the young man named Dorian Gray. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, who espouses a new hedonism, dedicated to the pursuit of beauty and all pleasures of the senses. Under his sway, Dorian bemoans the fact that his youth will soon fade. He would sell his soul so as to have the portrait age rather than himself. As Dorian engages in a debauched life, the gradual deterioration of the portrait becomes a mirror of his soul. There are repeated instances of notional ekphrasis of the deteriorating figure in the painting throughout the novel, although these are often partial, leaving much of the portrait's imagery to the imagination. The novel forms part of the magic portrait genre. Wilde had previously experimented with employing portraits in his written work, as in The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889).
Anthony Powell's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time begins with an evocation of the painting by Poussin which gives the sequence its name, and contains other passages of ekphrasis, perhaps influenced by the many passages in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
In the 20th century, Roger Zelazny's "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" uses an ekphrastic frame, descriptions of Hokusai's famous series of woodcuts, as a structural device for his story. In her novel Skyline the South African-Italian Patricia Schonstein concludes each chapter with an art curator’s description of a naïve work of art as a means of introducing additional narrative voices.
Ekphrasis and the uses of art, architecture and music are also of utmost importance in the modern Latin American novel, and particularly in the works of Alejo Carpentier as Steve Wakefield attests. In one of his early novels, The Kingdom of this World (1949), a character views a collection of statues at the Villa Borghese, culminating with the Venus Victrix. The art collection of the tyrant in Reasons of State is another excellent example.
Ekphrastic poetry
Ekphrastic poetry may be encountered as early as the days of Homer, whose Iliad (Book 18) describes the Shield of Achilles, with how Hephaestus made it as well as its completed shape. Famous later examples are found in Virgil's Aeneid, for instance the description of what Aeneas sees engraved on the doors of Carthage's temple of Juno, and Catullus 64, which contains an extended ekphrasis of an imaginary coverlet with the story of Ariadne picked out on it.
Ekphrastic poetry flourished in the Romantic era and again among the pre-Raphaelite poets. A major poem of the English Romantics – "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats – provides an example of the artistic potential of ekphrasis. The entire poem is a description of a piece of pottery that the narrator finds evocative. Felicia Hemans made extensive use of ekphrasis, as did Letitia Elizabeth Landon, especially in her Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "double-works" exemplify the use of the genre by an artist mutually to enhance his visual and literary art. Rossetti also ekphrasized a number of paintings by other artists, generally from the Italian Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks.
Other examples of the genre from the nineteenth century include Michael Field's 1892 volume Sight and Song, which contains only ekphrastic poetry; Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem "Before the Mirror", which ekphrasizes James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, hinted at only by the poem's subtitle, "Verses Written under a Picture"; and Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess", which although a dramatic monologue, includes some description by the duke of the portrait before which he and the listener stand.
Ekphrastic poetry is still commonly practiced. Twentieth-century examples include Rainer Maria Rilke's "Archaïscher Torso Apollos", and The Shield of Achilles (1952), a poem by W. H. Auden, which brings the tradition back to its start with an ironic retelling of the episode in Homer (see above), where Thetis finds very different scenes from those she expects. In contrast, his earlier poem "Musée des Beaux Arts" describes a particular real and famous painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, thought until recently to be by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and now believed to be "after" him, is also described in the poem by William Carlos Williams "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus". The paintings of Edward Hopper have inspired many ekphrastic poems, including a prize-winning volume in French by Claude Esteban (Soleil dans une pièce vide, Sun in an Empty Room, 1991), a collection in Catalan by Ernest Farrés (Edward Hopper, 2006, English translation 2010 by Lawrence Venuti), an English collection by James Hoggard Triangles of Light: The Edward Hopper Poems (Wings Press, 2009), and a collection by various poets (The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper, 1995, editor Gail Levin), together with numerous individual poems; see more at .
The poet Gabriele Tinti has composed a series of poems for ancient works of art including the Boxer at Rest, the Discobolus, Arundel Head, the Ludovisi Gaul, the Victorious Youth, the Farnese Hercules, the Hercules by Scopas, the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, the Barberini Faun, the Doryphoros and many other masterpieces.
In, or as, art history
Since the types of objects described in classical ekphrases often lack survivors to modern times, art historians have often been tempted to use descriptions in literature as sources for the appearance of actual Greek or Roman art, an approach full of risk. This is because ekphrasis typically contains an element of competition with the art it describes, aiming to demonstrate the superior ability of words to "paint a picture". Many subjects of ekphrasis are clearly imaginary, for example those of the epics, but with others it remains uncertain the extent to which they were, or were expected to be by early audiences, at all accurate.
This tendency is not restricted to classical art history; the evocative but vague mentions of objects in metalwork in Beowulf are eventually always mentioned by writers on Anglo-Saxon art, and compared to the treasures of Sutton Hoo and the Staffordshire Hoard. The ekphrasic writings of the lawyer turned bishop Asterius of Amasea (fl. around 400) are often cited by art historians of the period to fill gaps in the surviving artistic record. The inadequacy of most medieval accounts of art is mentioned above; they generally lack any specific details other than cost and the owner or donor, and hyperbolic but wholly vague praise.
Journalistic art criticism was effectively invented by Denis Diderot in his long pieces on the works in the Paris Salon, and extended and highly pointed accounts of the major exhibitions of new art became a popular seasonal feature in the journalism of most Western countries. Since few if any of the works could be illustrated, description and evocation was necessary, and the criticality of descriptions of works disliked became a part of the style.
As art history began to become an academic subject in the 19th century, ekphrasis as formal analysis of objects was regarded as a vital component of the subject. Not all examples lack attractiveness as literature. Writers on art for a wider audience produced many descriptions with great literary as well as art historical merit; in English John Ruskin, both the most important journalistic critic and popularizer of historic art of his day, and Walter Pater, above all for his famous evocation of the Mona Lisa, are among the most notable. As photography in books or on television allowed audiences a direct visual comparison to the verbal description, the role of ekphrasic commentary on the images may have increased.
Ekphrasis has also been an influence on art; for example the ekphrasis of the Shield of Achilles in Homer and other classical examples are likely to have inspired the elaborately decorated large serving dishes in silver or silver-gilt, crowded with complicated scenes in relief, that were produced in 16th century Mannerist metalwork.
In music
There are a number of examples of ekphrasis in music, of which the best known is probably Pictures at an Exhibition, a suite in ten movements (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for piano by the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874, and then very popular in various arrangements for orchestra. The suite is based on real pictures, although as the exhibition was dispersed, most are now unidentified.
The first movement of Three Places in New England by Charles Ives is an ekphrasis of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston, sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Ives also wrote a poem inspired by the sculpture as a companion piece to the music. Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem Isle of the Dead is a musical evocation of Böcklin's painting of the same name. King Crimson's song "The Night Watch", with lyrics written by Richard Palmer-James, is an ekphrasis on Rembrandt's painting The Night Watch.
Notional ekphrasis
Notional ekphrasis may describe mental processes such as dreams, thoughts and whimsies of the imagination. It may also be one art describing or depicting another work of art which as yet is still in an inchoate state of creation, in that the work described may still be resting in the imagination of the artist before he has begun his creative work. The expression may also be applied to an art describing the origin of another art, how it came to be made and the circumstances of its being created. Finally it may describe an entirely imaginary and non-existing work of art, as though it were factual and existed in reality.
In ancient literature
Greek literature
The Iliad
The shield of Achilles is described by Homer in an example of ekphrastic poetry, used to depict events that have occurred in the past and events that will occur in the future. The shield contains images representative of the Cosmos and the inevitable fate of the city of Troy. The shield of Achilles features the following nine depictions:
The Earth, Sea, Sky, Moon and the Cosmos (484–89)
Two cities – one where a wedding and a trial are taking place, and one that is considered to be Troy, due to the battle occurring inside the city (509–40)
A field that is being ploughed (541–49)
The home of a King where the harvest is being reaped (550–60)
A vineyard that is being harvested (561–72)
A herd of cattle that is being attacked by two lions, while the Herdsman and his dogs try to scare the lions off the prize bull (573–86)
A sheep farm (587–89)
A scene with young men and women dancing (590–606)
The mighty Ocean as it encircles the shield (607–609)
The Odyssey
Although not written as elaborately as previous examples of ekphrastic poetry, from lines 609–614 the belt of Herakles is described as having "marvelous works," such as animals with piercing eyes and hogs in a grove of trees. It also contains multiple images of battles and occurrences of manslaughter. In the Odyssey, there is also a scene where Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, must prove to his wife, Penelope, that he has proof that Odysseus is still alive. She asks him about the clothes Odysseus was wearing during the time when the beggar claims he hosted Odysseus. Homer uses this opportunity to implement more ekphrastic imagery by describing the golden brooch of Odysseus, which depicts a hound strangling a fawn that it captured.
The Argonautika
The Cloak of Jason is another example of ekphrastic poetry. In The Argonautika, Jason's cloak has seven events embroidered into it:
The forging of Zeus' thunderbolts by the Cyclops (730-734)
The building of Thebes by the sons of Antiope (735–741)
Aphrodite with the shield of Ares (742–745)
The battle between Teleboans and the Sons of Electryon (746–751)
Pelops winning Hippodameia (752–758)
Apollo punishing Tityos (759–762)
Phrixus and the Ram (763–765)
The description of the cloak provides many examples of ekphrasis, and not only is modeled on Homer's writing, but alludes to several occurrences in Homer's epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Jason's cloak can be examined in many ways. The way the cloak's events are described is similar to the catalogue of Women that Odysseus encounters on his trip to the Underworld.
The cloak and its depicted events lend more to the story than a simple description; in true ekphrasis fashion it not only compares Jason to future heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus, but also provides a type of foreshadowing. Jason, by donning the cloak, can be seen as a figure who would rather resort to coercion, making him a parallel to Odysseus, who uses schemes and lies to complete his voyage back to Ithaca.
Jason also bears similarities to Achilles: by donning the cloak, Jason is represented as an Achillean heroic figure due to the comparisons made between his cloak and the shield of Achilles. He also takes up a spear given to him by Atalanta, not as an afterthought, but due to his heroic nature and the comparison between himself and Achilles.
While Jason only wears the cloak while going to meet with Hypsipyle, it foreshadows the changes that Jason will potentially undergo during his adventure. Through the telling of the scenes on the cloak, Apollonios relates the scenes on the cloak as virtues and morals that should be upheld by the Roman people, and that Jason should learn to live by. Such virtues include the piety represented by the Cyclops during the forging of Zeus' thunderbolts. This is also reminiscent of the scene in the Iliad when Thetis goes to see Hephaestus, and requisitions him to create a new set of armor for her son Achilles. Before he began creating the shield and armor, Hephaestus was forging 20 golden tripods for his own hall, and in the scene on Jason's cloak we see the Cyclops performing the last step of creating the thunderbolts for Zeus.
Roman literature
The Aeneid
The Aeneid is an epic that was written by Virgil during the reign of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. While the epic itself mimics Homer's works, it can be seen as propaganda for Augustus and the new Roman empire. The shield of Aeneas is described in book eight, from lines 629–719. This shield was given to him by his mother, Venus, after she asked her husband Vulcan to create it. This scene is almost identical to Thetis, the mother of Achilles, asking Hephaestus to create her son new weapons and armor for the battle of Troy.
The difference in the descriptions of the two shields are easily discernible; the shield of Achilles depicts many subjects, whereas the shield made for Aeneas depicts the future that Rome will have, containing propaganda in favor of the Emperor Augustus. Much like other ekphrastic poetry, it depicts a clear catalogue of events:
The She Wolf and the suckling Romulus and Remus (629–634)
The Rape of the Sabine Women (635–639)
Mettius pulled apart by horses (640–645)
Invasion of Lars Parsona (646–651)
Manlius guarding the capitol (652–654)
Gauls invading Rome (655–665)
Tartarus with Cato and Catiline (666–670)
The Sea around the width of the shield (671–674)
The Battle of Actium (675–677)
Augustus and Agrippa (678–684)
Antony and Cleopatra (685–695)
Triumph (696–719)
There is speculation as to why Virgil depicted certain events, while completely avoiding others such as Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul. Virgil clearly outlined the shield chronologically, but scholars argue that the events on the shield are meant to reflect certain Roman values that would have been of high importance to the Roman people and to the Emperor. These values may include virtus, clementia, iustitia, and pietas, which were the values inscribed on a shield given to Augustus by the Senate. This instance of ekphrasitc poetry may be Virgil's attempt to relate more of his work to Augustus.
Earlier in the epic, when Aeneas travels to Carthage, he sees the temple of the city, and on it are great works of art that are described by the poet using the ekphrastic style. Like the other occurrences of ekphrasis, these works of art describe multiple events. Out of these, there are eight images related to the Trojan War:
Depictions of Agamemnon and Menelaus, Priam and Achilles (459)
Greeks running from Trojan soldiers (468)
The sacking of the tents of Rhesus and the Thracians, and their deaths by Diomedes (468–472)
Troilus being thrown from his Chariot as he flees from Achilles (473–478)
The women of Troy in lamentation, praying to the gods to help them (479–482)
Achilles selling Hektor's body (483–487)
Priam begging for the return of his son, with the Trojan commanders nearby (483–488)
Penthesilea the Amazon, and her fighters (489–493)
Another significant ekphrasis in the Aeneid appears on the baldric of Pallas (Aeneid X.495-505). The baldric is decorated with the murder of the sons of Aegyptus by their cousins, the Danaïds, a tale dramatized by Aeschylus. Pallas is killed by the warrior Turnus, who plunders and wears the baldric. At the climax of the poem, when Aeneas is on the point of sparing Turnus's life, the sight of the baldric changes the hero's mind. The significance of the ekphrasis is hotly debated.
The Metamorphoses
There are several examples of ekphrasis in the Metamorphoses; one in which Phaeton journeys to the temple of the sun to meet his father Phoebus. When Phaeton gazes upon the temple of the sun, he sees the following carvings:
The seas that circle the Earth, the surrounding lands, and the sky (8–9)
The gods of the sea and the Nymphs (10–19)
Scenes of men, beasts, and local gods (20–21)
Twelve figures of the Zodiac, six on each side of the door to the temple (22–23)
Other aspects
Educational value of using ekphrasis in teaching literature
The rationale behind using examples of ekphrasis to teach literature is that once the connection between a poem and a painting are recognized, for example, the student's emotional and intellectual engagement with the literary text is extended to new dimensions. The literary text takes on new meaning and there is more to respond to because another art form is being evaluated. In addition, as the material taught has both a visual and linguistic basis new connections of understanding are formed in the student's brain thus creating a stronger foundation for understanding, remembrance and internalization. Using ekphrasis to teach literature can be done through the use of higher order thinking skills such as distinguishing different perspectives, interpreting, inferring, sequencing, compare and contrast and evaluating.
Literature examples
Roberto E. Aras: "«Ecfrasis» y «sinfronismos» en la ruta de Ortega hacia El Quijote" ("Ekphrasis" and "synphronism" on Ortega's route to Don Quixote), in Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin 8:10 (December 2019): 0-00 (18 p.)
Andrew Sprague Becker: The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995.
Emilie Bergman: Art Inscribed: Essays on Ekphrasis in Spanish Golden Age Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.
Peter A. Bly, Vision and the Visual Arts in Galdós. A Study of the Novels and Newspaper Articles. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1986.
Gottfried Boehm and Helmut Pfotenhauer: Beschreibungskunst, Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. München: W. Fink, 1995.
Siglind Bruhn: Musical Ekphrasis: Composers Responding to Poetry and Painting. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2000.
Siglind Bruhn: Musical Ekphrasis in Rilke's Marienleben. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi Publishers, 2000.
Siglind Bruhn: "A Concert of Paintings: 'Musical Ekphrasis' in the Twentieth Century," in Poetics Today 22:3 (Herbst 2001): 551–605. ISSN 0333-5372
Siglind Bruhn: Das tönende Museum: Musik interpretiert Werke bildender Kunst. Waldkirch: Gorz, 2004.
Siglind Bruhn: "Vers une méthodologie de l'ekphrasis musical," in Sens et signification en musique, ed. by Márta Grabócz and Danièle Piston. Paris: Hermann, 2007, 155–176.
Siglind Bruhn, ed.: Sonic Transformations of Literary Texts: From Program Music to Musical Ekphrasis [Interplay: Music in Interdisciplinary Dialogue, vol. 6]. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2008.
Frederick A. de Armas: Ekphrasis in the Age of Cervantes. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2005.
Frederick A. de Armas: Quixotic Frescoes: Cervantes and Italian Renaissance Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Frederick A. de Armas: “Huellas de Cervantes en Galdós: La écfrasis de San Bartolomé en El amigo manso y Miau,” Recreaciones quijotescas y cervantinas en la narrativa. Ed. Carlos Mata Induraín. Pamplona: Eunsa, 2013: 77-92.
Robert D. Denham: Poets on Paintings: A Bibliography. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010)
Hermann Diels: . Berlin, G. Reimer, 1917.
Barbara K Fischer: Museum Mediations: Reframing Ekphrasis in Contemporary American Poetry. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Claude Gandelman: Reading Pictures, Viewing Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
Jean H. Hagstrum: The Sister Arts: The Tradtition of Literary Pictorialism and English Poetry from Dryden to Gray. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958.
James Heffernan: Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
John Hollander: The Gazer's Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Gayana Jurkevich: In pursuit of the natural sign: Azorín and the poetics of Ekphrasis. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1999.
Mario Klarer: Ekphrasis: Bildbeschreibung als Repräsentationstheorie bei Spenser, Sidney, Lyly und Shakespeare. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001.
Gisbert Kranz: Das Bildgedicht: Theorie, Lexikon, Bibliographie, 3 Bände. Köln: Böhlau, 1981–87.
Gisbert Kranz: Meisterwerke in Bildgedichten: Rezeption von Kunst in der Poesie. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986.
Gisbert Kranz: Das Architekturgedicht. Köln: Böhlau, 1988.
Gisbert Kranz: Das Bildgedicht in Europa: Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1973.
Murray Krieger: Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Norman Land: The Viewer as Poet: The Renaissance Response to Art. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
Cecilia Lindhé, 'Bildseendet föds i fingertopparna'. Om en ekfras för den digitala tidsålder, Ekfrase. Nordisk tidskrift för visuell kultur, 2010:1, p. 4–16. ISSN Online: 1891-5760 ISSN Print: 1891-5752
Hans Lund: Text as Picture: Studies in the Literary Transformation of Pictures. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1992 (originally published in Swedish as Texten som tavla, Lund 1982).
Alexander Medvedev: Tiziano’s «Denarius of Caesar» and F.M. Dostoevsky’s «The Grand Inquisitor»: on the Problem of Christian Art In: The Solovyov Research, 2011, No. 3, (31). P. 79–90.
Michaela J. Marek: Ekphrasis und Herrscherallegorie: Antike Bildbeschreibungen im Werk Tizians und Leonardos. Worms: Werner'sche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1985.
J. D. McClatchy: Poets on Painters: Essays on the Art of Painting by Twentieth-Century Poets. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Hugo Méndez-Ramírez: Neruda's Ekphrastic Experience: Mural Art and Canto general. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1999.
Richard Meek: Narrating the Visual in Shakespeare. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
W.J.T. Mitchell: Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Margaret Helen Persin: Getting the Picture: The Ekphrastic Principle in Twentieth-century Spanish Poetry. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1997.
Michael C J Putnam: Virgil's Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Christine Ratkowitsch: Die poetische Ekphrasis von Kunstwerken: eine literarische Tradition der Grossdichtung in Antike, Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006.
Valerie Robillard and Els Jongeneel (eds.): Pictures into Words: Theoretical and Descriptive Approaches to Ekphrasis. Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1998.
Maria Rubins: Crossroad of Arts, Crossroad of Cultures: Ekphrasis in Russian and French Poetry. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
Grant F. Scott: The Sculpted Word: Keats, Ekphrasis, and the Visual Arts. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994.
Grant F. Scott: "Ekphrasis and the Picture Gallery", in Advances in Visual Semiotics. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok and Jean Umiker-Sebeok. New York and Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1995. 403–421.
Grant F. Scott: "Copied with a Difference: Ekphrasis in William Carlos Williams' Pictures from Brueghel". Word & Image 15 (January–March 1999): 63–75.
Mack Smith: Literary Realism and the Ekphrastic Tradition. University Park: Pennsylvania State U Press, 1995.
Leo Spitzer: "The 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', or Content vs. Metagrammar," in Comparative Literature 7. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Press, 1955, 203–225.
Ryan J. Stark, Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 181–90.
Iman Tavassoly: Rumi in Manhattan: An Ekphrastic Collection of Poetry and Photography, 2018.
Peter Wagner: Icons, Texts, Iconotexts: Essays on Ekphrasis and Intermediality. Berlin, New York: W. de Gruyter, 1996.
Steve Wakefield, Carpentier's Baroque Fiction: Returning Medusa's Gaze. Wooddbridge: Tamesis, 2004
Haiko Wandhoff: Ekphrasis: Kunstbeschreibungen und virtuelle Räume in der Literatur des Mittelalters. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2003.
Robert Wynne: Imaginary Ekphrasis. Columbus, OH: Pudding House Publications, 2005.
Tamar Yacobi, "The Ekphrastic Figure of Speech," in Martin Heusser et al. (eds.), Text and Visuality. Word and Image Interactions 3, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999, .
Tamar Yacobi, "Verbal Frames and Ekphrastic Figuration," in Ulla-Britta Lagerroth, Hans Lund and Erik Hedling (eds.), Interart Poetics. Essays on the Interrelations of the Arts and Media, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997, .
See also
Blazon
Phocas's Ecphrasis, a medieval itinerary of the Holy Land
References
External links
Discussion of Form
Essay on musical ekphrasis
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College Ekphrastic Poetry Web Page
Hephaestus Starts Achilles' Shield
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Ashbery
Ekphrastic poem by Jared Carter on the Lorado Taft sculpture, "The Solitude of the Soul."
Visual arts theory
Figures of speech
Works based on art
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danite
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Danite
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The Danites were a fraternal organization founded by Latter Day Saint members in June 1838, in the town of Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri. During their period of organization in Missouri, the Danites operated as a vigilante group and took a central role in the events of the 1838 Mormon War. They remained an important part of Mormon and non-Mormon folklore, polemics, and propaganda for the remainder of the 19th century, waning in ideological prominence after Utah gained statehood. Notwithstanding public excommunications of Danite leaders by the Church and both public and private statements from Joseph Smith referring to the band as being both evil in nature and a "secret combination" (a term used in the Book of Mormon to signify corruption within a group of people such as gangs, organized crime, and politics, as well as used in general parlance to signify unlawful conspiracy), the nature and scope of the organization and the degree to which it was officially connected to the Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints) are not agreed between historians. Early in the group's existence, Joseph Smith appeared to endorse its actions, but later turned against it as violence increased and the actions of the Danites inspired a hysteria in Missouri that eventually led to the Extermination Order. According to an essay on the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), "Historians generally concur that Joseph Smith approved of the Danites but that he probably was not briefed on all their plans and likely did not sanction the full range of their activities."
In 1834, during the march of Zion's Camp, a military expedition from Kirtland, Ohio, to Clay County, Missouri, Joseph Smith organized the first Mormon militia known as the "Armies of Israel,", which pre-dated the Nauvoo Legion by eight years, to protect his community. Some historians have alleged this earlier militia to be the original formation of the Danite band. After the 1838 Missouri Mormon War, the term "Danite" was often connected with Latter Day Saint peacekeeping, including the Nauvoo, Illinois police, the bodyguards of Joseph Smith, and the "whistling and whittling brigades". Although some members of these later groups had been Danites in the Missouri period, leadership of the 1838 secret society, which came to be known as "Destroying Angels" in particular under group founder Sampson Avard, was not associated with leadership of the peace-keeping militias commonly referred to by the same name.
Background
The Danites organized in the milieu of mutual hostility and conflict between the Mormon settlers and the more established Missourians, with numerous acts of violence perpetrated on both sides. They were active as a formal organization in Missouri in 1838. They began as a group of zealots determined to drive out internal dissention among the Mormonsdissenters which included former high ranking Mormons including the Three Witnessesbut progressed to becoming involved in militia and paramilitary conflicts with U.S. forces and both civilians and law enforcement of Missouri.
The Latter Day Saint movement had experienced periods of conflict and violence with neighboring communities. Prior to this period, Joseph Smith had promoted a non-violent policy, but this era of pacifism was coming to an end. In August 1833, Smith recorded a revelation that stated:
This revelation encouraged church members "to bear it patiently and revile not" when "men will smite you, or your families" yet also justified self-defense: If, after being endangered three times, "he has sought thy life and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thy hands and thou art justified."
Prior to 1838, the Latter Day Saint movement had two centers—one in Kirtland, Ohio and the other in northwestern Missouri. The headquarters and First Presidency of the church were in Kirtland, while the Missouri church was led by a Stake Presidency made up of David Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, and John Whitmer. In 1836, John Whitmer and Phelps founded the town of Far West, Missouri, which became the headquarters of the church in Missouri. Throughout 1837, the church in Kirtland was experiencing internal conflicts over the failure of the church's bank. Ultimately, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon of the First Presidency lost control of the headquarters, including the Kirtland Temple, to dissenters led by Warren Parish. Smith and his followers relocated to Far West, Missouri during the early part of 1838, beginning a period where Smith and other church leaders began to take the view that the church was fighting for its life.
In spring 1838, events came to a boiling point as the number of Mormons swelled in Missouri and Ohio and rifts within the church itself developed. Sudden heavy Mormon immigration, combined with their tendency to vote in a bloc, and their anti-slavery political and northern cultural views aroused hostility from the native Missourians. These tensions were escalated by the fact that Joseph Smith had been issuing prophecies that Missouri was meant to be the chosen place for Zion and the gathering of the Saints. Joseph Smith encouraged the Saints to be unafraid and referred to a passage in the 18th chapter of Judges about the tribe of Dan, "If the enemy comes, the Danites will be after them, meaning the brethren in self-defense." One of those who heard Joseph speak of the Danites was Sampson Avard. Sampson Avard secretly organized some of the brethren into companies for mutual defense and protection. He said he had the sanction of the First Presidency. He also taught those who would follow him that they should lead their companies against the gentiles, to rob and plunder them, and waste them away. With the loot, the kingdom of God would be built. The majority of Avard's followers left him in disgust, and soon Avard was excommunicated.
On the fourth of July in 1838, Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon delivered an oration in Far West, the county seat of Caldwell County. While not wishing or intending to start any trouble with his non-Mormon neighbors, Rigdon wanted to make clear that the Mormons would meet any further attacks on them—-such as had occurred in Jackson County during the summer and fall of 1833—with force. This however encouraged the Danites to offer resistance to the mobs that had driven them out of their homes in Jackson County. Latter Day Saints claims to rights to Missouri were countered back and forth with hostile rhetoric from non-Mormon news sources and politicians. Eventually the situation became dire, with one government agent writing:
The citizens of Daviess, Carroll, and some other normal counties have raised mob after mob for the last two months for the purpose of driving the Mormons from those counties and from the State. These things have at length goaded the Mormons into a state of desperation that has now made some members to become the aggressors instead of acting on the defensive.
Formation
In June 1838, a group of Mormons began meeting together in Far West under the leadership of Sampson Avard, Jared Carter, and George W. Robinson to discuss the problem of Mormon dissenters. The group organized under the name "The Daughters of Zion." A second group was formed in nearby Adam-ondi-Ahman where stake president and special counselor in the First Presidency John Smith recorded the name Danites in his diary and characterized the meetings as routine events. The name "Danites" probably refers to a Biblical prophecy found in the Book of Daniel (). According to Albert P. Rockwood, a loyal Mormon writing in October 1838:
Thomas B. Marsh, former President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, left the church, citing improper handling of the church's finances by its leadership. He began writing and speaking critically of the church, which resulted in his formal excommunication. He left after hearing reports of the destruction of non-Mormon settlements, including Gallatin, by the Mormons. He was present at early Danite meetings and said that the Danites swore oaths "to support the heads of the church in all things that they say or do, whether right or wrong." The newly formed Danites disagreed initially on what steps to take against the dissenters, who had left the church but still lived nearby on land that had murky legal status. The properties had been purchased with a mixture of common and private funds, and in the name of both the LDS Church and private individuals. Reed Peck, another ex-Mormon, alleged that Carter and Dimick B. Huntington proposed that the group "kill these men that they would not be capable of injuring the church." Marsh (while still a practicing Mormon) and John Corrill successfully argued against the proposal.
"Salt Sermon"
John Corrill recalled that "the first presidency did not seem to have much to do with [the Danites] at first", and some of the Danites clearly saw this sermon as a sign of approval. The matter was tabled until the following Sunday (June 17, 1838) when Sidney Rigdon preached his Salt Sermon, in which he likened the dissenters to "salt that had lost its savor." He went on to state that the dissenters would be "trodden under the foot of men." Corrill stated that "although [Rigdon] did not give names in his sermon, yet it was plainly understood that he meant the dissenters or those who had denied the faith." Rigdon's strongly worded sermon may have played a significant role in encouraging the dissenters to leave the county.
Danite Manifesto
Ebenezer Robinson (who remained with the church after 1838), recalled that the next day a letter was "gotten up in the office of the First Presidency," which Danite leader Sampson Avard later charged was written by Sidney Rigdon. The letter was addressed specifically to the principal dissenters: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, William Wines Phelps, and Lyman E. Johnson. The letter demanded the dissenters depart the county, writing:
for out of the county you shall go, and no power shall save you. And you shall have three days after you receive this communication to you, including twenty-four hours in each day, for you to depart with your families peaceably; which you may do undisturbed by any person; but in that time, if you do not depart, we will use the means in our power to cause you to depart; for go you shall.
It made several accusations concerning the actions and character of these dissenters and then stated:
We have solemnly warned you, and that in the most determined manner, that if you do not cease that course of wanton abuse of the citizens of this county, that vengeance would overtake you sooner or later, and that when it did come it would be as furious as the mountain torrent, and as terrible as the beating tempest; but you have affected to despise our warnings, and pass them off with a sneer, or a grin, or a threat, and pursued your former course; and vengeance sleepeth not, neither does it slumber; and unless you heed us this time, and attend to our request, it will overtake you at an hour when you do not expect, and at a day when you do not look for it; and for you there shall be no escape; for there is but one decree for you, which is depart, depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you.
The letter — later known as the "Danite Manifesto" — displayed the signatures of eighty-three Mormons, including that of Joseph Smith's brother, and fellow member of the First Presidency, Hyrum. Robinson later said that all of the signers were Danites.
The letter had the desired effect and the few named dissenters quickly fled the county, relocating to Liberty and Richmond in neighboring Clay and Ray counties. Despite the harsh treatment of the few vocal dissidents, a dozen others were permitted to peacefully remain in the community. One of the expelled dissenters, John Whitmer, said that they had been "driven from their homes" and robbed "of all their goods save clothing & bedding &c." Reed Peck agreed, asserting that "the claims by which this property was taken from these men were unjust and perhaps without foundation cannot be doubted by any unprejudiced person acquainted with all parties and circumstances."
Expanding role
The Danites' role shifted from internal enforcement to external defense when the non-Mormon Missourian majority asked the Mormons to leave, at first making a request without threat of force. In coming months, hostilities between Mormons and Missourians would grow to the point that the Missouri State Militia drove most of the Mormons out of Missouri. Governor Lilburn Boggs issued Missouri Executive Order 44 on October 27, 1838, which expelled the Mormons from Missouri.
However, conflict developed between Smith and the Danites' leader, Sampson Avard. In Smith's account, Avard, while a new member to the Church, formed a "secret combination", an allusion to a nefarious society as discussed in the Book of Mormon. Smith further stated that Avard's pride and zeal prompted him to organize the group contrary to the will of Smith and the other leaders of the Church. According to this view, Avard illegitimately claimed to be the Lord's agent, and according to a quote Smith attributed to Avard, he wanted to profit from vigilantism by taking "spoils of the goods of ungodly Gentiles [non-Mormons]."
Joseph Smith soon took action against Avard in the name of the church, removing him from all military duties and establishing him as a surgeon to help with the wounded; Avard mentions this demotion himself. Avard was eventually excommunicated. Smith's History of the Church states: "When a knowledge of Avard's rascality came to the Presidency of the Church, he was cut off from the Church, and every means proper used to destroy his influence, at which he was highly incensed and went about whispering his evil insinuations, but finding every effort unavailing, he again turned conspirator, and sought to make friends with the mob."
With the opposition leaders ousted and the hostilities increasing, the Danite group took on three additional primary functions, (1) enforcement of the Law of Consecration, (2) political activities, and (3) militia activities.
Enforcers
The law of consecration was a commandment given to the church to establish a kind of communitarian program whereby the saints were to give or "consecrate all their money and property to the Church" and lease it back, so that the church could purchase lands for settlement by the destitute converts continually pouring into northwestern Missouri. Corrill recalled that "shortly after the Danites became organized, they set out to enforce the Law of Consecration, but this did not amount to much".
Political activities
In the realm of politics, the Danites were called upon to distribute tickets containing the names of candidates approved by the Presidency for the election which was held on August 6. Church leader John Corrill was the approved candidate and consequently won election to the Missouri House of Representatives, but he conceded, "Many saw that it was taking unfair advantage of the election and were extremely dissatisfied". Except for 15 or 20 votes, the election was nearly unanimous.
A second outpost of Danites had been organized in Daviess County under the leadership of Lyman Wight, who was also a colonel in the state militia. The Danites in Daviess County took part in the Gallatin Election Day Battle, when a group of non-Mormons attempted to prevent any Mormons from voting.
Militia
Danite activity eventually progressed from political action to military action. On July 4, 1838, the Latter Day Saints in Far West held a large Independence Day celebration. As part of the celebration, a military review was held in which both the Mormons of the legal Caldwell County militia (led by Colonel George M. Hinkle), and the Danites (led by Jared Carter, Sampson Avard and Cornelius P. Lott) paraded. The keynote address came from church spokesman, Sidney Rigdon, who gave an oration, sometimes referred to as the Mormons' "Declaration of Independence" from the "persecution of mobs." In it, Rigdon announced:
And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination; for we will follow them until the last drop of their blood is spilled; or else they will have to exterminate us, for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed..."
Although the First Presidency was generally pleased with the speech and had copies printed and distributed, Brigham Young later recalled that it was "the prime cause of our troubles in Missouri.
Daviess Expedition
The new policy of an "aggressive defense against mobs" was put into practice in Daviess County when a group of non-Mormon vigilantes, primarily from Clinton and Platte counties, began to harass Mormons in outlying areas. The vigilantes hoped to drive the Mormons from the county through a policy of intimidation, the burning of isolated homes, and the plundering of property. Seeing the mob violence as a repeat of the nightmares they went through in Independence, Missouri a half-dozen years earlier, the Latter Day Saints requested assistance from state authorities, with little success. On October 18, Joseph Smith called for the assistance of all men who could participate; elements of the Caldwell militia, as well as some of the Danites and their secret oaths of vengeance, gathered at Adam-ondi-Ahman, the Saints' headquarters in Daviess County. From there, Apostle David W. Patten led raiding parties against the settlements of Gallatin, Millport, and Grindstone Forks. The cannon with which the mob had promised to attack Far West was found buried in the ground, and the towns were basically deserted; remaining non-Mormons were expelled, and some stores and homes were burned. Additionally, the property left by the fleeing mobs was "consecrated" by the raiding parties and brought back to the bishop's storehouse in Adam-ondi-Ahman. These actions caused Apostles Thomas B. Marsh and Orson Hyde to dissent after this incident. They traveled to Richmond and swore out an affidavit concerning the existence of the Danites, and of a "destroying company" that had been set up with instructions to burn Richmond and Liberty.
Battle of Crooked River
1838 saw an escalation in tensions between the members of the Latter Day Saint church and their neighbors in northwestern Missouri. Ray County was located immediately south of the Mormon Caldwell County. The two counties were separated by a so called 'no man's land' measuring six miles by one mile, known as "Bunkham's Strip" or "Buncombe Strip." This unincorporated strip was attached to Ray County for administrative and military purposes. The citizens of Ray County and their neighbors to the west in Clay County, first began to have concerns about the Mormons to the north when a group of "dissenters" from the church were expelled from Caldwell County. These dissenters, including David Whitmer, W.W. Phelps, John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery had been the leaders of the Latter Day Saint church in Missouri. They relocated their families to Richmond and Liberty, the county seats of Ray and Clay, respectively, and said that their lives had been threatened and their property had been stolen by the Mormons.
Conflicts between the Mormons and non-Mormons in Carroll County and Daviess County throughout the summer put settlers in the more settled counties of Ray and Clay increasingly on edge. This unease reached a bursting point when further dissenters, Thomas B. Marsh and Orson Hyde of the Mormon Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, arrived in Richmond and reported that the Mormons had invaded Daviess County and sacked the county seat of Gallatin. They also charged that a Mormon group known as the Danites planned to burn Richmond and Liberty to the ground. This testimony sent the worried citizens into a near frenzy. Women, children and property were ferried across the Missouri River for protection against an imminent Mormon invasion, and the state militia was put on alert.
Lead-up to the battle
General David Rice Atchison, of Clay County, commander of the state militia in northwestern Missouri ordered a company led by Captain Samuel Bogart of Clay County to patrol Bunkham's strip to "prevent, if possible, any invasion of Ray county by persons in arms whatever". Bogart was not necessarily the best man for the job. According to Peter Burnett, a resident of Liberty, "Captain Bogart was not a very discreet man, and his men were of much the same character." Bogart had previously participated in a vigilante group that harried the Mormons in Carroll County.
Bogart quickly exceeded his orders. He and his men began visiting the homes of Latter Day Saints living in Bunkham's Strip, forcibly disarming them and ordering them to leave Ray County. Bogart then apparently penetrated into Caldwell County and began to similarly harass Mormons there, advising them to remove to Far West, the county seat. Returning to Ray County, his men captured three Mormons — Nathan Pinkham, Jr., William Seely, and Addison Green — who may have been acting as scouts against a potential invasion from Ray County.
Exaggerated reports quickly made it to Far West to the effect that a "mob" had captured and intended to execute a group of Mormon prisoners. The Mormons immediately assembled an armed rescue party. Although Colonel George M. Hinkle, head of the official Caldwell County militia was available, Joseph Smith placed Apostle David W. Patten in charge of the force. Patten, who had come to be known as "Captain Fear-not", for his part in the attacks in Daviess County, was apparently a leader in the Danite organization, and the choice of him over Hinkle may indicate the rescue was planned as an unofficial excursion. The Mormon force quickly moved south along the main road connecting Far West and Richmond.
The battle
On the night of October 24, 1838, Captain Bogart's unit had camped along the banks of Crooked River in Bunkham's Strip. Patten and the Mormon rescue company approached from the north along the main road. At daybreak on the 25th, the Mormons encountered the militia's sentries. A brief firefight ensued with each side testifying that the other had fired first. One of the sentries, John Lockhart, shot Patrick Obanion, the Mormons' scout. Obanion later died from this wound. Lockhart and the other guards then fled down the hill to the militia camp which took up a defensive position.
The Mormon company approached the camp of the Ray militia and formed a battle line in three columns, led by David W. Patten, Charles C. Rich, and Patrick Durfee. Rich later recalled that soon after the Mormons had formed their lines, the militia "fired upon us with all their guns." A general firefight commenced, but the militia were situated behind the riverbank and held the strategically superior position. Patten decided to charge the militia position, shouting the Mormon battle cry of "God and Liberty!" The Missourians were without swords and so broke their lines and fled across the river in all directions. During the retreat, the Mormons continued to fire and one of the militiamen, Moses Rowland, was killed.
During his charge, however, Patten was shot and mortally wounded. Ebenezer Robinson recalled that Patten had been "brave to a fault, so much so that he was styled and called 'Captain Fearnought'." Although it was not immediately realized, Gideon Carter had also been killed, making three Mormon fatalities and one militiaman fatality. The Mormons collected their wounded as well as the baggage Bogart's unit had left in the camp and made their way back to Far West.
Aftermath
Although the battle resulted in only four fatalities, the effect was a massive escalation of the Missouri Mormon War. Exaggerated reports (some saying that half of Bogart's men had been lost) made their way to Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs who responded by issuing Missouri Executive Order 44, known as the "Extermination Order," which stated that "[t]he Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state." Boggs called out 2,500 state militiamen to put down what he perceived to be open rebellion by the Mormons. In the end, the leaders of the church were captured and the bulk of the membership were forced to leave the state.
Thousands of Latter Day Saints had flowed into Missouri in just a few years; they were against slavery and voted as a bloc. This led to the unease and the mob action against the Saints; Sidney Rigdon fueled the fire with his July 4 speech. The Missouri state officials considered the Mormons to be the aggressors in the war, and after the destitute saints were forced to flee to Illinois, their homes in Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman were occupied by the mob. A large number of church leaders, including Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and George W. Robinson were charged with many crimes including treason. It was during a preliminary hearing that Smith and the other defendants learned that Danite leader Sampson Avard had testified against them. As a result of the testimony, Judge Austin A. King of the Fifth Circuit of Missouri ruled that there was sufficient evidence to hold Smith, Rigdon and other leaders for trial; nevertheless, they waited for over six months in Liberty Jail for their trial. Despairing of ever being allowed to come to trial, Smith and the others escaped from the prison, and soon made their way to join the Latter Day Saints in Quincy, Illinois.
Number of Danites
The two primary and opposing views concerning the extent of the Danite organization are represented by authors D. Michael Quinn and Alexander L. Baugh.
The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University has highly criticized the first position posited by researcher Quinn for its reliance on arguably unreliable sources. Quinn follows the affidavit of self-professed Danite John N. Sapp, who stated on September 4, 1838, that the number of Danites was "betwixt eight and ten hundred men, well armed and equipped...." He also credits the testimony of another Danite, Anson Call, who said that "the whole of the Military Force" at Far West belonged to the Danite organization. Based on these and other statements, Quinn concludes that nearly the entire fighting force of some 900 Mormon men in Caldwell and Daviess counties had become Danites, and that by end of summer 1838, to be a member in full standing a Mormon must also have been a Danite.
In a second position, Baugh disagrees and argues with Quinn that the Danites were always "a select group." He finds the testimony of John Corrill, who gave the total number of Danites at 300, more reliable than that of Sapp or Call.
Joseph Smith's involvement
According to an essay on the website of the LDS Church, "Historians generally concur that Joseph Smith approved of the Danites but that he probably was not briefed on all their plans and likely did not sanction the full range of their activities." Establishing the true leadership of an organization that self-identifies as secret and unofficial is problematic and has made establishing an accurate history surrounding the Danites difficult. While there are some primary accounts of the Danites and their activities, scholars of LDS church history largely hold that these sources are partisan (and quite often contradictory), with nearly all reports coming from disaffected Mormons such as Sampson Avard (ex-Mormon and former Danite with a well-documented vendetta against Smith and the church), John D. Lee (ex-Mormon who publicly said he had been scapegoated by the church), Fanny Stenhouse (an ex-Mormon who co-authored with her husband a series of exposés on Mormonism), and Ann Eliza Young (the ex-wife of Brigham Young and vocal opponent of the church). Certainly, the existence of the Danite band during the conflict known as the 1838 Mormon War is well established.
Joseph Smith never identified himself as a Danite. However, in 1834, Smith was elected as commander-in-chief of the Armies of Israel by the Kirtland high council. Though the Danite band self-identified as unofficial, there is confusion and controversy surrounding the independence of the Danite organization since its constitution states, "All officers shall be subject to the commands of the Captain General, given through the Secretary of War". Smith had the title of Secretary of War during the three years prior to the year in which it is widely believed the Danites were first organized. However, Smith did not attest to any affiliation with the Danite band, and none of the close contemporaries of Smith alleged otherwise.
In fact, despite likely originally approving of the Danites, Smith wrote of the actions of the Danites largely with disapproval and on more than one occasion. However, in speaking on dissenting Mormons, Smith wrote in his Scriptory Book that after Sidney Rigdon spoke on the subject of "dissenters," they (according to Smith) "took warning, and Soon they were Seen bounding over the prairie like the Scape Goat to carry of[f] their own Sins we have not Seen them Since, their influence is gone, and they are in a miserable condition. So also it with all who turn from the truth to Lying Cheating defrauding & Swindeling." It has been alleged by some historians that these comments evidenced Smith's approval of the Danites' actions.
Further, LDS Church leader Sidney Rigdon expressed disapproval of Danites, although he asserted his belief that the Mormons were within their rights to forcibly expel dissenters from their midst, saying that: "When a country, or body of people have individuals among them with whom they do not wish to associate and a public expression is taken against their remaining among them and such individuals do not remove it is the principle of republicanism itself that gives that community a right to expel them forcibly and no law will prevent it." Again, like the statements made by Smith, that such statements made by Rigdon could be said to be made in reference to the Danites is only suggestive.
There is one statement made by Joseph Smith which endorsed the Danite band, apparently near its inception. In his journal, Smith wrote: "Thus far, according to the order of the Danites. We have a company of Danites in these times, to put to right physically that which is not right, and to cleanse the Church of every great evil which has hitherto existed among us inasmuch as they cannot be put to right by teachings and persuasyons. This company or a part of them exhibited on the fourth day of July [—] They come up to consecrate, by companies of tens, commanded by their captains over ten."
Nonetheless, over time, as the prominence and violence of the group grew, Smith condemned the group, referring to them as "evil" in nature and a "secret combination" (a negative term in LDS Church usage). Since these condemnations largely appeared after Smith and the Church had been charged with treason in fall of 1838, and after Smith and the Church leaders became concerned with the actions of alleged rogue groups and their potential negative effect on the Mormon community at large, it is unclear whether they reflected philosophical or political positions of the moment.
Smith and the Church leaders eventually were forced to publicly excommunicate the Danite leader, Sampson Avard.
Hyrum Smith
Hyrum Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, was a member of the First Presidency of the church at the time that his signature appeared on the document known as the "Danite Manifesto." There has been dispute about if he in fact signed the document, or if instead others used his name because of his prominent position in the church.
Sampson Avard
Sampson Avard became the lead witness for the prosecution in a trial of Joseph Smith and other church leaders. As Avard was well known as the leader of the Danites, his role as a witness was a surprise to both the church and Missourians. Avard testified that he considered "Joseph Smith, as the prime mover and organizer of the Danite band."
Avard went on to implicate Smith as the overall commander of the Daviess Expedition and other Danite vigilante activities. He included a recitation of a Danite Constitution with eight articles, specifying that the "executive power" of the Danite society would be "vested in the president of the whole church." However, Moses Clawson, John Corrill, Reed Peck, and others (all well-known Danites) all named Avard as the head of the organization and not Smith. George M. Hinkle testified under oath that Joseph and Hyrum Smith never commanded any Danites in the field. Statements from known associates of Avard, including Ebenezer Robinson, Morris Phelps, and John D. Lee, place Smith in a more commanding role. Several scholars have pointed to evidence which suggests that, to avoid prosecution, Avard may have promised prosecutors that he and his associates (i.e., Robinson, Phelps, and Lee) would implicate Smith in the Danite organization.
It is clear that Smith was aware of the existence of the Danites and, at least initially, approved of certain Danite activities, Smith's role in the creation of the Danites and especially his involvement in its later activities (particularly actions of escalating violence) remain unclear. After Avard's excommunication and disaffection from the Latter Day Saint community, Smith continued to publicly condemn both Avard individually and the Danite organization as a whole. No known documents show that the Danite band operated at any time during its history under official Latter Day Saint sanction, nor that the Danite band existed after Avard's excommunication and after 1838.
Allegations in Utah
Historian Leland Gentry asserts that after Sampson Avard was captured in November 1838, the Danite movement "died a quick death." Gentry cites numerous evidences supporting this position in his book, "The Danite Band of 1838." Nevertheless, after the Mormons settled in Nauvoo, Illinois and later in Utah, they were dogged by rumors the Danites continued to exercise influence within the Mormon community.
These beliefs were fueled by the fact that many former Danites occupied prominent paramilitary or law enforcement roles in the new settlements. For example, alleged former Danite Hosea Stout became the chief of police in Nauvoo. Then, after Joseph Smith was assassinated in 1844, Brigham Young made Stout head of the "Whistling and Whittling Brigade" – a group of young boys who intimidated strangers by following them around Nauvoo "whistling" until they left. Another reported former Danite, Orrin Porter Rockwell, became a body guard to Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and later to Brigham Young. Disaffected and dissenting ex-Mormon, Ann Eliza Young, stated that Rockwell gained fame as one of Young's "Destroying Angels".
Despite the presence of purported former Danites within the LDS Church, there is no evidence they continued to exist as an organized body after 1838, or that they participated in any actions against dissenting and former Mormons in Utah. For instance, while former Danite John D. Lee's lengthy confessional describes the operations of the Danites in Missouri, he makes no indication to the continued existence of the organization after the Mormons left the state.
When the expedition of Lt. John W. Gunnison was killed by Indians in 1853, some said that the Danites had a hand in the affair. However, these claims were refuted by an official investigation led by Gunnison's second in command. Similar reports circulated when Indians killed territorial official Almon W. Babbitt on the plains in 1856, though there is no evidence supporting this allegation.
In the 1870s, Ann Eliza Young and Fanny Stenhouse (both former Mormons) authored exposés of Mormonism. Young and Stenhouse stated that the Danites were active, and primarily occupied with the task of discreetly murdering and disposing of Mormon dissenters and outsiders perceived to be a threat to Brigham Young's power.
Brigham Young
Brigham Young denied that the Danites continued to exist. However, on July 5, 1857, just before the start of the Utah War, Young used language similar to the fiery sermons that preceded the 1838 Mormon War. In the address Young demanded military action against former Mormon persecutors, mobocrats, and the "priests, editors, and politicians" who were then denouncing the Mormons. Young declared that if these provocateurs came to the Utah Territory, the Mormons would "deal" with them. He stated that anyone who entered the territory and didn't "behave themselves," including any Mormon who "unlawfully disturbs anyone," would "find a 'Vigilance Committee.'" This was most likely a reference to the famous San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856, an organization that one writer called "the largest and most influential vigilante group in American history." Young also declared that any such men would find "not only the Danites, whom they talk so much about, biting the horses (sic) heels, but the scoundrels will find something biting 'their' heels."
Otherwise, Young persistently denied the existence of Danitism in Utah. For instance, in June 1857, he said in a public address: "[people claim that the Danites] are in every town and city throughout the whole of the United States, and that their object is not known by the people. That they are all over the world; that there are thousands of them, and that the life of every officer that comes here is in the hands of the Danites. That even the President of the United States is not safe, for at one wink from Brigham the Danites will be upon him and kill him...It is all a pack of nonsense, the whole of it."
Later, in September 1857, Young said in a private meeting of the church leadership,: "the world accuse !(sic) me of controlling the affairs of Calafornia (sic) & kansas (sic) &c. The people do believe that we have a Band Called the Danites but how Could they exist so long without shedding Blood? For we Cannot find that they have killed any body. But I do not know of any such men."
A decade later, Brigham Young again denied the existence of violence by Danites. On April 7, 1867, he stated:
Is there war in our religion? No; neither war nor bloodshed. Yet our enemies cry out "bloodshed", and "oh, what dreadful men these Mormons are, and those Danites! how they slay and kill!" Such is all nonsense and folly in the extreme. The wicked slay the wicked, and they will lay it on the Saints.
Historian Leonard Arrington attributes the stories of Danites in Utah to overzealous descriptions of the "Minute Men," a law enforcement organization created by Brigham Young to pursue marauding Indians and white criminals. Arthur Conan Doyle and other authors had also popularized the idea of blood-thirsty Danites riding rough-shod through Utah in various fictional works. At the same time, there is evidence that, purportedly in order to deter and punish crime in Utah Territory, Brigham Young occasionally authorized local church leaders to engage in vigilante actions on an ad hoc basis. For instance, in early 1857, Young ordered local authorities to monitor two recently released convicts who were on the trail to California. If they were caught stealing livestock along the way, he authorized their summary execution. Historian Ardis Parshall believes that this led to an attack on an unrelated party which wounded several individuals in a case of mistaken identity. Indeed, in the same sermon where he spoke of the Danites and Vigilance Committees in 1857, Young also stated: "There have been men here who have had their plans to arrange for robbing; and I will take the liberty to say that, when we find them, 'judgement will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.' Those are my feelings, and I express them plainly, that the good and honest may be able to pass from the Eastern States to California, and back and forth, in peace...I want the people in the States to know that there are a few poor curses here, and to know that we do not want gangs of highwaymen here. And I say to such characters...we will send you home quick, whenever we can catch and convict you."
These vigilante actions may have also been a source for the continued Danite myth.
Depictions in popular culture
Beginning in the 19th century, a number of authors, including the notable British fiction writers Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson, make references to "Danites" as a shadowy, secret group who terrorized the early LDS Church settlements in Utah. These references usually appear in popular fiction or works critical of the LDS Church, and rumors of Danites practicing some form of blood atonement often play a significant role in these accounts.
Washington Bailey, in his memoir, "A Trip To California In 1853", reported local rumor that Brigham Young's "Destroying Angels" were conducting raids on wagon trains near Salt Lake City and blaming it on Indians. However he was not an eyewitness to these events.
Lavinia Honeyman Porter, in her memoir "By Ox Team to California: A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860" also reported rumors of raiding Mormons near Salt Lake City, but did not mention the raiding group by name, and herself passed safely through Salt Lake City and conducted trade and social visits with Mormons.
Danites feature prominently in Story of the Destroying Angel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Stevenson, part of the collection The Dynamiter. Danites are represented as a world-wide secret organization of spies and assassins, dedicated to enforcing the edicts of Brigham Young. They are described as the force that makes Utah a "strong prison [...] who can escape the watch of that unsleeping eye of Utah?" They are described as bloodthirsty murderers, planning the "massacre of sixty German immigrants" and with the ability of making dissenters disappear without a trace.
A particularly well-known example is Arthur Conan Doyle's fictionalization of the Danites in A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel, published in 1887. In the story, the Danites constitute a brutal group of enforcing vigilantes operating under the direction of Brigham Young—and more particularly the fictional Sacred Council of Four, silencing criticism and questioning, and preventing dissenters from leaving the Salt Lake Valley. Doyle's embellishment of the folklore surrounding the original Missouri band transplanted to a romantic wild west setting, the established criminal notoriety of Rockwell, and rumors of Young's Avenging Angels made acceptance of the "authoritative" Sherlock story a simple matter for English readers. However, after a visit to Utah in 1923, Doyle is reported to have said "...he had been misled by writings of the time about the church." In 1991, Doyle's daughter stated that "Father would be the first to admit that his first Sherlock Holmes novel was full of errors about the Mormons."
Sally Denton, in her 2003 history of the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre, American Massacre, claims that the Danites and blood atonement had a prominent role in 19th century Utah society. Denton attributes the creation of the Danites to Joseph Smith as his "secret group of loyalists" and suggests that they became "one of the most legendarily feared bands in frontier America." According to Denton, this "consecrated, clandestine unit of divinely inspired assassins" introduced "the ritualized form of murder called blood atonement--providing the victim with eternal salvation by slitting his throat." Denton said that "blood atonement" was one of the doctrines which Mormons held "most sacred" and that "[t]hose who dared to flee Zion were hunted down and killed." Denton implies that large numbers of such "atonements" occurred during the Mormon reformation of 1856, although "none of the crimes were ever reported in the Deseret News", and that the "bloody regime…ended with [Jedediah] Grant's sudden death, on December 1, 1856."
A major plot sequence of L. E. Modesitt Jr.'s 2009 science fiction novel Haze imagines a far future conspiracy of so-called "Danites" in the Utah city of St. George.
Thriller writer Steve Berry incorporates Danite and blood atonement lore in a contemporary setting in his 2014 novel The Lincoln Myth.
See also
Elias Higbee
Latter Day Saints in popular culture
Mormonism and violence
References
Sources
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Further reading
1838 establishments in Missouri
1838 Mormon War
History of the Latter Day Saint movement
Latter Day Saint terms
Religious organizations established in 1838
Secret societies in the United States
Utah War
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%20Fenice
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La Fenice
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Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – were performed.
Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of three theatres to fire, the first in 1774 after the city's leading house was destroyed and rebuilt but not opened until 1792; the second fire came in 1836, but rebuilding was completed within a year. The third fire was the result of arson, and destroyed the house in 1996 leaving only the exterior walls; it was rebuilt and re-opened in November 2004. In order to celebrate this event, the tradition of the Venice New Year's Concert started.
History
Seven old theaters were active in Venice at the end of the eighteenth century, two for the production of plays and the others for music. The grandest of these was the Teatro San Benedetto, which stood on the site currently occupied by the Rossini cinema. Built by the Grimani family in 1755, it was subsequently assigned to the Nobile Società di Palchettisti (Noble Association of Box-holders). However, following a judicial ruling in 1787, this association was expelled and forced to give up the opera house to the noble Venier family, the owners of the land on which it was built.
The association immediately proposed building a larger and more sumptuous opera house than the one it had lost, which would become the symbol of their changing fortunes and their capacity for ′rebirth′. It was therefore to be called La Fenice, like the mythical, immortal bird able to rise out of its own ashes, to symbolise the association's splendid rebirth after its misfortunes.
The piece of land between Contrada Santa Maria Zobenigo and Contrada Sant'Angelo was bought for the purpose in 1790 and the private houses on it were demolished. A competition was then announced for the design of the opera house, and the committee of experts selected the work of the architect Giannantonio Selva from the 29 plans submitted.
Work began in 1791 and was completed just 18 months later, in April 1792.
La Fenice immediately made its mark as one of the leading opera houses, noted in Italy and Europe both for the high artistic quality of its work and the splendour of its building. But, almost as if the name were the bearer of bad omens, on the night of 13 December 1836 the opera house was devastated by a first fire caused by a recently installed Austrian heater. The newspapers said it took three days and three nights to put out the fire and that various hotspots were still smouldering among the debris 18 days later. The flames entirely destroyed the house, and only the foyer and the Sale Apollinee were saved.
The association decided to proceed with its immediate reconstruction. It appointed the architect Giambattista Meduna and his engineer brother Tommaso to carry out the work, while Tranquillo Orsi was responsible for the decorations. The work began in February 1837 and performances were temporarily staged in the Teatro Apollo (previously the San Luca, now Goldoni).
Everything was completed in record time. By the evening of 26 December of the same year, the new opera house, reborn in the new artistic style of the age, was opened to the public. The speed of the work, however, led to urgent restoration works to the framework being required as early as 1854 and, again under the direction of Giambattista Meduna, the house was redecorated in a style that remained unchanged until 1996.
On 23 July 1935 the box-holder owners ceded their share in the opera house to the Comune di Venezia, so it went from private to public ownership, and in 1937-8 part of building was subject to further major restorations and alterations by engineer Eugenio Miozzi.
On the night of 29 January 1996, during a period of closure for restoration works, a second fire – as the Myth said – this time arson, completely destroyed the house and most of the Sale Apollinee. Once again La Fenice rose again, faithfully reconstructed to a plan by the architect Aldo Rossi, and was reopened on 14 December 2003.
First theatre
In 1774, the Teatro San Benedetto, which had been Venice's leading opera house for more than forty years, burned to the ground. By 1789, with interest from a number of wealthy opera lovers who wanted a spectacular new house, "a carefully defined competition" was organised to find a suitable architect. It was won by Gianantonio Selva who proposed a neoclassical style building with 170 identical boxes in tiers in a traditional horseshoe shaped auditorium, which had been the favoured style since it was introduced as early as 1642 in Venice. The house would face on one side a campo, or small plaza, and on the other a canal, with an entrance which gave direct access backstage and into the theatre.
However, the process was not without controversy especially in regard to the aesthetics of the building. Some thirty responses were received and, as Romanelli accounts, Selva's was designated as the design to be constructed, the actual award for best design went to his chief rival, Pietro Bianchi. However, Selva's design and finished opera house appears to have been of high quality and the one best suited to the limitations of the physical space it was obliged to inhabit.
Construction began in June 1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was completed. It was named "La Fenice", in reference to the company's survival, first of the fire, then of the loss of its former quarters. La Fenice was inaugurated on 16 May 1792, with an opera by Giovanni Paisiello entitled I giuochi d'Agrigento set to a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.
But no sooner had the opera house been rebuilt than a legal dispute broke out between the company managing it and the owners, the Venier family. The issue was decided in favor of the Veniers.
At the beginning of the 19th century, La Fenice acquired a European reputation. Rossini mounted two major productions there: Tancredi in 1813 and Semiramide in 1823. Two of Bellini's operas were given their premieres there: I Capuleti e i Montecchi in March 1830 and Beatrice di Tenda in March 1833. Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs at La Scala in Milan and at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, returned to Venice in 1836 with his Belisario, after an absence of seventeen years.
Second theatre
In December 1836, disaster struck again when the theatre was destroyed by fire. However, it was quickly rebuilt with a design provided by the architect-engineer team of the brothers Tommaso and . The interior displays a late-Empire luxury of gilt decorations, plushy extravagance and stucco. La Fenice once again rose from its ashes to open its doors on the evening of 26 December 1837.
Giuseppe Verdi's association with La Fenice began in 1844, with the premiere performance of Ernani during the carnival season. Over the next 13 years, the premieres of Attila, Rigoletto, La traviata, and Simon Boccanegra took place there.
During the First World War, La Fenice was closed, but it reopened to become the scene of much activity, attracting many of the world's greatest singers and conductors. In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono, and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice.
On 29 January 1996, La Fenice was completely destroyed by fire. Only its acoustics were preserved, since Lamberto Tronchin, an Italian acoustician, had measured the acoustics two months earlier.
Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians, Enrico Carella and his cousin Massimiliano Marchetti, guilty of setting the fire. They appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work in which they were engaged. Carella, the company's owner, disappeared after a final appeal was turned down. He had been sentenced to seven years in prison. Marchetti surrendered and served a six-year sentence. Ultimately, Carella was arrested in February 2007 at the Mexico-Belize border, was extradited to Italy, and was released on day parole after serving 16 months.
Present theatre
After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of 200 plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsmen succeeded in recreating the ambiance of the old theatre, at a cost of some €90 million. As Gillian Price notes, "This time round, thanks to an enlightened project by late Italian architect Aldo Rossi and the motto 'how it was, where it was', it has been fitted out with extra rehearsal areas and state-of-the-art stage equipment, while the seating capacity has been increased from 840 to 1000."
La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi who, in order to obtain details of its design, used still photographs from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's film Senso (1954), which had been filmed in the house. La Fenice reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first staged opera was a production of La traviata, in November 2004.
Critical response to the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The music critic of the paper Il Tempo, Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He found the colours a bit bright but the sound good and compact. However, for his colleague Dino Villatico of the La Repubblica, the acoustics of the new hall lacked resonance, and the colours were painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a fake imitation of the past". He said that "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it".
Artistic notes
Façade
Built in 1792 to a plan by the Architect Giannantonio Selva, the façade of the building is the only element to have completely survived the two fires that almost entirely destroyed the opera house in 1836 and 1996.
Unlike the other theaters in the city, whose entrances are in secluded places like alleys and small squares, La Fenice is the only historic Venetian theatre facing onto an open space, Campo San Fantin. It is also the only one to feature a colonnade in neo-classical style in its façade. This bears the theatre's insignia in the centre portraying the phoenix that rises from the flames, carved in 1837 to design by Giambattista Meduna. The façade features two statues in niches representing the muses of tragedy and dance: Melpomene and Terpsichore. Above them are the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, thought to be by Domenico Fadiga.
The first sculptures that adorned the entrance to the opera house, in terracotta and carved in Baroque style, were attributed to either Giuseppe Bernardi or his nephew Giovanni Ferrari, both of whom taught Canova.
They were replaced in 1875 as they were in an advanced state of decay and were in any case thought incompatible, if restored, with the classical style of the façade. The two new statues were made in Custoza stone by Augusto Benvenuti in a new style that better suited the building. All trace of the original sculptures was lost after the theatre management sold them to Benvenuti in 1876.
Two commemorative stelae were placed in the entrance vestibule after the 1837 reconstruction. The one on the right, sculpted in that year by Antonio Giaccarelli to an original design by Giambattista Meduna, is attributed to the architect Giannantonio Selva. The one on the left, in honour of the playwright Carlo Goldoni, is by Luigi Zandomeneghi and was moved from the atrium where it had been dedicated on 26 December 1830. The new sign of the opera house, in gold and blue, again to a design By Meduna, was also placed above the entrance in 1837.
Foyer
Escaping entirely unharmed from the first fire that destroyed the original La Fenice Opera House on the night of December 1836, the entrance, by Selva, was enlarged in 1937 as part of the upgrading works directed by the engineer Eugenio Miozzi.
On that same occasion some walls that divided the right side of the foyer into several spaces were demolished to make this side the mirror image, in shape and decoration, of the left.
A commemorative plaque recording the box-holder owner's transfer of shares to the Comune di Venezia in 1935 was then placed in the right wing.
It was precisely thanks to this work, which also included restoration, that the foyer and the Sale Apollinee on the upper floor managed to partly withstand the collapse of the floor and the wall against the stairs to the boxes following the fire of 29 January 1996. The opera house entrance is therefore the area in which the largest number of original elements of the building survive: part of the decoration and most of the columns, the floor and the access stairs to the boxes.
House
The fire of 1996 completely destroyed the five tiers of boxes, the stage and the ceiling, leaving only the perimeter walls on the original house.
Reconstruction was based on the architect Aldo Rossi's design, keeping to the motto "As it was, where it was," which had been applied to the rebuilding of St Mark's bell Campanile, exactly the same as the original and taking ten years, after it collapsed in 1902. The faithful reconstruction of the house was facilitated by the comprehensive treatise on the reconstruction that had been drawn up by the Meduna brothers after the work carried out following the first fire of 1836. Reconstruction of the decorations in the house, in a Rococo style, was based mainly on consultation of the considerable photographic archive on the opera house held in the theatre's historic archive.
In order to speed up the work, two procedures were adopted.
Reconstruction of the masonry and wooden framing of the building was carried out in the opera house itself by hundreds of workers employed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while the decorative components were constructed at the same time in various external workshops so that these would be ready for application once the structural work was complete.
The same nineteenth-century materials were used: papier-mache, wood, and plaster for all ornamentation of the royal box and the entrance, the 22 Nereids that are part of the cornice of the so-called soffittone (ceiling), and the four putti in the royal box.
The guiding principle was that of recreating the original house, particularly its specific technical solution based mainly on the use of wood, carefully chosen and treated to obtain the best acoustic response. The big soundbox of the wooden house was enclosed in a protective envelope of masonry and reinforced concrete floors.
The only decorative element built at least partly on site was the ceiling, which reproduces the original design, giving the optical illusion of a vaulted ceiling. It features paintings of several female figures, some of whom are carrying musical instruments, and young maidens representing the Graces, Music, Dance and Aurora.
The chandelier is a reproduction of the English original in gilt bronze, commissioned by the Meduna brothers from craftsmen in Liverpool in 1854. The arms of the sconces in the boxes were also made following the model of a single surviving example.
The main theme of the house decorations, dating from 1854, is a reproduction of a forest with acanthus leaves depicted in the papier-mache decorations, subsequently enriched with 23-carat gold leaf worked using the quartz technique and polished with agate.
The paintings outside the boxes have cherubs with musical instruments or in playful mood. The first tier also includes the profiles of classical poets, while the second features six allegories representing History, Poetry, Philosophy, Comedy, Tragedy, and Music.
On the third tier are putti holding tablets engraved with the titles and authors of 14 of the most important operas staged in the house.
A significant innovation in the appearance of the house was made by a radical change of color inside the individual boxes. The original shade of beige has now been replaced by a blue-green pastel color.
The current access to the stalls was designed by the engineer Miozzi in 1937 and decorated at the sides with two plaster caryatids. The house originally had two small entrances in the section now occupied by the first on the right of the current access, which until the second half of the 1930s was taken up by three boxes in the first tier.
The orchestra pit now has a moveable platform. When the pit is not required, the platform can be raised to the level of the stalls, allowing some rows of additional seats to be added to the front, increasing capacity by 104 to 1,126. The moveable platform, which consists of two elements, can also be completely or partially raised to the level of the stage in order to enlarge it.
The curtain was reproduced on the basis of an examination of historic documentation, in dark-green, deep nap, fire-resistant synthetic velvet decorated with 1,100 flowers in gilt leather.
The new stage is accompanied by a second lateral stage onto which the stage equipment now moves sideways for construction and handling of the scenery.
Royal box
The place of honor in the house has a tormented existence, relating not only to the history of the opera house but also to the political and historic events of the city of Venice.
The royal box was not part of Giannantonio Selva's original plan for La Fenice; at the time of its construction the house contained only boxes of the same size.
Venice had lost its independence in May 1797 to the First French Empire, which then handed the city over to the Austro-Hungarian empire for eight years following the Treaty of Campoformio in 1797, and in 1805 Venice once again came under French rule. The first imperial loggia was built only provisionally in 1807 to accommodate the emperor, Napoleon, who was expected in the opera house on Tuesday 1 December 1807 for a performance of the cantata Il Giudizio di Giove by Lauro Corniani Algarotti. Its construction required the demolition of three central boxes in both the second and third tiers.
In 1808 the architect Giannantonio Selva built the definitive model with the assistance of Giuseppe Borsato on the decorations. This was destroyed by the fire that struck La Fenice in December 1836, and was rebuilt along with the rest of the house by the Meduna brothers in 1837, with the assistance of Giuseppe Borsato, who increased the splendor of the decorations.
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Venice once again found itself under Habsburg rule. At the end of March 1848, following insurrectionary uprising and the Republic of Venice's consequent declaration of independence from Austria, the loggia was taken down so that the original tiers of boxes could be reinstated in the so-called "Republican" house. The six boxes that had been in the center of the house until the beginning of the nineteenth century were therefore rebuilt. However, the Imperial Austrian Royal Government then returned, and on 22 August 1849 ordered reconstruction of the loggia in its original form. The decorations were entrusted once again to Giuseppe Borsato who, now over 70, remade them to a richer design than before. This was his last work; his box was presented in January 1850 in the presence of his widow Maria Bonadei Borsato.
The imperial loggia finally became the royal box in 1866 with the Veneto entrance into the Kingdom of Italy.
The symbol of the Italian royal family can still be seen inside the box, reproduced on the side walls. There was a third Savoy shield on the crown of the external cornice, but this was removed after the republican victory in the referendum of 2 June 1946 and replaced with the lion of St Mark, the symbol of Venice.
There are some ivory-painted wooden putti in the corners of the walls on four gilt, wooden candelabra. On the papier mache-decorated wooden ceiling there is a reproduction of the painting Apotheosis of the Sciences and the Arts, originally by the painter Leonardo Gavagnin.
The royal box also offers its guests the use of a private room, which has its own private entrance.
Sale Apollinee
The Sale Apollinee, so named because dedicated to the Greek god Apollo, father of the Muses and patron of the Arts, including music, consists of five rooms whose current layout dates from 1937.
These rooms are now used during the intervals by the audience occupying the first three tiers of boxes and the stalls. The five rooms of the Sale Apollinee were originally used even when there was no show in the opera house; its bar would be open during the day and there was a billiard table in one of the rooms.
On the top of the main door is a symbol of the sun, a tribute to the King of France Louis XIV. The Apollon room was thought of as a ballet room; ballet came to prominence in part because of Louis XIV's interest in it. He performed a series of dances in Ballet Royal de la Nuit, in the final piece as Apollo in a costume with a kilt of golden rays—and thus became known as the Sun King. La Fenice was built in tribute to the god Apollo.
Unlike the house, which was completely destroyed by the enormous fire of 1996, about a fifth of these rooms survived. The surviving fragments can be easily recognized, as the precise intention of the reconstruction work was that it highlight the difference between the historic sections and the recent additions. The original parts of the ceiling cornices and remaining ornamental stuccoes on the walls are darker in color, in testimony of the last fire. The same difference can be seen in the marble frames of some of the doors, repaired with new marble of a different color, and in the new flooring, which merges with the typical Venetian terrazzo that remained in the room dedicated to the famous singer Maria Malibran.
Thanks to these completions, the Sale Apollinee has been rebuilt on the basis of the originals, though a wider range of choice was conceded than in the house, shown by the new upholstery and furnishings in these rooms.
Sala Dante
The main bar is in the Sala Dante, named after the frescoes that once decorated its walls.
This room was inaugurated in 1865 on the occasion of the sixth centenary of the birth of Dante Alighieri. To celebrate the event, the painter Giacomo Casa created a large composition within the decorative ceiling frame, showing Italy in the act of crowning the great poet and six tempera fresco paintings on the walls, with the same number of scenes from the Divine Comedy. Two of these were then replaced in 1867 with others in tempera by Antonio Ermolao Paoletti.
In September 1976 the walls and ceiling of this room, renamed the Sala Guidi, were decorated with works by the Venetian painter Virgilio Guidi, which covered the scenes from Dante. The fire of 1996, however, destroyed these canvases, bringing back to light some fragments of the original decoration by Casa, which have now been completed with a sinopia to assist their reading.
Sala Grande
The Sala Grande or ballroom is he main room of the five Sale Apollinee, lit by the three windows in the middle of the entrance façade.
Used over the years for different purposes, the Sala Grande was an elegant venue for balls, chamber music concerts, conferences or book launches, and (before La Fenice was provided with special rooms for them) rehearsals. It was also used by the governing board in 1935.
Almost completely destroyed on the night of 29 January 1996, the Sala Grande has been faithfully reconstructed to the original model.
The floor, which is above the foyer, collapsed after the fire and only the corners were saved. The current floor has been faithfully rebuilt to the original model and its characteristic floral patterns reproduced, requiring the use of various types of wood: maple, olive, and cherry. The color of the walls is also the same as the original. A gallery runs around the circumference of the upper part of the room, with access from the three doors on the top floor.
New rooms
"As it was, where it was", the motto for reconstruction of La Fenice, called for the opera house to be rebuilt as it was before the 1996 fire.
This principle, however, was seen applying only to the rooms of particular historic and artistic importance.
The opportunity was therefore taken to redesign the parts of the building that did not come into this category, resulting in the creation of three new rooms.
In fiction
Donna Leon's debut novel, Death at La Fenice (1992), the first in her Commissario (Detective) Guido Brunetti detective series, centers on a mystery surrounding the sensational death by cyanide poisoning of a famous orchestra conductor, in the midst of a production of La traviata at La Fenice. In several scenes the opera house is described in meticulous detail, as it was at the time of writing, previous to the third fire.
See also
Berendt, John, The City of Falling Angels, New York: The Penguin Press, 2005 . The book centres on the fire that destroyed La Fenice for the second time and its aftermath.
Opera houses and theatres of Venice
References
Notes
Sources
(1995), Opera Houses of the World, New York: The Vendome Press.
Romanelli, Giandomenico et al (1997), Gran Teatro La Fenice, Cologne: Evergreen.
External links
La Fenice website, teatrolafenice.it
"Two jailed for La Fenice arson" (BBC News)
"Arsonist of La Fenice released after 16 months", Corriere della Sera
"Teatro la Fenice di Venezia: the long (and shamy) story of a reconstruction", veniceword.com
Opera world premieres at La Fenice
Theatres in Venice
Opera houses in Venice
Music venues completed in 1792
Music venues completed in 1837
Music venues completed in 2003
Theatres completed in 1792
Theatres completed in 1837
Theatres completed in 2003
1792 establishments in Europe
18th-century architecture in Italy
1790s establishments in Italy
19th-century architecture in Italy
Rebuilt buildings and structures in Italy
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault%20Mirage%20F1
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Dassault Mirage F1
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The Dassault Mirage F1 is a French fighter and attack aircraft designed and manufactured by Dassault Aviation. It was developed as a successor to the popular Mirage III family.
During the 1960s, Dassault commenced development of what would become the Mirage F1 as a private venture, alongside the larger Mirage F2. Work on the F1 eventually took precedence over the costlier F2, which was cancelled during the late 1960s. The French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) took interest in the fledgling fighter to meet its requirement for an all-weather interceptor aircraft. Accordingly, initial production units were equipped with the Thomson-CSF Cyrano IV monopulse radar. During the latter half of 1974, the Mirage F1 entered service in the French Air Force. Shortly thereafter, the type was deployed as the main interceptor of the French Air Force, a capacity which it continued to serve in until the arrival of the Mirage 2000. It later transitioned to an aerial reconnaissance role. In July 2014, the last French Mirage F1s were retired from service.
Powered by a single SNECMA Atar 9K-50 turbojet engine, which provided about of thrust, and armed with an array of French and American-sourced armaments, the Mirage F1 has been operated as a light multipurpose fighter and has been exported to around a dozen nations. The type has seen action in a large number of armed conflicts involving several of its operators, including the Western Sahara War, the Paquisha War, the Cenepa War, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, the South African Border War, the War in Afghanistan, the Chadian–Libyan conflict, the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and the Northern Mali conflict. Although sources differ, and no official record exists, somewhere in the region of 726 Mirage F1s of all variants and trainers were manufactured during its run between 1966 and 1992. It was succeeded in production by the Dassault Mirage 2000.
Development
The Mirage F1 emerged from a series of design studies performed by French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation. Having originally sought to develop a larger swept wing derivative of the Mirage III, which became the Mirage F2, to serve as a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) propulsion testbed akin to the Dassault Mirage IIIV, however, it was soon recognized that the emerging design could function as the basis for a competent fighter as well. Both the Mirage F2 and a smaller derivative, referred to the Mirage F3, received substantial attention from both Dassault and the French Air Force, the latter being interested in its adoption as a long-range fighter bomber as a stopgap measure prior to the adoption of the envisioned Anglo-French Variable Geometry (AFVG) strike aircraft.
Parallel with the Mirage F3 study, which was intended to serve as an interceptor aircraft, Dassault decided to study a single-seat derivative which featured the all-French SNECMA Atar 9K-50 turbojet engine. As a result of the cancellation of two major projects, the company's design team found themselves with a decreased workload. Accordingly, in mid-1964, Dassault decided to commence design work on the smaller aircraft, subsequently designated as the Mirage F1, with the intention of producing a successor to its Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighters; This work was performed under a government contract in anticipation of a potential French Air Force specification for an all-weather interceptor to succeed its fleet of Mirage IIIC aircraft.
The Mirage F1 was of similar size to the delta-winged Mirage III and Mirage 5, and was powered by the same SNECMA Atar engine as had been used on the larger Dassault Mirage IV; however, unlike its predecessors, it shared the layout of a swept wing mounted high on the fuselage and a conventional tail surface as used by the F2. Although it has a smaller wingspan than the Mirage III, the Mirage F1 nevertheless proved to be superior to its predecessor, carrying more fuel while possessing a shorter take-off run and superior maneuverability.
On 23 December 1966, the first prototype conducted its maiden flight. The first flight had been delayed due to a funding shortage affecting the overall program. During its fourth flight, the prototype was recorded as having attained a top speed in excess of Mach 2. On 18 May 1967, the first prototype was lost in an accident at DGA Essais en vol, Istres; the crash had resulted from a loss of control after encountering flutter, killing its pilot. Despite this misfortune, during late 1966, the Mirage F1 programme was officially adopted by the French Air Force. Following a redesign period, on 20 March 1967, the second prototype performed its first flight.
On 26 May 1967, an order for three Mirage F1 prototypes was placed, while the larger and more expensive Mirage F2 was formally abandoned. These three pre-service aircraft, along with a static structural test airframe, soon joined the test programme. By late 1971, the construction of an initial batch of 85 production standard Mirage F1 had been authorised.
In order to comply with the French Air Force's requirement for an all-weather interceptor, the first production Mirage F1C was equipped with a Thomson-CSF Cyrano IV radar system. The later Cyrano IV-1 version added a limited look-down capability. However, Mirage F1 pilots reported that the radar was prone to overheating, which reduced its efficiency. During May 1973, the first deliveries to the French Air Force took place; the type entered squadron service with EC 2/30 Normandie-Niemen in December of that year.
By October 1971, the Mirage F1 was under production at both Dassault's Bordeaux facility and at SABCA's own plant in Belgium, work at the latter having been performed under an industrial arrangement associated to Belgium's order for 106 Mirage 5 aircraft. The 79 aircraft of the next production run were delivered during the period March 1977 to December 1983. These were of the Mirage F1C-200 version, which featured a fixed refuelling probe, which required an extension of the fuselage by 7 cm.
Design
The Dassault Mirage F1 was a single-engine fighter aircraft, designed to function as both an interceptor aircraft and a ground attack platform. While officially developed for the French Air Force as an air defense aircraft, Dassault had placed considerable emphasis on developing the Mirage F1 for ground attack duties as a secondary role during its early design. Developed by the company to function as a successor to the successful Mirage III and Mirage 5 families, it drew heavily upon its predecessors as well, sharing the same fuselage as the Mirage III, while adopting a considerably different wing configuration.
The Mirage F1 used a shoulder-mounted swept wing, instead of the Delta wing of the Mirage III, which resulted in a more than 50% reduction in required runway lengths and increased internal fuel tankage for 40% greater combat range. The approach speed prior to landing is 25% less than the preceding Mirage IIIE. According to Dassault, the negative performance impact associated with the increased thickness of the Mirage F1's wing over the Mirage III's counterpart had been offset by improvements made to the propulsion system. The wing is fitted with both double-slotted trailing edge flaps and full-span leading edge slats, the latter being automatically operated to reduce the aircraft's turn radius during combat.
A key area of advancement on the Mirage F1 over its predecessors was in its onboard avionics. The Thomson-CSF Cyrano IV monopulse radar system, developed from the Cyrano II unit installed on the Mirage IIIE, serves as the main sensor; it operates in three different modes: air-target acquisition and tracking, ground mapping, and terrain avoidance. The later Cyrano IV-1 model also provided for a limited look-down capability. According to aerospace publication Flight International, the Cyrano IV radar was capable of detecting aerial targets at double the range of earlier models. The standard production Mirage F1 was furnished with an Instrument Landing System (ILS), radar altimeter, UHF/VHF radio sets, Tactical Air Navigation system (TACAN) and a ground data link. Other avionics include an autopilot and yaw damper.
The Mirage F1 was powered by a single SNECMA Atar 9K-50 turbojet engine, which was capable of providing roughly of thrust, giving the aircraft a maximum speed of 1,453 MPH and an altitude ceiling of 65,615 feet. Flight International described the Atar engine as being "unexpectedly simple", despite the adoption of an afterburner. An improved engine, initially known as the Super Atar and later as the Snecma M53, was intended to be eventually adopted on production Mirage F1 aircraft, as well as for successor aircraft.
The initial armament of the Mirage F1 was a pair of internal 30 mm cannons, and a single Matra R530 medium-range air-to-air missile, which was carried under the fuselage. It could carry a total combined payload of 13,889lb of bombs and missiles, all of which would be carried externally. After 1979, the medium-range R530 was replaced by the improved Matra Super 530 F missile as the latter came into service in quantity with the French Air Force. In 1977, the R550 Magic was released, which the Mirage F1 mounted on wingtip rails. Around the same time, the American AIM-9 Sidewinder was also introduced to the Mirage F1's armament; both the Spanish and Hellenic Air Forces had requested the integration of the Sidewinder upon their own Mirage F1CE and Mirage F1CG fighters.
Operational history
France
During 1984, the first operational deployment to be performed by French Air Force Mirage F1s was conducted during Operation Manta, the French intervention in Chad to counteract the growing Libyan encroachment in the region. A force of four Mirage F1C-200s provided air cover for a further group of four Jaguar strike aircraft; they also participated in a number of skirmishes against pro-Libyan Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) rebels.
In 1986, French Mirage F1s were redeployed to Chad as part of Operation Epervier. A flight of four F1C-200s provided fighter cover for a strike package of eight Jaguars during the air raid against the Libyan airbase at Ouadi Doum, on 16 February. A pair of F1CRs also conducted pre and post-strike reconnaissance missions.
In response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, France performed two deployments of Mirage F1s to the Persian Gulf. In October 1990, 12 Mirage F1Cs were dispatched to Doha, Qatar in order to boost air defences, while a further four Mirage F1CRs of ER 33 were deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Daguet in September 1990. To avoid the risk of being mistaken for hostile Iraqi Mirage F1s, all of the French F1CRs were grounded during the first few days of the Allied air attacks, flying their first combat mission on 26 January 1991; an additional reason for their initial grounding was the lack of compatible night vision equipment. They were used in the fighter bomber role, using their more capable navigation systems to lead formations of French Jaguar fighter bombers, as well as to fly reconnaissance missions; in this capacity, 114 sorties had been flown by the end of hostilities. Following the end of the Gulf War, France deployed a number of Mirage F1CRs to bases in neighbouring Turkey as part of Operation Provide Comfort to protect Kurds from Iraqi aggression.
In October 2007, three Mirage 2000s and three Mirage F1s were deployed at Kandahar Air Force Base, where they flew close air support and tactical reconnaissance missions in support of international forces in Southern Afghanistan.
The last French unit to be equipped with the Mirage F1 was the Escadron de Reconnaissance 2/33 Savoie, home-based at Mont-de-Marsan, which flew the latest version of the F1CR. The unit's primary mission was tactical reconnaissance, with a secondary mission of ground-attack; because of the unique missions of the 2/33, their unofficial motto among the pilots had become, "Find; Identify; and Photograph or Destroy." In accordance with a bilateral defense agreement between France and Chad, a pair of 2/33 F1CRs, along with 3 pilots, a photo interpreter, an intelligence officer and ground crews were always deployed to N'Djamena, Chad. The two 2/33 F1CRs operated with three Mirage 2000Ds, also based on rotation from France to Chad.
During March 2011, 2/33 Mirage F1CRs were deployed to Solenzara Air Base, Corsica and conducted reconnaissance missions over Libya (also a Mirage F1 operator) as part of Opération Harmattan. In 2013 2/33 F1CRs also participated in Operation Serval in Mali. On 10 January, launching from their base in N'Djamena in Chad, the first French air intervention mission against Islamist rebels in Mali, was undertaken by F1CRs and Mirage 2000Ds, supported by a French Air Force C-135 tanker. The 2/33 F1CRs provided valuable photo information for strike aircraft flying the next day from France. Later on 16 January, two 2/33 F1CRs, were deployed from Chad to Bamako, Mali. Both aircraft were fitted with extra long range 2,200 liter ventral tanks; and when operating over Mali also carried two 250 kg unguided bombs, plus their internal 30mm cannons, in case they were called on for close air support missions.
In order to replace the elderly F1CRs of ER 2/33, a number of Rafales were outfitted with an advanced reconnaissance pod. The Rafale's range, maneuverability and combat load is far superior to the F1CR that it replaces, as well as its reconnaissance capabilities: after the Rafale's pod has taken photographs, these can be almost instantly transmitted back to its base or where the imagery would be required if provisioned with compatible down link equipment. The French Air Force's last Mirage F1 fighters were retired from operational service on 13 June 2014. The last units in service, these being 11 single-seat Mirage F1CRs and three two-seat F1Bs were transferred to storage; six aircraft performed a final appearance in a flypast during Bastille Day celebrations over Paris prior to their disposal.
Ecuador
Between 1979 and 1980, Ecuador received 16 F1JAs (a variant of the F1E) and a pair of F1JEs. The Ecuadorian Air Force's (FAE) squadron of Mirage F1JAs (Escuadrón de Caza 2112) went into action in January–February 1981 during the brief Paquisha War between Ecuador and Peru, less than two years after the aircraft had been delivered to the FAE. At that time, the Ecuadorians decided against directly challenging the Peruvian Air Force (abbreviated FAP), whose Mirage 5Ps and Sukhoi Su-22 were providing air cover to Peruvian heliborne operations within the combat zone. Instead, the Mirages were kept at a distance, performing combat air patrols (CAPs) on the fringes of the combat area, in case the border clashes escalated into wider hostilities. During one incident, a Peruvian Sukhoi Su-22 was intercepted and a single air-to-air R.550 missile was launched; however, it failed to strike the Peruvian aircraft.
In 1995, during the Cenepa War, the Ecuadorian Mirages went back into action against Peru. This time, while the bulk of the squadron was kept back at Taura AFB, a small detachment of Mirage F1s and Kfir C.2s was deployed to undisclosed forward air bases to dissuade Peruvian attack aircraft from entering the combat zone. By this time, the planes had been upgraded with Israeli electronics and Python Mk.III air-to-air missiles, usually mounted on the outer underwing pylons, and Matra R550 Magic AAMs on wing-tip launch rails.
On 10 February 1995, a pair of Mirage F1JAs, piloted by Maj. Raúl Banderas and Capt. Carlos Uzcátegui, were directed over five targets approaching the combat zone in the Cenepa valley. After making visual contact, the Mirages fired their missiles, claiming two Peruvian Su-22Ms shot down, while a Kfir claimed a further A-37B Dragonfly. Sources in Peru, however, deny the claim that the Sukhois Su-22Ms were shot down by Ecuadorian aircraft, stating that one was shot down by Ecuadorian anti-aircraft artillery fire during a low flying ground-attack mission, while the second was lost because of an engine fire. Banderas served as Commander of the Ecuadorian Air Force between May 2014 and February 2016, while Uzcátegui died in a training accident in 2002 at Salinas air base, in the Santa Elena Province.
In 2011, all of the remaining Ecuadorian Mirage F1s still in service were retired after having flown more than 33,000 flight hours during their 32 years in active service; they were replaced by a squadron of Atlas Cheetah fighters bought from South Africa.
Greece
Greece operated 40 Dassault Mirage F1CG single-seat fighters. The F1CG was first ordered in 1974 and entered service with the Hellenic Air Force in 1975 The aircraft were used by the 334th All-Weather Squadron and the 342nd All-Weather Squadron. Mirage F1CGs were armed with the AIM-9P missile, rather than the more commonly used R.550 Magic, and could carry four AIM-9Ps, rather than just two.
The Hellenic Air Force retired the remaining 27 Mirage F1CGs on 30 June 2003 after 28 years of service and 160,000 flying hours. A number of F1CG aircraft have been preserved, permanently grounded, for display. At least four are preserved in Tanagra Air Base (LGTG) (115, 124, 129 and 140). One more (134) is preserved at the HAF History Department, Delta Falirou.
Iraq
Starting in 1977 and continuing through the 1980s, Iraq placed several orders for Mirage F1s. Although the first version, designated as the Mirage F1EQ, was quite similar to the original French Mirage F1C, those developed subsequently were increasingly modified with custom-tailored equipment (notably in the field of electronic warfare), according to the Iraqis' wishes. During this period, France was a major supplier of military equipment to the nation; in 1983, the former loaned five Super Étendards to Iraq while the latter was awaiting the delivery of the Exocet-capable Mirage F1EQ-5, which wouldn't be available until September 1984. The Super Étendard had been strongly advocated for by Dassault, who had feared the potential cancellation of the sizable Mirage F1 order by Iraq if the request was not granted.
From 1983 onwards, Iraqi Mirage F1s were also used for ground attack. In this role, the Mirage F1 was used to replace Iraq's aging fleet of Hawker Hunters. In September 1985, an agreement was signed between Dassault and Iraq for the delivery of a further 24 aircraft, consisting of 18 Mirage F1EQ-6 fighters and 6 F1BQ trainers.
During the Iran–Iraq War, Iraq's Mirage F1EQs were used intensively for interception, ground attack and anti-shipping missions. The Mirage F1EQ allowed for Iraqi strikes to be conducted over a greater combat radius into Iran than had been previously possible. In November 1981, an Iraqi Mirage F1 accounted for the first Iranian F-14 Tomcat to be shot down, followed by several more in the following months, giving the previously timid Iraqi Air Force new confidence in air-to-air combat engagements with the Iranians. According to research by journalist Tom Cooper, during the war 33 Iraqi Mirage F1s were shot down by Iranian F-14s and two were downed by Iranian F-4 Phantom II units. Iraqi F1EQs claimed at least 35 Iranian aircraft, mostly F-4s and Northrop F-5E Tiger IIs, but also several F-14 Tomcats.
On 14 September 1983, a pair of Turkish Air Force F-100F Super Sabre fighter jets of 182 Filo “Atmaca” penetrated Iraqi airspace. A Mirage F1EQ of the Iraqi Air Force intercepted the flight and fired a Super 530F-1 missile at them. One of the Turkish fighter jets (s/n 56-3903) was shot down and crashed in Zakho valley near the Turkish-Iraqi border. The plane's pilots reportedly survived the crash and were returned to Turkey. The incident was not made public by either side, although some details surfaced in later years. The incident was revealed in 2012 by Turkish Defence Minister İsmet Yılmaz, in response to a parliamentary question by Republican People's Party (CHP) MP Metin Lütfi Baydar in the aftermath of the downing of a Turkish F-4 Phantom II in Syria, in 2012.
On 17 May 1987, an Iraqi Mirage F1 fired a pair of Exocet missiles at the United States Navy (USN) warship USS Stark as it patrolled the Persian Gulf, causing extensive damage to the ship, killing 37 and wounding 21 members of Stark's crew. The exact motive and orders of the pilot remain unclear, although Iraq later apologized for the attack, referring to the incident as "a mistake" and blaming Iran.
Prior to the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War, the Mirage F1EQ was the second most numerous type operated by the Iraqi Air Force (the most numerous being the MiG-21). On 17 January 1991, during the opening minutes of the conflict, an unarmed, United States Air Force (USAF) EF-111, crewed by Captain James A. Denton and Captain Brent D. Brandon scored a kill against an Iraqi Mirage F1EQ, which they managed to maneuver into the ground, making it the only F-111 to achieve an aerial victory over another aircraft. Later in the war, an Iraqi Mirage piloted by Capt. Nafie Al-Jubouri successfully downed an American EF-111 Raven through aerial maneuvering as it crashed while attempting to avoid a missile fired by Al-Jubouri.
Coalition forces shot down several Iraqi F1s during the Gulf War, such as six F1EQs that were shot down by USAF F-15 Eagles. A pair of F1EQs, which were preparing to carry out an attack on Saudi oil facilities were shot down by a Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) F-15C. Of a pre-conflict force of 88 Mirage F1EQs, 23 were destroyed in the war, a further six were damaged, 24 were flown to Iran and interned; only 23 aircraft remained in service by the end of the Gulf War. Of the 23 destroyed Iraqi Mirage F1EQs, 9 were claimed to have been destroyed in aerial combat.
Morocco
In December 1975, Morocco ordered 25 Mirage F1CH interceptors. In March 1977, an additional contract was signed, stipulating the delivery of five additional Mirage F1CHs, as well as 20 Mirage F1EHs (including six aircraft equipped with in-flight refuelling probes). The first deliveries to the Royal Moroccan Air Force (RMAF) took place in 1978. Moroccan Mirage F1s flew with three squadrons: Assad and Atlas, which were multi-role (interceptor and fighter-bomber) units, and Iguider, a specialised reconnaissance squadron. Comprising over a third of its fighter force, the Mirage F1 served as the primary air defence fighter of the RMAF for the next two decades.
Starting in October 1979, these aircraft were engaged in combat missions against the forces of the Polisario Front, operating in Western Sahara. During their early combat operations, Moroccan Mirage F1s used unguided bombs, rockets, and their internal cannons to attack Polisario targets. In November 1979, the first Moroccan Mirage F1 was shot down by a Polisario 9K31 Strela-1, and its pilot was killed. Another one was shot down by an SA-7 on 6 December, and two more followed in February 1980. With the losses to Polisario air defences mounting, Moroccan pilots started using toss bombing tactics to minimize their exposure to air defences, that had meanwhile been reinforced with 2K12 Kub/SA-6 medium-range SAM systems. Using this technique, in early January 1982, Moroccan Mirages even started attacking SA-6 sites. However, the strikes had very poor results, due to the inaccuracy of this technique. Moreover, the soft sand of the Sahara desert caused a lot of bombs to fail to detonate.
To solve these issues, several measures were taken. The Moroccans started using bombs equipped with daisy cutter fuses, and later South African-made Jupiter airburst fuses. Moroccan Mirages also starting operating in hunter-killer teams, with one aircraft fitted with long-range cameras and/or ESM equipment guiding one or two low-flying Mirage F1s to attack the targets it detected. These tactics proved highly successful, and they became the principal way in which Moroccan Mirages operated for the remainder of the war. Moreover, the aircraft were modified with chaff/flare dispensers. Lastly, ECM pods were bought to increase the aircraft's survivability against SA-6s, and the first were delivered in 1983. All this, combined with better training of the Moroccan pilots (including during joint exercises with the French and the Americans), resulted in much improved effectiveness of operations against Polisario forces. In total, over the course of the war in Western Sahara, twelve Mirage F1s were shot down by the POLISARIO. Four pilots were killed, and five were taken prisoner.
On 17 August 2015, a Moroccan Mirage F1 crashed due to a bird strike; its pilot ejected successfully.
South Africa
During 1971, South Africa commenced its search for a replacement for the Mirage III; as a result, it chose to purchase a licence to manufacture both the Mirage F1 and its engine with the intention of producing up to 100 Mirage F1s. However, this license was quickly cancelled as a consequence of the impending 1977 arms embargo. The SAAF proceeded to procure 16 Mirage F1CZs and 32 Mirage F1AZs, which were quickly delivered by Dassault prior to the embargo being implemented, the first of these deliveries occurring in 1975.
Both the F1CZ and F1AZ variants of the South African Air Force (SAAF) saw considerable action during operations in the Border War. In November 1978, the first five F1CZs were deployed to South-West Africa (Namibia), tasked with providing escort for reconnaissance flights over Southern Angola. From 1980, such deployments as escort aircraft became regular. Due to teething problems with the F1AZ, F1CZs were initially assigned the strike role in southern Angola using Matra M155 rocket pods or 250 kg bombs.
F1CZs of 3 Squadron downed two Angolan MiG-21s in 1981 and 1982. On 6 November 1981, during Operation Daisy, two F1CZs were vectored by GCI to intercept two MiG-21s heading south. Major Johan Rankin shot down the wingman with cannon fire, as the missiles failed to lock on to the MiGs. On 5 October 1982, while escorting a Canberra of 12 Squadron on a photo-reconnaissance sortie, Rankin and his wingman engaged two MiG-21s on an intercept course. He fired two Magic AAMs at one of the MiGs, damaging the aircraft with the second missile. Rankin then attacked the second MiG and destroyed it with cannon fire. The first MiG was able to return to base, but sustained additional damage making a belly landing.
In May 1982, an Angolan Mi-8 helicopter that the SADF believed to be carrying senior officers was located and destroyed in the Cuvelai area. The helicopter was located with rotors running on the ground by a pair of F1CZs and destroyed by 30mm cannon fire.
Two F1AZs of 1 Squadron were lost over Angola. On 20 February 1988, while flying an interdiction sortie in F1AZ '245' against a road convoy during Operation Hooper, Major Ed Every was shot down by an SA-13 Gopher SAM. F1AZ '223' was lost almost a month later, on 19 March, when Captain Willie van Coppenhagen flew into the ground while returning from a diversionary strike at night. A SAAF Board of Inquiry was unable to determine the causes of the crash.
Two F1AZs and a F1CZ were also damaged by enemy action, but were able to return to base. On 7 June 1980, while attacking SWAPO's Tobias Haneko Training Camp during Operation Sceptic (Smokeshell), Major Frans Pretorius and Captain IC du Plessis were both hit by SA-3 Goa SAMs. The aircraft piloted by Du Plessis was hit in a fuel line and he had to perform a deadstick landing at AFB Ondangwa. Pretorius's aircraft sustained heavier damage and had to divert to Ruacana forward airstrip, where he landed with only the main undercarriage extended. Both aircraft were repaired and returned to service. During the last phase of the Bush war 683 combat sorties were flown by the F1AZs, and more than 100 SAMs were fired at them.
On 27 September 1987, during Operation Moduler, an attempt was mounted to intercept two Cuban FAR MiG-23MLs. Captain Arthur Piercy's F1CZ was damaged by either an AA-7 Apex or AA-8 Aphid AAM fired head-on by Major Alberto Ley Rivas. The explosion destroyed the aircraft's drag chute and damaged the hydraulics. Piercy was able to recover to AFB Rundu, but the aircraft overshot the runway. The impact with the rough terrain caused Piercy's ejection seat to fire; he failed to separate from the seat and suffered major spinal injuries.
In February 1987, three F1AZs fired several V-3B missiles at a group of MiG-23s without success. This was repeated again in February 1988 when a F1AZ fired a missile at a MiG-23 and fired its 30mm cannon, again without success. Various other unsuccessful attempts were made during the 1987–88 period.
Apart from operations from Namibia in July 1981, a pilot of the Mozambican Air Force defected with his MiG-17. He flew from his base near Maputo towards South Africa. Two F1AZs returning from a training exercise intercepted the MiG-17. In March 1981 two F1AZs intercepted a Zimbabwean Army CASA C-212 and forced it to land in South Africa after asserting that the aircraft had strayed into South African airspace.
The SAAF lost an additional six F1AZs and three F1CZs to various mishaps. F1CZ '205' caught fire after landing and was repaired using the tail section of F1CZ '206' (Piercy's aircraft).
Spain
In June 1975, with tension growing with Morocco, Spain decided to strengthen its Air Force and bought 15 Mirage F1C that were allocated to Albacete AB. In mid-1976 there was still some tension with Morocco and Algerian and Libyan MiG-25 flights on the Mediterranean, which would lead the Spanish Air Force to purchase ten more Mirage F1C and two years later order 48 Mirage F1C and F1E.
Some years later Spain also bought 12 F1EDA/DDA's retired from Qatar Air Force, which donated some equipment and weapons used by those Mirage F1s. In Spanish service the F1CE was known as the C.14A, the F1EE was the C.14B and the two-seater F1EDA as the C.14C.
They served mainly as Spain's primary air defence interceptors and interdiction as secondary role until they were superseded by Spain's EF-18A Hornets. They served with Ala 11 (11th Wing) in Manises (Ex-Qatari planes), Ala 14 in Albacete, and Ala 46 at Gando in the Canary Islands. Ala 46 used their Mirage F1s mainly as air defence planes, using same deep blue color pattern as French planes.
In October 1996, Thomson-CSF was awarded a FFr700 million (US$96m) contract to upgrade 48 F1C/E single-seaters and 4 F1EDA trainers to Mirage F1M standard (see below). Ex-Qatar Mirage F1s were left outside the upgrade, as it was a different version, and were the first ones to be retired. As well as a service-life extension, this improved the avionics and added anti-shipping capability with a modernised Cyrano IVM radar and Exocet compatibility.
From July 2006 to November 2006, Spanish Mirage F1s were deployed to Lithuania as a part of NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission; during this deployment, they were scrambled twice to intercept undisclosed intruders. On 20 January 2009, a pair of Spanish F1s from the 14th Wing crashed near their base during a routine Spanish Air Force dogfight training mission, resulting in the deaths of all three crew members. The wreckage of the two jets, including the remains of the aircrew, was found about apart. By 2009, there were 38 F1M's in service with Escuadrón 141 (141st Squadron) "Patanes" and Escuadrón 142 (142nd Squadron) "Tigres" of Ala 14.
In 2013, the Spanish Air Force retired its fleet of Mirage F1s, having progressively phased the type out of service as increasing numbers of the Eurofighter Typhoon had become available. During 2013, it was reported that Spain may sell sixteen F1M's to Argentina but it seems they now have the budget to buy new Kfirs instead. The deal went through and Argentina bought the Spanish Mirages in October 2013, but the deal was scrapped in March 2014 after pressure from the United Kingdom on Spain to not assist in FAA modernization over tensions between the countries over the Falkland Islands. In November 2017, Draken International announced that it had acquired 22 F1Ms from Spain and would refurbish and upgrade them for use as adversary aircraft.
Libya
Libya procured 16 Mirage F1ED interceptors, 6 F1BD two-seaters, and 16 Mirage F1ADs to equip the Libyan Air Force. The F1AD model is a specialized strike variant that lacks the standard radar unit; it is instead outfitted with a retractable fuel probe mounted on the nose. Four F1ADs were subsequently upgraded into a multirole configuration.
Throughout the day of 18 August 1981, a total of 70 Libyan aircraft, including Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23s, MiG-25s, Sukhoi Su-22s, Su-22Ms and Mirage F1s, approached a US Navy carrier battle group as a show of strength. They were escorted until their withdrawal from its vicinity by McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs and Grumman F-14 Tomcats.
Even though they weren't involved continuously, Libyan Mirage F1s participated in the war in Chad intensively and proved their worth during the Libyan campaigns through the 1980s. From 1981, a detachment was deployed at Marten es-Serra in southern Libya. Both the F1AD and F1ED versions were used in this war. Even though the Mirage F1ED was designed foremost as an interceptor, it was mainly used for ground attack purposes like the F1AD, although some combat air patrols were flown as well. When operating in Chad, the Mirage F1AD's typical combat configuration consisted of a pair of 1.300 litre drop tanks and a pair of Belouga CBUs. Operations were performed almost exclusively during daylight hours and from high altitudes, which resulted in limited effectiveness. Together with Mirage 5s, MiG-23s, and Sukhoi Su-22s, Mirage F1s were instrumental in the success enjoyed during different campaigns against the Chadian troops in the early 1980s: operating over the open and barren desert terrain, they caused heavy damage, for no Mirage F1 losses in exchange.
Both Libyan Mirage F1 squadrons were staffed by some of the best pilots and officers in the Air Force, and the Libyans put extra care in the maintenance of these aircraft. Indeed, US Navy pilots involved in the 1981 encounters with Libyan fighters concluded that the Mirage F1 pilots were markedly superior to those flying Soviet-made aircraft.
The Mirage F1 fleet saw action during the 2011 Libyan Civil War. The Libyan Air Force posed little threat to coalition forces, partially as a result of insufficient equipment and a heavy reliance upon older aircraft acquired from the Soviet Union, but remained effective against poorly armed anti-Gaddafi rebels. On 21 February 2011, a pair of Libyan aircraft landed in Malta after they had been ordered to bomb protesters in Benghazi; both of the pilots claimed political asylum. Following the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the end of the civil war, France and Libya formed an agreement in 2012 to modernise the remaining Mirage F1 fleet, as well as covering the potential purchase of additional Mirage F1s that had been formerly operated by the French Air Force.
Variants
Mirage F1A
Single-seat ground-attack fighter aircraft, with limited daylight-only air-to-air capability. Fitted with lightweight EMD AIDA 2 ranging radar instead of Cyrano IV of other variants, with laser rangefinder under nose, retractible refuelling probe and more fuel.
Mirage F1AD : Mirage F1A for Libya. 16 delivered 1978–1979.
Mirage F1AZ : F1A for South Africa. 32 delivered 1975–1976.
Mirage F1B
The French Air Force also ordered 20 Mirage F1Bs, a two-seat operational conversion trainer; these were delivered between October 1980 and March 1983. The extra seat and controls added only 30 cm (12 in) to the length of the fuselage, but at the cost of less internal fuel capacity and the loss of the internal cannons.
The empty weight increased by 200 kg (440 lb), partly due to the addition of two Martin-Baker Mk 10 zero-zero ejection seats, in place of the Mk 4 used in the F1C, which had a forward speed limitation.
In all other aspects the F1B is a combat-capable aircraft and it can compensate for lost capacity with cannon pods and drop tanks.
Mirage F1BD : Export version of the Mirage F1D for Libya. Six delivered 1978–1979.
Mirage F1BE : Mirage F1B for Spain, local designation CE.14A. Six delivered 1980–1981.
Mirage F1BJ : Mirage F1B for Jordan. Two built.
Mirage F1BK : Export version of the Mirage F1B for Kuwait. Two built.
Mirage F1BK-2 : Multi-role two-seater for Kuwait, equivalent to F1Dl. Four built.
Mirage F1BQ : Two-seat trainer for Iraq, some of which fitted with dummy flight refuelling probe. 18 ordered of which 15 were delivered between 1980 and 1989.
Mirage F1C
Mirage F1C : Production interceptor version for the French Air Force
Mirage F1C-200 : Designation for F1Cs fitted with refuelling probe.
Mirage F1CE : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Spain, with local designation C.14A. 45 purchased in three batches, delivered between 1975 and 1981.
Mirage F1CG : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Greece. 40 built, which were delivered between 1975 and 1978.
Mirage F1CH : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Morocco. 30 built, delivered 1978–1979.
Mirage F1CJ : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Jordan. 17 built.
Mirage F1CK : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Kuwait. 18 built and delivered 1976–1977. Later upgraded to CK-2 standard.
Mirage F1CK-2 : Nine multi-role aircraft, equivalent to the F1E, were sold to Kuwait as part of a follow-up order.
Mirage F1CR : Tactical reconnaissance version for the French Air Force, bought to replace the Mirage IIIR.
Mirage F1CT : Upgraded F1C-200 for the French Air Force to replace the Mirage IIIE in the close air support role.
Mirage F1CZ : Export version of the Mirage F1C for South Africa. 16 delivered 1974–1975, with two further aircraft received to replace aircraft lost in a February 1979 collision.
Mirage F1ED : Export version of the Mirage F1C for Libya. 16 built.
Mirage F1D
Two-seat training version, based on the Mirage F1E multi-role fighter, ground-attack aircraft.
Mirage F1DDA : Export version of the Mirage F1D for Qatar. Two built.
Mirage F1E
Single-seat all-weather multi-role fighter and ground-attack aircraft.
Mirage F1JA : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Ecuador. 16 built.
Mirage F1EE : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Spain. 22 built.
Mirage F1EH : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Morocco. 14 built, delivered between 1979 and 1982.
Mirage F1EH-200 : Moroccan aircraft fitted with an in-flight refuelling probe. Six built.
Mirage F1EJ : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Jordan. 17 built.
Mirage F1EQ : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Iraq. 16 built.
Mirage F1EQ-2 : Single-seat air defence fighter version for Iraq. 16 new-build and 16 upgraded F1EQs.
Mirage F1EQ-4 : Single-seat multi-role fighter, ground-attack, reconnaissance version for Iraq. First Iraqi version fitted with a refuelling probe. 28 built.
Mirage F1EQ-5 : Single-seat multi-role version for Iraq. First Iraqi Exocet-capable version thanks to a new Cyrano IVQ/C5 radar. Also capable of using laser-guided munitions. 20 built.
Mirage F1EQ-6 : Single-seat multi-role version for Iraq, with new Sherloc digital RWR, new Cyrano IV-SP1 radar, and capable of carrying two Exocet missiles at once. 30 built.
Mirage F1EDA : Export version of the Mirage F1E for Qatar. 12 built.
Mirage F1CR
When it became clear that the Mirage F1 was becoming a successful production aircraft, Dassault began investigating the possibility of a dedicated reconnaissance version for its most important client, the French Air Force. However, the escalating cost of fighter aircraft meant that add-on pods for this purpose were a more economical alternative.
Many French Air Force aircraft, as well as those of some export clients (such as Iraq's Mirage F1EQ), did indeed have a variety of reconnaissance pods available, which were attached to the underside of the main fuselage. However, the development of a tactical reconnaissance aircraft for the French Air Force continued, and the first Mirage F1CR flew on 20 November 1981.
The Mirage F1CR carries reconnaissance equipment, internally and externally:
A SAT SCM2400 Super Cyclope infrared linescan unit is installed in the space previously occupied by the port cannon.
A space under the nose can be used for a Thomson-TRT 40 panoramic camera or a Thomson-TRT 33 vertical camera.
The Cyrano IVM-R radar has extra ground- and contour-mapping modules.
A variety of sensors can be carried in external pods carried under the fuselage centreline. These include the Raphaël TH Side-Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR), the ASTAC ELINT pod and the RP35P optical reconnaissance pod.
A total of 64 Mirage F1CRs were ordered by the French Air Force. The first air force unit equipped with the CR was Escadron de Reconnaissance 2/33 which became operational in September 1983.
Mirage F1CT
The Mirage F1CT is a ground attack version of the Mirage F1C-200. Following their replacement in the air defence role by the Mirage 2000, the French Air Force had a number of surplus Mirage F1C-200s, and in 1988 it launched a conversion programme to turn these aircraft into interim ground attack aircraft to replace elderly Mirage IIIEs and Mirage 5s. The Mirage F1CT program brought the avionics of the F1C up to the standard of the F1CR, with the radar upgraded with the additional air-to-ground modes of the Cyrano IVM-R, an improved navigation/attack system fitted, with a laser rangefinder fitted under the nose. It was fitted with new Mk 10 ejection seats, while improved radar detection and warning devices, chaff/flare dispensers, and secure radios were also added. It gained the ability to carry a variety of air-to-ground weapons, including rockets, cluster bombs and laser-guided bombs, while retaining the F1C's air-to-air armament.
Two prototypes were converted by Dassault, the first flying on 3 May 1991, with a further 55 converted by the workshops of the French Air Force at Clermont Ferrand by 1995.
Mirage F1AZ and F1CZ
The South African Air Force (SAAF) flew both the Mirage F1AZ ground-attack version as well as the radar-equipped Mirage F1CZ fighter. The first two examples of the first order (48 aircraft, comprising 32 F1AZ and 16 F1CZ) were delivered on 5 April 1975. In July of that year, the remainder of the F1CZs were delivered and 3 Squadron was recommissioned to operate the aircraft from AFB Waterkloof. In 1975 the F1CZs also appeared at a South African airshow, the public were not informed that it was already in service.
The F1AZ was developed in conjunction with Dassault and the SAAF as a dedicated ground attack variant. The F1AZs were delivered between November 1975 and October 1976 and were assigned to 1 Squadron. Paramount Group, a South African-based company owns the intellectual property for the Mirage F1AZ.
The F1AZ has a laser-based rangefinder, permitting the highly accurate fusing and aiming of unguided munitions, such as bombs and rockets. Optical design was by the Optics (later ELOPTRO) division of Armscor in South Africa.
The F1AZ features an integrated ground-attack system, comprising two on-board computers that can identify targets at a distance of 5 km. A laser range finder, situated below its conical nose, is connected to the computers to provide them with target info without emitting radar signals. After target identification and information gathering, bombs are automatically released at the right moment, known as CCRP, or 'Computer Controlled Release Point'. While the range-finding ability of the EMD AIDA 2 radar permits the use of combat and visual interception missiles, the helmet-mounted sight element enables the pilot to make off-boresight engagements, without waiting until achieving an optimum firing position. The F1AZ is equipped with two internal DEFA 30mm cannons with 125 rounds each, and carries a wide variety of external ordnance, including various types of bombs, cluster munitions, missiles, and rocket launchers.
The SAAF retired the F1CZs in 1992, followed by the F1AZs in 1997.
Despite their retirement in 1997, the accuracy of the F1AZ's armament delivery is still considered classified information by the SAAF; analysis by informed news services (e.g., Jane's Defence Weekly) and pilot reports (e.g., Commandant Dick Lord, 'Vlamgat', 1999) conclude that the F1AZ has accuracies within the order disclosed by the USAF for their F-15E Strike Eagle in unguided ballistic mode.
In 2004, up to 21 F1AZs were reported in storage at AFB Hoedspruit, awaiting a possible buyer. In April 2006, it was reported that Aerosud had purchased the surviving Mirage F1AZs and spares.
South Africa granted Aerosud a contract to fit the Dassault Mirage F1 with the Klimov RD-33 engine used in the MiG-29 fighter. Although overtaken by the decision of the South African Air Force to buy the SAAB JAS 39 Gripen, the upgrade was technically successful.
On 17 August 2006, French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that two upgraded ex-South African F1AZs had taken part in a fly-past over Libreville earlier that day in celebration of Gabon's independence day. The refurbishment and upgrade of the aircraft was carried out by Aerosud. Aerosud Group managing director Dr. Paul Potgieter confirmed his company's involvement, but declined to give numbers or cite figures.
Mirage F1 M53
Developed for the participation in the "European" NATO fighter competition of early seventies, seeking to replace the F-104G. It was equipped with a more powerful engine, the SNECMA M53, and other improvements. Failed to succeed, the contest was eventually won by the General Dynamics F-16. The Mirage F1 came in second place
Mirage F1M
The F1M upgrade (unrelated to the M-53 prototype) was applied to 48 Spanish F1CE/EE and four F1EDA trainers under a FFr700 million (US$96m) contract awarded to Thomson-CSF in October 1996. The prototype F1M flew in April 1998, and CASA delivered the remainder between March 1999 and 15 March 2001. The project included a revised cockpit with colour LCDs and a Smart HUD from Sextant Avionique, a Sextant inertial navigation system with GPS interface; NATO-compatible Have Quick 2 secure communications; Mode 4 digital IFF; a defensive aids suite; and flight recorders. The radar was upgraded to Cyrano IVM standard, adding sea search and air to ground ranging modes.
Mirage F1 MF2000
The Royal Moroccan Air Force started in 2005 the 350 million euro MF2000 upgrade program to modernise 27 F1CH, F1EH and F1EH-200 aircraft. Changes included replacement of the old Cyrano IV radar by a RC400 (RDY-3) radar based on that used by the Mirage 2000-5, a revised cockpit, and improved armament, with Damocles targeting pods, MICA air-to-air missiles and AASM guided bombs added. This upgrade was performed by ASTRAC (Association Sagem Thales pour la Rénovation d'Avions de Combat).
Operators
The Dassault Mirage F1 has been operated by fourteen air forces, with five of them still doing so. Out of these, three have been European, five Middle Eastern (with one still flying the type), and five African (four still operating it).
Current operators
Congolese Air Force two Mirage F1s in service as of December 2021.
Gabonese Air Force six Mirage F1s in service as of December 2021.
Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force seized 24 F1BQs and F1EQs flown over from Iraq, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. As of December 2021, 12 Mirage F1EQs and 5 Mirage F1BQs were in service.
Libyan Air Force received 16 F1AD, 6 F1BD and 16 F1ED aircraft. All were grounded but twelve were contracted for refurbishment, of which only four were returned to service. Of these twelve, two were taken to Malta when their pilots defected. France will renovate Libya's small fleet of Mirage F1s and train its personnel as part of a defence co-operation agreement signed in 2012. Three Mirage F1 were reported lost during the western 2019 offensive.
Royal Moroccan Air Force received 30 F1CHs, 14 F1EHs and 6 F1EH-200s. 23 are still operational and 27 have been upgraded to ASTRAC standards.
Non-government/private military operators
Paramount Aerospace Systems acquired four former French Air Force Mirage F1B.
Draken International has acquired 20 former Spanish Air Force Mirage F1Ms and 2 F1B aircraft for use in the Adversary Air role providing support to the United States Air Force. One plane was lost when it crashed on May 24, 2021.
Textron subsidiary Airborne Tactical Advantage Company in 2017 acquired 63 former French Air Force Mirage F1B, F1CT, and F1CR for dissimilar air combat training and aggressor squadron purposes for the US Air Force. The intention is to have between 30 and 45 of them airworthy.
On 10 February 2022, an F1 crashed in an unpopulated area near Buckeye around west of Phoenix, Arizona, after the pilot ejected. The aircraft was operating from Luke Air Force Base, supporting the 56th Operations Group.
Former operators
Ecuadorian Air Force operated 16 F1JA & 2 F1JE. During their operational service, at least three of these aircraft were confirmed as lost in accidents. In February 2011, the remaining aircraft in the squadron were retired from service.
French Air Force received 246 aircraft. The last squadron flying the aircraft was officially disbanded on 13 June 2014.
Hellenic Air Force operated 40 F1CG.
Iraqi Air Force received 106 F1EQ & 15 F1BQ between 31 January 1981 and 1989, with a further 4 EQs and 4 trainers undelivered due to Iraq's inability to pay and the UN arms embargo imposed following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In early 2011, the French government offered to update and refurbish 18 French-held Mirage F1s and sell these to the Iraqi Air Force.
Royal Jordanian Air Force received 17 F1CJ, 17 F1EJ & 2 F1BJ. In 2010 it was reported that Argentina might lease twelve F1CJs and an F1BJ but nothing came of it.
Kuwait Air Force operated 2 Mirage F1BK, 4 Mirage F1BK-2, 18 Mirage F1CK, and 9 Mirage F1CK-2. These 33 Mirage F1s were delivered between 1976 and 1977.
Libyan Air Force (1951–2011). Passed on to the successor government.
Qatar Air Force ordered 12 F1EDA & 2 F1DDA in 1979, which were delivered to Qatar between March 1983 and July 1984. A further F1DDA was supplied later as an attrition replacement. 13 aircraft were sold to Spain.
South African Air Force operated 32 F1AZ & 16 F1CZ.
Spanish Air Force received originally 45 F1CE, 22 F1EE & 6 F1BE. Also acquired 24 second-hand examples from France and Qatar in the early 1990s. Spanish F1s were deployed in 2006 for the Baltic Air Policing mission. Finally, Spain decommissioned its Mirage F1 fleet in February 2013.
Specifications (Mirage F1)
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
Dassault Official Webpage
Aircraft of the French Air Force
Mirage F1
1960s French fighter aircraft
Single-engined jet aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1966
Third-generation jet fighter
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared%20Fogle
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Jared Fogle
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Jared Scott Fogle (; born August 23, 1977) is an American former spokesman for Subway restaurants. Fogle appeared in Subway's advertising campaigns from 2000 to 2015 until an FBI investigation led to him being convicted of child sex tourism and possessing child pornography.
While a student at Indiana University, Fogle lost between 1998 and 1999. Having frequented a Subway restaurant as part of his diet plan, he was hired to help advertise the company the following year. Fogle's popularity led to him being featured in over 300 commercials during his 15 years with Subway, alongside other media appearances.
Allegations of Fogle having inappropriate relations with minors began in 2007, but did not gain traction until 2015 when the FBI uncovered that he received child pornography from an associate. Pleading guilty to the child sex tourism and child pornography charges the same year, Fogle was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months in federal prison. He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood.
Early life
Fogle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 23, 1977, to Norman and Adrienne Fogle. He has a younger brother and sister. He was raised in a Jewish home. He had a bar mitzvah while on a trip to Israel, and then was confirmed by his Conservative-Reconstructionist synagogue.
In 1995, Fogle graduated from North Central High School in Indianapolis. He graduated from Indiana University Bloomington in 2000 and then worked briefly in the revenue management department at American Trans Air.
Career
Subway campaign
Fogle first came to media attention in April 1999, via an article published in the Indiana Daily Student written by a former dormmate about Fogle losing by exercising and eating a diet of Subway sandwiches. Subsequently, Fogle was featured in a Men's Health magazine article, "Stupid Diets ... that Work!" According to the article, Fogle had become obese – at one point weighing – through lack of exercise and eating junk food.
Fogle changed his eating habits upon the switch to eating at Subway, replacing his 10,000-calorie-per-day food consumption with one small turkey sub and one large veggie sub along with some baked potato chips and diet soda, totalling about 2,000 calories. A Chicago-area Subway franchisee took Fogle's story to Subway's Chicago-based advertising agency.
As a test, the company ran a regional television advertising campaign. The first ad aired on January 1, 2000, introducing Fogle and his story with the following disclaimer: "The Subway diet, combined with a lot of walking, worked for Jared. We're not saying this is for everyone. You should check with your doctor before starting any diet program. But it worked for Jared."
Because the introductory test ads were a success, Fogle subsequently appeared in more television commercials as well as sponsored in-store appearances throughout the United States. He gave talks on the benefits of fitness and healthy eating. Fogle came to be known as The Subway Guy.
In 2002, Fogle was the subject of an episode of South Park titled "Jared Has Aides". Fogle has stated that while the episode had "typical[ly] tasteless humor", the fact that an entire episode was devoted to him was "very flattering". He added, "you know you've made it when shows like South Park start parodying you". Fogle also appeared in the 2017 video game South Park: The Fractured but Whole as a boss; this occurred after his child pornography conviction.
In February 2008, a Subway campaign called "Tour de Pants" celebrated Fogle maintaining his weight loss for a decade. As part of the campaign, Fogle made an announcement that he would retire his pair of pants to a museum at the end of the advertising tour. Beginning in 2008, Fogle's presence in Subway advertisements decreased due to the company's placing a new emphasis on its "$5 Footlong" promotion.
Fogle's role in Subway afforded him some other opportunities, such as appearances in WWE in 2009 and 2011. By 2013, Fogle had filmed more than 300 commercials and continued to make appearances and speeches for the company. Subway attributed one third to one half of its growth in sales to Fogle, with revenue having tripled from 1998 to 2011.
Fogle made appearances in the Sharknado film series, beginning with Sharknado 2: The Second One. He had a cameo appearance in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, though this was cut from the Syfy Channel broadcast version a week before the premiere when his house was searched by the FBI.
Jared Foundation
In 2004, Fogle established the Jared Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on raising awareness about childhood obesity through educational programs and tools provided to parents, schools, and community organizations.
On April 29, 2015, Russell Taylor, director of the Jared Foundation, was arrested at his Indianapolis home on charges of child exploitation, possession of child pornography, and voyeurism. According to court records, Taylor and his then-wife, Angela Baldwin, sexually molested young girls and installed cameras in their house to film the victims without their knowledge. Fogle severed all ties with Taylor immediately following the arrest. Taylor attempted suicide on May 6, 2015, at the Marion County Jail and was placed on life support. Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges on September 1, 2015, and on December 10, 2015, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison. The sentence was thrown out in March 2020 when it emerged that Taylor's lawyer had failed to challenge three charges that were not supported by the evidence. The judge who originally imposed the sentence, Tanya Walton Pratt, said that this failure tainted the entire plea deal. Prosecutors filed a new indictment for 30 charges of producing and distributing child pornography in April. Taylor filed a petition to plead guilty that May, formally pleading guilty in November 2021. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison, identical to the original sentence, on May 9, 2022. Baldwin was convicted of child exploitation and producing and possessing child pornography in October 2021 and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
In August 2015, a USA Today article reported that the Jared Foundation had not issued any grants nor had it given funds for its stated purpose. The article further noted that, on average, the foundation spent $73,000 a year, with the majority of that figure paying the salary of the foundation's executive director. More than one-quarter of the funds were unaccounted for per the foundation's tax records. Daniel Borochoff, president of the non-profit charity watchdog group CharityWatch, was quoted in the USA Today article as saying, "If Jared was really interested in helping children through his foundation, he could have gotten more money. As with a lot of celebrities, the charity appears to be more about image-enhancement than charitable deeds."
The Secretary of State of Indiana had dissolved the organization in February 2012 because it did not pay the required $5 annual reporting fees during the two previous years, despite being requested to do so on multiple occasions.
Legal history
Child pornography investigation and arrest
In 2007, Fogle came to the attention of state and federal law enforcement agencies after Sarasota, Florida, journalist and radio host Rochelle Herman-Walrond told the Sarasota Police Department he made lewd comments to her about middle school-age girls; she had met Fogle at a local middle school for a health event, as he was in Sarasota for his speaking tour. She made recordings of Fogle's remarks and saved text messages between them, and then went to the FBI, where agents asked her to record her conversations with him. Herman-Walrond befriended Fogle and for the next four years surreptitiously recorded her conversations with him as part of an ongoing federal investigation. She recorded him making several remarks about having had sex with underage girls and asking her to install a webcam in her children's rooms so he could watch them; ultimately, the FBI could not pursue a case against Fogle using the recordings because they needed more substantive evidence against him.
During the investigation into Russell Taylor's child pornography operation, authorities discovered that Taylor had traded sexually explicit photos and videos of children, some as young as six, with Fogle, including images of his own stepdaughters. Taylor, who was sentenced to 27 years in prison, was later named an unindicted co-conspirator in the FBI's case against Fogle. "What we found in Russell Taylor's home and on his computers led us to Jared Fogle," said Tim Horty, a spokesman for the United States Department of Justice.
On July 7, 2015, the FBI and Indiana State Police investigators raided Fogle's Zionsville, Indiana, residence and arrested him on distribution and receipt of child pornography charges; computers and other electronic equipment were removed from his home. The same day, a spokesperson for Subway announced that the company and Fogle had mutually agreed to suspend their business relationship; subsequently, Subway removed all references to Fogle from its website.
Following Fogle's arrest, the FBI also subpoenaed a series of text messages made in 2008 between Fogle and Subway franchisee Cindy Mills, with whom he was having a sexual relationship at the time. In these messages, Fogle talked about sexually abusing children ranging in age from nine to 16, told her to sell herself for sex on Craigslist, and asked her to arrange for him to have sex with her 16-year-old cousin. Mills's lawyer said that she had alerted Subway's corporate management about the text messages, but that they had responded that because Fogle was not a Subway employee, there was no violation. Subway representatives said they had no record of Mills's allegations.
Plea agreement
On August 19, 2015, federal prosecutors announced they had reached a deal with Fogle in which he would plead guilty to their August 15, 2015, indictment containing two counts, one of distribution and receipt of child pornography (Count 1) and one of traveling to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor—specifically, from Indiana to New York City, where he is charged with paying to engage in sexual acts with a minor girlknown by Fogle to be 17 years old at the time (Count 2). In the August 15 indictment, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana included allegations in Count 1 that Fogle: was fully aware of, and approved of, co-conspirator Russell Taylor soliciting 12 minors, as young as 13-years-old, to perform sexually explicit conduct, secretly filming the conduct then sharing the video and image files with Fogle; was aware that Taylor had commercially obtained, and shared with Fogle, sexually explicit images of minors as young as 6-years-old; and, knowingly shared the material obtained from Taylor with other parties. The August 15 indictment included allegations in Count 2 that Fogle: offered adult prostitutes a finder's fee to find him younger sex partners; sent text messages to these prostitutes in which Fogle also expressed sexual interest in young boys; and, in addition to engaging in sexual acts with the aforementioned 17-year-old girl, he also offered her a finder's fee to find him sex partners younger than her.
According to the plea documents filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Fogle faced up to 50 years in prison had he gone to trial, based on potentially serving, consecutively, a maximum of 20 years on Count 1 and a maximum of 30 years on Count 2. As part of the plea dealwhich was not binding on the sentencing judgeprosecutors agreed to seek no more than 12 years 7 months, while Fogle agreed to not seek a sentence of less than five years. Fogle also agreed to pay a total of million (equivalent to $million in ) in restitution$100,000 to each victim (). As a condition of his plea deal, Fogle would be restricted to supervised contact or communication with minors upon approval of his probation officer, while supervised visits with his own children would be allowed only with approval of their mother, Fogle's soon-to-be ex-wife Katie McLaughlin. Under the terms of the plea agreement, upon release from prison, Fogle will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and undergo treatment for sexual disorders.
Soon after the plea deal was announced, Subway announced via Twitter that it had completely severed ties with Fogle.
On November 19, 2015, Fogle formally pleaded guilty before federal judge Tanya Walton Pratt. In a statement, Fogle apologized for his crimes, saying that he wanted a chance to become a "good, honest person" and "redeem [his] life" after being ensnared in a life of "deception, lies and complete self-centeredness." According to John Bradford, a forensic psychiatrist who testified for Fogle's defense team, Fogle suffered from a compulsive eating disorder for several years before losing weight, and replaced food with a sense of "hypersexuality", which included "mild" or "weak" pedophilia. That diagnosis was not accepted by experts in the psychiatry field and was criticized by Judge Pratt and on social media. The next day, Liberty Behavioral Health Corp. psychologist Adam Deming suggested that Bradford's use of the words mild and weak had meant to convey that Fogle's primary sexual attraction was to early teenagers, but that he had a lesser attraction to younger children.
When Fogle finished his allocution before Judge Pratt, she sentenced him to 15 years and 8 months in prison, over three years more than what prosecutors had sought and three times what Fogle had requested. Pratt stated that the "level of perversion and lawlessness exhibited by Mr. Fogle is extreme." Fogle must serve a minimum of 13 years before becoming eligible for time off with good behavior. After serving his sentence, he will be on supervised release for the rest of his life. Pratt also fined him $175,000 and ordered him to forfeit $50,000 in assets (a total equivalent to $million in ), in addition to the restitution he agreed to pay to his victims.
Fogle's lawyer, Ron Elberger, filed a notice of appeal on December 14, 2015. Fogle is able to appeal the sentence since it is longer than the maximum sentence recommended by the prosecutors. The appeal brief was due by January 25, 2016, but Fogle asked for an extension for his appeal after Elberger was diagnosed with cancer. The extension was granted. After the appeal was filed, the U.S. Attorney's office responded by opposing any sentence reduction.
On June 9, 2016, Fogle's sentence was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Incarceration
Fogle's lawyers recommended that he serve his sentence at Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood near Littleton, Colorado; it has a program for sex offenders. Judge Pratt agreed with the recommendations, but she had no authority to determine where Fogle would serve his sentence. On November 21, 2015, Fogle arrived at the Henderson County, Kentucky Detention Center, where he was held on a temporary basis. Fogle entered Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody, going to Federal Transfer Center, Oklahoma City, on December 15, 2015. Three days later, he was transferred to FCI Englewood. Fogle's BOP number is 12919-028. His earliest possible release date is March 24, 2029.
On November 8, 2017, Judge Pratt dismissed a motion filed by Fogle, which had been prepared for him by a fellow inmate, in which he tried to claim that the court in 2015 did not have jurisdiction to convict Fogle because he is a self-declared "sovereign citizen".
Lawsuits
The parents of one of Fogle's victims filed a lawsuit against Fogle for personal injury and emotional distress. Fogle filed a motion arguing that the parents are actually liable for the injuries because the parents fought and abused alcohol in front of the daughter. On October 24, 2016, Kathleen McLaughlin's lawyers filed suit against Subway in Indiana. The suit alleges that Subway violated McLaughlin's privacy and property rights, and caused personal injury to McLaughlin by covering up at least three instances of Fogle's illegal behavior that were reported to senior management, including the allegation that Subway's senior vice president of marketing hushed up a 2004 incident in which Fogle propositioned a young girl at a promotional event at a Subway franchise in Las Vegas. The lawsuit was dismissed in October 2017, with the judge writing that the court lacked jurisdiction, since their principal business operations were outside Indiana.
Potential for other criminal charges
Fogle potentially faced state charges in New York related to Victims 13 and 14. Potential state crimes included statutory rape and/or trafficking persons for sexual reasons. Fogle's federal plea deal has no standing regarding state charges, so there would have been no double jeopardy had New York opted to pursue a criminal case. However, New York defense attorney and former assistant district attorney Matthew R. Smalls stated that New York State was unlikely to bring state charges since it would have had to mount a new investigation and get testimony from victims. Smalls believed that a prosecutor in New York "would really be tone deaf" to ask Victims 13 and 14 to tell their stories again, let alone testify before another grand jury. Abby Phillip of The Washington Post stated "As a legal matter, Fogle may never be charged with rape – or legally labeled with having committed that crime."
Personal life
In November 2009, Fogle became engaged to Kathleen McLaughlin, a teacher. In January 2010, People reported that Fogle had gained back and planned to lose it by way of his Subway weight-loss program for his upcoming wedding. Fogle and McLaughlin married in August 2010 and had two children together: a son (born 2011), and a daughter (born 2013).
In 2013, Fogle had a net worth of $15 million. On August 19, 2015, following Fogle's appearance in federal court on charges of sex with minors and child pornography, his wife released a statement through her attorney announcing that she was seeking a divorce. She added that she was focused "exclusively on the well-being of my children" and would have no further comment. Their divorce was finalized on November 16, 2015; Fogle agreed to pay his now ex-wife $7 million. According to court filings, she had traveled out of state before Fogle's guilty plea, and opted to stay in an undisclosed location to protect herself and the children from the "media circus" surrounding Fogle's crimes.
A three-part documentary film about Fogle and his crimes called Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster was broadcast on the ID pay TV network in March 2023.
Filmography
References
External links
1977 births
Living people
20th-century American Jews
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American criminals
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American philanthropists
Advertising and marketing controversies
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American male criminals
American male film actors
American people convicted of child pornography offenses
American people convicted of child sexual abuse
American prisoners and detainees
American television personalities
Businesspeople from Indianapolis
Criminals from Indiana
Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Jewish American male actors
Male television personalities
Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government
Spokespersons
Subway (restaurant) people
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation%20for%20Individual%20Rights%20and%20Expression
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Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), formerly known as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is a non-profit civil liberties group founded in 1999 with the mission of protecting free speech rights on college campuses in the United States. FIRE was renamed in June 2022, with its focus broadened to speech rights in American society in general.
Overview
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education was co-founded by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate in 1999, who were FIRE's co-directors until 2004. Kors and Silverglate had co-authored a 1998 book opposing censorship at colleges. Silverglate had served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts. Kors served as FIRE's first president and chairperson. Its first executive director and, later, CEO, was Thor Halvorssen. It was founded to be non-ideological and nonpartisan.
FIRE files lawsuits against colleges and universities that it perceives as curtailing First Amendment rights of students and professors. FIRE has been described as a competitor of the ACLU. In 2021, the organization had an annual revenue of $16.1 million.
FIRE has received major funding from groups which primarily support conservative and libertarian causes, including the Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute. Among its other donors is the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. According to The New York Times journalist Cecilia Capuzzi Simon, "There are other groups that fight for First Amendment rights on campus, but none as vocal—or pushy—as FIRE." The Times also referred to FIRE as a "familiar irritant to college administrators" and said FIRE "bristles at the right-wing tag often applied to them". Cathy Young, a Cato Institute fellow and columnist for The Bulwark, wrote that "FIRE has handled many cases involving speech suppression in the name of progressive values, [but] it is that rare group which actually means it when it claims to be nonpartisan", noting that it had sued on behalf of a professor who was fired because of a negative tweet about Mike Pence.
In June 2022, FIRE announced it was expanding its efforts beyond college campuses, to American society. It was renamed Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, keeping the acronym FIRE. It detailed a $75 million expansion plan over three years to focus on "litigation, public education, and research," with $10 million for a nationwide advertising campaign. Josh Gerstein wrote in Politico that "part of the push may challenge the American Civil Liberties Union's primacy as a defender of free speech." Politico also wrote that FIRE would spend $10 million on "planned national cable and billboard advertising featuring activists on both ends of the political spectrum extolling the virtues of free speech."
Organization
FIRE is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with another office in Washington, D.C.
Greg Lukianoff serves as president and CEO; Robert Shibley previously served as executive director. Nico Perrino is executive vice president. Ira Glasser, former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), serves on FIRE's Advisory Council. Former ACLU President Nadine Strossen is also an advisory board member.
Policy positions
Campus speech
FIRE rates colleges with a red, yellow, or green light based on its assessments of speech restrictions, with a red light meaning that a college policy "both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech." FIRE's percentage of colleges with "red light" speech codes increased in 2022 for the first time in 15 years. In 2007, Jon B. Gould, an author and George Mason University faculty member, criticized FIRE's rating methods, arguing that FIRE had exaggerated the prevalence of unconstitutional speech codes.
In 2020, FIRE partnered with College Pulse and RealClearEducation to release the College Free Speech Rankings, a comparison of student free-speech environments at America's top college campuses. The rankings incorporate FIRE's speech code ratings, but also include surveys of students at the ranked schools. In their 2024 rankings, FIRE and College Pulse ranked over 248 schools and surveyed a total of 55,102 students, with Michigan Technological University achieving the top ranking and Harvard University receiving the worst ranking.
FIRE has challenged free speech zones on college campuses, claiming they are unconstitutional restrictions on First Amendment rights. The organization has provided legal support to students contesting free speech zones, while also supporting legislation to eliminate such zones. In his book Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places (Cambridge University Press, 2008), law professor Timothy Zick wrote "in large part due to [FIRE's] litigation and other advocacy efforts, campus expressive zoning policies have been highlighted, altered, and in a number of cases repealed."
Challenges to college residence life programs
In 2007, the organization said that a mandatory program for students living in dormitories at the University of Delaware resembled "thought reform". The school suspended it.
Student press
At the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, FIRE opposed university practices that required student journalists to submit their questions ahead of time or seek permission from the school before interviewing university employees. After FIRE intervened, the university revised its practices to no longer require prior approval before interviews.
Campus security fees
FIRE has opposed security fees some campuses charge to groups which host controversial speakers. These fees are charged to pay for extra security, which colleges say is necessary due to the likelihood of demonstrations and disruption of events.
In March 2009, FIRE challenged a security fee charged to a UC Berkeley group for a speech by Elan Journo, who advocates for the destruction of Palestine. In 2014, FIRE assisted the Kalamazoo Peace Center in its lawsuit against Western Michigan University, after the university said the peace center could only invite social activist and rapper Boots Riley to speak on campus if it paid a security fee. The school settled the lawsuit and agreed to revise its policies. In April 2022, FIRE challenged a security fee charged to Dartmouth College's Republican group for hosting a speech by right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo.
Due process
FIRE also targets situations where students and faculty are adjudicated outside the bounds of due process afforded to them by Constitutional law or stated university policy.
FIRE has argued for more rights for students facing sexual assault allegations. In 2011, FIRE opposed the Education Department's "Dear Colleague" letter that urged universities to use a "preponderance of the evidence" standard instead of the criminal justice system's "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in sexual assault cases. In 2020, FIRE supported new rules made by the Department of Education during the Trump administration about sexual assault and harassment cases that required colleges to allow the cross-examination of accusers.
Public and private universities
FIRE has argued that public schools are required to uphold First Amendment protections for their students and faculty members because they are government entities. Although private schools are not bound by the First Amendment, FIRE has said contractual promises related to free speech or academic freedom should be upheld.
In 2021, in response to the board of trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill declining to give Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure, FIRE released a statement saying "if it is accurate that this refusal was the result of viewpoint discrimination against Hannah-Jones, particularly based on political opposition to her appointment, this decision has disturbing implications for academic freedom."
Cases
Public universities
FIRE joined with a number of other civil liberties groups in the case of Hosty v. Carter, involving suppression of a student newspaper at Governors State University in Illinois, and has been involved in a case at Arizona State University where it condemned the listing of certain sections of a class as open only to Native American students.
FIRE sparred with the University of New Hampshire in 2004 over its treatment of student Timothy Garneau, who was expelled from student housing after he wrote and distributed a flier joking that female classmates could lose the "freshman fifteen" by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. After FIRE publicly criticized the decision, Garneau was reinstated.
In May 2007, Valdosta State University expelled T. Hayden Barnes, who had protested against the construction of two new parking garages on the campus which he saw as encouraging the use of private transportation. University president Ronald Zaccari misconstrued a caption of the proposed garages as the "Ronald Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage" as a threat to himself. With FIRE support, the expulsion was overturned and a court found VSU to have violated Barnes's due process rights.
In 2008, college professor Kerry Laird was ordered by Temple College to remove the quote, "Gott ist tot" (God is Dead), a famous quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, from his office door. FIRE wrote a letter to the Temple administration hinting at the possibility of legal action.
In October 2011, Catawba Valley Community College suspended a student (Marc Bechtol) for complaining on Facebook about a new policy that required students to sign up for a debit card to get their student ID and grant money. CVCC decided that the comments were "disturbing" and a "threat", and used that reasoning to suspend the student. FIRE took the side of the student. Charges were dropped in December 2011.
In 2012, FIRE filed a lawsuit against Iowa State University (ISU) after ISU prevented the university's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws from designing T-shirts featuring the school's mascot. The lawsuit eventually ended with nearly $1 million in damages and fees awarded.
In 2014, FIRE sued Chicago State University (CSU) for trying to shut down a faculty blog critical of CSU's former administration. The school eventually agreed to rewrite its speech policies, paying $650,000 to settle the lawsuit.
In 2021, FIRE filed a First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of an Eastern Virginia Medical School student who said his free speech rights were violated when the school denied recognition to a club that he was trying to establish because it supported universal health care. In March 2022, the school settled the lawsuit. Later that year, the organization helped University of Washington professor Stuart Reges take action against the school after it recommended that he include a Native American "land acknowledgment" on his course syllabus. FIRE is also representing conservative students at California-based Clovis Community College, where school administrators reportedly removed the students' anti-communism flyers from campus bulletin boards.
In September 2022, FIRE announced a lawsuit challenging Florida's Stop WOKE Act, arguing that the bill unconstitutionally suppresses certain discussions of race and sex on college campuses. That November, a federal judge considering lawsuits by FIRE and the ACLU stopped enforcement of the higher education portions of the law, calling them "positively dystopian" and ruling that the law violates the rights of university students and faculty members. New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait wrote that, while FIRE "has stood up against speech restriction from both the right and the left," it was notable that "the most effective opponent of left-wing political correctness" had led the effort against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' "signature campus law".
Private universities
FIRE has criticized Columbia University's sexual misconduct policy; according to FIRE, the policy "lack[ed] even the most minimal safeguards and fundamental principles of fairness". The criticism led to the resignation of Charlene Allen, Columbia's program coordinator for the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education, whose policies were at the center of the controversy.
FIRE criticized Brandeis University for disciplining politics professor Donald Hindley. The school's provost informed Hindley in October 2007 that comments he made in his Latin American politics class violated the school's anti-harassment policy. Hindley was alleged to have mentioned the slur "wetback" in class during a discussion about racism toward Mexican-American immigrants. Krauss placed a monitor in Hindley's class and ordered him to attend racial sensitivity training.
In 2015, FIRE defended Erika Christakis, associate master of Yale University's Silliman College, after she questioned the school's Intercultural Affairs Council for highlighting the cultural implications of Halloween costumes.
In 2021, FIRE advocated on behalf of Stanford University student Nicholas Wallace, who satirized the Federalist Society and Republican political figures in an email to his peers. Wallace's diploma was initially put on hold for the email, prompting FIRE to contact Stanford in his defense. The school's investigation was ultimately dropped and Wallace was allowed to graduate.
In 2022, FIRE released a series of advertisements in Boston, Massachusetts, accusing Emerson College of censoring free speech on campus. The ad campaign came in response to Emerson investigating and suspending the campus chapter of Turning Point USA, which distributed stickers featuring a hammer and sickle with the caption "China Kinda Sus" (slang for "suspicious"). Emerson claimed the stickers represented "anti-China hate", while FIRE blamed the school for violating "freedom of expression".
Off-campus
In August 2022, FIRE defended the nonprofit group NeuroClastic, which had been threatened with a defamation lawsuit by the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center after criticizing the Center's use of electro-shock devices. That month, FIRE challenged the New York State Senate's practice of blocking critics on Twitter, representing a resident who had criticized gun control legislation.
FIRE filed a lawsuit in December 2022 on behalf of First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh and online platforms Rumble and Locals, challenging a New York state law that requires social networks to police hate speech on their platforms. Writing in The Wall Street Journal after the lawsuit was filed, Volokh claimed, "I don't want to moderate such content and I don't endorse the state's definition of hate speech." In February 2023, a federal judge blocked the law, writing that it "chills the constitutionally protected speech of social media users, without articulating a compelling governmental interest or ensuring that the law is narrowly tailored to that goal."
Media, advertising, and sponsorships
Since 2011, FIRE has published a list of the "worst colleges for free speech".
Since 2016, FIRE has produced "So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast", hosted by Perrino. FIRE partnered with Korchula Productions and the DKT Liberty Project to produce Can We Take a Joke?, a documentary released in 2016 about comedy and speech.
In 2017, FIRE was listed as one of the sponsors of the conservative campus group Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit, according to tax records.
In 2020, FIRE released Mighty Ira, a documentary about Ira Glasser, focusing on his advocacy for free speech and civil rights. The Hollywood Reporter described it as "a warm portrait that poses ever-urgent questions." The Times of Israel said the documentary "initiates a war between your head and your gut."
In 2022, FIRE produced an advertisement featuring National Basketball Association (NBA) player Enes Kanter Freedom for the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, supporting freedom of speech. Freedom also shared his personal story about censorship in his home country of Turkey.
See also
Heterodox Academy
Urofsky v. Gilmore
References
External links
Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)
Freedom of expression organizations
Civil liberties advocacy groups in the United States
Public education in the United States
Organizations established in 1999
Government watchdog groups in the United States
1999 establishments in Pennsylvania
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian%20Air
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Syrian Air
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Syrian Airlines (), operating as SyrianAir (), is the flag carrier of Syria. It operates scheduled international services to several destinations in Asia, Europe and North Africa, though the number of flights operated has seriously declined since 2011 due to the Arab Spring and subsequent Syrian war. SyrianAir previously served over 50 destinations worldwide. Its main bases are Damascus International Airport and previously Aleppo International Airport. The company has its head office on the fifth floor of the Social Insurance Building in Damascus.
History
Early years: Syrian Airways 1946–1958
Syrian Airways were established in 1946, with two propeller aircraft and started to fly between domestic network such as Damascus, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zour, Palmyra and Qamishli. The airline started its operations in June 1947 using two Beech D-18s and three Douglas DC-3 (C-47 Dakota). The Dakotas had been acquired from Pan American World Airways (PAA), which provided technical assistance to Syrian Airways during the first years of operation.
Syrian Airways also operated a regional network, with flights to Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Amman; followed by Cairo, Kuwait, Doha and Jeddah. The airline expanded during the next years to include Beirut, Baghdad, and Jerusalem, then Cairo, Kuwait and Doha, in addition to flights during the hajj.
Financial difficulties and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War led to the withdrawal of PAA and caused the suspension of service until mid-1951. The operation was resumed after receiving government support in 1952. In 1952, the airline was provided with three Douglas DC-3s and with four Douglas DC-4s in 1954, and in 1957 it received four Douglas DC-6s in the name of United Arab Airline.
On December 21, 1953, one of the airline's Douglas planes crashed near Damascus killing all nine aboard. The airline's operating permit was cancelled following the crash. The airline was allowed to fly again in 1954. The D-18s had been returned to the Syrian Air Force in 1949, while four additional Dakotas were acquired between 1952 and 1956.
One of the older Dakotas (YK-AAE) crashed during its climb out of Aleppo's Nayrab Airport on February 24, 1956, during a heavy storm. The 19 people on board died in the airline's worst accident to date. Newer and stronger planes were consequently added to the fleet in the mid-fifties: two Douglas DC-4/C-54 Skymaster, followed by a Douglas DC-4-1009 acquired from Swissair in December 1958, complementing an active fleet of four Douglas C47 Dakotas. The network was expanded to Dhahran in the Persian Gulf while frequencies were reinforced elsewhere.
Merger with Misrair: United Arab Airlines 1958–1961
In February 1958, Syria and Egypt decided to unite under the leadership of president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the two countries became provinces of the United Arab Republic (UAR). The merger between Syrian Airways and Misrair, the state-owned airlines of Syria and Egypt came as a consequence of this political union. The airlines merged on December 25, 1958, to form United Arab Airlines (UAA). At the time of the merger, Syrian Airways was still only a small regional airline while its Egyptian counterpart, Misrair, was the largest and oldest airline in the Arab world, operating an extensive network out of Cairo, the region's metropolis.
During the UAA interlude, only regional and domestic routes were operated in Syria, flights further afield connected at the Cairo hub. Two planes inherited from Syrian Airways were written off between 1959 and 1961: the Douglas DC-4-1009 which was ditched in the Congo River as it was carrying cargo from Accra to Leopoldville on September 1, 1960, and a Dakota which crashed on its final approach of Qamishli on a domestic flight from Aleppo on May 6, 1961. Fortunately, there were no fatalities in either accident.
The union between Egypt and Syria ended on September 26, 1961, amidst tensions between the leaderships of the two provinces of the UAR. The Syrian Arab Republic was declared in Syria, while Egypt chose to continue to carry the title of UAR until 1971. In parallel to that divorce, Syria withdrew from UAA. All the airliners previously owned by Syrian Airways, two Douglas DC-6Bs and one Douglas DC6B freighter were given up by UAA to the Syrian authorities.
Rebirth of a national flag carrier: Syrian Arab Airlines 1961–1969
Syrian Arab Airlines (S.A.A.L.) were founded in October 1961 in order to take over UAA's operations in Syria and to become the new national airline. The fleet initially consisted of three Douglas C-47 Dakotas, two Douglas C-54 Skymasters, two Douglas DC-6Bs and one Douglas DC-6B freighter (later sold to LAC Colombia). Domestic and regional flights were promptly resumed and the fleet originally was painted in a green livery reminiscent of that of the Syrian Airways colors.
S.A.A.L. purchased a third DC-6B from SAS in November 1962. Flights to European destinations (Rome and Munich) were started in 1963, followed by flights to London and Paris (Le Bourget), Karachi and Delhi in 1964. A new livery was introduced then, with alternating dark blue and red stripes for the cheatline.
Syrian Arab Airlines became a founding member of the Arab Air Carriers' Organization (AACO) and entered the jet age in 1965, with the purchase of two Sud Aviation 210 Super- Caravelle 10B3s.
These beautiful jets enabled the airline to expand and reinforce its network with the addition of flights to Luxembourg, Prague, Athens, Istanbul, Teheran and Bahrain. A slightly altered livery was introduced for the occasion, removing the parallel stripes from the fin and removing the red stripes from the cheatline. In 1966, a pool partnership with Middle East Airlines – Air Liban was signed and a twice daily rotation between Beirut and Damascus was launched. The summer 1966 timetable below clearly reflects the airline's growth and modernisation.
In 1966, Syrian Arab Airlines used the Caravelles on flights to Europe (London, Paris, Munich, Rome, Athens and Nicosia) as well as high density Middle Eastern routes (Baghdad, Teheran, Jeddah, Kuwait, Doha, Sharjah) and on flights to South Asia (Karachi and Delhi).
Routings were as follows:
Eastbound and Lebanon: Damascus-Aleppo-Beirut (DC3) 3 times a week, Aleppo-Beirut (by MEA/pool partnership Viscount) 2X, Damascus-Beirut (DC4 for RB and Viscount for ME) twice daily, Damascus-Jerusalem (DC3 and DC4) 2X, Damascus-Baghdad-Teheran (DC6 and Caravelle) 2X, Damascus-Jeddah (Caravelle) 1X, Damascus-Kuwait (2XCRV, 1XDC6) 3X, Damascus-Bahrain (DC6) 1X, Damascus-Doha-Sharjah (DC6) 1X, Damascus-Doha-Sharjah-Karachi-Delhi (Caravelle) 1X, Damascus-Dhahran-Sharjah-Karachi (Caravelle) 1X.
Westbound: Damascus-Athens-Rome-Munich-London (Caravelle) 1X, Damascus-Istanbul-Prague-Luxembourg (DC6) 1X, Damascus-Nicosia (DC4) 1X, Damascus-Athens-Munich-Paris-London (Caravelle) 1X, Damascus-Aleppo-Istanbul-Luxembourg (DC6) 1X, Damascus-Nicosia-Rome-Paris-London (Caravelle) 1X.
Domestic: Damascus-Latakia (DC3)X5, Damascus-Palmyra-Deirezzor (DC4)X3, Damascus-Deirezzor-Aleppo (DC3)2X, Damascus-Deirezzor (DC3) 1X, Damascus-Aleppo-Qamishli (DC3X2, DC4X4) X6, Damascus-Aleppo (DC3)X5 (including the flights continuing to Beirut).
Luxembourg was a rare destination for carriers in the Middle East in the 1960s; in addition to cargo, SAAL flights could be linked to Loftleidir's budget flights to North America.
In 1967, S.A.A.L. joined IATA by which it was granted the serial number 70. The Dakotas and Skymasters were gradually withdrawn from the fleet, while the DC6-Bs were used for domestic and for a few short-haul regional flights.
The Six-Day War disrupted S.A.A.L's operations for several weeks in 1967 and the airline had to suspend its flights to Jerusalem. Beyond these immediate consequences on the airline, Syria's military defeat in 1967 left the whole country in a state of shock and had a decisive impact on the evolution of its political system for years to come. Nevertheless, S.A.A.L's operations were gradually restored and a normal level of operation was recovered by 1968 as shown in the timetable below. The fleet consisted then of two Super Caravelles and three DC-6Bs.
Syrian Air takes off: 1970–1980
With the beginning of the seventies, S.A.A.L continued its steady development with introducing flights to Moscow in 1970 and purchasing another two Super Caravelles from Sterling Airways in June 1971.
Frequencies were increased, flights to Jeddah were resumed the same year while new flights were launched to Abu Dhabi, Benghazi and Budapest. Flights were disrupted for several weeks during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, following which Syrian sovereignty was restored in parts of the Golan Heights.
A new airport, the Damascus International Airport, was built 25 km south-east of the capital and was opened to traffic in 1973 to become S.A.A.L's modern hub, replacing the old Mezze structure inherited from the French mandate.
A climate of confidence, pragmatism and political stability was nevertheless in sight in Syria after decades of volatile politics and coups d'état. Ambitious development programs were launched throughout the country.
Syrian Arab Airlines was among the government's priorities as a new modernization and expansion program was launched. A new S.A.A.L. livery was introduced in 1973, featuring the airline's new logo, a mythical bird rising over a Mediterranean-blue disk.
Closer economic and political ties with the Warsaw Pact countries led to the progressive buildup of a comprehensive network in Eastern Europe, with the addition of Bucharest-Otopeni, Prague-Ruzyň and Berlin-Schoenefeld. More flights to North Africa were added in 1974 with the introduction of Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers and Casablanca. Sanaa was also added to the network in 1974.
In parallel to that, S.A.A.L. was managing an increasing number of Soviet-built aircraft for the Syrian government and the Syrian Air Force. That fleet was gradually expanded to include two Antonov An-24s, six Antonov An-26s, six Yakovlev Yak-40s and four Ilyushin Il-76 freighters (2Il-76Ts, 2 Il76Ms), in addition to two French-built Dassault Mystere Falcon 20Fs and one Dassault Falcon 900.
These aircraft were not used by the airline for scheduled services except for some of the Yak-40s which replaced the Douglas DC-6B and the Caravelles on domestic routes by the early eighties. In 1974, two Boeing 707s were leased in from British Airtours in order to complement the Caravelle fleet. That year, the airline carried 279,866 passengers.
A fleet renewal program was launched in 1975 as S.A.A.L. ordered three brand-new Boeing 727-294s and two Boeing 747SPs. Awaiting the delivery of its new planes, the airline leased Boeing 707s in order to improve its service offer. In all, two Boeing 707-420s and six Boeing 707-320s were leased in (respectively from British Airtours and British Midland Airways) at various times between 1974 and 1976 and were used to reinforce frequencies and add new destinations to the network.
The SyrianAir acronym was officially adopted on November 11, 1975, in anticipation of the delivery of the new Boeing fleet and in order to generate a more modern and international image. However, SyrianAir's official and legal title continued to be Syrian Arab Airlines.
The Boeing 727s supplemented the Caravelles throughout the network, while the Boeing 747SPs were used on high load international routes (Munich, Paris, London, the Persian Gulf region, Karachi and Delhi). Demand was particularly high on these routes in 1976, especially following the repeated closures of the Beirut International Airport, and the increasing number of passengers using Damascus International Airport for travel to and from neighboring and war-stricken Lebanon. A record 480,000 passengers were carried by the airline in 1976.
The two jumbo jets were ordered in 1976 with the intention of operating transatlantic services to New York. SyrianAir and the Royal Jordanian Airlines were to join forces in launching the first transatlantic route ever operated by an Arab Middle Eastern airline. The joint flight agreement never really materialized, and Alia launched independently its own Amman-New York flights in 1977. SyrianAir started its Boeing 747SP operations on June 1, 1976, using the jumbo jet on the Damascus-Munich-London sector.
During the seventies, SyrianAair managed to acquire a modern fleet, revamp its image and operate a profitable passenger network on three continents largely satisfying the needs of the Syrian market. Its fares were accessible and attracted budget travellers flying between Europe and South Asia. The climate of stability and economic prosperity in Syria had a determining influence on the positive results of the airline. The eighties brought about new challenges to both, Syria and its airline.
Mixed fortunes, mixed-fleet carrier 1980–1993
SyrianAir welcomed the eighties with an active fleet of three Boeing 727s, two Boeing 747SPs, and two ageing Super Caravelles. In 1980, SyrianAir sold two of its ageing Caravelles as plans were made for the acquisition of newer aircraft. In 1981, the airline carried 510,000 passengers, but these numbers declined to 462,000 in 1982 following the unrest caused by Israel's invasion of nearby Lebanon. The Yakovlev Yak 40s devoted to internal routes were mostly flown on behalf of the Syrian Air Force.
While there was an obvious need to renew the fleet and to increase the airline's capacity, mounting tensions between Syria and the West hampered the airline's modernization plans. There was a growing rift between the U.S. administration in particular and Syria; both parties found themselves often at odds regarding a variety of regional issues, from the Iranian revolution, the Palestinian cause, to the raging conflict in Lebanon and Iran-Iraq War.
These tensions ultimately resulted in economic sanctions voted by the U.S Congress, which accused Syria of harbouring and embracing illegal opposition movements. The sanctions, which became effective in the early eighties, apart from harming Syria's economy in general, prevented SyrianAir from buying newer Western equipment. This climate of difficult economics also resulted in a relatively austere on-board service and in the persistence of tedious multiple-leg routings, while competing airlines were offering nonstop frequent flights.
SyrianAir had ultimately to resort to Soviet-built aircraft in order to expand its fleet. The Tupolev Tu-134s were introduced in 1983. In all, six Tu-134s were bought by SyrianAir, including two devoted to governmental missions. The Tu-134s were used along with the Caravelles on low yield regional and medium-haul flights and some domestic routes, while most of the domestic flights continued to be operated using the Yakovlev Yak-40s. Three Tupolev Tu-154Ms were acquired by SyrianAir between 1984 and 1986, they provided a well-needed boost to the Boeing 727 operations in Europe and the Persian Gulf region. The same difficult summer of 1985, flights to Beirut were restarted using the Super Caravelles.
In 1986, SyrianAir had to suspend flights to one of its long-standing and most important destinations, London, because of a diplomatic crisis between the UK and Syria following the Hindawi affair. The number of passengers carried by SyrianAir declined to 353,355 in 1988, the lowest since the mid-seventies, forcing the airline towards more reform. The workforce was reduced by 1.5% to 3,526 in 1989, the number of passengers carried that year increased to 509,659. The workforce was increased to 3,615 in 1990, and the number of passengers increased to 655,644, a record despite the war in Kuwait, and the airline was able to finish the year without losses.
While sanctions and harsh economics kept it lagging way behind its competitors, and while the demise of the Soviet Union cast doubts on the future of its Tupolev fleet, SyrianAir's fortunes changed following the Gulf War in 1990. As Syria supported the U.S.-led coalition against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it regained some of its long lost sympathy in Western hearts. Flights to London were resumed in 1991, and passenger numbers continued to increase to 700,819. The long-standing U.S. sanctions were eased in 1993, allowing the acquisition of modern Western equipment.
Renewal and modernization 1994–present
In 1994, Kuwait donated to Syria three Boeing 727-269s which enabled SyrianAir to finally phase out the two Caravelles in December of the following year. In 1995, a record 71 million dollars in operating profit was reported by the airline. The Tupolev operations were gradually scaled down, while new destinations (Madrid and Stockholm) were launched. In 1997, the airline took drastic measures in reducing its workforce to 2,331, as operating profits had declined to 44 million USD during the previous year.
By 1998, the Tupolev Tu-134 were restricted to the Budapest, Beirut, Kuwait, Deir ez-Zor and Qamishly sectors while the Tu-154s were still flown to Bucharest, Moscow, Istanbul, Cairo and Aleppo. In October 1998, SyrianAir received its first Airbus A320-232, YK-AKA and a new livery was unveiled for the occasion. Six Airbus A320s were delivered to SyrianAir in all, allowing the withdrawal of the Tupolevs from regular service by 2000. The Tupolev Tu-134 (except for YK-AYE, YK-AYB and YK-AYF maintained for government use) as well as the Caravelles were stored by the airline at Damascus International Airport. In 1999, flights between Aleppo and Beirut were inaugurated (no such flights had been carried out since the sixties) and service to Libya was resumed following the removal of the UN sanctions against that country.
In 2000, SyrianAir operated a fleet of 14 aircraft: six Airbus A320s, six Boeing 727s and two Boeing 747SPs, while it continued to use the Syrian Air Force Yakovlev Yak-40s for the domestic routes to Qamishly and Deirezzor. Flights to Vienna were inaugurated, while the resumption of Amman and Baghdad flights during that year would prove only temporary. According to the Syrian DGCA website, the airline carried 764,000 passengers that year. In 2003, the airline registered a 9 million dollar net profit thanks to its more economical fleet and carried 907,850 passengers. Unprofitable routes were either scrapped or downscaled for seasonal operations. Thus, flights to Teheran, Bahrain, Doha and Muscat were operated only during the summer season. New markets were sought with the addition of Milan, Barcelona, Manchester, Copenhagen and Benghazi in 2004.
With a workforce exceeding 4,000 employees, SyrianAir, which revenues nevertheless exceeded 171 million dollars in 2003, remains over-staffed. In 2004, and despite a difficult regional situation and U.S. sanctions, the airline improved its performance, carrying 1.07 million passengers. Syrian air carried close to 1.4 million passengers by 2005, however, the number of passengers being carried declined to less than 740,000 passengers by 2009.
Plans were made for the renewal of the fleet with the possible acquisition of several new Airbus aircraft in order to replace the ageing Boeing 727 and 747s. These plans were hampered by the reinforcement of a U.S.-led embargo against Syria after the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, and fleet renewal using Russian equipment was being reconsidered.
By 2012, Syrian Air had retired all its old Boeing 747, 727 and Tupolev aircraft, leaving SyrianAir with just 8 aircraft in its fleet - 2 ATRs and 6 Airbus A320s. In 2017, the company acquired an Airbus A340-300 (YK-AZA, YK-AZB) despite sanctions.
On 9 January 2020, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad issued a legislative decree to change the name from Syrian Arab Airlines to Syrian Airlines. Two more Airbus A-320-200 were delivered via Iran in July and December 2022 (reg. YK-AKG, YK-AKH).
EU and US sanctions
On 23 July 2012, as the Syrian Civil War continued, the European Union imposed a new wave of sanctions on Syria, which included sanctions on SyrianAir. The sanctions meant that the airline cannot conduct flights to the EU, or buy any new aircraft which contain European parts. As a result, Syrian Air was forced to suspend all its operations to the EU. The company is discussing a lawsuit against European Union countries since Syrian Airlines "did not violate any laws nor did it jeopardise safety". However EU ministers justified the sanctions on the airline because the company "provides financial and logistical support for the Syrian government"
On 10 October 2012, a Syrian Air flight in Turkish airspace was flanked by two fighter jets and forced to land in the country. It was believed the plane was carrying a Russian shipment to the Syrian military. Turkey's then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said that Turkey had "received information this plane was carrying cargo of a nature that could not possibly be in compliance with the rules of civil aviation." Russian news agency Interfax cited an unnamed source from a Russian arms exporting agency who stated that there were no weapons or military equipment on board the plane.
Codeshare agreements
Syrian Air had codeshare agreements with the following airlines (as of April 2022):
Conviasa
Destinations
SyrianAir operates the following services (as of 1 June 2023):
Fleet
Current fleet
As of January 2023, the Syrian Air fleet comprises the following aircraft:
Government and VIP fleet
The airline operates some Dassault Falcon 20 and Tupolev Tu-134 for government VIP charters, as well as Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo aircraft, all of which are painted in Syrian Air livery.
Fleet development
The company cannot purchase any new Airbus or Boeing planes, unless the United States and European Union lift the sanctions imposed on it. SyrianAir has maintained orders for new Tupolev, Ilyushin, and Antonov aircraft. However, an order for 10 Antonov-158 has been cancelled due to the Syrian Civil War.
In November 2018, it was reported the airline is evaluating placing an order for 15-20 Irkut MC-21-300s, which it would be able to add despite US and European sanctions. If an order is placed, deliveries could commence in 2024.
Historical fleet
The airline fleet previously included the following aircraft:
Airbus A300-600
Antonov An-24
Antonov An-26
Beech D-18
Boeing 707-320
Boeing 707-400
Boeing 727-200
Boeing 747SP
Douglas DC-3
Douglas DC-4
Douglas DC-6
Douglas DC-6B
Douglas DC-8-60
Douglas C-54 Skymaster
Sud Aviation Caravelle
Tupolev Tu-154
Yakovlev Yak-40
Accidents and incidents
On 7 April 1963, a Douglas DC-6, YK-AEB, lost control and crashed during take-off from Hamah Airport. One passenger from the 26 died when the plane burst into flames, the remaining 25 passengers and 4 crew members survived.
On 2 October 1964, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, YK-ADA, encountered difficulties in stopping within the remaining distance at Damascus International Airport, overran and lost its nose gear before coming to rest. There were no injuries but the aircraft was damaged beyond repair.
On 6 February 1967, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain (DC-3), YK-ACB, struck a building, stalled and crashed a few hundreds yards from the runway while on approach to Aleppo-Nejrab Airport after encountering severe weather in low visibility. 8 occupants were killed and 11 were injured. The crew descended below the glide on approach.
On 20 September 2012, Syrian Air flight RB 501 from Damascus to Latakia, operated by an Airbus A320-200, collided in mid air with a military helicopter during the climb. The airliner returned to Damascus for a safe landing. Approximately half of the vertical stabilizer was broken off the A320. The helicopter crashed killing all three flight crew.
References
Further reading
Lane, Edwin. "Syrian flag carrier struggles to keep flying." BBC. 10 February 2011.
External links
Syrian Airlines
Syrian Airlines
Airlines of Syria
Government-owned companies of Syria
Arab Air Carriers Organization members
Airlines established in 1946
1946 establishments in Syria
Companies based in Damascus
Syrian brands
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament%20of%20England
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Parliament of England
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The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III (). By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.
Originally a unicameral body, a bicameral Parliament emerged when its membership was divided into the House of Lords and House of Commons, which included knights of the shire and burgesses. During Henry IV's time on the throne, the role of Parliament expanded beyond the determination of taxation policy to include the "redress of grievances", which essentially enabled English citizens to petition the body to address complaints in their local towns and counties. By this time, citizens were given the power to vote to elect their representatives—the burgesses—to the House of Commons.
Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the power of the English monarchy, a process that arguably culminated in the English Civil War and the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I.
Predecessors (pre-13th century)
Witan
The origins of Parliament can be traced to the 10th century when a unified Kingdom of England was forged from several smaller kingdoms. In Anglo-Saxon England, the king would hold deliberative assemblies of nobles and prelates called witans. These assemblies numbered anywhere from twenty-five to hundreds of participants, including bishops, abbots, ealdormen, and thegns. Witans met regularly during the three feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun and at other times. In the past, kings interacted with their nobility through royal itineration, but the new kingdom's size made that impractical. Having nobles come to the king for witans was an important alternative to maintain control of the realm.
Witans served several functions. They appear to have had a role in electing kings, especially in times when the succession was disputed. They were theatrical displays of kingship in that they coincided with crown-wearings. They were also forums for receiving petitions and building consensus among the magnates. Kings dispensed patronage, such as granting bookland, and these were recorded in charters witnessed and consented to by those in attendance. Appointments to offices, such as to bishoprics or ealdormanries, were also made during witans. In addition, important political decisions were made in consultation with witans, such as going to war and making treaties. Witans also helped the king to produce Anglo-Saxon law codes and acted as a court for important cases (such as those involving the king or important magnates).
Magnum Concilium
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, William the Conqueror () continued the tradition of summoning assemblies of magnates to consider national affairs, conduct state trials, and make laws; although legislation now took the form of writs rather than law codes. These assemblies were called (Latin for "great council"). While kings had access to familiar counsel, this private advice could not replace the need for consensus building, and overreliance on familiar counsel could lead to political instability. Great councils were valued because they "carried fewer political risks, allowed responsibility to be more broadly shared, and drew a larger body of prelates and magnates into the making of decisions".
The council's members were the king's tenants-in-chief. The greater tenants, such as archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and barons were summoned by individual writ, but sometimes lesser tenants were also summoned by sheriffs. Politics in the period following the Conquest (1066–1154) was dominated by about 200 wealthy laymen, in addition to the king and leading clergy. High-ranking churchmen (such as bishops and abbots) were important magnates in their own right. According to Domesday Book, the English church owned between 25% and 33% of all land in 1066.
Traditionally, the great council was not involved in levying taxes. Kings funded their government through royal land revenues, feudal aids and incidents, the profits of royal justice, and the traditional land tax or geld (discontinued after 1162). By the end of Henry II's reign (1154–1189), however, the Crown needed new sources of revenue to pay for the Anglo-French wars fought between the Plantagenet and Capetian dynasties. Taxes on moveable property (personal property and rents) were developed that applied to everyone in England. In 1188, Henry II set a precedent when he applied to the great council for consent to levy the Saladin tithe.
The burden imposed by national taxation and the likelihood of resistance made consent politically necessary. It was convenient for kings to present the great council of magnates as a representative body capable of consenting on behalf of all within the kingdom. Increasingly, the kingdom was described as the (Latin for "community of the realm") and the barons as their natural representatives. But this development also created more conflict between kings and the baronage as the latter attempted to defend what they considered the rights belonging to the king's subjects.
King John () alienated the barons by his partiality in dispensing justice, heavy financial demands and abusing his right to feudal incidents, reliefs, and aids. In 1215, the barons forced John to abide by a charter of liberties similar to charters issued by earlier kings (see Charter of Liberties). Known as Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter"), the charter was based on three assumptions important to the later development of Parliament:
the king was subject to the law
the king could only make law and raise taxation (except customary feudal dues) with the consent of the community of the realm
that the obedience owed by subjects to the king was conditional and not absolute
While the clause stipulating no taxation "without the common counsel" was deleted from later reissues, it was nevertheless adhered to by later kings. Magna Carta transformed the feudal obligation to advise the king into a right to consent. While it was the barons who made the charter, the liberties guaranteed within it were granted to "all the free men of our realm". The charter was promptly repudiated by the king, which led to the First Barons' War, but Magna Carta would gain the status of fundamental law during the reign of John's successor.
Early development (1216–1307)
In the mid-1230s, the word parliament came into common use for meetings of the great council. The word parliament comes from the French first used in the late 11th century with the meaning of parley or conversation (compare to the of Ancien Régime France).
Early meetings
After the 1230s, the normal meeting place for Parliament was fixed at Westminster. Parliaments tended to meet according to the legal year so that the courts were also in session: January or February for the Hilary term, in April or May for the Easter term, in July, and in October for the Michaelmas term.
Most parliaments had between forty and eighty attendees. Meetings of Parliament always included:
the king
chief ministers and other ministers (great officers of state, justices of the King's Bench and Common Bench, and barons of the exchequer)
members of the king's council
ecclesiastical magnates (archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors)
lay magnates (earls and barons)
The lower clergy (deans, cathedral priors, archdeacons, parish priests) were occasionally summoned when papal taxation was on the agenda. Beginning around the 1220s, the concept of representation, summarised in the Roman law maxim (Latin for "what touches all should be approved by all"), gained new importance among the clergy, and they began choosing proctors to represent them at church assemblies and, when summoned, at Parliament.
As feudalism declined and the gentry and merchant classes increased in influence, the shires and boroughs were recognised as communes (Latin ) with a unified constituency capable of being represented by knights of the shire and burgesses. Initially, knights and burgesses were summoned only when new taxes were proposed so that representatives of the communes (or "the Commons") could report back home that taxes were lawfully granted. The Commons were not regularly summoned until the 1290s, after the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295. Of the thirty parliaments between 1274 and 1294, knights only attended four and burgesses only two.
Early parliaments increasingly brought together social classes resembling the estates of the realm of continental Europe: the landed aristocracy (barons and knights), the clergy, and the towns. Historian John Maddicott points out that "the main division within parliament was less between lords and commons than between the landed and all others, lower clergy as well as burgesses".
Specialists could be summoned to Parliament to provide expert advice. For example, Roman law experts were summoned from Cambridge and Oxford to the Norham parliament of 1291 to advise on the disputed Scottish succession. At the Bury St Edmunds parliament of 1296, burgesses "who best know how to plan and lay out a certain new town" were summoned to advise on the rebuilding of Berwick after its capture by the English.
Early functions and powers
Parliament—or the "High Court of Parliament" as it became known—was England's highest court of justice. A large amount of its business involved judicial questions referred to it by ministers, judges, and other government officials. Many petitions were submitted to Parliament by individuals whose grievances were not satisfied through normal administrative or judicial channels. As the number of petitions increased, they came to be directed to particular departments (chancery, exchequer, the courts) leaving the king's council to concentrate on the most important business. Parliament became "a delivery point and a sorting house for petitions". From 1290 to 1307, Gilbert of Rothbury was placed in charge of organising parliamentary business and recordkeeping—in effect a clerk of the parliaments.
Kings could legislate outside of Parliament through legislative (administrative orders drafted by the king's council as letters patent or letters close) and writs drafted by the chancery in response to particular court cases. But kings could also use Parliament to promulgate legislation. Parliament's legislative role was largely passive—the actual work of law-making was done by the king and council, specifically the judges on the council who drafted statutes. Completed legislation was then presented to Parliament for ratification.
Kings needed Parliament to fund their military campaigns. On the basis of Magna Carta, Parliament asserted for itself the right to consent to taxation, and a pattern developed in which the king would make concessions (such as reaffirming liberties in Magna Carta) in return for tax grants. Withholding taxation was Parliament's main tool in disputes with the king. Nevertheless, the king was still able to raise lesser amounts of revenue from sources that did not require parliamentary consent, such as:
county farms (the fixed sum paid annually by sheriffs for the privilege of administering and profiting from royal lands in their counties)
profits from the eyre
tallage on the royal demesne, the towns, foreign merchants, and most importantly English Jews
scutage
feudal dues and fines
profits from wardship, escheat, and vacant episcopal sees
Henry III
Henry III (r. 1216–1272) became king at nine years old after his father, King John, died during the First Barons' War. During the king's minority, England was ruled by a regency government that relied heavily on great councils to legitimise its actions. Great councils even consented to the appointment of royal ministers, an action that normally was considered a royal prerogative. Historian John Maddicott writes that the "effect of the minority was thus to make the great council an indispensable part of the country's government [and] to give it a degree of independent initiative and authority which central assemblies had never previously possessed".
The regency government officially ended when Henry turned sixteen in 1223, and the magnates demanded the adult king confirm previous grants of Magna Carta made in 1216 and 1217 to ensure their legality. At the same time, the king needed money to defend his possessions in Poitou and Gascony from a French invasion. At a great council in 1225, a deal was reached that saw Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest reissued in return for taxing a fifteenth (7 percent) of movable property. This set a precedent that taxation was granted in return for the redress of grievances.
Ministers and finances
In 1232, Peter des Roches became the king's chief minister. His nephew, Peter de Rivaux, accumulated a large number of offices, including lord keeper of the privy seal and keeper of the wardrobe; yet, these appointments were not approved by the magnates as had become customary during the regency government. Under Roches, the government revived practices used during King John's reign and that had been condemned in Magna Carta, such as arbitrary disseisins, revoking perpetual rights granted in royal charters, depriving heirs of their inheritances, and marrying heiresses to foreigners.
Both Roches and Rivaux were foreigners from Poitou. The rise of a royal administration controlled by foreigners and dependent solely on the king stirred resentment among the magnates, who felt excluded from power. Several barons rose in rebellion, and the bishops intervened to persuade the king to change ministers. At a great council in April 1234, the king agreed to remove Rivaux and other ministers. This was the first occasion in which a king was forced to change his ministers by a great council or parliament. The struggle between king and Parliament over ministers became a permanent feature of English politics.
Thereafter, the king ruled in concert with an active Parliament, which considered matters related to foreign policy, taxation, justice, administration, and legislation. January 1236 saw the passage of the Statute of Merton, the first English statute. Among other things, the law continued barring bastards from inheritance. Significantly, the language of the preamble describes the legislation as "provided" by the magnates and "conceded" by the king, which implies that this was not simply a royal measure consented to by the barons. In 1237, Henry asked Parliament for a tax to fund his sister Isabella's dowry. The barons were unenthusiastic, but they granted the funds in return for the king's promise to reconfirm Magna Carta, add three magnates to his personal council, limit the royal prerogative of purveyance, and protect land tenure rights.
But Henry was adamant that three concerns were exclusively within his royal prerogative: family and inheritance matters, patronage, and appointments. Important decisions were made without consulting Parliament, such as in 1254 when the king accepted the throne of the Kingdom of Sicily for his younger son, Edmund Crouchback. He also clashed with Parliament over appointments to the three great offices of chancellor, justiciar, and treasurer. The barons believed these three offices should be restraints on royal misgovernment, but the king promoted minor officials within the royal household who owed their loyalty exclusively to him.
In 1253, while fighting in Gascony, Henry requested men and money to resist an anticipated attack from Alfonso X of Castile. In a January 1254 Parliament, the bishops themselves promised an aid but would not commit the rest of the clergy. Likewise, the barons promised to assist the king if he was attacked but would not commit the rest of the laity to pay money. For this reason, the lower clergy of each diocese elected proctors at church synods, and each county elected two knights of the shire. These representatives were summoned to Parliament in April 1254 to consent to taxation. The men elected as shire knights were prominent landholders with experience in local government and as soldiers. They were elected by barons, other knights, and probably freeholders of sufficient standing.
Baronial reform movement
By 1258, the relationship between the king and the baronage had reached a breaking point over the "Sicilian Business", in which Henry had promised to pay papal debts in return for the pope's help securing the Sicilian crown for his son, Edmund. At the Oxford Parliament of 1258, reform-minded barons forced a reluctant king to accept a constitutional framework known as the Provisions of Oxford:
The king was to govern according to the advice of an elected council of fifteen barons.
The baronial council appointed royal ministers (justiciar, treasurer, chancellor) to serve for one-year terms.
Parliament met three times a year on the octave of Michaelmas (October 6), Candlemas (February 3), and June 1.
The barons elected twelve representatives (two bishops, one earl and nine barons) who together with the baronial council could act on legislation and other matters even when Parliament was not in session as "a kind of standing parliamentary committee".
Parliament now met regularly according to a schedule rather than at the pleasure of the king. The reformers hoped that the provisions would ensure parliamentary approval for all major government acts. Under the provisions, Parliament was "established formally (and no longer merely by custom) as the voice of the community".
The theme of reform dominated later parliaments. During the Michaelmas Parliament of 1258, the Ordinance of Sheriffs was issued as letters patent that forbade sheriffs from taking bribes. At the Candlemas Parliament of 1259, the baronial council and the twelve representatives enacted the Ordinance of the Magnates. In this ordinance, the barons promised to observe Magna Carta and other reforming legislation. They also required their own bailiffs to observe similar rules as those of royal sheriffs, and the justiciar was given power to correct abuses of their officials. The Michaelmas Parliament of 1259 enacted the Provisions of Westminster, a set of legal and administrative reforms designed to address grievances of freeholders and even villeins, such as abuses related to the murdrum fine.
Henry III made his first move against the baronial reformers while in France negotiating peace with Louis IX. Using the excuse of his absence from the realm and Welsh attacks in the marches, Henry ordered the justiciar, Hugh Bigod, to postpone the parliament scheduled for Candlemas 1260. This was an apparent violation of the Provisions of Oxford; however, the provisions were silent on what should happen if the king were outside the kingdom. The king's motive was to prevent the promulgation of further reforms through Parliament. Simon de Montfort, a leader of the baronial reformers, ignored these orders and made plans to hold a parliament in London but was prevented by Bigod. When the king arrived back in England he summoned a parliament which met in July, where Montfort was brought to trial though ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.
In April 1261, the pope released the king from his oath to adhere to the Provisions of Oxford, and Henry publicly renounced the Provisions in May. Most of the barons were willing to let the king reassume power provided he ruled well. By 1262, Henry had regained all of his authority, and Montfort left England. The barons were now divided mainly by age. The elder barons remained loyal to the king, but younger barons coalesced around Montfort, who returned to England in the spring of 1263.
Montfortian parliaments
The royalist barons and rebel barons fought each other in the Second Barons' War. Montfort defeated the king at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 and became the real ruler of England for the next twelve months. Montfort held a parliament in June 1264 to sanction a new form of government and rally support. This parliament was notable for including knights of the shire who were expected to deliberate fully on political matters, not just assent to taxation.
The June Parliament approved a new constitution in which the king's powers were given to a council of nine. The new council was chosen and led by three electors (Montfort, Stephen Bersted, bishop of Chichester, and Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester). The electors could replace any of the nine as they saw fit, but the electors themselves could only be removed by Parliament.
Montfort held two other Parliaments during his time in power. The most famous—Simon de Montfort's Parliament—was held in January 1265 amidst threat of a French invasion and unrest throughout the realm. For the first time, burgesses (elected by those residents of boroughs or towns who held burgage tenure, such as wealthy merchants or craftsmen) were summoned along with knights of the shire.
Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and Henry was restored to power. In August 1266, Parliament authorised the Dictum of Kenilworth, which nullified everything Montfort had done and removed all restraints on the king. In 1267, some of the reforms contained in the 1259 Provisions of Westminster were revised in the form of the Statute of Marlborough passed in 1267. This was the start of a process of statutory reform that continued into the reign of Henry's successor.
Edward I
Edward I () learned from the failures of his father's reign the usefulness of Parliament for building consensus and strengthening royal authority. Parliaments were held regularly throughout his reign, generally twice a year at Easter in the spring and after Michaelmas in the autumn.
Under Edward, the first major statutes amending the common law were promulgated in Parliament:
Statute of Westminster I (1275)
Statute of Gloucester (1278)
Statute of Mortmain (1279)
Statute of Westminster II (1285)
Statute of Winchester (1285)
Statute Quia Emptores (1290)
Statute Quo Warranto (1290)
The first Statute of Westminster required free elections without intimidation. This act was accompanied by the grant of a tax on England's wealthy wool trade—a half-mark (6s 8d) on each sack of wool exported. It became known as the (Latin: "great and ancient custom") and was granted to Edward and his heirs, becoming part of the Crown's permanent revenue until the 17th century.
Model Parliament
In 1294, the Anglo-French War broke out over control of Gascony. Edward's need for money to finance the war led him to take arbitrary measures. He ordered the seizure of merchants' wool, which was only released after payment of the unpopular maltolt, a tax never authorised by Parliament. Church wealth was arbitrarily seized, and the clergy were further asked to give half of their revenues to the king. They refused but agreed to a smaller sum. Over the next couple years, parliaments approved new taxes, but it was never enough. More money was needed to put down a Welsh rebellion and win the First War of Scottish Independence.
This need for money led to what became known as the "Model Parliament" of November 1295. In addition to magnates who were summoned individually, sheriffs were instructed to send two elected knights from each shire and two elected burgesses from each borough. The Commons had been summoned to earlier parliaments but only with power to consent to what the magnates decided. In the Model Parliament, the writ of summons invested shire knights and burgesses with power to provide both counsel and consent.
Crisis of 1297
By 1296, the King's efforts to recover Gascony were creating resentment among the clergy, merchants, and magnates. At the Bury St Edmunds parliament in 1296, the lay magnates and Commons agreed to pay a tax on moveable property. The clergy refused citing the papal bull , which forbade secular rulers from taxing the church without papal permission. In January 1297, a convocation of the clergy met at St Paul's in London to consider the matter further but ultimately could find no way to pay the tax without violating the papal bull. In retaliation, the King outlawed the clergy and confiscated clerical property on 30 January. On 10 February, Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury, responded by excommunicating anyone acting against . Most clergy paid a fine for the restoration of their property that was identical to the tax requested by the King.
At the Salisbury parliament of March 1297, Edward unveiled his plans for recovering Gascony. The English would mount a two front attack with the King leading an expedition to Flanders while other barons traveled to Gascony. This plan faced opposition from the most important noblemen—Roger Bigod, marshal and earl of Norfolk, and Humphrey Bohun, constable and earl of Hereford. Norfolk and Hereford argued that they owed the king military service in foreign lands but only if the king were present. Therefore, they would not go to Gascony unless the King went as well. Norfolk and Hereford were supported by around 30 barons, and the parliament ended without any decision. After the Salisbury parliament ended, Edward ordered the seizure of wool (see prise) and payment of a new maltolt.
In July 1297, a writ declared that "the earls, barons, knights, and other laity of our realm" had granted a tax on moveables. In reality, this grant was not made by a parliament but by an informal gathering "standing around in [the king's] chamber". Norfolk and Hereford drew up a list of grievances known as the Remonstrances, which criticized the king's demand for military service and heavy taxes. The maltolt and prises were particularly objectionable due to their arbitrary nature. In August, Bigod and de Bohun arrived at the exchequer protesting that the irregular tax "was never granted by them or the community" and declared they would not pay it.
The outbreak of the First War of Scottish Independence necessitated that both the king and his opponents put aside their differences. At the October 1297 parliament, the council agreed to concessions in the king's absence. In exchange for a new tax, the reconfirmed Magna Carta, abolished the maltolt, and formally recognised that "aids, mises, and prises" needed the consent of Parliament.
Later reign
Edward soon broke the agreements of 1297, and his relations with Parliament remained strained for the rest of his reign as he sought further funds for the war in Scotland. At the parliament of March 1300, the king was forced to agree to the , which gave further concessions to his subjects.
At the Lincoln parliament of 1301, the King heard complaints that the charters were not followed and calls for the dismissal of his chief minister, the treasurer Walter Langton. Demands for appointment of ministers by "common consent" were heard for the first time since Henry III's death. To this, Edward angrily refused, saying that every other magnate in England had the power "to arrange his household, to appoint bailiffs and stewards" without outside interference. He did offer to right any wrongs his officials had committed. Notably, the petition on behalf of "the prelates and leading men of the kingdom acting for the whole community" was presented by Henry de Keighley, knight for Lanchashire. This indicates that knights were holding greater weight in Parliament.
The last four parliaments of Edward's' reign were less contentious. With Scotland nearly conquered, royal finances improved and opposition to royal policies decreased. A number of petitions were considered at the parliament of February 1305 included ones related to crime. In response, Edward issued the trailbaston ordinance. The state trial of Nicholas Seagrave was conducted as part of this parliament as well. Harmonious relations continued between king and Parliament even after December 1305 when Pope Clement V absolved the King of his oath to adhere to . The last parliament of the reign was held at Carlisle in 1307. It approved the marriage of the King's son to Isabella of France. Legislation attacking papal provisions and papal taxation was also ratified.
14th century
Edward II (1307–1327)
One of the moments that marked the emergence of parliament as a true institution in England was the deposition of Edward II in January 1327. Even though it is debatable whether Edward II was deposed in parliament or by parliament, this remarkable sequence of events consolidated the importance of parliament in the English unwritten constitution. Parliament was also crucial in establishing the legitimacy of the king who replaced Edward II: his son Edward III.
Edward III (1327–1377)
In 1341 the Commons met separately from the nobility and clergy for the first time, creating what was effectively an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber, with the knights and burgesses sitting in the latter. This Upper Chamber became known as the House of Lords from 1544 onward, and the Lower Chamber became known as the House of Commons, collectively known as the Houses of Parliament.
The authority of parliament grew under Edward III; it was established that no law could be made, nor any tax levied, without the consent of both Houses and the Sovereign. This development occurred during the reign of Edward III because he was involved in the Hundred Years' War and needed finances. During his conduct of the war, Edward tried to circumvent parliament as much as possible, which caused this power structure to emerge.
The Commons came to act with increasing boldness during this period. During the Good Parliament of 1376, the Presiding Officer of the lower chamber, Peter de la Mare, complained of heavy taxes, demanded an accounting of the royal expenditures, and criticised the king's management of the military. The Commons even proceeded to impeach some of the king's ministers. The bold Speaker was imprisoned, but was soon released after the death of Edward III.
Richard II (1377–1399)
During the reign of the next monarch, Richard II, the Commons once again began to impeach errant ministers of the Crown. They insisted that they could control not only taxation but also public expenditure. Despite such gains in authority, however, the Commons still remained much less powerful than the House of Lords and the Crown.
15th century
This period saw the introduction of a franchise which limited the number of people who could vote in elections to the House of Commons. From 1430 onwards, the franchise for the election of knights of the shires in the county constituencies was limited to forty-shilling freeholders, meaning men who owned freehold property worth forty shillings (two pounds) or more. The Parliament of England legislated for this new uniform county franchise in the statute 8 Hen. 6, c. 7. The Chronological Table of the Statutes does not mention such a 1430 law, as it was included in the Consolidated Statutes as a recital in the Electors of Knights of the Shire Act 1432 (10 Hen. 6, c. 2), which amended and re-enacted the 1430 law to make clear that the resident of a county had to have a forty shilling freehold in that county to be a voter there.
Tudor era (1485–1603)
During the reign of the Tudor monarchs, it is often argued that the modern structure of the English Parliament began to be created. The Tudor monarchy, according to historian J. E. Neale, was powerful, and there were often periods of several years when parliament did not sit at all. However, the Tudor monarchs realised that they needed parliament to legitimise many of their decisions, mostly out of a need to raise money through taxation legitimately without causing discontent. Thus they consolidated the state of affairs whereby monarchs would call and close parliament as and when they needed it. However, if monarchs did not call Parliament for several years, it is clear the Monarch did not require Parliament except to perhaps strengthen and provide a mandate for their reforms to Religion which had always been a matter within the Crown's prerogative but would require the consent of the Bishopric and Commons.
By the time of the Tudor monarch Henry VII's 1485 coronation, the monarch was not a member of either the Upper Chamber or the Lower Chamber. Consequently, the monarch would have to make his or her feelings known to Parliament through his or her supporters in both houses. Proceedings were regulated by the presiding officer in either chamber.
From the 1540s the presiding officer in the House of Commons became formally known as the "Speaker", having previously been referred to as the "prolocutor" or "parlour" (a semi-official position, often nominated by the monarch, that had existed ever since Peter de Montfort had acted as the presiding officer of the Oxford Parliament of 1258). This was not an enviable job. When the House of Commons was unhappy it was the Speaker who had to deliver this news to the monarch. This began the tradition whereby the Speaker of the House of Commons is dragged to the Speaker's Chair by other members once elected.
A member of either chamber could present a "bill" to parliament. Bills supported by the monarch were often proposed by members of the Privy Council who sat in parliament. For a bill to become law it would have to be approved by a majority of both Houses of Parliament before it passed to the monarch for royal assent or veto. The royal veto was applied several times during the 16th and 17th centuries and it is still the right of the monarch of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms to veto legislation today, although it has not been exercised since 1707 (today such an exercise might precipitate some form of constitutional crisis).
When a bill was enacted into law, this process gave it the approval of each estate of the realm: the King, Lords and Commons. The Parliament of England was far from being a democratically representative institution in this period. It was possible to assemble the entire peerage and senior clergy of the realm in one place to form the estate of the Upper Chamber.
The voting franchise for the House of Commons was small; some historians estimate that it was as little as three per cent of the adult male population; and there was no secret ballot. Elections could therefore be controlled by local grandees, because in many boroughs a majority of voters were in some way dependent on a powerful individual, or else could be bought by money or concessions. If these grandees were supporters of the incumbent monarch, this gave the Crown and its ministers considerable influence over the business of parliament.
Many of the men elected to parliament did not relish the prospect of having to act in the interests of others. So a law was enacted, still on the statute book today, whereby it became unlawful for members of the House of Commons to resign their seat unless they were granted a position directly within the patronage of the monarchy (today this latter restriction leads to a legal fiction allowing de facto resignation despite the prohibition, but nevertheless it is a resignation which needs the permission of the Crown). However, while several elections to parliament in this period would be considered corrupt by modern standards, many elections involved genuine contests between rival candidates, even though the ballot was not secret.
Establishment of permanent seat
It was in this period that the Palace of Westminster was established as the seat of the English Parliament. In 1548, the House of Commons was granted a regular meeting place by the Crown, St Stephen's Chapel. This had been a royal chapel. It was made into a debating chamber after Henry VIII became the last monarch to use the Palace of Westminster as a place of residence and after the suppression of the college there.
This room was the home of the House of Commons until it was destroyed by fire in 1834, although the interior was altered several times up until then. The structure of this room was pivotal in the development of the Parliament of England. While most modern legislatures sit in a circular chamber, the benches of the British Houses of Parliament are laid out in the form of choir stalls in a chapel, simply because this is the part of the original room that the members of the House of Commons used when they were granted use of St Stephen's Chapel.
This structure took on a new significance with the emergence of political parties in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the tradition began whereby the members of the governing party would sit on the benches to the right of the Speaker and the opposition members on the benches to the left. It is said that the Speaker's chair was placed in front of the chapel's altar. As Members came and went they observed the custom of bowing to the altar and continued to do so, even when it had been taken away, thus then bowing to the Chair, as is still the custom today.
The numbers of the Lords Spiritual diminished under Henry VIII, who commanded the Dissolution of the Monasteries, thereby depriving the abbots and priors of their seats in the Upper House. For the first time, the Lords Temporal were more numerous than the Lords Spiritual. Currently, the Lords Spiritual consist of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, and twenty-one other English diocesan bishops in seniority of appointment to a diocese.
The Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42 annexed Wales as part of England and this brought Welsh representatives into the Parliament of England, first elected in 1542.
Rebellion and revolution
Parliament had not always submitted to the wishes of the Tudor monarchs. But parliamentary criticism of the monarchy reached new levels in the 17th century. When the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died in 1603, King James VI of Scotland came to power as King James I, founding the Stuart monarchy.
In 1628, alarmed by the arbitrary exercise of royal power, the House of Commons submitted to Charles I the Petition of Right, demanding the restoration of their liberties. Though he accepted the petition, Charles later dissolved parliament and ruled without them for eleven years. It was only after the financial disaster of the Scottish Bishops' Wars (1639–1640) that he was forced to recall Parliament so that they could authorise new taxes. This resulted in the calling of the assemblies known historically as the Short Parliament of 1640 and the Long Parliament, which sat with several breaks and in various forms between 1640 and 1660.
The Long Parliament was characterised by the growing number of critics of the king who sat in it. The most prominent of these critics in the House of Commons was John Pym. Tensions between the king and his parliament reached a boiling point in January 1642 when Charles entered the House of Commons and tried, unsuccessfully, to arrest Pym and four other members for their alleged treason. The Five Members had been tipped off about this, and by the time Charles came into the chamber with a group of soldiers they had disappeared. Charles was further humiliated when he asked the Speaker, William Lenthall, to give their whereabouts, which Lenthall famously refused to do.
From then on relations between the king and his parliament deteriorated further. When trouble started to brew in Ireland, both Charles and his parliament raised armies to quell the uprisings by native Catholics there. It was not long before it was clear that these forces would end up fighting each other, leading to the English Civil War which began with the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642: those supporting the cause of parliament were called Parliamentarians (or Roundheads), and those in support of the Crown were called Royalists (or Cavaliers).
Battles between Crown and Parliament continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, but parliament was no longer subservient to the English monarchy. This change was symbolised in the execution of Charles I in January 1649.
In Pride's Purge of December 1648, the New Model Army (which by then had emerged as the leading force in the parliamentary alliance) purged Parliament of members that did not support them. The remaining "Rump Parliament", as it was later referred to by critics, enacted legislation to put the king on trial for treason. This trial, the outcome of which was a foregone conclusion, led to the execution of the king and the start of an 11-year republic.
The House of Lords was abolished and the purged House of Commons governed England until April 1653, when army chief Oliver Cromwell dissolved it after disagreements over religious policy and how to carry out elections to parliament. Cromwell later convened a parliament of religious radicals in 1653, commonly known as Barebone's Parliament, followed by the unicameral First Protectorate Parliament that sat from September 1654 to January 1655 and the Second Protectorate Parliament that sat in two sessions between 1656 and 1658, the first session was unicameral and the second session was bicameral.
Although it is easy to dismiss the English Republic of 1649–60 as nothing more than a Cromwellian military dictatorship, the events that took place in this decade were hugely important in determining the future of parliament. First, it was during the sitting of the first Rump Parliament that members of the House of Commons became known as "MPs" (Members of Parliament). Second, Cromwell gave a huge degree of freedom to his parliaments, although royalists were barred from sitting in all but a handful of cases.
Cromwell's vision of parliament appears to have been largely based on the example of the Elizabethan parliaments. However, he underestimated the extent to which Elizabeth I and her ministers had directly and indirectly influenced the decision-making process of her parliaments. He was thus always surprised when they became troublesome. He ended up dissolving each parliament that he convened. Yet it is worth noting that the structure of the second session of the Second Protectorate Parliament of 1658 was almost identical to the parliamentary structure consolidated in the Glorious Revolution Settlement of 1689.
In 1653 Cromwell had been made head of state with the title Lord Protector of the Realm. The Second Protectorate Parliament offered him the crown. Cromwell rejected this offer, but the governmental structure embodied in the final version of the Humble Petition and Advice was a basis for all future parliaments. It proposed an elected House of Commons as the Lower Chamber, a House of Lords containing peers of the realm as the Upper Chamber. A constitutional monarchy, subservient to parliament and the laws of the nation, would act as the executive arm of the state at the top of the tree, assisted in carrying out their duties by a Privy Council. Oliver Cromwell had thus inadvertently presided over the creation of a basis for the future parliamentary government of England. In 1657 he had the Parliament of Scotland (temporarily) unified with the English Parliament.
In terms of the evolution of parliament as an institution, by far the most important development during the republic was the sitting of the Rump Parliament between 1649 and 1653. This proved that parliament could survive without a monarchy and a House of Lords if it wanted to. Future English monarchs would never forget this. Charles I was the last English monarch ever to enter the House of Commons.
Even to this day, a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sent to Buckingham Palace as a ceremonial hostage during the State Opening of Parliament, in order to ensure the safe return of the sovereign from a potentially hostile parliament. During the ceremony the monarch sits on the throne in the House of Lords and signals for the Lord Great Chamberlain to summon the House of Commons to the Lords Chamber. The Lord Great Chamberlain then raises his wand of office to signal to the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, who has been waiting in the central lobby. Black Rod turns and, escorted by the doorkeeper of the House of Lords and an inspector of police, approaches the doors to the chamber of the Commons. The doors are slammed in his face—symbolising the right of the Commons to debate without the presence of the monarch's representative. He then strikes three times with his staff (the Black Rod), and he is admitted.
Parliament from the Restoration to the Act of Settlement
The revolutionary events that occurred between 1620 and 1689 all took place in the name of parliament. The new status of parliament as the central governmental organ of the English state was consolidated during the events surrounding the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
After the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658, his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him as Lord Protector, summoning the Third Protectorate Parliament in the process. When this parliament was dissolved under pressure from the army in April 1659, the Rump Parliament was recalled at the insistence of the surviving army grandees. This in turn was dissolved in a coup led by army general John Lambert, leading to the formation of the Committee of Safety, dominated by Lambert and his supporters.
When the breakaway forces of George Monck invaded England from Scotland, where they had been stationed without Lambert's supporters putting up a fight, Monck temporarily recalled the Rump Parliament and reversed Pride's Purge by recalling the entirety of the Long Parliament. They then voted to dissolve themselves and call new elections, which were arguably the most democratic for 20 years although the franchise was still very small. This led to the calling of the Convention Parliament which was dominated by royalists. This parliament voted to reinstate the monarchy and the House of Lords. Charles II returned to England as king in May 1660. The Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union that Cromwell had established was dissolved in 1661 when the Scottish Parliament resumed its separate meeting place in Edinburgh.
The Restoration began the tradition whereby all governments looked to parliament for legitimacy. In 1681 Charles II dissolved parliament and ruled without them for the last four years of his reign. This followed bitter disagreements between the king and parliament that had occurred between 1679 and 1681. Charles took a big gamble by doing this. He risked the possibility of a military showdown akin to that of 1642. However, he rightly predicted that the nation did not want another civil war. Parliament disbanded without a fight. Events that followed ensured that this would be nothing but a temporary blip.
Charles II died in 1685 and he was succeeded by his brother James II. During his lifetime Charles had always pledged loyalty to the Protestant Church of England, despite his private Catholic sympathies. James was openly Catholic. He attempted to lift restrictions on Catholics taking up public offices. This was bitterly opposed by Protestants in his kingdom. They invited William of Orange, a Protestant who had married Mary, daughter of James II and Anne Hyde to invade England and claim the throne.
William assembled an army estimated at 15,000 soldiers (11,000 foot and 4000 horse) and landed at Brixham in southwest England in November, 1688. When many Protestant officers, including James's close adviser, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defected from the English army to William's invasion force, James fled the country. Parliament then offered the Crown to his Protestant daughter Mary, instead of his infant son (James Francis Edward Stuart), who was baptised Catholic. Mary refused the offer, and instead William and Mary ruled jointly, with both having the right to rule alone on the other's death.
As part of the compromise in allowing William to be King—called the Glorious Revolution—Parliament was able to have the 1689 Bill of Rights enacted. Later the 1701 Act of Settlement was approved. These were statutes that lawfully upheld the prominence of parliament for the first time in English history. These events marked the beginning of the English constitutional monarchy and its role as one of the three elements of parliament.
Union: the Parliament of Great Britain
After the Treaty of Union in 1707, Acts of Parliament passed in the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland created a new Kingdom of Great Britain and dissolved both parliaments, replacing them with a new Parliament of Great Britain based in the former home of the English parliament. The Parliament of Great Britain later became the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1801 when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed through the Acts of Union 1800.
Acts of Parliament
Specific Acts of Parliament can be found at the following articles:
List of Acts of the Parliament of England
List of Ordinances and Acts of the Parliament of England, 1642–1660
Locations
Other than London, Parliament was also held in the following cities:
York, various
Lincoln, various
Oxford, 1258 (Mad Parliament), 1681
Kenilworth, 1266
Acton Burnell Castle, 1283
Shrewsbury, 1283 (trial of Dafydd ap Gruffydd), 1397 ('Great' Parliament)
Carlisle, 1307
Oswestry Castle, 1398
Northampton 1328
New Sarum (Salisbury), 1330
Winchester, 1332, 1449
Leicester, 1414 (Fire and Faggot Parliament), 1426 (Parliament of Bats)
Reading Abbey, 1453
Coventry, 1459 (Parliament of Devils)
See also
Duration of English parliaments before 1660
History of local government in England
Lex Parliamentaria
List of English ministries
List of parliaments of England
Modus Tenendi Parliamentum
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
Birth of the English Parliament. UK Parliament
Parliament and People. British Library
Origins and growth of Parliament. National Archives
History of Parliament Online. Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London
1707 disestablishments in Great Britain
England
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saatchi%20Gallery
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Saatchi Gallery
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The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and began a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.
The gallery's mission is to support artists and render contemporary art accessible to all by presenting projects in physical and digital spaces that are engaging, enlightening and educational for diverse audiences. The Gallery presents curated exhibitions on themes relevant and exciting in the context of contemporary creative culture. Its educational programmes aim to reveal the possibilities of artistic expression to young minds, encourage fresh thought and stimulate innovation.
In 2019, Saatchi Gallery transitioned to becoming a charitable organisation, relying upon private donations to reinvest its revenue into its core learning activities and to support access to contemporary art for all.
History
Boundary Road
Opening and US art
The Saatchi Gallery opened in 1985 in Boundary Road, St John's Wood, London in a disused paint factory of . The first exhibition was held March—October 1985 featured many works by American minimalist Donald Judd, American abstract painters Brice Marden and Cy Twombly, and American pop artist Andy Warhol. This was the first U.K. exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
These were followed throughout December 1985 – July 1986 by an exhibition of works by American sculptor John Chamberlain, American minimalists Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Frank Stella, and Carl Andre. During September 1986 – July 1987, the gallery exhibited German artist Anselm Kiefer and American minimalist sculptor Richard Serra. The exhibited Serra sculptures were so large that the caretaker's flat adjoining the gallery was demolished to make room for them.
From September 1987 – January 1988, the Saatchi Gallery mounted two exhibitions entitled New York Art Now, featuring Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Peter Halley, Haim Steinbach, Philip Taaffe, and Caroll Dunham. This exhibition introduced these artists to the U.K. for the first time. The blend of minimalism and pop art influenced many young artists who would later form the Young British Artists (YBA) group.
April – October 1988 featured exhibited works by American figurative painter Leon Golub, German painter and photographer Sigmar Polke, and American Abstract Expressionist painter Philip Guston. During November 1988 – April 1989 a group show featured contemporary American artists, most prominently Eric Fischl. From April – October, the gallery hosted exhibitions of American minimalist Robert Mangold and American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman. From November 1989 – February 1990, a series of exhibitions featured School of London artists including Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff and Howard Hodgkin.
During January – July 1991, the gallery exhibited the work of American pop artist Richard Artschwager, American photographer Cindy Sherman, and British installation artist Richard Wilson. Wilson's piece 20:50, a room entirely filled with oil, became a permanent installation at the Saatchi Gallery's Boundary Road venue. September 1991 – February 1992 featured a group show, including American photographer Andres Serrano.
Young British Artists
In an abrupt move, Saatchi sold much of his collection of US art, and invested in a new generation of British artists, exhibiting them in shows with the title Young British Artists. The core of the artists had been brought together by Damien Hirst in 1988 in a seminal show called Freeze. Saatchi augmented this with his own choice of purchases from art colleges and "alternative" artist-run spaces in London. His first showing of the YBAs was in 1992, where the star exhibit was a Hirst vitrine containing a shark in formaldehyde and entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This was funded by Saatchi. It has become the iconic work of 1990s British art, and the symbol of Britart worldwide.
More recently Saatchi said, "It's not that Freeze, the 1988 exhibition that Damien Hirst organised with this fellow Goldsmiths College students, was particularly good. Much of the art was fairly so-so and Hirst himself hadn't made anything much just a cluster of small colourful cardboard boxes placed high on a wall. What really stood out was the hopeful swagger of it all."
Saatchi's promotion of these artists dominated local art throughout the nineties and brought them to worldwide notice. Among the artists in the series of shows were Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Rachel Whiteread.
Sensation opened in September at the Royal Academy to much controversy and showed 110 works by 42 artists from the Saatchi collection. In 1999 Sensation toured to the Nationalgalerie at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin in the autumn, and then to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, creating unprecedented political and media controversy and becoming a touchstone for debate about the "morality" of contemporary art.
Neurotic Realism and philanthropy
Meanwhile, other shows with different themes were held in the gallery itself. In 1998, Saatchi launched a two part exhibition entitled Neurotic Realism. Though widely attacked by critics, the exhibition included many future international stars including; Cecily Brown, Ron Mueck, Noble and Webster, Dexter Dalwood, Martin Maloney, Dan Coombs, Chantal Joffe, Michael Raedecker and David Thorpe. In 2000 Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation"), also in two parts, tried surer ground with work by Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Jenny Saville, Rachel Whiteread, the Chapmans, Gavin Turk, Tracey Emin and Chris Ofili.
During this period the Collection was based at '30 Underwood St' an artist Collective of 50 studios and four galleries, the gallery made several large philanthropic donations including 100 artworks in 1999 to the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, which operates a "lending library" to museums and galleries around the country, with the aim of increasing awareness and promoting interest in younger artists; 40 works by young British artists through the National Art Collections Fund, now known as the Art Fund, to eight museum collections across Britain in 2000; and 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals program which provides a lending library of over 3,000 original works of art to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland in 2002.
After the Gallery moved from Boundary Road, the site was redeveloped by the Ardmore Group for residential use, under the name 'The Collection'.
County Hall
In April 2003, the gallery moved to County Hall, the Greater London Council's former headquarters on the South Bank, occupying of the ground floor. 1,000 guests attended the launch, which included a "nude happening" of 200 naked people staged by artist Spencer Tunick.
The opening exhibition included a retrospective by Damien Hirst, as well as work by other YBAs, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman and Tracey Emin alongside some longer-established artists including John Bratby, Paula Rego and Patrick Caulfield.
Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV. He was angry that a Mini car that he had decorated for charity with his trademark spots was being exhibited as serious work. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern. He said Saatchi was "childish" and "I'm not Charles Saatchi's barrel-organ monkey ... He only recognises art with his wallet ... he believes he can affect art values with buying power, and he still believes he can do it." (In July 2004, Hirst said, "I respect Charles. There's not really a feud. If I see him, we speak, but we were never really drinking buddies.")
On 24 May 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the collection, including the Tracey Emin work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–95 ("the tent"), and Jake and Dinos Chapman's tableau Hell. A gallery spokesman said that Saatchi was distraught at the loss: "It is terrible. A significant part of the work in his collection has been affected." One art insurance specialist valued the lost work at £50m.
In 2004, Saatchi's recent acquisitions (including Stella Vine) were featured in New Blood, a show of mostly little-known artists working in a variety of media. It received a hostile critical reception, which caused Saatchi to speak out angrily against the critics.
Saatchi, said that most YBAs would prove "nothing but footnotes" in history, and sold works from his YBA collection, beginning in December 2004 with Hirst's iconic shark for nearly £7 million (he had bought it for £50,000 in 1991), followed by at least twelve other works by Hirst. Four works by Ron Mueck, including key works Pinocchio and Dead Dad, went for an estimated £2.5 million. Mark Quinn's Self, bought in 1991 for a reported £13,000, sold for £1.5 million. Saatchi also sold all but one work by Sam Taylor-Wood (he showed five in the Sensation show). The sale was compared to his sale in the 1980s of most of his postwar American art collection. David Lee said: "Charles Saatchi has all the hallmarks of being a dealer, not a collector. He first talks up the works and then sells them."
In 2005, Saatchi changed direction, announcing a year-long, three-part series (subsequently extended to two years and seven parts), The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focused on established European painters, including Marlene Dumas, Martin Kippenberger, Luc Tuymans and Peter Doig, who had not previously received such significant U.K. exposure. Shows in the series were scheduled to introduce young painters from America like Dana Schutz and Germans such as Matthias Weischer, as well as Saatchi's choice of up and coming British talent.
The gallery received 800,000 visitors a year. In 2006, 1,350 schools organised group visits to the gallery.
In 2006, a selection from The Triumph of Painting was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery and USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opened at the Royal Academy. This exhibition toured to The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia in 2007.
Court case
The gallery's tenancy of County Hall had ongoing difficulties with Makoto Okamoto, London branch manager of the owners, who Saatchi complained had kicked artworks and sealed off the disabled toilets. On 28 September 2005, the gallery announced a move to new and larger premises in the Duke of York's Headquarters, Chelsea, though Saatchi said it was "tragic" to leave. On 6 October 2005, a court case began, brought by the owners and landlord of County Hall, the Shirayama Shokusan Company and Cadogan Leisure Investments, against Danovo (Saatchi was its majority shareholder), trading as the Saatchi Gallery, for alleged breach of conditions, including a two-for-one ticket offer in Time Out magazine and exhibition of work in unauthorized areas. The judgment went against the gallery; the judge, Sir Donald Ratee, and ordered the gallery off the premises because of a "deliberate disregard" of the landlords' rights.
On 8 October 2006, Danovo was forced into liquidation with debts around £1.8 million, having failed to pay the court-ordered penalty.
Duke of York's HQ
On 9 October 2008 the Gallery opened its new premises, described in The Observer as one of "the most beautiful art spaces in London", in the Duke of York's HQ on Kings Road, London, near Sloane Square. The building was refurbished by architects Paul Davis + Partners and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. It consists of 15 equally-proportioned exhibition spaces "as light, as high, and as beautifully proportioned as any in London".
The main opening exhibition was of new Chinese art, The Revolution Continues: New Art From China, bringing together the work of twenty-four young Chinese artists in a survey of painting, sculpture and installation, including Zhang Huan, Li Songsong, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Haiying and conceptual artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. The show's focus was on political issues surrounding China's Cultural Revolution and also the contemporary political context. The decision to open with The Revolution Continues was directly influenced by global interest in China as a result of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times said it was "the most persuasive showing of contemporary Chinese art yet mounted in this country", and, contrasting it with the "deadly" contemporaneous Turner Prize show, "Saatchi's collection of Chinese art is one that Tate would kill for, and could not begin to afford"; she said that it was "an example of a private museum grand and serious enough to compete with national institutions."
More recent exhibitions include the London-leg of the touring show Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, the solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of a physical degree show due to the pandemic (described by critic Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times as "a good idea. Saatchi Gallery deserves a slap on the back for organising this selection of work from grads shows, a highlight of every art student's education". The Gallery also hosts the annual Carmignac Photojournalism Award and various art fairs and global events including music group BICEP's live global stream of their new album in March 2021.
Philosophy
Saatchi Gallery's goal is to show contemporary work that would otherwise not be seen in London institutions such as Tate Modern. The gallery's ex head of development, Rebecca Wilson, said, "The gallery's guiding principle is to show what is being made now, the most interesting artists of today. It's about drawing people's attentions to someone who might be tomorrow's Damien Hirst." The gallery's aim is to make art more accessible to the mainstream, rather than an exclusive artworld pursuit.
Timeline
1985 – Saatchi Gallery opens at Boundary Road, London NW8, featuring works by Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol. This was the first UK exhibition for Twombly and Marden.
1986 – Exhibits Anselm Kiefer and Richard Serra.
1987 – The New York Art Now show introduces American artists including Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Ashley Bickerton, Carroll Dunham and Phillip Taaffe to the UK.
1988–1991 ¬– Introduces artists including Leon Golub, Phillip Guston, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Nauman, Richard Artschwager and Cindy Sherman to London.
1992 – Curates its first Young British Artists show Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Rachel Whiteread, Gavin Turk, Glenn Brown, Sarah Lucas, Jenny Saville and Gary Hume were all presented in these exhibitions.
1996 – Sixth Young British Artists show featuring Dan Coombs
1997 – Opens Sensation: Young British Art from the Saatchi Gallery at the Royal Academy featuring 42 artists including The Chapman Brothers, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, Ron Mueck, Jenny Saville, Sarah Lucas & Tracey Emin. Sensation attracted over 300,000 visitors, a record for a contemporary exhibition.
1999 – Sensation at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.
1999 – Sensation tours to Brooklyn Museum of Art.
1999 – Donates 100 artworks to the Arts Council of Great Britain Collection, which operates a 'lending library' to museums and galleries around Britain.
2000 – Donates 40 works through the National Art Collections Fund to eight museums across Britain.
2000 – Begins a series of one person shows of major international figures mostly new to Britain, including Duane Hanson, Boris Mikhailov and Alex Katz. Shows entitled Young Americans and Eurovision introduce artists including John Currin, Andreas Gursky, Charles Ray, Richard Prince, Rineke Dijkstra, Lisa Yuskavage and Elizabeth Peyton.
2001 – I am a Camera exhibition opens at the Gallery, showing photography and other related works where traditional boundaries are blurred as photographs influence paintings, and paintings influence photographs. The show included work by many other artists new in the UK.
2002 – Donates 50 artworks to the Paintings in Hospitals program which lends over 3,000 originals to NHS hospitals, hospices and health centers throughout England, Wales and Ireland.
2003 – Moves to County Hall, the Greater London Council's former headquarters on the South Bank, creating a exhibition space. The opening show included a Hirst retrospective as well as works by other YBAs such as the Chapman Brothers, Tracey Emin, Jenny Saville and Sarah Lucas.
2004 – A fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the collection, including the major Tracey Emin work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–95 ("the tent"), and Jake and Dinos Chapman's tableau Hell.
2005 – Launches a year-long, three-part series exhibition, The Triumph of Painting. The opening exhibition focuses on influential European painters Marlene Dumas, Martin Kippenberger, Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig, Jörg Immendorff, and followed with younger painters including Albert Oehlen, Wilhelm Sasnal and Thomas Scheibitz.
2005 – Expanded into the Duke of York's Headquarters building in Chelsea. This put a halt to London shows while the new premises were being prepared.
2005 – Exhibited a selection of works from The Triumph of Painting in Leeds Art Gallery.
2006 – During the period between premises, the Saatchi Online website began an open-access section where artists could upload works of art and their biographies onto personal pages. The site currently has over 100,000 artist profiles and receives over 68 million hits a day, ranking at 316 in the Alexa Top 50,000 World Websites.
2006 – In association with the Guardian newspaper, opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 artists registered on Saatchi Online. In November launched a new section within Saatchi Online exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Art students from all over the world were able to create home pages with images of their art, photos, lists of their favorite artists, books, films and television shows, and links to their friends' pages. Other sections on Saatchi Online include; chat, a daily art magazine, a forum, written and video blogs, as well as sections for street art, photography and illustration.
2006 – USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery opens at the Royal Academy.
2007 – Added a new online feature called "Museums around the World" hosting over 2,800 museums, showing collection highlights, exhibitions and other relevant information. 2,700 Colleges and Universities from around the world also offer their profiles, enabling potential students to examine their prospectuses.
2007 – USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery toured to The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.
2008 – Reopens on the 9 October in the entire Duke of York's Headquarters building on Kings Road in Chelsea, London, with The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.
2014 – Saatchi Online sold to Demand Media for $17 million and rebranded as SaatchiArt.com.
2019 – Saatchi Gallery transitioned to becoming a charitable organisation
Saatchi Online
In 2006, during the period in limbo between premises, the gallery's website began an open-access section, including Your Gallery, where artists can upload up to twenty works and a biography to a personal page. Over 100,000 artists had done so as of 2010, and the site receives an estimated 73 million hits a day. Your Gallery was later rebranded as Saatchi Online. In September 2008, Alexa Internet ranked Saatchi Gallery among the leading 300 websites in the world. In March 2012 Alexa ranked Saatchi Online's position at 30,454. In November 2007 it was estimated that professional artists registered sell over $100 million of art directly from the site annually. In 2008 Saatchi Online launched a saleroom section that hosts over 84,000 entries from artists wishing to sell their work. For original work, Saatchi Online takes a 30% commission on the final sale price. If a Promotional discount code is offered, SO and Artist will split it equally. For prints, artists are entitled to 70% of the profit on each sale. Artists are also responsible for the costs of print production.
In October 2006 the Saatchi Gallery in association with The Guardian newspaper opened the first ever reader-curated exhibition, showing the work of 10 Saatchi Online artists. Users may also be featured in the Saatchi Online stall at various art fairs. In November 2006 the gallery launched a new section exclusively for art students, called Stuart. Stuart also hosts an annual competition, 4 New Sensations, in association with Channel 4.
Other spaces on Saatchi Online including a forum, live chat, blogs, videos, photography and illustration. The site also publishes grant and funding opportunities. A daily magazine features 24-hour news updated every 15 minutes, as well as articles and reviews by art critics such as Jerry Saltz and Matthew Collings. The site recently began broadcasting an online television channel with video access to art openings, artists' studios, performances and interviews.
Interactive features include the weekly Showdown competition, where users can win an exhibition spot, the Online Studio for creating art (each month a critic selects a winner in whose name a £500 donation is made to a children's charity) a Crits section in which artists can comment on each other's work, and the Street Art section for graffiti, murals, and performance art.
"Museums around the World" features over 3,300 museums. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the London National Gallery, the Louvre, and the State Hermitage, as well as small museums.
As of July 2008, 4,300 art dealers and commercial galleries have profiles on the site. Over 2,800 universities and colleges have uploaded prospectuses and student information, including Yale, Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, as well as local art colleges. Over 1,500 schools have uploaded pupils' work. Schools range from Eton College to small Primary and High schools. The Portfolio School Art Prize is open to schools with pupils between 5 and 17.
A Mandarin version allows Chinese artists to upload their profiles in Chinese and translates them into English. There is also a Chinese language chatroom, forum, and blog. The site provides automated translations into many languages; Russian, Spanish and Portuguese versions of the site are planned.
Saatchi Online was sold to Demand Media in August 2014, and was rebranded as SaatchiArt.com. The old Saatchi Online website now redirects there. Saatchi Art is an online marketplace where artists can go to sell originals and prints of their artwork to users of the site, with the website handling the details of the transaction and taking a 30% cut.
Controversies
Artists such as Sandro Chia and Sean Scully, to whom Saatchi had been a patron in the late 1970s and early 1980s, felt betrayed by him when their work was sold in bulk from his collection, and Saatchi was accused of destroying Chia's career. Saatchi said that the matter only became an issue because Chia "had a psychological need to be rejected in public" and is now "most famous for being dumped", but that he had only ever owned seven Chias, which he sold back to Chia's two dealers, who re-sold them easily to museums or notable collectors. Saatchi claimed that a sale of strong work can help to galvanise the market for them.
In 1997, in Sensation, London, Marcus Harvey's giant painting of Myra Hindley made from children's hand prints was attacked by two men with ink and eggs, and picketed by the Mothers Against Murder and Aggression protest group, accompanied by Winnie Johnson, the mother of one of Hindley's Moors murders victims. The work was restored and exhibited.
The Sensation show in New York offended Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, because of Chris Ofili's painting, The Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporates elephant dung. Giuliani, who had seen the work in the catalog but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn Museum hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion." John O'Connor, the Cardinal of New York, said, "one must ask if it is an attack on religion itself", and the president of America's biggest group of Orthodox Jews, Mandell Ganchrow, called it "deeply offensive". William A Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the work "induces revulsion". Giuliani started a lawsuit to evict the museum, and Arnold Lehman, the museum director, filed a federal lawsuit against Giuliani for breaching the First Amendment.
Hillary Clinton and the New York Civil Liberties Union spoke up for the museum. The editorial board of The New York Times said Giuliani's stance "promises to begin a new Ice Age in New York's cultural affairs." The paper also carried a petition in support signed by 106, including Susan Sarandon, Steve Martin, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Kurt Vonnegut and Susan Sontag, saying that the mayor "blatantly disregards constitutional protection for freedom of the arts." Ofili, who is Roman Catholic, said, "elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object." The museum produced a yellow stamp, saying the artworks on show "may cause shock, vomiting, confusion, panic, euphoria and anxiety." and Ofili's painting was shown behind a Plexiglass screen, guarded by a museum attendant and an armed police officer. Jeffrey Hogrefe, New York Observer art critic, said, "They wanted to get some publicity and they got it. I think it was pretty calculated." The editor-in-chief of the New York Art & Auction magazine, Bruce Wolmer,said: "When the row eventually fades the only smile will be on the face of Charles Saatchi, a master self-promoter." Giuliani lost his court case and was forced to restore funding.
Sensation was scheduled to open in June 2000 at the National Gallery of Australia, but was cancelled. Director Brian Kennedy said that, although it was due to be funded by the Australian government, it was "too close to the market", since finance for the Brooklyn exhibition included $160,000 from Saatchi, who owned the work, $50,000 from Christie's, who had sold work for Saatchi, and $10,000 from dealers of many of the artists. Kennedy said he was unaware of this when he accepted the show; Saatchi's contribution, the largest single one, was not disclosed by the Brooklyn Museum until it appeared in court documents. When the show opened in London at the Royal Academy, there had been criticisms that it would raise the value of the work.
In 2004, media controversy arose over two paintings by Stella Vine. One was of Princess Diana called Hi Paul Can You Come Over, showing the Princess with blood dripping from her lips. The other was of drug user Rachel Whitear, whose body was being exhumed at the time; Whitear's parents and the police appealed for the painting to be withdrawn, but it was not.
In 2004, the Stuckists reported Saatchi to the Office of Fair Trading alleging unfair competition. The complaint was not upheld. They also picketed the opening of The Triumph of Painting claiming that Saatchi had stolen their ideas. (Vine had previously been involved with the Stuckists.)
In 2006, "USA Today" provoked controversy in the media and among some Royal Academicians who called for certain works to be installed in an 'adult-only' room. A notice advising 'parental guidance' before viewing the work of Dash Snow and Gerald Davis was posted by the Royal Academy, on a wall outside the room in which the controversial works were hung. These were Dash Snow's 'Fuck the Police', in which newspaper cuttings relating to police corruption are smeared with the artist's own semen, and a painting titled Monica by Gerald Davis in which a young woman engages in fellatio.
Artists shown at the Saatchi Gallery
Boundary Road
1985
Donald Judd
Brice Marden
Cy Twombly
Andy Warhol
1986
Carl Andre
Sol LeWitt
Robert Ryman
Frank Stella
Dan Flavin
1987
Anselm Kiefer
Richard Serra
Jeff Koons
Robert Gober
Philip Taaffe
Carroll Dunham
1988
Leon Golub
Philip Guston
Sigmar Polke
1989
Robert Mangold
Bruce Nauman
1990
Leon Kossoff
Frank Auerbach
Lucian Freud
1991
Richard Artschwager
Andreas Serrano
Cindy Sherman
1992
Damien Hirst
Rachel Whiteread
1993
Sarah Lucas
Marc Quinn
1994
Jenny Saville
Paula Rego
1995
Gavin Turk
Glenn Brown
Gary Hume
1996
Janine Antoni
Tony Oursler
Richard Prince
Charles Ray
Kiki Smith
1997
Duane Hanson
Andreas Gursky
Martin Honert
Thomas Ruff
Thomas Schütte
1998
David Salle
Jessica Stockholder
Terry Winters
John Currin
Tom Friedman
Josiah McElheny
Laura Owens
Elizabeth Peyton
Lisa Yuskavage
1999
Alex Katz
Martin Maloney
Dexter Dalwood
Ron Mueck
Cecily Brown
Noble and Webster
Michael Raedecker
2000
Boris Mikhailov
2012
Igor Kalinauskas
2013
Karen Heagle
2018
Philip Pearlstein
Sara Barker
Maria Farrar
Kirstine Roepstorff
Juno Calypso
Gavin Turk
Pussy Riot
Pyotr Pavlensky
Oleg Kulik
2019
Johnnie Cooper
Richard Billingham
Aleksandra Mir
Simon Bedwell
Aleksandra Mir
Michael Cline
Jessica Craig-Martin
Valerie Hegarty
John Stezaker
Marianne Vitale
Philip Colbert
Mao Jianhua
Kate Daudy
Ibrahim El-Salahi
Nancy Cadogan
James Alec Hardy
Vinca Petersen
Conrad Shawcross
Dave Swindells
Seana Gavin
Cleo Campert
Toby Mott
Marshmallow Laser Feast
2020
Khushna Sulaman-Butt
Jahnavi Inniss
Francesca Mollett
2021
JR
Ben Turnbull
Dominic Beattie
Tommaso Protti
Will Cruickshank
Alice Wilson
Laura White
Neil Zakiewicz
Stella McCartney
Isabel + Helen
Sara Dare
Tim Ellis
Jo Hummel
Anna Liber Lewis
Anisa Zahedi
Dan Rawlings
Joakim Allgulander
Jake & Dinos Chapman
Morag Myerscough
Sara Pope
Anthony Burrill
Chris Levine
Jess Wilson
Ally McIntyre
Andrew Millar
Dan Hays
Faye Bridgwater
Heath Kane
Joanna Ham
Mimei Thompson
Realf Heygate
County Hall
Damien Hirst
The Chapman Brothers
New Blood
Galleon & Other Stories
The Triumph of Painting
Duke of York's HQ
The Revolution Continues: New Art From China
forthcoming:
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East
The Triumph of Painting
Out Of Focus: Photography Now
The Power Of Paper
Black Mirror
Penumbra
Sweet Harmony: Rave Today
Kaleidoscope
JR: Chronicles
London Grads Now
In Bloom
RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2021
Right Here Right Now
Carmignac Photojournalism Award
Antisocial Isolation
TUTANKHAMUN
We Live in An Ocean of Air
Johnnie Cooper: Throe on Throe
Philip Colbert: Hunt Paintings
Known Unknowns
Publications
The Revolution Continues: New Art From China
Sarah Kent, "Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s", Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, 2003, .
Rita Hatton and John A. Walker, "Supercollector, a Critique of Charles Saatchi", The Institute of Artology, 3rd edition 2005, paperback,
USA Today
The Triumph Of Painting
The Triumph Of Painting, Supplementary Volume
The Triumph Of Painting, Supplementary Volume
100 The Work That Changed British Art
Hell, Jake & Dinos Chapman
Paula Rego
Young Americans
Stephan Balkenhol
Fiona Rae & Gary Hume
Duane Hanson
Shark Infested Waters, The Saatchi Collection Of British Art In The 90's
Young German Artists 2
Sensation
Alex Katz: 25 Years Of Painting
Young Americans 2
Neurotic Realism
Eurovision
Ant Noises 1
Ant Noises 2
The Arts Council Gift
I Am A Camera
New Labour
Young British Art
Saatchi Decade
Boris Mikhailov: Case History
Damien Hirst
Notes and references
External links
Virtual tour of the gallery
Sunday Times Q&A with Charles Saatchi, 2008
BBC video coverage of The Revolution Continues
Video review of The Revolution Continues from The Daily Telegraph
The Revolution Continues in pictures, from the BBC
Pictures of the gallery at County Hall highlights of the collection
Charles Saatchi, Readers Q&A, The Art Newspaper
Charles Saatchi, Readers Q&A, The Independent
The Stuckists' criticisms
STUART in The Independent 30 November 2006
STUART in The Sunday Times 24 December 2006
STUART in New York Times 18 December 2006
Art museums and galleries in London
Contemporary art galleries in London
Art museums established in 1985
Private collections in the United Kingdom
Biographical museums in London
Museums in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
1985 establishments in England
Saatchi family
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper%20fidelis
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Semper fidelis
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Semper fidelis () is a Latin phrase that means "always faithful" or "always loyal" (Fidelis or Fidelity). It is the motto of the United States Marine Corps, usually shortened to Semper Fi. It is also in use as a motto for towns, families, schools, and other military units.
It is thought that it originated from the phrase that the senators of ancient Rome declaimed at the end of their intervention.
The earliest definitively recorded use of semper fidelis is as the motto of the French town of Abbeville since 1369. It has also been used by other towns, and is recorded as the motto of various European families since the 16th century, and possibly since the 13th century or earlier. Records show many families in England, France and Ireland using this motto.
The earliest recorded use of semper fidelis by a military unit is by the Duke of Beaufort's Regiment of Foot, raised in south-western England in 1685. This is apparently linked to its use as a motto by the city of Exeter no later than 1660. Subsequently, a variety of military organizations adopted the motto.
Families and individuals
This phrase was used in Europe, at least in Great Britain, Ireland and France and probably in other countries as well. A more recent adoption is by Senator Joe Doyle, in arms granted by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1999.
Bernard Burke in 1884 listed many notable families in Great Britain and Ireland using the motto "Semper fidelis" in their coats of arms. They include:
Lynch family (Ireland): "Semper Fidelis" is the family motto of the Lynch family. The Lynches were one of the Tribes of Galway who were fourteen merchant families who dominated the political, commercial, and social life of the city of Galway in western Ireland between the 13th and 16th centuries. Members of the 'Tribes' were considered Old English gentry. The Lynches were descended from William Le Petit, who was one of the Norman knights who settled in Ireland following the grant of Ireland as a fiefdom by Pope Adrian IV to King Henry II of England in the early 12th century. "Semper Fidelis" appears on the Lynch Family coat of arms. Although the earliest traceable reference to this usage is James Hardiman's history of Galway published in 1820, the history of the family makes it likely that the motto was in use by the 14th or 15th century.
Frith family (Ireland): The family of John Frith, Protestant martyr, is thought to have used the motto as far back as the 16th century. John Frith is the earliest entry in Burke's list of the Frith family. The Friths settled in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, after John Frith's execution. The family fought at the Battle of the Boyne.
Edge family (England): The Edge family of Strelley, Nottinghamshire, were using the motto "Semper fidelis" by 1814 at the latest (see UK National Archives document reference DD/E/209/32-34). The arms were granted in 1709, but it is not recorded whether the motto formed part of the initial grant.
Molteno family (South Africa): The Molteno family motto is recorded as "semper fidelis" on versions of their arms held in the archives of the University of Cape Town.
Onslow family (England): the family of the Earls of Onslow uses the motto "Semper fidelis" (see also Lodge, 1832), though their alternative motto (the punning Festina lente) is better known.
Stewart family (Scotland; also spelled Steuart, especially in older sources): "Semper Fidelis" is the family motto of the Stewart family of Ballechin in Perthshire. J. Burke (1836, pp. 149–150) records that the family goes back to an illegitimate son of James II of Scotland (1430–1460), and the motto is recorded by Burke and by Robson (1830). However they do not report the date of its first use.
Burke's full list of families using the motto was: Booker, Barbeson, Bonner, Broadmead, Carney, Chesterman, Dick, Dickins, Duffield, Edge, Formby, Frisby, Garrett, Haslett, Hill, Houlton, Kearney, Lynch, Lund, Marriott, Nicholls, Onslow, Pollexfen, Smith, Steele, Steehler, Steuart, Stirling and Wilcoxon. A large portion of these families were Irish or Scottish.
Chassant and Tausin (1878, p. 647) list the following French families as using it: D'Arbaud of Jonques, De Bréonis, Chevalier of Pontis, Du Golinot of Mauny, De Coynart, De Genibrouse of Gastelpers, Macar of the Province of Liege, Milet of Mureau, Navoir of Ponzac, De Piomelles, De Poussois, de Lamarzelle, De Reymons, Henry de Lolière and De Rozerou of Mos.
Cities
Abbeville (since 1369)
The city of Abbeville in France is recorded by 19th century sources (such as Chassant and Taussin, 1878) as using the motto "Semper fidelis," and recent sources state that the city was accorded this motto by Charles V, by letters patent of 19 June 1369, issued at Vincennes. This would make it the earliest recorded user of the motto among cities. However both Louandre (1834, p. 169) and the city's current official website give the motto simply as "Fidelis", and Sanson (1646, p. 15) claimed that even this was not part of Charles's original grant, but was added later, sometime in the 14th to 17th centuries.
Lviv
In 1658, Pope Alexander VII bestowed the heraldic motto "Leopolis semper fidelis" on Lviv (then part of the Kingdom of Poland). In 1936, the motto "Semper fidelis" was applied again to the coat of arms of the city (then part of the Second Polish Republic).
Today, in Poland, the motto is referenced mainly in connection with the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1919 following the collapse of Austro-Hungary in the wake of World War I, and more especially in connection with the Polish-Bolshevik War that followed.
In Ukraine, the phrase is used much less, and refers to the survival of the Ukrainian Church through the period of Soviet persecution.
Exeter (since 1660 or earlier)
The City of Exeter, in Devon, England, has used the motto since at least 1660, when it appears in a manuscript of the local chronicler, Richard Izacke. Izacke claimed that the motto was adopted in 1588 to signify the city's loyalty to the English Crown. According to Izacke, it was Queen Elizabeth I who suggested that the city adopt this motto (perhaps in imitation of her own motto, Semper eadem, "Ever the same"); her suggestion is said to have come in a letter to "the Citizens of Exeter," in recognition of their gift of money toward the fleet that had defeated the Spanish Armada. John Hooker's map of Exeter of around 1586 shows the city's coat of arms without the motto, suggesting that the city's use of the motto is no older than this. However the city archives do not hold any letter relating to the motto, and Grey (2005) argues that the Elizabethan origin of the motto may be no more than a local myth, since it is not recorded in contemporary chronicles, and that it may have been adopted at the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy to compensate for the city's less than total loyalty to the crown during the English Civil War.
Various bodies associated with the city of Exeter also use the motto:
The Royal Navy HMS Exeter, which is named after the City of Exeter.
Various Exeter-based units of the British Army, see below.
There is a Masonic Lodge in Exeter, called "Lodge Semper Fidelis."
Exeter City Police – the motto was inscribed on the force crest.
Exeter City Fire Brigade featured the motto on their brigade crest
Some versions of the crest of Exeter City Football Club
St. Malo (since 17th century or earlier)
"Semper fidelis" is the motto of the town of St. Malo, in Brittany, France. The date of its adoption is not known, but it appears to have been in use in the 17th century, replacing an earlier motto, "Cave canem".
Calvi
"Civitas Calvi Semper Fidelis" may have been the motto of the city of Calvi, Balagna area in Corsica for 500 years.
White Plains
"Semper Fidelis" is the motto of the city of White Plains, in New York, United States.
Military units
Regiments from south-western England (from 1685)
The south-western English city of Exeter has used the motto semper fidelis since no later than 1660, inspiring its use by several south-western English military units.
Duke of Beaufort's Regiment of Foot (from 1685)
In 1685 the motto was used by Duke of Beaufort when The Duke of Beaufort's Regiment of Foot, or Beaufort Musketeers, were raised to defend Bristol against the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. It was numbered as the 11th Regiment of Foot when the numerical system of regimental designation was adopted in 1751 and was designated the regiment for North Devonshire (later the Devonshire Regiment).
The 1st (Exeter and South Devon) Rifle Volunteer Corps (from 1852)
The 1st (Exeter and South Devon) Rifle Volunteer Corps, raised in Exeter in 1852, was using the motto on its cap badge by 1860 at the latest; the Illustrated London News reported its use in its 7 January 1860 issue. The motto was continued by The Devonshire Regiment of the British Army.
Devonshire and Dorset Regiment (from 1958)
The motto was further continued on the badges of the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment when the Devonshires were amalgamated into them in 1958. This use of the motto evidently derives from these regiments' close connection with the city of Exeter, where they had a base from their foundation (see the Illustrated London News article referenced above) until their disappearance by amalgamation into the Rifles in 2007.
The Irish Brigade of France (1690–1792) (Semper et ubique Fidelis)
The Irish units in France used a similar motto, "Semper et ubique Fidelis", meaning "Always and Everywhere Faithful". These units, forming the Irish Brigade, were raised in 1690-1 under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick, which ended the war between King James II and King William III in Ireland and Britain. As the native Irish army in exile, "Semper et ubique Fidelis" was a reference to their fidelity to the Catholic faith, King James II, and to the king of France. For decades the Irish Brigade served as an independent army within the French army, remaining "Always and Everywhere Faithful" to their native Gaelic Irish traditions (such as having the men elect their own officers, unheard of in France and England).
Antoine Walsh's regiment of the Irish Brigade is noted for aiding the American cause in the American Revolution, when they were assigned as marines to John Paul Jones's ship, the .
The involvement of Irish Brigade soldiers serving as marines in the American War of Independence may have inspired the eventual adoption of the motto "Semper Fidelis" by the US Marines.
The phrase "Semper Fidelis" was made the official motto of the Marine Corps by Charles Grymes McCawley, the eighth Commandant of the Marine Corps, who was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which had a large Irish Catholic population. McCawley owed his commission to Senator Pierre Soulé of Louisiana, a Catholic born and raised in France, who would have been well aware of the Irish Brigade's service as Marines during the American Revolution.
French 47th Infantry Regiment
The French 47th Infantry Regiment used "Semper fidelis" as its motto.
Cadet Corps of the Dutch Royal Military Academy (since 1828)
"Semper fidelis" is the motto of the cadets corps of the Dutch Royal Military Academy. The corps was founded on 24 November 1828.
11th Infantry Regiment, United States Army (since 1861)
"Semper fidelis" is also the motto of the 11th Infantry Regiment, which was founded in May 1861 by President Abraham Lincoln. It served as part of the Army of Ohio and later in the Indian wars, Spanish–American War, 1916 Mexican Border war, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam war. Today the regiment trains young Army officers at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The West Nova Scotia Regiment (since 1936, inherited from Lunenburg Regiment, 1870)
"Semper fidelis" is the motto of The West Nova Scotia Regiment (of the Canadian Armed Forces), formed in 1936. It inherited the motto from The Lunenburg Regiment, formed in 1870.
The United States Marine Corps (since 1883)
The United States Marine Corps adopted the motto "Semper Fidelis" in 1883, on the initiative of Colonel Charles McCawley (29 January 1827 – 13 October 1891), the 8th Commandant of the Marine Corps.
There were three mottos prior to Semper Fidelis including
Fortitudine (meaning "with courage") antedating the War of 1812, Per Mare, Per Terram ("by sea, by land"; presumably inherited from the British Royal Marines, who have that as a motto), and, up until 1843, there was also the Marines' Hymn motto "To the Shores of Tripoli". "Semper fidelis" signifies the dedication and loyalty that individual Marines have for 'Corps and Country', even after leaving service. Marines frequently shorten the motto to "Semper Fi" .
"Semper Fidelis" is also the title of the official march of the United States Marine Corps, composed by John Philip Sousa in 1889. Sousa was director of the United States Marine Band (The President's Own) when a replacement for Hail to the Chief was requested, but later rejected. Sousa considered it to be his 'most musical' march. It was prominently featured in the film A Few Good Men. Charles Burr wrote the lyrics to the march.
On the United States Marine Corps Seal, the symbols of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem holds a ribbon emblazoned "Semper Fidelis".
Canadian Forces Base Valcartier (since 1914)
"Semper fidelis" is the motto of CFB Valcartier. The base was originally erected as a military camp in August 1914.
Swiss Grenadiers (since 1943)
The Swiss Grenadiers, first designated as such in 1943, and since 2004 forming a distinct Command in the Swiss Armed Forces, use the motto "Semper fidelis".
Republic of China Marine Corps (similar non-Latin version) (since 1947)
A Chinese-language version of Semper fidelis has been the motto of the Republic of China Marine Corps since 1 April 1947. The motto is not in Latin and literally means "loyalty forever". Their motto is specifically modelled on the United States Marine Corps motto.
Romanian Protection and Guard Service (since 1990)
"Semper Fidelis" is the motto of the Protection and Guard Service, a Romanian secret service concerned with the national security and personal security of officials in Romania.
Hungarian Government Guard (since 1998)
"Semper Fidelis" has been the official motto of the Hungarian Government Guard since 28 August 1998.
Ukrainian Marine Corps (similar non-Latin version) (From 2007)
A Ukrainian version of Semper-Fidelis, "Вірний завжди", or "Always Faithful", has been the motto of the Ukrainian Marines for much of its post-Soviet history.
Schools
"Semper Fidelis" serves as the motto of a number of schools around the world:
Allentown Central Catholic High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Bloemhof Girls High in Stellenbosch, South Africa
Buffalo Seminary, Buffalo, New York
Cathedral Grammar School, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Chetwood Memorial Primary School, Montego Bay, St James, Jamaica
College of Immaculate Conception, Uwani, Enugu, Nigeria
Eaton International School, Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
Emma Willard School, in Troy, New York, United States of America
Gordon's School, a secondary school in West End, Surrey, England since 1885
Hagley Roman Catholic High School, an 11-18 school in Hagley, Worcestershire, England
Immaculate Conception College in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, since 1944
Kapiti College, in Raumati, New Zealand
Killarney Secondary School, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Meriden School in Strathfield, of Sydney, Australia
Monrad Intermediate School, in Palmerston North, New Zealand
Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School, Accrington, Lancashire, England
Sacred Heart College, Kyneton of Victoria, Australia
St. Anne's Catholic School, an 11–18 girls school in Southampton, England
St. Bede's Catholic School, a Primary school in Weaverham, Cheshire, England
St. Joseph's College, Bandarawela, Uva province, Sri Lanka, since 1909
St Mary's Catholic Academy in Blackpool, England
University College of Appingedam, Groningen, The Netherlands
Vancouver College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Wynnum State High School, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Variants
B. Burke (1884) and Chassant & Tausin (1878), and other sources, list a number of similar mottos that appeared in family or city coats of arms in Great Britain, Ireland and France, though none was ever as popular as "Semper fidelis". They include:
Semper constans et fidelis ("Always constant and faithful"; Irton, Lynch, Mellor and Spoor families)
Semper fidelis esto ("Be always faithful"; Steele family, Henry de Lolière family Auvergne Nobili Tome III)
Semper et ubique fidelis ("Always and everywhere faithful"; De Burgh family, presently used by Gonzaga College, Dublin)
Semper fidelis et audax ("Always faithful and brave"; Moore and O'More families)
Semper fidelis, mutare sperno ("Always faithful, I scorn to change"; City of Worcester)
Semper Fidus ("Always faithful")
Semper Roy ("Always Roy") – presently used by the Delhi Expat Cricket Team (The Viceroys)
See also
Honneur et Fidélité
Meine Ehre heißt Treue
References
Sources
Grey, T. (2005). The Chronicle of Exeter. Exeter: The Mint Press.
Lethbridge, Tony (2005). Exeter: a history and guide (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing),
External links
Hardiman's history of the town of Galway
Exeter City Council site giving supposed origin of Exeter's use of the motto.
History of Exeter from White's Devonshire Directory of 1850
Dutch Cadetscorps
14th-century neologisms
Latin mottos
Exeter
Plymouth Argyle F.C.
National symbols of Poland
United States Marine Corps lore and symbols
History of Lviv
Military mottos
Abbeville
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbra
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Coimbra
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Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of .
The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest city of the district of Coimbra and the Centro Region. About 460,000 people live in the Região de Coimbra, comprising 19 municipalities and extending into an area of .
Among the many archaeological structures dating back to the Roman era, when Coimbra was the settlement of Aeminium, are its well-preserved aqueduct and cryptoporticus. Similarly, buildings from the period when Coimbra was the capital of Portugal (from 1131 to 1255) still remain. During the late Middle Ages, with its decline as the political centre of the Kingdom of Portugal, Coimbra began to evolve into a major cultural centre. This was in large part helped by the establishment of the first Portuguese university in 1290 in Lisbon and its relocation to Coimbra in 1308, making it the oldest academic institution in the Portuguese-speaking world. Apart from attracting many European and international students, the university is visited by many tourists for its monuments and history. Its historical buildings were classified as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2013: "Coimbra offers an outstanding example of an integrated university city with a specific urban typology as well as its own ceremonial and cultural traditions that have been kept alive through the ages."
History
Roman Republic
The city, located on a hill by the Mondego River, was called Aeminium in Roman times. The Romans founded the civitas of Aeminium in this place at the time of Augustus, which came under the protection of nearby Conímbriga (in Condeixa-a-Nova), some to the south. The roman city was encircled by a wall, and followed an orthogonal plan, with the cardo maximus and decumanus maximus crossing at the Forum. An aqueduct existed, the remains of which were incorporated into a latter medieval renovation. Aeminium fell under the influence, administratively, of the larger city of Conímbriga, until the latter was sacked by the Sueves and Visigoths between 465-8 and abandoned. It became the seat of a diocesis, replacing Conímbriga.
Although Conímbriga had been administratively important, Aeminium affirmed its position by being situated at the confluence of the north-south traffic that connected the Roman Bracara Augusta (Roman name of Braga) and Olisipo (Roman name of Lisbon) with its waterway, which enabled connections with the interior and coast. The limestone table on which the settlement grew has a dominant position overlooking the Mondego, circled by fertile lands irrigated by its waters. Vestiges of this early history include the cryptoporticus of the former Roman forum (now part of the Machado de Castro National Museum). The move of the settlement and bishopric of Conimbriga to Aeminium resulted in the name change to Conimbriga, evolving later to Colimbria.
Suebi, Alans and Visigoths
After being subjected to the Roman Empire for a long time, a deluge of barbarians flooded the Iberian Peninsula in 409, and the Lower Mondego area recognised Hermeric, the landlord of the Suebi, as its ruler. But the ambition to gain territory dominated Ataces, king of the Alans and Coimbra fell from the hands of Hermeric. Ataces, the new lord of Coimbra, depopulated and devastated it fearing the security of its fortresses. Delighted, however, with the beauty of Lower Mondego, and with the easiness of its fields, he laid beside it the foundations for a new city which was called Colimbria. Ataces converted to christianity, but being arian by sect persecuted catholics with ferocity. The prisoners were either beheaded before the walls of the new city, their bodies serving as foundations, or employed like cargo donkeys in its edification. Nobody escaped the tyranny of Ataces: he ordered everyone to work on the construction of the walls. Elipando, the holy Bishop of Coimbra was also there holding the stone and the clay for the works of the city. “Passing by the new Coimbra (says Arisberto, Bishop of Porto, writing to Samerico, Archbishop of Braga), there I saw working in the construction of their walls many Ministers of God; among them, at the orders of Ataces, was also Bishop Elipando: I cried with them for their misfortune and for the loss of this fertile province of the Roman Empire.” Hermeric of the northern Kingdom of the Suebi, whose the capital was Bracara Augusta (former name of Braga), did not lose hope of rescuing the lands that had been taken by Ataces in the south. He crossed the Douro river and appeared with his army before the new walls of Coimbra. But Ataces triumphed and followed Hermeric's retreating army to the banks of Douro, further north, where the Suebi landlord would buy from him, in exchange for his daughter, peace and an alliance. Ataces, crowned with the laurels of victory continues with great fervor the reedification of the city he had plundered before. Hermeric visited him in Colimbria bringing him her daughter, princess Cindazunda, who had been flourishing in age and beauty. Ataces, in order to show his gratitude had the picture of his new wife placed in a vase, with a serpent on one side and a lion walking towards her on the other. Those were the insignias of Ataces (lion) and Hermeric (serpent). Cindazunda had her eyes lifted up the sky and her hands raised as if thanking the Eternal for having been the medium between the father and the husband and having united with bonds of peace and friendship the serpent and the lion, up until that moment, enemies. As the walls and towers of the city were being built, the workers carved on the stones this insignia so pleasant to the King, that until today, has been the coat of arms of Coimbra. Cindazunda, professing Catholicism, established the bonds of peace between the two kings and improved the fortunes of the inhabitants of Coimbra mitigating the ferocious spirit of Ataces against the catholics. The Visigoths would conquest the region later. During the Visigothic era (from the 5th to the early 8th century), the County of Coimbra was created by king Wittiza (c. 687 – probably 710) and it was a sub-county of his dominion, established as a fief for his son prince Ardabast (or Sisebuto), with its seat in Emínio (the Visigothic name for Coimbra), which persisted until the Muslim invasion from the south.
Islamic Era
The first Muslim campaigns that occupied the Iberian Peninsula occurred between 711 and 715, with Coimbra capitulating to Musa bin Nusair in 714. Although it was not a large settlement, Qulumriyah (), in the context of Al-Andalus, was the largest agglomerated centre along the northern Tagus valley, and its principal city boasted a walled enclosure of 10 hectares, supporting between 3000 and 5000 inhabitants. Remnants of this period include the beginnings of the Almedina, Arrabalde and the fortified palace used by the city's governor (which was later converted into the Royal Palace by the early Portuguese monarchs). The Christian Reconquista forced the Banu Dānis and the other Muslims to abandon the region temporarily. Successively the Moors retook the castle in 987–1064 and again in 1116, capturing two castles constructed to protect the territory: in Miranda da Beira (where the garrison was slaughtered) and in Santa Eulália (where the governor rendered his forces rather than facing a similar massacre).
Middle Ages
The reconquest of the territory was attained in 1064 by King Ferdinand I of León and Castile, who appointed Dom Sisnando Davides to reorganize the economy and administer the lands encircling the city. The County of Portucale and the County of Coimbra were later integrated into one dominion under the stewardship of Henry of Burgundy by Alfonso VI of León and Castile in 1096, when Henry married Alfonso's illegitimate daughter Theresa. Henry expanded the frontiers of the County, confronting the Moorish forces, and upon his death in 1112, Theresa, Countess of Portucale and Coimbra, unified her possessions. Their son, Afonso Henriques, who took up residence in the ancient seat of the Christian County of Coimbra, sent expeditions to the south and west, consolidating a network of castles that included Leiria, Soure, Rabaçal, Alvorge and Ansião.
During the 12th century, Afonso Henriques administered an area of fertile lands with river access and protected by a fortified city, whose population exceeded 6000 inhabitants, including magnates, knights and high clergy. The young Infante encouraged the construction of his seat, funding the Santa Cruz Monastery (the most important Portuguese monastic institution at the time, founded in 1131 by Theotonius), promoted the construction of the Old Cathedral, reconstructed the original Roman bridge in 1132, and repaired and renovated fountains, kilns, roads and stone pavements, as well as the walls of the old city. In order to confirm and reinforce the power of the concelho (municipality) he conceded a formal foral (charter) in 1179.
Already in the Middle Ages, Coimbra was divided into an upper city (Cidade Alta or Almedina), where the aristocracy and the clergy lived, and the merchant, artisan and labour centres in the lower city (Arrabalde or Cidade Baixa) by the Mondego River, in addition to the old and new Jewish quarters. The city was encircled by a fortified wall, of which some remnants are still visible like the Almedina Gate (Porta da Almedina).
Meanwhile, on the periphery, the municipality began to grow in various agglomerations, notably around the monasteries and convents that developed in Celas, Santa Clara, Santo António dos Olivais. The most important work in Gothic style in the city is the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha, founded on the left side of the river Mondego by Queen Elizabeth of Portugal in the first half of the 14th century. It stood too close to the river, and frequent floods forced the nuns to abandon it in the 17th century, when the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova was built uphill. The Queen's magnificent Gothic tomb was also transferred to the new convent. The ruins of the old convent were excavated in the 2000s, and can be seen today on the left bank of the river.
Renaissance
In the 15th and 16th centuries, during the Age of Discovery, Coimbra was again one of the main artistic centres of Portugal thanks to both local and royal patronage. Coimbra bishops, religious orders and King Manuel I supported artists like Diogo Pires (father and son), Marcos Pires, João de Castilho, Diogo de Castilho and the Frenchmen, João de Ruão and Nicholas of Chanterene, among others, who left important Manueline and Renaissance works in the town. Dating from this period are the remodelling (in Manueline style) of the Santa Cruz Monastery, including the tombs of Kings Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, the Renaissance Manga Fountain, and the altarpieces and triumphal portal of the Old Cathedral, among other works.
The University of Coimbra, was founded as a Studium Generale in Lisbon in 1290 by King Dinis I. The University was relocated to Coimbra in 1308, but in 1338 King D. Afonso IV returned the University to Lisbon. The University was definitively transferred to the premises of Coimbra Royal Palace in 1537 by King John III, and expanded by 1544 to occupy the Coimbra Royal Palace. Since then, city life has revolved around the state-run university. For many decades, several colleges (colégios) established by the religious orders provided an alternative to the official institution, but were gradually discontinued with the secularization of education in Portugal. Built in the 18th century, the Joanina Library (Biblioteca Joanina), a Baroque library, is another notable landmark of the ancient university. The Baroque University Tower (Torre da Universidade), from the school of the German architect Ludovice and built between 1728 and 1733, is the city's library.
Baroque and modern
In 1772, the Marquis of Pombal, prime minister of King José I, undertook a major reform of the university, where the study of the sciences assumed vast importance. The collections of scientific instruments and material acquired then are now gathered in the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra, and constitute one of the most important historical science collections in Europe. However, his desire to modernize the university resulted in the complete demolition of Coimbra's medieval city walls and castle, very little of which remains today.
The first half of the 19th century was a difficult period for Coimbra, being invaded by French troops under the command of Andoche Junot and André Masséna during the Peninsular War. A force of 4,000 Portuguese militia led by Nicholas Trant dealt Masséna a heavy blow when it recaptured the city on 6 October 1810. In March 1811, the militia successfully held the place against the retreating French army. The city recovered in the second half of the 19th century with infrastructure improvements like the telegraph, gas light, the railway system, a railway bridge over the Mondego River and the renovation of the Portela bridge, in addition to the broadening of roads and expansion of the city into the Quinta de Santa Cruz.
By 1854, with the expulsion of the religious orders and municipal reforms, the need to reorganize the municipality of Coimbra forced some changes in the existing structure of the administrative divisions. Consequently, documents were sent (on 20 January 1854) to the Ministries of Ecclesiastical Affairs () and Justice () urging the identification by the Civil Governor and Archbishop of Coimbra (Manuel Bento Rodrigues) of the number of civil parishes to preserve, their limits, the political organs to be retained, a local census and other statistics to justify the demarcation of the territory. A commission of five members, which included João Maria Baptista Callixto, António dos Santos Pereira Jardim, Roque Joaquim Fernandes Thomás, João Correia Ayres de Campos and António Egypcio Quaresma Lopes de Carvalho e Vasconcelos, was appointed to produce a plan to reduce, suppress, demarcate and establish civil parishes in the city of Coimbra and its suburbs.
Republic
On 1January 1911, electric tramways were inaugurated to connect the old quarter with its expanding periphery, which included the residential areas of Celas, Olivais, Penedo da Saudade and Calhabé, all located in the civil parish of Santo António dos Olivais. This was only the initiation of the municipality growth. Civil construction projects throughout the region marked the economic activity of the territory, with new areas such as Montes Claros, Arregaça, Cumeada and Calhabé growing in the shadow of the city. Even projects that had been planned at the end of the 19th century gained new initiative, including the expansion of the Santa Cruz neighbourhood (bairro), the demolition of the residential area of the Alta de Coimbra (1940–50) to expand the university, and construction or expansion of the bairros of Celas, Sete Fontes and Marechal Carmona (now the bairro of Norton de Matos).
Geography
One of the nation's most important crossroads, Coimbra was historically at a junction between Braga and Lisbon, and its river access (the Mondego flows through the municipality) provided a route between the interior communities and the coastal towns (including the seaside city of Figueira da Foz, west of Coimbra). The historic city of Coimbra is located centrally within the municipality, connected to Lisbon () and Porto () by the IC2, IP3 and A1 motorways.
The municipality is circled by several of its neighbouring municipalities in the Região de Coimbra, which include Penacova (in the northeast), Vila Nova de Poiares (to the east), Miranda do Corvo (to the southeast), Condeixa-a-Nova (to the south and southwest), Montemor-o-Velho (to the west), Cantanhede (to the northwest) and Mealhada (in the north and northeast). Just outside the municipality, there are also several picturesque mountain towns such as Lousã and Penacova, while spa towns and villages, such as Luso, Buçaco and Curia are commonplace.
Although it ceased serving as the capital of Portugal in the 13th century, Coimbra retains considerable importance as the centre of the former Beira province, now designated the Centro region. It is considered alongside Braga one of the two most important regional centres in Portugal outside the Lisbon and Portos metropoles, the centre for the whole middle region of the country. With a dense urban grid, the municipality is known primarily for the city of Coimbra, itself famous for its monuments, churches, libraries, museums, parks, nightlife, healthcare and shopping facilities. Above all, its cultural life, oriented around the University of Coimbra, has historically attracted the nation's notable writers, artists, academics and aristocracy, securing its reputation as the Lusa-Atenas (Lusitanian Athens).
Ecoregions/protected areas
The western edge of Coimbra is covered by the Reserva Natural do Paul de Arzila (Arzila Swamp Natural Reserve), which is designated both as a Special Protection Zone () and Special Conservation Zone (), coincident with the civil parish of Arzila (sometimes referred to as the Paul de Arzila or marsh of Arzila). It is a wetland that has sheltered migratory birds, and supports other animal and plant species; this has included predominantly avian species, such as the: Eurasian reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus), sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus), melodious warbler (Hippolais polyglotta), willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), little bittern (Ixobrychus minutus), great reed warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus), and the Savi's warbler (Locustella luscinioides). The 482 hectare area, under threat from industrial, residential and agricultural pollution, expansion of aquatic plants and eutrophication, has forced the governmental reorganization of land use in order to promote models of sustainability, and rural use that does not affect the migratory and aquatic bird populations.
The municipal government has also promoted the installation and maintenance of various parks, playgrounds, gardens and forests, including the development of the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra (considered the fifth oldest in the world), the Mata Nacional do Choupal, the Mata Nacional de Vale de Canas, Jardim da Sereia (also known as Santa Cruz Garden), Penedo da Saudade, Parque Manuel Braga, Parque Verde do Mondego, Choupalinho, and the 19th century Quinta das Lágrimas estate and gardens.
Complementing these natural spaces are the riverside parks and bathing areas that line the Mondego, including the river beaches of Palheiros do Zorro, in the parish of Torres do Mondego.
The city is on the Portuguese Way of the Road of St James (Caminho de Santiago).
Climate
Coimbra has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb) in a transition to a hot-summer (Csa) version of the interior of Central Portugal. In winter, temperatures range between at day and at night and can drop below occasionally (around 10 days a year), while summer temperatures range between at day and at night and can reach or more in hotter days. Coimbra has around 32 days a year with maximum temperatures above . The lowest and highest temperatures ever recorded in Coimbra were on 27 January 1976 and .
Precipitation is abundant throughout the year except for July and August.
Despite being relatively distant from the coast, Coimbra also has a marked Atlantic influence due to the floodplain of the Mondego River which crosses the city, making both its winters and summers milder than they would otherwise be. This influence also makes cold waves less frequent and less intense, however, days with minimum negative temperatures and cold waves are still present occasionally. Topography is also an important factor to consider in regard to nighttime temperatures, the presence of cold air lakes, in topographically depressed areas at certain synoptic situations, can also lead to pronounced colder temperatures.
Human geography
Administratively, the municipality is divided into 18 civil parishes (freguesias):
Almalaguês
Antuzede e Vil de Matos
Assafarge e Antanhol
Brasfemes
Ceira
Cernache
Coimbra (Sé Nova, Santa Cruz, Almedina e São Bartolomeu)
Eiras e São Paulo de Frades
São João do Campo
São Martinho de Árvore e Lamarosa
São Martinho do Bispo e Ribeira de Frades
São Silvestre
Souselas e Botão
Santa Clara e Castelo Viegas
Santo António dos Olivais
Taveiro, Ameal e Arzila
Torres do Mondego
Trouxemil e Torre de Vilela
As of 2001, the municipality of Coimbra had a population of 148,443 inhabitants (covering an area of 319.4 km2), reflecting a 6.8% increase relative to 1991 (139,052 residents), while the number of families increased 17.1% in the same period. This was mainly concentrated in the parish of Sé Nova, while the remaining administrative divisions accounted for a range of 78.54 to 5069.2 inhabitants per kilometre square. Seniors and youth (age 0 to 14 years) represent a minority of the population (16.5% and 31.1%); the 25 to 64 cohort accounts for 55% of the active population. While per 100 inhabitants, seniors actually comprise 21.6% of this population, the birth rate (9.3%) is superior the mortality rate in the communities of Coimbra, which is actually greater than other municipalities in the Baixo Mondego subregion.
The municipality of Coimbra has a resident population of 157,510 inhabitants, and seasonal population of approximately 200,000 residents. Between 1864 and 2001, the municipal population tripled (following the trend in the rest of the country when the nation's population doubled), while between 1991 and 2001 its population increased 6.75% (Portugal's population increased 4.08% in the same period). On average, over 43,000 people flow to Coimbra every day to study and work. About 460,000 inhabitants live in the Região de Coimbra, consisting of 19 municipalities comprising a territory of .
Internally, the network and location of public service/sector institutions (such as police stations, fire stations, public finance and notary services) have been located within of the resident population, while most tertiary shops and retail capture between 43.4% and 100% of the market. Mini-markets and corner shops cover 100% of the population; generally, the longest distance travelled between shops is (for pastry shops). Restaurants are usually within 74.2% of the population, and refreshment shops (such as bars and snack bars) routinely cover 100% of the market. Commerce and vestuary shops range from coverage of 43.4% (for glasses) to 91.4% (of clothing); the largest distance that resident population requires to travel is for electro-domestics and auto-mobile purchases. Repair services, which cover the largest part of the civil parishes, and specifically auto repair shops, cover 97.1% of the market. Public transport covers 90.3% of the parishes, with 93.5% of the population; 61.3% have taxi services (capturing 78.8% of the population); public buses serve 67.7% of the parishes (or 85% of the population); while rail services affect 35.5% of the parishes (serving 29.7% of the market); while unequipped parishes, on average, lie within of such services. Postal services are provided in 15 parishes (48.4%), corresponding to 77.9% of the population, while 98.6% receive home distribution. Similarly, public telephones have a 94.6% coverage of the population.
Economy
The wealth of the city rests mostly on the University of Coimbra with about 23,000 students – the city has a total of 35,000 higher education students considering the other higher education institutions based there – but also in shopping, technology and health sciences industry, administrative offices, financial services, law firms and specialised medical care. The city has many private clinics, medical offices and two large independent state hospital centres: the H.U.C. – Hospitais da Universidade de Coimbra, which is a university hospital, and the C.H.C. – Centro Hospitalar de Coimbra, which includes a general hospital. Coimbra has also the regional branch of the national cancer hospital – the I.P.O. – Instituto Português de Oncologia, as well as a military hospital. The Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal, the state-run forensic science institute of Portugal, is headquartered in Coimbra.
Notable companies based in the municipality of Coimbra include software companies Critical Software and Ciberbit which have their global headquarters in the city, mechanical and electronics engineering company Active Space Technologies, telemetry and Machine to Machine company ISA, Cimpor's cement factory in Souselas (CIMPOR Souselas), the pan-European service facility of Olympus Corporation, the pharmaceuticals companies Bluepharma and BASI, the iron foundry Fucoli-Somepal and several ceramics, food processing (Probar produces cold meat products and Dan Cake produces sponge cakes and swiss rolls), textiles, wine, civil and engineering construction, architecture, public works and housing construction firms. Handicraft industry is well represented by traditional tapestry and pottery manufacture, and the surroundings of the city have besides forestry, dynamic horticulture production, vineyards and livestock raising. The Instituto Pedro Nunes (Pedro Nunes Institute), a business incubator, dynamically hosts several start-ups which are usually dedicated to technology-related businesses and became independent spin-off companies headquartered across the whole region. There is a move by municipal authorities to bring in more innovation and high-technology businesses, through initiatives such as the Coimbra Innovation Park, with the objective of promoting innovation and companies that promote research and development (such as nanotechnology company Innovnano, a subsidiary of Companhia União Fabril).
Coimbra has a fresh produce open-air market on every 7th and 23rd days of the month at Feira dos 7 e dos 23, and a large fresh produce market in downtown at Mercado D. Pedro V. The Baixa (downtown) of Coimbra has many coffeehouses and bakeries, and features several specialty shops selling all kind of products in typical old-fashioned architectural surroundings. Large commercial facilities with car park, include a medium-sized shopping centre (CoimbraShopping); two larger shopping centres with hypermarket, restaurants, movie theaters and several shops with a selection of some of Portugal's and the world's most famous and stylish international brands include the Alma shopping center (formerly called Dolce Vita Coimbra) designed by the American planning and design firm, Suttle Mindlin and Forum Coimbra; and two retail parks found on the fringes of the city, offering an alternative to the busy city centre (Retail Park Mondego in Taveiro, and Coimbra Retail Park in Eiras). Dolce Vita Coimbra (renamed Alma) was the recipient of the 2006 MIPIM International Design Award; the 2006 ICSC International Design Award; and the 2006 ICSC European Design Award proving that Portugal and Coimbra offer both historical and thoroughly modern shopping experiences.
Transportation
The two banks of Mondego River at Coimbra, are linked by three main bridges: the Ponte do Açude, the Ponte de Santa Clara (which is the oldest) and Ponte Rainha Santa, also known as Ponte Europa. The Ponte Pedonal de Pedro e Inês is the most recently constructed bridge and the only footbridge in the city.
The city is internally connected by an extensive bus network, the SMTUC (Serviços Municipalizados de Transportes Urbanos de Coimbra, Coimbra Municipality Urban Transport Services) and the Coimbra trolleybus system (the only such system in Portugal). In the past, the city also had a tram network (some are now parked inside a transportation museum). Taxicabs are also available, and are recognizable as cream or black and green (black car with green rooftop) taxis. The city is a hub for interregional bus services for all the country and abroad. A light-rail metro system, Metro Mondego, was proposed however the project was abandoned at the height of Portuguese financial crisis.
Coimbra has several rail stations. The principal station Coimbra-B is on the main line between Porto and Lisbon. In addition, the train-hotel Lusitania connects Coimbra and Madrid every night.
From this station, a small spur runs to Coimbra-A, the main station in the city centre. A small regional rail line (Linha da Lousã) also ran from Coimbra Parque at the south edge of the city centre. From Coimbra-Parque was possible to travel to Miranda do Corvo, Lousã and Serpins, among others. The line was closed for upgrading as part of the Metro Mondego project and was never reopened when the Metro Mondego project was abandoned, but there is local pressure for the line to be reopened. It is also possible to travel by train between Coimbra and Figueira da Foz (Ramal de Alfarelos), and Coimbra, Guarda and Vilar Formoso (Linha da Beira Alta [international]).
Coimbra is served by the A1 motorway, which connects Lisbon to Porto.
A regional aerodrome is in Cernache (Aeródromo Municipal Bissaya Barreto) (CBP) [PCO], southwest of the centre. With a runway and flight information service until sunset, this regional airport has all the fundamental facilities for private flights.
The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Coimbra, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 35 min. 2.4% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 12 min, and 16.8% of riders wait for over 20 min on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 2 km, and 0% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.
Politics and government
Education
Coimbra has been called A cidade dos estudantes (The city of the students) or Lusa-Atenas (Lusitan-Athens), mainly because it is the site of the oldest and one of the largest universities in Portugal – the University of Coimbra, a public university whose origins can be traced back to the 13th century. Nowadays, it has students from 70 different nationalities; almost 10% of its students are foreigners, making it Portugal's most international university.
Coimbra is also the place where the oldest and biggest university students' union of Portugal was founded – the Associação Académica de Coimbra (Academic Association of Coimbra), established in 1887.
As well, there are some other schools and institutes of higher education in the city: the Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, a public polytechnic institute; the Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra, a public nursing school; and some private higher education institutions such as the Instituto Superior Miguel Torga; the Instituto Superior Bissaya Barreto; the Escola Universitária Vasco da Gama and finally, the Escola Universitária das Artes de Coimbra, an art school.
A large number of higher education students from all of Portugal chose Coimbra's higher learning institutions to study, due to the wide availability of degrees offered in different fields, the student-friendly environment of the city, and the prestige of many of its learning institutions allied to the ancient tradition of Coimbra as the historical capital of higher studies in Portugal.
The city has also a large number of public and private basic and secondary schools, among these some of the best-ranked in the country, like Escola Secundária Infanta D. Maria (public), Escola Secundária José Falcão (public), "Escola EB2/3 Martim de Freitas" (public), Colégio Rainha Santa Isabel (private) and Colégio de São Teotónio (private), as well as several kindergartens and nurseries. There is also the Coimbra Hotel and Tourism School.
TUMO Coimbra
TUMO Coimbra is the first to open in Portugal. The building is located in the old post office, next to the city market and the town hall. The first centre is part of a nationwide expansion of the armenian Tumo Center for Creative Technologies that aims to disrupt formal education in the country and bring young Portuguese closer to various creative and digital skills. More than 1,000 young people are expected to attend in the first year at TUMO Coimbra.
The project is made possible through the initiative of some based in or nearby Coimbra sponsors such as Critical Software, Paulo Marques and Pedro Bizarro (founders of Feedzai), Licor Beirão and Coimbra City Council. Other sponsors are Oxy Capital, Altice Portugal, La Caixa Foundation, the Santander Group Foundation and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Architecture
Civic
Forest/Moorish City of Antanhol (), Antanhol
Palace of Sub-Ripas (), Almedina
São Sebastião Aqueduct/Garden Arches (), Sé Nova
University of Coimbra (), Sé Nova
Military
Arch and Tower of the Almedina (), Almedina
Religious
Cathedral (Nova) of Coimbra (), Sé Nova
Cathedral (Velha) of Coimbra (), Almedina
Chapel of the Treasurer (), Sé Nova
Church and Convent of São Marcos (), São Silvestres
Church of Nossa Senhora da Graça (), Santa Cruz
Church of São Domingos (), Santa Cruz
Church of São Salvador (), Sé Nova
Church of São Tiago (), São Bartolomeu
College of São Agostinho (), Sé Nova
College of São Jerónimo (), Sé Nova
College of São Tomas (), Sé Nova
Cross of São Marcos (), São Silvestres
Episcopal Palace of Coimbra (), Sé Nova
Manga Cloister (), Santa Cruz
Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova (), Santa Clara
Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha (), Santa Clara
Monastery of Santa Cruz (), Santa Cruz
Monastery of Santa Maria de Celas (), Santo António de Olivais
Monastery of São João das Donas (), Santa Cruz
(Former) Church of Carmo (), Santa Cruz
(Former) Portico of the Church of Santa Ana (), Sé Nova
Church of Saint Bartolomew, (Igreja São Bartolomeu)
Culture
Coimbra celebrates its municipal holiday on 4 July, in honour of Queen Elizabeth of Portugal (spouse of the King Denis); a religious and civic celebration that celebrated the life of the former Queen, that includes a fireworks display following the night-time march of the penitents.
Coimbra houses the following cultural institutions:
Machado de Castro National Museum, the second most important one in Portugal, housed in the former Episcopal Palace
University of Coimbra General Library, Portugal's second biggest library, after the National Library in Lisbon
The 18th-century Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra
Coimbra fado
The Fado de Coimbra is a highly stylised genre of fado music originated in Coimbra. Among its most notable and historical adherents are guitarist Carlos Paredes and singer Zeca Afonso, while the Orfeon Académico de Coimbra (the oldest and most famous academic choir in Portugal) and the Associação Académica de Coimbra are important organizations that promote the culture and stylings of this subgenre of music. In addition, Coimbra has a contemporary music, boasting several live music venues, and some of the most popular clubs and music festivals in Portugal. Moreover, the Conservatório de Música de Coimbra, musical departments of the Associação Académica de Coimbra and the music programmes of the Faculty of Letters are noted by many of top music schools in the country.
The Orfeon Académico de Coimbra is an autonomous organization of the students' union Associação Académica de Coimbra, established in 1880 by a law student of the University of Coimbra (UC), and the fado section of UC's Associação Académica de Coimbra itself, are important organizations in Coimbra fado promotion and preservation.
According to tradition, to applaud fado in Lisbon one would clap his hands, while in Coimbra cough as if clearing the throat is the typical way.
Student festivals
Coimbra is also known for its university students' festivals. Two are held every year. The first one, Latada or Festa das Latas ("The Tin Can Parade") is a homecoming parade that occurs at the beginning of the academic year, and is a welcome to the new university students (Caloiros).
The Festa das Latas goes back to the 19th century when the Coimbra students felt the need to express their joy at finishing the school year in as loud a way as possible, using everything at their disposal that would make noise, namely tin cans. The highlight of this festival, which now takes place at the beginning of the academic year (November) is the special parade known as the Latada. After marching through the streets of the city the new students are "baptised" in the Mondego River thus entering into the Coimbra academic fraternity. The students from the penultimate year, normally the 3rd year's students, are awarded their Grelos (a small ribbon). The Grelo is a small, woollen ribbon with the colour (s) of the student's faculty that is attached to a student's briefcase. Previous to this, at the morning the students must have visited the Dom Pedro V market where they must get a turnip to sustain the Caloiros during the day's festivities. Besides the tin cans they have tied to their legs, the new students wear all kinds of costumes made up according to the creativity and imagination of their godmothers or godfathers who are older students. They also carry placards with ironic criticisms alluding to certain teachers, the educational system, national events and leaders.
The second one, Queima das Fitas ("The Burning of the Ribbons"), takes place at the end of the second semester (usually in the beginning of May) and it is one of the biggest student parties in all Europe. It lasts for eight days, one for each University of Coimbra's Faculty: Letras (Humanities), Direito (Law), Medicina (Medicine), Ciências e Tecnologia (Sciences and Technology), Farmácia (Pharmacy), Economia (Economics), Psicologia e Ciências da Educação (Psychology and Education Sciences) and Ciências do Desporto e Educação Física (Sports Sciences and Physical Education).
Although being University of Coimbra's festivals, other higher education students of Coimbra such as the polytechnic's students or private institution's students, are invited every year by the University of Coimbra students who manage and organise this events, to participate in the Tin Can Parade and also in the Burning of the Ribbons. The academic festivities are opened to the entire city community and attract a large number of national and international tourists as well.
Music acts
Coimbra has a lively music scene that caters for most tastes with many festivals and events beyond the academic festivals, the traditional Coimbra fado genre and Artur Paredes, Adriano Correia de Oliveira and Zeca Afonso's musical heritage. It boasts several live music venues, and some of the most popular club nights and music festivals in Portugal. Moreover, the Conservatório de Música de Coimbra, the music-related departments of the Associação Académica de Coimbra and the music programmes of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Coimbra are regularly cited among the top music schools in the country. Modern bands and artists with some degree of recognition in the Portuguese music scene include André Sardet, The Legendary Tigerman, JP Simões (from Belle Chase Hotel and Quinteto Tati) and Os Quatro e Meia. Lux Records, a Portuguese independent record label founded by Rui Ferreira in 1996, is based in Coimbra and has produced the works of many noteworthy music artists and bands of the city since then, including Belle Chase Hotel and The Legendary Tigerman.
Media
The Centro region is the third-largest regional media market in Portugal. The Portuguese public radio and television broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal has regional offices and studios in Coimbra. The Diário de Coimbra and the Diário As Beiras are the two major newspapers based in Coimbra. The students' union of the University of Coimbra has also notable media like the Rádio Universidade de Coimbra radio station and A Cabra newspaper.
Leisure
Accommodation
There is a wide variety of accommodation available, ranging from the camping-park or one of the many inexpensive hostels to the charming downtown hotels and international chain hotels.
Parks and gardens
Coimbra has many attractive and pleasant green spaces such as parks, playgrounds, gardens and forests. The most famous park in the city is probably the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra, the fifth oldest in the world. The Portugal dos Pequenitos park is an educational theme park built during the Estado Novo. Its buildings are scale copies of Portuguese architectural landmarks and were completed in the 1950s.
The city's green areas also include the Mata Nacional do Choupal, the Mata Nacional de Vale de Canas, Jardim da Sereia (also known as Jardim de Santa Cruz), Penedo da Saudade, Parque Manuel Braga, Parque Verde do Mondego and Choupalinho. Quinta das Lágrimas, a 19th-century palace and estate, which was transformed into a hotel and golf resort, contains also a large park. Also noteworthy is the Paul de Arzila, a natural reserve occupying an area in Coimbra municipality (in Arzila), and in the neighbouring municipalities of Condeixa-a-Nova and Montemor-o-Velho.
Not far away from the urban centre, close to the city itself, and fully set in the municipality of Coimbra, there are plenty of mountain and river landscapes. These include the river beach of Palheiros do Zorro in the parish of Torres do Mondego and the Rebolim river beach even closer to the city downtown. One of Europe's tallest trees, Karri Knight, can be found in the municipality of Coimbra in Vale de Canas. It is an Eucalyptus diversicolor of 73 meters height and of 5.71 meters girth.
Twin towns – sister cities
Coimbra is twinned with:
Aix-en-Provence, France (1982/85)
Beira, Mozambique (1997)
Cambridge, United States (1983–84)
Curitiba, Brazil (1977/95)
Daman, India (2003–04)
Dili, East Timor (2002)
Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg (2004–05)
Fez, Morocco (1988)
Macau, China (2004)
Padua, Italy (1998/2000)
Poitiers, France (1979)
Salamanca, Spain (1980–81)
Santa Clara, United States (1971–72)
Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1994)
Santos, Brazil (1981)
São Vicente, Cape Verde (1994–95)
Zaragoza, Spain (2004–05)
Sport
Coimbra is home to a large multisports club, the University of Coimbra's students' union Associação Académica de Coimbra (known simply as Académica), which is involved in a wide array of sports, such as rugby, volleyball, handball, rink hockey, basketball, association football, baseball, tennis, swimming, rowing, among many others. It also has a professional football club that currently plays in the Liga 3, the third-highest division of the Portuguese football league system, at the Estádio Cidade de Coimbra. Another sports club with tradition in the city is the Clube de Futebol União de Coimbra, which football team plays in the Campeonato de Portugal.
The Estádio Cidade de Coimbra (30,000 seats), which was a site of 2004 European Football Championship and includes olympic swimming pools (Piscinas Municipais), as well as a multiuse sports facility (Pavilhão Multiusos de Coimbra), located both near the stadium; the Estádio Municipal Sérgio Conceição; and the Estádio Universitário de Coimbra, an extensive sports complex of the university on Mondego's left bank, are the main athletics and sports venues in Coimbra. The Pavilhão Jorge Anjinho sports arena (headquarters of Associação Académica de Coimbra), Pavilhão dos Olivais, and Pavilhão do C.F. União de Coimbra, are other places where some of the most important indoor sports clashes involving teams of Coimbra are played.
Other clubs in the municipality of Coimbra include Clube de Futebol Santa Clara and Olivais F.C..
Major sports teams based in Coimbra include:
Notable individuals
The following people were born, died or otherwise lived within the municipality of Coimbra:
Royalty & Nobility
Cindazunda (5th century), daughter of Hermenerico, king of the Suebi, and wife of Attaces, king of the Alans. This Suebi princess is immortalized in history as a symbol of the city of Coimbra, in Portugal, and her image appears in the official coat of arms of Coimbra.
Afonso Henriques (ca.1109 – 1185 in Sé Nova), first Portuguese monarch, as Afonso I from 1139 to 1185, established his residence in the seat of County of Coimbra; he was buried in the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra.
Sancho I (1154 in Sé Nova – 1212 in Sé Nova), second King of Portugal, 1185– 1211, known as the Populator
Afonso II (1185 in Sé Nova – 1223 in Sé Nova), third Portuguese monarch, 1211-1223 known as the Fat.
Sancho II (1209 in Sé Nova - 1248), King of Portugal from 1223 to 1248, known as the Pious.
Afonso III (1210 in Sé Nova – 1279), first King of Portugal and the Algarve, from 1249.
Luís de Alpoim (13th C) a Knight, ambassador to England, France and the Holy Roman Empire
Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (1271–1336), wife of King Denis I; buried at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha.
Pedro I (1320 in Sé Nova – 1367), King of Portugal, 1357-1367, known as the Just
Ferdinand I (1345–1383), King of Portugal, 1367 to 1383, known as the Handsome
Pedro Annes d'Alpoim (ca.1475-1500s) a nobleman, conquistador, an early settler of Azores.
Public Service
Fernando Martins de Bulhões (1195 – 1231), Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order.
Francisco Álvares (ca.1465 in Sé Nova – ca.1541), a missionary, explorer and diplomat who travelled to Ethiopia.
Pedro Nunes (ca.1502 – 1578 in Sé Nova), a mathematician, cosmographer and academic
Mem de Sá (ca.1500 in Sé Nova – 1572), third Governor-General of Brazil, from 1557-1572.
Melchior Carneiro (1516-1583) a Jesuit missionary bishop, one of the first Jesuit bishops.
Diogo de Paiva de Andrade (1528–1575) a celebrated Portuguese theologian.
Saint José de Anchieta (1534-1597), Spanish Jesuit, humanist and writer, studied in Coimbra.
Francisco Macedo (1596-1681), known as S. Augustino, a Portuguese Franciscan theologian.
Joaquim António de Aguiar (1792–1884) a politician, three times Prime Minister of Portugal.
João Correia Ayres de Campos (1818–1885), archaeologist, palaeographer, antiquarian, medievalist and bibliophile.
Ayres de Campos, 2nd Count of Ameal (1877–1952) a politician and career diplomat
Sister Lúcia (1907 – 2005 in Sé Nova), one of the three visionary children of Our Lady of Fátima, lived at the Carmelite Convent of Saint Teresa
Álvaro Cunhal (1913—2005), politician, pro-Soviet leader of the Portuguese Communist Party
Isabel de Magalhães Colaço (1926–2004), academic lawyer, first woman to sit in the Constitutional Court
Carlos Mota Pinto (1936–1985), a professor and politician, 107th Prime Minister of Portugal, 1978/1979
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (born 1940), a sociologist and professor.
Zita Seabra (born 1949 in Santa Cruz), a Portuguese politician and publisher.
Fausto de Sousa Correia (1951–2007) a politician, deputy of the Parliament, and MEP
Pedro Passos Coelho (born 1964), a politician, and 118th Prime Minister of Portugal
Ana Catarina Mendes (born 1973) a politician, deputy in the Assembly of the Republic since 1995
Pedro Fernandes Lopes (born 1986), Government minister in the Republic of Cape Verde.
The Arts
Francisco de Sá de Miranda (1481–1558) a Portuguese poet of the Renaissance.
Carlos Seixas (1704–1742) composer, teacher and virtuoso of the organ and harpsichord
Joaquim Machado de Castro (1731–1822), one of Portugal's foremost sculptors.
Ayres de Campos, 1st Count of Ameal (1847–1920), art collector, humanist and politician
Camilo Pessanha (1867–1926), a Portuguese symbolist poet in Macau
João Ameal (1902–1982), historian, journalist, politician and novelist, literary pseudonym of the 3rd Count of Ameal
Mário Simões Dias (1903–1974), a musicologist, professional violinist, music critic and poet
Miguel Torga, (1907-1995), a Portuguese writers of poetry, short stories, nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature
Carlos Paredes (1925–2004), a virtuoso guitar player and composer, known as the "man of a thousand fingers"
José Afonso (1929–1987), a Portuguese singer-songwriter; known as Zeca
Luiz Goes (1933–2012), a Portuguese fado singer.
José Álvaro Morais (1943-2004), a Portuguese film director.
Mário Vieira de Carvalho (born 1943), a musicologist, author and academic
Mário Crespo (born 1947), a retired journalist and reporter
Alberto Raposo Pidwell Tavares (1948–1997), known as Al Berto, a poet, painter and editor
Carlos Paião (1957-1988), a singer and songwriter, sang at the Eurovision Song Contest 1981
Sérgio Azevedo (born 1968) a composer of contemporary classical music.
Luís de Matos, (born 1970) a Portuguese magician, studied in Coimbra.
Paulo Furtado (born ca.1970), stage name The Legendary Tigerman, the lead vocalist of the band WrayGunn.
JP Simões (born 1970), singer and musician.
Carlos Damas (born 1973), a Portuguese classical violinist
André Sardet (born 1976), Portuguese singer and musician.
Tiago Bettencourt (born 1979), singer-songwriter.
Edgar Morais (born 1989) an actor, writer and director.
Sport
Joaquim Melo (born 1949) a former football goalkeeper with 368 club caps.
Carlos Simões (born 1951) a former footballer with over 380 club caps
Sérgio Conceição (born 1974), football manager and former footballer, who played for 10 teams and won 410 club caps and 56 caps for Portugal national football team
João Neto (born 1981), Portuguese judo champion
Nuno Piloto (born 1982), footballer, captain of Associação Académica de Coimbra – O.A.F.
Zé Castro (born 1983), footballer with over 370 club caps, played for Deportivo de La Coruña
Filipe Albuquerque (born 1985), Portuguese racing car driver
Miguel Veloso (born 1986) a footballer with over 440 club caps and 56 for Portugal
Bárbara Luz (born 1993) a former professional tennis player
Others
Adelino Maltez (born 1951), lawyer, university professor, poet and writer
See also
Hospitais da Universidade de Coimbra
Queima das Fitas
Coimbra Group of universities
References
Citations
Sources
Bibliography
External links
Coimbra's Municipality City Hall
Cities in Portugal
Former national capitals
Municipalities of Coimbra District
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard%20University
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Howard University
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Howard University is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C., located in the Shaw neighborhood. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Established in 1867, Howard is a nonsectarian institution. It offers undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees in more than 120 programs.
History
19th century
Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, members of the First Congregational Society of Washington considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of black clergymen. Within a few weeks, the project expanded to include a provision for establishing a university. Within two years, the university consisted of the colleges of liberal arts and medicine. The new institution was named for General Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War hero who was both the founder of the university and, at the time, commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Howard later served as president of the university from 1869 to 1874.
The U.S. Congress chartered Howard on March 2, 1867, and much of its early funding came from endowment, private benefaction and tuition. (In the 20th and 21st centuries, an annual congressional appropriation, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, funds Howard University and Howard University Hospital.)
Many improvements were made on campus. Howard Hall was renovated and made a dormitory for women.
20th century
From 1926 to 1960, preacher Mordecai Wyatt Johnson was Howard University's first African-American president.
The Great Depression years of the 1930s brought hardship to campus. Despite appeals from Eleanor Roosevelt, Howard saw its budget cut below Hoover administration levels during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the 1930s, Howard University still had segregated student housing.
Howard University played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement on a number of occasions. Alain Locke, chair of the Department of Philosophy and first African American Rhodes Scholar, authored The New Negro (1925), which helped to usher in the Harlem Renaissance. Ralph Bunche, the first Nobel Peace Prize winner of African descent, served as chair of the Department of Political Science. Beginning in 1942, Howard University students pioneered the "stool-sitting" technique of occupying stools at a local cafeteria which denied service to African Americans, blocking other customers waiting for service. This tactic was to play a prominent role in the later Civil Rights Movement. By January 1943, students had begun to organize regular sit-ins and pickets around Washington, D.C. at cigar stores and cafeterias which refused to serve them because of their race. These protests continued until the fall of 1944.
Stokely Carmichael, also known as Kwame Toure, a student in the Department of Philosophy and the Howard University School of Divinity, coined the term "Black Power" and worked in Lowndes County, Alabama as a voting rights activist. Historian Rayford Logan served as chair of the Department of History. E. Franklin Frazier served as chair of the Department of Sociology. Sterling Allen Brown served as chair of the Department of English.
The first sitting president to speak at Howard was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. His graduation speech was entitled, "The Progress of a People", and highlighted the accomplishments to date of African-Americans since the Civil War. His concluding thought was, "We can not go out from this place and occasion without refreshment of faith and renewal of confidence that in every exigency our Negro fellow citizens will render the best and fullest measure of service whereof they are capable."
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered a speech to the graduating class at Howard, where he outlined his plans for civil rights legislation and endorsed aggressive affirmative action to combat the effects of years of segregation of blacks from the nation's economic opportunities. At the time, the voting rights bill was still pending in the House of Representatives.
In 1975, the historic Freedman's Hospital closed after 112 years of use as Howard University College of Medicine's primary teaching hospital. Howard University Hospital opened that same year and continues to be used as HUCM's primary teaching hospital, with service to the surrounding community.
Also in 1975, Jeanne Sinkford became the first female dean of any American dental school when she was appointed as the dean of Howard University's school of dentistry.
In 1989, Howard gained national attention when students rose up in protest against the appointment of then-Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater as a new member of the university's board of trustees. Student activists disrupted Howard's 122nd-anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Howard's President, James E. Cheek, resigned.
21st century
In April 2007, the head of the faculty senate called for the ouster of Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, saying the school was in a state of crisis, and it was time to end "an intolerable condition of incompetence and dysfunction at the highest level." This came on the heels of several criticisms of Howard University and its management. The following month, Swygert announced he would retire in June 2008. The university announced in May 2008 that Sidney Ribeau of Bowling Green State University would succeed Swygert as president. Ribeau appointed a Presidential Commission on Academic Renewal to conduct a year-long self-evaluation that resulted in reducing or closing 20 out of 171 academic programs. For example, they proposed closing the undergraduate philosophy major and African studies major.
Six years later, in 2013, university insiders again alleged the university was in crisis. In April, the vice chairwoman of the university's board of trustees wrote a letter to her colleagues harshly criticizing the university's president and calling for a vote of no confidence; her letter was subsequently obtained by the media where it drew national headline. Two months later, the university's Council of Deans alleged "fiscal mismanagement is doing irreparable harm," blaming the university's senior vice president for administration, chief financial officer and treasurer and asking for his dismissal. In October, the faculty voted no confidence in the university's board of trustees executive committee, two weeks after university president Sidney A. Ribeau announced he would retire at the end of the year. On October 1, the Board of Trustees named Wayne A. I. Frederick Interim President. In July 2014 Howard's Board of Trustees named Frederick as the school's 17th president.
In May 2016, President Barack Obama delivered a commencement address at Howard University encouraging the graduates to become advocates for racial change and to prepare for future challenges.
In 2018, nearly 1,000 students held a sit-in demanding injunction over the administration's use of funding, after a Medium post revealed that six university employees had been fired for "double dipping" financial aid and tuition remission. The university had discovered the fraud the previous year, but had not publicly disclosed the loss; 131 individuals were involved in some form, with the top 50 recipients accounting for 90% of the total, and the five most reimbursed individuals receiving $689,375 in refunds. After the student protest ended, faculty voted "no confidence" in the university president, chief operating officer, provost, and board of trustees. The nine-day protest ended with university officials promising to meet most of their demands. It also led to an investigation by the Department of Education, which placed the university on "heightened cash monitoring", an increased form of scrutiny relating to the disbursement of student financial aid. This monitoring status was rescinded in December of the following year.
In July 2020, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $40 million (~$ in ) to Howard. Her single donation is the largest in Howard's history and one of the largest ever to an HBCU.
In May 2021, the university announced that the newly re-established college of fine arts, led by Dean Phylicia Rashad, would be named the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts for the actor and distinguished alum who from his days as a student in the late 1990s through his death from cancer in 2020 led protests against the 1997 absorption of the College of Fine Arts into the College of Arts & Sciences.
In October 2021, a group of students protested the mold, mice, and substandard conditions in campus residential buildings in the Blackburn Takeover, demanding an improvement in the living situation and representation on the board of trustees. In 2023, Howard University issued a $300 million tax-exempt bond to tackle the housing woes.
In March 2022, Howard University announced that it will spend $785 million over the next four years to construct new STEM complex, academic buildings to house the Chadwick Boseman School of Fine Arts, and the Cathy Hughes School of Communications, as well as renovate other buildings on campus.
In 2023, Howard University was selected by the Department of the Air Force to lead a research center on tactical autonomy technology for military systems.
Campus
The campus, often referred to as "The Mecca", is in northwest Washington, D. C.
Major improvements, additions and changes occurred at the school in the aftermath of World War I. New buildings were built under the direction of architect Albert Cassell.
Howard University has several historic landmarks on campus, such as Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall, and the Founders Library.
The Howard University Gallery of Art was established by Howard's board of trustees in 1928. The gallery's permanent collection has grown to over 4,000 works of art and continues to serve as an academic resource for the Howard community.
Howard University has eight residence halls for students: Drew Hall (male freshmen), College Hall North (female freshmen), The Harriet Tubman Quadrangle - "Quad" (female freshmen), Cook Hall (male freshmen), Bethune Annex (co-ed, continuing students), Plaza Towers West (co-ed, continuing students), College Hall South (co-ed, continuing students), The Axis (co-ed, continuing students), Mazza Grandmarc (co-ed, continuing students), WISH-Woodley Park (co-ed, continuing students) and Plaza Towers East (co-ed, continuing students).
Howard University Hospital, opened in 1975 on the eastern end of campus, was built on the site of Griffith Stadium, in use from the 1890s to 1965 as home of the first, second and third incarnations of the MLB Senators, as well as the NFL's Washington Redskins, several college football teams (including Georgetown, GWU and Maryland) and part-time home of the Homestead Grays of the Negro National League.
Howard University is home to the commercial radio station WHUR-FM 96.3, also known as Howard University Radio. A student-run station, WHBC, operates on an HD Radio sub-channel of WHUR-FM. Howard is also home to the public television station WHUT-TV, located on campus next to WHUR-FM.
Organization
The university is led by a board of trustees that includes a faculty trustee from the undergraduate colleges, a faculty trustee from the graduate and professional colleges serving three-year terms, two student trustees, each serving one-year terms, and three alumni-elected trustees, each serving three-year terms.
Academics
Schools and colleges
College of Engineering and Architecture
College of Nursing & Allied Health Sciences
College of Pharmacy
College of Arts and Sciences
Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts
Howard University College of Dentistry
Howard University School of Business
Cathy Hughes School of Communications
Howard University College of Medicine
Howard University School of Law
Middle School of Mathematics and Science
School of Divinity
School of Education
School of Social Work
Faculty
Howard faculty include member of Congress from Maryland Roscoe Bartlett, blood banking pioneer Charles Drew, Emmy-winning actor Al Freeman Jr., suffragist Elizabeth Piper Ensley, civil rights lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston, media entrepreneur Cathy Hughes, marine biologist Ernest Everett Just, professor of surgery LaSalle D. Leffall Jr., journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates, political consultant Ron Walters, political activist Stacey Abrams, novelist and diplomat E. R. Braithwaite, filmmaker Haile Gerima, and psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing.
Honors programs
Howard offers four selective honors programs for its most high-achieving undergraduate students: the College of Arts & Sciences Honors Program, the School of Education Honors Program, the Executive Leadership Honors Program in the School of Business, and the Annenberg Honors Program in the School of Communications.
Martha and Bruce Karsh STEM Scholars Program
In 2017, Howard established the Bison STEM Scholars Program to increase the number of underrepresented minorities with high-level research careers in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics. Bison STEM Scholars are given full scholarships and committed to earning a PhD or a combined MD–PhD in a STEM discipline. The highly competitive program annually accepts approximately 30 undergraduate students for each new cohort. As of 2020, the Bison STEM Scholars Program was renamed the Martha and Bruce Karsh Stem Scholars Program (KSSP) following the $10 million (~$ in ) donation from the family's foundation.
Google's Tech Exchange
In 2017, Google Inc. announced it established a pilot residency program named "Howard University West" on its campus in Mountain View, California, to help increase underrepresented minorities in the tech industry. In 2018, the program expanded from a three-month summer program to a full academic year program and the name changed to "Tech Exchange" to be inclusive of 15 other minority-serving institutions added to the program such as Florida A&M, Prairie View A&M, and Fisk. Howard students in the program learn from senior Google engineers, practice the latest coding techniques, and experience tech culture in Mountain View for course credits towards their degrees.
Disney Storyteller Fund
In July 2022, the Walt Disney Company announced it established the Disney Storytellers Fund at the Cathy Hughes School of Communications and the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts to support creative student projects. The fund provides undergraduate students with stipends up to $60,000 and mentorship intended to help cultivate a new generation of Black storytellers. In October 2022, the fund expanded to other HBCU campuses.
Michael Jordan Partnership
In 2022, Howard University signed a 20-year partnership with Nike's Michael Jordan Brand starting in 2022.
Research
Interdisciplinary Research Building
Howard's most prominent research building is the Interdisciplinary Research Building (IRB). Opened in 2016, the multi-story, 81,670 square foot, state-of-the-art research facility was completed for $70 million (~$ in ). The IRB was designed to promote more collaborative and innovative research on campus.
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
"The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) is recognized as one of the world's largest and most comprehensive repositories for the documentation of the history and culture of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and other parts of the world. The MSRC collects, preserves, and makes available for research a wide range of resources chronicling black experiences."
NASA University Research Center (BCCSO)
The Beltsville Center for Climate System Observation (BCCSO) is a NASA University Research Center at the Beltsville, Maryland campus of Howard University. BCCSO consists of a multidisciplinary group of Howard faculty in partnership with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Division, other academic institutions, and government. This group is led by three Principal Investigators, Everette Joseph, also the director of BCCSO, Demetrius Venable and Belay Demoz. BCCSO trains science and academic leaders to understand atmospheric processes through atmospheric observing systems and analytical methods.
Publications
Howard University is home to The Hilltop, the university's student newspaper. Founded in 1924 by Zora Neale Hurston, The Hilltop enjoys a long legacy at the university.
Howard University is the publisher of The Journal of Negro Education, which began publication in 1932. The Howard University Bison Yearbook is created, edited and published during the school year to provide students a year-in-review. Howard University also publishes the Capstone, the official e-newsletter for the university; and the Howard Magazine, the official magazine for the university, which is published three times a year.
Howard University Libraries
Howard University Libraries (HUL) is the library system of Howard University and is composed by eight branches and centers:
The Founders Library, the main library, founded in January 1939.
The School of Business Library
The School of Divinity Library
The School of Social Work Library
The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
The Channing Pollock Theatre Collection
The Patent and Trademark Resource Center
The Undergraduate Library (UGL).
Afro-American Studies Center
Student life
Athletics
Most of Howard's 21 NCAA Division I varsity teams compete in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC).
Students
The U.S. students come from the following regions: New England 2%, Mid-West 8%, South 22%, Mid-Atlantic 55%, and West 12%. Nearly 4% of the student body are international students. Howard University is 86% African-American/Black.
Howard is one of the five largest HBCUs in the nation with around 10,000 students. The student-to-faculty ratio is 7:1.
Howard is a selective institution. The incoming freshman class of fall 2021 had 29,391 applicants and 10,362 (35%) were accepted into Howard.
There are over 200 student organizations and special interest groups established on campus.
Howard produced four Rhodes Scholars between 1986 and 2017. Between 1998 and 2009, Howard University produced a Marshall Scholar, two Truman Scholars, twenty-two Fulbright Scholars and ten Pickering Fellows.
In 2020, 82% of first-year students received need-based financial aid.
Greek letter organizations
Howard University has many academic and social Greek letter organizations on campus. Howard is the founding site of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) and five of the nine NPHC organizations. Also, Howard is one of four HBCUs with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa which is the oldest academic honor society in the U.S.
Howard Homecoming
Howard Homecoming week is the most prominent and richest cultural tradition of the institution. Over 100,000 of alumni, students, celebrity guests, and visitors are in attendance to patronize the many events and attractions affiliated with the festive week on and near campus. While the specific calendar of events changes from year to year, the traditional homecoming events include the Homecoming Football Game and Tailgate, Pep Rally, Coronation Ball, Greek Step-Show (Howard NPHC Greeks), and Fashion Show. After a two-year hiatus, the Yardfest returned in 2016 as one of the cherished traditions.
Howard's first official homecoming was held in 1924 and it takes place every fall semester with a new theme developed by the homecoming committee.
Springfest
Springfest is an annual tradition created by the Undergraduate Student Association (UGSA) to celebrate the arrival of spring. Springfest is similar to homecoming week in the fall but on a smaller scale and with more emphasis on the student body. Springfest events traditionally include the Fashion Show, Talent Show, Vendor Fair, Poetry Showcase, Beauty Conference, Charity Basketball Game, and a major community service event. The schedule of events changes slightly each year.
Bison Ball
The Bison Ball and Excellence Awards is an annual black tie gala hosted by the Howard University Student Association (HUSA). A select number of students, faculty, organizations, and administrators from the Howard community are honored for their exceptional accomplishments. This event takes place near the end of every spring semester.
Resfest
Resfest week is a Howard tradition that involves freshmen living in residence halls on campus competing in several organized competitions (field day, academic debate, dance, stroll, step-show, etc.) for campus bragging rights. This event takes place on campus near the end of every spring semester.
Notable alumni
Distinguished alumni of Howard University include the current () Vice President of the United States, several United States diplomats and United States governors, a United States Ambassador to the United Nations, foreign royals, seven foreign heads of state, 11 members of United States Congress, a Supreme Court Justice, directors and executives of Fortune 500 companies, Academy Award– and Emmy Award–winning actors, Grammy Award—winning songwriters and producers, two US Army generals, a US Air Force general and Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, and Nobel laureates including Nobel Prize for Literature winner Toni Morrison. Additional alumni include civil rights activists and pioneers in the Civil Rights Movement, a United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, a United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a United States Secretary of Agriculture, 12 Mayors of American cities, and three State Attorneys General. Howard University has also produced many firsts, including Roger Arliner Young who became the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate in zoology, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. the first African-American US Army general, Johnson O. Akinleye, 12th Chancellor of North Carolina Central University,
Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, and Edward W. Brooke III who became the first African-American elected to the US Senate, among others. Howard University also counts four Rhodes Scholarship winners, 22 Pickering Fellows, 11 Truman Scholars, over 70 Fulbright Scholars, a Schwarzman Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, and two Pulitzer Prize winners and numerous other Pulitzer Prize nominees among its alumni. To date Howard University has granted over 120,000 degrees and produces the most black doctorate recipients of any university.
See also
A Bridge Across and Beyond by artist Richard Hunt (a sculpture at the Blackburn Fountain)
Howard Theatre
List of presidents of Howard University
References
Further reading
Cain, Timothy Reese. " 'Only Organized Effort Will Find the Way Out!': Faculty Unionization at Howard University, 1918–1950." in Higher Education for African Americans Before the Civil Rights Era, 1900-1964 (Routledge, 2017) pp. 119–156.
Dodson, Howard. "HOWARD UNIVERSITY, THE NEW NEGRO MOVEMENT, AND THE MAKING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN VISUAL ARTS IN WASHINGTON, DC." Callaloo 39.5 (2016): 983–998. online
Dyson, Walter. The Founding of Howard University (Howard University Press, 1921) online.
Epps, Howard R. "The Howard University Medical Department in the Flexner Era: 1910-1929." Journal of the National Medical Association 81.8 (1989): 885+ online
Green, Rodney D., and Aisha Thompson. "Streams of racial progress: The discipline of economics at Howard University at its sesquicentennial." Negro Educational Review 68.1-4 (2017): 31–157. online
Henry, Charles P. "Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche: The Howard School of Thought on the Problem of Race." in The Changing Racial Regime (1995): 36+. online
Hopkins, Reginald, Sherman Ross, and Leslie H. Hicks. "A history of the Department of Psychology at Howard University." Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences (1992): 161–167. online
Hunter, Gregory. " Howard University: 'Capstone of Negro education' during World War II." Journal of Negro History 79.1 (1994): 54–70. online
LaPoint, Velma, and Veronica Thomas. "Contributions of Howard University to social science research on Black children." Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (2006): 173–187. online
Lindsey, Treva. "Climbing the Hilltop: In Search of a New Negro Womanhood at Howard University." in Escape from New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem (2013): 271–290. online
Logan, Rayford W. Howard University: The first hundred years, 1867-1967 (NYU Press, 1969) online, a standard scholarly history.
McFeely, William S. Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard and the Freedmen (Yale University Press, 1968) online
Matthews, Lopez D. Howard University in the World Wars: Men and Women Serving the Nation (Arcadia Publishing, 2019) online.
Muse, Clifford L. "Howard University and the Federal Government During the Presidential Administrations of Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1928-1945". Journal of Negro History (1991) 76 (1/4): 1–20. online
Myers, Joshua M. We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989 (New York University Press. 2019) online
Perkins, Linda M. "Black undergraduate women’s experiences of race, gender, and class at Fisk and Howard universities and Tuskegee institute, 1923–1960." in Critical perspectives on Black women and college success (Routledge, 2017) pp. 31–44. online
Perkins, Linda M. "Merze Tate and the Quest for Gender Equity at Howard University: 1942–1977." History of Education Quarterly 54.4 (2014): 516–551. online
Poulson, Stephen C. Racism on Campus: A Visual History of Prominent Virginia Colleges and Howard University (Routledge, 2021) online
Rasheed, Lisa R. "Lucy Diggs Slowe, Howard University Dean of Women, 1922-1937: Educator administrator, activist" (Thesis, Georgia State University, 2010) online.
Ray, Louis. "Competing Visions of Higher Education: The College of Liberal Arts Faculty and the Administration of Howard University, 1939–1960." in Higher Education for African Americans before the Civil Rights Era, 1900-1964 (Routledge, 2017) pp. 157–178. online
Relerford, Jimisha. "Campus Protest and Composition Pedagogy: G. David Houston's Activist Rhetoric at Howard University." Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men 9.1 (2021): 21–36. excerpt
Thomas, Jennifer C. "Pageantry & Politics: Miss Howard University from Civil Rights to Black Power." Journal of Negro Education 87.1 (2018): 22–32. excerpt
Zaluda, Scott. "Lost voices of the Harlem renaissance: Writing assigned at Howard University, 1919-31." College Composition and Communication 50.2 (1998): 232–257. online
External links
Howard Athletics website
1867 establishments in Washington, D.C.
African-American history of Washington, D.C.
American Missionary Association
Universities and colleges established in 1867
Historically black universities and colleges in the United States
Private universities and colleges in Washington, D.C.
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Dnyaneshwar
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Sant Dnyaneshwar (Marathi pronunciation: [d̪ɲaːn̪eʃʋəɾ]), also referred to as Dnyaneshwar, Dnyanadeva, Dnyandev or Mauli or Dnyaneshwar Vitthal Kulkarni (1275–1296), was a 13th-century Indian Marathi saint, poet, philosopher and yogi of the Nath and Varkari tradition. In his short life of 21 years, he authored Dnyaneshwari (a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and Amrutanubhav. These are the oldest surviving literary works in the Marathi language, and considered to be milestones in Marathi literature. Sant Dnyaneshwar's ideas reflect the non-dualistic Advaita Vedanta philosophy and an emphasis on Yoga and bhakti towards Vithoba, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. His legacy inspired saint-poets such as Eknath and Tukaram, and he is one of the founders of the Varkari (Vithoba-Krishna) Bhakti movement tradition of Hinduism in Maharashtra. Dnyaneshwar undertook samadhi at Alandi in 1296 by entombing himself in an underground chamber.
Biography
Dnyaneshwar was born in 1275 (on the auspicious day of Krishna Janmashtami) in a Marathi-speaking Deshastha Brahmin family in Apegaon village on the banks of Godavari river near Paithan in Maharashtra during the reign of the Yadava king Ramadevarava. The kingdom with its capital Devagiri enjoyed relative peace and stability, and the king was a patron of literature and arts.
Biographical details of Sant Dnyaneshwar's life are preserved in the writings of his disciples, Satyamalanath and Sachchidanand. The various traditions give conflicting accounts of details of Dnyaneshwar's life. The date of composition of his work Dnyaneshwari (1290 CE), however is undisputed. According to the more accepted tradition on Dnyaneshwar's life, he was born in 1275 CE and he attained samadhi in 1296 CE. Other sources state he was born in 1271 CE.
Life
The biographical details of Dnyaneshwar's short life of about 21 years are contested and its authenticity is in doubt. The available accounts are filled with hagiographic legends and miracles he performed, such as his ability to make a buffalo sing the Vedas and humble a yogi by riding a moving wall.
According to the accounts that have survived, Dnyaneshwar's father Vitthalapant was the kulkarni (hereditary accountant, usually Brahmin, who maintained land and tax records in villages) of a village called Apegaon on the banks of the Godavari River in Maharashtra, a profession he had inherited from his ancestors. He married Rakhumabai, the daughter of the Kulkarni of Alandi. Even as a householder, Vitthalapant longed for spiritual learning. His disillusionment with life grew as a result of the death of his father and because he had no children from his marriage. Eventually, with his wife's consent, he renounced worldly life and left for Kashi to become a sannyasin (renunciate). According to another version of these events Dnyaneshwar's father Vitthalapant came from a long line of teachers of the Nath yogi sect and being deeply religious, he went on a pilgrimage to Varanasi. There he met a guru (spiritual teacher), decided to renounce without his wife's consent.
Vitthalapant was initiated as a sannyasin by his spiritual teacher, Rama Sharma, who is also called Ramananda, Nrisimhashrama, Ramadvaya and Shripad in various sources. (He was not Ramananda, the founder of the Ramanandi Sampradaya.) When Ramashrama discovered that Vitthalapant had left his family behind to become a monk, he instructed Vitthalapant to go back to his wife and perform his duties as a householder. After Vitthalapant returned to his wife and settled down in Alandi, Rakhumabai gave birth to four children—Nivruttinath (1273 CE), Dnyaneshwar (1275 CE), Sopan (1277 CE) and Muktabai (1279 CE).
Orthodox Brahmins of the day saw a renunciate returning to his life as a householder as heresy. Dnyaneshwar and his brothers were denied the right to have the sacred thread ceremony for the full admission to the Brahmin caste. According to Pawar, this meant excommunication from the Brahmin caste.
Vitthalapant eventually left the town for Nashik with his family. One day while performing his daily rituals, Vitthalapant came face to face with a tiger. Vitthalapant and three of his four children escaped, but Nivruttinath became separated from the family and hid in a cave. While hiding in the cave he met Gahaninath, who initiated Nivruttinath into the wisdom of the Nath yogis. Later, Vitthalapant returned to Alandi and asked the Brahmins to suggest a means of atonement for his sins; they suggested giving up his life as penance. Vitthalapant and his wife gave up their lives, within a year of each other by jumping into the Indrayani river in the hope their children might be able to lead lives free of persecution. Other sources and local folk tradition claim that the parents committed suicide by jumping in the Indrayani River. Another version of the legend states that Vitthalapant, the father threw himself into Ganges River to expiate his sin.
Dnyaneshwar and his siblings were accepted by and initiated into the Nath Hindu live tradition to which their parents already belonged, where the three brothers and the sister Muktabai all became celebrated yogis and Bhakti poets.
Travel and demise
After Dnyaneshwar had written Amrutanubhav, the siblings visited Pandharpur where they met Namdev, who became a close friend of Dnyaneshwar. Dnyaneshwar and Namadev embarked on a pilgrimage to various holy centers across India where they initiated many people into the Varkari sect; Dnyaneshwar's devotional compositions called Abhangas are believed to have been formulated during this period. On their return to Pandharpur, Dnyaneshwar and Namadev were honored with a feast in which, according to Bahirat, many contemporary saints such as "Goroba the potter, Sanvata the gardener, Chokhoba the untouchable and Parisa Bhagwat the Brahmin" participated. Some scholars accept the traditional view that Namdev and Dnyaneshwar were contemporaries; however, others such as W. B. Patwardhan, R. G. Bhandarkar and R. Bharadvaj disagree with this view and date Namdev to the late 14th century instead.
After the feast, Dnyaneshwar desired to go into sanjeevan samadhi, a practice to voluntarily leave one's mortal body after entering into a deep meditative state, as practiced in Ashtanga Yoga of ancient India. Preparations for the Sanjeevan Samadhi were made by Namdev's sons. Regarding Sanjeevan Samadhi, Dnyaneshwar himself had emphatically talked about the relationship between higher awareness and light or pure energy. On the 13th day of the dark half of the Kartik month of the Hindu Calendar, in Alandi, Dnyaneshwar, who was then twenty-one years old, entered into Sanjeevan samadhi. His samadhi lies in the Siddhesvara Temple complex in Alandi. Namdev and other bystanders grieved his passing. According to tradition, Dnyaneshwar was brought back to life to meet Namdev when the latter prayed to Vithoba for his return. Dallmayr writes that this testifies to "the immortality of genuine friendship and companionship of noble and loving hearts". Many Varkari devotees believe that Dnyaneshwar is still alive.
Miracles
Many miracles came to be associated with Dnyaneshwar's life, one of which was the revival of his disciple Sachchidanand's corpse. Fred Dallmyr summarizes one of these legends as follows from the hagiography by Mahipati: At age 12, Dnyaneshwar with his impoverished and outcaste siblings, went to Paithan to plead mercy from Paithan priests. There, they were insulted and ridiculed. As the children were suffering the bullying, on a nearby road was a man who was violently lashing an old buffalo, and the injured animal collapsed in tears. Dnyaneshwar asked the buffalo owner to stop out of concern for the animal. The priests ridiculed him for being more concerned about a beast and unconcerned about the teachings of the Vedas. Dnyaneshwar retorted that the Vedas themselves held all life to be sacred and a manifestation of the Brahman. The outraged priests pointed out that his logic implied that beasts should be able to learn the Vedas as well. An undeterred Dnyaneshwar then placed his hand on the buffalo's forehead and it started reciting a Vedic verse in a deep voice. According to Fred Dallmayr, one may not be concerned whether this story accurately reflects Dnyaneshwar's biography, the story does have symbolic significance in the same manner as the story about Jesus in Jerusalem in Matthew 3:9.
In another miracle, Dnyaneshwar was challenged by Changdev, an accomplished yogi who rode on a tiger with his magical powers, to replicate this feat. Dnyaneshwar humbled Changdev by riding on a moving wall. Dnyaneshwar's advice to Changdev was given in 65 verses called the Changdev Pasasthi. Changdev became a disciple of Dnyaneshwar's sister Muktabai.
Writings
According to B. P. Bahirat, Dnyaneshwar was the first known philosopher who wrote in the Marathi language. At about age 16, he composed Dnyaneshwari in the year 1290, a commentary on Bhagavad Gita which later became a fundamental text of the Varkari sect. His words were recorded by Sacchidananda, who agreed to become Dnyaneshwar's amanuensis. Dnyaneshwari was written using the Ovi; a metre, which was first used to compose women's songs in Maharashtra, of four lines where the first three or the first and third lines rhyme and the fourth line has a sharp and short ending. According to W. B. Patwardhan, a scholar on Dnyaneshwar, with Dnyaneshwar the ovi "trips, it gallops, it dances, it whirls, it ambles, it trots, it runs, it takes long leaps or short jumps, it halts or sweeps along, it evolves a hundred and one graces at the master's command".
In Dnyaneshwari, at last he wrote "Pasaayadana" in which he prayed everything for others and all humanity and nothing for himself. Saint Dnyaneshwar himself believed that "The whole world has one soul- या विश्वाचा आत्मा एक आहे".
His first text Dnyanesvari was in the vernacular Marathi language, as opposed to the classical Sanskrit language. He wrote Dnyaneshwari in the Marathi language so that common people could understand philosophical aspects of life which were then understood only by those who knew Sanskrit (i.e. the higher priestly classes). Thus, this was a significant work in Indian history which simplified philosophy to the common man.
According to Bhagwat, like other Bhakti poets, Dnyaneshwar's choice of the vernacular language was an important departure from the prevailing cultural hegemony of Sanskrit and high–caste Hinduism, a trend which continued with later bhakti poets across India. Dnyaneshwar is to the Marathi literature what Dante is to the Italian, states Bhagwat.
According to tradition, Nivruttinath was not satisfied with the commentary and asked Dnyaneshwar to write an independent philosophical work. This work later came to be known as Amrutanubhava. Scholars differ on the chronology of the Dnyaneshwari and Amrutanubhav. Patwardhan has argued that Amrutanubhav is an earlier text than Dnyaneshwari because the latter is richer in use of metaphors and imagery, and displays greater familiarity with many different philosophical systems, such as Samkhya and Yoga. However, both Bahirat and Ranade disagree with this view pointing out that in Amrutanubhava, author displays familiarity with involved philosophical concepts such as Mayavada and Shunyavada, and while the text has simpler language, it reveals Dnyaneshwar's "philosophical depth".
Dnyaneshwar's devotional compositions called Abhangas are believed to have been formulated during his pilgrimage to Pandharpur and other holy places when he got initiated into the Varkari tradition.
Influences
The Mahanubhava sect and the Nath Yogi tradition were two prominent movements during Dnyaneshwar's time that influenced his works. Mahanubhavas were devotees of Krishna who disregarded the caste system, the Vedas and the worship of the deity Vitthala. Dnyaneshwar differed significantly from Mahanubhava's religious precepts. His thought was founded on the philosophy of the later Vedic texts such as the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, and devotion to Vitthala formed the cornerstone of the egalitarian Varkari sect founded by Dnyaneshwar. However, the literary style adopted by Mahanubhava writers influenced Dnyaneshwar's works. According to R. D. Ranade, Dnyaneshwar "stands to Mahanubhavas just in the same relation which Shakespeare stood to Elizabethan writers".
Dnyaneshwar was initiated into the Nath Yogi tradition by his brother Nivruttinath, sometime after the death of their parents; Sopana and Muktabai were initiated into the tradition by Dnyaneshwar himself. Founded by Gorakshanath, the Nath Yogi sect had introduced the system of Hatha Yoga, which emphasised on yogic poses and physical fitness. Gahaninath, a disciple of Gorakshanath, had initiated Nivruttinath into the Nath Yogi tradition. Dnyaneshwar's non-dualistic philosophy, usage of a vernacular language in his writing and an emphasis on yoga and oneness of Vishnu and Shiva were his inheritances from the Nath Yogi tradition.
The values of Universal brotherhood and compassion espoused in his works came from his interactions with the devotional Vitthala sect, a tradition which was already in existence during Dnyaneshwar's time. J. N. Farquhar also notes the influence of Bhagavata Purana on Dnyaneshwar's poetry.
Philosophy
Ontology and epistemology
Dnyaneshwar takes up the examination of being or brahman in Amrutanubhava. He considers being to be the substratum of thought which enables thought and cognition. Since being is prior to thought and concepts, it is distinct from Kantian categories, and methods of thought such as epistemological analysis cannot be applied to it. Dnyaneshwar believes that reality is self–evident and does not require any proof. It antedates dualistic divisions into knower and known, existence and nonexistence, subject and object, knowledge and ignorance.
Dnyaneshwar highlights the limitations of the traditional epistemological methods (pramanas) used in Indian philosophy. He points out that any perception is validated only by another deeper understanding, while in establishing the rationality of reason, reason itself is transcended. Dnyaneshwar even cautions against reliance on scriptural testimony, which is accepted as a valid source of knowledge by philosophers of Vedanta and Mīmāṃsā schools of philosophy. Scriptural validity, to him, stems from its congruence with experiential truth and not vice versa.
Ethics
Dnyaneshwar's moral philosophy comes out in his exposition of the 13th of Bhagavad Gita, in his commentary on the book Dnyaneshwari. He considers humility; non–injury in action, thought and words; forbearance in the face of adversity; dispassion towards sensory pleasures; purity of heart and mind; love of solitude and devotion towards one's Guru and God as virtues; and their corresponding moral opposites as vices. A pessimistic view of one's life is considered as a necessary condition for spiritual growth in Dnyaneshwari. Dnyaneshwar writes that saints do not perceive distinctions and are humble because they identify all objects, animate or inanimate, with their own Self.
Devotion to Guru occupies an important place throughout the commentary. Many of its chapters begin with an invocation to his Guru Nivruttinath, who is eulogized by Dnyaneshwar as the person who helped him "cross the ocean of existence". The discussion on virtue and vices continues in his elucidation of the 16th chapter of Bhagavad Gita, where virtues and vices are called divine heritages and demonic heritages respectively. Divine heritage comprises fearlessness, which comes from a belief in unity of all objects; charity; sacrifice, which comes from performing one's duties and compassion in addition to virtues already enumerated; while demonic heritage consists of six vices— ignorance, anger, arrogance, hypocrisy, harshness and pride.
The doctrine of Karma Yoga in the Bhagavad Gita is resurrected in Dnyaneshwari and its utility as a means of achieving actionlessness through action and in establishing harmony between the two is examined. In the fourth chapter, the ideal karma yogis actions are compared to the apparent movement of the Sun, which while appearing to rise and set is actually stationary; similarly, a karma yogi, though appears to act, doesn't really act. Performance of one's duties, acting without egoism, renunciation of the fruits of one's actions and offering one's actions to God are four ways which, according to Dnyaneshwar, result in actionlessness and Self–realisation. Dnyaneshwar's metaphysical conclusion that the world is a manifestation of the divine, and not an illusion, also creates an ethical framework which rejects renunciation and recommends performing one's duties and actions in the spirit of worship.
Traditional Indian scriptures see Ṛta, a Hindu theological term similar to dharma, as a natural law that governs both the cosmos and human society. Performance of one's duties to uphold social institutions, such as marriage and family, thus becomes imperative, and duty overrides individual freedom. Dnyaneshwar is in agreement with tradition; he believes that divine order and moral order are one and the same and are inherent in the universe itself. He, therefore, recommends that all social institutions be protected and preserved in their totality. However, when it comes to the institution of caste, his approach becomes more humanitarian and he advocates spiritual egalitarianism.
Reception and legacy
Elements of Dnyaneshwar's life and writings, such as his criticism of parochialism of the priestly elite, a celebration of the family life and spiritual egalitarianism, would shape the culture of the Varkari movement. According to Dallmayr, Dnyaneshwar's life and writings have "developed into primary exemplars of genuine religiosity for the Varkari movement, as well as crucial sources and focal points of bhakti devotion".
Devotees of the Varkari sect in the Hindu Shaka month of Ashadh join an annual pilgrimage called the Wari with symbolic Sandals (called Paduka in Marathi) of Dynaneshwar carried in a palkhi from Dnyaneshwar's shrine in Alandi to the Vitthala temple in Pandharpur . The Padukas (sandals) of Dnyaneshwar are carried in a Palkhi (palanquin) for the Dnyaneshwar inspired works of later poet-saints of the Varkari movement.
His philosophy of chidvilas was adapted by Varkari writers, such as Namdev and Eknath, to their own works. Amrutanubhavas influence is visible in Eknath's Hastamalak and Swatmsukha. Tukaram's works imbibe and explain Dnyaneshwar's philosophical concepts such as the refutation of Mayavada.
In popular culture
A 1940 Marathi film, Sant Dnyaneshwar, directed by Vishnupant Govind Damle and Sheikh Fattelal, was a biopic on Sant Dnyaneshwar's life.
Since 2021, a Marathi language TV serial named 'Dnyaneshwar Mauli' is airing on the Sony Marathi channel.
Works
Undisputed authorship
Dnyaneshwari or Bhavarthdipika (1290 CE)
Amrutanubhava or Anubhavamrita (1292 CE)
Changdev Pasashti (1294 CE)
Haripath
Abhangas
Works attributed to Dnyaneshwar
Commentary on Yoga Vasistha
Pavana-Vijaya
Pancikarana
See also
Bhakti movement
Chokhamela
Eknath
Janabai
Muktabai
Namdev
Nivruttinath
Pandharpur Wari – the largest annual pilgrimage in Maharashtra that includes a ceremonial Palkhi of Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar.
Sant Mat
Sant Soyarabai
Sopan
Tukaram
Sant Gulabrao Maharaj
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
sant dyaneshwar full information, books etc in marathi
Jnaneshwari (Bhavartha Dipika) English translation by R. K. Bhagwat, 1954 (includes glossary)
Extracts from Amritanubhav
Biography of Dnyaneshwar by V.V. Shirvaikar
Lata Mangeshkar's rendering of some of Sri Jñāneshwar's abhangas
Sant Dnaneshwar on Hindupedia, the online Hindu Encyclopedia
Pasayadan in Marathi
Sant Dnyaneshwar information in Marathi
Warkari
1275 births
1296 deaths
13th-century Indian philosophers
Hindu philosophers and theologians
Medieval Hindu religious leaders
Vaishnavite religious leaders
Indian Vaishnavites
Marathi-language poets
Marathi-language writers
Marathi Hindu saints
Vaishnava saints
Sant Mat
Scholars from Maharashtra
Translators of the Bhagavad Gita
Bhakti movement
People from Maharashtra
Brahmins who fought against discrimination
Anti-caste activists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler%20300%20letter%20series
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Chrysler 300 letter series
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The Chrysler 300 "letter series" are high-performance personal luxury cars that were built by Chrysler in the U.S. from 1955 to 1965 and were a sub-model from the Chrysler New Yorker. After the initial year, which was named C-300 for its standard FirePower V8, the 1956 cars were designated 300B. Successive model years were given the next letter of the alphabet as a suffix (skipping "i"), reaching the 300L by 1965, after which the model sequence was discontinued while the "300" remained. At its introduction it was advertised as "America's Most Powerful Car".
The 300 "letter series" cars were among the vehicles built by Chrysler after World War II that focused on performance, and thus can be considered the beginning of the muscle car, though full-sized and more expensive. Chrysler had a long history of producing race car products going back to the Chrysler Six that was entered in the 1925 24 Hours of Le Mans, 1928 24 Hours of Le Mans, 1929 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Chrysler Imperial Eight roadster in the 1931 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 1955 C-300 and the 1956 300B were raced with very little modification at NASCAR races to include Watkins Glen International where it won races multiple times.
The automaker reintroduced the 300 designations again for performance-luxury sedans in 1999, using the 300M nameplate from 1999 to 2004, and expanding the 300 series with a reintroduction of a new Hemi-engineered V8 installed in the 300C, the top model of a new Chrysler 300 line, a new rear-wheel drive car launched in 2004 for the 2005 model year.
First Generation
1955 C-300
This first of the letter series cars did not bear a letter, but can retroactively be considered the '300A'. The 'C-' designation was applied to all Chrysler models and the coupe was built on the C-68 New Yorker Series. For marketing purposes the car was called the "300" in order to further reinforce the engine installed. The C-300 was a racecar aimed at the NASCAR circuits that was sold for private ownership to qualify for homologation purposes, with Chrysler's most powerful engine, the OHV FirePower "Hemi" V8, due to the hemispheric shape of the cylinder head, fitted with dual four barrel carburetors, two overhead valves per cylinder with solid valve lifters, a race-profiled camshaft installed inside the engine cylinder block, stiffer front and rear suspension, and a low restriction performance exhaust system. This engine was exclusive to the 300, the New Yorker and the all-new Imperial Newport. By 1956, this would be the first American production car to top , and the letter series was for many years the most powerful car produced in the United States. The engine and transmission were shared with the French automaker Facel Vega in the Facel Vega Excellence and the Cunningham C-4R which was entered at the 1954 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished the race. With the growing popularity of European sports cars during the late 1940s, Chrysler sought to create a "drivers car" with sports car performance but with greater attention to comfort. in the growing post-WWII tradition of grand tourers.
The car's "100-Million Dollar Look" styling can be attributed as much to the Chrysler parts bin as designer Virgil Exner. The front clip, including the grille, was taken from the Imperial of the same year, but the rest of the car did not look like an Imperial. The midsection was from a New Yorker hardtop, with a Windsor rear quarter. Exner also included base-model Chrysler bumpers and removed many exterior elements such as back-up lights, hood ornament, side trim, and exterior mirrors. An electric clock and two-speed windshield wipers were standard. There were few options available including selection of three exterior colors of Black, Tango Red or Platinum White and only one color of tan leather interior. Power windows and power front seat adjustment were available but air conditioning was not available in 1955.
Measured at in the Flying Mile, and doing well in NASCAR, the C-300 aroused interest that was not reflected in its modest sales figure of 1,725, and the listed retail price of US$4,100 ($ in dollars ).
When the C-300 competed in NASCAR, it was painted to advertise that it was the "world's fastest stock car". In February 1954 the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL was introduced and sold in North America and was labeled the fastest production car of its time. The Chrysler C-300 was also introduced at the same time the BMW 503 was introduced and sold in North America. The Bentley Continental with a similar approach to driving experience was introduced in 1952.
1956 300B
The 1956 300B was fairly similar externally, distinguished by a new tailfin treatment, but with larger engines, and a choice of two versions of the Hemi V8 producing either , with a 10:1 compression ratio used to achieve the higher horsepower rating. A companion of this generation was introduced as the DeSoto Adventurer and the Dodge D-500 that were less luxurious, while still sharing much of the mechanicals, giving DeSoto and Dodge a performance enhanced model, while the 354 CID engine was exclusive to the 300, New Yorker and Imperials. The TorqueFlite transmission controls were to the left of the steering wheel and a total of 1,102 were sold. Performance was better than the previous year's by its top speed at almost at the Daytona Flying Mile. A 6.17 ratio rear differential was also added to the options. Front leg room was 44.6 inches. New was the Highway Hi-Fi phonograph player. This was the last year that coil springs were used for the front suspension.
With the optional 10:1 compression ratio, brake horsepower became from the same engine, and the 300B became the first American car to produce 1 horsepower per cubic inch, besting Chevrolet with their fuel-injected by one year. Colors were updated to Regimental Red, Cloud White and Black while the tan leather interior remained.
NASCAR team owner Carl Kiekhaefer's raced the 300B, among other cars, and won 22 out of 41 races, including 16 races consecutively; One of his racers was famous racer Buck Baker, who drove 300B's. Kiekhaefer would purchase cars from Chrysler and modify a few appearance features but essentially raced the cars as they were, with leather interior and other standard features, on the racetrack. The listed retail price was $4,242 ($ in dollars ).
Second Generation
1957 300C
The 1957 model year 300C was corporately shared with an all new appearance for Chrysler products called the "Forward Look" and featuring a "yawning" wide trapezoid-shaped front grille which was unique to the 300C, "Vista-Dome" windshield, dual headlights, and gradually rising tailfins starting from the doors similar to Chrysler-branded products. The wheel diameter changed from to while continuing to use drum brakes for all wheels, and to keep the front brakes cool a cooling duct was installed with the air intake located just below the headlights that fed air directly to the front brakes. The exterior color list was expanded to offer Jet Black, Parade Green metallic, Copper Brown metallic, Gauguin Red and Cloud White while the interior was tan leather standard and optional interior choices were available from the New Yorker list of which the 300 was based.
The Hemi engine was upgraded to with , or as a limited edition version (18 built). The 392 CID engine was exclusive to the 300, New Yorker and Imperials, while the dual four barrel carburetors was standard on the 300C and continued with an improved air induction system that gave each carburetor its own air cleaner to improve efficiency. A convertible model was available for the first time and was listed at US$5,359 ($ in dollars ) while the two-door hardtop was listed at US$4,929 ($ in dollars ). In comparison, a 1957 Imperial Crown Convertible was listed at US$5,598 ($ in dollars ). GM's Pontiac Division introduced the Pontiac Bonneville as a convertible only, offering fuel injection and a similar price tag but offered lower luxury content and a reduced price for 1958, and Mercury offered the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser for 1957 with the optional Super Marauder V8.
The car introduced red, white, and blue '300C' circular medallions on the sides, hood, trunk, and interior and was the first model to use the color scheme, and despite the late-1950s design trends that added ever increasing amounts of chrome, styling flourishes, intricate grilles and interior appearance features the styling of the 300C and subsequent generations remained minimal. A total of 1,918 coupes and 484 convertibles were built. All Chrysler products introduced the all-new torsion bar front suspension, called Torsion-Aire, which replaced the previous coil spring front suspension and the new Airtemp air-conditioner, a $495 option, was offered ($ in dollars ).
1958 300D
The 1958 model year was to be the last use of the FirePower Hemi in the 300. The engine was still , but tuned to as standard, while the 392 CID engine was exclusive to the 300 and Imperials. Thirty-five cars were built with an extremely rare option called the Bendix "Electrojector" fuel injection, with which the V8 was rated at . Due to reliability problems with the primitive onboard computer which controlled the injection system, however, vehicles installed with the fuel injection option were recalled and retrofitted with dual four barrel carburetors. Cars that were originally installed with the fuel injection had a special "300D" badge attached to the rear fender with additional "fuel injection" script included.
Due to the 300D continuing to be a sub-model of the New Yorker, luxury amenities were included. Standard items were leather upholstery, power assist steering, power assist brakes, power window lifts, dual remote adjustable side view mirrors, power adjustable driver seat, "Air-Temp" air-conditioning, power deploying radio antenna, tinted glass, rear window defroster, windshield washer, Limited-slip differential, Hi-Fi Phonograph, and "Auto-Pilot" cruise control. The exterior color list was updated to offer Raven Black, Aztec Turquoise, Mesa Tan, Tahitian Coral, Matador Red and Ermine White while the interior was tan leather standard and optional interior choices were available from the New Yorker list of which the 300 was based.
A 300D was driven to at the Bonneville Salt Flats that year, and another was driven at the Daytona Flying Mile, producing a quarter-mile time of 16 seconds at . A total of 618 hardtops and 191 convertibles were produced, in part due to a recession, competition from the Ford Thunderbird and the listed retail price of US$5,173 ($ in dollars ) for the hardtop and US$5,603 ($ in dollars ) for the convertible. The 300D saw a new luxurious competitor from Mercury called the Park Lane.
1959 300E
The 1959 model year saw the Hemi engines replaced by Chrysler's new Golden Lion wedge-head V8 at displacement (which Chrysler called "lion-hearted"), and remained exclusive to the 300 and Imperials. Power output remained about the same at while the engine weight dropped by and production costs were reduced. This model was the last year of body on frame chassis. Total sales included 522 coupes and 125 convertibles and the front grille and exterior styling retained the previous years appearance instead of adopting the corporate Chrysler appearance shared with Imperial for 1959. A small "300" badge was installed on the left side of the grille perpendicular to the headlights, while the grille was updated to narrow horizontal red bars highlighted by four chrome bars in place of the previous eggcrate grille and only appeared for 1959. New for 1959 was the installation of Goodyear Blue Streak bias-ply tires on 14 in wheels which are now classified as Vintage Racing tires.
Attention to detail was evident in the standard features included. The instrument cluster continued the tradition of easy-to- read gauges with two large circular gauges with a engine turned, sometimes also called perlée appearance. The left cluster contained the odometer and a speedometer that went to , while the right side contained an ammeter, fuel gauge, oil pressure indicator, and water temperature gauges. A clock with a sweeping second hand is installed between the two directly centered to the steering column. Power adjustable swivel seats were standard but were synchronized to the opening of the door while accommodating a traditional six-way power adjustable split front bench seat, with a new "Natural Tan" leather upholstery feature called "Living Leather" that used a basket-weave pattern to promote air circulation in warm weather, while optional interior choices were available from the New Yorker list of which the 300 was based. The exterior color list was updated to offer Formal Black, Turquoise Grey metallic, Cameo Tan metallic, Copper Spice metallic, Radiant Red and Ivory White. The listed retail price continued to climb to US$5,319 ($ in dollars ) for the hardtop and US$5,749 ($ in dollars ) for the convertible.
Third Generation
1960 300F
The 1960 model offered a "Cross-Ram" version of the Wedge Head V8 introduced in 1959. To boost power at lower and mid rpms, a special intake manifold was derived. Instead of the normal V8 central intake manifold with carburetor(s) on top, the cross-ram consisted of two pairs of long tuned pipes that criss-crossed so that each set fed the opposite side of the engine. The carburetors and air cleaners hung off the sides of the engine over the fender wells. These long tubes were tuned so that resonances in the column of air helped force air into the cylinders at those engine speeds.
A special "short ram" version optimized for higher engine speeds was produced for competition. The overall tube length remained at 30", but the tuned portion of the stacks was only , favoring high RPMs. Only 15 "short ram" cars were produced; these were also fitted with the exotic but often troublesome French manufactured Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed manual transmissions developed for the Chrysler-powered Facel Vega. Approximately 4 of these "Special Gran Turismo" are known to exist, including one convertible and one with air conditioning; it is believed that 15 were originally produced.
Also new were four individual, leather bucket seats for front and rear passengers with a full-length console from dash to rear seatback which had previously been introduced on the Chrysler Norseman concept car of 1956. The rear passenger electric window switches were installed in the center console within easy reach, and bench seats for front and rear passengers were no longer available. The rear bucket seats were also offered on the New Yorker Custom coupe. Swiveling front seats were fitted as standard equipment but were modified to mechanical operation only initiated by the driver and not synchronized to the door when opened. The AstraDome instrument cluster was introduced on all Chrysler products only and featured "Panelescent Lighting" and a tachometer was installed in the center console below the radio due to the complexity of the three dimensional instrument cluster. The exterior color list was shortened to Formal Black, Toreador Red metallic, Alaskan White, and Terra Cotta metallic while the standard interior color remained as tan leather.
The dash had been designed with Chrysler's push-button controls for the TorqueFlite automatic in mind, with the "AstraDome" instrument cluster covering the part of the steering column a column shifter would come out from under then-standard practice, so manual cars used a floor shifter. Due to the installation of the "AstraDome" instrument cluster extending outward towards the steering wheel, the traditional installation of the turn signal lever was relocated to the dashboard underneath the "TorqueFlite" pushbutton gear selectors and was installed as a sliding lever that would return to center as the steering wheel returned to the center position. To the right of the steering wheel but left of the radio were pushbutton controls for the ventilation and air conditioning while retaining the use of a lever for temperature control.
The bodywork was also redone for 1960, using Chrysler's new lightweight unibody construction and given sharper-edged styling with outward-tilting fins that were visually separated from sides, while the front grille adopted the corporate look used by all Chrysler-branded products, ending a tradition where the 300 had unique styling not shared with other Chrysler branded vehicles. A controversial "Continental"-style trunk lid appeared, shared with the Imperial and was gone for 1961.
Sales increased to 969 coupes and 248 convertibles with a suggested retail price of US$5,411 ($ in dollars ) for the hardtop coupe and US$5,841 ($ in dollars ) for the convertible.
1961 300G
The 1961 model saw another restyle. The grille, formerly wider at the bottom than the top, was inverted; the quad headlights, formerly side-by-side, were canted inward at the bottom, in a manner reminiscent of 1958-1960 Lincolns and 1959 Buicks. Small parking lamps below the headlights were likewise slanted and V-shaped, and the front bumper was canted up at each end, scoop-like. At the rear, the taillights were moved from the fins to the tail below them, and the fins were made sharper-pointed. Power windows were standard. The standard equipment rear bucket seats continued with a full-length console from the dashboard along the tunnel containing the driveshaft, and were also offered on the New Yorker Custom coupe.
Mechanically, the cross-ram "short ram" and "long ram" engines remained the same with the dual four barrel carburetors, although the exotic French manual transmission was dropped, and replaced by an exclusive Chrysler-sourced heavy-duty manual transmission (referred to as 'option code 281'). A 300G would post the highest speed of in the Daytona Flying Mile, and in 1961 speed trials were moved off the beach at Daytona.
The "AstraDome" instrument cluster which was sometimes called the "gumball" or "jukebox" due to its appearance continued to be installed on all Chrysler products for 1961. The exterior color list was updated to Formal Black, Mardi Gras Red, Alaskan White, and Cinnamon metallic while the standard interior color continued as tan leather. To aide in brake cooling, the hubcaps and pressed steel wheels were introduced with slots to allow airflow across the drum brakes. Suggested retail prices continued to climb at US$5,441 ($ in dollars ) for the coupe and US$5,841 ($ in dollars ) for the convertible.
1962 300H
From 1962s models, the fins were gone from all Chrysler products, as was the letter series' unique place in the Chrysler lineup; there was now the new Chrysler 300 Sport Series which came as a two-door hardtop, replacing the cancelled Chrysler Windsor, while the convertible remained with the letter series along with a two-door hardtop 300H. Externally there was little difference between the 300H and the 300 Sport Series except for a "300H" badge on the traditional location on the rear fenders, and many of the 300H's standard features could be ordered as options on the Sport Series. The Mercury competitor was the all-new Mercury S-55 with the same approach to luxury and performance in a coupe or convertible and the Buick Wildcat.
Inside, the 300 Sport Series hardtop coupe was installed with standard bench seats front and rear, similar to the Newport, while the 300H had standard bucket seats front and rear with the full length center console, and were also offered on the New Yorker Custom coupe. This was also the last year for the AstraDome Instrument cluster for all Chrysler branded vehicles and the dashboard color now matched the leather upholstery and carpet. The exterior color list was updated to Formal Black, Festival Red, Oyster White, and Caramel while the standard interior color continued as tan leather.
Under the hood of the 300H the cross ram engine became an option, and there was a return to the inline dual 4-barrel carburetor setup of the 300E as the base powerplant. With a slight power boost and a lighter body, due to the 300H being shared with the Chrysler Newport/Dodge Custom 880 122-inch wheelbase which reduced overall weight, the 300H was faster than the 300G, but the loss of exclusivity coupled with high prices made this the slowest-selling letter series year yet, with only 435 coupes and 135 convertibles sold. The 300 Sport Series hardtop sedan used a B engine. Suggested retail prices showed a reduction from the past at US$5,090 ($ in dollars ) for the coupe and US$5,461 ($ in dollars ) for the convertible.
Fourth Generation
1963 300J
A more formal, angular, so-called "crisp, new custom look" appeared for 1963, ushering in the Chrysler C platform architecture. To avoid confusion with the number one, the letter "I" was skipped over and the first iteration became the "300J". Shared with the 300 Sport Series, Newport and New Yorker series, this body design featured wide C-pillars, minimized bright trim and was the last one styled during Virgil Exner's term as Chrysler's styling chief. Medallions featuring CHRYSLER THREE HUNDRED lettering surrounding a large J were mounted on the C-pillars and the rear deck. The standard leather-upholstered interior did away with the swivel feature for the front bucket seats while the previous full-length center console was now limited to the front with the rear compartment reverting back to a bench seat. To address quality and reliability concerns, Chrysler in 1963 introduced a five-year/50,000-mile warranty, a business practice that was unheard of by its competitors in the 1960s
The only available engine was the ram-induction V8, with an increase of from 1962; this temporarily re-established the practice of the top-spec engine being standard on the letter series. The redesigned, otherwise low-key interior featured an oddly squared steering wheel, shared with all Chrysler products for that year. The 300J was faster than the standard 300H of the year before, with a top speed, 8.0 seconds 0-60 mph, and a standing quarter mile time of 15.8 seconds with a terminal velocity of . Sales were especially poor, with only 400 cars produced, while the retail price was listed at US$5,184 ($ in dollars ). The exterior color list was updated to Formal Black, Claret Red, Oyster White, Alabaster, and Madison Grey metallic while the standard (and only) interior was Claret Red leather.
The 300 convertible was now demoted to the Sport Series, and was the official pace car for the 1963 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and the car could be provided with exterior markings on commercially sold cars, where it was marketed as the 300 Pacesetter, an approach previously used on the 1956 DeSoto Fireflite Pacesetter. Power steering was standard and an addition was made to the TorqueFlite control panel where a "Park" lever was added alongside the control buttons so that when the transmission was placed in neutral the park lever was moved to the bottom to engage the function.
1964 300K
The convertible returned for the 1964 300K, but the "cross-ram" engine became an extra-cost option available on the 300K only. A Wedge with a single Carter AFB 3614S 4-barrel carburetor, a regular intake manifold, and was the new standard engine, shared with the Imperial. Leather upholstery was no longer standard, a US$94 option ($ in dollars ), while the list of available exterior colors expanded extensively with contrasting interior color choices in vinyl. The colors available were Formal Black, Wedgewood Blue, Nassau Blue metallic, Monarch Blue metallic, Pine Mist metallic, Sequoia Green metallic, Silver Turquoise metallic, Royal Turquoise metallic, Madison Grey, Rosewood metallic, Royal Ruby metallic, Roman Red, Embassy Gold, Persian White, Dune Beige, Sable Tan metallic, and Silver Mist metallic A mid-year special trim package was the 300K Silver Edition. It was offered only as a 2-door hardtop in Silver Mist metallic paint, a vinyl half-roof that gave a targa top appearance and bucket front seats with a reclining passenger seat. The bucket seats in all cars were redesigned with the result being a thicker, more substantial look.
Previous generations starting in 1955 earned the 300 the reputation of being "the banker's hotrod", but the marketing focus changed due to the 300 Sport Series, and this reduced the baseline price of the 300K by over a thousand dollars, and sales responded with the largest total ever; 3,022 coupes and 625 convertibles, with the coupe available at US$4,228 ($ in dollars ) and the convertible at US$4,694 ($ in dollars ). A center console was standard and distinguished it from the 300 Sport Series coupe. Later in 1964, the Plymouth Barracuda was introduced on the Chrysler A platform which was sold at Chrysler-Plymouth dealerships next to the Chrysler 300K. A visual distinction can be made between the years by the rear tail lights; the 300J has round units while the 300K has trapezoid shaped units. The TorqueFlite pushbutton controls that were installed to the left of the steering wheel were removed and instead a console mounted transmission selector was introduced, while a manual transmission was also available.
Fifth Generation
1965 300L
The 1965 300L was the eleventh and final model in the traditional letter series. Like every other 1965 Chrysler, it featured a completely restyled body with the crisp lines, slab sides and a tall greenhouse passenger compartment that were introduced by Elwood Engel, successor of Virgil Exner as Chrysler's head of styling. It was a linear look and the panoramic windshield that had been used since 1957 was abandoned. The car had grown two inches in wheelbase and three inches in overall length. Both 2-door hardtop (with crease lines in the roof sheetmetal for the then-popular "convertible look") and 2-door convertible body styles were available. The cross-ram 390 hp engine had been discontinued, leaving the engine with regular inlet manifold, single 4-barrel carburetion, unsilenced air cleaner, special camshaft and dual exhaust as the only engine option. With the introduction of the Chrysler B platform Dodge Coronet and the Plymouth Satellite, the performance coupe tradition was handed off from the 300 and the subsequent letter series model naming convention was discontinued.
Engine output was , as in the previous year. The buyer could choose between the standard 3-speed TorqueFlite automatic and the no-cost option 4-speed manual with Hurst shift linkage. Every feature on the 300L could be ordered as an option on the regular 300; thus, the only difference was the 300L-exclusive ornamentation. This consisted of round "300L" medallions at the center of the die-cast grille star and in the middle of the textured aluminum applique between the taillights, a red-paint-filled full-length beltline molding, and a rectangular die-cast "300" badge on rear fenders.
Tested by car magazine Motor Trend, a TorqueFlite-equipped 300L 2-door Hardtop accelerated from in 8.8 seconds, and covered the quarter mile in 17.3 seconds with a terminal speed of . A total of 2,405 300L hardtops and 440 convertibles were produced.
1966 300M
Intending to return the 300 letter series to its roots, Chrysler proposed the 1966 300M as a clay mockup in October 1963. The exterior was similar to the 300L, except the 300M had spinner-type knock off wheel covers with a "300M" medallion in the center, as well as another "300M" medallion on the trunk lid. The front running lights were moved to the center grille bar and the front turn signals were widened. The 300M also had paint stripes along the lower body line instead of the chrome molding found on the non-letter series 300s, "300M" medallions on the sides, script "Three Hundred" badges and unique tail lights and bezels. Three-spoke headlight ornaments were planned, but dropped due to legal issues in some states. The interior was identical to the non-letter series 300 except for the "300M" medallions. The 300M was planned to be powered by the 426 Wedge engine rated at . This first 300M proposal was cancelled in November 1964 "to reduce scheduling and plant complexity". But in 1965 the 300M was revived, this time powered by the , 426 Hemi engine and a planned production run of 4298, of which 500 were to have the Hemi engine, a $1250 option. The Hemi cars would also feature a dual-faced "7-Liter Hemi" medallion. This proposal was also cancelled as the letter series 300s had lost their prestige and exclusivity as they were simply non-letter series 300s with letter badges. The 300M name would not be used again until 1999.
Sixth Generation
1970 Hurst 300
The 1970 Hurst 300 lacks the single-letter suffix of its forebears and appeared five years after the last Letter Series Chrysler, the 300L. Many automobile historians do not include the Hurst 300 as a Letter Series model. The concept of the car, however, does fit with the Letter Series cars, as it was a high-performance variant of the luxury 300, built with the input of aftermarket parts manufacturer Hurst Performance. Only 485 units are believed to have been built.
The Hurst 300s were all 2-door and shared a Spinnaker White and gold paint scheme similar to the Oldsmobile Hurst/Olds, Pontiac GTO and Pontiac Gran Prix Hurst models of mid-1960s to early 1970s. The scooped hood and trunk lid (with a molded spoiler) are both fiberglass. All Hurst 300s had satin tan leather interiors that were straight out of the Imperial and could be had with column- or console-mounted 727 automatics. All came with the 4-barrel TNT V8 engine. The suggested retail price was US$5,939 ($ in dollars ).
Of the 501 units sold, one convertible is documented having been used as a Hurst promotional car and another is believed to have been dealer equipped with a Hemi, also, a convertible.
Collectibility
All original letter series cars are considered collectible , but the early years are much more desirable. The C-300 and 300B, especially red/maroon examples, are increasingly becoming some of the most valuable models of all 1950s performance cars due to their exquisite styling, high performance, and rarity. The 300C through 300G convertibles are the most desirable price-wise due to their scarcity and low survival rates; the coming of the regular 300 series cars in 1962 makes the subsequent letter series seem less special and less desirable to collectors.
At an auction at the Robson Estate in Gainesville, Georgia on November 13, 2010, the sole 1960 300F convertible equipped with the factory engine and the Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed sold for $437,250.
There was one concept vehicle called the Chrysler 300, created in 1991. It featured a sports car body and a Viper engine. It was never produced.
The 300 letter series name was resurrected in 1999 on the Chrysler 300M; but it is the 2005 300C that is closest to the original with its rear-wheel drive, and V8 engine once again bearing the "Hemi" name.
Production numbers
See also
Timeline of most powerful production cars
Chrysler 300
Chrysler FirePower engine
Chrysler RB engine
Hemi engine
References
External links
300
Full-size vehicles
Rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Grand tourers
1950s cars
1960s cars
Convertibles
Coupés
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topps
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Topps
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The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures trading cards and other collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards. Topps also produces cards under the brand names Allen & Ginter and Bowman.
In the 2010s, Topps was the only baseball card manufacturer with a license with Major League Baseball. Following the loss of that license to Fanatics, Inc. in 2022, Fanatics acquired Topps in the same year.
Company history
Beginning and consolidation
Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Founded in 1890 by members of the Saloman family, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. imported tobacco to the United States and sold it to other tobacco companies. Eventually, in 1908, Morris Chigorinsky Shorin came in control of the company.
American Leaf Tobacco encountered difficulties during World War I, as it was cut off from Turkish supplies of tobacco, and later as a result of the Great Depression. Shorin's sons, Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph, decided to focus on a new product but take advantage of the company's existing distribution channels. To do this, they relaunched the company as Topps, with the name meant to indicate that it would be "tops" in its field. The chosen field was the manufacture of chewing gum, selected after going into the produce business was considered and rejected.
At the time, chewing gum was still a relative novelty sold in individual pieces. Topps's most successful early product was Bazooka bubble gum, which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. Starting in 1950, the company decided to try increasing gum sales by packaging them together with trading cards featuring Western character Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd); at the time Boyd, as one of the biggest stars of early television, was featured in newspaper articles and on magazine covers, along with a significant amount of "Hoppy" merchandising. When Topps next introduced baseball cards as a product, the cards immediately became its primary emphasis.
The "father of the modern baseball card" was Sy Berger. In the autumn of 1951, Berger, then a 28-year-old veteran of World War II, designed the 1952 Topps baseball card set with Woody Gelman on the kitchen table of his apartment on Alabama Avenue in Brooklyn. The card design included a player's name, photo, facsimile autograph, team name and logo on the front; and the player's height, weight, bats, throws, birthplace, birthday, stats and a short biography on the back. The basic design is still in use today. Berger would work for Topps for 50 years (1947–97) and serve as a consultant for another five, becoming a well-known figure on the baseball scene, and the face of Topps to major league baseball players, whom he signed up annually and paid in merchandise, like refrigerators and carpeting.
The Shorins, in recognition of his negotiation abilities, sent Sy to London in 1964 to negotiate the rights for Topps to produce Beatles trading cards. They also tried hockey. Arriving without an appointment, Sy succeeded by speaking in Yiddish to Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager.
Berger hired a garbage boat to remove leftover boxes of 1952 baseball cards stored in their warehouse, and rode with them as a tugboat pulled them off the New Jersey shore. The cards were then dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. The cards included Mickey Mantle's first Topps card, the most valuable card of the modern era. No one at the time, of course, knew the collector's value the cards would one day attain. On August 28, 2022, the Mickey Mantle baseball card (Topps; #311; SGC MT 9.5) was sold for $12.600 million.
Incorporation
The company began its existence as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., a partnership between the four Shorin brothers. It later incorporated under New York law in 1947. The entire company originally operated at the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, but production facilities were moved to a plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania, in 1965 (the Duryea plant closed in 1997). Corporate offices remained at 254 36th Street in Brooklyn, a location in the waterfront district by the Gowanus Expressway. In 1994, the headquarters relocated to One Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan.
After being privately held for several decades, Topps offered stock to the public for the first time in 1972 with the assistance of investment banking firm White, Weld & Co. The company returned to private ownership when it was acquired in a leveraged buyout led by Forstmann Little & Company in 1984. The new ownership group again made Topps into a publicly traded company in 1987, now renamed to The Topps Company, Inc. In this incarnation, the company was reincorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law for legal reasons, but company headquarters remained in New York. Management was left in the hands of the Shorin family throughout all of these maneuverings.
On October 12, 2007, Topps was acquired by Michael Eisner's The Tornante Company and Madison Dearborn Partners. Under Eisner's direction, Topps began to expand into the entertainment and media business with plans for a Bazooka Joe movie. Former television executive Staci Weiss was hired as Topps's head of entertainment to develop projects based on Topps properties, including Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Dinosaurs Attack!, Mech Warrior and Attax.
Topps Digital
In 2012, Topps began creating digital sports cards, starting with the Topps Bunt baseball card mobile app. After releasing Bunt in 2013 and finding success with it, they expanded their sports card market into other apps including the Kick soccer app in August 2014, Huddle Football app in April 2016, and Skate hockey app in 2017.
Along with sports cards, Topps also expanded its marketplace for collectors of digital goods to include non-sports cards on mobile devices. In March 2015 they released their Star Wars: Card Trader app, and in May 2016 they released a Walking Dead trading card app. Following the success of their assortment of digital trading card apps, they once again expanded their marketplace for digital collectors a few years later, releasing a Marvel trading card app in the spring of 2019 and their Disney trading card app in November of that same year.
In March 2020, Topps announced a collaboration with WAX.io to make their cards tradable on the blockchain. As of December 2020, Topps has only made Garbage Pail Kids cards available to traders via blockchain but they have announced Alien Quadrilogy collectibles will be coming soon.
In April 2021, Topps announced plans to go public via a merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corporation II, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Michael Eisner's firm The Tornante Company planned to roll its stake into the new company while Mudrick Capital would lead an additional investment of $250 million. The deal valued Topps at $1.3 billion. However, reports surfaced within six months of their initial plans that Mudrick Capital Management had backed out of the investment deal.
In August 2021, it was reported that Fanatics acquired future exclusive licenses with Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association to produce baseball cards. In January 2022, Fanatics announced they had acquired Topps for US$500 million.
Topps Europe Ltd.
Purchase of Merlin
Topps has a European division, which is based in Milton Keynes, UK. From this office products are launched across Europe, including Spain, France, Germany, Norway, and Italy. This division also co-ordinates products launches across the many other international markets including the Far East, Australia, and South Africa.
In 1994 Merlin acquired the Premier League license allowing the company to exclusively publish the only official Premier League sticker and album collection in the UK. The initial success of the Premier League stickers and album collection was so great that it took even Merlin by surprise, with reprint after reprint being produced.
In 1995, the Topps Company Inc. completed its takeover of Merlin Publishing. Merlin's official company name changed to Topps Europe Limited, but its products still carried the Merlin brand until 2008 as it was easily recognized by consumers.
Topps Europe Limited continues to produce a wide and varied range of sports and entertainment collectibles across Europe. Its range of products now includes stickers, albums, cards and binders, magazines, stationery, and temporary tattoos.
Topps Europe Ltd. products
Topps Europe Ltd. has continued to launch hugely successful products across Europe. Some of the most successful licenses have included WWE, Pokémon, Doctor Who, High School Musical and SpongeBob.
Topps Merlin branded Premier League sticker albums have been popular since their launch in 1994, and in 2007 Topps acquired the Premier League rights for trading cards. Previously, the trading card rights were held by Magic Box International who produced the Shoot Out cards from the 2003/04 to 2006/07 seasons. Match Attax, the official Premier League trading card game, was the biggest selling boys’ collectible in the UK three years running. Being sold across the globe in a number of countries, the collection also holds the title of the biggest selling sports collectible in the world. It is estimated that around 1.5 million children collect it in the UK alone.
Following on from the acquisition of Premier League trading cards rights, in the spring of 2008 Topps acquired the exclusive rights to the DFL Deutsche Fussball Liga GmbH for trading cards and stickers until the Bundesliga Season 2010/11. Bundesliga Match Attax was launched in January 2009 and is now available in over 40,000 stockists. The collection is the first of its kind in Germany and has become one of the biggest selling collections in the country.
As of February 2016 Topps Match Attax dominated the secondary UK card trading market occupying two out of the top three spots on the www.stickerpoints.com 'most popular soccer collection' list.
In January 2023, Topps released both physical and digital trading cards for their latest partner the 24 Hours of Le Mans Motorsport event. The release is set for February 2023 and will feature art work from original race posters from 1923 to current day.
Topps baseball cards: A history
Entry into the baseball card market
In 1951, Topps produced its first baseball cards in two different sets known today as Red Backs and Blue Backs. Each set contained 52 cards, like a deck of playing cards, and in fact the cards could be used to play a game that would simulate the events of a baseball game. Also like playing cards, the cards had rounded corners and were blank on one side, which was colored either red or blue (hence the names given to these sets). The other side featured the portrait of a player within a baseball diamond in the center, and in opposite corners a picture of a baseball together with the event for that card, such as "fly out" or "single."
Topps changed its approach in 1952, this time creating a much larger (407 total) set of baseball cards and packaging them with its signature product, bubble gum. The company also decided that its playing card model was too small (2 inches by 2-5/8 inches) and changed the dimensions to 2-5/8 inches by 3-3/4 inches with square corners. The cards now had a color portrait on one side, with statistical and biographical information on the other. This set became a landmark in the baseball card industry, and today the company considers this its first true baseball card set. Many of the oil paintings for the sets were rendered by artist Gerry Dvorak, who also worked as an animator for Famous Studios. In 1957, Topps shrank the dimensions of its cards slightly, to 2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches, setting a standard that remains the basic format for most sports cards produced in the United States. It was at this time Topps began to use color photographs in their set.
The cards were released in several series over the course of the baseball season, a practice Topps would continue with its baseball cards until 1974. However, the last series of each year did not sell as well, as the baseball season wore on and popular attention began to turn towards American football. Thus cards from the last series are much scarcer and are typically more valuable (even commons) than earlier series of the same year. Topps was left with a substantial amount of surplus stock in 1952, which it largely disposed of by dumping many cards into the Atlantic. In later years, Topps either printed series in smaller quantities late in the season or destroyed excess cards. As a result, cards with higher numbers from this period are rarer than low numbers in the same set, and collectors will pay significantly higher prices for them. The last series in 1952 started with card No. 311, which is Topps's first card of Mickey Mantle, and remains the most valuable Topps card ever (and, as of August 28, 2022, the most valuable trading card of all). On August 28, 2022, the Mickey Mantle baseball card (Topps; #311; SGC MT 9.5) was sold for $12.600 million. This 1952 Topps Mantle is often mistakenly referred to as Mantle's rookie card, but that honor belongs to his 1951 Bowman card (which is worth less than the 1952 Topps card).
The combination of baseball cards and bubble gum was popular among young boys, and given the mediocre quality of the gum, the cards quickly became the primary attraction. In fact, the gum eventually became a hindrance because it tended to stain the cards, thus impairing their value to collectors who wanted to keep them in pristine condition. It (along with the traditional gray cardboard) was finally dropped from baseball card packs in 1992, although Topps began its Heritage line, which included gum, in the year 2001.
Competition for player contracts
During this period, baseball card manufacturers generally obtained the rights to depict players on merchandise by signing individual players to contracts for the purpose. Topps first became active in this process through an agent called Players Enterprises in July 1950, in preparation for its first 1951 set. The later acquisition of rights to additional players allowed Topps to release its second series.
This promptly brought Topps into furious competition with Bowman Gum, another company producing baseball cards. Bowman had become the primary maker of baseball cards and driven out several competitors by signing its players to exclusive contracts. The language of these contracts focused particularly on the rights to sell cards with chewing gum, which had already been established in the 1930s as a popular product to pair with baseball cards.
To avoid the language of Bowman's existing contracts, Topps sold its 1951 cards with caramel candy instead of gum. However, because Bowman had signed many players in 1950 to contracts for that year, plus a renewal option for one year, Topps included in its own contracts the rights to sell cards with gum starting in 1952 (as it ultimately did). Topps also tried to establish exclusive rights through its contracts by having players agree not to grant similar rights to others, or renew existing contracts except where specifically noted in the contract.
Bowman responded by adding chewing gum "or confections" to the exclusivity language of its 1951 contracts, and also sued Topps in U.S. federal court. The lawsuit alleged infringement on Bowman's trademarks, unfair competition, and contractual interference. The court rejected Bowman's attempt to claim a trademark on the word "baseball" in connection with the sale of gum, and disposed of the unfair competition claim because Topps had made no attempt to pass its cards off as being made by Bowman. The contract issue proved more difficult because it turned on the dates when a given player signed contracts with each company, and whether the player's contract with one company had an exception for his contract with the other.
As the contract situation was sorted out, several Topps sets during these years had a few "missing" cards, where the numbering of the set skips several numbers because they had been assigned to players whose cards could not legally be distributed. The competition, both for consumer attention and player contracts, continued until 1956, when Topps bought out Bowman. This left Topps as the predominant producer of baseball cards for the next quarter-century.
Consolidation of a monopoly
The next company to challenge Topps was Fleer, another gum manufacturer. Fleer signed star Ted Williams to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him. Williams retired the next year, so Fleer began adding around him other mostly retired players in a Baseball Greats series, which was sold with gum. Two of these sets were produced before Fleer finally tried a 67-card set of currently active players in 1963. However, Topps held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful.
Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market.
That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent players' union, the Major League Baseball Players Association. Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group license to use their images on various products. After putting players on Coca-Cola bottlecaps for $120,000, the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights.
MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. At this time, Topps had every major league player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps's overall sales. The figure for individual player contracts has since increased to $500.
As a byproduct of this history, Topps continues to use individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball card sets today. This contrasts with other manufacturers, who all obtain group licenses from the MLBPA. The difference has occasionally affected whether specific players are included in particular sets. Players who decline to sign individual contracts will not have Topps cards even when the group licensing system allows other manufacturers to produce cards of the player, as happened with Alex Rodriguez early in his career. On the other hand, if a player opts out of group licensing, as Barry Bonds did in 2004, then manufacturers who depend on the MLBPA system will have no way of including him. Topps, however, can negotiate individually and was belatedly able to create a 2004 card of Bonds. In addition, Topps is the only manufacturer able to produce cards of players who worked as replacement players during the 1994 baseball strike, since they are barred from union membership and participation in the group licensing program.
The monopoly and its end
A semblance of competition returned to the baseball card market in the 1970s when Kellogg's began producing "3-D" cards and inserting them in boxes of breakfast cereal (originally Corn Flakes, later Raisin Bran and other Kellogg's brands). The Kellogg's sets contained fewer cards than Topps sets, and the cards served as an incentive to buy the cereal, rather than being the intended focus of the purchase, as tended to be the case for cards distributed with smaller items like candy or gum. Topps took no action to stop them.
The Topps monopoly on baseball cards was finally broken by a lawsuit decided by federal judge Clarence Charles Newcomer in 1980, in which the judge ended Topps Chewing Gum's exclusive right to sell baseball cards, allowing the Fleer Corporation to compete in the market. That let Fleer and another company, Donruss, enter the market in 1981. Fleer and Donruss began making large, widely distributed sets to compete directly with Topps, packaged with gum. When the ruling was overturned on appeal in August 1981, Topps appeared to have regained its monopoly, but both of its competitors instead began packaging their cards with other baseball items—logo stickers from Fleer, and cardboard puzzle pieces from Donruss. The puzzles, created by baseball artists Dick Perez for Perez Steele, included Warren Spahn, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and a dozen others. Other manufacturers later followed, but Topps remains one of the leading brands in the baseball card hobby. In response to the competition, Topps began regularly issuing additional "Traded" sets featuring players who had changed teams since the main set was issued, following up on an idea it had experimented with a few years earlier.
Topps in the modern baseball card industry
While "Traded" or "Update" sets were originally conceived to deal with players who changed teams, they became increasingly important for another reason. In order to fill out a 132-card set (the number of cards that fit on a single sheet of the uncut cardboard used in the production process), it would contain a number of rookie players who had just reached the major leagues and not previously appeared on a card. They also included a few single cards of players who previously appeared in the regular set on a multi-player "prospects" card; one notable example is the 1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken Jr. Since a "rookie card" is typically the most valuable for any given player, the companies now competed to be the first to produce a card of players who might be future stars. Increasingly, they also included highly touted minor league players who had yet to play in the major leagues. For example, Topps obtained a license to produce cards featuring the U.S. Olympic baseball team and thus produced the first card of Mark McGwire prior to his promotion to the major league level, and one that would become quite valuable to collectors for a time. This card from the 1984 squad appeared in Topps's regular 1985 set, but by the next Olympic cycle the team's cards had been migrated to the "Traded" set. As a further step in this race, Topps resurrected its former competitor Bowman as a subsidiary brand in 1989, with Bowman sets similarly chosen to include a lot of young players with bright prospects.
Also beginning in 1989 with the entry of Upper Deck into the market, card companies began to develop higher-end cards using improved technology. Following Topps's example, other manufacturers now began to diversify their product lines into different sets, each catering to a different niche of the market. The initial Topps effort at producing a premium line of cards, in 1991, was called Stadium Club. Topps continued adding more sets and trying to distinguish them from each other, as did its competitors. The resulting glut of different baseball sets caused the MLBPA to take drastic measures as the market for them deteriorated. The union announced that for 2006, licenses would only be granted to Topps and Upper Deck, the number of different products would be limited, and players would not appear on cards before reaching the major leagues.
Although most of its products were distributed through retail stores and hobby shops, Topps also attempted to establish itself online, where a significant secondary market for sports cards was developing. Working in partnership with eBay, Topps launched a new brand of sports cards called eTopps in December 2000. These cards are sold exclusively online through individual "IPOs" (or, "Initial Player Offering") in which the card is offered for usually a week at the IPO price. The quantity sold depends on how many people offer to buy, but is limited to a certain maximum. After a sale, the cards are held in a climate-controlled warehouse unless the buyer requests delivery, and the cards can be traded online without changing hands except in the virtual sense.
Topps also acquired ThePit.com, a startup company that earlier in 2000 had launched a site for online stock-market style card trading. The purchase was for $5.7 million cash in August 2001 after Topps had earlier committed to invest in a round of venture capital financing for the company. This undertaking was not very successful, however, and Topps unloaded the site on Naxcom in January 2006. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but Topps charged a $3.7 million after-tax loss on its books in connection with the sale.
In 2002, Topps revived the T206 set originally released in 1909–11 by the American Tobacco Company under the "Topps 206" brand, with current players. That first revival included the T206 Honus Wagner iconic card, with blue background instead of the original orange. A second revival would be launched in 2010.
Topps grabbed collectors' attention early in 2007 when the new card of Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter was found to have been altered to include an image of Mickey Mantle standing in the dugout and President George W. Bush walking through the stands.
In 2009, Topps became the first official baseball card of MLB in over thirty years. The first product to fall under the deal was the 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1. The deal gave Topps exclusivity for the use of MLB and club trademarks and logos on cards, stickers and some other products featuring major league players. The exclusive deal was extended in 2013, then extended again in 2018. It is currently scheduled to go through at least 2025.
Again in 2020, the company released a new T206 collection divided into five different series, with the first (50 cards) being released in May 2020. The collection, named "Topps 206", include players from both, Major and Minor League. The fifth series was released in September 2020.
Card design
Although Topps did not invent the concept of baseball cards, its dominance in the field basically allowed the company to define people's expectations of what a baseball card would look like. In addition to establishing a standard size, Topps developed various design elements that are considered typical of baseball cards. Some of these were the company's own innovations, such as the 1971 Football Set, while some were ideas borrowed from others that Topps helped popularize.
Use of statistics
One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps's success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. At the time, complete and reliable baseball statistics for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores. While baseball cards themselves had been around for years, including statistics was a relative novelty that fascinated many collectors. Those who played with baseball cards could study the numbers and use them as the basis for comparing players, trading cards with friends, or playing imaginary baseball games. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying mathematics.
The cards originally had one line for statistics from the most recent year (i.e. the 1951 season for cards in the 1952 set) and another with the player's lifetime totals. Bowman promptly imitated this by putting statistics on its own cards where it had previously only had biographical information. For the first time in 1957, Topps put full year-by-year statistics for the player's entire career on the back of the card. Over the next few years, Topps alternated between this format and merely showing the past season plus career totals. The practice of showing complete career statistics became permanent in 1963, except for one year, 1971, when Topps sacrificed the full statistics in order to put a player photo on the back of the card as well.
Artwork and photography
Although the 1971 set was an aborted experiment in terms of putting photos on card backs (they would not return until 1992), that year was also a landmark in terms of baseball card photography, as Topps for the first time included cards showing color photographs from actual games. The cards themselves had been in color from the beginning, though for the first few years this was done by using artist's portraits of players rather than actual photographs and until 1971, Topps used mostly portrait or posed shots. The 1971 set is also known for its jet black borders, which because they chip so easily, makes it much more difficult to find top grade cards for 1971. The black borders would return for Topps's 1985 football set and 2007 baseball set.
After starting out with simple portraits, in 1954 Topps put two pictures on the front of the card – a hand-tinted 'color' close-up photo of the player's head, and the other a black-and-white full-length pose. The same basic format was used in 1955, this time with the full-length photo also hand-tinted. For 1956, the close-up tinted photo was placed against a tinted full-background 'game-action' photo of the player. The close-up head shots of some individual players were reused each year.
From 1957 on, virtually all cards were posed photographs, either as a head shot or together with a typical piece of equipment like a bat or glove. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting, pitching, or fielding. Photographs did not appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962. However, that year also saw problems with the print quality in the second series, which lacked the right proportion of ink and thus gave the photographs a distinctly greenish tint. The affected series of cards was then reprinted, and several players were actually shown in different poses in the reprinting. Although Topps had produced error cards and variations before, this was its largest single production glitch.
In the absence of full-color action photography, Topps still occasionally used artwork to depict action on a handful of cards. Starting in 1960 a few cards showed true game action, but the photographs were either in black-and-white or hand-tinted color; these cards were primarily highlights from the World Series. In addition to basic cards of individual players, Topps sets commonly include cards for special themes, the 1974 tribute to Hank Aaron as he was about to break Babe Ruth's career home run record being one example. The 1972 set finally included color photographs, which were used for special "In Action" cards of selected star players. Thereafter, Topps began simply mixing game photography with posed shots in its sets.
Baseball artist Dick Perez was commissioned to paint art cards for Topps beginning in 2006. His art card series include Turkey Red and Allen & Ginter.
When used for the cards of individual players, some of the early action photography had awkward results. The photos were sometimes out of focus or included several players, making it difficult to pick out the player who was supposed to be featured on the card. In a few cases, a misidentification meant that the player didn't even appear in the picture. These problems diminished as Topps's selection of photographs gradually improved.
Before statistics, biographical information, and commentary became the dominant element on the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. This primarily involved using various types of cartoons drawn by its stable of artists. These appeared on card backs as late as 1982, but gradually declined in the prominence of their placement and the proportion of cards on which they appeared. In 1993, Topps finally managed again to incorporate a player photo on the back as well as the front of the card, after some competitors had been doing so for a number of years.
Coping with updated developments
The pictures and information on baseball cards sold during one season came primarily from earlier seasons, so Topps used various tactics to give its cards a greater sense of staying current with the times. Before coming up with the idea of a "Traded" set, the company still tried to produce cards of players with their new team if they changed teams in the offseason. This was sometimes accomplished by showing the player without any team cap, or by airbrushing out elements of the former team's logo on his uniform. Cards for rookies could also be prepared by airbrushing over their minor-league uniforms in photos.
In one case, Topps even got too far in front of events, as in 1974 it showed a number of players as being with the "Washington Nat'l Lea." franchise, due to expectations that the San Diego Padres would relocate to the vacant Washington, D.C., market. The team designation was the only change, as no new nickname for the franchise had been selected. When the move failed to materialize, Topps had to replace these with cards showing the players still as Padres.
On rare occasions, Topps has issued special cards for players who had either died or had been injured. The 1959 set had card 550 as "Symbol Of Courage – Roy Campanella", with a color photo of the paralyzed former Dodger in his wheelchair and a black-and-white photo of him in uniform inserted to the upper left. The 1964 set issued cards for two recently deceased players: Ken Hubbs of the Cubs with a different "In Memoriam" front design compared to standard cards, and Colts pitcher Jim Umbricht's regular card with a special note on the back about his April 1964 death from cancer. In October 2006, Topps was prepping for its annual updated/traded card release, which featured Cory Lidle in a Yankees uniform. After Lidle's tragic death, the cards were pulled and subsequently released with "In Memoriam" on its front.
American Football cards
In addition to baseball, Topps also produced cards for American football in 1951, which are known as the Magic set. For football cards Bowman dominated the field, and Topps did not try again until 1955, when it released an All-American set with a mix of active players and retired stars. After buying out Bowman, Topps took over the market the following year.
Since then, Topps sold football cards every season until 2016. However, the emergence of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960 to compete with the established National Football League also allowed Topps's competitors, beginning with Fleer, to make inroads. Fleer produced a set for the AFL in 1960, sets for both leagues for a year, and then began focusing on the AFL again. Philadelphia Gum secured the NFL rights for 1964, forcing Topps to go for the AFL and leaving Fleer with no product in either baseball or football.
Although more competitive for a time, the football card market was never as lucrative as the market for baseball cards, so the other companies did not fight as hard over it. After the AFL–NFL Merger was agreed to, Topps became the only major football card manufacturer beginning in 1968. In spite of the lack of competition, or perhaps to preempt it, Topps also created two sets of cards for the short-lived United States Football League in the 1980s. Many NFL legends had their first ever cards produced in the USFL sets. These players include Steve Young, Jim Kelly, and Reggie White. This resulted in a controversy when these players debuted in the NFL. Many wondered if the USFL cards should be considered rookie cards because the league did not exist anymore. The situation continued until growth in the sports card market generally prompted two new companies, Pro Set and Score, to start making football cards in 1989.
Throughout the 1970s until 1982, Topps did not have the rights to reproduce the actual team logos on the helmets and uniforms of the players; curiously, these could be found on the Fleer sets of the same era, but Fleer could not name specific player names (likely an issue of Topps holding the National Football League Players Association license and Fleer holding the license from the league). As a result, helmet logos for these teams were airbrushed out on a routine basis.
After the 2015 football season, Panini was awarded an exclusive license by the NFL for producing football cards. 2016 was the first year Topps did not produce football cards since 1955.
Trading cards for other sports
Topps also makes cards for other major North American professional sports. Its next venture was into ice hockey, with a 1954 set featuring players from the four National Hockey League franchises located in the U.S. at the time: the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and New York Rangers.
In 1958, the O-Pee-Chee Company of London, Ontario, Canada, entered into an agreement with Topps to produce NHL cards (the 1957–58 series) and Canadian football cards (the 1958 series). O-Pee-Chee then started printing its own hockey and football cards in 1961. Similarly, the Topps Company struck agreements with Amalgamated and British Confectionery in the United Kingdom and Scanlen's in Australia.
In 1967, with the major expansion of six new NHL teams to the United States, the Topps Company produced a new hockey card set that paralleled the 1966–67 O-Pee-Chee hockey design (the basic television design was in fact first used for 1966 Topps American football series). Starting in 1968–69, the Topps Company started printing an annual Topps hockey set that was similar to the annual O-Pee-Chee hockey set. The Topps and O-Pee-Chee hockey sets shared a similar design from 1968–69 to 1981–82 and from 1984–85 to 1991–92.
Topps first sold cards for basketball in 1957, but stopped after one season. The company started producing basketball cards again in 1969 and continued until 1982, but then abandoned the market for another decade, missing out on printing the prized rookie cards of Michael Jordan and other mid- and late-1980s National Basketball Association stars. Topps finally returned to basketball cards in 1992, several years after its competitors. This would be perfect timing, because 1992 was the rookie year of Shaquille O'Neal.
In the United Kingdom, where football stickers have been popular over roughly the same period of time as trading cards, Topps acquired the old Amalgamated and British Confectionery firm in 1974, bringing its production methods and card style to Britain. Topps also makes cards for the Scottish Professional Football League. Under its Merlin brand, it has the licence to produce stickers for the Premier League and the national team. Its main competition is the Italian firm Panini. Until 2019, Topps made 'Topps Premier League' stickers and the Match Attax trading card game, and since 2015 it has produced stickers and trading cards for the UEFA Champions League.
In 2008, Topps gained the rights to production of WWE trading cards. The first variation of cards were aptly titled Slam Attax, a play on words of the previously popular football trading card game Match Attax (also made by Topps). The first set was released in late 2008 in the U.K., and it was then later released in the United States in mid-2009. This later proved to be a pattern for subsequent Slam Attax sets and variations, with the U.K. getting an earlier release than the U.S.. After failing to take off, Topps ceased production of Slam Attax cards in the U.S. after only two sets, whilst continuing the line in the U.K. and in Europe where in contrast the brand had become more popular. It remains today one of the longest running Topps brands in the U.K..
In 2008, Topps and Zuffa, LLC signed an exclusive agreement to produce mixed martial arts trading cards. Among the included cards were current and former athletes from the UFC.
Non-sports products
Originally, Topps was purely a gum company, and its first product was simply called "Topps gum". Other gum and candy products followed. In imitation of Bowman and other competitors, Topps eventually began producing humor products unrelated to sports. This included stickers, posters (Wanted Posters, Travel Posters), media tie-ins (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), book covers (Batty Bookcovers) and toys (Flying Things), plus offbeat packaging (Garbage Candy). More recently, the company published comic books and games.
Candy and confectionery items
The longest-lived Topps product line remains Bazooka bubble gum, small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a bar of gum that sold for five cents. Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, it was of better quality and capable of selling on its own merit. In 1953, Topps began selling smaller penny pieces with the Bazooka Joe comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction.
Even though baseball cards became the company's primary focus during this period, Topps still developed a variety of candy items. For quite a few years, the company stuck within familiar confines, and virtually all of these products involved gum in some way. Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by Bubble Yum, a new, softer form of bubble gum from Life Savers.
Later, Topps added more candy items without gum. One particular focus has been lollipops, such as Ring Pops. However, Topps has noted that increasing public attention to childhood nutrition undercuts its candy sales. Under pressure by shareholders, the company considered selling off its confectionery business in 2005, but was unable to find a buyer to meet its price and decided to cut management expenses instead.
Other brands include Push Pop, Baby Bottle Pop, and Juicy Drop Pop.
Discontinued products include the Vertigo lollipop, that consisted of a creamy lollipop with a chocolate half and the Wazoo bar.
When the Topps name was sold with the trading card business and entertainment properties to Fanatics, the confectionary business was spun-off as Bazooka Brands, which remains owned by the previous owners.
Non-sports trading cards
As its sports products relied more on photography, Topps redirected its artistic efforts toward non-sports trading cards, on themes inspired by popular culture. For example, the Space Race prompted a set of Space Cards in 1958. Topps has continued to create collectible cards and stickers on a variety of subjects, often targeting the same adolescent male audience as its baseball cards. In particular, these have covered movies, television series, and other cultural phenomena ranging from the Beatles to the life story of John F. Kennedy. The many Star Wars card series have done well, with a few exceptions. Future screenwriter Gary Gerani ("Pumpkinhead') joined the company in 1972 and became the editor/writer of almost all movie and television tie-in products, most notably the numerous Star Wars sets, while also creating and helming original card properties such as 1988's Dinosaurs Attack!.
Many Topps artists came from the world of comics and continued to work in that field as well. The shift from sports to other topics better suited the creative instincts of the artists and coincided with turmoil in the comic book industry over regulation by the Comics Code Authority. Beginning at Topps when he was a teenager, Art Spiegelman was the company's main staff cartoonist for more than 20 years. Other staffers in Topps's Product Development Department at various times included Larry Riley, Mark Newgarden, Bhob Stewart and Rick Varesi. Topps's creative directors of Product Development, Woody Gelman and Len Brown, gave freelance assignments to leading comic book illustrators, such as Jack Davis, Wally Wood and Bob Powell. Spiegelman, Gelman and Brown also hired freelance artists from the underground comix movement, including Bill Griffith and Kim Deitch and Robert Crumb. Jay Lynch did extensive cartooning for Topps over several decades.
Drawing on their previous work, these artists were adept at things like mixing humor and horror, as with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The 1962 Mars Attacks cards, sketched by Wood and Powell and painted by Norman Saunders, later inspired a Tim Burton movie. A tie-in with the Mars Attacks film led to a 1994 card series, a new 100-card Archives set reprinting the 55 original cards, plus 45 new cards from several different artists, including Norm Saunders' daughter, Zina Saunders.
Among Topps's most notable achievements in the area of satire and parody have been Wacky Packages, a takeoff on various household consumer products, and Garbage Pail Kids, a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. Another popular series was the Civil War News set, also with Norman Saunders' artwork.
Earlier, particularly in the early and mid-60s, Topps thrived with several successful series of parody and satire cards for a variety of occasions, usually featuring artists who also worked at Mad magazine. There were several insult-valentine card series, plus a series of insult epigram cards called Wacky Plaques, several series of well-known-product advertising parody cards, a set of cards featuring the 'mad car-driver cartoons' of artist Big Daddy Roth, and a card-sticker series of fanciful bizarre 'rejected aliens' from other planets, among other semi-subversive outrageous over-the-top concepts designed for the semi-rebellious adolescent boomer market.
Although baseball cards have been Topps's most consistently profitable item, certain fads have occasionally produced spikes in popularity for non-sports items. For a period beginning in 1973, the Wacky Packages stickers managed to outsell Topps baseball cards, becoming the first product to do so since the company's early days as purely a gum and candy maker. Pokémon cards would accomplish the same feat for a few years starting in 1999. In the absence of new fads to capitalize on, Topps has come under pressure from stock analysts, since its sports card business is more stable and has less growth potential.
In 2015 Topps started to expand its non-sports category by adding more TV shows, as well as sci-fi with its brand-new Star Wars line (expanding into its own Topps virtual card app, similar to Topps BUNT), as well as Doctor Who, with regular autographs as well as vintage cut autographs, screen-worn relics, and more.
Disney Channel
Topps worked together with the Disney Channel to create trading cards of High School Musical, High School Musical 2, High School Musical 3, and Hannah Montana.
Comic books
Drawing on its established connections with artists, in 1993 Topps created a division of the company to publish comic books. Known as Topps Comics, its early efforts included several concepts from retired industry legend Jack Kirby, known collectively as the "Kirbyverse". Topps Comics particularly specialized in licensed titles with tie-ins to movies or television series, though it also published a few original series. Its longest-running and best-selling title was The X-Files, based on the Fox TV show.
These comic books featured former Marvel Comics editor Jim Salicrup as its editor-in-chief. Apart from The X-Files, some of the more famous titles included Lone Ranger and Tonto by Timothy Truman, Xena: Warrior Princess, Mars Attacks, and Zorro, which introduced the famous comics character Lady Rawhide. With sales stagnating, the company decided to pull out of the comics business in 1998.
Games
The Topps Pokémon cards were purely for entertainment, pleasure and collecting, but a new niche of collectible card games was also developing during this period (a Pokémon trading card game was produced simultaneously by Wizards of the Coast). Topps made its first foray into the world of games in July 2003 by acquiring the game company WizKids for $29.4 million in cash, thus acquiring ownership of the rights to the well-known gaming universes of BattleTech and Shadowrun. By inventing yet another niche, the constructible strategy game Pirates of the Spanish Main, this unit managed to reach profitability. Topps shut down Wizkids operation in November 2008 due to the economic downturn. The brand was acquired by NECA in September 2009.
Controversy
In 2021, Topps was criticized for its depiction of South Korean boyband BTS in its Grammy-themed collection, which was seen as racist and violent. In response to public backlash, the company apologized and the cards were removed from its production lineup.
Awards
Major League Baseball
Topps All-Star Rookie Team
Minor League Baseball
Topps Minor League Player of the Year Award – also known as the J. G. Taylor Spink Award
George M. Trautman Awards – Also in conjunction with Minor League Baseball, Topps presents the George M. Trautman Awards to the Topps Player of the Year in each of sixteen domestic minor leagues.
Topps Short Season-A/Rookie All-Star Team
See also
Topps baseball card products
Allen & Ginter
Bowman
Donruss
Fleer
Razor Entertainment
Upper Deck Company
Notes
References
Sources
Bowman Gum, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 103 F.Supp. 944 (E.D.N.Y. 1952).
Boyd, Brendan C. & Fred C. Harris (1973). The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. .
Caple, Jim. "A card fan's dream come true". ESPN.com Page 2, July 25, 2006.
Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 501 F.Supp. 485 (E.D. Pa. 1980).
Fleer Corp. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 658 F.2d 139 (3d Cir. 1981).
Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir. 1953).
Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum Co., 112 F.Supp. 904 (E.D.N.Y. 1953).
Schwartz, Ben. "Culture Jamming for the Swingset Set". Chicago Reader, June 25, 2004.
Schwarz, Alan (2004). The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics. New York: St. Martin's Press. .
Slocum, Frank & Red Foley (1990). Topps Baseball Cards: The complete picture collection, a 40 year history. New York: Warner Books.
Smith, Aaron. "Mickey Mantle or Martha?" CNN/Money, March 24, 2005.
Thompson, Wright. "Investors gear up for takeover". ESPN.com Page 2, July 27, 2006.
External links
Topps facts from USA Today
Sy Berger: Father of the modern baseball card
Trading card companies
Food and drink companies established in 1938
Confectionery companies of the United States
Madison Dearborn Partners companies
Private equity portfolio companies
Design companies established in 1938
1938 establishments in New York (state)
2022 mergers and acquisitions
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico%20Faggin
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Federico Faggin
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Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder (with Ralph Ungermann) and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics.
In 2010, he received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress. In 2011, Faggin founded the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation to support the scientific study of consciousness at US universities and research institutes. In 2015, the Faggin Foundation helped to establish a $1 million endowment for the Faggin Family Presidential Chair in the Physics of Information at UC Santa Cruz to promote the study of "fundamental questions at the interface of physics and related fields including mathematics, complex systems, biophysics, and cognitive science, with the unifying theme of information in physics."
Education and early career
Born in Vicenza, Italy, Federico grew up in an intellectual environment. His father, Giuseppe Faggin, was a scholar who wrote many academic books and translated, with commentaries, the Enneads of Plotinus from the original Greek into modern Italian. Federico had a strong interest in technology from an early age. He attended a technical high school in Vicenza, I.T.I.S. Alessandro Rossi, and later earned a laurea degree in physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Padua.
Olivetti R&D Labs
Faggin joined Olivetti aged 19. There he co-designed and led the implementation of a small digital transistor computer with 4 K × 12 bit of magnetic memory (1960). The Olivetti R&D department subsequently developed, one of the world's first programmable desktop electronic calculators, the Olivetti Programma 101 (1964). After this first work experience, Faggin studied physics at the University of Padua and taught the electronics laboratory course for 3rd year physics students in the academic year 1965–1966.
SGS-Fairchild
In 1967 he joined SGS Fairchild, now STMicroelectronics, in Italy, where he developed its first MOS metal-gate process technology and designed its first two commercial MOS integrated circuits. SGS sent him to California in 1968. When Fairchild sold SGS-Fairchild, Faggin accepted an offer to complete the development of the silicon-gate technology with Fairchild.
Silicon Valley career
Fairchild Semiconductor
The silicon-gate technology (SGT) is one of the most influential technologies to have fueled the progress of microelectronics since the MOSFET. Without the SGT, the first microprocessor could not have been made during 1970–1971.
In February 1968, Federico Faggin joined Fairchild Semiconductor in Palo Alto where he was the project leader of the MOS silicon-gate technology, a MOSFET with a silicon self-aligned gate, and the inventor of its unique process architecture. The SGT became the basis of all modern NMOS and CMOS integrated circuits. It made possible the creation of MOS semiconductor memory chips during 1969–1970, the first microprocessor during 1970–1971, and the first CCD and EPROM (electrically programmable read-only memory) with floating silicon gates (1970-1971). The SGT replaced the incumbent aluminum-gate MOS technology, and was adopted worldwide within 10 years, eventually making obsolete the original integrated circuits built with bipolar transistors.
Fairchild 3708
At Fairchild, Faggin designed the first commercial integrated circuit using Silicon Gate Technology with self-aligned MOSFET transistors: the Fairchild 3708. The 3708 was an 8-bit analog multiplexer with decoding logic, replacing the equivalent Fairchild 3705 that used metal-gate technology. The 3708 was 5 times faster, had 100 times less junction leakage and was much more reliable than the 3705, demonstrating the superiority of SGT over metal-gate MOS. See also: Faggin, F., Klein T. (1969). "A Faster Generation of MOS Devices With Low Threshold Is Riding The Crest of the New Wave, Silicon-Gate IC's." Electronics, 29 Sept. 1969.
Intel
Federico Faggin joined Intel from Fairchild in 1970 as the project leader and designer of the MCS-4 family of microprocessors, which included the 4004, the world's first single-chip microprocessor. Fairchild was not taking advantage of the SGT and Faggin wanted to use his new technology to design advanced chips.
The 4004 (1971) was made possible by the advanced capabilities of the silicon gate technology (SGT) being enhanced through the novel random logic chip design methodology that Faggin created at Intel. It was this new methodology, together with his several design innovations, that allowed him to fit the microprocessor in one small chip. A single-chip microprocessor – an idea that was expected to occur many years in the future – became possible in 1971 by using SGT with two additional innovations: (1) "buried contacts" that doubled the circuit density, and (2) the use of bootstrap loads with 2-phase clocks—previously considered impossible with SGT— that improved the speed 5 times, while reducing the chip area by half compared with metal-gate MOS.
The design methodology created by Faggin was utilized for the implementation of all Intel's early microprocessors and later also for Zilog's Z80.
The Intel 4004 – a 4-bit CPU (central processing unit) on a single chip – was a member of a family of 4 custom chips designed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer. The other members of the family (constituting the MCS-4 family) were: the 4001, a 2k-bit metal-mask programmable ROM with programmable input-output lines; the 4002, a 320-bit dynamic RAM with a 4-bit output port; and the 4003, a 10-bit serial input and serial/parallel output, static shift register to use as an I/O expander.
Faggin promoted the idea of broadly marketing the MCS-4 to customers other than Busicom by showing to Intel management how customers could design a control system using the 4004. He designed and built a 4004 tester using the 4004 as the controller of the tester, thus convincing Bob Noyce to renegotiate the exclusivity clause with Busicom that didn't allow Intel to sell the MCS-4 line to other customers.
In 2009, the four contributors to the 4004 were inducted as Fellows of the Computer History Museum. Ted Hoff, head of Application Research Department, formulated the architectural proposal and the instruction set with assistance from Stan Mazor and working in conjunction with Busicom's Masatoshi Shima. However none of them was a chip designer and none was familiar with the new Silicon Gate Technology (SGT). The silicon design was the essential missing ingredient to making a microprocessor since everything else was already known. Federico Faggin led the project in a different department without Hoff's and Mazor's involvement. Faggin had invented the original SGT at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968 and provided additional refinements and inventions to make possible the implementation of the 4004 in a single chip. With routine help from Shima, Faggin completed the chip design in January 1971.
The Intel 2102A is a redesign of the Intel 2102 static RAM, where Federico Faggin introduced to Intel, for the first time, the depletion load, combining the silicon gate technology with ionic implantation. The design was done toward the end of 1973 by Federico Faggin and Dick Pashley. The 2102A was 5 times faster than the 2102, opening a new direction for Intel.
Early Intel microprocessors
Faggin's silicon design methodology was used for implementing all Intel's early microprocessors.
The Intel 8008 was the world's first single-chip 8-bit CPU and, like the 4004, was built with p-channel SGT. The 8008 development was originally assigned to Hal Feeney in March 1970 but was suspended until the 4004 was completed. It was resumed in January 1971 under Faggin's direction utilizing the basic circuits and methodology he had developed for the 4004, with Hal Feeney doing the chip design. The CPU architecture of the 8008 was originally created by CTC Inc. for the Datapoint 2200 intelligent terminal, in which it was implemented in discrete IC logic.
The Intel 4040 microprocessor (1974) was a much improved, machine-code-compatible version of the 4004 CPU allowing it to interface directly with standard memories and I/O devices. Federico Faggin created the architecture of the 4040 and supervised Tom Innes who did the design work.
The 8080 microprocessor (1974) was the first high-performance 8-bit microprocessor in the market, using the faster n-channel SGT. The 8080 was conceived and designed by Faggin, and designed by Masatoshi Shima under Faggin's supervision. The 8080 was a major improvement over the 8008 architecture, yet it retained software compatibility with it. It was much faster and easier to interface to external memory and I/O devices than the 8008. The high performance and low cost of the 8080 let developers use microprocessors for many new applications, including the forerunners of the personal computer.
When Faggin left Intel at the end of 1974 to found Zilog with Ralph Ungermann, he was R&D department manager responsible for all MOS products, except for dynamic memories.
Zilog
The Zilog Z80 was the first microprocessor created by Zilog, the first company entirely dedicated to microprocessors. It was started by Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann in November 1974. Faggin was Zilog's president and CEO until the end of 1980 and he conceived and designed the Z80 CPU and its family of programmable peripheral components. He also co-designed the CPU whose project leader was Masatoshi Shima.
The Z80-CPU was a major improvement over the 8080, yet it retained software compatibility with it. Much faster and with more than twice as many registers and instructions of the 8080, it was part of a family of components that included several intelligent peripherals (the Z80-PIO, a programmable parallel input-output controller; the Z80-CTC, a programmable counter-timer; the Z80-SIO, programmable serial communications interface controller, and the Z80-DMA, programmable direct memory access controller). This chip family allowed the design of powerful and low-cost microcomputers with performance comparable to minicomputers. The Z80-CPU had a substantially better bus structure and interrupt structure than the 8080 and could interface directly with dynamic RAM, since it included an internal memory-refresh controller. The Z80 was used in many of early personal computers, as well as in video game systems such as the MSX, ColecoVision, Master System and Game Boy. The Z80 is still in volume production in 2017 as a core microprocessor in various systems on a chip.
The Zilog Z8 micro controller (1978) was one of the first single-chip microcontrollers in the market. It integrated an 8-bit CPU, RAM, ROM and I/O facilities, sufficient for many control applications. Faggin conceived the Z8 in 1974, soon after he founded Zilog, but then decided to give priority to the Z80. The Z8 was designed in 1976–78 and is still in volume production today (2017).
The Communication CoSystem
The Communication CoSystem (1984). The Cosystem was conceived by Faggin and designed and produced by Cygnet Technologies, Inc., the second startup company of Faggin. Attached to a personal computer and to a standard phone line, the CoSystem could automatically handle all the personal voice and data communications of the user, including electronic mail, database access, computer screen transfers during a voice communication, call record keeping, etc. The patent covering the CoSystem is highly cited in the personal communication field.
Synaptics
In 1986 Faggin co-founded and was CEO of Synaptics until 1999, becoming chairman from 1999 to 2009. Synaptics was initially dedicated to R&D in artificial neural networks for pattern-recognition applications using analog VLSI. Synaptics introduced the I1000, the world's first single-chip optical character recognizer in 1991. In 1994, Synaptics introduced the touchpad to replace the cumbersome trackball then in use in laptop computers. The touchpad was broadly adopted by the industry. Synaptics also introduced the early touchscreens that were eventually adopted for intelligent phones and tablets; applications that now dominate the market. Faggin came up with the general product idea and led a group of engineers who further refined the idea through many brainstorming sessions. Faggin is a co-inventor of ten patents assigned to Synaptics. He is chairman emeritus of Synaptics.
Foveon
During his tenure as president and CEO of Foveon, from 2003 to 2008, Faggin revitalized the company and provided a new technological and business direction resulting in image sensors superior in all critical parameters to the best sensors of the competition, while using approximately half the chip size of competing devices. Faggin also oversaw the successful acquisition of Foveon by the Japanese Sigma Corporation in November 2008.
Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation
Founded in 2011 the "Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation" supports the scientific study of consciousness at US universities and research institutes. The purpose of the Foundation is to advance the understanding of consciousness through theoretical and experimental research. Faggin's interest in consciousness has his roots in the study of artificial neural networks at Synaptics, a company he started in 1986, that prompted his inquiry into whether or not it is possible to build a conscious computer.
The theory of consciousness
In the book "Irriducibile. La coscienza, la vita, i computer e la nostra natura" (Mondadori, 2022) Federico Faggin proposed a theory on consciousness according to which consciousness is a purely quantum phenomenon, quantum phenomenon, unique to each of us. This theory is supported by two quantum physics theorems: the no-cloning theorem and Holevo’s theorem. The first states that a pure quantum state is not reproducible; the second limits the amount of measurable information to one classical bit for each qubit that describes the state. Therefore it is possible to postulate that a quantum system that is in a pure state is aware of its state since conscious experiences (qualia) have all the essential properties of pure states, i.e., it is private knowledge only minimally knowable from the outside. However, the mathematical representation of the experience (the pure state) does not describe the experience which remains private and knowable only from within by the system that is in that state. No classical machine can ever be conscious given that classical information is reproducible (program and data can be copied perfectly) while the quantum state is private. Consciousness is therefore not linked to the functioning of the body and can continue to exist even after the death of the body. The body behaves like a drone controlled "top down" by consciousness. The new D'Ariano-Faggin theory is based on the theoretical studies of Professor Giacomo D'Ariano's studies, who derived quantum theory from informational principles [9], and on the experiential, philosophical and scientific studies of Federico Faggin on the nature of consciousness.
Original documents
On the MOS Silicon Gate Technology (SGT) and the Fairchild 3708 (The first application of SGT)
Faggin, F., Klein, T., and Vadasz, L.: Insulated Gate Field Effect Transistor Integrated Circuits with Silicon Gates. The Silicon Gate Technology with self-aligned gates was presented by its developer Federico Faggin at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting on 23 October 1968, in Washington D.C. This new technology empowered the design of dynamic RAM memories, non-volatile memories, CCD sensors and the microprocessor.
Federico Faggin and Thomas Klein.: "A Faster Generation of MOS Devices with Low Thresholds is Riding the Crest of the New Wave, Silicon-Gate IC's". The article published in Electronics (29 September 1969) introduces the Fairchild 3708, the world's first commercial integrated circuit using Silicon Gate Technology, designed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968.
F. Faggin, T. Klein: Silicon-Gate Technology. "Solid State Electronics", 1970, Vo. 13, pp. 1125–1144
On the Intel 4004 microprocessor
F. Faggin and M. E. Hoff: "Standard Parts and Custom Design Merge in a Four-chip Processor Kit". Electronics, 24 April 1972
F. Faggin, et al.: "The MCS-4 An LSI Microcomputer System". IEEE 1972 Region Six Conference
Faggin, Federico; Capocaccia, F. "A New Integrated MOS Shift Register", Proceedings XV International Electronics Scientific Congress, Rome, April 1968, pp. 143–152. This paper describes a novel static MOS shift register, developed at SGS-Fairchild (now ST Micro) at the end of 1967, before Federico Faggin joined Fairchild's R&D in Palo Alto (Ca) in February 1968. Faggin later used this new shift register in the MCS-4 chips, including the 4004.
Initials F.F. (Federico Faggin) on the 4004 design (1971). The 4004 bears the initials F.F. of its designer, Federico Faggin, etched on one corner of the chip. Signing the chip was a spontaneous gesture of proud authorship and was also an original idea imitated after him by many Intel designers.
Busicom 141-PF Printing Calculator Engineering Prototype (1971). (Gift of Federico Faggin to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA). The CHM collection catalog shows pictures of the engineering prototype of the Busicom 141-PF desktop calculator. The engineering prototype used the world's first microprocessor to have ever been produced. This one-of-a-kind prototype was a personal present by Busicom's president Mr. Yoshio Kojima to Federico Faggin for his successful leadership of the design and development of the 4004 and three other memory and I/O chips (the MCS-4 chipset). After keeping it in his home for 25 years, Faggin donated it to the CHM in 1996.
Publications
Articles
"The Birth of the Microprocessor" by Federico Faggin. Byte, March 1992, Vol.17 No.3, pp. 145–150.
"The History of the 4004" by Federico Faggin, Marcian E. Hoff Jr., Stanley Mazor, Masatoshi Shima. IEEE Micro, December 1996, Volume 16 Number 6.
"The 4004 microprocessor of Faggin, Hoff, Mazor, and Shima". IEEE Solid State Circuits Magazine, Winter 2009 Vol.1 No.1.
"The MOS silicon gate technology and the first microprocessors" by Federico Faggin. La Rivista del Nuovo Cimento, year 2015, issue 12-December. SIF (Italian Physical Society)
"How we made the microprocessor" by Federico Faggin. Nature Electronics, Vol. 1, January 2018. Published online: 8 January 2018
"Hard Problem and Free Will: an information-theoretical approach" by Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano and Federico Faggin. arXiv:2012.06580 28Jan2021
Books
Silicon: From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New Science of Consciousness by Federico Faggin. Waterside Productions (February 2021)
Artificial Intelligence Versus Natural Intelligence. Springer International Publishing, January 2022
Irriducibile - La coscienza, la vita, i computer e la nostra natura by Federico Faggin. Mondadori (Agosto 2022) "Sono convinto che quando capiremo che la fisica quantistica non descrive la realtà esteriore ma quella interiore essa cesserà di essere incomprensibile.”
Awards
1988: Marconi International Fellowship Award "for his pioneering contributions to the implementation of the microprocessor, a principal building block of modern telecommunications"
1988: Gold Medal for Science and Technology from the Italian Prime Minister
1988: title of "Grande Ufficiale" from the President of the Italian Republic
1994: W. Wallace McDowell Award "For the development of the Silicon Gate Process, and the first commercial microprocessor."
1994: Laurea honoris causa in Computer Science from the University of Milan (Italy).
1996: Ronald H. Brown American Innovator Award, with M. Hoff and S. Mazor
1996: a Lifetime Achievement Award by P.C. Magazine for "technical excellence".
1996: inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame, with M. Hoff and S. Mazor
1997: Kyoto Prize, with M. Hoff, S. Mazor and M. Shima
1997: George R. Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award by the American Computer & Robotics Museum, with M. Hoff and S. Mazor.
1997: Masi Civilta' Veneta Prize
2001: Dr. Robert Noyce Memorial Award by the Semiconductor Industry Association, with M. Hoff and S. Mazor
2003: Laurea honoris causa in Electronic Engineering from the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy)
2003: AeA/Stanford Executive Institute Award for Outstanding Achievement in the High Tech Industry by an Alumnus
2006: European Inventor of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award by EPO (European Patent Office)
2007: Laurea honoris causa in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pavia (Italy)
2008: Laurea honoris causa in Electronic Engineering from the University of Palermo (Italy)
2009: Laurea honoris causa in Computer Sciences from the University of Verona (Italy)
2009: Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his work as part of the team that developed the Intel 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor."
2009: National Medal of Technology and Innovation from U.S. President Barack Obama
2011: The 2011 George R. Stibitz Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Computer Museum (Bozeman, MT): "For foundational contributions to the development of the modern technological world, including the MOS silicon gate technology that led to the realization of the world's first Microprocessor in 1971."
2019: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic from the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella
Source for the above-mentioned awards:
2012: Global Information Technology Award from the President of Armenia.
2012: Honorary PhD from the Polytechnic University (Armenia)
2012: Premio Franca Florio, given by Ministro Francesco Profumo and Prof. Ing. Patrizia Livreri
2013: Honorary PhD in science from Chapman University (CA)
2014: Enrico Fermi Award, given by the Italian Society of Physics: "For the invention of the MOS silicon gate technology that led him to the realization in 1971 of the first modern microprocessor."
2018: 2018 IEEE Italy Section Honorary Award to Federico Faggin for his outstanding contributions to the self aligned MOS silicon gate theory & technology and to the development of the first microprocessor
2018: 2018 AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
2019: PhD (Dottorato di ricerca) honoris causa in computer engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) Università di Pisa.
References
External links
The Intel 4004 Microprocessor and the Silicon Gate Technology, A testimonial from Federico Faggin, designer of the 4004 and developer of its enabling technology Federico Faggin personally gives details, history and nitty-gritty details about the Intel 4004's development and his inventions, innovations and ideas that made it all possible.
"Executive Profile" from Foveon.com
IEEE Global History Network Biography of Federico Faggin
Oral History of Federico Faggin Computer History Museum. Recorded 2004-05
Busicom Calculator Engineering Prototype (Gift of Federico Faggin to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California).
"Computers Still No Match for Human Intelligence" Video and article interview with Federico Faggin 40 years after the release of the Intel 4004 microprocessor
1941 births
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American engineers
American computer scientists
European Inventor Award winners
20th-century Italian businesspeople
Italian computer scientists
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Living people
MOSFETs
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren%20Spahn
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Warren Spahn
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Warren Edward Spahn (April 23, 1921 – November 24, 2003) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). A left-handed pitcher, Spahn played in 1942 and then from 1946 until 1965, most notably for the Boston Braves, who became the Milwaukee Braves after the team moved west before the season. His baseball career was interrupted by his military service in the United States Army during World War II.
With 363 career wins, Spahn holds the major league record for a left-handed pitcher, and has the most by a pitcher who played his entire career in the post-1920 live-ball era. He was a 17-time All-Star who won 20 games or more in 13 seasons, including a 23–7 win–loss record when he was age 42. Spahn won the 1957 Cy Young Award and was a three-time runner-up during the period when only one award was given for both leagues. At the time of his retirement in 1965, Spahn held the Major League record for career strikeouts by a left-handed pitcher.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1973 with 82.89% of the vote. The Warren Spahn Award, given annually to the major leagues' best left-handed pitcher, is named in his honor. Regarded as a "thinking man's" pitcher who liked to outwit batters, Spahn once described his approach on the mound: "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."
Early life
Spahn was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, to Edward and Mabel Spahn, the fifth of six children and the first of two sons. He was named after President Warren G. Harding and his father.
He attended Buffalo Bisons baseball games with his father and initially wanted to be a first baseman. However, when Spahn began to attend South Park High School, the first baseman position was already taken. Reluctantly, he took up pitching and led his high school team to two city championships, going undefeated his last two seasons, and throwing a no-hitter his senior year.
Baseball career
Spahn's major league career began in 1942 with the Braves organization and he spent all but one year with that franchise, first in Boston and then in Milwaukee. He finished his career in 1965 with the New York Mets and the San Francisco Giants. With 363 wins, Spahn is the sixth most winning pitcher in history, trailing only Cy Young (511), Walter Johnson (417), Grover Cleveland Alexander (373), Christy Mathewson (373), and Pud Galvin (364) on MLB's all-time list. He led the league in wins eight times (1949–50, 1953, 1957–1961, each season with 20+ wins) and won at least 20 games an additional five times (1947, 1951, 1954, 1956, 1963).
Spahn also threw two no-hitters, in 1960 and 1961, at ages 39 and 40. He won 3 ERA titles (1947, 1953, and 1961), and four strikeout crowns (1949–1952). Spahn also appeared in 14 All-Star Games, the most of any pitcher in the 20th century. He won the NL Player of the Month Award in August 1960 (6–0, 2.30 ERA, 32 SO) and August 1961 (6–0, 1.00 ERA, 26 SO).
Spahn acquired the nickname "Hooks", not so much because of his pitching, but due to the prominent shape of his nose. He had once been hit in the face by a thrown ball that he was not expecting, and his broken nose settled into a hook-like shape. In Spahn's final season, during his stint with the Mets, Yogi Berra came out of retirement briefly and caught 4 games, one of them with Spahn pitching. Yogi later told reporters, "I don't think we're the oldest battery, but we're certainly the ugliest."
Spahn was known for a very high leg kick in his delivery. Photo sequences show that this high kick served a specific purpose. As a left-hander, Spahn was able not only to watch any runner on first base, but also to avoid telegraphing whether he was delivering to the plate or to first base, thereby forcing the runner to stay close to the bag. As his fastball waned, Spahn adapted, and relied more on location, changing speeds and a good screwball. He led or shared the lead in the NL in wins in 1957–1961 (age 36–40).
Spahn was also a good hitter, hitting at least one home run in 17 straight seasons, and finishing with an NL career record for pitchers, with 35 home runs. Wes Ferrell, who spent most of his time in the American League, holds the overall record for pitchers, with 37. Spahn posted a .194 batting average (363-for-1872) with 141 runs, 57 doubles, 6 triples, 94 bases on balls and 189 RBI. He also drove in 10 or more runs nine times, with a career-high 18 in 1951. In 1958 he batted a strong .333 (36-for-108). In eight World Series games, he batted .200 (4-for-20) with 4 RBI and 1 walk.
Minor Leagues and brief call-up
First signed by the Boston Braves, he reported to the Class-D Bradford Bees of the PONY League — later known as the NY-Penn League — after graduating high school. Spahn made his professional debut on July 6 at MacArthur Park (Dwyer Stadium) in Batavia, New York. Spahn took the loss against the Batavia Clippers pitching out of the bullpen where he walked two batters and struck out none. He finished the season with a 5–4 record and 2.73 ERA. In 1941, Spahn broke out and won 19 games against 6 losses with a 1.83 ERA while pitching for the Class-B Evansville Bees of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League.
Spahn reached the major leagues in 1942 at the age of 20. He clashed with Braves manager Casey Stengel, who sent him back to the minors after Spahn refused to throw at Brooklyn Dodgers batter Pee Wee Reese in an exhibition game. Spahn had pitched in only 4 games, allowing 15 runs (10 earned) in 15.2 innings.
Stengel later said that it was the worst managing mistake he had ever made: "I said "no guts" to a kid who went on to become a war hero and one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers you ever saw. You can't say I don't miss 'em when I miss 'em". The 1942 Braves finished next to last, and Stengel was fired the following year. Spahn was reunited with his first manager 23 years later, for the even more woeful last-place New York Mets, and — referring to Stengel's success with the 1949–60 New York Yankees — later quipped, "I'm probably the only guy who played for Casey before and after he was a genius."
Spahn finished the 1942 season with a 17–12 record for the Hartford Bees of the Class-A Eastern League.
World War II
Along with many other major leaguers, Spahn chose to enlist in the United States Army, after finishing the 1942 season in the minors. He served with distinction, and was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He saw action in the Battle of the Bulge and at the Ludendorff Bridge as a combat engineer, and was awarded a battlefield commission.
Spahn returned to the major leagues in 1946 at the age of 25, having missed three full seasons. Had he played, it is possible that Spahn would have finished his career behind only Walter Johnson and Cy Young in all-time wins. Spahn was unsure of the war's impact on his career:
Boston / Milwaukee Braves
In 1947, Spahn led the National League in ERA (2.33), shutouts (7), and innings pitched () while posting a 21–10 record. It was the first of his thirteen 20-win seasons. Spahn also won two more ERA titles, in 1953 and 1961.
On June 11, 1950, Spahn and pitcher Bob Rush of the Cubs each stole a base against each other; no opposing pitchers again stole a base in the same game until May 3, 2004, when Jason Marquis and Greg Maddux repeated the feat.
In 1951, Spahn allowed the first career hit to Willie Mays, a home run. Mays had begun his career 0-for-12, and Spahn responded to reporters after the game, citing the distance between home plate and the pitcher's mound of , "Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch." Spahn joked a long time later, "I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out." (In 1962, another Hall of Famer hit his first career home run off Spahn: Sandy Koufax, who only hit one other.)
According to former Cardinals player Solly Hemus, Spahn, along with teammate Lew Burdette, periodically used anti-Semitic slurs while on the mound.
"Pray for rain"
Spahn's teammate Johnny Sain was the ace of the pennant-winning 1948 Braves staff, with a win–loss record of 24–15. Spahn went 15–12 while, contrary to legend, teammates Bill Voiselle (13–13), and Vern Bickford (11–5) also pitched well.
In honor of the pitching duo, Boston Post sports editor Gerald V. Hern wrote this poem which the popular media eventually condensed to "Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain":
First we'll use Spahn
then we'll use Sain
Then an off day
followed by rain
Back will come Spahn
followed by Sain
And followed
we hope
by two days of rain.
The poem was inspired by the performance of Spahn and Sain during the Braves' 1948 pennant drive. The team swept a Labor Day doubleheader, with Spahn throwing a complete 14-inning win in the opener, and Sain pitching a shutout in the second game. Following two off days, it did rain. Spahn won the next day, and Sain won the day after that. Three days later, Spahn won again. Sain won the next day. After one more off day, the two pitchers were brought back, and won another doubleheader. The two pitchers had gone 8–0 in 12 days' time.
Other sayings have been derived from "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." For example, some referred to the 1993 San Francisco Giants' imbalanced rotation as "Burkett and Swift and pray for snow drift."
In 1957, Spahn was the ace of the champion Milwaukee Braves. He pitched on two other Braves pennant winners, in 1948 and 1958. Spahn led the NL in strikeouts for four consecutive seasons, from 1949 to 1952 (tied with Don Newcombe in 1951), which includes a single-game high of 18 strikeouts in a 15-inning appearance on June 14, 1952.
During the 1957 World Series, Sal Maglie of the Yankees, ineligible to pitch in the series because he was acquired too late in the season, watched the games with Robert Creamer of Sports Illustrated and made assessments of the players. When Spahn was pitching, Maglie observed that batters had to try to hit balls to the opposite field against Spahn, as he was more likely to get them out if they tried to pull the ball.
On July 2, 1963, facing the San Francisco Giants, the 42-year-old Spahn became locked into a storied pitchers' duel with 25-year-old Juan Marichal. The score was still 0–0 after more than four hours when Willie Mays hit a game-winning solo home run off Spahn with one out in the bottom of the 16th inning.
Marichal's manager, Alvin Dark, visited the mound in the 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th, and 14th innings, and was talked out of removing Marichal each time. During the 14th-inning visit, Marichal told Dark, "Do you see that man pitching for the other side? Do you know that man is 42 years old? I'm only 25. If that man is on the mound, nobody is going to take me out of here." Marichal ended up throwing 227 pitches in the complete game 1–0 win, while Spahn threw 201 in the loss, allowing nine hits and one walk.
Spahn threw his first no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies on September 16, 1960, when he was 39. He pitched his second no-hitter the following year on April 28, 1961, against the Giants. By the last two seasons of his career, Spahn was the oldest active player in baseball. He lost this distinction for a single day: September 25, 1965, when 58-year-old Satchel Paige pitched three innings.
Spahn's seemingly ageless ability caused Stan Musial to quip, "[Spahn] will never get into the Hall of Fame. He won't stop pitching."
Final season
Following the 1964 season, after 25 years with the franchise, Spahn was sold by the Braves to the New York Mets. Braves manager Bobby Bragan predicted, "Spahnie won't win six games with the Mets." Spahn took on the dual role of pitcher and pitching coach. Spahn won four and lost 12 at which point the Mets put Spahn on waivers. He was put on waivers on July 15, 1965, and released on July 22, 1965. He signed with the San Francisco Giants, with whom he appeared in his final major league game on October 1, 1965, at the age of 44. With the Mets and Giants combined, he won seven games for the season — his last in the major leagues.
Career statistics
In a 22-season major league career, Spahn posted a 363–245 win–loss record with 2,583 strikeouts and a 3.09 ERA in 5,243.2 innings pitched, including 63 shutouts and 382 complete games. His 2,583 career strikeouts were the most by a left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball history until he was later on surpassed by Mickey Lolich in .
His 363 career win total ranks sixth overall in major league history; it is also the most by a pitcher who played his entire career in the post-1920 live-ball era. Spahn still holds the major league record for most career wins by a left-handed pitcher. His 63 career shutouts is the highest total in the live-ball era and sixth highest overall.
Later life
Spahn managed the Tulsa Oilers for five seasons, winning 372 games from 1967 to 1971. His 1968 club won the Pacific Coast League championship. He also coached for the Mexico City Tigers, and pitched a handful of games there. He was a pitching coach with the Cleveland Indians, in the minor leagues for the California Angels, and for six years, with Japan's Hiroshima Toyo Carp.
For many years he owned and ran the large Diamond Star Ranch south of Hartshorne, Oklahoma before retiring to live near a golf course in Broken Arrow with his wife LoRene (nee Southard) with whom he had one child, a son named Gregory (1948-2022).
Death
Spahn died of natural causes at his home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He is interred in the Elmwood Cemetery in Hartshorne. After his death, a street was named after him in Buffalo, New York that connects Abbott Road with Seneca Street, through Cazenovia Park, in the heart of South Buffalo. The street is near South Park High School, Spahn's alma mater.
Honors
Spahn's number 21 was retired by the Braves in 1965, soon after his retirement. He was selected for the all-time All-Star baseball team by Sports Illustrated magazine in 1991, as the left-handed pitcher. The other selections were: outfielders Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Willie Mays; shortstop Cal Ripken, third baseman Mike Schmidt, second baseman Jackie Robinson, first baseman Lou Gehrig, catcher Mickey Cochrane, right-handed pitcher Christy Mathewson, relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley, and manager Casey Stengel.
Spahn was elected to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1973 and became a charter member of both the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985, and the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.
In 1999, Spahn was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame. Also in 1999, he was ranked number 21 by The Sporting News on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players", and was also named one of the 30 players on the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
A few months before his death, Spahn attended the unveiling of a statue outside Atlanta's Turner Field. When the Braves vacated Turner Field to move into their current home of Truist Park, the statue was moved, and now stands outside that ballpark. The statue depicts Spahn in the middle of one of his leg kicks. The statue was created by Shan Gray, who has sculpted numerous other statues of athletes which stand in Oklahoma, including two others of Spahn. One resides at the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame located at the Oklahoma City Bricktown Ballpark and the other is located in Hartshorne, Oklahoma at the Hartshorne Event Center.
On April 4, 2009, the facilities of Broken Arrow Youth Baseball, in Spahn's longtime home of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, were dedicated in his honor.
In their Naked Gun films, producers Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker sometimes included joke credits. The trio, who were Milwaukee-area natives, included Spahn in the closing credits once, with the disclaimer, "He's not in the film, but he's still our all-time favorite left-hand pitcher."
Spahn also made his acting debut with a cameo appearance as a German soldier in a 1963 episode (S2E8 "Glow Against the Sky") of the television series Combat!
In 2013, the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award honored Spahn as one of 37 Baseball Hall of Fame members for his service in the United States Army during World War II.
See also
Major League Baseball titles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual strikeout leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders
List of Major League Baseball career strikeout leaders
List of Major League Baseball career shutout leaders
List of Major League Baseball no-hitters
List of Major League Baseball all-time leaders in home runs by pitchers
References
Further reading
External links
1921 births
2003 deaths
Baseball coaches from New York (state)
Baseball coaches from Oklahoma
Baseball players from Buffalo, New York
Baseball players from Oklahoma
Boston Braves players
Bradford Bees players
Cleveland Indians coaches
Cy Young Award winners
Evansville Bees players
Hartford Bees players
Major League Baseball pitchers
Major League Baseball pitching coaches
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Mexican League baseball pitchers
Milwaukee Braves players
Minor league baseball managers
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
National League ERA champions
National League strikeout champions
National League wins champions
New York Mets coaches
New York Mets players
People from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Sportspeople from Tulsa County, Oklahoma
People from Hartshorne, Oklahoma
San Francisco Giants players
Tigres del México players
American expatriate baseball players in Mexico
Tulsa Oilers (baseball) players
United States Army officers
United States Army personnel of World War II
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National September 11 Memorial & Museum
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The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds for, program, and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site.
A memorial was planned in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and destruction of the World Trade Center for the victims and those involved in rescue and recovery operations. The winner of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was Israeli-American architect Michael Arad of Handel Architects, a New York City and San Francisco-based firm. Arad worked with landscape-architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners on the design, creating a forest of swamp white oak trees with two square reflecting pools in the center marking where the Twin Towers stood.
In August 2006, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began heavy construction on the memorial and museum. The design is consistent with the original master plan by Daniel Libeskind, which called for the memorial to be below street level—originally —in a plaza, and was the only finalist to disregard Libeskind's requirement that the buildings overhang the footprints of the Twin Towers. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation was renamed the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in 2007.
A dedication ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the attacks was held at the memorial on September 11, 2011, and it opened to the public the following day. The museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014, with remarks from Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama. Six days later, the museum opened to the public.
History
Planning
Formerly the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum was formed as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation to raise funds and manage the memorial's planning and construction. Its board of directors met for the first time on January 4, 2005, and it reached its first-phase capital-fundraising goal ($350 million) in April 2008. This money and additional funds raised will be used to build the memorial and museum and endow the museum.
In 2003, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation launched the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition, an international competition to design a memorial at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the lives lost on 9/11. Individuals and teams from around the world submitted design proposals. On November 19, 2003, the thirteen-member jury selected eight finalists. Reflecting Absence, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker, was chosen as the winning design on January 6, 2004. It consists of a field of trees interrupted by two large, recessed pools, the footprints of the Twin Towers. The deciduous trees (swamp white oaks) are arranged in rows and form informal clusters, clearings and groves. The park is at street level, above the Memorial Museum. The names of the victims of the attacks (including those from the Pentagon, American Airlines Flight 77, United Airlines Flight 93, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) are inscribed on the parapets surrounding the waterfalls in an arrangement of "meaningful adjacencies". On January 14, 2004, the final design for the World Trade Center site memorial was unveiled at a press conference in Federal Hall National Memorial.
As mandated by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation owns, operates and finances the Reflecting Absence Memorial and the Museum. John C. Whitehead, chair of the LMDC and the foundation, announced his resignation in May 2006 and was replaced at the LMDC by former president Kevin Rampe. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg replaced Whitehead as chair of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Foundation executive committee chair Thomas S. Johnson said on May 9, 2006:
On May 26, 2006, Gretchen Dykstra resigned as president and chief executive officer of the World Trade Center Foundation. Joseph C. Daniels was appointed as president and CEO in October 2006. The memorial projects were toned down, and the budget was cut to $530 million. Despite delays, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum was confident that it would be completed by September 11, 2011.
National tour
In September 2007, the Memorial & Museum began a four-month national awareness tour of 25 cities in 25 states, and thousands participated in tour activities. The tour began at Finlay Park in Columbia, South Carolina, ending at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. Highlights included an exhibition of photographs, artifacts from the site, and a film with firsthand accounts from individuals who had directly experienced the attacks. At the opening ceremony in South Carolina, the students of White Knoll Middle School (who raised over $500,000 in 2001 for a new truck for the New York City Fire Department) were honored, and retired New York City police officer Marcelo Pevida presented the city with an American flag which had flown over Ground Zero. Potts Camp, Mississippi opened a memorial for 9/11 by building two little towers around 300 feet tall and looks like the real deal. It even has the names of everyone who lost their lives The main attractions of the 2007 national tour were steel beams, later used in the construction of the memorial, for visitors to sign.
Fundraising
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum conducts a "cobblestone campaign", in which a contributor may sponsor a cobblestone which will line the Memorial plaza. Donors are recognized on the Memorial's website. Donors are able to locate their cobblestone by entering their name at a kiosk on the Memorial plaza. In 2008 the Memorial conducted two holiday cobblestone campaigns: the first for Father's Day, and the second for the December holiday season.
On September 9, 2011, Secretary Shaun Donovan of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development said that the department had given $329 million to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum through HUD's Community Development Block Grant program. According to CNN, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey dropped its claim that the 9/11 Memorial & Museum owed it $300 million in construction costs in return for "financial oversight of the museum and memorial".
Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii sponsored S.1537, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Act of 2011, which would provide $20 million in federal funds annually toward the Memorial's operating budget (about one-third of its total budget). The legislation was presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on October 19, 2011. In return for federal funding S.1537 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to accept the donation by the memorial's board of directors of title to the National September 11 Memorial, contingent on agreement by the board, the governors of New York and New Jersey, the Mayor of New York and the Secretary of the Interior. On October 19, 2011, William D. Shaddox of the National Park Service voiced concerns to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources about the agency's ability to provide the funds required by S.1537, testifying that NPS ownership of a property over which it would not have operational and administrative control (as stipulated by S.1537) was unprecedented.
Construction
On March 13, 2006, construction workers arrived at the WTC site to begin work on the Reflecting Absence design. Some relatives of the victims and other concerned citizens gathered to protest the new memorial that day, saying that it should be built above ground. The president of the memorial foundation said that family members were consulted and formed a consensus in favor of the design, and work would continue as planned.
In May, estimated construction costs for the Memorial were reported to have risen to over $1 billion. In 2006, at the request of Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki, builder Frank Sciame performed a month-long analysis which included input from victims' families, the lower Manhattan business and residential communities, architects and members of the memorial-competition jury. The analysis recommended design changes which kept the memorial and museum within a $500 million budget.
In July 2008, the Survivors' Staircase was lowered to bedrock, making it the first artifact to be moved into the museum. By the end of August, the footings and foundations were completed. On September 2 construction workers raised the first column for the memorial, near the footprint of the North Tower. By then, about 70 percent of the construction contracts were awarded or ready to award. A total of of steel were installed at the memorial site. By April 2010, the reflecting pools were fully framed in steel, and 85 percent of the concrete had been poured. By April 22, workers had begun installation of the granite coating for the reflecting pools. By June the North Pool's granite coating was completed, and workers had begun granite installation in the South Pool. In July, the first soil shipments arrived at the site, and in August workers began planting trees on the memorial plaza. The swamp white oaks can reach at maturity, live from 300 to 350 years, and their autumn leaves are gold-colored. The "Survivor Tree" is a callery pear which survived the devastation and was kept for replanting. In September, workers reinstalled two "tridents" salvaged from the Twin Towers.
In November 2010, workers began testing the North Pool waterfall. Construction progressed through early 2011: installation of glass panels on the museum pavilion's facade began in March, and workers began testing the South Pool waterfall two months later. Most of the memorial was finished in time for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, with the museum planned for completion the following year. By September 2, 243 trees were planted at the site and eight more were planted in the days before the memorial opened. By then, both pools were completed and the waterfalls were tested daily.
On September 12, 2011, one day after the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the memorial opened to the public with a lengthy set of rules and regulations approved by the foundation's board of directors. The period from September 11, 2011, to May 25, 2014, was known as the "interim operating period", when the memorial was surrounded by construction of neighboring World Trade Center projects; the fence was taken down on May 25, 2014. Three months after its opening, the memorial had been visited by over a million people.
Design
In January 2004, Reflecting Absence, by architect Michael Arad of Handel Architects and landscape architect Peter Walker, was selected from 5,201 entries from 63 countries as the winner of the LMDC's design competition. Two pools with the largest man-made waterfalls in the United States comprise the footprints of the Twin Towers, symbolizing the loss of life and the physical void left by the attacks. The waterfalls are intended to mute the sounds of the city, making the site a contemplative sanctuary. Landscape architect Peter Walker planted many parts of the memorial with white oaks. More than 400 swamp white oak trees fill the Memorial plaza, enhancing the site's reflective nature.
Pedestrian simulations tested the memorial's design. The pedestrian-modeling program Legion was used to simulate visitor utilization of the space, and its design was tweaked to prevent bottlenecks. The fountain was engineered by Delta Fountains.
WSP Cantor Seinuk was the structural engineer, Jaros, Baum & Bolles provided MEP engineering, and Lend Lease served as construction manager.
Arrangement of the victims' names
The names of 2,983 victims are inscribed on 152 bronze parapets on the memorial pools: 2,977 killed in the September 11 attacks and six killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The names are arranged according to an algorithm, creating "meaningful adjacencies" based on relationships—proximity at the time of the attacks, company or organization affiliations (for those working at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon) and in response to about 1,200 requests from family members. Software made by Local Projects implemented the arrangement. All names are stylized with Optima typeface for a "balanced appearance".
The names of the employees and visitors in the North Tower (WTC 1), the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11 (which struck the North Tower), and the employees and a visitor of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing are around the perimeter of the North Pool. The names of the employees and visitors in the South Tower (WTC 2), the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 175 (which struck the South Tower), the employees, visitors, and bystanders in the immediate vicinity of the North and South Towers, the first responders who died during rescue operations, the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 (which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania) and American Airlines Flight 77 (which struck the Pentagon), and the employees at the Pentagon are around the perimeter of the South Pool. Company names are not included, but company employees and visitors are listed together. Passengers on the four flights are listed under their flight numbers, and first responders with their units.
The process for arranging the names was finalized in a 2006 agreement, replacing an earlier plan to arrange the names randomly. According to Edith Lutnick (executive director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund), "Your loved ones' names are surrounded by the names of those they sat with, those they worked with, those they lived with and, very possibly, those they died with."
The six adult victims of the 1993 bombing are memorialized on Panel N-73 at the North Pool. The phrase "and her unborn child" follows the names of ten pregnant women who died on 9/11 and one who died in the 1993 attack.
The Survivor Tree
A callery pear tree recovered from the rubble at the World Trade Center site in October 2001 was later called the "Survivor Tree". When the -tall tree was recovered, it was badly burned and had one living branch. The tree had been planted during the 1970s near buildings four and five, in the vicinity of Church Street. Then-Memorial president Joe Daniels described it as "a key element of the memorial plaza's landscape".
In November 2001, the tree was moved by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to the Arthur Ross Nursery in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx for care. It was then replanted in the Bronx on November 11, 2001. The tree was not expected to survive, but it showed signs of new growth the following spring. Although the memorial planning team intended to include the Survivor Tree, its permanent location was unknown at the time.
Still under the care of the Bronx nursery, the tree was replanted without significant damage in March 2010 after it was uprooted by a storm. After the replanting, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said: "Again, we and the tree refused to throw in the towel. We replanted the tree, and it bounced back immediately."
The Survivor Tree has become a symbol of hope and rebirth; according to Arthur Ross Nursery manager Richie Cabo, "It represents all of us." In an August 29, 2011 Port Authority press release (after Hurricane Irene), Daniels said: "True to its name, the Survivor Tree is standing tall at the Memorial." Keating Crown (a survivor of the attacks) said, "It reminds us all of the capacity of the human spirit to persevere." A Place of Remembrance: Official Book of the National September 11 Memorial describes the tree as "a reminder of the thousands of survivors who persevered after the attacks".
In December 2010, the tree, then tall, was returned to the World Trade Center site in a ceremony attended by Bloomberg, city officials (including Parks and Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe and Port Authority executive director Chris Ward), survivors and rescue and recovery workers. Although the tree is a prominent part of the memorial, six other "survivor trees" have been planted near New York City Hall and the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge. Of these survivor trees, three are callery pears and three are little-leaf lindens.
Memorial Glade
In May 2018, plans were revealed for a path through a "memorial glade" at the National September 11 Memorial. The glade and path honors first responders who later got sick or died after inhaling toxins at the World Trade Center site. According to 9/11 Memorial & Museum president Alice Greenwald and former Daily Show host Jon Stewart, the path was to be located on the southwest side of the memorial plaza, at the approximate site of a temporary ramp that first responders used during the cleanup effort. The path includes six large battered stones that, in the words of Michael Arad, "appear to jut up and out of the plaza as if violently displaced, and convey strength and resistance". Several pieces of debris from the original World Trade Center were also placed along the path. The glade opened on May 24, 2019.
The Sphere
The Sphere, a monumental cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig, was commissioned for the old World Trade Center and completed in 1971. It stood on the Austin J. Tobin Plaza until the September 11 attacks. The sculpture was damaged but survived the attacks and was relocated to Liberty Park, adjacent to the Memorial, in 2017.
Controversies surrounding the Memorial
Mohammad Salman Hamdani
Although victims'-family groups agreed that names would be grouped by workplace or other affiliation, NYPD cadet Mohammad Salman Hamdani was not included with the other first responders or the other victims whose remains were found in the wreckage of the North Tower. His name appears on the memorial's panel S-66 for World Trade Center victims (next to a blank space along the South Tower perimeter), with those who did not fit into the groups created by the memorial committee or who had a loose connection to the World Trade Center. Hamdani's mother, Talat, has campaigned for the Memorial to acknowledge her son as a police cadet and first responder. Hamdani received a full police-department funeral after his body was found (months after the attacks), and 204th Street in Bayside, Queens, the street on which he lived was renamed in his honor.
Arabic-language brochures
Although the memorial's brochures were initially translated into at least ten languages, these languages did not include Arabic. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) questioned this decision in letters to memorial directors, and ADC director of communications and advocacy Raed Jarrar said: "Our fear is that there is a political intention behind the exclusion". A memorial representative told the New York Post, "As Arabic-speaking visitors currently represent our 25th-largest group, Arabic translations are not yet among the initial foreign-language editions."
In 2015, the ADC made an official complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which had given hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to the September 11 Memorial through block grants to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The committee stated that the Memorial's decision to not publish Arabic-language brochures violated HUD's Limited English Proficiency rules for grantees. In December 2017, the ADC announced that the Memorial had signed a settlement agreement whereby its commemorative guide would be translated into Arabic and made available.
Museum
The September 11 Museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014, and opened to the public on May 21. Its collection includes more than 40,000 images, 14,000 artifacts, more than 3,500 oral recordings, and over 500 hours of video.
History
The underground museum has artifacts from September 11, 2001, including steel from the Twin Towers (such as the Last Column, the last piece of steel to leave Ground Zero in May 2002).
In December 2011, museum construction halted temporarily due to disputes between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation over responsibility for infrastructure costs. On March 13, 2012, talks on the issue began, and construction resumed on September 10, 2012. After a number of false opening reports, it was announced that the museum would open to the public on May 21, 2014.
The museum was dedicated on May 15, 2014. In attendance were a range of dignitaries, from President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to former mayors David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg and then-mayor Bill de Blasio. During the hour-long ceremony LaChanze sang "Amazing Grace", which she dedicated to her husband Calvin Gooding, who was killed in the World Trade Center attack. During the five days between its dedication and the public opening, over 42,000 first responders and family members of 9/11 victims visited the museum.
An opening ceremony for the museum was held on May 21, during which 24 police officers and firefighters unfurled the restored national 9/11 flag before it was brought into the museum for permanent display. The gates surrounding the museum were then taken down, marking their first removal since the attacks. Opening day tickets quickly sold out. Despite the museum's design to evoke memories without additional distress, counselors were available during its opening due to the large number of visitors.
Design
Designed by Davis Brody Bond, the museum is about below ground and accessible through a pavilion designed by Snøhetta. The National September 11 Memorial Museum encloses of publicly accessible space. The pavilion has a deconstructivist design, resembling a partially collapsed building (mirroring the attacks), and houses two "tridents" from the Twin Towers. One of the museum's walls is an exposed side of the slurry wall retaining the Hudson River, which remained intact through the September 11 attacks. About half of what Daniel Libeskind originally wanted to preserve of the wall is visible in the museum.
Other Ground Zero artifacts include wrecked emergency vehicles (including a fire engine deformed from the collapse), pieces of metal from all seven World Trade Center buildings, recordings of survivors and first responders (including 911 calls, pictures of all victims, photographs from the wreckage, and other media detailing the destruction [including the crashes, collapse, fires, those who jumped, and the cleanup]). The Waterford Crystal "Hope for Healing" panels from the Times Square Ball for New Year's Eve 2002—which were inscribed with the names of emergency organizations and countries that had taken casualties in the attacks—were also donated to the museum's collection.
The museum is designed to evoke memories without additional distress, particularly to first responders and the victims’ families.
The Huffington Post wrote that "walking through the museum is like being transported back to the turmoil, destruction and anguish of 9/11. Exhibits express the disbelief and heartache of New York and the nation."
Controversies surrounding the Museum
Little Syria
A neighborhood that was once called Little Syria, a center of Christian Arab immigrant life in the United States beginning in the 1880s, once existed just south of the site of the World Trade Center. The cornerstone of St. Joseph's Lebanese Maronite Church was found under the rubble, next to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at 157 Cedar Street. Both congregations were founded by Christians who had fled Ottoman oppression in the Middle East. Activists lobbied for the Museum to include a permanent exhibit about the neighborhood to "help the thousands of tourists who visit the site to understand that immigrants from Ottoman lands have played a patriotic role in the country's history," arguing that it was important to memorialize the multiethnic character of "Little Syria." The old Christian Syrian neighborhood was demolished in the 1940s due to the construction of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel.
Museum operation
General admission tickets to the museum are $33, a price which has raised concerns. Michael Bloomberg agreed, encouraging people to "write your congressman" for more federal funding.
When the museum opened to victim families and first responders on May 15, 2014, anger by some that it was profiting from souvenirs considered in poor taste was widely covered. Souvenir proceeds would fund the museum and memorial. On May 29, 2014, a U.S.-shaped cheese platter was among items removed for sale, and it was announced that all items sold would be reviewed by victim families for suitability.
Families were further angered after a May 20, 2014 black-tie, VIP cocktail party for donors at the museum. Among the 60 attendees were former mayor Michael Bloomberg and representatives of Condé Nast. Family members objected to a party near unidentified remains; the sister of victim Robert Shay, Jr. tweeted, "Did you enjoy having drinks on top of my brother's grave last night?" Shay and dozens of other visitors were angered that first responders were turned away from the museum the previous day while staff prepared for the party. She said, "I am outraged that I can't visit my brother's final resting place without an appointment but people like Mike Bloomberg can wine and dine there whenever they want. This memorial and museum is sacred ground and last night it was desecrated." A retired FDNY fire marshal said, "You don't have cocktail parties at a cemetery." A mid-2014 proposal to open a Danny Meyer cafe in the museum's atrium was criticized.
Placement of unidentified remains
In an early-morning ceremony on May 10, 2014, the long-unidentified remains of 1,115 victims were transferred from the city medical examiner to Ground Zero, where they would be placed in a space in the bedrock below ground as part of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Reaction from the victims' families to the move was divided, with some supporting the decision and others calling the location inappropriate. Among the latter was FDNY Lt. James McCaffrey, the brother-in-law of 9/11 victim and firefighter Orio Palmer, who called a ground-level tomb a more dignified location: "The decision to put the human remains of the 9/11 dead in this basement is inherently disrespectful and totally offensive." McCaffrey said that the remains deserved a prominence equal to that of the Memorial's trees and pools, and that the ceremony was held early in the morning because of opposition to the decision.
Withdrawn proposals
Two centers were proposed and withdrawn from the World Trade Center Memorial plan in 2005:
The International Freedom Center – a think tank intended to draw attention to battles for freedom throughout history. World Trade Center Memorial Foundation member Deborah Burlingame wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the center would have a mission with no direct connection to the events of September 11 and might criticize American policy. Right-wing blogs and commentators heavily criticized the center until Governor George Pataki withdrew support for it.
The Drawing Center Art Gallery at the World Trade Center – an art gallery that was in SoHo at the time.
Plans called for the Freedom Center to share space with the Drawing Center in a building known as the Cultural Center. Of the dispute over the proposed centers, one New York Times editorial argued that the IFC's opponents made trivial and unconvincing suggestions that both the IFC and the "cultural component" of architect Daniel Libeskind's plans would somehow diminish the scope of the Memorial Museum, and noted that the proposal for reducing the size of one of the centers had failed to consider the emotional impact of the space.
Gallery
Other 9/11 memorials
In addition to the one at Ground Zero, a number of other memorials have been built by communities across the United States. Many are built around remnants of steel from the Twin Towers which have been donated by a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey program; over 1,000 pieces of World Trade Center steel have been distributed.
See also
List of national memorials of the United States
Memorials and services for the September 11 attacks
Allison Gilbert, journalist and voice of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum audio tour
Pamela Stafford, creator of New Hope mural
Casualties of the September 11 attacks
The Outsider (2021 film)
References
External links
Photos of the memorial (archived 30 January 2013)
The 9/11 memorial – Interview and footage of the WTC site
Google Virtual Tour of the National September 11 Museum
Michael Arad 9/11 Memorial Papers at N-YHS
Museums established in 2014
Cemeteries in Manhattan
History museums in New York City
Tourist attractions in Manhattan
Memorials for the September 11 attacks
Monuments and memorials in Manhattan
Museums in Manhattan
Public benefit corporations in New York (state)
World Trade Center
2014 establishments in New York City
West Side Highway
Individual trees in New York City
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Dong Zhuo
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Dong Zhuo () (c. 140s - 22 May 192), courtesy name Zhongying, was a Chinese military general, politician, and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty. At the end of the reign of the Eastern Han, Dong Zhuo was a general and powerful minister of the imperial government. Originally from Liang Province, Dong Zhuo seized control of the imperial capital Luoyang in 189 when it entered a state of turmoil following the death of Emperor Ling of Han and a massacre of the eunuch faction by the court officials led by General-in-Chief He Jin.
Dong Zhuo subsequently deposed Liu Bian (Emperor Shao) and replaced him with his half-brother, the puppet Emperor Xian to make him become the de facto ruler of China in the boy-emperor's name. The Eastern Han dynasty regime survived in name only. Dong Zhuo's rule was brief and characterized by cruelty and tyranny. In the following year, a coalition of regional officials (cishi) and warlords launched a campaign against him. Failing to stop the coalition forces, Dong Zhuo sacked Luoyang and relocated further west to the former Western Han capital at Chang'an (modern Xi'an, Shaanxi province). He was assassinated soon after in 192 by his subordinate Lü Bu in a plot orchestrated by Interior Minister Wang Yun.
Early life
Dong Zhuo was born in Lintao, Longxi Commandery in the early 140s and was said to be a chivalrous youth who was physically strong and excelled in horseback archery. He travelled around the Qiang and Xiongnu regions and befriended many people.
Around 165, Dong Zhuo became a member of the Wulin corps (羽林郎, branch of the Imperial Guard) in the capital. Dong served under Zhang Huan's northern campaign to suppress an uprising of the Qiang. He eventually became a county magistrate in the Yanmen Commandery, a divisional commandant in the Shu Commandery, the Wu and Ji colonel in the Western Regions, inspector of Bing Province, and administrator of the Hedong Commandery.
At the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion in the summer of 184, Dong Zhuo was sent to take over command from Lu Zhi in preparation of the offense on Zhang Jue in Julu. Although his efforts during the rebellion were initially unsuccessful, with the arrival of Huangfu Song, victory was achieved in the winter against the peasants.
During the Liang Province Rebellion, the barbarians rebelled with local gentries Han Sui and Bian Zhang. Dong was reinstated and sent to suppress the rebels. While suppressing this rebellion, Dong Zhuo had several tactical and strategic disagreements with Huangfu Song; after Huangfu managed to achieve victory despite Dong's disagreements, Dong became resentful and fearful of him.
Dong Zhuo was given the title "General Who Smashes the Caitiffs" in 185, and "General of the Vanguard" in 188. He was promoted to be the governor of Bing Province, but he refused to take up his new post as he was unwilling to leave his men.
During the turbulent situation, the power of the Eastern Han dynasty was waning. Dong Zhuo then settled in Liang Province and built up his power.
Rise to power
Following the death of Emperor Ling of Han in 189, General-in-Chief He Jin ordered Dong Zhuo to lead troops into Luoyang to aid him in eliminating the powerful eunuch faction known as the Ten Attendants. Before Dong could arrive, He Jin was assassinated by the eunuchs and the capital city fell into a state of turmoil. The eunuchs took Liu Bian (Emperor Shao) hostage and fled from Luoyang. Dong Zhuo's army intercepted the eunuchs and brought the emperor back to the palace.
After He Jin's death, He Jin's step-brother, General of Chariots and Cavalry He Miao (), was killed by He Jin's subordinate Wu Kuang (吳匡) and Dong Zhuo's brother Dong Min, for sympathizing with the eunuch faction who assassinated He Jin.
After arriving in Luoyang, Dong Zhuo realized that his 3000 men were unequal to the numerous troops guarding the capital. Dong ordered some of his army to march out at night and re-enter the city at dawn, thus making it appear that he was receiving reinforcements. Dong then took command of the leaderless forces of He Jin and He Miao, convinced Lü Bu to join his ranks, and made himself Excellency of Works.
In 189, Dong deposed Emperor Shao and replaced him with Liu Xie (Emperor Xian). Dong declared himself chancellor, and became the head of the imperial court in Luoyang. However, in the words of Rafe de Crespigny, Dong Zhuo's "conduct towards the court and the imperial officials was bullying, oppressive and frequently bloody." This prompted Yuan Shao to form a coalition army with other regional officials in opposition to Dong Zhuo's military authority.
Coalition against Dong Zhuo
Dong Zhuo retreats to Chang'an
In the same year, regional officials and warlords around the country formed a coalition force and launched a punitive campaign against Dong Zhuo. In response, he sent a detachment to intercept the coalition vanguard led by Sun Jian, and ordered his son-in-law, Niu Fu, to supply the fortress of Mei with 30 years' worth of rations. After his subordinates Hua Xiong, Hu Zhen, and Lu Bu were defeated by Sun Jian at Yangren, Dong Zhuo sent Li Jue to propose a marriage between Sun's son and Dong's daughter, and split the empire between the two families. Sun Jian refused and prepared to attack Luoyang.
Dong evacuated everyone in Luoyang and moved them to Chang'an in the west. Before the relocation, Dong ordered his troops to ransack the tombs of the late Han emperors for treasures, seize valuables from the wealthy residents in Luoyang, and burn down the palaces and anything that might be useful to the coalition.
Then the chancellor assembled his forces in the city and personally led them to ambush the approaching army. Dong's ambush failed and he was driven back by Sun Jian. He ordered Lu Bu to lead a cavalry force back to the city to halt Sun's progress before he took flight for Mianchi. Sun Jian broke through one of the eastern gates and defeated Lu Bu, taking the city.
Defeat of the coalition
Despite taking Luoyang, the city was so heavily damaged that Sun Jian chose to retreat rather than to try to hold it.
Dong Zhuo then sent his generals Li Jue, Guo Si, and Zhang Ji to the frontline against the eastern warlords. By this time the coalition had already fallen into disarray and internal bickering. The only ones who actively opposed Dong were the senior imperial officer, Zhu Jun and his old friend, Tao Qian. Tao, despite having a general alliance with Dong, sent 3,000 elite troops from Danyang to aid Zhu in the battle with Dong's forces at Zhongmu. Zhu was defeated. Li Jue and his comrades then raided the surrounding area around Chenliu and Yingchuan for slaves. Morale among the allied soldiers were low due to news of the ways in which Dong Zhuo would torture captives. Apparently he would have them tied up with fat-soaked clothes and start a fire from their foot. He left their heads unbound so he could enjoy their screams and watch their expressions while being tortured.
Rule of terror
Two months after he moved the capital, Dong Zhuo revived the title of Grand Master, an antiquated title once reinvigorated by Wang Mang, but scrapped in the Eastern Han. He appointed his younger brother Dong Min as General of the Left and gave official posts to several of his kin.
Dong Zhuo threw lavish banquets during which he would torture captured enemies by severing limbs, removing tongues and eyeballs, or burning them alive. His audience was said to have experienced a high degree of discomfort.
For Yuan Shao's role as leader of the coalition against him, Dong Zhuo had the entire Yuan clan in Luoyang wiped out. Within two years, thousands of public servants were wrongly accused and executed, and numerous commoners were kidnapped or killed. In order to purchase materials for further development of the Mei citadel, he had bells and bronze statues, among which were nine of the Twelve Metal Colossi, melted and recast into coins. However, the coins did not weigh the same, resulting in all copper cash being devalued.
Downfall and death
Dong Zhuo kept Lü Bu as a personal bodyguard and swore an oath as father and son. However, after an argument, Dong threw a hand-axe at Lü Bu, who dodged the weapon. Lü Bu's relationship with Dong Zhuo further deteriorated when Lü had an affair with a woman in Dong's harem.
In 192, with encouragement from Interior Minister Wang Yun, Lü Bu made his decision to kill Dong Zhuo. On the morning of May 22, 192, Lü greeted Dong at the palace gate with a dozen trusted men led by Cavalry Captain Li Su. Li stepped forward and stabbed Dong. Dong cried out for Lü Bu to save him, but Lü merely answered, "This is an imperial order," after which he delivered a fatal blow to Dong. It was recorded that Dong's corpse was left on the streets with a lit wick placed on his navel. The wick burned for several days on the fat of the corpse. It was said that the light from the flame could last for days. A special order stated that anyone who went forth to collect the body would be killed. However, three officials, including Cai Yong, still challenged the order and were executed. Meanwhile, all affiliates of the Dong clan, including Dong's 90-year-old mother, were put to death.
Legacy
After Dong Zhuo's death, several of his loyalists, such as Li Jue, Guo Si, Zhang Ji and Fan Chou, escaped on the belief that their allegiance to him would be considered treason. Wang Yun, who had taken control of the government, heard their appeal for pardon and said, "Of all those who should be forgiven, they are the exceptions." The four then planned to relinquish their positions and go into hiding. However, an advisor named Jia Xu suggested they should take this opportunity to launch a strike at Chang'an since the Liang faction was practically unscathed. The four then roused several-thousand core followers to attack Chang'an. Wang sent Xu Rong and Hu Zhen (former members of the Liang faction) to fight the Liang force en route, but Xu was killed in the first encounter and Hu joined the rebels, inflating the size of their army to 100,000 when they surrounded the capital. Lü Bu attempted to break the siege, but was defeated outside the city gate, and thus Chang'an fell into the hands of Dong Zhuo's followers. Emperor Xian was taken hostage and power in the court fell into the hands of the Liang faction once again.
Family
Father: Dong Junya (died 181)
Mother: Lady Dong (103–192), titled Lady of Chiyang, executed
Younger brother: Dong Min (died 192) – After Dong Zhuo backed Emperor Xian, Dong Min was appointed to the rank of Left General. After Lü Bu killed Dong Zhuo, Dong Min was labeled an accomplice and executed, and his head was put on public display
Nephew: Dong Huang (died 192) – born in Lintao County, Gansu, fathered by Dong Zhuó (董擢, note different character than his own) elder brother of Dong Zhuo, executed
Sons: Dong Zhuo had some infant sons who were enfeoffed and later presumably executed, and at least one son of his was born 171 but died earlier than 190
Granddaughter: Dong Bai (), born after 178, titled Lady of Weiyang. She was given her passage to adulthood ceremony and a grand title and lands at an unceremoniously young age despite a 50-year-old Zhu Jun's protests. For the grand ceremony, a platform was built to be five to six che – about 116 cm (3'10") or 139 cm (4'7") in modern conversions – and she rode in a blue-covered golden carriage as thousands of soldiers marched behind her. Dong Huang was said to have given her the seal personally. Dong Bai was presumably executed.
Grandson: born 186, executed
Daughter: married Niu Fu
Foster Son: Lü Bu
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a 14th-century historical novel by Luo Guanzhong, was a romanticization of the events that occurred before and during the Three Kingdoms era. Because the real-life Dong Zhuo was already much of a cruel and treacherous character, the novel probably could do little more to accentuate that treachery and cruelty. It did, however, on two occasions deviate from the history.
Dong Zhuo and the three sworn brothers
Dong Zhuo first appeared as early as late in Chapter 1. Being sent to quell the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Dong Zhuo was defeated by the rebel leader Zhang Jiao and the battle was turning into a rout.
The three newly sworn brothers, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, happened to be nearby. They then led their forces out to Dong Zhuo's rescue. Suddenly met with this new opposition, the rebels were swept off their feet and had to retreat.
After returning to camp, Dong Zhuo asked the three brothers what offices they currently held. And they replied that they held none. Dong Zhuo harrumphed and then ignored them. This angered Zhang Fei so much that he grabbed his sword and wanted to kill Dong Zhuo. He was however stopped by his two brothers, who suggested taking their service elsewhere. Thus was Dong Zhuo's life spared and the three brothers went their own way.
Dong Zhuo and Diaochan
Perhaps the most popular story about Dong Zhuo was the fictional love triangle involving Dong Zhuo, Lü Bu and Diaochan, which eventually led to the death of Dong Zhuo at the hands of his own adoptive son, Lü Bu.
After Dong Zhuo moved the capital to the more strategically sound Chang'an, Interior Minister Wang Yun started to contemplate a plot to assassinate the tyrant by using the petite Diaochan, a young singer who was brought up in his household but whom he had been treating like his own daughter, to plant the seed of dissension between Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu.
Inviting Lü Bu over one night, Wang Yun asked Diaochan to serve wine to the guest. Lü Bu was immediately seized by the girl's beauty. Well aware of this, Wang Yun then promised to marry Diaochan to the mighty warrior.
A few days later, however, Wang Yun laid a feast for Dong Zhuo and repeated the feat. Like Lü Bu, Dong Zhuo could not lift his eyes off Diaochan, who also displayed her prowess in song and dance. Dong Zhuo then brought Diaochan home and made her his concubine.
When Lü Bu heard about this early the next morning, he headed for Dong Zhuo's bedroom and peeped in through the window. There he saw Diaochan sitting up grooming her hair while Dong Zhuo was still asleep. Aware of Lü Bu's presence, Diaochan put up a sorrowful expression and pretended to wipe tears off her eyes with a handkerchief.
A similar incident recurred about a month later, but this time Dong Zhuo woke up in time to see Lü Bu staring fixedly at Diaochan. Lü Bu was then thrown out and forbidden from entering the house.
Then one day, while Dong Zhuo was holding a conversation with Emperor Xian, Lü Bu sneaked to his foster father's residence and met with Diaochan in the Fengyi Pavilion (). Weeping, Diaochan pleaded with Lü Bu to rescue her from Dong Zhuo. Placing his halberd aside, Lü Bu held Diaochan in his arms and comforted her with words.
Right then, Dong Zhuo returned to find the duo in the pavilion. The startled Lü Bu turned to flee. Dong Zhuo grabbed the halberd and gave chase. Being too slow, Dong Zhuo could not catch up with the agile Lü Bu. He then hurled the halberd at Lü Bu but the latter fended it off and got away.
After the incident, Lü Bu became increasingly displeased with Dong Zhuo. The displeasure was further inflamed by Wang Yun, who suggested subtly that Lü Bu kill Dong Zhuo. Lü Bu was eventually persuaded.
The conspirators sent Li Su to fetch Dong Zhuo from his castle in Meiwu () under the pretense that the emperor intended to abdicate the throne to the warlord. The overjoyed Dong Zhuo then came to the palace gate, where his troops were barred from entering. As Dong Zhuo's carriage neared the palace building, soldiers loyal to Wang Yun escorted Dong Zhuo to the trap they set. Then suddenly a general stabbed Dong Zhuo.
Injured only in the arms, Dong Zhuo then cried out for Lü Bu to save him. Lü Bu walked over and impaled Dong Zhuo's throat with his halberd, proclaiming, "I have an imperial decree to slay the rebel!"
In popular culture
Animation
The character Toutaku Chuuei (Dong Zhuo Zhongying written in onyomi) of the anime short series, Ikki Tousen, is based roughly on Dong Zhuo.
Comics
Dong Zhuo appears as a character in the Hong Kong manhua The Ravages of Time illustrated by Chan Mou.
Dong Zhuo appears as a major antagonist in the manga series Sōten Kōro, which is loosely based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Games
Dong Zhuo is featured as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video game series.
In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering there is a card named Dong Zhou, the Tyrant, in the Portal: Three Kingdoms set.
Dong Zhuo is a major faction leader in the strategy game Total War: Three Kingdoms.
See also
Lists of people of the Three Kingdoms
Notes
References
Chen, Shou (3rd century). Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi).
Fan, Ye (5th century). Book of the Later Han (Houhanshu).
Luo, Guanzhong (14th century). Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi).
Pei, Songzhi (5th century). Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi zhu).
Sima, Guang (1084). Zizhi Tongjian.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica., Xia, Z,H., Das, D. (2021). Dong Zhuo. Britannica . Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dong-Zhuo
Evans,M. (2003). Dong Zhuo (Zhongyin). Biography (SGYY). Retrieved from: http://kongming.net/novel/sgyy/dongzhuo.php (Sanguo Yanyi)(Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
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2nd-century deaths
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Han dynasty chancellors
Han dynasty warlords
People from Dingxi
Political office-holders in Shanxi
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes%20Risborough
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Princes Risborough
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Princes Risborough () is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end of which is at West Wycombe. The A4010 road follows this route from West Wycombe through the town and then on to Aylesbury.
Historically it was both a manor and an ecclesiastical parish, of the same extent as the manor, which comprised the present ecclesiastical parish of Princes Risborough (excluding Ilmer) and also the present ecclesiastical parish of Lacey Green, which became a separate parish in the 19th century. It was long and narrow (a "strip parish"), taking in land below the Chiltern scarp, the slope of the scarp itself and also land above the scarp extending into the Chiltern hills. The manor and the parish extended from Longwick in the north through Alscot, the town of Princes Risborough, Loosley Row and Lacey Green to Speen and Walters Ash in the south.
Since 1934 the civil parish of Princes Risborough (formerly the same as the ecclesiastical parish) has included the town of Princes Risborough, the village of Monks Risborough (but not the outlying parts) and part of Horsenden but has excluded Longwick. It is within the Wycombe district of Buckinghamshire and operates as a town council within Wycombe district.
The town is overlooked by the Whiteleaf Cross, a chalk cross carved into the hillside that's just northeast of the town. Though the cross itself lies just above the village with the same name, the landmark is located within the area of Monks Risborough.
Name
The name 'Risborough' comes from the Old English hrisen beorgas meaning 'brushwood-covered hills'.Hrisen, an adjective meaning brushwood-covered derived from hris meaning brushwood or scrub, and beorgas which meant hills. The spelling varies in the documents where the name is found.
In the 13th century, it is found as Magna Risberge (Great Risborough), distinguished from Parva Risberge which was (Little Risborough) now Monks Risborough. Later it became Earls Risborough due to the manor being held by different Earls of Cornwall between 1242 and 1344. At some point after the Black Prince's death, it became Prince Risberge and later Princes Risborough noted for the various Princes that held the manor during the Wars of the Roses.
Risborough 1066–1086
Great Risborough, as it was then known, had been a Saxon village held by Edward the Confessor. As a royal manor it could be used by the King to make financial provision for members of the royal family or others whom the King at any point might wish to reward. The current land where the royal manor once stood (now a car park known as The Mount) bares traces of banks and entrenchments, enclosed by a moat and is originally believed to have been a Saxon encampment. The land was then held shortly by Harold Godwinson before he was defeated at the Battle of Hastings.
Before 1066 the land of the manor and village only paid £10 at face value (i.e. without weighing the coins). Furthermore, a burgess of Oxford paid 2s and a saltboiler of Droitwich an amount left blank. A freeman held 3 virgates and had the right to sell his land, though it was said that he served the sheriff. At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the Manor of Risborough was an extensive complex of a royal manor, stud farm, deer park and a large fishery. There most likely was an earlier church on the current site of St Mary's Church today. It was part of the Hundred of Risborough, which also comprised Bledlow, Horsenden and Monks Risborough.
In 1086, the land was assessed at 30 hides both before and after the conquest, of which 20 hides related to the demesne. The manor had land for 24 ploughs, four of them in the lord's demesne. There were 30 villagers and they together with 12 bordars (cottagers or small holders) had 20 ploughs. There were 3 slaves. There were 2 mills, worth 14s 8d a year, meadow for 7 ploughteams (generally taken as needing 8 oxen each) and woodland sufficient for 1,000 pigs. In total it paid £47 a year in white silver, less 16d.
Risborough as a Royal Manor
After the Norman Conquest, the local woods on the land of the Manor were privatized under the forest law and formed part of the lands of the new King, William the Conqueror who granted Risborough's royal manor as one of 48 Buckinghamshire manors to the feudal barony of Long Crendon held by Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville for his many years of loyal service. In 1085, lordship of the manor of Risborough passed to his son Walter Giffard, 1st Earl of Buckingham. By the 12th century it was still held by the Giffard family, namely Walter Giffard, 2nd Earl of Buckingham, when he died without issue in 1164 it reverted to the Crown.
It was then granted to the Constable of Normandy, Robert de Humeto, who obtained a charter from King Henry II, and remained in his family until about 1242. King Henry III then granted the manor to his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, it was then meant to pass to Richard's eldest son Henry of Almain but when he was murdered before his father died, Richard ordered his estates be passed to his second son, Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall. When Edmund died childless in 1300, his estates including the royal manor of what was now called Earls Risborough were escheated to the Crown.
Between 1302 and 1305 King Edward I granted it to Queen Margaret for her life, subject to the rights of Edmund's widow Margaret, Countess of Cornwall, in one third part for life as part of her dower. King Edward II gave the reversion (subject to these life interests) to his unpopular favourite, Piers Gaveston and his wife, but this grant was surrendered in the same year. Queen Margaret died in 1318. In 1327, when Edward III succeeded to the throne at the age of fifteen, he granted the manor to his mother, Queen Isabella for her services during his father's reign. The King's brother, John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, also had an interest for a time.
The King then granted the manor to his eldest son, Edward Prince of Wales, known later (though not during his lifetime) as the Black Prince. He held the manor for 32 years from 1344 to 1376 when he died.
On the death of the Black Prince the manor passed to his son, Richard of Bordeaux, who became King Richard II in the following year. He granted it to Lewis de Clifford who held it for his life. When it reverted to King Henry IV, the manor passed through the royal family for many years who granted it to his son Henry, Prince of Wales, who became King Henry V in 1413. It then passed to Henry VI and was part of the dower of his Queen, Margaret of Anjou. Later it was held by his son, Edward, and then appears to have remained vested in the Crown until Edward VI granted it to his half-sister, the Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth for her life.
Subsequently, James I held it and it formed part of the dower of his Queen, Anne of Denmark. Later again it was held by Prince Charles, later King Charles I, who in 1628 sold it to the City of London in part satisfaction of the large debts of the Crown. Thus, after more than 600 years, the manor's long connection with the Crown of England finally came to an end. Subsequently, the manor was bought and sold in the market and changed hands from time to time but its later manorial history is only a record of commercial transactions.
Risborough under the Black Prince
King Edward III granted the Manor of Risborough in 1344 to his eldest son, Edward Prince of Wales, known posthumously as the Black Prince. He was 14 years of age and he held the manor for 32 years until his death in 1376. Edward III did not die until 1377 and the Prince never became king. It was after the Black Prince's death that the market town became known as Prince Risberge later Princes Risborough.
At the time when the Prince became lord of the manor of Risborough there was a manor house and hall on the west side of the church (where there is now a car park), which old sources describe as his "palace". To some extent, the manor was laid out on much the same lines as other manor houses (also called "palaces" at the time) like Much Hadham Palace in Hertfordshire and Woking Palace in Surrey and possibly the manor at Watlington which also belonged to the Black Prince. The manor house and grounds may have been extensive but it was hardly palatial and might be better described as a hunting lodge. The Prince seems never to have spent an extended period of time there. The nearest place where he lived for any length of time was Berkhamsted Castle, where he stayed after his marriage to Joan Countess of Kent from November 1361 to January 1362 and occasionally at other times.
By the 14th century, the Manor was known for its Royal stud for breeding horses and hunting. The main purpose of the Prince's visits to Risborough is likely to have been to visit the stud and inspect and/or select stallions with such resounding names as Grisel, Tankarvill, Morel de Salesbirs.
Much of his adult life was spent on campaign in France, where he won the great victory of Poitiers in 1356. In July 1362 his father (Edward III) made him Prince of Aquitaine and he remained in that province until he returned to England in 1371, probably already a sick man. In 1346, when the Prince (aged 16) was about to leave with his father for his first campaign in France, which culminated in the battle of Crecy, a Council was set up to manage on his behalf his various manors and lordships throughout the country. The transactions of this Council were recorded and have been printed and published by the Public Record Office. Many decisions affecting Risborough were made by this Council rather than by the Prince himself. They give us some insight into life at Risborough in the 14th century.
The manor was in the charge of a steward (not always resident there), but its day-to-day management was in the hands of the reeve, and there was a parker, responsible for the management of the park, and a keeper of the stud.
In November 1346 John de Alveton was appointed to be steward of the Prince's manors of Watlington and Risborough. In 1347 the keeper of the stud was Richard de Bekenesfield and he was ordered to render tithes due to the Abbot of Notley if there were sufficient foals of the year for the purpose. In the same year the Reeve had been ordered to pay money out of the profits of Risborough to make a new kitchen at the Prince's manor of Byfleet. In 1354 (in which year the Prince was at Berkhamsted) a piece of land in the Park was enclosed by the Prince and the Reeve (William Onyot) paid 18 shillings for it. The Prince may well have been there in person that year for the Treasurer of his household was ordered "by command of the Prince himself" to make payment for various things taken for the Prince's use and expended in the Prince's household at Risborough "after verifying that the same are really due". These included a total of 186 gallons of ale and "to John Dayly of Risborough 17 pence for underwood and fuel for the fire".
In 1359 Sir Peter de Lacey the Prince's clerk and receiver-general was ordered to provide hay, oats, shoes and litter until further order for two destriers (warhorses) which Sir Baldwin Bottecourt had lent to the Prince to be stallions at Risborough and Cippenham and to pay 3d a day to a groom that keeps them.
There seems to have been a great storm in 1362, when the Reeve was to allow the Parker to sell all the wood which had fallen in the Park except the great ash, if its value did not exceed £4.
In April 1364 the Reeve had to make provision for a grey courser which was sent to cover the mares at Risborough and in July to pay £10.10s for a black stallion for the same purpose. Also in 1364 the Reeve was to cause the garret over the gate of the Prince's Park to be demolished and pulled down, as it was reported very weak and ruinous, and to use the timber and other materials to build a lodge near the gate. He was also to flush out the ditches round the manor and to sell as dearly as possible all the large fish caught there, keeping the small fish as stock.
The Prince died at Westminster on 8 June 1376 aged 46.
Churches
St Mary's Church
The church in its present general form dates from the 13th century. There was an earlier small church, probably just a small chancel and a nave without aisles, which would have been in roughly the same position as the present nave. The church was enlarged and improved from the 13th to the 15th centuries as described below. By the 19th century it was in bad condition and was extensively restored and partly rebuilt in 1867–68. The tower and spire was rebuilt in 1907–08 and parish rooms added in the 21st century.
Nave and chancel
The church was enlarged by the addition of the nave arcades and aisles in the early or mid-13th century The arches at the western end of each arcade were added in the late 13th or early 14th century, those on the south being later. The columns are octagonal with plain chamfered bases and moulded capitals. There were originally deep solid responds at the eastern end of each arcade (altered to make a narrower additional arch in the 19th century). There are now seven arches on each side.
The chancel was rebuilt about 1290 and the two-light window in the north wall is of that date (much restored) with a modern quatrefoil above. The two windows in the south wall of the chancel are probably of about 1340. The east window is modern.
In the south aisle the window at the east end is of about 1300. The easternmost window in the south wall is "a fine triplet of lancets", "a very remarkable window" and has attached and detached shafts of Purbeck marble making an open arcade of three bays. This is dated to the early 13th century. The other window in this aisle (on the western side of the door) is of about 1340.
Below the windows in the south aisle are four 14th-century recesses with ogee heads which once probably held tombs.
At the end of the south wall of the south aisle, next to the altar, are a piscina (a shelf on which the sacred vessels were washed after Mass) and a sedile (a stone seat for the priest), both in the decorated gothic style of the 14th century but badly damaged. These were always found on the right side of an altar and show that there was an altar at the end of this aisle in the Middle Ages. This piscina has no drain but there is a stone shelf above it.
In the north aisle are four modern windows from the 19th-century rebuilding of this wall, using some old materials. The 14th-century door on the north side was formerly blocked but now serves as the entrance to the new parish rooms which were built at the start of the 21st century on the north side of the church.
Tower and spire
The church originally had a tower with a spire above it, probably built in the 15th century, but this spire fell down in 1803, damaging the church and destroying a peal of bells. A new stone spire was built, octagonal in shape, and described in 1862 as covered with galvanised iron. In 1907–08 a new tower and spire were built from the foundations, designed by John Oldrid Scott.
In 1765 the Earl of Buckingham gave the rectory of Princes Risborough to the manor at Nutley Abbey in Long Crendon, to which it is still attached today.
St Teresa's Church
This domed church, on the corner of the Aylesbury Road and New Road, was designed by Giuseppe Rinvolucri and built in 1937–38. Pevsner & Williamson explain that in plan it is a triangle interpenetrating a hexagon, with an apse in the middle of each side of the triangle.
Inside the church there are two painted ceramic statues, of St Teresa of Lisieux and St Joseph, by Richard Guino. The altar relief is also by him. The Stations of the Cross are timber reliefs (1990–1) by Stephen Foster, which Pevsner & Williamson considered of high quality. An altar rail (1957) by Rosamund Fletcher now serves as a screen to St Teresa's chapel.
Baptist Church
The Baptist church, off Bell Street, with its own burial ground, dates from 1804 to 1805. It is built of flint with brick dressings with arched windows and has a hipped slated roof. The interior has galleries on three sides with the original baptistery under one of them.
The history of the Baptists in Princes Risborough began about 1701, when some members of the General Baptist church at Ford (later moved to Cuddington) seceded for doctrinal reasons and established a Particular Baptist meeting there. A meeting house was erected in 1707. (The Particular or Peculiar Baptists were closer to Calvinism than the General Baptists) After the present building had been erected in 1804–5, it was extended and re-arranged in 1814. The galleries were enlarged in 1833 and a vestry was added in 1871.
In the mid-20th century two sides were rendered with pebble-dash and a new entrance and porch added in the front. Extensive additions with additional rooms have been made later, adjoining the original building.
Manor House
Medieval
In medieval times, from the 13th to the 15th centuries, Manor House was a building on the south western side of the church surrounded by an earthen rampart and a moat, most of the site being now occupied by the Mount car park (the area was formerly known as the Mount). Only the base of some of the walls remained from the old building and these were partially excavated in 1955 before the car park was constructed. The remains of the building lie under the far side of the car park (farthest from the church) extending from north west to south east, parallel with the fence at the end. The whole building was about long with a minimum width of . Most of the remains had been pillaged for building material over the centuries and there was only time for a partial excavation in 1955, with the result that the excavator could only reach provisional conclusions about the nature of the building and the uses of the rooms.
Most of the remaining walls were high or less and of dry-set flint and chalk. They were only 1 foot to 1 foot 6 inches (30 to 46 cm) in width (with offsets) in shallow foundation trenches. The excavator thought that the upper part of the walls were probably made of wychert, a local building material still existing in some buildings particularly at Haddenham and consisting of chalk mud mixed with straw which would set very solid. The roofs may have been partly thatched but part must have been tiled, because a fair number of roofing tiles were found spread over the site. Looking at the building from the church side, the excavator thought that on the left was probably a two-story building which would have been the accommodation reserved for the lord of the manor. The room on the first floor would have been the "great chamber" serving as bedroom and sitting room. The great hall probably extended in front of this part of the building towards the church, but this was not found or excavated. On the right of this room was probably the kitchen and beyond that more living accommodation, perhaps for the steward, with a smaller hall extending in front of it. This was roughly in the centre of the building. The excavator considered whether this might be the great hall but thought it probably too small. Beyond it to the right was a range of single storey rooms.
The remainder of the area could not be excavated, but trial holes indicated that most of it may have been paved with cobbles.
The only positive evidence of date was a somewhat worn penny of Edward I, struck at the Bristol mint in 1280–1, which might have been lost at any time up to about 1300. The majority of the pottery found was datable to the 14th century.
The indications were that the buildings were first erected in the 13th century, perhaps in the reign of Henry III (1207–72), that they were in use throughout the 14th century (Edward II, the Prince of Wales during the reign of Edward III and Richard II) but went out of use at the end of that century or in the early 15th century.
Another building may have been erected on some part of the site at a later date, because there are documentary references to such a building in the reign of Elizabeth I and its remains are said to have been demolished around 1800, but there is no certain information about this.
Modern
The house now known as the Manor House stands opposite the east end of the church. It was formerly known as Brook or Brooke House and the name was only changed in the late 19th century.
The house is first mentioned (as Broke House) in the reign of Elizabeth I in a grant dated 1589, but this was an earlier building, though some parts of it are incorporated in the present house. Arthur Oswald thought that the interior wall parallel to the front outside wall and fireplaces in two of the bedrooms may come from the Elizabethan house. The house was substantially enlarged and rebuilt in the mid-17th century.
Inigo Jones had brought the classical renaissance style to England in the early 17th century. His followers took the new classical style into the country, characterised by its symmetry and proportion and such classical elements as pilasters, while wide eaves took the place of a cornice. Often a bricklayer would also be the principal contractor, controlling the other trades, and he could avoid the necessity to employ a mason for stonework if he could produce the classical elements in brick. So in this house we have brick pilasters, one above the other, with capitals and bases shaped in brickwork. The rebuilding seems to have been carried out in two stages, though without a long gap between them. There is a straight joint in the brickwork to the left of the second pilaster on the north side. In front of this the bricks are laid in English bond, but Flemish bond is used towards the back, indicating that this part was built a little later.
The house is built of red brick with two storeys and an attic. The frontage has five windows, widely spaced and separated by brick pilasters in two orders corresponding to the ground and first floors. Originally there was a large central attic window of 'Dutch' type (as can be seen in the woodcut from Lipscomb's History of the County of Buckingham (1847)). This was replaced by three dormer windows in the late 19th century.
Inside the house the staircase and some of the panelling and fireplaces in the hall and drawing room date from the 17th-century re-building. The oak staircase opens at the back of the hall through a 17th-century arch and ascends two storeys round a square well. Arthur Oswald describes it as of Jacobean type but likely to have been made by a country joiner at the time of the Commonwealth or Charles II. Pevsner & Williamson, who call it "spectacular", describe it as made in the mid-17th century but in the strapwork tradition.
Arthur Oswald thought that the entrance doorway and sash windows were probably 18th-century alterations made in Georgian times, but Pevsner and Williamson think they might be part of Lord Rothschild's alterations in 1886.
By the mid-19th century the house was very dilapidated and part was being used for storing grain. Lord Rothschild bought it in the 1880s and arranged for it to be renovated and put into repair. This work started in 1886, but there is no record of exactly what was done. It was probably after the completion of this work that the name was changed to the Manor House. In 1926 later members of the Rothschild family gave the house to the National Trust and it was then further modernised under the direction of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings. It is usually let to a tenant and some rooms can be seen by prior appointment.
Sir Peter Lely at Brook House
Several books say that Sir Peter Lely lived in Princes Risborough at Brook House and that he bought the house in 1671. This is not likely to be true. Lely was a wealthy and fashionable London painter (court painter from 1661), very busy, with a house at Covent Garden, where he had an impressive collection of pictures. Samuel Pepys, after visiting him in 1667, wrote that he was a "mighty proud man.....and full of state." It is highly improbable that such a man would have chosen or indeed would have been able to live in a small village in the Chilterns, from London. He had more work in London than he could easily manage. His wife died in childbirth in 1674 and was buried at St Pauls, Covent Garden, where Lely himself was buried after his death in 1680. His estate comprised his house in Covent Garden and investment properties in Surrey and Lincolnshire. No biography of the painter mentions a house at Princes Risborough.
This story came from a misunderstanding of a transaction in 1671, when he was recorded as purchasing a "fee farm rent" issuing out of the Manor of Princes Risborough. This was a perpetual rentcharge or ground rent secured on the rents and profits of the manor (not the Manor House, which was then Brook House). In other words, it was like a financial instrument securing an annual income. He would have bought it as an investment and would have received the income at stated intervals. It is very unlikely that he ever went near Princes Risborough himself.
Market and Fairs
The right to hold a weekly market and two yearly fairs was granted by King Henry VIII in 1523. The market was to be held on Wednesdays and the fairs on the eve, day and morrow of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (8 September) and on the eve, day and morrow of St George's Day (23 April). The days were changed from time to time, the market to Saturday before 1792 and to Thursday in 1888. In 1792 there was only one fair (6 May) but the second was revived and by 1908 was held on 21 October.
The fact the town has a weekly market has come to define the parish with the words 'A Medieval Market Town since 1376', the very same year the Black Prince (the town's most notable Lord of the Manor) died.
Shops and Factories around the Parish
For the past 100 years, the parish has also been well known for its independent developments both big and small. The big factory companies located just outside the town that provided much employment to people moving out of London after the Second World War were: Molins Tobacco Machinery Company, Forest Products Research Laboratory, Risborough Furniture, Enfield Upholstery, Austin Hoy and Leo Laboratories Ltd.
More recently Princes Risborough's outskirt factory premises include Hypnos Beds, who have been granted royal warrants since 1929 were originally located in factory premises near the Railway Station they have since relocated to premises on the Longwick Road and continue to produce beds and mattresses. In 1920, Ercol Furniture set up premises in High Wycombe but after 82 years moved to Risborough in 2002 on new premises down Summerleys Road.
The smaller companies were mainly the ones based in the town and some have held the same locations since the early-20th century and continue to be a growing source of employment:
The George & Dragon Pub, was a former Coaching Inn that has existed on the same site for several hundred years. There's an old archway leading from the High Street to the back of the pub where all the old coaches, pony traps and wagons were parked. It has since been sold under new management, renovated and reopened for public enjoyment.
The Copper Urn Café was next to the archway of the George & Dragon, and was a teenage hangout back in the 20th century. It has since been a cookery shop but the company have relocated to Duke Street, a small lane leading into the High Street and the premises is now run by the Kado Gift Store who have other premises within the High Street.
W.J Hawkins used to be next to the café. The shop was a tobacconist and confectioners. By the early 21st century the shop was then divided, half was a chemist belonging to Lloyds Pharmacy and the other half was used as the town's Post Office. The whole shop is now a larger chemist assisting a much smaller chemist up the High Street. The town's Post Office moved to a small store in Horns Lane just off the High Street near the town's main traffic lights.
The Cross Keys Practice, was established at their current premises on the High Street in 1918. Before the First World War the building was a second Coaching Inn on the High Street with the name Cross Keys Hotel with stables at the back of building which have now been refurbished into the independent Cross Keys House. A small car park is also located at the back of the surgery.
Wainwright's Shoe Shop was founded by Albert Wainwright in 1919. In about 1936 the business moved to premises along the Summerleys Road by the station, before moving round the corner to a large retail unit in Station Road before the War (this retail unit has now been demolished). In 1953 they moved next to a small delicatessen which was at the time next door to the Practice but when that small shop closed it became part of the shoe shop. They expanded in retail outlets to Great Missenden in 1947 and Beaconsfield in 1960 though the Missenden shop closed in 2008. It is still a family-run business, a great place of employment and has been providing Bucks with their trade for over 100 years.
Padley and Binns, was a chemist and optician shop next door to Wainwrights that provided a lot of the patients of the Cross Keys Practice with their prescriptive medicines. To this day it is still a chemist run by Lloyds Pharmacy.
Gillingwaters was a greengrocers next to the Padley and Binns that many people of the town started their career with. The shop is now home to Cast Iron Range Cookers Ltd which provide traditional looking ovens, stoves and hobs.
Steels Bakery was a bakery store next to the Greengrocers. It was then called Speen Bakery for a while until the bakery business closed as a whole in some unknown year. The building then transformed into Top Wok Chinese Buffet and Restaurant that served the community with buffet orders and takeaways for the town in the early 21st century. Top Wok too closed and turned into Domino's Pizza soon after.
Between the old Bakery and Shaw Trust charity shop are the well-known florists The Daisy Chain who used to manage their business further up the High Street and Letsmart Property Management Ltd. Both shops are the style of original townhouses that would've belonged to families back in the 20th century.
What is now the Shaw Trust Charity Shop building originally was owned by Mr. George Ellis who had his own furniture and carpet store there. Families would pay weekly installments for products they would buy from Mr. Ellis as money was tight within the 20th century.
Granny's Pantry was a café next door to the Mr. Ellis' shop and was by far and away the people's most popular place in the town within the 20th century. Having relocated from premises in the Market Square in the mid-1960s, this small café adopted the style of the small Lyons Corner Houses which originated from war times. This small café was run by Mrs. Morris who always had a loyal staff supporting her. The building's latest incarnation is now the Cinnamon Lounge Indian Restaurant.
What is now the PR Photos shop building was a small ladies clothes shop called E & H's. As it was a very small shop every thing for sale used to be in one large drawer according to oral history. Next to this small shop is a larger house that was the solicitors, Lightfoot and Lownes. It is still the offices of the now independent Lightfoot Solicitors.
Next to this used to be a fine red brick townhouse with three chimneys on the roof. This was a similar style house to where the Daisy Chain florists is now. However when this large house was demolished the site was renovated into three separate shops all owned by the Co-op in the specific layout of an electrical store, groceries and chemist. Like Gillingwaters and Wainwrights it was a great source of teenage and adult employment over the years.
When all three shops closed, they were sold to different buyers and by the early 21st century, the shops had become the well-beloved The Book Shop, Henley Interiors, Alternative Tools and Art & Office. None of these four shops exist now and The Book Shop is now a WHSmith, the Henley Interiors shop is now a Costa Coffee outlet, Alternative Tools is an Oxfam Charity Shop and Art & Office is a Flame & Stone Pizza.
Modern times
The ecclesiastical parish of Princes Risborough today has approximately the same extent as the former manor and includes various hamlets scattered over the nearby Chiltern Hills. These include Alscot, Askett, Cadsden, Flowers Bottom, Loosley Row Lower North Dean, North Dean, Redland End, Speen, and Upper North Dean.
The 1841 census lists the population of the town as 926.
After the Second World War, and partly due to the employment growth, the town's housing community steadily increased. The new housing estates (known affectionately as the Trees and Fields estates) were built in the 1950s as council houses.
The town is home to Princes Risborough School. Known affectionately as the 'Top School' for its location, it is a co-educational secondary school that opened in 1957. It took over secondary education from the nearby Bell Street School (its location was down the hill, and is now retirement flats).
Since the reintroduction of the red kite to the Chiltern Hills, Princes Risborough has become an ideal place to view this bird of prey. They are often sighted above the town and surrounding areas.
Princes Risborough has been featured several times in films and television series (e.g. Jonathan Creek, Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders and Double First).
It is popular with commuters as it has excellent rail links to London and Birmingham.
Notable people and artists
Edward Stone, a cleric who discovered the active ingredient of aspirin, salicylic acid was born in the town.
Jabez West (1810–1884), a political reformer and temperance advocate, was born and raised in the town. The drinking fountain in Southwark Park commemorates his work in London.
Nigel Harrison, former musician of Blondie he was born in Stockport but grew up and went school in Princes Risborough.
Sarah Harding, singer and actress, from Girls Aloud was a former resident, living in Cadsden.
Jay Kay, musician, from Jamiroquai is a resident of Horsenden.
Martin and Paul Kelly, musicians, from indie-pop band East Village grew up in the town and formed the band in Risborough.
English indie-rock band Tiger originated from Princes Risborough.
Lee McQueen, winner of The Apprentice series 4.
Nicholas Parsons, broadcaster, was a resident in Ilmer until his death.
Amy Johnson, a pioneering aviatrix and the first woman to fly from England to Australia, lived in Princes Risborough between 1937 and 1938.
Sports and recreation
Motorsport: The Kop Hill Climb is one of the oldest hill climb events in England, originally running from 1910 to 1925, when it was shut down due to safety concerns. Changes in the law allowed the event to be brought back in 2009 as a celebration of both classic and modern motorsport. The modern event attracts thousands of spectators annually, with over 26,000 visitors in 2015, and has earned over £600,000 for charity to date. Celebrity patrons have included Mary Berry, Nicholas Parsons, and Jay Kay.
Cricket: Princes Risborough Cricket Club meets at the Windsor Playing Fields, Horsenden, Nearby the Monks Risborough Cricket Club has a pitch at Whiteleaf, next to the Golf Club.
Football: Risborough Rangers F.C. has its headquarters at Windsor Playing Fields. Currently the side play in the Hellenic League (Division One East). They also have a number of teams playing at various venues within the town
Golf: There are a number of golf courses in the area: Princes Risborough Golf Club in Saunderton Lee, Whiteleaf Golf Club at Monks Risborough (9 holes) and somewhat further away the 18-hole Ellesborough Golf Club on land formerly part of the Chequers estate.
Lawn tennis and bowls: Princes Risborough Bowls Club and Princes Risborough Lawn Tennis Club have their own grounds off New Road, and Horsenden Tennis Club has courts at the Windsor Playing Fields, Horsenden.
Rugby: In 2008 Risborough Rugby Football Club was founded by local residents. The Whiteleaf Pub in the market square is used as a clubhouse for meetings and after training. They currently play in Berks/Bucks & Oxon Premiership Division.
Swimming: There is a covered pool at Risborough Springs off Stratton Road. Next to this is Wades Park, which has a children's play area and a basketball court.
Princes Risborough has a recreation ground on the left of the Aylesbury Road, known as King George's Field as a memorial to King George V.
Transport
Railways
The history of the railways at Princes Risborough is both complicated and interesting.
At the start of the Railway Age, the nearest station was Maidenhead on the main Great Western line. The service from Paddington to Maidenhead started in 1838 and reached Bristol in 1841. In 1846 the Wycombe Railway Company was incorporated and built a single track broad gauge line to connect Maidenhead to High Wycombe via Cookham and Bourne End. This opened on 1 August 1854 and the line was then continued north to Princes Risborough and Thame en route for Oxford.
From 1862 it became possible to travel from to London in a train which started at Thame (later , when the line was completed) and went on to London Paddington through Princes Risborough, , and . Although the line was built by the Wycombe Railway Company, the service was operated by the Great Western Railway. At that date the journey to London from Risborough took about 2 hours 40 minutes.
Another branch line from Princes Risborough to , which the Wycombe Railway Company had started to build in 1861, opened for traffic on 1 October 1863. Thereafter passengers from either Oxford or Aylesbury could reach Paddington via Princes Risborough, Wycombe and Maidenhead, but the majority of the through trains ran between Paddington and Oxford. In 1867 the Great Western Railway took over the Wycombe Railway Company. All lines were converted to standard gauge between 1868 and 1870. In 1872 a new line, built by the Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway Company, opened between Princes Risborough and Watlington. There were three trains in each direction daily. This line was taken over by the Great Western in 1883. The Metropolitan Railway opened a main line from Baker Street to Aylesbury in 1892, providing an alternative route between London and Princes Risborough via Aylesbury.
In 1899 the Great Central Railway arranged to join with the Great Western to construct a new route to London and built Marylebone station as its terminus. A new line, built by the Great Western Railway, ran from Paddington via and Beaconsfield to High Wycombe and thence to Princes Risborough. The single track line between High Wycombe and Princes Risborough was upgraded to a double track. Because of the gradient the new Up line followed a different route (with a short tunnel at Saunderton) from the existing single track, which became the Down line (with a few changes because of the gradient or for other reasons). The Great Central built a new line from Marylebone to join this railway at South Ruislip (then called Northolt Junction). These direct routes between Princes Risborough and London were working from 2 April 1906, though at first the trains still ran on to Oxford beyond Risborough. The line to Bicester followed later in 1910. The journey time to London was reduced to between an hour and an hour and a half.
For the next 40 years and more Princes Risborough was a busy junction with two large signal boxes and trains coming in from London Marylebone, London Paddington via Beaconsfield, London Paddington via Maidenhead (a few trains still used this route until 1970), Bicester and the North, Aylesbury, Oxford and Watlington. In the 1930s, 29 men were employed at the station.
The railways were nationalised in 1948 and in the 1950s these lines started to close. The Watlington line, due to decline in numbers, withdrew passenger services on 1 June 1957, though the line from Princes Risborough was retained so that goods trains could serve the cement works and wood yard in Chinnor. On 20 December 1989, the final goods train travelled the line, road transport having taken over from the railway. The railway was then declared ‘non-operational’. The line through Bourne End to Maidenhead closed in 1970.
Diesel trains replaced steam locomotives on the main line in 1961. The Down platform at Princes Risborough and the passenger bridge were demolished and there was only a single track through the station from 1968 until 1998. At the same time Marylebone Station was being threatened with closure and for several years almost all trains ran to and from Paddington.
Upon privatisation in 1996 the line through Risborough was taken over by Chiltern Railways, who funded an extensive series of upgrades. In 1998 they re-built the Down platform and constructed a new footbridge at their own expense, restoring full working with a much more frequent service. On 5 September 2011 the Chiltern Mainline project went live. This was a £250 million investment and the largest privately led investment in passenger railway infrastructure since before the second world war. This has reduced the time taken by trains between London and Risborough; in the December 2011 timetable trains can take as little as 31 minutes (the majority taking 35 to 40 minutes).
Maintenance of the branch from Chinnor to the junction with the Thame branch near Princes Risborough was given to the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway Association from January 1990. In July 1994, the Association was granted a Transport and Works Order under section 6 of the Transport and Works Act 1992. This allowed the line to be run as a heritage railway, staffed and maintained by volunteers. Following the T&W Order, the line began carrying passengers in August 1994, and was extended to start of Thame railway by 1996. In 2013, the Association began a project to restore the Princes Risborough North signal box, which had been a Grade II listed building since its closure in 1991. This culminated in August 2018 with the re-opening of Platform 4 at Princes Risborough station, connecting Princes Risborough to Chinnor with a limited service at weekends as part of the heritage railway's operations.
Bus
Princes Risborough is served primarily by the 300 Arriva Shires & Essex service which alternates between High Wycombe and Aylesbury on a quarter-hourly basis (Mondays to Saturdays) and hourly on Sundays and Bank Holidays. Other services include Redline Buses' 321 service between High Wycombe and Aylesbury (with some services terminating in Risborough) which operates weekdays every two hours; Redline's 320 service which serves as a rail link between Princes Risborough railway station and Chinnor during peak hours; Arriva's 120 and 121 which serve twice a day between Thame and Risborough and Z&S's 113 which serves between Risborough and Oakley on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Princes Risborough is also served by the Risborough Area Community Bus (RACB) which serves the villages surrounding Risborough including Longwick, Monks Risborough, Speen, Bledlow, Bledlow Ridge and Little Kimble.
Local media
Television programmes and local news is provided by BBC South and ITV Meridian, received from the Oxford TV transmitter.
Local radio stations are BBC Three Counties Radio, Heart Thames Valley, Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts (formerly Mix 96) Tring Radio (Bucks Herts and Beds) and Red Kite Radio that broadcast from Aylesbury.
The Bucks Free Press is the town’s weekly local newspaper.
Community
The Risborough Area Partnership (RAP) is the umbrella organisation for business local government and community groups in Princes Risborough. There are several community events organised across the year .
Books mentioned in the notes
Barber, Richard: Edward Prince of Wales and Aquitaine 'A biography of the Black Prince' (London 1978)
Domesday Book (text & translation edited by John Morris) Vol 13 Buckinghamshire (Phillimore, Chichester 1978)
Lipscomb, George: The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham (London. 1847)
Mawer, A. and Stenton, F.M: The Place Names of Buckinghamshire (Cambridge, 1925)
Register of Edward the Black Prince, preserved in the Public Record Office '4 volumes' (H.M.S.O. 1930–33)
VHCB = Victoria History of the County of Buckingham, ed: William Page, Volume 2 (1908), pages 260–267
Pevsner, Nikolaus & Elizabeth Williamson: Buckinghamshire (The Buildings of England – Penguin Books. 2nd edition. 1994)
RCHMB = Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England): An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Buckinghamshire, Volume 1 (1912)
Payne, Mike & Angela: ‘The Voices of Princes Risborough’ (The History Press, Cheltenham. 2009)
Notes
External links
The Princes Risborough town council website.
Towns in Buckinghamshire
Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire
Wycombe District
Country houses in Buckinghamshire
National Trust properties in Buckinghamshire
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University%20of%20Georgia
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University of Georgia
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The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. Chartered in 1785, it is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. It is the flagship school of the University System of Georgia.
In addition to the main campuses in Athens with their approximately 470 buildings, the university has two smaller campuses located in Tifton and Griffin. The university has two satellite campuses located in Atlanta and Lawrenceville. The total acreage of the university in 30 Georgia counties is .
The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity," and as having "more selective" undergraduate admissions. The flagship school of the University System of Georgia, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public universities in the United States. The University of Georgia's intercollegiate sports teams, commonly known by their Georgia Bulldogs name compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Among public universities, the University of Georgia has had more alumni as Rhodes Scholars since 1990 than nearly all other public universities in the country. Alumni also include a United States Poet Laureate, Emmy Award winners, Grammy Award winners, and multiple Super Bowl champions.
History
Antebellum history
In 1784, Lyman Hall, a Yale University graduate and one of three medical doctors to sign the Declaration of Independence, as Governor of Georgia persuaded the Georgia legislature to grant as an endowment for the purposes of founding a "college or seminary of learning." Besides Hall, credit for founding the university goes to Abraham Baldwin who wrote the original charter for University of Georgia. Originally from Connecticut, Baldwin graduated from and later taught at Yale before moving to Georgia. The Georgia General Assembly approved Baldwin's charter on January 27, 1785, and the University of Georgia became the first university in the United States to gain a state charter. Considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Baldwin would later represent Georgia in the 1786 Constitutional Convention that created the Constitution of the United States and go on to be President pro tempore of the United States Senate. The task of creating the university was given to the Senatus Academicus, which consisted of the Board of Visitors – made up of "the governor, all state senators, all superior court judges and a few other public officials" – and the Board of Trustees, "a body of 14 appointed members that soon became self-perpetuating." The first meeting of the university's board of trustees was held in Augusta, Georgia, on February 13, 1786. The meeting installed Baldwin as the university's first president.
For the first 16 years of the school's history, the University of Georgia only existed on paper. By the new century, a committee was appointed to find suitable land to establish a campus. Committee member John Milledge purchased 633 acres of land on the west bank of the Oconee River and immediately gave it to the university. This tract of land, now a part of the consolidated city–county of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, was then part of Jackson County. , 37 acres of that land remained as part of the North Campus.
Because Baldwin was elected to the U.S. Senate, the school needed a new president. Baldwin chose his former student and fellow professor at Yale, Josiah Meigs, as his replacement. Meigs became the school's president, as well as the first and only professor. After traveling the state to recruit a few students, Meigs opened the school with no building in the fall of 1801. The first school building patterned after Yale's Connecticut Hall was built the year later. Yale's early influence on the new university extended into the classical curriculum with emphasis on Latin and Greek. By 1803, the students formed a debate society, Demosthenian Literary Society. Meigs had his first graduating class of nine by 1804. In 1806, the school dedicated the first legacy building, Franklin College (named after Benjamin Franklin). The building is now known as Old College.
After the tenure of the next two presidents, John Brown (1811–1816) and Robert Finley (1817), a timeframe that saw enrollment drop, presidents Moses Waddel (1819–1829) and Alonzo Church (1829–1859) worked to re-engage new students. By 1859, enrollment had risen to 100 students, and the university employed eight faculty members and opened a new law school. During this timeframe, the university erected the New College building followed by the Chapel in 1832. Church was the longest-serving president in UGA history. In 1859, the state legislature abolished the Senatus Academicus, leaving the board of trustees as the only official governing body. When Church retired, Andrew A. Lipscomb was appointed to the newly renamed position of chancellor in 1860.
Civil War era and late 19th century
The University of Georgia closed in September 1863 due to the Civil War and reopened in January 1866 with an enrollment of about 80 students including veterans using an award of $300 granted by the General Assembly to former soldiers under an agreement that they would remain in Georgia as teachers after graduation. The university received additional funding through the 1862 Morrill Act, which was used to create land-grant colleges across the nation. In 1872, the $243,000 federal allotment to Georgia was invested to create a $16,000 annual income used to establish the Georgia State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (A&M), initially separate and independent from the University of Georgia. However, A&M's funding was considered part of the university, which helped save it from bankruptcy during the Reconstruction era. As a land-grant school, UGA was required to provide military training, which the university began to offer in the 1870s.
Several of the university's extracurricular organizations began in the late 1800s. In 1886, fraternities at UGA began publishing the school's yearbook, the Pandora. The same year, the university gained its first intercollegiate sport when a baseball team was formed, followed by a football team formed in 1892. Both teams played in a small field west of campus now known as Herty Field. The Demosthenian and Phi Kappa literary societies together formed the student paper, The Red & Black, in 1883. In 1894, the University of Georgia joined six other southeastern schools to form the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA).
Early 20th century
The turn of the century brought many changes in the administration and organization of the university including the naming of a new chancellor in 1899. Walter B. Hill became the first UGA alumnus to lead the university. A progressive leader, his six-year tenure, before his death from pneumonia, was marked with increased enrollment, expansion of the university's course offerings, and the addition of state funding through appropriation, for the first time bringing the university's annual income to over $100,000 in 1902. Hill and his successors David C. Barrow (1906–1925), Charles Snelling (1926–1932), and Steadman Sanford (1932–1935) would grow the school to take on the role of a true university. Many of the university's schools and colleges were established during Barrow's tenure. The College of Education (1908), the Graduate School (1910), the School of Commerce (1912), the School of Journalism (1915), and the Division of Home Economics (1918) were all established during this period. In 1906, UGA also incorporated the College of Agriculture by bringing together A&M (agricultural and mechanical) courses. The college of science and engineering continued as formed in the previous century. Conner Hall became the first building built in South Campus and first of several buildings that housed the university's agriculture programs on what came to be known as "Ag Hill". In 1914, the first Phi Beta Kappa chapter in the state of Georgia was founded at UGA. In 1923, another honor society, Phi Kappa Phi, established a chapter at the university. In 1920, UGA's athletic program was among 14 of the 30 universities to leave the SIAA to form the Southern Conference.
With students limited to white males for the first century of its history, the University of Georgia began admitting white female students during the summer of 1903 as postgraduate students to the State Normal School established in 1893 a few miles west of the campus. When the University of Georgia established a graduate school in 1910, female students were permitted to attend summer classes and some were also unofficially allowed to attend regular classes, as well. However, at that time only junior college transfers majoring in Home Economics were integrated into regular courses. Before official admission of women to the university, several women were able to complete graduate degrees through credit earned during the summer sessions. The first white woman to earn such a degree was Mary Dorothy Lyndon. She received a Master of Arts degree in 1914. Women were admitted as full-time undergraduates in 1918. Mary Ethel Creswell earned a Bachelor of Science in home economics in June 1919, becoming the first woman to earn an undergraduate degree at the university. Two UGA dormitories were later named after these graduates: Mary Lyndon Hall and Creswell Hall.
In 1932, the reorganization of the university's administrative structure continued through the establishment of the University System of Georgia (USG), which brought UGA along with several other public colleges in the state under the control of a single board of regents. The State Normal School (later State Teachers College) was fully absorbed by the College of Education, with the former's previous campus becoming UGA's Coordinate Campus. UGA and Georgia Tech traded several school programs; all engineering programs (except agriculture) were transferred to Georgia Tech and UGA received Georgia Tech's commerce program in return. The title of the university's lead administrator was changed from chancellor back to the original title of president. Sanford was named UGA's first president since 1860 and was succeeded by Harmon Caldwell (1935–1948). In 1933, the Division of Home Economics was reorganized as the School of Home of Economics, with UGA's first female graduate, Creswell, appointed as dean. The university also became a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and established the University of Georgia Press in 1938.
Throughout this period, UGA's enrollment grew every year with student population reaching 3,000 by 1937 and almost 4,000 by 1941. Through President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, UGA received a $2 million infusion of funding and an additional $1 million from the state legislature. The university used the new funds to make a number of improvements to the campus from 1936 to the early 1940s. Many renovation projects were undertaken including the establishment of five new residence halls, a dining hall, eight new academic buildings, a nursery school, and several auxiliary facilities. An engineering professor Rudolph Driftmier and architect Roy Hitchcock were responsible for the design of several buildings in the neoclassical style, giving the campus a homogeneous and distinctive appearance. The funds were also used to pave roads, build sidewalks, and improve the campus's landscaping.
Racial integration and the mid-20th century
The dean of the College of Education in 1941, Walter Cocking, was fired by Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge in a controversial decision known as the Cocking affair. Talmadge was motivated by his belief that Cocking favored racial integration. The governor's interference in the workings of USG's board of regents prompted a response by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, which stripped UGA and nine other schools in the system of their accreditation. The issue became a major point of contention in Talmadge's 1942 re-election campaign. After his loss, a constitutional amendment passed by the state legislature gave the board independence from political interference which led to the schools quickly regaining their accreditation.
As the United States entered World War II, enrollment among male students dropped significantly, allowing female students to outnumber male students for the first time in the school's history.
In 1945, UGA accepted a donation of about 100 paintings from the New York art collector Alfred Holbrook and created the Georgia Museum of Art. In 1946, the School of Veterinary Medicine was re-established as a separate school, 13 years after it was discontinued as part of the agricultural college.
The following year, the quarterly literary journal The Georgia Review began publication in 1947. After Jonathan Rogers' brief tenure as president (1949–1950), Omer Clyde Aderhold started his 17-year-long stint as UGA president. During his tenure, the university sold Coordinate Campus to the U.S. Navy. He opened the school's main library, the Ilah Dunlap-Little Memorial Library, in 1952, and in 1964, established the School of Social Work. The university also built a new Science Center on South Campus consisting of six buildings. After UGA's pharmacy school moved to the new facility on the South Campus, the two portions of the campus took on distinct characteristics, with North Campus focused on arts, humanities, and law, and South Campus focused on natural sciences and agricultural programs.
Until January 1961, Georgia state law required racial segregation in publicly funded higher education. On January 6, 1961, the District Court mandated that UGA immediately admit two African American teenagers, Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, who were previously denied admission in 1959 on the basis of race. This court order was quickly followed by an injunction preventing the enforcement of the segregation-mandating state law. On January 11, a riot formed outside Charlayne Hunter's dormitory window, which "shouted racial insults, and tossed firecrackers, bottles and bricks at the dormitory window". Dean Williams suspended the two students for "their personal safety", but they returned to classes on January 16 following a court order. The university faculty subsequently formed a night patrol to help ensure the peace. Holmes graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was the first African-American student to attend the Emory University School of Medicine, where he earned his MD in 1967 and later became a professor of orthopedics and associate dean at Emory, the medical director at Grady Memorial Hospital, and a trustee of the University of Georgia Foundation, the university's private fund-raising organization. Hunter (later, Hunter-Gault) graduated with a degree in journalism and was awarded two Emmys and a Peabody for excellence in broadcast journalism. Commemorating the 40th anniversary of when Holmes and Hunter "walked through the Arch and into the Academic Building" to register for classes on January 9, 1961, the university renamed the campus building where they registered as the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building. The university now presents the Holmes-Hunter Lectures series, which brings noted African-American speakers to the campus each year to discuss racial issues.
In June 1961, Holmes and Hunter were joined by another African American, Mary Frances Early, who transferred to the school as a graduate student. Before Holmes and Hunter, Early became the first African American to graduate from UGA in 1962. The College of Education later established a professorship in her honor. In February 2020, the UGA College of Education was officially named in honor of Mary Frances Early.
Late 20th century
In 1968, Fred Davison was appointed UGA president and served in the position for 19 years. During his tenure, the school's research budget increased from $15.6 million to more than $90 million. UGA inaugurated the School of Environmental Design, was designated as a Sea Grant College, and built 15 new buildings on campus. By the 1970s, the University of Georgia ranked among the top 50 research universities in the U.S. and in 1973, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education designated UGA as a "Research 1 Doctoral University with very high research activity". By the time the school celebrated its bicentennial with a 15-month-long celebration, student enrollment had grown to about 25,000.
In the end, Davison's tenure as president was marred by controversy surrounding the dismissal of Jan Kemp, a faculty member who also tutored student athletes. Kemp filed a lawsuit against the university for her termination; it garnered national media attention and led to criticism of instances of lax academic standards for a few students participating in some of UGA's athletic programs. The courts finally awarded Kemp more than $1 million, leading to Davison's resignation in 1986 and student athlete academic standards revisions.
Henry King Stanford served as interim president before the appointment of Charles Knapp in 1987. Together with UGA alumnus and Georgia Governor Zell Miller, Knapp helped establish the state's HOPE Scholarship in 1993 with funds appropriated from the new state lottery. Knapp also was a founding member of the Georgia Research Alliance, and construction projects totaling more than $400 million were started during his administration, including the Biological Sciences Complex (1992), Ramsey Student Center for Physical Activities (1995), the Performing Arts Center, Hodgson Hall (1996), the music building (1996), the Georgia Museum of Art (1996), Dean Rusk Hall (1996), and the UGA Welcome Center (1996). The campus hosted four events in the 1996 Summer Olympics: rhythmic gymnastics, volleyball, women's Gold Medal football match, and men's Gold Medal football match. In 1997, Knapp was succeeded by Michael Adams, who served as UGA president for 16 years, well into the 21st century. After his retirement as president, Knapp continued to serve by joining UGA's Institute of Higher Education as a part-time Distinguished Public Service Fellow and as a professor of economics in the university's Terry College of Business.
21st century
Adams began a strategic plan to grow the university's academic programs in the new century. In 2001, UGA inaugurated the College of Environment and Design and the School of Public and International Affairs, the first new schools to open since 1964. The strategic plan also chose medicine and health sciences as a major focus of growth and development. Together with Provost Karen Holbrook and Arnett Mace (who succeed Holbrook), Adams opened the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute, the UGA Cancer Center, the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, and the Regenerative Bioscience Center. In 2005, the College of Public Health was created to bring together the various medical and health sciences programs. In 2011, UGA purchased back the former campus of the State Normal School from the U.S. Navy to create the UGA Health Sciences Campus. The Health Sciences Campus provides additional medical and health sciences programs, some in partnership with the Medical College of Georgia. The newly reacquired campus also became home to the College of Public Health. The Odum School of Ecology (2007) and the College of Engineering (2012) became the fourth and fifth schools to open during Adams's tenure.
After Adams's retirement on June 30, 2013, Jere Morehead was appointed as UGA's 22nd president. Morehead is an alumnus of UGA's law school and previously served as provost and vice president of academic affairs. Under Morehead, UGA continues its focus on research with a $458 million budget as of the 2017 fiscal year, placing 54th on the National Science Foundation rankings. In 2015, the College of Veterinary Medicine moved its teaching hospital to a new off-campus facility, leaving its previous building available for research and other uses. In September 2017, UGA used a combination of private and public funds to complete the second of three phases to build the Terry College of Business complex. The project has four buildings completed and will include a total of six buildings upon completion of the third phase. In 2020 the university concluded its fundraising campaign, after raising $1.45 billion.
Organization and administration
The university has seventeen schools and colleges, the titles "college" or "school" not indicating any distinction between them for the university. In addition to the colleges and schools, the university is home to the University of Georgia/Medical College of Georgia Medical Partnership that provides education leading to the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of Georgia as well as extensive facilities for medically related education and research at the University of Georgia.
The President of the University of Georgia (Jere Morehead) is the head administrator and is appointed and overseen by the Georgia Board of Regents. University of Georgia has had 22 presidents since its founding in 1785. Each individual college and school is headed by a dean. The university has a student-to-faculty ratio of 17 students per faculty member.
According to the 2018–2019 estimated cost of attendance, based on a nine-month academic year for an average undergraduate student, the tuition and fees for Georgia residents is $11,830, and $30,404 for non-residents. The tuition and fees for an average international undergraduate student (based on a nine-month academic year) is $30,392.
Campuses
The University of Georgia's main campus is made up of 465 buildings covering an area of about . The university owns an additional of land in 31 counties across Georgia. As of October 2016, UGA employed 10,665 people of which more than 3,000 are faculty members. The main campus sits across from Athens, a consolidated city–county located 60 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The city is the hometown of several popular musical artists including the American rock bands The B-52's and R.E.M. Rolling Stone magazine named UGA among "Top Ten Schools that Rock". In August 2015, Outside magazine named Athens sixth on a list of "The 16 Best Places to Live in the U.S."
The campuses' dominant architectural themes are Federal, Classical and Antebellum style. Though there have been many additions, changes, and augmentations, the University of Georgia's campus maintains its historic character. In 2000, the entire campus was designated as an arboretum, the University of Georgia Campus Arboretum. It is estimated to be home to about 9,000 trees with over 154 identified species including native trees such magnolias, red oaks, white oaks, and beeches, as well as non-native trees such as the North Africa Atlas cedar, the Chinese parasol and royal paulownia, and the Japanese zelkova and black pine.
North Campus
The North Campus is bounded by Baldwin Street to the south, Lumpkin Street to the west, Broad Street to the north and traditionally by Jackson Street to the east, but also extends past Jackson Street to East Campus Road. Several of the buildings that make up the old campus are designated as historic, covering part of the originally gifted to the university in 1801. The entire Old North Campus of the University of Georgia is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.
Located at a central location in North Campus and constructed in 1806 as the first permanent building, Old College is the oldest building in Athens and one of the oldest in Northeast Georgia. The building closely resembles Yale University's Connecticut Hall. It was designed with identical front and back to allow the university to grow in either direction. Currently housing the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the building originally served both instructional and residential purposes. New College was built in 1823 as a residence hall and was rebuilt in 1832.
Other historic buildings in the National Historic District include Waddel Hall, Demosthenian Hall, The chapel, Phi Kappa Hall, Lustrat Hall, Moore College, and Holmes–Hunter Academic Building. Named after UGA's fifth president, Waddell Hall is the second-oldest building on campus. Built in the Federal style of architecture in 1821, it is also one of the smallest buildings on campus. Home to the oldest student organization and debate society at UGA, the 1824 Demosthenian Hall houses the Demosthenian Literary Society named after the Greek orator Demosthenes. Founded in 1803, the Demosthenian is among the oldest literary societies in the English-speaking world. Located between New College and Demosthenian Hall, The chapel is a Greek Revival-style building which resembles a classic temple. Considered "the most beautiful building on campus", the interior features a large painting of the nave and aisles of the St. Peter's Basilica, painted by the artist George Cooke. Also built in the Greek Revival style in 1836, Phi Kappa Hall is home to the university's second-oldest student organization and debate society, Phi Kappa Literary Society, founded in 1820 to rival the Demosthenian Literary Society.
The seventh-oldest building on campus, Lustrat Hall was originally built in 1847, north of its current location. Named after its last faculty occupant, it is the only remaining faculty residence house from Old North Campus. Used for a variety of purposes in the past, the building most recently houses the Office of Legal Affairs. Built in 1874, Moore College is the only remaining building constructed during post-Civil War Reconstruction. Originally home to the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Moore College currently houses the university's Honors Program. The Holmes/Hunter Academic Building was simply known as the Academic Building when it was originally assembled in 1905. Following a Beaux-Arts architectural design by engineering professor Charles Strahan, the building was constructed by inserting a new building in between the older Ivy Building and Old Library. In 2001, the building was renamed after the first two African-American students at UGA. It houses the Office of the Registrar, and several other administrative offices. Also listed in the National Register of Historic Places is the Founders Memorial Garden which is named in honor of the Ladies Garden Club of Athens. Founded in 1891, it was the first garden club in the United States.
Throughout the historic buildings, several architectural, sculptural, and landscape features adorn the North Campus. Chief among them is The Arch which serves as the traditional entrance to the campus. Built in 1858 and modeled after the Great Seal of the State of Georgia, the area near the three-columned gate is a popular venue for the staging of demonstrations, gatherings, protests, and rallies. Although the Seal's three pillars represent the state's three branches of government, the pillars of The Arch are usually taken to represent the Georgia Constitution's three principles of wisdom, justice, and moderation, which are engraved over the pillars of the Seal. On the opposite side of the Arch Quad, at the front of the Old College building sits a statue of the university's founder Abraham Baldwin, installed by the University of Georgia Alumni Association. The President's Club Garden, first planted in 1973 on the opposite side of the Old College building, honors the thousands of families who have made major financial contributions to the university. A fountain named after Hubert B. Owens and built in 1989 is tucked in the space between Old College, Lustrat House, and the Administration Building. Serving as a UGA faculty member for 45 years, Owen was responsible for initiating the university's landscape architecture program, which later grew into the College of Environment and Design.
The Administration Building is another one of the later additions to the North Campus built in 1905 with $50,000 donated to the university from a major contributor, the philanthropist George Foster Peabody. It was the first building on campus designed to be fireproof in light of the fact that several fires in UGA's history have destroyed key buildings. Originally used as the location for a library, it houses the offices of the university president and other senior administrative offices. Hirsch Hall was built in 1932 in Georgian style and named after Harold Hirsch who for a long period served as general counsel to The Coca-Cola Company. The building is home to the School of Law and the Alexander Campbell King Law Library located in a north-side addition built in 1967. Hirsch Hall connects by way of an overhead bridge to the J. Alton Hosch Law Library Annex built in 1981 and named after the former dean of the law school.
The university's main library, the Ilah Dunlap Little Memorial Library, was built with funds bequeathed by its namesake, the wife of a UGA alumnus who stipulated several design requirements including that it face north across the mall towards Old College. Home to the University of Georgia Press and the Georgia Review, the library serves as the headquarters to a network of secondary libraries located throughout the campus. Following the addition of a seven-story annex in 1974, the library became the third-largest academic building at UGA and the largest in North Campus. The main library is part of a quad consisting of Hirsch Hall, Old College, Waddell Hall and Peabody Hall. Although the aforementioned George Foster Peabody also contributed to funds used to build Peabody Hall, the building is actually named after George Peabody who in an 1869 testamentary trust created a $2.25-million fund to benefit several universities in the South. The University of Georgia combined $40,000 from this fund with other contributions to construct Peabody Hall which houses the Departments of Religion and Philosophy and the Institute of Native American Studies.
South Campus
Located across Field Street from Central Campus to its north, South Campus is encircled by East Campus Road to its east, Pinecrest Drive to the south, and Lumpkin Street to the west. It is connected to the areas to its north by way of the Jim Gillis Bridge, named after the former director of the Georgia State Highway Board. South Campus is the largest of the five segments of the UGA campus, latitudinally stretching for more than a mile. Originally begun as an expansion to accommodate the growing agricultural programs in an area known as "Ag Hill", it is home most of the university's science and engineer programs. In 2006, work was completed on D. W. Brooks Mall to give the campus a more green aesthetic similar to North Campus, replacing parking lots and a section of the street by the same name which bisected the area lengthwise.
Lumpkin House, also known as "Rock House", is the oldest building on South Campus, built in 1844. The building is named after its original owner, Wilson Lumpkin, the former Georgia congressman, governor, and U.S. Senator who designed and built the house as his retirement home. In 1970, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The second-oldest building, named after the state legislator James J. Conner, sits on one of the highest points in Athens. Built in the Renaissance Revival style, Conner Hall also serves the CAES. Barrow Hall, built in 1911, is the third-oldest building in South Campus and serves a variety of academic programs. Originally known as the Farm Mechanics Building, the building was renamed after Chancellor David C. Barrow, during whose tenure it was constructed.
Home to the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Dawson Hall was built in 1932 to house the university's growing home economics department, then part of the College of Agriculture. In 1971, the school added an annex to Dawson Hall and later renamed it after Mary Spiers who was dean of the School of Home Economics from 1954 to 1971. The College of Family and Consumer Sciences also has five other buildings, built in 1939 and 1940, known collectively as the McPhaul Center.
On the curved hill between Dawson Hall and Sanford Stadium, a plan envisioned in 1953, proposed the construction of a Science Center to house the university's various scientific programs. Between 1959 and 1960, six buildings were constructed to each house studies in physics, Food Sciences, Geography–Geology, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, and Poultry Science. Located south of the Food Sciences Building, the Museum of Natural History manages several collections of artifacts and specimens from archaeology, biology, geology, and paleontology located throughout the buildings on campus. The Science Library was built south of Dawson Hall in 1968 to supplement the Science Center complex. Containing a thirteen-feet and over-2,500-pound skeleton of a giant North American ground sloth, a foyer connects the Science Library with the Boyd Graduate Studies Building also built in 1968.
Named after U.S. Senator Paul D. Coverdell, the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences is a $40-million facility with of space, giving enough room for about 275 scientists, staff and graduate students. The center was specifically designed to maximize energy efficiency and it was built with local and recycled materials. Laboratory intensive groups at the Coverdell Center include the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, and the Biomedical Health Sciences Institute. Former President George H. W. Bush spoke at the center's grand opening in 2006. In 2016, the university also opened the Science Learning Center, a facility located near Stegeman Coliseum.
The Driftmier Engineering Center, named after a campus engineer and the head of the former Agricultural Engineering Division of the College of Agriculture. Partnering with Roy Hitchcock, Rudolph H. Driftmier was responsible for the design and construction of 15 buildings on campus from 1930 to 1965. The building renamed after Driftmier in 1982 was constructed in 1966 and is now home to the College of Engineering.
The Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel is also located on South Campus. The building hosts many seminars and conferences every year. The Georgia Center was built in 1957. The center is also home to the WUGA, an affiliate of the National Public Radio.
Central Campus
Bounded by Lumpkin Street to the west and East Campus Road to the east, Central Campus was developed on the remaining woodland area between the larger and older North and South Campuses. Development began in 1910 with Memorial Hall which remained unfinished until 1925 due to financial constraints. Originally envisioned as a student athletic facility and constructed with a swimming pool and gymnasium, Memorial Hall has served a wide variety of purposes before becoming home to the offices of the vice president of student affairs and several other administrative offices. Several former athletic facilities were located in this area before they were replaced by newer academic buildings, student life centers, and residence halls. Of these athletic facilities, only Sanford Stadium remains and continues to dominate Central Campus.
Located in the northwest corner, the Fine Arts Building was modeled in the neoclassical architectural style and built in 1941 with funds from the Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal initiated in the 1930s. The building covers an area about the size of a city block, and the interior features a giant mural by French-American artist Jean Charlot. At the time of its construction, it was the largest and most expensive academic building on campus. The Zell B. Miller Learning Center became the largest academic building in Central Campus when it was built in 2003 with a footprint of . With 26 classrooms and lecture halls and a total of 2,200 seats, the Learning Center is also probably the most heavily used by students. In 2009, the building was renamed in honor of UGA alumnus Zell B. Miller who went on to serve as the 79th Governor of Georgia and later as the U.S. Senator from Georgia. Another heavily used building is the Dean Tate Student Center built in 1983 and expanded in 2009. The LEED Gold-certified building features a green roof and 75,000 gallon cistern to catch rainwater for use in irrigation and flushing toilets. The building was named after William Tate, the former dean of men.
The Psychology and Journalism Building was built on grounds which formerly housed the university's tennis courts and gymnasium, Woodruff Hall. In 1967, a $6.1 million construction project created the building to house two of the largest departments at the university, the psychology department, part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, named after the former editor of The Atlanta Constitution. Other buildings in the area include Clark Howell Hall, built in 1937 as a dormitory but which later became home to the UGA Career Center, and the UGA Bookstore built in 1968.
West Campus
Several residential halls are located in what is known as West Campus. It is made up of eight residence halls built in the 1960s and a pre-existing private residence hall, Oglethorpe House, which the university purchased in 1979. Lipscomb Hall, Mell Hall, Creswell Hall, Russell Hall, Brumby Hall, Hill Hall, Church Hall, and Boggs Hall are all named after former UGA presidents, deans, and administrators. Other notable buildings west of the campus include the Wray-Nicholson House, which was built in 1825, named after two businessmen who previously occupied the house and is now home to the UGA Alumni Association; The Richard B. Russell Jr. Special Collections Libraries Building, built in 2012, was named after the former Georgia governor and senator, and currently houses several archives and special collections.
In 2013, the university began construction on Terry College of Business Complex. A total of six buildings were to be completed in a three-phase construction project. The first phase completed in 2015 led to the opening of Correll Hall. Phase II was completed in September 2017, opening Amos Hall, Benson Hall and Moore-Rooker Hall. All of the buildings were named after major contributors to the business school. Construction then began on the third phase of the project in 2018 to include two more buildings named Ivester and Orkin Hall which were completed in 2020.
East Campus
The newest addition to the campus, East Campus is demarcated by College Station Road to the south, East Campus Road to the west, River Road to the north and stretches to the Athens Perimeter or Loop 10 to the east. Its most northern building, the Performing Arts Center and its main concert hall, the 1,100-seat Hodgson Hall, has hosted the performances of notable orchestras such the Royal Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and regularly hosts seasonal performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The center also holds the smaller Ramsey Hall which stages performances by solo and small chamber groups.
East Campus is also home to the Georgia Museum of Art located just south of the Performing Arts Center. The museum's collection began with a donation of paintings by American artists from the art collector Alfred Heber Holbrook who developed a close friendship with the head of UGA Art Department, Lamar Dodd. Holbrook subsequently moved to Athens to become the museum's director, donated more than 900 works, and served as director for 25 years. In 1982, the Georgia General Assembly designated the museum as the official state museum of art. The current building in which the museum is located was built in 1996 and expanded in 2011. The building received a Gold LEED certification its "use of materials and construction strategies to achieve environmental sustainability."
The Ramsey Student Physical Activities Center is located on East Campus. It was built in 1995 and named in honor of Eugenia A. and Bernard Ramsey. The building has a footprint larger than Sanford Stadium and is the largest single structure on UGA's campus. The Ramsey Center has two gyms, three pools (one Olympic-sized, a diving well, and a lap pool), a indoor suspended rubberized track, a high climbing wall, outdoor bouldering wall, ten racquetball courts, two squash courts, bicycle repair stands, eight full-length basketball courts, and of weight-training space. The Ramsey Center also contains the Gabrielsen Natatorium, home to the university's varsity swimming and diving programs.
Located south of the Ramsey Center, the University Health Center provides health services to the university's student and faculty with a staff of more than 200 health professionals.
Off-campus facilities
The State Botanical Garden of Georgia is a 313-acre preserve set aside by the University of Georgia in 1968 for the study and enjoyment of flora, fauna and geographic systems. Located three miles south of campus, it is a living laboratory serving educational, research, recreational, and public service roles for the University of Georgia. The garden contains a number of specialized theme gardens and collections, over five miles of nature trails, and four major facilities including a tropical conservatory. In 1984, the Georgia General Assembly designated the area as Georgia's official botanical garden.
Delta Hall is the UGA facility in the Capitol Hill neighborhood on the east side of Stanton Park in Washington, D.C. The facility, which was purchased by the UGA Foundation in 2013, has undergone renovations to transform the space to a residence hall and learning community.
The university's year-round residential study-abroad program is held at Trinity College of Oxford University in England, where students and faculty study, learn and teach at Trinity College and live in a three-story Victorian house near the heart of the city.
The University of Georgia also owns one other international residential center in Cortona, Italy. The university previously owned a residential center in Monteverde, Costa Rica, but it was sold in 2019.
Oconee Forest Park, Lake Herrick, and the Herrick Creek Loop are facilities for use and enjoyment of UGA students and staff. Lake Herrick was commissioned by the School in 1982 as a recreational resource for UGA. Besides recreation, the area is used as a living laboratory for research and as an interdisciplinary outdoor classroom for faculty and students in visual arts, communication studies, ecology, engineering, forestry and natural resources, landscape architecture, and other fields.
The 56-acre UGA Health Sciences Campus has a landscaped green space with more than 400 trees and several historic buildings. The Health Sciences Campus include classrooms, rooms for small group and clinical skills teaching, lab space for gross anatomy, pathology and histology, a medical library, and faculty offices. The Medical Partnership administration is housed in Winnie Davis Hall, which was built in 1902.
UGA has facilities in almost every county in Georgia. The university has extended campuses in Atlanta and Gwinnett County, as well as Griffin and Tifton. The University of Georgia operates five 4-H centers around the state: Fortson 4-H Center, in the southern Atlanta metropolitan area, Jekyll Island 4-H Center and Tybee Island 4-H Center on the Georgia coast, Rock Eagle 4-H Center in Eatonton, and Wahsega 4-H Center in the North Georgia mountains. The university is also responsible for two other land holdings. These centers, operated in part by the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, serve as educational facilitates for youth. Georgia 4-H specializes in educating young people about agricultural and environmental issues, agriculture awareness, leadership, communication skills, foods and nutrition, health, energy conservation, and citizenship.
Other athletic facilities
Built for $360,000 to replace the former Sanford Field in nearby Central Campus, Sanford Stadium was inaugurated on October 12, 1929, with a 15–0 victory over the Yale Bulldogs football team. Originally constructed to accommodate 30,000 fans, a double deck addition in 1967 added 19,000 more seats, and a 1981 addition to encircle the field added another 19,000 seats. After several more renovations, the stadium now holds more than 93,000 spectators, making it one of the largest collegiate stadiums in the country and the thirteenth largest stadium in the world. The stadium is named for Steadman Sanford, a former president of the university and chancellor of the University System of Georgia. Besides being the home of the Georgia Bulldogs football team, the stadium also serves as an event venue, the location of undergraduate graduation ceremonies, and was used for the medal competition of men's and women's Olympic football (soccer) at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
UGA's other athletic facilities are located in South Campus. The South Campus athletic complex consists of the Foley Baseball Field, Butts–Mehre Heritage Hall, Woodruff Practice Fields, (both used by the football team), William Porter Payne Indoor Athletic Facility (for indoor football and other sport practices), Stegeman Coliseum, the Coliseum Training Facility, and Spec Towns Track. Built in 1964, Stegeman Coliseum is one of the oldest college basketball, gymnastics and volleyball venues in the South. Named after the former football coach Herman J. Stegeman and home to the Georgia Bulldogs basketball, Georgia Lady Bulldogs basketball, the women's gymnastics program, Georgia Gymdogs, and the women's volleyball teams, Bulldogs Volleyball, the Coliseum has a seating capacity of 10,523.
The basketball, volleyball, and gymnastics teams also have a practice facility in the adjacent Coliseum Training Facility. Stegeman Coliseum was the venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics Volleyball and Rhythmic Gymnastics,
A large black marble Olympics Monument on the west lawn of Stegeman Coliseum, erected in preparation for the 1996 Summer Olympics, commemorates the more than 115 UGA students who participated in the Olympics, including Forrest "Spec" Towns. The Spec Towns Track located nearby was constructed in 1964 and is home to UGA's track and field teams.
The Dan Magill Tennis Complex, located south of Stegeman Coliseum, includes sixteen tennis courts with seating for a total of about 5,000 spectators.
UGA also has its own University Golf Course that is a par 71 Robert Trent Jones designed golf course.
Academics
Undergraduate admissions
Due to COVID-19, SAT and ACT test score submissions were optional for 2021.
The university considers many factors in admissions decisions: high school grades, particularly the rigor of high school study—a student's studying in a school's "advanced" or "most difficult" curriculum, taking of advanced placement, College Board Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, early college enrollment and other rigorous classes; scores on standardized tests (SAT or ACT); academic and personal achievements; extracurricular activities; the mandatory school counselor evaluation letter as well academic letters of recommendation from teachers; the student's personal statement. It is need-blind for domestic applicants.
As a state university, UGA automatically admits applicants that graduate first or second in their class at an SACS-accredited high school in Georgia. Of the admitted class of 2026, 1,001 graduated first or second in their class (e.g., valedictorian or salutatorian), and most graduated within the top ten percent of their class. The overall average high school GPA of all enrolled first-year students was 4.13, first year students had taken an average of nine high school advanced placement courses, and more than 98% were in their school's "advanced" or "most difficult" curriculum. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 69 freshman students were National Merit Scholars.
For others who go through the traditional application process, selectivity is deemed "more selective" according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and by U.S. News & World Report. The Princeton Review places the university's average Admissions Selectivity Rating at 95 on 99-point scale. There were 39,615 applications for admission to the class of 2026 (enrolling fall 2022), 16,729 were admitted (under 40%) and over 6,200 enrolled. The mid-50% SAT range for admitted freshman was 1340-1480 out of 1600 (average 1410)(in the top 97th percentile nationally), the ACT range was 31-34 (average 32.5)(in the top 97th percentile nationally). For honors students, the mid-50% SAT range was 1510-1550 out of 1600 (average 1530) and the mid-50% ACT range was 34-35 (average 34.5), both in top 99th percentile nationally. The ACT Assessment Student Report places UGA student admissions in the "highly selective" category, the highest category.
Incoming students include those from every state and 57 countries around the world. Among admitted students in the class of 2024, 15% were out-of-state, and the top 10 states (other than Georgia) were California, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
Teaching and scholarship
The university has a student-to-faculty ratio of 17 students per faculty member, and 46 percent of its classes have fewer than 20 students. The average freshman retention rate is 95 percent. As of 2022, the university does not rank within the top 100 national universities in the United States for "Best Undergraduate Teaching" as scored by US News.
, 25 UGA students have been named Rhodes Scholars including six since 2008. Among public universities, the University of Georgia is one of the nation's top three producers of Rhodes Scholars over the past two decades. UGA is also home to hundreds of other major scholarship winners including 140 Fulbright Scholars (tied with universities such as Stanford), 57 Goldwater Scholars, 44 Boren Scholars, 20 Truman Scholars, 19 Udall Scholars, six Gates Cambridge Scholars, four Schwarzman Scholars, three Mitchell Scholars, three Carnegie Endowment Gaither Fellows, two Soros Fellows, two Beinecke Scholars, a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, a Churchill Scholar, and students earning the MacArthur Fellowship (known as the "Genius Grant"). The University of Georgia has been among only seven of all universities nationwide with recipients of all three major national undergraduate scholarships: the Goldwater, Truman and Udall.
Honors College
The University of Georgia has an honors college that must be applied to separately after gaining acceptance to the university. Foundation Fellows and the Ramsey Scholars programs are housed within Morehead College. For the class of 2022 (enrolling at UGA in August 2018), the average GPA of entering honors freshmen was 4.12, the average SAT score was 1530 out of 1600 and the average ACT Composite score was 34.
Through the Honors College, students are able to participate in early registration for classes and register for special honors-only courses. Honors courses are taught by specially selected faculty with an average class size from 17 to 20 students. Those wishing to graduate with High or Highest Honors must complete a capstone experience consisting of graduate courses, a senior thesis, or a special project prior to graduation. Honors students may elect to reside in the Myers Hall, which is reserved for honors students, or apply to reside in Rutherford Hall of the Franklin Residential College (FRC), a residential college based on the Oxford and Cambridge model. The program allows qualified undergraduates to pursue a curriculum leading to a bachelor's (AB/BS) and a master's (MA/MS) degree in four years. The Honors International Scholars Program (HISP) provides honors students with opportunities to study abroad on paid scholarship and internships.
Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities
The Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO), which is administered by the Honors Program, promotes opportunities for all of the undergraduate students at the University of Georgia to engage in research with faculty regardless of discipline, major or GPA. Through in-depth research with faculty members, students can explore questions and issues of interest as lines of inquiry develop through their undergraduate careers, earning academic credit in the process.
Study abroad
UGA is among the top-ranked universities in the US for the number of students studying abroad, with more than 100 programs in about 70 countries, and 25% of the student body participating in the program before graduation. UGA has faculty study abroad programs on every continent, including Antarctica. Additionally, UGA has signed agreements with several outside study abroad organizations: the American Institute For Foreign Study, GlobaLinks Learning Abroad, the Institute for Study Abroad (IFSA), International Studies Abroad (ISA), The School for Field Studies, and the Innsbruck International Summer School. Just over 2,000 students, or 6% of the entire campus enrollment (graduate and undergraduate) study abroad in a given year.
The university began its first year-round residential study-abroad program at Trinity College of Oxford University in England, where students and faculty live in a three-story Victorian house owned by UGA and located in the heart of the city of Oxford. Founded in 1987, the UGA at Oxford program began as a summer option and expanded to include spring in 1994. With the purchase of the house in 1999, the program became available throughout the academic year.
The University of Georgia owns two other international residential centers: one in Cortona, Italy; the other, and UGA's largest, in Monteverde, Costa Rica. The UGA Costa Rica campus comprises and over of built space nestled in the country's mountainous Monteverde Cloud Forest. In 2012, the Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program in Costa Rica recognized the University of Georgia's satellite campus in Costa Rica as one of its "Four Leaves" level institutions operating in the country. Run by the Costa Rican Tourism Board, the CST awards excellence in natural, cultural, and social resource management.
Rankings
For 2022–2023, U.S. News & World Report ranked Georgia's undergraduate program 49th out of 443 Best National Universities, tied for 30th of Most Innovative Schools, and tied for 16th among 227 Top Public National Universities. For 2019–2020 worldwide ranked universities, Georgia is ranked in the top 20% of the 1,000 top ranked universities in the entire world by the Center for World University Rankings, is ranked as an A+ university, and in the top 12%, of top world universities ranked by University Ranking by Academic Performance based on indicators of research performance, and is ranked 79th of the top 200 universities in the entire world in the uniRank University Ranking. WalletHub, in its 2020 ranking of the top-performing schools in the country that had the lowest possible costs to undergraduates, ranked the University of Georgia as 69th out of 1,003 schools with a 93 Percentile Score (with 99 being the maximum possible Percentile Score). The university is listed as a "Public Ivy" in Greene's Guides as "successfully competing with the Ivy League schools in academic rigor ... attracting superstar faculty and competing for the best and brightest students of all races." The Princeton Review named the university as one of its "Top 10 Best Value Public Colleges" with UGA being one of the colleges designated as a best overall bargain based on cost and financial aid among the most academically outstanding colleges in the nation. In 2018, Kiplinger ranked the University 12th in its list of the "100 Best Values in Public Colleges." SmartMoney, a publication by The Wall Street Journal, named UGA as having the fourth best salary return on tuition as of October 2019. The Daily Beast named the university in its "25 Amazing Colleges" listing. Niche ranks UGA as an overall A+ university including high rankings for individual subjects taught at the university as well as ranking it #5 of 1,579 colleges in Best Student Life, #10 of 1,417 colleges in Best College Campuses, #13 of 1,385 colleges in Best College Food, and overall #14 of 132 colleges in Best Big Colleges as well as #14 of 668 universities in Best Public Universities.
In the 2019–2020 ranking, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni ranked the University of Georgia one of only 23 “A” colleges and universities (grading was “A” through “F”) in its What Will They Learn? study, an evaluation of the curricula of 1,070 U.S. colleges and universities.
In 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges ranked UGA 7th in the U.S. among undergraduate institutions supplying applicants to medical school, including 7th for the most white applicants, 10th for the most African American applicants, 23rd for the most Asian applicants, and 50th for the most Hispanic and Latino American applicants.
The University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs was ranked fourth in the nation, while the Public Management Administration program was ranked first by U.S. News & World Report in 2019. The Academic Ranking of World Universities has ranked the school seventh in the world.
The University of Georgia ranks fifth in the entire nation in terms of number of Congressional staffers produced out of undergraduate universities.
For the 2018–2019 season, a team from the University of Georgia was the top university varsity debate team in the United States in both the American Debate Association and the National Debate Tournament team rankings. The university has two of the oldest literary societies in the English-Speaking world focused on extemporaneous debate, the Demosthenian Literary Society and the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
In 2019, Businessweek named the executive MBA program in the university's Terry College of Business 14th in the nation.
In the 2020 ranking, the School of Environment and Design was ranked first among programs for undergraduates in the nation.
According to the study by Law School Transparency, the University of Georgia School of Law is ranked in the top ten nationally for employment outcomes, while the law school has been ranked 13th of the top best law schools by the National Jurist. Georgia Law was ranked 20th of 196 American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools in the 2023-24 edition of U.S. News & World Report rankings placing it in the top 10% of ABA law schools. The Law School has sent six law clerks to serve justices of the United States Supreme Court in the last twelve years, is fourth among law schools for supplying these clerks for these prestigious Supreme Court positions from 2005 to 2020, and is tenth among all law schools in the country for the total number of federal court clerks accepted from Georgia Law. Serving as a judge's law clerk is considered to be one of the most prestigious positions in legal circles, and tends to open up wide-ranging opportunities in academia, law firm practice, and influential government work. Finally, based on outcome-driven factors such as average indebtedness, bar passage, and employment, Georgia Law has been ranked first as the best value in legal education in the entire United States by the National Jurist.
The College of Veterinary Medicine was ranked tenth in the nation, and College of Pharmacy was ranked 25th in the nation, in the 2019 edition of U.S. News & World Report rankings. Two UGA pharmacy students were selected for the U.S. Navy's Health Services Collegiate Program Medical Service Corps, a selective program that accepted only five recipients from applicants across the country.
Research
The University of Georgia is classified in the highest ranking, "R-1: Doctoral Universities – Highest Research Activity" with "comprehensive" doctoral programs across the arts, sciences, engineering, law, and medicine according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. According to the National Science Foundation, the university spent $453 million on research and development in 2018, then ranking it 57th in the nation, spent $495 million on R&D in fiscal year 2020, and the latest report by The Center for Measuring University Performance ranked the University of Georgia 37th among the top research universities in the nation. The university has increased overall research and development funding by 41% since fiscal year 2013.
More than 850 different products originating from UGA research are on the market. As of 2020, the university ranked No. 1 nationally for the number of research-based products brought to market—the university's fifth consecutive year in the top five. The University of Georgia Research Foundation (UGARF) has over 1000 active licenses with technologies licensed in countries on all continents. In 2020 UGARF held more than 684 US and foreign patents. The University of Georgia consistently ranks in the top ten among all universities for most licenses and options with industry as well as for the most licensing income. As of 2021, based on university research, over 200 companies have been launched by the University of Georgia, placing the university in the top 20 of universities for active startups.
In November 2018, the University of Georgia launched a number of research initiatives funded by a $3 million NSF grant, including a project to transform the school's science education. The university also added a new Interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (I-STEM) building that opened in 2021.
In addition, Georgia has research centers and institutes that include the following among many others.
Institute of Bioinformatics
Founded in fall 2002, the institute is responsible for supporting campus-wide bioinformatics research at UGA. Institute members conduct bioinformatics research in a wide range of areas, ranging from structural genomics and bioinformatics, plant genomics, microbial genomics, biomedical and cancer bioinformatics and computational and statistical sciences for bioinformatics.
The institute grants Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in bioinformatics as well as a graduate certificate in bioinformatics. In 2012, IOB Director Jessica Kissinger and IOB and Mathematics assistant professor Juan B. Gutierrez joined a collaborative effort on a malaria host-pathogen interaction research center that was awarded up to $19.4 million by a National Institutes of Health contract. The collaborative project is in conjunction with Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory's Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
eHistory
Founded in 2011 by History Department faculty, eHistory is a digital collective. Projects include "Mapping the People of Early America," funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, "CSI:Dixie" funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the inter-active time lapse map, "The Invasion of America," which shows nearly 500 cessations of Native Lands. The UGA & Slavery site explores the university's entanglements with slavery and legacies in Athens, Georgia. It aligns with the research of institutions across the South that have joined the Universities Studying Slavery consortium.
Marine Institute and Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
Sapelo Island, off the Georgia coast, is home to the University of Georgia Marine Institute, a nearshore ecological and geological research institute. The mission of the institute is to support and conduct research on coastal processes involving the unique ecosystems of coastlines.
In 2012, UGA acquired the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SkIO), the marine science research institute that was founded in 1968, to join the University of Georgia Marine Institute that was founded in 1953.
Coastal Plain Research Arboretum
The Coastal Plain Research Arboretum () is an arboretum in Tifton, Georgia, located on the grounds of the Tifton Campus of the University of Georgia.
The arboretum was established in 1987, with plant development and selection starting in 1991. It consists of stream-side forest and wetland, and is dedicated to native plant species of the Georgia coastal plain.
The arboretum contains pine woods, a native azalea collection, and approximately 280 taxa of native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. It is one of several institutions active in efforts to conserve the endangered Torreya taxifolia. The arboretum director is John M. Ruter, professor of horticulture at the university's Tifton campus.
University of Georgia–MCG medical partnership
In 2010, the University of Georgia partnered with the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) at Augusta University (formerly Georgia Health Sciences University) to create a four-year medical education program in Athens providing for the granting of M.D. degrees at UGA to increase the number of opportunities for excellent students to become qualified physicians, as well as to increase research on disease prevention and treatment. The Augusta University's College of Nursing has a satellite campus in Athens, and the UGA College of Pharmacy has a satellite campus in Augusta.
First and second-year UGA medical students study medical science and clinical skills in a program that is a hybrid curriculum that makes extensive use of small group learning, supplemented by large group interactive sessions. Then third and fourth-year rotations are provided at private practices, community clinics, and hospitals. In addition to increasing the number of opportunities for excellent students to become qualified physicians, the partnership will expand research collaborations between MCG and UGA, and create new insights by UGA into the prevention and treatment of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, viral disease, and cancer. UGA medical students, graduate students from UGA's College of Public Health, and visiting scholars reside on the University of Georgia's recently reacquired Health Sciences Campus in Athens.
The 56-acre UGA Health Sciences Campus has an extensive landscaped green space with more than 400 trees and many historic buildings. The nearly 63,000 square-feet of building space on the new Health Sciences Campus include large and small classrooms, rooms for small group and clinical skills teaching, lab space for gross anatomy, pathology, histology, etc., a medical library, and faculty offices. The medical program administration is housed in Winnie Davis Hall which was built in 1902.
Bioenergy Systems Research Institute
The Bioenergy Systems Research Institute conducts research in bioenergy that recognize the entire lifecycle and environmental impact of biomass production, harvesting, transport, treatment, conversion, and recycling. In 2013, the Institute received a $20 million from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and the Golden Field Office (GFO). The institute was established to help bolster the university's research expenditure in environmental science.
The 2013 SEC Academic Symposium, an academic conference-type event intended to address a scholarly issue in an area of strength represented by all SEC universities, was organized and led by the University of Georgia and the UGA Bioenergy Systems Research Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. The topic of the Symposium was titled, the "Impact of the Southeast in the World's Renewable Energy Future."
Odum School of Ecology
In 2007, the Odum School of Ecology became the first-stand alone college or school within a university dedicated to the study of ecology and environmental science. The school was named after UGA professor and ecologist, Eugene Odum, who pioneered the modern study of ecology.
The university has since made several advancements in sustainability. Under the UGA Facilities Management Division, the Office of Sustainability was initiated in 2010 as part of a strategic directive to enhance conservation of resources and long-term sustainability at the university. Through long-term environmental initiatives, under President Michael F. Adams the university established the office after support from students and faculty and residents of the Athens area. The Office of Sustainability's mission is to continue to improve environmental sustainability in many different areas on campus.
The initiative was a result of a 2009 Report of the Working Group on Sustainability at the University of Georgia and the Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) student-led campaign. The Green Initiative Fund modeled their funding campaign after a similar campaign by students at the University of California-Berkeley. , the Office of Sustainability has awarded a total of $170,000 to fund 47 student-initiated sustainability projects at UGA The Campus Sustainability Grants Program has helped foster several student initiatives, including water bottle refilling stations in the Zell B. Miller Learning Center, "Dawgs Ditch the Dumpster" residence hall move-out donation program, Tanyard Creek Chew Crew prescribed grazing project for invasive plant removal and Material Reuse Program, which uses salvaged items to construct school and community gardens.
The university and Athens-Clarke County established a bicycle master plan to improve the mobility of students on campus while remaining environmentally consciousness.
In 2009 the University of Georgia earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council with high marks for the expansion of the Tate Student Center. The renovated Tate Student Center became the sixth building on a university campus in the state of Georgia to be certified at the gold level and the second to be so designated in Athens. In 2012, Building 1516, a university housing complex constructed in 2010, became the first LEED-certified housing complex at the University of Georgia.
In 2012, the College of Environmental Design's Visual Arts Building (now known as the Jackson Street Building) after a $9.9 million renovation became the first UGA building to incorporate a water reclamation system and the first to utilize solar harvesting technology through solar panels.
In 2013 the university hosted the inaugural SEC Symposium in Atlanta. The topic is the Southeast's impact on the future of renewable energy, and the participants are the 14 universities of the SEC, as supported by its new academic initiative, SECU.
In the same year, the university was named by the National Arbor Foundation as a designated Tree Campus USA for the third time in a row as a result of the university's continued commitment to maintaining and adding new foliage. The University of Georgia has more than 9,000 trees on campus, according to an ongoing tree-mapping project being conducted by the University Grounds Department. The number will continue to grow due to a partnership between Select Sustainable Tree Trust and UGA. In 2009, the Select Sustainable Tree Trust selected the university to receive a $1 million tree donation to "re-green" and impact the university campus with large-scale, sustainable shade trees.
As of April 2019, UGA has entered into a contract to add up to 19 new electric buses. The 19 buses were put into service on campus in February 2020. In December 2019, as the university was awarded $7.46 million under the Federal Transit Administration's Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Program, it was announced that 13 additional electric buses would be added to the fleet, which will bring the total number of electric buses on campus to 33. The electric buses will account for a third of the total fleet in 2021, when UGA begins to phase out and decommission older diesel buses.
Small Satellite Research Laboratory
The University of Georgia Small Satellite Research Laboratory (SSRL) was founded in 2016 by students with the help of researchers, scientists, and faculty associated the Center for Geospatial Research. The SSRL is funded by the NASA USIP (Undergraduate Student Instrument Project) to build a Cube Satellite for Low Earth Orbit. The SSRL is also part of the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) University Nanosatellite Program (UNP). The SSRL is student-led and will be building UGA's first satellite, a Cubesat, which will be sent to the International Space Station for deployment in late 2018.
Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry (CCQC)
The Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry (CCQC) is a research center in the department of chemistry, founded in 1987 by Professor Henry Schaefer, who continues to work there. Research at the CCQC employs computational chemistry to elucidate and/or correlate many areas of chemical research.
Student life
The University of Georgia has registered almost 800 student organizations, academic associations, honor societies, student government organizations, cultural groups, sport teams, religious groups, publications, social groups and fraternities, volunteer and community service programs, philanthropic groups, and others that are all run by both graduate and undergraduate students and are integral parts of student life. In 2015 (the latest year), UGA was recognized by the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The honor is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. The latest designation marks the ninth consecutive year UGA was named on the honor roll.
Student housing
Housing at the university is managed by the Department of University Housing. Student on-campus housing is divided into several communities: Brumby, Russell, Creswell, Hill, Myers, Reed, and the East Campus Village.
Brumby, Creswell, and Russell halls are collectively known as the "freshman high-rises" due to their similarities in design and function. All three are located just off Baxter Street on West Campus. These are the biggest residence halls on campus and each house about 1,000 freshmen. The Hill community of residence halls consists of six building in West Campus near the freshman dorms. The community has a females-only residence (Hill Hall) and six coed residences: Boggs, Church, Lipscomb, Mell, and Oglethorpe Halls.
The Myers community consists of four buildings in a quad located on South Campus. They are the coed residence halls Myers, Rutherford, and Mary Lyndon, along with Soule Hall which is reserved for female students. The Reed community is made up of four coed residence halls in North and Central Campus: Morris, Payne, Reed, and Building 1516. The East Campus Village consists of the apartment-style coed residences: Busbee, McWhorter, Rooker, and Vandiver.
Greek life
The University of Georgia maintains one of the South's oldest Greek systems, and the fraternity and sororities maintain homes both on and off campus. There are a number of secret societies that exist at the university, such as Palladia and Gridiron. The Panhellenic sororities also have a secret society known as Trust of the Pearl, which inducts five accomplished sorority women each spring.
The first Greek letter fraternity to charter at the university was Sigma Alpha Epsilon in 1865, and the first sorority was Phi Mu in 1921. In 2019, 20% of undergraduate men and 31% of undergraduate women were active members in UGA's Greek system.
Reserve Officer Training Corps
Under the Morrill Act, as a land-grant university, UGA is required to include a military program as part of its available curriculum, which program is now known as the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Many universities that are not land-grant have established ROTC programs such as the one at Harvard University. The University of Georgia ROTC is the official officer training and commissioning program at the university. Prior to the 1862 Morrill Act, UGA founded its military program in 1801, and it is one of the oldest such programs in the nation. Memorial Hall was built with funds that Georgia alumni raised following World War I and was dedicated in 1924 to those alumni and students who had given their lives in the war. Departments of the Army and the Air Force each maintain an ROTC detachment on campus.
Student Government Association
Executives of the University of Georgia's Student Government Association (SGA) make up the Student Advisory Council, which is composed of Student Government Presidents from every public college or university within the University System of Georgia. The Student Advisory Council is organized to advise the Georgia Board of Regents, through the Chancellor, on issues that are important to students.
Student media
The Red & Black (R&B) is UGA's independent daily newspaper. Established in 1893 and independent of the university since 1980, The Red & Black is the largest college newspaper in Georgia and the tenth largest newspaper in the state of Georgia. Students published its first issue on November 24, 1893, from offices in the Academic Building on North Campus. The paper is self-sufficient through the sale of advertising making it one of the few student newspapers to do so. The Red & Black has won numerous awards nationally. In 2012, the Princeton Review named The Red & Black tenth among the nation's best student newspapers.
R&B-TV is the photos and videos division of The Red & Black. R&B-TV publishes various videos relating to the University of Georgia and the community at large.
WUGA-FM is the radio station run by students of the University of Georgia. Just before 6:00 a.m. on the morning of August 28, 1987, WUGA-FM signed on for its first day of broadcasting to Athens and the surrounding area. WUGA-FM broadcasts with 6000 watts in an "omni-directional pattern." WUGA-FM radio is the third most listened to station in Athens market out of 18 stations reported. It is the most listened to station for people with managerial, administrative or professional occupations.
Launched in 2011, Ampersand Magazine is a UGA monthly publication catered to Athens residents. The magazine is a subsidized by The Red and Black.
Stethoscope Magazine (formerly, PreMed Magazine) is a “student-run publication at the University of Georgia dedicated to promoting science and providing relevant healthcare-related news.” It also has a website, as well as Linktree, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. The magazine further aims to help pre-medical and other pre-health students at the university achieve success in the medical field. Staffing for the magazine is open to students of all majors and concentrations. Topics range from student achievement in medicine and health science, to health science news, to recent innovations in biomedical sciences.
Law students publish three legal journals: Georgia Law Review, the Journal of Intellectual Property Law, and the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law. In addition to the Georgia Law Review, students publish the online component, the Georgia Law Review Online, which features essays by practitioners, judges and professors focused primarily on timely legal issues in the U.S. Courts of Appeals.
Pandora is the yearbook of the University of Georgia; its first issue was published in 1886.
Athletics
The University of Georgia varsity athletic teams participate in the NCAA's Division I FBS as a member of the Southeastern Conference. Since the 1997–1998 season, UGA has seven top ten rankings in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Directors' Cup, a numerical ranking based on the success of universities in all varsity sports. The university has won national championships in football, women's gymnastics, women's equestrian, baseball, tennis (men's and women's), golf (men's and women's), indoor and outdoor track & field, and women's swimming and diving. The Gym Dogs, the university's women's gymnastics team, have an NCAA-leading 10 national championships in gymnastics, including five consecutive championships from 2005 to 2009.
The Bulldogs' most historic rivalry is with the nearby Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. However, major rivalries have grown since, including the rivalry with the Florida Gators, and with the Auburn Tigers, referred to as the "Deep South's Oldest Rivalry" in reference to the first football game played between the two teams in 1892 and the more than one hundred meetings since. In 2011, The Huffington Post named the Florida–Georgia football rivalry one of college football's top 10 rivalries.
The university also hosts several non-varsity sports, including wrestling, men's soccer, crew, ultimate frisbee, rugby, lacrosse, ice hockey, and sailing. Georgia's men's lacrosse team has won the South Eastern Lacrosse Conference three times, in 1998, 2007, and 2008, and received an automatic bid to the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association national tournament, while the women's team earned an at-large bid to the WDIA National Tournament in 2007.
1996 Summer Olympic Games
The University of Georgia played an instrumental role in Atlanta's bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics. The University of Georgia conducted a majority of the preliminary studies for the economic impact of bringing the Olympic games to Atlanta, and hosted many Olympic events. In 1987, Atlanta attorney and former football player at the University of Georgia, William "Billy" Payne, conceived the idea of hosting the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Atlanta mayor Andrew Young was among the first to join Payne in the quest to develop a bid and sell the proposal, first to local business leaders, then to the U.S. Olympic Committee, and finally to the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The home of the Bulldogs hosted the medal round of the men's and women's Olympic football (soccer) in July 1996. Sanford Stadium was temporarily converted into a soccer stadium which saw the removal of the privet hedges surrounding the playing field. The hedges had been symbolic to UGA since the early 1930s. The hedges were restored after the Olympic games. In 1996, UGA's High Point was selected as the training site for the U.S. Dressage Team, which competed in the Summer Olympic games at the International Horse Park in Conyers, Georgia. The university's basketball stadium, Stegeman Coliseum, was the venue for Volleyball and Rhythmic Gymnastics.
Traditions
School colors
The University of Georgia's original colors included old gold, until the intense rivalry between Georgia Tech and Georgia around 1891 resulted in a skirmish over colors. Georgia students and alumni declared yellow an unfit color for the Georgia Bulldogs, deeming it a cowardly color. After the 1893 football game against Georgia Tech, University of Georgia President, Charles Herty, removed old gold as an official school color. Crimson (also referred to as "Good Old Georgia Red") and black have been the official colors ever since.
The decision to include crimson red is also thought to be a tribute to the state of Georgia and a reminder of the university's flagship status. Kaolinite, commonly referred to as "Georgia red clay" is commonly found throughout the state, especially in the Red Hills Region. The red color that is so evident in Georgia soils is due primarily to iron oxides.
The mascot
Bulldogs have been on the sidelines for UGA athletic events since at least the 1800s. The origin of the English Bulldog representing UGA athletic teams came from Yale University, with whom UGA had strong ties in its early years. Many early buildings and campus plans followed the layout of Yale. The bulldog mascot stems from the university's founding father and first president, Abraham Baldwin, who was a graduate of Yale. The Bulldog mascots were thought to be a tribute to Baldwin's alma mater. The term "Georgia Bulldogs" to identify a Georgia team was first coined on November 3, 1920, by Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer Morgan Blake. After a 0–0 tie with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on November 6, 1920, Atlanta Constitution writer Cliff Wheatley used the name "Bulldogs" in his story five times. This name for UGA teams caught on and has been used ever since.
Uga the Bulldog is the official live mascot of the Georgia Bulldogs. Uga is from a line owned by Frank W. (Sonny) Seiler of Savannah, Georgia since 1956. The current line began with Uga I, a solid white English Bulldog who was the grandson of a former Georgia mascot who made the trip to the 1943 Rose Bowl. Perhaps the most famous Uga was Uga V who made appearances in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Uga V was also featured on the cover of the April 1997 edition of Sports Illustrated. Uga X became the mascot in 2015.
The University of Georgia is the only major college that buries its mascots within the confines of its stadium. Ugas I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII are buried in marble vaults near the main gate in the embankment of the south stands of Sanford Stadium. Epitaphs to the dogs are inscribed in bronze, and before each home game, flowers are placed on their graves.
The Chapel Bell
The Chapel Bell is a historic monument and long-standing tradition of the University of Georgia. The Chapel Bell is located on the historic North Campus. Built in 1832, when Protestant orthodoxy dominated the campus region, the chapel was a center of campus activities. A daily religious service, which students were required to attend, were held there, as were assemblies and commencements. The bell was also rung to mark the beginning and the end of class.
Over the years, the Chapel Bell has served as an athletic tradition at the University of Georgia. The ringing of the Chapel Bell after a Georgia victory is a tradition that has endured since the 1890s. In Georgia football's early days, Herty Field was located only yards from the chapel, and first-year students were compelled to ring the bell until midnight in celebration of a Bulldog victory. Today, students, alumni, fans and townspeople still rush to the chapel to ring the bell after a victory. The bell is also utilized for University meetings and events, weddings and remembrance ringing. The bell was rung in memory of victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001. After the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, the University of Georgia partook in a nationwide mourning by ringing the Chapel Bell in honor of the victims of the shooting.
On October 27, 2007, as tradition warrants, Georgia fans rang the Chapel Bell to celebrate the 42–30 win over the university's archrival, the Florida Gators. The excitement caused the yoke holding the 877 lb. bell to give way, and it fell from the support platform. The university has returned the bell to its historic post and , it still rings daily across campus.
Founders Week
January 27, 1785, is the date the University of Georgia became the first public university to have a charter granted. Each year, January 27 is commemorated to honor UGA's place in the history of American colleges and universities. The tradition began in 2002 and is now celebrated as Founders Week. During Founders Week, a series of celebrations are hosted by various campus departments including the Student Alumni Association and the Student Government Association.
The Emeriti Scholars, a group of retired faculty members especially known for their teaching abilities and continued involvement in the university's academic life, sponsor the Founders Day Lecture. The lecture is held in the UGA Chapel and has become a Founders Day tradition, drawing alumni, students, faculty, esteemed guests and members of the community.
The Arch
In 1857, the University of Georgia constructed a cast iron representation of the architectural elements featured on the obverse of the Great Seal of the state of Georgia. It stands at the north entrance of the campus, and has become known as The Arch. Fashioned from existing material, The Arch is a representation but not an exact replica of the architectural elements of the Seal. Originally serving both symbolic and practical functions, it was connected to a barrier which kept cows from roaming over parts of the campus, and was initially known as The Gate. It serves as the official icon and a historic landmark for the university. Since the 1900s, tradition has held that students may not pass beneath the Arch until they have received a diploma from the University of Georgia. Those who walked under the Arch prior to graduation commencement were said never to graduate. The tradition began when Daniel Huntley Redfearn, Class of 1910, arrived as a freshman from Boston, Georgia and vowed not to pass beneath the Arch until he had graduated. One of Redfearn's professors heard the vow and repeated it to his class, and the tradition has stood ever since. Many freshmen, learning of the tradition during orientation or from other sources still choose to honor the century-old tradition. Years of following the tradition are visible on the concrete steps leading to the Arch. Steps to each side have been worn down over the years as undergraduates have kept their vows.
The Arch has been a site of historic political demonstrations. In 1961, when UGA officials desegregated the university with the admission of its first two African-American students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault. The Arch was a witness to students protesting both for and against segregation in the protesting the Persian Gulf War and a demonstration following the 1970 shootings at Kent State University. In 2001, along with the Chapel Bell, the Arch was the site of a memorial to the victims of the September 11 attacks.
The fight song and "Alma Mater"
"Glory, Glory" is the rally song for the Georgia Bulldogs. "Glory, Glory" is sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". It was sung at games as early as the 1890s, but arranged in its present form by musician-composer Hugh Hodgson in 1915. There have been many Bulldog songs through the years and at least two collections dating back to 1909 have been published, but "Glory, Glory" has been the most accepted among students and alumni. The only known original reference to the piece is in a history of the Redcoat Band written in 1962, which briefly mentions the march as "Georgia's first original school song" and notes that "all copies of the work have been lost." The document is kept in the university's Hargrett Library for rare and historic documents.
Although "Glory, Glory" is generally thought to be the school's fight song, the official fight song is "Hail to Georgia". The fight song is played by the Georgia Redcoat Marching Band after touchdowns, field goals, and extra points scored by the football team. The Georgia Redcoat Marching Band is a 375-member marching band. First directed in 1905 by R.E. Haughey, the band has only had seven directors.
The "Alma Mater", the official school song of the University of Georgia, is set to the tune of "Annie Lisle", a popular 1857 ballad by H. S. Thompson. The lyrics to "Alma Mater", penned by J.B. Wright Jr., and Gail Carter Dendy, are unique to UGA. The song is sung at commencement and various official events of the University of Georgia.
Playing "Between the Hedges" and Sanford Stadium
Sanford Stadium is the on-campus playing venue for football at the University of Georgia in Athens. The 92,746-seat stadium is the seventh largest stadium in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and has a grass (versus synthetic) field. The stadium is the eighth largest non-racing stadium in the United States and the 14th largest such stadium in the world. The stadium played host to the Olympic medal competition of men's and women's Olympic football (soccer) at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
The University of Georgia playing "Between the Hedges" is a reference to Sanford Stadium that dates back to the early 1930s. The famous Chinese privet hedges that surround Sanford's playing field were only one foot high when the stadium was dedicated in 1929 and were protected by a wooden fence. Sports writers, referring to an upcoming home game, were said to observe "that the Bulldogs will have their opponent "between the hedges." The phrase was coined by the Atlanta sportswriter Grantland Rice. Games played there are said to be played "Between the Hedges" due to the privet hedges, which had stood around the field since 1929, but removed in the summer of 1996 so that soccer could be played for the 1996 Summer Olympics; new, albeit considerably shorter, hedges were restored in the fall of 1996. The hedges have been dubbed Hedges II by UGA fans.
The Dawg Walk
The Dawg Walk is a Saturday football tradition and celebration at University of Georgia home games when UGA students and fans line up in the Tate Center parking lot to form a tunnel that greets the players and coaches as they enter Sanford Stadium. The team enters the stadium through Gate 10 at Sanford Stadium to the music of the Redcoat Marching Band. The march is often led by the team's costumed mascot Hairy Dawg.
The Dawg Walk is preceded by two show section shows. The Redcoat Sousaphones perform a warm up concert in the Tate Center assembly area, while the Redcoat Drumline performs a drumshow in the parking lot.
Notable alumni
University graduates include over 110 state and federal legislators, 70 federal judges, and numerous state supreme court justices, government officials, and ambassadors. Notable alumni include former acting United States Attorney General Sally Yates, Ertharin Cousin who was named to the TIME 100 most influential people in the world list, John Archibald Campbell, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate Richard B. Russell Jr. Twenty-five University of Georgia alumni have become state governors, including six of the last seven Governors of Georgia: George Busbee, Joe Frank Harris, Zell Miller, Roy Barnes, Sonny Perdue, and Brian Kemp. Miller also served as United States Senator as did several other UGA alumni including Johnny Isakson, and Saxby Chambliss. Examples of some other alumni who served in high levels of government included Abdul Karim al-Iryani, the former prime minister of Yemen; Lloyd D. Brown, an Army major general who commanded the 28th Infantry Division in World War II, William Tapley Bennett Jr. a U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Portugal, NATO, and the United Nations Security Council, Randy Evans, the former U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg, Eugene E. Habiger, an Air Force four-star general who served as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Strategic Command from 1996 to 1998, Chee Soon Juan, a neuropsychologist, research fellow at universities including the University of Chicago, a politician, and leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, and Phil Gramm, an economist and U.S. Senator from Texas.
University of Georgia alumni who pursued a career in investing and banking include Eugene R. Black Sr., the President of the World Bank from 1949 to 1963, Eugene Robert Black, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, economist Robert D. McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Brown L. Whatley, chairman of Arvida Corp. and president of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Examples of others in the business world include Bernard Ramsey, an executive with the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, Daniel P. Amos, the chairman and CEO of Aflac, M. Michele Burns, board member of Wal-Mart, Cisco Systems and Goldman Sachs, D.W. Brooks, founder and chairman of Gold Kist, A.D. "Pete" Correll, chairman of Georgia-Pacific and director of SunTrust Bank, Mirant and Norfolk Southern, and Tom Cousins, a real estate developer, sports patron, and philanthropist. Cousins is the owner of the Atlanta Hawks.
William Porter Payne, who played football at UGA and was Vice Chairman of Bank of America became president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and later chairman of Augusta National Golf Club. Payne was largely responsible for bringing the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta and the University of Georgia. In sports, particularly in the NFL, a notable UGA alum is Terrell Davis, a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Denver Broncos who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Other Bulldogs that went on to a professional career include Hines Ward, a wide receiver who played the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 seasons, Champ Bailey, a consensus All-American drafted by the Washington Redskins in the first round of the 1999 Draft, and Reggie Brown, drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of the 2005 Draft. Alumni with careers in professional sports include Mitchell Boggs, a former baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Some University of Georgia alumni that have served in the scientific and medical fields include Alfred Blalock, an award-winning chief of surgery, professor, and director of the department of surgery of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who ushered in the modern era of cardiac surgery, Cornelia Bargmann, an award-winning neurobiologist, who is Wiesel Professor of Genetics and Neurosciences at the Rockefeller University, investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and president of science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Crawford Long, a surgeon and pharmacist best known for his first use of inhaled diethyl ether as an anesthetic, Sir David Baulcombe, FRS, a geneticist who is Professor of Botany at the University of Cambridge, Hervey M. Cleckley, a psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of psychopathy whose published work was the most influential clinical description of psychopathy in the twentieth century and who was co-author of The Three Faces of Eve, Barbara Rothbaum, a psychologist, medical school professor, and pioneer in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders who has played a key role in the development of the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Eugene T. Booth a nuclear physicist who was a member of the historic team which made the first demonstration of nuclear fission in the United States, A. Jamie Cuticchia, a bioinformatics pioneer with expertise in the fields of genetics, bioinformatics, and genomics who was responsible for the groundbreaking collection of data constituting the human gene map and who is director of human genome database, and James E. Boyd, a physicist, mathematician, and founder of Scientific Atlanta, part of Cisco.
UGA alumni have made significant contributions to the field of journalism and media. They include Henry W. Grady, a journalist and orator from the late 19th-century after whom the College of Journalism was named, and Clark Howell, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who became the namesake of one of the buildings at his alma mater. Howell succeeded Grady as managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution. More recent journalism alumni include Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a multiple Emmy Award and Peabody Award winning former reporter for The New York Times, PBS NewsHour and CNN, Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, journalist, science writer and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John Holliman, a broadcast journalist with CNN, known for his coverage of space exploration and reporting during the Persian Gulf War (NASA dedicated Launch Complex 39 Press Site facility at the Kennedy Space Center to him), Mary Katharine Ham, a journalist, political commentator and guest host of The View, as well as a CNN and Fox News Channel contributor, Pat Mitchell, media industry CEO, producer, professor, and author who worked at NBC (where she was the first woman to produce and host a national program) and other news broadcasters, and who has taught including at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Mark B. Perry, a television producer, television writer and Primetime Emmy Award winner, Deborah Norville, an anchor for Inside Edition, and the ABC News television presenters Deborah Roberts and Amy Robach. Both Roberts and Robach appear on 20/20 and Good Morning America.
A total of nine UGA graduates have received the Pulitzer Prize including Natasha Tretheway, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2014. Other notable UGA alumni in print media include Tom Johnson, a former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Sherrilyn Kenyon, author of over 100 novels and Stuart Woods, a prolific novelist with more than 60 books.
Former UGA students in the music industry include Danger Mouse, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum, and several members of the bands The B-52's and R.E.M. After studying film at the university, Alton Brown became the director of photography on the music video for R.E.M.'s "The One I Love". Brown went on to create the Food Network television show Good Eats. Examples of some other notable alumni in film, television, and radio include Kim Basinger, an actress winning the BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as Sonny Shroyer, Fred Newman, Matt Lanter, Kyle Chandler, IronE Singleton, Wayne Knight, Tituss Burgess, Parvati Shallow, and Ryan Seacrest.
See also
President's House
Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry (CCQC)
List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Atlanta
Notes
References
Further reading
Boney, F. N. A Walking Tour of the University of Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia.
Dooley, Vince. History and Reminiscences of the University of Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Johnson, Amanda. Georgia as Colony and State. Atlanta, Georgia: Walter W. Brown Publishing Co., 1938, pp. 187, 247, 376, 429–430, 569–570.
Reed, Thomas Walter. History of the University of Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1949.
Reed, Thomas Walter. "Uncle Tom" Reed's Memoir of the University of Georgia. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1974.
External links
Georgia Athletics website
1785 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
University of Georgia
Buildings and structures in Athens, Georgia
Education in Clarke County, Georgia
Education in Tift County, Georgia
Educational institutions established in 1785
Flagship universities in the United States
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state)
Land-grant universities and colleges
National Register of Historic Places in Tift County, Georgia
Tourist attractions in Athens, Georgia
Universities and colleges accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
University of Georgia
Need-blind educational institutions
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University of Padua
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The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from Bologna. Padua is the second-oldest university in Italy and the world's fifth-oldest surviving university and is one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious universities. The University of Padua was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe, known particularly for the rigor of its Aristotelean logic and science. Today, Padua continues to be one of the most prominent universities in Europe and world. It is made up of 32 departments and eight schools, which co-ordinate the courses managed by each department, as well as 49 specialization schools and 43 research and service centers. Padua is part a network of historical research universities known as the Coimbra Group. In 2021, the university had approximately 72,000 students including undergraduates, postgraduates, and doctoral students.
History
The university is conventionally said to have been founded in 1222 when a large group of students and professors left the University of Bologna in search of more academic freedom ('Libertas scholastica'). The first subjects to be taught were law and theology. The curriculum expanded rapidly, and by 1399 the institution had divided in two: a Universitas Iuristarum for civil law and Canon law, and a Universitas Artistarum which taught astronomy, dialectic, philosophy, grammar, medicine, and rhetoric. There was also a Universitas Theologorum, established in 1373 by Urban V.
The student body was divided into groups known as "nations" which reflected their places of origin. The nations themselves fell into two groups:
the cismontanes for the Italian students
the ultramontanes for those who came from beyond the Alps
From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, the university was renowned for its research, particularly in the areas of medicine, astronomy, philosophy and law. At the time it was the most renowned school of medicine internationally. During this time, the university adopted the Latin motto: Universa universis patavina libertas (Paduan Freedom is Universal for Everyone). Nevertheless, the university had a turbulent history, and there was no teaching in 1237–1261, 1509–1517, 1848–1850.
The Botanical Garden of Padova, established by the university in 1545, is one of the oldest gardens of its kind in the world. Its alleged title of oldest academic garden is in controversy because the Medici created one in Pisa in 1544. In addition to the garden, best visited in the spring and summer, the university also manages nine museums, including a History of physics museum.
The university began teaching medicine around 1250. It played a leading role in the identification and treatment of diseases and ailments, specializing in autopsies and the inner workings of the body.
Since 1595, Padua's famous anatomical theatre drew artists and scientists studying the human body during public dissections. It is the oldest surviving permanent anatomical theatre in Europe. Anatomist Andreas Vesalius held the chair of Surgery and Anatomy (explicator chirurgiae) and in 1543 published his anatomical discoveries in De Humani Corporis Fabrica. The book triggered great public interest in dissections and caused many other European cities to establish anatomical theatres.
On 25 June 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, a Venetian noblewoman and mathematician, became the first woman to be awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
The university became one of the universities of the Kingdom of Italy in 1873, and ever since has been one of the most prestigious in the country for its contributions to scientific and scholarly research: in the field of mathematics alone, its professors have included such figures as Gregorio Ricci Curbastro, Giuseppe Veronese, Francesco Severi and Tullio Levi Civita.
The last years of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century saw a reversal of the centralisation process that had taken place in the sixteenth: scientific institutes were set up in what became veritable campuses; a new building to house the Arts and Philosophy faculty was built in another part of the city centre (Palazzo del Liviano, designed by Giò Ponti); the Astro-Physics Observatory was built on the Asiago uplands; and the old Palazzo del Bo was fully restored (1938–1945). The vicissitudes of the Fascist period—political interference, the Race Laws, etc.—had a detrimental effect upon the development of the university, as did the devastation caused by the Second World War and—just a few decades later—the effect of the student protests of 1968–1969 (which the university was left to face without adequate help and support from central government). However, the Gymnasium Omnium Disciplinarum continued its work uninterrupted, and overall the second half of the twentieth century saw a sharp upturn in development—primarily due an interchange of ideas with international institutions of the highest standing (particularly in the fields of science and technology).
In recent years, the university has been able to meet the problems posed by overcrowded facilities by re-deploying over the Veneto as a whole. In 1990, the Institute of Management Engineering was set up in Vicenza, after which the summer courses at Brixen (Bressanone) began once more, and in 1995 the Agripolis centre at Legnaro (for Agricultural Science and Veterinary Medicine) opened. Other sites of re-deployment are at Rovigo, Treviso, Feltre, Castelfranco Veneto, Conegliano, Chioggia and Asiago.
Recent changes in state legislation have also opened the way to greater autonomy for Italian universities, and in 1995 Padua adopted a new Statute that gave it greater independence.
As the publications of innumerable conferences and congresses show, the modern-day University of Padua plays an important role in scholarly and scientific research at both a European and world level. True to its origins, this is the direction in which the university intends to move in the future, establishing closer links of cooperation and exchange with all the world's major research universities.
Since 2022, the University of Padua has been experiencing difficulties with the payments of scholarships for the "right to study". Thus, leaving 1955 students (207 of that international students) without any kind of accommodation and receiving stipends.
Organization and administration
Finances
The university foresaw a budget of €831 million for the 2023 fiscal year. Of this, €545 million were contributions paid by the Ministry of Education, University and Research of Italy, the European Union, local administrations like regions and provinces, and other entities. The remaining €232 million were classified as own revenues, of which €106 million came from tuition fees and €125 million from research-related income.
The amount of tuition students pay depends on their major, the financial situation of their household and if they take more time to graduate compared to the established length of their program. Tuition is also significantly lowered for non-EU citizens of certain developing countries. There are also scholarships and fee-waivers based on merit on other factors. Generally, most students who are graduating in time and are not from low income households will pay around €2,700/year for the 2023/24 academic year.
Rankings
The university is constantly ranked among the best Italian universities.
For 2023, in U.S. News & World Reports World Best Global Universities Rankings, the University of Padua is ranked as the 1st place institution in Italy, taking 43rd place in Europe and the world's 115th. ARWU ranks the university in the Italian top 4, tied for 2nd place with the University of Milan and the University of Pisa under the Sapienza University of Rome. ARWU ranks the university in the 151st-200th range globally for 2023.
The 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings lists the university at 4th place in Italy and in the 201st-250th range worldwide. QS World University Rankings ranks the university 4th in Italy in 2024 and the best in Italy to study geology and geophysics, earth and sea sciences, biological sciences, psychology, anatomy and physiology. It also places the University of Padua at 219nd in the world for 2024. Also, according to QS World University Rankings, the University of Padua is ranked 125th in the field of Medicine.
The NTU ranking, which focuses on productivity and quality of scientific production, places the University of Padua as 82nd worldwide for 2022.
The CWTS Leiden Ranking, based exclusively on bibliometric indicators, places the University of Padua as 2st place in Italy and 104nd worldwide.
Notable people
Alumni
Notable people who have attended the University of Padua include:
In natural sciences
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) Polish mathematician and astronomer, placed Sun at center of Solar System
John Caius (1510–1573) English physician
Vesalius (1514–1564) known as founder of modern human anatomy; offered professorship at Padua, but died
Gabriele Falloppio (1523–1562) anatomist; anatomy of head and internal ear; reproductive organs
William Harvey (1578–1657) anatomist; described function of heart and circulatory system
George Ent (1604–1689) English anatomist, supporter of Harvey
Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English writer and physician
Sir Edward Greaves (1608–1680) English physician.
Nathaniel Eaton (1610–1674), Ph.D. and M.D., first Head Master of Harvard College
Tommaso Perelli (1704–1783), Italian astronomer
Federico Faggin (1941–) designer of the first commercial microprocessor
Mario Rizzetto (1945–) Italian virologist; worked with Hepatitis D virus
Petros Kestoras (1957–) Cipriot diplomat
Luigi Dall'Igna (1966–) General manager of Ducati Corse
In politics and government
Ludovico Trevisan (1401–1465), Cardinal, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Florence, Patriarch of Aquileia, Captain General of the Church, and physician.
Sir Francis Walsingham (ca 1532–1590) spymaster for Queen Elizabeth I
Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605), Polish nobleman, magnate, diplomat and statesman
Seneschal Constantine Cantacuzino Stolnic (–1716), Romanian nobleman and humanist scholar who held high offices in the Principality of Wallachia. Author of a History of Wallachia (unfinished), he was the first Romanian to ever graduate from this prestigious university.
Ioannis Kapodistrias (1776–1831), 1st Governor of Greece, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire
Alexandros Mavrokordatos (1791–1865), Prime Minister of Greece
Luigi Luzzatti (1841–1927), financier, political economist, social philosopher and jurist, 20th Prime Minister of Italy
Abdirahman Jama Barre (1937–2017), Foreign Minister of Somalia
Daniele Franco (1953-), Italian economist, Draghi Cabinet Finance Minister.
In arts, theology and literature
Saint Albertus Magnus (d.1280)
Mikołaj Kiczka (around 1382-1429), nobleman, diplomat and priest
Francesco Barbaro (1390-1454), humanist
Nicolas of Cusa (1401–1464), in canon law. German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer.
Ermolao Barbaro (1454–1493) Italian renaissance scholar
Sir John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester (1458–1464)
Giovanni Pico (1463-1494), humanist
Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), poet and cardinal
Francysk Skaryna (1470-1551/1552), printer of the first book in an Eastern Slavic language
Reginald Pole (1500-1558), cardinal
Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579)
Daniele Barbaro (1514-1570), translator of Vitruvius
Pomponio Algerio (1531-1556), student of civil law (1550s) executed under the Roman Catholic Inquisition
Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589) physics, metaphysics, and mathematics.
George Acworth (1534–1578?), Anglican priest and civil lawyer
Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), poet
Theophilos Corydalleus (1563–1546) Greek Neo-Aristotelian philosopher, started Korydalism.
István Szamosközy (1565–1612), humanist and historian from Transylvania, the leading figure of Hungarian historiography at the beginning of the 17th century
Saint Francis de Sales (1567–1622), double doctorate "in utroque jure," that is, in canon and civil law (1591)
Roger Manners (1576-1612), 5th Earl of Rutland and poet and abettor of Essex's Rebellion
Angelus Silesius (1624-1677), German priest, physician and poet
Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684), first woman to receive a doctor of philosophy degree
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), musician and composer
Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1746), kabbalist and playwright, founder of Hebrew literature
Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), traveller, author and seducer
Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), Italian writer, revolutionary, and poet
Edgar Manas (1875-1964), composer
Boris Pahor (1913-2022), writer
Notable faculty
Ermolao Barbaro (1454–1493), appointed professor of philosophy in 1477
Leonik Tomeu (1456–1531) first to teach Aristotle in original Greek
Jacopo Zabarella (1533–1589) held chairs of logic, and philosophy, from 1564 to 1589
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) held chair of mathematics between 1592 and 1610
Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684), mathematics lecturer, and the first woman to receive a PhD degree
Antonio Vallisneri (1661–1730) held chairs of practical medicine, and theoretical medicine, between 1700 and 1730
Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1681–1771) held chairs of theoretical medicine, and anatomy, between 1711 and 1771
Tullio Levi-Civita (1873–1941) held the chair of Rational Mechanics, famous for his work on the absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and many other important contributions in the area of Pure and Applied Mathematics
Concetto Marchesi (1878–1957) rector from 1943 to 1953
Sergio Bettini (1905–1986) professor of History of Medieval Art and History of Art Criticism
Gianfranco Folena (1920–1992) Professor of the History of the Italian Language
Gian Piero Brunetta (1942-) Professor of cinema history and criticism
Patrizia Pontisso (1955–) Professor of internal medicine
Massimo Marchiori (1970–) Assoc. Prof. (2006–); Italian computer scientist and inventor of Hypersearch
Emilio Quaia Professor of radiology
Departments
The University of Padua offers a wide range of degrees, organized by Departments:
Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and the Environment
Department of Biology
Department of Animal Medicine, Production and Health
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences
Department of Chemical Sciences
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
Department of Communication Sciences
Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science
Department of Cultural Heritage: Archaeology and History of Art, Cinema and Music
Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation
Department of Economics and Management
Department of General Psychology
Department of Geosciences
Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World
Department of Industrial Engineering
Department of Information Engineering
Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry
Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies
Department of Management and Engineering
Department of Mathematics
Department of Medicine
Department of Molecular Medicine
Department of Neurosciences
Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences
Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Department of Political and Juridical Sciences and International Studies
Department of Private Law and Critique of Law
Department of Public, International and Community Law
Department of Statistical Sciences
Department of Surgery, Oncology and Gastroenterology
Department of Women's and Children's Health
Schools
Departments have been united in a limited number of Schools:
Agricultural science and Veterinary medicine
Economics and Political sciences
Engineering
Human and social sciences and cultural heritage
Law
Medicine and surgery
Psychology
Sciences
See also
List of oldest universities in continuous operation
List of Italian universities
List of medieval universities
List of split up universities
ICoN Interuniversity Consortium for Italian Studies
Padua
Coimbra Group
Top Industrial Managers for Europe
References
External links
Scholars and Literati at the University of Padua (1222–1800), Repertorium Eruditorum Totius Europae – RETE
University of Padua Website
Museums of the University
Faculty of Engineering
University Human Rights Centre
Buildings and structures in Padua
1222 establishments in Europe
13th-century establishments in Italy
Padua, University of
Education in Veneto
Engineering universities and colleges in Italy
Biosafety level 3 laboratories
History of Padua
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Xiaolin Showdown
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Xiaolin Showdown is an American animated television series that aired on Kids' WB and was created by Christy Hui. Set in a world where martial arts battles and Eastern magic are commonplace, the series follows Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko, and Clay, four young Xiaolin warriors in training who, alongside their dragon companion Dojo, battle the Heylin forces of evil, especially series antagonists Jack Spicer, Wuya, and Chase Young. The Xiaolin warriors set to accomplish this by protecting Shen Gong Wu, a set of ancient artifacts that have great magical powers, from villains who could use them to conquer the world. Typical episodes revolve around a specific Shen Gong Wu and the resulting race on both sides to find it. Episodes often climax with one good and one evil character challenging one another to a magical duel called a Xiaolin Showdown for possession of the artifact.
Originally premiering on the Kids' WB block of programming on The WB on November 1, 2003, the series ran for 3 seasons with 52 episodes before its conclusion on May 13, 2006. Reruns aired on Cartoon Network from 2006 to 2007 and on Boomerang from 2015 to 2018. Xiaolin Showdown was a ratings hit for Kids' WB and led to the licensing of spin-off media including DVD releases, a trading card game, and a video game. The series won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2005 and was nominated for three additional Daytime Emmy Awards, one Annie Award, and one Golden Reel Award.
A follow-up series, Xiaolin Chronicles, previewed on August 26, 2013, on Disney XD and began its long-term run on September 14 the same year. The show aired for twenty episodes from August 26, 2013, to March 6, 2014, on Disney XD, leaving the last six episodes unaired in the United States until July 1, 2015, when Chronicles was made available to watch on Netflix.
Production
Xiaolin Showdown was created by Christy Hui and co-produced by executive producer Sander Schwartz, supervising producer Eric Radomski and producers Bill Motz and Bob Roth and composed by Kevin Manthei, it was additionally developed by Warner Bros. Animation. The first episode of Xiaolin Showdown was developed over three years following its conception, and premiered November 1, 2003.
Series creator Christy Hui has stated that despite the growing popularity of anime in the United States, she preferred to create a show that was a "fusion of Eastern and Western culture". Xiaolin Showdown shows subtle influences of Eastern art, action, and philosophy, but also includes very Western characters and humor. Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD, Digital eMation, and Lotto Animation contributed some of the animation for this series.
Following the success of its first season, a 26-episode season 2 was ordered. A third season would follow, resulting in 3 seasons and 52 episodes. The series received promotion in other media, including Postopia, a trading card game, and a video game.
The series was followed by Xiaolin Chronicles, which premiered on August 26, 2013. Actress Tara Strong strongly hinted via Twitter that episodes were being produced, which was confirmed by fellow series star Grey DeLisle when she appeared on the March 9, 2012, episode of actor Rob Paulsen's podcast, and by series creator Christy Hui in her Facebook account.
Plot
Season one
Four young monks – Omi, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Clay – are forced into cooperation at the Xiaolin Temple after learning they are chosen to become Xiaolin Dragons. They become friends and work together traveling the world in search for Shen Gong Wu, mystical objects with powers that balance the forces of good and evil. Along the way, they must battle wannabe evil boy genius Jack Spicer, and the evil Heylin sorceress Wuya, whom Jack inadvertently frees from a 1500-year imprisonment in a puzzle box by Grand Master Dashi. Through thievery, Spicer ultimately possesses enough Shen Gong Wu to form Mala Mala Jong, an ancient monster that Wuya uses to help her gain control of the world. Raimundo defies orders and fights the monster, causing the remaining monks to fight and defend the remaining Shen Gong Wu in the Temple's possession. All the monks, except for Raimundo, are promoted to Xiaolin Apprentices. Angered, Raimundo joins the Heylin side and helps Wuya regain her human form.
Season two
Omi travels back in time and receives a second puzzle box from Grand Master Dashi, who trapped Wuya in the puzzle box 1500 years ago. But with no way back to the future, he freezes himself using the Orb of Tornami. In the present time, Omi breaks free of the ice with the puzzle box in hand. Raimundo decides that his rightful place belongs in the Xiaolin Temple with his friends and traps Wuya in the new puzzle box. After returning to the Temple, the monks continue their search for the Shen Gong Wu. Eventually, Raimundo is promoted to Xiaolin Apprentice.
Afterwards, the monks are introduced to Xiaolin monk-turned-evil villain Chase Young. Chase takes an interest in Omi and becomes determined to manipulate his mind into joining the Heylin side. When Master Fung becomes trapped in the Ying-Yang World, Omi asks for help from Chase. He succeeds in rescuing Master Fung; however, upon leaving the Ying-Yang world, his bad chi takes over and he joins the Heylin side. Chase succeeds in restoring Wuya to her human form, though he takes her powers. The remaining monks soon learn that Chase had sent Master Fung into the Ying-Yang World knowing the events that would unfold afterwards, including Omi joining his side.
Season three
Raimundo, Kimiko and Clay travel to the Ying-Yang World to retrieve Omi's good chi and return him to the Xiaolin side. After gaining Omi back, the monks are promoted to Wudai Warriors. They are then introduced to Hannibal Roy Bean, an evil villain from the Ying-Yang World who is responsible for turning Chase Young to the Heylin side.
Toward the end of their journey, Master Fung tells the monks that they have one final quest before the team's leader, the Shoku Warrior, will be revealed. Omi decides that he will stop Hannibal Bean from turning Chase to the Heylin side. He ends up freezing himself in order to travel to the future to find the Sands of Time. Through time travel, he succeeds by switching the Lao Mang Long Soup with pea soup. However, when he returns to his present time, he learns that his actions have made things worse: instead of Chase joining the Heylin side, it is Chase's former friend, Master Monk Guan, whom Hannibal Bean turns evil. The monks and Chase are captured by Hannibal Bean, Wuya, and the evil Guan; Chase sacrifices his good self to save the monks and give them the opportunity to fight and return everything to the way it was. The monks succeed, and the timeline is fixed.
In the end, Raimundo is revealed as the Shoku Warrior. The series concludes with every villain attacking the temple, and the Wudai Warriors led by Raimundo proceeding to counterattack.
Characters
Xiaolin Showdown features a large cast, many of whom only appear in one episode and occasionally return for cameos or for single episodes later in the series. While the supporting characters are often one-dimensional and serve an immediate purpose in the episode in which they appear, the main characters are often well-developed with strengths and minor flaws that become present as the series progresses.
Main characters
Omi (voiced by Tara Strong) – The Xiaolin Dragon of Water, Omi is the main protagonist of the series and was the first dragon-in-training to train with Master Fung. At times Omi can be selfish and boastful, and often learns lessons of humility. Despite his occasional moments of egotism, he has a big heart and sees the good in everyone, and is always happy to make new friends. Having been raised in the monastery, he is naïve about the outside world. As a running gag, Omi routinely confuses idiomatic phrases, from simple changes to lacking any resemblance to the original phrase whatsoever. Omi's signature moves are Tsunami Strike-Water, Tornado Strike-Water, and Wudai-Neptune Water. His Wudai Weapon is the Shimo Staff, and his elemental Shen Gong Wu is the Kaijin Charm. His preferred Shen Gong Wu is the Orb of Tornami (referred to as the Orb of Torpedo in Chronicles) as it is a water Shen Gong Wu. He turned evil when he returned from the Ying-Yang world to join Chase Young on the Heylin side. He receives Master Monk Guan's famous Spear of Guan.
Raimundo Pedrosa (voiced by Tom Kenny) – The Xiaolin Dragon of Wind, Raimundo is stubborn and self-centered, but also does anything to protect his friends. Raimundo is street-smart and the group's self-proclaimed rebel, later becoming the leader of the group. He comes from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He joins the Heylin side twice in the series (once out of envy of the success of his friends, and a second time as a ploy to take Shen Gong Wu and the Treasure of the Blind Swordsman from Hannibal Roy Bean). He receives a copy of Master Monk Guan's favorite Spear of Guan. Raimundo's signature moves are Typhoon Boom-Wind and Wudai-Star Wind. His preferred Shen Gong Wu is the Sword of the Storm (referred to as the Sword of Lucida in Chronicles) along with the Golden Tiger Claws (in the series he's the one who uses it the most). His Wudai Weapon is the Blade of the Nebula, and his elemental Shen Gong Wu is the Crest of the Condor. He is named Shoku Warrior in the final episode.
– The Xiaolin Dragon of Fire, Kimiko Tohomiko is the sole female member of the team. Kimiko is the most tech-savvy member of the team and comes from Japan. Kimiko also changes hairstyles and outfits in almost every episode. Kimiko's signature moves are Judolette Flip-Fire and Wudai-Mars Fire. Her preferred Shen Gong Wu is the Star Hanabi (referred to as the Hanabi Star in Chronicles), her Wudai Weapon is the Arrow Sparrow, and her elemental Shen Gong Wu is the Cat's Eye Draco. She has the shortest temper, generally at even the slightest provocation. She can however be extremely focused and ignore outer, annoying distractions. This is evidenced when she wields the Tangle Web Comb, said by Master Fung to require high levels of concentration.
Clay Bailey (voiced by Jeff Bennett) – The Xiaolin Dragon of Earth, Clay is the team muscle and a homegrown Texas cowboy. Clay sometimes speaks in "cowboy slang", and uses metaphors. Because of his good gentleman manners, he never fights girls. He also has a bad case of stage fright. His large size and sensible demeanor belie his good-humored and gentle nature. The only time he gets really mad is if someone takes or destroys his beloved cowboy hat. Clay has a sister named Jessie who is an outlaw and leader of the Black Vipers. Clay's signature moves are Seismic Kick-Earth and Wudai-Crater Earth. His preferred Shen Gong Wu are the Fist of Tebigong (referred to as the Fist of the Iron Bear in Chronicles) and the Third-Arm Sash. His Wudai Weapon is the Big Bang Meteorang, and his elemental Shen Gong Wu is the Longhorn Taurus.
Dojo Kanojo Cho (voiced by Wayne Knight) – A shapeshifting Chinese dragon. The Xiaolin warriors' main mode of transportation and wise-cracking advisor, Dojo can sense Shen Gong Wu. He has no hind legs and is normally about 1.5 feet long, but when the situation requires it, he can shift into a full-sized 40-foot dragon. He has served Grand Master Dashi. Dojo is often seen around Clay in the show; hanging around his arm, sitting on his shoulder or inside his cowboy hat or around Omi, Raimundo, Kimiko and Master Fung. When Dojo is out of commission, the Xiaolin Warriors use an aircraft Shen Gong Wu called the Silver Manta Ray, or the other transport Shen Gong Wu such as the Crouching Cougar, the Shen-Ga-Roo, or the Tunnel Armadillo.
Jack Spicer (voiced by Danny Cooksey) – The Xiaolin Warriors' first nemesis. Jack Spicer is notable for his robotic engineering, long rants, overuse of the word "evil" and his repetitive self-proclamation of "evil boy genius". He is responsible for releasing Wuya from the puzzle box that Grand Master Dashi locked her in, and aids her in finding Shen Gong Wu to conquer the world. Jack has aided the Xiaolin Warriors on occasion, and does show occasional leanings toward good. However, he always winds up back on the evil side. As a reflection of his character, his preferred Shen Gong Wu is the Monkey Staff (referred to as the Monkey Sphere in Chronicles), which was the only Shen Gong Wu he is left with at the end of the series.
Wuya (voiced by Susan Silo) – A 1500-year-old Heylin witch who serves as the principal antagonist to the Xiaolin. After being imprisoned in a puzzle box by Grand Master Dashi for 1,500 years, Wuya's physical form was destroyed. Her goal is to use the Shen Gong Wu to regain a tangible body along with her magical powers, which happens at the end of season one with the help of Raimundo, the Serpent's Tail and the Reversing Mirror and with the help of Chase Young in season two and season three. She, like Dojo, has the ability to sense a Shen Gong Wu's appearance, but does not need the Scroll of the Shen Gong Wu to determine what it does. At one point she leaves Jack to take on Raimundo as a partner, but after much debate he returns to the path of good.
Chase Young (voiced by Jason Marsden) – A villain introduced in the second season as an even bigger evil threat than Jack. He himself was turned to the Heylin side when Hannibal Bean convinced him to drink the Lao Mang Long Soup in return for remaining forever young. Chase Young controls an army of therianthropic warriors, trapped in the form of jungle cats, and has the ability to shapeshift into a humanoid lizard-like creature. Chase rarely uses Shen Gong Wu in battle since he claims it distracts him from honing his martial arts skills. During the second season of the show, Chase plots to turn Omi to the Heylin side as part of a plot to rule the world. He succeeds, but later releases Omi as a matter of honor.
Supporting characters
Master Fung (, voiced by René Auberjonois in season 1 and Maurice LaMarche in seasons 2–3) The Xiaolin Warrior's Master, trainer, and guide, Master Fung is mortified by his charges' behavior at times. He also is nearly always calm, despite the Warriors' behavior and mistakes.
Master Monk Guan (, voiced by Jeff Bennett) – A legendary tai chi master who has traveled the world a dozen times, and has defeated many opponents using only his famous Spear of Guan which was later given to Omi (his favorite copy of the Spear of Guan was given to Raimundo). He makes his first appearance in the series by trading Dojo to Chase Young, who intended to use him in his Lau Mang Long soup, to get his Spear of Guan back. He also aids the young monks in combat training. He has his own temple on a cliffside near the ocean, where the young monks stay and store Shen Gong Wu while he trains them.
Grandmaster Dashi (, voiced by Tom Kenny) – The grandmaster Xiaolin monk, who imprisoned Wuya in a puzzle box 1500 years ago. He appeared along Dojo when Omi traveled to the past, seeking a second puzzle box. He was friends with Master Monk Guan and Chase Young, and met Omi when he assisted the three in the battle against Wuya.
Hannibal Roy Bean (voiced by Tom Kenny) – Hannibal is a small, bean-shaped demon with a southern accent, who spends his time plotting evil and world domination. He is first shown imprisoned in the Ying-Yang world by Chase Young, but tricks the Xiaolin warriors into releasing him. His "primary" Shen Gong Wu is the Moby Morpher, which he uses to shapeshift into other forms and change size, and travels on his bird, Ying-Ying.
Mystical elements
Shen Gong Wu
The focus of the series is on collecting the fictional Shen Gong Wu (), mystical artifacts that have magical powers, activated by saying the artifact's name aloud. Wuya's release caused Shen Gong Wu to reveal themselves. They are primarily used in Xiaolin Showdowns. The first Xiaolin Showdown was between Grand Master Dashi and Wuya. It was a great battle, in which Dashi used the Shen Gong Wu against Wuya's Heylin magic. Eventually, Grand Master Dashi was the victor, and Wuya was trapped within a mystical puzzle box. Determined to ensure that Wuya would not be able to get her hands on the Shen Gong Wu and rule the world with them, Grand Master Dashi and the dragon Dojo hid them all over the world. Dashi then created the Xiaolin Temple and began a lineage of Xiaolin Warriors to prevent the Shen Gong Wu from falling into the wrong hands. Should Wuya ever be freed, the Xiaolin Warriors would rise up and fight the forces of the Heylin.
A Shen Gong Wu can only be located when it chooses to reveal itself, at that point both Wuya and Dojo can sense its activation and can find its general location. Wuya can tell what Shen Gong Wu has revealed itself, while the Xiaolin must defer to the Ancient Scroll of the Shen Gong Wu to find out which one has been revealed. Chase Young is also capable of anticipating when a new Shen Gong Wu is revealed.
There are two occasions during which astronomical events affect the Shen Gong Wu. When the planets align themselves, the Shen Gong Wu gather to form Mala Mala Jong. When the rare Heylin Comet flies over Earth, the Shen Gong Wu come alive and take over their user. Raimundo was subject to the Heylin Comet's magic in the episode "The Last Temptation of Raimundo", and he was taken over by the Golden Tiger Claws, Third Arm Sash, Helmet of Jong and many other Shen Gong Wu. He was mutated into a giant freakish brute until the comet had passed, and it was safe to take the Shen Gong Wu off.
In Xiaolin Chronicles, many Shen Gong Wu are redesigned and even renamed, such as the Orb of Tornami, Sword of the Storm, Fist of Tebigong, and Monkey Staff.
Xiaolin Showdowns
In Xiaolin Showdown, when more than one person grabs a Shen Gong Wu at the same time, a Xiaolin Showdown occurs. In this namesake competition, each side wagers a Shen Gong Wu he/she already owns. In some cases, the competitors invoke a Shen Yi Bu Dare, where multiple (usually two) Shen Gong Wu are wagered. The winner obtains all the Shen Gong Wu fought for, totaling five Shen Gong Wu. In some cases, when more than two people touch a Shen Gong Wu at once, a different kind of Xiaolin Showdown occurs: the Showdown Trio is a two-on-one or three-person free-for-all, a Xiaolin Showdown Tsunami is either a two-on-two or a four-person free-for-all Showdown, and an Eight-Way Xiaolin Showdown is a four-on-four Showdown. One can also call for a Cosmic Clash Showdown, allowing the caller to bring more people into the Showdown, who did not touch the Shen Gong Wu (however, in this type of showdown, one of the competitors must be over one-half Shen Gong Wu and look kind of freakish). Generally, the competitors in a Xiaolin Showdown of any type use the Shen Gong Wu that they wagered to compete with. However, there have been instances where a Shen Gong Wu not wagered was used in the Xiaolin Showdown, as in "The Last Temptation of Raimundo" when Wuya used the Shroud of Shadows against the Xiaolin Warriors while she was possessing Raimundo. Another showdown was in "Enter The Dragon" when Omi uses the Reversing Mirror and Shroud of Shadows on Dojo.
The challenge in a Xiaolin Showdown can be anything, but most commonly is some sort of race to the Shen Gong Wu. When the Showdown is called, the world warps around the competitors and bystanders, and the terrain they are on becomes an extreme extent, such as a mountainside becoming a field of rock pillars, or a snowfield becoming a large snowboarding course. Some Showdowns have also affected those involved, such as gaining weight for a sumo wrestling showdown. Other contests have been games of tag, basketball, or combat. The challenge officially begins after the change, and when both (or all) combatants yell "Gong Yi Tanpai!" then the decided contest starts. When one is victorious, the terrain returns to normal, and the winner gains possession of all the wagered Shen Gong Wu.
"Gong Yi Tanpai!" is a pseudo-Chinese way of saying, "Ready, Set, Go!".
Omi inadvertently gave the competition its name when he traveled back in time in the episode "Days Past" to ask Grand Master Dashi to make another puzzle box to imprison Wuya.
Episodes
Reception
Critical reception
Xiaolin Showdown was a huge hit for the Kids WB network and it ranked at the no.1 position against all other Saturday morning competition mainly between kids aged 6–14.
Awards and nominations
In other media
Home media
Warner Bros. released a two-disc Season 1 DVD on February 20, 2007. On January 10, 2017, after Amazon acquired the rights to produce home media releases for the series, both a reprint of the Season 1 DVD and a complete Season 2 DVD were released in manufacture-on-demand format. On April 11, 2017, Season 3 was also given a manufacture-on-demand release.
All seasons of Xiaolin Showdown as well as the spin-off series Xiaolin Chronicles are available on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes in high definition.
Trading card game
Wizards of the Coast released a now out-of-print trading card game based on the series in 2005.
Video game
Konami developed a Xiaolin Showdown video game that was released on November 14, 2006, for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox, and Nintendo DS.
Successor series
On September 14, 2013, a successor series, Xiaolin Chronicles, premiered. Chronicles features a new ally of the main characters named Ping Pong as they continue their fight against Wuya, Jack Spicer and Chase Young.
References
External links
Anime-influenced Western animated television series
Martial arts television series
2000s American animated television series
2003 American television series debuts
2006 American television series endings
American children's animated action television series
American children's animated adventure television series
American children's animated science fantasy television series
Television series by Warner Bros. Animation
Kids' WB original shows
The WB original programming
Television series about Shaolin Temple
Television series about treasure hunting
Television shows adapted into video games
English-language television shows
Japan in non-Japanese culture
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieszko%20III%20the%20Old
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Mieszko III the Old
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Mieszko III the Old (c. 1126/27 – 13 March 1202), of the Piast dynasty, was Duke of Greater Poland from 1138 and High Duke of Poland, with interruptions, from 1173 until his death.
He was the fourth and second surviving son of Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland, by his second wife Salomea, daughter of the German count Henry of Berg-Schelklingen.
Early life
According to the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III, Mieszko received the newly established Duchy of Greater Poland, comprising the western part of the short-lived Greater Poland. He had previously been duke of Poznań where he had his main residence. His older half-brother, Władysław II, the eldest son of the late duke with his first wife Zbyslava of Kiev, was proclaimed high duke and overlord of the Seniorate Province at Kraków, including the Greater Polish lands of Gniezno and Kalisz, as well as duke of Silesia.
First conflict with Władysław II
The first major conflict with the high duke took place during 1140–1141, when his younger half-brothers Bolesław IV the Curly and Mieszko III together with their mother but without Władysław's knowledge divided between them the lands of Łęczyca, which were held only as a wittum by Bolesław's widow Salomea for life and should revert to Władysław's Seniorate Province upon her death.
In 1141 Salomea of Berg organized a meeting at Łęczyca, where she and her sons decided to marry their younger sister Agnes to one of the sons of Grand Prince Vsevolod II of Kiev in order to gain an ally against High Duke Władysław II. Only by Władysław's rapid intervention did the independent plans of the junior dukes fail. Grand Prince Vsevolod II, facing the choice between an alliance with the strong high duke or the weak junior dukes and their mother, chose the former, which was sealed with the betrothal of Władysław's eldest son, Bolesław I the Tall, to Vsevolod's daughter, Zvenislava in 1142. Władysław II had not been invited to the Łęczyca meeting, despite the fact that as the high duke, he had the final voice on Agnes' engagement. In retaliation for this omission, he supported Kievan military actions against Salomea and her sons in the winter of 1142–1143. The first clash between the brothers was a complete success for the high duke.
Second conflict with Władysław II
On 27 July 1144, the Dowager Duchess Salomea died and High Duke Władysław II incorporated the Łęczyca Land into the Seniorate Province as intended by his father's testament. This was again opposed by Bolesław IV and Mieszko III, who wished to give this land to their minor brother, Henry. Fighting took place in 1145. After an unexpected defeat, the high duke was finally able to obtain the victory (Battle of Pilicy), thanks to his Kievan allies.
An agreement was made under which Władysław retained Łęczyca. However, the high duke continued with his intention of reuniting all of Poland under his rule. This provoked the strong opposition from his Silesian voivode Piotr Włostowic, who support the interests of the junior dukes in order to maintain his own power and position. Władysław, instigated by his wife Agnes of Babenberg, decided to eliminate Włostowic for good. The voivode was captured in an ambush. Agnes demanded Włostowic's death for treason, but the high duke instead chose a terrible punishment: Włostowic was blinded, muted, and expelled from the country. However, the voivode had numerous supporters, who were disgusted by this cruel act. Włostowic fled to the Kievan court, where he began to intrigue against the high duke, thus beginning Władysław's downfall.
Third conflict and exile of Władysław II
The war erupted again in early 1146. This time, Władysław could not count on his Kievan allies, because they were busy with their own issues; in fact the high duke had sent some of his forces, led by his eldest son Bolesław, to support Great Prince Vsevolod. Władysław's plight had made him swear allegiance to King Conrad III of Germany, half-brother of his wife Agnes. Nevertheless, Władysław was confident of his victory and it initially seemed that success was on his side, as Bolesław IV and Mieszko III, fearing clashes in an open field, escaped to Poznań. At this time the disaster to the high duke began.
Władysław's cause lost support when he was excommunicated by Archbishop Jacob of Gniezno for his behavior against Piotr Włostowic. He also faced rebellion by his own subjects, who were against his tyrannical rule. The defeat of Władysław was total; by May 1146 all Poland was in the hands of the junior dukes. The former high duke and his family were forced to escape to save their lives, first to Bohemia and later to the Kaiserpfalz of Altenburg in Germany, under the protection of King Conrad III.
Once they had consolidated their rule over Poland, Bolesław IV and Mieszko III made new decisions. Bolesław, as the elder brother, succeeded Władysław as high duke and ruler over Silesia. Mieszko, on the other hand, retained his Duchy of Greater Poland and was satisfied with his role his brother's ally. Henry, the next-born, finally received his Duchy of Sandomierz. Only the youngest brother, Casimir II, remained without lands.
Urged by his brother-in-law Władysław, King Conrad III of Germany attempted to restore the former high duke to the Polish throne. Eventually an agreement was reached under which King Conrad accepted the rule of Bolesław IV, and in return the new high duke had to pay a tribute to the German king. The dispute between Władysław and the junior dukes remained unresolved as King Conrad III was busy with the preparations for the Second Crusade to the Holy Land.
Recognition of the junior duke's authority
Meanwhile, the junior dukes had no intention to just wait passively for an arrangement to consolidate their power. In May 1147 they received from Pope Eugene III the confirmation of a foundation for a monastery in Trzemeszno, which was a clear recognition of their sovereignty. In addition, they also sought to improve their relations with the German rulers.
In 1147, simultaneously with the arrival of King Conrad III to the Holy Land, Duke Mieszko III joined the Wendish Crusade against the pagan Polabian Slavs in the former Northern March, which was organized by the Ascanian count Albert the Bear and the Wettin margrave Conrad of Meissen. However, during this trip Mieszko III politically and militarily supported some Slavic tribes in an effort to protect Polish interests in the Sprevane lands against claims raised by the ambitious Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony. This assistance to pagans infuriated Albert the Bear, who arrived in Kruszwica in early 1148 to improve their alliance. Finally, they made an agreement, which was confirmed by the marriage of the junior dukes' sister Judith with Albert's eldest son Otto.
Expedition of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
To settle the dispute with Władysław II regarding the Polish throne, Bolesław IV, through the agency of Albert the Bear and Margrave Conrad, agreed to appear at the Imperial Diet in Merseburg in 1152 and pay homage to the newly elected king of Germany, King Conrad's nephew Frederick Barbarossa. However, the high duke broke his promise and remained absent. Meanwhile, Frederick had to secure his rule in the Kingdom of Italy and his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor, wherefore he forged an alliance with Margrave Henry II of Austria, a scion of the House of Babenberg and brother of Władysław's wife Agnes. This coalition brought the Polish affair back on the table.
The Polish campaign of Emperor Frederick began in 1157. For unknown reasons, Bolesław IV and Mieszko III did not try to defend the traditional frontier on the Oder River, but instead burned the castles of Głogów and Bytom and began their retreat into the depths of Greater Poland, where Bolesław's forces finally surrendered to the Imperial troops at Krzyszkowo, near Poznań. After his defeat, the high duke had to ask for forgiveness from the Emperor and the junior dukes had to pay him a large tribute. On Christmas Day in Magdeburg, they promised to send food to the Emperor's Italian expedition and to return the Silesia Province (at least). As a guarantee of the fulfillment, the junior dukes' younger brother, Casimir II, was sent to Germany as a hostage.
Frederick Barbarossa regarded the conflict as resolved and marched against Milan the next year. However, while the Emperor was engaged in the Italian affairs, Bolesław IV did nothing to fulfill the agreement. On 30 May 1159, Władysław II died in exile without having ever seen Poland again. Only renewed Imperial pressure enabled Władysław's sons Bolesław the Tall and Mieszko IV Tanglefoot to come into their inheritance four years later, when the junior dukes finally returned Silesia to their nephews in 1163. The province thereby became the ancestral homeland of the Silesian Piasts.
Death of Henry of Sandomierz and revolt of Casimir II the Just
In 1166 Mieszko III and his brothers started another Prussian crusade, whereby Duke Henry of Sandomierz was killed in battle in October of that year. Before his departure, and in case of his death, he had left his duchy to his youngest brother Casimir II the Just, who by their father's testament had remained without lands. However, High Duke Bolesław IV, against his late brother's will, occupied Sandomierz and annexed it to his Seniorate Province.
This decision sparked the rebellion of Casimir II, which was supported by his brother Mieszko III; the magnate Jaksa of Miechów; Sviatoslav, son of Piotr Włostowic; Archbishop Jan I of Gniezno; and Bishop Gedko of Kraków. In February 1168 the rebels gathered at Jędrzejów, were Mieszko III was elected high duke and vested Casimir II with Sandomierz. The final defeat of Bolesław IV did not occur, however, because the high duke accepted the demands of the rebels and divided Henry's duchy into three parts: Wiślica was given to Casimir, Bolesław took Sandomierz proper, and the rest was left to Mieszko.
Inheritance dispute in Silesia
In 1172 another conflict arose among the Silesian Piasts, when Duke Bolesław the Tall chose to ignore the claims of his first-born son, Jaroslaw, by designating his son from his second marriage, Henry I the Bearded, as his sole heir. When Jarosław, forced to become a priest, returned from his German exile, he claimed a share of the Silesian lands. Mieszko III supported his grandnephew in his demands, and a civil war was initiated.
In order to prevent another Imperial intervention, High Duke Bolesław IV sent Mieszko III to Magdeburg, with the sum of 8,000 pieces of silver as a tribute to the Emperor and the promise to resolve this conflict soon. This time, the terms of the 1173 agreement were to be strictly realized. Bolesław the Tall retained his power over Wrocław; however, he had to cede the Silesian Duchy of Opole to his son Jarosław for life and furthermore had to agree on the division of the remaining Silesian lands with his younger brother Mieszko Tanglefoot, who assumed the rule in the new Duchy of Racibórz.
High Duke of Poland
After his brother Bolesław IV died on 3 April 1173, Mieszko III became the new high duke of Poland (dux Totius Poloniae) according to the principle of agnatic seniority. His policy focused on maintaining full power for himself, as the oldest surviving member of the dynasty. Despite his succession to the throne at Kraków, the new high duke remained in Greater Poland, while Lesser Poland was ruled by Henryk Kietlicz as a governor appointed by Mieszko. Harsh tax measures were introduced, which incurred the displeasure of the Lesser Polish magnates. On the other hand, Mieszko had several foreign policy successes through his daughter's marriages: Elisabeth married Duke Soběslav II of Bohemia circa 1173, and through the dynastic arrangement between his daughter Anastasia and the Griffin duke Bogislaw I of Pomerania, Mieszko reinforced Polish sovereignty over the Pomeranian duchy.
In 1177 Mieszko III's first-born son, Odon, fearing for his inheritance, rebelled against his father. He was supported by Bishop Gedko of Kraków, his cousin Bolesław the Tall, and his uncle Casimir II the Just. For Odon, the main reason for his rebellion was the favoritism of Mieszko to the offspring of his second marriage and the attempts of the high duke to force him to become a priest so as to eliminate him from succession. To the other rebels, the reason was the harsh and dictatorial government of the high duke. The rebellion was a complete surprise to Mieszko; during Easter of 1177 he was totally convinced of the loyalty of his relatives, especially when the junior dukes organized a meeting at Gniezno, were the high duke was received by the crowds with cheers.
At first Greater Poland remained strongly in Mieszko's hands, thanks to his governor Henryk Kietlicz, his most important follower. At the same time, Casimir II the Just, the clear head of the rebellion, made a divisionary treaty with his allies: all of Silesia was granted to Duke Bolesław the Tall and Greater Poland was given to Odon. This was a significant complication, because since 1173 Bolesław had ruled Silesia alongside his brother Mieszko Tanglefoot and his own son Jarosław of Opole. After they learned of this agreement, both Mieszko Tanglefoot and Jarosław sided with the high duke and rebelled against Bolesław the Tall, who now, busy fighting with his brother and son, lost the opportunity to gain Kraków and obtain the Seniorate Province for himself. In his place, it was Casimir II the Just who took control over the Seniorate Province, and, with this, was proclaimed the new high duke of Poland. After not seeing any possibility of continuing the resistance, Mieszko escaped to Racibórz, under the protection of his nephew and namesake Duke Mieszko Tanglefoot. However, shortly afterwards the deposed high duke decided to leave Poland and seek foreign support. Odon finally occupied all Greater Poland and was declared duke.
Exile and return to Greater Poland
By 1179, Mieszko went to Bohemia, ruled by his son-in-law Soběslav II, who nevertheless refused to help him. Mieszko then turned to Germany and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who offered help in his restoration on the Polish throne upon a payment of 10,000 pieces of silver, a sum that Mieszko couldn't amass. Finally in Pomerania, his other son-in-law Duke Bogislaw I agreed to help him. By the agency of his Pomeranian allies, Mieszko forged links with their Polish followers, grouped around Zdzisław, Archbishop of Gniezno, and in 1181 he was able to conquer the eastern Greater Polish lands of Gniezno and Kalisz, which at that time were part of the Seniorate Province. Soon after, Mieszko also managed to recover western Greater Poland, and Odon was pushed to the lands south of the Obra River. In 1182 a formal reconciliation between father and son was achieved. During these events, and for unknown reasons, High Duke Casimir II the Just remained in total passivity; thanks to this, Mieszko had the opportunity to recover all Greater Poland.
Mieszko still had the intention to recover the lordship over all Poland. In 1184 he tried to forge an alliance with Frederick Barbarossa's son, King Henry VI of Germany, offering him a large sum of silver. Casimir II the Just, however, knew his intentions and had simply sent Henry more money than Mieszko.
After his failure with the German king, Mieszko decided to take control over Masovia and Kuyavia, then ruled by his nephew Leszek, the only surviving son of Bolesław IV. Mieszko convinced Leszek to name him as his successor if he died without issue. However in 1185, one year before his death, Leszek changed his testament and appointed his younger uncle High Duke Casimir II the Just as his successor, possibly as a result of the harsh proceedings of the Duke of Greater Poland. This time Mieszko acted quickly, and upon Leszek's death in 1186 he took the Kuyavia region and annexed it to his Duchy. Shortly thereafter he ceded this land to his son Bolesław.
Brief restoration
In 1191 the foreign policy of High Duke Casimir II the Just triggered dissatisfaction in the Lesser Poland nobility, led by Mieszko's former governor Henry Kietlicz. With the help of this opposition, Mieszko could finally reconquer Kraków and resume the High Ducal title. He decided to entrust the government of Kraków to one of his sons, either Bolesław or Mieszko the Younger. Casimir, however, quickly regained Kraków and the overlordship and the Prince-Governor was captured; however, he was soon released to be with his father. Probably after the failed expedition over Kraków, Mieszko gave to his son and namesake Mieszko the Younger the Greater Polish lands of Kalisz as his own duchy.
When on 2 August 1193 Mieszko the Younger died, his Duchy of Kalisz reverted to the lands of Greater Poland. Shortly thereafter, Mieszko III granted Kalisz to his elder son Odon, who then died eight months later on 20 April 1194. These two early deaths forced Mieszko to make a new divisionary treaty: the duke retained Kalisz for himself, while southern Greater Poland was given to his youngest son Władysław III Spindleshanks, who also assumed the guardianship of the minor son of Odon, Władysław Odonic.
High Duke Casimir II the Just died on 5 May 1194, and Mieszko's pretensions over Lesser Poland were reborn. Unfortunately, this time the local nobility preferred to see on the throne the minor sons of Casimir, Leszek the White and Konrad. Mieszko's attempts to retake the power ended at the bloody Battle of Mozgawa on 13 September 1195, where Mieszko himself was seriously injured and his son Bolesław of Kuyavia died. After the battle Mieszko withdrew to Kalisz without waiting for the Silesian troops of his allies, Mieszko Tanglefoot and Jarosław of Opole.
Final settlement
The Battle of Mozgawa convinced Mieszko that to gain the throne through battle was extremely difficult, so he began to negotiate with the high duke's widow, Helen of Znojmo. In 1198 he finally was allowed to return to Lesser Poland, but was compelled to cede Kuyavia to Casimir's sons.
In 1199, the voivode Mikołaj Gryfita and Bishop Fulko of Kraków again deposed Mieszko and restored Leszek the White as high duke; however, three years later a new settlement was made and Mieszko was able to return. He retained the title of high duke, but was forced to give up part of his powers. He died shortly afterwards; at that time, he had survived all his siblings and his sons except for Władysław III Spindleshanks, who succeeded him as Polish high duke and duke of Greater Poland.
Marriages and issue
Around 1136, Mieszko married firstly with Elisabeth (b. ca. 1128 – d. ca. 1154), daughter of King Béla II of Hungary. They had:
Odon (b. ca. 1149 – d. 20 April 1194)
Stephen (b. ca. 1150 – d. 18 October 1166/77?).
Elisabeth (b. 1152 – d. 2 April 1209), married firstly ca. 1173 to Duke Soběslav II of Bohemia and secondly c. January 1180 to Conrad II of Landsberg, Margrave of Lusatia
Wierzchoslawa Ludmilla (b. bef. 1153 – d. bef. 1223), married ca. 1167 to Frederick of Bitsch, later duke of Lorraine
Judith (b. bef. 1154 – d. af. 12 December 1201), married ca. 1173 to Bernhard of Anhalt, later duke of Saxony
By 1154, Mieszko married secondly with Eudoxia of Kiev (b. ca. 1131 – d. aft. 1187), possibly a daughter of Grand Prince Iziaslav II of Kiev. They had:
Bolesław (b. 1159 – killed in the Battle of Mozgawą, 13 September 1195)
Mieszko the Younger (b. ca. 1160/65 – d. 2 August 1193)
Władysław III Spindleshanks (b. ca. 1161/67 – d. 3 November 1231)
Salomea (b. ca. 1162/64 – d. 11 May ca. 1183), married bef. 1177 to Prince Ratibor (II) of Pomerania.
Anastasia (b. ca. 1164 – d. aft. 31 May 1240), married on 26 April 1177 to Duke Bogislaw I of Pomerania.
See also
History of Poland (966–1385)
References
Sources
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1202 deaths
12th-century Polish monarchs
13th-century Polish monarchs
Polish Roman Catholics
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siouxsie%20Sioux
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Siouxsie Sioux
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Susan Janet Ballion (born 27 May 1957), known professionally as Siouxsie Sioux (, ), is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. She came to prominence as the leader and main lyricist of the rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were active from 1976 to 1996. They released 11 studio albums, and had several UK Top 20 singles including "Hong Kong Garden", "Happy House" and "Peek-a-Boo", plus a US Top 25 single in the Billboard Hot 100, with "Kiss Them for Me".
Siouxsie also formed a second group, the Creatures in 1981. With the Creatures, she released four studio albums and singles such as "Right Now". After disbanding the Creatures in the mid-2000s, she has continued as a solo artist, using just the name Siouxsie, and released the album Mantaray to critical acclaim in 2007.
AllMusic named Siouxsie as "one of the most influential British singers of the rock era". Her songs have been covered by Jeff Buckley ("Killing Time"), Tricky ("Tattoo") and LCD Soundsystem ("Slowdive") and sampled by Massive Attack ("Metal Postcard") and the Weeknd ("Happy House"). In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Q Awards and in 2012, she received the Inspiration Award at the Ivor Novello Awards.
Biography
Early life (1957–1976)
Siouxsie was born Susan Janet Ballion on 27 May 1957 at Guy's Hospital in Southwark, England. She is ten years younger than her two siblings. Her sister and brother were born while the family was in the Belgian Congo. Her parents met in that colony and worked there for a few years. Her mother, Betty, was of Scottish and English descent and was a secretary who spoke both French and English. Her father was a bacteriologist who milked venom from snakes, and came from Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. In the mid-1950s, before Siouxsie's birth, the family moved to England.
The Ballions lived in a suburban district in Chislehurst, Kent. Siouxsie was an isolated child, being unable to invite friends to her house because of her alcoholic, unemployed father. Despite his issues, Siouxsie regarded him as intelligent and well-read, and sympathised with his inability to fit in with a "rigid, middle-class society". During moments of sobriety, her father shared with her his love for books. Siouxsie was aware that her family was different; the Ballions were not involved in the local community and Siouxsie, aware that her family's house differed from the neighbours', would later state that "the suburbs inspired intense hatred."
At the age of nine, she and a friend were sexually assaulted by a stranger in a park. The assault was ignored by both her parents and the police, and was not spoken of in the family. The incident and its later treatment would lead Siouxsie to distrust adults. Years later, she stated: I grew up having no faith in adults as responsible people. And being the youngest in the family I was isolated – I had no one to confide in. So I invented my own world, my own reality. It was my own way of defending myself – protecting myself from the outside world. The only way I could deal with how to survive was to get some strong armour.
Her father died of alcoholism-related illness when Siouxsie was 14 years old, resulting in a decline in her health. Siouxsie lost a great deal of weight and failed to attend school. After several misdiagnoses, she was operated on and survived a bout of ulcerative colitis. During the weeks of recovery in mid-1972, she watched television in the hospital and saw David Bowie on Top of the Pops.
At 17, she left school. During this period she began visiting the local gay discos frequented by her sister's friends. She later introduced her own friends to that scene. In November 1975, the Sex Pistols performed at the local art college in Chislehurst. Siouxsie did not attend, but one of her friends told her how they sounded like the Stooges, and that singer Johnny Rotten had threatened students attending the gig. In February 1976, Siouxsie and her friend Steven Severin went to see the Sex Pistols play in London. After chatting with members of the band, Siouxsie and Severin decided to follow them regularly. In the following months, journalist Caroline Coon coined the term "Bromley Contingent" to describe this group of eccentric teenagers devoted to the Sex Pistols.
Siouxsie became well known in the London club scene for her glam, fetish- and bondage-inspired attire, which later became part of punk fashion. She would also heavily influence the later development of gothic fashion with her signature cat-eye makeup, deep red lipstick, spiky dyed-black hair, and black clothing. In early September 1976, the Bromley Contingent followed the Sex Pistols to France, where Siouxsie was beaten up for wearing a cupless bra and a black armband with a swastika on it. She claimed her intent was to shock the older generation, not to make a political statement. She later wrote the song "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" (in memory of the anti-Nazi artist John Heartfield).
Following the DIY ethos and the idea that the people in the audience could be the people on stage, Siouxsie and Severin decided to form a band. When a support slot at the 100 Club Punk Festival (organised by Malcolm McLaren) opened up, they decided to make an attempt at performing, although at that time they did not know how to play any songs. On 20 September 1976, the band improvised 20 minutes of music while Siouxsie sang the "Lord's Prayer".
For critic Jon Savage, Siouxsie was "unlike any female singer before or since, commanding yet aloof, entirely modern". Viv Albertine from the Slits said: Siouxsie just appeared fully made, fully in control, utterly confident. It totally blew me away. There she was doing something that I dared to dream but she took it and did it and it wiped the rest of the festival for me, that was it. I can't even remember everything else about it except that one performance.
One of Siouxsie's first public appearances was with the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy's television show, on Thames Television in December 1976. Standing next to the band, Siouxsie made fun of the presenter when he asked her how she was doing. She responded: "I've always wanted to meet you, Bill." Grundy, who later claimed he was drunk, suggested a meeting after the show, which provoked guitarist Steve Jones to respond with a series of expletives inappropriate for prime-time television. This episode created a media furore on the front covers of several tabloids, including the Daily Mirror, which published the headline "Siouxsie's a Punk Shocker". The event had a major impact on the Sex Pistols' subsequent career, and they became a household name overnight.
Aware of the press surrounding both herself and the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie began to distance herself from the scene and stopped seeing the Sex Pistols after the 15 December 1976 gig at Notre Dame Hall. From then, she focused her energy on her own band, Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Creatures (1977–2003)
In 1977, Siouxsie toured in the UK as Siouxsie and the Banshees, with Severin on bass, Kenny Morris on drums and John McKay on guitar. One year later, their first single, "Hong Kong Garden" reached number 7 in the UK Singles Chart. With its oriental-inflected xylophone motif, Melody Maker deemed it "a glorious debut [...] All the elements come together with remarkable effect. The song is strident and powerful with tantalising oriental guitar riffs plus words and vocals that are the result of anger, disdain and isolation. No-one will be singled out because everyone is part and parcel of the whole. It might even be a hit".
Their debut album, The Scream, was one of the first post-punk records released. It received 5-star reviews in Sounds and Record Mirror. The latter said that the record "points to the future, real music for the new age". The music was different from the single; it was angular, dark and jagged. The Scream was later hailed by NME as one of the best debut albums of all time along with Patti Smith's Horses. Join Hands followed in 1979 with war as the lyrical theme.
The 1980 album Kaleidoscope marked a change in musical direction with the arrival of John McGeoch, considered "one of the most innovative and influential guitarists" by The Guardian, and drummer Budgie, the latter of whom would continue to perform and record with Siouxsie until 2004. The hit single "Happy House" was qualified as "great Pop" with "liquid guitar" and other songs like "Red Light" were layered with electronic sounds. Kaleidoscope widened Siouxsie's audience, reaching the top 5 in the UK Albums Chart. Juju followed in 1981, reaching number 7; the singles "Spellbound" and "Arabian Knights" were described as "pop marvels" by The Guardian. During recording sessions for Juju, Siouxsie and Budgie formed a percussion-oriented duo called the Creatures, characterized by a stripped-down sound focused on vocals and drums; their first record, the EP Wild Things, was a commercial success.
In 1982, the Siouxsie and the Banshees' album A Kiss in the Dreamhouse was widely acclaimed by critics. Richard Cook of NME depicted it as "a feat of imagination scarcely ever recorded". The single "Slowdive" was "a violin-colored dance beat number". They included strings for the first time on several songs. However, the recording sessions took their toll, and McGeoch was forced to quit the band.
In 1983, Siouxsie went to Hawaii to record the Creatures' first album, Feast, which included the hit single "Miss the Girl". It was her first incursion into exotica, incorporating sounds of waves, local Hawaiian choirs and local percussions. Later that year, Siouxsie and Budgie released "Right Now", a song from Mel Tormé's repertoire that the Creatures re-orchestrated with brass arrangements; "Right Now" soon became a top 20 hit single in the UK. Then, with the Banshees (including guitarist Robert Smith of the Cure), she covered the Beatles' "Dear Prudence", which reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart. Two albums followed with Smith: Nocturne, recorded live in London in 1983, and 1984's Hyæna. In 1985, the single "Cities in Dust" was recorded with sequencers; it climbed to number 21 in the UK charts. Entertainment Weekly noted that it was the first of a handful of Alternative rock radio hits in the U.S. 1986's Tinderbox and the 1987 covers album Through the Looking Glass both reached the top 15 in the UK.
In 1988, the single "Peek-a-Boo" marked a musical departure from her previous work, anticipating hip hop-inspired rock with the use of samples. The song was praised by NME as "oriental marching band hip hop with farting horns and catchy accordion" and hailed by Melody Maker as "a brightly unexpected mixture of black steel and pop disturbance". The Peepshow album received a five star review in Q magazine. The ballad "The Last Beat of My Heart" issued as a single, saw her exploring new ground with accordion and strings.
Siouxsie and Budgie then went to Andalusia in Spain to record the second Creatures album, Boomerang. The songs took a different direction from previous Creatures works, with backing music ranging from flamenco to jazz and blues styles. It featured brass on most of the songs. The first single was "Standing There". NME hailed Boomerang as "a rich and unsettling landscape of exotica". Anton Corbijn visited the group during the recording near Jerez de la Frontera, and Siouxsie convinced him to take photographs in color, unlike his prior work which was in black-and-white: the photos used for the promotion showed Siouxsie and Budgie in fields surrounded with sunflowers. In 1990, she toured for the first time with the Creatures, in Europe and North America.
On 1991's dance-oriented "Kiss Them for Me" single, Siouxsie and the Banshees used South Asian instrumentation, which had become popular in the UK club scene with the growth of bhangra. Indian tabla player Talvin Singh (who was later Björk's percussionist on her 1993 Debut album) took part in the session and provided vocals for the bridge. With "Kiss Them for Me", the Banshees scored a hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number 23. After the release of Superstition which received enthusiastic reviews, the group co-headlined the first Lollapalooza tour, further increasing their American following.
In 1992, film director Tim Burton requested that she write a song for Batman Returns, and the Banshees composed the single "Face to Face".
In the mid-1990s, Siouxsie started to do one-off collaborations with other artists. Suede invited her to a benefit concert for the Red Hot Organization. With guitarist Bernard Butler, she performed a version of Lou Reed's "Caroline Says". Spin reviewed it as "haughty and stately". Morrissey, ex-lead singer of the Smiths, recorded a duet with Siouxsie in 1994. They both sang on the single "Interlude", a track that was initially performed by Timi Yuro, a female torch singer of the 1960s. "Interlude" was released under the banner "Morrissey and Siouxsie".
The last Banshees studio album, The Rapture, was released in 1995; it was written partly in the Toulouse area of France, where she had recently moved. After the accompanying tour, the Banshees announced their split during a press conference called "20 Minutes into 20 Years". The Creatures de facto became her only band. At the same time, she released the song "The Lighthouse" on French producer Hector Zazou's album Chansons des mers froides (which translates to Songs from the Cold Seas), with jazz trumpetist Mark Isham. Siouxsie and Zazou adapted the poem "Flannan Isle" by English poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson.
Her first live performance in three years was in February 1998 when former Velvet Underground member John Cale invited her to a festival called "With a Little Help From My Friends" at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. The concert was shown on Dutch national television and featured an unreleased Creatures composition, "Murdering Mouth", sung as a duet with Cale. The collaboration between the two artists worked so well that they decided to tour the US from June until August, performing "Murdering Mouth", and Cale's "Gun" together as the encores of a Creatures and Cale double bill.
The following year, Siouxsie and Budgie released Anima Animus, the first Creatures album since the split of the Banshees. It included the singles "2nd Floor" and "Prettiest Thing". The material diverged from their former work, with a more urban sound blending art rock and electronica. Anima Animus was described by The Times as "hypnotic and inventive". Also in 1999, Siouxsie collaborated with Marc Almond on the track "Threat of Love".
In 2002, she did a short reunion tour with the Banshees titled The Seven Year Itch. That same year, Universal released The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees as the first reissue of her back catalogue.
In 2003, Siouxsie and Budgie released the last Creatures album, Hái!, which was in part recorded in Japan, collaborating with taiko player Leonard Eto (previously of the Kodo Drummers). Peter Wratts wrote in Time Out: "Her voice is the dominant instrument here, snaking and curling around the bouncing drumming backdrop, elegiac and inhuman as she chants, purrs and whispers her way around the album". He termed the record a "spine-tingling achievement". Hái! was preceded by the single "Godzilla!". That year, Siouxsie was featured on the track "Cish Cash" by Basement Jaxx, from their album Kish Kash, which later won Best Electronic/Dance Album at the Grammy Awards.
Solo (2004–present)
2004 was a pivotal year for the singer. She toured for the first time as a solo act combining Banshees and Creatures songs. A live DVD called Dreamshow was recorded at the last London concert, in which she and her musicians were accompanied by a 16-piece orchestra, the Millennia Ensemble. Released in August 2005, this DVD reached the number 1 position in the UK music DVD charts.
Her first solo album, Mantaray, received rave reviews upon release in September 2007. Pitchfork wrote, "She really is pop", before finishing the review by declaring, "It's a success". Mojo stated: "a thirst for sonic adventure radiates from each track". Mantaray included three singles: "Into a Swan", "Here Comes That Day" and "About to Happen". In 2008, Siouxsie recorded vocals for the track "Careless Love" on The Edge of Love soundtrack by composer Angelo Badalamenti. She performed it with another Badalamenti number, "Who Will Take My Dreams Away", at the annual edition of the World Soundtrack Awards. After a year of touring, the singer played the last show of her tour in London in September 2008. A live DVD of this performance, Finale: The Last Mantaray & More Show, was released in 2009.
In June 2013, after a hiatus of five years, Siouxsie played two nights at the Royal Festival Hall in London during Yoko Ono's Meltdown festival. She performed 1980's Kaleidoscope album live in its entirety, along with other works from her back catalogue, and her performance was praised by the press. She also appeared at Ono's Double Fantasy concert, to sing the final song, "Walking on Thin Ice".
In October 2014, she and fellow Banshee Steven Severin compiled a CD titled It's a Wonderfull Life for the November 2014 issue of Mojo magazine, in which she appeared on the cover. The disc included 15 tracks that inspired the Banshees.
"Love Crime", her first song in eight years, was featured in the finale of the TV series Hannibal, broadcast in August 2015. Series creator Bryan Fuller called it "epic".
In 2023, Siouxsie announced her return to the stage. She headlined the Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, California, in May, and the Release Athens 2023 festival in June. Her performance in Madrid at the Noches del Botánico was praised by Time Out. In August, she was in concert in Málaga at Cala Mijas.
At the same period, Mantaray was reissued with a different artwork on three different editions, translucent red vinyl (limited to 2000 copies), black vinyl and CD, through online retailers and Siouxsie's official website: the album was remastered at Abbey Road Studios for its 15-year anniversary.
Songwriting
Journalist Paul Morley noted that Siouxsie's songs topics dealt with "mental illness, medical terrors, surreal diseases, depraved urges, sinister intensity, unearthly energy, sexual abuse, childhood disturbances, sordid mysteries, unbearable nervous anxiety, fairytale fears, urban discontent and the bleak dignity of solitude". Many of her songs are about damage; her childhood marked her profoundly. She said, "Damaged lives, damaged souls, damaged relationships. Most of the damage I sing about first happened when I was younger and I am still feeding off it and working it out. Early experiences are what create a lifetime of damage. The songs you write can help you fix the damage. And just the environment you are in is so important and can waste potential and corrupt something. For me, there was neglect. An alcoholic father who is not there because the most important thing for him is just to get alcohol and your mother is trying to compensate for the non-existent second parent so she's never there because she's working all the time and when she is around she's stressed out. Being isolated and not having anyone to connect with, there was just no physical touching back then".
Legacy
Siouxsie has been praised by artists of many genres. She had a strong impact on two trip-hop acts. Tricky covered 1983's proto trip-hop "Tattoo", to open his second album Nearly God, and Massive Attack sampled "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" on their song "Superpredators (Metal Postcard)" for the soundtrack to the film The Jackal.
Other acts have covered Siouxsie's songs. Jeff Buckley performed "Killing Time" several times, he first recorded it during a radio session for WFMU in 1992. LCD Soundsystem recorded a cover of "Slowdive" for the B-side of "Disco Infiltrator", their version was also released on Introns. Santigold based her track "My Superman", on the music of "Red Light". In 2003, the Beta Band sampled "Painted Bird" and changed the title to "Liquid Bird" on their Heroes to Zeros album. Red Hot Chili Peppers performed "Christine" at the V2001 festival and introduced it to their British audience as "your national anthem". "Christine" was also revisited by Simple Minds. Indie folk group DeVotchKa covered "The Last Beat of My Heart" at the suggestion of Arcade Fire singer Win Butler in 2007. The Weeknd sampled "Happy House" on "House of Balloons" in 2011, and he performed it during his Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2021.
Morrissey said that "Siouxsie and the Banshees were excellent. They were one of the great groups of the late 70s, early 80s". In 1994, discussing modern bands, he also stated: "None of them are as good as Siouxsie and the Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact". Another member of the Smiths, Johnny Marr, said: "Really my generation was all about a guy called John McGeoch, from Siouxsie and the Banshees. He was a great player". Marr hailed McGeoch for his work on Siouxsie's single "Spellbound". Marr qualified it as "clever" with "really good picky thing going on which is very un-rock'n'roll". Radiohead also cited McGeoch-era Siouxsie records when mentioning the recording of "There There". Their singer, Thom Yorke, said: "The band that really changed my life was R.E.M. and Siouxsie and the Banshees ...". "My favourite show I ever saw then was Siouxsie and she was absolutely amazing. ... She's totally in command of the whole audience". Yorke added that she "made an especially big impression in concert, she was really sexy but absolutely terrifying." Sonic Youth singer and guitarist Thurston Moore named "Hong Kong Garden" as one of his 25 all-time favourite songs.
Siouxsie has influenced other bands ranging from contemporaries Joy Division, U2, and the Cure, to later acts like the Jesus and Mary Chain, Jane's Addiction and TV on the Radio. Joy Division co-founder Peter Hook said that The Scream inspired them for the "really unusual way of playing" of the guitarist and the drummer and cited the Banshees as "one of our big influences". U2 frontman Bono named her as an influence in the band's 2006 autobiography U2 by U2. He was inspired by her way of singing. "I still think that I sing like Siouxsie from The Banshees on the first two U2 albums". With his band, he selected "Christine" for a compilation made for Mojo's readers. U2 guitarist the Edge also was the presenter of an award given to Siouxsie at a Mojo ceremony in 2005. The Cure's Robert Smith related what the Join Hands tour brought him musically: "When we supported The Banshees in 1979, we suddenly became aware of how limited our palette was. I felt constrained, so when the opportunity arose to play with them I jumped at it and juggled the two bands for a while. It taught me a lot – they had fantastic rhythm sections and this made me think, 'Why can't I have this?'." For Smith's record The Head on the Door in 1985, he stated: "It reminds me of the Kaleidoscope album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colours". Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction once made a parallel between his band and the Banshees: "There are so many similar threads: melody, use of sound, attitude, sex appeal. I always saw Jane's Addiction as the masculine Siouxsie and the Banshees". Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio hailed the poppiest Siouxsie songs, citing their arrangements: "I've always tried to make a song that begins like "Kiss Them for Me". I think songs like "I Was a Lover" or "Wash the Day Away" came from that element of surprise mode where all of a sudden this giant drum comes in and you're like, what the fuck?! That record was the first one where I was like, okay, even my friends're going to fall for this. I feel like that transition into that record was a relief for me. Really beautiful music was always considered too weird by the normal kids and that was the first example where I thought, we've got them, they're hooked! I watched people dance to that song, people who had never heard of any of the music that I listened to, they heard that music in a club and went crazy". Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode said about her: "She always sounds exciting. She sings with a lot of sex–that's what I like". Mark Lanegan stated that he would have liked to collaborate with her: "In my wildest dreams I would love to sing with Siouxsie". She is also revered by Damon Albarn and Dave Grohl. Omar Rodríguez-López of the Mars Volta mentioned his liking for "the very textural side of Siouxsie". Santigold said, "I keep a Rolodex of the women that vocally inspire me. There aren't that many, but she's definitely one of them. I remember one of the first times I heard 'Red Light' it was at a party, and I remember going up to the DJ and being like, 'Who's this?'. It was that good. I kind of stopped and was like ... wow. There's not a tremendous amount of women who are bold and forward thinking as artists. I feel like her music, at the time especially, was pretty unique in the way that it sort of matched her style. The freedom of experimenting with this dark place that doesn't have a place often in modern music".
Siouxsie has inspired many female singers. When asked if there was any figure who connected with her when she was just a listener, PJ Harvey replied: "It's hard to beat Siouxsie Sioux, in terms of live performance. She is so exciting to watch, so full of energy and human raw quality". Harvey also selected in her top 10 favourite albums of 1999, the Anima Animus album by Siouxsie's second band the Creatures. Sinéad O'Connor said that when she started, Siouxsie was one of her main influences. Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl wrote in her autobiography that Siouxsie was one of her heroines. Thorn paid homage to Siouxsie in the lyrics of her 2007 song "Hands Up to the Ceiling". Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins used to have a Siouxsie tattoo on her arm, and mentioned her liking for "Metal Postcard" to the members of Massive Attack in 1998. Sharleen Spiteri of Texas grew up listening to tracks such as "Hong Kong Garden" and was hooked by the Asian vibe present in the song; she stated that Texas' single "In Our Lifetime" was "our tribute to Hong Kong Garden". Garbage singer Shirley Manson cited her as an influence: "I learned how to sing listening to The Scream and Kaleidoscope". Manson also declared that Siouxsie embodied everything she wanted to be as a young woman. Manson would later write the foreword to Siouxsie & The Banshees: The Authorised Biography. Beth Ditto, of Gossip cited her as one of their influences for their 2009 album Music for Men. Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters named Siouxsie as a source of inspiration and the Banshees as her favourite band. Siouxsie was also hailed by Romy Madley Croft of the XX, Kim Deal of the Pixies and the Breeders, and also by Josephine Wiggs of the Breeders, and namechecked by Karin Dreijer Andersson of the Knife. Kate Jackson of the Long Blondes said that Siouxsie was a part of her musical background, thanks to her "sharp lyrics" on Creatures' tracks like "So Unreal". Rachel Goswell mentioned her as a major influence: "From a singing point of view, I was inspired by Siouxsie Sioux, who I just adored. She's amazing. I've never seen anyone else quite like her"; her band Slowdive was named on a suggestion of Goswell, inspired by the Banshees' single of the same name. Lush were initially named "the Baby Machines", which the band culled from the lyrics of "Arabian Knights". Courtney Love of Hole wrote Siouxsie in her favourite records' list when she was a teenager in her diary. While talking about another band, Love also stated: "They are amazing. ... It's kind of very Siouxsie Sioux". Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth said: "Initially I was really inspired by... Siouxsie, Patti Smith". FKA twigs named her as a main influence: "Every bit of music that I made sounded like a pastiche of Siouxsie... but through that I discovered myself". Róisín Murphy named Siouxsie when asked who were her biggest influences.
Other musicians who have stated their admiration for Siouxsie's work include Charli XCX, Hayley Williams of Paramore, Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries, Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields, Ebony Bones, Grimes, Toni Halliday of Curve, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, Cat Power, Gillian Gilbert of New Order, Alison Goldfrapp, Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne, Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, Chelsea Wolfe, Brody Dalle of the Distillers, Kristin Kontrol of the Dum Dum Girls, Joan As Police Woman, Lou Doillon, Emel Mathlouthi, Girlpool, Liz Phair, Billie Ray Martin, An Pierlé, Uffie, Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches, Meshell Ndegeocello, St. Vincent, Anohni, Jehnny Beth of Savages, Jenny Lee Lindberg of Warpaint, and Nabihah Iqbal.
In 2022, Sky Arts ranked her at number 14 in Britain's top 50 most influential artists of the last 50 years, and The Times called her "one of British pop’s most charismatic and original artists".
Personal life
Siouxsie married bandmate Budgie in May 1991. The following year, they moved to the southwest of France.
In an interview with The Sunday Times in August 2007, she announced that she and Budgie had divorced. In an interview with The Independent, she said: I've never particularly said I'm hetero or I'm a lesbian. I know there are people who are definitely one way, but not really me. I suppose if I am attracted to men then they usually have more feminine qualities.
In 2023, she teamed up with PETA to protest against animal testing. In a letter to Japanese conglomerate Ajinomoto, the world's largest manufacturer of monosodium glutamate (MSG), she wrote that the company "should be leading the way with compassion, not falling behind. Please, stop being spellbound by bad science and end these cruel tests immediately."
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row"|Ivor Novello Awards
| 2012
| Herself
| The Ivors Inspiration Award
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Video Music Awards
| 1989
| "Peek-a-Boo"
| Best Post-Modern Video
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|NME Awards
| 1980
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=3|Best Female Singer
|
| rowspan=3|
|-
| 1981
|
|-
| rowspan=1|1982
|
Discography
Studio albums
Solo singles
Collaborative singles
DVD
2005 Dreamshow No. 1 UK
2009 Finale: The Last Mantaray & More Show No. 4 UK
Collaborations with other artists
In studio
Morrissey: "Interlude" (single recorded in duet) (1994)
Hector Zazou: "The Lighthouse" (song recorded as guest on the Chansons des mers froides/Songs from the Cold Seas album) (1995)
Marc Almond: "Threat of Love" (song recorded in duet for the Open All Night album) (1999)
Basement Jaxx: "Cish Cash" (song recorded as guest on the Kish Kash album) (2003)
Angelo Badalamenti: "Careless Love" (song recorded as guest for The Edge of Love film soundtrack) (2008)
Live
Suede: "Caroline Says" (written by Lou Reed, performed on 30 July 1993 at a Red Hot & AIDS Benefit concert)
John Cale: "Murdering Mouth" (a Siouxsie song; performed live as a duet in 1998 during The Creatures/John Cale's US double bill, No How Tour)
Yoko Ono: "Walking on Thin Ice" (duet performed on 23 June 2013 in London)
References
Bibliography
Paytress, Mark. Siouxsie & the Banshees: The Authorised Biography. Sanctuary, 2003.
Johns, Brian. Entranced : the Siouxsie and the Banshees story. Omnibus Press, 1989.
Further reading
External links
Siouxsie.com Siouxsie official website
SiouxsieHQ news - official website
SiouxsieandtheBanshees official website
1957 births
Alternative rock singers
British alternative rock musicians
English people of Belgian descent
British people of Walloon descent
English people of Scottish descent
Bromley Contingent
English contraltos
English women singer-songwriters
English singer-songwriters
English new wave musicians
English record producers
English punk rock singers
English rock musicians
Women punk rock singers
Women new wave singers
Gothic rock musicians
Living people
Melodica players
Musicians from Bromley
Singers from London
Siouxsie and the Banshees members
Ivor Novello Award winners
Musicians from Kent
British women record producers
British post-punk musicians
People from the London Borough of Southwark
20th-century English women singers
20th-century English singers
21st-century English women singers
21st-century English singers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest%20area
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Rest area
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A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names include motorway service area (UK), services (UK), travel plaza, rest stop, oasis (US), service area, rest and service area (RSA), resto, service plaza, lay-by, and service centre (Canada). Facilities may include park-like areas, fuel stations, public toilets, water fountains, restaurants, and dump and fill stations for caravans / motorhomes.
A rest area with limited to no public facilities is a lay-by, parking area, scenic area, or scenic overlook. Along some highways and roads are services known as wayside parks, roadside parks, or picnic areas.
Overview
The standards and upkeep of service station facilities vary by jurisdiction. Service stations have parking areas allotted for cars, trucks, articulated trucks, buses and caravans.
Most state-run rest areas tend to be located in remote and rural areas where there are practically no fast food nor full-service restaurants, fuel stations, hotels or other traveller services nearby. The locations of these remote rest areas are usually marked by signs on the freeway or motorway; for example, a sign may read, "Next Services 45 miles" "Next Rest Area 62 miles" or "Next Rest Stop 10 km".
Driving information is usually available at these locations, such as posted maps and other local information, along with public toilets. Some rest areas have visitor information kiosks or stations with staff on duty. There might also be drinking fountains, vending machines, pay telephones, a fuel station, a restaurant/food court, or a convenience store at a service area. Some rest areas provide free coffee for travellers which is paid for by donations from travellers and/or donations from local businesses, civic groups, and churches. Many service stations provide Wi-Fi access and have bookshops. Many rest areas have picnic areas. Service areas tend to have traveller information in the form of so-called "exit guides", which often contain very basic maps and advertisements for local motels and nearby tourist attractions.
Privatised commercial services may take a form of a truck stop complete with a filling station, arcade video games, and recreation center, shower and laundry facilities, and fast food restaurant(s), cafeteria, or food court all under one roof immediately adjacent to the motorway. Some even offer business services, such as ATMs, fax machines, office cubicles, and Internet access.
Safety issues
Some rest areas have the reputations of being unsafe with regard to crime, especially at night, since they are usually situated in remote or rural areas and inherently attract transient individuals. California's current policy is to maintain existing public rest areas but no longer build new ones, due to the cost and difficulty of keeping them safe, although many California rest stops now feature highway patrol quarters.
Asia
In Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, rest areas have prayer rooms (musola) for Muslims travelling more than (2 marhalah; 1 marhalah ≈ ).
In Iran it is called Esterāhatgāh (Persian:استراحتگاه) meaning the rest area or rest place.
In Thailand and Vietnam, bus travel is common, and long-distance bus rides typically include stops at rest areas designed for bus passengers. These rest stops typically have a small restaurant as well as a small store for buying food. Some have proper restrooms and even souvenir shops.
Japan
In Japan, there are two grades of rest areas on Japan's tolled expressways. These are part of the expressway system, allowing a person to stop without exiting the expressway, as exiting and reentering the tollway would lead to a higher overall toll for the trip. They are modeled and named after the "Motorway Services" offered in Britain.
The larger rest area is called a "Service Area", or an SA. SAs are usually very large facilities with parking for hundreds of cars and many buses - offering toilets, smoking areas, convenience stores, pet relief areas, restaurants, regional souvenir shops, a filling station, and sometimes even tourist attractions, such as a Ferris wheel or a view of a famous location. They are usually spaced about one hour apart on the system, and often a planned stop for tour buses. Two Service Areas also have a motel. The other grade of rest stop is a "Parking Area", or a PA. PAs are much smaller, and spaced roughly 20 minutes apart on the system. Besides a small parking lot, toilets and drink vending machines are the only consistent amenities offered, while some larger parking areas have small shops, local goods, and occasionally a filling station - but are much smaller than their larger Service Area counterparts.
Since 1990s, many Japanese towns also established "Roadside stations" along highway and trunk route. In addition to conventional functions of service area, most of them also provide shops and restaurants dedicated to local culture and local produce, and a number of them would also feature information center, community hall, leisure facilities including hot springs and parks and such, and other features unique to individual stations. There are now over a thousand across Japan.
In the past, there were shukuba (stage stations) which serve as resting place for people travelling along traditional routes in Japan by horse or foot before modern transportation vehicles are introduced into Japan.
Malaysia
In Malaysia, an overhead bridge restaurant (OBR), or overhead restaurant, is a special rest area with restaurants above the expressway. Unlike typical laybys and RSAs, which are only accessible in one-way direction only, an overhead restaurant is accessible from both directions of the expressway.
Philippines
In the Philippines, barring certain exceptions, rest areas typically occupy large land areas with restaurants and retail space on top of filling stations. There are 10 service stations in the North Luzon Expressway, 9 service stations in the South Luzon Expressway, 3 service stations in both STAR Tollway and SCTEX, and a Caltex service station in Muntinlupa-Cavite Expressway.
North Korea
South Korea
In South Korea, a rest area usually includes a park and sells regional specialties. Usually Korean rest areas are very big and clean. Cellphone charging is free and WiFi is available in every rest area.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, rest areas are maintained by the Freeway Bureau and the Directorate General of Highways. There are 16 rest areas along four important freeways: Freeways No.1 (Sun Yat-sen Freeway), 3 (Formosa Freeway), 5 (Chiang Wei-shui Memorial Freeway), 6 (Shuishalian Freeway) and one expressway (West Coast Expressway).
Thailand
In Thailand, rest areas are considered part of the national highway. Especially on intercity highways (Motorways) which are under the supervision of the Department of Highways.
For standard rest areas in the areas of motorways and concession highways, they are divided into 3 types: (1) Service Centers, accommodation on large highways. with an area of approximately 50 rai or more (2) Service Area, medium-sized highway accommodation The area is about 20 rai or more. (3) Rest Stop, a small highway accommodation. with an area of approximately 5 acres or more.
Currently, there are 4 rest areas on motorways on Motorway 7 and Motorway 9 and there are plans to open for service in total 18 rest areas.
Europe
Both the frequency and quality of European rest areas differ from country to country. In some countries such as Spain rest areas are uncommon – motorists are directed to establishments that serve both the travelling public and the local population; in other countries access to a rest area is impossible, other than from a motorway. The Dutch rest area De Lucht(nl) is typical of many European rest areas, in that it has no access roads other than from the motorway itself.
Austria and Germany
(:de:Autobahnraststätte) is the name of the service areas on the German and Austrian Autobahn. It includes a fuel station, public phones, restaurants, restrooms, parking, and occasionally a hotel or a motel. If the service area is off the motorway, it is named Rasthof or .
Smaller parking areas, mostly known as a (:de:Rastplatz), are more frequent, but they have only picnic tables and sometimes toilets (signposted).
Finland
Rest areas are constructed and maintained by the national government, but the local municipality provides local maps and sanitary services. If there are commercial services, the shop has the responsibility for cleanliness of the area. Rest areas are designed mostly for long-distance voyagers. The recommendation is that there should be a rest area each 20 km (12.4 mi).
France
In France, both full service areas and picnic sites are provided on the autoroute network and regulations dictate that there is one such area every on autoroutes. Both types may also be found on national (N-class) highways, although less frequently than on autoroutes. They are known as , specifically and respectively, while ("rest area") usually refers to a picnic stop. These types are not usually stated on approach signs, but are instead distinguished by the symbols used. A name is usually given, generally that of a nearby town or village, such as "".
Ireland
Within Ireland, the term "rest area" is generally not used. Instead, it is referred to as motorway services, or simply "services". The majority of service areas within Ireland are operated by Circle K or Applegreen and contain petrol stations, truck stops, shops and fast food outlets such as McDonalds, Burger King, Subway or Chopstix. However, they differ from the United Kingdom in that only one service station contains a hotel - that being the M7 services in Portlaoise. There are 22 service stations within Ireland.
United Kingdom
Like with Ireland, the term "rest area" is not generally used in the United Kingdom. The most common terms are motorway service areas (MSA), motorway service stations, or simply motorway services. As with the rest of the world, these are places where drivers can leave a motorway to refuel, rest, or get refreshments. Most service stations accommodate fast food outlets, restaurants, small food outlets such as Marks and Spencer and coffee shops such as Costa Coffee; many service stations also incorporate motels such as Travelodge. Almost all the MSA sites in the UK are owned by the Department for Transport and let on 50-year leases to private operating companies. However, in December 2008, after a change in the law, the first official "rest area" in the UK was created at Todhills, on the newly opened section of the M6 between Carlisle and the Scottish border. Two other rest areas would be created in 2017 at Scotch Corner and Leeming Bar after the A1 in those areas were upgraded to motorway. All three of these rest areas are former A-road service areas which were too small to be signed as motorway services, hence the designations as rest areas.
Services can also be present on non-motorway roads, too. Most A-roads have services, albeit they are often less developed compared to motorway service areas, meaning that they might only have a petrol station and in some cases, a restaurant or café.
Lay-bys
The term lay-by is used in the United Kingdom and Ireland to describe a roadside parking or rest area for drivers. Equivalent terms in the United States are "turnout" and "pullout".
Lay-bys can vary in size from a simple parking bay alongside the carriageway sufficient for one or two cars only, to substantial areas that are separated from the carriageway by verges and can accommodate dozens of vehicles.
Lay-bys can be found on the side of most rural UK roads except motorways that are not on sections of smart motorways (but for emergencies only) where the hard shoulder is missing. They are marked by a rectangular blue sign bearing a white letter P, and there should also be advance warning of lay-bys to give drivers time to slow down safely. In practice, many local authorities neglect to maintain these signs to an adequate degree, and sometimes they are missing entirely.
Lay-bys are generally beneficial to road safety, as they provide drivers a safe place to stop, whether they wish simply to rest, check directions, make a phone call (as it is illegal to use a mobile phone whilst driving in the United Kingdom except in an emergency – Highway Code Rule 149), stretch their legs, or get refreshments, or if their car has broken down.
At some larger lay-bys mobile catering is provided by vendors operating from converted caravans, trailers, or coaches. These facilities generally offer much better value for money than roadside restaurants and therefore tend to be popular with truck drivers.
Some lay-bys have parking restrictions to prevent lorries and other vehicles from using them as overnight parking to sleep, or as a long-term storage area for trailers, and some have been permanently closed off by councils because of problems caused by their occupation by Irish Travellers or other itinerants.
North America
Canada
In Canada, roadside services are known as service centres in most provinces. In some instances, where there are no retail facilities, they may be known as rest areas or text stops ('halte-texto' in French). Most service centres are concentrated along Ontario's 400-series highway and Quebec's Autoroute networks, while rest areas are found along the highway networks of all provinces, and the Trans-Canada Highway.
Nova Scotia has constructed a small number of full-fledged service centres along its 100-Series Highways.
In New Brunswick, the only rest areas are roadside parks with picnic tables and washrooms operated as a part of the provincial park system, but many have closed due to cutbacks. Occasionally, litter barrels are also found along the side of the road.
The Prairie provinces of (Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) have rest stops located along the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1). However, these stops are simply places to rest, or go to the washroom; they are not built to the standard rest area found on the 400-series highways in Ontario, or the Interstate Highways of the United States.
Alberta
Alberta Transportation operates seven provincial rest areas or safety rest areas. These include:
Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) westbound between Brooks and Bassano;
Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) eastbound between Tilley and Suffield;
Highway 2 (Queen Elizabeth II Highway) southbound between Crossfield and Airdrie;
Highway 2 (Queen Elizabeth II Highway) northbound near Highway 13 west of Wetaskiwin;
Highway 16 (Yellowhead Highway) eastbound and westbound between Edson and Carrot Creek;
Highway 43 accessible from both directions south of Valleyview; and
Highway 63 accessible both ways between Atmore and Breynat.
Alberta Transportation also designates partnership rest areas or highway service rest areas that are privately owned and operated highway user facilities. These facilities are currently located on Highway 1 at Dead Man's Flats, Highway 2 at Red Deer (Gasoline Alley), Highway 9 near Hanna, Highway 16 at Niton Junction and at Innisfree, and Highway 43 at Rochfort Bridge.
British Columbia
British Columbia has many services centres on its provincial roads, particularly along the Yellowhead Highway/Highway 16, the Coquihalla Highway/Highway 5, and on Highway 97C, the first service centres built in the province. One notable curiosity is a service centre built along Highway 118: it is a minor road connecting two towns to the Yellowhead Highway (Hwy. 16).
Ontario
Ontario has a modern and well-developed network of service centres, now mostly known as ONroute, located along Highway 401 along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, as well as sections of Highway 400. However, shorter and/or less trafficked 400-series highways (including the northern sections of Highway 400), do not have even basic rest areas along them at all.
The original service centres for Highway 401 were mostly built around 1962. In 1991, one was placed at the west end of the Greater Toronto Area, serving eastbound traffic in Mississauga; this location was branded as "Info Centre" and was intended as a welcome centre for Toronto. The Mississauga travel centre closed on September 30, 2006.
Most of the original 1960s-era service centres on highways 400 and 401 were demolished in 2010, with new buildings constructed on the original sites and operated by HMSHost subsidiary Host Kilmer under the ONroute banner.
The service centres in Ontario were originally of a generic, cafeteria-style nature. They contain filling stations, washrooms, picnic areas, and vending machines. During the late 1980s the service centres were taken over by Scott's Hospitality, a major publicly traded Canadian restaurant operator, who leased them out to major oil companies and fast food restaurant chains, with a single gasoline distributor and sole restaurant for most locations. In 2010-11, most of the older service centres were replaced by a common design operated by ONroute, which features a selection of fast food providers akin to a food court.
Reese's Corner at the intersection of Highway 21 and Highway 7 is often considered a service centre. Although Highway 7 was bypassed by the freeway Highway 402 in the late 1970s, Reese's Corner still receives much traffic as it is only a short distance from the interchange of Highway 402 and Highway 21 (Exit 25). Lastly, truck inspection stations (which are more frequent than service centres) can be used by travellers for bathroom breaks, although this is not encouraged.
Two off-highway service campuses at Exit 74 along the Queen Elizabeth Way in Grimsby are unofficial rest areas for travelling motorists. Two smaller such facilities (Seguin Trail Road south of Parry Sound and Port Severn Road in Port Severn) also exist on the less-busy section Highway 400 north of the last official on-highway service centre.
Quebec
In Quebec, rest areas are known as and service areas as . Rest rooms and picnic areas are located along the autoroutes and many of the provincial highways. Some of the rest areas have vending machines and/or canteens. Some truck and isolated rest areas have no services or have been removed due as facilities are deteriorated beyond repair. Beginning in 2019 the province began to modernize some rest areas to provide needs for families and truckers.
There are about 10 service areas (on Highways 10, 15, 20, 40, 55, 117, and 175); with some of these rest areas have restrooms, filling stations and restaurants/vending machines.
United States
In the United States, rest areas are typically non-commercial facilities that provide, at a minimum, parking and restrooms. In the United States, there are 1,840 rest areas along interstate routes. Some may have information kiosks, vending machines, and picnic areas, but little else, while some have "dump" facilities, where recreational vehicles may empty their sewage holding tanks. They are typically maintained and funded by the departments of transportation of the state governments. For example, rest areas in California are maintained by Caltrans. In 2008, state governments began to close some rest areas as a result of the late-2000s recession.
Some places, such as California, have laws that explicitly prohibit private retailers from occupying rest stops. A federal statute passed by Congress also prohibits states from allowing private businesses to occupy rest areas along interstate highways. The relevant clause of 23 U.S.C. § 111 states:
The State will not permit automotive service stations or other commercial establishments for serving motor vehicle users to be constructed or located on the rights-of-way of the Interstate System.
The original reason for this clause was to protect innumerable small towns whose survival depended upon providing roadside services such as gasoline, food, and lodging. Because of it, private truck stops and travel plazas have blossomed into a $171 billion industry in the United States. The clause was immediately followed by an exception for facilities constructed prior to January 1, 1960, many of which continue to exist, as explained further below.
Therefore, the standard practice is that private businesses must buy up land near existing exits and build their own facilities to serve travelers. Such facilities often have tall signs that can be seen from several miles away (so that travelers have adequate time to make a decision). In turn, it is somewhat harder to visit such private facilities, because one has to first exit the freeway and navigate through several intersections to reach a desired business's parking lot, rather than exit directly into a rest area's parking lot. Public rest areas are usually (but not always) positioned so as not to compete with private businesses.
Special blue signs indicating gas, food, lodging, camping and roadside attractions near an exit can be found on most freeways in the United States. Beginning in the mid 1970s, private businesses have been permitted to display their logos or trademarks on these signs by paying a transportation department (or a subcontractor to a transportation department) a small fee. Until the release of the 2000 edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, these signs were allowed only on the rural sections of highways. The 2000 MUTCD added provisions for allowing these signs on highways in urban areas as long as adequate sign spacing can be maintained, however, some states (such as California and New York) continue to restrict these signs to rural areas only. Currently, these signs are allowed on urban freeways in 15 states, with Arizona being the most recent state (as of 2013) to repeal the restriction of these signs to only rural highways.
Attempts to remove the federal ban on privatized rest areas have been generally unsuccessful, due to resistance from existing businesses that have already made enormous capital investments in their existing locations.
For example, in 2003, President George W. Bush's federal highway funding reauthorization bill contained a clause allowing states to start experimenting with privatized rest areas on Interstate highways. The clause was fiercely resisted by the National Association of Truck Stop Owners (NATSO), which argued that allowing such rest areas would shift revenue to state governments (in the form of lease payments) that would have gone to local governments (in the form of property and sales taxes). NATSO also argued that by destroying private commercial truck stops, the bill would result in an epidemic of drowsy truck drivers, since such stops currently provide about 90% of the parking spaces used by American truck drivers while in transit.
Service areas
Prior to the creation of the Interstate Highway System, many states east of the Rocky Mountains had already started building and operating their own long-distance intercity toll roads (turnpikes). To help recover construction costs, most turnpike operators leased concession space at rest areas to private businesses. In addition, the use of this sort of service area allows drivers to stop for food and fuel without passing through additional tollbooths and thereby incurring a higher toll.
Pennsylvania, which opened the first such highway in 1940 with the mainline Pennsylvania Turnpike, was the model for many subsequent areas. Instead of operating the service areas themselves, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission opted to lease them out to Standard Oil of Pennsylvania (which was acquired shortly afterward by the modern-day Exxon), which in turn operated a Filling station with a garage and Howard Johnson's franchises as a restaurant offering. The turnpike currently leases the filling station space to Sunoco (which operates 7-Eleven convenience stores instead of garages at the sites) and, as of 2021, the rest of the service area space to Applegreen.
In the summer of 2021, Iris Buyer LLC (an Applegreen company) announced that they were acquiring all travel plazas by HMSHost. The deal reached an agreement at the end of July 2021 officially transferring ownership. The New York State Thruway Service Areas (which will be owned by another company by Applegreen) was not affected by this transition due to the fact that Host's contract was expired. As of July 2022, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia have service areas that are operated or have stake by Applegreen.
Some turnpikes, such as Florida's Turnpike, were never integrated into the Interstate system and never became subject to the federal ban on private businesses. On turnpikes that did become Interstates, all privatized rest areas in operation prior to January 1, 1960, were allowed to continue operating. Such facilities are often called service areas by the public and in road atlases, but each state varies:
Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia – service plaza
Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, and Oklahoma – service area
Illinois – oasis
Indiana and New York – travel plaza
New Jersey – service area or service plaza
Some states, such as Ohio, allow nonprofit organizations to run a concession trailer in a rest area.
Started in 2015(ish), The New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway Service Areas started advertising and selling products from Popcorn for The People. It is a non-profit organization which creates employment for people with disabilities, specifically Autism.
Text stops
In 2013, the state of New York launched "It Can Wait", a program for encouraging drivers to pause at rest stops and parking areas along state roads to text (thereby avoiding texting while driving), by designating all such areas "text stops". The practice involves placing road signs which indicate the nearest "texting zone" at which to legally stop and use mobile devices such as smartphones.
Welcome centers
A rest area often located near state or municipal borders in the United States is sometimes called a welcome center. Welcome centers tend to be larger than regular rest areas, and are staffed at peak travel times with one or more employees who advise travelers as to their options. Some welcome centers contain a small museum or at least a basic information kiosk about the state. Because air travel has made it possible to enter and leave many states without crossing the state line at ground level, some states, like California, have official welcome centers inside major cities far from their state borders. In some states (such as Massachusetts), these rest areas are called tourist information centers and in others (such as New Jersey), visitor centers.
Other types
Rest areas without modern restrooms are called 'waysides'. These locations have parking spaces for trucks and cars, or for semi-trailer trucks only. Some have portable toilets and waste containers. In Missouri these locations are called 'Roadside Parks' or 'Roadside Tables'.
The most basic parking areas have no facilities of any kind; they consist solely of a paved shoulder on the side of the highway where travelers can rest for a short time. A scenic area is similar to a parking area, but it is provided to the traveler in a place of natural beauty. These are also called scenic overlooks.
Oceania
Australia
Rest areas in Australia are a common feature of the road network in rural areas. They are the responsibility of a variety of authorities, such as a state transport or main roads bureau, or a local government's works department. Facilities and standards vary widely and unpredictably: a well-appointed rest area will have bins to deposit small items of litter, a picnic table with seating, a cold water tap (sometimes fed by a rainwater tank), barbecue fireplace (sometimes gas or electric), toilets, and – less commonly – showers. Other rest areas, especially in more remote locations, may lack some or even all of these facilities: in South Australia, a rest area may be no more than a cleared section besides the road with a sign indicating its purpose. Rest areas in Australia do not provide service stations or restaurants (such facilities would be called roadhouses or truck stops), although there may be caravans, often run by charities, providing refreshments to travellers.
Comfort and hygiene are important considerations for the responsible authorities, as such remote sites can be very expensive to clean and maintain, and vandalism is common. Also, Australia's dependence on road transport by heavy vehicles can lead to competition between the amenity needs of recreational travelers and those of the drivers of heavy vehicles—so much so that on arterial routes it is common to see rest areas specifically signed to segregate the two user groups entirely. Thus rest areas generally do not allow overnight occupation. In Queensland, however, well-maintained rest areas sometimes explicitly invite travelers to stay overnight, as a road safety measure, but this is rare elsewhere.
See also
Aid station
Caravanserai
Diner
References
External links and further reading
Examples of rest area locations
(Map of US rest areas)
Road infrastructure
Safety
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim%20Dine
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Jim Dine
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Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, letterpress and linocuts), sculpture and photography; his early works encompassed assemblage and happenings, while in recent years his poetry output, both in publications and readings, has increased.
Dine has been associated with many art movements including Neo-Dada (use of collage and found objects), Abstract Expressionism (the gestural nature of his painting), and Pop Art (affixing everyday objects including tools, rope, articles of clothing and even a bathroom sink) to his canvases, yet he has avoided such classifications. At the core of his art, regardless of the medium of the specific work, lies an intense autobiographical reflection, a relentless exploration and criticism of self through a number of personal motifs including: the heart, the bathrobe, tools, antique sculpture, and the character of Pinocchio (among flora, skulls, birds and figurative self-portraits). Dine’s approach is all-encompassing: "Dine’s art has a stream of consciousness quality to its evolution, and is based on all aspects of his life—what he is reading, objects he comes upon in souvenir shops around the world, a serious study of art from every time and place that he understands as being useful to his own practice."
Dine has had more than 300 solo exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1970), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1978), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1984–85), Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan (2011) and Museum Folkwang, Essen (2015–16). His work is in permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.
Dine’s distinctions include nomination to Academy of Arts and Letters in New York (1980), Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003), the British Museum Medal (2015) following his donation of 234 prints to the museum in 2014, membership of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (2017), and Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur (2018).
Education
Dine’s first formal training took the form of night courses at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, in which he enrolled in 1952 at the age of 16, while attending Walnut Hills High School. It was a decision motivated both by his artistic calling and the lack of appropriate training at high school: "I always knew I was always an artist and even though I tried to conform to high school life in those years, I found it difficult because I wanted to express myself artistically, and the school I went to had no facilities for that." In 1954, while still attending evening courses, Dine was inspired by a copy of Paul J. Sachs’ Modern Prints and Drawings (1954), particularly by the German Expressionist woodcuts it reproduced, including work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Emil Nolde (1867–1956) and Max Beckmann (1884–1950)—"I was shocked by them" — and began creating woodcuts in the basement of his maternal grandparents, with whom he was then living.
After high school Dine enrolled at the University of Cincinnati but was unsatisfied: "They didn’t have an art school, they had a design school. I tried that for half a year. It was ridiculous […] All I wanted to do was paint." At the recommendation of a friend majoring in theatre at Ohio University in Athens, Dine enrolled there in 1955, where he recalls being "blown away," not by the facilities but because: "I sensed a bucolic freedom in the foothills of the Appalachians where I could possibly develop and be an artist." Under printmaking teacher Donald Roberts (1923–2015) Dine experimented in lithography, etching, intaglio, dry paint and woodcuts. At Roberts’ suggestion, Dine subsequently studied for six months with Ture Bengtz (1907–73) at the School of Fine Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, before returning to Ohio University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1957 (remaining for an additional year to make paintings and prints, with the permission of the faculty).
Career
In 1958 Dine moved to New York, where he taught at the Rhodes School. In the same year he founded the Judson Gallery at the Judson Church in Greenwich Village with Claes Oldenburg and Marcus Ratliff, eventually meeting Allan Kaprow and Bob Whitman: together they became pioneers of happenings and performances, including Dine’s The Smiling Workman of 1959. Dine’s first exhibition was at the Reuben Gallery, where he also staged the elaborate performance Car Crash (1960), which he describes as "a cacophony of sounds and words spoken by a great white Venus with animal grunts and howls by me." Another important early work was The House (1960), an environment incorporating found objects and street debris, installed at the Judson Gallery.
Dine continued to include everyday items (including personal possessions) in his work, which linked him to Pop Art—an affinity strengthened by his inclusion in the influential 1962 exhibition "New Painting of Common Objects" at the Pasadena Art Museum, curated by Walter Hopps and later cited as the first institutional survey of American Pop Art, including works by Robert Dowd, Joe Goode, Phillip Hefferton, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud and Andy Warhol. Dine has, however, consistently distanced himself from Pop Art: "I’m not a Pop artist. I’m not part of the movement because I’m too subjective. Pop is concerned with exteriors. I’m concerned with interiors. When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings. […] What I try to do in my work is explore myself in physical terms—to explain something in terms of my own sensibilities."
Motifs
Since the early 1960s Dine has refined a selection of motifs through which he has explored his self in myriad forms and media, and throughout the different locations/studios in which he has worked, including: London (1967–71); Putnam, Vermont (1971–85); Walla Walla, Washington (since 1983); Paris (since 2001); and Göttingen (since 2007), in a studio adjacent to the premises of Steidl, the printer and publisher of the majority of his books.
Bathrobes
Dine first depicted bathrobes in 1964 while searching for a new form of self-portraiture at a time when "it wasn’t cool to just make a self-portrait"; he thus conceived an approach without representing his face. Dine subsequently saw an image of a bathrobe in an advertisement in the New York Times Magazine, and adopted it as a surrogate self-portrait, which he has since depicted in varying degrees of realism and expressionism.
Hearts
Dine initially expressed this motif in the form of a large heart of stuffed red satin hung above the character of Puck in a 1965–66 production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Actors’ Workshop in San Francisco, for which he designed the sets (his original introduction to the motif had been a series of red hearts on white backgrounds he had seen as a student). In time, the heart became for Dine "a universal symbol that I could put paint onto" and "as good a structure geographically as any I could find in nature. It is a kind of landscape and within that landscape I could grow anything, and I think I did." The formal simplicity of the heart has made it a subject he could wholly claim as his own, an empty vessel for ongoing experimentation into which to project his changing self. The heart’s status as a universal symbol of love further mirrors Dine’s commitment to the creative act: "…what I was in love with was the fact that I was put here to make these hearts—this art. There is a similar sense of love in this method, this act of making art…"
Pinocchio
"Trying to birth this puppet into life is a great story. It is the story of how you make art"—Jim Dine. Dine’s fascination with the character of Pinocchio, the boy protagonist in Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), dates to his childhood, when, at the age of six he viewed with his mother Walt Disney’s animated film Pinocchio (1940): "It has haunted my heart forever!" This formative experience deepened in 1964 when Dine discovered a detailed figure of Pinocchio while purchasing tools: "It was hand painted, had a paper maché head, beautiful little clothes and articulated limbs. I took it home and I kept it on my shelf for 25 years. I did not do anything with it. I did not know what to do with it, but it was always with me. When I moved houses, I would take it and put it on the bookshelf or put it in a drawer and bring it out, essentially to play with it." Yet it was only in the 1990s that Dine represented Pinocchio in his art, first in a diptych; the next Pinocchios were shown at the 1997 Venice Biennale and an exhibition at Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago. Notable depictions since include the 41 color lithographs printed at Atelier Michael Woolworth, Paris, in 2006; the book Pinocchio (Steidl, 2006), combining Collodi’s text and Dine’s illustrations; two monumental bronze sculptures of 9 meters’ height: Walking to Borås (2008) in Borås, Sweden, and Busan Pinocchio (2013) in Busan, South Korea; and Pinocchio (Emotional) (2012), a twelve-foot bronze at the Cincinnati Art Museum. In recent years Dine’s self-identification with the character of Pinocchio has shifted to Gepetto, the gifted woodcarver who crafts the boy puppet.
Antique sculpture
"I have this reverence for the ancient world. I mean Greco-Roman society. This always interested me and the product of it is interesting to me and the literature is interesting—the historic literature. I have this need to connect with the past in my way…"—Jim Dine. As with Pinocchio, Dine’s fascination with antique sculpture dates to early in his life: "I had always been interested as a child in ‘the antique,’ because my mother took me to the art museum in Cincinnati, and they had a few beautiful pieces."
The antique has thus been present since his early work, for example in Untitled (After Winged Victory) (1959), now held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, a sculpture inspired by the Winged Victory of Samothrace (ca. 200 B.C.) and composed of a painted robe hung on a found lamp frame and held together with wire, which Dine describes as "almost like outsider art" and he first showed at the Ruben Gallery. He most frequently expresses the antique through the figure of the Venus de Milo (ca. 100 B.C.), a small plaster cast of which he bought in Paris; he initially included the cast in 1970s still-life paintings, "But then I knocked the head off it and made it mine." Dine is also inspired by specific sculpture collections, for example that of the Glyptothek in Munich, which he visited in 1984, resulting in the 40 "Glyptotek Drawings" [sic] of 1987–88, made in preparation for a series of lithographs. Of the experience Dine recalls: "The museum director let me come in at night and, therefore, it was a meditation on the pieces I was drawing because I was alone. I felt a link between the ages of history and me and a communication between these anonymous guys who had carved these things centuries before me. It was a way to join hands across the generations, and for me to feel that I did not just grow like a tumbleweed but that I came from somewhere. I belonged to a tradition and it gave me the history I needed."
An important recent work that incorporates the antique is Dine’s Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets), an installation consisting of 8-foot wooden sculptures inspired by ancient Greek statues of dancing women arranged around a 7-foot self-portrait head of the artist, all installed in a room whose walls he has inscribed with a sprawling poem, "with its Orphic themes of travel, loss, and the possibilities of art." Originally shown in 2008–09 at the Getty Villa, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and echoing the 350–300 B.C. Sculptural Group of a Seated Poet and Sirens (2) with unjoined fragmentary curls (304) held in the Getty collection, Dine has since updated Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) as a permanent, site-specific installation housed in the purpose-built Jim Dine Pavilion, adjacent to the Kunsthaus Göttingen.
Tools
"I never stopped being enchanted by these objects." — Jim Dine. As with Pinocchio and antique sculpture, tools are a motif inextricably linked to Dine’s childhood. His introduction to them came through his maternal grandfather, Morris Cohen, who ran The Save Supply Company hardware store in Cincinnati; Dine lived with Cohen for three years as a boy, and had daily contact with him until the age of 19. Dine recalls hammers, saws, drills, screwdrivers among various hardware paraphernalia; later, Dine worked in Cohen’s store on Saturdays.
Dine was thus inaugurated both into the practical functions of tools and their aesthetic possibilities: "I admired the beautiful enamel on the ceramic toilets and sinks. I admired the way different colors of conduit electric wire was in rolls next to each other, and the way it had been braided. In the paint department, the color charts looked to me like perfect, perfect jewel boxes." He recalls the sensual impact of "very, very beautiful" pristine white paint: "I would play with it by sticking one of his screwdrivers in and breaking the skin and moving it around. It was like white taffy. It had a fabulous smell of linseed oil and turpentine." Accordingly, he finds them "as mysterious and interesting an object as any other object. There’s no aristocracy here."
As a motif that symbolizes raw materials being transformed into art — tools have unique status in Dine’s practice as "artificial extensions of his hands, effectively allowing him to shape and form certain given conditions and objects more systematically," and as "‘primary objects’ that create a connection with our human past and the hand." In Dine’s own words, the tool is fundamentally "a metaphor for ‘work’."
Dine has integrated real tools into his art from his earliest works — for example, Big Black Work Wall (1961), a painting with tools attached, and The Wind and Tools (A Glossary of Terms) (2009), three wooden Venus statues wearing girdles belts of tools—as well as depicting them in media including paintings, drawings, photographs and prints. An extraordinary printing series involving tools is A History of Communism (2014), in which Dine printed tool motifs on top of lithographs made from stones found in an art academy in Berlin and showing four decades of students’ work from the German Democratic Republic. By overlaying his own personal vocabulary of tools, Dine engages with the symbolic tools of communism — the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union, and the hammer and compass, ringed by rye, of the German Democratic Republic — and unsettles the assertion of any certain "truth," showing that "history is never a coherent narrative—although it might be presented as such with an ulterior motive—but rather a fragmented, layered and multi-sited process."
Selected teaching positions
1965 – guest lecturer at Yale University and artist-in-residence, Oberlin College, Ohio
1966 – teaching residency at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
1993–95 – Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Salzburg
1995–96 – Hochschule der Künste, Berlin
Selected long-term collaborations
1962–76: gallerist Ileana Sonnabend, New York
1975–2008: printmaker Aldo Crommelynck, Paris
1978–2016: Pace Gallery, New York
1979–present: gallerist Alan Cristea, London
1983–2018: gallerist Richard Gray, Chicago
1983–present: Walla Walla Foundry, Walla Walla, Washington
1987–2003: printmaker Kurt Zein, Vienna
1991–2016: Spring Street Workshop, New York, with printers including Julia D’Amario, Ruth Lingen, Katherine Kuehn, Bill Hall
1998–present: printer and publisher Gerhard Steidl, Göttingen
2000–present: gallerist Daniel Templon, Paris-Brussels
2003–18: printmakers Atelier Michael Woolworth, Paris
2010–present: foundry Blue Mountain Fine Art, Baker City, Oregon
2016–present: printmakers Steindruck Chavanne Pechmann, Apetlon
2016–21: Gray Gallery, Chicago
Selected permanent collections
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humelbeak, Denmark
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
Museum Folkwang, Essen
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Palm Springs Art Museum, CA
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Tate Gallery, London
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Selected publications
Robert Creeley and Jim Dine, Pictures, Tamarind Institute with Enitharmon Press, Albuquerque, 2001
Jim Dine, Birds, Steidl, Göttingen, 2002
Jim Dine, The Photographs, so far, Steidl, Göttingen, 2004
Jim Dine, This Goofy Life of Constant Mourning, Steidl, Göttingen, 2004
Jim Dine, Drawings of Jim Dine, National Gallery of Art / Steidl, Göttingen, 2004
Jim Dine, Some Drawings, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College / Steidl, Göttingen, 2005
Jim Dine, Entrada Drive, Steidl, Göttingen, 2005
Jim Dine, Oceans, Tandem Press, Madison, WI, 2005
Diana Michener and Jim Dine, 3 Poems, Steidl, Göttingen, 2006
Jim Dine, Pinocchio, Steidl, Göttingen, 2006
Jim Dine, L’Odyssée de Jim Dine, Steidl, Göttingen, 2007
Jim Dine, Aldo et moi. Estampes gravées et imprimées avec Aldo Crommelynck, Bibliothèque nationale de France / Steidl, Göttingen, 2007
Jim, Dine, Selected Prints 1996–2006, Steidl, Göttingen, 2007
Jim Dine, This is How I Remember, Now. Portraits, Die Photographische Sammlung/ SK Stiftung Kultur / Steidl, Göttingen, 2008
Jim Dine, Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets), Steidl, Göttingen, 2008
Jim Dine, Boy in the World (A Memoir), Steidl, Göttingen, 2009
Jim, Dine, Old me, now. Self-portrait drawings 2008–2009, Steidl, Göttingen, 2009
Jim Dine, Jim Dine Reading (plus one song), Steidl, Göttingen, 2009
Jim Dine, Hot Dream (52 Books), Steidl, Göttingen, 2009
Jim Dine, Paris Reconnaissance, Steidl, Göttingen, and Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2010
Jim Dine, Hearts from New Delhi, Göttingen and New York, Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 2010
Jim Dine, Night Fields, Day Fields – Sculpture, Steidl, Göttingen, 2010
Jim Dine, The Glyptotek Drawings, The Morgan Library & Museum / Steidl, Göttingen, 2011
Jim Dine, Hello Yellow Glove. New Drawings, Steidl, Göttingen, 2012
Jim Dine, Donkey in the Sea before Us, Steidl, Göttingen, 2013
Jim Dine, A Printmaker’s Document, Steidl, Göttingen, 2013
Jim Dine, My Tools, Steidl / SK Stiftung Kultur, Göttingen, 2014
Jim Dine, A History of Communism, Steidl / Alan Cristea Gallery, Göttingen, 2014
Jim Dine, About the Love of Printing, Edition Folkwang / Steidl, Göttingen, 2015
Jim Dine, Poems To Work On: The Collected Poems of Jim Dine, Cuneiform Press, University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, TX, 2015
Jim Dine, Tools, Steidl, Göttingen, 2017
Jim Dine, La Coupole et autres poèmes, trans. Vincent Broqua, Olivier Brossard, Abigail Lang and Béatrice Trotignon, Joca Seria, Nantes, 2017
Jim Dine, Nantes, trans. Vincent Broqua, Nantes, Joca Seria, 2017
Jim Dine, 3 Cats and a Dog (Self-portrait), Steidl, Göttingen, 2019
Jim Dine, My Letter to the Troops, Steidl, Göttingen, 2019
Jim Dine, Jewish Fate, Steidl, Göttingen, 2019
Jim Dine, A Song at Twilight, Cuneiform Press, Victoria, TX, 2020
Jim Dine, The Secret Drawings, Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Jim Dine, French, English, A Day Longer, Joca Seria, Nantes, and Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Jim Dine, I print. Catalogue Raisonné of Prints, 2001–2020, Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Jim Dine, A Beautiful Day. Seventeen Poems, Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Jim Dine, Electrolyte in Blue, Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Jim Dine, Viral Interest, Steidl, Steidl, Göttingen, 2020
Selected poetry readings
with Ted Berrigan, Arts Lab, Soho, London, 1969
Poetry Project, with Ted Berrigan, St. Mark’s Church, New York, 1970
Segue Series, with Diana Michener and Vincent Katz, Bowery Poetry Club, New York, 2005
Tangent reading series with Diana Michener and Vincent Katz, Portland, 2008
Bastille reading with Marc Marder and Daniel Humair, Paris, 2010
Bastille reading with Marc Marder, Galerie Eof, Paris, 2014
Poetry Project, with Dorothea Lasky, St. Mark’s Church, New York, 2015
with Karen Weiser, Dia Art Foundation, New York, 2016
with Vincent Broqua, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2017
Hauser & Wirth, New York, 2018
House of Words (ongoing)
Günter Grass Archive, Göttingen, 2015
with Marc Marder, Galerie Eof, Paris, 2015
with Marc Marder, Poetry Foundation, Chicago, 2016
Ecrivains en bord de mer, La Baule, 2017
with Daniele Roccato and Fabrizio Ottaviucci, Chiesa dei Santi Luca e Martina, Rome, 2017
In Vivo, with Daniele Roccato and Fabrizio Ottaviucci, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2018
References
External links
British Museum
Encyclopædia Britannica
Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
National Portrait Gallery, London
Royal Academy of Art
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
Steidl
1935 births
Living people
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
Jewish painters
Jewish American artists
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
Modern painters
American pop artists
Ohio University alumni
Obscenity controversies in art
University of Cincinnati alumni
Artists from Cincinnati
Neo-Dada
20th-century American sculptors
American male sculptors
20th-century American printmakers
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy
Sculptors from Ohio
Knights of the Legion of Honour
21st-century American Jews
20th-century American male artists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio%20Veneto
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Vittorio Veneto
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Vittorio Veneto is a city and comune situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the northeast of Italy, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers, borders with the following municipalities:
Alpago (BL), Belluno (BL), Cappella Maggiore, Colle Umberto, Conegliano, Fregona, Limana (BL), Revine Lago, San Pietro di Feletto, Tarzo.
Name
The city is an amalgamation of two former comuni, Cèneda and Serravalle, which were joined into one municipality in 1866 and named Vittorio after the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II. The battle fought nearby in November 1918 became generally known as the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, and the city's name was officially changed to Vittorio Veneto in July 1923.
Starting from the end of the nineteenth century, new neighborhoods were created around the road that connected the two towns, the current Viale della Vittoria, so that the union was also physical, and the town hall itself was placed halfway. However, the city still continues to demonstrate a certain bipolarity, and in fact Ceneda and Serravalle, despite their proximity, have very distinct historical identities.
Geography
The Meschio River, whose source is located in the Lapisina Valley, a few miles north of the city, passes down through the town from Serravalle through the district that bears its name. The north of Vittorio Veneto is straddled by mountains including the majestic Col Visentin. To the east is the state park and forest of Cansiglio which summits at Monte Pizzoc; to the west, a hill region including Valdobbiadene, where Prosecco wine is produced; and to the south is the commercial town of Conegliano.
Administrative subdivisions
According to the communal statute, the commune does not recognize any fraction within itself.
There are numerous distinct areas and local autonomy is guaranteed to the following seven districts (Followed by the main settlements that are part of it).
1 - Val Lapisina: Fadalto, Nove, San Floriano, Savassa, Forcal, Longhere, Maren, Fais.
2 - Serravalle: Sant'Andrea, San Lorenzo, Serravalle
3 - Center: Centro, Salsa
4 - Costa-Meschio: Costa, Meschio
5 - Ceneda: Alta and Ceneda Bassa (Saints Peter and Paul)
6 - San Giacomo: San Giacomo di Veglia
7 - Val dei Fiori: Carpesica, Cozzuolo, Formeniga
History
Ancient period
The area was occupied in ancient times by Veneti and perhaps Celts. A pagan sanctuary was in use on Monte Altare by Veneti, Celts, and Romans.
During the 1st century BC Emperor Augustus established a Castrum Cenetense at the foot of an important pass northward towards Bellunum in what is now the heart of Serravalle to defend Opitergium and the Venetian plain to the south. To the immediate south of the castrum there developed a settlement called a vicus in what is now Ceneda and Meschio. While its precise course has not been determined, the Via Claudia Altinate running north from the Via Postumia seems to have passed the Roman castrum and vicus on its eastern side. Meanwhile, there remains evidence of typical Roman land surveying (centuratio) with cardines being associated with the present day Via Rizzera and Via Cal Alta (in the commune of Cappella Maggiore) and a decumanus identified with the Va Cal de Livera. This implies Ceneta became more than a mere vicus during the Roman period.
Late antiquity
The ancient Pieve di Sant'Andrea in Bigonzo in the northeast of the town, on the southern end of Serravalle, attests to the presence of Christianity in the area by the 4th century.
In the early 5th century, Emperor Honorius seems to have named a certain Marcellus count (comes) of Ceneta. Ceneta and Serravalle were among the places in Venetia devastated by Attila the Hun, but later refortified under the rule of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths.
Byzantine writer, Agathias Scholasticus, as well as the Latin poet, Venantius Fortunatus, from nearby Valdobbiadene, are witnesses to the existence of the town of Ceneta in the 6th century. Agathias recounts how during Justinian's Gothic War, Ceneda changed hands between the Ostrogoths, Franks, and Byzantines. In fact, after the Byzantines had seized Venetia from the Ostrogoths, they turned their attention to conquering central and southern Italy. In the spring of 553, while Narses was engaging the Ostrogoths, the Franks led by the brothers Leutari and Buccelin took a large part of Venetia and sought refuge in Ceneta, holding it sometime in the spring of 554.
In 568, the Lombards invaded Italy and Ceneda was irrevocably captured from the Byzantines. Lombard social and military colonies called fara seem to have been established at Farra d'Alpago to the north of Ceneda and at Farra di Soligo to the west. It was perhaps at this time or perhaps still later that Ceneda was made into the seat of one of 36 Lombard duchies. The Lombards constructed a castle, now called castello di San Martino near the heart of Ceneda on a strategic mountain which overlooks the town. By 667, the Duchy of Ceneda was certainly in existence and grew in size when, according to Paul the Deacon it acquired some of the territory of Oderzo after that city's destruction by the Lombards.
In 685, the Lombard King Grimoald I organized Ceneda into an ecclesiastical diocese, assigning to it a large part of the territory that had been under the care of the suppressed diocese of Oderzo. The diocese of Ceneda was within the metropolitan jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. At the foot of the same height upon which the duke's castle had been built, a cathedral was constructed. St. Titian, Bishop of Oderzo, whose relics are contained in the present cathedral, was named as co-patron of the diocese along with St. Augusta, a virgin martyr from Serravalle.
Carolingian period
With the defeat of the Lombards in 774, Ceneda entered into the Frankish sphere. It seems the duke of Ceneda remained loyal to Charlemagne even when the Lombard dukes of Cividale, Treviso, and Vicenza rebelled the following year.
Middle Ages
In 994, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III invested the bishop of Ceneda with the title and prerogatives of count and authority as temporal lord of the city. The 12th, 13th, and part of the 14th centuries were turbulent for Ceneda and Serravalle. During this time, the bishop of Ceneda was forced into the role of count, and thus, to take part in the politics of Northern Italy and even joining the Lombard League against the Holy Roman Empire. Ceneda also faced threats from its neighbors and in 1147 was attacked by the commune of Treviso. Only the mediation of the pope led to the restitution of what had been stolen, including the relics of St. Titian. In 1174, Serravalle became a fief of the Da Camino family. Ceneda and Serravalle would subsequently be contested by the da Romano family and the Patriarchs of Aquileia. In 1328, the area fell into the hands of the Scaligeri.
In 1307, Bishop Francesco Ramponi ceded the territory of Portobuffolé to Tolberto da Camino in exchange for county of Tarzo (also called Castelnuovo) which included Corbanese, Arfanta, Colmaor and Fratta. In Fratta, authority was invested in a vice-count of the bishop.
Venetian period
On December 19, 1389, Ceneda was peacefully incorporated into the Venetian Republic. Its bishops still retained authority as counts. However, in 1447 and in 1514 bishops Francesco and Oliviero, respectively, ceded to the Republic the right of civil investiture within the territory of Ceneda, reserving for themselves and their successors authority over the commune itself and a few villas. The privileges of Ceneda's bishops as counts were definitively revoked by the Republic in 1768.
Under Venetian rule, the urban development of Ceneda remained concentrated around the cathedral while the rest of the commune remained primarily agricultural with homes either scattered far and wide or sometimes organized in tiny clusters. Serravalle, however, which had come under Venetian rule in 1337 rose to its greatest splendor under the Serenissima, even eclipsing Ceneda in economic and urban development.
In 1411, a Hungarian army led by Pippo Spano attacked Ceneda and destroyed the episcopal archives. Both Ceneda and Serravalle suffered during the War of Cambrai.
A significant Jewish community grew in Ceneda throughout the Venetian period. Lorenzo Da Ponte, a librettist to Mozart, was a Jewish native of Ceneda, who took the bishop of Ceneda's name when he was baptized a Roman Catholic.
Napoleonic era
In March 1797, the French army of Massena entered the towns putting an end to Venetian rule. By the Treaty of Campoformio, the area passed to the rule of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1805 until 1814 Ceneda and Serravalle were incorporated into Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy.
Austrian period
After the Fall of Napoleon, the area was given with the rest of Venetia to the Austrian Empire.
Italian period
On November 22, 1866, soon after the Veneto was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy, Ceneda and Serravalle were joined into one municipality named after the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele.
During the First World War, Vittorio was occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces. In October 1918, Vittorio was the site of the last battle between Italy and Austria-Hungary during World War I. It led to the victory of Italy over the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austrian-Italian Armistice of Villa Giusti) effective on 4 November 1918.
The word "Veneto", was attached to the city's name in 1923. Subsequently, many streets in other parts of Italy have been named Via Vittorio Veneto.
The Italian victory at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto led to the town lending its name as a military honor. Thus, in the 1930s, a battleship was named Vittorio Veneto. In the 1960s, a flight deck cruiser, the flagship of the Italian Navy, was given the same name. In 1968, a military medal called the Order of Vittorio Veneto (Ordine di Vittorio Veneto) was awarded to Italian veterans who had participated honorably for at least six months during the First World War.
The (Count)-Bishops of Ceneda/Vittorio Veneto
Civil Administration (Mayors) during the Italian Republic
Giovanni Poldemengo (1946-1951) Italian Communist Party
Vittorio Della Porta (1951-1956) Christian Democrat Party
Ferruccio Faggin (1956-1960) Italian Socialist Party
Enrico Talin (1960-1961) Christian Democrat Party
Mario Ulliana (1961-1965) Christian Democrat Party
Aldo Toffoli (1965-1975) Christian Democrat Party
Giorgio Pizzol (1975-1982) Italian Communist Party
Franco Concas (1982-1988) Italian Socialist Party
Mario Botteon (1988-1995) Christian Democrat Party
Antonio Della Libera (1995-1999) Italian Popular Party
Giancarlo Scottà (1999-2009) Lega Nord Party
Gianantonio Da Re (2009-2014) Lega Nord Party
Roberto Tonon (2014-2019) Democratic Party
Antonio Miatto (2019- ) Lega Nord Party
Economy
The ancient manufacturing, steel and textile factories, which have always characterized it and which for the most part followed the lively course of the Meschio river, have now been replaced by others and more numerous, linked to the different productions required by a global economy. The main activities are located in the industrial area of San Giacomo, one of the major regional industrial centers, not only for the multiplicity of productions, but also for the importance and consolidated quality of companies known nationally and internationally.
The presence of vineyards in the municipal area is remarkable, the Permasteelisa group manufacturing plant and also of the De Negri distillery should be noted.
Culture
Education
There are also numerous high schools in the city, most of which are located in the context of the school campus in the city center. Specifically, the high schools in Vittorio Veneto are:
"Marcantonio Flaminio" high school, divided into various addresses: classical high school; scientific high school; scientific high school option applied sciences; high school of human sciences.
Liceo Artistico Bruno Munari , divided into various addresses: figurative arts; architecture and environment; fashion design; jewelry design; industrial design; graphics; multimedia audiovisual.
State Professional Institute for Hotel Services and Catering Alfredo Beltrame , divided into various addresses: tourist reception; hall and sales services; kitchen sector; option of artisanal and industrial confectionery products.
Higher Education Institute City of Victory , established in 2007 by incorporating within it the Professional Institute for Industry and Crafts, the Economic Technical Institute and the Technical Technical Institute. The Province of Treviso plans the new IIS "City of Victory" in Vittorio Veneto which should see the construction site open by the end of 2022 after the demolition of the Institute's current headquarters.
In the city, in the historic center of Serravalle, there is also the Dante International College, with the addresses of scientific high school sports and high school scientific digital business creativity.
Cultural institutions
Pieve di Sant'Andrea
Duomo di Serravalle
Teatro Lorenzo da Ponte
Every year, the Concorso Nazionale Corale "Trofei Città di Vittorio Veneto" takes place at Vittorio Veneto. The best choirs from all over Italy compete. The city is also host to a violin competition.
Palace Todesco: the building owned by Giuseppe Todescowas bequeathed in 1961 to the Municipality of Vittorio Veneto and is intended for prestigious exhibitions and art exhibitions, as well as any other initiative of cultural, social, touristic value.
Media
Radio Palazzo Carli is a community radio managed by a non-profit organization. The RPC Association is not for profit and is proposed as a religious, social and educational sound broadcasting service through the transmission of various self-produced or acquired programs from third parties. There are two detached studios: in Vittorio Veneto and in Conegliano. The connection with the Vittorio Veneto Cathedral and the one with the inBlu circuit from Rome is also functioning. The reception frequency for the Vittoriese is FM 103.90 MHz.
Infrastructure and transport
Railways
The city of Vittorio Veneto has two railway stations served by the Ponte nelle Alpi-Conegliano line, fully electrified since February 2021: the Vittorio Veneto station, located in the city center and the Soffratta stop, located in the Ceneda district, serving the center historical district and the southern area of the city.
Language
The local Venetian dialect, called "Cenedese," or since the fusion of Ceneda and Serravalle, "Vittoriese," pertains more to the northern variant of Venetian, such as the dialect of Belluno, but it also shares features with the central variant of Treviso due to the influence of Venice.
Characteristics of Cenedese distinguishing it from Venetian include the frequent dropping of final "-o", for example, Venetian "gòto" ("cup") is gòt in Cenedese. When this occurs leaving a final "-m", the "-m" is further nasalized to an "-n". Thus, for example, Venetian "sémo" ("we are") is "sén" in Cenedese.
Another rustic feature of Cenedese is that the first person singular of indicative verbs usually ends in "-e" rather than in "-o." Thus, Cenedese "mi magne" is equivalent to Venetian "mi magno" ("I eat"), "mi vede" ("I see") is "mi vedo," and "mi dorme" ("I sleep") is "mi dormo.
A northern feature of Cenedese, shared with Bellunese, is its refusal to attach "ghe" onto the verb "avér" ("to have") as is done in the dialects of Venice, Padua, and Treviso. Thus, where Venetian says "mi gò" ("I have") or "ti ti gà" ("you (sing.) have"), Cenedese says "mi ò" and "ti te à," respectively.
One can often find the past participle of second conjugation verbs ending in "-ést" in Cenedese, rather than "-u" as in modern Venetian, for example, "vegnést" ("came"), "bevést" ("drunken"), "vedést" ("seen"), etc.
Native poet Aldo Toffoli describes a sibilant unique to Ceneda as "un suono derivante dallo schiacciamento di una sibilante dentale (alveolare) sorda (s = italiano "sera") su una affricata dentale sorda (ts = italiano "zucchero"), con un fortissimo assottigliamento del suono finale." He uses a simple z to indicate the sound, although suggests it is better represented by sts. Examples are "mezo" ("half"), "pianze" ("weeps"), "ruzene" ("rust"), "zimitero" ("cemetery"), etc. Notably, in some more northern and rural areas
of the Veneto, this sound is voiced as a theta.
Overall, Cenedese remains intelligible to speakers of other dialects of the Venetian language.
People
Albino Luciani (Pope John Paul I) – bishop of Vittorio Veneto from 1958 to 1969.
Lorenzo Da Ponte – opera librettist for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Ferdinando Botteon (Born 1904); Italian violinist.
Marcantonio Flaminio (born 1498) – Renaissance humanist.
Emanuela Da Ros (born 1959) – children's books writer.
Francesca Segat (born 1983) – Italian butterfly swimmer.
Giampietro Bontempi – pianist.
Ilario Castagner – football player.
Gabriele Pin (born 1962) – football player and coach.
Andrea Poli (born 1989) – football player.
Tommaso Benvenuti (rugby union) (born 1990) – rugby union player.
Amia Venera Landscape – Post-Metal band.
Renato Talamini – Italian epidemiologist.
Bartolomeo Costantini – racing driver.
See also
Battle of Vittorio Veneto
Order of Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto-class battleship
Cruiser Vittorio Veneto
Twin towns
São Caetano do Sul, Brazil, since 1984
Finale Ligure, Italy, since 1998
Criciúma, Brazil, since 2000
References
Sources
External links
Vittorio Veneto
Territories of the Republic of Venice
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought%20F-8%20Crusader
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Vought F-8 Crusader
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The Vought F-8 Crusader (originally F8U) is a single-engine, supersonic, carrier-based air superiority jet aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Vought. It was the last American fighter that had guns as the primary weapon, earning it the title "The Last of the Gunfighters".
Development of the F-8 commenced after release of the requirement for a new fighter by the United States Navy in September 1952. Vought's design team, led by John Russell Clark, produced the V-383, a relatively unorthodox fighter that possessed an innovative high-mounted variable-incidence wing, an area-ruled fuselage, all-moving stabilators, dog-tooth notching at the wing folds for improved yaw stability, and liberal use of titanium throughout the airframe. During June 1953, Vought received an initial order to produce three XF8U-1 prototypes of its design. On 25 March 1955, the first prototype performed its maiden flight. Flight testing proved the aircraft to be relatively problem-free. On 21 August 1956, U.S. Navy pilot R.W. Windsor attained a top speed of 1,015 mph; in doing so, the F-8 became the first jet fighter in American service to reach 1,000 mph.
During March 1957, the F-8 was introduced into regular operations with the US Navy. In addition to the Navy, the type would also be operated by the United States Marine Corps (replacing the Vought F7U Cutlass), the French Navy, and the Philippine Air Force. Early on, the type experienced an above-average mishap rate, being somewhat difficult to pilot. American F-8s saw active combat during the Vietnam War, engaging in multiple dogfights with MiG-17s of the Vietnam People's Air Force as well as performing ground attack missions in the theatre. The RF-8 Crusader was a photo-reconnaissance model, it played a crucial role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, providing essential low-level photographs of Soviet medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) in Cuba that were impossible to acquire by other means at that time. Several modified F-8s were used by NASA for experimental flights, including the testing of digital fly-by-wire technology and supercritical wing design. The RF-8 operated in U.S. service longer than any of the fighter versions; the United States Navy Reserve withdrew its remaining aircraft during 1987.
Development
Background
During September 1952, the United States Navy released a requirement calling for a new fighter. Specifics of this requirement included a maximum speed of Mach 1.2 at with a climb rate of , and a landing speed of no more than . Experiences gained from the Korean War had demonstrated that .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns were no longer sufficient and, as a result, the new fighter was to be armed with 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon. The 20x110mm round had become common in the U.S. Navy prior to the Korean conflict: used on the McDonnell F2H Banshee, F9F, F3D Demon, F7U Cutlass, and the F4D among others.
In response to the requirement, the American aircraft manufacturer Vought opted to produce a new design, internally designated as the V-383. Vought's design team was led by John Russell Clark. It was relatively unorthodox for a fighter, possessing a high-mounted wing which necessitated the use of a fuselage-mounted short and lightweight landing gear. A major contributing factor that facilitated the use of such compact main gear, however, was the variable-incidence wing (not to be confused with a variable-sweep wing) that meant the aircraft did not take off and land extremely nose up, which was a common characteristic of the swept and low aspect ratio winged fighters of the era. This innovative wing pivoted by 7° out of the fuselage during takeoff and landing and, by doing so, allowed for a greater angle of attack to be achieved, increasing lift without compromising forward visibility. The variable-incidence wing helped the F-8's development team win the Collier Trophy in 1956.
Considerable competition for the requirement also emerged. This included the Grumman F-11 Tiger, the upgraded twin-engine McDonnell F3H Demon (which would eventually become the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II), and the North American F-100 Super Sabre hastily adapted to carrier use and dubbed the "Super Fury". In addition to the fighter-orientated V-383 proposal, Vought also presented a tactical reconnaissance version of the aircraft, internally designated as the V-392.
Into flight
During May 1953, Vought's submission was declared to be the winner; one month later, the company received an initial order for three XF8U-1 prototypes (after adoption of the unified designation system in September 1962, the F8U became the F-8). On 25 March 1955, the first prototype performed its maiden flight with John Konrad at the controls; confidence was such that it was decided to exceed the speed of sound during its maiden flight. The development was relatively trouble-free, to the extent that the second prototype and the first production F8U-1 made their first flights together on the same day, 30 September 1955. On 4 April 1956, the F8U-1 performed its first catapult launch from .
Beginning in late 1956, prototype XF8U-1s were evaluated by VX-3, during which few problems were noted. Weapons development was conducted at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and a China Lake F8U-1 set a U.S. National speed record in August 1956. Commander "Duke" Windsor set a new Level Flight Speed Record of on 21 August 1956 beating the previous record of set by a USAF F-100. (It did not break the world speed record of , set by the British Fairey Delta 2, on 10 March 1956.)
An early F8U-1 was modified as a photo-reconnaissance aircraft, becoming the first F8U-1P. Subsequently, the RF-8A was equipped with cameras rather than guns and missiles. On 16 July 1957, Major John H. Glenn Jr, USMC, completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in a F8U-1P, flying from NAS Los Alamitos, California, to Floyd Bennett Field, New York, in three hours, 23 minutes, and 8.3 seconds.
In parallel with the F8U-1s and -2s, the Crusader design team was also working on a larger aircraft with even greater performance, internally designated as the V-401 and later officially designated as the Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III. It was externally similar to the Crusader and shared several design elements, as the variable incidence wing, but differed by being considerably larger while also sharing relatively few components and being capable of greater speeds amongst other abilities.
Design
The Vought F-8 Crusader was a single-engine, supersonic, carrier-based air superiority fighter. It was typically described as an all-weather fighter, yet initial production aircraft were only fitted with a ranging radar for its guns and thus was entirely reliant on external platforms to be guided towards enemies. From the F-8B onwards, air-intercept radar was fitted to the aircraft; increasingly capable and reliable radar sets were present on later models. Pilot training of the era did not focus much upon use of the radar, thus making it less effective operationally than it otherwise could have been. The addition of more advanced avionics on later models, particularly the F-8J, was often criticised as being responsible for considerable weight increases as well as having questionable effectiveness. Pilots often claimed the later F-8 models did not turn as well as early aircraft and had greater difficulty in aborting a landing attempt; furthermore, that the radar did not work well in tropical environments.
A key feature of the F-8 was its variable-incidence wing, which allowed for a greater angle of attack to be achieved and increased lift without compromising forward visibility by pivoted by 7° out of the fuselage during takeoff and landing runs. Simultaneously, the aircraft's lift was augmented by leading-edge flaps drooping by 25° and inboard flaps extending to 30°. The F-8 also took advantage of contemporary aerodynamic innovations such as an area-ruled fuselage, all-moving stabilators, dog-tooth notching at the wing folds for improved yaw stability, and liberal use of titanium throughout the airframe. The aircraft was powered by a single Pratt & Whitney J57 turbojet engine, which was equipped with an afterburner. On the initial F8U-1 production aircraft, this afterburner increased the engine's thrust from 10,200 lb to 16,000 lb, but, unlike later engines, lacked any intermediate thrust settings.
The armament of the F-8, which had been specified by the US Navy, consisted primarily of four 20 mm (.79 in) autocannons; the aircraft would become the final U.S. fighter to be designed with guns as its primary weapon. They were supplemented with a retractable tray with 32 unguided Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rocket (Mighty Mouse FFARs), and cheek pylons for two guided AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. In practice, Sidewinder missiles were the F-8's primary weapon; the 20mm guns were considered to be "generally unreliable"; moreover, the F-8 achieved nearly all of its kills using Sidewinders. It has been suggested that, had the US Navy mandated more rigorous and realistic weapons testing, the reliability of the guns could have been improved considerably.
Operational history
US Navy and US Marine Corps
Introduction
VX-3 was one of the first units to receive the F8U-1 in December 1956, and was the first to operate the type in April 1957, from . VX-3 was the first unit to qualify for carrier operations but several aircraft were lost in accidents, several of them fatal to their pilots.
The first fleet squadron to fly the Crusader was VF-32 at NAS Cecil Field, Florida, in 1957, which deployed to the Mediterranean late that year on . VF-32 renamed the squadron the "Swordsmen" in keeping with the Crusader theme. The Pacific Fleet received the first Crusaders at NAS Moffett Field in northern California and the VF-154 "Grandslammers" (named in honor of the new 1,000-mph jets and subsequently renamed the "Black Knights") began their F-8 operations. Later in 1957, in San Diego VMF-122 accepted the first Marine Corps Crusaders.
In 1962, the Defense Department standardized military aircraft designations generally along Air Force lines. Consequently, the F8U became the F-8, with the original F8U-1 redesignated F-8A.
The Crusader became a "day fighter" operating off the aircraft carriers. At the time, U.S. Navy carrier air wings had gone through a series of day and night fighter aircraft due to rapid advances in engines and avionics. Some squadrons operated aircraft for very short periods before being equipped with a newer higher performance aircraft. The Crusader was the first post-Korean War aircraft to have a relatively long tenure with the fleet.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The unarmed RF-8A proved good at getting low-altitude detailed photographs, leading to carrier deployments as detachments from the Navy's VFP-62 and VFP-63 squadrons and the Marines' VMCJ-2. Beginning on 23 October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, RF-8As flew extremely hazardous low-level photo reconnaissance missions over Cuba, the F-8's first true operational flights. Two-ship flights of RF-8As left Key West twice each day, to fly over Cuba at low level, then return to Jacksonville, where the film was offloaded and developed, to be rushed north to the Pentagon.
These flights confirmed that the Soviet Union was setting up medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) in Cuba. The RF-8As also monitored the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles. After each overflight, the aircraft was given a stencil of a dead chicken. The overflights went on for about six weeks and returned a total of 160,000 images. The pilots who flew the missions received Distinguished Flying Crosses, while VFP-62 and VMCJ-2 received the prestigious U.S. Navy Unit Commendation.
Mishap rate
The Crusader was not an easy aircraft to fly, and was often unforgiving in carrier landings, where it suffered from poor recovery from high sink rates, and the poorly designed, castering nose undercarriage made it hard to steer on the deck. Safe landings required the carriers to steam at full speed to lower the relative landing speed for Crusader pilots. The stacks of the oil-burning carriers on which the Crusader served belched thick black smoke, sometimes obscuring the flight deck, forcing the Crusader's pilot to rely on the landing signal officer's radioed instructions. Early on, pilots were encouraged to only keep a minimum level of fuel remaining onboard prior to landing; in the long term, the adoption of the more powerful J57-P420 engine improved the situation. It earned a reputation as an "ensign eliminator" during its early service introduction. The nozzle and air intake were so low when the aircraft was on the ground or the flight deck that the crews called the aircraft "the Gator". Not surprisingly, the Crusader mishap rate was relatively high compared to its contemporaries, the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. However, the aircraft did possess a desirable capability, as proved when several Crusader pilots took off with the wings folded and were able to land the aircraft. One of these episodes took place on 23 August 1960; a Crusader with the wings folded took off from Napoli Capodichino in full afterburner, climbed to and then returned to land successfully. The pilot reported that the control forces were higher than normal. The Crusader was capable of flying in this configuration, though the pilot would be required to reduce aircraft weight by jettisoning stores and dumping fuel before landing. 1,261 Crusaders were built. By the time it was withdrawn from the fleet, 1,106 had been involved in mishaps.
Vietnam War
When conflict erupted in the skies over North Vietnam, it was US Navy Crusaders from that first engaged with Vietnam People's Air Force (the North Vietnamese Air Force) MiG-17s, on 3 April 1965. The MiGs claimed the downing of a F-8 and Lt Pham Ngoc Lan's gun camera revealed that his cannons had set an F-8 ablaze, but Lieutenant Commander Spence Thomas had managed to land his damaged F-8 at Da Nang Air Base, the remaining F-8s returning safely to their carrier. The F-8 repeatedly encountered the relatively nimble North Vietnamese MiGs over the following years, yet the F-8 never made first contact via radar detection in any of these engagements. Instead, F-8 pilots were reliant on ground control intercept controllers to find enemies and be guided towards a favourable firing position. A typical day mission would be performed using a pair of F-8s, one pilot concentrated on radar and navigation functions while the other searched the skies with their eyes; ground controllers would alert and direct them towards any MiGs spotted, which they'd approach at speed from behind, not relying on their own radar to detect the hostile aircraft. The presence of US surface to air missiles (SAMs) usually compelled MiGs to fly at lower altitudes, where the F-8 was more maneuverable and thus would have an advantage.
The US Navy had evolved its "night fighter" role in the air wing to an all-weather interceptor, the F-4 Phantom II, equipped to engage incoming bombers at long range with missiles such as AIM-7 Sparrow as their sole air-to-air weapons, and maneuverability was not emphasized in their design. Some experts believed that the era of the dogfight was over as air-to-air missiles would knock down adversaries well before they could get close enough to engage in dogfighting. As aerial combat ensued over North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, it became apparent that the dogfight was not over. In one pitched air-battle between USN F-8s and VPAF MiG-21s on 1 August 1968, ace fighter pilot Nguyen Hong Nhi fired a pair R-3S AAMs at a pair of F-8s, the second R-3S making a successful hit, claiming one F-8 shot-down, and following a brief dogfight with the other F-8, another pair of F-8s entered into the fray and fired two Sidewinder AAMs at Nguyen Hong Nhi, who was hit, and safely ejected from his stricken MiG-21; the downing of ace fighter pilot Nguyen credited to F-8H pilot Lt. McCoy of VF-51, USS Bon Homme Richard.
As the conflict progressed, North Vietnam received MiG-21s, which proved to be a more capable opponent for the F-8, yet it still proved to be effective with good teamwork and exploiting the MiG-21's weaknesses. Following the end of Operation Rolling Thunder in November 1968, American aircraft stopped flying in airspace in which MiGs encounters were expected and thus there were less opportunities for aerial engagements to occur. Accordingly, the Crusader became increasing used as a "bomb truck", with both ship-based U.S. Navy units and land-based US Marine Corps squadrons attacking communist forces in both North and South Vietnam. US Marine Crusaders flew only in the south, where they largely performed close air support and interdiction missions. During December 1972's Operation Linebacker II, numerous Navy F-8s were assigned to fly aerial superiority missions, yet these were largely unopposed; actual combat with MiGs had become exceeding rare by this point of the conflict.
Navy Crusaders flew only from the small Essex-class carriers.
Despite the "last gunfighter" moniker, the F-8s achieved only four victories with their cannon; the remainder were accomplished with Sidewinder missiles, partly due to the propensity of the 20 mm (.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannons' feeding mechanism to jam under G-loading during high-speed dogfighting maneuvers. Between June and July 1966, during 12 engagements over North Vietnam, Crusaders claimed four MiG-17s for two losses. Crusader pilots would claim the best kill ratio of any American type in the Vietnam War, 19:3. Of the 19 aircraft claimed during aerial combat, 16 were MiG-17s and three were MiG-21s. While VPAF pilots claimed 11 F-8s shot down by MiGs, official US sources indicate that only three F-8s were lost in air combat, all of them during 1966, to cannon fire from opponents in MiG-17s. A total of 170 F-8s would be lost to all causes – mostly ground fire and accidents – during the war.
Withdrawal from frontline operations
LTV built and delivered the 1,219th (and last) US Navy Crusader to VF-124 at NAS Miramar on 3 September 1964. The last active duty US Navy Crusader fighter variants were retired from VF-191 and VF-194 aboard in 1976 after almost two decades of service, setting a first for a Navy fighter.
The photo reconnaissance variant continued to serve in the active duty Navy for yet another 11 years, with VFP-63 flying RF-8Gs up to 1982, and with the Naval Reserve flying their RF-8Gs in two squadrons (VFP-206 and VFP-306) at Naval Air Facility Washington / Andrews AFB until the disestablishment of VFP-306 in 1984 and VFP-206 on 29 March 1987 when the last operational Crusader was turned over to the National Air and Space Museum.
The Crusader is the only aircraft to have used the AIM-9C, a radar-guided variant of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile. During 1969, the US Navy opted to shelve the AIM-9C due to its restrictive launch envelope, as well as its high maintenance demands and associated logistical difficulties. When the Crusader retired, these missiles were converted to the AGM-122 Sidearm anti-radiation missiles used by United States attack helicopters against enemy radars.
NASA
Several modified F-8s were used by NASA in the early 1970s, proving the viability of both digital fly-by-wire technology (using data-processing equipment adapted from the Apollo Guidance Computer), as well as supercritical wing design.
French Navy
During the early 1960s, the French Navy's air arm, the Aéronavale, required a carrier based fighter to serve aboard the new carriers and , the F-4 Phantom, then entering service with the United States Navy, proved to be too large for the small French ships. Following carrier trials aboard Clemenceau on 16 March 1962, by two VF-32 F-8s from the American carrier USS Saratoga, the Crusader was chosen and 42 F-8s were ordered; these would be the last Crusaders produced.
The French Crusaders were based on the F-8E, but were modified in order to allow operations from the compact French carriers; accordingly, the maximum angle of incidence of the aircraft's wing increased from five to seven degrees and blown flaps fitted. The weapon system was modified to carry two French Matra R.530 radar or infra-red missiles as an alternative to Sidewinders, although the ability to carry the American missile was retained. Deliveries of these aircraft, dubbed the F-8E(FN), started in October 1964 and continued until February 1965, with the Aéronavales first squadron, Flotille 12F reactivated on 1 October 1964. To replace the old Corsairs, Flotille 14.F received its Crusaders on 1 March 1965.
During October 1974, (on Clemenceau) and June 1977 (on Foch), Crusaders from 14.F squadron participated in the Saphir missions over Djibouti. On 7 May 1977, two Crusaders went separately on patrol against supposedly French Air Force (4/11 Jura squadron) F-100 Super Sabres stationed at Djibouti. The leader intercepted two fighters and engaged a dogfight (supposed to be a training exercise) but quickly called his wingman for help as he had actually engaged two Yemeni MiG-21s. The two French fighters switched their master armament to "on" but, ultimately, everyone returned to their bases. This was the only combat interception to be performed by French Crusaders.
The Aéronavale Crusaders flew combat missions over Lebanon in 1983 escorting Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard strike aircraft. In October 1984, France sent Foch with 12.F squadron to conduct Operation Mirmillon off the coast of Libya, intended to deter Libyan ruler Colonel Gaddafi from escalating. Regional tensions around the Persian Gulf, largely related to the Iran-Iraq conflict, triggered the deployment of a task force headed by Clemenceau, which included 12.F squadron in its air way. During 1993, combat missions commenced over the skies of the former Yugoslavia; Crusaders were launched from both French carriers, which were stationed in the Adriatic Sea. These missions ceased in June 1999 with Operation Trident over Kosovo.
The French Crusaders were subject to a series of modifications throughout their life, being fitted with new F-8J-type wings in 1969 and having modified afterburners fitted in 1979. Armament was enhanced by the addition of R550 Magic infra-red guided missiles in 1973, with the improved, all-aspect Magic 2 fitted from 1988. The obsolete R.530 was withdrawn from use in 1989, leaving the Crusaders without a radar-guided missile. In 1989, when it was realised that the Crusader would not be replaced for several years due to delays in the development of the Rafale, it was decided to refurbish the Crusaders to extend their operating life. Each aircraft was rewired and had its hydraulic system refurbished, while the airframe was strengthened to extend fatigue life. Avionics were improved, with a modified navigation suite and a new radar-warning receiver. The 17 refurbished aircraft were redesignated as F-8P (P used for "Prolongé" -extended- and not to be confused with the Philippine F-8P). Although the French Navy participated in combat operations in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm and over Kosovo in 1999, the Crusaders stayed behind and were eventually replaced by the Dassault Rafale M in 2000 as the last of the type in military service.
Philippine Air Force
During late 1977, the Philippine government purchased 35 secondhand U.S. Navy F-8Hs that had been stored at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona. 25 of them were refurbished by Vought while the remaining ten were used for spare parts. As part of the deal, the U.S. would train Philippine pilots using the TF-8A. The Crusaders were manned by the 7th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Basa Air Base and were mostly used for intercepting Soviet bombers. However, due to a lack of spares and the rapid deterioration of the aircraft, the remaining F-8s were grounded in 1988 and left on an open grass field at Basa Air Base. They were finally withdrawn from service three years later after they were badly damaged by the Mount Pinatubo eruption, and have since been offered for sale as scrap.
Variants
XF8U-1 (XF-8A) (V-383) – the two original unarmed prototypes.
F8U-1 (F-8A) – first production version, J57-P-12 engine replaced with more powerful J57-P-4A starting with 31st production aircraft, 318 built.
YF8U-1 (YF-8A) – one F8U-1 fighter used for development testing.
YF8U-1E (YF-8B) – one F8U-1 converted to serve as an F8U-1E prototype.
F8U-1E (F-8B) – added a limited all-weather capability thanks to the AN/APS-67 radar, the unguided rocket tray was sealed shut because it was never used operationally, first flight: 3 September 1958, 130 built.
XF8U-1T – one XF8U-2NE used for evaluation as a two-seat trainer.
F8U-1T (TF-8A) (V-408) – two-seat trainer version based on F8U-2NE, fuselage stretched 2 ft (0.61 m), internal armament reduced to two cannon, J57-P-20 engine, first flight 6 February 1962. The Royal Navy was initially interested in the Rolls-Royce Spey-powered version of TF-8A but chose the Phantom II instead. Only one TF-8A was built, although several retired F-8As were converted to similar two-seat trainers.
YF8U-2 (YF-8C) – two F8U-1s used for flight testing the J57-P-16 turbojet engine.
F8U-2 (F-8C) – J57-P-16 engine with 16,900 lbf (75 kN) of afterburning thrust, ventral fins added under the rear fuselage in an attempt to rectify yaw instability, Y-shaped cheek pylons allowing two Sidewinder missiles on each side of the fuselage, AN/APQ-83 radar retrofitted during later upgrades. First flight: 20 August 1957, 187 built. This variant was sometimes referred to as Crusader II.
F8U-2N (F-8D) – all-weather version, unguided rocket pack replaced with an additional fuel tank, J57-P-20 engine with 18,000 lbf (80 kN) of afterburning thrust, landing system which automatically maintained present airspeed during approach, incorporation of AN/APQ-83 radar. First flight: 16 February 1960, 152 built.
YF8U-2N (YF-8D) – one aircraft used in the development of the F8U-2N.
YF8U-2NE – one F8U-1 converted to serve as an F8U-2NE prototype.
F8U-2NE (F-8E) – J57-P-20A engine, AN/APQ-94 radar in a larger nose cone, dorsal hump between the wings containing electronics for the AGM-12 Bullpup missile, payload increased to 5,000 lb (2,270 kg), Martin-Baker ejection seat, AN/APQ-94 radar replaced AN/APQ-83 radar in earlier F-8D. IRST sensor blister (round ball) was added in front of the canopy. First flight: 30 June 1961, 286 built.
F-8E(FN) – air superiority fighter version for the French Navy, significantly increased wing lift due to greater slat and flap deflection and the addition of a boundary layer control system, enlarged stabilators, incorporated AN/APQ-104 radar, an upgraded version of AN/APQ-94. A total of 42 built.
F-8H – upgraded F-8D with strengthened airframe and landing gear, with AN/APQ-84 radar. A total of 89 rebuilt.
F-8J – upgraded F-8E, similar to F-8D but with wing modifications and BLC like on F-8E(FN), "wet" pylons for external fuel tanks, J57-P-20A engine, with AN/APQ-124 radar. A total of 136 rebuilt.
F-8K – upgraded F-8C with Bullpup capability and J57-P-20A engines, with AN/APQ-125 radar. A total of 87 rebuilt.
F-8L – F-8B upgraded with underwing hardpoints, with AN/APQ-149 radar. A total of 61 rebuilt.
F-8P – 17 F-8E(FN) of the Aéronavale underwent a significant overhaul at the end of the 1980s to stretch their service life another 10 years. They were retired in 1999.
F8U-1D (DF-8A) – several retired F-8A modified to controller aircraft for testing of the SSM-N-8 Regulus cruise missile. DF-8A was also modified as drone (F-9 Cougar) control which were used extensively by VC-8, NS Roosevelt Rds, PR; Atlantic Fleet Missile Range.
DF-8F – retired F-8A modified as controller aircraft for testing of missiles including at the USN facility at China Lake.
F8U-1KU (QF-8A) – retired F-8A modified into remote-controlled target drones
YF8U-1P (YRF-8A) – prototypes used in the development of the F8U-1P photo-reconnaissance aircraft – V-392.
F8U-1P (RF-8A) – unarmed photo-reconnaissance version of F8U-1E, 144 built.
RF-8G – modernized RF-8As.
LTV V-1000 – A vastly reworked version of the F-8 designed for the USAF International Fighter Aircraft Program in 1969 in response to the widespread Soviet MiG-21. The aircraft competed with the F-4E Phantom II, Lockheed CL-1200 and F-5A-21 in a tender for U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP) funding. A summary of changes are installation of the GE J79-GE-17, 3800 lbs (1723 kg) in weight reduction, and overall simplification of the aircraft. The V-1000 was selected as the competition winner however was not given the contract.
XF8U-3 Crusader III (V-401) – new design loosely based on the earlier F-8 variants, created to compete against the F-4 Phantom II; J75-P-5A engine with 29,500 lbf (131 kN) of afterburning thrust, first flight: 2 June 1958, attained Mach 2.39 in test flights, canceled after five aircraft were constructed because the Phantom II won the Navy contract.
Operators
Former operators
French Navy (Aéronavale)
Philippine Air Force
United States Navy
United States Marine Corps
NASA
Aircraft on display
France
F-8E(FN)
151732 (French Navy Side Number 1) – Musee des Avions de Chasse, Beaune.
151750 (French Navy Side Number 19) – Musée des Ailes Anciennes, Toulouse.
F-8P
151733 (French Navy Side Number 3) – Lann Bihoue Airport, Le Meneguen.
151735 (French Navy Side Number 4) – Musee Europeen de lAviation de Chasse, Montelimar-Ancone.
151738 (French Navy Side Number 7) – Aeronavale Base, Landivisau.
151741 (French Navy Side Number 10) – Musee de l air et de l Espace, (The Air and Space Museum), Paris, France.
151742 (French Navy Side Number 11) – Musee de l aeronautique navale, Rochefort.
151754 (French Navy Side Number 23) – Aeronavale Base, Landivisau.
151760 (French Navy Side Number 29) – Aeronavale Base, Landivisau.
151767 (French Navy Side Number 36) – Musee des Avions de Chasse, Beaune.
151768 (French Navy Side Number 37) – Airport in Cuers.
151770 (French Navy Side Number 39) – Aeronavale Base, Landivisau.
Philippines
F-8H
147056 – Philippine Air Force Aerospace Museum, Villamor Air Base, Manila.
147060 - Basa Air Base, Floridablanca, Pampanga.
148661 – Clark Air Base, Angeles City.
148696 - Fort Del Pilar, Baguio.
United States
XF8U-1 (XF-8A)
138899 – Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
XF8U-2 (XF-8C)
140448 – McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire.
F8U-1 (F-8A)
141351 – NAS Jacksonville Heritage Park, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida (relocated from former NAS Cecil Field).
141353 – Edwards AFB, California.
143703 – USS Hornet Museum, former Naval Air Station Alameda, Alameda, California.
143755 – Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.
143806 – Wings of Freedom Aviation Museum, former Naval Air Station Willow Grove, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
144427 – Pima Air and Space Museum adjacent to Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
145336 – Planes of Fame at Chino, California.
145347 – National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.
145349 – Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum, Pueblo, Colorado.
145397 – Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, Lakehurst, New Jersey.
F8U-2 (F-8C)
145527 - under restoration to airworthiness by a private owner in Seattle, Washington,
145546 – Edwards AFB, California.
145592 - under restoration to airworthiness by a private owner in Seattle, Washington,
146963 – Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina.
146973 – Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii
147034 – (nose section only) USS Hornet Museum, former NAS Alameda, Alameda, California.
149150 – NAS Oceana Aviation Heritage Park, Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia.
F8U-2N (F-8D)
148693 – Mid-America Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas.
F8U-2NE (F-8E)
150920 – Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California
F-8E(FN)
151765 – under restoration to airworthiness by a private owner in Fort Myers, Florida
F8U-1P (RF-8G)
144617 – Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California
144618 – Celebrity Row, Davis-Monthan AFB (North Side), Tucson, Arizona.
145607 – Castle Air Museum (former Castle AFB), Atwater, California.
145608 – (nose section only) Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa, California.
145609 – National Museum of Naval Aviation, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Pensacola, Florida.
145645 – USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, Mobile, Alabama.
146860 – Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, adjacent to Dulles International Airport.
146858 – in storage at Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California
146882 – Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas.
146898 – Fort Worth Aviation Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
F-8H
147909 – NAD Soroptimist Park, Kitsap Lake, Bremerton, Washington, about 1 mile away from Naval Hospital Bremerton. Aircraft is on loan from the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida.
F-8J
150904 – Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
F8U-2 (F-8K)
145550 – USS Intrepid Museum in New York City, New York.
146931 – Estrella Warbirds Museum in Paso Robles, California.
146939 – Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum aboard ex-USS Yorktown (CV-10), Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
146983 – Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
146985 – Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville, Florida
146995 – Pacific Coast Air Museum, adjacent to the Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, California
147030 – USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California.
F-8L
145449 – Naval Air Station Fallon, Fallon, Nevada.
F8U Cockpit
145399 – Under restoration at Moffett Historical Museum, Moffett Federal Airfield, California
Specifications (F-8E)
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
External links
F-8 Crusader factsheet on GlobalSecurity.org
F-008 Crusader
Vought F-08 Crusader
Single-engined jet aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Variable-incidence-wing aircraft
Carrier-based aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1955
Second-generation jet fighters
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary%20education%20in%20the%20United%20States
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Secondary education in the United States
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Secondary education is the last six or seven years of statutory formal education in the United States. It culminates with twelfth grade (age 17–18). Whether it begins with sixth grade (age 11–12) or seventh grade (age 12–13) varies by state and sometimes by school district.
Secondary education in the United States occurs in two phases. The first is the ISCED lower secondary phase, a middle school or junior high school for students sixth grade through eighth grade. The second is the ISCED upper secondary phase, a high school or senior high school for students ninth grade through twelfth grade. There is some debate over the optimum age of transfer, and variation in some states; also, middle school often includes grades that are almost always considered primary school.
History
High school enrollment increased when schools at this level became free, laws required children to attend until a certain age, and it was believed that every American student had the opportunity to participate regardless of their ability.
In 1892, in response to many competing academic philosophies being promoted at the time, a working group of educators, known as the "Committee of Ten" was established by the National Education Association. It recommended twelve years of instruction, consisting of eight years of elementary education followed by four years of high school. Rejecting suggestions that high schools should divide students into college-bound and working-trades groups from the start, and in some cases also by race or ethnic background, they unanimously recommended that "every subject which is taught at all in a secondary school should be taught in the same way and to the same extent to every pupil so long as he pursues it, no matter what the probable destination of the pupil may be, or at what point his education is to cease."
At the turn of the 20th century, it was common for high schools to have entrance examinations which restricted entrance to fewer than 5 percent of the population in preparation for college. Most were expected to be ready for a job or a family after junior high school.
The first public secondary schools started around the 1830s and 40s within the wealthier areas of similar income levels and greatly expanded after the American Civil War into the 1890s.
Between 1910 and 1940 the "high school movement" resulted in rapidly increasing founding of public high schools in many cities and towns and later with further expansions in each locality with the establishment of neighborhood, district, or community high schools in the larger cities which may have had one or two schools since the 19th century. High school enrollment and graduation numbers and rates increased markedly, mainly due to the building of new schools, and a practical curriculum based on gaining skills "for life" rather than "for college". There was a shift towards local decision making by school districts, and a policy of easy and open enrollment. The shift from theoretical to a more practical approach in curriculum also resulted in an increase of skilled blue-collar workers. The open enrollment nature and relatively relaxed standards, such as ease of repeating a grade, also contributed to the boom in secondary schooling. There was an increase in educational attainment, primarily from the grass-roots movement of building and staffing public high schools.
By mid-century, comprehensive high schools became common, which were designed to give a free education to any student who chose to stay in school for 12 years to get a diploma with a minimal grade point average.
In 1954 the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education made desegregation of elementary and high schools mandatory, although private Christian schools expanded rapidly following this ruling to accommodate white families attempting to avoid desegregation.
By 1955, the enrollment rates of secondary schools in the United States were around 80%, higher than enrollment rates in most or all European countries. The goal became to minimize the number who exited at the mandatory attendance age, which varies by state between 14 and 18 years of age, and become considered to be dropouts, at risk of economic failure.
In 1965 the far-reaching Elementary and Secondary Education Act ('ESEA'), passed as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty", provided funds for primary and secondary education ('Title I funding') while explicitly forbidding the establishment of a national curriculum. It emphasized equal access to education and established high standards and accountability. The bill also aimed to shorten the achievement gaps between students by providing every child with fair and equal opportunities to achieve an exceptional education.
After 1980, the growth in educational attainment decreased, which caused the growth of the educated workforce to slow down.
Under the education reform movement started in the early 1990s by many state legislatures and the federal government, about two-thirds of the nation's public high school students are required to pass a graduation exam, usually at the 10th and higher grade levels, though no new states had adopted a new requirement in 2006. This requirement has been an object of controversy when states have started to withhold diplomas, and the right to attend commencement exercises, if a student does not meet the standards set by the state.
Pressure to allow people and organizations to create new Charter schools developed during the 1980s and were embraced by the American Federation of Teachers in 1988. These would be legally and financially autonomous public school free from many state laws and district regulations, and accountable more for student outcomes rather than for processes or inputs. Minnesota was the first state to pass a charter school law in 1991. By 2009 charter schools were operating in 41 states (and the District of Columbia) and 59% of these had waiting lists.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required all public schools receiving federal funding to administer a statewide standardized test annually to all students. Schools that receive Title I funding must make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in test scores (e.g. each year, fifth graders must do better on standardized tests than the previous year's fifth graders) and Schools that miss AYP for a second consecutive year are publicly labeled as in need of improvement, and students have the option to transfer to a better school within the school district, if any exists. Standards-based education has been embraced in most states which changed the measurement of success to academic achievement, rather than the completion of 12 years of education. By 2006, two-thirds of students lived in states with effective standards requiring passing tests to ensure that all graduates had achieved these standards.
Curriculum
Authority to regulate education resides constitutionally with the individual states, with direct authority of the U.S. Congress and the federal U.S. Department of Education being limited to regulation and enforcement of federal constitutional rights. Great indirect authority is, however, exercised through federal funding of national programs and block grants although there is no obligation upon any state to accept these funds. The U.S. government may also propose, but cannot enforce national goals, objectives and standards, which generally lie beyond its jurisdiction.
Many high schools in the United States offer a choice of vocational or college prep curriculum. Schools that offer vocational programs include a very high level of technical specialization, e.g., auto mechanics or carpentry, with a half-day instruction/approved work program in senior year as the purpose of the program is to prepare students for gainful employment without a college degree. The level of specialization allowed varies depending on both the state and district the school is located in.
Core
Many states require courses in the "core" areas of English, science, social studies, and math every year although others allow more choice after 10th grade. The majority of high schools require four English credits to graduate.
Three science courses, biology, chemistry, and physics are usually offered.
High school math courses typically include Pre-algebra, Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II with trigonometry classes. Advanced study options can include Precalculus, Calculus, and Statistics generally with an opportunity to earn Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) accreditation. Usually, only three math credits are required for graduation (although four is recommended).
English and language classes are usually required for four years of high school although many schools count journalism, public speaking/debate, foreign language, literature, drama, and writing (both technical and creative) classes as English/Language classes.
Social studies classes include History, Political Science, Economics and Geography. Political science and Economics classes are sometimes combined as two semesters of a year-long course. Additional study options can include classes in Sociology, and Psychology.
Many states require a health or wellness course in order to graduate. The class typically covers basic anatomy, nutrition, first aid, sexual education, and how to make responsible decisions regarding illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. In some places, contraception is not allowed to be taught for religious reasons. In some places, the health and physical education class are combined into one class or are offered in alternate semesters. In some private schools, such as Catholic schools, theology is required before a student graduates. Two years of physical education (usually referred to as "gym," "PE" or "phys ed" by students) is commonly required, although some states and school districts require that all students take Physical Education every semester.
Electives
Public high schools offer a wide variety of elective courses, although the availability of such courses depends upon each particular school's financial situation. Some schools and states require students to earn a few credits of classes considered electives, most commonly foreign language and physical education.
Common types of electives include:
Visual arts (drawing, sculpture, painting, photography, film studies, and art history)
Performing arts (choir, drama, band, orchestra, dance, guitar)
Vocational education (woodworking, metalworking, computer-aided drafting, automobile repair, agriculture, cosmetology, FFA)
Computer science/information technology (word processing, computer programming, robotics, graphic design, computer club, web design and web programming, video game design, music production)
Journalism/publishing (school newspaper, yearbook, television production)
Foreign languages (French, German, Italian, and Spanish are common; Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Latin, Korean, Dutch, and Portuguese are less common, though the former two are gaining popularity.)
Business education (Accounting, Data Processing, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Business, Information and Communication Technology, Management, Marketing, and Secretarial)
Family and consumer science/home economics (nutrition, nursing, culinary, child development, and additional physical education and weight training classes)
Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (In some schools, JROTC may replace a credit of health or P.E.) and gun clubs and shooting teams
Some American high schools offer drivers' education. At some schools, a student can take it during school as a regular course for a credit. At some schools, drivers education courses are only available after school.
The Association for Career and Technical Education is the largest U.S. association dedicated to promoting this type of education.
Levels of education
Middle school / Junior high school
Middle schools and junior high schools, are schools that serves grades 5, 6, or 7 through 7, 8, or 9 which straddle primary and secondary education. Upon arrival in middle school or junior high school, students begin to enroll in class schedules where they generally take classes from several teachers in a given day. The classes are usually a set of four or five (if foreign language is included in the curriculum) core academic classes (English or "language arts," science, mathematics, history or "social studies," and in some schools, foreign language) with two to four other classes, either electives, supplementary, or remedial academic classes.
Some students also start taking a foreign language or advanced math and science classes in middle school. Typically schools will offer Spanish and French; and, often German; and, sometimes Latin; Chinese, Japanese, and/or Greek. In addition to Pre-Algebra and other high school mathematics prep courses, Algebra I and Geometry are both commonly taught. Schools also offer Earth Science, Life Science, or Physical Science classes. Physical education classes (also called "PE", "phys ed", Kinesiology, or "gym") are usually mandatory for various periods. For social studies, some schools offer U.S. History, Geography, and World History classes.
Many also have honors classes for motivated and gifted students, where the quality of education is higher and much more is expected from the enrolled student.
Intermediate school
Intermediate school is an uncommon term, and can either be a synonym for middle school (notably as used by the New York City public schools) or for schools that encompass the latter years of primary education prior to middle school/junior high school, serving grades 3 or 4 through 5 or 6.
High school / Senior high school
High schools, or senior high schools, are schools that span grades 8, 9, or 10 through 12. Most American high schools are comprehensive high schools and accept all students from their local area, regardless of ability or vocational/college track. Students have significant control of their education, and may choose even their core classes, although the control given to students varies from state to state and school to school. The schools are managed by local school districts rather than by the central government.
Some states and cities offer special high schools with examinations to admit only the highest performing students, such as Boston Latin School, several schools in the New York City Specialized High School system or Alexandria, Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School. Other high schools cater to the arts. Some schools have been set up for students who do not succeed with normal academic standards; while others, like Harvey Milk High School, have even been created for special social groups such as LGBT students.
Most states operate special residential schools for the blind and deaf, although a substantial number of such students are mainstreamed into standard schools. Several operate residential high schools for highly gifted students in specialized areas such as science, mathematics, or the arts. A smaller number of high schools are operated by the Department of Defense on military bases for children of military personnel.
Most high schools have classes known as "honors" classes for motivated and gifted students, where the quality of education is higher and much more is expected from the enrolled student. Some high schools offer Regular Honors (H) (sometimes called Advanced), Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, which are special forms of honors classes. International schools offering programs of study in line with foreign systems of Education, such as those of Britain and France, are also available. Some schools also offer dual-enrollment programs, in which select classes at a university may be taken for both university and high school credit.
Graduation from high school or senior high school leads to the awarding of the high school diploma. After this, secondary education is considered complete and students may pursue tertiary level study.
Types of schools
Secondary education can be provided within a number of different schools and settings.
Public schools
The United States public education system is structured into three levels: elementary (also known as primary) education, middle and high school (which is secondary together) education, and college or university level (also known as post-secondary) education. Schooling starts at age 5-6 and ends anywhere from 16 to 18 depending on the school system, state policy, and the student's progress. Pre-School or Pre-Kindergarten accept as young as age 3 and is not required. From there education models differ as elementary school can last anywhere from to depending on the structure. Some states have middle schools which is part of secondary education and between elementary school and high school encompassing grades from 6 to 9, while others have no middle school and instead combined mixed high schools. High school is generally grades 9–12, with the exception of the mixed model which is 8–12.
All children are guaranteed the right to a free public elementary and secondary education when living within the jurisdiction of the United States regardless of race, gender, ability, citizen status, religion or economic status. Public education in the United States is mainly the responsibility of State and local level administration levels. As of 2010-2011 around 13,588 school districts exist within which around 98,800 public schools exist in the United States. Only 8% of funding for public schools comes from federal sources, the other 92% comes mostly from state and local funding. Curriculum requirements vary state by state as it is up to these states and local school districts, in addition to national associations if applicable, to come up with and be approved by the federal government in order for them to receive funding. Most schools mark proficiency in a subject through the A-F grading scale accumulating throughout years creating a grade point average or G.P.A. Parent involvement is encouraged in the U.S. with many having parent-teacher associations otherwise known as PTA's.
Independent schools
Independent schools are schools that are not public and not run by any government, but rather function as an independent institution. Independent schools range from levels of kindergarten to undergraduate, various institution usually accommodating different levels. Most independent schools have a tuition cost of attendance As of 2013–2014 there were 33,619 independent schools in the United States. Most independent schools in the United States are associated with religious orientations making up 68.7% of all private schools as of 2013–2014. This is a number had an increasing trend in the period of 1989–2005 however, it dropped by about 9% in 2006–2007, but seems to be increasing again.
All independent schools must comply with federal laws of non-discrimination and health privacy & financial security laws. These include
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act (for employees or applicants over the age of 40)
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Equal Pay Act
- 42 U.S.C. § 1986 (discrimination based on race)
- Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, and/or national origin)
- Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (employment or reemployment discrimination based on military service)
- Revenue Procedure 75-50 (independent schools can not discriminate on the basis of race in any programs or financial assistance)
More specific legal restrictions apply to private schools on the state level and vary based on the state.
Independent schools can accept money from the federal government otherwise called "Federal financial assistance" which can come as funds in the form of grants or loans, donations, assets and property or interest in property, services by federal employees or contract of intent to receive federal assistance, involvement in federal programs. Schools receiving funding must comply with additional federal regulations included in many of the above acts. However, a policy can also have exceptions to these regulations based on the private school characteristics, such as religious beliefs that the law would be defying or being involved in military development.
Charter schools
Charter schools are subject to fewer rules, regulations, and statutes than traditional state schools, receive less public funding than public schools, typically a fixed amount per pupil and are often over-subscribed.
College-preparatory schools
College-preparatory schools, commonly referred to as 'prep schools', can be either publicly funded, charter schools or private independent secondary schools funded by tuition fees and philanthropic donations, and governed by independent boards of trustees. Fewer than 1% of students enrolled in school in the United States attend an independent private preparatory school, a small fraction compared with the 9% who attend parochial schools and 88% who attend public schools. While these schools are not subject to government oversight or regulation, they are accredited by one of the six regional accreditation agencies for educational institutions.
Home schooling
It is estimated that some 2 million or 2.9% of U.S. children are home educated. Home schooling is lawful in all 50 states, and although the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on homeschooling specifically, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) it supported the rights of Amish parents to keep their children out of public schools for religious reasons.
Types of scheduling
At the secondary level, students transition from the American primary education system of remaining with one class in one classroom with one teacher for the entire school day to taking multiple courses taught by different teachers in different classrooms. This system is also used by American colleges and universities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It requires students to develop time management and navigation skills in order to efficiently race from one classroom to the next during each school day, and to develop interpersonal communication skills in order to interact with many more teachers and classmates than before.
Traditional scheduling
Students take six, seven, eight, or sometimes nine classes per day all year long. Six classes are around 50–60 minutes in length. Seven classes are around 45–52 minutes in length. Eight classes are around 40–48 minutes in length. Nine classes are around 42 minutes or less in length.
Block scheduling
Alternate day block scheduling
Also referred to as A/B block scheduling, Odd/Even block scheduling, or Day 1/ Day 2 block scheduling. Students take three to four courses, around 90–120 minutes in length, per day all year long on alternating days resulting in a full six or eight courses per year. An example table of a possible schedule is provided below.
4x4 Block Scheduling
Students take four courses, around 90 minutes in length, every day for the first semester and take four different courses every day for the second semester. This results in a full eight courses taken per year. An example table of a possible schedule is provided below.
Teacher certification
Teachers are certified in one of two areas for high school (and in some states, certification can be to teach grades 6–12). These certifications can overlap. In Missouri, for example, middle school certification covers grades 6–8, elementary school certification covers up to grade 5, and high school certification covers grades 9–12. This reflects the wide range of grade combinations of middle schools, junior high schools, and elementary schools. Alternatively, some states certify teachers in various curricular areas (such as math or history) to teach secondary education.
Compulsory education
Compulsory education laws refer to "legislative mandates that school-aged children [shall] attend public, nonpublic, or homeschools until reaching specified ages." In most cases, local school attendance officers enforce compulsory education laws, and all jurisdictions hold parents/legal guardians responsible to ensure their child/children attend school.
History
Compulsory education first became required in Massachusetts upon the passing of the Compulsory Attendance Act of 1852. The law required that all children eight to fourteen to attend school for three months out of the year, and of these twelve weeks, six of them had to be consecutive. The only exceptions to this law was if the child already attended another school for the same amount of time, proof the child had already learned the material, if they lived in poverty, or the child had a physical or mental disability preventing them from learning the material.
Later, in 1873, the law was revised. The age limit was reduced from 14 to 12, but the annual attendance requirement was increased to 20 weeks a year. By 1918, all U.S. states had some sort of mandatory attendance law for school.
See also
Comprehensive high school
Lists of schools in the United States
Education in the United States
Secondary education
Primary education in the United States
Shopping mall high school
References
Further reading
External links
Digest of Education Statistics, 2004, U.S. Department of Education
Percent of high school dropouts, U.S. Department of Education
Consumer Guide: High School Dropout Rates, U.S. Department of Education
American High School Hall of Fame Listing
Occupational Outlook for High School Teachers, Bureau of Labor Statistics
Finance Advice for New Graduates
High schools in the United States
Education in the United States
School systems
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment%20benefits
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Unemployment benefits
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Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
Unemployment benefits are generally given only to those registering as becoming unemployed through no fault of their own, and often on conditions ensuring that they seek work.
In British English, unemployment benefits are also colloquially referred to as "the dole"; receiving benefits is informally called "being on the dole". "Dole" here is an archaic expression meaning "one's allotted portion", from the synonymous Old English word dāl.
History
The first modern unemployment benefit scheme was introduced in the United Kingdom with the National Insurance Act 1911, under the Liberal Party government of H. H. Asquith. The popular measures were introduced to stave off poverty inflicted through unemployment, though they also gave the Liberal Party the added benefit of combatting the Labour Party's increasing influence among the country's working-class population. The Act gave the British working classes a contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment. It only applied to wage earners, however, and their families and the unwaged had to rely on other sources of support, if any. Key figures in the implementation of the Act included Robert Laurie Morant and William Braithwaite.
By the time of its implementation, the benefits were criticized by communists, who thought such insurance would prevent workers from starting a revolution, while employers and tories saw it as a "necessary evil".
The scheme was based on actuarial principles and was funded by fixed amounts from workers, employers, and taxpayers. It was restricted to particular industries, particularly more volatile ones like shipbuilding, and did not make provision for any dependants. After one week of unemployment, a worker was eligible to receive seven shillings per week for up to 15 weeks in a year. By 1913, 2.3 million were insured under the unemployment benefit program.
Expansion and spread
The Unemployment Insurance Act 1920 created the dole system of payments for unemployed workers in the United Kingdom. The dole system provided 39 weeks of unemployment benefits to over 11 million workers—practically the entire civilian working population except domestic service, farmworkers, railroad men, and civil servants.
Unemployment benefits were introduced in Germany in 1927, and in most European countries in the period after the Second World War with the expansion of the welfare state. Unemployment insurance in the United States originated in Wisconsin in 1932. Through the Social Security Act of 1935, the federal government of the United States effectively encouraged the individual states to adopt unemployment insurance plans.
Processes
Eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits typically factor in the applicant's employment history and their reason for being unemployed. Once approved, there is sometimes a waiting period before being able to receive benefits. In the US, there is no waiting period on a temporary basis currently due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in many states there is a waiting week. In Germany and Belgium, there is no waiting week. The current waiting period in Canada is seven days. Countries implement varied potential benefit durations (PBD), which is how long an individual is eligible to receive benefits. The PBD may be a sliding scale function of the applicant's past employment history and age, or it may be a set length for all applicants. In Argentina, for example, six months of work history results in a PBD of two months, while 36 months or more of work history can result in a PBD of a full year, with an extra six months of PBD to applicants over the age of 45.
Most countries calculate the amount of unemployment benefit as a percentage of the applicant's former income. A typical replacement percentage is 50–65%. Some countries offer much higher levels of wage replacement, such as the Netherlands (75%), Luxembourg (80%), and Denmark (90%). There are often caps on the maximum benefit level, ranging from 33% of a country's average wage (Turkey) to 227% of its average wage (France). The average maximum benefit level is 77% among OECD countries. Most benefit payments are constant over the course of the PBD, though countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, and Italy have a declining benefit path, in which the wage replacement percentage decreases over time.
Most countries require those receiving unemployment benefits to search for a new job, and can require documentation of job search activities. Benefits may be cut if the applicant does not fulfil the search requirements, or turns down a job offer deemed acceptable by the unemployment benefits agency. Agencies may also provide resources, training, or education for job seekers. Some countries allow beneficiaries to accept part-time jobs without losing benefit eligibility, which can counter the disincentive of unemployment benefits to accepting jobs that do not fully replace the former wages.
Unemployment benefits are typically funded by payroll taxes on employers and employees. This can be supplemented by the government's general tax revenue, which can occur periodically or in response to economic downturn. Contribution rates are usually between 1 and 3% of gross earnings, and are usually split between the employer and employee.
Systems by country
Across the world, 72 countries offer a form of unemployment benefits. This includes all 37 OECD countries. Among OECD countries for a hypothetical 40-year-old unemployment benefit applicant, the US and Slovakia are the least generous for potential benefit duration lengths, with PBD of six months. More generous OECD countries are Sweden (35 months PBD) and Iceland (36 months PBD); in Belgium, the PBD is indefinite.
Armenia
Armenia's Unemployment Insurance (UI) scheme has been in force since 1991. In 2005, Armenia adopted the law on Employment of the Population and Social Protection in Case of Unemployment, which provided a legal framework to the Unemployment Insurance and active labor policies. Armenia's UI is a contributory program, which is obligatory for public and formal private sectors, as well as the self-employed. To be eligible for benefits, the claimant must be unemployed as a result of business reorganization, staff reduction, or the termination of a collective bargaining agreement. To be eligible, applicants must have contributed for at least 12 months prior to unemployment or be actively looking for work after a long period of unemployment. The UI is also available to first-time job seekers. Those who do not qualify for the monthly payment are nonetheless eligible for the UI scheme's capacity building programs. Those who qualify for the monthly unemployment benefit will get a payment of 18,000 AMD per month for a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 12 months.
The UI also includes a scheme to help employers hire people who are unemployed with at least 35 years of UI contributions but have not reached retirement age; unemployed for more than three years; returning from corrective or medical institutions; returning from mandatory military service; disabled; refugees; or are 16 years of age and newly eligible to work. Employers who hire these groups are eligible for a benefit of 50% of the minimum wage to supplement the employee's income. The UI also provides financial assistance and capacity-building programs for unemployed or disabled individuals who want to start their own businesses. Armenia also has a Paid Public Works program that provides jobseekers and the disabled with temporary public employment for three months.
Australia
In Australia, social security benefits, including unemployment benefits, are funded through the taxation system. There is no compulsory national unemployment insurance fund. Rather, benefits are funded in the annual Federal Budget by the National Treasury and are administrated and distributed throughout the nation by the government agency, Centrelink. Benefit rates are indexed to the Consumer Price Index and are adjusted twice a year according to inflation or deflation.
There are two types of payment available to those experiencing unemployment. The first, called Youth Allowance, is paid to young people aged 16–20 (or 15, if deemed to meet the criteria for being considered 'independent' by Centrelink). Youth Allowance is also paid to full-time students aged 16–24, and to full-time Australian Apprenticeship workers aged 16–24. People aged below 18 who have not completed their high school education, are usually required to be in full-time education, undertaking an apprenticeship or doing training to be eligible for Youth Allowance. For single people under 18 years of age living with a parent or parents, the basic rate is A$91.60 per week. For over-18- to 20-year-olds living at home this increases to A$110.15 per week. For those aged 18–20 not living at home the rate is A$167.35 per week. There are special rates for those with partners and/or children.
The second kind of payment is called 'JobSeeker Payment' (called Newstart until 20 June 2020) and is paid to unemployed people over the age of 21 and under the pension eligibility age. To receive a JobSeeker Payment, recipients must be unemployed, be prepared to enter into an Employment Pathway Plan (previously called an Activity Agreement) by which they agree to undertake certain activities to increase their opportunities for employment, be Australian Residents and satisfy the income test (which limits weekly income to A$32 per week before benefits begin to reduce, until one's income reaches A$397.42 per week at which point no unemployment benefits are paid) and the assets test (an eligible recipient can have assets of up to A$161,500 if he or she owns a home before the allowance begins to reduce and $278,500 if he or she does do not own a home). The rate of allowance as of 12 January 2010 for single people without children was A$228 per week, paid fortnightly. (This does not include supplemental payments such as Rent Assistance or Energy Supplement.) Different rates apply to people with partners and/or children.
Effectively, people have had to survive on $39 a day since 1994, and there have been calls to raise this by politicians and NGO groups. On 22 February 2021, the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, announced that the JobSeeker base rate would be increased by A$50 a fortnight from April 2021. It is also intended to increase the threshold amount recipients can earn before their payment starts to be reduced.
The system in Australia is designed to support recipients no matter how long they have been unemployed. In recent years the former Coalition government under John Howard has increased the requirements of the Activity Agreement, providing for controversial schemes such as Work for the Dole, which requires that people on benefits for 6 months or longer work voluntarily for a community organisation regardless of whether such work increases their skills or job prospects. Since the Labor government under Kevin Rudd was elected in 2008, the length of unemployment before one is required to fulfill the requirements of the Activity Agreement (which has been renamed the Employment Pathway Plan) has increased from six to twelve months. There are other options available as alternatives to the Work for the Dole scheme, such as undertaking part-time work or study and training, the basic premise of the Employment Pathway Plan being to keep the welfare recipient active and involved in seeking full-time work.
For people renting their accommodation, unemployment benefits are supplemented by Rent Assistance, which, for single people as at 20 September 2021, begins to be paid when fortnightly rent is more than A$124.60. Rent Assistance is paid as a proportion of total rent paid (75 cents per dollar paid over A$124.60 up to the maximum). The maximum amount of rent assistance payable is A$139.60 per fortnight, and is paid when the total weekly rent exceeds A$310.73 per fortnight. Different rates apply to people with partners and/or children, or who are sharing accommodation.
Canada
In Canada, the system is known as "Employment Insurance" (EI). Formerly called "Unemployment Insurance", the name was changed in 1996. In 2019, Canadian workers paid premiums of 1.62% of insured earnings in return for benefits if they lose their jobs.
The Employment and Social Insurance Act was passed in 1935 during the Great Depression by the government of R. B. Bennett as an attempted Canadian unemployment insurance programme. It was, however, ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada as unemployment was judged to be an insurance matter falling under provincial responsibility. After a constitutional amendment was agreed to by all of the provinces, a reference to "Unemployment Insurance" was added to the matters falling under federal authority under the Constitution Act, 1867, and the first Canadian system was adopted in 1940. Because of these problems Canada was the last major Western country to bring in an employment insurance system. It was extended dramatically by Pierre Trudeau in 1971 making it much easier to get. The system was sometimes called the 10/42, because one had to work for 10 weeks to get benefits for the other 42 weeks of the year. It was also in 1971 that the UI program was first opened up to maternity and sickness benefits, for 15 weeks in each case.
The generosity of the Canadian UI programme was progressively reduced after the adoption of the 1971 UI Act. At the same time, the federal government gradually reduced its financial contribution, eliminating it entirely by 1990. The EI system was again cut by the Progressive Conservatives in 1990 and 1993, then by the Liberals in 1994 and 1996. Amendments made it harder to qualify by increasing the time needed to be worked, although seasonal claimants (who work long hours over short periods) turned out to gain from the replacement, in 1996, of weeks by hours to qualify. The ratio of beneficiaries to unemployed, after having stood at around 40% for many years, rose somewhat during the 2009 recession but then fell back again to the low 40s. Some unemployed persons are not covered for benefits (e.g. self-employed workers), while others may have exhausted their benefits, did not work long enough to qualify, or quit or were dismissed from their job. The length of time one could take EI has also been cut repeatedly. The 1994 and 1996 changes contributed to a sharp fall in Liberal support in the Atlantic provinces in the 1997 election.
In 2001, the federal government increased parental leave from 10 to 35 weeks, which was added to preexisting maternity benefits of 15 weeks. In 2004, it allowed workers to take EI for compassionate care leave while caring for a dying relative, although the strict conditions imposed make this a little used benefit. In 2006, the Province of Quebec opted out of the federal EI scheme in respect of maternity, parental and adoption benefits, in order to provide more generous benefits for all workers in that province, including self-employed workers. Total EI spending was $19.677 billion for 2011–2012 (figures in Canadian dollars).
Employers contribute 1.4 times the amount of employee premiums. Since 1990, there is no government contribution to this fund. The amount a person receives and how long they can stay on EI varies with their previous salary, how long they were working, and the unemployment rate in their area. The EI system is managed by Service Canada, a service delivery network reporting to the Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada.
A bit over half of EI benefits are paid in Ontario and the Western provinces but EI is especially important in the Atlantic provinces, which have higher rates of unemployment. Many Atlantic workers are also employed in seasonal work such as fishing, forestry or tourism and go on EI over the winter when there is no work. There are special rules for fishermen making it easier for them to collect EI. EI also pays for maternity and parental leave, compassionate care leave, and illness coverage. The programme also pays for retraining programmes (EI Part II) through labour market agreements with the Canadian provinces.
A significant part of the federal fiscal surplus of the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin years came from the EI system. Premiums were reduced much less than falling expenditures – producing, from 1994 onwards, EI surpluses of several billion dollars per year, which were added to general government revenue. The cumulative EI surplus stood at $57 billion at 31 March 2008, nearly four times the amount needed to cover the extra costs paid during a recession. This drew criticism from Opposition parties and from business and labour groups, and has remained a recurring issue of the public debate. The Conservative Party, chose not to recognize those EI surpluses after being elected in 2006. Instead, the Conservative government cancelled the EI surpluses entirely in 2010, and required EI contributors to make up the 2009, 2010 and 2011 annual deficits by increasing EI premiums. On 11 December 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected a court challenge launched against the federal government by two Quebec unions, who argued that EI funds had been misappropriated by the government.
China
The level of benefit is set between the minimum wage and the minimum living allowance by individual provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
Denmark
European Union
Each Member State of the European Union has its own system and, in general, a worker should claim unemployment benefits in the country where they last worked. For a person working in a country other than their country of residency (a cross-border worker), they will have to claim benefits in their country of residence.
Finland
Two systems run in parallel, combining a Ghent system and a minimum level of support provided by Kela, an agency of the national government. Unionization rates are high (70%), and union membership comes with membership in an unemployment fund. Additionally, there are non-union unemployment funds. Usually, benefits require 26 weeks of 18 hours per week on average, and the unemployment benefit is 60% of the salary and lasts for 500 days. When this is not available, Kela can pay either regular unemployment benefit or labor market subsidy benefits. The former requires a degree and two years of full-time work. The latter requires participation in training, education, or other employment support, which may be mandated on pain of losing the benefit, but may be paid after the regular benefits have been either maxed out or not available. Although the unemployment funds handle the payments, most of the funding is from taxes and compulsory tax-like unemployment insurance charges.
Regardless of whether benefits are paid by Kela or from an unemployment fund, the unemployed person receives assistance from the Työ- ja elinkeinokeskus (TE-keskus, or the "Work and Livelihood Centre"), a government agency which helps people to find jobs and employers to find workers. In order to be considered unemployed, the seeker must register at the TE-keskus as unemployed. If the jobseeker does not have degree, the agency can require the job seeker to apply to a school.
If the individual does not qualify for any unemployment benefit he may still be eligible for the housing benefit (asumistuki) from Kela and municipal social welfare provisions (toimeentulotuki). They are not unemployment benefits and depend on household income, but they have in practice become the basic income of many long-term unemployed.
France
France uses a quasi Ghent system, under which unemployment benefits are distributed by an independent agency (UNEDIC) in which unions and Employer organisations are equally represented. UNEDIC is responsible for 3 benefits: ARE, ACA and ASR The main ARE scheme requires a minimum of 122 days membership in the preceding 24 months and certain other requirements before any claims can be made. Employers pay a contribution on top of the pre-tax income of their employees, which together with the employee contribution, fund the scheme.
The maximum unemployment benefit is (as of March 2009) 57.4% of EUR 162 per day (Social security contributions ceiling in 2011), or 6900 euros per month. Claimants receive 57,4% of their average daily salary of the last 12 months preceding unemployment with the average amount being 1,111 euros per month. In France tax and other payroll taxes are paid on unemployment benefits. In 2011 claimants received the allowance for an average 291 days.
Germany
Germany has two different types of unemployment benefits.
Their common goal is to cease dependence on unemployment benefits entirely.
Both programs assist their beneficiaries to varying degrees through
a living allowance,
help in finding work or training, and
if necessary, getting state-funded training.
Unemployment benefit I
Unemployment benefits I is the first-tier program supporting unemployed people.
It is designed like an insurance, involuntary unemployment through no personal fault being the "event of damage".
It is therefore also known as unemployment insurance ().
In order to qualify, the unemployed person
must have made contributions for at least 12 months in the past 30-month period,
be unemployed, and
be able to work now or at least in the foreseeable future.
All workers with a regular employment contract (), except freelancers and certain civil servants (), contribute to the system.
It is financed by contributions from employees and employers.
This is in stark contrast to FUTA in the US and other systems, where only employers make contributions.
Participation (and thus contributions) are generally mandatory for both employee and employer.
Employees pay 1.5% of their gross salary below the social security threshold and employers pay 1.5% contribution on top of the salary paid to the employee.
The contribution level was reduced from 3.25% for employees and employers as part of labour market reforms known as Hartz.
Contributions are paid only on earnings up to the social security ceiling (2012: 5,600 EUR).
Furthermore, the system is supported by funds from the federal budget.
Claimants get 60% of their previous net salary (capped at the social security ceiling), or 67% for claimants with children (as long as beneficiary of child benefit).
The maximum benefit is therefore 2964 euros (in 2012).
If the benefits fall below the poverty line, it is possible to supplement unemployment benefits I with unemployment benefits II if its conditions are met as well.
Unemployment benefits I is only granted for a limited period of time, the minimum being 6 months, and the maximum 24 months in the case of old and long-term insured people.
This takes account for the difficulty older people face when re-entering the job market in Germany.
Unlike unemployment benefits II, there is no means test.
However, it is necessary to remain unemployed while seeking for employment.
In this context unemployment is defined as working less than 15 hours a week.
Unemployment benefit II
is a second tier, open-ended welfare programme intended to ensure people do not fall into penury.
In order to be eligible, a person has to permanently reside in Germany, be in possession of a work permit, and be fit for work, i.e. can principally work at least three hours a day. The goal of the programme is to terminate one's dependence on it (welfare-to-work). It is not a Universal Basic Income.
The benefits are subordinated, that means:
A person may not eligible for other programmes, especially Unemployment benefits I and pension, but also other legal claims – e.g. dependence on parents, or accounts receivable – can not come to fruition.
The person has to be in need (means test): He can not afford a minimum standard living by all incomes in total, or by expending his own previously accumulated assets, e.g. by selling real estate not required or adequate for a bare minimum lifestyle. In the course of the SARS-CoV‑2 pandemic these harsh standards have temporarily been reduced to a mere sanity check to avoid undue hardship.
Despite its name, unemployment is not a requirement.
Due to wage dumping and other labour market dynamics, a large number of working beneficiaries supplement their monthly income.
They have the same obligations as non-working beneficiaries.
People receiving benefits are obligated to cease their eligibility at all costs, but at least minimise their dependence on welfare until no money would be paid.
That means, they are obliged to seek for jobs nationwide, and accept every job offered, otherwise sanctions (retrenchment) may be applied.
There is no recognition of professional qualifications:
An academic has to join the menial workforce, regardless of the waste of qualifications.
Neither are one's personal religious or ethical concerns relevant:
Prostitution is legal in Germany (although as of 2021 no job center has urged any beneficiary to engage in prostitution).
In exchange for that, beneficiaries are assisted in that process, e.g. by reimbursing travel expenses to interviews, receiving (free of charge) training in order to increase their chances on the labour market, or subsidising moving expenses once an employment contract has been signed but the place of work requires relocation as it is further than the acceptable daily commute duration (at most 3 hrs a day).
If they do not voluntarily participate in training, they may be obliged by administrative action.
Beneficiaries not complying with orders can be sanctioned by pruning their allowance and eventually revoking the grant altogether, virtually pushing them into poverty, homelessness and bankruptcy, as there are no other precautions installed.
Germany does not have an EBT (electronic benefits transfer) card system in place and, instead, disburses welfare in cash or via direct deposit into the recipient's bank account.
As of 2022 a single person without children receives at most €449 per month at free disposal intended to cover living expenses, plus costs for reasonable accommodation (rent and heating).
People granted benefits are automatically insured at reduced rates in the national health and nursing care insurances.
The national pension insurance accounts the time living on benefits, but it does not increase the pension entitlement since in 2011 the federal government stopped paying €205 monthly.
Unemployment benefits II has been heavily criticized since its introduction.
As unemployment benefits II are meant to ensure a minimum subsistence level, the mechanism of sanctions has been repeatedly subject in front of the constitutional court.
In 2018 the possibility of a 100%-sanction was declared unconstitutional.
In July 2022 Germany's government implemented a one-year moratorium on sanctions, permitting only a 10%-cut for repeatedly missing appointments ().
This measure was taken as a precursor to restructuring unemployment benefits II into a citizen's dividend ().
The reforms revamping the unemployment benefits system into its today's shape is dubbed .
The term colloquially refers to Unemployment benefits II.
Greece
Unemployment benefits in Greece are administered through OAED (, Manpower Employment Organization) and are available only to laid-off salaried workers with full employment and social security payments during the previous two years. The self-employed do not qualify, and neither do those with other sources of income. The monthly benefit is fixed at the "55% of 25 minimum daily wages", and is currently 360 euros per month, with a 10% increase for each under-age child. Recipients are eligible for at most twelve months; the exact duration depends on the collected number of , that is social security payment coupons-stamps collected (i.e. days of work) during the 14 months before being laid off; the minimum number of such coupons, under which there is no eligibility, is 125, collected in the first 12 of the 14 aforementioned months. Eligibility since 1 January 2013, has been further constrained in that one applying for unemployment benefits for a second or more time, must not have received more than the equivalent of 450 days of such benefits during the last four years since the last time one had started receiving such benefits; if one has received unemployment benefits in this period for more than 450 days then there is no eligibility while if one has received less, then one is only eligible for at most the remaining days up until the maximum of 450 days is reached.
In terms of an unemployment allowance, Greece allows for those found in unemployment, who are employed through an independent profession, to receive benefits if their latest paycheck had not exceeded a certain amount, the current rate should not exceed €1,467.35. When receiving benefits an individual cannot be earning money from a self-employed profession. If the income increases the fixed amount, a tax authority must issue a certificate that explains that the individual has "interrupted the exercise of the profession", which must be done within 15 days. Unemployment benefits are also granted to those who have generated an income that does not exceed €1,467.35 from the final paycheck received from a liberal profession. In order to receive a grant, the individual must not be receiving an income from the previous liberal profession. Seasonal aid is also provided to workers whose jobs cannot be performed through the entire year are also provided benefits by the OAED.
Under the OAED, individuals who are benefiting from long-term unemployment must be within the ages of 20 to 66 years of age and have a family income that does not exceed €10,000 annually. An individual becomes eligible for long-term benefits if the regular unemployment subsidy is exhausted after 12 months. After the expiration of the 12-month period, an application towards long-term unemployment benefits must be submitted in the first 2 months. If an unemployed person seeks long term unemployment and has a child, the allowance is allowed to increase by €586.08 (per child). Long-term unemployment can only be granted if the individual can be found registered under the OAED unemployment registrar.
Iceland
To receive unemployment benefits in Iceland, one must submit an application to the Directorate of Labour (Vinnumálastofnun) and meet a specific criteria set forth by the department. Icelandic employment rates have traditionally been higher than every other OECD country. In the most recent financial quarter, 85.8% of the Icelandic working-age population were employed, with only 2.8% of the population unemployed. When broken down by age group, Iceland's labor force is highly active, with 74.9% of the population between the ages of 15 and 24 years old and 89.4% of people between the ages of 25 and 55 years old active in the labor market. This low rate of unemployment is attributed to the adoption of the Ghent system, which has been adopted by the countries of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, and highly emphasizes trade and labor unions to provide unemployment benefits and protections to workers, which ultimately has led to higher union membership than other capitalist economies. The safety net that these unions provide also leads to more stable job retention and less reliance on part-time employment. Only 11.9% of the working population is dependent on temporary employment.
Unlike purely social-democratic states in Europe, the Nordic model that Iceland adopted borrows aspects of both a social-democratic and liberal-welfare state. Iceland not only sees high government involvement in providing social welfare and amenities as with the social-democratic model, but like the liberal-welfare model, it is also heavily reliant on free trade and markets. The country relies on an open capitalistic market for economic growth, yet also embraces a corporatist system that allows for wage bargaining to occur between the labor force and employers in order to protect workers and ensure provisions like unemployment benefits are ensured. Currently, the legislation that ensures these benefits is The Act on Trade Unions and Industrial Disputes, which was adopted in 1938 and has been amended five times since its inception to adjust to the rise of globalization. In Section 1, Articles 1–13 grant trade unions the right to organize and negotiate with employers over fair wages for its members as well as representation for their members in the event of workplace conflicts. These rights for organized unions set forth by the Ministry of Welfare not only provide the country's labor force fair and equal representation within their respective industries, but also allow for these organizations to maintain an active relationship with the Icelandic government to discuss economic issues, promote labor and social equality, and ensure benefits for unemployed laborers, as these unions are highly centralized and not politically affiliated.
Unemployment benefits in Iceland (atvinnuleysisbætur) can involve up to 100% reimbursement per month for wage earners for a maximum of 30 months. However, these rates of reimbursement are determined by previous status of employment, such as whether an individual is a wage-earner or is self-employed, as well as meeting certain mandates such as being a current resident of Iceland, be actively searching for employment, and retaining a 25% position for three months within the past 12 months before filing for unemployment. Unemployed workers can be compensated through either basic or income-linked benefits. Basic unemployment benefits can cover both wage-earning and self-employing individuals for the first half-month (10 days) after they lose their job, whereas income-linked benefits can cover wage-earning and self-employing individuals for up to three months based on a set salary index and length of employment. However, those who are unemployed must report to the Directorate of Labour once a month to reaffirm their status of unemployment and that they are actively searching for employment or unemployment benefits could be revoked. Under the Icelandic Labour Law, employees must be given a notice period of termination that can range from 12 days to six months and is determined by the length of previous employment under the same employer.
Ireland
People aged 18 and over and who are unemployed in Ireland can apply for either the Jobseeker's Allowance (Liúntas do Lucht Cuardaigh Fostaíochta) or the Jobseeker's Benefit (Sochar do Lucht Cuardaigh Fostaíochta). Both are paid by the Department of Social Protection and are nicknamed "the dole".
Unemployment benefit in Ireland can be claimed indefinitely for as long as the individual remains unemployed. The standard payment is €203 per week for those aged 26 and over. For those aged 18 to 24 the rate is €112.70 per week. For those aged 25 the weekly rate is €157.80. Payments can be increased if the unemployed has dependents. For each adult dependent, another €134.70 is added, €112.70 if the recipient (as opposed to the dependent) is aged 18 to 24, and for each child dependent €34 or €37 is added, depending on the child's age.
There are more benefits available to unemployed people, usually on a special or specific basis. Benefits include the Housing Assistance Payment, and the Fuel Allowance, among others. People on a low income (which includes those on JA/JB) are entitled to a Medical Card (although this must be applied for separately from the Health Service Executive) which provides free health care, optical care, limited dental care, aural care and subsidised prescription drugs carrying a €2.00 per item charge to a maximum monthly contribution of €25 per household (as opposed to subsidised services like non medical-card holders).
To qualify for Jobseekers Allowance, claimants must satisfy the "Habitual Residence Condition": they must have been legally in the state (or the Common Travel Area) for two years or have another good reason (such as lived abroad and are returning to Ireland after becoming unemployed or deported). This condition does not apply to Jobseekers Benefit (which is based on Social Insurance payments).
More information on each benefit can be found here:
Jobseeker's Allowance
Jobseeker's Benefit
India
India follows a social insurance system for unemployment benefits much like its European counterparts. Unemployment allowance is given to workers in India who have contributed to the Employees' State Insurance for at least three years. The benefit is given for a maximum of one year and is either 50% of the average daily wage or Rs 35,000 a month, whichever is lower.
Israel
In Israel, unemployment benefits are paid by Bituah Leumi (National Insurance Institute), to which workers must pay contributions. Eligible workers must immediately register with the Employment Service Bureau upon losing their jobs or jeopardize their eligibility, and the unemployment period is considered to start upon registration with the Employment Service Bureau. To be eligible for unemployment benefits, a person must be at least 20 years old, have been previously employed, and completed a "qualifying period" of work for which unemployment insurance contributions were paid which varies between 300 and 360 days. Employees who were involuntarily terminated from their jobs or who terminated their own employment and can provide evidence of having done so for a justified reason are eligible for immediately receiving unemployment benefits, while those who are deemed to have terminated their employment of their own volition with no justified reason will only begin receiving unemployment benefits 90 days from the start of their unemployment period.
Unemployment benefits are paid daily, with the amount calculated based on the employee's previous income over the past six months, but not exceeding the daily average wage for the first 125 days of payment and two-thirds of the daily average wage from the 126th day onwards. During the unemployment period, the Employment Service Bureau assists in helping locate suitable work and job training, and regularly reporting to the Employment Service Bureau is a condition for continuing to receive unemployment benefits. A person who was offered suitable work or training by the Employment Service Bureau but refused will only receive unemployment benefits 90 days after the date of the refusal, and 30 days' worth of unemployment benefits will be deducted for each subsequent refusal.
Members of kibbutzim and moshavim are typically not covered by the national unemployment system and are covered by the community's own social welfare system, unless they are employed outside of their community or directly by the community.
Employees deemed to have been terminated from their jobs without legitimate cause are also legally entitled to severance pay from their employers, equivalent of one month's pay for each year that the unemployed individual had worked for his or her previous employer.
Unions are also involved with the unemployment system in Israel. One such union group is the Histadrut which is commonly known as the General Organization of Workers in Israel. One of the Histadrut's main objectives is to creates job assistance programs to help unemployed workers back into the workforce. Dr. Roby Nathanson, a doctor in economics at the University of Köl, believes these job replacement programs are successful due to the job unemployment rate in Israel. The unemployment rate in Israel in 2009 had been 9.5% and has since dropped to around 4% in 2018.
In addition, there are unemployment benefits for new immigrants who have not yet been able to find employment or who are receiving below minimum wage pay. The time period that they are qualified to receive unemployment benefits is during the first 12 months following their immigration to Israel. They are entitled to support from Havtachat Hachnasa, which is income support that is allocated from National Insurance.
Italy
Unemployment benefits in Italy consist mainly of cash transfers based on contributions (Assicurazione Sociale per l'Impiego, ASPI), up to the 75% of the previous wages for up to sixteen months. Other measures are:
Redundancy Fund (Cassa integrazione guadagni, or CIG): cash benefits provided as shock absorbers to those workers who are suspended or who work only for reduced time due to temporary difficulties of their factories, aiming to help the factories in financial difficulties, by relieving them from the costs of unused workforce
Solidarity Contracts (Contratti di solidarietà): in the same cases granting CIG benefits, companies can sign contracts with reduced work time, to avoid dismissing redundancy workers. The state will grant to those workers the 60% of the lost part of the wage.
Mobility allowances (Indennità di mobilità): if the Redundancy Fund does not allow the company to re-establish a good financial situation, the workers can be entitled to mobility allowances. Other companies are provided incentives for employing them. This measure has been abolished in 2012 and will stop working in 2017.
Citizens' income (reddito di cittadinanza): it is a social welfare system created in Italy in January 2019. Although its name recalls one of a universal basic income, this provision is actually a form of conditional and non-individual guaranteed minimum income.
In the Italian unemployment insurance system all the measures are income-related, and they have an average decommodification level. The basis for entitlement is always employment, with more specific conditions for each case, and the provider is quite always the state. An interesting feature worthy to be discussed is that the Italian system takes in consideration also the economic situation of the employers, and aims as well at relieving them from the costs of crisis.
Japan
Unemployment benefits in Japan are called "unemployment insurance" and are closer to the US or Canadian "user pays" system than the taxpayer funded systems in place in countries such as Britain, New Zealand, or Australia. It is paid for by contributions by both the employer and employee.
On leaving a job, employees are supposed to be given a "Rishoku-hyo" document showing their ID number (the same number is supposed to be used by later employers), employment periods, and pay (which contributions are linked to). The reason for leaving is also documented separately. These items affect eligibility, timing, and amount of benefits. The length of time that unemployed workers can receive benefits depends on the age of the employee, and how long they have been employed and paying in.
It is supposed to be compulsory for most full-time employees. If they have been enrolled for at least 6 months and are fired or made redundant, leave the company at the end of their contract, or their contract is non-renewed, the now-unemployed worker will receive unemployment insurance. If a worker quit of their own accord they may have to wait between 1 and 3 months before receiving any payment.
Mexico
Mexico lacks a national unemployment insurance system, but it does have five programs to assist the unemployed:
Mexico City Unemployment Benefit Scheme – The only unemployment insurance system based on worker contributions exists in Mexico City. Unemployed residents of Mexico City who are at least 18 years of age, have worked for at least six months, have no income, and are actively seeking work are eligible for unemployment benefits for up to six months, which are composed of payments of 30 days' worth of minimum wage per month.
Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) – This institution insures workers in the formal sector, providing pensions and health insurance. Workers insured by the IMSS who are unemployed may withdraw a maximum of 30 days' worth of pension savings every five years. However, this does not cover the majority of workers, as 58% of the labor force is in the informal sector.
National Employment Service – This agency, which has 165 offices nationwide, offers financial support in learning new skills to those aged 16 and above who are unemployed or underemployed, and assistance in finding new jobs in the form of information on vacancies and job fairs.
Temporary Employment Program – This scheme is designed to aid unemployed people who live in rural areas with high unemployment rates, any area undergoing a financial crisis, or an area that has been hit by a natural disaster or some other kind of emergency. The program funds projects to boost employment by hiring local workers aged 16 and above in jobs such as building infrastructure and promoting development, and conserving the environment and cultural heritage sites. They are paid a salary at 99% of the local minimum wage for a maximum of 132 days a year.
Income Generating Options Program – People living in poverty in an area of up to a maximum of 15,000 inhabitants are eligible for funding for projects to generate income for themselves.
Netherlands
Unemployment benefits in the Netherlands were introduced in 1949. Separate schemes exist for mainland Netherlands and for the Caribbean Netherlands.
The scheme in mainland Netherlands entails that, according to the Werkloosheidswet (Unemployment Law, WW), employers are responsible for paying the contributions to the scheme, which are deducted from the salary received by the employees. In 2012 the contribution was 4.55% of gross salary up to a ceiling of 4,172 euros per month. The first 1,435.75 euros of an employee's gross salaries are not subject to the 4.55% contribution.
Benefits are paid for a maximum period of 24 months and claimants get 75% of last salary for 2 months and 70% thereafter with a maximum benefit of 3128 euros, depending on how long the claimant has been employed previously. Workers older than 50 years who are unemployed for over 2 months are entitled to a special benefit called the IOAW, if they do not receive the regular unemployment benefit (WW).
New Zealand
In New Zealand, Jobseeker Support, previously known as the Unemployment Benefit and also known as "the dole" provides income support for people who are looking for work or training for work. It is one of a number of benefits administered by Work and Income, a service of the Ministry of Social Development.
To get this benefit, a person must meet the conditions and obligations specified in section 88A to 123D Social Security Act 1964. These conditions and obligations cover things such as age, residency status, and availability to work.
The amount that is paid depends on things such as the person's age, income, marital status and whether they have children. It is adjusted annually on 1 April and in response to changes in legislature. Some examples of the maximum after tax weekly rate at 1 April 2019 are:
$200.80 For a single person aged 20–24 years without children
$210.13 for a single person 25 years or over
$325.98 for a sole parent
$350.20 for a married, de facto or civil union couple with or without children ($167.83 each).
Plus winter payments of extra $20 a week
More information about this benefit and the amounts paid are on the Work and Income website.
External links
Work and Income website
Social Security Act 1964
Philippines
In the Philippines, workers in the private sector who involuntarily became unemployed, including housemaids and Overseas Filipino Workers, are entitled to benefits through the Social Security Act of 2018. Unemployment benefits is sourced from the country's Social Security System (SSS). Under the 2018 legislation, the benefits are dispensed through a one-time payment to equal to 50 percent of the claimant's monthly salary for a maximum of two months. Those who were terminated due to certain reasons such as grave misconduct, gross negligence, and commission of a crime are ineligible to avail unemployment benefits.
For government workers, unemployment benefits are sourced from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). Payments are equal to 50 percent of the claimant's average monthly compensation and are dispensed monthly for two to six months, depending on the claimant's length of service.
Poland
In Poland, the system is designed to prevent people from living off unemployment benefits long term, thus forcing them to work or rely on non-state means of support (family, charities). In order to claim any state unemployment support, an adult (18+) claimant has to prove at least one year of continuous, full employment (that is, minimum 40 hours a week/160 hours a month) in the last 18 months prior to registering with the Unemployment Agency. If approved, as of 2019, one is granted 848 zł (224.25 US$ in April 2019) on a month-to-month basis for the first 3 months, then the amount is automatically lowered to 666 zł (176.20 US$ in April 2019) for the remaining 3–9 months. Therefore, if approved, one can claim unemployment benefits only to the maximum of 12 continuous months. However, during that period, one has to cooperate with the Unemployment Bureau in finding an employment under the strict guidelines of losing the unemployed status, and thus the benefits. In comparison to the unemployment benefits paid by the state, as of January 2019, the minimum monthly pay is 2250,00 zł (595.51 US$ in April 2019) .
Spain
The Spanish unemployment benefits system is part of the Social security system of Spain. Benefits are managed by the State Public Employment Agency (SEPE). The basis for entitlement is having contributed for a minimum period during the time preceding unemployment, with further conditions that may be applicable. The system comprises contributory benefits and non-contributory benefits.
Contributory benefits are payable to those unemployed persons with a minimum of 12 months' contributions over a period of 6 years preceding unemployment. The benefit is payable for 1/3 of the contribution period. The benefit amount is 70% of the legal reference salary plus additional amounts for persons with dependants. The benefit reduces to 60% of the reference salary after 6 months. The minimum benefit is 497 euros per month and the maximum is 1087.20 euros per month for a single person. The non-contributory allowance is available to those persons who are no longer entitled to the contributory pension and who do not have income above 75% of the national minimum wage.
Sweden
Sweden uses the Ghent system, under which a significant proportion of unemployment benefits are distributed by union unemployment funds. Unemployment benefits are divided into a voluntary scheme with income related compensation up to a certain level and a comprehensive scheme that provides a lower level of basic support. The voluntary scheme requires a minimum of 12 months membership and 6 months employment during that time before any claims can be made. Employers pay a fee on top of the pre-tax income of their employees, which together with membership fees, fund the scheme (see Unemployment funds in Sweden).
The maximum unemployment benefit is (as of July 2016) SEK 980 per day. During the first 200 days, the unemployed will receive 80% of his or her normal income during the last 12 months. From day 201–300 this goes down to 70% and from day 301–450 the insurance covers 65% of the normal income (only available for parents to children under the age of 18). In Sweden tax is paid on unemployment benefits, so the unemployed will get a maximum of about SEK 10,000 per month during the first 100 days (depending on the municipality tax rate). In other currencies, as of June 2017, this means a maximum of approximately £900, $1,150, or €1,000, each month after tax. Private insurance is also available, mainly through professional organisations, to provide income-related compensation that otherwise exceeds the ceiling of the scheme. The comprehensive scheme is funded by tax.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an economic welfare state with free medical care and unemployment benefits. However, the country relies not on taxation but mainly oil revenues to maintain the social and economic services to its populace.
Payment:
2000 SAR (US$534) for 12 months for an unemployed person from ages 18–35
External links
Social Services of Saudi Arabia
Turkey
By law, legally employed workers, regardless of their citizenship are eligible for unemployment benefits given that they are at least 18 years old, the employees contribute 1% to unemployment funds while the employers contribute 2%, and the workers are eligible to receive benefits after 600 days of contributions within the preceding 3 years of employment. the benefit payment is 50% for the average daily earnings based on the last 4 months and cannot be higher than the minimum wage (per industry). Benefits may be paid for a max of 1,080 days depending on the number of contributions. Some are skeptical of how well the system is functioning in Turkey
United Kingdom
Unemployment benefit is paid in the United Kingdom either as Jobseeker's Allowance or (for most people) as an element of Universal Credit.
Jobseeker's Allowance rates
Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is changed annually; for the 2020/2021 tax year (commencing 6 April 2020) the maximum payable is £74.35 per week for a single person aged over 25 or £58.90 per week for a single person aged 18–24. The rules for couples where both are unemployed are more complex, but a maximum of £116.80 per week is payable, dependent on age and other factors. For those who are still getting Income-based JSA or are getting Universal Credit, and having savings of over £6,000, there is a reduction of £1 per week per £250 of savings up to £16,000. People with savings of over £16,000 are not able to get Income-based JSA or Universal Credit at all. The system previously provided rent payments as part of a separate scheme called Housing Benefit, but for most new claimants this benefit is now instead paid as an element of the comprehensive Universal Credit scheme.
United States
In the United States, there are 50 state unemployment insurance programs plus one each in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and United States Virgin Islands. Though policies vary by state, unemployment benefits generally pay eligible workers as high as $1,015 in Massachusetts to a low as $235 per week maximum in Mississippi. Eligibility requirements for unemployment insurance vary by state, but generally speaking, employees not fired for misconduct ("terminated for cause") are eligible for unemployment benefits, while those who quit or who are fired for misconduct (this sometimes can include misconduct committed outside the workplace, such as a problematic social media post or committing a crime) are not. Though the participation rate varies by state from below 10% to above 60%, nationwide only 29% of unemployed Americans (those seeking work) received unemployment benefits.
Economic rationale and issues
The economic argument for unemployment insurance comes from the principle of adverse selection. One common criticism of unemployment insurance is that it induces moral hazard, the fact that unemployment insurance lowers on-the-job effort and reduces job-search effort.
Macroeconomic function
To Keynesians, unemployment insurance acts as an automatic stabilizer. Benefits automatically increase when unemployment is high and fall when unemployment is low, smoothing the business cycle; however, others claim that the taxation necessary to support this system serves to decrease employment.
Adverse selection
Adverse selection refers to the fact that "workers who have the highest probability of becoming unemployed have the highest demand for unemployment insurance." Adverse selection causes profit maximizing private insurance agencies to set high premiums for the insurance because there is a high likelihood they will have to make payments to the policyholder. High premiums work to exclude many individuals who otherwise might purchase the insurance. "A compulsory government program avoids the adverse selection problem. Hence, government provision of UI has the potential to increase efficiency. However, government provision does not eliminate moral hazard."
Moral hazard
"At the same time, those workers who managed to obtain insurance might experience more unemployment otherwise would have been the case." The private insurance company would have to determine whether the employee is unemployed through no fault of their own, which is difficult to determine. Incorrect determinations could result in the payout of significant amounts for fraudulent claims or alternately failure to pay legitimate claims. This leads to the rationale that if government could solve either problem that government intervention would increase efficiency. The moral hazard argument against unemployment insurance is based on the idea that such insurance would increase the risk, or 'hazard,' that the insured worker would engage in activity that is undesirable, or 'immoral,' from the insurer's point of view. That is, unemployment insurance could create longer or more frequent episodes of unemployment than would otherwise occur. This could occur if workers partially cushioned against periods of unemployment are more likely to accept jobs that have a higher risk of unemployment, or spend more time searching for a new job after becoming unemployed.
Unemployment insurance effect on unemployment
In the Great Recession, the "moral hazard" issue of whether unemployment insurance—and specifically extending benefits past the maximum 99 weeks—significantly encourages unemployment by discouraging workers from finding and taking jobs was expressed by Republican legislators. Conservative economist Robert Barro found that benefits raised the unemployment rate 2%. Disagreeing with Barro's study were Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein, who found the "vast majority" of unemployment was due to "demand shocks" not "[unemployment insurance]-induced supply reductions." A study by Rothstein of extensions of unemployment insurance to 99 weeks during the Great Recession to test the hypothesis that unemployment insurance discourages people from seeking jobs found the overall effect of UI on unemployment was to raise it by no more than one-tenth of 1%.
A November 2011 report by the Congressional Budget Office found that even if unemployment benefits convince some unemployed to ignore job openings, these openings were quickly filled by new entrants into the labor market. A survey of studies on unemployment insurance's effect on employment by the Political Economy Research Institute found that unemployed who collected benefits did not find themselves out of work longer than those who did not have unemployment benefits; and that unemployed workers did not search for work more or reduce their wage expectations once their benefits ran out.
One concern over unemployment insurance increasing unemployment is based on experience rating benefit uses which can sometimes be imperfect. That is, the cost to the employer in increased taxes is less than the benefits that would be paid to the employee upon layoff. The firm in this instance believes that it is more cost effective to lay off the employee, causing more unemployment than under perfect experience rating.
Unemployment insurance effect on employment
An alternative rationale for unemployment insurance is that it may allow for improving the quality of matches between workers and firms. Marimon and Zilibotti argued that although a more generous unemployment benefit system may indeed increase the unemployment rate, it may also help improve the average match quality. A similar point is made by Mazur who analyzed the welfare and inequality effects of a policy reform giving entitlement for unemployment insurance to quitters. Arash Nekoei and Andrea Weber present empirical evidence from Austria that extending unemployment benefit duration raises wages by improving reemployment firm quality. Similarly, Tatsiramos studied data from European countries and found that although unemployment insurance does increase unemployment duration, the duration of subsequent employment tends to be longer (suggesting better match quality).
Effect on state budgets
Another issue with unemployment insurance relates to its effects on state budgets. During recessionary time periods, the number of unemployed rises and they begin to draw benefits from the program. The longer the recession lasts, depending on the state's starting UI program balance, the quicker the state begins to run out of funds. The recession that began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009 significantly impacted state budgets. According to The Council of State Governments, by 18 March 2011, 32 states plus the Virgin Islands had borrowed nearly $45.7 billion. The Labor Department estimates by the fourth quarter of 2013, as many as 40 states may need to borrow more than $90 billion to fund their unemployment programs and it will take a decade or more to pay off the debt.
Insurance funds
Possible policy options for states to shore up the unemployment insurance funds include lowering benefits for recipients and/or raising taxes on businesses. Kentucky took the approach of raising taxes and lowering benefits to attempt to balance its unemployment insurance program. Starting in 2010, a claimant's weekly benefits will decrease from 68% to 62% and the taxable wage base will increase from $8,000 to $12,000, over a ten-year period. These moves are estimated to save the state over $450 million.
Job sharing / short-time working
Job sharing or work sharing and short time or short-time working refer to situations or systems in which employees agree to or are forced to accept a reduction in working time and pay. These can be based on individual agreements or on government programs in many countries that try to prevent unemployment. In these, employers have the option of reducing work hours to part-time for many employees instead of laying off some of them and retaining only full-time workers. For example, employees in 27 states of the United States can then receive unemployment payments for the hours they are no longer working.
Self-employment and employment rates
Unemployment insurance has varying effects on employment and self-employment rates. As self-employment is generally not covered, an increase in UI generosity creates greater disincentives for self-employment, which leads to a positive correlation between UI generosity and the transition from self-employment to paid-employment. Conversely, individuals already in paid-employment experience the opposite trend. This reallocation from self-employment to paid-employment may have a positive effect on the employment rate in the economy but may have a strong negative effect on self-employment rates. It has also been shown that allowing self-employed individuals to access unemployment insurance might lead to a boost in self-employment activity.
International Labour Convention
International Labour Organization has adopted the Employment Promotion and Protection against Unemployment Convention, 1988 for promotion of employment against unemployment and social security including unemployment benefit.
See also
Compensation of employees
HIRE Act
Involuntary unemployment
Labour power
Lorenz curve
Participation income
Reserve army of labour
Social insurance
Social rights
Smart contract
Unemployment extension
Workfare
References
Bojas George J., Labor Economics, Second edition, 2002, McGraw-Hill.
External links
European Union web site: your rights in the European Union for transferring unemployment benefits (Your Europe)
Government site: Latest month's unemployment rate report
Supplemental Unemployment Insurance-US unemployment insurance for 47 of 50 states
Government site: One-Stop Career Centers – in each state
Text of the California Unemployment Insurance Code
Economic Policy Institute – To calculate the unemployment insurance benefits you might receive in the United States (based on 2004 rates)
Office of the Public Guardian
Unemployment Assistance and Transition to Employment in Argentina
Unemployment Funds in Switzerland in History of Social Security in Switzerland
Labour law
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child%20benefit
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Child benefit
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Child benefit or children's allowance is a social security payment which is distributed to the parents or guardians of children, teenagers and in some cases, young adults. A number of countries operate different versions of the program. In most countries, child benefit is means-tested and the amount of child benefit paid is usually dependent on the number of children one has.
Conditions for payment
A number of conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America and Africa link payment to the receivers' actions, such as enrolling children into schools, and health check-ups and vaccinations. In the UK, in 2011 CentreForum proposed an additional child benefit dependent on parenting activities.
Australia
In Australia, Child benefit payments are currently called Family Tax Benefit. Family Tax Benefit is income tested and is linked to the Australian Income tax system. It can be claimed as fortnightly payments or as an annual lump sum. It may be payable for dependant children from birth up to the age of 24. Children 16 years or older may alternatively be eligible for Youth Allowance. Parents of dependant children under the age of 16 may also be eligible for Income Support Payments including Parenting Payment and Newstart Allowance for Primary Carers of Children.
On 1 July 2000 the Australian government introduced major changes to the tax system including the introduction of a broad-based Goods and Service Tax (a VAT), substantial income tax cuts, as well as major changes to assistance for families.
These changes to family assistance simplified payments, by amalgamating a number of different forms of assistance, and also provided higher levels of assistance, with reductions in income test withdrawal rates. The new structure combined twelve of the pre-existing types of assistance into three new programs of assistance. The two most important of these are Family Tax Benefit Part A, which assists with the general costs of raising children, and Family Tax Benefit Part B, which is directed to single income and sole parent families. The third programme is Child Care Benefit.
The Family Tax Benefit Part A is paid for dependent children up to 20 years of age, and for dependent full-time students up to the age of 24 (who are not getting Youth Allowance or similar payments such as ABSTUDY and Veterans' Children Education Supplement). It is essentially a two-tier but integrated payment directed to most families with children, with a higher rate for lower income families, including both those in work and receiving income support.
The maximum rate is paid up to a family income of $28,200, and is then reduced by 30 cents for every extra dollar of income, until the minimum rate is reached. Part-payment at the minimum rate is available up to a family income of $73,000 (plus an additional $3,000 for each dependent child after the first). Payments are then reduced by 30 cents in every dollar over that amount until the payment reaches nil.
To receive some Family Tax Benefit Part A, the maximum income levels are $76,256 a year for a family with one dependent child under 18 and $77,355 a year for a family with one dependent 18- to 24-year-old. These thresholds are lifted by $6,257 for each additional dependent child under 18 and $7,356 for each additional dependent 18- to 24-year-old.
Families receiving Family Tax Benefit Part A may also be eligible for extra payments, such as Rent Assistance if renting privately, the Large Family Supplement for four or more children, and Multiple Birth Allowance for three or more children born during the same birth.
Family Tax Benefit Part B provides extra assistance to single income families including sole parents - particularly families with children under 5 years of age. In a couple, if the secondary earner's income is above $1,616 a year, payments are reduced by 30 cents for every extra dollar of income. Parents receive therefore some Family Tax Benefit Part B if the secondary earner's income is below $10,416 a year if the youngest child is under 5 years of age, or $7,786 a year if the youngest child is between 5 and 18 years of age. There is no income test on the primary earner's income, so in the case of sole parents the payment is universal.
The previous entry referred to Youth allowance and Parenting Payment. These are income support payments for young people and for parents who are not employed and looking after children respectively.
Canada
The Canada child benefit (CCB) is a tax-free monthly payment made to eligible families to help them with the cost of raising children under 18 years of age. Basic benefit for July 2019 to June 2020 is calculated as:
6,639 CAD per year (553.25 CAD per month) for each eligible child under the age of 6.
5,602 CAD per year (466.83 CAD per month) for each eligible child aged 6 to 17.
This amount is reduced for families with adjusted family net income (AFNI) over $31,120, based on AFNI and the number of children.
Finland
Child benefit scheme was introduced to Finland in 1948 by law. Since the 1920s there was a child benefit allowance that covered state workers with children. In 1948 this benefit became universal following the example of other Nordic countries. Benefit is paid for children until they turn 17, and it is only paid for children that live in Finland. There is also a supplement for single parents. Benefit is paid through national Finnish Social Insurance institution (KELA). Åland has a different scheme.
Hungary
In Hungary there are several forms of family support. Every person who has a work permit and lives permanently in Hungary is eligible for almost all of them.
Family allowance
One of them is called family allowance () which is corresponding to the social program in other countries under the name child benefit. Its amount depends on the number of children. For families with one child it is 12,200 HUF, for families with two children 13,300 HUF and for families with three or more children it is 16,000 HUF per child per month. For single parents (parents who are raising their children alone) the amount of family allowance is 1,500 HUF more in the first and second categories and 1,000 HUF more in the third category. Family allowance is paid until the age of 18 or to the completion of secondary education. For children with disability the amount is 23,300 HUF and for disabled children of single parents it is 25,900 HUF.
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! style="width:5%;"| Number of children
! style="width:10%;"| Monthly amount pro child for one parent in double parent household
! style="width:10%;"| Monthly amount pro child for single parent household
|-
| 1 child
| 12,200 HUF (32.49 €)
| 13,700 HUF (36.48 €)
|-
| 2 children
| 13,300 HUF (35.41 €)
| 14,800 HUF (39.41 €)
|-
| 3 or more children
| 16,000 HUF (42.60 €)
| 17,000 HUF (45.27 €)
|}
If the child misses more than 50 school hours without permission, the family allowance will be suspended until the child re-fulfills his/her school attendance obligation properly. In the case of pre-school age children, family allowance will be suspended in case of an unjustified absence exceeding 20 days of education.
According to some sources the government plans to raise the child benefit. However, there has been no official declaration on the issue.
Family tax benefit
The other one is called family tax benefit () which is a tax reduction for families according to the number of children living in the household. Its amount can be maximal 10,000 HUF for parents with one child, 15,000 HUF for parents with two children and 33,000 HUF for parents with three or more children per month. There are no differences between single and double households or between families with one or two parents employed.
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! style="width:5%;"| Number of children
! style="width:10%;"| Monthly maximal tax saving pro child for one parent
|-
| 1 child
| 10,000 HUF (26.63 €)
|-
| 2 children
| 20,000 HUF (53.25 €)
|-
| 3 or more children
| 33,000 HUF (79.88 €)
|}
People get family allowance and family tax benefit at the same time, so it is also common to count them together as a kind of child benefit.
Ireland
Child Benefit (Sochar Leanaí) is payable to parents of children under 16 years of age, or under 18 years of age if they are in full-time education, Youthreach training or has a disability. The payment is paid by the Department of Social Protection. The monthly payments are as follows:
Multiple births are a special case. In the event of twins, 150% of the monthly payment is paid for each child. Triplets, or more, are paid the double (200%) rate each; provided that all of them remain qualified (i.e. stay in further education until 19). In addition, a special 'once-off' grant of €635 is paid on all multiple births. Further 'once-off' grants of €635 are paid when the children are 4 and 12 years old respectively.
Fraudulent claims of Child Benefit are treated very seriously, and can result in large fines or prison for up to 3 years.
Japan
Luxembourg
Family allowance
The Luxembourg Government, through the Caisse pour l'avenir des enfants (Children's Future Fund), pays €271.66 per month per child. The allowance is universal and is not means-tested.
When a child turns 6 years old, the amount increases to €292.19 per month.
When a child turns 12 years old, the amount increases to €322.91 per month.
The family allowance is paid until the child turns 18, unless they continue in education, in which case it is paid until the adult child ceases being enrolled at an educational institution or turns 25 years old, whichever comes first.
Supplement for disabled children
The family allowance amount is increased by €200 per month for children who have a permanent disability causing them to lose at least 50% of their physical or mental capacity in comparison to a child of the same age with no disabilities.
Back-to-school allowance
In addition to the family allowance, a lump-sum back-to-school allowance is paid once a year in August for every child aged 6 or over enrolled at a primary or secondary school or college.
The allowance is €115 every August per child over 6 years old and under 12 years old.
The allowance is €235 every August per child over 12 years old until their schooling comes to an end.
Netherlands
The Netherlands has one of the lowest child benefits (Dutch: kinderbijslag) in Western Europe.
In 2021, the amount per child per month is: 74.46 euros for children aged 0 to 5 years; 80.41 euros for children aged 6 to 11 years; 106.37 euros per month for children from 12 to 17 years.
In comparison to Netherlands, its neighbour Germany pays 3 times more per month with lower income tax.
Kindgebonden budget
In addition to these general child benefits, there's a benefit depending on household income. For a household income up to 70.000 (single) or 99.000 (two parents), the "kindgebonden budget" is (2021) up to:
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! style="width:5%;"| Number of children
! style="width:5%;"| Monthly maximal kgb
|-
| 1 child
| 100.33 €
|-
| 2 children
| 185.50 €
|-
| 3 children
| 262.08 €
|-
| Additional children
| 76.58 €
|}
Inkomensafhankelijke combinatiekorting
If a household has a child less than 12 years of age and the parent with the lowest income has an income of more than 5.154 euro per year (2021), he or she receives a tax deduction of up to 2.815 euro per year (234,58 per month, 2021).
New Zealand
New Zealand has a tax rebate system known as 'Working For Families', which are allocated to families based on income and the number of children. A report in 2012 by the children's commissioner Dr Russell Wills recommended New Zealand adopt a universal child benefit, which the-then National government rejected.
In 2018, the Sixth Labour Government introduced a new universal BestStart Payment of $60 per week for parents with newborn dependents.
Poland
There are two forms of parents financial support.
The first one is tax cut. It was introduced in early 2000s. One of parents can deduct it from their annual personal tax settlement.
Currently it is PLN 92,67 (€19) monthly for first and second child, PLN 166,67 (€35) for the third and PLN 225 (€47) for each next child.
There is no possibility to use it when parents are not subject for personal income tax in basic form (e.g. that excludes some alternative forms of taxation in small business). There is also an income limitation if there is only a single child. The limit is PLN 56,000 (€11,700) per year per each parent. The tax cut is possible for parents of children up to 25 years provided that the child learns at school and child’s annual income does not exceed a small limit (close to PLN 16,000, €3340 monthly).
Another form is direct payment for parents. The program has been introduced in 2016 and initially was only for parents of more than one child. The benefit base was a number of children minus one. Later on in 2019 it's been simplified and made more common: the benefit is paid for each child. From the very beginning the rate is constant and is PLN 500 (€104) monthly per child. The payment is not a subject of any income tax (e.g. cannot increase your income to excess the limit mentioned in above paragraph) and is paid unconditionally for children up to 18 years.
There is no research that proves any birth rate increase due to any of these forms of support.
Spain
Between 2007 and 2010, Spain provided unconditional cash transfers to new mothers. The policy substantially increased the birth rate in Spain.
South Korea
As of May 2021, any Korean family with a child aged between 0-7 receives 100,000 won per month in cash transferred to the parent's bank account from the Korean government, regardless of income or wealth. In addition, newborn babies aged 0 receive an additional bonus of 200,000 won per month in cash on top of the 100,000 won per month standard child benefit. At age 1, this bonus drops to 150,000 won per month. Finally, a debit card prepaid with 600,000 won is issued by the government to anyone pregnant or with a child in the country, which can be used for medical checks and initial upbringing costs. From January 2022, this debit card will be prepaid with an increased amount of 1 million won by the government.
From January 2022, 2 million won will be immediately paid to anyone giving birth in South Korea and the cash can be used for any purpose on top of receiving all of the various aforementioned benefits. In addition, the additional bonus cash given to newborn babies aged 0-1 will be raised to 300,000 won per month. This will be continuously increased every year to reach 500,000 won per month by 2025. Each parent will receive a paid holiday of up to 3 million won per month each for 3 consecutive months. Low income families who have a third child will have their children's university education fully paid for free by the Korean government.
United Kingdom
The minimum wage was introduced in Great Britain in 1909 for certain low-wage industries and expanded to numerous industries, including farm labour, by 1920. However, by the 1920s, family allowance targeted at low-income families was an alternative method, suggested by reformers, to relieve poverty without distorting the labour market. The trade unions and the Labour Party adopted this view. In 1945, family allowances were introduced; minimum wages faded from view. Talk resumed in the 1970s, but in the 1980s the Thatcher ministry made it clear it would not accept a national minimum wage. Eventually with the return of Labour to power, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 set a minimum wage of £3.60 per hour, with lower rates for younger workers. It largely affected workers in high-turnover service industries such as fast-food restaurants, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
The system was first implemented in August 1946 as "family allowances" under the Family Allowances Act 1945, at a rate of 5s (= £0.25) per week per child in a family, except for the eldest. This was raised from September 1952, by the Family Allowances and National Insurance Act 1952, to 8s (= £0.40), and from October 1956, by the Family Allowances Act and National Insurance Act 1956, to 8s for the second child with 10s (= £0.50) for the third and subsequent children.
By 1955, some 5,000,000 allowances were being paid, to about 3,250,000 families.
It was modified in 1977, with the payments being termed "child benefit" and given for the eldest child as well as the younger ones; by 1979 it was worth £4 per child per week. In 1991, the system was further altered, with a higher payment now given for the first child than for their younger siblings. In October 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government announced that Child Benefit would be withdrawn from households containing a higher-rate taxpayer from January 2013. After some controversy, this was amended so that any household with at least one person with prescribed income over £50,000 would lose Child Benefit by a taper which removed it altogether when the income reached £60,000. This came into force on 7 January 2013.
Today, child benefit is administered by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). As of April 2023, this is £24 per week for the first child (including the eldest of a multiple birth) and £15.9 per week for each additional child.
Comparison in Europe
See also
Baby Bonus
Parental Leave
Tax on childlessness
Cost of raising a child
Elterngeld
Child tax credit
Notes
References
External links
UK HMRC child benefit page
Child Benefit
EntitledTo.co.uk
The economics of birth control
A comparison of Child Benefits in 22 countries in 2001
Child Tax Credit
Benefit
Social security
es:Prestaciones Familiares de España
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maundy%20%28foot%20washing%29
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Maundy (foot washing)
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Maundy (from Old French mandé, from Latin mandatum meaning "command"), or Washing of the Saints' Feet, Washing of the Feet, or Pedelavium or Pedilavium, is a religious rite observed by various Christian denominations. The word mandatum is the first word of the Latin Biblical quotation sung at the ceremony of the washing of the feet: "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos", from the text of John 13:34 in the Vulgate ("I give you a new commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you", ). The ceremony commemorates the commandment of Christ that his disciples should emulate his loving humility in the washing of the feet (). The medieval Latin term mandatum (mandé, maundy), came to apply to the rite of foot-washing on the Thursday preceding Easter Sunday, known in English as "Maundy Thursday" since at least 1530.
John 13:2–17 recounts Jesus' performance of this action. In verses 13:14–17, Christ instructs His disciples:
The Early Church practiced footwashing prior to the receiving of the Eucharist, and the rite was recorded early in the third century by the Christian apologist Tertullian, who discussed it involving a basin of "water for the saints' feet", along with a "linen towel".
Many denominations (including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Mennonites, and Catholics) therefore observe the liturgical washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. Moreover, for some denominations, foot-washing was an example, a pattern. Many groups throughout Church history and many modern denominations have practiced foot washing as a church ordinance - including Adventists, Anabaptists, Baptists, Free Will Baptists, and Pentecostals.
Background
The root of this practice is to be found in the hospitality customs of ancient civilizations, especially where sandals were the chief footwear. A host would provide water for guests to wash their feet, provide a servant to wash the feet of the guests or even serve the guests by washing their feet. This is mentioned in several places in the Old Testament of the Bible (e.g. Genesis ; ; ; ; I Samuel ; et al.), as well as other religious and historical documents. A typical Eastern host might bow, greet, and kiss his guest, then offer water to allow the guest to wash his feet or have servants do it. Though the wearing of sandals might necessitate washing the feet, the water was also offered as a courtesy even when shoes were worn.
I Samuel is the first biblical passage where an honored person offers to wash feet as a sign of humility. In John 12, Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus' feet presumably in gratitude for raising her brother Lazarus from the dead, and in preparation for his death and burial. The Bible records washing of the saint's feet being practised by the primitive church in I Timothy perhaps in reference to piety, submission and/or humility. There are several names for this practice: maundy, foot washing, washing the saints' feet, pedilavium, and mandatum.
The foot washing, described in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, is concerned with the Latin title of Servus servorum dei ("Servant of the Servants of God"), which was historically reserved to the Bishops and to the Pope, also called the Bishop of Rome. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, commissioned the Twelve to be Servant of the Servant of God, and this calling to the Imitation of Christ has been firstly extended to all the bishops of the Church as the direct successors of the Apostles. The Apostles received the Holy Spirit from Jesus in the gospel of John chapter 20.22 and in fullness upon the day of the Pentecost in chapter 2 of the Book of Acts, for the evangelization and salvation of all the human race. This belief is common to Catholics, to some denominations of the Western Christianity, and is consistent and in keeping with Eastern Christian beliefs.
It is also recalled in the Latin text of the Magnificat, for which God "regarded the lowliness" of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and, by effect of that, "magnified" her ("He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek."). God also did the same to all the other creatures, both before and after the Incarnation, for:
Jesus Christ God: as affirmed in ;
all the angels: the Satan's mighty pride to be like God made him the fallen angel before the creation of man, and also it was punished with the promised mission of a woman (Mary), a Servant of God, which would have bruise his head (). On the opposite side, the lowliness of St Michael the Archangel made him the head of the hierarchy of angels;
all the human creatures: according to the promise of Jesus in .
Biblical reference
Christian denominations that observe foot washing do so on the basis of the authoritative example and command of Jesus as found in (NKJV):
Jesus demonstrates the custom of the time when he comments on the lack of hospitality in one Pharisee's home by not providing water to wash his feet in Luke 7:44:
History
The rite of foot washing finds its roots in scripture, where Jesus tells his followers "to wash one another's feet" (cf. ). After the death of the apostles or the end of the Apostolic Age, the practice was continued.
Footwashing was practiced in the early centuries of post-apostolic Christianity, with Tertullian (145–220) mentioning the practice as being a part of Christian worship in his De Corona. Footwashing was done with a basin "of water for the saints' feet" and a "linen towel", prior to the reception of the Eucharist. Additionally, in the 1st century, Christian women went to locations in which marginalized people resided (such as prisons) and washed their feet. The early Church Father Clement of Alexandria linked the new sandals given by to Prodigal Son with feetwashing, describing "non-perishable shoes that are only fit to be worn by those who have had their feet washed by Jesus, the Teacher and Lord." The early Church thus saw footwashing to be connected to repentance, involving a spiritual cleansing by Jesus.
Around 256 AD, Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, wrote about footwashing teaching "the hands how to act in service".
It was practiced by the Church at Milan (c. 380) and is mentioned by the Council of Elvira (300). The Church Fathers Origen, as well as John Chrysostom and Augustine (c. 400) encouraged the practice as an imitation of Christ.
Observance of foot washing at the time of baptism was maintained in Africa, Gaul, Germany, Milan, northern Italy, and Ireland.
According to the Mennonite Encyclopedia "St. Benedict's Rule (529) for the Benedictine Order prescribed hospitality feetwashing in addition to a communal feetwashing for humility"; a statement confirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia. It apparently was established in the Roman church, though not in connection with baptism, by the 8th century.
The Greek Orthodox Church counted footwashing among the sacraments, though it was not practiced that often.
The Synod of Toledo (694) "declared that footwashing should be observed on Maundy Thursday" and Roman Catholic churches thus came to observe footwashing on that day.
The Albigenses and the Waldenses' practiced footwashing as a rite.
There is some evidence that it was observed by the early Hussites; and the practice was a meaningful part of the 16th century radical reformation, which resulted in Anabaptist denominations regularly practicing footwashing as an ordinance.
Denominations practicing ritual feet washing
The ritual washing of feet is currently practiced in many religious denominations including those listed below.
Roman Catholic
In Catholic Church, the ritual washing of feet is now associated with the Mass of the Lord's Supper, which celebrates in a special way the Last Supper of Jesus, before which he washed the feet of his twelve apostles.
Evidence for the practice on this day goes back at least to the latter half of the 12th century, when "the pope washed the feet of twelve sub-deacons after his Mass and of thirteen poor men after his dinner." From 1570 to 1955, the Roman Missal printed, after the text of the Holy Thursday Mass, a rite of washing of feet unconnected with the Mass. For many years Pius IX performed the foot washing in the sala over the portico of Saint Peter's, Rome.
In 1955 Pope Pius XII revised the ritual and inserted it into the Mass. Since then, the rite is celebrated after the homily that follows the reading of the gospel account of how Jesus washed the feet of his twelve apostles (). Some persons who have been selected – usually twelve, but the Roman Missal does not specify the number – are led to chairs prepared in a suitable place. The priest goes to each and, with the help of the ministers, pours water over each one's feet and dries them. There are some advocates of restricting this ritual to clergy or at least men.
In a notable break from the 1955 norms, Pope Francis washed the feet of two women and Muslims at a juvenile detention center in Rome in 2013. In 2016 it was announced that the Roman Missal had been revised to permit women to have their feet washed on Maundy Thursday; previously it permitted only males to do so. In 2016 Catholic priests around the world washed both women's and men's feet on Holy Thursday and "their gesture of humility represented to many the progress of inclusion in the Catholic church."
At one time, most of the European monarchs also performed feet washing in their royal courts on Maundy Thursday, a practice continued by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor and the King of Spain up to the beginning of the 20th century (see Royal Maundy). In 1181 Roger de Moulins, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller issued a statute declaring, "In Lent every Saturday, they are accustomed to celebrate maundy for thirteen poor persons, and to wash their feet, and to give to each a shirt and new breeches and new shoes, and to three chaplains, or to three clerics out of the thirteen, three deniers and to each of the others, two deniers".
Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist
Foot washing rites are practiced by many Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist churches, whereby foot washing is most often experienced in connection with Maundy Thursday services and, sometimes, at ordination services where the Bishop may wash the feet of those who are to be ordained. In certain Methodist connexions, such as the Missionary Methodist Church and the New Congregational Methodist Church, footwashing is practiced at the time that the Lord's Supper is celebrated.
Though history shows that foot washing has at times been practiced in connection with baptism, and at times as a separate occasion, by far its most common practice has been in connection with the Lord's supper service. There has been some revival of the practice as other liturgical churches have also rediscovered the practice.
Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic
The Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches practice the ritual of the Washing of Feet on Holy and Great Thursday (Maundy Thursday) according to their ancient rites. The service may be performed either by a bishop, washing the feet of twelve priests; or by an Hegumen (Abbot) washing the feet of twelve members of the brotherhood of his monastery. The ceremony takes place at the end of the Divine Liturgy.
After Holy Communion, and before the dismissal, the brethren all go in procession to the place where the Washing of Feet is to take place (it may be in the center of the nave, in the narthex, or a location outside). After a psalm and some troparia (hymns) an ektenia (litany) is recited, and the bishop or abbot reads a prayer. Then the deacon reads the account in the Gospel of John, while the clergy perform the roles of Christ and his apostles as each action is chanted by the deacon. The deacon stops when the dialogue between Jesus and Peter begins. The senior-ranking clergyman among those whose feet are being washed speaks the words of Peter, and the bishop or abbot speaks the words of Jesus. Then the bishop or abbot himself concludes the reading of the Gospel, after which he says another prayer and sprinkles all of those present with the water that was used for the foot washing. The procession then returns to the church and the final dismissal is given as normal.
Oriental Orthodox
Foot washing rites are also observed in the Oriental Orthodox churches on Maundy Thursday.
In the Coptic Orthodox Church the service is performed by the parish priest. He blesses the water for the foot washing with the cross, just as he would for blessing holy water and he washes the feet of the entire congregation.
In the Syriac Orthodox Church, this service is performed by a bishop or priest. There will be some 12 selected men, both priests and the lay people, and the bishop or priest will wash and kiss the feet of those 12 men. It is not merely a dramatization of the past event. Further it is a prayer where the whole congregation prays to wash and cleanse them of their sins.
Moravian
The Moravian Church has historically practiced footwashing (pedelavium). This reflected the emphasis Moravians place on practicing customs of the early Church, such as the Lovefeast. In 1818, the practice was made no longer compulsory, though it continues in the present-day. Traditionally, Moravian Christians practiced footwashing before partaking in the Lord's Supper, although in most Moravian congregations, these rites are observed chiefly on Maundy Thursday.
Anabaptist
Groups descending from the 1708 Schwarzenau Brethren, such as the Grace Brethren, Church of the Brethren, Brethren Church, Brethren in Christ, Old German Baptist Brethren, and the Dunkard Brethren regularly practice foot washing (generally called "feetwashing") as one of three ordinances that compose their Lovefeast, the others being the Eucharist and a fellowship meal. Historically related groups such as the Amish and most Mennonites also wash feet, tracing the practice to the 1632 Dordrecht Confession of Faith. For members, this practice promotes humility towards and care for others, resulting in a higher egalitarianism among members.
Baptist
Many Baptists observe the literal washing of feet as a third ordinance. The communion and foot washing service is practiced regularly by members of the Separate Baptists in Christ, General Association of Baptists, Free Will Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Union Baptists, Old Regular Baptist, Christian Baptist Church of God. Feet washing is also practiced as a third ordinance by many Southern Baptists, General Baptists, and Independent Baptists.
Pentecostal
Various Pentecostal denominations practice the ordinance or ritual of footwashing, in connection with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper or Communion, in the past. Often, foot washing is held as an optional service separate from communion on a different date. When celebrated in conjunction with the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or communion, the Pastor, or designated minister, will read the scriptural text, out of the Gospel of St. John, then instruct the men to assemble in one location of the church, and the women to assemble in another location of the church - where basins with water and towels have already been suitably prepared in front of a pew, or row of chairs. Each member takes turns sitting in a chair or pew while another kneels before him or her and washes their feet. Customs may vary. Sometimes the foot washer places both of the other persons feet into the water, scooping water over them with his/her hand, simply holding them, sometimes the feet are held over the basin while water is poured over them, and in some congregations, only one foot is made bare and has water poured over it/washed. Often, the person whose feet are being washed lays a hand/or hands upon the shoulder of the person washing their feet and he or she will pray for the person washing their feet. The foot washer also prays for humility and for the person they are washing. When all have participated in washing the feet of others and having their feet washed, a benediction and dismissal of the service is conducted. Members are often instructed to continue their service to others in the church and to the world at large. After the dismissal, participates usually participate in helping clean up the area, basins, etc.
Latter-day Saint Movement
In the mid-1830s, Joseph Smith introduced the original temple rites of the Latter Day Saint movement in Kirtland, Ohio, which primarily involved foot washing, followed by speaking in tongues and visions. This foot washing took place exclusively among men, and was based upon the Old and New Testament. After Joseph Smith was initiated into the first three degrees of Freemasonry, this was adapted into the whole body Endowment ritual more similar to contemporary Mormon practice, which shares some similarities to Masonic temple rites, and does not specifically involve the feet.
In 1843, Smith included a foot washing element in the faith's second anointing ceremony in which elite married couples are anointed as heavenly monarchs and priests.
The observance of washing the saints' feet is quite varied, but a typical service follows the partaking of unleavened bread and wine. Deacons (in many cases) place pans of water in front of pews that have been arranged for the service. The men and women participate in separate groups, men washing men's feet and women washing women's feet. Each member of the congregation takes a turn washing the feet of another member. Each foot is placed one at a time into the basin of water, is washed by cupping the hand and pouring water over the foot, and is dried with a long towel girded around the waist of the member performing the washing. Most of these services appear to be quite moving to the participants.
Restorationist
The True Jesus Church includes footwashing as a scriptural sacrament based on . Like the other two sacraments, namely Baptism and the Lord's Supper, members of the church believe that footwashing imparts salvific grace to the recipient—in this case, to have a part with Christ ().
Most Church of God denominations also include footwashing in their Passover ceremony based on John 13:1–11.
Seventh-day Adventist
Most Seventh-day Adventist congregations schedule an opportunity for foot washing preceding each quarterly (four times a year) Communion service. As with their "open" Communion, all believers in attendance, not just members or pastors, are invited to share in the washing of feet with another: men with men, women with women, and frequently, spouse with spouse. This service is alternatively called the Ordinance of Foot-Washing or the Ordinance of Humility. Its primary purpose is to renew the cleansing that only comes from Christ, but secondarily to seek and celebrate reconciliation with another member before Communion/the Lord's Supper.
Progressive Judaism
A number of Jewish rabbis who disagree with the initiation custom of brit milah, or circumcision of a male baby, instead have offered brit shalom, or a multi-part naming ceremony which eschews circumcision. One portion of the ritual, Brit rechitzah, involves the washing of the baby's feet.
See also
Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet (Tintoretto)
Washing of feet and farewell (The Last Supper in Christian Art)
Water and religion
Ablution in Christianity
Notes
References
Historical and Informational
Appalachian Mountain Religion: a History, by Deborah Vansau McCauley ()
Catholic Encyclopedia, Charles G. Herbermann, Edward A. Pace, Condé B. Pallen, Thomas J. Shahan, and John J. Wynne, editors
Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity, Tim Dowley, et al., editors
Encyclopedia of Religion in the South, Samuel S. Hill, editor
Foxfire 7, Paul F. Gillespie, editor
Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, by Fred H. Wight
Mennonite Encyclopedia (Vol. 2), Cornelius J. Dyck, Dennis D. Martin, et al., editors
Historical and Theological (con)
Footwashing by the Master and by the Saints, by Elam J. Daniels
Manual of Church Order (ch. 6), by J. L. Dagg
Historical and Theological (pro)
The Washing of the Saints' Feet, by J. Matthew Pinson (Randall House, 2006, )
A Free Will Baptist Handbook: Heritage, Beliefs, and Ministries, by J. Matthew Pinson
Baptist Doctrine: the Doctrine of Foot Washing, by R. L. Vaughn
Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community, by John Christopher Thomas
Washing the Saints' Feet shown to be an Ordinance of Christ, by Joseph Sorsby
See also
External links
Anabaptists and Footwashing – a series of articles on history and current practice among Mennonites, Grace Brethren and Church of the Brethren.
Footwashing as an act of building community – a Brethren viewpoint
How to conduct a foot-washing service – a liturgical viewpoint
Footwashing as a Means of Grace (a United Methodist approach) by Gregory S. Neal
Washing of the Feet : Hidden Significance of the Gnostic story in the Fourth Gospel
Primitive Baptist FAQ: Feet Washing
The Footwashing Ritual and the Sacrament of Holy Orders: A New Look at John 13 – a Catholic viewpoint of the import of footwashing as relates to the sacrament of Holy Orders.
Washing of Feet on Maundy Thursday Armenian Apostolic Church
Gaining a Dose Of Humility, One Washed Foot at a Time article from The Washington Post, 2 April 2006
Barefoot
Gestures of respect
Gospel of John
Hygiene
Last Supper
Latter Day Saint ordinances, rituals, and symbolism
Latter Day Saint temple practices
Ritual purity in Christianity
Sacramentals
Water and religion
Mary of Bethany
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%20the%20Aeroplane%20Over%20the%20Sea
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In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
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In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is the second and final studio album by American band Neutral Milk Hotel, released on February 10, 1998, by Merge Records. The album is predominantly indie rock and psychedelic folk and is characterized by an intentionally low-quality sound. Traditional indie rock instruments like the guitar and drums are paired with less conventional instruments like the singing saw and uilleann pipes. The lyrics are surrealistic and opaque, with themes ranging from nostalgia to love. An important influence for the album was The Diary of a Young Girl, a book of writings from the diary of Anne Frank.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was recorded at Pet Sounds Studio from July to September 1997. Producer Robert Schneider worked with bandleader Jeff Mangum to improve upon the low-quality sound of Neutral Milk Hotel's debut album, On Avery Island. Instead of using standard studio equipment like guitar pedals or effects units to induce distortion, Schneider developed a recording technique that involved heavy compression. To promote the album, Neutral Milk Hotel undertook a tour of North America and Europe, and developed a reputation for chaotic and physically demanding performances.
Contemporary reviews were moderately positive; over time, however, the album developed a cult following. This negatively affected Mangum, whose mental health began to deteriorate; as a result, he did not want to continue touring, and Neutral Milk Hotel went on hiatus shortly after. In the years since its release, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has been described by music journalists as both a landmark album for indie rock and as one of the best albums of the 1990s and its critical standing has risen considerably.
Background
Neutral Milk Hotel originated in Ruston, Louisiana, in the late 1980s, as a home-recording project of high school student Jeff Mangum. Initially called Milk, Mangum shared the recordings he created with his friends and fellow musicians Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart, and the four began producing music together. The group started branding their respective homemade cassette tapes with "The Elephant 6 Recording Co.", a then-imaginary record label which later grew into a loose musical collective. After graduating from high school, Mangum released the single "Everything Is" on Cher Doll Records under the alias Neutral Milk Hotel. The single's exposure convinced Mangum to record more music under this name. He moved to Denver and worked with Schneider to record the 1996 album On Avery Island. Although Schneider was interested in an expansive Beatlesque production, he aligned with Mangum's preference for a low-quality sound called lo-fi, admitting that "at first it was frustrating, but I came to enjoy it. That's how I learned to produce, doing that record, because I totally had to let go of what I thought it should be like."
After the release of On Avery Island, Mangum recruited three musicians to tour with: Julian Koster, Jeremy Barnes, and Scott Spillane. The North American tour in support of On Avery Island generated enough money to enable the quartet to move to Athens, Georgia, which was considered a hub for alternative rock and new wave musicians. By the spring of 1997, Mangum had written and demoed nearly every song for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. He shared the demos with his bandmates before they moved to Denver to record the album.
Recording
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was produced by Schneider, and was recorded from July to September 1997. It was recorded at Pet Sounds Studio in Denver, the home of Schneider's friend Jim McIntyre. Schneider paid half the rent for access to every room in the house except McIntyre's bedroom. The recording sessions for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea coincided with several other sessions. Schneider was already producing the Minders' album Hooray for Tuesday when Neutral Milk Hotel members began to arrive, and decided to halt production until In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was finished. McIntyre was recording the Von Hemmling song "My Country 'Tis of Thee" in his bedroom while the band members played, and whenever Koster was not needed, he would work on songs for his experimental pop music and performance art project the Music Tapes, such as "Television Tells Us" and "Aliens".
Schneider separated the band members into different rooms, but always kept Mangum close to the control room in case he wanted to plug Mangum's acoustic guitar into a four-track cartridge. Schneider occasionally tried using an electric guitar, however he wiped these recordings as he felt that they did not have Mangum's distinctive sound. As the sessions progressed, Schneider wanted to find a way to record the acoustic sound into a microphone instead of into the cartridge. He decided to record the sound through Neumann U 87 microphones. According to Scheider: "[Mangum] liked an acoustic plugged in because he kinda found it fuzzy and raw, like an electric guitar, but it had a strummy quality to it, too ... I had developed an acoustic guitar sound on my own that he was really happy with by the second record, and I think it's really good."
Neutral Milk Hotel biographer Kim Cooper believes In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of the most heavily distorted albums ever made, but also notes the lack of equipment such as Big Muffs or distortion pedals. Mangum liked having a layer of distortion over the music, but Schneider decided to not use standard effects equipment. Instead, Schneider used heavy compression and placed a Bellari RP-220 tube mic pre-amp close to his guitar. Schneider then ran the sound through a mixing console and maxed out the sound on a cassette tape. This process was done for nearly every instrument used on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Schneider claimed that the nonlinearities of microphone distortion gave the album its unique "warm" quality.
The horn arrangements were primarily written by Schneider. He wrote these parts on a piano or organ, then conferred with trombonist Rick Benjamin to ensure the musical notation was correct. Spillane was the last band member to arrive, so Schneider showed him the arrangements he had already written. The trumpets were written in treble clef, but as Spillane could only read bass clef, he had to rewrite these arrangements before he could learn them. As he did while learning the songs for On Avery Island, Spillane spent hours every day practicing and writing more arrangements in the basement. Toward the end of the recording sessions, Schneider and Spillane worked together to seamlessly combine their differing arrangements. Schneider's parts were more melancholic while Spillane wrote chaotic and boisterous parts.
Composition
Music
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is difficult to categorize into a specific genre. Critics generally describe it as indie rock and psychedelic folk with a lo-fi sound, but also note the wide range of influences, including Eastern European choral music, Canterbury Sound, circus music, musique concrète, drone music, free jazz, and Tropicália. Jason Ankeny of AllMusic compares the album to a "marching band on an acid trip", while Kim Cooper wrote: "the music is like nothing else in the 90s underground". Part of the musical variance comes from the instruments used on the album. Traditional indie rock instruments like the guitar and drums are paired with less conventional instruments like the shortwave radio, singing saw, and uilleann pipes.
Jeff Mangum's guitars are a key component for much of the album. Mangum often plays simple chord progressions, which Erik Himmelsbach of Spin compared to the '50s progression. Other important aspects to the music include the heavy amount of distortion, as well as the multitrack recording method Schneider used for the majority of the instruments. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea emphasizes structure and texture, and tracks seamlessly segue into one another. The overall sound of the album sometimes abruptly shifts from track to track. Rolling Stone notes the range of musical styles present, such as slow funeral marches and fast-paced punk rock. Critic Chris DeVille wrote: "On the musical axis, Neutral Milk Hotel veered from piercingly intimate psychedelic campfire sing-alongs to full-band segments that barreled ahead with haphazard grace."
Lyrics
Mangum wrote the lyrics for every track on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The lyrics are surreal and often reference seemingly unrelated subject matter. Cooper cites the opening track "King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One" as an example of this style of songwriting. While the lyrics are about childhood fantasies, there are references to sexual awakenings, domestic violence, religious fanaticism, and tarot card readings. Fans and journalists have long argued over the exact meaning of the album. Some listeners believe there is a central message found throughout the lyrics, while other listeners believe the album is too abstract to derive meaning from. DeVille said: "[In the Aeroplane Over the Sea] collides the familiar and the disorienting in a way that renders meaning elusive even as it provokes intense emotional reckoning."
Common lyrical themes include childhood and nostalgia. Pitchfork Mark Richardson wrote that the lyrics are written with childlike wonder, in which mundane interactions are illustrated as fantastical moments. "It's like a children's book or a fairy tale, Where the Wild Things Are on wax", said Richardson. Mangum's lyrics have also been seen as a depiction of adolescence, and the need to develop one's own identity. Some critics have compared the album to a coming-of-age story. Mangum's descriptions of these experiences evoke a sense of nostalgia. According to Richardson: "it's an album of memories and associations, how skin feels against the grass and what passes through your mind the first time you realize your own powerlessness. It puts ultimate faith in raw feelings, the kind that consume you without logic or sense."
Love is another prominent lyrical theme, although this concept takes on different forms. PJ Sauerteig of PopMatters believes In the Aeroplane Over the Sea central message is Mangum's longing desire to be loved by the people he idolizes, whether that be a love interest or his peers. The lyrics will sometimes describe how Mangum wants to physically merge with the things he loves, which symbolizes a need for interconnectedness with loved ones. Sauerteig cites the track "Two-Headed Boy" as an example of this concept. The track describes conjoined twins, although Sauerteig believes the conjoined twins are a metaphor for two people who unsuccessfully merged, and now feel like they are trapped in an interdependent relationship.
Although there is little concrete information as to the genesis of some of the lyrics, Mangum has stated a major influence was Anne Frank, a teenage girl who died in a Nazi concentration camp. Before recording On Avery Island, Mangum read The Diary of a Young Girl, a book of writings from Frank's diary that she kept while in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. He was deeply affected by the book and spent "about three days crying", having dreams of traveling back in time and saving her. Tracks such as "Holland, 1945" and "Ghost" incorporate elements of Anne Frank's life into the lyrics. As a result, some listeners have labeled In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as a concept album. However, Frank's importance to the lyrics is a subject of debate. Some critics argue she is merely an inspiration for some of the tracks, as opposed to an important character within a narrative arc. While writing about the Anne Frank connection, Anwen Crawford of The Monthly said: "It would be overly literal, though, to describe In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as an album about the Holocaust, for Frank is only one of many phantasms to populate a set of looping, interlinked narratives that proceed with the closed logic of a dream or a religious vision."
Artwork
The front cover contains a drawing of two old-fashioned bathers out at sea. One swims in the water while the other sits atop a dock. The latter wears a red dress and has a drumhead instead of a face. The back cover shows a drawing of marching band members wearing stilts, led by a short bandmaster. Both illustrations were created by Chris Bilheimer, who at the time was designing artwork for the band R.E.M. Mangum met Bilheimer while living in Athens, and asked him to create the artwork for Neutral Milk Hotel's upcoming album. Mangum was interested in imagery associated with early 20th century penny arcades, and would often buy postcards from thrift shops that featured this style. One postcard in particular featured three bathers at sea, which Bilheimer cropped and slightly altered to form the album cover.
In addition to Bilheimer's drawings, New York multimedia artist Brian Dewan created the interior artwork found within physical copies of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Dewan's best-known piece for the album is a black and white sketch of a flying phonograph over an industrial plant. Dewan had previously been commissioned by Koster to make the artwork for the Music Tapes demos. When Mangum asked Dewan for artwork, he was provided with two sketches: a magic radio, and a flying phonograph, the latter of which was chosen. To give the disparate drawings a cohesive look, Bilheimer scanned the back of the postcard and overlaid the images over it, which made the drawings look the same age, with an effect of slow decay. Bilheimer then splashed dirt on the album cover just above the female character's outstretched arm.
Release and tour
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was released in the United States on February 10, 1998, by Merge Records, and in the United Kingdom in May 1998 by The Blue Rose Record Company. Merge pressed 5,500 CD and 1,600 vinyl copies, and expected sales to be similar to On Avery Island. These initial projections were correct, as the album sold moderately well for the first few months. The song "Holland, 1945" was released as a 7" single.
To promote the album, Neutral Milk Hotel embarked on a tour of North America and Europe. Musicians John Fernandes and Will Westbrook were brought on as touring members, and were taught how to play the horn parts with Spillane. For the tour, Mangum wanted the band to learn how to play the Charlie Haden track "Song for Che", a difficult improvisational jazz piece. Although Mangum was expecting a lot out of the newly expanded band, many outsiders noted how caring and nurturing he was toward everyone involved. Filmmaker Lance Bangs said: "He wasn't any kind of a taskmaster—never turning and glaring at anybody—it was never like that. Clearly, there was a love of his circle of friends that made it important for him to build this community and bring them along with him."
While on tour, Neutral Milk Hotel gained a reputation for chaotic and physically demanding concerts. Great Lakes member Ben Crum recalled: "It was definitely dangerous. There often seemed to be a very real chance that someone, probably Julian, would get hurt. Jeff was always doing things like picking him up and throwing him into the drums." The audio technicians for most venues were confused and did not know what to expect. As a result, Laura Carter took on the unusual role of "mix-board translator". According to Carter: "It was more like talking them through what was about to happen, because so much was happening onstage that without someone helping, it was a wail or squeal and the soundman would look at twenty instruments onstage and not know what to dive for."
Initial reception
Initial critical responses to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea were moderately positive. In Spin, Erik Himmelsbach wrote that Neutral Milk Hotel's psychedelic folk-infused music had set them apart from the indie-pop sound of their Elephant 6 peers. Rob Brunner of Entertainment Weekly praised the unique instrumentation and "bouncy pop melodies", but described some of the acoustic songs as "lifeless acoustic warblers". Pitchfork M. Christian McDermott also commended the music, which he called a blend of "Sgt. Pepper with early 90s lo-fi" that he found "as catchy as it is frightening". Ben Ratliff of Rolling Stone was more critical of the music. He felt the rhythms and chord changes were boring, while the heavy layer of distortion masked the absence of decent melodies. Ratliff ultimately summarized his review by writing: "Aeroplane is thin-blooded, woolgathering stuff."
The lyrics drew critical attention. Dele Fadele of NME described the lyrics as "evocative" and "compelling". Both Himmelsbach and Ratliff noted the semireligious undertones. Himmelsbach described the lyrics as "darkly comedic and wonderfully wide-eyed", and commended the stream of consciousness style of songwriting. McDermott also discussed the dark lyrics, and wrote: "[Mangum] inherits a world of cannibalism, elastic sexuality and freaks of nature. We can only assume he likes it there."
CMJ New Music Monthly ranked In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as the number one album of 1998, and it placed 15th in the Village Voice annual Pazz & Jop poll of American music critics. Despite the album's generally positive reception, it fell into critical neglect shortly after its release. In a year-end column accompanying the Pazz & Jop, Robert Christgau dismissed the album as "a funereal jape that gets my goat." In a 2016 article, journalist Luke Winkie said the initial reception was "the standard response to a confusing second album from a band without a preexisting pedigree: distant praise, hedged bets, avoiding the heart at all cost."
Aftermath
Breakup and Mangum's reclusion
After the album's release, Neutral Milk Hotel's heightened profile had a negative effect on Mangum. In a 2002 interview, Mangum said that "a lot of the basic assumptions I held about reality started crumbling". He would sometimes shut himself inside his home for days on end, and hoarded rice in preparation for the possible Y2K problem. Some journalists have speculated he became tired of touring and constantly explaining his lyrics to fans; Elephant 6 biographer Adam Clair believes he may have been overwhelmed by the way fans viewed his music, and the high expectations placed upon any subsequent recordings. Regardless of the reason, Mangum came to the conclusion that he could not continue performing, and instead wanted to disappear from the public eye. He could not bring himself to tell the band however. Some of them had quit their jobs to be in Neutral Milk Hotel, and it seemed impossible to justify a breakup immediately after their first genuine success. Instead, he avoided the topic of new music altogether and increasingly isolated himself. The situation resulted in the unspoken, unannounced breakup of Neutral Milk Hotel shortly after the tour. The band members remained friends, but moved on to other projects. Mangum occasionally worked on music over the next few years—he released Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I, played as a touring member of Circulatory System, and briefly hosted a program for the freeform radio station WFMU—but remained out of the spotlight and released no new songs.
Cult following
There was no public explanation for the band's sudden breakup. Some were angry, and accused Mangum of being selfish, and others wrote hoax blog posts giving fake details of upcoming tours and other false information. The large response helped the album gain a cult following, and converted Mangum into a larger-than-life figure. In 2003, Creative Loafing writer Kevin Griffis dedicated an entire cover story to trying to track down Mangum for personal closure. The search ended when Mangum sent him an email that read: "I'm not an idea. I am a person, who obviously wants to be left alone." Journalist Mark Richardson attempted to explain the album's rise in popularity: "Because [Mangum] was inaccessible, there was no outlet for connection other than the record itself and other fans who shared a passion. By doing nothing, Neutral Milk Hotel developed a cult."
Some journalists have noted the release of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea coincided with the rise of the Internet. The album, and by extension Neutral Milk Hotel, became common fixtures on online message boards, and early music websites like Pitchfork gave the band an increased level of promotion. Winkie wrote: "Would Aeroplane occupy the same untouchable place in American indie-rock culture if it was released in 1992? Or 1987? It's hard to say. The internet has a one-of-a-kind relationship with Neutral Milk Hotel." Memes about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea proliferated on websites like 4chan, reflecting a wave of "hipster" listeners who first discovered the album online, long after the band had broken up.
Critical reevaluation and sales
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea critical standing rose tremendously in the years after its release. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork awarded the 2005 reissue a perfect 10/10 score. Richardson said that although he initially found Mangum's infatuation with Anne Frank embarrassing, he grew an appreciation for the lyrics, and called them the album's defining characteristic. He highlighted the surrealistic imagery, and wrote: "It's a record of images, associations, and threads; no single word describes it so well as the beautiful and overused kaleidoscope." In the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, critic Roni Sarig described the album as "timeless transcendentalist pop steeped in a century of American music, from funeral marches to punk rock...Aeroplane is a fragile, creaky, dignified, and ballsy record". AllMusic's Jason Ankeny wrote that: "Neutral Milk Hotel's second album is another quixotic sonic parade; lo-fi yet lush, impenetrable yet wholly accessible". Ankeny did note, however, the lyrics were too abstract to derive meaning from. Marvin Lin of Tiny Mix Tapes felt it was difficult to concisely explain why the album is so great, and ultimately summarized his review with the statement: "As beautiful as it is disturbing, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is a stunning piece of art that draws you deeper with each listen. Most great art takes time to appreciate, and this album is no exception."
Even amid the generally positive critical reevaluation, the album was not without its detractors. According to Richardson, listeners who dislike the album have often found its lyrics to be awkward, infantile, or disconcerting, and he said Mangum could come across as a "privileged dude sharing naive stoner wisdom". Grantland writer Steven Hyden said he had once been an admirer of the album but felt his appreciation diminish over time, which he ascribed in part to the gradual loss of its original mystique. Just as the album itself became a meme, the tendency to lavish it with hyperbolic praise also became an online in-joke, exemplified by a 2015 headline from the satirical website ClickHole: "Disgusting: ISIS Just Released a 2-Star Review of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea".
Despite modest sales projections and never charting on the Billboard 200, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has sold over 393,000 copies, with reported sales of 25,000 copies a year. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was the sixth best-selling vinyl record of 2008, and its sales helped contribute to a revitalization of vinyl in the late 2000s. The 33⅓ book about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by author Kim Cooper similarly shares large sales numbers, as it is the second best-selling entry in the series.
Several websites and magazines have ranked In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as one of the greatest indie rock albums of all time, including Blender and Entertainment Weekly. Some outlets have also ranked it as one of the best albums of the 1990s. Pitchfork initially ranked it at number eighty-five on its list of the best albums of the 1990s, but moved the album to number four in its 2003 revised list. Paste similarly ranked it highly, placing it at number two, behind Radiohead's OK Computer. Other websites that placed In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in their list of the best albums of the 1990s include Cleveland.com (number twenty) and Slant Magazine (number forty-three). Q and Spin placed In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on their lists of the best albums of the last twenty-five and thirty years respectively, while Rolling Stone and NME ranked it at 376 and 98 on their lists of the 500 greatest albums of all time respectively.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has been highly influential. According to Pitchfork contributor Mike McGonigal, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea disparate genres laid the groundwork for a musical template followed by bands such as Bright Eyes and Six Organs of Admittance. Mangum's vocals influenced singers such as Colin Meloy of the Decemberists and Zach Condon of Beirut. Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler said In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was a contributing factor to their signing with Merge Records. On the album's tenth anniversary, Pitchfork published an article in which indie musicians such as Dan Snaith, Tim Kasher, and fellow Elephant 6 member Kevin Barnes discussed its importance. Snaith said:
Track listing
All tracks are written by Jeff Mangum, except where noted; horn arrangements by Robert Schneider and Scott Spillane.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
Neutral Milk Hotel
Jeff Mangum – guitar, voice, organ, floor tom, bowed fuzz bass, tapes, shortwave radio
Jeremy Barnes – drums, organ
Scott Spillane – trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, euphonium
Julian Koster – Wandering Genie, the singing saw, bowed banjo, accordion, white noise
Additional musicians
Robert Schneider – home organ, air organ, fuzz bass, harmony vocal, one-note piano
Laura Carter – zanzithophone
Rick Benjamin – trombone
Marisa Bissinger – saxophone, flugelhorn
Michelle Anderson – uilleann pipes
Artwork
Chris Bilheimer – art direction
Jeff Mangum – art direction
Brian Dewan – "Flying Victrola" illustration
Certifications
Notes
Footnotes
References
External links
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea at the Internet Archive, with options to stream the album from licensed platforms
1998 albums
Concept albums
Cultural depictions of Anne Frank
Domino Recording Company albums
Lo-fi music albums
Merge Records albums
Neutral Milk Hotel albums
Internet memes introduced in the 2000s
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous%20eight
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Traitorous eight
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The traitorous eight was a group of eight employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1957 to found Fairchild Semiconductor. William Shockley had in 1956 recruited a group of young Ph.D. graduates with the goal to develop and produce new semiconductor devices. While Shockley had received a Nobel Prize in Physics and was an experienced researcher and teacher, his management of the group was authoritarian and unpopular. This was accentuated by Shockley's research focus not proving fruitful. After the demand for Shockley to be replaced was rebuffed, the eight left to form their own company.
Shockley described their leaving as a "betrayal". The eight who left Shockley Semiconductor were Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Eugene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Sheldon Roberts. In August 1957, they reached an agreement with Sherman Fairchild, and on September 18, 1957, they formed Fairchild Semiconductor. The newly founded Fairchild Semiconductor soon grew into a leader in the semiconductor industry. In 1960, it became an incubator of Silicon Valley and was directly or indirectly involved in the creation of dozens of corporations, including Intel and AMD. These many spin-off companies came to be known as "Fairchildren".
Initiation
In the winter of 1954–1955, William Shockley, an inventor of the transistor and a visiting professor at Stanford University, decided to establish his own mass production of advanced transistors and Shockley diodes. He found a sponsor in Raytheon, but Raytheon discontinued the project after a month. In August 1955, Shockley turned for advice to the financier Arnold Beckman, the owner of Beckman Instruments. Shockley needed one million dollars (1 million dollars in 1955 is about 11 million in 2023). Beckman knew that Shockley had no chance in the business, but believed that Shockley's new inventions would be beneficial for his own company and did not want to give them to his competitors. Accordingly, Beckman agreed to create and fund a laboratory under the condition that its discoveries should be brought to mass production within two years.
The new department of Beckman Instruments took the name Shockley Semi-Conductor Laboratories (the hyphen was conventional in those years). During 1955, Beckman and Shockley signed the deal, bought licenses on all necessary patents for $25,000, and selected the location in Mountain View, near Palo Alto, California. Though Shockley did recruit four PhD physicists, William W. Happ (from Raytheon Corporation) George Smoot Horsley and Leopoldo B. Valdes (both from Bell Labs), and Richard Victor Jones (a fresh Berkeley graduate), the location provided limited enticement for new employees. The vast majority of semiconductor-related companies and professionals were based on the East Coast, so Shockley posted ads in The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. Early respondents included Sheldon Roberts of Dow Chemical, Robert Noyce of Philco, and Jay Last, a former intern of Beckman Instruments. The newspaper campaign brought some three hundred responses, and fifteen people, including Gordon Moore and David Allison, Shockley himself recruited at a meeting of the American Physical Society.
Selection continued throughout 1956. Shockley was a proponent of social technologies (which later led him to eugenics) and asked each candidate to pass a psychological test, followed by an interview.
Blank, Last, Moore, Noyce, and Roberts started working in April–May, and Kleiner, Grinich, and Hoerni came during the summer. By September 1956, the lab had 32 employees, including Shockley. Each successful candidate had to negotiate his salary with Shockley. Kleiner, Noyce, and Roberts settled for $1,000 per month; the less-experienced Last got $675. Hoerni did not bother about his payment. Shockley set his own salary at $2,500 and made all salaries accessible to all employees.
The members of the future traitorous eight were aged between 26 (Last) and 33 (Kleiner), and six of them held PhDs. Hoerni was an experienced scientist and gifted manager, and, according to Bo Lojek, matched Shockley in intellect. Only Noyce was involved in semiconductor research, and only Grinich had experience in electronics.
Research strategy
Throughout 1956, most members of the lab were assembling and tuning the equipment, and "pure scientists" Hoerni and Noyce carried out individual applied research. Shockley refused to hire technical staff, believing that his scientists should be able to handle all technological processes. After resettlement, he focused on fine-tuning Shockley diodes for mass production, and five employees, led by Noyce, continued the work on a field effect transistor for Beckman Instruments. Shockley refused to work on bipolar transistors, which later was proven a strategic mistake. Because the work on Shockley diodes took so much effort the produced devices were commercial failures.
According to Noyce and Moore, as well as David Brock and Joel Shurkin, the shift from bipolar transistors to Shockley diodes was unexpected. Shockley initially planned to work on the mass production of diffusion bipolar transistors, but then set up a "secret project" on Shockley diodes, and in 1957 stopped all works on bipolar transistors. The reasons for this turn are unknown. According to Beckman's biographer, Shockley regarded his diode as an interesting scientific problem, and chose it, neglecting Beckman's commercial interests.
Bo Lojek, based on the archives of Shockley, believes that Shockley Labs never worked on bipolar transistors; that Shockley diodes were Shockley and Beckman's original target, for which Beckman Instruments received military R&D contracts; and that Shockley diodes could have found widespread use in telephony if Shockley had improved their reliability.
Frictions
Historians and colleagues generally agree that Shockley was a poor manager and businessman. From early childhood he was prone to outbursts of unprovoked aggression, which were suppressed only due to the internal discipline of his past working environment. He also tended to see rivals, even in his own subordinates.
On November 1, 1956, it was announced that the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics would be awarded to Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain. The related public events of November–December overtired Shockley and took him away from the lab at a time when it had several management problems. Despite the festivities, the atmosphere in the lab was unhealthy.
Although Shockley was never diagnosed by psychiatrists, historians characterized Shockley's state of mind in 1956–1957 as paranoia or autism. All phone calls were recorded, and the staff was not allowed to share their results with each other, which was not feasible since they all worked in a small building. Shockley, not trusting his employees, was sending their reports to Bell Labs for double-checking. At some point, he sent the entire lab for a lie detector test, though everyone refused.
The team started losing its members, starting with Jones, a technologist, who left in January 1957 due to a conflict with Grinich and Hoerni. Noyce and Moore then stood on different sides: Moore led the dissidents, whereas Noyce stood behind Shockley and tried to resolve conflicts. Shockley appreciated that and considered Noyce as his sole support in the group.
Resignation
In March 1957, Kleiner, who was beyond Shockley's suspicions, asked permission ostensibly to visit an exhibition in Los Angeles. Instead, he flew to New York to seek investors for a new company, and his parents, New York residents, assisted him. Kleiner was supported by Blank, Grinich, Last, Roberts, Hoerni and Moore. Arthur Rock and Alfred Coyle from Hayden, Stone & Co. became interested in the offer, believing that trainees of a Nobel laureate were destined to succeed.
As a last resort, on May 29, 1957, a group led by Moore presented Arnold Beckman with an ultimatum: solve the "Shockley problem" or they would leave. Moore suggested finding a professor position for Shockley and replacing him in the lab with a professional manager. Beckman refused, believing that Shockley could still improve the situation, later regretting this decision.
In June 1957, Beckman finally put a manager between Shockley and the team, but by then seven key employees had already made their decision. At the last minute they were joined by Noyce. Roberts persuaded him to attend the meeting of the "California group", as they called themselves in the agreement with Fairchild. The meeting was held at the Clift Hotel in California and was attended by Rock and Coyle. These ten people became the core of a new company.
Finding investors proved to be difficult. The US electronics industry was concentrated in the east, and the California group preferred to stay near Palo Alto. In August 1957, Rock and Coyle met with the inventor and businessman Sherman Fairchild, founder of Fairchild Aircraft and Fairchild Camera. Fairchild sent Rock to his deputy, Richard Hodgson. Hodgson, risking his reputation, accepted the offer and within a few weeks completed all paperwork. The capital of the new company, Fairchild Semiconductor, was divided into 1,325 shares. Each member of the traitorous eight received 100 shares, 225 shares went to Hayden, Stone & Co and 300 shares remained in reserve. Fairchild provided a loan of $1.38 million. To secure the loan, the traitorous eight gave Fairchild the voting rights on their shares, with the right to buy their shares at a fixed total price of $3 million.
On September 18, 1957, Blank, Grinich, Kleiner, Last, Moore, Noyce, Roberts, and Hoerni resigned from Shockley Labs. They became known as the "traitorous eight", though it is not known who coined the term. Shockley could never understand the reasons for this defection. After that time, he never talked to Noyce again, but continued to follow the work of "The Eight". He also combed through all records left by The Eight, basing patents, held as Shockley Labs' intellectual property, on any important ideas. (Technically, in accordance with U.S. law, those patents were issued to the respective inventing employees.)
In 1960, with the help of a new team, Shockley brought his own diode to serial production, but time had been lost, and competitors had already come close to the development of integrated circuits. Beckman sold the unprofitable Shockley Labs to investors from Cleveland. On July 23, 1961, Shockley was seriously injured in a car crash, and after recovery left the company and returned to teaching at Stanford. In 1969, IT&T, the new owners of Shockley Labs, moved the company to Florida. When the staff refused to move, the lab ceased to exist.
Split
In November 1957, The Eight moved out of Grinich's garage into a new, empty building on the border of Palo Alto and Mountain View. Their starting salaries ranged from $13,800 to $15,600 per year. Hodgson, who headed the board of directors, suggested Noyce as the operational manager of the company, but Noyce refused. Fairchild, knowing Noyce's personality, also opposed his leadership. Regardless of the will of Fairchild, Noyce, and Moore, who were responsible for the research and production, respectively, became the "leaders among equals".
The group immediately set a clear goal to produce an array of silicon diffusion mesa transistors for digital devices, utilizing the research results of Bell Labs and Shockley Labs. Moore, Hoerni and Last led three teams working on three alternative technologies. The technology of Moore resulted in a higher yield of operational n-p-n transistors, and in July–September 1958, they went into mass production. The release of p-n-p transistors of Hoerni was delayed until early 1959. This created the Moore-Hoerni conflict at Fairchild: Moore ignored the contribution of Hoerni, and Hoerni believed that his work was unfairly treated. However, the Moore transistors formed the prestige of Fairchild Semiconductor – for several years, they beat all the competitors.
In 1958, Fairchild mesa transistors were considered for the D-17B Minuteman I guidance computer, but they did not meet military standards of reliability. Fairchild already had a solution in the planar technology of Hoerni proposed on December 1, 1957. In the spring of 1958, Hoerni and Last were spending nights on experiments with the first planar transistors. The planar technology later became the second most important event in the history of microelectronics, after the invention of the transistor, but in 1959 it went unnoticed. Fairchild announced the transition from mesa to planar technology in October 1960. However, Moore refused to credit this achievement to Hoerni, and in 1996 even attributing it to unnamed Fairchild engineers.
In 1959, Sherman Fairchild exercised his right to purchase shares of the members of the traitorous eight. Jay Last recalled (in 2007) that this event happened too early and turned former partners into ordinary employees, destroying the team spirit. In November 1960, Tom Bay, the Vice President of Marketing at Fairchild, accused Last of squandering money and demanded termination of Last's project of developing integrated circuits. Moore refused to help Last, and Noyce declined to discuss the matter. This conflict was the last straw: on January 31, 1961, Last and Hoerni left Fairchild and to head Amelco, the microelectronics branch of Teledyne. Kleiner and Roberts joined them after a few weeks. Blank, Grinich, Moore, and Noyce stayed with Fairchild. The traitorous eight split into two groups of four.
Heritage
From 1960–1965, Fairchild was the undisputed leader of the semiconductor market, both technologically and in terms of sales. Early 1965 brought the first signs of management problems. In November 1965, the creators of integrated operational amplifiers Bob Widlar and David Talbert left for National Semiconductor. In February 1967, they were followed by five top managers who disagreed with Noyce. Noyce started litigation with shareholders and effectively removed himself from the operational management. In July 1967, the company became unprofitable and lost their leading position in the market to Texas Instruments.
In March 1968, Moore and Noyce decided to leave Fairchild and again, as nine years prior, turned to Arthur Rock. In the summer of 1968, they founded NM Electronics. Blank, Grinich, Kleiner, Last, Hoerni, and Roberts set aside the past disagreements and financially supported the company of Moore and Noyce. A year later, NM Electronics bought the trade name rights from the hotel chain Intelco and took the name of Intel. Moore held senior positions at Intel until 1997 when he was named Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation. Noyce left Intel in 1987 to lead the non-profit consortium Sematech. He died suddenly in 1990, the first of The Eight.
Grinich left Fairchild in 1968 for a short sabbatical and then taught at UC Berkeley and Stanford, where he published the first comprehensive textbook on integrated circuits. He later co-founded and ran several companies developing industrial radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags.
Blank was the last of The Eight to leave Fairchild in 1969. He founded the financial firm Xicor specializing in innovative start-ups, and in 2004 sold it for $529 million.
Hoerni headed Amelco until the summer of 1963 and, after the conflict with the Teledyne owners, for three years headed Union Carbide Electronics. In July 1967, supported by the watch company Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère (the predecessor of Swatch Group) founded Intersil, the company that created the market for custom CMOS circuits. The circuits developed by Intersil for Seiko in 1969–1970 contributed to the rise of Japanese electronic watches. Intersil and Intel weren't competitors as Intel released a limited set of templated circuits for computers and sold them initially only in the U.S. market, whereas Intersil focused on custom CMOS circuits with low power consumption and sold them worldwide.
Last remained with Amelco and for twelve years served as Vice President of Technology at Teledyne. In 1982, he founded Hillcrest Press specializing in art books. After leaving Amelco, Roberts led his own business, and in 1973–1987 served as a trustee of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Amelco, after numerous mergers, acquisitions, and renaming, became a subsidiary of Microchip Technology.
In 1972, Kleiner and Tom Perkins from Hewlett-Packard founded the venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has been involved in the creation and/or funding of Amazon.com, Compaq, Genentech, Intuit, Lotus, Macromedia, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec and dozens of other companies. Kleiner later wrote that his goal was to geographically spread the venture financing.
Honors
In May 2011, the California Historical Society gave the "Legends of California Award" to The Eight. Blank, Last, Moore, and Roberts' son Dave attended the event in San Francisco.
Fairchildren
In research, reporting, and popular lore related to Silicon Valley, the term "Fairchildren" has been used to refer to:
The corporate spin-offs created by former employees of Fairchild Semiconductor. This usage was propagated by historian Leslie Berlin through her 2001 review article, PhD thesis, and biography of Robert Noyce.
The founders of such firms. This is the earliest usage, e.g., in the 1978 BBC Horizon documentary "Now the Chips are Down", Tom Wolfe's 1983 profile of Noyce or a 5,000-word profile of Silicon Valley in 1999.
Former Fairchild Semiconductor employees, as in a 1988 New York Times article.
The original founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, more commonly known as the traitorous eight. This has been used by the PBS website and a book by Blasi et al.
One of the first articles to identify Fairchild as the parent of so many spin-offs appeared in Innovation Magazine in 1969. The spin-off companies, such as AMD, Intel, Intersil and restructured National Semiconductor, were different from those of the east coast and California's electronic companies established in the 1940s and 1950s. "Old Californians" like Beckman and Varian Associates did not trust Wall Street and kept control of their companies for decades, whereas the new companies of the 1960s were created for a quick (within 3–5 years) public sale of shares. Their founders built a business strategy based on the expectations of the investment banks. Another characteristic of Silicon Valley was the mobility of managers and professionals among companies. Partly because of Noyce, Silicon Valley developed a culture of openly denying the hierarchical culture of traditional corporations. People remained faithful to each other, but not to the employer or the industry. Fairchild "alumni" can be found not only in electronics-related but also financial and public relations companies.
See also
PayPal Mafia, former PayPal employees who founded a number of technology companies
Mohamed Atalla, inventor of the MOSFET (MOS transistor), former Bell Labs employee who later joined Fairchild Semiconductor
Chih-Tang Sah, another former employee under William Shockley who later joined Fairchild Semiconductor, where he co-developed CMOS along with Frank Wanlass while at Fairchild.
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
1999 Computerworld interview with Eugene Kleiner, Julius Blank and Jay Last
Transistorized! (PBS)
History of computing hardware
Octets
Scientists at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
History of Silicon Valley
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega%20Millions
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Mega Millions
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Mega Millions (originally known as The Big Game in 1996 and renamed, temporarily, to The Big Game Mega Millions six years later) is an American multijurisdictional lottery game; as of June 30, 2023, it is offered in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The first (The Big Game) Mega Millions drawing was in 2002. What is now Mega Millions initially was offered in six states; the logo for all versions of the game following the retirement of The Big Game name featured a gold-colored ball with six stars to represent the game's initial membership, although some lotteries insert their respective logos in the ball.
Mega Millions is drawn at 11 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday and Friday evenings, including holidays. Mega Millions is administered by a consortium of its 12 original lotteries; the drawings are held at the studios of WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, supervised by the Georgia Lottery. The hosts are John Crow, Carol Blackmon, and Adria Wofford.
Under the current version's regulations (which began October 28, 2017, with the first drawing October 31) for Mega Millions, the minimum Mega Millions advertised jackpot is $20 million, paid in 30 graduated yearly installments, increasing 5% each year (unless the cash option is chosen; see below for differences by lotteries on cash/annuity choice regulations). The jackpot increases when no top-prize winner results.
Reflecting common practice among American lotteries, the jackpot is advertised as a nominal value of annual installments. A cash-value option (the usual choice), when chosen by a jackpot winner, pays the approximate present value of the installments. Mega Millions' previous format began on October 19, 2013; its first drawing was three days later. In the current version of Mega Millions, five white balls are drawn from a pool of 70, and one gold-colored "MegaBall" is drawn from a separate pool of 25; a player must match all six numbers to win the jackpot.
Each game costs $2. Of the 47 Mega Millions jurisdictions, all but California offer an option, called "Megaplier" (plays with the Megaplier are $3 each) where nonjackpot prizes are multiplied by 2, 3, 4, or 5. The Megaplier was made available to all Mega Millions jurisdictions in January 2011; it began as an option available only in Texas. Several of the game's members offer the Just the Jackpot option, in which two plays cost $3. Only the jackpot can be won; none of the lower-tier prizes are available on such a wager.
The largest winning jackpot in Mega Millions history was $1.602 billion, for the August 8, 2023, drawing, in which a single winning jackpot ticket was sold in Florida.
The 2010 expansion of Mega Millions and Powerball
On October 13, 2009, the Mega Millions consortium and Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) reached an agreement in principle to cross-sell Mega Millions and Powerball in American lottery jurisdictions, with the two groups referred to as the "Mega Power Lottery" by many users. The expansion occurred on January 31, 2010, as 23 Powerball members began selling Mega Millions tickets for their first drawing on February 2, 2010; likewise, 10 Mega Millions members began selling Powerball tickets for their first drawing the next day. Montana (joining Mega Millions on March 1, 2010) was the first jurisdiction to add either game after the cross-sell expansion. Nebraska (March 20, 2010), Oregon (March 28, 2010), Arizona (April 18, 2010), Maine (May 9, 2010), Colorado and South Dakota (the latter two on May 16, 2010) also have joined Mega Millions since the expansion.
As of January 2020, 47 lotteries were offering Mega Millions and Powerball; Florida joined Mega Millions in May 2013. (Puerto Rico, whose lottery began in the 1930s, currently does not offer Mega Millions.) Mississippi began selling lottery tickets in 2019; it joined Mega Millions on January 30, 2020.
Before the agreement, the only stores that sold Mega Millions and Powerball tickets were retailers whose businesses were on a border between jurisdictions and sold competing games.
The current Mega Millions format began in October 2017. Plays are $2 per game. For an additional $1 per play, the Megaplier, if activated, multiplies nonjackpot prizes. Multipliers are 2, 3, 4, and 5 (a second-prize Megaplier play can win $5 million cash). The Megaplier is not available in California, or on Just the Jackpot wagers (where offered).
Current Mega Millions members
Mega Millions and Powerball
Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah do not sell lottery tickets. In 2013, Wyoming became the 44th state to establish a lottery; the next year, it began, initially offering both Mega Millions and Powerball. In August 2018, a bill establishing a lottery in Mississippi was passed, and sent to its governor for his signature; its lottery began November 25, 2019, with Mississippi joining Mega Millions on January 30, 2020.
In most cases, a lottery joining Mega Millions on or after January 31, 2010, offered Powerball before the MUSL cross-sell expansion.
History
The Big Game
Tickets for The Big Game began to be sold in Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Virginia on August 31, 1996. The Big Game was created and designed by Michigan Lottery Commissioner Bill Martin and Illinois Lottery Director Desiree Rogers after having discussions regarding a multistate game with lottery directors Rebecca Paul of the Georgia Lottery and Penelope W. Kyle of the Virginia Lottery. The Big Game initially was drawn weekly, on Friday.
The Georgia Lottery was a member of MUSL at the time and wanted to sell both games for the remainder of 1996, but within a few days, Georgia was forcibly removed from MUSL, returning with the 2010 cross-selling expansion.
Beginning in January 1999, jackpot winners were given the option to receive their prize in cash. In May 1999, New Jersey joined The Big Game, the only jurisdiction to enter as a participant before The Big Game became Mega Millions in 2002.
The Big Game Mega Millions
Ohio and New York joined The Big Game consortium on May 15, 2002, when the game was renamed The Big Game Mega Millions, temporarily retaining the old name and the original "gold ball" logo. The "Big Money Ball" became the "Mega Ball". While the game's name was altered, the yellow ball in the new Mega Millions logo continued to read "The Big Game" until February 2003, after which it was replaced with six stars representing the original members of the consortium. The first (The Big Game) Mega Millions drawing was held two days later, on May 17. The Mega Millions trademark is owned by the Illinois Lottery. The first three lotteries to join Mega Millions were Washington (in September 2002), Texas (in 2003), and California (in 2005); California was the last addition to Mega Millions before the cross-sell expansion of 2010. Montana joined Mega Millions on March 1, 2010, the first addition to Mega Millions after the cross-sell expansion.
When Texas joined Mega Millions in 2003, it began offering an option, initially available only to Texas Lottery players, known as the Megaplier, which was similar to Powerball's Power Play. The 11 Mega Millions lotteries without Megaplier on the January 31, 2010, cross-selling date gradually added the multiplier option; by January 2011, all Mega Millions lotteries, except for California, offered the Megaplier. The Texas Lottery owns the trademark to Megaplier.
On June 24, 2005, to commemorate California joining Mega Millions, that night's drawing was held in Hollywood, with Carrie Underwood assisting host Glenn Burns for the draw.
For the November 15, 2005, drawing, a group called "The Lucky 7" held the only jackpot-winning ticket, purchased in Anaheim, California, winning $315 million. They chose the cash option, splitting $175 million before tax was withheld.
On March 6, 2007, the Mega Millions jackpot reached $390 million, which was then the third-largest jackpot in U.S. history. The jackpot was shared by two tickets, both matching the numbers of 16–22–29–39–42 and Mega Ball 20. Both winners chose the cash option, with each share $116,557,083 before tax was withheld.
2010 cross-sell expansion
The New Jersey Lottery, among others, in early 2009 announced it would seek permission to sell Powerball tickets alongside Mega Millions. In October 2009, an agreement between Mega Millions and MUSL allowed all U.S. lotteries, including New Jersey's, to offer both games. On January 31, 2010, Mega Millions expanded to include the 23 MUSL members; as of that date, 35 jurisdictions were participating in Mega Millions. On the same day, 10 existing Mega Millions-participating lotteries began selling Powerball tickets. Ohio joined Powerball on April 16, 2010. On March 1, 2010, Montana became the first MUSL member to add Mega Millions after the cross-sell expansion. Nebraska became the 37th Mega Millions participating member on March 20, 2010, followed by Oregon as the 38th member on March 28, Arizona as the 39th member on April 18, and Maine as 40th Mega Millions participant on May 9, 2010. Colorado and South Dakota added Mega Millions on May 16, 2010, bringing the total to 42 jurisdictions.
Recent additions to Mega Millions included the U.S. Virgin Islands, in October 2010, and Louisiana in November 2011. Florida joined Mega Millions on May 15, 2013; the first drawing to include Florida-bought tickets was two days later.
Presumably due to their experience with the Power Play option for Powerball, all 23 lotteries joining Mega Millions on January 31, 2010, immediately offered Megaplier to their players. The Megaplier continues to be drawn by Texas Lottery computers, as California does not offer the multiplier. Montana, offering Powerball before the expansion date, became the 24th lottery to offer the Megaplier, followed by Nebraska (the 25th), Oregon (the 26th), Arizona (as the 27th) and Maine (as the 28th lottery to offer the option). After Colorado and South Dakota joined Mega Millions, the number of lotteries offering the Megaplier rose to 37.
Mega Millions tickets bought with the Megaplier option, beginning September 12, 2010, automatically won $1 million (instead of $250,000) if the five white balls – but excluding the Mega Ball – are matched.
On March 13, 2010, New Jersey became the first Mega Millions participant (just before the cross-sell expansion) to produce a jackpot-winning ticket for Powerball after joining that game. The ticket was worth over $211 million annuity (the cash option was chosen). On May 28, 2010, North Carolina became the first Powerball member (just before the cross-selling expansion) to produce a jackpot-winning Mega Millions ticket after joining Mega Millions, with an annuity jackpot of $12 million.
In January 2012, Mega Millions' rival Powerball was altered; among the changes were a price increase of $1 for each play, as a result, a base game costs $2, or $3 with the Power Play option. At the time, there were no plans to change the price of a Mega Millions play, with or without the Megaplier (see below for the 2017 format change that includes the base price for a Mega Millions play to be raised to $2). The price increase for playing Powerball was a major factor in Louisiana deciding to pursue joining Mega Millions, as that state's lottery joined Mega Millions on November 16, 2011.
October 2013 format change
The final 5/56 + 1/46 Mega Millions drawing was held on October 18, 2013; that night's jackpot of $37 million was not won. The first drawing under the revised 5/75 + 1/15 format—which saw the jackpot estimate "leap" to $55 million due to the change in the annuity structure—occurred on October 22, 2013. The minimum jackpot was then $15 million, with rollovers of at least $5 million. Second prize (5+0) became $1 million cash. In the revised format, players chose 5 of 75 white ball numbers, and the "Gold Ball" number out of 15.
The Megaplier option remained; the 5 multiplier was added.
Lower prize tiers (through October 18, 2013) based on a $1 play:
Match 5+0: $250,000
Match 4+MB: $10,000
Match 4+0: $150
Match 3+MB: $150
Match 3+0: $7
Match 2+MB: $10
Match 1+MB: $3
Match 0+MB: $2
Payouts in California remained parimutuel.
The odds of winning or sharing a Mega Millions jackpot (October 19, 2013 – October 27, 2017): one in about 258.9 million. The overall odds of winning a prize were one in 14.71, including the base $1 prize for a "Mega Ball"-only match.
Prizes and odds (2013–2017 version) based on a $1 play:
5 numbers plus the Mega Ball (5+1): Jackpot; 1 in 258,890,850
5 numbers but not the Mega Ball (5+0): $1,000,000; $1 in 17,259,390
4+1: $5,000; 1 in 739,688
4+0: $500; 1 in 52,835
3+1: $50; 1 in 10,720
3+0: $5; 1 in 766
2+1: $5; 1 in 473
1+1: $2; 1 in 56
Mega Ball only: $1; 1 in 21
The odds for winning the $1 prize, 1 in 21, reflected the possibility of matching none of the white balls, but matching the Mega Ball.
The annuity—which was 20 annual payments (no cash option was available) when The Big Game began—changed from 26 equal yearly installments to 30 graduated annual payments (increasing 5 percent yearly) with the format change on October 19, 2013.
October 2017 format/price point change
On October 28, 2017, the price of a Mega Millions play doubled, to $2; the first drawing under the current price point was October 31, 2017. The Mega Millions double matrix changed, from 5/75 + 1/15 to the current 5/70 + 1/25. The starting jackpot became $40 million, with minimum rollovers of $5 million. The "Megaplier" option (which again is not offered in California) was retained, with an adjustment to its multipliers. (The final jackpot for the $1 version was $30 million, which was not won; the initial jackpot for the new version would still be $40 million with a jackpot hit.)
Mega Millions' non-California prize tiers effective October 28, 2017 (old prizes in parentheses; changed amounts in boldface) for a $2 base play:
5+MB: Jackpot; starting jackpot raised to $40 million (annuity value)
5+0: $1,000,000 ($1,000,000)
4+MB: $10,000 ($5,000)
4+0: $500 ($500)
3+MB: $200 ($50)
3+0: $10 ($5)
2+MB: $10 ($5)
1+MB: $4 ($2)
0+MB: $2 ($1)
The new prize structure allocates roughly 75 percent of the prize pool for the jackpot; this is, in part, to facilitate the new Just the Jackpot option. The 2013–2017 version allocated about 68 percent towards the jackpot.
"Just the Jackpot" option
In preparation for the October 28, 2017, format change the then-46 Mega Millions members were given the choice of offering a $3, two-game play (called "Just the Jackpot"). A player choosing this option is not eligible for any of the eight lower-tier prizes; therefore, the Megaplier option is not available for Just the Jackpot wagers.
These lotteries offered the "Just the Jackpot" option upon the format change: Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Kentucky has since added "Just the Jackpot", with other lotteries potentially adding it. Not known is whether a second series of playslips would be printed for lotteries offering "Just the Jackpot" beginning after the October 28, 2017, format change.
"Just the Jackpot" wagers and regular Mega Millions plays are printed on separate tickets. Most Just the Jackpot wagers are terminal-generated; however, JtJ wagers in Kansas and Texas allow the player to choose their numbers, while Wisconsin players must ask for a terminal-generated ticket.
As of January 2020, there has yet to be a jackpot winner from a Just the Jackpot wager; there also is no known count of JtJ wagers that would have won second prize (5+0) with a traditional Mega Millions play.
2020 adjustments to jackpot starting point and rollover due to COVID-19
On April 7, 2020, the Mega Millions starting jackpot amount was temporarily reset from $40 million to $20 million with the annuity option, with at least a $2 million rollover for each drawing without a jackpot winner, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This was done to enforce social distancing and discourage crowding of selling venues for large jackpots, and to account for lower interest rates.
Record jackpots
Mega Millions' largest jackpot of $1.602 billion was won on August 8, 2023 in Neptune Beach, Florida.
The second largest Mega Millions jackpot, $1.537 billion, was won on October 23, 2018, by one ticket, sold in South Carolina. The jackpot was claimed on March 5, 2019, with the winner choosing to remain anonymous under South Carolina law.
The third-largest Mega Millions jackpot worth $1.35 billion was won following the January 13, 2023 drawing, in which one winning ticket was sold in Maine.
The fourth-largest Mega Millions jackpot worth $1.34 billion was won following the July 29, 2022, drawing, in which one winning ticket was sold in Illinois.
The fifth-largest Mega Millions jackpot advertised as $640 million at the time of the drawing (annuitized) or $462 million (cash value), was drawn on March 30, 2012. The initial estimate for that drawing (following the March 27 drawing, which was $363 million annuity) was $476 million (later increased to $500 million and again to $540 million); brisk ticket sales pushed the jackpot values, both annuitized (to $656 million) and the cash option ($474 million) higher. The amount spent on Mega Millions for drawings following its previous jackpot win, on January 24, 2012, was at least $1.5 billion. three jackpot-winning tickets had been confirmed (Illinois, Kansas, and Maryland).
Mega Millions' sixth-largest jackpot, $648 million (second-largest won), was for the December 17, 2013, drawing. Two winning tickets, one each from California and Georgia, were sold. The holder of the Georgia ticket claimed the next morning; they selected the cash option, which amounted to $173,819,742.50 before withholdings. The holder of the California ticket claimed on January 3, 2014. (The California ticket holder received an equal share, but potentially a larger cash-option amount, as California lottery winnings are exempt from state income tax.)
The July 24, 2018, drawing produced the seventh-largest jackpot (pending the larger one on offer the following October). The annuity value was $543 million, but the holders of the winning ticket, 11 co-workers at a Wells Fargo branch in San Jose, chose to split the $320 million cash lump sum.
Mega Millions' eighth-largest jackpot, $540 million, was for the July 8, 2016, drawing. One ticket from Indiana won the jackpot; the winner chose the cash option.
Mega Millions' ninth-largest jackpot, $533 million, was for the March 30, 2018, drawing. One ticket from New Jersey won the jackpot; Riverdale Lukoil South Gas Station sold the winning ticket.
Mega Millions' tenth-largest jackpot, $451 million, was for the January 5, 2018, drawing. The winner was Shane Missler of Port Richey, Florida.
Versions of (The Big Game) Mega Millions
Versions of The Big Game and Mega Millions have used different matrices:
Megaplier
Mega Millions players have the option to activate a multiplier, called Megaplier, in 46 of its 47 jurisdictions; it is functionally similar to Powerball's Power Play; except the latter limits the second-prize multiplier to 2x. (Neither Megaplier nor Power Play are offered in California because the parimutuel prize structure required by California Law is not compatible with the multiplier.) By adding $1 to a basic Mega Millions game, to $3, a player has an opportunity to multiply any non-jackpot prize by 2, 3, 4, or 5. The Megaplier is drawn by the Texas Lottery (before the cross-sell expansion on January 31, 2010, it was the only lottery to offer Megaplier), it is drawn by a random number generator (RNG). The odds for each Megaplier possibility are not uniform.
Megaplier wagers made for drawings from September 12, 2010, through October 18, 2013, that won second prize (then $250,000) were automatically elevated to 4x, winning $1 million. This "guarantee" did not carry over to the following version of Mega Millions, although the $1 million second prize became $5 million if the Megaplier is 5x.
Winning and probability
Former Mega Millions odds (October 19, 2013 – October 27, 2017):
The probability and odds can be taken into a mathematical perspective: The probability of winning the jackpot (through October 27, 2017) was 1:(75C5) x (15); that is: 75 ways for the first white ball times 74 ways for the second times 73 for the third times 72 for the fourth times 71 for the last white ball divided by 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, or 5!, and this number is then multiplied by 15 (15 possible numbers for the "Megaball"). Therefore, (75 x 74 x 73 x 72 x 71)/(5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) x 15 = 258,890,850, which means any combination of five white balls plus the Megaball has a 1:258,890,850 chance of winning the jackpot. Similarly, the odds for second prize were 1:(75C5) x (15/14) = 1: 18,492,204 chance of winning. The overall probability of winning any prize was 1 in 14.7. If there are no jackpot winners for a specific drawing, the jackpot will keep increasing; however, the odds will still remain the same.
Payouts through October 18, 2013:
Overall probabilities: 1 in 755 of winning any of the top six prizes, 1 in 40 of winning any prize.
In California, prize levels are paid on a parimutuel basis, rather than the fixed lower-tier amounts for winners in other Mega Millions jurisdictions. California's eight lower-tier Mega Millions prize pools are separate from those shared by the other 45 lotteries. California's second prize is a "secondary jackpot"; its payout sometimes exceeds $1 million cash, even though California does not offer the Megaplier.
Payment options and claiming prizes
In New Jersey and Texas lotteries, players must choose, in advance, whether they wish to collect a jackpot prize in cash or annuity. New Jersey winners can change an annuity ticket to cash should they be eligible to claim a jackpot, but the choice is binding in Texas.
The other Mega Millions members allow the cash/annuity choice to be made after winning (usually 60 days after claiming the ticket), although in Florida, the 60-day "clock" starts with the drawing in which the jackpot prize was won.
If a jackpot prize is not claimed within the respective jurisdiction's time limit, each of the 46 Mega Millions members gets back the money they contributed to that jackpot. Each of the 46 lotteries has rules in regards to unclaimed prizes; most Mega Millions members set aside unclaimed winnings for educational purposes.
In 2007, a $31 million prize went unclaimed in New York. Many prizes of $250,000 each have been unclaimed, including several in Michigan for 2007 drawings.
Mega Millions winners have either 180 days (California nonjackpot prizes only) or one year to claim prizes, including the jackpot (although some Mega Millions winners lose the right to collect a jackpot in cash if they wait more than 60 days after the drawing).
The minimum age to purchase a Mega Millions ticket is 18, except in Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, and Mississippi, where the minimum age is 21; in Nebraska, it is 19. Generally (an exception is Virginia), minors can win on tickets received as gifts; the rules according to each Mega Millions member vary for minors receiving prizes.
Rules vary according to the applicable laws and regulations in the jurisdiction where the ticket is sold, and the winner's residence (e.g., if New Jerseyans win on a ticket bought near their workplace in Manhattan). Mega Millions winnings are exempt from state income tax in California, while Florida, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming do not have an income tax. Some residents of New York City and Yonkers, New York, pay three levels of income tax, as these cities levy income taxes.
Drawings
Drawings are usually held at the studios of WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. The original host was WSB's chief meteorologist, Glenn Burns. Since 2008, the drawings have been emceed by the hosts of the Georgia Lottery drawings John Crow, Atlanta radio host Carol Blackmon and Adria Wofford. Crow usually begins each drawing with “Let's see if I can make you a millionaire tonight.” or “Let's see you can win some money!” and signs off with "Play on, America!" Blackmon usually talks in fast motion and begins each drawing with “Get out your tickets.” Sabrina Cupit originally served as the secondary host if neither Crow or Blackmon are available. In 2022, Cupit was replaced by Wofford. In 2023, Wofford was promoted to co-host serving alongside Crow while Blackmon was demoted to back-up host of neither primary host is available. Drawings are supervised by Lottery Security and certified by Preston, CPA.
Before the January 31, 2010, cross-sell expansion, Mega Millions was the only multi-jurisdictional lottery whose drawings were carried nationally, instead of airing only on stations in participating jurisdictions. Chicago-based cable superstation WGN-TV simulcast Mega Millions drawings on its national WGN America feed immediately following WGN's 9:00 p.m. Central Time newscast. Following the cross-sell expansion, WGN also began airing Powerball drawings nationally. WGN served as a default carrier of both major games where no local television station carried either multi-jurisdictional lottery's drawings. Both drawings were removed from WGN America in late 2014 when it ceased carrying WGN's newscasts.
Two machines are used in each Mega Millions drawing. The model used for Mega Millions is the Criterion II, manufactured by Smartplay International of Edgewater Park, New Jersey. The balls are moved around by means of counter-rotating arms which randomly mix the balls. Individually, the five white balls, several seconds apart, drop through a hole in the bottom of the mixing drum.
Record jackpots (listed by annuity value)
Revenue
Approximately 50% of Mega Millions sales is returned to players as prizes; the remainder is split (each lottery has different rules regarding these funds) among retailers, marketing, and operations, as well as the 47 jurisdictions offering the game; different lotteries use the proceeds in different ways.
Miscellany
In the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the legislature in Albany, fearing a monumental loss of revenue, passed legislation the following month, which was signed by Governor George Pataki, which included joining a multi-jurisdictional lottery game. Around the same time, for entirely different reasons, Ohio's governor also gave the green light to joining a multi-jurisdictional game. Both lotteries opted to join The Big Game, which, at the time, was offered in seven states. The added populations of the two new jurisdictions, in turn, led to a larger double matrix. The first machine continued to hold white 52 balls, while 16 gold balls were added in the second, meaning there were 52 numbers to pick from in both parts of each $1 game. On May 15, 2002, the game was renamed The Big Game Mega Millions; shortly after, it became just Mega Millions. Except for the 2010 cross-selling expansion, this was the only time The Big Game or Mega Millions simultaneously added more than one member.
In 2005, Mega Millions was the target of a mailing scam. A letter bearing the Mega Millions logo was used in a string of lottery scams designed to trick people into providing personal financial information by cashing bogus checks. The letter, which had been sent to people in several states via standard mail, included a check for what the scammers said was an unclaimed Mega Millions prize. If the check was cashed, it bounced, but not before the bank stamped it with a routing number and personal account information and sent it back to the fraudulent organization, providing them with the recipients' financial information.
A budget impasse due to the 2006 New Jersey Government shutdown led to the temporary closing of its non-essential agencies on July 1, 2006. Among the casualties were the Atlantic City casinos and the New Jersey Lottery. Not only were New Jersey's in-house games (such as Pick-6) not drawn for about a week, but all New Jersey lottery terminals were shut down, meaning Mega Millions could not be played in New Jersey, even though Mega Millions was drawn as usual. A similar shutdown happened in Minnesota on July 1, 2011.
Elecia Battle made national headlines in January 2004 when she claimed that she had lost the winning ticket in the December 30, 2003, Mega Millions drawing. She then filed a lawsuit against the woman who had come forward with the ticket, Rebecca Jemison. Several days later, when confronted with contradictory evidence, she admitted that she had lied. Battle was charged with filing a false police report the following day. As a result of this false report, she was fined $1,000, ordered to perform 50 hours of community service, and required to compensate the police and courts for various costs incurred.
The January 4, 2011 Mega Millions drawing drew attention for its similarity to "The Numbers," a sequence of six numbers that served as a plot device of the ABC drama series Lost. One such usage involved character Hugo "Hurley" Reyes playing the sequence in a similar "Mega Lotto" game, winning a nine-figure jackpot and subsequently experiencing numerous misfortunes in his personal life. The first three numbers (4, 8, 15) and mega ball (42) in the Mega Millions drawing matched the first three numbers and the final number (which Hurley also used as the "mega ball" number) in the Lost sequence. The last two numbers in the Mega Millions drawing did not match the last two numbers that were used in the scene. Those who played "The Numbers", including from quick-picks, won $150 ($118 in California) in a non-Megaplier game; $600 with the multiplier.
The 12 original (before the 2010 cross-sell expansion) Mega Millions members have each produced at least one Mega Millions jackpot winner.
On May 11, 2022, Crow incorrectly called the mega ball number as a "6" instead of the actual "9"; the numbers printed on the ball have an underline to denote their correct orientation. The New York Lottery paid $5,538 to customers before discovering the error.
References
External links
Telemarketing and Telephone Services: Prizes & Sweepstakes on U.S. Federal Trade Commission website
New Spin On Sweepstakes Scams on U.S. Federal Trade Commission website
Georgia Lottery
Lottery games in the United States
Lottery monopolies
Mega Ball lottery games
1996 introductions
1996 in Georgia (U.S. state)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel%20V.%20Ramos
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Fidel V. Ramos
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Fidel Valdez Ramos (, ; March 18, 1928 – July 31, 2022), popularly known as FVR and Eddie Ramos, was a Filipino general and politician who served as the 12th president of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. He was the only career military officer who reached the rank of five-star general/admiral de jure. Rising from second lieutenant to commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Ramos is credited for revitalizing and renewing international confidence in the Philippine economy during his six years in office.
Ramos rose through the ranks in the Philippine military early in his career and became Chief of the Philippine Constabulary and Vice Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the term of President Ferdinand Marcos. During the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Ramos was hailed as a hero by many Filipinos for his decision to break away from the administration of Marcos, and pledge allegiance and loyalty to the newly established government of President Corazon Aquino. Prior to his election as president, Ramos served in the cabinet of President Aquino, first as chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and later as Secretary of National Defense from 1986 to 1991. He was credited with the creation of the Philippine Army's Special Forces and the Philippine National Police Special Action Force. After his retirement, he remained active in politics, serving as adviser to his successors. He died at the age of 94 from complications of COVID-19.
Early life and education
Fidel Valdez Ramos was born on March 18, 1928, in Lingayen, Pangasinan and grew up in Asingan town during his childhood. His father, Narciso Ramos (1900–1986), was a lawyer, journalist and five-term legislator of the House of Representatives, who eventually rose to the position of Secretary of Foreign Affairs. As such, Narciso Ramos was the Philippine signatory to the ASEAN declaration forged in Bangkok in 1967, and was a founding member of the Liberal Party. According to Fidel Ramos's biography for his presidential inauguration in 1992, Narciso Ramos also served as one of the leaders of the anti-Japanese guerrilla group the Maharlika founded by Ferdinand Marcos. His mother, Angela Valdez (1905–1978), was an educator, woman suffragette, and member of the Valdez clan of Batac, Ilocos Norte, making him a second degree cousin of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
He received elementary education in a Lingayen public school. Ramos began secondary education at the University of the Philippines (UP) High School, now the UPIS, in Manila, and continued in the High School Department of Mapúa Institute of Technology. He graduated high school from Centro Escolar University Integrated School in 1945. Afterwards, he went to the United States as he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Military Engineering degree. He also earned his master's degree in civil engineering at the University of Illinois and later took Civil Engineering Board Exam in 1953, where he placed 8th overall. He also held a master's degree in National Security Administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines and a master's degree in Business Administration from Ateneo de Manila University. In addition, he received a total of 29 honorary doctorate degrees.
Marriage
He married Amelita Martinez on October 21, 1954, at the Central Church (now known as Central United Methodist Church) in Ermita, Manila. Together, they had five daughters: Angelita Ramos-Jones, Josephine Ramos-Samartino, Carolina Ramos-Sembrano, Cristina Ramos-Jalasco, and Gloria Ramos. They also have five grandsons and three granddaughters.
Military career
Early career
Ramos went to the United States Military Academy at West Point where he graduated in 1950.
During his stint at the Philippine Army, Ramos founded the Philippine Army Special Forces. Later, he was named as the commander of the Army's 3rd Division based in Cebu City, Cebu.
Ramos received several military awards including the Philippine Legion of Honor (March 18, 1988, and July 19, 1991), the Distinguished Conduct Star (1991), the Distinguished Service Star (May 20, 1966, December 20, 1967, and August 3, 1981), Philippine Military Merit Medal (May 23, 1952), the U.S. Military Academy Distinguished Graduate Award and Legion of Merit (August 1, 1990), and the French Legion of Honor.
Korean War service
Ramos was a member of the Philippines' 20th Battalion Combat Team of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea (PEFTOK) that fought in the Korean War. He was an Infantry Reconnaissance Platoon Leader. Ramos was one of the heroes of the Battle of Hill Eerie, where he led his platoon to sabotage the enemy in Hill Eerie.
Vietnam War service
Ramos was also in the Vietnam War as a non-combat civil military engineer and Chief of Staff of the Philippine Civic Action Group (PHILCAG). It was during this assignment where he forged his lifelong friendship with his junior officer Maj. Jose T. Almonte, who went on to become his National Security Advisor during his administration from 1992 to 1998.
Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos
Implementation of Martial Law
In January 1972, Ramos was appointed head of the Philippine Constabulary, then a major service branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which functioned as the country's national police. He served at this post at the time Ferdinand Marcos imposed Martial Law on September 21, 1972,
In 1975, all civic and municipal police forces in the country were integrated by decree, and it became known as the Integrated National Police (INP), which was under the control and supervision of the Philippine Constabulary. As head of the PC, Ramos was ex officio the INP's first concurrent Director-General.
Last years of the Marcos administration
Martial Law was formally lifted nine years later on January 17, 1981, but Marcos retained absolute powers. Due to his accomplishments, Ramos was one of the candidates for the position of Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1981, as replacement to the retiring General Romeo Espino who was the nation's longest serving chief of staff. Ramos lost to General Fabian Ver a graduate of the University of the Philippines, whom Marcos appointed to the top military post. Instead Ramos, a cousin of Marcos was named AFP Vice-Chief of staff in 1982, and promoted to the rank of three-star general.
On May 12, 1983, a new unit in the former Philippine Constabulary was organized to deal with so-called "terrorist-related" crimes, and named as the Philippine Constabulary Special Action Force as a requirement of General Order 323 of Philippine Constabulary Headquarters. Fidel Ramos and Gen. Renato de Villa were the founders of the unit. De Villa tasked Rosendo Ferrer and Sonny Razon to organize a Special Action Force. Subsequently, a training program called the SAF Ranger Course, was used to train the 1st generation of SAF troopers, which numbered 149. Of that number, 26 were commissioned officers while the rest were enlisted personnel recruited from a wide range of PC units such as the defunct PC Brigade, the Long Range Patrol Battalion (LRP), the K-9 Support Company, PC Special Organized Group, the Light Reaction Unit (LRU) of PC METROCOM, the Constabulary Off-shore Action Command (COSAC), and other PC Units. Later on, they changed the name of the course to the SAF Commando Course.
On August 8, 1983, during a speech in Camp Crame to commemorate Philippine Constabulary Day, Marcos announced his removal of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile from the chain of command, and the creation of a new arrangement with himself as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces replacing AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian Ver. Marcos also removed the operational control of the Integrated National Police from the Philippine Constabulary under Gen. Ramos and transferred it under the direct control of Gen. Ver; the Constabulary then had only administrative supervision over the INP.
Role in the EDSA Revolution
On February 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile protested alleged fraud committed by Marcos in the 1986 snap elections, withdrawing support and triggering the non-violent People Power Revolution. General Ramos later also defected and followed Enrile into Camp Crame, and the duo shifted their fealty to Corazón Aquino, the widow of Senator Benigno Aquino and Marcos' main election rival. On February 25, the "EDSA Revolution" reached its peak when Marcos, along with his family and some supporters, fled into exile in Hawaii with the assistance of the United States government, ending his 20-year rule, leaving Corazon Aquino to accede as the country's first female President. Later in life, Ramos would say he considered his role in the revolution as his "atonement" for his role in the implementation of Martial Law.
Combat record
When belittled by the press regarding his combat record, Ramos responded with trademark sarcasm (July 31, 1987):
Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces and Secretary of National Defense
After Corazon Aquino assumed the Presidency, she appointed Ramos as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (1986–1988), and later Secretary of National Defense as well as Chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (1988–1991), handling the government's response to disasters such as the 1990 Luzon earthquake and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
During this time, Ramos personally handled the military operations that crushed nine coup attempts against the Aquino government.
1992 presidential election
In December 1991, Ramos declared his candidacy for president. However, he lost the nomination of the then-dominant party Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) to House Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr. Days later, he bolted from the LDP and founded his own party, the Partido Lakas Tao (People Power Party), inviting Cebu Governor Emilio Mario Osmeña to be his running mate. The party formed a coalition with the National Union of Christian Democrats (NUCD) of Senator Raul Manglapus and the United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines (UMDP) of Ambassador Sanchez Ali. Ramos and Osmeña, together with Congressman (later House Speaker) Jose de Venecia, campaigned for economic reforms and improved national security and unity.
He won the seven-way race on May 11, 1992, narrowly defeating popular Agrarian Reform Secretary Miriam Defensor Santiago. His running mate, Governor Osmeña, lost to Senator Joseph Estrada as vice president. Despite winning, he garnered only 23.58% of the vote, the lowest plurality in the country's history. The election results were marred by allegations of fraud as Santiago was leading the race for the first five days of counting but became second after a nationwide energy black-out, putting Ramos in first place. International media were already calling Santiago as the president-elect but withdrew their declarations because of the sudden change in positions in the vote tally. Santiago filed an electoral protest, but it was eventually junked by the Supreme Court. The quote, "Miriam won in the elections, but lost in the counting" became popular nationwide.
De los Santos alleged that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi had channeled $200,000 (5 million pesos) to Ramos' 1992 election campaign. Philippine election laws prohibit accepting contribution from foreigners. Ramos dismissed the claim as "hearsay by itself, and is further based on a string of successive hearsay conversations" and challenged anyone who believed the claim to produce evidence.
Presidency (1992–1998)
At the time of his accession in 1992, he was the first and only Protestant to date to be elected President of the Philippines with a Roman Catholic majority and the only Filipino officer in history to have held every rank in the Philippine military from Second Lieutenant to Commander-in-Chief.
The first three years of his administration were characterized by an economic boom, technological development, political stability, and efficient delivery of basic needs to the people. He advocated party platforms as an outline and agenda for governance. He was the first Christian Democrat to be elected in the country, being the founder of Lakas-CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats Party). He was one of the most influential leaders and the unofficial spokesman of liberal democracy in Asia.
Domestic policies
Philippines 2000
Ramos' policies were organized around a socio-economic program dubbed "Philippines 2000", which envisioned the Philippines achieving a newly industrialized country status by the year 2000 and beyond.
The five points of the program were:
Peace and Stability
Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
Energy and Power Generation
Environmental Protection
Streamlined Bureaucracy
Peace with armed groups
Contrary to expectations as a former military general, Ramos made peace with the country's various armed rebel groups, kickstarting the process by creating a National Unification Commission (NUC) and appointing Haydee Yorac to be its chair.
Upon the recommendation of the NUC, Ramos eventually decided to grant amnesty to the rebel military officers of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) led by Col. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan and Capt. Proceso Maligalig.
Ramos was instrumental in the signing of the final peace agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari in 1996.
Although he battled Communist rebels as a young lieutenant in the 1950s, Ramos signed into law the Republic Act No. 7636, which repealed the Anti-Subversion Law. With its repeal, membership in the once-outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines became legal. It was also during his presidency that the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), which provided a mechanism to monitor human rights abuses in the course of operations was signed between the government and the CPP on 16 March 1998.
Economic reforms
During his administration, Ramos began implementing economic reforms intended to open up the once-closed national economy, encourage private enterprise, invite more foreign and domestic investment, and reduce corruption. Ramos ended the government’s monopoly over the skies and opened aviation to new players.Ramos was also known as the most-traveled Philippine President compared to his predecessors with numerous foreign trips abroad, generating about worth of foreign investments to the Philippines. To ensure a positive financial outlook on the Philippines, Ramos led the 4th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Summit in the Philippines in November 1996.
Under his administration, the Philippines enjoyed economic growth and stability. The Philippine Stock Exchange in the mid-1990s was one of the best in the world and his visions of 'Philippines 2000' that led the country into a newly industrialized country in the world and the "Tiger Cub Economy in Asia".
Power crisis
At the start of Ramos' tenure, the Philippines was experiencing widespread blackouts due to huge demand for electricity, the antiquity of power plants, the abolishment of the Department of Energy, and the discontinuation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant during the Corazon Aquino administration. During his State of the Nation address on July 27, 1992, he requested that the Congress enact a law that would create an Energy Department that would plan and manage the Philippines' energy demands. Congress not only created the Department but gave him special emergency powers to resolve the power crisis. Using the powers given to him, Ramos issued licenses to independent power producers (IPP) to construct power plants within 24 months. Ramos issued supply contracts that guaranteed the government would buy whatever power the IPPs produced under the contract in U.S. dollars to entice investments in power plants. This became a problem during the East Asian Financial Crisis when the demand for electricity contracted and the Philippine peso lost half of its value.
Ramos personally pushed for the speedy approval of some of the most expensive power deals, and justified signing more contracts despite warnings from within the government and the World Bank that an impending oversupply of electricity could push up prices, a situation that persists in the Philippines up to the present. Individuals linked to Ramos lobbied for the approval of some of the contracts for independent power producers (IPPs), which came with numerous other deals, including lucrative legal, technical, and financial consultancies that were given to individuals and companies close to him. Among the deals tied to IPP projects were insurance contracts in which companies made millions of dollars in commissions alone. All the IPP contracts came with attractive incentives and guarantees. Every contract was designed to give IPP creditors some degree of comfort in financing ventures that would usually involve huge capital and risks. Most IPPs were funded by foreign loans secured with a form of government guarantee or performance undertaking, which meant that the Philippine government would pay for the loans if the IPPs defaulted. The Ramos government continued signing IPP contracts even after the end of 1993 when the power crisis was considered solved. The World Bank came up with a report in 1994 warning that power rates would rise if the government continued to enter into more IPP contracts that would mean excess power. The World Bank questioned the ambitious projections of the government on economic growth and power demand from 1994 to 1998. It also warned that the power generated by private utilities' IPPs could duplicate those of the National Power Corporation and create an overcapacity. The World Bank said that the factors created considerable uncertainty in power demand, like substantial overcapacity, particularly under take-or-pay conditions and would require considerable tariff increases that would be unpopular with the public.
Death penalty
While campaigning for the presidency, Ramos declared his support for reinstating the death penalty. Capital punishment was abolished for all crimes in 1987, making the Philippines the first Asian country to do so. In 1996, Ramos signed a bill that returned capital punishment with the electric chair (method used from 1923 to 1976, making Philippines the only country to do so outside U.S.) "until the gas chamber could be installed". However, no one was electrocuted or gassed, because the previously used chair was destroyed earlier in a fire and the Philippines adopted the method of lethal injection. After his presidency, some people were put to death by this means, until the death penalty was abolished again in 2006.
Foreign policies
Spratly Islands
In early 1995, the Philippines discovered a primitive PRC military structure on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, one hundred and thirty nautical miles off the coast of Palawan. The Philippine government issued a formal protest over the PRC's occupation of the reef and the Philippine Navy arrested sixty-two Chinese fishermen at Half Moon Shoal, eighty kilometers from Palawan. A week later, following confirmation from surveillance pictures that the structures were of military design, President Fidel Ramos had the military forces in the region strengthened. He ordered the Philippine Air Force to dispatch five F-5 fighters backed by four jet trainers and two helicopters, while the navy sent two additional ships. The People's Republic of China had claimed that the structures were shelters for fishermen but these small incidents could have triggered a war in the South China Sea.
Migrant workers protection
A perceived weakness of his administration was the situation in handling migrant workers' protection, a very major issue in the Philippines, as there are millions of Filipinos abroad throughout the world serving as workers in foreign countries, and their remittances to relatives at home are very important to the Filipino economy. On the eve of his 67th birthday on March 17, 1995, Ramos was on a foreign trip when Flor Contemplación was hanged in Singapore. His last-minute effort to negotiate with Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong failed and Ramos' return was marred with protests after his arrival in Manila. The protests also caused the resignation of Foreign Affairs Secretary Roberto Romulo and Labor Secretary Nieves Confesor from the cabinet. He immediately recalled Philippine ambassador to Singapore Alicia Ramos and suspended diplomatic relations with Singapore and created a special commission to look into the case, which was in part an effort to try to rescue his sagging popularity. The commission was led by retired Supreme Court Justice Emilio Gancayco.
As recommended by the Gancayco Commission, Ramos facilitated the enactment of Republic Act No. 8042, better known as the "Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995", which was signed into law on June 7, 1995. Learning from the lessons of the Contemplación case, Ramos immediately ordered Philippines Ambassador to the UAE Roy Señeres to facilitate negotiations after learning of the death penalty verdict of Sarah Balabagan in September 1995. Balabagan's sentence was reduced and she was released in August 1996. After tensions cooled off, Ramos restored diplomatic relations with Singapore after meeting Goh Chok Tong on the sidelines during the 50th anniversary of the United Nations in New York City.
Asian Financial Crisis of 1997
The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which started in Thailand, was a major blow to the end of the Ramos administration, with him stepping down with a negative GDP growth. The economy was hit by currency devaluation with the Philippine Peso dropped to ₱46 in 1998 from ₱26 in 1997. The same was true for the Thai baht, Malaysian ringgit, and Indonesian rupiah. Growth fell to about −0.6% in 1998 from 5.2% in 1997, but recovered to 3.4% by 1999. It also resulted to the shutdown of some businesses, a decline in importation, a rising unemployment rate, and an unstable financial sector.
Clark Centennial Expo Scandal
Supposedly, one of his notable contributions to the Philippines was the revival of nationalistic spirit by embarking on a massive promotion campaign for the centennial of Philippine Independence celebrated on June 12, 1998. However, charges of alleged massive corruption or misuse of funds blemished the resulting programs and various projects, one of which was the Centennial Expo and Amphitheater at the former Clark Air Base in Angeles City, supposedly Ramos's pet project. The commemorative projects, particularly those undertaken at Clark, were hounded by illegal electioneering and corruption controversies even years after the Centennial celebrations. Clark Air Base at that point was already completely free of American interference and therefore conceived as a suitable venue for Independence Day. In 1992, all American military bases were transferred to Philippine control after the Senate rejected the military bases agreement with the United States
Later on it was revealed through a special report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that the projects relating to the Expo site not only revealed the extravagance and inefficiency of the administration, but also served as a convenient vehicle to affect election fund-raising for the LAKAS political party of Ramos, which came at the expense of tax-payers and was in direct violation of the Election Code. The Centennial Expo Pilipino project, intended to be the centerpiece for celebrating the 100th anniversary of the country's independence from Spain, also earned extensive criticism for being an expensive white elephant project that disadvantaged the government at the cost of P9 billion, or 1.7 percent of the country's 1998 national budget. Six ranking Ramos cabinet members and officials, headed by Salvador Laurel (former vice-president), chairman of the Centennial Commission, were cleared by the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan. Ramos appeared before a Congressional Committee in October 1998 to help exonerate said officials of any wrongdoing.
Charter change
During his final years in office, Ramos tried to amend the country's 1987 constitution through a process popularly known to many Filipinos as charter change or cha-cha. Widespread protests led by Corazon Aquino and the Roman Catholic Church stopped him from pushing through with the plan. Political analysts were divided as to whether Ramos really wanted to use charter change to extend his presidency or only to imbalance his opponents as the next presidential election neared. He also intended to extend the term limits of the presidency to remain in power but his political rival Miriam Defensor Santiago went to the Supreme Court and negated extending the term limit of the president, which preserved democracy at the time.
Administration and cabinet
Post-presidency (1998–2022)
Activities
EDSA II
In January 2001, Ramos was instrumental in the success of the so-called Second EDSA Revolution that deposed Philippine president Joseph Estrada and installed then-Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as president.
Estrada was later acquitted of perjury but found guilty of plunder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua with the accessory penalties of perpetual disqualification from public office and forfeiture of ill-gotten wealth on September 12, 2007, and pardoned by President Arroyo on October 26, 2007.
Ramos was Chairman Emeritus of the Lakas CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats) Party, formerly known as Lakas NUCD-UMDP or the Partido Lakas Tao-National Union of Christian Democrats-Union of Muslim Democrats of the Philippines.
At the height of the election-rigging scandal in July 2005, Ramos publicly convinced President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo not to resign from office. Ramos, who was also hounded by charges of electoral fraud during the 1992 elections which were never proven in the Supreme Court, repeatedly stated that the scandal is nowhere as grave as that of People Power Revolutions of 1986 and 2001, citing factors such as the stagnant Philippine economy in the final years of the Marcos regime as well as the allegedly massive corruption of the Estrada administration. According to Arroyo, he also showed full support to her during the failed coups in the latter part of her presidency.
Advocacies
Ramos also unveiled his proposals for constitutional change of the country. Citing the need to be more economically competitive in the midst of globalization and the need to improve governance for all Filipinos, Ramos suggested that government should start the process of Charter Change with a set deadline in 2007 (by which time the new charter and new government would take effect). Ramos supported the transformation of the country's political system from the Philippine presidential-bicameral-system into a unicameral parliament in transition to a federal form.
Ramos represented the Philippines in the ASEAN Eminent Persons Group, tasked to draft the Charter of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He was also a member of numerous international groups and fora, and was the chairman of the board of directors of the Boao Forum for Asia (also one of the co-founders of BFA) and co-chairman of the Global Meeting of the Emerging Markets Forum (EMF). Ramos was heavily recommended for the position of the United Nations envoy to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) in June 2006.
He served as the Carlyle Group Asia Advisor Board Member until the board was disbanded in February 2004. More recently, as a private citizen, Ramos was engaged in various private sector advocacies where he played prominent roles. These included; chairman, Ramos Peace and Development Foundation; chairman, Boao Forum for Asia; Trustee, International Crisis Group (ICG); Member, Advisory Group, UN University for Peace; Honorary Director, General Douglas MacArthur Foundation; Founding Member, Policy Advisory Commission, World Intellectual Property Organization (PAC-WIPO); Honorary Member, World Commission on Water for the 21st century; Member, International Advisory Council, Asia House; Patron, Opportunity International (Philippines); Global Advisor, University of Winnipeg; Honorary Chairman, Yuchengco Center, De La Salle University; Member, Advisory Board, Metrobank; Honorary President, Human Development Network (HDN) Philippines; Lifetime Honorary President, Christian Democrats International (CDI); and Chairman Emeritus, Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) Party.
Ramos was also a firm backer of the proposed Philippine Reproductive Health bill. During a meet-up with fellow RH bill supporters in May 2011, he urged President Benigno Aquino III to certify the RH bill as urgent, saying it is the "right thing" to do. During his administration, the Department of Health under Juan Flavier launched an intense drive to promote family planning. Asiaweek reported in August 1994 that under Ramos, "family planning funding has quintupled." They also noted that President Ramos "has gone the farthest of any administration in opposing the Church's positions on contraception and abortion." At present, Ramos was listed by the Forum for Family Planning and Development as one of its Eminent Persons.
Ramos was a member of the Global Leadership Foundation, an organization which works to support democratic leadership, prevent and resolve conflict through mediation and promote good governance in the form of democratic institutions, open markets, human rights and the rule of law. It does so by making available, discreetly and in confidence, the experience of former leaders to today's national leaders. It is a not-for-profit organization composed of former heads of government, senior governmental and international organization officials who work closely with Heads of Government on governance-related issues of concern to them.
Ramos Peace and Development Foundation
After his presidency, Ramos founded the Ramos Foundation for Peace and Development (RPDEV) with offices located in the Urban Bank Building (now ExportBank Plaza) in Makati. The foundation is a non-partisan, nonprofit, non-stock organization dedicated to promoting peace and development in the Philippines and the larger Asia-Pacific region. RPDEV supports Philippine national interests and people empowerment.
Operating as a network of individuals and institutions inside and outside the country, it is meant to serve as a catalyst for constructive change, a medium for fostering unity, stability, and progress, and a force for mutual understanding.
Philippine Envoy to China
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte revealed in June 2016 that Ramos was the one who pushed him to run for office so that 'Mindanao will finally have a Filipino president'. On July 23, 2016, Ramos was appointed by President Duterte as the Philippine Envoy to China to strengthen bilateral ties again after a much-heated diplomatic war over the South China Sea.
On November 1, 2016, however, Ramos, stating that he miscalculated the possibilities and effects of a Duterte presidency, sent his resignation due to Duterte's drug war which has killed at least 8,000 Filipino drug suspects at the time. President Duterte accepted his resignation from the post on the same day. He was replaced by veteran journalist Jose Santiago "Chito" Sta. Romana.
After stepping down, while he continued to show support to President Rodrigo Duterte, he had been vocal in raising concerns and criticisms to his administration. In February 2017, Ramos raised his concern about impunity and unilateralism amidst the drug war. In May 2017, Ramos criticized government officials who went with Duterte to Russia, claiming they turned the President's official visit into a "junket", which the Palace later denied. In September 2017, Ramos said the Philippines continued to "lose badly" under the Duterte administration. Despite his criticisms, Duterte still saw him as his "number one supporter" and at the same time his "number one critic", and even called him his "everything."
COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, he stayed under strict home quarantine and kept himself updated of the latest news including the pandemic. On June 25, 2021, he completed his COVID-19 vaccination by receiving his second dose in Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa.
On March 18, 2022, on Ramos' 94th birthday, the Fidel V. Ramos Presidential Library was launched online. It became the first and so far the only online presidential library in the Philippines. It was later revealed that Ramos was already ill at this time, and was unable to take on visitors.
2022 elections
During the 2022 elections, Ramos did not make public his endorsement but had pledged support for the presidential bid of Leni Robredo, whom he also endorsed her successful vice presidential campaign in 2016. This was despite the fact that his party Lakas–CMD had earlier adopted her rival, Bongbong Marcos, who was the running mate of Lakas chairperson Sara Duterte, as its presidential candidate.
Death
Ramos died on July 31, 2022, at the age of 94, at Makati Medical Center. His family announced his passing in a statement on Sunday, stating he died of complications from COVID-19, according to the radio station DZRH. His family confirmed that he suffered from a heart condition. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living Philippine president.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared July 31 to August 9 as "national days of mourning", whereas all national flags are "flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset" as a sign of mourning. As per prevailing policies about COVID-19-related deaths in the country, Ramos' remains were cremated, making him the second Philippine president to have been cremated before initial burial after former President Benigno Aquino III in June 2021. His wake was held on August 4–8 at The Chapels at Heritage Park in Taguig. On August 9, he was accorded a state funeral, which was the first for a former Philippine president since Diosdado Macapagal in 1997, and his remains were inurned at the Libingan ng mga Bayani near former presidents Macapagal, Carlos P. Garcia, Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
Approval ratings
Honors and decorations
National Honors
: Commander of the Philippine Legion of Honor, Second Bronze Anahaw Leaf (March 18, 1988)
: Commander of the Philippine Legion of Honor, Third Bronze Anahaw Leaf (July 19, 1991)
: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of Rizal.
Rizal Pro Patria Award (June 22, 1993)
Military Medals (Philippines)
: Military Merit Medal with Spearhead (May 23, 1952)
: Distinguished Service Star (May 20, 1966)
: Distinguished Service Star, First Bronze Anahaw Leaf (December 20, 1967)
: Military Commendation Medal (May 31, 1968)
: Distinguished Service Star, First Silver Anahaw Leaf (August 3, 1981)
: Outstanding Achievement Medal (July 29, 1983)
: Distinguished Conduct Star (January 14, 1991)
: AFP Long Service Medal
Korean Campaign Medal
Vietnam Service Medal
Disaster Relief & Rehabilitation Operation Ribbon
Military Medals (Foreign)
: Cheonsu Medal, Order of National Security Merit (South Korea)
: United Nations Service Medal (United Nations)
: Commander, Legion of Merit (United States)
Foreign Honors
:
Honorary Member of The Most Esteemed Family Order of Brunei-Laila Utama- (March 5, 1988)
:
Collar of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Merit of Chile
:
Grand Cross of the Order of Legion of Honour
:
Grand Meritorious Military Order Star, 3rd Class (June 20, 1989)
:
Honorary Recipient of the Order of the Crown of the Realm (1995)
:
Nishan-e-Pakistan (March 8, 1997)
:
Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru (1994)
:
Collar of the Order of Civil Merit (September 2, 1994)
Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (March 24, 1995)
Collar of the Order of Charles III (January 30, 1998)
:
Grand Order of Mugunghwa
:
Knight Grand Cordon of The Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant (January 29, 1997)
:
Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George (1995)
Military medal
: United Nations Korea Medal
: Vietnam Service Medal (U.S.)
: Korean Service Medal (U.S.)
: Legion of Merit (August 1, 1990)
International organizations
Bronze Wolf Award (July 28, 1993)
References
Sources
Fidel Ramos Curriculum Vitae
Westpoint Distinguished Graduate Award: DGA Fidel Ramos
Bardos, Phil, Cold War Warriors: The Story of the Achievements and Leadership of the Men of the West Point Class of 1950, (United States, 2000)
Bowring, Philip. "Filipino Democracy Needs Stronger Institutions.", January 22, 2001. International Herald Tribune. Retrieved August 24, 2008: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/22/opinion/22iht-edbow.t_3.html
"Church, elite, Ramos ousted me, says Estrada." SunStar Network Online. (June 1, 2006). Retrieved August 24, 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20080926183855/http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/06/01/church.elite.ramos.ousted.me.says.estrada.html
Fernandez, Butch. "Ramos told to come clean before hitting Palace pardon for Erap." (November 2–3, 2007). Business Mirror. Retrieved August 24, 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20081211170308/http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/1102%26032007/nation01.html.
Florentino-Hofilena and Ian Sayson. Centennial Expo: Convenient Cover for Election Fundraising. (June 14–16, 1999). Retrieved August 24, 2008, from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism: https://web.archive.org/web/20150725050056/http://pcij.org/stories/1999/expo.html.
Johnson, Bryan, Four Days of Courage: The Untold Story of the Fall of Ferdinand Marcos, (Toronto, Canada, 1987)
Cal, Ben, FVR Through the Years, (Washington, D.C., USA, 1998)
Hamilton-Paterson, James, America's Boy: The Marcoses and the Philippines, (Granta Books, London, Great Britain, 1998)
Lazaro, Isagani L., Mga Dakilang Lider na Pilipino, 5th Edition, (National Book Store, Mandaluyong, Philippines, 2004)
Mendoza, Jr., Amado. Study 2a-The industrial anatomy of corruption: Government procurement, bidding and award of contracts. Retrieved August 24, 2008, from the Transparent Accountable Governance website: https://web.archive.org/web/20080720060021/http://www.tag.org.ph/pdf/PCPS-Study2a.PDF
More electricity rate hikes to come: Sale of energy assets to have long-term shocking effects on the people – Bayan Muna. (August 21, 2007). Bayan Muna.
Mydans, Seth. "Expecting Praise, Filipinos Are Criticized for Ouster." The New York Times. (February 5, 2001). Retrieved August 24, 2008: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/05/world/05FILI.html?ex=1219723200&en=abf1881ac23d0c2e&ei=5070
Mydans, Seth. "Manila Journal; People Power 2: A Sleeping Giant Is Awakened." The New York Times. (September 22, 1997). Retrieved August 24, 2008: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/20/world/manila-journal-people-power-2-a-sleeping-giant-is-awakened.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Rimban, Luz and Samonte-Pesayco, Sheila. Trail of Power Mess Leads to Ramos. (August 5–8, 2002). Retrieved August 24, 2008, from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism website: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084556/http://pcij.org/stories/2002/ramos.html
Chŏnsa Pʻyŏnchʻan Wiwŏnhoe, The history of the United Nations forces in the Korean War, Volume I-VI, (Seoul, Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea, 1972–77)
Ramos Presidential Center, Makati City
Senate, Republic of the Philippines. COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 30. Eleventh Congress. Retrieved August 24, 2008, from the Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel official website:
Uy, Jocelyn. "9 in PEA-AMARI deal ordered suspended." Philippine Daily Inquirer. (August 13, 2008). Retrieved August 24, 2008: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080813-154468/9-in-PEA-Amari-deal-ordered-suspended
Villasanta, Johnny F., 20th Battalion Combat Team (Leaders), The Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea (1950–1955), https://web.archive.org/web/20091022114608/http://geocities.com/peftok/20thbct.html 26, 2009+00:22:05, (August 26, 2006)
External links
Ramos Peace and Development Foundation
Department of National Defense
1928 births
2022 deaths
Filipino generals
Filipino military personnel of the Korean War
Filipino military personnel of the Vietnam War
Filipino anti-communists
Candidates in the 1992 Philippine presidential election
Presidents of the Philippines
Chief Commanders of the Philippine Legion of Honor
Commanders of the Legion of Merit
Recipients of the Military Merit Medal (Philippines)
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
Recipients of the Legion of Honour
Recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Star
Recipients of the Order of National Security Merit
Collars of the Order of Civil Merit
Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Recipients of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Marcos family
People from Pangasinan
Ateneo de Manila University alumni
Centro Escolar University alumni
United States Military Academy alumni
Grainger College of Engineering alumni
University of the Philippines alumni
Ilocano people
Lakas–CMD (1991) politicians
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Burials at the Libingan ng mga Bayani
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20States%20Forces%20Japan
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United States Forces Japan
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is a subordinate unified command of the United States Indo-Pacific Command. It was activated at Fuchū Air Station in Tokyo, Japan, on 1 July 1957 to replace the Far East Command. USFJ is headquartered at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo and is commanded by the Commander, US Forces Japan who is also commander of the Fifth Air Force.
U.S. Forces Japan plans, directs, and supervises the execution of missions and responsibilities assigned by the Indo-Pacific Command; they establish and implement policies to accomplish the mission of the United States Armed Forces in Japan and are responsible for developing plans for the defense of the country. USFJ supports the Security Treaty and administers the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Japan. They are responsible for coordinating various matters of interest with the service commanders in Japan. These include matters affecting U.S.-Japan relationships among and between the United States Department of Defense (DOD); DOD agencies and the U.S. Ambassador to Japan; and DOD agencies and the Government of Japan.
Under the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, the United States is obliged to provide Japan – in close cooperation with the Japan Self-Defense Forces – with maritime defense, ballistic missile defense, domestic air control, communications security, and disaster response.
History
After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in Asia, the United States Armed Forces assumed administrative authority in Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were decommissioned, and the U.S. Armed Forces took control of Japanese military bases until a new government could be formed and positioned to reestablish authority. Allied forces planned to demilitarize Japan, and the new government adopted the Constitution of Japan with a no-armed-force clause in 1947.
After the Korean War began in 1950, Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, in agreement with the Japanese government, established the paramilitary "National Police Reserve", which was later developed into the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. It means the de facto remilitarization of postwar Japan.
In 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco was signed by the Allies and Japan, which restored its formal sovereignty. At the same time, the U.S. and Japan signed the Japan-America Security Alliance. By this treaty, USFJ is responsible for the defense of Japan. As part of this agreement, the Japanese government requested that the U.S. military bases remain in Japan and agreed to provide funds and various interests specified in the Status of Forces Agreement. At the expiration of the treaty, the United States and Japan signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan. The status of the United States Forces Japan was defined in the U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement. This treaty is still in effect, and it forms the basis of Japan's foreign policy.
During the Vietnam War, U.S. military bases in Japan, especially those in the Okinawa Prefecture, were used as important strategic and logistic bases. In 1970, the Koza riot occurred against the U.S. military presence on Okinawa. Strategic bombers were deployed to the bases on Okinawa. Before the 1972 reversion of the island to Japanese administration, it has been speculated but never confirmed that up to 1,200 nuclear weapons may have been stored at Kadena Air Base during the 1960s.
, there are approximately 50,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan, along with approximately 40,000 dependents of military personnel and another 5,500 American civilians employed there by the United States Department of Defense. The United States Seventh Fleet is based in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. The III Marine Expeditionary Force is based on Okinawa. 130 U.S. Air Force fighters are stationed at Misawa Air Base and Kadena Air Base.
The Japanese government paid ¥217 billion (US$2.0 billion) in 2007 as annual host-nation support called . As of the 2011 budget, such payment was no longer to be referred to as omoiyari yosan or "sympathy budget". Japan compensates 75% ($4.4 billion) of U.S. basing costs.
Immediately after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, 9,720 dependents of United States military and government civilian employees in Japan evacuated the country, mainly to the United States.
The relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko Bay was resolved in December 2013 with the signing of a landfill agreement by the governor of Okinawa. Under the terms of the U.S.-Japan agreement, 5,000 U.S. Marines were relocated to Guam, and 4,000 Marines were sent to other Pacific locations such as Hawaii or Australia, while around 10,000 Marines were to remain on Okinawa. No timetable for the Marines redeployment was announced, but The Washington Post reported that U.S. Marines would leave Okinawa as soon as suitable facilities on Guam and elsewhere were ready. The relocation move was expected to cost $8.6 billion, including a $3.1 billion cash commitment from Japan for the move to Guam as well as for developing joint training ranges on Guam and on Tinian and Pagan in the Northern Mariana Islands. Certain parcels of land on Okinawa which were leased for use by the American military were supposed to be turned back to Japanese control via a long-term phased return process according to the agreement. These returns have been ongoing since 1972. In October 2020, Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz was activated on Guam. The new base is meant to house Marines relocated from Okinawa, with the final relocation planned for 2025.
United States presence debate
As of May 2022, the stationing of U.S. military personnel at military facilities across Okinawa Island remains a hotly-contested and controversial issue, with the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma often being at the forefront of protests against the presence of U.S. military presence on the island. Okinawa makes up only 0.6% of the nation's land area; yet, approximately 62% of United States bases in Japan (exclusive use only) are on Okinawa. Despite an agreement to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma first being reached by the Japanese and U.S. governments in 1996, progress to relocate the base has stalled because of the protests as well as environmental concerns resulting from the construction, operation and relocation of the base.
The U.S. government employs over eight thousand Master Labor Contract/Indirect Hire Agreement workers on Okinawa (per the Labor Management Organization), not including Okinawan contract workers.
There is also debate over the Status of Forces Agreement since it covers a variety of administrative technicalities blending the systems which control how certain situations are handled between the U.S.'s and Japan's legal framework.
Surveys among Japanese
In May 2010, a survey of the Okinawan people conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun and the Ryūkyū Shimpō, found that 71% of Okinawans surveyed thought that the presence of Marines on Okinawa was not necessary (15% said it was necessary). When asked what they thought about 62% of exclusive use United States Forces Japan bases being concentrated on Okinawa, 50% said that the number should be reduced and 41% said that the bases should be removed. When asked about the US-Japan security treaty, 55% said it should be a peace treaty, 14% said it should be abolished, and 7% said it should be maintained.
Many of the bases, such as Yokota Air Base, Naval Air Facility Atsugi and Kadena Air Base, are located in the vicinity of residential districts, and local citizens have complained about excessive aircraft noise. The 2014 poll by Ryūkyū Shimpō found that 80% of surveyed Okinawans want the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma moved out of the prefecture. On 25 June 2018, Okinawan residents protested against the construction of a new airfield. The activists, armed with placards and banners, went to sea on 70 boats and ships. Protesters urged the Japanese authorities to stop the expansion of the U.S. military presence on the island. Some of the boats went to the guarded construction site, where they came across the Coast Guard patrol vessels. Some activists were arrested for entering a prohibited zone.
On 11 August 2018, about 70,000 protesters gathered at a park in the prefecture capital of Naha to protest the planned relocation of a U.S military base on the southern Japanese island. Opponents of the relocation said the plan to move Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood to a less populated coastal site would not only affect the environment, but would also go against local wishes to have the base moved from the island entirely.
Crime
At the beginning of the occupation of Japan in 1945, many U.S. soldiers participated in the Special Comfort Facility Association. The Japanese government organised the enslavement of 55,000 women to work providing sexual services to U.S. military personnel before the surrender. On discovery of the program, the association was closed by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.
Between 1972 and 2009, U.S. servicemen committed 5,634 criminal offenses, including 25 murders, 385 burglaries, 25 arsons, 127 rapes, 306 assaults, and 2,827 thefts. Yet, per Marine Corps Installations Pacific data, U.S. service members are convicted of far fewer crimes than local Okinawans. According to the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, when U.S. personnel crimes are committed both off-duty and off-base, they should be prosecuted under the Japanese law. In 2008 the National Police Agency released its annual criminal statistics that included activity within the Okinawa prefecture. These findings held American troops were only convicted of 53 crimes per 10,000 U.S. male servicemen, while Okinawan males were convicted of 366 crimes per 10,000. The crime rate found a U.S. serviceman on Okinawa to be 86% less likely to be convicted of a crime by the Japanese government than an Okinawan male.
In more recent history, "crimes ranging from rape to assault and hit-and-run accidents by U.S. military personnel, dependents and civilians have long sparked protests in the prefecture," stated The Japan Times. "A series of horrific crimes by present and former U.S. military personnel stationed on Okinawa has triggered dramatic moves to try to reduce the American presence on the island and in Japan as a whole," commented The Daily Beast in 2009.
In 1995, the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl by two U.S. Marines and one U.S. sailor led to demands for the removal of all U.S. military bases in Japan. Other controversial incidents include the Girard incident in 1957, the Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident in 2002, the death of the Kinjo family in 1996, and the hit-and-run death of Yuki Uema in 1998. In February 2008, a 38-year-old U.S. Marine based on Okinawa was arrested in connection with the reported rape of a 14-year-old Okinawan girl. This triggered waves of protest against American military presence on Okinawa and led to tight restrictions on off-base activities. Although the accuser withdrew her charges, the U.S. military court-martialed the suspect and sentenced him to four years in prison under the stricter rules of the military justice system.
U.S. Forces Japan designated 22 February as a "Day of Reflection" for all U.S. military facilities in Japan and established the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Task Force in an effort to prevent similar incidents. In November 2009, Staff Sergeant Clyde "Drew" Gunn, a U.S. Army soldier stationed at Torii Station was involved in a hit-and-run accident of a pedestrian in Yomitan Village on Okinawa. In April 2010, Gunn was charged with failing to render aid and vehicular manslaughter, and he was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail.
In 2013, Seaman Christopher Browning and Petty Officer 3rd Class Skyler Dozierwalker were found guilty by the Naha District Court of raping and robbing a woman in a parking lot in October. Both admitted committing the crime. The case outraged Okinawans and sparked tougher restrictions for all U.S. military personnel in Japan, including a curfew and drinking restrictions.
On 13 May 2013, in a controversial statement, Toru Hashimoto, Mayor of Osaka and co-leader of the Japan Restoration Association said to a senior American military official at the Marine Corps base on Okinawa that "we can't control the sexual energy of these brave Marines." He said that Marines should make more use of the local adult entertainment industry to reduce sexual crimes against local women. Hashimoto also spoke of the necessity of former Japanese Army comfort women and of prostitutes for the U.S. military in other countries such as Korea.
In June 2016, after a civilian worker at the base was charged with murdering a Japanese woman, thousands of people protested on Okinawa. Organizers estimated turnout at 65,000 people, which was the largest anti-base protests on Okinawa since 1995. In November 2017, an intoxicated U.S. service member was arrested following a vehicle crash on Okinawa that killed the other driver.
Although other crimes committed by U.S. servicemen (as well as crimes by Japanese) have occurred in Japan, the Status of Forces Agreement protects servicemen and their employees. Suspects are usually handed over U.S. bases first so Japanese judicial investigations and trials would be severely restricted. Many offenders who have committed sexual assaults and murders have also escaped trials sometimes through transfer, release or honorary discharges when they are in barracks, which is one of the reasons for antipathy from the victims and other local citizens along with the Japanese government's indecision.
Osprey deployment
In October 2012, twelve MV-22 Ospreys were transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to replace aging Vietnam-era Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. In October 2013, an additional 12 Ospreys arrived. Japanese Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto explained that the Osprey aircraft is safe, adding that two recent accidents were "caused by human factors". Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also stated that the Japanese government was convinced of the MV-22's safety. Various incidents involving V-22 Ospreys have occurred on Okinawa. On 5 April 2018, it was announced that the U.S. Air Force would officially deploy CV-22 Osprey aircraft at its Yokota Air Base.
Environmental concerns
Environmental concerns have taken the forefront of the debate over the presence of U.S. military forces on Okinawa. Since the late 1990s, environmental concerns elevated by both local residents as well as larger Okinawan and Japanese environmental action groups and independent activists have often resulted in public protests and demonstrations against the relocation of existing U.S. military bases and the construction of replacement facilities, which have been labelled by some as examples of "modern colonialism". In particular, lingering environmental concerns over the disruption or destruction of coastal and marine habitats off the shores of Okinawa from construction, relocation and operation of U.S. military bases on Okinawa, has resulted in the protracted and continuing delayal of plans to relocate military facilities, such as Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Okinawa dugong lawsuit
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, initial plans to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a new facility located offshore in Henoko Bay were met with strong resistance after sightings of dugong were reported in areas surrounding territory earmarked for the relocated airbase. A critically endangered species, dugong were traditionally fished and hunted throughout Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands. This drew the attention of local, national and international environmental action groups, who raised concerns that land reclamation projects tied to the construction of an offshore airbase in Henoko Bay would result in the destruction of nearby dugong habitats and coastal ecosystems. Despite this, plans were set forth to continue ahead with the relocation of the base, notably, flouting the results of a 1997 referendum where the majority voted to reject a replacement facility.
In opposition to this, in September 2003, a group of Okinawan, Japanese and U.S. environmental organizations filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Federal Court to protest the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. This lawsuit, initially entitled Okinawa Dugong v. Rumsfeld, argued that the U.S. Department of Defense failed to consider the impacts that relocating the base would have upon the local dugong population, in turn, violating the U.S. National Historic Preservation Act. This case was closed in January 2008; notably for the plaintiffs, it was ruled that the Department of Defense, by not considering the impacts of the relocated airbase upon the local dugong population, had in fact violated the National Historic Preservation Act, thus delaying the relocation of the base.
Water contamination
Concerns over water contamination have also exasperated recent tensions surrounding the presence of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. In June 2020, following the announcement of an earlier leak of firefighting foam from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in April 2020, a water quality study conducted by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment published findings of elevated contamination levels of PFOS and PFOA at 37 different water sources near U.S. military bases and industrial areas which exceeded provisional national targets. Further incidents concerning the release of the cancer-inducing toxins also occurred in August 2021, further worsening tensions over the presence of 'alarming' levels of these toxic chemicals.
Subsequent tests around Kadena Air Base, specifically the training site 50 meters west of Dakujaku River, confirmed severe contamination in the water system with PFAS chemicals. These chemicals reach 10s of meters underground while plumes spread for several kilometers from these contaminated training sites flowed into nearby wells and waterways of Dakujaku River and Hija River which contaminated the drinking water of 450,000 residents. These toxic chemicals originate from firefighting foams which contain PFAS and were used at training sites during the 1970s and 80s. However, the U.S. and Japanese governments say that the source of the issue cannot be confirmed.
Facilities
List of current facilities
The USFJ headquarters is at Yokota Air Base, about 30 km west of central Tokyo.
The U.S. military installations in Japan and their managing branches are as follows:
Camp Smedley D. Butler, Okinawa Prefecture, Yamaguchi Prefectures. (Although these camps are dispersed throughout Okinawa and the rest of Japan they are all under the heading of Camp Smedley D. Butler):
Camp McTureous, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Courtney, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Foster, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Kinser, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Hansen, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Schwab, Okinawa Prefecture
Camp Gonsalves (Jungle Warfare Training Center), Okinawa Prefecture
Kin Blue Beach Training Area, Okinawa Prefecture
Kin Red Beach Training Area, Okinawa Prefecture
Higashionna Ammunition Storage Point II
Henoko Ordnance Ammunition Depot
Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa Prefecture
Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni
Camp Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture
Numazu Training Area, Shizuoka Prefecture
Ie Jima Auxiliary Airfield, Okinawa Prefecture
Tsuken Jima Training Area, Okinawa Prefecture
Joint Use Facilities and Areas
Temporary use facilities and areas are as follows:
On Okinawa, U.S. military installations occupy about 10.4% of the total land usage. Approximately 74.7% of all the U.S. military facilities in Japan are located on the island of Okinawa.
List of former facilities
The United States has returned some facilities to Japanese control. Some are used as military bases of the JSDF; others have become civilian airports or government offices; many are factories, office buildings or residential developments in the private sector. Due to the Special Actions Committee on Okinawa, more land on Okinawa is in the process of being returned. These areas include Camp Kuwae (also known as Camp Lester), MCAS Futenma, areas within Camp Zukeran (also known as Camp Foster) located about of the Northern Training Area, Aha Training Area, Gimbaru Training Area (also known as Camp Gonsalves), a small portion of the Makiminato Service Area (also known as Camp Kinser), and Naha Port.
Army:
Army Composite Service Group Area (later, Chinen Service Area), Nanjō, Okinawa
Army STRATCOM Warehouse (later, Urasoe Warehouse), Urasoe, Okinawa
Bluff Area (later, Yamate Dependent Housing Area), Yokohama, Kanagawa
Bolo Point Auxiliary Airfield (later, Trainfire Range), Yomitan, Okinawa
Bolo Point Army Annex, Yomitan, Okinawa
Camp Bender, Ōta, Gunma
Camp Boone, Ginowan, Okinawa
Camp Burness, Chūō, Tokyo
Camp Chickamauga, 19th Infantry, Beppu, Oita
Camp Chigasaki, Chigasaki, Kanagawa
Camp Chitose Annex (Chitose I, II), Chitose, Hokkaido
Camp Coe, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Camp Crawford, Sapporo, Hokkaido
Camp Drake, Asaka, Saitama
Camp Drew, Ōizumi, Gunma
Camp Eta Jima, Etajima, Hiroshima
Camp Fowler, Sendai, Miyagi
Camp Fuchinobe (Office Japan, NSAPACREP), Sagamihara, Kanagawa
Camp Hakata, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka
Camp Hardy, Ginoza, Okinawa
Camp Haugen, Hachinohe, Aomori
Camp Katakai, Kujūkuri, Chiba
Camp King (later, Omiya Ordnance Sub Depot), Omiya, Saitama
Camp Kokura, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka
Camp Kubasaki (later, Kubasaki School Area), [Nakagusuku, Okinawa]
Camp Loper, Tagajō, Miyagi
Camp McGill, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Camp McNair, Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi
Camp Mercy, Ginowan, Okinawa
Camp Moore, Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Camp Mower 34th Infantry, Sasebo, Nagasaki
Camp Nara, Nara, Nara
Camp Ojima, Ōta, Gunma
Camp Otsu, Ōtsu, Shiga
Camp Palmer, Funabashi, Chiba
Camp Schimmelpfennig, Sendai, Miyagi
Camp Stilwell, Maebashi, Gunma
Camp Weir, Shinto, Gunma
Camp Whittington, Kumagaya, Saitama
Camp Wood, 21st Infantry, Kumamoto
Camp Younghans, Higashine, Yamagata
Chibana Army Annex (later, Chibana Site), Okinawa, Okinawa
Chinen Army Annex (later, Chinen Site), Chinen, Okinawa
Chuo Kogyo (later, Niikura Warehouse Area), Wako, Saitama
Deputy Division Engineer Office, Urasoe, Okinawa
Division School Center, Kokura
Etchujima Warehouse, Koto, Tokyo
Funaoka Ammunition Depot, Shibata, Miyagi
Hachinohe LST Barge Landing Area, Hachinohe, Aomori
Hakata Transportation Office, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka
Hamby Auxiliary Airfield, Chatan, Okinawa
Hosono Ammunition Depot, Seika, Kyoto
Iribaru (Nishihara) Army Annex, Uruma, Okinawa
Ishikawa Army Annex, Uruma, Okinawa
Japan Logistical Command (Yokohama Customs House), Yokohama, Kanagawa
Jefferson Heights, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Kanagawa Milk Plant, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Kashiji Army Annex, Chatan, Okinawa
Kishine Barracks, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Kobe Pier No. 6, Kobe, Hyogo
Kobe Port Building, Kobe, Hyogo
Koza Radio Relay Annex (later, Koza Communication Site), Okinawa, Okinawa
Kure Barge Landing Area, Kure, Hiroshima
Lincoln Center, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Moji Port, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka
Nagoya Procurement (Purchasing and Contracting) Office, Nagoya, Aichi
Naha Army Annex (later, Naha Site), Naha, Okinawa
Naha Service Center, Naha, Okinawa
Namihira Army Annex, Yomitan, Okinawa
Negishi Racetrack Area, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Okinawa Regional Exchange Cold Storage (later, Naha Cold Storage), Naha, Okinawa
Okinawa Regional Exchange Dry Storage Warehouse (later, Makiminato Warehouse), Urasoe, Okinawa
Onna Point Army Annex (later, Onna Site), Onna, Okinawa
Oppama Ordnance Depot, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Ota Koizumi Airfield (Patton Field Air Drop Range), Oizumi, Gunma
Palace Heights, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Pershing Heights (Headquarters, U.S. Far East Command/United Nations Command), Shinjuku, Tokyo
Sakuradani Rifle Range, Chikushino, Fukuoka
Sanno Hotel Officer's Quarter, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Shikotsuko Training Area, Chitose, Hokkaido
Shinzato Communication Site, Nanjo, Okinawa
South Ammunition Storage Annex (later, South Ammunition Storage Area), Yaese, Okinawa
Sunabe Army Annex, Chatan, Okinawa
Tana Ammunition Depot, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Tairagawa (Deragawa) Communication Site, Uruma, Okinawa
Tengan Communication Site, Uruma, Okinawa
Tokyo Army Hospital, Chūō, Tokyo
Tokyo Quartermaster Depot, Minato, Tokyo
Tokyo Ordnance Depot (later, Camp Oji), Kita, Tokyo
U.S. Army Medical Center, Sagamihara, Kanagawa
U.S. Army Printing and Publication Center, Far East, Kawasaki, Kanagawa
U.S. Army Procurement Agency, Japan, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Center Pier (MSTS-FE), Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Engineering Depot, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Motor Command, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Ordnance Depot, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama POL Depot, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Servicemen Club, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Signal Supply Depot, Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Yokohama Signal Maintenance Depot (JLC Air Strip), Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama South Pier, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yomitan Army Annex, Yomitan, Okinawa
Zama Rifle Range, Sagamihara, Kanagawa
Zukeran Propagation Annex (later, Communication Site), Chatan, Okinawa
Navy:
Haiki (Sasebo) Rifle Range, Sasebo, Nagasaki
Inanba Shima Gunnery Firing Range, Mikurajima, Tokyo
Kinugasa Ammunition Depot, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Koshiba POL Depot, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Ominato Communication Site, Ominato, Aomori
Omura Rifle Range, Omura, Nagasaki
Makiminato Service Area Annex, Urasoe, Okinawa
Minamitorishima Communication Site, Ogasawara, Tokyo
Nagahama Rifle Range, Kure, Hiroshima
Nagai Dependent Housing Area (Admiralty Heights), Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Nagiridani Dependent Housing Area, Sasebo, Nagasaki
Naval Air Facility Naha, Naha, Okinawa
Naval Air Facility Oppama, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Navy EM Club, Yokosuka, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Niigata Sekiya Communication Site, Chuo-ku, Niigata
Shinyamashita Dependent Housing Area (Bayside Court), Yokohama, Kanagawa
Sobe Communication Site (NSGA Hanza), Yomitan, Okinawa
Tokachibuto Communication Site, Urahoro, Hokkaido
Tomioka Storage Area, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Tsujido Maneuver Area, Chigasaki, Kanagawa
Yokohama Bakery, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Beach (Honmoku) Dependent Housing Area, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Chapel Center, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokohama Cold Storage, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Yokosuka Naval Pier, Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Yosami Communication Site, Kariya, Aichi
Air Force:
Ashiya Air Base (later, ATG Range), Ashiya, Fukuoka
Asoiwayama Liaison Annex, Tobetsu, Hokkaido
Brady Air Base (later, Gannosu Air Station), Higashi-ku, Fukuoka
Chiran Communication Site, Chiran, Kagoshima
Chitose Air Base, Chitose, Hokkaido
Daikanyama Communication Site, Yugawara, Kanagawa
Fuchu Air Station (Headquarters, USFJ/Fifth Air Force, 1957–1974), Fuchu, Tokyo
Funabashi Communication Site, Funabashi, Chiba
Grant Heights Dependent Housing Area, Nerima, Tokyo
Green Park Housing Annex, Musashino, Tokyo
Hachinohe Small Arms Range, Hachinohe, Aomori
Hamura School Annex, Hamura, Tokyo
Haneda Air Base (later, Postal Service Annex), Ota, Tokyo
Hanshin Auxiliary Airfield, Yao, Osaka
Hirao Communication Site, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka
Itami Air Base, Itami, Hyogo
Itazuke Administration Annex (Kasugabaru DHA), Kasuga, Fukuoka
Itazuke Air Base, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka
Johnson Air Base (later, Air Station, Family Housing Annex), Iruma, Saitama
Kadena Dependent Housing Area, Yomitan, Okinawa
Kanto Mura Dependent Housing Area and Auxiliary Airfield, Chofu, Tokyo
Kasatoriyama Radar Site, Tsu, Mie
Kashiwa Communication Site (Camp Tomlinson), Kashiwa, Chiba
Komaki (Nagoya) Air Base, Komaki, Aichi
Kozoji Ammunition Depot, Kasugai, Aichi
Kume Jima Air Station, Kumejima, Okinawa
Kushimoto Radar Site, Kushimoto, Wakayama
Miho Air Base, Sakaiminato, Tottori
Mineoka Liaison Annex, Minamiboso, Chiba
Mito ATG Range, Hitachinaka, Ibaraki
Miyako Jima Air Station, Miyakojima, Okinawa
Miyako Jima VORTAC Site, Miyakojima, Okinawa
Moriyama Air Station, Nagoya, Aichi
Naha Air Base, Naha, Okinawa
Naha Air Force/Navy Annex, Naha, Okinawa
Najima Warehouse Area, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka
Niigata Air Base, Niigata, Niigata
Ofuna Warehouse, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Oshima Communication Center, Oshima, Tokyo
Rokko Communication Site, Kobe, Hyogo
Senaha Communications Station, Yomitan, Okinawa (returned to the Japanese government in September 2006)
Sendai Kunimi Communication Site, Sendai, Miyagi
Showa (later, Akishima) Dependent Housing Area, Akishima, Tokyo
Shiroi Air Base, Kashiwa, Chiba
Sunabe Warehouse, Chatan, Okinawa
Tachikawa Air Base, Tachikawa, Tokyo
Tokyo Communication Site (NTTPC Central Telephone Exchange), Chūō, Tokyo
Wajima Liaison Annex, Wajima, Ishikawa
Wajiro Water Supply Site, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka
Wakkanai Air Station, Wakkanai, Hokkaido
Washington Heights Dependent Housing Area, Shibuya, Tokyo
Yamada Ammunition Depot, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka
Yokawame Communication Site, Misawa, Aomori
Yozadake Air Station, Itoman, Okinawa
Marines:
Aha Training Area, Kunigami, Okinawa
Camp Gifu, Kakamigahara, Gifu
Camp Hauge, Uruma, Okinawa
Camp Okubo, Uji, Kyoto
Camp Shinodayama, Izumi, Osaka
Gimbaru Training Area, Kin, Okinawa
Ihajo Kanko Hotel, Uruma, Okinawa
Makiminato Housing Area, Naha, Okinawa
Onna Communication Site, Onna, Okinawa
Awase Golf Course, Okinawa Prefecture (returned to the Japanese government in April 2010)
Yaka Rest Center, Kin, Okinawa
Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield, Yomitan, Okinawa (returned to the Japanese government in 2006, parachute drop training ended in March 2001)
See also
United States Military Government of the Ryukyu Islands
United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands
Notes and references
External links
Brochure:Okinawa Prefectural Government Washington DC Office
United States Forces Japan
U.S. Naval Forces Japan
U.S. Forces, Japan (GlobalSecurity.org)
Overseas Presence: Issues Involved in Reducing the Impact of the U.S. Military Presence on Okinawa, GAO, March 1998
U.S. Military Issues in Okinawa
LMO
Commands of the United States Armed Forces
Japan–United States relations
United States Armed Forces in Okinawa Prefecture
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San%20Jose%20State%20University
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San Jose State University
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San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) system.
Located in downtown San Jose, the SJSU main campus is situated on , or roughly 19 square blocks. As of spring 2023, SJSU offers 150 bachelor's degree programs, 95 master's degrees, five doctoral degrees, 11 different credential programs and 42 certificates. SJSU is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission.
SJSU's total enrollment was 35,751 in fall 2022, including nearly 8,900 graduate and credential students. SJSU's student population is one of the most ethnically diverse in the nation. As of fall 2022, graduate student enrollment, Asian, and international student enrollments at SJSU were the highest of any campus in the CSU system.
SJSU is consistently listed among the leading suppliers of undergraduate and graduate alumni to Silicon Valley technology firms, and philanthropic support of SJSU is among the highest in the CSU system.
SJSU sports teams are known as the Spartans, and compete in the NCAA Division I FBS Mountain West Conference.
History
Establishment
San José State University was originally established in 1857 as the Minns Evening Normal School in San Francisco. It was founded by George W. Minns.
In 1862, by act of the California legislature, Minns Evening Normal School became the California State Normal School and graduated 54 women from a three-year program.
The school eventually moved to San Jose in 1871, and was given Washington Square Park at S. 4th and San Carlos Streets, where the campus remains to this day.
In 1881, a large bell was forged to commemorate the school. The bell was inscribed with the words "California State Normal School, A.D. 1881," and would sound on special occasions until 1946 when the college obtained new chimes. The original bell appears on the SJSU campus to this day, and is still associated with various student traditions and rituals.
In August 1882, a southern branch campus of the California State Normal School opened in Los Angeles, which later became the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The southern branch campus remained under administrative control of the San Jose campus until 1887.
In 1921, the California State Normal School changed its name to the State Teachers College at San Jose.
In 1935, the State Teachers Colleges became the California State Colleges, and the school's name was changed again, this time to San Jose State College.
In 1972, upon meeting criteria established by the board of trustees and the Coordinating Council for Higher Education, SJSC was granted university status, and the name was changed to California State University, San Jose.
Finally, in 1974, the California legislature voted to change the school's name to San José State University.
Historical milestones
In 1922, the State Teachers College at San Jose adopted the Spartans as the school's official mascot and nickname. Mascots and nicknames prior to 1922 included the Daniels, the Teachers, the Pedagogues, the Normals and the Normalites.
In 1930, the Justice Studies Department was founded as a two-year police science degree program. It holds the distinction of offering the first policing degree in the United States. A stone monument and plaque are displayed close to the site of the original police school near Tower Hall.
In 1942, the old gym (now named Yoshihiro Uchida Hall, after legendary SJSU judo coach Yosh Uchida) was used to register and collect Japanese Americans before sending them to internment camps. Coincidentally, Uchida's own family members were interred at some of these camps.
In 1963, in an effort to save Tower Hall from demolition, SJSU students and alumni organized testimonials before the State College Board of Trustees, sent telegrams and provided signed petitions. As a result of those efforts, the tower, a principal campus landmark and SJSU icon, was refurbished and reopened in 1966. The tower was again renovated and restored in 2007. Tower Hall is registered with the California Office of Historic Preservation.
During the 1960s and early 1970s, San Jose State College witnessed a rise in political activism and civic awareness among its student body, including major student protests against the Vietnam War. One of the largest campus protests took place in 1967 when Dow Chemical Company — a major manufacturer of napalm used in the war — came to campus to conduct job recruiting. An estimated 3,000 students and bystanders surrounded the 7th Street administration building, and more than 200 students and teachers lay down on the ground in front of the recruiters.
In 1982, the English department began sponsoring the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
In 1985, the CADRE Laboratory for New Media was established. It is believed to be the second oldest media lab of its kind in the United States.
In 1999, San Jose State and the City of San Jose agreed to combine their main libraries to form a joint city-university library located on campus, the first known collaboration of this type in the United States. The combined library faced opposition, with critics stating the two libraries have very different objectives and that the project would be too expensive. Despite opposition, the $177 million project proceeded, and the new Martin Luther King Jr. Library opened on time and on budget in 2003. The new library has won several national awards since its initial opening.
During its 2006–07 fiscal year, SJSU received a record $50+ million in private gifts and $84 million in capital campaign contributions.
In 2008, SJSU received a CASE WealthEngine Award in recognition of raising over $100 million. SJSU was one of approximately 50 institutions nationwide honored by CASE in 2008 for overall performance in educational fundraising.
In October 2010, SJSU President Don Kassing publicly launched SJSU's first-ever comprehensive capital fundraising campaign dubbed "Acceleration: the Campaign for San Jose State University." The original goal of the multi-year campaign was to raise $150 million, but was later increased to $200 million because of the rapid success of the campaign. The campaign would eventually exceed its goal one year earlier than anticipated, raising more than $208 million by 2013.
In 2012, the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, awarded SJSU $73.3 million to participate in the development of systems for improving the safety and efficiency of air and space travel. NASA scientists, SJSU faculty and graduate students worked collaboratively on this effort. The grant was the largest federal award in SJSU history.
University Principals and Presidents
Thirty-two people have led San Jose State since its founding, eight were Principals, fifteen have been Presidents, five were Acting Presidents, four were Interim Presidents.
Campus
The SJSU main campus comprises approximately 55 buildings situated on a rectangular, area in downtown San Jose. The campus is bordered by San Fernando Street to the north, San Salvador Street to the south, S. 4th Street to the west, and S. 10th Street to the east. The south campus, which is home to many of the school's athletics facilities, is located approximately south of the main campus on S. 7th Street.
California State Normal School did not receive a permanent home until it moved from San Francisco to San Jose in 1871. The original California State Normal School campus in San Jose consisted of several rectangular, wooden buildings with a central grass quadrangle. The wooden buildings were destroyed by fire in 1880 and were replaced by interconnected stone and masonry structures of roughly the same configuration in 1881.
These buildings were declared unsafe following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and were being torn down when an aftershock of the magnitude that was predicted to destroy the buildings occurred and no damage was observed. Accordingly, demolition was stopped, and the portions of the buildings still standing were subsequently transformed into four halls: Tower Hall, Morris Dailey Auditorium, Washington Square Hall and Dwight Bentel Hall. These four structures remain standing to this day, and are the oldest buildings on campus.
Beginning in the fall of 1994, the on-campus segments of San Carlos Street, 7th Street and 9th Street were closed to automobile traffic and converted to pedestrian walkways and green belts within the campus. San Carlos Street was renamed Paseo de San Carlos, 7th Street became Paseo de César Chávez, and 9th Street is now called the Ninth Street Plaza. The project was completed in 1996.
Completed in 1999, the Business Classroom Project was a $16 million renovation of the James F. Boccardo Business Education Center.
Completed in 1999, the $1.5 million Heritage Gateway project was unveiled. The privately funded project featured construction of eight oversized gateways around the main campus perimeter.
In the fall of 2000, the SJSU Police Department, which is part of the larger California State University Police Department, opened a new on-campus, multi-level facility on 7th Street.
The $177 million Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, which opened its doors on August 1, 2003, won the Library Journal's 2004 Library of the Year award, the publication's highest honor. The King Library represents the first collaboration of its kind between a university and a major U.S. city. The library is eight stories high, has of floor space, and houses approximately 1.3 million volumes. San Jose's first public library occupied the same site from 1901 to 1936, and SJSU's Wahlquist Library occupied the site from 1961 to 2000.
In 2006, a $2 million renovation of Tower Hall was completed. Tower Hall is among the oldest and most recognizable buildings on campus. It was registered as an official California Historical Landmark in 1949. The building was rededicated in 1910 after numerous campus structures were either destroyed or heavily damaged in the 1906 earthquake. Tower Hall, Morris Dailey Auditorium, Washington Square Hall and Dwight Bentel Hall are the four oldest buildings on campus.
The SJSU student union is a four-story, stand-alone facility that features a food court, the Spartan Bookstore, a multi-level study area, ballrooms, a bowling alley, music room and large game room. In September 2010, a $90 million expansion and renovation of the student union commenced. The project added approximately including construction of new ballrooms, food court, theater, meeting rooms and student program spaces. The expansion phase of the project was completed in June 2014. The renovation phase of the project was completed in August 2015.
Construction of a new, three-story, on-campus health center at 7th Street and Paseo de San Carlos was completed in March 2015. The building houses the Student Health Center, Student Affairs office, Counseling Services and Wellness Center. The project was completed at a cost of over $36 million.
In August 2015, a $55 million renovation of the Spartan Complex was completed. The Spartan Complex houses open recreation spaces, gymnasiums, an indoor aquatics center, the kinesiology department, weight rooms, locker rooms, dance and judo studios, and other classroom space. The primary project objectives were to expand existing structures, upgrade the structures to make them compliant with current building codes, correct ADA deficiencies, remove hazardous materials and correct fire safety deficiencies.
Residence halls
The SJSU on-campus housing community comprises seven residence halls, which can accommodate a combined total of 4,458 students. The residence halls are identified as follows:
Campus Village (CV1) – CV1 opened in 2005, replacing three of six red brick residence halls known as "bricks" or "classics." CV1 was the first phase of the multi-phase Campus Village residence complex to be completed. The $200 million housing facility comprises three buildings ranging from seven to 15 stories tall. The complex can accommodate up to 2,600 students, and provides housing options for first-year students, non-freshmen, upper-classmen, graduate students, faculty, staff and guests of the university. The facility also includes a two-story underground parking garage for on-campus residents.
Campus Village (CV2) – CV2 opened in 2016, and was the second phase of the multi-phase Campus Village residence community to be completed. CV2 is an 850-bed, 10-story residence facility located on the SJSU campus near the intersection of 9th Street and Paseo de San Carlos. It is designated for first-year freshman. The estimated cost of the building was $126 million.
Joe West Hall – Also referred to as a "classic," Joe West is a 12-story residence hall reserved for first-year freshmen. This hall houses approximately 650 students.
Washburn Hall – After Hoover Hall and Royce Hall were demolished in 2016, Washburn Hall became the only remaining red brick residence hall on the SJSU campus. Washburn Hall is reserved for first-year freshmen students only. Washburn offers a smaller living-learning environment for 288 residents.
International House (I-House) — Located on S. 11th Street approximately one block east of the Campus Village residence complex, SJSU's International House provides housing for 70 U.S. and international students.
Campus Village (CV3) — CV3 is the proposed third and final phase of the Campus Village on-campus residence community. The construction of CV3 will be broken up into two phases. CV3 (Phase I) will entail replacing Washburn Hall with a new housing structure and new welcome center facing San Salvador Street along the southern edge of campus. CV3 will stand high and contain 850 student beds. CV3 (Phase I) is projected to break ground in 2024 with occupancy planned for fall 2027.
The second phase of CV3 will entail replacing the existing Dining Commons with a new dining facility, as well as replacing Joe West hall with a new housing structure. The new dining facility will have a seating capacity of 900, and the new housing structure will contain 558 beds. A timeline for CV3 (Phase II) has not been finalized as of spring 2023.
Once CV3 is completed, SJSU's total on-campus student housing capacity should increase from 4,458 to 4,928. The projected total cost for CV3 is approximately $334 million.
Alquist building — In January 2023, the California State University Board of Trustees officially approved a public-private partnership between SJSU and local investors that will allow the former Alfred E. Alquist state office building site to be transformed into new housing for SJSU faculty, staff and graduate students. Located one block west of the SJSU main campus, the 1.6-acre (0.65 ha) parcel will be the site of approximately 1,000 new housing rental units. Up to half of those units will be reserved for graduate students. The new housing development will comprise one or more high-rise structures up to tall. The estimated total cost of the project is $750 million. The project's design phase is projected to be completed by early 2024. Construction is projected to begin in late 2024 and be completed in 2027.
Additional on-campus facilities
SJSU is home to the , three-story Nuclear Science Facility. It is the only nuclear science facility of its kind in the California State University system.
Located on the main campus, the Provident Credit Union Event Center seats approximately 5,000 people for athletic events and over 6,500 for concerts.
A new student recreation and aquatic center opened in April 2019. At a cost of $132 million, the new facility houses multiple gymnasiums, basketball courts, multiple weight and fitness centers, exercise rooms, rock climbing wall, indoor track, indoor soccer fields, and competition and recreation pools with support spaces. The new facility is located on the main campus at the corner of 7th Street and San Carlos on the site of the old aquatic center, which was demolished in 2017.
Construction of a new interdisciplinary science building broke ground in April 2019. At a projected cost of $181 million, the new facility will house teaching labs, research labs, faculty offices, a dean's suite and interdisciplinary spaces totaling . The project site is located on the southwest quadrant of campus just north of Duncan Hall. The new building is scheduled for occupancy in 2023.
South Campus
SJSU's South Campus is located in the Spartan Keyes neighborhood, just south of Downtown San Jose. Many of SJSU's athletics facilities, including CEFCU Stadium (formerly known as Spartan Stadium) and the Spartan Golf Complex, along with the athletics department administrative offices and multiple training, practice and competition facilities, are located on the south campus approximately south of the main campus near 7th Street. The south campus also is home to student overflow parking. Shuttle buses run between the main campus and south campus every 10 to 15 minutes Monday through Thursday.
A CEFCU Stadium east-side building addition broke ground in June 2019 and will cost approximately $57.6 million. The new facility will house a football operations center, which will include locker rooms, offices, an auditorium and seating on the 50-yard line. The project will also include a major renovation of the stadium's entire east side. The east-side building addition and stadium improvement project is scheduled to be completed by 2023.
In April 2014, a new $76 million master plan to renovate the entire South Campus was unveiled. The estimated cost was later increased to $150 million including the cost of the new football stadium addition. The plan calls for construction of a golf training facility, new baseball and softball stadiums, new outdoor recreation and intramural facility, new soccer and tennis facilities, three beach volleyball courts, a new multilevel parking garage, and new track and field facility. The new golf, soccer and tennis facilities opened in 2017. The new softball facility opened in 2018, and the beach volleyball courts were completed in 2019. The intramural facility and parking garage were completed in 2021 along with the first phase of a new baseball facility. Remaining projects are either under construction or still in the planning stages.
Off-campus facilities
SJSU Simpkins International House (360 S. 11th Street, San Jose) provides housing for domestic as well as international students of the university. International House (also known as I-House) is a co-ed residence facility for 70 U.S. and international students attending San José State University. The building has served as a residence hall since 1980, and offers cultural exchanges for U.S. students as well as residents from abroad.
The SJSU Department of Aviation and Technology maintains a academic facility at the Reid-Hillview Airport.
SJSU manages the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing, California, on Monterey Bay. MLML is a cooperative research facility of seven CSU campuses. Construction of a new aquaculture laboratory at the MLML site was officially completed in August 2014. The building project included construction of a aquaculture lab building and installation of a tank slab area. The project was made possible by grants from the Packard Foundation.
Art and Metal Foundry (1036 S. 5th Street, San Jose)
Associated Students Child Development Center (460 S. 8th Street, San Jose)
SJSU International and Extended Studies facility (384 S. 2nd Street, San Jose). This off-campus classroom building houses SJSU's International Gateway Programs, a collection of classes geared toward introducing international students to the English language and American culture.
University Club (408 S. 8th Street, San Jose), is a 16-room, multi-level dining, special events, and bed-and-breakfast style residence facility for faculty, staff, visiting scholars and graduate students of the university. This building is currently occupied by Alpha Omicron Pi sorority in agreement with the university.
Known simply as North Fourth Street (210 N. 4th Street, San Jose), this four-story facility houses the Global Studies Institute, Governmental and External Affairs, International and Extended Studies, the Mineta Transportation Institute, the Processed Foods Institute, and the SJSU Research Foundation.
Organization
As a member institution of the California State University System, San Jose State falls under the jurisdiction of the California State University Board of Trustees and the chancellor of the California State University.
The chief executive of San José State University is the university president. On December 21, 2021, Mary A. Papazian officially resigned as SJSU president. CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro appointed Stephen Perez as interim university president effective January 3, 2022. Perez previously served as provost and vice president of academic affairs at California State University, Sacramento.
In November 2022, the California State University Board of Trustees named Cynthia Teniente-Matson as the new, permanent SJSU president. Teniente-Matson officially took over in January 2023.
The university is organized into nine colleges:
Lucas College and Graduate School of Business
Connie L. Lurie College of Education
Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering
College of Graduate Studies
College of Health and Human Sciences (Formerly known as the College of Applied Sciences and Arts)
College of Humanities and the Arts
College of Professional and Global Education (Formerly known as the College of International and Extended Studies)
College of Science
College of Social Sciences
Additionally, SJSU has seven focused schools:
School of Art and Design
Lucas College and Graduate School of Business
School of Information
School of Journalism and Mass Communications
School of Music and Dance
The Valley Foundation School of Nursing
School of Social Work
Academics
As of spring 2023, San José State University offers 150 bachelor's degree programs, 95 master's degrees, five doctoral degrees, 11 different credential programs and 42 certificates. SJSU is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
SJSU's doctoral degree offerings include a Ph.D. program in library and information science offered jointly through Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England, a doctor of audiology (Au.D.), an Ed.D. program in educational leadership, a doctor of nursing practice (DNP), and an occupational therapy doctorate (OTD).
As of fall 2022, some of the more popular fields of study at SJSU included engineering, business, library and information science, psychology, kinesiology and computer science.
Areas of study somewhat unique to SJSU include artificial intelligence, aviation, climate science, meteorology, packaging, software engineering, sustainable and green manufacturing technology, and transportation management.
As of fall 2022, the university's Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering, with 7,125 undergraduate and graduate students, was the largest college on campus. SJSU's Lucas College and Graduate School of Business was the second largest college on campus with a total enrollment of 6,329 undergraduate and graduate students. The university's College of Social Sciences, with 5,681 undergraduate and graduate students, was the third-largest college at SJSU. Enrollment wise, the Lucas College of Business is among the largest business schools in the country. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, a distinction held by less than 5% of business programs worldwide.
Rankings
According to the 2022-2023 U.S. News & World Report college rankings, San Jose State is ranked No. 4 academically out of 59 public regional universities in the western United States. SJSU is ranked No. 16 among all 120 "regional universities" in the western U.S.
SJSU's undergraduate engineering program is ranked tied for No. 15 nationally among 230 public and private colleges that do not offer doctoral degrees in engineering, according to the 2022-2023 U.S. News & World Report college rankings.
SJSU is ranked No. 108 out of approximately 500 institutions nationwide on the 2022 Forbes America's Top Colleges list. SJSU is ranked No. 43 nationally on the Forbes list of top public universities and colleges. Forbes also ranked SJSU No. 40 nationally out of approximately 300 colleges and universities on the most recent Forbes list of America's Best Value Colleges (2019).
Money magazine ranked San Jose State No. 31 nationally out of approximately 625 schools it evaluated for its 2022 "Best Colleges in America" ranking. Money also ranked SJSU No. 27 nationally on its 2022 list of Best Public Colleges, No. 39 on its list of Best Colleges for Engineering Majors, and No. 19 on Money's list of Best Colleges in the West. Finally, Money magazine ranked San Jose State No. 1 nationally on its 2020 list of "Most Transformative Colleges."
SJSU is ranked No. 291 out of more than 800 U.S. colleges and universities in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings 2022. The ranking is based on 15 individual performance indicators and responses from more than 170,000 current college students.
Washington Monthly ranked SJSU No. 53 nationally out of 603 master's universities (2022). Washington Monthly ranks colleges based on their "contribution to the public good in three broad categories: social mobility, research, and promoting public service."
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, which provides an assessment of the scholarly contents, visibility and impact of universities on the web, ranked SJSU No. 701 out of approximately 12,000 universities worldwide, and No. 200 out of approximately 3,200 U.S. colleges and universities (2022).
Undergraduate admissions
Admission to SJSU is based on a combination of the applicant's high school cumulative grade point average (GPA) and standardized test scores. These factors are used to determine the applicant's California State University (CSU) eligibility index. More specifically, the eligibility index is a weighted combination of the applicant's high school grade point average during the final three years of high school and either the SAT or ACT score.
The CSU eligibility index is calculated by using either the SAT or ACT as follows: (Sum of SAT scores in mathematics and critical reading) + (800 x high school GPA) or (10 x ACT composite score without the writing score) + (200 x high school GPA).
In fall 2022, a total of 34,783 first-time, first-year (freshmen) applications were submitted, with 26,083 applicants accepted (75.0%) and 4,036 enrolling (15.5% of those accepted).
Among first-time, first-year (freshmen) students who enrolled in fall 2021, SAT scores for the middle 50.0% ranged from 1030–1310. ACT composite scores for the middle 50.0% ranged from 20–31. The average high school GPA for incoming freshmen was 3.54. Approximately 39.0% of all incoming freshmen had a high school GPA between 3.75 and 4.0. and 18% had an incoming average high school GPA of 4.0
In recent years, enrollment at SJSU has become impacted in all undergraduate majors, which means the university no longer has the enrollment capacity to accept all CSU-eligible applicants, including some from local high schools and community colleges. Although an applicant may meet the minimum CSU admission requirements, CSU-eligible applicants are no longer guaranteed admission.
Undergraduate graduation and retention
Among all first-time freshmen students who enrolled at SJSU in fall 2017, 30% graduated within four years; 68% who enrolled in fall 2015 graduated within six years. Among new undergraduate transfer students who enrolled at SJSU in fall 2017, 33.0% graduated within two years, 69% graduated within three years, and 80.0% graduated within four years. Among first-time graduate students who enrolled at SJSU in fall 2017, 52.0% graduated within two years, 78% graduated within three years, and 83.0% graduated within four years.
The percentage of undergraduate students from the fall 2019 cohort returning in fall 2020 was 86.0% for full-time freshman students, 90.0% for new undergraduate transfer students, and 92.0% for first-time graduate students.
Faculty and research
As of fall 2022, San José State University employed 2,243 faculty, 1,363 of whom (or about 61%) were full-time or equivalent (FTEF).
According to National Science Foundation survey data, in 2021 San Jose State's research and development expenditures totaled $60.1 million, placing it second in total R&D expenditures out of all 23 California State University (CSU) campuses and No. 189 out of more than 900 colleges and universities nationwide.
Research collections located at SJSU include the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, the J. Gordon Edwards Entomology Museum and the Carl W. Sharsmith Herbarium.
SJSU research partnerships include the SJSU Metropolitan Technology Center at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, the Cisco Networking Laboratory, and the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. SJSU is also home to the Mineta Transportation Institute.
Additionally, the university operates the Survey and Policy Research Institute (SPRI), which conducts the quarterly, high-profile California Consumer Confidence Survey and many other research projects.
SJSU is a member institution of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program.
Since 1979, the SJSU Department of Kinesiology operates the Timpany Center (located at 730 Empey Way), a non-profit therapeutic facility open to all and owned by the County of Santa Clara. The center is dedicated to the health and fitness of those with a disability or age-related concerns.
Since 1989, the SJSU Environmental Studies Department has headquartered and operated the Center for the Development of Recycling, an environmental research and service organization.
On July 21, 2012, SJSU launched its first miniaturized satellite used for space research, TechEdSat, in a partnership with the NASA Ames Research Center.
Since 2014, SJSU has operated the Silicon Valley Big Data and Cybersecurity Center (BDCC). The center serves as a cybersecurity research and knowledge hub by creating multidisciplinary collaborations between faculty members from across the university and Silicon Valley tech companies.
Air Force ROTC
Known academically as the Department of Aerospace Studies, SJSU's Detachment 045 is one of only two Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps detachments in the San Francisco Bay Area. As such, Detachment 045 hosts "crosstown cadets" from other Bay Area schools including Santa Clara University, Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz. San Jose State students and crosstown cadets enrolled in the AFROTC program learn leadership skills and participate in a number of other mandatory activities leading to an active-duty U.S. military officer commission.
Student life
As the oldest and one of the largest universities in the CSU system, SJSU attracts students from California, the United States, and 100 countries around the world. As of fall 2022, 35,751 students were enrolled at SJSU including 26,863 undergraduate students and 8,888 graduate and credential students. Approximately 51% of students were male and 49% were female. Graduate student enrollment at SJSU was the highest of any campus in the CSU system.
As of fall 2022, the average age of undergraduate students at SJSU was 22.2. The average age of graduate students was 29.0, and the average age of credential students was 31.7.
Approximately 4,500 students (12.5%) live in campus housing and community impact studies show an estimated 5,000 more students live within easy walking or biking distance of the campus. Additionally, approximately 45% of all first-year (freshman) students live in campus residence facilities.
As of 2022, there were over 475 recognized student organizations at SJSU. These include academic and honorary organizations, cultural and religious organizations, special interest organizations, fraternities and sororities, and a wide variety of club sports organizations.
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities have existed at SJSU since 1896. SJSU is home to 43 social fraternity and sorority chapters managed by Student Involvement. Greek life at SJSU comprises both social (NIC & NPC) and cultural (NPHC & USFC) organizations. Eighteen different fraternities and sororities maintain chapter homes in the residential community east of campus along S. 10th and 11th streets, north of campus along San Fernando Street, and south of campus along San Salvador Street, S. 8th Street, and E. Reed Street, in downtown San Jose. The only SJSU Greek organization not part of the Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils that maintains a chapter house is Alpha Phi Alpha. Interfraternity Council members Alpha Sigma Phi and Pi Kappa Phi do not yet have chapter homes.
An additional 26 fraternities are co-ed and are either major-related, honors-related, or community service related. The United Sorority and Fraternity Council (USFC) at San José State University was established in 2003. USFC is the coordinating body for the 17 cultural interest fraternities and sororities at SJSU. Approximately 6% of male students join social fraternities, and 6% of female students join social sororities.
Spartan Marching Band
The Spartan marching band comprises students from every field of study on campus, from first year undergraduates through graduate students, as well as several "open university" members. At each home football game, the Spartan marching band performs a completely new halftime show, plus a pre-game show and a post-game concert. The band reflects all the color and fanfare of major university sports pageantry. The band is unofficially known as "The Pride of the Spartans," and generally performs with a color guard and dance team. The band performs at all home football games, and also travels with the team for select road games.
Spartan Squad
Founded in 2005, the Spartan Squad is the official student booster program at San Jose State. The Spartan Squad is run by the Associated Students and is open to all undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at San Jose State. Its stated mission is to increase student attendance at sporting events and cultivate school pride throughout the campus community. The Spartan Squad members are easily recognized wearing the group's signature gold T-shirts designed by San Jose State graphic design student Dang Nguyen. Class of 2006 graduates Matthew Olivieri and Brad Villeggiante are credited with founding the group.
Student press
The school newspaper, The Spartan Daily, was founded in 1934 and is published three days a week when classes are in session. The publication follows a broadsheet format and has a daily print circulation of over 6,000, as well as a daily on-line edition. The newspaper is produced by journalism and advertising students enrolled in SJSU's School of Journalism and Mass Communications. The journalism school, including The Spartan Daily newsroom and other student press facilities, are housed inside Dwight Bentel Hall. The building was named after the department's founder and long time chairman, Dwight Bentel. The journalism school also runs an on-campus advertising agency, Dwight, Bentel and Hall Communications.
Update News is a weekly, student-produced television newscast that airs every weekend on KICU, Channel 36 in San Jose. The newscast is produced by San Jose State broadcast journalism students, and has aired in the Bay Area since 1982. The newscast previously aired on educational station KTEH. Update News also features a daily live webcast.
Equal Time is a news magazine show produced by the San Jose State School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Each half-hour episode examines a different issue in depth, and ends with a roundtable discussion featuring professors and other experts in search of solutions. Equal Time airs Saturday afternoons on KQED+ (Channel 54 or Comcast Channel 10) in the Bay Area.
Established in 1963, KSJS, 90.5 FM, is the university's student-run radio station. KSJS features live broadcasts of San Jose State athletic events, various types of music including electronic, urban, jazz, subversive rock, and rock en Español, as well as specialty talk shows.
Notable student organizations
W6YL is a student-run amateur radio station that has been in continuous operation for years. Originally founded in 1927 when SJSU was still known as San Jose State Teachers College, SJSU Amateur Radio Club W6YL is recognized as one of the oldest continuously operating student organizations on campus. The SJSU Amateur Radio Club is a federally licensed radio station that operates under the callsign W6YL on amateur radio bands.
Athletics
San José State University has participated in athletics since it first fielded a baseball team in 1890. SJSU sports teams are known as the Spartans, and compete in the Mountain West Conference (MWC) in NCAA Division I.
San José State University sports teams have won NCAA national titles in track and field, golf, boxing, fencing and tennis. As of December 2022, SJSU has won 10 NCAA national Division 1 team championships and produced 50 NCAA national Division 1 individual champions. SJSU also has achieved an international reputation for its judo program, winning 51 National Collegiate Judo Association (NCJA) men's team championship titles and 26 NCJA women's team championship titles between 1962 and 2022.
SJSU alumni have won 20 Olympic medals (including seven gold medals) dating back to the first gold medal won by Willie Steele in track and field in the 1948 Summer Olympics. Alumni also have won medals in swimming, judo, water polo and boxing.
The track team coached by "Bud" Winter earned San Jose State the nickname "Speed City," and produced Olympic medalists and social activists Lee Evans, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Smith and Carlos are perhaps best remembered for giving the raised fist salute from the medalist's podium during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. In 2005, a monument of the protest was built on Tower Lawn, designed by artist Rigo 23 and titled Victory Salute, the monument encourages passerby's to recreate the historic moment. The track and field program was canceled in 1988 after a series of budget cuts and Title IX related decisions decimated the program. The program was reinstated in 2016.
After an 11-2 finish in 2012, SJSU's football team achieved its first-ever BCS ranking and first national ranking since 1990. SJSU was ranked No. 21 in both the 2012 post-season Associated Press Poll and the USA Today Coaches' Poll.
The Spartan football team had another breakout season in 2020, cracking the AP Poll top-25 for the first time since 2012 and appearing in the College Football Playoff ranking at No. 24. The team also won its first conference championship title since 1991. The Spartans finished the 2020 season 7-1 and ranked No. 24 in the AP Poll.
Club sports
In addition to its various NCAA Division I sports programs, San José State University has a very active club sports community consisting of approximately 25 sports and 50 teams. Many of the club sports teams are run and organized by students, although some of the more established teams employ full-time paid coaches and enjoy strong alumni support. The list of club sports active at SJSU includes:
Men's and women's archery, men's and women's badminton, baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's bowling, men's and women's boxing, men's and women's cycling, dancesport, men's and women's dragon boat racing, esports, men's and women's fencing, men's and women's figure skating, men's and women's gymnastics, ACHA Division II and Division lll men's ice hockey, women's ice hockey, men's and women's judo, MCLA Division II men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, mountain biking, men's and women's powerlifting, men's and women's quidditch, men's roller hockey, men's and women's rugby, salsa, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming, track and field, triathlon, ultimate Frisbee, men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's water polo, and men's and women's wrestling.
Traditions
The old campus bell, which was originally located in a small tower to the right of the main entrance to the campus, was purchased and installed in 1881 at a cost of $1,217. The bell chimed each morning at eight o'clock until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake stilled its voice. When Tower Hall was constructed in 1909, it was specially designed to house the old bell. The bell rang on special occasions until the college obtained new carillon chimes in 1946. The old bell is displayed to this day on the Washington Square quad near Tower Hall.
In 1922, the State Teachers College at San Jose adopted the Spartans as the school's official mascot and nickname. Mascots and nicknames prior to 1922 included the Daniels, the Teachers, the Pedagogues, the Normals and the Normalites.
In 1925, students debated whether to change the school colors from gold and white to purple and white. Tradition won out, and the students decided to keep the original colors, gold and white. At some point prior to 1929 when the SJSU Alma Mater was officially adopted, blue was added as an official school color alongside gold and white.
According to information published in the old SJSU La Torre yearbook, Spardi Gras was first held in 1929 on George Washington's birthday. Spardi Gras was described in the 1929 edition of La Torre as "[an] event which met with unprecedented participance by the entire student body ... a gala occasion of play, sport, and merrymaking later authorized by the Executive Board as an annual event because of its great success." Spardi Gras was last mentioned in La Torre in 1960.
Another longstanding event at SJSU was "Spartan Revelries." According to information published in the 1960 edition of La Torre, Spartan Revelries was an "all-student college musical event written, produced and presented entirely by students." It's unclear when Spartan Revelries began, but some believe it started in 1929 as a grand finale to Spardi Gras. In 1949, an official Revelries board was established to carry out the business and management of each year's show, which had grown into a major annual event requiring the efforts of many students and several months of preparation.
Sparta Camp was an annual event held between 1953 and 1965. The retreat was hosted by the Associated Students and was held every spring at the Asilomar State Beach. The event was open to all students with an interest in student government, and students had to apply to go. Participants attended workshops and discussion groups on leadership. A similar event known as Freshman Camp was also held at Asilomar every September to help new students get oriented to the campus and the "Spirit of Sparta."
The chimes heard on the SJSU campus each quarter hour are Westminster chimes, which were a gift from the class of 1947. They ring the same tones as the famous Big Ben chimes in England.
Whenever the Spartan Fight Song or SJSU Alma Mater are played, students are asked to stand, remove their hats and sing along. Players and students typically sing the fight song at the end of football games.
Students and alumni, no matter where they are in the world, show their Spartan pride every Thursday by wearing Spartan blue and gold.
Each year during homecoming week, SJSU hosts a series of events leading up to the homecoming football game at CEFCU Stadium. Events include the Campus MovieFest Finale and Fire on the Fountain festival.
Alumni
About 60% of San Jose State's 275,000 living alumni of record reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. The other 40% are scattered around the globe, with concentrations in Southern California, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
SJSU is consistently listed among the leading suppliers of undergraduate and graduate alumni to Silicon Valley science and technology firms. In 2015, San José State University was listed as the top feeder school for Apple Inc., which employed over 1,000 SJSU graduates at the time. SJSU ranked 9th on the list of top feeder schools for Facebook.
Some of the more notable SJSU alumni in science and engineering include Ray Dolby, founder of Dolby sound systems; Dian Fossey, primatologist and gorilla researcher; Gordon Moore, founder of Intel Corporation and creator of "Moore's law;" and Ed Oates, co-founder of Oracle.
Nearly 200 former SJSU students and graduates have founded, co-founded, served or serve as senior executives or officers of public and private companies reporting annual sales between $40 million and $26 billion. This list includes former Intel Corporation CEO, Brian Krzanich, and current Crown Worldwide Group CEO, billionaire James E. Thompson.
Notable companies founded by SJSU students and alumni include Dolby Laboratories (1965), Intel Corporation (1968), Specialized Bicycle Components (1974), Oracle Corporation (1977), Seagate Technology (1979) and WhatsApp (2008).
Musicians Doug Clifford and Stu Cook (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons (The Doobie Brothers), Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac) and Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane) all attended San Jose State.
SJSU alumni Dick Vermeil and Bill Walsh earned a combined four Super Bowl victories as NFL head coaches.
San Jose State alumnus and 1964 U.S. Open winner Ken Venturi was named Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" and later inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
See also
California Master Plan for Higher Education
Education in California
List of American state universities
Notes
References
External links
San José State University athletics website
California State University campuses
Public universities and colleges in California
Universities and colleges in San Jose
Universities and colleges established in 1857
1857 establishments in California
Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Tourist attractions in San Jose, California
Aviation schools in the United States
California Historical Landmarks
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral%20edema
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Cerebral edema
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Cerebral edema is excess accumulation of fluid (edema) in the intracellular or extracellular spaces of the brain. This typically causes impaired nerve function, increased pressure within the skull, and can eventually lead to direct compression of brain tissue and blood vessels. Symptoms vary based on the location and extent of edema and generally include headaches, nausea, vomiting, seizures, drowsiness, visual disturbances, dizziness, and in severe cases, death.
Cerebral edema is commonly seen in a variety of brain injuries including ischemic stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, traumatic brain injury, subdural, epidural, or intracerebral hematoma, hydrocephalus, brain cancer, brain infections, low blood sodium levels, high altitude, and acute liver failure. Diagnosis is based on symptoms and physical examination findings and confirmed by serial neuroimaging (computed tomography scans and magnetic resonance imaging).
The treatment of cerebral edema depends on the cause and includes monitoring of the person's airway and intracranial pressure, proper positioning, controlled hyperventilation, medications, fluid management, steroids. Extensive cerebral edema can also be treated surgically with a decompressive craniectomy. Cerebral edema is a major cause of brain damage and contributes significantly to the mortality of ischemic strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
As cerebral edema is present with many common cerebral pathologies, the epidemiology of the disease is not easily defined. The incidence of this disorder should be considered in terms of its potential causes and is present in most cases of traumatic brain injury, central nervous system tumors, brain ischemia, and intracerebral hemorrhage. For example, malignant brain edema was present in roughly 31% of people with ischemic strokes within 30 days after onset.
Signs and symptoms
The extent and severity of the symptoms of cerebral edema depend on the exact etiology but are generally related to an acute increase of the pressure within the skull. As the skull is a fixed and inelastic space, the accumulation of cerebral edema can displace and compress vital brain tissue, cerebral spinal fluid, and blood vessels, according to the Monro-Kellie doctrine.
Increased intracranial pressure (ICP) is a life-threatening surgical emergency marked by symptoms of headache, nausea, vomiting, decreased consciousness. Symptoms are frequently accompanied by visual disturbances such as gaze paresis, reduced vision, and dizziness. Increased pressures within the skull can cause a compensatory elevation of blood pressure to maintain cerebral blood flow, which, when associated with irregular breathing and a decreased heart rate, is called the Cushing reflex. The Cushing reflex often indicates compression of the brain on brain tissue and blood vessels, leading to decreased blood flow to the brain and eventually death.
Causes
Cerebral edema is frequently encountered in acute brain injuries from a variety of origins, including but not limited to:
Traumatic brain injury
Stroke
Tumors
Infections (such as a brain abscess or meningitis)
Hepatic encephalopathy
Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome
Radiation-induced brain edema
Post-surgical changes
Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities associated with edema (ARIA-E)
Hyponatremia
High-altitude cerebral edema
Risk factors
Cerebral edema is present with many common cerebral pathologies and risk factors for development of cerebral edema will depend on the cause. The following were reliable predictors for development of early cerebral edema in ischemic strokes.
Younger age
Higher severity of symptoms on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale
Signs of current ischemia on clinical exam
Decreased level of consciousness
Hyper dense artery sign and larger affected area on CT imaging
Higher blood glucose
Classification
Cerebral edema has been traditional classified into two major sub-types: cytotoxic and vasogenic cerebral edema. This simple classification helps guide medical decision making and treatment of patients affected with cerebral edema. There are, however, several more differentiated types including but not limited to interstitial, osmotic, hydrostatic, and high altitude associated edema. Within one affected person, many individual sub-types can be present simultaneously.
The following individual sub-types have been identified:
Cytotoxic
In general, cytotoxic edema is linked to cell death in the brain through excessive cellular swelling. During cerebral ischemia for example, the blood–brain barrier remains intact but decreased blood flow and glucose supply leads to a disruption in cellular metabolism and creation of energy sources, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Exhaustion of energy sources impairs functioning of the sodium and potassium pump in the cell membrane, leading to cellular retention of sodium ions. Accumulation of sodium in the cell causes a rapid uptake of water through osmosis, with subsequent swelling of the cells. The ultimate consequence of cytotoxic edema is the oncotic death of neurons. The swelling of the individual cells of the brain is the main distinguishing characteristic of cytotoxic edema, as opposed to vasogenic edema, wherein the influx of fluid is typically seen in the interstitial space rather than within the cells themselves. Researchers have proposed that "cellular edema" may be more preferable to the term "cytotoxic edema" given the distinct swelling and lack of consistent "toxic" substance involved.
There are several clinical conditions in which cytotoxic edema is present:
Commonly caused by traumatic brain injuries, intracerebral hemorrhage, and the early phase of ischemic stroke.
Also seen in acute liver failure where toxic waste, most notably ammonia, accumulates in the blood stream and crosses the blood–brain barrier. Hyperammonemia in central nervous system (CNS) cells causes oxidative stress and mitochrondrial dysfunction, leading to astrocytic cell swelling. Additionally, ammonia is converted to glutamine in CNS cells which acts as an osmolyte and draws further water into the cell through osmosis. Cerebral edema occurs most commonly in conjunction with a rapid rise in ammonia levels.
Toxic exposures to methionine sulfoximine, cuprizone, isoniazid, triethyltin, hexachlorophene, and hydrogen cyanide have been associated with cytotoxic edema and swelling of astrocytic cells.
Hypoxia, anoxia can lead to cytotoxic edema through several mechanisms
Vasogenic
Extracellular brain edema, or vasogenic edema, is caused by an increase in the permeability of the blood–brain barrier. The blood–brain barrier consists of astrocytes and pericytes joined together with adhesion proteins producing tight junctions. Return of blood flow to these cells after an ischemic stroke can cause excitotoxicity and oxidative stress leading to dysfunction of the endothelial cells and disruption of the blood-brain barrier. The breakdown of the tight endothelial junctions that make up the blood–brain barrier causes extravasation of fluid, ions, and plasma proteins, such as albumin, into the brain parenchyma. Accumulation of extracellular fluid increases brain volume and then intracranial pressure causing the symptoms of cerebral edema.
There are several clinical conditions in which vasogenic edema is present:
CNS tumors, like glioblastoma and meningioma
Infections like meningitis, abscess, and encephalitis
Inflammatory central nervous system disease such as multiple sclerosis
Brain hemorrhage
Traumatic brain injuries can lead to increased intracranial pressure, local damage, reduced cerebral blood flow, and focal ischemia secondary to vasogenic edema.
Late stage of ischemic stroke after rapid recovery from cytotoxic edema
Hypertensive encephalopathy
Radiation injury
Ionic (Osmotic)
In ionic edema, the solute concentration (osmolality) of the brain exceeds that of the plasma and the abnormal pressure gradient leads to accumulation of water intake into the brain parenchyma through the process of osmosis. The blood-brain barrier is intact and maintains the osmotic gradient.
The solute concentration of the blood plasma can be diluted by several mechanisms:
Improper administration of intravenous fluids, isotonic or hypotonic.
Excessive water intake, syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (SIADH).
Rapid reduction of blood glucose in diabetic ketoacidosis or hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state.
Hemodialysis has been associated with ionic edema and cellular swelling.
Cerebral edema is a potentially life threatening complication of severely decreased sodium ion concentration in the blood (hyponatremia).
Ionic brain edema can also occur around the sites of brain hemorrhages, infarcts, or contusions due to a local plasma osmolality pressure gradient when compared to the high osmolality in the affected tissue.
Interstitial (hydrocephalic)
Interstitial edema can be best characterized by in noncomunnicating hydrocephalus where there is an obstruction to the outflow of cerebrospinal fluid within the ventricular system. The obstruction creates a rise in the intraventricular pressure and causes CSF to flow through the wall of the ventricles into the extracellular fluid within brain. The fluid has roughly the same composition of CSF.
Other causes of interstitial edema include but are not limited to communicating hydrocephalus, and normal pressure hydrocephalus.
Hydrostatic
Hydrostatic extracellular brain edema is typically caused by severe arterial hypertension. A difference in the hydrostatic pressure within the arterial system relative to the endothelial cells allows ultrafiltration of water, ions, and low molecular weight substances (such as glucose, small amino acids) into the brain parenchyma. The blood-brain barrier is intact usually and the extent of the edema depends on the arterial pressure. The regulatory processes of the brain circulation can function up to systolic arterial pressures of 150 mm Hg and will have impaired function at higher blood pressures.
Combined types of cerebral edema
Cytotoxic, osmotic, and vasogenic edema exist on a continuum. The mechanism of the cause of cerebral edema can often overlap between these types. In most instances, cytotoxic and vasogenic edema occur together. When the two edema types evolve simultaneously, the damage of one type reaches a limit and will bring about the other type of injury. For example, when cytotoxic edema occurs in the endothelial cells of the blood–brain barrier, oncotic cell death contributes to loss of integrity of the blood–brain barrier and promotes the progression to vasogenic edema. When brain edema types are combined, there is typically a primary form and the edema type and context of the cause must be determined in order to start appropriate medical or surgical therapy. The use of specific MRI techniques has allowed for some differentiation between the mechanisms.
Subtypes
High-altitude cerebral edema
If not properly acclimatized to high altitude, a person may be negatively affected by the lower oxygen concentration available. These hypoxia-related illnesses include acute mountain sickness (AMS), high-altitude pulmonary edema, and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE). High-altitude cerebral edema is a severe and sometimes fatal form of altitude sickness that results from capillary fluid leakage due to the effects of hypoxia on the mitochondria-rich endothelial cells of the blood–brain barrier. The edema can be characterized by vasogenic cerebral edema with symptoms of impaired consciousness and truncal ataxia.
Altitude-related illnesses can be prevented most effectively with slow ascent to high altitudes, an average ascent of 300 to 500 meters per day is recommended. Pharmacological prophylaxis with acetazolamide or corticosteroids can be used in non pre-acclimatized individuals. If symptoms of high-altitude cerebral edema do not resolve or worsen, immediate descent is necessary, and symptoms can be improved with administration of dexamethasone.
Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities – edema
Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) are abnormal differences seen in neuroimaging of Alzheimer's disease patients given targeted amyloid-modifying therapies. Human monoclonal antibodies such as aducanumab, solanezumab, and bapineuzumab have been associated with these neuroimaging changes and additionally, cerebral edema. These therapies are associated with dysfunction of the tight endothelial junctions of the blood-brain barrier, leading to vasogenic edema as described above. In addition to edema, these therapies are associated with microhemorrhages in the brain known as ARIA-H. Familiarity with ARIA can aid radiologists and clinicians in determining optimal management for those affected.
Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome
Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is a rare clinical disease characterized by cerebral edema. The exact pathophysiology, or cause, of the syndrome is still debated but is hypothesized to be related to the disruption of the blood-brain barrier. The syndrome features acute neurological symptoms and reversible subcortical vasogenic edema predominantly involving the parieto-occipital areas on MR imaging. PRES in general has a benign course, but PRES-related intracranial hemorrhage has been associated with a poor prognosis.
Idiopathic delayed-onset edema
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective treatment for several neurological and psychiatric disorders, most notably Parkinson's disease. DBS is not without risks and although rare, idiopathic delayed-onset edema (IDE) surrounding the DBS leads have been reported. Symptoms can be mild and nonspecific, including reduction of the stimulation effect, and can be confused for other causes of edema. Thus, imaging is recommended to rule out other causes. The condition is generally self-limiting and the exact mechanism of the cause is unexplained. Early identification can help persons affected avoid unnecessary surgical procedures or antibiotic treatments.
Massive brain swelling after cranioplasty
Decompressive craniectomy is frequently performed in cases of resistant intracranial hypertension secondary to several neurological conditions and is commonly followed by cranioplasty. Complications, such as infection and hematomas after cranioplasty occur in roughly about a third of cases. Massive brain swelling after cranioplasty (MSBC) is a rare and potentially fatal complication of an uneventful cranioplasty that has recently been elucidated. Preoperative sinking skin flap (SSF) and intracranial hypotension were factors associated with the development of MSBC after cranioplasty. Data suggests that pathologic changes are triggered immediately following the procedure, especially an acute increase in intracranial pressure.
Radiation-induced brain edema
With the rise of sophisticated treatment modalities such as gamma knife, Cyberknife, and intensity-modulated radiotherapy, a large number of individuals with brain tumors are treated with radiosurgery and radiotherapy. Radiation-induced brain edema (RIBE) is a potentially life threatening complication of brain tissue radiation and is characterized radiation necrosis, endothelial cell dysfunction, increased capillary permeability, and breakdown of the blood–brain barrier. Symptoms include headache, seizure, psychomotor slowing, irritability, and focal neurological deficits. Options for management of RIBE are limited and include corticosteroids, antiplatelet drugs, anticoagulants, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, multivitamins, and bevacizumab.
Brain tumor-associated cerebral edema
This kind of cerebral edema is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with brain tumors and characterized by a disruption of the blood brain barrier and vasogenic edema. The exact mechanism is unclear but hypothesized that cancerous glial cells (glioma) of the brain can increase secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which weakens the tight junctions of the blood–brain barrier. Historically, corticosteroids such as dexamethasone were used to reduce brain tumor-associated vascular permeability through poorly understood mechanisms and was associated with systemic side effects. Agents that target the VEGF signaling pathways, such as cediranib, have been promising in prolonging survival in rat models but associated with local and systemic side effects as well.
Diagnosis
Cerebral edema is commonly present in a variety of neurological injuries. Thus, determining a definitive contribution of cerebral edema to the neurological status of an affected person can be challenging. Close bedside monitoring of a person's level of consciousness and awareness of any new or worsening focal neurological deficits is imperative but demanding, frequently requiring admission into the intensive care unit (ICU).
Cerebral edema with sustained increased intracranial hypertension and brain herniation can signify impending catastrophic neurological events which require immediate recognition and treatment to prevent injury and even death. Therefore, diagnosis of cerebral edema earlier with rapid intervention can improve clinical outcomes and can mortality, or risk of death.
Diagnosis of cerebral edema relies on the following:
Imaging
Serial neuroimaging (CT scans and magnetic resonance imaging) can be useful in diagnosing or excluding intracranial hemorrhage, large masses, acute hydrocephalus, or brain herniation as well as providing information on the type of edema present and the extent of affected area. CT scan is the imaging modality of choice as it is widely available, quick, and with minimal risks. However, CT scan can be limited in determining the exact cause of cerebral edema in which cases, CT angiography (CTA), MRI, or digital subtraction angiography (DSA) may be necessary. MRI is particularly useful as it can differentiate between cytotoxic and vasogenic edema, guiding future treatment decisions.
Intracranial pressure monitoring
Intracranial pressure (ICP) and its management is a fundamental concept in traumatic brain injury (TBI). The Brain Trauma Foundation guidelines recommend ICP monitoring in individuals with TBI that have decreased Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores, abnormal CT scans, or additional risk factors such as older age and elevated blood pressure. However, no such guidelines exist for ICP monitoring in other brain injuries such as ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, cerebral neoplasm.
Clinical researches have recommended ICP and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) monitoring in any persons with cerebral injury who are at risk of elevated intracranial pressure based on clinical and neuroimaging features. Early monitoring can be used to guide medical and surgical decision making and to detect potentially life-threatening brain herniation. There was however, conflicting evidence on the threshold values of ICP that indicated the need for intervention. Researches also recommend that medical decisions should be tailored to the specific diagnosis (e.g. subarachnoid hemorrhage, TBI, encephalitis) and that ICP elevation should be used in conjunction with clinical and neuroimaging and not as an isolated prognostic marker.
Treatment
The primary goal in cerebral edema is to optimize and regulate cerebral perfusion, oxygenation, and venous drainage, decrease cerebral metabolic demands, and to stabilize the osmolality pressure gradient between the brain and the surrounding vasculature. As cerebral edema is linked to increased intracranial pressure (ICP), many of the therapies will focus on ICP.
General measures for managing cerebral edema
Positioning
Finding the optimal head position in persons with cerebral edema is necessary to avoid compression of the jugular vein and obstruction of venous outflow from the skull, and for decreasing cerebrospinal fluid hydrostatic pressure. The current recommendation is to elevate the head of the bed to 30 degrees to optimize cerebral perfusion pressure and control the increase in intracranial pressure. It is also worth noting that measures should be taken to reduce restrictive neck dressings or garments as these may lead to compression of the internal jugular veins and reduce venous outflow.
Ventilation and oxygenation
Decreased oxygen concentration in the blood, hypoxia, and increase in the carbon dioxide concentration in the blood, hypercapnia, are potent vasodilators in the cerebral vasculature, and should be avoided in those with cerebral edema. It is recommended that persons with decreased levels of consciousness be intubated for airway protection and maintenance of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. However, the laryngeal instrumentation involved in the intubation process is associated with an acute, brief rise in intracranial pressure. Pretreatment with a sedative agent and neuromuscular blocking agent to induce unconsciousness and motor paralysis has been recommended as part of standard Rapid Sequence Intubation (RSI). Intravenous lidocaine prior to RSI has been suggested to reduce the rise in ICP but there is no supporting data at this time.
Additionally, ventilation with use of positive pressure (PEEP) can improve oxygenation with the negative effect of decreasing cerebral venous drainage and increasing intracranial pressure (ICP), and thus, must be used with caution.
Fluid management and cerebral perfusion
Maintenance of cerebral perfusion pressure using appropriate fluid management is essential in patients with brain injury. Dehydration, or intravascular volume loss, and the use of hypotonic fluids, such as D5W or half normal saline, should be avoided. Blood serum ion concentration, or osmolality, should be maintained in the normo to hyperosmolar range. Judicial use of hypertonic saline can be used to increase serum osmolality and decrease cerebral edema, as discussed below.
Blood pressure should be sufficient so as to sustain cerebral perfusion pressures greater than 60 mm Hg for optimal blood blow to the brain. Vasopressors may be used to achieve adequate blood pressures with minimal risk of increasing intracranial pressures. However, sharp rises in blood pressure should be avoided. Maximum blood pressures tolerated are variable and controversial depending on the clinical situation.
Seizure prophylaxis
Seizures, including subclinical seizure activity, can complicate clinical courses and increase progression of brain herniation in persons with cerebral edema and increased intracranial pressure. Anticonvulsants can be used to treat seizures caused by acute brain injuries from a variety of origins. However, there are no clear guidelines on the use of anticonvulsants for prophylactic use. Their use may be warranted on depending on the clinical scenario and studies have shown that anticonvulsants such as phenytoin can be given prophylactically without a significant increase in drug-related side effects.
Fever
Fever has been demonstrated to increase metabolism and oxygen demand in the brain. The increased metabolic demand results in an increase in cerebral blood flow and can increase the intracranial pressure within the skull. Therefore, maintaining a stable body temperature within the normal range is strongly recommended. This can be achieved through the use of antipyretics such as acetaminophen (paracetamol) and cooling the body, as described below.
Hyperglycemia
Elevated blood glucose levels, known as hyperglycemia, can exacerbate brain injury and cerebral edema and has been associated with worse clinical outcomes in persons affected by traumatic brain injuries, subarachnoid hemorrhages, and ischemic strokes.
Sedation
Pain and agitation can worsen cerebral edema, acutely increase intracranial pressure (ICP), and should be controlled. Careful use of pain medication such as morphine or fentanyl can be used for analgesia. For those persons with decreased levels of consciousness, sedation is necessary for endotracheal intubation and maintenance of a secure airway. Sedative medication used in the intubation process, specifically propofol, have been shown to control ICP, decrease cerebral metabolic demand, and have antiseizure properties. Due to a short half-life, propofol, is a quick-acting medication whose administration and removal is well tolerated, with hypotension being the limiting factor in its continued use. Additionally, the use of nondepolarizing neuromusclar blocking agents (NMBA), such as doxacurium or atracurium, have been indicated to facilitate ventilation and manage brain injuries but there are no controlled studies on the use of NMBAs in the management of increased intracranial pressure. Depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents, most notably succinylcholine, can worsen increased ICP due to induction of muscle contraction within the body.
Nutrition
Nutritional support is necessary in all patients with acute brain injury. Enteral feeding, or through mouth via tube, is the preferred method, unless contraindicated. Additional attention must be placed on the solute concentration of the formulations to avoid free water intake, decreased serum osmolality, and worsening of the cerebral edema.
Elevated blood glucose, or hyperglycemia, is associated with increased edema in patients with cerebral ischemia and increases the risk of a hemorrhagic transformation of ischemic stroke. Maintaining a normal blood glucose level of less than 180 mg/dL is suggested. However, tight glycemic control of blood glucose under 126 mg/dL is associated with worsening of stroke size.
Specific measures
Although cerebral edema is closely related to increased intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral herniation and the general treatment strategies above are useful, the treatment should ultimately be tailored to the primary cause of the symptoms. The management of individual diseases are discussed separately.
The following interventions are more specific treatments for managing cerebral edema and increased ICP:
Osmotic therapy
The goal of osmotic therapy is to create a higher concentration of ions within the vasculature at the blood–brain barrier. This will create an osmotic pressure gradient and will cause the flow of water out of the brain and into the vasculature for drainage elsewhere. An ideal osmotic agent produces a favorable osmotic pressure gradient, is nontoxic, and is not filtered out by the blood–brain barrier. Hypertonic saline and mannitol are the main osmotic agents in use, while loop diuretics can aid in the removal of the excess fluid pulled out of the brain.
Hypertonic saline is a highly concentrated solution of sodium chloride in water and is administered intravenously. It has a rapid-onset, with reduction of pressures within 5 minutes of infusion, lasting up to 12 hours in some cases, and with negligible rebound pressure. The exact volume and concentration of the hypertonic saline varies between clinical studies. Bolus doses, particularly at higher concentrations, for example 23.4%, are effective at reducing ICP and improving cerebral perfusion pressure. In traumatic brain injuries, a responsiveness to hypertonic saline lasting greater than 2 hours was associated with decreased chance of death and improved neurologic outcomes. The effects of hypertonic saline can be prolonged with combination to agents such as dextran or hydroxyethyl starch, although their use is currently controversial. When compared to mannitol, hypertonic saline has been shown to be as effective as mannitol in decreased ICP in neurocritical care and is more effective in many cases. Hypertonic saline may be preferable to mannitol in persons with hypovolemia or hyponatremia.
Mannitol is an alcohol derivative of simple sugar mannose, and is historically the most commonly used osmotic diuretic. Mannitol acts as an inert solute in the blood, decreasing ICP through osmosis as discussed above. Additionally, mannitol decreases ICP and increased cerebral perfusion pressure by increasing reabsorption of cerebrospinal fluid, dilutes and decreased the viscosity of the blood, and can cause cerebral vasoconstriction. Furthermore, mannitol acts in a dose-dependent manner and will not lower ICP if it is not elevated. However, the common limitation of the use of mannitol is its tendency to cause low blood pressure hypotension. Compared to hypertonic saline, mannitol may be more effective at increasing cerebral perfusion pressures and may be preferable in those with hypoperfusion.
Loop diuretics, commonly furosemide, act within kidney to increase excretion of water and solutes. Combination with mannitol produces a profound diuresis and increases the risk of systemic dehydration and hypotension. Their use remains controversial.
Acetazolamide, a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, acts as a weak diuretic and modulates CSF production but has not role in the management of cerebral edema from acute brain injuries. It can be used in the outpatient management of cerebral edema caused by idiopathic intracranial hypertension (pseudotumor cerebri).
Glucocorticoids
Glucocorticoids, such as dexamethasone, have been shown to decrease tight-junction permeability and stabilize the blood-brain barrier. Their main use has been in the management of vasogenic cerebral edema associated with brain tumors, brain irradiation, and surgical manipulation. Glucocorticoids have not been shown to have any benefit in ischemic stroke and have been found to be harmful in traumatic brain injury. Due to the negative side effects (such as peptic ulcers, hyperglycemia, and impairment of wound healing), steroid use should be restricted to cases where they are absolutely indicated.
Hyperventilation
As mentioned previously, hypoxia and hypercapnia are potent vasodilators in the cerebral vasculature, leading to increased cerebral blood flow (CBF) and worsening of cerebral edema. Conversely, therapeutic hyperventilation can be used to lower the carbon dioxide content in the blood and reduce ICP through vasoconstriction. The effects of hyperventilation, although effective, are short-lived and once removed, can often lead to a rebound elevation of ICP. Furthermore, overaggressive hyperventilation and vasoconstriction and lead to severe reduction in CBF and cause cerebral ischemia, or strokes. As a result, standard practice is to slowly reverse hyperventilation while more definitive treatments aimed at the primary cause are instituted.
It is important to note that prolonged hyperventilation in those with traumatic brain injuries has been shown to worsen outcomes.
Barbiturates
Induction of a coma via the use of barbiturates, most notably pentobarbital and thiopental, after brain injury is used for secondary treatment of refractory ICP. Yet their use is not without controversy and it is not clear whether barbiturates are favored over surgical decompression. In patients with traumatic brain injuries, barbiturates are effective in reducing ICP but have failed to show benefit to clinical outcomes. Evidence is limited for their use in cerebral disease that include tumor, intracranial hypertension, and ischemic stroke. There are several adverse effects of barbiturates that limit their use, such as lowering of systemic blood pressure and cerebral perfusion pressure, cardiodepression, immunosuppression, and systemic hypothermia.
Hypothermia
As discussed previously in the treatment of fever, temperature control has been shown to decrease metabolic demand and reduce further ischemic injury. In traumatic brain injury, induced hypothermia may reduce the risks of mortality, poor neurologic outcome in adults. However, outcomes varied greatly depth and duration of hypothermia as well as rewarming procedures. In children with traumatic brain injury, there was no benefit to therapeutic hypothermia and increased the risk of mortality and arrhythmia. The adverse effects of hypothermia are serious and require clinical monitoring including increased chance of infection, coagulopathy, and electrolyte derangement. The current consensus is that adverse effects outweigh the benefits and its use restricted to clinical trials and refractory increased ICP to other therapies.
Surgery
The Monroe-Kellie doctrine states that the skull is a fixed and inelastic space and the accumulation of edema will compress vital brain tissue and blood vessels. Surgical treatment of cerebral edema in the context of cerebellar or cerebral infarction is typically done by removing part of the skull to allow expansion of the dura. This will help to reduce the volume constraints inside of the skull. A decompressive hemicraniectomy is the most commonly used procedure. Multiple randomized clinical trials have shown reduced risk of death with hemicraniectomy compared with medical management. However, no individual study has shown an improvement in the percentage of survivors with good functional outcomes.
Timing of decompressive craniectomy remains controversial, but is generally suggested that the surgery is best performed before there are clinical signs of brainstem compression. Postoperative complications include wound dehiscence, hydrocephalus, infection, and a substantial proportion of patients may also require tracheostomy and gastrotomy in the early phase after surgery.
Outcomes
Cerebral edema is a severe complication of acute brain injuries, most notably ischemic stroke and traumatic brain injuries, and a significant cause of morbidity and mortality.
Cerebral edema is the cause of death in 5% of all patients with cerebral infarction and mortality after large ischemic strokes with cerebral edema is roughly 20 to 30% despite medical and surgical interventions. Cerebral edema usually occurs between the second and fifth day after onset of symptoms. Large territory ischemic strokes can lead to the rapid development of malignant brain edema and increased intracranial pressure. Cerebral edema in the context of a malignant middle cerebral artery (MCA) infarct has a mortality of 50 to 80% if treated conservatively. Individuals with cerebral edema had a worse 3-month functional outcome than those without edema. These effects were more pronounced with increasing extent of cerebral edema and were independent of the size of the infarct.
Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents 70–90% of all reported head injuries. The presence of brain edema on the initial CT scan of those with traumatic brain injuries is an independent prognostic indicator of in-hospital death. The association of brain edema with increased in hospital risk of death was observed in TBI across all level of severity. Edema in the acute and chronic phases were associated with a worse neurologic and clinical outcome. Children with TBI and cerebral edema have worse clinical outcomes as well.
Epidemiology
As cerebral edema is present with many common cerebral pathologies, the epidemiology of the disease is not easily defined. The incidence of this disorder should be considered in terms of its potential causes and is present in most cases of traumatic brain injury, central nervous system tumors, brain ischemia, and intracerebral hemorrhage.
In one study, cerebral edema was found in 28% of those individuals with thrombolysis-treated ischemic strokes, 10% of which occurred in severe forms. A further study detected cerebral edema in 22.7% of cerebral ischemic strokes. A meta-analysis of current studies showed that 31% of those affected by ischemic strokes developed cerebral edema in 31% of cases.
In traumatic brain injuries, cerebral edema occurred in greater than 60% of those with mass lesions, and in 15% of those with initial normal CT scans.
Research
The current understanding of the pathophysiology of cerebral edema after traumatic brain injury or intracerebral hemorrhage is incomplete. Current treatment therapies aimed at cerebral edema and increased intracranial pressure are effective at reducing intracranial hypertension but have unclear impacts on functional outcomes. Additionally, cerebral and ICP treatments have varied effects on individuals based on differing characteristics like age, gender, type of injury, and genetics. There are innumerable molecular pathways that contribute to cerebral edema, many of which have yet to be discovered. Researchers argue that the future treatment of cerebral edema will be based on advances in identifying the underlying pathophysiology and molecular characteristics of cerebral edema in a variety of cases. At the same time, improvement of radiographic markers, biomarkers, and analysis of clinical monitoring data is essential in treating cerebral edema.
Many studies of the mechanical properties of brain edema were conducted in the 2010s, most of them based on finite element analysis (FEA), a widely used numerical method in solid mechanics. For example, Gao and Ang used the finite element method to study changes in intracranial pressure during craniotomy operations. A second line of research on the condition looks at thermal conductivity, which is related to tissue water content.
See also
Intracranial pressure
Edema
Amyloid-related imaging abnormalities
References
External links
MedPix Vasogenic Edema
Cerebrum
Body water
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric%20Harris%20and%20Dylan%20Klebold
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Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
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Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) were an American mass murderer duo who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 24 others at Columbine High School, where they were seniors, in Columbine, Colorado. After killing most of their victims in the school's library, they later committed suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. The ensuing media frenzy and moral panic following the massacre led to "Columbine" becoming a byword for school shootings, and becoming one of the most infamous mass shootings ever perpetrated.
Harris and Klebold were both born in 1981. Harris was born in Wichita, Kansas, but moved around frequently as a child due to his father's occupation in the United States Air Force, while Klebold was born and raised near Columbine. Harris's family eventually settled in Colorado in 1992. Shortly after, Harris and Klebold met while they were in the 7th grade. Over time, they became increasingly close. By the time they were juniors in high school, they were described as inseparable. There are differing reports; some say Harris and Klebold were very unpopular students once they were upperclassmen, as well as frequent targets of bullying, while others say they were not near the bottom of the school's social hierarchy and that each had many friends, along with active social lives. Columbine High School was known to have an intense "jock culture", which saw popular students, mainly athletes, benefit from special treatment from faculty and other students.
According to their journal entries, Harris and Klebold had seemed to begin planning the attack by May 1998, nearly a year before the attack. Throughout the next eleven months, Harris and Klebold meticulously built explosives and gathered an arsenal of weapons. Both Harris and Klebold each left behind several journal writings and home videos, ones they made both alone and together, foreshadowing the massacre and explaining their motives. Harris and Klebold hoped this content would be viewed by the public extensively and inspire followers, although much of the evidence has never been released by authorities.
Harris and Klebold often wore trench coats in school, and in general, as part of their everyday outfits, so after the massacre, it was widely believed Harris and Klebold were part of a clique in school called the "Trenchcoat Mafia", a group of misfits in the school who supposedly rebelled against the popular students. This turned out to be untrue, as neither Harris nor Klebold had any affiliation with the group. The pair's aforementioned writings and videos gave insight into their rationale for the shooting. The FBI concluded that Harris was a psychopath, who exhibited narcissistic traits, unconstrained aggression, and a lack of empathy, while Klebold was concluded to be an angry depressive with a vengeful attitude toward individuals who he believed had mistreated him. However, neither Harris nor Klebold were formally diagnosed with any personality disorders prior to the attack, so this conclusion is often debated. In the following years, various media outlets attributed multiple motivating factors to the attack, including bullying, mental illness, racism, psychiatric medication, and violence in music, movies, and video games. Despite these conclusions, the exact motive for the attack remains inconclusive.
Harris and Klebold have become pop culture icons, with the pair often portrayed, referenced and seen in film, television, video games, music and books. Many killers since the shooting have taken inspiration from the pair (dubbed the Columbine effect), either hailing them as heroes, martyrs and gods, or expressing sympathy for them. Harris and Klebold also have a fanbase, who have coined the term "Columbiners", who write fan fiction and draw fan art of them. Others have also dressed as the duo for cosplay or Halloween.
Early life
Eric Harris
Eric David Harris was born on April 9, 1981, in Wichita, Kansas. Harris's parents were both born and raised in Colorado. His mother, Katherine Ann Poole, was a homemaker. His father, Wayne Harris, was working in the United States Air Force as a transport pilot. In 1983, the family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when Harris was two years old. Six years later, the family relocated to Oscoda, Michigan. Michigan pastor William Stone lived across the street from the Harris family while they were located in Oscoda. Stone recalled them as "great neighbors" and often saw Wayne very engaged with his sons. The Harris family then moved to Plattsburgh, New York, in 1991. During his time at Stafford Middle School, Harris played Little League Baseball, regularly went to birthday parties and was "part of the crowd". Kyle Ross, a former classmate of Harris, said, "He was just a typical kid." The Harris family finally settled back in Littleton, Colorado the next year when Wayne retired from the military.
On a 1997 English class assignment, Harris wrote about how difficult the move was from New York to Colorado. "It was the hardest moving from Plattsburgh. I have the most memories from there", Harris continued. "When I left (his friends) I felt alone, lost and even agitated that I had spent so much time with them and now I have to go because of something I can't stop." Harris, in a basement tape, blamed his father for moving the family around, forcing Harris to "start out at the bottom of the ladder." Harris had a chest deformity known as pectus excavatum, in which the breastbone sinks into the chest. This made Harris reluctant to take his shirt off in gym class as other students ridiculed him. Harris had two cosmetic surgeries at age 12 and 13 to repair the deformity. The sunken chest was still mildly observable during his autopsy.
The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. While Harris was in 7th grade, he met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased and settled at a house south of Columbine High School. Harris' older brother, Kevin, attended college at the University of Colorado. Harris' father took a job with Flight Safety Services Corporation and Harris' mother became a caterer.
Harris entered Columbine High School in 1995 as a freshman. Columbine had just gone through a major renovation and expansion. From all accounts, he had many friends and was left forward and mid-field on the Columbine soccer team for his freshman and sophomore year. According to one of his teammates, Josh Swanson, he said Harris was a "solid" soccer player, who enjoyed the sport a lot. During his freshman year, Harris met Tiffany Typher. They had German class together. Typher later recounted that Harris quickly wooed her. Harris asked her to homecoming and she accepted. After the event, it appeared that Typher was no longer interested in seeing Harris anymore, for reasons never disclosed. When Typher refused to socialize with Harris again, Harris staged a fake suicide, sprawling on the ground with fake blood splashed all over him. When Typher saw him on the ground, she began to scream for help, at which point Harris and his friends began laughing, prompting Typher to storm off, shouting at Harris to get psychological help.
Dylan Klebold
Dylan Bennet Klebold was born on September 11, 1981, in Lakewood, Colorado, to Thomas and Sue Klebold. On the day after the shooting, Klebold's mother remembered that shortly after Klebold's birth, she described what felt like a shadow had been cast over her, warning her that this child would bring her great sorrow. "I think I still make of it what I did at that time. It was a passing feeling that went over very quickly, like a shadow." Sue said in an interview with Colorado Public Radio. Klebold was soon diagnosed with pyloric stenosis, a condition in which the opening between the stomach and small intestines thickens, causing severe vomiting during the first few months of life.
Klebold's parents had met when they were both studying art at Ohio State University. After they both graduated, they married in 1971, with their first child, Byron, being born in 1978. Thomas had initially worked as a sculptor, but then moved over to engineering to be more financially stable. Sue had worked in assistance services with disabled children. Furthermore, Klebold's parents were pacifists and attended a Lutheran church with their children. Both Klebold and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with the Lutheran tradition. As had been the case with his older brother, Klebold was named after a renowned poet, Dylan Thomas.
Klebold attended Normandy Elementary School for first and second grade and then transferred to Governor's Ranch Elementary School where he was part of the Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students program for gifted children. According to reports, Klebold was exceptionally bright as a young child, although he appeared somewhat sheltered in elementary school. When he transitioned to Ken Caryl Middle School, he found it difficult. Fellow classmates recalled Klebold being painfully shy and quiet, often to an uncomfortable degree. Klebold's parents were unconcerned with the fact that Klebold found the changing of schools uneasy, as they assumed it was just regular behavior among young adolescents. At the family home, the Klebolds also observed some rituals in keeping with Klebold's maternal great-grandfather's Jewish heritage.
During his earlier school years, Klebold played baseball, soccer and T-ball. Klebold was in Cub Scouts with friend Brooks Brown, whom he was friends with since the first grade. Brown lived near the house Harris' parents had bought when they finally settled in Littleton, and rode the same bus as Harris. Shortly after, Klebold had met Harris and the pair quickly became best friends. Later, Harris introduced Klebold to his friend Nathan Dykeman, who also attended their middle school, and they all became a tight-knit group of friends.
Background
Personalities
Both Harris and Klebold worked together as cooks at a Blackjack Pizza, a mile south from Columbine High School. Harris was eventually promoted to shift leader. He and his group of friends were interested in computers, and were enrolled in a bowling class.
Some described Harris as charismatic, and others described him as nice and likable. Harris also often bragged about his ability to deceive others, once stating in a tape that he could make anyone believe anything. By his junior year, Harris was also known to be quick to anger, and threatened people with bombs. Classmates also related that Harris was fascinated by war, and wrote out violent fantasies about killing people he did not like.
Klebold was described by his peers and adults as painfully shy. Klebold often was fidgety whenever someone new talked to him, rarely opening up to people. Klebold was also exceptionally nervous in front of the opposite sex, sometimes avoiding a confrontation with girls altogether. In the last year of his life, many noted a change in Klebold's behavior. Unlike before, Klebold became short-tempered, often prone to sudden outbursts of anger.
Friendship
Much of the information on Harris and Klebold's friendship is unknown, on their interactions and conversations, aside from the Basement Tapes, of which only transcripts have been released, aside from a short audio clip recorded surreptitiously by a victim's father. The pair claimed they were going to make copies of the tapes to send to news stations, but never did so. Harris and Klebold met at Ken Caryl Middle School during their seventh grade year. Over time, they became increasingly close, hanging out by often going out bowling, carpooling and playing the video game Doom over a private server connected to their personal computers. By their junior year of high school, the boys were described as inseparable. Chad Laughlin, a close friend of Harris and Klebold, said that they always sat alone together at lunch and often kept to themselves.
A rumor eventually started that Harris and Klebold were gay and romantically involved, due to the time the pair spent together. It is unknown if they were aware of this rumor. Judy Brown believed Harris was more emotionally dependent on Klebold, who was more liked by the broader student population. In his journals, however, Klebold wrote that he felt that he was not accepted or loved by anyone. Due to these feelings, Klebold possibly sought validation from Harris. Klebold's mother believes Harris' rage, intermingled with Klebold's self-destructive personality, caused the boys to feed off of each other and enter in what eventually became an unhealthy friendship.
Columbine High School
At Columbine High School, Harris and Klebold were active in school play productions, operated video productions and became computer assistants, maintaining the school's computer server. According to early accounts of the shooting, they were very unpopular students and targets of bullying. While sources do support accounts of bullying specifically directed toward Harris and Klebold, accounts of them being outcasts have been reported to be false, since both of them had a close knit group of friends.
Harris and Klebold were initially reported to be members of a clique that was called the "Trenchcoat Mafia", despite later confirmation that the pair had no connection to the group and furthermore did not appear in the group's photo in Columbine High's 1998 yearbook. Harris' father erroneously stated that his son was "a member of what they call the Trenchcoat Mafia" in a call he made on the day of the shooting. Klebold attended the high school prom three days before the shootings with a classmate named Robyn Anderson.
Harris and Klebold linked their personal computers on a network and played video games over the Internet. Harris created a set of levels for the game Doom, which later became known as the "Harris levels". The levels are downloadable over the internet through Doom WADs. Harris had a web presence under the handle "REB" (short for Rebel, a nod to the nickname of Columbine High's sports teams) and other online aliases, including "Rebldomakr", "Rebdoomer", and "Rebdomine". Klebold went by the names "VoDKa" and "VoDkA", seemingly inspired by the alcoholic drink. Harris had various websites that hosted Doom and Quake files, as well as team information for those with whom he gamed online. The sites openly espoused hatred for people in their neighborhood and the world in general. When the pair began experimenting with pipe bombs, they posted results of the explosions on the websites. The website was shut down by America Online after the shootings and was preserved for the FBI.
Initial legal encounters
On the night of January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold broke into a locked van to steal computers and other electronic equipment. A short while after a Jefferson County sheriff's officer drove upon the two boys parked further down road at another park entrance and since the park area was closed by that time of night, the arresting deputy decided to further inspect them. The deputy announced his presence as one of the boys prepared to move the stolen goods into the trunk of the car. Harris shortly after admitted to theft after the deputy asked about where the equipment came from. They were later charged with mischief, breaking and entering, trespassing, and theft. They both left good impressions on juvenile officers, who offered to expunge their criminal records if they agreed to attend a diversionary program which included community service and psychiatric treatment. Harris was required to attend anger management classes where, again, he made a favorable impression. The boys' probation officer discharged them from the program a few months ahead of schedule for good behavior. Regarding Harris, it was remarked that he was "a very bright individual who is likely to succeed in life", while Klebold was said to be intelligent, but "needs to understand that hard work is part of fulfilling a dream."
Several months later on April 30, Harris handed over the first version of a letter of apology he wrote to the owner of the van, which he completed the next month. In the letter, Harris expressed regret about his actions; however, in one of his journal entries dated April 12, he wrote: "Isn't america supposed to be the land of the free? how come, If im free, I cant deprive some fucking dumbshit from his possessions If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van in plain sight in the middle of fucking nowhere on a fri-fucking-day night? Natural selection. Fucker should be shot. ".
Hitmen for Hire
When an economics class had Harris make an ad for a business, he and Klebold made a video called Hitmen for Hire on December 8, 1998, which was released in February 2004. It depicts them as part of the Trench Coat Mafia, a clique in the school who wore black trench coats, extorting money for protecting preps from bullies. They were apparently not a part of the Trench Coat Mafia, but were friends with some of its members. They wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre, and the video seemed a kind of dress rehearsal, showing them walking the halls of the school, and shooting bullies outside with fake guns.
Both also displayed themes of violence in their creative writing projects; of a Doom-based story written by Harris on January 17, 1999, Harris' teacher said: "Yours is a unique approach and your writing works in a gruesome way — good details and mood setting."
Acquiring arms
Harris and Klebold were unable to legally purchase firearms due to their both being underage at the time. Klebold then enlisted Robyn Anderson, an 18-year-old Columbine student and old friend of Klebold's, to make a straw purchase of two shotguns and a Hi-Point carbine for the pair. In exchange for her cooperation with the investigation that followed the shootings, no charges were filed against Anderson. After illegally acquiring the weapons, Klebold sawed off his Savage 311-D 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, shortening the overall length to approximately . Meanwhile, Harris's Savage-Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun was sawn off to around .
The shooters also possessed a TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handgun, which had a long history. The manufacturer of the TEC-DC9 first sold it to Miami-based Navegar Incorporated. It was then sold to Zander's Sporting Goods in Baldwin, Illinois, in 1994. The gun was later sold to a firearms dealer, Larry Russel, in Thornton, Colorado. In violation of federal law, Russell failed to keep records of the sale, yet he determined that the purchaser of the gun was twenty-one years of age or older. Two men, Mark Manes and Philip Duran, were convicted of supplying weapons to the two.
The bombs used by the pair varied and were crudely made from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, and metal propane bottles. The bombs were primed with matches placed at one end. Both had striker tips on their sleeves. When they rubbed against the bomb, the match head lit the fuse. The weekend before the shootings, Harris and Klebold had purchased propane tanks and other supplies from a hardware store for a few hundred dollars. Several residents of the area claimed to have heard glass breaking and buzzing sounds from the Harris family's garage, which later was concluded to indicate they were constructing pipe bombs.
More complex bombs, such as the one that detonated on the corner of South Wadsworth Boulevard and Ken Caryl Avenue, had timers. The two largest bombs built were found in the school cafeteria and were made from small propane tanks. Only one of these bombs went off, only partially detonating. It was estimated that if any of the bombs placed in the cafeteria had detonated properly, the blast could have caused extensive structural damage to the school and would have resulted in hundreds of casualties.
Massacre
On April 20, 1999, just weeks before Harris and Klebold were both due to graduate, Brooks Brown, who was smoking a cigarette outside during lunch break, saw Harris arrive at school. Brown had severed his friendship with Harris a year earlier after Harris had thrown a chunk of ice at his car windshield. Brown reconciled with Harris just prior to the shooting. Brown approached Harris near his car and scolded him for skipping his morning classes, because Harris was always serious about schoolwork and being on time. Harris replied, "It doesn't matter anymore." Harris followed up a few seconds later, "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Brown, who felt uneasy, quickly left the school grounds. At 11:19 am, he heard the first gunshots after he had walked some distance away from the school, and informed the police via a neighbor's cell phone.
By that time, Klebold had already arrived at the school in a separate car, and the two boys left two duffel bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb, inside the cafeteria. Their original plans indicated that when these bombs detonated, Harris and Klebold would be waiting at their cars and would shoot, stab and throw bombs at survivors of the initial explosion as they ran out of the school. At noon, this would be followed by bombs set up in their personal cars detonating, killing first responders and others on scene. When these devices failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold resorted to gunning down their classmates and teachers. It was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S history until it was surpassed by the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting committed by Nikolas Cruz on February 14, 2018. Harris was responsible for eight of the thirteen confirmed deaths (Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, teacher Dave Sanders, Steve Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Kelly Fleming, and Daniel Mauser), while Klebold was responsible for the remaining five (Kyle Velasquez, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, and Corey DePooter). There were 24 injured (21 of them by the shooters), most in critical condition.
Suicide
At 12:02 pm, Harris and Klebold returned to the library. Of the 56 library hostages, 34 remained unharmed, all of whom escaped after Harris and Klebold left the library initially. Investigators later found that Harris and Klebold had enough ammunition to have killed them all. This was 20 minutes after their lethal shooting spree had ended, leaving 12 students dead, one teacher dying, and another 24 students and staff injured. Ten of their victims had been killed in the library. It is believed they came back to the library to watch their car bombs detonate, which had been set up to explode at noon. This did not happen, as the aforementioned bombs failed. Harris and Klebold went to the west windows and opened fire on the police outside. No one was injured in the exchange. Between three and six minutes later, they walked to the bookshelves near a table where Patrick Ireland lay badly wounded and coming in and out of consciousness. Student Lisa Kreutz, injured in the earlier library attack, was also in the room, unable to move.
By 12:08 pm, Harris and Klebold had killed themselves. In a subsequent interview, Kreutz recalled hearing a comment such as, "You in the library", around this time. Harris sat down with his back to a bookshelf and fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth; Klebold went down on his knees and shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9. An article by The Rocky Mountain News stated that Patti Nielson overheard them shout "One! Two! Three!" in unison, just before a loud boom. Nielson said that she had never spoken with either of the writers of the article, and evidence suggests otherwise. Just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Ireland was lying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Underneath the scorched film of material was a piece of Harris's brain matter, suggesting Harris had shot himself by this point.
Suggested rationales
There was controversy over whether Harris and Klebold should be memorialized. Some were opposed, saying that it glorified murderers, while others argued that Harris and Klebold were also victims. Atop a hill near Columbine High School, crosses were erected for Harris and Klebold along with those for the people they killed, but the father of victim Daniel Rohrbough cut them down, saying that murderers should not be memorialized in the same place as victims.
Overview
Harris and Klebold wrote some about how they would carry out the massacre, and less about why. Klebold penned a rough outline of plans to follow on April 20, and another slightly different one in a journal found in Harris's bedroom. In one entry on his computer, Harris referenced the Oklahoma City bombing, and they mentioned their wish to outdo it by causing the most deaths in US history. They also mentioned how they would like to leave a lasting impression on the world with this kind of violence. Much speculation occurred over the date chosen for their attack. The original intended date of the attack may have been April 19; Harris required more ammunition from Mark Manes, who did not deliver it until the evening of April 19.
Harris and Klebold were both avid fans of KMFDM, an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko. It was revealed that lyrics to KMFDM songs ("Son of a Gun", "Stray Bullet" and "Waste") were posted on Harris' website, and that the date of the massacre, April 20, coincided with both the release date of the album Adios and the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Harris noted the coincidence of the album's title and April release date in his journal. In response, KMFDM's Konietzko issued a statement that KMFDM was "against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others" and that "none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever".
An April 22, 1999, article in The Washington Post described Harris and Klebold:
They hated jocks, admired Nazis and scorned normalcy. They fancied themselves devotees of the Gothic subculture, even though they thrilled to the violence denounced by much of that fantasy world. They were white supremacists, but loved music by anti-racist rock bands.
The attack occurred on Hitler's birthday, which led to speculation in the media. Some people, such as Robyn Anderson, who knew the perpetrators, stated that the pair were not obsessed with Nazism nor did they worship or admire Hitler in any way. Anderson stated, in retrospect, that there were many things the pair did not tell friends. In his journal, Harris mentioned his admiration of what he imagined to be natural selection, and wrote that he would like to put everyone in a super Doom game and see to it that the weak die and the strong live. On the day of the massacre, Harris wore a white T-shirt with the words "Natural selection" printed in black.
Bullying
At the end of Harris' last journal entry, he wrote: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say, 'Well that's your fault,' because it isn't, you people had my phone number, and I asked and all, but no. No no no don't let the weird-looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo."
Klebold said on the Basement Tapes, "You've been giving us shit for years. You're fucking gonna pay for all the shit! We don't give a shit. Because we're gonna die doing it."
Accounts from various parents and school staffers describe bullying at the school as "rampant". Nathan Vanderau, a friend of Klebold, and Alisa Owen, Harris's eighth-grade science partner, reported that Harris and Klebold were constantly picked on. Vanderau noted that a "cup of fecal matter" was thrown at them. "People surrounded them in the commons and squirted ketchup packets all over them, laughing at them, calling them faggots”, Brooks Brown says. "That happened while teachers watched. They couldn't fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it." In his book, No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine, Brown wrote that Harris was born with mild chest indent. This made him reluctant to take his shirt off in gym class, and other students would laugh at him.
"A lot of the tension in the school came from the class above us", Chad Laughlin states. "There were people fearful of walking by a table where you knew you didn't belong, stuff like that. Certain groups certainly got preferential treatment across the board. I caught the tail end of one really horrible incident, and I know Dylan told his mother that it was the worst day of his life." That incident, according to Laughlin, involved seniors pelting Klebold with "ketchup-covered tampons" in the commons. However, other commentators have disputed the theory that bullying was the motivating factor. Peter Langman also argues against bullying being the cause of the attack. Other researchers have concurred.
Journals and investigation
Harris began keeping a journal in April 1998, a short time after the pair was convicted of breaking into a van, for which each received ten months of juvenile intervention counseling and community service in January 1998. They began to formulate plans then, as reflected in their journals.
Harris wanted to join the United States Marine Corps, but his application was rejected shortly before the shootings because he was taking the drug fluvoxamine, an SSRI antidepressant, which he was required to take as part of court-ordered anger management therapy. Harris did not state in his application that he was taking any medications. According to the recruiting officer, Harris did not know about this rejection. Though some friends of Harris suggested that he had stopped taking the drug beforehand, the autopsy reports showed low therapeutic or normal (not toxic or lethal) blood-levels of fluvoxamine in his system, which was around 0.0031–0.0087 mg/ml, at the time of death. After the shootings, opponents of contemporary psychiatry like Peter Breggin claimed that the psychiatric medications prescribed to Harris after his conviction may have exacerbated his aggressiveness.
Klebold entitled his journal, A Virtual Book: EXISTENCES. Klebold's first journal entry was March 31, 1997, over a year prior to when Harris began his own writings, and in it, he talks about his depression and suicidal thoughts, over two years prior to the massacre. For the rest of his writings, Klebold often wrote about his view that he and Harris were "god-like" and more highly evolved than every other human being, but his secret journal records the aforementioned self-loathing and suicidal intentions. Page after page was covered in hearts, as he was secretly in love with a Columbine student. Although both had difficulty controlling their anger, Klebold's anger had led to his being more prone to serious trouble than Harris. After their arrest, which both recorded as the most traumatic thing they had ever experienced, Klebold wrote a letter to Harris, saying how they would have so much fun getting revenge and killing police, and how his wrath from the January arrest would be "god-like". On the day of the massacre, Klebold wore a black T-shirt which had the word "WRATH" printed in red. It was speculated that revenge for the arrest was a possible motive for the attack, and that the pair planned on having a massive gun battle with police during the shooting. Klebold wrote that life was no fun without a little death, and that he would like to spend the last moments of his life in nerve-wracking twists of murder and bloodshed. He concluded by saying that he would kill himself afterward in order to leave the world that he hated and go to a better place. Klebold was described as being "hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal".
Some of the home-recorded videos, called "The Basement Tapes", have reportedly been destroyed by police. Harris and Klebold reportedly discussed their motives for the attacks in these videos and gave instructions in bomb making. Police cite the reason for withholding these tapes as an effort to prevent them from becoming "call-to-arms" and "how-to" videos that could inspire copycat killers. Some people have argued that releasing the tapes would be helpful, in terms of allowing psychologists to study them, which in turn could possibly help identify characteristics of future killers.
Media accounts
Initially, the shooters were believed to be members of a clique that called themselves the "Trench Coat Mafia", a small group of Columbine's self-styled outcasts who wore heavy black trench coats. Early reports described the members as also wearing German slogans and swastikas on their clothes. Additional media reports described the Trench Coat Mafia as a cult with ties to the neo-Nazi movement which fueled a media stigma and bias against the Trench Coat Mafia. The Trench Coat Mafia was a group of friends who hung out together, wore black trench coats, and prided themselves on being different from the 'jocks' who had been bullying the members and who also coined the name Trench Coat Mafia. The trench coat inadvertently became the members' uniform after a mother of one of the members bought it as a present.
Investigation revealed that Harris and Klebold were only friends with one member of the group, Kristin Thiebault, and that most of the primary members of the Trench Coat Mafia had left the school by the time that Harris and Klebold committed the massacre. Most did not know the shooters, apart from their association with Thiebault, and none were considered suspects in the shootings or were charged with any involvement in the incident.
Marilyn Manson was blamed by the media in the wake of the Columbine shooting, and responded to criticism in an interview with Michael Moore, in which he was asked, "If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people in the community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?", to which he replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them—I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did", referring to people ignoring red flags that rose from Harris and Klebold prior to the shooting.
Psychological analysis
Although early media reports attributed the shootings to a desire for revenge on the part of Harris and Klebold for bullying that they received, subsequent psychological analysis indicated Harris and Klebold harbored serious psychological problems. Harris and Klebold were never diagnosed with any mental disorders, which is overwhelmingly uncommon in mass shooters. According to Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and a clinical psychologist, Harris exhibited a pattern of grandiosity, contempt, and lack of empathy or remorse, distinctive traits of psychopaths that Harris concealed through deception. Fuselier adds that Harris engaged in mendacity not merely to protect himself, as Harris rationalized in his journal, but also for pleasure, as seen when Harris expressed his thoughts in his journal regarding how he and Klebold avoided prosecution for breaking into a van. Other leading psychiatrists concur that Harris was a psychopath.
According to psychologist Peter Langman, Klebold displayed signs of schizotypal personality disorder – he struck many people as odd due to his shy nature, appeared to have had disturbed thought processes and constantly misused language in unusual ways as evidenced by his journal. He appeared to have been delusional, viewed himself as "god-like", and wrote that he was "made a human without the possibility of BEING human." He was also convinced that others hated him and felt like he was being conspired against, even though according to many reports, Klebold was loved by his family and friends.
Lawsuits
In April 2001, the families of more than 30 victims were given shares in a $2,538,000 settlement by the families of the perpetrators, and the two men convicted of supplying the weapons used in the massacre. The Harrises and the Klebolds contributed $1,568,000 to the settlement from their own homeowners' policies, Manes contributed $720,000, and Duran contributed $250,000. The Harrises and the Klebolds were ordered to guarantee an additional $32,000 be available against any future claims. Manes was ordered to hold $80,000 against future claims, and Duran was ordered to hold $50,000.
One family had filed a $250-million lawsuit against the Harrises and Klebolds in 1999 and did not accept the 2001 settlement terms. A judge ordered the family to accept a $366,000 settlement in June 2003. In August 2003, the families of five other victims received undisclosed settlements from the Harrises and Klebolds.
Reaction of Sue Klebold
Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, initially was in denial about Klebold's involvement in the massacre, believing he was tricked by Harris into doing it, among other things. Six months later, she saw the Basement Tapes made by Harris and Klebold and acknowledged that Klebold was equally responsible for the killings. She spoke about the Columbine High School massacre publicly for the first time in an essay that appeared in the October 2009 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine. In the piece, Klebold wrote: "For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused", and "Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love." Stating that she had no clue of her son's intentions, she said: "Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there." In Andrew Solomon's 2012 book Far from the Tree, she acknowledged that on the day of the massacre, when she discovered that Klebold was one of the shooters, she prayed he would kill himself (before committing mass murder). "I had a sudden vision of what he might be doing. And so while every other mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, I had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else."
In February 2016, Klebold published a memoir, titled A Mother's Reckoning, about her experiences before and after the massacre. It was co-written by Laura Tucker and included an introduction by National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon. It received very favorable reviews, including from the New York Times Book Review. It peaked at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
On February 2, 2017, Klebold posted a TED Talk titled, "My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story." As of March 2021, the video has over 11.5 million views. The site listed Klebold's occupation as "activist", and stated: "Sue Klebold has become a passionate agent working to advance mental health awareness and intervention."
Legacy
ITV describes the legacy of Harris and Klebold as deadly, as they have inspired several instances of mass killings in the United States and globally. Napa Valley Register have called the pair "cultural icons". Author of Columbine, Dave Cullen, called Harris and Klebold the fathers of the movement for disenfranchised youth. Harris and Klebold have also, as CNN referred to, left their inevitable mark on pop culture.
Copycats
The Columbine shooting influenced several subsequent school shootings, with many praising Harris and Klebold, referring to them as martyrs, heroes or gods. In some cases, it has led to the closure of entire school districts. According to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth".
Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold." Larkin wrote that the Columbine massacre established a "script" for shootings. "Numerous post-Columbine rampage shooters referred directly to Columbine as their inspiration; others attempted to supersede the Columbine shootings in body count."
A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people ... charged with Columbine-style plots." A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties. 60 mass shootings have been carried out, where the perpetrators had made at least a single reference to Harris and Klebold.
In 2015, journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before."
Fandom
Harris and Klebold have also spawned a fandom who call themselves "Columbiners", mostly apparent on blogging site Tumblr. While some just have a scholarly interest in the pair or the event, the vast majority of these individuals, mostly young women, express a sympathetic, or sometimes even sexual interest, in Harris and Klebold. There has been homoerotic art drawn of the two, fan fiction created on the pair's future together had they not gone through with the shooting and costumes created on the outfits Harris and Klebold sported the day of the shootings.
"I relate to their feelings of hopelessness, being angry and not being able to change it, and wanting to be accepted and appreciated", an 18-year-old Tumblr user wrote on Harris and Klebold. "No one noticed they were struggling, and no one took their suffering seriously", added another user. A news site called "All That's Interesting" said on the fandom, "Many of these Columbiners have no positive feelings about the massacre, but are instead focused on the troubled inner lives of its perpetrators because they see themselves in them." The fandom has received criticism for heroizing Harris and Klebold and allegedly inspiring shooting plots such as the Halifax mass shooting plot.
Media about the duo
The 2002 Michael Moore documentary film Bowling for Columbine focuses heavily on a perceived American obsession with handguns, its grip on Jefferson County, Colorado, and its role in the shooting.
In 2004, the shooting was dramatized in the documentary Zero Hour, in which Harris and Klebold are played by Ben Johnson and Josh Young, respectively.
In 2005, game designer Danny Ledonne created a role-playing video game where the player assumes the role of Harris and Klebold during the massacre, entitled Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. The game received substantial media backlash for allegedly glorifying the pair's actions. The father of one victim remarked to the press that the game "disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent."
The 2016 biographical film I'm Not Ashamed, based on the journals of Rachel Scott, includes glimpses of Harris's and Klebold's lives and of interactions between them and other students at Columbine High School. Harris is played by David Errigo Jr. and Klebold is played by Cory Chapman.
Fiction inspired by the duo
The 2003 Gus Van Sant film Elephant depicts a fictional school shooting, some of whose details were based on the Columbine massacre, such as one scene in which one of the young killers walks into the evacuated school cafeteria and pauses to take a sip from a drink left behind, as Harris did during the shooting. In the film, the killers are called "Alex and Eric" after the actors who portray them, Alex Frost and Eric Deulen.
In the 2003 Ben Coccio film Zero Day, which was inspired by the Columbine shooting, two shooters are played by Andre Kriegman and Cal Gabriel and called "Andre and Calvin" after their actors.
See also
List of attacks related to secondary schools
List of school shootings in the United States
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Crimelibrary feature
1981 births
1999 suicides
1999 deaths
20th-century American criminals
American arsonists
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
Articles containing video clips
Bombers (people)
Bullying and suicide
Columbine High School alumni
Columbine High School massacre
Criminal duos
Criminals from Colorado
Youth suicides
Joint suicides
Murder–suicides in Colorado
People from Littleton, Colorado
People from the Denver metropolitan area
Suicides by firearm in Colorado
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand%20Duchy%20of%20Posen
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Grand Duchy of Posen
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The Grand Duchy of Posen (; ) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, created from territories annexed by Prussia after the Partitions of Poland, and formally established following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Per agreements derived at the Congress of Vienna it was to have some autonomy. However, in reality it was subordinated to Prussia and the proclaimed rights for Polish subjects were not fully implemented. On 9 February 1849, the Prussian administration renamed the grand duchy to the Province of Posen. Its former name was unofficially used afterward for denoting the territory, especially by Poles, and today is used by modern historians to refer to different political entities until 1918. Its capital was Posen ().
History
Background
Originally part of the Kingdom of Poland, this area largely coincided with Greater Poland. The eastern portions of the territory were taken by the Kingdom of Prussia during the Partitions of Poland; during the first partition (1772), Prussia took just the Netze District, the portion along the Noteć () river. Prussia added the remainder during the second partition in 1793. Prussia briefly lost control during the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794.
It was initially administered as the province of South Prussia. The Poles were the primary ally of Napoleon Bonaparte in Central Europe, participating in the Greater Poland Uprising of 1806 and supplying troops for his campaigns. After the defeat of Prussia by Napoleonic France, the Duchy of Warsaw was created by the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807.
1815–1830
According to the Congress of Vienna, put into action after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, parts of the Prussian territory partitioned from Poland were passed on to Russia. From the remainder the Grand Duchy of Posen was to be created, that was to be a nominally autonomous province under Hohenzollern rule with the rights of "free development of Polish nation, culture and language", and was outside the German Confederation. Originally the Grand Duchy was to include Chełmno and Toruń. Prussia however disregarded this promise from Congress of Vienna. At this time the city of Poznań was the administrative centre and the seat of the Statthalter "Prince Antoni Henryk Radziwiłł of Poznań". In reality the actual administrative power over the region was awarded by Prussia to provincial upper-president Joseph Zerboni di Sposetti, who was a Prussian of German ethnicity.
At the beginning of the Prussian takeover of Polish territories, the discrimination and repression of Poles consisted of reducing their access to education and the judicial system. Prussian officials identified Germanisation as the progress of higher culture over a lower one. As a result, the local administration discriminated against Poles. After 1824 attempts to Germanise the school system were hastened and the government refused to establish a Polish university in Poznań. Polish politicians issued protests against Prussian policies and a secret, patriotic Polish organisation was founded called Towarzystwo Kosynierów (Society of Scythemen). Resistance activity of Poles resulted in reaction from Berlin, where a trial was held in connection to links between Poles from the Grand Duchy with Poles from Russian-ruled Congress Poland.
1830–1840
The 1830 November Uprising within Congress Poland against the Russian Empire was significantly supported by Poles from the Grand Duchy. Afterward, the Prussian administration under Oberpräsident Eduard Flottwell known for his anti-Polonism introduced a stricter system of repression against the Poles. Prussian authorities attempted to expel Poles from administration to weaken the Polish nobility by buying its lands out, and, after 1832, the role of the Polish language in education was significantly repressed. Local self-government in the landed estates of land-lords, which was dominated by Polish nobility, was abolished, and instead the Prussian state appointed commissioners. Monasteries and their assets were confiscated by Prussia. The office of the governor (Statthalter) was abolished. Germanisation of institutions, education as well through colonisation was implemented.
Before 1848 repressions intensified in the Grand Duchy, censorship was strengthened, settlers of German ethnicity were brought in. Large patriotic demonstrations were held in memory of Antoni Babiński, a member of the Polish Democratic Society. He had been wounded by a gunshot, when the Prussian gendarme attempting to arrest him, engaged in a fight with him. Babiński was then captured, sentenced to death and executed in Poznań. His public execution in February 1847 was accompanied by public mourning. Cloth soaked in his blood and other remains were distributed as national relics. Large prayers were held in his memory, often against orders of Prussia. Members of such gatherings were persecuted by police. At the same time the national self-awareness grew among the rural population of Polish and German ethnicity alike. Whereas two thirds of the grand ducal population identified as ethnically Polish (mostly in the centre, south and east), one third envisioned themselves as being of German ethnicity. Anti-Prussian sentiment grew as response to policy of Germanisation and repression by Prussian authorities and the conspiracy organisation called Związek Plebejuszy found a potent ground. It was led by bookseller Walenty Stefański, poet Ryszard Berwiński and lawyer Jakub Krauthofer-Krotowski.
Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 and the Duchy
During the Revolutions of 1848 the Frankfurt Parliament attempted to divide the grand duchy into two parts: the Province of Posen, which would have been annexed to a to-be-created united Germany, and the Province of Gniezno, which would have remained outside Germany, but because of the protest of Polish parliamentarians these plans failed and the integrity of the grand duchy was preserved. However, on February 9, 1849, after a series of broken assurances, the Prussian administration renamed the grand duchy to the Province of Posen. Nevertheless, the territory formally remained outside of Germany until the dissolution of German Confederation and the establishment of North German Confederation as late as 1866, while the Prussian Kings up to William II, German Emperor still held the title "Grand Duke of Posen" until 1918.
Area and population
The area was 28,951 km² and contained most of the territories of the historical province of Greater Poland, which comprised the western parts of the Duchy of Warsaw (Departments of Poznań, Bydgoszcz, partly Kalisz) that were ceded to Prussia according to the Congress of Vienna (1815) with an international guarantee of self-administration and free development of the Polish nation.
Population:
900,000 (1815)
1,350,000 (1849)
2,100,000 (1910)
Since in the first half of the 19th century there was no census or other statistics also recording the ethnic identities of the inhabitants of the grand duchy its ethnic composition can only be derived from its religious makeup then recorded in the census. By 1815 in the grand duchy Catholics were by majority Polish-speaking, most Protestants were native speakers of German and many Jews then spoke Yiddish. Based on the religious data it was estimated that in 1815 ethnic Poles made up about 657,000 persons (or 73% of the overall population), while ethnic Germans were 225,000 (25%) and 18,000 (or 2%) were of the Yiddish culture. In 1819, according to Georg Hassel ethnic Poles were 77% of the population, ethnic Germans 17.5% and Jews 5.5%.
However, a simple identification of religion and ethnicity is misleading.
Whereas in 1812 Jews in then Prussia proper had been emancipated and naturalised, the Jews of the grand duchy were excluded from citizens franchise, but like women and non-propertied classes mere subjects of the grand duke. Only Christian men, if owning land, were enfranchised as citizens. Whereas Christians had freedom of moving from the grand duchy to Prussia proper, the grand duchy's Jews were forbidden to immigrate into Prussia. Prussian policy, however, opened an exception, Germanized Jews were enfranchised as citizens and granted freedom of move. So most adherents of the Yiddish culture Germanised themselves within a short period. Many traditional or newly established educational institutions using German language were attended by local Jews who, equipped with Prussian educational and German language skills, often emigrated to Prussia proper with some making their careers. Despite Germanisation efforts, the Polish-speaking population more than doubled to 1,344,000 and remained the majority, however, its percentage decreased to 64% of the population by 1910. However, there were regional differences, with Polish being the prevailing language in the centre, east and south, and German speakers majorities in the west and north.
Religion
According to contemporary statistics of 1825 the population consisted of the 65.6% Roman Catholics, 28.1% Protestants and 6.3% Jews. The Roman Catholic congregations formed part of the Ecclesiastical Province of Gnesen-Posen led by Primates of Poland, a Roman Catholic jurisdiction formed in 1821 by merging the archdioceses of Gniezno and Poznań, separated again in 1946. The bulk of the Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) congregations became part of the Ecclesiastical Province of Posen within the Evangelical Church in Prussia after 1817, with the congregations usually retaining their previous separate confessions. With the persisting resistance of some Lutherans against this administrative Prussian Union of churches the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Prussia emerged in 1841, government-recognised in 1845, with about 3,000 Old Lutherans in several congregations spread in the area of the grand duchy. Jewish religious life was organised in about 130 congregations spread all over the grand duchy. Since the government tolerated Judaism, but did not recognise it, no Jewish umbrella organisation, comparable to those of the Christian denominations or the former Council of Four Lands, forbidden in 1764, did emerge in the grand duchy. The migration of Posen Jews to Prussia was mostly blocked until 1850, when they were finally naturalised.
Territorial administration
The monarch of the grand duchy, with title of Grand Duke of Posen, was the Hohenzollern king of Prussia and his representative was the Duke-Governor (Statthalter): the first was Prince Antoni Radziwiłł (1815–1831), who was married to Princess Louise of Prussia, the king's cousin. The governor was assigned to give advice in matters of Polish nationality, and had the right to veto the administration decisions; in reality, however, all administrative power was in the hands of the Prussian upper-president of the province.
The Prussian administrative unit that covered the territory of the Grand Duchy was called the Province of the Grand Duchy of Posen in the years 1815–1849, and later to simplify just the Province of Posen (, ).
The territory of the grand duchy was divided into two regions (), that of Bromberg and of Posen, whose borders reflected those of the Bydgoszcz and the Poznań Department of the previous Duchy of Warsaw. The regions were further divided into 26 original districts (, ) headed by Landräte ("district councillors"). Later, these were redivided into 40 districts, plus two urban districts. In 1824, the Grand Duchy also received a provincial council (term started in 1827) but with little administrative power, limited to providing advice. In 1817, the Culmerland (Chełmno Land) was moved to West Prussia. From the 1820s, the grand duchy had a parliament, the Sejm of the Grand Duchy of Posen.
Organisations
Organisations for items of general interest or province-wide purposes:
Archdiocese of Poznań-Gniezno, seated in Poznań/Posen, a joint diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, joint in 1821
Posener Provinzial-Bibelgesellschaft (Posen Provincial Bible society; established in 1817 in Posen/Poznań)
Ecclesiastical Province of Posen, seated in Poznań/Posen, a regional branch of the Evangelical Church in Prussia established in 1817/1826
Naturwissenschaftlicher Verein (Natural Scientific Association, established in 1837 in Posen/Poznań)
Central-Lehrer-Verein für die Provinz Posen (central teachers association; established in 1848 in Posen/Poznań)
Provinzial-Feuersozietät des Großherzogthums Posen (public fire insurance of the Grand Duchy of Posen; established in 1841 in Posen/Poznań)
Posener Provinzial-Lehrerverein (Posen provincial teacher association; established in 1872 in Posen/Poznań)
Provinzialverband Posen (provincial federation of Posen, public-law corporation of self-rule of all districts and independent cities within Posen Province for their common purposes; established in 1875 in Posen/Poznań)
Landwirtschaftskammer für die Provinz Posen (Chamber of Agriculture for the Province of Posen; established in 1875 in Posen/Poznań)
Historische Gesellschaft für den Netzedistrikt zu Bromberg (Historical Society for the Netze District in Bromberg, established in 1880)
Pestalozzi-Verein der Provinz Posen (Pestalozzi [paedagogical] association for the Province of Posen; established in 1883 in Lissa/Leszno)
Historische Gesellschaft für die Provinz Posen (Historical Society for the Province of Posen, established in 1885 in Posen/Poznań)
Posener Provinzialvereins zur Bekämpfung der Tuberkulose als Volkskrankheit (Posen provincial association for fighting tuberculosis as a people's disease; established in 1901 in Posen/Poznań)
Verband der Landwirtschaftlichen Genossenschaften für die Provinz Posen (Association of the agricultural cooperatives for the Province of Posen; established in 1903 in Posen/Poznań)
Sparkassenverband der Provinz Posen (Association of savings and loan banks in the Province of Posen; established in 1906 in Posen/Poznań)
Polish organisations
Scientific Help Society for the Youth of the Grand Duchy of Posen (established in 1841, )scholarship for the poor youth
Poznań Bazar (Bazar Poznański, established 1841)
Central Economic Society for the Grand Duchy of Poznań (established in 1861, )promotion of modern agriculture
People's Libraries Society (established in 1880, ) promotion of education among the people
Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences (established in 1875, ) promotion of arts and sciencies
German organisations
Organisations aiming at promoting German-speaking culture, settlements, or expressively addressing German-speaking audiences:
Prussian Settlement Commission (Ansiedlungskommision, established in 1886)
Deutscher Ostmarkenverein (DOV, German Eastern Marches Society; Polish abbreviation: Hakata; established in 1894 in Posen/Poznań)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft zu Posen (German society for art and sciences, established in 1901 in Posen/Poznań)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft zu Bromberg (German society for art and sciences, established in 1902 in Bromberg/Bydgosccz)
Notable people
(in alphabetical order)
(see also Notable people of Province of Posen)
Hipolit Cegielski (1815–1868), Polish businessman, social and cultural activist
Dezydery Chłapowski (1788–1879), Polish general, business and political activist
Bernard Chrzanowski (1861–1944), Polish social and political activist, president of the Union of the Greater Poland Falcons (Związek Sokołów Wielkopolskich)
August Cieszkowski (1814–1894), Polish philosopher, social and political activist, co-founder of the Polish League (Liga Polska), co-founder and president of the PTPN
Bolesław Dembiński (1833–1914), Polish composer and organist, activist of the singers societies
Franciszek Dobrowolski (1830–1896), Polish theatre director, editor of Dziennika Poznańskiego (Poznań Daily)
Tytus Działyński (1796–1861), Polish political activist, protector of arts
Akiva Eger (1761–1837), foremost leader of European Jewry of his era and outstanding Talmudic scholar
Ewaryst Estkowski (1820–1856), Polish teacher, education activist, editor of Szkoła Polska (Polish School) magazine
Eduard Flottwell (1786–1865), Prussian politician, over-president of the Grand Duchy of Poznań
Karl Andreas Wilhelm Freymark (1785–1855), titled bishop, first general superintendent of the between 1829 and 1853
Immanuel Lazarus Fuchs (1833–1902), Prussian mathematician
Paul von Hidenburg (1847–1934), general and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany
Maksymilian Jackowski (1815–1905), Polish activist, secretary-general of the Central Economic Society (Centralne Towarzystwo Gospodarcze), patron of the agricultural circles
Kazimierz Jarochowski (1828–1888), Polish historian, publicist of the Dziennik Poznański (Poznań Daily), co-founder of PTPN
Hermann Kennemann (1815–1910), Prussian politician, co-founder of the German Eastern Marches Society
Antoni Kraszewski (1797–1870), Polish politician and parliamentarian
Karol Libelt (1807–1875), Polish philosopher, political and social activist, president of PTPN
Karol Marcinkowski (1800–1848), Polish physician, social activist, founder of the Poznań Bazar
Teofil Matecki (1810–1886), Polish physician, social activist, member of PTPN, founder of the Adam Mickiewicz monument of Poznań
Maciej Mielżyński (1799–1870), political and social activist
Ludwik Mycielski, Polish political, president of the National Council (Rada Narodowa) in 1913
Andrzej Niegolewski (1787–1857), Polish colonel during the Napoleonic Wars, member of parliament, shareholder of the Poznań Bazar
Władysław Oleszczyński (1808–1866), Polish sculptor, who created a monument of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań
Gustaw Potworowski (1800–1860), Polish activist, founder of the Kasyno in Gostyń, activist of the Polish League (Liga Polska)
Edward Raczyński (1786–1845), Polish conservative politician, protector of arts, founder of the Raczynski Library in Poznań
Antoni Radziwiłł (1775–1833), Polish duke, composer, and politician, governor-general of the Grand Duchy of Poznań
Walenty Stefański (1813–1877), Polish bookseller, political activist, co-founder of the Polish League (Liga Polska)
Florian Stablewski (1841–1906), Catholic priest archbishop of Poznań and Gniezno, member of Prussian parliament for the Polish faction
Heinrich Tiedemann (1840–1922), Prussian politician, co-founder of the German Eastern Marches Society
Leon Wegner (1824–1873), Polish economist and historian, co-founder of PTPN
Richard Witting (1812–1912), Prussian politician, lord mayor of Posen city/Poznań, 1891–1902
See also
Congress Poland
History of Poland (1795–1918)
History of Poznań
References
Sources
Robert Alvis, Religion and the Rise of Nationalism: A Profile of an East-Central European City, Syracuse 2005
Gazeta Wielkiego Księstwa Poznańskiego
Konstanty Kościnski, Przewodnik pod Poznaniu i Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskiem, Poznań 1909
T. Dohnalowa, Z dziejów postępu technicznego w Wielkopolsce w pierwszej połowie XIX wieku, in: S.Kubiak, L.Trzeciakowski (ed.), Rola Wielkopolski w dziejach narodu polskiego
F. Genzen, Z.Grot, F.Paprocki, Zabór pruski w Powstaniu Styczniowym. Materiały i dokumenty, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1968
B. Grześ, Jerzy Kozłowski, A. Kramarski, Niemcy w Poznańskiem wobec polityki germanizacyjnej 1815–1920, Poznań 1976
Witold Jakóbczyk, Przetrwać nad Wartą 1815–1914. Dzieje narodu i państwa polskiego, vol. III-55, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warszawa 1989
Witold Jakóbczyk (ed.), Studia nad dziejami Wielkopolski w XIX w., vol.I-III, Poznań 1951–1967
Witold Jakóbczyk (ed.), Wielkopolanie XIX w., Poznań 1969
Witold Jakóbczyk (ed.), Wielkopolska. Wybór źródeł, t. I 1815–1850, Wrocław 1952
Witold Jakóbczyk (ed.), Wielkopolska. Wybór źródeł, t. II 1851–1914, Wrocław 1954
T. Klanowski, Germanizacja gimnazjów w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim i opór młodzieży polskiej w latach 1870–1814, Poznań 1962
Czesław Łuczak, Życie społeczno-gospodarcze w Poznaniu 1815–1918, Poznań 1965
K. Malinowski (ed.), X wieków Poznania, Poznań-Warszawa 1956
Witold Molik, Kształtowanie się inteligencji wielkopolskiej w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim 1840–1870, Warszawa-Poznań 1979
F. Paprocki, Wielkie Księstwo Poznańskie w okresie rządów Flottwella (1830–1842), Poznań 1970
L. Plater, Opisanie historyczno-statystyczne Wielkiego Księstwa Poznańskiego, wyd. J. N. Bobrowicz, Leipzig 1846
B. Pleśniarski, Poglądy Wielkopolan na sprawy wychowawcze i oświatowe w świetle prasy Księstwa Poznańskiego 1814–1847,
A. Skałkowski, Bazar Poznański. Zarys stuletnich dziejów (1838–1938), Poznań 1938
L. Słowiński, Nie damy pogrześć mowy. Wizerunki pedagogów poznańskich XIX wieku, Poznań 1982
J. Stoiński, Szkolnictwo średnie w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim w I połowie XIX wieku (1815–1850), Poznań 1972
J. Topolski (ed.), Wielkopolska przez wieki, Poznań 1973
S. Truchim, Geneza szkół realnych w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim, Warszawa 1936
S. Truchim, Historia szkolnictwa i oświaty polskiej w Wielkim Księstwie Poznańskim 1815–1915, Łódź 1967
Lech Trzeciakowski, Kulturkampf w zaborze pruskim, Poznań 1970
Lech Trzeciakowski, Pod pruskim zaborem 1850–1914, Warszawa 1973
Lech Trzeciakowski, Walka o polskość miast Poznańskiego na przełomie XIX i XX wieku, Poznań 1964
Lech Trzeciakowski, W dziewiętnastowiecznym Poznaniu, Poznań 1987
Wielkopolski Słownik Biograficzny, 2nd edition, Warszawa-Poznań 1983
External links
1815 establishments in Prussia
1848 disestablishments in Prussia
Former grand duchies
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion
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Bupropion
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Bupropion, sold under the brand name Wellbutrin among others, is an atypical antidepressant primarily used to treat major depressive disorder and to support smoking cessation. It is also popular as an add-on medication in the cases of "incomplete response" to the first-line selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant. Bupropion has several features that distinguish it from other antidepressants: it does not usually cause sexual dysfunction; it is not associated with weight gain and sleepiness, and it is more effective than SSRIs at improving symptoms of hypersomnia and fatigue. Bupropion, particularly the immediate release formulation, carries a higher risk of seizure than many other antidepressants, hence caution is recommended in patients with a history of seizure disorder.
Common adverse effects of bupropion with the greatest difference from placebo are dry mouth, nausea, constipation, insomnia, anxiety, tremor, and excessive sweating. Raised blood pressure is notable. Rare but serious side effects include seizure, liver toxicity, psychosis, and risk of overdose. Bupropion use during pregnancy may be associated with increased odds of congenital heart defects.
Bupropion acts as a norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor and a nicotinic receptor antagonist. However, its effects on dopamine are weak. Chemically, bupropion is an aminoketone that belongs to the class of substituted cathinones and more generally that of substituted amphetamines and substituted phenethylamines.
Bupropion was invented by Nariman Mehta, who worked at Burroughs Wellcome, in 1969. It was first approved for medical use in the United States in 1985. Bupropion was originally called by the generic name amfebutamone, before being renamed in 2000. In 2020, it was the eighteenth most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 28million prescriptions. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.
Medical uses
Depression
The evidence overall supports the efficacy of bupropion over placebo for the treatment of depression. However, the quality of evidence is low. Most meta-analyses report that bupropion has an at-most small effect size for depression. Only one meta-analysis reported a large effect size. However, there were methodological limitations with this meta-analysis, including using a subset of only five trials for the effect size calculation, substantial variability in effect sizes between the selected trials—which led the authors to state that their findings in this area should be interpreted with "extreme caution"—and general lack of inclusion of unpublished trials in the meta-analysis. Unpublished trials are more likely to be negative in findings, and other meta-analyses have included unpublished trials. Evidence suggests that the efficacy of bupropion for depression is similar to that of other antidepressants.
Over the fall and winter months, bupropion prevents development of depression in those who have recurring seasonal affective disorder: 15% of participants on bupropion experienced a major depressive episode vs. 27% of those on placebo. Bupropion also improves depression in bipolar disorder, with the efficacy and risk of affective switch being similar to other antidepressants.
Bupropion has several features that distinguish it from other antidepressants: for instance, unlike the majority of antidepressants, it does not usually cause sexual dysfunction, and the occurrence of sexual side effects is not different from placebo. Bupropion treatment is not associated with weight gain; on the contrary, the majority of studies observed significant weight loss in bupropion-treated participants. Bupropion treatment also is not associated with the sleepiness that may be produced by other antidepressants. Bupropion is more effective than selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) at improving symptoms of hypersomnia and fatigue in depressed patients. Bupropion is effective in the treatment of anxious depression and, contrary to common belief, does not exacerbate anxiety in this context. The effectiveness of bupropion for anxious depression is equivalent to that of SSRIs in the case of depression with low or moderate anxiety, whereas SSRIs show a modest effectiveness advantage in terms of response rates for depression with high anxiety.
The addition of bupropion to a prescribed SSRI is a common strategy when people do not respond to the SSRI, and it is supported by clinical trials; however, it appears to be inferior to the addition of atypical antipsychotic aripiprazole.
Smoking cessation
Prescribed as an aid for smoking cessation, bupropion reduces the severity of craving for nicotine and withdrawal symptoms such as depressed
mood, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and increased appetite. Initially, bupropion slows the weight gain that often occurs in the first weeks after quitting smoking. With time, however, this effect becomes negligible.
The bupropion treatment course lasts for seven to twelve weeks, with the patient halting the use of tobacco about ten days into the course. After the course, the effectiveness of bupropion for maintaining abstinence from smoking declines over time, from 37% of tobacco abstinence at 3 months to 20% at one year. It is unclear whether extending bupropion treatment helps to prevent relapse of smoking.
Overall, six months after the therapy, bupropion increases the likelihood of quitting smoking by approximately 1.6 fold as compared to placebo. In this respect, bupropion is as effective as nicotine replacement therapy but inferior to varenicline. Combining bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy does not improve the quitting rate.
In children and adolescents, the use of bupropion for smoking cessation does not appear to offer any significant benefits. The evidence for its use to aid smoking cessation in pregnant women is insufficient.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
In the United States, the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not an approved indication of bupropion, and it is not mentioned in the current (2019) guideline on the ADHD treatment from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Systematic reviews of bupropion for the treatment of ADHD in both adults and children note that bupropion may be effective for ADHD but warn that this conclusion has to be interpreted with caution, because clinical trials were of low quality due to small sizes and risk of bias. Similarly to atomoxetine, bupropion has a delayed onset of action for ADHD, and several weeks of treatment are required for therapeutic effects. This is in contrast to stimulants, such as amphetamine and methylphenidate, which have an immediate onset of effect in the condition.
Sexual dysfunction
Bupropion is less likely than other antidepressants to cause sexual dysfunction. A range of studies indicate that bupropion not only produces fewer sexual side effects than other antidepressants but can actually help to alleviate sexual dysfunction including sexual dysfunction induced by SSRI antidepressants. There have also been small studies suggesting that bupropion or a bupropion/trazodone combination may improve some measures of sexual function in women who have hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) and are not depressed. According to an expert consensus recommendation from the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, bupropion can be considered as an off-label treatment for HSDD despite limited safety and efficacy data. Likewise, a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of bupropion for sexual desire disorder in women reported that although data were limited, bupropion appeared to be dose-dependently effective for the condition.
Obesity
Bupropion, when used for treating obesity over a period of 6 to 12 months, results in an average weight loss of 2.7 kg (5.9 lbs) over placebo. This is not much different from the weight loss produced by several other weight-loss medications such as sibutramine or orlistat. The combination drug naltrexone/bupropion has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obesity.
Other uses
Bupropion is not effective in the treatment of cocaine dependence, but it is showing promise in reducing drug use in light methamphetamine users. Based on studies indicating that bupropion lowers the level of the inflammatory mediator TNF-alpha, there have been suggestions that it might be useful in treating inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, and other autoimmune conditions, but very little clinical evidence is available. Bupropion is not effective in treating chronic low back pain.
Available forms
Bupropion is available as an oral tablet in a number of different formulations. It is formulated mostly as the hydrochloride salt but also to a lesser extent as the hydrobromide salt. The available forms of bupropion hydrochloride include IR (instant-release) tablets (50, 75, 100mg), SR (sustained-release) tablets (50, 100, 150, 200mg), and XL (extended-release) tablets (150, 300, 450mg). The IR formulation is generally administered thrice daily, the SR formultion twice daily, and the XL formulation once daily. The only marketed form of bupropion hydrobromide is Aplenzin, an extended-release oral tablet (174, 348, 522mg). In addition to single-drug formulations, bupropion is formulated in combinations including naltrexone/bupropion (Contrave; 8mg/90mg extended-release tablets) for obesity and dextromethorphan/bupropion (Auvelity; 45mg/105mg tablets) for depression.
Contraindications
The drug label advises that bupropion should not be prescribed to individuals with epilepsy or other conditions that lower the seizure threshold, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, benzodiazepine or alcohol withdrawal. It should be avoided in individuals who are taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). The label recommends that caution should be exercised when treating people with liver damage, severe kidney disease, and severe hypertension, and in children, adolescents and young adults due to the increased risk of suicidal ideation.
Side effects
The common adverse effects of bupropion with the greatest difference from placebo are dry mouth, nausea, constipation, insomnia, anxiety, tremor, and excessive sweating. Bupropion has the highest incidence of insomnia of all second-generation antidepressants, apart from desvenlafaxine. It is also associated with about 20% increased risk of headache.
Bupropion raises blood pressure in some people. One study showed an average rise of 6 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure in 10% of patients. The prescribing information notes that hypertension, sometimes severe, is observed in some people taking bupropion, both with and without pre-existing hypertension. Safety of bupropion in people with cardiovascular conditions and its general cardiovascular safety profile remain unclear due to the lack of data.
Seizure is a rare but serious adverse effect of bupropion. It is strongly dose-dependent: for the immediate release preparation, the seizure incidence is 0.4% at the dose 300–450 mg per day; the incidence climbs almost ten-fold for the higher than recommended dose of 600 mg. For comparison, the incidence of unprovoked seizure in the general population is 0.07 to 0.09%, and the risk of seizure for a variety of other antidepressants is generally between 0 and 0.5% at the recommended doses.
Cases of liver toxicity leading to death or liver transplantation have been reported for bupropion. It is considered to be one of several antidepressants with greater risk of hepatotoxicity.
The prescribing information warns about bupropion triggering an angle-closure glaucoma attack. On the other hand, bupropion may decrease the risk of development of open angle glaucoma.
Bupropion use by mothers in the first trimester of pregnancy is associated with 23% increase of the odds in congenital heart defects in their children.
Bupropion has rarely been associated with instances of Stevens–Johnson syndrome.
Psychiatric
The FDA requires all antidepressants, including bupropion, to carry a boxed warning stating that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicide in people younger than 25. This warning is based on a statistical analysis conducted by the FDA which found a 2-fold increase in suicidal thought and behavior in children and adolescents, and 1.5-fold increase in the 18–24 age group. For this analysis the FDA combined the results of 295 trials of 11 antidepressants in order to obtain statistically significant results. Considered in isolation, bupropion was not statistically different from placebo.
Bupropion prescribed for smoking cessation results in 25% increase of the risk of psychiatric side effects, in particular, anxiety (about 40% increase) and insomnia (about 80% increase). The evidence is insufficient to determine whether bupropion is associated with suicides or suicidal behavior.
In rare cases, bupropion-induced psychosis may develop. It is associated with higher doses of bupropion; many cases described are at higher than recommended doses. Concurrent antipsychotic medication appears to be protective. In most cases the psychotic symptoms are eliminated by reducing the dose, ceasing treatment or adding antipsychotic medication.
Although studies are lacking, a handful of case reports suggest that abrupt discontinuation of bupropion may cause antidepressant discontinuation syndrome.
Overdose
Bupropion is considered moderately dangerous in overdose. According to an analysis of US National Poison Data System, adjusted for the number of prescriptions, bupropion and venlafaxine are the two new generation antidepressants (that is excluding tricyclic antidepressants) that result in the highest mortality and morbidity. For significant overdoses, seizures have been reported in about a third of all cases; other serious effects include hallucinations, loss of consciousness, and abnormal heart rhythms. When bupropion was one of several kinds of pills taken in an overdose, fever, muscle rigidity, muscle damage, hypertension or hypotension, stupor, coma, and respiratory failure have been reported. While most people recover, some people have died, having had multiple uncontrolled seizures and myocardial infarction.
Interactions
Since bupropion is metabolized to hydroxybupropion by the enzyme CYP2B6, drug interactions with CYP2B6 inhibitors are possible: this includes such medications as paroxetine, sertraline, norfluoxetine (active metabolite of fluoxetine), diazepam, clopidogrel, and orphenadrine. The expected result is the increase of bupropion and decrease of hydroxybupropion blood concentration. The reverse effect (decrease of bupropion and increase of hydroxybupropion) can be expected with CYP2B6 inducers such as carbamazepine, clotrimazole, rifampicin, ritonavir, St John's wort, and phenobarbital. Indeed, carbamazepine decreases exposure to bupropion by 90% and increases exposure to hydroxybupropion by 94%. Ritonavir, lopinavir/ritonavir, and efavirenz have been shown to decrease levels of bupropion and/or its metabolites. Ticlopidine and clopidogrel, both potent CYP2B6 inhibitors, have been found to considerably increase bupropion levels as well as decrease levels of its metabolite hydroxybupropion.
Bupropion and its metabolites are inhibitors of CYP2D6, with hydroxybupropion responsible for most of the inhibition. Additionally, bupropion and its metabolites may decrease expression of CYP2D6 in the liver. The end effect is a significant slowing of the clearance of other drugs metabolized by this enzyme. For instance, bupropion has been found to increase area-under-the-curve of desipramine, a CYP2D6 substrate, by 5-fold. Bupropion has also been found to increase levels of atomoxetine by 5.1-fold, while decreasing the exposure to its main metabolite by 1.5-fold. As another example, the ratio of dextromethorphan (a drug that is mainly metabolized by CYP2D6) to its major metabolite dextrorphan increased approximately 35-fold when it was administered to people being treated with 300 mg/day bupropion. When people on bupropion are given MDMA, about 30% increase of exposure to both drugs is observed, with enhanced mood but decreased heart rate effects of MDMA. Interactions with other CYP2D6 substrates, such as metoprolol, imipramine, nortriptyline, venlafaxine, and nebivolol have also been reported. However, in a notable exception, bupropion does not seem to affect the concentrations of CYP2D6 substrates fluoxetine and paroxetine.
Bupropion lowers the seizure threshold, and therefore can potentially interact with other medications that also lower it, such as antipsychotics, tricyclic antidepressants, theophylline, and systemic corticosteroids. The prescribing information recommends minimizing the use of alcohol, since in rare cases bupropion reduces alcohol tolerance.
Caution should be observed when combining bupropion with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), as it may result in hypertensive crisis.
Pharmacology
Pharmacodynamics
The mechanism of action of bupropion in the treatment of depression and for other indications is unclear. However, it is thought to be related to the fact that bupropion is a norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI) and antagonist of several nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. It is uncertain whether bupropion is a norepinephrine–dopamine releasing agent. Pharmacological actions of bupropion, to a substantial degree, are due to its active metabolites hydroxybupropion, threo-hydrobupropion, and erythro-hydrobupropion that are present in the blood plasma at comparable or much higher levels. In fact, bupropion could accurately be conceptualized as a prodrug of these metabolites. Overall action of these metabolites, and particularly one enantiomer S,S-hydroxybupropion, is also characterized by inhibition of norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake and nicotinic antagonism (see the chart on the right). Bupropion has no meaningful direct activity at a variety of receptors, including α- and β-adrenergic, dopamine, serotonin, histamine, and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors.
The occupancy of dopamine transporter (DAT) by bupropion (300mg/day) and its metabolites in the human brain as measured by several positron emission tomography (PET) studies is approximately 20%, with a mean occupancy range of about 14 to 26%. For comparison, the NDRI methylphenidate at therapeutic doses is thought to occupy greater than 50% of DAT sites. In accordance with its low DAT occupancy, no measurable dopamine release in the human brain was detected with bupropion (one 150mg dose) in a PET study. Bupropion has also been shown to increase striatal VMAT2, though it is unknown if this effect is more pronounced than other DRIs. These findings raise questions about the role of dopamine reuptake inhibition in the pharmacology of bupropion, and suggest that other actions may be responsible for its therapeutic effects. More research is needed in this area. No data are available on occupancy of the norepinephrine transporter (NET) by bupropion and its metabolites. However, due to the increased exposure of hydroxybupropion over bupropion itself, which has higher affinity for the NET than the DAT, bupropion's overall pharmacological profile in humans may end up making it effectively more of a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor than a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. Accordingly, the clinical effects of bupropion are more consistent with noradrenergic activity than with dopaminergic actions.
Bupropion has been found to have a mixture of anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory activity through modulation of the immune system. One such mechanism underlying these effects may be reduced levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα). The catecholaminergic actions of bupropion may be involved in its immunomodulatory effects.
Pharmacokinetics
After oral administration, bupropion is rapidly and completely absorbed reaching the peak blood plasma concentration after 1.5 hours (tmax). Sustained release (SR) and extended release (XL) formulations have been designed to slow down absorption resulting in tmax of 3 hours and 5 hours, respectively. Absolute bioavailability of bupropion is unknown but is presumed to be low, at 5–20%, due to the first-pass metabolism. As for the relative bioavailability of the formulations, XL formulation has lower bioavailability (68%) compared to SR formulation and immediate release bupropion.
Bupropion is metabolized in the body by a variety of pathways. The oxidative pathways are by cytochrome P450 isoenzymes CYP2B6 leading to R,R- and S,S-hydroxybupropion and, to a lesser degree, CYP2C19 leading to 4'-hydroxybupropion. The reductive pathways are by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 in the liver and AKR7A2/AKR7A3 in the intestine leading to threo-hydrobupropion and by yet unknown enzyme leading to erythro-hydrobupropion.
The metabolism of bupropion is highly variable: the effective doses of bupropion received by persons who ingest the same amount of the drug may differ by as much as 5.5 times (with a half-life of 12–30 hours), while the effective doses of hydroxybupropion may differ by as much as 7.5 times (with a half-life of 15–25 hours). Based on this, some researchers have advocated monitoring of the blood level of bupropion and hydroxybupropion.
Chemistry
Bupropion is an aminoketone that belongs to the class of substituted cathinones and the more general class of substituted phenethylamines. The clinically used bupropion is racemic, that is a mixture of two enantiomers: S-bupropion and R-bupropion. Although the optical isomers on bupropion can be separated, they rapidly racemize under physiological conditions.
There have been reported cases of false-positive urine amphetamine tests in persons taking bupropion.
Synthesis
It is synthesized in two chemical steps starting from 3'-chloro-propiophenone. The alpha position adjacent to the ketone is first brominated followed by nucleophilic displacement of the resulting alpha-bromoketone with t-butylamine and treated with hydrochloric acid to give bupropion as the hydrochloride salt in 75–85% overall yield.
History
Bupropion was invented by Nariman Mehta of Burroughs Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) in 1969, and the US patent for it was granted in 1974. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an antidepressant on 30 December 1985, and marketed under the name Wellbutrin. However, a significant incidence of seizures at the originally recommended dosage (400–600 mg/day) caused the withdrawal of the drug in 1986. Subsequently, the risk of seizures was found to be highly dose-dependent, and bupropion was re-introduced to the market in 1989 with a lower maximum recommended daily dose of 450 mg/day.
In 1996, the FDA approved a sustained-release formulation of alcohol-resistant bupropion called Wellbutrin SR, intended to be taken twice a day (as compared with three times a day for immediate-release Wellbutrin). In 2003, the FDA approved another sustained-release formulation called Wellbutrin XL, intended for once-daily dosing. Wellbutrin SR and XL are available in generic form in the United States and Canada. In 1997, bupropion was approved by the FDA for use as a smoking cessation aid under the name Zyban. In 2006, Wellbutrin XL was similarly approved as a treatment for seasonal affective disorder.
In October 2007, two providers of consumer information on nutritional products and supplements, ConsumerLab.com and The People's Pharmacy, released the results of comparative tests of different brands of bupropion. The People's Pharmacy received multiple reports of increased side effects and decreased efficacy of generic bupropion, which prompted it to ask ConsumerLab.com to test the products in question. The tests showed that "one of a few generic versions of Wellbutrin XL 300 mg, sold as Budeprion XL 300 mg, didn't perform the same as the brand-name pill in the lab." The FDA investigated these complaints and concluded that Budeprion XL is equivalent to Wellbutrin XL in regard to bioavailability of bupropion and its main active metabolite hydroxybupropion. The FDA also said that coincidental natural mood variation is the most likely explanation for the apparent worsening of depression after the switch from Wellbutrin XL to Budeprion XL. On 3 October 2012, however, the FDA reversed this opinion, announcing that "Budeprion XL 300 mg fails to demonstrate therapeutic equivalence to Wellbutrin XL 300 mg." The FDA did not test the bioequivalence of any of the other generic versions of Wellbutrin XL 300 mg, but requested that the four manufacturers submit data on this question to the FDA by March 2013. the FDA has made determinations on the formulations from some manufacturers not being bioequivalent.
In April 2008, the FDA approved a formulation of bupropion as a hydrobromide salt instead of a hydrochloride salt, to be sold under the name Aplenzin by Sanofi-Aventis.
In 2009, the FDA issued a health advisory warning that the prescription of bupropion for smoking cessation has been associated with reports about unusual behavior changes, agitation and hostility. Some people, according to the advisory, have become depressed or have had their depression worsen, have had thoughts about suicide or dying, or have attempted suicide. This advisory was based on a review of anti-smoking products that identified 75 reports of "suicidal adverse events" for bupropion over ten years. Based on the results of follow-up trials this warning was removed in 2016.
In 2012, the U.S. Justice Department announced that GlaxoSmithKline had agreed to plead guilty and pay a $3 billion fine, in part for promoting the unapproved use of Wellbutrin for weight loss and sexual dysfunction.
In 2017, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended suspending a number of nationally approved medicines due to misrepresentation of bioequivalence study data by Micro Therapeutic Research Labs in India. The products recommended for suspension included several 300 mg modified-release bupropion tablets.
Following EMA's call for an industry-wide review of medicines for the possible presence of nitrosamines, GlaxoSmithKline paused batch release and distribution of bupropion 150 mg tablets in November 2022. In July 2023, EMA raised the acceptable daily intake of nitrosamines impurities, leading GlaxoSmithKline to announce that distribution of bupropion 150 mg tablets would resume "across the EU and Europe" by the end of 2023.
Society and culture
Recreational use
While bupropion demonstrates some potential for misuse, this potential is less than of other commonly used stimulants, being limited by features of its pharmacology. Case reports describe misuse of bupropion as producing a "high" similar to cocaine or amphetamine usage but with less intensity. Bupropion misuse is uncommon. There have been a number of anecdotal and case-study reports of bupropion abuse, but the bulk of evidence indicates that the subjective effects of bupropion when taken orally are markedly different from those of addictive stimulants such as cocaine or amphetamine. However, bupropion, by non-conventional routes of administration like injection or insufflation, has been reported to be misused in the United States and Canada, notably in prisons.
Legal status
In Russia bupropion is banned as a narcotic drug, yet not per se but rather as a derivative of methcathinone.
In Australia, France, and the UK, smoking cessation is the only licensed use of bupropion, and no generics are marketed.
Brand names
Brand names include Wellbutrin, Aplenzin, Budeprion, Buproban, Forfivo, Voxra, Zyban, Bupron, Bupisure, Bupep, Smoquite, Elontril, and Buxon.
References
External links
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny%20Ainge
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Danny Ainge
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Daniel Ray Ainge ( ; born March 17, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and professional baseball player who serves as an executive for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). During his 18-year career as general manager for the Celtics, he was known for making bold moves to help the team rebuild, clearing cap space and tanking for picks. Ainge served as the Celtics' president of basketball operations from 2003 until his retirement in 2021, when he was succeeded by incumbent head coach Brad Stevens (whom he had hired in 2014).
A three-sport star in high school, he was named to All-America teams in football, basketball, and baseball. At Brigham Young University, he was named national basketball college player of the year and won the John R. Wooden Award for the most outstanding male college basketball player. While in college, Ainge also played parts of three seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB), mostly as a second baseman. He was then drafted into the NBA by the Celtics. Ainge played in the NBA for 14 seasons, playing for the Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, and Phoenix Suns, primarily as a shooting guard. He went on to coach the Suns for three seasons before joining management of the Celtics, with whom Ainge has three NBA championships to his credit (two as a player, one as a team executive). During his playing career he appeared in the 1988 All-Star Game, and was the NBA Executive of the Year in 2008.
Early life
Born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, Ainge was a multi-sport star at North Eugene High School. He led the Highlanders' basketball team to consecutive AAA state titles in 1976 and 1977, earning all-state honors both years, and was considered one of the top football recruits in Oregon at wide receiver. As a junior, he was named to the 1977 Parade High School All-America team, and is the only one to be a high school first team All-American in football, basketball, and baseball.
College career
Ainge played college basketball at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. He hit one of the best-known shots in the 1981 NCAA tournament, against Notre Dame in Atlanta in the Sweet Sixteen, when his coast-to-coast drive and lay-up with two seconds remaining gave the Cougars a one-point win. Ainge concluded his senior year by winning the Eastman Award, as well as the John R. Wooden Award—given to the best collegiate player in the nation. During his four-year career at BYU, Ainge was an All-American, a two-time First Team Academic All-American, the WAC Player of the Year and a four-time All-WAC selection. He concluded his college career having scored in double figures in 112 consecutive games, an NCAA record at that time.
Baseball career
Toronto Blue Jays (1979–1981)
Ainge was selected in baseball's 1977 amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. He made it to the major leagues with the Blue Jays in while still in college. Mostly a second baseman, he played third base and outfield positions as well, hitting .220 in his baseball career with two home runs and 146 hits in 211 games. He is the second-youngest player in Blue Jays history to hit a home run, at 20 years and 77 days, surpassed only by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
After three years with the Blue Jays, Ainge decided to pursue a career in basketball and was chosen in the 1981 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, who had to buy out Ainge's contract from the Blue Jays after a legal battle.
Ainge is among the 13 athletes who have played in both the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, along with Frank Baumholtz, Hank Biasatti, Gene Conley, Chuck Connors, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Groat, Steve Hamilton,
Mark Hendrickson, Cotton Nash, Ron Reed, Dick Ricketts, and Howie Schultz.
Basketball career
Boston Celtics (1981–1989)
Not everything went well for Ainge in NBA basketball at first. He had a terrible first day of practice, "shooting 0–2,547", Larry Bird wrote in his autobiography Drive: The Story of My Life. Celtics head coach Bill Fitch gave Ainge a rough time, saying his batting average was better than his shooting percentage on the basketball court. But Ainge became an important player for the Celtics teams that won NBA titles in 1984 and 1986.
Ainge played sparingly during his rookie season (1981–82), but broke into the starting lineup in his second year, averaging 9.9 points per game. However, new coach K.C. Jones moved Ainge back to the bench in his third season (1983–84), starting Gerald Henderson instead. Ainge remained an important role player off the bench, helping the Celtics defeat the rival Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals that year. The Celtics traded Henderson to Seattle in the off-season, returning Ainge to the starting guard position opposite Dennis Johnson. Ainge responded by averaging 12.9 points and 5.3 assists per game in 1984–85. He remained a starter for the Celtics for most of the next five seasons. The Celtics won the championship again in 1985–86; that team is widely considered to be one of the greatest in NBA history. In 1986–87, Ainge finished second in the NBA in free throw shooting (89.7%) and third in 3-point shooting (44.3%). The following year, he made 148 3-pointers, shattering the previous NBA single-season record of 92 held by Darrell Griffith of the Utah Jazz. Ainge made his only appearance in the NBA All-Star Game that year, scoring 12 points.
Sacramento Kings (1989–1990)
In 1989, Ainge was traded to the Sacramento Kings, along with Brad Lohaus, for young center Joe Kleine (whom the Celtics saw as a possible successor to the aging Robert Parish) and Ed Pinckney. Now a featured player on a team with no superstars, Ainge averaged 20.3 points and 6.7 assists per game in that half-season with the Kings. He scored 45 points for the Kings in a loss to the Golden State Warriors, matching a career high that he had set just a few months prior against the Philadelphia 76ers while still playing for the Celtics at that time.
Portland Trail Blazers (1990–1992)
In 1990, Ainge was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers for Byron Irvin and draft picks. Being a native of Oregon, he was considered a hometown favorite by Blazers fans. On May 5, 1992, Ainge played an important role in the highest scoring NBA postseason game of all time, scoring 25 points and hitting multiple key shots during a 155–153 double overtime win over the Phoenix Suns. The win gave the Blazers a three games to one game lead in the Western Conference Semifinals. Ainge would go on to help the Blazers reach the 1992 NBA Finals, only to succumb to the Chicago Bulls in six games. On June 5, he scored nine points in the extra period to tie an all-time NBA record for most points in an overtime during a finals game.
Phoenix Suns (1992–1995)
After the 1991–92 season, Ainge became a free agent. He had stated in media interviews that he ideally wanted to stay in Portland and would contact Blazers management before seriously entertaining offers from other teams. On July 1, 1992, however, Ainge signed a contract with the Phoenix Suns on his first day of free agency. Ainge averaged 11.8 points per game as the Suns went 62–20 that year and reached the NBA finals, where they lost to Michael Jordan's Bulls in six games.
On January 18, 1994, he became the second man ever to hit 900 three-point shots in NBA history (he made 1,002 three-pointers for his career), and he scored 11,964 points for an average of 11.5 points per game, 2,768 rebounds for an average of 2.7, and 4,199 assists, an average of four per game, over 1,042 NBA games.
Ainge retired after the 1994–95 season. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest personal winning percentage in NBA history among players with at least 1,000 career games, edging out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 69.0% to 68.8%. Ainge was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.
Reputation
Throughout his playing career, Ainge was known as a brash, hard-nosed player who often infuriated his teammates by being a ball hog. In a 1983 playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks, he called Tree Rollins a "sissy", whereupon Rollins elbowed Ainge in the face. Ainge tackled Rollins and the two began wrestling. Rollins bit Ainge's middle finger so hard that it required two stitches to keep the tendon together. Ainge was ejected from the contest for starting the fight. The incident prompted the headline "Tree Bites Man" on the April 25, 1983, Boston Herald. While playing for the Phoenix Suns in the 1993 season, Ainge got into a tussle with Michael Jordan at midcourt; both were given a technical foul. In a 1994 postseason game, Ainge rifled an inbounding pass at the head of Houston Rockets guard Mario Elie, striking him in the face, snapping his neck back.
Coaching career
He became head coach of the Phoenix Suns in 1996. His resignation from the Suns coaching job in 1999 was a sudden one; he cited a need to spend more time with his family. He was replaced by assistant coach Scott Skiles.
Executive career
Boston Celtics executive
In 2003, he was hired as the executive director of Basketball Operations for the Celtics. Ainge has often been controversial in his role as a Celtics executive, trading popular players such as three-time All-Star Antoine Walker (earning himself the nickname "Trader Danny") and having personality conflicts with then-head coach Jim O'Brien (which eventually led to O'Brien's departure to the Philadelphia 76ers). However, Ainge kept the support of both the Celtics' ownership group and—perhaps most importantly—legendary former head coach Red Auerbach, who was employed by the team as a "senior assistant" until his death in October 2006.
The 2006–07 Celtics finished with a 24–58 record, second-worst in the team's history. Following the season, Paul Pierce, team captain and face of the franchise, expressed frustration with the team's failures. He requested a trade to a contender if management were unable to acquire veteran talent of Pierce's caliber.
Ainge responded with two bold moves that changed the franchise's fortunes almost overnight: the 2007 trades for the Minnesota Timberwolves' Kevin Garnett and the Seattle SuperSonics' Ray Allen immediately returned the Celtics to the ranks of the NBA's elite franchises for the first time since the early 1990s. Together with Pierce, they formed a new "Big Three" and led the Celtics to the NBA's best record (66–16) during the 2007–08 season. It was the most dramatic single-season improvement in league history (42 wins more than the previous year), and it earned Ainge the NBA Executive of the Year Award.
Boston faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 NBA Finals, renewing the long rivalry between the two teams. The Celtics won the series in six games, giving the franchise its 17th NBA championship. Danny Ainge held the trophy for the first time since winning in 1986. In October 2008, after the Celtics' championship season, he was promoted to President of Basketball Operations.
On May 3, 2010, Ainge was fined $25K for tossing a towel to distract then Cleveland Cavaliers forward JJ Hickson shooting a free throw during game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
In 2013, Ainge traded Garnett and Pierce, along with Jason Terry and D.J. White, to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for five players plus the Nets' first-round picks in 2014, 2016 and 2018. Boston also received the rights to swap picks with Brooklyn in 2017. It is widely considered one of the most lopsided trades in league history, in favor of the Celtics.
On August 22, 2017, Ainge made another blockbuster deal, trading All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas, as well as Jae Crowder, Ante Žižić and the rights to the Nets' 2018 first-round draft pick, to the Cleveland Cavaliers for All-Star Kyrie Irving. Eight days later, the deal also included a 2020 second round pick from the Miami Heat as compensation relating to a prior injury to Thomas.
On June 2, 2021, Ainge announced his retirement and named head coach Brad Stevens as his replacement in president of basketball operations role.
Utah Jazz executive
On December 15, 2021, Ainge was hired as the CEO of basketball operations and alternate governor of the Utah Jazz.
His first transaction was hiring the new head coach Will Hardy after Quin Snyder announced his resignation as head coach. In the 2022 NBA offseason, he traded Rudy Gobert to Minnesota and Donovan Mitchell to Cleveland. In return of these two majors trades, he received Lauri Markkanen, Colin Sexton (via sign-and-trade), Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, rights to the 14th and the 22nd picks (Ochai Agbaji and Walker Kessler) respectively, 7 first round picks and 4 first round pick swaps.
His third move was the 2023 trade deadline a major trade to clear cap space he traded Mike Conley to Minnesota, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt to the Lakers. In return the Jazz received Russell Westbrook (who later buyout the contract to sign with the Clippers), Juan Toscano-Anderson, Damian Jones and a 2027 first round pick. He also signed young prospects Kris Dunn, Luka Samanic and Vernon Carey Jr.
The post Mitchell/Gobert trade was successful for the team as Lauri Markkanen had a breakout season and was named the 2022-23 NBA Most Improved Player.
Other pursuits
In 1996, Danny Ainge made his acting debut in Space Jam, playing himself. While only a brief appearance, Ainge was dubbed "The Bad Shot Guy" after catching and shooting the ball at the same time while Charles Barkley roamed the court after having his skills stolen by the Monstars.
While a player with the Suns, Ainge opened a national chain of hat stores which he has since sold. He has volunteered at a number of charitable organizations. Ainge also served as a commentator for the NBA on TNT.
Personal life
Ainge and his wife, Michelle, reside in Wellesley, Massachusetts; they have six children (Ashlee, Austin, Tanner, Taylor, Cooper and Crew). Austin Ainge is director of player personnel for the Boston Celtics and like his father, played basketball at BYU. Tanner Ainge is a Utah County Commissioner, businessman, and lawyer.
Ainge's nephew, Erik Ainge, was the starting quarterback on the football team at the University of Tennessee and was selected by the New York Jets in the 5th round of the 2008 NFL Draft. Another nephew, Jake Toolson, played the shooting guard position for BYU and recently signed an Exhibit-10 contract with the Utah Jazz.
Ainge and his family are active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which Ainge served as a bishop.
Ainge had a mild heart attack in 2009,
and another in 2019. He has ADHD, according to a personality test he took when Doc Rivers was coaching the Celtics.
NBA career statistics
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 53 || 1 || 10.6 || .357 || .294 || .862 || 1.1 || 1.6 || 0.7 || 0.1 || 4.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 80 || 76 || 25.6 || .496 || .172 || .742 || 2.7 || 3.1 || 1.4 || 0.1 || 9.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"| †
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 71 || 3 || 16.3 || .460 || .273 || .821 || 1.6 || 2.3 || 0.6 || 0.1 || 5.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 75 || 73 || 34.2 || .529 || .268 || .868 || 3.6 || 5.3 || 1.6 || 0.1 || 12.9
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"| †
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 80 || 78 || 30.1 || .504 || .356 || .904 || 2.9 || 5.1 || 1.2 || 0.1 || 10.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 71 || 66 || 35.2 || .486 || .443 || .897 || 3.4 || 5.6 || 1.4 || 0.2 || 14.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 81 || 81 || 37.3 || .491 || .415 || .878 || 3.1 || 6.2 || 1.4 || 0.2 || 15.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 45 || 28 || 30.0 || .460 || .374 || .891 || 3.4 || 4.8 || 1.2 || 0.0 || 15.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Sacramento
| 28 || 26 || 36.7 || .452 || .387 || .813 || 3.6 || 6.7 || 1.5 || 0.3 || 20.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Sacramento
| 75 || 68 || 36.4 || .438 || .374 || .831 || 4.3 || 6.0 || 1.5 || 0.2 || 17.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Portland
| 80 || 0 || 21.4 || .472 || .406 || .826 || 2.6 || 3.6 || 0.8 || 0.2 || 11.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Portland
| 81 || 6 || 19.7 || .442 || .339 || .824 || 1.8 || 2.5 || 0.9 || 0.2 || 9.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 80 || 0 || 27.0 || .462 || .403 || .848 || 2.7 || 3.3 || 0.9 || 0.1 || 11.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 68 || 1 || 22.9 || .417 || .328 || .830 || 1.9 || 2.6 || 0.8 || 0.1 || 8.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 74 || 1 || 18.6 || .460 || .364 || .808 || 1.5 || 2.8 || 0.6 || 0.1 || 7.7
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2| Career
| 1042 || 508 || 26.6 || .469 || .378 || .846 || 2.7 || 4.0 || 1.1 || 0.1 || 11.5
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"| All-Star
| 1 || 0 || 19.0 || .364 || .750 || .500 || 3.0 || 2.0 || 1.0 || 0.0 || 12.0
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1982
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 10 || 0 || 12.9 || .422 || .500 || .769 || 1.3 || 1.1 || 0.2 || 0.1 || 5.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1983
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 7 || 7 || 28.7 || .389 || .400 || .727 || 2.0 || 3.6 || 0.7 || 0.1 || 9.4
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"| 1984†
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 19 || 0 || 13.3 || .456 || .222 || .700 || 0.8 || 2.0 || 0.5 || 0.1 || 4.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1985
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 21 || 21 || 32.7 || .466 || .438 || .769 || 2.8 || 5.8 || 1.5 || 0.0 || 11.0
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"| 1986†
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 18 || 18 || 36.2 || .554 || .412 || .867 || 4.2 || 5.2 || 2.3 || 0.1 || 15.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1987
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 20 || 19 || 38.1 || .487 || .438 || .861 || 2.6 || 4.6 || 1.2 || 0.2 || 14.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1988
| style="text-align:left;"| Boston
| 17 || 17 || 39.4 || .386 || .328 || .881 || 3.1 || 6.4 || 0.5 || 0.1 || 11.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1991
| style="text-align:left;"| Portland
| 16 || 0 || 17.3 || .448 || .306 || .821 || 1.8 || 1.9 || 0.8 || 0.2 || 8.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1992
| style="text-align:left;"| Portland
| 21 || 0 || 21.4 || .479 || .404 || .830 || 1.9 || 2.3 || 0.7 || 0.0 || 10.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1993
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 24 || 0 || 24.6 || .376 || .413 || .872 || 2.5 || 2.3 || 0.5 || 0.1 || 8.1
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1994
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 10|| 0 || 23.0 || .458 || .425 || .714 || 2.3 || 2.1 || 0.6 || 0.1 || 8.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"| 1995
| style="text-align:left;"| Phoenix
| 10 || 0 || 13.7 || .500 || .462 || .909 || 1.0 || 1.0 || 0.5 || 0.0 || 6.0
|- class=sortbottom
| style="text-align:center;" colspan=2| Career
| 193 || 82 || 26.1 || .456 || .397 || .829 || 2.3 || 3.4 || 0.9 || 0.1 || 9.9
|-
Head coaching record
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|Phoenix
| style="text-align:left;"|
|74||40||34|||| style="text-align:center;"|4th in Pacific||5||2||3||
| style="text-align:center;"|Lost in First Round
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|Phoenix
| style="text-align:left;"|
|82||56||26|||| style="text-align:center;"|3rd in Pacific||4||1||3||
| style="text-align:center;"|Lost in First Round
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|Phoenix
| style="text-align:left;"|
|50||27||23|||| style="text-align:center;"|3rd in Pacific||3||0||3||
| style="text-align:center;"|Lost in First Round
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|Phoenix
| style="text-align:left;"|
|20||13||7|||| style="text-align:center;"|(resigned)||—||—||—||—
| style="text-align:center;"|–
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:left;"|Career
| ||226||136||90|||| ||12||3||9||
See also
List of National Basketball Association career playoff 3-point scoring leaders
List of multi-sport athletes
List of National Basketball Association team presidents
References
External links
1959 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
American men's basketball players
Baseball players from Oregon
Basketball coaches from Oregon
Basketball players from Oregon
Boston Celtics draft picks
Boston Celtics executives
Boston Celtics players
BYU Cougars men's basketball players
Latter Day Saints from Oregon
Major League Baseball second basemen
National Basketball Association All-Stars
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Basketball Association general managers
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Phoenix Suns head coaches
Phoenix Suns players
Point guards
Portland Trail Blazers players
Sacramento Kings players
Shooting guards
Sportspeople from Eugene, Oregon
Syracuse Chiefs players
Toronto Blue Jays players
Utah Jazz executives
People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
American disabled sportspeople
|
378598
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunicate
|
Tunicate
|
A tunicate is a marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata ( ). It is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time called Urochordata, and the term urochordates is still sometimes used for these animals. They are the only chordates that have lost their myomeric segmentation, with the possible exception of the 'seriation of the gill slits'. However, doliolids still display segmentation of the muscle bands.
Some tunicates live as solitary individuals, but others replicate by budding and become colonies, each unit being known as a zooid. They are marine filter feeders with a water-filled, sac-like body structure and two tubular openings, known as siphons, through which they draw in and expel water. During their respiration and feeding, they take in water through the incurrent (or inhalant) siphon and expel the filtered water through the excurrent (or exhalant) siphon. Adult ascidian tunicates are sessile, immobile and permanently attached to rocks or other hard surfaces on the ocean floor. Thaliaceans (pyrosomes, doliolids, and salps) and larvaceans on the other hand, swim in the pelagic zone of the sea as adults.
Various species of ascidians, the most well-known class of tunicates, are commonly known as sea squirts, sea pork, sea livers, or sea tulips.
The earliest probable species of tunicate appears in the fossil record in the early Cambrian period. Despite their simple appearance and very different adult form, their close relationship to the vertebrates is evidenced by the fact that during their mobile larval stage, they possess a notochord or stiffening rod and resemble a tadpole. Their name derives from their unique outer covering or "tunic", which is formed from proteins and carbohydrates, and acts as an exoskeleton. In some species, it is thin, translucent, and gelatinous, while in others it is thick, tough, and stiff.
Taxonomy
About 3,000 species of tunicate exist in the world's oceans, living mostly in shallow water. The most numerous group is the ascidians; fewer than 100 species of these are found at depths greater than . Some are solitary animals leading a sessile existence attached to the seabed, but others are colonial and a few are pelagic. Some are supported by a stalk, but most are attached directly to a substrate, which may be a rock, shell, coral, seaweed, mangrove root, dock, piling, or ship's hull. They are found in a range of solid or translucent colours and may resemble seeds, grapes, peaches, barrels, or bottles. One of the largest is a stalked sea tulip, Pyura pachydermatina, which can grow to be over tall.
The Tunicata were established by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1816. In 1881, Francis Maitland Balfour introduced another name for the same group, "Urochorda", to emphasize the affinity of the group to other chordates. No doubt largely because of his influence, various authors supported the term, either as such, or as the slightly older "Urochordata", but this usage is invalid because "Tunicata" has precedence, and grounds for superseding the name never existed. Accordingly, the current (formally correct) trend is to abandon the name Urochorda or Urochordata in favour of the original Tunicata, and the name Tunicata is almost invariably used in modern scientific works. It is accepted as valid by the World Register of Marine Species but not by the Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
Various common names are used for different species. Sea tulips are tunicates with colourful bodies supported on slender stalks. Sea squirts are so named because of their habit of contracting their bodies sharply and squirting out water when disturbed. Sea liver and sea pork get their names from the resemblance of their dead colonies to pieces of meat.
Classification
Tunicates are more closely related to craniates (including hagfish, lampreys, and jawed vertebrates) than to lancelets, echinoderms, hemichordates, Xenoturbella or other invertebrates.
The clade consisting of tunicates and vertebrates is called Olfactores.
The Tunicata contain roughly 3,051 described species, traditionally divided into these classes:
Ascidiacea (Aplousobranchia, Phlebobranchia, and Stolidobranchia)
Thaliacea (Pyrosomida, Doliolida, and Salpida)
Appendicularia (Copelata)
Members of the Sorberacea were included in Ascidiacea in 2011 as a result of rDNA sequencing studies. Although the traditional classification is provisionally accepted, newer evidence suggests the Ascidiacea are an artificial group of paraphyletic status. A close reationship between Thaliacea and Ascidiacea, with the former possibly emerging from the latter, had already been proposed since the early 20th century under the name of Acopa.
The following cladogram is based on the 2018 phylogenomic study of Delsuc and colleagues.
Fossil record
Undisputed fossils of tunicates are rare. The best known and earliest unequivocally identified species is Shankouclava shankouense from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan Shale at Shankou village, Anning, near Kunming (South China). There is also a common bioimmuration, (Catellocaula vallata), of a possible tunicate found in Upper Ordovician bryozoan skeletons of the upper midwestern United States. A well-preserved Cambrian fossil, Megasiphon thylakos, shows that the tunicate basic body design had already been established 500 million years ago.
Three enigmatic species were also found from the Ediacaran period – Ausia fenestrata from the Nama Group of Namibia, the sac-like Yarnemia ascidiformis, and one from a second new Ausia-like genus from the Onega Peninsula of northern Russia, Burykhia hunti. Results of a new study have shown possible affinity of these Ediacaran organisms to the ascidians. Ausia and Burykhia lived in shallow coastal waters slightly more than 555 to 548 million years ago, and are believed to be the oldest evidence of the chordate lineage of metazoans. The Russian Precambrian fossil Yarnemia is identified as a tunicate only tentatively, because its fossils are nowhere near as well-preserved as those of Ausia and Burykhia, so this identification has been questioned.
Fossils of tunicates are rare because their bodies decay soon after death, but in some tunicate families, microscopic spicules are present, which may be preserved as microfossils. These spicules have occasionally been found in Jurassic and later rocks, but, as few palaeontologists are familiar with them, they may have been mistaken for sponge spicules.
In Permian and Triassic there were also forms with a calcareous exoskeleton. At first they were mistaken for corals.
Hybridization studies
A multi-taxon molecular study in 2010 proposed that sea squirts are descended from a hybrid between a chordate and a protostome ancestor (before the divergence of panarthropods and nematodes). This study was based on a quartet partitioning approach designed to reveal horizontal gene transfer events among metazoan phyla.
Anatomy
Body form
Colonies of tunicates occur in a range of forms, and vary in the degree to which individual organisms, known as zooids, integrate with one another. In the simplest systems, the individual animals are widely separated, but linked together by horizontal connections called stolons, which grow along the seabed. Other species have the zooids growing closer together in a tuft or clustered together and sharing a common base. The most advanced colonies involve the integration of the zooids into a common structure surrounded by the tunic. These may have separate buccal siphons and a single central atrial siphon and may be organized into larger systems, with hundreds of star-shaped units. Often, the zooids in a colony are tiny but very numerous, and the colonies can form large encrusting or mat-like patches.
Body structure
By far the largest class of tunicates is the Ascidiacea. The body of an ascidiacean is surrounded by a test or tunic, from which the subphylum derives its name. This varies in thickness between species but may be tough, resembling cartilage, thin and delicate, or transparent and gelatinous. The tunic is composed of proteins and complex carbohydrates, and includes tunicin, a variety of cellulose. The tunic is unique among invertebrate exoskeletons in that it can grow as the animal enlarges and does not need to be periodically shed. Inside the tunic is the body wall or mantle composed of connective tissue, muscle fibres, blood vessels, and nerves. Two openings are found in the body wall: the buccal siphon at the top through which water flows into the interior, and the atrial siphon on the ventral side through which it is expelled. A large pharynx occupies most of the interior of the body. It is a muscular tube linking the buccal opening with the rest of the gut. It has a ciliated groove known as an endostyle on its ventral surface, and this secretes a mucous net which collects food particles and is wound up on the dorsal side of the pharynx. The gullet, at the lower end of the pharynx, links it to a loop of gut which terminates near the atrial siphon. The walls of the pharynx are perforated by several bands of slits, known as stigmata, through which water escapes into the surrounding water-filled cavity, the atrium. This is criss-crossed by various rope-like mesenteries which extend from the mantle and provide support for the pharynx, preventing it from collapsing, and also hold up the other organs.
The Thaliacea, the other main class of tunicates, is characterised by free-swimming, pelagic individuals. They are all filter feeders using a pharyngeal mucous net to catch their prey. The pyrosomes are bioluminous colonial tunicates with a hollow cylindrical structure. The buccal siphons are on the outside and the atrial siphons inside. About 10 species are known, and all are found in the tropics. The 23 species of doliolids are small, mostly under long. They are solitary, have the two siphons at opposite ends of their barrel-shaped bodies, and swim by jet propulsion. The 40 species of salps are also small, under long, and found in the surface waters of both warm and cold seas. They also move by jet propulsion, and often form long chains by budding off new individuals.
A third class, the Larvacea (or Appendicularia), is the only group of tunicates to retain their chordate characteristics in the adult state, a product of extensive neoteny. The 70 species of larvaceans superficially resemble the tadpole larvae of amphibians, although the tail is at right angles to the body. The notochord is retained, and the animals, mostly under 1 cm long, are propelled by undulations of the tail. They secrete an external mucous net known as a house, which may completely surround them and is very efficient at trapping planktonic particles.
Physiology and internal anatomy
Like all other chordates, tunicates have a notochord during their early development, but it is lost by the time they have completed their metamorphosis. As members of the Chordata, they are true Coelomata with endoderm, ectoderm, and mesoderm, but they do not develop very clear coelomic body cavities, if any at all. Whether they do or not, by the end of their larval development, all that remain are the pericardial, renal, and gonadal cavities of the adults. Except for the heart, gonads, and pharynx (or branchial sac), the organs are enclosed in a membrane called an epicardium, which is surrounded by the jelly-like mesenchyme.
Ascidian tunicates begin life as a lecithotrophic (non-feeding) mobile larva that resembles a tadpole, with the exception of some members of the families Styelidae and Molgulidae which has direct development. The latter also have several species with tail-less larval forms. The ascidian larvae very rapidly settle down and attach themselves to a suitable surface, later developing into a barrel-like and usually sedentary adult form. The species in the class Appendicularia are pelagic, and the general larval form is kept throughout life. Also the class Thaliacea is pelagic throughout their lives and may have complex lifecycles. In this class a free living larval stage is absent: Doliolids and pyrosomatids are viviparous–lecithotrophic, and salpids are viviparous–matrotrophic. Only some species of doliolids still have a rudimentary tailed tadpole stage, which is never free-living and lacks a brain.
Tunicates have a well-developed heart and circulatory system. The heart is a double U-shaped tube situated just below the gut. The blood vessels are simple connective tissue tubes, and their blood has several types of corpuscle. The blood may appear pale green, but this is not due to any respiratory pigments, and oxygen is transported dissolved in the plasma. Exact details of the circulatory system are unclear, but the gut, pharynx, gills, gonads, and nervous system seem to be arranged in series rather than in parallel, as happens in most other animals. Every few minutes, the heart stops beating and then restarts, pumping fluid in the reverse direction.
Tunicate blood has some unusual features. In some species of Ascidiidae and Perophoridae, it contains high concentrations of the transitional metal vanadium and vanadium-associated proteins in vacuoles in blood cells known as vanadocytes. Some tunicates can concentrate vanadium up to a level ten million times that of the surrounding seawater. It is stored in a +3 oxidation form that requires a pH of less than 2 for stability, and this is achieved by the vacuoles also containing sulfuric acid. The vanadocytes are later deposited just below the outer surface of the tunic, where their presence is thought to deter predation, although it is unclear whether this is due to the presence of the metal or low pH. Other species of tunicates concentrate lithium, iron, niobium, and tantalum, which may serve a similar function. Other tunicate species produce distasteful organic compounds as chemical defenses against predators.
Tunicates lack the kidney-like metanephridial organs typical of deuterostomes. Most have no excretory structures, but rely on the diffusion of ammonia across their tissues to rid themselves of nitrogenous waste, though some have a simple excretory system. The typical renal organ is a mass of large clear-walled vesicles that occupy the rectal loop, and the structure has no duct. Each vesicle is a remnant of a part of the primitive coelom, and its cells extract nitrogenous waste matter from circulating blood. They accumulate the wastes inside the vesicles as urate crystals, and do not have any obvious means of disposing of the material during their lifetimes.
Adult tunicates have a hollow cerebral ganglion, equivalent to a brain, and a hollow structure known as a neural gland. Both originate from the embryonic neural tube and are located between the two siphons. Nerves arise from the two ends of the ganglion; those from the anterior end innervate the buccal siphon and those from the posterior end supply the rest of the body, the atrial siphon, organs, gut and the musculature of the body wall. There are no sense organs but there are sensory cells on the siphons, the buccal tentacles and in the atrium.
Tunicates are unusual among animals in that they produce a large fraction of their tunic and some other structures in the form of cellulose. The production in animals of cellulose is so unusual that at first some researchers denied its presence outside of plants, but the tunicates were later found to possess a functional cellulose synthesizing enzyme, encoded by a gene horizontally transferred from a bacterium. When, in 1845, Carl Schmidt first announced the presence in the test of some ascidians of a substance very similar to cellulose, he called it "tunicine", but it is now recognized as cellulose rather than any alternative substance.
Feeding
Nearly all adult tunicates are suspension feeders (the larval form usually does not feed), capturing planktonic particles by filtering sea water through their bodies. Ascidians are typical in their digestive processes, but other tunicates have similar systems. Water is drawn into the body through the buccal siphon by the action of cilia lining the gill slits. To obtain enough food, an average ascidian needs to process one body-volume of water per second. This is drawn through a net lining the pharynx which is being continuously secreted by the endostyle. The net is made of sticky mucus threads with holes about 0.5 µm in diameter which can trap planktonic particles including bacteria. The net is rolled up on the dorsal side of the pharynx, and it and the trapped particles are drawn into the esophagus. The gut is U-shaped and also ciliated to move the contents along. The stomach is an enlarged region at the lowest part of the U-bend. Here, digestive enzymes are secreted and a pyloric gland adds further secretions. After digestion, the food is moved on through the intestine, where absorption takes place, and the rectum, where undigested remains are formed into faecal pellets or strings. The anus opens into the dorsal or cloacal part of the peribranchial cavity near the atrial siphon. Here, the faeces are caught up by the constant stream of water which carries the waste to the exterior. The animal orientates itself to the current in such a way that the buccal siphon is always upstream and does not draw in contaminated water.
Some ascidians that live on soft sediments are detritivores. A few deepwater species, such as Megalodicopia hians, are sit-and-wait predators, trapping tiny crustacea, nematodes, and other small invertebrates with the muscular lobes which surround their buccal siphons. Certain tropical species in the family Didemnidae have symbiotic green algae or cyanobacteria in their tunics, and one of these symbionts, Prochloron, is unique to tunicates. Excess photosynthetic products are assumed to be available to the host.
Life cycle
Ascidians are almost all hermaphrodites and each has a single ovary and testis, either near the gut or on the body wall. In some solitary species, sperm and eggs are shed into the sea and the larvae are planktonic. In others, especially colonial species, sperm is released into the water and drawn into the atria of other individuals with the incoming water current. Fertilization takes place here and the eggs are brooded through their early developmental stages. Some larval forms appear very much like primitive chordates with a notochord (stiffening rod) and superficially resemble small tadpoles. These swim by undulations of the tail and may have a simple eye, an ocellus, and a balancing organ, a statocyst.
When sufficiently developed, the larva of the sessile species finds a suitable rock and cements itself in place. The larval form is not capable of feeding, though it may have a rudimentary digestive system, and is only a dispersal mechanism. Many physical changes occur to the tunicate's body during metamorphosis, one of the most significant being the reduction of the cerebral ganglion, which controls movement and is the equivalent of the vertebrate brain. From this comes the common saying that the sea squirt "eats its own brain". However, the adult does possess a cerebral ganglion adapted to lack of self-locomotion. In the Thaliacea, the larval stage is rudimentary or suppressed, and the adults are pelagic (swimming or drifting in the open sea). Colonial forms also increase the size of the colony by budding off new individuals to share the same tunic.
Pyrosome colonies grow by budding off new zooids near the posterior end of the colony. Sexual reproduction starts within a zooid with an internally fertilized egg. This develops directly into an oozooid without any intervening larval form. This buds precociously to form four blastozooids which become detached in a single unit when the oozoid disintegrates. The atrial siphon of the oozoid becomes the exhalent siphon for the new, four-zooid colony.
Doliolids have a very complex life cycle that includes various zooids with different functions. The sexually reproducing members of the colony are known as gonozooids. Each one is a hermaphrodite with the eggs being fertilised by sperm from another individual. The gonozooid is viviparous, and at first, the developing embryo feeds on its yolk sac before being released into the sea as a free-swimming, tadpole-like larva. This undergoes metamorphosis in the water column into an oozooid. This is known as a "nurse" as it develops a tail of zooids produced by budding asexually. Some of these are known as trophozooids, have a nutritional function, and are arranged in lateral rows. Others are phorozooids, have a transport function, and are arranged in a single central row. Other zooids link to the phorozooids, which then detach themselves from the nurse. These zooids develop into gonozooids, and when these are mature, they separate from the phorozooids to live independently and start the cycle over again. Meanwhile, the phorozooids have served their purpose and disintegrate. The asexual phase in the lifecycle allows the doliolid to multiply very rapidly when conditions are favourable.
Salps also have a complex lifecycle with an alternation of generations. In the solitary life history phase, an oozoid reproduces asexually, producing a chain of tens or hundreds of individual zooids by budding along the length of a stolon. The chain of salps is the 'aggregate' portion of the lifecycle. The aggregate individuals, known as blastozooids, remain attached together while swimming and feeding and growing larger. The blastozooids are sequential hermaphrodites. An egg in each is fertilized internally by a sperm from another colony. The egg develops in a brood sac inside the blastozooid and has a placental connection to the circulating blood of its "nurse". When it fills the blastozooid's body, it is released to start the independent life of an oozooid.
Larvaceans only reproduce sexually. They are protandrous hermaphrodites, except for Oikopleura dioica which is gonochoric, and a larva resembles the tadpole larva of ascidians. Once the trunk is fully developed, the larva undergoes "tail shift", in which the tail moves from a rearward position to a ventral orientation and twists through 90° relative to the trunk. The larva consists of a small, fixed number of cells, and grows by enlargement of these rather than cell division. Development is very rapid and only takes seven hours for a zygote to develop into a house-building juvenile starting to feed.
During embryonic development, tunicates exhibit determinate cleavage, where the fate of the cells is set early on with reduced cell numbers and genomes that are rapidly evolving. In contrast, the amphioxus and vertebrates show cell determination relatively late in development and cell cleavage is indeterminate. The genome evolution of amphioxus and vertebrates is also relatively slow.
Promotion of out-crossing
Ciona intestinalis (class Ascidiacea) is a hermaphrodite that releases sperm and eggs into the surrounding seawater almost simultaneously. It is self-sterile, and thus has been used for studies on the mechanism of self-incompatibility. Self/non-self-recognition molecules play a key role in the process of interaction between sperm and the vitelline coat of the egg. It appears that self/non-self recognition in ascidians such as C. intestinalis is mechanistically similar to self-incompatibility systems in flowering plants. Self-incompatibility promotes out-crossing, and thus provides the adaptive advantage at each generation of the masking of deleterious recessive mutations (i.e. genetic complementation) and the avoidance of inbreeding depression.
Botryllus schlosseri (class Ascidiacea) is a colonial tunicate, a member of the only group of chordates that are able to reproduce both sexually and asexually. B. schlosseri is a sequential (protogynous) hermaphrodite, and in a colony, eggs are ovulated about two days before the peak of sperm emission. Thus self-fertilization is avoided, and cross-fertilization is favored. Although avoided, self-fertilization is still possible in B. schlosseri. Self-fertilized eggs develop with a substantially higher frequency of anomalies during cleavage than cross-fertilized eggs (23% vs. 1.6%). Also a significantly lower percentage of larvae derived from self-fertilized eggs metamorphose, and the growth of the colonies derived from their metamorphosis is significantly lower. These findings suggest that self-fertilization gives rise to inbreeding depression associated with developmental deficits that are likely caused by expression of deleterious recessive mutations.
A model tunicate
Oikopleura dioica (class Appendicularia) is a semelparous organism, reproducing only once in its lifetime. It employs an original reproductive strategy in which the entire female germ-line is contained within an ovary that is a single giant multinucleate cell termed the "coenocyst". O. dioica can be maintained in laboratory culture, and is of growing interest as a model organism because of its phylogenetic position within the closest sister group to vertebrates.
Invasive species
Over the past few decades, tunicates (notably of the genera Didemnum and Styela) have been invading coastal waters in many countries. The carpet tunicate (Didemnum vexillum) has taken over a area of the seabed on the Georges Bank off the northeast coast of North America, covering stones, molluscs, and other stationary objects in a dense mat. D. vexillum, Styela clava and Ciona savignyi have appeared and are thriving in Puget Sound and Hood Canal in the Pacific Northwest.
Invasive tunicates usually arrive as fouling organisms on the hulls of ships, but may also be introduced as larvae in ballast water. Another possible means of introduction is on the shells of molluscs brought in for marine cultivation. Current research indicates many tunicates previously thought to be indigenous to Europe and the Americas are, in fact, invaders. Some of these invasions may have occurred centuries or even millennia ago. In some areas, tunicates are proving to be a major threat to aquaculture operations.
Use by humans
Medical uses
Tunicates contain a host of potentially useful chemical compounds, including:
Plitidepsin, a didemnin effective against various types of cancer; as of late January 2021 undergoing Phase III trials as a treatment for COVID-19
Trabectedin, an FDA approved anticancer drug.
Tunicates are able to correct their own cellular abnormalities over a series of generations, and a similar regenerative process may be possible for humans. The mechanisms underlying the phenomenon may lead to insights about the potential of cells and tissues to be reprogrammed and to regenerate compromised human organs.
As food
Various Ascidiacea species are consumed as food around the world. The piure (Pyura chilensis) is used in the cuisine of Chile, both raw and in seafood stews. In Japan and Korea, the sea pineapple (Halocynthia roretzi) is the main species eaten. It is cultivated on dangling cords made of palm fronds. In 1994, over 42,000 tons were produced, but since then, mass mortality events have occurred among the farmed sea squirts (the tunics becoming soft), and only 4,500 tons were produced in 2004.
Other uses
The use of tunicates as a source of biofuel is being researched. The cellulose body wall can be broken down and converted into ethanol, and other parts of the animal are protein-rich and can be converted into fish feed. Culturing tunicates on a large scale may be possible and the economics of doing so are attractive. As tunicates have few predators, their removal from the sea may not have profound ecological impacts. Being sea-based, their production does not compete with food production as does the cultivation of land-based crops for biofuel projects.
Some tunicates are used as model organisms. Ciona intestinalis and Ciona savignyi have been used for developmental studies. Both species' mitochondrial and nuclear genomes have been sequenced. The nuclear genome of the appendicularian Oikopleura dioica appears to be one of the smallest among metazoans and this species has been used to study gene regulation and the evolution and development of chordates.
See also
Vetulicolia – crown-group chordates which are probably the sister group of modern tunicates
Donald I. Williamson – claimed hybridization
References
External links
The Tunicate Web Portal
Dutch Ascidians: Extensive database of images from around the world
Aniseed: A model organism database for ascidians including Ciona intestinalis and Halocynthia roretzi
Cambrian Series 2 first appearances
Extant Cambrian first appearances
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378612
|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equites
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Equites
|
The equites (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques ().
Description
During the Roman Kingdom and the first century of the Roman Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, who were expected to provide six centuriae of cavalry (300 horses for each consular legion). Around 400BC, 12 more centuriae of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians (plebeians). Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the normal annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 centuriae. These new recruits came from the first class of commoners in the Centuriate Assembly organisation, and were not granted the same privileges.
By the time of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC), all the members of the first class of commoners were required to serve as cavalrymen. The presence of equites in the Roman cavalry diminished steadily in the period 200–88 BC as only equites could serve as the army's senior officers; as the number of legions proliferated fewer were available for ordinary cavalry service. After 88 BC, equites were no longer drafted into the legionary cavalry, although they remained technically liable to such service throughout the Principate era (to AD 284). They continued to supply the senior officers of the army throughout the Principate.
With the exception of the purely hereditary patricians, the equites were originally defined by a property threshold. The rank was passed from father to son, although members of the order who at the regular quinquennial (every five years) census no longer met the property requirement were usually removed from the order's rolls by the Roman censors. In the late republic, the property threshold stood at 50,000 denarii and was doubled to 100,000 by the emperor Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – AD 14) – roughly the equivalent to the annual salaries of 450 contemporary legionaries. In the later republican period, Roman senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order.
Under Augustus, the senatorial elite was given formal status (as the ordo senatorius) with a higher wealth threshold (250,000 denarii, or the pay of 1,100 legionaries) and superior rank and privileges to ordinary equites. During the Principate, equites filled the senior administrative and military posts of the imperial government. There was a clear division between jobs reserved for senators (the most senior) and those reserved for non-senatorial equites. But the career structure of both groups was broadly similar: a period of junior administrative posts in Rome or Roman Italy, followed by a period (normally a decade) of military service as a senior army officer, followed by senior administrative or military posts in the provinces. Senators and equites formed a tiny elite of under 10,000 members who monopolised political, military and economic power in an empire of about 60 million inhabitants.
During the 3rd century AD, power shifted from the Italian aristocracy to a class of equites who had earned their membership by distinguished military service, often rising from the ranks: career military officers from the provinces (especially the Balkan provinces) who displaced the Italian aristocrats in the top military posts, and under Diocletian (ruled 284–305) from the top civilian positions also. This effectively reduced the Italian aristocracy to an idle, but immensely wealthy, group of landowners. During the 4th century, the status of equites was debased to insignificance by excessive grants of the rank. At the same time the ranks of senators were swollen to over 4,000 by the establishment of the Byzantine Senate (a second senate in Constantinople) and the tripling of the membership of both senates. The senatorial order of the 4th century was thus the equivalent of the equestrian order of the Principate.
Regal era (753–509 BC)
According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, in 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state (as opposed to a number of separate hilltop settlements) until 625BC.
Roman tradition relates that the Order of Knights was founded by Romulus, who supposedly established a cavalry regiment of 300 men called the Celeres ("Swift Squadron") to act as his personal escort, with each of the three Roman "tribes" (actually voting constituencies) supplying 100 horses. This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (traditional dates 616–578 BC). That the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is plausible, as in the early republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong (two legions with 300 horses each). However, according to Livy, King Servius Tullius (traditional reign-dates 578–535 BC) established a further 12 centuriae of equites, a further tripling of the cavalry. Yet this was probably anachronistic, as it would have resulted in a contingent of 1,800 horse, incongruously large, compared to the heavy infantry, which was probably only 6,000 strong in the late regal period. Instead, the additional 12 centuriae were probably created at a later stage, perhaps around 400 BC, but these new units were political not military, most likely designed to admit plebeians to the Order of Knights.
Apparently, equites were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus.
Theodor Mommsen argues that the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the patricians (patricii), the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary. Apart from the traditional association of the aristocracy with horsemanship, the evidence for this view is the fact that, during the republic, six centuriae (voting constituencies) of equites in the comitia centuriata (electoral assembly) retained the names of the original six royal cavalry centuriae. These are very likely the "centuriae of patrician nobles" in the comitia mentioned by the lexicologist Sextus Pompeius Festus. If this view is correct, it implies that the cavalry was exclusively patrician (and therefore hereditary) in the regal period. (However, Cornell considers the evidence tenuous).
Early Republic (509–338 BC)
It is widely accepted that the Roman monarchy was overthrown by a patrician coup, probably provoked by the Tarquin dynasty's populist policies in favour of the plebeian class. Alfoldi suggests that the coup was carried out by the celeres themselves. According to the Fraccaro interpretation, when the Roman monarchy was replaced with two annually elected praetores (later called "consuls"), the royal army was divided equally between them for campaigning purposes, which, if true, explains why Polybius later said that a legion's cavalry contingent was 300 strong.
The 12 additional centuriae ascribed by Livy to Servius Tullius were, in reality, probably formed around 400 BC. In 403 BC, according to Livy, in a crisis during the siege of Veii, the army urgently needed to deploy more cavalry, and "those who possessed equestrian rating but had not yet been assigned public horses" volunteered to pay for their horses out of their own pockets. By way of compensation, pay was introduced for cavalry service, as it had already been for the infantry (in 406 BC).
The persons referred to in this passage were probably members of the 12 new centuriae who were entitled to public horses, but temporarily waived that privilege. Mommsen, however, argues that the passage refers to members of the first class of commoners being admitted to cavalry service in 403 BC for the first time as an emergency measure. If so, this group may be the original so-called equites equo privato, a rank that is attested throughout the history of the republic (in contrast to equites equo publico). However, due to a lack of evidence, the origins and definition of equo privato equites remain obscure.
It is widely agreed that the 12 new centuriae were open to non-patricians. Thus, from this date if not earlier, not all equites were patricians. The patricians, as a closed hereditary caste, steadily diminished in numbers over the centuries, as families died out. Around 450 BC, there are some 50 patrician gentes (clans) recorded, whereas just 14 remained at the time of Julius Caesar (dictator of Rome 48–44 BC), whose own Iulii clan was patrician.
In contrast, the ranks of equites, although also hereditary (in the male line), were open to new entrants who met the property requirement and who satisfied the Roman censors that they were suitable for membership. As a consequence, patricians rapidly became only a small minority of the equestrian order. However, patricians retained political influence greatly out of proportion with their numbers. Until 172 BC, one of the two consuls elected each year had to be a patrician.
In addition, patricians may have retained their original six centuriae, which gave them a third of the total voting-power of the equites, even though they constituted only a tiny minority of the order by 200 BC. Patricians also enjoyed official precedence, such as the right to speak first in senatorial debates, which were initiated by the princeps senatus (Leader of the Senate), a position reserved for patricians. In addition, patricians monopolized certain priesthoods and continued to enjoy enormous prestige.
Later Republic (338–30 BC)
Transformation of state and army (338–290)
The period following the end of the Latin War (340–338 BC) and of the Samnite Wars (343–290) saw the transformation of the Roman Republic from a powerful but beleaguered city-state into the hegemonic power of the Italian peninsula. This was accompanied by profound changes in its constitution and army. Internally, the critical development was the emergence of the Senate as the all-powerful organ of state.
By 280 BC, the Senate had assumed total control of state taxation, expenditure, declarations of war, treaties, raising of legions, establishing colonies and religious affairs, in other words, of virtually all political power. From an ad hoc group of advisors appointed by the consuls, the Senate had become a permanent body of around 300 life peers who, as largely former Roman magistrates, boasted enormous experience and influence. At the same time, the political unification of the Latin nation, under Roman rule after 338 BC, gave Rome a populous regional base from which to launch its wars of aggression against its neighbours.
The gruelling contest for Italian hegemony that Rome fought against the Samnite League led to the transformation of the Roman army from the Greek-style hoplite phalanx that it was in the early period, to the Italian-style manipular army described by Polybius. It is believed that the Romans copied the manipular structure from their enemies the Samnites, learning through hard experience its greater flexibility and effectiveness in the mountainous terrain of central Italy.
It is also from this period that every Roman army that took the field was regularly accompanied by at least as many troops supplied by the socii (Rome's Italian military confederates, often referred to as "Latin allies"). Each legion would be matched by a confederate ala (literally: "wing"), a formation that contained roughly the same number of infantry as a legion, but three times the number of horses (900).
Legionary cavalry also probably underwent a transformation during this period, from the light, unarmoured horsemen of the early period to the Greek-style armoured cuirassiers described by Polybius. As a result of the demands of the Samnite hostilities, a normal consular army was doubled in size to two legions, making four legions raised annually overall. Roman cavalry in the field thus increased to approximately 1,200 horses.
This now represented only 25% of the army's total cavalry contingent, the rest being supplied by the Italian confederates. A legion's modest cavalry share of 7% of its 4,500 total strength was thus increased to 12% in a confederate army, comparable with (or higher than) any other forces in Italy except the Gauls and also similar to those in Greek armies such as Pyrrhus's.
Political role
Despite an ostensibly democratic constitution based on the sovereignty of the people, the Roman Republic was in reality a classic oligarchy, in which political power was monopolised by the richest social echelon. Probably by 300 BC, the centuriate organisation of the Roman citizen body for political purposes achieved the evolved form described by Polybius and Livy. The comitia centuriata was the most powerful people's assembly, as it promulgated Roman laws and annually elected the Roman magistrates, the executive officers of the state: consuls, praetors, aediles and quaestors.
In the assembly, the citizen body was divided into 193 centuriae, or voting constituencies. Of these, 18 were allocated to equites (including patricians) and a further 80 to the first class of commoners, securing an absolute majority of the votes (98 out of 193) for the wealthiest echelon of society, although it constituted only a small minority of the citizenry. (The lowest class, the proletarii, rated at under 400 drachmae, had just one vote, despite being the most numerous).
As a result, the wealthiest echelon could ensure that the elected magistrates were always their own members. In turn, this ensured that the senate was dominated by the wealthy classes, as its membership was composed almost entirely of current and former magistrates.
Military officer role
In the "polybian" army of the mid-republic (338 – 88 BC), equites held the exclusive right to serve as senior officers of the army. These were the six tribuni militum in each legion who were elected by the comitia at the start of each campaigning season and took turns to command the legion in pairs; the praefecti sociorum, commanders of the Italian confederate alae, who were appointed by the consuls; and the three decurions that led each squadron (turma) of legionary cavalry (a total of 30 decurions per legion).
Cavalry role
As their name implies, equites were liable to cavalry service in the legion of the mid-republic. They originally provided a legion's entire cavalry contingent, although from an early stage (probably from c. 400 and not later than c. 300 BC), when equestrian numbers had become insufficient, large numbers of young men from the first class of commoners were regularly volunteering for the service, which was considered more glamorous than the infantry.
The cavalry role of equites dwindled after the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), as the number of equestrians became insufficient to provide the senior officers of the army and general cavalrymen as well. Equites became exclusively an officer-class, with the first class of commoners providing the legionary cavalry.
Ethos
From the earliest times and throughout the Republican period, Roman equites subscribed, in their role as Roman cavalrymen, to an ethos of personal heroism and glory. This was motivated by the desire to justify their privileged status to the lower classes that provided the infantry ranks, to enhance the renown of their family name, and to augment their chances of subsequent political advancement in a martial society. For equites, a focus of the heroic ethos was the quest for spolia opima, the stripped armour and weapons of a foe whom they had killed in single combat. There are many recorded instances. For example, Servilius Geminus Pulex, who went on to become Consul in 202 BC, was reputed to have gained spolia 23 times.
The higher the rank of the opponent killed in combat, the more prestigious the spolia, and none more so than spolia duci hostium detracta, spoils taken from an enemy leader himself. Many equites attempted to gain such an honour, but very few succeeded for the reason that enemy leaders were always surrounded by large numbers of elite bodyguards.
One successful attempt, but with a tragic twist, was that of the decurion Titus Manlius Torquatus in 340 BC during the Latin War. Despite strict orders from the consuls (one of whom was his own father) not to engage the enemy, Manlius could not resist accepting a personal challenge from the commander of the Tusculan cavalry, which his squadron encountered while on reconnaissance. There ensued a fiercely contested joust with the opposing squadrons as spectators. Manlius won, spearing his adversary after the latter was thrown by his horse. But when the triumphant young man presented the spoils to his father, the latter ordered his son's immediate execution for disobeying orders. "Orders of Manlius" (Manliana imperia) became a proverbial army term for orders that must on no account be disregarded.
Business activities
In 218 BC, the lex Claudia restricted the commercial activity of senators and their sons, on the grounds that it was incompatible with their status. Senators were prohibited from owning ships of greater capacity than 300 amphorae (about seven tonnes) – this being judged sufficient to carry the produce of their own landed estates but too small to conduct large-scale sea transportation.
From this time onwards, senatorial families mostly invested their capital in land. All other equestrians remained free to invest their wealth, greatly increased by the growth of Rome's overseas empire after the Second Punic War, in large-scale commercial enterprises including mining and industry, as well as land. Equestrians became especially prominent in tax farming and, by 100 BC, owned virtually all tax-farming companies (publicani).
During the late Republican era, the collection of most taxes was contracted out to private individuals or companies by competitive tender, with the contract for each province awarded to the publicanus who bid the highest advance to the state treasury on the estimated tax-take of the province. The publicanus would then attempt to recoup his advance, with the right to retain any surplus collected as his profit. This system frequently resulted in extortion from the common people of the provinces, as unscrupulous publicani often sought to maximise their profit by demanding a much higher rates of tax than originally set by the government. The provincial governors whose duty it was to curb illegal demands were often bribed into acquiescence by the publicani.
The system also led to political conflict between equites publicani and the majority of their fellow-equites, especially senators, who as large landowners wanted to minimise the tax on land outside Italy (tributum solis), which was the main source of state revenue. This system was terminated by the first Roman emperor, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – 14 AD), who transferred responsibility for tax collection from the publicani to provincial local authorities (civitates peregrinae). Although the latter also frequently employed private companies to collect their tax quotas, it was in their own interests to curb extortion. During the imperial era, tax collectors were generally paid an agreed percentage of the amount collected. equites publicani became prominent in banking activities such as money-lending and money-changing.
Privileges
The official dress of equestrians was the tunica angusticlavia (narrow-striped tunic), worn underneath the toga, in such a manner that the stripe over the right shoulder was visible (as opposed to the broad stripe worn by senators.) equites bore the title eques Romanus, were entitled to wear an anulus aureus (gold ring) on their left hand, and, from 67 BC, enjoyed privileged seats at games and public functions (just behind those reserved for senators).
Augustan equestrian order (Principate era)
Differentiation of the senatorial order
The Senate as a body was formed of sitting senators, whose number was held at around 600 by the founder of the Principate, Augustus (sole rule 30 BC – AD 14) and his successors until 312. Senators' sons and further descendants technically retained equestrian rank unless and until they won a seat in the Senate. But Talbert argues that Augustus established the existing senatorial elite as a separate and superior order (ordo senatorius) to the equites for the first time. The evidence for this includes:
Augustus, for the first time, set a minimum property requirement for admission to the Senate, of 250,000 denarii, two and a half times the 100,000 denarii that he set for admission to the equestrian order.
Augustus, for the first time, allowed the sons of senators to wear the tunica laticlavia (tunic with broad purple stripes that was the official dress of senators) on reaching their majority even though they were not yet members of the Senate.
Senators' sons followed a separate cursus honorum (career-path) to other equites before entering the Senate: first an appointment as one of the vigintiviri ("Committee of Twenty", a body that included officials with a variety of minor administrative functions), or as an augur (priest), followed by at least a year in the military as tribunus militum laticlavius (deputy commander) of a legion. This post was normally held before the tribune had become a member of the Senate.
A marriage law of 18 BC (the lex Julia) seems to define not only senators but also their descendants unto the third generation (in the male line) as a distinct group. There was thus established a group of men with senatorial rank (senatorii) wider than just sitting senators (senatores).
A family's senatorial status depended not only on continuing to match the higher wealth qualification, but on their leading member holding a seat in the Senate. Failing either condition, the family would revert to ordinary knightly status. Although sons of sitting senators frequently won seats in the Senate, this was by no means guaranteed, as candidates often outnumbered the 20 seats available each year, leading to intense competition.
Ordo equester under Augustus
As regards the equestrian order, Augustus apparently abolished the rank of equo privato, according all its members equo publico status. In addition, Augustus organised the order in a quasi-military fashion, with members enrolled into six turmae (notional cavalry squadrons). The order's governing body were the seviri ("Committee of Six"), composed of the "commanders" of the turmae. In an attempt to foster an esprit de corps amongst the equites , Augustus revived a defunct republican ceremony, the recognitio equitum (inspection of the equites), in which equites paraded every five years with their horses before the consuls. At some stage during the early Principate, equites acquired the right to the title "egregius" ("distinguished gentleman"), while senators were styled "clarissimus", "most distinguished").
Beyond equites with equus publicus, Augustus' legislation permitted any Roman citizen who was assessed in an official census as meeting the property requirement of 100,000 denarii to use the title of eques and wear the narrow-striped tunic and gold ring. But such "property-qualified equites" were not apparently admitted to the ordo equester itself, but simply enjoyed equestrian status.
Only those granted an equus publicus by the emperor (or who inherited the status from their fathers) were enrolled in the order. Imperial equites were thus divided into two tiers: a few thousand mainly Italian equites equo publico, members of the order eligible to hold the public offices reserved for the equites; and a much larger group of wealthy Italians and provincials (estimated at 25,000 in the 2nd century) of equestrian status but outside the order.
Equestrians could in turn be elevated to senatorial rank (e.g., Pliny the Younger), but in practice this was much more difficult than elevation from commoner to equestrian rank. To join the upper order, not only was the candidate required to meet the minimum property requirement of 250,000 denarii, but also had to be elected a member of the Senate. There were two routes for this, both controlled by the emperor:
The normal route was election to the post of quaestor, the most junior magistracy (for which the minimum eligible age was 27 years), which carried automatic membership of the Senate. Twenty quaestors were appointed each year, a number that evidently broadly matched the average annual vacancies (caused by death or expulsion for misdemeanours or insufficient wealth) so that the 600-member limit was preserved. Under Augustus, senators' sons had the right to stand for election, while equestrians could only do so with the emperor's permission. Later in the Julio-Claudian period, the rule became established that all candidates required imperial leave. Previously conducted by the people's assembly (comitia centuriata), the election was in the hands, from the time of Tiberius onwards, of the Senate itself, whose sitting members inevitably favoured the sons of their colleagues. Since the latter alone often outnumbered the number of available places, equestrian candidates stood little chance unless they enjoyed the special support of the emperor.
The exceptional route was direct appointment to a Senate seat by the emperor (adlectio), technically using the powers of Roman censor (which also entitled him to expel members). Adlectio was, however, generally used sparingly in order not to breach the 600-member ceiling. It was chiefly resorted to in periods when Senate numbers became severely depleted, e.g. during the Civil War of 68–69, following which the emperor Vespasian made large-scale adlectiones.
Equestrian public careers
In public service, equites equo publico had their own version of the senatorial cursus honorum, or conventional career-path, which typically combined military and administrative posts. After an initial period of a few years in local government in their home regions as administrators (local aediles or duumviri) or as priests (augures), equites were required to serve as military officers for about 10 years before they would be appointed to senior administrative or military posts.
Equestrians exclusively provided the praefecti (commanders) of the imperial army's auxiliary regiments and five of the six tribuni militum (senior staff officers) in each legion. The standard equestrian officer progression was known as the "tres militiae" ("three services"): praefectus of a cohors (auxiliary infantry regiment), followed by tribunus militum in a legion, and finally praefectus of an ala (auxiliary cavalry regiment). From the time of Hadrian, a fourth militia was added for exceptionally gifted officers, commander of an ala milliaria (double-strength ala). Each post was held for three to four years.
Most of the top posts in the imperial administration were reserved for senators, who provided the governors of the larger provinces (except Egypt), the legati legionis (legion commanders) of all legions outside Egypt, and the praefectus urbi (prefect of the city of Rome), who controlled the cohortes urbanae (public order battalions), the only fully armed force in the city apart from the Praetorian Guard. Nevertheless, a wide range of senior administrative and military posts were created and reserved for equestrians by Augustus, though most ranked below the senatorial posts.
In the imperial administration, equestrian posts included that of the governorship (praefectus Augusti) of the province of Egypt, which was considered the most prestigious of all the posts open to equites, often the culmination of a long and distinguished career serving the state. In addition, equites were appointed to the governorship (procurator Augusti) of some smaller provinces and sub-provinces e.g. Judaea, whose governor was subordinate to the governor of Syria.
Equestrians were also the chief financial officers (also called procuratores Augusti) of the imperial provinces, and the deputy financial officers of senatorial provinces. At Rome, equestrians filled numerous senior administrative posts such as the emperor's secretaries of state (from the time of Claudius, e.g. correspondence and treasury) and the praefecti annonae (director of grain supplies).
In the military, equestrians provided the praefecti praetorio (commanders of the Praetorian Guard) who also acted as the emperor's chiefs of military staff. There were normally two of these, but at times irregular appointments resulted in just a single incumbent or even three at the same time. Equestrians also provided the praefecti classis (admirals commanding) of the two main imperial fleets at Misenum in the bay of Naples and at Ravenna on the Italian Adriatic coast. The command of Rome's fire brigade and minor constabulary, the vigiles, was likewise reserved for equites.
Not all equites followed the conventional career-path. Those equestrians who specialised in a legal or administrative career, providing judges (iudices) in Rome's law courts and state secretaries in the imperial government, were granted dispensation from military service by Emperor Hadrian (r. AD 117–138). At the same time, many equites became career military officers, remaining in the army for much longer than 10 years. After completing their tres militiae, some would continue to command auxiliary regiments, moving across units and provinces.
Already wealthy to start with, equites equo publico accumulated even greater riches through holding their reserved senior posts in the administration, which carried enormous salaries (although they were generally smaller than senatorial salaries). For example, the salaries of equestrian procuratores (fiscal and gubernatorial) ranged from 15,000 to a maximum of 75,000 denarii (for the governor of Egypt) per annum, whilst an equestrian praefectus of an auxiliary cohort was paid about 50 times as much as a common foot soldier (about 10,000 denarii). A praefectus could thus earn in one year the same as two of his auxiliary rankers combined earned during their entire 25-year service terms.
Relations with the emperor
It was suggested by ancient writers, and accepted by many modern historians, that Roman emperors trusted equestrians more than men of senatorial rank, and used the former as a political counterweight to the senators. According to this view, senators were often regarded as potentially less loyal and honest by the emperor, as they could become powerful enough, through the command of provincial legions, to launch coups.
They also had greater opportunities for peculation as provincial governors. Hence the appointment of equestrians to the most sensitive military commands. In Egypt, which supplied much of Italy's grain needs, the governor and the commanders of both provincial legions were drawn from the equestrian order, since placing a senator in a position to starve Italy was considered too risky.
The commanders of the Praetorian Guard, the principal military force close to the emperor at Rome, were also usually drawn from the equestrian order. Also cited in support of this view is the appointment of equestrian fiscal procuratores, reporting direct to the emperor, alongside senatorial provincial governors. These would supervise the collection of taxes and act as watchdogs to limit opportunities for corruption by the governors (as well as managing the imperial estates in the province).
According to Talbert, however, the evidence suggests that equites were no more loyal or less corrupt than senators. For example, c. 26 BC, the equestrian governor of Egypt, Cornelius Gallus, was recalled for politically suspect behaviour and sundry other misdemeanours. His conduct was deemed sufficiently serious by the Senate to warrant the maximum penalty of exile and confiscation of assets. Under Tiberius, both the senatorial governor and the equestrian fiscal procurator of Asia province were convicted of corruption.
There is evidence that emperors were as wary of powerful equites as they were of senators. Augustus enforced a tacit rule that senators and prominent equestrians must obtain his express permission to enter the province of Egypt, a policy that was continued by his successors. Also, the command of the Praetorian Guard was normally split between two equites, to reduce the potential for a successful coup d'état. At the same time, command of the second military force in Rome, the cohortes urbanae, was entrusted to a senator.
Oligarchical rule in the early Principate (to AD 197)
Because the Senate was limited to 600 members, equites equo publico, numbering several thousands, greatly outnumbered men of senatorial rank. Even so, senators and equites combined constituted a tiny elite in a citizen-body of about 6 million (in AD 47) and an empire with a total population of 60–70 million. This immensely wealthy elite monopolised political, military and economic power in the empire. It controlled the major offices of state, command of all military units, ownership of a significant proportion of the empire's arable land (e.g., under Nero (), half of all land in Africa Proconsularis province was owned by just six senators) and of most major commercial enterprises.
Overall, senators and equites cooperated smoothly in the running of the empire. In contrast to the chaotic civil wars of the late Republic, the rule of this tiny oligarchy achieved a remarkable degree of political stability. In the first 250 years of the Principate (30 BC – AD 218), there was only a single episode of major internal strife: the civil war of 68–69.
Equestrian hierarchy
It seems that from the start the equestrians in the imperial service were organised on a hierarchical basis reflecting their pay-grades. According to Suetonius, writing in the early part of the second century AD, the equestrian procurators who "performed various administrative duties throughout the empire" were from the time of Emperor Claudius I organised into four pay-grades, the trecenarii the ducenarii, the centenarii, and the sexagenarii, receiving 300,000, 200,000, 100,000, and 60,000 sesterces per annum respectively. Cassius Dio, writing a century later, attributed the beginnings of this process to the first emperor, Augustus, himself.
There is almost no literary or epigraphic evidence for the use of these ranks until towards the end of the 2nd century. However, it would seem that the increasing employment of equestrians by the emperors in civil and military roles had had social ramifications for it is then that there begin to appear the first references to a more far-reaching hierarchy with three distinct classes covering the whole of the order: the Viri Egregii (Select Men); the Viri Perfectissimi ("Best of Men"); and the Viri Eminentissimi ("Most Eminent of Men"). The mechanisms by which the equestrians were organised into these classes and the distinctions enforced is not known. However, it is generally assumed that the highest class, the Viri Eminentissimi, was confined to the Praetorian prefects, while the Viri Perfectissimi were the heads of the main departments of state, and the great prefectures, including Egypt, the city watch (vigiles), the corn supply (annona) etc. and men commissioned to carry out specific tasks by the emperor himself such as the military duces. The defining characteristic of the perfectissimate seems to have been that its members were of or associated socially (i.e. as clientes - see Patronage in ancient Rome of Great Men) with the imperial court circle and were office-holders known to the emperor and appointed by his favour. It is also possible that system was intended to indicate the hierarchy of office-holders in situations where this might be disputed. The Viri Egregii comprehended the rest of the Equestrian Order, in the service of the emperors.
The Viri Egregii included officials of all four pay-grades. Ducenariate procurators governing provinces not reserved for senators were of this category as were the praefecti legionum, after Gallienus opened all legionary commands to equestrians. However, it seems that after 270 AD the procuratores ducenarii were elevated into the ranks of the Viri Perfectissimi.
Equestrians in the later Empire (AD 197–395)
Rise of the military equestrians (3rd century)
The 3rd century saw two major trends in the development of the Roman aristocracy: the progressive takeover of the top positions in the empire's administration and army by military equestrians and the concomitant exclusion of the Italian aristocracy, both senators and equites and the growth in hierarchy within the aristocratic orders.
Augustus instituted a policy, followed by his successors, of elevating to the ordo equester the primus pilus (chief centurion) of each legion, at the end of his single year in the post. This resulted in about 30 career-soldiers, often risen from the ranks, joining the order every year. These equites primipilares and their descendants formed a section of the order that was quite distinct from the Italian aristocrats who had become nearly indistinguishable from their senatorial counterparts.
They were almost entirely provincials, especially from the Danube provinces where about half the Roman army was deployed. These Danubians mostly came from Pannonia, Moesia, Thrace, Illyria and Dalmatia. They were generally far less wealthy than the landowning Italians (not benefiting from centuries of inherited wealth) and they rarely held non-military posts.
Their professionalism led emperors to rely on them ever more heavily, especially in difficult conflicts such as the Marcomannic Wars (166–180). But because they were only equestrians, they could not be appointed to the top military commands, those of legatus Augusti pro praetore (governor of an imperial province, where virtually all military units were deployed) and legatus legionis (commander of a legion). In the later 2nd century, emperors tried to circumvent the problem by elevating large numbers of primipilares to senatorial rank by adlectio.
This met resistance in the Senate, so that in the 3rd century, emperors simply appointed equestrians directly to the top commands, under the fiction that they were only temporary substitutes (praeses pro legato). Septimius Severus () appointed primipilares to command the three new legions that he raised in 197 for his Parthian War, Legio I, II & III Parthica Gallienus () completed the process by appointing equites to command all the legions. These appointees were mostly provincial soldier-equestrians, not Italian aristocrats.
Under the reforming emperor Diocletian (), himself an Illyrian equestrian officer, the military equestrian "takeover" was brought a stage further, with the removal of hereditary senators from most administrative, as well as military posts. Hereditary senators were limited to administrative jobs in Italy and a few neighbouring provinces (Sicily, Africa, Achaea and Asia), despite the fact that senior administrative posts had been greatly multiplied by the tripling of the number of provinces and the establishment of dioceses (super-provinces). The exclusion of the old Italian aristocracy, both senatorial and equestrian, from the political and military power that they had monopolised for many centuries was thus complete. The senate became politically insignificant, although it retained great prestige.
The 3rd and 4th centuries saw the proliferation of hierarchical ranks within the aristocratic orders, in line with the greater stratification of society as a whole, which became divided into two broad classes, with discriminatory rights and privileges: the honestiores (more noble) and humiliores (more base). Among the honestiores, equestrians were divided into five grades, depending on the salary-levels of the offices they held.
These ranged from egregii or sexagenarii (salary of 60,000 sesterces = 15,000 denarii) to the eminentissimi (most exalted), limited to the two commanders of the Praetorian Guard and, with the establishment of Diocletian's Tetrarchy, the four praefecti praetorio (not to be confused with the commanders of the Praetorian Guard in Rome) that assisted the tetrarchs, each ruling over a quarter of the empire.
Idle aristocracy (4th century)
From the reign of Constantine the Great () onwards, there was an explosive increase in the membership of both aristocratic orders. Under Diocletian, the number of sitting members of the Senate remained at around 600, the level it had retained for the whole duration of the Principate. Constantine established Constantinople as a twin capital of the empire, with its own senate, initially of 300 members. By 387, their number had swollen to 2,000, while the Senate in Rome probably reached a comparable size, so that the upper order reached total numbers similar to the equo publico equites of the early Principate. By this time, even some commanders of military regiments were accorded senatorial status.
At the same time the order of equites was also expanded vastly by the proliferation of public posts in the late empire, most of which were now filled by equestrians. The Principate had been a remarkably slim-line administration, with about 250 senior officials running the vast empire, relying on local government and private contractors to deliver the necessary taxes and services. During the 3rd century the imperial bureaucracy, all officials and ranks expanded. By the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, dated to 395 AD, comparable senior positions had grown to approximately 6,000, a 24-fold increase. The total number enrolled in the imperial civilian service, the militia inermata ('unarmed service') is estimated to have been 30–40,000: the service was professionalized with a staff made up almost entirely of free men on salary, and enrolled in a fictional legion, I Audiutrix.
In addition, large numbers of decuriones (local councillors) were granted equestrian rank, often obtaining it by bribery. Officials of ever lower rank were granted equestrian rank as reward for good service, e.g. in 365, the actuarii (accountants) of military regiments. This inflation in the number of equites inevitably led to the debasement of the order's prestige. By AD 400, equites were no longer an echelon of nobility, but just a title associated with mid-level administrative posts.
Constantine established a third order of nobility, the comites (companions (of the emperor), singular form comes, the origin of the medieval noble rank of count). This overlapped with senators and equites, drawing members from both. Originally, the comites were a highly exclusive group, comprising the most senior administrative and military officers, such as the commanders of the comitatus, or mobile field armies. But comites rapidly followed the same path as equites, being devalued by excessive grants until the title became meaningless by 450.
In the late 4th and in the 5th century, therefore, the senatorial class at Rome and Constantinople became the closest equivalent to the equo publico equestrian class of the early Principate. It contained many ancient and illustrious families, some of whom claimed descent from the aristocracy of the Republic, but had, as described, lost almost all political and military power. Nevertheless, senators retained great influence due to their enormous inherited wealth and their role as the guardians of Roman tradition and culture.
Centuries of capital accumulation, in the form of vast landed estates (latifundia) across many provinces resulted in enormous wealth for most senators. Many received annual rents in cash and in kind of over 5,000 lbs of gold, equivalent to 360,000 solidi (or 5 million Augustan-era denarii), at a time when a miles (common soldier) would earn no more than four solidi a year in cash. Even senators of middling wealth could expect an income 1,000–1,500 lbs of gold.
The 4th-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a former high-ranking military staff officer who spent his retirement years in Rome, bitterly attacked the Italian aristocracy, denouncing their extravagant palaces, clothes, games and banquets and above all their lives of total idleness and frivolity. In his words can be heard the contempt for the senatorial class of a career soldier who had spent his lifetime defending the empire, a view clearly shared by Diocletian and his Illyrian successors. But it was the latter who reduced the aristocracy to that state, by displacing them from their traditional role of governing the empire and leading the army.
Notes
See also
Publican
Hippeus
Medjay
Citations
References
Ancient
Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae (c. 390 AD)
Dio Cassius, Roman History (c. 250 AD)
Livy, Ab urbe condita (c. 15 AD)
Plutarch, Lives (c. 100 AD)
Polybius, Histories (c. 150 BC)
Suetonius, Caesares XII (c. 100 AD)
Tacitus, Annales (c. 100 AD)
Tacitus, Historiae (c. 100 AD)
Modern
Burton, G. (1987): "Government and the Provinces". In J. Wacher, ed., The Roman World Vol I
(Bury (1898)):
Cornell, T.J. (1995): The Beginnings of Rome
Eck, Werner (2000): "Emperor, Senate & Magistrates". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol XI
Goldsworthy, Adrian (2000): Roman Warfare
Goldsworthy, Adrian (2003): The Complete Roman Army
Heather, Peter (2005): Fall of the Roman Empire
Jones, A.H.M. (1964): Later Roman Empire
Ritner, R.K. (1998): "Egypt Under Roman Rule: the Legacy of Ancient Egypt". In Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol I. Ed. C.F. Petry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scheidel, Walter (2006): Population & Demography (Princeton-Stanford Working Papers in Classics)
Sidnell, Philip (2006): Warhorse
Smith W. (1890): Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
Talbert, Richard (1996): "The Senate and Senatorial and Equestrian Posts". In Cambridge Ancient History 2nd ed., Vol X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
Berry, D. H. 2003. "Eqvester Ordo Tvvs Est: Did Cicero Win His Cases Because of His Support for the Eqvites?" The Classical Quarterly 53, no. 1: 222–34. .
Breeze, David. 1969. "The organization of the legion: The first cohort and the equites legionis". Journal of Roman Studies, 59:50–55.
--. 1974. "The organisation of the career structure of the immunes and principales of the Roman army". Bonner Jahrbücher, 174: 245–92.
Coulston, Jonathan. 2000. "'Armed and belted men': The soldiery in imperial Rome". In Ancient Rome: The archaeology of the eternal city. Edited by Jonathan Coulston and Hazel Dodge, 76–118. Oxford: Oxbow.
Duncan-Jones, Richard. 2016. Power and Privilege In Roman Society. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Speidel, Michael P. 1994. Riding for Caesar: The Roman Emperor’s horseguards. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
External links
Social classes in ancient Rome
Types of cavalry unit in the army of ancient Rome
Cavalry units and formations of ancient Rome
Latin words and phrases
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War%20elephant
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War elephant
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A war elephant was an elephant that was trained and guided by humans for combat. The war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. Elephantry is a term for specific military units using elephant-mounted troops.
Description
War elephants played a critical role in several key battles in antiquity, especially in ancient India. While seeing limited and periodic use in Ancient China, they became a permanent fixture in armies of historical kingdoms in Southeast Asia. During classical antiquity they were also used in ancient Persia and in the Mediterranean world within armies of Macedon, Hellenistic Greek states, the Roman Republic and later Empire, and Ancient Carthage in North Africa. In some regions they maintained a firm presence on the battlefield throughout the Medieval era. However, their use declined with the spread of firearms and other gunpowder weaponry in early modern warfare. After this, war elephants became restricted to non-combat engineering and labour roles, as well as being used for minor ceremonial uses. They continued to be used in combat, however, in some parts of the world, such as in Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, well into the 19th century.
Taming
An elephant trainer, rider, or keeper is called a mahout. Mahouts were responsible for capturing and handling elephants. To accomplish this, they utilize metal chains and a specialized hook called an ankus, or 'elephant goad'. According to Chanakya as recorded in the Arthashastra, first the mahout would have to get the elephant used to being led. The elephant would have learned how to raise its legs to help a rider climb on. Then the elephants were taught to run and maneuver around obstacles, and move in formation. These elephants would be fit to learn how to systematically trample and charge enemies.
The first elephant species to be tamed was the Asian elephant, for use in agriculture. Elephant taming – not full domestication, as they are still captured in the wild, rather than being bred in captivity – may have begun in any of three different places. The oldest evidence comes from the Indus Valley civilization, around roughly 2000 BC. Archaeological evidence for the presence of wild elephants in the Yellow River valley in Shang China () may suggest that they also used elephants in warfare. The wild elephant populations of Mesopotamia and China declined quickly because of deforestation and human population growth: by 850 BC the Mesopotamian elephants were extinct, and by 500 BC the Chinese elephants were seriously reduced in numbers and limited to areas well south of the Yellow River.
Capturing elephants from the wild remained a difficult task, but a necessary one given the difficulties of breeding in captivity and the long time required for an elephant to reach sufficient maturity to engage in battle. Sixty-year-old war elephants were always prized as being at the most suitable age for battle service and gifts of elephants of this age were seen as particularly generous. Today an elephant is considered in its prime and at the height of its power between the ages of 25 and 40, yet elephants as old as 80 are used in tiger hunts because they are more disciplined and experienced.
It is commonly thought that the reason all war elephants were male was because of males' greater aggression, but it was instead because a female elephant in battle will run from a male; therefore only males could be used in war, whereas female elephants were more commonly used for logistics.
Antiquity
Indian subcontinent
There is uncertainty as to when elephant warfare first started, but it is widely accepted that it began in ancient India. The early Vedic period did not extensively specify the use of elephants in war. However, in the Ramayana, Indra is depicted as riding either Airavata, a mythological elephant, or on the Uchchaihshravas, as his mounts. Elephants were widely utilized in warfare by the later Vedic period by the 6th century BC. The increased conscription of elephants in the military history of India coincides with the expansion of the Vedic Kingdoms into the Indo-Gangetic Plain suggesting its introduction during the intervening period. The practice of riding on elephants in peace and war, royalty or commoner, was first recorded in the 6th or 5th century BC. This practice is believed to be much older than proper recorded history.
The ancient Indian epics Ramayana and Mahābhārata, dating from 5th–4th century BC, elaborately depict elephant warfare. They are recognized as an essential component of royal and military processions. In ancient India, initially, the army was fourfold (chaturanga), consisting of infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots. Kings and princes principally ride on chariots, which was considered the most royal, while seldom riding the back of elephants. Although viewed as secondary to chariots by royalty, elephants were the preferred vehicle of warriors, especially the elite ones. While the chariots eventually fell into disuse, the other three arms continued to be valued. Many characters in the epic Mahābhārata were trained in the art. According to the rules of engagement set for the Kurukshetra War two men were to duel utilizing the same weapon and mount including elephants. In the Mahābhārata the akshauhini battle formation consists of a ratio of 1 chariot : 1 elephant : 3 cavalry : 5 infantry soldiers. Many characters in the Mahābhārata were described as skilled in the art of elephant warfare e.g. Duryodhana rides an elephant into battle to bolster the demoralized Kaurava army. Scriptures like the Nikāya and Vinaya Pitaka assign elephants in their proper place in the organization of an army. The Samyutta Nikaya additionally mentions the Gautama Buddha being visited by a 'hatthāroho gāmaṇi'. He is the head of a village community bound together by their profession as mercenary soldiers forming an elephant corp.
Ancient Indian kings certainly valued the elephant in war, some stating that an army without elephants is as despicable as a forest without a lion, a kingdom without a king, or as valor unaided by weapons. The use of elephants further increased with the rise of the Mahajanapadas. King Bimbisara (), who began the expansion of the Magadha kingdom, relied heavily on his war elephants. The Mahajanapadas would be conquered by the Nanda Empire under the reign of Mahapadma Nanda. Pliny the Elder and Plutarch also estimated the Nanda Army strength in the east as 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots, and 6,000 war elephants. Alexander the Great would come in contact with the Nanda Empire on the banks of the Beas River and was forced to return due to his army's unwillingness to advance. Even if the numbers and prowess of these elephants were exaggerated by historic accounts, elephants were established firmly as war machines in this period.
Chandragupta Maurya (321–297 BC), formed the Maurya Empire, the largest empire to exist in South Asia. At the height of his power, Chandragupta is said to have wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 8,000 chariots and 9,000 war elephants besides followers and attendants.
In the Mauryan Empire, the 30-member war office was made up of six boards. The sixth board looked after the elephants, and were headed by Gajadhyaksha. The gajadhyaksha was the superintendent of elephants and his qualifications. The use of elephants in the Maurya Empire as recorded by Chanakya in the Arthashastra. According to Chanakya; catching, training, and controlling war elephants was one of the most important skills taught by the military academies. He advised Chandragupta to setup forested sanctuaries for the wellness of the elephants. Chanakya explicitly conveyed the importance of these sanctuaries. The Maurya Empire would reach its zenith under the reign of Ashoka, who used elephants extensively during his conquest. During the Kalinga War, Kalinga had a standing army of 60,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 700 war elephants. Kalinga was notable for the quality of their war elephants which were prized by its neighbors for being stronger. Later the King Kharavela was to restore an independent Kalinga into a powerful kingdom using war elephants as stated in the Hathigumpha inscription or "Elephant Cave" Inscriptions.
Following Indian accounts foreign rulers would also adopt the use of elephants.
The Chola Empire of Tamil Nadu also had a very strong elephant force. The Chola emperor Rajendra Chola had an armored elephant force, which played a major role in his campaigns.
Sri Lanka made extensive use of elephants and also exported elephants with Pliny the Elder stating that the Sri Lankan elephants, for example, were larger, fiercer and better for war than local elephants. This superiority, as well as the proximity of the supply to seaports, made Sri Lanka's elephants a lucrative trading commodity. Sri Lankan history records indicate elephants were used as mounts for kings leading their men in the battlefield, with individual mounts being recorded in history. The elephant Kandula was King Dutugamunu's mount and Maha Pambata, 'Big Rock', the mount of King Ellalan during their historic encounter on the battlefield in 200 BC, for example.
Eastern Asia
Elephants were used for warfare in China by a small handful of southern dynasties. The state of Chu used elephants in 506 BC against Wu by tying torches to their tails and sending them into the ranks of the enemy soldiers, but the attempt failed. In December 554 AD, the Liang dynasty used armoured war elephants, carrying towers, against Western Wei. They were defeated by a volley of arrows. The Southern Han dynasty is the only state in Chinese history to have kept a permanent corps of war elephants. These elephants were able to carry a tower with some ten people on their backs. They were used successfully during the Han invasion of Ma Chu in 948. In 970, the Song dynasty invaded Southern Han and their crossbowmen readily routed the Han elephants on 23 January 971, during the taking of Shao. That was the last time elephants were used in Chinese warfare, although the Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620) did keep a herd of elephants capable of carrying a tower and eight men, which he showed to his guests in 1598. These elephants were probably not native to China and were delivered to the Ming dynasty by Southeast Asian countries such as Siam. During the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, the rebels used elephants against the Qing dynasty, but the Qing Bannermen shot them with so many arrows that they "resembled porcupines" and repelled the elephant charge.
Chinese armies faced off against war elephants in Southeast Asia, such as during the Sui–Lâm Ấp war (605), Lý–Song War (1075–1077), Ming–Mong Mao War (1386–1388), and Ming–Hồ War (1406–1407). In 605, the Champa kingdom of Lâm Ấp in what is now southern Vietnam used elephants against the invading army of China's Sui dynasty. The Sui army dug pits and lured the elephants into them and shot them with crossbows, causing the elephants to turn back and trample their own army. In 1075, the Song defeated elephants deployed on the borderlands of Đại Việt during the Lý–Song War. The Song forces used scythed polearms to cut the elephants' trunks, causing them to trample their own troops. During the Mong Mao campaign, the elephants were routed by an assortment of gunpowder projectiles. In the war against the Hồ dynasty, Ming troops covered their horses with lion masks to scare the elephants and shot them with firearms. The elephants all trembled with fear and were wounded by the guns and arrows, causing the Viet army to panic.
Achaemenid Persia, Macedonia and Hellenistic Greek states
From India, military thinking on the use of war elephants spread westwards to the Persian Achaemenid Empire, where they were used in several campaigns. They in turn came to influence the campaigns of Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia in Hellenistic Greece. The first confrontation between Europeans and the Persian war elephants occurred at Alexander's Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC), where the Persians deployed fifteen elephants. These elephants were placed at the centre of the Persian line and made such an impression on Alexander's army that he felt the need to sacrifice to Phobos, the God of Fear, the night before the battle – but according to some sources the elephants ultimately failed to deploy in the final battle owing to their long march the day before. Alexander won resoundingly at Gaugamela, but was deeply impressed by the enemy elephants and took these first fifteen into his own army, adding to their number during his capture of the rest of Persia.
By the time Alexander reached the borders of India five years later, he had a substantial number of elephants under his own command. When it came to defeating Porus, who ruled in what is now Punjab, Pakistan, Alexander found himself facing a considerable force of between 85 and 100 war elephants at the Battle of the Hydaspes. Preferring stealth and mobility to sheer force, Alexander manoeuvered and engaged with just his infantry and cavalry, ultimately defeating Porus' forces, including his elephant corps, albeit at some cost. Porus for his part placed his elephants individually, at long intervals from each other, a short distance in front of his main infantry line, in order to scare off Macedonian cavalry attacks and aid his own infantry in their struggle against the phalanx. The elephants caused many losses with their tusks fitted with iron spikes or by lifting the enemies with their trunks and trampling them.
Arrian described the subsequent fight: "[W]herever the beasts could wheel around, they rushed forth against the ranks of infantry and demolished the phalanx of the Macedonians, dense as it was."
The Macedonians adopted the standard ancient tactic for fighting elephants, loosening their ranks to allow the elephants to pass through and assailing them with javelins as they tried to wheel around; they managed to pierce the unarmoured elephants' legs. The panicked and wounded elephants turned on the Indians themselves; the mahouts were armed with poisoned rods to kill the beasts but were slain by javelins and archers.
Looking further east again, however, Alexander could see that the emperors and kings of the Nanda Empire and Gangaridai could deploy between 3,000 and 6,000 war elephants. Such a force was many times larger than the number of elephants employed by the Persians and Greeks, which probably discouraged Alexander's army and effectively halted their advance into India. On his return, Alexander established a force of elephants to guard his palace at Babylon, and created the post of elephantarch to lead his elephant units.
The successful military use of elephants spread further. The successors to Alexander's empire, the Diadochi, used hundreds of Indian elephants in their wars, with the Seleucid Empire being particularly notable for their use of the animals, still being largely brought from India. Indeed, the Seleucid–Mauryan war of 305–303 BC ended with the Seleucids ceding vast eastern territories in exchange for 500 war elephants – a small part of the Mauryan forces, which included up to 9000 elephants by some accounts. The Seleucids put their new elephants to good use at the Battle of Ipsus four years later, where they blocked the return of the victorious Antigonid cavalry, allowing the latter's phalanx to be isolated and defeated.
The first use of war elephants in Europe was made in 318 BC by Polyperchon, one of Alexander's generals, when he besieged Megalopolis in the Peloponnesus during the wars of the Diadochi. He used 60 elephants brought from Asia with their mahouts. A veteran of Alexander's army, named Damis, helped the besieged Megalopolitians to defend themselves against the elephants and eventually Polyperchon was defeated. Those elephants were subsequently taken by Cassander and transported, partly by sea, to other battlefields in Greece. It is assumed that Cassander constructed the first elephant transport sea vessels. Some of the elephants died of starvation in 316 BC in the besieged city of Pydna in Macedonia. Others of Polyperchon's elephants were used in various parts of Greece by Cassander.
Although the use of war elephants in the western Mediterranean is most famously associated with the wars between Carthage and Roman Republic, the introduction of war elephants there was primarily the result of an invasion by Hellenistic era Epirus across the Adriatic Sea. King Pyrrhus of Epirus brought twenty elephants to attack Roman Italy at the battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, leaving some fifty additional animals, on loan from Ptolemaic Pharaoh Ptolemy II, on the mainland. The Romans were unprepared for fighting elephants, and the Epirot forces routed the Romans. The next year, the Epirots again deployed a similar force of elephants, attacking the Romans at the battle of Asculum. This time the Romans came prepared with flammable weapons and anti-elephant devices: these were ox-drawn wagons, equipped with long spikes to wound the elephants, pots of fire to scare them, and accompanying screening troops who would hurl javelins at the elephants to drive them away. A final charge of Epirot elephants won the day again, but this time Pyrrhus had suffered very heavy casualties – a Pyrrhic victory.
The Seleucid king Antiochus V Eupator, whose father and he vied with Ptolemaic Egypt's ruler Ptolemy VI over the control of Syria, invaded Judea in 161 BC with eighty elephants (others say thirty-two), some clad with armored breastplates, in an attempt to subdue the Jews who had sided with Ptolemy. In the ensuing battle, near certain mountainous straights adjacent to Beth Zachariah, Eleazar the Hasmonaean attacked the largest of the elephants, piercing its underside and bringing the elephant down upon himself.
North Africa
The North African elephant was a significant animal in Nubian culture. They were depicted on the walls of temples and on Meroitic lamps. Kushite kings also utilize war elephants, which are believed to have been kept and trained in the "Great Enclosure" at Musawwarat al-Sufa. The Kingdom of Kush provided these war elephants to the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Syrians.
The Ptolemaic Egypt and the Punics began acquiring African elephants for the same purpose, as did Numidia and the Kingdom of Kush. The animal used was the North African elephant (Loxodonta africana pharaohensis) which would become extinct from overexploitation. These animals were smaller and harder to tame, and could not swim deep rivers compared with the Asian elephants used by the Seleucid Empire on the east of the Mediterranean region, particularly Syrian elephants, which stood at the shoulder. It is likely that at least some Syrian elephants were traded abroad. The favorite, and perhaps last surviving, elephant of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps was an impressive animal named Surus ("the Syrian"), which may have been of Syrian stock, though the evidence remains ambiguous.
Since the late 1940s, a strand of scholarship has argued that the African forest elephants used by Numidia, the Ptolemies and the military of Carthage did not carry howdahs or turrets in combat, perhaps owing to the physical weakness of the species. Some allusions to turrets in ancient literature are certainly anachronistic or poetic invention, but other references are less easily discounted. There is explicit contemporary testimony that the army of Juba I of Numidia included turreted elephants in 46 BC. This is confirmed by the image of a turreted African elephant used on the coinage of Juba II. This also appears to be the case with Ptolemaic armies: Polybius reports that at the battle of Raphia in 217 BC the elephants of Ptolemy IV carried turrets; these elephants were significantly smaller than the Asian elephants fielded by the Seleucids and so presumably African forest elephants. There is also evidence that Carthaginian war elephants were furnished with turrets and howdahs in certain military contexts.
Farther south, tribes would have had access to the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana oxyotis). Although much larger than either the African forest elephant or the Asian elephant, these proved difficult to tame for war purposes and were not used extensively. Asian elephants were traded westwards to the Mediterranean markets with Sri Lankan elephants being particularly preferred for war.
Perhaps inspired by the victories of Pyrrhus of Epirus, Carthage developed its own use of war elephants and deployed them extensively during the First and Second Punic Wars. The performance of the Carthaginian elephant corps was rather mixed, illustrating the need for proper tactics to take advantage of the elephant's strength and cover its weaknesses. At Adyss in 255 BC, the Carthaginian elephants were ineffective due to the terrain, while at the battle of Panormus in 251 BC the Romans' velites were able to terrify the Carthaginian elephants being used unsupported, which fled from the field. At the battle of Tunis however the charge of the Carthaginian elephants helped to disorder the legions, allowing the Carthaginian phalanx to stand fast and defeat the Romans. During the Second Punic War, Hannibal famously led an army of war elephants across the Alps, although many of them perished in the harsh conditions. The surviving elephants were successfully used in the battle of Trebia, where they panicked the Roman cavalry and Gallic allies. The Romans eventually developed effective anti-elephant tactics, leading to Hannibal's defeat at his final battle of Zama in 202 BC; his elephant charge, unlike the one at the battle of Tunis, was ineffective because the disciplined Roman maniples simply made way for them to pass.
Rome
Rome brought back many elephants at the end of the Punic Wars, and used them in its campaigns for many years afterwards. The conquest of Greece saw many battles in which the Romans deployed war elephants, including the invasion of Macedonia in 199 BC, the battle of Cynoscephalae 197 BC, the battle of Thermopylae, and the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, during which Antiochus III's fifty-four elephants took on the Roman force of sixteen. In later years the Romans deployed twenty-two elephants at Pydna in 168 BC. The role of the elephant force at Cynoscephalae was particularly decisive, as their quick charge shattered the unformed Macedonian left wing, allowing the Romans to encircle and destroy the victorious Macedonian right. A similar event also occurred at Pydna. The Romans' successful use of war elephants against the Macedonians might be considered ironic, given that it was Pyrrhus who first taught them the military potential of elephants.
Elephants also featured throughout the Roman campaign against the Lusitanians and Celtiberians in Hispania. During the Second Celtiberian War, Quintus Fulvius Nobilior was helped by ten elephants sent by king Masinissa of Numidia. He deployed them against the Celtiberian forces of Numantia, but a falling stone hit one of the elephants, which panicked and frightened the rest, turning them against the Roman forces. After the subsequent Celtiberian counterattack, the Romans were forced to withdraw. Later, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus marched against Viriathus with another ten elephants sent by king Micipsa. However, the Lusitanian style of ambushes in narrow terrains ensured his elephants did not play an important factor in the conflict, and Servilianus was eventually defeated by Viriathus in the city of Erisana.
Famously, the Romans used a war elephant in their first invasion of Britain, one ancient writer recording that "Caesar had one large elephant, which was equipped with armor and carried archers and slingers in its tower. When this unknown creature entered the river, the Britons and their horses fled and the Roman army crossed over" – although he may have confused this incident with the use of a similar war elephant in Claudius' final conquest of Britain. At least one elephantine skeleton with flint weapons that has been found in England was initially misidentified as these elephants, but later dating proved it to be a mammoth skeleton from the Stone Age.
In the African campaign of the Roman civil war of 49–45 BC, the army of Metellus Scipio used elephants against Caesar's army at the battle of Thapsus. Scipio trained his elephants before the battle by aligning the elephants in front of slingers that would throw rocks at them, and another line of slingers at the elephants' rear to perform the same, in order to propel the elephants only in one direction, preventing them turning their backs because of frontal attack and charging against his own lines, but the author of De Bello Africano admits of the enormous effort and time required to accomplish this.
By the time of Claudius however, such animals were being used by the Romans in single numbers only – the last significant use of war elephants in the Mediterranean was against the Romans at the battle of Thapsus, 46 BC, where Julius Caesar armed his fifth legion (Alaudae) with axes and commanded his legionaries to strike at the elephant's legs. The legion withstood the charge, and the elephant became its symbol. Thapsus was the last significant use of elephants in the West. The remainder of the elephants seemed to have been thrown into panic by Caesar's archers and slingers.
Parthia and Sassanian Persia
The Parthian Empire occasionally used war elephants in their battles against the Roman Empire, having done so in at least one war against the Romans but elephants were of substantial importance in the army of the subsequent Sassanid Empire. The Sasanian war elephants are recorded in engagements against the Romans, such as during Julian's invasion of Persia. Other examples include the Battle of Vartanantz in 451 AD, at which the Sassanid elephants terrified the Armenians, and the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah of 636 AD, in which a unit of thirty-three elephants was used against the invading Arab Muslims, in which battle the war elephants proved to be "double-edged sword".
The Sassanid elephant corps held primacy amongst the Sassanid cavalry forces and was recruited from India. The elephant corps was under a special chief, known as the Zend−hapet, literally meaning "Commander of the Indians", either because the animals came from that country, or because they were managed by natives of Hindustan. The Sassanid elephant corps was never on the same scale as others further east, however, and after the fall of the Sassanid Empire the use of war elephants died out in the region.
Aksumite Empire
The Kingdom of Aksum in what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea made use of war elephants in 525 AD during the invasion of the Himyarite Kingdom in the Arabian peninsula. The war elephants used by the Aksumite army consisted of African savannah elephants, a significantly larger and more temperamental species of elephant. War elephants were again put to use by an Aksumite army in the year 570 in a military expedition against the Quraysh of Mecca.
Middle Ages
The Kushan Empire conquered most of Northern India. The empire adopted war elephants when levying troops as they expanded into the Indian subcontinent. The Weilüe describes how the population of Eastern India rode elephants into battle, but currently they provide military service and taxes to the Yuezhi (Kushans). The Hou Hanshu additionally describes the Kushan as acquiring riches including elephants as part of their conquests. The emperor Kanishka assembled a great army from his subject nations, including elephants from India. He planned on attacking the Tarim Kingdoms, and sent a vanguard of Indian troops led by white elephants. However, when crossing the Pamir Mountains the elephants and horses in the vanguard were unwilling to advance. Kanishka is then said to have had a religious revelation and rejected violence.
The Gupta Empire demonstrated extensive use of elephants in war and greatly expanded under the reign of Samudragupta. Local squads which each consisted of one elephant, one chariot, three armed cavalrymen, and five foot soldiers protected Gupta villages from raids and revolts. In times of war, the squads joined together to form a powerful imperial army. The Gupta Empire employed 'Mahapilupati', a position as an officer in charge of elephants. Emperors such as Kumaragupta struck coins depicted as elephant riders and lion slayers.
Harsha established hegemony over most of North India. The Harshacharita composed by Bāṇabhaṭṭa describes the army under the rule of Harsha. Much like the Gupta Empire, his military consisted of infantry, cavalry, and elephants. Harsha received war elephants as tribute and presents from vassals. Some elephants were also obtained by forest rangers from the jungles. Elephants were additionally taken from defeated armies. Bana additionally details the diet of the elephants, recording that they each consumed 600 pounds of fodder consisting of trees with mangos and sugarcanes.
The Chola dynasty and the Western Chalukya Empire maintained a large number of war elephants in the 11th and 12th century. The war elephants of the Chola dynasty carried on their backs fighting towers which were filled with soldiers who would shoot arrows at long range. The army of the Pala Empire was noted for its huge elephant corps, with estimates ranging from 5,000 to 50,000.
The Ghaznavids were the first amongst the Islamic dynasties to incorporate war elephants into their tactical theories. They also used a large number of elephants in their battles. The Ghaznavids acquired their elephants as tribute from the Hindu princes and as war plunder. The sources usually list the number of beasts captured, and these frequently ran into hundreds, such as 350 from Qanauj and 185 from Mahaban in 409/1018-19, and 580 from the Raja Ganda in 410/1019-20. Utbi records that the Thanesar expedition of 405/1014-15 was provoked by Mahmad's desire to get some of the special breed of Sri lankan breed of elephants excellent in war
In 1526, Babur, a descendant of Timur, invaded India and established the Mughal Empire. Babur introduced firearms and artillery into Indian warfare. He destroyed the army of Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat and the army of Rana Sanga in 1527 at the Battle of Khanua. The great Moghul Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605 AD) had 32,000 elephants in his stables. Jahangir, (reigned 1605–1627 A.D.) was a great connoisseur of elephants. He increased the number of elephants in service. Jahangir was stated to have 113,000 elephants in captivity: 12,000 in active army service, 1,000 to supply fodder to these animals, and another 100,000 elephants to carry courtiers, officials, attendants and baggage .
King Rajasinghe I laid siege to the Portuguese fort at Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1558 with an army containing 2,200 elephants, used for logistics and siege work. The Sri Lankans had continued their proud traditions in capturing and training elephants from ancient times. The officer in charge of the royal stables, including the capture of elephants, was called the Gajanayake Nilame, while the post of Kuruve Lekham controlled the Kuruwe or elephant men. The training of war elephants was the duty of the Kuruwe clan who came under their own Muhandiram, a Sri Lankan administrative post.
In Islamic history there is a significant event known as the ‘Am al-Fil (, "Year of the Elephant"), approximately equating to 570 AD. At that time Abraha, the Christian ruler of Yemen, marched upon the Ka‘bah in Mecca, intending to demolish it. He had a large army, which included one or more elephants (as many as eight, in some accounts). However, the (single or lead) elephant, whose name was 'Mahmud', is said to have stopped at the boundary around Mecca, and refused to enter – which was taken by both the Meccans and their Yemenite foes as a serious omen. According to Islamic tradition, it was in this year that Muhammad was born.
In the Middle Ages, elephants were seldom used in Europe. Charlemagne took his one elephant, Abul-Abbas, when he went to fight the Danes in 804, and the Crusades gave Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II the opportunity to capture an elephant in the Holy Land, the same animal later being used in the capture of Cremona in 1214, but the use of these individual animals was more symbolic than practical, especially when contrasting food and water consumption of elephants in foreign lands and the harsh conditions of the crusades.
The Mongols faced war-elephants in Khorazm, Burma, Vietnam and India throughout the 13th century. Despite their unsuccessful campaigns in Vietnam and India, the Mongols defeated the war elephants outside Samarkand by using catapults and mangonels, and during the Mongol invasions of Burma in 1277–1287 and 1300–1302 by showering arrows from their famous composite bows. Genghis and Kublai both retained captured elephants as part of their entourage. Another central Asian invader, Timur faced similar challenges a century later. In 1398 Timur's army faced more than one hundred Indian elephants in battle and almost lost because of the fear they caused amongst his troops. Historical accounts say that the Timurids ultimately won by employing an ingenious strategy: Timur tied flaming straw to the back of his camels before the charge. The smoke made the camels run forward, scaring the elephants, who crushed their own troops in their efforts to retreat. Another account of the campaign by Ahmed ibn Arabshah reports that Timur used oversized caltrops to halt the elephants' charge. Later, the Timurid leader used the captured animals against the Ottoman Empire.
In Southeast Asia, the powerful Khmer Empire had come to regional dominance by the 9th century AD, drawing heavily on the use of war elephants. Uniquely, the Khmer military deployed double cross-bows on the top of their elephants. With the collapse of Khmer power in the 15th century, the successor region powers of Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand) also adopted the widespread use of war elephants. In many battles of the period it was the practice for leaders to fight each other personally in elephant duels. One famous battle occurred when the Burmese army attacked Siam's Kingdom of Ayutthaya. The war may have been concluded when the Burmese crown prince Mingyi Swa was killed by Siamese King Naresuan in personal combat on elephant in 1593. However, this duel may be apocryphal.
In Thailand, the king or general rode on the elephant's neck and carried ngaw, a long pole with a sabre at the end, plus a metal hook for controlling the elephant. Sitting behind him on a howdah, was a signaller, who signalled by waving of a pair of peacock feathers. Above the signaller was the chatras, consisting of progressively stacked circular canopies, the number signifying the rank of the rider. Finally, behind the signaller on the elephant's back, was the steerer, who steered via a long pole. The steerer may have also carried a short musket and a sword.
In Malaysia, 20 elephants battled the Portuguese during the Capture of Malacca (1511).
The Chinese continued to reject the use of war elephants throughout the period, with the notable exception of the Southern Han during the 10th century AD – the "only nation on Chinese soil ever to maintain a line of elephants as a regular part of its army". This anomaly in Chinese warfare is explained by the geographical proximity and close cultural links of the southern Han to Southeast Asia. The military officer who commanded these elephants was given the title "Legate Digitant and Agitant of the Gigantic Elephants". Each elephant supported a wooden tower that could allegedly hold ten or more men. For a brief time, war elephants played a vital role in Southern Han victories such as the invasion of Chu in 948 AD, but the Southern Han elephant corps were ultimately soundly defeated at Shao in 971 AD, defeated by crossbow shooting from troops of the Song Dynasty. As one academic has put it, "thereafter this exotic introduction into Chinese culture passed out of history, and the tactical habits of the North prevailed". However, as late as the Ming dynasty in as far north as Beijing, there were still records of elephants being used in Chinese warfare, namely in 1449 where a Vietnamese contingent of war elephants helped the Ming Dynasty defend the city from the Mongols.
Modern era
With the advent of gunpowder warfare in the late 15th century, the balance of advantage for war elephants on the battlefield began to change. While muskets had limited impact on elephants, which could withstand numerous volleys, cannon fire was a different matter entirelyan animal could easily be knocked down by a single shot. With elephants still being used to carry commanders on the battlefield, they became even more tempting targets for enemy artillery.
Nonetheless, in south-east Asia the use of elephants on the battlefield continued up until the end of the 19th century. One of the major difficulties in the region was terrain, and elephants could cross difficult terrain in many cases more easily than horse cavalry. Burmese forces used war elephants against the Chinese in the Sino-Burmese War where they routed the Chinese cavalry. The Burmese used them again during the Battle of Danubyu during the First Anglo-Burmese War, where the elephants were easily repulsed by Congreve rockets deployed by British forces. The Siamese Army continued utilising war elephants armed with jingals up until the Franco-Siamese War of 1893, while the Vietnamese used them in battle as late as 1885, during the Sino-French War. During the mid to late 19th century, British forces in India possessed specialised elephant batteries to haul large siege artillery pieces over ground unsuitable for oxen.
Into the 20th century, military elephants were used for non-combat purposes in the Second World War, particularly because the animals could perform tasks in regions that were problematic for motor vehicles. Sir William Slim, commander of the XIVth Army wrote about elephants in his introduction to Elephant Bill: "They built hundreds of bridges for us, they helped to build and launch more ships for us than Helen ever did for Greece. Without them our retreat from Burma would have been even more arduous and our advance to its liberation slower and more difficult." Military elephants were used as late as the Vietnam War.
Elephants were as of 2017 being used by the Kachin Independence Army for an auxiliary role.
Elephants are now more valuable to many armies in failing states for their ivory than as transport, and many thousands of elephants have died during civil conflicts due to poaching. They are classed as a pack animal in a U.S. Special Forces field manual issued as recently as 2004, but their use by U.S. personnel is discouraged because elephants are endangered.
Tactical use
There were many military purposes for which elephants could be used. In battle, war elephants were usually deployed in the centre of the line, where they could be useful to prevent a charge or to conduct one of their own. Their sheer size and their terrifying appearance made them valued heavy cavalry. Off the battlefield they could carry heavy materiel, and with a top speed of approximately provided a useful means of transport, before mechanized vehicles rendered them mostly obsolete.
In addition to charging, elephants could provide a safe and stable platform for archers to shoot arrows in the middle of the battlefield, from which more targets could be seen and engaged. The driver, called a mahout, was responsible for controlling the animal, who often also carried weapons himself, like a chisel-blade and a hammer (to kill his own mount in an emergency). Elephants were sometimes further enhanced with their own weaponry and armour as well. In India and Sri Lanka, heavy iron chains with steel balls at the end were tied to their trunks, which the animals were trained to swirl menacingly and with great skill. Numerous cultures designed specialized equipment for elephants, like tusk swords and a protective tower on their backs, called howdahs. The late sixteenth century saw the introduction of culverins, jingals and rockets against elephants, innovations that would ultimately drive these animals out of active service on the battlefield.
Besides the dawn of more efficient means of transportation and weaponry, war elephants also had clear tactical weaknesses that lead to their eventual retirement. After sustaining painful wounds, or when their driver was killed, elephants had the tendency to panic, often causing them to run amok indiscriminately, making casualties on either side. Experienced Roman infantrymen often tried to sever their trunks, causing instant distress, and possibly leading the elephant to flee back into its own lines. Fast skirmishers armed with javelins were also used by the Romans to drive them away, as well as flaming objects or a stout line of long spears, such as Triarii. Another method for disrupting elephant units in classical antiquity was the deployment of war pigs. Ancient writers believed that elephants could be "scared by the smallest squeal of a pig". Some warlords, however, interpreted this expression literally. At the siege of Megara during the Diadochi wars, for example, the Megarians reportedly poured oil on a herd of pigs, set them alight, and drove them towards the enemy's massed war elephants, which subsequently bolted in terror.
The value of war elephants in battle remains a contested issue. In the 19th century, it was fashionable to contrast the western, Roman focus on infantry and discipline with the eastern, exotic use of war elephants that relied merely on fear to defeat their enemy. One writer commented that war elephants "have been found to be skittish and easily alarmed by unfamiliar sounds and for this reason they were found prone to break ranks and flee". Nonetheless, the continued use of war elephants for several thousand years attests to their enduring value to the historical battlefield commander.
Cultural legacy
The use of war elephants over the centuries has left a deep cultural legacy in many countries. Many traditional war games incorporate war elephants. There is piece in Chess called Elephant . While Englishmen call that piece bishop, it is called Gajam in Sanskrit. In Malayalam, it is called Aana (ആന), meaning elephant. In Russian, too, it is an elephant (Слон). In Bengali, the bishop is called hati, Bengali for "elephant". It is called an elephant in Chinese chess. In Arabic – and derived from it, in Spanish – the bishop piece is called al-fil, Arabic for "elephant".
In the Japanese game shogi, there used to be a piece known as the "Drunken Elephant"; it was, however, dropped by order of the Emperor Go-Nara and no longer appears in the version played in today's Japan.
Elephant armour, originally designed for use in war, is today usually only seen in museums. One particularly fine set of Indian elephant armour is preserved at the Leeds Royal Armouries Museum, while Indian museums across the sub-continent display other fine pieces. The architecture of India also shows the deep impact of elephant warfare over the years. War elephants adorn many military gateways, such as those at Lohagarh Fort for example, while some spiked, anti-elephant gates still remain, for example at Kumbhalgarh fort. Across India, older gateways are invariably much higher than their European equivalents, in order to allow elephants with howdahs to pass through underneath.
War elephants also remain a popular artistic trope, either in the Orientalist painting tradition of the 19th century, or in literature following Tolkien, who popularised a fantastic rendition of war elephants in the form of 'oliphaunts' or mûmakil.
In popular culture
Hathi from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is a former Indian war elephant who pulled heavy artillery for the British Indian Army. Kala-Nag from Toomai of the Elephants performed similar duties during the First Anglo-Afghan War.
Numerous strategy video games feature elephants as special units, usually available only to specific factions or requiring special resources. These include Age of Empires, Celtic Kings: The Punic Wars, the Civilization series, the Total War series, Imperator: Rome, and Crusader Kings III.
In the 2004 film Alexander scene of the Battle of Hydaspes depicts war elephants fighting against the Macedonian phalanx.
In the 2017 video game Assassin's Creed Origins, they are distributed around the map as boss fights.
In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Mûmakil (or Oliphaunts) are fictional giant elephant-like creatures used by the Witch-King, Sauron, and his Haradrim and the Orc army to fight against Theoden, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, the Hobbits, Merry and Pippin and his Rohan and the King and his Army of the Dead in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and Minas Tirith.
In Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, the episode features war elephants fighting against Egyptians.
In Horizon Forbidden West, there are machines called Tremortusks, which are suited for combat and are based on war elephants.
See also
Cavalry tactics
Cultural depictions of elephants
Execution by elephant
History of elephants in Europe
List of battles involving war elephants
List of individual elephants
Sassanid army
Thai elephant
Notes
References
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External links
Elephants in Sri Lankan History and Culture
Audio interview with John Kistler on war elephants
Elephant mystery at ancient Syrian battle solved
25 Things You Might Not Know About Elephants
5th-millennium BC introductions
Elephants in culture
Ancient warfare
Military animals
Animal armour
History of South Asia
Military history of Africa
Combat occupations
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthozoa
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Anthozoa
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Anthozoa is a class of marine invertebrates which includes the sea anemones, stony corals and soft corals. Adult anthozoans are almost all attached to the seabed, while their larvae can disperse as part of the plankton. The basic unit of the adult is the polyp; this consists of a cylindrical column topped by a disc with a central mouth surrounded by tentacles. Sea anemones are mostly solitary, but the majority of corals are colonial, being formed by the budding of new polyps from an original, founding individual. Colonies are strengthened by calcium carbonate and other materials and take various massive, plate-like, bushy or leafy forms.
Anthozoa is included within the phylum Cnidaria, which also includes the jellyfish, box jellies and parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa. The two main subclasses of Anthozoa are the Hexacorallia, members of which have six-fold symmetry and includes the stony corals, sea anemones, tube anemones and zoanthids; and the Octocorallia, which have eight-fold symmetry and includes the soft corals and gorgonians (sea pens, sea fans and sea whips), and sea pansies. The smaller subclass, Ceriantharia, consists of the tube-dwelling anemones. Some additional species are also included as incertae sedis until their exact taxonomic position can be ascertained.
Anthozoans are carnivores, catching prey with their tentacles. Many species supplement their energy needs by making use of photosynthetic single-celled algae that live within their tissues. These species live in shallow water and many are reef-builders. Other species lack the zooxanthellae and, having no need for well-lit areas, typically live in deep-water locations.
Unlike other members of this phylum, anthozoans do not have a medusa stage in their development. Instead, they release sperm and eggs into the water. After fertilisation, the planula larvae form part of the plankton. When fully developed, the larvae settle on the seabed and attach to the substrate, undergoing metamorphosis into polyps. Some anthozoans can also reproduce asexually through budding or by breaking in pieces.
Diversity
The name "Anthozoa" comes from the Greek words (; "flower") and (; "animals"), hence ανθόζωα (anthozoa) = "flower animals", a reference to the floral appearance of their perennial polyp stage.
Anthozoans are exclusively marine, and include sea anemones, stony corals, soft corals, sea pens, sea fans and sea pansies. Anthozoa is the largest taxon of cnidarians; over six thousand solitary and colonial species have been described. They range in size from small individuals less than half a centimetre across to large colonies a metre or more in diameter. They include species with a wide range of colours and forms that build and enhance reef systems. Although reefs and shallow water environments exhibit a great array of species, there are in fact more species of coral living in deep water than in shallow, and many taxa have shifted during their evolutionary history from shallow to deep water and vice versa.
Phylogeny
Anthozoa is subdivided into three subclasses: Octocorallia, Hexacorallia and Ceriantharia, which form monophyletic groups and generally show differentiating reflections on symmetry of polyp structure for each subclass. The relationships within the subclasses are unresolved.
Historically, the "Ceriantipatharia" was thought to be a separate subclass but, of the two orders it comprised, Antipatharia is now considered part of Hexacorallia and Ceriantharia is now considered an independent subclass. The extant orders are shown to the right.
Hexacorallia includes coral reef builders: the stony corals (Scleractinia), sea anemones (Actiniaria), and zoanthids (Zoantharia). Genetic studies of ribosomal DNA has shown Ceriantharia to be a monophyletic group and the oldest, or basal, order among them.
Classification according to the World Register of Marine Species:
subclass Hexacorallia
order Actiniaria — sea anemones
order Antipatharia — black coral
order Corallimorpharia — corallimorphs
order Rugosa †
order Scleractinia — stony corals
order Zoantharia — zoanthids
subclass Octocorallia
order Alcyonacea — soft corals and gorgonians
order Helioporacea — blue corals
order Pennatulacea — pennatules, sea feathers, sea pens, sea pansies
subclass Ceriantharia — ceriantharians, tube-dwelling anemones
order Penicillaria
order Spirularia
Anthozoa incertae sedis
genus Aiptasiodes
order Auloporida †
genus Sarcinula †
Octocorallia comprises the sea pens (Pennatulacea), soft corals (Alcyonacea), and blue coral (Helioporacea). Sea whips and sea fans, known as gorgonians, are part of Alcyonacea and historically were divided into separate orders.
Ceriantharia comprises the related tube-dwelling anemones. Tube-dwelling anemones or cerianthids look very similar to sea anemones, but belong to an entirely different subclass of anthozoans. They are solitary, living buried in soft sediments. Tube anemones live and can withdraw into tubes, which are made of a fibrous material, which is made from secreted mucus and threads of nematocyst-like organelles, known as ptychocysts.
Anatomy
The basic body form of an anthozoan is the polyp. This consists of a tubular column topped by a flattened area, the oral disc, with a central mouth; a whorl of tentacles surrounds the mouth. In solitary individuals, the base of the polyp is the foot or pedal disc, which adheres to the substrate, while in colonial polyps, the base links to other polyps in the colony.
The mouth leads into a tubular pharynx which descends for some distance into the body before opening into the coelenteron, otherwise known as the gastrovascular cavity, that occupies the interior of the body. Internal tensions pull the mouth into a slit-shape, and the ends of the slit lead into two grooves in the pharynx wall called siphonoglyphs. The coelenteron is subdivided by a number of vertical partitions, known as mesenteries or septa. Some of these extend from the body wall as far as the pharynx and are known as "complete septa" while others do not extend so far and are "incomplete". The septa also attach to the oral and pedal discs.
The body wall consists of an epidermal layer, a jellylike mesogloea layer and an inner gastrodermis; the septa are infoldings of the body wall and consist of a layer of mesogloea sandwiched between two layers of gastrodermis. In some taxa, sphincter muscles in the mesogloea close over the oral disc and act to keep the polyp fully retracted. The tentacles contain extensions of the coelenteron and have sheets of longitudinal muscles in their walls. The oral disc has radial muscles in the epidermis, but most of the muscles in the column are gastrodermal, and include strong retractor muscles beside the septa. The number and arrangement of the septa, as well as the arrangement of these retractor muscles, are important in anthozoan classification.
The tentacles are armed with nematocysts, venom-containing cells which can be fired harpoon-fashion to snare and subdue prey. These need to be replaced after firing, a process that takes about forty-eight hours. Some sea anemones have a circle of acrorhagi outside the tentacles; these long projections are armed with nematocysts and act as weapons. Another form of weapon is the similarly armed acontia (threadlike defensive organs) which can be extruded through apertures in the column wall. Some stony corals employ nematocyst-laden "sweeper tentacles" as a defence against the intrusion of other individuals.
Many anthozoans are colonial and consist of multiple polyps with a common origin joined by living material. The simplest arrangement is where a stolon runs along the substrate in a two dimensional lattice with polyps budding off at intervals. Alternatively, polyps may bud off from a sheet of living tissue, the coenosarc, which joins the polyps and anchors the colony to the substrate. The coenosarc may consist of a thin membrane from which the polyps project, as in most stony corals, or a thick fleshy mass in which the polyps are immersed apart from their oral discs, as in the soft corals.
The skeleton of a stony coral in the order Scleractinia is secreted by the epidermis of the lower part of the polyp; this forms a corallite, a cup-shaped hollow made of calcium carbonate, in which the polyp sits. In colonial corals, following growth of the polyp by budding, new corallites are formed, with the surface of the skeleton being covered by a layer of coenosarc. These colonies adopt a range of massive, branching, leaf-like and encrusting forms. Soft corals in the subclass Octocorallia are also colonial and have a skeleton formed of mesogloeal tissue, often reinforced with calcareous spicules or horny material, and some have rod-like supports internally. Other anthozoans, such as sea anemones, are naked; these rely on a hydrostatic skeleton for support. Some of these species have a sticky epidermis to which sand grains and shell fragments adhere, and zoanthids incorporate these substances into their mesogloea.
Biology
Most anthozoans are opportunistic predators, catching prey which drifts within reach of their tentacles. The prey is secured with the help of sticky mucus, spirocysts (non-venomous harpoon cells) and nematocysts (venomous harpoon cells). The tentacles then bend to push larger prey into the mouth, while smaller, plankton-size prey, is moved by cilia to the tip of the tentacles which are then inserted into the mouth. The mouth can stretch to accommodate large items, and in some species, the lips may extend to help receive the prey. The pharynx then grasps the prey, which is mixed with mucus and slowly swallowed by peristalsis and ciliary action. When the food reaches the coelenteron, extracellular digestion is initiated by the discharge of the septa-based nematocysts and the release of enzymes. The partially digested food fragments are circulated in the coelenteron by cilia, and from here they are taken up by phagocytosis by the gastrodermal cells that line the cavity.
Most anthozoans supplement their predation by incorporating into their tissues certain unicellular, photosynthetic organisms known as zooxanthellae (or zoochlorellae in a few instances); many fulfil the bulk of their nutritional requirements in this way. In this symbiotic relationship, the zooxanthellae benefit by using nitrogenous waste and carbon dioxide produced by the host while the cnidarian gains photosynthetic capability and increased production of calcium carbonate, a substance of great importance to stony corals. The presence of zooxanthellae is not a permanent relationship. Under some circumstances, the symbionts can be expelled, and other species may later move in to take their place. The behaviour of the anthozoan can also be affected, with it choosing to settle in a well lit spot, and competing with its neighbours for light to allow photosynthesis to take place. Where an anthozoan lives in a cave or other dark location, the symbiont may be absent in a species that, in a sunlit location, normally benefits from one. Anthozoans living at depths greater than are azooxanthellate because there is insufficient light for photosynthesis.
With longitudinal, transverse and radial muscles, polyps are able to elongate and shorten, bend and twist, inflate and deflate, and extend and contract their tentacles. Most polyps extend to feed and contract when disturbed, often invaginating their oral discs and tentacles into the column. Contraction is achieved by pumping fluid out of the coelenteron, and reflation by drawing it in, a task performed by the siphonoglyphs in the pharynx which are lined with beating cilia. Most anthozoans adhere to the substrate with their pedal discs but some are able to detach themselves and move about, while others burrow into the sediment. Movement may be a passive drifting with the currents or in the case of sea anemones, may involve creeping along a surface on their base.
Gas exchange and excretion is accomplished by diffusion through the tentacles and internal and external body wall, aided by the movement of fluid being wafted along these surfaces by cilia. The sensory system consists of simple nerve nets in the gastrodermis and epidermis, but there are no specialised sense organs.
Anthozoans exhibit great powers of regeneration; lost parts swiftly regrow and the sea anemone Aiptasia pallida can be vivisected in the laboratory and then returned to the aquarium where it will heal. They are capable of a variety of asexual means of reproduction including fragmentation, longitudinal and transverse fission and budding. Sea anemones for example can crawl across a surface leaving behind them detached pieces of the pedal disc which develop into new clonal individuals. Anthopleura species divide longitudinally, pulling themselves apart, resulting in groups of individuals with identical colouring and patterning. Transverse fission is less common, but occurs in Anthopleura stellula and Gonactinia prolifera, with a rudimentary band of tentacles appearing on the column before the sea anemone tears itself apart. Zoanthids are capable of budding off new individuals.
Most anthozoans are unisexual but some stony corals are hermaphrodite. The germ cells originate in the endoderm and move to the gastrodermis where they differentiate. When mature, they are liberated into the coelenteron and thence to the open sea, with fertilisation being external. To make fertilisation more likely, corals emit vast numbers of gametes, and many species synchronise their release in relation to the time of day and the phase of the moon.
The zygote develops into a planula larva which swims by means of cilia and forms part of the plankton for a while before settling on the seabed and metamorphosing into a juvenile polyp. Some planulae contain yolky material and others incorporate zooxanthellae, and these adaptations enable these larvae to sustain themselves and disperse more widely. The planulae of the stony coral Pocillopora damicornis, for example, have lipid-rich yolks and remain viable for as long as 100 days before needing to settle.
Ecology
Coral reefs are some of the most biodiverse habitats on earth, supporting large numbers of species of corals, fish, molluscs, worms, arthropods, starfish, sea urchins, other invertebrates and algae. Because of the photosynthetic requirements of the corals, they are found in shallow waters, and many of these fringe land masses. With a three-dimensional structure, coral reefs are very productive ecosystems; they provide food for their inhabitants, hiding places of various sizes to suit many organisms, perching places, barriers to large predators and solid structures on which to grow. They are used as breeding grounds and as nurseries by many species of pelagic fish, and they influence the productivity of the ocean for miles around. Anthozoans prey on animals smaller than they are and are themselves eaten by such animals as fish, crabs, barnacles, snails and starfish. Their habitats are easily disturbed by outside factors which unbalance the ecosystem. In 1989, the invasive crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) caused havoc in American Samoa, killing 90% of the corals in the reefs.
Corals that grow on reefs are called hermatypic, with those growing elsewhere are known as ahermatypic. Most of the latter are azooxanthellate and live in both shallow and deep sea habitats. In the deep sea they share the ecosystem with soft corals, polychaete worms, other worms, crustaceans, molluscs and sponges. In the Atlantic Ocean, the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa forms extensive deep-water reefs which support many other species.
Other fauna, such as hydrozoa, bryozoa and brittle stars, often dwell among the branches of gorgonian and coral colonies. The pygmy seahorse not only makes certain species of gorgonians its home, but closely resembles its host and is thus well camouflaged. Some organisms have an obligate relationship with their host species. The mollusc Simnialena marferula is only found on the sea whip Leptogorgia virgulata, is coloured like it and has sequestered its defensive chemicals, and the nudibranch Tritonia wellsi is another obligate symbiont, its feathery gills resembling the tentacles of the polyps.
A number of sea anemone species are commensal with other organisms. Certain crabs and hermit crabs seek out sea anemones and place them on their shells for protection, and fish, shrimps and crabs live among the anemone's tentacles, gaining protection by being in close proximity to the stinging cells. Some amphipods live inside the coelenteron of the sea anemone. Despite their venomous cells, sea anemones are eaten by fish, starfish, worms, sea spiders and molluscs. The sea slug Aeolidia papillosa feeds on the aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima), accumulating the nematocysts for its own protection.
Paleontology
Several extinct orders of corals from the Paleozoic era 570–245 million years ago are thought to be close to the ancestors of modern Scleractinia:
Numidiaphyllida †
Kilbuchophyllida †
Heterocorallia †
Rugosa †
Heliolitida †
Tabulata †
Cothoniida †
Tabuloconida †
These are all corals and correspond to the fossil record time line. With readily-preserved hard calcareous skeletons, they comprise the majority of Anthozoan fossils.
Interactions with humans
Coral reefs and shallow marine environments are threatened, not only by natural events and increased sea temperatures, but also by such man-made problems as pollution, sedimentation and destructive fishing practices. Pollution may be the result of run-off from the land of sewage, agricultural products, fuel or chemicals. These may directly kill or injure marine life, or may encourage the growth of algae that smother native species, or form algal blooms with wide-ranging effects. Oil spills at sea can contaminate reefs, and also affect the eggs and larva of marine life drifting near the surface.
Corals are collected for the aquarium trade, and this may be done with little care for the long-term survival of the reef. Fishing among reefs is difficult and trawling does much mechanical damage. In some parts of the world explosives are used to dislodge fish from reefs, and cyanide may be used for the same purpose; both practices not only kill reef inhabitants indiscriminately but also kill or damage the corals, sometimes stressing them so much that they expel their zooxanthellae and become bleached.
Deep water coral habitats are also threatened by human activities, particularly by indiscriminate trawling. These ecosystems have been little studied, but in the perpetual darkness and cold temperatures, animals grow and mature slowly and there are relatively fewer fish worth catching than in the sunlit waters above. To what extent deep-water coral reefs provide a safe nursery area for juvenile fish has not been established, but they may be important for many cold-water species.
References
External links
Animal classes
Ediacaran first appearances
Taxa named by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
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378661
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoregulation
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Thermoregulation
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Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above for six hours. Work in 2022 established by experiment that a wet-bulb temperature exceeding 30.55°C caused uncompensable heat stress in young, healthy adult humans. The opposite condition, when body temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia. It results when the homeostatic control mechanisms of heat within the body malfunction, causing the body to lose heat faster than producing it. Normal body temperature is around 37°C(98.6°F), and hypothermia sets in when the core body temperature gets lower than . Usually caused by prolonged exposure to cold temperatures, hypothermia is usually treated by methods that attempt to raise the body temperature back to a normal range.
It was not until the introduction of thermometers that any exact data on the temperature of animals could be obtained. It was then found that local differences were present, since heat production and heat loss vary considerably in different parts of the body, although the circulation of the blood tends to bring about a mean temperature of the internal parts. Hence it is important to identify the parts of the body that most closely reflect the temperature of the internal organs. Also, for such results to be comparable, the measurements must be conducted under comparable conditions. The rectum has traditionally been considered to reflect most accurately the temperature of internal parts, or in some cases of sex or species, the vagina, uterus or bladder.
Some animals undergo one of various forms of dormancy where the thermoregulation process temporarily allows the body temperature to drop, thereby conserving energy. Examples include hibernating bears and torpor in bats.
Classification of animals by thermal characteristics
Endothermy vs. ectothermy
Thermoregulation in organisms runs along a spectrum from endothermy to ectothermy. Endotherms create most of their heat via metabolic processes and are colloquially referred to as warm-blooded. When the surrounding temperatures are cold, endotherms increase metabolic heat production to keep their body temperature constant, thus making the internal body temperature of an endotherm more or less independent of the temperature of the environment. Endotherms possess a larger number of mitochondria per cell than ectotherms, enabling them to generate more heat by increasing the rate at which they metabolize fats and sugars. Ectotherms use external sources of temperature to regulate their body temperatures. They are colloquially referred to as cold-blooded despite the fact that body temperatures often stay within the same temperature ranges as warm-blooded animals. Ectotherms are the opposite of endotherms when it comes to regulating internal temperatures. In ectotherms, the internal physiological sources of heat are of negligible importance; the biggest factor that enables them to maintain adequate body temperatures is due to environmental influences. Living in areas that maintain a constant temperature throughout the year, like the tropics or the ocean, has enabled ectotherms to develop behavioral mechanisms that respond to external temperatures, such as sun-bathing to increase body temperature, or seeking the cover of shade to lower body temperature.
Ectotherms
Ectothermic cooling
Vaporization:
Evaporation of sweat and other bodily fluids.
Convection:
Increasing blood flow to body surfaces to maximize heat transfer across the advective gradient.
Conduction:
Losing heat by being in contact with a colder surface. For instance:
Lying on cool ground.
Staying wet in a river, lake or sea.
Covering in cool mud.
Radiation:
Releasing heat by radiating it away from the body.
Ectothermic heating (or minimizing heat loss)
Convection:
Climbing to higher ground up trees, ridges, rocks.
Entering a warm water or air current.
Building an insulated nest or burrow.
Conduction:
Lying on a hot surface.
Radiation:
Lying in the sun (heating this way is affected by the body's angle in relation to the sun).
Folding skin to reduce exposure.
Concealing wing surfaces.
Exposing wing surfaces.
Insulation:
Changing shape to alter surface/volume ratio.
Inflating the body.
To cope with low temperatures, some fish have developed the ability to remain functional even when the water temperature is below freezing; some use natural antifreeze or antifreeze proteins to resist ice crystal formation in their tissues. Amphibians and reptiles cope with heat gain by evaporative cooling and behavioral adaptations. An example of behavioral adaptation is that of a lizard lying in the sun on a hot rock in order to heat through radiation and conduction.
Endothermy
An endotherm is an animal that regulates its own body temperature, typically by keeping it at a constant level. To regulate body temperature, an organism may need to prevent heat gains in arid environments. Evaporation of water, either across respiratory surfaces or across the skin in those animals possessing sweat glands, helps in cooling body temperature to within the organism's tolerance range. Animals with a body covered by fur have limited ability to sweat, relying heavily on panting to increase evaporation of water across the moist surfaces of the lungs and the tongue and mouth. Mammals like cats, dogs and pigs, rely on panting or other means for thermal regulation and have sweat glands only in foot pads and snout. The sweat produced on pads of paws and on palms and soles mostly serves to increase friction and enhance grip. Birds also counteract overheating by gular fluttering, or rapid vibrations of the gular (throat) skin. Down feathers trap warm air acting as excellent insulators just as hair in mammals acts as a good insulator. Mammalian skin is much thicker than that of birds and often has a continuous layer of insulating fat beneath the dermis. In marine mammals, such as whales, or animals that live in very cold regions, such as the polar bears, this is called blubber. Dense coats found in desert endotherms also aid in preventing heat gain such as in the case of the camels.
A cold weather strategy is to temporarily decrease metabolic rate, decreasing the temperature difference between the animal and the air and thereby minimizing heat loss. Furthermore, having a lower metabolic rate is less energetically expensive. Many animals survive cold frosty nights through torpor, a short-term temporary drop in body temperature. Organisms, when presented with the problem of regulating body temperature, have not only behavioural, physiological, and structural adaptations but also a feedback system to trigger these adaptations to regulate temperature accordingly. The main features of this system are stimulus, receptor, modulator, effector and then the feedback of the newly adjusted temperature to the stimulus. This cyclical process aids in homeostasis.
Homeothermy compared with poikilothermy
Homeothermy and poikilothermy refer to how stable an organism's deep-body temperature is. Most endothermic organisms are homeothermic, like mammals. However, animals with facultative endothermy are often poikilothermic, meaning their temperature can vary considerably. Most fish are ectotherms, as most of their heat comes from the surrounding water. However, almost all fish are poikilothermic.
Vertebrates
By numerous observations upon humans and other animals, John Hunter showed that the essential difference between the so-called warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals lies in observed constancy of the temperature of the former, and the observed variability of the temperature of the latter. Almost all birds and mammals have a high temperature almost constant and independent of that of the surrounding air (homeothermy). Almost all other animals display a variation of body temperature, dependent on their surroundings (poikilothermy).
Brain control
Thermoregulation in both ectotherms and endotherms is controlled mainly by the preoptic area of the anterior hypothalamus. Such homeostatic control is separate from the sensation of temperature.
In birds and mammals
In cold environments, birds and mammals employ the following adaptations and strategies to minimize heat loss:
Using small smooth muscles (arrector pili in mammals), which are attached to feather or hair shafts; this distorts the surface of the skin making feather/hair shaft stand erect (called goose bumps or pimples) which slows the movement of air across the skin and minimizes heat loss.
Increasing body size to more easily maintain core body temperature (warm-blooded animals in cold climates tend to be larger than similar species in warmer climates (see Bergmann's Rule))
Having the ability to store energy as fat for metabolism
Have shortened extremities
Have countercurrent blood flow in extremities – this is where the warm arterial blood travelling to the limb passes the cooler venous blood from the limb and heat is exchanged warming the venous blood and cooling the arterial (e.g., Arctic wolf or penguins)
In warm environments, birds and mammals employ the following adaptations and strategies to maximize heat loss:
Behavioural adaptations like living in burrows during the day and being nocturnal
Evaporative cooling by perspiration and panting
Storing fat reserves in one place (e.g., camel's hump) to avoid its insulating effect
Elongated, often vascularized extremities to conduct body heat to the air
In humans
As in other mammals, thermoregulation is an important aspect of human homeostasis. Most body heat is generated in the deep organs, especially the liver, brain, and heart, and in contraction of skeletal muscles. Humans have been able to adapt to a great diversity of climates, including hot humid and hot arid. High temperatures pose serious stresses for the human body, placing it in great danger of injury or even death. For example, one of the most common reactions to hot temperatures is heat exhaustion, which is an illness that could happen if one is exposed to high temperatures, resulting in some symptoms such as dizziness, fainting, or a rapid heartbeat. For humans, adaptation to varying climatic conditions includes both physiological mechanisms resulting from evolution and behavioural mechanisms resulting from conscious cultural adaptations. The physiological control of the body's core temperature takes place primarily through the hypothalamus, which assumes the role as the body's "thermostat". This organ possesses control mechanisms as well as key temperature sensors, which are connected to nerve cells called thermoreceptors. Thermoreceptors come in two subcategories; ones that respond to cold temperatures and ones that respond to warm temperatures. Scattered throughout the body in both peripheral and central nervous systems, these nerve cells are sensitive to changes in temperature and are able to provide useful information to the hypothalamus through the process of negative feedback, thus maintaining a constant core temperature.
There are four avenues of heat loss: evaporation, convection, conduction, and radiation. If skin temperature is greater than that of the surrounding air temperature, the body can lose heat by convection and conduction. But, if air temperature of the surroundings is greater than that of the skin, the body gains heat by convection and conduction. In such conditions, the only means by which the body can rid itself of heat is by evaporation. So, when the surrounding temperature is higher than the skin temperature, anything that prevents adequate evaporation will cause the internal body temperature to rise. During intense physical activity (e.g. sports), evaporation becomes the main avenue of heat loss. Humidity affects thermoregulation by limiting sweat evaporation and thus heat loss.
In reptiles
Thermoregulation is also an integral part of a reptile's life, specifically lizards such as Microlophus occipitalis and Ctenophorus decresii who must change microhabitats to keep a constant body temperature. By moving to cooler areas when it is too hot and to warmer areas when it is cold, they can thermoregulate their temperature to stay within their necessary bounds.
In plants
Thermogenesis occurs in the flowers of many plants in the family Araceae as well as in cycad cones. In addition, the sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is able to thermoregulate itself, remaining on average above air temperature while flowering. Heat is produced by breaking down the starch that was stored in their roots, which requires the consumption of oxygen at a rate approaching that of a flying hummingbird.
One possible explanation for plant thermoregulation is to provide protection against cold temperature. For example, the skunk cabbage is not frost-resistant, yet it begins to grow and flower when there is still snow on the ground. Another theory is that thermogenicity helps attract pollinators, which is borne out by observations that heat production is accompanied by the arrival of beetles or flies.
Some plants are known to protect themselves against colder temperatures using antifreeze proteins. This occurs in wheat (Triticum aestivum), potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) and several other angiosperm species.
Behavioral temperature regulation
Animals other than humans regulate and maintain their body temperature with physiological adjustments and behavior. Desert lizards are ectotherms, and therefore are unable to regulate their internal temperature themselves. To regulate their internal temperature, many lizards relocate themselves to a more environmentally favorable location. They may do this in the morning only by raising their head from its burrow and then exposing their entire body. By basking in the sun, the lizard absorbs solar heat. It may also absorb heat by conduction from heated rocks that have stored radiant solar energy. To lower their temperature, lizards exhibit varied behaviors. Sand seas, or ergs, produce up to , and the sand lizard will hold its feet up in the air to cool down, seek cooler objects with which to contact, find shade, or return to its burrow. They also go to their burrows to avoid cooling when the temperature falls. Aquatic animals can also regulate their temperature behaviorally by changing their position in the thermal gradient. Sprawling prone in a cool shady spot, "splooting," has been observed in squirrels on hot days.
Animals also engage in kleptothermy in which they share or steal each other's body warmth. Kleptothermy is observed, particularly amongst juveniles, in endotherms such as bats and birds (such as the mousebird and emperor penguin). This allows the individuals to increase their thermal inertia (as with gigantothermy) and so reduce heat loss. Some ectotherms share burrows of ectotherms. Other animals exploit termite mounds.
Some animals living in cold environments maintain their body temperature by preventing heat loss. Their fur grows more densely to increase the amount of insulation. Some animals are regionally heterothermic and are able to allow their less insulated extremities to cool to temperatures much lower than their core temperature—nearly to . This minimizes heat loss through less insulated body parts, like the legs, feet (or hooves), and nose.
Different species of Drosophila found in the Sonoran Desert will exploit different species of cacti based on the thermotolerance differences between species and hosts. For example, Drosophila mettleri is found in cacti like the saguaro and senita; these two cacti remain cool by storing water. Over time, the genes selecting for higher heat tolerance were reduced in the population due to the cooler host climate the fly is able to exploit.
Some flies, such as Lucilia sericata, lay their eggs en masse. The resulting group of larvae, depending on its size, is able to thermoregulate and keep itself at the optimum temperature for development.
Koalas also can behaviorally thermoregulate by seeking out cooler portions of trees on hot days. They preferentially wrap themselves around the coolest portions of trees, typically near the bottom, to increase their passive radiation of internal body heat.
Hibernation, estivation and daily torpor
To cope with limited food resources and low temperatures, some mammals hibernate during cold periods. To remain in "stasis" for long periods, these animals build up brown fat reserves and slow all body functions. True hibernators (e.g., groundhogs) keep their body temperatures low throughout hibernation whereas the core temperature of false hibernators (e.g., bears) varies; occasionally the animal may emerge from its den for brief periods. Some bats are true hibernators and rely upon a rapid, non-shivering thermogenesis of their brown fat deposit to bring them out of hibernation.
Estivation is similar to hibernation, however, it usually occurs in hot periods to allow animals to avoid high temperatures and desiccation. Both terrestrial and aquatic invertebrate and vertebrates enter into estivation. Examples include lady beetles (Coccinellidae), North American desert tortoises, crocodiles, salamanders, cane toads, and the water-holding frog.
Daily torpor occurs in small endotherms like bats and hummingbirds, which temporarily reduces their high metabolic rates to conserve energy.
Variation in animals
Normal human temperature
Previously, average oral temperature for healthy adults had been considered , while normal ranges are . In Poland and Russia, the temperature had been measured axillarily (under the arm). was considered "ideal" temperature in these countries, while normal ranges are .
Recent studies suggest that the average temperature for healthy adults is (same result in three different studies). Variations (one standard deviation) from three other studies are:
for males, for females
Measured temperature varies according to thermometer placement, with rectal temperature being higher than oral temperature, while axillary temperature is lower than oral temperature. The average difference between oral and axillary temperatures of Indian children aged 6–12 was found to be only 0.1 °C (standard deviation 0.2 °C), and the mean difference in Maltese children aged 4–14 between oral and axillary temperature was 0.56 °C, while the mean difference between rectal and axillary temperature for children under 4 years old was 0.38 °C.
Variations due to circadian rhythms
In humans, a diurnal variation has been observed dependent on the periods of rest and activity, lowest at 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. and peaking at 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monkeys also have a well-marked and regular diurnal variation of body temperature that follows periods of rest and activity, and is not dependent on the incidence of day and night; nocturnal monkeys reach their highest body temperature at night and lowest during the day. Sutherland Simpson and J.J. Galbraith observed that all nocturnal animals and birds – whose periods of rest and activity are naturally reversed through habit and not from outside interference – experience their highest temperature during the natural period of activity (night) and lowest during the period of rest (day). Those diurnal temperatures can be reversed by reversing their daily routine.
In essence, the temperature curve of diurnal birds is similar to that of humans and other homoeothermic animals, except that the maximum occurs earlier in the afternoon and the minimum earlier in the morning. Also, the curves obtained from rabbits, guinea pigs, and dogs were quite similar to those from humans. These observations indicate that body temperature is partially regulated by circadian rhythms.
Variations due to human menstrual cycles
During the follicular phase (which lasts from the first day of menstruation until the day of ovulation), the average basal body temperature in women ranges from . Within 24 hours of ovulation, women experience an elevation of due to the increased metabolic rate caused by sharply elevated levels of progesterone. The basal body temperature ranges between throughout the luteal phase, and drops down to pre-ovulatory levels within a few days of menstruation. Women can chart this phenomenon to determine whether and when they are ovulating, so as to aid conception or contraception.
Variations due to fever
Fever is a regulated elevation of the set point of core temperature in the hypothalamus, caused by circulating pyrogens produced by the immune system. To the subject, a rise in core temperature due to fever may result in feeling cold in an environment where people without fever do not.
Variations due to biofeedback
Some monks are known to practice Tummo, biofeedback meditation techniques, that allow them to raise their body temperatures substantially.
Effect on lifespan
The effects of such a genetic change in body temperature on longevity is difficult to study in humans.
Limits compatible with life
There are limits both of heat and cold that an endothermic animal can bear and other far wider limits that an ectothermic animal may endure and yet live. The effect of too extreme a cold is to decrease metabolism, and hence to lessen the production of heat. Both catabolic and anabolic pathways share in this metabolic depression, and, though less energy is used up, still less energy is generated. The effects of this diminished metabolism become telling on the central nervous system first, especially the brain and those parts concerning consciousness; both heart rate and respiration rate decrease; judgment becomes impaired as drowsiness supervenes, becoming steadily deeper until the individual loses consciousness; without medical intervention, death by hypothermia quickly follows. Occasionally, however, convulsions may set in towards the end, and death is caused by asphyxia.
In experiments on cats performed by Sutherland Simpson and Percy T. Herring, the animals were unable to survive when rectal temperature fell below . At this low temperature, respiration became increasingly feeble; heart-impulse usually continued after respiration had ceased, the beats becoming very irregular, appearing to cease, then beginning again. Death appeared to be mainly due to asphyxia, and the only certain sign that it had taken place was the loss of knee-jerks.
However, too high a temperature speeds up the metabolism of different tissues to such a rate that their metabolic capital is soon exhausted. Blood that is too warm produces dyspnea by exhausting the metabolic capital of the respiratory centre; heart rate is increased; the beats then become arrhythmic and eventually cease. The central nervous system is also profoundly affected by hyperthermia and delirium, and convulsions may set in. Consciousness may also be lost, propelling the person into a comatose condition. These changes can sometimes also be observed in patients experiencing an acute fever. Mammalian muscle becomes rigid with heat rigor at about 50 °C, with the sudden rigidity of the whole body rendering life impossible.
H.M. Vernon performed work on the death temperature and paralysis temperature (temperature of heat rigor) of various animals. He found that species of the same class showed very similar temperature values, those from the Amphibia examined being 38.5 °C, fish 39 °C, reptiles 45 °C, and various molluscs 46 °C. Also, in the case of pelagic animals, he showed a relation between death temperature and the quantity of solid constituents of the body. In higher animals, however, his experiments tend to show that there is greater variation in both the chemical and physical characteristics of the protoplasm and, hence, greater variation in the extreme temperature compatible with life.
A 2022 study on the effect of heat on young people found that the critical wet-bulb temperature at which heat stress can no longer be compensated, Twb,crit, in young, healthy adults performing tasks at modest metabolic rates mimicking basic activities of daily life was much lower than the 35°C usually assumed, at about 30.55°C in 36–40°C humid environments, but progressively decreased in hotter, dry ambient environments.
Arthropoda
The maximum temperatures tolerated by certain thermophilic arthropods exceeds the lethal temperatures for most vertebrates.
The most heat-resistant insects are three genera of desert ants recorded from three different parts of the world. The ants have developed a lifestyle of scavenging for short durations during the hottest hours of the day, in excess of , for the carcasses of insects and other forms of life which have died from heat stress.
In April 2014, the South Californian mite Paratarsotomus macropalpis has been recorded as the world's fastest land animal relative to body length, at a speed of 322 body lengths per second. Besides the unusually great speed of the mites, the researchers were surprised to find the mites running at such speeds on concrete at temperatures up to , which is significant because this temperature is well above the lethal limit for the majority of animal species. In addition, the mites are able to stop and change direction very quickly.
Spiders like Nephila pilipes exhibits active thermal regulation behavior. During high temperature sunny days, it aligns its body with the direction of sunlight to reduce the body area under direct sunlight.
See also
Human body temperature
Innate heat
Insect thermoregulation
Thermal neutral zone
Thermoregulation in birds
References
Further reading
full pdf
This cites work of Simpson & Galbraith
Other Internet Archive listings
see Table of Contents link (Previously Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology. Earlier editions back to at least 5th edition 1976, contain useful information on the subject of thermoregulation, the concepts of which have changed little in that time).
link to abstract
Weldon Owen Pty Ltd. (1993). Encyclopedia of animals – Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. Pages 567–568. .
External links
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 1998
Human homeostasis
Animal physiology
Heat transfer
Articles containing video clips
Mathematics in medicine
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi%20Nono
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Luigi Nono
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Luigi Nono (; 29 January 1924 – 8 May 1990) was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music.
Biography
Early years
Nono, born in Venice, was a member of a wealthy artistic family; his grandfather was a notable painter. Nono began music lessons with Gian Francesco Malipiero at the Venice Conservatory in 1941, where he acquired knowledge of the Renaissance madrigal tradition, amongst other styles. After graduating with a degree in law from the University of Padua, he was given encouragement in composition by Bruno Maderna. Through Maderna, he became acquainted with Hermann Scherchen—then Maderna's conducting teacher—who gave Nono further tutelage and was an early mentor and advocate of his music.
Scherchen presented Nono's first acknowledged work, the Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell'op. 41 di A. Schönberg in 1950, at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt. The Variazioni canoniche, based on the twelve-tone series of Arnold Schoenberg's Op. 41, including the "Ode-to-Napoleon" hexachord, marked Nono as a committed composer of anti-fascist political orientation. (Variazioni canoniche also used a six-element row of rhythmic values.) Nono had been a member of the Italian Resistance during the Second World War. His political commitment, while allying him with some of his contemporaries at Darmstadt such as Henri Pousseur and in the earlier days Hans Werner Henze, distinguished him from others, including Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Nevertheless, it was with Boulez and Stockhausen that Nono became one of the leaders of the New Music during the 1950s.
1950s and the Darmstadt School
A number of Nono's early works were first performed at Darmstadt including Tre epitaffi per Federico García Lorca (1951–53), La Victoire de Guernica (1954)—intended, like Picasso's painting, as an indictment of the wartime atrocity—and Incontri (1955). The Liebeslied (1954) was written for Nono's wife-to-be, Nuria Schoenberg (daughter of Arnold Schoenberg), whom he met at the 1953 world première of Moses und Aron in Hamburg. They married in 1955. An atheist, Nono had enrolled as a member of the Italian Communist Party in 1952.
The world première of Il canto sospeso (1955–56) for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra brought Nono international recognition and acknowledgment as a successor to Webern. "Reviewers noted with amazement that Nono's canto sospeso achieved a synthesis—to a degree hardly thought possible—between an uncompromisingly avant-garde style of composition and emotional, moral expression (in which there was an appropriate and complementary treatment of the theme and text)".
If any evidence exists that Webern's work does not mark the esoteric "expiry" of Western music in a pianissimo of aphoristic shreds, then it is provided by Luigi Nono's Il Canto Sospeso ... The 32-year-old composer has proved himself to be the most powerful of Webern's successors. (Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 26 October 1956).
This work, regarded by Swiss musicologist Jürg Stenzl as one of the central masterpieces of the 1950s, is a commemoration of the victims of Fascism, incorporating farewell letters written by political prisoners before execution. Musically, Nono breaks new ground, not only by the "exemplary balance between voices and instruments" but in the motivic, point-like vocal writing in which words are fractured into syllables exchanged between voices to form floating, diversified sonorities—which may be likened to an imaginative extension of Schoenberg's "Klangfarbenmelodie technique". Nono himself emphasized his lyrical intentions in an interview with Hansjörg Pauli,) and a connection to Schoenberg's Survivor from Warsaw is postulated by Guerrero. However, Stockhausen, in his 15 July 1957 Darmstadt lecture, "Sprache und Musik" (published the next year in the Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik and, subsequently, in Die Reihe), stated:
In certain pieces in the "Canto", Nono composed the text as if to withdraw it from the public eye where it has no place... In sections II, VI, IX and in parts of III, he turns speech into sounds, noises. The texts are not delivered, but rather concealed in such a regardlessly strict and dense musical form that they are hardly comprehensible when performed.
Why, then, texts at all, and why these texts?
Here is an explanation. When setting certain parts of the letters about which one should be particularly ashamed that they had to be written, the musician assumes the attitude only of the composer who had previously selected the letters: he does not interpret, he does not comment. He rather reduces speech to its sounds and makes music with them. Permutations of vowel-sounds, a, ä, e, i, o, u; serial structure.
Should he not have chosen texts so rich in meaning in the first place, but rather sounds? At least for the sections where only the phonetic properties of speech are dealt with.
Nono took strong exception, and informed Stockhausen that it was "incorrect and misleading, and that he had had neither a phonetic treatment of the text nor more or less differentiated degrees of comprehensibility of the words in mind when setting the text".) Despite Stockhausen's contrite acknowledgment, three years later, in a Darmstadt lecture of 8 July 1960 titled "Text—Musik—Gesang", Nono angrily wrote:
The legacy of these letters became the expression of my composition. And from this relationship between the words as a phonetic-semantic entirety and the music as the composed expression of the words, all of my later choral compositions are to be understood. And it is complete nonsense to conclude, from the analytic treatment of the sound shape of the text, that the semantic content is cast out. The question of why I chose just these texts and no others for a composition is no more intelligent than the question of why, in order to express the word "stupid", one uses the letters arranged in the order s-t-u-p-i-d.Il canto sospeso has been described as an "everlasting warning"; indeed, it is a powerful refutation to the apparent claim made in an often-cited, but out-of-context phrase from philosopher Theodor W. Adorno that "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric".
Nono was to return to such anti-fascist subject matter again, as in Diario polacco; Composizione no. 2 (1958–59), whose background included a journey through the Nazi concentration camps, and the "azione scenica" Intolleranza 1960, which caused a riot at its première in Venice, on 13 April 1961.
It was Nono who, in his 1958 lecture "Die Entwicklung der Reihentechnik", created the expression "Darmstadt School" to describe the music composed during the 1950s by himself and Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and other composers not specifically named by him. He likened their significance to the Bauhaus in the visual arts and architecture.
On 1 September 1959, Nono delivered at Darmstadt a polemically charged lecture written in conjunction with his pupil Helmut Lachenmann, "Geschichte und Gegenwart in der Musik von Heute" ("History and Presence in the Music of Today"), in which he criticised and distanced himself from the composers of chance and aleatoric music, then in vogue, under the influence of American models such as John Cage. Although in a seminar a few days earlier Stockhausen had described himself as "perhaps the extreme antipode to Cage", when he spoke of "statistical structures" at the concert devoted to his works on the evening of the same day, the Marxist Nono saw this in terms of "fascist mass structures" and a violent argument erupted between the two friends. In combination with Nono's strongly negative reaction to Stockhausen's interpretation of text-setting in Il canto sospeso, this effectively ended their friendship until the 1980s, and thus disbanded the "avant-garde trinity" of Boulez, Nono, and Stockhausen.
1960s and 1970s
Intolleranza 1960 may be viewed as the culmination of the composer's early style and aesthetics. The plot concerns the plight of an emigrant captured in a variety of scenarios relevant to modern capitalist society: working class exploitation, street demonstrations, political arrest and torture, concentration camp internment, refuge, and abandonment. Described as a "stage-action"—Nono explicitly forbade the title of "opera"—it utilizes an array of resources from large orchestra, chorus, tape, and loudspeakers to the "magic lantern" technique drawn from Meyerhold and Mayakovsky theatre practices of the 1920s to form a rich expressionist drama. libretto consisting of political slogans, poems, and quotations from Brecht and Sartre (including moments of Brechtian alienation), together with Nono's strident, anguished music, fully accords with the anti-capitalist fulmination the composer intended to communicate. The riot at the première in Venice was significantly due to the presence of both left- and right-wing political factions in the audience. Neo-nazis had attempted to disrupt proceedings with stink-bombs, nonetheless failing to prevent the performance ending triumphantly for Nono. Intolleranza is dedicated to Schoenberg.
During the 1960s, Nono's musical activities became increasingly explicit and polemical in their subject, whether that be the warning against nuclear catastrophe (Canti di vita e d'amore: sul ponte di Hiroshima of 1962), the denunciation of capitalism (La Fabbrica Illuminata, 1964), the condemnation of Nazi war criminals in the wake of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (Ricorda cosi ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz, 1965), or of American imperialism in the Vietnam War (A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida, 1966). Nono began to incorporate documentary material (political speeches, slogans, extraneous sounds) on tape, and a new use of electronics, that he felt necessary to produce the "concrete situations" relevant to contemporary political issues. The instrumental writing tended to conglomerate the 'punctual' serial style of the early 1950s into groups, clusters of sounds—broadstrokes that complimented the use of tape collage. In keeping with his Marxist convictions as 'reinterpreted' through the writings of Antonio Gramsci, he brought this music into universities, trade-unions and factories where he gave lectures and performances. (The title of A floresta é jovem e cheja de vida contains a spelling error, the word "full" is "cheia" in Portuguese, not "cheja".
Nono's second period, commonly thought to have begun after Intolleranza, reaches its apogee in his second "azione scenica", Al gran sole carico d'amore (1972–74)—a collaboration with Yuri Lyubimov, who was then director of the Taganka Theatre in Moscow. In this large-scale stage work, Nono completely dispenses with a dramatic narrative, and presents pivotal moments in the history of Communism and class-struggle "side-by-side" to produce his "theatre of consciousness". The subject matter (as evident from the quotations from manifestos and poems, Marxist classics to the anonymous utterances of workers) deals with failed revolutions; the Paris Commune of 1871, the 1905 Russian Revolution, and the insurgency of militants in 1960s Chile under the leadership of Che Guevara and Tania Bunke. Then extremely topical, Al gran sole offers a multi-lateral spectacle and a moving meditation on the history of twentieth-century communism, as viewed through the prism of Nono's music. It was premiered at the Teatro Lirico, Milan, in 1975.
During this time, Nono visited the Soviet Union where he awakened the interest of Alfred Schnittke and Arvo Pärt, among others, in the contemporary practices of avant-garde composers of the West. Indeed, the 1960s and 70s were marked by frequent travels abroad, lecturing in Latin America, and making the acquaintance of leading left-wing intellectuals and activists. It was to mourn the death of Luciano Cruz, a leader of the Chilean Revolutionary Front, that Nono composed Como una ola de fuerza y luz (1972). Very much in the expressionist style of Al gran sole, with the use of large orchestra, tape and electronics, it became a kind of piano concerto with added vocal commentary.
Nono returned to the piano (with tape) for his next piece, ... sofferte onde serene ... (1976), written for his friend Maurizio Pollini after the common bereavement of two of their relatives (See Nono's Programme note|Col Legno,1994). With this work began a radically new, intimate phase of the composer's development—by way of Con Luigi Dallapiccola for percussion and electronics (1978) to Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima for string quartet (1980). One of Nono's most demanding works (both for performers and listeners), Fragmente-Stille is music on the threshold of silence. The score is interspersed with 53 quotations from the poetry of Hölderlin addressed to his "lover" Diotima, which are to be "sung" silently by the players during performance, striving for that "delicate harmony of inner life" (Hölderlin). A sparse, highly concentrated work commissioned by the Beethovenfest in Bonn, Fragmente-Stille reawakened great interest in Nono's music throughout Germany.
1980s
Nono had been introduced to the Venice-based philosopher, Massimo Cacciari (Mayor of Venice from 1993–2000), who began to have an increasing influence on the composer's thought during the 1980s. Through Cacciari, Nono became immersed in the work of many German philosophers, including the writings of Walter Benjamin whose ideas on history (strikingly similar to the composer's own) formed the background to the monumental Prometeo—tragedia dell' ascolto (1984/85). The world premiere of the opera was staged in the Church of San Lorenzo, in Venice, on 25 September 1984, conducted by Claudio Abbado, with texts by Massimo Cacciari, lighting by Emilio Vedova, and wooden structures by Renzo Piano. Nono's late music is haunted by Benjamin's philosophy, especially the concept of history (Über den Begriff der Geschichte) which is given a central role in Prometeo.
Musically, Nono began to experiment with the new sound possibilities and production at the in Freiburg. There, he devised a new approach to composition and technique, frequently involving the contributions of specialist musicians and technicians to realise his aims. The first fruits of these collaborations were Das atmende Klarsein (1981–82), Diario polacco II (1982)—an indictment against Soviet Cold War tyranny—and Guai ai gelidi mostri (1983). The new technologies allowed the sound to circulate in space, giving this dimension a role no less important than its emission. Such innovations became central to a new conception of time and space. These highly impressive masterworks were partly preparation for what many regard as his greatest achievement.
Prometeo has been described as "one of the best works of the 20th century". After the theatrical excesses of Al gran sole, which Nono later remarked were a "monster of resources", the composer began to think along the lines of an opera or rather a musica per dramma without any visual, stage dimension. In short, a drama in music—"the tragedy of listening"—the subtitle a comment on consumerism today. Hence, in the vocal parts the most simple intervalic procedures (mainly fourths and fifths) resonate amidst a tapestry of harsh, dissonant, microtonal writing for the ensembles.
Prometeo is perhaps the ultimate realisation of Nono's "theatre of consciousness"—here, an invisible theatre in which the production of sound and its projection in space become fundamental to the overall dramaturgy. The architect Renzo Piano designed an enormous 'wooden boat' structure for the première at San Lorenzo church in Venice, whose acoustics must to some extent be reconstructed for each performance. (For the Japanese première at the Akiyoshidai Festival (Shuho), the new concert hall was named 'Prometeo Hall' in Nono's honour, and designed by leading architect Arata Isozaki). The libretto incorporates disparate texts by Hesiod, Hölderlin, and Benjamin (mostly logistically inaudible during performance due to Nono's characteristic deconstruction), which explore the origin and evolution of humanity, as compiled and expanded by Cacciari. In Nono's timeless and visionary context, music and sound predominate over the image and the written word to form new dimensions of meaning and "new possibilities" for listening.
In 1985, Nono came across this aphorism ("Travellers, there are no trails – all there is, is travelling") on a wall of the Franciscan monastery near Toledo, Spain, and it played an important role in the rest of his compositions. As Andrew Clements writes about this aphorism in The Guardian, "It seemed to the composer the perfect expression of his own creative development, and in the last three years of his life he composed a trilogy of works whose titles all derive from that inscription."
Nono's last pieces, such as Caminantes... Ayacucho (1986–87), inspired by a region in southern Peru that experiences extreme poverty and social unrest, La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura (1988–89), and "Hay que caminar" soñando (1989), offer comment on the composer's lifelong quest for political renewal and social justice.
Nono died in Venice in 1990. After his funeral, the German composer Dieter Schnebel remarked that he "was a very great man"—a sentiment widely shared by those who knew him, and those who have come to admire his music. Nono is buried in the San Michele cemetery on the Isola di San Michele, alongside other artists like Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Zoran Mušič and Ezra Pound.
Perhaps the three most important collections of Nono's writings on music, art, and politics (Texte: Studien zu seiner Musik (1975), Ecrits (1993), and Scritti e colloqui (2001)), as well as the texts collected in Restagno, have yet to be translated into English. Other admirers include architect Daniel Libeskind and novelist Umberto Eco (Das Nonoprojekt), for Nono totally reconstructed music and engaged in the most fundamental issues with regards to its expressivity.
The Luigi Nono Archives were established in 1993, through the efforts of Nuria Schoenberg Nono, for the purpose of housing and conserving the Luigi Nono legacy.
Music
Recordings
Nono, Luigi. 1972. Canti di vita d'amore/Per Bastiana/Omaggio a Vedova. Slavka Taskova, soprano; Loren Driscoll, tenor; Saarländisches Rundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester; Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Michael Gielen, cond. Wergo LP WER 60 067. Reissued in 1993 on CD, WER 6229/286 229.
Nono, Luigi. 1977. Como una ola de fuerza y luz; Epitaffio no. 1, Epitaffio no. 3. Ursula Reinhardt-Kiss, soprano; Giuseppe La Licata, piano; Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig; Herbert Kegel, conductor. Roswitha Trexler, soprano, speaker; Werner Haseleu, baritone, speaker; Rundfunkchor Leipzig; Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig; Horst Neumann, conductor. Eterna LP 8 26 912. Reissued 1994, Berlin Classics 0021412BC.
Nono, Luigi. 1986. Fragmente—Stille, an Diotima. LaSalle Quartet (Walter Levin and Henry Meyer, violins; Peter Kamnitzer, viola; Lee Fiser, cello). Deutsche Grammophon/PolyGram CD 415 513, reissued in 1993 as 437 720.
Nono, Luigi. 1988. Il canto sospeso (with Arnold Schoenberg, Moses und Aaron act 1, scene 1, and Bruno Maderna, Hyperion). Ilse Hollweg, soprano; Eva Bornemann, alto; Friedrich Lenz, tenor; Orchestra and Chorus of WDR Cologne (Bernhard Zimmermann, chorus master); Bruno Maderna, conductor. La Nuova Musica 1. Stradivarius STR 10008.
Nono, Luigi. 1988. Como una ola de fuerza y luz/Contrappunto dialettico alla mente/... sofferte onde serene .... Slavka Taskova (soprano), Maurizio Pollini (piano), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, cond. Deutsche Grammophon/PolyGram 423 248. First and third works reissued 2003 (together with Manzoni's Masse: Omaggio a Edgard Varèse) on Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 471 362.
Nono, Luigi. 1990. Variazioni canoniche; A Carlo Scarpa, architetto ai suoi infiniti possibili; No hay caminos, hay que caminar. Œuvre du XXe siècle. Astrée CD E 8741. [France]: Astrée. Reissued, Montaigne CD MO782132. [France]: Auvidis/Naïve, 2000.
Nono, Luigi. 1991. A Pierre, dell'azzurro silenzio, inquietum; Quando stanno morendo, diario polacco 2º; Post-prae-ludium per Donau. Roberto Fabricciani, flute; Ciro Sarponi, clarinet; Ingrid Ade, Monika Bayr-Ivenz, Monika Brustmann, sopranos; Susanne Otto, alto; Christine Theus, cello; Roberto Cecconi, conductor; Giancarlo Schiaffini, tuba; Alvise Vidolin, live electronics. Dischi Ricordi CRMCD 1003.
Nono, Luigi. 1992. Il canto sospeso (with Mahler, Kindertotenlieder and "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" from the Rückert-Lieder). Barbara Bonney, soprano; Susanne Otto, mezzo-soprano; Marek Torzewski, tenor; Susanne Lothar and Bruno Ganz, reciters; Berlin Radio Choir; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor. Sony Classical/SME SK 53360.
Nono, Luigi. 1992. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura, Hay que caminar'—soñando. Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Grindenko, violins. Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 474 326.
Nono, Luigi. 1992. Memento, romance de la guardia civil española (Epitaffio n. 3 per Federico García Lorca); Composizione per orchestra; España en el corazón; Composizione per orchestra n. 2 (Diario polacca); Per Bastiana. Sinfonie Orchester und Chor des Norddeutschen Rundfunks; Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Roma della RAI; Sinfonie Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Bruno Maderna, conductor. Maderna Edition 17. Arkadia CDCDMAD 027.1.
Luigi, Nono. 1994. Luigi Nono 1: Fragmente—Stille, an Diotima; "Hay que caminar" soñando. Arditti String Quartet; Irvine Arditti and David Alberman, violins. Arditti Quartet Edition 7. Montaigne MO 7899005.
Luigi, Nono. 1995. Intolleranza 1960. Ursula Koszut, Kathryn Harries, sopranos; David Rampy, Jerrold van der Schaaf, tenors; Wolfgang Probst, baritone; supporting soloists; Chor der Staatsoper Stuttgart; Staatsorchester Stuttgart; Bernhard Kontarsky, conductor. Notes by Klaus Zehelein. Teldec/WEA Classics 4509-97304.
Nono, Luigi. 1995. Prometeo. Soloists, Solistenchor Freiburg (chorus master André Richard), Ensemble Modern, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher. Experimentalstudio der Heinrich-Strobel Stiftung des Südwestfunks Freiburg, sound directors André Richard, Hans Peter Haller, Rudolf Strauß, and Roland Breitenfeld. With notes, "Prometeo—Tragedia dell'ascolto", and "Prometeo—Ein Hörleitfaden", by Jürg Stenzl. EMI Classics 7243 5 55209 2 0/CDC 55209.
Nono, Luigi. 1998. Polifonica—monodia—ritmica; Canti per tredeci; Canciones a Guiomar; "Hay que caminar" soñando. Ensemble UnitedBerlin; Angelika Luz, soprano; United Voices; Peter Hirsch, conductor. Wergo WER 6631/286 631.
Nono, Luigi. 2000. Orchestral Works and Chamber Music. SWF Symphony Orchestra; Hans Rosbaud and Michael Gielen, conductors; Moscow String Quartet. Programme notes by Wolfgang Löscher. Col Legno WWE 20505.
Nono, Luigi. 2000. Variazioni canoniche/A Carlo Scarpa, architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili/No hay caminos, hay que caminar...Andrei Tarkovski. SW German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. Naïve 782132.
Nono, Luigi. 2001. Al gran sole carico d'amore. Vocal soloists and chorus of the Staatsoper Stuttgart; Staatsorchester Stuttgart; Lothar Zagrosek, conductor. With notes, "Stories—Luigi Nono's 'Theatre of Consciousness'—Al Gran sole carico d'amore," by Jürg Stenzl. Teldec New Line/Warner Classics 8573-81059-2.
Nono, Luigi. 2001. Choral Works: Cori di Didone; Da un diario italiano; Das atmende Klarsein. SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart; Rupert Huber, conductor. Faszination Musik. Hänssler Classic 93.022.
Nono, Luigi. 2001. Variazioni canoniche sulla serie dell' op. 41 di A. Schönberg; Varianti; No hay caminos, hay que caminar—Andrej Tarkowskij; Incontri. Col Legno WWE 1CD 31822. Mark Kaplan, violin. Sinfonieorchester Basel, Mario Venzago, cond. [Munich]: Col Legno.
Nono, Luigi. 2004. Io, frammento da Prometeo, Das atmende Klarsein. Katia Plaschka, Petra Hoffmann, Monika Bair-Ivenz, Roberto Fabbriciani, Ciro Scarponi; Solistenchor Freiburg, Experimentalstudio Freiburg, André Richard. col legno 2 SACD 20600 (Helikon Harmonia Mundi).
Nono, Luigi. 2006. 20 Jahre Inventionen V: Quando stanno morendo. Diario polacco n. 2; Canciones a Guiomar; Omaggio a Emilio Vedova. Ingrid Ade, Monika Bar-Ivenz, Halina Nieckarz, sopranos; Bernadette Manca di Nissa, alto; Roberto Fabbriciani, bass flute; Frances-Marie Uitti, violoncello; Arturo Tamayo, conductor; Experimentalstudio der Heinrich Strobel Stiftung; Luigi Nono, Hans Peter Haller, sound direction; Rudolf Strauss, Bernd Noll, technicians; Alvise Vidolin, assistant (Quando stanno morendo); Eldegard Neubert-Imm, soprano; Ars Nova Ensemble Berlin; Peter Schwartz, conductor (Canciones a Guiomar); tape (Omaggio a Emilio Vedova). Edition RZ 4006.
References
Cited sources
Further reading
Assis, Paulo de. 2006. Luigi Nonos Wende: zwischen Como una ola fuerza y luz und sofferte onde serene. 2 vols. Hofheim: Wolke. .
Bailey, Kathryn. 1992. "'Work in Progress': Analysing Nono's Il canto sospeso." Music Analysis 11, nos. 2–3 (July–October): 279–334.
Borio, Gianmario. 2001a. "Tempo e ritmo nelle composizioni seriali di Luigi Nono." Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft/Annales suisses de musicologie/Annuario svizzero di musicologia no. 21:79–136.
Borio, Gianmario. 2001b. "Nono, Luigi." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
Davismoon, Stephen (ed.). 1999b. Luigi Nono (1924–1990): Fragments and Silence. Contemporary Music Review 18, part 2. [Netherlands] : Harwood Academic Publishers.
De Benedictis, Angela Ida and Rizzardi, Veniero. 2023. Luigi Nono and the Development of Serial Technique, in The Cambridge Companion to Serialism, edited by Martid Iddon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Feneyrou, Laurent. 2002. Il canto sospeso de Luigi Nono: musique & analyse. Paris: M. de Maule. .
Feneyrou, Laurent. 2003. "Vers l'incertain: Une introduction au Prometeo de Luigi Nono." Analyse musicale no. 46 (February).
Fox, Christopher. 1999. "Luigi Nono and the Darmstadt School: Form and Meaning in the Early Works (1950–1959)". Contemporary Music Review 18, no. 2: 111–130.
Frobenius, Wolf. 1997. "Luigi Nonos Streichquartett Fragmente—Stille, An Diotima." Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 54, no. 3:177–193.
Guerrero, Jeannie Ma. 2009. "The Presence of Hindemith in Nono's Sketches: A New Context for Nono's Music". The Journal of Musicology 26, no. 4:481–511.
Hermann, Matthias. 2000. "Das Zeitnetz als serielles Mittel formaler Organisation: Untersuchungen zum 4. Satz aus Il Canto Sospeso von Luigi Nono". In Musiktheorie: Festschrift für Heinrich Deppert zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Wolfgang Budday, Heinrich Deppert, and Erhard Karkoschka, 261–275. Tutzing: Hans Schneider. .
Hopkins, Bill. 1978. "Luigi Nono: The Individuation of Power and Light." The Musical Times 99, no. 1623 (May): 406–409.
Huber, Nicolaus A. 1981. "Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso VIa, b—Versuch einer Analyse mit Hilfe dialektischer Montagetechniken". In Musik-Konzepte 20 (Luigi Nono), edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, 58–79. Munich: Edition text + kritik. Reprinted in Nicolaus Huber, Durchleuchtungen: Texte zur Musik 1964–1999, edited by Josef Häusler, 118–139. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2000. .
Huber, Nicolaus A. 2000. "Über einige Beziehungen von Politik und Kompositionstechnik bei Nono". In Nicolaus Huber, Durchleuchtungen: Texte zur Musik 1964–1999, edited by Josef Häusler, 57–66. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel. .
Jabès, Edmond, Luigi Nono, Massimo Cacciari, and Nils Röller. 1995. Migranten, interviews, edited and translated by Nils Röller. Internationaler Merve-Diskurs 194. Berlin: Merve. .
Kolleritsch, Otto (ed.). 1990. Die Musik Luigi Nonos. Studien zur Wertungsforschung 24. Vienna: Universal Edition. .
Licata, Thomas. 2002. "Luigi Nono's Omaggio a Emilio Vedova". In Electroacoustic Music: Analytical Perspectives, edited by Thomas Licata, 73–89. Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance 63. Westport, Connecticut & London: Greenwood Press. .
Luigi Nono Archive. n.d. Venice.
Luigi Nono Exhibition. n.d. "Gigi e Nuria, il racconto di un amore in musica", Federazione CEMAT. Sonora|Ritratti.
Mann, Jackson Albert. 2019. A Musician For The Class Struggle. Jacobin. Accessed 8 August 2019.
Metzger, Heinz-Klaus, and Rainer Riehn, eds. 1981. Luigi Nono. Musik-Konzepte 20. Munich: Edition Text+Kritik. .
Motz, Wolfgang. 1998. "Konstruktion und Ausdruck: Analytische Betrachtungen zu Il canto sospeso (1955/56) von Luigi Nono". Die Musikforschung 51, no. 3:376–377.
Nielinger, Carola. 2006. "The Song Unsung: Luigi Nono's Il canto sospeso." Journal of the Royal Musical Association 131, no. 1:83–150.
Nono, Luigi. 1993. Ecrits, réunis, présentés et annotés par Laurent Feneyrou; traduits sous la direction de Laurent Feneyrou. Musique/passé/présent. [Paris]: Christian Bourgois Editeur. .
Nono, Luigi. 2001. Scritti e colloqui. 2 vols. Edited by Angela Ida De Benedictis and Veniero Rizzardi. Milan: Ricordi; Lucca: LIM.
Nono, Luigi, and Enzo Restagno. 2004. Incontri: Luigi Nono im Gespräch mit Enzo Restagno, Berlin, März 1987. Edited by Matteo Nanni and Rainer Schmusch. Hofheim: Wolke. [German translation of an interview originally published, in Italian, in Restagno 1987.]
Nono, Luigi. 2018. Nostalgia for the Future. Luigi Nono's Selected Writings and Interviews, Edited by Angela Ida De Benedictis and Veniero Rizzardi. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Ozorio, Anne. 2008a. Review of Luigi Nono, Prometeo: Tragedia dell'ascolto (COL LEGNO SACD – WWE 2SACD 20605). Musicweb International (April). Accessed 15 August 2010.
Ozorio, Anne. 2008b. Review of Luigi Nono, Prometeo: Tragedia dell'ascolto. Performances at Royal Festival Hall, London, May 2008. Musicweb International (June). Accessed 15 August 2010.
Pon, Gundaris. 1972. "Webern and Luigi Nono: The Genesis of a New Compositional Morphology and Syntax." Perspectives of New Music, 10, no. 2 (Spring–Summer): 111–119.
Schaller, Erika. 1997. Klang und Zahl: Luigi Nono: serielles Komponieren zwischen 1955 und 1959. Saarbrücken: PFAU..
Shimizu, Minoru. 2001. "Verständlichkeit des Abgebrochenen: Musik und Sprache bei Nono im Kontrast zu Stockhausen". In Aspetti musicali: Musikhistorische Dimensionen Italiens 1600 bis 2000—Festschrift für Dietrich Kämper zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Christoph von Blumröder, Norbert Bolin, and Imke Misch, 315–319. Köln-Rheinkassel: Dohr. .
Spangemacher, Friedrich. 1983. Luigi Nono, die elektronische Musik: historischer Kontext, Entwicklung, Kompositionstechnik. Forschungsbeiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 29. Regensburg: G. Bosse. .
Spree, Hermann. 1992. Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima: ein analytischer Versuch zu Luigi Nonos Streichquartett. Saarbrücken : PFAU. .
Stenzl, Jürg. 1986a. "Luigi Nono: Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima" / "Fragments – Stillness, for Diotima", English translation by C. Stenzl and L. Pon. Unpaginated liner notes for Luigi Nono, Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima, Deutsche Grammophon CD 415 513-2.
Stenzl, Jürg. 1998. Luigi Nono. Rowohlts Monographien 50582. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. .
Stenzl, Jürg. 2002a. "Luigi Nono: Il canto sospeso für Sopran-, Alt- und Tenor-Solo, gemischten Chor und Orchester, 1955/56". In Musikerhandschriften: Von Heinrich Schütz bis Wolfgang Rihm, edited by Günter Brosche, 160–161. Stuttgart: Reclam. .
Stenzl, Jürg. 2002b. Luigi Nono: Werkzeichnis, Bibliographie seiner Schriften und der Sekundärliteratur, Diskographie, Filmographie, Bandarchiv, third edition. Salzburg: Jürg Stenzl.
Stoïanova, Ivanka. 1987. "Testo—musica—senso: Il canto sospeso". In Nono, edited bu E. Restagno, 128–135. Turin: Edizioni di Torino.
Stoïanova, Ivanka. 1998. "L'exercice de l'espace et du silence dans la musique de Luigi Nono". In L'espace: Musique/philosophie, edited by Jean-Marc Chouvel and Makis Solomos, 425–438. Paris: L'Harmattan. .
Zehelein, Klaus. 1993. "Intolleranza 1960—Music at the Crossroads". Liner notes for Teldec CD 4509 97304-2
Obituaries
External links
Archivio Luigi Nono, Venice, Italy, including list of dated works, biography and discography
Nonoprojekt
The Ensemble Sospeso – Luigi Nono
Nono's il prometeo: a revolutionary's swansong
Nono's 'Quando stanno morendo': cries, whispers and voices celestial'
'A Weak Power Thinking Bringing to a Halt' review by John Wollaston, dated 28 May 2008, of London performance of Prometeo
"Nono's Shrug at Immortality: La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura" and "Nono at the Close: Hay que caminar„ soñando", lafolia.com
Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft Bayerische Staatsbibliothek | Nonoprojekt
1924 births
1990 deaths
Musicians from Venice
20th-century classical composers
Italian classical composers
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent%20film
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Independent film
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An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, in some cases, distributed by major companies). Independent films are sometimes distinguishable by their content and style and how the filmmakers' artistic vision is realized. Sometimes, independent films are made with considerably lower budgets than major studio films.
It is not unusual for well-known actors who are cast in independent features to take substantial pay cuts for a variety of reasons: if they truly believe in the message of the film, they feel indebted to a filmmaker for a career break; their career is otherwise stalled, or they feel unable to manage a more significant commitment to a studio film; the film offers an opportunity to showcase a talent that has not gained traction in the studio system; or simply because they want to work with a particular director that they admire. Many examples of the latter include John Travolta and Bruce Willis taking less pay to work with Quentin Tarantino on Pulp Fiction.
Generally, the marketing of independent films is characterized by limited release, often at independent movie theaters, but they can also have major marketing campaigns and a wide release. Independent films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals before distribution (theatrical or retail release). An independent film production can rival a mainstream film production if it has the necessary funding and distribution.
History
Edison Trust
In 1908, the Motion Picture Patents Company or "Edison Trust" was formed as a trust. The Trust was a cartel that held a monopoly on film production and distribution comprising all the major film companies of the time (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig, Lubin, Kalem, American Star, American Pathé), the leading distributor (George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film, Eastman Kodak. A number of filmmakers declined or were refused membership to the trust and came to be described as "independent".
At the time of the formation of the MPPC, Thomas Edison owned most of the major patents relating to motion pictures, including that for raw film. The MPPC vigorously enforced its patents, constantly bringing suits and receiving injunctions against independent filmmakers. Because of this, a number of filmmakers responded by building their own cameras and moving their operations to Hollywood, California, where the distance from Edison's home base of New Jersey made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its patents.
The Edison Trust was soon ended by two decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States: one in 1912, which canceled the patent on raw film, and a second in 1915, which cancelled all MPPC patents. Though these decisions succeeded at legalizing independent film, they would do little to remedy the de facto ban on small productions; the independent filmmakers who had fled to Southern California during the enforcement of the trust had already laid the groundwork for the studio system of classical Hollywood cinema.
Studio system
In early 1910, director D.W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast with his acting troupe, consisting of performers Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and others. They began filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood, a little village that was friendly and positive about the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 1800s, while it belonged to Mexico. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York.
During the Edison era of the early 1900s, many Jewish immigrants had found jobs in the U.S. film industry. Under the Edison Trust, they were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons. Within a few years, ambitious men like Samuel Goldwyn, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to the production side of the business. After hearing about Biograph's success in Hollywood, in 1913 many such would-be movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Edison. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio.
By establishing a new system of production, distribution, and exhibition which was independent of The Edison Trust in New York, these studios opened up new horizons for cinema in the United States. The Hollywood oligopoly replaced the Edison monopoly. Within this new system, a pecking order was soon established which left little room for any newcomers. By the mid-1930s, at the top were the five major studios, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures, and Warner Bros. Then came three smaller companies, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, and Universal Studios. Finally there was "Poverty Row", a catch all term used to encompass any other smaller studio that managed to fight their way up into the increasingly exclusive movie business.
While the small studios that made up Poverty Row could be characterized as existing "independently" of any major studio, they utilized the same kind of vertically and horizontally integrated systems of business as the larger players in the game. Though the eventual breakup of the studio system and its restrictive chain-theater distribution network would leave independent movie houses eager for the kind of populist, seat-filling product of the Poverty Row studios, that same paradigm shift would also lead to the decline and ultimate disappearance of "Poverty Row" as a Hollywood phenomenon. While the kinds of films produced by Poverty Row studios only grew in popularity, they would eventually become increasingly available both from major production companies and from independent producers who no longer needed to rely on a studio's ability to package and release their work.
This table lists the companies active in late 1935 illustrates the categories commonly used to characterize the Hollywood system.
Lincoln Motion Picture Company, United Artists and resistance to the studio system
The studio system quickly became so powerful that some filmmakers once again sought independence. On May 24, 1916, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company was formed, the first movie studio owned and controlled by independent filmmakers.
In 1919, four of the leading figures in American silent cinema (Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith) formed United Artists. Each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford, and cowboy star William S. Hart a year earlier as they were traveling around the U.S. selling Liberty bonds to help the World War I effort. Already veterans of Hollywood, the four film stars began to talk of forming their own company to better control their own work as well as their futures. They were spurred on by the actions of established Hollywood producers and distributors, who were making moves to tighten their control over their stars' salaries and creative license. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before things had formalized. When he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, is said to have observed, "The inmates are taking over the asylum."
The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company, with Hiram Abrams as its first managing director. The original terms called for Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith, and Chaplin to independently produce five pictures each year, but by the time the company got underway in 1920–1921, feature films were becoming more expensive and more polished, and running times had settled at around ninety minutes (or eight reels). It was believed that no one, no matter how popular, could produce and star in five quality feature films a year. By 1924, Griffith had dropped out and the company was facing a crisis: either bring in others to help support a costly distribution system or concede defeat. The veteran producer Joseph Schenck was hired as president. Not only had he been producing pictures for a decade, but he brought along commitments for films starring his wife, Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law, Constance Talmadge, and his brother-in-law, Buster Keaton. Contracts were signed with a number of independent producers, especially Samuel Goldwyn, Howard Hughes and later Alexander Korda. Schenck also formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name.
Still, even with a broadening of the company, UA struggled. The coming of sound ended the careers of Pickford and Fairbanks. Chaplin, rich enough to do what he pleased, worked only occasionally. Schenck resigned in 1933 to organize a new company with Darryl F. Zanuck, Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon provided four pictures a year to UA's schedule. He was replaced as president by sales manager Al Lichtman who himself resigned after only a few months. Pickford produced a few films, and at various times Goldwyn, Korda, Walt Disney, Walter Wanger, and David O. Selznick were made "producing partners" (i.e., sharing in the profits), but ownership still rested with the founders. As the years passed and the dynamics of the business changed, these "producing partners" drifted away. Goldwyn and Disney left for RKO, Wanger for Universal Pictures, Selznick and Korda for retirement. By the late 1940s, United Artists had virtually ceased to exist as either a producer or distributor.
Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers
In 1941, Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda, and Walter Wanger—many of the same people who were members of United Artists—founded the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers. Later members included William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and Hal Roach. The Society aimed to preserve the rights of independent producers in an industry overwhelmingly controlled by the studio system. SIMPP fought to end monopolistic practices by the five major Hollywood studios which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films. In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The complaint accused Paramount of conspiracy to control first-run and subsequent-run theaters in Detroit. It was the first antitrust suit brought by producers against exhibitors alleging monopoly and restraint of trade. In 1948, the United States Supreme Court Paramount Decision ordered the Hollywood movie studios to sell their theater chains and to eliminate certain anti-competitive practices. This effectively brought an end to the studio system of Hollywood's Golden Age. By 1958, many of the reasons for creating the SIMPP had been corrected and SIMPP closed its offices.
Low-budget films
The efforts of the SIMPP and the advent of inexpensive portable cameras during World War II effectively made it possible for any person in America with an interest in making films to write, produce, and direct one without the aid of any major film studio. These circumstances soon resulted in a number of critically acclaimed and highly influential works, including Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon in 1943, Kenneth Anger's Fireworks in 1947, and Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Ray Abrashkin's Little Fugitive in 1953. Filmmakers such as Ken Jacobs with little or no formal training began to experiment with new ways of making and shooting films.
Little Fugitive became the first independent film to be nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the American Academy Awards. It also received Silver Lion at Venice. Both Engel and Anger's films won acclaim overseas from the burgeoning French New Wave, with Fireworks inspiring praise and an invitation to study under him in Europe from Jean Cocteau, and François Truffaut citing Little Fugitive as an essential inspiration to his seminal work, The 400 Blows. As the 1950s progressed, the new low-budget paradigm of filmmaking gained increased recognition internationally, with films such as Satyajit Ray's critically acclaimed Apu Trilogy (1955–1959).
Unlike the films made within the studio system, these new low-budget films could afford to take risks and explore new artistic territory outside the classical Hollywood narrative. Maya Deren was soon joined in New York by a crowd of like-minded avant-garde filmmakers who were interested in creating films as works of art rather than entertainment. Based upon a common belief that the "official cinema" was "running out of breath" and had become "morally corrupt, aesthetically obsolete, thematically superficial, [and] temperamentally boring", this new crop of independents formed The Film-Makers' Cooperative, an artist-run, non-profit organization which they would use to distribute their films through a centralized archive. Founded in 1962 by Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, Gregory Markopoulos, and others, the Cooperative provided an important outlet for many of cinema's creative luminaries in the 1960s, including Jack Smith and Andy Warhol. When he returned to America, Ken Anger would debut many of his most important works there. Mekas and Brakhage would go on to found the Anthology Film Archives in 1970, which would likewise prove essential to the development and preservation of independent films, even to this day.
Exploitation boom and the MPAA rating system
Not all low-budget films existed as non-commercial art ventures. The success of films like Little Fugitive, which had been made with low (or sometimes non-existent) budgets encouraged a huge boom in popularity for non-studio films. Low-budget film making promised exponentially greater returns (in terms of percentages) if the film could have a successful run in the theaters. During this time, independent producer/director Roger Corman began a sweeping body of work that would become legendary for its frugality and grueling shooting schedule. Until his so-called "retirement" as a director in 1971 (he continued to produce films even after this date) he would produce up to seven movies a year, matching and often exceeding the five-per-year schedule that the executives at United Artists had once thought impossible.
Like those of the avant-garde, the films of Roger Corman took advantage of the fact that unlike the studio system, independent films had never been bound by its self-imposed production code. Corman's example (and that of others like him) would help start a boom in independent B-movies in the 1960s, the principal aim of which was to bring in the youth market which the major studios had lost touch with. By promising sex, wanton violence, drug use, and nudity, these films hoped to draw audiences to independent theaters by offering to show them what the major studios could not. Horror and science fiction films experienced a period of tremendous growth during this time. As these tiny producers, theaters, and distributors continued to attempt to undercut one another, the B-grade shlock film soon fell to the level of the Z movie, a niche category of films with production values so low that they became a spectacle in their own right. The cult audiences these pictures attracted soon made them ideal candidates for midnight movie screenings revolving around audience participation and cosplay.
In 1968, a young filmmaker named George A. Romero shocked audiences with Night of the Living Dead, a new kind of intense and unforgiving independent horror film. This film was released just after the abandonment of the production code, but before the adoption of the MPAA rating system. As such, it was the first and last film of its kind to enjoy a completely unrestricted screening, in which young children were able to witness Romero's new brand of highly realistic gore. This film would help to set the climate of independent horror for decades to come, as films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980) continued to push the envelope.
With the production code abandoned and violent and disturbing films like Romero's gaining popularity, Hollywood opted to placate the uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA ratings system, which would place restrictions on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the production code, this rating system posed a threat to independent films in that it would affect the number of tickets they could sell and cut into the grindhouse cinema's share of the youth market. This change would further widen the divide between commercial and non-commercial films.
However, having a film audience-classified is strictly voluntary for independents and there's no legal impediment to releasing movies on an unrated basis. However, unrated movies face obstacles in marketing because media outlets such as TV channels, newspapers and websites often place their own restrictions on movies that do not come with a built-in national rating in order to avoid presenting movies to inappropriately young audiences.
New Hollywood and independent filmmaking
Following the advent of television and the Paramount Case, the major studios attempted to lure audiences with spectacle. Widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo sound, 3-D and others, were developed in an attempt to retain the dwindling audience by giving them a larger-than-life experience. The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films which benefited from these advances. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s. However, by the late 1960s, audience share was dwindling at an alarming rate. Several costly flops, including Cleopatra (1963) and Hello, Dolly! (1969) put severe strain on the studios. Meanwhile, in 1951, lawyers-turned-producers Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin had made a deal with the remaining stockholders of United Artists which would allow them to make an attempt to revive the company and, if the attempt was successful, buy it after five years.
The attempt was a success, and in 1955 United Artists became the first "studio" without an actual studio. UA leased space at the Pickford/Fairbanks Studio, but did not own a studio lot as such. Because of this, many of their films would be shot on location. Primarily acting as bankers, they offered money to independent producers. Thus UA did not have the overhead, the maintenance or the expensive production staff which ran up costs at other studios. UA went public in 1956, and as the other mainstream studios fell into decline, UA prospered, adding relationships with the Mirisch brothers, Billy Wilder, Joseph E. Levine and others.
By the late 1950s, RKO had ceased film production, and the remaining four of the big five had recognized that they did not know how to reach the youth audience. In an attempt to capture this audience, the Studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control. Warner Brothers offered first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross on his film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) instead of a minimal fee. The movie had grossed over $70 million worldwide by 1973. These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to the film school generation and began what the media dubbed "New Hollywood."
Dennis Hopper, the American actor, made his writing and directing debut with Easy Rider (1969). Along with his producer/co-star/co-writer Peter Fonda, Hopper was responsible for one of the first completely independent films of New Hollywood. Easy Rider debuted at Cannes and garnered the "First Film Award" () after which it received two Oscar nominations, one for best original screenplay and one for Corman-alum Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performance in the supporting role of George Hanson, an alcoholic lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. Following on the heels of Easy Rider shortly afterward was the revived United Artists' Midnight Cowboy (also 1969), which, like Easy Rider, took numerous cues from Kenneth Anger and his influences in the French New Wave. It became the first and only X rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture. Midnight Cowboy also held the distinction of featuring cameo roles by many of the top Warhol superstars, who had already become symbols of the militantly anti-Hollywood climate of NYC's independent film community.
Within a month, another young Corman trainee, Francis Ford Coppola, made his debut in Spain at the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival with The Rain People (1969), a film he had produced through his own company, American Zoetrope. Though The Rain People was largely overlooked by American audiences, Zoetrope would become a powerful force in New Hollywood. Through Zoetrope, Coppola formed a distribution agreement with studio giant Warner Bros., which he would exploit to achieve wide releases for his films without making himself subject to their control. These three films provided the major Hollywood studios with both an example to follow and a new crop of talent to draw from. Zoetrope co-founder George Lucas made his feature film debut with THX 1138 (1971), also released by Zoetrope through their deal with Warner Bros., announcing himself as another major talent of New Hollywood. By the following year, two New Hollywood directors had become sufficiently established for Coppola to be offered oversight of Paramount's The Godfather (1972) and Lucas had obtained studio funding for American Graffiti (1973) from Universal. In the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios continued to tap these new filmmakers for both ideas and personnel, producing films such as Paper Moon (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), all of which met with critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them, in turn, to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
While most members of the New Hollywood generation were, or started out as, independent filmmakers, a number of their projects were produced and released by major studios. The New Hollywood generation soon became firmly entrenched in a revived incarnation of the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. Very few of these filmmakers ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly independent films such as Taxi Driver, The Last Picture Show and others were studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio's advertising agency. Though Coppola made considerable efforts to resist the influence of the studios, opting to finance his risky 1979 film Apocalypse Now himself rather than compromise with skeptical studio executives, he, and filmmakers like him, had saved the old studios from financial ruin by providing them with a new formula for success.
Indeed, it was during this period that the very definition of an independent film became blurred. Though Midnight Cowboy was financed by United Artists, the company was certainly a studio. Likewise, Zoetrope was another "independent studio" which worked within the system to make a space for independent directors who needed funding. George Lucas would leave Zoetrope in 1971 to create his own independent studio, Lucasfilm, which would produce the blockbuster Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. In fact, the only two movies of the movement which can be described as uncompromisingly independent are Easy Rider at the beginning, and Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, at the end. Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
In retrospect, it can be seen that Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and George Lucas's Star Wars (1977) marked the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood. With their unprecedented box-office successes, these movies jump-started Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The focus on high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's The Godfather Part II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new environment.
On realizing how much money could potentially be made in films, major corporations started buying up the remaining Hollywood studios, saving them from the oblivion which befell RKO in the 50s. Eventually, even RKO was revived, the corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them.
Film critic Manohla Dargis described this era as the "halcyon age" of the decade's filmmaking that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype". She also pointed out in her New York Times article that enthusiasts insisted this era was "when American movies grew up (or at least starred underdressed actresses); when directors did what they wanted (or at least were transformed into brands); when creativity ruled (or at least ran gloriously amok, albeit often on the studio's dime)."
Outside Hollywood
During the 1970s, shifts in thematic depictions of sexuality and violence occurred in American cinema, prominently featuring heightened depictions of realistic sex and violence. Directors who wished to reach mainstream audiences of Old Hollywood quickly learned to stylize these themes to make their films appealing and attractive rather than repulsive or obscene. However, at the same time that the maverick film students of the American New Wave were developing the skills they would use to take over Hollywood, many of their peers had begun to develop their style of filmmaking in a different direction. Influenced by foreign and art house directors such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, exploitation shockers (i.e. Joseph P. Mawra, Michael Findlay, and Henri Pachard) and avant-garde cinema, (Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren and Bruce Conner) a number of young film makers began to experiment with transgression not as a box-office draw, but as an artistic act. Directors such as John Waters and David Lynch would make a name for themselves by the early 1970s for the bizarre and often disturbing imagery which characterized their films.
When Lynch's first feature film, Eraserhead (1977), brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film The Elephant Man (1980) for Paramount. Though Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, low-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert, George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi (1983). However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial flop, grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically against a $45 million budget. De Laurentiis, furious that the film had been a commercial disaster, was then forced to produce any film Lynch desired. He offered Lynch only $6 million in order to minimize the risk if the film had failed to recoup its costs; however, the film, Blue Velvet (1986), was a resounding success, earning him another Academy Award for Best Director nod. Lynch subsequently returned to independent filmmaking, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
Unlike the former, John Waters released most of his films during his early life through his own production company, Dreamland Productions. In the early 1980s, New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on Polyester (1981). During the 1980s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York–based independent film movement known as the "Cinema of Transgression", a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using shock value and humor in their Super 8 mm films and video art. Other key players in this movement included Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."
Independent Cinema movement
In 1978, Sterling Van Wagenen and Charles Gary Allison, with Chairperson Robert Redford, (veteran of New Hollywood and star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) founded the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah and showcase what the potential of independent film could be. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of new independent films. The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by Gary Allison, and included Verna Fields, Linwood Gale Dunn, Katherine Ross, Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rydell, and Anthea Sylbert. In 1981, the same year that United Artists, bought out by MGM after the financial failure of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980), ceased to exist as a venue for independent filmmakers, Sterling Van Wagenen left the film festival to help found the Sundance Institute with Robert Redford. In 1985, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival, which was experiencing financial difficulties. Gary Beer and Sterling Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural Sundance Film Festival which included Program Director Tony Safford and Administrative Director Jenny Walz Selby.
In 1991, the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's famous role as The Sundance Kid. Through this festival the Independent Cinema movement was launched. Such notable figures as Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, James Wan, Hal Hartley, Joel and Ethan Coen and Jim Jarmusch garnered resounding critical acclaim and unprecedented box office sales. The significance of the Sundance Film Festival is documented in the work of Professor Emanuel Levy Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film, (NYU Press, 1999; 2001).
In 2005, about 15% of the U.S. domestic box office revenue was from independent studios.
Co-optation
The 1990s saw the rise and success of independent films not only through the film festival circuit but at the box office as well while established actors, such as Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and Tim Robbins, found success themselves both in independent films and Hollywood studio films. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990 from New Line Cinema grossed over $100 million in the United States making it the most successful indie film in box-office history to that point. Miramax Films had a string of hits with Sex, Lies, and Videotape, My Left Foot, and Clerks, putting Miramax and New Line Cinema in the sights of big companies looking to cash in on the success of independent studios. In 1993, Disney bought Miramax for $60 million. Turner Broadcasting, in a billion-dollar deal, acquired New Line Cinema, Fine Line Features, and Castle Rock Entertainment in 1994. The acquisitions proved to be a good move for Turner Broadcasting as New Line released The Mask and Dumb & Dumber, Castle Rock released The Shawshank Redemption, and Miramax released Pulp Fiction, all in 1994.
The acquisitions of the smaller studios by conglomerate Hollywood was a plan in part to take over the independent film industry and at the same time start "independent" studios of their own. The following are all "indie" studios owned by conglomerate Hollywood:
Sony Pictures Classics (1992–present)
Searchlight Pictures (1994–present)
Paramount Vantage (1998–2013)
Miramax (1979-present)
Focus Features (2002–present)
Warner Independent Pictures (2003–2008)
Castle Rock Entertainment (1987–present)
Marvel Studios (1993-present)
By the early 2000s, Hollywood was producing three different classes of films: 1) big-budget blockbusters, 2) art films, specialty films and niche-market films produced by the conglomerate-owned "indies" and 3) genre and specialty films coming from true indie studios and producers. The third category comprised over half the features released in the United States and usually cost between $5 and $10 million to produce.
Hollywood was producing these three different classes of feature films by means of three different types of producers. The superior products were the large, budget blockbusters and high-cost star vehicles marketed by the six major studio producer-distributors. Budgets on the major studios' pictures averaged $100 million, with approximately one-third of it spent on marketing because of the large release campaigns. Another class of Hollywood feature film included art films, specialty films, and other niche-market fare controlled by the conglomerates' indie subsidiaries. Budgets on these indie films averaged $40 million per release in the early 2000s, with $10 million to $15 million spent on marketing (MPA, 2006:12). The final class of film consisted of genre and specialty films whose release campaigns were administered by independent producer-distributors with only a few dozen or possibly a few hundred screens in select urban markets. Films like these usually cost less than $10 million, but frequently less than $5 million, with small marketing budgets that escalate if and when a particular film performs.
Internationally
The independent film industry exists globally. Many of the most prestigious film festivals are hosted in various cities around the world. The Berlin International Film Festival attracts over 130 countries, making it the largest film festival in the world. Other large events include the Toronto International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the Panafrican Film and TV Festival of Ouagadougou.
The European Union, specifically through the European Cinema and VOD Initiative (ECVI), has established programs that attempt to adapt the film industry to an increasing digital demand for film on video on demand services, outside of theatrical screenings. With this program, VOD offerings are paired with traditional movie screenings. There is also more of a push from EU National governments to fund all aspects of the arts, including film. The European Commission for Culture has an Audiovisual sector, for example, whose role is most notably to help distribute and promote films and festivals across Europe. Additionally, the Commission organizes policymaking, research, and reporting on "media literacy" and "digital distribution."
Technology and democratization
As with other media, the availability of new technologies has fueled the democratization of filmmaking and the growth of independent film. In the late forties and fifties, new inexpensive portable cameras made it easier for independent filmmakers to produce content without studio backing. The emergence of camcorders in the eighties broadened the pool of filmmakers experimenting with the newly available technology. More recently, the switch from film to digital cameras, inexpensive non-linear editing and the move to distribution via the internet have led to more people being able to make and exhibit movies of their own, including young people and individuals from marginalized communities. These people may have little to no formal technical or academic training, but instead are autodidactic filmmakers, using online sources to learn the craft. Aspiring filmmakers can range from those simply with access to a smartphone or digital camera, to those who write "spec" scripts (to pitch to studios), actively network, and use crowdsourcing and other financing to get their films professionally produced. Oftentimes, aspiring filmmakers have other day-jobs to support themselves financially while they pitch their scripts and ideas to independent film production companies, talent agents, and wealthy investors. This recent technology-fueled renaissance has helped fuel other supporting industries such as the "prosumer" camera segment and film schools for those who are less autodidactic. Film programs in universities such as NYU in New York and USC in Los Angeles have benefited from this transitional growth.
Crowdsourced funding
The economic side of filmmaking is also less of an obstacle than before, because the backing of a major studio is no longer needed to access necessary movie funding. Crowdfunding services like Kickstarter, Pozible, and Tubestart have helped people raise thousands of dollars; enough to fund their own, low-budget productions. As a result of the falling cost of technology to make, edit and digitally distribute films, filmmaking is more widely accessible than ever before.
Full-length films are often showcased at film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, South by Southwest Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, and Palm Springs Film Festival. Award winners from these exhibitions are more likely to get picked up for distribution by major film distributors. Film festivals and screenings like these are just one of the options in which movies can be independently produced/released.
Analog to digital
The development of independent film in the 1990s and 21st century has been stimulated by a range of technical innovations, including the development of affordable digital cinematography cameras that can exceed the quality of film and easy-to-use computer editing software. Until digital alternatives became available, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was a major obstacle to independent filmmakers who wanted to make their own films. Successful films such as the Blair Witch Project (which grossed over US$248.6 million while only spending US$60,000) have emerged from this new accessibility to filmmaking tools. In 2002, the cost of 35 mm film stock went up 23%, according to Variety. The advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of digital video in the early 1990s, lowered the technology barrier to movie production. The personal computer and non-linear editing system have taken away the use of editing stands such as the KEM, dramatically reducing the costs of post-production, while technologies such as DVD, Blu-ray Disc and online video services have simplified distribution; video streaming services have made it possible to distribute a digital version of a film to an entire country or even the world, without involving shipping or warehousing of physical DVDs or film reels. 3-D technology is available to low-budget, independent filmmakers. By the second decade of the 21st century high-quality cellphone cameras allowed people to make, edit and distribute films on a single inexpensive device.
One of the examples of such a new indie approach to filmmaking is the 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary film Genghis Blues that was shot by the Belic brothers on two Hi8 consumer camcorders and won that year's Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for a Documentary. At the time, distribution was still film-based so the movie had to be "filmed out" from interlaced digital video format to film running at traditional 24-frame per second rate, so interlacing artefacts are noticeable at times. In 2004 Panasonic released the DVX100 camcorder, which featured film-like 24-frame per second shooting rate. This gave independent filmmakers the ability to shoot video at a frame rate considered standard for movies at the time and opened the possibility of clean digital frame to film frame conversion. Several acclaimed films were made with this camera, for example Iraq in Fragments. More recent devices allow "filming" at very high frame rates to facilitate distribution into a number of frame rates without artifacts.
Even though new cinema cameras such as the Arri Alexa, RED Epic, and the many new DSLRs cost thousands of dollars to purchase, independent films are still cheaper than ever, creating footage that looks like 35 mm film without the same high cost. These cameras also perform better than traditional film because of its ability to perform in extremely dark/low light situations relative to film. In 2008 Nikon released the first DSLR camera that could also shoot video, the Nikon D90. With the sensor larger than on a traditional camcorder, these DSLRs allow for a greater control over depth of field, great low-light capabilities, and a large variety of exchangeable lenses, including lenses from old film cameras – things which independent filmmakers have been longing years. With the creation of new, light-weight and accessible cinema cameras, documentaries have also benefitted greatly. It was previously impossible to capture the extreme wild of mother nature because of the lack of maneuverability with film cameras; however, with the creation of DSLRs, documentary filmmakers were able to reach hard-to-get places in order to capture what they couldn't have with film cameras. Cameras have even been attached to animals to allow them to help film never-before-seen scenes.
New technologies have also allowed the development of new cinematic techniques originating in independent films, such as the development of the zoom lens in the early 20th century. The use of the (controversial) hand-held shot made popular in the ground-breaking The Blair Witch Project also lead to an entirely new subgenre: the found-footage film.
Independent filmmaking has also benefited from the new editing software. Instead of needing a post-house to do the editing, independent film makers use a personal computer or even just a cellphone with editing software to edit their films. Editing software available include Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, (Color Grading Software) DaVinci Resolve, and many more. There are also many free tutorials and courses available online to teach different post production skills needed to use these programs. These new technologies allow independent film makers to create films that are comparable to high-budget films. Computer-generated imaging (CGI) has also become more accessible, transitioning from a highly specialized process done by post-production companies into a task that can be performed by independent artists.
Francis Ford Coppola, long an advocate of new technologies like non-linear editing and digital cameras, said in 2007 that "cinema is escaping being controlled by the financier, and that's a wonderful thing. You don't have to go hat-in-hand to some film distributor and say, 'Please will you let me make a movie?'"
See also
British Independent Film Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
List of film festivals
Outline of film
Independent animation
American Eccentric Cinema
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
The Edge of Hollywood - Annenberg Learner
Film genres
Film and video terminology
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag%20of%20Hong%20Kong
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Flag of Hong Kong
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The flag of Hong Kong, officially the regional flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, depicts a white stylised five-petal Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia blakeana) flower in the centre of a Chinese red field. Its original design was unveiled on 4 April 1990 at the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress. The current design was approved on 10 August 1996 at the Fourth Plenum of the Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The precise use of the flag is regulated by laws passed by the 58th executive meeting of the State Council held in Beijing. The design of the flag is enshrined in Hong Kong's Basic Law, the territory's constitutional document, and regulations regarding the use, prohibition of use, desecration, and manufacture of the flag are stated in the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance. The flag of Hong Kong was officially adopted and hoisted on 1 July 1997, during the handover ceremony marking the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom back to China.
Current design
Symbolism
The design of the flag comes with cultural, political, and regional meanings. The colour itself is significant; red is a festive colour for the Chinese people, used to convey a sense of celebration and nationalism. Moreover, the red colour is identical to that used in the national PRC flag, chosen to signify the link re-established between post-colonial Hong Kong and Mainland China. The position of red and white on the flag symbolises the "one country, two systems" political principle applied to the region. The stylised rendering of the Bauhinia blakeana flower, a flower discovered in Hong Kong, is meant to serve as a harmonising symbol for this dichotomy. The five stars of the Chinese national flag are replicated on the petals of the flower. The Chinese name of Bauhinia × blakeana is most commonly rendered as "", but is often shortened to / in official uses since "" () means "foreign" in Chinese, notwithstanding / refers to another genus called Cercis. A sculpture of the plant has been erected in Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong.
Before the adoption of the flag, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee explained the significance of the flag's design to the National People's Congress:
Construction
The Hong Kong government has specified sizes, colours, and manufacturing parameters in which the flag is to be made. The ratio of its length to breadth is 3:2. In its centre is a five-petal stylised rendering of a white Bauhinia blakeana flower. If a circle circumscribes the flower, it should have a diameter 0.6 times the entire height of the flag. The petals are uniformly spread around the centre point of the flag, radiating outward and pointing in a clockwise direction. Each of the flower's petals bears a five-pointed red star with a red trace, suggestive of a flower stamen. The heading that is used to allow a flag to be slid or raised onto a pole is white.
A slightly different geometrical description of the flag is specified in the mandatory National Standard "GB 16689-2004: Regional flag of Hong Kong special administrative region".
Size specifications
This table lists all the official sizes for the flag. Sizes deviating from this list are considered non-standard. If a flag is not of official size, it must be a scaled-down or scaled-up version of one of the official sizes.
Colour specifications
The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance stipulates that "The regional flag is in red, the chrominance value of which is identical with that of the national flag of the People's Republic of China."
Manufacture regulations
The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance stipulates that the Hong Kong flag must be manufactured according to specifications laid out in the ordinance. If flags are not produced in design according to the ordinance, the Secretary for Justice may petition the District Court for an injunction to prohibit the person or company from manufacturing the flags. If the District Court agrees that the flags are not in compliance, it may issue an injunction and order that the flags and the materials that were used to make the flags to be seized by the government.
Protocol
The Hong Kong flag is flown daily from the chief executive's official residence, Government House, the Hong Kong International Airport, and at all border crossings and points of entry into Hong Kong. At major government offices and buildings, such as the Office of the Chief Executive, the Executive Council, the Court of Final Appeal, the High Court, the Legislative Council, and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices overseas, the flag is displayed during days when these offices are working. Other government offices and buildings, such as hospitals, schools, departmental headquarters, sports grounds, and cultural venues should fly the flag on occasions such as the National Day of the PRC (1 October), the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (1 July), and New Year's Day. The flag should be raised at 8:00 a.m. and lowered at 6:00 p.m. The raising and lowering of the flag should be done slowly; it must reach the peak of the flag staff when it is raised, and it may not touch the ground when it is lowered. The flag may not be raised in severe weather conditions. A Hong Kong flag that is either damaged, defaced, faded or substandard must not be displayed or used.
Display
Whenever the PRC national flag is flown together with the regional Hong Kong flag, the national flag must be flown at the centre, above the regional flag, or otherwise in a more prominent position than that of the regional flag. The regional flag must be smaller in size than the national flag, and it must be displayed to the left of the national flag. When the flags are displayed inside a building, the left and right sides of a person looking at the flags, and with his or her back toward the wall, are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. When the flags are displayed outside a building, the left and right sides of a person standing in front of the building and looking towards the front entrance are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. The national flag should be raised before the regional flag is raised, and it should be lowered after the regional flag is lowered.
An exception to this rule occurs during medal presentation ceremonies at multi-sport events such as the Olympics and Asian Games. As Hong Kong competes separately from mainland China, should an athlete from Hong Kong win the gold medal, and an athlete from mainland China win the silver and/or bronze medal(s) in the same event, the regional flag of Hong Kong would be raised in the centre above the national flag(s) during the medal presentation ceremony.
Half-mast
The Hong Kong flag must be lowered to half-mast as a token of mourning when any of the following people die:
President of the People's Republic of China
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
Premier of the State Council
Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
Persons who have made outstanding contributions to the People's Republic of China as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive.
Persons who have made outstanding contributions to world peace or the cause of human progress as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive.
Persons whom the Chief Executive considers to have made outstanding contributions to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or for whom they consider it appropriate to fly the flag at half-mast.
The flag may also be flown at half-mast when the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive to do so, or when the Chief Executive considers it appropriate to do so, on occurrences of unfortunate events causing especially serious casualties, or when serious natural calamities have caused heavy casualties. When raising a flag to be flown at half-mast, it should first be raised to the top of the pole and then lowered to a point where the distance between the top of the flag and the top of the pole is one third of the length of the pole. When lowering the flag from half-mast, it should first be raised to the peak of the pole before it is lowered.
Prohibition of use and desecration
The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance states what manner of use of the Hong Kong flag is prohibited and that desecration of the flag is prohibited; it also states that it is a punishable offence for a person to use the flag in a prohibited manner or desecrate the flag. According to the ordinance, a flag may not be used in advertisements or trademarks, and that "publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling" the flag is considered flag desecration. Similarly, the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance extends the same prohibition toward the national PRC flag. The ordinances also allow for the Chief Executive to make stipulations regarding the use of the flag. In stipulations made in 1997, the Chief Executive further specified that the use of the flag in "any trade, calling or profession, or the logo, seal or badge of any non-governmental organisation" is also prohibited unless prior permission was obtained.
The first conviction of flag desecration occurred in 1999. Protesters Ng Kung Siu and Lee Kin Yun wrote the word "Shame" on both the national PRC flag and the Hong Kong flag, and were convicted of violating the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance and the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance. The Court of Appeal overturned the verdict, ruling that the ordinances were unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of expression and in violation of both the Basic Law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Upon further appeal, however, the Court of Final Appeal maintained the original guilty verdict, holding that this restriction on the freedom of expression was justifiable in that the protection of the flags played a role in national unity and territorial integrity and constituted a restriction on the mode of expressing one's message but did not interfere with one's freedom to express the same message in other ways.
Leung Kwok-hung, a former member of the Legislative Council and a political activist in Hong Kong, was penalised in February 2001, before he became a member of the Legislative Council, for defiling the flag. He was convicted of three counts of desecrating the flag—for two incidents on 1 July 2000 during the third anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China and for one incident on 9 July of the same year during a protest against elections to choose the Election Committee, the electoral college which chooses the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Leung was placed on a good-behaviour bond for 12 months in the sum of HK$3,000.
Zhu Rongchang, a mainland Chinese farmer has been jailed for three weeks after setting fire to a Chinese flag in Hong Kong. Zhu was charged for "publicly and wilfully" burning the Chinese flag at Golden Bauhinia Square in central Hong Kong. The 74-year-old man is reportedly the third person charged for desecrating the Chinese national flag, but he is first to be jailed under the law.
In early 2013, protestors went to the streets flying the old colonial flag demanding more democracy and resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying. The use of the flag has created concerns from Chinese authorities and request from Leung to stop flying the flag. Despite the calls from Leung the old flags are not subject to use restrictions beyond not being allowed to be placed on flagpoles and are freely sold and manufactured in the territory.
Previous flags of Hong Kong
Pre-colonial period
Qing dynasty (1862–1895)
Prior to the secession of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom following the First Opium War via the Treaty of Nanking, Hong Kong fell under the jurisdiction of the government of China and flew the flag and ensign of the Chinese government of the time. Prior to the establishment of the crown colony of Hong Kong, the ruling dynasty in China was the Qing dynasty. Despite being established in 1644, the Qing Empire had no official flags until 1862. Prior to 1898, when the Second Convention of Peking was signed between the Qing Court and the government of the United Kingdom, the New Territories was still Qing land. The flag itself features the "Azure Dragon" on a plain yellow field with the red flaming pearl of the three-legged crow in the upper left corner.
Colonial flags
Prior to Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty, the flag of Hong Kong was a colonial Blue Ensign flag. The flag of colonial Hong Kong underwent several changes from then until 1997.
Use of Union Flag (1843–1871)
In 1843, a seal representing Hong Kong was instituted. The design was based on a local waterfront scene; three local merchants with their commercial goods are shown on the foreground, a square-rigged ship and a junk occupy the middle ground, while the background consists of conical hills and clouds. In 1868, a Hong Kong flag was produced, a Blue Ensign flag with a badge based on this "local scene", but the design was rejected by Hong Kong Governor Richard Graves MacDonnell.
First colonial flag (1871–1876)
On 3 July 1869, a new design for the Hong Kong flag was commissioned at a cost of £3, which featured a "gentleman in an evening coat who is purchasing tea on the beach at Kowloon". After a brief discussion in the executive council, it was determined that the new design was very problematic and it was not adopted.
In 1870, a "white crown over HK" badge for the Blue Ensign flag was proposed by the Colonial Secretary. The letters "HK" were omitted and the crown became full-colour three years later. It is unclear exactly what the badge looked like during that period of time, but it was unlikely to be the "local scene". It should have been a crown of some sort, which may, or may not, have had the letters "HK" below it. In 1876, the "local scene" badge ( Picture of "Ar Kwan" Guiding the British soldier) was re-adopted to the Blue Ensign flag with the Admiralty's approval.
Second colonial flag (1876–1955)
During a government meeting, held in 1911, it was suggested that the name of the colony appear on the flag in both Latin and Chinese scripts. However, this was dismissed as it would "look absurd" to both Chinese and Europeans. The flag which was eventually adopted featured the Blue Ensign together with a "local scene" of traders in the foreground and both European-style and Chinese-style trading ships in the background.
Japanese occupation period (1941–1945)
During the Second World War, Hong Kong was seized and occupied by the Empire of Japan from 1941 to 1945. During the occupation, the Japanese military government used the flag of Japan in its official works in Hong Kong.
Third colonial flag (1955–1959)
The flag was similar in design to that previously used. It featured a British Blue Ensign with a local waterfront scene.
Fourth colonial flag (1959–1997)
A coat of arms for Hong Kong was granted on 21 January 1959 by the College of Arms in London. The Hong Kong flag was revised in the same year to feature the coat of arms in the Blue Ensign flag. This design was used officially from 1959 until Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty in 1997. Since then, the colonial flag has been appropriated by protestors, such as on the annual 1 July marches for universal suffrage, as a "symbol of antagonism towards the mainland", along with a blue flag featuring the coat of arms, used by those advocating independence. The flag features a British Blue Ensign with the coat of arms of Hong Kong (1959–1997).
Flags used by government departments
Flags of the governor of Hong Kong
Council flags
Hong Kong Regional Council
The flag of the Regional Council represented the governmental body which oversaw matters related to the outlying areas of the territory during the colonial period. The flag itself featured a stylised dark green R at a 45-degree angle on white background.
Hong Kong Urban Council
The flag of the Urban Council represented the governmental body which was responsible for matters pertaining to the urban areas of the territory during the colonial period. The flag itself features a simplified white Bauhinia blakeana on a magenta background.
Proposals before the handover
Before Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty, between 20 May 1987 and 31 March 1988, a contest was held amongst Hong Kong residents to help choose a flag for post-colonial Hong Kong, with 7,147 design submissions, in which 4,489 submissions were about flag designs. Architect Tao Ho was chosen as one of the panel judges to pick Hong Kong's new flag. He recalled that some of the designs had been rather funny and with political twists: "One had a hammer and sickle on one side and a dollar sign on the other." Some designs were rejected because they contained copyrighted materials, for example, the emblem of Urban Council, Hong Kong Arts Festival and Hong Kong Tourism Board. Six designs were chosen as finalists by the judges, but were all later rejected by the PRC. Ho and two others were then asked by the PRC to submit new proposals.
Looking for inspiration, Ho wandered into a garden and picked up a Bauhinia blakeana flower. He observed the symmetry of the five petals, and how their winding pattern conveyed to him a dynamic feeling. This led him to incorporate the flower into the flag to represent Hong Kong. The design was adopted on 4 April 1990 at the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress, and the flag was first officially hoisted seconds after midnight on 1 July 1997 in the handover ceremony marking the transfer of sovereignty. It was hoisted together with the national PRC flag, while the Chinese national anthem, "March of the Volunteers", was played. The Union Flag and the colonial Hong Kong flag were lowered seconds before midnight.
See also
Emblem of Hong Kong
Black Bauhinia flag
List of Hong Kong flags
List of Chinese flags
List of British flags
Flag of Macau
Notes
References
External links
About the National Flag – webpage hosted on the website of the Protocol Division Government Secretariat
Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance at elegislation.gov.hk
Government of Hong Kong
Regional symbols of Hong Kong
Flags of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium%20in%20biology
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Calcium in biology
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Calcium ions (Ca2+) contribute to the physiology and biochemistry of organisms' cells. They play an important role in signal transduction pathways, where they act as a second messenger, in neurotransmitter release from neurons, in contraction of all muscle cell types, and in fertilization. Many enzymes require calcium ions as a cofactor, including several of the coagulation factors. Extracellular calcium is also important for maintaining the potential difference across excitable cell membranes, as well as proper bone formation.
Plasma calcium levels in mammals are tightly regulated, with bone acting as the major mineral storage site. Calcium ions, Ca2+, are released from bone into the bloodstream under controlled conditions. Calcium is transported through the bloodstream as dissolved ions or bound to proteins such as serum albumin. Parathyroid hormone secreted by the parathyroid gland regulates the resorption of Ca2+ from bone, reabsorption in the kidney back into circulation, and increases in the activation of vitamin D3 to calcitriol. Calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D3, promotes absorption of calcium from the intestines and bones. Calcitonin secreted from the parafollicular cells of the thyroid gland also affects calcium levels by opposing parathyroid hormone; however, its physiological significance in humans is dubious.
Intracellular calcium is stored in organelles which repetitively release and then reaccumulate Ca2+ ions in response to specific cellular events: storage sites include mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum.
Characteristic concentrations of calcium in model organisms are: in E. coli 3mM (bound), 100nM (free), in budding yeast 2mM (bound), in mammalian cell 10-100nM (free) and in blood plasma 2mM.
Humans
In 2020, calcium was the 204th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 2million prescriptions.
Dietary recommendations
The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) established Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for calcium in 1997 and updated those values in 2011. See table. The
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) uses the term Population Reference Intake (PRIs) instead of RDAs and sets slightly different numbers: ages 4–10 800 mg, ages 11–17 1150 mg, ages 18–24 1000 mg, and >25 years 950 mg.
Because of concerns of long-term adverse side effects such as calcification of arteries and kidney stones, the IOM and EFSA both set Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (ULs) for the combination of dietary and supplemental calcium. From the IOM, people ages 9–18 years are not supposed to exceed 3,000 mg/day; for ages 19–50 not to exceed 2,500 mg/day; for ages 51 and older, not to exceed 2,000 mg/day. The EFSA set UL at 2,500 mg/day for adults but decided the information for children and adolescents was not sufficient to determine ULs.
Labeling
For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a percent of Daily Value (%DV). For calcium labeling purposes 100% of the Daily Value was 1000 mg, but as of May 27, 2016 it was revised to 1300 mg to bring it into agreement with the RDA. A table of the old and new adult daily values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.
Health claims
Although as a general rule, dietary supplement labeling and marketing are not allowed to make disease prevention or treatment claims, the FDA has for some foods and dietary supplements reviewed the science, concluded that there is significant scientific agreement, and published specifically worded allowed health claims. An initial ruling allowing a health claim for calcium dietary supplements and osteoporosis was later amended to include calcium and vitamin D supplements, effective January 1, 2010. Examples of allowed wording are shown below. In order to qualify for the calcium health claim, a dietary supplement must contain at least 20% of the Reference Dietary Intake, which for calcium means at least 260 mg/serving.
"Adequate calcium throughout life, as part of a well-balanced diet, may reduce the risk of osteoporosis."
"Adequate calcium as part of a healthful diet, along with physical activity, may reduce the risk of osteoporosis in later life."
"Adequate calcium and vitamin D throughout life, as part of a well-balanced diet, may reduce the risk of osteoporosis."
"Adequate calcium and vitamin D as part of a healthful diet, along with physical activity, may reduce the risk of osteoporosis in later life."
In 2005 the FDA approved a Qualified Health Claim for calcium and hypertension, with suggested wording "Some scientific evidence suggests that calcium supplements may reduce the risk of hypertension. However, FDA has determined that the evidence is inconsistent and not conclusive." Evidence for pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia was considered inconclusive. The same year the FDA approved a QHC for calcium and colon cancer, with suggested wording "Some evidence suggests that calcium supplements may reduce the risk of colon/rectal cancer, however, FDA has determined that this evidence is limited and not conclusive." Evidence for breast cancer and prostate cancer was considered inconclusive. Proposals for QHCs for calcium as protective against kidney stones or against menstrual disorders or pain were rejected.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that "Calcium contributes to the normal development of bones." The EFSA rejected a claim that a cause-and-effect relationship existed between the dietary intake of calcium and potassium and maintenance of normal acid-base balance. The EFSA also rejected claims for calcium and nails, hair, blood lipids, premenstrual syndrome and body weight maintenance.
Food sources
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) web site has a very complete searchable table of calcium content (in milligrams) in foods, per common measures such as per 100 grams or per a normal serving.
Measurement in blood
The amount of calcium in blood (more specifically, in blood plasma) can be measured as total calcium, which includes both protein-bound and free calcium. In contrast, ionized calcium is a measure of free calcium. An abnormally high level of calcium in plasma is termed hypercalcemia and an abnormally low level is termed hypocalcemia, with "abnormal" generally referring to levels outside the reference range.
The main methods to measure serum calcium are:
O-Cresolphalein Complexone Method; A disadvantage of this method is that the volatile nature of the 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol used in this method makes it necessary to calibrate the method every few hours in a clinical laboratory setup.
Arsenazo III Method; This method is more robust, but the arsenic in the reagent is a health hazard.
The total amount of Ca2+ present in a tissue may be measured using Atomic absorption spectroscopy, in which the tissue is vaporized and combusted. To measure Ca2+ concentration or spatial distribution within the cell cytoplasm in vivo or in vitro, a range of fluorescent reporters may be used. These include cell permeable, calcium-binding fluorescent dyes such as Fura-2 or genetically engineered variant of green fluorescent protein (GFP) named Cameleon.
Corrected calcium
As access to an ionized calcium is not always available a corrected calcium may be used instead. To calculate a corrected calcium in mmol/L one takes the total calcium in mmol/L and adds it to ((40 minus the serum albumin in g/L) multiplied by 0.02). There is, however, controversy around the usefulness of corrected calcium as it may be no better than total calcium. It may be more useful to correct total calcium for both albumin and the anion gap.
Other animals
Vertebrates
In vertebrates, calcium ions, like many other ions, are of such vital importance to many physiological processes that its concentration is maintained within specific limits to ensure adequate homeostasis. This is evidenced by human plasma calcium, which is one of the most closely regulated physiological variables in the human body. Normal plasma levels vary between 1 and 2% over any given time. Approximately half of all ionized calcium circulates in its unbound form, with the other half being complexed with plasma proteins such as albumin, as well as anions including bicarbonate, citrate, phosphate, and sulfate.
Different tissues contain calcium in different concentrations. For instance, Ca2+ (mostly calcium phosphate and some calcium sulfate) is the most important (and specific) element of bone and calcified cartilage. In humans, the total body content of calcium is present mostly in the form of bone mineral (roughly 99%). In this state, it is largely unavailable for exchange/bioavailability. The way to overcome this is through the process of bone resorption, in which calcium is liberated into the bloodstream through the action of bone osteoclasts. The remainder of calcium is present within the extracellular and intracellular fluids.
Within a typical cell, the intracellular concentration of ionized calcium is roughly 100 nM, but is subject to increases of 10- to 100-fold during various cellular functions. The intracellular calcium level is kept relatively low with respect to the extracellular fluid, by an approximate magnitude of 12,000-fold. This gradient is maintained through various plasma membrane calcium pumps that utilize ATP for energy, as well as a sizable storage within intracellular compartments. In electrically excitable cells, such as skeletal and cardiac muscles and neurons, membrane depolarization leads to a Ca2+ transient with cytosolic Ca2+ concentration reaching around 1 µM. Mitochondria are capable of sequestering and storing some of that Ca2+. It has been estimated that mitochondrial matrix free calcium concentration rises to the tens of micromolar levels in situ during neuronal activity.
Effects
The effects of calcium on human cells are specific, meaning that different types of cells respond in different ways. However, in certain circumstances, its action may be more general. Ca2+ ions are one of the most widespread second messengers used in signal transduction. They make their entrance into the cytoplasm either from outside the cell through the cell membrane via calcium channels (such as calcium-binding proteins or voltage-gated calcium channels), or from some internal calcium storages such as the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. Levels of intracellular calcium are regulated by transport proteins that remove it from the cell. For example, the sodium-calcium exchanger uses energy from the electrochemical gradient of sodium by coupling the influx of sodium into cell (and down its concentration gradient) with the transport of calcium out of the cell. In addition, the plasma membrane Ca2+ ATPase (PMCA) obtains energy to pump calcium out of the cell by hydrolysing adenosine triphosphate (ATP). In neurons, voltage-dependent, calcium-selective ion channels are important for synaptic transmission through the release of neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft by vesicle fusion of synaptic vesicles.
Calcium's function in muscle contraction was found as early as 1882 by Ringer. Subsequent investigations were to reveal its role as a messenger about a century later. Because its action is interconnected with cAMP, they are called synarchic messengers. Calcium can bind to several different calcium-modulated proteins such as troponin-C (the first one to be identified) and calmodulin, proteins that are necessary for promoting contraction in muscle.
In the endothelial cells which line the inside of blood vessels, Ca2+ ions can regulate several signaling pathways which cause the smooth muscle surrounding blood vessels to relax. Some of these Ca2+-activated pathways include the stimulation of eNOS to produce nitric oxide, as well as the stimulation of Kca channels to efflux K+ and cause hyperpolarization of the cell membrane. Both nitric oxide and hyperpolarization cause the smooth muscle to relax in order to regulate the amount of tone in blood vessels. However, dysfunction within these Ca2+-activated pathways can lead to an increase in tone caused by unregulated smooth muscle contraction. This type of dysfunction can be seen in cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes.
Calcium coordination plays an important role in defining the structure and function of proteins. An example a protein with calcium coordination is von Willebrand factor (vWF) which has an essential role in blood clot formation process. It was discovered using single molecule optical tweezers measurement that calcium-bound vWF acts as a shear force sensor in the blood. Shear force leads to unfolding of the A2 domain of vWF whose refolding rate is dramatically enhanced in the presence of calcium.
Adaptation
Ca2+ ion flow regulates several secondary messenger systems in neural adaptation for visual, auditory, and the olfactory system. It may often be bound to calmodulin such as in the olfactory system to either enhance or repress cation channels. Other times the calcium level change can actually release guanylyl cyclase from inhibition, like in the photoreception system. Ca2+ ion can also determine the speed of adaptation in a neural system depending on the receptors and proteins that have varied affinity for detecting levels of calcium to open or close channels at high concentration and low concentration of calcium in the cell at that time.
Negative effects and pathology
Substantial decreases in extracellular Ca2+ ion concentrations may result in a condition known as hypocalcemic tetany, which is marked by spontaneous motor neuron discharge. In addition, severe hypocalcaemia will begin to affect aspects of blood coagulation and signal transduction.
Ca2+ ions can damage cells if they enter in excessive numbers (for example, in the case of excitotoxicity, or over-excitation of neural circuits, which can occur in neurodegenerative diseases, or after insults such as brain trauma or stroke). Excessive entry of calcium into a cell may damage it or even cause it to undergo apoptosis, or death by necrosis. Calcium also acts as one of the primary regulators of osmotic stress (osmotic shock). Chronically elevated plasma calcium (hypercalcemia) is associated with cardiac arrhythmias and decreased neuromuscular excitability. One cause of hypercalcemia is a condition known as hyperparathyroidism.
Invertebrates
Some invertebrates use calcium compounds for building their exoskeleton (shells and carapaces) or endoskeleton (echinoderm plates and poriferan calcareous spicules).
Plants
Stomata closing
When abscisic acid signals the guard cells, free Ca2+ ions enter the cytosol from both outside the cell and internal stores, reversing the concentration gradient so the K+ ions begin exiting the cell. The loss of solutes makes the cell flaccid and closes the stomatal pores.
Cellular division
Calcium is a necessary ion in the formation of the mitotic spindle. Without the mitotic spindle, cellular division cannot occur. Although young leaves have a higher need for calcium, older leaves contain higher amounts of calcium because calcium is relatively immobile through the plant. It is not transported through the phloem because it can bind with other nutrient ions and precipitate out of liquid solutions.
Structural roles
Ca2+ ions are an essential component of plant cell walls and cell membranes, and are used as cations to balance organic anions in the plant vacuole. The Ca2+ concentration of the vacuole may reach millimolar levels. The most striking use of Ca2+ ions as a structural element in algae occurs in the marine coccolithophores, which use Ca2+ to form the calcium carbonate plates, with which they are covered.
Calcium is needed to form the pectin in the middle lamella of newly formed cells.
Calcium is needed to stabilize the permeability of cell membranes. Without calcium, the cell walls are unable to stabilize and hold their contents. This is particularly important in developing fruits. Without calcium, the cell walls are weak and unable to hold the contents of the fruit.
Some plants accumulate Ca in their tissues, thus making them more firm. Calcium is stored as Ca-oxalate crystals in plastids.
Cell signaling
Ca2+ ions are usually kept at nanomolar levels in the cytosol of plant cells, and act in a number of signal transduction pathways as second messengers.
See also
Biology and pharmacology of chemical elements
References
External links
United States Department of Agriculture: Vitamin D and Calcium
National Osteoporosis Foundation: Calcium and vitamin D
Biological systems
Biology and pharmacology of chemical elements
Biology
Calcium signaling
Dietary minerals
Nutrition
Signal transduction
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial%20Yuan
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Judicial Yuan
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The Judicial Yuan () is the judicial branch of the government of Taiwan. It runs a Constitutional Court and oversees all systems of courts of Taiwan, including ordinary courts like the supreme court, high courts, district courts as well as special courts like administrative courts and disciplinary courts. By Taiwanese law, the Judicial Yuan holds the following powers:
Interpretation – Constitutional Court interprets the Constitution and other statutes and regulations by either the central government or local governments.
Adjudicate – Most civil, criminal, and administrative cases are adjudicated by the respective courts supervised by the Judicial Yuan. The Constitutional Court adjudicate Presidential impeachment and political party dissolution cases.
Discipline – Disciplinary measures with respect to public functionaries are adjudicated by the Disciplinary court.
Judicial Administration – The Judicial Yuan supervises administrative affairs of all courts established by Taiwanese law.
According to the current Constitution, the Constitutional Court comprises 15 justices. One justice acts as the President of the court, and another acts as the Vice President. All justices, including the President and Vice President, are appointed by the President of the Republic with the consent of the Legislative Yuan. Upon appointment justices have a term limit of eight years, but this term limit does not apply to the President and Vice President.
Constitutional Court
History
Before the 1980s, the impact of the Constitutional Court was limited by authoritarian governance. The Court can be seen as an instrument of the Kuomintang regime. It never accepted a case on the constitutionality of the Temporary Provisions, which were the basis of authoritarian rule; The Court declined to hear challenges to these Provisions, and issued a number of decisions that facilitated Kuomintang rule within the confines of at least nominal constitutionalism. For the most part, the court served as a legal advisor to the government, rendering decisions that unified interpretations of statutes or ordinances or providing legitimacy for these politically expedient solutions as a result of extension of legislative representatives' terms. In Interpretation No 31 of 1954, the court extended the legislative representatives' terms, ruling that 'the nation was under crisis and the country could not hold the election for the second term legally'. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Constitutional Court further affirmed the constitutionality of adding extra seats to both the Legislative Yuan and the National Assembly by means of legislative enactments in Interpretation Nos 117 and 150.
Prior to the 1980s, the Constitutional Court rarely asserted itself as the guardian of the Constitution; on rare occasions, however, the court nevertheless risked undermining its own institutional authority by standing in opposition to other branches of government. In Interpretation No 86 of 1960, the court held that the law that allowed the Ministry of Justice to supervise the lower courts was inconsistent with the constitution and required all courts to be placed under the Judicial Yuan. However, this decision was ignored by the government, and the impugned law was not revised until 1980.
After the succession of Lee Teng-hui as President in 1987, however, the Court gradually became more active. It began to strike administrative actions that were vague or delegated too much power to the executive branch. Amongst its decisions, the Court ended the ban on rallies advocating secessionism or communism as a violation of free speech, allowed universities to refuse to allow military "counselors", whose presence in dorms had formerly been mandatory, and allowed teachers to form a union outside the "official" union structure. Constitutional amendments in 1992 provided for the Court to hear challenges against "unconstitutional" political parties, defined as those whose "goals or activities jeopardize the existence of the ROC or a free democratic constitutional order."
Amidst the divided government between 2000 and 2008, the Constitutional Court became a primary political mediator of highly charged political disputes; it adopted a 'dialectic approach' in facilitation of political dialogues. For example, in a constitutional dispute concerning the suspension of the construction of a nuclear power plant, the Court held that the Democratic Progressive Party-led Executive Yuan should negotiate with the Kuomintang-dominated Legislative Yuan to resolve the issue. The unity of the executive and legislative branches since 2008 has seen a decline in the number of politically high-profile cases entering into the Constitutional Court's docket. At the same time, the number of individuals' petitions challenging legislative or executive acts on grounds of violation of constitutional rights continued to rise steadily, and the Constitutional Court has responded to these rights challenges with a high number of declarations of unconstitutionality.
Functions
The Constitutional Court (), also previously known as the Council of Grand Justices (), provides rulings on the following six categories of cases:
Constitutionality of laws and constitutional complaints (Chapter III cases);
Disputes between constitutional organs (Chapter IV cases);
Impeachment of the President and the Vice President (Chapter V cases);
Dissolution of unconstitutional political parties (Chapter VI cases);
Local self-government (Chapter VII cases); and
Uniform interpretation of statutes and regulations (Chapter VIII cases).
A petition to declare regulations or laws unconstitutional (Chapter III cases) shall be filed in the following circumstances:
A highest state organ which, in the exercise of its powers or on account of its subordinate agency's exercise of powers, considers that the applicable law is in contravention of the Constitution may lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judgment declaring the impugned law unconstitutional. A subordinate agency which, in the exercise of its powers, considers that the applicable law is in contravention of the Constitution may request its superior agency to lodge the petition;
A quarter or more of the incumbent Legislators who, in the exercise of their powers, believe that the relevant statutory law is in contravention of the Constitution may lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judgment declaring the impugned statutory law unconstitutional;
A court which strongly believes, on reasonable grounds, that an applicable statutory law on whose validity depends the court's decision of a pending case is in contravention of the Constitution may lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judgment declaring the impugned applicable law unconstitutional; or
After exhaustion of all ordinary judicial remedies, any person who believes that a final court decision that finds against her or him or a legal provision applied in such a court decision contravenes the Constitution may lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judgment declaring the decision or the impugned legal provision unconstitutional.
Justices
There are in total of 15 justices () serving in the Constitutional Court, current members are:
Important decisions
Important decisions of the Constitutional Court are listed as the following.
Interpretations made before the Constitutional Court Procedure Act
Interpretation No. 31
In 1954, the Council of Grand Justices extended the terms of members of the Legislative Yuan and the Control Yuan elected in 1948, ruling that:
As a result of the council's ruling, first-term members of the Legislative and Control Yuans continued to serve for the next four decades until 1992, resulting in distortions of representation. Following the death of some of those representatives, the Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion were amended to allow vacancies to be filled by holding supplementary elections or by adding more seats for representatives elected locally in Taiwan.
Interpretation No. 261
The Council of Grand Justices issued interpretation No. 261 on June 21, 1990. The Council of Grand Justices ruled on the constitutionality of the continued sitting in the National Assembly of members elected on the mainland in 1948 and ordered that:
The court further required the government to hold a nationwide second-term election of the national representatives including a certain number of representatives-at-large for the proper functioning of the constitutional system.
Interpretation No. 499
The Constitutional Court, in voiding the 5th amendment of the Additional Articles of the Constitution, developed criteria by which the constitutionality of a constitutional amendment should be judged:
a constitutional amendment must be enacted in accordance with constitutional due process; and
since a constitutional amendment is enacted on the basis of powers bestowed by the constitution, it cannot alter ‘the existing constitutional provisions of essential significance, such as the principle of the democratic republic, the principle of sovereignty of and by the people, the core contents of fundamental rights of people, and the principle of checks and balances of governmental powers.’
Judgements made after the Constitutional Court Procedure Act
Ordinary courts
Supreme court
The Supreme Court () is the court of last resort for civil and criminal cases. A civil case can be appealed to the Supreme Court only when more than NT $1,500,000 is at stake. Except for petty offences enumerated in Article 376 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, any criminal case may be appealed to the Court.
This Court exercises jurisdiction over the following cases:
appeals from judgments of High Courts or their branches as courts of first instance in criminal cases;
appeals from judgments of High Courts or their branches as courts of second instance in civil and criminal cases;
appeals from rulings of High Courts or their branches;
appeals from judgments or rulings rendered by the civil court of second instance by the summary procedure, the amounts in controversy exceeding NT $1,500,000, and with permission granted in accordance with specified provisions;
civil and criminal retrials within the jurisdiction of the court of third instance;
extraordinary appeals; or
any other case as specified by laws.
High court
There are six High Court () branches in Taiwan:
The High Courts and its branches exercise jurisdiction over the following cases:
Appeals from judgments of the District Courts or their branches as courts of the first instance in ordinary proceedings of civil and criminal cases;
Interlocutory appeals from rulings of the District Courts or their branches in ordinary proceedings;
First instance criminal cases relating to rebellion, treason, and offenses against friendly relations with foreign states;
Military appellate cases whose judgments are imprisonment for a definite period rendered by the High Military Courts and their branches; and
Other cases prescribed by law.
The High Courts and its Branch Courts are divided into civil, criminal and specialized divisions. Each Division is composed of one Division Chief Judge and two Associate Judges. Additionally, the High Court and its Branch Courts have a Clerical Bureau, which is headed by a Chief Clerk who assists the President with administrative affairs.
Cases before the High Courts or its Branch Courts are heard and decided by a panel of three judges. However, one of the judges may conduct preparatory proceedings.
The Court has seven civil courts, each of which has one presiding judge and three judges to handle civil appeals of the second instance and counter-appeal cases under the system of collegial panels, but they do not deal with simple litigation. The Court has eleven criminal courts, each of which has one presiding judge and two or three judges to handle criminal appeals of the second instance and counter-appeal cases under the system of collegial panels as well as litigation of the first instance concerning civil strife, foreign aggression or violation of foreign relations. Based on various needs, the Court manages several professional courts such as the Professional Court of Fair Trade Cases, Family Professional Court, Professional Court of International Trade, Maritime Professional Court, Professional Court of State Compensation, Professional Court of Anti-corruption, Professional Court of Intellectual Property Rights, Professional Court of Juvenile Delinquency, Professional Court of Serious Criminal Cases, Professional Court of Public Security, Professional Court of Fair Trade Act, Professional Court of Sexual Harassment, etc.
District court
There are currently 22 District Courts () in Taiwan:
Each District Court may establish one or more summary divisions for the adjudication of cases suitable for summary judgment. The civil summary procedure is for cases involving an amount in controversy of not more than 300,000 New Taiwan dollar and for simple legal disputes. Currently there are a total of 45 divisions in Taiwan. Additionally, there is a Taiwan Kaohsiung Juvenile Court, established in accordance with the Law Governing the Disposition of Juvenile Cases.
Each of the District Courts has civil, criminal and summary divisions and may establish specialized divisions to handle cases involving juveniles, family, traffic, and labor matters as well as motions to set aside rulings on violations of the Statute for the Maintenance of Social Order. Each division has a Division Chief Judge who supervises and assigns the business of the division. Each District Court has a Public Defenders' Office and a Probation Officers' Office.
A single judge hears and decides cases in ordinary and summary proceedings as well as in small claims cases. A panel of three judges decides cases of great importance in ordinary proceedings as well as appeals or interlocutory appeals from the summary and small claims proceedings. Criminal cases are decided by a panel of three judges, with the exception of summary proceedings which may be held by a single judge. The Juvenile Court hears and decides only cases involving juveniles.
Special courts
Administrative court
The administrative courts () handle cases regarding administrative litigation. The current administrative litigation system adopts a "Two Level Two Instance System" litigation procedure. The administrative courts are classified into the High Administrative Court, which is the court of first instance, and the Supreme Administrative Court, which is the appellate court. The first instance of the High Administrative Court is a trial of facts. The Supreme Administrative Court is an appellate court.
Intellectual Property and Commercial Court
The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court () handles cases regarding intellectual properties and commerce.
Disciplinary court
The disciplinary court () maintains official discipline and punishes public servants, regardless of rank or appointment, for violations of the law or negligence in his or her duty in accordance with Article 77 of the Constitution.
Judges
Article 80 of the Constitution states that Judges shall be above partisanship and shall, in accordance with law, hold trials independently, free from any interference. Furthermore, Article 81 states that Judges shall hold office for life. No judge shall be removed from office unless he has been guilty of a criminal offense or subjected to disciplinary measure, or declared to be under interdiction. No judge shall, except in accordance with law, be suspended or transferred or have his salary reduced. Judges shall be appointed from those persons who have passed the Examination of Judicial Officials, completed the Training Course for Judicial Officials and possessed distinguished records after a term of practice.
President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan
Since a constitutional amendment ratified in 1997, the President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan need to be justices. However, they are not subject to the 8-year term limit like the other 13 justices. In the current constitution, the President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan are appointed by the President of the Republic with the approval of the Legislative Yuan.
Before 1947 Constitution
1947 Constitution
1997 Constitution amendment
See also
Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China
Constitution of the Republic of China
Six Codes
Law of Taiwan
Law schools in Taiwan
Supreme Court of the Republic of China
High Court (Taiwan)
District Court (Taiwan)
Ministry of Justice (Taiwan)
Supreme Prosecutors Office
Taiwan High Prosecutors Office
References
External links
The Judicial Yuan
The Ministry of Justice
Taiwan Law Resources
Official Website of the Supreme Court of ROC
Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan
Courts and tribunals established in 1928
1928 establishments in China
Law of Taiwan
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard
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Mastercard
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Mastercard Inc. (stylized as MasterCard from 1979 to 2016, mastercard from 2016 to 2019) is the second-largest payment-processing corporation worldwide. It offers a range of payment transaction processing and other related-payment services (such as travel-related payments and bookings). Its headquarters are in Purchase, New York. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the Mastercard-brand debit, credit and prepaid cards to make purchases. Mastercard has been publicly traded since 2006.
Mastercard (originally Interbank then Master Charge) was created by an alliance of several banks and regional bankcard associations in response to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became Visa, still its biggest competitor. Prior to its initial public offering, Mastercard Worldwide was a cooperative owned by the more than 25,000 financial institutions that issue its branded cards.
History
Although BankAmericard's debut in September 1958 was a notorious disaster, it began to turn a profit by May 1961. Bank of America deliberately kept this information secret and allowed then-widespread negative impressions to linger in order to ward off competition. This strategy was successful until 1966, when BankAmericard's profitability had become far too big to hide. From 1960 to 1966, there were only 10 new credit cards introduced in the United States, but from 1966 to 1968, approximately 440 credit cards were introduced by banks large and small throughout the country. These newcomers promptly banded together into regional bankcard associations.
One reason why most banks chose to join forces was that at the time, 16 states limited the ability of banks to operate through branch locations, while 15 states entirely prohibited branch banking and required unit banking. A unit bank can legally operate only at a single site and is thereby forced to remain very small. By joining a regional bankcard association, a unit bank could quickly add a credit card to its lineup of financial products, and achieve economies of scale by outsourcing tedious back office tasks like card servicing to the association. Such associations also enabled unit banks to aggregate their customer bases and merchant networks in order to make a credit card useful for both customers and merchants; early credit cards had failed because they could only be used within a small radius around their respective issuing banks.
In 1966, Karl H. Hinke, an executive vice president at Marine Midland Bank, asked representatives of several other banks to meet him in Buffalo, New York. Marine Midland had just launched its own regional bankcard in the Upstate New York market after Bank of America declined its request for a BankAmericard regional license on the basis that Marine Midland was too big. The result of the Buffalo meeting was that several banks and regional bankcard associations soon agreed to join forces as Interbankard, Inc., which then became the Interbank Card Association (ICA). By the end of 1967, ICA had 150 members and Hinke became ICA's chairman. Bank of America eventually joined MasterCard as well. (In the 21st century, Bank of America would revive the BankAmericard brand name as a Mastercard credit card, which it remains today).
The Interbank branding in 1966 initially consisted only of a small unobtrusive lowercase i inside a circle in the lower right-hand corner of the front of each Interbank card; the rest of the card design was the prerogative of each issuing bank. This tiny logo proved to be entirely unsatisfactory for creating nationwide brand awareness in order to compete against the established leader, BankAmericard. In 1969, Interbank developed a new national brand, "Master Charge: The Interbank Card" by combining the two overlapping yellow and orange circles of the Western States Bankcard Association with the "Master Charge" name coined by the First National Bank of Louisville, Kentucky.
That same year, First National City Bank joined Interbank and merged its proprietary Everything Card with Master Charge.
In 1968, the ICA and Eurocard started a strategic alliance, which effectively allowed the ICA access to the European market, and for Eurocard to be accepted on the ICA network. The Access card system from the United Kingdom joined the ICA/Eurocard alliance in 1972.
In 1979, Master Charge: The Interbank Card was renamed MasterCard.
In 1983, MasterCard International Inc. became the first bank to use holograms as part of their card security. They acquired the Cirrus network of automated tellers in 1985.
In 1997, MasterCard took over the Access card; the Access brand was then retired. In 2002, MasterCard International merged with Europay International, another large credit-card issuer association, of which Eurocard had become a part in 1992. MasterCard became a Delaware in connection with the merger, as well as in anticipation of an IPO.
The company, which had been organized as a cooperative of banks, had an initial public offering on May 25, 2006, selling 95.5 million shares at $39 each. The stock is traded on the NYSE under the symbol MA, with a market capitalization of $367.1 billion as of May 2021. The deal was designed to maintain the value of the brand and minimise regulatory costs.
In August 2010, MasterCard Worldwide, as it had been rebranded, expanded its e-commerce offering with the acquisition of DataCash, a UK-based payment processing and fraud/risk management provider. In March 2012, MasterCard announced the expansion of its mobile contactless payments program, including markets across the Middle East.
In spring 2014, MasterCard acquired Australia's leading rewards program manager company Pinpoint for an undisclosed amount. In August 2017, Mastercard acquired Brighterion, a company with a portfolio of intellectual property in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Brighterion holds several patents.
In April 2021, Mastercard created a calculator that gathers information and measures the carbon footprints of the customers in order to help them know how much they are contributing in carbon emissions and global warming.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mastercard complied with United States sanctions and banned cards from being issued or used in Russia, including foreign cards from other countries. Mastercard suspended all business operations in Russia, which had accounted for 4% of their revenue. However, bank cards themselves continue to work in Russia due to the transfer of internal transactions to the Russian National Card Payment System.
Finances
As of 2020, Mastercard ranked 191 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
Market power
Operating a payment processing network entails risk of engaging in anticompetitive practices due to the many parties involved (that is, the customer and their bank and the merchant and their bank).
Few companies have faced more antitrust lawsuits both in the US and abroad.
United States
Mastercard, along with Visa, engaged in systematic parallel exclusion against American Express during the 1980s and 1990s. Mastercard used exclusivity clauses in its contracts and blacklists to prevent banks from doing business with American Express. Such exclusionary clauses and other written evidence were used by the United States Department of Justice in regulatory actions against Mastercard and Visa. Discover has sued Mastercard for similar issues.
Both Mastercard and Visa have paid approximately $3 billion in damages resulting from a class-action lawsuit filed in January 1996 for debit card swipe fee price fixing. The litigation cites several retail giants as plaintiffs, including Wal-Mart, Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Safeway.
In 1996, about 4 million merchants sued Mastercard in federal court for making them accept debit cards if they wanted to accept credit cards and dramatically increasing credit card swipe fees. This case was settled with a multibillion-dollar payment in 2003. This was the largest antitrust award in history.
In 1998, the Department of Justice sued Mastercard over rules prohibiting their issuing banks from doing business with American Express or Discover. The Department of Justice won in 2001 and the verdict withstood appeal. American Express also filed suit.
On August 23, 2001, Mastercard International Inc. was sued for violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
On November 15, 2004, Mastercard Inc. paid damages to American Express, due to anticompetitive practices that prevented American Express from issuing cards through U.S. banks, and paid $1.8 billion for settlement.
Swipe fee fixing and merchant discount bans
On November 27, 2012, a federal judge entered an order granting preliminary approval to a proposed settlement to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005 by merchants and trade associations against Mastercard and Visa. The suit was filed due to alleged price-fixing practices employed by Mastercard and Visa. About one-fourth of the named class plaintiffs have decided to opt-out of the settlement. Opponents object to provisions that would bar future lawsuits and prevent merchants from opting out of significant portions of the proposed settlement.
Plaintiffs allege that Visa Inc. and Mastercard fixed interchange fees, also known as swipe fees, that are charged to merchants for the privilege of accepting payment cards. In their complaint, the plaintiffs also alleged that the defendants unfairly interfere with merchants from encouraging customers to use less expensive forms of payment such as lower-cost cards, cash, and checks.
A settlement of $6.24 billion got preliminary approval in November, 2019. A settlement of $5.54B was approved in 2019. Certain merchants appealed the settlement and were heard. The case is ongoing .
Antitrust settlement with U.S. Justice Department
In October 2010, Mastercard and Visa reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in another antitrust case. The companies agreed to allow merchants displaying their logos to decline certain types of cards (because interchange fees differ), or to offer consumers discounts for using cheaper cards.
ATM operators
Mastercard, along with Visa, has been sued in a class action by ATM operators that claim the credit card networks' rules effectively fix ATM access fees. The suit claims that this is a restraint of trade in violation of federal law. The lawsuit was filed by the National ATM Council and independent operators of automated teller machines. More specifically, it is alleged that Mastercard's and Visa's network rules prohibit ATM operators from offering lower prices for transactions over PIN-debit networks that are not affiliated with Visa or Mastercard. The suit says that this price-fixing artificially raises the price that consumers pay using ATMs, limits the revenue that ATM operators earn, and violates the Sherman Act's prohibition against unreasonable restraints of trade. Johnathan Rubin, an attorney for the plaintiffs said, "Visa and Mastercard are the ringleaders, organizers, and enforcers of a conspiracy among U.S. banks to fix the price of ATM access fees in order to keep the competition at bay."
Oceania
In 2003, the Reserve Bank of Australia required that interchange fees be dramatically reduced, from about 0.95% of the transaction to approximately 0.5%. One notable result has been the reduced use of reward cards and increased use of debit cards. Australia also prohibited the no surcharge rule, a policy established by credit card networks like Visa and Mastercard to prevent merchants from charging a credit card usage fee to the cardholder. A surcharge would mitigate or even exceed the merchant discount paid by a merchant, but would also make the cardholder more reluctant to use the card as the method of payment. Australia has also made changes to the interchange rates on debit cards and has considered abolishing interchange fees altogether.
As of November 2006, New Zealand was considering similar actions, following a Commerce Commission lawsuit alleging price-fixing by Visa and Mastercard. In New Zealand, merchants pay a 1.8% fee on every credit card transaction.
Europe
The European Union has repeatedly criticized Mastercard for monopolistic trade practices. In April 2009, Mastercard reached a settlement with the European Union in an antitrust case, promising to reduce debit card swipe fees to 0.2 percent of purchases. In December 2010, a senior official from the European Central Bank called for a break-up of the Visa/Mastercard duopoly by the creation of a new European debit card for use in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
WikiLeaks published documents showing that American authorities lobbied Russia to defend the interests of Visa and Mastercard. In response Mastercard blocked payments to WikiLeaks. Members of the European Parliament expressed concern that payments from European citizens to a European corporation could apparently be blocked by the United States, and called for a further reduction in the dominance of Visa and Mastercard in the European payment system.
In 2013, Mastercard was under investigation by the European Union for the high fees it charged merchants to accept cards issued outside the EU, compared to cards issued in the EU, as well as other anti-competitive practices that could hinder electronic commerce and international trade, and high fees associated with premium credit cards. The EU's competition regulator said that these fees were of special concern because of the growing role of non-cash payments. Mastercard was banned from charging fees on cross-border transactions conducted wholly within the EU via a ruling by the European Commission in 2007. The European Commission said that their investigation also included large differences in fees across national borders. For instance, a €50 payment might cost €0.10 in the Netherlands but eight times that amount in Poland. The Commission argues that Mastercard rules that prohibit merchants from enjoying better terms offered in other EU countries may be against antitrust law.
The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) praised the action against Mastercard. BEUC said interbank fees push up prices and hurt consumers. BEUC Director General Monique Goyens said, "So in the end, all consumers are hit by a scheme which ultimately rewards the card company and issuing bank."
In January 2019, the European Commission imposed an antitrust fine of €570,566,000 to Mastercard for "obstructing merchants' access to cross-border card payment services", due to Mastercard's rules obliging acquiring banks to apply the interchange fees of the country where a retailer was located. The Commission concluded that Mastercard's rules prevented retailers from benefitting from lower fees and restricted competition between banks cross border, in breach of EU antitrust rules. The infringement of antitrust rules ended when Mastercard amended its rules due to the entering into force of the Interchange Fee Regulation in 2015, which introduced caps on interchange fees. The Commission did grant Mastercard a 10% reduction of the fine however, in return for Mastercard acknowledging the facts and cooperating with the antitrust investigation.
In February 2021, following an investigation by the British Payment Systems Regulator, Mastercard admitted liability for breaching competition rules in relation to pre-paid cards.
Other issues
United States internet gambling transactions
Mastercard, Visa, and other credit cards have been used to fund accounts since online gambling began in the mid-1990s.
On March 20, 2000, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, reviewed motions in Re: MasterCard International Inc. regarding multi-district litigation alleging Mastercard illegally interacted with a number of internet casinos. The plaintiffs alleged, among other claims, that Mastercard had violated the Federal Wire Act. They sought financial relief for losses suffered at online gambling sites outside the United States.
The District Court's ruling on February 23, 2001, later upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sided with Mastercard. The Fifth Circuit also clarified the application of the Wire Act to illegal online gambling. The Court determined that the wire act only applied to gambling activities related to a "sporting event or contest". Therefore, the court could not conclude that Mastercard had violated the Wire Act.
When PASPA was overturned May 14, 2018, Mastercard had to provide new guidance to its member banks. It clarified that state location restrictions apply to the individual placing the wager, not the member bank processing the transaction. According to various state gaming laws, sports betting providers must use Internet geolocation to determine a customer's physical location prior to accepting a wager. The Independent Community Bankers of America specifically requested information about a new online gambling merchant category code. Mastercard has dedicated MCC 7801 to online gambling. This code is distinct from 7800 for government owned lotteries and 7802 for government licensed horse and dog tracks.
Blocking payments to WikiLeaks
In December 2010, Mastercard blocked all payments to whistleblowing platform WikiLeaks due to claims that they engage in illegal activity. In response, a group of online activists Anonymous organized a denial-of-service attack; as a result, the Mastercard website experienced downtime on December 8–9, 2010. On December 9, 2010, the servers of Mastercard underwent a massive attack as part of an Operation Avenge Assange for closing down payments to WikiLeaks. The security of thousands of credit cards was compromised during that attack due to a phishing-site set up by the attackers. However, Mastercard denied this, stating that account data had "not been placed at risk". WikiLeaks' spokesman said, "We neither condemn nor applaud these attacks." U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that closing down credit lines for donations to WikiLeaks "could be interpreted as an attempt to censor the publication of information, thus potentially violating WikiLeaks' right to freedom of expression".
In July 2011, Iceland-based IT firm DataCell, the company that enabled WikiLeaks to accept credit and debit card donations, said it would take legal action against Visa Europe and Mastercard, and that it would move immediately to try to force the two companies to resume allowing payments to the website. Earlier on December 8, 2010, DataCell's CEO Andreas Fink had stated that "suspension of payments towards WikiLeaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers." On July 14, 2011, DataCell announced they had filed a complaint with the European Commission claiming the closure by Visa and Mastercard of Datacell's access to the payment card networks violated the competition rules of the European Community.
On July 12, 2012, a Reykjavík court ruled that Valitor, Visa and Mastercard's partner in Iceland, had to start processing donations within fourteen days or pay daily fines to the amount of ISK 800,000 (some $6000) for each day after that time, to open the payment gateway. Valitor also had to pay DataCell's litigation costs of ISK 1,500,000.
Corporate branding of all Nigerian identity cards
In 2014, pursuant to an agreement between Mastercard and the Nigerian Government, acting through the National Identity Management Commission, the new Nigerian ID cards bear the Mastercard logo, contain personal database data and double as payment cards, irrevocably linking such payments to the individuals, sparking criticism by the Civil Rights Congress alleging that it "represents a stamped ownership of a Nigerian by an American company ... reminiscent of the logo pasted on the bodies of African slaves transported across the Atlantic."
Selling of credit card data
In 2018, Bloomberg News reported that Google had paid millions of dollars to Mastercard for its users' credit card data for advertising purposes. The deal had not been publicly announced.
Regulatory ban In India
On July 14, 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) indefinitely barred Mastercard from issuing new debit or credit cards to domestic Indian customers starting July 22, 2021, for violating data localization and storage rules as set by RBI on April 6, 2018, under Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act). This ban does not affect cards already issued and working in India. Mastercard is the third major payment systems provider to be restricted in India after American Express and Diners Club International. On June 16, 2022, the business restrictions imposed were lifted by RBI with immediate effect.
Adult content restrictions
In December 2020, Mastercard barred the use of its credit cards on Pornhub, an online pornography site. In April 2023, The Hill (newspaper) reported on an update to Mastercard's policy for adult content that would require sellers to have age and identity verifications and content review prior to posting in place. The new policies took effect in October 2021. On August 30, 2023 the American Civil Liberties Union, in combination with a coalition of other organizations, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission requesting an investigation into the policy as an unfair business practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
Products
Depending on the geographical location, Mastercard issuers can issue cards in tiers, from the lowest to the highest, Traditional/Classic/Standard, Gold/Titanium, Platinum, World and World Elite.
Through a partnership with an Internet company that specializes in personalized shopping, Mastercard introduced a Web shopping mall on April 16, 2010, that it said can pinpoint with considerable accuracy what its cardholders are likely to purchase.
In September 2014 Mastercard worked with Apple to incorporate a new mobile wallet feature into Apple's new iPhone and Apple Watch models known as Apple Pay, enabling users to more readily use their Mastercard, and other credit cards.
In May 2020, Mastercard announced the Mastercard Track Business Payment Service. The service will provide business-to-business payments between buyers and suppliers. According to the head of global commercial products, it "creates a directory of suppliers, enabling suppliers to publish their payment rules so they can better control how they receive payments while making it easier for buyers to find suppliers and understand their requirements".
On February 10, 2021, Mastercard announced their support of cryptocurrencies saying that later in 2021, Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on their network. One of the main focus areas that Mastercard wants to support is using digital assets for payments, and that crypto assets will need to offer the stability people need in a vehicle for spending, not investment. In October 2021, Mastercard announced that through its partnership with Bakkt, any bank or merchant on its network would soon be able to offer crypto services. In June 2022, Mastercard announced that it would now be allowing cardholders to purchase NFTs via various NFT scaling platforms.
Prepaid debit cards
Mastercard, Comerica Bank, and the U.S. Treasury Department teamed up in 2008 to create the Direct Express Debit Mastercard. The federal government uses the Express Debit product to issue electronic payments to people who do not have bank accounts. Comerica Bank is the issuing bank for the debit card.
The Direct Express cards give recipients a number of consumer protections.
In June 2013, Mastercard announced a partnership with British Airways to offer members the Executive Club Multi-currency Cash Passport, which will allow members to earn extra points and make multi-currency payments. The Passport card allows users to load up to ten currencies (euro, pound, U.S. dollar, Turkish lira, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, New Zealand dollar, U.A.E. dirham, and South African rand) at a locked-in rate. When used, the card selects the local currency to ensure the best exchange rate, and if the local currency is not already loaded onto the card, funds are used from other currencies.
QkR
QkR is a mobile payment app developed by Mastercard operating in the US and Australia for the purpose of ordering products and services through a smartphone with payments charged to the associated credit card. It is being deployed for use in large-scale events, such as sport events, concerts, movie theaters or schools. Unlike other Mastercard mobile payment apps such as Pay Pass, QkR does not use NFC from the phone, but rather an Internet connection.
Users can open the app, scan a QR code located on the back of the seat in front of them, and place orders for refreshments of their choice. The order is dispatched to a nearby concession stand.
QkR is being marketed to vendors as a replacement for other mobile payment apps and a mobile ordering app, either distributed by the vendor (such as Starbucks's app, McDonald's' app, or Chipotle's mobile ordering app) or by a third party, such as Square, headed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey.
Mastercard Contactless
Mastercard Contactless (formerly branded PayPass) is an EMV-compatible, contactless payment feature similar to American Express' ExpressPay, and Visa Contactless. All three use the same symbol as shown on the right. It is based on the ISO/IEC 14443 standard that provides cardholders with a simpler way to pay by tapping a payment card or other payment device, such as a phone or key fob, on a point-of-sale terminal reader rather than swiping or inserting a card. Contactless can currently be used on transactions up to and including 100 GBP, 50 EUR, 80 CHF, 50 USD, 100 CAD, 200 SEK, 500 NOK, 100 PLN, 350 DKK, 80 NZD, 100 AUD, 1000 RUB, 500 UAH, 500 TRY depending on the card's currency rather than the transaction currency or 5000 INR.
In 2003, Mastercard concluded a nine-month PayPass market trial in Orlando, Florida, with JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and MBNA. More than 16,000 cardholders and more than 60 retailer locations participated in the market trial. In addition, Mastercard worked with Nokia and the Nokia 6131, AT&T Wireless, and JPMorgan Chase to incorporate Mastercard PayPass into mobile phones using near-field communication technology, in Dallas, Texas. In 2011, Google and Mastercard launched Google Wallet, an Android application which allows a mobile device to send credit/debit card information directly to a Paypass-enabled payment terminal, bypassing the need for a physical card, up until the creation of Google Pay. In 2014, the Apple released Apple Pay for iOS devices.
During late 2015, Citicards in the US stopped issuing Paypass-enabled plastic, but the keyfob was still available upon request. Effective July 16, 2016, Citicards stopped supporting Paypass completely. While existing plastic and keyfobs continued to work until their expiration date, no new Paypass-enabled hardware was issued to US customers after that date.
Crypto
In April 2023, Mastercard announced its intention to expand its partnerships with cryptocurrency firms. At the time of the announcement, the firm had already partnered with other financial companies to offer cards linked to crypto in some nations. This was despite an increasingly intense regulatory environment, and it followed rival company Visa stopping its agreement with FTX in November 2022. The company said its Mastercard Crypto Credential service would allow for transactions between countries that met requirements like so-called "travel rule" by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), using technology from CipherTrace. It also worked with wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin, and Uphold. Its head of crypto and blockchain, Raj Dhamodharan, said uses for NFT transactions would come later on.
Brand
Mastercard is associated with security and is believed to be reliable in emergencies. Antitrust litigation over the years has damaged the brand.
Mastercard's current advertising campaign tagline is Priceless. It started in 1997. The slogan associated with the campaign is There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mastercard. The Priceless campaign in more recent iterations has been applicable to both Mastercard's credit card and debit card products. They also use the Priceless description to promote products such as their priceless travel site, which features deals and offers for Mastercard holders, and priceless cities, offers for people in specified locations.
In mid-2006, MasterCard International changed its name to MasterCard Worldwide. This was to suggest a more global scale. In addition, the company introduced a new corporate logo adding a third circle to the two that had been used in the past (the familiar card logo, resembling a Venn diagram, remained unchanged). A new corporate tagline was introduced at the same time—The Heart of Commerce.
In July 2016, Mastercard introduced their new rebranding, along with a new corporate logo. In addition, they changed their service name from "MasterCard" to "mastercard".
In January 2019, Mastercard removed its name from its logo, leaving just the overlapping discs.
In 2021, Mastercard was ranked number 13 on Morning Consult's list of most trusted brands.
Sports sponsorships
Mastercard sponsors major sporting events and teams throughout the world. These include rugby's New Zealand, the MLB, the UEFA Champions League and the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational. Previously, it also sponsored the FIFA World Cup but withdrew its contract after a court settlement and its rival, Visa, took up the contract in 2007. In 1997, Mastercard was the main sponsor of the Mastercard Lola Formula One team, which withdrew from the 1997 Formula One season after having failed to qualify its first race due to financial problems. It also partners the Brazil national football team and the Copa Libertadores.
Mastercard was also the title sponsor for the Alamo Bowl game from 2002 until 2005.
In late 2018, Mastercard became the first major sponsor for League of Legends esports. The company sponsors the League of Legends World Championship, Mid-Season Invitational, and the All-stars event for League of Legends.
Until 2018, Mastercard was the sponsor of the Memorial Cup, the CHL's annual championship between its three leagues.
In September 2022, Mastercard acquired the title sponsorship rights for all international and domestic home matches organized by the Board of Cricket Control in India.
Corporate affairs
Mastercard has its headquarters in the Mastercard International Global Headquarters in Purchase, New York. The Global Operations Center is located in O'Fallon, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri.
Mastercard was listed as one of the best companies to work for in 2013 by Forbes. In 2016, Mastercard UK became one of 144 companies who signed the HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter, a pledge for balanced gender representation in the company.
Management and board of directors
Key executives include:
Michael Miebach: president and chief executive officer
Walt Macnee: vice chairman
Robert Reeg: president – global technology & operations
Raja Rajamannar: chief marketing officer – global marketing
Gary Flood: president – products & services
Noah Hanft: general counsel, chief franchise officer and corporate president
Michael Fraccaro: chief human resources officer
Chris McWilton: president – North American markets
Ann Cairns: president – international markets
Javier Perez: president – Europe
Kevin Stanton: Chief Transformation Officer
Ari Sarker: president – Asia-Pacific
Betty Devita: president – Canada
Gilberto Caldart: president – Latin America & Caribbean
Prior to its IPO in 2006, Mastercard was an association that had a board of directors composed of banks. The current board of directors includes the following individuals:
Merit Janow, Non-Executive Chair, and Dean Emerita, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Candido Botelho Bracher, Former CEO, Itaú Unibanco Group, Independent Director
Richard K. Davis Former Executive Chairman and CEO, U.S. Bancorp, Independent Director
Julius Genachowski Managing Director, The Carlyle Group, Independent Director
Choon Phong Goh, CEO, Singapore Airlines Limited, Independent Director
Oki Matsumoto, Founder, chairman and CEO, Monex Group, Inc., Independent Director
Michael Miebach, President and CEO, Mastercard
Youngme Moon, Donald K. David Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Independent Director
Rima Qureshi, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Verizon Communications Inc., Independent Director
Gabrielle Sulzberger Strategic Advisor, Two Sigma Impact, Independent Director
Jackson Tai, Former Vice Chairman and CEO, DBS Group and DBS Bank Ltd., Independent Director
Harit Talwar, Former Partner and chairman, Consumer Business (Marcus), Goldman Sachs, Independent Director
Lance Uggla CEO, BeyondNetZero, Independent Director
World Beyond Cash
In 2017, CEO Ajay Banga reinforced the company's goal of extending financial services to those outside the current system by bringing digital payment systems to the unbanked around the world. The company invested $500M in India with offices in Pune and Vadodara to help Mastercard bring cashless transactions to the largest population in the world. The company also is scheduled to invest an additional $750M in cashless apps and technology, especially focused on India between 2017 and 2020.
Banknet
Mastercard operates Banknet, a global telecommunications network linking all Mastercard card issuers, acquirers, and data processing centers into a single financial network. The operations hub is located in St. Louis, Missouri. Banknet uses the ISO 8583 protocol.
Mastercard's network differs significantly from Visa's. Visa's is a star-based system where all endpoints terminate at one of several main data centers, where all transactions are processed centrally. Mastercard's network is an edge-based, peer-to-peer network where transactions travel a meshed network directly to other endpoints, without the need to travel to a single point. This allows Mastercard's network to be much more resilient, in that a single failure cannot isolate a large number of endpoints.
See also
RuPay
Access
Cirrus
Damage waiver
Entrust Bankcard
Maestro
3-D Secure
Mondex
Octopus card
Payoneer
Redecard
References
External links
Corporate website
Credit cards
Credit card issuer associations
Financial services companies of the United States
Contactless smart cards
Online payments
Former cooperatives of the United States
Multinational companies headquartered in the United States
Financial services companies based in New York (state)
Companies based in Purchase, New York
American companies established in 1966
Financial services companies established in 1966
1966 establishments in New York (state)
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
2006 initial public offerings
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control%20Yuan
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Control Yuan
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The Control Yuan is the supervisory and auditory branch of the government of Taiwan.
Designed as a hybrid of auditor and ombudsman by Taiwanese law, the Control Yuan holds the following powers:
Impeachment: The Control Yuan has the power to impeach government officials. Successfully impeached cases then go to the Disciplinary Court of the Judicial Yuan for adjudication. Impeachment of the President and the Vice President of the Republic follows a different procedure and does not go through the Control Yuan.
Censure: The Control Yuan also has the power to censure a government official. The censure is sent to the official's superior officer.
Audit: The Executive Yuan (cabinet) presents the annual budget to the Control Yuan each year for audit.
Corrective Measures: The Control Yuan, after investigating the work and facilities of the Executive Yuan and its subordinate organs, may propose corrective measures to the Executive Yuan or its subordinate organs for improvement after these measures are examined and approved by the relevant committees.
According to the current Constitution, the Control Yuan shall consist of 29 members. One member shall be the President of the Control Yuan, and another shall be the Vice President. All members, including the President and Vice President of Control Yuan, shall be nominated by the President of Taiwan and approved by Legislative Yuan (the parliament of Taiwan). Members serve with a term limit of six years.
Prior to constitutional reforms in the 1990s, the Control Yuan, along with National Assembly (electoral college) and the Legislative Yuan (lower house) formed the national tricameral parliament. It functioned similarly to an upper house of a bicameral legislature, though it formed its own separate branch and was indirectly elected by provincial or municipal legislatures with 178 senators elected.
Structure
Members composition
The Control Yuan consists of a council with 29 members, including a President and a Vice President and the National Audit Office. All 29 members and the auditor-general are nominated by the President of the Republic and approved by Legislative Yuan for 6-year terms. The incumbent 6th Control Yuan was nominated by President Tsai Ing-wen on June 22, 2020 and later confirmed by Legislative Yuan on July 17, 2020. Members inaugurated on August 1, 2020 and their terms expire on July 31, 2026.
Council and committees
The council of the Yuan, chaired by the Yuan President, is divided into a number of committees to exercise the Yuan's supervision power. No member of the Control Yuan can hold another public office or profession while serving in the branch (according to Article 103 of the constitution), and members must be able to perform absent of partisan control or influence. Members can vote in no more than three committees and can join additional committees as non-voting members. Each committee can have up to 14 members and usually elects a convenor amongst themselves to chair committee meetings.
The following responsibilities were also assigned by various acts.
Anti-Corruption: The Anti-Corruption Committee is a seven-member committee, which cannot include the President of Vice President of the Control Yuan, which deals with asset declarations by government officials, recusals due to conflict of interest, and political donations.
Examination Invigilation: The Control Yuan also appoints proctors to supervise examinations for civil servants.
National Human Rights Commission
The National Human Rights Committee is a ten-member committee under the Control Yuan which investigates human rights abuses, proposes human rights laws, compiles an annual report and promotes human rights education. The President of the Control Yuan must be a member of the committee. The committee was established by the National Human Rights Committee Organic Law on 10 December 2019.
Administrative Appeal Committee
An Administrative Appeal Committee, operated under the aegis of the Control Yuan but consisting of both members and non-members of the Control Yuan, considers administrative appeals which are inappropriate to both the Control Yuan proper and the Ministry of Audit.
National Audit Office
The National Audit Office is headed by an auditor-general who is nominated by the President of the Republic and appointed with consent of Legislative Yuan (parliament), exercises the Control Yuan's power of audit. It consists of five departments:
General public affairs audit department
National defense expenditures audit department
Special public affairs audit department
State-run corporations and government-owned businesses audit department
Financial affairs audit department (also in charge of supervising local government audits)
In addition, most local governments have established the Audit Divisions/Offices, these serve as the subordinate agencies of the National Audit Office. Currently, 21 local governments of the 22 administrative divisions of Taiwan have Audit Divisions/Offices (except Lienchiang County).
Impeachment procedure and notable cases
The Control Yuan is responsible to investigate possible violations on laws and regulations of public servants and raise impeachments if needed. Investigations are initiated by at least two members, and investigation committees must consist of at least nine members of the Control Yuan. The impeachment cases would be determined by a majority vote by members of investigation committee. Successful impeachment cases will then be forwarded to the Disciplinary Court () under the Judicial Yuan for adjudication. However, the impeachment of the President or Vice President shall be initiated by Legislative Yuan (parliament) and adjudicate by the Constitutional Court under the Judicial Yuan. Details regarding impeachment proceedings are stipulated in the Enforcement Rules of the Control Act.
On 19 February 2020, the Control Yuan impeached five military personnel which it deemed responsible for a F-16 Fighter aircraft crash on June 4, 2018 that killed all on board. The case was forwarded to the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission in the Judicial Yuan to determine the punishment.
On 4 June 2019, Hsieh Kung-ping (謝公秉), a top aide of former Hualien County commissioner Fu Kun-chi, Lin Chin-hu (林金虎), a county government employee, and media section chief Huang Wei-jun (黃微鈞), were impeached for bribery using $5.26 million in public funds. Both were found guilty on 18 February 2020; Hsieh was given two demerits and fined $100,000 NTD, Lin was handed a 10% pay reduction for a year, and Huang was given one demerit and fined $100,000 NTD.
On 15 January 2019, Kuan Chung-ming, the president of National Taiwan University, was impeached for violating a law prohibiting public servants from working other jobs. The case was forwarded to the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission in the Judicial Yuan to determine whether he was guilty and the appropriate punishment. Kuan was found guilty on 2 September 2019 and officially reprimanded.
History
Constitutional theory
The concept of Control Yuan was introduced by Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People. The theory proposed a separation of powers into five branches (). Sun Yat-sen demonstrated the benefit of separating the supervision and auditing power from the legislature by the designation of the state organs of the Imperial China. He quotes the long tradition of supervision used in past dynasties, ranging from the Censor () established by the Qin () and Han () dynasties to the tái () and jiàn () offices established under the Sui () and Tang () dynasties (tai were selected to supervise civil officials and military officers, while jian were selected to counsel the emperor on supervisory matters) to the Board of Public Censors () selected under the Ming () and Qing () dynasties. Most of these offices also operated local and provincial branches to supervise local governments. Under the Qing dynasty, the Board of Public Censors consisted of forty or fifty members, and two presidents, one of Manchu ancestry and the other of Chinese ancestry. They were, in theory, allowed to send one censor to participate in the meetings of all government boards. The Board's powers were minimized by the time of political flux which preceded the end of the Empire.
However, the 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China has many influence from the resolutions of the Political Consultative Assembly held between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Chinese Communist Party. Carsun Chang, the major author of the Constitution draft in the Political Consultative Assembly, considered the fact that the supervision and auditing power is traditionally held by the legislature, and also the proposal of federalism from the Communist Party in the drafting process. He designed the Control Yuan to be a chamber of parliament that is indirectly elected by the provincial legislatures of China. The Control Yuan has some similarities to the United States Senate, which allocated a similar number of seats to each province of China and holds the power to confirm many important public positions in the Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan appointed by the President of the Republic.
In the 1947 constitution, the Control Yuan, together with National Assembly and Legislative Yuan, thus formed chambers of a tricameral parliament according to the Judicial Yuan's interpretation number 76 of the Constitution in 1957. The Control Yuan was given the power to request documents from other government agencies and investigate them for violations of law or neglect as under Sun Yat-sen's ideology. The auditor-general was considered elected by the Control Yuan, who shall be nominated by the President of the Republic with consent of the Legislative Yuan, who was responsible for submitting reports on government budgets. Finally, the Control Yuan had confirmation power for the President, Vice President and members of the Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan.
Establishment and relocation to Taiwan
In the early republican era, the Beiyang government was in favor of the traditional three-branch form of separation of powers. However, a weak culture of republicanism and, later, the Warlord Era suppressed the implementation of this constitutional ideology.
After a successful Northern Expedition campaign, the Kuomintang secured its leadership in China and started to build the Nationalist government according to Sun Yat-sen's ideology. Five branches (Yuans) were created under the Kuomintang's party-state administration. During this time, the Auditing Yuan () was established in February 1928, but in February 1931, the Control Yuan was established and the Auditing Yuan was downgraded to the current ministry-level National Audit Office within the Control Yuan. The creation of Control Yuan on 16 February 1931 was the last establishment of the five-Yuans.
However, the 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China, although retaining the architecture of the five-branch government, changed the Control Yuan to be a parliament chamber. Under the constitution, members of the Yuan (by now senators de facto) were elected from regional legislatures: 5 from each province, 2 from each direct-administered municipality, 8 from Mongolia (by 1948 only the Inner Mongolian provinces were represented), 8 from Tibet, and 8 from the overseas Chinese communities. As originally envisioned both the President and Vice President of the Control Yuan were to be elected by and from the members like the speaker of many other parliamentary bodies worldwide. Following the promulgation of the Constitution, the 178 first Control Yuan members elected by the regional legislatures convened in Nanking on June 4, 1948. The first Control Yuan then confirmed the leaders and members of the first Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan. The transition from one-party state Nationalist government to constitutional government was hence completed.
However, a year later, the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taiwan in December 1949. Taiwan was under Japanese rule before August 15, 1945. As a result of World War II, the Republic of China Armed Forces occupied Taiwan on behalf of the Allies. The government established Taiwan Province to mark its annexation of Taiwan. There were 104 members who retreated to Taiwan with the government, including 5 deputies from Taiwan. The Control Yuan occupied the former governmental building of Taihoku Prefecture in Japanese era. The term of the retreated members was extended indefinitely until "re-election is possible in their original electoral district." During this era, the first Control Yuan members continued to conduct sessions in Taipei until they were ordered to retire by the Judicial Yuan (Constitutional Court) in 1991.
With the reduction of members due to age, elections were held from 1969 to 1986 to elect new members to the Yuan from Taiwan.
Until 1993, the Control Yuan's legislative work was limited to helping to audit the national budget, which would then be presented to the Legislative Yuan. The other actions the then chamber took were its impeachment, confirmation and censure powers, applied whenever necessary.
Democratization
Democratization took place in Taiwan starting late 1980s; the movement resulted in a series of constitutional amendment known as the Additional Articles of the Constitution. On May 27, 1992, the second amendment removed the Control Yuan from parliament chambers and its members removed from their legislative duties. Decision process of leaders and members of the Control Yuan follows a similar pattern of Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan. These officials were nominated by the President of the Republic and confirmation by the National Assembly. The National Assembly was another parliament chamber that can hold the confirmation process to maintain the separation of powers.
On 18 July 1997, by the 4th constitutional amendment, the procedure to impeach the President and Vice President of the Republic was transferred out from the Control Yuan. In this amendment, presidential impeachment shall be initiated by Legislative Yuan and voted by the National Assembly. However, the later political developments in Taiwan has inclined to simplify the parliament to one chamber. The Legislative Yuan was the surviving chamber and the National Assembly was then abolished. Since 25 April 2000, confirmation of leaders and members of the Control Yuan are transferred to Legislative Yuan, together with the confirmation of similar officials of Judicial Yuan and Examination Yuan.
At the end of 2004, President Chen Shui-bian sent a list of nominees to positions in the Control Yuan to the Legislative Yuan for approval. The coalition of Kuomintang and People First Party, which then held a majority in the Legislative Yuan, refused to ratify President Chen's nominees and demanded that he submit a new list. The political deadlock that resulted stopped the Control Yuan from functioning from February 2005 to July 2008. The situation resolved after Kuomintang's candidate Ma Ying-jeou was elected as the President in 2008 Taiwanese presidential election and Kuomintang won the supermajority of Legislative Yuan seats in 2008 Taiwanese legislative election. Mr. Wang Chien-shien was then appointed to be its President under the Ma Ying-jeou administration.
In 2016, Democratic Progressive Party's candidate Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the President in 2016 Taiwanese presidential election and Democratic Progressive Party won the majority of Legislative Yuan seats in 2016 Taiwanese legislative election. On 10 December 2019, the Legislative Yuan passed the National Human Rights Committee Organic Law (國家人權委員會組織法), which established the National Human Rights Committee under the Control Yuan. Its duties include investigating human rights abuses, proposing human rights laws, compiling an annual report, and educational promotion of human rights, in accordance with the Paris Principles. The committee will consist of 10 members, one of which is the President of the Control Yuan who heads the committee. It launched on August 1, 2020, with former democracy activist Chen Chu as president. Kuomintang member Justin Huang was discussed as a potential vice-president, but he declined the position after receiving criticism from both the KMT for crossing party lines without consultation and the DPP for his role in the construction of the Taitung Miramar Resort while he was county magistrate, for which the county government was censured by the Control Yuan.
Elections and terms
The Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan in 1949, the year following the elections after the enactment of the 1947 constitution. As the Kuomintang government continues to claim sovereignty over mainland China, the term limit of the original Members of the Control Yuan was extended until "re-election is possible in their original electoral districts." In response to the increasing democracy movement in Taiwan, limited supplementary elections were held in the Free Area (Taiwan) starting 1969. Members elected in these supplementary elections served together with those who were elected in 1948. This situation remained until a Constitutional Court (Judicial Yuan) ruling on June 21, 1991 that ordered the retirement of all members with extended terms by the end of 1991.
Timeline of Control Yuan elections and terms
President and Vice President of the Control Yuan
Before the 1947 Constitution
The President and Vice President of the Control Yuan in the Nationalist government era were appointed by the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party).
1947 Constitution
The Control Yuan was a chamber of parliament under the 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China. The President and Vice President of the Control Yuan were elected by and from the members like the speaker of many other parliamentary bodies.
1992 Constitution amendment
Since the 1992 ratification of the constitutional amendment, the Control Yuan was reorganized from a chamber of parliament to an independent agency that still performs most of its designated constitutional powers. Since the 4th term, the President and Vice President of the Control Yuan, together with other members, were nominated by the President of the Republic and approved by the Legislative Yuan (the now-unicameral parliament of Taiwan).
Comparable agencies in other countries
See also
Comptroller
Government of the Republic of China
Government performance auditing
Ombudsman
Politics of the Republic of China
References
External links
1931 establishments in China
1949 disestablishments in China
1945 establishments in Taiwan
Government agencies established in 1931
Government audit
Ombudsman posts
Defunct upper houses
Supreme audit institutions
Historical legislatures in China
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forssa
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Forssa
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Forssa is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located almost in the centre of a triangle defined by the three largest major cities in Finland (Helsinki, Turku and Tampere), in the Tavastia Proper region, and which is crossed by Highway 2 between Pori and Helsinki and Highway 10 between Turku and Hämeenlinna. The town has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . Only a little part of the surface area of Forssa is water, but the river Loimijoki forms an important element in the cityscape, with the city being located at its starting point. Other notable water areas in Forssa include the lake Kaukjärvi and the lake Koijärvi, known as the birthplace of the Green League.
The municipality is unilingually Finnish. However, the name Forssa comes from the Swedish word "fors", meaning rapids.
Forssa is the central locality of the Forssa sub-region. The city is bordered with Jokioinen to the west, Tammela to the east and south and Humppila and Urjala to the north. As well as Forssa, the Forssa sub-region includes Jokioinen, Tammela, Humppila and Ypäjä. Forssa is the smallest of the three cities in Tavastia Proper, with a population of about 16,500, and in terms of population Forssa is the 67th largest municipality in Finland. The population in Forssa has concentrated on the Forssa central conurbation in the southern part of the municipality, which also spreads over to the municipalities of Jokioinen and Tammela. The area of the former municipality of Koijärvi in the northern part of the city is a sparsely populated rural area.
Forssa grew and developed in the 19th century when the textile industry grew. In the 20th century the city barely grew at all between the two World wars. A new growth phase began in the 1960s, sped by construction industry. The population of Forssa was as its highest in the middle 1980s when the city had a bit over 20 thousand inhabitants for two years. The growth of the city since stopped as the industry started diminishing. By 1994 the population had decreased by a few hundred people, but after that the decrease in population grew. By late 2005 Forssa had lost over two thousand people compared to its highest point. In 2008 the population of Forssa increased for the first time since 1993. After 2010 population has again decreased, with the population in 2016 being about 17,300. Today the food industry is a notable employer.
The location of Forssa, in the middle of the triangle formed by the cities of Helsinki, Turku and Tampere, is sometimes seen as ideal, as commute trips to the largest cities in the country are fast. The distance to Helsinki is 110 kilometres, the distance to Tampere is 87 kilometres and the distance to Turku is 88 kilometres.
History
The development of Forssa into an industrial conurbation started when industrialist Axel Wilhelm Wahren founded a spinning mill on the shore of the river Loimijoki in 1847. Today the Forssa industrial community has been classified as a notable constructed cultural environment in Finland.
In 1903 a party meeting of the Finnish Workers' Party, known as the Forssa meeting, was held in Forssa, where the party was renamed as the Social Democratic Party of Finland and a new party program was accepted into use.
Forssa only became an independent municipality in 1923 when it was separated from the municipality of Tammela into its own market town. Forssa received city privileges in 1964. The depression in the early 1990s had a large impact on Forssa, resulting in economic problems and an unemployment rate that still remains high today.
Coat of arms
The current coat of arms of Forssa was designed by Olof Eriksson in 1962. Its heraldic description reads: A silver waterwheel on a blue shield. The coat of arms depicts water power and the river Loimijoki running through the city. The coat of arms was taken into use on 29 August 1962.
The former coat of arms of Forssa was designed by Arne Wilhelm Rancken in 1947. The coat of arms had a wavy division with a silver waterwheel on a blue background at the bottom part, and three blue wavy lines and a red letter F on a silver background at the top part. This coat of arms was later discontinued as unheraldic.
Population
The population development in Forssa from 1847 to 1990 has been researched in the 1995 annual of the Homestead and museum association of Southwestern Tavastia and in the book Forssan historia by Risto O. Peltovuori, published in 1993. After Forssa became an independent municipality in 1923, its population in 1925 was 7,681. The development of population was modest until 1945; at that time the population was 8,045. After this, the increase in population sped up: Forssa reached 9,000 inhabitants in 1952, 10,000 inhabitants in 1957, 11,000 inhabitants in 1962, 12,000 inhabitants in 1966 and 13,000 inhabitants in 1968 with a population of 13,157. The annexation of Koijärvi to Forssa in 1969 raised the population to over 15,000. In 1971 the Lempää area of about 9 square kilometres was annexed to Forssa from Tammela, raising the population by about a hundred.
Forssa grew rapidly in the 1970s, but in the middle 1980s this growth stopped. The city population was at its highest at 20,074 in late 1985. After the middle 1990s the population of the city and of the entire region started to decrease rapidly. From 2005 to 2010 the population settled at about 17,900 people, but after that it started to decrease again with the population at late 2016 being about 17,300.
90 percent of the population of Forssa live in the urban central conurbation of Forssa, where population is dense. In the rural areas in central and northern Forssa both the population and the population density are low. The Forssa central conurbation also reaches over to Jokioinen and Tammela. Of the entire population of the Forssa region, the population of Forssa proper is about one half.
Population concentration spots of the Forssa industrial community are the Kalliomäki wooden house area to the north of the river Loimijoki and the wooden house areas of Vanha Kuhala, Uusikylä and Yliskylä to the south of the river. Throughout the decades, new city districts have been built around this historical centre. The Viksberg apartment building suburb was mostly built in the 1970s and the suburb of Tölö in the 1970s and 1980s, but their population has been decreasing. Recently the population has increased in the city outskirts through construction of detached houses and also in the city centre through construction of apartment buildings.
In late 2011, about 13.5 percent of the population of Forssa belonged to the age bracket of 0 to 14 years, 63.2 percent to the bracket of 15 to 64 years and 23.3 percent to the bracket of over 64 years. In the long run, both the absolute number and the proportion of children have significantly decreased. The elderly are the only age group to increase in either absolute number or proportion. In 1997 the number of children fell below the number of the elderly.
The most of the children live in new small house areas on the edge of the central conurbation. The most of the elderly live in Korkeavaha and the city centre, where the proportion of people of 64 years or older is 40 percent.
From 1980 to 2010 the language distribution in Forssa has remained fairly stable. The absolute number of Finnish language speakers has decreased by about 1,900 people, but the proportion has only decreased by a little from 99.6 percent to 97.1 percent. The number of Swedish language speakers has decreased by about a third. The most significant increase has been in the group of people speaking other languages than Finnish or Swedish, which has increased manifold.
Congregations
The most of the people in Forssa belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. In late 2011 the church included 14,678 Forssa inhabitants, which amounts to 82.3 percent of the city population. The other 3,155 inhabitants belong to the Orthodox church, other religions, or to the resident registration.
According to the 2018 division Forssa includes its own congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The former congregation of Koijärvi was annexed to the congregation of Forssa in 2007. The city has an activity centre of the Hämeenlinna Orthodox congregation, a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, a Pentecostal Salem church and activity of the Evangelical Free Church of Finland. The Evangelical Free Church has its premises in the Kerhola building commissioned by the Forssa company. Forssa also has a cemetery of the Union of Freethinkers of Finland.
The Pentecostal Church of Finland has its own congregation in Forssa and the Evangelical Free Church of Finland also has its own free congregation in Forssa.
Geography
Development of population
From 1847 to 1946
The first planned constructed areas in Forssa were Wahreninkatu and the buildings at Viksberg. Kalliomäki with its lines was born starting from the 1870s after Wahren had ordered a zoning plan in the area. In addition to Kalliomäki, the oldest inhabited areas in Forssa include Vanha Kuhala to the south of the river Loimijoki, Uusikylä between Rautatienkatu and Räynynoja and Yliskylä, also known as Ameriikka, slightly to the west of Uusikylä.
According to Helga Keränen's 1930 research, the market town of Forssa was divided into ten physiognomical areas, including the Kalliomäki area, the greater population area of Hämeentie, the Puisto area, the Forssa industrial area, the Viksberg industrial area, the Forssa business centre, the smaller population area of Keski-Forssa, "Amerikka" and the new population area of Yliskylä. This division only concerned the tightly built areas in Forssa, not the rural areas around them.
Until 1946, the area of tightly-built wooden houses was fairly small compared to the conurbated area of today. A large part of the currently populated areas were still fields. As well as the aforementioned areas, there was inhabitation in Kekkala, a little in Pispanmäki and some buildings on the lands of the Viksberg manor. The construction of Rantalanmäki had already started at this point.
From the 1950s to the 1980s
New apartment buildings were built at the Kartanonkatu and Forssa market square area, as well as Viksberg, in the 1960s. Many old wooden buildings were dismantled to make way for new construction. Afterwards, the dismantling of many old buildings has been met with criticism. Perhaps the most famous dismantled building was the "Gingerbread House" located at the intersection between Säästöpankinkatu and Hämeentie. Construction of new apartment buildings continued in the 1970s, when construction of Tölö started, new red brick apartment buildings were built along Pekolanraitti and construction of Viksberg continued.
The expanding industry in the city spread to the lands of the old Viksberg manor. Parma constructed its element factory and Ahlström built its steel wool factory at Pispanmäki to the west of National Road 2.
Small house areas slowly spread to the edges of the city. After Talsoila, new detached houses were built in the north at Lamminranta, Ojalanmäki, Kaikula and Vieremä. Construction of Paavola started in the 1980s and today the area is almost completely built up. Paavola hosted the Asuntomessut apartment fair in 1982.
From the 1990s to today
Expansion of Forssa has been fairly slow, as the decrease of population has also led to a decrease in demand for new apartments. However, some new detached houses have been constructed. The most of the new houses are located in Kuusto in the eastern part of the city, and some are located in Pikkumuolaa, Paavola and the northwestern part of Vieremä. During the last couple of years, some new apartment buildings have been built in Makasiiniranta.
Bodies of water
Of the total surface area of Forssa only 4.61 square kilometres are bodies of water, which is 1.8 percent of the total surface area. In the central conurbation area, the only bodies of water are part of lake Kaukjärvi in the east, the river Loimijoki flowing through the city, the nearly filled-up lake Loimalammi flowing to the river, lake Linikkalanlammi in Linikkala and lake Mäkilammi in Vieremä. The largest lake in the region is lake Pyhäjärvi in neighbouring Tammela.
The river Jänhijoki, a side river of Loimijoki, flows through the central parts of the area of dispersed settlement in Forssa. Bodies of water at the river's starting point include the lakes Kiimalammi and Luomalammi, located in the north near the border of Tammela, belonging to the chain of small forest lakes in Mustiala in Tammela.
The bird lake of Koijärvi is located in the northern part of the area of dispersed settlement. The river Koijoki (also known as Kojonjoki or Koenjoki), the largest side river of Loimijoki, starts at the lake, flowing past Matku to the west along the border to Jokioinen and Humppila. Another starting lake of this river is Valijärvi near the border to Tammela. Bodies of water near Pyhäjärvi in Tammela include lake Lunkinjärvi near the border to Tammela. Near the border to Urjala, bodies of water partly located in Forssa at the starting point of the river Tarpianjoki flowing through Urjala included the lakes of Kokonjärvi, Särkijärvi and Matkunjärvi.
Parks
There are 110 parks in Forssa, with a combined area of 303 hectares. Some of the most notable parks include:
Ankkalammi park: Located to the south of the market square. The park was renewed during the renovation of the market square.
Yhtiönpuisto park: A park located near the old spinning mill, sometimes also referred to as the Wahren park.
Central park: The next natural park along the river Loimijoki after the Yhtiönpuisto park, also has a football field.
Talsoila park: A partly built, partly natural park in Talsoila, made as a public park open to everyone in contrast to the previously closed Yhtiönpuisto park.
Rantapuisto park: A park located opposite the Central park on the river shore in Rantalanmäki.
Harjupuisto park: A forest park with pine trees, on the border between Kaikula and Vieremä.
Mäkilammi park: A forest park with pine trees, bordering Mäkilammi in Vieremä.
Lamminranta park: A park around Lamminranta.
Paavola park: A partly built, partly forest park in the district of Paavola.
Siurila park: A park in the centre of the Viksberg residential area, with two ponds, an artificial brook and a fountain.
Salmistonmäki and Loimalammi: A natural area located at the eastern park of Haudankorva right next to the border to Tammela.
Many of the parks are natural greenspaces and not actively tended "parade parks".
National urban park
The city of Forssa has been built on area alternating between forest and field landscapes. Three areas in the city have received the position of a national urban park.
The Haudankorva and Kuusto field areas as agrarian landscape areas
The old industrial buildings and some old districts (such as Kalliomäki, Kuhala and Rantalanmäki) as industrial heritage areas
Hunnari in Vieremä, the area next to the cemetery in Kaikula and the area around the pond in Lamminranta as esker areas.
Transport
Transport connections
Roads passing through the centre of Forssa include:
Finnish national road 2 from Helsinki via Forssa to Pori
Finnish national road 10 from Turku via Forssa to Hämeenlinna
Finnish regional road 282 from Somero to Forssa
Finnish regional road 284 from Urjala via the Koijärvi church to Forssa
Finnish connecting road 2804 from the centre of Jokioinen to Forssa (named Jokioistentie in Forssa)
Finnish connecting road 2821 from the centre of Tammela to Forssa (named Tammelantie in Forssa, also known as Tammelansuora)
The poor condition of national road 2 has been seen as a factor slowing down the development of Forssa. The highways starting from Helsinki have been changed to controlled-access highways, but the national road 2, with a smaller amount of traffic, is still a conventional two-laned highway. The national road 2 was improved in the vicinity of Forssa from 2006 to 2009 by building the new Paavola bridge and a bypass lane in Jokioinen, which also serves as a reserve landing strip for the Finnish Air Force.
The Turku–Toijala railway passes through Matku, but the trains no longer stop there, and the old station building in Matku has been dismantled. The railway structures in the centre of Forssa were dismantled in the 1970s and the city thus no longer has railway connections of its own. The nearest passenger traffic station is in Humppila. There have been suggestions for building a railway to the city. These suggestions have included a railway from Helsinki via Forssa and Humppila to Pori. This project could be started in the middle 2020s at the earliest. Another suggestion is the construction of a railway from Riihimäki via Forssa to Loimaa.
The Forssa Airfield is located in the district of Haudankorva and is used for hobby aviation. The nearest airports for commercial passenger aviation are located in Helsinki, Tampere and Turku.
Internal transport
The transport in the centre of Forssa has been seen as problematic. For example the Kauppakatu street was forbidden for heavy-duty car transport in early 2008. There have also been long-time plans for a so-called "Eastern beltway", which would allow traffic to bypass the city centre of Forssa from national road 2 to national road 10 and possibly onwards to Tampereentie. As a part of this plan, the street Loimalammintie was built as new southern entryway to the city and the connection from Helsingintie, the previous entryway, to national road 2 was removed.
There have been plans for an extension of the Yhtiönkatu street from the current end of Yhtiönkatu to the start of Tampereentie, along line I past the church, for decades. The planned street was marked into the zoning plan in 1969, and there is a new street connection between Yhtiönkatu and Tampereentie in the new regional plan. The zoning plan is seen as outdated, and there have been frequent discussions about renewing it. There has been support both for various solutions about constructing a road connection and for leaving the street unbuilt. The project has been very controversial, and sometimes there has been much discussion about it in the readers' column in the Forssan Lehti newspaper. The administrative law court of Hämeenlinna rejected the plan for the area including the street and Forssa complained about this decision, but the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland rejected this complaint.
There have also been plans for a renovation of the Kartanonkatu street for a long time. Renovation of the street started in July 2012 and was completed in late 2012. Failures in speed bump construction had to be repaired for several times.
Districts
In statistics related to basic statistical units, the city of Forssa is divided into three major districts, twenty statistical districts and thirty minor districts. The three major districts are Keskustaajama (the part of the central conurbation going over the municipal boundaries and its surrounding countryside), Parkkiaro (a rural area in the middle of Forssa) and Entinen Koijärvi (the core areas of the former municipality of Koijärvi). The villages of Kokko and Matku, partly annexed to Urjala, are not part of the Entinen Koijärvi major district. On the other hand, the southern part of the statistical district of Kojo, part of the major district, was not part of the municipality of Koijärvi but instead the market town of Forssa. The statistical district of Kojo also includes the Lempää area, formerly part of the municipality of Tammela.
The districts according to the basic statistical units are not necessarily exactly the same as the districts according to the National Land Survey of Finland, because the statistical units can include for example areas classified in the country register. In articles about districts they have been identified with the correspondingly named statistical units. The name of the statistical unit differs from the name of the district in two cases, where the name given by the National Land Survey is used:
The Kuhala district is the Tölö statistical unit
The Linikkala district is the Kalliomäki statistical unit
Also the name of Pikku-Muolaa is often spelled Pikkumuolaa.
The Keskustaajama major district
The 16 districts in the Keskustaajama major district are listed alphabetically here. The numbers in parentheses are the official order numbers of the National Land Survey.
Haudankorva (6.)
Järvenpää (11.)
Kaikula (9.)
Keskusta (1.)
Kivimäki (10.)
Korkeavaha (4.)
Kuhala (7.)
Kuusto (12.)
Lamminranta (3.)
Linikkala (5.)
Ojalanmäki (2.)
Paavola (15.)
Pikku-Muolaa (13.)
Pispanmäki (14.)
Talsoila (8.)
Vieremä (16.)
The Parkkiaro major district
The district of Parkkiaro forms a major district by itself, and is one of the districts (statistical units) of Forssa. The number in parentheses is an official number of the National Land Survey.
Parkkiaro (17.)
The Entinen Koijärvi major district
The major district of Entinen Koijärvi consists of three statistical units, which are not considered as districts.
Kojo (477 inhabitants) consists of the central area of the former municipality of Koijärvi. Kojo includes the former church area of Koijärvi, which does not constitute a conurbation. The Koijärvi church and the Kojo school are located in Kojo.
Matku (523 inhabitants) is located in the western part of the former municipality of Koijärvi. The railway between Turku and Toijala goes through Forssa at the district of Matku, which was formerly its own conurbation. Matku is no longer considered a conurbation after its population fell below 200. The Matku railway station has been dismantled and there has not been station traffic in the area for a long time.
Suonpää (217 inhabitants) consists of the northern areas of the former municipality of Koijärvi.
Villages
The land register villages listed here do not have borders conforming to the borders of the districts or statistical units listed above. The villages are divided based on whether they were part of the Forssa market town or the municipality of Koijärvi before the 1969 annexation. The numbers in parentheses after the names are index numbers announced by the National Land Survey.
Forssa market town area
Villages located in the Forssa market town area were:
Haudankorva (401)
Järvenpää (402)
Kuhala (405)
Kuusto (406)
Linikkala (408)
Lunttila (409)
Talsoila (413)
Vieremä (414)
Koijärvi area
Villages located in the municipality of Koijärvi, annexed to Forssa, were:
Kojo (403)
Kokko (404)
Kölli (407)
Matku (410)
Menonen (411)
Raitoo (412)
Inconsistencies with the municipal division
The area of the former market town of Forssa also contains parts of the villages of Jokioinen (415) and Kaukjärvi (416), but these villages are mainly located in the neighbouring municipalities of Jokioinen and Tammela. However, Tammela also contains parts of the villages of Haudankorva, Linikkala and Lunttila, but these villages are mainly located in Forssa.
Likewise, of the villages located in the former municipality of Koijärvi, Kojo is partly located in Tammela and Matku is partly located in Urjala. In the annexation, the village of Kojo was mainly annexed to Urjala and the village of Menonen is also partly located in Urjala.
Urban areas
In late 2017 Forssa had a population of 17,185, of which 15,518 lived in urban areas, 1,511 in sparsely populated areas and 156 at unknown locations. The proportion of urban areas in Forssa is 91.1%. The municipality has only one urban area, the Forssa central urban area. In addition to Forssa, the central urban area spreads over to the municipalities of Jokioinen and Tammela. The Forssa central urban area has a total population of 21,236 and a surface area of 37,14 square kilometres.
Politics
Up to the 1992 election, Forssa has had a characteristic left-wing majority in its city council. In parliamentary elections, Forssa has been historically a left-wing majority municipality, and in elections from 1983 to 2011 SDP has been the largest party up to 2007, when it fell to second place. Also in presidential elections the SDP candidate has received the most votes.
Today the Parliament of Finland has one member from Forssa:
Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (National Coalition Party), member of parliament since 2011, minister of the environment from 2014 to 2015, minister of education and culture from 2015 to 2017, minister of education from 2017 to 2019.
Previously there have been more members of parliament from Forssa.
The city council of Forssa has 43 seats. In the season from 2021 to 2025 the largest party is SDP, holding 13 seats.
Business
Employment structure
In 2009 Forssa had 8,724 jobs, which were divided among the business sectors as follows:
agriculture and forestry: 184 (2.1%)
secondary sector: 2,953 (33.8%)
services: 5,530 (63.4%)
unknown: 57 (0.7%)
The secondary sector of the economy is still a significant business, but its proportion of the jobs has decreased noticeably. The proportion of the secondary sector was at its highest at 55.7% in 1975. The total number of jobs in Forssa had also decreased, the number of jobs was at its highest at 11,000 in 1990. During the early 1990s depression in Finland, the city lost about 2,000 jobs by 1995. Agriculture is practised in Forssa mainly in the area of the former municipality of Koijärvi.
The textile industry started by Wahren in the 19th century was the largest employer in the city up to the 1970s. After this, the construction industry rose to the largest industry thanks to the increase of activity of the company Rakennusvalmiste Oy founded by Armas Puolimatka. The third mineral wool factory of A. Ahlström (now known as Saint-Gobain Isover) was officially inaugurated at Pilvenmäki on 13 Octobner 1971. The factory had been undergoing test runs for a month before this.
Today the food industry is the largest industry in Forssa. HK Ruokatalo Oy has concentrated a large part of its activity in Forssa. The company Atria also has activities in the city after it bought the local company Liha ja Säilyke. The product label Forssan still remains on the market. The meat refinery company Hakala Oy represents the local food industry.
Largest companies
Notable employers in Forssa include:
the city of Forssa
HKScan
Atria
Punamusta
Parma
Parmarine
Saint-Gobain Isover
Vansco Electronics
Tambest Glass Solutions
DA-Group
Aste Finland
the wellbeing consortium of the Forssa region (FSHKY)
Employment situation
Forssa has traditionally been self-sufficient in employment. According to a 2009 statistic, the self-sufficiency rate was 125.5%. There are 3,444 outside people employed in Forssa, of which 2,299 are from the Forssa region and 1,145 from elsewhere. 39.5% of the jobs employ people living outside Forssa. According to a 2009 statistics 6,950 people from Forssa were employed. The most of them were employed in Forssa and 1,670 were employed elsewhere. Of the people employed outside Forssa, 737 people were employed in the Forssa region and 933 elsewhere in Finland. Thus 24.0% of the employed people in Forssa were employed outside their home city.
In 1990 the unemployment rate in Forssa was only 5.2%. During the following years, employment increased rapidly, coming to its highest in 1993. At the time a quarter of the people were unemployed. After this employment started to decrease, but increased again in 2008. Even at its lowest, the employment rate in Forssa was about twice as high as before the early 1990s depression. In 2018 the unemployment rate in Forssa was 12.8%, the highest in Tavastia Proper. The unemployment rate has been decreasing since 2016. The unemployment situation in Forssa is more serious than in Tavastia Proper or the Hämeenlinna and Riihimäki regions.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment named Forssa as an area of sudden structure change from 2008 to 2009 because of layoffs concerning over 500 employees. This was because of layoffs in the following companies:
Finlayson-Forssa announced layoffs and closed its unprofitable plastic factory in 2007. In 2008 the company went bankrupt.
Helkama Forste closed its factory in Forssa in 2008, moving production to Hungary and Russia.
In October 2008 Novart closed its kitchen utensil factory in Forssa, concentrating production in Nastola.
Other layoffs in the past years have included:
The Vapo Timber sawmill in Forssa closed in 2006.
The food industry companies HK Ruokatalo and Atria have laid some of their workers off.
Finlayson closed its Forssa factory in March 2009.
In August 2012 Fenestra closed its window factory in Forssa.
Education
There are currently eight primary schools in Forssa. The Haudankorpi lower stage primary school was discontinued in spring 1998. The Keskuskoulu and Kuhala school were formed into comprehensive primary schools containing all grades when the pupils from the Haudankorpi lower stage school were moved to Kuhala and the Linikkala upper stage primary school was merged into the Keskuskoulu school. At the same time, the Kuhala gymnasium was discontinued and gymnasium education was concentrated on the Linikkala gymnasium, which was renamed the Forssa Common Lyceum.
Lower stage schools (grades 1 to 6)
There are four lower stage primary schools in Forssa. Children from the northern part of the central urban area study at the Koijärvi school.
Heikka school
Koijärvi school
Talsoila school
Vieremä school
Comprehensive schools (grades 1 to 9)
There are two comprehensive schools in Forssa. Here the term comprehensive school refers to a school with all primary school grades 1 to 9.
Keskuskoulu school
Akvarelli all-activity house (primary school grades and early education)
Higher education
The Forssa Common Lyceum provides secondary education in Forssa, continuing the traditions of the oldest countryside secondary school in Finland.
Vocational education is provided by the education council of southwestern Tavastia. The council has combined the Forssa vocational institute (FAI) with the Faktia institute providing adult vocational education. Both youth and adult vocational education are located in the same premises except for the crane training in Faktia. Faktia is the only institute in Finland to provide tower and mobile crane training.
Higher vocational education is provided by the Forssa branch of the HAMK Häme University of Applied Sciences.
Other services
Forssa belongs to the service area of the Rescue Department of Tavastia Proper and has a fire station staffed by a permanent fire brigade. The same fire station also hosts the Forssa semi-permanent fire brigade. There are three voluntary fire brigades in Forssa: Forssan VPK, Matkun VPK and Suonpään VPK.
Culture and events
The Forssa cultural centre is located in a historical spinning mill area. The city hosts several museums and a theatre.
Forssa is known for its annual big events like in the first weekend of August held Holjat Festival as well as car enthusiasts get together in Pick-Nick, the biggest event in Northern Europe. A tradition is also annual Suvi-ilta Maraton - the second biggest marathon event in Finland. Suvi-ilta Maraton takes place a weekend before Midsummer. There is also a fairly popular harness racing track in Forssa. During the late summer and early autumn, the annual silent film festivals are held in Forssa.
Sports
The town was co-host of the 1982 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship for Women.
Notable people
Aarne Ervi (1910–1977)
Pentti Niinivuori (1931–1988)
Asko Parpola (born 1941)
Kalevi Aho (born 1949)
Juha Jyrkkiö (born 1959)
Mika Helkearo (born 1960)
Juuso Nevalainen (born 1997)
Miia Nuutila (born 1972)
Jonna Tervomaa (born 1973)
Johanna Paasikangas-Tella (born 1974)
Tuukka Kotti (born 1981)
Kirsi Perälä (born 1982)
Jussi Heikkilä (born 1983)
Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (born 1983)
Juuse Saros (born 1995)
International relations
Twin towns — Sister cities
Forssa is twinned with:
Södertälje, Sweden
Sarpsborg, Norway
Struer, Denmark
Serpukhov, Russia
Gödöllő, Hungary
Sault Ste. Marie, Canada
References
External links
Town of Forssa – Official website
Cities and towns in Finland
Municipalities of Kanta-Häme
Populated places established in 1923
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Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919)
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The Greater Poland uprising of 1918–1919, or Wielkopolska uprising of 1918–1919 (; ) or Posnanian War was a military insurrection of Poles in the Greater Poland region (German: Grand Duchy of Posen or Provinz Posen) against German rule. The uprising had a significant effect on the Treaty of Versailles, which granted a reconstituted Second Polish Republic the area won by the Polish insurrectionists. The region had been part of the Kingdom of Poland and then Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth before the 1793 Second Partition of Poland when it was annexed by the German Kingdom of Prussia. It had also, following the 1806 Greater Poland uprising, been part of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815), a French puppet state during the Napoleonic Wars.
Background
After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, Poland had ceased to exist as an independent state. From 1795 through the beginning of World War I, several unsuccessful uprisings to regain independence took place. The Great Poland Uprising of 1806 was followed by the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw, which lasted for eight years before it was partitioned again between Prussia and Russia. Under German rule, Poles faced systematic discrimination and oppression. The Poles living in the region of Greater Poland were subjected to Germanisation and land confiscations to make way for German colonization.
At the end of World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the idea of national self-determination were met with opposition from European powers standing to lose influence or territory, such as Germany, which dominated Greater Poland. German politicians had signed an armistice leading to a ceasefire on 11 November 1918. Also, Germany had signed the with Bolshevik Russia to settle the territorial boundaries of the eastern frontiers. That treaty took into consideration of a future Polish state and so from then until the Treaty of Versailles was fully ratified in January 1920 many territorial and sovereignty issues remained unresolved.
Wilson's proposal for an independent Poland initially did not set borders that could be universally accepted. Most of Poland that was partitioned and annexed to Prussia in the late 18th-century was still part of Greater Germany at the close of World War I, the rest of the Kingdom of Poland being in Austria-Hungary. The portion in Germany included the region of Greater Poland, of which Poznań (Posen) was a major industrial city and its capital. The majority of the population was Polish (more than 60%) and hoped to be within the borders of the new Polish state.
Uprising
In late 1918, Poles hoping for a sovereign Poland started serious preparations for an uprising after abdication on 9 November 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire. The monarchy was replaced by the Weimar Republic.
The uprising broke out on 27 December 1918 in Poznań, after a patriotic speech by Ignacy Paderewski, the famous pianist, who would become the Polish prime minister in 1919.
The insurrectionist forces consisted of members of the Polish Military Organization, who formed the (Citizen's Guard), later renamed as (People's Guard), which included many volunteers, who were mainly veterans of World War I. The first contingent to reach the Bazar Hotel, from where the uprising was initiated, was a 100-strong force from (Wilda's People's Guard) led by Antoni Wysocki. The ruling body was the (Supreme People's Council). Initially, the members of the council, including Captain Stanisław Taczak and General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki were against the uprising, but they changed their minds in support of the insurrection on 9 January 1919.
The timing was advantageous for the insurrectionists since between late 1918 and early 1919, internal conflict had weakened Germany, and many of its soldiers and sailors engaged in mutinous actions against the state. Demoralized by the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918, the new German government was further embroiled in subduing the German Revolution.
By 15 January 1919, Poles had taken control of most of the province, and they engaged in heavy fighting with the regular German army and irregular units such as the Grenzschutz. Fighting continued until the renewal of the truce between the Entente and Germany on 16 February. The truce also affected the front line in Greater Poland, but despite the ceasefire, skirmishes continued until the final signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.
The uprising is one of the two most successful Polish uprisings, the other being the Great Poland uprising of 1806, which ended with the entry of Napoleon's army on the side of the Poles fighting against Prussia.
Many of the Greater Poland insurrectionists later took part in the Silesian Uprisings against German rule, which started in late 1919 and ended in 1921.
Appraisal
The uprising had a significant effect on the decisions in Versailles that granted Poland not only the area won by the insurrectionists but also major cities with a significant German population like Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Leszno (Lissa) and Rawicz (Rawitsch), as well as the lands of the Polish Corridor, which were also part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth before the First Partition of Poland in 1772 and connected Poland to the Baltic Sea.
Germany's territorial losses following the Treaty of Versailles incited German revanchism, and created unresolved problems such as the status of the independent Free City of Danzig and of the Polish Corridor between East Prussia and the rest of Germany. This revanchism was not a popular political idea in the Weimar Republic. Attending to these issues was part of Adolf Hitler's political platform, but failed to gain any traction in the 1920s. The idea was relegated to the political margins, until the Nazis seized power.
Nevertheless, Nazi Germany effectively recognised Poland's new borders in the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression of 1934, which normalised relations between the two countries. However, after the death of Polish leader Józef Piłsudski (who was admired by Hitler), the German Anschluss with Austria and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Hitler unilaterally withdrew from the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact and invaded Poland in 1939, which led to the outbreak of World War II.
Timeline
Earlier events
January 1916: creation of Secret Inter-Party Citizen's Committee (pl. Tajny Międzypartyjny Komitet Obywatelski) formed by members of the German Reichstag of Polish nationality.
July 1918: a network of local Citizens' Committees is created on area of Prussian Partition.
11 October 1918: Polish organizations in the German Empire publicise common documents in which they declare the will to create independent Polish state and, in effect, revolution.
9 November 1918: beginning of the German Revolution, which also occurred in Greater Poland. Poles organized secret military structures in the Poznań garrison, Jarocin and Inowrocław.
10 November 1918: events of the so-called Republika Ostrowska.
11 November 1918
Armistice signed, ending the hostilities of World War I.
The Citizens' Guard (Straż Obywatelska), renamed a few days later to the People's Guard (Straż Ludowa), comes out from the underground. The mayor of Poznań (Posen), Ernst Wilms, is removed from office. German military authorities give permission for functioning of the People's Guard to keep peace in the Province of Posen.
12 November 1918
The Central Citizen's Committee, later renamed to the Supreme People's Council (Naczelna Rada Ludowa, NRL), creates temporary "government-in-waiting" Commission (Komisariat): Stanisław Adamski, Wojciech Korfanty, and
becomes the Mayor of Poznań.
13 November 1918
Commission of the High People's Council calls citizens of German portion of Poland to keep calm in spite of the revolution.
"Assassination on City Hall": dominated by Germans, the Execution Department of Worker's and Soldier's Council proceeded to Poznań's City Hall, an armed group of Poles forces it to change four of the German delegates with Polish ones: Bohdan Hulewicz, Mieczysław Paluch, Henryk Śniegocki and Zygmunt Wiza. Poles thus gain control over the headquarters of Poznań Garrison and 5th Corps.
17 November 1918: the Commission of the NRL calls for a one-time collection of money called a "national tax".
18 November 1918: elections to Poviat's People's Councils and members of the partition's Sejm (1399 MPs).
20 November 1918: the Polish government in Warsaw publishes przyłączenie Wielkopolski będzie jednym z pierwszych naszych zadań (the joining of Greater Poland will be one of our first tasks).
3 December 1918: The Partition Sejm of Poznań begins its official proceedings in the "Apollo" Cinema. MPs represent all lands of the Prussian Partition and Polish economic emigration, mainly from Westfalen.
5 December 1918: the end of the Partition Sejm, which declared its desire for unification with the other partitions in a renewed Poland, and the NRL officially elected its members.
6 December 1918: the first meeting of the NRL has Bolesław Krysiewicz become the speaker. Election of executive body, Commission of the NRL, formed by representatives of Greater Poland - Stanisław Adamski and Upper Silesia: Wojciech Korfanty and Józef Rymer; Eastern Pomerania: Kuyavia: Adam Poszwiński.
11 December 1918: the Polish language and the teaching of religion in Polish return to schools.
15 December 1918: the Polish government in Warsaw breaks diplomatic relations with Germany.
Uprising
27 December 1918: The uprising starts in the evening with shooting in front of Poznań's police headquarters. Fighting also start in other towns: Szamotuły, Środa Wielkopolska, Pniewy, Opalenica, Buk, Trzemeszno, Września and Gniezno are captured. Poles in Poznań capture the main train station, the main post office and part of city fortifications.
28 December 1918:
The Poles in Poznań capture Cytadela (a main stronghold), Fort Grolmann and an armory on ul. Wielkie Garbary
The commission of the NRL promotes Captain Stanisław Taczak to temporary commander-in-chief of the uprising (he is also promoted to rank of major).
29 December 1918: The Poles capture Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Kłecko, Kórnik, Wielichowo, Gostyń, Witkowo and other towns.
30 December 1918
Failure of peace talks between the insurgents and the German authorities, the latter refusing to take the responsibility for the hostilities of 27 December.
In Poznań, the Poles force the German 6th Regiment of Grenadiers from their barracks. After talks, the regiment leaves the city with their weapons.
The Poles capture Wronki, Wągrowiec, Gołańcz. Polish soldiers stop a German offensive against Gniezno near Zdziechowa.
31 December 1918
The Poles capture Kościan, Oborniki Wielkopolskie, Ostrów Wielkopolski.
A unit of Poles under command of Paweł Cyms begins offensive on Cuiavia.
1 January 1919
Paderewski leaves Poznań.
The capture of Jarocin, Krotoszyn and Mogilno.
3 January 1919: to avoid anarchy in Greater Poland, the Commission of the NRL decides to take over control of the spontaneous uprising but also decides that the decision should be kept secret.
4 January 1919: The Commission of the NRL decrees a new president of the Province of Poznań, Wojciech Trąmpczyński. German authorities call for boycotting him.
5 January 1919: Czarnków, Jutrosin, Kruszwica, Nakło, Nowy Tomyśl, Miejska Górka, Rawicz, Strzelno and Wolsztyn are captured by the Poles.
6 January 1919
The Poles capture Ławica Airport, Poznań, with all aircraft undamaged.
Fighting near Czersk and Kościerzyna in Pomerania.
Inowrocław captured.
7 January 1919
The Poles divide captured lands into seven Military Districts (Okręg Wojskowy).
The Germans recapture Chodzież and Czarnków.
8 January 1919
The Commission of the NRL takes all civil and military authority without declaring territorial range of that power. It also promotes General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki to commander-in-chief of the uprising forces.
The Poles recapture Chodzież Battle of Chodzież and Czarnków. They also win the Battle of Ślesin and capture Sieraków.
9 January 1919
The NRL officially announces that it takes control over Greater Poland. Beginning of polonisation of administration, most former anti-Polish officials being fired. In powiats, German landrats are subordinated to Polish starostas, which latw take all their power.
Poles lose Nakło.
Polish airmen bomb military airfield in Frankfurt (Oder)
10 January 1919: fights on southern front near Kąkolewo, Leszno and Rydzyna. Poles capture Sarnowa.
11 January 1919: The Germans recapture Sarnowa and win in Battle of Zbąszyń; Polish victory in Battle of Szubin and capture Łabiszyn, Złotniki and Żnin.
12 January 1919: fighting near Leszno and Lipno.
13 January 1919: The Germans recapture Szamocin.
14 January 1919: The Commission of the NRL appeals to Roman Dmowski for help negotiate a ceasefire.
15 January 1919: failed attempt to recapture Szamocin by Poles.
16 January 1919
The first number of Tygodnik Urzędowy Naczelnej Rady Ludowej, with the laws of the NRL, is published.
The Polish government of Ignacy Paderewski has two politicians of Greater Poland: the minister of treasury, and the minister of industry and trade.
17 January 1919: Men born in 1897, 1898, and 1899 are called up and drafted into Great Polish Army.
20 January 1919: the transfer of money to banks of Germany on the other side of the front line is forbidden.
21 January 1919
NRL creates oath of soldiers of Great Polish Army.
22 January 1919
Northern front: Poles are forced to leave Potulice.
Southern front: Poles win the Battle of Robaczysko.
Joseph Noulens is nominated by Supreme Council of Allied Countries as chief of Allied mission in Poland.
23 January 1919: Poles defend Miejska Górka after heavy fighting.
25 January 1919
Poles capture Babimost and Kargowa.
All communication between Greater Poland and Germany is broken.
Decree cancels Prussian prohibition of Polish language in schools.
26 January 1919: Great Polish Army soldiers, commanded by Dowbór-Muśnicki, give an oath on Wilhelm Platz, renamed on Plac Wolności (Freedom Square), in Poznań.
28 January 1919: German offensive ("Butteroffensive") in area of Bydgoszcz and Nakło. In the Battle of Rynarzewo, the Germans capture Szubin.
29 January 1919: Roman Dmowski gives a speech in front of Supreme Council of Allied Countries in which he asserts Polish rights to the Prussian Partition and accuses the Germans of two-faced policies.
2 February 1919: Polish-German talks start in Berlin.
3 February 1919: The Poles stop a German offensive on the northern front. Their counterattack forces a German withdrawal to northern bank of the Noteć River. The Poles recapture Rynarzewo and win the Battle of Kcynia.
4 February 1919
Poles recapture Szubin. Heavy fighting on the southern front near Rawicz.
Talks between the Polish government in Warsaw and Commission of the NRL begin on the representation of Greater Poland in the Sejm Ustawodawczy.
5 February 1919: Failure of talks in Berlin, with Germans demanding the demobilisation of the Great Polish Army, Polish recognition of German claims to Greater Poland and the payment by the Poles for all damage made during the uprising. However, the Triple Entente remarks that both sides are ready for peace talks.
6 February 1919: end of talks about representation of the Prussian Partition in Sejm Ustawodawczy. Since Cuiavia, Silesia and Pomerania are still officially part of Germany, to avoid international repercussions, the Polish government and the NRL decide to cancel the planned election of 126 MPs, giving temporary right of representation of the Prussian Partition to 16 MPs of Reichstag.
7 February 1919
Heavy fighting in Kolno, which is captured many times by both sides.
The Commission of the NRL promotes 122 former NCOs of the German Army to second lieutenant.
Józef Piłsudski signs a decree officially allowing 16 MPs from the Prussian Partition to participate in Sejm Ustawodawczy.
9 February 1919: The Poles stop a German offensive near Trzciel.
10 February 1919: The Poles stop a German attack near Rawicz.
11 February 1919: The Commission of the NRL dissolves all town councils, giving 25 March as date of new elections.
12 February 1919: Germans use an armoured train to capture Kargowa and Babimost, but their offensive is stopped near Kopanica.
14 February 1919
Talks start on extending the ceasefire that ended World War I. The German delegation is against extending it for Greater Poland, but France forces it through.
The German headquarters is moved to Kolberg, as a part of preparations to use all forces against Greater Poland.
16 February 1919: The extension of the Allied-German ceasefire in Trier is signed, which also refers to Greater Poland. The Polish army is referred to as Allied forces. A military demarcation line was established.
Between ceasefire and reunification
The demarcation line was defined as follows:
18 February 1919: In spite of the ceasefire, there is fighting near Rynarzewo. The Poles capture the armoured train.
9 February 1919: A volunteer company of Great Polish soldiers moves to Lesser Poland to fight against the Ukrainians.
20 March 1919: The Ostmarkenzulage, a special allowance for German officials working in the eastern provinces to stimulate the German colonization of the Prussian Partition, is canceled.
23 March 1919: The Poles win a landslide in elections to the city council of Poznań.
24 March 1919: The Commission of the NRL asks the Polish government in Warsaw to create separate administration of the former Prussian Partition, as it is far more developed than the rest of the country. Ignacy Paderewski forces the government to leave all power in hands of the NRL until the final recognition of Polish-German border, with later autonomy there (only Upper Silesia would obtain it). The NRL mobilises men born in 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894 and 1901.
5 April 1919: The Sejm Ustawodawczy announces byelections in the former Province of Posen for next 42 MPs.
9 April 1919: The Commission of the NRL decrees an eight-hour workday in industry and trade.
10 April 1919: The Commission of the NRL decrees the removal of signs in German language from offices and train stations the changing of all streets names into Polish. The punishment for breaking the law is two years of prison and a fine of Mp. 10,000.
16 April 1919: The NRL decides that 3 May is the national holiday.
7 May 1919: The Wszechnica Piastowska is opened.
15 May 1919: Polish becomes the only official language. German is auxiliary, but a lack of Polish-speaking officials means German is still used in the judiciary until 1920.
25 May 1919: The Army of Great Poland is subjugated to the headquarters of the Polish Army but keeps its separate organisation.
30 May 1919: The People's Guard is transformed to the Home Defence (Obrona Krajowa).
1 June 1919: By-elections of MPs to Sejm Ustawodawczy.
6 June 1919
Skirmishes near Bydgoszcz (Bromberg).
The rising threat of a German offensive induces the Commission of the NRL to introduce a state of emergency in all lands under its jurisdiction. In a belt of 20 km from the front line, it introduces martial law. A few days later, the NRL announces capital punishment for acting against the Great Polish Army or for the German army.
18 June 1919: Skirmishes near Rynarzewo.
28 June 1919: The Treaty of Versailles gives almost all of Greater Poland to Poland.
1 July 1919
The Commission of the NRL removes customs border with ex-Kingdom of Poland.
Artillery fire at front.
9 July 1919: Farther than 20 km from the front, end of state of emergency.
10 July 1919: Proceedings of the Polish government with Commission of the NRL on further policy in the former Prussian Partition (Były Zabór Pruski). Creation of the Ministry of the Former Prussian Partition (Ministerstwo Byłej Dzielnicy Pruskiej).
1 August 1919: Sejm Ustawodawczy votes on a resolution on the "Temporary Organisation of Government in the former Prussian Partition" (), creating the Ministry of the Former Prussian Partition and a plan of gradual unification of Greater Poland with the rest of the country.
12 August 1919: Władysław Seyda becomes the first minister of the Former Prussian Partition.
19 August 1919: The NRL is dissolved.
28 August 1919: The headquarters of the Polish Army decides that the Greater Polish Army will join the Polish Army and that its headquarters will be transferred to the headquarters of the Seventh Corps.
6 November 1919: The Commission of the NRL is dissolved.
10 January 1920: Ratification of Treaty of Versailles, which has Polish forces in Greater Poland take control over small amounts of Greater Poland's territories given to Poland that are resisting German control and Eastern Pomerania.
13 January 1920: The headquarters of the Greater Poland front orders preparations for implementing the treaty.
17 January 1920: beginning of the occupation of the remaining German-held territories assigned to Poland by the treaty.
8 March 1920: The Greater Poland front is dissolved.
Epilogue
24 March 2005: the last surviving Polish fighter in the uprising, Lieutenant Jan Rzepa, dies at the age of 106.
References
Bibliography
Antoni Czubiński, Powstanie Wielkopolskie 1918–1919. Geneza-charakter-znaczenie, Poznań 1978
Antoni Czubiński, Rola Powstania Wielkopolskiego w walce narodu polskiego o powstrzymanie niemieckiego >parcia na wschód<, 1968, nr 5-6
A. Czubiński, Z.Grot, B.Miśkiiewcz, Powstanie Wielkopolskie 1918–1919. Zarys dziejów, Warszawa 1978
K. Dembski, Wielkopolska w początkach II Rzeczypospolitej. Zagadnienia prawno-ustrojowe, Poznań 1972
Roman Dmowski, Polityka polska i odbudowanie państwa 1925
Z. Grot (ed.), Powstanie wielkopolskie 1918–1919, Poznań 1968
Z. Grot, I. Pawłowski, M. Pirko, Wielkopolska w walce o niepodległość 1918–1919. Wojskowe i polityczne aspekty Powstania Wielkopolskiego, Warszawa 1968
P. Hauser, Niemcy wobec sprawy polskiej X 1918–VI 1919, Poznań 1984
K. Kandziora, Działalność POW w Poznaniu. Przyczynek do historii Polskiej Organizacji Wojskowej zaboru pruskiego w latach 1918–1919, Warszawa 1939
S. Kubiak, Niemcy a Wielkopolska 1918–1919, Poznań 1969
Joseph Lamia: Der Aufstand in Posen (The Uprising in Poznan). Berlin 1919 (in German).
Materiały Sesji Naukowej z okazji 50-lecia Powstania Wielkopolskiego 1918/1919, Zaszyty Naukowe UAM 1970, Historia t.10
Witold Mazurczak, Anglicy i wybuch powstania wielkopolskiego. Z dziejów genezy brytyjskiej misji płka H.H.Wade'a w Polsce, [in:] Antoni Czubiński (ed.), Polacy i Niemcy. Dziesięć wieków sąsiedztwa, PWN, Warszawa 1987
Janusz Pajewski, Rodział XXII. Powstanie Wielkopolskie, [in:] J.Pajewski, Odbudowa państwa polskiego 1914–1918, Warszawa 1985,
Janusz Pajewski, Znaczenia Powstania Wielkopolskiego dla odbudowy Państwa Polskiego w 1918 r., Zeszyty Naukowe UAM, Historia 1970, t.10
S. Rybka, Zerwane pęta. Wspomnienia z dni rewolucji niemieckiej i powstania polskiego 1918-1919, Poznań 1919
A. Rzepecki, Powstanie grudniowe w Wielkopolsce. 27 XII 1918, Poznań 1919
Z. Wieliczka, Wielkopolska w Prusy w dobie powstania 1918/1919, Poznań 1932
Z. Wroniak, Paderewski w Poznaniu, Kronika Miasta Poznania 1959, nr 4
H. Zieliński, Rola powstania wielkopolskiego oraz powstań śląskich w walce o zjednoczenie ziem zachodnich z Polską; (1918–1921), [in:] Droga przez Półwiecze.
Dietrich Vogt: Der großpolnische Aufstand 1918/1919: Bericht, Erinnerungen, Dokumente. Marburg 1980 (J.-G.-Herder-Institut)
Richard Blanke, Orphans of Versailles. The Germans in Western Poland 1918–1939, Lexington, KY.,1993 (presents somehow pro-German vision of the events)
External links
Greater Poland Uprising (website of the Institute of National Remembrance)
1918 in Poland
1919 in Poland
20th-century rebellions
Aftermath of World War I in Poland
Conflicts in 1918
Conflicts in 1919
Second Polish Republic
Uprisings of Poland
Wars involving Germany
Wars involving Poland
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajaani
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Kajaani
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Kajaani (), historically known as Cajanaburg (), is the most populous town and the capital of the Kainuu Region of Finland. It is located southeast of Lake Oulu (Oulujärvi), which drains into the Gulf of Bothnia through the Oulu River (Oulujoki). As of , it had a population of .
The town was founded in the 17th century, fueled by the growth of the tar industry, but it was preceded by a long history of settlements. During the Great Northern War it succumbed to Russian forces, who ruined Kajaani Castle in 1716. Today, the local economy is mainly driven by the sawmill, lumber, and paper industries, although UPM Kymmene's paper mill, the main employer from 1907 until 2008, has since closed. Kajaani's church was built in 1896 in the Neo-Gothic style by the architect Jac Ahrenberg to replace an earlier church. Kajaani's town theatre was established in 1969.
Kajaani is home to two football clubs, AC Kajaani and Kajaanin Haka, and the ice hockey team Hokki. The Kajaani University of Applied Sciences was established in 1992.
History
Kajaani was one of the cities founded in 1651 by the Swedish Governor General of Finland, Per Brahe. At that time, the Kainuu region—as wood country—was an important producer of tar derived from pine, and the tar trade was its major industry. In 1653-4 the district court sessions of Kajaani and Sotkamo were responsible for authorizing a road to be built between Säräisniemi and Raahe, improving communications in the region.
During the Greater Wrath in the 18th century, Kajaani Castle was forced to surrender to Russian forces. The Russians blew the castle up in March 1716, and it has been in ruins ever since. On 17 October 1808, General Johan August Sandels won a key victory to the south of Kajaani near Iisalmi during the Battle of Koljonvirta of the Finnish War, when his army of just 1,800 defeated over 6,000 Russians. There is a monument on the east side of the river marking where the spot where Lieutenant Jakob Henrik Zidén and Major-General Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov fell.
In early 1833, medical doctor Elias Lönnrot, best known for compiling the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, was appointed district physician in Kajaani and was assigned to assist in dealing with the typhoid and cholera epidemic which was raging during the 1830s. The disease was difficult to treat and he soon fell ill himself with typhus at the end of February 1833 but recovered. Kajaani was severely affected by the famine in 1867-1868 which devastated much of Finland, but the town gradually recovered and by the end of the century had grown to more than 1200 inhabitants. Kajaani Town Hall was built in 1831, the former City Library in 1852, Kainuu's first elementary school in 1883, and Kajaani Church in 1896 as it grew into a notable settlement.
The paper industry took off in Kajaani in the early 20th century in particular. Kajaani Paper Mill was built in 1907 and was run by the firm Kajaani Oy, which had a capital of FMK 5,000,000 (£137,615) in 1948. Kajaani Oy was eventually acquired by Valmet in 1983, and the subsidiary Kajaani Electronics was formed. Ämmäkoski power plant was built on the river in 1917 by the Kajaani Lumber Company, and underwent alterations under architect Eino Pitkänen in the 1940s.
The city's grew in the 1960s to 14,600 inhabitants. Industrial development in the 1970s, and the merger of the separate rural municipality of Kajaani, Kajaanin maalaiskunta, and the city in 1977 saw the population jump to 34,574 by 1980. Vuolijoki was consolidated with Kajaani at the beginning of 2007.
In 2012, an oil spill occurred in Kajaani. 110,000 liters of oily water leaked into a river that eventually flowed into the Oulujärvi lake.
Geography
Kajaani is situated in the heart of central Finland. By road is it north-northwest of Helsinki, north of Kuopio, and southeast of Oulu. Villages in the vicinity include Jormua, Koutaniemi, Kuluntalahti, Lahnasjärvi, Lehtovaara, Linnantaus, Mainua, Murtomäki and Paltaniemi. Districts of Kajaani include: Heinisuo, Hetteenmäki, Hoikankangas, Huuhkajanvaara, Katiska, Kettu, Komiaho, Kuurna, Kylmä, Kättö, Kätönlahti, Laajankangas, Lehtikangas, Lohtaja, Nakertaja, Onnela, Palokangas, Petäisenniska, Puistola, Purola, Soidinsuo, Suvantola, Teppana, Tihisenniemi, Tikkapuro, Variskangas and Yläkaupunki.
Kajaani lies on the Kajaani River, between the lakes of Oulujärvi, which drains to the Gulf of Bothnia along the Oulu River, and Nuasjärvi. Between Kajaani and Oulujärvi are the smaller lakes of Sokajärvi and Paltajärvi, which are frozen during winter. Paltajärvi stands between the Kajaani River and Oulujärvi. The Kajaani and Vuolijoki rivers are noted for their fishing. The island of Käkisaari lies on lake Oulujärvi to the northwest of the town and features residential houses and about 150 summer cottages and holiday apartments, and the island of Toukka lies in the eastern part of the lake. Also within the municipality is the Laakajärvi, a lake with a maximum depth of , which is a notable nesting area for Great black-backed gull and ospreys.
The surrounding area is dominated by mainly conifer forest, with broad-leafed birch and alder woods on some of the steeper banks and streams. An early 20th century analysis of vegetation cover in Kajaani county recorded 385 different species of vascular plants. Talaskangas Nature Reserve, with nearly pristine natural forest and about 50 different wildlife species, is in the Vieremä and Sonkajärvi local area. Logging was planned in the 1980s, but environmental activists prevented exploitation through lobbying. The reserve was formally established in 1994.
Climate
Kajaani lies within the subarctic climate zone (Köppen: Dfc), but the proximity of the Baltic Sea and warm airflows from the Atlantic Ocean (as well as warm current) result in a much milder climate than many locations at this latitude. Summers are cool, with the hottest month usually in July, with the average high temperature reaching , although during severe heatwaves highs of have been reached in July and August and a local record of 34.5 °C (94.1 °F), was registered in July during the heatwave of 2010. The summers also have the most rainfall, reaching a peak in July with . Rainfall is fairly constant throughout the year, with no dry season. Winters can be harsh, and temperatures can drop below . The peak of the cold season on average lasts from December 11 to March 8, with an average daily high temperature below , with the greatest snowfall in January.
Demographics
As of , the municipality has a population of (around 34,000 in the town itself) and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is .
The municipality is unilingually Finnish (only of people from Kajaani speak Swedish as their first language).
Government
The Kajaani City Council consists of 51 members and following the 2012 municipal election the seats are divided for the Centre Party (13), the Finns Party (9), the National Coalition Party (8), the Left Alliance (8), the Social Democratic Party (7), independent (3), the Green League (2) and the Christian Democrats (1). The chairperson of the City Council is Jaana Sankilampi from the Finns Party. The City Government, which includes all parties with the exception of the Christian Democrats and independents, is headed by Marjatta Immonen. The Mayor, whose duty is that of a civil servant independent of the city council, is Jari Tolonen.
Economy
The budgeted income of Kajaani was FIM 930 million in 1996. In its earlier history, Kajaani was a thriving center of the tar industry. A channel built in 1846 especially for the transportation of tar out of the town still exists today.
Today the local economy is driven by mainly the sawmill, lumber and paper industries. Kajaani paper mill, established in 1907 by Kajaani Oy (ex Kajaanin Puutavara Osakeyhtio), was the largest private employer in Kajaani. The factories are on the river bank, at Tihisenniemi. They built a new paper machine in the town in 1980 which was projected to have an annual output of 170,000 tons. Kajaani Oy was eventually acquired by Valmet in 1983, and the subsidiary Kajaani Electronics was formed. Kajaani Electronics was cited as "one of the leading makers of special sensors and analyzers for the pulp and paper industry" in 1990.
When the paper mill was acquired by UPM Kymmene in 1989 it became the third-largest paper company in Finland. It closed in 2008 due to lack of profitability and high energy costs, but has since continued its operations, and was sold to Pölkky Oy in 2012.
In the early 1970s an electronics manufacturing plant was built in Kajaani, and the firm Kajaani Automation was established in 1980. As of 1999 the peat industry in Kajaani earned FIM 0.5 million annually. Some 222 hectares is allocated to peat production, with private firm Vapo Oy contracted to exploit it and deliver peat to the power plant.
According to 1999 figures, Kajaani earns FIM 3 million a year by selling forestry products, and also receives a sizable income from tourist-related activities from its forests. Fishing also contributes to the income of people in the town. Kajaani has three main hotels, the 191-room Scandic Kajanus Kajaani, Hotel Kajaani and Original Sokos Hotel Valjus, although the Karolineburg Manor House now also functions as a hotel with 20 rooms. The Sirius restaurant, cited as the best restaurant in the town, serves Finnish cuisine, and is housed in a former government building which hosted conferences between Leonid Brezhnev and Urho Kekkonen. Also of note is the Chinese restaurant Golden Dragon, the Torero which serves Spanish cuisine, Hospoda Kourna and Pikantti. The Central Hospital of Kainuu, which serves the wider region, is situated in Kajaani. Opened in 1968, it has a number of specialist medical departments andworks in cooperation with the Oulu University Hospital. The town also has an eye clinic.
Kainuu Brigade, a unit of the Finnish Army established in 1966, is the third biggest employer in the city. The brigade trains around 4,000 conscripts each year and employs 500 military personnel and 100 civilians.
Landmarks
Kajaani Castle, located on an island on the Kajaani river in the centre of the city, was originally built in 1604 and was commissioned by Charles IX of Sweden. The castle served as an administrative centre, prison, military base and a refuge for the citizens. The Town Hall of Kajaani, on the main square, Raatihuoneentori, was built to the design of Carl Engel in 1831 with a central rooftop clocktower and turret. It underwent restoration in 1990 when it was painted in a "fetching yellow ochre" color.
Kajaani Church was built in 1896 in the Neo-Gothic style by architect Jac Ahrenberg. It replaced an earlier church on the spot which was originally built in 1656 and destroyed by the Russians in 1716 at the time when Kajaani castle was destroyed. The second church was built 1734-35 which served the parish for 160 years until replaced with Ahrenberg's new church. The church, built from wood, has three naves and features a delicate, slender bell tower. It is decorated with English Gothic style carvings. Kajaani Orthodox Church (Kajaanin ortodoksinen seurakunta), which has a regional membership of about 1880 members is centred at Christ Church of the Transfiguration in Kajaani. The church was completed in 1959 to designs by Ilmari Ahonen. It contains murals painted by Petros Sasaki and Alkiviadis Kepolas. In the suburb of Paltaniemi is a church, originally built in 1599, and considered to be the regional centre for the Lutheran Church.
There is a mosque in the town, which is the center of the regional Kainuu Islamic community, which in 2013 had 174 members. Eino Leno House, containing a cafe, was built in 1978 to commemorate famous poet Eino Leino, a native of the town. Keisarintalli, a wooden stable, was used as a boarding house for Tsar Alexander I of Russia during his tour of Finland in 1819. Also of note is the Urho Kekkonen Memorial, dedicated to the eighth Finnish president, Urho Kekkonen. The high monument was carved by sculptor Pekka Kauhanen and was unveiled on 3 September 1990, exactly 90 years after Kekkonen's birth.
Culture
The Kajaani Town Theatre, established in 1969, puts on plays and concerts, typically seen by around 200 people. The Art Museum of Kajaani (), located in a building that was a police station, which is connected to Kajaani's former city hall. was founded in 1993 and centers on Finnish modern art. Kainuu Museum () displays information related to the tar industry, the Kalevala (the national epic of Finland) and author Elias Lönnrot and others on the ground floor, and regularly hosts temporary exhibitions upstairs.
The most notable annual cultural events in Kajaani are Kajaanin Runoviikko (The Kajaani Poetry Week), originally known as Sana ja Sävel, and Kainuun JazzKevät (The Kainuu Jazz Spring). Kajaani Orchestra began in the 1950s, and was expanded when the Kuopio garrison band moved to Kajaani in 1963.
Radio Kajaus, one of Finland's oldest local radios, began operations in Kajaani in 1989, and remains one of the few completely independent radio stations in Finland. Kainuu Radio, which belongs to the Yle, broadcasts Monday to Friday from 6.30 to 17.00.
Education
The town is served by the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, a small university of applied sciences which was established in 1992. It provides courses in Activity Tourism, Information Systems, Nursing and Healthcare, Mechanical and Mining Engineering and Business and Innovations, and offers 8 Bachelor's degree programmes and 5 Master programmes delivered in Finnish. The Research Center for Developmental Teaching and Learning at Kajaani University Consortium is associated with the University of Oulu. There is also a polytechnical institute in Kajaani, which had an enrollment of 653 students in the mid 1990s. The 500 PetaFLOP Large Unified Modern Infrastructure supercomputer is being constructed to service 10 European countries.
The government-run Kainuu Music Institute was founded in 1957, and is part of the Kaukametsä Congress and Culture Centre. It is one of the largest musical institutes in Finland, with an enrollment of about 900 from the wider Kainuu region. Kainuu Music dance department Ballet Kaukametsä teaches dance to dancers of different ages. The public library of Kajaani is situated on Kauppakatu street and has free Internet access, and there is also a mobile library service. The Kajaani Journal has been publishing since at least 1919.
Sports
Kajaani has two football clubs, AC Kajaani and Kajaanin Haka. AC Kajaani was formed in 2006 after the merger of FC Tarmo and Kajaanin Palloilijat (KaPa), and plays their home games at the Kajaanin Liikuntapuisto. The men's football first team currently plays in the Kakkonen (Division 2). Kajaanin Haka was formed in 1953 and plays at the Kajaanin liikuntapuisto stadium. The men's football first team currently plays in the Kolmonen (Division 3). The local ice hockey team, Hokki, plays in the Mestis league.
Kajaani ice rink (Kajaanin jäähalli) was inaugurated in 1989 and accommodates for 2372 spectators, 781 in seating and 1591 in standing. There is a race course (Kajaanin ravirata) about to the north of the centre of Kajaani in Kuluntalahden, which hosts competitions only during the summer season. The track was completed in 2008 with a new café-restaurant.
Kajaani has hiking paths, skiing tracks, gyms, and sports grounds within the municipality. Pöllyvaara and the Vimpeli Hills are notable local ski areas, frequented by tourists during the winter months. Fishing is popular along the banks of the river. Kajaani also has a golf course, and there are also several dancing pavilions in the town.
Transport
There are two important highways from the direction of Helsinki to Kajaani: Highway 5 (E63) and Highway 6. In addition, Highway 22 leads to Kajaani from the direction of Oulu. There is a daily bus service operating between Kajaani, Oulu, Kemijärvi and Rukatunturi, and Bus No.4 runs hourly during weekdays from Pohjolankatu in Kajaani to Paltaniemi. During the summer months there is a cruise service operating between Joensuu and Nurmes.
Kajaani railway station opened in 1905 when the railway from Iisalmi to Kajaani was completed as an extension to the Savonia railroad. The station building was designed by Gustaf Nyström. The Kajaani station trackyard underwent significant upgrading and repair work in 2005, when the railway from Iisalmi to Kontiomäki was electrified. Four trains arrive daily from Helsinki via Kouvola and Kuopio, with the journey taking 7–10 hours to Helsinki depending on the train. There are also daily trains from Joensuu, and connecting trains between Nurmes and Kajaani.
Kajaani Airport, approximately northwest of Kajaani in the Paltaniemi area, is the main local airport. It is operated by Finavia, and also serves needs of non-commercial general aviation. Construction of the airport began in 1939 with the runway being completed in the autumn, but due to World War it was not fully opened until 22 June 1956. Aegean Airlines and Flybe Nordic provides flights to Chania and Helsinki. The Finnair connection to Helsinki operates during the summer twice daily and three times a day during the winter schedule period. In 2013 the airport served 74,558 passengers.
Notable people
Antti Halonen, ice hockey player
Eino Leino, poet and journalist
Elias Lönnrot, philologist and poetry collector; compiler of The Kalevala
Henrik Flöjt, biathlon athlete
Jorma Korhonen, judoka
Jouko Karjalainen, skier
Marko Kemppainen, skeet shooter
Matti Heikkinen, skier
Olli Malmivaara, ice hockey player
Pekka Suorsa, ski jumper
Riku Nieminen, actor and dancer
Sakari Kukko, musician
Tommi Leinonen, ice hockey player
Urho Kekkonen, 8th President of Finland
Kasperi Heikkinen, Guitar player
International relations
Twin towns — Sister cities
Kajaani is twinned with:
See also
Kuusamo
Oulu
Sotkamo
Vuolijoki
References
External links
Town of Kajaani – Official website
Cities and towns in Finland
Municipalities of Kainuu
Grand Duchy of Finland
Populated places established in 1651
1651 establishments in Sweden
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918%20Browning%20Automatic%20Rifle
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M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle
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The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and designed by John Browning in 1917 for the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat and M1909 Benét–Mercié machine guns that US forces had previously been issued.
The BAR was designed to be carried by infantrymen during an assault advance while supported by the sling over the shoulder, or to be fired from the hip. This is a concept called "walking fire"—thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare. The BAR never entirely lived up to the original hopes of the War Department as either a rifle or a machine gun.
The US Army, in practice, used the BAR as a light machine gun, often fired from a bipod (introduced on models after 1938). A variant of the original M1918 BAR, the Colt Monitor Machine Rifle, remains the lightest production automatic firearm chambered for the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, though the limited capacity of its standard 20-round magazine tended to hamper its utility in that role.
Although the weapon did see very little action in late 1918 during World War I, the BAR did not become standard issue in the US Army until 1938, when it was issued to squads as a portable light machine gun. The BAR saw extensive service in both World War II and the Korean War and saw limited service in the Vietnam War. The US Army began phasing out the BAR in the 1950s, when it was intended to be replaced by a squad automatic weapon (SAW) variant of the M14, and as a result the US Army was without a portable light machine gun until the introduction of the M60 machine gun in 1957.
History
The US entered World War I with an inadequate, small, and obsolete assortment of domestic and foreign machine gun designs, due primarily to bureaucratic indecision and the lack of an established military doctrine for their employment. When the United States declaration of war on Germany was announced on 6 April 1917, the high command was made aware that to fight this trench war, dominated by machine-guns, they had on hand a mere 670 M1909 Benét–Merciés, 282 M1904 Maxims and 158 Colt-Browning M1895s. After much debate, it was finally agreed that a rapid rearmament with domestic weapons would be required, but until that time, US troops would be issued whatever the French and British had to offer. The arms donated by the French were often second-rate or surplus and chambered in 8mm Lebel, further complicating logistics as machine gunners and infantrymen were issued different types of ammunition.
Development
Browning began to design the weapon later known as the BAR in 1910. He demonstrated the prototypes to the US military, which did not see an immediate use for the weapon until 1917.
In 1917, prior to America's entry to the war, John Browning personally brought to Washington, D.C. two types of automatic weapons for the purposes of demonstration: a water-cooled machine gun (later adopted as the M1917 Browning machine gun) and a shoulder-fired automatic rifle known then as the Browning Machine Rifle or BMR, both chambered for the standard US .30-06 Springfield (7.62×63mm) cartridge. Colt and the Ordnance Department arranged for a public demonstration of both weapons at a location in southern Washington, D.C. known as Congress Heights. There, on 27 February 1917, in front of a crowd of 300 people (including high-ranking military officials, congressmen, senators, foreign dignitaries and the press), the Army staged a live-fire demonstration which so impressed the gathered crowd, that Browning was immediately awarded a contract for the weapon and it was hastily adopted into service (the water-cooled machine gun underwent further testing).
Additional tests were conducted for US Army Ordnance officials at Springfield Armory in May 1917, and both weapons were unanimously recommended for immediate adoption. In order to avoid confusion with the belt-fed M1917 machine gun, the BAR came to be known as the M1918 or Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918 according to official nomenclature. On 16 July 1917, 12,000 BARs were ordered from Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, which had secured an exclusive concession to manufacture the BAR under Browning's patents (Browning's was owned by Colt). However Colt was already producing at peak capacity (contracted to manufacture the Vickers machine gun for the British Army) and requested a delay in production while they expanded their manufacturing output with a new facility in Meriden, Connecticut. Due to the urgent need for the weapon, the request was denied and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company (WRAC) was designated as the prime contractor. Winchester gave valuable assistance in refining the BAR's final design, correcting the drawings in preparation for mass production. Among the changes made, the ejection pattern was modified (spent casings were directed to the right side of the weapon instead of straight up).
Initial M1918 production
Since work on the weapon did not begin until February 1918, so hurried was the schedule at Winchester to bring the BAR into full production that the first production batch of 1,800 rifles was delivered out of spec; it was discovered that many components did not interchange between rifles, and production was temporarily halted until manufacturing procedures were upgraded to bring the weapon up to specifications. The initial contract with Winchester called for 25,000 BARs. They were in full production by June 1918, delivering 4,000 units, and from July were turning out 9,000 units per month.
Colt and Marlin-Rockwell Corp. also began production shortly after Winchester got into full production. Marlin-Rockwell, burdened by a contract to make rifles for the Belgian government, acquired the Mayo Radiator Co.'s factory and used it exclusively to carry out production of the BAR. The first unit from this source was delivered on 11 June 1918 and the company's peak output reached 200 automatic rifles per day. Colt had produced only 9,000 BARs by the time of the armistice due to the heavy demands of previous orders. These three companies produced a combined daily output of 706 rifles and a total of approximately 52,000 BARs were delivered by all sources by the end of the war. Between 1918 and 1919, 102,174 BARs had been manufactured jointly by Colt, Winchester, and Marlin-Rockwell.
By July 1918, the BAR had begun to arrive in France, and the first unit to receive them was the US Army's 79th Infantry Division, which took them into action for the first time on 13 September 1918. The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by 2nd Lt. Val Allen Browning, the inventor's son. Despite being introduced very late in the war, the BAR made an impact disproportionate to its numbers; it was used extensively during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and made a significant impression on the Allies (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their Chauchat machine rifles).
US Marines briefly took possession of the BAR. Troops from the First Battalion of the Sixth Marines had talked the "doggies" of the US Army's 36th Division into trading their BARs for their Chauchats. However, complaints from officers of the 36th resulted in the issuance of a command from Marine Lt. Col. Harry Lee on 9 October 1918: All Browning guns and equipment in Marine possession were to be turned in.
Design details and accessories
The M1918 is a selective-fire, air-cooled automatic rifle using a gas-operated, long-stroke piston rod actuated by propellant gases bled through a vent in the barrel. The bolt is locked by a rising bolt lock. The weapon fires from an open bolt. The spring-powered cartridge casing extractor is contained in the bolt and a fixed ejector is installed in the trigger group. The BAR is striker-fired (the bolt carrier serves as the striker) and uses a trigger mechanism with a fire selector lever that enables operating in either semi-automatic or fully automatic firing modes. The selector lever is located on the left side of the receiver and is simultaneously the manual safety (selector lever in the "S" position – weapon is safe, "F" – fire, "A" – automatic fire). The "safe" setting blocks the trigger.
The weapon's barrel is screwed into the receiver and is not quickly detachable. The M1918 feeds using double-column 20-round box magazines, although 40-round magazines were also used in an anti-aircraft role; these were withdrawn from use in 1927. The M1918 has a cylindrical flash suppressor fitted to the muzzle end. The original BAR was equipped with a fixed wooden buttstock and closed-type adjustable iron sights, consisting of a forward post and a rear leaf sight with 100 to 1,500 yard (91-1,372 m) range graduations.
As a heavy automatic rifle designed for support fire, the M1918 was not fitted with a bayonet mount and no bayonet was ever issued, though one experimental bayonet fitting was made by Winchester.
Variants and subsequent models
During its lengthy service life, the BAR underwent continuous development, receiving many improvements and modifications. The first major attempt at improving the M1918 resulted in the M1922 machine rifle, adopted by the United States Cavalry in 1922 as a troop-level light machine gun. The weapon used a new heavy profile ribbed barrel, an adjustable spiked bipod (mounted to a swiveling collar on the barrel) with a rear, stock-mounted monopod, a side-mounted sling swivel and a new rear buttplate, fixed to the stock retaining sleeve. The hand guard was changed, and in 1926 the BAR's sights were redesigned to accommodate the heavy-bullet 172-grain M1 .30-06 ball ammunition then coming into service for machinegun use.
In 1931, the Colt Arms Co. introduced the Monitor Automatic Machine Rifle (R 80), intended primarily for use by prison guards and law-enforcement agencies. Intended for use as a shoulder-fired automatic rifle, the Monitor omitted the bipod, instead featuring a separate pistol grip and butt stock attached to a lightweight receiver, along with a shortened, , barrel fitted with a Cutts compensator. Weighing empty, the Monitor had a rate of fire of approximately 500 rpm. Around 125 were produced; 90 were purchased by the FBI. Eleven went to the US Treasury Department in 1934, while the rest went to various state prisons, banks, security companies and accredited police departments. Although available for export sale, no examples appear to have been exported.
In 1932, a greatly shortened version designed for bush warfare was developed by USMC Maj. H.L. Smith and was the subject of an evaluative report by Capt. Merritt A. Edson, ordnance officer at the Quartermaster's Depot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The barrel was shortened nine inches (229 mm) at the muzzle and the gas port and gas cylinder tube were relocated. The modified BAR weighed and was only long overall. Though it proved superior to the M1918 in accuracy when fired prone in automatic mode and equal in accuracy to the standard M1918 at ranges of 500–600 yards (460–550 m) from a rest, it was less accurate when fired from the shoulder, and had a loud report combined with a fierce muzzle blast. Attaching a Cutts compensator materially reduced the muzzle blast, but this was more than offset by the increase in smoke and dust at the muzzle when fired, obscuring the operator's vision. Nor did it improve control of the weapon when fired in bursts of automatic fire. Though the report recommended building six of these short-barreled jungle BARs for further evaluation, no further work was done on the project.
The M1918A1, featuring a lightweight spiked bipod with a leg height adjustment feature attached to the gas cylinder and a hinged steel butt plate, was formally approved on 24 June 1937. The M1918A1 was intended to increase the weapon's effectiveness and controllability firing in bursts. Relatively few M1918s were rebuilt to the new M1918A1 standard.
In April 1938, work commenced on an improved BAR for the US Army. The army specified a need for a BAR designed to serve in the role of a light machine gun for squad-level support fire. Early prototypes were fitted with barrel-mounted bipods as well as pistol grip housings and a unique rate-of-fire reducer mechanism purchased from FN Herstal. The rate reducer mechanism performed well in trials, and the pistol grip housing enabled the operator to fire more comfortably from the prone position. However, in 1939 the army declared that all modifications to the basic BAR be capable of being retrofitted to earlier M1918 guns with no loss of parts interchangeability. This effectively killed the FN-designed pistol grip and its proven rate reducer mechanism for the new M1918 replacement.
The final development of the M1918A2 was authorized on 30 June 1938. The FN-designed pistol grip and rate-reducer mechanism with two rates of automatic fire was shelved in favor of a rate-reducer mechanism designed by Springfield Armory, and housed in the butt stock. The Springfield Armory rate reducer also provided two selectable rates of fully automatic fire only, activated by engaging the selector toggle. Additionally, a skid-footed bipod was fitted to the muzzle end of the barrel, magazine guides were added to the front of the trigger guard, the hand guard was shortened, a heat shield was added to help the cooling process, a small separate stock rest (monopod) was included for attachment to the butt and the weapon's role was changed to that of a squad light machine gun. The BAR's rear sight scales were also modified to accommodate the newly standardized M2 ball ammunition with its lighter, flat-base bullet. The M1918A2's walnut butt stock is approximately one inch (2.5 cm) longer than the M1918 BAR's butt stock. The M1918A2's barrel was also fitted with a new flash suppressor and fully adjustable iron sights. Towards the end of the war a barrel-mounted carrying handle was added.
Because of budget limitations initial M1918A2 production consisted of conversions of older M1918 BARs (remaining in surplus) along with a limited number of M1922s and M1918A1s. After the outbreak of war, attempts to ramp up new M1918A2 production were stymied by the discovery that the World War I tooling used to produce the M1918 was either worn out or incompatible with modern production machinery. New production was first undertaken at the New England Small Arms Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. (a total of 188,380 new weapons were manufactured). In 1942 a shortage of black walnut for butt stocks and grips led to the development of a black plastic butt stock for the BAR. Composed of a mixture of Bakelite and Resinox, and impregnated with shredded fabric, the stocks were sandblasted to reduce glare. The Firestone Rubber and Latex Products Co. produced the plastic butt stock for the US Army, which was formally adopted on March 21, 1942. The M1922 machine rifle was declared obsolete in 1940, but they were used by Merrill's Marauders in Burma later in the war as a slightly lighter alternative to the M1918A2.
Production rates greatly increased in 1943, after IBM introduced a method of casting BAR receivers from a new type of malleable iron developed by the Saginaw division of General Motors, called ArmaSteel. After it successfully passed a series of tests at Springfield Armory, the Chief of Ordnance instructed other BAR receiver manufacturers to change over from steel to ArmaSteel castings for this part. During the Korean War M1918A2 production was resumed, this time contracted to the Royal McBee Typewriter Co., which produced an additional 61,000 M1918A2s.
A bullpup prototype existed as the Cook automatic rifle during the 1950s. It was developed at Benicia Armoury by US Army ordnance officer Lauren C. Cook. It used the gas operation of the M1918 BAR with the trigger group in front of the magazine. The operation fired from a closed bolt. The Cook automatic rifle was 30 inches retaining the barrel length of 18 inches.
The last US-made variant was produced in 7.62×51mm NATO, as T34 Automatic rifle.
International and commercial models
Export models
The BAR also found a ready market overseas and in various forms was widely exported. In 1919 the Colt company developed and produced a commercial variant called the Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919 (company designation: Model U), which has a different return mechanism compared to the M1918 (it is installed in the stock rather than the gas tube) and lacks a flash hider. Later the Model 1924 rifle was offered for a short period of time, featuring a pistol grip and a redesigned hand guard. These Colt automatic rifles were available in a number of calibers, including .30-06 Springfield (7.62×63mm), 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, 6.5×55mm, 7.92×57mm Mauser and .303 British (7.7×56mmR). All of the 6.5×55mm-caliber Colt automatic rifles appear to have been sold directly to FN.
An improved version of the Model 1924, the Model 1925 (R75), achieved the highest popularity in export sales. It is based on the Model 1924 but uses a heavy, finned barrel, a lightweight bipod and is equipped with dust covers in the magazine well and ejection port (some of these features were patented: US patents #1548709 and #1533968). The Model 1925 was produced in various calibers, including .30-06 Springfield (7.62×63mm), 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, 7.92×57mm Mauser, and .303 British (7.7×56mmR) (no Colt-manufactured Model 1925 rifles in 6.5×55mm appear to have been sold). A minor variant of the Model 1925 (R75) was the R75A light machine gun with a quick-change barrel (produced in 1942 in small quantities for the Dutch army). Between 1921 and 1928 FN Herstal imported over 800 Colt-manufactured examples of the Colt Machine Rifles for sale abroad.
All of the Colt automatic machine rifles, including the Colt Monitor, were available for export sale. After 1929 the Model 1925 and the Colt Monitor were available for export sale in Colt's exclusive sales territories per its agreement with FN. These Colt territories included North America, Central America, the West Indies, South America, Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, Siam (Thailand), India and Australia.
Belgium
A variant known as the FN Mle 1930 was developed in 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser by FN Herstal and adopted by the Belgian army. The Mle 1930 is basically a licensed copy of the Colt Automatic Machine Rifle, Model 1925 (R 75). The Mle 1930 has a different gas valve and a mechanical rate-reducing fire control mechanism designed by Dieudonné Saive, located in the trigger guard-pistol grip housing. Some of these FN rate reducer mechanisms and pistol grip housings were later purchased by Springfield Armory for evaluation and possible adoption on a replacement for the M1918. The weapon also had a hinged shoulder plate and was adapted for use on a tripod mount. In 1932 Belgium adopted a new version of the FN Mle 1930 allocated the service designation FN Mle D (D—demontable or "removable"), which had a quick-change barrel, shoulder rest and a simplified take-down method for easier cleaning and maintenance. The Mle D was produced even after World War II in versions adapted for .30-06 Springfield (for Belgian service) and 7.92×57mm Mauser ammunition (for Egyptian service). The final variant in Belgian service was the Model DA1 chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and feeding from the 20-round magazines for the FN FAL battle rifle.
France
In 1922, the French Army considered the introduction of the BAR or of the Fusil-mitrailleur MAS modèle 1922, a copy of the BAR produced by the Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne. The FM 24/29 light machine gun was eventually adopted.
Poland
Production of the BAR in Belgium began only after signing an agreement with Poland (on 10 December 1927) involving the procurement of 10,000 wz. 1928 light machine guns chambered in 7.92×57mm Mauser, which are similar to the R75 variant but designed specifically to meet the requirements of the Polish army. Changes to the base design include a pistol grip, different type of bipod, open-type V-notch rear sight and a slightly longer barrel. Subsequent rifles were assembled in Poland under license by the state rifle factory (Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów) in Warsaw. The wz. 1928 was accepted into service with the Polish army in 1927 under the formal name 7,92 mm rkm Browning wz. 1928 and—until the outbreak of World War II—was the primary light support weapon of Polish infantry and cavalry formations (in 1939 Poland had a total of approximately 20,000 wz. 1928 rifles in service). Additional detail modifications were introduced on the production line; among them were the replacement of the iron sights with a smaller version and reshaping the butt to a fish tail.
In the mid-1930s, Polish small-arms designer Wawrzyniec Lewandowski was tasked with developing a flexible aircraft-mounted machine gun based on the Browning wz.1928. This resulted in the wz. 1937. Changes included increasing the weapon's rate of fire to 1,100 rounds/min, eliminating the butt stock, adding a spade-type grip to the rear of the receiver, moving the main drive spring under the barrel and, most importantly, changing the feed system. Sustained fire was practically impossible with the standard 20-round box magazine, so a new feed mechanism was developed that was added to the receiver as a module. It contains a spring-loaded, bolt-actuated lever that would feed a round from a 91-round pan magazine located above the receiver and force the round into the feed path during unlocking. The machine gun was accepted in 1937 and ordered by the Polish Air Force as the karabin maszynowy obserwatora wz. 1937 ("observers machine gun model 1937"). Eventually 339 machine guns were acquired and used as armament in the PZL.37 Łoś medium bomber and the LWS-3 Mewa reconnaissance aircraft.
Sweden
In 1920, Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) acquired sales and production rights to the BAR series of firearms in Europe from Colt. The first BAR model sold by FN was the Kg m/21 (Kg—Kulsprutegevär or "machinegun rifle") chambered for the 6.5×55mm m/94 cartridge. The m/21 is a variant of the Model 1919 designed to Swedish specifications and manufactured initially by Colt's and later under license at the Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori in Eskilstuna. Compared to the Model 1919, the Swedish weapon has—apart from the different caliber—a spiked bipod and dust covers for ejection. The m/21 would become one of Sweden's main support weapons in the interwar years together with the water-cooled, belt-fed Ksp m/1914 medium machine gun (Swedish adaptation of the Austrian M07/12). Dissatisfied with the rapidly overheating fixed barrel of the m/21, Carl Gustaf began to design a new quick-detach mechanism for the barrel that mates the externally grooved chamber to a series of rotating flanges in the receiver operated by a locking lever. The barrel also received cooling fins along its entire length. These enhancements were incorporated into the fm/1935 prototype, which was favorably evaluated during trials in 1935. The final version was the Kg m/37, adopted for service in 1937, which uses a smooth-contour, unfinned barrel. Numerous m/21 guns were retrofitted with the screw-on receiver extension and quick-change barrel and renamed the Kg m/21-37. The m/37 remained in service until replaced by the FN MAG, but was still in second-line use until 1980. Carl Gustaf also developed a belt-fed prototype; however, it was never adopted.
China
The Chinese Nationalist Army used the FN M1930 throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War. 29,550 were bought from Belgium between 1933 and 1939. The Chinese BAR was chambered for the German 7.92×57mm Mauser round, the standard rifle cartridge of the National Revolutionary Army. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Chinese Expeditionary Army in Burma was equipped with American BARs. Towards the end of World War II, small quantities of American equipment, including the BAR, made their way into mainland China.
Civilian use
Colt Monitor
With the cessation of WWI hostilities, Colt Arms Co. received the Browning patents to produce the BAR that had been withheld from issue during the war. This allowed Colt to make the BAR available for commercial sale, including to civilian owners. The Colt Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919, initially made up of overruns from the M1918 military production contract, was the first of several commercial Colt BARs that would follow. However, the high price of the weapon and its limited utility for most civilian owners resulted in few sales. Ad Topperwien, a famous trick shooter of the early 1920s, purchased one of the first Colt-produced BARs to perform aerial target shooting exhibitions. Occasional BAR sales were made to civilian owners through distributors such as the Ott-Heiskell Hardware Co.
In 1931, the new Colt Monitor was made available to civilians during the Depression at $300 each, including a spare parts kit, sling, cleaning accessories and six magazines, but Colt records indicate no domestic sales to individuals.
Post National Firearms Act
After passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, civilian BAR ownership was restricted even further. Importation of machine guns for transfer between civilians was prohibited in 1968 and the production of machine guns for civilian transfer was banned in 1986. However, machine guns produced prior to 1986 are still transferable, and fully-automatic BAR models exist and occasionally come up for sale to qualified buyers.
21st century
Some companies continue to manufacture semi-automatic copies for sale to civilians, such as Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc., in Chardon, Ohio. Ohio Ordnance Works produces a contemporary semi-automatic variant of the M1918 called "1918A3-SLR", and a much modified lightened version called HCAR (Heavy Counter Assault Rifle), which are legal for civilians without an FFL (federal firearms license) to own.
Criminal and law enforcement use
Although the Colt Monitor version of the BAR failed to interest US civilian buyers in the midst of the Depression, the underworld was a lot more interested: in 1936 the price of a black-market Colt Monitor was $5,000, with military BARs going for somewhat less. The army's M1918 was a favorite of gangster Clyde Barrow, who obtained his through periodic robberies of Army National Guard armories in the Midwest. Barrow liked to use armor-piercing (AP) .30-06 ammunition he obtained from armory stores, and frequently modified his BARs to suit his own needs. Barrow taught his girlfriend Bonnie Parker to fire the M1918 as well, and by all accounts she was an excellent BAR operator. She used an M1918 on full-automatic to pin down unsuspecting law officers after they confronted the gang at a house in Joplin, Missouri. A Missouri highway patrolman at the scene, forced to dive for cover behind a substantial oak tree after Bonnie Parker opened up on him, later stated, "That little red-headed woman filled my face with splinters on the other side of that tree with one of those damned guns."
As the use of automatic weapons by criminal elements in the US became more widespread, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the agency to acquire and commence regular training with automatic shoulder weapons, including the Thompson submachine gun and the BAR. For its BARs the FBI turned to Colt, which sold 90 Colt Monitor automatic machine rifles to the agency. Some of the FBI's Monitors were distributed to field offices for use as support weapons if needed on a particular operation, while the remainder were retained at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, for training purposes. Colt sold an additional 11 Colt Monitors to the US Treasury Department in 1934, while 24 guns were sold to state prisons, banks, security companies and accredited city, county and state police departments. At least one member of the ambush team that killed Bonnie and Clyde was armed with a Colt Monitor.
Although it has sometimes been alleged that the M1918 or M1918A2 BAR was used by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in a shootout with Los Angeles police on May 17, 1974, no SLA members ever used such a weapon. The confusion arose out of Browning's decision in the 1970s to also designate its semi-automatic hunting rifle the Browning BAR. The SLA converted a .30-06 Browning BAR hunting rifle and a .243 Remington Model 742 to automatic fire by filing down the sear, and it was these weapons that were used in the shootout.
In US military service
World War I
At its inception, the M1918 was intended to be used as a shoulder-fired rifle capable of both semi-automatic and fully automatic fire. First issued in September 1918 to the American Expeditionary Forces, it was based on the concept of "walking fire", a French practice in use since 1916 for which the CSRG 1915 (Chauchat) had been used accompanying advancing squads of riflemen toward the enemy trenches, as regular machine guns were too cumbersome to move with the troops during an assault.
In addition to shoulder-fired operation, BAR gunners were issued a belt with magazine pouches for the BAR and sidearm along with a "cup" to support the stock of the rifle when held at the hip. In theory, this allowed the soldier to lay suppressive fire while walking forward, keeping the enemy's head down, a practice known as "marching fire". The idea would resurface in the submachine gun and ultimately the assault rifle. It is not known if any of the belt-cup devices actually saw combat use.
The BAR only saw minor action in France during World War I, being brought into action only as late as September 1918, less than three months before Armistice Day. The intentional delay had been inspired by General Pershing, the AEF commander, in order not to let the BAR fall into enemy hands too early. Fifty-two thousand BARs were available by the end of the war in November.
Interwar use
During the interwar years, as the U.S. Army was reduced significantly in size, the BAR remained in the smaller extant Regular Army and by the 1930s, was also issued to state national guard units to be maintained at their armories. Given the part-time nature, smaller manning and lesser security of these national guard armories when compared to regular army installations, some BARs were subject to plunder by domestic civilian criminal elements.
The BAR was also standard issue to US naval landing forces during the period. The weapon was a standard item in US warship armories, and each BAR was accompanied by a spare barrel. Large capital ships often had over 200 BARs on board, with many of the US Navy BARs remaining in service well into the 1960s.
The BAR also saw action with US Marine Corps units participating in the Haitian and Nicaraguan interventions, as well as with US Navy shipboard personnel in the course of patrol and gunboat duty along the Yangtze River in China. The First Marine Brigade stationed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, noted that training a man to use the BAR proficiently took a full two days of range practice and instruction, compared to half a day with the .45 caliber Thompson submachine gun.
Prior to World War II, both the US Army and Marine Corps had a separate BAR squad together with three rifle squads in the "square" organisation of the time. When converting to the "triangular" organisation the separate BAR squad was eliminated with BARs going to each rifle squad.
World War II
When the threat of a new war arose, Ordnance belatedly realized that it had no portable, squad light machine gun, and attempted to convert the M1918 BAR to that role with the adoption of the M1918A2 by the US Army on 30 June 1938. The BAR was issued as the sole automatic fire support for a twelve-man squad, and all men were trained at the basic level how to operate and fire the weapon in case the designated operators were killed or wounded. At the start of the war, infantry companies designated three-man BAR teams, a gunner, an assistant gunner, and an ammunition bearer who carried additional magazines for the gun. By 1944, some units were using one-man BAR "teams" with the other riflemen in the squad detailed to carry additional magazines or bandoliers of .30 ammunition. Contrary to certain claims, the BAR was issued to soldiers of various heights.
As originally conceived, US Army tactical doctrine called for one M1918A2 per squad, using several men to support and carry ammunition for the gun. Fire and movement tactics centered on the M1 riflemen in the squad while the BAR man was detailed to support the riflemen in the attack and provide mobility to the riflemen with a base of fire. This doctrine received a setback early in the war after US ground forces encountered German troops, well-armed with automatic weapons including fast-firing, portable machine guns. In some cases, particularly in the attack, every fourth German infantryman was equipped with an automatic weapon, either a submachine gun or a full-power machine gun.
In an attempt to overcome the BAR's limited continuous-fire capability, US Army divisions increasingly began to specify two BAR fire teams per squad, following the practice of the US Marine Corps. One team would typically provide covering fire until a magazine was empty, whereupon the second team would open fire, thus allowing the first team to reload. In the Pacific, the BAR was often employed at the point or tail of a patrol or infantry column, where its firepower could help break contact on a jungle trail in the event of an ambush. After combat experience showed the benefits of maximizing portable automatic firepower in squad-size formations, the US Marine Corps began to increase the number of BARs in its combat divisions, from 513 per division in 1943 to 867 per division in 1945. A thirteen-man squad was developed, consisting of 3 four-man fire teams, with one BAR per fire team, or three BARs per squad. Instead of supporting the M1 riflemen in the attack, Marine tactical doctrine was focused around the BAR, with riflemen supporting and protecting the BAR gunner.
Despite the improvements in the M1918A2, the BAR remained a difficult weapon to master with its open bolt and strong recoil spring, requiring additional range practice and training to hit targets accurately without flinching. As a squad light machine gun, the BAR's effectiveness was mixed, since its thin, non-quick-change barrel and small magazine capacity greatly limited its firepower in comparison to genuine light machine guns such as the British Bren and the Japanese Type 96. The weapon's rate-reducer mechanism, a delicately balanced spring-and-weight system described by one ordnance sergeant as a "Rube Goldberg device", came in for much criticism, often causing malfunctions when not regularly cleaned. The bipod and buttstock rest (monopod), which contributed so much to the M1918A2's accuracy when firing prone on the rifle range, proved far less valuable under actual field combat conditions. The stock rest was dropped from production in 1942, while the M1918A2's bipod and flash hider were often discarded by individual soldiers and marines to save weight and improve portability, particularly in the Pacific Theater of war. With these modifications, the BAR effectively reverted to its original role as a portable, shoulder-fired automatic rifle.
Due to production demands, war priorities, subcontractor issues, and material shortages, demand for the M1918A2 frequently exceeded supply, and as late as 1945 some Army units were sent into combat still carrying older, unmodified M1918 weapons.
After a period of service, ordnance personnel began to receive BARs with inoperable or malfunctioning recoil buffer mechanisms. This was eventually traced to the soldier's common practice of cleaning the BAR in a vertical position with the butt of the weapon on the ground, allowing cleaning fluid and burned powder to collect in the recoil buffer mechanism. Additionally, unlike the M1 rifle, the BAR's gas cylinder was never changed to stainless steel. Consequently, the gas cylinder frequently rusted solid from the use of corrosive-primered M2 service ammunition in a humid environment when not stripped and cleaned on a daily basis. While not without design flaws (a thin-diameter, fixed barrel that quickly overheated, limited magazine capacity, complex field-strip/cleaning procedure, unreliable recoil buffer mechanism, a gas cylinder assembly made of corrosion-prone metals, and many small internal parts), the BAR proved rugged and reliable enough when regularly field-stripped and cleaned.
During World War II, the BAR saw extensive service, both official and unofficial, with many branches of service. One of the BAR's most unusual uses was as a defensive aircraft weapon. In 1944, Captain Wally A. Gayda, of the USAAF Air Transport Command, reportedly used a BAR to return fire against a Japanese Army Nakajima fighter that had attacked his C-46 cargo plane over the Hump in Burma. Gayda shoved the rifle out his forward cabin window, emptying the magazine and apparently killing the Japanese pilot.
Korean War
The BAR continued in service in the Korean War. The last military contract for the manufacture of the M1918A2 was awarded to the Royal Typewriter Co. of Hartford, Connecticut, which manufactured a total of 61,000 M1918A2s during the conflict, using ArmaSteel cast receivers and trigger housings. In his study of infantry weapons in Korea, historian S.L.A. Marshall interviewed hundreds of officers and men in after-action reports on the effectiveness of various U.S. small arms in the conflict. General Marshall's report noted that an overwhelming majority of respondents praised the BAR and the utility of automatic fire delivered by a lightweight, portable small arm in both day and night engagements. In his autobiography Colonel David Hackworth praised the BAR as 'the best weapon of the Korean War'.
A typical BAR gunner of the Korean War carried the twelve-magazine belt and combat suspenders, with three or four extra magazines in pockets. Extra canteens, .45 pistol, grenades, and a flak vest added still more weight. As in World War II, many BAR gunners disposed of the heavy bipod and other accoutrements of the M1918A2, but unlike the prior conflict the flash hider was always retained because of its utility in night fighting.
The large amounts of ammunition expended by BAR teams in Korea placed additional demands on the assistant gunner to stay in close contact with the BAR at all times, particularly on patrols. While the BAR magazines themselves always seemed to be in short supply, Gen. Marshall reported that "riflemen in the squad were markedly willing to carry extra ammunition for the BAR man".
In combat, the M1918A2 frequently decided the outcome of determined attacks by North Korean and Chinese communist forces. Communist tactical doctrine centered on the mortar and machine gun, with attacks designed to envelop and cut off United Nations forces from supply and reinforcement. Communist machine gun teams were the best-trained men in any given North Korean or Chinese infantry unit, skilled at placing their heavily camouflaged and protected weapons as close to UN forces as possible. Once concealed, they often surprised UN forces by opening fire at very short ranges, covering any exposed ground with a hail of accurately sighted machine gun fire. Under these conditions it was frequently impossible for US machine gun crews to move up their Browning M1919A4 and M1919A6 guns in response without taking heavy casualties; when they were able to do so, their position was carefully noted by the enemy, who would frequently kill the exposed gun crews with mortar or machine gun fire while they were still emplacing their guns. The BAR gunner, who could stealthily approach the enemy gun position alone (and prone if need be), proved invaluable in this type of combat.
During the height of combat, the BAR gunner was often used as the 'fire brigade' weapon, helping to bolster weak areas of the perimeter under heavy pressure by communist forces. In defense, it was often used to strengthen the firepower of a forward outpost. Another role for the BAR was to deter or eliminate enemy sniper fire. In the absence of a trained sniper, the BAR proved more effective than the random response of five or six M1 riflemen.
Compared to World War II, US infantry forces saw a huge increase in the number of night engagements. The added firepower of the BAR rifleman and his ability to redeploy to 'hot spots' around the unit perimeter proved indispensable in deterring night infiltration by skirmishers as well as repelling large-scale night infantry assaults.
While new-production M1918A2 guns were almost universally praised for faultless performance in combat, a number of malfunctions in combat were reported with armory-reconditioned M1918A2s, particularly weapons that had been reconditioned by Ordnance in Japan, which did not replace operating (recoil) springs as a requirement of the reconditioning program. After decades of complaints, ordnance addressed the problem of maintaining the problematic gas piston on the BAR by issuing disposable nylon gas valves. When the nylon valve became caked over with carbon, it could be discarded and replaced with a fresh unit, eliminating the tedious task of cleaning and polishing the valve with wire brush and GI solvent (frequently in short supply to line units).
Vietnam War
The M1918A2 was used in the early stages of the Vietnam War, when the US delivered a quantity of "obsolete", second-line small arms to the South Vietnamese Army and associated allies, including the Montagnard hill tribespeople of South Vietnam. US Special Forces advisors frequently chose the BAR over currently available infantry weapons. As one Special Forces sergeant declared, "Many times since my three tours of duty in Vietnam I have thanked God for ... having a BAR that actually worked, as opposed to the jamming M16 ... We had a lot of Viet Cong infiltrators in all our [Special Forces] camps, who would steal weapons every chance they got. Needless to say, the most popular weapon to steal was the venerable old BAR."
Post-Vietnam use
Quantities of the BAR remained in use by the Army National Guard up until the mid-1970s. Many recipients of US foreign aid adopted the BAR and used it into the 1980s and 1990s.
Users
: Adopted in 1930, built under licence by Fabrique Nationale
: Two Colt Automatic Rifles were used in the 1923 revolution in Rio Grande do Sul by Loyalist forces. Used by the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in WWII <ref>{{cite book|last1=Maximiano|first1= Cesar|last2=Bonalume|first2= Ricardo N|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6q6HCwAAQBAJ|title=Brazilian Expeditionary Force in World War II|publisher=Osprey Publishing|year= 2011|isbn=9781849084833|series=Men at Arms 465|page=45}}</ref>
: A large number were seized from the Republic of China during the Chinese Civil War.
: Used by nationalist forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War and subsequent Chinese Civil War, most of them armed with FN Mle 30s
: Colt commercial BAR and M1918A2 BAR, used by Castro's rebels during the Cuban Revolution. Anticastrists machine gunners of the Brigade 2506 were also equipped with M1918A2 BARs.
: FN type D in 7.92 Mauser
: FN Mle 30 and M1918 BAR
: FN Mle 30 and Swedish m/21
: Supplied to Free French forces during World War II and later used during Indochina War and Algerian War. Known as the Fusil-mitrailleur 7 mm 62 (C. 30) M. 18 (B. A. R.).
: The Wehrmacht captured a number of Polish-made Browning wz. 1928 guns and used them until the end of World War II under the designation IMG 28(p): FN Model D in limited service.
: Used FN Model Ds.
: Used the M1918A2 as the Fucile Mitragliatore Browning (B.A.R.) cal. 7,62.
: Used some FN Mle 30s. Most of them were taken from disarmed Chinese forces with original markings removed to use Japanese markings. Used M1918A2 post-war by National Police Reserve.
: The Armed Forces received 1,198 M1918A2 before the Korean War, and 11,768 were in service with the Army by the end of the war. Also used as squad automatic weapon in early years of the Vietnam War by the ROK Forces in Vietnam.
: Received from US Government during Laotian Civil War and Vietnam War.
: Introduced to the Korps Mariniers in 1943 with the creation of the Mariniersbrigade. Known as the Browning Automatisch Geweer M.1918 A2'', 243 BARs were in use with the Mariniersbrigade. The Koninklijke Landmacht also used the M1918A2 whilst fighting in the Korean War under United Nations command.
: The Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua used the BAR, first supplied by the US Marines and later by the US Military Assistance Program (MAP) continuously from 1932 to 1979.
: used during the anti-Japanese guerillas and by the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the Hukbalahap Rebellion
: Ex-French BARs used by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
: Used by the ARVN, most provided as surplus
: Bought some Colt commercial BARs. Some ex-Polish wz. 1928s also used during the war.
: 25,000 bought from 1940, issued to the Home Guard units
:FN Model D
See also
FM 24/29 light machine gun
Lewis automatic machine gun, British support gun
Kg m/40 light machine gun
Mendoza RM2
Model 45A
Ribeyrolles 1918 automatic carbine
Weibel M/1932
Notes
References
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.
.
.
.
.
.
FM 23–15: Basic Field Manual — Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 (27 Aug 1940).
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External links
FM 23-15 Basic Field Manual Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, M1918A2 with Bipod
YouTube animation showing mechanism of BAR 1918
.30-06 Springfield battle rifles
.30-06 Springfield machine guns
.303 British battle rifles
.303 British machine guns
6.5×55mm battle rifles
6.5×55mm machine guns
7.92×57mm Mauser battle rifles
7.92×57mm Mauser machine guns
Firearms by John Browning
Gas-operated firearms
Light machine guns
Rifles of the United States
United States Marine Corps equipment
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1918
Weapons of the Philippine Army
World War I infantry weapons of the United States
World War I machine guns
World War II infantry weapons of the United States
World War II machine guns
World War II infantry weapons of Brazil
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn%20Technical%20High%20School
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Brooklyn Technical High School
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Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is a public high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is one of the three original specialized high schools operated by the New York City Department of Education, along with Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science. Brooklyn Tech is considered one of the country's most prestigious and selective high schools.
Admission to Brooklyn Tech involves taking the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test and scoring the cutoff for Brooklyn Tech. Each November, about 30,000 eighth and ninth graders take the 3-hour test for admittance to eight of the nine specialized high schools. About 1,400 to 1,500 students are admitted each year.
Brooklyn Tech counts top scientists, inventors, innovators, Fortune 500 company CEOs and founders, high-ranking diplomats, academic scholars, literary and media figures, professional athletes, National Medal recipients, Nobel laureates, and Olympic medalists among its alumni.
Overview
Admission
Admission to Brooklyn Tech is based exclusively on the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), open to all eighth-grade and first-time ninth-grade New York City students. The test has math (word problems and computation) and verbal (reading comprehension and grammar) sections. Of the approximately 30,000 students taking the SHSAT for September 2011 admission, with 23,085 students listing Brooklyn Tech as a choice on their application, about 1,951 offers were made (the most of any of the specialized high schools, partly due to the school's size).
Graduation requirements
Per the New York State graduation requirements, students can earn a local diploma, a Regents diploma, or an advanced Regents diploma.
To earn a Brooklyn Tech diploma, students must meet "service credit" requirements (which can be dated to at least the 1950s and likely earlier) in addition to the Advanced Regents Diploma requirements.
Beginning with the class of 2010, each student must meet the following requirements by the end of their senior year to receive a Brooklyn Tech diploma:
I. A minimum of 50 hours of community service outside of the school or through specified club activities.
II. A minimum of 32 service credits earned through participation in Tech clubs, teams, and/or participation in designated school related events.
Service credits are earned as follows:
8 service credits per term to all students in Legacy Clubs; Student Government (SGO); Student Productions; and/or PSAL Teams (including Cheerleading),
6 service credits per term to all students working on office squads; participating in Student Leadership; who hold membership in a chapter of an honor society; and/or are in clubs that represent Brooklyn Tech in some significant activities,
4 service credits per term to all students who participate in all other clubs not referred to above.
Service Credits numbering less than a maximum of 4 can be given to students who participate in unique, yet insignificant activities as determined by a member of faculty.
Reputation
Brooklyn Tech is one of the most elite, prestigious and selective high schools in the United States. Together with Stuyvesant High School and Bronx High School of Science, it is one of the three original Specialized High Schools of New York City, operated by the New York City Department of Education, all three of which The Washington Post cited in 2006 as among the country's best magnet schools (a category the school is often placed in, though its founding predates the concept of a "magnet school", whose intended purpose was not the same). Admission is by competitive examination. As a public school, BTHS has no tuition fee, but only students who reside in New York City are allowed to attend, as per the Hecht-Calandra Act.
Brooklyn Tech ranked 2nd in New York State on the 2021 U.S. News & World Report "Best High Schools" list, making it the highest ranked Specialized High School. In 2008, Newsweek listed it among five public high schools that were not in the magazine's 13 "Public Elite" ranking, explaining, "Newsweeks Challenge Index is designed to recognize schools that challenge average students, and not magnet or charter schools that draw only the best students in their areas. These [...] were excluded from the list of top high schools because [...] their sky-high SAT and ACT scores indicate they have few or no average students". Brooklyn Technical High School consistently appears in the U.S. News and World Reports list of the top 50 High Schools in the United States.
Brooklyn Tech is a founding member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology. Routinely, 99% of its graduates are accepted to four-year colleges with the 2020 graduating class being offered more than $150 million in scholarships and grants. In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked Brooklyn Tech among the nation's 50 best high schools for mathematics and science. It was ranked #2 on Niche's "Standout High Schools in America" list.
History
In 1918, Dr. Albert L. Colston, chair of the Math Department at Manual Training High School, recommended establishing a technical high school for Brooklyn boys. His plan envisioned a heavy concentration of math, science, and drafting courses with parallel paths leading either to college or to a technical career in industry. By 1922, Dr. Colston's concept was approved by the Board of Education, and Brooklyn Technical High School opened in a converted warehouse at 49 Flatbush Avenue Extension, with 2,400 students. This location, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, is the reason the school seal bears that bridge's image, rather than the more obvious symbol for the borough, the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Tech would occupy one more location before settling into its site at 29 Fort Greene Place, for which the groundbreaking was held in 1930.
Early years
Atypical for American high schools, Brooklyn Tech uses a system of college-style majors. The curriculum consists of two years of general studies with a technical and engineering emphasis, followed by two years of a student-chosen major.
The curriculum remained largely unchanged until the end of Dr. Colston's 20-year term as principal in 1942. Upon his retirement, Tech was led briefly by acting principal Ralph Breiling, who was succeeded by Principal Harold Taylor in 1944. Tech's modernization would come under Principal William Pabst, who assumed stewardship in 1946 after serving as chair of the Electrical Department. Pabst created new majors and refined older ones, allowing students to select science and engineering preparatory majors including Aeronautical, Architecture, Chemical, Civil, Electrical (later including Electronics and Broadcast), Industrial Design, Mechanical, Structural, and Arts and Sciences. A general College Preparatory curriculum was added later.
Principal Pabst retired in 1964. A railroad club was established by the late Vincent Gorman, a social studies teacher, and students attended fan trips, tours of rail repair facilities and participated in the restoration of steam engine #103 and a historic rail passenger car at the former Empire State Railroad Museum. In August 1965, a ten-year-old boy named Carl Johnson drowned in the swimming pool at Brooklyn Tech while swimming with his day-camp group. The next year, more than 30 graduating Seniors in the school (including many student leaders) complained that Tech's curriculum was old and outdated. Their primary complaint was that the curriculum was geared toward the small minority of students who were not planning on attending college. In 1967, the schools of New York City got to view television in the classrooms for the first time, thanks to the 420-foot WNYE-TV tower atop Brooklyn Tech.
For the school year beginning in the last half of 1970, young women began attending; all three NYC specialized and test-required science high schools were now coeducational.
Incorporation into specialized high school system and later years
In 1972, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, Stuyvesant High School, and High School for Performing Arts become incorporated by the New York State Legislature as specialized high schools of New York City. The act called for a uniform exam to be administered for admission to Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, and Stuyvesant. The exam would become known as the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) and tested students in Math and English. With its statewide recognition, the school had to become co-educational. Previous to this, Brooklyn Tech was All Boys, and had a sister school, Bay Ridge High School which was all girls.
In 1973, Tech celebrated its 50th anniversary with a dinner-dance at the Waldorf Astoria. To further commemorate the anniversary, a monument was erected, with a time capsule beneath it, in the north courtyard. The monument has eight panels, each with a unique design representing each of Tech's eight majors at that point.
In 1983, Matt Mandery's appointment as principal made him the first Tech alumnus to hold that position. The following year, Tech received the Excellence in Education award from the U.S. Department of Education. The Alumni Association was formally created during this time, and coalitions were formed with the New York City Department of Transportation. Mandery oversaw the addition of a Bio-Medical major to the curriculum. John Tobin followed as principal in 1987, abolished the Materials Science department, and closed the seventh-floor foundry.
In the mid-1980s, a violent street gang known as the Decepticons were founded at Brooklyn Tech. As well, in 2000, the city issued a special report concerning the lack of notification to law enforcement during a string of robberies within the high school, including armed robbery with knives and stun guns.
Recent years
In March 1998, an alumni group led by Leonard Riggio, class of 1958, announced plans for a fund-raising campaign to raise $10 million to support their alma mater financially through facilities upgrades, the establishment of curriculum enhancements, faculty training, and a university-type endowment. The endowment fundraiser, the first of its kind for an American public school, received front-page attention in The New York Times and sparked a friendly competition amongst the specialized high schools, with both Bronx Science and Stuyvesant announcing their own $10 million campaigns within weeks of the Brooklyn Tech announcement. In November 2005, the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Association announced the completion of the fundraising phase of what they had termed the Campaign for Brooklyn Tech. In April 2008, the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation launched a second endowment campaign.
Sixteen alumni died in the September 11 attacks in 2001. They are Dennis Cross '59, Ronald F. Orsini '60, Joel Miller '63, Sheldon R. Kanter '66, Stephen Johnson '75, Danny Libretti '76, Dominick E. Calia '79, Dipti Patel '81, Andre Fletcher '82, Courtney W. Walcott '82, Gerard Jean Baptiste '83, Wai C. Chung '84, Paul Innella '85, Michael McDonnell '85, Thomas Tong '87, and Paul Ortiz '98.
Since 2001, Brooklyn Tech has undergone refurbishing such as the renovation of the school's William L. Mack Library entrance, located on the fifth-floor center section. As well, two computer labs were added. The school also reinstated a class devoted to the study of Shakespeare, which students can elect to take in their senior year.
Lee McCaskill
Dr. Lee D. McCaskill, the appointed principal in 1992, served for 14 years, during which Tech saw the installation of more computer classrooms and the switch from the traditional mechanical drawing by hand to teaching the use of computer-aided design programs.
In 2000, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the NYC School District wrote a report condemning Brooklyn Technical High School administrators for failing to report several armed robberies that took place in the bathrooms and stairwells.
In 2003, The New York Times published an investigative article that noted "longstanding tensions" between the faculty and Principal McCaskill, "spilled into the open in October, with news reports that several teachers accused him of repeatedly sending sexually explicit e-mail messages from his school computer to staff members." While the article praised him for his addition of music and sports programs, it mostly described the principal as autocratic, controlling the school "largely through fear and intimidation," and documented acts of personal vindictiveness toward teachers; severe censorship of the student newspaper and of assigned English texts, including the refusal to let the Pulitzer Prize-finalist novel Continental Drift by Russell Banks be used for a class; and of bureaucratic mismanagement. A follow-up column in 2004 found that there was increased teacher exodus, specifically documenting Principal McCaskill's campaign against Alice Alcala, who described as one of the city's leading Shakespeare teachers. Alcala had won Brooklyn Tech a $10,000 grant and brought in the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain for student workshops, but after Alcala had done so, McCaskill repeatedly denied her access to the auditorium and gave her low performance rankings. Shortly after, Alcala left for Manhattan's Murry Bergtraum High School, where she brought in $1,800 in grants for Shakespeare education; meanwhile, at Brooklyn Tech, there was no longer any course solely devoted to Shakespeare, according to the column.
In two newspaper articles in 2005, it was revealed that a $10,000 grant obtained by Dr. Sylvia Weinberger in 2001 to refurbish the obsolete radio studio remained unused. New classroom computers were covered in plastic rather than installed because the classrooms had yet to be wired for them.
The Office of Special Investigations of the New York City Department of Education launched an investigation of McCaskill on February 2, 2006, concerning unpaid enrollment of New Jersey resident McCaskill's daughter in a New York City public school, which is illegal for non-residents of the city. Dr. McCaskill produced a lease claiming that he rented an apartment in Brooklyn, but the copyright date on the lease was after the signatures were dated. On February 6, McCaskill announced his resignation from Brooklyn Tech and agreed to pay $19,441 in restitution.
A week later special commissioner Richard J. Condon rebuked the Department of Education for allowing McCaskill to retire, still collecting $125,282 in accrued vacation time, just days before the OSI completed its investigation. Condon also recommended that Cathy Furman McCaskill, the principal's wife, be dismissed from her position as a teacher at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn for her part in submitting fake leases and other fraudulent documents to indicate the family lived in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn. The next day, the Department of Education announced that it would fire her. After retiring from Brooklyn Tech, McCaskill became principal of Hillside High School in New Jersey, where in 2013, he resigned following accusations he spanked a female student.
Randy Asher
On February 7, 2006, the Department of Education named Randy Asher, founding principal of the High School for Math, Science and Engineering (HSMSE), as interim acting principal. Asher had previously served as Brooklyn Tech's assistant principal in mathematics from 2000 to 2002 before leaving to become founding principal of HSMSE. During his time as principal, the total student enrollment increased from 4,200 to 5,700. In the beginning of January 2017, Asher abruptly left Tech to take on a new position as an NYC Education Department senior advisor to help reduce the Absent Teacher Reserve. Throughout Asher's tenure, the school's reputation was sullied by several allegations of sexual harassment and assault of students by faculty members, resulting in the termination of Sean Shaynak (an aerospace engineering teacher hired by Asher) and the reassignment of English teacher and school newspaper advisor David Lo. Music teacher Marisa Cazanave abruptly resigned in the fall of 2016 when faced with charges of having an inappropriate relationship with a male student. The school was also rocked by allegations of racism against black students and Asher faced mounting student pressure on social media to fix the situation. Following Asher's departure, former assistant principal David Newman took on the new position as acting principal of the specialized high school. In February 2020, Newman was appointed principal.
Building and facilities
The school, built on its present site in 1932 at a cost of $6 million, is 12 stories high, and covers over half a city block. Brooklyn Technical High School is directly across the street from Fort Greene Park. Facilities at BTHS include:
Gymnasia on the first and eighth floors, with a mezzanine running track above the larger first floor gym and a weight room on the third floor boys locker room. The eighth floor gym had a bowling alley lane and an adjacent wire-mesh enclosed rooftop sometimes used for handball, golf and for tennis practice.
25-yard swimming pool in the basement
Wood, machine, sheet metal and other specialized shops. A program involves a shop where an actual house is built and framed by students. Most have been converted into normal classrooms or computer labs, except for a few robotics shops, such as the Ike Heller Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Robotics Center.
A foundry on the seventh floor, with a floor of molding sand used for creating sand casting molds and equipped with furnaces, kilns, ovens and ancillary equipment for metal smelting. Students made wooden patterns in pattern making, which were used to make sand molds which were cast in the foundry and machined to specification in the machine shops. It was closed in the late 1980s.
Materials testing lab, used during the basic materials science (Strength of Materials) class. Included industrial capacity Universal Testing Machine and brinell hardness tester and polishing and microscopic examination rooms. During the 1960s, students attended "inspection training shop" and were taught to use x-ray analysis to detect metal fatigue failures, use of vernier measuring instruments, micrometers, and go-no-go gauges.
Aeronautical lab, featuring a large wind tunnel, During the 1960s, a T-6 Texan U.S. Air Force surplus aircraft in the building was used for student aeronautical mechanic instruction.
Radio studio and 18,000 watt transmitter licensed by the Federal Communications Commission as WNYE (FM). The studio has not been used since the 1980s.
3,100-seat auditorium, with two balconies—the 4th largest auditorium in New York City
Recital hall on the ninth floor
Drafting, both pencil and ink technical drawing and freehand drawing rooms
Library with defunct fireplaces
Football field on Fulton and Clermont Streets. The Football Field, named in honor of Brooklyn Tech Alumnus Charles Wang, was opened in 2001, with the home opener played October 6, 2001, against DeWitt Clinton High School.
Access to Fort Greene Park for outdoor track, tennis, etc.
Mock courtroom for use by the Law & Society major and the Mock Trial Team.
The 420-foot WNYE-FM tower atop the school is three times taller than the building. The entire structure combined is tall. It was the tallest structure in Brooklyn, beating out AVA DoBro by only one foot, but beaten in 2017 with the completion of The Hub, which is 13 feet taller.
In 1934, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which later became the Works Projects Administration (WPA), commissioned artist Maxwell B. Starr to paint a mural in the foyer depicting the evolution of man and science throughout history.
Transportation
The New York City Subway's Fulton Street () and Lafayette Avenue () stations are located nearby, as well as more BMT and IRT services at DeKalb Avenue and Atlantic Terminal, which also serves the Long Island Rail Road. Additionally, New York City Bus's and routes stop near Brooklyn Tech. Students residing a certain distance from the school are provided full-fare or half-fare student MetroCards for public transportation on their first day of school at BTHS, as well as the first day of each school term onward.
Academics
Brooklyn Tech uses a college-style system of majors, unusual for an American high school. Below is the list of majors at Brooklyn Tech.
Aerospace engineering
Architectural engineering
Biological sciences
Chemical engineering
Civil engineering
Media communications
Electrical engineering
Environmental science research
Finance
Industrial design
Law and society
LIU advanced health professions
LIU PharmD
Applied mathematics
Mechatronics and robotics
Pharmaceutical sciences
Physics
Social science research
Software engineering
Students are placed into a major during the second semester of their sophomore year after ranking all the majors in order of preference. These majors include courses, typically Advanced Placement or Project Lead the Way (PLTW) courses, that concentrate in that specific area of interest given to students during their last two years at Tech. Each major has a different formula (PI index) used to rank students according to their ranking preference of the majors and their current averages from freshman and sophomore year. A student with a higher PI index for their second preference if they did not get into their first, will get priority over another student with a lower average on the same major preference.
Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist, wrote in The New York Times that "The success of Brooklyn Tech only casts an unflattering light on every other corner of the public school bureaucracy."
Extracurricular activities
Brooklyn Tech fields 30 junior-varsity and varsity teams in the Public School Athletic League (PSAL). The school's historic team name has been the Engineers. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school's more than 100 organizations include the Brooklyn Tech Amateur Radio Club (club station call sign W2CXN), Civil Air Patrol Brooklyn Tech Cadet Squadron, chess, debate, football, wrestling, forensics (speech), hockey, mock trial, robotics, and rowing teams and clubs, and The Survey, the official school newspaper. Tech has a literary art journal, Horizons, for those who want to express themselves through art, poetry, photography, and prose. The Model United Nations provides students with a venue for discussing foreign affairs and also hosts a conference each year called TechMUN. Other clubs cater to a wide range of topics such as anime, the Stock Market, Dance Dance Revolution, ultimate Frisbee, politics, quilting, fashion, debate (which offers Public Forum, Congress and Policy), table tennis and animal rights. The cheerleading squad is named the Enginettes. In 2012, Tech students created a Junior State of America Chapter at their school. Brooklyn Tech has its own student union, to address issues on a student level. Tech has a variety of community service clubs, such as Key Club, Red Cross Club, and BETA. Tech students put on a musical each spring.
There are two step teams, Lady Dragons and Organized C.H.A.O.S.
The school has several Coordinator of Student Activities (COSA).
Notable alumni
A list of notable alumni of Brooklyn Technical High School is listed below. Brooklyn Technical High School also has a unique Hall of Fame, which lists alumni who have contributed significantly to STEM. Such alumni are noted below.
Gary Ackerman '60 – United States Representative, New York (1983–2013)
Warren Adler '45 – novelist
David Antin, '50 – poet, art critic, professor
Henry L. Bachman, President of IEEE in 1987. Vice President of BAE Systems
Karol J. Bobko '54 – NASA astronaut (1999 Hall of Fame inductee)
George R. Caron '38 – Tail gunner aboard the Enola Gay
John Catsimatidis '66 – chairman and CEO, Red Apple Group
Frank A. Cipriani, Ph.D., '51 – President, SUNY at Farmingdale (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Harry Chapin '60 – Entertainer, humanitarian (2000 Hall of Fame inductee)
Tom Chapin '62 – Entertainer, humanitarian
Lorenzo Charles '81 – Professional basketball player
Cordell Cleare – New York State Senator
Kim Coles '80 – Actress
Diane Dixon '82 – U.S. Track and Field Olympic gold medalist (1984)
John Piña Craven '42 – Chief Scientist, US Navy Special Projects Office
James E. Dalton '49 – former Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; retired United States Air Force general (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Tavonia Evans, African-American author, businesswoman, cryptocurrency expert, and educator
Richard Fariña '55 – Writer, folksinger
Lou Ferrigno '69 – Bodybuilder, actor
Sidney Gordin, artist, professor
Meredith Gourdine, Ph.D., '48 – Electrogasdynamics pioneer, '52 Olympic silver medalist] (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Warren Foster '23 – Cartoon music composer
Geoff Fox '68 – WTNH meteorologist
Bernard Friedland '48 – engineer, professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology
Elmer L. Gaden c.'40 – "The father of biochemical engineering"
Carl Gatto '55 – Alaska House of Representatives from 2003 to 2012
Gerry Goffin '57 – Brill Building lyricist
Francis Grasso '67 – Early disco DJ
David Groh '58 – actor, television's Rhoda
Gary Gruber, Ph.D., '58 – Author, physicist, testing expert
Arthur Hauspurg – former Chairman of Consolidated Edison
Isaac Heller (1926-2015, class of 1943), toy manufacturer who co-founded Remco (2013 Hall of Fame inductee)
Herbert L. Henkel '66 – former Chairman of Ingersoll Rand Corporation
Tommy Holmes '35 – Major League Baseball player
Joseph J. Jacobs, Ph.D., '34 – Author, engineer, humanitarian (2003 Hall of Fame inductee)
Lamont Jones (born 1972) - basketball player
Marvin Kitman '47 – Author, Newsday television critic] (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Joseph J. Kohn, '50 – Mathematician (2000 Hall of Fame inductee)
Richard LaMotta '60 – Founder of Chipwich, ice cream sandwich company
Jerry Landauer – investigative journalist with The Wall Street Journal
Ivan Lee '99 – Internationally ranked saber fencer
Al Lerner '51 – Businessman, ran MBNA and former owner of the Cleveland Browns
MSgt. Meyer S. Levin '34 – Decorated Army Air Force hero, World War II (1999 Hall of Fame inductee)
Harvey Lichtenstein '47 – Executive Director, Brooklyn Academy of Music (1967–99) (1999 Hall of Fame inductee)
Turk Lown, Major League Baseball player
Jack Maple '70 – New York City Deputy Police Commissioner for Crime Control Strategies (1994-1996) and developer of CompStat process; completed high school equivalency after dropping out
Richard Matheson '43 – Author, screenwriter
Barry Mayo '70 – Radio executive
Matthew F. McHugh '56 – U.S. Congressman (1975–93)
Londell McMillan '83 – Attorney
Conrad McRae '89 – Professional basketball player
Everett Mendelsohn 1949 - Historian of science
Saverio "Sonny" Morea '50 – American aerospace engineer, former NASA employee, and flight instructor. He managed the development of the Rocketdyne F-1 and Rocketdyne J-2 for the Apollo program Saturn V rocket, as well as the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
Anthony "Tony" Moran '82 – DJ, remix/record producer
Zellnor Myrie '04 – New York State Senator
Richie Narvaez '82 – Author
Mike Nieves – Deputy Chief of Staff to New York City Council Speakers Christine Quinn, Gifford Miller and Peter Vallone
Ronnie Nunn '68 – NBA Director of Officials
Arno Allan Penzias, Ph.D. '51 – 1978 Nobel laureate in physics (2000 Hall of Fame inductee)
Frederik Pohl '37 – science fiction author, editor and fan; dropped out due to family exigencies during the Great Depression; received honorary diploma in 2009
Vernon Reid '76 – Musician, Living Colour
Sal Restivo, Ph.D., '58 – Author, researcher] (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Leonard Riggio '58 – chairman, Barnes & Noble (1999 Hall of Fame inductee)
Werner Roth '66 – Professional soccer hall-of-famer
Albert Ruddy '48 – Two-time Academy Award-winning producer
Mark Sarvas '82 – Novelist, book critic
Steven Sasson '68 – National Medal of Technology and Innovation-winner for work on digital photography (2013 Hall of Fame inductee)
John P. Schaefer, President Emeritus of the University of Arizona.
Raymond Scott '27 – composer, pianist, engineer
Irwin Shapiro '47 – astrophysicist
Keeth Smart '96 – Men's fencing silver medalist, 2008 Olympics
Erinn Smart '97 – Women's fencing silver medalist, 2008 Olympics
Chris Stanley – Radio producer for the Ron and Fez show
George Wald, Ph.D., '23 – Biologist, '67 Nobel Laureate] (1998 Hall of Fame inductee)
Charles B. Wang '62 – Co-founder, Computer Associates International; minority owner, New York Islanders hockey team (2000 Hall of Fame inductee)
Anthony D. Weiner '81 – United States Representative from New York (1999–2011)
Robert Anton Wilson '50 – countercultural writer, futurist and Playboy associate editor
Jumaane Williams '94 – New York City Public Advocate and former New York City Council member
Walter Yetnikoff '49 – attorney and record industry executive
Paul Yesawich '41 – professional basketball player
Marilyn Zayas '82 – Judge, Ohio's First District Court of Appeals
Lee David Zlotoff '70 – television writer
In popular culture
The Brooklyn Tech Cheerleading Squad appeared in the 1988 Spike Lee film School Daze, and a video for the movie, entitled "Da Butt", was shot at Brooklyn Tech.
Lee also used the first floor gymnasium as a shooting location for Jesus Shuttlesworth's, played by Ray Allen, Sportscenter preview in He Got Game..
School interiors for the pilot episode of the 2013 series The Tomorrow People were filmed in Brooklyn Tech. (Subsequent episodes were filmed in Vancouver rather than New York City.)
Brooklyn Tech was also used to film the FOX series Gotham.
See also
Education in New York City
List of high schools in New York City
Notes
References
Bibliography
Photographer's tour of school, archived photos and article
External links
The Tech Internet Radio Project
Brooklyn Tech Robotics Team 334: The TechKnights
Brooklyn Tech Alumni Association
InsideSchools.org: H.S. 430 Brooklyn Technical High School
1922 establishments in New York City
Educational institutions established in 1922
New York City Department of Education
Public high schools in Brooklyn
Specialized high schools in New York City
School sexual abuse scandals
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auslan
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Auslan
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Auslan () is the sign language used by the majority of the Australian Deaf community. The term Auslan is a portmanteau of "Australian Sign Language", coined by Trevor Johnston in the 1980s, although the language itself is much older. Auslan is related to British Sign Language (BSL) and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL); the three have descended from the same parent language, and together comprise the BANZSL language family. Auslan has also been influenced by Irish Sign Language (ISL) and more recently has borrowed signs from American Sign Language (ASL).
As with other sign languages, Auslan's grammar and vocabulary is quite different from English. Its origin cannot be attributed to any individual; rather, it is a natural language that emerged spontaneously and has changed over time.
Recognition and status
Auslan was recognised by the Australian government as a "community language other than English" and the preferred language of the Deaf community in policy statements in 1987 and 1991. However, this recognition has yet to filter through to many institutions, government departments, and professionals who work with Deaf people.
The emerging status of Auslan has gone hand-in-hand with the advancement of the Deaf community in Australia, beginning in the early 1980s. In 1982, the registration of the first sign language interpreters by NAATI, a newly established regulatory body for interpreting and translating, accorded a sense of legitimacy to Auslan, furthered by the publishing of the first dictionary of Auslan in 1989 (Johnston, 1989). Auslan began to emerge as a language of instruction for Deaf students in primary and secondary schools from the late 1980s—mainly through the provision of Auslan/English interpreters in mainstream (hearing) schools with deaf support units, but also in some specialised bilingual programmes for deaf children. Boosted by the 1992 enactment of the federal Disability Discrimination Act, Auslan/English interpreters are also increasingly provided in tertiary education.
Today there is a growing number of courses teaching Auslan as a second language, from an elective language subject offered by some secondary schools to a two-year full-time diploma at TAFE.
Auslan content on television in Australia is limited. For some time, "Deaf TV", which was entirely in Auslan and was produced by Deaf volunteers, aired on community television station Channel 31 in Melbourne. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Auslan experienced a period of increased visibility through press conferences from federal and state leaders and health officials, which invariably featured Auslan interpreters. Since 2020, the ABC News channel's Sunday 5pm bulletin has included Auslan interpretation.
Prominent advocates for Auslan
In 2006 David Gibson was the first member of any Parliament in Australia to give a maiden speech in Auslan and was involved in Auslan events for the National Week of Deaf People at the Queensland Parliament, including the use of Auslan interpreters for question time and a debate between members of the deaf community and members of parliament on disability issues in 2007.
The Young Australian of the Year for 2015, Drisana Levitzke-Gray, is a strong proponent of Auslan and, in her acceptance speech using Auslan, called on the Government of Australia, and Australians, to learn and use Auslan as a natural language, as a human right for Australians.
History
Auslan evolved from sign language varieties brought to Australia during the nineteenth century from Britain and Ireland. The earliest record of a deaf Australian was convict Elizabeth Steel, who arrived in 1790 on the Second Fleet ship "Lady Juliana". There is as yet no historical evidence, however, that she used a sign language. One of the first known signing Deaf immigrants was the engraver John Carmichael who arrived in Sydney in 1825 from Edinburgh. He had been to a Deaf school there, and was known as a good storyteller in sign language.
Thirty-five years later, in 1860, a school for the Deaf was established by another Deaf Scotsman, Thomas Pattison—the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in New South Wales. In Victoria just a few weeks later, the Victorian College for the Deaf was founded by a Deaf Englishman, Frederick J Rose, who had been educated at the Old Kent Road School in London. These schools and others had an enormous role in the development of Auslan, as they were the first contact with sign language for many Deaf children. Because they were residential boarding schools, they provided ample opportunity for the language to thrive, even though in many schools, signing was banned from the classroom for much of the 20th century.
Irish Sign Language (ISL) also had an influence on the development of Auslan, as it was used in Catholic schools until the 1950s. The first Catholic school for Deaf children was established in 1875 by Irish nuns. As such, like Auslan evolving from BSL, Australian Irish Sign Language (or AISL) was born. Unlike British Sign Language, both ISL and AISL use a one-handed alphabet originating in French Sign Language (LSF), and although this alphabet has now almost disappeared from Australia, some initialised signs from the ISL/AISL manual alphabet are still used in Auslan.
In more recent times, Auslan has seen a significant amount of lexical borrowing from American Sign Language (ASL), especially in signs for technical terms. Some of these arose from the Signed English educational philosophies of the 1970s and 80s, when a committee looking for signs with direct equivalence to English words found them in ASL and/or in invented English-based signed systems used in North America and introduced them in the classroom. ASL contains many signs initialised from an alphabet which was also derived from LSF, and Auslan users, already familiar with the related ISL alphabet, accepted many of the new signs easily.
Grammar
Word Order
Previously, Auslan had been said to be an OSV, but more recent scholars have said that this idea is a false-equivalent of Auslan with spoken languages and that using anchor signs is not the same as word order. In general, word order in Auslan takes into account context and fluidity between signs being used, being less rigid than many spoken languages. Rather, Auslan instead follows the clause/word order off TTC—Time, topic, comment. The frequency of SVO in Auslan may come from code-switching with English (with very high bilingualism for Auslan users), as it is more common with "loan words (signs), English-based idiomatic phrases [and] fingerspelling" as well as by those who learned Auslan later in life.
In question phrases, the question word must always be at the end in Auslan in open questions. This word order is the same for both questions and statements, with questions in Auslan formed by either adding a question word at the end of a clause TOM KICKED PETER WHY or using nonmanual features of a questioning expression.
Verbs
Verbs in Auslan which are depicting signs use head-marking to show the semantic role of the arguments, rather than subject/object. An example of this is the word give, which involves an actor and a recipient. Both of these arguments can both be expressed on the verb by using signing space.
Verb-predicates can be formed by using individual vocabulary words in sequential order (more commonly used by anglophones who speak Auslan as a second language) or using depicting signs, which can "blur" word order, as it allows for multiple signs to be used at once. This is generally a mark of high competence and fluency in the language. Lexicalisation of common predicates is common, and compounding is the most common way that new lexical items are produced.
Auslan is a zero-copula language, which means that the verb to be is not used at all except when quoting English (in which it is finger-spelt). Auslan replaces copula with interrogatives for certain phrase types, sometimes in this context called "rhetorical questions" or "modifiers", using non-manual features to express that it is a statement rather than a question. The interrogatives of Auslan are more or less direct translations to English ones, with WHY used for this purpose sometimes translated as BECAUSE. Examples of use are as follows:
Phoebe is an engineer : PHOEBE WHAT ENGINEER
She is at school : SHE WHERE SCHOOL
I went shopping with my sister : (BEFORE) I SHOP WITH WHO MY SISTER
Pronouns
Pronouns are established using the signing space, either arbitrary (for non-present people/things) or iconic. For example, "I will give you the doll tomorrow" would be signed as TOMORROW DOLL GIVE, with the sign GIVE starting at the speakers body and finishing at the receivers. The use of signing space also makes all pronouns non-gendered.
Auslan in relation to English
It is sometimes wrongly assumed that English-speaking countries share a single sign language. Auslan is a natural language distinct from spoken or written English. Its grammar and vocabulary often do not have direct English equivalents and vice versa. However, English, as the dominant language in Australia, has had a significant influence on Auslan, especially through manual forms such as fingerspelling and (more recently) Signed English.
It is difficult to sign Auslan fluently while speaking English, as the word order may be different, and there is often no direct sign-to-word equivalence. However, mouthing of an English word together with a sign may serve to clarify when one sign may have several English equivalents. In some cases, the mouth gesture that accompanies a sign may not reflect the equivalent translation in English (e.g. a sign meaning "thick" may be accompanied by a mouth gesture that does not resemble any English word).
Fingerspelling
A two-handed manual alphabet, identical to the one used in British Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language, is integral to Auslan. This alphabet is used for fingerspelling proper nouns such as personal or place names, common nouns for everyday objects, and English words, especially technical terms, for which there is no widely used sign. Fingerspelling can also be used for emphasis, clarification, or, sometimes extensively, by English-speaking learners of Auslan. The proportion of fingerspelling versus signs varies with the context and the age of the signer. A recent small-scale study puts fingerspelled words in Auslan conversations at about 10% of all lexical items, roughly equal to ASL and higher than many other sign languages, such as New Zealand Sign Language. The proportion is higher in older signers, suggesting that the use of fingerspelling has diminished over time.
Schembri and Johnston (2007) found that the most commonly fingerspelled words in Auslan include "so", "to", "if", "but" and "do".
Some signs also feature an English word's initial letter as a handshape from a one- or two-handed manual alphabet and use it within a sign. For example, part of the sign for "Canberra" incorporates the letter "C".
Signed English
Australasian Signed English was created in the late 1970s to represent English words and grammar, using mostly Auslan signs together with some additional contrived signs, as well as borrowings from American Sign Language (ASL). It was used largely in education for teaching English to Deaf children or for discussing English in academic contexts, and it is not clear to what extent this continues to be the case. It was thought to be much easier for hearing teachers and parents to learn another mode of English than to learn a new language with a complex spatial grammar such as Auslan.
The use of Signed English in schools is controversial with some in the Deaf community, who regard Signed English as a contrived and unnatural artificially constructed language. Signed English has now been largely rejected by Deaf communities in Australia and its use in education is dwindling; however, a number of its signs have made their way into normal use.
Acquisition and nativeness
Unlike oral languages, only a minority of Deaf children acquire their language from their parents (about 4 or 5% have Deaf parents). Most acquire Auslan from Deaf peers at school or later through Deaf community networks. Many learn Auslan as a "delayed" first language in adolescence or adulthood, after attempting to learn English (or another spoken/written language) without the exposure necessary to properly acquire it. The Deaf community often distinguish between "oral deaf" who grew up in an oral or signed English educational environment without Auslan, and those "Deaf Deaf" who learnt Auslan at an early age from Deaf parents or at a Deaf school. Regardless of their background, many Deaf adults consider Auslan to be their first or primary language, and see themselves as users of English as a second language.
Variation and standardisation
Auslan exhibits a high degree of variation, determined by the signer's age, educational background, and regional origin, and the signing community is very accepting of a wide range of individual differences in signing style.
There is no standard dialect of Auslan. Standard dialects arise through the support of institutions, such as the media, education, government and the law. As this support has not existed for most sign languages, coupled with the lack of a widely used written form and communications technologies, Auslan has probably diverged much more rapidly from BSL than Australian English has from British English.
Auslan was introduced to Papua New Guinea, where it mixed with local or home sign and Tok Pisin to produce Papua New Guinean Sign Language. Sign languages related to Auslan also appear to be used in some other parts of the Asia-Pacific, such as in Fiji.
Dialects
Linguists often regard Auslan as having two major dialects—Northern (Queensland and New South Wales), and Southern (Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia). The vocabulary of the two dialects traditionally differed significantly, with different signs used even for very common concepts such as colours, animals, and days of the week; differences in grammar appear to be slight.
These two dialects may have roots in older dialectal differences from the United Kingdom, brought over by Deaf immigrants who founded the first schools for the Deaf in Australia — varieties from the southeast of England in Melbourne and Scottish varieties in Sydney, although the relationship between lexical variation in the UK and Australia appears much more complicated than this (some Auslan signs appear similar to signs used in a range of regional varieties of BSL). Before schools were established elsewhere, Deaf children attended one of these two initial schools, and brought signs back to their own states. As schools opened up in each state, new signs also developed in the dormitories and playgrounds of these institutions. As a result, Auslan users can identify more precise regional varieties (e.g., "Sydney sign", "Melbourne sign", "Perth sign", "Adelaide sign" and "Brisbane sign"), and even vocabulary that may have been unique to individual schools. In a conversation between two strangers, one from Melbourne and the other from Perth, it is likely that one will use a small number of signs unfamiliar to the other, despite both belonging to the same "southern dialect". Signers can often identify which school someone went to, even within a few short utterances.
Despite these differences, communication between Auslan users from different regions poses little difficulty for most Deaf Australians, who often become aware of different regional vocabulary as they grow older, through travel and Deaf community networks, and because Deaf people are so well practised in bridging barriers to communication.
Indigenous Australian sign languages and Auslan
A number of Indigenous Australian sign languages exist, unrelated to Auslan, such as Warlpiri Sign Language and Yolngu Sign Language. They occur in the southern, central, and western desert regions, coastal Arnhem Land, some islands of the north coast, the western side of Cape York Peninsula, and on some Torres Strait Islands. They have also been noted as far south as the Murray River.
Deaf Indigenous people of Far North Queensland (extending from Yarrabah to Cape York) form a distinct signing community using a dialect of Auslan; it has features of Indigenous sign languages and gestural systems as well as signs and grammar of Auslan.
Written and recorded Auslan
Auslan has no written form; in the past transcribing Auslan was largely an academic exercise. The first Auslan dictionaries used either photographs or drawings with motion arrows to describe signs; more recently, technology has made possible the use of short video clips on CD-ROM or online dictionaries.
SignWriting, however, has its adherents in Australia.
A Silent Agreement was Australia's first theatrically released feature film to showcase Australian Sign Language in its main dialogue and as a plot element, with some scenes depicted entirely in Auslan. There is also one scene where the characters discuss the risky politics of using non-deaf actors using sign language in film.
See also
List of sign languages
References
Other references
Further reading
Johnston, T. & Schembri, A. (2007). Australian Sign Language (Auslan): An introduction to sign language linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
Johnston, T.A. & Wilkin, P. (1998; reprinted 2010, see Deaf Australia : Auslan Shop .) Signs of Australia : A new dictionary of Auslan (the sign language of the Australian Deaf community). North Rocks, NSW, Australia : North Rocks Press : Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children.
External links
www.auslan.org.au - An online dictionary of Auslan video clips
ASLIA - Australian Sign Language Interpreters Association
Auslan online dictionaries
The Endangered Languages Archive of Auslan recordings
BANZSL Sign Language family
Sign languages of Australia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiri%20Te%20Kanawa
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Kiri Te Kanawa
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Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa, , (; born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron, 6 March 1944) is a retired New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". Her extensive discography includes three albums which featured in the top forty in charts in Australia in the mid-1980s.
Te Kanawa received accolades in many countries, performing works composed in the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and singing in several languages. She was particularly associated with the music of Mozart, Strauss, Verdi, Handel and Puccini, and was often cast as an aristocrat.
Towards the end of her career, Te Kanawa appeared in opera only rarely, preferring to perform in concerts and recitals. She also devoted much of her time to giving masterclasses and supporting young opera singers through the period of their apprenticeship. Her final performance was in Ballarat, Australia, in October 2016, but she did not announce her retirement until September 2017.
Personal life
Te Kanawa was born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron in Gisborne, New Zealand, to Māori butcher Tieki "Jack" Wawatai and to Mary Noeleen Rawstron, who was the daughter of Irish immigrants. Wawatai was already married to Apo, the daughter of the Rev. Poihipi Kōhere. Rawstron's mother insisted the baby be given up for adoption. Te Kanawa was adopted as an infant by Thomas Te Kanawa, the owner of a successful trucking business, and his wife Nell.
She was educated at St Mary's College, Auckland, and formally trained in operatic singing by Sister Mary Leo Niccol. Te Kanawa began her singing career as a mezzo-soprano but developed into a soprano. Her recording of the "Nuns' Chorus" from the Strauss operetta Casanova was the first gold record produced in New Zealand.
Te Kanawa met Desmond Park on a blind date in London in August 1967, and they married six weeks later at St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland. They adopted two children, Antonia (born 1976) and Thomas (born 1979). The couple divorced in 1997. Te Kanawa never made an attempt to contact her biological parents, but her half-brother Jim Rawstron contacted her. Initially, she was unwilling to meet him, but agreed to do so in 1997. The episode ended bitterly, when a newspaper ran a story on their meeting; despite Rawstron denying contact with the newspaper, Te Kanawa has since reaffirmed her decision to have nothing to do with her birth family.
Career
In her teens and early 20s, Te Kanawa was a pop star and entertainer at clubs in New Zealand, and regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines. In 1963, she was runner-up to Malvina Major in the Mobil Song Quest with her performance of "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca, and in 1965 she won the same competition. As winner, she received a grant to study in London.
She appeared and sang in the 1966 musical comedy film Don't Let It Get You. In 1966, she won the Melbourne Sun-Aria contest, which Major had also won the previous year. Both singers had been taught by Sister Mary Leo.
Early years in London
In 1966, without an audition, she enrolled at the London Opera Centre to study under Vera Rózsa and James Robertson, who reputedly said Te Kanawa lacked a singing technique when she arrived at the school but had a gift for captivating audiences. She first appeared on stage as the Second Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute, as well as in performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in December 1968 at the Sadler's Wells Theatre. She also sang the title role in Donizetti's Anna Bolena. In 1969, she sang Elena in Rossini's La donna del lago at the Camden Festival, and was also offered the role of the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro after an audition of which the conductor, Colin Davis, said, "I couldn't believe my ears. I've taken thousands of auditions, but it was such a fantastically beautiful voice." Praise for her Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo led to an offer of a three-year contract as junior principal at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where she made her debut as Xenia in Boris Godunov and a Flower Maiden in Parsifal in 1970. Under director John Copley, Te Kanawa was carefully groomed for the role of the Countess for a December 1971 opening.
International career
Meanwhile, word of her success had reached John Crosby at the Santa Fe Opera, a summer opera festival in New Mexico then about to begin its 15th season. He cast her as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, which opened on 30 July 1971. The production also featured Frederica von Stade's first appearance in what was to be her signature role, Cherubino. According to a historian of the Santa Fe company, "It was two of the newcomers who left the audience dazzled: Frederica von Stade as Cherubino and Te Kanawa as the Countess. Everyone knew at once that these were brilliant finds. History has confirmed that first impression."
On 1 December 1971 at Covent Garden, Te Kanawa repeated her Santa Fe performance and created an international sensation as the Countess: "with 'Porgi amor' Kiri knocked the place flat." This was followed by performances as the Countess at the Opéra National de Lyon and San Francisco Opera in 1972. She first sang Desdemona in Otello in Glasgow in 1972, while her 1974 Metropolitan Opera début as Desdemona took place at short notice: she replaced an ill Teresa Stratas at the last minute. Te Kanawa sang at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1973, with further débuts in Paris and (1975), Sydney (1976), Milan (1978), Salzburg (1979), and Vienna (1980). In 1982, she gave her only stage performances as Tosca in Paris. In 1989, she added Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos to her repertory at Chicago, and, in 1990, the Countess in Capriccio, sung first at San Francisco and with equal success at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and the Met in 1998.
In subsequent years, Te Kanawa performed at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Paris Opera, Sydney Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, San Francisco Opera, Munich and Cologne, adding to her repertoire the Mozart roles of Donna Elvira, Pamina, and Fiordiligi to Italian roles such as Mimi in Puccini's La bohème. She played Donna Elvira in Joseph Losey's 1979 film adaptation of Don Giovanni. She was seen and heard around the world in 1981 by an estimated 600 million people when she sang Handel's "Let the bright Seraphim" at the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.
In 1984, Leonard Bernstein decided to re-record the musical West Side Story, conducting his own music for the first time. Generally known as the "operatic version", it starred Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". Te Kanawa was the first of the singers to join the project, saying, "I couldn't believe it...This was music I'd grown up with, music I'd always wanted to sing." The album won a Grammy Award for Best Cast Show Album in 1985, and the recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story.
Te Kanawa has a particular affinity for the heroines of Richard Strauss. Her first appearance in the title role in Arabella was at the Houston Grand Opera in 1977, followed by the roles of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and the Countess in Capriccio. Many performances were given under the baton of Georg Solti and it was with him that in 1981 she made a recording of The Marriage of Figaro.
She participated in Prince Edward's 1987 charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament.
In 1991, she premiered the theme song "World in Union" at the 1991 Rugby World Cup, which reached No.4 on the UK Singles Chart.
In 1992, she performed at the Last Night of the Proms, where she sang "Rule, Britannia!".
In 1995, Te Kanawa performed the role of Maria Boccanegra in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, along with Plácido Domingo, conducted by James Levine.
In later parts of her career, her appearances onstage became infrequent, although she remained busy as a concert singer. She appeared in performances in Samuel Barber's Vanessa in Monte Carlo (televised in 2001), with the Washington National Opera (2002), and the Los Angeles Opera in November to December 2004. Te Kanawa has appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in 2004.
In 2006, Te Kanawa sang "Happy Birthday" to Queen Elizabeth followed by "God Save The Queen" at the Commonwealth Games in Australia.
In April 2010, Te Kanawa sang the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in two performances at the Cologne Opera. That same year, she played the spoken part of The Duchess of Krakenthorp in La fille du régiment at the Metropolitan Opera, and sang a tango. She repeated this role at the Met in a revival during the 2011–12 season, repeating it again in Vienna in 2013 and at Covent Garden in March 2014, a run that encompassed her 70th birthday. In the meantime, she performed at Haruhisa Handa's inaugural Tokyo Global Concert at Nakano-Zero Hall in Nakano, Tokyo, Japan, on 10 September 2013. In October 2013 she appeared in the role of Nellie Melba in the television series Downton Abbey.
Retirement years
On 13 September 2017, Te Kanawa announced her retirement from performing. After retirement, she committed herself to nurture young artists, sitting as a judge in several singing competitions.
In 2021, she moved back to New Zealand permanently after living in the United Kingdom for 55 years. She was part of the official New Zealand delegation to the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
Initiatives
Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation
Te Kanawa established the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation in order that "talented young New Zealand singers and musicians with complete dedication to their art may receive judicious and thoughtful mentoring and support to assist them in realising their dreams." The foundation manages a trust fund that awards scholarships to young New Zealand singers and musicians.
Kiri Prize
In January 2010, Te Kanawa and BBC Radio 2 launched an initiative to find a gifted opera singer of the future. The initiative was the BBC Radio 2 Kiri Prize competition.
Following regional auditions of over 600 aspiring opera singers, 40 were invited to attend masterclasses in London with Te Kanawa, mezzo-soprano Anne Howells and conductor Robin Stapleton. From these classes 15 singers were selected for the semi-finals, which were broadcast on 5 consecutive weeks on BBC Radio 2's Friday Night Is Music Night. The semi-finalists were accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates, Richard Balcombe and Roderick Dunk and their performances were judged by Te Kanawa, Howells, Stapleton and director John Cox.
Five singers reached the final, which was broadcast on Radio 2 on 3 September 2010. The winner, soprano Shuna Scott Sendall, performed with Te Kanawa and José Carreras at the BBC Proms in the Park in Hyde Park, London on 11 September 2010, and was given the opportunity to attend a three-week residential course at the Solti Te Kanawa Accademia in Italy.
Views
Māori welfare
In a 2003 interview with the Melbourne-based Herald Sun, Te Kanawa criticised the high rate of welfare dependence among the Māori people, angering some of her compatriots.
Operatic pop
Te Kanawa revealed her disapproval of operatic pop singers in The New Zealand Herald'''s Canvas magazine of 23 February 2008, criticizing Hayley Westenra on the eve of her Starlight Symphony concert in the Auckland Domain.
Her comment was met with backlash from music critics and industry personnels, including producer Gray Bartlett, who discovered Westenra, and Katherine Jenkins via her spokesperson.
Litigation
In 2007, the event management company Leading Edge sued Te Kanawa for breach of contract after she cancelled a concert with Australian singer John Farnham. She cancelled after learning that his fans sometimes threw their underwear on stage, which he would then proudly display. The court found that no contract had been made by the two parties, so Te Kanawa was not liable for damages, but Mittane, the company that employs and manages her, was ordered to reimburse Leading Edge A$130,000 for expenditures already incurred.
Honours
Te Kanawa was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to music, in the 1973 Queen's Birthday Honours, and was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to opera, in the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honours. Appointed Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1988, she received the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal, and was appointed to the Order of New Zealand in the 1995 Queen's Birthday Honours. In the 1990 Australia Day Honours, she was appointed an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia, for services to the arts, particularly opera, and to the community.
She was portrayed as Saint Cecilia on the stained glass window in St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, which was unveiled in October 2012.
Appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to music, Dame Kiri was invested by the Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 20 December.
In November 2019, the ASB Theatre in the Aotea Centre was renamed the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in acknowledgement of the work she has done on the world stage and to mark her 75th birthday. Te Kanawa unveiled a plaque with the change before a gala held in her honour.
Awards
Te Kanawa was selected as Artist of the Year by Gramophone magazine in 1982. On 10 June 2008 she received the Edison Classical Music Award during the Edison Classical Music Gala (formerly the Grand Gala du Disque) in the Ridderzaal in The Hague. In 2012, Te Kanawa was awarded a World Class New Zealand award in the Iconic New Zealander category.
In 2006, Te Kanawa was awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Dame Julie Andrews during the 2006 International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles.
In 2010, she received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
Discography
Complete works
1971 – Verdi – Rigoletto – as Countess Ceprano in a studio recording with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge
1972 – Mozart – Exsultate Jubilate – (Exsultate, jubilate, Vesperae solennes de confessore, Kyrie in D minor, Ave verum corpus), Te Kanawa, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sir Colin Davis [Philips] (also re-issued 1986)
1972 – Mozart – Don Giovanni – as Donna Elvira in a studio recording with Covent Garden Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra, Colin Davis
1972 – Wagner – Parsifal – as a Flowermaiden in a studio recording with the Vienna Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti
1973 – Mozart – Great Mass in C minor – Studio recording with Ileana Cotrubas and the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard
1975 – Bizet – Carmen – as Micaëla in a studio recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti
1976 – Mozart – Le nozze di Figaro – Te Kanawa (Contessa Almaviva), Freni (Susanna), Prey (Figaro), Fischer-Dieskau (Conte Almaviva), Ewing (Cherubino), Begg (Marcellina), Montarsolo (Don Bartolo), Wiener Philharmoniker, conductor Karl Böhm [DVD]
1977 – Duruflé – Requiem/"Danse lente" – Te Kanawa, Nimsgern, Ambrosian Singers, Desborough School Choir, Andrew Davis, New Philharmonia Orchestra [CBS Schallplatten GmbH]
1977 – Mozart – Così fan tutte – as Fiordiligi in a studio recording under Alain Lombard. For details, see Così fan tutte (Alain Lombard recording).
1978 – Humperdinck – Hänsel und Gretel – as the Sandman in a studio recording under Sir John Pritchard. For details, see Hänsel und Gretel (John Pritchard recording).
1978 – Mozart – Die Zauberflöte – as Pamina in a studio recording under Alain Lombard
1979 – Brahms – A German Requiem – Variations on a Theme By Haydn – Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Bernd Weikl, Margaret Hillis [London Records]
1981 – Gay – The Beggar's Opera – as Polly Peachum in a studio recording with National Philharmonic Orchestra, Richard Bonynge
1981 – Mozart – Le nozze di Figaro – as Contessa Almaviva in a studio recording with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti. For details, see Le nozze di Figaro (Georg Solti recording).
1981 – Puccini – La rondine – as Magda de Civry in a studio recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel
1984 – Puccini – Tosca – as Floria Tosca in a studio recording under Georg Solti
1985 – Handel – Messiah – with Anne Gjevang, Keith Lewis, Gwynne Howell, Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Georg Solti [3xLP, Album + Box, London Records]
1985 – Leonard Bernstein – West Side Story – a recording of Bernstein's music for the Broadway production West Side Story, with José Carreras singing the part of Tony and Leonard Bernstein conducting the orchestra and chorus [Polygram 415253]
1986 – Richard Strauss – Arabella – as Arabella in a studio recording with Covent Garden Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra, Jeffrey Tate
1986 – Gounod – Faust – sang the role of Marguerite in a studio recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Colin Davis
1986 – Rodgers and Hammerstein – South Pacific – London Studio Cast, Kiri Te Kanawa, Mandy Patinkin, José Carreras and Sarah Vaughan – AUS No. 32
1987 – Puccini – Manon Lescaut – sang the title role in a studio recording with Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Riccardo Chailly
1987 – Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick 'Fritz' Loewe – My Fair Lady – a studio cast recording with Te Kanawa singing the role of Eliza Doolittle and Jeremy Irons singing the role of Henry Higgins [Polygram 421200]
1987 – Beethoven – Symphonie No.9 – Te Kanawa, Hamari, Burrows, Holl, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum [EMI]
1988 – Mozart – Così fan tutte – recorded the role of Fiordiligi again this time with Vienna State Opera, James Levine
1988 – Bach – St Matthew Passion – Te Kanawa, von Otter, Rolfe Johnson, Krause, Blochwitz, Bär, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti [Box, Album + 3xCD, Decca]
1988 – Fauré – Requiem · Pelléas Et Mélisande · Pavane – Te Kanawa, Milnes, Choeur De L'Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal, Orchestre Symphonique De Montréal, Charles Dutoit [Decca]
1989 – Verdi – Simon Boccanegra – in the role of Amelia Grimaldi in a studio recording with La Scala, Milan, Georg Solti
1989 – Mozart – Die Zauberflöte – recorded the role of Pamina again this time with Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
1990 – Johann Strauss II – Die Fledermaus – sang the part of Rosalinde with Vienna State Opera, André Previn
1990 – Mozart – Le nozze di Figaro – re-recorded the role of Contessa Almaviva in a studio recording with the Metropolitan Opera, James Levine
1990 – Richard Strauss – Der Rosenkavalier – sang the role of the Marschallin with the Semperoper Dresden under Bernard Haitink
1990 – Mozart – Der Schauspieldirector – sang the role of Mademoiselle Silberklang with the Vienna Philharmonic under John Pritchard
1992 – Tchaikovsky – Eugene Onegin – sang the role of Tatyana in a studio recording with Welsh National Opera under Charles Mackerras
1992 – Verdi – La traviata – sang the role of Violetta in a studio recording with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zubin Mehta
1992 – Mahler – Symphony No. 4 – Kiri Te Kanawa, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Georg Solti [Decca]
1993 – Wagner – Tannhäuser – sang the role of Elisabeth in a studio recording with the London Philharmonia Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers, Marek Janowski
1994 – Mozart – Great Mass in C minor – (chorus master: László Heltay) [Philips]
1994 – Puccini – La bohème – recorded the role of Mimì in a studio recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano
1996 – Richard Strauss – Capriccio – recorded the role of the Countess in a studio recording with Wiener Philharmoniker, Ulf Schirmer, Decca/London
1998 – Bizet – Carmen – Highlights – Troyanos, Domingo, Te Kanawa, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti [Decca]
Solo recitals, compilations, etc.
1973 – My Favourite Things [Hallmark, SHM 3218]
1974 – Herrmann – Salammbo's Aria from Citizen Kane – The Classic Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann – Kiri Te Kanawa, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Gerhardt [RCA Victor, BMG Classics]
1979 – Richard Strauss – Four Last Songs – London Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis [CBS Masterworks]
1981 – Mozart Concert Arias – Kiri Te Kanawa, Wiener Kammerorchester, Gyorgy Fischer [London/Decca Jubilee 417756]
1983 – Canteloube – Chants d'Auvergne (Songs of The Auvergne) / Villa-Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras [Polygram SXDL 7604]
1983 – Mozart Opera Arias – London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis [Philips], [Polygram 5414319]
1983 – Verdi & Puccini – London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Pritchard [CBS 37298]
1983 – The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala – Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine [Deutsche Grammophon DVD 00440 073 4538]
1984 – Come to the Fair – Folk Songs & Ballads – with the Medici String Quartet and members of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Douglas Gamley [EMI EMC 222]
1984 – Ave Maria – a collection of religious favorites with the English Chamber Orchestra and the Choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, London [Philips 412629]
1984 – A Portrait of Kiri Te Kanawa [CBS SBR 236068]
1985 – A Room with a View (OST) – the Puccini arias "O mio babbino caro" (Gianni Schicchi) and "Chi bel sogno di Doretta" (La Rondine) in the Merchant Ivory film A Room with a View [DRG CDSBL 12588]
1986 – Kiri – Blue Skies – with Nelson Riddle And His Orchestra [Polygram/Decca 414 666–1 ] – AUS No. 36
1986 – Christmas with Kiri (with Philharmonia Orchestra of London and Chorus, Carl Davis) London Classic / Polygram 1987 – Kiri Sings Gershwin, a collection of George Gershwin songs with the New Princess Theater Orchestra, John McGlinn [EMI] – AUS No. 37
1987 – Portrait [Polygram 417645]
1989 – Songs of Inspiration – Kiri Te Kanawa, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Julius Rudel [London/Decca/Polygram 425431]
1990 – Kiri in Recital – Liszt, Obradors, Ravel – Kiri Te Kanawa, with Roger Vignoles (Piano) [London/Decca 425820 ]
1990 – Italian Opera Arias – with London Symphony Orchestra, Myung-Whun Chung
1991 – Richard Strauss – Four Last Songs and other songs – with Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic
1991 – The Kiri Selection 1991 – Kiri Sings Kern 1991 – World in Union (Single, 7") – (Rugby Union World Cup Theme Song) [Columbia]
1992 – Paul McCartney and Carl Davis – Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (Movement VII: "Crises")
1992 – Kiri Sidetracks: The Jazz Album 1993 – Mozart Arias (Grand Voci) [Decca]
1993 – Classics – Mozart, Handel, Gounod, Schubet, Strauss [Philips 434725]
1994 – Heart to Heart (with Malcolm McNeill)
1994 – The Sorceress – arias from Handel operas with Hogwood and The Academy of Ancient Music
1994 – Kiri!: Her Greatest Hits Live [Decca 443600]
1994 – Kiri Sings Porter – Cole Porter songs [Angel]
1995 – Christmas with Kiri Te Kanawa: Carols from Coventry Cathedral – Kiri Te Kanawa, Michael George, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Robin Stapleton [Teldec]
1996 – Franz Schubert – Lieder – Judith Raskin, Kiri Te Kanawa, Elly Ameling, Peter Pears, Judith Blegen [Sony Classical]
1996 – James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala, [Deutsche Grammophon DVD, B0004602-09]
1997 – French Songs and Arias 1997 – Sole et amore – Puccini Arias – Te Kanawa, Vignoles, Orchestre de L'Opera National de Lyon, Kent Nagano [Erato]
1998 – The Greatest Classical Stars on Earth – Plácido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Luciano Pavarotti, Lesley Garrett, Nigel Kennedy (2CD, Compilation) [Decca]
1999 – Maori Songs (Air New Zealand) [EMI Classics 5 56828-2]
1999 – Greatest Hits [EMI Classics]
2001 – Kiri (also known as Kiri – The Best Of)
2003 – The Very Best Of
2004 – Kiri – A Portrait 2004 – Dame Kiri Te Kanawa & Friends: The Gala Concert – Gold
2005 – The Best of Kiri Te Kanawa [20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection]
2006 – Kiri Sings Karl: Songs of Mystery & Enchantment – arranged and conducted by Karl Jenkins [EMI Classics]
2013 – Waiata Sony Music Entertainment
References
Sources
Further reading
Interview with Kiri Te Kanawa and Sir John Pritchard by Bruce Duffie (19 December 1987).
External links
The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation
Kiri Te Kanawa discography at Operadis''
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Biography and Interview at the Academy of Achievement
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa collection of concert performance sets at the Alexander Turnbull Library
1944 births
Living people
People from Gisborne, New Zealand
New Zealand operatic sopranos
Traditional pop music singers
Crossover jazz singers
Māori opera singers
Māori-language singers
Ngāti Maniapoto people
New Zealand people of Irish descent
Singers awarded knighthoods
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Edison Classical Music Awards Oeuvreprijs winners
Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford
Fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
Members of the Order of New Zealand
New Zealand Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Honorary Companions of the Order of Australia
EMI Classics and Virgin Classics artists
Kanawa, Kiri Te
20th-century New Zealand women opera singers
21st-century New Zealand women opera singers
People educated at St Mary's College, Auckland
New Zealand Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
Officiers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Actresses awarded damehoods
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20ClueFinders
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The ClueFinders
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ClueFinders is an educational software series aimed at children aged 8–12 that features a group of mystery-solving teenagers. The series was created by The Learning Company (formerly SoftKey) as a counterpart to their Reader Rabbit series for older, elementary-aged students. The series has received praise for its balance of education and entertainment, resulting in numerous awards.
History
The Learning Company (1997–2001)
ClueFinders was conceived as a spiritual successor to the Reader Rabbit series. The first ClueFinders title, The ClueFinders 3rd Grade Adventures: The Mystery of Mathra, was released in 1998, and The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures was released in 2000. The Learning Company used their new game as the prototype for Internet Applet technology, which allowed users to download supplementary activities from the ClueFinders website. The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures was also the first game to include the A.D.A.P.T. technology, which allowed teachers and parents to monitor the player's progress and included auto-adjustable levels based on the player's abilities.
In 1998, The Learning Company was acquired by Mattel for $3.7 billion. The following year, Mattel sold off their "The Learning Company" assets to Gores Technology Group. In 2000, Mattel Interactive hired professional writers Jill Gorey and Barbara Herndon to design a concept for a TV series, but the franchise never made its way to television. The ClueFinders Reading Adventures was discontinued in 2000. ClueFinders held a writing competition in 2001. Sponsored by The Learning Company, the competition was open to 3rd-6th grade classrooms in the United States. The winning essay, a new adventure for the ClueFinders crew, won its writer an iMac.
Riverdeep/HMH (2001–present)
In 2001, Riverdeep acquired many of The Learning Company's properties from Gores Technology Group by selling $40 million in stock. Carmen Sandiego, ClueFinders, and Reader Rabbit were then licensed to the KidsEdge Website in 2002, where they were available to play among 170 games and activities. In 2003, The ClueFinders' Reading Adventures was reconfigured to run on Windows XP. The 2004 RCN InterACTION service allowed parents to stream over 35 games in series such as Carmen Sandiego, Clifford the Big Red Dog and ClueFinders over a broadband connection. Compilations of multiple previously released titles were added, such as ClueFinders Adventure Pack and ClueFinders Triple Pack. These bundle often include a single ClueFinders title (often "The ClueFinders Reading Adventures") along with other games (but mostly The Learning Company games), such as "Adventure Workshop" or "After School Clubhouse." In addition, the 3rd–6th grade titles were re-released on the iOS platform on December 19, 2010. As of 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (the successor of Riverdeep) is offering the ClueFinders brand as a licensing opportunity on its website.
Design
Plot
Development of the games' backstory took 16 months. The ClueFinders adventures take place in the real contemporary world, incorporating some elements of fantasy and science fiction.
The main cast of characters include:
Joni Savage (Josie Savage in UK version): ClueFinders founder
Santiago Rivera (Sebastian Robertson in UK version): The Spanish-American mechanically-minded member
Owen Lam: The Asian-American skater dude member
Leslie Clark (Lucy Clark in UK version): The African-American literary-minded member
LapTrap, The Turbo T.U.R.T.L.E.: The floating artificially intelligent laptop
Socrates: The intelligent dog and mascot
They were chosen to be around the same age as their player base after the art director ran various character designs by a group of kids. Some of the unsuccessful designs included animals, rock stars, and FBI agents, which the kids perceived as babysitters instead of teammates. Each character was designed with a distinct personality and identifiable faults to increase their relatability. The developers used a character grid to aid their writing, which contained information such as: "their flaws, their fears, how they met, where they grew up, and their likely reactions to certain situations."
In The ClueFinders 3rd Grade Adventures: The Mystery of Mathra, a great city was built 1000 years ago in the Numerian rainforest until a monster named Mathra invaded. After Mathra was captured, the Numerians abandoned their city, sealed the entrance, and hid the two halves of the key in the far corners of the rainforest. One part was hidden in the Monkey Kingdom and the latter in the Goo Lagoon. Animals had started to disappear in the rainforest once again and Joni's uncle, Dr. Pythagoras, also disappeared. Mr. Limburger (Lindman in the UK version) flies the ClueFinders in his airplane and briefs them on the events going on. The ClueFinders set off to find the lost doctor, animals, and the keys to the Lost Numerian City. However, the evidence suggests that there is more to the disappearances than a 1000-year-old monster as well as a sinister plot behind it.
In The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures: Puzzle of the Pyramid, the ClueFinders are on an adventure in Egypt with Professor Botch, Alistair Loveless, and their dog, Socrates. There, at a dig site, they uncover the tomb of Peribsen, a king from the second dynasty. Joni finds a mysterious ring and tries it on her finger, but it magically latches onto her finger. Later that night, Alistair Loveless and his goons kidnap Professor Botch and steal several valuable relics. Loveless intends to unleash Set, the Egyptian God of Evil and Chaos. The ClueFinders are left to recover the relics, rescue Professor Botch, and prevent Loveless and Set from wreaking havoc.
In The ClueFinders 5th Grade Adventures: Secret of the Living Volcano, the ClueFinders are on a mission with Captain Clark, Leslie's sailor grandfather, to find out why so many ships have been disappearing in a certain area of the Pacific Ocean. In one of the wrecked ships, Joni and Santiago discover a pair of metal plaques with strange symbols written on them called CrypTiles. However, when their ship comes into view of a tiny uncharted island, a tsunami promptly forms and hits their ship. Joni, Santiago and LapTrap are stranded on the island and set off to rescue their remaining team members, locate Captain Clark and his crew, and find out what sort of activities are happening on the island.
In The ClueFinders 6th Grade Adventures: The Empire of the Plant People, while playing a game of frisbee, Joni accidentally tosses the disc over the fence into the overgrown yard of their friendly neighbours, Miss Rose. When Joni and Santiago enter Miss Rose's yard to find the frisbee, the ground opens up and swallows them. Owen, Leslie, and LapTrap investigate to look for their lost team members and find a labyrinth under the yard inhabited by self-aware, anthropomorphic talking plants. They learn from a friendly plant named Ficus that the plants have captured Joni and Santiago and are concocting a plan to attack the town above.
In The ClueFinders Math Adventures Ages 9–12: Mystery in the Himalayas, in a village high in the Himalayas, twenty-four priceless treasures have been stolen. An elder of the village calls the ClueFinders to help uncover the treasures and the thief's identity. Many, including the elder's pessimistic apprentice, believe the Yeti is behind the theft, but the clues all point in different directions and it appears a different person is responsible for the theft of each item.
In The ClueFinders Reading Adventures: Mystery of the Missing Amulet, an asteroid has crashed in the Sierra Mountains. The ClueFinders approach the asteroid, discovering it is significantly cool despite its recent crash. Joni touches it, and the ClueFinders get beamed across space, arriving on the planet Millenia. The team is separated into two parts of the Millenia. Joni and Owen then meet Malveera, the princess of Millenia who brought them to help save her planet from the evil sorceress Malicia, who has also captured Santiago and Leslie. The only way to stop her and return to Earth is to locate the two halves of the Amulet of Life hidden by the Doldreks and the Sorrens.
In ClueFinders Search and Solve Adventures: The Phantom Amusement Park, one night, when the ClueFinders are observing a lunar eclipse from their clubhouse, they see an SOS signal coming from an abandoned amusement park on the edge of town. They find Jacques Ramone, the curator of the local art museum, is trapped at the top of the drop-tower ride. He tells them that he was kidnapped and placed there, but says he doesn't know why. After Joni and Owen rescue the curator, Santiago and Leslie are captured by the curator's sister, Mimi Ramone. Joni and Owen investigate the park and find some art supplies and damaged robots, indicating that some art forgery crime was taking place.
In The ClueFinders: The Incredible Toy Store Adventure, the ClueFinders are heading on a San Francisco cable car to the recently built toy store, Ultimate Toys. Owen goes to retrieve his wallet, along with Joni and LapTrap, while Leslie, Santiago, and AliTrap head into the store, only to be shot by a shrinking ray and captured into a sack. Once they escape from the sack, they realize they've been taken to the sixth floor. Using Owen's red video phone, they contact Leslie and Santiago and inform them of their plight, prompting Leslie and Santiago to try to rescue them. To do this Owen, Joni and LapTrap need to make their way into the toy store and construct a machine to reverse the shrinking effects while nabbing the perpetrator responsible for the shrinking of things in the toy store.
In The ClueFinders: Mystery Mansion Arcade, the ClueFinders explore a creepy house on a hill, thinking that Joni's uncle Dr. Horace Pythagoras sent a distress email that he was trapped in the house and needed rescue. It turns out to be a trap, and the four ClueFinders are separated. Four of the ClueFinders' previous enemies—Fletcher Limburger, Alistair Loveless, Pericles Lear, and Miss Rose—have joined forces with a mysterious new ally and created the trap to get revenge on the ClueFinders.
Gameplay
The series consists of "multi-subject by grade" programs, in which players practice skills and advance their understanding of grade-based content. The player can choose to play the adventure mode or to play the game's activities outside the adventure in "practice mode." Choosing to play the adventure will lead to a follow-up sequence, which further establishes the premise as well as the overall goal of the game. The bulk of each game involves traveling between different screens in a predetermined area that has various educational activities. The user will have to play these games to advance. Usually, each area will have one activity that needs to be completed to advance, but which can only be played by collecting items from all the other activities in the area.
In all of the games except for The ClueFinders 4th Grade Adventures, the ClueFinders are split into two teams at the start. A portable red videophone allows the two teams to make contact with each other and clicking on the phone provides the user with game hints from the other team. The other team will typically either be serving as backup, looking for clues or else be captured and in need of rescue. Games have different activities divided among different areas, each with their skill and goal. The games contain a number of parodies of and allusions to popular culture and other topics.
In The ClueFinders: Mystery Mansion Arcade, the activities are not as educationally based as the previous games but more arcade-oriented. The mini-games consist of an obstacle course, category matching, a maze game, and a pinball game. In The ClueFinders Math Adventures, the game is set up similar to Clue in that the central goal of each round is to identify three variables—who stole the treasure, which treasure they took, and where they hid it—based on clues. Clues are acquired from playing games and helping the villagers with their work. Using the acquired clues, the player can limit the number of possibilities until, with enough clues, only one remains. When 24 treasures are restored, the game is won.
Graphics and coding
During the gameplay, 2D computer graphics are used in the style of hand-drawn animated cartoons with animations that use thick outlines and solid colors on two-dimensional backgrounds. For this reason, the series is often described as imitating the look of a Saturday morning cartoon, Scooby-Doo being repeatedly cited by reviewers. Cutscenes, however, use pre-rendered 3D graphics.
Educational goals
While Reader Rabbit was popular with younger audiences, The Learning Company came up with ClueFinders to appeal to third graders and onward for both boys and girls. To match with kids' abstract thinking, the games were activity-centered and included cross-curriculum topics more sophisticated than preschool material, which included algebra, grammar, and spelling. To ensure that users actually learned something, the educational content came first before the puzzles, gameplay, and objectives.
Products in the series
List of games
Compilations
Books
Two ClueFinders books—The Mystery of Microsneezia and The Mystery of the Backlot Banshee were both written by Ellen Weiss and illustrated by Mel Friedman.
Reception
3rd Grade won the 1998 Gold Award from Parents' Choice. During the Opening Day of the Bologna Children's Book Fair on April 8, 1999, the game was awarded the Bologna New Media Prize for the Best Logical Thinking Program.
Computer Shopper and SuperKids described 3rd Grade Adventures as the educational equivalent of the Indiana Jones trilogy. Kiplinger's Personal Finance thought 4th Grade Adventures "works hard for its players' enjoyment." Discovery Education wrote that 5th Grade Adventures "seamlessly combines fun and learning." SuperKids praised the "cartoon quality animation and an alluring storyline" of Math Adventures and the Cluedo-inspired gameplay. 01Net asserted that in terms of 5th Grade Adventures, the activities take precedence over the merely incidental storyline. In 2001, the site described the series' graphics as "very colorful" and "truly seductive" but three years later the site decided they were outdated. Asbury Park Press noted that Reading Adventures, like Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, "placed reading games in the middle of mysteries."
Exploring Values Through Literature, Multimedia, and Literacy Events highlighted the series for its multicultural and balanced cast in which the nonwhite characters have equal status to the white character, noting that Leslie and Santiago are the main sources of knowledge. Though noted there were no examples of software with the primary character being non-white. Meanwhile, The Boston Herald commented that the series had "come a long way," the paper suggested that the decision to include a Caucasian (Joni), Asian (Owen), Black (Leslie), and Latino (Santiago) in its main cast smelt of interference from the California School Board standard. The paper praised the series' "television-quality animation, broad educational focus and lively situations," though thought the early games were uneven in difficulty. Exploring Values Through Literature, Multimedia, and Literacy Events further praised the series' focus on character interdependence, or how missions are not successful until and unless they work together. Children's Software Review managing editor Ellen Wolock criticized The Learning Company for focusing too much of its resources on repackaging its old software, commenting that she received the impression the company was "just throwing together" entries in its newer ClueFinders series. Working Mother thought the series offered a "painless way for kids to hone their skills." The Cincinnati Enquirer recommended the "strong" series to gamers who were unable to locate the then soon to be discontinued title The Sims: Livin' Large, and said "there is a lot to like" about entries in the series, such as the closed captioning of later titles.
One piece of research used the game as a "tool for assessing how children worked on computers in social interactions and influence acceptance by peers in classroom interactions". The Times Shepperton felt 4th Grade did a "nice job of integrating the learning activities into an engaging adventure." Battle Creek Enquirer and The Tennessean felt 4th Grade'''s strong sense of mystery encouraged players to learn academia. Arizona Republic felt Search and Solve would intrigue children due to having the right mix of "scariness and intrigue."4th Grade received positive reviews. All Game Guide gave the game four out five stars, writing, "the cut-scenes successfully build excitement, providing an incentive for completing the entire game [though there is no] real reason to play a second time... Gameplay is simple with an easy to use click or click-and-drag mouse control scheme, and the lack of a written manual is overcome with full explanations of all activities within the game...The game seems a delightful mix of adventure and learning." Game Vortex rated the game 80/100, saying, "Clue Finders 4th Grade Adventure: Puzzle of the Pyramid is a typical edutainment game that teaches your child the ins and outs of what he or she needs to know to make it through the fourth grade." 7Wolf Magazine rated the game 70/100.Reading Adventures gave mixed reviews. "Teacher reviewers were especially impressed with the reading comprehension section," they felt that "unfortunately, too many of the [activities] require fast-twitch gaming ability in addition to knowledge of the subject matter." Of the kids appeal, the review stated that "the activities themselves, however, are inconsistent. While some are novel and quite educational...others are tired repeats of games seen many times over in many other programs." It concluded by saying, "this likable Clue Finders adventure provides an entertaining way for kids to practice their reading and language skills. Students who need significant help with their reading skills would do better with a more academically oriented title, and those who are not adept gamers may become frustrated with some of the activities."
Commercial performance
As of 2001, the first six games have sold around 3.5 million copies.
Awards and nominations
Since its creation in 1998, the ClueFinders'' series has won over 50 awards and accolades in three years. The Incredible Toy Store was an Edutaining Kids General Learning software pick of 2001.
References
External links
Official website
User Manual
Children's educational video games
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt franchises
Mystery video games
Point-and-click adventure games
Software for children
The Learning Company games
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video game franchises introduced in 1998
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium%20in%20biology
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Magnesium in biology
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Magnesium is an essential element in biological systems. Magnesium occurs typically as the Mg2+ ion. It is an essential mineral nutrient (i.e., element) for life and is present in every cell type in every organism. For example, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the main source of energy in cells, must bind to a magnesium ion in order to be biologically active. What is called ATP is often actually Mg-ATP. As such, magnesium plays a role in the stability of all polyphosphate compounds in the cells, including those associated with the synthesis of DNA and RNA.
Over 300 enzymes require the presence of magnesium ions for their catalytic action, including all enzymes utilizing or synthesizing ATP, or those that use other nucleotides to synthesize DNA and RNA.
In plants, magnesium is necessary for synthesis of chlorophyll and photosynthesis.
Function
A balance of magnesium is vital to the well-being of all organisms. Magnesium is a relatively abundant ion in Earth's crust and mantle and is highly bioavailable in the hydrosphere. This availability, in combination with a useful and very unusual chemistry, may have led to its utilization in evolution as an ion for signaling, enzyme activation, and catalysis. However, the unusual nature of ionic magnesium has also led to a major challenge in the use of the ion in biological systems. Biological membranes are impermeable to magnesium (and other ions), so transport proteins must facilitate the flow of magnesium, both into and out of cells and intracellular compartments.
Human health
Inadequate magnesium intake frequently causes muscle spasms, and has been associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, migraines, osteoporosis, and cerebral infarction. Acute deficiency (see hypomagnesemia) is rare, and is more common as a drug side-effect (such as chronic alcohol or diuretic use) than from low food intake per se, but it can occur in people fed intravenously for extended periods of time.
The most common symptom of excess oral magnesium intake is diarrhea. Supplements based on amino acid chelates (such as glycinate, lysinate etc.) are much better-tolerated by the digestive system and do not have the side-effects of the older compounds used, while sustained-release dietary supplements prevent the occurrence of diarrhea. Since the kidneys of adult humans excrete excess magnesium efficiently, oral magnesium poisoning in adults with normal renal function is very rare. Infants, which have less ability to excrete excess magnesium even when healthy, should not be given magnesium supplements, except under a physician's care.
Pharmaceutical preparations with magnesium are used to treat conditions including magnesium deficiency and hypomagnesemia, as well as eclampsia. Such preparations are usually in the form of magnesium sulfate or chloride when given parenterally. Magnesium is absorbed with reasonable efficiency (30% to 40%) by the body from any soluble magnesium salt, such as the chloride or citrate. Magnesium is similarly absorbed from Epsom salts, although the sulfate in these salts adds to their laxative effect at higher doses. Magnesium absorption from the insoluble oxide and hydroxide salts (milk of magnesia) is erratic and of poorer efficiency, since it depends on the neutralization and solution of the salt by the acid of the stomach, which may not be (and usually is not) complete.
Magnesium orotate may be used as adjuvant therapy in patients on optimal treatment for severe congestive heart failure, increasing survival rate and improving clinical symptoms and patient's quality of life.
Nerve conduction
Magnesium can affect muscle relaxation through direct action on cell membranes. Mg2+ ions close certain types of calcium channels, which conduct positively charged calcium ions into neurons. With an excess of magnesium, more channels will be blocked and nerve cells activity will decrease.
Hypertension
Intravenous magnesium sulphate is used in treating pre-eclampsia. For other than pregnancy-related hypertension, a meta-analysis of 22 clinical trials with dose ranges of 120 to 973 mg/day and a mean dose of 410 mg, concluded that magnesium supplementation had a small but statistically significant effect, lowering systolic blood pressure by 3–4 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 2–3 mm Hg. The effect was larger when the dose was more than 370 mg/day.
Diabetes and glucose tolerance
Higher dietary intakes of magnesium correspond to lower diabetes incidence. For people with diabetes or at high risk of diabetes, magnesium supplementation lowers fasting glucose.
Dietary recommendations
The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) updated Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for magnesium in 1997. If there is not sufficient information to establish EARs and RDAs, an estimate designated Adequate Intake (AI) is used instead. The current EARs for magnesium for women and men ages 31 and up are 265 mg/day and 350 mg/day, respectively. The RDAs are 320 and 420 mg/day. RDAs are higher than EARs so as to identify amounts that will cover people with higher than average requirements. RDA for pregnancy is 350 to 400 mg/day depending on age of the woman. RDA for lactation ranges 310 to 360 mg/day for same reason. For children ages 1–13 years the RDA increases with age from 65 to 200 mg/day. As for safety, the IOM also sets Tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. In the case of magnesium the UL is set at 350 mg/day. The UL is specific to magnesium consumed as a dietary supplement, the reason being that too much magnesium consumed at one time can cause diarrhea. The UL does not apply to food-sourced magnesium. Collectively the EARs, RDAs and ULs are referred to as Dietary Reference Intakes.
* = Adequate intake
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) refers to the collective set of information as Dietary Reference Values, with Population Reference Intake (PRI) instead of RDA, and Average Requirement instead of EAR. AI and UL defined the same as in United States. For women and men ages 18 and older the AIs are set at 300 and 350 mg/day, respectively. AIs for pregnancy and lactation are also 300 mg/day. For children ages 1–17 years the AIs increase with age from 170 to 250 mg/day. These AIs are lower than the U.S. RDAs. The European Food Safety Authority reviewed the same safety question and set its UL at 250 mg/day - lower than the U.S. value. The magnesium UL is unique in that it is lower than some of the RDAs. It applies to intake from a pharmacological agent or dietary supplement only, and does not include intake from food and water.
Labeling
For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a percent of daily value (%DV). For magnesium labeling purposes 100% of the daily value was 400 mg, but as of May 27, 2016, it was revised to 420 mg to bring it into agreement with the RDA. A table of the old and new adult Daily Values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.
Food sources
Green vegetables such as spinach provide magnesium because of the abundance of chlorophyll molecules, which contain the ion. Nuts (especially Brazil nuts, cashews and almonds), seeds (e.g., pumpkin seeds), dark chocolate, roasted soybeans, bran, and some whole grains are also good sources of magnesium.
Although many foods contain magnesium, it is usually found in low levels. As with most nutrients, daily needs for magnesium are unlikely to be met by one serving of any single food. Eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains will help ensure adequate intake of magnesium.
Because magnesium readily dissolves in water, refined foods, which are often processed or cooked in water and dried, in general, are poor sources of the nutrient. For example, whole-wheat bread has twice as much magnesium as white bread because the magnesium-rich germ and bran are removed when white flour is processed. The table of food sources of magnesium suggests many dietary sources of magnesium.
"Hard" water can also provide magnesium, but "soft" water contains less of the ion. Dietary surveys do not assess magnesium intake from water, which may lead to underestimating total magnesium intake and its variability.
Too much magnesium may make it difficult for the body to absorb calcium. Not enough magnesium can lead to hypomagnesemia as described above, with irregular heartbeats, high blood pressure (a sign in humans but not some experimental animals such as rodents), insomnia, and muscle spasms (fasciculation). However, as noted, symptoms of low magnesium from pure dietary deficiency are thought to be rarely encountered.
Following are some foods and the amount of magnesium in them:
Pumpkin seeds, no hulls ( cup) = 303 mg
Chia seeds, ( cup) = 162 mg
Buckwheat flour ( cup) = 151 mg
Brazil nuts ( cup) = 125 mg
Oat bran, raw ( cup) = 110 mg
Cocoa powder ( cup) = 107 mg
Halibut (3 oz) = 103 mg
Almonds ( cup) = 99 mg
Cashews ( cup) = 89 mg
Whole wheat flour ( cup) = 83 mg
Spinach, boiled ( cup) = 79 mg
Swiss chard, boiled ( cup) = 75 mg
Chocolate, 70% cocoa (1 oz) = 73 mg
Tofu, firm ( cup) = 73 mg
Black beans, boiled ( cup) = 60 mg
Quinoa, cooked ( cup) = 59 mg
Peanut butter (2 tablespoons) = 50 mg
Walnuts ( cup) = 46 mg
Sunflower seeds, hulled ( cup) = 41 mg
Chickpeas, boiled ( cup) = 39 mg
Kale, boiled ( cup) = 37 mg
Lentils, boiled ( cup) = 36 mg
Oatmeal, cooked ( cup) = 32 mg
Fish sauce (1 Tbsp) = 32 mg
Milk, non fat (1 cup) = 27 mg
Coffee, espresso (1 oz) = 24 mg
Whole wheat bread (1 slice) = 23 mg
Biological range, distribution, and regulation
In animals, it has been shown that different cell types maintain different concentrations of magnesium. It seems likely that the same is true for plants. This suggests that different cell types may regulate influx and efflux of magnesium in different ways based on their unique metabolic needs. Interstitial and systemic concentrations of free magnesium must be delicately maintained by the combined processes of buffering (binding of ions to proteins and other molecules) and muffling (the transport of ions to storage or extracellular spaces).
In plants, and more recently in animals, magnesium has been recognized as an important signaling ion, both activating and mediating many biochemical reactions. The best example of this is perhaps the regulation of carbon fixation in chloroplasts in the Calvin cycle.
Magnesium is very important in cellular function. Deficiency of the nutrient causes disease of the affected organism. In single-cell organisms such as bacteria and yeast, low levels of magnesium manifests in greatly reduced growth rates. In magnesium transport knockout strains of bacteria, healthy rates are maintained only with exposure to very high external concentrations of the ion. In yeast, mitochondrial magnesium deficiency also leads to disease.
Plants deficient in magnesium show stress responses. The first observable signs of both magnesium starvation and overexposure in plants is a decrease in the rate of photosynthesis. This is due to the central position of the Mg2+ ion in the chlorophyll molecule. The later effects of magnesium deficiency on plants are a significant reduction in growth and reproductive viability. Magnesium can also be toxic to plants, although this is typically seen only in drought conditions.
In animals, magnesium deficiency (hypomagnesemia) is seen when the environmental availability of magnesium is low. In ruminant animals, particularly vulnerable to magnesium availability in pasture grasses, the condition is known as 'grass tetany'. Hypomagnesemia is identified by a loss of balance due to muscle weakness. A number of genetically attributable hypomagnesemia disorders have also been identified in humans.
Overexposure to magnesium may be toxic to individual cells, though these effects have been difficult to show experimentally. Hypermagnesemia, an overabundance of magnesium in the blood, is usually caused by loss of kidney function. Healthy animals rapidly excrete excess magnesium in the urine and stool. Urinary magnesium is called magnesuria. Characteristic concentrations of magnesium in model organisms are: in E. coli 30-100mM (bound), 0.01-1mM (free), in budding yeast 50mM, in mammalian cell 10mM (bound), 0.5mM (free) and in blood plasma 1mM.
Biological chemistry
Mg2+ is the fourth-most-abundant metal ion in cells (per moles) and the most abundant free divalent cation — as a result, it is deeply and intrinsically woven into cellular metabolism. Indeed, Mg2+-dependent enzymes appear in virtually every metabolic pathway: Specific binding of Mg2+ to biological membranes is frequently observed, Mg2+ is also used as a signalling molecule, and much of nucleic acid biochemistry requires Mg2+, including all reactions that require release of energy from ATP. In nucleotides, the triple-phosphate moiety of the compound is invariably stabilized by association with Mg2+ in all enzymatic processes.
Chlorophyll
In photosynthetic organisms, Mg2+ has the additional vital role of being the coordinating ion in the chlorophyll molecule. This role was discovered by Richard Willstätter, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1915 for the purification and structure of chlorophyll binding with sixth number of carbon
Enzymes
The chemistry of the Mg2+ ion, as applied to enzymes, uses the full range of this ion's unusual reaction chemistry to fulfill a range of functions. Mg2+ interacts with substrates, enzymes, and occasionally both (Mg2+ may form part of the active site). In general, Mg2+ interacts with substrates through inner sphere coordination, stabilising anions or reactive intermediates, also including binding to ATP and activating the molecule to nucleophilic attack. When interacting with enzymes and other proteins, Mg2+ may bind using inner or outer sphere coordination, to either alter the conformation of the enzyme or take part in the chemistry of the catalytic reaction. In either case, because Mg2+ is only rarely fully dehydrated during ligand binding, it may be a water molecule associated with the Mg2+ that is important rather than the ion itself. The Lewis acidity of Mg2+ (pKa 11.4) is used to allow both hydrolysis and condensation reactions (most common ones being phosphate ester hydrolysis and phosphoryl transfer) that would otherwise require pH values greatly removed from physiological values.
Essential role in the biological activity of ATP
ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the main source of energy in cells, must be bound to a magnesium ion in order to be biologically active. What is called ATP is often actually Mg-ATP.
Nucleic acids
Nucleic acids have an important range of interactions with Mg2+. The binding of Mg2+ to DNA and RNA stabilises structure; this can be observed in the increased melting temperature (Tm) of double-stranded DNA in the presence of Mg2+. In addition, ribosomes contain large amounts of Mg2+ and the stabilisation provided is essential to the complexation of this ribo-protein. A large number of enzymes involved in the biochemistry of nucleic acids bind Mg2+ for activity, using the ion for both activation and catalysis. Finally, the autocatalysis of many ribozymes (enzymes containing only RNA) is Mg2+ dependent (e.g. the yeast mitochondrial group II self splicing introns).
Magnesium ions can be critical in maintaining the positional integrity of closely clustered phosphate groups. These clusters appear in numerous and distinct parts of the cell nucleus and cytoplasm. For instance, hexahydrated Mg2+ ions bind in the deep major groove and at the outer mouth of A-form nucleic acid duplexes.
Cell membranes and walls
Biological cell membranes and cell walls are polyanionic surfaces. This has important implications for the transport of ions, in particular because it has been shown that different membranes preferentially bind different ions. Both Mg2+ and Ca2+ regularly stabilize membranes by the cross-linking of carboxylated and phosphorylated head groups of lipids. However, the envelope membrane of E. coli has also been shown to bind Na+, K+, Mn2+ and Fe3+. The transport of ions is dependent on both the concentration gradient of the ion and the electric potential (ΔΨ) across the membrane, which will be affected by the charge on the membrane surface. For example, the specific binding of Mg2+ to the chloroplast envelope has been implicated in a loss of photosynthetic efficiency by the blockage of K+ uptake and the subsequent acidification of the chloroplast stroma.
Proteins
The Mg2+ ion tends to bind only weakly to proteins (Ka ≤ 105) and this can be exploited by the cell to switch enzymatic activity on and off by changes in the local concentration of Mg2+. Although the concentration of free cytoplasmic Mg2+ is on the order of 1 mmol/L, the total Mg2+ content of animal cells is 30 mmol/L and in plants the content of leaf endodermal cells has been measured at values as high as 100 mmol/L (Stelzer et al., 1990), much of which buffered in storage compartments. The cytoplasmic concentration of free Mg2+ is buffered by binding to chelators (e.g., ATP), but also, what is more important, it is buffered by storage of Mg2+ in intracellular compartments. The transport of Mg2+ between intracellular compartments may be a major part of regulating enzyme activity. The interaction of Mg2+ with proteins must also be considered for the transport of the ion across biological membranes.
Manganese
In biological systems, only manganese (Mn2+) is readily capable of replacing Mg2+, but only in a limited set of circumstances. Mn2+ is very similar to Mg2+ in terms of its chemical properties, including inner and outer shell complexation. Mn2+ effectively binds ATP and allows hydrolysis of the energy molecule by most ATPases. Mn2+ can also replace Mg2+ as the activating ion for a number of Mg2+-dependent enzymes, although some enzyme activity is usually lost. Sometimes such enzyme metal preferences vary among closely related species: For example, the reverse transcriptase enzyme of lentiviruses like HIV, SIV and FIV is typically dependent on Mg2+, whereas the analogous enzyme for other retroviruses prefers Mn2+.
Importance in drug binding
An article investigating the structural basis of interactions between clinically relevant antibiotics and the 50S ribosome appeared in Nature in October 2001. High-resolution X-ray crystallography established that these antibiotics associate only with the 23S rRNA of a ribosomal subunit, and no interactions are formed with a subunit's protein portion. The article stresses that the results show "the importance of putative Mg2+ ions for the binding of some drugs".
Measuring magnesium in biological samples
By radioactive isotopes
The use of radioactive tracer elements in ion uptake assays allows the calculation of km, Ki and Vmax and determines the initial change in the ion content of the cells. 28Mg decays by the emission of a high-energy beta or gamma particle, which can be measured using a scintillation counter. However, the radioactive half-life of 28Mg, the most stable of the radioactive magnesium isotopes, is only 21 hours. This severely restricts the experiments involving the nuclide. Also, since 1990, no facility has routinely produced 28Mg, and the price per mCi is now predicted to be approximately US$30,000. The chemical nature of Mg2+ is such that it is closely approximated by few other cations. However, Co2+, Mn2+ and Ni2+ have been used successfully to mimic the properties of Mg2+ in some enzyme reactions, and radioactive forms of these elements have been employed successfully in cation transport studies. The difficulty of using metal ion replacement in the study of enzyme function is that the relationship between the enzyme activities with the replacement ion compared to the original is very difficult to ascertain.
By fluorescent indicators
A number of chelators of divalent cations have different fluorescence spectra in the bound and unbound states. Chelators for Ca2+ are well established, have high affinity for the cation, and low interference from other ions. Mg2+ chelators lag behind and the major fluorescence dye for Mg2+ (mag-fura 2) actually has a higher affinity for Ca2+. This limits the application of this dye to cell types where the resting level of Ca2+ is < 1 μM and does not vary with the experimental conditions under which Mg2+ is to be measured. Recently, Otten et al. (2001) have described work into a new class of compounds that may prove more useful, having significantly better binding affinities for Mg2+. The use of the fluorescent dyes is limited to measuring the free Mg2+. If the ion concentration is buffered by the cell by chelation or removal to subcellular compartments, the measured rate of uptake will give only minimum values of km and Vmax.
By electrophysiology
First, ion-specific microelectrodes can be used to measure the internal free ion concentration of cells and organelles. The major advantages are that readings can be made from cells over relatively long periods of time, and that unlike dyes very little extra ion buffering capacity is added to the cells.
Second, the technique of two-electrode voltage-clamp allows the direct measurement of the ion flux across the membrane of a cell. The membrane is held at an electric potential and the responding current is measured. All ions passing across the membrane contribute to the measured current.
Third, the technique of patch-clamp uses isolated sections of natural or artificial membrane in much the same manner as voltage-clamp but without the secondary effects of a cellular system. Under ideal conditions the conductance of individual channels can be quantified. This methodology gives the most direct measurement of the action of ion channels.
By absorption spectroscopy
Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) determines the total magnesium content of a biological sample. This method is destructive; biological samples must be broken down in concentrated acids to avoid clogging the fine nebulising apparatus. Beyond this, the only limitation is that samples must be in a volume of approximately 2 mL and at a concentration range of 0.1 – 0.4 μmol/L for optimum accuracy. As this technique cannot distinguish between Mg2+ already present in the cell and that taken up during the experiment, only content not uptaken can be quantified.
Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) using either the mass spectrometry (MS) or atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) modifications also allows the determination of the total ion content of biological samples. These techniques are more sensitive than flame AAS and are capable of measuring the quantities of multiple ions simultaneously. However, they are also significantly more expensive.
Magnesium transport
The chemical and biochemical properties of Mg2+ present the cellular system with a significant challenge when transporting the ion across biological membranes. The dogma of ion transport states that the transporter recognises the ion then progressively removes the water of hydration, removing most or all of the water at a selective pore before releasing the ion on the far side of the membrane. Due to the properties of Mg2+, large volume change from hydrated to bare ion, high energy of hydration and very low rate of ligand exchange in the inner coordination sphere, these steps are probably more difficult than for most other ions. To date, only the ZntA protein of Paramecium has been shown to be a Mg2+ channel. The mechanisms of Mg2+ transport by the remaining proteins are beginning to be uncovered with the first three-dimensional structure of a Mg2+ transport complex being solved in 2004.
The hydration shell of the Mg2+ ion has a very tightly bound inner shell of six water molecules and a relatively tightly bound second shell containing 12–14 water molecules (Markham et al., 2002). Thus, it is presumed that recognition of the Mg2+ ion requires some mechanism to interact initially with the hydration shell of Mg2+, followed by a direct recognition/binding of the ion to the protein. Due to the strength of the inner sphere complexation between Mg2+ and any ligand, multiple simultaneous interactions with the transport protein at this level might significantly retard the ion in the transport pore. Hence, it is possible that much of the hydration water is retained during transport, allowing the weaker (but still specific) outer sphere coordination.
In spite of the mechanistic difficulty, Mg2+ must be transported across membranes, and a large number of Mg2+ fluxes across membranes from a variety of systems have been described. However, only a small selection of Mg2+ transporters have been characterised at the molecular level.
Ligand ion channel blockade
Magnesium ions (Mg2+) in cellular biology are usually in almost all senses opposite to Ca2+ ions, because they are bivalent too, but have greater electronegativity and thus exert greater pull on water molecules, preventing passage through the channel (even though the magnesium itself is smaller). Thus, Mg2+ ions block Ca2+ channels such as (NMDA channels) and have been shown to affect gap junction channels forming electrical synapses.
Plant physiology of magnesium
The previous sections have dealt in detail with the chemical and biochemical aspects of Mg2+ and its transport across cellular membranes. This section will apply this knowledge to aspects of whole plant physiology, in an attempt to show how these processes interact with the larger and more complex environment of the multicellular organism.
Nutritional requirements and interactions
Mg2+ is essential for plant growth and is present in higher plants in amounts on the order of 80 μmol g−1 dry weight. The amounts of Mg2+ vary in different parts of the plant and are dependent upon nutritional status. In times of plenty, excess Mg2+ may be stored in vascular cells (Stelzer et al., 1990; and in times of starvation Mg2+ is redistributed, in many plants, from older to newer leaves.
Mg2+ is taken up into plants via the roots. Interactions with other cations in the rhizosphere can have a significant effect on the uptake of the ion.(Kurvits and Kirkby, 1980; The structure of root cell walls is highly permeable to water and ions, and hence ion uptake into root cells can occur anywhere from the root hairs to cells located almost in the centre of the root (limited only by the Casparian strip). Plant cell walls and membranes carry a great number of negative charges, and the interactions of cations with these charges is key to the uptake of cations by root cells allowing a local concentrating effect. Mg2+ binds relatively weakly to these charges, and can be displaced by other cations, impeding uptake and causing deficiency in the plant.
Within individual plant cells, the Mg2+ requirements are largely the same as for all cellular life; Mg2+ is used to stabilise membranes, is vital to the utilisation of ATP, is extensively involved in the nucleic acid biochemistry, and is a cofactor for many enzymes (including the ribosome). Also, Mg2+ is the coordinating ion in the chlorophyll molecule. It is the intracellular compartmentalisation of Mg2+ in plant cells that leads to additional complexity. Four compartments within the plant cell have reported interactions with Mg2+. Initially, Mg2+ will enter the cell into the cytoplasm (by an as yet unidentified system), but free Mg2+ concentrations in this compartment are tightly regulated at relatively low levels (≈2 mmol/L) and so any excess Mg2+ is either quickly exported or stored in the second intracellular compartment, the vacuole. The requirement for Mg2+ in mitochondria has been demonstrated in yeast and it seems highly likely that the same will apply in plants. The chloroplasts also require significant amounts of internal Mg2+, and low concentrations of cytoplasmic Mg2+. In addition, it seems likely that the other subcellular organelles (e.g., Golgi, endoplasmic reticulum, etc.) also require Mg2+.
Distributing magnesium ions within the plant
Once in the cytoplasmic space of root cells Mg2+, along with the other cations, is probably transported radially into the stele and the vascular tissue. From the cells surrounding the xylem the ions are released or pumped into the xylem and carried up through the plant. In the case of Mg2+, which is highly mobile in both the xylem and phloem, the ions will be transported to the top of the plant and back down again in a continuous cycle of replenishment. Hence, uptake and release from vascular cells is probably a key part of whole plant Mg2+ homeostasis. Figure 1 shows how few processes have been connected to their molecular mechanisms (only vacuolar uptake has been associated with a transport protein, AtMHX).
The diagram shows a schematic of a plant and the putative processes of Mg2+ transport at the root and leaf where Mg2+ is loaded and unloaded from the vascular tissues. Mg2+ is taken up into the root cell wall space (1) and interacts with the negative charges associated with the cell walls and membranes. Mg2+ may be taken up into cells immediately (symplastic pathway) or may travel as far as the Casparian band (4) before being absorbed into cells (apoplastic pathway; 2). The concentration of Mg2+ in the root cells is probably buffered by storage in root cell vacuoles (3). Note that cells in the root tip do not contain vacuoles. Once in the root cell cytoplasm, Mg2+ travels toward the centre of the root by plasmodesmata, where it is loaded into the xylem (5) for transport to the upper parts of the plant. When the Mg2+ reaches the leaves it is unloaded from the xylem into cells (6) and again is buffered in vacuoles (7). Whether cycling of Mg2+ into the phloem occurs via general cells in the leaf (8) or directly from xylem to phloem via transfer cells (9) is unknown. Mg2+ may return to the roots in the phloem sap.
When a Mg2+ ion has been absorbed by a cell requiring it for metabolic processes, it is generally assumed that the ion stays in that cell for as long as the cell is active. In vascular cells, this is not always the case; in times of plenty, Mg2+ is stored in the vacuole, takes no part in the day-to-day metabolic processes of the cell (Stelzer et al., 1990), and is released at need. But for most cells it is death by senescence or injury that releases Mg2+ and many of the other ionic constituents, recycling them into healthy parts of the plant. In addition, when Mg2+ in the environment is limiting, some species are able to mobilise Mg2+ from older tissues. These processes involve the release of Mg2+ from its bound and stored states and its transport back into the vascular tissue, where it can be distributed to the rest of the plant. In times of growth and development, Mg2+ is also remobilised within the plant as source and sink relationships change.
The homeostasis of Mg2+ within single plant cells is maintained by processes occurring at the plasma membrane and at the vacuole membrane (see Figure 2). The major driving force for the translocation of ions in plant cells is ΔpH. H+-ATPases pump H+ ions against their concentration gradient to maintain the pH differential that can be used for the transport of other ions and molecules. H+ ions are pumped out of the cytoplasm into the extracellular space or into the vacuole. The entry of Mg2+ into cells may occur through one of two pathways, via channels using the ΔΨ (negative inside) across this membrane or by symport with H+ ions. To transport the Mg2+ ion into the vacuole requires a Mg2+/H+ antiport transporter (such as AtMHX). The H+-ATPases are dependent on Mg2+ (bound to ATP) for activity, so that Mg2+ is required to maintain its own homeostasis.
A schematic of a plant cell is shown including the four major compartments currently recognised as interacting with Mg2+. H+-ATPases maintain a constant ΔpH across the plasma membrane and the vacuole membrane. Mg2+ is transported into the vacuole using the energy of ΔpH (in A. thaliana by AtMHX). Transport of Mg2+ into cells may use either the negative ΔΨ or the ΔpH. The transport of Mg2+ into mitochondria probably uses ΔΨ as in the mitochondria of yeast, and it is likely that chloroplasts take Mg2+ by a similar system. The mechanism and the molecular basis for the release of Mg2+ from vacuoles and from the cell is not known. Likewise, the light-regulated Mg2+ concentration changes in chloroplasts are not fully understood, but do require the transport of H+ ions across the thylakoid membrane.
Magnesium, chloroplasts and photosynthesis
Mg2+ is the coordinating metal ion in the chlorophyll molecule, and in plants where the ion is in high supply about 6% of the total Mg2+ is bound to chlorophyll. Thylakoid stacking is stabilised by Mg2+ and is important for the efficiency of photosynthesis, allowing phase transitions to occur.
Mg2+ is probably taken up into chloroplasts to the greatest extent during the light-induced development from proplastid to chloroplast or etioplast to chloroplast. At these times, the synthesis of chlorophyll and the biogenesis of the thylakoid membrane stacks absolutely require the divalent cation.
Whether Mg2+ is able to move into and out of chloroplasts after this initial developmental phase has been the subject of several conflicting reports. Deshaies et al. (1984) found that Mg2+ did move in and out of isolated chloroplasts from young pea plants, but Gupta and Berkowitz (1989) were unable to reproduce the result using older spinach chloroplasts. Deshaies et al. had stated in their paper that older pea chloroplasts showed less significant changes in Mg2+ content than those used to form their conclusions. The relative proportion of immature chloroplasts present in the preparations may explain these observations.
The metabolic state of the chloroplast changes considerably between night and day. During the day, the chloroplast is actively harvesting the energy of light and converting it into chemical energy. The activation of the metabolic pathways involved comes from the changes in the chemical nature of the stroma on the addition of light. H+ is pumped out of the stroma (into both the cytoplasm and the lumen) leading to an alkaline pH. Mg2+ (along with K+) is released from the lumen into the stroma, in an electroneutralisation process to balance the flow of H+. Finally, thiol groups on enzymes are reduced by a change in the redox state of the stroma. Examples of enzymes activated in response to these changes are fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase, sedoheptulose bisphosphatase and ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase. During the dark period, if these enzymes were active a wasteful cycling of products and substrates would occur.
Two major classes of the enzymes that interact with Mg2+ in the stroma during the light phase can be identified. Firstly, enzymes in the glycolytic pathway most often interact with two atoms of Mg2+. The first atom is as an allosteric modulator of the enzymes' activity, while the second forms part of the active site and is directly involved in the catalytic reaction. The second class of enzymes includes those where the Mg2+ is complexed to nucleotide di- and tri-phosphates (ADP and ATP), and the chemical change involves phosphoryl transfer. Mg2+ may also serve in a structural maintenance role in these enzymes (e.g., enolase).
Magnesium stress
Plant stress responses can be observed in plants that are under- or over-supplied with Mg2+. The first observable signs of Mg2+ stress in plants for both starvation and toxicity is a depression of the rate of photosynthesis, it is presumed because of the strong relationships between Mg2+ and chloroplasts/chlorophyll. In pine trees, even before the visible appearance of yellowing and necrotic spots, the photosynthetic efficiency of the needles drops markedly. In Mg2+ deficiency, reported secondary effects include carbohydrate immobility, loss of RNA transcription and loss of protein synthesis. However, due to the mobility of Mg2+ within the plant, the deficiency phenotype may be present only in the older parts of the plant. For example, in Pinus radiata starved of Mg2+, one of the earliest identifying signs is the chlorosis in the needles on the lower branches of the tree. This is because Mg2+ has been recovered from these tissues and moved to growing (green) needles higher in the tree.
A Mg2+ deficit can be caused by the lack of the ion in the media (soil), but more commonly comes from inhibition of its uptake. Mg2+ binds quite weakly to the negatively charged groups in the root cell walls, so that excesses of other cations such as K+, NH4+, Ca2+, and Mn2+ can all impede uptake.(Kurvits and Kirkby, 1980; In acid soils Al3+ is a particularly strong inhibitor of Mg2+ uptake. The inhibition by Al3+ and Mn2+ is more severe than can be explained by simple displacement, hence it is possible that these ions bind to the Mg2+ uptake system directly. In bacteria and yeast, such binding by Mn2+ has already been observed. Stress responses in the plant develop as cellular processes halt due to a lack of Mg2+ (e.g. maintenance of ΔpH across the plasma and vacuole membranes). In Mg2+-starved plants under low light conditions, the percentage of Mg2+ bound to chlorophyll has been recorded at 50%. Presumably, this imbalance has detrimental effects on other cellular processes.
Mg2+ toxicity stress is more difficult to develop. When Mg2+ is plentiful, in general the plants take up the ion and store it (Stelzer et al., 1990). However, if this is followed by drought then ionic concentrations within the cell can increase dramatically. High cytoplasmic Mg2+ concentrations block a K+ channel in the inner envelope membrane of the chloroplast, in turn inhibiting the removal of H+ ions from the chloroplast stroma. This leads to an acidification of the stroma that inactivates key enzymes in carbon fixation, which all leads to the production of oxygen free radicals in the chloroplast that then cause oxidative damage.
See also
Biology and pharmacology of chemical elements
Magnesium deficiency (agriculture)
Notes
References
electronic-book electronic-
External links
Magnesium Deficiency
List of foods rich in Magnesium
The Magnesium Website- Includes full text papers and textbook chapters by leading magnesium authorities Mildred Seelig, Jean Durlach, Burton M. Altura and Bella T. Altura. Links to over 300 articles discussing magnesium and magnesium deficiency.
Dietary Reference Intake
Healing Thresholds - description of research studies regarding supplementation with magnesium and other therapies for autism
Physiology
Plant physiology
Magnesium
Biology and pharmacology of chemical elements
Biological systems
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottorino%20Respighi
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Ottorino Respighi
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Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, chamber music, and transcriptions of Italian compositions of the 16th–18th centuries, but his best known and most performed works are his three orchestral tone poems which brought him international fame: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928).
Respighi was born in Bologna to a musical and artistic family. He was encouraged by his father to pursue music at a young age, and took formal tuition in the violin and piano. In 1891, he enrolled at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, where he studied the violin, viola, and composition, was principal violinist at the Russian Imperial Theatre, and studied briefly with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He relocated to Rome in 1913 to become professor of composition at the Liceo Musicale di Santa Cecilia. During this period he married his pupil, singer Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo. In 1923, Respighi quit his professorship to dedicate time to tour and compose, but continued to teach until 1935. He performed and conducted in various capacities across the United States and South America from 1925 until his death.
In late 1935, while composing his opera Lucrezia, Respighi became ill and was diagnosed with bacterial endocarditis. He died four months later, aged 56. His wife Elsa outlived him for almost 60 years, championing her late husband's works and legacy until her death in 1996. Conductor and composer Salvatore Di Vittorio completed several of Respighi's incomplete and previously unpublished works, including the finished Violin Concerto in A major (1903) which premiered in 2010.
Biography
Early years
Respighi was born on 9 July 1879 at 8 Via Guido Reni, an apartment building to the side of Palazzo Fantuzzi. He was the youngest child of Giuseppe and Ersilia (née Putti) Respighi. His brother Alberto died at age nine, and he had one sister, Amelia. His parents came from artistic families; his maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were distinguished sculptors, and his paternal grandfather was a cathedral organist. Giuseppe was an accomplished pianist and teacher who encouraged his son's musical inclinations, giving basic tuition in piano and violin from an early age. To his father's initial disappointment, Respighi showed little interest in music until he was almost eight. Shortly after Respighi began formal violin tuition, he quit abruptly after his teacher hit him on the hand with a ruler when he played a passage incorrectly. He resumed lessons several weeks later, this time with a more patient teacher. His piano skills, too, were a hit-and-miss affair initially, but his father arrived home one day and was surprised to find his son performing the Symphonic Studies by Robert Schumann; Respighi had learned to play the piece in secret. Respighi quickly took to other instruments; for example, he learned to play the harp in the course of several days.
Life in Bologna, 1890–1913
Respighi was schooled at Ginnasio Guinizelli in Bologna for two years from October 1890. In 1891, he enrolled at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, where he studied the violin and viola for the next seven years with his teacher, Federico Sarti. Among Respighi's earliest completed and dated compositions at this time were and for orchestra. Four years into his course at the Liceo Musicale, Respighi began classes in musical composition with Giuseppe Martucci, the Liceo's director, and music history with Luigi Torchi. By the time he reached twenty, Respighi was performing in the orchestra at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Martucci, a proponent of Bologna's musical life and composer of non-operatic Italian music, became an influential figure for the young Respighi. In 1899, he received a diploma in the playing of the violin. By this time, Respighi had developed a fondness for languages, demonstrated by his large book collection, which contained atlases and dictionaries. In his lifetime, Respighi became fluent in eleven languages and read literature in all of them.
In the winter of 1900, Respighi accepted the role of principal violist in the orchestra of the Russian Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg during its season of Italian opera. While there he met Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whom Respighi greatly admired, and studied orchestration and composition with him over the course of five months. Respighi returned to Russia in the winter of 1902 for further performances and received more tuition from Rimsky-Korsakov; both meetings heavily influenced his orchestrations. Respighi finalised his studies at the with an advanced course in composition, for which he completed ("Prelude, Chorale and Fugue"), written under Rimsky-Korsakov's guidance. The piece was first performed as part of Respighi's final examination in June 1901, and was a resounding success. The 21-year-old Respighi then received his diploma in composition and Martucci said of the composer: "Respighi is not a pupil, Respighi is a master."
In 1902, Respighi travelled to Berlin where he received brief tuition from composer Max Bruch. Despite sources incorrectly stating that he studied with Bruch in 1908, Respighi's wife would later state that Respighi in fact did not study with Bruch at all. From 1903 to 1908, while his local reputation as a composer grew, Respighi's principal activity was his place as first violinist in the Mugellini Quintet, a touring five-piece founded by composer Bruno Mugellini. Respighi remained with the chamber group until he moved to Rome in 1913.
In 1906, Respighi completed his first of many transcriptions of pieces by 17th and 18th century composers; his version of "Lamento d'Arianna" by Claudio Monteverdi for voice and orchestra became his first international success during his visit to Berlin two years later. This second stay in Germany lasted for almost one year from September 1908 after Hungarian soprano Etelka Gerster invited him to work as an accompanist at her singing school, which influenced his vocal compositions. The composer met Arthur Nikisch, then conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic who arranged to conduct the Monteverdi transcription on stage with famed singer Julia Culp as soloist. The critical success of the performance encouraged Respighi to have his other transcriptions of older works performed in Berlin and this is considered to be a milestone in the rediscovery of Monteverdi's output.
The musical influence from Respighi's stay in Germany is discernible in his second operatic work, Semirâma. The opera premiered in Bologna in November 1910 to considerable success; two years later, critic Giannotto Bastianelli wrote that the piece marked a transition in Respighi's style from verismo to Decadentism and praised his use of rich polyphony. Working on the opera, however, left Respighi exhausted and he wrote each individual score by hand to save money. At the post-performance banquet, the composer fell asleep. It is thought that Respighi's inconsistent sleeping patterns throughout his life may have been caused by narcolepsy.
In 1910, Respighi was involved in a short lived group named the Lega dei Cinque, which also included Ildebrando Pizzetti, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Giannotto Bastianelli, and Renzo Bossi.
Life in Rome, 1913–1918
In January 1913, Respighi left Bologna to become professor of composition at the Liceo Musicale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, a position that he held for almost a decade. Composers Vittorio Rieti and Daniele Amfitheatrof were among his students during this time. The busy atmosphere of Rome unnerved Respighi, however, and composing and teaching became increasingly difficult. He became withdrawn, suffered from irregular sleep, and wished to return to Bologna. Later in 1913, Respighi went back to Germany for some performances and then upon returning to Rome, turned his attention primarily on composition.
In 1915, composer Alfredo Casella returned to Rome after living in France for many years. He joined the staff at the and wished to modernise Italian music as a result of his travels. Despite showing little interest, Respighi had a small involvement in Casella's new organisation, the Società Italiana di Musica Moderna. When Italy entered World War I in May 1915 Respighi, aged 36, was eligible to join the army, though his position at the Liceo Musicale granted him temporary exemption from military service. After a holiday in more peaceful surroundings for the summer, Respighi returned to Rome to continue teaching. One of his new students in his fugue and composition class was Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo; the two started a relationship and Elsa, fourteen years his junior, married the composer in January 1919. Their friend, librettist Claudio Guastalla, spoke of their marriage: "It functioned on an almost transcendental level of human and spiritual harmony."
Respighi was deeply saddened by his mother's death in March 1916. Upon hearing that she had become ill he delayed his departure from Rome and by the time he arrived in Bologna, she had already died from pneumonia. Respighi returned to Rome and went back to work, but this would not last and he returned to Bologna. Elsa recalled Respighi retiring to bed and refusing to eat or see anyone. He recovered in Eremo di Tizzano, a religious retreat in the country hills some 20 km south of Bologna. While there, he composed the short piece for organ. In a letter to his friend, singer Chiarina Fino Savio, from January 1917, Respighi wrote: "I am alone, sad and sick."
In the midst of such difficult times, a turning point in Respighi's career arrived on 11 March 1917 when the first of his Roman trilogy of tone poems, Fountains of Rome, premiered in Rome with conductor Antonio Guarnieri. The premiere was originally scheduled in late 1916, but an audience riot during the first half of the concert due to their distaste for German music caused the show to end early. Respighi's disappointment with the lukewarm response from the audience fuelled his effort to start on a follow-up.
Following the premiere, Respighi underwent a short tour of Italy and Switzerland with a group of musicians, including violinist Arrigo Serato, pianist Ernesto Consolo, and Fino Savio. Upon returning to Rome, he resumed work at the until the end of that academic year. While on vacation in Bologna in the summer of 1916, Respighi visited Viareggio to meet Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, operator of the Ballets Russes, who wished to stage new productions based on the baroque and classical periods. Respighi accepted a sum of 1,500 lire from Diaghilev and contributed orchestrations of the piano works from Péchés de vieillesse by Gioachino Rossini which formed the basis of the music to a new ballet, La Boutique fantasque.
The commission for Diaghilev may have inspired Respighi to gather scores for what would become Suite No. 1 of his Ancient Airs and Dances, a trilogy of orchestral suites transcribed from lute pieces by 16th century Italian composers. Suite No. 1 premiered in December 1917 in Rome, after which the full score was somehow lost and Respighi was forced to re-write it using individual orchestral parts.
Rise to fame, 1918–1925
An important milestone in Respighi's career took place when Arturo Toscanini asked the composer to have one of his compositions performed in a series of twelve concerts in Milan in February 1918. Respighi reluctantly picked Fountains of Rome, which had thus far only been performed at its 1917 premiere. The concert was a huge success and placed Respighi as one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century, prompting the start of a longterm, though sometimes tumultuous, relationship with Toscanini. Two months after the concert, Respighi allowed Casa Ricordi to publish the score of the tone poem in a deal that granted the composer 40% of the rental and performance rights of the work. Respighi succumbed to illness soon after with a mild case of Spanish flu. By the summer of 1918, Respighi had entered negotiations to translate and publish Italian versions of Theory of Harmony (1922) by composer Arnold Schoenberg and a book on musical counterpoint by Sergei Taneyev, but these never materialised.
In the summer of 1919, Respighi reconnected with Diaghilev in Naples to discuss another commission for the Ballets Russes. This time, Diaghilev wished to stage a revised version of Le astuzie femminili by Domenico Cimarosa, which concluded with a series of dances based on Russian musical themes. Respighi accepted, and provided new arrangements of the ballet score which premiered in Paris in 1920. Respighi was also commissioned to score for a revival of La serva padrona by Giovanni Paisiello, which also had a Russian connection. He delivered the finished manuscript one month late, in March 1920. However, Diaghilev had decided against a full stage production and used the music as part of a series of different songs and dance numbers. The score was shelved and considered lost until it was rediscovered 90 years later, after which it was performed in full in August 2014 in Bologna.
In January 1921, Respighi and Elsa began their first tour as joint performers, marking Elsa's debut as a performing concert artist. They were joined by violinist Mario Corti. The tour saw dates across Italy, followed by Prague, Brno, and Vienna. The time away from his teaching duties at the Liceo Musicale in Rome led to his employers issuing a letter suggesting he return to fulfil them for the remaining months of the academic year. By 1921, Respighi had begun a lifelong friendship with the writer and journalist Claudio Guastalla, who encouraged him to compose a new opera and offered to write its libretto. This created a spell of productivity and Respighi eagerly completed Belfagor, his first opera in a decade, without the spells of depression that usually affected him once he had finished a work. Guastalla would exclusively write the libretto for all of Respighi's future operas, and influence the conception or programmes for some of his non-operatic compositions.
In October 1921, Respighi and Elsa relocated to a flat in Palazzo Borghese in Rome which they named (The Pines). In the following January, despite the possibility of further objections from the Liceo Musicale, they went on another tour, this time performing in Czechoslovakia. When Benito Mussolini came to power later in 1922, Respighi steered a neutral course towards the Fascist government. His growing international fame allowed the composer some level of freedom, but at the same time encouraged the regime to exploit his music for political purposes. Respighi vouched for more outspoken critics such as Toscanini, allowing them to continue to work under the regime. In 1923, Respighi became the first director of the now state-funded in Rome. He disliked the time consuming administrative duties that the position required; in 1926, he resigned to dedicate more time to composition. Respighi continued to teach an advanced composition course at the conservatory until 1935.
Respighi's second Roman tone poem, Pines of Rome, premiered in December 1924 at the Augusteo Theatre in Rome. It went on to become one of his most widely known and recorded pieces.
In 1925, he collaborated with Sebastiano Arturo Luciani on an elementary textbook entitled Orpheus.
International recognition, 1925–1936
By the mid-1920s, Respighi's growing worldwide fame encouraged the composer to travel extensively, conducting his own pieces, or performing as soloist for his piano compositions. He made his first visit to America in December 1925 to perform and conduct a series of concerts; his first took place at Carnegie Hall on 31 December as soloist for the premiere of his piano and orchestral work, Concerto in modo misolidio ("Concerto in the Mixolydian Mode").
In May 1927, Respighi and Elsa travelled to Brazil to engage in a concert series of his own music in Rio de Janeiro. The musical style and local customs inspired Respighi, who told the press of his intention to return in the following year with a five-part orchestral suite based on his visit. Respighi did return to Rio, in June 1928, but the composition was finalised in the form of an orchestral work in three movements entitled ("Brazilian Impressions"). In September 1927, Respighi conducted the premiere of his ("Botticelli Triptych"), a three-movement orchestral piece inspired by three paintings by Sandro Botticelli located in Vienna. He dedicated it to American pianist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the patron for the work.
In November 1928, Respighi returned to America for the premiere of his piano and orchestral work, ("Toccata for Piano and Orchestra"). It took place that month at Carnegie Hall with Willem Mengelberg conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra with the composer as soloist. By the year's end Respighi completed his third Roman tone poem, Roman Festivals, composed in just nine days. It premiered on 21 February 1929 at Carnegie Hall in New York City with Arturo Toscanini conducting the New York Philharmonic. The Italian premiere followed on 17 March. Having completed the work, Respighi felt that he had incorporated the "maximum of orchestral sonority and colour" from the orchestra and could no longer write such large scale pieces. It was at this time he started to favour compositions for smaller ensembles.
At the end of 1929, Respighi had conductor Serge Koussevitzky forward a proposal to Sergei Rachmaninoff which involved permission to orchestrate a selection of pieces from his two Études-Tableaux (Op. 33 and Op. 39) sets for piano. An enthusiastic Rachmaninoff accepted the offer and supplied Respighi with the program descriptions behind five pieces which were previously kept secret. Koussevitzky conducted Respighi's orchestrations, entitled , for the premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in November 1931. He wrote that Respighi's arrangements were "very good" and demanding of the orchestra, which required eight rehearsals. Rachmaninoff thanked Respighi for his work and in particular, for being faithful to the original scores. Later in 1930, Respighi completed a commission piece to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The result was Metamorphoseon, Modi XII, an orchestral piece containing a theme and eight variations.
In 1932, the Fascist government honoured Respighi with membership of the Reale Accademia d'Italia, one of the highest honors awarded to the most eminent people in Italian science and culture. From 1933 until his death, Respighi completed no new compositions. Among his final works was Huntingtower: Ballad for Band in 1932, which was a commission from Edwin Franko Goldman and the American Bandmasters Association in honor of the recent death of composer and conductor John Philip Sousa. Respighi wrote it in six weeks, and based it on a recent visit to Huntingtower Castle in Scotland. It was his only piece scored for a band. Also in 1932, Respighi completed his second concert tour of the US.
Respighi's opera La fiamma ("The Flame") premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in January 1934, with the composer as conductor. In June 1934, Respighi and Elsa made the month-long voyage to Argentina where Respighi conducted the premiere of in the following month. This was followed by a visit to Uruguay, where several orchestral concerts were arranged for radio broadcast. Respighi's final completed work was a transcription of , a cantata by Benedetto Marcello.
By May 1935, Respighi had cancelled several engagements due to ill health, including a scheduled trip to conduct a series of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. By November, he had completed a piano draft and the majority of the orchestral arrangements of his next opera, Lucrezia. He had planned to work on a transcription of an opera by Francesco Cavalli that was to be staged alongside Lucrezia during the 1936–37 season at the La Scala in Milan, but declining health caused him to stop work. Neither work was completed in Respighi's lifetime; Elsa finished Lucrezia after Respighi's death with Respighi's former pupil Ennio Porrino, in 1937.
Death and legacy
While working on his opera Lucrezia at the end of 1935, Respighi became ill with a fever and fatigue. Subsequent medical checks in January 1936 revealed samples of S. viridans bacteria in his blood, leading to the diagnosis of subacute bacterial endocarditis, a heart infection still untreatable at the time and probably brought on by his recent throat infection and oral surgery. Respighi's health deteriorated over the next four months, during which he received three blood transfusions and experimental treatment with sulphonamides imported from Germany. Elsa made a conscious effort to hide the severity of the illness from others, except for a select few. Respighi died on 18 April in Rome, aged 56, from complications of blood poisoning. Elsa and several friends were by his side. The funeral was held two days later. His body lay in state at Santa Maria del Popolo until the spring of 1937, when the remains were re-interred at the Certosa di Bologna, next to poet Giosuè Carducci. Inscribed on his tomb are his name and crosses; the dates of his birth and death are not given.
Elsa survived her husband for nearly 60 years, unfailingly championing her husband's works and legacy. A few months after Respighi's death, Elsa wrote to Guastalla: "I live because I can truly still do something for him. And I shall do it, that is certain, until the day I die." However, Italian governments following Mussolini's death in 1945 distanced themselves from nationalistic composers, placing Respighi in a group among those including Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Pietro Mascagni and newspapers protested against honours bestowed upon Elsa. Despite this, in 1961, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Respighi's death, Elsa donated a collection of unpublished and incomplete manuscripts to the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, now the Conservatorio G. B. Martini, where Respighi had studied. In 1969, she helped establish the Fondo Ottorino Respighi, a foundation at the Fondazione Cini in Venice which included a large number of letters and photographs documenting her husband's career. Elsa was also at the forefront of the Respighi centenary celebrations in 1979 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Respighi's birth, though it was vehemently opposed by the Italian Left for ideological reasons. She later said that "musical progressives with left-wing political sympathies" tried to discredit Respighi's legacy. The commemoration saw a number of long-neglected works of his performed and recorded for the first time. Elsa died in 1996, one week short of her 102nd birthday.
In 1993, Swiss conductor Adriano founded the Respighi Society in London in an effort to make Respighi's "life and works [...] better known and understood by the dissemination of accurate and impartial information." It has since been dissolved.
In March 2000, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on Via Guido Reni in Bologna, Respighi's birthplace.
In 2006, Italian conductor and composer Salvatore Di Vittorio was approached by Respighi's great-nieces, Elsa Pizzoli Mazzacane and Gloria Pizzoli Mangini, who, along with Respighi archiver and cataloger Potito Pedarra, commissioned Di Vittorio to complete several of Respighi's incomplete and previously unpublished compositions. This included the Violin Concerto in A major from 1903, which premiered in 2010 with Di Vittorio conducting the Chamber Orchestra of New York, which he founded in 2006. The orchestra continues to premiere ongoing new editions by Di Vittorio of Respighi's music in premieres as well as recordings on Naxos Records. In 2008, Di Vittorio completed his Overture Respighiana, an orchestral work as an homage to Respighi.
Works
Opera
Re Enzo (1905)
Semirâma (1909)
Marie Victoire (completed in 1913, but not produced until 2004)
La bella dormente nel bosco (1922)
Belfagor (1923)
La campana sommersa (1927)
Maria egiziaca (1932)
La fiamma (1934)
Lucrezia (1937) opera in 1 act (completed posthumously by his wife, Elsa, and his pupil Ennio Porrino)
Ballet
La Boutique fantasque (1918), borrows tunes from the 19th-century Italian composer Rossini. Premiered in London on 5 June 1919.
Sèvres de la vieille France (1920), transcription of 17th- and 18th-century French music
La Pentola magica (1920), based on popular Russian themes
Scherzo Veneziano (Le astuzie di Columbina) (1920)
Belkis, Regina di Saba (1932)
Orchestral
Preludio, corale e fuga (1901)
Aria per archi (1901)
Leggenda for Violin and Orchestra P 36 (1902)
Piano Concerto in A minor (1902)
Suite per archi (1902)
Humoreske for Violin and Orchestra P 45 (1903)
Violin Concerto in A major (1903), completed by Salvatore Di Vittorio (2009)
Fantasia Slava (1903)
Suite in E major (Sinfonia) (1903)
Serenata per piccola orchestra (1904)
Suite in Sol Maggiore (1905), for organ and strings
Ouverture Burlesca (1906)
Concerto all'antica for Violin and Orchestra (1908)
Ouverture Carnevalesca (1913)
Tre Liriche (1913), for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (Notte, Nebbie, Pioggia)
Sinfonia Drammatica (1914)
Fountains of Rome (1916)
Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 1 (1917), based on Renaissance lute pieces by Simone Molinaro, Vincenzo Galilei (father of Galileo Galilei), and additional anonymous composers.
Ballata delle Gnomidi (1919), based on a poem by Claudio Clausetti
Adagio con variazioni (1921), for Cello and Orchestra
Concerto Gregoriano for Violin and Orchestra (1921)
Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 2 (1923), based on pieces for lute, archlute, and viol by Fabritio Caroso, Jean-Baptiste Besard, Bernardo Gianoncelli, and an anonymous composer. It also interpolates an aria attributed to Marin Mersenne.
Pines of Rome (1924)
Concerto in modo misolidio (Concerto in the Mixolydian mode) (1925)
Poema autunnale (Autumn Poem), for Violin and Orchestra (1925)
Rossiniana (1925), free transcriptions from Rossini's Quelques riens (from Péchés de vieillesse)
Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows) (1926), four movements of which three are based on Tre Preludi sopra melodie gregoriane for piano (1919)
Trittico Botticelliano (1927), three movements inspired by Botticelli paintings in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence: La Primavera, L'Adorazione dei Magi, and La nascita di Venere. The middle movement uses the well-known tune Veni Emmanuel (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel)
Impressioni brasiliane (Brazilian Impressions) (1928)
Vocal/choral
Nebbie (1906), voice and piano
Stornellatrice (1906), voice and piano
Cinque canti all'antica (1906), voice and piano
Il Lamento di Arianna (1908), for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Aretusa (text by Shelley) (1911), cantata for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Tre Liriche (1913), for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (Notte, Nebbie, Pioggia)
La Sensitiva (The Sensitive Plant, text by Shelley) (1914), for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Il Tramonto (The sunset, text by Shelley) (1914), for mezzo-soprano and string quartet (or string orchestra)
Cinque liriche (1917), voice and piano
Quattro liriche (Gabriele D'Annunzio) (1920), voice and piano
La Primavera (The Spring, texts by Constant Zarian) (1922) lyric poem for soli, chorus and orchestra
Deità silvane (Woodland Deities, texts by Antonio Rubino) (1925), song-cycle for soprano and small orchestra
Lauda per la Natività del Signore (Laud to the Nativity, text attributed to Jacopone da Todi) (1930), a cantata for three soloists (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor), mixed chorus (including substantial sections for 8-part mixed and TTBB male chorus), and chamber ensemble (woodwinds and piano 4-hands)
Chamber
String Quartet in D major in one movement (undated)
String Quartet No. 1 in D major (1892–98)
String Quartet No. 2 in B-flat major (1898)
String Quartet in D major (1907)
String Quartet in D minor (1909) subtitled by composer "Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die Kunst"
Quartetto Dorico or Doric String Quartet (1924)
Tre Preludi sopra melodie gregoriane, for piano (1921)
Violin Sonata in D minor (1897)
Violin Sonata in B minor (1917)
Piano Sonata in F minor (1897–98)
Variazioni, for guitar
Double Quartet in D minor (1901)
Piano Quintet in F minor (1902)
Six pieces for violin and piano (1901–06)
Six pieces for piano (1903–05)
Quartet in D major for 4 Viols (1906)
Huntingtower: Ballad for Band (1932)
String Quintet for 2 Violins, 1 Viola & 2 Violoncellos in G minor (1901, incomplete)
Books
Orpheus (1926; modern edition: 2020)
References
Sources
Further reading
Respighi, Elsa (1955) Fifty Years of a Life in Music
Respighi, Elsa (1962) Ottorino Respighi, London: Ricordi
Cantù, Alberto (1985) Respighi Compositore, Edizioni EDA, Torino
Barrow, Lee G (2004) Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936): An Annotated Bibliography, Scarecrow Press
Viagrande, Riccardo, La generazione dell'Ottanta, Casa Musicale Eco, Monza, 2007
Daniele Gambaro, Ottorino Respighi. Un'idea di modernità nel Novecento, pp. XII+246, illustrato con esempi musicali, novembre 2011, Zecchini Editore,
External links
OttorinoRespighi.it
Amici di Respighi
Fondo Ottorino Respighi
Chamber Orchestra of New York "Ottorino Respighi"
Ottorino Respighi String Quartet in D Major (1907) Sound-bites and discussion
1879 births
1936 deaths
20th-century classical composers
20th-century Italian composers
20th-century Italian male musicians
Academic staff of Conservatorio Santa Cecilia
Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini alumni
Composers for piano
Deaths from endocarditis
Impressionist composers
Italian ballet composers
Italian classical composers
Italian male classical composers
Italian opera composers
Italian Romantic composers
Male opera composers
Members of the Royal Academy of Italy
Neoclassical composers
Musicians from Bologna
Pupils of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
19th-century Italian male musicians
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%20Etty
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William Etty
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William Etty (10 March 1787 – 13 November 1849) was an English artist best known for his history paintings containing nude figures. He was the first significant British painter of nudes and still lifes. Born in York, he left school at the age of 12 to become an apprentice printer in Hull. He completed his apprenticeship seven years later and moved to London, where in 1807 he joined the Royal Academy Schools. There he studied under Thomas Lawrence and trained by copying works by other artists. Etty earned respect at the Royal Academy of Arts for his ability to paint realistic flesh tones, but had little commercial or critical success in his first few years in London.
Etty's Cleopatra's Arrival in Cilicia, painted in 1821, featured numerous nudes and was exhibited to great acclaim. Its success prompted several further depictions of historical scenes with nudes. All but one of the works he exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 1820s contained at least one nude figure, and he acquired a reputation for indecency. Despite this, he was commercially successful and critically acclaimed, and in 1828 was elected a Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. Although he was one of the most respected artists in the country he continued to study at life classes throughout his life, a practice considered inappropriate by his fellow artists. In the 1830s Etty began to branch out into the more lucrative but less respected field of portraiture, and later became the first English painter to paint significant still lifes. He continued to paint both male and female nudes, which caused severe criticism and condemnation from some elements of the press.
An extremely shy man, Etty rarely socialised and never married. From 1824 until his death he lived with his niece Betsy (Elizabeth Etty). Even in London he retained a keen interest in his native York, and was instrumental in the establishment of the town's first art school and the campaign to preserve York city walls. While he never formally converted from his Methodist faith, he was deeply attached to the Roman Catholic Church and was one of the few non-Catholics to attend the 1838 opening of Augustus Pugin's chapel for St Mary's College, Oscott, at that time England's most important Roman Catholic building.
Etty was prolific and commercially successful throughout the 1840s, but the quality of his work deteriorated throughout this period. As his health progressively worsened he retired to York in 1848. He died in 1849, shortly after a major retrospective exhibition. In the immediate aftermath of his death his works became highly collectable and sold for large sums. Changing tastes meant his work later fell out of fashion, and imitators soon abandoned his style. By the end of the 19th century the value of all of his works had fallen below their original prices, and outside his native York he remained little known throughout the 20th century. Etty's inclusion in Tate Britain's landmark Exposed: The Victorian Nude exhibition in 2001–02, the high-profile restoration of his The Sirens and Ulysses in 2010 and a major retrospective of his work at the York Art Gallery in 2011–12 led to renewed interest in his work.
Background
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, British painting was strongly influenced by Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA). Reynolds believed the purpose of art was "to conceive and represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fact", and that artists should emulate Renaissance painters such as Rubens, Paolo Veronese and Raphael and make their subjects close to perfection. After Reynolds's death his Discourses on Art, which extolled the notion of an artist's duty to paint idealised subjects, remained Britain's primary theoretical work on art. The Royal Academy dominated British art, with the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition the most important event in the calendar. The Royal Academy also controlled the prestigious Royal Academy art schools, which had an effective monopoly on the training of new artists and which taught with a very narrow focus on approved techniques. While painters such as J. M. W. Turner (a strong supporter of the Royal Academy) were beginning to move away from the influence of the Old Masters to create uniquely British styles, they adhered to principles established by Reynolds.
In the opinions then current at the Royal Academy and among critics, the most prestigious form of painting was considered history painting, in which an artwork illustrated a story. It was thought that such works enabled British artists to show themselves as equal or even superior to those European artists active at the time, as well as to the Old Masters. Other forms of painting such as portraiture and landscapes were considered lesser styles, as they did not give the artist as much opportunity to illustrate a story but instead were simply depictions of reality. Nonetheless, even the most eminent artists would often devote time to portrait painting, as portraits were generally commissioned by the subjects or their families, providing a guaranteed source of income to the artist; two of the first three presidents of the Royal Academy (Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence) had made their names as portrait painters. Owing to a lack of patrons willing to commission history paintings, by the early 19th century history painting in England was in serious decline.
Childhood and apprenticeship (1787–1805)
William Etty was born in Feasegate, York, on 10 March 1787, the seventh child of Matthew and Esther Etty, née Calverley. Although Matthew Etty was a successful miller and baker, he bore a large family and was never financially secure. Esther Calverley's brother unexpectedly inherited the title of Squire of Hayton in 1745, nine years before Esther's birth, but disowned her following her marriage to Matthew, whom he considered as beneath her station. The family were strict Methodists and William was raised as such, although he disliked the spartan appearance of the Methodist chapel and liked to attend his Anglican parish church or York Minster when able.
He showed artistic promise from an early age, drawing in chalk on the wooden floor of his father's shop. From the age of four he attended local schools in York, before being sent at the age of 10 to Mr. Hall's Academy, a boarding school in nearby Pocklington, which he left two years later. On 8 October 1798, at the age of 11, William was apprenticed as a printer to Robert Peck of Hull, publisher of the Hull Packet. While Etty found the work exhausting and unpleasant, he continued to draw in his spare time, and his job gave him the opportunity to broaden his education by reading books. It seems likely that it was working as a printer that led him to realise for the first time that it was possible for someone to make a living drawing and painting.
On 23 October 1805, Etty's seven-year indenture with Peck expired, an event greeted with great happiness as he intensely disliked the job. He remained in Hull for a further three weeks as a journeyman printer. He moved to London "with a few pieces of chalk-crayons in colours", to stay with his older brother Walter in Lombard Street. Walter worked for the successful gold lace manufacturer Bodley, Etty and Bodley, with whom their father's brother, also named William, was partner. He arrived in London on 23 November 1805, with the intention of gaining admission to the Royal Academy Schools.
Training (1806–1821)
Applicants to the Royal Academy Schools were expected to pass stringent ability tests, and on his arrival in London Etty set about practicing, drawing "from prints and from nature". Aware that all successful applicants were expected to produce high quality drawings of classical sculptures, he spent much time "in a plaster-cast shop, kept by Gianelli, in that lane near to Smithfield, immortalised by Dr. Johnson's visit to see 'The Ghost' there", which he described as "My first academy".
Etty obtained a letter of introduction from Member of Parliament Richard Sharp to painter John Opie. He visited Opie with this letter, and showed him a drawing he had done from a cast of Cupid and Psyche. Impressed, Opie recommended Etty to Henry Fuseli, who accepted him into the Royal Academy Schools as a probationer. Having satisfactorily completed drawings from casts of Laocoön and "the Torso of Michelangelo", Etty was accepted as a full student on 15 January 1807.
Shortly after Etty joined the RA, four major lectures on painting were delivered by John Opie in February and March 1807. In them, Opie said that painting "brings into view the heroes, sages, and beauties of the earliest periods, the inhabitants of the most distant regions, and fixes and perpetuates the forms of the present day; it presents to us the heroic deeds, the remarkable events, and the interesting examples of piety, patriotism and humanity of all ages; and according to the nature of the action depicted, fills us with innocent pleasure, excites our abhorrence of crimes, moves us to piety, or inspires us with elevated sentiments". Opie rejected Reynolds's tradition of idealising the subjects of paintings, observing that he did not believe "that the flesh of heroes is less like flesh than that of other men". Opie advised his students to pay great attention to Titian, whose use of colour he considered unsurpassed, advising students that "colouring is the sunshine of the art, that clothes poverty in smiles [...] and doubles the charms of beauty. Opie's opinions made a deep impression on the young Etty, and he would hold these views throughout his career.
Thomas Lawrence
By this time, Etty had developed a great admiration for the portrait painter Thomas Lawrence, and hoped to learn from him. Having arranged an introduction via Henry Fuseli, Etty's uncle William met with Lawrence and paid him 100 guineas (about £ in terms) in return for his accepting the younger William as a private pupil for a year.
Under this arrangement Etty did not receive formal tuition from Lawrence. Instead, Lawrence set aside a room in his attic for Etty to copy from his pictures, and agreed to answer questions when he was in a position to do so. Etty found the experience of copying Lawrence's work extremely frustrating, and in his own words "was ready to run away", but he persisted and eventually taught himself to copy Lawrence's work very closely. Although Etty found his year with Lawrence a frustrating experience, his development of the ability to copy other works served him in good stead in future when he came to copy elements from the Old Masters.
Once he had completed his year with Lawrence, Etty returned to the Royal Academy, drawing at the life class and copying other paintings, as well as undertaking commissions and doing occasional work for Lawrence to earn money. He was unsuccessful in all the Academy's competitions, and every painting he submitted for the Summer Exhibition was rejected.
In 1809 Etty's uncle William, with whom he had been staying, died. He was forced into an inconvenient transient lifestyle, moving from lodging to lodging. Etty had been left a significant sum in his uncle's will, and his brother Walter now took over their uncle's position at Bodley, Etty and Bodley, giving Walter the means to support the younger William's work financially. In 1811 Etty's persistence paid off. Two of his paintings were accepted for the Telemachus Rescues Antiope from the Fury of the Wild Boar exhibition at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and Sappho at the British Institution. The latter sold for the respectable sum of 25 guineas (about £ in terms). Although from now on Etty had at least one work accepted for the Summer Exhibition each year, he had little commercial success and generated little interest over the next few years. By 1814, Etty was becoming widely respected at the RA for his use of colour and in particular his ability to produce realistic flesh tones.
France and Italy
At the time, there were no public art galleries in England with permanent collections. In 1816, in the face of his continued lack of success, Etty decided to spend a year in Italy to study the artworks held in the great Italian collections. He had made a brief visit to France in early 1815, but other than this had never been abroad. The 28-year-old Etty had fallen in love, and fretted about the difficulties a potential marriage would cause, and whether it would be right to travel to further his career even though it would mean taking his new wife to a foreign country. In the event, the woman rejected him, and he set out for the Continent in early September 1816.
Etty landed in Dieppe, and made his way to Paris via Rouen. Although he admitted to finding France a beautiful country, he was unhappy throughout his stay there, suffering from severe homesickness; shortly after his arrival in Paris he wrote to his cousin Martha Bodley that "I hope I shall like Italy better than Paris, or I think I shall not feel resolution to stop a year. If I don't, I shall content myself with seeing what I think worth while; and then return." He travelled onwards via Geneva, but found Switzerland frustrating; although he had brought his own tea-making equipment with him, in the remoter mountain villages he found it difficult to obtain milk for his tea. Travelling through the Simplon Pass to Piedmont revived his spirits somewhat; he found the variety of colour in the landscapes of northern Italy fascinating, and in late September arrived in Florence.
Despite the grandeur of Florence, Etty was severely depressed, writing to his brother on 5 October that "I feel so lonely, it is impossible for me to be happy" and complaining of "the vermin in the bed, the dirt and the filth" which he considered "such as no Englishman can have any idea of, who has not witnessed it". His emotional state made it impossible for him to study, and within a month of his arrival in Italy, he began the journey back to England, stopping in Paris on 26 October 1816. There he enrolled in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Regnault but found the atmosphere rowdy and the studio too full of Frenchmen, and he left after a week. While in Paris he also attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and amassed a large quantity of prints from the art shops of Paris. Still homesick, Etty left Paris, returning to London in November.
Notwithstanding his unhappiness, Etty appears to have developed as a painter during his travels. For the first time, his two paintings exhibited at the 1817 Summer Exhibition (Bacchanalians: a Sketch and Cupid and Euphrosyne) attracted a favourable review in the press, in this case from William Paulet Carey writing in the Literary Gazette who considered Bacchanalians "a fine classical invention" and Cupid as showing "splendid promise". Carey was later to take great pride in being the first critic to recognise Etty's potential, and continued to champion him throughout his career. In 1818 Etty entered a copy of Damiano Mazza's The Rape of Ganymede—at the time thought to be by Titian—in one of the Royal Academy's painting competitions. Easily the most accomplished entry in the competition, Etty was due to win until two of the other contestants complained that he had technically breached RA rules by briefly removing the painting from Academy premises to work on it at home; they further complained that Etty was technically a professional artist and thus ineligible for the contest despite his still being a student. Etty was disqualified from the competition, but the high quality of his work further raised his prestige within the Academy. Although his income was still low and he was surviving on gifts from his brother, at some point by 1818 Etty hired an assistant, George Henry Franklin.
The Coral Finder
At the 1820 Summer Exhibition, Etty exhibited two paintings: Drunken Barnaby and The Coral Finder: Venus and her Youthful Satellites Arriving at the Isle of Paphos. Drunken Barnaby is a scene of a drunken man being carried away from an inn while a barmaid looks on; the barmaid is shown as sturdily built, plump and rosy-cheeked, a style in which Etty continued to paint women throughout his career. The Coral Finder is strongly inspired by Titian, and depicts Venus Victrix lying nude in a golden boat, surrounded by scantily clad attendants. It was Etty's first use of the combination of nude figures and mythological or literary references for which he was to become famous.
The Coral Finder was sold at exhibition to piano manufacturer Thomas Tomkinson for £30 (about £ in terms). Sir Francis Freeling had admired The Coral Finder at its exhibition, and on learning that it had already been sold he commissioned Etty to paint a similar picture on a more ambitious scale, for a fee of 200 guineas (about £ in terms). Etty had for some time been musing on the possibility of a painting of Cleopatra, and took the opportunity provided by Freeling to paint a picture of her based loosely on the composition of The Coral Finder.
Recognition and travels (1821–1823)
Cleopatra's Arrival in Cilicia (also known as The Triumph of Cleopatra) is based loosely on Plutarch's Life of Antony and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, in which the Queen of Egypt travels to Tarsus in Cilicia aboard a grand ship to cement an alliance with the Roman general Mark Antony. While superficially similar to The Coral Finder, Cleopatra is more closely related to the style of Regnault, with its intentionally cramped and crowded composition. The individual figures are out of proportion to each other and the ship, while many figures are tightly positioned within a small section of the painting. As well as from Regnault, the work borrows elements from Titian, Rubens and classical sculpture.
When exhibited in 1821, Cleopatra was generally extremely well received, and considered among the finest paintings of its kind, and its success inspired Etty to paint more works in a similar vein. The exhibition of Cleopatra, coupled with the exhibition in January 1822 of A Sketch from One of Gray's Odes (Youth on the Prow) which also depicted nude figures on a boat, drew criticism of Etty for his treatment of female nudes. The Times in early 1822 chided Etty, remarking that "We take this opportunity of advising Mr. Etty, who got some reputation for painting "Cleopatra's Galley", not to be seduced into a style which can gratify only the most vicious taste. Naked figures, when painted with the purity of Raphael, may be endured: but nakedness without purity is offensive and indecent, and on Mr. Etty's is mere dirty flesh." Unlike nude studies by other artists of the period, Etty made no attempt to idealise the female nudes in Cleopatra, but instead painted them in realistic poses and realistic flesh tones. Possibly alarmed by the criticism, Freeling persuaded Etty to paint clothes onto some of the figures in Cleopatra, although in 1829 he allowed Etty to return the figures to the state in which he had originally painted them.
The success of Cleopatra notwithstanding, Etty remained a student at the RA and continued with a rigorous programme of study. Now in his mid 30s, he felt that for his work to progress beyond mere competence he needed a chance to study those European masters whose styles he most admired, despite his unpleasant experiences the last time he left England.
Travels in Europe
Recalling his homesickness and loneliness the last time he had ventured abroad, for his next foreign trip Etty travelled in the company of Richard Evans, who had been a fellow student of Thomas Lawrence. Despite warnings that Italy would be uncomfortably hot, the two men set out on 23 June 1822 with the aim of reaching Rome. Crossing to France by means of the recently developed steamboat, they arrived in Paris on 26 June. They stayed in Paris for two weeks, visiting Versailles and the city's public art galleries; they also visited the much-reduced remaining exhibits of the Louvre. The Louvre was hosting an exhibition of modern French painting at the time, at which Etty felt a great dislike for the quality of portraiture in France, but he was nonetheless greatly impressed by the permanent collections, in particular Rubens's Marie de' Medici cycle, elements of which he later reused in many of his own works.
Travelling onwards through Dijon and Switzerland, Etty and Evans passed over the Simplon Pass and on to Milan, where they viewed Leonardo's The Last Supper and visited the Brera Gallery. After a sixteen-day cabriolet ride through the gruelling heat of an unusually hot summer, the two men reached Florence, where they stayed for two days visiting the city's galleries. On 10 August, the two men reached Rome.
Although Etty was somewhat disappointed by Rome, comparing the architecture of St. Peter's unfavourably with that of St. Paul's, he was highly impressed with Michelangelo's "almost Venetian" use of colour in the Sistine Chapel. He also met with Antonio Canova, to whom he had been recommended by Lawrence, shortly before Canova's death. Rome was at the time suffering badly from malaria, and after two weeks Etty decided to leave for Naples. Evans had contracted malaria and decided to stay in Rome, and so Etty travelled to Naples alone and returned to Rome in the company of actor William Macready, who happened to be making the same journey, and with whom he remained a good friend for the rest of his life. On his return to Rome, Etty toured the city's museums, making copies of various artworks, particularly those of the Venetian artists such as Titian and Veronese whom he so admired.
Venice
Feeling unsettled, Etty left Rome for Venice, intending to remain there for 10 days and then return to England. Evans preferred to remain in Rome, so Etty travelled alone, pausing briefly in Florence and in Ferrara (where he stopped to kiss the armchair of Ludovico Ariosto). The painter Charles Lock Eastlake, then resident in Rome, had provided Etty with a letter of introduction to Harry D'Orville, British Vice consul in Venice; D'Orville was so impressed with Etty that he arranged for him to stay in his own house, rather than in lodgings. Etty had long considered Venice his spiritual home and "the hope and idol of my professional life", and had often wondered why, given its artistic importance, so few English travellers visited the city. He was not disappointed. Throughout the remainder of his life, he looked back on his visit to Venice with great fondness, writing shortly before his death that "Venezia, cara Venezia! thy pictured glories haunt my fancy now!"
Although Etty had only intended to stay for 10 days, he was so taken with Venice that he remained for over seven months. He fell into a routine of copying paintings in Venetian collections by day, and attending the life class of the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts by night, producing around 50 oil paintings in total as well as numerous pencil sketches. He was extremely impressed with the high quality of the Venetian Academy; the instructors in their turn were extremely impressed with the quality of Etty's work, in particular his flesh tones. He acquired the nickname of "Il Diavolo" owing to the high speed at which he was able to paint, and watching him at work became something of a spectacle in its own right; Gioachino Rossini, Ladislaus Pyrker (then Patriarch of Venice) and others came to watch him paint. So devoted was Etty to his studies in Venice that he exhibited no original work in 1823, writing to his brother that "If one spent all the time in painting originals, one might as well, nay better, be at home". The members of the Venetian Academy were so impressed by Etty that he was elected an Honorary Academician.
By 7 June 1823, Etty felt that he had reached the limits of what he could accomplish in Venice, and was considering returning home. Soon afterwards he left Venice for Florence, with the intention of creating a full-size replica of Titian's Venus of Urbino, considered one of the finest works of the Venetian school of painting. Although the Uffizi management were hostile to this proposal, after 10 days of negotiations they allowed Etty to create his copy. His contemporaries considered it among the finest copies ever made of a painting generally considered to be impossible to copy. In late July Etty began the journey home, pausing for a further two months in Venice. On 8 October 1823 Etty left Venice, travelling via Mantua and Geneva to Paris.
Etty had intended to travel to England, but instead remained in Paris, to resume copying works in Paris galleries, collecting prints and buying a lay figure and around 200 paintbrushes, both of which the French made to a higher standard than English manufacturers. In early January 1824, Etty returned to London.
Success and controversy (1824–1835)
As soon as he arrived home, Etty began to work on ensuring he had at least one picture ready for the 1824 Summer Exhibition. He decided to return to a theme for which he had created a sketch in 1820, that of the story of Pandora and in particular the passage in Hesiod in which the seasons crown her with a wreath. He had exhibited a sketch in 1820 on the same theme, and had already decided on the arrangement of the figures. His first attempt in 1824 was abandoned half-finished, and he began again on a smaller canvas with different positioning of the key figures of Pandora, Vulcan and Venus.
Pandora Crowned by the Seasons is an unusual composition, painted to resemble a bas-relief in which the different elements are emerging from a flat background. The figure of Pandora stands in the centre, with Vulcan to one side and Venus and Cupid to the other, each leaning away from her; the figures of Vulcan and Venus, along with the four figures representing the seasons in the upper corners of the canvas, create a diamond shape around Pandora. The foot of Vulcan rests upon the picture frame, a favourite device of Rubens; elements of the picture's composition are also taken from an 1817 engraving on the same subject, drawn by Etty's fellow York artist John Flaxman and engraved by William Blake. As with all Etty's history paintings from this time on, he worked by painting the figures first, and only filling in the background once the figures were complete.
Although recognisably descended from earlier works such as The Coral Finder, Pandora was a far more accomplished work than those Etty exhibited prior to his travels. Although some critics were reluctant to accept Etty's combination of realistic figures and an unrealistic setting (Etty's 1958 biographer Dennis Farr characterises the critical reaction to Pandora as "grudging admiration not unmixed with philistinism"), his fellow artists were extremely impressed with it, to the extent that Thomas Lawrence bought the painting at the 1824 Summer Exhibition.
In the wake of the success of Pandora, Etty moved to an apartment in Buckingham Street, near the Strand, where he was to reside for the remainder of his working life. Shortly afterwards he applied to become an Associate of the Royal Academy for the first time, and on 1 November was duly elected, beating William Allan by 16 votes to seven. (The Times, at this time still hostile to Etty for his perceived indecency, sneered that "this cannot be as an honour conferred on Mr. Etty: if it were, he has deserved and should have obtained it long ago". The same reviewer did concede that Etty's copy of Tintoretto's Esther Before Ahaseurus was "the most important picture in the room" in their report on an exhibition held at the British Institution of significant copies of paintings.)
Betsy Etty
In the years following his return from Italy, Etty had a very limited social life. In a typical day he woke at 7 am, painting from around 9 or 10 am until 4 pm, after which he had a meal. Following the meal he took a walk, and attended life classes between 6 and 8 pm. On returning home he drank two cups of tea, and went to bed at midnight.
Etty was considered extremely unattractive, described by his 1855 biographer Alexander Gilchrist—a great admirer—as "Slovenly in attire, short and awkward in body—large head, large hands, large feet—a face marked with the small-pox, made still more noticeable by length of jaw, and a quantity of sandy hair, long and wild: all, conspired to make him 'one of the oddest looking creatures' in a Young Lady's eyes—what she would call 'a sight'; one, not redeemed (to her), by the massive brow, its revelation of energy and power, the sign-manual of Genius there legible."
One of his few close companions was his niece Betsy (Elizabeth Etty), fifth daughter of his brother John. Betsy was unmarried and 14 years younger than William, and became his housekeeper in 1824. She remained in his service for the rest of his life, and as he grew older William increasingly came to depend on her, suffering distress whenever they were apart and regularly writing to her in panic whenever he did not hear from her. She became his companion and acted as his assistant, alongside his official assistant George Franklin.
While he appears to have been attracted to young women throughout his life, and there is a strong suggestion in his letters that in his early years he had a sexual encounter with one of his models and possibly also a sexual encounter of some kind while in Venice, there is no suggestion that he ever had a sexual relationship with Betsy of any kind. He recorded in his diary in 1830 that "it is best I have not married because I have not noisy Children and can have nice Books, and Pictures etc". He suffered from extreme shyness throughout his life, and when compelled to attend dinner parties would often sit silent throughout, although he was popular with fellow artists and students. Etty rarely socialised, preferring to concentrate on his painting; when on one occasion it was suggested that he had little further need of training and need not continue attending classes, he indignantly replied that "it fills up a couple of hours in the evening, I should be at a loss how else to employ".
As she grew older Betsy suffered from numerous illnesses, the exact natures of which are not recorded but which are known to have caused William great concern. William began to fear that Betsy would marry and leave his service, in 1835 going as far as to have her sign an affidavit that she would never leave him. In 1843 his younger brother Charles, a successful planter in Java, returned to England after over 30 years abroad. William became deeply suspicious that Betsy was becoming too close to Charles, a suspicion intensified when Charles took her on a visit to Holland and the Rhine; Charles returned to Java in 1845. In around 1844 Betsy struck up a close relationship with the pen manufacturer and art collector Joseph Gillott, one of William's regular customers who owned some of his pictures. Gillott was married with children, and the closeness of their relationship caused William concern. In 1848, William retired to York leaving Betsy alone in his London apartment; although aware that Betsy was considering marriage he was confident that he could persuade her to come to York and live with him in his retirement. Betsy did eventually join him in York, and was present at his death.
The Combat
Spurred by the reception of Pandora, in 1825 Etty exhibited his most ambitious work to date, The Combat: Woman Pleading for the Vanquished. This was a huge canvas, 399 cm (13 ft 1 in) across, showing a woman pleading for the life of a defeated soldier as another soldier prepares to kill him. Highly unusually for a history painting at the time, Etty did not base The Combat on an incident from literature, religion or history, but instead painted a scene entirely from his own imagination, based on an idea which had first occurred to him in 1821. (He was later to describe this type of painting as "that class of compositions called by the Romans Visions, not having their origin in history or poetry".)
The Combat was extremely well received, even by critics who had previously been hostile to Etty. In terms of composition and technique it was considered as equalling or even surpassing Titian and Veronese, and one critic considered it "one of the finest and most masterly works that ever graced the walls of the Royal Academy", while those critics who had previously dismissed Etty for his supposed obscenity reconsidered their opinions in light of it. The Combat continued to be one of Etty's best-regarded works, and formed the basis of a successful 1848 engraving by George Thomas Doo.
Following the success of The Combat, Etty painted a further four very large paintings. One was on the well-worn theme of the Judgement of Paris, exhibited in 1826, and three were on the theme of Judith beheading Holofernes, the first of which was exhibited in 1827. Unlike other artists who had painted this subject, Etty's Judith paintings did not show the actual beheading, as he hoped to avoid "the offensive and revolting butchery, some have delighted and even revelled in". The first Judith picture in particular was extremely well received critically.
Royal Academician
In February 1828, shortly before his 41st birthday, Etty soundly defeated John Constable by 18 votes to five to become a full Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. By this time, complaints about his supposed indecency were beginning to resurface. All but one of the 15 paintings Etty exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 1820s had included at least one nude figure, and Etty was acquiring a reputation for using respectable themes as a pretext for nudity.
For the 1828 Summer Exhibition Etty exhibited three pictures; The World Before the Flood, Venus, the Evening Star and Guardian Cherubs. (The latter was a portrait of the children of Welbore Agar, 2nd Earl of Normanton, and was the only non-nude painting exhibited by Etty at the RA in the 1820s.) Although similar to his earlier works, they were technically more accomplished. Both The World Before the Flood and Venus attracted positive reviews in the press and were sold during their exhibition for substantial sums, although the purchase by the Marquess of Stafford of The World Before the Flood—a work containing scantily clad figures of both sexes—drew a pointed comment in The Gentleman's Magazine that it "will serve to accompany the private Titians of that nobleman". Despite the increasing number of complaints in the press about his use of nudity, respect for Etty from his fellow artists continued to rise, and in 1828 the British Institution awarded him £100 in recognition of his talent.
As soon as the 1828 Summer Exhibition was over, Etty stopped work on other projects to concentrate on a diploma piece, without which he could not become a Royal Academician. This piece, Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs, was presented to the Academy in October, and in December 1828 Etty became a Royal Academician.
Life classes
Even after he had achieved status as a full Royal Academician, Etty regularly attended life classes; fellow artist John Constable sarcastically wrote that "Etty [sets] an excellent example to the Modles for regularity". His contemporaries considered this at best peculiar and at worst extremely inappropriate, complaining that for someone in his senior position to attend classes as a student was both unprofessional and unnecessary, and that it damaged the standing of the position of Academician; there were complaints that he had far outlasted the official student term of 10 years. Etty refused to give up attendance, offering to resign rather than give up his studies, and the Academy grudgingly allowed him to continue to attend classes. He divided his time between the RA's own life classes and those at nearby St. Martin's Lane.
Etty generally finished life studies during three evenings sittings. On the first evening he would sketch the model in charcoal or chalk, and then ink in the outline. On the second he used oil paints to fill in the figures. On the third he layered glaze and the final coverings of paint. He usually painted on millboard, re-using the reverse for fresh paintings. His female models were typically shop-girls, prostitutes, actresses or poses plastiques models, while his male models tended to be Life Guards recruited from the nearby barracks, who he thought to have an appropriate muscular physique, or occasionally men Etty met in public bath houses.
Hero and Leander
In the wake of Etty's elevation to Academician, he exhibited two paintings at the Summer Exhibition in 1829, Benaiah, David's Chief Captain and Hero, Having Thrown Herself from the Tower at the Sight of Leander Drowned, Dies on his Body. Benaiah is on the same large scale as The Combat at 398 cm (13 ft 1 in) wide, and is a very similar composition, although in place of the woman begging for mercy is the body of a dead soldier. Hero recycles the pose of the dead soldier from Benaiah as the dying Hero as she lies on the body of her dead lover. Unusually for Etty, Hero is painted in intentionally neutral tones rather than his usual Venetian colours, and the composition uses foreshortening of the bodies to create a single diagonal across the canvas. For the rest of his life, Etty considered Hero to be "the finest of my fine pictures".
On 7 January 1830 Etty's mentor Thomas Lawrence died, followed on 30 July by Etty's mother. Etty was devastated by the loss, and was one of those considered to replace Lawrence as President of the Royal Academy, although in the event he did not stand for election. Possibly distracted by the death of Lawrence, Etty submitted only three paintings to the Summer Exhibition that year. One of these, Judith Going Forth, was an addition to Judith, which had been commissioned the previous year by that painting's new owners, the Royal Scottish Academy.
Candaules
Of Etty's two original works exhibited at the RA in 1830, The Storm, inspired by Psalm 22, attracted little interest and was dismissed by The Gentleman's Magazine—typically a staunch supporter of Etty's work—as "a sad failure". The other painting exhibited was Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, which was to prove one of the most controversial works of Etty's career. Candaules is based on a story from Herodotus in which king Candaules arranges for his servant Gyges to spy on his wife Nyssia undressing without her knowledge. Gyges is discovered and at Nyssia's behest kills Candaules, marries Nyssia and rules the kingdom in his stead. The painting shows the moment at which Nyssia removes the last of her clothes. By positioning the figures in such a way that none are looking out of the picture, and the viewer is directly behind Nyssia, Etty aimed for the viewer to feel the same sense of voyeurism and intrusion that Gyges would have felt, forced to spy on his master's naked wife against his will and without her knowledge.
Etty felt that the work illustrated the moral that women are not chattels, and were entitled to punish men who violated their rights. He made little effort to explain this to his audience, and thus Candaules appeared morally highly ambiguous, inviting the viewer to sympathise either with the sexually immoral Candaules, the murderous Nyssia or the voyeuristic Gyges. From the moment it was unveiled Candaules was condemned as a cynical mix of a distasteful narrative and pornographic images, and there was near-unanimous consensus that it was inappropriate for public exhibition. The piece remained controversial long after Etty's death; Alexander Gilchrist's overwhelmingly flattering 1855 biography of Etty described it as "almost the only instance among Etty's works, of an undeniably disagreeable, not to say objectionable subject", while as late as 2011 Sarah Burnage of the University of York wrote of Candaules that "it is perhaps hard to see the painting as anything but a deliberate attempt by the artist to shock and scandalise". Candaules was bought by wealthy collector Robert Vernon, who was in the process of building a major collection of British art and was to become one of Etty's most important customers.
With the three paintings for the 1830 Summer Exhibition completed, Etty decided to pay another visit to Paris. Etty travelled via Brighton, arriving in Paris in early July 1830. He found the atmosphere of the city had become unpleasantly hedonistic, writing to Betsy that "If I had a daughter, she should not be educated here. Pleasure and amusement are the idols."
France was in constitutional crisis in 1830, which reached a peak in late July as the July Revolution began and riots erupted across Paris. Although moved by the death and destruction taking place around him, Etty felt that the purpose of his visit was to study paintings, and continued to attend the Louvre to copy paintings as the violence raged in the surrounding streets. On 31 July he decided to abandon the trip; abandoning his proposed onward journey to Brussels and Antwerp, he collected the five copies he had made in the Louvre and set off for London.
The works Etty painted following his return began to show a departure in style from his previous efforts. While the figures in his previous original paintings had been painted from sketches of models made in the studio or life classes, from now on he began to work from memory, and as a consequence his figures began to appear more idealised; Farr (1958) describes his figures from now on as less to a particular aspect of the model than to a preconceived notion of what the model ought to look like".
Youth and Pleasure and The Destroying Angel
In 1832 Etty returned to the theme of A Sketch from One of Gray's Odes, exhibited in 1822 to such disdain from the press. The result was Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm, which remains one of his best known works. Illustrating a passage from The Bard, a poem by Thomas Gray, Youth and Pleasure has been described as "a poetic romance". It shows a gilded boat being propelled by the breath of a nude child on the sails; one nude figure representing Pleasure languidly holds the helm of the boat. A nude child blows bubbles, which another nude on the prow of the ship, representing Youth, reaches to catch. Naiads, again nude, swim around and clamber onto the boat.
The Bard was about the English destruction of Welsh culture and the subsequent decline of the House of Plantagenet and its replacement by the Welsh House of Tudor, and there was a general feeling among critics that Etty had misunderstood the point of the metaphors used by Gray. Etty claimed that his unusual interpretation of the text was intended to create "a general allegory of Human Life, its empty vain pleasures—if not founded on the laws of Him who is the Rock of Ages", and that the painting served as a moral warning about the pursuit of empty pleasure. This explanation appears to have left critics unconvinced. Even those critics most favourable towards Etty's technical accomplishments in creating the picture found it hard to ascertain what the painting was supposed to represent; other critics were more openly hostile, with The Morning Chronicle condemning it as "indulgence of what we once hoped a classical, but which are now convinced, is a lascivious mind". Purchased for a huge sum by Robert Vernon on its exhibition, Youth and Pleasure remained controversial long after Etty's death, with Farr's 1958 biography describing it as "singularly inept".
Also exhibited at the 1832 Summer Exhibition along with Youth and Pleasure was The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate, seen as a riposte by Etty to his critics. Another of what Etty deemed "visions", depicting a wholly imaginary scene rather than one from literature, mythology or history, The Destroying Angel shows an imaginary classical temple under attack from a destroying angel and a group of daemons. The human figures, intentionally painted in paler tones than usual to suggest death, each show their fear in a different way. Painted soon after his 1830 travels, it is thought that the heaped corpses and terrified crowds were directly inspired by events Etty had witnessed in Paris.
Unlike Youth and Pleasure, the critical response to The Destroying Angel was generally favourable even from those critics usually hostile to Etty. The painting generated favourable comparisons to Michelangelo and Rubens, and Etty's early supporter William Carey (writing under the name of "Ridolfi") considered it to be evidence of Etty's "redeeming grace and spirit". The painting was explicitly seen as a renunciation by Etty of his previous nude studies, with Fraser's Magazine described it as "a sermon to [Etty's] admirers ... where he inflicts poetical justice upon his own gay dames and their gallants, their revels being broken in upon, and they themselves being carried off most unceremoniously, like that little gentleman Don Juan, by sundry grim-looking brawny devils".
At around this time Etty began to receive many unsolicited letters from wealthy Old Etonian lawyer Thomas Myers. Myers was a huge admirer of Etty, and his letters mainly suggest literary topics he felt Etty ought to be painting so as to appeal to the nobility; he wrote regularly between July 1832 and May 1844. Although eccentric and largely incoherent (one of his suggestions was for Etty to raise his profile by painting nude portraits of the wives of the aristocracy), Etty appears to have taken at least some of Myers's suggestions seriously.
Illness and recovery
In mid-1833 Etty began a portrait of the daughters of Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, the long-serving Conservative Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire, titled Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball. Etty was then little-known for portraits, but had recently completed Elizabeth Potts, a portrait of the daughter of a family friend, which although poorly received by some critics was technically highly accomplished. He said at the time that he hoped his portrait of the Williams-Wynn children would be "one of my best".
In February 1834, Etty became seriously ill, and was incapacitated for four months. Unable to paint, he exhibited only two already-completed paintings in the 1834 Summer Exhibition, Elizabeth Potts and The Cardinal. In June of that year he left London to convalesce, renting a cottage in York. Weak and unable to concentrate, Etty painted very little, and spent the next few months visiting friends and touring the sights of Yorkshire. Gradually regaining his health, he returned to London in December 1834, and resumed work on those paintings he had left incomplete on the onset of his illness.
Making up for lost time during illness, he completed several significant works over the next few months, and exhibited eight paintings at the 1835 Summer Exhibition. These included works now considered among his most significant. The Bridge of Sighs, Venice was based on sketches made by Etty during his visit to that city in the early 1820s. It shows the aftermath of an execution, as two men haul the body away to be thrown into the sea; it was described as "poetry on canvas" by William Macready, who bought it from Etty. Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball was the portrait of the daughters of Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn which Etty had begun in 1833. Etty had put far more work into this than was usual for a portrait, remarking to the Williams-Wynn family that he intended "to make a fine work of Art as well as a resemblance". Showing Williams-Wynn's daughters Charlotte and Mary in elaborate Italian-style costumes, it was critically well received as evidence that Etty was able to paint a major work that did not rely on nudity, as well as demonstrating that Etty could paint on commission for the elite, leading to further commissions. The Warrior Arming was a study of Godfrey de Bouillon. painted to satisfy the then-current fad for medievalism. Etty had recently developed an interest in collecting pieces of armour, and The Warrior Arming is a technically adept study of the effects of lights from multiple sources shining on polished armour.
The most contentious of Etty's 1835 RA exhibits was Venus and Her Satellites, a depiction of the Toilet of Venus. This was condemned in much of the press as pornographic, and was described as having a "total absence of soul", with The Observer in particular extremely hostile, calling for the Archbishop of Canterbury to become involved in chastising Etty for his lack of taste. Despite this condemnation, Etty considered Venus and her Satellites one of his best works, and sold it to Rev. Edward Pryce Owen for the substantial sum of 300 guineas (about £ in terms) in August.
In August 1835 Etty spent a brief holiday in Shropshire, where he delivered Venus and Her Satellites to Owen. While en route back he made a detour to Manchester to visit an art exhibition; while there he made the acquaintance of wealthy cotton merchant Daniel Grant.
Etty and York
After Jonathan Martin's arson attack on York Minster in 1829 caused major damage, there were proposals by the dean and chapter to take the opportunity of the destruction to restructure the interior of the building. Etty was prominent in the effort to resist the redesign and to restore the building to its original state. A campaign led by Etty and other notable York residents was successful, and the plans were eventually defeated in February 1831.
By the time of the Minster fire, the Corporation of York (the body responsible for local government) was already engaged in a debate about the future of the city's defensive walls. The walls no longer served any practical purpose and were expensive to maintain, and with the population of the city rising rapidly the city was becoming cramped and dangerous. The city gates ("Bars") had become a public health hazard given the number of locals using them as toilets, and theft of stone for other building works had left parts of the walls dangerously unstable. The Bars restricted stagecoaches, meaning York was unable to capitalise on its strategic position halfway along the lucrative London–Edinburgh route. Faced with the need to clear the city's slums, in 1800 the Corporation sought permission from Parliament to demolish the Bars and much of the walls. Owing to opposition from York Minster the scheme was abandoned, but by 1826 the barbicans of four of the gates had been demolished. In the face of this a public campaign to save the walls was launched in 1824, but attention on both sides of the debate was diverted by the Minster fire. In 1828 Etty had written to his mother expressing horror at the demolition proposals, but distracted by the need to complete Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs was unable to take any action himself. By 1831 the Corporation had decided to demolish the barbicans but to retain and restore the walls.
In February 1832 Etty began a campaign of writing to local York newspapers urging the preservation of the walls, and sending donations to various campaigns associated with their retention. Although some local newspapers were now supporting preservation in light of the damage their demolition would do to the tourist trade, many locals—whose lives were made more difficult by living in a walled city with few points of entry—remained hostile to the preservation campaigns. A proposal in 1838 by the York and North Midland Railway to cut an archway through the walls to allow access to a railway station within the walls galvanised Etty, and he delivered two lectures on the preservation of the walls during visits to York in 1838–39, and made four paintings of the Bars. Etty's words went unheeded and the archway was duly cut in the walls, much to his dismay, although the station was soon moved to its current location outside the walls to allow through the running of trains to both north and south. While the walls were eventually saved in 1889, many years after Etty's death, Etty is sometimes credited with their salvation. It is open to debate how significant his part was. Some authors feel that his interventions had no impact and the preservation of the walls was the result of decisions made by the Corporation and lobbying by local newspapers, while others feel that the Corporation would not have made these decisions had Etty and other like-minded dignitaries not put pressure on them to do so.
In 1838, Etty started lobbying for the establishment of an art school in York. He proposed that the Hospitium of St Mary's Abbey be used for this purpose, with the lower floor becoming a museum of sculpture and the upper floor becoming a school and exhibition hall. The Hospitium scheme was abandoned, but the York School of Design duly opened on a different site in 1842. Although the school was created by an artist who had built his reputation on nudes, nude art remained controversial. In 1847, following a complaint from a female student about a display of replicas of Ancient Greek sculptures, "the master was requested to have the penis of each of the offending statues cut off [...] a proceeding that called forth the indignation of the male students and the remonstrances of even the lady students".
Later life (1836–1849)
In 1836 architect John Harper arranged a small exhibition in York of works by modern artists, which included 11 Etty paintings. This included the first public showing of Venus and her Doves, which had been commissioned by Daniel Grant. Although the exhibition broke even it met with little public interest, and no further Etty retrospectives were held for some years. Harper did take the opportunity to buy Etty's A Family of the Forest (also known as Flowers of the Forest), which had failed to sell at the 1836 Summer Exhibition. A Family of the Forest illustrates a passage from the Ancient Greek poem Theogony, dealing with the Golden Age before humanity suffered pain, misery or the need to work. The setting sun in the background and the man looking away from the woman and child, and instead into the distance, signify his knowledge that his days of ease are coming to an end.
By this time, Etty was becoming conflicted religiously. Although he had been raised as a Methodist, following Catholic emancipation in 1829 Etty became increasingly drawn to Roman Catholicism. Although he considered himself "in [my] heart's core deeply and sincerely of the Ancient Faith", he refused formally to convert to Catholicism owing to concerns that it would upset his family and friends, worries that he would be denied access to Anglican buildings such as York Minster, and a distaste for the concept of auricular (spoken) confession. He remained closely associated with Catholicism throughout his later life, and was one of the few non-Catholics to attend the 1838 opening of Augustus Pugin's chapel for St Mary's College, Oscott, at the time the most important Roman Catholic building in England.
The Sirens and Ulysses
Also in 1836 Etty began work on The Sirens and Ulysses, which he considered among his greatest works, and which is his largest surviving painting. Measuring 442.5 cm by 297 cm (14 ft 6 in by 9 ft 9 in) Sirens was based on a passage from Homer's Odyssey in which sailors resist the irresistible song of the Sirens. The theme and scale of the painting were probably suggested to Etty by Thomas Myers, who had been encouraging Etty to paint very large canvases. Myers's suggested theme appealed to Etty, who later wrote that it illustrated "the importance of resisting Sensual Delights". Etty made every effort to ensure realism in the picture, going as far as to visit mortuaries to sketch corpses in varying stages of decay to ensure the accuracy of the cadavers on the beach.
When Etty completed Sirens in 1837, it was one of the main attractions at the 1837 Summer Exhibition, the first to be held in the Royal Academy's new building in Trafalgar Square (now part of the National Gallery). The painting, with its juxtaposition of male and female nudity and decaying corpses, immediately divided opinion. Some critics considered it one of the finest artworks ever made, with The Gentleman's Magazine particularly taken with the work, describing Sirens as "a historical work of the first class" and "by far the best that Mr. Etty ever painted". Other critics were less kind; The Spectator considered it "a disgusting combination of voluptuousness and loathsome putridity—glowing in colour and wonderful in execution, but conceived in the worst possible taste".
Possibly because of its size, The Sirens and Ulysses failed to sell at the Summer Exhibition. In October 1837 Etty met again with Daniel Grant who, without having seen the painting, offered £250 (about £ in today's terms) for Sirens and for Samson and Delilah, also exhibited by Etty that year. Etty, poor at business and always reluctant to keep unsold paintings in his studio, sold both paintings to Grant for well below their true worth. Etty had used a strong glue as a paint stabiliser which flaked when dry, and as soon as it was complete Sirens began to deteriorate. It was shown at the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition but then considered in too poor a condition for further public display, and placed in long-term storage in the archives of the Royal Manchester Institution and its successor, the Manchester Art Gallery. In 2006 restoration began on it, and in May 2010 Sirens was returned to public display and is now one of the key works in the Manchester Art Gallery.
Decline
After Sirens, Etty's output remained as high as ever, with seven paintings exhibited at the 1838 Summer Exhibition, but the quality of his work is generally considered to have gone into decline. By 1838 critics began to comment that Etty's paintings were no longer inventive but simply reworkings of his earlier paintings, while in June of that year William Makepeace Thackeray (under the pen name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh) wrote that is, like great men, lazy, or indifferent, perhaps, about public approbation". By 1839, criticisms of Etty were being raised in even those newspapers and journals which had previously championed his work. A new type of criticism of Etty also began to appear in 1839, from a new generation led by The Art Union, who praised Etty's technical abilities but saw his choice of subjects as out of touch and anachronistic, and "very frequently doing as little good for mankind as the priest who preaches his sermon in Latin".
From around this time onwards, while Etty still held to his belief that the purpose of art is to illustrate moral lessons, he began to abandon the literary, religious and mythological themes which had dominated his work. He began to paint still lifes, beginning with Pheasant and Peach (likely to be the painting now called Dead Pheasant and Fruit); in the 1840s he exhibited six in total, and painted many more. Etty was the first English painter to paint significant still lifes, which at the time were thought by the English a primarily Netherlandish form. Also for the first time, he began to paint a significant number of landscape paintings. Etty still continued to paint history paintings, but while he continued to produce highly acclaimed reworkings of his previous pictures, those works on fresh topics were generally poorly received. Etty's decline in quality can possibly be attributed in part to London art dealers; from 1835 dealer Richard Colls had become increasingly close to Etty, and by 1844 had a near-monopoly on his work. As the importance of the landed gentry to the art market declined, the new purchasers of art were industrialists; generally lacking in a classical education and with little interest in Old Masters, they preferred to buy works by then-contemporary artists such as Etty, and relied on dealers to advise them.
In May 1840, Etty made the trip to Brussels and Antwerp which he had been forced by revolution to abandon in 1830. He intended to study the works of Rubens, but the briefness of his tour—in the company of Betsy Etty he visited Ostend, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Aachen, Cologne, Bonn and Rotterdam in the course of ten days—meant he had little time for study. The following year he returned to Antwerp and Mechelen for a longer visit to visit St. Rumbold's Cathedral and to study the substantial collections of Rubens paintings in the two cities. On this second journey he twice visited a Trappist monastery outside Antwerp, staying overnight on one visit, and bought a Trappist habit; he also bought a Capuchin habit from a monastery in Bruges. These acquisitions prompted paintings on monastic themes over subsequent years.
Despite a perceived decline in his work's quality, the 1840s were the most financially successful of Etty's career. His income increased with further opportunities for patronage from a growing industrial class, and with few costs and all his earlier debts cleared, Etty was in a position to invest money for the first time. By 1841 Etty had around £300 invested, rising to £8500 in 1845 and £17,000 in 1849. He continued to have difficulty forming relationships with any woman other than Betsy Etty, writing in his diary in 1843 that "being in sound Mind and Body I declare it to be my Firm Intention NEVER TO MARRY. In which resolution I pray GOD to help me that I may devote myself purely to my Art, my Country, and my GOD!"
In May 1843, Etty was one of eight artists chosen by Prince Albert to paint frescoes on the theme of Milton's Comus for a new pavilion being built in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Etty was unhappy with his selection, as fresco was a medium with which he had no experience, but reluctantly did so, choosing to paint on the theme of Circe and the Sirens Three. The result was a disaster. Etty found himself unable to retouch or alter his existing work, as any freshly applied paint would flake away from the existing paint layer, and the lunette shape of the panel left Etty with a large empty space above the central figures. Etty's fresco was deemed unsalvageable, and although he offered to paint a replacement on the theme of Hesperus he was rejected, and William Dyce was commissioned to paint a replacement fresco. Etty was paid only a token £40 fee.
The perceived lack of respect shown to one of England's leading artists led to some outcry, and attacks in the press upon the then very unpopular Albert; William Makepeace Thackeray wrote in 1845: "Think of the greatest patronage in the world giving forty pounds for pictures worth four hundred—condescending to buy works from humble men who could not refuse, and paying for them below their value! Think of august powers and principalities ordering the works of such a great artist as Etty to be hacked out of the palace-wall! That was a slap in the face to every artist in England."
In August 1843, during a break from his work on the fresco, Etty made what was to prove his final overseas journey. Since 1839 he had been planning a series of monumental paintings of Joan of Arc, and he wanted to visit places associated with her. Setting out on 16 August he spent two weeks touring sites in Rouen, Paris and Orléans associated with her life. Unlike Etty's disastrous prior visits to France, this journey passed without incident, and he found that he actually was coming to enjoy certain aspects of French living.
Musidora and Joan of Arc
In the same year, Etty painted the first version of Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed', an illustration from the poem Summer by James Thomson and arguably Etty's last history painting painted while he still had all his powers. Musidora shows a scene in which the titular character, having removed the last of her clothes, steps into "the lucid coolness of the flood" to "bathe her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream", unknowing that she is being watched by her suitor Damon. Etty's composition is shown from the viewpoint of Damon; by so doing Etty aimed to induce the same reactions in the viewer as Damon's dilemma as described by Thomson; that of whether to enjoy the spectacle despite knowing it to be inappropriate, or to follow the accepted morality of the time and look away, in what art historian Sarah Burnage has described as "a titillating moral test for spectators to both enjoy and overcome". Musidora met with almost universal acclaim, compared favourably to Titian and Rembrandt, and described by The Critic as "a preeminent work" and "the triumph of the British school".
By the time Musidora was exhibited, Etty's health was in serious decline. Suffering severe asthma, it was not unusual for passers-by to accuse him of drunkenness as he made his way wheezing through the London streets, and he was beginning to plan his retirement from polluted London to his beloved York. Abandoning the smaller paintings which kept him profitable, he strived to complete his Joan of Arc triptych before his health gave out. This was on a huge scale, 28 ft (8.5 m) in total width and 9 ft 9 in (3 m) high; the three pictures from left to right depicted Joan devoting herself to the service of God and her country, Joan scattering the enemies of France, and Joan dying a martyr.
Etty sold the triptych for the huge sum of 2500 guineas (about £ in terms) to dealer Richard Colls and the engraver C. W. Wass. Colls and Wass had ambitious plans to recoup their money by selling engravings of the pictures and by taking the paintings on a tour of Britain and Europe. The paintings proved less popular than expected. Very few engravings were sold and the tours did not take place; Wass declared bankruptcy in 1852. The paintings were separated, and sold on to a series of buyers, with the third panel fetching just 7 guineas in 1893 as Etty's popularity continued to wane. By the 1950s all three panels of Joan of Arc were believed lost or destroyed, although some preliminary studies survive. The first panel which showed Joan of Arc finding the sword in the church of St. Catherine de Fierbois ended up in the collection of Llantarnam Abbey, Cwmbran, South Wales. The second panel is in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans. The third panel has since been lost.
Retrospective and death
Following the completion of Joan of Arc, Etty's health continued to deteriorate. He continued to paint and exhibit, but his retirement plans grew firmer. In April 1846 he bought a house in Coney Street, central York, as a retirement home, and in December 1847 he formally resigned from the Council of the Royal Academy. Following structural alterations to give him a better view of the river, Etty moved into the house in June 1848, completing the move in September, although he retained his London apartments. His move from London caused some consternation among that city's models, who were losing one of their most regular customers, as well as concerns from Etty who was worried that working with nude models might cause a scandal in York.
He continued to exhibit, sending seven paintings to that year's Summer Exhibition, but they drew little interest, although the lack of nudes was applauded by some reviewers. By this time, Robert Vernon's bequest of his collection to the nation had led to eleven Etty paintings going on public display in the cellars of the National Gallery. In late 1848 he wrote a brief autobiography, published the following year in The Art Journal, in which he staunchly defended himself against the accusations of pornography which had been levelled at him throughout his life:
In 1849, the Royal Society of Arts decided to organise a retrospective exhibition of Etty's work, the first since the minor York exhibition of 1836. Etty agreed only on condition that all nine of his large works were included. The three Joan of Arc paintings were in London and easily accessible, and the Royal Scottish Academy was happy to lend The Combat, Benaiah and the Judith triptych, but the Royal Manchester Institution was deeply reluctant to lend The Sirens and Ulysses in light of concerns that transporting it would damage the fragile paintwork further. They were eventually persuaded to lend the piece after Etty and some of his friends visited Manchester to personally request they release it. The exhibition went ahead from 9 June to 25 August 1849, bringing together 133 Etty paintings for the first time; Etty hoped that it would raise public awareness of his abilities, writing to his friend Rev. Isaac Spencer "Please God, I will give them a taste of my quality". The exhibition was well received and well attended; even Etty's old adversaries at the Morning Chronicle recommending that readers "lose no time in visiting this collection". It was a financial disaster for the Royal Society of Arts, faced with the cost of transporting large numbers of delicate artworks from around the country.
During the exhibition Etty suffered a serious bout of rheumatic fever. Exhausted by illness and the stress of the exhibition, when the exhibition was complete he returned to York in very poor health. On 3 November 1849 he suffered a serious asthma attack, thought to have been made worse by his neglecting to wear his flannel undershirt the night before. His condition deteriorated rapidly, and by 10 November he was bedridden. On Tuesday 13 November, watching the sun set over the River Ouse, he was heard to say "Wonderful! Wonderful! This death!" Later that night, Betsy Etty wrote to Joseph Gillott that "Uncle paid the last debt to nature at past Eight tonight. I do not know what to do. I am almost broken hearted. I have lost my best friend. I not what to do. I can say no more."
Legacy
Etty had planned for a burial in York Minster, but neglected to cover the necessary costs in his will. With Yorkshire local government in political and financial chaos in the wake of the bankruptcy of George Hudson, there was no political will to organise a public subscription or to waive the fees, and as a consequence Etty was buried in the churchyard of St Olave's Church, his local parish church. On 6 May 1850 the contents of his studio were auctioned, in a total of 1034 lots including around 900 paintings; some of these paintings were incomplete studies later completed by other artists to increase their value. In the years following his death Etty's work became highly collectable, his works fetching huge sums on resale. He continued to be regarded as a pornographer by some, with Charles Robert Leslie observing in 1850 "It cannot be doubted that the voluptuous treatment of his subjects, in very many instances, recommended them more powerfully than their admirable art; while we may fully believe that he himself, thinking and meaning no evil, was not aware of the manner in which his works were regarded by grosser minds".
Six months after William's death, Betsy Etty married chemist Stephen Binnington, a distant relation of the Etty family. She moved into his house in Haymarket, and some time after his death moved to 40 Edwardes Square, where she died in 1888 at the age of 87.
While Etty did have admirers, the patchy quality of his later work meant that he never acquired the circle of imitators and students that could have led to him being seen as the founder of the English realist movement, now considered to have begun in 1848 with the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, two of the three founders of the Pre-Raphaelites, were heavily influenced by Etty's early works but recoiled from his later style. Holman Hunt recollected that "in my youth [Etty] had lost the robustness he once had [...] the paintings of his advanced age cloyed the taste by their sweetness". Millais had consciously modelled his style on Etty, and his works prior to the formation of the Pre-Raphaelites are very similar in composition, but after 1848 the only similarity in style is the use of colour. As Pre-Raphaelitism waned Millais's style became more varied, and some of his later work such as The Knight Errant owes a strong debt to Etty's influence.
During his life Etty had acquired followers such as Irish painters William Mulready and Daniel Maclise, but both rejected Etty's preoccupation with nudes. Mulready painted nudes but became best known for domestic genre paintings, while Maclise chose to specialise in more traditional history paintings and exhibited only one nude work in his career. One of the few painters who consciously attempted to continue Etty's style after his death was William Edward Frost, who had been an acquaintance of Etty's since 1825. In the early 1830s Frost painted on commission for Thomas Potts (whose 1833 commission of Etty to paint his daughter Elizabeth's portrait had been Etty's first significant portrait commission), and later was commissioned on Etty's recommendation to paint a portrait of Etty's cousin Thomas Bodley. Frost successfully imitated Etty throughout his career, to the extent that his figure studies and Etty's are often misattributed to each other. Although Frost eventually became a Royal Academician in 1870, by this time Etty's style of painting had badly fallen out of fashion.
Victorian painting had gone through radical changes, and by the 1870s the realism of Etty and the Pre-Raphaelites had given way to the ideas of the Aesthetic Movement, abandoning the traditions of storytelling and moralising in favour of painting works designed for aesthetic appeal rather than for their narrative or subject. Although the aesthetic movement ultimately led to a brief revival of history painting, these works were in a very different style to Etty's. The new generation of history painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton sought to depict passivity, rather than the dynamism seen in previous works depicting the classical world. By the end of the 19th century, the value of all of Etty's works had fallen below their original prices. As the 20th century began, the increasingly influential Modernist movement, which came to dominate British art in the 20th century, drew its inspiration from Paul Cézanne and had little regard for 19th-century British painting.
In 1911 the city of York belatedly recognised Etty. A statue of Etty by G. W. Milburn was unveiled on 1 February outside the York Art Gallery in Exhibition Square, and a retrospective of 164 Etty paintings was held at the gallery despite opposition from some of Etty's descendants who refused to lend works for it. William Wallace Hargrove, proprietor of the York Herald, gave a speech recalling his memories of knowing Etty. Outside York, Etty generally remained little-known, with the majority of those galleries holding his works, other than the Lady Lever Art Gallery, the Russell-Cotes Museum and Anglesey Abbey, tending to keep them in storage. Minor Etty exhibitions in London in 1936 and 1938 had little impact, and likewise an exhibition of 30 Etty paintings in 1948 to mark the reopening of the York Art Gallery and another York exhibition of 108 paintings the following year to mark the centenary of his death. In 2001–02 five Etty paintings were included in Tate Britain's landmark Exposed: The Victorian Nude exhibition, which did much to raise Etty's profile, and established Etty as "the first British artist to paint the nude with both seriousness and consistency". The restoration of The Sirens and Ulysses, completed in 2010, led to increased interest in Etty, and in 2011–12 a major exhibition of Etty's works was held at the York Art Gallery. The York Art Gallery continues to hold the largest collection of Etty's works.
Footnotes
References
Notes
Bibliography
External links
An engraving by Edward Francis Finden of the painting with the poem The Angel's Call, by Felicia Hemans, for The Amulet annual for 1829.
, a promotional poem on the painting by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in her Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures, 1825.
19th-century English painters
English male painters
Artists from York
Royal Academicians
1787 births
1849 deaths
Burials in North Yorkshire
British still life painters
19th-century English male artists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%20Gear
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Metal Gear
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is a franchise of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, Metal Gear, was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operative (usually Solid Snake or Big Boss), who is assigned the task of finding the titular superweapon, "Metal Gear", a bipedal walking tank with the ability to launch nuclear weapons.
Several sequels have been released for multiple consoles, which have expanded the original game's plot, adding characters opposing and supporting Snake, while several prequels have explored the origins of Metal Gear and recurring characters. The third game in the series, Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation, marked a transition to 3D graphics and gained the series international fame. It was ported two years later by Microsoft Game Studios to Windows, marking the franchise's debut on the platform.
Individual installments have been critically and commercially acclaimed, as well as receiving several awards. The series has sold 60 million units as of June 2023.
The series is credited for pioneering and popularizing stealth video games and "cinematic video games". Notable traits of the series include cinematic cutscenes, intricate storylines, offbeat and fourth-wall humor, and exploration of cyberpunk, dystopian, political and philosophical themes, with references to Hollywood films to add flavor. The franchise has also been adapted into other media, such as comics, novels, and drama CDs. Solid Snake has also gone on to appear in other games, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, Ape Escape 3, and LittleBigPlanet.
Games
Hideo Kojima designed the original Metal Gear, which debuted in Japan and Europe in 1987 for the MSX2 computer platform. A separate team created a heavily modified Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port of the game that was released in Japan on December 22, 1987, North America in June 1988, and Europe and Australia sometime in 1989. Konami produced an NES sequel, Snake's Revenge, again without Kojima, released in North America and Europe in 1990. One of that game's designers became acquainted with Kojima and asked him to create a "real Metal Gear sequel". In reaction, Kojima began development of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which was released in Japan in 1990 for the MSX2.
Following Metal Gear 2s completion, Kojima worked on other projects before directing his third Metal Gear game, Metal Gear Solid, for the PlayStation. It began development in 1994 and debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show, before being released in 1998. The success of Metal Gear Solid resulted in a series of sequels, prequels, spin-offs, ports, and remakes for Microsoft Windows, the Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Metal Gear Solid was followed up by the sequel Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty released in November 2001 for the PlayStation 2. A remake of the original Metal Gear Solid called Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was made for the Nintendo GameCube in early 2004. Later that year, the third numbered entry, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, was released on the PlayStation 2. This is the first prequel which was set prior to all the previously released Metal Gear games and which acted as an origin to the franchise. These games were followed by a sequel to Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which was released on the PlayStation Portable in 2006. The series' main storyline was concluded in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PlayStation 3 in 2008. The game featured a multiplayer spin-off called Metal Gear Online.
In April 2010, another sequel to Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, was released for the PlayStation Portable and was set shortly after the events of Portable Ops. The spin-off game, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, was released in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and in Jan 2014 on Steam (PC). The game is set after Guns of the Patriots and stars Raiden, the protagonist of Sons of Liberty who turned into a cyborg ninja.
Expanded re-releases of games in the series were produced as well, such as Integral (Metal Gear Solid), Substance (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty), and Subsistence (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater). The series' portable installments are usually set outside the main storyline. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel was released for the Game Boy Color, and several games were released for Sony's PlayStation Portable. In a departure from the series' style, Metal Gear Acid and its sequel used turn-based strategy mechanics based on collectible cards.
On May 18, 2009, a teaser site for the following installment in the Metal Gear series was uploaded by Kojima Production. The site initially consisted of a series of countdowns leading to several flashing letters and the images of two characters looking like a middle-aged Big Boss and a cyborg Raiden. An article published in the July 2009 issue of Famitsu PSP + PS3 covers the content of the site and features an interview with Hideo Kojima. The interview, revealing many details, is heavily censored and was published that way as a request by Kojima, who was directing and designing the new game. Famitsu was to publish the full interview in its following issue. The new game was eventually revealed to be Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which was announced on June 1, 2009, at E3, during the Microsoft Press Conference.
At E3 2010, a demo, "Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater – The Naked Sample", was shown on the Nintendo 3DS. The official E3 Kojima site later released screenshots and official art for the demo. Kojima did state, however, that this was not a preview for a full game but just a sample of what could be done on the 3DS hardware. Another mobile port of a previously released game was shown at Sony's PlayStation Meeting on January 27, 2011, where Hideo Kojima demonstrated a possible portable version of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the upcoming PlayStation Vita.
On June 2, 2011, Konami announced the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection which was released in November 2011 for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The collection features remastered versions of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, rendered in 720p and running at 60fps, including Trophies/Achievements, and remastered audio. On August 15, 2011, UK retailer Zavvi secured the exclusive right to sell the Metal Gear Solid: Ultimate HD Collection only available for the PlayStation 3, which was released on November 25.
In November 2011, Kojima discussed with PlayStation Official Magazine (UK) the series' future commenting an upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5. Kojima said: "I think we'll probably have to make it [a sequel to MGS4] at some point, but what that will be, we have no idea". Kojima stated that when Konami does get around to building the game, he will have less influence than he had on previous iterations in the series. After the mixed fan reactions of the reveal of the rebooted action gameplay focused spin-off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Hideo Kojima reassured fans that an "authentic stealth Metal Gear Solid" sequel would be coming in the future.
During a discussion panel at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in March 2012, Kojima stated: "I am working on something that I think will become the shining moment" for his career and the Metal Gear series". During the franchise's 25th anniversary, Konami revealed a demo for a new game in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. A social game for the GREE, Metal Gear Solid: Social Ops, was released in December 2012.
On December 7, 2012, a teaser for The Phantom Pain was revealed on the Spike Video Game Awards. Following the teaser trailer, numerous video game-related websites and fansites reported the trailer's seemed connection to the Metal Gear series of video games.
On March 27, 2013, Kojima announced at GDC 2013 that Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain were two different portions of one work, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, with Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes serving as the prologue and The Phantom Pain serving as the main story. Snake's usual English-language voice actor David Hayter was not cast for the role. Instead, Hollywood actor and producer Kiefer Sutherland portrayed the character through voice acting and facial capture.
In 2015, Konami revealed that they were recruiting new staff members to develop a new Metal Gear game as Kojima left the company. On August 17, 2016, Konami announced during Gamescom 2016 that a new Metal Gear game was in the works, known as Metal Gear Survive. It is a spin-off game as well as a supplemental to Metal Gear Solid V as a whole, taking place between Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain.
On May 24, 2023, during Sony's PlayStation Showcase event, a remake of Snake Eater, titled Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was announced, as well as the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, which will include the first five mainline Metal Gear games, set for release in fall 2023. More information on Master Collection Vol. 1 was revealed in a Nintendo Direct on June 21, 2023, showing that the collection would also contain ports of the NES version of Metal Gear, Snake's Revenge, Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, and Bande Dessinée, as well as additional content such as screenplay books, master books, character profiles, story summaries, strategy guides, and a playable soundtrack.
Storyline
In the Metal Gear universe, history had diverged at some point during World War II, with the fictional Cobra Unit, led by The Boss, being instrumental in the defeat of the Axis Powers. Cloning, AI and robotics technology of the 1970s are more advanced. The eleven games in the main Metal Gear series continuity reveal a narrative that spans five and a half decades, from the Cold War, until the near future. Big Boss is the most relevant character within the story of the series and of the canonical 11 games five are prequels centering on his story, set decades before the events of the original Metal Gear. However, Solid Snake is still depicted as the primary main character of the series, as the prequels create context of his purpose and him being the antithesis of his father.
Plot
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which is chronologically the first game in the series, introduces Naked Snake (or Snake for short), an operative working for the fictional Force Operation X (FOX) unit of the CIA during the Cold War. The game focuses on the rise of Snake from an apprentice to a legendary soldier, as well as the downfall of his mentor and matriarchal figure, The Boss. After The Boss defects to the Soviet Union, Snake is sent into Russia to kill her and end the threat posed by Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, a GRU colonel with plans to overthrow the Soviet government. Snake's heroics during the game earn him the nickname "Big Boss" at the end. The origins of The Patriots, an organization founded by Zero, are also explored.
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops serves as a direct sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and follows Naked Snake's life after disbanding from FOX. With Snake not yet accepting the Big Boss codename, the plot features the origins of his mercenary unit as he attempts to escape the San Hieronymo Peninsula and battles his old unit. The canonicity of Portable Ops is disputed, with Kojima having stated that "the main story of Portable Ops is part of the Saga, is part of the official Metal Gear timeline, while some of the small details that are in Portable Ops are outside the Saga, not part of the main timeline of the game."
The next game, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, is set ten years after the events of Snake Eater and returns to the story of the young Big Boss. Now the head of the mercenary corporation Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF), Big Boss discovers that nuclear warheads are being transported to Latin America and decides that he must put a stop to it. Peace Walker features a new cast of characters to provide both aid and intelligence for Big Boss. A few characters from later games, such as a younger Kazuhira Miller, make appearances in the game.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, serves as the direct sequel to Peace Walker and is composed of two chapters. The prologue, Ground Zeroes, is set a few weeks after the final mission in Peace Walker, as Big Boss is tasked with rescuing two VIPs from a U.S. military black site on the coast of Cuba. Big Boss' mission coincides with a visit to Mother Base by the IAEA, which turns out to be a cover for an attack on Mother Base orchestrated by the mysterious organization XOF. In the chaos, Big Boss' helicopter collides with another, and he is sent to the hospital for nine years, which leads to the events of the main chapter, The Phantom Pain. The basis of the main story revolves around Big Boss forming a new private military company, the Diamond Dogs to retaliate for the destruction of MSF and the loss of his comrades. However, this "Big Boss" is revealed to be a part of the medical staff who survived the helicopter crash, who was brainwashed to believe himself to be Big Boss, while the real Big Boss went into hiding to create Outer Heaven, a place where soldiers can live without having to abide by any particular ideology.
The first Metal Gear game for the MSX follows Solid Snake, a rookie of the FOXHOUND special operations unit. He is sent by his superior Big Boss to the fortress in South Africa known as Outer Heaven, with the goal of finding the missing squad member Gray Fox and investigating a weapon known as Metal Gear. However, after Snake unexpectedly completes his goals, Big Boss is revealed to be the leader of Outer Heaven, which he has created as a place for soldiers to fight free of any ideology that he believes has been forced upon them by governments. He fights Snake and is killed. However, it turns out that this was actually the body double from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake the real Big Boss has established a new military nation, Zanzibar Land, and he and Snake face off again, with Snake achieving victory and seemingly killing Big Boss for good.
Metal Gear Solid elaborates on the storyline of the earlier games and reveals that Solid Snake is a genetic clone of Big Boss, created as part of a secret government project. An antagonist is introduced in the form of Liquid Snake, Snake's twin brother who takes control of FOXHOUND after Snake's retirement. Liquid and FOXHOUND take control of a nuclear weapons disposal facility in Alaska and commandeer REX, the next-generation Metal Gear weapons platform being tested there. They threaten to detonate REX's warhead unless the government turns over the remains of Big Boss. Solid Snake destroys Metal Gear REX and kills the renegade FOXHOUND members, with the exception of Revolver Ocelot.
A third Snake brother known as Solidus Snake is introduced as the United States President at the end of Metal Gear Solid and serves as the main antagonist of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. During his time as president, Solidus became aware of a secretive cabal known as "The Patriots" who were steadily manipulating the course of history. After his tenure as president is over, Solidus takes control of the "Big Shell" offshore facility, which is being used to develop Arsenal Gear, a mobile undersea fortress designed to house and protect a network of AIs created to influence human development by filtering the availability of information across the Internet. The game is set four years after Liquid's death in Metal Gear Solid, and it puts the player in control of Raiden, a soldier who fights against Solidus, who is revealed to be his former commander during his time as a child soldier. Raiden joins forces with Snake and learns that they are being manipulated by Revolver Ocelot, who has been working for the Patriots. At the end of the game, Ocelot seemingly becomes possessed by Liquid Snake as the nanomachines from Liquid's arm (which Ocelot took to replace his own arm after Gray Fox slices it off in Metal Gear Solid) work their way into Ocelot's thought process.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots deals with a rapidly aging Solid Snake (now branded "Old Snake") who is on a mission to find and defeat Revolver Ocelot, now known as Liquid Ocelot. Despite the destruction of the Arsenal Gear in Sons of Liberty, the Patriots have continued in their plans to influence the course of human history, installing artificial intelligence systems around the world. Ocelot, opposed to this, has assembled armies with which to fight back and intends to hijack their entire operating system for his own ends. Solid Snake's objective later changes to destroying the AIs of the Patriots and stop their oppression. After he and his allies succeed, Snake decides to live out his life peacefully.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is set four years after Guns of the Patriots and it stars Raiden as a cyborg ninja mercenary. Raiden joins the private military firm, Maverick Security Consulting, and is tasked with defending the prime minister of an unspecified African country. However, the situation goes awry and the prime minister is killed by a rival PMC company named Desperado Enforcement LLC. Raiden is defeated in the battle, but decides to re-avenge his failure and is sent out with a brand new cyborg body to fight the mysterious military group.
Tone and themes
The original Metal Gear, which was released in 1987 during the Cold War, dealt with the manipulation of soldiers by politicians of the East and West, countered by the concept of "Outer Heaven", a country without politics. Its sequel Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which was released in 1990 at the end of the Cold War, expanded on this with themes regarding political intrigue, battlefield ethics, military history, and the negative effects of warfare.
The overarching theme of the Metal Gear Solid series is that of the "gene, meme, scene, sense, peace, revenge and race," and how people are affected by these factors according to the game's producer Kojima—Metal Gear Solid deals with genetics and the moral implications of genetic engineering, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty deals with how identity can be affected by the philosophies of one's society (a "meme") and the effects of censorship on society, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater deals with how the time and place one lives in (a "scene") affects their identity, how politics change along with the times and hyperreality, the inability to distinguish fact and fiction in an information-saturated world.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots deals with "sense", which is a person's understanding of the world that is lost when they die. It also encompasses how some things cannot be passed down to future generations and be misinterpreted as well as the artificially controlled (and globally shared) sense-data of the new era's nanotech-enhanced soldiers. With Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker the plot deals with the true nature of 'peace', and the concept of conflict in human societies. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain deals with the themes "race" and "revenge" and how the latter can make one lose his humanity. Following the initial Metal Gear, each game has been a deconstruction of action movies and video games, using tropes to invoke the themes and ideas especially those of spy movies - it examines what kind of mind and complete control of a situation would be needed to pull off the absurdly complex and convoluted plans that rely on events completely within the realm of chance yet comes off without a hitch. Furthermore, it examines what happens to a child soldier forced to take up a normal life through the characters Eli (also known as Liquid Snake) in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Jack (primarily known as Raiden) in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance also deals with "revenge". Raiden is defeated in the beginning and feels a deep sense of vengeance, and as such exacts his 'revenge' on the group who sabotaged him, as well as coming to terms with his own past and embracing his true nature. The games carry many implicit parallels to Nietzschean philosophy. Solid Snake serves as a deconstruction of the action hero archetype, as his wartime experiences have turned him into a bitter, broken-down soldier who wishes to retire, but cannot escape the life of conflict that had entwined him for so long. This concept is further explored through Raiden, who is put through the same torments as Snake in explicit detail. Big Boss is similarly not immune to this theme: as Naked Snake, he does not resemble a suave, impeccable secret agent that would otherwise fit into the 1960s spy film pastiche of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but is instead an everyman character. Only after undergoing immense psychological and physical scarring does he begin to resemble the ultimate soldier known as Big Boss.
Although the series takes place in a realistic military setting, the Metal Gear video games also feature a strong focus on supernatural elements, leading the series to be commonly described as magic realism.
Characters
In games, players control a character who has to infiltrate into his enemy's area alone to complete his mission. Across the mission, the player receives assistance from a supporting team communicated by Codec. While the team tells the player hints about the mission, it also helps expand the characters through their interactions. During their debuts, player characters Solid Snake and Raiden are meant to represent the player while in the following games they acquire more defined personalities. A common motif in the series is the use of powerful enemies. As games were released, new concepts were given to the bosses to make them innovative and notice their strength. As the first games used humans with supernatural abilities, for Metal Gear Solid 4, the designers decided to use monsters rather than humans as enemies. A notable boss battle was The End from Metal Gear Solid 3 that was meant to differentiate it from all the other bosses in the franchise due to its strategic gameplay. Another common motif has been the transformation of a previously normal character returning as a ninja. It started with Kyle Schneider in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake when he fought against Snake as "Black Ninja". Several other characters have done the same, including Gray Fox, Olga Gurlukovich, and Raiden.
Much as Metal Gear began as partially a pastiche of action movies of the time, characters were sometimes pastiches of contemporary action movie heroes. Metal Gear Solid characters have been designed by Yoji Shinkawa. Several of their real names and aliases are references to various Hollywood films. Because of the time skip between games, a few of the characters have been redesigned to fit in the game's year. With the improvements from new video game consoles like the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, the staff gave the characters a more realistic look although they initially had doubts about it. Kojima's thoughts regarding Snake's improved abilities by the time of Metal Gear Solid led to the concept of cloned characters who would be able to match him in combat. By Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes novels to introduce a sidekick character in order to view Snake from a different perspective.
Development
The first Metal Gear game was intended to be an action game that featured modern military combat. However, the MSX2's hardware limited the number of on-screen bullets and enemies, which Hideo Kojima felt impeded the combat aspect. Inspired by The Great Escape, he altered the gameplay to focus on a prisoner escaping. In a series of articles written for Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, Hideo Kojima identified several Hollywood films as the primary sources of inspiration for the storylines and gameplay of the Metal Gear series. He further noted that the James Bond series is what influenced him the most regarding the creation of Metal Gear Solid. The original plot has references to the nuclear war paranoia during the mid-1980s that resulted from the Cold War. Following games would revolve around nuclear weapon inspections in Iraq and Iran, but this idea was left out due to growing concern regarding the political situation in the Middle East. Other changes to the series were made in Metal Gear Solid 2 as a result of the September 11 attacks.
After Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Kojima planned to release the third Metal Gear game in 1994 for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1994. Besides changing the game's platform to the PlayStation, the game was renamed, and its subsequent sequels were given the word "Solid" as the series started using 3D computer graphics. Since then, the games were designed to be more realistic to further entertain the players. Metal Gear Solid 3 was initially meant to be made for the PlayStation 3, but due to the long wait for the console, the game was developed for the PlayStation 2 instead. As previous game's settings were indoors areas due to difficulties with the consoles, since Metal Gear Solid 3, Kojima wished to drastically change it despite difficulties. Since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty had several plot points unresolved, it was originally meant to leave it to players to discuss them to come to their own conclusions. This has led to consistency issues in the English versions of Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 as they mentioned plot elements that were further explored in Metal Gear Solid 4.
Related media
Printed adaptations
A novel adaptation of the original Metal Gear was published in 1988 as a part of Scholastic's Worlds of Power line of novelizations, which were based on third-party NES games. It was written by Alexander Frost. The novelization is not based on the game's official storyline, but rather on Konami of America's localization of the plot. The book takes further liberties by giving Solid Snake the name of Justin Halley, and by changing the name of Snake's unit from FOXHOUND to the "Snake Men". In Japan, a Metal Gear gamebook was published on March 31, 1988, shortly after the release of the game on the Famicom. It is set two years after the events of the original Metal Gear and is part of the Konami Gamebook Series. A novelization of Metal Gear Solid was published in 2008. It was written by Raymond Benson, the author of nine James Bond novels. Benson also wrote a Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty novelization, which was published in 2009. Critical reaction to Benson's novelizations has been generally positive, with Bookgasm.com writing that "Benson does a fine job translating the game to the page" with Metal Gear Solid, and MishMashMagazine.com calling Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty "a great companion to the game". A Japanese-language novelization of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots by Project Itoh was published on June 12, 2008. The novel was translated into English by Viz Media and was released on June 19, 2012.
A comic book adaptation of the original Metal Gear Solid was published by IDW Publishing in 2004. It was written by Kris Oprisko and with illustrations by Ashley Wood. The series lasted 24 issues and has been collected in two trade paperbacks as well as a single hardback collector's edition which is currently out-of-print. The entire run of the comic was collected again in a paperback book, Metal Gear Solid Omnibus, and released in June 2010. A comic book adaptation of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has also been published by IDW, written by Alex Garner with illustrations by Ashley Wood. A digital version of the first comic book adaptation was released for the PlayStation Portable, Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, in 2006. A second digital version, Metal Gear Solid 2: Bande Dessinée, was released exclusively in Japan as a DVD release in 2008 and features fully voiced versions of both comic book adaptations. All the Japanese voice actors from the games reprised their roles with the exception of those that have died.
CDs
A radio drama based on the original Metal Gear Solid aired in Japan from 1998 to 1999 as part of Konami's syndicated CLUB db program. Directed by Shuyo Murata and written by Motosada Mori, the serial lasted over 12 weekly installments spanning three story arcs. The series was later collected as a two-volume set. The series serves as an alternate continuation to the events of Shadow Moses, with Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh, Mei Ling and Roy Campbell going on further missions as FOXHOUND operatives (Mei Ling and Meryl are depicted wearing a battle dress uniform and a sneaking suit respectively), although the stories are not considered part of the mainstream Metal Gear canon. The Japanese voice actors from the game reprised their roles for the series, while new characters are introduced as well.
Several promotional DVDs have been released detailing the Metal Gear series. Metal Gear Saga vol. 1 was released in 2006 as a pre-order disc for MGS3: Subsistence. It is divided into five chapters, each dealing with one game of the then five-part Metal Gear series in chronological order (beginning with MGS3), and each includes discussions by Hideo Kojima. Metal Gear Saga vol. 2 was first shown at the 20th Metal Gear Anniversary Party, and then released as a pre-order disc for MGS4. In this, the video is presented as a pseudo-documentary about Solid Snake and is divided into a prologue and four chapters: Naked Snake-the birth of Snake (chronicling the events of MGS3, MG1, and MG2), Liquid Snake-the second snake (MGS), Solidus Snake-the third Snake (MGS2) and Solid Snake-the first Snake (setting the stage for MGS4).
Film adaptation
In May 2006, Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima announced that an English-language film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid was in early development. Kojima also announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo later that month that he had negotiated a contract with a party in Hollywood to adapt the video game into a film, though no further details were shared at that time. David Hayter, the English voice actor for Solid Snake, submitted a film treatment that executives passed on. Producers had expressed interest in Equilibrium director Kurt Wimmer as writer and/or director, or Paul Thomas Anderson to direct; Kojima also denied claims that German director Uwe Boll was a possible contender. Viggo Mortensen and Hugh Jackman were considered for the role of Snake, while Christian Bale denied rumors of his involvement. However, on January 11, 2010, producer Michael De Luca confirmed that work on a Metal Gear film adaptation had been postponed indefinitely. He said Konami expressed concern that the entire Metal Gear franchise could be seriously affected if a movie version performed poorly. In March 2012, during The Art of Video Games exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Kojima stated that he did not have a desire to write or direct a potential Metal Gear Solid movie himself.
At the Metal Gear 25th Anniversary on August 30, 2012, Hideo Kojima announced that Arad Productions, owned by Arad brothers Avi and Ari, have agreed to produce a movie version of Metal Gear Solid with Columbia Pictures. Columbia's parent company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, will be in charge of distribution. On June 3, 2014, Deadline Hollywood reported that Sony was in talks with Jordan Vogt-Roberts to direct the film. On March 30, 2015, Sony Pictures announced that Jay Basu would write the screenplay. In February 2017, Vogt-Roberts said the filmmakers are working on the film's script with Kojima and making it either an R or PG-13 rating. In November 2017, Derek Connolly was hired to rewrite the script. In July 2018, Vogt-Roberts announced that the first draft of the film's screenplay had been completed. In August 2018, Vogt-Roberts stated that he wished for the film to receive an R rating, stating, "It's about doing it for a price so you can make the riskier, balls-to-the-wall, Kojima-san version of it. ...To me, it's a way to make the first great video game movie where it doesn't matter that it's based on a video game". In December 2019, Vogt-Roberts announced that another draft had been completed. In December 2020, it was announced that Oscar Isaac had been officially cast as Solid Snake; Isaac had previously expressed interest in the role.
Toys
In 1999, McFarlane Toys, with the collaboration of Konami, launched a series of action figures depicting key characters from Metal Gear Solid. In 2001, following the success of the first series, and with the release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, McFarlane Toys, and Konami combined their efforts to produce a line of action figures depicting Sons of Liberty'''s main characters. Each character has a piece of Metal Gear RAY, so collecting the entire set is essential to build the robot.
Konami has also released 4" scale blind-box figures based on MGS2 released in Japan, Sons of Liberty in 2002 and Substance shortly after in 2003; the Substance series was eventually brought to the US and UK markets packaged on card rather than blind boxed. During the release of MGS3, Medicom released 12" figures of Snake as part of their Real Action Heroes line. Medicom continued to support the franchise with the release of Kubrick figures for Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots, which also included seven- and 12-inch versions of the game's characters.
In 2009, toy company ThreeA joined forces with Kojima to make related products. The first fruit of this partnership came in late 2012, when ThreeA released a massive 1/48 scale figure of Metal Gear REX, with working LED lights. It can also be dressed up to depict REX's decrepit condition in Guns of the Patriots. The company is also cooperating with graphic artist Ashley Wood to develop a similarly scaled Metal Gear RAY. A prototype was first unveiled at the ReVenture hobby show in Hong Kong in April 2012.
Square Enix also joined the production of toys based on the franchise starting with the boss vehicles and characters from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The toys, which are from Square's Play Arts Kai line, were released in 2010. The line has since expanded to include characters from Metal Gear Solid, Sons of Liberty, Ground Zeroes, and The Phantom Pain, with the detail more pronounced than the original McFarlane Toys figures.
In 2012, Hot Toys released a 1/6th action figure of Naked Snake in his original sneaking suit attire from MGS3, as well as the Boss.
To celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary, model kit company Kotobukiya released a 1/100 scale Metal Gear REX, which features small figures of Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, and Gray Fox in both standing and near-death versions., and later followed suit with RAY. Kaiyodo's Revoltech action figure line includes versions of Big Boss from Peace Walker and Raiden from Rising: Revengeance, plus Venom Snake and a generic Soviet Army soldier from The Phantom Pain for the smaller RevoMini action figure category.
Soundtracks
Soundtracks for the first two games were produced by Iku Mizutani, Shigehiro Takenouchi, and Motoaki Furukawa. For Metal Gear Solid, Kojima wanted "a full orchestra right next to the player"; a system which made modifications such as tempo and texture to the currently playing track, instead of switching to another pre-recorded track. Although these features could not be achieved at that time, they were implemented in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Hideo Kojima's choice of Harry Gregson-Williams, a Hollywood film composer from Hans Zimmer's studio, as the composer for Metal Gear Solid 2 was highly publicized in the run-up to the game's release. Gregson-Williams would reprise his role in Metal Gear Solid 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4. Starting with Metal Gear Solid, theme songs have been provided by popular artists such as Rika Muranaka. Several soundtracks based on the games have also been published.
Reception and legacy
The Metal Gear franchise has achieved great success, selling over copies . By February 2007, the series had grossed more than (equivalent to between adjusted for inflation) from copies sold, in addition to having sold ancillary merchandise including strategy guides, action figures and 200,000 comic books. , the franchise has grossed about worldwide.Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty sold copies worldwide, and is followed in sales by Metal Gear Solid with over copies sold, and then Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, each with over copies sold. According to Chart-Track, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was the second fastest-selling PlayStation 3 game in the United Kingdom after Grand Theft Auto IV. The Phantom Pain grossed on release day, higher than the combined opening day box office of the films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World. The PlayStation Portable games were met with notably lower sales, but it has been analyzed that this was because of the low sales of the console when the games were released. Metal Gear Survive, the first Metal Gear game to be developed since series creator Hideo Kojima left Konami, sold only a fraction of the sales made by Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
The series as a whole (namely concerning the Kojima-directed titles) is often regarded as one of the most influential of all time and has received largely critical acclaim from critics and players. Most of the numbered installments are considered to be some of the greatest video games of all time. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty currently possesses 95.09% on GameRankings and 96/100 on Metacritic, making it the highest-scoring game of the series to date. In 2002, IGN's editors ranked Metal Gear Solid as the best PlayStation game ever. In Game Informer Magazines list of top 200 games of all time, Metal Gear Solid 2 ranked at No. 50 on the list. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was also voted as the fifth greatest PlayStation game in a poll from PlayStation Official Magazine (UK). Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2 were featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's "The Art of Video Games" exhibition taking place from March 16 to September 30, 2012. Games have won multiple awards such as Metal Gear Solid, which won the "Excellence Award for Interactive Art" by the Japan Media Arts Festival, and Metal Gear Solid 2, which was given the Game of the Year award by Game Informer.Metal Gear was the first mainstream stealth game, with the player starting the game unarmed, and sold over a million copies in the United States. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake evolved the stealth gameplay of its predecessor and is considered one of the best 8-bit games of all time. Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 are credited with pioneering stealth mechanics. Metal Gear Solid, which debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show, was the first 3D stealth game, and is credited with popularizing the stealth game genre, as well as the hiding-behind-cover mechanic. The series pioneered the integration of cinematic techniques into video games, especially Metal Gear Solid which Eurogamer considers the "first modern video game".
Several boss fights have been praised for their variety and strategy required to beat them. The series is notorious for its fourth wall breaking scenes. The storyline has been commented to maintain "rich characterization" while touching on some controversial themes. Hideo Kojima's ambitious script in Metal Gear Solid 2 has been praised, some calling it the first example of a postmodern video game, while others have argued that it anticipated concepts such as post-truth politics, fake news, echo chambers and alternative facts. The series' storytelling in general has received praise for being among "the most fascinating science fiction stories in any medium". The series' cutscenes have often been praised for their graphics and the characters' stunt performances."The Top Ten Video Game Openings," Game Informer 187 (November 2008): 38. Nevertheless, a common criticism has been the scenes' lengthiness, as well as some parts of the storyline. Raiden's unexpected introduction as the main protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 2, due to his lack of appearances in the games' trailers and how he replaces fan-favorite character Solid Snake, has been deemed as one of the most controversial parts of the entire series. The series' audio has been acclaimed to the point of receiving awards for its use of sound and music.
The Metal Gear series inspired numerous video game developers. Splinter Cell and Far Cry 2 designer Clint Hocking stated that every stealth-action game "owes its existence to the success of Metal Gear" and that, "Without Metal Gear, there would be no stealth games." Splinter Cell producer Mathieu Ferland said "Metal Gear Solid was a huge inspiration for Splinter Cell" and it "was a pioneer for both the genre and the quality of directing". Silicon Knights founder Denis Dyack said Metal Gear Solids "story, script, characters, voice acting, and cinemas" were "a landmark" and "guiding light to the future of videogames." Unreal and Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski cited the military themes and action gameplay of Metal Gear as a major influence on his work, and he named Gears of War in homage to Metal Gear. Thief creator Tom Leonard said Metal Gear Solids success convinced them that experimental stealth gameplay could be marketable and "revitalized the team" in "the closing months of the project." Sumo Digital designer Emily Knox cited Metal Gear Solid as an early formative influence on their work. Crysis 2 animator Luke Kelly said the game's animations were inspired by Metal Gear Solid 4''.
Notes
References
External links
Action-adventure video games by series
Stealth video games by series
Alternate history video games
Anti-war video games
Video games about artificial intelligence
Video games about cloning
Cyberpunk video games
Dystopian video games
Video games about genetic engineering
Video games adapted into comics
Video games adapted into novels
Konami franchises
Video games about mecha
Nanopunk
Military science fiction video games
Spy video games
Video games about cyborgs
Video games about robots
Video games about terrorism
Video game franchises
Video game franchises introduced in 1987
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education%20in%20Japan
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Education in Japan
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Education in Japan is managed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. Education is compulsory at the elementary and lower secondary levels. Most students attend public schools through the lower secondary level, but private education is popular at the upper secondary and university levels. Education prior to elementary school is provided at kindergartens and day-care centres. The programmes for those children aged 3–5 resemble those at kindergartens. The educational approach at kindergartens varies greatly from unstructured environments that emphasize play to highly structured environments that are focused on having the child pass the entrance exam at a private elementary school. The academic year starts from April and ends in March, having summer vacation in August and winter vacation in the end of December to the beginning of January.
Japanese students consistently rank highly among OECD students in terms of quality and performance in reading, mathematics, and sciences. Japan is one of the top-performing OECD countries in reading literacy, mathematics and sciences on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests with the average student scoring 520, compared with the OECD average of 488, placing it eighth in the world in the 2018 ranking. Japan's populace is well educated and its society highly values education as a platform for socioeconomic mobility and for gaining employment in the country's high-tech economy. The country's large pool of highly educated and skilled individuals is largely responsible for ushering Japan's post-war economic growth. Tertiary-educated adults in Japan, particularly graduates in sciences and engineering, benefit economically and socially from their education and skills in the country's high tech economy.
Spending on education as a proportion of GDP is 4.1 percent, which is below the OECD average of 5 percent. Although expenditure per student is comparatively high in Japan, total expenditure relative to GDP remains small. In 2020, the country ranked third for the percentage of 25-to-64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 52.7 percent. In addition, 61.5 percent of Japanese aged 25 to 34 have attained some form tertiary education and bachelor's degrees are held by 31.3 percent of Japanese aged 25 to 64, the second most in the OECD after South Korea. Japanese females are more highly educated compared to their Japanese male counterparts as 59 percent of Japanese women possess a university degree, compared to 52 percent of Japanese men. As the Japanese economy is largely scientifically and technologically based, its labor market demands people who have achieved some form of higher education, particularly related to science and engineering in order to gain a competitive edge when searching for employment opportunities. According to the MEXT, the percentage of Japanese going on to any higher education institution in the eighteen-year-old cohort was 80.6 percent, with 52.6 percent of students going on to a university, 4.7 percent to a junior college, 0.9 percent to a college of technology and the remaining 22.4 percent attending a correspondence school, the University of the Air or a specialized training college. Japan's education system played a central part in Japan's recovery and rapid economic growth in the decades following 1945.
History
Formal education in Japan began with the adoption of Chinese culture, in the 6th century AD. Buddhist and Confucian teachings as well as sciences, calligraphy, divination and literature were taught at the courts of Asuka, Nara and Heian. Scholar officials were chosen through an Imperial examination system. But contrary to China, the system never fully took hold and titles and posts at the court remained hereditary family possessions. The rise of the bushi, the military class, during the Kamakura period ended the influence of scholar officials, but Buddhist monasteries remained influential centers of learning.
In the Edo period, the Yushima Seidō in Edo was the chief educational institution of the state; and at its head was the Daigaku-no-kami, a title which identified the leader of the Tokugawa training school for shogunate bureaucrats.
Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the daimyō vied for power in the largely pacified country. Since their influence could not be raised through war, they competed on the economic field. Their warrior-turned-bureaucrat Samurai elite had to be educated not only in military strategy and the martial arts, but also agriculture and accounting. Likewise, the wealthy merchant class needed education for their daily business, and their wealth allowed them to be patrons of arts and science. But temple schools (terakoya) educated peasants too, and it is estimated that at the end of the Edo period 50% of the male and 20% of the female population possessed some degree of literacy. Even though contact with foreign countries was restricted, books from China and Europe were eagerly imported and Rangaku ("Dutch studies") became a popular area of scholarly interest.
There were facilities that were created to specifically educate samurai and their children to perpetuate morality and mindfulness of their class. These schools, hanko schools, were where scholars would bring together samurai to listen to lectures on Confucianism, military arts, and other subjects. Samurai would then attempt to teach villagers what they had learned, "proper guidance to the common people's spirit and manners", by posting flyers and creating handbooks, Some Shōgun and Daimyō were also interested in spreading education throughout their protected land with the target audience as adult commoners and children. Elementary education was imparted as well as writing and morality lessons. The Shirakawa Village School's town bulletin explains the point of education for the commoners, "If not only the important people of the village but also the lesser people have continuous teaching from the appointed village schools, they will gain understanding".
'Commoners' would also form communal gatherings to try to educate themselves with the help of a scholar. One such, Baigan Ishida, was a great orator and writer who reached the merchant class. There were wakashu-gumi, or youth groups, that consisted of young men ages fourteen to seventeen, who at these groups learned about ceremonies, cooperative living, language, manners, marriage, straw weaving, and world information, not to mention talking and singing. Japan was thriving with the want for enlightenment. One may say the need for more education is one of the reasons why the Tokugawa Shogunate failed in 1868.
In 1858 Fukuzawa Yukichi founded a private school of Western studies which then became Keio University, known as a leading institute in Japanese higher education.
Meiji Restoration
After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the methods and structures of Western learning were adopted as a means to make Japan a strong, modern nation. Students and even high-ranking government officials were sent abroad to study, such as the Iwakura mission. Foreign scholars, the so-called o-yatoi gaikokujin, were invited to teach at newly founded universities and military academies. Compulsory education was introduced, mainly after the Prussian model. In order to aid in the modernization the country, the Meiji government built a public library in 1872. The Japan Library Association (or the JLA) was founded in 1892 to promote the library. However, public education became the main focus of the Meiji government before they could strengthen the
0 years after the resumption of full international relations, Japan discontinued employment of the foreign consultants.
After 1890 Japan had numerous reformers, child experts, magazine editors, and well-educated mothers who bought into the new sensibility. They taught the upper middle class a model of childhood that included children having their own space where they read children's books, played with educational toys and, especially, devoted enormous time to school homework. These ideas rapidly disseminated through all social classes.
Post-WWII
After the defeat in World War II, the Allied occupation government set education reform as one of its primary goals, to eradicate militarist teachings and convert Japan into a pacifist democracy. Nine years of education was made mandatory, with six years in elementary education and three in junior high as an emulation of the American educational system. A number of reforms were carried out in the post-war period that aimed at easing the burden of entrance examinations, promoting internationalization and information technologies, diversifying education and supporting lifelong learning.
In an effort to ease Japanese postwar sentiments, any nationalistic, militaristic, authoritarian, or anti-American content was blackened from learning materials. This practice was known as suminuru, and was used as the primary method of educational reform until newly fashioned texts, Kuni no ayumi (Footsteps of the Nation), Nihon rekishi (Japanese History), and Minshushugi (Democracy) were written by the Ministry of Education and Civil Information and Education Section. The Ministry of Education is now known as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and is responsible for educational administration.
In successive international assessment tests, Japan's fourth- and eighth-grade students have consistently ranked in the top five globally in both mathematics and science (see TIMSS).
Despite concerns that academic skills for Japanese students may have declined since the mid-1990s, Japan's students showed a significant improvement in math and science scores in the 2011 TIMSS survey, compared to the 2007 scores.
Organization of the school system
School levels
The school year in Japan begins in April and classes are held from Monday to either Friday or Saturday, depending on the school. The school year consists of two or three terms, which are separated by short holidays in spring and winter, and a six-week-long summer break.
The year structure is summarized below:
Lower secondary school
Lower secondary school covers grades seven through nine, with children typically aged twelve through fifteen. There are 3.5 million primary school students in Japan as of 2012, down from over 5.3 million in 1991. However, the number of junior high schools has remained relatively static, falling from 11,275 in 1993 to 10,699 in 2012. The number of junior high school teachers has also changed little, with 257,605 junior high school teachers in 1996, and 253,753 in 2012). Approximately 8% of junior high students attend a private junior high school (accounting for 7% of all junior high schools). Private schools are considerably more expensive: as of 2013, the average annual cost of private primary school attendance was ¥1,295,156 per student, roughly thrice the ¥450,340 cost for a public school. Japan's compulsory education ends at grade nine, but less than 2% drop out; 60% of students advanced to senior education as of 1960, increasing rapidly to over 90% by 1980, rising further each year until reaching 98.3% as of 2012.
Teachers often major in their respective subjects, and more than 79% graduate from a four-year college. Classes are large, with an average of thirty-eight students per class, and each class is assigned a homeroom teacher, doubling as a counselor. Unlike kindergarten students, primary school students have different teachers for different subjects. However, the teacher changes rooms for each period, rather than the students.
Instruction in primary schools is often in the form of lectures. Teachers also use other Media, such as television and Radio, and there is some laboratory work. By 1989 about 45% of all public primary schools had computers, including schools that used them only for administrative purposes. All course contents are specified in the Course of Study for Lower-Secondary Schools. Some subjects, such as Japanese language and mathematics, are coordinated with the elementary curriculum. Others, such as foreign-language study, begin at this level, though from April 2011, English became a compulsory part of the elementary school curriculum. The junior school curriculum covers Japanese language, social studies, mathematics, science, music, fine arts, health, and physical education. All students are also exposed to industrial arts and homemaking. Moral education and special activities continue to receive attention. Most students also participate in one of a range of school clubs that occupy them until around 6 p.m. most weekdays (including weekends and often before school as well), as part of an effort to address juvenile delinquency..
A growing number of primary school students also attend juku, private extracurricular study schools, in the evenings and on weekends. A focus by students upon these other studies and the increasingly structured demands upon students' time have been criticized by teachers and in the media for contributing to a decline in classroom standards and student performance in recent years.
The ministry recognizes a need to improve the teaching of all foreign languages, especially English. To improve instruction in spoken English, the government invites many young native speakers of English to Japan to serve as assistants to school boards and prefectures under its Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET). Beginning with 848 participants in 1987, the program grew to a high of 6,273 participants in 2002. The program was in a decline in recent years due to several factors, including repeated sex scandals, shrinking local school budgets funding the program, as well as an increasing number of school boards hiring their foreign native speakers directly or through lower-paying, private agencies. Today, the program is again growing due to English becoming a compulsory part of the elementary school curriculum in 2011/21**.”
Upper secondary school
Though upper-secondary school is not compulsory in Japan, 94% of all junior high school graduates enrolled as of 2005. Upper secondary consists of three years. Private upper-secondary schools account for about 55% of all upper-secondary schools, and neither public nor private schools are free. The Ministry of Education estimated that annual family expenses for the education of a child in a public upper-secondary school were about ¥300,000 in the 1980s and that private upper-secondary schools were about twice as expensive.
The most common type of upper-secondary school has a full-time, general program that offered academic courses for students preparing for higher education as well as technical and vocational courses for students expecting to find employment after graduation. More than 70% of upper-secondary school students were enrolled in the general academic program in the late 1980s. A small number of schools offer part-time programs, evening courses, or correspondence education.
The first-year programs for students in both academic and commercial courses are similar. They include basic academic courses, such as Japanese language, English, mathematics, and science. In upper-secondary school, differences in ability are first publicly acknowledged, and course content and course selection are far more individualized in the second year. However, there is a core of academic material throughout all programs.
Vocational-technical programs includes several hundred specialized courses, such as information processing, navigation, fish farming, business, English, and ceramics. Business and industrial courses are the most popular, accounting for 72% of all students in full-time vocational programs in 1989.
Most upper-secondary teachers are university graduates. Upper-secondary schools are organized into departments, and teachers specialize in their major fields although they teach a variety of courses within their disciplines. Teaching depends largely on the lecture system, with the main goal of covering the very demanding curriculum in the time allotted. Approach and subject coverage tends to be uniform, at least in the public schools.
Training of disabled students, particularly at the upper-secondary level, emphasizes vocational education to enable students to be as independent as possible within society. Vocational training varies considerably depending on the student's disability, but the options are limited for some. It is clear that the government is aware of the necessity of broadening the range of possibilities for these students. Advancement to higher education is also a goal of the government, and it struggles to have institutions of higher learning accept more students with disabilities.
Higher and tertiary education
Higher and tertiary educations in Japan are provided in universities (daigaku), junior colleges (tanki daigaku), colleges of technology (koto senmon gakko) and special training colleges (senmon gakko). Of these four types of institutions, only universities and junior colleges are strictly considered as higher education.
As of 2017, more than 2.89 million students were enrolled in 780 universities. At the top of the higher education structure, these institutions provide a four-year training leading to a bachelor's degree, and some offer six-year programs leading to a professional degree. There are two types of public four-year colleges: the 86 national universities (including the Open University of Japan) and the 95 local public universities, founded by prefectures and municipalities. The 597 remaining four-year colleges in 2010 were private. With a wealth of opportunities for students wishing to pursue tertiary education, the nation's prestigious schools are the most appealing for students seeking to gain top employment prospects.
The overwhelming majority of college students attend full-time day programs. In 1990 the most popular courses, enrolling almost 40 percent of all undergraduate students, were in the social sciences, including business, law, and accounting. Other popular subjects were engineering (19 percent), the humanities (15 percent), and education (7 percent).
The average costs (tuition, fees, and living expenses) for a year of higher education in 1986 were ¥1.4 million. To help defray expenses, students frequently work part-time or borrow money through the government-supported Japan Scholarship Association. Assistance is also offered by local governments, non-profit corporations, and other institutions.
The quality of universities and higher education in Japan is internationally recognized. There are 51 Japanese universities listed on the 2024 THES - QS World University Rankings, with the University of Tokyo ranked 28th. In 2023, the QS East Asian University Rankings Top 20 included 106 Japanese universities, with the highest ranking, the University of Tokyo, in 8th position.
The 2024 QS Continental Asian University Rankings Top 40 included the University of Tokyo at the 11th position, Kyoto University at 16th, the Tokyo Institute of Technology at 20th, Osaka University at 21st, Tohoku University at 22nd, Nagoya University at 28th, Hokkaido University at 29th, and Kyushu University at 31st.
Compulsory school subjects
The following is the set of compulsory subjects currently taught in the Japanese education system from the primary to secondary levels:
Japanese (the national language) (plus one other language, mainly English)
Arithmetic, mathematics, etc.
Science, technology, etc.
Foreign languages: Korean, Spanish (rarely: Arabic, French, German, or Chinese)
Social studies (history, geography, and civics).
Physical education (health, sports, etc.)
Moral education (usually taught in the primary school levels).
Informatics, technology, etc.
Home economics, technology, etc.
In Japanese elementary, junior and senior secondary schools, textbooks that have passed the certification process from the Ministry of Education (MEXT) must be used.
Academic grading
Japanese schools tend to follow different academic grading principles. Many universities use the following for assessments scores and marks:
Primary school levels
Elementary school students (years 1 through 6) are expected to complete their compulsory primary school education (義務教育, gimu kyoiku) as well as pass the admissions examinations for junior high schools.
Secondary school levels
In order for students to enter the secondary school level, students are required to sit for and pass the admissions examinations set by the schools. Failure indicates that students cannot proceed to secondary schools.
Secondary education in Japan is difficult in that it rigorously prepares students for university entrance. Many parents often send children to private cram schools known as juku (塾) in order to help prepare them for the university entrance examinations such as the National Centre Test (国立センター試験). Classes for juku are typically held in the evenings after students have completed their regular day courses.
Most secondary schools in Japan have a numerical grading system from 5 to 1 with 5 being the highest score.
Government intervention
Under the Basic Act on Education (2007) Japan has signed to provide equal opportunity in education including individuals with disabilities. Along with the Basic Act on Education, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was passed in 2007, and was ratified in 2014 as part of welfare. These two acts promised that the national and local government would provide special needs education program with adequate accommodation according to their level of disability. The purpose of the Special Needs Education is to help individuals develop their potential under their capabilities in order to gain independence and to gain vocational training in special fields. Some schools accommodate students with disability under traditional school settings, but in certain cases, students are placed in independent schools specialized in special needs education program. This program supports students with visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical disability, emotional behavioural disorder, learning disabilities, speech-language impairment (communication disorder), health impairment and development delay.
Reforms
Children with disabilities, along with their parents, did not have a voice until in the 1990s when special needs education started to receive public attention. Before then, children with disability were recognized as "slow learners" or "difficult to blend in". The education department of the Japanese government slowly started to focus on giving equal rights to children with disability, and the first major reform began as an introduction of a "Resource Room System", which served as a supplemental special need program for students with disabilities attending traditional school settings. Further in 2006, a greater educational reform took place to promote the notion of "inclusive education". The inclusion education program came into act due to an influence of three political factors; the international movement for school inclusion, the reform of welfare on people with disabilities, and a general reform of the education system in Japan. The purpose of this act was to avoid isolation of students with disability with the rest of the mainstream society, and integrate special need education with traditional education system by providing a more universal and diverse classroom settings. In recent years, the Japanese government continues to pass equal rights to children with disability under special need education and inclusive education as public welfare.
Extracurricular activities
The Japanese educational system is supplemented by a heavy emphasis on extracurricular activities, also known as shadow education, which are any educational activities that do not take place during formal schooling. This is largely motivated by the extreme weight that is placed upon formal examinations as a prerequisite to attend university, something that is seen as integral to their future career and social status. In order to gain a competitive edge, Japanese families are willing to expend money and have their child put in time and effort into a supplementary education. Forms of shadow education include mogi shiken, which are practice exams given by private companies that determine the child's chances of getting into a university. Juku are private after school classes that aim to develop abilities for students to excel in formal school curriculum or to prepare for university examinations. Ronin are students that undergo full-time preparation for university exams following high school due to their inability to get into their school of choice.
Over 86% of students with college plans participate in at least one form of shadow education, with 60% participating in two or more.
Criticisms
Japanese students are faced with immense pressure to succeed academically from their parents, teachers, peers and society. This is largely a result of a society that has long placed a great amount of importance on education, and a system that places all of its weight upon a single examination that has significant life-long consequences. This pressure has led to behaviors such as school violence, cheating, suicide, and significant psychological harm. In some cases, students have experienced nervous breakdowns that have required hospitalization as young as twelve. In 1991, it was reported that 1,333 people in the age group of 15–24 had killed themselves, much of which was due to academic pressure. In an international perspective, teenage suicide rates are close to the OECD average and below those of the United States. A survey by the Education Ministry showed that students at public schools were involved in a record number of violent incidents in 2007: 52,756 cases, an increase of some 8,000 on the previous year. In almost 7,000 of these incidents, teachers were the target of assault.
The Japanese educational system has also been criticized for failure to foster independent thinkers with cultural and artistic sensibility. Japanese students that attend schools overseas often face difficulty adapting and competing in that environment due to lack of international viewpoints.
There is also criticism about the amount of free time students are given and/or are allowed within their middle school and high school careers. As Japanese students grow, their time to assert what they have learned in class to real life is cut dramatically, starting with the elevation from elementary to lower secondary school. A large part of this has to do with cram schooling, or Juku, which can start as early as elementary and takes full effect toward the end of junior high school, with roughly 60% of all students participating. This number has increased drastically over the past couple decades, as well as the view of Juku within the Japanese academic system. While initially seen as a problem, cram schools have become synonymous with Japan's schooling and are even seen as a support to the structure of said schooling. With Juku costing between 600,000 and 1.5 million yen, depending on how old the student is and how much the guardian can pay, cram school is a very profitable part of the economy, with over 48,000 Juku schools active today. With these extra school sessions ranging between 1 and 6 days a week on top of normal classes, there is a fear that students will be unable to incorporate what they have learned into their lives, and thus could foreseeably lose the retained knowledge once the Entrance Exams are over.
Bullying
There is criticism about insufficient efforts to reduce bullying in schools. In fiscal 2019, there were a record 612,496 bullying cases in schools across Japan. This includes public, private elementary, junior high, high schools and special schools for children with disabilities. Serious incidents with severe physical or psychological damage was 723 (20% increase from 2018). Bullying happens mostly on elementary schools (484,545 cases in 2019) followed by junior high schools (106,524 cases in 2019) and high schools (18,352 cases in 2019). In fiscal 2019, 317 students died from suicide of which 10 suffered from bullying. 61.9 percent of cases were verbal bullying and online bullying accounted for 18.9 percent in high schools. In 2019 there were 78,787 cases of violent acts by students in elementary, junior high and high schools.
International education
As of 2016, Japan has 30 to 40 international schools. There are many Kindergarten type schools that use the word "international" in their names but this is not an indicator that they are Japanese schools in the traditional sense. United Nations University is located in Japan and Temple University has a branch campus in Japan. International University of Japan is an internationally top-ranked, fully English-taught University in Japan. Akita International University is also an English-taught University. Sophia University's Faculty of Liberal Arts and the Sophia Program for Sustainable Futures are fully taught in English. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies is a highly selective, specialist institution for International Studies and offers some languages that are rarely taught elsewhere in the world.
Top Global University Project
In 2018, the Ministry of Education implemented the Top Global University Project (TGU) to provide prioritised support to universities leading Japan in the process of internationalisation and collaborative research. The project aims to reform existing personnel and education systems, deepen interactions with other leading universities and research institutions around the globe, and accelerate other educational globalisation initiatives. 13 universities were selected as Type A (Top Type) to lead Japan in world-leading research and education. 24 universities were selected as Top B (Global Traction Type) to help Japan become a more internationalised society.
TGU selected universities
See also
Curriculum guideline (Japan)
Eikaiwa school
Japanese history textbook controversies
Japanese graduation ceremony
Japanese school uniform
Language minority students in Japanese classrooms
Yutori education
Notes
References
Further reading
De Bary, William Theodore, Carol Gluck, Arthur E. Tiedemann. (2005). Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press. ; OCLC 255020415
Doyon, Paul. "A review of higher education reform in modern Japan." Higher Education 41 (2001): 443–470.
Hebert, David G. (2011). Wind Bands and Cultural Identity in Japanese Schools. Springer press, 2011.
Hood, Christopher P. Japanese Education Reform: Nakasone's Legacy, 2001, London: Routledge, .
Horie, Miki. "The internationalization of higher education in Japan in the 1990s: A reconsideration." Higher education 43.1 (2002): 65–84.
Kelly, Boyd. (1999). Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, Vol. 1. London: Taylor & Francis.
Okuda, Shinjo, and Yukihiko Hishimura. "The development of secondary education in Japan after World War II." Higher education 12.5 (1983): 567–578.
Passow, A. Harry et al. The National Case Study: An Empirical Comparative Study of Twenty-One Educational Systems. (1976) online
Takahashi, Akihiko (高橋 昭彦; DePaul University). "." CRICED Mathematics Symposium, 2006.
Teichler, Ulrich. "Higher education in Japan: A view from outside." Higher Education 34.2 (1997): 275–298. online
Uno, Kathleen S. (1999). Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan. University of Hawai'i Press. , .
External links
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Information on education in Japan, OECD – contains indicators and information about Japan and how it compares to other OECD and non-OECD countries
Diagram of Japanese education system, OECD – using 1997 ISCED classification of programmes and typical ages. (Also available in romanized Japanese.)
Education in Japan
Japanese values
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education%20in%20France
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Education in France
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Education in France is organized in a highly centralized manner, with many subdivisions. It is divided into the three stages of primary education (enseignement primaire), secondary education (enseignement secondaire), and higher education (enseignement supérieur). The main age that a child starts school in France is age two and since 2022, education is obligatory from the age of three. Two year olds do not start primary school, they start preschool. Then, by the age of six, a child in France starts primary school and soon moves onto higher and higher grade levels until they graduate.
In French higher education, the following degrees are recognized by the Bologna Process (EU recognition): Licence and Licence Professionnelle (bachelor's degrees), and the comparably named Master and Doctorat degrees.
The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD in 2018 ranked the overall knowledge and skills of French 15-year-olds as 26th in the world in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, below the OECD average of 493. The average OECD performance of French 15-year-olds in science and mathematics has declined, with the share of low performers in reading, mathematics and science developing a sharp upward trend. France's share of top performers in mathematics and science has also declined.
France's performance in mathematics and science at the middle school level was ranked 23 in the 1995 Trends in International Math and Science Study. In 2019, France ranked 21 in the TIMSS Science general ranking.
History
Napoleon began the French university and secondary educational systems. Guizot started the elementary system. Intense battles took place over whether the Catholic Church should play a dominant role. The modern era of French education begins at the end of the 19th century. Jules Ferry, a Minister of Public Instruction in 1841, is widely credited for creating the modern school (l'école républicaine) by requiring all children between the ages of 6 and 12, both boys and girls, to attend. He also made public instruction mandatory, free of charge, and secular (laïque). With those laws, known as French Lubbers, Jules Ferry laws, and several others, the Third Republic repealed most of the Falloux Laws of 1850–1851, which gave an important role to the clergy.
The French curriculum predominantly emphasized the works of French writers of European descent. Ferry and others considered literature the glue of French identity. The ethnic and cultural demographics of the student body did not factor in to the quest to transmit a "common culture" to the students.
Like literature, history education is seen as critical to shaping the identity of young people and the integration of immigrants to French identity. Ferry's views continue to exert influence today. Ministry reports have confirmed that the rule of schools in promoting "common culture" is only made more critical by the rising levels of student diversity. According to the ministry, history education in France has, over the course of one century made possible "the integration of children of Italians, Poles, Africans and Portuguese".
Governance
All educational programmes in France are regulated by the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Community Life (officially called Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, de la Jeunesse et de la Vie associative). The head of the ministry is the Minister of National Education.
All teachers in public primary and secondary schools are state civil servants, making the ministère the largest employer in the country. Professors and researchers in France's universities are also employed by the state.
At the primary and secondary levels, the curriculum is the same for all French students in any given grade, which includes public, semi-public and subsidised institutions. However, there exist specialised sections and a variety of options that students can choose. The reference for all French educators is the Bulletin officiel de l'éducation nationale, de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche (B.O.), which lists all current programmes and teaching directives. It is amended many times every year.
Schooling in France is not mandatory (although instruction is). Since French law mandates only education, and not necessarily attendance at a school, families may provide teaching themselves, provided that they comply with the educational standards laid down in law and monitored by the State.
School year
In Metropolitan France, the school year runs from early September to early July. The school calendar is standardized throughout the country and is the sole domain of the ministry.
In May, schools need time to organize exams (for example, the baccalauréat). Outside Metropolitan France, the school calendar is set by the local recteur.
Major holiday breaks are as follows:
All Saints (la Toussaint), two weeks (since 2012) around the end of October and the beginning of November;
Christmas (Noël), two weeks around Christmas Day and New Year's Day;
winter (hiver), two weeks starting in mid-February;
spring (printemps) or Easter (Pâques), two weeks starting in mid April;
summer (été), two months starting in early July. (mid-June for high school students).
Primary school
Most parents start sending their children to preschool (maternelle) when they turn 3. Some even start earlier at age 2 in toute petite section ("TPS"). The first two years of preschool (TPS and petite section "PS") are introductions to community living; children learn how to become students and are introduced to their first notions of arithmetic, begin to recognize letters, develop oral language, etc. The last two years of preschool, moyenne section and grande section, are more school-like; pupils are introduced to reading, writing and more mathematics.
A preschool can be stand-alone (mostly true in towns and cities) or be affiliated to an elementary school (mostly in villages). As in other educational systems, primary school students in France usually have a single teacher (or two) who teaches the entire curriculum, without specialist teachers.
After kindergarten, the young students move on to the école élémentaire (elementary school). In the first 3 years of elementary school, they learn to write, develop their reading skills and get some basics in subjects such as French, mathematics, science and the arts, to name a few. The French word for a teacher at the primary school level is professeur or professeure des écoles (previously called instituteur, or its feminine form institutrice).
Children stay in elementary school for 5 years until they are 10–11 years-old. The grades are named: CP (cours préparatoire), CE1 (cours élémentaire 1), CE2 (cours élémentaire 2), CM1 (cours moyen 1) and CM2 (cours moyen 2).
Middle school and high school
The compulsory middle and high school subjects cover French language and literature, history and geography, foreign languages, arts and crafts, musical education, civics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural sciences, technology, and PE. The curriculum is set by the Ministry of National Education and applies to most collèges in France and also to AEFE-dependent institutions. Académies and individual schools have little freedom in the State curriculum.
Class sizes vary from school to school, but usually range from 20 to 35 pupils.
After primary school, two educational stages follow:
collège (middle school), for children during their first four years of secondary education from the age of 11 to 14.
lycée (high school), which provides a three-year course of further secondary education for children between the ages of 15 and 18. Pupils are prepared for the baccalauréat (baccalaureate, colloquially known as le bac) or the CAP (Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle). The baccalauréat can lead to higher education studies or directly to professional life (there are three main types of baccalauréat: the baccalauréat général, the baccalauréat technologique, and the baccalauréat professionnel).
CFA (centre de formation des apprentis, apprentice learning center), which provides vocational degrees: le Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle.
Private schools
Primary and secondary private schools in France are divided into two categories:
Private schools which respect the State curriculum (known as "under contract') are private, fee-paying institutions where pupils study the same national curriculum as those in public schools. Teachers in private schools are recruited in the same way and have roughly the same status as their equivalents in public schools. They are also employed directly by the State, but they are not permanently assigned and may not return to a public school position. The great majority of private schools in France are "under contract".Private schools without contract employ their teachers directly and may teach their own curriculum; the State, however, still monitors their educational standards. Most of these schools provide religious instruction in parallel with a broad curriculum.
International education
As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy (ISC) listed France as having 105 international schools. ISC defines an 'international school' in the following terms: "ISC includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country's national curriculum and is international in its orientation." That definition is used by publications including The Economist.
France has its own international school regulator, the AEFE (Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger).
Higher education
Higher education in France is organized in three levels, which correspond to those of other European countries, facilitating international mobility: the Licence and Licence Professionnelle (bachelor's degrees), and the Master's and Doctorat degrees. The Licence and the Master are organized in semesters: 6 for the Licence and 4 for the Master. Those levels of study include various "parcours" or paths based on UE (Unités d'enseignement or Modules), each worth a defined number of European credits (ECTS). A student accumulates those credits, which are generally transferable between paths. A licence is awarded once 180 ECTS have been obtained; a master is awarded once 120 additional credits have been obtained.
Licence and master's degrees are offered within specific domaines and carry a specific mention. Spécialités, which are either research-oriented or professionally oriented during the second year of the Master. There are also professional licences whose objective is immediate job integration. It is possible to return to school later by continuing education or to validate professional experience (through VAE, Validation des Acquis de l’Expérience).
Higher education in France is divided between grandes écoles and public universities. The grandes écoles admit the graduates of the level Baccalauréat + 2 years of validated study (or sometimes directly after the Baccalauréat) whereas universities admit all graduates of the Baccalauréat.
Higher education in France was reshaped by the student revolts of May 1968. During the 1960s, French public universities responded to a massive explosion in the number of students (280,000 in 1962-63 to 500,000 in 1967-68) by stuffing approximately one-third of their students into hastily developed campus annexes (roughly equivalent to American satellite campuses) which lacked decent amenities, resident professors, academic traditions, or the dignity of university status. With so many students ripe for radicalization after being forced to study in such miserable conditions, change was necessary and inevitable. Rather than expand already-overwhelmed parent campuses, it was decided to split off the annexes as new universities.
This is why a striking trait of French higher education, compared with other countries, is the small size and multiplicity of establishments, each specialised in a more-or-less broad spectrum of areas. A middle-sized French city, such as Grenoble or Nancy, may have 2 or 3 universities (focused on science, sociological studies, engineering, etc.) as well as a number of other establishments specialised in higher education. In Paris and its suburbs, there are currently 11 universities (there were 13 from 1970 to 2017), none of which is specialised in one area or another, plus many smaller institutions that are highly specialised. It is not uncommon for graduate teaching programmes (master's degrees, the course part of doctorate programmes etc.) to be operated in common by several institutions, allowing the institutions to present a larger variety of courses.
In engineering schools and the professional degrees of universities, a large share of the teaching staff is often made up of non-permanent professors; instead, part-time professors are hired to teach one specific subject. Part-time professors are generally hired from neighbouring universities, research institutes or industries.
Another original feature of the French higher education system is that a large share of the scientific research is carried out by research establishments such as CNRS or INSERM, which are not formally part of the universities. However, in most cases, the research units of those establishments are located inside universities (or other higher education establishments) and jointly operated by the research establishment and the university.
In 2021, 1.65 million students are enrolled in French higher education institutions (61% in licence, 35% in master, 4% in doctorat).
Tuition costs
Higher education is mostly funded by the State which leads to very low tuition fees. For citizens of the EU, EEA, Switzerland or Quebec, the annual fees range from 170 to 380 euros per year depending on the level (licence, master, doctorat). One can therefore get a master's degree (in 5 years) for about €750–3,500. For other international students, these fees range from 2,770 to 3,770 euros. Students from low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying nominal sums for tuition or textbooks, and can receive a monthly stipend of up to €450 per month.
The tuition in public engineering schools is comparable to universities but a little higher (around €700). However, it can reach €7,000 a year for private engineering schools. Private business schools typically charge up to €12,000 a year for Bachelor programmes and up to €24,000 for Master programmes, while some elite institutions may charge €40,000 and more.
Health insurance for students is free until the age of 20 and so only the costs of living and books must be added. After the age of 20, health insurance for students costs €200 a year and covers most of the medical expenses.
Some public schools have other ways of gaining money. Some do not receive funds for class trips and other extra activities and so those schools may ask for a small entrance fee for new students.
Universities in France
The public universities in France are named after the major cities near which they are located, followed by a numeral if there are several. Paris, for example, has 13 universities, labelled Paris I to XIII. Some of them are in Paris itself, some in the suburbs. In addition, most of the universities have taken a more informal name that is usually that of a famous person or a particular place. Sometimes, it is also a way to honor a famous alumnus, for example the science university in Strasbourg is known as "Université Louis-Pasteur" while its official name is "Université Strasbourg I" (however, since 2009, the three universities of Strasbourg have been merged).
The French system has undergone a reform, the Bologna process, which aims at creating European standards for university studies, most notably a similar time-frame everywhere, with three years devoted to the bachelor's degree ("licence" in French), two for the Master's, and three for the doctorate. French universities have also adopted the ECTS credit system (for example, a licence is worth 180 credits). The traditional curriculum based on end of semester examinations tends to remain in place in some universities. That double standard has added complexity to a system. It is difficult to change a major during undergraduate studies without losing a semester or even a whole year. Students usually also have few course selection options once they enroll in a particular diploma.
France also hosts rare catholic universities recognized by the State, the largest one being Lille Catholic University, as well branch colleges of foreign universities. They include Baruch College, the University of London Institute in Paris, Parsons Paris School of Art and Design and the American University of Paris.
There are about 4,000 Master programmes offered in the French university system (listed at trouvermonmaster.gouv.fr), and 17,000 undergraduate programmes (offered by Parcoursup).
Grandes écoles
The grandes écoles of France are elite higher-education establishments. They are generally focused on a single subject area (e.g., engineering or business), have a small size (typically between 100 and 300 graduates per year), and are highly selective. They are widely regarded as prestigious, and most of France's scientists and executives have graduated from a grande école.
National rankings are published every year by various magazines.L'Étudiant, Palmarès des écoles d'ingénieurs.L'Usine nouvelle, Palmarès des écoles d'ingénieurs. While the rankings slightly vary from year to year, the top grandes écoles have been very stable for decades:
science and engineering: Écoles normales supérieures, École polytechnique, Mines ParisTech, Télécom Paris, ISAE-Supaéro, Ponts Paristech, Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile and CentraleSupélec;
humanities: three Écoles normales supérieures, École des Chartes and CELSA – Sorbonne;
business: HEC Paris, NEOMA Business School, ESSEC Business School, ESCP Europe, INSEAD, EMLyon, Audencia, Grenoble École de Management, INSEEC and EDHEC;
administration and political sciences: ENA and Sciences Po.
Preparatory classes (CPGEs)
Preparatory classes (in French "classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles" or CPGE), widely known as prépas, are courses whose main goal is to prepare students for enrollment in a grande école. Admission to CPGEs is based on academic performance during the last two years of high school, called Première and Terminale. Only 5% of a given cohort is admitted to a prépa. CPGEs are usually located within high schools but are a part of tertiary education, which means that to be admitted, each student must have already successfully passed their Baccalauréat (or equivalent). Most CPGE receive applications from hundreds of applicants every year in April and May, and then selects students based on their own criteria. A few mainly private CPGEs, accounting for 10% of CPGEs, also have an interview process and ‘ or expect student participation in local community initiatives.
The ratio of CPGE students who fail to enter any grande école is lower in scientific and business CPGEs than in humanities CPGEs.
Some preparatory classes are widely considered "elite", being extremely selective, and recruiting only the best students from each high school, if not the best student from each high school. These CPGEs practically guarantee their students a place in one of the top "grandes écoles". Among them are the Lycée Louis-Le-Grand, the Lycée Henri-IV, the Lycée Stanislas and the Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève.
Scientific CPGEs
The oldest CPGEs are the science ones, which can be accessed only with a bac in science Bacheliers. Science CPGE are called TSI ("Technology and Engineering Science"), MPSI ("Mathematics, Physics and Engineering Science"), PCSI ("Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering Science") or PTSI ("Physics, Technology, and Engineering Science") in the first year, MP ("Mathematics and Physics"), PSI ("Physics and Engineering Science"), PC ("Physics and Chemistry") or PT ("Physics and Technology") in the second year and BCPST ("Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Life and Earth Sciences").
The first year of a CPGE is widely known as "Math Sup", or Hypotaupe, (Sup for "Classe de Mathématiques Supérieures", superior in French, meaning post-high school), and second year as "Math Spé", or Taupe, (Spés standing for "Classe de Mathématiques Spéciales", special in French). The students of these classes are known as Taupins. Both the first and second year programmes include as much as twelve hours of mathematics teaching per week, ten hours of physics, two hours of philosophy, two to four hours of (one or two) foreign languages and four to six hours of options: chemistry, SI (Engineering Industrial Science) or Theoretical Computer Science (including some programming using the Pascal or CaML programming languages, as a practical work). There are also several hours of homework, which can double the class-based workload. A well-known joke among CPGE students is that they become moles for two years, sometimes three, hence the nicknames taupe and taupin (taupe being the French word for a mole).
Business CPGEs
There are also CPGEs that are focused on economics (who prepare the admission in business schools). They are known as prépa EC (short for Economiques et Commerciales) and are divided into two parts: prépa ECS, which focuses more on mathematics, generally for those who graduated the scientific baccalauréat, and prépa ECE, which focuses more on economics, for those who were in the economics section in high school.
Humanities CPGEs (Hypokhâgne and Khâgne)
The literary and humanities CPGEs have also their own nicknames, Hypokhâgne for the first year and Khâgne for the second year. The students are called the khâgneux. Those classes prepare for schools such as the three Écoles normales supérieures, the École des Chartes, and sometimes Sciences Po.
There are two kinds of Khâgnes. The Khâgne de Lettres is the most common, and focuses on philosophy, French literature, history and languages. The Khâgne de Lettres et Sciences Sociales (Literature and Social Sciences), otherwise called Khâgne B/L, also includes mathematics and socio-economic sciences in addition to those literary subjects.
The students of Hypokhâgne and Khâgne (the humanities CPGE) are simultaneously enrolled in universities, and can go back to university in case of failure or if they feel unable to pass the highly competitive entrance examinations for the Écoles normales supérieures.
Colles
The amount of work required of the students is high. In addition to class time and homework, students spend several hours each week completing oral exams called colles (sometimes written 'khôlles' to look like a Greek word, that way of writing being initially a khâgneuxs joke since khâgneux study Ancient Greek). The colles are unique to French academic education in CPGEs.
In scientific and business CPGEs, colles consist of oral examinations twice a week, in French, foreign languages (usually English, German, or Spanish), maths, physics, philosophy, or geopolitics—depending on the type of CPGE. Students, usually in groups of three or four, spend an hour facing a professor alone in a room, answering questions and solving problems.
In humanities CPGEs, colles are usually taken every quarter in every subject. Students have one hour to prepare a short presentation that takes the form of a French-style dissertation (a methodologically codified essay, typically structured in 3 parts: thesis, counter-thesis, and synthesis) in history, philosophy, etc. on a given topic, or the form of a commentaire composé (a methodologically codified form of literary criticism) in literature and foreign languages. In Ancient Greek or Latin, they involve a translation and a commentary. The student then has 20 minutes to present his/her work to the teacher, who finally asks some questions on the presentation and on the corresponding topic.Colles are regarded as very stressful, particularly due to the high standards expected by the teachers, and the subsequent harshness that may be directed at students who do not perform adequately. But they are important insofar as they prepare the students, from the very first year, for the oral part of the highly competitive examinations, which are reserved for the happy few who pass the written part.
Recruitment of teachers
Decades ago, primary school teachers were educated in Écoles normales and secondary teachers recruited through the "Agrégation" examination. The situation has been diversified by the introduction in the 1950s of the CAPES examination for secondary teachers and in the 1990s by the institution of "Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres" (IUFM), which have been renamed Écoles supérieures du professorat et de l’éducation (ESPE) in 2013 and then Instituts Nationaux supérieurs du professorat et de l’éducation (INSPE) in 2019.
Precisely, school teachers are divided between :
Primary school and kindergarten teachers (Professeurs des écoles), educated in an INSPE, have usually a "master" (Bac+5). Their weekly service is about 28 hours a week.
Certified teachers (Professeurs certifiés), educated in both a University and an INSPE, have a "master" (Bac+5) and must pass a competitive exam called Certificat d'aptitude au professorat de l'enseignement du second degré (CAPES) in a specific domain. Their rank usually determines their geographic assignment for the first years of their careers. The majority of them are teaching in collège (middle school).
Agrégés teachers (Professeurs agrégés) are recruited through a different competitive exam called Agrégation, of much higher level in each domain. They could either be certified teachers or external holders of at least a "master" (Bac+5) in the domain. In the latter case they must attend an additional formation in teaching in an INSPE. Agrégés teachers have a higher salary rate and reduced weekly service. The majority of them are teaching in lycée (high school).
University teachers are recruited by special commissions, and are divided between:
"teachers-researchers" (enseignants-chercheurs), with at least a doctorate: they teach classes and conduct research in their field of expertise with a full tenure. They are either Maître de conférences (Senior lecturers), or Professeurs (Professors). A Maître de conférence must publish a reviewed work named Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) (professorial thesis) in order to be allowed to become the director of studies for PhD students. The HDR is in turn necessary to be appointed as Professeur. The net pay (all insurances included) is from 2,300 to 8,800 (with extra duties) euros per month. Net salaries of over 4,000 euros per month (2011 level) are however very unusual, and limited to the small minority of teacher-researchers who have held the grade of first class full professor for at least seven years, which is rare. The maximum possible net salary for second-class full professors and chief senior lecturers (maître de conférence hors classe), the end of career status for most full-time teacher-researchers in French universities, is 3,760 euros a month (2011), and only a few of the group ever reach that level.
Secondary school teachers who have been permanently assigned away from their original school position to teach in a university. They are not required to conduct any research but teach twice as many hours as the "teachers-researchers". They are called PRAG (professeurs agrégés) and PRCE (professeurs certifiés). Their weekly service is 15 or 18 hours. The net pay is from 1,400 to 3,900 euros per month.
CPGE teachers are usually "agrégés" or "chaire sup", assigned by the Inspection générale according to their qualifications and competitive exam rank as well as other factors. Their weekly service is about 9 hours a week, 25 or 33 weeks a year. Net pay : from 2,000 to 7,500 euro (extra hours)
France did a great activity of supplying training for their people, via way of means of the 1800s, France had approximately 350 eight-yr faculties and six-yr faculties. Also in the course of the 1800s, they furnished classical training to approximately 50,000 to younger guys from a long time of 10-20. Getting greater specific, the very best increase charge of training in France became in the course of the 1821-1837 whilst towns welcomed new colleges. The increase charge slowed in the course of 1837–1867 because the authorities reached thinly populated rural areas. Then, via way of means of 1867-1906, the emphasis became on deepening the first-rate of colleges and teaching. Camille Sée added secondary colleges for ladies in 1880, which became a vital pass due to the fact he furnished secondary faculty stage of training to ladies. There have been 36 such colleges in France in 1896.
Religion
Religious instruction is not given by public schools (except for 6- to 18-year-old students in Alsace-Moselle under the Concordat of 1801). Laïcité (secularism) is one of the main precepts of the French Republic.
In a March 2004 ruling, the French government banned all "conspicuous religious symbols" from schools and other public institutions with the intent of preventing proselytisation and to foster a sense of tolerance among ethnic groups. Some religious groups showed their opposition, saying the law hindered the freedom of religion as protected by the French constitution.
Statistics
The French Republic has 67 million inhabitants, living in the 13 regions of metropolitan France and four overseas departments (2.7 million). Despite the fact that the population is growing (up 0.4% a year), the proportion of young people under 25 is falling. There are now fewer than 19 million young people in Metropolitan France, or 32% of the total population, compared with 40% in the 1970s and 35% at the time of the 1990 census. France is seeing a slow aging of the population, however, that is less marked than in other neighbouring countries (such as Germany and Italy), especially as the annual number of births is currently increasing slightly.
Eighteen million pupils and students, a quarter of the population, are in the education system, over 2.9 million of whom are in higher education. In 2000, the French Education Minister reported that only 39 out of 75,000 state schools were "seriously violent" and some 300 were "somewhat violent".
See also
Trouvermonmaster.gouv.fr, a Web portal listing all the masters available in France
Parcoursup, a Web portal listing all the undergraduate programmes available in France
Academic grading in France
Agency for French Teaching Abroad (Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger)
Campus France (Agency for the promotion of French Higher Education)
Conférence des Grandes écoles (CGE)
Conference of the Directors of French Engineering Schools (Conférence des directeurs des écoles françaises d'ingénieurs'' (CDEFI))
Homeschooling in France
Open access in France
Nursery schools of France
References
Further reading
External links
Eurydice France, Eurydice: Portal for European education systems
French Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research (English)
School Education in France, Eduscol: the French portal for Education players (English)
Education in France, a webdossier by the German Education Server (English)
Understand the French School System in 5 min (English & French)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian%20elephant
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Asian elephant
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The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus Elephas and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the north, Sumatra in the south, and to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognised—E. m. maximus from Sri Lanka, E. m. indicus from mainland Asia and E. m. sumatranus from the island of Sumatra. Formerly, there was also the Syrian elephant or Western Asiatic elephant (Elephas maximus asurus) which was the westernmost population of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). This subspecies became extinct in ancient times. Skeletal remains of E. m. asurus have been recorded from the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey from periods dating between at least 1800 BC and likely 700 BC. It is one of only three living species of elephants or elephantids anywhere in the world, the others being the African bush elephant and African forest elephant. It is the second largest species of elephant after the African bush elephant.
The Asian elephant is the largest living land animal in Asia. Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, as the population has declined by at least 50 per cent over the last three elephant generations, which is about 60–75 years. It is primarily threatened by loss of habitat, habitat degradation, fragmentation and poaching. In 2019, the wild population was estimated at 48,323–51,680 individuals. Female captive elephants have lived beyond 60 years when kept in semi-natural surroundings, such as forest camps. In zoos, Asian elephants die at a much younger age; captive populations are declining due to a low birth and high death rate.
The genus Elephas originated in Sub-Saharan Africa during the Pliocene and spread throughout Africa before expanding into the southern half of Asia. The earliest indications of captive use of Asian elephants are engravings on seals of the Indus Valley civilisation dated to the 3rd millennium BC.
Taxonomy
Carl Linnaeus proposed the scientific name Elephas maximus in 1758 for an elephant from Ceylon. Elephas indicus was proposed by Georges Cuvier in 1798, who described an elephant from India. Coenraad Jacob Temminck named an elephant from Sumatra Elephas sumatranus in 1847. Frederick Nutter Chasen classified all three as subspecies of the Asian elephant in 1940. These three subspecies are currently recognised as valid taxa. Results of phylogeographic and morphological analyses indicate that the Sri Lankan and Indian elephants are not distinct enough to warrant classification as separate subspecies.
Three subspecies are recognised:
A fourth potential subspecies, the Borneo elephant, occurs in Borneo's northeastern parts, primarily in Sabah (Malaysia), and sometimes in Kalimantan (Indonesia).
Elephas maximus borneensis was proposed by Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala in 1950 who described an elephant in an illustration published in the National Geographic magazine, but not a living elephant in accordance with the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The Asian elephants living in northern Borneo are smaller than all the other subspecies, but with larger ears, a longer tail, and straight tusks. Results of genetic analysis indicate that their ancestors separated from the mainland population about 300,000 years ago.
A study in 2003, using mitochondrial DNA analysis and microsatellite data, indicated that the Borneo elephant population is derived from stock that originated in the region of the Sunda Islands, and suggests that the Borneo population has been separated from the other elephant populations of southeast Asia since the Pleistocene.
The following Asian elephants were proposed as extinct subspecies, but are now considered synonymous with the Indian elephant:
Syrian elephant (E. m. asurus), proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on Bronze Age illustrations.
Chinese elephant (E. m. rubridens), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on a bronze statuette of an elephant.
Javan elephant (E. m. sondaicus), also proposed by Deraniyagala in 1950, was based on an illustration of a carving on the Buddhist monument of Borobudur.
Evolution
The genus Elephas, of which the Asian elephant is the only living member, is the closest relative of the extinct mammoths. The two groups are estimated to have split from each other around 7 million years ago. The earliest Elephas species, Elephas ekorensis, is known from the Early Pliocene of East Africa, around 5-4.2 million years ago. The oldest remains of the genus in Asia are known from the Siwalik Hills in the Indian subcontinent, dating to the late Pliocene, around 3.6-3.2 million years ago, assigned to the species Elephas planifrons. The modern Asian elephant is suggested to have evolved from the species Elephas hysudricus, which first appeared at the beginning of the Early Pleistocene around 2.6 million years ago, and is primarily known from remains of Early-Middle Pleistocene age found on the Indian subcontinent.
Description
In general, the Asian elephant is smaller than the African bush elephant and has the highest body point on the head. The back is convex or level. The ears are small with dorsal borders folded laterally. It has up to 20 pairs of ribs and 34 caudal vertebrae. The feet have five nail-like structures on each forefoot, and four on each hind foot. The forehead has two hemispherical bulges, unlike the flat front of the African elephants. Its long trunk or proboscis has only one fingerlike tip, in contrast to the African elephants which have two. Hence, the Asian species relies more on wrapping around a food item and squeezing it into its mouth, rather than grasping with the tip. Asian elephants have more muscle coordination and can perform more complex tasks.
Cows usually lack tusks; if tusks—in that case, called "tushes"—are present, they are barely visible and only seen when the mouth is open. The enamel plates of the molars are greater in number and closer together in Asian elephants. Some bulls may also lack tusks; these individuals are called "filsy makhnas", and are especially common among the Sri Lankan elephant population. A record tusk described by George P. Sanderson measured along the curve, with a girth of at the point of emergence from the jaw, the weight being . This was from an elephant killed by Sir Brooke and measured in length, and nearly in circumference, and weighed . The tusk's weight was, however, exceeded by the weight of a shorter tusk of about in length which weighed .
Skin colour is usually grey, and may be masked by soil because of dusting and wallowing. Their wrinkled skin is movable and contains many nerve centres. It is smoother than that of African elephants and may be depigmented on the trunk, ears, or neck. The epidermis and dermis of the body average thick; skin on the dorsum is thick providing protection against bites, bumps, and adverse weather. Its folds increase surface area for heat dissipation. They can tolerate cold better than excessive heat. Skin temperature varies from . Body temperature averages .
Size
On average, when fully-grown, bulls are about tall at the shoulder and in weight, while cows are smaller at about at the shoulder and in weight. Sexual dimorphism in body size is relatively less pronounced in Asian elephants than in African bush elephants; with bulls averaging 15% and 23% taller in the former and latter respectively. Length of body and head including trunk is with the tail being long. The largest bull elephant ever recorded was shot by the Maharajah of Susang in the Garo Hills of Assam, India, in 1924, it weighed an estimated , stood tall at the shoulder and was long from head to tail. There are reports of larger individuals as tall as .
Distribution and habitat
Asian elephants inhabit grasslands, tropical evergreen forests, semi-evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, dry deciduous forests and dry thorn forests, in addition to cultivated and secondary forests and scrublands. Over this range of habitat types elephants occur from sea level to over . In the eastern Himalaya in northeast India, they regularly move up above in summer at a few sites.
In China, the Asian elephant survives only in the prefectures of Xishuangbanna, Simao, and Lincang of southern Yunnan. The estimated population is around 300 individual (in 2020).
In Bangladesh, some isolated populations survive in the south-east Chittagong Hills. A herd of 20–25 wild elephants was reported as being present in the Garo Hills of Mymensingh in the late-1990s, being detached from a big herd in the Peack hills of India and prevented from returning by fences put up in the meantime by the Indian border security force. The herd was estimated at about 60 individuals in 2014.
In Malaysia's northern Johor and Terengganu National Park, two Asian elephants were tracked using satellite tracking technology. They spent most of their time in secondary or "logged-over forest" and travelled 75% of their time in an area less than away from a water source.
Ecology and behaviour
Asian elephants are crepuscular. They are classified as megaherbivores and consume up to of plant matter per day. They are generalist feeders, and are both grazers and browsers. They are known to feed on at least 112 different plant species, most commonly of the order Malvales, as well as the legume, palm, sedge and true grass families. They browse more in the dry season with bark constituting a major part of their diet in the cool part of that season. They drink at least once a day and are never far from a permanent source of fresh water. They need 80–200 litres of water a day and use even more for bathing. At times, they scrape the soil for clay or minerals.
Cows and calves move about together as groups, while bulls disperse from their mothers upon reaching adolescence. Bulls are solitary or form temporary "bachelor groups". Cow-calf units generally tend to be small, typically consisting of three adults (most likely related females) and their offspring. Larger groups of as many as 15 adult females have also been recorded. Seasonal aggregations of 17 individuals including calves and young adults have been observed in Sri Lanka's Uda Walawe National Park. Until recently, Asian elephants, like African elephants, were thought to be under the leadership of older adult females, or matriarchs. It is now recognized that cows form extensive and very fluid social networks, with varying degrees of associations between individuals. Social ties generally tend to be weaker than in African elephants.
Unlike African elephants, which rarely use their forefeet for anything other than digging or scraping soil, Asian elephants are more agile at using their feet in conjunction with the trunk for manipulating objects. They can sometimes be known for their violent behavior.
Asian elephants are recorded to make three basic sounds: growls, squeaks and snorts. Growls in their basic form are used for short distance communication. During mild arousal, growls resonate in the trunk and become rumbles while for long-distance communication, they escalate into roars. Low-frequency growls are infrasonic and made in many contexts. Squeaks come in two forms: chirpings and trumpets. Chirping consists of multiple short squeaks and signals conflict and nervousness. Trumpets are lengthened squeaks with increased loudness and are produced during extreme arousal. Snorts signal changes in activity and increase in loudness during mild or strong arousal. During the latter case, when an elephant bounces the tip of the trunk, it creates booms which serve as threat displays. Elephants can distinguish low-amplitude sounds.
Rarely, tigers have been recorded attacking and killing calves, especially if the calves become separated from their mothers, stranded from their herd, or orphaned. Adults are largely invulnerable to natural predation. There is a singular anecdotal case of a mother Asian elephant allegedly being killed alongside her calf; however, this account is contestable. In 2011 and 2014, two instances were recorded of tigers successfully killing adult elephants; one by a single tiger in Jim Corbett National Park on a 20-year-old elephant, and another on a 28-year-old elephant in Kaziranga National Park further east, which was taken down and eaten by several tigers hunting cooperatively. Elephants appear to distinguish between the growls of larger predators like tigers and smaller predators like leopards; they react to leopards less fearfully and more aggressively.
Reproduction
Reproduction in Asian elephants can be attributed to the production and perception of signaling compounds called pheromones. These signals are transmitted through various bodily fluids. They are commonly released in urine but in males they are also found in special secretions from the temporal glands. Once integrated and perceived, these signals provide the receiver with information about the reproductive status of the sender. If both parties are ready to breed, reproductive ritualic behavior occurs and the process of sexual reproduction proceeds.
Bulls will fight one another to get access to oestrus cows. Strong fights over access to females are extremely rare. Bulls reach sexual maturity around the age of 12–15. Between the ages of 10 and 20 years, bulls undergo an annual phenomenon known as "musth". This is a period where the testosterone level is up to 100 times greater than non-musth periods, and they become aggressive. Secretions containing pheromones occur during this period, from the paired temporal glands located on the head between the lateral edge of the eye and the base of the ear. The aggressive behaviors observed during musth can be attributed to varying amounts of frontalin (1,5-dimethyl-6,8-dioxabicyclo[3.2.1]octane) throughout the maturation process of bulls. Frontalin is a pheromone that was first isolated in bark beetles but can also be produced in the bulls of both Asian and African Elephants. The compound can be excreted through urine as well as through the temporal glands of the bull, allowing signaling to occur. During musth, increased concentrations of frontalin in the bull's urine communicate the reproductive status of the bull to female elephants.
Similar to other mammals, hormone secretion in female elephants is regulated by an estrous cycle. This cycle is regulated by surges in Luteinizing Hormone that are observed 3 weeks from each other. This type of estrous cycle has also been observed in African Elephants but is not known to affect other mammals. The first surge in Luteinizing Hormone is not followed by the release of an egg from the ovaries. However, some female elephants still exhibit the expected mating protocols during this surge. Female elephants give ovulatory cues by utilizing sex pheromones. A principal component thereof, (Z)-7-dodecen-1-yl acetate, has also been found to be a sex pheromone in numerous species of insects. In both insects and elephants, this chemical compound is used as an attractant to assist the mating process. In elephants, the chemical is secreted through urination and this aids in the attraction of bulls to mate. Once detected, the chemical stimulates the vomeronasal organ of the bull, thus providing information on the maturity of the female.
Reproductive signaling exchange between male and female elephants are transmitted through olfactory cues in bodily fluids. In males, the increase in frontalin during musth heightens their sensitivity to the (Z)-7-dodecen-1-yl acetate produced by female elephants. Once perceived by receptors in the trunk, a sequence of ritualistic behaviors follow. The responses in males vary based on both the stage of development and the temperament of the elephant. This process of receiving and processing signals through the trunk is referred to as flehmen. The difference in body movements give cues to gauge if the male is interested in breeding with the female that produced the secretion. A bull that is ready to breed will move closer to the urine and in some cases an erection response is elicited. A bull that is not ready to breed will be timid and try to dissociate themselves from the signal.
In addition to reproductive communication, chemosensory signaling is used to facilitate same-sex interactions. When less developed males detect pheromones from a male in musth, they often retreat to avoid coming in contact with aggressive behaviors. Female elephants have also been seen to communicate with each other through pheromone in urine. The purpose of this type of intersex communication is still being investigated. However, there are clear differences in signaling strength and receiver response throughout different stages of the estrous cycle.
The gestation period is 18–22 months, and the cow gives birth to one calf, only occasionally twins. The calf is fully developed by the 19th month, but stays in the womb to grow so that it can reach its mother to feed. At birth, the calf weighs about , and is suckled for up to three years. Once a female gives birth, she usually does not breed again until the first calf is weaned, resulting in a four to five-year birth interval. During this period, mother to calf communication primarily takes place through temporal means. However, male calves have been known to develop sex pheromone-producing organs at a young age. Early maturity of the vomeronasal organ allows immature elephants to produce and receive pheromones. It is unlikely that the integration of these pheromones will result in a flehmen response in a calf. Females stay on with the herd, but mature males are chased away.
Asian elephants reach adulthood at 17 years of age in both sexes. Average elephant life expectancy is 60 years in the wild and 80 in captivity, although this has been exaggerated in the past. Generation length of the Asian elephant is 22 years.
Intelligence
Asian elephants have a very large and highly developed neocortex, a trait also shared by humans, apes and certain dolphin species. They have a greater volume of cerebral cortex available for cognitive processing than all other existing land animals. Results of studies indicate that Asian elephants have cognitive abilities for tool use and tool-making similar to great apes. They exhibit a wide variety of behaviours, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory, and language. Elephants reportedly head to safer ground during natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes, but data from two satellite-collared Sri Lankan elephants indicate this may be untrue.
Several students of elephant cognition and neuroanatomy are convinced that Asian elephants are highly intelligent and self-aware. Others contest this view.
Threats
The pre-eminent threats to the Asian elephant today are the loss, degradation and fragmentation of its habitat, which leads to increasing conflicts between humans and elephants. Asian elephants are poached for ivory and a variety of other products including meat and leather. The demand for elephant skin has risen due to it being an increasingly-common ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.
Human–elephant conflict
In some parts of Asia, people and elephants have co-existed for thousands of years. In other areas, people and elephants come into conflict, resulting in violence, and ultimately, the displacement of elephants.
Destruction of forests through logging, encroachment, slash-and-burn, shifting cultivation, and monoculture tree plantations are major threats to the survival of elephants. Human–elephant conflicts occur when elephants raid crops of shifting cultivators in fields, which are scattered over a large area interspersed with forests. Depredation in human settlements is another major area of human–elephant conflict occurring in small forest pockets, encroachments into elephant habitat, and on elephant migration routes. However, studies in Sri Lanka indicate that traditional slash-and-burn agriculture may create optimal habitat for elephants by creating a mosaic of successional-stage vegetation. Populations inhabiting small habitat fragments are much more liable to come into conflict with humans.
Human-elephant conflict can be categorised into:
ultimate causes including growing human population, large-scale development projects and poor top-down governance;
proximate causes including habitat loss due to deforestation, disruption of elephant migratory routes, expansion of agriculture and illegal encroachment into protected areas.
Development such as border fencing along the India–Bangladesh border has become a major impediment to the free movement of elephants. In Assam, more than 1,150 humans and 370 elephants died as a result of human-elephant conflict between 1980 and 2003. In India alone, over 400 people are killed by elephants every year, and 0.8 to 1 million hectares are damaged, affecting at least 500,000 families across the country. Moreover, elephants are known to destroy crops worth up to US$2–3 million annually. This has major impacts on the welfare and livelihoods of local communities, as well as the future conservation of this species. In countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the Asian elephant is one of the most feared wild animals, even though they are less deadly than other local animals such as venomous snakes (which were estimated to claim more than 30 times more lives in Sri Lanka than elephants). As a whole, Asian elephants display highly sophisticated and sometimes unpredictable behaviour. Most untamed elephants try to avoid humans, but if they are caught off guard by any perceived physical threat, including humans, they will likely charge. This is especially true of males in musth and of females with young. Gunfire and other similar methods of deterring, which are known to be effective against many kinds of wild animals including tigers, may or may not work with elephants, and can even worsen the situation. Elephants that have been abused by humans in the past often become "rogue elephants", which regularly attack people with no provocation.
Poaching
For ivory
The demand for ivory during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in East Asia, led to rampant poaching and the serious decline of elephants in both Africa and Asia. In Thailand, the illegal trade in live elephants and ivory still flourishes. Although the amount of ivory being openly sold has decreased substantially since 2001, Thailand still has one of the largest and most active black markets for ivory seen anywhere in the world. Tusks from Thai-poached elephants also enter the market; between 1992 and 1997 at least 24 male elephants were killed for their tusks.
Up to the early 1990s, Vietnamese ivory craftsmen used exclusively Asian elephant ivory from Vietnam and neighbouring Lao and Cambodia. Before 1990, there were few tourists and the low demand for worked ivory could be supplied by domestic elephants. Economic liberalisation and an increase in tourism raised both local and visitors' demands for worked ivory, which resulted in heavy poaching.
For skin
The skin of the Asian elephant is used as an ingredient in Chinese medicine as well as in the manufacture of ornamental beads. The practice has been aided by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA), which has issued licences for the manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical products containing elephant skin, thereby making trading legal. In 2010, four skinned elephants were found in a forest in Myanmar; 26 elephants were killed by poachers in 2013 and 61 in 2016. According to the NGO Elephant Family, Myanmar is the main source of elephant skin, where a poaching crisis has developed rapidly since 2010.
Handling methods
Young elephants are captured and illegally imported to Thailand from Myanmar for use in the tourism industry; calves are used mainly in amusement parks and are trained to perform various stunts for tourists.
The calves are often subjected to a 'breaking in' process, which may involve being tied up, confined, starved, beaten and tortured; as a result, two-thirds may perish. Handlers use a technique known as the training crush, in which "handlers use sleep-deprivation, hunger, and thirst to "break" the elephants' spirit and make them submissive to their owners"; moreover, handlers drive nails into the elephants' ears and feet.
Disease
See Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus.
Conservation
The Asian elephant is listed on CITES Appendix I. It is a quintessential flagship species, deployed to catalyze a range of conservation goals, including habitat conservation at landscape scales, generating public awareness on conservation issues, and mobilisation as a popular cultural icon both in India and the West. A key aspect of Asian elephant conservation is connectivity, and preserving the preferred movement routes of elephants through areas of high vegetation cover and with "low human population density".
The World Elephant Day has been celebrated on 12 August since 2012. Events are organized to divulge information and to engage people about the problems that the Asian elephant is facing. August has been established as the Asian Elephant Awareness Month by zoos and conservation partners in the United States.
In China, Asian elephants are under first-level protection. Yunnan province has 11 national and regional nature reserves. In total, the covered protected area in China is about . In 2020, the population of Asian elephants in Yunnan was estimated at around 300 individuals. As conflicts between humans and wild elephants have emerged around protected areas in the last years, the prefecture of Xishuangbanna built food bases and planted bananas and bamboo to create a better habitat.
In Thailand, Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary and Tham Than Lot National Park are protected areas hosting around 250–300 elephants, according to figures from 2013. In recent years the National Park has faced issues due to encroachment and over-exploitation.
In India, the National Board of Wildlife did a recommendation, allowing coal mining in the Dehing Patkai elephant reserve in April 2020. The decision raised concerns between students and environmental activists who launched an online campaign to stop the project.
In captivity
About half of the global zoo elephant population is kept in European zoos, where they have about half the median life span of conspecifics in protected populations in range countries. This discrepancy is clearest in Asian elephants: infant mortality is twice that seen in Burmese timber camps, and adult survivorship in zoos has not improved significantly in recent years. One risk factor for Asian zoo elephants is being moved between institutions, with early removal from the mother tending to have additional adverse effects. Another risk factor is being born into a zoo rather than being imported from the wild, with poor adult survivorship in zoo-born Asians apparently being conferred prenatally or in early infancy. Likely causes for compromised survivorship is stress and/or obesity. Foot problems are commonly observed in captive elephants. These are related to lack of exercise, long hours standing on hard substrates, and contamination resulting from standing in their dung. Many of these problems are treatable. However, mistreatment may lead to serious disability or death.
Demographic analysis of captive Asian elephants in North America indicates that the population is not self-sustaining. First year mortality is nearly 30 per cent, and fecundity is extremely low throughout the prime reproductive years. Data from North American and European regional studbooks from 1962 to 2006 were analysed for deviations in the birth and juvenile death sex ratios. Of 349 captive calves born, 142 died prematurely. They died within one month of birth, major causes being stillbirth and infanticide by either the calf's mother or by one of the exhibition mates. The sex ratio of stillbirths in Europe was found to have a tendency for excess of males.
In culture
Bones of Asian elephants excavated at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley indicate that they were tamed in the Indus Valley civilization and used for work. Decorated elephants are also depicted on seals and were modelled in clay.
The Asian elephant became a siege engine, a mount in war, a status symbol, a beast of burden, and an elevated platform for hunting during historical times in South Asia.
Asian elephants have been captured from the wild and tamed for use by humans. Their ability to work under instruction makes them particularly useful for carrying heavy objects. They have been used particularly for timber-carrying in jungle areas. Other than their work use, they have been used in war, in ceremonies, and for carriage. It is reported that war elephants are still in use by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) to take control of Kachin State in northern Myanmar from Myanmar's military. The KIA use about four dozen elephants to carry supplies.
The Asian elephant plays an important part in the culture of the subcontinent and beyond, being featured prominently in the Panchatantra fables and the Buddhist Jataka tales. They play a major role in Hinduism: the god Ganesha's head is that of an elephant, and the "blessings" of a temple elephant are highly valued. Elephants are frequently used in processions where the animals are adorned with festive outfits.
The Asian elephant is depicted in several Indian manuscripts and treatises. Notable amongst these is the Matanga Lila (elephant sport) of Nilakantha. The manuscript Hastividyarnava is from Assam in northeast India.
In the Burmese, Thai and Sinhalese animal and planetary zodiac, the Asian elephant, both tusked and tuskless, are the fourth and fifth animal zodiacs of the Burmese, the fourth animal zodiac of the Thai, and the second animal zodiac of the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Similarly, the elephant is the twelfth animal zodiac in the Dai animal zodiac of the Dai people in southern China.
See also
Elephants in Thailand
Endangered species
Ivory trade
Khedda
List of individual elephants
Mela shikar
War elephant
White elephant
References
Further reading
Gilchrist, W. (1851) A Practical Treatise on the Treatment of the Diseases of the Elephant, Camel & Horned Cattle: with instructions for improving their efficiency; also, a description of the medicines used in the treatment of their diseases; and a general outline of their anatomy. Calcutta: Military Orphan Press
Williamson, J.H. (1950). Elephant Bill.
External links
Save Elephant Foundation
International Elephant Foundation
ElefantAsia: Protecting the Asian elephant
Asian Elephants at the Zoological Gardens of the World
Elephant Information Repository
WWF—Asian elephant species profile
National Zoo Facts on Asian Elephant and a Webcam of the Asian Elephant exhibit
Environmental Investigation Agency: Illegal Wildlife Trade : Elephants
Elephants
Mammals of Asia
Fauna of South Asia
Fauna of Southeast Asia
EDGE species
Herbivorous mammals
National symbols of Laos
Extant Pliocene first appearances
Pliocene mammals of Asia
Quaternary animals of Asia
Mammals described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Endangered animals
Endangered biota of Asia
Species endangered by habitat fragmentation
Species endangered by habitat loss
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic%20anthropology
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Forensic anthropology
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Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable, as might happen in a plane crash. Forensic anthropologists are also instrumental in the investigation and documentation of genocide and mass graves. Along with forensic pathologists, forensic dentists, and homicide investigators, forensic anthropologists commonly testify in court as expert witnesses. Using physical markers present on a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist can potentially determine a person's age, sex, stature, and race. In addition to identifying physical characteristics of the individual, forensic anthropologists can use skeletal abnormalities to potentially determine cause of death, past trauma such as broken bones or medical procedures, as well as diseases such as bone cancer.
The methods used to identify a person from a skeleton relies on the past contributions of various anthropologists and the study of human skeletal differences. Through the collection of thousands of specimens and the analysis of differences within a population, estimations can be made based on physical characteristics. Through these, a set of remains can potentially be identified. The field of forensic anthropology grew during the twentieth century into a fully recognized forensic specialty involving trained anthropologists as well as numerous research institutions gathering data on decomposition and the effects it can have on the skeleton.
Modern uses
Today, forensic anthropology is a well-established discipline within the forensic field. Anthropologists are called upon to investigate remains and to help identify individuals from bones when other physical characteristics that could be used to identify a body no longer exist. Forensic anthropologists work in conjunction with forensic pathologists to identify remains based on their skeletal characteristics. If the victim is not found for a lengthy period or has been eaten by scavengers, flesh markers used for identification would be destroyed, making normal identification difficult if not impossible. Forensic anthropologists can provide physical characteristics of the person to input into missing person databases such as that of the National Crime Information Center in the US or INTERPOL's yellow notice database.
In addition to these duties, forensic anthropologists often assist in the investigation of war crimes and mass fatality investigations. Anthropologists have been tasked with helping to identify victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as plane crashes such as the Arrow Air Flight 1285 disaster and the USAir Flight 427 disaster where the flesh had been vaporized or so badly mangled that normal identification was impossible. Anthropologists have also helped identify victims of genocide in countries around the world, often long after the actual event. War crimes anthropologists have helped investigate include the Rwandan genocide and the Srebrenica Genocide. Organizations such as the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe, the British Association for Forensic Anthropology, and the American Society of Forensic Anthropologists continue to provide guidelines for the improvement of forensic anthropology and the development of standards within the discipline.
History
Early history
The use of anthropology in the forensic investigation of remains grew out of the recognition of anthropology as a distinct scientific discipline and the growth of physical anthropology. The field of anthropology began in the United States and struggled to obtain recognition as a legitimate science during the early years of the twentieth century. Earnest Hooton pioneered the field of physical anthropology and became the first physical anthropologist to hold a full-time teaching position in the United States. He was an organizing committee member of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists along with its founder Aleš Hrdlička. Hooton's students created some of the first doctoral programs in physical anthropology during the early 20th century. In addition to physical anthropology, Hooton was a proponent of criminal anthropology. Now considered a pseudoscience, criminal anthropologists believed that phrenology and physiognomy could link a person's behavior to specific physical characteristics. The use of criminal anthropology to try to explain certain criminal behaviors arose out of the eugenics movement, popular at the time. It is because of these ideas that skeletal differences were measured in earnest eventually leading to the development of anthropometry and the Bertillon method of skeletal measurement by Alphonse Bertillon. The study of this information helped shape anthropologists' understanding of the human skeleton and the multiple skeletal differences that can occur.
Another prominent early anthropologist, Thomas Wingate Todd, was primarily responsible for the creation of the first large collection of human skeletons in 1912. In total, Todd acquired 3,300 human skulls and skeletons, 600 anthropoid skulls and skeletons, and 3,000 mammalian skulls and skeletons. Todd's contributions to the field of anthropology remain in use in the modern era and include various studies regarding suture closures on the skull and timing of teeth eruption in the mandible. Todd also developed age estimates based on physical characteristics of the pubic symphysis. Though the standards have been updated, these estimates are still used by forensic anthropologists to narrow down an age range of skeletonized remains. These early pioneers legitimized the field of anthropology, but it was not until the 1940s, with the help of Todd's student, Wilton M. Krogman, that forensic anthropology gained recognition as a legitimate subdiscipline.
The growth of forensic anthropology
During the 1940s, Krogman was the first anthropologist to actively publicize anthropologists' potential forensic value, going as far as placing advertisements in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin informing agencies of the ability of anthropologists to assist in the identification of skeletal remains. This period saw the first official use of anthropologists by federal agencies including the FBI. During the 1950s, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps employed forensic anthropologists in the identification of war casualties during the Korean War. It was at this time that forensic anthropology officially began. The sudden influx of available skeletons for anthropologists to study, whose identities were eventually confirmed, allowed for the creation of more accurate formulas for the identification of sex, age, and stature based solely on skeletal characteristics. These formulas, developed in the 1940s and refined by war, are still in use by modern forensic anthropologists.
The professionalization of the field began soon after, during the 1950s and 1960s. This move coincided with the replacement of coroners with medical examiners in many locations around the country. It was during this time that the field of forensic anthropology gained recognition as a separate field within the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the first forensic anthropology research facility and body farm was opened by William M. Bass. Public attention and interest in forensic anthropology began to increase around this time as forensic anthropologists started working on more high-profile cases. One of the major cases of the era involved anthropologist Charles Merbs who helped identify the victims murdered by Ed Gein.
Methods
One of the main tools forensic anthropologists use in the identification of remains is their knowledge of osteology and the differences that occur within the human skeleton. During an investigation, anthropologists are often tasked with helping to determinate an individual's sex, stature, age, and ancestry. To do this, anthropologists must be aware of how the human skeleton can differ between individuals.
Determination of sex
Depending on which bones are present, sex can be determined by looking for distinctive sexual dimorphisms. When available, the pelvis is extremely useful in the determination of sex and when properly examined can achieve sex determination with a great level of accuracy. The examination of the pubic arch and the location of the sacrum can help determine sex.
However, the pelvis is not always present, so forensic anthropologists must be aware of other areas on the skeleton that have distinct characteristics between sexes. The skull also contains multiple markers that can be used to determine sex. Specific markers on the skull include the temporal line, the eye sockets, the supraorbital ridge, as well as the nuchal lines, and the mastoid process. In general, male skulls tend to be larger and thicker than female skulls, and to have more pronounced ridges.
Forensic anthropologists need to take into account all available markers in the determination of sex due to the differences that can occur between individuals of the same sex. For example, a female may have a slightly more narrow than a normal pubic arch. It is for this reason that anthropologists usually classify sex as one of five possibilities: male, maybe male, indeterminate, maybe female, or female. In addition, forensic anthropologists are generally unable to make a sex determination unless the individual was an adult at the time of death. The sexual dimorphisms present in the skeleton begin to occur during puberty and are not fully pronounced until after sexual maturation.
Consequently, there is currently no reliable method of sex determination of juvenile remains from cranial or post-cranial skeletal elements since dimorphic traits only become apparent after puberty, and this represents a fundamental problem in archaeological and forensic investigations. However, teeth may assist in estimating sex since both sets of teeth are formed well before puberty. Sexual dimorphism has been observed in both deciduous and permanent dentition, although it is much less in deciduous teeth. On average, male teeth are slightly larger than female teeth, with the greatest difference observed in the canine teeth. Examination of internal dental tissues has also shown that male teeth consist of absolutely and proportionately greater quantities of dentine than females. Such differences in dental tissue proportions could also be useful in sex determination.
Determination of stature
The estimation of stature by anthropologists is based on a series of formulas that have been developed over time by the examination of multiple different skeletons from a multitude of different regions and backgrounds. Stature is given as a range of possible values, in centimeters, and typically computed by measuring the bones of the leg. The three bones that are used are the femur, the tibia, and the fibula. In addition to the leg bones, the bones of the arm, humerus, ulna, and radius can be used. The formulas that are used to determine stature rely on various information regarding the individual. Sex, ancestry, and age should be determined before attempting to ascertain height, if possible. This is due to the differences that occur between populations, sexes, and age groups. By knowing all the variables associated with height, a more accurate estimate can be made. For example, a male formula for stature estimation using the femur is . A female of the same ancestry would use the formula, . It is also important to note an individual's approximate age when determining stature. This is due to the shrinkage of the skeleton that naturally occurs as a person ages. After age 30, a person loses approximately one centimeter of their height every decade.
Determination of age
The determination of an individual's age by anthropologists depends on whether or not the individual was an adult or a child. The determination of the age of children, under the age of 21, is usually performed by examining the teeth. When teeth are not available, children can be aged based on which growth plates are sealed. The tibia plate seals around age 16 or 17 in girls and around 18 or 19 in boys. The clavicle is the last bone to complete growth and the plate is sealed around age 25. In addition, if a complete skeleton is available anthropologists can count the number of bones. While adults have 206 bones, the bones of a child have not yet fused resulting in a much higher number.
The aging of adult skeletons is not as straightforward as aging a child's skeleton as the skeleton changes little once adulthood is reached. One possible way to estimate the age of an adult skeleton is to look at bone osteons under a microscope. New osteons are constantly formed by bone marrow even after the bones stop growing. Younger adults have fewer and larger osteons while older adults have smaller and more osteon fragments. Another potential method for determining the age of an adult skeleton is to look for arthritis indicators on the bones. Arthritis will cause noticeable rounding of the bones. The degree of rounding from arthritis coupled with the size and number of osteons can help an anthropologist narrow down a potential age range for the individual.
Age estimation of living individuals
Age estimation of living individuals is carried out by estimating the biological age when the chronological age of the individual is unknown or uncertain because of the lack of valid identity documents. It is used to confirm if an individual has reached a specific age threshold in cases of criminal liability, asylum seekers and unaccompanied children, human trafficking, adoption, and competitive sports. Guidelines by the Study Group on Forensic Age Diagnostics (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forensische Altersdiagnostik, AGFAD), propose that a three-step procedure should be followed for the age estimation: the first step is a physical examination; the second step include the assessment of the hand/wrist development using plain radiographs; the third step is a dental assessment. One of the most used methodologies for the estimation of age from the development of the hand and wrist is the Greulich and Pyle Atlas, whilst to assess dental development the most common method used so far is the 8-teeth technique developed by Demirjian et al.. Where the estimated age of the individual might be above 18 years of age, it is possible to use the development of the medial end of the clavicle. Traditionally, those undertaking age estimation in the living, adopt imaging techniques such as plain radiographies and CT scans to carry out the age estimation, however, lately, due to ethical issues surrounding the use of ionising medical imaging modalities for non-medical purposes (e.g., forensic purposes), magnetic resonance imaging, a radiation free medical imaging modality, is being investigated to develop new methodologies to estimate the age of living individuals.
Determination of ancestry
The estimation of individuals' ancestry is typically grouped into three groups. However, the use of these classifications is becoming much harder as the rate of interancestrial marriages increases. The maxilla can be used to help anthropologists estimate an individual's ancestry due to the three basic shapes: hyperbolic, parabolic, and rounded. In addition to the maxilla, the zygomatic arch and the nasal opening have been used to narrow down possible ancestry.
By measuring distances between landmarks on the skull as well as the size and shape of specific bones, anthropologists can use a series of equations to estimate ancestry. A program called FORDISC has been created that will calculate the most likely ancestry using complex mathematical formulas. This program is continually updated with new information from known individuals to maintain a database of current populations and their respective measurements. A 2009 study found that even in favourable circumstances, FORDISC 3.0 classifications have only a 1% confidence level. Research presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists concluded that ForDisc ancestry determination was not always consistent, and that the program should be used with caution. Determination of ancestry is incredibly controversial but often needed for police investigations to narrow down subject pool.
Other markers
Anthropologists are also able to see other markers present on the bones. Past fractures will be evident by the presence of bone remodeling but only for a certain amount of time. After around seven years, bone remodelling should make the presence of a fracture impossible to see. The examination of any fractures on the bones can potentially help determine the type of trauma they may have experienced. Cause of death is not determined by the forensic anthropologist, as they are not qualified to do so. However, they are able to determine the type of trauma experienced such as gun shot wound, blunt force, sharp force, or a mixture thereof. It is also possible to determine if a fracture occurred ante-mortem (before death), peri-mortem (at the time of death), or post-mortem (after death). Ante-mortem fractures will show signs of healing (depending on how long before death the fracture occurred) while peri- and post-mortem fractures will not. Peri-mortem fractures can incorporate quite a large range of time, as ante-mortem trauma that is unrelated directly to death may not have had time to begin the healing process. Peri-mortem fractures will usually appear clean with rounded margins and equal discolouration after death, while post-mortem breaks will appear brittle. Post-mortem breaks will often be a different colour to the surrounding bone i.e. whiter as they have been exposed to taphonomic processes for a different amount of time. However, depending on how long there is between a post-mortem break and removal this may not be obvious i.e. through re-interment by a killer. Diseases such as bone cancer might be present in bone marrow samples and can help narrow down the list of possible identifications.
Subfields
Forensic archaeology
The term "forensic archaeology" is not defined uniformly around the world, and is therefore practiced in a variety of ways.
Forensic archaeologists employ their knowledge of proper excavation techniques to ensure that remains are recovered in a controlled and forensically acceptable manner. When remains are found partially or completely buried the proper excavation of the remains will ensure that any evidence present on the bones will remain intact. The difference between forensic archaeologists and forensic anthropologists is that where forensic anthropologists are trained specifically in human osteology and recovery of human remains, forensic archaeologists specialize more broadly in the processes of search and discovery. In addition to remains, archaeologists are trained to look for objects contained in and around the excavation area. These objects can include anything from wedding rings to potentially probative evidence such as cigarette butts or shoe prints. Their training extends further to observing context, association and significance of objects in a crime scene and drawing conclusions that may be useful for locating a victim or suspect. A forensic archaeologist must also be able to utilize a degree of creativity and adaptability during times when crime scenes can not be excavated using traditional archaeological techniques. For example, one particular case study was conducted on the search and recovery of the remains of a missing girl who was found in a septic tank underground. This instance required unique methods unlike those of a typical archeological excavation in order to exhume and preserve the contents of the tank.
Forensic archaeologists are involved within three main areas. Assisting with crime scene research, investigation, and recovery of evidence and/or skeletal remains is only one aspect.
Processing scenes of mass fatality or incidents of terrorism (i.e. homicide, mass graves and war crimes, and other violations of human rights) is a branch of work that forensic archaeologists are involved with as well.
Forensic archaeologists can help determine potential grave sites that might have been overlooked. Differences in the soil can help forensic archaeologists locate these sites. During the burial of a body, a small mound of soil will form from the filling of the grave. The loose soil and increasing nutrients from the decomposing body encourages different kinds of plant growth than surrounding areas. Typically, grave sites will have looser, darker, more organic soil than areas around it. The search for additional grave sites can be useful during the investigation of genocide and mass graves to search for additional burial locations.
One other implement to the career of a forensic archaeologist is teaching and research. Educating law enforcement, crime scene technicians and investigators, as well as undergraduate and graduate students is a critical part of a forensic archaeologist's career in order to spread knowledge of proper excavation techniques to other forensic personnel and to increase awareness of the field in general. Crime scene evidence in the past has been compromised due to improper excavation and recovery by untrained personnel. Forensic anthropologists are then unable to provide meaningful analyses on retrieved skeletal remains due to damage or contamination. Research conducted to improve archaeological field methods, particularly to advance nondestructive methods of search and recovery are also important for the advancement and recognition of the field.
There is an ethical component that must be considered. The capability to uncover information about victims of war crimes or homicide may present a conflict in cases that involve competing interests. Forensic archaeologists are often contracted to assist with the processing of mass graves by larger organisations that have motives related to exposure and prosecution rather than providing peace of mind to families and communities. These projects are at times opposed by smaller, human rights groups who wish to avoid overshadowing memories of the individuals with their violent manner(s) of death. In cases like these, forensic archaeologists must practice caution and recognize the implications behind their work and the information they uncover.
Forensic taphonomy
The examination of skeletal remains often takes into account environmental factors that affect decomposition. Forensic taphonomy is the study of these postmortem changes to human remains caused by soil, water, and the interaction with plants, insects, and other animals. In order to study these effects, body farms have been set up by multiple universities. Students and faculty study various environmental effects on the decomposition of donated cadavers. At these locations, cadavers are placed in various situations and their rate of decomposition along with any other factors related to the decomposition process are studied. Potential research projects can include whether black plastic causes decomposition to occur faster than clear plastic or the effects freezing can have on a dumped body.
Forensic taphonomy is divided into two separate sections, biotaphonomy and geotaphonomy. Biotaphonomy is the study of how the environment affects the decomposition of the body. Specifically it is the examination of biological remains in order to ascertain how decomposition or destruction occurred. This can include factors such as animal scavenging, climate, as well as the size and age of the individual at the time of death. Biotaphonomy must also take into account common mortuary services such as embalming and their effects on decomposition.
Geotaphonomy is the examination of how the decomposition of the body affects the environment. Geotaphonomy examinations can include how the soil was disturbed, pH alteration of the surrounding area, and either the acceleration or deceleration of plant growth around the body. By examining these characteristics, examiners can begin to piece together a timeline of the events during and after death. This can potentially help determine the time since death, whether or not trauma on the skeleton was a result of perimortem or postmortem activity, as well as if scattered remains were the result of scavengers or a deliberate attempt to conceal the remains by an assailant.
Education
Individuals looking to become forensic anthropologists first obtain a bachelor's degree in anthropology from an accredited university. During their studies they should focus on physical anthropology as well as osteology. In addition it is recommended that individuals take courses in a wide range of sciences such as biology, chemistry, anatomy, and genetics.
Once undergraduate education is completed the individual should proceed to graduate level courses. Typically, forensic anthropologists obtain doctorates in physical anthropology and have completed coursework in osteology, forensics, and archaeology. It is also recommended that individuals looking to pursue a forensic anthropology profession get experience in dissection usually through a gross anatomy class as well as useful internships with investigative agencies or practicing anthropologists. Once educational requirements are complete one can become certified by the forensic anthropology society in the region. This can include the IALM exam given by the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe or the certification exam given by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.
Typically, most forensic anthropologists perform forensic casework on a part-time basis, however there are individuals who work in the field full-time usually with federal or international agencies. Forensic anthropologists are usually employed in academia either at a university or a research facility.
Ethics
Like other forensic fields, forensic anthropologists are held to a high level of ethical standards due to their work in the legal system. Individuals who purposefully misrepresent themselves or any piece of evidence can be sanctioned, fined, or imprisoned by the appropriate authorities depending on the severity of the violation. Individuals who fail to disclose any conflict of interests or who fail to report all of their findings, regardless of what they may be, can face disciplinary actions. It is important that forensic anthropologists remain impartial during the course of an investigation. Any perceived bias during an investigation could hamper efforts in court to bring the responsible parties to justice.
In addition to the evidentiary guidelines forensic anthropologists should always keep in mind that the remains they are working with were once a person. If possible, local customs regarding dealing with the dead should be observed and all remains should be treated with respect and dignity.
Notable forensic anthropologists
See also
References
External links
University of Bournemouth
University of Edinburgh
University of Dundee
American Board of Forensic Anthropology
American Academy of Forensic Sciences
American Association of Physical Anthropologists
Maples Center for Forensic Medicine at the University of Florida
Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation
ForensicAnth.com – Forensic anthropological news stories from across the globe
The Why Files: Bodies and Bones
Struers replica technique for forensic investigation
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael%20Cartoons
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Raphael Cartoons
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The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, surviving from a set of ten cartoons, designed by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–16, commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. The tapestries show scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and are hung (on special occasions) below the frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of Moses commissioned by Pope Sextus.
The cartoons belong to the British Royal Collection but since 1865 are on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The tapestries rivalled Michelangelo's ceiling as the most famous and influential designs of the Renaissance, and were well known to all artists of the Renaissance and Baroque through reproduction in the form of prints. Admiration of them reached its highest pitch in the 18th and 19th centuries; they were described as "the Parthenon sculptures of modern art".
Commission and the tapestries
Raphael was highly conscious that his work would be seen beneath the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which had been finished by Michelangelo only two years before, and took great care perfecting his designs, which are among his largest and most complicated. Originally the set was intended to include 16 tapestries. Raphael was paid twice by Leo, in June 1515 and December 1516, the last payment apparently being upon completion of the work. Tapestries retained their Late Gothic prestige during the Renaissance. Raphael was paid a total of 1,000 ducats. Most of the expense was in the manufacture, with the creation of the tapestries in Brussels costing 15,000 ducats.
Raphael knew that the final product of his work would be produced by craftsmen rendering his design in another medium; his efforts are therefore entirely concentrated on strong compositions and broad effects, rather than felicitous handling or detail. It was partly this that made the designs so effective when later reproduced in reduced print versions.
The cartoons are painted in a glue distemper medium on many sheets of paper glued together (as can be seen in the full-size illustrations). They are now mounted on a canvas backing and are in general in very good condition apart from some fading of the colours.
The cartoons are all slightly over 3 m (9 feet 10 inches) tall, and from 3 to 5 m (9 feet 10 inches to 16 feet 5 inches) wide, with the figures being over-lifesize. The cartoons are mirror-images of the finished tapestries, which were worked from behind. Raphael's workshop would have assisted in the completion of the cartoons which were finished with great care. The cartoons show a much greater range of colours and more subtle gradation than could be reproduced in a tapestry. Some small preparatory drawings also survive: one for The Conversion of the Proconsul is also in the Royal Collection, and the Getty Museum in Malibu has a figure study of St Paul Rending His Garments. There would have been other drawings for all the subjects, which have been lost; it was from these that the first prints were made.
The tapestries had very wide and elaborate borders, also designed by Raphael, which these cartoons omit; presumably they had their own cartoons. Some of the side borders are separate pieces. The borders included ornamentation in an imitation of Ancient Roman relief sculpture and carved porphyry, as well as scenes from the life of Leo. They were themselves very influential, and sometimes used for other tapestries.
The cartoons were probably completed in 1516 and were then sent to Brussels, where the Vatican tapestries were woven by the workshop of Pieter van Aelst.
The first delivery was in 1517, and seven were displayed in the Chapel for Christmas Day in 1519 (then as now, their display was reserved for special occasions).
The tapestries were partly destroyed in the Sack of Rome in 1527. As they were made with both gold and silver thread, some were burnt by soldiers in the to extract the precious metals. The Vatican Museums have acquired tapestries and recreated sections to complete a full set, now usually displayed in a gallery, but sometimes moved to the Sistine Chapel for special occasions. They were displayed in the chapel for a week in February 2020, to mark the 500th anniversary of Raphael's death. Their layout around the chapel is a matter of discussion among scholars, as there is no record of what was originally intended.
The Raphael's cartoons were revered by The Carracci, but the great period of their influence began with Nicolas Poussin, who borrowed heavily from them and "indeed exaggerated Raphael's style; or rather concentrated it, for he was working on a much smaller scale". Thereafter they remained the touchstone of one approach to history painting until at least the early 19th century – the Raphael whose influence the Pre-Raphaelites wanted to reject was perhaps above all the Raphael of the cartoons.
Subjects
The Raphael Cartoons represent scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. As was usual, the completed tapestries reverse are a mirror image of the cartoon designs. The programme emphasised a number of points relevant to contemporary controversies in the period just before the Protestant Reformation, but especially the entrusting of the Church to Saint Peter, the founder of the papacy. There were relatively few precedents for these subjects, so Raphael was less constrained by traditional iconographic expectations than he would have been with a series on the life of Christ or Mary. He no doubt received some advice or instructions in choosing the scenes to depict. The scenes from the Life of Peter were designed to hang below the frescoes of the Life of Christ by Perugino and others in the middle register of the Chapel; opposite them, the Life of Saint Paul was to hang below the Life of Moses in fresco. An intervening small frieze showed subjects from the life of Leo, also designed to complement the other series. Each sequence begins at the altar wall, with the Life of Peter on the right side of the Chapel and Life of Paul on the left. Including the three subjects with no surviving cartoons, the set contains (the full scriptural quotations and a commentary are on the V&A website):
Life of Peter
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Luke 5:1–11)
Christ's Charge to Peter (Matthew 16:16–19) The key moment in the Gospels for the claims of the Papacy
The Healing of the Lame Man (Acts 3:1–8)
The Death of Ananias (Acts 5:1–10)
Life of Paul
The Stoning of St Stephen (no cartoon) at which Paul (Saul) was present before his conversion.
The Conversion of Saint Paul (no cartoon)
The Conversion of the Proconsul or The Blinding of Elymas (Acts 13:6–12). Paul had been invited to preach to the Roman proconsul of Paphos, Sergius Paulus, but is heckled by Elymas, a "magus", whom Paul miraculously causes to go temporarily blind, thus converting the proconsul.
The Sacrifice at Lystra (Acts 14:8). After Paul miraculously cures a cripple, the people of Lystra see him and his companion Barnabas (both standing left) as gods, and want to make a sacrifice to them. Paul tears his garments in disgust, whilst Barnabas speaks to the crowd, persuading the young man at centre to restrain the man with the sacrificial axe.
St Paul in prison (no cartoon), much smaller than the others, tall and narrow. This is also missing from the later tapestry sets.
St Paul Preaching in Athens (Acts 17:16–34), the figure standing at the left in a red cap is a portrait of Leo; next to him is Janus Lascaris, a Greek scholar in Rome. The kneeling couple at the right were probably added by Giulio Romano, then an assistant to Raphael.
The subjects missing from the cartoon set
Tapestry Descriptions
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Luke 5:1–11)
This cartoon depicts Christ telling Peter and the Apostles where to cast their net. This resulted in the "miraculous catch." Within the design, Peter is pictured bowing before Christ as if thanking him for the harvest full bounty that was caught. Raphael's exquisite attention to details are shown in this tapestry in how there is a mirror image of the artwork reflected in the water. There is a great use of foreshortening. His use of perspective in the distant background is used effectively. Raphael demonstrates an excellent use of tones in the forefront of the image.
Christ's Charge to Peter (Matthew 16:16–19)
Within this tapestry Raphael combines the two Bible stories of Matthew 16:18–19. Raphael portrays Christ commanding Peter to share the Gospel for him. Christ points at Peter while simultaneously pointing at the sheep. This creates a connection for Peter. He is chosen as the shepherd for the believers. Raphael utilizes foreshortening to help viewers focus on the main images and message of the cartoon. He effortlessly implements chiaroscuro. The use of colors to show different lighting illustrates where the sun is in relation to the characters.
The Healing of the Lame Man (Acts 3:1–8)
The incredible story of Peter healing the lame man, Acts 3:1–8 is a tapestry within Raphael's Cartoon collection. This miracle illustrates the "spiritual healing of Jesus." Pictured is the lame man sitting and leaning against an intricately detailed column with his arm reaching overhead for Peter to cradle his hand. Raphael's attention to detail is displayed in the lame man's face. The shadowing and tones used create the look of an aged, tired man. The wrinkles in his face and his eyes display the pain he is feeling. The lines used in the creation of his legs and feet define muscular legs and impaired feet. All of this artistic detail reinforces the fact that the lame man spent many years lying and crawling on the ground impaired by his handicap. In contrast, Peter stands clutching his hand while praying over him. The details in Peter's face and expression reinforce his concern. The rendering of the clothing is exceptional. It gives the appearance of creased material that can be felt. Furthermore, the detail of each individual's hair enables the viewer to detect exactly how their hair would appear in person.
The Death of Ananias (Acts 5:1–10)
Raphael's tapestry expertly illustrates the story of Acts 5:1–10. This could also be named the miracles of Peter. This artwork explains the story of how Peter is capable of punishing and saving others. The Apostles requested that the Christian followers sell their items and tithe the money. During this, Ananias steals from the church by stealing some of the money. When questioned by Peter, Ananias denies any wrong doing. Ananias drops dead. He was punished for his sins of stealing and lying. Raphael once again applies the skill of chiaroscuro to illustrate this tapestry. His use of tones and shading help place lighting and shadows to specific areas of this artwork. The use of implied lines is demonstrated with the man standing over Ananias pointing to another individual who is pointing up, as if he is pointing to God. This implies that God can help him. The group of men on the right appears concerned with Ananias and wants to help. On the other hand, the men to the left seem frightened.
The Conversion of the Proconsul (Acts 13:6–12)
This tapestry depicts the story written in Acts 13:6–12. Elymas tries to keep Paul and Barnabas from converting others to Christianity. Elymas suffers temporary blindness for this action. Observing and experiencing this event, leads the proconsul to conversion. Paul's overall goal to convert others to Christianity is illustrated through this tapestry. Raphael utilizes tone and shading to convey different levels of light. He has created a different colored robe for each man. This helps them stand out from the crowd. The different amounts of coating, creates texture throughout the tapestry and images appear more lifelike.
The Sacrifice at Lystra (Acts 14:8)
Acts 14:8 influenced this tapestry. It represents the story of how Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for the Gods, Mercury and Jupiter, after Paul healed a lame man. The townspeople of Lystra wanted to offer sacrifices to them. Paul was dismayed and proceeded to convince the crowd that they were God's messengers. The foremost character in this scene is a citizen ready to partake in the sacrifice. He wields an axe above his head ready to execute the ox. Raphael's focus on this man's face expresses his determination in the situation. Raphael's use of line, shading and toning reveal his muscular form.
St Paul Preaching at Athens (Acts 17:16–34)
This tapestry illustrates the story written in Acts 17:16–34. It illustrates Paul preaching to Athens's judicial council. Paul explains Christianity and the importance of knowing God. The viewer can feel Paul's excitement of sharing his message. His arms are stretched out to the crowd, grabbing their attention and welcoming them into the message. Raphael's detail on each individual's face easily reveals their thoughts and feelings regarding Paul. Paul's clothing and the council's clothing include brightly colored robes gracefully wrapped around them. The lines, colors and shading used on the ground give the appearance of a cold marble floor.
Further sets made in Brussels
Cartoons were sometimes returned with tapestries to the commissioner, but this clearly did not happen here, perhaps because of the death of Leo. This allowed four other recorded sets to be made later in Brussels, all of nine tapestries, missing the small Saint Paul in Prison.
One set was bought by Henry VIII of England in 1542. These tapestries were at Westminster Abbey for the coronation of Elizabeth I, and on 14 February 1613 to decorate the chapel of Whitehall Palace for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate. After being sold in 1649 in the dispersion of the collection of Charles I of England, eventually Henry's set ended up in Berlin, where it was destroyed by a fire at the end of World War II.
King Francis I of France had another of similar date, now lost. The Ducal Palace, Mantua has a set, made in Brussels for Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga in the early 16th century, with the arms of Gonzaga in the borders. Dussler describes these as "in better condition than the series in the Vatican". A set woven around 1550 that joined the Spanish royal collection some time in the following decades now belongs to the Patrimonio Nacional, and is usually hung in the Royal Palace, Madrid.
In England
The seven cartoons now in London were bought from a Genoese collection in 1623 by King Charles I of England, then still Prince of Wales, using agents. He only paid £300 for them, a price that suggests they were regarded as working designs rather than works of art in their own right. Charles had in fact intended to make further tapestries from them at the Mortlake Tapestry Works near London, which he did, with new baroque borders by their designer Francis Cleyn, paying £500 each, but was well aware of their artistic significance. They had been cut into long vertical strips a yard wide, as was required for use on low-warp tapestry looms, and were only permanently rejoined in the 1690s at Hampton Court. In Charles' day these were stored in wooden boxes in the Banqueting House, Whitehall. They were one of the few items in the Royal Collection withheld from sale by Oliver Cromwell after Charles' execution. The fate of the other three cartoons from the set is unknown; that for the Conversion of Saint Paul was recorded in the collection of Cardinal Grimani in Venice in 1521, and of his heir in 1526.
William III commissioned Sir Christopher Wren and William Talman to design the "Cartoon Gallery" at Hampton Court Palace in 1699, specially to contain them. By this date, the prestige of tapestries in general was beginning to wane, and those of the early sets that had survived were probably already rather faded and dirty. From this point on, the cartoons became regarded as the most authentic and attractive expression of Raphael's conceptions. European taste had also moved in their favour; their dignified classicism was very much in tune with a movement away from the more frenzied versions of the Baroque. The fame of the cartoons, as opposed to the designs in general, grew rapidly.
In 1763, when George III moved them to the newly bought Buckingham House (now Buckingham Palace) there were protests in Parliament by John Wilkes and others, as they would no longer be accessible to the public (Hampton Court had long been open to visitors). They had been greatly studied by artists and cognoscenti alike whilst at Hampton Court, and played a crucial role in forming English expectations of a monumental style of painting; one of the great preoccupations of English art in the 18th century. These were often mentioned in the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the dominant English critical work on art of the century. Having explained that "The principal works of modern art are in fresco" he specifically adds the cartoons "which, though not strictly to be called fresco, yet may be put under that denomination" before claiming that "Raffaelle ... stands in general foremost of the first painters..." (i.e. the best painters) and comparing Raphael's works in oil unfavourably to his frescoes.
In 1804 they were returned to Hampton Court, where in 1858 they were photographed for the first time by Charles Thompson Thurston, having been taken out into the courtyard and placed upside down on special scaffolding. In 1865 Queen Victoria decided that the cartoons should be exhibited on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where they are still to be seen in a specially designed gallery. There are also copies at many locations, including Knole House and Hampton Court Palace, where the copies painted in the 1690s by an artist named Henry Cooke are displayed in the Cartoon Gallery. The Royal Collection also has a set of the tapestries. A set of copies painted by Sir James Thornhill have been owned by Columbia University since 1959, and another is in the Royal Academy.
Several other sets were made in Mortlake; Cleyn had made copies of the designs, and these were used. Charles I's set was bought by Cardinal Mazarin, and now belongs to the French government. Forde Abbey, Chatsworth House, the Duke of Buccleuch and others have sets. A set of six tapestries is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, and the Ducal Palace, Urbino displays a set.
Prints after the designs
In the early 16th century many Italian artists learnt the lesson of the huge, and very rapid, international prestige that Albrecht Dürer had gained through his prints, and set out to emulate him. Raphael had no knowledge of printmaking himself, and was probably too busy to want to learn the techniques, but he was the most successful of the Italians in spreading his fame through prints, through his much debated relationship with the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi and his workshop. Raphael made many drawings solely as designs for prints, and the workshop made a large number of prints, apparently working always from drawings rather than the finished work, of Raphael's paintings in the Vatican and elsewhere; the tapestry designs were no exception. These prints themselves were very widely copied by other printmakers, and spread rapidly through Europe.
The earliest datable print after one of the designs is an engraving of 1516 by Agostino Veneziano, then working in the workshop of Marcantonio Raimondi, of the Death of Ananias. This was probably made even before that tapestry was woven. The composition is in the same direction as the tapestry, but since the printmaking process would also reverse the direction of the composition, this almost certainly means it was deliberately reversed compared to the detailed preparatory drawing in the Royal Collection on which it was based (see above; the two agree in all details), probably by taking a counterprint from the chalk drawing. All Raimondi and Veneziano's prints of Raphael's designs in Raphael's lifetime were based on drawings, according to both Landau and Pons. Raimondi himself engraved one of the set, which were presumably all produced around 1516, so that even many in the Roman art world may have seen prints of the designs before they saw the tapestries themselves.
Agostino's engraving was rapidly copied in another well-known version, a four-colour chiaroscuro woodcut by Ugo da Carpi, dated 1518. The da Carpi woodcut is often cited in studies of the complex question of early image copyright, as it bears (in its first state) a Latin inscription beneath the image claiming "copyright"-style privileges from both the Venetian Republic and the Papacy (covering the Papal States) and threatening excommunication for anyone breaching the latter. Apart from other straightforward copies of the prints from the Raimondi set, Parmigianino did a typically individual print version of one design from the set in about 1530.
A later large set of engravings by Matthaeus Merian the Elder illustrating the Bible, from around the end of the century, used some of the compositions, slightly increasing the height, and elaborating them. These were much used and copied in popular books, further widening the knowledge of the designs to a much larger audience.
After the cartoons were reassembled at the end of the 17th century, by which time printmakers were well accustomed to copying direct from large paintings, they became the dominant source of new print copies. By the 18th century many different print versions were in circulation, of varying faithfulness and quality.
See also
List of paintings by Raphael
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
Cartoons
Dussler, Luitpold, Raphael, A Critical Catalogue of his Pictures, Wall-Paintings & Tapestries, online section on the cartoons and tapestries
Prints
Further reading
Browne, Clare; Evans, Mark, eds. (2010). Raphael: Cartoons and Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel. Victoria and Albert Museum. .
Campbell, Thomas P. (2002). Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. . .
Fermor, Sharon (1996). The Raphael Tapestry Cartoons: Narrative, Decoration, Design. London: Scala Books / Victoria & Albert Museum. .
Pope-Hennessy, John (1950). The Raphael Cartoons. London. .
Shearman, John (1972). Raphael's Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel. Oxford: Clarendon. .
External links
Raphael Cartoons Royal Collection Web Exhibition
Raphael Cartoons at the V&A
Paintings by Raphael
Paintings in the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom
Sistine Chapel wall frescoes
Tapestry cartoons
1516 paintings
Paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Paul the Apostle in art
Paintings depicting Jesus
Birds in art
Cattle in art
Fish in art
Sheep in art
Paintings depicting Saint Peter
Nude art
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna%20State%20Opera
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Vienna State Opera
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The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, and designs by Josef Hlávka. The opera house was inaugurated as the "Vienna Court Opera" (Wiener Hofoper) in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It became known by its current name after the establishment of the First Austrian Republic in 1921. The Vienna State Opera is the successor of the old Vienna Court Opera (built in 1636 inside the Hofburg). The new site was chosen and the construction paid by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1861.
The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from the Vienna State Opera's orchestra. The building is also the home of the Vienna State Ballet, and it hosts the annual Vienna Opera Ball during the carnival season.
History
History of the building
Construction
The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstrasse commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance style by the renowned Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka.
The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorfer Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch, whose colour was more appropriate than that of Kelheimerstein, for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois was used as a cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble.
The decision was made to use dimension stone for the exterior of the building. Due to the monumental demand for stone, stone from Sóskút, widely used in Budapest, was also used. Three Viennese masonry companies were employed to supply enough masonry labour: Eduard Hauser (still in existence today), Anton Wasserburger and Moritz Pranter. The foundation stone was laid on 20 May 1863.
Public response
The building was, however, not very popular with the public. On the one hand, it did not seem as grand as the Heinrichshof, a private residence which was destroyed in World War II (and replaced in 1955 by the Opernringhof). Moreover, because the level of Ringstraße was raised by a metre in front of the opera house after its construction had begun, the latter was likened to "a sunken treasure chest" and, in analogy to the military disaster of 1866 (the Battle of Königgrätz), was deprecatingly referred to as "the 'Königgrätz' of architecture". Eduard van der Nüll committed suicide, and barely ten weeks later Sicardsburg died from tuberculosis so neither architect saw the completion of the building. The opening premiere was Don Giovanni, by Mozart, on 25 May 1869. Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) were present.
WW II bombing and redesign
Towards the end of World War II, on 12 March 1945, the opera was set alight by an American bombardment. The auditorium and stage were destroyed by flames, as well as almost the entire décor and props for more than 120 operas with around 150,000 costumes. The front section, which had been walled off as a precaution, however, remained intact including the foyer, with frescoes by Moritz von Schwind, the main stairways, the vestibule and the tea room. The State Opera was temporarily housed at the Theater an der Wien and at the Vienna Volksoper.
Lengthy discussion took place about whether the opera house should be restored to its original state on its original site, or whether it should be completely demolished and rebuilt, either on the same location or on a different site. Eventually the decision was made to rebuild the opera house as it had been, and the main restoration experts involved were Ernst Kolb (1948–1952) and Udo Illig (1953–1956).
The Austrian Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl made the decision in 1946 to have a functioning opera house again by 1949. An architectural competition was announced, which was won by Erich Boltenstern. The submissions had ranged from a complete restructuring of the auditorium to a replica of the original design; Boltenstern decided on a design similar to the original with some modernisation in keeping with the design of the 1950s. In order to achieve a good acoustic, wood was the favoured building material, at the advice of, among others, Arturo Toscanini. In addition, the number of seats in the parterre (stalls) was reduced, and the fourth gallery, which had been fitted with columns, was restructured so as not to need columns. The façade, entrance hall and the "Schwind" foyer were restored and remain in their original style.
In the meantime, the opera company, which had at first been performing in the Volksoper, had moved rehearsals and performances to Theater an der Wien, where, on 1 May 1945, after the liberation and re-independence of Austria from the Nazis, the first performances were given. In 1947, the company went on tour to London.
Due to the appalling conditions at Theater an der Wien, the opera company leadership tried to raise significant quantities of money to speed up reconstruction of the original opera house. Many private donations were made, as well as donations of building material from the Soviets, who were very interested in the rebuilding of the opera. The mayor of Vienna had receptacles placed in many sites around Vienna for people to donate coins only. In this way, everyone in Vienna could say they had participated in the reconstruction and feel pride in considering themselves part owners.
However, in 1949, there was only a temporary roof on the Staatsoper, as construction work continued. It was not until 5 November 1955, after the Austrian State Treaty, that the Staatsoper could be reopened with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Karl Böhm. The American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was present. The state broadcaster ORF used the occasion to make its first live broadcast, at a time when there were only c. 800 televiewers in the whole of Austria. The new auditorium had a reduced capacity of about 2,276, including 567 standing room places. The ensemble, which had remained unified until the opening, crumbled in the following years, and slowly an international ensemble formed.
History of the Company After the Second World War
In 1945, the Wiener Mozart-Ensemble was formed, which put on world-renowned guest performances and became known particularly for its singing and playing culture. The Austrian conductor Josef Krips was the founder and mentor, who had only survived the Nazi era (given his Jewish heritage) thanks to luck and help from colleagues. At the end of the war, Krips started the renovation of the Staatoper, and was able to implement his aesthetic principles, including the departure from the Romantic Mozart ideal with a voluminous orchestral sound. Instead, qualities more associated with chamber music were featured, as well as a clearer, lighter sound, which would later come to be known as "typically Viennese". Singers who worked with Krips during this time were Erich Kunz, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Wilma Lipp, among others.
As early as 1947, the Mozart-Ensemble was playing guest performances at the Royal Opera House in London, with Mozart's Don Giovanni. Richard Tauber, who had fled from the Nazis, sang Don Ottavio; three months later he died, and was remembered for singing with "half a lung" in order to fulfil his dream, many other artists became associated with the Mozart-Ensemble, for example Karl Böhm, but their role was still greatly peripheral, in a straightforward or assisting role. This was the beginning of Krips' worldwide career, which would take him to the most prominent houses in the world. Until his death in 1974, Krips was regarded as one of the most important Maestri (conductors/music directors) of the Staatsoper.
On 1 July 1998, a historical broadcast took place, as Austria undertook its first presidency of the European Union. Fidelio was broadcast live from the Vienna State Opera to the 15 capital cities of the EU.
Today
The company
The Vienna State Opera is closely linked to the Vienna Philharmonic, which is an incorporated society of its own, but whose members are recruited from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera.
The is one of the busiest opera houses in the world producing 50 to 60 operas in a repertory system per year and ten ballet productions in more than 350 performances. It is quite common to find a different opera being produced each day of a week. The employs over 1000 people. As of 2008, the annual operating budget of the was 100 million euros with slightly more than 50% as a state subsidy.
The company's 2019 production of Olga Neuwirth's opera Orlando marked the first production of an opera by a female composer in the history of the Vienna State Opera.
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was one of the many conductors who have worked in Vienna. During his tenure (1897–1907), Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers, such as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg and Selma Kurz, and recruited a stage designer who replaced the lavish historical stage decors with sparse stage scenery corresponding to modernistic, Jugendstil tastes. Mahler also introduced the practice of dimming the lighting in the theatre during performances, which was initially not appreciated by the audience. However, Mahler's reforms were maintained by his successors.
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language instead of being translated into German. He also strengthened the ensemble and regular principal singers and introduced the policy of predominantly engaging guest singers. He began a collaboration with La Scala in Milan, in which both productions and orchestrations were shared. This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.
Ballet companies merge
At the beginning of the 2005–2006 season, the ballet companies of the Staatsoper and the Vienna Volksoper were merged under the direction of Gyula Harangozó, which led to a reduction in the number of performers in the resulting ensemble. This has resulted in an increase in the number of guest stars engaged to work in the ballet. The practice of combining the two ballet companies proved an artistic failure, and Harangozó left when his contract expired in 2010.
From the 2010–2011 season a new company was formed called Wiener Staatsballet, Vienna State Ballet, under the direction of former Paris Opera Ballet principal dancer Manuel Legris. Legris eliminated Harangozós's policy of presenting nothing but traditional narrative ballets with guest artists in the leading roles, concentrated on establishing a strong in-house ensemble and restored evenings of mixed bill programs, featuring works of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, and many contemporary choreographers, as well as a reduced schedule of the classic ballets.
140th anniversary season
2009 marked the 140th anniversary of the Vienna Opera House. To celebrate this milestone an idea designed to reach out and embrace a new audience was conceived. A giant 50 sqm screen was placed on the side of the opera house facing Kärntner Straße. In four months live broadcasts of over 60 famous operas were transmitted in this way, including performances of Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni. This successful venture brought a new wave of operatic excitement to the many tourists and locals who experienced this cultural event. During daytime the screen displays a replica of the Opera House's façade, as it obstructs a considerable part of the building, along with information about upcoming performances.
The opera house and children
The Vienna State Opera is particularly open to children: under Holender's direction (he has three children of his own), the opera house has become well known for its children's productions, which are performed in a tent on the roof of the Staatsoper. Recent examples include Peter Pan, (The Dream Gobbler), Der 35. Mai (The 35th of May), C. F. E. Horneman's Aladdin, Bastien und Bastienne and Wagners Nibelungenring für Kinder (Wagner's Ring for children). In addition to this, there is a production of The Magic Flute every year for 9- and 10-year-olds, decorated like the Opernball.
The opera house also has an opera school for boys and girls between the ages of eight and fourteen, which takes place in the afternoons after regular school. The children are introduced to music theatre and the prospect of becoming opera singers. The company recruits singers for children's roles in its productions from this opera school. Twice every season there is a special matinée performance of the opera school. In 2006, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, they performed a 20-minute miniature opera Der kleine Friedrich arranged from songs of Mozart by Janko Kastelic and Claudia Toman.
"Standing room only" audience
Eighty minutes before each performance, cheap standing room tickets are sold (). These are popular with all age groups, and now have an almost legendary regular clientele, which is merciless in showing its displeasure with a performance loudly and unambiguously, but is even louder in voicing approval.
Der Neue Merker
Every performance at the Vienna State Opera is reviewed by an independent company in the opera publication Der Neue Merker (The New Judge) which is printed in about 2000 copies. This is unusual in that most opera magazines prefer to concentrate on new productions and premieres. There is an online version parallel to the publication, which receives (as of March 2007) an average of 10,000 visitors a week, and therefore is one of the most successful German-language opera portals.
Opera ball
For many decades, the opera house has been the venue of the Vienna Opera Ball. It is an internationally renowned event, which takes place annually on the last Thursday in Fasching. Those in attendance often include visitors from around the world, especially prominent names in business and politics. The opera ball receives media coverage from a range of outlets.
The opera ball in 1968 was the occasion for a protest, at which the organisation was criticised for being "elite" (due to the high prices), "conceited" (due to the opulent display of wealth for the newspapers and cameras) and "reactionary" (for upholding an allegedly outdated culture). There was violence between the demonstrators and the police.
Safety curtain
"Safety Curtain" is an exhibition series conceived by the non-profit art initiative museum in progress, which has been transforming the safety curtain of the Vienna State Opera into a temporary exhibition space for contemporary art since 1998. A jury (Daniel Birnbaum and Hans-Ulrich Obrist) selects the artists whose works are attached to the safety curtain by means of magnets and are shown during the course of a season. Artists up to date: Pierre Alechinsky, Tauba Auerbach, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Thomas Bayrle, Tacita Dean, Cerith Wyn Evans, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Joan Jonas, Martha Jungwirth, Jeff Koons, Maria Lassnig, Oswald Oberhuber, Giulio Paolini, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rosemarie Trockel, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Franz West.
Directors/General managers
In chronological order, the directors (or general managers) of the Staatsoper have been:
Franz von Dingelstedt (1867–70)
Johann von Herbeck (1870–75)
Franz von Jauner (1875–80)
Wilhelm Jahn (1881–97)
Gustav Mahler (1897–1907)
Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg (first term, 1908–11)
Hans Gregor (1911–18)
Richard Strauss / Franz Schalk (1919–24)
Franz Schalk (1924–29)
Clemens Krauss (1929–34)
Felix von Weingartner (second term, 1935–36)
(1936–40)
Heinrich Karl Strohm (1940–41)
Lothar Müthel (1941–42)
Karl Böhm (first term, 1943–45)
Franz Salmhofer (1945–54)
Karl Böhm (second term, 1954–56)
Herbert von Karajan (1956–1964)
Egon Hilbert (1964–68)
Heinrich Reif-Gintl (1968–72)
Rudolf Gamsjäger (1972–76)
Egon Seefehlner (first term, 1976–82)
Lorin Maazel (1982–84)
Egon Seefehlner (second term, 1984–86)
Claus Helmut Drese (1986–91)
Eberhard Wächter (1991–92)
Ioan Holender (1992–2010)
Dominique Meyer (2010–2020)
Bogdan Roščić (2020–present)
Artistic/Music Directors
Richard Strauss (1919–1924)
Bruno Walter (1936–1938)
Claudio Abbado (1986–1991)
Seiji Ozawa (2002–2010)
Franz Welser-Möst (2010–2014)
Philippe Jordan (2020–present)
Prominent artists who have appeared at the Staatsoper
Singers
Theo Adam
Ain Anger
Giacomo Aragall
Agnes Baltsa
Polly Batic
Gabriela Beňačková
Ettore Bastianini
Piotr Beczała
Teresa Berganza
Walter Berry
Jussi Björling
Franco Bonisolli
Montserrat Caballé
Maria Callas
José Carreras
Enrico Caruso
Mimi Coertse
Franco Corelli
José Cura
Oskar Czerwenka
Giuseppe Di Stefano
Plácido Domingo (50th jubilee in May 2017)
Otto Edelmann
Anny Felbermayer
Juan Diego Flórez
Mirella Freni
Ferruccio Furlanetto
Elīna Garanča
Nicolai Gedda
Angela Gheorghiu
Nicolai Ghiaurov
Tito Gobbi
Edita Gruberová (40th jubilee in September 2008, 50th jubilee in June 2018)
Thomas Hampson
Hans Hotter
Gundula Janowitz
Maria Jeritza
Gwyneth Jones
Sena Jurinac
Vesselina Kasarova
Jonas Kaufmann
Angelika Kirchschlager
Alfredo Kraus
Elisabeth Kulman
Erich Kunz
Selma Kurz
Christa Ludwig (final operatic performance in Elektra, 1994)
Éva Marton
Anna Moffo
Anna Netrebko
Birgit Nilsson
Jessye Norman
Jarmila Novotná
Hasmik Papian
Luciano Pavarotti
Alfred Piccaver
Lucia Popp
Hermann Prey
Leontyne Price
Gianni Raimondi
Ruggero Raimondi
Maria Reining
Leonie Rysanek
Matti Salminen
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Renata Scotto
Cesare Siepi
Giulietta Simionato
Bo Skovhus
Nina Stemme
Michail Svetlev
Giuseppe Taddei
Martti Talvela
Richard Tauber
Renata Tebaldi
Bryn Terfel
Rolando Villazón
Eberhard Wächter
Otto Wiener
Fritz Wunderlich
Heinz Zednik
Conductors
Claudio Abbado
Kurt Adler
Gerd Albrecht
Ernest Ansermet
Leonard Bernstein
Karl Böhm
Semyon Bychkov
Riccardo Chailly
André Cluytens
Colin Davis
Victor de Sabata
Hubert Deutsch
Antal Doráti
Christoph von Dohnányi
Gustavo Dudamel
Wilhelm Furtwängler
John Eliot Gardiner
Daniele Gatti
Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Michael Gielen
Leopold Hager
Daniel Harding
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Paul Hindemith
Heinrich Hollreiser`
Philippe Jordan
Carlos Kleiber
Erich Kleiber
Berislav Klobučar
Hans Knappertsbusch
Clemens Krauss
Josef Krips
Rafael Kubelík
Jan Latham-Koenig
Erich Leinsdorf
Lorin Maazel
Charles Mackerras
Ernst Märzendorfer
Zubin Mehta
Dimitri Mitropoulos
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Pierre Monteux
Rudolf Moralt
Lovro von Matačić
Riccardo Muti
Andris Nelsons
Roger Norrington
Daniel Oren
Antonio Pappano
John Pritchard
Simon Rattle
Hugo Reichenberger
Fritz Reiner
Hans Richter
Mario Rossi
Nello Santi
Michael Schønwandt
Leif Segerstam
Tullio Serafin
Giuseppe Sinopoli
Leonard Slatkin
Georg Solti
Horst Stein
Pinchas Steinberg
Igor Stravinsky
Otmar Suitner
Robert Stolz
Richard Strauss
Christian Thielemann
Arturo Toscanini
Silvio Varviso
Marcello Viotti
Antonino Votto
Bruno Walter
Felix Weingartner
Alberto Zedda
Directors, set designers, and costume designers
Opera title and year of debut at the Vienna State Opera in parentheses:
Gae Aulenti (Il viaggio a Reims, 1988)
Boleslaw Barlog (Salome, 1972)
Sven-Eric Bechtolf (Arabella, 2006)
Ruth Berghaus (Fierrabras, 1990)
Milena Canonero (Il trittico, 1979)
Robert Carsen (Jérusalem, 1995)
Giulio Chazalettes (Attila, 1980)
Luciano Damiani (Don Giovanni, 1967)
Dieter Dorn (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1979)
August Everding (Tristan und Isolde, 1967)
Piero Faggioni (Norma, 1977)
Jürgen Flimm (Der ferne Klang, 1991)
Götz Friedrich (Moses und Aron, 1973)
Ezio Frigerio, (Norma, 1977)
Josef Gielen (Madama Butterfly, 1957)
Peter J. Hall (Le nozze di Figaro, 1991)
Karl-Ernst Herrmann (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1989)
Václav Kašlík (Idomeneo, 1971)
Jorge Lavelli (Der Prozess, 1970)
Alfred Kirchner (Khovanchina, 1989)
Harry Kupfer (Die schwarze Maske, 1986)
Lotfi Mansouri (La fanciulla del west 1978)
Gian Carlo Menotti (La Cenerentola, 1981)
Jonathan Miller (Le nozze di Figaro, 1991)
Giancarlo del Monaco (La forza del destino, 1989)
Hans Neuenfels (Le Prophète, 1998)
Hermann Nitsch (Hérodiade, 1995)
Adrian Noble (Alcina, 2010)
Timothy O'Brien (Turandot, 1983)
Tom O'Horgan (Les Troyens, 1976)
Laurent Pelly (La fille du régiment, 2007)
Pier Luigi Pizzi (as stage designer: La forza del destino, 1974; as director: Don Carlo, 1989)
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (Manon, 1971)
David Pountney (Rienzi, 1997)
Harold Prince (Turandot, 1983)
Gianni Quaranta (Samson et Dalila, 1988)
Günther Rennert (Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1966)
Luca Ronconi (Il viaggio a Reims, 1988)
Ken Russell (Faust, 1985)
Filippo Sanjust (Ariadne auf Naxos, 1976)
Johannes Schaaf (Idomeneo, 1987)
Otto Schenk (Jenůfa, 1964)
Yuval Sharon (Tri Sestri, 2016)
Franca Squarciapino (Norma, 1977)
Peter Stein (Simon Boccanegra, 2002)
Giorgio Strehler (Simon Boccanegra, 1984)
Josef Svoboda (Idomeneo, 1971)
István Szabó (Il trovatore, 1993)
Carl Toms, (Faust, 1985)
Luchino Visconti (Falstaff, 1966)
Antoine Vitez (Pelléas et Mélisande, 1988)
Wieland Wagner (Lohengrin, 1965)
Margarete Wallmann (Tosca, 1958)
Anthony Ward (Alcina, 2010)
Herbert Wernicke (I vespri siciliani, 1998)
Peter Wood (Macbeth, 1981)
Franco Zeffirelli (La bohème, 1964)
See also
Carltheater
Ringtheater
Theater am Kärntnertor
References
External links
(Archives)
Wiener Staatsoper at Google Cultural Institute
Opera houses in Vienna
Josef Hlávka buildings
Ballet venues
Cultural venues in Vienna
Music venues completed in 1869
State Opera
Theatres completed in 1869
1869 establishments in Austria
19th-century architecture in Austria
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379076
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottery%20St%20Mary
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Ottery St Mary
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Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery", is a town and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about east of Exeter on the B3174. At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St John, Wiggaton, and (until 2017) West Hill, had a population of 7,692. The population of the urban area alone at the 2011 census was 4,898.
There are two electoral wards in Ottery (Rural and Town). The total population of both wards, including the adjacent civil parish of Aylesbeare, at the 2011 census was 9,022.
The town as it now stands has several independent shops, mainly in Mill Street, Silver Street and Yonder Street. An area known as 'The Square', is the heart of Ottery St Mary. There are pubs, restaurants, and coffee and tea rooms. Ottery provides services, employment, and a wide range of shopping for local residents and visitors from nearby villages and towns.
History
Ottery is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as 'Otri' and 'Otrei'. 'Oteri Sancte Marie' is first mentioned in 1242. The town takes its name from the River Otter (named after the animal) on which it stands. The town belonged to the church of St Mary in Rouen in 1086, hence 'St Mary'.
Archaeological excavations in 2014, in advance of a housing development at Island Farm, uncovered a medieval longhouse dating to AD.1250–1350.
Ottery's notable buildings include the Tumbling Weir and St Mary's church. The town is the site of The King's School, formerly a grammar school but now a comprehensive school, founded in 1545 by Henry VIII, and of Ottery St Mary Primary School.
The Chanter's House is a Grade II listed building. The Listing summary states: "Dates from the days of the College but little trace of antiquity remains, mainly enclosed by large brick outer additions by Butterfield including a 3rd storey, extending also above the C18 ... The C17 centre is the former Heath's Court ..." It dates from the 17th century, incorporating parts of the former Precentor's house, known as Heath's Court. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell held a convention in the house's dining room, and Thomas Fairfax stayed at the house from October to December in that year. The building served as the headmaster's lodging for the King's School. Samuel Taylor Coleridge grew up here after his father, Rev. John Coleridge, moved there after being appointed headmaster and vicar of St Mary's Church in 1769. The property remained in the Coleridge family until 2006, when it was sold to Max Norris who completed a major renovation over five years.
A report in June 2020 describes The Chanter's House as having ten bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and a library (built by Coleridge) with 22,000 books, purchased with the property in 2006. The grounds include a "walled gardens, stables, tennis court, a Victorian palm house and an aviary, as well as over 21 acres of gardens, woodland and streams ... [as well as] a lodge and a coach house." A news item states that the library includes "diaries, notes and collections of poems, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Church
The parish church of St Mary's has been referred to as "a miniature Exeter Cathedral". Like the cathedral it is cruciform in plan, with transepts formed by towers.
Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as "lying large and low like a tired beast". It is 163 feet long, and the towers are 71 feet high. It was consecrated in 1260, at which time the manor and patronage of the church belonged to Rouen Cathedral, as it had from before the Norman invasion. Pevsner assumed that the tower-transepts and the outer walls of the chancel date back to 1260, and that the towers were built in imitation of those at Exeter.
In 1335 John Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, bought the manor and advowson from Rouen, and two years later converted the church into a collegiate foundation with forty members. He rebuilt much of the church, and the present nave, chancel, aisles and Lady chapel date from this time. The nave is of five bays, and the chancel, unusually long in proportion, is of six, with vestry chapels to the north and south.
The church is noted for its painted ceiling and early 16th-century fan vaulted aisle, the Dorset Aisle, designed and commissioned by Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, whose first husband was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset.
The building was restored in 1850 by architect William Butterfield. His alterations included lowering the floor level of the transepts, crossing and western part of the chancel to that of the nave, and making the east end, designed for the needs of the collegiate foundation, more suitable for parochial use.
The south transept (bell tower) houses the Ottery St Mary Astronomical Clock, one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country. It is commonly attributed to Bishop John de Grandisson, who was Bishop of Exeter (1327–69) and adheres to Ptolemaic cosmology with the Earth at the centre of the solar system.
The church has ten misericords dating from the building of the church in 1350, five showing the arms of Bishop John de Grandisson. The church interior also has two medieval carved stone green men. There is a small stone plaque commemorating the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was born here on 21 October 1772, in the south churchyard wall. Other interesting features include the tombs of Otho de Grandisson and his wife, the altar screen, sedilia, and a wooden eagle given by Bishop Grandisson.
Ottery St Mary parish registers, which begin in 1601, are held in the Devon Record Office.
This is a Grade I listed building, one of 107 Listed sites in the area. The summary provides this information: "Consecrated by Bishop Bronescombe in 1260. Altered and added to by Bishop Grandison circa 1330. Mainly Early English ... 2 towers above transepts .... The interior was restored drastically mid C19 by Butterfield and others". The work in the 1300s included "rebuilding of the nave, and addition of the Lady Chapel at the east end and two chantry chapels either side of the chancel" according to a reliable source. Other renovations were completed circa 1520: "principally expansion of the north nave aisle, complete with elaborate, fan-vaulted ceiling and pendant bosses".
Schools
The town's primary schools are West Hill Primary School which was established in 1876 and now has around 210 pupils, and Ottery St Mary Primary School with around 356 pupils.
The King's School, located on the outskirts of the town, was established as a choir school by Bishop John Grandisson in 1335, but was replaced by a grammar school by Henry VIII in 1545. It became a comprehensive school in 1982 and is now a government-endowed Sports College with access to facilities shared by the public – namely the Colin Tooze Sports Centre. The school has 1,100 students and 80 teachers.
Local traditions
Tar Barrels
The town typically stages annual events around Guy Fawkes Night when, in a tradition dating from the 17th century, barrels soaked in tar are set alight, and carried aloft through parts of the town by residents.
The festivities begin in the early evening with children's, youths' and women's events, culminating in the men's event when a total of 17 barrels are lit outside each of the four public houses in the town. (Originally there were 12 public houses in the town). The barrels, increasing in size up to 30 kg, are carried through the town centre, often packed with onlookers, in an exhilarating and risky spectacle. Only those born in the town, or who have lived there for most of their lives, may carry a barrel. Generations of the same family have been known to compete across the years and it is thought that the event may have originated as a means of warding off evil spirits, similar to other British fire festivals, around the time of Halloween. In recent years the event has been jeopardised by the need for increasing public liability insurance coverage. Nevertheless, the event continues and the town of 7,000 people increases to well over 10,000. During the event all roads in and out of Ottery are closed for safety reasons with diversions in place.
On 30 October 2008 the annual event was threatened by a severe hailstorm, which hit East Devon shortly after midnight, with the Fire Service describing the situation in the Ottery St Mary area as "absolute chaos". The storm led to serious flooding in the town, caused mainly by storm drains becoming clogged with hailstones. Roads became blocked and the Coastguard service was required to airlift some people to safety. The flooding also caused problems on the Millennium Green, where the annual bonfire and fairground were being constructed in preparation for 5 November celebrations. One of the owners of the fairground said that the builders working there were "lucky to be alive". The clear-up operation was entirely successful, however, and both the carnival procession and the Tar Barrels and bonfire night celebrations went ahead as planned.
In 2009, the Factory Barrel was sabotaged by a visitor who threw an aerosol can into the barrel. The can exploded in the heat and 12 spectators required treatment for burns. In an unrelated incident, the roof of the old fire station burned down on the night of the 2009 tar barrels.
In 2020, the tar barrel event was cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pixie Day
Pixie Day is an old tradition which takes place annually in June. The day commemorates a legend of pixies being banished from the town to local caves known as the 'Pixie's Parlour'.
The Pixie Day legend originates from the early days of Christianity, when a local bishop decided to build a church in Otteri (Ottery St. Mary), and commissioned a set of bells to come from Wales, and to be escorted by monks on their journey.
On hearing of this, the pixies were worried, as they knew that once the bells were installed it would be the death knell of their rule over the land. So they cast a spell over the monks to redirect them from the road to Otteri to the road leading them to the cliff's edge at Sidmouth. Just as the monks were about to fall over the cliff, one of the monks stubbed his toe on a rock and said "God bless my soul" and the spell was said to be broken.
The bells were then brought to Otteri and installed. However, the pixies' spell was not completely broken; each year on a day in June the 'pixies' come out and capture the town's bell ringers and imprison them in Pixies' Parlour to be rescued by the Vicar of Ottery St Mary. This legend is re-enacted each year by the Cub and Brownie groups of Ottery St Mary, with a specially constructed Pixie's Parlour in the Town Square (the original Pixie's Parlour can be found along the banks of the River Otter).
Old Ottregians Society
An inhabitant of Ottery St Mary is known as an "Ottregian". One Sunday afternoon in 1898 six young men from Ottery, who were then living in London, met on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, and resolved to form a Society to promote good fellowship among Ottery people wherever they may be. So was founded the Old Ottregians Society, which took as its motto Floreat Ottregia ("May Ottery Flourish"). The Old Ottregians society still exists (1997).
Old Ottery song
Another tradition in Ottery that continues today is the daily playing of the Old Ottery song. At eight o'clock, midday and four o'clock each day, the church of Ottery plays the Old Ottery song after the peal of the church bells. Tradition has it that the funerals of Old Ottregians always take place at 12.00 noon, with the funeral service commencing immediately following the playing of the Old Ottery song: The words are as follows ('kine' are cattle): Sweet-breathing kine, / The old grey Church, / The curfew tolling slow, / The glory of the Western Sky, / The warm red earth below. // O! Ottery dear! O! Ottery fair! My heart goes out to thee, Thou art my home, wher'er I roam, The West! The West for me!
John Coke's ghost
Within St Mary's Church, a colourful effigy of a soldier named John Coke can be found in a niche. He is said to have been murdered by a younger brother in 1632, and therefore tradition avers that his spirit steps down from the alcove and wanders about the church interior.
Media Appearance
A season 3 episode of the BBC radio comedy series Cabin Pressure features Ottery St Mary.
Disasters
Great fire
On 25 May 1866 a great fire occurred in Ottery. A newspaper report from the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette dated Friday, 1 June 1866, is summarized by historian J. Harris as follows:
The fire started about noon and the raged through the homes and shops of about a quarter of the town, reducing everything to ashes. The fire started on Jesu Street where the charity schools formerly stood. At first some people believed that the fire had been started by children playing with matches, but subsequent investigation has now proved this to be incorrect. It appears that the fire was started by a woman burning rubbish and papers in her cottage fireplace on Thursday. The fire smouldered and eventually burned through the wall to the school next door. It was eventually discovered at the top of the staircase in the schoolroom, near the cottage chimney around noon on Friday. It then spread very rapidly. Within hours one hundred houses had been destroyed, and 500 people rendered homeless – 10% of the population. A great part of the town extending westwards from the school to the silk factory in Mill Street was reduced to a heap of smouldering ruins.
Air crash
One evening in July 1980, a disaster was narrowly averted when an aircraft on approach to Exeter Airport crash-landed on the outskirts of town, in a field immediately south of the Salston Hotel. The aircraft, an Alidair Vickers Viscount turboprop, flying 62 passengers from Santander in Spain to Exeter was 11 miles short of the runway over a wooded area on East Hill, just before the town, when it ran out of fuel and all four engines stopped.
The pilot, who knew the area, was able to bank left and glide over the town's southern edge and make a wheels-up crash-landing in a field. The aircraft was put down at 19.53 hours, in daylight, near St Saviours' Bridge, in a small grassy valley studded with trees. The 27-year-old aircraft was written off in the crash. The only casualties were two sheep.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch concluded that the accident had been primarily caused by the crew's mistaken belief that there was sufficient fuel on board to complete the flight. The aircraft's unreliable fuel gauges, the company's pilots' method of establishing total fuel quantity, and the imprecise company instructions regarding the use of dipsticks were also considered to be major contributory factors. Meter indications on the refuelling vehicle at Santander, which could not have accurately reflected the quantity of fuel delivered, were also considered to have been a probable contributory factor.
The accident investigation report concluded, however, that the aircraft commander's handling of the emergency once the aircraft's four engines stopped had been skilful and assured. Had he not acted in the way he did, there could have been a considerable loss of life of both aircraft passengers and residents of the town. One of the propellers from the aircraft was later donated by the airline to the town to be auctioned for charity.
The town still lies under the flightpath for Exeter International Airport.
Historic estates
There are several historic estates within the parish of Ottery, including:
Cadhay
Thorne
Knightstone
Notable people
Frederick Coleridge, cricketer and clergyman
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Romantic poet, was born here on 21 October 1772. His father, the Reverend John Coleridge, was a vicar; the family lived at The Chanter's House when John Coleridge was headmaster of the King's School.
Edward Davy (1806 – 1885), English physician, scientist, and inventor, born here
Sir Ernest Satow, a diplomat, spent his retirement (1906–29) here at a house called Beaumont, which still stands. Sir Ernest was buried in the churchyard; there is a commemorative plaque to him in the church.
Hugh Whitby, cricketer and schoolmaster
Claire Wright, politician
Stuart Hogg, Scottish rugby union captain resides in the town
Sport and leisure
The Non-League football club, Ottery St Mary A.F.C. plays at Washbrook Meadows.
The Colin Tooze Sports Centre is located opposite the King's School and the Move Forward Gym is located in Finnimore Trading Estate.
From 1968 to 1974, Ottery had a folk club that met regularly every week in the town's London Inn with singers such as Cyril Tawney and other local artists appearing, as well a number of local singers. The club was listed in the EFDSS list of local rural folk clubs.
Transport
Until 1967 the town was served by Ottery St Mary railway station, which was closed under the Beeching Axe. The line ran from Sidmouth Junction (renamed as Feniton in 1971) on the main line from Exeter to Waterloo to the north of Ottery, and to Sidmouth and Exmouth to the south. The line split just south of Tipton St John, near the Bowd Inn. Both routes closed in March 1967. For many years the path of the railway, with the rails removed, remained in place, with evidence of the railway gates at places such as north of Cadhay Bridge. The closest railway station to Ottery St Mary is now at Feniton, approximately 3 miles away.
Twin towns
Pont-l'Évêque, France (Since 1977)
Ilsfeld, Germany (Since 2003)
References
Sources
Whitham, J. (1984). Ottery St Mary. Camelot Press. .
External links
Town Council
Ottery St Mary Info Hub
Towns in Devon
Culture in Devon
East Devon District
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379119
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline%20in%20amphibian%20populations
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Decline in amphibian populations
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Since the 1980s, decreases in amphibian populations, including population decline and localized mass extinctions, have been observed in locations all over the world. These declines are known as one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity.
Recent (2007) research indicates the reemergence of varieties of chytrid fungi may account for a substantial fraction of the overall decline. A more recent (2018) paper published in Science confirms this.
Several secondary causes may be involved, including other diseases, habitat destruction and modification, exploitation, pollution, pesticide use, introduced species, and ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B). However, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly understood, and the topic is currently a subject of much ongoing research. Calculations based on extinction rates suggest that the current extinction rate of amphibians could be 211 times greater than the background extinction rate and the estimate goes up to 25,000–45,000 times if endangered species are also included in the computation.
Although scientists began observing reduced populations of several European amphibian species already in the 1950s, awareness of the phenomenon as a global problem and its subsequent classification as a modern-day mass extinction only dates from the 1980s. By 1993, more than 500 species of frogs and salamanders present on all five continents were in decline.
Background
In the past three decades, declines in populations of amphibians (the class of organisms that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians) have occurred worldwide. In 2004, the results were published of the first worldwide assessment of amphibian populations, the Global Amphibian Assessment. This found that 32% of species were globally threatened, at least 43% were experiencing some form of population decrease, and that between 9 and 122 species have become extinct since 1980. , the IUCN Red List, which incorporates the Global Amphibian Assessment and subsequent updates, lists 650 amphibian species as "Critically Endangered", and 35 as "Extinct". Despite the high risk this group faces, recent evidence suggests the public is growing largely indifferent to this and other environmental problems, posing serious problems for conservationists and environmental workers alike.
Habitat loss, disease and climate change are thought to be responsible for the drastic decline in populations in recent years.
Declines have been particularly intense in the western United States, Central America, South America, eastern Australia and Fiji (although cases of amphibian extinctions have appeared worldwide). While human activities are causing a loss of much of the world's biodiversity, amphibians appear to be suffering much greater effects than other classes of organism. Because amphibians generally have a two-staged life cycle consisting of both aquatic (larvae) and terrestrial (adult) phases, they are sensitive to both terrestrial and aquatic environmental effects. Because their skins are highly permeable, they may be more susceptible to toxins in the environment than other organisms such as birds or mammals. Many scientists believe that amphibians serve as "canaries in a coal mine," and that declines in amphibian populations and species indicate that other groups of animals and plants will soon be at risk.
Declines in amphibian populations were first widely recognized in the late 1980s, when a large gathering of herpetologists reported noticing declines in populations in amphibians across the globe. Among these species, the Golden toad (Bufo periglenes) endemic to Monteverde, Costa Rica, featured prominently. It was the subject of scientific research until populations suddenly crashed in 1987 and it had disappeared completely by 1989. Other species at Monteverde, including the Monteverde Harlequin Frog (Atelopus varius), also disappeared at the same time. Because these species were located in the pristine Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, and these extinctions could not be related to local human activities, they raised particular concern among biologists.
Initial skepticism
When amphibian declines were first presented as a conservation issue in the late 1980s, some scientists remained unconvinced of the reality and gravity of the conservation issue. Some biologists argued that populations of most organisms, amphibians included, naturally vary through time. They argued that the lack of long-term data on amphibian populations made it difficult to determine whether the anecdotal declines reported by biologists were worth the (often limited) time and money of conservation efforts.
However, since this initial skepticism, biologists have come to a consensus that declines in amphibian populations are a real and severe threat to biodiversity. This consensus emerged with an increase in the number of studies that monitored amphibian populations, direct observation of mass mortality in pristine sites that lacked apparent cause, and an awareness that declines in amphibian populations are truly global in nature.
Potential secondary causes
Numerous potential explanations for amphibian declines have been proposed. Most or all of these causes have been associated with some population declines, so each cause is likely to affect in certain circumstances but not others. Many of the causes of amphibian declines are well understood, and appear to affect other groups of organisms as well as amphibians. These causes include habitat modification and fragmentation, introduced predators or competitors, introduced species, pollution, pesticide use, or over-harvesting. However, many amphibian declines or extinctions have occurred in pristine habitats where the above effects are not likely to occur. The causes of these declines are complex, but many can be attributed to emerging diseases, climate change, increased ultraviolet-B radiation, or long-distance transmission of chemical contaminants by wind.
Artificial lighting has been suggested as another potential cause. Insects are attracted to lights making them scarcer within the amphibian habitats.
Habitat modification
Habitat modification or destruction is one of the most dramatic issues affecting amphibian species worldwide. As amphibians generally need aquatic and terrestrial habitats to survive, threats to either habitat can affect populations. Hence, amphibians may be more vulnerable to habitat modification than organisms that only require one habitat type. Large scale climate changes may further be modifying aquatic habitats, preventing amphibians from spawning altogether.
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation occurs when habitats are isolated by habitat modification, such as when a small area of forest is completely surrounded by agricultural fields. Small populations that survive within such fragments are often susceptible to inbreeding, genetic drift, or extinction due to small fluctuations in the environment.
Pollution and chemical contaminants
There is evidence of chemical pollutants causing frog developmental deformities (extra limbs, or malformed eyes). Pollutants have varying effects on frogs. Some alter the central nervous system; others cause a disruption in the production and secretion of hormones. Experimental studies have also shown that exposure to commonly used herbicides such as glyphosate (Tradename Roundup) or insecticides such as malathion or carbaryl greatly increase mortality of tadpoles. Additional studies have indicated that terrestrial adult stages of amphibians are also susceptible to non-active ingredients in Roundup, particularly POEA, which is a surfactant. Although sex reversal in some species of frogs occur naturally in pristine environments, certain estrogen-like pollutants can forcibly induce these changes. In a study conducted in a laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden, more than 50% of frogs exposed to levels of estrogen-like pollutants existing in natural bodies of water in Europe and the United States became females. Tadpoles exposed even to the weakest concentration of estrogen were twice as likely to become females while almost all of the control group given the heaviest dose became female.
While most pesticide effects are likely to be local and restricted to areas near agriculture, there is evidence from the Sierra Nevada mountains of the western United States that pesticides are traveling long distances into pristine areas, including Yosemite National Park in California.
Some recent evidence points to ozone as a possible contributing factor to the worldwide decline of amphibians.
Ozone depletion, ultraviolet radiation and cloud cover
Like many other organisms, increasing ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation due to stratospheric ozone depletion and other factors may harm the DNA of amphibians, particularly their eggs. The amount of damage depends upon the life stage, the species type and other environmental parameters. Salamanders and frogs that produce less photolyase, an enzyme that counteracts DNA damage from UVB, are more susceptible to the effects of loss of the ozone layer. Exposure to ultraviolet radiation may not kill a particular species or life stage but may cause sublethal damage.
More than three dozen species of amphibians have been studied, with severe effects reported in more than 40 publications in peer-reviewed journals representing authors from North America, Europe and Australia. Experimental enclosure approaches to determine UVB effects on egg stages have been criticized; for example, egg masses were placed at water depths much shallower than is typical for natural oviposition sites. While UVB radiation is an important stressor for amphibians, its effect on the egg stage may have been overstated.
Anthropogenic climate change has likely exerted a major effect on amphibian declines. For example, in the Monteverde Cloud Forest, a series of unusually warm years led to the mass disappearances of the Monteverde Harlequin frog and the Golden Toad. An increased level of cloud cover, a result of geoengineering and global warming, which has warmed the nights and cooled daytime temperatures, has been blamed for facilitating the growth and proliferation of the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (the causative agent of the fungal infection chytridiomycosis).
Although the immediate cause of the die offs was the chytrid, climate change played a pivotal role in the extinctions. Researchers included this subtle connection in their inclusive climate-linked epidemic hypothesis, which acknowledged climatic change as a key factor in amphibian extinctions both in Costa Rica and elsewhere.
New evidence has shown global warming to also be capable of directly degrading toads' body condition and survivorship. Additionally, the phenomenon often colludes with landscape alteration, pollution, and species invasions to effect amphibian extinctions.
Disease
A number of diseases have been related to mass die-offs or declines in populations of amphibians, including "red-leg" disease (Aeromonas hydrophila), Ranavirus (family Iridoviridae), Anuraperkinsus, and chytridiomycosis. It is not entirely clear why these diseases have suddenly begun to affect amphibian populations, but some evidence suggests that these diseases may have been spread by humans, or may be more virulent when combined with other environmental factors.
Trematodes
There is considerable evidence that parasitic trematode platyhelminths (a type of fluke) have contributed to developmental abnormalities and population declines of amphibians in some regions. These trematodes of the genus Ribeiroia have a complex life cycle with three host species. The first host includes a number of species of aquatic snails. The early larval stages of the trematodes then are transmitted into aquatic tadpoles, where the metacercariae (larvae) encyst in developing limb buds. These encysted life stages produce developmental abnormalities in post-metamorphic frogs, including additional or missing limbs. These abnormalities increase frog predation by aquatic birds, the final host of the trematode.
A study showed that high levels of nutrients used in farming and ranching activities fuel parasite infections that have caused frog deformities in ponds and lakes across North America. The study showed increased levels of nitrogen and phosphorus cause sharp hikes in the abundance of trematodes, and that the parasites subsequently form cysts in the developing limbs of tadpoles causing missing limbs, extra limbs and other severe malformations including five or six extra or even no limbs.
Introduced predators
Non-native predators and competitors have also been found to affect the viability of frogs in their habitats. The mountain yellow-legged frog which typically inhabits the Sierra Nevada lakes have seen a decline in numbers due to stocking of non-native fish (trout) for recreational fishing. The developing tadpoles and froglets fall prey to the fish in large numbers. This interference in the frog's three-year metamorphosis is causing a decline that is manifest throughout their ecosystem.
Increased noise levels
Frogs and toads are highly vocal, and their reproductive behaviour often involves the use of vocalizations. There have been suggestions that increased noise levels caused by human activities may be contributing to their declines. In a study in Thailand, increased ambient noise levels were shown to decrease calling in some species and to cause an increase in others. This has, however, not been shown to be a cause for the widespread decline.
Symptoms of stressed populations
Amphibian populations in the beginning stages of decline often exhibit a number of signs, which may potentially be used to identify at-risk segments in conservation efforts. One such sign is developmental instability, which has been proven as evidence of environmental stress. This environmental stress can potentially raise susceptibility to diseases such as chytridiomycosis, and thus lead to amphibian declines. In a study conducted in Queensland, Australia, for example, populations of two amphibian species, Litoria nannotis and Litoria genimaculata, were found to exhibit far greater levels of limb asymmetry in pre-decline years than in control years, the latter of which preceded die offs by an average of 16 years. Learning to identify such signals in the critical period before population declines occur might greatly improve conservation efforts.
Conservation measures
The first response to reports of declining amphibian populations was the formation of the Declining Amphibian Population Task Force (DAPTF) in 1990. DAPTF led efforts for increased amphibian population monitoring in order to establish the extent of the problem, and established working groups to look at different issues. Results were communicated through the newsletter Froglog.
Much of this research went into the production of the first Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA), which was published in 2004 and assessed every known amphibian species against the IUCN Red List criteria. This found that approximately one third of amphibian species were threatened with extinction. As a result of these shocking findings an Amphibian Conservation Summit was held in 2005, because it was considered "morally irresponsible to document amphibian declines and extinctions without also designing and promoting a response to this global crisis".
Outputs from the Amphibian Conservation Summit included the first Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP) and to merge the DAPTF and the Global Amphibian Specialist Group into the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG). The ACAP established the elements required to respond to the crisis, including priority actions on a variety of thematic areas. The ASG is a global volunteer network of dedicated experts who work to provide the scientific foundation for effective amphibian conservation action around the world.
The ACAP (Gascon et al 2007), concerned that time and capability were short, recommended that all relevant species be immediately incorporated into ex situ breeding programs. On 16 February 2007, scientists worldwide met in Atlanta, U.S., to form a group called the Amphibian Ark to help save more than 6,000 species of amphibians from disappearing by starting captive breeding programmes. Overall between the call to action in 2007 and 2019 there has been a 57% increase in number of breeding programs, or 77 additional species.
Areas with noticed frog extinctions, like Australia, have few policies that have been created to prevent the extinction of these species. However, local initiatives have been placed where conscious efforts to decrease global warming will also turn into a conscious effort towards saving the frogs. In South America, where there is also an increased decline of amphibian populations, there is no set policy to try to save frogs. Some suggestions would include getting entire governments to place a set of rules and institutions as a source of guidelines that local governments have to abide by.
A critical issue is how to design protected areas for amphibians which will provide suitable conditions for their survival. Conservation efforts through the use of protected areas have shown to generally be a temporary solution to population decline and extinction because the amphibians become inbred. It is crucial for most amphibians to maintain a high level of genetic variation through large and more diverse environments.
Education of local people to protect amphibians is crucial, along with legislation for local protection and limiting the use of toxic chemicals, including some fertilizers and pesticides in sensitive amphibian areas.
See also
Effects of pesticides on amphibians
Holocene extinction
Colony collapse disorder
Decline in insect populations
White nose syndrome
The Sixth Extinction (book)
Racing Extinction (film)
References
External links
FrogWeb: Amphibian Declines & Malformations
IUCN Red List - Amphibians – assesses the current status of amphibian species worldwide (incorporates the Global Amphibian Assessment)
AmphibiaWeb – provides background information on amphibian declines.
Reptile Amphibian & Pesticide (RAP) Database
Weedicide induced feminization
Photos of Sick Frogs at Queensland Frog Society
Environmental conservation
Extinct amphibians
Population ecology
Amphibian extinctions since 1500
Amphibian conservation
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20universities%20and%20colleges%20in%20South%20Korea
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List of universities and colleges in South Korea
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This is a list of institutions of higher education in South Korea.
Quick index
A
Agricultural Cooperative College – Goyang, Gyeonggi
Ajou Motor College – Boryeong, South Chungcheong
Ajou University – Suwon, Gyeonggi
Andong National University – Andong, North Gyeongsang
Andong Science College – Andong, North Gyeongsang
Ansan University – Ansan, Gyeonggi
Ansung Polytechnic College – Anseong, Gyeonggi
Anyang University – Anyang, Gyeonggi
Asan Information and Technology Polytechnic College – Asan, South Chungcheong
Asia LIFE University – Daejeon
Asia United Theological University – Seoul and Yangpyeong County
B
See also under P
Baekseok Arts University – Seoul
Baekseok Culture University – Cheonan,
Baekseok University - Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Baewha Women's University – Seoul
Berea University of Graduate Studies – Seoul
Bucheon University – Bucheon, Gyeonggi
Busan Arts College – Busan
Busan College of Information Technology – Busan
Busan Institute of Science and Technology – Busan
Busan Jangsin University – see Busan Presbyterian University
Busan Kyungsang College – Busan
Busan National University of Education – Busan
Busan Polytechnic College – Busan
Busan Presbyterian University – Gimhae, South Gyeongsang
Byuksung College – Gimje, North Jeolla
C
See also under J
Calvin University – Yongin, Gyeonggi
Capital Baptist Theological Seminary – Anseong, Gyeonggi
Catholic Sangji College – Andong, North Gyeongsang
Catholic University of Daegu – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang
Catholic University of Korea – Seoul and Bucheon City, Gyeonggi
Catholic University of Pusan – Busan
Catholic Kwandong University - Gangneung, Gangwon-do
Cha University - Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Changshin University – Masan, South Gyeongsang
Changwon National University – Changwon, South Gyeongsang
Changwon Polytechnic College – Changwon, South Gyeongsang
Cheju Halla University – Jeju City, Jeju
Cheju National University of Education – see Jeju National University of Education
Cheju Tourism College – Bukjeju County, Jeju
Cheonan College of Foreign Studies – see Baekseok College
Chonbuk National University – Jeonju, North Jeolla
Cheonan National Technical College – Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Cheonan University – Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Cheonan Yonam College – Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Cheongju National University of Education – Cheongju, North Chungcheong
Cheongju Polytechnic College – Cheongju, North Chungcheong
Cheongju University – Cheongju, North Chungcheong
Cheongshim Graduate School of Theology – Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do
Chinju National University of Education – Jinju, South Gyeongsang
Chodang University – Muan County, South Jeolla
Chonbuk National University – see Jeonbuk National University
Chongin College – see Jeonbuk Science College
Chongju National College of Science and Technology – Cheongju and Jeungpyeong County, North Chungcheong
Chongju University – see Cheongju University
Chongshin University – Seoul
Chonnam National University – Gwangju
Choonhae College – Ulsan
Chosun University – Gwangju
Christian College of Nursing – Gwangju
Chugye University for the Arts – Seoul
Chuncheon Polytechnic College – Chuncheon, Gangwon
Chuncheon National University of Education – Chuncheon, Gangwon
Chung Cheong University – Cheongju, North Chungcheong
Chung-Ang University – Seoul and Anseong City, Gyeonggi
Chungbuk National University – Cheongju, North Chungcheong
Chungbuk Provincial College – Okcheon County, North Chungcheong
Chungju National University – Chungju, North Chungcheong
Chungkang College of Cultural Industries – Icheon, Gyeonggi
Chungnam Provincial College – South Chungcheong
Chungnam National University – Daejeon
Chungwoon University – Hongseong County, South Chungcheong
Chunnam Techno University – Gokseong County, South Jeolla
D
See also under T
Daebul University – Yeongam County, South Jeolla
Daecheon College – see Ajou Motor College
Daedong College – Busan
Daeduk College – Daejeon
Daegu Arts University – Chilgok County, North Gyeongsang
Daegu Cyber University – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang
Daegu Haany University – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang and Daegu
Daegu Health College – Daegu
Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology – Daegu
Daegu Mirae College – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang
Daegu National University of Education – Daegu
Daegu Polytechnic College – Daegu
Daegu Technical University – Daegu
Daegu University – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang
Daegu University of Foreign Studies – Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang
Daehan Graduate School of Theology – Anyang, Gyeonggi
Daejin University – Pocheon, Gyeonggi
Daejeon Health Sciences College – Daejeon
Daejeon Polytechnic College – Daejeon
Daejeon University – Daejeon Shini Kunku
Daelim College – Anyang, Gyeonggi
Daewon Science College – Jecheon, North Chungcheong
Dankook University – Seoul and Cheonan City, South Chungcheong
Dong-A College – Yeongam County, South Jeolla
Dong-A University – Busan
Dong-Ah Broadcasting College – Anseong, Gyeonggi
Donga College of Health
Dongduk Women's University – Seoul
Dong-eui University – Busan
Dongguk University – Seoul and Gyeongju City, North Gyeongsang
Dongju College – Busan
Dongkang College – Gwangju
Dongnam Health College – Suwon, Gyeonggi
Dong-Pusan College – Busan
Dongseo University – Busan
Dong Seoul College – Seongnam, Gyeonggi
Dongshin University – Naju, South Jeolla
Dong-U College – Sokcho, Gangwon
Dongyang Mirae University – Seoul
Dongwon Institute of Science and Technology
Doowon Technical College – Anseong, Gyeonggi
Duksung Women's University – Seoul
E
Ewha Womans University – Seoul
Eulji University – Daejeon
F
Far East University – Eumseong County, North Chungcheong
G
See also under K
Gachon Medical School – Incheon
Gachongil College – Incheon
Gachon University – Seongnam, Gyeonggi
Gangdong College – Eumseong, North Chungcheong
Gangneung-Wonju National University – Gangneung, Gangwon
Gangneung Yeongdong College – Gangneung, Gangwon
Gangwon Provincial College – Gangneung, Gangwon
Geochang Polytechnic College – Geochang, South Gyeongsang
George Mason University – Songdo, Incheon
Geumgang University – Nonsan
Ghent University – Songdo, Incheon
Gimcheon Science College – see Kimcheon Science College
Gochang Polytechnic College – Gochang County, North Jeolla
Gongju National University of Education – Gongju, South Chungcheong
Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation (GSIT) – see Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Graduate School of Korean Studies – Seongnam, Gyeonggi
Gukje Digital University – Suwon, Gyeonggi
Gumi University – Gumi, North Gyeongsang
Gumi Polytechnic College – Gumi, North Gyeongsang
Gwangju Catholic University – Gwangju
Gwangju Health University – Gwangju
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) – Gwangju
Gwangju National University of Education – Gwangju
Gwangju Polytechnic College – Gwangju
Gwangju University – Gwangju
Gyeongbuk Provincial College - North Gyeongsang
Gyeongin National University of Education – Incheon
Gyeongju University – Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang
Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology – Jinju
Gyeongnam Provincial Geochang College - South Gyeongsang
Gyeongnam Provincial Namhae College - South Gyeongsang
Gyeongsang National University – Jinju, South Gyeongsang
Gimcheon University – Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang
Gumi University – Gumi, North Gyeongsang
H
Halla University – Wonju, Gangwon
Hallym College of Information and Industry – Chuncheon, Gangwon
Hallym University – Chuncheon, Gangwon
Hanbat National University – Daejeon
Handong Global University – Pohang, North Gyeongsang
Hanil University – Wanju County, North Jeolla and Jeonju, North Jeolla
Hankuk Aviation University – Goyang, Gyeonggi
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies – Seoul & Gyeonggi
Hankyong National University – Anseong, Gyeonggi
Hanlyo University – Gwangyang, South Jeolla
Hanmin University – Yeonsan
Hannam University – Daejon
Hansei University – Gunpo, Gyeonggi
Hanseo University – Seosan, South Chungcheong
Hanshin University – Osan, Gyeonggi
Hansung Technical College(서울예술직업전문학교) – Seoul
Hansung University – Seoul
Hanyang University – Seoul
Hanyang Cyber University
Hanyang Women's University – Seoul
Hanyeong College – Yeosu, South Jeolla
Hanyoung Theological University – Seoul
Hanzhung University – Donghae, Ganwon
Hapdong Theological Seminary – Suwon, Gyeonggi
Honam Theological University and Seminary – Gwangju
Honam University – Gwangju
Hongik University – Seoul
Hongseong Polytechnic College – Hongseong County, South Chungcheong
Hoseo University – Asan, South Chungcheong
Howon University – Gunsan, North Jeolla
Hyechon College – Daejeon
Hyejeon College – Hongseong County, South Chungcheong
Hyupsung University – Hwaseong, Gyeonggi
I
Information and Communications University – Daejeon
Iksan National College – Iksan, North Jeolla
Incheon Catholic University – Incheon
Incheon National University – Incheon
Incheon Polytechnic College – Incheon
Incheon National University of Education – see Gyeongin National University of Education
Induk University – Seoul
Inha Technical College – Incheon
Inha University – Incheon
Inje University – Gimhae, South Gyeongsang
International Graduate School of English – Seoul
International University of Korea
J
See also under C
Jangan University – Hwaseong, Gyeonggi
JEI University – Incheon
Jecheon Polytechnic College – Jecheon, North Chungcheong
Jeju College of Technology – Jeju City, Jeju (unification with Tamna University, now Jeju International University)
Jeju International University – Jeju City, Jeju
Jeju National University – Jeju City, Jeju
Jeonbuk Polytechnic College – Gimje, North Jeolla
Jeonju Kijeon Women's College – Jeonju, North Jeolla
Jeonju National University of Education – Jeonju, North Jeolla
Jeonju Technical College – Jeonju, North Jeolla
Jeonju University – Jeonju, North Jeolla
Jeonnam Provincial College – Damyang County and Jangheung County, South Jeolla
Jinju College – Jinju, South Gyeongsang
Jinju Health College – Jinju, South Gyeongsang
Jinju National University – Jinju, South Gyeongsang
Jisan College – see Catholic University of Pusan
Joong-ang Sangha University – Gimpo, Gyeonggi
Joongbu University – Geumsan County, South Chungcheong
Jungseok Institute of Technology – Seoul
Juseong College – Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong
K
See also under G
KAIST – Daejeon, abbreviated term of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Kangnam University – Yongin, Gyeonggi
Kangwon National University – Chuncheon and Samcheok, Gangwon
Kangwon Tourism College – Taebaek, Gangwon
Kaya University – Goryeong, North Gyeongsang and Gimhae, South Gyeongsang
Kaywon School of Art and Design (계원예술대학교)– Uiwang, Gyeonggi
KDI School of Public Policy and Management – Seoul
Keimyung College – Daegu
Keimyung University – Daegu
Keukdong College – Eumseong County, North Chungcheong
Kimcheon Science College – Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang
Kimpo College – Gimpo, Gyeonggi
Kkottongnae Hyundo University of Social Welfare – Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong
Koguryeo College
Koje College – Geoje, South Gyeonsang
Kongju Communication Arts College(공주영상정보대학) – Gongju, South Chungcheong
Kongju National University – Gongju, South Chungcheong
Konkuk University – Seoul and Chungju City, North Chungcheong
Konyang University – Nonsan, South Chungcheong and Daejeon
Kookmin University – Seoul
Korea Aerospace University – Goyang, Gyeonggi
Korea Air Force Academy – Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong
Korea Baptist Theological University – Daejeon
Korea Christian University(그리스도대학교) – Seoul
Korea Cyber University – Seoul
Korea Digital University – Seoul
Korea Maritime University – Busan
Korea Military Academy – Seoul
Korea National College of Rehabilitation and Welfare – Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi
Korea National Defense University – Seoul
Korea National Open University – Seoul
Korea National Police University – Yongin, Gyeonggi
Korea National University of Arts – Seoul
Korea National University of Education – Cheongwon County, North Chungcheong
Korea National University of Transportation - Chungju City, North Chungcheong
Korea National Railroad College – Uiwang, Gyeonggi
Korea National Sport University – Seoul
Korea Nazarene University – Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Korea Polytechnics
Korea Polytechnic I – Seoul and Seongnam, Gyeonggi
Korea Polytechnic II – Anseong, Incheon, Hwaseong, Gyeonggi
Korea Polytechnic III – Chuncheon, Wonju and Gangneung
Korea Polytechnic IV – Daejeon, Cheongju, Chungju, Asan and Hongseong
Korea Polytechnic V – Gwangju, Gimje, Mokpo, Iksan and Suncheon
Korea Polytechnic VI – Daegu, Gumi, Pohang and Yeongju
Korea Polytechnic VII – Busan, Ulsan, Changwon and Jinju
Korea Aviation Polytechnic – Sacheon, South Gyeongsang
Korea Bio Polytechnic – Nonsan, South Chungcheong
Korea Textile and Fashion Polytechnic – Daegu
Korea Women's Polytechnic – Gyeonggi
Korea Polytechnic University
Korea Tourism College – Icheon, Gyeonggi
Korea University – Seoul
Korea University of Science and Technology – Seoul, Suwon, Changwon, Ansan, Seongnam, and Daejeon
Korea University of Technology and Education – Cheonan, South Chungcheong
Korean National University of Cultural Heritage – Buyeo County, South Chungcheong
Korean Bible University – Seoul
Kosin University – Busan
Kukje Theological University and Seminary – Seoul
Kumoh National Institute of Technology – Gumi, North Gyeongsang
Kunjang College – Gunsan, North Jeolla
Kunsan College of Nursing – Gunsan, North Jeolla
Kunsan National University – Gunsan, North Jeolla
Kwandong University – Gangneung, Gangwon
Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology – Gwangju
Kwangju Polytechnic College – Gwangju
Kwangju Women's University – Gwangju
Kwangshin University – Gwangju
Kwangwoon University – Seoul
Kwangyang Health College – Gwangyang, South Jeolla
Kyeyak Graduate School of Theology – Gwangju, Gyeonggi
Kyongbuk College of Science – Chilgok County, North Gyeongsang
Kyonggi Institute of Technology – Siheung, Gyeonggi
Kyonggi University – Seoul and Suwon City, Gyeonggi
Kyongju University – see Gyeongju University
Kyungbok University – Pocheon, Gyeonggi
Kyungbuk College – Yeongju, North Gyeongsang
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See also under B
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See also under D
Taegu Science College – Daegu
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See also
List of research universities in the South Korea
Lists of universities and colleges
List of universities and colleges in Seoul
List of universities in North Korea
Tertiary education
References
External links
List of institutions from the South Korean Ministry of Education
Ranking Web of Korean Universities
Korea, South
Korea, South
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379202
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American%20bullfrog
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American bullfrog
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The American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus), often simply known as the bullfrog in Canada and the United States, is a large true frog native to eastern North America. It typically inhabits large permanent water bodies such as swamps, ponds, and lakes. Bullfrogs can also be found in manmade habitats such as pools, koi ponds, canals, ditches and culverts. The bullfrog gets its name from the sound the male makes during the breeding season, which sounds similar to a bull bellowing. The bullfrog is large and is commonly eaten throughout its range, especially in the southern United States where they are plentiful.
Their presence as a food source has led to bullfrogs being distributed around the world outside of their native range. Bullfrogs have been introduced into the Western United States, South America, Western Europe, China, Japan, and southeast Asia. In these places they are invasive species due to their voracious appetite and the large number of eggs they produce, having a negative effect on native amphibians and other fauna. Bullfrogs are very skittish which makes capture difficult and so they often become established.
Other than for food, bullfrogs are also used for dissection in science classes. Albino bullfrogs are sometimes kept as pets, and bullfrog tadpoles are often sold at pond or fish stores.
Taxonomy
Some authorities use the scientific name, Lithobates catesbeiana, although others prefer Rana catesbeiana.
Genome
The nuclear genome (~5.8Gbp) of the North American bullfrog (Rana [Lithobates] catesbeiana) was published in 2017 and provides a resource for future Ranidae research.
Etymology
The specific name, catesbeiana (feminine) or catesbeianus (masculine), is in honor of English naturalist Mark Catesby.
Description
The dorsal (upper) surface of the bullfrog has an olive-green basal color, either plain or with mottling and banding of grayish brown. The ventral (under) surface is off-white blotched with yellow or gray. Often, a marked contrast in color is seen between the green upper lip and the pale lower lip. The teeth are tiny and are useful only in grasping. The eyes are prominent with brown irises and horizontal, almond-shaped pupils. The tympana (eardrums) are easily seen just behind the eyes and the dorsolateral folds of skin enclose them. The limbs are blotched or banded with gray. The fore legs are short and sturdy and the hind legs long. The front toes are not webbed, but the back toes have webbing between the digits with the exception of the fourth toe, which is unwebbed.
Bullfrogs are sexually dimorphic, with males being smaller than females and having yellow throats. Males have tympana larger than their eyes, whereas the tympana in females are about the same size as the eyes. Bullfrogs measure about in snout–to–vent length. They grow fast in the first eight months of life, typically increasing in weight from , and large, mature individuals can weigh up to . In some cases bullfrogs have been recorded as attaining and measuring up to from snout to vent. The American bullfrog is the largest species of true frog in North America.
Distribution
The bullfrog is native to eastern North America. Its natural range extends from the Atlantic Coast, north to Newfoundland, to as far west as Oklahoma and Kansas. It is not found on offshore islands near Cape Cod and is largely absent from Florida, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Minnesota. It has been introduced into Nantucket island, Arizona, Utah, other parts of Colorado and Nebraska, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. In these states, it is considered to be an invasive species and concern exists that it may outcompete native species of amphibians and upset the ecological balance. It is very common on the West Coast, especially in California, where it is believed to pose a threat to the California red-legged frog, and is considered to be a factor in the decline of that vulnerable species. Bullfrogs have been found to feed on the young of the California endemic giant garter snake, a threatened species. In early 2023, the Utah Department of Natural Resources began tweeting tips on how to catch and cook bullfrogs in an effort to encourage residents to help control the growing population by catching the invasive frogs for food.
Other countries and regions into which the bullfrog has been introduced include the western provinces of Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. It is also found in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, China, South Korea and Japan. The reasons for introducing the bullfrog to these countries have included their intentional release, either to provide a source of food or as biological control agents, the escape of frogs from breeding establishments, and the escape or release of frogs kept as pets. Conservationists are concerned the bullfrog is relatively immune to the fungal infection chytridiomycosis and as it invades new territories, it may assist the spread of this lethal disease as an asymptomatic carrier to more susceptible native species of frog.
Breeding behavior
The bullfrog breeding season typically lasts two to three months. A study of bullfrogs in Michigan showed the males arriving at the breeding site in late May or early June, and remaining in the area into July. The territorial males that occupy sites are usually spaced some apart and call loudly. At least three different types of calls have been noted in male bullfrogs under different circumstances. These distinctive calls include territorial calls made as threats to other males, advertisement calls made to attract females, and encounter calls which precede combat.
The bullfrogs have a prolonged breeding season, with the males continuously engaging in sexual activity throughout. Males are present at the breeding pond for longer periods than females during the entire season, increasing their chances of multiple matings. The sex ratio is typically skewed toward males. Conversely, females have brief periods of sexual receptivity during the season. In one study, female sexual activity typically lasted for a single night and mating did not occur unless the females initiated the physical contact. Males only clasp females after they have indicated their willingness to mate. This finding refutes previous claims that a male frog will clasp any proximate female with no regard to whether the female has consented. Once a male finds a receptive female he will clasp onto her and undergo amplexus—reproductive position—by utilization of the males forelimbs. The enlargement forelimbs is a sexually dimorphic trait seen in the male bullfrog. One study investigating male and female bullfrog forelimbs muscles found males had significantly stronger muscles that could undergo longer durations of activity before the onset of fatigue. The significance of forelimb sexual dimorphism allow males to remain in amplexus with the female for longer durations increasing their chance at reproductive success in the highly competitive mating environment.
These male and female behaviors cause male-to-male competition to be high within the bullfrog population and sexual selection for the females to be an intense process. Kentwood Wells postulated leks, territorial polygyny, and harems are the most likely classifications for the bullfrog mating system. Leks would be a valid description because males congregate to attract females, and the females arrive to the site for the purpose of copulation. In a 1980 study on bullfrogs in New Jersey, the mating system was classified as resource-defense polygyny. The males defended territories within the group and demonstrated typical physical forms of defense.
Choruses
Male bullfrogs aggregate into groups called choruses. The male chorus behavior is analogous to the lek formation of birds, mammals, and other vertebrates. Choruses are dynamic, forming and remaining associated for a few days, breaking down temporarily, and then forming again in a new area with a different group of males. Male movement has experimentally been noted to be dynamic. In the Michigan study, the choruses were described as "centers of attraction" in which their larger numbers enhanced the males' overall acoustical displays. This is more attractive to females and also attractive to other sexually active males. Choruses in this study were dynamic, constantly forming and breaking up. New choruses were formed in other areas of the site. Males moved around and were highly mobile within the choruses.
A review of multiple studies on bullfrogs and other anurans noted male behavior within the groups changes according to the population density of the leks. At higher population densities, leks are favored due to the difficulty in defending individual territories among a large population of males. This variance causes differences in how females choose their mates. When the male population density is low and males maintain clearer, more distinct territories, female choice is mostly determined by territory quality. When male population density is higher, females depend on other cues to select their mates. These cues include the males' positions within the chorus and differences in male display behaviors among other determinants. Social dominance within the choruses is established through challenges, threats, and other physical displays. Older males tend to acquire more central locations while younger males were restricted to the periphery.
Chorus tenure is the number of nights that a male participates in the breeding chorus. One study distinguishes between chorus tenure and dominant tenure. Dominant tenure is more strictly defined as the amount of time a male maintains a dominant status. Chorus tenure is restricted due to increased risk of predation, lost foraging opportunities, and higher energy consumption. Calling is postulated to be energetically costly to anurans in general. Energy is also expended through locomotion and aggressive interactions of male bullfrogs within the chorus.
Aggressive behavior
To establish social dominance within choruses, bullfrogs demonstrate various forms of aggression, especially through visual displays. Posture is a key factor in establishing social position and threatening challengers. Territorial males have inflated postures while non-territorial males remain in the water with only their heads showing. For dominant (territorial) males, their elevated posture reveals their yellow-colored throats. When two dominant males encounter each other, they engage in a wrestling bout. The males have their venters clasped, each individual in an erect position rising to well above water level. The New Jersey study noted the males would approach each other to within a few centimeters and then tilt back their heads, displaying their brilliantly colored gular sacs. The gular is dichromatic in bullfrogs, with dominant and fitter males displaying yellow gulars. The New Jersey study also reported low posture with only the head exposed above the water surface was typical of subordinate, or non-territorial males, and females. High posture was demonstrated by territorial males, which floated on the surface of the water with their lungs inflated, displaying their yellow gulars. Males optimize their reproductive fitness in a number of ways. Early arrival at the breeding site, prolonged breeding with continuous sexual activity throughout the season, ownership of a centrally located territory within the chorus, and successful movement between the dynamically changing choruses are all common ways for males to maintain dominant, or territorial, status within the chorus. Older males have greater success in all of these areas than younger males. Some of the males display a more inferior role, termed by many researchers as the silent male status. These silent males adopt a submissive posture, sit near resident males and make no attempt to displace them. The silent males do not attempt to intercept females but are waiting for the territories to become vacant. This has also been called the alternate or satellite male strategy.
Growth and development
After selecting a male, the female deposits eggs in his territory. During the mating grasp, or amplexus, the male rides on top of the female, grasping her just behind her fore limbs. The female chooses a site in shallow water among vegetation, and lays a batch of up to 20,000 eggs, and the male simultaneously releases sperm, resulting in external fertilization. The eggs form a thin, floating sheet which may cover an area of . The embryos develop best at water temperatures between and hatch in three to five days.
If the water temperature rises above
, developmental abnormalities occur, and if it falls below , normal development ceases. Newly hatched tadpoles show a preference for living in shallow water on fine gravel bottoms. This may reflect a lesser number of predators in these locations. As they grow, they tend to move into deeper water. The tadpoles initially have three pairs of external gills and several rows of labial teeth. They pump water through their gills by movements of the floor of their mouths, trapping bacteria, single-celled algae, protozoans, pollen grains, and other small particles on mucus in a filtration organ in their pharynges. As they grow, they begin to ingest larger particles and use their teeth for rasping. They have downward-facing mouths, deep bodies, and tails with broad dorsal and ventral fins.
Time to metamorphosis ranges from a few months in the southern part of the range to 3 years in the north, where the colder water slows development. Maximum lifespan in the wild is estimated to be 8 to 10 years, but one frog lived for almost 16 years in captivity.
Feeding
Bullfrogs are voracious, opportunistic, ambush predators that prey on any small animal they can overpower and consume. Bullfrog stomachs have been found to contain rodents, small lizards and snakes, other frogs and toads, amphibians, crayfish, other crustaceans, small birds, scorpions, tarantulas and bats, as well as the many types of invertebrates, such as snails, worms and insects, which are the usual food of ranid frogs. These studies revealed the bullfrog's diet to be unique among North American ranids in the inclusion of a large percentage of aquatic animals, such as fish, tadpoles, ram's horn snails, and dytiscid beetles, as well as the aquatic eggs of fish, frogs, insects, or salamanders. Bullfrogs are able to capture large, strong prey because of the powerful grip of their jaws after the initial ranid tongue strike. However, there is a correlation found with size of prey relative to body size of the bullfrog. Juveniles and adults typically go after prey that is relative to their own body size. The bullfrog is able to make allowance for light refraction at the water-air interface by striking at a position posterior to the target's perceived location. The comparative ability of bullfrogs to capture submerged prey, compared to that of the green frog, leopard frog, and wood frog (L. clamitans, L. pipiens, and L. sylvaticus, respectively) was also demonstrated in laboratory experiments.
Prey motion elicits feeding behavior. First, if necessary, the frog performs a single, orienting bodily rotation ending with the frog aimed towards the prey, followed by approaching leaps, if necessary. Once within striking distance, the bullfrog begins its feeding strike, which consists of a ballistic lunge (eyes closed as during all leaps) that ends with the mouth opening. At this stage, the fleshy, mucus-coated tongue is extended towards the prey, often engulfing it, while the jaws continue their forward travel to close (bite) just as the tongue is retracted. Large prey that do not fit entirely into the mouth are stuffed in with the hands. In laboratory observations, bullfrogs taking mice usually swam underwater with prey in mouth, apparently with the advantageous result of altering the mouse's defense from counter-attack to struggling for air. Asphyxiation is the most likely cause of death of warm-blooded prey.
Biomechanical background of tongue projection
The speed of a bullfrog's tongue strike is much faster than it should be if muscles were the only force behind it. Similar to the tension on a slingshot pulled all the way back, when the frog's mouth is closed, tension is put into the elastic tissues of the tongue, and also into the elastic tendons of the lower jaw. When the frog attacks prey, opening its mouth is like letting go of the slingshot; the elastic force stored up in both the tongue and the jaw are combined to shoot the tip of the tongue toward the prey much faster than the prey's ability to see the strike and evade capture, completing the strike and retrieval in approximately 0.07 seconds. Another benefit of this elastic-force based attack is that it is not dependent on background temperature. A frog with a cold body temperature has muscles that move more slowly, but it can still attack prey with the same speed as if its body was warm.
Ballistic tongue projection of the related leopard frog is possible due to the presence of elastic structures that allow storage and subsequent release of elastic recoil energy. This accounts for the tongue projecting with higher power output than would develop by muscular action alone. Also, such mechanism relieves the tongue's musculature from physiological constraints such as limited peak power output - mechanical efficiency and thermal dependence by uncoupling the activation of the depressor mandibulae's contractile units from actual muscular movement. In other words, the kinematic parameters developed by contribution of the elastic structures differ from those developed by muscular projection, accounting for the difference in velocity, power output, and thermal dependence.
Ecology
Bullfrogs are an important item of prey to many birds (especially large herons), North American river otters (Lontra canadensis), predatory fish, and occasionally other amphibians. Predators of American bullfrogs once in their adult stages can range from belted kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon) to 1,100-pound (500 kg) American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). The eggs and larvae are unpalatable to many salamanders and fish, but the high levels of activity of the tadpoles may make them more noticeable to a predator not deterred by their unpleasant taste. Humans hunt bullfrogs as game and consume their legs. Adult frogs try to escape by splashing and leaping into deep water. A trapped individual may squawk or emit a piercing scream, which may surprise the attacker sufficiently for the frog to escape. An attack on one bullfrog is likely to alert others in the vicinity to danger and they will all retreat into the safety of deeper water. Bullfrogs may be at least partially resistant to the venom of copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) and cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) snakes, though these species are known natural predators of bullfrogs as are northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon).
Considering the invasive nature of the L. catesbeianus, multiple traits within the species contribute to its competitive ability. The generalist diet of the American bullfrog allows for it to consume food in different environments. When observing the contents of American bullfrog stomachs, it was discovered that adult bullfrogs regularly consume predators of bullfrog young, including dragonfly nymphs, garter snakes, and giant water bugs. Thus, the ecological check on American bullfrog juveniles in invaded areas become less effective. L. catesbeianus seems to exhibit traits of immunity or resistance against the antipredator defenses of other organisms. Analysis of stomach contents from bullfrog populations in New Mexico show the regular consumption of wasps, with no conditioned avoidance due to the wasps stingers. Along the Colorado river, L. catesbeianus stomach contents indicate the ability to withstand the discomforting spines of the stickleback fish. Reports of American bullfrogs eating scorpions and rattlesnakes also exist.
Analysis of the American bullfrog's realized niche at various sites in Mexico, and comparisons with the niches of endemic frogs show that it is possible that the American bullfrog capable of niche shift, and pose a threat to many endemic Mexican frog species, even those that are not currently in competition with the American bullfrog.
Invasive species
In areas where the American bullfrog is introduced, the population can be controlled by various means. One project (3n-Bullfrog project) uses sterile triploïd (3n) bullfrogs. In Europe, the American bullfrog is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot under any circumstances be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.
Human use
The American bullfrog provides a food source, especially in the Southern and some areas of the Midwestern United States. The traditional way of hunting them is to paddle or pole silently by canoe or flatboat in ponds or swamps at night; when the frog's call is heard, a light is shone at the frog which temporarily inhibits its movement. The frog will not jump into deeper water as long as it is approached slowly and steadily. When close enough, the frog is gigged with a multiple-tined spear and brought into the boat. Bullfrogs can also be stalked on land, by again taking great care not to startle them. In some states, breaking the skin while catching them is illegal, and either grasping gigs or hand captures used. The only parts normally eaten are the rear legs, which resemble small chicken drumsticks, have a similar flavor and texture and can be cooked in similar ways.
Commercial bullfrog culture in near-natural enclosed ponds has been attempted, but is fraught with difficulties. Although pelleted feed is available, the frogs will not willingly consume artificial diets, and providing sufficient live prey is challenging. Disease also tends to be a problem even when great care is taken to provide sanitary conditions. Other challenges to be overcome may be predation, cannibalism, and low water quality. The frogs are large, have powerful leaps, and inevitably escape after which they may wreak havoc among the native frog population. Countries that export bullfrog legs include the Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico, Bangladesh, Japan, China, Taiwan, and Indonesia. Most of these frogs are caught from the wild, but some are captive-reared. The United States is a net importer of frog legs.
The American bullfrog is used as a specimen for dissection in many schools across the world. It is the state amphibian of Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
References
External links
British Columbia Frog Watch Program: Bull Frog Fact Sheet
Bullfrog at the Global Invasive Species Database
Species Profile - Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus), National Invasive Species Information Center, United States National Agricultural Library.
Amphibians of the United States
Amphibians of Canada
Amphibians described in 1802
Fauna of the Eastern United States
Amphibians of the Dominican Republic
Lithobates
Extant Miocene first appearances
Taxa named by George Shaw
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379213
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San%20Francisco%20Opera
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San Francisco Opera
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The San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California.
History
Gaetano Merola (1923–1953)
Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when he first visited the city. In 1909, he returned as the conductor of the International Opera Company of Montreal, one of the many visiting troupes that frequented the bustling city. Continued visits over the next decade convinced him that an opera company in San Francisco was viable.
Merola moved back into the city in 1921 while living with Mrs. Oliver Stine's support Oliver Stine. He drafted plans for a new, locally-owned opera company that wouldn't rely on visiting troupes, a common practice for some opera companies since the Gold Rush. By the next year, Merola organized a trial season at Stanford University. The first performance occurred in the Stanford Cardinal's football stadium on June 3, 1922, with operatic tenor Giovanni Martinelli performing in Pagliacci, Carmen, and Faust.
The five-day season's lacked any financial success; Merola instead successfully raised funds for a full season of opera in the following year. Following this, the first unaffiliated performance given by the San Francisco Opera was La bohème, with Queena Mario and Giovanni Martinelli, on September 26, 1923, in the city's Civic Auditorium.
In subsequent years, SFO would perform a wide array of Italian operas, rarely performing a given opera more than once. SFO seasons seldom lasted more than two months, and occasionally performed less than one month. The 1923-24 season included productions of Andrea Chénier and Mefistofele with Beniamino Gigli, Tosca with Giuseppe De Luca and Martinelli, and Verdi's Rigoletto with Queena Mario, De Luca, and Gigli.
During the nine years following the opening season, the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House was designed by Arthur Brown Jr.
On October 15, 1932, the company inaugurated the new opera house with a performance of Tosca on with Claudia Muzio in the titular role. Characteristic of Merola's years as general director was the fact (as noted by Chatfield-Taylor) that "the great singers of the world came regularly to San Francisco, often performing several roles in deference to the short season and long travel time across the country."
Edwin MacArthur led the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in several 78-rpm recordings for RCA Victor in the late 1930s, including performances by soprano Kirsten Flagstad. Some of these were later reissued by RCA on LP and CD.
Short versions of all the works in the season were broadcast on about 30 California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia radio stations, starting about 1941.
Merola's tenure lasted 30 years. Characteristics of Merola's SFO included creating opportunities for young American singers regardless of the fact that the opera lacked a formal training program at that time, and also regular tours by the SFO to Los Angeles between 1937 and 1965, which expanded the season into November. However, until well after Merola's death on August 30, 1953, while conducting an open-air concert at Stern Grove, the main San Francisco season rarely extended beyond late October.
Kurt Herbert Adler (1953–1981)
Kurt Herbert Adler (1905–1988) came to the United States in 1938 after early experience and training in many aspects of music and theatre in Austria, Germany, and Italy. For five years, he worked to build the chorus of the Chicago Opera Company. Merola heard of him and, over the telephone, invited him to San Francisco opera in 1943 as chorus director.
Adler was often regarded as a difficult, sometimes tyrannical person to work for. However, as Chatfield-Taylor notes, "singers, conductors, directors, and designers came back season after season. They came back because Adler made the SFO an internationally respected company that ran at a high level of professionalism and offered them interesting things to do in a warm and supportive atmosphere." Among those who were offered new and exciting challenges were Geraint Evans, the Welsh baritone, Leontyne Price, and Luciano Pavarotti.
He took on more and more administrative details as Merola's health and energy diminished, but Adler was not the board's natural choice to replace Merola at the time of his death in 1953. After three months of acting as artistic director, and with the assistance of its president, Robert Watt Miller, Adler was confirmed as general director.
Adler's aims
Adler's had several aims in taking over the company. One was to expand the season which in Merola's time ran. It changed from the Friday after Labor Day until early November (when the Metropolitan Opera's season began). This was to capitalize on the availability of singers by presenting up to fourteen operas with two or three performances each. Eventually, as seen in the 1961 SFO season, eleven operas were given five or six performances each on average while the season ran to late November.
Another aim was to present new talent, and, for this, he was tireless in seeking out up-and-coming new singers, whether American or European, by attending performances in both major and minor opera houses. He heard Leontyne Price on the radio and offered her a role in Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957, thus providing her with her first performance on a major operatic stage. A short time later in the same season, she was to step into the role of Aida at short notice to replace Antonietta Stella, a role which gave her long-lived international acclaim.
Adler developed a strong professional relationship with Birgit Nilsson. Nilsson made her US-debut in San Francisco in 1956. She returned almost every season for 26 years and made her last appearance in the house in 1982.
A characteristic of the Adler years was the interest in developing stronger connections to opera stage directors in an attempt to strengthen the dramatic and theatrical elements of the works. In this, he was greatly supported by his long relationship with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, the often-controversial stage director and designer who began his association with SFO in 1957.
Merola Opera Program
Several innovations undertaken by Adler included the Merola Opera Program (named after the first general director). It began during the 1954/55 Season and was given its current name in 1957. The program now annually offers approximately 23 gifted singers, four apprentice coaches, and one apprentice stage director the rare opportunity of studying, coaching, and participating in master classes with established professionals for eleven weeks during the summer. Many went on to international careers, among them Carol Vaness and Thomas Hampson.
Opera in the Park
Another innovation was "Opera in the Park" which, since 1971, has been an annual free concert in Golden Gate Park on the Sunday following opening night of the Fall Season. It traditionally features artists from the opening weekend in full concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. The event is open to the public and draws some 30,000 listeners. The concert is presented in conjunction with the non-profit San Francisco Parks Trust and the San Francisco Chronicle Charities.
Success of the company
By the 1970s, the company was highly successful and offered audiences the "cream of the crop" of internationally known singers, but with Adler often bringing in unknowns to make their American debuts or the surprise of well-known singers replacing ailing ones, there were some exciting nights at the opera. These included Plácido Domingo flying with no notice from New York City to San Francisco – albeit three hours after curtain time – to replace the ailing Carlo Cossutta on the opening night of Otello and the last-minute substitution by Leontyne Price for Margaret Price in the role of Aida.
From 1971 to 1979, San Francisco station KKHI broadcast the regular Friday night performances of the opera on AM and FM (in multiplex stereo with quadraphonic encoding). The broadcasts were hosted by several well-known announcers, including Scott Beach and Fred Cherry.
In the summer of 1972, the San Francisco Opera began its 50th anniversary celebrations with a special free concert in Sigmund Stern Grove. Adler conducted most of the program, which featured performances by many of the surviving singers who had appeared with the company during its history. The legendary tenor Lauritz Melchior conducted the orchestra, rather than sing, in a performance of the famous Radetsky March by Johann Strauss I; it was possibly his last public appearance. One of the highlights of the afternoon program was a moving performance of the love duet from Madama Butterfly with soprano Licia Albanese and tenor Frederick Jagel.
Adler retired on 15 December 1981.
Terence McEwen (1982–1988)
Following Adler's retirement announcement in June 1979, Terence A. McEwen (1929–1998) was Adler's hand-picked successor. Growing up in the Montreal area of Canada, McEwen learned to love opera at an early age, listened to the Met broadcasts, and at age 14, made a trip to New York one winter break to hear several of his favorite operas, which included Bidu Sayão and Jussi Björling in Rigoletto. As a singer, Sayão was forever to remain his passion, one which was accentuated by seeing her in Manon performances in Montreal.
His passion for opera in general led him to visit the Royal Opera House in London and a lowly paid job with Decca Records in that city. Moving up the ranks in the 1950s, he landed in New York in 1959 and for the next 20 years made London Records, Decca's classical arm, the most significant classical label in the United States.
After being approached by Adler regarding the San Francisco opera job, he moved to the city in 1980 and involved himself totally in learning the running of an opera company. In January 1982 McEwen was running the SFO.
Given his expertise and background in understanding opera and the wonders of the human voice, it is not surprising that his approach in his early years was away from the theatrical side and more focused on singers. With his Ring Cycle which began in the Summer 1983 and Fall 1984 seasons — and which was presented in its entirety in June 1985 – McEwen demonstrated where his priorities lay: they were focused on hiring the best singers in the world.
As a reaction to the economic climate of the times, in 1982 McEwen, created the "San Francisco Opera Center" to oversee and combine the operation and administration of the numerous affiliate educational and training programs. Providing a coordinated sequence of performance and study opportunities for young artists, the San Francisco Opera Center included the "Merola Opera Program", "Adler Fellowship Program", "Showcase Series", "Brown Bag Opera", "Opera Center Singers", "Schwabacher Recitals", and various Education Programs. By introducing his young singers to the great voices of the past, inviting them to rehearsals, and giving tickets to current productions McEwen hoped to create rounded performers who could appear in the regular Fall season.
Among his successes in this regard was the mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick from Nevada. By "hand holding" her through the various stages of training, he prepared her for the role of Azucena in Il trovatore for the summer 1986 season to great acclaim.
During the 1983 fall season, the student/family matinee performances of La traviata were presented with supertitles. These are English translations of the libretto projected over the proscenium simultaneously with the action on stage. The overwhelmingly favorable response prompted the company to introduce the practice in increasing numbers of performances in subsequent seasons. Supertitles are now used for all San Francisco Opera productions and SFO also rents its supertitles internationally to other opera companies.
In 1986, Sir John Pritchard was appointed music director and served until 1989.
On 8 February 1988, McEwen announced his resignation. The following day his mentor, Kurt Herbert Adler, died.
Lotfi Mansouri (1988–2001)
Lotfi Mansouri (born 1929) was already a known quantity when Terry McEwen announced his retirement. Then head of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Mansouri had received an education in medicine in Los Angeles, but gave it all up upon becoming fixated on opera, first as a young tenor with UCLA's Opera Workshop, and then with opera in general.
As early as 1962, with Mansouri having found work as director in Los Angeles followed by his becoming resident stage director at the Zürich Opera, Adler came to see him at work, and he was offered six operas to direct in the 1963 season. By the time he became general director, he had directed 60 operas for SFO and many others elsewhere.
By 1975 he was director of the Canadian Opera Company where, in 1983, he had introduced the revolutionary supertitles. Mansouri's feelings on the effects of titling was that the audience would be more engaged in the performance. This was a momentous change in the world of opera.
Mansouri introduced many new operas to the SFO repertory. These included more Russian operas with the highlight being Valery Gergiev's conducting of Prokofiev's War and Peace and a firm link established with the Kirov Opera. Also, there was Rossini's Guillaume Tell and Verdi's I vespri siciliani which followed.
One of Mansouri's triumphs was the overseeing of the reconstruction and renovation of the opera house following the October 1989 earthquake. After closing at the end of the 1995 Fall season for "a 21-month, US$88.5 million renovation, San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House reopened on 5 September 1997 with a gala concert celebrating this occasion, as well the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Opera. Fittingly, the concert featured operatic greats of the past, present and future. The project included repairs of damage caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, improvements for the audience and performers, seismic strengthening and a general cleanup that left the 65-year-old Opera House gleaming."
Donald Runnicles was named music director and principal conductor of SFO in 1990, and assumed the posts in 1992.
In November 1992, Mansouri introduced "Pacific Visions", an ambitious program designed to maintain the vitality of the opera repertoire through new commissions and the presentation of unusual repertoire. It was launched with the commissioning of the following operas:
The Dangerous Liaisons, composed by Conrad Susa to a libretto by Philip Littell, had its world premiere during the 1994 fall season and was the subject of a nationwide TV broadcast. The cast featured Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, and Thomas Hampson.
Harvey Milk, composer Stewart Wallace to a libretto by Michael Korie. It was performed in 1996 as a joint commission and co-production of the SFO, Houston Grand Opera, and New York City Opera. The cast featured Raymond Very as Dan White, Robert Orth as Harvey Milk and Gidon Sachs as Mayor Moscone.
A Streetcar Named Desire, composed by André Previn to a libretto by Philip Littell, after the play by Tennessee Williams. The work had its premiere during the 1998–99 fall season. The cast included Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois and Elizabeth Futral as Stella, baritone Rod Gilfry as Stanley Kowalski and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch.
Dead Man Walking, composed by Jake Heggie from a libretto by Terrence McNally after the book by Sister Helen Prejean, received its premiere in October 2000. The cast included Susan Graham as Sister Helen Prejean, John Packard as Joe; and Frederica von Stade as Mrs. Patrick de Rocher.
The Death of Klinghoffer(a co-commission between San Francisco Opera, Brussels' La Monnaie, the Opera de Lyon, the Los Angeles Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival and the Booklyn Academy of Music), composed by John Adams in 1992. The cast included Janice Felty in 3 roles, James Maddalena as The Captain, and Thomas Hammons as the First Officer.
Summing up his years at the SFO, the San Francisco Chronicle noted: "He's never been interested in the succès d'estime, the daring intellectual or theatrical coup that dazzles culture mavens but leaves the general public alienated or bewildered. For Mansouri, a success that doesn't put fannies in the seats is no success at all."
Towards the end of the 2001 season, Mansouri announced his retirement after fourteen seasons with SFO and 50 years in opera.
Pamela Rosenberg (2001–2005)
's first connection with the San Francisco Opera was as a standee while attending the University of California, Berkeley. She returned to SFO with a background of operatic productions in Germany and, specifically, as head of the Stuttgart Opera.
In January 2001, Rosenberg announced her first artistic initiative for San Francisco Opera, "Animating Opera", a multi-year plan of interwoven themes and series. These included "Seminal Works of Modern Times", "The Faust Project", "Composer Portrait: Janáček/Berlioz", "Women Outside of Society: Laws Unto Themselves", "Metamorphosis: From Fairy Tales to Nightmares", and "Outsiders or Pioneers?: The Nature of the Human Condition".
Incorporated within the production programming of "Animating Opera" was the America staged premiere of Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise, Virgil Thomson's The Mother of Us All, as well as a commission for a new work by John Adams and Peter Sellars entitled Doctor Atomic, which premiered on 1 October 2005. Other operas new to the SFO's repertoire during her directorship include Busoni's Doktor Faust, Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre and Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen.
After much controversy surrounding her management of the SFO, which included deficits created after the "dot-com" collapse in 2000 and the effects of September 11 on arts attendance, she announced in 2004 that she would not renew her contract with the company when it ended in late 2005.
As noted by Steven Winn in the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2005, "Productions were scuttled or postponed in the face of a $7.7 million deficit. Ambitious programming initiatives and plans for a second, smaller performance venue went by the wayside. Company-wide cuts pared 14 percent from the company's $67 million budget in 2003."
He continued: "Embattled by financial woes and trying labor negotiations, Rosenberg was routinely blamed for problems that were largely beyond her control. Her taste for new and unusual operas and a European-honed aesthetic that favored brash and even radical reinterpretations of the classics, the thinking went, drove away audiences and donors and ran up costs in the company's hour of greatest need."
Rosenberg returned to Germany to work with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic as its Intendantin. From 2004 to 2007, Keith Cerny served as the chief financial officer of the San Francisco Opera.
David Gockley (2006–2016)
After 33 years of directing the Houston Grand Opera, David Gockley became the SFO's General Director on 1 January 2006. As part of an announcement of the 2006/2007 season and the future of the company on 11 January, Gockley noted that "this season we debut a new visual identity and logo in keeping with a new artistic philosophy. I believe that it speaks of glamour, sophistication, tradition and innovation all things that infuse our plans for the future of San Francisco Opera."
In May 2011, it was announced that Gockley's contract was to be extended through SFO's 2015–16 season. In October 2014 it was announced that Gockley would be stepping down from his post at the end of the 2015/16 season. His replacement was announced to be Matthew Shilvock in September 2015.
Innovations announced
As part of his future plans, Gockley stated "I want nothing less than to have the greatest stars of the opera world perform here regularly. You can expect in coming seasons to hear Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Thomas Hampson, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Marcello Giordani, Ramón Vargas, Marcelo Álvarez, Juan Diego Flórez, Ben Heppner, Natalie Dessay, and Angela Gheorghiu, among many others. We will have a world premiere for you in 2007, and the Wagner lovers among you will be happy to hear that we expect to commence a Ring Cycle in 2008."
Ring Cycle
San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera began a co-production of a new Ring Cycle in 2006 directed by Francesca Zambello. The production used imagery from various eras of American history and had a feminist and environmentalist viewpoint. SFO presented Das Rheingold in June 2008, Die Walküre in June 2010, and three complete Ring cycles in June 2011. The complete cycles in June 2011 were conducted by Donald Runnicles and featured cycle role debuts of Mark Delavan (Wotan) and Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde) as well as Jay Hunter Morris (making his role debut in the title role of Siegfried) and Ian Storey (making his role debut as Siegfried in Götterdämmerung.
Technological innovations
In May 2006 Gockley oversaw SFO's first simulcast, a live broadcast of a mainstage performance of Madama Butterfly to San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza for a crowd of 8,000. Subsequent simulcasts have been presented at Stanford University's Frost Amphitheater, four theaters in Northern California, and San Francisco's AT&T Park. SFO's has simulcast nine operas to AT&T Park since 2007 that have collectively drawn more than 165,000 opera fans.
The technology for the simulcasts and other innovations like OperaVision—a series of screens located throughout the War Memorial Opera House that project close-up shots of the action on stage—is made possible through SFO's Koret-Taube Media Suite. Completed in 2007, The Koret-Taube Media Suite is the first permanent high-definition broadcast-standard video production facility installed in any American opera house according to the company's website.
In 2007, San Francisco Opera returned to regular broadcasts of its productions on national and international radio., and in December the Opera announced the presentation of four operas in movie theaters across the United States. Following the initial presentation of the four operas in movie theaters in 2008, San Francisco Opera used these four titles to create its Grand Opera Cinema Series, making these titles available to be presented by performing arts centers, theaters, and universities. Since 2008 the company has added eight additional operas to the Grand Opera Cinema Series, and they have been presented by KQED-TV with hosts Rita Moreno and Joan Chen.
Music directors and conductors under Gockley
In September 2006, it was announced and reported that by mutual agreement with Gockley, Donald Runnicles would conclude his tenure as music director in 2009. However, he has maintained an association with SFO and conducted the 2010/11 production of Der Ring des Nibelungen as well as 2015's Les Troyens.
On 9 January 2007, SFO announced its third music director would be the Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, beginning with the 2009/10 season, for an initial contract of 5 years. Luisotti made his SFO debut in 2005 with La forza del destino, and returned in 2008 to conduct La bohème prior to assuming the role of music director. In SFO's September 2009 program magazine, David Gockley announced that bringing on Luisotti as the company's music director was a large part of his goal to "reinvigorate the core Italian repertory that is San Francisco Opera's birthright." Gockley also stated that Luisotti would conduct three to four productions each season, including one non-Italian opera; since 2009 these non-Italian operas have included Salome, Lohengrin, and Carmen.
In January 2009, Gockley announced the reappointment of Patrick Summers as principal guest conductor and named Giuseppe Finzi as the company's new assistant music director. Finzi was named as SFO's resident conductor in 2011.
Programming
The company secured composer John Adams' Nixon in China for their 2011/12 season.
San Francisco Opera has presented several world premieres under David Gockley's tenure. So far these include Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton's Appomattox in 2007; Stewart Wallace and Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Daughter in 2008; and Christopher Theofanidis and Donna Di Novelli's Heart of a Soldier in 2011. In 2013, the company presented three world premieres: Nolan Gasser and Carey Harrison's The Secret Garden, based on the children's book by Frances Hodgson Burnett (and staged in conjunction with UC Berkeley's Cal Performances); Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene; and Tobias Picker and J. D. McClatchy's Dolores Claiborne, based on the novel by Stephen King. In the summer of 2015 the world premiere of La Ciociara by Marco Tutino and Luca Rossi, based on novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia, took place.
San Francisco Opera's recent commissions include Dream of the Red Chamber by Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang in the fall of 2016, based on the work of the same name by 18th-century Qing Dynasty writer Cao Xueqin.
Wilsey Center for Opera
In order to consolidate its various office and work spaces scattered throughout San Francisco, SFO took over the fourth floor of the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in February 2016, following the completion of the building's $156-million seismic retrofit and renovation. To accomplish this, the company started a campaign to name various locations of the new space after donors in 2011. San Francisco philanthropist Dede Wilsey pledged a $5-million gift, and the entire facility was named the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera. Designed by San Francisco architectural firm Mark Cavagnero Associates, the center provides additional office space as well as costume storage; two multipurpose rooms for rehearsals, board meetings, and social events; and a 299-seat performance venue.
References
Notes
Sources
Chatfield-Taylor, Joan, San Francisco Opera: The First Seventy-Five Years, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1997
External links
San Francisco Opera official website
San Francisco Opera Performance Archive
Bud Cary San Francisco opera collection. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
California opera companies
Culture of San Francisco
Musical groups established in 1923
1923 establishments in California
Entertainment companies based in California
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wladimir%20Klitschko
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Wladimir Klitschko
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Wladimir Klitschko (born 25 March 1976) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, quick hand speed, as well as athletic footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.
As an amateur, Klitschko represented Ukraine at the 1996 Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division. After turning professional later that year, he defeated Chris Byrd in 2000 to win the WBO heavyweight title. Klitschko's first reign as champion ended in an upset knockout loss to Corrie Sanders in 2003, which was followed by another upset knockout loss to Lamon Brewster in 2004. It was during this time that Klitschko hired Emanuel Steward as his trainer, which began an eight-year partnership that lasted until Steward's death in 2012. In particular, Steward was credited with Klitschko's transition from an aggressive puncher to a more defensively-oriented boxer, much as he had done with Lennox Lewis from 1995 to 2003.
From 2004 to 2015, Wladimir and his brother Vitali Klitschko (himself a multiple-time world champion) dominated heavyweight boxing, a period typically known as the "Klitschko Era" of the division. In 2006, Wladimir regained a portion of the world heavyweight championship after defeating Byrd in a rematch to win the IBF and IBO titles. He won his second WBO title by defeating Sultan Ibragimov in 2008. Following his defeat of Ruslan Chagaev in 2009, Klitschko was awarded the Ring title, and lastly he won the WBA title from David Haye in 2011. In September 2015, Klitschko was ranked as the world's best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec; in November 2014, he reached a career peak of second best on The Rings pound for pound list. After defeating Alexander Povetkin in October 2013 and until his loss to Tyson Fury in November 2015, Klitschko was recognised as the lineal champion by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board.
During Klitschko's reign as world heavyweight champion, his fights regularly generated a global television audience of 300–500 million viewers. Klitschko holds records for the longest cumulative heavyweight title reign of all time, with 4,382 days as world heavyweight champion, and most fighters beaten for the world heavyweight championship, at 23. He also holds records for the most wins and title defences of the unified championship in professional boxing history. In 2011, both Wladimir and Vitali entered the Guinness World Records book as the pair of brothers with most world heavyweight title fight wins (30 at the time; 40 as of 2020). Klitschko was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame Class of 2021, having been elected in his first year of eligibility.
Early life
Klitschko was born in Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union (now Semey, Kazakhstan). He is the son of Nadiia Ulianivna Klychko (née Bulyno) and Volodymyr Rodionovych Klychko (1947–2011), a Soviet Air Force major general and a military attaché of USSR in East Germany. He is the younger brother of former WBC, WBO, and Ring magazine heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, the current Mayor of Kyiv. Klitschko's paternal grandmother was Jewish.
His father was one of the commanders in charge of cleaning up the effects of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and was afterward diagnosed with cancer. The Klitschko brothers lived as children in Czechoslovakia from 1980 to 1985, where their father was stationed with the Soviet occupation forces. They attended a school designated for children of Soviet soldiers in the town of Mimoň in Northern Bohemia. Both Wladimir and Vitali hold PhDs in sports science, with Wladimir's dissertation discussing how much training to give to young athletes between 14 and 19 based on the development of their bodies. As a reference to their PhDs, Wladimir is announced as "Dr. Steelhammer", a nickname similar to his brother, Vitali, who goes by "Dr. Ironfist".
Amateur career
Klitschko started training in amateur boxing with Brovary Olympic Reserve School in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, Klitschko was coached in Poland's Gwardia Warszawa boxing club, where, according to Jerzy Kulej, "He and his brother used to demolish our boys." In 1993, he won the Junior European Championships as a heavyweight. In 1994, he received 2nd place at the Junior World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, losing to Cuban Michel López Núñez in the finals. In 1995, he won the gold medal at the Military Championships in Ariccia, Italy, defeating Luan Krasniqi, to whom he had lost in the third round of the World Championships in Berlin, Germany earlier that year. In 1996, he captured 2nd place as a Super Heavyweight at the European Championships in Vejle, Denmark losing to Alexei Lezin in the finals. He defeated Lezin later that year in the semi-finals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. He had an amateur record of 134–6.
He first achieved world attention at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He defeated Paea Wolfgramm to win the Super-Heavyweight gold medal.
Highlights
Below are the notable achievements of Wladimir Klitschko in amateur boxing:
Junior European Championships (91 kg), Thessaloniki, Greece, September–October 1993:
1/4: Defeated Irakli Fakadze (Georgia) 5–1
1/2: Defeated Valentin Savescu (Romania) RSC 2
Finals: Defeated Sergey Lopatinskiy (Russia) 5–2
Copenhagen Cup (91 kg), Copenhagen, Denmark, November 1993:
1/4: Defeated Ismael Kone (Sweden) 5–1
1/2: Lost to Don Diego Poeder (Netherlands) RSCI 1
Junior World Championships (91 kg), Istanbul, Turkey, September 1994:
1/8: Defeated Constantin Onofrei (Romania) 14–5
1/4: Defeated Rustam Tursenkhanov (Kazakhstan) 11–9
1/2: Defeated Andrey Kombarov (Russia) 8–4
Finals: Lost to Michel López Núñez (Cuba) 2–7
World Military Championships (91 kg), Tunis, Tunisia, November 1994:
1/2: Defeated Mustafa Amir Amrou (Egypt) PTS
Finals: Lost to René Monse (Germany) by walkover
Chemistry Cup (91 kg), Halle, Germany, March 1995:
1/4: Defeated Wojciech Bartnik (Poland) 9–6
1/2: Lost to Peer Müller (Germany) by walkover
World Championships (91 kg), Berlin, Germany, May 1995:
1/16: Defeated Igor Kshinin (Russia) RSCI 2
1/8: Defeated Jan Bezvoda (Czech) 2–0
1/4: Lost to Luan Krasniqi (Germany) 2–6
Multi-Nations Tournament (+91 kg), Liverpool, England, June 1995:
1/4: Defeated Jean-François Bergeron (Canada) 10–2
1/2: Defeated Rod Allen (England) 9–0
Finals: Defeated Paolo Vidoz (Italy) DQ 2
World Military Games (91 kg), Ariccia, Italy, September 1995:
1/8: Defeated Song-Geoi Jang (North Korea) 14–2
1/4: Defeated Igor Kshinin (Russia) RSC 2
1/2: Defeated Sinan Şamil Sam (Turkey) 12–2
Finals: Defeated Luan Krasniqi (Germany) 13–12
Strandzha Cup (+91 kg), Sofia, Bulgaria, February 1996:
1/4: Defeated Svilen Rusinov (Bulgaria) 5–4
1/2: Defeated Jean-François Bergeron (Canada) RSC 1
Finals: Defeated Paolo Vidoz (Italy) 7–2
European Championships (+91 kg), Vejle, Denmark, March 1996:
1/8: Defeated Sean Murphy (Ireland) DQ 2
1/4: Defeated Adalat Mamedov (Azerbaijan) RSC 3
1/2: Defeated Attila Levin (Sweden) 7–0
Finals: Lost to Alexei Lezin (Russia) 1–6
Olympic Games (+91 kg), Atlanta, Georgia, June 1996:
1/8: Defeated Lawrence Clay-Bey (United States) 10–8
1/4: Defeated Attila Levin (Sweden) RSC 1
1/2: Defeated Alexei Lezin (Russia) 4–1
Finals: Defeated Paea Wolfgramm (Tonga) 7–3
Professional career
Early career
Klitschko turned professional with Universum Box-Promotion in Hamburg under the tutelage of Fritz Sdunek, often being featured on fight cards alongside his elder brother Vitali. After building an undefeated record of 24–0 with 21 KOs, he suffered his first loss to 24–13–1 Ross Puritty, in what was Klitschko's first and only professional fight in Ukraine. Puritty forced Klitschko, who had at that time not gone beyond eight rounds, to punch himself out. Klitschko began to be overwhelmed in the tenth round and went down twice but was allowed to continue. At the start of the eleventh round, with Puritty continuing to land hard punches, Klitschko's trainer, Fritz Sdunek, entered the ring and stopped the fight. Three years later, Klitschko's brother Vitali stopped Puritty in the eleventh round himself. On 18 March 2000, Klitschko fought Paea Wolfgramm, whom he fought previously in the 1996 super-heavyweight Olympic finals. In their professional rematch, Klitschko knocked Wolfgramm out in the first round.
Klitschko vs. Byrd, Jefferson, Shufford
Wladimir Klitschko got his chance to fight for the world heavyweight championship on 14 October 2000 against WBO champion Chris Byrd. Byrd, considered one of the most avoided fighters in the heavyweight division at the time, won the title six months earlier on 1 April from Wladimir's brother Vitali (who had a perfect record of 27 fights, 27 wins, 27 KOs coming into the fight), being a late replacement for Donovan Ruddock. In that fight, Byrd was trailing on the scorecards (83–88, 83–88, & 82–89) but was declared the winner after Vitali retired on his stool between 9th and 10th rounds due to shoulder injury. Byrd's title defence against Wladimir was scheduled to take place at Kölnarena in Cologne and was billed as "Revenge Of The Brother". In a fight that was aired on pay-per-view in the United Kingdom, Wladimir won the WBO world heavyweight title from Byrd by a wide unanimous decision (UD) with scores of 120–106, 119–107, and 118–108, flooring his opponent twice.
Klitschko's first defence of the WBO title came on 24 March 2001 against Derrick Jefferson. Jefferson, regarded as a big and athletic brawler and a fan-friendly attraction, was coming into the bout with a record of 23 wins in 26 bouts, with 19 of those wins coming inside the distance (18 of them inside the first three rounds, 11 of them - in the first round). Jefferson was mostly known for the sixth-round knockout (KO) of Maurice Harris, which was named The Ring Knockout of the Year in 1999. He was 4–2 in the last six fights, losing by technical knockout (TKO) to David Izon, in a fight he was winning on the scorecards but punched himself out, and Oleg Maskaev in round four after breaking an ankle during the first knockdown in the first round.
For the bout, Jefferson weighed in at 260.25 lbs, the heaviest in his professional career and 20 pounds heavier than in his previous bout. The additional weight appeared to be muscle. The fight lasted only two rounds. In the first round, Klitschko knocked Jefferson down with a short left hook. After the first round Jefferson's left eye was swollen. Klitschko knocked him down twice more in round two, once with a straight right hand and again with another left hook, with the fight being stopped after the last knockdown, declaring Klitschko the winner by TKO in the second round. Klitschko earned $1 million for the fight.
Klitschko's next title defence was scheduled less than five months later on 4 August 2001. The fight took place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Paradise, Nevada against hometown fighter, Charles Shufford. At the time, Shufford had a 17–1 record, coming off of wins against Jimmy Thunder and Lamon Brewster. Shufford weighed in at 234 lbs., 17 pounds lighter than in his previous bout. Shufford, having played George Foreman opposite Will Smith in the movie Ali, entered the ring with Smith by his side. Klitschko knocked Shufford down three times, once in round two, once in round three (both times with a straight right hand) and in round six with a left hook, with referee stopping the bout after the third knockdown. According to punch stats, Klitschko landed 58 of 262 punches (22%) and Shufford connected on 16 of 190 (8%).
Klitschko vs. Botha, Mercer, McCline
Klitschko returned to Germany for the next defence of his WBO title against Francois Botha. The fight took place at Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart, the same venue where Botha had fought Axel Schulz for the IBF title six years earlier, in the most watched boxing match in German TV history. According to Botha's coach Abel Sanchez, Botha was in the best shape of his career. The South African contender was game in the opening rounds, trying to catch Klitschko with the right hook, but Klitschko was successfully keeping him at the end of his jab. In the eighth round, Klitschko caught him with a counter right hand and then hit Botha with several shots, knocking him down with a left hook. Botha got up, but was unsteady on his feet and had both eyes swollen, proceeding the referee to stop the bout.
Klitschko had his next title defence scheduled three months later, on 29 June 2002 at Etess Arena in Atlantic City, New Jersey, against former WBO heavyweight champion Ray Mercer. It was the first time in his professional career that Klitschko fought an Olympic Gold medalist. 41-year-old Mercer, having fought Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield throughout his career, was expected to be a tough challenge for Klitschko that would give him and Lennox Lewis, the WBC and The Ring champion, a second common opponent (along with Francois Botha) and a bout comparable to Lewis vs. Tyson. During the build-up to the bout, Mercer referred to Klitschko as "Russian Tommy Morrison". Since his comeback in 2001, Mercer had won four fights over journeymen, three of them inside two rounds, prior to the Klitschko bout.
Klitschko dominated Mercer throughout the entire bout, stopping Mercer in the sixth round. At 2:48 of the first round, Klitschko dropped Mercer with a left hook, becoming only the second man to drop Mercer. Throughout the fight, Klitschko was frequently landing combinations of stiff left jabs, left hooks, and straight right hands. By the fifth round, Mercer's face was swollen and his right eye was cut. In the sixth, Klitschko unleashed a barrage of punches, prompting the referee to stop the bout. Klitschko became the first fighter to defeat Mercer inside the distance. According to CompuBox statistics, Klitschko landed 193 total punches out of 429 thrown (104 power punches out of 167), while Mercer landed 54 shots out of 124 (only 5 power punches landed out of 10 thrown).
Klitschko returned to Mandalay Bay Event Center for his sixth defence on 7 December 2002 against Jameel McCline. McCline, having made his professional boxing debut in 1995, became an established contender after defeating Michael Grant, knocking him down with the first punch thrown and ultimately stopping him in 43 seconds. Prior to fighting Klitschko, McCline had defeated two more heavyweight contenders, Lance Whitaker and Shannon Briggs, by wide unanimous decisions. Being 6 ft 6 in tall with an 82 in reach, McCline was of similar height and longer reach than Klitschko, while also being 22 lbs heavier. Many opinion polls gave Klitschko a 60–40 advantage over McCline. The fight was the main event of the card that also featured Floyd Mayweather Jr. defending the WBC lightweight title against Jose Luis Castillo.
The fight turned out to be tentative, with Klitschko winning almost every round using his jab and superior footwork. At the end of the tenth round, Klitschko staggered McCline with a barrage of left hooks and overhand rights, and ultimately knocked him down with a left-right combination. Before the start of the eleventh round, McCline's corner threw in the towel, giving Klitschko his 36th career win by stoppage. At the time of the stoppage, the scorecards were 98–91, 99–90 (twice), all in favour of the champion. CompuBox stats showed that Klitschko landed 181 of his 433 punches thrown (42%), and McCline landed 61 of 307 (20%).
The following week after Klitschko's win over McCline, Chris Byrd, whom Klitschko defeated for the WBO world title, beat Evander Holyfield to become IBF world champion.
Klitschko vs. Sanders, Brewster
After failing to reach agreements with Kirk Johnson, Fres Oquendo, Lou Savarese and Danny Williams, Universum ultimately signed a 4-fight contract with Corrie Sanders, who was ranked No.9 contender by WBO at the time. According to the agreement, Sanders' first fight was going to be for the WBO world heavyweight title. The fight was scheduled to take place on 8 March 2003 in Hanover, Germany. Klitschko later admitted that he came to the fight unmotivated and was already thinking about the vacation he was going to enjoy after the fight. Klitschko suffered an upset TKO loss to Sanders. With thirty seconds left in the opening round, Wladimir threw a jab but Sanders countered with a big left hook, prompting Klitschko to enter a clinch. While in the clinch, Sanders landed another left hook that send Klitschko to the canvas. Klitschko got up but was dropped again almost immediately. The following round, Sanders continued his assault on a visibly hurt Klitschko, dropping him twice more at the beginning of the round. The referee waived it off after the fourth knockdown. The fight was named Upset of the Year by The Ring for 2003.
After winning two minor bouts in Germany and enlisting the services of legendary boxing trainer Emanuel Steward, Klitschko again fought for the vacant WBO title on 10 April 2004, in Las Vegas, against Lamon Brewster. Klitschko dominated Brewster through the course of the first four rounds, sending him to the canvas in the fourth; however, things turned around in the fifth when Klitschko began tiring and Brewster's punches began backing him up. Not defending himself and leaning into ropes for support, Klitschko took a standing eight count. On unsteady legs, Klitschko fell to the canvas after the bell and the referee stopped the fight for his safety. When talking about the fight, Emmanuel Steward said: "Wladimir was in incredible shape. I've never seen anything like this in my career. I know what it looks like when a boxer is getting hurt from punches. There was definitely something else that caused problems for Wladimir".
Shortly after the fight Klitschko was rushed into hospital. An examination showed Klitschko's blood sugar level almost two times higher than the permissible norm. According to members of Klitschko's team, the doctor told them that Klitschko had been "inches away" from falling into a diabetic coma, and that with blood sugar level that high, Klitschko would've been incapable of handling a single proper training session. After returning from the examination to the hotel, he fell ill with nausea, followed by physical weakness. On 12 April, he arrived in Las Vegas and donated blood and urine samples for an independent examination, which was supposed to be done by Donald Katlin, who specialised in such cases. The examination showed no signs of anabolic steroids in his blood, but Katlin suggested that Klitschko could have been poisoned with Haloperidol. The drug has no taste or smell and causes mental disorders, which are accompanied by impaired coordination, a weakening reaction and overall physical weakness. Following the results, Klitschko demanded the tests taken by the Medical Center of South Nevada and the Nevada Quest Diagnostics to be passed on to Dr. Robert Wow for further research, but the A sample had already been disposed of, while the B sample, which was supposed to be stored for years, disappeared. Dr Margaret Goodman, the chairwoman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission's medical advisory board and Nevada's chief ringside physician was in the ring and attending to Klitschko seconds after the referee stopped the fight. Her initial diagnosis of a Grade 3 concussion was confirmed at the hospital after further tests. Goodman was sceptical of the theory that Klitschko had been drugged.
As a result of the circumstances that surrounded the fight, FBI started an investigation. Judd Bernstein, the lawyer representing Klitschko, suggested that he was a victim of an ongoing fight fixing in Las Vegas (which also included fraudulent medical reports), which was investigated by FBI at the time. Bernstein, along with some other journalists, pointed out that in the last 48 hours before the beginning of the fight, the betting odds in favour of Klitschko rapidly dropped from 11-to-1 to 3,5-to-1. According to journalist Keith Teixeira, a group of approximately 40 people associated with Brewster's manager Sam Simon bet from $50,000 to $100,000 on Brewster's victory. Members of Klitschko's team also pointed out that shortly before the fight, a security camera recorded a moment when two people entered Klitschko's booth and were there for four minutes. These people had badges, but weren't members of Wladimir's team. Wladimir's brother Vitali claimed that during registration of the boxer and his team, the card that belonged to Emmanuel Steward's assistant had already been registered on someone else, and that such card would allow its owner to enter any sporting hall in the building.
After the fight, Wladimir's cutman Joe Souza was fired. During the fight, Souza used vaseline on Wladimir's face but also body, which had never been done in any of Klitschko's previous fights. As a replacement, the team hired Jacob "Stitch" Duran.
Klitschko vs. Williamson, Castillo, Peter
Following his loss to Brewster, Klitschko began his journey back towards the top of the heavyweight division. First, he faced hard-hitting DaVarryl Williamson. The fight took place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Williamson dropped Klitschko forty seconds into the second round, but was outboxed throughout the rest of the bout. An accidental head butt in the closing seconds of the fifth round caused Klitschko bleeding from a cut above his right eye. Due to the cut, the fight was prematurely stopped, with Klitschko being declared the winner by technical decision. Two of the judges scored the fight identically 49–46 in favour of Klitschko, while the third judge had Williamson winning 48–47.
After defeating Eliseo Castillo by fourth-round TKO, Klitschko signed to fight Samuel Peter in an IBF and WBO eliminator. Coming into the bout, Klitschko was viewed by many as the underdog against the 7-to-5 favourite Peter who had won all of his 24 fights, with 21 of them having ended inside the distance. At the time, Samuel Peter was considered one of the brightest prospects in the heavyweight division. Distinguished boxing coaches Angelo Dundee and Teddy Atlas expected Peter to win. Wladimir's team, including his brother Vitali, were worried about Wladimir, and were against this fight to happen. Wladimir, however, insisted on fighting Peter, claiming that beating a feared, hard-hitting fighter like Samuel Peter would help him to regain his stock and become mandatory challenger for two heavyweight belts.
The first four rounds were tentative, with Klitschko working behind the jab, not allowing Peter to close the distance. At the end of the third, Peter staggered Klitschko with a powerful left hook. He hurt Klitschko again in the fifth with another left hook, sending Klitschko to the canvas with the rabbit punch. The referee counted it as the knockdown. Peter immediately went for the attack after Klitschko got up, dropping him again with the rabbit punch. The referee scored it as the second knockdown. Klitschko regained composure and outboxed Peter through sixth to ninth rounds, with Peter frequently trying to hit Klitschko with the rabbit punch whenever escaping from a clinch. Near the end of the tenth round Peter staggered Wladimir with a hard right hand, eventually sending Klitschko to the canvas with another right when Wladimir was backing away. In the 11th and 12th rounds, Klitschko was trying to keep Peter at the distance using straight punches. Peter caught him with a left hook in the last round, but was unable to capitalise on it. Instead, Klitschko caught him with a hard counter left hook of his own, staggering Peter for the first time in the fight. Eventually the bout went the distance, with Klitschko winning the fight by clear unanimous decision (UD). All the judges scored the bout identically 114–111.
Klitschko vs. Byrd II, Brock, Austin
On 22 April 2006, in Mannheim, Germany, Klitschko faced Chris Byrd for a second time, this time for the IBF heavyweight title. At the time of the bout, Byrd was ranked as the best heavyweight by The Ring, while Klitschko was ranked eighth. Coming into the fight, Klitschko was viewed as the favourite. Many observers expected Klitschko to dominate Byrd similarly to their first bout.
(John Hively, boxingscene.com)
Klitschko defeated Byrd by TKO in the seventh round, becoming a two-time heavyweight world champion in the process. Klitschko dominated the fight using his jab and superior reach, knocking Byrd down twice, once in round five and once in round seven. Byrd beat the count after the second knockdown, but his face was battered and bloody, and the fight was waved off. At the time of the stoppage, judge Roy Francis had the challenger winning every round, while two other judges, Steve Epstein and Robert Hoyle, gave Klitschko all but one round.
In his first title defence, Klitschko agreed to face then-undefeated heavyweight contender Calvin Brock. With a record of 29–0, 22 KOs, Brock was considered one of the most promising and demanded American heavyweight prospects at the time. In an ESPN interview in July 2005, Mike Tyson named him and Samuel Peter as his favourite fighters from the new crop of heavyweights. In the build-up, Brock expressed confidence in his abilities: "I can adopt to every style. He's big like Jameel McCline, but a better fighter. I will beat him and become the heavyweight champion of the world. Klitschko has a good jab, but they also said Timur's best weapon was his jab. I have a good jab myself. I can adapt to anybody's style, anybody's strength and turn their weapon against them." He also dismissed claims that the division lacks strong competition: "The heavyweight division is stacked with a bunch of talent. It's not weak, definitely not weak. The division is pretty strong and that's why the title keeps changing hands."
The fight took place on 11 November 2006 at Madison Square Garden. In the opening rounds, Brock's economical but effective movement made Klitschko reluctant to throw punches, with Wladimir not being able to fully establish his rhythm. In between the third and fourth rounds, Klitschko's trainer Emmanuel Steward urged Wladimir to press the action. Klitschko started fighting more aggressively, hurting Brock several times with the right cross. In the fifth round, Brock opened a cut under Klitschko's left eye that started bleeding heavily in the sixth. In the seventh round, Wladimir caught Brock with a counter right hand before sending him to the canvas with another straight right. Brock was able to get up but was unsteady on his feet, prompting the referee to stop the bout.
Klitschko then faced mandatory challenger Ray Austin on 10 March 2007, at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. 36-year-old Austin was mostly known for draws against Sultan Ibragimov, Larry Donald and Lance Whitaker. In preparation for the fight, Austin was trained by a prominent coach Stacey McKinley. Klitschko won by a second-round KO with four consecutive left hooks to Austin's head. Klitschko did not throw a single right hand in that fight.
Klitschko vs. Brewster II, Ibragimov, Thompson
Klitschko then avenged one of his previous losses as he defeated Lamon Brewster on 7 July 2007, in Cologne, Germany. Brewster's corner asked the referee to stop the fight at the end of the sixth round. It was later revealed that Klitschko fought most of the fight with a broken middle finger on his left hand.
By the end of October 2007, Wladimir Klitschko started negotiations with then-WBO world heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov about the unification showdown in the near future. This would be the first heavyweight unification fight since 13 November 1999 when WBC champion Lennox Lewis defeated then-WBA and IBF champion Evander Holyfield. On 20 November, Klitschko and Ibragimov officially signed the contract for their unification clash to take place on 23 February 2008 at Madison Square Garden. Two days later in Moscow, a first pre-fight press-conference was held. Klitschko began his preparations for the fight on 18 December. His training camp was located between Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Palm Beach, Florida. Ibragimov began his preparations for the bout on 25 December. Among Ibragimov's sparring partners were Klitschko's former opponent Jameel McCline and Swedish heavyweight prospect Attila Levin.
In the pre-fight prediction, a vast majority of Ukrainian, Russian and American observers expected Klitschko to win by either stoppage or unanimous decision. Out of six journalists of the Ukrainian magazine Ring, five predicted Klitschko to stop Ibragimov, with only one expecting Klitschko to win by decision. 24 of 26 members of boxingscene.com expected Klitschko to come out as the winner – 18 of them predicted the win to come by way of KO/TKO, one expert predicted decision, while the remaining five were unsure about either possibility. The remaining two experts predicted Ibragimov to win by decision. 10 of the 12 members of ringsidereport.com picked Klitschko to win, with eight of them expecting the victory to come by way of KO/TKO. The remaining two picked Ibragimov to win by stoppage. In the build-up to the fight, Klitschko's trainer Emmanuel Steward said that Sultan Ibragimov was going to be Wladimir's toughest opponent to date, praising Ibragimov for his hand speed and mobility, while Klitschko complimented Ibragimov on his accomplishments: "Sultan Ibragimov is a boxer that hasn't lost in any of his 23 fights, with the sole draw being against Ray Austin. His amateur career can be described as fantastic, and the fact that he's the heavyweight champion of the world speaks volumes about his professional career as well. I think he's a strong and dangerous opponent that should not be underestimated. His last two fights against Shannon Briggs and Evander Holyfield proved that." Ibragimov's trainer Jeff Mayweather was confident that Ibragimov would be able to establish his rhythm and "press Klitschko to the corner". The pre-fight build-up was marked with controversy after Ibragimov's manager Boris Grinberg insulted Klitschko during one of the interviews: "Sultan Ibragimov knocks out this Ukraine gay, motherf***er!". Grinberg later apologised to Klitschko. The day before the bout, Klitschko weighed in at , the lightest since 1999, while Ibragimov's weight was , his lightest since 2005.
From the opening bell, both fighters fought tentatively, avoiding risks. Klitschko retreated onto the outside, fighting at a distance and remaining unreachable for Ibragimov who tried to establish his right jab but had his right hand constantly pushed down by Klitschko. By the end of the opening round, Klitschko became more active with his jab, while Ibragimov unsuccessfully tried to catch Wladimir with a series of right and left hooks. By the third round, Klitschko took control of the center of the ring, keeping Ibragimov at the end of his left jab and occasionally throwing right jabs as well. In the fifth round, Klitschko caught Ibragimov with a straight right hand, however Ibragimov appeared to be unhurt. Most of Ibragimov's attempts to close distance ended with Klitschko tying him up. In the second half of the fight, the situation did not change, with Klitschko keeping Ibragimov at distance with straight shots, while Ibragimov was only able to occasionally catch Klitschko with single shots to the body. Ibragimov's corner was almost silent from the sixth round onwards, unable to give their man any meaningful advice. Klitschko's dominance became even more visible after he caught Ibragimov with a straight right in round nine, almost knocking him down. He caught Ibragimov again with a counter left hook at the end of the eleventh. The twelfth round saw Ibragimov unsuccessfully trying to catch Klitschko with overhand shots. Ultimately, the fight went the distance, with Klitschko being declared the winner by unanimous decision. The judges scored the bout 119–110, 117–111 and 118–110. Klitschko reportedly earned $9 million for the fight. He donated $500,000 of his earnings to the Bronx's Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.
The fight was heavily criticised by observers and prominent boxing public figures. Boxing promoter Bob Arum called the fight "an absolute shame", while Dan Goossen described it as "awful". Boxing journalist Phil Santos pointed out that Klitschko fought for the majority of the fight "only with his left hand", proving once again that he "is the best heavyweight in the world right now". Santos also noted that such cautious, safety-first style was not going to help Klitschko to increase his popularity in the United States. Some observers were more apologetic of Klitschko's performance: "It's really irritating that so many people, people that know very little about boxing, say that Klitschko's dominance means stagnation for the heavyweight division. There's no denying that once Klitschko collects all the belts, he will go down as one of the all-time greats. Yes, he fights cautiously and isn't willing to exchange shots, but who told us that greatness in boxing is measured with the number of knockdowns? Why the boxer that is able to not get hit with a hard shot over the course of twelve rounds is less great than the champions from the past that sacrificed their health for the sake of success?"
On 12 July 2008, Klitschko faced mandatory challenger Tony Thompson. The fight took place at Color Line Arena in Hamburg, Germany, the same venue where Thompson had defeated then-highly regarded German boxer Luan Krasniqi in a WBO world heavyweight title eliminator almost a year prior. In the build-up to the fight, Klitschko praised Thompson for his defensive abilities, while Klitschko's trainer Emmanuel Steward described Thompson as "one of the most difficult fights we will have". In the pre-fight interview, Thompson promised that he wouldn't run away from Klitschko, and would stand in front of him and fight toe-to-toe. Being 6 ft 5 in tall with 81½ in reach, Thompson was of similar height and reach as Klitschko. Many observes predicted Thompson to be a tough challenge for Klitschko, expecting Klitschko to ultimately win by TKO in the second half of the fight before the fighters would enter the championship rounds. Coming into the fight, Klitschko weighed in at 241 pounds, 6.5 lbs lighter than Thompson.
The opening rounds were tentative, with Klitschko seemingly struggling with Thompson's awkward southpaw style. All three judges gave the first round to Thompson. In the second round, both fighters suffered a cut above the right eye after an accidental headbutt. Klitschko's eye began to swell after Thompson caught him with the right hook in the fifth round. After the sixth round, however, Klitschko appeared to have established his dominance in the ring, hurting Thompson with several straight right hands. After the seventh round, both fighter started showing signs of fatigue. In the tenth round, Thompson fell to the canvas during a clinch. It appeared as if Thompson fell down mostly due to being tired rather than being pushed by Klitschko. In the middle of the eleventh, Klitschko caught Thompson with the straight right hand which Thompson did not see coming, falling to the canvas again, with the referee starting the count this time. Thompson beat the count but was unsteady on his feet, prompting the referee to stop the fight. At the time of the stoppage, Klitschko was unanimously winning on the scorecards, with scores 98–92 (twice) and 99–91.
In the post-fight interview, Klitschko admitted that the fight turned out to be tougher than expected: "It is not so easy to defend all the titles and it has been a while since I last had a black eye so today I really look like a boxer. I did not expect the victory to come that hard." "I was fatigued, I thought he was fatigued too," Tony Thompson said after the fight. "He did what a great champion did, he took advantage when I was vulnerable. The only thing that hurts on me is my heart – for losing." Emmanuel Steward described the knockout sequence as the one that showed the difference between a great heavyweight and the best heavyweight in the world: "They were both tired, but Wladimir has experience now, then he came back with a second wind. The experience is what helped Wladimir to come back with the second wind and find an opportunity to secure the stoppage win." Former undisputed world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis praised Klitschko for his performance: "I've been watching Klitschko for some time, and he's improving with every fight." Meanwhile, unified world cruiserweight champion David Haye criticised the champion for his performance: "If he fights me in the same way he fought that guy he will be knocked out in three rounds. He has got the perfect style for me. I don't want him to have any more fights before me as I don't want someone else to do what I will do against him." Klitschko reportedly earned €8 million (around $12.7 million) for the bout.
Klitschko vs. Rahman, Chagaev, Chambers
Klitschko was scheduled to defend his titles against Alexander Povetkin later in 2008, but on 25 October, Povetkin withdrew from the fight due to an ankle injury. Instead, Klitschko faced Hasim Rahman on 13 December 2008 and won by TKO. This was the third time Klitschko fought at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. He dominated the fight, winning every round while making good use of his left jab. Rahman seemed unable to withstand the Klitschko's punch power. In the sixth round, Klitschko knocked Rahman down with a series of left hooks, leaving Rahman visibly disoriented. Between the sixth and seventh rounds, the referee warned Rahman he's going to stop the fight if Rahman continues absorbing punishment without firing back. The referee ultimately called a stop to the contest in the 7th round after Rahman failed to respond to a series of shots. At the time of the stoppage, Klitschko was leading on all three judges scorecards, respectively 60–53, 60–53, and 60–47. According to CompuBox, Klitschko landed 194 punches (50.4% accuracy) to Rahman's 35 (16.8% accuracy), a nearly six-fold disparity.
Klitschko was scheduled to face David Haye on 20 June 2009, but Haye pulled out within weeks of the fight complaining of a back injury. Immediately after news about Haye's injury broke into public, a handful of heavyweight fighters, such as Alexander Povetkin, Chazz Witherspoon, James Toney, Odlanier Solis, Dominick Guinn and Eddie Chambers, expressed their interest in replacing Haye for the Klitschko showdown. Instead, Klitschko's team started negotiations with Ruslan Chagaev, who was ranked third best heavyweight in the world by The Ring, and WBA world champion Nikolai Valuev, who was regarded as a big draw in Germany at the time. Ultimately, Klitschko reached agreements with Chagaev who agreed to step in for Haye as a last-minute replacement (Valuev's team wanted the fight to be postponed until autumn of that year). Some observes believed that Chagaev was a better challenege for Klitschko than Haye, given his position in the ranking and the fact that, alongside WBO and IBF world titles, vacant The Ring world heavyweight title was also on the line. In the pre-fight comparison, The Ring was giving Klitschko an advantage in power, speed and athletic ability, as well as experience, while also crediting Chagaev for having better defence, praising him for his fundamentals and footwork. In terms of technique, both fighters were described as of equal level.
The fight took place at Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, with over 61,000 fans having attended the fight, the largest audience for a boxing fight in Germany since 1939, when Max Schmeling knocked out Adolf Heuser in front of 70,000 people in Stuttgart. Klitschko dominated the fight, keeping Chagaev at the end of his jab and throwing straight right hand whenever necessary. Klitschko dropped Chagaev near the end of the second round, and was gradually fighting more aggressively as the fight progressed. Chagaev's trainer Michael Timm did not allow Chagaev to come out for the tenth round, prompting the referee to wave the bout off, declaring Klitschko the winner by corner retirement (RTD). This win had added significance because even though the WBA title was not on the line, many saw Klitschko as the rightful champion.
On 9 December 2009, Klitschko's management group, K2 Promotions, confirmed that a bout with Eddie Chambers had been agreed to take place in Germany on 20 March 2010. This mandatory title defence, originally scheduled for December 2009, had to be delayed due to a hand injury that Klitschko sustained in training that required surgery. In the build-up to the fight, Klitschko described Chambers as "the best American heavyweight right now". In the pre-fight comparison of the fighters, The Ring gave Chambers the upper hand in speed and athletic ability, as well as defence, while crediting Klitschko as more powerful and experienced. In the United States, the bout was not televised by any TV station but was aired on the Klitschko's official website for $14.95 instead. The official venue was the multi-functional football stadium ESPRIT Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The bout turned-out to be one-sided, with the champion winning rounds keeping Chambers at the end of his jab and occasionally throwing straight right hands. In the opening rounds, Chambers lifted Klitschko and took him down several times but was not deducted a point nor warned. In between the championship rounds, Klitschko was criticised by his trainer Emmanuel Steward for not fighting aggressively, despite comfortably winning on the scorecards. Klitschko picked up his pace during the final round and, with few seconds left, landed a left hook on Chambers' temple. The punch made Chambers fall forwards and lose consciousness for an extended period of time. The referee immediately stepped in and called an end to the contest. It remains the only stoppage loss of Chambers' career.
Klitschko vs. Peter II
Following the match with Chambers, a unification fight between Klitschko and David Haye, who, as of May 2009, had held the WBA title, appeared to be in the offing. Klitschko called out the Briton on YouTube in April 2010, stating, "I want to send this message to boxing fans and directly to David Haye. David, you've bitched out on fighting both Klitschko brothers twice already and now's the time to make it happen. On behalf of the boxing fans around the world, I am officially calling you out to fight me. You can't run away from me forever and you need to follow through with this fight if you want to be respected. I'm ready. What're you waiting for?"
Haye's trainer, Adam Booth, indicated that Haye would be willing to accept the challenge. Both sides began negotiations for a potential fight and the bout was targeted for September. As the negotiations continued to move forward, the unification fight between Klitschko and Haye was expected to take place in Germany rather than England. The IBF set a deadline to end negotiations on 17 May. A few days before the deadline, Haye said he was interested in fighting the older Klitschko, Vitali, rather than Wladimir. The fight did not materialise and Klitschko was set to take on mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin. On 17 May 2010, the 30-day period of negotiation began for Klitschko to defend his championship against Povetkin. Within this period, discussions to make a fight with Haye were still ongoing.
The bout between Klitschko and Povetkin was initially tentatively scheduled to take place in Frankfurt, Germany, on 11 September 2010. In July 2010, it was confirmed that the bout would be taking place in Frankfurt, with Samuel Peter replacing Povetkin for the scheduled fight as Povetkin failed to show up to the press-conference, deciding to pull out of the fight at the advice of his coach Teddy Atlas who believed Povetkin was not ready to face Klitschko. Klitschko faced Peter for the second time, as they had fought in 2005 previously. Peter weighed in at 241 pounds, two pounds lighter than their first fight. Klitschko came in at a career heavy of 247 pounds.
Peter started the fight very aggressively and caught Klitschko with a good left hook in the opening minute, although Klitschko ended the round well. Peter was caught with three hard right-hands in the second round, one of which seemed to stun him. Peter tried to duck under the Klitschko jab, but was being tied up on the inside. After four rounds, the fight became one-sided in Klitschko's favour. Peter's right eye was closing and he was taking heavy punishment. After the ninth round, Peter's trainer Abel Sanchez said he would give him one more round. Emmanuel Steward also implored Klitschko to be more aggressive. Peter swung wildly in the tenth and Klitschko put him down with a concussive combination. Referee Robert Byrd did not start a count and waved the fight off, awarding Klitschko the win by KO. Klitschko reportedly earned €5 million ($6.3 million) for the fight. Klitschko was set to fight Derek Chisora on 11 December, but the fight was later called off on 8 December due to Klitschko tearing a muscle in his abdomen.
Klitschko vs. Haye
On 5 January 2011, it was announced that Derek Chisora would get his fight with Klitschko. This enraged David Haye's trainer Adam Booth, who described the move as a "disgrace" on a heated live phone-in with Sky Sports News. Booth alleged Haye had met every single one of Klitschko's demands. The fight against Chisora was rescheduled for 30 April 2011 and was going to take place in SAP Arena, Mannheim. However, on 4 March, it was announced that Klitschko had pulled out of the fight due to not being fully recovered from a torn abdominal muscle. On 5 March, it was instead announced that the highly anticipated fight against Haye would take place on 2 July 2011. The fight was contingent on Klitschko's recovery from a torn abdominal muscle. The contract was written so that if Klitschko was not fully healed, then Haye would fight his brother, Vitali.
Klitschko fought Haye in a heavyweight unification fight for the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine heavyweight titles. The fight took place at the Imtech Arena in Hamburg, Germany on 2 July 2011. Klitschko and Haye agreed to a 50–50 split of the purse and Haye was allotted 7,000 seats at the venue. Klitschko won by UD, the three judges scored it 117–109, 118–108, and 116–110 all in favour of Klitschko. According to CompuBox, Klitschko landed 134 punches of 509 thrown (26.3% accuracy), while Haye connected on 72 shots out of 290 (24.8%). Klitschko outlanded Haye in every round but fourth. Haye revealed afterwards that he had a broken toe on his right foot, and claimed that it had hindered his game plan for the fight as he felt he was unable to jump out at Klitschko like he had previously in his career. Haye was subject to much derision and ridicule from within the boxing community and fans after citing his toe as part of the reason why he lost. Despite this Klitschko claims that Haye was unable to fight because he was just too good for him.
Both Klitschko and Haye reportedly earned $24 million each for the fight.
After winning the WBA title, all of the major heavyweight titles were in the hands of the Klitschko family. Wladimir and Vitali became the first and only pair of brothers to hold all of the heavyweight titles simultaneously.
Klitschko vs. Mormeck, Thompson II, Wach
On 6 October 2011, Klitschko announced his next fight. It was originally to be on 10 December 2011 against the former two time unified cruiserweight world champion, Jean-Marc Mormeck (36–4, 22 KOs). The fight would have taken place at Esprit Arena, Düsseldorf. This was Wladimir's first title defence after his win over David Haye unified all major heavyweight belts in the hands of the Klitschko brothers. The fight was predicted to generate 500 million viewers worldwide, similarly to Wladimir's fight against Haye. On 5 December 2011, the fight was cancelled because Klitschko checked into a hospital to have a kidney stone removed. After the removal operation he suffered from fever and inflammation. The fight was rescheduled for 3 March 2012, with Klitschko dominating and knocking out Mormeck in the fourth round. CompuBox showed that in the 10 minutes and 12 seconds the fight lased, Klitschko landed 39 of 135 punches thrown (29%) and Mormeck landed just 3 of 19 thrown (16%). Mormeck failed to land anything in rounds 1 and 4.
On 4 March 2012, Klitschko stated that he would next fight his mandatory challenger Tony Thompson (36–2, 24 KOs), who had been ranked as the world's eighth best heavyweight by BoxRec at the conclusion of the previous year, in a rematch from their first fight in 2008. At the time, he stated that the newly opened Barclays Arena in New York were interested in showcasing a Klitschko brother. Since they last fought, Thompson recorded five straight wins, all by KO. A purse bid was set by the IBF, where Klitschko, upon request, would receive 85% of the purse split, compared to the usual 75%. The fight was confirmed to take place at the Stade de Suisse in Berne, Switzerland on 7 July. In an interview, Klitschko admitted that Thompson was not his first choice and that he would have rather fought someone he had not fought before. "So far I've always been better in rematches. However, I must not take this lightly as Thompson knows me better than any other fighter", Klitschko said in the build-up to the fight. "I've been waiting for this rematch for so long", Thompson said during one of pre-fight press-conferences, "In Bern, I'm gonna finish what I've started 4 years ago - knock Klitschko out and take the belts back to the United States". Thompson weighed in at 244.75, dropping 10.75 lbs from his last fight, while Klitschko weighed in at 249, the heaviest in his entire career. The additional weight appeared to be muscle.
In the first round, both fighters were cautious, patiently studying each other. Klitschko became more dominant in the second, working mostly with his jab. Thompson unsuccessfully went for the attack and in the process fell to the canvas. The referee did not rule it a knockdown. In the third round, Thompson hurt Klitschko for the first time in the fight with a counter left hand but was still being outboxed by Klitschko. In the fifth round, Klitschko pressed Thompson into a corner and hurt him with a straight right hand, knocking him down. Thompson beat the count but looked hurt, however he was able to survive that round. Klitschko continued his assault in the sixth, sending Thompson down again with a flurry of shots. Thompson got up but had to hold on to the ropes to stand, which prompted the referee to stop the fight, declaring Klitschko the winner by sixth-round TKO. "From the beginning, I had no doubt that I would successfully defend the titles. But it was hard to time an accurate shot. Thompson was elusive, he didn't lose an eye contact at any moment in the fight and was able to see most of my punches", said Klitschko in a post-fight interview. It was his twelfth consecutive title defence, the third-most in heavyweight history. CompuBox stats showed Klitschko landed 51 of 121 total punches thrown (42%) and Thompson landed only 25 of 183 thrown (14%).
There was first mention of a potential Klitschko vs. Mariusz Wach (27-0, 15 KOs) fight in August 2011 when Klitschko's team approached Wach's promoters for a fight, however nothing materialised. Wach's promoter Global Boxing stated that it was Klitschko's advisor Shelly Finkel that contacted them. Bernd Boente denied these claims. In August 2012, serious negotiations took place for the fight. A date in November was considered with the venue likely to be in Hamburg, Germany. Terms were fully agreed within days of the negotiations for the fight to take place 10 November. Klitschko revealed he would train with Johnathon Banks due to Steward recovering from a bowel operation. On 25 October, Steward died at the age of 68. The fight was the first time in his 16-year professional career that he had faced an opponent taller than himself. At 2.02 metres tall, with a reach of 2.08 metres and weighing 251 pounds, Wach was four centimetres taller than Klitschko with a reach two centimetres longer. In Poland, the fight was available via pay-per-view platform on Canal+ Sport for 39 zł and Polsat Sport for 40 zł.
On fight night, at the 02 World Arena, Klitschko dominated and retained his titles with a one sided UD. The three judges' scored the fight 120–107, 120–107, and 119–109. The bout opened with a battle between jabs which was won by Klitschko, who was following his jabs with his signature straight right. Wach managed to wobble Klitschko in round five but failed to take advantage. Wach also showed a great chin later in the fight when Klitschko began to let his hands go more landing thunderous shots. During the course of twelve rounds, Klitschko landed 274 of 693 punches landed (40%), whilst Wach landed 60 of his 308 thrown (19%). After the fight, there were allegations against Wach that he had used steroids. Klitschko reportedly earned €5.8 million (cca $7.25 million) for the fight.
Days before the Klitschko vs. Wach fight took place, it was revealed that Team Sauerland offered Klitschko €5 million (around $6,5 million) for a possible fight against then-WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck in the future. At the time, Huck was preparing for a title defence against Firat Arslan. Klitschko's manager Bernd Boente turned down the offer stating money was not the issue. The reason the fight would never get made was due to the fact that the Klitschko's had a contract with German television network RTL and Huck was signed with their rival network ARD.
Klitschko vs. Pianeta, Povetkin, Leapai
At the end of 2012, the WBA ordered Klitschko to fight WBA (Regular) champion Alexander Povetkin of Russia by 24 February 2013, but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement. The WBA let Klitschko have another voluntary title defence before taking on Povetkin, but there should have been a signed contract with Povetkin before 28 February, with a new deadline for their bout no later than 31 July.
On 5 March 2013, K2 Promotions announced that Klitschko would fight another undefeated contender, Italian Francesco Pianeta, on 4 May at SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. Klitschko had received criticism in regards to past opponents. Pianeta was no different. Speaking to ESPN, he said, "I'm getting always criticised with my opponents, it doesn't matter are they well known or not so much and it's always very difficult to fight against someone that is not known because you are always getting these critics." Pianeta said it was the biggest experience of his life, but not his biggest fight. He went on to say he won his biggest fight against cancer in 2009. From the start, Klitschko systematically broke down the Italian, consistently landing flush straight right hand shots. He dropped Pianeta with a right hand in round four, a left hand put Pianeta down in the fifth; the fight ended at 2:52 in round six when Klitschko put Pianeta down for the third time. According to CompuBox Stats, Klitschko landed 116 of 277 punches thrown (42%) and Pianeta landed 24 of 104 thrown (23%), an average of 4 punches landed per round.
Promoter Vladimir Hryunov won the right to promote Klitschko vs. Povetkin with a purse bid of $23,333,330 and Russian businessman Andrey Ryabinsky putting up the money. Failed bids made were from K2 Promotions ($7,130,000) and Povetkin's promoter Sauerland Event's ($6,014,444). It allowed Ryabinsky to dictate the location of the fight and guaranteed the fighters the biggest purses of their careers. Based on being entitled to 75 per cent of the winning bid, Klitschko got $17,499,997, while Povetkin received $5,833,333. The Klitschko camp were said to be surprised by the bid. The fight was expected to generate around 100 million viewers in Europe. It was reported that the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was going to attend the fight.
The fight took place on 5 October 2013 at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow. The bout was marred with over 160 clinches, most initiated by Klitschko, followed by several repeated roughhouse tactics throughout the match. This included Klitschko's leaning on his opponent and pushing his head down and throwing Povetkin away to prevent Povetkin from clinching, which resulted in the referee scoring some of Povetkin's fallings as knockdowns, as well as Povetkin's punching after the referee's break command and leaning his head too low. Klitschko won by UD, scoring a knockdown in round two from a quick left hook, and three knockdowns in round seven, including one prompted from a straight right hand. All three judges scored it 119–104 on the scorecards. Klitschko landed 139 of 417 punches (33%) and Povetkin connected on 59 of 283 (21%). After the fight, Klitschko told in the interview that he had little desire to go for the knockout as the Russian crowd would be disappointed, which lead to speculations about the alleged agreement between the champion and organisers to let the bout go the distance, which Klitschko later denied. With 9.2 rating, the fight became the most popular sporting event on Russian television in 2013, as well as the most watched TV programme of the year in Moscow with 13.9 rating, surpassing the Moscow Victory Day Parade. Overall, the fight was watched by 23 million people in Russia. The fight also became the most popular TV programme of the Ukrainian television in 2013 with 19.5 rating (audience 18+) and 23 million total viewers and the most watched programme of RTL Television in 2013, averaging 11 million viewers.
In November 2013, Alex Leapai (30–4–3, 24 KOs) caused a huge upset in defeating then-unbeaten Denis Boytsov to become the WBO mandatory challenger. On 5 January 2014 K2 Promotions announced that a deal was close to being reached for the Klitschko vs. Leapai fight to take place in Germany on 26 April. Klitschko signed the contract on 3 February. It was revealed that former world title challenger David Tua declined a 'lucrative offer' to spar with Klitschko ahead of the fight. Tua told Australian newspaper The Courier-Mail he "didn't want to help anyone beat a 'Samoan brother'". On fight night, Klitschko knocked Leapai down three times, and referee Eddie Cotton stopped the fight with 55 seconds remaining in the fifth round. Despite all the pre-fight trash talk done by Leapai, Klitschko told him, "You have truly a lionheart. You never stopped. You were challenging, you were bold. You had great desire to become a champion. Not many of my opponents have that type of attitude, that type of heart." Klitschko landed 147 of 396 punches thrown (37%), while Leapai landed a dire 10 of his 69 (14%). The 10 punches landed were made up of 6 jabs and 4 power punches.
Klitschko vs. Pulev, Jennings
The IBF finally ordered Klitschko vs. Kubrat Pulev on 8 May 2014 and gave a 30-day negotiation period. Klitschko's manager Bernd Boente stated that a potential fight with WBC champion Bermane Stiverne was their main priority, a fight which would see all of the heavyweight belts at stake. Kalle Sauerland stated that he would request to get Klitschko (62–3, 52 KOs) stripped of the IBF title if he didn't fight Pulev. At the same time Deontay Wilder was named as Stiverne's mandatory and the WBC stated he must fight Wilder next. With the IBF purse bid split being 75–25 in favour of the champion, Klitschko requested the split be 80–20 in his favour. The IBF accepted the request. A purse bid took place on 17 June, which was won by K2 Promotions. The winning bid was $7.25 million. Sauerland Event put in a bid for $5.29 million. As per the bid, K2 had the location set as the O2 World Arena in Hamburg, with a possible date being 6 September 2014. In August, Klitschko suffered a bicep injury, thus postponing the fight by at least two months. A new date of 15 November was set. HBO announced that they would air the fight live in the afternoon, making it the 19th Klitschko fight they would show. Two days before the fight, it was revealed only the IBF title would be at stake for Pulev, however if Klitschko loses, the remaining titles would be vacated. The fight's worldwide audience was estimated to be 300 million viewers.
Despite making a spirited effort, Pulev suffered three knockdowns en route to being knocked out in round five by a devastating left hook. The time of stoppage was recorded as 2:11 of round five. In the post-fight interview, Pulev said, "Wladimir is a really good opponent, but he was lucky. I want a rematch". Klitschko praised Pulev, calling him a tough competitor. CompuBox stats showed that Klitschko landed 38 of 89 punches thrown (43%), this included 47% of his power punches. Pulev managed to land only 25 of his 110 thrown (23%). This was made up of 10 jabs and 15 power shots landed. The fight drew 10.5 million viewers in Germany and 1.8 million viewers in Bulgaria, becoming the most watched sports event on Bulgarian TV since 2007 and the most watched programme in the history of the television channel Nova TV. The fight also averaged 620,000 viewers on HBO and peaked at 700,000 viewers.
On 20 January 2015 ESPN reported that the potential Klitschko vs. Jennings was confirmed and to take place on 25 April 2015 at Madison Square Garden. Negotiations initially started in November 2014. Klitschko's manager, Bernd Boente finally announced the fight and said all contracts had been signed. The Barclays Center in New York City was originally chosen to stage the fight, but no reason was given for the change of venue.
It would be the fourth time Klitschko would fight at the Garden, his first time at the arena and the United States since 2008, defending his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO and The Ring heavyweight titles. He defeated Jennings by effective use of his jab and nullifying Jennings' offensive game on the inside, especially by holding Jennings, which resulted in the referee deducting a point in the tenth round for excessive holding, although Klitschko did end up winning via UD with scores of 116–111, 116–111, and 118–109. According to Compubox Stats, Klitschko landed 144 of his 545 punches thrown (26%) whilst Jennings landed 110 of 376 (29 per cent). According to Nielsen Media Research, the fight averaged 1.637 million viewers on HBO, peaking at 1.742 million viewers. With this win, Klitschko defeated 23rd boxer for the world heavyweight championship, beating a record held by Joe Louis for 66 years. Klitschko reportedly earned $12.5 million for the fight.
Klitschko vs. Fury
Klitschko was scheduled to take on undefeated heavyweight contender Tyson Fury, the WBO mandatory challenger, on 24 October 2015. On 25 September 2015, Klitschko postponed the fight, citing a calf injury. It was rescheduled for 28 November 2015. On the night of the fight, there was much controversy, first starting with the gloves, then there was a complaint about the ring canvas. Klitschko reportedly had his hands wrapped without a representative of Fury present, so had to do them again. Klitschko lost the fight by UD, with scores of 115–112, 115–112, and 116–111 all in favour of Fury. It was the first defeat Klitschko had suffered in over ten years and marked the end of the 'Klitschko Era', referring to the time period where both Klitschko brothers dominated the division. Klitschko and Fury showed little offence during the twelve rounds, but Fury did enough to take the decision. Klitschko landed 52 of 231 punches thrown (22.5%) and Fury landed 86 of 371 thrown (23.2%).
In the post-fight interview, an emotional Fury said, "This is a dream come true. We worked so hard for this. I've done it. It's hard to come to foreign countries and get decisions. It just means so much to me to come here and get the decision." He then took the microphone to thank Klitschko, "I'd like to say to Wladimir, you're a great champion. And thanks very much for having me. It was all fun and games during the buildup." Klitschko failed to throw his well-known right hand, mostly due to Fury's constant movement and mocking. He said, "Tyson was the faster and better man tonight. I felt quite comfortable in the first six rounds, but I was astonished that Tyson was so fast in the second half as well. I couldn't throw my right hand because the advantage was the longer distance he had." Klitschko had a rematch clause in place.
Klitschko was entitled to a rematch with Fury as part of the contract for their first fight. The rematch was eventually announced on 8 April 2016 and set to take place in Fury's home town at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England on 9 July 2016. However, Tyson Fury announced via a YouTube video that the fight would be postponed due to an ankle sprain he had received during training. He apologised to his fans and confirmed the fight would be rescheduled for a later date. On 7 July, Fury announced via his Twitter account that the rescheduled fight would take place on 29 October at the Manchester Arena. On 23 September, Fury again postponed the fight after being declared "medically unfit", before eventually vacating the WBA (Super), WBO, and IBO titles, citing problems with depression after testing positive for cocaine. The rematch with Klitschko was cancelled as a result.
Klitschko vs. Joshua
Days after the Fury rematch was called off, Klitschko was approached by Eddie Hearn, promoter of IBF champion Anthony Joshua, to fight on 28 November date they had set for a second defence. Terms seemed to have been agreed for a £30m fight showdown although an initial contract was yet to be signed. After Fury gave up his world titles, it was said that Klitschko wanted the WBA (Super) title up for grabs in the potential match up against Joshua and waiting for approval, which the WBA kept postponing. A reason as to why the WBA was delaying sanctioning the fight was due them having a legal settlement with Lucas Browne so he could fight for the vacant title next. Klitschko then turned his attention to fighting Browne instead on 10 December, a date his team had an arena set for in Germany. On 24 October, Klitschko suffered a minor calf injury which would rule him out until 2017. Talks between the Klitschko camp and Hearn remained active with a fight set for the first part of 2017. On 2 November, the WBA finally agreed to sanction a fight for their super title as long as Joshua defeats Eric Molina in December 2016.
On 10 December, immediately after Joshua had defeated Molina at the Manchester Arena, Klitschko was invited into the ring by Hearn. It was announced that Klitschko and Joshua would face each other for the WBA (Super), IBF and vacant IBO titles at Wembley Stadium, London, on 29 April 2017. WBA president Gilberto Jesus Mendoza confirmed that the winner will have to face mandatory challenger Luis Ortiz next, with deadlines due to be set after the unification fight. A day later the IBF announced the winner must fight their mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev. Because of this clashing with the WBA enforcing their mandatory, it was believed that either Joshua or Klitschko would have to vacate a title. In January 2017, Eddie Hearn announced that over 80,000 tickets had been sold, a new box office record, overtaking Carl Froch vs. George Groves II. He put a request in for 5,000 more tickets to be made available. At the weigh in, Klitschko weighed in at 240 and a quarter pounds, the lightest he has weighed since 2009. Joshua came in heavier at 250 pounds.
In front of a post-war record crowd of 90,000 in attendance, Joshua won by TKO in a high-drama contest that saw both men giving their all. They fought a close and cautious first four rounds. In the fifth, Joshua came out and threw a barrage of punches, forcing Klitschko to the canvas. An angry Klitschko rose up and dominated Joshua for the remainder of the round, before landing a clean right hand and scoring his own knockdown in round six. The next few rounds were again cautious, both men wary of each other, until a reinvigorated Joshua attacked Klitschko in round eleven with an upper-cut blow to the right side of Klitschko's face which would be the beginning of the end for the Ukrainian. Joshua then put together a few small but powerful combinations which sent his opponent to the canvas. Klitschko again rose but Joshua knocked him down for a second time in the round by unleashing a seven-punch combination, flooring Klitschko with a left hook. Moments later Joshua tried to end the fight by swinging a few right hooks and managed to back Klitschko into the ropes where he again sent a barrage of punches with no reply. The referee then concluded that Klitschko had taken enough punishment and stopped the fight.
At the time of stoppage, Joshua was ahead on two judges' scorecards at 96–93 and 95–93, while the third judge had Klitschko ahead 95–93. CompuBox stats showed that Joshua landed 107 of his 355 punches thrown (30.1%), and Klitschko landed 94 of 256 (36.7%). In the post-fight interviews, Klitschko spoke about the rematch clause, but gave no indication as to whether he would activate it, "Of course we have a rematch in the contract. I need to analyze and see what the heck happened. I wish I could have raised my hands, but congrats to him. He got up, he fought back, and he won the titles." In the press conference after the fight, Joshua said he would have no issues with having another fight with Klitschko, "I don't mind fighting him again, if he wants the rematch. Big respect to Wladimir for challenging the young lions of the division. It's up to him, I don't mind. As long as Rob thinks it's good I'm good to go." Eddie Hearn said Joshua's next fight would likely take place at the end of the year, possibly at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.
The fight averaged 659,000 viewers on Showtime in the United States. It was shown live and the fight began around 5 pm. ET and 2 pm. PT. Nielsen Media Research revealed the fight peaked at 687,000 viewers which was during rounds five and six. The delayed tape-replay on HBO was watched by an average 738,000 viewers and peaked at 890,000. In a press release, German TV channel RTL announced the fight was watched by an average 10.43 million viewers. The whole card averaged 9.59 million viewers. This was higher than the 8.91 million that tuned in to watch Klitschko vs. Fury in 2015. The fight did lower numbers than Klitschko's win over Mariusz Wach in 2012, which was watched by 11 million and Klitschko vs. Haye, which was seen by over 16 million.
On 7 June 2017, the IBF granted Joshua an exception for him to rematch Klitschko instead of fighting mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev. At this point, it was not said that the rematch would take place. Klitschko said he needed time to review his situation before agreeing to a rematch. It was only weeks after the fight, when Eddie Hearn filed the paperwork to the IBF to request the exception to the mandatory defence. The IBF explained that the rematch must take place no later than 2 December 2017 and the winner must fight Pulev next with no exceptions.
On 11 July 2017, Eddie Hearn travelled to the US to apply for a Nevada boxing licence for promoting and to also scout potential locations in Las Vegas speaking to MGM. He had a tour of the T-Mobile Arena. Although Nigeria, Dubai and China were discussed, Hearn warmed up to the idea of the fight taking place in Las Vegas. Hearn told Sky Sports, "We met with Richard Sturm and the team at MGM in Las Vegas yesterday and had a full tour of the T-Mobile Arena which is very impressive. There is a huge appetite from both sides to hold the rematch there and we will be talking further over the next week or so to see if that can become a reality." Showtime's Stephen Espinoza said a deal could be reached quickly, as he was also eager to get Joshua, who has a contract with Showtime, to fight in US, "It's no secret we've been salivating about getting him over here and certainly that would be a phenomenal fight. It would be the biggest heavyweight Vegas fight in probably a couple of decades, so we would love to host it." On 25 July, Hearn pencilled on 11 November 2017 for the rematch to take place at the T-Mobile Arena. It was reported the fight could be pay-per-view in the US.
Retirement
On 3 August 2017, Klitschko announced on his official website and social media channels that he was retiring from boxing. He ended his professional career with 64 wins in 69 fights, 53 by knockout. He competed in 29 world title fights.
Legacy
During Klitschko's reign as world heavyweight champion, his fights regularly drew between 300 and 500 million viewers worldwide. Klitschko has been named multiple times among the 100 highest paid athletes in the world by Forbes: he was ranked 24th in 2012 (estimated earnings $28 million between June 2011 and June 2012), 41st in 2013 ($24 million), 25th in 2014 ($28 million), 63rd in 2015 ($22.5 million) and 98th in 2017 ($21.5 million). Klitschko was unranked by Forbes in 2016, despite the fact that he reportedly earned $22.5 million for the fight against Tyson Fury in November 2015 alone (100th-ranked Buster Posey earned $20.8 million; 85th-ranked Conor McGregor earned $22 million). Wladimir Klitschko's total professional career earnings' estimations vary between €150 million (cca $200 million) and $250 million. Known for charity work and philanthropy, Wladimir is one of only 15 current or former alive athletes that have been named UNESCO Champions for Sport.
Considered national heroes in Ukraine, in 2008 the Klitschko brothers were ranked number 15 in Inter's list of the 100 Greatest Ukrainians following a nation-wide poll that saw around 2.5 million people casting their votes. Boxing fights involving one of the Klitschko brothers regularly attracted between 10 and 20 million viewers in Ukraine; Wladimir's fight against Alexander Povetkin generated even bigger viewership numbers, attracting 23 million viewers. Wladimir has been named multiple times among the 100 most influential people in Ukraine by Korrespondent: he was ranked 95th in 2006, 88th in 2010, 43rd in 2011, 51st in 2012 and 45th in 2013. Forbes named Klitschko the most popular celebrity in Ukraine in 2015, placing him ahead of a singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk and Kvartal 95 Studio, and ranked him second and third in 2012 and 2013 respectively (the ranking wasn't conducted in 2014). In 2017, Wladimir was honoured with the Order of Liberty, the highest Ukrainian honour that can be awarded to a person of any nationality, for his achievements in sports and contribution to the economical, scientific and cultural development of Ukraine.
The Klitschkos were also considered big stars in Germany. A survey carried out by TNS for the Horizont Sport Business in 2003 showed that 91.7% of Germans recognized Wladimir Klitschko while 70.5% celebrated his successes, making him the fourth most recognized and third most beloved athlete in Germany at the time. According to DW, another research conducted no later than 2011 showed that nearly 99% of people in Germany recognized the Klitschko brothers. The CPI Index conducted by the agency Celebrity Performance in 2012 had the Klitschkos ranked second on the list of the most marketable celebrities in Germany, while in January 2014, based on a survey of 1151 respondents that was conducted by the same agency, the Klitschko brothers were ranked 6th in the "2013 Person of the Year" category. Twelve of his fights generated above 10 million average viewers, and his world heavyweight title defence against Eddie Chambers in March 2010 drew bigger viewership numbers on RTL than the return of the Formula One legend voted the greatest German athlete of the 20th century Michael Schumacher.
Credited for selling out sports stadiums, Klitschko had eight of his fights take place at sports stadiums in Germany, Switzerland and United Kingdom, with all but one having attendances ranging from 43,000 to 90,000.
During his career, Wladimir defeated 23 boxers for the world heavyweight championship, the most in boxing history. Klitschko holds several historical records, including the longest combined world championship reign in heavyweight history at 4,382 days (12 years); the most beaten opponents and wins in world heavyweight title bouts since the international expansion of boxing governing bodies, at 23 and 25 respectively; the most wins in unified title bouts and the longest unified championship reign in professional boxing history at 15 title bouts and 14 consecutive defences respectively; and has the second most total successful title defences of any heavyweight boxer with 23 (including his first reign as WBO champion), behind Joe Louis (25) and ahead of Larry Holmes (20) and Muhammad Ali (19). Klitschko fought in 29 world heavyweight title fights, more than any other boxer in history.
As of May 2023, BoxRec ranks Wladimir Klitschko as the 21st greatest European boxer of all time. According to BoxRec, Klitschko has also defeated 12 previously undefeated fighters with a combined record 267–0–5 (174 KOs) – these 12 included Najee Shaheed (professional record 16–0–1, 8 KOs coming into the fight), Zoran Vujicic (14–0, 6 KOs), Eliseo Castillo (18–0–1, 14 KOs), Samuel Peter (24–0, 21 KOs), Calvin Brock (29–0, 22 KOs), Sultan Ibragimov (22–0–1, 17 KOs), Ruslan Chagaev (25–0–1, 17 KOs), Mariusz Wach (27–0, 15 KOs), Francesco Pianeta (28–0–1, 15 KOs), Alexander Povetkin (26–0, 18 KOs), Kubrat Pulev (20–0, 11 KOs) and Bryant Jennings (19–0, 10 KOs). Wladimir has beaten 9 current or former world champions throughout his career. These included heavyweight champions Chris Byrd (twice), Ray Mercer, Lamon Brewster, Samuel Peter (twice), Sultan Ibragimov, Hasim Rahman and Ruslan Chagaev, two-weight world champion David Haye and unified cruiserweight champion Jean-Marc Mormeck.
In 2021, Klitschko was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, having been elected over Miguel Cotto and James Toney by a panel of around 200 international boxing historians.
Other interests
Klitschko is also a passionate golfer and was seen playing in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland. The tournament was played over three courses in 2008 including St Andrews, Carnoustie, and Kingsbarns in Fife and Angus. Klitschko was named curator of the Ukrainian pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
As of October 2015, Klitschko was an adjunct professor at Switzerland's University of St. Gallen, where he taught master's students.
Personal life
From 2009, Klitschko was in a relationship with American actress Hayden Panettiere. Panettiere has appeared ringside at some of Klitschko's fights, including at Klitschko's 10th-round KO victory over Samuel Peter. The couple had a brief split in 2011, but were together again in 2013. In October 2013, Panettiere confirmed that she and Klitschko were engaged. They have one child together, a daughter, born in December 2014. In August 2018, according to Panettiere's mother, Lesley Vogel, the couple had split for a second time. They were said to be on 'good terms' for the sake of their daughter.
On 6 December 2013, Klitschko and his then-fiancée Hayden Panettiere visited the Euromaidan-protests in Kyiv. His brother Vitali was one of the leading figures of these protests. He and Panettiere addressed the crowds.
Wladimir and his brother Vitali have never fought each other in a professional fight as their mother made them promise to never fight each other.
Klitschko speaks four languages: English, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. He was friends with the late German heavyweight legend Max Schmeling.
On 29 March 2012, during a charitable auction in Kyiv, Ukraine
, Klitschko auctioned off his 1996 Olympic gold medal to a buyer who bid $1 million. Klitschko said he would use the money to help the dreams of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. After the sale, the buyer immediately returned the medal out of respect for Klitschko and because he wanted it to remain with the Klitschko family.
In February 2022, Klitschko joined the Kyiv Territorial Defense Brigade (a military reserve component of the Ukrainian Armed Forces). Both he and his brother Vitali Klitschko, who has been Mayor of Kyiv since 2014, pledged to fight to protect the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, through armed forces, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine that began on 24 February 2022. According to The Times, Wladimir and Vitali were on Vladimir Putin's personal hitlist of 24 high-profile Ukrainian figures whom he wanted assassinated.
On 10 March 2022, the brothers announced via Telegram that they had raised €100 million of financial support for Ukraine with a fundraising campaign in Germany.
Professional boxing record
Television viewership
Pay-per-view bouts
Notes
References
External links
CBZ Profile
ESPN.com
Real Stories: Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko at Grantland
1976 births
Boxers at the 1996 Summer Olympics
European Boxing Union champions
International Boxing Federation champions
International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees
International Boxing Organization champions
Living people
Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Olympic boxers for Ukraine
Olympic gold medalists for Ukraine
Olympic medalists in boxing
People of the Euromaidan
People of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Sportspeople from Semey
Super-heavyweight boxers
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni
The Ring (magazine) champions
Ukrainian expatriate sportspeople in Germany
Ukrainian expatriate sportspeople in the United States
Ukrainian male boxers
Ukrainian people of Jewish descent
Ukrainian people of Russian descent
World Boxing Organization champions
World heavyweight boxing champions
World Boxing Association champions
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379241
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt%20trigger
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Schmitt trigger
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In electronics, a Schmitt trigger is a comparator circuit with hysteresis implemented by applying positive feedback to the noninverting input of a comparator or differential amplifier. It is an active circuit which converts an analog input signal to a digital output signal. The circuit is named a trigger because the output retains its value until the input changes sufficiently to trigger a change. In the non-inverting configuration, when the input is higher than a chosen threshold, the output is high. When the input is below a different (lower) chosen threshold the output is low, and when the input is between the two levels the output retains its value. This dual threshold action is called hysteresis and implies that the Schmitt trigger possesses memory and can act as a bistable multivibrator (latch or flip-flop). There is a close relation between the two kinds of circuits: a Schmitt trigger can be converted into a latch and a latch can be converted into a Schmitt trigger.
Schmitt trigger devices are typically used in signal conditioning applications to remove noise from signals used in digital circuits, particularly mechanical contact bounce in switches. They are also used in closed loop negative feedback configurations to implement relaxation oscillators, used in function generators and switching power supplies.
In signal theory, a schmitt trigger is essentially a one-bit quantizer.
Invention
The Schmitt trigger was invented by American scientist Otto H. Schmitt in 1934 while he was a graduate student, later described in his doctoral dissertation (1937) as a thermionic trigger. It was a direct result of Schmitt's study of the neural impulse propagation in squid nerves.
Implementation
Fundamental idea
Circuits with hysteresis are based on positive feedback. Any active circuit can be made to behave as a Schmitt trigger by applying a positive feedback so that the loop gain is more than one. The positive feedback is introduced by adding a part of the output voltage to the input voltage. These circuits contain an attenuator (the B box in the figure on the right) and an adder (the circle with "+" inside) in addition to an amplifier acting as a comparator. There are three specific techniques for implementing this general idea. The first two of them are dual versions (series and parallel) of the general positive feedback system. In these configurations, the output voltage increases the effective difference input voltage of the comparator by 'decreasing the threshold' or by 'increasing the circuit input voltage'; the threshold and memory properties are incorporated in one element. In the third technique, the threshold and memory properties are separated.
Dynamic threshold (series feedback): when the input voltage crosses the threshold in some direction the circuit itself changes its own threshold to the opposite direction. For this purpose, it subtracts a part of its output voltage from the threshold (it is equal to adding voltage to the input voltage). Thus the output affects the threshold and does not impact on the input voltage. These circuits are implemented by a differential amplifier with 'series positive feedback' where the input is connected to the inverting input and the output - to the non-inverting input. In this arrangement, attenuation and summation are separated: a voltage divider acts as an attenuator and the loop acts as a simple series voltage summer. Examples are the classic transistor emitter-coupled Schmitt trigger, the op-amp inverting Schmitt trigger, etc.
Modified input voltage (parallel feedback): when the input voltage crosses the threshold in some direction the circuit changes its input voltage in the same direction (now it adds a part of its output voltage directly to the input voltage). Thus the output augments the input voltage and does not affect the threshold. These circuits can be implemented by a single-ended non-inverting amplifier with 'parallel positive feedback' where the input and the output sources are connected through resistors to the input. The two resistors form a weighted parallel summer incorporating both the attenuation and summation. Examples are the less familiar collector-base coupled Schmitt trigger, the op-amp non-inverting Schmitt trigger, etc.
Some circuits and elements exhibiting negative resistance can also act in a similar way: negative impedance converters (NIC), neon lamps, tunnel diodes (e.g., a diode with an "N"-shaped current–voltage characteristic in the first quadrant), etc. In the last case, an oscillating input will cause the diode to move from one rising leg of the "N" to the other and back again as the input crosses the rising and falling switching thresholds.
Two different unidirectional thresholds are assigned in this case to two separate open-loop comparators (without hysteresis) driving a bistable multivibrator (latch) or flip-flop. The trigger is toggled high when the input voltage crosses down to up the high threshold and low when the input voltage crosses up to down the low threshold. Again, there is a positive feedback but now it is concentrated only in the memory cell. Examples are the 555 timer and the switch debounce circuit.
The symbol for Schmitt triggers in circuit diagrams is a triangle with a symbol inside representing its ideal hysteresis curve.
Transistor Schmitt triggers
Classic emitter-coupled circuit
The original Schmitt trigger is based on the dynamic threshold idea that is implemented by a voltage divider with a switchable upper leg (the collector resistors RC1 and RC2) and a steady lower leg (RE). Q1 acts as a comparator with a differential input (Q1 base-emitter junction) consisting of an inverting (Q1 base) and a non-inverting (Q1 emitter) inputs. The input voltage is applied to the inverting input; the output voltage of the voltage divider is applied to the non-inverting input thus determining its threshold. The comparator output drives the second common collector stage Q2 (an emitter follower) through the voltage divider R1-R2. The emitter-coupled transistors Q1 and Q2 actually compose an electronic double throw switch that switches over the upper legs of the voltage divider and changes the threshold in a different (to the input voltage) direction.
This configuration can be considered as a differential amplifier with series positive feedback between its non-inverting input (Q2 base) and output (Q1 collector) that forces the transition process. There is also a smaller negative feedback introduced by the emitter resistor RE. To make the positive feedback dominate over the negative one and to obtain a hysteresis, the proportion between the two collector resistors is chosen RC1 > RC2. Thus less current flows through and less voltage drop is across RE when Q1 is switched on than in the case when Q2 is switched on. As a result, the circuit has two different thresholds in regard to ground (V− in the image).
Operation
Initial state. For the NPN transistors shown on the right, imagine the input voltage is below the shared emitter voltage (high threshold for concreteness) so that Q1 base-emitter junction is reverse-biased and Q1 does not conduct. The Q2 base voltage is determined by the mentioned divider so that Q2 is conducting and the trigger output is in the low state. The two resistors RC2 and RE form another voltage divider that determines the high threshold. Neglecting VBE, the high threshold value is approximately
.
The output voltage is low but well above ground. It is approximately equal to the high threshold and may not be low enough to be a logical zero for subsequent digital circuits. This may require an additional shifting circuit following the trigger circuit.
Crossing up the high threshold. When the input voltage (Q1 base voltage) rises slightly above the voltage across the emitter resistor RE (the high threshold), Q1 begins conducting. Its collector voltage goes down and Q2 begins going cut-off, because the voltage divider now provides lower Q2 base voltage. The common emitter voltage follows this change and goes down thus making Q1 conduct more. The current begins steering from the right leg of the circuit to the left one. Although Q1 is more conducting, it passes less current through RE (since RC1 > RC2); the emitter voltage continues dropping and the effective Q1 base-emitter voltage continuously increases. This avalanche-like process continues until Q1 becomes completely turned on (saturated) and Q2 turned off. The trigger is transitioned to the high state and the output (Q2 collector) voltage is close to V+. Now, the two resistors RC1 and RE form a voltage divider that determines the low threshold. Its value is approximately
.
Crossing down the low threshold. With the trigger now in the high state, if the input voltage lowers enough (below the low threshold), Q1 begins cutting-off. Its collector current reduces; as a result, the shared emitter voltage lowers slightly and Q1 collector voltage rises significantly. The R1-R2 voltage divider conveys this change to the Q2 base voltage and it begins conducting. The voltage across RE rises, further reducing the Q1 base-emitter potential in the same avalanche-like manner, and Q1 ceases to conduct. Q2 becomes completely turned on (saturated) and the output voltage becomes low again.
Variations
Non-inverting circuit. The classic non-inverting Schmitt trigger can be turned into an inverting trigger by taking Vout from the emitters instead of from a Q2 collector. In this configuration, the output voltage is equal to the dynamic threshold (the shared emitter voltage) and both the output levels stay away from the supply rails. Another disadvantage is that the load changes the thresholds so, it has to be high enough. The base resistor RB is obligatory to prevent the impact of the input voltage through Q1 base-emitter junction on the emitter voltage.
Direct-coupled circuit. To simplify the circuit, the R1–R2 voltage divider can be omitted connecting Q1 collector directly to Q2 base. The base resistor RB can be omitted as well so that the input voltage source drives directly Q1's base. In this case, the common emitter voltage and Q1 collector voltage are not suitable for outputs. Only Q2 collector should be used as an output since, when the input voltage exceeds the high threshold and Q1 saturates, its base-emitter junction is forward biased and transfers the input voltage variations directly to the emitters. As a result, the common emitter voltage and Q1 collector voltage follow the input voltage. This situation is typical for over-driven transistor differential amplifiers and ECL gates.
Collector-base coupled circuit
Like every latch, the fundamental collector-base coupled bistable circuit possesses a hysteresis. So, it can be converted to a Schmitt trigger by connecting an additional base resistor R to one of the inputs (Q1 base in the figure). The two resistors R and R4 form a parallel voltage summer (the circle in the block diagram above) that sums output (Q2 collector) voltage and the input voltage, and drives the single-ended transistor "comparator" Q1. When the base voltage crosses the threshold (VBE0 ∞ 0.65 V) in some direction, a part of Q2's collector voltage is added in the same direction to the input voltage. Thus the output modifies the input voltage by means of parallel positive feedback and does not affect the threshold (the base-emitter voltage).
Comparison between emitter- and collector-coupled circuit
The emitter-coupled version has the advantage that the input transistor is reverse biased when the input voltage is quite below the high threshold so the transistor is surely cut-off. It was important when germanium transistors were used for implementing the circuit and this advantage has determined its popularity. The input base resistor can be omitted since the emitter resistor limits the current when the input base-emitter junction is forward-biased.
An emitter-coupled Schmitt trigger logical zero output level may not be low enough and might need an additional output shifting circuit. The collector-coupled Schmitt trigger has extremely low (almost zero) output at logical zero.
Op-amp implementations
Schmitt triggers are commonly implemented using an operational amplifier or a dedicated comparator. An open-loop op-amp and comparator may be considered as an analog-digital device having analog inputs and a digital output that extracts the sign of the voltage difference between its two inputs. The positive feedback is applied by adding a part of the output voltage to the input voltage in series or parallel manner. Due to the extremely high op-amp gain, the loop gain is also high enough and provides the avalanche-like process.
Non-inverting Schmitt trigger
In this circuit, the two resistors R1 and R2 form a parallel voltage summer. It adds a part of the output voltage to the input voltage thus augmenting it during and after switching that occurs when the resulting voltage is near ground. This parallel positive feedback creates the needed hysteresis that is controlled by the proportion between the resistances of R1 and R2. The output of the parallel voltage summer is single-ended (it produces voltage with respect to ground) so the circuit does not need an amplifier with a differential input. Since conventional op-amps have a differential input, the inverting input is grounded to make the reference point zero volts.
The output voltage always has the same sign as the op-amp input voltage but it does not always have the same sign as the circuit input voltage (the signs of the two input voltages can differ). When the circuit input voltage is above the high threshold or below the low threshold, the output voltage has the same sign as the circuit input voltage (the circuit is non-inverting). It acts like a comparator that switches at a different point depending on whether the output of the comparator is high or low. When the circuit input voltage is between the thresholds, the output voltage is undefined and it depends on the last state (the circuit behaves as an elementary latch).
For instance, if the Schmitt trigger is currently in the high state, the output will be at the positive power supply rail (+VS). The output voltage V+ of the resistive summer can be found by applying the superposition theorem:
The comparator will switch when V+=0. Then (the same result can be obtained by applying the current conservation principle). So must drop below to get the output to switch. Once the comparator output has switched to −VS, the threshold becomes to switch back to high. So this circuit creates a switching band centered on zero, with trigger levels (it can be shifted to the left or the right by applying a bias voltage to the inverting input). The input voltage must rise above the top of the band, and then below the bottom of the band, for the output to switch on (plus) and then back off (minus). If R1 is zero or R2 is infinity (i.e., an open circuit), the band collapses to zero width, and it behaves as a standard comparator. The transfer characteristic is shown in the picture on the left. The value of the threshold T is given by and the maximum value of the output M is the power supply rail.
A unique property of circuits with parallel positive feedback is the impact on the input source. In circuits with negative parallel feedback (e.g., an inverting amplifier), the virtual ground at the inverting input separates the input source from the op-amp output. Here there is no virtual ground, and the steady op-amp output voltage is applied through R1-R2 network to the input source. The op-amp output passes an opposite current through the input source (it injects current into the source when the input voltage is positive and it draws current from the source when it is negative).
A practical Schmitt trigger with precise thresholds is shown in the figure on the right. The transfer characteristic has exactly the same shape of the previous basic configuration, and the threshold values are the same as well. On the other hand, in the previous case, the output voltage was depending on the power supply, while now it is defined by the Zener diodes (which could also be replaced with a single double-anode Zener diode). In this configuration, the output levels can be modified by appropriate choice of Zener diode, and these levels are resistant to power supply fluctuations (i.e., they increase the PSRR of the comparator). The resistor R3 is there to limit the current through the diodes, and the resistor R4 minimizes the input voltage offset caused by the comparator's input leakage currents (see limitations of real op-amps).
Inverting Schmitt trigger
In the inverting version, the attenuation and summation are separated. The two resistors R1 and R2 act only as a "pure" attenuator (voltage divider). The input loop acts as a series voltage summer that adds a part of the output voltage in series to the circuit input voltage. This series positive feedback creates the needed hysteresis that is controlled by the proportion between the resistances of R1 and the whole resistance (R1 and R2). The effective voltage applied to the op-amp input is floating so the op-amp must have a differential input.
The circuit is named inverting since the output voltage always has an opposite sign to the input voltage when it is out of the hysteresis cycle (when the input voltage is above the high threshold or below the low threshold). However, if the input voltage is within the hysteresis cycle (between the high and low thresholds), the circuit can be inverting as well as non-inverting. The output voltage is undefined and it depends on the last state so the circuit behaves like an elementary latch.
To compare the two versions, the circuit operation will be considered at the same conditions as above. If the Schmitt trigger is currently in the high state, the output will be at the positive power supply rail (+VS). The output voltage V+ of the voltage divider is:
The comparator will switch when Vin = V+. So must exceed above this voltage to get the output to switch. Once the comparator output has switched to −VS, the threshold becomes to switch back to high. So this circuit creates a switching band centered on zero, with trigger levels (it can be shifted to the left or the right by connecting R1 to a bias voltage). The input voltage must rise above the top of the band, and then below the bottom of the band, for the output to switch off (minus) and then back on (plus). If R1 is zero (i.e., a short circuit) or R2 is infinity, the band collapses to zero width, and it behaves as a standard comparator.
In contrast with the parallel version, this circuit does not impact on the input source since the source is separated from the voltage divider output by the high op-amp input differential impedance.
In the inverting amplifier voltage drop across resistor (R1) decides the reference voltages i.e.,upper threshold voltage (V+) and lower threshold voltages (V-) for the comparison with input signal applied. These voltages are fixed as the output voltage and resistor values are fixed.
so by changing the drop across (R1) threshold voltages can be varied. By adding a bias voltage in series with resistor (R1) drop across it can be varied, which can change threshold voltages. Desired values of reference voltages can be obtained by varying bias voltage.
The above equations can be modified as:
Applications
Schmitt triggers are typically used in open loop configurations for noise immunity and closed loop configurations to implement function generators.
Analog-to-digital conversion: The Schmitt trigger is effectively a one bit analog to digital converter. When the signal reaches a given level it switches from its low to high state.
Level detection: The Schmitt trigger circuit is able to provide level detection. When undertaking this application, it is necessary that the hysteresis voltage is taken into account so that the circuit switches on the required voltage.
Line reception: When running a data line that may have picked up noise into a logic gate it is necessary to ensure that a logic output level is only changed as the data changed and not as a result of spurious noise that may have been picked up. Using a Schmitt trigger broadly enables the peak to peak noise to reach the level of the hysteresis before spurious triggering may occur.
Noise immunity
One application of a Schmitt trigger is to increase the noise immunity in a circuit with only a single input threshold. With only one input threshold, a noisy input signal near that threshold could cause the output to switch rapidly back and forth from noise alone. A noisy Schmitt Trigger input signal near one threshold can cause only one switch in output value, after which it would have to move beyond the other threshold in order to cause another switch.
For example, an amplified infrared photodiode may generate an electric signal that switches frequently between its absolute lowest value and its absolute highest value. This signal is then low-pass filtered to form a smooth signal that rises and falls corresponding to the relative amount of time the switching signal is on and off. That filtered output passes to the input of a Schmitt trigger. The net effect is that the output of the Schmitt trigger only passes from low to high after a received infrared signal excites the photodiode for longer than some known period, and once the Schmitt trigger is high, it only moves low after the infrared signal ceases to excite the photodiode for longer than a similar known period. Whereas the photodiode is prone to spurious switching due to noise from the environment, the delay added by the filter and Schmitt trigger ensures that the output only switches when there is certainly an input stimulating the device.
Schmitt triggers are common in many switching circuits for similar reasons (e.g., for switch debouncing).
The following 7400 series devices include a Schmitt trigger on their input(s): (see List of 7400-series integrated circuits)
7413: Dual Schmitt trigger 4-input NAND Gate
7414: Hex Schmitt trigger Inverter
7418: Dual Schmitt trigger 4-input NAND Gate
7419: Hex Schmitt trigger Inverter
74121: Monostable Multivibrator with Schmitt Trigger Inputs
74132: Quad 2-input NAND Schmitt Trigger
74221: Dual Monostable Multivibrator with Schmitt Trigger Input
74232: Quad NOR Schmitt Trigger
74310: Octal Buffer with Schmitt Trigger Inputs
74340: Octal Buffer with Schmitt Trigger Inputs and three-state inverted outputs
74341: Octal Buffer with Schmitt Trigger Inputs and three-state noninverted outputs
74344: Octal Buffer with Schmitt Trigger Inputs and three-state noninverted outputs
74(HC/HCT)7541 Octal Buffer with Schmitt Trigger Inputs and Three-State Noninverted Outputs
SN74LV8151 is a 10-bit universal Schmitt-trigger buffer with 3-state outputs
A number of 4000 series devices include a Schmitt trigger on their inputs(s): (see List of 4000-series integrated circuits)
4017: Decade Counter with Decoded Outputs
4020: 14-Stage Binary Ripple Counter
4022: Octal Counter with Decoded Outputs
4024: 7-Stage Binary Ripple Counter
4040: 12-Stage Binary Ripple Counter
4093: Quad 2-Input NAND
4538: Dual Monostable Multivibrator
4584: Hex inverting Schmitt trigger
40106: Hex Inverter
Schmitt input configurable single-gate chips: (see List of 7400-series integrated circuits#One gate chips)
NC7SZ57 Fairchild
NC7SZ58 Fairchild
SN74LVC1G57 Texas Instruments
SN74LVC1G58 Texas Instruments
Use as an oscillator
A Schmitt trigger is a bistable multivibrator, and it can be used to implement another type of multivibrator, the relaxation oscillator. This is achieved by connecting a single RC integrating circuit between the output and the input of an inverting Schmitt trigger. The output will be a continuous square wave whose frequency depends on the values of R and C, and the threshold points of the Schmitt trigger. Since multiple Schmitt trigger circuits can be provided by a single integrated circuit (e.g. the 4000 series CMOS device type 40106 contains 6 of them), a spare section of the IC can be quickly pressed into service as a simple and reliable oscillator with only two external components.
Here, a comparator-based Schmitt trigger is used in its inverting configuration. Additionally, slow negative feedback is added with an integrating RC network. The result, which is shown on the right, is that the output automatically oscillates from VSS to VDD as the capacitor charges from one Schmitt trigger threshold to the other.
See also
Operational amplifier applications
Threshold detector with hysteresis
List of 4000-series integrated circuits - includes logic chips with Schmitt trigger inputs
List of 7400-series integrated circuits - includes logic chips with Schmitt trigger inputs
Notes
References
External links
Inverting Schmitt Trigger Calculator
Non-Inverting Schmitt Trigger Calculator
Digital electronics
Electronic circuits
Hysteresis
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Oudenarde
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Battle of Oudenarde
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The Battle of Oudenarde, also known as the Battle of Oudenaarde, was a major engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession, pitting a Grand Alliance force consisting of eighty thousand men under the command of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy against a French force of eighty-five thousand men under the command of the Duc de Bourgogne and the Duc de Vendôme, the battle resulting in a great victory for the Grand Alliance. The battle was fought near the city of Oudenaarde, at the time part of the Spanish Netherlands, on 11 July 1708. With this victory, the Grand Alliance ensured the fall of various French territories, giving them a significant strategic and tactical advantage during this stage of the war. The battle was fought in the later years of the war, a conflict that had come about as a result of English, Dutch and Habsburg apprehension at the possibility of a Bourbon succeeding the deceased King of Spain, Charles II, and combining their two nations and empires into one.
The engagement itself came about after a series of offensive and defensive manoeuvres between an Allied army under the command of Marlborough and a French army under the command of the Duc de Bourgogne. The two French commanders quarrelled about the direction their army should take, although roughly a month before the battle, the French army moved westwards and captured the Allied-held fortresses of Bruges and Ghent. This proved to be an unexpected and worrying action to Marlborough, who waited until Eugene had joined his army before he decided to undertake any offensive operations. The French moved to attack again, aiming to capture the city of Oudenarde, which would cut off communication and supply routes between Marlborough and England and thus allow for a significant victory over the Grand Alliance. Marlborough managed to figure out the French plan of action, and forced marched his men towards Oudenaarde to defend it from the expected French attack. On 11 July, the two forces met near the city.
During the engagement, Allied cavalry moved to engage the French forward positions, killing or capturing many French soldiers and pushing them back. For unknown reasons, a significant portion of the French army kept in reserve was never ordered to move up and engage, thus leading to a significantly weakened French force facing the Allies. The infantry battalions on both sides moved to engage each other, with skilled deployment of cavalry by Cadogan ensuring the rout of many of the French infantry battalions, weakening the French positions. Both sides settled into an engagement on opposing sides of the river, with several further mostly fruitless cavalry charges attempted by both sides. Marlborough initiated a flanking manoeuvre, gaining the allies a significant tactical and strategic advantage. Faced with mounting casualties, the French commanders made the decision to withdraw from the field. The battle was the third major victory that Marlborough had obtained during the war; boosting his military renown alongside that of Eugene, whose tactical contributions were vital to this victory.
Background
The War of the Spanish Succession, fought from 1701 to 1714, was a European conflict in the early 18th century, triggered by the death of the childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700, the last Habsburg monarch of Spain. His closest heirs were members of the Austrian Habsburg and French Bourbon families; acquisition of an undivided Spanish Empire by either threatened the European balance of power and thus the other leading powers became involved. Charles bequeathed an undivided monarchy of Spain to his grandnephew Philip, who was also grandson of Louis XIV of France. Philip was proclaimed King of Spain on 16 November 1700. Disputes over territorial and commercial rights led to war in 1701 between the Bourbons of France and Spain and the Grand Alliance, whose candidate was Charles, younger son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. The primary opponents of the Bourbon succession were the Kingdom of England (later the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Acts of Union with Scotland), the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic. In addition, many Spaniards opposed the idea of a Bourbon ruling Spain, and threw their lot in with Charles. Initially, the war went favourably for the French, given their vast army and navy and extremely advantageous geopolitical position. However, crushing defeats at Blenheim and Ramillies caused the war to settle into a stalemate, as the forces of the Grand Alliance could not advance into French territory, not could the French advance into Habsburg territories either.
As the French army moved closer to the border with the Spanish Netherlands in 1708, the two French commanders began quarrelling over which battle plan they should adopt. Vendôme wished to attack the city of Huy, which could draw Marlborough in pursuit of his forces and weaken the overall allied position. The eventual plan adopted, however (under direct orders from Louis XIV), was to attack Flanders. The French army moved eastward, until they reached the city of Braine-l'Alleud, which was about twenty-five kilometres south of Brussels, and allowed the French to threaten the nearby city of Leuven. Marlborough moved his forces to a few miles south of Leuven, in order to sufficiently protect both cities from a potential French assault. The French army then remained inactive for more than a month, not making any major movements whatsoever. This allowed the much-delayed Eugène to bring his forces across the Rhine and head towards Marlboroughs position. On 5 July, however, the French unexpectedly moved westward, quickly capturing the cities of Bruges and Ghent (although about three hundred British soldiers held out in Ghent for a few days). This unexpected move both demoralised and confounded Marlborough and his army, and he did not make any offensive moves until Eugène along with his army arrived to join him. The French army had control over the entire length of the Scheldt from the French border to the newly taken city of Ghent.
Only one Allied fortress remained: the city of Oudenaarde. If the French managed to capture that city, Marlborough's army would be cut off from the coast, causing them to lose communication with England. Marlborough managed to guess the French battle plan, and also correctly guessed the method by which the French army would attempt to take Oudenarde—they would march down the east bank of the Scheldt (closer to Marlborough's troops), while leaving a large covering force between the two opposing armies. The French army set out on 8 July, marching toward the city of Lessines. However, Marlborough made one of the most impressive forced marches in history, capturing the city on 10 July. This forced the French commanders to attempt to simply to wade across the Scheldt and take Oudenaarde from that position. Marlborough again ordered a forced march of his troops. This time, though, he ordered eleven thousand troops to hold the main crossing point across the Scheldt, under the command of his Quartermaster General, William Cadogan. Cadogan's force built five additional pontoon bridges to allow Marlborough to get his eighty-thousand-strong army across the river, until French foragers discovered the allied presence around 9:00 a.m., initiating the battle.
Battle
Cadogan, a superb cavalry commander, ordered some dragoons under the command of Danish general Jørgen Rantzau to capture men from the French advance guard. Many of those troops managed to escape and alerted Lieutenant General Charles-Armand de Gontaut, duc de Biron, who commanded the French vanguard to the presence of Allied troops on the west bank. When de Biron advanced, he was disagreeably surprised by the large number of Allied cavalry already across the river, along with the approaching Allied infantry. Although he was ordered to attack by Vendôme, he hesitated upon seeing the reinforced line of twenty infantry battalions (including the four that had been left to guard the pontoon bridges). Biron's own forces comprised only seven infantry battalions and twenty cavalry squadrons. He had been given reliable advice that cavalry could not negotiate the marshy terrain in the area and decided not to attempt a crossing. At this time, Eugène, along with twenty squadrons of Prussian cavalry, moved across the river and occupied crucial positions. While Biron's troops were manoeuvring, the leading British infantry brigade had arrived, under the command of John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll. Cadogan, given authority from Marlborough, attacked Biron's seven infantry battalions of Swiss mercenaries with his division (consisting mainly of cavalry). The isolated Swiss mercenaries were immediately pushed back and the Allied force destroyed Biron's units, until they reached a large mass of French cavalry, at which point they were forced to retire, outnumbered. The force which performed this action was Rantzau's cavalry, with the future King George II among them.
Burgundy, making another mistake, decided to launch an attack (over protests by Vendôme). The French right wing began to attack the Allied positions near Eine, while the left wing (for unknown reasons) remained stationary near Huise. A very strong position was held by the Allied left wing. Twenty-eight cavalry squadrons protected the right flank of Cadogan's infantry, which would receive the attack (which proceeded at about 4:00 p.m.). Burgundy ordered the assault, which landed on Prussian cavalry squadrons under Dubislav Gneomar von Natzmer. Although intense fighting ensued, the attack was dispersed. Then, Vendôme made a dubious tactical decision to personally lead an attack of twelve infantry regiments, fighting hand-to-hand with a half-pike. This meant that while one commander (Burgundy) was in his headquarters with no view of the ongoing battle, the other commander was personally fighting in the field, with no possibility of directing his men. Most historians agree that had the French left wing attacked the weakened Allied right wing, it would have been forced to retreat. Vendôme realized this, asking Burgundy for permission to attack with the left wing. Burgundy sent back a messenger with a message of refusal but the messenger failed to deliver the message. The situation worsened with Vendôme believing that support would arrive for his troops, who were lengthening their line of battle and threatening to envelop the Allied left flank. As French infantry regiments approached, they lengthened the Allied line but too slowly and not great enough in extent to prevent the French from threatening the Allied positions.
Around this same time, the Dutch field deputies Sicco van Goslinga and Adolf Hendrik van Rechteren were moving near where Marlborough was leading the action. They noted, rightly or wrongly, that he made an unsteady and indecisive impression, presumably as a result of an accident he had had the previous night. He had then fallen into a deep ditch with his horse and had been trapped under the animal. Together the two field deputies decided to ask Eugene, who had so far remained in the background, to intervene and assume supreme command. After some urging, as he was not in the service of either of the Maritime Powers, he replied: 'Well now gentlemen, ... I will do what you ask of me.'
Marlborough thus moved his headquarters to the left flank, while Eugène assumed command of the right flank (which still checked the left wing of the French army). While the right wing was under pressure, Marlborough made a brilliant tactical decision: he placed eighteen newly arrived Hessian and Hanoverian infantry battalions in the left flank to replace twenty of Prussian General Carl von Lottum's battalions, ordered them to move to support Eugène's men. This moved fresh troops to the critical Allied left flank, while reinforcing the Allied right flank and allowing Lottum's troops to be granted a vital rest. Marlborough then began formulating a new plan of double encirclement. He had now under his command 25,000 fresh troops of the Dutch Army, under Field Marshal Hendrik Overkirk, an experienced military officer and ordered them to flank the French right wing. Overkirk was unable to cross the collapsed pontoon bridges near Oudenaarde, forcing him to use the stone bridges in the city, delaying him for an hour. Marlborough went ahead with his plan, having Eugène's cavalry charge towards Burgundy's headquarters. The French Household Cavalry, the Maison du Roi, were only just able to turn them back and Marlborough, with only the eighteen Hessian and Hanoverian battalions, was unable to do much other than keep the French right in check. At about 18:00, Overkirk's troops had arrived and were in a position to flank the French right wing. This was in conjunction with a dual attack by Marlborough and Eugène.
Eugene was concerned about the left wing and sent the two field deputies there with orders to attack the French. Arriving there, Sicco van Goslinga discovered an exhausted Overkirk. The old general did not see the urgency of an attack. Unsatisfied, Van Goslinga then rode off to a line of six battalions where he encountered Lieutenant General Bengt Oxenstierna. He too had no intention of attacking, arguing that the terrain was too rugged to pass through and that they were better off waiting for the French. Van Goslinga then decided to take it upon himself to launch the attack and he placed himself at the head of two Swiss battalions which he ordered to advance. Five other Dutch battalions followed and the Prince of Orange placed eight others alongside Van Goslinga in battle order. The Deputy and the young Prince marched down the slope with their troops and crashed into the French infantry, whom they quickly swept aside. A French counter-attack by the elite horsemen of the Maison du Roi did little to change the situation. At the same time, the Dutch cavalry under the Count of Tilly cut off the French retreat route to Kortrijk. Much of the French army was routed or captured, with lack of daylight preventing the completion of the manoeuvre. The battle also ended in confusion for the Allies. The darkness caused the Allied right and left wings to mistake each other for the enemy and they began firing at each other. Eugene on the right and the Prince of Orange on the left wing managed, through their intervention, to stop the firing and prevented the army from doing any real damage to itself.
Aftermath
The French army retreated in disorder towards Ghent, with the Duc de Bourgogne and the Duc de Vendome quarreling amongst themselves on who was to blame for the defeat. Only nightfall and a few broken pontoon bridges saved the French army from total annihilation. For unknown reasons, about half of the total forces the French had at their disposal during the battle were kept in reserve, never being called up to participate in the battle. There was a great mass of French cavalry and infantry in some raised ground north of the Norken River along with many of Burgundy's troops that remained inactive in the battle and did not advance forwards to assist their fellow Frenchmen, even when the tactical situation of the battle had turned against the French with the arrival of Overkirk's Dutch troops. Many of the French cavalry squadrons had remained in reserve, mainly because of the advice that they had been given of the ground before them being impassable by their horses.
The French commanders had made several catastrophic tactical errors during the battle: The entire French left wing (the troops under Burgundy and the large mass north of the Norken) was kept in reserve. They could easily have destroyed the weakened right wing of the Allied army. Had a concerted attack been carried out, with Vendôme attacking with his main body to envelop the Allied right flank and Bourgogne attacked with the left wing (before Overkirk and the rest of Argyll's troops arrived), the French army could have easily won. The decision of Bourgogne to march personally into battle may have provided a welcome boost to French morale, but it denied him for the rest of the battle the opportunity to command his troops, which proved disastrous when the Allies overwhelmed the French via a flanking manoeuvre. The French army had lost about fourteen to fifteen thousand soldiers overall (with about eight thousand of whom becoming prisoners-of-war) and twenty-five artillery guns, while the Allies lost roughly three thousand men. Bodart gives roughly similar numbers for the French casualties (6,000 killed or wounded and 8,000 captured), but higher numbers for allied ones (6,000 killed or wounded).
On the other hand, the reputation of the Allied commanders were greatly enhanced by the victory. For Marlborough, his eye for choosing the correct ground, his sense of timing and his keen knowledge of the enemy were again amply demonstrated. Eugene's reputation was also enhanced—while Marlborough remained in overall command, Eugene had led the crucial right flank and centre. Once again the Allied commanders had co-operated remarkably well. "Prince Eugene and I," wrote the Duke, "shall never differ about our share of the laurels." The success restored the strategic initiative to the Allies, who now opted to besiege Lille, the strongest fortress in Europe. While the Duke commanded the covering force, Eugene oversaw the siege of the town, which surrendered on 22 October; however, it was not until 10 December that the resolute Boufflers yielded the citadel. Yet for all the difficulties of the winter siege, the campaign of 1708 had been a remarkable success by requiring superior logistical skill and organisation. The Allies retook Brughes and Ghent, and the French were driven out of almost all the Spanish Netherlands: "He who has not seen this", wrote Eugene, "has seen nothing".
See also
Siege of Lille (1708)
Notes
References
Bibliography
Lynn, John A., The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667–1714 (Longman Publishers: Harlow, England, 1999).
Battles of the War of the Spanish Succession
Battles involving the Netherlands
Battles involving Great Britain
Battles involving France
Conflicts in 1708
Battles involving the Spanish Netherlands
1708 in France
History of East Flanders
Battle
Battles involving the Dutch Republic
18th century in the Southern Netherlands
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field%20Museum%20of%20Natural%20History
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Field Museum of Natural History
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The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational and scientific programs, and its extensive scientific specimen and artifact collections. The permanent exhibitions, which attract up to 2 million visitors annually, include fossils, current cultures from around the world, and interactive programming demonstrating today's urgent conservation needs. The museum is named in honor of its first major benefactor, Marshall Field, the department-store magnate. The museum and its collections originated from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the artifacts displayed at the fair.
The museum maintains a temporary exhibition program of traveling shows as well as in-house produced topical exhibitions. The professional staff maintains collections of over 24 million specimens and objects that provide the basis for the museum's scientific-research programs. These collections include the full range of existing biodiversity, gems, meteorites, fossils, and rich anthropological collections and cultural artifacts from around the globe. The museum's library, which contains over 275,000 books, journals, and photo archives focused on biological systematics, evolutionary biology, geology, archaeology, ethnology and material culture, supports the museum's academic-research faculty and exhibit development. The academic faculty and scientific staff engage in field expeditions, in biodiversity and cultural research on every continent, in local and foreign student training, and in stewardship of the rich specimen and artifact collections. They work in close collaboration with public programming exhibitions and education initiatives.
History
The Field Museum and its collections originated from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and the artifacts displayed at the fair. In order to house for future generations the exhibits and collections assembled for the Exposition, Edward Ayer convinced the merchant Marshall Field to fund the establishment of a museum. Originally titled the Columbian Museum of Chicago in honor of its origins, the Field Museum was incorporated by the State of Illinois on September 16, 1893, for the purpose of the "accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, and the preservation and exhibition of artifacts illustrating art, archaeology, science and history". The Columbian Museum of Chicago occupied the only building remaining from the World's Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park, the Palace of Fine Arts. It is now home to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
In 1905, the museum's name was changed to Field Museum of Natural History to honor its first major benefactor and to reflect its focus on the natural sciences. During the period from 1943 to 1966, the museum was known as the Chicago Natural History Museum. In 1921, the Museum moved from its original location in Jackson Park to its present site on Chicago Park District property near downtown. By the late 1930s the Field had emerged as one of the three premier museums in the United States, the other two being the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
The museum has maintained its reputation through continuous growth, expanding the scope of collections and its scientific research output, in addition to its award-winning exhibitions, outreach publications, and programs. The Field Museum is part of Chicago's lakefront Museum Campus that includes the John G. Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium.
In 2015, it was reported that an employee had defrauded the museum of $900,000 over a seven-year period to 2014.
Attendance
The Museum received 1,018,002 visitors in 2022, ranking it 11th in the List of most-visited museums in the United States.
Permanent exhibitions
Animal Halls
Animal exhibitions and dioramas such as Nature Walk, Mammals of Asia, and Mammals of Africa that allow visitors an up-close look at the diverse habitats that animals inhabit. Most notably featured are the infamous man-eating lions of Tsavo. The Mfuwe man eating lion is also on display.
Evolving Planet
Evolving Planet follows the evolution of life on Earth over 4 billion years. The exhibit showcases fossils of single-celled organisms, Permian synapsids, dinosaurs, extinct mammals, and early hominids. The Field Museum's non-mammalian synapsid collection consists of over 1100 catalogued specimens, including 46 holotypes. The collection of basal synapsids includes 29 holotypes of caseid, ophiacodontid, edaphosaurid, varanopid, and sphenacodontid species – approximately 88% of catalogued specimens.
Inside Ancient Egypt
Inside Ancient Egypt offers a glimpse into what life was like for ancient Egyptians. Twenty-three human mummies are on display as well as many mummified animals. The exhibit features a three-story replica (featuring two authentic rooms with 5,000-year-old hieroglyphs) of the mastaba tomb of Unas-Ankh, the son of Unas (the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty). Also displayed are an ancient marketplace showing artifacts of everyday life, a shrine to the cat goddess Bastet, and dioramas showing the afterlife preparation process for the dead.
The Ancient Americas
The Ancient Americas displays 13,000 years of human ingenuity and achievement in the Western Hemisphere, where hundreds of diverse societies thrived long before the arrival of Europeans. In this large permanent exhibition visitors can learn the epic story of the peopling of these continents, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. The exhibit consists of six displays: Ice Age Hunters, Innovative Hunters and Gatherers, Farming Villagers, Powerful Leaders, Rulers and Citizens, and Empire Builders. Visitors are encouraged to begin with Ice Age Hunters and conclude with Empire Builders. In this way, visitors can understand the cultural and economic progression of the Ancient Americas. Throughout the exhibit, collections are displayed in a way that emphasizes the cultural context of the artifacts.
The six displays draw from the Field Museum's massive North America collection. Significant collections utilized by the exhibit include pre-Columbian artifacts gathered by Mayanists Edward H. Thompson and John E. S. Thompson. Additionally, former curator Paul Sidney Martin's American Southwest collection makes up a significant portion of the "Farming Villagers" display. The Empire Builders display includes Aztec and Incan artifacts gathered in the 19th century.
The Ancient Americas exhibit transitions to the Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples and eventually the Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories exhibit. This emphasizes the thematic unity of the Field Museum's American collections.
Cultural Halls
Cultural exhibitions include sections on Tibet and China, where visitors can view traditional clothing. There is also an exhibit on life in Africa, where visitors can learn about the many different cultures on the continent, and an exhibit where visitors may "visit" several Pacific Islands. The museum houses an authentic 19th-century Māori Meeting House, Ruatepupuke II, from Tokomaru Bay, New Zealand. Additionally, the Field Museum's Northwest Coast Collections showcase the early work of Franz Boas and Frederic Ward Putnam's work with the Kwakwakaʼwakw (Kwakiutl) people in the Alsdorf Hall of Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples. Finally, the Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories permanent exhibition displays the Field Museum's current collaborative efforts with the indigenous people of North America.
Africa
The Africa cultural hall opened at the Field Museum in November 1993. It offers 14 different displays that are primarily ethnographic in nature. Several African countries are exhibited as well as a variety of geographical areas including the Sahara and East African rift valley. The final section is dedicated to the African diaspora with a particular focus on the impact of the slave trade on the continent. The Africa permanent exhibit owes most of its collection to the efforts of Wilfred D. Hambly.
Peoples of the Arctic and Pacific Northwest
This extensive permanent exhibition covers two culture areas that were vitally important to the early work of the Field Museum—the Arctic and Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest collection is more extensive, but both collections are organized into four categories: subsistence, village and society, the spiritual world, and art. Major displays include a variety of dioramas and a large collection of totem poles. The current permanent exhibition has its origins in the Maritime Peoples hall created by the Field Museum's curator of North American archaeology and ethnology James VanStone.
Cyrus Tang Hall of China
The Cyrus Tang Hall of China opened as a permanent exhibition in 2015. The hall consists of five sections: Diverse Landscapes, Ritual and Power, Shifting Power, Beliefs and Practices, and Crossing Boundaries. The first three sections are organized chronologically while the final two sections are organized by theme. Three hundred and fifty objects are displayed throughout the five galleries. These artifacts are a sample chosen from the Field Museum's significant China collection. This collection was gathered by the sinologist Berthold Laufer.
Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories
Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories opened as a permanent exhibition in 2015. This exhibit is an extensive renovation of the former Native American Hall at the Field Museum. Native Truths utilizes about 400 artifacts to interpret Native American culture and history while also addressing modern-day challenges. The exhibition is a result of a changing attitude towards Native Americans that emphasized Native peoples instead of Native artifacts.
Regenstein Halls of the Pacific
This exhibit is dedicated to the natural and cultural history of the Pacific Islands and is organized into five different sections: the natural history of the islands, the cultural origins of Pacific Islanders, a canoe display, an ethnographic collection showcasing New Guinea's Huon Gulf, and a modern Tahitian market. The final portion of the exhibit is dedicated to the ceremonial arts of the Pacific peoples. The majority of the collection was gathered by curator Albert Buell Lewis. Building upon Lewis' desire to portray cultures as living and participative, the exhibit was intentionally designed to demonstrate how the Pacific Islands interact with the contemporary world.
Geology Halls
The Grainger Hall of Gems consists of a large collection of diamonds and gems from around the world, and also includes a Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass window. The Hall of Jades focuses on Chinese jade artifacts spanning 8,000 years. The Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies contains a large collection of fossil meteorites.
Underground Adventure
The Underground Adventure gives visitors a bug's-eye look at the world beneath their feet. Visitors can see what insects and soil look like from that size, while learning about the biodiversity of soil and the importance of healthy soil.
Working Laboratories
DNA Discovery Center – Visitors can watch real scientists extract DNA from a variety of organisms. Museum goers can also speak to a live scientist through the glass every day and ask them any questions about DNA.
McDonald's Fossil Prep Lab – The public can watch as paleontologists prepare real fossils for study.
The Regenstein Pacific Conservation Laboratory – conservation and collections facility. Visitors can watch as conservators work to preserve and study anthropological specimens from all over the world.
Sue, the Tyrannosaurus rex
On May 17, 2000, the Field Museum unveiled Sue, the largest T. rex specimen discovered at the time. Sue has a length of , stands tall at the hips, and has been estimated at between as of 2018. The specimen is estimated to be 67 million years old. The fossil was named after the person who discovered it, Sue Hendrickson, and is commonly referred to as female, although the dinosaur's actual sex is unknown. The original skull is not mounted to the body due to the difficulties in examining the specimen 13 feet off the ground, and for nominal aesthetic reasons (the replica does not require a steel support under the mandible). An examination of the bones revealed that Sue died at age 28, a record for the fossilized remains of a T. rex until Trix was found in 2013. In December 2018 after revisions of the skeletal assembly were made to reflect new concepts of Sue's structure, display of the skeleton was moved into a new suite in The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet.
Scientific collections
Professionally managed and maintained specimen and artifact collections, such as those at the Field Museum of Natural History, are a major research resource for the national and international scientific community, supporting extensive research that tracks environmental changes, benefits homeland security, public health and safety, and serves taxonomy and systematics research. Many of Field Museum's collections rank among the top ten collections in the world, e.g., the bird skin collection ranks fourth worldwide; the mollusk collection is among the five largest in North America; the fish collection is ranked among the largest in the world.
The scientific collections of the Field Museum originate from the specimens and artifacts assembled between 1891 and 1893 for the World Columbian Exposition. Already at its founding, the Field Museum had a large anthropological collection.
A large number of the early natural history specimens were purchased from Ward's Natural History Establishment in Rochester, New York. An extensive acquisition program, including large expeditions conducted by the museum's curatorial staff resulted in substantial collection growth. During the first 50 years of the museum's existence, over 440 Field Museum expeditions acquired specimens from all parts of the world.
In addition, material was added through purchase, such as H. N. Patterson's herbarium in 1900, and the Strecker butterfly collection in 1908.
Extensive specimen material and artifacts were given to the museum by collectors and donors, such as the Boone collection of over 3,500 East Asian artifacts, consisting of books, prints and various objects. In addition, "orphaned collections" were and are taken in from other institutions such as universities that change their academic programs away from collections-based research. For example, already beginning in 1907, Field Museum accepted substantial botanical specimen collections from universities such as University of Chicago, Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago, into its herbarium. These specimens are maintained and continuously available for researchers worldwide. The Index Herbariorum code assigned to this botanic garden is F and it is used when citing housed specimens. Targeted collecting in the US and abroad for research programs of the curatorial and collection staff continuously add high quality specimen material and artifacts; e.g., Dr. Robert Inger's collection of frogs from Borneo as part of his research into the ecology and biodiversity of the Indonesian fauna.
Collecting of specimens and acquisition of artifacts is nowadays subject to clearly spelled-out policies and standards, with the goal to acquire only materials and specimens for which the provenance can be established unambiguously. All collecting of biological specimens is subject to proper collecting and export permits; frequently, specimens are returned to their country of origin after study. Field Museum stands among the leading institutions developing such ethics standards and policies; Field Museum was an early adopter of voluntary repatriation practices of ethnological and archaeological artifacts.
Collection care and management
Field Museum collections are professionally managed by collection managers and conservators, who are skilled in preparation and preservation techniques. Numerous maintenance and collection management tools were and are being advanced at Field Museum. For example, Carl Akeley's development of taxidermy excellence produced the first natural-looking mammal and bird specimens for exhibition as well as for study. Field Museum curators developed standards and best practices for the care of collections. Conservators at the Field Museum have made notable contributions to conservation science with methods of preservation of artifacts including the use of pheromone trapping for control of webbing clothes moths.
The Field Museum was an early adopter of positive-pressure based approaches to control of environment in display cases, using control modules for humidity control in several galleries where room-level humidification was not practical. The museum has also adopted a low-energy approach to maintain low humidity to prevent corrosion in archaeological metals using ultra-well-sealed barrier film micro-environments. Other notable contributions include methods for dyeing Japanese papers to color match restorations in organic substrates, the removal of display mounts from historic objects, testing of collections for residual heavy metal pesticides, presence of early plastics in collections, the effect of sulfurous products in display cases, and the use of light tubes in display cases.
Concordant with research developments, new collection types, such as frozen tissue collections, requiring new collecting and preservation techniques are added to the existing holdings.
Despite the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, the Field Museum is estimated to hold more than 1000 Native American remains that have not been repatriated.
Collection records
Collection management requires meticulous record keeping. Handwritten ledgers captured specimen and artifact data in the past. Field Museum was an early adopter of computerization of collection data beginning in the late 1970s. Field Museum contributes its digitized collection data to a variety of online groups and platforms, such as: HerpNet, VertNet and Antweb, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (also known as GBif), and others. All Field Museum collection databases are unified and currently maintained in KE EMu software system. The research value of digitized specimen data and georeferenced locality data is widely acknowledged, enabling analyses of distribution shifts due to climate changes, land use changes and others.
Collection use
During the World's Columbian Exposition, all acquired specimens and objects were on display; the purpose of the World's Fair was exhibition of these materials. For example, just after opening of the Columbian Museum of Chicago, the mollusk collection occupied one entire exhibit hall, displaying 3,000 species of mollusks on about . By 1910, 20,000 shell specimens were on display, with an additional 15,000 "in storage".
Only a small fraction of the specimens and artifacts are publicly displayed. The vast majority of specimens and artifacts are used by a wide range of people in the museum and around the world. Field Museum curatorial faculty and their graduate students and postdoctoral trainees use the collections in their research and in training e.g., in formal high school and undergraduate training programs. Researchers from all over the world can search online for particular specimens and request to borrow them, which are shipped routinely under defined and published loan policies, to ensure that the specimens remain in good condition. For example, in 2012, Field Museum's Zoology collection processed 419 specimen loans, shipping over 42,000 specimens to researchers, per its Annual Report.
The collection specimens are an important cornerstone of research infrastructure in that each specimen can be re-examined and with the advancement of analytic techniques, new data can be gleaned from specimens that may have been collected more than 150 years ago.
Library
The library at the Field Museum was organized in 1893 for the museum's scientific staff, visiting researchers, students, and members of the general public as a resource for research, exhibition development and educational programs. The 275,000 volumes of the Main Research Collections concentrate on biological systematics, environmental and evolutionary biology, anthropology, botany, geology, archaeology, museology and related subjects. The Field Museum Library includes the following collections:
Ayer collection
This private collection of Edward E. Ayer, the first president of the museum, contains virtually all the important works in the history of ornithology and is especially rich in color-illustrated works.
Laufer Collection
The working collection of Dr. Berthold Laufer, America's first sinologist and Curator of Anthropology until his death in 1934 consists of about 7,000 volumes in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and numerous Western languages on anthropology, archaeology, religion, science, and travel.
Photo archives
The photo archives contain over 250,000 images in the areas of anthropology, botany, geology and zoology and documents the history and architecture of the museum, its exhibitions, staff and scientific expeditions. In 2008 two collections from the Photo Archives became available via the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA): The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and Urban Landscapes of Illinois. In April 2009, the Photo Archives became part of Flickr Commons.
Karl P. Schmidt Memorial Herpetological Library
The Karl P. Schmidt Memorial Herpetological Library, named for Karl Patterson Schmidt is a research library containing over 2,000 herpetological books and an extensive reprint collection.
John James Audubon's Birds of North America
The Field Museum's Double Elephant folio of Audubon's The Birds of America is one of only two known copies that were arranged in taxonomic order. Additionally, it contains all 13 composite plates. The Field's copy belonged to Audubon's family physician Dr. Benjamin Phillips.
Education and research
The Field Museum offers opportunities for informal and more structured public learning. Exhibitions remain the primary means of informal education, but throughout its history the Museum has supplemented this approach with innovative educational programs. The Harris Loan Program, for example, begun in 1912, reaches out to children in Chicago area schools, offering artifacts, specimens, audiovisual materials, and activity kits. The Department of Education, begun in 1922, offers classes, lectures, field trips, museum overnights and special events for families, adults and children. The Field has adopted production of the YouTube channel The Brain Scoop, hiring its host Emily Graslie full-time as 'Chief Curiosity Correspondent'.
The Museum's curatorial and scientific staff in the departments of Anthropology, Botany, Geology, and Zoology conducts basic research in systematic biology and anthropology, besides its responsibility for collections management, and educational programs. It has long maintained close links, including joint teaching, students, seminars, with the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Professional symposia and lectures, like the annual A. Watson Armour III Spring Symposium, present scientific results to the international scientific community and the public at large.
Academic publication
The museum publishes four peer-reviewed monograph series issued under the collective title Fieldiana, devoted to anthropology, botany, geology and zoology.
See also
Captain Marshall Field Expeditions
List of most-visited museums in the United States
List of museums and cultural institutions in Chicago
References
Bibliography
External links
The Field Museum at Google Cultural Institute
Field Museum photo archives
Museums in Chicago
Central Chicago
Natural history museums in Illinois
Dinosaur museums in the United States
Asian art museums in the United States
African art museums in the United States
Egyptological collections in the United States
Museums of ancient Rome in the United States
Paleontology in Illinois
Pre-Columbian art museums in the United States
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas%20exchange
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Gas exchange
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Gas exchange is the physical process by which gases move passively by diffusion across a surface. For example, this surface might be the air/water interface of a water body, the surface of a gas bubble in a liquid, a gas-permeable membrane, or a biological membrane that forms the boundary between an organism and its extracellular environment.
Gases are constantly consumed and produced by cellular and metabolic reactions in most living things, so an efficient system for gas exchange between, ultimately, the interior of the cell(s) and the external environment is required. Small, particularly unicellular organisms, such as bacteria and protozoa, have a high surface-area to volume ratio. In these creatures the gas exchange membrane is typically the cell membrane. Some small multicellular organisms, such as flatworms, are also able to perform sufficient gas exchange across the skin or cuticle that surrounds their bodies. However, in most larger organisms, which have small surface-area to volume ratios, specialised structures with convoluted surfaces such as gills, pulmonary alveoli and spongy mesophylls provide the large area needed for effective gas exchange. These convoluted surfaces may sometimes be internalised into the body of the organism. This is the case with the alveoli, which form the inner surface of the mammalian lung, the spongy mesophyll, which is found inside the leaves of some kinds of plant, or the gills of those molluscs that have them, which are found in the mantle cavity.
In aerobic organisms, gas exchange is particularly important for respiration, which involves the uptake of oxygen () and release of carbon dioxide (). Conversely, in oxygenic photosynthetic organisms such as most land plants, uptake of carbon dioxide and release of both oxygen and water vapour are the main gas-exchange processes occurring during the day. Other gas-exchange processes are important in less familiar organisms: e.g. carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen are exchanged across the cell membrane of methanogenic archaea. In nitrogen fixation by diazotrophic bacteria, and denitrification by heterotrophic bacteria (such as Paracoccus denitrificans and various pseudomonads), nitrogen gas is exchanged with the environment, being taken up by the former and released into it by the latter, while giant tube worms rely on bacteria to oxidize hydrogen sulfide extracted from their deep sea environment, using dissolved oxygen in the water as an electron acceptor.
Diffusion only takes place with a concentration gradient. Gases will flow from a high concentration to a low concentration.
A high oxygen concentration in the alveoli and low oxygen concentration in the capillaries causes oxygen to move into the capillaries.
A high carbon dioxide concentration in the capillaries and low carbon dioxide concentration in the alveoli causes carbon dioxide to move into the alveoli.
Physical principles of gas-exchange
Diffusion and surface area
The exchange of gases occurs as a result of diffusion down a concentration gradient. Gas molecules move from a region in which they are at high concentration to one in which they are at low concentration. Diffusion is a passive process, meaning that no energy is required to power the transport, and it follows Fick's Law:
In relation to a typical biological system, where two compartments ('inside' and 'outside'), are separated by a membrane barrier, and where a gas is allowed to spontaneously diffuse down its concentration gradient:
J is the flux, the amount of gas diffusing per unit area of membrane per unit time. Note that this is already scaled for the area of the membrane.
D is the diffusion coefficient, which will differ from gas to gas, and from membrane to membrane, according to the size of the gas molecule in question, and the nature of the membrane itself (particularly its viscosity, temperature and hydrophobicity).
φ is the concentration of the gas.
x is the position across the thickness of the membrane.
dφ/dx is therefore the concentration gradient across the membrane. If the two compartments are individually well-mixed, then this is simplifies to the difference in concentration of the gas between the inside and outside compartments divided by the thickness of the membrane.
The negative sign indicates that the diffusion is always in the direction that - over time - will destroy the concentration gradient, i.e. the gas moves from high concentration to low concentration until eventually the inside and outside compartments reach equilibrium.
Gases must first dissolve in a liquid in order to diffuse across a membrane, so all biological gas exchange systems require a moist environment. In general, the higher the concentration gradient across the gas-exchanging surface, the faster the rate of diffusion across it. Conversely, the thinner the gas-exchanging surface (for the same concentration difference), the faster the gases will diffuse across it.
In the equation above, J is the flux expressed per unit area, so increasing the area will make no difference to its value. However, an increase in the available surface area, will increase the amount of gas that can diffuse in a given time. This is because the amount of gas diffusing per unit time (dq/dt) is the product of J and the area of the gas-exchanging surface, A:
Single-celled organisms such as bacteria and amoebae do not have specialised gas exchange surfaces, because they can take advantage of the high surface area they have relative to their volume. The amount of gas an organism produces (or requires) in a given time will be in rough proportion to the volume of its cytoplasm. The volume of a unicellular organism is very small, therefore it produces (and requires) a relatively small amount of gas in a given time. In comparison to this small volume, the surface area of its cell membrane is very large, and adequate for its gas-exchange needs without further modification. However, as an organism increases in size, its surface area and volume do not scale in the same way. Consider an imaginary organism that is a cube of side-length, L. Its volume increases with the cube (L3) of its length, but its external surface area increases only with the square (L2) of its length. This means the external surface rapidly becomes inadequate for the rapidly increasing gas-exchange needs of a larger volume of cytoplasm. Additionally, the thickness of the surface that gases must cross (dx in Fick's Law) can also be larger in larger organisms: in the case of a single-celled organism, a typical cell membrane is only 10 nm thick; but in larger organisms such as roundworms (Nematoda) the equivalent exchange surface - the cuticle - is substantially thicker at 0.5 μm.
Interaction with circulatory systems
In multicellular organisms therefore, specialised respiratory organs such as gills or lungs are often used to provide the additional surface area for the required rate of gas exchange with the external environment. However the distances between the gas exchanger and the deeper tissues are often too great for diffusion to meet gaseous requirements of these tissues. The gas exchangers are therefore frequently coupled to gas-distributing circulatory systems, which transport the gases evenly to all the body tissues regardless of their distance from the gas exchanger.
Some multicellular organisms such as flatworms (Platyhelminthes) are relatively large but very thin, allowing their outer body surface to act as a gas exchange surface without the need for a specialised gas exchange organ. Flatworms therefore lack gills or lungs, and also lack a circulatory system. Other multicellular organisms such as sponges (Porifera) have an inherently high surface area, because they are very porous and/or branched. Sponges do not require a circulatory system or specialised gas exchange organs, because their feeding strategy involves one-way pumping of water through their porous bodies using flagellated collar cells. Each cell of the sponge's body is therefore exposed to a constant flow of fresh oxygenated water. They can therefore rely on diffusion across their cell membranes to carry out the gas exchange needed for respiration.
In organisms that have circulatory systems associated with their specialized gas-exchange surfaces, a great variety of systems are used for the interaction between the two.
In a countercurrent flow system, air (or, more usually, the water containing dissolved air) is drawn in the opposite direction to the flow of blood in the gas exchanger. A countercurrent system such as this maintains a steep concentration gradient along the length of the gas-exchange surface (see lower diagram in Fig. 2). This is the situation seen in the gills of fish and many other aquatic creatures. The gas-containing environmental water is drawn unidirectionally across the gas-exchange surface, with the blood-flow in the gill capillaries beneath flowing in the opposite direction. Although this theoretically allows almost complete transfer of a respiratory gas from one side of the exchanger to the other, in fish less than 80% of the oxygen in the water flowing over the gills is generally transferred to the blood.
Alternative arrangements are cross current systems found in birds. and dead-end air-filled sac systems found in the lungs of mammals. In a cocurrent flow system, the blood and gas (or the fluid containing the gas) move in the same direction through the gas exchanger. This means the magnitude of the gradient is variable along the length of the gas-exchange surface, and the exchange will eventually stop when an equilibrium has been reached (see upper diagram in Fig. 2).
Cocurrent flow gas exchange systems are not known to be used in nature.
Mammals
The gas exchanger in mammals is internalized to form lungs, as it is in most of the larger land animals. Gas exchange occurs in microscopic dead-end air-filled sacs called alveoli, where a very thin membrane (called the blood-air barrier) separates the blood in the alveolar capillaries (in the walls of the alveoli) from the alveolar air in the sacs.
Exchange membrane
The membrane across which gas exchange takes place in the alveoli (i.e. the blood-air barrier) is extremely thin (in humans, on average, 2.2 μm thick). It consists of the alveolar epithelial cells, their basement membranes and the endothelial cells of the pulmonary capillaries (Fig. 4). The large surface area of the membrane comes from the folding of the membrane into about 300 million alveoli, with diameters of approximately 75-300 μm each. This provides an extremely large surface area (approximately 145 m2) across which gas exchange can occur.
Alveolar air
Air is brought to the alveoli in small doses (called the tidal volume), by breathing in (inhalation) and out (exhalation) through the respiratory airways, a set of relatively narrow and moderately long tubes which start at the nose or mouth and end in the alveoli of the lungs in the chest. Air moves in and out through the same set of tubes, in which the flow is in one direction during inhalation, and in the opposite direction during exhalation.
During each inhalation, at rest, approximately 500 ml of fresh air flows in through the nose. It is warmed and moistened as it flows through the nose and pharynx. By the time it reaches the trachea the inhaled air's temperature is 37 °C and it is saturated with water vapor. On arrival in the alveoli it is diluted and thoroughly mixed with the approximately 2.5–3.0 liters of air that remained in the alveoli after the last exhalation. This relatively large volume of air that is semi-permanently present in the alveoli throughout the breathing cycle is known as the functional residual capacity (FRC).
At the beginning of inhalation the airways are filled with unchanged alveolar air, left over from the last exhalation. This is the dead space volume, which is usually about 150 ml. It is the first air to re-enter the alveoli during inhalation. Only after the dead space air has returned to the alveoli does the remainder of the tidal volume (500 ml - 150 ml = 350 ml) enter the alveoli. The entry of such a small volume of fresh air with each inhalation, ensures that the composition of the FRC hardly changes during the breathing cycle (Fig. 5). The alveolar partial pressure of oxygen remains very close to 13–14 kPa (100 mmHg), and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide varies minimally around 5.3 kPa (40 mmHg) throughout the breathing cycle (of inhalation and exhalation). The corresponding partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the ambient (dry) air at sea level are 21 kPa (160 mmHg) and 0.04 kPa (0.3 mmHg) respectively.
This alveolar air, which constitutes the FRC, completely surrounds the blood in the alveolar capillaries (Fig. 6). Gas exchange in mammals occurs between this alveolar air (which differs significantly from fresh air) and the blood in the alveolar capillaries. The gases on either side of the gas exchange membrane equilibrate by simple diffusion. This ensures that the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood leaving the alveolar capillaries, and ultimately circulates throughout the body, are the same as those in the FRC.
The marked difference between the composition of the alveolar air and that of the ambient air can be maintained because the functional residual capacity is contained in dead-end sacs connected to the outside air by long, narrow, tubes (the airways: nose, pharynx, larynx, trachea, bronchi and their branches and sub-branches down to the bronchioles). This anatomy, and the fact that the lungs are not emptied and re-inflated with each breath, provides mammals with a "portable atmosphere", whose composition differs significantly from the present-day ambient air.
The composition of the air in the FRC is carefully monitored, by measuring the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the arterial blood. If either gas pressure deviates from normal, reflexes are elicited that change the rate and depth of breathing in such a way that normality is restored within seconds or minutes.
Pulmonary circulation
All the blood returning from the body tissues to the right side of the heart flows through the alveolar capillaries before being pumped around the body again. On its passage through the lungs the blood comes into close contact with the alveolar air, separated from it by a very thin diffusion membrane which is only, on average, about 2 μm thick. The gas pressures in the blood will therefore rapidly equilibrate with those in the alveoli, ensuring that the arterial blood that circulates to all the tissues throughout the body has an oxygen tension of 13−14 kPa (100 mmHg), and a carbon dioxide tension of 5.3 kPa (40 mmHg). These arterial partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide are homeostatically controlled. A rise in the arterial , and, to a lesser extent, a fall in the arterial , will reflexly cause deeper and faster breathing until the blood gas tensions return to normal. The converse happens when the carbon dioxide tension falls, or, again to a lesser extent, the oxygen tension rises: the rate and depth of breathing are reduced until blood gas normality is restored.
Since the blood arriving in the alveolar capillaries has a of, on average, 6 kPa (45 mmHg), while the pressure in the alveolar air is 13 kPa (100 mmHg), there will be a net diffusion of oxygen into the capillary blood, changing the composition of the 3 liters of alveolar air slightly. Similarly, since the blood arriving in the alveolar capillaries has a of also about 6 kPa (45 mmHg), whereas that of the alveolar air is 5.3 kPa (40 mmHg), there is a net movement of carbon dioxide out of the capillaries into the alveoli. The changes brought about by these net flows of individual gases into and out of the functional residual capacity necessitate the replacement of about 15% of the alveolar air with ambient air every 5 seconds or so. This is very tightly controlled by the continuous monitoring of the arterial blood gas tensions (which accurately reflect partial pressures of the respiratory gases in the alveolar air) by the aortic bodies, the carotid bodies, and the blood gas and pH sensor on the anterior surface of the medulla oblongata in the brain. There are also oxygen and carbon dioxide sensors in the lungs, but they primarily determine the diameters of the bronchioles and pulmonary capillaries, and are therefore responsible for directing the flow of air and blood to different parts of the lungs.
It is only as a result of accurately maintaining the composition of the 3 liters alveolar air that with each breath some carbon dioxide is discharged into the atmosphere and some oxygen is taken up from the outside air. If more carbon dioxide than usual has been lost by a short period of hyperventilation, respiration will be slowed down or halted until the alveolar has returned to 5.3 kPa (40 mmHg). It is therefore strictly speaking untrue that the primary function of the respiratory system is to rid the body of carbon dioxide "waste". In fact the total concentration of carbon dioxide in arterial blood is about 26 mM (or 58 ml per 100 ml), compared to the concentration of oxygen in saturated arterial blood of about 9 mM (or 20 ml per 100 ml blood). This large concentration of carbon dioxide plays a pivotal role in the determination and maintenance of the pH of the extracellular fluids. The carbon dioxide that is breathed out with each breath could probably be more correctly be seen as a byproduct of the body's extracellular fluid carbon dioxide and pH homeostats
If these homeostats are compromised, then a respiratory acidosis, or a respiratory alkalosis will occur. In the long run these can be compensated by renal adjustments to the H+ and HCO3− concentrations in the plasma; but since this takes time, the hyperventilation syndrome can, for instance, occur when agitation or anxiety cause a person to breathe fast and deeply thus blowing off too much CO2 from the blood into the outside air, precipitating a set of distressing symptoms which result from an excessively high pH of the extracellular fluids.
Oxygen has a very low solubility in water, and is therefore carried in the blood loosely combined with hemoglobin. The oxygen is held on the hemoglobin by four ferrous iron-containing heme groups per hemoglobin molecule. When all the heme groups carry one O2 molecule each the blood is said to be "saturated" with oxygen, and no further increase in the partial pressure of oxygen will meaningfully increase the oxygen concentration of the blood. Most of the carbon dioxide in the blood is carried as HCO3− ions in the plasma. However the conversion of dissolved CO2 into HCO3− (through the addition of water) is too slow for the rate at which the blood circulates through the tissues on the one hand, and alveolar capillaries on the other. The reaction is therefore catalyzed by carbonic anhydrase, an enzyme inside the red blood cells. The reaction can go in either direction depending on the prevailing partial pressure of carbon dioxide. A small amount of carbon dioxide is carried on the protein portion of the hemoglobin molecules as carbamino groups. The total concentration of carbon dioxide (in the form of bicarbonate ions, dissolved CO2, and carbamino groups) in arterial blood (i.e. after it has equilibrated with the alveolar air) is about 26 mM (or 58 ml/100 ml), compared to the concentration of oxygen in saturated arterial blood of about 9 mM (or 20 ml/100 ml blood).
Other vertebrates
Fish
The dissolved oxygen content in fresh water is approximately 8–10 milliliters per liter compared to that of air which is 210 milliliters per liter. Water is 800 times more dense than air and 100 times more viscous. Therefore, oxygen has a diffusion rate in air 10,000 times greater than in water. The use of sac-like lungs to remove oxygen from water would therefore not be efficient enough to sustain life. Rather than using lungs, gaseous exchange takes place across the surface of highly vascularized gills. Gills are specialised organs containing filaments, which further divide into lamellae. The lamellae contain capillaries that provide a large surface area and short diffusion distances, as their walls are extremely thin. Gill rakers are found within the exchange system in order to filter out food, and keep the gills clean.
Gills use a countercurrent flow system that increases the efficiency of oxygen-uptake (and waste gas loss). Oxygenated water is drawn in through the mouth and passes over the gills in one direction while blood flows through the lamellae in the opposite direction. This countercurrent maintains steep concentration gradients along the entire length of each capillary (see the diagram in the "Interaction with circulatory systems" section above). Oxygen is able to continually diffuse down its gradient into the blood, and the carbon dioxide down its gradient into the water. The deoxygenated water will eventually pass out through the operculum (gill cover). Although countercurrent exchange systems theoretically allow an almost complete transfer of a respiratory gas from one side of the exchanger to the other, in fish less than 80% of the oxygen in the water flowing over the gills is generally transferred to the blood.
Amphibians
Amphibians have three main organs involved in gas exchange: the lungs, the skin, and the gills, which can be used singly or in a variety of different combinations. The relative importance of these structures differs according to the age, the environment and species of the amphibian. The skin of amphibians and their larvae is highly vascularised, leading to relatively efficient gas exchange when the skin is moist. The larvae of amphibians, such as the pre-metamorphosis tadpole stage of frogs, also have external gills. The gills are absorbed into the body during metamorphosis, after which the lungs will then take over. The lungs are usually simpler than in the other land vertebrates, with few internal septa and larger alveoli; however, toads, which spend more time on land, have a larger alveolar surface with more developed lungs. To increase the rate of gas exchange by diffusion, amphibians maintain the concentration gradient across the respiratory surface using a process called buccal pumping. The lower floor of the mouth is moved in a "pumping" manner, which can be observed by the naked eye.
Reptiles
All reptiles breathe using lungs. In squamates (the lizards and snakes) ventilation is driven by the axial musculature, but this musculature is also used during movement, so some squamates rely on buccal pumping to maintain gas exchange efficiency.
Due to the rigidity of turtle and tortoise shells, significant expansion and contraction of the chest is difficult. Turtles and tortoises depend on muscle layers attached to their shells, which wrap around their lungs to fill and empty them. Some aquatic turtles can also pump water into a highly vascularised mouth or cloaca to achieve gas-exchange.
Crocodiles have a structure similar to the mammalian diaphragm - the diaphragmaticus - but this muscle helps create a unidirectional flow of air through the lungs rather than a tidal flow: this is more similar to the air-flow seen in birds than that seen in mammals. During inhalation, the diaphragmaticus pulls the liver back, inflating the lungs into the space this creates. Air flows into the lungs from the bronchus during inhalation, but during exhalation, air flows out of the lungs into the bronchus by a different route: this one-way movement of gas is achieved by aerodynamic valves in the airways.
Birds
Birds have lungs but no diaphragm. They rely mostly on air sacs for ventilation. These air sacs do not play a direct role in gas exchange, but help to move air unidirectionally across the gas exchange surfaces in the lungs. During inhalation, fresh air is taken from the trachea down into the posterior air sacs and into the parabronchi which lead from the posterior air sacs into the lung. The air that enters the lungs joins the air which is already in the lungs, and is drawn forward across the gas exchanger into anterior air sacs. During exhalation, the posterior air sacs force air into the same parabronchi of the lungs, flowing in the same direction as during inhalation, allowing continuous gas exchange irrespective of the breathing cycle. Air exiting the lungs during exhalation joins the air being expelled from the anterior air sacs (both consisting of "spent air" that has passed through the gas exchanger) entering the trachea to be exhaled (Fig. 10). Selective bronchoconstriction at the various bronchial branch points ensures that the air does not ebb and flow through the bronchi during inhalation and exhalation, as it does in mammals, but follows the paths described above.
The unidirectional airflow through the parabronchi exchanges respiratory gases with a crosscurrent blood flow (Fig. 9). The partial pressure of O2 () in the parabronchioles declines along their length as O2 diffuses into the blood. The capillaries leaving the exchanger near the entrance of airflow take up more O2 than capillaries leaving near the exit end of the parabronchi. When the contents of all capillaries mix, the final of the mixed pulmonary venous blood is higher than that of the exhaled air, but lower than that of the inhaled air.
Plants
Gas exchange in plants is dominated by the roles of carbon dioxide, oxygen and water vapor. is the only carbon source for autotrophic growth by photosynthesis, and when a plant is actively photosynthesising in the light, it will be taking up carbon dioxide, and losing water vapor and oxygen. At night, plants respire, and gas exchange partly reverses: water vapor is still lost (but to a smaller extent), but oxygen is now taken up and carbon dioxide released.
Plant gas exchange occurs mostly through the leaves. Gas exchange between a leaf and the atmosphere occurs simultaneously through two pathways: 1) epidermal cells and cuticular waxes (usually referred as 'cuticle') which are always present at each leaf surface, and 2) stomata, which typically control the majority of the exchange. Gases enter into the photosynthetic tissue of the leaf through dissolution onto the moist surface of the palisade and spongy mesophyll cells. The spongy mesophyll cells are loosely packed, allowing for an increased surface area, and consequently an increased rate of gas-exchange. Uptake of carbon dioxide necessarily results in some loss of water vapor, because both molecules enter and leave by the same stomata, so plants experience a gas exchange dilemma: gaining enough without losing too much water. Therefore, water loss from other parts of the leaf is minimised by the waxy cuticle on the leaf's epidermis. The size of a stoma is regulated by the opening and closing of its two guard cells: the turgidity of these cells determines the state of the stomatal opening, and this itself is regulated by water stress. Plants showing crassulacean acid metabolism are drought-tolerant xerophytes and perform almost all their gas-exchange at night, because it is only during the night that these plants open their stomata. By opening the stomata only at night, the water vapor loss associated with carbon dioxide uptake is minimised. However, this comes at the cost of slow growth: the plant has to store the carbon dioxide in the form of malic acid for use during the day, and it cannot store unlimited amounts.
Gas exchange measurements are important tools in plant science: this typically involves sealing the plant (or part of a plant) in a chamber and measuring changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide and water vapour with an infrared gas analyzer. If the environmental conditions (humidity, concentration, light and temperature) are fully controlled, the measurements of uptake and water release reveal important information about the assimilation and transpiration rates. The intercellular concentration reveals important information about the photosynthetic condition of the plants. Simpler methods can be used in specific circumstances: hydrogencarbonate indicator can be used to monitor the consumption of in a solution containing a single plant leaf at different levels of light intensity, and oxygen generation by the pondweed Elodea can be measured by simply collecting the gas in a submerged test-tube containing a small piece of the plant.
Invertebrates
The mechanism of gas exchange in invertebrates depends their size, feeding strategy, and habitat (aquatic or terrestrial).
The sponges (Porifera) are sessile creatures, meaning they are unable to move on their own and normally remain attached to their substrate. They obtain nutrients through the flow of water across their cells, and they exchange gases by simple diffusion across their cell membranes. Pores called ostia draw water into the sponge and the water is subsequently circulated through the sponge by cells called choanocytes which have hair-like structures that move the water through the sponge.
The cnidarians include corals, sea anemones, jellyfish and hydras. These animals are always found in aquatic environments, ranging from fresh water to salt water. They do not have any dedicated respiratory organs; instead, every cell in their body can absorb oxygen from the surrounding water, and release waste gases to it. One key disadvantage of this feature is that cnidarians can die in environments where water is stagnant, as they deplete the water of its oxygen supply. Corals often form symbiosis with other organisms, particularly photosynthetic dinoflagellates. In this symbiosis, the coral provides shelter and the other organism provides nutrients to the coral, including oxygen.
The roundworms (Nematoda), flatworms (Platyhelminthes), and many other small invertebrate animals living in aquatic or otherwise wet habitats do not have a dedicated gas-exchange surface or circulatory system. They instead rely on diffusion of and directly across their cuticle. The cuticle is the semi-permeable outermost layer of their bodies.
Other aquatic invertebrates such as most molluscs (Mollusca) and larger crustaceans (Crustacea) such as lobsters, have gills analogous to those of fish, which operate in a similar way.
Unlike the invertebrates groups mentioned so far, insects are usually terrestrial, and exchange gases across a moist surface in direct contact with the atmosphere, rather than in contact with surrounding water. The insect's exoskeleton is impermeable to gases, including water vapor, so they have a more specialised gas exchange system, requiring gases to be directly transported to the tissues via a complex network of tubes. This respiratory system is separated from their circulatory system. Gases enter and leave the body through openings called spiracles, located laterally along the thorax and abdomen. Similar to plants, insects are able to control the opening and closing of these spiracles, but instead of relying on turgor pressure, they rely on muscle contractions. These contractions result in an insect's abdomen being pumped in and out. The spiracles are connected to tubes called tracheae, which branch repeatedly and ramify into the insect's body. These branches terminate in specialised tracheole cells which provides a thin, moist surface for efficient gas exchange, directly with cells.
The other main group of terrestrial arthropod, the arachnids (spiders, scorpion, mites, and their relatives) typically perform gas exchange with a book lung.
Summary of main gas exchange systems
See also
References
Biological processes
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter-bomber
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Fighter-bomber
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A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, whereas bombers and attack aircraft are developed specifically for bombing and attack roles.
Although still used, the term fighter-bomber has less significance since the introduction of rockets and guided missiles into aerial warfare. Modern aircraft with similar duties are now typically called multirole combat aircraft or strike fighters.
Development
Prior to World War II, general limitations in available engine and aeronautical technology required that each proposed military aircraft have its design tailored to a specific prescribed role. Engine power grew dramatically during the early period of the war, roughly doubling between 1939 and 1943. The Bristol Blenheim, a typical light bomber of the opening stages of the war, was originally designed in 1934 as a fast civil transport to meet a challenge by Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail. It had two Bristol Mercury XV radial engines of each, a crew of three, and its payload was just of bombs. The Blenheim suffered disastrous losses over France in 1939 when it encountered Messerschmitt Bf 109s, and light bombers were quickly withdrawn.
In contrast, the Vought F4U Corsair fighter—which entered service in December 1942—had in common with its eventual U.S. Navy stablemate, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the massive, seven-ton USAAF Republic P-47 Thunderbolt—a single Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine of in a much smaller, simpler and less expensive single-seat aircraft, and was the first aircraft design to ever fly with the Double Wasp engine in May 1940. With less airframe and crew to lift, the Corsair's ordnance load was either four High Velocity Aircraft Rockets or of bombs; a later version could carry eight rockets or of bombs. The massive, powerful 18-cylinder Double Wasp engine weighed almost a ton—half as much again as the V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin and twice as much as the 9-cylinder Bristol Mercury that powered some heavy fighters.
Increased engine power meant that many existing fighter designs could carry useful bomb loads, and adapt to the fighter-bomber role. Notable examples include the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Hawker Typhoon and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Various bombing tactics and techniques could also be used: some designs were intended for high-level bombing, others for the low-level semi-horizontal bombing, or even for low-level steep dive bombing as exemplified by the Blackburn Skua and North American A-36 Apache.
Larger twin-engined aircraft were also used in the fighter-bomber role, especially where longer ranges were needed for naval strikes. Examples include the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, the Bristol Beaufighter (developed from a torpedo bomber), and de Havilland Mosquito (developed from an unarmed fast bomber). The Beaufighter MkV had a Boulton-Paul turret with four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns mounted aft of the cockpit but only two were built. Bristol's Blenheim was even pushed into service as a fighter during the Battle of Britain but it was not fast enough. Equipped with an early Airborne Interception (AI) radar set, however, it proved to be an effective night fighter.
First World War
The first single-seat fighters to drop bombs were on the Western Front, when fighter patrols were issued with bombs and ordered to drop them at random if they met no German fighters. The Sopwith Camel, the most successful Allied aircraft of the First World War with 1,294 enemy aircraft downed, was losing its edge by 1918, especially over . During the final German offensive in March 1918, it dropped Cooper bombs on advancing columns: whilst puny by later standards, the four fragmentation bombs carried by a Camel could cause serious injuries to exposed troops. Pilot casualties were also high. The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5. was used in the same role.
The Royal Flying Corps received the first purpose-built fighter-bomber just as the war was ending. It was not called a fighter bomber at the time, but a Trench Fighter as that was what it was designed to attack. The Sopwith Salamander was based on the Sopwith Snipe fighter but had armour plating in the nose to protect the pilot and fuel system from ground fire. Originally it was intended to have two machine guns jutting through the cockpit floor so as to spray trenches with bullets as it passed low overhead. But this did not work and it was fitted with four Cooper bombs, instead. It was ordered in very large numbers, but most were canceled after the Armistice.
In February and April 1918 the Royal Flying Corps conducted bombing tests at Orfordness, Suffolk dropping dummy bombs at various dive angles at a flag stuck into a shingle beach. Both WW1 fighter bombers were used with novice and experienced pilots. The best results were achieved with a vertical dive into the wind using the Aldis Sight to align the aircraft. But they were not considered good enough to justify the expected casualty rate.
Second World War
When war broke out in Europe, Western Allied Air Forces employed light twin-engined bombers in the tactical role for low-level attacks. These were found to be extremely vulnerable both to ground fire and to single-engine fighters. The German and Japanese Air Forces had chosen dive bombers which were similarly vulnerable. The Ilyushin Il-2 is a heavily armoured two-seat single-engine ground-attack aircraft. It first flew a month later although few had reached the Soviet Air Force in time for Operation Barbarossa. Naval forces chose both torpedo and dive bombers. None of these could be considered as fighter bombers as they could not combat fighters.
Germany
During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe conducted fighter-bomber attacks on the United Kingdom from September to December 1940. A larger fighter-bomber campaign was conducted against the UK from March 1942 until June 1943. These operations were successful in tying down Allied resources at a relatively low cost to the Luftwaffe, but the British Government regarded the campaign as a nuisance given the small scale of the individual raids.
In August 1941, RAF pilots reported encountering a very fast radial engine fighter over France. First thought to be captured French Curtiss 75 Mohawks, they turned out to be Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, slightly faster and more heavily armed than the current Spitfire V. Kurt Tank had designed the aircraft when the Spitfire and Bf 109 were the fastest fighters flying; he called them racehorses, fast but fragile. As a former World War I cavalryman, Tank chose to design a warhorse. With a BMW 801 radial engine, wide-set undercarriage, and two 20mm cannons as well as machine guns it became a better fighter-bomber than either of the pure fighters.
By mid-1942, the first of these "Jagdbombers" (literally "fighter" or "hunter" bomber, known for short as "Jabos") was operating over Kent. On October 31, 60 Fw 190s bombed Canterbury with only one aircraft lost, killing 32 civilians and injuring 116, in the largest raid since the Blitz. Flying at sea level, under the radar, these raids were hard to intercept. The Jabos reached the Eastern Front in time to bomb Russian positions in Stalingrad. By July 1943 Fw 190s were replacing the vulnerable Stukas over the Battle of Kursk: although winning the air war, they were unable to prevent subsequent Red Army advances.
On New Year's Day 1945 in Operation Bodenplatte, over 1,000 aircraft (including more than 600 Fw 190s) launched a last-ditch attempt to destroy Allied planes on the ground in support of the Battle of the Bulge. Allied fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber losses were downplayed, at the time. Seventeen airfields were targeted, of which seven lost many aircraft. The surprise was complete as the few Ultra intercepts had not been understood. At the worst hit, the Canadian base at Eindhoven, 26 Typhoons and 6 Spitfires were destroyed and another 30 Typhoons damaged. In total, 305 aircraft, mostly fighters, and fighter-bombers were destroyed and another 190 damaged. The Luftwaffe lost 143 pilots killed, 71 captured and 20 wounded, making the worst one-day loss in its history; it never recovered.
United Kingdom
The Bristol Blenheim and Douglas A-20 Havoc (which the RAF called Boston) were used as night fighters during the Blitz, as they could carry the heavy early airborne radars.
The Hawker Henley, a two-seat version of the Battle of Britain-winning Hawker Hurricane, was designed as a dive bomber. It might have proved to be a capable fighter-bomber but overheating of its Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in this installation led to its relegation to a target tug role, where it could match the speed of the German bombers whilst towing a drone.
In 1934, the British Air Ministry called for a carrier aircraft that could combine the roles of the dive bomber and fighter, to save limited space on small carriers. The Blackburn Skua was not expected to encounter land-based fighters but was to intercept long-range bombers attacking the fleet and also to sink ships. As a two-seater, it could not fight the Messerschmitt Bf 109 on equal terms. But the second seat carried a radio operator with a homing device that could find the carrier even when it had moved, in foul North Sea weather. It achieved one of the first kills of the war, when three from HMS Ark Royal downed a German Dornier Do 18 flying boat over the North Sea.
On April 10, 1940, 16 Skuas operating from RNAS Hatston in Orkney under Commander William Lucy sank the German cruiser Königsberg which was tied to a mole in Bergen harbour. The Germans recorded five hits or near misses and as the ship started to sink, electric power failed, dooming the ship. The German cruiser Köln had departed during the night.
With the failing of the Hawker Henley and the gradual fading of the Hawker Hurricane's performance compared to the latest German fighters, it was modified to carry four 20mm cannon and two bombs; once bombs were jettisoned the aircraft could put up a reasonable fight. Inevitably the type became known in the RAF as the “Hurribomber”, reaching squadrons in June 1941.
It was soon found that it was hardly possible to hit fast-moving Panzers in the Western Desert, with bombs and cannon fire-making little impact on their armour. Daylight bombing raids were made on the French and Belgian coasts, targeting mostly oil and gas works. Losses were heavy, often more than the numbers of enemy fighters destroyed. By May 1942 Hurricane IICs with drop tanks were intruding at night over France. On the night of May 4–5, Czech pilot Karel Kuttelwascher flying from RAF Tangmere with No 1 Squadron shot down three Dornier Do 17s as they slowed to land at Saint-André-de-Bohon after raiding England.
On September 25, 1942, the Gestapo HQ in Oslo was attacked by four de Havilland Mosquitoes, which had flown over the North Sea below by dead reckoning navigation from RAF Leuchars, Scotland, carrying four bombs each. The next day the RAF unveiled its new fast bomber. On December 31, 1944, the same aircraft was used against the same target, this time from RAF Peterhead in Scotland, flying high and diving onto the building. In February 1941 the Mosquito with two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and a streamlined wooden fuselage achieved , faster than the current Spitfire. It was used on all kinds of missions, including silencing Hermann Göring's Berlin Nazi anniversary broadcast on January 20, 1943, leading him to tell Erhard Milch, Air Inspector General that “when I see the Mosquito I am yellow and green with envy. (The British) have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops.”
Initially used for high-level photo-reconnaissance, the Mosquito was adapted to precision bombing, night fighter, and fighter bomber roles. It was built in Canada and Australia as well as the UK. Fitted with a British Army Ordnance QF 6 pounder (57 mm) gun it could sink U-boats found on the surface. On April 9, 1945, three were sunk en route to Norway, and in the following month, Mosquitos sank two more.
The Hawker Typhoon was being designed as a replacement for the Hurricane in March 1937 before production had even started. The reason was to take advantage of the new engines then being planned, either the Napier Sabre or Rolls-Royce Vulture which required a larger airframe than the nimble Hurricane. At the prototype stage, there were problems with the new engines and stability of the aircraft itself, which led the Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook to decree that production must focus on Spitfires and Hurricanes.
The Typhoon disappointed as a fighter, especially at altitude but found its true niche as a fighter bomber from September 1942. It was fitted with racks to carry two and then two bombs. By September 1943 it was fitted with eight RP-3 rockets each with a warhead, equivalent to the power of a naval destroyer's broadside.
Claims of German tanks destroyed by rocket-armed Typhoons in Normandy after D-Day were exaggerated. In Operation Goodwood, the attempt by British and Canadian forces to surround Caen of 75 tanks recorded as lost by the Germans, only 10 were found to be due to rocket-firing Typhoons.
At Mortain, where the German counter-offensive Operation Lüttich came within of cutting through US forces to Avranches, Typhoons destroyed 9 of 46 tanks lost but were more effective against unarmoured vehicles and troops and cause the armoured vehicles to seek cover. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, said "The chief credit in smashing the enemy's spearhead, however, must go to the rocket-firing Typhoon aircraft of the Second Tactical Air Force. The result of the strafing was that the enemy attack was effectively brought to a halt, and a threat was turned into a great victory".
The disparity between claims and actual destruction at about 25-1 owed much to the difficulty of hitting a fast-moving tank with an unguided rocket, even from a stable aircraft like the Typhoon. But soft targets were simpler. When the 51st Highland Division moved to block German panzers reaching Antwerp in the Battle of the Bulge Tommy Macpherson saw a half-track full of SS soldiers. All were uninjured, powerful men over tall. All were dead, killed by the air blast from a Typhoon rocket.
The Bristol Beaufighter was a long-range twin-engine heavy fighter derived from the Bristol Beaufort torpedo bomber but with the Bristol Hercules radial engine to give it a top speed faster. By late 1942 the Beaufighter was also capable of carrying torpedoes or rockets. The main user was RAF Coastal Command although it was also used in the Royal Australian Air Force with some aircraft assembled in Australia and by the USAAF.
Over 30 Beaufighters flying from RAF Dallachy in Scotland from Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand squadrons attacked the German destroyer Z33 sheltering in Førde Fjord Norway. They were escorted by only 10 to 12 North American P-51 Mustangs. German destroyers escorted convoys of Swedish iron ore, which in winter were forced to creep along the Atlantic Coast by night, hiding deep inside fjords by day. Z33 was moored close to the vertical cliffside of the fjords so Beaufighters had to attack singly with rockets without the normal tactic of having simultaneous attacks by other Beaufighters firing cannon at the numerous flak gunners. Twelve Focke-Wulf Fw 190s surprised the Mustangs and Norway's biggest ever air battle was soon raging. Nine Beaufighters and one Mustang were lost as were five Fw 190s. The destroyer was damaged and February 9, 1945, became known as Black Friday.
Typhoons were involved in one of the worst tragedies at the end of the war when four squadrons attacked the luxury liners SS Deutschland and the SS Cap Arcona and two smaller ships SS Athen and SS Thielbek moored off Neustadt in Lübeck Bay The Cap Arcona had 4,500 concentration camp inmates and the Thielbek another 2,800 as well as SS Guards. The Deutschland had a Red Cross flag painted on at least one funnel. The previous day the Captain of the Cap Arcona refused to take any more inmates on board. On return to shore in longboats they were gunned down by Hitler Jugend, SS Guards and German Marines. Of an estimated 14,500 victims in the area two days earlier only 1,450 survived.
The Hawker Tempest was a development of the Typhoon using the thin wing with an aerofoil developed by NACA and a more powerful version of the Napier Sabre engine, giving a top speed of . At a low level, it was faster than any other Allied or German aircraft, but slower than the Spitfire above . Fitted with four 20mm cannon it was a formidable fighter, respected even by Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter pilots as their most dangerous opponent. At its debut over the Normandy Beaches on D-Day +2, Tempests shot down three German fighters, without loss. Tempests supported the ambitious attempt to capture the bridge at Arnhem in Operation Market Garden in mid-September 1944. David C. Fairbanks, an American who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force was the top Tempest ace with 12 victories including an Arado Ar 234 jet bomber.
United States
General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the United States Army Air Forces, urged the adoption of the Mosquito by the U.S. but was overruled by those who felt that the as yet untried Lockheed P-38 Lightning also twin-engined, could fulfill the same role. Although Lightning got its name from the RAF, the British eventually rejected it. Too slow and cumbersome to match Bf 109s as an escort fighter over Germany, it did fly over Normandy as a fighter bomber, where one tried skip-bombing a bomb through the door of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge's OB West HQ. A Lightning squadron also killed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto over Bougainville in the Pacific acting on an Ultra intercept.
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a larger, evolutionary development of the P-43/P-44 fighter undertaken after the United States Army Air Forces observed Messerschmitt Bf 109s performing in the Battle of Britain. It was a massive aircraft built around the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine and weighed up to eight tons with ordnance. The P-47 was twice as heavy and had four times the fuselage size of a Spitfire. Armed with eight .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns it could outshoot any enemy fighter, and as a fighter-bomber, it could carry half the bomb load of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or 10 five-inch (127 mm) High Velocity Aircraft Rockets.
The first pilots to fly the Thunderbolt from England were Americans who had been flying Spitfires in the RAF before the U.S. joined the war. They were not impressed initially; the Thunderbolt lost out to the more nimble Spitfire so consistently in mock dogfights that these encounters were eventually banned. But by November 25, 1943 Thunderbolts had found their true niche, attacking a Luftwaffe airfield at Saint-Omer near Calais, France. On October 13, 1944, a Thunderbolt from 9th Air Force damaged the German Torpedoboot Ausland 38 (formerly the Italian 750 ton torpedo boat Spada) so badly near Trieste with gunfire alone that the ship was scuttled.
The Vought F4U Corsair was built around the same Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine as the Thunderbolt, but for the U.S. Navy. Difficulties with carrier landings meant that the first aircraft were used by the United States Marine Corps from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal from February 12, 1943. In its first combat action, the following day over Kahili airfield two Corsairs and eight other aircraft were lost when attacked by 50 Mitsubishi A6M Zeros. This became known as the St Valentine's Day massacre. Despite this initiation the Corsair soon proved to be an effective fighter bomber, mostly flown by the Marine Corps, but also by the United States Navy, Fleet Air Arm and Royal New Zealand Air Force in the Pacific theater.
When the British Purchasing Commission invited James H. Kindelberger, President of North American Aviation, to assemble the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk in an underutilized plant, he promised a better fighter on the same timing. The resulting North American P-51 Mustang powered by a Packard-built Rolls-Royce Merlin engine became the outstanding long-range fighter of the war. When Lend-lease funding for the RAF Mustangs was exhausted, Kindleberger tried to interest the USAAC but no funds were available for a fighter; instead, the Mustang was fitted with dive brakes and emerged as the North American A-36 Apache, a dive bomber almost as fast as the Mustang itself. By April 1943 USAAF Apaches were in Morocco supporting Operation Torch, and they continued bombing trains and gun emplacements northwards through Italy.
Korean War
When Soviet-backed North Korea attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950, their forces quickly routed the South Korean army which lacked tanks, anti-tank and heavy artillery. Its Air Force had 22 planes, none of which were fighters, or jets. During a Soviet boycott of the United Nations, a vote was carried without Soviet veto, to intervene in support of the South. Most readily available were U.S. and British Commonwealth forces occupying Japan and the Pacific fleets. The first arrivals were fighter-bombers, which helped to repulse the Northern attack on the vital port of Pusan, the last small territory held by the South. Some strategists felt that air and battleship strikes alone could halt the invasion.
USAF North American F-82 Twin Mustangs had the range to reach the front line from Japanese bases. The last piston-engined aircraft, produced in the U.S., it looked like two Mustangs, with two pilots in separate fuselages, bolted together. Initially intended to escort bombers over Japan from remote Pacific island bases, hence its long-range, it missed WWII and first saw action in Korea. Plain North American P-51 Mustangs of the Royal Australian Air Force soon also flew across from Japan.
Vought F4U Corsairs and Hawker Sea Furys from U.S., British and Australian carriers in the Yellow Sea and later from Korean airfields, also attacked the Pusan perimeter. The Sea Fury, a development of the Hawker Tempest had a Bristol Centaurus engine of giving a top speed, one of the fastest piston-engined aircraft ever built. Initially, United Nations air forces using piston-engined fighter-bombers and straight wing jet fighters easily drove the North Koreans out of the sky and so disrupted logistics and hence the attack on Pusan.
All changed when the Soviet Air Force intervened with swept-wing Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s flown by Russian pilots on November 1. The planes had Korean markings and the pilots had been taught a few Korean words, in a thin sham that the USSR was not fighting. The MiG-15 used captured German swept wing technology and tools and British jet engines, 25 of which had been a gift from Stafford Cripps the president of the Board of Trade and were quickly copied. Josef Stalin remarked “What fool will sell us his secrets?” The MiG's Rolls-Royce Nene had thrust, twice as much as the jets of its main British and US opponents, which used the older Rolls-Royce Derwent design. Only the Navy Grumman F9F Panther used a version of the Nene and could match the MiG-15, accounting for seven during November.
Daylight heavy bomber raids over North Korea ceased and the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star and its all-weather variant the Lockheed F-94 Starfire were focused on bombing missions whilst the North American F-86 Sabre was rushed to Korea to combat the MiG-15s. There is much debate as to which was the better fighter. Recent research suggests a 13-10 advantage to the Sabre against Russian pilots, but the US pilots were mostly WWII veterans whilst the Russians were often “volunteers” with only a few hours aloft. The Australians converted from Mustangs to Gloster Meteor fighter-bombers, the first Allied jet fighter of WWII but no match for a MiG-15. It was pressed into combat but after four were lost when the squadron was bounced by 40 Mig-15s, reverted to ground attack, carrying 16 rockets. Although Meteors shot down 6 MiG-15s, 30 were lost, but mainly to ground fire. Both Corsairs and Sea Furies also shot down MiG-15s, but were vulnerable to the faster jet.
Post-war
Fighter-bombers became increasingly important in the 1950s and 1960s, as new jet engines dramatically improved the power of even the smallest fighter designs. Many aircraft initially designed as fighters or interceptors found themselves in the fighter-bomber role at some point in their career. Notable among these is the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, first designed as a high-performance day fighter and then adapted to the nuclear strike role for European use. Other U.S. examples include the North American F-100 Super Sabre and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, each of which was widely used during the Vietnam War.
See also
Dive bomber
Light bomber
Tactical bombing
Attack aircraft
Multirole combat aircraft
Strike fighter
References
Fighter aircraft
Attack aircraft
Bomber aircraft
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel%20Scott
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Rachel Scott
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Rachel Joy Scott (August 5, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was an American student who was the first fatality of the Columbine High School massacre, in which 11 other students and a teacher were also murdered by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then died by suicide.
Scott's belief in Christianity and the circumstances of her death have led to her being remembered by groups of evangelical Christians as a Christian martyr. She was posthumously the subject and co-writer of several books and the inspiration for Rachel's Challenge, an international school outreach program and the most popular school assembly program in the U.S.
The aim of Rachel's Challenge is to advocate Scott's values, based on her life, her journals, and the contents of a two-page essay, penned a month before her murder, entitled My Ethics; My Codes of Life. This essay advocates her belief in compassion being "the greatest form of love humans have to offer".
Early life
Childhood
Rachel Joy Scott was born on August 5, 1981, in Denver, Colorado. She was the third of five children born to Darrell Scott and Beth (née Nimmo) Scott. The entire family are devout Christians. Her father was a pastor at a church in Lakewood, Colorado, and worked as a sales manager for a Denver-based food company; her mother was a homemaker. Rachel's parents divorced in 1988; they maintained a cordial relationship and held joint custody of the children. The following year, Beth and her children relocated to Littleton, Colorado, where she remarried in 1995.
As a child, Scott was an energetic, sociable girl, who displayed concern for the well-being of others, particularly if they were downcast or otherwise in need. She developed a passion for photography and poetry at an early age. Rachel attended Dutch Creek Elementary School and Ken Caryl Middle School before she enrolled in Columbine High School in the ninth grade. At Columbine, she was an attentive, above-average student who displayed a flair for music, acting, drama, and debate. She was a member of the school's forensics and drama clubs. Acting did not initially come easily to her, and she had to devote extra effort to succeed in this activity.
Adolescence and Christian beliefs
When Scott was 11 in March 1993, she visited the church that her aunt and uncle attended in Shreveport, Louisiana, and chose to commit herself to Christianity. By April 1998, when she was at Columbine High School, five of her closest friends had distanced themselves from her because of her increasing commitment to her faith. Furthermore, because of her faith, she was occasionally subjected to mockery by several of her peers. Rachel documented this in a letter to a relative a year to the day before her death. The letter included the words: "Now that I have begun to walk my talk, they make fun of me. I don't even know what I have done. I don't even have to say anything, and they turn me away. I have no more personal friends at school. But you know what, it's all worth it."
On many occasions throughout Scott's adolescence, her family observed her in prayer both at home and at church. Her mother said that her daughter would regularly pray on her knees, with her head bowed, her hands upon her face, and that often, these particular prayer rituals brought tears to Scott's eyes.
On one occasion, this included writing a prayer for one of the future perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre.
By the age of 17, Scott was an attendee of three churches: Celebration Christian Fellowship; Orchard Road Christian Center; and Trinity Christian Center, where she choreographed dances at Sunday service. She was also an active member of church youth groups; at the Orchard Road Christian Center, she attended a youth group named "Breakthrough", where she displayed a passionate interest in both evangelism and discipleship. Scott wrote in her journals that her spiritual awareness developed greatly through attending this youth group, and she became known as a leading advocate within it.
Personal life
Scott struggled with self-esteem issues as a teenager, and has been described by her family as being "blind to her own beauty". By the age of 17, Rachel, although popular among her peers, would occasionally resist efforts to attend certain social events with her friends out of fear she would succumb to the temptation of drinking alcohol. In her mid-teens, Scott had a serious relationship with a boy, but she chose to end it over concerns that it might develop into a physical encounter.
According to friends, Scott often chose to wear clothes of a style reflecting her colorful personality, and occasionally wore eccentric hats, fedoras, or even pajamas to amuse her companions. In addition to her passion for fashion, music, and photography, she was an avid viewer of classic movies, and often spoke of her desire to become a renowned Hollywood actress. She is known to have conveyed these aspirations to her family and to have combined her sense of humor into everyday family life with lighthearted gestures such as leaving a message on her family's answering machine stating: "You have reached the residence of Queen Rachel and her servants, Larry, Beth, Dana, Craig, and Michael. If you have anything you'd like them to do for me, please leave a message."
Scott was an aspiring writer and actress. In 1998, she performed a mime act to the song "Watch the Lamb" at the school talent show. The tape jammed halfway through the song and Dylan Klebold, who ran audio for the school theater production club, came to her rescue and fixed the tape, leading her to thank him afterwards. Rachel's sister would later perform the same mime act at her funeral.
In order to repay her parents for the Acura Legend they had given her, Scott worked at a Subway sandwich shop on West Coal Mine Avenue in Littleton shortly before she died. In one instance while working there, she felt remorse for not assisting a homeless woman who had come into the store and vowed to be more helpful to such people in the future.
At the time of her death at age 17, Scott lived at 7282 South Vance Street in Littleton and was debating as to whether she should become an actress or a Christian missionary. She also had plans to visit Botswana as a member of a Christian outreach program to build homes in the upcoming summer before moving into her own apartment in late 1999.
Murder
Scott was eating lunch with her friend Richard Castaldo on the lawn outside the west entrance of the school, when Eric Harris shot her four times with a Hi-Point 995 Initially shot in the chest, left arm, and left leg, from a distance of 10 to 15 feet, she sustained a fourth and fatal wound to her left temple. Castaldo was shot eight times and permanently paralyzed from his injuries. Scott's body was left outside where she died and was not retrieved by the coroner until the following morning.
Shortly after Rachel was murdered, Harris and Klebold went on a killing spree around the school, claiming 12 more lives and leaving 24 injured. The two perpetrators then died by suicide in the school library, the place where they slaughtered the most victims. Scott did not personally know Harris or Klebold. After the killings, Scott's car was turned into an impromptu memorial in the adjacent Clement Park after being moved from the school's parking lot by grieving students. A chain-link fence was also installed around the vehicle for mourners to attach their tokens of grief such as flowers, crucifixes, teddy bears, and letters of condolence. The car was ultimately covered by the objects left upon it by mourners. Scott's 16-year-old brother, Craig, was also at the school on the day of the massacre; he was in the library where most of the killings occurred; he survived unharmed, although two of his close friends were also murdered.
Craig later expressed extreme regret for his last interaction with his sister: slamming a car door at her when being dropped off at school that morning.
Funeral
Scott was buried at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Centennial on April 24, 1999, following a two-hour funeral service held at the Trinity Christian Center. Her funeral was one of the first services following the massacre and was attended by more than 1,000 people that included friends and staff at Columbine High School. The Reverend Porter began the service by addressing the congregation with the question, "What has happened to us as a people that this should happen to us?" He then addressed the solemn crowd with a speech that included references to Scott's pious character, kind nature and love of her fellow human, before stating: "You have graduated early from this life to a far better one, where there is no sorrow, violence or death." Her friends from the Orchard Road Christian Church Youth Group also sang a song at the service, composed in her honor, entitled "Why Did You Have to Leave?" Attendees were invited to talk at the service, as "My Heart Will Go On" was played.
Those conveying their eulogies included one youth who had been considered an outcast at Columbine High School, who stated: "All my life I prayed that someone would love me and make me feel wanted. God sent me an angel," before staring at Scott's casket and weeping. Nick Baumgart, who accompanied Rachel to the high school prom as her date three days before her murder, also spoke, saying: "A truer friend, you couldn't find. You could be having the worst day of your entire life; all she had to do was smile." Scott's parents chose not to speak at the service, but issued a statement in which they described their daughter as "a girl whose love of life was constantly reflected in her love and zeal for music, drama, photography, and for her friends".
Prior to her burial, mourners who had known Scott throughout her life were invited to write messages of condolence, grief and thankfulness on her ivory white casket. Her coffin was adorned with messages of love, gratitude, and grief. The funeral service was broadcast by CNN and MSNBC.
Legacy
Martyrdom
The deaths of Scott and fellow student Cassie Bernall—also a Christian—during the Columbine massacre led both to be subsequently depicted and remembered by groups of evangelical Christians as Christian martyrs. This began during her funeral on April 24, 1999, which was televised. At the beginning of the ceremony, Barry Palser, a pastor from an Assemblies of God organization, gave a speech in which he said she was "one who has given [her] life for the Lord Jesus Christ, a modern-day martyr." Pastor Bruce Porter delivered a sermon later in the service, in which he called Rachel a "warrior" who carried "a torch that was stained by the blood of the martyrs from the very first day of the Church's existence". Porter then requested that others pick up the "torch" in Scott's wake.
In the following year's numerous books—termed "hagiographies" by sociologist Ralph Larkin—were published about Scott and Bernall with the assistance of or authorship by their parents. Porter also wrote a book about Scott, making frequent references to sacrifice. Many web pages have been published that are specifically dedicated to Scott and she is prominently featured in more broadly themed Columbine memorial websites. Some of these sites explicitly or implicitly refer to Scott's belief in Christianity and suggest that she was killed because of it. Journalist Hanna Rosin framed public remembrance of her death as part of a phenomenon in which teenage Christians began obsessing over Christian-based death. Scott's mother and her brother Craig toured many schools across the United States years after the shooting to speak about Rachel's life, asserting that she probably died because of her religious beliefs. Christian churches used the martyr narrative of Scott's and Bernall's deaths to promote themselves and recruit members.
The circumstances surrounding Scott's death and its relation to her religious beliefs are disputed in the martyr narrative. Journalist Wendy Murray Zoba argued that the shooters targeted evangelical Christians during the massacre. As evidence for this, she claimed that Scott was shot execution-style, though the official report published by police stated that Scott was shot from a distance of 10 to 15 feet. Scott's mother claimed that she had offered to be friends to Klebold, that Klebold was romantically interested in her, and that Klebold and Harris mocked her for her religious beliefs. Scott's mother also asserted that her daughter was on a "target list." Investigations in the years following the shooting—especially Dave Cullen's findings in his book Columbine—have concluded that Klebold and Harris were not targeting people for their religion, ethnicity, or gender. Scott did not know the two boys personally and was in a different academic grade than them. A frequent feature of Rachel's martyr story is that she had a verbal exchange with Klebold and Harris about her religious beliefs before they killed her. The Hollywood Reporter accounts that Richard Castaldo, who was shot while sitting with Scott and survived, "told a newspaper that not only did the killers ask Rachel about her faith but that he, too, was asked if he believed in God, and he answered truthfully that he did not, and his life was spared." Other sources report that Castaldo had survived by "playing dead". Castaldo was in a coma in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and thus did not testify to police and his account was not included in the police report on the event. Castaldo said in his speech at Scott's funeral, "People tell me I said she said she believed in God, and I can't remember it," and Larkin wrote in 2007 that Castaldo "could not remember Klebold or Harris saying anything."
Rachel's Tears
Reviewing their daughter's life and hearing firsthand just how profound an impact Scott's simple acts of kindness had imprinted on the lives of those who had known her, as well as recalling her repeatedly stated desire for her life to have an impact for the better on others, Darrell Scott and Beth Nimmo were inspired to write the book Rachel's Tears, a non-fiction book about their daughter, her faith, her inspirational journal entries, and the impact of her loss on their lives. The book was published on the first anniversary of her death, and is incorporated into the Rachel's Challenge program.
Scott and Nimmo later published two more books inspired by their daughter and her legacy: Rachel Smiles: The Spiritual Legacy of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott, and The Journals of Rachel Joy Scott: A Journey of Faith at Columbine High. These books were published in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Both parents have expressed their hope that those who did not know their daughter would find inspiration in the books' description of the principles their daughter had lived during her life.
Rachel's Challenge
After reading the essay, My Ethics; My Codes of Life, and the journals Scott had written in the last 16 months of her life, her father founded Rachel's Challenge in 2001. Rachel's Challenge is a national nonprofit and nonpolitical organization whose stated aims are to advocate a safe and positive climate and culture in schools in a campaign to quell school violence, bullying, discrimination, and both homicidal and suicidal thoughts in students. Through the more than 50 designated speakers and the international expansion of Rachel's Challenge, the annual international student outreach of the organization is estimated to be in excess of two million. The program itself typically involves a one-hour audio and video presentation, hosted by the Rachel's Challenge speaker, to assembled students, with the aim of motivating those present to analyze how they treat others. The Rachel's Challenge speakers include Darrell, Craig and Mike Scott; guest speakers include Nicole Nowlen, who was wounded at age 16 in the Columbine High School massacre, and Adam Kyler, a former Columbine student who had harbored suicidal thoughts until Rachel, noting he was the victim of bullying, offered her friendship and support.
Each attendee is asked to pledge to accept the five principles discussed during the presentation before leaving the assembly: to eliminate any form of prejudice from their being, and seek only the best in others; to keep a journal and seek to achieve accomplishments; to choose to accept only positive influences in their lives; to commit to bringing a positive change in their home, school, and community through kind words, and undertaking tasks great and small; and to show care and compassion to those who are vulnerable, ridiculed, or in any form of need. A final impetus is to commit to Rachel's theory of the formation of a chain reaction through these five pledges by sharing these commitments with their family members, friends, and peers.
At the close of the program, the audience is asked to close their eyes, and picture five or six people closest to them; they are then asked to tell them how much they mean to them. The initial presentation is followed by a 45-minute, interactive training session involving both adult and student leaders. Participants are trained to perpetuate the chain reaction of kindness envisioned by Scott. The participating school is provided with a curriculum and a training manual to ensure the continuity of the objectives of Rachel's Challenge, and the speaker typically holds a meeting later with parents and community leaders.
Internationally, many schools have incorporated Rachel's Challenge into their internal character building programs, with active efforts made to eradicate any sense of alienation among the student population, and various initiatives implemented to increase cohesion. One initiative to achieve this objective is to establish a "Friends of Rachel" club, to sustain the campaign's goals on an ongoing basis. In addition, many students actively seek to honor Scott's theory of just one person displaying compassion having the potential to spark a chain reaction of the same by spreading her message of kindness, empathy and compassion with their fellow students.
As a direct result of Rachel's Challenge, numerous child and teenage suicides have been prevented and in seven known cases, planned school shootings have been prevented.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation posthumously awarded Scott the 2001 National Kindness Award for Student of the Year. The award was in recognition of her efforts to eradicate negativity, discord, and alienation in those she encountered during her life and to replace these negative influences with care and compassion.
In the wake of the 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting, Craig Scott was formally invited to address a National Council on issues relating to safety and security in schools. This meeting was held at the White House with president Bush and included White House staff and educators from across the nation. The conference focused on cultural issues and the accomplishments and personal experiences garnered through Rachel's Challenge. President Bush requested a copy of the speech, and Craig Scott was later invited back to the White House to speak further on these issues.
In a direct recognition of the significant, ongoing, national benefits achieved in schools, colleges, and universities through Rachel's Challenge, the National Education Association of New York awarded Darrell Scott and Rachel's Challenge the "Friend of Education Award" in 2006. Darrell Scott was selected as the 2009 winner of the "All-Stars Among Us" initiative in recognition of his selfless dedication toward preserving his daughter's memory in a positive manner through Rachel's Challenge in the U.S.
Along with 29 other recipients, Scott was formally honored as part of the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game ceremonies, held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 14 that year. At this ceremony, Darrell Scott stated: "Rachel loved to watch baseball. She had no clue that because of her memory ... I'd be here representing her." Both of Scott's parents have also spoken with entertainers, world leaders, and notable individuals including Miep Gies – one of the people who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, and preserved her diary after her capture.
Darrell Scott has stated that reliving his daughter's death giving his Rachel's Challenge speeches is painful, but that he and his family consider the opportunity to be a worthwhile experience as they can turn a tragedy into triumph. He notes: "I feel that God has really called me to do this. To pick up the torch my daughter dropped. This is what my daughter would have wanted to see. If I died right now, I can tell you my daughter's prayer has been answered." Rachel's mother, on the 10th anniversary of her daughter's passing, stated: "Only through eternal eyes will she ever know how powerful her life and death became."
Media
Film
The 2016 film I'm Not Ashamed is directly based on the life and death of Scott. Directed by Brian Baugh and starring Masey McLain as Rachel Scott, the movie also uses some of the contents of Scott's journals for voice-overs.
Books
Nimmo, Beth; Klingsporn, Debra (2000). Rachel's Tears: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Nimmo, Beth; Klingsporn, Debra (2001). The Journals of Rachel Joy Scott: A Journey of Faith at Columbine High. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Scott, Darrell; Rabey, Steve (2001). Chain Reaction: A Call to Compassionate Revolution. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Scott, Darrell; Rabey, Steve (2002). Rachel Smiles: The Spiritual Legacy of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Scott, Darrell; Rabey, Steve (2009). Rachel's Tears: 10 Years after Columbine, Rachel Scott's Faith Lives on. Thomas Nelson Inc.
See also
Cassie Bernall
Christianity in the United States
Crime in Colorado
Gun violence in the United States
Notes
References
Cited works
Further reading
Brown, Brooks; Merritt, Robert (2002). No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine High School. Lantern Books. .
Cullen, David (2009). Columbine. Grand Central Publishing. 978-0-4465-4693-5
Keuss, Jeff; Sloth, Lia (2006). Rachel's Challenge: A Columbine Legacy. Positively for Kids. .
Marsico, Katie (2010). The Columbine High School Massacre: Murder in the Classroom. Marshall Cavendish. .
Scott, Darrell; Nimmo, Beth (2000). The Journal of Rachel Scott: A Journey of Faith at Columbine High. Thomas Nelson Inc. .
Scott, Darrell; Nimmo, Beth; Rabey, Steve (2009). Rachel's Tears: 10th Anniversary Edition: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine. Thomas Nelson Inc. .
Scott, Darrell; Rabey, Steve (2001). Chain Reaction: A Call to Compassionate Revolution. Thomas Nelson Publishers. .
External links
Contemporary news article detailing the funeral of Rachel Scott
acolumbinesite.com: dedicated to those murdered, injured, and affected in the Columbine High School massacre
Rachel's entry at acolumbinesite.com
Official presentation video detailing the objectives and impact of Rachel's Challenge
"My Ethics; My Codes of Life", as written by Rachel Scott one month before her death
Official website of I'm Not Ashamed
Official website of Rachel's Challenge
1981 births
1999 deaths
American Christians
American diarists
American evangelicals
Burials in Colorado
Child murder in the United States
Columbine High School alumni
Female murder victims
Murdered American students
People from Denver
People murdered in Colorado
Columbine High School massacre
Women diarists
20th-century diarists
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la%20III%20of%20Hungary
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Béla III of Hungary
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Béla III (, , ; 114823 April 1196) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1172 and 1196. He was the second son of King Géza II and Géza's wife, Euphrosyne of Kiev. Around 1161, Géza granted Béla a duchy, which included Croatia, central Dalmatia and possibly Sirmium. In accordance with a peace treaty between his elder brother, Stephen III, who succeeded their father in 1162, and the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Béla moved to Constantinople in 1163. He was renamed to Alexios, and the emperor granted him the newly created senior court title of despotes. He was betrothed to the Emperor's daughter, Maria. Béla's patrimony caused armed conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary between 1164 and 1167, because Stephen III attempted to hinder the Byzantines from taking control of Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium. Béla-Alexios, who was designated as Emperor Manuel's heir in 1165, took part in three Byzantine campaigns against Hungary. His betrothal to the emperor's daughter was dissolved after her brother, Alexios, was born in 1169. The emperor deprived Béla of his high title, granting him the inferior rank of kaisar.
Stephen III died on 4 March 1172, and Béla decided to return to Hungary. Before his departure, he pledged that he would never make war against the Byzantine Empire. Although the Hungarian prelates and lords unanimously proclaimed Béla king, Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom opposed his coronation because of Béla's alleged simony. Finally, the Archbishop of Kalocsa crowned him king on 18 January 1173, with Pope Alexander III's approval. Béla fought with his younger brother, Géza, whom he held in captivity for more than a decade. Taking advantage of the internal conflicts in the Byzantine Empire after Emperor Manuel's death, Béla reoccupied Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium between 1180 and 1181. He occupied the Principality of Halych in 1188, but it was lost within two years.
Béla promoted the use of written records during his reign. Hungarian chronicles from the 14th century even state that he was responsible for the establishment of the Royal Chancery. The royal palace built in Esztergom during his reign was the first example of Gothic architecture in Central Europe. He was the wealthiest European monarch of his time, according to a list of his revenues, but the reliability of the list is questioned.
Early life
Childhood ( 1148–1163)
Béla was the second son of Géza II of Hungary and Géza's wife, Euphrosyne of Kiev. The date of his birth was not recorded. Studies of his bones show that Béla died in 1196 at around 49 years old, so he must have been born around 1148.
The contemporaneous John Kinnamos's reference to "the territory which his father, while still alive, had apportioned" to Béla shows that Géza II granted a distinct territory as an appanage to his younger son. Béla's patrimony certainly included the central parts of Dalmatia, (which included Šibenik, Split, and Trogir, which had accepted the suzerainty of the Kings of Hungary for decades), because Kinnamos mentioned the province "as Béla's heritage". Historians Ferenc Makk and Gyula Moravcsik agree that Béla also received Croatia from his father. Whether Syrmium was also part of Béla's patrimony, or if he only acquired it after his father's death is subject to scholarly debates. According to historian Warren Treadgold, Béla's patrimony also included Bosnia. The exact date of Géza II's grant cannot be determined, but according to Makk, Béla seems to have received his duchy around 1161.
Géza II, who died on 31 May 1162, was succeeded by his first-born son, Stephen III. Stephen III seems to have confirmed Béla's possession of the duchy, because Kinnamos referred to the land which was "long before granted" to Béla by Géza and Stephen. Shortly after his ascension to the throne, Stephen III was expelled by his uncles, Ladislaus II and Stephen IV. The Byzantine Emperor, Manuel I Komnenos, supported the uncles' takeover, but Stephen III returned to Hungary and regained his crown by force in the middle of 1163. Béla probably remained neutral during his brother's conflict with their uncles, because there is no report of Béla's activities in 1162 and 1163.
In 1163, Emperor Manuel signed a peace treaty with Stephen III, in which he renounced his support of Stephen's opponents. In exchange, Stephen III agreed to send Béla to Constantinople, and to allow the Byzantines to take possession of Béla's duchy. The Emperor also promised that he would betroth his daughter, Maria, to Béla.
Despotes Alexios (1163–1169)
Emperor Manuel dispatched sebastos George Palaiologos to escort Béla to the Byzantine Empire. Béla arrived in Constantinople around the end of 1163. He was renamed to Alexios, and received the title of despotes ("lord"), which only emperors had used before that time. Béla's betrothal to the emperor's daughter was also officially announced.
Stephen III invaded Syrmium in the summer of 1164. Emperor Manuel led his armies against Stephen, stating that he arrived "not to wage war on the Hungarians but to recover his land for Béla", according to Kinnamos. Béla-Alexiosalong with his uncle, Stephen IV, and their distant relative, Stephanos Kalamanosaccompanied the emperor during the campaign. Before long, a new peace treaty was signed, once again forcing Stephen III to renounce Béla's duchy. A Byzantine army occupied Syrmium, which was organized into a Byzantine theme, or district.
Stephen III launched a new invasion against Syrmium in the spring of 1165. Emperor Manuel directed the counter-attack, and Béla accompanied him again. After the imperial army recaptured Zimony (now Zemun in Serbia), Béla persuaded the emperor to prohibit the execution of the Hungarian soldiers who were captured in the fortress. A Byzantine army also occupied Dalmatia. A new peace treaty between Stephen III and Emperor Manuel followed, which confirmed the emperor's suzerainty in Béla's former duchy. Dalmatia and Bosnia were soon converted into Byzantine themes.
Emperor Manuel ceremoniously made his daughter and Béla-Alexios his heirs, and forced the Byzantine notables to swear an oath of fidelity to them in the autumn of 1165. Only the emperor's cousin, Andronikos Komnenos, dared to condemn this act, asking, "What madness is this of the emperor to deem every Roman male unworthy of his daughter's nuptial bed, to choose before all others this foreigner and interloper to be an emperor of the Romans and to sit above all as master?", according to the nearly contemporaneous Niketas Choniates. Béla-Alexios participated in the 1166 Council of Blachernae, together with Emperor Manuel and the Ecumenical Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges. In the spring of 1166, Béla-Alexios accompanied protostrator Alexios Axouch, who led a Byzantine army against Hungary in retaliation for a new Hungarian invasion of Syrmium. On 11 April 1166, although Béla-Alexios and his bride were related to each other, Emperor Manuel confirmed a decision of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which stated that marriages between kin to the seventh degree were void. Manuel even proposed a marriage between his daughter (Béla-Alexios's fiancée) and the new King of Sicily, William II, in the autumn of 1166.
A new war broke out between Hungary and the Byzantine Empire in 1167, because Béla-Alexios "claimed the kingdom" of his brother, according to the contemporaneous Rahewin. Henry of Mügeln also wrote that many Hungarians joined and served the army of Béla-Alexios, stating that "the Kingdom of Hungary belonged to him [Béla-Alexios] by right". On 8 July 1167, the Byzantine army annihilated the Hungarian troops in the Battle of Sirmium. A peace treaty was signed, which put an end to the period of wars between Hungary and the Byzantine Empire, and confirmed the dominion of the Byzantine Empire over central Dalmatia, Bosnia and Syrmium.
Kaisar Alexios (1169–1172)
Emperor Manuel's wife, Maria of Antioch, gave birth to a son named Alexios on 14 September 1169. The emperor dissolved his daughter's betrothal to Béla-Alexios. The emperor also removed Béla-Alexios's title of despotes, but granted him the inferior rank of kaisar. In the spring of 1170, Béla-Alexios married the emperor's sister-in-law, Agnes of Antioch. The couple went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem, they donated 10,000 bezants to the Knights Hospitaller in compensation for their hospitality. In the charter of grant, Béla-Alexios styled himself "Lord A., Duke of Hungary, Dalmatia and Croatia", ignoring the title that the emperor had recently bestowed upon him.
Reign
Coronation (1172–1173)
Béla's brother, Stephen III, died on 4 March 1172. Arnold of Lübeck, who was staying in Esztergom, recorded a rumor suggesting that Stephen had been poisoned by Béla's supporters, but no other source verifies this hearsay. Stephen III's widow, Agnes, left Hungary, although she was pregnant when her husband died. A Hungarian delegation visited Emperor Manuel and Béla in Sardica (now Sophia in Bulgaria). They demanded that "Béla be dispatched to them as king", because "the principle of justice looked toward him" after his brother's death, according to Kinnamos. Kinnamos also said that Emperor Manuel made Béla king after Béla "promised an oath to observe for the whole course of his life whatever would be beneficial" to the emperor and the Byzantines. A letter written by the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos in 1196 says that on the same occasion, Béla pledged that he would never support the Serbians if they fought against the Byzantine Empire.
Béla and his wife arrived in Székesfehérvár in late April or early May. Béla was unanimously elected king by the "dignitaries of the Hungarian kingdom", according to a letter written by Pope Alexander III in 1179. However, Béla's coronation was delayed, because Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom, refused to perform it. The archbishop accused the king of simony, because Béla had given a precious cloak to his delegate. According to a scholarly theory, Archbishop Lucas also feared that the influence of "schismatics" would increase under Béla's rule. Nevertheless, the majority of the barons and prelates remained loyal to Béla. Béla sought the assistance of the Holy See against the Archbishop Lucas. Upon Béla's request, Pope Alexander III authorized the Archbishop of Kalocsa to anoint Béla king and "place the crown on his head". Béla's coronation took place on 18 January 1173. He issued a charter confirming the right of the archbishops of Esztergom to crown the Hungarian monarchs. The unification of the so-called "Greek" and "Latin" crowns into the Holy Crown of Hungary seems to have occurred during his reign.
Conflicts (1173–1178)
Archbishop Lucas fell out of favor with Béla, and was ignored by him in the first years of his reign. Instead of Lucas, the Archbishop of Kalocsa baptized Béla's first-born son, Emeric, in 1174. However, administering sacraments to members of the royal family had always been the archbishops of Esztergom's job. According to a Bohemian chronicle (Continuatio Gerlaci abbatis Milovicensis), Béla imprisoned his younger brother, Géza, but Géza escaped from prison and fled to Austria in 1174 or 1175. Stephen III's judge royal, Lawrence, accompanied Géza. When Henry Jasomirgott, Duke of Austria, refused to extradite Géza, Béla launched plundering raids into Austria, together with Soběslav II, Duke of Bohemia. Meanwhile, Béla sent reinforcements to Emperor Manuel to help him fight against the Seljuks, but their united forces suffered defeat in the Battle of Myriokephalon on 17 September 1176.
Géza tried to persuade Soběslav II of Bohemia to help him meet Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, but Soběslav seized Géza and handed him over to Béla in 1177. Béla once again imprisoned his brother, and he also put their mother, Euphrosyne, in confinement. In retaliation for Soběslav's role in Géza's capture, Emperor Frederick dethroned Soběslav and appointed another member of the Přemyslid dynasty, Frederick, to the position of duke. The Holy Roman Emperor ordered the new Duke of Austria, Leopold V, to storm Bohemia. Béla soon intervened, threatening Leopold V with an invasion, which forced Leopold to leave Bohemia.
Expansion and reforms (1178–1194)
Béla's long-time favorite, Andrew, Archbishop of Kalocsa, insulted him around 1178. Béla soon deprived him and his supporter, the Provost of Székesfehérvár Chapter, of their offices and seized the Archbishop's revenues. Pope Alexander III punished Béla with ecclesiastic sanctions, but Béla reconciled with Archbishop Lucas of Esztergom, who absolved him and excommunicated Andrew of Kalocsa. The conflict ended with a compromise mediated by the Holy See: Andrew asked Béla to pardon him, and Béla restored him to his position of archbishop.
Upon Béla's invitation, Cistercian monks came from France and set up new Cistercian abbeys at Egres, Zirc, Szentgotthárd and Pilis between 1179 and 1184. In the 1180s, Béla initiated the building of a lofty royal castle and a new cathedral in Esztergom. Nevertheless, he was almost always wandering around the country. According to an inscription on a brick found in Bulkeszi (now Maglić in Serbia), Béla sponsored the baptism of a German "guest settler" in that village.
In the imperial court of Constantinople, Béla learnt the importance of a well-organized administration. According to the Illuminated Chronicle, Béla "introduced the same form of addressing petitions as was customary in the Roman and imperial court", which suggests that the Royal Chancery began functioning as a separate office during his reign. He emphasized the importance of written records, ordering in 1181 that a charter was to be issued for all transactions proceeding in his presence.
Emperor Manuel I died on 24 September 1180. Within six months, Béla had restored his suzerainty in Dalmatia, but no detailed contemporaneous accounts of the events exist. The citizens of Split "returned to Hungarian lordship" soon after Manuel's death, according to the 13th-century Thomas the Archdeacon. Zadar also accepted Béla's suzerainty in early 1181. Historian John V. A. Fine writes that Béla retook suzerainty of Dalmatia "seemingly without bloodshed and with imperial consent", because the Byzantine authorities preferred that Béla rule the province rather than the Republic of Venice.
The details of the reconquest of Syrmium are also obscure. Andronikos Komnenos accused the mother of the young Byzantine Emperor, Alexios II, of inciting Bélaher brother-in-lawto ravage the region of Belgrade and Barancs (now Braničevo in Serbia) in May 1182, implying that Béla had by that time occupied Syrmium. In the same month, Andronikos Komnenos captured the Dowager Empress and had her murdered by the end of the year. Taking advantage of the emerging anarchy in the Byzantine Empire, Béla advanced as far as Niš and Serdica in the first half of 1183. In Sardica, he seized the casket containing the relics of Saint Ivan of Rila, and ordered it "to be transported with great honors to his land and to be laid down with honor in the church" of Esztergom, according to the saint's Life from the Sofia Prologue. Makk writes that Béla withdrew from the regions south of the Danube, but historian Paul Stephenson says that Béla preserved these lands.
Andronikos Komnenos murdered Emperor Alexios II in late 1183. The contemporaneous Eustathius of Thessalonica writes that Andronikos's opponents sent letters to many monarchs, including Béla III, urging them to attack Andronikos. According to Ansbert and other Western European chroniclers, Béla invaded the Byzantine Empire in early 1185. After Andronikos I fell in September, Béla signed a peace treaty with the new emperor, Isaac II Angelos. Isaac married Béla's daughter, Margaret, and Béla granted the region of Niš and Barancs to Isaac as his daughter's dowry. The relics of Saint Ivan of Rila were also returned to Sardica on this occasion. Béla married Margaret of France, a sister of Philip II of France, in the summer of 1186.
Orio Mastropiero, Doge of Venice, laid siege to Zadar in 1187, but the Venetian fleet could not seize the well-fortified town. Vladimir Yaroslavich, Prince of Halych, fled to Hungary at the end of 1188, because his boyars had rebelled. Roman Mstyslavych, Prince of Vladimir-in-Volhynia, soon occupied Halych, but Béla invaded the principality and expelled him. Instead of restoring Vladimir Yaroslavich to his former position, Béla imprisoned him and granted control of Halych to Andrew, who was Béla's younger son. As a token of his conquest, Béla styled himself as King of Galicia. .
In the summer of 1189, German crusaders marched through Hungary under the command of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. Béla welcomed Frederick, and dispatched a troop to escort the crusaders across the Balkan Peninsula. At Frederick's request, Béla released his imprisoned brother, Géza, who joined the crusaders and left Hungary. Béla mediated a peace treaty between Frederick I and Isaac II, whose mutual distrust had almost caused war between the German crusaders and the Byzantines.
Vladimir Yaroslavich escaped from captivity in early 1189 or 1190. With the assistance of Casimir II of Poland, he expelled Andrew from Halych, and regained control of the principality. In 1191, Béla met his son-in-law, Isaac II, in Philippopolis (now Plovdiv in Bulgaria) and Syrmium, but the results of their negotiations remained unknown. Upon Béla's request, the Holy See approved the canonization of Ladislaus I of Hungary in 1192. Béla invaded Serbia at the beginning of 1193. Isaac II demanded the withdrawal of his troops, and threatened Béla with war. At the same time, Doge Enrico Dandolo attempted to occupy Zadar, but failed. In 1193, Béla granted Modruš County in Croatia to Bartholomew of Krk, a member of the Frankopan family. This is the earliest certain example of an office being granted as a hereditary dignity in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Last years (1194–1196)
In 1194, Béla appointed his eldest son, Emeric, who had already been crowned as the future king, to administer Croatia and Dalmatia. After a united Bulgarian, Cumanian and Vlach army defeated the Byzantines in the Battle of Arcadiopolis in 1194, Béla was willing to assist the Byzantine Empire. However, his campaign was cancelled, because Béla's son-in-law, Emperor Isaac II, was dethroned by Alexios III Angelos in April 1195. Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, was planning to launch a campaign against the Byzantine Empire on behalf of the dethroned emperor, but Béla prohibited his subjects from joining Henry.
Béla took the cross as a token of his desire to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. However, he could not fulfill his oath, because he fell ill and died on 23 April 1196. He was buried in the Székesfehérvár Cathedral. His remains were confidently identified by archeologists during 19th-century excavations, because a contemporaneous sourceRichard of Londonwrote of Béla's exceptional height. Béla's skeleton shows that he was tall. Béla's remains were reinterred at the Matthias Church in Budapest. The DNA from skeletal remains of Béla and of another presumed member of the Árpád dynasty, scholars propose that the dynasty belonged to Y-haplogroup R1a subclade R-SUR51 > R-ARP.
Family
Béla's first wife, Agnes, was the daughter of Raynald of Châtillon, Prince of Antioch, and Raynald's wife, Constance of Antioch. Agnes was born around 1149 and died around 1184. At the time of her marriage in 1170, she was renamed Anna in Constantinople.
Béla's and Agnes-Anna's first child, Emeric, was born in 1174. Emeric's sister, Margaret, who was renamed Maria in Constantinople, was born in 1175. At the age of nine or ten, she was given in marriage to the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos, who was about 30 at the time. Maria's husband died in 1204, before the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. Margaret–Maria married one of the leaders of the Crusade, Boniface of Montferrat, who seized Thessaloniki after the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Historian Makk writes that in about 1210, Maria married Nicholas I of Saint Omer after the death of Boniface, but scholar Peter Lock says that Saint Omer's wife and Margaret–Maria were not identical.
The second son of Béla and Agnes-Anna, Andrew, was born around 1177. His two younger brothers, Solomon and Stephen, did not survive infancy. Their younger sister, Constance, married King Ottokar I of Bohemia in about 1198. A third daughter of Béla and Agnes-Anna, whose name is unknown, died in infancy.
After the death of Agnes-Anna, Béla proposed to Theodora, a granddaughter of Emperor Manuel I's sister, Theodora Komnene. However, a synod of the Byzantine Church forbade the marriage in 1185, because Theodora had entered a nunnery. In late 1185 or at the beginning of 1186, Béla asked for the hand of Matilda of Saxony, a daughter of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, but Henry II of England, Matilda's grandfather, hindered this marriage. Finally, Béla married Henry II's widowed daughter-in-law, Margaret of France, in the summer of 1186. She was the daughter of Louis VII of France. Queen Margaret outlived Béla, and moved to the Holy Land after his death.
Legacy
Béla was one of the most eminent medieval monarchs of Hungary. His "rule not only represented the apogee of the kingdom of the Árpádians, but also marked the end of an epoch", according to historian Pál Engel. His establishment of the Royal Chancery contributed to the "expansion of written records" in Hungary; the first charters issued by barons appeared in the 1190s. According to a contemporaneous list of Béla's revenues, his yearly income amounted to almost 170,000 marks (about 23 tonnes of pure silver). If the list is reliable, his income surpassed the revenues of the contemporaneous Kings of France and England, but the reliability of the list has been questioned by many historians, including Pál Engel.
In about 1190, after a fire destroyed Esztergom, Béla invited French masons to rebuild the royal palace and the cathedral. The masons introduced new architectural forms; the new royal palace and cathedral were the earliest examples of Gothic architecture in Central Europe. Coins depicting a two-barred cross, which was primarily used in the Church of the Byzantine Empire, were minted from around 1190, suggesting that the so-called "double cross" became part of the Hungarian royal heraldry under Béla III.
Notes
Sources
Primary sources
Archdeacon Thomas of Split: History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (Latin text by Olga Perić, edited, translated and annotated by Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol and James Ross Sweeney) (2006). CEU Press. .
Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos (Translated by Charles M. Brand) (1976). Columbia University Press. .
"Life of John of Rila from the Stishen (Sofia) Prologue". In Petkov, Kiril (2008). The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, Seventh-Fifteenth Century: The Records of a Bygone Culture. Brill. pp. 265–268. .
O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniatēs (Translated by Harry J. Magoulias) (1984). Wayne State University Press. .
The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa by Otto of Freising and his Continuator, Rahewin (Translated and annotated with an introduction by Charles Christopher Mierow with the collaboration of Richard Emery) (2004). Columbia University Press. .
The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle: Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum (Edited by Dezső Dercsényi) (1970). Corvina, Taplinger Publishing. .
Secondary sources
Further reading
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1140s births
1196 deaths
Hungarian people of Serbian descent
Hungarian people of Russian descent
House of Árpád
Kings of Hungary
Kings of Croatia
Despots (court title)
Burials at the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Manuel I Komnenos
12th-century Hungarian people
Hungarian monarchs
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall%20Applewhite
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Marshall Applewhite
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Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr. (May 17, 1931 – March 26, 1997), also known as Do, among other names, was an American cult leader who founded what became known as Heaven's Gate and organized their mass suicide in 1997. It is the largest mass suicide to occur inside the U.S.
As a young man, Applewhite attended several universities and served in the United States Army. He initially pursued a career in education until he resigned from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1970, citing emotional turmoil. His father's death a year later brought on severe depression. In 1972, Applewhite developed a close friendship with Bonnie Nettles, a nurse; together, they discussed mysticism at length and concluded that they were called as divine messengers. They operated a bookstore and teaching center for a short while and then began to travel around the U.S. in 1973 to spread their views. They gained only one convert. In August 1974, Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas, for failing to return a rental car and was extradited to Missouri where he was subsequently jailed for six months. In jail, he further developed his theology.
After Applewhite's release, he and Nettles travelled to California and Oregon, eventually gaining a group of committed followers. They told their followers that they would be visited by extraterrestrials who would provide them with new bodies. Applewhite initially stated that he and his followers would physically ascend to a spaceship, where their bodies would be transformed, but later he came to believe that their bodies were the mere containers of their souls, which would later be placed into new bodies. These ideas were expressed with language drawn from Christian eschatology, the New Age movement and American popular culture.
Heaven's Gate received an influx of funds in the late 1970s, which it used to pay housing and other expenses. In 1985, Nettles died, leaving Applewhite distraught and challenging his views on physical ascension. In the early 1990s, the group took more steps to publicize their theology. In 1996, they learned of the approach of Comet Hale–Bopp and rumors of an accompanying spaceship, concluding that this was the vessel that would take their spirits on board for a journey to another planet. Believing that their souls would ascend to the spaceship and be given new bodies, the group members committed mass suicide in a rented mansion. A media circus followed the discovery of their bodies. In the aftermath, commentators and academics discussed how Applewhite persuaded people to follow his commands, including suicide. Some commentators attributed his followers' willingness to commit suicide to his skill as a manipulator, while others argued that their willingness was due to their faith in the narrative that he constructed.
Early life and education
Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr. was born in Spur, Texas, on May 17, 1931, to Marshall Herff Applewhite Sr. (1901–1971) and his wife Louise (née Winfield; 1901–1988). He had three siblings. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Applewhite became very religious as a child.
Applewhite attended Corpus Christi High School and Austin College; at the latter school, he was active in several student organizations and was moderately religious. He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1952 and subsequently enrolled at Union Presbyterian Seminary to study theology, hoping to become a minister. He married Anne Pearce around that time, and they later had two children, Mark and Lane. Early in his seminary studies, Applewhite decided to leave the school to pursue a career in music, becoming the music director of a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. He was a baritone singer and enjoyed spirituals and the music of Handel.
In 1954, Applewhite was drafted by the United States Army and served in Austria and New Mexico as a member of the Army Signal Corps. He left the military in 1956 and enrolled at the University of Colorado, where he earned a master's degree in music and focused on musical theater.
Career
Applewhite moved to New York City in an unsuccessful attempt to begin a professional singing career upon finishing his education in Colorado. He then taught at the University of Alabama (UA). Applewhite lost his position there after pursuing a sexual relationship with a male student; his religious education was likely not supportive of same-sex relationships and he was subsequently frustrated by his sexual desires. He separated from his wife when she learned of the affair in 1965, and they divorced three years later. When Applewhite revealed to his parents that he was homosexual, his father rejected him.
In 1965, after leaving UA, Applewhite moved to Houston to serve as chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas. His students regarded him as an engaging speaker and a stylish dresser. He also became a locally popular singer, serving as the choral director of an Episcopal church and performing with the Houston Grand Opera. In Houston, Applewhite was briefly openly gay but also pursued a relationship with a young woman, who left him under pressure from her family; he was greatly upset by this outcome. He resigned from the University of St. Thomas in 1970, citing depression and other emotional problems. Robert Balch and David Taylor, sociologists who studied Applewhite's group, speculate that this departure was prompted by another affair between Applewhite and a student. The president of the university later recalled that Applewhite was often mentally jumbled and disorganized near the end of his employment.
In 1971, Applewhite briefly moved to New Mexico, where he operated a delicatessen. He was popular with customers but decided to return to Texas later that year. Applewhite's father died around that time; the loss took a significant emotional toll on him, causing severe depression. His debts mounted, forcing him to borrow money from friends.
Introduction to Nettles and first travels
In 1972, Applewhite met Bonnie Nettles, a nurse with an interest in Theosophy and Biblical prophecy. The two quickly became close friends; he later recalled that he felt like he had known her for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life. Nettles told Applewhite their meeting had been foretold to her by extraterrestrials, persuading him that he had a divine assignment. By that time, he had begun to investigate alternatives to traditional Christian doctrine, including astrology.
Applewhite soon began to live with Nettles. Although they cohabited, their relationship was not a sexual one, fulfilling his longtime wish to have a deep and loving, yet platonic, relationship. Nettles was married with four children, but after she became close with Applewhite, her husband divorced her and she lost custody of the children. Applewhite permanently broke off contact with his family as well. He saw Nettles as his soulmate, and some of his acquaintances later recalled that she had a strong influence on him. Raine writes that Nettles "was responsible for reinforcing his emerging delusional beliefs", but psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton speculates that Nettles' influence helped him avoid further psychological deterioration.
Applewhite and Nettles opened a bookstore known as the Christian Arts Center, which carried books from a variety of spiritual backgrounds. They also launched a venture known as Know Place to teach classes on theosophy and mysticism. The pair closed these businesses a short time later. In February 1973, Applewhite and Nettles resolved to travel to teach others about their beliefs and drove throughout the Western U.S.; Lifton describes their travels as a "restless, intense, often confused, peripatetic spiritual journey". While traveling, they had little money and occasionally resorted to selling their blood or working odd jobs for much-needed funds. The pair subsisted solely on bread rolls at times, often camped out, and sometimes did not pay their lodging bills. One of their friends from Houston corresponded with them and accepted their teachings. They visited her in May 1974, and she became their first convert.
While traveling, Applewhite and Nettles pondered the life of Francis of Assisi and read works by authors including Helena Blavatsky, R. D. Laing, and Richard Bach. They kept a King James Version of the Bible with them and studied several passages from the New Testament, focusing on teachings about Christology, asceticism, and eschatology. Applewhite also read science fiction, including works by Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. By June 1974, Applewhite and Nettles' beliefs had solidified into a basic outline. They concluded that they had been chosen to fulfill biblical prophecies, and that they had been given higher-level minds than other people. They wrote a pamphlet that described Jesus' reincarnation as a Texan, a thinly-veiled reference to Applewhite. Furthermore, they concluded that they were the two witnesses described in the Book of Revelation and occasionally visited churches or other spiritual groups to speak of their identities, often referring to themselves as "The Two", or "The UFO Two". The pair believed that they would be killed and then restored to life and, in view of others, transported onto a spaceship. This event, which they referred to as "the Demonstration", was to prove their claims. To their dismay, these ideas were poorly received.
Arrest and proselytism
In August 1974, Applewhite was arrested in Harlingen, Texas, for failing to return a car that he had rented in Missouri. He was extradited to St. Louis and jailed for six months. At the time, Applewhite maintained that he had been "divinely authorized" to keep the car. While jailed, he pondered theology and subsequently abandoned discussion of occult topics in favor of extraterrestrials and evolution.
After Applewhite's release, Nettles and he resolved to contact extraterrestrials and began seeking like-minded followers. They published advertisements for meetings, where they recruited disciples, whom they called "crew". At these events, they purported to represent beings from another planet, the Next Level, who sought participants for an experiment. They claimed that those who agreed to take part in the experiment would be brought to a higher evolutionary level. Nettles and Applewhite referred to themselves as "Guinea" and "Pig". Applewhite described his role as a "lab instructor" and served as the primary speaker, while Nettles occasionally interjected clarifying remarks or corrections. The two seldom personally spoke with attendees, only taking phone numbers with which they could contact them. They initially named their organization the Anonymous Sexaholics Celibate Church, but it soon became known as the Human Individual Metamorphosis.
Applewhite believed in the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which claimed that extraterrestrials had visited humanity in the past and placed humans on Earth and would return to collect a select few. Parts of this teaching bear similarities to the Reformed Christian concept of election, likely owing to Applewhite's Presbyterian upbringing.
Applewhite and Nettles sent advertisements to groups in California and were invited to speak to New Age devotees there in April 1975. At this meeting, they persuaded about half of the 50 attendees to follow them. They also focused on college campuses, speaking at Cañada College in August. At a meeting in Oregon in September 1975, they had further recruitment success—about 30 people left their homes to follow the pair, prompting interest from media outlets. The coverage was negative; commentators and some former members mocked the group and leveled accusations of brainwashing against Applewhite and Nettles. Balch and Taylor state that Applewhite and Nettles eschewed pressure tactics, seeking only devoted followers.
Benjamin E. Zeller, an academic who studies new religions, notes that Applewhite and Nettles' teachings focused on salvation through individual growth and sees this as similar to currents in the era's New Age movement. Likewise, the importance of personal choice was also emphasized. Applewhite and Nettles denied connection with the New Age movement, viewing it as a human creation. Janja Lalich, a sociologist who studies cults, attributes their recruitment success to their eclectic mix of beliefs and the way that they deviated from typical New Age teachings: discussing literal spaceships while retaining familiar language. Most of their disciples were young and interested in occultism or otherwise lived outside of mainstream society. They came from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Eastern religions and Scientology. Most were well versed in New Age teachings, allowing Applewhite and Nettles to convert them easily. Applewhite thought that his followers would reach a higher level of being, changing like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly; this example was used in almost all of the group's early literature. He contended that this would be a "biological change into a different species, casting his teachings as scientific truth in line with secular naturalism." He emphasized to his early followers that he was not speaking metaphorically, often using the words "biology" and "chemistry" in his statements. By the mid-1970s, Applewhite attempted to avoid the use of the term "religion", seeing it as inferior to science.
Nomadic lifestyle
By 1975, Applewhite and Nettles had taken the names "Bo" and "Peep". They had about 70 followers and saw themselves as shepherds tending a flock. Applewhite believed that complete separation from earthly desires was a prerequisite of ascension to the Next Level and emphasized passages in the New Testament in which Jesus spoke about forsaking worldly attachments. Members were consequently instructed to renounce: friends, family, media, drugs, alcohol, jewelry, facial hair, and sexuality. Furthermore, they were at first required to adopt biblical names. Applewhite and Nettles soon told them to adopt two-syllable names that ended in "ody" and had three consonants in the first syllable, such as Rkkody, Jmmody, and Lvvody; Applewhite stated that these names emphasized that his followers were spiritual children. He, Nettles, and their followers lived what religious scholar James Lewis describes as a "quasi-nomadic lifestyle". They usually stayed at remote campgrounds and did not speak about their beliefs. Applewhite and Nettles ceased having public meetings in April 1975, and spent little time teaching doctrine to their converts. The pair also had little contact with their dispersed followers, many of whom renounced their allegiance.
Applewhite and Nettles feared that they would be assassinated, and taught their followers that their deaths would be similar to those of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation. Balch and Taylor believe that Applewhite's prison experience and early rejection by audiences contributed to this fear. Applewhite and Nettles later explained to their followers that the former's treatment by the press was a form of assassination and had fulfilled their prophecy. Applewhite took a materialistic view of the Bible, seeing it as a record of extraterrestrial contact with humanity. He drew heavily from the Book of Revelation, although he avoided traditional theological terminology and took a somewhat negative tone towards Christianity. He only lectured about a small number of verses and never tried to develop a system of theology.
By early 1976, Applewhite and Nettles had settled on the names "Do" and "Ti"; Applewhite stated that these were meaningless names. In June 1976, they gathered their remaining followers at Medicine Bow National Forest in southeastern Wyoming, promising a UFO visit. Nettles later announced that the visit had been cancelled. Applewhite and Nettles then split their followers into small groups, which they referred to as "Star Clusters".
From 1976 to 1979, the group lived in campgrounds, usually in the Rocky Mountains or Texas. Applewhite and Nettles began to place greater demands on their followers' heretofore loosely structured lives, which improved membership retention. They typically communicated with their disciples in writing or through assistants. Increasingly, they emphasized that they were the only source of truth—the idea that members could receive individual revelations was rejected in an attempt to prevent schisms. Applewhite also sought to prevent close friendships among his followers, fearing that this could lead to insubordination. He and Nettles insisted that their followers practice what they referred to as "flexibility" - strict obedience to their often shifting requests. The two leaders limited the group's contacts with those outside the movement, even some who may have been interested in joining, ostensibly to prevent infiltration from hostile parties. In practice, this made their followers completely dependent upon them. Applewhite instructed his disciples to be like children or pets in their submission—their sole responsibility was to obey their leaders. Members were encouraged to constantly seek Applewhite's advice and often ask themselves what their leaders would do when making a decision. To his followers, he did not seem dictatorial: many of them found him laid back and fatherly. In his 2000 study of the group, Winston Davis states that Applewhite mastered the "fine art of religious entertainment", noting that many of his disciples seemed to enjoy their service. Applewhite organized seemingly arbitrary rituals that were intended to instill a sense of discipline in his followers; he referred to these tasks as "games". He also watched science fiction television programs with the rest of the group. Rather than issue direct commands, he attempted to express his preferences and nominally offer his disciples a choice. He emphasized that students were free to disobey if they chose, in what Lalich dubs the "illusion of choice".
Housing and control
In the late 1970s, the group received a large sum of money, possibly an inheritance of a member or donations of followers' income. This capital was used to rent houses, initially in Denver and later in Dallas. Applewhite and Nettles had about 40 followers then and lived in two or three houses; the leaders usually had their own house. The group was secretive about their lifestyle, covering their windows. Applewhite and Nettles arranged their followers' lifestyles as a boot camp that would prepare them for the Next Level. Referring to their house as a "craft", they regimented the lives of their disciples down to the minute. Students who were not committed to this lifestyle were encouraged to leave; departing members were given financial assistance. Lifton states that Applewhite wanted "quality over quantity" in his followers, although he occasionally spoke about gaining many converts.
Applewhite and Nettles sometimes made sudden, drastic changes to the group. On one occasion in Texas, they told their followers of a forthcoming visitation from extraterrestrials and instructed them to wait outside all night, at which point they informed them that this had been merely a test. Lalich sees this as a way that they increased their students' devotion, ensuring that their commitment became irrespective of what they saw. Members became desperate for Applewhite's approval, which he used to control them.
In 1980, Applewhite and Nettles had about 80 followers, many of whom held jobs, often working with computers or as car mechanics. In 1982, the pair allowed their disciples to call their families. They further relaxed their control in 1983, permitting their followers to visit relatives on Mother's Day. They were only allowed short stays and were instructed to tell their families that they were studying computers at a monastery. These vacations were intended to placate families by demonstrating that the disciples remained with the group of their own accord.
Nettles' death
In 1983, Nettles had an eye surgically removed as a result of cancer diagnosed several years earlier. While she lived for two more years, dying in 1985, Applewhite told their followers that she had "traveled to the Next Level" because she had "too much energy to remain on Earth", abandoning her body to make the journey. His attempt to explain her death in the terms of the group's doctrine was successful, preventing the departure of all but one member. However, Applewhite became very depressed. He claimed that Nettles still communicated with him, but he suffered from a crisis of faith. His students supported him during this time, greatly encouraging him. He then organized a ceremony in which he symbolically married his followers; Lalich views this as an attempt to ensure unity. Applewhite told his followers that he had been left behind by Nettles because he still had more to learn—he felt that she occupied "a higher spiritual role" than he did. He began identifying her as "the Father" and often referred to her with male pronouns.
Applewhite began to emphasize a strict hierarchy, teaching that his students needed his guidance, as he needed the guidance of the Next Level. Zeller notes that this naturally ensured no possibility of the group's continuing if Applewhite were to die. A relationship with Applewhite was said to be the only way to salvation; he encouraged his followers to see him as Christ. Zeller states that the group's previous focus on individual choice was replaced with an emphasis on Applewhite's role as a mediator. Applewhite maintained some aspects of their scientific teachings, but in the 1980s the group became more like a religion in its focus on faith and submission to authority.
After Nettles' death, Applewhite also altered his view of ascension; previously, he had taught that the group would physically ascend from the Earth and that death caused reincarnation, but her death—which left behind an unchanged, corporeal body—forced him to say that the ascension could be spiritual. He then concluded that her spirit had traveled to a spaceship and received a new body and that his followers and he would do the same. In his view, the Biblical heaven was actually a planet on which highly evolved beings dwelt, and physical bodies were required to ascend there. Applewhite believed that once they reached the Next Level, they would facilitate evolution on other planets. He emphasized that Jesus, whom he believed was an extraterrestrial, came to Earth, was killed, and bodily rose from the dead before being transported onto a spaceship. According to Applewhite's doctrine, Jesus was a gateway to heaven, but had found humanity unready to ascend when he first came to the Earth. Applewhite then decided that an opportunity existed for humans to reach the Next Level "every two millennia", and the early 1990s would therefore provide the first opportunity to reach the Kingdom of Heaven since the time of Jesus. Zeller notes that his beliefs were based on the Christian Bible, but were interpreted through the lens of belief in alien contact with humanity.
Applewhite taught that he was a walk-in, a concept that had gained popularity in the New Age movement during the late 1970s. Walk-ins were said to be higher beings who took control of adult bodies to teach humanity. This concept informed Applewhite's view of resurrection; he believed that his group's souls were to be transported to a spaceship, where they would enter other bodies. Applewhite abandoned the metaphor of a butterfly in favor of describing the body as a mere container, a vehicle that souls could enter and exit. This dualism may have been the product of the Christology that Applewhite learned as a young man; Lewis writes that the group's teachings had "Christian elements [that] were basically grafted on to a New Age matrix". In a profile of the group for Newsweek, Kenneth Woodward compares his dualism to that of ancient Christian Gnosticism, although Peters notes that his theology departs from Gnosticism by privileging the physical world.
In the wake of Nettles' death, Applewhite became increasingly paranoid, fearing a conspiracy against his group. One member who joined in the mid-1980s recalled that Applewhite avoided new converts, worrying that they were infiltrators. He feared a government raid on their home and spoke highly of the Jewish defenders of Masada in ancient Israel who showed total resistance to the Roman Empire. Increasingly, he began to discuss the Apocalypse, comparing the Earth to an overgrown garden that was to be recycled or rebooted and humanity to a failed experiment. In accordance with the garden metaphor, he stated that the Earth would be "spaded under". Woodward notes that Applewhite's teaching about the Earth's recycling is similar to the cyclical perspective of time found in Buddhism. Applewhite also used New Age concepts, but he differed from that movement by predicting that apocalyptic, rather than utopian, changes would soon occur on Earth. He contended that most humans had been brainwashed by Lucifer but that his followers could break free of this control. He specifically cited sexual urges as the work of Lucifer. In addition, he stated that evil extraterrestrials, whom he referred to as "Luciferians", sought to thwart his mission. He argued that many prominent moral teachers and advocates of political correctness were actually Luciferians. This theme emerged in 1988, possibly in response to the lurid alien abduction stories that were proliferating at the time.
Obscurity and evangelism
In the late 1980s, the group kept a low profile; few people knew it still existed. In 1988, they mailed a document that detailed their beliefs to a variety of New Age organizations. The mailing contained information about their history and advised people to read several books, which primarily focused on Christian history and UFOs. With the exception of the 1988 document, Applewhite's group remained inconspicuous until 1992, when they recorded a 12-part video series which was broadcast via satellite. This series echoed many of the teachings of the 1988 update, although it introduced a "universal mind" of which its hearers could partake.
Over the course of the group's existence, several hundred people joined and left. In the early 1990s, their membership dwindled, numbering as few as 26; these defections gave Applewhite a sense of urgency. In May 1993, the group took the name "Total Overcomers Anonymous". They then spent $30,000 to publish a full-page advertisement in USA Today that warned of catastrophic judgment to befall the Earth. Its publication led about 20 former members to rejoin the group. This, along with a series of public lectures in 1994, caused membership to double from its nadir at the beginning of the decade. By this time, Applewhite did not regiment his disciples' lives as strictly as he had and spent less time with them.
In the early 1990s, Applewhite posted some of his teachings on the Internet, but he was stung by the resulting criticism. That year, he first spoke of the possibility of suicide as a way to reach the Next Level. He explained that everything "human" had to be forsaken, including the human body, before one could ascend. The organization was then renamed Heaven's Gate. Davis speculates that this rejection may have encouraged him to attempt to leave Earth.
From June to October 1995, the group lived in a rural part of New Mexico. They purchased and built a compound—which they referred to as the "Earth ship"—using tires and lumber; Applewhite hoped to establish a monastery. This proved to be a difficult endeavor, particularly for the aging Applewhite: he was in poor health and, at one point, feared that he had cancer. Lifton notes that Applewhite's active leadership of the group probably led to severe fatigue in his last years. The winter was very cold, and they abandoned the plan. Afterwards, they lived in several houses in the San Diego area.
The group increasingly focused on the suppression of sexual desire; Applewhite and seven others opted for surgical castration. They initially had difficulty finding a willing surgeon, but eventually found one in Mexico. In Applewhite's view, sexuality was one of the most powerful forces that bound humans to their bodies and thus hindered their efforts to evolve to the Next Level; he taught that Next Level beings had no reproductive organs, but that Luciferian beings had genders. He also cited a verse in the New Testament that said there would not be marriage in heaven. In addition, he required members to adopt similar clothing and haircuts, possibly to reinforce that they were a nonsexual family.
Mass suicide
In October 1996, the group rented a mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California. That year, they recorded two video messages in which they offered their viewers a "last chance to evacuate Earth". Around the same time, they learned of the approach of Comet Hale–Bopp. Applewhite now believed that Nettles was aboard a spaceship trailing the comet, and that she planned to rendezvous with them. He told his followers that the vessel would transport them to an empyrean destination, and that a government conspiracy was attempting to suppress word of the craft. In addition, he stated that his deceased followers would be taken by the vessel, as well, a belief that resembled the Christian pretribulation rapture doctrine. How he learned of the comet or why he believed that it was accompanied by extraterrestrials or why he should have believed the dead Nettles would be with them is not known.
In late March 1997, the group isolated themselves and recorded farewell statements. Many members praised Applewhite in their final messages; Davis describes their remarks as "regurgitations of Do's gospel". Applewhite recorded a video shortly before his death, in which he termed the suicides the "final exit" of the group and remarked, "We do in all honesty hate this world". Lewis speculates that Applewhite settled on suicide because he had said that the group would ascend during his lifetime, so appointing a successor was unfeasible.
Religious scholar Catherine Wessinger posits that the suicides began on March 22. Most members took barbiturates and alcohol and then placed bags over their heads. They wore Nike shoes and black uniforms with patches that read "Heaven's Gate Away Team". A bag that contained a few dollars and a form of identification was placed beside most bodies. The deaths occurred over three days; Applewhite was one of the last four to die. Three assistants helped him commit suicide, then killed themselves. An anonymous tip led the sheriff's department to search the mansion; they found 39 bodies there on March 26. It was the largest group suicide involving U.S. citizens since the 1978 mass suicide of 913 Americans in Jonestown, Guyana. Applewhite's body was found seated on the bed of the mansion's master bedroom. Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded, but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis.
The deaths provoked a media circus, and Applewhite's face was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek on April 7. His final message was widely broadcast; Hugh Urban of Ohio State University describes his appearance in the video as "wild-eyed [and] rather alarming".
Analysis
Although many popular commentators, including psychologist Margaret Singer, speculate that Applewhite brainwashed his followers, many academics have rejected the "brainwashing" label as an oversimplification that does not express the nuances of the process by which the followers were influenced. Lalich speculates that they were willing to follow Applewhite in suicide because they had become totally dependent upon him, hence were poorly suited for life in his absence. Davis attributes Applewhite's success in convincing his followers to commit suicide to two factors: He isolated them socially and cultivated an attitude of complete religious obedience in them. Applewhite's students had made a long-term commitment to him, and Balch and Taylor infer that this is why his interpretations of events appeared coherent to them. Most of the dead had been members for about 20 years, although there were a few recent converts.
Lewis argues that Applewhite effectively controlled his followers by packaging his teachings in familiar terms. Richard Hecht of the University of California, Santa Barbara, echoes this sentiment, arguing that members of the group killed themselves because they believed the narrative that he had constructed, rather than because he psychologically controlled them. In his 2000 study of apocalyptic movements, John R. Hall posits that they were motivated to commit suicide because they saw it as a way to demonstrate that they had conquered the fear of death and truly believed Applewhite.
Urban writes that Applewhite's life displays "the intense ambivalence and alienation shared by many individuals lost in late 20th-century capitalist society". He notes that Applewhite's condemnations of contemporary culture bear similarities to those of Jean Baudrillard at times, particularly their shared nihilist views. Urban posits that Applewhite found no way other than suicide to escape the society that surrounded him and states that death offered him a way to escape its "endless circle of seduction and consumption".
While covering the suicides, several media outlets focused on Applewhite's sexuality; the New York Post dubbed him "the Gay Guru". Gay rights activist Troy Perry argued that Applewhite's repression, and society's rejection, of same-sex relationships ultimately led to his suicide. This idea has failed to gain support among academics. Zeller argues that Applewhite's sexuality was not the primary driving force behind his asceticism, which he believes resulted from a variety of factors, though he grants sexuality a role.
Lalich states that Applewhite fit "the traditional view of a charismatic leader", and Evan Thomas deems him a "master manipulator". Lifton compares Applewhite to Shoko Asahara, the founder of Aum Shinrikyo, describing him as "equally controlling, his paranoia and megalomania gentler yet ever present". Christopher Partridge of Lancaster University states that Applewhite and Nettles were similar to John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton, who founded Muggletonianism, a millennialist movement in 17th century England.
See also
Jim Jones, leader of the religious cult Peoples Temple, who also initiated a mass suicide among his followers
Messiah complex
Notes
References
Bibliography
Books
Journals
Magazines
Newspapers
1931 births
1997 suicides
1997 deaths
20th-century American male actors
20th-century apocalypticists
American male stage actors
American members of the clergy convicted of crimes
American music educators
American people convicted of theft
Austin College alumni
Bisexual male actors
American bisexual actors
Castrated people
Founders of new religious movements
Former Presbyterians
Converts from Presbyterianism
Converts to new religious movements from Christianity
Heaven's Gate (religious group)
LGBT people from Texas
People extradited within the United States
People from Houston
People from Spur, Texas
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by poison
Suicides in California
Union Presbyterian Seminary alumni
United States Army soldiers
University of Alabama faculty
University of Colorado alumni
20th-century American clergy
20th-century American LGBT people
Cult leaders
Ancient astronauts proponents
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20hospitals%20in%20California
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List of hospitals in California
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This is a list of hospitals in California (U.S. state), grouped by county and sorted by hospital name. In healthcare in California, only a general acute care hospital or acute psychiatric hospital, as licensed by the California Department of Public Health, can be referred to as a "hospital." As of 2018, the CPHD Center for Health Care Quality Cal Health Find database reports 422 general acute care hospitals statewide, as well as 128 acute psychiatric hospitals.
Alameda County
Alameda Hospital – Alameda
Alta Bates Summit Medical Center
Alta Bates Campus – Berkeley
Herrick Campus – Berkeley
Summit Campus – Oakland (previous merger of Providence Hospital, Peralta Hospital, and Samuel Merritt Hospital)
Anderson Sanatorium – Oakland (closed)
Eden Medical Center – Castro Valley
Fabiola Hospital - Oakland, California (1876-1932) (donated to Samuel Merritt Hospital)
Fairmont Rehabilitation and Wellness Center with hospital-based Skilled Nursing Facility – San Leandro
Fremont Hospital (behavioral health facility) - Fremont
Hayward Hospital – Hayward (closed in 1988)
Highland Hospital – Oakland
John George Psychiatric Pavilion – San Leandro
Kaiser Hayward – (closed in 2014)
Naval Hospital Oakland (closed 1996) including nearby San Leandro Naval Hospital (closed 1964)
Kaiser Fremont Medical Center (Kaiser Permanente) - Fremont
Kaiser Oakland Medical Center
Kaiser San Leandro Medical Center
Kindred Hospital - San Francisco Bay Area (LTACH) – San Leandro
Livermore Sanitarium – Livermore (1894– 1965; closed)
Livermore VA Hospital – Livermore
St. Rose Hospital – Hayward
San Leandro Hospital – San Leandro
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland – Oakland
ValleyCare Medical Center – Pleasanton
Washington Hospital - Fremont
Amador County
Sutter Amador Hospital – Jackson
Alpine County
County Hospital (Alpine County, California)
Butte County
Enloe Medical Center – Chico
Oroville Hospital – Oroville
Orchard Hospital – Biggs-Gridley
Calaveras County
Mark Twain St. Joseph
Colusa County
Colusa Regional Medical Center
Contra Costa County
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center – Martinez
Doctors Medical Center – closed in 2015
John Muir Concord Medical Center – Concord (formerly Mt. Diablo Medical Center)
John Muir Walnut Creek Medical Center – Walnut Creek (Level II Trauma Center)
Kaiser Martinez Medical Center – closed in 1998
Kaiser Richmond Medical Center
Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center
Los Medanos Community Hospital
San Ramon Regional Medical Center – San Ramon
Sutter Delta Medical Center – Antioch
Del Norte County
Sutter Coast Hospital
El Dorado County
Barton Memorial Hospital
Marshall Medical Center
Fresno County
Coalinga Regional Medical Center – Coalinga (closed)
Coalinga State Hospital – Coalinga (state run psychiatric hospital)
Community Medical Center-Clovis – Clovis
Community Regional Medical Center – Fresno
Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital – Fresno (part of Community Medical Centers)
Fresno Surgical Hospital – Fresno
Kaiser Fresno Medical Center – Fresno
Kingsburg Medical Center – Kingsburg (closed)
Saint Agnes Medical Center – Fresno
San Joaquin Valley Rehabilitation Hospital
Sanger General Hospital – Sanger (closed)
Selma Community Hospital – Selma
Sierra Kings Hospital – Reedley (acquired by Adventist Health and renamed Adventist Medical Center – Reedley)
Glenn County
Glenn Medical Center – Willows
Humboldt County
Jerold Phelps Community Hospital – Garberville
Mad River Community Hospital – Arcata
Redwood Memorial Hospital – Fortuna
St. Joseph Hospital – Eureka (includes the General Hospital Campus and Rehabilitation Hospital)
Imperial County
El Centro Regional Medical Center
Pioneers Memorial Hospital
Inyo County
Northern Inyo Hospital
Southern Inyo Hospital
Kern County
Bakersfield Heart Hospital – Bakersfield
Bakersfield Memorial Hospital – Bakersfield
Delano Regional Medical Center – Delano
Kern Medical Center – Bakersfield
Kern Valley – Lake Isabella
Mercy Hospital Bakersfield (formerly named Mercy Truxton)
Mercy Southwest – Bakersfield
Ridgecrest Regional Hospital – Ridgecrest
San Joaquin Medical Center – Bakersfield
Kings County
Adventist Medical Center – – Hanford
Central Valley General Hospital
Corcoran District Hospital
Naval Hospital Lemoore
Lake County
St. Helena Hospital Clearlake
Sutter Lakeside Hospital
Lassen County
Banner Lassen Medical Center – Susanville
Los Angeles County
North
These hospitals are located north of the 10 Freeway:
Alhambra Hospital Medical Center – Alhambra
Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center – Lancaster
Aurora Las Encinas Hospital – Pasadena
Barlow Respiratory Hospital – Los Angeles
California Hospital Medical Center – Los Angeles
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center – Los Angeles and Beverly Hills
Century City Hospital – Los Angeles (closed)
Children's Hospital Los Angeles – Los Angeles
City of Hope National Medical Center – Duarte
Encino Hospital Medical Center – Encino
Emanate Health/Foothill Presbyterian Hospital – Glendora
Emanate Health/Inter-community Hospital – Covina
Estelle Doheny Eye Hospital - Los Angeles (Closed)
Garfield Medical Center – Monterey Park
Glendale Adventist Medical Center – Glendale
Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center – Glendale
Glendale Research Hospital – Glendale
Glendora Community Hospital – Glendora (formerly East Valley Hospital)
Good Samaritan Hospital – Los Angeles
Granada Hills Community Hospital – Granada Hills (closed August 2003)
Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital – Valencia
Hollywood Community Hospital of Hollywood – Hollywood
Hollywood Community Hospital of Van Nuys – Van Nuys
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center – Los Angeles
Huntington Hospital – Pasadena
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Chatsworth – Chatsworth
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Panorama City
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – West Los Angeles
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Woodland Hills
Kaiser Foundation Hospital Sunset – Los Angeles
Keck Hospital of USC - Los Angeles (formerly USC University Hospital)
LA Downtown Medical Center, formerly:
Silver Lake Medical Center – Los Angeles
Los Angeles Downtown Medical Center - Los Angeles
City of Angels Medical Center
Lakewood Regional Medical Center – Lakewood
Lancaster Community Hospital – Lancaster (closed)
Lanterman Developmental Center - Pomona
Los Angeles Community Hospital – Los Angeles
Los Angeles County High Desert Hospital – Lancaster (closed June 2003)
Los Angeles County Los Amigos Medical Center
Los Angeles General Medical Center – Los Angeles (formerly Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center)
Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center – Los Angeles (closed 2013)
Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA – Los Angeles
Methodist Hospital of Southern California – Arcadia
Mission Community Hospital – Panorama Campus
Monrovia Community Hospital – (closed May 2004)
Monterey Park Hospital – Monterey Park
Motion Picture & Television Hospital – Woodland Hills
Northridge Hospital Medical Center – Northridge
Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Sherman Way Campus (closed December 2004)
Olive View-UCLA Medical Center – Sylmar
Olympia Medical Center – Los Angeles
Orthopaedic Hospital – Los Angeles (outpatient service only as of June 2005)
Pacific Alliance Medical Center – Los Angeles
Pacifica Hospital Of The Valley – Sun Valley
Palmdale Regional Medical Center – Palmdale
Pico Rivera Medical Center – Pico Rivera
Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center - Pomona, California
Promise Hospital of East Los Angeles – Los Angeles
Providence Holy Cross Medical Center – Mission Hills
Providence St. Joseph Medical Center – Burbank
Providence Tarzana Medical Center – Tarzana
Emanate Health/Queen of the Valley Hospital – West Covina
Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA – Los Angeles
Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center - Hawthorne, California (Closed in 2004)
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center – Los Angeles
St. John's Health Center – Santa Monica
St Luke Medical Center – Sierra Madre (closed January 2002)
St. Vincent Medical Center – Los Angeles
San Gabriel Valley Medical Center – San Gabriel
San Vicente Hospital
Santa Marta Hospital (see Elastar Community Hospital (closed 2004)
Santa Teresita Hospital – Duarte (acute care closed January 2004)
Sherman Oaks Hospital and the Grossman Burn Center – Sherman Oaks
Shriners Hospital – Los Angeles
Silver Lake Medical Center, Ingleside Campus – Rosemead
Temple Community Hospital – Los Angeles (closed 2014)
Thompson Memorial Medical Center Hospital – Burbank (closed 1997) (formerly Burbank Community Hospital)
UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica – Santa Monica
USC Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Hospital
USC Verdugo Hills Hospital – Glendale
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare Center (Veterans Affairs) – Los Angeles
Valley Presbyterian Hospital – Van Nuys
Vencor Hospital – Los Angeles – Los Angeles
West Hills Hospital – West Hills
West Hills Regional Medical Center – West Hills]
West Los Angeles Memorial Hospital – Los Angeles
West Los Angeles VA Medical Center – Los Angeles
West Valley Hospital And Health Center – Canoga Park
Westlake Outpatient Medical Center – Westlake Village
Westside Hospital– Los Angeles
White Memorial Medical Center – Los Angeles
South
These hospitals are located south of the 10 Freeway:
Avalon Municipal Hospital
Baldwin Park Hospital – Baldwin Park
Bay Harbor Hospital – (closed September 1999)
Bellflower Medical Center – Bellflower
Bellwood General Hospital – Bellflower (closed April 2003)
Beverly Hospital – Montebello
Broadway Community Hospital – Los Angeles (closed March 1982)
Brotman Medical Center – Culver City
Casa Colina Hospital For Rehab Medicine – Pomona
Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Centinela Campus – Inglewood
Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Marina Campus – Marina del Rey
Centinela Freeman Regional Medical Center, Memorial Campus – Inglewood (closed in 2007)
Emanate Health/Queen of the Valley Hospital –West Covina
Coast Plaza Hospital – Norwalk
College Hospital – Cerritos
College Medical Center – Long Beach
Community Hospital of Gardena – Gardena
Community Hospital of Huntington Park – Huntington Park
Community Hospital of Long Beach – Long Beach
Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital – Inglewood (1954–2007; closed)
Doctors Hospital Of West Covina – West Covina
Downey Regional Medical Center – Downey
East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital – East Los Angeles
Elastar Community Hospital – East Los Angeles (2004; closed)
Gardens Regional Hospital & Medical Center (previously known as Tri-City Regional Medical Center)- Hawaiian Gardens
Greater El Monte Community Hospital – South El Monte
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center – West Carson
Inter-Community Medical Center – West Covina
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Bellflower
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Carson
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Harbor City
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center – Baldwin Park
Little Company of Mary Hospital – San Pedro
Little Company of Mary Hospital – Torrance
Long Beach Community Hospital – Long Beach
Long Beach Doctors Hospital – Long Beach (closed June 1998)
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center – Long Beach
Los Angeles Community Hospital of Norwalk – Norwalk
Los Angeles Metropolitan Med Center – Hawthorne Campus – Hawthorne
Marina Del Rey Hospital – Marina Del Rey
Martin Luther King Jr. - Harbor Hospital – Willowbrook
Memorial Hospital Of Gardena – Gardena
Metropolitan State Hospital (formally Norwalk State Hospital) – Norwalk
Miller Children's Hospital – Long Beach
Mission Hospital of Huntington Park – Huntington Park
Morningside Hospital – Los Angeles (closed September 1980)
Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital
Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center, San Pedro Campus
Queen of the Valley Hospital - West Covina
Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center – Downey (originally opened as Hollydale Medical center, closed 1988, reopened 1989)
Lakewood Regional Medical Center
Rio Hondo Hospital – Downey
Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center – Los Angeles (closed December 2004)
St. Francis Medical Center – Lynwood
St. Mary Medical Center – Long Beach
San Dimas Community Hospital
Specialty Hospital of Southern California
Suburban Medical Center - Paramount
Torrance Memorial Medical Center
University Hospital – 3787 S. Vermont Avenue Los Angeles (opened before 1958, closed 1983)
Whittier Hospital Medical Center
Madera County
Valley Children’s Hospital – Madera
Madera Community Hospital – Madera
Marin County
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Rafael
Kentfield Hospital (LTACH) (Vibra Healthcare)
MarinHealth Medical Center (formerly called Marin General Hospital) – Greenbrae
Novato Community Hospital
Mariposa County
John C. Fremont Hospital
Mendocino County
Ukiah Valley Medical Center – Ukiah
Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital – Willits
Mendocino Coast District Hospital – Fort Bragg
Mendocino State Hospital – Talmage (1889–1972; closed)
Merced County
Los Banos Community Hospital
Mercy Medical Center Merced Community Campus
Mercy Medical Center Merced Dominican Campus
Modoc County
Modoc Medical Center
Surprise Valley Community Hospital
Mono County
Mammoth Hospital
Monterey County
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula – Monterey
George L. Mee Memorial Hospital – King City
Natividad Medical Center – Salinas
Salinas Surgery Center – Salinas
Salinas Valley Health Medical Center – Salinas
Napa County
Adventist Health St. Helena, (formerly St. Helena Hospital) – St. Helena
Napa State Hospital - Napa
Queen of the Valley Medical Center - Napa
Nevada County
Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital – Grass Valley
Tahoe Forest Hospital – Truckee
Orange County
Anaheim General Hospital – Anaheim
Anaheim General Hospital – Buena Park Campus
Anaheim Regional Medical Center – Anaheim
Brea Community Hospital – Brea (closed)
Chapman Medical Center – Orange
Children's Hospital of Orange County – Orange
Children's Hospital of Orange County at Mission - Mission Viejo
Coastal Communities Hospital – Santa Ana
College Hospital Costa Mesa
Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center – Fountain Valley
Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center – Garden Grove
HealthBridge Children's Rehabilitation Hospital – Orange
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian – Irvine
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian – Newport Beach
Huntington Beach Hospital and Medical Center – Huntington Beach
John Douglas French Center – Los Alamitos
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Anaheim
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Irvine
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Lakeview
Kindred Hospital – Brea
Kindred Hospital – Santa Ana
Kindred Hospital – Westminster
La Palma Intercommunity Hospital – La Palma
Los Alamitos Medical Center – Los Alamitos
Martin Luther Hospital Medical Center
Providence Mission Hospital – Mission Viejo
Providence Mission Hospital Laguna Beach – Laguna Beach
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center – Fountain Valley
Orange County Community Hospital – Buena Park
Placentia-Linda Community Hospital – Placentia
Saddleback Memorial Medical Center – Laguna Hills
St. Joseph Hospital (Orange, California) - Orange
St. Jude Medical Center – Fullerton
San Clemente Hospital and Medical Center – San Clemente
Santa Ana Hospital Medical Center – Santa Ana
Tustin Hospital Medical Center
Tustin Rehabilitation Hospital
University of California, Irvine Medical Center – Orange
Vencor Hospital – Brea
Vencor Hospital – Orange County
West Anaheim Medical Center – Anaheim
Western Medical Center – Anaheim
Orange County Global Medical Center – Santa Ana
Placer County
DeWitt General Hospital – (1944–1945; closed and 1947–1972; closed), former United States Army hospital during World War II and later a public hospital
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center – Roseville
Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital
Sutter Roseville Medical Center
Plumas County
Eastern Plumas District Hospital
Indian Valley Hospital
Plumas District Hospital
Seneca Hospital
Riverside County
Banning General Hospital – Banning (built to support the Desert Training Center, since closed)
Corona Regional Medical Center – Corona
Desert Regional Medical Center – Palm Springs
Eisenhower Medical Center – Rancho Mirage
Hemet Global Medical Center – Hemet
Highland Springs Surgical Center – Beaumont
Inland Valley Regional Medical Center – Wildomar
John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital – Indio
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Riverside
Lakeside Hospital – Perris
Loma Linda University Medical Center – Murrieta
Menifee Global Medical Center – Menifee
Mission Valley Medical Center – Lake Elsinore
Moreno Valley Community Hospital – Moreno Valley
Palo Verde Hospital – Blythe
Parkview Community Hospital Medical Center – Riverside
Rancho Springs Medical Center – Murrieta
Riverside Community Hospital – Riverside
Riverside County Regional Medical Center – Moreno Valley
San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital – Banning
Temecula Valley Hospital – Temecula
Valley Plaza Doctors Hospital
Sacramento County
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – North Sacramento
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – South Sacramento
Mercy General Hospital
Mercy Hospital – Folsom
Mercy San Juan Medical Center
Methodist Hospital of Sacramento
Shriners Hospitals for Children Northern California
Sierra Vista Hospital
Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento
University of California Davis Medical Center
Vencor Hospital – Sacramento
San Benito County
Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital
San Bernardino County
Receiving Hospitals (With Emergency Department)
Arrowhead Regional Medical Center – Colton
Barstow Community Hospital – Barstow
Bear Valley Community Hospital – Big Bear Lake
Chino Valley Medical Center – Chino
Colorado River Medical Center – Needles
Community Hospital of San Bernardino – San Bernardino
Desert Valley Hospital – Victorville
Hi-Desert Medical Center – Joshua Tree
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Fontana
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Ontario
Loma Linda University Medical Center – Loma Linda
Loma Linda University Medical Center-East - Loma Linda
Loma Linda Veterans Affairs Medical Center – Loma Linda
Doctor’s Hospital Montclair Medical Center – Montclair
Mountains Community Hospital – Lake Arrowhead
Redlands Community Hospital – Redlands
St. Bernardine Medical Center – San Bernardino
St. Mary Regional Medical Center – Apple Valley
San Antonio Community Hospital – Upland
Victor Valley Hospital – Victorville
Non-Receiving Hospitals (Without Emergency Department)
Canyon Ridge Hospital (acute psychiatric hospital) - Chino
Loma Linda University Children's Hospital – Loma Linda (On LLUMC campus)
Patton State Hospital – San Bernardino
Robert H. Ballard Rehabilitation Hospital – San Bernardino
Vencor Hospital – Ontario
San Diego County
Alvarado Hospital Medical Center – San Diego
Children's Hospital and Health Center – San Diego
Children's Hospital of San Diego – San Diego
Jacobs Medical Center - La Jolla
Kaiser Hospital - San Diego
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center – San Diego
Kindred Hospital – San Diego
Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women – San Diego
Naval Medical Center San Diego – San Diego
Palomar Medical Center – Escondido
Paradise Valley Hospital – National City
Pomerado Hospital – Poway
Rady Children's Hospital
San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital – San Diego
San Luis Rey Hospital – Encinitas
Scripps Green Hospital – La Jolla
Scripps Memorial Hospital – Encinitas
Scripps Memorial Hospital – La Jolla
Scripps Mercy Hospital – Chula Vista
Scripps Mercy Hospital – San Diego
Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center – Chula Vista
Sharp Coronado Hospital – Coronado
Sharp Grossmont Hospital – La Mesa
Sharp Memorial Hospital – San Diego
Sharp Mesa Vista – San Diego
Tri-City Medical Center – Oceanside
UC San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest – San Diego
U.S. Naval Hospital (Camp Pendleton) – Camp Pendleton
Veterans Affairs Medical Center San Diego – La Jolla
San Francisco County
Almshouse San Francisco (closed), later became the location of Laguna Honda Hospital
Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center
Kentfield Hospital San Francisco (LTACH) (Vibra Healthcare) - located 6th floor of St. Mary's Medical Center
Park Sanitarium (formally the Scobie Memorial Sanitarium; closed)
Public Health Service Hospital (1912–1981; closed)
Saint Francis Memorial Hospital
San Francisco Chinese Hospital
San Francisco General Hospital (SFDPH)
San Francisco Marine Hospital (1853– 1912; closed), was renamed as a Public Health Service Hospital.
San Francisco VA Medical Center
St. Joseph's Hospital (1928–1979; closed)
St. Mary's Medical Center
Sutter California Pacific Medical Center
Davies campus
Mission Bernal campus
Van Ness campus
UCSF Medical Center
Parnassus campus
Mount Zion campus
Mission Bay campus
San Joaquin County
Dameron Hospital – Stockton
Doctors Hospital of Manteca – Manteca
Kaiser Manteca Medical Center – Manteca
Lodi Memorial Hospital – Lodi
St. Joseph's Medical Center – Stockton
San Joaquin General Hospital – French Camp
Stockton State Hospital – (1851–1996; closed), the first psychiatric hospital in California.
Sutter Tracy Community Hospital – Tracy
San Luis Obispo County
Arroyo Grande Community Hospital – Arroyo Grande
Atascadero State Hospital – Atascadero
French Hospital Medical Center – San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo General Hospital (closed June 2003)
Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center – San Luis Obispo
Twin Cities Community Hospital – Templeton
San Mateo County
Gardner Sanitarium – (1900– 1922; closed), Ralston Hall, Belmont
Kaiser Foundation Hospital – Redwood City
Kaiser South San Francisco Medical Center – South San Francisco
Hassler Health Farm – San Carlos (closed 1972)
Menlo Park VA Hospital – Menlo Park
Menlo Park Surgical Hospital - Menlo Park
Mills-Peninsula Medical Center – Burlingame
San Mateo Medical Center – San Mateo
Sequoia Hospital – Redwood City
Seton Medical Center – Daly City
Seton Medical Center – Coastside – Moss Beach
Santa Barbara County
Cottage Children's Hospital – Santa Barbara
Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital – Santa Barbara
Lompoc Valley Medical Center – Lompoc
Marian Regional Medical Center – Santa Maria
Saint Francis Medical Center – Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital – Santa Barbara
Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital – Solvang
Santa Clara County
CHoNC Pediatric Hospital– Campbell, California
El Camino Hospital
Mountain View campus
Los Gatos campus (formerly Community Hospital of Los Gatos)
Good Samaritan Hospital – San Jose
Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center – Santa Clara
Kaiser Permanente Santa Teresa Medical Center – San Jose
Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford – Palo Alto
O'Connor Hospital – San Jose
Regional Medical Center of San Jose – San Jose
Saint Louise Regional Hospital – Gilroy
San Jose Medical Center – San Jose
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center – San Jose
Stanford University Medical Center – Stanford
VA Palo Alto Hospital – Palo Alto
Santa Cruz County
Dominican Hospital – Santa Cruz
Sutter Maternity and Surgery Hospital – Santa Cruz
Watsonville Community Hospital– Watsonville
Shasta County
Mayers Memorial Hospital District – Fall River Mills
Mercy Medical Center (Redding) – Redding
Shasta Regional Medical Center – Redding
Sierra County
None
Siskiyou County
Fairchild Medical Center – Yreka
Mercy Medical Center – Mount Shasta
Solano County
Adventist Health Vallejo - Vallejo (Formerly California Specialty Hospital; St. Helena Center For Behavioral Health)
David Grant USAF Medical Center – Travis Air Force Base
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center – Vallejo
NorthBay Medical Center – Fairfield
Sutter Solano Medical Center – Vallejo
NorthBay VacaValley Hospital – Vacaville
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center – Vacaville (Level II Trauma Center)
Sonoma County
Healdsburg District Hospital – Healdsburg
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center Santa Rosa – Santa Rosa
Sonoma Speciality Hospital (LTACH) (former Sonoma West Medical Center and Palm Drive Hospital) – Sebastopol
Petaluma Valley Hospital – Petaluma
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital – Santa Rosa (Level II Trauma Center)
Sonoma Developmental Center – Eldridge, opened 1891, the oldest facility in California established specifically for serving the needs of those with developmental disabilities.
Sonoma Valley Hospital – Sonoma
Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa – Santa Rosa
Stanislaus County
Doctors Medical Center of Modesto – Modesto
Emanuel Medical Center – Turlock
Hammond General Hospital – (1942–1946; closed) a United States Army hospital during World War II
Kaiser Medical Center – Modesto
Memorial Medical Center – Modesto
Modesto State Hospital – (1946–1972; closed)
Oak Valley Hospital – Oakdale
Sutter County
Fremont Memorial Hospital – Yuba City
Tehama County
Saint Elizabeth Community Hospital – Red Bluff
Trinity County
Mountain Community Medical Services – Weaverville
Tulare County
Kaweah Delta Medical Center – Visalia
Porterville Developmental Center – Porterville
Sierra View District Hospital – Porterville
Tulare Regional Medical Center – Tulare
Tuolumne County
Sonora Regional Medical Center – Sonora
Ventura County
Adventist Health Simi Valley - Simi Valley (Formerly Simi Valley Hospital)
Camarillo State Mental Hospital – Camarillo (1933–1997; closed)
Community Memorial Hospital – Ventura
Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center – Thousand Oaks
St. John's Hospital Camarillo – Camarillo
St. John's Regional Medical Center – Oxnard
Santa Paula Hospital – Santa Paula
SHC Specialty Hospital – Westlake Village (closed)
Ventura County Medical Center – Ventura
Yolo County
Sutter Davis Hospital – Davis
Woodland Memorial Hospital – Woodland
References
External links
California
Hospitals
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379470
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth%20Criminal%20Justice%20Act
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Youth Criminal Justice Act
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The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA; ; ) (the Act) is a Canadian statute, which came into effect on April 1, 2003. It covers the prosecution of youths for criminal offences. The Act replaced the Young Offenders Act, which itself was a replacement for the Juvenile Delinquents Act.
Definition of youth
The Act governs the application of criminal and correctional law to those 12 years old or older, but younger than 18 at the time of committing the offence (Section 2 of the YCJA). Youth aged 14 to 17 may be sentenced as adults under certain conditions, as described later on in the Act. The Criminal Code, section 13, states "No person shall be convicted of an offence in respect of an act or omission on their part while that person was under the age of twelve years."
Preamble
The preamble of the Act recognizes that youth have rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Bill of Rights and the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Declaration of principles
The Act includes four general principles found in section 3(1).
Basic principles and intentions
Subsection (a) addresses the basic principles of the Act and the Act intentions on dealing with young offenders and youth crime. More specifically, subsection (a) sets the basic principle that the YCJA attempts to address underlying behaviour, such as pre-existing conditions or circumstances that would lead to an offending behaviour. It also seeks to, above all, reintegrate young persons who commit offences into society through means of rehabilitation.
Accountability, rehabilitation, and reintegration
Subsection (b) incorporates a recognition that young people need to be held accountable for their crimes, and have a greater opportunity to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. The criminal justice system for young persons must be separate from that of adults and emphasize the following:
(i) Rehabilitation and Reintegration: The implementation of extrajudicial measures instead of more punitive sentences for less serious offences "address the rehabilitative needs of youths within the limit of a proportionate response to the offence". The goal is to first rehabilitate and then reintegrate (assisting a young offender to adjust back into their community).
(ii) Fair/proportionate accountability with greater dependency and reduced maturity: During sentencing "proportionality determines the degree of intervention of the sentence". The court must hold the offender accountable only for the acts committed. Therefore, "accountability is to occur through the imposition of meaningful consequences and measures that will promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of youth into society". The offender's level of maturity is considered when deciding on a response to the offence that is both fair and proportionate.
(iii) Enhanced procedural protection, fairness, rights: These procedural protections are there to guarantee that young people's rights are protected and that they are treated fairly. Some of these rights include but are not limited to: right to privacy, right to talk with a lawyer and an adult.
(iv) Ensure timely intervention reinforces link between offence and consequence.
(v) Promptness and speed with which persons responsible for this Act must act, given young persons' perception of time.
Social values
Subsection (c) is meant to reflect social values while taking into account each individual's unique situation. It outlines the parameters within which the measures taken against a youth offender are set:
(i) Reinforce respect for societal values by implementing exercises that contribute positively to a youth's rehabilitation.
(ii) Encourage repair of harm done to victims and emphasizing their rights. Furthermore, repair of harm done to the community is also encouraged.
(iii) Be meaningful for the individual young person given their needs and level of development and, where appropriate, involve the parents, the extended family, the community and social or other agencies in the young person's rehabilitation and reintegration. The Act provides a much bigger role for the parents and the community.
(iv) Respect gender, ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences and respond to the needs of aboriginal young persons and of young persons with special requirements.
Rights and considerations
Subsection (d) describes the special considerations for criminal proceedings against young persons. It highlights four in particular.
(i) The rights of young persons, such as right to be heard in the course of and to participate in the processes and the special guarantees of their rights and freedoms
(ii) The rights of victims. They should be treated with courtesy, compassion and respect for their dignity and privacy and should suffer the minimum degree of inconvenience as a result of their involvement with the YCJS - youth criminal justice system.
(iii) The role of victims. They should be provided with information about the proceedings and given opportunity to participate and be heard.
(iv) The role of parents. The parents should be informed of their child's proceedings, and are encouraged to support them in addressing their offending behaviour. (vi)
Extrajudicial measures
Under Part 1 of the Act, extrajudicial measures are used for responding to less serious youth crimes in a timely and effective manner. Police are the first officials to be encountered within the system and possess the power to use discretion in deciding whether to issue a warning, a police caution, or a charge. If the youth agrees, the police can also refer the youth to a program under section 7 of the Act. If the police decide to refer the case to the courts, the Crown can choose to issue a Crown caution.
If a warning, caution or referral was issued it means that the police officer has taken no further action on the offence. If a warning, caution, or referral is not appropriate, an extrajudicial sanction may be considered as well.
Principles
Section 4 of the Act sets out principles that govern the establishment of policies about extrajudicial measures:
They are often most appropriate to address youth crime;
They allow for effective intervention focused on correcting offending behaviour;
They are presumed to be adequate for young persons charged with a non-violent offence and are not guilty of any prior offence and
They should be used if they are sufficient to hold a young offender accountable and may be used if a young person has previously been dealt with by extrajudicial measures.
Objectives
These measures are applied by police and Crown attorneys with the intention that youth can be held liable through non-court measures for their offence(s).
Under Section 5 of the Act, objectives of these measures are to:
Provide an effective and timely response to offending behaviour outside of judicial measures.
Encourage young persons to acknowledge and repair the harm caused to the victim/community.
Encourage families and members of the community to get involved in implementing the measures.
Provide victims with a chance to take part in the decisions relating to the measures and to receive reparation.
Respect the freedoms of young persons and ensure proportionality to the seriousness of the crime.
These objectives are specially designed so that a wide range of diversionary options are available to achieve an array of objectives and it is important to take into consideration many factors when deciding on a fair response to the offence. For example, if the young person has already started reparation to the harm done to the victim, the person deciding on the type of extrajudicial measure should consider that factor when determining an appropriate response.
Types of extrajudicial measures
There are four types of extrajudicial measures (not including extrajudicial sanctions):
Warnings are informal warnings issued by police officers. They are usually used for minor crimes.
Police cautions are formal warnings from the police. In some jurisdictions, it is expected that police cautions will be in the form of a letter from the police to the young person and the parents, or they may involve a process in which the young person and the parents are requested to appear at a police station to talk to a senior police officer.
Crown cautions are similar to police cautions but prosecutors give the caution after the police refer the case to them. In one province where they are currently being used, the caution is in the form of a letter to the young person and the parents.
Referring to different community
Extrajudicial sanctions
An extrajudicial sanction is defined as a type of extrajudicial measure used to deal with a young person only if they cannot be adequately dealt by a warning, caution or referral as outlined above. Conditions that dictate this are the seriousness of the offence, the nature and number of previous offences committed by the young person or any other aggravating circumstances. Extrajudicial sanctions examples include restitution or compensation, service to the victim or community, attendance and participating in counselling and treatment programs, etc.
Formerly termed as alternative measures under the Young Offenders Act extrajudicial sanctions are important for they are a good alternative option to the formal court process for the young person. If they comply satisfactorily with the sanction the charge can be dismissed. However, failure to comply or unsatisfactory performance may result in a charge or return to court. The decision whether to apply an extrajudicial sanction lies in with the police officer, Crown Prosecutor, or other officials and in comparison to other types of extrajudicial measures, a more formal set of rules applies to extrajudicial sanctions. Further, although it appears that the charge has "gone away", if the youth reoffends the sanction can be brought up at the next hearing.
Restriction on using extrajudicial sanctions
Extrajudicial sanctions can only be used if:
Other extrajudicial measures are not suitable: informal warning, police caution, Crown caution or referral to community program(s);
The program suggested is allowed by the government of that jurisdiction;
The program is appropriate, considering the young person's needs and the interests of society;
The young person has made an informed consent to participate (the young person must know about the sanction, must be given the right to counsel, must be given an opportunity to consult with counsel, and must consent to its use;
The young person accepts responsibility for the crime;
There is sufficient evidence for the Crown to proceed with the charge(s) and prosecution; and
A parent is notified.
Extrajudicial sanctions cannot be used if:
The young person denies being involved in the offence;
The young person wants a trial in court; or
The young person fails to be allowed into the program
Youth justice committees
Section 18(1) of the Youth Justice Committees (YJCs) help in the administering of the Act by devolving power to the community. YJCs facilitate interaction between the victim and offender, and recommend appropriate programs/services to treat their situation. Each committee is a group of trained volunteers from the local community. Their main activities include the following:
a. for the youth charged with an offence:
Recommending an appropriate extrajudicial measure to be used
Victim support by addressing concerns and mediating between victim and offender
Ensuring community support by arranging for the use of communal services, and recruiting short-term mentors and supervisors
Coordinating interaction between the youth criminal justice system and any outside agency/group
b. Reporting to the federal and provincial governments on whether protective measures of the act are followed
c. Advising the federal and provincial governments on policies and procedures related to the youth criminal justice system
d. Informing the public in respect of the YCJA and the youth criminal justice system;
e. Setting up conferences
f. Any other task assigned by The Attorney General of Canada or a provincial minister
Operating under the paradigm of restorative justice, YJCs aim to "strike the right balance between accountability and community intervention" YJCs are used extensively in Manitoba, Alberta and New Brunswick. A committee's activity largely depends on volunteer efforts from its community. Trained members work to create extrajudicial measures for young people, but failure to comply with measures given ultimately results in return to the formal justice system.
Right to counsel
General
The Act in Section 25(1) gives a youth the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay, which was amended by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This means that young persons who are arrested or detained for any reason must be told of their right to obtain a lawyer before any lawful procedures are conducted. The youth must also be given the opportunity to obtain this counsel. If the youth does not have a lawyer present at the first court date, the judge must inform the youth of their right of counsel. Before accepting a plea, the court must
Ensure that the young person understands the charge
Explain the plea options
Explain the process of applying a youth sentence
The young person has right to counsel upon arrest or detention, before a voluntary statement, during consideration of extrajudicial sanctions, and at a hearing. If the youth is denied legal aid for any reason, the court can order that counsel be given to the youth- in order to comply with the right to counsel If at any point the parent's interests and the youth's interests are in conflict, the presiding judge may also order counsel be obtained for the youth Even though right to counsel is guaranteed by the Act, studies have shown that youth tend to not take advantage of counsel, leading many to question the validity and authenticity of Section 25(1).
Appointment of counsel
The delivery of legal counsel has two primary models: Judicare and Staff delivery model text to display. In judicare delivery model, lawyers in private practice are issued certificates to provide legal aid to clients. In the staff lawyer system, the service is provided by lawyers that are employed directly by the legal aid plan. The proportion of Young offender legal aid is equally divided between the two. Section 25 of the Act outlines the young individual's right to counsel, which was amended from the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The aim is to protect the youth's right to counsel in all stages of the youth justice process and ensure the individual understands the justice process. According to the Act section 25 (4): If the young individual is unable to obtain legal assistance or no legal aid program is available, the young offender is able to request counsel. The counsel to represent the young individual is to be appointed by the Attorney General according to the section 25(5) of the Youth Justice Act. For example, if the young individual is unable to afford a lawyer, he or she may request legal aid. If eligible, a lawyer will be appointed by the attorney general.
Assistance by adult
The Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms and the Act both hold the right to legal representation for youth. The purpose is to provide extensive opportunity for legal advocacy and advice prior to and during the court process. However, when a young person is not represented by counsel at trial or at a hearing, the justice presiding over the case or the youth justice court may allow youth to be assisted by an adult at the request of the young person For this to occur, the youth court of justice or the review board must find an adult who is deemed to be suitable in assisting the young person. This right is given to make the process for the young person easier, as the young person can obtain adult assistance from someone that they are more familiar with. Despite the fact that section 25(7) does not specify specific requirements for the ideal suitable adult, this tends to be assessed on a case-by-case basis to the specific needs of the young person.
Statement to youth
The Statement of Right to Counsel requires that the young person be provided with a written statement that reminds them that they do have the right to request and be represented by legal counsel at any time during the judicial process. Included at various stages of the judicial process, the Statement, ensures that the young person remains alert to their rights, to the continued availability of counsel and to their options for counsel (i.e., Legal Aid). The Statement must be included with appearance notices or summons, arrest warrants, promises to appear, in all notifications of sentence review and also with all undertakings or recognisance that the young person may participate in under the auspices of the officer in charge. It must also be included with other notifications of legal proceedings such as custody continuations, conditional supervision, decision reviews and all youth justice court reviews. The repetition of the document serves as a reminder not only to the young person, but also to those within the judicial system that it is necessary to protect the rights of the young person and guarantee that those rights are upheld throughout the judicial process.
Explanation appropriate to age and understanding
Every accused person in Canada has the right to be informed of their rights and what they are being charged of, according to the legal rights of the Arrest and Detention section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to section 146 (2) (b) of the Act, Young persons under the age of 18 must have their rights explained by the officer in a language appropriate to their age and level of understanding. Therefore, the officer must assess the accused youth's ability to understand their rights before attaining a statement from the youth. It is imperative that the officer states the rights to the youth in a manner that he or she fully understands due to the fact that the courts will not assess whether the child fully understood the rights inform to them by the officer but whether or not the officer explained their rights at a level appropriate to their age and understanding.
Officers employ such techniques as having the youth repeat or summarize in their own words the rights that were transmitted to them to avoid having any testimonies made by the accused youth waived by the courts.
Right to counsel
The fundamental paradigm shift from the Youth Offenders Act to the Youth Criminal Justice Act involves the view that deviant youth are now viewed as offenders responsible for their actions. In a similar comparison to that of adults, the youth are encouraged to obtain legal counsel. The youth justice court or review board is required as a legal implication to advise the young person of their right to counsel. The following are some typical situations that warrant such advice: at a hearing for the youth when determining to detain or release the individual, at a youth's trial, and in situations where the custody of the youth is in question such as conditional supervision and decision reviews. The youth justice court or review board is more specifically required to provide a reasonable opportunity to obtain such counsel and this act is viewed as a mandated judicial measure. A specific difference in comparison to adult courts is the fact that it prohibits criminal proceedings against a youth without the consent of the Attorney General. In terms of adult proceedings, it is possible for members of the public to commence proceedings without the authorization of police and the Crown Attorney; however, that is not the case with youth. While comparing the Youth Offenders Act to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the former focuses more on a youth's choice to retain counsel and the role of lawyers in the criminal justice system. In terms of the JDA, more focus was placed on a youth being viewed as a misguided individual who required guidance from the courts.
Sections 25(4) and (10) allow young people to obtain the same rights as adults, in terms of legal counsel, consent, etc. It is also necessary that young persons be given the right to consult a parent or other adult in some circumstances.
Subsection 25(10) of the Act permits provinces to establish a program for the recovery of costs of a young person's counsel from the young person or the parents of that young person. Therefore, young people are represented by permanent salaried legal aid lawyers or, as per the specified choice, by a private lawyer who accepts the legal aid mandate payable according to the pre-established rates. If a young offender is ineligible he is represented by a private lawyer at a cost agreed upon by the youth and/or his parents and the lawyer.
Notice to parents
Under the Act, in case of the arrest or detention of a young person, the officer in charge must give notice to a parent either orally or in writing as soon as they possibly can under section 26(1). The notice must include under section 26(6) the following information: (a) the name of the young person (b) the charge against the young person and (c) a statement that the young person has the right to be represented by counsel. In addition, if summons, appearance of notice or promise to appear is issued in respect of a young person, the parent must be given notice in writing in person or via mail under section 26(2). Both sections 26(1) and 26(2) are subject to subsection 26(4), which states that if the whereabouts of the parents of the young person are not available, notice may be given to an adult who the person giving the notice considers appropriate. If there is a failure to give notice to a parent upon the arrest of a young person all proceedings continue and are not considered invalid under this act.
Arrest and detention
Youths may be arrested by the police for more serious offences. The rights expressed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to youths and adults.
Youths and adults have the right to obtain immediate legal counsel of their own choice upon arrest or detention. The Youth offender also has the right to have their parent(s) or guardian(s) present during questioning. Upon arrest or detainment, these rights must be explained in clear and understandable language.
If the police have violated the above rights, the charges may be dismissed by a judge or any statements made to the police may be ruled inadmissible by the judge in court.
Presumptive offences were found to be unconstitutional and are no longer included in the Act. A presumptive offence is an offence committed or alleged to have been committed by a young person who has attained the age of fourteen years. An adult sentence can be imposed on a young person who is found guilty of an offence for which an adult can be sentenced to imprisonment for more than two years if the offence was committed after a young person is fourteen years of age.
Presumptive offence may be used under one of the following charges: first-degree or second-degree murder, attempt to commit murder, manslaughter or aggravated sexual assault. Other serious offences can fall within presumptive offence if it is the third conviction for such an offence.
The age of fourteen may sometimes be raised in a province where the Lieutenant Governor in council has fixed the age greater than fourteen.
Youths who are 12 or 13 at the time of the offense may be sentenced in the same way, only for the following: first degree or second degree murder or manslaughter.
Trial procedures
Trials for both adults and youths follow the same rules for evidence and are equally formal.
Privacy
Section 110 of the Act outlines privacy in relation to the identity of young offenders, access to their criminal records, and disclosure of their personal or trial information.
The Act trial information can be published in media or print but identifying information (i.e., name) about young offenders cannot. This publication ban exists to prevent stigmatization of young offenders, which has been found to hinder the rehabilitation of youth. Furthermore, the identity of youth victims cannot be published for the same reasons.
Breaking the publication ban is a criminal offence. It is unknown whether publication of identifying information on social networking sites like Facebook is a violation of the ban, which has been the source of controversy.
The ban is lifted in respect to any adult sentences the young person receives, and can be otherwise lifted only under exceptional circumstances, including:
if the identifying information is necessary for the capture of a young offender;
or if the young offender requests for their name to be published. Youth requests for publication are subject to judicial discretion.
Youth criminal records cannot be viewed by anyone other than criminal justice officials (e.g. lawyers) and only within particular time frames from the offence.
Disclosure ("the communication of information other than by way of publication" of youth information is banned under the Act. Communicating information about youth offenders through disclosure is a criminal offence
Detention prior to sentencing section 29
Under the Act, prior to conviction, detention is prohibited and deemed unnecessary. One of the new provisions of the Act is to limit the use of pre-trial detention and to promote alternatives to incarceration. Under the Youth Offenders Act, pre-trial detention was on the rise and Canada, out of the western countries, had one of the highest youth incarceration rates. Not only was the use of pre-trial detention high, it also varied widely across the provinces. Pre-trial detention is not meant to be punitive, but research found negative outcomes associated with it as well, such as depravity of freedom and seclusion from the outside world. Many youth in custody prior to their sentencing were also found guilty more often than youths not in custody. The inconsistent use of pre-trial detention and negative connotations were cause enough for revision.
Purpose of sentencing
Purpose
The fundamental purpose in the sentencing of young persons pursuant to the Act is to strike the best possible balance between the interests of the young person and the interests of society. The sentencing judge will also endeavour to impose a sentence that encourages the youth to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.[s.3, s.38 YCJA]
Canadian appellate courts and the Supreme Court of Canada have repeatedly affirmed the principle that young persons convicted of crimes must be sentenced differently from adults. A notable example is the Ontario decision of R v D.T. '2006 OJ 112' (Citation is wrong) where the Court asserted that a separate youth sentencing process is fundamental to Canadian societal notions of justice.
In R v C.D. / C.D.K[2005 SCC 78], the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that youths will receive the most favourable interpretation available of the Act sentencing provisions . In C.D / C.D.K., the Court ruled that 'violent crime' as defined in s.39 of the Act did not include arson; the offender was thereby entitled to a more lenient disposition.[ibid, 85]
Since the enactment of the Act in 2003, a greater number of young persons charged with criminal offences have received the benefit of diversion that was the practice under the former Young Offenders Act.[Bala (2007), 7]. Diversion refers to the broad range of non-criminal sanctions, including community service that if satisfactorily completed by the youth, the subject charge is withdrawn.
Committal to custody
Section 39 (1) of the Act maintains that a custodial sentence should not be imposed on young offenders unless certain mandatory conditions outlined in the section are satisfied. The purpose of this section is to provide specific guidance to judges who are considering imposing a custodial sentence with the principal focus of reducing Canada's "over-reliance on the incarceration of non-violent young persons". Section 39 (1) (a) specifically places restrictions on the use of custodial sentences for non-violence offences unless the offender has a history of failing to comply with noncustodial sentences and has created a risk to public safety with those violations, has an extensive pattern of non-violent offending, or other exceptional circumstances. In addition to satisfying at least one of the conditions of section 39(1), the courts must also ensure the balance of section 39 when considering a custodial sentence of a non-violent offence. Also, the judges must take into account any rehabilitative concerns that would alter the nature and reduce the severity of the sentence by mitigating factors. For an example, courts must be certain to not impose a severe sentence in situations of rehabilitative of child welfare concerns. For an example, a custodial sentence should not be imposed to achieve rehabilitation purposes or to tackle such social circumstances such as lack of housing or an abusive home environment.
Section 39 of the Act restricts the use of custodial sentences for young persons This means that the young person should not be taken into custody unless the young person or their offence meet certain criteria. Subsection (1) (d) defines one of these criteria and states that custodial sentences may be used in those exceptional cases where the youth has committed an indictable offense. Further, the nature of the indictable offense must be such that imposing a non-custodial sentence would not fulfil the purpose and principles of sentencing as outlined in section 38 of the Act. Section 38 of the Act states that the young person is to be held accountable for their actions and rehabilitated into society. Thus, as defined in 39 (1) (d), custodial sentences and imprisonment and to be used only in response to offences that are indictable and when non-custodial sentences are inappropriate with regards to the circumstances and the nature of the offence.Overall the YCJA is an effective program used for the youths.
Alternatives to custody
39.(2) "If any of 39(1)(a) to (c) apply, a youth justice court shall not impose a custodial sentence under section 42 unless the court has considered all alternatives to custody raised at the sentencing hearing that are reasonable in the circumstances, and determined that there is not a reasonable alternative, or combination of alternatives, that is in accordance with the purpose and principles set out in section 38.
39.(3) "In determining whether there is a reasonable alternative to custody, a youth justice court shall consider submissions relating to:
(a) the alternatives to custody that are available;
(b) the likelihood that the young person will comply with a non-custodial sentence, taking into account their compliance with previous non-custodial sentences; and
(c) the alternatives to custody that have been used in respect of young persons for similar offences committed in similar circumstances.
The above entails that even though a 'serious offence' was committed by a youth, it does not automatically equate to time in custody. The presiding official in a youth justice court must review all options other than custody by utilizing the factors outlined in 39 (3). Specifically section 39 (2) prohibits the court from imposing custody unless all alternatives have been considered. The reason for said sections within the Act is to reduce the use of custody as a sentencing option, and consequently the number of youth in custody, and to ensure that the most intrusive response to youth offending is only used in serious cases. The inclusion of these sections displays a stark difference between the Young Offenders Act and the Youth Criminal Justice Act as the former did not have such clear preconditions that had to be satisfied prior to the imposition of a custodial sentence and thus large numbers of youth were incarcerated under the Young Offenders Act.
Reports for sentencing hearings
Reports for sentencing hearings are used in more serious cases in order to assist in determining an appropriate sentence. The most frequently used report for sentencing hearings is the pre-sentence report which is outlined in section 40. The judge ultimately decides whether a report is necessary, though the crown may request the report and the defence counsel may argue against the issuing of a pre-sentence report. All custodial sentences require a pre-sentencing report. A pre-sentencing report is conducted by a government employee who interviews the youth and any significant influences including family members, peers and other important persons who may contribute to their report. This report is a historical outline which may include information regarding the youth's family background, school history, attitude toward their offence, willingness to engage in available community services, interview with the victim and potentially a suggestive sentence. The pre-sentence report is given to the judge, prosecutor and defence lawyers as well as the youth and any involved parent or guardian before the sentencing hearing.
Restitution of property
The Act requires that the personal circumstances of the young person be considered before ordering a sentence. Custodial sentences are reserved for very serious offences (e.g., murder, manslaughter). The Act favours noncustodial sentencing options whenever possible in order to reduce the youth incarceration rates.
Restitution of property is a noncustodial sentencing option. According to this sentence, the young person is ordered to make restitution—that is, pay back the equivalent amount of the property obtained by the young person to the lawful owner of the property. The youth justice court can fix the time and term of payment.
Other considerations during this sentence include:
Allowing more time for completion of the sentence.
Notifying the person to whom the restitution will be made about the sentencing order.
The obtained property must be in possession of the young person at the time, and must lawfully belong to the owner of the property.
Sentencing principles
Comparison with adult sentences
Under sentencing principle (3) (a) of the Act, the sentencing of a youth's punishment should not by any means be harsher or surpass that of the punishment for an adult who has been found guilty of committing the same crime as the youth The reason for this sentencing principle was to eliminate discrepancies that were prevalent in the Young Offenders Act. It was formed on the basis that youth under the Young Offenders Act were receiving longer sentences than adults for the same offences. In R. v. C.D.; [2005] a youth pleaded guilty to arson, breach of a recognisance, and the possession of a weapon. He received a light sentence of six months of deferred custody due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Appeals against this case, state that the youth has committed an indictable offence for which an adult would be imprisoned for a period of two or more years.
Similarity
Under the sentencing principle 38 (2)(b)of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the court requires that the sentence imposed must be similar in the region when young offenders are found guilty of the same crime under similar circumstances. This means that there should be a general level of consistency in sentences for young offenders who are guilty of the same crime. This principle addresses the unfair disparity of youth sentences, by stating that sentence should be similar, not necessarily the same Allowing such individualization makes the sentence meaningful for the youth involved and points at any rehabilitative needs required by the young offender. These sentencing principles are meant to be imposed in accordance to additional principles listed out in section 38 (3) which state that in determining the youth sentence, the court shall take in account: the degree of participation of subjected youth in offence, the degree of harm inflicted and intentions of offender, any reparations provided to victim or community by youth offender, any time spent in detention by youth due to offense, any other case of guilt found against the offender, and whether there is any additional aggravating or mitigating information against the offender that might influence the sentence read otherwise.
Proportionality
The sentencing principle 38 (2)(c)under the Act states 'the sentence must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the young person for that offence' Sentencing principles clearly explain the basis that establish fair and justifiable sentences. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act punishments are not only limited to jail imprisonment in addition extrajudicial measures are taken such as community services and probation. The punishment is given to the offender according to the gravity of his/her offence. For young offenders, cases are viewed individually and sentencing is determined distinctively for different cases. Thus the more serious the offence is the more severe the punishment will be. Proportionality here means the size or the degree of the offence, thus the punishment should be proportional to the crime committed. So a young offender who commits murder will be severely punished compared to someone who steals. How serious was the offence, the offender's level of participation and their intention, the harm done to the victim and the previous findings of guilt are taken into account by the court to determine the sentencing of the offender.
Substitute to custody
Under the sentencing principle 38 2(d), the court is required to consider a substitute for the custody of young persons, while paying special attention to aboriginal offenders. In addition, the section also states that special concern should be given to youth by taking into account the gender, racial, and cultural differences. By responding to the needs of young aboriginal offenders, the focus of this section directs the court to use less harsh custodial sentences except when the offender poses a great threat to the public. "Special attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders is mandated by the-minute amendments to the YCJA initiated by the Senate". An example of this is seen in R. V. D.R.D. (2006), in which a fourteen-year-old boy was pleaded guilty of trafficking and was appealing his sentence for drug charges. He was convicted to one year probation because the judge maintained that he is an extreme aboriginal youth which is a risk to the society.
Sentencing options
Sentencing Option 42 (2) (a)
Sentencing option 42(2) under the Act is to reprimand the young person. Reprimand is a severe reproof or rebuke in this case by a person of authority.
Sentencing Option 42 (2)(b)
When a young person is found guilty, through a youth justice court, the judge may refer to section 42(2)(b) under the Act. Under section 42(2)(b) a young person, when guilt is found, may be discharged absolutely. This discharge is dependent on the best interest of the young offender without being in contrast with the best interests of the public. An absolute discharge, under section 42(2)(b), in accordance with 82(2), constitutes a termination of the sentence of a young person in respect of an offence in which a young person is found guilty. As opposed to conditional discharges, absolute discharges do not carry sanctions of probation or any other condition that the court may find appropriate (fair sanctions with meaningful consequences)
Sentencing Option 42 (2)(c)
Sentencing option 42 (2) c under the Act states that a convicted young offender can be discharged on any conditions the court decides to be appropriate. This may require the young offender to report to and be supervised by the provincial director. Conditions for a discharge might also include undergoing counselling, doing community service work or donation to a charity. Once the duration of the discharge has passed and the conditions of the probation have been successfully followed, the discharge becomes absolute, i.e., the youth will not be viewed as the offender although the record can be used for three years after finding of guilt in the event that there is a subsequent conviction. However, if the young person fails to abide by the conditions of probation, the offender can be convicted of the original offence and be sentenced.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(c)
If a young person is found guilty, "By order direct that the young person be discharged on any conditions that the court considers appropriate and may require the young person to report to and be supervised by the provincial director". As an order under conditional release, the young offender is required to follow certain rules set out by a probation order for a specific length of time; when the time duration has passed, the release becomes absolute. The considerations for conditional discharge must be in the best interest of the offender and not contrary to public interest. The purpose of this section is to reduce the rate of incarceration of young people and promote rehabilitation and reintegration into society. If any condition is violated by the young offender, they will be required to appear in front of the court again at which point they may be incarcerated. Examples of conditions placed on the young offender are as follows:
Abstain from alcohol or drug use
Abstain from owning, possessing or carrying a weapon
Perform community service
Participate in a treatment program
Sentencing Options 42(2)(d)
If a young person is found guilty of an offence in a youth justice court, the judge may impose a sentence under section 42 of the Act. The purpose of sentencing under the Act "is to hold a young person accountable for an offence by imposing fair sanctions with meaningful consequences." Under section 42(2)(d) it states that a young offender may not have a fine against them exceeding $1000 to be paid at the time and on the terms that the court may fix. This entails that the courts must have regard to the means of how the young offender will pay, as well as the ability for the young offender to be granted more time to complete the sentence. The offender then has the following options, he or she may be ordered to pay a victim fine surcharge (up to 15%) which contributes to assisting the victims of the crime. Or, the province may establish a program under which the young offender can discharge a fine under para, the percentage imposed under s53(1) or Victim fine surcharge under s 53(2) which is only attainable by earning credits for work in the program of the province the young offender resides.
Sentencing Options 42 (2)(e)
Section 42(2)(e) under the Act states that the young person must pay to the other person at the time/terms that the court fixes the amount of compensation due to loss of income/support, damage of property etc.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(h)
Section 42 (2) (h) under the Act is a non- custodial sentencing option that states that the Youth Justice Court (YJC) may order a young offender to compensate the victim in kind or by personal service for a damage, loss, or injury suffered. Under 42 (2) (h), an order may be made under section 42 (2) (g) where the young offender is to monetarily compensate the purchaser of a stolen property since the stolen property had to be returned to the owner, or section 42 (2) (e) where the young offender is to monetarily compensate the victim for personal injury or property that was damaged. The YJC may arrange the times and terms of compensation that is ordered. However, the compensation must not conflict with the young offender's regular schedule of education and work. The order to provide personal service to the victim can be assigned for any number of hours but is limited up to 240 hours. The hours of service ordered can be completed within one year from the date which the sentencing option was ordered; however the YJC may allow an extension of time to fully complete the sentence, on application of the young offender. Although the YJC may order the young offender to compensate the victim by providing personal service, the consent of the compensated is required.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(i)
In the Act, under Sentencing options 42 (2) (i), the court has the option to order a young person to complete community service for a punishment. The amount of community service must not go beyond 240 hours of service which can be completed within 12 months. The community service must be approved by the provincial director of the youth justice court or a person designated by the youth justice court. The purpose of sentencing under section 42 is to protect society by holding the young person accountable for their actions by giving the right amount of punishment which can promote their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
This type of sentencing is a non custodial sentencing option which is the goal of the Youth Criminal Justice act to not rely on the over use of incarceration for non violent youths. It also gives out different options which can be costumed to different individual cases that can give out the best solution possible. These are the innovations that were created due to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, it helps youth to get the best rehabilitation to continue on their lives in society.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(k)
Section 42(2)(k) under the Act allows a young person to be placed on Probation (as specified by conditions and other matters related to probation orders under sections 55 and 56) for a specified period of time not exceeding two years. Orders may range from being supervised by the provincial director; remain within the territorial jurisdiction of one or more courts; attending school; or having to reside at a place specified by the provincial director. The Youth Justice Court prescribes these conditions as an order so the young person will learn to be of good behaviour and appear before the youth justice court when required to do so.
Probation is the sentence most frequently imposed by youth justice courts in Canada, as the conditions laid out are directly related to the young offenders criminal behaviour. This helps the offender to see the harm caused by their actions to the society and victims, and why they should not commit such crimes again. If a young offender fails to comply with the probation order, they can possibly be charged with breach of probation. But th Act does not require the charges be laid; rather, it states that an alternative approach is recommended. Such as a review of probation orders thus providing an opportunity to make changes to conditions that can be more effective in promoting the rehabilitation and reintegration of the young person.
Sentencing Options 42 (2) (l)
To ensure that a young offenders illegal actions are followed by consequences that are "(1)just; (2)have meaningful consequences for the youth; (3) and promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of the youth into society" the Act has instilled several sentencing options.
According to Section 42(2), the twelfth sentencing option for youth is the placement in an (l) intensive support and supervision program. This non-custodial sentencing option was introduce to the act along with options such as reprimand as well as non-residential programs or attendance orders.
This sentencing option is meant to be an alternative for custody, and was implemented to decrease high rates of custody caused by the Young Offenders Act. The young offender receives support and supervision from their community in hopes that they will alter their behaviour. The intent of this sentencing option is to provide more support than probation and is often used to promote the use of community-based and rehabilitation sentences.
This option encourages the rehabilitation of the youth and should target the specific needs or problems that seem to have contributed to their illegal behaviour.
This sentencing option will only take place if the government has established programs and the courts have received approval of the provincial director. If not available, a probation order will be used along with various conditions to ensure the support and supervision of the youth in question.
Sentencing Options 42 (2) (m)
This new sentencing option requires, at specific times, a young offender to attend court sanctioned programs. Over a six-month period a maximum of 240 hours that can be assigned.
This sentencing option is a nonresidential program that may be used as an alternative to custody and may be focused at specific high-risk times of day, such as when the youth may be unattended and unsupervised.
A Pilot attendance centre program in Ontario has reported considerable success and was well received by Ontario youth court judges.
This measure may only occur if and attendance order program is available in the province. Provinces may decide not to implement this provision of the Act and are not required to make this option available.
Due to potential high costs associated with this program, provinces may be eligible for additional federal funding.
In the absence of such programs, a youth court judge may achieve similar ends by attaching specific conditions to a probation order handed down to a young person. The judge may also (as a condition of probation) require the young person to attend community programs.
The overall goal of attendance programs is to supervise young persons at times when they may be more prone to commit crimes, such as when left unattended by parents.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(n)
The Act states that all custodial sentences must have a mandatory period of supervision in the community. The rationale behind the community supervision order is to provide support and supervision for the young offender's transition from custody back into their community.
When a judge sentences a young offender to a custody and supervision order under Section 42(2) (n) of the Act, it means that the young offender must serve time in custody, followed by a period of supervision in the community. The supervision order may be up to half as long as the custodial period. This sentencing option is for convicted youth criminals who are convicted for crimes other than murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault or who are in custody as a result of an IRCS (Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision) order.
The length of the custodial sentence and supervision order combined must not exceed two or three years, depending on the type of offence. Offences other than for which an adult would receive life imprisonment are subject to a two-year maximum for the young offender. Offences for which an adult would receive life imprisonment, except murder, are subject to a three-year maximum for the young offender.
If a condition laid out by the judge or other officials is broken, or not met appropriately while under supervision in the community, reviews are held which determine whether the young offender's conditions should be changed or if he or she should be sent back into custody.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(o)
Section 42(2)(o) of the Act establishes the length of time to be served in custody or in community supervision for cases of attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault. The total serving time for these periods cannot exceed 3 years since life imprisonment is imposed on adults responsible for these offences. Under the Act, murder is the only offence that must result in a custody and supervision order. The maximum serving time is 10 years for first-degree murder and 7 years for second-degree murder.
Section 42(2) (o) also asserts the ability of the court to decide the duration of conditional supervision. Thus the supervision period does not have to be half the period of custody. This condition provides more liberty for the courts to respond with an appropriate sentence to serious offences. If a young person violates a condition during the supervision period, the provincial director may place the offender back into custody.
For other statutory considerations, the supervision part of the order includes mandatory and discretionary conditions (s. 105). Also, the amount of time served in custody by a young person can be extended via AG or provincial director's request to the YJC. However, the added duration of custody may not surpass the remainder of the youth sentence (s. 104).
Sentencing Options 42(2)(p)
Under section 42(2)(p) of the Act, a judge may impose a deferred custody and supervision order as a sentencing option. A deferred custody and supervision order means that the young offender will not go into custody but will serve their sentence under supervision in the community with a set of strict conditions. If these conditions are not followed, then the conditions may be changed and the young person may be ordered to serve the balance of the sentence in custody.
The order will be made if the offense committed is not a serious, violent one such as murder or aggravated assault, and if the young person has not committed an indictable offence that an adult would be imprisoned for, for more than two years. The order will be for six months or less and must be considered a just sanction that has meaningful consequences and will promote the young offender's rehabilitation and reintegration into society and contribute to the long-term protection of the public.
The order will include both strict mandatory and optional conditions that the judge deems appropriate and which fall under subsection 105(2) and 105(3). These conditions will include reporting to the provincial director, attending school and/or working, not possessing weapons, abiding by curfews, reporting information changes and others.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(q)
The Act section 42 (2) (q) outlines the following pertaining to custody and supervision for 1st and 2nd degree murder Offenders found guilty of 1st degree murder will get a maximum sentence of 10 years, including a maximum custody period of 6 years and a period of conditional supervision in the community. Offenders found guilty of 2nd Degree Murder will get a 7-year maximum sentence including a maximum custody period of 4 years and a period of conditional supervision in the community. Other statutory considerations are that the Attorney General or a provincial director may apply to extend the length of time the young person will spend in custody. The extension may not exceed the remainder of the youth sentence. At least one month prior to the expiration of the custodial portion of the sentence, the YJC sets conditions of the young person's conditional supervision
The aforementioned sentences are not guaranteed as the Crown could recommend a harsher adult sentence if the offence meets certain requirements Adult Sentence) When the Act was introduced the aspect that was publicized was "to respond more firmly and effectively to the small number of the most serious, violent young offenders" because the public was losing confidence in the youth justice system This was the reason for the harsh penalties for first- and second- degree murder, however, overall, the Act has decreased the number of youths within jails for non-violent offences substantially.
Sentencing Options 42(2)(r).
This section provides that a judge may issue an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order. This sentence is intended to provide treatment for serious violent offenders. The court may only issue this order if any of the following criteria are met:
the young person has been found guilty of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault, or a third serious violent offence
the young person is found to be suffering from a mental or psychological disorder
an individualized treatment plan for the young person has been developed
the provincial director has determined that an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision program is an available and suitable option
This section applies to young people ages twelve to seventeen as long as one or more of these conditions are met. The Youth Justice Court must specify the time period the order is applicable for. The maximum period for an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order is 2 years, unless the adult penalty for the offence is imprisonment for life, in those cases the maximum period is 3 years. The only other exceptions occur in the case of:
1st Degree Murder: maximum period is 10 years including a maximum custody period of 6 years and a period of supervision in the community
2nd Degree Murder: The maximum period is 7 years including a maximum custody period of 4 years and a period of supervision in the community
Section 55 (2) (g)
When the youth is sentenced to probation he or she is subject to certain conditions that may be imposed by the judge Under Section 55 (2) (g) the young offender may be told to "reside at a place that the provincial director may specify" This condition follows 2 other requirements that the young offender also needs to obey by a) keep the peace and be of good behaviour; and b) appear by the youth justice court when required by the court to do so this stated in Section 55 (1). The probation conditions follow those stipulated under section 42(2)(k) or (l). This means the director has the power to indicate where they want you to live, moving you from one area to the next depending on the circumstances surrounding the young offender's situation.
Section 59: Review of Non-Custodial Youth Sentences
Under the Young Offender's Act, approximately 20% of custody sentences were charged based on "failure to comply" issues surrounding probation orders The Youth Criminal Justice Act revised these procedures recognizing that most issues concerning the violation of probation conditions were not criminal acts themselves and that in doing so, were compromising the integrity of the justice system itself. Therefore, the Act considers a review, rather than a charge, as a means of reducing the reliance on incarceration while being as fair as possible to the offender in assessing the seriousness of an offence
The Act reveals that a review, "can be issued at any time after six months of the initial youth sentence or, with leave of a youth justice court judge" (56). Also, reviews, in most cases, are exempt from those offenders who are charge with an offence outlined in section 42 of the Act. The full grounds for review are revealed under section 59.2 and are as follows:
(a) on the ground that the circumstances that led to the youth sentence have changed materially;
(b) on the ground that the young person in respect of whom the review is to be made is unable to comply with or is experiencing serious difficulty in complying with the terms of the youth sentence;
(c) on the ground that the young person in respect of whom the review is to be made has contravened a condition of an order made under paragraph 42(2)(k) or (l) without reasonable excuse;
(d) on the ground that the terms of the youth sentence are adversely affecting the opportunities available to the young person to obtain services, education or employment; or
(e) on any other ground that the youth justice court considers appropriate
Adult sentence
If a young person was at least 14 years old at the time of the offence, and was found guilty of an offence for which an adult would be liable to receive more than two years imprisonment, the crown may seek an adult sentence. In order for an adult sentence to be imposed, the crown must satisfy the youth court that:
The presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness of the young person has been rebutted in the case, and
No available youth sentence could hold the young person accountable
A young person always carries the presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness, even for serious offences like first-degree murder. Therefore, the burden is always on the crown to demonstrate that the young person was acting at the moral sophistication and maturity of an adult at the time of the offence. In the past, this burden was inverted for certain "presumptive offences", which meant that the young person was deemed to be as morally blameworthy as an adult unless they could prove otherwise. But in 2008, the Supreme Court held those provisions unconstitutional in its seminal decision R v DB. Prior to the end of the regime, a "presumptive offence" was defined as murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, and aggravated sexual assault, as well as other "serious violent offences" in some circumstances.
There were a few important changes to Act compared to the Young Offenders Act, for example, the transfer process from a youth court to an adult court is eliminated. Instead, the youth court first determines whether or not the young person is guilty of the offence, and then, under certain circumstances, the youth court may impose an adult sentence,
Serious violent offences
The Act defines a serious violent offence as an offence in the commission of which a young person causes or attempts to cause serious bodily harm. Previously, a serious violent offence could become a presumptive offence if the young person had previously committed two violent offences. If a young person is charged for a serious violent offence, they could be sentenced to an "intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order". It is an individualized treatment plan.
The court can make this order in specific circumstances:
If the young person has been found guilty of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault or has committed at least two serious violent offences in the past,
The young person is suffering from a mental or psychological disorder or an emotional disturbance,
There are reasonable grounds to believe that the treatment plan might reduce the risk of the young person repeating the offence or committing other presumptive offences, and
An appropriate program is available and the young person is suitable for admission.
Breach of probation
Section 137 of the Act outlines the definitions and consequences of failing to comply with a sentence or disposition, in other words, a breach of probation. It states that anyone failing to comply with their probation order is guilty of a punishable offence on a summary conviction. These orders can include failure to report to and be supervised by the provincial director when on probation, failure to perform community service plus many more stated in section 42(2) of the act. If a breach of probation occurs, the offender may be incarcerated provided it is not their first probation violation, and they harmed, or created a risk to, public safety in breaching their probation.
Differences in breach of probation in the Youth Criminal Justice Act versus Youth Offenders Act
The Young Offenders Act raised concern that too many young people were being incarcerated for offences not directly harming the community, but for failure to comply with the terms of probation. The Act recognizes that youths have a hard time complying with limits to behaviour and are deserving of a second chance. Since the Act was enacted, the number of charges of probation violation has remained similar while the number of cases has declined.
See also
Juvenile Delinquents Act
Nunn Commission
References
External links
Youth Criminal Justice Act at the Canadian Department of Justice
Canadian federal legislation
2003 in Canadian law
Juvenile law
Canadian criminal law
37th Canadian Parliament
Youth in Canada
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